YET ANOTHER CELEBRITY DEATH: Sky Saxon drops the tambourine for good.
Archive for 2009
June 28, 2009
SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT: Obama to Colombia: Military base now, free trade later.
TWITTER: Revolution, or fad?
A JOHN EDWARDS / RIELLE HUNTER SEX TAPE? What is it with these politicians?
EDITORIAL: The Democrats’ FOIA Problems: “President Obama’s promises of greater government transparency haven’t panned out. Multiple transparency problems afflict the Obama administration.” Indeed.
OBAMA VS. THE WATCHDOGS: A roundup on the Inspector General firing scandal.
Plus, growing legs? “There is no need to worry that IG-Gate will disappear. The story may stay below the MSM radar for a few weeks, but if you’ve spent years watching how scandal stories unfold in Washington, IG-Gate looks like one that will keep making headlines for months. . . . There are experienced, energetic investigators diligently at work on IG-Gate, and there will be plenty of headlines to come. . . . Whether your own members of Congress are Republicans or Democrats, you should call or e-mail them, or speak to them in person when they hold a town-hall meeting or appear at your local Fourth of July parade. They’re all about transparency, right? Ask your members of Congress what they’re doing to safeguard the independence of the inspectors general.”
UPDATE: In Honduras, not a coup. Well, it wouldn’t be a coup here if the President tried to stay on past two terms and the other branches of government deposed him.
HMM: AXELROD: OBAMA WON’T RULE OUT MIDDLE-CLASS TAX HIKE. That’s funny. I thought he already had. Guess that one’s hit its expiration date . . . .
LUCKILY, SWINE FLU DOESN’T SEEM TO BE ALL THAT BAD: U.S. Has Passed Its Millionth Swine Flu Case. But, of course, if it had been more lethal, we’d be in big trouble. This is a good one to take lessons from, in terms of future preparedness. And, of course, this is made more urgent by the fear that it could come back in the Fall as something worse, as happened in 1918 and other pandemic flus.
NOT WAITING UNTIL THE FOURTH OF JULY: Tea Party rally set for noon Monday in Nashville. At the Legislative Plaza, where the last one was held. Bet people won’t be dressed nearly as heavily this time around . . . .
Meanwhile, here’s a report from Sarasota today, from reader Peter Rice:
More than 600 attended. The event was organized by Gene Sweeney (see his Internet site address below). The event began at 1 PM Sunday, June 28 and ended at 4:15 PM.
Lloyd Marcus sang several of his Tea Party songs (see his site for details). Among the several speakers was Frances Rice who gave a speech about why Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican and why we must fight to save our country.
Gene Sweeney is chairman of the local Tea Party Organization (Bradenton, FL) and his Internet site is www.SaltOfTheEarthUSA.org
Great credit goes to Gene Sweeney for making this a wonderful Tailgate Tea Party possible.
Lloyd Marcus’ Internet site is www.LloydMarcus.com
Frances Rice is Chairman of the National Black Republican Association and her Internet site is www.NBRA.Info
Here’s a photo he sent:
CASS SUNSTEIN UPDATE: Chambliss blocks regulatory pick over animal lawsuits. “Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) has blocked President Obama’s candidate for regulation czar, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, because Sunstein has argued that animals should have the right to sue humans in court.”
MY WHOLE LIFE MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT, if I’d known as a kid that it would one day be possible to gain employment as a professional LEGO builder.
SO HOW’S THAT WAR ON CANCER GOING? Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe.
The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.
Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer.
This is exactly what one might have predicted from a big government program of this sort, of course. On the other hand, big private entities get bureaucratized, too: “The private American Cancer Society follows a similarly cautious path. Last year, it awarded $124 million in new research grants, with some money coming from large donors but most from events like walkathons and memorial donations.”
Key bit: “There is no conversation that I have ever had about the grant system that doesn’t have an incredible sense of consensus that it is not working. That is a terrible wasted opportunity for the scientists, patients, the nation and the world.”
POSSIBLY PROMISING: Newly Uncovered Enzymes Turn Corn Plant Waste into Biofuel. Waste-biomass fuel is probably a good idea; food-based biofuel is clearly a bad one.
A LIST OF DEMOCRATS thought vulnerable due to cap-and-trade votes.
DANA MILBANK VS. NICO PITNEY:
They didn’t get along very well. Including that whole “dick” thing.
APPLE SUED OVER iTunes gift cards. “The Owens claim that Apple markets the gift cards as selling individual songs on iTunes for 99 cents each. The couple argues that not all songs in the iTunes Store are that cheap–some actually cost $1.29. They contend that they have been ‘denied the benefit of their bargain to purchase any song’ from iTunes for 99 cents.”
AN OVERSEAS TEA PARTY QUESTION, from reader James Spiller: “Do you know of any tea parties for Americans abroad? I’m in London, where there must be an awful lot of people who’d be interested in attending one. Heck, I’m guessing a fair number of students here from red states are just dying to get to a space not drenched in Obama love. I can’t find one, though.”
Anybody know anything? Perhaps there are some recruits to be had from among readers of The Financial Times or Der Spiegel. Or, heck, holders of U.S. Treasury bonds . . . .
FIRST FARRAH, THEN MICHAEL, now Billy. Celebrity deaths come in threes, they say . . . .
UPDATE: Or maybe fives, as various readers email to point out that Ed McMahon and David Carradine died recently, too.
ANIMAL HOUSE AT THIRTY: College students find new ways to channel their inner Bluto. But it’s kind of a sad story, on several levels.
THE DUTY OF THE WEALTHY is to be robbed by the government. Lie back and try to enjoy it. . . .
IRAN UPDATE: 7,000 Protesters Clash With Police In Tehran–Tear Gas, Broken Arms. “Another report says possibly 20,000 people were at the protest.” Video and more at the link.
TRAILER PARK: Trailers for The Time Traveler’s Wife and My Sister’s Keeper.
BOSTON GLOBE: The Forbidding Arithmetic of Health Care Reform. “The fuzzy math behind the Massachusetts universal healthcare law is starting to add up – just as Washington studies the law as a possible model for the nation. Because of a recession-related drop in state revenues and a surge in enrollment by the recently unemployed, the truth is emerging at an inconvenient time. Massachusetts doesn’t have enough money to pay for the coverage envisioned by the law.”