SWINE FLU VACCINE TRIALS: No side effects so far.
Archive for 2009
August 22, 2009
SEARCHING FOR gravitational waves.
SO THE KNOXVILLE TEA PARTY CROWD HAD A RECESS RALLY at the Federal Courthouse, where Rep. Jimmy Duncan and Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker have offices. They had 100-150 people (I heard that about half that many counterprotesters were there at the beginning, but they were marching off and beating drums as I arrived, so I can’t attest to precise numbers.) A fairly impressive turnout, though, considering that I believe that Duncan, Corker, and Alexander are all opposed to ObamaCare. Local media — and alt-media, as I was joined by Michelle from KnoxViews, who I was happy to catch up with as we hadn’t seen each other in a while — were covering it. (An earlier interview with Knox Tea Party folks is here.)
UPDATE: John Casey sends this via iPhone from Chicago: “Chanting ‘no more Dick’ outside of Dick Durbin’s office.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Joe Scott sends this from Asheville, where Heath Shuler (D-NC) was the target: “Glenn, there were about 150 people at Rep. Shuler’s office today. People directed their questions to an empty podium since Mr. Shuler apparently had more pressing business today.” Plus a cellphone pic:
To be fair, Shuler already told the Asheville Tea Party folks that he’d vote against the bill.
Plus, over 1,000 in Birmingham, Michigan. Pics and video at the link, but here’s one.
And reader John Marcoux sends this from Charleston.
MORE STILL: Another report from Birmingham, Michigan.
PROGRESS TOWARD EQUALITY: “Women are responsible for an increasing number of drunk-driving arrests, according to data released today by the NHTSA. FBI statistics (PDF) show that DUI arrests of men fell 7.5 percent between 1998 and 2007, while the arrest rate for women climbed by nearly 29 percent in the same period.”
THE VICIOUS TRUTH about sunflowers.
IN THE MAIL: David Pogue’s The World According to Twitter.
MARK STEYN: Stimulus Hits A Pothole. “Meanwhile, in Brazil, India, China, Japan and much of Continental Europe the recession has ended. In the second quarter this year, both the French and German economies grew by 0.3 percent, while the U.S. economy shrank by 1 percent. How can that be? Unlike America, France and Germany had no government stimulus worth speaking of, the Germans declining to go the Obama route on the quaint grounds that they couldn’t afford it. . . . And yet their recession has gone away. Of the world’s biggest economies, only the U.S., Britain and Italy are still contracting. All three are big stimulators, though Gordon Brown and Silvio Berlusconi can’t compete with Obama’s $800 billion porkapalooza. The president has borrowed more money to spend to less effect than anybody on the planet.”
MATT WELCH ON THE WHOLE FOODS BOYCOTT: “I’ll just make one observation: The liberal commentariat keeps telling us that we need to have a ‘serious debate’ about reforming our dysfunctional health care system. Well, love ’em or hate ’em, Mackey came up with eight tangible ideas to do just that, and this is the reaction he gets.”
DECLAN MCCULLAGH: Sorry, Mandatory Gun Registration Is Constitutional. Though I disagree with that as policy, that’s probably right. I could certainly construct a chilling-effect sort of argument that would be no more unfounded than many other constitutional doctrines that are “good law” today, but I’m not sure that such is really compelled by the Constitution. On the other hand, that the 1792 Militia Act required people to prove that they owned at least one qualifying gun is not necessarily support for the notion that you must account to the government for every gun you own.
ILLEGAL HEALTH REFORM: Is ObamaCare’s health-insurance mandate unconstitutional?
A CONVERSATION WITH BUZZ ALDRIN. He’s got a new autobiography out, called Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon.
MARC DANZIGER ON OBAMA’S SLIPPAGE AMONG INDEPENDENTS: “Looking at why Obama seems to be having such a popularity collapse suggests that models of the polity that were bipolar – i.e. D’s and R’s – probably don’t represent reality as models that are tripolar – D’s, R’s, and I’s. And while the I’s may be largely ideologically rooted in one side or the other, their “brand attachment” is weak, meaning that they can be flipped easily or else that they aren’t necessarily going to come out and vote unless they are engaged.”
HEH: New From The Times – When We Said “False”, We Meant “Kinda True”.
Plus, from Mickey Kaus: “Next thing you know, the NYTers will be grabbing the mike at town halls. … At least when voters are having notentirelyirrationalfears that Obama would have the state play god by exercising yes/no power over life-ending medical decsions, he didn’t go and say something creepily extravagant and provocative like ‘we are God’s partners in matters of life and death.’ … Whew!” Also, some amusing annotation.
THE TESLA MODEL S SEDAN in action.
ALL 435 DISTRICTS: ‘Tea Party’ Organizers Plan Anti-‘Obamacare’ Rallies Across the Country.
UPDATE: Tucson’s was yesterday, and Robert Mayer reports: “The Recess Rally was great everyone! About 700 at our peak, with probably 1000 total. Keep it up everyone! Gabby [Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ] has now announced that she will hold three townhalls, including one in Tucson on Sept 1. Can’t wait to be at that manufactured mess! Also, don’t forget about our townhall on Aug 28!”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Blue Dog: Hey, this town-hall anger seems pretty real to me. “Why are people scared? The government is about to take over one-sixth of the nation’s economy, even though soaring deficits make it clear that it can’t properly handle what’s on the plate now. It just fumbled a stimulus package and a program to kill old cars, and somehow people have the notion that this competence will continue with something more vital — their health care. They don’t want the government in charge of those decisions and invading their personal lives. The only surprise here is that elected officials didn’t see this coming, although clearly the White House had an inkling — which is why they tried to rush the bill through to a vote.”
GROWTH OF THE FEMINIST HAWKS: “Consider the feminist-hawk position — the one that advocates the use of force to liberate Muslim women from persecution and burkas. This position has become an integral part of the ideological Web. Feminist-hawk arguments may even be considered an artifact of the Web, just the way the revolutionary arguments of 18th-century America can be seen as an artifact of pamphlets.”
JOHN TIERNEY: Prescription Heroin?
August 21, 2009
POLITICO: Obama’s Big Bang could go bust. “Barack Obama’s Big Bang is beginning to backfire, as his plans for rapid, once-in-a-generation overhauls of energy, financial regulation and health care are running into stiff resistance, both in Washington and around the country. The Obama theory was simple, though always freighted with risk: Use a season of economic anxiety to enact sweeping changes the public likely wouldn’t stomach in ordinary times. But the abrupt swing in the public’s mood, from optimism about Obama’s possibility to concern he may overreaching, has thrown the White House off its strategy and forced the president to curtail his ambitions. . . . By doing so doing so much, so fast, he has left voters — especially independents — worried that he got an overblown sense of his mandates and is doing, well, too much too fast. A Washington Post-ABC News poll published Friday found that independents’ confidence in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions had dropped 20 points since the Inauguration, from 61 percent to 41 percent.”
MICHAEL S. MALONE ON TRUST:
I’m writing this column from table #3 at Peet’s Coffee in Cupertino, California.
Why am I here, instead of working from my own home office two miles away? Therein lies a story.
Simply put, my Comcast cable service crashed yesterday afternoon at 4 p.m. That not only means my Internet access is down on all five of our family computers, but my cable television is down as well. In fact, the only service still working in our house in the landline phone – and that’s only because, when Comcast offered that service as well, my wife replied, “I don’t trust you people not to screw that up as well. I need something in this house I can depend on to work right.”
And, in fact, she used that phone to call Comcast to report the outage. And I took off for Peet’s to file this column.
Read the whole thing. Especially if you work for Comcast.
THE MILK-CARTON CAMPAIGN SEEMS TO BE DRAWING THEM OUT: Carol Shea Porter to hold town meetings next Saturday.
Plus, John Tanner to appear at public meeting. “U.S. Rep. John Tanner will appear at an event in his hometown of Union City protesting his refusal to not hold a town hall forum.”
UPDATE: Reader Rachel Kowalick writes:
I actually emailed my district Congressman Jason Altmire (D-PA) to ask if he’d schedule a town hall.
Yesterday I received an email invitation from him to attend on August 24. The interesting thing about it is the venue. He will be meeting with people in Farrell, PA. If you look at a map of the 4th district (Altmire’s) and look for Farrell, you will see that he seems to have carefully chosen the farthest edge of his district for the meeting. He picked a very small town at the very top edge of the district – a choice which will (intentionally, I’m sure) put him as far away from the majority of his constituents he can get.
We’ve had many appearances by other politicians here in the center of his district, including Obama himself… but Altmire wants to hide on the fringe.
As a consolation, he’ll also be offering a “telephone town hall” the following week. The emails states it will last for one hour, and you must call ahead to be included.
Talk about making yourself accessible to your voters!
And if people from outside his district show up — even if they live nearby — he’ll call them astroturfers!
MORE TEA PARTY NEWS FROM OHIO: Justin Binik-Thomas emails:
The Eastern Hills Community Tea Party (part of Cincinnati Tea Party) and the Cincinnati 9/12 Project were alerted to an ACORN healthcare rally in the Community of Kenwood Ohio.
We had 90 minutes notice and they had paychecks. We outnumbered them by a margin greater than 2:1.
Brenda and Gena from Eastern Hills Community Tea Party reported:
Everything went really well – we outnumbered our opponents at least 2-1. Our posters were far superior to theirs (no exaggeration – “Jesus wants Healthcare” “People before Profit” “Medicare for All” , “Public Option”) We received beeps from car horns and ‘thumbs-up’ 4-1 and even ONE great big SEMI AIRHORN agreement with a thumbs-up from the driver from his back window as he went by!! It was totally cool. And just as Richard predicted the ACORN people left right on the stroke of 6 o’clock. We couldn’t believe it. So it was high 5’s all around. One thing I forgot to tell my partners in crime at dinner afterwards was the following: As I was going across the street back to get my car a driver slowed as he turned the corner to say out his window his heart felt Thanks for showing up with our signs against the others. I could see the emotion in his eyes how much it meant to him. It was ALL Good.
This keeps happening.
HOPE AND CHANGE: As part of a program called “Resale Roundup,” the Feds are going after garage sales. “The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a crime to resell anything that’s been recalled by its manufacturer. . . . Secondhand sellers now must keep abreast of recalls for thousands of products, some of them stretching back more than a decade, to stay within the bounds of the law.”