Wow! I nearly got snow blindness from those crowd pictures.

Hindrocket's post (at least the first one) is, IMHO, correct. The trip was a total success. Remember, one of the main items from the Karl Rove Playbook is "foreigners and their opinions don't matter one little bit". Success is measured entirely by what The Base thinks of it. And pissing off foreigners is always good (as long as he continues to drool on Netanyahu's shoes).

Sheesh! Has this bozo ever been in a movie theater?? * It's dark. * It's full of people that you don't want to shoot. They're moving unpredictably and bumping into you. * The seats are really close together. You can't get "between" or "under" them. If you could, you wouldn't be able to see a darn thing. The guy who wrote this Slate article either was desperate for somebody to interview or he was deliberately going for somebody stupid.

I was amused to note that the author of the linked article complained that the unions had poured a ton of money into the "anti" campaign, without noticing that the "pro" side also got a ton of money from ... uhh ... nobody seems to know who.

... whatever is necessary to stabilize the condition of both the mother and her “unborn child” ..."Dead" sounds pretty stable to me ....

Coupla more: Tasers. Cops have been using them as torture devices. This needs to stop. Simple solution -- make the cops fill out a form when they use one. This would be similar to the form they have to fill out when they discharge a firearm. Political protests. Cops and politicians have been going bananas over people waving signs and yelling around political conventions, IMF/WTO meetings, and suchlike. What's the problem here? "Petition for redress of grievances", and all that.

Elizabeth -- *blush* It is, of course, all about power asymmetry. Conservatives imagine themselves in a nice comfortable slot near the top of the hierarchy. Brooks found out he's not as high up as he thinks ...

What was Brooks doing to make the Senator want to grope him? He must have enjoyed it; otherwise he would have done or said something to make him stop. [/sarcasm]

LJ -- A quick Google on "Bradford W. Short" gives 10 results, none of which is a blog. If Mr. Short has, as he says, "blogged for years", it must be under (dare I say it!) a pseudonym. If any of those other "Bradford W. Short"s are not, in fact, the guy posting here, well, he just isn't as forthcoming as he says he is. A "real name" isn't much good if we can't use it to verify an identity. Mr. Short is no doubt happy to have his posts here be considered as part of his official corpus of legal writing. Most blog posters, ahem, aren't. Blogs are for informal discussion and generally not considered fit venues for "official" communications. Try citing a blog in a technical or legal paper and see what happens ....

Some folks seem to be missing the point of civil disobedience. Yes, you break the law -- but with the full willingness to accept the penalty. The people like McArdle who are trying to justify Tiller's murder are trying to rewrite the law "on the fly". Doesn't help that the antichoice fanatics have adopted the most extreme position possible -- unjustifiable by law, biology, theology, or philosophy.

BTW, am I the only one who's a bit curious about the late- term abortion of the conjoined twins?She didn't realize she was carrying twins until the eighth month of pregnancy?She didn't have a sonogram until the eighth month, despite "a difficult pregnancy"?She's an RN at a fertility clinic, where they should know about pregnancy problems? I'd expect this from an indigent mother; not somebody who could afford to fly to Kansas. If the facts are as stated, looks like it's deep into malpractice territory.

One way to stop terrorism is by enforcing our laws Yup. PATRIOT Act. It's terrorism; treat it like terrorism. Close down the loudmouths calling for murder and anybody who's ever donated money to them.

"Cutting National Parks" Here in DC, it's called the "Washington Monument Effect". Word comes down from On High to cut spending. So Interior (which has lots of programs that really help people) gets its budget cut. Interior announces cuts to the National Park Service (which everybody appreciates). NPS announces that, as a result of budget cuts, they'll have to close the Washington Monument (its most popular park). Therefore, you can't cut spending. QED. This is the flaw in the "starve the beast" philosophy. The fat gets cut last.

Actually, it's even scarier than that: http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/apr/09/00020/

Actually, it's even scarier than that:

So it doesn't seem to me that the tea-partiers were ignoring the problem of federal spending. Funny thing. I never heard any criticism of any real proposals at all from the teabaggers. Just "Obama's tax- and- spend policies" or "the stimulous"; all well- known dogwhistles for "black people". Their economics are straight from Herbert Hoover. If you're going to cut spending in any meaningful way, you'll have to go after big ticket items -- Medicare, Mecicaid, and Defense. Cut Medicare or Medicaid significantly and people will die. Messily and publicly. Cut defense and every right- winger in the country (plus a lot of lefties who collect DOD's middle- class welfare) will have kittens. The rants about "waste, fraud and abuse" (like it's a budget line item) and things like the National Endowment for the Arts (chump change) are just that -- rants. Hot air. Temper tantrums. I really, really want some folks in the press to learn how to do simple arithmetic. Faint hope, I know.

Two reasons not to convert "all at once" 1. It can't be done. The new stuff will require a lot of new capital plant; you simply can't, say, replace all gasoline engines with diesels all at once. You're going to have to allow a "ramp up" time. 2. It wouldn't work. New technology has bugs. With gradual introduction, you can bash them a few at a time. Also, what's the fascination with inefficient vehicles? Why is a 15 MPG SUV inherently better than a 40 MPG SUV? I see no basic problems with making a 40 MPG SUV with performance equivalent to current models.

When they finally put him in the ground I'll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down. (Circa WWII): Sergeant: I'll bet you'll watch the obituaries, and when I die, you'll come and piss on my grave.Private: No, Sarge, when I get out of the Army, I'm never going to stand in line again.

ScentOfViolets, et al -- Yeah, thalidomide is the classic example of a failure of drug testing. It's a nasty teratogen and shouldn't have been approved for use by pregnant women. However, this doesn't justify treating it like plutonium, which is what happened. The thalidomide mess was compounded by the fact that, at the time, ab*rti*n was illegal and there was no aid available most places for what we now call "special needs children". Take thalidomide at the wrong time, you're bankrupt aong with everything else.

I was thinking Obama's M.O. here is to let a couple of these cases blow up and attract enough attention that Congress would be forced to act. he can always get them their jobs back, once the law is changed. The impression I get is that, once a person is out of the military, they're gone. I'd like to see Obabma invite back some of the generals that Bush fired/forced to retire. They could replace some of the current ones that don't seem to understand the concept of "Commander in Chief". Yeah, Obama has a lot on his plate, but there are some things that need to be done *now*. Opening Guantanamo and Bagram to the International Red Cross are examples. It'd just be a stroke of the pen.

Amazing how often "the most qualified candidate for the job" translates as "somebody who looks Just Like Me".

Don't these sorts of pronouncements disqualify observant Catholics from serving in any public office in the United States? This is exactly the argument that JFK faced when running for President. His response is the classic; I wonder how many current politicians would have the nerve to say this: I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.