is the inside dirt on beleaguered British teacher Gillian Gibbons.
A dumb shit secretary was responsible, and in fact the bear in question was named by th e pupils for a classmate and not the Muslim prophet.
Talk about dumb shit fanatics.
Friday, November 30, 2007
This
The Fascists in the GOP
are trying to tinker with California's electoral votes by putting in an initiative to split them up.
We know Giuliani's goons are doing this, and yes, Democrats had better fight it.
_____
Obituaries.
Daredevil, risk-taker, and all around stunt wacko Evel Knievel (born Robert Craig Knievel), 69, died. Although he broke almost every bone in his body over the years, it was chronic diseases, including diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable lung condition, that did him in.
_____
Campaign Notes.
After a string of good debate performances, could Mike Huckabee shock everybody and take Iowa?
It could happen. The guy is slick.
_____
A Republican says Hillary Clinton will win the presidency, but it won't be any kind of cakewalk.
Call me skeptical especially when the media have trouble getting access.
_____
It was just awful today that somebody took people hostage at a New Hampshire Clinton campaign headquarters.
Some details:
After a five-hour standoff with a man who entered Hillary Clinton's local headquarters with what appeared to be a bomb duct-taped to his chest, the suspect -- unofficially identified as Leeland Eisenberg -- surrendered to police.
This appears to be the end of a hostage crisis that paralyzed downtown Rochester all afternoon. The entire downtown "loop" was evacuated during the standoff at 28 North Main Street, across from Slim's Tex-Mex Restaurant.
I am surprised nobody has suggested Eisenberg was a Hillary plant.
_____
The Appalling visited the Apollo.
_____
As the World Turns.
Fanaticism is always ugly, and few instances more ugly than this.
_____
The boy can't make up his mind:
Darren Mack has dropped his legal defense team after pleading guilty to murder and attempted murder charges, and plans to file a motion to withdraw his guilty pleas, a source close to his family said Thursday.
The withdrawal motion has yet to be filed but was in the process of being crafted, the source said.
I hope his move is denied. He's already admitted to killing his estranged wife and to attempted murder on a judge.
_____
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Paul Krugman
eviscerates Barack Obama's half-baked health care plan.
And this guy has so huge a following among those who erroneously believe he is a "progressive." This is all based on one speech, a speech not even that great.
More Campaign Notes.
CNN shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a debate.
Fox, believe it or not, actually does better.
_____
So did Bill Clinton make a gaffe?
_____
Rudy tries to dig himself out of a hole.
_____
How Bogus.
I didn't think people who attended political debates had to be of that particular party.
I have been to numerous political events this cycle, and I went to both Democratic and Republican when I could and when they were open to the public.
This is really a nonstory.
Yep,
last night's debate may have been awful, but it was hardly worse than the Democratic debate in Las Vegas, which held the entire state up to ridicule no small thanks to the state Clinton campaign.
Convicted Murderer
Jack Kevorkian, who was so near death a year or so ago his attorneys managed to con the parole board into releasing him early, is now on the lecture circuit.
I suppose he will make the case that the criminal justice system allow serial killers like himself get off because they get their kicks out of killing the sick, the old, the disabled, and even the physically healthy but depressed. He claims elsewhere that murderers like him would have never gone to prison if the ninth amendment had been applied the way he thinks it should be applied.
What a lowlife.
There is more here.
In Case
the reader needs to be told what to think of last night's debate and who "won," here is a summary.
No matter who won, and I am telling you to believe Huckabee and McCain did best, it was a lively event.
Campaign Notes.
The fact the various county Democratic parties in Nevada are sponsoring their own "mockuses" and education efforts for the January 19 caucuses hasn't deterred the Clinton campaign one iota.
_____
Edwards' campaign manager David Bonoir is stumping around Nevada on behalf of the candidate.
_____
TNR
continues pushing the media propaganda the Democratic race is all about the black and the woman.
Obituaries.
The good die young: Former congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, a Republican who helped spearhead the bogus impeachment of former president Bill Clinton and a noted hypocrite who carried on an extramarital affair with one Cheri Snodgrass (pictured) in his irresponsible youth when he was in his forties, has died at the age of 83.
Hyde was also known as one of the premier anti-abortion members of Congress, responsible for the so-called Hyde amendment regarding public financing of abortions.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I Got Home
just in time to watch and record the Republican Debate in Florida. It's one of those silly YouTube debates like the one with the Democrats a few months ago.
It's all about illegal immigration. Old Giuliani hit Mitt on the claim Mitt has employed illegal aliens.
Incredible the questioners don't care about anything else.
Are they going to talk about Rudy's latest scandal?
As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.
The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.
If it were a Democrat, he or she would be dead meat.
And as for the debate, Huckabee won the debate. He's dangerous, a GOP version of Bill Clinton. John McCain might have made a comeback.
It's hard to say who the GOP nominee will be.
More here.
ORU Scandal.
A zillionaire businessman has offered to bail ORU out of its $70 million debt, but there are strings attached.
Meanwhile, Richard Roberts said it was all God's fault, or his will, that he resigned in disgrace.
Campaign Notes.
Just as he battled the corporations as one of the top trial lawyers in the country, John Edwards is doing battle again, this time against the media narrative of the two surefire general election losers for the Democrats.
It's a tough row to hoe, and while I believe he will win Iowa, the media are sure to discount it if he does.
______
How anybody takes Kucinich seriously is a mystery to me. He should get out now.
_____
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Now It Is Time
to focus on Michelle Obama, in keeping up with the Clinton/Obama storyline and to hell with any of the other candidates.
It's so fucking transparent, it makes me sick.
Well, I spoke too soon: There is an article about John Edwards on the same site.
At least Jesse Jackson gets it that JRE is the only one who has truly addressed African American concerns.
Obituaries.
One of the greatest jockeys of all time, Bill Hartack, was found dead Monday in a cabin in Texas. He was expected to go hunting.
According to the coroner, Hartack died of natural causes as a result of heart disease. He was 74.
Hartack won five Kentucky Derbies, with perhaps his most famous being his brilliant ride on Northern Dancer in the 1964 race. It was one of the great tactical rides of all time. He did racing commentary following his retirement.
A clip of the race is here. I wish the whole race were online. Perhaps it is but I haven't found it yet:
AP has more about the racing great:
Hall of Fame rider Angel Cordero didn't know Hartack well, but was aware of his accomplishments.
''I rode with him a little bit at the end of his career,'' Cordero said Tuesday. ''When I first came to this country and met him, it was like meeting a superstar -- he was a jockey everyone had heard about.
''He was very smart. And he was amazing with the whip -- he could hit a horse left-handed coming around the turn, and the horse would never go out.''
Hartack won his first race in 1952 at West Virginia's Waterford Park, and he was elected to thoroughbred racing's Hall of Fame in 1959, at the age of 26 -- the youngest person ever elected to the hall.
That's a hell of an achievement. He was that good.
That was a good thing, for he was not known as Mr. Congeniality:
"My biggest problem isn't mounts, but Billy's personality," Lang told Time magazine for a 1958 cover story. "I spend most of my time trailing around after him, apologizing to people he's insulted. He's particularly rude if he hasn't won. He's the most competitive athlete I ever saw. If he doesn't win, he won't talk to anybody."
Lang still has sharp memories of Hartack's prickly personality, and the two eventually parted ways. But Lang calls Hartack one of the great riders in racing history.
"He was just a great rider," Lang said, reached by telephone Tuesday. "He was a very, very deliberate rider. He knew what to do on a horse, and he did it well. If you were to ask me the best rider I ever saw, I'd say Eddie Arcaro a nose in front of Bill Hartack."
Hartack, for all his bullheadedness, could be charming enough under the right circumstances. "On a horse, he was all business, but if you got to know him, he was friendly," Baeza said.
Hartack obviously knew his shortcomings enough not to get himself married or have kids although he had an active social life.
Campaign Notes.
Can Gingrich be more obvious?
Iowa is won if a candidate has the ground operation and can excel in retail politics. The two "frontrunners" have neither.
But if you repeat a lie enough times, people may buy it.
_____
"They drove me to it," said Hillary Clinton, or to the effect.
_____
It's Doubtful
Oprah's infatuation with Obama is going to do him any good in the primaries, even if she gives cars away.
As the World Turns.
What a strange twist, but things like this happen now and then:
Just hours after a Saturday morning crash in Sparks killed one man and left two others in critical condition, the girlfriend of one of the drivers was killed in a rollover accident as she traveled to Reno to visit him.
Joshua Warner, 21, of Carson City also was killed in the 7 a.m. rollover on Interstate 80 near Wells that took the life of his passenger, Hannah Puente, 19.
Puente and Warner were traveling from Wyoming to visit Puente’s boyfriend of nearly three years, Jasin Richards, 21. Richards was driving a Subaru that struck a truck about 1:30 a.m. at the intersection of McCarran Boulevard and York Way, killing Richards’ passenger, Jonathan Query, a 19-year-old veteran of the Army.
_____
Washington Redskins' safety Sean Taylor, 24, has died from gunshot wounds suffered yesterday.
_____
Paul Campos
lets the medical establishment have it over the bogus "obesity epidemic." Now we find being "overweight" is even healthy.
The real disease is prejudice based on body size.
American Banks
helped create the credit crisis through accounting manipulation in order to engage in speculation and hide risks.
Monday, November 26, 2007
My niece Sheryl and the rest of the family went to Salem, Oregon, Saturday to pay my great-nephew Elven and his family (Kasey, Brayden, and Madison) a visit. They delivered a Thanksgiving turkey for them to cook.
Sheryl took these pictures, which I thought I'd post on the blog:
Great-grandma Sharon and Madison.
Madison.
Kasey and daughter Madison.
Family picture.
Sherry and Brayden.
Sheryl and Madison.
Dad and baby.
Sheryl and Brayden.
Brayden.
Still another picture of Madison.
Madison smiles for the camera.
This is cute of Madison.
Mom and baby.
Grandparents and grandbaby.
Another picture of Brayden and Madison.
This is cute of Brayden and Madison.
Elven, Kasey, Sherry, and Rick.
Brayden and sister Madison.
Rick and daughter-in-law Kasey.
ORU Scandal.
The university regents met today to find out what they need to do next now that Richard Roberts is out of the picture.
Campaign Notes.
Who'd have thought the GOP would be so short of cash they have to recruit filthy rich people to run for office?
They might be poor on money, but the GOP still remains rich on attacks.
_____
Barack is trying to buy himself a little bit of support.
_____
How did the
housing market get so bad?
Easy credit for high-risk buyers, greed for more profits. It's very simple.
As the World Turns.
Another rat leaves a sinking ship as Trent Lott is resigning at the end of the year.
Some have speculated he may be a target of Larry Flynt, but yours truly wonders if he just got fed up with the whole business after Hurricane Katrina.
_____
Sunday, November 25, 2007
More About
the Cleveland nut going off the deep end:
Kucinich, the Cleveland congressman running in a longshot bid to become president, suggested it himself today.
"I'm thinking about Ron Paul" as a running mate, Kucinich told a crowd of about 70 supporters at a house party here, one of numerous stops throughout New Hampshire over the Thanksgiving weekend. A Kucinich-Paul administration could bring people together "to balance the energies in this country," Kucinich said.
Jesus Christ. And to think this guy is allowed in the Democratic debates.
Instead of Getting Cosmetic
surgery and changing her name, Ann Coulter has decided to hide her resident address because of harassment:
So much so that she got the county property appraiser to remove her name from public records identifying where she lives. In doing so, she won an exemption from public disclosure of her address, allowed by law for victims of stalkers or harassment.
Coulter, 45, has called Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a homosexual slur and said she wished he would be killed by terrorists. She once said that President Clinton "could be a lunatic" and wrote of a group of widows of men killed in the World Trade Center that she had "never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."
So maybe it came as no surprise when somebody delivered a greeting card to her home in March that read in part: "You self-aggrandizing ... sociopath!! The only thing left after a nuclear war are you and cockroaches."
Her house is one of 2,674 properties in Palm Beach County whose owners are confidential in property appraiser records. Homeowners must complete an affidavit stating why they should be exempt from the state's public records law.
The Blood-Horse Magazine
has some photo galleries up, including one each honoring the late champions John Henry and George Washington.
The Elites,
including the media, have been waging a class war for at least twenty-five years, and the masses are losing.
Assuming the Democratic Race
for the presidential nomination becomes halfway competitive, more attention will be paid to Nevada.
Meanwhile, interest is still low in Nevada regarding the caucuses, but that could well change as the time approaches.
Campaign Notes.
Ron Paul receives an endorsement from a somewhat unlikely source.
_____
If Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party, you can BET her husband is going to be an issue--THE issue, I'm afraid, and it has nothing to do with the bogus "scandals."
This "two-for-one" shit isn't going to work. She will lose.
_____
If this article is to be believed, years of right-wing smears have taken their toll on Hillary Clinton, for many resist her candidacy.
I would remind the reporter that there are other people besides certain GE loser Obama running against Clinton, including the likely victor of the Iowa caucuses, John Edwards.
_____
It's time for the psychobabble crowd to examine how Rudy is the way he is, whatever that is.
_____
Say what you want about John Edwards, but he has great taste in television series.
The Fugitive and Perry Mason are among my favorite shows of all time, and yes, I have the DVDs of all of the episodes of each series currently available.
_____
Bill Clinton will be hanging around in Iowa trying to persuade skeptical Iowans that his wife should be the one who will win the caucuses.
It's not going to happen, of course.
_____
Miscellaneous.
I never saw this on my southwestern trip this summer.
In fact, we drove through Page, Utah, going right past that formation, which is only a half-hour away from the town.
I'll have to take this in someday.
_____
Somebody screwed up BIG TIME with the caption under a picture of a Subaru totaled in a fatal car crash.
_____
Saturday, November 24, 2007
About the Only Way
John Edwards can get his message out is to get in the media's face.
I am sure the other candidates will have oped pieces as well.
It's Not "Experience"
that is Obama's problem; it's the fact he is way in over his head as a presidential candidate.
I am sick of this media pushing losers on us.
Campaign Notes.
Even though Edwards will win Iowa, was always going to win it, the media spin is still Clinton-Obama.
It's so obvious what they're doing.
God,
that was a bitch. I had to do a lit review for a class I need to be licensed in special ed, and it was a bitch royal. I got off on the spacing and page numbering. I had to email it to my instructor.
I noticed other students didn't have nearly as many pages as I did. I ended up typing 23 double-spaced pages.
I am so glad that shit is done.
I have only one full day left before I have to go to work Monday. It is going to be hard to try and work out with the hours being the way they are, but I'll try my damnedest.
As the World Turns.
It's all over between the mayor and the reporter:
"They broke up earlier in the fall. They've both moved on. And Antonio is focused on his relationships with his kids," said one person who said he learned about the breakup in October.
The other source -- who described himself as a longtime friend of Villaraigosa's -- said the relationship ended two or possibly three months ago.
"I think it was a tough summer. I think it was hard on his family. And I think he's trying hard to get past everything that was that summer," the friend said.
Like that was ever going to go anywhere after all of the negative publicity.
_____
And now with one southern California fire now being extinguished, another one takes its place.
I am sure readers will not get my drift.
_____
Oh, brother, the British tabloids are trying to get Paul McCartney married off even before he gets divorced.
_____
Somebody has the nerve to ask whether men are necessary.
Unfortunately, the article is rather wishy-washy despite the provocative title.
_____
Friday, November 23, 2007
ORU Scandal.
Having been under intense pressure these past few weeks, Richard Roberts has resigned as president of ORU:
Richard Roberts sent a letter to the Oral Roberts University Board of Regents on Friday tendering his resignation as university president effective immediately.
The regents will meet Monday and Tuesday to determine action in the search process for a new president.
Next stop is Branson, Missouri, where he can resume his true calling as a lounge lizard singer.
Thirty-Six Years After
D.B. Cooper's disappearance, the legend continues.
On Saturday, Ron Forman plans to be at the store, which has a wall of Cooper newspaper clippings, to talk about who he thinks is the true hijacker.
Forman said a friend of his -- who was a loner, like the FBI described -- confessed to Forman and his wife. The friend, who looked similar to the FBI sketch, was a proficient skydiver, an expert with dynamite and mysteriously disappeared in the days around the hijacking.
The kicker: Forman's friend was a woman named Barbara Dayton; family and friends say she is believed to be the first person in Washington to have a sex-change operation.
If You're a Celebrity
who murdered innocent people and got away with it, you are going to be in the headlines if you get into legal trouble later.
In Their Assault
against women's sexual and economic autonomy, anti-abortion nuts are trying to legally redefine what constitutes a "person" to embryos.
The activities are primarily on the state level, and while few proposals have succeeded, abortion rights activists are concerned because there is a current wave of anti-women amendments to state constitutions.
Think of it: These people are so concerned about the fetus, but by God WOMEN should be denied equal rights. Many of these people were opposed to the ERA.
They worry that the language of the initiatives might mislead voters. In Colorado, for instance, voters will be asked whether the constitution should "include any human being from the moment of fertilization as 'person' . . . in those provisions of the Colorado Constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law." The amendment is being promoted by a group called Colorado for Equal Rights.
"This type of language may be scarier than an outright ban," said Belinda Bulger, deputy legal director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. "First, because it can be hard for people to understand what it's doing, and second, because it would be far further reaching."
Abortion-rights advocates tried to block the Colorado ballot initiative by claiming the language would confuse voters, but the state Supreme Court ruled 7-0 that the initiative was acceptable as written. The measure's proponents must collect 76,000 signatures in the next six months to qualify for the general election ballot.
If successful -- and upheld by the courts -- the amendments could outlaw certain forms of birth control that prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus, such as the birth control pill or contraceptive sponge. They also could ban or restrict common fertility treatments, such as in vitro, in which multiple eggs are fertilized, but only some are introduced into the mother's womb.
Amendment supporters freely admit that giving a fertilized egg the legal status of a human being would affect a wide range of medical decisions. That's precisely the point, they say: "We're trying to establish some bioethical standards to move us into the 21st century," said Dan Becker, president of Georgia Right to Life.
As the World Turns.
Fortunately all 154 people on the expedition ship the Explorer have been rescued after it hit some ice on the way to Antarctica.
_____
Thursday, November 22, 2007
I got my lights put up outside.
Sam finds something wrong with his foot.
Tony looks at the camera. He got his hair cut the other day.
It's Days Like This
I wish I was in Oregon with the family. I haven't spent Thanksgiving with them for probably 20 years.
I am too busy with this college class shit to have gone up.
Anywho, here are some pictures of the family taken by my niece, Sheryl Johnson, which she posted on MySpace, and I copied from her on this site and at my MySpace site:
Rick is quite emphatic in his feelings about Thanksgiving as is his aunt Pat.
Rob is shown here before or after dinner.
My nephew Mike and my niece Sheryl display their enthusiasm for having their pictures taken.
Pat and son Mike pose in front the camera. They all had dinner at Rick and Sherry's place. I stayed in Reno baking my own turkey.
Sherry had a big day cooking the meal.
Rick and best friend Sassy take a breather while Rob snores away.
Pat, Mike, and Sharon smile for the camera. Everybody had a great time.
Those Who Escorted
Oswald during the hours following one of the darkest moments in American history remember:
During one interrogation on Friday – the evening of the assassination – Mr. Sims left Oswald's presence to take a phone call.
The caller was an old acquaintance: a local nightclub owner by the name of Jack Ruby.
"He said he was down at Sol's Turf Bar and he said, 'I got 30 sandwiches made up and some drinks.' He wanted to bring them down in case we didn't have time to get something to eat," Mr. Sims recalled.
Now retired, Mr. Boyd, 80, lives in Navarro County.
Mr. Sims declined Ruby's offer. Later that weekend, they would have occasion to talk again.
As the World Turns.
It sounds like somebody is out to get Oregon's Governor Kulongoski.
Talk show hosts should not be harassing elected officials:
The bar complaint, filed last month by Portland radio talk show host Lars Larson, claims Kulongoski has lied to the public about what he knew or heard about Goldschmidt. It is based on Leonhardt's claims that he heard about Goldschmidt's abuse from Bernie Giusto, who was Goldschmidt's bodyguard and driver and now is Multnomah County sheriff.
_____
Today Marks
44 years since JFK was assassinated in Dallas, and naturally some people are still trying to explain what happened there, even as we have always known what happened and who did it.
This piece takes a new look at the Zapruder film.
There
has never been any doubt at all Edwards will win Iowa; this is why the media keep dismissing him hoping this will work with caucus voters. It won't; Edwards has had his ground operation in place there since 2002-2003. The other candidates are just throwing money around hoping to psych people out.
This is good:
The objectives of Obama’s team are straightforward: to make Iowa (and the rest of the contest) a two-person race between their guy and Hillary. In Plouffe’s telling, Edwards is fading fast in Iowa. And a key Obama supporter there, the former state party chairman Gordon Fischer, gave an interview last week disparaging the turnout of Edwards supporters at the big-deal Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on November 10, arguing that Obama was well poised to pick up Edwards’s voters, whom he described as “up for grabs.”
Methinks they doth protest too much. Indeed, the fact that Plouffe and Fischer are posturing this way suggests that the Obama forces continue to fear the prospect of being trumped by Edwards in Iowa. And with good reason. So far Obama has spent some $5 million on advertising in the state, and Clinton’s total is more than $3 million, whereas as of two weeks ago, Edwards had spent just $20,000. And yet the race remains a statistical three-way dead heat.
More to the point, because of the bizarro nature of the caucuses—the participants must go out, on a frigid night, for a multi-hour ordeal of public declarations of support and multiple rounds of voting—the contest in Iowa is a slog-it-out ground war, in which organization and get-out-the-vote efforts are paramount. And here all sides concede privately that Edwards’s team, which has been in place essentially for five years, is the class of the field. When I ask Edwards if he’s concerned about signs of slippage in Iowa, he literally laughs in my face. “We have 99 county chairs and about 75 percent of the precincts covered with precinct chairs,” he says. “I know how to run a caucus campaign in Iowa—and so do the people who work for me.”
The handwriting is on the wall. Clinton and Obama should concentrate elsewhere.
Campaign Notes.
Knowing she's up shit crik in Iowa and never was truly in the running, and is worried she may lose support in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton is trying like hell to go on the offensive without sounding too offensive.
_____
Another Good Reason
to reject Barack Obama as presidential material, besides the indisputable fact he is too green for the job, is that he has a habit of repeating so-called "conventional wisdom" on hot topics which are NOT based on fact. A prime example is his repeating right-wing lies Social Security is on its last legs and needs to be "fixed."
Even if baby boomers did put a strain on it, a major proportion of them will be dead by 2041, when the most conservative projection of a shortfall is expected to happen.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
ORU Scandal.
Three new lawsuits have been filed against the university and Richard Roberts.
At least two of those will be thrown out of court.
Still More Campaign Notes.
It's a year before the 2008 November elections, and the so-called "top-tier" candidates are in a dead heat with Giuliani and other GOP frontrunners in Nevada.
No surprise, as Nevada is still a red state, or a purple one, which is more accurate.
Clinton will NOT campaign here in the fall if she got the nomination; neither would Obama, who isn't going to get the nomination anyway. Neither would stand a chance with any Republican.
I can see Edwards doing it, though, just as he stumped for Kerry in 2004.
The Biggest Difference
between Clinton and Obama is while Clinton is a 40-state loser, Obama would make American history as being the first candidate to lose all 50 states.
He might win D.C., but that would be it.
People are such suckers for media hype.
_____
Oh, Jesus Christ.
I had hoped this goddamned scheme to rig presidential elections in favor of the Republicans would die.
Apparently the backers of this shit are willing to do anything to get it on the ballot.
Obituaries.
Former Rhodesia leader Ian Smith, 88, has died. He was the last white leader of the country.
He and current president Robert Mugabe got along famously, so much so Smith ended up moving to South Africa after he got his citizenship stripped.
_____
This is one I missed as well: Actress Sigrid Valdis (aka Patricia Olson), 72, died last month of lung cancer. She was actor Bob Crane's second wife.
The reason I missed it is because the death wasn't announced until Tuesday.
Apparently it was her wish for there not to be a bunch of publicity over her death:
"One of her last wishes in her will was that the funeral have no press, so we didn't contact the press (when she died), to honor her wishes," son Scotty Crane told the Los Angeles Times.
_____
More Campaign Notes.
Here's more about the Ron Paul visit in Reno yesterday.
He drew a crowd of 250 in Carson City later in the day.
_____
Obama proves he doesn't know squat about schools or education.
Clue phone to the clueless senator: You can't run schools on a 9-5 business model. Kids are exhausted after six hours in the classroom. How does lengthening the teaching day help? Teachers work a lot harder than 90 percent of the people in this economy, including those in Congress and the White House, and it's getting harder all the time with all of the state and federal requirements. You NEED the time off; it's not like working in an office where you sit on your ass for eight hours or even doing physical work and can burn off the stress. You can delegate very little work as a teacher to others; it's illegal.
People think it is so "easy" to be a K-12 teacher when in fact it is not.
_____
On the GOP front, the Iowa race is proving to be very, very interesting.
_____
Obama deserves ridicule over his foreign policy "credentials," and Clinton is right to mock them.
_____
Campaign Notes.
It's the Story of O, as one Big O tries to sell the other Big O to a skeptical public.
I think she's taking her infatuation too far.
_____
The object of Oprah's political affection admits he was a doper but isn't a dope despite his dopey campaign.
_____
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
More Campaign Notes.
From Thanksgiving turkeys to political turkeys as John McCain tries to pull himself out of the hole of irrelevance and tout his experience.
Shit, John, look at how much experience and fat resumes are helping the Democratic candidates.
_____
I, Too,
thought of Scooter Libby when our dictator decided to pardon a couple of turkeys in order to spare them the ax.
Joseph Biden
tries to get a word in edgewise.
I predict he will do extremely well in Iowa, better than Obama and Clinton. I expect Edwards to win it.
For Those
who can't get enough of Ron Paul, and for those who have heard too much from him, here is an interview with the candidate:
Q. If you don’t win the Republican nomination, will you make a third party independent bid?
A. No plans whatsoever to do that. I’ve tried that before. The system is biased against competition with the two major parties. It’s very costly. I’m not Ross Perot when it comes to money. Right now we are concentrating on what we’re doing, and we’re certainly having an impact. When you think about how significant the state of Nevada might be, you know winning in Nevada might be a lot more significant than getting 37,000 people to donate money in one day.
That settles that rumor.
I Am Trying,
without much success, to get started on my major project for this term. I have to read some articles, too, here in a little while.
After I returned from the Ron Paul speech, I got some mail. I received a CD of a gorup whose music I have been wanting to get for years, The Orlons, a girl group (actually three girls and a guy) from the early 1960s. I loved their music, and one song, "South Street," is one of those songs that has stuck in my head for nearly 45 years.
It's still great, and somebody on YouTube posted it:
Sadly, two of the original female singers, Shirley Brickley and Marlena Davis, have passed away.
Pictures.
Ron Paul constantly talked about his interpretation of the Constitution and his definition of freedom. The RGJ has a brief report on the rally, which it will no doubt expand later.
This is one of several good close-up pictures I took of Congressman Paul.
A large screen was on hand in case people in the back could not see him. Hundreds were in attendance today.
Ron Paul talked at length about the economic problems facing this country, concluding that a reasonable solution would be the abolition of the Federal Reserve.
A very young supporter holds up a sign.
Here is a view of the stage at Lawlor Events Center's Silver and Blue Room where Ron Paul spoke this afternoon.
I Just Returned
from the University of Nevada, Reno, to hear Presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul of Texas speak. Several hundred people jammed the Silver and Blue Room to hear him. I heard the figure 600 bandied about, and it's probably true. I was up at the front almost next to the stage, and I was getting hotter than hell from all of the body heat.
Paul came in after some videos were shown of how he was doing on the campaign trail, including his spectacular 24-hour fundraising of over $4 million on November 5. His campaign, as people know, has been relying largely on the internet to get his message out.
And that message, of course, is extreme and actually the flip side of the flake Dennis Kucinich. However, Paul didn't hit too much on the more extreme of his extreme positions but instead hit on some of the more popular, less extreme (!) ones, such as getting us out of Iraq; pulling troops out of other countries such has Germany and Japan as being a waste of money; going back on the gold standard; abolishing the Federal Reserve (which probably got the biggest cheer from the audience); repealing NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, and the Peruvian trade agreement; making Social Security voluntary for young people while still allowing the elderly to draw from it (knowing as he does it would never work and would help bring back the poorhouse industry); getting us out of the UN; restoring habeas corpus; repealing the Patriot Act; and supporting medical marijuana as a state's rights issue, to touch on some highlights. In other words, he was cleverly appealing to all parts of the political spectrum by hitting upon some pet issues without coming across as a raving lunatic. He has a kindly demeanor, and I don't doubt he was a good doctor. He's just too damned extreme to ever get elected to national office.
Afterwards, it was the "meet and greet" time, and I was lucky enough to be the fourth in line and get two autographs from him, one for myself and one for my brother if he wants it.
Obituaries.
Actor Dick Wilson, aka "Mr. Whipple," has died at the age of 91.
He died of natural causes.
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Milo Radulovich, the subject of one of Edward R. Murrow's most famous anti-McCarthy broadcasts, died yesterday at the age of 81.
The original broadcast is available on a DVD remembering Murrow.
More:
In 1953, Edward R. Murrow devoted an entire broadcast to Milo Radulovich, a 28-year-old lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve, who was discharged as a security risk - but not because of anything he had done, CBS News correspondent Bill Plante reports.
“My sister and dad have taken, have read, what are now called subversive newspapers,” Radulovich told CBS News at the time.
The Air Force believed his family had communist sympathies and denied his appeal - without showing any evidence,
The L.A. Times has a more complete obituary:
When Radulovich was exonerated by the Air Force on Nov. 24, 1953, he felt "like a helium balloon in weather floating up to the sky," he told an interviewer last year. Getting his life back on track was a struggle, however. His first marriage disintegrated under the stress of the hearings. His father died of cancer within a year, and Radulovich believed his death was hastened by the ordeal.
Even though his record had been cleared, Radulovich had difficulty finding a good job in his field. Months passed before he found a small weather forecasting company in Northern California that would hire him. He eventually was hired by the National Weather Service, which often sent him into the field to predict weather patterns for firefighters. He retired from the service in the mid-1990s.
In addition to his sister, he is survived by three daughters, Kathy Radulovich and Janet Sweeney of Sacramento and Diane Berner of Bishop, Calif; and a grandson.
He was a consultant on the screenplay for "Good Night, and Good Luck," the George Clooney-directed movie that starred Clooney as Friendly and David Strathairn as Murrow, and approved of the final product.
As the World Turns.
A new species of mushroom has been discovered along southern Oregon's Rogue River.
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A former ABC journalist has come out for Hillary Clinton and is getting some criticism for her support.
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Fugitive brothel owner Joe Conforte must be comforted knowing his nephew has carried on the family tradition with distinction.
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More on the sleaze front as polygamy creep Warren Jeffs is sentenced to two five-to-life terms for performing a child-bride marriage, which is nothing but sugarcoated pedophilia.
Campaign Notes.
Is Fred Thompson dead in the water?
After a big splash of an entry, he's fizzled.
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Although he will never be president anyway, Obama claims he's some kind of education reformer by revealing a $18-billion education plan.
It is the usual ignorance spouted off by people with no real knowledge of education.
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Monday, November 19, 2007
ORU Scandal.
Richard Roberts answered or tried to answer his critics Friday regarding ORU finances:
Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts said he wants "complete financial transparency" at the university if he is allowed to return to his position.
In an interview with the Tulsa World on Friday, Roberts answered criticism by tenured faculty members and others that ORU withheld information about its finances. He also discussed his practice of reimbursing the ministry for personal expenses, a student center that was never built and the possible sale of the university's television station.
Roberts said in news articles in 1997 and 2001 that ORU's debt had been cut in half when in fact debt had increased during those years.
He said Friday: "In the early years of being president I think I got some funny information. We had to make some changes in personnel in those years."
As the World Turns.
If this is true, it is appalling.
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Would-be college teachers are being screwed, but that's nothing new.
However, some places are reversing the trend towards poorly-compensated adjunct faculty.
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This is one dog story with a happy ending.
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New Zealand has decided to hold itself up to international ridicule:
Richie Trezise, 35, a rugby-playing Welshman, lost weight to gain entry to New Zealand after initially being rejected for being overweight and a potential burden on the health care system.
His wife, Rowan, 33, a photographer, has been battling for months to shed the pounds so they can be reunited and live Down Under but has so far been unable to overcome New Zealand’s weight regulations.
Mr Trezise, who moved to Auckland in September after shedding two inches from his waist on a crash diet, said that if his wife was not allowed to come out by Christmas they would abandon the idea of emigrating.
Fuck New Zealand.
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Campaign Notes.
More still about the JRE appearance in Reno yesterday.
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Well, we know Barack didn't yell at anybody.
No "I Have a Scream" moment there.
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Too bad Edwards will win Iowa. Despite the money, the others don't have the ground operation he has.
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Sunday, November 18, 2007
John McCain
makes the assumption the Democratic presidential nominee will be Hillary Clinton.
Big mistake, I say.
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Polishing up his theocratic credentials, Mike Huckabee insists abortion is not a states' rights issue.
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More Campaign Notes.
I honestly don't think this is going to help Obama's chances:
Barack Obama is starting to slip into his speeches a disputed account of a secret 20-year plan for both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the White House.
“I’m not in this race to fulfill some long-held plan or because it was owed to me,” Obama told a gathering of Nevada Democrats after Thursday night’s Las Vegas debate.
That was a veiled reference to an account by biographers Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta that the Clintons sealed a “secret pact of ambition” to both win the presidency, which has been vehemently denied by Clinton advisers.
Then why is Hillary running? Wait a minute, maybe the "pact" was that Bill would actually get in there a third and fourth term by using his wife as the pathway to the White House.
THAT would make sense.
Thanks to Robert Novak's hint-hint piece, the fur has really started flying between Clinton and Obama.
Some Pictures.
One more picture of over 40 I took. These were so good.
John Edwards stresses a point. He received several standing ovations.
Few people are as good on the stump as John Edwards.
This is a good close-up shot of Edwards.
He made mention of how the corporate lobbyists and neocons were running everything in Washington.
Edwards spoke of getting this country out of Iraq as soon as possible.
John Edwards received a great round of applause at Hug High School in Reno today.
I Just Returned
from seeing John Edwards in person at Hug High School. I arrived there a little after 11:30, and I was concerned because few people were there. However, by the time he gave his remarks at a little bit after one (he arrived before schedule), the crowd was several hundred, probably along the lines of Hillary Clinton's town hall on Friday night.
I was right up in front, so I took some good, close pictures of him, and I videotaped his remarks. He talked about Iraq and how we needed to be out of there as soon as possible, about NCLB needing a massive overhaul so that it's not punitive to schools or teachers and to preserve public education, about health care, global warming, corruption in government, and many other issues.
Edwards said Elizabeth was doing great, and she was on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.
I was lucky because I was right in front. When he finished, I was one of the first to get his autograph--the fourth one of his I have--and he signed it on my window sign. I told him I have supported him since 2003 and that I was going to caucus for him. He said, "Bless your heart." He shook my hand twice, and it's a firm shake. It almost hurt my hand! Edwards is just so great, not a bit fake. Few out there have his ability in retail politics. Bill Clinton might be the only one I have met in person who meets or exceeds that ability.
I will post pictures shortly.
Why No Shit
Carville is in the tank for the Clintons. God, that's not anything earth-shattering.
But when will the Times look into who it was who violated not decorum but really security matters by organizing a booing/heckling section at UNLV. You know damned well it was organized by the Hillary campaign, probably the state campaign.
Where are the media in this? Were Rory Reid and Dina Titus, the latter known as a dirty fighter, involved?
There are questions that need to be answered about the sham debate Thursday.
Since "Race"
isn't actually a biological construct but a social one, disability rights hater Peter Singer is talking out his ass regarding research into "race" and "intelligence."
Campaign Notes.
John Edwards will be in Reno today. He will be at Hug High School.
Event is at 1 p.m.
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Mitt met with a small group of supporters and the media yesterday giving his take on a few things.
Mitt needs to start holding PUBLIC events instead of these limited venues. After all, McCain, Hunter, and (this coming Tuesday) Paul have done it.
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Saturday, November 17, 2007
Obituaries.
A death I haven't heard about until just now is the death of Ronnie Burns, son of George Burns and Gracie Allen. He passed away November 14 of cancer at the age of 72.
There is more here. He appeared occasionally on the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show:
He quit acting in the early 1960s, although he worked behind the cameras with his father in 1964, producing the sitcom "Wendy and Me."
In his youth, Burns was an avid surfer and later got into boat racing and sailing.
After leaving show business, he went into real estate investment, using money he had made from acting.
In later years, he raised Arabian horses and had a ranch in Santa Ynez.
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Listen,
twerp, if you actually had enough viability to set up an office in Iowa, maybe you'd be taken halfway seriously.
Don't bitch otherwise.
As the World Turns.
It's possible Maddie McCann is alive and well.
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Fred Goldman plans to follow O.J. around for the rest of his days.
O.J.'s or his, whichever comes first.
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Drew Peterson really and truly had a soft spot.
Honest.
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How Anybody Can "Review"
that bullshit debate in Las Vegas with a straight face is beyond me.
Hillary didn't win shit; if anything, her "supporters" lost it for her.
Another review is here.
You Don't Even
have to have been there in Vegas to know there was some suspicious shenanigans afoot.
Actually, the people who booed should have been escorted out the door by police. Any disruption of a political event requires removal of the disruptors. It is standard operating procedure having been to enough of these things. Even bringing signs to an event is a no-no because of the possibility of disruption.
Whoever was responsible for the rotten behavior, whether the Clinton campaign, CNN, the Nevada State Democratic Party, Rory Reid, or Dina Titus, or others, should be exposed.
Campaign Notes.
If there is indeed "scandalous" info about Obama, it probably has to do with Tony Rezko, something that's been whispered about for months and constantly blathered about in shit sites like Hillaryis44.com.
That's just my take.
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Clinton will almost certainly lose Iowa, most likely to Edwards, but she is spending even more money there in the hopes of not embarrassing herself.
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Candidates making a stand on illegal immigration--no matter which side of the issue--will find it is a lose/lose proposition.
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Friday, November 16, 2007
I Only Hope
toe-sucker Dick is right about CNN not actually helping Clinton's chances in Iowa.
I still believe, despite the shit piled on Edwards last night, he will win the state. The media have always been his worst enemy.
Well, no kidding Carville is in the tank for the Clintons. He's hoping to weasel his way back into the White House, just like Sidney Blumenthal.
Which of course will never happen.
Here
is a report from the Reno Gazette-Journal about Senator Clinton's visit to Fernley tonight:
The crowd was largely appreciative of the effort.
“I think she did a great job,” said Julia Ratti of Sparks. “I was glad someone would talk about energy.”
Fernley residents said the visit was a milestone event for their city.
“This is huge,” said Jane Wren, a Fernley teacher. “Democrat or Republican, this is big.”
Fellow teacher Jamilla Morley agreed:
“This is history making,” she said, adding there were people who said they were Republicans behind her in line. “They said they brought their kids because this is history.”
Laci and Scott Karol, both Clinton supporters, brought their sons Tyler, 11, and Thomas, 7 to see Clinton speak.
“It’s an awesome opportunity,” Laci Karol said. “I want them to know about the process. I thought maybe if I get them started young, they’ll want to vote and stay interested.”
Fernley High junior Amanda Van Pelt said students at the school were excited about Clinton’s visit from the time it was announced.
“Everybody was talking about it,” she said. “Everyone was asking for rides. Everyone wanted to be here.”
She was good, outstanding in fact. If she could only win the GE should she win the nomination, I'd be all for her run. I just don't believe she can.
An SRO crowd of several hundred people made their way to East Valley Elementary School in Fernley, Nevada, some forty miles east of Reno, to hear presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton talk about a variety of issues, especially energy policy. Although I was sicker than hell, at times about ready to pass out, I made my way there. She was glad to be back in northern Nevada. This was her third trip to the Reno-Carson-Lyon County area and the second time I saw her in person. She was very good indeed. 
Senator Clinton was deep in thought here.
It looks like she is breaking into song here.
Clinton made almost no mention of the disastrous Las Vegas debate; she just mentioned it in passing. It wasn't that her performance was bad, of course, it was that CNN so fucked up in its capitulating to corporate interests to create her "comeback" and shit on John Edwards in the process. Clinton is very capable and very knowledgeable on the issues. 
Clinton talked about the importance of having an energy policy and the importance of looking into alternatives to oil, something our dictator refuses to do.
Clinton answered five or six questions from the audience. No, they weren't planted. There was one person, though, Clinton knew who was a farmer and had a question she wanted him to ask. That was because this morning Clinton was in Washington to vote on a farm bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wanted everybody to report back to Washington today to vote on it. This meant Clinton had to take the red eye from the Vegas debate last night to Washington, and then fly all the way back to northern Nevada to speak at the town hall. Hillary talked at length about agricultural issues, especially "country of origin" labels which aren't required right now thanks to our dictator.
Immediately after the questions, Senator Clinton met with people who stayed afterwards. She stayed for a long time and probably met with everybody who wanted to meet her.
Senator Clinton was just a few inches from me here. She signed my political button for me. This was the second autograph I got from her.
I Am Sick
as all shit, but I am going to drag myself out to Fernley tonight to see Senator Hillary Clinton, who should be at the East Valley Elementary School at 6:30. The topic is energy, something I lack at the moment.
I will post photos and such when I return. I am not going to take my video camera this time.
With the Helping of a Corrupt Media,
the Clinton campaign has used last night's sham debate as a warning to opponents.
It's probably less the campaign than it is about the corporate media wanting to silent dissent in the form of John Edwards in order to force Democrats to nominate an unelectable, 40-state loser.
Only people with their heads so far up their asses fail to see the obvious.
Sid Blumenthal decides to throw away a halfway decent career as a journalist/pundit and tries like hell to get another cushy job with a second Clinton administration, which ain't gonna happen in a million years.
At least he will have something to fall back on after Hillary gets beaten.
_____
Well, Ain't
this peachy?
Maria Luisa, the UNLV student who asked Hillary Clinton whether she preferred "diamonds or pearls" at last night's debate wrote on her MySpace page this morning that CNN forced her to ask the frilly question instead of a pre-approved query about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
"Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN," Luisa writes. "I was asked to submit questions including "lighthearted/fun" questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance."
The debate was a fucking sham.
I Have to Say
this post over at Daily Kos hits it on the head and makes me forever glad I wasn't there in Vegas in person.
Campaign Notes.
I agree with this observer, who was at the debate in person.
I am glad I didn't go. It was bad enough on television. Jill Derby and Harry Reid should both be embarrassed over the appalling debate last night.
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The Boston Globe did a report on John Edwards, in its series of presidential candidates.
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If people aren't going to look at the obvious problem with last night's debate, it shouldn't even be discussed at all.
Dennis Kucinich has officially made my shitlist after last night. A man who blathers on and on about the WTO, workers' rights, and all of that other shit and who has NEVER accomplished a goddamned thing in all the years he has been in the House, needs to get the fuck out of the race. When he attacked Edwards, Edwards should have been given the opportunity to attack the Ohio hypocrite over his anti-abortion record, his utter lack of achievement except his bankrupting the city of Cleveland, and many other things the Ohio hypocrite has or has not done.
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As the World Turns.
This makes me goddamned sick:
An advert depicting a tattooed skinhead urinating into a china teacup is being used to promote tourism to London.
The image is part of a new Eurostar campaign aimed solely at the Belgian market.
Posters have gone up on billboards in Antwerp, Brussels, Liege and Ghent to promote the new high-speed train connection to the English capital.
The company says the advert is great for British tourism.
The sun has long set on the British Empire.
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Judge Weller's opponents should realize there are elections to determine whether he should stay in office.
It sounds like there are people out there who unconsciously supported murderer Darren Mack.
_____
The WSWS
is wrong in the head about driver's licenses for illegals.
They are in favor of unlimited immigration into the United States, which gives the lie they give a shit about workers' rights. The only reason illegals are here is because employers use them to depress the wage base of ALL American workers.
Leave It
to the Drudge Report to come up with this:
CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer did an 'outstanding' job in Vegas, a senior adviser to the Hillary campaign said early Friday. 'He was outstanding, and did not gang up like Russert did in Philadelphia. He avoided the personal attacks, remained professional and ran the best debate so far. Voters were the big winners last night.'
A rival campaign insider charges: 'Wolf turned into a lamb. No follow-up question on Clinton's huge flip on drivers licenses?'
First of all, Wolf is the worst possible moderator because he does not have it "upstairs" to ASK follow-up questions. Not to mention the Hillary people have a short memory: I remember vividly when Bill Clinton as president (following the bogus Monica "scandal") had former British PM Tony Blair in the White House, and moron Blitzer tried to ask a question about Monica and being "aroused." Clinton cut him off.
Wolf Blitzer has been on my shitlist ever since.
The report is probably true, and no doubt the campaign put pressure on CNN and UNLV to stack the crowd with Hillary supporters when it is clear other candidates have many supporters as well, having paid close attention. They also put pressure on CNN to allow the audience to cheer and boo--totally uncalled for, and could have presented some kind of security risk.
Why, No Shit
Several debate watchers said Edwards had a poorer performance than in some of the past debates.
“That surprised me,” Brosy said. “He seemed weaker than he has in the past.”
Take a look at the Dodd Clock, dumb shit, and you might find the answer:
When Biden is given almost as much time as Edwards, you KNOW the game is fucking rigged.
I may bring up the subject of media bias when Edwards comes here on Sunday.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
For Fun,
curiosity seekers who haven't seen Grizzly Man, a documentary I am ordering by mail, can watch the entire thing on YouTube. No doubt the person who posted all twenty parts have violated copyright laws, and I don't feel like putting all parts on my blog.
But here is the link to part 1, with other parts on the sidebar.
It is a fantastic documentary. Clearly Treadwell was off in the head before having his head bit off in a horrible death, but this is a great film. In Treadwell's defense, he did have some incredible footage of the grizzlies and foxes.
I Posted This
on the JRE blog:
I had seriously thought of going to Vegas to attend the debate in person, but when I had heard cameras were not allowed at the UNLV debate, I thought why bother. I have seen most of the candidates in person and will continue seeing them in person.
It's a good thing I didn't go, for this has been one disastrous debate. The crowd was despicable, undoubtedly full of Clinton supporters, but in any case they should NOT have cheered or booed anybody's answers. There was no control at all.
Biden and Dodd have been best. Edwards has gotten the shaft, and when he made a statement about lobbyists and Clinton, he was booed, which he had NEVER been before. This was disgraceful.
Kucinich needs to get his butt off the stage. He was reprehensible complaining about Edwards. Since when did HE EVER accomplish anything in all of his years in the House? The fringe left LOVES him because he says what they want to hear, but if he ever had a chance to get elected, he wouldn't say what he says. He'd be like the rest. Heck, he WAS like the rest on abortion before he became pro-choice in 2004. I want him out of all of the debates.
It was a total disgrace. I am ashamed of being a Nevadan with that crowd, and disgusted with CNN.
If I'd have been there in person, I'd have been kicked out and made the news.
I Have
to agree with this article that Media Matters is almost as biased as the groups they criticized.
They lost me on the Schiavo thing because the writers did a piss-poor job of research in some boneheaded effort to "combat" the "right."
So the obvious shilling for Hillary is expected, and it is obvious MM is. However, I am almost getting sick of people who supposedly support her acting like assholes.
The Debate is On.
Obama got the biggest applause, but he is shaky, nervous, and looks bad, very tired in fact.
Naturally the back-and-forth between the two of Clobama is going to ruin the debate. Where the hell are the other people?
Good thing I was not there tonight. I'd have been kicked out. What a disaster of a debate.
One thing about it: Hillary said a flat "no" to driver's licenses for illegals. No parsing, no nothing.
It was funny when she said she wasn't playing the gender card, yet she did play the gender card by mentioning she would be the first woman president of the United States. It was funny.
The crowd should NOT be allowed to cheer or boo candidates. That is totally wrong.
I am tempted to shut the goddamned television off and watch Route 66 on my DVDs. I have never seen a worse debate in my life.
Hillary Clinton
has to bail out of Vegas right after the debate/dinner tonight to head to D.C. for a vote; therefore, her northern Nevada schedule is going to be screwed up tomorrow.
She won't be in Reno but will be in Fernley, but her town hall will be at 6:30.
I don't know if I'll go. It's 42 miles away one way.
Hillary Clinton
WILL be in Reno following her Fernley visit, so I think I will attend the Reno gathering instead.
This event is within walking distance, so why would I want to travel 42 miles to Fernley?
Mitt Romney will show up on Saturday afternoon, but apparently it is not open to the public unless somebody says otherwise.
JRE will be here Sunday, and Ron Paul will show up Tuesday.
Campaign Notes.
Nobody can say with any certainty who the Republican nominee will be.
It could get very, very interesting. The race could go right down to the wire.
_____
O.J.
O.J. and his co-defendants will be arraigned on November 28. In the meantime, he is allowed to go around and play golf to his little heart's content.
As the World Turns.
A first grader in Eagle Point, Oregon, was suspended over a drawing depicting a gun and allegedly threatening students.
The dad sounds like he has his head up his ass.
_____
Barry Bonds is up shit crik.
_____
Some People
traveled the path hapless Chris McCandless took in the Alaskan wilderness, and this is what they thought:
Charles looked over my shoulder and read. "I wish I could come in here and have an inspirational moment," he said. "I wish my life was Zenned out."
"‘Only time will tell how Chris McCandless’s life has affected mine,’" Kris read. She snorted and looked up. "It’s garbage! I mean, am I too cynical?"
We were. We were too cynical to read entry after entry from people looking for meaning in the life and death of a man who had rejected his family, mooched his way across the country and called himself "Alexander Supertramp" in the third person. I struggled to imagine the emotional currents that had carried people here to this bus, so far from their homes, to honor his memory. Later, a friend who had been born in Alaska and exiled to Maryland for five years tried to explain the overwhelming smallness and sameness of life on the suburban East Coast, where lawn care excites great interest; no wonder someone like Christopher McCandless seems adventurous and spiritual and inspiring, despite being dead.
Several visitors mentioned that "Into the Wild" had prompted their trips, but the book must have motivated nearly all of the pilgrimages, because why else would people attach any significance to the bus? They had come from Europe, California, Alabama, Michigan, Minnesota, Utah, Ontario, North Carolina.
One man made the journey after reading a book review while sitting in a doctor’s office in Ithaca, N.Y. "It was then I knew the bus was a place I must visit," he wrote. "Christopher’s story changed the way I look at a lot of things, moreover it changed my perception of ‘need.’ I will be forever in your debt Alex! May you wander your travels in peace."
A fellow from Belgium wrote: "I’ve come from Europe to follow the footsteps of a ‘pilgrim,’ as says Krakauer, and I’d almost say a prophet!" He then criticized the materialistic attitude of Alaskans and urged them to read Tolstoy "instead of prostituting their country to tourism."
I laughed at that. The Belgian and the others had themselves turned the bus into a perverse tourist destination now so well known that it’s mentioned in The Milepost. They urged each other to protect the vehicle as a memorial, to leave things untouched. "His monument and tomb are a living truth whose flame will light the ‘way of dreams’ in other’s lives," someone wrote. It was not hard to imagine that before long visitors would be able to buy T-shirts saying "I Visited The Bus" or "I Survived Going Into the Wild." So many people seemed to have found their way out here that an espresso stand didn’t seem out of the question.
Astounded by page after page of such writings, we counted the number of people identified in the notebooks. More than 200 had trekked to the bus since McCandless’s death, and that didn’t account for those who passed by without comment. Think of that: More than 200 people, many as inexperienced as McCandless, had hiked or bicycled along the Stampede Trail to the bus — and every one of them had somehow managed to return safely.
Only one person even vaguely questioned this paradox: "Perhaps we shouldn’t romanticize or cananize (sic) him. . . . After all, Crane and I walked here in no time at all, so Chris wasn’t far from life. . . . not really." But then, perhaps unwilling to seem harsh, the writer added, "These questions are in vain. We shouldn’t try to climb into another’s mind, attempting to know what he thought or felt."
There's lots more at the link.
I Saw This
in my email last night:
HILLARY CLINTON WILL BE IN fERNLEY, NOVEMBER 16TH
Join Her for a Discussion on Renewable Energy
This event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required, but a RSVP is encouraged for planning purposes.
Friday, November 16th
Doors open at 1:30 pm
East Valley Elementary
4180 Farm District Rd., Fernley, NV.
RSVP at (775)473-1330 or at www.hillaryclinton.com/fernley
Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President, 775-473-1330
Printed In-House, Labor Donated
If I can find it, I'll be there.
The Booming Economy Casualty List for 11/8-11/15.
Home foreclosures are double what they were a year ago.
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Striking Hollywood writers give their side of the story.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Another Celebrated Nutjob
who died in the Alaskan wilds has had his life made into a movie.
I'll have to get hold of that film.
Here is a YouTube of the hapless whatever he was:
Here is the obituary.
He, like McCandless, was nuts enough to earn his own special section in the Anchorage Daily News.
And here's more.
Get Ready for
O.J. to knock off national and international stories off the frontpage, for his case is going to trial.
I Just Got Back
from seeing the flick Into the Wild. It was a good movie, although it is clear to me director Sean Penn thinks dipshit extraordinaire Chris McCandless was some kind of hero.
I read Krakauer's book, which was terrific, even better than his In Thin Air, but even reading that book, which the movie embellished a lot of things that weren't in the book, I was left feeling plenty disgusted with this kid who thought he was the next Thoreau or whoever the hell he was trying to imitate.
The dipshit didn't even think ahead of what would have happened if he didn't make it out of the wild. No, he was a typical 24-year-old who thought he'd live forever. Instead, a pair of moose hunters had to come across his stinking corpse two weeks after he died.
And it is very possible McCandless was several decks short of a full card. It's hard to diagnose somebody long dead, but there was something clearly wrong with him.
Tramp obviously wasn't searching for anything. He was running from something, possibly almost everything.
"No longer to be poisoned by civilization,'' he wrote, "he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.''
Note the third-person reference to himself there. It's a textbook signal for schizophrenia.
Lost is a good place to be if you suffer from this particular mental illness too. Lost is a place removed from all the outside stimuli that make life horribly, and sometimes dangerously, confusing for a schizophrenic.
Normal people lack the desire to become lost in the wild. Normal people use maps, compasses and GPS devices to avoid becoming lost in the wild.
Over the decades, I've met a lot of the young men who've gone off to the wilderness to search for meaning or, just as often, adventure. They didn't change their names, try to forge new identities or contemplate killing a "false being within.''
Yep, something wasn't right there. The comments following this column are worth reading.
The same writer reviews the film here and the facts about McCandless's life.
More Campaign Notes.
Let's hope Democrats at least have enough goddamned sense to overlook media hype and actually look at whether candidates can win next fall.
The media are very obvious in which candidates they are promoting; after all, they are getting their marching orders from upstairs. I hope voters will reject it.
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Here's more about Plantgate.
Town hall formats need to be genuine, not photo-ops for candidates.
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As the Knife Turns.
O.J.s preliminary hearing in Vegas is scheduled to end today.
Oh, shit:
Moments before leading a hotel room raid to retake his memorabilia, O.J. Simpson told one of his men to pull out his handgun to show they meant business, witnesses testified Tuesday.
It'll be a miracle if he walks on these charges.
Campaign Notes.
So what is it driving John Edwards' candidacy?
Though Edwards was the debate's consensus winner, the distinction had come with a caveat: What if he'd unwittingly turned Clinton into a sympathetic victim? It was a reasonable question, but one that ignored a key biographical detail: Having spent two decades doing rhetorical battle in some of the most hostile courtrooms in North Carolina, with juries ready to punish the slightest hint of overreach, Edwards arguably has a better feel for how voters will react to his words than any candidate in recent memory.
"There are a lot of people that the jury doesn't want to see you pound on," Edwards told me later. "What happens is, psychologically, they'll put themselves in the shoes of the witness. And you don't want them to do that." Then he picked up on the analogy between a trial and a campaign: "Tough is fine. Juries don't mind you being tough. Voters don't mind you being tough. ... If you're being factual and you're giving them information that's defining their choices, nobody'soffended by that."
The media is a huge problem, perhaps THE big obstacle in JRE's campaign, just as it was in 2004, because they have been told Edwards is dangerous for daring to take on corporations:
As for the press, well, that's another story. "The difference between a jury and politics is that the jury is a verycontrolled environment. ... Equal access to the jury--that's a battle I win," he says. "Politics is different, because the media controls access. And the result is, if every nanosecond they're talking about Senator Clinton or Senator Obama or another candidate, then it's hard to be heard." Then he breaks into a smile: "The thing that's different is the debate. ... If all America knew about the eight of us is what they saw in the debate on Tuesday night, or in the debates in general, you would see very different numbers."
As the World Turns.
UCLA is rocked by a cheating scandal.
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California and Florida metro areas are leading in the foreclosure race.
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Many Performers
are expressing their support for the writers' strike.
It is all about taking on the conglomerates, outfits that want to destroy unions.
I like this take by one prominent actress:
Marg Helgenberger (“CSI”) spoke with the WSWS:
“I don’t think that the writers are asking for a whole lot. They should be fairly compensated for the fact that this content is being streamed on the Internet. It appears from everything that I’ve read that ad revenues are coming in, so that there is money that is being generated. It’s a little bit disingenuous for the companies to say it’s not. And it clearly is the future.
“The movie screen and the computer screen are going to be one and the same. The companies have so much money so they think they can hold out. They know how much money there is in the future and they don’t want to give it up.
“It’s no surprise that Rupert Murdoch wants to bust the union. He boasts about it. I think what they’re trying to do is bust the union.
“I think it’s horrible that so much of the media is in the hands of big corporations. I think it’s horrible that it was allowed to happen. The fact that there are monopolies all over the place and they control the news. So many people have been so disappointed about how the news about the strike has been skewed. There’s so little written about the strike. This big rally at Fox was relegated to the second page of the business section in the LA Times. I want to boycott these publications because there is no such thing as fair and accurate reporting.
“It used to be just Fox, Mr. Murdoch’s company that used to be bad but today, it’s all of them. Despite this, the population supports the strike because they think if you can take on the conglomerates ... people with a little bit of clout are speaking for a lot of people that can’t speak out—like the guy making minimum wage. So if the writers can get their fair share and actors and directors can get their fair share then it will be a great victory for the whole labor movement.”
There is more here. The strike could go on for weeks or even months.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Hillary Clinton
runs a hell of a tight ship when it comes to her campaign.
Or at least did, until the past couple of weeks when things began to unravel.
I notice the absolute assholism--there is no other word to describe it--of Clinton supporters on message boards and blogs. Not all of them are assholes, but there are way more of them than for other candidates. If you dare state the obvious about her candidacy, that it is merely a way for her old man to get back in legally, you get labeled a sexist. If you dare point out some of her recent troubles, you are a sexist and anti-Hillary. It's all about shutting out any debate, and never mind her obvious vulnerabilities as a general election candidate. And by God, nobody is allowed to criticize her.
It's the head-up-ass mentality of the Clinton supporters who won't face electoral reality.
Almost all Hillary supporters I have met in real life aren't that way; it appears the anonymity of message boards and blogs bring out the asshole in people.
In somewhat related news, Eliot Spitzer, like Hillary, was for giving driver's licenses to illegals before he was against it. The losing proposition has been shelved:
Mr. Spitzer’s plan touched off a national debate over whether issuing licenses to illegal immigrants would make the state more secure or improperly extend a privilege to them that should be reserved for those here legally.
Opposition to the proposal sent his poll numbers plunging and completely stalled his broader agenda.
Just in time for Thursday's Democratic debate in Vegas. Now Hillary will be off the hook.
As the World Turns II.
Murder suspect Amanda Knox is in hot water:
A closed-circuit security camera captured images of Seattle native Amanda Knox entering her house on the night her roommate was slain, some Italian media outlets reported Monday.
The video contradicts one of the stories Knox, 20, has told police since she was arrested along with two men in connection with the slaying of her British roommate Meredith Kercher, 21.
Is Rudy
cooked?
This is all over the cable news:
Judith Regan, the book publisher who was fired by the News Corporation last year, asserts in a lawsuit filed today that a senior executive at the media conglomerate encouraged her to mislead federal investigators about her relationship with Bernard B. Kerik during his bid to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.
The lawsuit asserts that the News Corporation executive wanted to protect the presidential aspirations of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor, who had appointed him New York City police commissioner and had recommended him for the federal post.
Oh, Jesus,
not again:
Sen. Clinton talked about you - following this incident - in some of her speeches about women earning minimum wage and you seemed upset about it.
To all the politicians, if you talk to somebody and maybe their life interests you, don't just go down the road then and use them as part of your speech to get votes. I was never even asked that day if I'm a Democrat or a Republican or whatever. I was never asked whom I was behind. And then to go down and be called up that night [in a speech by Clinton], was I angry about it? Yes I was. Don't get me wrong they called me a few days later to ask if they could use me in the speech. And they sent me a release form, but they were already using me. So what the hell, I signed it.
Oh, oh:
Does this change the way you are approaching the presidential election?
I've been an independent all my life. My mom was a Democrat and my father a Republican. I just sat back and watched them argue and stayed in the middle. But I'm not going to vote for Hillary. That is a definite. No one could pay me enough money. My opinion of her has changed drastically. The more I read and find out about her it changes more and more to the negative. I don't believe she can help out the working women of this world because I don't believe she gets it.
If By Some Chance
a Democrat gets elected president next year, be prepared for a similar onslaught of crap from the GOP that Bill Clinton went through.
Don't think these sons of bitches are going to give up power that easily.
As the World Turns.
After piles of criticism, Wal-Mart is revamping its health insurance program so that more employees are covered.
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For blacks, the "American Dream" is even less a reality than for everybody else, and for everybody else it is almost nonexistent.
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Obituaries.
Director Delbert Mann, 87, has died. He is best known for directing the Oscar-winning film Marty.
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I remember Cutlass Reality from his appearance in the 1988 Breeders' Cup Classic. He died in early October, having been euthanized as a result of laminitis and old age. He was 25.
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Campaign Notes.
While we have been told that supposedly "everybody" plants questions in town hall formats, this person says she wasn't the only one who was given questions in advance for Hillary Clinton to answer.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Georgia's Governor
makes an ass out of himself and attempts to turn his state into a national laughingstock.
Despite That Benign, Charismatic,
whatever exterior, there's a dark side of Mike Huckabee only Arkansans are aware of, at least for now.
Not even the right-wing Arkansas Democrat-Gazette likes him.
It sounds like he might be a tad on the take:
More important, Huckabee revealed an enduring weakness as glaring as that other Arkansas governor's fondness for women. Huckabee seems to love loot and has a dismissive attitude toward ethics, campaign finance rules and propriety in general. Since that first, failed campaign, the ethical questions have multiplied.
In the 1992 contest with Bumpers, Huckabee used campaign funds to pay himself as his own media consultant. Other payments went to the family babysitter.
In his successful 1994 run for lieutenant governor, he set up a nonprofit curtain known as Action America so he could give speeches for money without having to disclose the names of his benefactors. He failed to report that campaign travel payments were for the use of his own personal plane.
After he became governor in 1996, he raked in tens of thousands of dollars in gifts, including gifts from people he later appointed to prestigious state commissions.
In the governor's office, his grasp never exceeded his reach. Furniture he'd received to doll up his office was carted out with him when he left, after he'd crushed computer hard drives so nobody could ever get a peek behind the curtain of the Huckabee administration.
Huckabee fits in perfectly with the GOP mindset.
Assemblywoman Debbie Smith
of Sparks joins David Bobzien and Bernie Anderson (my state representative) in endorsing John Edwards for president.
There are only four Democratic assembly members representing northern Nevada, and Edwards has three of the endorsements.
Speaking of Edwards, more bullshit from the NYT.
Can the media be more fucking obvious?
One of the Very Last
World War I veterans recalls what it was like.
Frank W. Buckles, 106, is one of just three surviving American World War I veterans.