A sample:
Student 1: “Okay, so we need someone to do a biographical sketch.”
Student 2: (points to another student) “You look like you can draw.”
A sample:
Student 1: “Okay, so we need someone to do a biographical sketch.”
Student 2: (points to another student) “You look like you can draw.”
This weekend Democratic presidential contender John Edwards appeared on This Week in a one-on-one interview with George Stephanopoulos. All in all, Edwards did a good job, even when Stephanopoulos made bone-headed comments like the following:
A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.
By party affiliation:
Democrats (63%) are most likely to believe a U.S. military strike against Iran could take place in the relatively near future, but independents (51%) and Republicans (44%) are less likely to agree. Republicans, however, are much more likely to be supportive of a strike (71%), than Democrats (41%) or independents (44%).
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Here we go again.”
~ Egreggious
From the Baltimore Sun:
A Baltimore federal jury awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday to the father of a Marine killed in Iraq, deciding that the family’s privacy had been invaded by a Kansas church whose members waved anti-gay signs at the funeral.
It was the first-ever verdict against Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian group based in Topeka that has protested military funerals across the country with placards bearing shock-value messages such as “Thank God for dead soldiers.”
Here’s some evidence of the slippery slope as we sacrifice our former rights in the name of the GWOT:
In the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, 36 states enacted laws that would guarantee harsher sentences in terrorism cases. Gov. George E. Pataki signed New York’s law within six days of the attack. Like the others, it was aimed at international terrorism organizations like Al Qaeda.
But yesterday, in State Supreme Court in the Bronx, jurors for the first time found a defendant guilty under New York’s statute, and he did not fit the stereotype of a terrorist. The defendant, Edgar Morales, is a 25-year-old recreational soccer player and gang member who fatally shot a 10-year-old girl and wounded a second man outside a christening party in 2002.
We have been assured that such things as warrantless wiretapping, torture, and suspension of habeas corpus will not be used except in going after terrorists. But wasn’t that the reason this New York law was created as well, only to go after terrorists? How long until these other activities are used against non-terrorists? Is it happening already?
~ Egreggious
Haven’t heard much from Ann Coulter lately (and it is Halloween, after all):
Responding to Alan Colmes’ questioning about her comment that Christians “just want Jews to be perfected,” Ann Coulter said that she “wear[s]” criticism from Jewish groups over the remark “as a badge of honor,” adding, “The point is: This is the same old fight we see all the time with the irreligious trying to stir up trouble with the religious.” Responding to Colmes’ assertion that Coulter “doesn’t want to own up to” her statement, Coulter said: “I gave a beautiful description of the Old Testament and the New Testament, but it’s very frightening to secularists.”
~ Egreggious
Yes, here’s another one.
This time it’s Washington’s GOP State Representative Richard Curtis.
So how do you tell if someone is gay?
~ Egreggious
From Play This Thing!
The contest between Kennedy and Nixon for the presidency in 1960 was a watershed moment in American history….
This election has been transformed into a board game by Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard. 1960: The Making of the President is a game whose simple and straightforward mechanisms manage to recreate this struggle for the presidency in all of its gritty glory. It presents an battle between asymmetrical forces that is nonetheless so balanced that the result is often in question right up to the final election.
And that other insane guy is beating the same drum:
Before his press conference today, President Bush met exclusively with a group of GOP congressional leaders. According to Fox News, which spoke with some of the members at that discussion, Bush unequivocally promised that he would attack Iran if Iran “were ever to attack Israel.” Bush told the lawmakers, “I know I would respond. … In order for diplomacy to be effective, all options have to be on the table.”
And, of course, the two insane men talk to each other.
How about some words from a sane fellow*?
“I adamantly reject any move towards a war with Iran. There is no justification for it whatsoever.” – Dennis Kucinich (Tonight’s Democratic Debate, thanks to TMM)
*sane fellow with UFO problem. 🙂
~ Egreggious
From the Huffington Post.
Check out my fellow-Portlander Jeff Frane’s blog, Rants of the Hedgehog. He’s a great photographer, and not a bad book reviewer either!
~ Egreggious
Again, not much time today, so I’ll just throw a few things out there.
~ Egreggious
Rev. Donnie McClurkin, who headlined the final installment of the Obama campaign’s “Embrace the Change” Gospel concert series, did not comment on the controversy until the just before the concert’s finish, when he told the crowd of about 2,500 African-Americans: “I’m going to say something that’s going to get me in trouble.”
“They accuse me of being anti-gay and a bigot,” McClurkin said. “We don’t believe in discrimination. We don’t believe in hatred, and if you do you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s the whole premise of God. That’s the whole premise of Christ is love, love, love. But there is a side of Christ that deals in judgment, and all sin is against God.”
McClurkin has said that homosexuality is a choice and that he overcame homosexual desires through prayer, comments that drew fire from gay and lesbian activists and caught the Obama campaign, which has been using faith to reach out to African-American voters, off guard.
…
“Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay, when I have been touched by the same feelings,” McClurkin went on. “When I have suffered with the same feelings. Don’t call me a homophobe, when I love everybody … Don’t tell me that I stand up and I say vile words against the gay community because I don’t. I don’t speak against the homosexual. I tell you that God delivered me from homosexuality.”
…
Meanwhile, Obama staff were inside and outside the building, working the crowd and trying to register new voters.
…
A September poll conducted by Winthrop University and ETV showed that 74 percent of South Carolina African-Americans believe homosexuality is “unacceptable.”
“When I have suffered with the same feelings,” McClurkin says. Suffered? Get a grip, buddy. If you suffered, you weren’t doing it right.
~ Egreggious
Oh yeah, I guess I might vote for him …
Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Judiciary Committee, and John McCain of Arizona, a Republican White House contender, voiced concerns about Mukasey but neither said whether they may vote against him.
“I am convinced as an individual senator, as a military lawyer for 25 years, that waterboarding … does violate the Geneva Convention, does violate our war crimes statute, and is clearly illegal,” Graham told “Face the Nation.”
“I think it would serve the attorney general nominee well to embrace that concept,” Graham said.
Asked if he would oppose Mukasey if the nominee refused to do so, Graham said, “If he does not believe that water boarding is illegal, then that would really put doubts in my own mind.”
McCain, appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” said, “Anyone who says they don’t know if waterboarding is torture or not has no experience in the conduct of warfare and national security.”
Asked if he would oppose Mukasey unless he declared waterboarding to be illegal, McCain said: “I can’t be that absolute, but I want to know his answer.”
Of course, it probably just depends on who’s doing it.
~ Egreggious