February 2012
114 posts
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“Speakers at Sunday’s opening session, including Palestinian President Mahmoud...”
– Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now
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SPCA's Dumbledore Offers to Moderate Debate
Robin and Dumbledore Starr
That would be the debate between Hank the Cat and Cisco, the cat who resides with one of Hank’s competitors, former Virginia governor and senator George Allen.
Dumbledore Starr, chief of feline operations at the SPCA, suggests the following potential debate topics:
The constitutionality of a requirement of an ultrasound before spay/neuter surgery
Whether a...
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Cops Shooting Dogs
Above: The ironically named “Killer,” killed by a cop.
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You may recall the case of Berwyn Heights mayor Cheye Calvo, whose two black labs were shot when police raided Calvo’s house on suspicion of drug-running (turns out Calvo was the innocent victim of a scheme).
And you might have seen this awful video of another incident, from Mississippi.
You might have heard about...
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Late Entrant Throws Va. Senate Race Wide Open
An independent candidate, Hank the Cat, has tossed his hat into the ring in the race to succeed Democratic Virginia Sen. Jim Webb.
The political neophyte, a 9-year-old Norwegian Forest by the look of him, is running as a write-in candidate.
Judging by the level of press attention he already has received, Hank may have the potential to turn this already tight race into a real nail-biter.
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Virginia Republicans Take a Page From Pelosi's...
Today’s column:
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” Pelosi said about Obamacare in 2010. GOP lawmakers evidently did not know, until it was pointed out to them by noted medical experts such as comedian Jon Stewart, what was in the ultrasound bill they were poised to pass last week: that it would force many abortion-seeking women to submit...
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“It feels like old-school punishment of women for sexual impropriety, and I think...”
– Tracy Weitz, a sociologist and expert on abortion care at the University of California, San Francisco, on the (now moribund) transvaginal ultrasound bill in Virginia.
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Kaine Cozies up to Obama -- Thanks to Virginia GOP →
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Judge: There's No First Amendment Right to Poke... →
Saith he:
It’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers intended. I think our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures – which is what you did. …You are way outside your bounds of First Amendment rights.
In my book, any...
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A Stool Sample? Really?
If you want to start a business in Greece, apparently so:
Antonopoulos and his partners spent hours collecting papers from tax offices, the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the municipal service where the company is based, the health inspector’s office, the fire department and banks. At the health department, they were told that all the shareholders of the company would have to...
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Dear Bill O'Reilly...
The Fox host recently criticized U.S. oil companies for exporting their products, thereby putting upward pressure on gas prices here at home. George Mason University economics professor Donald Boudreaux sends O’Reilly the following:
You’re paid so handsomely because there’s a large nation-wide demand for your commentary and bombast. In your career you’ve worked for...
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"Stick That in Your Turban!"
Just guessing here — it’s a well-educated guess — but I rather doubt NY Times columnist Charles Blow would tweet the above about a dastar-wearing Sikh. Nor would he mock a Jewish politician’s yarmulke, or … well, you get the point.
Yet the combative Blow evidently felt no qualm about mocking Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith when he tweeted,
Let me just tell you...
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"As we read the First Amendment to the...
That was Rep. Barney Frank, in a letter to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Frank was right. But the message has yet to sink in on some college campuses — e.g., the University of Cincinnatti, which is now being sued over its ‘free-speech zone’ and its attendant regulations:
UC requires all “demonstrations, pickets, and rallies” to be held in a “Free...
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Is the Occupy Movement to Blame for the Biological...
According to the news stories,
The letters to the news organizations … demanded an end to corporate money and lobbying in U.S. politics, an end to corporate personhood, and called for a new constitutional convention, the source said.
And as we were all instructed last January by The New York Times and approximately 32,475 others, the Tea Party was responsible for the Gabrielle...
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On the Offchance That Your Morning Has Not Yet... →
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WatchGingrich wrong again: You CAN put a gun rack in the back of a Volt!
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Governor Comes Out Against Ultrasound Bill
Bob McDonnell:
Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state. No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure….
I have recommended to the General Assembly a series of amendments to this bill. I am requesting that the General Assembly...
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“Myth 1: The rich and corporate interests rule government through campaign...”
– Robert Samuelson on “The Super-PAC Confusion.”
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Difference Between France and the U.S., Part XXVII
Via NPR:
One of Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers has said that the former French presidential hopeful never knew that the women at orgies he attended were prostitutes.
Because while it’s all very well to attend orgies, one doesn’t want the women there to be paid. THAT would be inappropriate, monsieur.
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There Are at Least 174 Terms for Dust Bunnies →
What do you call those soft rolls of dust that collect on the floor under your bed? Many people know them as dust bunnies. But in parts of the Northeast, you’d call them dust kitties; in the South, house moss; in Pennsylvania, you might call them woolies.
There are, in fact, at least 174 names by which Americans call these bits of fluff, including bunny tails, frog hair, cussywop,...
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“When I read [newspapers] I form perhaps a new opinion of the newspaper, but...”
– George Santayana.
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Underwear Bomber Proves Obama Was Right
Today’s column:
Something remarkable didn’t happen last week: Nobody blew up Detroit.
This is a stunning development. It is stunning because Detroit is the city where, on Thursday, a federal judge sentenced Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to life behind bars.
Abdulmutallab is the infamous Underwear Bomber — the man who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day in...
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Latest Virginia Results: Romney 53, Paul 23 →
(None of the other GOP candidates met the ballot-access requirements.)
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WatchVirginia’s ultrasound bill made it to the big time — “Saturday Night Live.” (Which got the name of the House of Delegates wrong (really!), but hey, nobody’s perfect.)
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“Three fundamental components of libertarianism (live and let live, smaller...”
– Pleistocene Hunter Gatherers (via azspot)
The trouble with this quote is the same trouble you encounter with “liberals believe X” or “conservatives believe X.” It fails the ideological Turing Test.
You don’t have to think the individual is always rational and smarter...
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"Reports of My Megadeth Endorsement Have Been... →
Contrary to how some people have interpreted my words, I have not endorsed any presidential candidate. What I did say was that I hope to see a Republican in the White House. I’ve seen good qualities in all the candidates but by no means have made my choice yet. I respect the fact that Santorum took time off from his campaign to be with his sick daughter, but I never used the word ...
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Blocking Access to Food?
Regarding today’s column, a reader writes:
You make some strong arguments in your column, but I’m wondering on what basis you state: Doing so would not “deny” or “block” access to contraception, which would remain readily available and easily affordable even for women who work at Catholic institutions. Birth control pills, without insurance, can run $40 -...
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Oh Dear Lord
Virgil Goode has filed papers to run. For President.
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Culture Warriors Resort to Propaganda →
Today’s column:
“We are in a war,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius told NARAL Pro-Choice America last October. Since the first casualty in war is the truth, it is no surprise to see a great deal of deceit and dissembling — on both sides — in the culture clash over abortion and contraception. …
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Campaign Finance: Game, Set, and Match →
The question is not, as many both right and left seem to think, whether the president is being hypocritical. That’s a minor issue …
Rather, the issue is that the reaction to president’s move undercuts the entire argument for campaign-finance regulation. It shows how nobody on the left really believes what they always say about campaign contributions and spending. No one (well, almost...
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Va. Republicans Vote to Strip Abortion Funding... →
(Interesting tidbit: The measure is sponsored by a Delegate who once sought to protect Virginians from the mark of the Beast, and who this year wanted to constrict the ability to help others cast absentee ballots.)
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Conservatives Take Romney's Lack of Interest in... →
From the television studios of Fox News to the pages of The Weekly Standard, the refrain of the conservative opinion machine is virtually the same: Mitt Romney doesn’t talk to us, doesn’t get us….
Mr. Romney’s distant, complicated relationship with many of the conservative media’s leading voices has heightened concerns that his convictions are not as genuine and deep-seated as their...
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So, How's that Compromise Working Out?
Not too good! —
President Obama’s net approval rating among Catholic voters is down to minus-19 percent in the latest Rasmussen polling. Among Catholics, Obama’s approval rating is now 40 percent, while his disapproval rating is 59 percent.
Exit polling from the 2008 election showed that Catholics supported Obama by a margin of 9 percentage points (54 to 45 percent). So Catholics’...