Mark In Mexico is liveblogging the "recount" in Mexico. He explains it is not really a recount but a check on tallies. The last update puts the Socialist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador a tiny amount ahead.
Blogosphere, World news | Gaius July 5, 2006 | 
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Cindy Sheehan has well and truly jumped the shark if Norah O'Donnell, sitting in for Chris Matthews on Hardball can't stand her.
Sheehan: "Yes. Hugo Chavez is not a dictator like you introduced him. He's been democratically elected eight times. He is not anti-American, he has helped the poor people of America. He has sent aid to New Orleans, he has sold heating oil to disadvantaged people in America at low cost, and the people of his country love him."
The exchange over Chavez capped a rugged line of questioning to which O'Donnell subjected Sheehan. Other excerpts:
O'Donnell: "Americans may hate the war but they don't necessarily hate the president. How do you expect to get change by going around the world and trashing the President of the United States?"
Sheehan: "I don't hate the president either, and I don't trash the president. I trash the president's foreign policy."
O'Donnell: "But you called him the biggest terrorist in the world, so you are trashing the president."
Sheehan: "Well he says a terrorist is somebody that kills innocent men, women and children."
O'Donnell: "You have just begun a two-month hunger strike. Isn't this really just more of a publicity stunt?"
Norah later observed: "You claim not to be in the fringes, not to be an extremist." She then challenged Sheehan to name members of Congress who support her call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
Sheehan claimed bi-partisan support, citing Republican congressmen Ron Paul and Walter Jones, and on the Dem side Charley Rangel and John Conyers.
Newsbusters' Mark Finkelstein asks if this is a hint to Democrats to disassociate themselves from Sheehan. I think it would be a good idea to carry a chicken leg to every appearance Sheehan makes and just wave it at her. She'll crack.
UPDATE: Here's the actual transcript from Hardball. One suggestion from the comments is to have a beer swilling bear wave a barbecue chicken and jalapeño pizza at Cindy. This has serious potential!
Blogosphere, Media, War | Gaius | Comments (5)
The headline from Editor and Publisher reads: "Stars and Stripes Lands An Exclusive, And Revealing, Bush Interview". The problem is, that what is mostly revealed is how slanted and partisan E&P is.
E&P: NEW YORK When Stars and Stripes nabbed an exclusive interview with President Bush on July 4 — aboard Air Force One — it devoted most of the questions to ones submitted by service members.
One, put to the commander-in-chief by the newspaper's Jeff Schogol: Has he attended even one funeral for a fallen soldier from Iraq? No, he replied. “Because which funeral do you go to? In my judgment, I think if I go to one I should go to all. How do you honor one person but not another?” he said.
The problem here is the actual quote from Stars and Stripes reads:
S&S: “Because which funeral do you go to? In my judgment, I think if I go to one I should go to all. How do you honor one person but not another?” he said.
The appropriate way to express his appreciation to the family members of fallen troops is to meet with them in private, he said.
Then the next whopper.
E&P: Another soldier asked if Army rotations in Iraq could be shortened from one year to six months. Bush: Not likely. A question about special benefits for troops who had served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan brought pretty much the same response, with Bush explaining that he had already boosted normal benefits.
The whole quote:
S&S:
Another soldier asked if Army rotations in Iraq could be shortened from one year to six months.
“In asking that question through the chain of command, the response I get is that it’s important to manage the Army flows in such a way that we can sustain our efforts, and they believe — they being the planners in the Army itself — the best way to do it is for a year. And therefore … my answer to the troop is that really depends on what the leadership recommends.”
Last month, the Army secretary, Francis Harvey, said the Army is working toward shortening the combat tours to perhaps six or nine months, but nothing had been settled.
Bush was asked if he was planning any special benefits for U.S. troops who had served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he had already worked to increase military benefits but he had nothing specific in mind for troops who had deployed many times.
“I will work with Congress if people bring up good ideas,” he said.
This is called misstating the facts in extremely polite circles. Most average people call it lying. If you're forming your opinions on what is going on in the world based on this kind of reporting, how smart are you really?
Today, my mission to visit one member of the fighting 101st each day took me over to PA Pundits. Despite the name it's not about Pennsylvania. It's a group blog with four contributers. EL Frederick has a post up that exactly mirrors what I have maintained here – our nation presenting a picture of disarray emboldens pipsqueaks like the North Korean president and the Iranian whack job leader. Stop by and give PA Pundits a look.
Watching events unfold in Connecticut these days is quite fascinating. In a move that frankly surprises me, several serving Senators have announced that they will be going to campaign for Joe Lieberman. Senators Joe Biden (Delaware), Barbara Boxer (California) and Ken Salazar (Colorado) are risking the instant screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth from the far left and will actively support Lieberman. After the much-publicized curb kick by Hillary Clinton, this is actually pretty courageous on their part. There are climbing right into the crucible with Joe.
"It will be a reminder to voters of the work he's done on progressive issues," Lieberman spokeswoman Marion Steinfels said Wednesday. "Some of his colleagues wanted to come here and campaign for him on issues that matter to him and them."
The rush of support from his Senate colleagues comes two days after Lieberman, the party's 2000 vice presidential nominee, surprised Democrats by announcing that he would start collecting signatures for an independent campaign if he loses the primary.
Lieberman's staunch support for the Iraq war has helped fuel a challenge from Ned Lamont, a wealthy Greenwich, Conn., businessman and political newcomer.
Lamont backers scoffed at the notion that senators campaigning in Connecticut for Lieberman would have an impact.
"I'm not sure, in a year where people are fed up with Washington, having a bunch of Washington politicians travel the state for Joe Lieberman will help at all," said Lamont campaign manager Tom Swan. "It would only reinforce the idea that Joe is more about Washington than Connecticut."
The amount of scorn heaped by the Lamont campaign shows how badly this actually shakes them, I think. There are already howls of outrage coming from the usual suspects. It is also a sure sign of how worried the Democratic party is at the prospect of being driven to the left and into political irrelevancy. Because despite what the netroots think, a far left position is simply not tenable for a national party.
There has been a wave of criticism for the North Korean missile barrage. Japan and South Korea have already imposed some economic sanctions and the UN Security Council met this morning in emergency session. President Bush is urging the North Koreans to abandon their missile program.
The North Koreans "have isolated themselves further" by the missile tests they undertook early today, Mr. Bush said, vowing to work with allies of the United States to pressure North Korea to "verifiably abandon its weapons programs."
As he has before, Mr. Bush said the Pyongyang dictatorship can only help itself by doing so. "The North Korean government can join the community of nations and improve its lot," Mr. Bush said. "It's their choice to make."
The president spoke as the United Nations Security Council met in emergency session to consider a resolution condemning North Korea for test-firing seven missiles early today, including an intercontinental missile that failed 42 seconds after it was launched.
Mr. Bush's remarks, delivered as he met in the Oval Office with President Mikhail Saakasvili of Georgia, seemed calibrated to point out a failure in the North Korean experiment while reiterating the United States' concern over the launches.
Noting that a North Korean intercontinental missile "tumbled into the sea" after a short flight, he quickly said that fact "doesn't, frankly, diminish my desire to solve this problem."
When he was asked what diplomatic steps could be taken to further isolated a country that is already one of the most insular in the world, Mr. Bush replied somewhat indirectly, saying that he was "deeply concerned" about the plight of ordinary North Koreans, who have been suffering from shortages of basic necessities for years, even as its leadership spends heavily to maintain a sizable army.
Mr. Bush said the "international community" must continue to pressure Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator, to renounce his missile ambitions. "There is a better way forward for his people," Mr. Bush said.
The depraved regime in North Korea is apparently more than willing to starve it's own people to fund massive wastes of money like their missile program.
World news | Gaius | Comments Off
The second half of T.F. Boggs interview with General Ali, the commander of the Iraqi forces in Qayyarah. This is the kind of report you do not see in the mainstream media. One quote:
The US people only see the bad they don’t see Qayyarah, only the dangerous areas. They did not see how the US soldiers shop in our market and meet the people and help the kids. They don’t see how the soldiers give gifts to the kids. The media do not show this, or how they do projects for schools, water, and roads. They only show the units that fight the bad guys and do not show the other units. This is a big problem. We fight the terrorists, and the terrorists are not just against the Iraqis but also against the whole world, all humans.
H/T to The Real Ugly American.
Blogosphere, War | Gaius | Comments (1)
Gee, no law was broken, but we'll keep fishing just in case. No, it's not the New York Times this time. It is the Palm Beach County (Florida) state attorney's office and it's handling of the Rush Limbaugh Viagra prescription issue.
Limbaugh, 55, was detained for more than three hours at Palm Beach International Airport on June 26 after he returned on his private plane from a vacation in the Dominican Republic.
The state attorney's office said Dr. Steve Strumwasser's name was on the Viagra bottle, not Limbaugh's. Strumwasser, who is Limbaugh's psychiatrist, told authorities he "agreed to have his name on the label in an effort to avoid potentially embarrassing publicity for the suspect," according to a filing by the prosecutor's office.
"Thus, the medication contained in the subject pill bottle was legitimately prescribed to the suspect by his physician," the filing said.
It is generally not illegal under Florida law for a physician to prescribe medication in a third party's name if all parties are aware and the doctor documents it correctly, said Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for the state attorney in Palm Beach County.
However, since the doctor wrote the prescription in Miami-Dade County, the case has been forwarded to prosecutors there for review.
…..
The Palm Beach County state attorney's office also said it forwarded the matter to the state Department of Professional Regulation and the Department of Health to determine if the doctor breached ethics.
If I lived in Palm Beach County, I'd be livid at this obvious waste of taxpayer money in what increasingly looks like an organized vendetta.
UPDATE: Others: Sister Toldjah and Outside The Beltway.
Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe takes a look at the oft-repeated claims that President Bush is acting like a dictator, or is actually trying to become one. His conclusion? Not even close.
So when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld last week, Bush's reaction was easy to foretell: He would show the ruling all the respect of a monster truck rolling over a VW Beetle. No doubt he would emulate one of his predecessors, Andrew Jackson — another polarizing president whose enemies labeled him a dictator. It would be Worcester v. Georgia all over again.
Worcester was an 1832 case in which the Supreme Court held that the state of Georgia could not impose its laws on the Cherokee nation living within its borders. Its attempt to do so, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote for the majority, was “repugnant to the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States." Jackson saw the decision as a challenge to his policy of Indian removal and sided with Georgia, which refused to obey the court's ruling. What the case is best remembered for today is Jackson's withering observation that the court's ruling had no teeth.
“John Marshall has made his decision," Jackson supposedly said. “Now let him enforce it."
Fast-forward 174 years. President Bush learns the court's ruling in Hamdan has gone against him. A five-justice majority held the military commissions created by the administration to try the Guantanamo detainees are invalid, since they were never authorized by congressional statute. The justices seem to have repudiated Bush's claim that the Constitution invests the president with sweeping unilateral authority in wartime. “The court's conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground," Justice Stephen Breyer pointedly notes in a concurrence. “Congress has not issued the Executive a `blank check.' "
Whereupon Bush says — what? “The justices have made their decision; now let them enforce it?" Something even more acidic? Perhaps he repeats a statement he has made previously — “I'm the decider, and I decide what is best"?
Not quite. He says he takes the court's decision “seriously." A few moments later he says it again. And then comes this: “We've got people looking at it right now to determine how we can work with Congress, if that's available, to solve the problem." There is no disdain. No bravado. No criticism. Just an acknowledgment that the Supreme Court has spoken and the executive branch will comply.
Some dictator.
Jacoby is spot on here. Not that that will make any difference to the left. For their world view will not tolerate any questioning of their core belief structure.
Which should be the new motto for the New York Times. Cassandra at Villainous Company has the very latest from the Times. The program either was or was not secret and people did or did not know about it. And, by the way, we may or may not have actually written a story. Or something like that.
In other words, though Bill Keller previously justified his publication of a classified program by saying the administration had been overly secretive and he wanted to ensure there was Congressional oversight (though for unstated reasons he couldn't turn over the leaked information to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence AS THE LAW REQUIRES and let them do their job), the fact that there was, in fact, oversight over the program justified publishing its existence to as many people as possible!
Of course, the fact that the Times hasn't come out with this counterargument until now strongly suggests they didn't know any of this at the time, doesn't it? Of course it does. But wait! Mr. Calame has more to say:
Read it all, it defies belief how badly the Times is trying to cover itself on this one.
Getting nervous, Keller?
Blogosphere, Media | Gaius | Comments Off
Foolish humans keep helping out the animal uprising. When will they realize the danger we are all in. A town in Northern Canada is expanding it's polar bear prison system so they can house even more wayward bears. The current cell block can house up to 23 bears. They will be adding an additional five cinder block cells.
The facility, built in 1980 in the world's polar bear capital, will also be cooled now over the summer to make the furry inmates' incarceration "a bit more bearable," said Shaun Bobier of the Manitoba Conservation Department.
Polar bears that wander into town in summer or autumn are now captured if they cannot be easily scared off. They are held in one of 23 cells divided by cinder block walls until ice forms on nearby Hudson's Bay and then released, Bobier said.
However, if the facility becomes overcrowded, some bears are relocated far away by helicopter.
With five new cells to be added soon, conservation officers will be able to hold more bears for longer periods, and then drive them out onto the ice floes when winter comes, Bobier said.
Last year, 58 bears were housed in the triple Quonset jail. In 2004, 170 bears were kept behind bars, fed only water and ice to ensure "they don't start coming to here for the food," Bobier said.
So now they'll have air-conditioning too! The pestilential prisoners of the polar penitentiary now get to hang out all summer in a nice cool place, lifting weights and learning more criminal skills daily. When will people see the way they are enabling these criminals!
Animals | Gaius | Comments (2)
Before you can have an ice cream cone, you have to sign a waiver. Because the ice cream, while icy cold, is also too hot to handle.
Because it's flavored with three kinds of hot peppers and two varieties of hot sauce.
Cold Sweat, a flavor sold at ice cream shop Sunni Sky's, is made with three kinds of pepper and two kinds of hot sauce.
"It tastes like fire — with a side of fire," said Scott McCallum, a regular customer, who was eating the more sedate butter pecan flavor.
"I thought it was a cool idea, but I didn't think he'd make it that hot," McCallum said of proprietor Scott Wilson.
Wilson started out experimenting with jalapenos in vanilla ice cream to appeal to Hispanic customers — which was unsuccessful — and worked his way up to Cold Sweat.
The waiver for the fiery mixture has dozens of signatures. Pregnant women and people with health problems are not supposed to eat it. Anyone younger than 18 needs the consent of a guardian.
We certainly wish Mr. Wilson all the success in the world. We just can't see Cold Sweat ice cream outselling rattlesnake. Or grilled sardine.
Weird Stuff | Gaius | Comments Off
The bear legion of the animal uprising have had enough of oatmeal and granola. Now they are coming for your pizza. Even worse, they want your booze!
STATELINE, Nev. – A bear cub drew a crowd of spectators at a Lake Tahoe neighborhood as it munched on barbecue-chicken-and-jalapeno pizza in the back seat of a vintage red Buick convertible.
It also apparently washed it down with a swig of a Jack Daniel's mixer, an Absolut vodka and tonic, and a beer taken from a cooler, the vehicle's owner said.
About 30 people watched the cub lumber around a parking lot in upper Kingbury Grade on Sunday before it homed in on the Buick and the spicy pizza on the floor.
The bruin was unfazed by the car's horn the blew nonstop as the cub pressed the seat into the steering wheel.
"The bear was loping along in the parking lot and then decides to get inside the car," said resident Jerry Patterson.
"People were screaming at him, the horn was going off, but he was completely unaware. He did what he wanted to do and the people didn't matter."
The bear remained inside the 1964 Buick Skylark for about 20 minutes and at times put his paws on the dash as if he were holding on for a ride, Patterson said.
The owner of the car, David Ziello of South Lake Tahoe, said the bruin didn't cause any damage, but slopped cheese and jalapenos on the seats and floor.
So now we add baleful boozing bruins to the ghastly grizzlies of granola. Nobody is safe, we tell you. Nobody! Just think, hordes of drunken bears descending on pizzerias all across the globe. This could get messy.
Animals | Gaius | Comments (3)
And your skull fell off? Well, part of it, anyway. An Indian man had a fairly good sized chunk of his own skull fall off as a result of severe electrical burns.
Doctors say a large, dead section of 25-year-old electrician Sambhu Roy's skull came away Sunday after severe burns starved it of blood.
"When he came to us late last year, his scalp was completely burned and within months it came off exposing the skull," Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay, the surgeon who treated Roy told Reuters Wednesday.
"Later, we noticed that the part of his skull was loosening due to lack of blood supply to the affected area, which can happen in such extensive burn cases."
The piece came off Sunday and hundreds of people and dozens of doctors now crowd around his bed, where he lies holding the bone.
Bandyopadhyay said the skull's inner covering and the membrane which helps produce bone was miraculously unaffected, allowing fresh bone to grow.
"When the skull came off, I thought he will die, but we noticed a new covering on his head forming and that might have pushed the 'dead skull' out," he said.
Mr. Roy intends to keep the piece of skull that has made him famous.
Weird Stuff, World news | Gaius | Comments Off
Hillary Clinton, in a rather obvious gesture to the netroots, has prematurely declared where she stands regarding Joe Lieberman. If he doesn't win the primary, she won't be his friend anymore.
I've known Joe Lieberman for more than 30 years. I have been pleased to support him in his campaign for reelection, and hope that he is our party's nominee," the former first lady said in a statement issued by aides.
"But I want to be clear that I will support the nominee chosen by Connecticut Democrats in their primary," Clinton added. "I believe in the Democratic Party, and I believe we must honor the decisions made by Democratic primary voters."
Other party leaders are simply saying they back Lieberman in the primary and are staying silent about what they would do if Lieberman loses. Party politics makes for lousy friendships - these days especially.
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