Sea kayaking tends to induce fatigue, especially when you know longer really recall correct kayaking method.
Planet Gore gets the little things wrong, too
Discussing the recent Senate hearing on cap & trade, Marlo Lewis cites Myron Ebell’s commentary to say:
Uhh, hello? The saying is “There is no honor among thieves.” Duh!!! This renders the second sentence above incoherent.
I realize this is a small error compared to PG’s typical howlers but then again, they say “God is in the details.” PG is trying to turn a dog-bites-man story into some cynical point about the witnesses — and PG has to savage an old saying to do it. That’s disinfotainment. I’m making this PGDW #36 and #37 for those first two sentences, and #38 on principle for quoting Myron Ebell.
Partly Pregnant
Like Brian Beutler, I’ve long been fascinated by the war the Iraq War appears to have spawned a whole new category of organized violence — whatever it is that’s happening in Iraq that somehow isn’t a “full-scale” civil war. Call it the half-scale civil war. It sounds like BS to me.
No, Iraq’s civil war doesn’t look like the American Civil War, but if that’s what we mean by “full-scale civil war” then it’s almost certainly not the case that “the surge is keeping Iraq from descending into” one. That the groups who deny the legitimacy of the de jure government and the US occupation authority and deploy violence or the threat of violence in service of their political goals don’t necessarily wear uniforms and fight in formation is rather typical of these kind of situations and not something the surge is preventing. Looked at a different way, Iraq’s civil war is notable for the fact that the contending parties’ don’t have much in the way of heavy military equipment. That’s all to the good, and we have good reasons for continuing to support efforts to keep things that way post-withdrawal, but efforts in that regard don’t require the presence of over 150,000 American soldiers on the ground.
Public domain photo of the Gettysburg dead by Alexander Gardner
Moore’s ‘SiCKO’ passes fact-check test.
CNN investigated the health care statistics Michael Moore cites in his new movie and finds them to be “mostly right.” “As we dug deep to uncover the numbers, we found surprisingly few inaccuracies in the film. In fact, most pundits or health-care experts we spoke to spent more time on errors of omission rather than disputing the actual claims in the film.” Click here to find a showing near you.
UPDATE: In an email to supporters, Michael Moore writes, “The studio tells me that we are on track to have the second largest opening weekend for a documentary in the history of the movies! (‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ was first.) Many theaters have been selling out. The Bush administration’s investigation of this movie is certainly not keeping people away.”
Bush anchored at sea.
The AP writes: “President Bush’s presidency is stuck in low gear. On Sunday, his fishing boat was stuck on stop.”
The Secret Service bailed Bush out of a jam when his boat anchor got wedged in rocks along the Atlantic Coast.
Relaxing before his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the president went fishing with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and daughter, Barbara.
They dropped the anchor to fish less than 100 feet from shore at Biddleford, Maine, but when they decided to leave, they couldn’t, according to an Associated Press photographer who took pictures of the incident.
Life in Hell
I’m in the eighth circle of libertarian hell along with Reihan Salam. I had thought this was the place where I wander into the drugstore and just assume that CVS wouldn’t sell me any aspirin that’s actually poison because it would be bad for the brand’s reputation. In fact:
Eighth Circle—The Fraudulent: The Malebolgeof public intellectuals—those who have a sphere of influence greater than most of us, and are negligent in their exercise of it by contributing to the darkness and confusion. This sphere contains everyone from know-nothing idiots like like Lou Dobbs of CNN and Bob Herbert of the NYT, to people who are really smart enough to know better yet resolutely avoid any systematic examination of their moral premises, like Matthew Yglesias and Reihan Salam. This circle is guarded by, who else, Friedrich Hayek.
I’ll have to plead guilty to resolutely avoiding any systematic examination of my moral premises. I spent some time doing this in college and it genuinely didn’t seem to lead anywhere productive.
Big Bucks
Ambinder can’t copyright the facts so I’ll steal the fundraising numbers from him — $31 million for Obama, $9 million for Edwards, $7 million for Richardson, and an estimate of “about $20M in primary funds” for Clinton (who’s also raising general election funds). Read Marc for analysis. He says the results “imposes an obligaton on all of us who cover the race: we need to figure out why the ‘national’ frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, isn’t generating as much excitement as her chief competitior.”
To me this isn’t all that puzzling. Obama’s supporters, though numerically fewer than Clinton’s, are more drawn from the “high information” segment of the electorate that has both more money to donate and more inclination to do so. Donations would be a great proxy for intensity of support of you were looking at two demographically similar groups of people, but that’s not the case here.
Leahy threatens court action.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday he was ready to go to court if the White House resisted subpoenas for information on the firing of federal prosecutors. ‘If they don’t cooperate, yes I’ll go that far,’ said Sen. Patrick Leahy.” Crooks and Liars has the video.
Journamalism
The MSM — in this case the Bangor Daily News — fails me again:
Rawding explained that “the more than 20 members of the [Blue Hill 'A Fourth to Remember"] committee … planned the celebration and set the time … so as not to interfere with the long-standing tradition of Brooklin’s Fourth of July parade that has always taken place in the morning hours.”
Yes, but where and when exactly is this Brookin Fourth of July parade, oh Bangor Daily News. I can’t tell! Give me the blogosphere any day.
Candidate to replace Iglesias pushed for his ouster.
Patrick Rogers, a former general counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party and a candidate to replace fired New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, “pressured” Iglesias “several times to bring voter fraud prosecutions where little evidence existed” before the 2006 mid-term elections. Rogers, who was secretary of the nonprofit American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund at the time, was, according to Iglesias, “obsessed . . . convinced there was massive voter fraud going on in this state, and I needed to do something to stop it.”
