2/28/2006
More on Air America’s Departure
by Matt Singer on 9:58 pm.
New West has more story on Air America’s departure from Missoula. The story is basically that businesses thought Air America was too controversial. Honestly, someone leak to me the names of some of these businesses. I’d like to give ‘em a little free publicity.
| Comments (7) | Permanent Link | Categories: general |
Confucian Open Thread
by V on 3:01 pm.
With regard to Humanity Confucius said, “Humanity is more important for people than water or fire. I have seen people walk through water and fire and die. I have never seen someone tread the path of humanity and perish.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: general |
Burns: Bush Has a “Skull of Granite”
by Matt Singer on 2:03 pm.
This is hilarious.
President Bush is stubborn and has a skull of “solid granite,” Republican Sen. Conrad Burns said in criticizing Bush’s continued support for placing some U.S. port operations under a company based in the United Arab Emirates.Not meant as an insult?A day after Burns made the remark at the Hill County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner, spokesman Matt Mackowiak said the reference to granite was not meant as an insult. “He says the same thing about his son,” Mackowiak said. “It’s a little joke he likes to use.”
Burns was making a lot of jokes apparently:
In an off-the-cuff remark, Burns said penalties against people who make and distribute the addictive drug should be stiffer. “We need to go back to old vigilante law _ public hangings,” he said.The trouble with vigilante justice is that even Conrad can agree that meth dealers deserve it, but the problem is, where do we draw the line?“He was kidding about vigilante justice,” Mackowiak said, “but it shows a frustration he has with this drug.”
I’m guessing at corrupt politics.
| Comments (4) | Permanent Link | Categories: Conrad Burns, political |
Shady Company with Ties to Burns, Rehberg to Be Audited
by Matt Singer on 10:27 am.
It appears that an audit of the Inland Northwest Space Alliance is likely. The details about INSA can get a bit complicated, but the basics are here with more details here and here.
The stuff in the Missoulian article is largely new information to me. It also doesn’t mention the huge connections to both Burns and Rehberg. My thinking here is that there is still more news coming.
| Comments (5) | Permanent Link | Categories: general |
Montanans Concerned Over Wiretapping
by Matt Singer on 8:27 am.
By a two point margin (and with a large number of undecideds), Montanans say they think it is clear that Bush broke the law by engaging in warrantless domestic wiretapping. Interestingly, the national numbers put 40% of Americans saying they believe it is clear Bush broke the law, but only a little more than 30% saying it is clear that he didn’t.
We have a lot less work to make it to 50 than they do.
| Comments (2) | Permanent Link | Categories: illegal wiretapping, montana |
AOL Starts the Privatization of the Internet
by Matt Singer on 8:23 am.
Some of the worst proposals circulating around the Internet have ISPs and telecoms proposing to charge content providers for favored access to customers. The problem, of course, is that customers are paying precisely to get their own access to the internet, not to get access to a constantly changing premium content section of the web.
AOL is now fast-tracking the privatization of the internet with a proposal to charge bulk mailers a small fee ($0.25) to not have their emails automatically sent to junk mail folders in all AOL email inboxes. Fine, you think, you hate spam, so isn’t this a great idea? Well, maybe. If you’re like me, you already have your junk mail folders set to a pretty high standard, but you have made exceptions for email updates about books you might be interested in from Amazon.com as well as for the handful of political email lists you’re on. Well, those lists, ones that you have chosen to be on, will also be paying to send you email.
Now, AOL isn’t too concerned about these groups. In fact, they describe the groups as reminiscent of the bar scene in Star Wars. Nevermind that such groups include low-budget operations to help direct cancer patients to online resources. I guess cancer educators are freaks or something.
The fact is, these numbers add up real quick, especially for small operations. Let’s say you’re part of a national cancer group with 55,000 people on your list. If 5,000 of them are subscribed through AOL and you send out 50 email messages a year, we’re talking a new budget line item of $62,500. And that’s if no other services emulate this feature.
Dislike the idea? DearAOL is launching a coalition later today to help stop the effort.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: general |
2/27/2006
Floored
by V on 11:11 pm.
Prosecutors call it a corruption case with no parallel in the long history of the U.S. Congress. And it keeps getting worse. Convicted Rep. Randall “Duke” Cunningham actually priced the illegal services he provided.
Prices came in the form of a “bribe menu” that detailed how much it would cost contractors to essentially order multimillion-dollar government contracts, according to documents submitted by federal prosecutors for Cunningham’s sentencing hearing this Friday.
…
The card shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required a $50,000 bribe.The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.
At one point Cunningham was living on a yacht named after him, “The Dukester,” docked near Capitol Hill, courtesy of a defense company president.
‘I Broke the Law’
Do you think?
| Comments (15) | Permanent Link | Categories: corrupt, republicans |
A Great Loss for Seattle and the Literature World
by V on 10:52 pm.
Octavia Butler died today at 58.
For more than 30 years, Seattle science-fiction novelist Octavia Butler dreamed up fantastic worlds and religions, made-up creatures and futuristic plots. Then, in her stylistic prose, she used them to tackle the social issues she was most passionate about.
“Parable of the Talents,” a futuristic story about a utopian community ravaged by civil war, explored modern-day issues of intolerance, the growing gap between rich and poor, and environmentalism. In her first novel, “Kindred,” she plunged into racial issues when a modern-day character was transported into the body of a pre-Civil War slave.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: books, cultural |
Bankrupting the Hog Farm
by Matt Singer on 10:01 pm.
Got Deficit?
Blame Burns. Spending like a mad man while slashing revenues.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: Conrad Burns, ideologues, political, republicans |
Air America to Leave Montana
by Matt Singer on 4:47 pm.
I’ve heard that Missoula will be losing its Air America affiliate even though Franken was already pulling in ratings twice that of Limbaugh. Incredible.
If any there are any enterprising soon-to-be graduates of the Radio/TV program who think they could make an affiliate fly, I’d actually be interested in investing. If Franken was outperforming Rush, there’s got to be a way to make it profitable.
Anyways, farewell to our friends at KKNS.
| Comments (28) | Permanent Link | Categories: cultural |
Republicans are Scared of Hillary
by Matt Singer on 3:47 pm.
Honestly, in V’s thread down below, there’s a lot of talk that Republicans really want Hillary to run. The grassroots might, but Hillary’s threat to the Republicans shouldn’t be overstated. As has been noted elsewhere, there’s little doubt about Clinton’s foreign security cred, she’s a serious candidate, she can fundraise like mad, and she’s a known quantity. In other words, the GOP has already thrown every thing they can at her.
Frankly, I think Hillary is among the most electable candidates the Democrats could run. That’s really not my problem with her. But it is the reason that Rove is working like mad to convince Democrats that she can’t win in the general.
| Comments (7) | Permanent Link | Categories: '08, political |
Small Victories
by Matt Singer on 3:19 pm.
The AP is reporting that the NEA has signed a deal with the AFL-CIO to allow NEA locals to affiliate with the AFL-CIO. The NEA is huge. I have no clue how many locals are interested in affiliating, but this could be big.
Update — I should mention that the AFL-CIO’s new blog is a good resource for this sorts of information.
| Comments (0) | Permanent Link | Categories: education, political |
Coast Guard Had Concerns About Port Deal
by Matt Singer on 3:05 pm.
ThinkProgress has it. The proof was provided by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
All this kinda makes me wonder when, precisely, Senator Burns will figure out where he stands on this issue. He had the temerity to criticize me and a whole host of other Montanans for being displeased about too-broad authority granted to the FBI to surveil Montanans without warrants, but he’s unwilling to take a stand on outsourcing port operations to a foreign power with ties to terrorists. Senator, please. No one is buying it.
| Comments (0) | Permanent Link | Categories: policy, terror |
Schumer Calls for Some Accountability
by Matt Singer on 1:33 pm.
The White House is pushing for a sham compromise on the port deal whereby they investigate the deal a bit more, although they’ve said their minds are already made up. We need a real review of this sale. Senator Schumer has introduced legislation giving Congress the right to approve or deny the deal following the investigation.
Frankly, we’d be better off just straight-up prohibiting foreign control of our ports. This is a sovereignty and security issue. The Tom Friedmans of the world are (unsurprisingly) being quite stupid on this one. It isn’t about racism. Nor will the Arab world take it as an insult if we rebuff the UAE — a country ruled by tyrants where Muslim guest workers are regularly abused, harassed, and assaulted.
And the GOP ought to think twice before calling opponents of this idiotic endeavor ‘racists.’ The opposition consists of nearly 80% of Americans who have an opinion on the issue.
| Comments (0) | Permanent Link | Categories: policy, terror |
Guess What I Don’t Care About…
by V on 10:13 am.
I don’t give a damn what Republicans think about the Democratic primary. Drudge is reporting in his usual huge letters (to signify a story of deep importance): “BUSH, ROVE SAY HILLARY WILL WIN DEM PRIMARY — BUT LOSE GENERAL ELECTION.” Now, I don’t take Drudge to be a liberal mouthpiece, but I do think that this is the sort of thing that sometimes affects liberals in the same way as “looking Presidential” or supposed electoral prowess. Two things to note about young partisans: 1) We didn’t join a party to be told how things were going to be by old people in the party who think they know everything about how to turn out other young people and how my country needs to be run, and 2) we sure as hell did not join a party to be told by morons in the other party how things are going to go in ours.
Bush and Rove are probably right in so far as their electoral experience will carry them. Hillary Clinton could not possibly win by lying, cheating, and demeaning entire classes of people for a mob of bigots. I sincerely doubt that any Democrat could win the presidency on the Republican ticket, and we wouldn’t want them if they could. If this bothers you as much as it bothers me, feel free to comment away.
| Comments (12) | Permanent Link | Categories: '08, elections, overreach, republicans |
Higher Tuition in Montana?
by Matt Singer on 9:24 am.
The Independent Record reports that the Regents are discussing how to turn back the tide of tuition increases that doubled the cost of education to Montana students in the last ten years. One good way would be to oppose the half-assed spending cap being proposed by some of their Republican brethren that would only cause state spending on the university system to plummet.
Until we can get past this spending cap proposal, everything that John Mercer and Bob Story say about reducing tuition is just hollow rhetoric.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: '06, ballot initiatives, economic, education, elections, policy, political |
Wide-Ranging Interview With Tester
by Matt Singer on 8:46 am.
Jonathan Singer of MyDD has interviewed Jon Tester. For those interested in issues, he talks Medicare Part D, energy, farm subsidies, and ethics. Read it.
| Comments (0) | Permanent Link | Categories: '06, democrats |
2/26/2006
Synfuels Open Thread
by Matt Singer on 7:25 pm.
Well, I just watched the piece. For those of us following the debate, it struck me that there wasn’t a whole lot of new information offered in the 60 Minutes presentation. Thoughts?
| Comments (10) | Permanent Link | Categories: general |
The Bush Administration is a Joke
by Matt Singer on 4:12 pm.
Read this AP story.
In six pages of documents sent to the White House, Dubai-based DP World asked for a 45-day investigation of plans to run shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.Several questions:Republican leaders in Congress expected the Bush administration to accept. The offer defused threats by some lawmakers to introduce legislation this week that might delay or block the deal.
The president’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said before the company’s announcement that the White House supported efforts to delay the ports deal as long as it was not derailed. The administration did not immediately endorse the company’s proposal, although senior U.S. officials and DP World executives have closely coordinated their efforts in recent weeks.
- Why is it such great news that the UAE company is proposing to undergo the same investigation that should have originally taken place?
- How does any of this solve the truly underlying problems that we’re outsourcing management of important entry points to our country not just to companies that lack loyalty to America, but to a company wholly owned a foreign power suspected of having too close relations with the same people trying to kill Americans?
- Why is the National Security Advisor the spokesperson when the issue is priotizing minor commercial concerns over security-related ones? Shouldn’t this be the Commerce Secretary’s job?
- Why is the White House already declaring than an investigation will not prevent this deal? Isn’t that why we have the investigation?
These people suck.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: policy, terror |
Protecting Children From Dangerous Influences
by Matt Singer on 4:03 pm.
This is pretty funny. With America’s fearless religious right leadership working tirelessly to prevent foster children from being adopted by loving families, an Ohio Senator has hit back with one of the funnier pieces of legislation I’ve read in some time:
Ohio State Senator Robert Hagan has introduced a bill to bar Republicans from adopting children or becoming foster parents, since as he argues:As Nathan points out, 20,000 children in America are waiting to be adopted. The real problem isn’t what sexual orientation interested parents are. The real issue is getting these children into loving families.“[C]redible research” shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.”
Hagan admits that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims, but then he notes, neither do those who argue gays are a threat as parents.
Full Disclosure: I was raised by Republicans. That, frankly, explains my emotional problems, socias stigma, inflated ego, and alarming lack of tolerance for those of you who were wondering. That air of overconfidence exists merely to mask my insecurities. Thanks mom and dad.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: cultural, law |
