The revolution will be supervised.
By request. A picture of Lily and Tunch:
Not all inter-species snorgling attempts end well…
This is your real open thread.
Sorry for stepping on the open thread, but I agree 100%:
I think our society has become a bit hysterical about teen sexuality, and that age limits and punishments for statutory rape have, in some states, started to get a bit exteme even if such relationships are inappropriate.But the undisputed facts of this case are that she was given booze and drugs and raped. There may be other procedural legal issues as I said, but I really can’t believe people are minimizing what happened. What is wrong with these people?
I was talking to my mom and dad this morning, and we don’t agree on damned near anything regarding politics anymore (mom seems to think that Bob Dole is still what most Republicans are like), and told them I can not believe everyone apologizing for Polanski. They couldn’t either, and it really is kind of insane.
One of you all remarked in the comments the other day that Polanski is the upper-class OJ Simpson. I think that makes sense.
Long day.
Question for you all. I’m thinking about moving Tunch to all wet food rather than the kibble, because even though we have been dieting for a year we have only lost 3/4 of a lb. Many of you said your cats were much leaner and more active on an all wet diet, so I think I might try it.
Today, I gave Tunch his morning kibble and then for dinner I gave him some wet food. I gave him Before Grain 100% salmon, and he loved it. I thought he was going to choke to death because I have never heard him purr that loudly while eating, and afterward I got a rare look that didn’t seemed like he was sizing me up for a casket. I don’t want to go overboard, but he almost looked happy.
Questions:
1.) Is Before Grain a solid choice?
2.) If so, how much should I give him? A can a day?
3.) How will this affect his stool?
4.) What about his teeth? Isn’t one benefit of kibble that it helps with their teeth?
This:
In other news, it turns out the death penalty in Florida costs $51m a year more than just holding convicted killers for life. But, hey, that’s pocket change compared to the certainty that killing people is good.
Of course, I am sure you all know the response from the death penalty crowd- “Get rid of all those unnecessary legal protections for the obviously guilty!” I mean, sometimes, it takes decades of costly legal wrangling before you get to kill an innocent man. That shit gets expensive.
Aww, shucks:
Palin’s bookers are said to be asking for $100,000 per speech, but an industry expert tells Page Six: “The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot.”
Maybe she, Carrie Prejean, and Joe the Plumber can go as a panel? Dan Quayle can emcee.
Maybe I’m way off base on this, but in my opinion, the Conor Friedersdorfs and Nicole Wallaces of the right aren’t so different from coupmeister John L. Perry. The idea of David Petraeus sweeping in and becoming president in 2012 isn’t unethical or unconstitutional, but I can’t help but think that Friedersdorf and Wallace simply want an institution they see as Republican—the military—to depose a Democratic president they dislike. (Friedersorf’s other preferred candidate is Colin Powell.)
The desire to depose Obama runs much deeper on the right—even the so-called moderate right—than anyone is willing to admit. The Perry piece wasn’t any kind of outlier.
Update. To those who say Friedersdorf and Wallace are just rooting for a Republican to win, I quote commenter neil:
But David Petraeus is not, in fact, a politician, nor a candidate, nor even a Republican. So this isn’t just somebody rooting for his side.
Wanting Mitt Romney, a Republican and all-but-declared candidate, to win the election as a Republican in 2012 is nothing like wanting David Petraeus, who is not known to be a Republican and has not expressed interest in being a candidate, to come in and out of nowhere and become the new Republican president. It isn’t the same at all.
Supporting an actual candidate is very different from hoping that your favorite general will become the new president as a member of your party.
Bret Stephens of the WSJ says neoconservatism is making come back…even though he can’t say what neoconservatism is:
None of this is to say that neoconservatism represents some kind of infallible doctrine—or that it’s even a doctrine. Neocons have erred in overestimating the U.S. public’s willingness to engage in long struggles on behalf of other people. They have erred also in overestimating the willingness of other people to fight for themselves, or for their freedom.
But as the pendulum has swung to a U.S. foreign policy based on little more than the personal attractions of the president, it’s little wonder that the world is casting about for an alternative.
I can tell you what neoconservatism is: it’s John Birchism with an intellectual veneer. It owes it’s political sense to the undeniable power of shouting “appeasement”, “Hitler”, “freedom”, “Munich” in Murdoch media while shouting “Burke”, “Thucydides”, “Mars” in the pages of the New York Times.
In some ways, this is understandable. When you read a serious piece about foreign policy, such as this one, there’s a lot to take in. It’s natural that some will take refuge in the simplistic pretension of neoconservatism.
No one could have predicted:
A nine-month European Union investigation into the 2008 war in the Caucasus has concluded that Georgia triggered the conflict, but that Russia prepared the ground for war to break out and broke international law by invading Georgia as a whole.Conclusions to the roughly 1,000 page report, released on Wednesday by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, also found that Russia-backed South Ossetian militias committed atrocities and “ethnic cleansing” of Georgian villages during and since the war. It faulted Russian forces in control of the territory that either “would not or could not” control the South Ossetians.
Was the McCain/Palin campaign right about anything? It is probably worth remembering that Randy Scheunemann, a long time lobbyist for Georgia and agitator against Russia, was whispering in McCain’s ear during the crisis as one of his key advisors, and he has now moved on to position himself as the next Turdblossom in a future Palin administration. Remember, being wrong about everything is a key qualification for promotion in the current Republican party.
You would think that this would be the topic of some debate:
In a bid to wrangle concessions from the Blue Dog Coalition on healthcare reform, House leaders Thursday released CBO estimates for liberals’ preferred version of the public option that show $85 billion more in savings than for the version the Blue Dogs prefer.Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., a Blue Dog co-chair, said any possible new momentum toward a public option tethered to Medicare rates is, in part, “because of the cost issue” and the updated CBO score.
The original House bill required the public plan to pay providers 5 percent more than Medicare reimbursement rates. But as part of a package of concessions to Blue Dogs, the House Energy and Commerce Committee accepted an amendment that requires the HHS Secretary to negotiate rates with providers. That version of the plan will save only $25 billion.
In total, a public plan based on Medicare rates would save $110 billion over 10 years. That is $20 billion more than earlier estimates, a spokesman for House Speaker Pelosi said.
You know, sometimes it almost seems like fiscal conservatives are full of shit, and it is just a ruse to get elected. Kind of like how the “fiscal conservatives” in the GOP have done a complete and total about face on Medicare.
I bet the folks at Reason could explain all this too me.
(via)
I know I always put my health at risk when I read the Moustache of Understanding, but sometimes I can not resist. Like today:
Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.
Got it? Clinton and Obama are not legitimate because the lunatics say they aren’t.
So, here are the proposed additions to the BJLex I’ve collected since Saturday:
Banana Republican
Brooks Brothers Riot
Calvinball
FTW (add as a synonym to ‘This’)
He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club – Chris Matthews, Beltway Chapter President
Heh, Indeed
Millblogger
Moderate – someone who gets all their news from network television
Movement Conservative (Adult Diaper Division)
Poutrage
Stay Classy, _ !
TIDOS (Treason in Defense of Slavery) Conservatives
Up or Down (Upperdown) Vote
Warpr0n
Won’t Someone Think of the Children? ! ?
Working the Refs – the process whereby prominent wingers excoriate media institutions for a supposed bias in order to keep said institutions on guard and, hopefully, force them to be more lenient on Republican ideology masquerading as legitimate analysis of daily events.
WTF
And of course the evolving dichotomies…
More »Since I know there are professional developers out there, a question. Starting Sunday morning, whenever I attempt to Edit the BJ Lexicon, I’ve been getting the same message:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 122880 bytes) in /home/jcole1/public_html/bal/wp-includes/general-template.php on line 1524
I’ve tried it on two separate systems, so I don’t think it’s my PC. Can anyone out there tell me if there’s something I can do from the peon user end to rectify this? Or at least explain why WordPress has banhammered me in terms I can understand?
You know, when I used the phrase Banana Republicans in the past, I didn’t really think it would come to this:
There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.
[...]
Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?
Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.
I eagerly await the Fonzi of Freedom Nick Gillespie, Matt Welch, and the rest of the Reason crew explaining how it is the folks in the middle who are a threat to Democracy and our freedoms.
And seriously, this person was an official in two previous administrations (Johnson and Carter). At what point does this shit become unacceptable in the village?
Cold here- about 50 degrees. Thirty degree drop in just a few days, so I am couchbound watching Dexter Season 3.
When does Season 2 of Chuck come out on DVD?
Amy Sullivan and a bunch of other theocons write that it’s unfair that some pedophile priests have to go to jail when Roman Polanski doesn’t.
The new 2,600-page report on physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in Catholic-run Irish schools is “a map of an Irish hell,” said the Irish Times in an editorial. The numbers speak for themselves: 800 abusers, 200 schools, 35 years, many thousands of victims. But it’s worse than that—this was a deliberate system of “torture” and “slavery” at the hands of the powerful church, with the knowledge of the state. This is part of the Irish identity now.
[....]
Unforgivably, the actual priests will neither be named nor shamed for their “torture, rape, and beatings,” said Ruth Gledhill in Ireland’s Evening Herald, due to a 2004 lawsuit won by the main “perpetrators,” the Christian Brothers order. If there’s a “ray of light” in this horrible story, it’s that, at least in North America and Europe, the “abuse has now stopped.” Just not in time to save the victims.
It’s also worth noting that, in the United States:
The John Jay report indicated that some 11,000 allegations had been made against 4,392 priests in the USA. This number constituted approximately 4% of the 110,000 priests who had served during the period covered by the survey (1950-2002).[21] The report found that, over the 52-year period covered by the study, “the problem was indeed widespread and affected more than 95 percent of the dioceses and approximately 60 percent of religious communities.”
There have been only a handful of criminal prosecutions.
The truth is, that If Roman Polanski had been a priest, there is very, very little chance that he ever would have been prosecuted in the first place. And that’s wrong—not for Polanski, who deserved prosecution, but for the thousands of victims of sexually predatory priests who had their complaints ignored for years.
The lack of shame among Amy Sullivan and her ilk never ceases to amaze me.
Update. A bunch of you say that I am misreading Sullivan’s point. Perhaps. But what she and the others I linked to are saying is just plain wrong: it’s just not true that priests are at all likely to be prosecuted for raping children. As I said above, if Polanski were a priest, it is very, very unlikely that he ever would have been prosecuted to begin with. The statistics don’t lie.
