cleek, Green Pepper.

Joshua Trupin, Autumn’s Rainbow.

Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.

Click on the photos for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.

If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.

I know it’s silly to waste time discussing something like a Lou Dobbs presidency, but this made me laugh:

“I would assume he’s going independent, since he’s made a very strong case that that’s where he is,” said Bay Buchanan, who ran Pat Buchanan’s 2000 campaign for president as the Reform Party’s candidate. “There’s enormous movement out there, I think more so than when Pat ran. I think they’ve really given up on Republicans, they’ve given up on Democrats; so he would be stepping into something where a path had been laid.”

Buchanan added: “I think he can win.”

The idea that a xenophobe can win a three-way race with an electorate that’s at least 25% non-white is beyond ludicrous.

I imagine Bay is just angling to run his campaign. After the bang-up job she did in 2000….

Update. It took me a while, but I did think of a way that this can be good news for conservatives. Say that Obama wins 48-45 with Dobbs getting six percent of the vote (the other 1 going to the usual rogues gallery of XFLers). Forty-five plus six is a majority, so it proves we’re still a conservative country, conservatism is more popular than ever, Obama has no mandate, etc.

I think Matt Taibbi is wrong about how the press treated Hillary about her Iraq vote (I think they went easy on her about it, though they did sandbag her in other ways), but there’s a lot of win in this piece:

When that does happen, when the press corps decides to abandon all restraint and go for the head shot, it usually tells us a lot more about the reporters’ bosses and what they’re thinking than it does about the reporters themselves. Your average political reporter is a spineless dweeb who went to all the best schools and made it to that privileged seat inside the campaign-trail ropeline by being keenly sensitive to the editorial wishes of his social and professional superiors.

[....]

The tone for all this behavior is always set somewhere way up the corporate totem pole, and it always reflects some dreary combination of simple business considerations (i.e. what’s the best story and sells the most ads) and internalized political calculus (i.e. who is a “legitimate” candidate and who is an “insurgent” or a “second-tier” hopeful). It’s not that the reporters are making this judgment themselves, it’s that they have to listen to what the apparatus Up There is saying all day long — not just their bosses but the think-tank talking heads they interview for comments, the party insiders who buy them beers at night, the pollsters and so on.

[....]

To illustrate the point via haiku:

Journos are pussies

Only attack when it’s safe

Lay off entrenched pols

He owns it now:

President Obama has conducted a final meeting on his military review for Afghanistan, administration officials said, and he is planning to explain his decision in an address to the nation next Tuesday.

“After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday morning.

For two hours on Monday evening, Mr. Obama held his ninth meeting in the Situation Room with his war council. The session began at 8:13 p.m., aides said, and ended at 10:10 p.m.

The president’s military and national security advisers came back to the president with answers he had requested during previous meetings, most of which focusing on these questions: Where are the off-ramps for the military? And what is the exit strategy?

The conversation settled around sending about 30,000 more American troops, two officials said, the first of whom would deploy early next year to be in place in southern or eastern Afghanistan by the spring. The troop reinforcements would likely be sent in waves, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss war strategy.

I hope the liberal caucus does demand tax increases to fund this escalation.

DougJ already linked to one of James Fallows’ excellent Atlantic posts on the Media Village Idiots’ deliberate misunderstanding of President Obama’s goals during his Asian trip. But I thought this quote from an unnamed government official in Manufactured Failure #6 : The Wrapup deserved to be highlighted:

“From inside our bubble, we thought we were doing what we should be doing. From inside the press’s bubble, I think it came across fine except for China. I think some of them wanted us to be rude to the Chinese leadership. That seems to be the standard for effectiveness. Not only is it bad form in general to be rude, and ineffective in Asia, but the last person on the planet who would be rude is Barack Obama. That is part of the reason he got elected.”

Is this fellow suggesting that Americans are willing to give up rudeness as “our” default foreign policy tactic?

Has anyone you know ever used Bing?

Microsoft has been in early discussions with the News Corporation, the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, about a pact to pay the News Corporation to remove links to its news content from Google’s search engine and display them exclusively on Bing, from Microsoft, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke anonymously because of the confidential negotiations.

[....]

Microsoft could actually secure a public relations victory by coming to the rescue of battered media companies, Mr. Barnicle said. “The ability to have some sort of objective news media is pretty important,” he said. “Maybe Microsoft is in a position to fund that.”

Objective news media. Heh indeedy.

I wonder if Microsoft talked to the Moonies too.

Update. I guess what I most of all don’t get is that Murdoch Media is aimed at the Flomax/Matlock crowd (I don’t mean all older people here—you know what I mean). They’re probably all still using AOL keyword searches anyway. Right?

The story:

This is Jean Luc (the gray and white on the couch) and Duncan (the tabby with his back to the camera on the red blanket). They are about 12 years old, adopted from Angell Memorial in Jamaica Plain, Mass. The shelter is next door to the hospital, the largest animal hospital in the country, but I was told they are not officially affliated with one another.

Anyway, four cats were found in an abandoned house in Roxbury. I went to the shelter with plans to adopt one female tabby, and saw Duncan first and loved him. He’s a very affectionate cat. I saw Jean Luc and I thought he was so handsome and I couldn’t decide between them. Then I found out they were the last two of the group of four so I adopted them both. They were about one year old at the time. Duncan was named Spock and, not being a Star Trek fan, I changed it. Jean Luc is named after Jean Luc Picard apparently, but I liked the name so I kept it.

I got cats because at the time I travelled a lot for business, short trips but a lot of them, so I wanted a pet I could leave alone for a day or two at a time. Well, about six months after I got them Jean Luc was diagnosed with both an enlarged heart and asthma and needed meds twice a day. So he’s cost me a fortune, between many, many vet visits, tests, procedure, medicine and cat sitters. But I adore him. I sobbed like a baby when he was first diagnosed and I thought he might die, even though I’d only had him for about six months. I wouldn’t trade him for anything. Or Duncan. I love them dearly. They’ve been the most consistent and constant thing in my life for 11 years. I cant even think about my life without either of them.

Keep the stories and pics coming in (although I have about 20 lined up right now).

First, the man who has decided that Patrick Kennedy can not have communion unless he takes political orders from the Catholic church:

Then this:

The Senate’s health bill suffers from a “fundamental failure” on the issue of abortion, representatives of America’s Catholic bishops said Monday.

Representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said the healthcare bill being debated by the Senate falls short on barring federal funding for abortion, providing coverage for immigrants, and providing affordable care to all Americans.

“If in fact this legislation were to be substantially improved in these three areas,” said John Carr, the executive director of the group’s Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, “the members of the Senate will have a letter from the bishops’ conference saying that the bill is an urgent national priority.”

When exactly did we grant the Catholic church the right to dictate our laws?

And no more Catholics on the Supreme Court, either.

Sorry, was out of the loop all day. I had to go to the Burgh to hit the Apple store for the macbook problem (diagnosis- optical drive is broken and we ordered one), then spent some time looking for a new couch. While up there, the doom and gloom for the Steelers on talk radio was heavy.

And let’s face it, our offensive line has one good leg among the group of them, our defense is not the same without Polamalu and our secondary suspect, we are now on our third string quarterback who the team is suggesting they have no faith in (why have we paid Dixon the last three years) and Jeff Garcia might be on our roster by the end of the week, and our special teams play is as bad as I have ever seen.

I suppose there is always the Pirates.

Just kidding.

This interview San Francisco CBS 5 did with Gavin Newsom is a classic example of how different local media is with local elected officials than national media is with federal officials. The reporter tears Newsom a new one (in a completely fair, calm way), Newsom throws a temper tantrum, and it’s pretty clear that the reporter is happy with the outcome (as he should be). Things would never happen this way at the national level.

It’s tempting to say that this only works because Newsom is a Democrat and punching hippies is always a best practice. But I’ve seen this kind of thing with local Republicans too.

In local politics, at least in the place I’ve lived, giving elected officials a hard time is seen a good thing. Presumably (I don’t know this for sure), there are professional incentives involved: higher ratings, the attention of outlets in bigger markets, etc.

Nationally, there is some incentive to harass Democrats about bullshit (how many women play basketball with Obama, etc.) and not much to harass about important things (the deal the Obama White House made with Big Pharma, Senators’ ties to the insurance industry, etc.). And there’s no incentive to harass national Republicans about anything besides trying to hook up in a men’s room.

The abuse Dan Rather took for trying to make Bush I answer basic questions in 1988 is a perfect example of the strong disincentive that exists for asking federal Republicans tough questions.

getsmartin, GG Bridge.

G.M., Toronto Skyline.

Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.

Click on the photos for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.

If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.

Some glibertarian fun, just in time for the holidays:

No doubt Cratchit needs—i.e., wants—more, to support his family and care for Tiny Tim. But Scrooge did not force Cratchit to father children he is having difficulty supporting. If Cratchit had children while suspecting he would be unable to afford them, he, not Scrooge, is responsible for their plight. And if Cratchit didn’t know how expensive they would be, why must Scrooge assume the burden of Cratchit’s misjudgment?

As for that one lump of coal Scrooge allows him, it bears emphasis that Cratchit has not been chained to his chilly desk. If he stays there, he shows by his behavior that he prefers his present wages-plus-comfort package to any other he has found, or supposes himself likely to find. Actions speak louder than grumbling, and the reader can hardly complain about what Cratchit evidently finds satisfactory.

I’m sure Slate or TNR must have done something like this before, but I’m too lazy to google it.

James Fallows responds here to Chuck Todd’s claim that Fallows and other Asia-based journalists should stop whining about NBC’s shitty coverage of the president’s Asia trip. Fallows shows altogether too much tact and restraint for my tastes, but it’s worth reading.

When Glenn Beck complains that the press didn’t pay enough attention to a video of college students dressed up as pimps and hos, the Washington Post and New York Times performed acts of contrition and assigned reporter to keep track of whatever Beck was saying in the future. When an acclaimed journalist (and one even working for an Official Publication in this case) criticizes coverage of meetings between the United States and the most populous nation on earth, that is politically-motivated whining that should be mocked and ignored.

That’s where we’re at as a country right now.

Via Radley Balko, Sheriff Joe requires a latino woman to give birth while her hands and arm are shackled, then, after birth, refuses to let the woman hold the baby and informs her if no one claims the baby in three days, it will be turned over to the state.

Stay classy, Arizona!

Great piece on 60 Minutes last night:

Be great if we could have a serious discussion about this, but as the freakout over death panels and mammogram guidelines show, good luck with that. One party finds it in their advantage to not be serious.