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Friday Sleep Blogging
Cats doing what cats do best...
That's Samantha in front, Tabitha in back... I think.
Steve
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John Ashcroft's Wet Dream
Lynne F. Stewart, lawyer to the truly unpopular, was
convicted
of aiding terrorists:
Lynne F. Stewart, an outspoken New York lawyer known for aggressively defending unpopular clients,
was found guilty today of aiding terrorism by smuggling messages out of jail from a convicted
Islamic terrorist she represented.
Ms. Stewart faces up to 20 years in prison for her conviction on five federal charges that included
conspiracy, giving material support to terrorists and lying to the government involving her work
with the client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Two co-defendants, Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohamed Yousry,
were also convicted of all the charges against them in federal court in Manhattan.
Ms. Stewart, 65, who remains free on bail but who may not leave the state until her sentencing on
July 15, said that she would appeal. "I will fight on. I'm not giving up," she told reporters. "I
know I committed no crime. I know what I did was right."
Federal prosecutors, for whom the verdict was undeniably a big victory, said they would have no
comment, but Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales hailed the convictions as sending "a clear,
unmistakable message that this Department will pursue both those who carry out acts of terrorism
and those who assist them with their murderous goals."
...
No. It sends a clear, unmistakable message that if you are accused of terrorism, the Justice Dept.
will see to it that any lawyer who defends you will be at risk of her bar membership and her
freedom.
Another provision of the Bill of Rights, this time the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, just bit
the dust. People call this the post-9/11 world. It's also the post-John-Ashcroft world. Welcome
to Mr. Ashcroft's fondest fantasies.
(Via
oldwhitelady, in a comment thread.)
Steve
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Drums Of War
Condi is beating them:
BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that Iran
must live up to its international obligations to halt its nuclear program or "the next steps are in
the offing."
"And I think everybody understands what the 'next steps' mean," Rice told reporters after a meeting
with NATO foreign ministers and European Union officials.
"It's obvious that if Iran cannot be brought to live up to its international obligations that, in
fact, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) statutes would suggest that Iran has to be
referred to the U.N. Security Council," she said.
...
Ah, yes. The U.N.: invoke when convenient; ignore when not.
Does this remind you of the recipe followed before the U.S. went to war with Iraq? Well, why not...
that one worked out so well that the Bush administration may as well use it again.
Here's my not-so-startling prediction: if Bush and the neocons intend to go to war with Iran,
nothing the government of Iran can do... literally nothing... will stop the juggernaut.
If I were in Iran's government, how would I react? probably by hardening all nuclear facilities and
rushing any nuclear weapons technology that was anywhere close to ready into production. Have the
Arrogant One and his arrogant advisers thought of that?
Iran is not Iraq. Bush's effort to bend Iraq to his will was a "catastrophic success," a Bushism
with more truth in it than anything else he has spoken in recent years. But if you think Iraq is a
quagmire, just wait for the next catastrophic success.
(Via
CultureGhost.)
Steve
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A Little Old Lady From Switzerland
Bob Herbert wrote last week about
Our Battered Constitution:
...
In an important decision on Monday, a federal judge in Washington ruled that the Bush
administration cannot be allowed to defy the Constitution and an order of the Supreme Court in its
treatment of the hundreds of prisoners it is holding at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The judge, Joyce Hens
Green, said the administration must permit the detainees it is holding as "enemy combatants" to
challenge their detention in federal courts.
The administration has tried mightily to establish its right to treat anyone who it determines is
an "enemy combatant" any way it chooses. It has argued that it can hold such detainees for a
lifetime - without charging them, without giving them access to lawyers, without showing them the
evidence against them and without allowing them to challenge their detention.
Administration officials are adamant on this matter, and yesterday they were granted a stay of
Judge Green's decision, pending an appeal.
...
Herbert understands the sweep of the administration's claim:
...
The administration is fighting for nothing less than the death of due process for anyone it rounds
up, no matter how arbitrarily, in its enemy combatant sweeps. Such tyrannical powers should offend
anyone who cares about such old-fashioned notions as the rule of law, checks and balances, and
constitutional guarantees.
...
In her decision, Judge Green wrote, "Although this nation unquestionably must take strong action
under the leadership of the commander in chief to protect itself against enormous and unprecedented
threats, that necessity cannot negate the existence of the most basic fundamental rights for which
the people of this country have fought and died for well over 200 years."
...
In one hearing that led up to Monday's decision, Judge Green attempted to see how broadly the
government viewed its power to hold detainees. Administration lawyers told her, in response to a
hypothetical question, that they believed the president would even have the right to lock up "a
little old lady from Switzerland" for the duration of the war on terror if she had written checks
to a charity that she believed helped orphans, but that actually was a front for Al Qaeda.
That argument would be scary enough even if we had a president whose language skills were adequate
to distinguish between, say, the words "executive" and "executioner." As things are, if the
Supreme Court sides with the Bush administration in this challenge, any one of us could end up in
a cell for life, as surely as that "little old lady from Switzerland."
Steve
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The Rentership Society
Credit Josh Marshall with the term, and with this
explanation:
...
Under the Bush plan, when you retire you are mandated by law to use your private account funds to
purchase an annuity substantial enough to keep you above the poverty line for the rest of your
life. (I guess that whole letting people decide what to do with their own money bit only goes so
far.) You'd have to figure that for most retirees that would run through pretty much the whole
stash or at least the lion's share of it. And when you die, that's it. By definition, you can't
pass on this kind of annuity.
So under the Ownership Society the wealthy can pass on their savings, but for middle income folks
and the working poor, no such luck. Which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like the rentership
society, or whatever benighted age it is we're supposed to be living in now.
...
(Emphasis original.)
Hey, when they called it an "ownership society," they didn't say who would do the owning.
Steve
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This Day In 1978
... I played the only solo recital of my professional career. I was Lecturer in Recorder
(a strange title, no?)
in the Music Dept. of University of St. Thomas, Houston. The recital actually went rather well, but
I realized I was not cut out to do a whole recital of solos. At that point, my best days as a
recorder player were yet to come. Now the whole thing is behind me, and I have few regrets...
either about the career or about retiring from it. One thing displaces another...
Steve
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Vo Beat Heflin, Says Republican Investigator
UPDATE:
Heflin
withdraws
his challenge to Vo. The House will not hear Heflin's challenge. It's over. Vo wins!
(Original post follows.)
It's not quite official yet. But State Rep. Will Harnett (R-Dallas), who is responsible for
investigating Talmadge Heflin's charges of voter fraud in their State Rep. Dist. 149 race in which
Hubert Vo (D) emerged victorious after a recount, says that Vo won by no less than 16 votes, and
that there was "no evidence of any intentional voter fraud" in that race.
From the
Houston Chronicle:
...
A nine-member House committee will hear Hartnett's report and testimony from lawyers for Vo and
Heflin on Tuesday. The final decision is up to the full Texas House, which could uphold Vo's
election, seat Heflin or require Gov. Rick Perry to call another election.
Vo said he was "confident" that the committee and his House colleagues will "live up to the
standard Mr. Hartnett has set in honoring both the spirit and the essence of our democratic
process."
Vo's statement sets exactly the right tone. I may not share his confidence, but I share the hope
that the genuine outcome of the democratic process, applied most scrupulously and thoroughly,
will be realized. If the Texas House does anything other than confirm the result of a
recount certified by a Republican county clerk and a special investigation of the result
by a Republican legislator... well, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it.
I'll never forget, or forgive, the Florida legislature in 2000 for being prepared to overturn the
popular vote in the event Gore had officially won it. As things turned out, Katherine Harris did
the dirty deed for them, certifying an almost certainly false count, but the very willingness of
the Republican-dominated legislature to ignore and overturn the popular vote for no better reason
than that they had the raw power to do so opened my eyes wide to the fact that for many highly
placed Republicans, it's all about retaining power and nothing about the legitimacy of that power.
In other words, to make an increasingly painfully obvious distinction, those Republicans are not
republicans.
I do not know what the Texas Legislature, which is solidly Republican at the moment, will do.
I've read statements that the Speaker of the Texas House is very unhappy with Heflin's challenge,
and doesn't want the bad publicity, but at present I don't trust anyone with an "R" after his or
her name. Stay tuned.
Steve
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Borrow And Spend
Cheney
says
we're going to borrow $758 billion in the next decade to finance the transition to
privatized Social Insecurity accounts:
"We're going to borrow $758 [b]illion over the next 10 years to set up the personal retirement
accounts. We think that's a manageable amount ... Trillions more after that," Cheney said,
acknowledging that the personal accounts will help younger workers but will not solve all the
problems of solvency.
"The basic fundamental structure of Social Security, separate apart from the personal accounts, has
to be changed. It's got to be reformed, or it will go belly-up in 2040-something," Cheney said,
adding that other reforms, such as price-indexing, wage-indexing and raising the retirement age
have all been proposed.
"We think everything ought to be on the table, and we ought to be able to look at all those options
and come up with a package that will make Social Security financially sound going forward and, at
the same time, allow this basic transformation" to personal accounts, he said.
...
Conservatives please note: not only does this approach not solve the problem, it also represents
the antithesis of conservative thinking. You think that Democrats are the masters of tax-and-spend?
How much worse from a true conservative's viewpoint is it to borrow and spend, in the words of the
late Carl Sagan, billions and billions? This is yet more evidence, as if we needed it,
that Bush and Cheney are radicals, not conservatives.
Steve
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Biting The Hand
This
is not merely an instance of biting the hand that feeds you. It is an example of biting that hand,
ripping it off at the wrist, and stuffing it down the disposal:
Bush Budget Raises Prescription Prices for Many Veterans
By ROBERT PEAR and CARL HULSE
Published: February 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 - President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many
veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the
privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.
The proposals, they said, are in the $2.5 trillion budget that Mr. Bush plans to unveil on Monday.
White House officials said the budget advanced his goal of cutting the deficit, which hit a record
last year.
"We are being tight," Vice President Dick Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is the tightest
budget that has been submitted since we got here."
The proposals to increase charges to veterans face stiff opposition from veterans organizations,
Democratic members of Congress and some Republicans.
...
Just remember... support the troops, or you're a traitor. Unless you're a Bush Republican, in which
case it's OK to send the troops to war for your cronies' financial benefit, then flush those same
troops like used toilet tissue when they come home.
It seems to me Mr. Bush and his administration owe a great deal to our troops. Without them, the
endless war that keeps him and his buddies in office would not have been possible. But no, the
only obligation they feel is to the enrichment of their already wealthy cronies.
Veterans: if you think this is a raw deal, please take note of who votes to cut your benefits...
and remember them well in the 2006 congressional elections, and most especially in 2008.
Steve
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Family Values
Freedom Rider
(whose permalinks aren't working right) reminds us that fascism can, indeed, happen here. As an
example, she points to this story in
Denver:
Denver police Sgt. Michael Karasek will be disciplined for threatening to arrest a woman for
displaying on her truck a profane bumper sticker about President Bush, Police Chief Gerry Whitman
said Tuesday.
An internal affairs investigation took just a day to complete, and the allegation against the
officer was upheld, Whitman said.
He declined to say what the discipline would be but said that all the department's officers will
receive "training about the topic."
About 11 a.m. Monday, Shasta Bates, 26, was confronted by a man while standing in a UPS store. The
man told her he was upset by her bumper sticker, which read "F--- Bush."
The man then went outside and flagged down Karasek, who was working off-duty in uniform at the
shopping center, in the 800 block of South Monaco Parkway.
After reading the sticker and talking to the man, Karasek went into the store to confront Bates.
...
Bates? BATES? Surely she is no relative of mine. I would never, ever
say, "FUCK BUSH!"
Oops, I guess I just did. Oh well. Like Dick Cheney, I'll stand by my obscenity, and like Cheney,
I'll assert it was something that needed to be said. Never let it be said that the civility of my
discourse is in any way lower than that of very highly placed Republicans.
Seriously... what kind of police officer, in what kind of community, is so ignorant of the Bill of
Rights that he feels free to threaten someone with arrest for displaying a bumper sticker opposing
Bush? How did it come to this?
I have my own ideas on how it came to this, and regular readers have read them before, so I
won't bore you with them. But I have to say that when cops start enforcing Republican rules against
heresy, rather than laws on the books, we are in serious trouble. I hope this officer receives more
than mere sensitivity training.
Meanwhile, I am proud to claim Ms. Shasta Bates as a possible relative. Strong political statements
on the liberal side are, after all, a Bates family tradition going back at least one generation
before me. Family values? We got your family values right here!
Steve
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Dean Likely DNC Chair
It looks
very likely
that Howard Dean will become
DNC chair.
Yes, of course, I support him. Why would I
not: the man would have been a superb President of the United States had he gotten the chance, and
his political skills are a match for his leadership skills. And that's not even mentioning his
fundraising prowess.
So would Dean's chairmanship represent a victory for liberals? In the sense that anything that
moves us away from a monolithic de facto one-party system is good for liberals, moderates
and everyone else, I suppose it would be a victory. I admit that I do not think of Dean as a
liberal, in the sense the word was used when I was a young man. But he is neither ideologically
driven nor indifferent to the wellbeing of the people he leads. These days, in the world of
high-powered party politics, that is about as close as one gets to being a liberal.
Ruy Teixeira has more thoughts on the matter, and links to still more thoughts, in his post
Ho-Ho Has the Last Laugh.
Steve
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Friday Cats Napping
Cats nap. People nap. But cats are much better at it, as Tabitha and Samantha prove...
Steve
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Gonzales Confirmed
Damn.
In the office of our nation's chief law enforcement official, an equivalent of Joe McCarthy with a
predisposition to subverting the Bill of Rights has been replaced by a legal weasel who is willing
to justify torture in violation of both U.S. and international law, for no better reason than that
his boss wants it. (And yes, I know, that's an insult to weasels.)
If that were not bad enough, six Democrats voted for the confirmation, and three abstained.
Michael
of
Musing's Musings
has the details. I'm too disgusted to discuss this much further, except to say that I think
Gonzales, like Bush's likely future Supreme Court nominees, was worth a filibuster. As it stands,
this vote hardly even makes a statement that Democrats oppose torture.
Maybe I'll write more when I'm not pissed at Senate Dems for not doing more. Maybe I'll write after
I've gotten pissed in the British sense of the word.
Steve
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Blog Maintenance
You've probably noticed the new title-link posts. There's an example just below this post. The
post has a title... in yellow, no less... but has no post body. The title is a link to an article
or blog post that I found worth reading, but on which I either have no comments or have no time to
comment. To the right of the title you'll see
(!! #);
the !! is a place
for your comments, and the # is a permalink. These posts will not appear in the RSS feed. My intent
is to give myself a means of creating a very, very quick post. I'll probably use it sparingly.
I've also changed the blockquote font to a serif font. Comments welcome, especially if you
don't like it. I'm not utterly committed to this change.
One last blog-related matter: I'm using
Bloglines
to generate my blogroll (other than The Liberal Coalition) these days. I like the convenience, but
I find that sometimes it slows the loading of the site. Someday I may switch to another service;
until then, thanks for your patience.
By the way, there are quite a few new slideshows of snapshots behind the
PHOTOS
link in the top nav. I've tried, as best I am able, to be considerate of people with dialups.
Recommendation: if you're on a dialup, use the manual navigation, not the automatic slideshow.
These are snapshots, not art, but they reflect my life pretty well. There are even a few pics of
Stella!
Steve
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Heflin Drags It Out
Many of you know the basics of the story: after a recount in the Texas State Representative Dist.
149 race, Hubert Vo (D) defeated long-time incumbent Talmadge Heflin (R) by 33 votes. Ever since
then, Heflin and his lawyers have been trying to find a way to overturn the election and give the
seat to Heflin rather than Vo. Vo has already been seated for this legislative session, but Heflin
still will not quit; he is challenging the election in the state House. Here's the current
status:
AUSTIN - Freshman state Rep. Hubert Vo and the veteran lawmaker he defeated, Talmadge Heflin, will
have to wait until next week for an investigator's report on Heflin's challenge of the election.
State Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, who is gathering evidence for a House committee that will
consider Heflin's charge that he lost because of ineligible voters, had hoped to make his
recommendation today. But he said Tuesday he needs more time to sift through evidence from a two-
day hearing last week.
Hartnett said he will tally the votes and "implicitly state a winner" Monday.
The House's nine-member Select Committee on Election Contest will begin its hearings on Tuesday.
Hartnett will issue rulings on each of about 250 ballots alleged to have been cast by ineligible
voters, and recommend whether the votes should be counted or tossed. Hartnett said he will agree to
remove only votes in which voters were proved to be ineligible, voted in the Heflin-Vo race and
will testify for whom they voted.
Then we have this little jewel:
After weeks of alleging fraud, Heflin's lawyers acknowledged Friday that they found no organized
fraud in the election that unseated the Republican lawmaker.
Right. Heflin lost, so it must be fraud... that's what they were screaming to the world for weeks.
Now it's "oh, never mind." There are still specific cases in which voter registrations are in
question, but the number is small. So... what happens next?
After it receives Hartnett's recommendation, the committee will decide whether to hold further
hearings or forward a recommendation to the Republican-controlled House to uphold Vo's election,
seat Heflin or require Gov. Rick Perry to schedule another election.
Stay tuned for the next episode in that perennially popular soap,
Republican Right to Rule.
Steve
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Just Say No To Sex -- DOGGEREL!
Thanks to
andante,
we learn
this
startling fact:
Texas Teens Increased Sex After Abstinence Program
...
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Abstinence-only sex education programs, a major plank in President Bush (news -
web sites)'s education plan, have had no impact on teenagers' behavior in his home state of Texas,
according to a new study.
Despite taking courses emphasizing abstinence-only themes, teenagers in 29 high schools became
increasingly sexually active, mirroring the overall state trends, according to the study conducted
by researchers at Texas A&M University.
"We didn't see any strong indications that these programs were having an impact in the direction
desired," said Dr. Buzz Pruitt, who directed the study.
The study was delivered to the Texas Department of State Health Services, which commissioned it.
The federal government is expected to spend about $130 million to fund programs advocating
abstinence in 2005, despite a lack of evidence that they work, Pruitt said.
...
(All emphasis mine.)
Who knew. A clue for the clueless: tell teens not to have sex; they'll do it anyway. As to
these supposed adults who insist on abstinence-only programs, I guess they're learning their...
Ado-Lessons
Well, it's really quite a pain:
You can tell them to refrain,
You can shout "Abstain, abstain!"
You're out of luck.
When their youthful hormones rage,
You can't keep 'em in a cage:
They are certain to engage,
And likely fuck.
But try telling Dick and Bush
That this "abstinence" they push
Lands our young ones on their tush
And in a jam.
It's like talking to a wall:
Kids just go ahead and ball.
Meanwhile, Bush sez fuckitall,
Who gives a damn.
While those old, enfeebled wrecks
Tell our kids, "Say no to sex,"
Nature slyly stacks the decks
To win that game,
Then these self-same smug adults
Punish kids for the results;
Offer help? no, just insults...
A crying shame.
Oh, a condom or some pills
Could avoid a lot of ills,
Twenty years, at least, of bills,
And untold grief;
But just mention "diaphragm,"
And it's you who's in a jam.
For the teens who push the pram,
There's no relief.
Their approach is doomed to fail:
Though they lie to make the sale,
Put the sex-ed folks in jail,
Break Cupid's dart,
Any "abstinence" that works
Must involve a lot of jerks.
(Say... observing Dubya's smirks,
They've got a start!)
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Steve Bates
Steve
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Food On My Mind
Frequently enough, I've got food on my mind. (That's not to be confused with "egg on my face,"
though like most bloggers I often have that, too.) This is one of those times that I'm thinking
about food. Two articles got me to thinking about the politics of food:
- The new blog
Bitter Greens Journal,
Tom Philpott's writings about sustainable agriculture, organic food, etc., offers us an
article about the myth and the reality of organic food. Here's a
sample:
One of the themes of Bitter Greens Gazette will be to debunk the idea that the industrial food
system is crumbling under the weight of a sustainable food movement--that small-scale local ag
might, sometime soon, overwhelm or transform Big Food.
The argument goes like this: Everywhere I go, I have more chances to buy organic. Not only are
Whole Foods outlets sprouting like mung beans in suburban strip malls, but my locally dominant
massive supermarket chain has a whole section that's organic. Why, just the other day, I was in
Sam's Club, and I found some organic milk! And my favorite local "gourmet" restaurant features
local vegetables. Our side is winning!
By indulging in a bitter laugh at such effusions, we'll certainly be accused of pessimism,
...
Have a look at this article from today's Wall Street Journal, detailing the top 10 "trends in
U.S. agriculture."
Optimists will find much comfort here. "Sales of organic food are growing about 18% a year,
with meat and fish experiencing the fastest growth, according to figures from the Organic Trade
Association. The amount of U.S. certified organic cropland for corn, soybeans, and other major
crops doubled from 1997 to 2001, according to the USDA."
But organic hardly means local, or even sustainable. Organic produce gets a 30 percent premium
to conventional in the wholesale market, but converting to organic can cost as much as $10,000
per acre. The cost requirement, as well as mass amounts of paperwork required for
certification, are better suited to large industrial farms than small ones. The organic apple
of bunch of kale you buy at Whole Foods was likely trucked crosscountry from California after
being grown on a huge farm, almost certainly worked by exploited migrant labor. In other words,
many of the industrial practices and social relations have been preserved.
...
Philpott tells me things I didn't know, writes with humor and clarity... and is involved in a
small organic, sustainable farm himself, so it's a good bet that his work isn't BS. (Well,
maybe on the farm...) I confess I shop at Whole Foods sometimes because it is the closest
source of anything organic, and I already knew about their reluctance to unionize (not that
they completely disallow it), but I didn't realize the degree to which their foods come from
non-sustainable sources. I probably won't be able to remedy this myself... Houston is
sprawling, and there are no farmer's markets near my home... but it's better to know than not
to know.
- Human Rights Watch
has released its paper on the dangers of working in the meat and poultry industry:
Abuses Against Workers Taint U.S. Meat and Poultry
(Chicago, January 25, 2005)—Workers in the U.S. meat and poultry industry endure unnecessarily
hazardous work conditions, and the companies employing them often use illegal tactics to crush
union organizing efforts, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
In meat and poultry plants across the United States, Human Rights Watch found that many workers
face a real danger of losing a limb, or even their lives, in unsafe work conditions. It also
found that companies frequently deny workers’ compensation to employees injured on the job,
intimidate and fire workers who try to organize, and exploit workers’ immigrant status in order
to keep them quiet about abuses.
Field research for the report examined beef packing in Nebraska, hog slaughtering in North
Carolina, and poultry processing in Arkansas. The report looks closely at companies such as
Tyson Foods Inc., Smithfield Foods Inc., and Nebraska Beef Ltd.
“Meatpacking is the most dangerous factory job in America,” said Lance Compa, the report’s
author and a labor rights researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Dangerous conditions are cheaper
for companies—and the government does next to nothing.”
The 175-page report, “Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants,”
shows how the increasing volume and speed of production coupled with close quarters, poor
training and insufficient safeguards have made meat and poultry work so hazardous. On each work
shift, workers make up to 30,000 hard-cutting motions with sharp knives, causing massive
repetitive motion injuries and frequent lacerations. Workers often do not receive compensation
for workplace injuries because companies fail to report injuries, delay and deny claims, and
take reprisals against workers who file them.
“A century after Upton Sinclair wrote ‘The Jungle,’ workers in the meatpacking industry still
face serious injuries,” said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch.
“Public agencies try to protect consumers from tainted meat, but do little to protect workers
from unsafe conditions.”
...
Upton Sinclair. Jeebus!
I don't talk a whole lot about my being a vegetarian. And I never, ever proselytize: what
people eat is very much their business, and humans are natural omnivores. On the rare occasions
on which people ask me why I'm a sprout-eater, I trot out a short list of oversimplified reasons
which typically are what the questioner expects to hear: I love animals, I value my health, and
vegetables don't scream as loudly when you kill them. The next time someone asks, I'll add this
one: I don't want responsibility for the human rights abuses in the meatpacking industry. I
don't doubt that raising vegetables also often involves the abuse of migrant workers, as
mentioned in Philpott's example above. But I have to eat something. To the extent I am able to
address a variety of issues by not eating meat, I'm happy to do so. In case you think I'm
enduring some great privation, it's been about 23 years since I ate meat. I don't miss it.
Steve
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Selected Links To Recent Posts
Click any permalink below to go to the original article on a previous page.
Click a comment link below to add a comment to the original article.
Your comment will be noticed, by the YDD at least:
HaloScan has a page allowing me to view recent comments, no matter which post they refer to.
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No To Gonzales - Again
Steve
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No To Gonzales
Steve
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Democracy On The March
Steve
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Friday Cat Snapping
Steve
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Bush's Little White Lies
Steve
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No Crisis
Steve
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New Blog: President Boxer
Steve
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Water Is Like Peace
Steve
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The Coronation -- DOGGEREL!
Steve
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Better the occasional faults of a government that lives
in a spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a
government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
- FDR
I belong to the Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party.
- Paul Wellstone
I am a Democrat without prefix, without suffix, and without apology.
- Sam Rayburn
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