Sometimes people ask me why I do not deal with Apple computers at all. Read
this
and I think you'll understand why:
iPhone developer slams Apple over App Store yank
VoiceCentral, a Google Voice-related app, gets pulled; 'fanboi' developer angry
By Gregg Keizer
July 30, 2009 04:12 PM ET
Computerworld - The CEO of the company whose Google Voice-related application was recently yanked by Apple from
the iPhone's App Store is hopping mad.
Kevin Duerr, the chief executive of Durham, N.C.-based Riverturn Inc., took Apple out to the woodshed over its
refusal to explain why his VoiceCentral application was pulled from the App Store earlier this week. "I'm a
self-admitted Apple 'fanboi', but this knocked me to the core," said Duerr in an interview today.
In a blog entry posted Tuesday, Duerr outlined his conversation with an Apple representative, identified only as
"Richard," who had called to inform Riverturn that VoiceCentral, an application that let iPhone users log in to
the Google Voice service, had been removed from the App Store.
During that conversation, Richard told Duerr that VoiceCentral was being dropped because it "duplicates features
of the iPhone," but repeatedly refused to answer Duerr's questions, including what his developers could change
to meet Apple's requirements.
"Can you tell me what portions of the app were duplicate features?" Duerr asked.
"I can't go into granular detail," Richard replied.
Duerr persisted. "Is there something we can change or alter in order to regain compliance and get back in the
Store?" he asked.
"I can't say," responded Richard.
...
"I can't say." Would you bet your business... or any aspect of it... on this company? Humility has never been
even the least part of Apple Computer, but things are getting a bit out of hand, wouldn't you say? Apple
customers should also take note: What affects the developer community, affects you. Developers and
customers alike: proceed at your own risk.
UPDATE Friday: more insight and a personal experience are available
here.
I'm not the only sickie around this household. Tabitha, poor soul, sneezed almost literally all last night.
Today, apart from waking up once to eat, she has stayed in bed the entire day. Hey, it isn't easy being old!
Samantha keeps her company, and so do all their catnip mice and other toys, but Samantha does not share the bed
with her (that's not unusual):
Posted very early. I really can't keep to a clock when I'm in this condition, not even after listening to all
tracks on Kristian Schultze's by now ancient
(1987) but still very enjoyable Metronomics.
UPDATE a few hours later: Tabitha, though still occasionally sneezing and
constantly wheezing, seems to be feeling better. Once again, Ceiling Cat willing, she has another chance.
Apparently I have the flu, the small, merely annoying version of what's going around. After a couple of days of
my wandering around exhausted, Stella and I went shopping yesterday, and I was scarcely able to walk from
the far end of the local Target store back to the car. Stella tells me that I was nearly incoherent, saying
things that were downright cuckoo as she drove me home. That is no longer the case: I am not nearly incoherent;
I am fully incoherent. Seriously, a good night's sleep, some ordinary OTC meds and a cold cloth on my forehead
overnight have done wonders for me. Others who have had this bug, including people at Stella's place of
employment, say that this one is very brief, a few days at most. I hope they're right.
In any case, I have a doctor's appointment late this afternoon, already scheduled for another purpose. It is my
intention to blog straight through this thing unless it gets worse. Thanks for your patience.
UPDATE Thursday 11:30am CT: I'm doing better. I'm past the relentless fever and
incoherency to a barely elevated temperature that comes and goes but is mostly gone. In other words, absent a
relapse, I'm back. Thanks for all your supportive comments. Now if we can just get Tabitha over her apparent
cold...
Driving While Texting... does anybody think that isn't a dangerous thing to do? Now the Virginia Tech
Transportation Institute has released a study evaluating the relative danger of a number of activities drivers
may engage in while they drive. The study methodology is described in
this NYT article.
The
conclusion
is scarcely surprising: among drivers who engage in distracting activities, texting is much, much, much
more liable to cause an accident than anything else they could do. According to the study results, a driver who
is texting is 23 times more likely than an undistracted driver to be involved in a crash or near-crash.
Compare that to merely talking on a cell phone while driving: a driver chattering on a cell is only 1.3 times
more liable to accident than an undistracted driver. Of course DWT should be outlawed; it's by no means so
clear that merely talking on a cell phone while driving should be banned.
What's next from the industry? A built-in speech-to-text converter, driven by a windshield heads-up display
better suited to the late unlamented F-22 fighter? Could one really savor the experience of texting if one's
thumbs didn't ache at day's end?
Taser International unveiled its first new stun gun since 2003 on Monday, a device that can shock three
people without being reloaded.
Older Taser stun guns, in use by 14,200 law enforcement agencies throughout the United States, have to be
reloaded after one shot, which can be a problem for an officer who has missed a target or has more than one
suspect to subdue.
...
While the device can be used against three people, it targets the same person more than once. Smith
said each barb would deliver a separate shock.
...
(Emphasis digby's.)
I tell you, it's a thrill a minute out there. When I was a young man, all I had to worry about was being
literally run over by a police car driven by HPD Park Police, who reportedly were made up of academy wash-outs.
They stopped me once as I walked through Hermann Park... if by "stopped me" you mean they ran over a curb,
pointed their police car straight at me, veered to continue the assault when I stepped out of their way in fear,
and stopped no more than about six feet from me... all to give me a lecture. In retrospect, that was nothing in
comparison to these heady days of triple-shot Tasers: relatively speaking, I was downright safe when I was
being assaulted only with an automobile driven by two gun-toting men.
Seriously: this kind of crap inclines me simply to stay home in bed and pull the covers over my head. Before
the above-described incident, I actually had a very positive attitude toward HPD; once they actually helped me
out of a jam when my old Ford's transmission quit on the road in the middle of the night. Even after that
auto-assault episode, I was still inclined to give a cop the benefit of a doubt in most circumstances. But if they
start carrying three-shot Tasers, that's all over. How could it be otherwise for anyone who has any sort of
major medical problem? The only safe place for someone with, say, cardiovascular problems or neurological
problems would be far, far away from a Taser-toting cop.
Carrying such a multi-shot weapon serves only one primary purpose, and it's the same as carrying any other sort
of automatic weapon that has the potential to kill: intimidating people. If these new Tasers are
universally deployed in America, I'll seriously consider moving somewhere else... despite the fact that I have
nothing on my police record worse than a minor traffic ticket. Given the well-documented incidence of Taser
abuse by some police departments, I will not stick around to be triply intimidated by Dog-knows-whom for Dog-knows-what
purposes. Forget it.
How soon will
this man
get our nation into needless international conflict? Eric Kleefeld explains the sordid specifics of John
Cornyn's alleged substitution of "India" for "China":
Cornyn's Office Apologizes For India Comments, Says He Misspoke
By Eric Kleefeld - July 27, 2009, 9:08AM
Sen. John Cornyn's office has apologized for his statement last week that America needs the F-22 fighter plane
in order to deal with the national security threat from India -- which is an ally of the United States -- saying
he misspoke.
"Senator Cornyn misspoke saying 'India' when he meant to say 'China,'" Cornyn's spokesman said in a statement to
the Times of India. "As Founder and Co-chairman of the Senate India Caucus, no Senator has greater respect or
admiration for India or values our relationship with them more. Sen. Cornyn regrets the mistake and apologizes
for any misunderstanding this may have caused."
...
Many Americans from India by birth or heritage are politically conservative (let me also emphasize that many are not), and Cornyn
would not necessarily be an inappropriate choice for an Indian-American voter if Cornyn had one brain cell in
his head and one shred of diplomacy in his soul. As things are, however, lately Cornyn seems hell-bent on offending
every American demographic except wealthy white males of Western European heritage born in the United States.
One might think Mexican-Americans and Americans descended from families in India had few similarities, but
there is one significant one that Cornyn seems not to have fathomed: Like Americans of Mexican heritage,
Americans descended from parents or grandparents living in India are very, very much involved in both cultures,
both peoples. If Cornyn's nonsensical (and arguably dangerous) remark does not cost him some of his already
dwindling base, I'll be surprised.
UPDATE:Spencer Ackerman
points out that it is just as nutso to allude to a threat to China as to India. Ackerman quite correctly notes
the craziness of issuing an implied military threat to China by saying we're going to keep an otherwise unneeded
airplane project just to fend off China, but I might ask another simple question: who does Cornyn think is
holding our fucking debts these days, if not China? See
this wiki
for several of the best reasons... but by no means the only reasons... why we shouldn't stir up China just to
score U.S. domestic political points.
Is anyone else out there old enough to remember when that sort of crap was
completely unacceptable, and Americans muttered things like "politics stops at the water's edge"?
Gov. Rick Perry, raising the specter of a showdown with the Obama administration, suggested Thursday that he
would consider invoking states’ rights protections under the 10th Amendment to resist the president’s healthcare
plan, which he said would be "disastrous" for Texas.
Interviewed by conservative talk show host Mark Davis of Dallas’ WBAP/820 AM, Perry said his first hope is that
Congress will defeat the plan, which both Perry and Davis described as "Obama Care." But should it pass, Perry
predicted that Texas and a "number" of states might resist the federal health mandate.
"I think you’ll hear states and governors standing up and saying 'no’ to this type of encroachment on the states
with their healthcare," Perry said. "So my hope is that we never have to have that stand-up. But I’m certainly
willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government
philosophy down our collective throats."
Perry's assertion raises several interesting questions. ...
...
Read Prof. Balkin's "interesting questions." And contemplate Rick Perry: there's more full-blown batshit in that
man's skull than there is under
Austin's Congress Ave. bridge.
Did George W. Bush really seriously contemplate sending U.S. military troops to arrest terrorism suspects on
American soil?
Yes,
say Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston of the NYT:
WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American
troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to
former administration officials.
Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president
had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as
the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.
Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.
...
In the discussions, Mr. Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that,
using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al
Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.
...
Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, said an American
president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without
specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.
...
Eventually, Bush sent the FBI to make the arrests.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878
strongly limits the use of military personnel for domestic law enforcement. The Fourth Amendment... well, if
you're reading this site, you know what the Fourth Amendment is supposed to do. Or, well, we think
we know.
The memorandum was written by John Yoo (one is tempted to say "of course"). Considering the chain of
consequences... not just Bush's frequent stick-in-the-eye actions but Obama's propensity to follow Bush's all
but dictatorial course... that name may loom large in American history.
Oh, my... in the tradition of Newt Gingrich (during the Clinton impeachment, no less), Mark Foley,
Mark Sanford,
John Ensign,
and, it seems, a majority of Republican elected officials these days, we have the hypocrisy of
this fellow:
Abstinence-Supporting GOP State Lawmaker Admits To Sex With 22-Year-Old Intern
By Zachary Roth - July 23, 2009, 4:19PM
Paging Keith Olbermann. You can call off the search...we've found your Worst Person in the World for tonight.
Meet Tennessee state senator Paul Stanley. He's a solid conservative Republican and married father of two, who
according to his website is "a member of Christ United Methodist Church, where he serves as a Sunday school
teacher and board member of their day school." (Check out the religious imagery on the site -- the sun poking
through clouds, as if manifesting God's presence -- which of course shows Stanley's deeply pious nature.)
...
In a sworn affidavit, a Tennessee state investigator has said that Stanley admitted to having a "sexual
relationship" with a 22-year-old female intern working in his office, and to taking nude pictures of her in
"provocative poses" in his apartment.
...
This particular story grows even seamier... the intern's boyfriend now stands charged with attempting to
blackmail the state senator. That was pretty stupid of the boyfriend, but will anything at all happen to the
senator? Depending on his district, somehow, I doubt it. IOKIYAR. (It's OK, if you're a Republican.)
As ellroon quipped...
"Just wondering.... Why can't the Republicans control their ... members?"
Samantha and Tabitha enjoy some afternoon sunshine before the downpour that followed...
We are somewhat concerned about a chronic problem Tabitha has had for some time, a cluster of tiny lumps on her
head which appear to be growing. [Update: Stella informs me they are basal cell tumors, typically benign.]
The vet says surgery would be curative, and that she (the vet) thinks
she can manage an anesthetic that will not send Tabitha over the rainbow. We're not so sure. Tabitha generally
doesn't seem to be in any great amount of pain, and she's as feisty, demanding, vociferous and generally active
as ever, though occasionally she exhibits peculiar behavior. (If I were to live to her equivalent in human
years, 96, I suspect I'd exhibit peculiar behavior more than just occasionally!) If Tabitha has a limited time
among us on this orb, Stella and I agree that it should be as pleasant and as little stressful for her as
possible. Stella will have another talk with the vet about the alternatives, the risks, the benefits etc. Of
course I'll keep you informed.
(Posted early. It is I, not Tabitha, who feels his age, and perhaps a bit more, these days.)
One commenter on that post,
neoboho,
notes that the pic photoshopped with Obama's head is not really a "witch doctor" or even
necessarily an African, but more likely from Papua, New Guinea. I myself don't know. But apparently for some
(perhaps most) GOPers, as the commenter notes, "[w]hen it comes to racism, any Black will do."
Indeed, it's not just directed at Blacks. Think back a couple of weeks to Sen. Jeff Sessions's remarks about and
to Judge Sotomayor, particularly the one in which he alluded to something another Puerto Rican... not
Sotomayor... had done. This bigotry is cut from the same cloth: if you are (fill in the blank: Black, Hispanic,
whatever, anything not lily-white), many GOPers deplore you on that basis alone. I can't help thinking the
future is going to be lonely for them. That's presuming, of course, that we have a future...
Stella's birthday was earlier this week. It was her... um... well, suffice it to say she looks about half her
actual age:
(The YDD YSS displays the idiot grin so typical of him when he realizes he is being photographed with a
strikingly beautiful woman who plans to go home with him.)
Glenn Greenwald
has the details. Greenwald likens Obama's justice policies to those of the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland:
...
The Queen's pronouncement -- "Sentence first -- verdict afterward" -- is a fine expression of Obama's approach
here: these prisoners are decreed to be Dangerous and Guilty and are sentenced to prolonged, indefinite
imprisonment and must not be released; now let's tailor a process for each of them to ensure that this verdict
is produced....
...
And that's exactly what Obama is doing. If an ordinary civilian or military court is certain to obtain a
conviction of the alleged terrorist, s/he is tried in that court. If there is any uncertainty of a guilty
verdict in court, a military commission is used, allowing the admission of all sorts of "evidence" ... secret,
obtained by torture, whatever... that would presumably not be admitted in a regular court. If there is still
any uncertainty about obtaining a conviction by a military commission... indeed, even if an actual acquittal
is delivered... well, the King President simply decrees the accused guilty anyway and detains him or her
"preventively" and indefinitely. If the King says you're a terrorist, b'gawd you're a terrorist, due process
be damned. Hey, it's the new American way.
I suppose I should reiterate that Obama lied during his campaign... not by omission, not by obfuscation, but by
simple, direct statements that he would do the opposite of what he is in fact doing regarding terrorism,
national security, warrantless searches, judicial due process and other civil liberties. In that respect, he is
no better than George W. Bush. Is Obama preferable to, say, McCain in other respects? Probably... but how can
we trust him to do anything he says?
... since 1969? Oh, wait; I guess that was The Eagles, not The Eagle, that landed. And no craft occupied by
humans has landed on any body other than Earth in many years (unless you count the international space station).
Still, 40 years later, we certainly have lots of lunar landing trivia, e.g.,
here
and
here.
Feel free to add your own in the comments... links to stories published elsewhere are probably best.
I remember where I was when Alan Shepard went up in 1961: in a classroom, listening to the radio. But I honestly
don't remember where I watched the landing of Apollo 11. If any of you have good stories, feel free to
tell them here.
grn ln op who tld auth he was txt msgg his gf b4 srs crash is sched 2b arraigned today nglgnce chg...
Oh, wait... let's try again...
The Green Line operator who told authorities he was text messaging his girlfriend before a serious crash is
scheduled to be arraigned today on a negligence charge in Suffolk Superior Court.
...
OK, I'm not very good at texting... yet. Stella and I, out of necessity, got new cell phones this weekend; our
old ones were starting to fail in two different unacceptable ways. The new ones are the third cell phones we've
owned, and it's the first time the bargain-basement entry-level "free" phones you get for signing a contract
(in our case, the Samsung Propel) have alpha keyboards. So we paid a very few bucks for 200 messages a month,
just to see what all the fuss is about.
So far, my most significant observation is this: only a damned fool would attempt to text while operating any
sort of vehicle. In these economically awful days, I hate to see anyone lose his or her job, but that operator
needs to lose his job.
Lock your doors. Nail your windows shut. Put your most precious books in the safe. Grab your favorite firearm
and sit up late at night waiting for the thief. Oh, wait;
none of that will do any good against Amazon:
Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle
By BRAD STONE
Published: July 17, 2009
In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by
sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”
On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by
Amazon.com.
In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital
editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.
An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a
company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the
rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded
customers,” he said.
...
Irony Department, pick up line 3...
I've never lusted after Kindle. Electronic devices of all sorts are fraught with problems, of which Amazon's
theft is merely one example. And even the best digital display is inferior to a well-printed book page. But a
lot of people seem fond of their Kindles.
That's what is so exasperating about Amazon's initial decision to curry favor with their publishers by stealing
a duly purchased product back from their customers. The NYT article says there does not appear to be anything
in Amazon's end-user license agreement that allows them to do this, but it's not the legal niceties that bother
me. It's the practical fact of Amazon's being able to steal back your book... and their evident willingness to
do so when it suits them. (Amazon notes that it has since abandoned the practice, instead merely removing the
offending book from its current catalog.)
Bruce Schneier, quoted in the same Times article, says it best:
“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security
technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m
frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I
can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”
A personal aside about healthcare: mine isn't working. Many bloggers labor under far worse burdens than mine; a
few such as andante and Steve Gilliard even die in the saddle. I'm not to that point yet... I think... but the
general state of my health is interfering with my blogging, and my efforts to do something about my condition
have been ineffective. The healthcare funding options available today aren't helping me much, and my inability
to drive more than a few blocks while wearing that post-surgical boot limits my ability to do even normal
everyday things in a city like Houston, in which public transit is utterly useless. (If it weren't for Stella, I
wouldn't even be eating regularly.) I do hope to get past some of this at some point. But for now, I find myself
experiencing almost daily exhaustion. It's true that disillusionment with the Obama administration and the
Democratic Congress would be sufficient in and of itself to discourage me from political activism, but it's more
than that: I am no longer medically sound. If I'm not blogging as much as usual, now you know why.
Look: arguably the brightest blogger in the 'sphere correctly observes that pundits were shocked that Bill
Clinton was impeached for a blow job (gasp!), but were indifferent to GeeDubya Bush's and Dick "Dick" Cheney's
institution of torture as international policy for the United States of America.
The rest of the segment after Marcy (of
Firedoglake)
left the set was all about Marcy's use of "blow job." Torture? you think the MSM cares if our nation institutes
torture as policy? Nothing about torture; everything about "blow job." And they had the unmitigated gall to
apologize on her behalf, something she herself never would have done!
Lefties cuss. Righties pretend they don't, but of course they lie, as they do about everything else. Let's make
them pay for this. And... "blow job"? what ya gonna call it, "fellatio"? This was a way to avoid talking about
the fact that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney made torture a policy of the U.S., and implemented it. It's
that simple: Bush and Cheney engaged in international criminal acts. And the MSM doesn't even want an
investigation of the possibility that they are criminals. What does that tell you about the MSM?
Kudos to Wheeler for her research and her truth-telling. If we are to survive as a nation, that nation must act
on what Wheeler has found and published.
Here's the almost-retired, once-great American cyclist exerting her utmost effort to take a stage in the Tour
de Houston on... Mom's exercise bike? Awwwww, Mom, couldn't you have at least set your real bicycle here?
Oh well...
My blog's web host suffered an extended outage (about a day) during which all of us could see the site but I
could not modify it to put up new posts. The problem was security-related and could not be ignored, so the man
in charge at the hosting company spared no effort to plug the hole. Unfortunately, while viewing the site was
possible the whole time, the ability to post sites on the host returned gradually, at different times to
different sites. The repair is ongoing, but my site has been secured by the host, and most (not all) of my
ability to post has been returned to me.
Apologies for the outage. Shit happens. Shit especially happens when hackers decide to wreak havoc on the rest
of the world; ask them if they give a good damn. I hope their motherboards all fry in the next lightning storm.
There's an interesting and troubling post below having to do with a relatively new and very pernicious medical
billing practice which has become some clinics' answer to insurance companies' arbitrary claim denials, but
which shifts the burden onto... guess who. In addition, there may be cat blogging a little later, especially if
that pic of Samantha stretching her front legs comes out OK. Stay tuned. And again, apologies for the absence.
Ask Your Doc Three Questions - Get A Bill For Each Answer
This diary entry
by aliasofwestgate on FDL's The Seminal is interesting and troubling in and of itself, for its eye-opening
account of one person's travails in pursuit of medical treatment in spite of a clinic billing department, but
this comment
by jorudrud on the same post just blew me away. The short version: jorudrud, who was insured 100 percent for
one complete physical a year, had that physical. jorudrud asked the one doctor three questions... and was billed
for three office visits, one for each question asked. The clinic billing department's response? Why, they saved
jorudrud two extra trips to the clinic for the second and third matters of concern! No, jorudrud was not
informed of the charge structure in advance.
You should not have to ask in advance whether you will be multiply billed for asking multiple questions in a
"complete" physical... in my opinion, that is unmitigated fraud on the part of the clinic... but you may be sure
I will now ask exactly that before any medical procedure of any sort: how many billing events will this visit
generate?
Have I mentioned lately how much I detest the healthcare funding "system" (read: "ripoff") in this country?
Clearly, even being insured and basically healthy is no guarantee of not being bankrupted by the most ordinary
of medical expenses. I'm sorry; that sort of fraud is just plain wrong, and should be illegal.
... to which we moved about four months ago. Well, on the whole, it's been a good place to live, but we've
learned a few things about it since then. Sing to the obvious tune:
Our Unfavorite Things
Cat pee on wood floors and hose nozzles failing,
Kitchen door stairways that don't have a railing,
Door bells responding to neighbors' doors' rings,
Our House is full of unfavorite things...
Fridges still freezing but failing at cooling,
Thousands of folks driving kids to their schooling,
Under the flight paths... count rivets in wings,
These are Our House's unfavorite things...
When the cat purrs,
When the chimes sing,
When we're feeling glad...
We'll surely soon face an unfavorite thing,
And then we will feel... so... bad!
Steve Bates
If I had chosen to inflict the extra two verses on you, there was plenty of material available, but I decided
to spare you. And in truth, we're not so close under the flight path that we can actually count rivets in the
planes' wings, but we see and hear enough aircraft, high and (occasionally) low, that I'd have been delighted to
live in this place as a small child.
When Sen. Al Franken was sworn in as the 60th Democratic Senator, one commenter on a thread of a
major political blog said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Oh noes... now Harry Reid will have to find another
excuse why Democrats can't pass legislation."
In welcoming Franken to Capitol Hill this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sounded a
conciliatory note.
"Democrats aren't looking at Senator Franken's election as an opportunity to ram legislation through the
Senate," he said Monday. "In turn, Senate Republicans must understand that Senator-elect Franken's election does
not abdicate them from the responsibility of governing. That is why we have and will continue to offer Senate
Republicans a seat at the table. It is up to them to decide whether they will sit down and work for the common
good or continue to be the 'Party of No.' "
But the arrival of a 60th Democratic vote has been accompanied by increasing pressure from liberal groups
nationwide that have helped bankroll the party's electoral successes the past few years. They are now demanding
that Democrats follow through on their campaign promises, with or without Republican votes.
...
Ooooh, those eeeevil "liberal groups." It's our fault that (apart from polls sponsored by a GOP consultant
group) Americans' support for healthcare reform, even at the cost of higher taxes,
is overwhelming.
It's the fault of "liberal groups" that
¾ of Americans want us out of Iraq.
It's the fault of "liberal groups" that
Obama is almost as obsessively secretive
as his predecessor, and almost as quick to deny civil liberties to noncitizens accused of terrorism.
Oh, yeah; we liberals are all-powerful, and we wield that power ruthlessly.
Um... Ruth... where are you?
Actually, lacking Ruth, I'd settle for any small shred of evidence that this is true. As far as I can tell, the
Democratic Party, especially Barack Obama, has accepted liberals' votes without complaint and taken our
money as if it were as good as anybody else's. Moreover, the electorate, on major issue after major issue, sides
with us, often not just by a majority but overwhelmingly... unless, of course, you believe papers released by
GOP-sponsored "research" groups. Right now, America is, statistically, liberal.
So, WaPo and other rags that feed us the likes of the quotation above... do you believe in democracy, or don't
you? When a clear majority of America is liberal, do we liberals not legitimately call the shots? Should Obama
default on his own base just to spite those eeeevil liberal groups?
(Don't bother responding, jerks. I already know your answer.)
In a tragedy that seems almost straight out of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," a man in Camden, New
Jersey has died after falling into a vat of boiling chocolate.
The man had been in the melting pot for about 10 minutes by the time crews arrived, and by the time he was
pulled out of the chocolate it was too late. He was declared dead shortly after 11 a.m.
...
I know it's a terrible thing to respond with laughter to such tragedy... but I did. Blame
Tommy and Dickie.
And please acknowledge, in fairness, that I wasn't the only one whose mind ran off the track in this way...
use Teh Google to find a few thousand similar results.
For eight years, we had a president who was not legitimately elected who also asserted the power to imprison
people indefinitely without any kind of due process. Now we have a legitimately elected president who thinks
he's a king. Here's
Glenn Greenwald
on the subject:
Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified.
As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration
deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them
indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial. About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal
detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of
anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it
"moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective." Law professor Jonathan
Turley was more blunt: "The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies
— now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention."
...
"[P]residential post-acquittal detention power" ... that's a degree of authority typically claimed historically
by kings and dictators. Is that what we have now? is the U.S. now a dictatorship?
For several decades, I was a member of the Democratic Party. I know I'm an old man with a fading memory, but I
do not recall the announcement of the addition of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" to the
Democratic platform... and I'm pretty sure I'd have remembered that. I have no intention of voluntarily or even
quietly living in a dictatorship or a nonconstitutional monarchy. If he wants my support... if the Democratic
Party wants my support... King Barack must revert to his status as President Obama, forthwith.
Hussein’s Gun May Go on Display at Bush Library
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: July 5, 2009
...
For the record, I'm pretty sure they mean Saddam Hussein, not King Hussein or Barack Hussein. But onward...
...
Many American presidents have kept prized possessions within reach during their White House years. Franklin D.
Roosevelt cherished a 19th century ship model of the U.S.S. Constitution. One of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s favorite
gifts was an engraved Steuben glass bowl from his cabinet. And sitting on John F. Kennedy’s desk in the Oval
Office was a paperweight made from a coconut shell he had carved with a distress message after his PT-109 was
sunk during World War II.
The objects have been bequeathed to the American public, accessible through a visit to each man’s presidential
library and museum. And so when the library for George W. Bush opens in 2013 on the campus of Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, visitors will most likely get to see one of his most treasured items: Saddam Hussein’s
pistol.
...
(Sigh.) What... you expected Dub's copy of David McCullough's John Adams?
Dubya treasures Saddam's... pistol. Hmmm... I wonder whose is longer...
I suspect that the truth is that [Obama] thinks he's clumsily triangulating. But the groups that he's
criticizing are actually trying to support his position on the public plan and attacking them undermines the
public plan as well. (Of course, it's always possible that's the intention, but I hope not.)
The problem is that triangulation is for the purpose of positioning the president between two poles in the
debate. He's just set one of the poles as the public plan, which says to certain wobbly Senators that it's
negotiable. I would have thought the better way to deal with this is to assure these congressional twits (who
gladly ate tremendous amounts of shit from right wingers for years, but get livid at the tiniest criticism from
the left) that he isn't endorsing any of these attacks, but that there's not much he can do about it. It's a
free country. These waverers might just realize that he's serious about getting a public plan without him having
to explicitly tell them so.
By now it's obvious that dismissing and humiliating the base is a conscious White House strategy and I'm sure
it's sometimes quite useful, even though it's a distinctly unsavory political tactic (and one that erodes
support over time.) But in this case, if they really want health reform, it's counterproductive. He needs the
outside groups to play this role and by publicly reprimanding them he's undermining these groups with their
already skittish donors --- and the cause itself.
But again, that's assuming that's not exactly what they want to do. If they want to undermine the public plan
then this is one good way to do it.
...
Yes, it's an "unsavory political tactic," to say the least. And as part of that base, I have to say that tactic
is driving me away. Obama seems to be a man with good intentions but (despite all commentary to the contrary)
terrible strategic instincts on this critical issue. If he wants his left base to support him over the coming
3½ years, he had better stop reprimanding us as if we were misbehaving small children. I expect not to
be listened to, but I will not tolerate being told to sit down and shut up.
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Friday: Tabitha Takes The Red-Eye
Tabitha grabs a bit of sun...
By the way, much of the vision in her right eye, thought to be lost over a year ago, has returned!
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
This year's big Independence Day celebration in downtown Houston is known as
