MetaFilter

Heinz Meanz Beanz: Is America ready for a sassy, intelligent, outspoken, wilful, foul-mouthed, irreverent, garrulous, domineering, flamboyant, freethinking and utterly charming First Lady?* Portugal certainly is - as Teresa Heinz Kerry, born Teresa Simoes Ferreira, is Portuguese and it would be nice to have a secret agent such a close ally in the White House. But there's also a lot of hate about. Do most American voters really take candidates' wives, husbands or partners into account? *Heh. The "utterly charming" was added at the last minute when I realized that all these adjectives could apply to Hilary Clinton.
comment posted at 6:24 PM on Jan-26-04

Janklow Gets 100 Days for Manslaughter
A career of willful and flagrant disregard for traffic laws and other people's safety that ended in the death of a motorcyclist.
Must be nice to be pals with the president. Although I'm sure that had nothing to do with his slap-on-the-wrist sentence. I was just saying that it must be nice to be pals with the president.
comment posted at 4:39 PM on Jan-22-04

On the fast track to the Supremes --In a recess appointment, Bush put Mississippi Judge Charles Pickering on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans today. The American Life League is thrilled, but NARAL not so much.
comment posted at 5:17 PM on Jan-16-04

French-fried cars for New Year In Detroit, it has been a custom to fire guns during New Year's celebrations. Perhaps we should put aside our current dislike of the French and borrow this fine way to usher in a brand new year. After all, it is the French who have given us taste, culture, refinement, and the liberty of self-expression.
comment posted at 8:27 PM on Jan-3-04
comment posted at 9:06 PM on Jan-3-04

A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies. All text is verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers. In places, tenses have been changed for clarity. Originally from Harper's Magazine, September, 2003. By Sam Smith.
comment posted at 10:19 PM on Jan-3-04

France, stung by Libyan WMD deal, admits US policies showing results Ok. Agreed. You don't like Bush. And the French government does not like Bush. But here is what the French now say about Libya: [...] The media, which have long criticised the US war and invasion of Iraq, grudgingly allowed that that conquest had borne fruit in terms of putting pressure on other countries Washington considers "rogue states" or part of an "axis of evil"[...]
comment posted at 8:14 PM on Dec-22-03

The American Geophysical Union has just adopted a new policy position on global warming in which it states its concern over rising greenhouse gas emissions.
comment posted at 3:42 PM on Dec-17-03

memogate
first the plame affair - now stolen confidential memos from democratic senators servers ... business as usual on capitol hill?
comment posted at 4:14 PM on Nov-28-03
comment posted at 6:52 PM on Nov-28-03
comment posted at 6:17 AM on Nov-29-03

Bush is sabotaging the laws that have protected America's environment for more than thirty years, according to this excellent article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, was also recently interviewed by Salon.
comment posted at 2:21 PM on Nov-22-03
comment posted at 7:49 PM on Nov-22-03

Terrific Frank Rich piece (NYT link) on Angels, Reagan, and AIDS in America.
comment posted at 6:00 PM on Nov-16-03

Gore Vidal releases new book about the founding fathers, has some words for the current administration. Vidal: But mostly we find the sort of corruption Franklin predicted. Ours is a totally corrupt society. The presidency is for sale. Whoever raises the most money to buy TV time will probably be the next president. This is corruption on a major scale. Enron was an eye-opener to naive lovers of modern capitalism. Our accounting brotherhood, in its entirety, turned out to be corrupt, on the take. With the government absolutely colluding with them and not giving a damn. Bush’s friend, old Kenny Lay, is still at large and could just as well start some new company tomorrow. If he hasn’t already. No one is punished for squandering the people’s money and their pension funds and for wrecking the economy. So the corruption predicted by Franklin bears its terrible fruit. No one wants to do anything about it. It’s not even a campaign issue. Once you have a business community that is so corrupt in a society whose business is business, then what you have is, indeed, despotism. It is the sort of authoritarian rule that the Bush people have given us.
comment posted at 5:26 PM on Nov-15-03

You are fat because there is too much corn. [NYT, forfeit of first-born son required] I love good old-fashioned materialism, and Michael Pollan (author of The Botany of Desire) scores one for the team with this article on the economics of corn production. Are we fat because New Deal agricultural policy was overturned in the 70s by Rusty Butz? Now there's a trailing question we can all enjoy.
comment posted at 4:43 PM on Oct-12-03

"I am no victim and do not portray myself as such. I take full responsibility for my problem." Rush Limbaugh finally admits to what everyone's been guessing for a while now...to read the text of his statement, he claims to be making a clean breast of things and taking full responsibility for his own actions. Is this really an example of a vocal ideologue finally living up the standards they proclaim, or is it somehow readable as self-serving hypocrisy?
comment posted at 4:47 PM on Oct-11-03

What do the pope, Bono, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, and Michael Jackson have in common? They're all part of one of the weakest Nobel Peace Prize slates in history. Peace has been a commodity in such short supply recently that a Norwegian researcher has commented that "no political leaders have distinguished themselves in ways deserving of the prize." Another commentator said this time last year that the committee would send the strongest message to the world by selecting nobody.
comment posted at 4:20 PM on Oct-6-03

Roy Horn, of Siegfried and Roy fame, was mauled by a white tiger last night during his show.
comment posted at 11:14 AM on Oct-4-03

Iraq: What Went Wrong By General Wesley K. Clark. I appreciate this article. It is simple, easy to read, and represents what I've been feeling for quite some time now. (NY Review of Books)
comment posted at 5:33 PM on Oct-1-03

smallpox vs. aids: the pandemic smackdown!! Researchers are [very, very cautiously] suggesting there might be a link between the end of smallpox vaccinations in the early 1980s and the rise of HIV. Pinwheel, in the RFID thread: "All I can say is that it's a great time to be a lazy paranoid schizophrenic--modern society is doing all of the work for you."
comment posted at 3:15 PM on Sep-30-03

Bill Gates, the philanthropist. It's not mentioned enough that the world's richest man, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has donated more than $3.2 billion to combat disease and improve education for the poorest people of the world. Bill and his wife Melinda have pledged to give most of their money away before they die -perhaps following Carnegie's philosophy "The Gospel of Wealth" in which he states that the rich have a moral obligation to give away their fortunes.- Just last week they donated $168 million to combat Malaria in Africa, this came "atop $120 million" they already gave towards fighting the disease. Not only is "Malaria, the Terrorist's Friend," but worse every year it sickens 300 million and kills 1.1 million. -does donating Linux to the world make Linus Torvalds a Philanthropist?
comment posted at 5:23 PM on Sep-27-03
comment posted at 8:59 PM on Sep-27-03

The New Republic . . . is one of multiple sources featuring variations on Bush-hating in recent weeks. What's up with the sudden currency of the phrase?
comment posted at 3:32 PM on Sep-26-03

Banned books week begins today. This is the week where the ALA comes out fighting, by raising awareness, against the constant attempts at censorship from ideologues, religious groups, anti-free speech types, etc. Top 100 challenged books here.
comment posted at 7:39 PM on Sep-20-03

US soldier kills rare tiger in Iraq zoo
...during a drunken night of revelry involving - you guessed it - feeding the animals. Geez, this occupation gets better every day.
comment posted at 1:29 PM on Sep-20-03

Frank and sobering interview with Paul Krugman. Krugman: If you ask Norquist or the Heritage Foundation about where the economic and social policy intelligentsia really stands, their aim is to roll us back to Herbert Hoover or before. Norquist actually thinks that we've got to get back to before the progressive movement –- before the McKinley era, which actually is one of Karl Rove's guiding lights as well. So there's definitely an important faction in the Bush administration and in the Republican Party that really wants to unravel all of this stuff and basically wants us to go back to a situation where, if you are unlucky, and you don't have enough to eat, or you can't afford medical care, well, that's just showing that you weren't sufficiently provident. And then, for these people, there would be no social safety net whatsoever. Other people in the party, and other people in the coalition, have deluded themselves into thinking that somehow this is all going to be painless, and we're going to grow our way out of the deficit. Other people really don't care about any of that and are viewing their alliance with these people as a way to achieve their social goals -– basically roll back the revolution in social mores over the past few decades.
comment posted at 6:31 PM on Sep-11-03

Just how rich are you? The worlds 225 richest people have a combined wealth greater than the poorest 2.5 billion people. Where do you fit into the picture? via b3ta
comment posted at 6:40 PM on Sep-5-03
comment posted at 6:16 AM on Sep-6-03
comment posted at 10:15 AM on Sep-7-03
comment posted at 4:21 PM on Sep-9-03
comment posted at 6:35 PM on Sep-9-03

Walter Cronkite's Ten propositions for the Democrats I respect Cronkite like I respect my grandmother. I'm also a democrat. Please someone, anyone, destroy Walter Cronkite's levelheadism here. Please.
comment posted at 1:58 PM on Sep-1-03

Zoloft Found Safe, Effective in Children The study was funded by Pfizer Inc., which makes Zoloft. Visit The International Coalition For Drug Awareness to find out what SSRI Meds can really do to your kids...
comment posted at 6:30 PM on Aug-26-03

This Guy in Minnesota just got laid-off and he's spending his time following around Bush's economic team on their tour of the upper midwest as they share their "upbeat outlook" on our nation's economy. He's following their tourmobile with his own tourmobile and has been chasing them around in parkinglots and at fast food places. He finally cornered the Treasury Secretary whose advice to the job-seeker was to "just wait." What's your economic reality? Is it closer to the sunny optimism of the big shiny tourbus, or the laid-off reality of the homemade minivan? (Check out the particularly funny bit about how he stumbled on the entire press corps only when he was looking for a dumpster.)
comment posted at 6:54 PM on Jul-30-03

Preacher asks for a sign, and gets one. Is this the wonder-working power Bush was talking about in the State of the Union Address? Oddly enough this list of indoor lightning safety tips doesn't suggest staying the hell away from charismatic preachers.
comment posted at 8:17 PM on Jul-5-03

The Windshield Killer: Chante Mallard's Timeline of Shame details what this woman did on the evening leading up to her high speed hit and attempted run when she was on drugs, had been drinking and hit a 37 year old homeless man named Gregory Biggs on the highway. After he lodged in her windshield, she tried to pull him out but couldn't. Instead she drove home, parked the car in the garage and let him bleed to death over the next two hours. Why didn't she call the police or a doctor? She was too scared (read that, too wasted). Instead she had her boyfriend and cousin come and dump the body in a nearby park. Today she was found guilty in 50 minutes by the jury.
comment posted at 7:35 PM on Jun-26-03

Muslim woman sues over driver's license photo A muslim woman is suing the state of Florida because she doesn't want to take off her veil to take the photo. If everyone were allowed to take covered face photos, what would be the point of having a photo? "Whaddya mean that's not me? Look at the eyes!" More links: http://www.naplesnews.com/03/06/florida/d896205a.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/30/muslim-fla-suit.htm (old)
comment posted at 6:38 PM on Jun-6-03

Second study finds gaps in Bush tax cut. A new study has found that 8 million mostly low-income taxpayers will not receive any benefit from the tax law that Republicans have said for weeks was designed to benefit all those who pay income taxes. This in addition to the child tax credit already absent within the law.
comment posted at 6:44 PM on Jun-1-03
comment posted at 6:30 PM on Jun-2-03

To Tell the Truth: Writer Sarah Hepola describes a night drinking beers with disgraced Times reporter Jayson Blair and her own muddy relationship with the truth. "I’ve been trying to stay outside the gray areas these days. I’m trying to tell the truth, in all its raggedness. But I slip up sometimes. I duck the straight and narrow. As I read over what I have written here, I wonder: Have I lied to you yet? Would I even know?"
comment posted at 7:56 PM on May-16-03

Ronald Dworkin on affirmative action at the University of Michigan and in the Supreme Court.
comment posted at 6:34 PM on May-6-03
comment posted at 7:15 PM on May-6-03

22 year old schizophrenic Farrah Russell was rebuilding her life. But when the plug was pulled on the state program that allowed her to subsist, she took her life. Her heartbreaking story is a cautionary tale of the dark consequences of state budget cuts. While politicians argue over tax stimulus proposals that benefit the wealthy, while wild numbers are applied to war budgets, the States have been forced to cut social programs in order to survive. Whether it's California teachers, Connecticut and New York residents dreading tax hikes, Pennsylvania public transportation, or Texas prescription drug coverage for the poor, the States, supposedly United, have been left out to dry. While the States have been forced to cut their programs, groping for survival, Washington remains silent in its mission. It does not remember history. Why do we turn a blind eye to the hidden costs? What can be done about this? And how do we make it stop?
comment posted at 5:57 PM on May-5-03

A Special Kind of Poverty This great article appeared in yesterday's Washington Post Sunday Magazine. Its subject: the trials and tribulations of the poor seeking treatment for their infertility. I don't think I have to list the whole raft of issues this subject raises. As touching as it is thought-provoking.
comment posted at 6:15 PM on Apr-21-03

Democrats finally speaking out? "Today the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives announced that -- and I quote -- 'Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.' Let me make this clear: Never in its history has the United States passed a big tax cut in a time of war. We have always believed in shared sacrifice. " Sen. John Kerry's speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner April 3 in Georgia. (Salon article, click the free day pass to view)
comment posted at 7:30 PM on Apr-6-03

'Huge' Chemical Weapons Plant Found in Iraq - and Hans Blix is somewhere redfaced...
comment posted at 6:02 PM on Mar-23-03
comment posted at 6:12 PM on Mar-23-03

Wakey wakey Mr Blair There's been a lot of media comment recently concerning Tony Blair's visible signs of exhaustion. This piece illustrates just how quickly he needs to wake up to what's going on if he's ever to sleep soundly again. Clare Short should show him the way and save her credibility at the same time
comment posted at 11:28 AM on Mar-22-03

Man accused of spiking child's juice This cracks me up. Apparently a child wouldn't stop crying on an international flight. So a flight attendant took it upon himself to drug the child to get it to be quite. I can certainly sympathize with him. Yes I know it's serious, but it still cracks me up.
comment posted at 7:37 PM on Mar-14-03