Happy New Year

to the two other people who read this blog.

Yeah, three of us, all contributers. I might trim the contributors list sometime soon to reflect involvment.

(Update: I just looked, and most of our readers are in Rochester, New York. That means people from school. A few of my friends' computers at my school come up with perfectly valid on-campus IP addresses that StatCounter lists as Rochester.)

Matt Drudge Screw-Up

This is cut and paste directly from the Drudge Report website as I saw it just now. I don't care about the articles (well, I do, but...)-- just look at the order of the headlines. He-he.

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Shock Poll: Hillary 4th in Iowa...

Obama strong in New Hampshire poll; would beat both McCain and Giuliani...

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Simon Cowell Motto: 'Create the hype, but don't ever believe it'...

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REFRESH DRUDGE REPORT FOR LATEST...

Gotta Protect Our Country from the Muslims...like that Congressman

This amuses me. Enjoy.

Muslims and the Holocaust

Back to Iran's Holocaust conference for a minute: Here's a telling moment in the life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with her commentary.

death penalty Republicans

I haven't really done any research to support my opinions, but I've got some after reading about Jeb Bush's decision to suspend executions in Florida. (And no, I don't think he's planning to run for President in 2008, unless his middle name is Stupid.)

My first reaction was queasiness over the description of the execution. Sure, I've 'seen' the highly-allegorical executions in Dead Man Walking and Green Mile [my 'favorite' on-screen killing comes in Silence of the Lambs when the camera encounters the flayed body of the guard Hannibal Lecter has killed to escape his prison cage, hung from the bars, lit from above, and spread like a winged angel of death], but being fiction, they didn't take the breath out of me.

This decision reminds me of a few years back, when Illinois's now-convicted ex-gov George Ryan commuted all death sentences there just before leaving office embroiled in a corruption scandal. One of the (other) causes of his action was some good investigative reporting done by students at Northwestern proving that innocent people had been sentenced to death and later executed. Is Jeb feeling the same need 'to leave a positive legacy' and 'make a difference'? Are his professed Catholic beliefs actually influencing his decision-making? Or is he just jumping on the Florida's issue-of-the-day to pick up style points?

Republicans have, in theory, been tougher on crime than Democrats: Jeb's dad made use of that line to get elected in 1988. So what's a Republican governor doing easing up on executions? Is this some carefully-crafted response to a shift in public opinion?

The obvious rebuttal would be "Well, all the states that have had Democratic governors since Ted Kennedy crawled out of the swamp have naturally also banned capital punishment; the red states are finally getting on the bandwagon". But as a national movement, the anti-death penalty movement has only succeeded in 12 states. [Is there a pro-death penalty lobby? Probably. What are their rallies like? I shudder to think. And Wikipedia informs me that Michigan banned capital punishment in 1847. Who knew?]

Which leads to my final question? Why aren't more Democratic governors against capital punishment?

the right to embezzle

A snippet from this week's News of the Weird which had me momentarily reconsidering my position on gay rights:

"THE LAWS OF IRONY
• Federal prosecutors have insisted so far that any ill-gotten money that former Enron executives had squirreled away in their spouses’ names still can be fully recovered by the government, except for one executive. Michael Kopper, once a director of Enron’s global finance unit, pleaded guilty in 2002 to illegally obtaining $16.5 million, but he is openly gay. And since his home state of Texas does not recognize his union with his longtime partner, prosecutors cannot treat the partner as a “spouse” and have lumped him with “third party” transferees, whose assets are much more difficult to obtain (according to a November report in Washington Blade)."

Poor Carter

Apparently, some people in Iran don't think the Holocaust happened and so they are having/had a conference to answer questions about such a myth. You can read more here.

Personally, I think they just don't like Carter and with his new book they really want to make him look like even more of a boob than they did last time they had dealings with him. Poor Carter.

Does anyone know what arguments people have against the Holocaust? With so many historians backing it and tons of people having lived through it, I tend to think it probably did occur. However, not wanting to be closed minded, I'd like to find out what the reasons are to claim it is a 'myth.' So if anyone knows the reasons, let me know.

Foley & Allentown/Bethlehem/CNN

I'm sitting here watching CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews switching back and forth on commercials and boring stories and they're talking about Mark Foley again. I can't help but wonder how different the coverage would be if he were asking a 16 yr old girl if she was horny instead of a 16 yr old boy. I suspect he may have faired better if she was a girl and only flirted with her. No one would imply he was some sort of pedophile monster with a 16 yr old girl. I think the fact that he's gay makes people more likely to consider him evil and probably a pedophile, when he's probably just a screwed up perverted man, who happens to like men. Only young pages care to seem about his power though or maybe he'd use it on 21 or 30 yr olds too. I don't know. I'm not saying this is the case, but I do wonder.

Apparently, two houses recently exploded in Bethlehem, which they first referred to as South Allentown on CNN. Unfortunately, I'm up in Scranton for the weekend, so I have no idea what is really going on. They were talking to some official in Bethlehem though.

Ah...this seems to clarify matters. Apparetly, there was an explosion due to a gas leak in Bethlehem last night and then another explosion in South Allenown this afternoon which is still being investigated. I don't think CNN has a clue what is really going on. They started off talking about the explosion in S. Allentown, then were talking to someone in Bethlehem about it, but he very well may have been talking about the explosion from last night.

Korean Missile Crisis

Apparently the U.S. is taking lessons from the Soviets. Or North Korea is taking lessons from the U.S.

Either way, the DPRK thinks Seoul is our Havana. I make no comments about the truth of their claim, I just thought it was interesting.

Carter on Israel

I've become a bit fond of Jimmy Carter recently, but his new book does alarm me. Titled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid the book basically makes out Israel to be a bunch of un-diplomatic goons who cause their own problems as well as otehr people's problems.

My basic observation, one that I share with Ariel Sharon, is that Israel has had great diplomatic success negotiong with real contries. Israel might not be having a love-fest with Egypt and Jordan, but they aren't going at each others' throats all the time. This gives us a hint that maybe problems with peaceful negotiations with Lebanon and the Palestinians are problems on the Lebanese and Palestinian end, a thought supported by the fact that one harbors and one is run by a serious terrorist organization bent on Israel's destruction.

How can we blame Israel for that? If the only diplomatic choice their enemies give is to eliminate themselves, I don't see why that's Israel's problem. Carter, of course, would tell you otherwise. His opinion is that the Palestinians, at least, are upset only from the occupations since 1967 and if they'd been given back their land they would have been perfectly happy and nobody would want to destroy Israel now. I have some doubts about this. The occupied land was not "Palestinian territory" before the occupations, it was land that belonged to Egypt, Jordan, and so on. If Israel hadn't occupied the area I don't see what reason those countries would have had to form a "Palestinian state" because most of the purpose of that is to throw Israel off the land.

Also, the Palestinian people need to bear some of the blame for electing Hamas as their leadership. It's not just Israel's fault because Israel opresses the Palestinians so the Palestinians only want to be free of that by voting for the people who give them the most help. If the Palestinian people had wanted a more peaceful solution then they could elect it. Looking back, Hamas might or might not have arisen initially because of the occupations. But the Arab-Israel fights are ancient (see the Bible on Issac and Ishmael) and so I really don't see such a group never arising if Israel keeps to themselves. Why would the simple re-colonizing of the land designated for Israel by the UN in the 1940s have ultimately been more peaceful? I have doubts.

So clearly Carter and I have a major point of disagreement. Diplomacy is nice. It's also a two-way street.

NYC All Trans Phatty, but not for long!

My sister thinks smoking should be banned from restaurants, bars, etc. regardless of the employees whereas I think it should be banned only because of the employees. So, we spent some time arguing about it even though we both agreed the it was a good idea to ban smoking. At some point in our debate, I made the invalid point that if we ban smoking in restaurants just because it's unhealthy, then I guess we'll just have to ban McDonald's too...and all those other places that serve unhealthy food and trans fat and all that other bad stuff. Imagine my surpise to learn that New York City is banning trans fat! You can read more here.

Scranton's Smokin', but not for long!

Scranton Smoking Ban
December 1, 2006
A smoking ban is one step closer to becoming a reality in Scranton.
At Thursday night's council meeting an anti-smoking ordinance moved forward. The proposed law would ban smoking in most city bars, restaurants and enclosed public places.
A final vote is scheduled for next week.

Scranton, Pennsylvania, my hometown, is the place where I was born, raised, and educated. That is until I moved away for grad school all the way down to Bethlehem...a whole hour and fifteen minutes south of good 'ole Scranton. So, yes, the City Council of Scranton is trying to ban smoking in restaurants and bars as suggested to them by a bunch of high school students. The details can be read here.

Now, I don't know where everyone stands on banning smoking in private businesses and I would surely like to know, so comment, but I myself was first against it and then I was for it. I'm what the Republicans call a flip flopper...John Kerry Jr. perhaps. Unlike Mr. Kerry though, let me explain where I stand and why.

I felt that a business should be able to allow smoking or to not allow smoking. If people gave a crap about second hand smoke, they would go to restaurants that did not allow smoking at all. People could make the choice for themselves and if enough people cared, these businesses would do better than the others. The other businesses would catch on and become smoke free. So, I figure the only reason that there aren't many smoke free restaurants is because the people don't care about smoke free environments, so why should businesses? I guess that's a pretty Republican view for me to have, but I had it, I cannot tell a lie...very non-party of me.

Then someone pointed out to me that the employees who work there are subjected to this second-hand smoke throughout their entire shift. I had neglected and forgot about the employees, another Republican view. :-) The argument can of course be made that they don't have to work there, but it's not quite the same at choosing to eat at a different establishment that is smoke-free. Jobs aren't quite as easy to find when you need them. So, with the employees in mind, I have flip flopped and now support banning smoking in restaurants and bars. The most amusing comment in the linked article has to be this one:

Smoker Joseph Dembowski of Scranton is against such a plan. "It would be a pain in the neck for us. Why should we suffer for people who don't smoke? It's not fair," he said.

I wonder if he realized what he said. A pain in the neck of all things. hehehe You can't come up with stuff that witty on your own.

from my cold dead hands

Here's the story, though it's now old news: Greg "Lumpy" Lambert, who owns a used car lot down here and famously offered to bundle a gun with every car purchase, was elected to the Knox County Commission earlier this year. Lumpy, needless to say, believes in the NRA. I voted for Lumpy because he is an idiot.

A few weeks ago, Lumpy was at his car lot when a young man appeared wanting to buy a car. Lumpy had his concealed weapon on him, and when the youngster pulled out his own weapon in Tarantino fashion, intent on stealing the car, he found himself staring down Lumpy's quick-draw.

Two further developments make this story even better. When the story got out and the media arrived, Lumpy demonstrated his gun-handling skills, and total disregard of basic gun safety, by drawing and pointing his weapon (still-loaded?) at the watching TV cameras. The other development: the 19-year-old who Lumpy "took down" had murdered a Walgreen's delivery driver earlier that day and was hoping to steal a getaway car.

Oh, and then a few days afterwards, State Senator Tim Burchett pulled his gun on several teenagers whom he caught as they were stealing from his warehouse. But he was nice and "offered them chocolate chip cookies" while he waited for the police to arrive.

you go girl

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun a calculated series of meetings with top New York Democratic officials to signal that she is likely to run for the presidency in 2008 and to ask for their support if she does, according to one state Democratic official who spoke with her and two others who have been briefed on her plans." Full story here.

Boy, I don't know if her campaign staff could have broken this news with less excitement. I mean, can it be that hard to come out and say what we've all known since she ran for Senate in 2000--that the woman will run for President?

Bush and Wallis

Who are the religious left? Where are they? I've been asked this a few times in the past few weeks.


Today is Saturday, and that means the weekly Presidential radio addrees. The Democrats also take their weekly opportunity to respond. This week, the Democrats sported Jim Wallis, a man on the forefront of the religious left, to do their thing.

Read all about it, including transcripts, here.