2003

Quick Hits for the Rest of the Week…

ArchPundit August 20, 2003 4 Comments

Hit the Capitol Fax for an update on the ICC rate hearings–not surprisingly the Commerce Commission has cut the refund…

Jack Ryan makes women swoon…

And Blagojevich’s numbers are falling according to some private polls. Besides that, Blago uses his hard hitting style to proclaim that cheaters won’t be tolerated when it appears that a 4-H kids just messed up the paperwork. He also offers up an interesting history of 4-H cheating. I had several cousins who earned most of the spending money for a year by how well their steer did in show. So while the cheating wasn’t commonplace, it wouldn’t be surprising to see cheating, but embarrassing a kid statewide is pretty damn obnoxious.

Oh, and Rich Miller sports a new pic at the Daily Southtown. Take this with a grain of salt from someone who doesn’t even use his name on his web site, but it is a huge improvement over his pic on his site.

Coincidence: I Think Not

ArchPundit August 18, 2003 No Comments

Fair and Balanced week here at ArchPundit was cut short by the effects of the blackout–coincidence, I think not. Roger Ailes shut down power to stop my service provider from broadcasting the truth I tell you.

Is the above any wackier than your average Fox hack?

I report, you decide…

Anyway, at least the beginning of the week will be slow. Real life intrudes, you know. Come back tonight for some links to some of the more interesting stuff.

MBC and William Jewel at Odds over Evilution

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

Nodding to the former workers at the Saint Louis Science Museum who may or may not be out there,
The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) reports the Missouri Baptist Convention has voted to withdraw support if William Jewel continued teaching evolution. As is per usual with such pronouncements, the MBC seems horribly confused about what it wants,

Although the MBC?s Burnett told the Sun-News that the MBC’s board was advocating that Genesis be taught as fact in theology classes but not in biology classes, the chair of the MBC’s executive board, the Reverend Jay Scribner, was quoted as saying that creationism was appropriate for science classes as well: ‘Any Christian school needs to embrace and espouse the tenet of creationism.’

Appropriately, William Jewel just ignored them.

For those interested in such issues, the NCSE has set up a blog like news feed for biology education and attacks on evolution.

As a short aside, Sean Carroll hits the Discovery Institute over its collective heads for misrepresenting his work.

Growing Up is Overrated

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

Marie at Disarranging Mine explains

Fire McLarty and Bring In Podesta

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

Oops, I am having flashbacks to 1994. It would appear that someone needs to keep a calendar of important deadlines in the Governor’s office. It’s one thing to miss a deadline, it’s another to anger some of your base over something so small as actually signing the bills.

In more important news, Blagojevich is keeping some priorities straight,

How many candidates are there? Nine, 10? I could probably name them if you forced me to but I could probably give you the Cubs’ starting lineup a lot easier,” he said.

That was in e-mail so I can’t link to the source.

Save Al Franken Day

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

For those that are curious as the the renaming of the site, I’m just getting ahead of Neil Pollack’s Save Al Franken Day

Yes. This Friday, August 15, is Fair And Balanced day on the Internet. You are all hereby instructed to use the words Fair And Balanced in very creative ways on your various websites. My cosponsor in this effort, Atrios, informs me that many of you are already using "Fair And Balanced" in your taglines. Very good. Sometimes, I swear you don’t even need instructions from me. But we can go further. Tell Fox News to take its Fair And Balanced slogan and shove it up its Fair And Balanced hole. Feel free to be more subtle than that, if you wish.

Up DATE: Kenn tells me Cogicophony has joined the party

God Bless Social Conservatives

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

Ready, Aim, Fire in a circle. But no, today is not another hilarious installment of the Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team, but the California version with social conservatives starting their attack on Schwarzenegger.

Lou Sheldon (who was great on TV in an entertainment sense) is quoted as saying,

Sheldon has formed Californians for Moral Government to oppose Schwarzenegger’s candidacy. "It is hard to imagine a worse governor than Gray Davis but Mr. Schwarzenegger would be it," Sheldon said. "California has enough problems without adding a Gov. Schwarzenegger to the mix.

Keep it up!

Not Just Technical Fixes

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

Otis White at Governing addresses the air quality problems many cities are facing again and shockingly the problem is too many cars regardless of technical fixes.

The Return of Bad Air
This has been a terrible summer for air pollution, and it?s probably just the beginning. Take Los Angeles. In 1983, there were 152 days when ground-level ozone reached unhealthy levels. By 1998, that number had dwindled to 40. But by mid-summer this year, the number was at 36 ? with the bad-air season just beginning. Same problem in Denver, which was celebrating in 2002 for having conquered its air-pollution problems. There, air pollution monitors recorded the greatest spike in ozone since 1986. Ditto in Washington, D.C., which is suffering through its worst summer of pollution in years. What?s going on? A hot summer, to be sure, but a much more troubling trend: Air quality experts say that the technical fixes that worked so well in the 1980s and 1990s (catalytic converters, on-board car computers, reformulated gasoline, etc.) have run their course. ?I?m amazed at how we are getting to the end of technology to reduce emissions,? said an air-quality official in L.A. ?It takes more work now to get the same progress.? The technology masked the basic problem of big cities: too many people driving too many cars. In L.A., 70 percent of the pollution comes from cars and trucks, and the number of vehicles has grown steadily. In Washington, some officials blame pollution that blows into the area from the Midwest (it?s called ?transport?), but others say that?s only a small part of the problem. Says one Washington city council member, ?Ozone transport is an issue, but so are our emissions. If we weren?t putting up as much gas as we do, we wouldn?t be arguing about the transport.?

Not That He Needs the Help Now

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

He’s Got Skillzzz

ArchPundit August 13, 2003 No Comments

Joan Walsh writes a mea culpa about Dean’s political skills and suggests that he might be far more electable than people thought.

As someone who normally identifies as a DLC kinda guy, I’ve been more than appalled by Lieberman and the DLC attacks on Dean–a guy who makes the point that one needs a balanced budget to attack social justice. Hello Marty McFrom, but what the hell is it that you hate about the guy? That he argued there wasn’t an imminent threat from Iraq. Well, it turns out From and I were wrong. There was a long term threat and Dean was willing to address it as such. I can admit I was wrong, but apparently the DLC can’t bother to notice that the nuclear program wasn’t as advanced as previously thought.

And frankly, I want my country back.

More interesting was a few minutes of Chris Mathews that I caught. The Good Dr. Luntz was on and doing his focus group bit and, uhhh…, well people just like Dean. It appears to be very similar to how people are attracted to Dubya except there seemed to be a level of trust in regards to how well Dean actually understood the issue.

Adding more is this from Josh Marshall who points out that the successful Democratic candidate has to appeal to the base of hatred while at the same time playing to the general audience in the general. Josh also points out the short sighted vision of the DLC and suggests some folks are trying to hit them over the head with a clue by four. Good for them.

Does this fit Dean? Given that in a recent interview he slipped and talked about how in the general election he’ll have to move to more general issues—Yeah, he gets it. That doesn’t mean he wins, but it does mean he gets the drill a lot better than Lieberman or Al From.