February 2004

Earl’s Cry For Help

ArchPundit February 19, 2004 1 Comment

A couple things struck me about Earl’s latest missive.

First, Earl acts as if he expected the last e-mail to be private. For those who remember it, his postscript was:

P.S. I dare you to print this e-mail verbatim: You know as well as I do that most people know I speak the truth, and you are a liar and whore who takes to heart Lenin’s dictum that "The first duty of the propagandist is to subvert the meaning of words."

Second, ArchPundit and Blog Saint Louis started in August of 2002, fully 7 years after the Smetzer murder. I’m unclear why that should have been a pressing issue. In fact, there are very few discussions of specific crimes on the sites unless it concerns the death penalty or a policy issue. If you want juicy crime stories, read the St. Louis Evening Whirl.

In Earl’s twisted world every bad thing an African-American does is evidence of their inferiority. Not suprisingly, Earl doesn’t work the opposite way where every positive action by an African-American is seen as evidence of their superiority.

Heeee’sssss Baaaccckkkk

ArchPundit February 19, 2004 No Comments

For those wanting to see the original, go here

Since Lane is on a Roll Today

ArchPundit February 19, 2004 No Comments

I’ll just me to this post on the undermining of science by this administration.

As the point was made in comments today, this administration is increasingly relying on faith based science. And I’m not making a snarky creationism comment here, but on a wide range of issues the science is being undermined by ideology.

I’m happy to criticize junk science of any kind, but don’t we have enough running around without the government subsidizing and protecting it?

Hull’s Order of Protection

ArchPundit February 19, 2004 1 Comment

To fairly treat a story like an order of protection against a candidate, one has to be able to make calls and devote some time to the story-the thing I don’t always have and so you have rely on a real reporter.

Eric Zorn tackles the order of protection that Hull’s ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, filed for in 1998. The documents are sealed along with the rest of the divorce files. The campaign and Ms. Sexton both refuse to explain in detail what occurred.

It’s not a "personal matter" when questions about the circumstances behind a request for an order of protection hang over the head of a man who is at or near the top of the polls in the race for his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Maybe it was nothing, really. But maybe not. And the truth is, Hull’s candidacy has given us a right to know.

For Democrats the question should be simple. What happened? We just spent a few weeks trying to get a President to tell us what happened during his service to the National Guard. We still don’t seem to have all the answers to that question and it is a drain on his credibility. Perhaps there is a simple answer, but the President has drawn it out by avoiding the issue. Even with the release of records, people can’t tell where he was when. Drip, drip, drip.

You can be sure that Jack Ryan, Andrew McKenna, Steve Rauschenberger, and especially Jim Oberweis will have the issue raised, whether by them or by surrogates. If the information is not released it will be a constant drip, drip, drip questioning Hull’s credibility.

So do everyone a favor and release the records and talk about it now. If there is nothing there we can quickly move on. If there is something there, Hull has a chance to take responsibility and the opportunity for damage control in the party’s primary. But Democratic voters should know what they are getting before the general election and make both personal evaluations of the incident as well as an evaluation of the impact on Hull’s electability, if any.

Eric doesn’t mention it, but very personal allegations were later made against 1992 Senate Candidate Al Hofeld. An order of protection is far less serious than that which Hofeld was accused, but serious nonetheless. Hofeld probably would have been in the Senate when the allegation came out if he had been successful in the primary. That would have been unacceptable. Voters deserve to know about the character of their representatives. In this case, determining that character will be done by how forthright he is about a relatively recent event.

Sad News

ArchPundit February 19, 2004 No Comments

Steve Neal Passed Away

Let’s Turn That Energy Into Arm Twisting for Senate Bill 101

ArchPundit February 19, 2004 No Comments

Holy Cow!

Daley is certainly not his father, but damn, this mornings Sun-Times reports on his support for gay marriage, but also his support for a possible San Francisco style protest with Cook County marrying gays and lesbians.

"They’re your doctors, your lawyers, your journalists, your politicians," the mayor said. "They’re someone’s son or daughter. They’re someone’s mother or father. . . . I’ve seen people of the same sex adopt children, have families. [They’re] great parents.

"Some people have a difference of opinion — that only a man and a woman can get married. But in the long run, we have to understand what they’re saying. They love each other just as much as anyone else.”

A devout Catholic, Daley scoffed at the suggestion that gay marriage would somehow undermine the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.

"Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don’t tell me about marriage. You’re not going to lecture me about marriage. People should look at their own life and look in their own mirror. Marriage has been undermined for a number of years if you look at the facts and figures on it. Don’t blame the gay and lesbian, transgender and transsexual community. Please don’t blame them for it," he said.

Daley said he has no control over marriage licenses in Cook County. But if Orr wants to take that bold step, the mayor has no problem with it.

I’m going to put the cart before the horse too and say if Richard Daley is this far on the issue, the inevitability of gay marriage shouldn’t be questioned. There is a lot of hard work ahead to overcome obstacles in the political system, but it will happen. Already polls show younger adults in favor with most of the opposition amongst older citizens.

That said, Mr. Mayor, why don’t you twist some arms for Senate Bill 101. It’s time to guarantee housing and employment protections.

Via Atrios who shouldn’t be beating me to Chicago stories.

Maddux returns to Cubs

ArchPundit February 18, 2004 No Comments

Don’t Screw It Up Hendry

Trib runs the Season Preview today too

Bush Undercutting NCLB Again

ArchPundit February 18, 2004 No Comments

From American Institute of Biological Sciences

The administration’s fiscal year 2005 budget request includes a 17.9 percent cut to the National Science Foundation’s Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate. Overall, the directorate would lose $167.62 million, putting the FY 2005 total request for the directorate at $771.36 million. The majority of this cut (-$139.17 million) comes from the administration’s proposal to eliminate NSF’s Math and Science Partnership Grant Program. The President has proposed moving these funds to the Department of Education where they would be disbursed to states based on population rather than by NSF’s competitive, peer review process. This proposal could stifle the development of innovative practices for improving student achievement in math and science, the purpose of the NSF program. A February 10th statement issued by the presidents of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the American Association of Universities and the American Council on Education, urges House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-NY) "to oppose the proposal&to transfer funds for the Math-Science Partnership (MSP) program from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the Department of Education." The presidents further state, "It is our belief that the current system, in which parallel and complementary MSP programs exist and are funded at both the NSF and the Department of Education, is the most desirable and effective approach to address our nation’s math-science education needs.

Other areas of the EHR budget that will be trimmed if the Presidents budget is enacted include $10.44 million (-11.1%) less for EPSCOR, $39.51 million (-18.6%) less for Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education from the phase-out of Education System Reform, and a $7.91 million (-6.8%) cut to the Human Resources Development accounts. Three programmatic areas that would receive increased funding in FY 2005 are the Division of Undergraduate Education (+$3.35 million, or 2.2%), Graduate Education (+$17.93 million, or 11.5%), and Research, Evaluation and Communication (+$8.13 million, or 12.4%). NSF budget documents note that, "Faced with difficult choices for competing and meritorious investments, EHRs FY 2005 Budget Request emphasizes the core areas of attracting and preparing U.S. Citizens for STEM careers (including increasing support for the Integrative Graduate Education and research Traineeship, graduate Research Fellowship and Graduate Fellows in K-12 Education programs)".

Those who support the scientifically demonstrated reform model aspect of No Child Left Behind should be outraged at the the above. The problem with school reform for too long has been that it has not centered on demonstrating the effectiveness of a reform model. Too often reform models were promoted based on little systematic evidence.

One of the serious antidotes to the proliferation of reform models without evidence was the NSF programs that sought to rigorously study models of math and science education reform.

The President is proposing in the above to get rid of the peer reviewed competitive process that weeds out weak proposals to simply give the money out by population of the state. This means the money will not be tied to rigorous studies of school achievement and will simply be doled out on population. Now, more than anytime in the past, we need strong evidence supported models of educational reform. This will undercut a key program that supported such efforts.

Republican Roll Call 2/17–Poi in St. Louis

ArchPundit February 17, 2004 No Comments

No change. Scroll Down. I have more important things to do. Poi Dog Pondering to be exact.

Illinois Democratic Senate Roll Call 2/17

ArchPundit February 17, 2004 No Comments

1) Hull takes the one spot. Ahead in the numbers. Ahead in money. Ahead in future ad buys. One wild card is whether the press takes an interest in his background or not. Reportedly already has slick anti-attack ads to counter any other candidates. Importantly, they don’t name others and they focus on Hull’s positive message. The lesson here is that he already has a strategy for this problem-instead of responding on the fly when campaigns often overheat out of anger. He’s also about going on the air on the Spanish language stations with ads from Congressman Luis Gutierrez.

2) Obama is solid with his base and probably will do better as he actually has some personality and many people are just starting to pay attention to the race. Doing well financially, but faces a Hull of time getting his message out over the air. His yard signs have pictures which will help in the African-American community. Turnout, turnout, turnout for Obama to pull this off.

3) Hynes. Oops. Decent money and lots of organizational support, but not the kind of money he needs. For a statewide office holder to be behind a novice who is digging into the office holder’s base is bad news. He has to attack somehow, but a frontal attack is more likely to benefit Obama. Look for labor friendly 527s to get in the action against Hull.

4) Pappas. Has name recognition, now needs a strategy. She’ll be shut out of the big ending to the campaign, but might position herself well for another office.

5) Chico–no base of support big enough to support him. The Hispanic vote is divided and he needs it united. Has cash, but not enough to stay with the big three. Possible spoiler in some areas of the suburbs where his education message will play well.

6) Skinner–time to throw your support to Obama if you want a progressive candidate, Nancy.

7) Washington–only possibility of effecting the outcome is if she spoils the race for Obama by taking some small sliver of African-American votes.