stcynic
Posts by this author
September 7, 2006
Tuesday was primary day in Florida and Randall Terry, running for the state senate there, got thoroughly trounced in his race, losing by more than a 2-1 margin. Terry had the support of folks like Alan Keyes, which appears to be the political equivalent of waking up in bed next to a horse's head.…
September 7, 2006
Internet News reports:
With little more than 20 working days left before the November mid-term elections, the Senate faces a crowded agenda including 13 different funding bills to keep the government functioning when its new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1...
In its first session Tuesday since the…
September 6, 2006
Is there anything better than getting free books? I want to hand out a few thank yous to people for sending me free copies of their books. First, to Sandefur, for sending me an advance copy of his new book, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st-Century America. I've been so busy lately…
September 6, 2006
The NY Times reports on another NSA lawsuit, this one from the Center for Constitutional Rights, that went to court in Manhattan yesterday. The judge in this case seems to be taking a more careful approach than Judge Taylor in the previous case, but a lot of what went on yesterday is fascinating.…
September 6, 2006
I was watching TV last night and a campaign commercial came on for Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic incumbent US Senator from Michigan. Like most campaign commercials, it was just a medley of scenes of her shaking hands and talking to people with the appropriate look of concern on her face. And the…
September 6, 2006
Fareed Zakaria has an excellent column in Newsweek about the longstanding habit of our government to wildly exaggerate threats from their enemy du jour. This passage is particularly telling:
Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall--and crazy. During the cold war, many hawks…
September 6, 2006
Color me surprised after reading this op-ed by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson. Long considered one of the most conservative judges on the Federal bench, he has been on virtually every short list for a Supreme Court nomination since 2001. Yet he comes out against both state and federal constitutional…
September 6, 2006
As much as I hate to agree with the Alliance Defense Fund, I am forced to once again. They have filed suit in North Carolina over a high school refusing to allow a student to hand out religious literature to his fellow students regarding homosexuality. According to the complaint, the school allowed…
September 6, 2006
The Middle East Times has a report on the attempt by Pentecostals in Kenya to do away with an exhibit at their national museum of some of the world's most important hominid fossils:
"When museums put it out there that man evolved from apes, theologically they are affecting many people who are…
September 5, 2006
Radar Online has an interesting article on some of Pat Robertson's shady and mostly ill-advised business dealings. In the last few years, Robertson has embarked on a wide range of business ventures that have failed miserably, from his Kalo Vita "age-defying" shakes to diamond mines in Zaire to an…
September 5, 2006
Okay, I looked up the actual 1995 law that was being debated by Congress (you can find much of that information here). Having done so, I have to admit that there's a much stronger case for hypocrisy on the part of the Republicans than the Democrats. The warrantless wiretapping provisions of the…
September 5, 2006
Remember those prayers for rain in Lubbock, Texas? Well the Worldnutdaily says they worked, perhaps a little too well. Here's the picture from the article:
Confirmation bias? Nah, couldn't be.
September 5, 2006
Both AmericaBlog and TPMCafe have posts up about how the Republicans in 1995 and 1996 refused to give Clinton the power for both roving and warrantless wiretaps in an anti-terrorism bill. And they're right. Clinton wanted both kinds of wiretaps as part of a larger anti-terrorism package and the…
September 5, 2006
I thought it might be over the other day when the school board offered to settle and agree not to replace the Jesus picture, but no such luck. The Charleston newspaper reports:
An inscribed mirror has replaced the controversial Jesus portrait on the wall at Bridgeport High School, and civil…
September 5, 2006
I saw this column by Tom Flannery in the Worldnutdaily and was planning on writing a critique of its many false claims, but Jon Rowe beat me to it. That's not a big surprise since we've done that often. Flannery attempts to make a common argument among the religious right, that the French…
September 5, 2006
Two weeks ago I wrote about Tiger Woods' astonishing career. All he's done in the meantime is continue one of the greatest streaks the sport has ever seen. He's now won the last 5 tournaments he's entered, including the British Open and the PGA Championship. It's incredible to think that 2 months…
September 4, 2006
Boy did I somehow manage to avoid a major disaster last night. After I got home from the BBQ party, I decided I was going to install Windows XP on my computer (I've been using Windows 98 SE for years and never bothered to upgrade because I never really had a reason to). So I put in the CD, it…
September 3, 2006
I've mentioned before that I was a big tennis fan growing up and for most of my adult life. Like so many other tennis fans, the game has lost my interest more and more in the last few years. I grew up watching first Borg and McEnroe, then Lendl, Becker and Edberg, and finally the greatest…
September 3, 2006
Well I'm spending the day doing my BBQ duty. We're having a big end of summer party today at a friend's house and I'm in charge of the meat. I'm doing a full case of spare ribs, which is the most I've ever done at once. That's a lot of work by yourself. I spent over 2 hours prepping last night,…
September 2, 2006
My blog is worth $165,410.22.How much is your blog worth?
According to this guy, however, it's only worth $18,337. Either way, I'll gladly take a check. If I took it in cash, the government might seize it without bothering to charge me with anything.
September 2, 2006
Gene Healy at the Cato Institute blog has an absolutely perfect illustration of how partisanship leads to hypocritical howls of outrage. He links to this post at Free Republic from 2000, before Bush took office, about how the FISA court rubber stamps pretty much anything the president wants when it…
September 2, 2006
Now that the Jesus picture has been stolen, the school board has made a settlement offer to the plaintiffs in the case - drop the lawsuit and we'll agree not to put the picture back up if it's recovered.
The Harrison County school board decided Thursday to ask Americans United for Separation of…
September 2, 2006
Including the son of Ted Stevens. They're apparently looking at corruption charges involving an oil services company:
The offices of at least six Alaska legislators, including the son of Sen. Ted Stevens, were raided by federal agents searching for possible ties between the lawmakers and a large…
September 2, 2006
I am happy to announce that August was another record month for this blog with 191,000 hits. That's an average of almost 6200 hits per day. It drops to about 3500 on the weekends, so the average during the week is over 7000 hits per day. I certainly never imagined 3 years ago when I started it that…
September 1, 2006
Michael Craig has the details on his blog about the arrest of Richard Lee, who recently placed 6th in the World Series of Poker main event. He was arrested in San Antonio for gambling after the police staked out his home for months. It's all part of the current War on Happiness.
September 1, 2006
A commenter at Daily Kos had a very funny prediction on how Deborah Owens Fink can attack Tom Sawyer in their race for the Ohio Board of Education:
(CUE "DIRE" VOICE)
"Tom Sawyer SAYS he whitewashed the fence. But all he's whitewashed is his liberal record. Voters want to know -- just what WAS he…
September 1, 2006
Walmart has decided to join the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, in an obvious attempt to sell products to a group of people with significant disposable income. The result, predictably, is a major freakout by the religious right. Now I know, we hear from conservatives all the time…
September 1, 2006
My thanks to my old pal DarkSyde for writing up this post about the campaign between Tom Sawyer and Deborah Owens Fink for the Ohio State Board of Education. After the holiday weekend, I'll have more revelations about Owens Fink and the misguided policies she's pushed in Ohio.
September 1, 2006
I've said it before and I'll say it again: as cynical as I am about government, I can't possibly keep up with reality. Last week an appeals court says the government can seize your property without even charging you with a crime, and this week Ohio has a law that allows people to be declared sex…
September 1, 2006
Jay at STACLU has a post that is little more than a rote recitation of all the favorite conservative catchphrases about judicial nominations. It makes a good starting point for discussing the fact that the typical rhetoric we hear from conservatives on constitutional law references things that…