The French voted down the EU Constitution, 55 to 45. But observe the geographic divide. Paris, Lyon, Strassbourg, Brittany, and the part bordering Geneva go blue; the “heartland” goes red. Meanwhile, the overseas departements are like Hawaii, the far-off islands that show solidly blue.
(via Metafilter)
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R – San Diego), the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, yanked an amendment from the bipartisan defense budget which would have allowed reservists to pay $75 a month / $233 per family for health insurance.
Hunter claims the amendment would have pushed the DoD budget too hugh. What was the price tag for covering our beleaguered reservists? $770 million a year over five years… or approximately .0018% of the yearly defense budget.
(This is also the guy whose campaign was bankrolled by Titan Corporation, who were implicated in Abu Ghraib. Hunter, naturally, insisted that Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident involving just six individuals.)
(via Metafilter)
This is just surreal. Voinovich – who opted to send Bolton to the Senate, while saying he thought Bolton was an awful choice – cries on the Senate floor during debate about the importance of the vote.
The guy was undoubtedly pressured hard to send Bolton through. This makes me wonder if he really didn’t want to, but couldn’t resist the pressure.
The Army’s gotten so desperate for recruits that they’re willing to take drugged-out dropouts… and encourage them to break the law in order to enlist:
McSwane insisted to the recruiters that he couldn’t lick his drug habit, but one recruiter told him to take some “stuff” that would “clean you out.” It turned out to be a detoxification kit the recruiter said had worked with other applicants. McSwane said the recruiter even offered to pay half the cost of the kit.
McSwane’s claim of being a dropout didn’t discourage his recruiters either. He was encouraged to take a high school equivalency diploma exam, which McSwane deliberately failed. That’s when he said one recruiter introduced him to the “home-school option.”
McSwane was told to order a phony diploma and transcripts from an online diploma mill.
“It can be like Faith Hill Baptist School or something – whatever you choose,” one of the recruiters can be heard saying in a taped phone call.
More on this at Rocky Mountain News.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (BNW) – Much to the surprise of many, the world failed to end today. “We’re totally surprised,” remarked one local official. “It seemed so obvious.”
Local politicians had predicted the end of the world on this, the one-year anniversary of legal same-sex marriage within the United States. They cited the laws of God, the decay of tradition, and “attacks upon the sanctity of marriage” as probable causes for the world’s end.
Throughout the United States and Massachusetts, officials are now re-examining their previous positions. “Perhaps we overreacted a little,” said one source who asked to remain anonymous. “The sky hasn’t fallen. There’s a new landscape. The world has changed,” remarked Sen. Stephen Buoniconti, previously an opponent of same-sex marriage.
Still, doomsayers say it’s not too late. “We, uh, have until midnight,” one remarked.
…but the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy strikes again: Dennis Miller‘s show has been cancelled.
This sure would be a sad event if Dennis Miller hadn’t turned into his own evil twin several years back.
This is an old speech, given two weeks ago by Al Gore, but it still deals with a current topic, namely Senate Rule XXII, more popularly known as the filibuster, so I post it here if others haven’t seen it yet. Gore gets it right; there’s a reason more Americans voted for him in 2000 than any other candidate.
The rules and traditions of the Senate all derive from this desire to ensure that the voice of the minority could be heard. The filibuster has been at the heart of this tradition for nearly the entire 230 years of the Senate’s existence. Yet never before has anyone has felt compelled to try to eliminate it.
The proposal from the Senate majority leader to abolish the right of unlimited debate is a poison pill for America’s democracy. It is the stalking horse for a dangerous American heresy that would substitute persuasion on the merits with bullying and an effort at partisan domination.
United American Technologies, a “Christian-based phone carrier” (Working Assets for the WWJD crowd, I guess) crosses paths with humorist Eugene Mirman. Wonkette provides this link to a NY Sun article, as well as to Mirman’s two mp3s of his phone calls with UAT.
Mirman: MCI has hardcore child pornography?
United American Technologies: Yes, they are. They have a pedophile Web site for men who love boys. It’s a Montréal-based Web site….
Mirman: And so MCI basically has a child pornography ring?
United American Technologies: That’s correct.
Mirman: What about the others? What does Verizon do?
United American Technologies: Okay. Verizon, what they do is they train their employees to accept the gay and lesbian lifestyle.
Thomas Frank, the author of What’s the Matter With Kansas, writes an insightful assessment of the 2004 election in the NY Review of Books.
The 2004 presidential campaign provides a near-perfect demonstration of the persistent power of backlashas well as another disheartening example of liberalism’s continuing inability to confront it in an effective manner. So perfect, in fact, that it deserves to be studied by political enthusiasts for decades to come, in the manner that West Point cadets study remarkable infantry exploits and MBAs study branding campaigns that conjured up billions out of nothing but a catchy jingle.
I’m slapping myself in the face, because I agree with George Will. George Will. I agree with George Will. (Well, as they say, a broken clock is still correct twice a day.)
It’s heartening to see more and more conservatives call into question the influence of the religious right. Metafilter cites Will’s article as part of a larger trend.
We’ve got spirit, yes we do!
We’ve got nothing better to do!
No crime or poverty or disease!
That’s why we’re passing bills like these!
Gooooooo, Texas!