Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as “Shrub,” died Wednesday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 62.
Read on, sadly.
There will inevitably be confrontational videos from the Right against Democratic candidates – hell, they’ve already been making them about Hillary for years now. Nice to see the Left not taking it sitting down this time, and fighting fire with fire. Here’s “John McCain vs. John McCain”, debunking his reputation for “straight talk”:
(link via Salon’s Video Dog)
Check this out. It’s analyzed Presidential speeches and created a tag cloud for the text of each. Notice the slider; you can drag it around from John Adams to George W. Bush and see what each emphasizes. It’s fascinating insight into the pressing issues of each era. Adams’ biggest tag? “Assembly”. Lincoln? “Constitution”. FDR in 1935? “Unemployed”.
CNN reports:
Reversing a position it defended for more than a year, the Bush administration announced Wednesday that it has begun getting court approval before eavesdropping on the communications of suspected terrorists or their associates.
The Justice Department notified Congress that a court set up to specialize in wiretapping would oversee its “terrorist surveillance program,” which the administration has said could operate without judicial review. Critics said that violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which set up a special court to review wiretap applications in intelligence cases.
In “Democrats Need a Religious Left”, Rabbi Michael Lerner writes:
Rightly angry at the way that some religious communities have been mired in authoritarianism, racism, sexism and homophobia, the liberal world has developed such a knee-jerk hostility to religion that it has both marginalized those many people on the Left who actually do have spiritual yearnings and simultaneously refused to acknowledge that many who move to the Right have legitimate complaints about the ethos of selfishness in American life.
Imagine if John Kerry had been able to counter George Bush by insisting that a serious religious person would never turn his back on the suffering of the poor, that the Bible’s injunction to love one’s neighbor required us to provide health care for all, and that the New Testament’s command to “turn the other cheek” should give us a predisposition against responding to violence with violence.
Imagine a Democratic Party that could talk about the strength that comes from love and generosity and applied that to foreign policy and homeland security.
Imagine a Democratic Party that could talk of a New Bottom Line, so that American institutions get judged efficient, rational and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize people’s capacities to be loving and caring, ethically and ecologically sensitive, and capable of responding to the universe with awe and wonder.
Imagine a Democratic Party that could call for schools to teach gratitude, generosity, caring for others, and celebration of the wonders that daily surround us! Such a Democratic Party, continuing to embrace its agenda for economic fairness and multi-cultural inclusiveness, would have won in 2004 and can win in the future.
(link via Metafilter)
You really get a sense of the size of the US economy when you see Carl Størmer‘s map, which replaces each state’s name with the name of a country that has approximately the same GDP:
(click to enlarge)
(via Metafilter)
Rep. David Wu (D-OR) uses the kind of metaphors I’d use in Congress.
Not exactly your typical statesmanlike language.
(thanks to Marc for the link.)
A school in Washington has prohibited the showing of An Inconvenient Truth after a parental complaint:
“Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. “The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.”
What we need more of is science. Thanks to Euc for the link.
CNN reports that Colbert and O’Reilly will appear on each other’s shows next week. They then explain:
On “The Colbert Report,” Colbert portrays a self-involved talk-show host who has tried to bring “truthiness” to the world. His character owes an obvious debt to O’Reilly, who holds court in the “no-spin zone” each evening.
On “The O’Reilly Factor,” O’Reilly portrays a … um, he hosts the top-rated program in cable news.
At first glance, the window on 1st Street seems normal enough: “Virgil H. Goode, Jr., Fifth District, Virginia.” Underneath, carefully stenciled in gold paint, as if to meet the approval of the Board of Architectural Review: “BIGOT.”
…The addition to the window of Goode’s Charlottesville office has been around since at least December 29. Goode’s staff was not aware of the vandalization January 2 when a reporter called…
Read on at Charlottesville’s The Hook.
(Thanks to Jim for the link.)
