Data Does Sammy

The population of the United States is 28% Roman Catholic and close to 50% male. One can assume, rightly or not, that approximatly 14% of the adult population is composed of male Roman Catholics. The overall population is 75% white. While the Roman Catholic church in the US is less white than much of the population, I'll use the simple method of applying that proportion. So by my rough estimation 10.5% of the population is composed of white Roman Catholic men.

At present 44.4% of the members of the Supreme Court are white Roman Catholic men (Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas) . If Mr. Alito is confirmed, 55.5% of the members of the court will be white Roman Catholic men.

What's up with that? Did the evangelicals suddenly become admirers of what an ancestor called papists?

I'm not even going to rant yet. I'm sorry that he's such an ass. I'm sorry that Mr. Bush treated Ms. Miers so shabbily. He used her then tossed her aside. I'm sorry Mr. Bush is such an ass. I'm sorry that the only woman/minority he could find for the court was totally unqualified. But I'm glad that he drew the line clearly.

Someone I know today longed for vigilante crucifixions. But there may be no need. With Mr. Alito on the court, we can all have our own personal machine gun collections.

Jeffrey Rosen, TNR, quoted by Real Clear Politics: What should be far more troubling to Senate Democrats, however, is Alito's 1996 dissent from a decision upholding the constitutionality of a federal law prohibiting the possession of machine guns. Applying the logic of the Constitution in Exile for all it's worth, Alito insisted that the private possession of machine guns was not an economic activity, and there was no empirical evidence that private gun possession increased violent crime in a way that substantially affected commerce--therefore, Congress has no right to regulate it. Alito's colleagues criticized him for requiring "Congress or the Executive to play Show and Tell with the federal courts at the peril of invalidation of a Congressional statute." His lack of deference to Congress is unsettling......

An Imagined Phone Call

Person X: Patrick, Dick Cheney here. How have you been?

Person Y: Good, good, Dick. But I'm sick of this investigation. I want to get back to Chicago. Can't get a decent pizza in this town.

Person X: Well I think I can help you Pat. We've decided what to do here.

Person Y: Thank God. I was beginning to sweat the new grand jury thing.

Person X: No, it won't come to that. We've decided to let Scooter take the hit.

Person Y: Just Scooter? You know they're clamoring for Karl's ass.

Person X: Yeah, I know. But Scooter should be enough to get them off of the scent. Make the indictment long, with a lot of charges.

Person Y: Ok, I'll give it a try. I sure want to get home. Thanks Dick.

Person X: Lynn's calling. Good luck, Pat.

Sunday Reading

Between the talking heads, meander over to Orcinus and read David Neiwert's piece called Journalistic Standards wherein he examines Michelle Malkin's qualifications as a professional journalist. (And as most of you know by now, I never link to her.) Perhaps we should all think about where we stand with regard to journalistic standards.

Best Hallowe'en Costume, So Far

to The DCeiver posting at Wonkette who is going as Michael Brown, and I quote "which means I'll be coming to the party late, bringing no refreshments, offering no help, and ordering the National Guard to use lethal force if any poor people touch the toilet paper."

You Know By Now
that Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted on five counts including obstruction of justice, perjury and making a false statement in the CIA leak investigation today. He resigned shortly thereafter

Newsday is doing some excellent coverage including a piece about Libby and his rise to power and an excellent timeline in the case that helps keep all of this in context. And me my yes, you do need to keep it in context. Because this isn't over by any means.

While you're waiting for the next shoe, read the indictment (PDF).

Try, Try Again

So yesterday when indictments were expected Our President countered with Harriet Miers' resignation. It was a good try. They rightfully assessed that the media would be obsessed with the withdrawal to the exclusion of other news. Unfortunately for the White House, they were tricked by media leaks pinpointing the time of the indictment to Thursday. So they wasted a good one.

Current thinking, and leaking for that matter, pinpoints noon today for the release of documents -- don't forget where you can find them -- followed by a press conference by Mr. Fitzgerald.
So this morning Our President feels a sudden need to make some sort of major speech about the War on Terror. In Norfolk. At a naval base. At a podium where the background is covered with American flags. He drones on, as if to scare us all over again. But this time it just isn't working. Wolf, who until about two weeks ago was a total sycophant, cut him off in mid-sentence saying that we are hearing much of what we have heard before. They replaced his live visage with a re-cap of the expected Libby indictment followed by a montage of clips of Our President talking about firing anyone who is indicted.

It is cold and dreary here at the Sasha house, but I'm feeling all warm and toasty.

I Don't Usually Insist
but you MUST get over to The Poor Man and read

Go, go. What are you waiting for?

2,000

Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, died Saturday at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, of wounds suffered Oct. 17, when a bomb exploded near his vehicle in the central Iraqi city of Samarra, the Defense Department said. He was the 2,000 member of the U.S. military to die in the Iraq war.

There are many things one might do to stop and remember those who have died. This video (play it where you can listen to the music) speaks to me, loudly. Cindy Sheehan says that she will tie herself to the White House fence "and refuse to leave until President Bush agrees to bring home the troops. Sheehan said she expects to be arrested. But she promised to return to the fence again as soon as she gets out. "

Yes, as an Army spokesman said it is an "artificial mark on the wall" but so is every death, needless pointless death. The LA Times today has analyzed the deaths and finds "the death toll of American troops has continued to rise inexorably, eroding support for the war and for the president who is so closely associated with it. The steady rise in deaths over the last 18 months, despite proclaimed political milestones and the strategies that U.S. military officials have employed to combat the insurgency, is among the most striking findings of a Times analysis of the fatalities." Let's hope that no more are required for us to stop the madness.

And may the 2,000 as well as the more than 100,000 Iraqui dead all rest in peace. As Tiny Tim said, God bless us every one.

Rosa Parks

on the first of December in 1955 didn't go to the back of the bus. Instead she sat in the first row of the "colored" section. When the white section filled up, blacks were supposed to move farther back to allow the whites to sit. She was tired and didn't get up to give her seat to a white man. That act began the Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott that lasted 371 days. She lost her job.


Rosa Parks died today at the age of 92. The Detroit Free Press has a short memoir. She was a great American who deserves your respect and a little of your time.

Bernard Bernanke for Fed Chair

He is kind and decent. He is held in high regard. He is in the arms of a strong and loving family.

Oh, and he's an academic. Princeton.

The BBC has his profile.

Justice, Redefined

So Mr. DeLay appears in court. Oh, majikthise has terrific perp walk pictures that she took herself, btw. And his slimey attorney argues, basically, that Mr. DeLay can't get a fair trial unless the judge is a republican. Damn if I ever heard that one before.

In Texas judges are elected in partisan elections. They are democrats or republicans. The Texas Supreme Court struck a provision prohibiting statements indicating an opinion "on any issue that may be subject to judicial interpretation" which means that they MAY have opinions. Neverletheless, Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's attorney "made an issue of the $3,400 in political donations the judge has made to Democratic causes, including one to a group critical of DeLay and Republicans."

The duplicity and hubris of these people never ceases to astonish me. Oh, how terrible!! An elected democrat gave money to democrats and -- GASP! -- to groups who criticized Tom DeLay. What a load. But wait. It gets better.

He claims that one of the organizations, MoveOn.org, sold t-shirts with Tom DeLay's mug shot on them. However "According to MoveOn’s Washington director Tom Mattzie, this claim is false. Mattzie told ThinkProgress this morning that MoveOn has “never sold any t-shirts with Tom DeLay’s mug shot” on their website or otherwise." Think Progress has the story and the video. I guess, like perp, like attorney. They're all just one huge sack of duplicitous liars.

Portrait Of A Happy BugMan


Courtesy of (who else?) The Smoking Gun who also have the arrest warrant. I know it's cheap, but I couldn't resist.

I Have Added To The Links

My Left Wing by Kos alumnus and unabashed liberal Maryscott O'Connor. Start with her Manifesto, as good a statement of what the left should be for as I have seen. When the wingers yelp about Dems being against stuff and whine about what we are for, point them here.

Firedoglake which I find myself turning to often and wherein I almost always find astute observations.

I Blame The Patriarchy which I always read and which I pointed you to just this week.

Molly Ivins because she should have been there all along and because everyone needs a glimpse at the good side of Texas. (And while you're at it, get to know Kinky Friedman who is running for governor.)

Ad Nausea which provides information (names and contact information) about advertisers who support right-wing media so that you know who not to buy from. This is a newish site, but provides extensive information about sponsors of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

Miers Supports Banning Most Abortions

The Associated Press is reporting that in 1989 she pledged support "for a constitutional amendment banning abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, according to material given to the Senate on Tuesday."

Note that the pledge does not include the health of the mother, just the life. It does not include cases of rape or incest. Just the life of the mother.

"If Congress passes a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit abortion except when it was necessary to prevent the death of the mother, would you actively support its ratification by the Texas Legislature," asked an April 1989 questionnaire sent out by the Texans United for Life group.

Miers checked "yes" to that question, and all of the group's questions, including whether she would oppose the use of public moneys for abortions and whether she would use her influence to keep "pro-abortion" people off city health boards and commissions.

This is in no way the position of a 'strict constructionist.' Rather it is the view of a right-wing extremist who would impose her or his personal views on the nation. Remember, she said she would use her influence ...

I have heretofore avoided taking a position on this nomination. She made me uncomfortable. Bush's reasons were crap. She is clearly inclined to support corporations at the expense of actual human beings. But now I am convinced that she must be stopped. She is one of those extraordinary circumstances that the Senate "compromise" on the nomination of judges was about when it said "Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the advice and consent clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist."

Harriet Miers is a radical, an extremist. She does not believe in the Constitution. She does not believe in the rights of citizens. And she does not belong on the Court.

October Is Breast Cancer Month

This is not just an exercise. For those of you, of us, who are in denial, one of our fellow (odd choice of words, that) bloggers seems to have come down with a case of breast cancer. She is a brave warrior who has decided to share what breast cancer looks like with the rest of us. Warning! That link is not for the casually curious or the faint of heart. I thought about whether to include it here for a couple of days, and decided that some of us might need something more than a pink ribbon to remind us that we need to do monthly exams, get mammograms, and do whatever else needs to be done to keep this disease from killing us. If you want to read more of Twisty's story, it starts in the end of September when she found a lump, a mere two weeks before the surgery.

Triumph of the Stupid, Part I

My Local Paper today reports that the C.D. Hylton High School marching band, of Prince William County Virginia, pulled the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" from their playlist (Stupid 1, or at best cowardly) after a *ahem* concerned citizen wrote a letter to the editor of a local paper (who apparently published it, Stupid 2). It seems that in said letter he "wondered how a song about the devil could be played at school events, because of the separation of church and state." (Stupid beyond belief 3)

See these high school kids were going to play in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta (Georgia, for the stupid reading this) and thought playing a song about Georgia would be cool. Geez, they look like adults, but they're kids. Cut 'em a break.

Oh, and Charlie Daniels, who wrote the song that won a grammy, is pretty ticked too. I expect they will ban reading "The Devil and Daniel Webster" next.

Site Of The Day

I am pleased to see that a New Zealander who goes by the moniker "Sonic" has a Hitchens Watch blog with the tag line Dedicated to exposing the lies and distortions of the New Right's favourite ex-Marxist. This is sorely needed.

Hitchens once upon a time presented himself as an (pseudo)intellectual on the left side of the spectrum, a bit radical/outrageous and leaning toward the Marxist end of the spectrum. Now he is a broken down alcoholic who looks like he never bathes nor bothers to put on clean clothes. He was on Bill Maher's show a week or so back wearing a rumpled white suit and looking as if his hair hadn't seen a comb in a decade. He speaks slowly, thinks slowly, and moves slowly. Steve Gilliard described him thusly a few months back: Hitchens, unshaven, with a tweedy brown coat, circles under once bright eyes, dulled by a sea of booze, prattled on, attacking a woman who's eldest son has died in service of this country. Hitchens thought he was being brilliant, but he, like all old drunks, was just sad, looking in desperate need of a stiffner. I wonder if he travels with a flask now. George Galloway nailed him as a drink-soaked former Trotskyite popinjay.

None of this would be of any consequence if Hitchens weren't still treated like an intellectual elder statesman by the media. Inexplicably, he still writes for Slate, having penned a piece on Harriet Miers church as recently as Friday. The only part that remains of his former intellectual ability, which he always grossly overestimated, is the occasional glimpse of a vocabulary. Otherwise he has become a drone, a sycophant for the Bushy pseudo-men who think that the more you bomb, the larger your penis grows. And he has become increasingly mean and less funny. It seems that we are getting closer and closer to his core, whatever might exist of his soul.

So thank you Sonic. This is an ugly job, but it needed doing.

Post Script: I turned on the Sunday morning shows only to find that there he was on a Chris Matthews panel, wearing an Iraqui flag in his lapel, babbling about how he thinks he knows who actually outted Valerie Plame, but he doesn't want to tell us. He mumbles while others are talking, literally wrings his hands while waiting to speak, and when he can no longer stand to wait, leaps in speaking over his copanelists. He is billed as being from Vanity Fair. Is he really the only apologist for the administration's policies in Iraq who will appear on television?

So Which Is It?

The right keeps telling us that everybody is supposed to be self sufficient. But Jenny Chancey, editor of the site Ladies Against Feminism disagrees. She believes "There is never, ever a situation where a young, single woman will have to support herself if she is part of a God-honoring family or church. If she finds no support, it is a judgment on the family and the church, and she needs to seek help from godly brothers and sisters in Christ." But I am putting the cart before the horse.

Apparently she went off to college. Well let me tell her story: "I did go to a four-year college 300 miles from home. It was the worst decision my parents and I ever made. Mom and Dad later regretted it and asked forgiveness for pressuring me to go (I did not want to go away from home at all). At the time, they really felt I was “called” to go to college, since I wanted to build up my writing skills. My late father was a well-known author, and I begged him to teach me what he knew, since I did not want to go away from home to continue my education. . .

"By the time I graduated, I was disillusioned and thoroughly brainwashed into thinking I was going to have to fend for myself in the world...

I'll let you read the original. Or, better yet, go over to Feministe and read her annotated version. She speaks for me very well.

I know in this day and age we're supposed to be tolerant, to respect the views of others and all that. And I try. But, dammit, this kind of zealotry, fundamentalist clap-trap is no different from Muslim fundamentalism or any other suppression of women, whether religious or other-based. Yeah, tell me all you want that folks should be allowed to believe what they want. But we live in a damn nanny nation where women can't drink while they are pregnant nor put a kid in a car without a car seat that runs nearly four figures. But adults/parents are allowed to teach girl children that they aren't worth crap, that they should be helpless dependent things, and that their brains and bodies should be controlled by men.

I say bullshit.

Oh, and little miss Jenny runs a home-based business. This is me, rolling my eyes at yet another hypocritical little good girl who does not live what she blathers.

I'm Sick Of Behaving

I've been a teeny bit leftist, but otherwise I have been the soul of reservation for the two and a half years that I have been doing this thing. I'm just blown away by the notion that I've been doing this off and on for two and a half years. March 20, 2003.

Anyway, I've behaved. I've pointed you to interesting things, spoken in semi-intelligent tones, and tried mightily to stay on topic. Which for the most part has been politics with an occasional foray into local events.

I'm truly sick of it. Not of writing stuff, but of writing stuff nicely. So I think I'll just cut it out. If I feel like tooling off into a feminist tirade, so be it. Or a movie review. Or whatever I damn well please. Read if you wish. Delete my bookmark if you wish.

See how responsible I am? I'm even letting you know in advance. Damn I hate being an oldest child.

One Of My Favorite Writers

who goes under the nom de plume "the farmer" has his own blog. It was, until recently, relatively quiet. He seems to be spewing excellent verbiage over there though. I'm adding him to the blogroll.

Oh, today he seems to have noticed a certain separated at birth resemblance.

Religious Twins

It occurred to me that Louis Farrakhan, the former calypso singer and Nation of Islam leader who will be leading the Million More March this weekend and James Dobson, the former professor of pediatrics and Focus on the Family leader who likely be called before the Senate Judiciary Committee to report on what Karl Rove told him about Harriet Miers are virtually the same.

They both affect that slightly off, high pitched, soft soft voice with soothing long vowels that seem to be trying to hypotnize the listener. And they both affect a smarmy pasted on smile, one that might seem friendly or approachable if it were not so stiff and unchanging. And if it did not attempt to mask the hateful, vile, racist, anti-women/jew/intellectual/moderate/catholic/black/thinking/white/whoever-isn't- like-them rhetoric. They both claim to derive their knowledge directly from God, and present themselves as better than their followers, and both espouse bizarre views including approval of violence.

I could do without either of them getting any media attention. They are both very very bad for the country.

Schadenfreude, or It's About Time

Tom DeLay (R-Texas) indicted on a new charge of money laundering.

K12 Inc. today announced that William J. Bennett has resigned as an employee, and as Chairman and member of the company's Board of Directors, effective immediately. . . K12 Inc., an education company based in McLean, VA, is a leading provider of high quality curricula and learning programs.

The SEC is investigating whether Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had any insider information when he unloaded shares of HCA Inc., a hospital chain his family helped found, just weeks before the company announced news that made its stock tank.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case. His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.