August 2004 Archives

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

Garrison Keillor hits the nail on the head.

Had my first Craigslist selling experience this weekend. Posted an ad for my old TV on Friday night, and had it sold by this morning (Sunday). Awesome. The guy who bought my TV swears by Craigslist for picking up event/game tickets. I'll have to check it out.

Had a nice bike ride from Bayfront Park to Willow Road and back today. Kind of pathetic how tired I was when I got back, but still felt great. The Electra is truly groovilicious.

Many of us have been chagrined at Kerry's persistent vulnerability regarding his positions on the Iraq war. This week, the other side has been hammering him, and his "nuanced position" is doing nothing to solidify his superiority as a Commander in Chief.

Eric Alterman has an excellent post that puts forth a very simple, four-point stance that Team Kerry could adopt to disarm this issue, at least to some degree. You listening, DNC? Stop shooting yourselves in the foot on this one!

AirAmerica shares with us the joyous gift of laughter our President so generously gave to nearly 5,000 minority journalists in Washington last Friday.

The thing is, Cheney's claim is not "true." It's that other thing: "false." Earlier this year, National Journal identified Kerry as the senator with the most liberal voting record in 2003. When the National Journal looked at Kerry's entire Senate voting record -- "on 20 years of service in the United States Senate," as Cheney put it -- the magazine determined that Kerry was not the "most liberal" senator. In fact, the National Journal reported in March that "10 other current senators have a lifetime composite liberal score that is higher than Kerry's. And, yes, the top-10 list includes Massachusetts' other senator, Edward Kennedy, D-Mass." For the record, the National Journal's list of the top 10 "most liberal" sitting senators is: Mark Dayton, Paul Sarbanes, Jack Reid, Jon Corzine, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin, Richard Durbin, Frank Lautenberg and Patrick Leahy.

Can we finally put this annoying "John Kerry is the most liberal senator" GOP propaganda refrain to rest? Salon spells it out - again. You're being horn-swaggled, folks! Pay attention! Dare to look 2 millimeters below the surface. Something is rotten in the State of...uh..District of...uh...oh hell - just about everywhere in Monkey & Co.'s sphere of influence.

Bloody hell. Rodney King, Iraq style. Good thing we eradicated all cruelty and oppression by getting rid of Saddam. Maybe the guy on the ground hates freedom...

I'm very excited! I bought a very girl-y bike today. It's pink! Extremely weird to be back on a bike with a coaster brake again. It's probably been 20 years or more. I thought I might crash it in the bike shop parking lot when I was taking a test pedal, but I managed not to smash into anything.

I pedaled to the store when I got home. Boy oh boy, am I out of shape! Looking forward to changing that.

Here's a baby picture.

First, a few months ago, President Bush blew right on by, his bus rumbling down Main Street at 40 miles an hour without stopping, done and gone in a wave and a blink. Then, this Tuesday evening, right at suppertime and before the big lightning storm, here came John F. Kerry, zigzagging his Believe in America bus caravan several miles off route on the road from Beloit to Dubuque just so he could stop at the place that Bush slighted.

Reg Weber, one of three brothers who run a sausage factory on the edge of town, was waiting for Bush that day in May when he breezed past and was there waiting again this time when Kerry bounded out of his bus to work the rope line, a gesture that seemed to make all the difference. "By God, he's my man now," Weber said of Kerry. "All he had to do was stop and he got my vote. He recognizes the little people."

As Blah3 observes, this is a good sign that Camp Kerry is thinking and responding to opportunities in a very nimble fashion. Death by 1,000 paper cuts, baby.

Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?

“Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

I think I posted this before, but it's really excellent. Vonnegut writing for In These Times.

OK, OK, I just have to pile on. This is the best Monkey-ism I've heard in a long time - maybe ever.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," Bush said.

Who caught this, you ask? Some left-wing minor news outlet? Nope. Reuters.