Pacific Views

No Better News

Russia has publicly balked at the draft U.N. resolution against Iran, determined as Russia is to go ahead with the construction of a nuclear power reactor at Bushehr in accord with their contractual agreements with the Iranian government.

Mexican President Vicente Fox criticizes the Republican bill authorizing construction of a border fence along the southern U.S. border.

The Christian Science Monitor announces that, "N.J. boost for gay couples buoys GOP." Really? Do they have a poll suggesting that? No. What they have is quotes from people saying that the GOP is happy about the ruling, but no evidence that it actually strengthens their position or overrides other concerns facing the electorate this fall. They might reasonably have said that the decision cheers the GOP up, a pretty low bar this time around, but they aren't demonstrably being 'buoyed' by any outside force as per the implication of the headline.

Michael J. Fox talks to Katie Couric to answer Rush Limbaugh's attacks.

Even as the Iraqi prime minister comes out publicly to say that he disagrees with the Bush administration and blames them for the chaos, Donald Rumsfeld tells the press to "back off" in their criticisms and that there is "no daylight" between the two governments' positions. The Washington Post article goes on to highlight the way many Republicans are indeed backing off, and hard, from appearing to support the administration in their handling of the war.

The Poor Man - Can't wait until political thought is no longer dominated by people whose words make us all dumber for having heard them and seem to have entirely abandoned decency.

Slacktivist - There are things that can be both true and irrelevant at the very same time.

Ezra Klein - Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has remapped his brain to allow himself to speak again. Damn. In India, widows are still treated reprehensibly, even if they're no longer being burned alive. The importance, once again, of the minimum wage.

Driftglass - To those Republican that still mouth platitudes that are making them sick to their stomachs, there's a reason voting is done in private. How demented does Peggy Noonan have to get before she's allowed to retreat to a life of private dignity?

Daily Howler - The truth and fact impaired press corps continues in their inability to fact check, even as ongoing revelations about the treatment of Al Gore in 2000 prove that they just can't stop compulsively repeating outright lies.

Culture Kitchen - The origin of agriculture and the first crop, which may have been a fig tree.

Pandagon - The fundies really do think that government should promote religion, as long as it's theirs, and mysteriously they continue to be surprised when people who don't believe that compare them to the theocrats of Iran. Bush has got nothing to sell the voters but marriage scares and tax cuts. The anti-choice crowd is revealed once again to be all about coercing women and giving the finger to people who've been born already.

Shakespeare's Sister - Although a Muslim cleric is drawing a lot of flack for saying that uncovered women are responsible for their own rapes, his attitude is shared by a lot of supposedly enlightened westerners. Because the appropriate way to blame a woman for rape isn't to compare her to "uncovered meat," it's to say that 'she was asking for it.'

Lance Mannion - Rush Limbaugh always says the same thing, which Mannion says amounts to, "Rich white guys like me should run the country and be allowed to do whatever we want, and anybody or anything that gets in the way of that needs to be steamrollered in a hurry." In two posts that explore Tolkien's themes in Lord of the Rings, pursuant to Sen. Santorum's comment that the 'eye of Mordor' is now safely focused on Iraq, the trilogy is examined as a sort of Pilgrim's Progress and an exploration of the temptations of power.

"Always merry and bright." - Henry Miller

Posted by natasha at October 26, 2006 07:30 PM | Recommended Reading | TrackBack(1) | Technorati links |