I am not a great outdoorsman.
Congressman Barney Frank, who was present while police busted his partner for growing pot.
Jeff Miller adds,
The quote is his excuse as to why he was unaware that his partner was growing pot. Yes, he expects us to believe that it takes a great outdoorsman to know what pot looks like.
I wish Frank had said: “It’s absurd that pot is illegal. It’s just a plant, for crying out loud.” But instead of saying something reasonable, he said something ridiculous.
It’s funny that Frank’s excuse is that he is not a great outdoorsman, while Sanford’s excuse was that he was a great outdoorsman.
What we know about eating animals is that we don’t want to know.
The New Yorker: Should you eat meat? (via marco)
I’m not a vegetarian for any uncompromising principles. I don’t mind that meat comes from animals, that these animals were killed for the meat, or even that some amount of suffering is necessary for the process. animals die, that we eat them, or even that there is a certain degree of animal suffering is incidental to the process. Death is part of life.
But the industrial farming and slaughter process is a mess of unnecessary cruelty in which I am not comfortable participating. I cannot reconcile my core belief that we’re in some ways responsible for taking care of the earth and the creatures on it with the realities of the confined animal feeding operation and the slaughter mill.
…comes the frenzied search for missed clues. Was he angry? Did he wear black? Had he lost a girlfriend? Has he ever written angsty poetry? Was he a racist? Did he like violent video games? Did he listen to the wrong kind of music? Shouldn’t we have seen it coming?
Perhaps it’s reassuring to think that one thing definitively caused a tragedy. Perhaps we don’t want to think that the human mind can sometimes, simply snap.
Many political strategists seem to think that a rough gubernatorial election in New Jersey will make vulnerable Democrats waffle on supporting healthcare. If somebody is going to vote against any Democrat who voted for the healthcare bill, there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll vote against any Democrat period. So a Creigh Deeds style healthcare waffle would be a pretty brain dead thing to do. But our politicians do a lot of brain dead things, so I wouldn’t put it past some of them.
If a congressperson genuinely opposes a bill, they should vote against it. Or maybe they should sublimate their wishes to the clear wishes of their constituents. Being passionate and genuine will get you a lot further than having somebody in the media label you “centrist”. Democrats lose a lot of elections for being lame. And there are few things more lame than trying to place yourself smack in the middle of an imaginary spectrum.
It’s almost laughable to think that heavy metal bands like Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine have a moral authority on national security issues.
They’re worried about torture of hard-core terrorists? This is really something I would expect to read in The Onion.
Liz Cheney, responding to NIN’s Trent Reznor and others releasing a string of statements condemning the use of music for torture at Gitmo. (Thanks for finding this, Vruz)
Yes. Yes it is laughable. And yes, you would expect to read it in the Onion. Somehow Nine Inch Nails has the clear moral high ground. The U.S. government’s moral authority somehow slipped briefly below Trent Reznor’s. But Liz Cheney seems to be reacting the wrong way. Rather than asking how we got to this spot, she seems to be insisting that we’re in a spot that is so absurd it can’t possibly exist.
At Thursday’s tea party march protesting government-run health care, a participant suffered a heart attack about 20 minutes into the proceedings. As Dana Milbank reports, medical personnel from the Capitol physician’s office rushed over, attaching electrodes to the man’s chest and giving him oxygen and an IV.
The Capitol physician’s office, unlike the bills being considered in Congress, is actually socialized health care. Government employs the physicians, and taxpayers help pay their salaries. But despite the presence of so many committed free market activists who so deeply fear the consequences of government-provided health care, no one stopped the bureaucrats from treating the protester nor developed a market or volunteer-based solution.
It may have saved his life, but it cost him his soul.
You think the healthcare bill is massive? You should have seen the large print version they sent the AARP to get its endorsement.
In the 2008 election, Barack Obama won 57.27% of the votes in New Jersey. Yesterday, his approval rating among voters in New Jersey was only 57%. So in New Jersey, it looks like Obama’s Presidency faces a serious threat from media rounding.
In the 2008 election, Barack Obama won 52.63% of the vote. In yesterday’s election, his approval rating in Virginia was only 51% among voters surveyed. It seems that either Obama has lost an entire 1.63% of the vote or voter turnout among Obama’s supporters was down. Or maybe some voters on the far left would vote for Obama over a conservative but don’t approve of his centrist policies. Either way, we could be looking yesterday’s election sent an unambiguous message. Or something.
When asked in September whether he considered himself a “Barack Obama Democrat,” Deeds demurred. “I’m a Creigh Deeds Democrat,” he said.
McDonnel Takes Virgina Governorship
As Deeds learned an “Obama Democrat” is the kind of Democrat who wins elections. A “Creigh Deeds Democrat,” apparently, does not.
