« September 2006 | Main | March 2007 »
October 14, 2006
jammin' with clinton
Clinton called the kettle black on Thursday, claiming the Republican party has been "jammed into an ideological corner" by a sliver of the Republican Party; namely "its more right-wing and its most ideological element."
Skuze me? Which party handed Howard "Yaarrrr" Dean the party chairmanship after his leftist tantrum meltdown in '04? Which party no longer resembles the party of JFK or Truman? Which party, despite a string of embarrassing defeats (which started in '94, on Clinton's watch), continues to slew further and further left? Which party's moderate candidates must walk a tightrope between supporting the troops and kow-towing to an angry, radical fringe? Which party is drumming out moderates like Zell Miller and Joe Leiberman because they support the American president in the war on terror?
Meanwhile Republicans run pell mell to pose in the middle at the slightest hint of a threat from Democrat witch hunters on the prowl for anybody who may have shaken Foley's hand (the one that holds his Blackberry) at some point in the past.
This slick displacement is amazing, even downright...Clintonian. As he has done so many times in the past, Bubba declares the situation exactly opposite from reality. A heart is a spade, and he dares you to say otherwise. Pathological Bill has shown his colors again.
SOURCE: Clinton says right wing has hurt U.S., predicts win by Democrats
Posted by joel at 01:02 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 11, 2006
oh please no, not backlash!
The Canadian Press reports: "Iran's top leaders vow to continue nuclear program despite NKorea backlash."
In a nearly subsequent response, and in the wake of North Korea's "successful" nuclear bomb test, a clearly shaken Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran said, "Our policy is clear: Progress, offering transparent logic and insisting on the rights of the nation without retreat." But you could tell he was really worried about the repercussions North Korea is experiencing.
Privately (I just know) he worried to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (may he languish forever without press coverage) that Iran could not withstand another round of stern finger wagging and condemnations such as Ahmadinejad doles out to Israel every day.
"Don't you realize," Khamenei said, his lower lip quivering, "that the UN may convene to discuss the slim possiblity of opening a dialogue on whether to allow the suggestion of contemplating a prolonged timetable for issuing a resolution which takes a decidedly 'disappointed' view of our nuclear program? Do you really want that?"
Posted by joel at 08:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 02, 2006
one small gaffe for [a] man
Astronauts aren't uncoordinated. They have to be able to moonwalk and chew gum at the same time. So it bothered Neil Armstrong to think that he had flubbed the famous first line from the floodlit stage of the moon: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Why, oh why hadn't he said "one small step for a man?
Fortunately for Neil, Peter Ford, a computer expert from Australia, has resolved Mr. Armstrong's angst, providing acoustically filtered evidence of a twangy "a" drawled slowly over the course of 35 milliseconds (approximatly 1/10 of the least discernable length for a vowel sound).
While it may sound like an inconsequential, classic case of "I don't know what you heard, but I know what I said," this discovery has important implications for the study of low-gravity vowel sounds, which are often so light and unpredictable that they seem to float off before the listener hears them. And it represents a belated yet satisfying vindication for English teachers everywhere, who collectively swore that before that decade was out, we'd put an English speaker on the moon.
Posted by joel at 03:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
abc: journalism is drudgery
"One dude, sitting in his apartment, marshalls the vangard of the militant right, and pretty much controls all media in the world," said ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin. "And if he puts up that little blue and red siren? Forgeddaboudit. In today's media, Drudge is like Walter Cronkite, except with x-ray vision. No, wait, he's like Dan Rather. He's like a young, literate Dan Rather that nobody knows what he looks like. The Rather comparison is apt because he can force anybody anywhere believe anything he says. The Cronkite comparison is apt because they would have believed him anyway.
"Basically," Halperin continues, shaking his head, "by choosing often obscure stories about Democrats (honestly, who had ever heard of Monica Lewinsky?), he can set the talking points for everyone across the political spectrum. And once that happens, the rest of the mainstream media has to follow suit and cover the "story," usually within three to four weeks or less."
Drudge admits he's wrong about 20% of the time, but who cares? His headlines are pure journalistic gold. "I haven't done any investigative journalism since I started at the Times, back in 1968," admits New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. "In fact, nobody at the Times has. Drudge makes it too danged easy: you can either write something that says the exact opposite of what Drudge said (e.g. "Clinton is not alleged to have had sex with that woman") or if you're in a hurry you can just copy what he wrote word for word."
Democratic strategist Chris Lehane remembers, "There was this one time when Drudge thought it would be funny to say that Congressman Barney Frank was gay. Now practically everyone things Frank is gay. Nobody fact-checks this. Nobody asks Mr. Frank what he thinks. That's the power of Drudge. Not there's anything wrong with that, I'm just saying."
SOURCE: abcnews.go.com
Posted by joel at 01:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack