art's blog

While complaints of cronyism in the White House run rampant, some have taken to using humor to calm people down.  When news surfaced that Harriet Miers told the New York Times that George W. Bush was "the most brilliant man she ever met," that she had once sent Bush a note saying he was "the best governor ever," and that she even called him "cool," some said that the president was playing favorites in appointing his former personal attorney to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Bloggers are having great time with the news, however.  The great satirist/blogger Jesus' General found this letter from Harriet to Georgie, which he says the White House released for the confirmation hearings:  Read More »

Military recruiters are struggling to find recruits in some parts of the country, but in San Mateo Union High School District they will have an easier job, if district superintendent Samuel Johnson continues to have his way.

When the nonprofit group San Mateo County Peace Action asked the district to place their pamphlet, "What military recruiters won't tell you" in career centers as a alternative viewpoint to the claims presented in military recruiting pamphlets, the district superintendent refused.  "What we have is a limited open forum [in career centers]," said Johnson, claiming that the peace group's pamphlets were not appropriate because they did not present any alternatives to military careers.  Read More »

If you still believe in the trickle-down economics theories that conservatives have been pushing for the last 30 years, take a look at this report from NDN. 

It is called "A Weaker America," and shows in less than 20 slides why progressive economics work better than Reaganomics.

Yahoo! has just gone live with their new podcast directory and search engine, Yahoo Podcasts. 

While they are late out of the blocks compared to Odeo, Podshow, and Apple's iTunes, they seem to have made up a lot of ground.  The interface is quite elegant, and they already seem to have indexed more content than many of their competitors.  Once you find a podcast feed that you are interested in, you can sample an episode by streaming it in the browser-based player.  If you like what you hear, you can easily subscribe, download, write reviews, add your own tags, etc.   Read More »

I got an announcement from an interesting new website called VII Theses.  The goals are similar to those of ProgressiveU.org, and I invite everyone here to submit your commentary.  Feel free to submit things that you've posted here, as long as it meets their criteria.

Here is their announcement:

Be heard!

We want your opinions, your writing, your voice.

Send us 600 to 900 words dealing with whatever major social issue you feel is—or should be— affecting America, her youth, and the world at large.  Read More »

Jay Leno on Harriet Miers:

"She's never been a judge before, never served on the bench. This is part of President Bush's strategy of surrounding himself with people who are also in over their heads."

 This is probably as much a shot at former FEMA director Michael Brown as at Harriet Miers, but it is a valid question in my mind.   I'm sure  Ms. Brown is a good lawyer, but then again, there are hundreds of thousands of good lawyers in this country.  Does it really make sense to promote someone to a lifetime appointment as U.S. Supreme Court Justice just because she's been your personal lawyer and chief counsel?  Read More »

William Bennett, Ronald Reagan's former Secretary of Education and "drug czar," created a furor this week when he said on his radio show that he thought that forcing all black women to have abortions would reduce the crime rate in the United States.

Bennett made this proposition not once, but twice on his nationally syndicated radio show, which has an estimated audience of over one million listeners each day.

"If you wanted to reduce crime ... you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down," said Bennett, responding to a question from a caller about Social Security funding and abortion rates.  Read More »

I was not able to catch the season premier of the West Wing tonight.  I've got it tivo'd, and will hopefully watch it tomorrow night, but if anyone cares to post commentary or spoilers, please do.