“I bring this up because there’s often an assumption on days like today that growing up is purely a function of age; that becoming an adult is an inevitable progression that can be measured by a series of milestones – college graduation or your first job or the first time you throw a party that actually has food too.”
— Barack Obama in a graduation speech at Southern New Hampshire University and excerpted at length by The Daily Dish. Quite a speech.
The Writer’s Almanac has an informative little piece on Anne Boleyn on this, the 471st anniversary of her beheading (for adultery, Henry was very strict).
Justice Clarence Thomas sat through 68 hours of oral arguments in the Supreme Court‘s current term without uttering a word.
In nearly 16 years on the court, Thomas typically has asked questions a couple of times a term.
But the last time Thomas asked a question in court was Feb. 22, 2006….
“It is better to be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” — Confucius
WASHINGTON — Weeks before the 2006 midterm election, then-New Mexico U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias was invited to dine with a well-connected Republican lawyer in Albuquerque who had been after him for years to prosecute allegations of voter fraud.
“I had a bad feeling about that lunch,” said Iglesias, describing his meeting at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen with Patrick Rogers, a lawyer who provided occasional counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party.
When the voter fraud issue came up, Iglesias said, he explained to Rogers that in reviewing more than 100 complaints, he hadn’t found any solid enough to justify criminal charges.
Iglesias recounted the episode in an interview with The Times after meeting behind closed doors with federal investigators this week to provide new details of the events leading up to his termination as U.S. attorney. He said he now believed he was targeted because he was seen as slow to bring criminal charges that would have helped GOP election prospects.
A hard-traveling black bear found its way into a Rio Rancho health clinic this morning, terrifying the few workers inside before being tranquilized by state Game and Fish Department officials.
Around 7:30 a.m., the wandering, 125-pound male bear somehow triggered the automatic doors at the Presbyterian Medical Group building … just west of the busy intersection with Rio Rancho Boulevard.
The bear, estimated to be 2 to 3 years old, retreated into a side room while Rio Rancho Police and animal control officers evacuated the area, according to a news release from the game and fish department.
The bear then retreated further, into a restroom, where Game and Fish officers Darrell Cole and John Martsch sedated it with a tranquilizer dart.
It went down within a minute.
Rio Rancho is an Albuquerque suburb.
Debby, mother of the groom, reports from Tucson:
You probably don’t know that I lost my camera after the wedding. Apparently, I set it on the trunk of my car that night to load up wedding gifts, then when it was time to go, I walked around the front of my car, got in, and drove off. I didn’t notice it was missing until Tuesday at 6 pm. The ranch [where the wedding had been] was closed by then, and they were still closed the next morning when I called. [O]n Wednesday afternoon I called again.
The young lady who answered said no, there had been one lost camera, but the person already came and picked it up. Then she said she’d go ask someone else, and when she came back, she said, “You are one lucky lady!” One of their vendors had found it next to the road, not even on ranch property. Because it had wedding photos on it, they figured it was probably lost from the ranch, and they took it in. Someone was just walking up to the office with it while I was on hold. Talk about good karma! (Earl would be proud of me.) I was heart-broken at the thought of losing my camera, but even worse was losing all the wedding photos I took.
She had some really nice pics, too.
Half a million silver coins and hundreds of gold coins have been recovered from an Atlantic colonial-era shipwreck in the largest such find of its kind, Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. said on Friday.
The artifacts, which include 17 tonnes of silver coins and worked gold, were legally imported to the United States, the publicly listed U.S. company said in a statement.
The artifacts are being examined and cared for by conservationists at an undisclosed location, the statement said, adding that the first 6,000 silver coins conserved are in remarkable condition.
“The gold coins are almost all dazzling mint state specimens,” Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm said.
Odyssey Marine’s stock was up over 80% today to close at $8.32. I don’t have any OMR because I’m stupid, but I know someone who does.
The Comey testimony — coupled with the astonishing arrogance it takes simply to ignore congressional subpoenas as though they were something someone slipped under your windshield wiper — pushed me all the way over the edge. The president spied on Americans and thereby broke the law. Repeatedly. The president was told he was breaking the law by members of the Department of Justice who had no reason to lie to him on the subject. (John Ashcroft noticed, for pity’s sake.) The president knew he was breaking the law so he sent the White House chief of staff and the White House counsel out to behave like Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction. (Sorry, Andy Card. I liked you when we were both young and ambitious in Massachusetts, but it’s off to Allenwood for a spell until you come clean.) The clean-up crew failed, and he kept breaking the law anyway. Repeatedly. They spied on their political opponents. They used their steroidal view of executive powers to justify it in their tiny little minds. That’s what they’re hiding. I have no doubts any more that the administration has committed more crimes than we know. And every day they remain unpunished — hell, every day they remain in office — we become more deeply complicit in their offenses. It’s time to govern ourselves again.
I’ve been looking at the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and I’ve come to a disturbing conclusion: maybe we’ve all been too hard on President Bush.
No, I haven’t lost my mind. Mr. Bush has degraded our government and undermined the rule of law; he has led us into strategic disaster and moral squalor.
But the leading contenders for the Republican nomination have given us little reason to believe they would behave differently. Why should they? . . . In fact, rank-and-file Republicans continue to approve strongly of Mr. Bush’s policies — and the more un-American the policy, the more they support it.
The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side. — Hunter S. Thompson
The above is from Marc Fisher’s Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation
Fisher, a Washington Post columnist, has written a book any fan of radio will enjoy, an anecdotal analysis of how Top 40 evolved, then FM and talk radio and finally the bland, every station sounds alike — because they’re all owned by about three companies — niche radio of today. We learn about Jean Shepherd, Cousin Brucie, Wolfman and Imus, Bob Gass, Big Daddy Tom Donahue, Rush Limbaugh and others. We find that Dick Clark got away with Payola and Alan Freed didn’t. (And how the payola scandal was mostly a political backlash against “race music” being played for white kids.) We read who came up with NPR, and we read about the consultant who has, to many people’s ears, just about ruined it.
If at times just a little too drawn out with the analysis, when another story would be more welcome, it’s still a very interesting sociological-economic study, with enough pop culture thrown in to make it a good read. (Especially, I suppose, if you’re old enough to have lived through the whole thing.)
 |
AP did a study of recently released census data and ranked the 50 states and the District of Columbia on how closely they resemble the country as a whole. AP provides this interactive chart. Illinois is most like the rest of the U.S., West Virginia the least (51st). New Mexico ranks 28th. |
… of Tina Fey, 37.
… of baseball hall of famers Brooks Robinson (70) and Reggie Jackson (61).
… of actors Bill Macy (85) and Dwayne Hickman (73). Macy has more than 75 credits to his name, but I remember him most as Maude’s husband (I once watched a taping). Hickman, of course, was Dobie Gillis.
… of George Strait, 55. Jeez, I have 74 George Strait tracks in iTunes. (Note that link opens to music.)
… of Joe Bonsall. Who? He’s one of the Oak Ridge Boys and he’s 59. Bonsall sang lead on “Elvira.”
Philosopher Bertrand Russell was born on May 18th in 1872, film director Frank Capra was born on May 18th in 1897 and Pope John Paul II was born Karol Józef Wojtyła on May 18th in 1920.
Jill reports:
Aidan “graduated” from his first year of preschool; the three-year-olds classes did a show based on various nursery rhymes. Aidan rocked the part of “one of the kings” in the “Humpty Dumpty” vignette. One kid dressed all in white came out and fell onto the stage. All of the kings came and reached down to touch him and pantomime trying to “put him back together again.” Then all the kings stopped. Well, all but one, who continued grappling with the Humpty until the teacher had to forcibly remove him. I later said to Aidan, “You were just sure you could fix him, weren’t you?” He replied, “Everyone else stopped so soon!”
Then the three classes stood in positions around the stage to sing a lengthy A-B-C song. 44 kids stood still, hands at sides, and sang. One kid, stage left, danced around, doing high kicks, clapping his hands, and wildly boogieing down the entire song.
(We have the kid who just gots to boogie, and that is who he is, and that is what we’re going to let him be.)
Then in the afternoon it was time for the special production of E-I-E-I-Oops!, presented by the after-school drama class. Mack did a great job as The Farmer in the Dell, enunciated his lines beautifully, and even managed to say the words “this bovine disaster” so they could be understood.
Total minutes of actual performance, both plays combined: about 27 minutes.
Total after-play cookies consumed by the three kids [including 14-month-old Reid]: about 27 cookies.
Reverend Falwell, fond farewell:
Your soul has fled its mortal shell
And flown across the great divide
To savor at your Savior’s side.
Or so you think… um… so you thought,
Well, so, at least, your Bible taught,
While unbelievers who deny
Eternal afterlife, like I,
Think when your dead, well, you just die.But if, when I give up the fight,
I’m strangely drawn into the light?
And there your reverent form I see?
Don’t laugh sir, that the joke’s on me,
For since I’ve never claimed nor known
Your Savior Jesus as my own,
If you should meet this faithless Jew
In Heaven or in Hell’s review,
Well, either way… the joke’s on you.Goldy at HorsesAss.Org
According to this report in the Christian Science Monitor, “The reason Iraq needs to pass a new oil law, President Bush has said, is to ‘share oil revenues among all of Iraq’s citizens’ – Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds – and to help unify the country.”
The Monitor goes on to report, however: “Fueling new resistance to the oil benchmark are reports that the draft law in fact says little about sharing oil revenues among Iraqi groups and a lot about setting up a framework for investment that may be disadvantageous to Iraqis over the long term.”
That investment would be by oil companies. You know, Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, Shell and BP, what’s left of the seven sisters (Gulf and Texaco were the other two). Iraq is thought to have the world’s second largest oil reserves (after Saudi Arabia), some 110 gigabarrels.
Until about a generation ago most of the world’s oil was controlled by the oil companies. Today more than 75% is controlled by governments — and the oil companies have been trying to take that control back.
This is why we invaded Iraq; and it’s why we can’t leave until the Iraqi oil law is passed and control is securely in the hands of those Iraqis who will follow the law.
The rest is smoke and mirrors.
Frank Bowman, writing at Slate Magazine, tells how and why:
But if Congress wants more, it need look no further than the firing of David Iglesias, former U.S. attorney in New Mexico. The evidence uncovered in Gonzales’ Senate and House testimony demonstrates that he fired Iglesias not because of a policy disagreement or a management failure, but because Iglesias would not misuse the power of the Department of Justice in the service of the Republican Party. To fire a U.S. attorney for refusing to abuse his power is the essence of an impeachable offense.
The “Forever” stamp is a bad deal:
In December, President Bush signed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which ensures that future price increases will be kept below an inflation-based ceiling. In other words, postage hikes will never surpass inflation—and the forever stamp will never become a good investment.
Which seems obvious enough, but the Slate story tells of some bonehead who bought $8,000 worth of things.
Red light cameras are evil:
In Fayetteville, North Carolina a red light camera struck a woman, sending her to the hospital with critical injuries. Danielle Christina Polumbo, 20, is accused of driving drunk on Bragg Boulevard at 1:40am today. According to WRAL-TV, Polumbo swerved into a red light camera pole, sending the heavy device down onto the vehicle’s roof. Emily Elizabeth May, 24, suffered critical injuries from the camera hit and was rushed to Cape Fear Valley Hospital for treatment.
Driving drunk is, of course, the real evil.
James Comey’s testimony amounts to a statement that — even according to the administration’s own loyal DOJ officials — the President ordered still-unknown spying on Americans, and engaged in that spying for a full two-and-a-half-years, that was so blatantly and shockingly illegal that they were all ready to resign over it. And the President’s Attorney General then lied to ensure that this episode remain concealed. Mere one-day calls for a Congressional investigation are woefully inadequate here.
There is clear and definitive evidence of deliberate lawbreaking. In addition to Congressional investigations, there is simply no excuse for anything other than the immediate commencement of a criminal investigation by a Special Prosecutor. And the administration ought to be pressured every day to account for what it did here. This is not a one-day or one-week fleeting scandal. These revelations amount to the most transparent and deliberate crimes — felonies — by our top government officials, not with regard to private and personal matters but with regard to how our government spies on us.
I read somewhere that people generally talk more intimately to a friend on the telephone than they do in person.
Think that’s true?
ARIVACA, Arizona Reuters – A pilot project to place a high-tech network of surveillance towers along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border has met boisterous opposition in this Arizona town, where some residents call it “Big Brother.”
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is installing a network of nine towers with ground radar and night vision cameras to monitor a 28-mile (45-km) stretch of border near Arivaca, southwest of Tucson.
It is the first trial for the communications and technology arm of the government’s Secure Border Initiative announced in 2005. Dubbed “SBInet,” authorities say it will be extended across some 6,000 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders in segments in coming years.
Residents of this remote, high desert ranching town of 1,500 people have packed four public meetings in recent weeks to oppose the project, which is due to go live at the end of next month.
“It’s like Big Brother. It will place the whole town under surveillance,” community activist C Hues told Reuters as residents gathered for a meeting late on Tuesday with CBP and Border Patrol representatives.
“The government will be able to watch and record every movement we make, 24 hours a day. It will be like living in a prison yard,” she added.
Debby, official youngest sister of NewMexiKen, lived in Arivaca for a number of years. It’s a community not unlike Madrid, New Mexico — a place where there’s no traffic signal because they don’t like telling people what to do.
NewMexiKen’s take is that the technology is proposed ostensibly to keep people out, but that it could, just as easily, some day be used to keep us in.
“If you get in bed with the devil, you better be prepared to fuck.”
Tom Donahue quoted in Marc Fisher’s Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation
“Young Derek Jackson was suspended for an alleged violation of Bailey Middle School’s dress code because he had a close-shaved haircut.”
You can see what this is about at Pandagon. There’s even a haircut photo.
How can a kid’s haircut be too short?
(Or too long for that matter?)
