Little Lulu Bent Out Of Shape

Ken AshfordIraq, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

I understand that I am not a conservative, so my brain is wired a little differently.  But I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person with the ability to understand different points of view, even if I don’t necessarily agree with them. Still, I have to admit that many of Michelle Malkin’s outrages simply stump me.  Take this, for instance: This … Read More

Hillary Bitchslaps Alan

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & DeficitLeave a Comment

Via Kos: Interesting exchange on the Senate floor yesterday. Alan Greenspan and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton clashed briefly Tuesday over rosy surplus forecasts the Federal Reserve chairman relied on to support President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, estimates that turned out to be considerably off the mark. "It turns out that we were all wrong," Greenspan conceded at a Senate hearing. … Read More

A Lot of Pennies

Ken AshfordWeb RecommendationsLeave a Comment

This is a penny.  We all know how big it is, how much space it takes.  But what about a thousand pennies?  A million pennies?  Can you visualize it?  The MegaPenny Project might be able to help you realize just how big some numbers (like a billion) really is.  For example: This is a thousand pennies. This is a million … Read More

The So-Called Nuclear Option

Ken AshfordCongressLeave a Comment

How to fight: Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s Letter to Bill Frist March 15, 2005 Dear Majority Leader Frist: During President Bush’s first four years in office, the Senate confirmed 204 judicial nominees and withheld its consent to only 10 nominations, a confirmation rate of over 95%. Last year the federal court vacancy rate reached its lowest level in 15 years. … Read More

Project Steve

Ken AshfordGodstuff2 Comments

I just found out about this.  This is great.  This is how you win debates — with humor and snarkiness.  From the National Center for Science Education ("Defending the Teaching of Evolution in Public Schools"): NCSE’s "Project Steve" is a tongue-in-cheek parody of a long-standing creationist tradition of amassing lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" or "scientists who dissent from … Read More

The Band Wagon

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

The greatest movie musical of all time — yes, even better than "Singing in the Rain" — is Vincent Minelli’s "The Band Wagon", with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.  If you enjoy old movie musicals and still haven’t seen this, then what the hell are you doing claiming that you enjoy old movie musicals? And the really good news is … Read More

Republicans and War

Ken AshfordForeign AffairsLeave a Comment

From E&P: Gallup: Americans Don’t Like Syria, Iran, N. Korea, but Don’t Want War A new Gallup Poll released today shows that while Americans have very negative opinions of Syria, North Korea, and Iran, by very wide margins they do not want to go to war with them. Still, about 4 in 10 Republicans would support "military action" against each … Read More

You Go, Seniors!

Ken AshfordSocial SecurityLeave a Comment

The good news is that Bush’s social security privitization scheme hasn’t worked.  The better news is why it hasn’t worked.  Jon Chait explains: The main reason is that the public is not quite as selfish as the conservatives thought. The privatizers’ weakest assumption turned out to be their belief that the elderly would support privatization if they knew they wouldn’t … Read More

Bush Administration Loves Orwell

Ken AshfordBush & Co., CrimeLeave a Comment

From WaPo: Administration Rejects Ruling On PR Videos GAO Called Tapes Illegal Propaganda By Christopher Lee Washington Post Staff WriterTuesday, March 15, 2005; Page A21 The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government’s role … Read More

Bible Translation Causes Controversy

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

From the Daily Telegraph: One of the world’s most widely read Bibles, the New International Version, has been modernised by a team of 15 American and British scholars and is published today. Gone is the word "aliens", which the academics thought was invariably associated in the minds of the younger generation with extra-terrestrials. It is replaced with "foreigners". Even the … Read More