Football Logic

Ken AshfordRed Sox & Other Sports, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Shorter every single rightwing website right now:

Was civil rights pioneer Medgar Evers ever denied the right to purchase an NFL franchise?  Hellz, no!  So why can't Rush?  Because of racism!!!

Okay, not all are saying that.  But you have some really over-the-top whines.  This, by far, is the most WTF of them all:

Earlier this evening, as most of you now know, one of our own, Rush Hudson Limbaugh, while taking withering fire, crashed and burned.

Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a radio personality.

Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a NFL owner denied

Tonight, Rush is us. And we are him.

Tonight Rush became the metaphor for all of us… every man woman and child in this great nation of ours.

The enemy of this great nation, the enemy of you and me, Rush’s enemy… those on the left, inside and outside of this nation abhor success… and when faced with it will destroy it… by any and all means possible.

We all have our dreams in life… such as they might be. Rush dreamed of being an owner in the NFL.

Tonight the left proved that they will stop at nothing to end our dreams. Our dreams of success and happiness devastate their need to dominate and control you and me… and well everything and everyone.

And it ends with the Niemöller quote, too ("First they came for the communists….")

With prose like that, you would think this is the equivalent of 9/11.

Seriously, what happened with Rush Limbaugh and the St. Louis Rams is the free market at work. 

Rush was a limited partner in a group headed by St. Louis Blues chairman Dave Checketts.  The group hoped to purchase the Rams.  There was a public outcry, not only among the public, but from many NFL pros themselves.

Rush became an economic liability.  So the group cut him loose, so they could proceed with the sale.

Obama didn't cut him.  The liberal media didn't cut him.  Congress didn't intervene and strike down any purchase possibilities.

It was a business decision.

Heh.

Reich: Hold On To Your Wallets

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & DeficitLeave a Comment

Clinton economic advisor Robert Reich isn't impressed with the Dow breaking 10,000:

How did the Dow break 10,000 when the rest of the economy is in the toilet?

1. Corporate earnings are up — mainly because companies have been cutting costs. Payrolls comprise 70 percent of most companies' costs, which means companies have been slashing jobs. In the end, this is a self-defeating strategy. If workers don't have jobs or are afraid of losing them, they won't buy, and company profits will disappear.

2. Federal borrowing has filled the gap that consumers and businesses created when the latter began to reduce their debt. Federal debt, in other words, has kept the economy from tanking. Can't keep up forever, though.

3. With such horrid employment numbers, Wall Street figures the Fed will keep interest rates low for some time, and continue to flood the economy with money. That's good news for the Street because it means money stays cheap — and with cheap money the Street can make lots of bets on almost everything under the sun and moon. As a result, the Street's earnings are way up. But this, too, is temporary. At some point the Fed is going to worry about inflation and a falling dollar.

4. Investors of all stripes want to get in early and ride the wave. Pension funds, mutual funds, and other institutional investors figure the bull market has more oomph in it because, well, other investors will jump in. Think Ponzi scheme. Nice for now, but watch out if you're one of the last in.

In other words, this is all temporary fluff, folks. Anyone who hasn't learned by now that there's almost no relationship between the Dow and the real economy deserves to lose his or her shirt in the Wall Street casino.

Thank you, Mr. Happy Fun Guy.  Although, you're probably right.

Governor Perry Doubles Down on Willingham

Ken AshfordCourts/Law, CrimeLeave a Comment

This story is starting to get national attention.  Presumably, that's why Perry said what he said:

Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday defended his actions in the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, calling him a “monster” and a “bad man” who murdered his children.

Specifics?  Sure…

“Willingham was a monster,” the governor said. “Here's a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so he wouldn't have those kids. Person after person has stood up and testified to facts of this case that, quite frankly, you all are not covering.”

Willingham, he said, showed how bad he was on the day of his execution.

“This is a bad man. This is a guy who in the death chamber in his last breath spews an obscenity-laced triad (sic) against his wife,” Perry said.

This is utter bullshit.

First of all, the prosecutor claimed that he beat his wife to abort his kids; his wife denied that at trail (and she really ought to know).  Did he beat his wife other times?  Yes, the evidence suggests that.  But is that a fact of the case?  Emphatically, no.  Neither does swearing to your wife while being put to death.  (She insisted he was innocent, until he was found guilty, and then she changed her mind, and failed to assist him for over a decade as he exhausted his appeals).  Frankly, if I were an innocent man sitting in death row, I might be inclined to cuss as well.

But here's the thing — I don't care if Willingham was a bad husband.  It is entirely irrelevant as to whether he commited arson to kill his children.  There was (as I have blogged before) no eyewitness and the forensic evidence (we now know) indicated that the fire was not deliberately set.

This seems to be a thing with the Texas criminal justice system: if you are a bad man, you must have done everything that the prosecutor says you did.  It's been around a long time — go rent (if you can find it) The Thin Blue Line.  An alarming number of people have been executed in Texas — before their innocence is discovered.

Calling Willingham a "monstor" and a "bad man" is not evidence of guilt.  Perry is grasping here, because he knows he screwed up and allowed an innocent man to die.

Melt The United States

Ken AshfordEnvironment & Global Warming & EnergyLeave a Comment

Think about how vast the United States is.  Leave out Alaska and Hawaii and just focus on the lower 48.  Think about how expansive it is, how long it takes to travel from one end to the other.

That's about the size of the Arctic polar ice cap — during warm months — for the end of the last century.

2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice

Even during the warmer months, the Arctic ice cap was unpassable.

Well, that's soon to be a thing of the past.

A new study reveals that the polar ice cap will be navigable during the summer months, within a decade. 

And in 20 to 30 years, it will be entirely gone during the summer months.  That's right.  The North Pole (including Santa's house) will be ocean. 

In the upcoming months, there's going to be bills and debate in the Congress on the subject of global warming, and you know where the political parties will line up.  You're going to be hearing a lot of misinformation from interest groups (big oil) and GOP politicians and pundits fiananced by those interest groups, including the ridiculous conard that global warming doesn't exist.  It's going to make the health care debate look reasonable and adult by comparison. 

But Santa Claus is drowning.  So it's time to saddle up.

“Anyone Can Be Killed”

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

Francis Schaeffer was the father of the modern Christian Right.  An world-renowned evangelical in the 1970's, he was mentor to young religious "upstarts" like Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson and James Dobson — men who, in the 1980's, would combine their religion with conservative politics and bring it to the masses in the exploding media age.  Francis died in 1985.

His son, Frank Schaeffer, followed in his father's footsteps.  He spoke before religious followers at anti-abortion rallies.  Cal Thomas — then the vice president of the Moral Majority — called him "the best speaker in America".

You may wonder why you have never heard of Frank Schaeffer — why he didn't follow the path of Swaggart and Robertson and Falwell and Dobson to become (yet another) rightwing Christian demogogue.

The reason is because…. he developed a conscience.

He acknowledges that he was "part of the self-pitying, whining, evangelical/fundamentalist chorus", but that was then.  Today, he is an outspoken critic of the evangelical right.

And he's got something to say:

Since President Obama took office I've felt like the lonely — maybe crazy — proverbial canary in the coal mine… As a former right wing leader, who many years ago came to my senses and began to try to undo the harm the movement of religious extremism I helped build has done, I've been telling the media that we're facing a dangerous time in our history. A fringe element of the far right Republican Party seems it believes it has a license to incite threatening behavior in the name of God.

Read the fascinating interview.

Here’s A Halloween Hootenanny For Ya!

Ken AshfordGodstuff, Local InterestLeave a Comment

Instead of trick-or-treating, how about piling those kids in the pick-up truck and taking a trip down the road to Canton, NC (near Asheville)?

Here's what you can expect (image from their website):

Halloweenburningparty

[NOTE: The website has been changed recently to include a burning fire background, rendering this page virtually unreadable.  Still, the text shown here remains the same.]

From Raw Story:

The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."

Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.

"I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.

***

David Lynch, a resident of nearby Asheville, N.C., told Raw Story "it's a little disconcerting how close this is to my home."

"They are burning so much stuff I've dubbed them the hypocritical Christian Taliban," Lynch said in a phone interview with Raw Story. "Just the scope of all the information they want to destroy is pretty disturbing."

Church leaders did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment, but the website notes they will be providing "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides" at the book burning.

Well, given the amount of fire there, I expect the chicken will be burnt to a crisp.

My reaction?  Wonkette says it all:

…and don’t even attempt to answer this: How does a human being become this insane? Imagine how hard you would have to work, mentally, for your whole life, training yourself to be as insane as fucking possible about everything, every object you see, every interaction you have, to the point where you would plan or attend this church’s Halloween book burning non-ironically, agreeing with each aspect of this itinerary on earnest grounds, actually believing that this event would result in some sort of pure, positive good, and then telling people in public, on the publicly available Internet, about this event. Try to imagine for yourself a hypothetical psychological path that would lead you to this sort of existence. “Clinical psychosis” won’t even get you halfway.

Seriously, I have a problem with book-burning in general, but I suppose if one must burn books, James Dobson's work won't upset me too much.  And I can certainly think of some country music records that deserve to burn.  But to burn James Dobson, Billy Graham, Rick Warren and Chuck Colson because they are insufficiently religio-conservative?  That takes a special kind of batshit insane. 

UPDATE:  From the church website's joke page:

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU MAY NOT BE READING YOUR BIBLE ENOUGH:

10) The Preacher announces the sermon is from Galatians … and you check the table of contents.
9) You think Abraham, Isaac & Jacob may have had a few hit songs during the 60's.
8) You open to the Gospel of Luke and a WWII Savings Bond falls out.
7) Your favorite Old Testament Patriarch is Hercules.
6) A small family of woodchucks has taken up residence in the Psalms of your Bible.
5) You become frustrated because Charlton Heston isn't listed in either the Concordance or the Table of Contents.
4) Catching the kids reading the Song of Solomon, you demand: "Who gave you this stuff?"
3) You think the Minor Prophets worked in the quarries.
2) You keep falling for it every time when Pastor tells you to turn to First Condominiums.
And the number one sign you may not be reading your Bible enough:
1) The kids keep asking too many questions about your usual bedtime story: "Jonah the Shepherd Boy and His Ark of Many Colors."

Ok, now the whole burning thing is starting to sound appealing.

Lesson Not Learned

Ken AshfordCorporate Greed, Economy & Jobs & DeficitLeave a Comment

WSJ:

Wall Street On Track To Award Record Pay

Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year — a record high that shows compensation is rebounding despite regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street's pay culture.

Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007, according to an analysis of securities filings for the first half of 2009 and revenue estimates through year-end by The Wall Street Journal.

Total compensation and benefits at the publicly traded firms analyzed by the Journal are on track to increase 20% from last year’s $117 billion—and to top 2007’s $130 billion payout. This year, employees at the companies will earn an estimated $143,400 on average, up almost $2,000 from 2007 levels.

I have no comment.

That's because I'm speechless.  We're facing double digit unemployment because of these bastards, the deficits are huge because we bailed out these bastards, and now they're increasing their own compensation?

UPDATE:  Thankfully, Kevin Drum, while as dumbfounded as me, can eke out a few thoughts:

There's an insanity here that's almost beyond analysis.  Wall Street can spark an economic slowdown that misses destroying the planet and causing a second Great Depression only by a hair's breadth — said hair being an 11th hour emergency infusion of trillions of taxpayer dollars — and then turn around and use those trillions to return to bubble levels of profitability within 12 months.  And they can do it even though the rest of the economy is still suffering through the worst recession since World War II.  It's mind boggling.

Is there any silver lining here?  Probably not, but I'll try: If Wall Street can shrug off the worst recession of our lifetimes as if it's a minor fender bender and get the party rolling all over again in less than 12 months, it means the next bubble is already in the works and its collapse will be every bit as bad as this one.  That in turn means it will almost certainly happen while today's politicians are still in office.  So maybe news like this will finally spur lawmakers to realize once and for all that the financial industry needs to be cut down to size.  Half measures won't do it.  Self-regulation won't do it.  Compensation limits won't do it.  Byzantine, watered-down rules won't do it.  Something like a Morgenthau Plan for Wall Street is the only thing that has even half a chance of working.

Will Congress finally get this?  Probably not.  The financial lobby is just too strong.  But we can hope.

RELATED:  The Dow surpassed 10,000 today.  Republicans are downplaying the significance of that.  And while I tend to agree with them (10,000 is just a number), recall that Republicans weren't singing that tune a few months ago.  The Wall Street Journal ran an entire editorial on this in early March. The drop in the Dow, the WSJ insisted, was a direct result of investors evaluating "Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance."  Karl Rove and Lou Dobbs made the same case. So did Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Fred Barnes. It was one of Mitt Romney's favorite talking points for a while, too.

To Republicans, Obama was to blame for the continuing fall of the Dow last spring.  But now that it keeps going up and up?  Well, the Dow doesn't mean anything.

But since when has logical, or even rhetorical, consistency been a characteristic of today's Republican party?

UPDATE TO RELATED:  OMG!  Fox News is pitching that the surge in the Dow is an example of the "Bush recovery"!!

Cavuto

Latest Update On The Execution of Cameron Todd Willingham

Ken AshfordCrimeLeave a Comment

Looks like Texas’s Republican Governnor Rick Perry is digging a deeper hole for himself.

The Houston Chronicle adds some more details about how Perry disregarded doubts of Willingham’s guilt.  Three days before the execution, Willingham’s attorney alerted Perry of a new arson analysis that cast doubt on the conviction.  The ultimate analysis came from a respected arson expert, Dr. Gerald Hurst, who helped exonerate prior death row inmates.

According to the Chronicle, the five-page Hurst report was faxed to Perry at 4:52 PM.  A “few minutes after” 5:00, Perry’s office said he would not intervene.  They probably didn’t even read it.  The execution occurred about an hour later. 

Perry is clearly trying to cover his tracks now.  As I wrote about two weeks ago, members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission were dismissed by Governor Perry, literally on the eve of the day when they were to receive a damning report from an arson expert.  The report conclusively stated that Willingham was innocent, and the arson evidence on which he was solely convicted (and eventually executed) was horrible.  The Chicago Tribune adds more:

Just months before the controversial removal of three members of a state commission investigating the forensics that led to a Texas man’s 2004 execution, top aides to Gov. Rick Perry tried to pressure the chairman of the panel over the direction of the inquiry, the chairman has told the Tribune.

Samuel Bassett, whom Perry replaced on the Texas Forensic Science Commission two weeks ago, said he twice was called to meetings with Perry’s top attorneys. At one of those meetings, Bassett said he was told they were unhappy with the course of the commission’s investigation.

“I was surprised that they were involving themselves in the commission’s decision-making,” Bassett said. “I did feel some pressure from them, yes. There’s no question about that.”

Not good at all.

UPDATE:  Sam Bassett, the former chair of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, has now told the Houston Chronicle that lawyers for Perry told him the case was inappropriate, and that the hiring of a nationally known fire expert was a “waste of state money.”

The New GOP Website Launch

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

It's buggy and ugly.  It crashes.  But Marc Ambinder compiles the other things wrong with the launch:

Top Ten Reasons Why The GOP Website Relaunch Is Fizzlin'

10. In a section devoted to "future leaders," there were none. 

9. In the subsequent rush to get up a "future leaders" page, they choose "you."
8. The last GOP accomplishment cited on the accomplishment page was from 2004. 
7. The what's up page — hip! starts with this sentence: ""the internet has been around for a while now" [NOTE from Ken:  the "what's up" page, written by GOP Chairman Michael Steele, was actually called the "What Up" page, because the GOP is hip, fo' rizzle, word to your mother.  After a day of laughter, the GOP changed it to "Change The Word" because the GOP loves change… or… something.]
6. Administrator passwords were accidentally posted. 
5. When the RNC hosted a kick-off conference call, the website was down. 
4. The website cites Jackie Robinson as a GOP hero. Robinson wasn't a GOPer, and he criticized the GOP on race. Robinson left the party because of its views on race. He had been, as a reader points out, a Republican for many years.
3. The first question on the conference call was from an Hispanic Republican who asked why the GOP site didn't have a Spanish-language page and noted that the White House had one. 
2. Bragging about web redesigns is so 2004.

1. It's not timed with the start of any major advocacy campaign — or political campaign. And it portrays itself as something it's not: diverse and ready to embrace new ideas. That may be what the party leadership aspires to, but, at least when it comes to diversity, a few pictures of Hispanics and African Americans doesn't make up for … well, the history of the party.  

Also… referring to Ronald Reagan as Ronaldus Magnus (latin for "Ronald the Great") strikes me as ingratiatingly over the top.  Seriously?  A monarch title?

The Seventh Sense Silly Legal Advice Corner

Ken AshfordCourts/Law, CrimeLeave a Comment

Q.  I have a restraining order filed against me.  Can I still "poke" that person on Facebook?

A:  It depends on the terms of the restraining order, but the answer is probably "no".

A Hendersonville woman was arrested for virtually “poking” someone on the social networking site Facebook.

Shannon D. Jackson, 36, was arrested Friday, Sept. 25 for allegedly violating an order of protection.

According to the affidavit filed in Sumner County General Sessions Court, Jackson is accused of using the “poke” option on Facebook to contact a Hendersonville woman, thus violating the terms of the order of protection, which stipulates “no telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating with the petitioner.”

Poking is a feature unique to Facebook that conveys no other message but informing a user they have been “poked” by another user.

Of course, this incident begs a question.  Since you can only "poke" your friends, why wasn't this Shannon D. Jackson already blocked by the alleged victim?

Am I The Man Of Your Dreams?

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

A colleague brought this story and website to my attention:

Thisman_small In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist's desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.

From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moskow etc.

At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.

My colleague thinks I look like the drawing of THIS MAN.

Uh…. other than the hairline, I don't see it.  My eyebrows aren't that bushy, and my ears are a bit higher than my mouth.

Anyway, if I am invading your dreams, I assure you it is not intentional.