The Majority Speaks

Ken AshfordSex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

I have little to say about this, other than to point out that it happened. 

Recall, if you will, that social conservatives were upset because the Massachusetts judicary ruled that it is discriminatory and unconstitutional not to recognize same-sex marraige. 

Recall, if you will, that social conservatives thought that the judicary was legislating from the bench, usurping the will and authority of the Massachusetts legislature.

Well, the Massachsetts citzens, through their duly elected representatives, have now spoken:

In a sign that the legalization of same-sex marriage has changed the political landscape in Massachusetts, the legislature soundly defeated a proposed constitutional amendment on Wednesday to ban gay marriage and create civil unions, an amendment that lawmakers gave preliminary approval to in a raucous constitutional convention last year.

Wednesday’s 157-to-39 vote by a joint session of the House and Senate partly reflected the fact that some legislators now consider same-sex marriage more politically acceptable, after a largely conflict-free year in which some 6,600 same-sex couples got married and lawmakers who supported it got re-elected.

So there you have it.  Massachusetts believes in equal treatment for gays.

Close Shaves

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

About thirty years ago, there was a very popular commercial for a double-track razor — a disposable razor with two blades. 

Demonstrated through a fake-y cartoon close-up of a man’s cheek, gullible consumers were informed that the double razor was better.  Why?  Because the first blade pushes the whisker forward, priming it for the death hack from the second razor following right behind.  The pseudoscience was so silly that Saturday Night Live, in their very first episode ever, had a mock commercial introducing a triple-track razor ("Because you’ll believe anything" was the tag line).

MadprescientrazorSure enough, it wasn’t long afterwards that a triple-track razor was in fact introduced.  Mad Magazine took the next satirical stab, with a mock ad for the Trac LXXVI Razor — a razor with 76 blades.

More recently, consumers were treated to the advent of a four-track razor — the Quattro from Schick.  This prompted The Onion, in February 2004, to post an open letter from the President of Gillette:

Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades

By James M. Kilts
CEO and President,
The Gillette Company
February 18, 2004

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That’s three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I’m telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. Now we’re standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we’re the chumps. Well, fuck it. We’re going to five blades.

Sure, we could go to four blades next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, three worked out pretty well, and four is the next number after three. So let’s play it safe. Let’s make a thicker aloe strip and call it the Mach3SuperTurbo. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we’re a business, that’s why!

I’m sure you know where this is heading.

In yet another example of life imitating satire, Gillette has introduced . . . wait for it . . . the five-track razor!!  And, just as the Onion predicted, Gillette skipped over "four" and went straight to "five":

"There was never a plan to go to four," he said. said Peter Hoffman, president of Gillette’s blades and razors business, who said Fusion was in the development pipeline for several years.

How far behind can a six-blade razor be? 

MSNBC gives this story the weight it deserves.  You know it is important when they post an online poll which asks (I’m not making this up) "How Many Blades Do You Prefer"?  I was going to suggest that everyone reading this band together and click "Eleven", but sadly, that is not one the possible responses (it only goes up to "5 or more"). 

In fact, if the results now are any indication, it looks like most people are quite content with 3 or less razors, thank you very much.

Is this the end of the Razor Wars?  I doubt it.

[Hat tip: Boing Boing]

Unfurl Those Flags: Newdow’s Back!

Ken AshfordConstitution, Courts/LawLeave a Comment

Michael Newdow is back in the news.  You may remember him as the guy who challenged the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance, arguing that it compelled his daughter to invoke a religious incantation ("under God").  Even though he won in the lower courts, he ultimately lost in the Supreme Court, but only on the issue of standing (since he didn’t have full custody of his daughter, he couldn’t represent her interests in court).

At the time, many (myself included) commented that the Pledge issue was merely put off to another day.

Well, that "another day" is approaching.  Newdow filed a new lawsuit, not on behalf of himself and his daughter, but on behalf of three other parents and their children.

And he won again:

A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday in a case brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words "under God" was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge’s reference to one nation "under God" violates school children’s right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

The Supreme Court dismissed the case last year, saying Newdow lacked standing because he did not have custody of his elementary school daughter he sued on behalf of.

Newdow, an attorney and a medical doctor, filed an identical case on behalf of three unnamed parents and their children. Karlton said those families have the right to sue.

So now this case is going to climb the appellate courts until it reaches the Supreme Court.  And this time, they’re going to have to deal with it.

Flight 93 Memorial: The Outrage Continues

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/Idiocy, War on Terrorism/Torture1 Comment

Captain Ed and Michelle Malkin have found other reasons to complain about the Flight 93 Memorial.  No doubt shamed by the laughter generating from the left and the right, the whole Islamic crescent controversy has been relegated to the back seat. 

Now the problem with the memorial is that it is all faggy and new-agey.  You know, windchimes ‘n shit:

Wind chimes? Hey, why not add pinwheels and smiley face stickers and Care Bears while we’re at it, too?

Phallus_1Both of them argue that the Flight 93 Memorial should be a "war memorial", because the brave passengers of Flight 93 fought back against the terrorists.  The implications of their brave act should never be forgotten: it means that Americans have big penises. 

So the "war memorial" should be, I guess, a huge phallus.  Not an obelisk like that pussified Washington Monument, but an actual phallus. 

A honkin’ huge titanium-alloy phallus that shoots bullets from its tip — every hour, on the hour. 

Complete with veins — veins that replicate the curved flight path of Flight 93, as our heroes struggled to protect America (now that’s symbolism- fuck ya!). 

And the word "Let’s" engraved on the left testicle, and "Roll!" on the right one.

Because we need to, you know, remind ourselves and the world that we shouldn’t be fucked with.  Or something like that.

Oh, and the families of the Flight 93 victims?  Yeah, they can have their say about what the memorial should look like, but that doesn’t mean we have to, you know, listen:

While the verdict of the families should have some weight in the approval process, the entire point of this memorial is the national implications of the event, which is why the government will run the memorial and is in charge of its construction and maintenance. A great many of us do not want the Islamic symbolism as a centerpiece for the Flight 93 memorial, but more importantly, we want a memorial that evokes the courageous and inspiring example that they provided with their last breath of life.

Flight 93 — it’s all about Charles and Michelle.

Google Blog Search

Ken AshfordBloggingLeave a Comment

This is cool.  Google has always had the ability to include blogs in its search results, but now it has the ability to search blogs exclusively.  It’s just like regular Google, but the results only give you blogs. 

You can also limit the results to a specific blog, and doing so yields more results than a regular Google search.  Mmmmm.  I wonder if I how much I’ve written about Katrina…

Related:  Does Google Earth threaten global security?

Louisiana Nursing Home Operators Charged With Negligent Homicide

Ken AshfordCrime, DisastersLeave a Comment

The two owners (a husband and wife) are being charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide, because 34 residents of the nursing home drowned.

Here’s the story:

The charges stem from the deaths of elderly patients at St. Rita’s nursing home in Chalmette, located just southeast of New Orleans.

The patients drowned in the flooding after hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29.

"The pathetic thing in this case was that they were asked if they wanted to move them and they did not,” Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said.

"They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming. In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these people.”

Salvador Mangano and his wife, Mable, were released on $50,000 bail each.

Jim Cobb, their lawyer, said his clients followed the nursing home’s evacuation plan and that St. Bernard Parish officials were to blame.

"They sat and waited for a mandatory evacuation order from the officials of St. Bernard Parish that never came,” he said.

In addition, some of the patients were too frail to move, Cobb said.

I’m on the fence about this, and a lot is going to depend on the facts.  One thing I would like to know is why the owners survived.  Did they abandon their patients, and if so, when?

I know this shouldn’t be relevant, but take a look at their pictures:

160_mable_050914 160_salvador_050914

They give me the heebee-jeebees.  Especially her. 

Katrina: Right Wing Myths Debunked

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Disasters, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Think Progress has a link-o-riffic debunking of some right-wing Katina memes.   Here’s an example — there are many more:

CLAIM — STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS WERE MOSTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILURES: “White House Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials” [Washington Post, 9/4/05]

FACT – BUSH PUT FEMA IN CHARGE OF EFFORT BEFORE KATRINA STRUCK: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House, 8/27/05]

Bush Takes Responsiblity, Sort Of

Ken AshfordBreaking News, Bush & Co., DisastersLeave a Comment

OopsbushCNN reports:

President Bush on Tuesday said he takes responsibility for the federal government’s failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Finally.  He goes the Truman route (kind of, I guess, maybe) — after days of denying federal government lapses, and after days of having his minions blame others, while talking about not blame-gaming.

From the movie "Quiz Show":

"I’m happy that you’ve made the statement. But I cannot agree with most of my colleagues. See, I don’t think an adult . . . should be commended for simply, at long last, telling the truth."

From John Kerry:

"The President has done the obvious, only after it was clear he couldn’t get away with the inexcusable."

From Elton John:

"’Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word"

From Josh Marshall:

"No absolution without true repentance."

Josh adds that the President should admit he is truly responsible, not "responsible" in a buck-stops-here kind of way.  Right on.

Roberts and Roe v. Wade

Ken AshfordSex/Morality/Family Values, Supreme Court, Women's IssuesLeave a Comment

I realize that I said I wasn’t going to blog about the Roberts confirmation hearings, but I was surprised that Roberts came out today and said this:

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts said Tuesday that the landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion was "settled as a precedent," as he was immediately pressed to address the divisive issue on the second day of his confirmation hearings.

"It’s settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis," the concept that long-established rulings should be given extra weight, Roberts told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

***

The nominee dismissed any suggestion that his Catholic faith would influence his decisions if he were confirmed to be the nation’s 17th chief justice. The Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes abortion.

"There’s nothing in my personal views based on faith or other sources that would prevent me from applying the precedent of the court faithfully under the principles of stare decisis," Roberts said.

I’m not terribly surprised that this is Roberts’ view (after all, it was Rehnquist’s as well).  I’m just a little surprised he said it.

I can’t wait for the conservative Christian reaction.  The columnists at Renew America must have had a collective heart attack.

UPDATE:  Wow!  According to this site, there was this exchange:

Specter asks if Roberts believes the const. contains a right to privacy:

Roberts: "I do."

More: "The right to privacy is protected by he constitution in various ways…It’s prot. by the 4th amendment… protected under the 1st amendment [which] protects privacy in matters on conscience…and in addition, the court has, over a series of decisions going back eighty years, that personal privacy is a component of the liberty protected by the due process clause…not just procedurally but in substantive matters as well.

Roberts acknowledges his 1980s-era memo where he added scare quotes to a "so-called" right to privacy, were the views of his superior and do not currently reflect what he personally believes.

I have no reason to think he’s lying to the committee.  Most intelligent jurists, both conservative and liberal, acknowledge that the Constitution protects the right to privacy.

Katrina Follies

Ken AshfordBush & Co., DisastersLeave a Comment

The article in the Wall Street Journal (registration required — UPDATE:  I’ll put larger excerpts below the fold) should put to rest the conservative meme that FEMA (and the federal government) needs a specific request from local government before it can act in the face of a disaster.  The articles points to the Department of Homeland Security’s National Response Plan, a post-Sept. 11 playbook on how to deal with catastrophic events, and says:

The plan, which was rolled out to much fanfare in January, essentially enables Washington to move federal assets to the disaster without waiting for requests from state officials. It then funnels help from all federal agencies through a single point of contact — usually the secretary of homeland security — a reform demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Meanwhile, as I wrote yesterday, Bush said this (also yesterday):

Q Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees?

THE PRESIDENT: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that’s what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.

Really.  Recall the title of my post that Tuesday morning ("Dodged A Bullet? Not So Much").  Obviously, I was getting my information from the "airways".  So what was Bush watching?

An enterprising blogger did a Lexis/Nexis search.   Was there someone who actually suggested that New Orleans "dodged a bullet"?

CNN
SHOW: CNN NEWSNIGHT AARON BROWN 10:00 PM EST
August 29, 2005 Monday
TRANSCRIPT: 082901CN.V84
HEADLINE: Hurricane Katrina Pummels Three States
BODY:

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: …Give me your most honest answer. You’re getting a lot of information from a lot of sources: From police sources, from the Coast Guard, lots of people. Do you feel you have the, what we call on television the wide shot, of how big, how bad, how deadly, how devastating the last 24 hours have been?

MICHAEL BROWN, FEMA: Well, Aaron, I’m just beginning to get that wide -angle view and I’ve got to tell you, it’s very, very sobering. I’ve had some folks out on the reconnaissance helicopters, in fact, some of them were on the helicopters that started doing the rescues from the rooftops. And I think what we see is, sure, New Orleans dodged the bullet, in the sense that the catastrophic disaster we thought would occur downtown, moved slightly to the east, 30 or 40 miles. But what that meant is that we now have literally neighborhood after neighborhood that is totally engulfed in water. We still have water coming into those neighborhoods and so my honest assessment is, is that we have a major disaster here where people are not going to be able to get into their homes for weeks, if not months.

So Bush, I guess, gets his briefings over the "airways".  Wow, is that disquieting.

And note that even Michael Brown, whose name has become synonymous with "major fuckup", went on to say that "literally neighborhood after neighborhood" was "totally engulfed in water".  So, Bush’s "dodged a bullet" excuse is simply lame.

Meanwhile, Bush is going to be attempting to do some serious damage control tonight (for himself, but ostensibly for the Gulf States) — he’s planning a televised nationwide address.  For the time impaired, let me remind you that today is Tuesday, September 13.  Katrina hit Monday, August 29.  I’m just saying.

Read More

Bush Displeased

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

Nice article in WaPo by Dan Froomkin.  Key grafs:

Is Bush the commanding, decisive, jovial president you’ve been hearing about for years in so much of the mainstream press?

Maybe not so much.

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don’t emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies — the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department — has failed a big test.

“Good People” – Part Deux

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Disasters1 Comment

This is what Bush said today:

Now, as far as my own personal popularity goes, I don’t make decisions based upon polls. I hope the American people appreciate that. You can’t make difficult decisions if you have to take a poll. That’s been my style ever since I’ve been the President. And, of course, I rely upon good people. Of course, you got to as the President of the United States. You set the space, you set the strategy, you hold people to account. But yeah, I’m relying upon good people.  That’s why Admiral Allen is here. He’s good man. He can do the job. That’s why General Honore is here.

Wow.  Kind of reminds me of a post I wrote only two days ago, entitled "Good People".  That’s part of what makes this president so incompetent — he doesn’t surround himself with good people.  If that isn’t apparent to him by now, then he’s truly insane.  Or lying.

Bush continues:

And so when I come into a briefing, I don’t tell them what to do. They tell me the facts on the ground, and my question to them is, do you have what you need.

So he gets the "facts on the ground" from his "good people"?  Um, no.  Here’s the follow-up question:

QUESTION: Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees?

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that’s what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.

So you surround yourself with "good people", and yet you get your information from the "airways" [sic – he means "airwaves"].  Doesn’t that contradict what you said mere moments earlier — i.e., that you get your facts from your "good people" who are "on the ground"?

Then there’s this:

QUESTION: Mr. President, where were you when you realized the severity of the storm?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I was — I knew that a big storm was coming on Monday, so I spoke to the country on Monday* morning about it. I said, there’s a big storm coming.

200508295_p082905pm0260250hMost of the country knew by Sunday that there was a big storm coming.  By the way, the storm made landfall at 6:10 am CDT on Monday morning.  Bush’s first public speaking engagement was at 9:06 am (CDT), when he spoke about Medicate to an elderly audience in Arizona (it was not "speaking to the country" in any sense of the word) — see accompanying picture.  Even then, Bush acknowledged that the storm was here, not "coming" (see White House transcript).

I think Bush really does believe what he is spouting off.  It’s simply egregious lying.

Now, he MAY have meant to say "Sunday", but who knows?  In any event, you would think that, given the controversy surrounding the federal governments lack-of-response, Bush would take the time to know the facts cold about events that transpired within the past two weeks.

Or is that expecting too much?

[Transcript of recent press conference from Josh Marshall]

Black People? WHAT Black People?

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Disasters, RaceLeave a Comment

BushtourCheck out the subheadline in the Comcast news heading pictured here.  It says "Bush Denies Race An Issue In Relief".

Now look at the racial makeup of the people that Bush is visiting.  Mostly white.

There’s two kinds of "colorblind".  There’s "colorblind" in the sense one refuses to see racial differences which don’t matter.  That’s the good kind.

Then there’s "colorblind" in the sense that you ignore the existence of  certain races.  That’s Bush’s kind.

Hat tip: Shakespeare’s Sister