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Blogs Eric Reads
Archive for March, 2008
Bush Booed at New Nationals Stadium
President Bush delivered the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ home opener in their new ballpark. The crowd start booing the second he stepped out of the dugout, and kept booing through the pitch until he was off the field. (Video below)
A Washington Post reader presciently asked why an Iraq War veteran wasn’t throwing out the pitch instead of the president, since “the veteran is far more deserving of the first-pitch honor than the president is.”
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Formula One President’s Resignation Demanded After “Nazi-Style Orgy”
There are so many words in that headline that I never thought I would ever have to write. Apparently, things on the other side of the pond are remarkably fucked up.
Max Mosley, one of the most powerful men in world sport, was under pressure to resign as boss of Formula One’s governing body last night after he was exposed enjoying a Nazi-style orgy with five prostitutes.
Jewish groups condemned the behaviour of Mosley, 67, whose father, Sir Oswald, was the leader of the British Union of Fascists and a friend of Adolf Hitler.
Mr Mosley was caught on video by the News of the World with five women in an underground “torture chamber” in Chelsea, where he spent several hours allegedly indulging in sado-masochistic sex.
Speaking in German and brandishing a leather whip, he beat the women after allowing himself to be subjected to a humiliating inspection for lice and an interrogation in chains.
Mr Mosley, a close confidant of Bernie Ecclestone, who holds the commercial rights to Formula One, paid £2,500 cash for the sex services, the Sunday newspaper claimed.
The Oxford-educated former barrister, who is president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), reenacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of both guard and inmate.
No comment, because I don’t even know where to start.
(h/t Atrios)
National Dialogue on Race
We don’t need a national dialogue on race. We’ve been having that conversation since 1975.
Now, that’s dialogue!
Sadly, No! has a more contemporary example.
(Also, where in the world did hulu.com pop up out of? Great video site, or greatest video site?)
The Commander-in-Chief Threshold
After Hillary Clinton’s claim earlier this month that only she and John McCain have “crossed the commander-in-chief threshold,” there’s been a fair amount of discussion over what exactly that threshold is. I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’ve come up with a simple solution:
- The commander-in-chief must be a natural born citizen of the United States.
- The commander-in-chief must be at least 35 years old.
- The commander-in-chief must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.
There, that was easy.
Obama Leads Clinton by 10 Points
Today’s Gallup Daily tracking poll should give the Obama campaign something to smile about.
It’s not included in the range of this chart, but this is the first time that either candidate has had a double-digit margin since before Super Tuesday, when Clinton led by 11 points (and there were a few more candidates in the race).
Rasmussen gives Obama a smaller margin but significantly better general election chances:
Rasmussen Markets data now give Obama a 80.0 % chance to win the Democratic nomination while expectations for a Clinton victory are at 19.8 %. Market data also suggests that Obama has a 47.2 % chance to become the next President. Expectations for McCain to become President are at 39.7 % while Clinton’s prospects are at 11.8 %.
Google Turns Out the Lights for Earth Hour
If you head over to Google today, you might notice that things look a little bit different.
Google is turning out the lights today to promote environmental awareness.
Google users in the United States will notice today that we “turned the lights out” on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don’t do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display. However, you can do something to reduce the energy consumption of your home PC by joining the Climate Savers Computing Initiative.
On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone. On this day, cities around the world, including Copenhagen, Chicago, Melbourne, Dubai, and Tel Aviv, will hold events to acknowledge their commitment to energy conservation.
Given our company’s commitment to environmental awareness and energy efficiency, we strongly support the Earth Hour campaign, and have darkened our homepage today to help spread awareness of what we hope will be a highly successful global event.
I’ll be participating in Earth Hour this evening. Will you join me?
Local GOP Pressures Woman to Drop Restraining Order
The Eagle County (CO) GOP takes Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment–“Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”–very seriously, even if that fellow Republican is accused of stalking his ex-girlfriend.
[Republican House candidate Ali] Hasan’s campaign publicist and former girlfriend filed for a temporary restraining order against him, alleging that he tried to hack into her computer and tracked her whereabouts after their personal relationship soured.
Hasan, the scion of one of the state’s biggest Republican fundraisers, countered by hiring the same high-priced law firm that defended basketball star Kobe Bryant in a sex-assault case.
The publicist, Alison Miller, dropped her effort for a permanent order but said it was under heavy pressure from prominent Republicans who cared more about the party’s image than possible inappropriate behavior by its well-heeled candidate.
…
Faced with a lengthy fight and Hasan’s high-priced lawyers, Miller said she decided not to pursue a permanent restraining order, hoping one will come automatically if criminal charges are filed. But her decision was affected by pressure she got from local party officials, she said.“They told me that I was embarrassing the Republican Party, ruining his campaign,” Miller said.
Oh no, wouldn’t want a silly little thing like stalking to get in the way of the campaign. Other local Republicans, of course, feel betrayed. As to the accusations of intimidation, the county GOP chair send that while he personally didn’t tell her to drop it, it’s likely that someone else from the party did. The candidate’s mother had a similar response, while also winning the coveted “most uses of the word Republican in one minute” award:
“I’m really disappointed first of all as a Republican,” she said. “Alison herself says she’s a Republican. . . . We opened our house to her.
“My feeling as a Republican is, gosh, if you can’t trust a young Republican, who can you trust?”
If she were really a Republican–a true, loyal Republican–she wouldn’t put her own personal safety and well-being above the needs of the party. She should have just been like Wendy “I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary” Vitter and stood by her man.
(h/t Vanessa)
WordPress Updated
I’ve updated to WordPress 2.5 and everything seems to be going swimmingly. Let me know if you see anything going horribly wrong.
Wal-Mart Sues Woman for Return of Health Care Funds
Wal-Mart execs just got their one-way tickets straight to Hell.
Debbie Shank breaks down in tears every time she’s told that her 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed in Iraq.
The 52-year-old mother of three attended her son’s funeral, but she continues to ask how he’s doing. When her family reminds her that he’s dead, she weeps as if hearing the news for the first time.
Shank suffered severe brain damage after a traffic accident nearly eight years ago that robbed her of much of her short-term memory and left her in a wheelchair and living in a nursing home.
…
Two years after the accident, Shank and her husband, Jim, were awarded about $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the crash. After legal fees were paid, $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for Debbie Shank’s long-term care.Wal-Mart [her former employer] had paid out about $470,000 for Shank’s medical expenses and later sued for the same amount. However, the court ruled it can only recoup what is left in the family’s trust.
The Shanks didn’t notice in the fine print of Wal-Mart’s health plan policy that the company has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit.
They have the right, but do they have the need? With $90 billion in sales reported for the third quarter of 2007, do they really need the extra $200,000 that currently pays this woman’s nursing home bills? Already strapped for cash before the accident, Jim Shank has divorced Debbie so she can collect more money from Medicaid.
No family should have to suffer like this because of corporate greed. Apparently, Wal-Mart has a global ethics office, so feel free to shoot them an email.
James Carville Becomes a Hypocrite
After Bill Richardson, a former Clinton appointee, endorsed Barack Obama, Clinton loyalist and CNN commentator James Carville called Richardson a Judas. Today, Carville defended himself by arguing that Richardson owes his loyalty to the Clintons:
I was saying what I felt as an individual who — with no encouragement from the Clintons but as someone who is proud to consider himself a friend of theirs — thought that Richardson had done something deeply disloyal.
…
Most of the stuff I’ve ever said is pretty insignificant and by in large has been said off the cuff and without much thought to the potential consequences. That was not the case in this instance. Bill Richardson’s response was that the Clinton people felt they were entitled to the presidency. In my mind, that is a debatable hypothesis. But, even more than that, I know that a former president of the United States who appointed someone to two Senate-confirmed positions is entitled to have his phone calls returned.If Richardson was going to turn on the Clintons the way he did, I see no problem in saying what I said. Because if loyalty is one virtue, another is straight talk. And if Democrats can’t handle that, they’re going to have a hard time handling a Republican nominee who is seeking the presidency with that as his slogan.
Carville, of course, fails to mention that Richardson was at one point running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination so, by Carville’s logic, Richardson has been a traitor for well over a year now.
Putting that aside though, considering the Clinton campaign’s insistence that superdelegates should vote for whomever they feel like, it seems a little hypocritical for Carville to condemn Richardson for doing just that.
Update: Abe Greenwald at Commentary has more on Carville’s hypocrisy. Or maybe it’s just that Carville doesn’t know what the word “negative” means…
Update 2: Richardson is “not going to stoop to Carville’s level.” Classy.