I believe the answer to all of these is “no”:
Is a man who is just discovering the Internet qualified to lead a restoration of America’s economic and educational infrastructures? Is the leader of a virtually all-white political party America’s best salesman and moral avatar in the age of globalization? Does a bellicose Vietnam veteran who rushed to hitch his star to the self-immolating overreaches of Ahmad Chalabi, Pervez Musharraf and Mikheil Saakashvili have the judgment to keep America safe?
Mad props to Rich who’s been bringing the heat of late.
I wonder if NBC has mentioned this in their coverage of the Olympics:
In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.
The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.
But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China’s leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.
Get that? Two women in their 70’s are sent to a labor camp for applying to protest in an official protest area. The article goes on to say that China has yet to “allow” a single protest with four days left till the closing ceremony. The IOC should be ashamed of themselves for giving China the Olympics, they don’t come close to deserving them.
As someone who’s Jewish and has tattoo’s I’ve often heard the saying that Jew’s with tattoos (hey that rhymes) can’t be buried in Jewish cemeteries. The Times though did some investigating (via) and it turns out thats basically not true, and never has been:
But the edict isn’t true. The eight rabbinical scholars interviewed for this article, from institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University, said it’s an urban legend, most likely started because a specific cemetery had a policy against tattoos. Jewish parents and grandparents picked up on it and over time, their distaste for tattoos was presented as scriptural doctrine.
My mom will be so happy. I guess that means I can get another one? Read the article, lots of good stuff in there concerning us Jews and our tattoos.
The NY Times has a profile today that is music to the ears of all Rachael Maddow fans. In it you’ll learn that:
- Phil Griffin, newly promoted president of MSNBC, says she’s first in line to get a show.
- Maddow has a doctorate from Oxford.
- She’s got a book coming out next year on “the shifting role of the military as a political issue”.
- The one time she was asked to be a guest on Fox News was when Madonna made news for kissing Britney Spears.
As a fan of Maddow, and after watching her capably handle Keith’s spot last week, I’m all in favor of her getting her own show. Chris Matthews contract is about to be up…..7 pm sound good to anyone?
David Carr writes an interesting article on Fox News’ PR tactics, inspired by Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade attack on New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe that featured doctored photos. Carr:
At Fox News, media relations is a kind of rolling opposition research operation intended to keep reporters in line by feeding and sometimes maiming them. Shooting the occasional messenger is baked right into the process.
As crude as that sounds, it works. By blacklisting reporters it does not like, planting stories with friendlies at every turn, Fox News has been living a life beyond consequence for years.
Its interesting but one wonders, why don’t the people Fox is going after fight back? Why not stand up for yourselves?
The oddly moving, and very much amusing, Garfield minus Garfield, got written up in the Times today:
Mr. Walsh does nothing to the panels except strip away Garfield and other characters — like Odie the dog and Nermal the kitten — to create a new, even lonelier atmosphere for Jon Arbuckle, the main human. Without the cutesy thought-bubbles of his lasagna-loving cat, Jon’s observations seem to teeter between existential crisis and deep despair.
Props to Garfield creator Jim Davis for being a good sport about it:
Jim Davis, the cartoonist who created “Garfield,” calls himself an occasional reader of the site, which he calls “fascinating.” He says he is flattered rather than peeved by the imitation.
“Some of them really work, and some of them work better,” Mr. Davis said in a telephone interview.
It is a bit odd though that the Times, in writing about this site, neglect to actually, you know, link to it.
Four words you don’t want to hear in space: “The toilet is broken.”
– NY Times article on the International Space Station’s toilet problems. via
xkcd got a write-up in the NY Times:
The Internet has also created a bond between Mr. Munroe and his readers that is exceptional. They re-enact in real life the odd ideas he puts forward in his strip. A case in point was the strip called “Dream Girl.” It recounted a dream in which a girl (stick figure with flowing hair) recites a bunch of numbers into the narrator’s ear.
“The xkcd person is the kind of person who would take that and run with it,” he said. The numbers were coordinates and a date months in the future.
The strip’s narrator says he went there and no one came. “It turns out that wanting something doesn’t make it real,” the strip concludes.
But on that day in real life, hundreds of fans met in a park in Cambridge.
And then they all ordered sandwiches.
I think the author over-simplifies xkcd’s audience as mostly tech or IT people when its really probably broader then that. Young, internet-savvy people with little to no programming skills can and do love the strip, myself among them.
via