I really don't. But for the benefit of those who would send me press releases to announce their runs for a congressional district I care nothing about, I would ask you--- FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY--- to please go and read this.

You've been warned.

Next time this happens I'll start mocking.

And I really don't think you want that, do you?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, not so much me lecturing you on anything, but rather Fausta attended a lecture given by Professor Viet Dinh, who helped to draft the Patriot Act. I've heard mention that Professor Dinh is on the short list for potential Supreme Court nominees.

Fausta's reporting is well worth a read.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Blaque Jacques has actually done something right for a change.

I feel a case of the vapors coming on.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:51 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Courtesy o' Fraters Libertas: Senator Mark Dayton, the dillettante of the Senate, has had the good sense not to run for re-election next year

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said today that he will not run for re-election in 2006.

Dayton made the announcement this afternoon in a telephone conference call with reporters.

"I do not believe that I am the best candidate to lead the DFL Party to victory next year,'' Dayton said.

The senator made a brief statement and took no questions.

He called it ''a tremendous honor to serve Minnesota in the past four years.Â’Â’ He said he wanted to keep the seat in Democratic hands and said he cannot do the necessary fundraising to run an effective campaign.{...}

Dayton didn't have enough coin to run for reelection. After blowing $12m of his own money getting elected, he is 'po. And because he never had to actually fundraise the first time around, he's got no clue as to how to do it this time. Of course Wellstone died, so he lost his moral compass. And then, to top it off, he bugged out of the Capitol building last fall because it was "too dangerous." The puss.

As far as a replacement? Mike Hatch, the AG, is probably so excited about this turn of events he's undoubtedly peeing his pants right now. I wouldn't put it past Mike Ciresi to run, either. Time will tell as to whom the DFL'ers pick to run, but, in my humble opinion, their stable is not only poorly kept, but scantily occupied as well. After all, they picked Mondale to take over Wellstone's campaign after he died, and look how well that went for them.

My wingman has yet to start weeping in his Boddington's. In fact, he seems to have received a nice offer already.

Hold thy head up high, Gary. You did your job so well you scared a candidate out of the race! You'll sort it out and we will anxiously await new content wherever you decide to hang your hat.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Isn't it amazing how taking .7% off domestic spending qualifies as "sweeping cuts" ?

Damnit.

I've been waiting four years for the Prez to get his act in gear on cutting spending and this is the best he could do?

Lame.

I told the husband when Bush was elected in 2000 that, as I saw it, because of how contentious the election was, the Prez wasn't going to be able to get much done as far as cutting spending. Tax cuts? Sure. They're always golden. Cutting spending, however? Nope. He just didn't have the oomph to get it through. But, I told the husband, just you wait. This guy, I'm sure, will turn into a budgetary slasher and burner if he gets reelected.

And this is what we've got. Cuts in education, medicare, defense programs, even missile defense looks like it's up on the chopping block. Some of these are good cuts to make. There is a lot of room for improvement, fiscally speaking, within the chosen areas, yet these are also cuts that are going to make conservative members of Congress very, very happy. Meaning the Prez is pandering to certain factions within the party. I hardly need to write this, but these cuts are also going to be highly contentious. Cuts in Education? Cuts in early literacy programs? The Democrats are going to have a freakin' media field day with all of this. This budget fight, to put it mildly, is going to be ugly.

He could have avoided this massive headache if he'd just vetoed one bill where a lot of pork was attached. One simple veto would have sent the message to Congress that they'd better watch what they were doing. The President fired no such warning shot.

But, and I have to admit, this would be the shortsighted view of things.

I'm going to make a large leap of the imagination and assume there's a method behind this madness. Call it Rovian if you want. If the Prez doesn't get what he wants on this one, well, doesn't that set him up to veto the next pork laden bill that hits his desk, without him facing too many party-related ramifications?

I dunno. Let your imagination wander from there. I have very little faith that this Prez will live up to my slash and burn picture of him, but there's still a possibility that it could happen. Slight though it may be.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Smallholder has some fun with logic.

Lots of "therefore"'s and "furthermore"'s are engaged in battle to beat back stupid, absolutist statements made by someone who apparently thinks a. no conservative can support gay marriage b. animals, indeed, do have rights, and c. those rights are more worthy of notice and legislative action than any rights that might be granted to gay couples.

Go over and read.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Courtesy of Boing Boing, we have this story.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish spies may be in danger after a list of names from communist-era files was leaked onto the Internet earlier in the week, Prime Minister Marek Belka says.

The directory of 240,000 names includes informers, spies and people questioned by the secret police under communist rule. The archives are held by the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) but the names were copied by a journalist and published.{...}

While this seemed sensational, it has the potential for greater repercussions:

{...}Investigations into links between politicians and the former communist leadership is becoming a major election issue in this year's parliamentary and presidential polls

All Polish politicians have to reveal any links to communist special services and if they are found to have lied by a special tribunal, they face a ban from public office.{...}

Now, this list was never meant to be made public in its entirety. Special access to it was granted only to historians, journalists and the like, but no one was supposed to copy the list and publish it. Oops. It's caused quite the sensation in Poland. According to Boing Boing:

{...}"The list instantly cropped up on many web sites, p2p networks, became available via BitTorrent, while the the term 'lista Wildsteina' (Wildstein's list) became a super-popular query at all Polish search engines. At one (onet.pl, the second most popular after google), people searched for it around 300,000 times a day comparing to just only 9,000 searches for 'sex', the former top query."

While the Poles have made a tremendously succesful conversion to democracy and a market economy, whilst forging many new alliances in the meantime, they still have serious issues with their communist past and the injustice of the era. This could be very, very big. Given the prevailing attitude toward those who collaborated, well, let's just say that I don't think the words "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" will hold much sway with voters. A whiff of this scandal would be enough to kill many a candidates hopes---forever. Even if they were proven innocent of collaboration later on in the game.

If the gravity of this isn't getting to you, let's propose a hypothetical: how do you think the French would react to someone, say Blacques Jacques Chirac for example, having been revealed as a Nazi collaborator? Do you think that might hurt his chances of staying in power, given today's media coverage and the worldwide condemnation that would ring forth?

Posted by: Kathy at 10:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Of course you know I went and found the list. :-) Shall we look for your ancestors?

Posted by: MRN aka "The Husband" at February 07, 2005 08:22 AM (sQLe5)

2 The name "Zabawa" is fairly common. Or so I'm told. I can only imagine that Granny's maiden name is just as common. And I can't even remember how to spell the Polish version, so that's really going to help matters out, eh? (Some granndaughter I am!) Have you got any bright ideas, dear husband, knowing exactly how much I know about my family tree when the branches span the width of an ocean, on how to suss out exactly whom I might be related to? Particularly since there's been a few world wars since they all bugged out? Hmmmm?

Posted by: Kathy at February 07, 2005 09:28 AM (sQLe5)

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{...}One of Iraq's leading democracy and human rights advocates is Safia Taleb al-Suhail. She says of her country, "We were occupied for 35 years by Saddam Hussein. That was the real occupation. Thank you to the American people who paid the cost, but most of all to the soldiers."

Eleven years ago, Safia's father was assassinated by Saddam's intelligence service. Three days ago in Baghdad, Safia was finally able to vote for the leaders of her country. And we are honored that she is with us tonight. {...}

{...}And we have said farewell to some very good men and women, who died for our freedom and whose memory this nation will honor forever. One name we honor is Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, who was killed during the assault on Fallujah. His mom, Janet, sent me a letter and told me how much Byron loved being a Marine and how proud he was to be on the front line against terror. She wrote, "When Byron was home the last time, I said that I wanted to protect him, like I had since he was born. He just hugged me and said, 'You've done your job, Mom. Now it is my turn to protect you.'"

Ladies and gentlemen, with grateful hearts, we honor freedom's defenders and our military families, represented here this evening by Sergeant Norwood's mom and dad, Janet and Bill Norwood. {...}

One woman gives her son so another now has the opportunity to have a say in the way her country is run. That's precisely what this has been all about. It's called freedom. One protects and defends so another has the opportunity to live a life heretofore unimagined. It's called liberty.

If you don't get it now, you never will.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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