Well, it appears John Edwards has finally dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination.
Alas, so many haircut articles will now wither on the vine.
–WKW
This is a true story: Living in an apartment in Victorville, California, not long after 9/11, I went to my mailbox. Standing in front of the mailbox’s was a woman, probably a couple years younger than I. She was wearing gloves. She was shaking. She was crying. She looked at me, still not able to open her mailbox, and said in a trembling voice, “I am so afraid.”
So President Bush and the right wing can repeat the mantra of “There has not been another attack on our soil since 9/11″ over and over again, but it’s a lie. As Atrios wrote:
… anthrax was what made things like “mobile chemical weapons labs” sound so scary. Not everyone agrees, but I think more than 9/11 the anthrax freaked the country out. 9/11 was horrible, but the anthrax made it seem like we’d reached a new era where some horrible creepy shit was going to happen every day.
And then it was all forgotten.
The Anthrax Attacks happened. And they terrified the living hell out of people. Just ask my former neighbor.
–WKW
“I see,” said the troll thoughtlessly, and then slowly stumbled across the room.
“But how many posts do you have for me to comment on,” the Troll asked.
“Enough for a troll, I think,” said the Boy.
“Then let’s begin, dickwad,” said the troll, turning on the light.
“But I thought trolls didn’t like the light,” said the Boy, who wanted to say more but halted, he knew trolls were prone to hurl out insults at anyone for no reason other than to get attention. It was something in their blood. They had no control over it. But he had responded to the Troll and now here they were.
“Oh my God,” said the boy as the harsh yellow light flooded the room, exposing the troll for the first time. His skin was white and damaged like bleached bone. But it was the troll’s eyes which most caught the Boy’s attention. They were lifeless and dark, as if all hope and knowledge had been drained from them.
“You haven’t always been a troll, have you?” asked the boy.
Seriously, you people and your worries about the economy. Just chill out. After all, Exxon is doing fantastic, as is Shell. And so is Halliburton.
“Halliburton jumps on revenue, growth”
HOUSTON (AP) — Oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. said Monday its fourth-quarter profit rose almost 5 percent from a year ago, helped by growing business in the Eastern Hemisphere, where the company is placing greater resources.
Net income in the October-December period rose to $690 million, or 75 cents per share, compared with $658 million, or 64 cents a share, during the same period a year ago.
Halliburton’s quarterly revenue rose 19 percent to $4.2 billion from $3.5 billion in the previous year, topping analysts’ estimates of $4.1 billion.
“I am very pleased with our performance in 2007,” said Dave Lesar, the company’s chairman and chief executive. “We’re particularly pleased by our growth in the Eastern Hemisphere, where revenue increased 27 percent year-over-year, and operating income increased 26 percent year-over-year.”
So really, people just need to relax about the economy. It’s all going as they planned.
–WKW
Taking a look at Wikipedia’s page on the Super Bowl, I was struck by the photo they used of the Lombardi Trophy:
The actual photo?
I’d say the New York Giants could tape this to the wall of their locker room as a show of how disrespected they’ve been heading to Super Bowl XLII, but if they’re doing that then the Giants locker room must look like Jim Carrey’s house in Bruce Almighty after he decided to put all prayers he received in Post-it form:
–WKW
New research is showing that lead exposure, like tobacco and asbestos, can have long-term effects on humans, with early lead exposure hastening brain aging later in life.
While the U.S. pushed through laws against the usage of lead in such things as paint and gasoline (fighting the lead industry the entire way), the Bush Administration’s anti-science beliefs and stance that business should be allowed to do anything to anyone at any time to make profits means that lead exposure will very likely be a future health problem for today’s children.
From the Environmental Working Group:
The Bush administration’s proposed 2005 budget cuts $35 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s lead poisoning prevention program, a 20 percent reduction from the previous year. The program pays for expert home evaluations and repairs to prevent young children from being exposed to lead-contaminated dust, soil and paint chips (Washington Post 2004). Primary prevention is the key to ending future lead poisoning and the related personal and social costs. Cuts to this program serve only to perpetuate unnecessary lead poisoning of future generations.
This is not the first time that the Bush administration has hindered lead poisoning prevention efforts. In 2002, in a move that catered to the interests of the lead industry, the Bush Administration shuffled the appointments to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention, replacing reputable public health and pediatric lead experts with panelists with a history of defending the lead industry in the courts.
More simply put, from Bradford Plumer of The New Republic (via N.Y. Times Opinionator Blog):
“The Bush administration loves lead. Loves it. They want it everywhere. Okay, that’s only a slight exaggeration: Back in 2002, the White House tried to stack an advisory committee on lead regulations with industry types. Last December, the administration announced that it would consider doing away with the standards that cut lead from gasoline, at the behest of battery makers and lead smelters. And its EPA has weakened a rule on removing lead paint from older residences.”
George W. Bush will spend tonight trying to talk up his conservative legacy, but his legacy is set in stone, as future generations will not only be forced to clean up his fiscal and foreign relations disasters, but they’ll also suffer physically from his and conservatism’s actions.
–WKW
When the story of Michael Vick’s dog fighting business came out, I was at once outraged and ashamed. Ashamed of myself for being outraged, in a way. Because I knew there were evil people out there who trained dogs to fight. I knew dog fighting existed. I knew pit bulls were the most abused dogs in the U.S.
But I suppose it took a big media event to take it from the back of my mind where I had hidden said hideous knowledge. And even with Michael Vick and cohorts behind bars, there is very likely a pit bull out there right now being trained to kill another pit bull. Just as there is a pit bull actually killing a pit bull right this very moment. While people cheer and bet.
While one can only hope that Vick’s incarceration will help be the beginning of the end for dog fighting, it will take a lot longer to restore the image of the pit bull. Once the most popular dog in all of the U.S., it is a dog now feared by many, and wanted by few. Having once rescued a pit bull mix, I vividly remember be told at the pound that there was no realistic chance of it being adopted while in their care, and that it would most assuredly be destroyed. People are afraid of this breed. And while pit bulls have attacked people, and will again, it is because they were taught that behavior, not because the breed is somehow flawed. They are not a breed without complications, but they are not born blood-thirsty monsters.
The plight of the pit bull is brought to mind by a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about a pit bull rescue group in Oakland that is putting up five of Vick’s former dogs up for adoption.
“Mike Vick’s pit bulls up for adoption”
Five dogs that were rescued from the most notorious dog-fighting kennel in the country trotted out in Oakland on Friday to meet the public, wag their tails and try to dispel some long-standing human prejudices about canines.They were, as always, man’s best friend, even if man has not always held up his end of the relationship.
“This dog is somehow able to put its past aside and move forward,” said dog lover Kim Ramirez, rubbing the ears of a 3-year-old pit bull named Teddles. “We humans can learn from that.”
The dogs are pit bull terriers, among dozens rescued in a celebrated raid last year on the Virginia dog-fighting kennel owned by disgraced NFL quarterback Michael Vick.
Ten of Vick’s dogs were awarded to Bad Rap, a pit bull rescue group in Oakland that has spent months evaluating and socializing the dogs and placing them in foster homes.
Friday, the dogs came to the main lounge at the Oakland animal shelter to meet the public for the first time in their new role as pit bull ambassadors.
“He’s experiencing normal life now,” said Ramirez, a Fremont resident who is looking after Teddles until a permanent adoption can be arranged. “He follows you into the kitchen. He’s very gentle. He likes oatmeal. He likes rope toys. When you’re a dog in a dog-fighting kennel, you don’t get a lot of toys.”
Bad Rap founder Tim Racer, who was holding another ambassador, Hector, in his lap and scratching Hector’s ears, said dogs fight because dog owners train them to fight.
“Dog fighting is cruelty, which is a human activity and a human illness,” Racer said. “It’s not the dog’s fault.”
According to Racer, hardly any of the dogs at Vick’s kennels were dangerous or unfit to be pets.
The dogs that will be put up for adoption by Bad Rap will be adopted. They are famous, after all, and that helps. But there’s a long way to go for this breed. There are literally countless pit bull rescue groups all over the U.S., looking to help a breed that has been badly abused by humans.
It’s heartening to know that these groups exist and are fighting voluntarily for dogs that were forced into fighting. More important, however, is that we don’t forget what the dreadful Michael Vick story taught us - that we can’t pretend that pit bulls and other dog breeds are tortured by sick individuals who will make them fight for their own pleasure.
And we can’t hide from this knowledge any longer. Because at this very moment, a pit bull is getting its throat ripped out by another pit bull. And while that’s horrifying to think about, it doesn’t make it any less true. And it doesn’t make it the pit bulls’ fault. Hopefully, thanks to the work of Bad Rap and those like them, eventually we’ll all come to recognize another truth - that pit bulls are good dogs.
Find out more about Bad Rap and the good work they do for pit bulls by clicking here.
My thanks to Shaker Vicster for the heads up.
–WKW
Boa vinda às Revisões de Filme Curtas No Português Mau de William K. Wolfrum!
Hoje, eu vou revisão o filme “Eu Sou a Lenda” com Will Smith:
Revisão: Como sempre, um vírus mata a maioria de todo mundo. Mas, faz também alguns povos em zombis que come outro pessoas. Um dia, um vírus não fará povos em zombis, por favor deus. Total a filme era aprovada.
Will Smith era muito boa. A menos que for agora uma Scientologista. Então, não era assim bom. Por que umas Scientologistas são sempre maus. Sempre.
Em uma escala de uma a milhão: 786,231.
Veja-o vez seguinte Revisões de Filme Curtas No Português Mau de William K. Wolfrum.
Boa fim de semana.
Traduza aqui ou não. Realmente não é importante.
–WKW
It wasn’t that long ago folks, myself included, were writing off John McCain. We overlooked one major factor, however: all the other GOP candidates are much more horrifying. Ask the New York Times:
“Primary Choices: John McCain”
We have strong disagreements with all the Republicans running for president. The leading candidates have no plan for getting American troops out of Iraq. They are too wedded to discredited economic theories and unwilling even now to break with the legacy of President Bush. We disagree with them strongly on what makes a good Supreme Court justice.
Still, there is a choice to be made, and it is an easy one. Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe.
With little about McCain to be excited about, the majority of the rest of the piece is dedicated to telling the world how bad the rest of the GOP candidates are:
Rudy Giuliani: “… a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power.”
Mitt Romney: “(Romney’s) shape-shifting rivals that of Mr. Giuliani. It is impossible to figure out where he stands or where he would lead the country.”
Mike Huckabee: “To attract Republican primary voters, he has become an anti-immigrant absolutist. ”
And in endorsing Clinton, the Times was unable to find much wrong with the Democratic top 3:
This generally is the stage of a campaign when Democrats have to work hard to get excited about whichever candidate seems most likely to outlast an uninspiring pack. That is not remotely the case this year.
The early primaries produced two powerful main contenders: Hillary Clinton, the brilliant if at times harsh-sounding senator from New York; and Barack Obama, the incandescent if still undefined senator from Illinois. The remaining long shot, John Edwards, has enlivened the race with his own brand of raw populism.
The right-wing can - and will - complain bitterly about the Times being a bastion of liberal goodness, but they have to know the truth - their candidates are a bunch of unendorseable stiffs.
–WKW
I understand that there are many interested in how exactly actor Heath Ledger died, but this story - the Lead story at CNN.com - shows just how embarrassing the U.S. mainstream media has become:
“$20 bill in Heath Ledger’s home tests clean”
NEW YORK (CNN) — Tests on a $20 bill found at the Lower Manhattan apartment where “Brokeback Mountain” actor Heath Ledger died yielded no drug residue, New York Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said.
The bill was collected to see whether it had been used to snort illegal drugs because of the way it was folded, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said earlier.
The Academy Award-nominated actor was found dead Tuesday. He was 28.
To CNN, that $20 bill is the biggest story in the entire world, and the most important story to Americans. And like Ledger’s death, that’s just sad. Not as sad as John Gibson openly mocking Ledger’s death on Fox News, but sad nonetheless.
–WKW
