The expanded version! Harpers Magazine, via Booman Tribune….
Spies, Corruption, and Oral Sex
Wow. This is gonna be interesting. From Ken Siverstein: "I recently received an advance copy of Seth Hettena’s Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, History’s Most Corrupt Congressman, which will be published this July and which I highly recommend. In addition to being a terrific piece of political reporting, the book is filled with juicy details concerning the seamier side of the Cunningham affair, otherwise known as “Hookergate.” I was particularly interested in stories Hettena unearthed about Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, whom former CIA director [...]
Tags: Duke Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, CIA, Hookergate
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This really can’t be a good sign…
The Foreclosure Boom
This sure looks scary: foreclosures are up 800% in California. Reaction within the industry seems to range from mild fear to all-out panic. On the other hand, housing prices aren’t falling much, as you’d normally expect. In fact, [...]
Tags: Foreclosure, Home Mortgage, Housing Prices
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It was their fault. You know who they are. The male students in the Virginia Tech classrooms. They were wimps. Blood pressure rising? Mine did, when I first read that. If I was the parent of one of those young men, I’d be all over people like this. Except that it would be wasted energy. Weasels don’t deserve that much attention..
More blaming the victim.
Conservative Nathaniel Blake at Human Events Online links positively to John Derbyshire’s post, then writes that the students at Virginia Tech should feel “heartily ashamed” for not acting more bravely: College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and [...]
Tags: Virginia Tech, Human Events Online, Mass Murder
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At the least, it’ll be interesting…
So says Hotline: "There is no Democratic front-runner. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all have a plausible claim on the nomination. The usual metrics are all jumbled. Clinton leads the [...]
Tags: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards
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No, Houston Nutt has not been fired. In fact, he came out today with a fairly strong-worded letter (likely crafted by an attorney) designed to kill most of the recent rumors. Does it? For those of you arriving here via searches on "Razorbacks" or "Houston Nutt", welcome! Tonight’s update, by the way, is via Arkansasblog.com and Arkansas Times newspaper…
In an open letter to Hog fans, UA football coach Houston Nutt responds to recent articles about his busy cell phone. He may have had text with that woman, TV newswoman Donna Bragg, but nothing inappropriate occurred. He said he’d like to share his text messages to prove innocence, but the records are "unavailable." He said he had not sought other coaching jobs, despite phone records showing contact with people at schools with vacancies, and that frequency of his contact with Hog fan Teresa Prewitt, doesn’t cause him to change what [...]
Tags: Arkansas Razorbacks, Houston Nutt, Donna Bragg
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But, still sad. And, the incredible thing is that these idiots apparently watch the news. Or read the papers. That means their brains do function, however shamefully evil they may be. Now, we’re caught in a Catch 22 situation. If you are warned, do nothing, and another tragedy happened, you’re in trouble. If you’re warned and shut things down, the idiots win. But people are safe. Maybe NOT such a Catch 22 after all…
Copycat Threats Rattle 3 Universities, 2 Schools
Well it certainly didn’t take long for the copycat threats to start… AP reports, “Campus threats forced lock-downs and evacuations at universities in Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee and two public schools in Louisiana on Tuesday, a day after a Virginia Tech student’s shooting rampage killed 33 people.” In Louisiana, parents picked up hundreds of students from [...]
Tags: Copycat, Virginia Tech, Campus Threats
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It certainly is beginning to look like the administration at Virginia Tech dropped the ball after the first shooting happened at a dormitory Monday. It’s just implausible to think that there was no need to act quickly and try to keep other students safe. Read the excuses assembled below and understand the outrage of parents. I certainly can.
Killer Indentified, Media Reports Response Delayed as VA Tech Deems First Shooting Domestic Violence
Details on yesterday’s shooting rampage at VA Tech are emerging and the killer has been identified as “Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old resident alien of the United States.” Sources tell ABC News that Cho killed two people in a dorm room, returned to his own dorm room where he re-armed and left a “disturbing note,” then went [...]
Tags: Virginia Tech, Mass Murder
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There will be those who say it’s NOT fair to compare Virginia Tech with Iraq. On one level, they are correct. Juan Cole will take some heat for this column. But, read it with an open mind. There is substantial value to the comparison he outlines.
7 US Troops Killed; Iraq Has Two Virginia Techs …
I keep hearing from US politicians and the US mass media that the "situation is improving" in Iraq. The profound sorrow and alarm produced in the American public by the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech should give us a baseline for what the Iraqis are actually living through. They have two Virginia Tech-style attacks every single day. Virginia Tech will be gone from the headlines and the air waves by next week this time in the US, though the families of the victims will grieve for a lifetime. But next Tuesday I will come out here and report to you that 64 Iraqis have been killed in political violence. And those will mainly be [...]
It is, indeed, a Harsh Reality:
Two of our writers have compared the carnage at VA Tech to a quiet day in Iraq, and how the families of Iraqis suffer every day. This is a harsh reality to juxtapose with the horror we’ve experienced here in the US today. I have mixed feelings about running them. One reader curses our newest writer, Larry Johnson, a former CIA and State Department official, for "using" in his article, the deaths, to argue his cause. There’s a lot of justifiable pain and passion around this senseless event. But if someone can "use" it to give meaning to other senseless events, even if it hurts, then perhaps it is one way that these deaths have done some small amount of good. Having two kids in college myself, I shudder [...]
UPDATE: Even among the friends of the victims, the comparison is being made:
Tragedy brings home war zone reality
Tags: Virginia Tech, Iraq War, Juan Cole
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Some most interesting information in the poll-of-the-day, from ABC News and the Washington Post.
Josh has already…
Josh has already highlighted one of the key numbers in the new Washington Post/ABC News poll — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s approval rating sits at an astonishing 53%, even though "establishment Washington tried to take her down," as Atrios puts [...]
Tags: Iraq War, Nancy Pelosi, Washington Post, ABC News
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I really think it’s too early to get into the "blame game" for the Blacksburg mass murders. But, given the speed with which some of those ready to do just that have emerged from their underground worm holes, I guess we need to note what they’re saying. A word of warning, it ain’t pretty. It ain’t tactful. In fact, it’s downright disgusting.
The inevitable attack on modern biology
In 1999, as the nation was still coming to grips with the tragedy at Columbine High School, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) took to the floor to identify what he saw as the real culprit: science classes. “Our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who are evolutionized [sic] [...]
Oh, that’s just the Warmup Act. It gets worse. Much worse. Enter the Rev. Phelps, he of the vociferous church from the prairies of Kansas. I can’t even get to the site, thanks to the "blocking software" we use. It flags the site as "intolerant/extremism". No kidding. The URL alone is enough to ward off most sensible people. And you thought Don Imus was bad…..
I’ll defer to the folks at AmericaBlog for the basic information. Follow the link above if you really want to expose yourself to more of the Rev. Phelps irresponsible babbling.
Anti-gay conservative Christians to protest at VA Tech funerals
It’s perhaps no surprise that their hate knows no bounds. No surprise that the gay-hating religious right finds kinship with the kind of hatred (and insanity) that took the lives of 33 innocents at Virginia Tech. Hate is universal, and to [...]
Tags: Reverand Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church, Virginia Tech, Mass Murder
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It didn’t take long for the Anti-Gun Control folks to start using the Virginia tragedy to make their point. Not long at all. However, I honestly don’t think I want my daughter surrounded, on her campus, by people allowed to openly carry weapons. Do I?
Safety First
In the wake of today’s horrific shootings at Virginia Tech, some on the Right are calling for looser gun control laws. Although Virginia itself is one of the least restrictive states in the Union regarding guns, the campus was supposed to be a “gun-free” zone. “Just imagine if students were armed,” writes one. “We no [...]
Tags: Virginia Tech, Mass Murder, Gun Control
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I wonder how long it will take the local media to start sniffing around this story. Seems to me that it deserves a phone call or two, at the very least. But, then again, I’m kinda out of the news business and have slipped into the "curmudgeonly old guy" roll! Knock, know – Arkansas media! Look what state’s at the top of the list….
16 States Affected by Newly Discovered ES&S iVotronic Touch-Screen Voting System Virus Vulnerability
A commenter over at DU asked which states used the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting system found vulnerable to an undetectable countywide vote-flipping virus which can be implanted by a single person, as we reported this morning. Based on our quick review of a county-by-county database of voting systems, sorted by state, as made available by Common [...]
Tags: Electronic Voting Machines, ES&S, iVotronic
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The Countdown with Keith Olbermann blog links to an excellent collection of pictures on the MSNBC site. That’s right. Photographs. Not video. Photographs. As one who dabbles in photography, this collection presents overwhelming evidence (at least, to me, it does) that a moment captured in time can be more powerful and video. Follow the link, then click on the photo to access the entire collection. Make sure you keep clicking "next" after the first ten pics. They continue…
Images From Blacksburg
Tags: Blacksburg, Virginia Tech, Mass Murder, Countdown, Keith Olbermann
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Gas prices are leading the way. I’m back to checking my local version of GasBuddy.com to try to squeeze the lowest price fuel into my car. I’m still befuddled by the fact that there can be a 20-cent-per-gallon difference between stations right across the street from each other. And prices were consistenly lower in a neighboring state we visited this weekend. It all kind of makes you think that somebody is working the strings of the economy, doesn’t it?
Consumer Prices Rise Sharply
The 0.6 percent increase was the largest in 11 months, although inflation was modest when energy is excluded.[...]
Don’t you love that line? "when energy is excluded". I sure wish I COULD exclude energy costs from my budget!
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The expanded version! Harpers Magazine, via Booman Tribune….
Spies, Corruption, and Oral Sex
Wow. This is gonna be interesting. From Ken Siverstein: "I recently received an advance copy of Seth Hettena’s Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, History’s Most Corrupt Congressman, which will be published this July and which I highly recommend. In addition to being a terrific piece of political reporting, the book is filled with juicy details concerning the seamier side of the Cunningham affair, otherwise known as “Hookergate.” I was particularly interested in stories Hettena unearthed about Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, whom former CIA director [...]
Tags: Duke Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, CIA, Hookergate
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This really can’t be a good sign…
The Foreclosure Boom
This sure looks scary: foreclosures are up 800% in California. Reaction within the industry seems to range from mild fear to all-out panic. On the other hand, housing prices aren’t falling much, as you’d normally expect. In fact, [...]
Tags: Foreclosure, Home Mortgage, Housing Prices
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Very little changes in Iraq. While the news from ther has been overshadowed by our tragedy here at home, we don’t want to lose site of what’s happening to our military members who are fighting this "war".
Why We Are Losing in Iraq
If you want to understand why our military is failing in Iraq you only need to watch two documentaries: Alpha Company: Iraq Diary and Gangs of Iraq by Frontline. There is no single, simple answer to our dilemma. It is a combination of things. It is a failure of military leadership. It is a failure to recruit, deploy, and sustain in the enough troops in the field who have the language and cultural skills required to win hearts and minds. And it is a failure to have enough troops to [...]
Oh, by the way, we ARE succeeding at something…
Al Qaeda says Bush has turned Iraq into a "university of terror"
But, we’re losing at someting else. We’re losing our people. Faster.
U.S. losses in Iraq
Tags: Iraq War, Alpha Company, Gangs of Iraq, Frontline
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