“Going out there and winning this would mean a lot. It would be like a big middle finger to all the people out there that hate my mom and hate me.
—Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin’s daughter and blatantly undeserving finalist in ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” on the show’s finale Tuesday’s night, prior to the revelation of the results of the audience voting. (She lost.) Continue reading
“If you can’t handle such a minor inconvenience, perhaps you should stay on the ground.”
—The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board, in an editorial called “Shut up and Be Scanned,” dismissing the objections of travelers who find the gonad and breast-fondling patdowns now being used by TSA screeners embarrassing and obtrusive. Continue reading
“Our focus on the transition is looking at other things that are much more important. And that is how the House operates, how to open it up. We’re not focused in on the ethics side of things at all. We’re not working on that issue at all.”
— Rep. Greg Walden (R-Or.), who is heading up the transition to a Republican-led Congress, to ABC News, when asked if the new majority is going to change the process of House ethics oversight.
This statement is the epitome of res ipsa loquitur (“The thing speaks for itself”), don’t you think?
Anyone who expects the new G.O.P Congress to improve on the wretched level of corruption of Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic majority House, or the even more extensive corruption of the last Republican House under Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay, raise your hand…and slap yourself in the face with it.
At least Pelosi had the sense to say that ethics were important.
This is how Fox noted the upcoming publication of President Obama’s children’s book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (Knopf, $17.99), which pays tribute to 13 diverse Americans whose best traits he sees in his daughters, Malia and Sasha. Among the Americans honored is the legendary Sioux chief Sitting Bull, who, among other achievements, defeated the troops of General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Sitting Bull earned his status as a great leader and hero of Native Americans, as he tried desperately tried to resist the incursion of the U.S. population into Indian territory. Continue reading
“And we did all of this while restoring fiscal discipline to the Congress by making the pay-as-you-go rules the law of the land.”
–—House Speaker, soon to be Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi in a Nov. 9 op-ed in USA Today, listing the achievements of the Democratic Congress under her leadership.
The pay-as-you-go rules, which require new spending to be offset with new revenue or spending cuts, were adopted by the House in 2007 and became law in 2010. Significantly, the very same bill that established pay-as-you-go—or PAYGO—raised the debt limit by $1.9 trillion. Signed into law on Feb. 12, PAYGO was waived less than two weeks later when the Senate voted for a $15 billion job creation bill.…that was not offset by new revenue or spending reductions.
In fact, the PAYGO rule is waived constantly: it was designed that way. Continue reading
“…Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions. Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable.”
—Amazon.com to the technology blog TechCrunch, in response to the bookseller’s offering the e-book, The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct by Philip R. Greaves II. Continue reading
“In essence, if I take what you call a San Diego discount then I’m affecting their market. I’m affecting what they are going to make. It’s a lot like real estate. That’s the reason why. The way the game of baseball is set up, we have to protect each other. We have to do what’s best for each other.”
—-San Diego Padres superstar first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, explaining to an interviewer why he would sign with the highest bidder when he becomes a free agent next season, rather than stay in San Diego, his home, for a lesser salary.
If you don’t follow baseball, you might not know who Adrian Gonzalez is. He is a phenomenal young (28) superstar who has yet to earn the mega-millions that his skill would demand on the open market, because he has yet to fulfill his obligation to the team that brought him to the majors, the San Diego Padres. His time is coming, however: he will be a free agent after the 2011 season. The Padres, a small market franchise without a spendthrift owner, can’t and won’t pay as much to keep their best player as large market predators like the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels or Phillies will pay to acquire him. Gonzalez will be able to demand in the vicinity of 20 million dollars a year from these teams. The only hope the Padres have would be if Gonzalez, a longtime resident of San Diego and active in the community there, will accept less money to stay where he has roots, what is referred to as a “home town discount.” Continue reading
Today Dick Van Dyke, who is about to turn 85, was interviewed on NPR’s funny game show, “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” The star of my all-time favorite sitcom was moved to sing the lyrics to “The Dick Van Dyke Show” famous theme. I had heard them sung by Dick before, but I had forgotten how good they were, both lyrically and philosophically. They were written by the late comic Morey Amsterdam, who played joke-machine Buddy Sorrel on the show, and convince me that he is someone I would have liked to have known. He was a wise man.
Here are Morey’s lyrics (You know the tune, I hope!): Continue reading
“Yes, this has happened to a smaller degree before. In 1994, in the first mid-term election after the last Democratic president was elected, we got a slate of candidates that included Helen Chenoweth of Idaho and Steve Stockman of Texas. These two were so close to the militia movement in this country that Mr. Stockman actually received advance notice that the Oklahoma City bombing was going to happen.”
—-Rachel Maddow, rising MSNBC star, attacking the current slate of anti-big government Republicans and Tea Party stalwarts.
As I have mentioned here before, when the going gets tough, the tough get unethical. As the certainty of a Red Tide washing over Congress, the Senate and the state houses becomes more inevitable with each passing day, frustrated partisans in the blogosphere and news media are lashing out in frustration, allowing their commentary to become even more shrill and their respect for essentials like facts and fairness to shrink to the vanishing point.
Maddow is an especially depressing case in point. She is a talented television personality and a sharp analyst, but her passionate progressive leanings sometimes overwhelm her professionalism, and this time, she crashed over all ethical lines. Continue reading
