sfarber

My liberal brethren seem far more upset about efforts to avoid killing one woman in Florida than they were about stopping the God damned Iraq war (which, of course, has killed countless tens of thousands including over 1,500 Americans.) Certainly, I didn’t see this kind of uniformity of opinion mobilized to stop the war; I saw the likes of Dick Gephardt, for example, happily selling the rest of us out, while John Kerry and more Democratic senators than not were voting yea to the (still to this day) unjustified carnage. Indeed, I have never seen my liberal brethren this animated...

It saddens me to note the passing at 80 of famed New York cabaret singer Bobby Short. Mrs. TD and I saw Bobby Short, live at the Cafe Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel, exactly twice. The first time was on Mrs. TD’s birthday just two weeks before the Loquacious Pup was born, and then precisely five years later (last November, actually) on another of Mrs. TD’s birthdays. (After the performance, Mrs. TD managed to track Bobby down, and had him autograph a c.d. for her.) Short was scheduled to retire, but was talked out of it, and went out the...

The President and supporters seem quite pleased with themselves of late, what with the Schiavo thing (apparently, everyone seems to have missed the fact that my conclusion is that I’d rather the Congress not do what it did… no matter…) and of course, “the march of democracy in the Middle East” (including places Bush should bear no real credit for, like Lebanon and Palestine). I guess we’ll try to overlook this massive popular movement– protests of at least tens of thousands– against our buddy Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Better yet, the protests are by those good old Islamist extremists (religious...

This is where we are, when people whom I have made it the point of this blog to oppose politically get together to do something universally opposed by people whom I suppose I have supported (and probably opposed by many if not most of my remaining readers) do something I have to admire, even if I kind of wish that they wouldn’t do it: Congress is planning a special session to enact a special bill for Terri Schiavo. The legislation, which my guess is will be signed at some point today (if it hasn’t already) would create special federal court...

The President continued to give a big hearty Texas style Bronx cheer to his detractors across the pond that began by nominating John “First Thing We Do is Disband the UN” Bolton as the USA Ambassador to the United Nations by nominating Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank. (If I’m not mistaken, there’s already someone over there named James Wolfensohn, which should keep things nice and confusing, and, hey, whatever the damned Europeans think, the IMF Chief likes the new guy.) I would say that critics of the appointment are being picky, picky, picky....

Well, you might say, “it wasn’t fair”, because Democrats evidently couldn’t use a fillibuster to stop the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (“ANWR”) from becoming the latest hotbed of roughnecks and wildcats and other characters associated with oil exploration, as the Senate passed a measure 51-49 that, because it was attached to a budget measure, couldn’t be fillibustered, which will permit such drilling in ANWR.. Well, that’s the way it goes. ANWR will be despoiled forever, millions will be made by thieves who bribe members of Congress and the executive branch for the lucrative ANWR oil concessions, and if we’re lucky,...

According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, over the course of the next few decades, America’s outrageously high overweight and/or obesity rate should knock at least 2 to 5 years off of our average 77 year life expectancy, providing more than enough actuarial good news to save social security without doing a damned thing! Of course, the bad news is that the quality of the shorter lives Americans can come to expect as a variety of stresses on us (well, on 99% of us) will, alas, decline precipitiously. In some sense, decades of obsession with...

“YOU TELL THAT TO SILVIO BERLUSCONI!” So shouted the President in a peculiar irrational moment at one of last year’s ceremonial “presidential debates.” Well, Silvio Berlusconi just thought of something to tell to the President: “Thanks for shooting my agent and the journalist hostage whose life he just saved. It gives me an excuse to withdraw Italy’s 3,000 troops from your not so excellent adventure.” Berlusconi himself is running for reelection in 2006, and kind of needs the heavy Mesopotamian albatross off of his political neck, as he removes his (4th largest) 3,000 troop contingent; South Korea’s 3,600 are third...

Many thanks for the heads-up to my former running mate Bruce “the Veep” Moomaw for this pondering on the inscrutible intentions of our Beijing-based creditors and overlords (written by Marshall Wittmann, a/k/a “The Bull Moose”, who, before taking time off from blogging to help Senator McCain’s endeavors, was an original dog run member, and now that he is back to regular blogging, I have added the Bull Moose back on our side bar.) BTW, for those of you wondering what happened, Bruce and I ended up abandoning our run for the presidency for the same reason most Democratic candidates are...

I cannot commend you all enough to regularly read non-American sources for news and information. Our so-called free press feels the need to dumb down reality, and in lieu of actual reporting, just re-publishes press releases form the Administration without comment (even when same are on their face disingenuous, or on occasion, preposterous), and frankly, we are not being well served. One of my favorite sources is, along with Pravda, Beijing’s The People’s Daily, primarily because it amuses me that what were propaganda organs of their respective communist governments when I was growing up are now more accurate sources of...