Copyright © 2008 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2008 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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Not only is Jon Stewart Jewish, but Mark Levin insists on reminding you of it. Back story: on Tuesday night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart mocked a meme that the TSA's "Terrorist Watch List" now had a million names on it, and played a clip from Fox News that highlighted the threshold. He then followed it up with another news clip's caveat that a million names didn't mean a million people, because of aliases: there might really only be 400,000 people underlying those million names. Stewart's intro riled conservative talk host Mark Levin, though. Stewart led into his Monday segment with this:
On Wednesday night, Levin took umbrage over the segment, or maybe it was only mock umbrage. One point was that Stewart was claiming there were a million people on the watchlist (which Stewart wasn't doing, others were, and Stewart was mocking the idea). But Levin was particularly bummed at the idea that our armed forces weren't good at "kicking ass." In doing so, though, Levin acted like quite the anti-Semite. Here's how he led in: As you know, from time to time, we monitor Jon Leibowitz, a.k.a. Jon Stewart, as well as some of the other nudniks out there. And yesterday, he said this... Stressing Jon Stewart's birth-name wasn't sufficient: Levin went on to say "I'm really tired of these phony intellectuals -- and that's what they are, phony -- arrogantly looking down their sizable noses at our armed forces..." Nudnik? (Nudnik is a Yiddish word.) Jewish? Intellectuals? "Sizable noses"? Jon Stewart isn't Aryan enough for him?
Bob Barr on the ballott in Ohio? That's the current ruling, telling Ohio's Secretary of State (a Democrat) that her standards are inappropriately restrictive. But Nader may be on the ballot, too. It's tough to believe that any voters wouldn't know the trade-off they make when they buck the major party with whom they're better aligned, but a lot of Floridians didn't see a sufficient difference between Gore and Bush in 2000 and went for Nader. I'm sure there were focus groups done afterwards to plumb the reasoning; I wonder if the conclusions went beyond "we were stupid"?
Sadly, he's serious. Defending an interest in drilling in ANWR, House Republican leader John Boehner claimed there's no wildlife in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Pathetically stupid to support your arguments with something which is so easily contradicted with facts. Who would ever trust you afterwards? Who would ever give you air time?
Are we really safer? Although Bush and his supporters point to the absence of a terrorist attack on US soil since September 11 - - eliding over the anthrax mailings, which were clearly acts of terrorism - - there have been other examples of a lack of preparedness which demonstrate that if we are safer, government incompetence continues to leave us vulnerable. Katrina is of course exhibit A. The current salmonella outbreak, whatever its source, would be Exhibit B, were it not for the fact that we had a warning signal over salmonella and spinach which should have been a sufficient call to arms. The focus of the current outbreak started with tomatoes, but the CDC has expanded it to include jalapenos, serranos, and cilantro. And cases have occurred in 42 states. I don't think this is an act of terrorism. But imagine if it were; imagine the effects of a deliberate act; imagine the current US government, obviously ill-prepared, trying to keep us safe. Heckuva job, George.
Take action, Bill Clinton tells the governors. At a governors conference, Clinton urged the governors to see their states as laboratories for democracy, which, if you think about it, is a pretty good rallying cry - - given the current stalemate in Washington. There's no real reason for governors to think of all innovation as originating in Washington, and given the kinds of crapola we've seen with respect to cases like Terri Schiavo, Iraq, and CHIPs, there's a huge argument available that too many in Washington have no compass. States do have rights, and they should be capable of imagining how their leadership can impact the rest of the country. (Thank you, Governor Paterson, for urging NYS agencies to recognize all marriages from other states.) An important implication here, though, is that states need compasses, too, and to the extent that their governments are headed by snake-healers, we bear risks from efforts to innovate. At the same time as states step up, though, it ultimately becomes a greater problem if citizens are remiss and don't spend serious time learning about their state and local candidates: if they don't protect the diversity on their local school board, it's going to be an uphill snowball, rolling all the way up to Washington.
Willfully oblivious. The CIA warned the White House in 2002 that up to a third of the Guantanamo detainees were there in error. "Not listening," was the White House response (as you know), and now of course the initial injustice has festered beyond that (as bad as it is) and into a national disgrace. I'm not sure how to rank it versus the WWII internment of Japanaese-Americans: in some ways Guantanamo is worse because these were people who were citizens of other countries, and were prevented from using legal channels in their defense. It's bad enough that you would exile your own citizens into camps, but to do that to citizens of other countries, and torture them, and deny you were doing so... Well, as much as we regret the internment of the Japanese-Americans, I think it's been edged out.
Arguments for reinstituting 55 MPH limits. Fuel prices are inviting it back, and trucking associations say it will increase their fuel efficiency by 27 percent even if the limit is brought down to 65. There's a stray argument against it in the article ("Try driving 55 on any stretch of open road in America today and it's easy to see why a return to the double nickel - - as it was nicknamed during its two-decade life span - - seems remote") that doesn't wash with me. I think you could reduce the limit to 55, leave the limit on those long stretches of empty roads unenforced, and still have a huge impact. Last weekend we were driving up 91 to New Hampshire, and there's less incentive to drive 55 when most of the traffic wants to do 65 plus. (But in fairness, the limit there is already 55 for much of the road, it's more a question of enforcement, as people keep in mind that points on their licenses don't get stiff until they cross a
15 MPH tolerance threshold.)
Are fake speed bumps the next 'boy who cried wolf'? Philadelphia is using an optical illusion to slow drivers down. It should be very effective for every driver at least once, since (to me) it looks less like a speed bumb than a series of barricades a driver needs to carefully drive through. It probably elicits an initial "WTF?" But once a driver understands it's just a trick, will it work any longer? And what will happen should Philadelphia up the ante? ("Now we're SERIOUS!") Will drivers harm their suspensions by not listening? Our street feeds off Flatbush Avenue, a congested thoroughfare that takes a diagonal route through Brooklyn, leading from the Manhattan Bridge into far deeper reaches. Many drivers head down our street to avoid the pain (perhaps it's the traffic circle surrounding Grand Army Plaza). There's a speed bump on our street, and when they had a "BUMP" warning ten yards before its approach it worked; but when they repaved the road they lost the warning (there are signs in the sidewalks, but they're obscured by trees), and now we hear the clatter of cars and trucks as they go over the bump in ignorance. Warnings work, and I don't know why the city is taking so long to re-paint the warning in the road. And I question the ultimate value of the cost-savings Philly is pursuing in playing tricks: people can be reasonable, treat them as reasonable adults.
"Whip Inflation Now!" Every once in a while a politician will come along who plays cheerleader in the face of hard economic realities; to some extent that's what Phil Gramm (a McCain advisor) was doing when he referred to whining going on about the state of the economy, although the way he put it was half-way between the cheerleader approach (the power of positive thinking!) and "eat your vegetables." Think Progress has a list of ten economics statistics that show that the whining is reality based, and we know how much Republicans like reality.
John McCain continues to stand for issues he doesn't vote for. CNN caught another flub by McCain: McCain pointed to his vote against the Iranian National Guard, a vote which he noted Obama missed. Problem? McCain missed the vote he says he made.
Ah, I get it, we're supposed to remember McCain's intentions, and not judge him by his actions. Never mind that he caved in to Bush over issues like interrogation techniques; what matters is that he didn't do so right off the bat.
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