Bye, Steve

Tens of thousands of people like me loved Steve Gilliard and there is no way we could have attended his funeral on Friday.
There were a few bloggers who did but they seem to think there's something wrong with either
telling us about it or giving us the opportunity to talk together about what Steve meant to us all.
So that's that, I guess.
Maybe someday, somebody will gather his writing up and present it on a blog that advances what he tried to achieve in blogging. He was a pioneer and he knew, better than anyone, how important and valuable was the community he created. Every time there was a post on The News Blog about his illness, his community gathered round and we all tried so hard to send messages of strength and support and caring. It was a remarkable outpouring.
The community is scattered now and has no place to meet anymore. Maybe we'll find each other again someday. In the meantime, bye, Steve.

The end

And from a million homes across North America comes the cry "What the fuck was that all about?

Great line of the day

DBK describes the media frenzy over Paris Hilton:

The news story ... has gripped the nation's consciousness like a rottweiler on a lamb chop...

How's that for a memorable image?

Call the CDC -- its an epidemic

Bush-Exasperation Syndrome

An intensive study of 1,000 randomly-selected Americans has yielded conclusive evidence of a heretofore unnoted contagion, an offshoot of Tourette's Syndrome doctors have labeled BES, or Bush Exasperation Syndrome . . . [which causes] involuntary outbursts of projectile cursing whenever the name or image of President George W. Bush is flashed before sufferers of this malady . . . those stricken with Bush Exasperation Syndrome are more likely to be volatile, unable to control their bodily movements when seized by a fit of cursing, with arms flailing, and digits involuntarily making obscene hand gestures at television screens or other triggering stimuli.
. . . words and phrases widely known to be associated with George W. Bush can increase the severity of these seizures. For instance, the phrase "the decider" has been shown to be nearly fatal to people with advanced cases of the disease, and there have been a handful of documented fatalities attributed to BES patients exposed to the phrase "Is our children learning?"

Good, Bad, Ugly

Good:

The Supreme Court of Canada has overturned a B.C. legislation that effectively tore up union contracts in 2002 and ruled collective bargaining is protected under the Charter of Rights . . . It's the first time the Supreme Court has recognized the right of collective bargaining. It sided with a group of B.C. health unions seeking to overturn Bill 29, the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act, rushed through in January 2002 in just three days by the B.C. Liberal government . . . The Supreme Court justices agreed the B.C. government was facing a dilemma but shot down its lack of consultation with its unions and failure to try less intrusive and heavy-handed ways to find a compromise. The "measures adopted by the government constitute a virtual denial of the (charter) right to a process of good faith bargaining and consultation," the decision said. "The government presented no evidence as to why this particular solution was chosen and why there was no consultation with the unions about the range of options open to it."

Bad:

Two of world's most famous anti-poverty activists [Bono and Bob Geldof] tore into Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday, accusing Canada of blocking other G8 nations from making clear targets in the group's humanitarian aid package to Africa. . . The high-profile activist-musicians cited sources inside the summit who alleged Harper personally blocked the G8 leaders from accepting accountability for fulfilling their promises. "It's as if we have the place bugged, because everybody tells us," Bono said.

Ugly:

245. Detainees were taken to their cells by strong people who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark visors over their eyes. Clothes were cut up and torn off; many detainees were then kept naked for several weeks.. . .
247. Detainees went through months of solitary confinement and extreme sensory deprivation in cramped cells, shackled and handcuffed at all times.
248. Detainees were given old, black blankets that were too small to lie upon at the same time as attempting to cover oneself.. . .
252. A common feature for many detainees was the four-month isolation regime. During this period of over 120 days, absolutely no human contact was granted with anyone but masked, silent guards. . . .
256. Detainees were exposed at times to over-heating in the cell; at other times drafts of freezing breeze.. . .
266. There was a shackling ring in the wall of the cell, about half a metre up off the floor. Detainees’ hands and feet were clamped in handcuffs and leg irons. Bodies were regularly forced into contorted shapes and chained to this ring for long, painful periods. . . .

How stupid do they think we are?

I don't care how they try to parse and triangulate and rephrase and reinterpret. They broke their promise to Saskatchewan. And now they don't even have the integrity to tell the truth about what they are doing:

During the last election, the Conservative platform stated that non-renewable resource revenues would be excluded from the federal-provincial equalization formula. However, the spring budget didn't include such a commitment.
"Those who voted for the Conservatives in Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada put their trust in the commitments made by Mr. Harper," Dion said.
"That trust was broken."

OK, sometimes politicians break their promises, for good reasons or bad.
But after all of Harper's talk-talk-talk about accountability, I would have expected him and his Saskatchewan Conservatives to at least have the guts to admit what they have done.
Harper and the Conservatives keep lying about it, over and over.

Great line of the day

From Accidental Deliberations

Shorter Peter MacKay:
I would never have said our party is willing to tolerate MPs voting their conscience if I'd thought one of our members still had one.

Just another day

Just another day down at the old watering hole:

And here we thought that ungulates were sorta wimpy...

Robert Kennedy

I had forgotten that June 5, 1968 was the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Here is one man's remembrance:

It was still dark outside when I felt my mom’s hand shaking my shoulder. “You need to get up,” she said and started out of my room.
“What’s going on?”
My mother hung her head. “Bobby Kennedy’s been shot,” she said softly and walked out.
I was out of bed at warp speed and parked in front of the TV in the den. There the flickering pictures proved my mom’s information true. Another Kennedy assassinated. Another senseless act of violence on a man who asked only for peace and justice for those less fortunate than himself.
For me, the “last, best hope” gone.
I became a cynic in my political thinking, indifferent to a system that killed its best. I devoted my energies to rock and roll and wretched excess in the ensuing years. Except for a spite vote for McGovern in 1972 to piss off my Nixon loving father, I took no interest in politics, especially Presidential politics, until 1992 when an Xer friend shamed me into finally standing up again. I voted for Clinton because he reminded me a little of that hero of my youth - Bobby Kennedy.
And every June 5th I stop for a few moments and remember how I believed in what America could be once - try to get some of that belief back - and, to use an old Boomer chestnut, “keep on keeping on.”
And I ask Bobby to forgive me - and my generation - for failing to pick up his torch.

No mercy

In children's sports, there is often what is called a "mercy rule" -- if one team is ahead by an extraordinary amount, like, say, by 10 runs in the 4th inning, then the game is called 'over'. In retrospect, I'm not sure if the mercy is for the kids or for the parents, but certainly by the time a mercy rule applies, the parents are quite happy to show "mercy" to the losing team. Good game, good try, too bad, better luck next week, see ya!
In politics, there are no mercy rules.
Republicans are asking for one now, starting to plead for one. They think they should just be able to agree that its too bad the Bush presidency is such a failure but its really not their fault, nobody's fault really, no hard feelings, see you on the diamond next year when we'll have a new pitcher.
Not so fast.
This is starting to get fun.
TRex:

Well, we knew this day would come, and yet, who knew that it would taste quite so sweet? You see, my pretties, it seems that Peg Noonan was right when she said that the Right Wing base is cracking under the unbearable strain of the Bush administration's pro-corporate/anti-nativist stance on immigration. At this very moment, our enemies on the Other Side are fragmenting, breaking apart into a jillion little tiny glittering shards of impotent rage, and all right before our very eyes. Isn't it beautiful? . . . Ace has a message for us:

Message To The Left: I'm not saying you should impeach him, I'm just sayin', you know, go with your hearts.

Oh, nooooooo, not when he's making you all this unhappy. He's only there for another year and a half or so. I think we should leave him twisting in the wind for as long as possible just so he can continue to heap handful after handful of dirt on the coffin lid of conservatism.
I know I shouldn't enjoy your pain, Wingnut bloggers. It's spiteful and cruel of me; petty, bilious, and adolescent. And yet, seeing you all running around screaming like somebody kicked in your ant-hill, well...
Yay.

James Wolcott:

Bush is not a liberal, never was; he's a messianic narcissist of mediocre abilities who needs hacks around him to keep his ego from collapsing like a dam wall. He isn't spurning his conservative base on immigration because he's longs to make nice with Ted Kennedy, he's spurning them because they disagree with him and he can't brook disagreement. If he didn't listen to his own father, a former president no less, do you really think he's going to lose winks at night over what Laura Ingraham or the NRO gang has to say? His head hits that pillow like a rock and there's no reasoning with a rock.

Glenn Greenwald:

The great fraud being perpetrated in our political discourse is the concerted attempt by movement conservatives, now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins, to repudiate George Bush by claiming that he is not, and never has been, a "real conservative." This con game is being perpetrated by the very same conservatives who -- when his presidency looked to be an epic success -- glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism.
This fraud is as transparent as it is dishonest. . .

Lance Mannion:

The Bush Leaguers have poisoned and broken and just plain fucked up everything they've touched because they are an administration of flunkies. You don't get a job in that White House unless you know it's your first and only duty to see to it that nothing the Government does inconveniences Bush's base or costs them a dime they don't want to spend or makes them feel the least little bit guilty about exercising their privileges.
The supply of intelligent, talented, diligent, responsible people who would willingly devote their lives to being flunkies and making other people rich, while unfortunately not miniscule, is limited. Cheney and Rove have had to fill in all over the place with the stupid, the naive, and the desperate for work because they are incompetent, the Michael Browns and Monica Goodlings, the Tim Griffins and Douglas Feiths of the world, who can't help but poison and break and fuck-up everything they touch . . . They've made a mess everywhere, from the Smithsonian to the FDA to FEMA to the Justice Department, from New Orleans to Baghdad, and it should be the next President's job to fix it, but the Insider Media has decided that the most important issues of the upcoming election are Hillary's ambition, Bill's decades old sex scandals, John Edwards' haircuts, and Obama's middle name.

Digby:

Listening to these phonies whine now about how Scooter didn't mean it and Lurita Doan never followed through and how the Democrats are "criminalizing" politics moves me not at all. In a world where Republicans hadn't impeached a president for purely partisan reasons, stolen elections, started unnecessary wars, pillaged the treasury and degraded the constitution I might be inclined to be compassionate toward someone like Doan, who was probably just doing what Karl Rove expected. Sorry, I'm fresh out of compassion for Republicans. As far as I'm concerned, Waxman should ruthlessly go after every single case. It is a moral hazard to allow these people to continuously get away with things of which they accuse others. It's got to stop.

Sadly, No!:

None of these former Bush cultists can admit that Dear Leader was the bee’s knees, gave them exactly what they wanted, was a living God, was the acme of conservatism. Because to admit that is to admit the fact that what they believe in — their ‘principles’, their ideology, all of which Bush personified — sucks and is a menace to humanity. It’s our job to deny them their grip, to kick them off the cliff along with Dear Leader. Because if we don’t, they’ll just find another Dear Leader, and the Cult will be restored. No mercy. Fuck these people.

Exam humour

See them all at They didn't study

Steve Gilliard is gone

I learned so much from reading Steve Gilliard over the years and I am grateful. Jane Hamsher provides a vivid portrait:

...An inveterate reader, he carried an enormous backpack filled with books and couldn't fathom that I was trying to negotiate New York City in a rental car. We spent the afternoon together eating antipasto and shellfish, wandering the streets looking for WiFi, drinking coffee and gabbing.
It was a crisp blue day, the five year anniversary of 9/11 and it made Steve extremely somber. He was very much affected by the experience of 9/11 and resented those who wanted to appropriate it for their own purposes, and didn't think that anyone who wasn't there that day could ever understand what it was like to have their whole existence shaken in such a profound way. Like many New Yorkers, he felt quite proprietary about that day and it very much shaped who he was and fueled his passion for blogging. He'd spent most of the morning grumbling online at those he felt could not possibly know what they were talking about.
Steve was unique, and it struck me as odd how someone could be such a pragmatist and a purist at the same time. He was eloquent, fierce, irascible, passionate, brilliant and brave. And I'll just shut up now before I let the cat out of the bag and tell everyone how gentle and caring he came across in person. He'd no doubt be furious with me for blowing his cover.
Eventually I had to get back to Connecticut and the last time I saw Steve he was walking away carrying that backpack, off to lay his hands on another military history book he hadn't been able to locate. I offered to drive him but Steve, being the consummate New Yorker, looked at me like I was insane and walked off into the chaos of the city that somehow seemed to center him.

Miss you, Steve.

Sgt. Pepper Day

People my age talk about when they first heard Sgt. Pepper, like we talk about where we were when we heard that John Lennon died.
Tristero explains why the Beatles made such an impact:

...to you kiddies out there who want to know what all the brouhaha about The Beatles was all about, I strongly suggest you - hell, everyone should have it - grab the four Complete Ed Sullivan Shows with The Beatles . Now here's the thing: you have to watch one a night, all the way through, including Miitzi Gaynor sing what she calls "real music," and Frank Gorshin doing Kirk Douglas impressions. You will learn two things. First of all, that life in mainstream white America in 1964 was bereft of any positive cultural merit whatsoever. And secondly, this is the ideal society your average Republican politician has in mind for America, sans Beatles of course. It truly is hard to believe. You must see these shows in their entirety to understand how much this country has changed.

Great line of the day

From Digby:

Chris Matthews reminds everyone daily that voters want to vote for the man who seems the manliest (competence is for eggheads) but I can't help but suspect that the rest of the country is no longer so convinced that the right way to pick a president is to ask yourself whether he resembles a member of the Village People. We've just spent six years with the fake cowboy and look how well that's turned out.

Get real

The Washington pundits have to get real. Now they're all excited about Fred Thompson, an actor who was senator for a few years. Last week, they were all excited about Rudy Guiliani, a lawyer who was a mayor for a few years.
Pathetic.
Just try to picture either of these guys standing at a podium on a stage next to Gore, or Obama, or Edwards, or even Hillary...