Rove investigated?

This bears some watching. Hopefully the investigation will turn up the kind of things we all know have been going on, ie WH involvement in the NH phone jamming scandal, and all of the "lost" emails in the US Attorney scandal. We'll see.

Guns on campus...yeah, that's a good idea.

I'm no freaky gun control nut. I grew up in NH and have a number of hunters on my mother's side. In fact we had a couple of rifles in the house as a kid, no big deal. I support bans on automatic weapons and assault rifles as well as certain types of ammunition. I also support as rigorous a waiting period/background check as we could come up with. Would any of this have stopped a horribly disturbed young man from killing 32 on the campus of Virgina Tech in Blacksburg, VA? Not likely. What would have stopped him? I can't pretend to know, but one thing is for sure, the thought of our young people going to school armed is not one that inspires a great deal of confidence in me. I was listening to D&C again this morning and Callahan was proposing the idea that if one of these kids in the building Cho was shooting up had been armed it might have all ended differently. That may be so, but one thing I know is that if students were allowed to posses firearms on college campuses they would be a far different place. I've been a college professor before, I can imagine the possibility of an upset student griping with me over his grade and potentially brandishing a gun in an effort to get me to change my mind. I can also imagine groups of drunken young men getting into altercations with each other (as happens every weekend on every campus in the country) and these instances ending in gun violence. Is that what we need? Do we need to turn the quads of our college campuses into the streets of the Old West? I feel horrible about what happened to the community of VT, I can't pretend to understand what they are going through but how on earth is allowing students to have guns on campus going to make this better? Maybe what we should be focusing on is how was it that this wildly disturbed young man was still on campus? He'd been reported for stalking a couple of times, had teachers request his removal from their classes because they were scared of his writings and, let's face it regardless of what you think about what he wrote, he had no apparent skill as a writer. How was it that he was in decent academic standing as a senior English Major when he wrote like a jr. high schooler? As a society we have shown less and less respect for the judgement of our teachers over the years, it shows in this case. If a students removal is requested by one of his prof's should the administration take that VERY seriously and consider removing the student from school? I realize the rights of the individual are important, but aren't they outweighed by the rights of the majority? We have a right to be safe on our campuses, that doesn't mean you expel every kid who wears black or writes dark poetry but isn't it clear that the case of this young man went well beyond that?

Fox News High School Fair and Balanced: We Censor We Decide

Ok so this story is starting to get a little play nationally. I must say I do find it interesting for a host of reasons not the least of which is the inconsistency of the administration. Wouldn't it have been wise for the principal to deal with this at the front end as opposed to waiting until he received some pressure for what his students were doing? I mean we all know that's what happened right? He figured no one was going to care what a bunch of theater geeks were doing until people got wind of it and the right wing thought police figured it needed to be stopped. I love how he claims he stopped it because it wasn't politically balanced and lacked context... ok wait... instead of stopping the production you take a chance and use it as a teaching opportunity. Had he thought it through maybe he could have worked with the students and the director and set up panel discussions and debates surrounding the event? Clearly he chose the easy way out. I hope his students will remember this about him as they make choices in their lives.

I also found a certain amount of humor in the fact that he was concerned about political balance but the last production they did in the fall was Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Does anyone else smell a whiff of irony? Maybe this guy needs a vocab quiz on the word "Allegory"

Oh Newt...

Figures doesn't it? Years after leading a witch hunt that cost the American tax payer 60 million dollars Newt Gingrich (the GOP's moral compass) has admitted that he had an affair while the investigation into Clinton's extra-curriculars were going on. I find it hilarious that the guy leading the right wing charge in the 90's has been married 3 times. Once to his high school geometry teacher (who he later started divorce proceedings on while she was recovering from cancer in the hospital) and later to a congressional aide 20 years younger than he. While we're at it, look at the leading candidate for the GOP, Rudy Guiliani...how many times has this guy been married? The last divorce was very public and very messy (having his mistress live in the mayor's residence? yuk.) and in part led to the estrangement of his son.

Listen, I don't really care that much about what you do in your life from a relationship standpoint. Relationships are hard. But don't come to me from the moral high ground. Life is a struggle for us all. Marriage is a challenge to everyone, but shouldn't everyone have the right to accept that challenge? How can Newt say gay marriage is wrong? It's not like his straight marriages have a great track record. Guiliani used to be pro-gay rights, now that he's running for the GOP nomination it appears that he is changing his tune? Why? is it to protect the children Rudy? Maybe you should have thought of that before you publicly humiliated your spouse by having your girlfriend live in your home at the same time.

Does anyone really care about this?

And if they do, why? Check out this story from the Baltimore Sun
So his Great-great-great-great-grandfather and his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother on his mother's side owned slaves...is there any relevane to life in 2007 to any of this? Just so you know I feel the same way about stories about Mitt Romney's grandfather being a polygamist. I mean we're talking about people long dead relatives. Here's the thing, do you think of we elect Romney he's going to legalize Polygamy? Is Obama going to legalize slavery? At least if they're going to waste their time digging into the past can they do it relative to the candidate and not some relative who's pushing up daisies?

Rebuke Bush NOLA

I saw this posted at Spocko's Brain and other bloggers are being asked to post it so here it is:

Mr. President: Katrina Survivors Do Not Welcome You, We Rebuke You!

We live in a devastated city and you are a big part of the reason why it sill sits in ruins. Your administration has abandoned our children by savaging their public schools. Your administration has tortured our working class people by refusing to reopen the city’s public housing developments. And your administration is fully complicit in placing our uninsured in harms way by ruthlessly pursuing the privatization of local public healthcare in the aftermath of Katrina. And, finally your administration is guilty of sending our sons and daughters of to war for oil and empire just when we need them most to help us rebuild our community.

Mr. President, we, Katrina Survivors all, do not welcome you to our city, we rebuke you!

Sponsored by Survivors Village, United Front For Affordable Housing.

(504) 587-0080

If you have a blog please consider posting this today.

Al Gore Energy Whore?

Well maybe, maybe not. In a story conveniently released immediately following Gore's oscar win for An Inconvenient Truth the Tennessee Center For Policy Research
has come forth with the assertion that Gore's 10,000 sq/ft home in Nashville, TN consumes nearly 20x the national average and significantly more than the average Nashville home. Gore's consumption last year was something like 191,000 KW/Hrs to 15,600 KW/Hrs for the average Nashville home, that is at least according to the TCPR which claims to be an independant think tank though it has strong ties to the right wing. It's founder/President Drew Johnson cut his teeth at The American Enterprise Institute and notorious conservative think tank out of Washington, DC. He has also worked for right wing media outlets like The Wall Street Journal and The National Review in addition to being seen often on Fox News.

Here's the thing, even if we accept those numbers as fact (the Nashville utility claims no request for information was ever submitted)
, what do they really mean? Gore's 10,000 sq/ft. home used more energy than the avg. Nashville household...ok, here's a question; just how big is the average Nashville how? Well according to this story the average single family home sold in Middle Tennessee is about 2,000 sq/ft. about 1/5th the size of Gore's home. Of course that's only single family homes, this does not include the 33% of Nashville residents who rent apartments, condos, trailers, etc which we all no are generally smaller than single family homes. Now even taking this into account Gore's home uses considerably more energy than the average Nashville home per sq/ft so why not say this in their attack on Gore? Well maybe it has to do with the nature of what Gore's home is used for? Gore and his wife both run their home offices out of the home, that in and of itself could account for a sizeable increase in energy usage.

Regardless, Gore puchases Carbon Offsets and invests in renewable energy research so while he may not live the perfect green life, he is doing a lot to try to improve the world around him.

Oops, Deval

So just a few weeks in office and Deval Patrick has already had to apologize for a couple of missteps. First he upgraded the Governor's car from a Ford Crown Vic to a Cadillac. Now there were apparently some legit reasons for the change but the cost was several hundred dollars more per month than what was paid for his Republican predecessors car. Additionally Patrick had his office redecorated and this too was quite expensive. In both cases Patrick apologized and paid for each expenditure out of pocket. He needs to be aware that people will be keeping an eye on him.

Neo-Con Humor

The Half Hour News Hour is coming, how pathetic is this thing? A blatant attempt to rip off The Daily Show, but lacking any talent or humor. Perfect.

Callahan v. Patrick

Let it be known that Gerry Callahan hates Gov. Deval Patrick with a passion that knows no bounds. This morning he and Dennis were moaning about Patrick taking helicopters at taxpayer expense to events across the state. The claim seemed to be that he felt anointed and could do no wrong. At one point Callahan sarcastically accused Patrick of using a chopper to go rent Big Mama's House 2 at the video store. I don't know about you, but this smacks of thinly veiled racism. Here's the thing, if it gets him to events statewide and allows him to be more efficient in his job I say more power to him.

Dixie Chicks

So congrats to the Dixie Chicks on 5 Grammys. I can't honestly say I've heard but one song off the album as I'm not a big country listener. I have a couple of Loretta Lynn albums and Elvis Costello has taken a couple of turns at recording country music but most of it's a bit too twangy for me and honestly the modern stuff seems to lack depth.

They have been, and continue to get a lot of flack for including political commentary in their work "shut up and sing" I think is the refrain. Since when has art and politics/religion been separate? Commentary has always been a part of art, that's part of what draws us to it. Peisistratus an early tyrant (not the same meaning we currently assign to it) of Ancient Greece commissioned the first Tragedy to sing his praises to the people and so it begins...today that continues whether it be in a hymn praising Christ or in a song by the Dixie Chicks or Pink or Bob Dylan or Neil Young. If you don't like the message, fine don't listen. I'm an Atheist but I still find great beauty in religious music, especially when it is sung by a true believer with a great deal of passion.

Music that doesn't come from a place of passion and belief can hardly be called art.

Go forth and multiply

So I was doing my morning news scan and came across this story, in a word? Hilarious. Seriously. I doubt the initiative will make the ballot but it is a nice little poke at the right on the whole "Gay Marriage" issue. I've never understood the arguments against gay marriage, I mean what is "traditional" marriage? It wasn't that long ago that it was legal/encouraged to marry multiple wives (and it still is in some cultures) or to marry young (13/14yo) girls or to have arranged marriages (again, they still exist). How do these things fit in the the social conservatives definition of "Traditional" marriage? I mean I know Rick Santorum believes it will lead to marrying dogs but let's face it, there's a reason why Rick is looking for a job right now.

The big problem with this whole thing is not that people are against gay marriage, but that they seem so hot to pass a constitutional amendment banning it. I mean do we want another 3/5th's compromise on our record? Do we want to be that embarrassed by our own actions 50 or 60 years from now? Let's face it, if we had put Black civil rights up for a vote 40 years ago, how do you think they would have fared? How about 20 years ago? Or even today in some places. You can not legislate civil rights at the ballot box, it is perfectly appropriate for the judicial system to put it's mark on this issue just as they did in Brown v. Board of Education. I will say this, I am proud to live in the only state in the union to have legal gay marriage.

Nothing Political

Sorry, I had a busy weekend and didn't have a whole lot of time for reading the paper/watching the new magazines etc. We'll get back to it soon.

BTW, that was a brutal performance by Rex Grossman last night, no? Ugh.

Last night was tough, I didn't have a dog in the fight after my Pats lost. I was kinda hoping the team busses would crash into each other.

Mooninite Hoax???

I have to throw my .02¢ in on this whole Aqua Teen Hunger Force hoax thing. First, it was clearly an error on someones part, but the question is who's? As more info comes out it seems miscommunication is the key here. The two poor shlubs that got arrested are enjoying their moment in the spotlight. Hopefully when all is said and done they'll be released and not charged. It seems as if the judge for the case has his doubts about the City of Boston being able to make it's case. There just doesn't seem to be intent. Turner Broadcasting had to be fully aware of what was going on by 1 or 2 o'clock, yet they didn't contact city officials until 5pm, that's a problem. The thing is as more info comes out it sounds like Turner may have had permission from the municipality so it may have been a lack of communication between certain city offices and law enforcement. It is somewhat shocking that an entire city can be shut down by a bunch of battery powered Lite Brite's. Of course it can't have helped that the news stations kept referring to them as "Mysterious Packages" and "Possible Bombs".

Blogging for the Complete Idiot...

Ok, this is my third attempt at blogging and to this point I haven't found my passion, but what I have done is I've become an avid reader of other peoples blogs. You'll find links to some of them on the right hand side of the page. Give them a look. In addition to left-wing blogs I do read some right-wing stuff as well and some of it's pretty good. I don't generally agree with the content but it's put out with good intentions. Recently I've started reading Dan Riehl's blog and I must say the guy is a bit of a tool. He is certainly an active poster (several times daily) but a lot of what he posts is garbage spun in a ridiculous fashion. Take for example his latest post on Barack Obama
it's pretty silly to equate a typo in a press release with an inability to direct foreign policy. If that's there big beef with him shouldn't the right be up in arms about W's complete lack of an ability to articulate a complex thought? Or how about this story about Joe Biden
just silly. I mean is it news that Biden disagrees with his rivals for the nomination? Or is it that Riehl is implying that Joe somehow is a racist who doesn't think Blacks are clean? Ridiculous, this isn't Trent Lott we're talking about after all.

Schilling

Last week Todd Feinburg on WRKO in Boston began a campaign to draft Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling to take on John Kerry for senate in '08. This started a spate of ridiculous phone calls from a bunch of right wing morons suggesting that somehow that would be great for the state of Massachusetts. Ugg. Some of the calls were downright offensive, one caller suggested that "Kerry's two self-inflicted war wounds, and Schill's willingness to pitch with a flap of skin stitched down to hold a ligament in place tells me all I need to know about the two of them"...wow. Since when does pitching in a kids game compare to fighting an enemy in war time? That's just plane offensive and if a liberal had said something similar the right would have jumped all over it but the host of the show let it go.

Thankfully Curt has put all of this to rest by declaring this morning on the Dennis and Callahan Show that he WILL NOT be retiring after this season.

Callahan at it again

The discussion on the D&C show this morning centered around Lovie Smith and Tony Dungee being hailed as the first two black coaches to make it to the Super Bowl. Callahans stance was unsurprising in that he felt too much was being made of it and that somehow this was not a big deal. His claim was that these two didn't have to overcome anything and that the ground had been broken for them some 18 years ago when Art Shell took over as head coach of the Raiders. I suppose there is some truth to this but it's not like black head coaches have a long history in the NFL to this point, I mean we are talking about only 18 years, less than half my lifetime. Dennis was making some nice points that it wasn't about bringing focus to our racist society, but about celebrating an achievement of growth as a society.

Do I think this is a huge milestone? No. The huge milestone will be when we have a minority or a female as president. We are so far behind the curve on this one in the developed world that it should be a great source of embarrassment. That doesn't mean you do it to so it, but certainly there have been minorities and women who have been supremely qualified to be our Commander in Chief, certainly more qualified than our current president.

I missed a couple of shows last week, I wonder if Callahan has apologized for propping up the Obama "Madrassa" story. Could there be a more clear cut case of "Swift Boating"?

Ed Brown Tax Prep

Would you let Ed Brown do your taxes? The guy continues to claim there's no law that allows the feds to collect taxes on income. Now, I'm 37 years old and it's been awhile since my last civics class but as this article points out the 16th amendment was ratified in 1913 and allows for the collect of taxes from income. Pretty simple. Now I know this guy is holed up but alot of supporters are gathering, and by allowing that they are going to create a David Koresh type of martyr out of the whacko. He's on a well, has solar power and has months of food. What to do? well, how about not allowing supporters access to him, they will only manage to bring in more supplies, weapons and ammunition. Blockade him in and let him see how he likes sticking it out alone. His wife is going to be sentenced on April 24th, we'll see what kind of coward he is when he let's her go down for the both of them.

Ruby Ridge Part Deux?

Ok, so I'm sure by now many of you have heard of this NH whack job Ed Brown. So what we have here is your run of the mill libertarian/militia type. Lot's of guns, a principal to stand on and a house that can operate "Off the grid"...I'm a little surprised this hasn't been getting a ton of national play but it seems like this may be because officials are soft selling it. They don't seem to be putting any pressure on the guy even though there is a bench warrant out for him.

I grew up in NH. I can't pretend this gives me any special insight into Mr. Brown's world but I certainly knew plenty of people who shared many of his views and would clearly count themselves as sympathizers. In fact a neighbor of mine was a bit unhinged in a similar way. Needless to say we didn't knock on his door come Halloween.

I'm interested to see how this plays out. He's got support coming from all sorts of directions on this one, hell nobody likes paying taxes though some of us view it as a necessary evil while others just view it as evil. Is this the next Ruby Ridge?

In the beginning...

How to begin? I've been blogging on and off for a couple of years with little success. The chief reason for this lack of success has been, I think, my inability to find subject matter that keeps me entertained enough to stick with blogging long enough to gain an audience.

As long as I have been blogging I have been attracted to political blogs, and most recently I have become a regular reader of Callingallwingnuts.com by Mike Stark, Scoobie Davis Online and the Huffington Post. In a "know the enemy" effort I've also been a sometimes reader/commenter at right wing news and views and I often find myself at The Drudge Report.

It has been Mike Stark and his efforts in the Virgina Senate race and the plight/saga of Spocko of Spocko's brain that have inspired me to begin my own politically based blog. As I was thinking about doing this I struggled with what some of my topics might be...and it hit me...Spocko was exposing the hate speech being spewed at KSFO in San Francisco, maybe I could do something locally.

My radio listening habits have mainly been limited to the short drive taking my son to daycare in the morning and the occasional work related driving that I do. For the past couple of years I've alternated between Boston sports talk on WEEI (locally broadcast on WVEI) and Air America. Sadly in December AA ceased to exist in Boston (I really miss Stephanie Miller, that's good radio) so I am limited now to Dennis&Callahan on my morning drive. John Dennis was a local sports broadcaster for a number of years and Gerry Callahan (AKA Captain Forehead) is a writer and columnist for the local tabloid The Boston Herald.

Both men are to the right on the political spectrum (though Dennis has begun to express displeasure with W's handling of the war recently) and often the morning's subject matter turns to the topic of politics. Now you may be asking yourself "what are a couple of sports talk guys doing delving into politics"? Well your guess is as good as mine. They go off on a wide range of topics...by wide I mean sports, how much they hate liberals, how much Callahan LOVES W and their undying manlove for "24" and Jack Bauer.

What do these two boneheads have to do with this blog? Well, they (and more specifically Callahan) are my inspiration. If the hate at KSFO is worthy of being exposed, than so to are the rants that Callahan seems to go off on daily.

His current object of hate is Barack Obama. Whenever possible he refers to Senator Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama" in the Fox news mold. While I realize this is Obama's full name it's pretty clear that Callahan is only using his middle name in an effort to conflate the publics association of his name with that of Saddam Hussein.

On Wednesday January 17th the hosts of the D&C show were discussing "24" and the minor dust up of it's rightward leanings. Of course they defended the show as merely "realistic" and considered the scandal nothing. In fact they claimed that somehow the shows use of Muslims as terrorists was somehow doing real Muslims a favor by giving them jobs in Hollywood. Of course this ignores the fact that several of the actors portraying these terrorists are not actually Muslim (Kal Penn, Harry Lennix and Adoni Maropis to start).

Now in addition to this when naming the characters played by these men Callahan referred to one of the terrorists as "Obama" a clear attempt to associate Barack Obama with terrorists. Of course at every chance he gets Callahan likes to make sure everyone knows that the Democrats have no plan for Iraq and simply want to surrender.

While I may comment on a host of other issues, I will make a sincere effort to continue to bring the daily rantings of Gerry Callahan to you so you won't to listen yourself.