Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Liar of the Week
“Liar” is a pretty harsh word, not to be thrown around casually — although you wouldn’t know that, if MoveOn.org and the Kerry campaign of ’04 and Michael Moore were your models. Before we apply it to anything, let us look it up in Merriam-Webster shall we.
lie
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): lied; ly�ing /'lI-i[ng]/
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lEogan; akin to Old High German liogan to lie, Old Church Slavonic lugati
intransitive senses
1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
transitive senses : to bring about by telling lies lied his way out of trouble>
Democrats should like this definition a lot, because they are big fans of muddying the distinction between fact and opinion, and there is nothing here about distinguishing between fact and opinion when you say someone lied. In other words, it is perfectly valid to have an unprovable opinion, about someone telling a lie. According to Definition 2, you don’t even need to say something untrue, in order to be a liar. The intent to deceive is adequate.
According to that, then, I nominate a certain highly-respected (by someone somewhere) United States Senator for Liar of the Week, who yesterday, discussing the nomination of Judge John Roberts, was caught saying on the Senate floor:
I will not decide whether to support or oppose him based on any single issue…what all Americans deserve to know is whether Judge Roberts respects the core values of the Constitution and falls within the conservative mainstream of America, along the lines of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
In order to believe this does not qualify as a lie, you have to believe Senator Edward M. Kennedy is still in the process of making up his mind about the Roberts nomination and as of yesterday remained in a state of uncertainty about his vote.
Granted, that this is not the case, is purely a matter of my own opinion.
But does anybody believe it to be true? Anybody at all?
Then why do we so regularly put up with this B.S.? It is a certainty that Sen. Kennedy has already decided to oppose the nomination, and is simply waiting for some material to roll in so he can make something out of it at the hearings. For forty-three years his modus operandi has been to identify his enemies, and inflict embarrassment upon them at any opportunity. Facts, to Senator Kennedy, have simply been mechanisms used to inflict this embarrassment, not to actually decide an issue. He’ll change now?
I will never be as “great” a public official as Senator Kennedy. I would not have driven drunk, with or without Mary Jo Kopechne, and once the worst somehow befell us, I would have tried to save her. Failing that, I would have immediately tried to get help. But most of all, had that situation gone down the way it did, if someone walked up to me and said “don’t worry Senator Freeberg, we’ll make sure you’ve got another 36 years of building a distinguished political career by embarrassing and yelling at people” I would have said “Are you kidding?? I just killed a woman by being a drunk negligent pussy coward, how in the world could I pull that off?”
You do know yesterday was the anniversary of Mary Jo saving us from a Ted Kennedy presidency, don’t you?
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