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...
That Includes Me?
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, took aim at some of the less flattering things federal officials have had to say about local rescue efforts in New Orleans.
“If one person criticizes them or says one more thing, including the president of the United States, he will hear from me…One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally.”
This is to be expected. One of the jobs a senator has is to get her mug on television and let her constituents know what she is doing for them — getting them food and meds, finding federal money to rebuild after the damage, defending their reps. And as far as violence and threats of same by sitting members of the United States Congress, this is nothing new. Two years ago, the Carpetbagger Report did a great job rounding up examples of canings, wrestlings, beatings, etc. since 1798. So I’ll leave it to someone else to get all squeamish and pissy about threats of violence from scrappin’ senators.
No, what concerns me is what has happened, relatively recently, to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan quote. “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” The political party Moynihan claimed as his own, appears to have forgotten the first half of this; I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone in charge there, is ready to protect, or even respect, opinions they don’t like. I walk into a room full of Republicans and announce “Al Gore really won the election in 2000” and I get basic respect. Sure, I get sneers, heckling, derisive giggles, raised eyebrows, cluck-clucking, oh-dearing, tsk-tsking, but that’s about all. In other words, I’m perfectly entitled to my boneheaded, stupid, silly-ass opinion. I walk into a room full of Democrats and say “George Bush won the election of 2000” and I get — something else. Something that is not at all pretty. Passionate speeches about how much harm I’m doing by proliferating my opinion. The terrible people I’m protecting and what they’re doing to the Little People. Aid and comfort I’m giving to people who commit hate crimes.
This is not good. Over the short term, we can expect more Republican senators to be elected if Democrats continue to provide instructions to people about what everyone should be thinking; other than that, there’s no upside to this. Leaders don’t hand out stencils that define who can be criticised and who cannot be. If George W. Bush is unfairly slandering the local rescue efforts, respond point-by-point. If the facts are on your side, this is something you should be able to do.
I find it awfully tough to believe any constituency needs to send someone to the senate to make sure the federal government never criticizes their local emergency management agencies. Point out the things that make those local agencies look good? Sure. That’s representation. But bully and intimidate, with physical force, so that nothing bad can ever be uttered against those agencies? That smacks of union-style thuggery. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe Sen. Landreau’s party, with its history of coziness with union thugs, has atrophied from the process of collecting facts and forming opinions from those facts. Maybe they’re just a little too comfortable with threatening people into having the right opinion.
Senator Landrieu, can I make up my own mind? It’s pretty clear the rescue has been bungled badly, and who the hell knows now, maybe after we do the post-mortem all the facts will put squarely to George W. Bush and FEMA. But a post-mortem we will definitely have to do, and speaking for myself, I don’t think any cows should be made sacred. Facts are still coming in about who messed up what, and where. Let’s fix all of it, local and otherwise. That’s my opinion. I know you’re busy right now, but I’ll be living here for probably quite some time, about seventeen miles from Sacramento International Airport (code SMF) and I’ve been smacked in the face by better women than you.
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