Category: Uncategorized

Not only are Republicans demonstrably unenthusiastic about him, but the man obviously doesn’t even want to be president:

Asked whether his wife would sit in on Cabinet meetings, Giuliani said, “If she wanted to. If they were relevant to something that she was interested in. I mean that would be something that I’d be very, very comfortable with.”

Giuliani described his wife as a close adviser who has as much involvement in his campaign as she wants.

Asked if she would sit in on policy meetings, Mrs. Giuliani, who was a nurse, said: “If he asks me to, yes. And certainly in the areas of health care.”

Yes, it worked so well the last time a President of the United States turned health care over to his wife. There’s an analogy you want people to draw…. I expect him to drop out of the race before the Republican convention.

Pajamas Media rethinks their ill-considered notion to fix the vote:

The tenth week of the PAJAMAS MEDIA PRESIDENTIAL STRAW POLL has officially begun. Rudy Giuliani and Bill Richardson were again winners in the ninth week. Barack Obama continued as runner-up to Richardson on the Democratic side, but Newt Gingrich (trending upwards) once more moved past Mitt Romney for the Republicans.

Fred Thompson 1445 37.3%
Ron Paul 906 23.4%
Rudy Giuliani 532 13.7%
Newt Gingrich 294 7.6%
Mitt Romney 281 7.2%

Yeah, people just LOVE the lisper, don’t they. Of course, Pajamas will probably spin this as a DRAFT THOMPSON mass movement. Note that the speech-banner is already sinking out of sight and the sacred-undies guy can’t even maintain his top three position against two guys who aren’t running.

I have no idea if they did this in response to my critical column, but regardless of why they did the right thing, I’m pleased that they have done so.

Just to let them know there’s no hard feelings, I’ve even registered VP as one of their 300+ Internet precincts. Check the right sidebar if you want to vote in the Pajamas Media straw poll. The ability to see the results of a single precinct is a really nice feature, actually, and I have to admit that I’m kind of curious to see if some of those 2004 Bush voters have moved to the right in the last three years.

Don’t run and cry to Mommy. Yet another call for a code of conduct:

The support for a blogger hounded by death threats has intensified with some high profile web experts calling for a code of conduct in the blogosphere. The female blogger at the centre of the row has been shocked to discover that hers is not an isolated incident….

Ms Sierrra has personally witnessed the usually harmless feuding that is part and parcel of blogging take on an altogether more sinister tone, with threats of a violent and sexual nature gathering pace over the last month.

She agonised over whether to publicise what had happened to her, she told the BBC News website. Since describing the campaign against her, she has been shocked to discover that cyber-bullying is widespread.

“As well as around 900 comments on my blog and hundreds of comments on other blogs, I have received around 300 personal e-mails and about 70% of them say they have been through a similar thing,” she told the BBC News website.

Among the messages is one from a blogger Ms Sierra described as “far more prominent than me” who has been avoiding industry conferences because of persistent online threats.

Why would anyone pay the slightest bit of attention to this clueless moron? Violent rhetoric is a part and parcel of the blogosphere. I’ve received dozens of death threats from a wide variety of sources, to say nothing of the countless threats to never have sex with me from fat, angry feminists. I’m as deeply concerned and frightened about the former as I am regarding the latter.

If you are afraid of words, perhaps you should reconsider the idea of slinging them around with abandon. Go cower in your corner and stay out of the big dogs’ way. As for me, Chuck D said it best:

Anyway and I say the D’s defending the mike
Yeah, who gives a fuck about what they like

Do what you do. Think what you think. Speak what you believe.

UPDATE: Truly pathetic

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified.

All because someone photoshopped some pictures of her. What an unmitigated drama queen. Of course, she’s not genuinely terrified or she wouldn’t BE AT HOME AND ANNOUNCING THAT FACT TO ALL AND SUNDRY.

At the very least, she’d announce that she was at home with her Rottweiler, her new boyfriend named Bruno and a shiny new .50 caliber Desert Eagle.

Ockham concludes: media stunt.

A prelude from the New York Times:

A catfight at The New York Times Friday still has staffers in shock. The dustup between two female editors in the Styles department disrupted work on the Thursday and Sunday Styles sections as co-workers froze at the fracas.

Fashion editor Anita LeClerc was the aggressor and her superior, deputy editor Mary Ann Giordano, the victim, sources say.

The two had exchanged words just moments before, allegedly over turf, and LeClerc began stomping around the office, muttering loudly to herself. But when Giordano, a talented import from the Metro section, came over in a conciliatory way and tried to smooth things over, LeClerc made it physical.

“She shoved Mary Ann and pushed her, and Mary Ann said, ‘Don’t you touch me! Don’t you touch me!'” says a source. “Mary Ann grabbed her wrists to try to stop her, and [LeClerc] just started flailing.”

Imagine World Peace… if only women ran the world, then surely there would be no more war.

Well, not quite everyone, but pretty much anyone who is likely to have come by for the first time this week. Especially you, Goldmund… and don’t forget to pick up the Shikibu.

GT asks a distubingly common question:

“Neo-Cons like to claim that they are libertarians “with a small ‘l'”, and with their economics they are close to Libertarians, but they love that whole authoritarianism thing.”

Errr – what about “Christian Libertarians”?

Yes, I know, it is a contradiction in terms, since, a theocracy is the most evil form of tyranny known, but they exist. Try “Vox Populi” – and yes, I have asked them how they reconcile these views, and got no answer.

Like many of the insufficiently contemplative, GT fails to grasp that there’s simply nothing there requiring reconciliation. There is nothing more inherently contradictory about Christianity and libertarianism than there is about mathematics and libertarianism, Buddhism and libertarianism or la cucina italiana and libertarianism. It’s like demanding someone explain away the contradiction inherent in the phrase Blue Three.

GT’s error is a basic logical one, which is that all Christians are statist theocrats. This is obviously untrue whether one relies on theory or empirical evidence. In fact, if God does not in fact exist, one could make the case that theocrats are rather more similar to anarchists than secular statists.

One wonders if GT and his sort get equally puzzled by concepts such as “Christian Democrats”, “Social Democrats” and “New Laborites”. In fairness, the concept of a “Cameron Tory” does appear to be entirely oxymoronic.

Wolver proves that hope springs eternal in the Rpublican breast:

Sorry Vox, but Hillary can’t win, regardless who she runs against. She is much too polarizing and even most women won’t vote for her. She is an embarrassment to females everywhere and to most democrats. Obama can win if given the chance. Giuliani can beat Hillary because she is as much a dick as he is and no matter how many times she changes she too well known. Most Americans are still in love with Giuliani and don’t know he’s a dick because most people don’t follow politics like we do. The best bet is Fred Thompson, President Thompson is a winner for sure.

The only Americans “in love with Giuliani” work for the conservative commentariat. The Magic Negro can’t win; political polls are the only thing less honest than politicians.

But the silliest idea is the notion that a man who can’t even decide if he wants to run for president or not can defeat a woman who is perfectly willing to devour alive every puppy and kitten who happens to find itself in between her and the Cherry Blossom Throne.

And at a younger age, no doubt:

A much-anticipated report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class — and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade.

The effect was slight, and well within the normal range for healthy children, the researchers found. And as expected, parents’ guidance and their genes had by far the strongest influence on how children behaved.

But the finding held up regardless of the child’s sex or family income, and regardless of the quality of the day care center. With more than two million American preschoolers attending day care, the increased disruptiveness very likely contributes to the load on teachers who must manage large classrooms, the authors argue.

I think we’re getting close to the point where it could be demonstrated that putting your child in public school led directly to devil worship and cannibalism and complacent parents would still argue that a) their local school is excellent and has some really great teachers, b) Satan isn’t really all that bad, and c) at least the kids are getting some protein in their diet.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Carton and Mr. Rossi started “Operation Rat a Rat/La Cucha Gotcha,” a listener-participation game that encourages people to turn in friends, neighbors and “anyone suspicious” to immigration authorities.

They introduced the segment with mariachi music and set the campaign to end on May 5 (Cinco de Mayo), a well-known Mexican holiday.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the phrase “La Cucha Gotcha” is meant to evoke the Spanish word for cockroach. Here in New Jersey, where 15 percent of the population is Hispanic, reaction to the show has not exactly been positive.

Not that the immigration authorities would do anything about it, of course. Now, it probably wasn’t the intention, but the only thing I find appalling about this story is that 15 percent of New Jersey is already Hispanic. I look forward to the horror that all of the people who boast that they are so morally superior as to be colorblind will experience when they finally realize that third world people neither subscribe to their liberal ideals nor have any intention of abiding by white European norms.

Perhaps they’ll enjoy living in the barrio. But whether they do or not, they’ll definitely deserve it.