(h/t: TPM)
Friday, January 23, 2009
Why My TV Is Still In Storage, Part MMMDCCLXXVIII
I forget who I said this to, but a day or two ago I said I was pretty sure I'd heard of someone on some cable yakfest saying, before the Inauguration, "Is it too soon to ask if the Obama Administration is a failed administration?"
Was probably during the Blagojevich hysteria. Anyway ...
Please Make It Stop
CNN just informed me that Obama hasn't yet taken any action on most of his campaign promises.
-Atrios 08:33
Blog Post Title of the Day
New blogger DougJ at Balloon Juice:
Millions for blowjobs but not one cent for torture
Another day, another online chat with a Washington Post reporter who opposes investigations of the Bush administration …
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Happy 25th!
In honor of Apple's silver anniversary, CNET has a slide show of, um, 23 shots of Macs through the ages.
Numerological FAIL aside, it's kind of fun.
Not All My Vexes Live In Texas
Just because George W. Bush was safely bundled out of town doesn't mean there aren't still people inexplicably being given money to share what passes for their thoughts. Case in point: Megan McArdle, paid (!) by The Atlantic (!!) to blog.
Someone who may or may not* be named Lemuel Pitkin once called McMegan "weapons-grade stupid."
Lemuel was being polite.
Fortunately, we have Glenzilla:
Not letting abject ignorance interfere with opining
There are times when the glaring ignorance one encounters from people who are paid to write about political issues is so severe -- so illustrative of how distorted and misleading our political discourse is -- that it's impossible to ignore even though one would really like to. Let's just spend a moment marveling at this paragraph written yesterday by The Atlantic's Megan McArdle, the sum total of her commentary on Obama's suspension of military commissions at Guantanamo:
Yes you should read the whole thing. And pay attention to what he has to say about Glenn Reynolds, too.
(h/t: Instaputz)
* Why we're suspicious. Good online handle, though.
[Added] And dammit. I should have take a screenshot of that classic comment. It lived on for a while after Yglesias moved on from the Atlantic to Think Progress, but more recently, it looks like the Atlantic changed over to the Disqus commenting system, and managed to lose all of the earlier comments in the process. One wonders which Galtian was the sysadmin for that "upgrade."
I Call Upon Greater Wingnuttia ...
... to read the recent post by Michael Crook, and if you share his emotions, please, join him in his pledge.
I'll risk the hit to the economy from the Cheetos sales slump.
(h/t: Righteous Bubba)
Maybe It's Just Me ...
... but this line from a story about the anti-choicers' annual gathering in Washington, D.C., provoked mental images that were, to put it politely, Bacchanalian:
Most of the young people participated in a massive sleepover last night at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception …
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"
Here's a cartoon that the Center for American Progress emailed me this morning.
Here's video of some of the important first steps of the repair work, posted by Jed just a few hours ago:
To Close Guantanamo, Forbid Torture
• The title of this post is from Barack Obama's Inaugural Address.
• NYT article on the Executive Orders signed today.
• [Added] The executive orders are now available on whitehouse.gov.
"Oaf of Office"
How I wish I'd thought that up. Kudos to the NYT headline writer or maybe to the columnist.
Surprisingly, it's not a look back at the Bush years.
Instead, it's Steven Pinker getting all linguistic on Chief Tightass Justice John Roberts, seizing the Inaugural opportunity to soundly thrash the split infinitive fussbudgets. A delight.
Remember ...
... when you read this that Ace of Spades is the Conservative Political Action Committee's Blogger of the Year. Really.
Class always tells. Especially the low kind.
__________
[Added] Link updated to be year-specific. Who knew that they'd have more than one of these?
Change We Can Do Believe In
What watertiger said.
Full text of the Executive Order is on that great new website, whitehouse.gov.
Oh, and there's another good one there, too.
First day at work: canceling a Bush Executive Order regarding presidential records secrecy and an ethics pledge that must be signed by everyone who works in the Obama Administration.
Leading. On day one.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Door, Ass, And So Forth
Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, calls attention to the Seed magazine "exit interview" of Bush's Science Advisor, John Marburger.
If you read the whole interview, and you've been paying attention for the past eight years, I think you'll agree that he could have been harsher.
Marburger calls the view that the Bush Administration was anti-science "an urban legend." He insists that the culture of science in America, compared to eight years ago, is "virtually unchanged." He plumps No Child Left Behind as a positive contribution to addressing the problem of scientific illiteracy in this country. But perhaps the clearest illustration comes in this exchange:
Seed: Did you see President Bush ever change his mind based on the scientific evidence that you presented him?
JM: As far as I can tell, the president, as a matter of principle, doesn't think it's wise to defy nature. By the time I've arranged a presentation about something for the president, all science questions have been resolved. And he expects it. He would probably fire me if I permitted a science question to leak into his briefings. I'm there to make sure that his advisors and his agencies have consulted with the science community, and that all the science issues have been taken care of before anything gets to him.
Yeah, that's what we needed -- someone else strengthening the bubble around Bush and enabling his pathological lack of curiosity.
Good riddance to you and your ex-boss, Mr. Marburger.
Your Moment of Awww [Updated]
Swiped from Dependable Renegade's watertiger:
(enlarge)
Look at that little face.
[Update] Replaced picture at link with larger version.
View From Above
Coolness: a zoomable, draggable, double-clickable satellite photo of the crowd at the Inauguration yesterday. Go see. (Be patient when you see the black rectangle -- it takes a short while for the image to load.)
(h/t: Joel Achenbach)
[Added] Via Bob Cesca, a large static shot from a similar vantage point.
What's The Matter With Kids These Days?
In my day, we held lighters up at rock concerts.
(enlarge)
Stay the hell off my lawn, you camera-phone-obsessed young punks.
;^)
The above is a screen grab from a video taken of the Obamas at last night's Youth Ball. This video is posted on the new Daily Kos TV site. Go give that sight some love -- it was put together by Jed of the eponynous Report, and he's a good man.
My Cynicism Is Beaten
Doghouse Riley on Cheney in a wheelchair at yesterday's inauguration:
If I didn't know better I'd swear he did it just for the satisfaction of taking someone else's handicapped space.
First Day at Work
A couple of shots taken by Pete Souza, the official White House photographer, swiped from a slide show currently on the home page of nytimes.com. [Added: And also available here.] Click to enlarge.
I still have to keep pinching myself.
Picture This
Swiped from Oliver Willis:
I would like to imagine that, moments after the above was taken, the picture in the left hand was summarily torn to shreds.
On a related note:
Hours after taking office on Tuesday, President Barack Obama ordered military prosecutors in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals to ask for a 120-day halt in all pending cases.
And on another:
David Iglesias -- the former US Attorney who was fired in 2006 for failing to prosecute politically motivated cases as aggressively as the Bush administration and its allies wanted -- has a new job.
Iglesias, a member of the US Naval Reserve JAG corps, has been reactivated as part of a special prosecution team for Guantanamo detainees, he told a New Mexico news station this morning.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Whoa
And speaking of the new White House website, Andrew Sullivan points to the civil rights agenda page.
Among other delights, over half the bullet points are devoted to "Support for the LGBT Community," including, among many other things, support for full rights of civil unions, a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, and a repeal of the military's policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
It would have been nice to see out-and-out support for same-sex marriage, of course, but other than that, this page is impressive.
New Home
Screen capture of the top part of the home page of whitehouse.gov, from a few minutes ago:
(enlarge)
Hard Not To Cackle
How's this for a perfect symbol?
Dick Cheney apparently hurt his back moving boxes, the NYT reports, so he will attend the Inauguration ceremonies in a wheelchair.
First thing I think of is the portrait of Dorian Gray. That's quickly replaced by the suspicion that his back really gave out from bending over the shredder.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Olbermann Review
If the earlier numbers didn't do it for you, here's KO's more vivid take: "Eight Years in Eight Minutes."
(h/t: Bob Cesca)
Must Hear Radio
Monday's edition of Fresh Air features two interviews, the first with Congressman John Lewis, the second with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Lewis I'm sure needs no introduction. Coates, if you don't know, is someone you should. At the risk of using the A-word with respect to a black man, he is one of the best I've ever heard at articulating his generation's views on race. He has lots to say on other topics, too. You can read his blog on the Atlantic's site.
Both of these guys are well worth listening to, and it's really something to hear their two perspectives. You can stream the audio from the page at the above link site; if you want a direct download, you can subscribe to the Fresh Air podcast right on the same page.
Countdown Clocks
I was tempted, but I never put one of those Bush countdown clocks up on this blog. Betty Cracker appears to have read my mind explaining why not, which is pretty amazing, given that I never thought I'd articulated it that well.
A Couple From Hendrik
On the off chance that you're not a regular reader of Hendrik Hertzberg's blog, here are a couple of quick posts to lure you into the habit: one criticizing dogmatic centrism, and one recommending Tom Geoghegan, who is running for the Congressional seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel (who will be Obama's Chief of Staff, if you've forgotten).
I'd tell you how to pronounce Geoghegan's name, but I don't want to step on Hendrik's line.
Looking Ahead
Andrew Sullivan's column in the Sunday Times (of London), "Can Barack Obama fix it? Yes he can," is a good read. There's a bit of fanboyism, but mostly it stays realistic.
By The Numbers
Harper's Index looks at the Bush years. As well done as you'd expect, which is to say: devastating.
(h/t: Owen Thomas/Gawker)
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