By The River

Last Friday, while many Americans were engaging in "Black Friday" shopping and seeing how many pounds they gained from the Thanksgiving feast the day before, six Sunni Iraquis were dragged from their mosque by Shiite militia men, doused with kerosene, and set afire, apparently in retaliation for a bombing the day before that killed 200 Shiites Iraqis. You can read the Associated Press account here.

This story has been attacked by the U.S. miliary and its amen chorus in the rightwing blogs, which I find very disturbing. Not that the Army shouldn't speak out if they truly believe a story that makes the U.S. effort look like hell is wrong, but that the military appears to be coordinating with rightwing blogs in the U.S. As a journalist, I can tell you the AP is highly professional and appears to have confirmed this story six ways to Sunday.

Posted by David at 07:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some stories about anti-gay paranoia are so absurd they take the breath away. This is one of them. An illustrated children's book, And Tango Makes Three, is under attack from conservative Christians in the Midwest who object to school libraries making the book freely available to children because of the "homosexual undertones" of two male penguins living together in Central Park Zoo and raising a female penguin chick, Tango. Based on a true story, Roy and Silo are given a fertilized egg to raise as their own by a sympathetic zookeeper who had observed their futile efforts to create an egg of their own.

In Shiloh, Ill., a mother was reading the book to her child when she reached the part about their same-sex relationship and stopped dead. Closed the book. No one was going to force her child to read about the "homosexual lifestyle." You have to understand that conservative Christians are taught that being gay is a sinful choice, not something you're born with, like blue eyes. They're wrong, and science has proved them wrong, but read on. The mother raised her concerns about the book to the school, where a teacher-parent committee recommended moving "And Tango Makes Three" to the mature shelf for reading with parental permission only. To her credit, superintendent Jennifer Filyaw refused, arguing in effect that she runs a school for everyone, not just the Christian Right.

To complete the absurdity of the story, conservative Christians are now celebrating that Roy and Silo have split up after Silo took up with a female penguin recently arrived from the San Diego Zoo. As a psychology professor at conservative Grove City College in western Pennsylvania put it, Silo is the first "ex-gay" penguin.

And now, back to reality.

Posted by David at 06:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

NBC News has joined the Los Angeles Times in changing its description of the sectarian violence in Iraq. For NBC News, it is now officially a civil war. The blog TV Newser has some of the background details, although you'll have to scroll down a post or two to find them.

Fox says it won't use the term, but other networks may now have cover to do what's right. They have apparently been reluctant to use the term in the face of White House refusal to call the Iraq conflict a civil war. The reason is obvious. If a civil war is going on, why are U.S. troops in the middle of it? Which dog do we back in the fight? And why do we care?

Posted by David at 09:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tweezum, twizum, twazum, twome, time for this one to come home...

Thanks to the London Daily Mail for this entertaining photo of Bush and Vladimir Putin in Vietnam. Apparently the Tri-Wizard Tournament was held in Ho Chi Minh City this year. Daily Show tonight?

Posted by David at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our most incurious President has finally landed in Vietnam, the country he was quite desperate to avoid visiting in the 1960s when the Indochina War was raging. The New York Times reports that Bush has shown little interest in meeting the Vietnamese people or in doing anything outside the script his handlers prepared for him. Why? Has Karl Rove determined that showing friendliness to the Vietnamese would offend the religious right, or perhaps the Swift Boat bitter enders who believe the war could have been won?

Or perhaps he was determined not to do anything in Vietnam that the Great Satan, aka Bill Clinton, did during his Presidential visit. Any way you cut it, Bush is an embarassment to the United States.

Posted by David at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's a safe bet that no one like Segolene Royal could get elected President of the United States, but President of France is another matter.

Ms. Royal is a 53-year-old, unmarried French mother of four who is stunningly attractive, a real babe, and may well become the next President of France. A protege of former French President Francoise Mitterand, she has just been nominated by the Socialist Party, one of the two large political parties in France, to face off against the right's candidate, Nikolas Sarkozy, Interior minister in the current government of President Jacques Chirac.

And no, she wasn't the "other woman" in the famous Mitterand funeral picture that depicted his widow and mistress standing side by side. That picture astonished many Americans, but the French reacted to it with a shrug.

Ms. Royal (American journalists will have to both learn how to pronounce her name and do accent marks on their computers--I left them off her first name--if she gets elected) has come up through French politics and is a graduate of one of the famous French universities that prepares civil servants to run the country. She is the same age as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and no lightweight. Probably to the dismay of feminists, she has been willing to use her femininity to appeal for votes. She is said to be the fantasy mother of many French men and women alike: pretty and kind. How many female politicians in any country have paparazzi angling for bikini photos on the beach?

If you look at the photo of her in the Times photo in the story linked above, doesn't the woman holding the microphone on the right side of the photo resemble Monica Lewinsky? For Royal, it's on the first round of French voting next spring.

Posted by David at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This just in: Toys for Tots, the annual charitable program run by the Marine Corps Reserve, has reversed its decision not to accept 4,000 talking plastic Jesus action figures from One2Believe, an evangelical Christian group in Los Angeles. The religious right has triumphed. Sure makes up for the Republicans losing the Congress.

I would have loved to have been secretly listening to the arguments that must have gone on yesterday at Toys for Tots headquarters. The initial decision by the group not to accept the Jesus figures for fear of offending non-Christian parents whose kids got the talking Jesuses was the correct one, but obviously there were greater issues at stake here. Just goes to show that these skirmishes in the liberal War on Christmas can turn in a heartbeat.

Now imagine you're the kid who gets the talking Jesus, and your brother gets the soccer ball.

Posted by David at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here it's only Nov. 14, and we already have the first skirmish in the phony "War on Christmas" supposedly being mounted by liberals everywhere.

One2Believe, an evangelical Christian group in Los Angeles, offered to donate 4,000 talking plastic Jesus action figures to the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program. The plastic Jesus figures recite Bible verses, including some particularly dear to evangelicals such as the warning to Christians that they must be born again to enter Heaven. Toys for Tots, headquartered in Quantico, Va., thought about it for a long time and decided to turn them down. The reason? They don't have any way of knowing whether the children who receive them are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or atheist. Toys for Tots understands that America is now and probably always has been a land of many faiths.

Anyone who believes that the offer of the talking plastic Jesuses was an innocent gesture by One2Believe should go to the group's website, where you will see their proud goal of telling 50 Bible stories to 10 million children by the end of 2007. I don't have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with aggressive, in-your-face proselytizing, especially to impressionable children.

Some evangelicals say that such proselytizing is an integral part of their faith, and any attempt by schools, businesses, or government to place reasonable limits violates their freedom of religion. In a few cases, evangelical groups have argued that public school efforts to end gay bashing through tolerance codes violates their "right" to preach that being gay is an abomination to the Lord. The same goes for businesses or government agencies which try to protect the privacy rights of non-believers or even other Christians who simply don't buy the extreme beliefs of the evangelicals, there being a wide spectrum of Christian belief.

There was a time when a line existed that evangelicals didn't cross. They might hand out tracts but they didn't use a bullhorn. Some still observe that zone of privacy, but too many now see such niceties as surrender to the Devil.

Liberals can at least be thankful it was the Marine Corps Reserve and not Americans for Democratic Action that rejected the plastic Jesuses. But expect Fox News commentators Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson to take up the cry that Christmas is "under siege" once again. Happy holidays to all.

Posted by David at 09:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the "Independent Democrat" from Connecticut, is now saying he might caucus with the Republicans if the Democrats aren't nice to him and let him play with all their favorite toys. If he does, that would return the Senate to Republican control until 2009.

Posted by David at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The last time I saw Democratic Congressman John P. Murtha was in Centralia, Pa., in the late winter of 1983. He had come to look at the damage being caused by the Centralia mine fire, and I was covering his visit as a reporter for the Shamokin News-Item. Murtha was chairman of the House Interior Appropriations Committee, which I didn't fully appreciate at the time. Murtha is from Johnstown, Pa., and lots of Congressmen and state legislators from the coal regions were making the trek to Centralia.

Unlike the rest of them, Murtha was in a strong position to tell the U.S. Department of the Interior, which under Secretary James G. Watt had been less than eager to help the people of Centralia, to start spending money to do something about the mine fire. The fire had started in 1962 when a municipal clean-up project went badly wrong, and in 1979 broke through an underground fly ash barrier and began its final assault on this town of 1,000 souls.

Murtha arrived in Centralia with Congressman Frank Harrison and State Rep. Bob Belfanti. They're all in the photo above, along with Centralia Mayor John Wondoloski and Councilman Ken Wagner. That's mine fire steam in the background. Murtha is fourth from the right. The fire, in late 1982, had moved under Route 61 at Centralia and was causing hellacious problems. PennDOT finally closed the highway permanently and rerouted it through the nearby village of Byrnesville. Murtha didn't say much that day that I could hear, but he, Harrison, and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter moved a $42 million appropriation through Congress later that year to relocate all the people of Centralia.

I bring this up, of course, because Murtha is now running for House Majority Leader against U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland. He has the backing of House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, an old friend even though they don't see eye-to-eye on the so-called social issues like guns and abortion. But they do agree on the stupidity of the Iraq War. Murtha spoke out bravely against the war when it wasn't popular or even safe for Democrats to do so. He deserves the job.

Murtha will be seen in "The Town that Was," a feature-length documentary about the Centralia mine fire that will be released next year. Directed by Chris Perkel and Georgie Rowland, the film focuses on one of the 12 or so people remaining in Centralia, John Lokitis Jr., but also includes much about the history of the fire and how it destroyed Centralia (I'm in it too).

Posted by David at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember Rev. Ted Haggard, the Bush spiritual adviser who confessed to buying methamphetamines and having sex with a gay prostitute in Denver? Come on, it's only been a week or two. You can't have forgotten already. Anyway, it seems that the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, the rabidly anti-gay head of the so-called Traditional Values Coalition and other equally homophobic fundamentalist leaders knew Haggard was gay for months before the story broke publicly. Dr. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, has bailed out of the effort announced with great fanfare by a group of rightwing clergy to get the devil out of Haggard and return him to heterosexuality, claiming he just doesn't have the time.

While the Haggard story is crying out to be turned into a novel, the man who could do it best, Sinclair Lewis (author of Elmer Gantry), has unfortunately been dead for some time. But in truth, this story is so good that any hack novelist could probably do a decent job of it. Sheldon and Haggard apparently had conversation in which Haggard argued that homosexuality is genetic--a scientific fact he had publicly denied for years--and Sheldon insisted, no, no, no, it's choice.

If you're reading this in central Pennsylvania, Rev. Sheldon's son Phil lives in Lancaster, Pa., and does rightwing political consulting work for candidates who share the anti-abortion, anti-gay beliefs of he and his father. Young Sheldon is also a past president of the Pennsylvania Republican Assembly, a shadowy, conservative group that bills itself as the "Republican wing of the Republican party." Suffice it say they believe the GOP has strayed from its core beliefs.

Posted by David at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I feel today much the way I did after President Richard M. Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974: relieved, happy, optimistic about the future for the first time in six years. Jon Tester, an organic farmer who is missing the middle three fingers of his left hand from a meat-cutting accident years ago (he does the 'V for Victory' sign with his thumb and pinkie), will be the new Democratic senator from Montana. Jim Webb, war novelist and former Reagan Administration public official, will be the new Democratic senator from Virginia. It is now 51-49 for the Dems. The House, of course, will be comfortably in Democratic hands come January.

I remember the Doonesbury strip that followed the departure of Nixon and the swearing in of Gerald Ford as his successor. It showed the sun rising over the White House and birds singing. Everyone knew what it meant, because just about everyone felt the same way. As Ford put it, "Our long national nightmare is over." So it apparently is today.

I add that cautionary note because unlike in 1974, the same President is in the White House. It is Congress that passed over to the control of the good guys. Or will. Probably. The one remaining danger is that someone like Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut will switch parties, returning the Senate to the hands of the Republicans.

Will that happen? The Democrats pulled it off in May 2001, three months after George W. Bush was inaugurated, by persuading liberal Republican Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont to change his status to independent and, more importantly, to caucus with the Democrats on the organization of the Senate. That returned the Senate to Democratic control until after the 2002 midterm elections.

Jeffords was increasingly at odds with the Bush White House and southern Republicans on tax issues, but the clincher for him was his fear of what Bush would do to the public schools. In other words, he was afraid of the radical conservative changes he believed Bush would be able to push through if the Senate remained in Republican hands.

That same situation doesn't exist today, because Congress will be controlled by the Democrats, the White House by Republicans. In addition, Bush is now officially poison. It seems doubtful that any Democratic Senator will want to make a symbolic embrace of the President given his radioactive status. I actually think it more likely that one of the remaining moderate Republicans, perhaps one of the two female Senators from Maine, will come over to the Democratic Party to save their skins. They don't want to end up like Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island.

Posted by David at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Billings Gazette in Montana says Democratic candidate Jon Tester will declare victory in the U.S. Senate race in Montana at 11 a.m. Mountain time, meaning 1 p.m. in the East. Tester leads incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns by 3,128 votes out of a total vote of 403,239 in the large, but sparsely populated state with only one precinct still out. That brings the Senate tally to 50 for the Democrats, 49 for the Republicans, with only the Webb-Allen race in Virginia left to go.

Burns was hurt by ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a persistent tendency to shoot himself in the foot with dumb comments about groups ranging from firefighters to Guatemalans. He also may have been hurt by the presence on the ballot of a Libertarian candidate, Stan Jones, who drew 10,303 votes. Most of those were probably at Burns' expense, protest votes by former supporters who couldn't bring themselves to vote for the Democrat.

Posted by David at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night, the public decisively repudiated President George W. Bush and his catastrophic administration of our country. Democrats won the U.S. House of Representatives decisively and appear on track to control the U.S. Senate by a slim, 51-49 margin. The South Dakota abortion ban was decisively defeated in a referendum, validating a strategy by Planned Parenthood to avoid a court challenge that could have led to a Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade.

On the downside, several state gay marriage referendums passed. If the Democrats aren't able to keep control of the Senate, they won't be able to stop another extremist like Samuel Alito from being confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And the power of race-baiting to influence elections in the South, even in the 21st century, was proven by the narrow loss of black Democrat Harold Ford, Jr., in Tennessee after a Republican TV commercial implied he hung out with white women.

I would say the worst moment of the evening was the victory of Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut. Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont over his support of the Iraq War and close relations with President Bush. He won as an independent last night with a heavy cross-over vote by Republicans. Lieberman says he will caucus with the Democrats, meaning vote with them, but if the Democrats end up in control of the Senate by a 51-49 vote, you can count on Karl Rove offering Lieberman a major committee chairmanship and various other favors if he switches parties to the GOP. That would leave the chamber divided 50-50, but with Vice President Cheney's tie-breaking vote, it would remain in Republican control.

In Pennsylvania, it was a Democratic night all around. Gov. Ed Rendell handily won re-election over ex-Steeler running back Lynn Swann. Democratic State Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr., decisively defeated U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, the third-ranking member of the Republican leadership in the Senate and a hardcore rightwing conservative. Santorum had become an embarassment to the state, and the voters sent him packing yesterday. He may be back as a Presidential candidate in 2008, fresh from his martyrdom at the hands of moderate and liberal voters. Bob Bennett, who was a commentator on CNN last night, was talking up that possibility while whining that Santorum had been "targeted" by Democrats.

Posted by David at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since I have to work tomorrow, I'm going to sign off for the night with things looking good for the Democrats. I'll wrap things up tomorrow.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, looking quite tired, is telling Larry King how happy he is that Democrats are picking up seats in areas deemed safely Republican. That was Dean's strategy, to compete everywhere and concede nowhere. "We're a national party again for the first time in 12 years," Dean said.

Posted by David at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Democratic consultant James Carville just blamed the Green Party for the fact that Democratic Senate candidate James Webb wasn't further ahead in Virginia. Webb just moved into the lead over U.S. George Allen, but the race is still too close to call. What Carville is saying is that the presence of the Green Party candidate on the Virginia ballot drained liberal Democratic votes from Webb. That does appear to be what happened. The Green Party Senate candidate in Virginia drew 26,000 votes, almost certainly from Webb.

That was a big fear in Pennsylvania earlier in the campaign, but the Democratic Party successfully challenged Green Party Senate candidate Carl Romanelli's nominating petitions and he never got on the ballot. Romanelli's petitions were gathered by a petition firm paid for by money donated by Republicans, including some Santorum supporters. Had he gotten on the ballot, as the Santorum campaign hoped, he very likely would have drained votes from Bob Casey. Liberal Democrats had to swallow hard to accept Casey, who is anti-abortion, but would have voted for the Devil to get rid of Santorum.

They grumbled, though, and if Romanelli had stayed on the ballot, Santorum might have won. Or at least it would have been a lot closer.

Posted by David at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It appears as if the referendum that would impose a near-total ban on abortion for South Dakota women is going down to defeat, 55-45, along with a referendum that would roll back property tax assessments and limit future assessment increases to 3 percent per year.

The abortion referendum is the important one--it was intended to create a law that would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was presumed ready to strike down a woman's right to abortion now that Samuel Alito and John Roberts are on the court. But both measures were put forward by hardcore conservatives, and if indeed they both go down to defeat, it would be a defeat of historic proportions for the right.

I knew the right would eventually overplay its hand. The question was whether we would still have a country worth living in by the time that happened.

Posted by David at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNN just predicted that the Democrats will pick up the seats they need to take over the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994. Nancy Pelosi will become the new Speaker of the House, the first woman to hold that post. Congressman John Murtha of Johnstown, Pa., will at least be in the running for Majority Leader, which will be great for pork. Maybe the state can finally get some of the transportaton infrastructure it needs to move the rural areas of the state into the 21st century.

My old Hope College classmate Pete Hoekstra won re-election as the Republican congressman from Holland, Michigan, but will lose his chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee.

The current House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, has just conceded that the Democrats will take over the House. Hastert would have likely lost his job in any case, having been mortally wounded in the Mark Foley scandal.

Posted by David at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rep. Mike Veon, who was in the Democratic leadership in Harrisburg, conceded defeat not long ago. That's a bad sign for other incumbents in both parties who took the legislative payraise in 2005. Veon was a diehard defender of the payraise, and it looks like he paid the price tonight.

Veon, who I always liked, was a great defender of consumers, especially in the telecom arena.

Posted by David at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Republican Congressman Curt Weldon went down to defeat in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, losing to retired Admiral Joe Sestak, one of the so-called "fighting Democrats." Rep. Don Sherwood, another Pennsylvania Republican congressman, is well-behind in the polls.

Posted by David at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sen. Clinton is on stage with Bill thanking New York voters for her overwhelming re-election. Both she and Eliot Spitzer, who was elected governor of New York, won big tonight. CNN didn't stay with her long enough to see if she says anything about 2008.

Posted by David at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sen. Joseph Lieberman is enjoying his moment of triumph, reciting the various people and groups who supported him. No thanks so far to the Republicans.

Posted by David at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry, couldn't resist. It's true, according to the Washington Post. Now, back to politics and the continuing Democratic sweep.

To make the moment even more bizarre, I just saw a commercial saying how fun it is to raise alpacas. The website is www.ilovealpacas.com. Maybe Kevin Federline can do that after Britney throws him out of the house.

Posted by David at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., called Bob Casey, Jr., at 9:30 p.m. to conceded defeat, which looks to be overwhelming. Santorum was gracious in his public comments.

Santorum was first elected in 1994 in the Republican sweep that year. He defeated U.S. Harris Wofford, the Democrat who had defeated former Gov. Dick Thornburgh in the race to succeed Sen. John Heinz, who was killed in an airplane crash. Santorum was never in the Pennsylvania mainstream. As I always say, Pennsylvania is relentlessly moderate, and Santorum was a hardcore conservative. He should have been defeated in 2000, but the Democratic candidate, Ron Klink, was weak and unexciting.

Paul Begala just reminded viewers that Santorum once compared gay sex to beastiality. Bill Bennett is complaining again that Santorum was "targeted." Carville again says it's all about Iraq, or nearly so.

Posted by David at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, also a Democrat, handily won re-election last night in my home state of Michigan. Stabenow's win was not much of a surprise, but Granholm had come close to being written off for dead a month ago in her re-election bid against Amway heir Dick DeVos, Jr., a rightwing Republican.

DeVos likely lost for a number of reasons, including his opposition to embryonic stem cell research and the fact that he had closed a factory in Michigan and moved the jobs to China, an especially sensitive issue in Michigan. But I suspect the number one reason he lost is because he embraced George W. Bush. DeVos and his family have been major league supporters of Bush since he first ran for President in 2000. This election is turning out to be a greater repudiation of Bush than I had hoped for in my wildest dreams.

The Grand Rapids Press says DeVos carried only people with incomes greater than $150,000 and evangelical Christians who attend church several times a week.

As Democratic consultant James Carville said on CNN a little while ago, this election was all about public hatred of the Iraq War. Paula Zahn just gave the statistics behind Republican Sen. Lincoln Chaffee's loss in Rhode Island. Some 52 perent of Ocean State voters "strongly" disapprove of the war in Iraq, and voted 3-1 against Chaffee despite liking him personally. The victorious Democrat, Sheldon Whitehouse, was almost apologetic about his victory, saying Chaffee was in the wrong party.

Posted by David at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNN has just projected Joseph Lieberman has won the Senate race in Connecticut as an independent. Lieberman lost the Democratic primary earlier this year to Ned Lamont, who campaigned hard against the incumbent Lieberman's support for George W. Bush. CNN says the exit polls results show Lieberman won with Republican votes. He says he will caucus with the Democrats and won't switch parties and become a Republican, but don't be surprised if he does, especially if the Senate is split 51-49 for the Democrats and the Republicans need a party-switcher to retain control with the Vice President's tie-breaking vote.

Lieberman, who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, lost his way over the Iraq War. He was a reliable supporter of the war and Bush, and that is why he lost the primary. The White House repaid the debt by giving tepid support to the actual Republican candidate in Connecticut and speaking out repeatedly about how much they loved old Joe.

Posted by David at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNN, AP, MSNBC, and just about everyone else says Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., has been defeated by State Treasurer Bob Casey, Jr. Bob Bennett, the "Book of Virtues" GOP gambling addict, has just groused that the Democrats "targeted" Santorum. Former GOP Rep. J.C. Watts just called Casey "Sen.-elect Casey."

A great night for Pennsylvania, a great night for the Democrats.

Now Bennett has predicted that the GOP will draft Santorum as their presidential candidate in 2008. Paul Begala is toasting Casey and recounting all the things Santorum said over the years to piss people off.

Posted by David at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This scary accident shows why medevac helicopters must be barred from flying over Shipoke and other neighborhoods in the city of Harrisburg on their way to and from Pinnacle Hospital. The helicopters frequently fly directly over Shipoke. The noise can be deafening, enough to wake you up, but my main concern has always been safety.

According to the Patriot-News story, the Stat-Medevac helicopter landed at 3 a.m. with a poisoning patient from Sayre, Pa., probably the Guthrie Clinic. When the helicopter tried to take off from Pinnacle's rooftop landing pad, he almost immediately lost power and crashed back to the roof.

What if that helicopter had gotten airborne and then lost engine power? Pinnacle has a populated neighborhood along Washington Street just a block south of the helipad, and Shipoke is barely three blocks to the south. He could well have come crashing down into occupied homes. Pinnacle operates this service for public service, but also revenue and, yes, prestige. If what the hospital said when it applied for the service was true, these aren't car accident victims scooped off the highway. They are people coming in for surgery or other treatment that isn't offered at smaller hospitals in the region like the Guthrie Clinic.

If Pinnacle insists on these flights, they need to be routed over the Susquehanna River, not over Shipoke. The overflights have to stop NOW. If that's inconvenient for pilots, too bad. Or they could land at Capital City Airport in New Cumberland and transfer the patients to ambulances for a quick ride across the river. There are several options for this service that do not require the people of Shipoke to risk their own safety for a profit-making venture for Pinnacle.

Posted by David at 06:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few days late, we finally have the Bush Administration's October surprise: the conviction of Saddam Hussein and his sentence to death by hanging. I guess the Saudis wouldn't give permission for the capture of Osama bin Laden, which I have little doubt is the reason he's still at large. So as a consolation prize, we are treated to the ugly spectacle of a trial verdict and a death sentence being scheduled to fit the political needs of George W. Bush. He must think he's back in Texas. I half expected him to do a dance of glee, perhaps twirling a noose over his head while displaying his classic smirk. Does anyone really buy the White House line that it was the Iraqi "justice system" that decided to announce the verdict and sentence two days before the election? It's nauseating that we have sunk so low.

Saddam's a bad guy, no doubt about it. But in the interests of justice and appearances, the U.S. should have turned him over to the United Nations for trial at the Hague, as the Serbian war criminals were. But the Bush regime has shown nothing but contempt for the U.N., so couldn't be expected to allow Saddam to be transferred out of their hands. And to be sure, there are no death sentences at the Hague, only imprisonment. Bush has always taken unseemly delight in executions, such as when he mocked Texas death row inmate Karla Fay Tucker as he denied her clemency.

Europe grew weary of death and executions after World War II, and the death penalty there has been consigned to history. Germany did away with executions when its occupation ended in 1949, and Germans have since shown particular revulsion for the American execution circus. George W. Bush was known best in Germany for the many death warrants he signed as governor of Texas. Back in 2000, when Bush was running for President, a German comedian had a skit in which he portrayed Bush as the owner of a furniture store. One of the chairs in the store was actually an electric chair, and the comedian portraying Bush would seek to lure customers into sitting in the electric chair so he could zap them.

One further surprise that Bush and Karl Rove may have in store is voting machine manipulation. The new computerized voting systems can nearly all be hacked. It has been proven time and again by academic researchers. I've grown concerned enough about this to favor a return to the old-style mechanical voting machines, or even paper ballots. Anything with a paper trail. If the new voting machines can be hacked, they will be hacked by somebody, somewhere.

Posted by David at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Republican hatred for immigrants took a new turn recently with implementation of a requirement that will require illegal immigrants with sick newborns to choose between likely detection as an illegal and critical medical care for their children. I'm not sure what the Mexican equivalent of Sophie is, so I'll dub this Carmelita's choice instead (with apologies to the great American author William Styron, who died yesterday).

Sophie had to choose which one of her two children would die in Auschwitz, and she chose her daughter. The choice haunted her for the rest of her life. Perhaps Carmelita's choice won't be quite that grim, but I suspect many illegal immigrants will not choose to risk detection and being deported back to Mexico, El Salvador or Guatemala. They will try to self-doctor their sick child, perhaps using folk remedies. And the child will never get well, or at least completely well.

Frankly, I don't mind if children of poor illegal immigrants get Medicaid. Given a choice between that and, say, eliminating the estate tax for the 400 or so billionaires it affects, I'll choose helping Carmelita. Call that Dave's choice. And please help to end this Bush madness by voting Democratic at all levels in the election next Tuesday.

Posted by David at 08:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)