Unconventional Wisdom

I just watched O'Reilly talking to Sen. Chris Dodd

I'm like wow. I didn't see the whole interview, but while Billy O was arguing with the Democrat from Connecticut about the DailyKos website comments it seemed that the Senator was legitimizing it. And when the Senator was talking about Billy O said about San Francisco and Al-Qaeda, he couldn't even get that right!

Dennis Miller tore him a new one afterwards apparently. He was eavesdropping on that interview. Miller was disappointed that Billy O didn't slap the senator backwards. Though it was great to see O'Reilly get on the Senator for his statements with regards to what Billy O said and when and where.

Miller and O'Reilly boiled it down to how the Senator was going to the Kos Convention in Chicago and was going to get pats on his back because he stood up to O'Reilly. And the Senator made the mistake of not knowing what he was talking about.

Labels: politics, TV

Posted by Levois on Thursday, August 2 at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

Netroots' site gains political force, and foes

DailyKos has been in the news recently. Or more accurately The O'Reilly Factor because of the hateful language used on their website and the fact that a convention that they were supposed to have was sponsored by some big time companies. One of them Jet Blue Airlines was singled out with a news camera and producer sent to confront their CEO. As a result of this encounter Jet Blue removed their sponsorship of this DailyKos convention.

Anyway Daily Kos is mentioned in a column in today's Chicago Tribune. They make no mention of the comments that were made there though...

Trying to get your arms around Daily Kos is like trying to wrap them around a blimp as it inflates -- an apt analogy because Kos, as a political Web site, features no small amount of hot air.

The site is a sort of blog on steroids, a writing collective that can be daunting to first-time visitors in its presentation of hundreds of thousands of fresh words daily, most of them espousing a left-of-center, politically progressive viewpoint.

It is the inspiration for and intellectual wellspring of the Yearly Kos convention, the second edition of which opens in Chicago on Thursday. Featured speakers will include Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Coming on the heels of the largely successful "YouTube debate," the convention should draw intense national media attention.

Daily (and Yearly) Kos are the current targets of Fox News Channel video tiger Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly has Kos -- named for founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga -- in his scope for, it seems, becoming powerful enough to draw the likes of Clinton and Obama, but also for exemplifying the Internet, a technology promising hierarchical change that is threatening too much of O'Reilly's core, older audience.

That fight, which has seen O'Reilly trying to characterize Kos based on the most inflammatory comments he could find there, earned the site the tacit endorsement of Stephen Colbert. On his Comedy Central show recently, Colbert pretended to side with O'Reilly by telling people not to visit Daily Kos, even as he put the site's address, www.dailykos.com, up on the screen.

"There is no single political Web site that has greater impact," says Micah Sifry, editor of techpresident.com, a site tracking how the presidential candidates are using technology and the Web. "It is a collaboration engine. It is a hive of concerted activity that goes way beyond what you see on the front page."

And Yearly Kos, he contends, in addition to becoming the default convention for the "netroots" (grass roots via the Web) political movement, may be rising up to take the place of the old, now-defunct, midterm political conventions. It's sold out at 1,500 registered attendees, organizers say, with another 250 people getting media credentials, and C-SPAN and CNN planning to televise Saturday's Democratic presidential candidate forum live.

"The community is not just an online hub, but now it's a physical hub that's attracting every top Democrat," Sifry says. "It's like a big state fair where everyone comes to connect and mingle."

Jeff Jarvis, the blogger (buzzmachine.com) and Web thinker, sees Kos as a demonstration of the Internet's ability to build coalitions.

"Give incredible credit to Kos for being the kingmaker that he is, and opinion leader and organizer and all that," Jarvis says. "I also think we need some caution about projecting too much power onto" Kos and the netroots.

"Kos is an important force, but it's only one force," Jarvis says.

Labels: blogs, link, new media, news

Posted by Levois on at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Pork at issue in doughnut franchise row

Well we should always respect a man's religious beliefs, but why stay in a business that requires you to handle pork products. This man might need to consider getting another franchise instead of sticking with what he already has. From today's Chicago Tribune...

Every day for nearly 30 years, Walid Elkhatib has sold doughnuts. Glazed, chocolate frosted, Bavarian Kreme and other varieties. As a Dunkin' Donuts franchisee, he expanded the menu to include breakfast sandwiches, such as egg and cheese bagels.

But he drew the line at serving sandwiches with sausage, ham or bacon because his Muslim faith forbids him from eating or handling pork -- a departure from company policy that led Dunkin' Donuts in 2002 to threaten it would take away his two Chicago-area franchises.

So for five years Elkhatib has been waging a legal battle against the Boston chain claiming racial bias, not religious discrimination. The federal court of appeals in Chicago last month reinstated the case, blurring the lines between religion and race.

"What is life without dignity and your beliefs?" said Elkhatib, a 57-year-old Arab who was born in Jerusalem and came to Chicago in 1971.

Elkhatib's case highlights the ongoing challenges businesses face in dealing with increasingly diverse workplaces. For instance, Islamic dietary restrictions, dress and grooming requirements and the five-time-daily prayer vigil have become sources of friction.

Muslims have filed thousands of complaints of workplace discrimination in recent years, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. In one high-profile case in 1999 the federal courts found that the Newark Police Department's no-beard policy discriminated against two Muslim police officers. Companies have become more accommodating of the religious practices of Islamic workers, setting aside quiet rooms for prayer and allowing women to wear the hijab, or loose-fitting clothing that includes a head covering.

For years Dunkin' Donuts made exceptions for Elkhatib, even providing him signs for his restaurants that read "No meat products available," he asserts in court documents.

The company introduced breakfast sandwiches in 1984, five years after Elkhatib bought his first franchise, which he later sold.

"That's why I bought a Dunkin' Donuts, because I never had to handle pork or alcohol [also forbidden under Islamic dietary laws]," said Elkhatib, who drove a bus before going into business for himself.

In 1995 he opened his second franchise in west suburban Berkeley, and three years later followed up with one in Westchester. His total investment in those two restaurants was $580,000, court documents said.

His franchises consistently received positive reviews for cleanliness, hospitality, marketing and product quality. His supervisors raised no objections to his refusal to sell pork sandwiches, he said in court filings.

But Dunkin' Donuts reversed course in 2002, Elkhatib said. That year, according to court papers, he had discussions with the corporate real estate group about the possibility of relocating his store in Westchester to a busier intersection. But the company later rejected the plan when Elkhatib refused to sell breakfast sandwiches with pork at the new location.

In August a company lawyer followed up with a letter telling Elkhatib that his two franchises would not be candidates for renewal when those agreements expired. Dunkin' Donuts said in court papers that the decision was made because company policy "requires franchisees to sell the complete line of approved Dunkin' Donut products."

A company spokesman declined to comment for this story because the case is pending.

Labels: business, religion

Posted by Levois on at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments

Roberts Checks Out of Hospital

When I first heard this news all I guess the news wires knew was that he fell. Then when the network evening news came on they talked about how he had seisures in the past and it led me to conclude that apparently he had a seisure. I'm not an ardent follower of the Supreme Court, but I'm certainly glad he's not in bad shape.

From the Chicago Tribune again...

Chief Justice John Roberts walked out of a hospital in Maine Tuesday, released a day after he suffered a seizure. The White House said he told President Bush he was doing fine.

Roberts strode briskly out of the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, wearing a blue sport coat, open collar shirt and slacks. He waved to onlookers before getting into a waiting sports utility vehicle.

The chief justice, 52, plans to continue his summer vacation, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. She said that doctors found no cause for concern after evaluating Roberts.

Roberts was hospitalized after he fell on a dock near his summer home on Hupper Island, near Port Clyde, Maine. He had a prior unexplained seizure in 1993. Bush had called Roberts earlier Tuesday, and press secretary Tony Snow said that the president was assured the chief justice was doing well.

Snow said that Roberts "sounded like he was in great spirits."

Doctors who examined Roberts after his seizure said they found no tumor, stroke or any other explanation for the episode.

Snow told reporters that the White House had been aware of the previous seizure when Bush nominated Roberts to the nation's highest court. The seizure did not prevent Roberts from getting a clean bill of health at the time, recalled a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the expected release of more details by the White House.

By definition, someone who has had more than one seizure without any other cause is determined to have epilepsy, said Dr. Marc Schlosberg, a Washington Hospital Center neurologist who is not involved in the Roberts case.

Whether Roberts will need anti-seizure medications to prevent another is something he and his doctor will have to decide. But after two seizures, the likelihood of another at some point is greater than 60 percent.

Labels: people, politics, supreme court

Posted by Levois on Tuesday, July 31 at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments

New generation of activists re-form 1960s Students for a Democratic Society

I often listen to Rush Limbaugh who often talks about how the left in this country continues to play from the same playbook. Well this story should clinch it. From the Chicago Tribune...

In the newspaper photographs, they are frozen in time confronting police, taking to the streets, staging teach-ins and leading universitywide strikes. Now gray-haired, these members of the original Students for a Democratic Society are teachers, artists and activists. As they look at a new generation of student activists, they see changed circumstances but a similar struggle.

Forty-five years ago, students gathered in Port Huron, Mich., to draft a statement of principles around which the SDS would organize. This past weekend, the new SDS' four-day national convention opened in Detroit.

Tom Hayden, who wrote the Port Huron statement and is the author of a new book, "Ending The War In Iraq," said the most obvious differences between then and now are the absence of a military draft and that, until 1971, the voting age was 21. That meant that 18- to 20-year-old men could be sent to fight in Vietnam but could not voice their opinions at the ballot box.

"You can't imagine what it is like to feel like everyone on your campus was going to be drafted and here was a war that didn't make any sense," Hayden recalled of the campus protests four decades ago. With an all-volunteer military force, there have been few '60s-style street protests even as polls show that a majority of Americans has turned against the Iraq war.

Hayden said he gets e-mails almost every week from students who are writing papers about the Port Huron statement as a historic document. But former SDS members said that doesn't mean that the anti-war sentiment animating the SDS has receded into history, just that today's circumstances are markedly different.

He said that as the '60s activists grew old enough to vote, they saw many of the politicians and public figures killed that they believed would have brought changes in American policy. "We gradually overcame our disenfranchisement as young people only to be disenfranchised as the top leaders who could have been elected were killed," he said.

President John F. Kennedy, who Hayden said might have ended the war, was assassinated in 1963, as were Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968.

Students involved in today's SDS are certainly opposed to American involvement in Iraq, but, like their SDS elders, are focused on broad societal change.

The new SDS, announced in 2006, says it has 265 registered chapters. Beth Blum, who recently graduated from Drew University in New Jersey, said she joined out of a desire for a network of like-minded people who were more focused and less frustrated than the anti-war movement.

"People get frustrated with the anti-war movement because there is no visible change," she said.

Blum and others also cited the new SDS' broad agenda. Pat Korte, one of the founders and a student at The New School in New York, said he hopes to create "a long-term vision of what a better society could look like," and he ticked off a list of problems he sees: capitalism, racism, sexism, patriarchy. "We wanted to put forth a vision that would replace the institution that would keep producing these horrors," he said.

Mark Tribe, an artist who teaches at Brown University, organized a re-enactment last Thursday on the National Mall of a 1965 speech by then-SDS President Paul Potter. The re-enactment was part of an art project that came out of Tribe's surprise over the lack of anti-war protests on the Brown campus. "In the middle of a war that my students say they oppose, the campus was quiet," he said.

His project, he said, is not aimed at increasing activism but at finding a way to express his own reaction to the Iraq war and to the differences between now and the protests of the 1960s and early '70s, which he vaguely remembers attending with his parents. The re-enactment attracted about 30 people, but Tribe said he thought it was effective in echoing the frustration felt by 1960s activists before the anti-war movement evolved into national protests.

Labels: activism, news, war

Posted by Levois on at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed

I was watching Meet the Press yesterday morning and I'm not sure what to make of the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Yeah he seemed to be very crafty with his answers. More like contenuous to the point where even I'm starting to wonder if he knows what he's doing. Is it the right thing to do to give a hostile Congress some more ammunition to hammer an already battered administration.

I like President Bush, but I don't know why he won't just get rid of this guy. I know the President is a loyal guy and will be dragged kicking and screaming before he jettisons someone from his administration, but Gonzales' performance at Congressional hearings so far just have to leave much to be desired.

If there was one guy who was considered incompetent by some in the MSM it was Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense. I liked him, too bad he can't continue in the role, but he always gives you the best answer he can. Gonzales isn't even close.

Of course I think someone discussed that Gonzales is running interference for President Bush and his battered administration. Well I can believe that, but who knows if I can take that suggestion seriously. Then again after the Attorney General has done his job protecting the Bush administration, then I guess the President can jettison him.

I don't know but all I can ask you to do is read this Washington Post article and come to your own conclusions.

Labels: Congress, people, politics, presidency

Posted by Levois on at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments

Hazmat Scare Closes D.C. Metro Stations

If you read this story then you might see this as an overreaction. Besides, I'm subscribed to an ABCNews e-mail list and all I saw was that some DC Metro stations were closed because of some dead birds. Here's a piece of the story...

Two Metro train stations were closed Sunday while hazardous materials crews investigated a number of dead birds and a substance at one that was identified as a commercial rat poison.

The Greenbelt station on the Green Line in suburban Maryland and the Takoma Park station on the Red Line in the city were closed, said Cathy Asato, a spokeswoman for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

There were as many as 20 dead birds outside the Greenbelt station and one to three outside other stations, Asato said. The Anacostia and Naylor Road stations on the Green Line also were affected.

Investigators determined the substance at the Greenbelt station was d-Con rat poison, said District of Columbia Fire and EMS spokesman Alan Etter.

"We suspect very strongly that it's the same chemical at the other stations," Etter said.

He said investigators were looking for a person in a black pickup truck who witnesses saw spraying the material.

"Metro will have to figure out if this person works for them or is a contractor or what," Etter said.

No injuries were reported.

Labels: news, transportation

Posted by Levois on at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

More government control not health-care answer

If you read my other blog, It's My Mind, you'll find that one frequent topic of discussion is health care. Well this would get some play there, but why not discuss this issue over here.

Yeah the article is from an Illinois newspaper serving the state capitol (link from my favorite Illinois politics blog The Capitol Fax), but some good points are made here...

Sometimes the advocates of socialized medicine claim that health care is too important to be left to the market.

That's why some politicians are calling for us to adopt health-care systems such as those in Canada, the United Kingdom and other European nations. But the suggestion that we'd be better served with more government control doesn't even pass a simple smell test.
Do we want the government employees who run the troubled Walter Reed Army Medical Center to be in charge of our entire health-care system? Or, would you like the people who deliver our mail to also deliver health-care services? How would you like the people who run the motor vehicles department, the government education system, foreign intelligence and other government agencies to also run our health-care system? After all, they are not motivated by the quest for profits, and that might mean they're truly wonderful, selfless, caring people.

As for me, I'd choose profit-driven people to provide my health-care services, people with motives like those who deliver goods to my supermarket, deliver my overnight mail, produce my computer and software programs, assemble my car and produce a host of other goods and services that I use.

There's absolutely no mystery why our greatest complaints are in the arena of government-delivered services and the fewest in market-delivered services. In the market, there are the ruthless forces of profit, loss and bankruptcy that make producers accountable to us. In the arena of government-delivered services, there's no such accountability. For example, government schools can go for decades delivering low-quality services, and what's the result? The people who manage it earn higher pay. It's nearly impossible to fire the incompetents. And taxpayers, who support the service, are given higher tax bills.

Our health-care system is hampered by government intervention, and the solution is not more government intervention but less. The tax treatment of health insurance, where premiums are deducted from employees' pretax income, explains why so many of us rely on our employers to select and pay for health insurance. Since there is a third-party payer, we have little incentive to shop around and wisely use health services.

There are "guaranteed issue" laws that require insurance companies to sell health insurance to any person seeking it. So why not wait until you're sick before purchasing insurance? Guaranteed issue laws make about as much sense as if you left your house uninsured until you had a fire, and then purchased insurance to cover the damage. Guaranteed issue laws raise insurance premiums for all. Then there are government price controls, such as the reimbursement schemes for Medicaid. As a result, an increasing number of doctors are unwilling to treat Medicaid patients.

This website FreeMarketCure.com gives us videos about the run-down of the Canadian health care system. So this article breaks out this fact...

Before we buy into single-payer health care systems like Canada's and the United Kingdom's, we might want to do a bit of research. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute annually publishes "Waiting Your Turn." Its 2006 edition gives waiting times, by treatments, from a person's referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist. The shortest waiting time was for oncology (4.9 weeks). The longest waiting time was for orthopedic surgery (40.3 weeks), followed by plastic surgery (35.4 weeks) and neurosurgery (31.7 weeks).

As reported in the June 28 National Center for Policy Analysis' "Daily Policy Digest," Britain's Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients waits more than a year for surgery. France's failed health-care system resulted in the deaths of 13,000 people, mostly of dehydration, during the heat spell of 2003. Hospitals stopped answering the phones, and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves.

I just found out that this article was written by Economics professor and frequent Rush Limbaugh guest host Walter E. Williams. So this sure is a must read and I'm glad I did.

BTW, I should mention in Illinois right now the state government is headed towards a shut down as state Democrats who are in control of both the governor's mansion and the state legislature seem unable to come to an agreement on the budget. Gov. Rod Blagojevich wanted to have a gross reciepts tax to fund a major health care program and has been pretty single-minded about getting there.

His proposal went down in flames in the Democratic controlled Illinois House of Representatives. Since the governor seems very unwilling to compromise on the issues of health care and education the legislature has been in overtime ever since. Worse still though while gridlock might have got a gross reciepts tax stuck in a rut, there might still be a tax increase of some type for the purposes of government operations even if the governor never gets his health care program.

Finally Dr. Williams says the quote that I really agree with along the lines of that I have no problem with people advocating socialism, but the problem is when they attempt to drag everybody into socialism with them.

Labels: health care

Posted by Levois on at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments

Hillary Outflanks Obama

I missed this interesting debate last night on CNN where everyday people submit questions to the Democratic candidates for President thru YouTube. But here's some anaylsis with regards to Clinton v. Obama...

FOR HILLARY CLINTON, the presidency is not in the bag. Even winning the Democratic presidential nomination is considerably less than a sure thing. But of the 18 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, Clinton is the most likely to be the next president. And she did nothing last night in the bizarre presidential debate in Charleston, South Carolina, to alter that.

Clinton managed to maintain at least the outward appearance of seriousness in a debate that included a taped question from someone dressed as a snowman, another from a sanctimonious Planned Parenthood official who asked if the candidates had talked to their kids about sex, and an especially silly one about whether the candidates would be willing to be paid the minimum wage as president. Most of them lied and said yes.

This was the first of six debates sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. Based on this one, there's a long and tedious season of yakking ahead in the presidential race. With You Tube providing the questions and the candidates offering special one-minute commercials, the idea was to make last night's debate livelier and more fun. Often, though, it was merely unserious, excessively cute, and frivolous.

There was a key moment, however, and once again it pitted Clinton, the New York senator, against Barack Obama, her counterpart from Illinois. The question was whether they'd promise to meet in the first year of their presidency with the leaders of such enemy nations as Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

"I would," Obama said, foolishly showing his inexperience, and perhaps his naivete as well, in foreign affairs. After all, he said, President Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and still talked to Soviet leaders. "I think it's a disgrace we haven't talked" to leaders of the five anti-American countries, Obama said.

Clinton benefited from getting to answer after Obama, and she made the most of it. She said, firmly and coolly, that she wouldn't promise to meet with them. Clinton said the new president had to be careful not to be exploited by hostile leaders for propaganda purposes and not to do anything "that would make the situation worse." Before any meeting, she'd have to know "what the way forward would be."

The verdict on whose answer was better, Obama's or Clinton's, came from John Edwards, the next candidate to speak. He echoed Clinton.

Get it together Sen. Obama!

Labels: 2008, democrats, presidential race

Posted by Levois on at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

How to deal with suspicious behavior on an airliner...

I have to say that over on PW and on the PW clones as of late there have always been people who railed against Islam. Unfairly I would often think because often I don't look at the religion as the problem, but it's just the people who believe in that faith seemed messed up. Still I hate to hear about how Arabs or Muslims are singled out as terrorists and yes I mean those who are essentially innocent.

I know we live in times where we can't be sure what a person's motivation is, but I think it does no good to give in to your fears about some people. Even if I suppose these people resemble the people who piloted planes into buildings and cost about 3,000 people their lives almost six years ago. Still I would rather not cause a panic unless I find some obvious suspicions other than their language, mode of dress, or even customs of prayer.

I say all this to bring this article by Evan Coyne Maloney at Brain-Terminal.com to your attention. Read up because if you have suspicions about the people you're traveling with this is how to go about it. If you have to report someone at least have some good logical reasoning for it. Not merely because of their ethnicity.

Of coure Maloney also notes that even if these guys were behaving suspiciously and were about to engage in criminal activity, they will sue you for even reporting them. Even worse there was a bill that should protect citizens from such lawsuits but that bill was killed by the Democratic Congress. Hmmm, I wonder why American citizens don't have the right to be protected from lawsuits by some suspicious people?

Labels: justice, terrorism

Posted by Levois on Friday, July 20 at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

This Blogger page might go bye-bye...

I just watched O'Reilly talking to Sen. Chris Dodd

I've got it working

Netroots' site gains political force, and foes

Pork at issue in doughnut franchise row

Roberts Checks Out of Hospital

New generation of activists re-form 1960s Students for a Democratic Society

Check out ZombieTime.com...

Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed

Sunday in the Park with Mama Sheehan

Hazmat Scare Closes D.C. Metro Stations

Hmmm,

Libertarian Purity Test

Sen. John Kerry's attempt at a joke...

More government control not health-care answer

If you missed last night's debate...

Hillary Outflanks Obama

Well I'm halfway there

Wordpress is too much work

Guess what I did tonight

How to deal with suspicious behavior on an airliner...

Radio Host Tears Into "Offended" Muslim

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