links for 2009-09-30
LA Times: Congress' own healthcare benefits—membership has its privileges
Every member of Congress is a member of a federal healthcare program that is provides what appears to be the best health care in the United States. It runs them just $503/year. Preexisting conditions? No such thing. A doctor's visit is $20. A prescription is $10. Coverage [...]
A fifth Republican packs into the anti-Perriello clown car.
It’s a Wednesday, and you know what that means: yet another Republican who wants to run against Rep. Tom Perriello, Albemarle resident Michael McPadden. (Note that’s four out of five who are from north of the James.) He appears to basically be a clone of most of his fellow challengers. He’s a blogger. Here’s a [...]
links for 2009-09-29
New York Times: Should You Give to Harvard?
Randy Cohen argues that it's unethical to donate to Harvard.
(tags: ethics charity education)
Reuters: Gay couples as fit to adopt as heterosexuals—study
A study of 1,400 couples throughout the U.S. by East Carolina University has found that the sexual orientation of adoptive parents has absolutely no effect on their kids' [...]
Cuccinelli: Shannon was once in the same room with a guy who knew a guy who was a communist.
This is one of the most bullshit* press releases I’ve seen to come out of a statewide campaign this cycle. This is from the Cuccinelli campaign:
Shannon Attends Seminar to Learn to Sue Employers
- Shannon’s Largest Contributor Teaches to Litigate “Environmental Agenda -
RICHMOND – Democratic candidate for attorney general Steve Shannon attended the Fall Policy Conference [...]
links for 2009-09-28
Bruce Schneier: Ass Bomber
Uh-oh. Some guy tried to assassinate a Saudi prince by stuffing a bomb up his ass. Now, an internally-mounted bomb is a pretty ineffective means of accomplishing anything other than blowing yourself up, but now that it's been done, this presumably means that the TSA will entertain the notion of full rectal [...]
Del. Bell is warping the minds of our children!
Delegate Rob Bell is speaking to elementary school students in Albemarle County! Indoctrination! Evil government lecture kids unsuspecting no parental approval badness!!!1111!!!!ELEVEN!!!!
Or, y’know, whatever it was that Republicans said when President Obama had the temerity to address school kids a few weeks ago. That.
More on McDonnell’s invented $500M from ABC privatization.
Further to Bob McDonnell’s plan to fund transportation, given the Post’s discovery of some deeply misleading math, see if you can follow this logical jujitsu in McDonnell’s plan. Tracing back this bit of the plan to its origins, the Wilder Commission report concluded:
We estimate that the dollar amount that could accrue from these streamlinings, outsourcings [...]
The Post has highlighted McDonnell’s fuzzy transportation math.
The Washington Post editorial board, having read Bob McDonnell’s transportation plan, doesn’t like what they see:
Much of the plan relies on wildly optimistic assumptions, brazen exaggerations, gauzy projections and far-off scenarios: budget surpluses and revenue growth that may not materialize; interstate tolls that the federal government may not approve; royalties from offshore oil and gas [...]
links for 2009-09-26
Berkshire Eagle Online: Mass. court rejects criminal side of teen curfew
Massachusetts' highest court has struck down Lowell's youth curfew, rightly finding that it violates their first amendment right to "peaceably assemble" (or, in modern parlance, "hang out"). The ruling was unanimous. I hope to see the Supreme Court take on this matter eventually.
(tags: constitution curfew [...]
links for 2009-09-25
CJR: Katie and Diane—The Wrong Questions
Katie Couric's salary exceeds the combined budget of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
(tags: journalism news business)
Forbes: Virginia Remains Best State for Business
That's rough timing for Bob McDonnell's campaign, since it goes a long way towards neutralizing his argument that the state's business environment would fare better under a [...]
“Don’t be like that, baby. I’ll get you DMB.”
John Edwards, giving it his all for the 2009 World’s Biggest Bastard award, courtesy of the New York Times:
In the proposal, which The New York Times examined, [former Edwards aide Andrew] Young asserts that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and [his mistress] Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. [...]
links for 2009-09-18
Journalist's Guide to Firearms Identification
A handy guide to how journalists identify various firearms in their reporting.
(tags: journalism humor)
The Flint Journal: James M. Pouillon criticizes father, slain pro-life activist
The son of the recently-murdered pro-life activist (for reasons apparently unrelated to his activism) says that his father didn't care about abortion. He simply had "a pathologic hatred [...]
Cuccinelli logic fail.
*facepalm*
Sen. Deeds is pulling even with McDonnell.
A trend has emerged in the last couple of poll results: Sen. Creigh Deeds is pulling even with Bob McDonnell. Clarus research group’s poll came out a few days ago, showing McDonnell 5% ahead of Deeds, much closer than Deeds had been. But who is Clarus? I have no idea. So I ignored it. But [...]
“Mass hysteria” at the Deeds/McDonnell debate.
During today’s debate between Sen. Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell, I was awfully surprised to see this appear on McDonnell’s Twitter feed in the midst of it:
@CreighDeeds confuses audience, mass hysteria ~staff #vagov
Mass hysteria? Whatever Deeds had said, it had left the audience throwing chairs, pulling each others hairs, weeping openly, screaming, running around in [...]
links for 2009-09-17
Sports Shooter: The Lessons of Lindsay
The story of a recent VCU graduate who lost all four of her limbs from an infection after relatively minor surgery. As engaging and inspiring as the story is, the story *behind* the story is just as good. Author and photographer Matt Mendelsohn published this on the Sports Shooter website, [...]
Eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” won’t close our budget gap.
Jim Bacon on both gubernatorial candidates’ promises to slim down the state budget by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse”:
But we’ve been down this road before. Does anybody remember the “Warner commission”? Does anyone recall that Virginia, for all the flaws so manifest to us who live here, has been consistently rated either No. 1 or [...]
links for 2009-09-16
Fox News Punked By ACORN
This is awesome. Some Republican activists tried to make some low-level ACORN staffers look dumb on hidden camera, but the staffers turned it around on the activists. One ACORN staffer even pretended to confess to killing her husband. The activists took that right to Fox News, who breathlessly and at great [...]
links for 2009-09-15
New Zealand Herald: Maori legend of man-eating bird is true
There's a generations-old New Zealand story of eagles so big that they would kill and eat humans. It turns out they really did once exist, and not all that long ago.
(tags: science bird paleontology)
New York Times: Toxic Waters-Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in [...]
Cordel Faulk will pass on challenging Perriello.
Cordell Faulk is not running for the Republican nomination against Rep. Tom Perriello. Good move. His candidacy would have been awkward for Larry Sabato’s Center for Politics, for whom he’s spokesman. (Though NBC 29 describes him as the “former spokesman,” which is news to me.)
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Waldo Jaquith (JAY-kwith) is a website developer and political pundit who lives in the vicinity of Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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