Our Warm and Fuzzy Litigious Society
This sets a new standard.
A couple, aged 83 and 78 respectively, are suing their upstairs neighbor for bathing too early in the morning.
h/t Overlawyered via Coyote Blog
Yawn
Joe Gandelman looks at the Cheney retirement rumor mill. I really couldn’t care less if the Veep retires before the ‘08 election cycle or not. From the day he was elected with Bush he made it clear that he wasn’t going to run for president. If Karl Rove believes that a sitting vice president makes the best possible presidential candidate, Cheney will step aside and someone else will be brought in. Where’s the controversy?
One Real Fact in Today’s Zogby Poll
Forget all the statistics contained in the Zogby poll released today which purports to show that 72% of U.S. troops in Iraq say the war should end this year. It’s all suspect as far as I’m concerned. Yet, this paragraph stood out to me as important:
Different branches had quite different sentiments on the question, the poll shows. While 89% of reserves and 82% of those in the National Guard said the U.S. should leave Iraq within a year, 58% of Marines think so. Seven in ten of those in the regular Army thought the U.S. should leave Iraq in the next year. Moreover, about three-quarters of those in National Guard and Reserve units favor withdrawal within six months, just 15% of Marines felt that way. About half of those in the regular Army favored withdrawal from Iraq in the next six months.
So, what’s the one real take-away fact from this poll?
Reservists and National Guard troops are wimps.*
Marines rock.*
End of story.
Others: John Hawkins on another bogus poll – CBS’ Bush Approval Rating – “For political purposes, any poll that doesn’t use likely voters and doesn’t have a breakdown of party affiliation that’s at least roughly similar to the numbers from the last election isn’t very important or useful.”
(*My statement on the abilities of a segment of our armed services is as valid as the results of the poll itself. Lighten up.)
Port Deal: Gettin Tougher Every Day
Over the weekend, the Bush administration agreed to hold off execution of their contract allowing Dubai Ports World to manage 6 US ports for 45 days so federal investigators could take another look at the deal in light of potential risks to national security. Since then, more damaging information has come to light adding to the pile of existing damaging information which leads one to ask the question – why take 45 days? Everything seems to point to the fact that this deal is not only dead, it’s deader than dead. But that’s where it gets interesting. Even though the matter has been on high boil for more than a week now, President Bush continues to support the transaction.
Bush suggested there was no reason to think the second investigation would produce any different outcome than the first.
“I look forward to a good, consistent review,” he said as he and Berlusconi alternated in taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office.
He urged Congress to “please, look at the facts.”
“What kind of signal does it send throughout the world if its OK for a British company to mange the ports but not a company that has been secured — that has been cleared for security purposes from the Arab world?” he said.
I understand his point about the double standard, even though I think his example is a bit flawed. Wouldn’t we trust Britain quicker than a country with a history of harboring terrorists? But, I digress…
If after 45 days this 2nd investigation shows that the first looksee failed in some way, will Bush backtrack? Will he be forced to? Will this be a case where the political aspirations of a Congress facing mid-term elections get in the way of a President who needs war time cooperation from an Arab country?
I doubt it.
Bush isn’t the type to react to short-term political consequences when compared to long-term national security matters. If you believe that the UAE port deal is a safe one for the US, as the president clearly does, then you’ll stand with him as he bucks all arguments and uses his VETO pen as previously threatened to make sure the deal goes through. No matter the political cost, Bush will put long-term security issues ahead of anyone’s political career, and that includes Republicans.
And you know what? I respect him for that.
Unseen. Unforgotten.
Treasures still exist.
Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News.
The photos had been in a box marked: “Keep. Do Not Sell.” But at the time they were taken, the newspaper didn’t want to draw attention to the racial discord of the 1950s and 1960s, news photographers from the period said.
“The editors thought if you didn’t publish it, much of this would go away,” said Ed Jones, 81, a photographer at The News from 1942 to 1987. “Associated Press kept on wanting pictures, and The News would be slow on letting them have them, so they flooded the town with photographers.”
Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News.
Several photos vividly show the segregation in the South at the time, including the disparity among school buildings and the different lines for blacks and whites, even at the jail as the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth posts bail after an arrest.
Others show confrontations: a police officer shoving a demonstrator, black children hit with the spray of a firehose, crowds heckling demonstrators on their knees, Freedom Riders being arrested, and whites throwing bricks at cars and blocking blacks from entering “whites-only” areas.
One photo shows a Ku Klux Klan rally with men wearing hoods but their faces uncovered. Others show National Guardsmen with their guns drawn, protecting a bus in one and rounding up rioters protesting a black student’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi.
Some of the unpublished photos are online, here.
NYT on Bolton
All I can say is, has a certain geographical place, way way deep underground, suddenly froze over?
When it comes to reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission, America’s ambassador, John Bolton, is right; Secretary General Kofi Annan is wrong; and leading international human rights groups have unwisely put their preference for multilateral consensus ahead of their duty to fight for the strongest possible human rights protection. A once-promising reform proposal has been so watered down that it has become an ugly sham, offering cover to an unacceptable status quo. It should be renegotiated or rejected.
Yeah, that’s the New York Times. It must have been a hard one for them to swallow, especially when the focus of their praise is someone like John Bolton, the recess appointee anointed by the great satan they call George W. Bush.
Strange days indeed.
My Eyes!! Oh, My EYES!!!
This is wrong, very wrong.
“OK, Gimme That Burger”
After 11 days, Saddam gets hungry and calls off his hunger strike.
Dennis Weaver, Dead at 81
Weaver died today from cancer. He was probably best known as Sam McCloud in the TV Series ‘McCloud’ which ran from 1970 to 1977. He started his career much earlier though.
Weaver was a struggling actor in Hollywood in 1955, earning $60 a week delivering flowers when he was offered $300 a week for a role in a new CBS television series, “Gunsmoke.” By the end of his nine years with “Gunsmoke,” he was earning $9,000 a week.
When Weaver first auditioned for the series, he found the character of Chester “inane.” He wrote in his 2001 autobiography, “All the World’s a Stage,” that he said to himself: “With all my Actors Studio training, I’ll correct this character by using my own experiences and drawing from myself.”
The result was a well-rounded character that appealed to audiences, especially with his drawling, “Mis-ter Dil-lon.”
At the end of seven hit seasons, Weaver sought other horizons. He announced his departure, but the failures of pilots for his own series caused him to return to “Gunsmoke” on a limited basis for two more years. The role brought him an Emmy in the 1958-59 season.
In 1966, Weaver starred with a 600-pound black bear in “Gentle Ben,” about a family that adopts a bear as a pet. The series was well-received, but after two seasons, CBS decided it needed more adult entertainment and cancelled it.
I’ll remember Dennis Weaver best as a guy being chased by a truck in the Steven Spielberg movie ‘Duel’.
I was very young when I first watched this made for TV movie. What freaked me out the most was the ending…the truck going over the cliff, the door swinging open, and the question – Did the driver get out? Is he still on the loose?
Good stuff.
Dear Hillary
The Tampa Tribune runs an editorial column today directed at Hillary Clinton which begs her not to run for the White House in 2008. Here’s the meat:
If you run for president, chances are good that you’ll secure your party’s nomination. But realistically, how do you think you can win the White House? You are the most polarizing figure in the Democratic Party, and your negatives among likely voters are prohibitively high. Many people simply don’t trust you. You may share your husband’s name, but what people liked about him is not transferable to you.
That’s about right. Hillary surrounds herself with some pretty smart people. That’s not the problem. The issue is, her people don’t know how to stand up to her, so they become worthless as influencers. Husband Bill is just as worthless, for the same reasons. He owes Hillary. It doesn’t matter if she can’t win. He’s fully enlisted and already at work.
Hillary is the only one who can react to the pleas of others in her party who don’t want her to run. If she respects their opinion, she won’t run. If she thinks they don’t know squat, she’ll run. It’s that simple.