Friday, January 23, 2004

Weekend Update Lead: Rose to sign books at gambling casino

Tina Fey would be remiss if she did not use this headline as an example of legitimate news outlets putting her out of business.

Same Old Thing

Sam Malone appears to need do some fundraising. How better to gain some West Side money then try and take away the rights of women to pay for medical procedures. Now of course the procedure is an abortion, the most polarizing political issue of the modern area. Malone and DeWine both new they would loose, but they have to please the anti-abortion contributors with at least a symbolic gesture that everyone knows will not stop abortions. All it would do is hurt women. Controlling and hurting women seem to be an obsession for anti-abortion activists.

I knew Malone was supporting discrimination against homosexuals with his support of a lawsuit trying to remove the recent hate crimes ordinance. What I did not know was the Malone was a theocrat ant-abortionist. I thought he was at least hands off on the abortion issue, not making much of it, but instead he wishes to govern the city by voting as his religious dogma tells him he must vote. How Nice. This has been a week full of theocratic Republicans. Bush, Ohio GOPers, and now Malone are trying to impose religious beliefs on the populace via secular law.

WMD-Related

Rob Bernard points out that Bush's use of the term "WMD-related program activities" in the SOTU was used in the Kay Report. I can't disagree. The problem is that it does not absolve Bush of playing language creep. Kay may be his excuse now, but what was Bush's excuse when he said right here in Cincinnati that Iraq had (have at that point) in their possession. One might wonder why Bush would lift that quote from the report anyway. It is a horrible sound term. It sounds like what John Stewart might think up to make fun of Bush's SOTU. I guess Bush was just cutting out the middleman.

Computergate?

Kevin Drum points out a startling up tick in the severity of the alleged computer hacking by Republican senatorial staffers on Democratic computers. It appears that over at least a year a series of memos from Senate Democrats and their staffers were stolen and then leaked to the media, namely Bob Novak, or used as talking point fodder.

This act is theft. This act is as big as Watergate. Obviously it is not involving the President, but in this case it can be proven that what was stolen was used to smear the Democrats. Add in Plamegate and media SHOULD be in a frenzy. For some reason they are sitting on their hands. Hmmm

CT Fun

We had a great time at the Oakley After-5 Walk with Cincinnati Tomorrow. I was very pleased to finally meet Wes Flinn face to face and have a nice chat about blogging. I hope Wes can make it out to more walks.

Shout Out: Through the grapevine last night I head that councilman David Pepper either has read or reads the blog. I will just say Hey!

Enquirer Sued by Former Music Critic

The Enquirer has been sued by former music critic Larry Nager for unfair treatment and age discrimination. Nager was fired January 9th (3 days before me) and was allegedly he was "not aggressive" and "did not do his job."

One radio report stated that Nager's lawsuit link the "demotion" of former TV & Radio critic John Kieswetter to a West Chester beat reporter.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Irony?

A white South African immigrant student promoted himself for an African-American Student award given only to black students at a Public School. He was suspended for putting up posters in school with his picture on them.

Why would a public school give an award only among one race at a public school? Did putting up posters without permission violate school policy? If it did he deserved the suspension, if not, then why was he suspended? Criticizing bigoted or racist polices of schools is something we should encourage in our students.

[Via the 800-pound gorilla]