Friday Open Thread
It’s Friday and it’s time for your open thread. Let’s thread it up!
Really, there’s literally nothing that the right can do to get the media to question their integrity. Right now, Liz Cheney is orchestrating a smear campaign against some lawyers in the Justice Department who wrote briefs in favor of habeas corpus for detainees. Cheney’s group calls them the “Gitmo 9.” Wolf Blitzer, like the obedient tool he is, covered it on CNN. Check out the chyron:
Everything’s o.k. if you add a question mark at the end.
Michigan representative Bart Stupak is threatening once again to blow up the health care bill over abortion funding. He managed to pass an amendment to the House bill that basically outlawed insurance companies that participate in the health care exchange from offering abortion coverage. The margin of error in the House is very small right now and Stupak claims to have about a dozen former yeses who will vote no if he doesn’t get his way.The House is trying to work with him:
So, what are the options? The preferred approach is to make the case to Stupak and his allies on the merits — the Senate compromise language, endorsed by center-right Dems who oppose abortion rights, already does what Stupak & Co. want, which is to prevent public funding of abortion. Given that Stupak’s arguments seem to stray from reality already, reason may not win him over.
The approach Democratic leaders broached yesterday was trying to find another compromise.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday that lawmakers could draft separate pieces of legislation with abortion language to earn the support of anti-abortion rights Democrats on healthcare reform legislation. […]
“Separate pieces of legislation could be passed that would relate to that,” Hoyer told reporters after a meeting with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) “That’s a possibility. I talked to Mr. Stupak today, and I’m going to be talking to him next week and he indicated he wanted to have some discussions with people. And I will do that.”
Striking a deal would itself be tricky. Abortion language isn’t budget related, so it’s unlikely to work in a reconciliation fix. What Hoyer seemed to be describing was a third bill — (1) health care reform, (2) the “sidecar” reconciliation measure, and (3) a measure related to abortion funding.
Stupak’s talking points are extremely dishonest, but it shows you the power of people who are willing to kill the bill over their pet issues.
Tags: Open Thread
Multi-disciplinary failure Theo Gregory sends students to 9th & French for their recess:
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100305/NEWS03/100305018/Moyer-students-rally-in-Wilmington
Kudos to the State Board of Education for adhering to standards in face of Theo’s once-thriving clout. The cash-strapped City of Wilmington admits without unembarrassment that it gave $650,000 to this outfit for a new gym.
Charter schools are no panacea:
http://www.samefacts.com/2010/03/uncategorized/chester-finn-on-charter-schools/
The only ascertainable charter school “success” story in Delaware is a pair of schools that leverage free rent from Red Clay and private-school entrance exams to skim from ten other high schools. Geez, even Theo could win with that stacked hand.
Full Episodes
Eric Massa (d-ny) will resign his office on Monday at 5Pm. Politico reported the House Ethics Committee was investigating him over harassing an aide! Damn NY has become a political sewer!
One of my tweets was used by the Huffington Post today. I suggested that the title of a Sarah Palin reality show could be “Facebook the Nation”. It was selected, along with 6 others. Check it out here, and vote for me if you like…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/sarah-palins-reality-show_n_487162.html
Here’s ole Rahm again! Obama “advisors” are nearing a recommendation regarding Khalid Sheik Mohammed, to prosecute him in a military tribunal, reversing Eric Holders plan to try him in civilian court in NYC.
Can you believe these lame ass leadersless democrats can’t follow through on any of their own convictions. The repukes scream and dems fall to their knees. Even Bush used Criminal courts to try these people. What is going on in the White House, who are these ADVISORS?
Is 9:30 am recess? The kids were out protesting from 9:30 to 11:00.
Your Friday Open Thread is my Family Dinner Table:
1) The Andes gained 2 feet in elevation because of the earthquake? Did UI already address this?
2) Please elaborate on the law professor at GW or Georgetown hoax that invoked Justice Roberts name as an object lesson for his students…my kids loved it…and I see no mention here.
Lee Jennings (the lead historian for the Delaware State Parks system) died yesterday. If you or your children have ever had an awesome experience with Delaware history at one of our historic sites (especially Ft. Delaware’s interpretation program) you owe it to him.
He was also a really nice guy.
Hey Joanne, yes we did talk briefly on the effects of the earthquake, just mentioning in passing that the land rose briefly, but this leads to a really cool story that I just heard today.
On NPR‘s Science Friday show, a geophysicist discussed the Chile earthquake. Anyway, he told a story about how Charles Darwin is the father of modern geology.
When Darwin was on the Beagle journey, a huge earthquake occurred in the same place as the recent Chile quake. Several weeks later, Darwin went on the land and noticed a horrible smell – it was the smell of dead animals. What he noticed were the dead animals were shore creatures that depended on the tide to nourish them. He reasoned that the land must have risen and that’s why they had died, they no longer saw the tide. With further reasoning, he deduced that this was how mountains formed. And even more, he figured out that the earth must be very, very old because this process was rather slow.
Listen to the segment at the link. It’s quite cool!
Here is good link on the Roberts rumor story. It’s quite an interesting story!
As far as what I think about it, I think this may be life in the age of Twitter. It’s like the internet on steroids. A lot of information can get out to a wide audience very quickly and unfortunately, a lot of that information may be false.
UI–you must’ve been at the dinner table–this is EXACTLY what we talked about. (Darwin)
The land rose “briefly”, that I knew you mentioned apparently is now a 2 foot elevation–according to my 17 yo expert at the dinner table. Should I ground him for lying?:)
And again the Roberts rumor story for dessert–thanks for the link….
I wonder about the Roberts rumor story – was he delighted with the outcome or chagrined? I wonder if he thought it would go as far as having media contact the Supreme Court to ask if it’s true.
All of the geologists and geophysicists I work with are gobsmacked by the Chilean event and in how much data is so publicly available on this. I heard the Science Friday show and loved Stein’s story on Darwin, but that may be at odds with the story of William Smith. No matter — Winchester is an excellent writer about how discoveries happen and all of the books of his I’ve read have been incredible.
Everyone is marveling at the fact that this geologic event was enough to shorten the day, but geologic events can lengthen it too. Engineers and geologists involved with the Three Gorges Dam in China speculate that if the reservoir ever gets completely filled, it will be enough to add a fraction of a microsecond to the day and shift the earth’s axis too.
The NPR interview indicated that it shortened the length of a day by approximately 1/1,000,000 of a second, if my recollection is correct. Interetsing, but hardly significant. Just imagine how much time would have to pass before it added up to a single second, let alone one minute. YIKES. Now that is interesting.
DL, It.Is.Time.
for the 2nd annual School Board DL online candidate forum. Deadline to file was 3/5/2010 at 4:30PM EST. Here is the link: http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/pubsch.shtml#schoolelec click on district for candidate list. Happy Blogging!
Oh, don’t worry, John. We’re on it.
A quick thought. I never had kids and so I’ve never been much interested in school boards. But, as any realtor will tell you, the quality of the schools impacts on property values. So school board performance matters, even if you don’t have kids in school. And, of course, there’s the more direct link between school boards and taxes. School boards impact our pocketbooks as well as the students. It’s worth paying attention.
Oh and, thanks Joanne!
John Manifold @12:33
Your a-hole is such an unpleasant sight. Please refrain from showing it here.