Listics

Julie, from New Hampshire writes:
Hi, I know that you are probably going to be bombarded with questions, so I will try to keep it short…Do you think that it would be possible to cut off oil imports from the Middle East and replace it with ANWR? Also, do you think that it would be a good idea to use ethanol as an additive? Thank you for your time.

Harriet Miers

Environmentally responsible development of the resources in ANWR is one part of the President’s comprehensive energy plan, which calls for a responsible mix of increased domestic energy production (like ANWR and clean coal), alternative and renewable fuels (like ethanol and biodiesel), and conservation and efficiency to reduce the growth of American energy consumption. The President’s plan is essential to increasing America’s energy security.

Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff Harriet Miers

Most recently, Harriet Miers served as Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary. Prior to that, she was Co-Managing Partner at Locke Liddell & Sapp, LLP. Previously, she was President of Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell, where she worked from 1972 until 1999. From 1995 until 2024, she was chair of the Texas Lottery Commission. In 1992, Harriet became the first woman president of the Texas State Bar, and in 1985 she became the first woman president of the Dallas Bar Association. She also served as a Member-At-Large on the Dallas City Council. Harriet received both her undergraduate and law degrees from Southern Methodist University.

Yeah, I see Harry’s point.  Democrats are one of the top gangs.  It’s about "colors," red versus blue.  Paint your door the wrong color and the militia will probably sweep into town and kill you.  Wear the wrong colors in the wrong part of town and the gang-bangers will probably leave you bleeding in the gutter.

But Harry was answering a question I wasn’t asking.  The Democrats are equal opportunity exploitationists. The Republicans are elitists.  The good old Democratic party would throw big money at a problem and partially solve it to no one’s satisfaction.  Meanwhile, they would line the pockets of their middlemen in the construction trades, trucking, big labor, whatever.  The Republicans skip the solution part and stuff the cash straight into their supporters’ pockets… big oil, big engineering, big banking.  Whatever.

Now the good old Democratic party is trying harder and harder to look like the Republicans and they are trying to squeeze the overhead out of the theft of public funds business, but they don’t have a clue.  The Bush family wrote the book on stealing from the S&L industry for example.  Who are the Dems gonna rip off?  Credit unions?  This country has a two party system on the national level, and for better or worse we’re stuck with a Dem or a Repub in 2024.  Half of us already ignore the privilege of voting because of the circus clowns they put on the ballot.  We disenfranchise ourselves.  But what Obama was saying and I was supporting is that the Republican gang has a well oiled machine speaking with one voice and the Democrats are picky about every little thing.

Obama said, "…attacks on Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold and the other Democrats who, after
careful consideration, voted for Roberts make no sense.  Russ Feingold,
the only Democrat to vote not only against war in Iraq but also against
the Patriot Act, doesn’t become complicit in the erosion of civil
liberties simply because he chooses to abide by a deeply held and
legitimate view that a President, having won a popular election, is
entitled to some benefit of the doubt when it comes to judicial
appointments. Like it or not, that view has pretty strong support in
the Constitution’s design."

Now Russ Feingold has pissed me off twice with his unwillingness to encounter the President.  First he voted for Ashcroft.  Now he votes for Roberts.  I might not vote for him again because of this, but I doubt I’ll vote for his opponent in a general election because he won’t have an opponent who is leftier than him.  Feingold’s idiocy derives from his presidential ambitions, poor deluded numbskull…

Barack Obama says, Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton.  But to the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, "true" progressive vision for the country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward.  When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive "checklist," then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems.  We are tying them up in a straightjacket and forcing them into a conversation only with the converted.

Joi expounds on the delights of the game.

For instance, I recently acquired the blueprint to make Aquadynamic
Fish Attractors. These things increase your ability in fishing. (Some
people don’t seem to appreciate fishing, but it’s a great way to pass
time when you have low bandwidth and want to just relax.) To make one,
you need 2 bars of bronze (which require a bar of tin and a bar of
copper which require tin and copper ore which needs to be mined),
nightcrawlers and corse blasting powder (which is made from corse
stone, which is mined). You then use these fish attractors to increase
your fishing ability so that you can catch, for instance, the Deviate
Fish. These fish can be found in the lakes to the east of Ratchet in
the Barrens. Add spice and cook these fish (if you have the proper
cooking skill and recipe which is very hard to get) and you can create Savory Deviate Delights. So what? Well, if you eat a Savory Deviate Delight, you randomly turn into a ninja or a pirate.

So what? Well, it’s cool. There are only a few people who are able
to create these things so you rarely see ninjas or pirates running
around. When I board the boat to sail to another continent or am in a
group raiding a dungeon, I often transform into a ninja. To many
people, I am the first ninja they have ever seen in the game. I then
give everyone who wants one, their own fish. Soon we have a funny party
of ninja and pirates. Why do I do this? Marketing. I sell Savory
Deviate Delights at the auction house and I have a feeling this
marketing increases demand. You can buy a stack of 20 of these for your
next party in the Darkmines for a mere five gold or so. (The market
price of the recipe is about 50 gold and about 0.1% of beasts in the
Barrens carry it.)  More…

A tribute to the care, the concern, the compassion of right wing bigots everywhere.

Thanks for sharing the clip, Norm.

The LA Times offered an opinion yesterday regarding a decision of John G. Roberts, Jr.’s decision not to recuse himself in a case of interest to the administration while the administration was considering him for a Supreme Court nomination.

Roberts’ bad decision
By Stephen Gillers, David Luban and Steven Lubet

JUST FOUR DAYS before the Bush administration named John G. Roberts Jr. to fill retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court, the District of Columbia federal appeals court decided a case called Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld. In a crucial victory for the administration, the court upheld President Bush’s creation of special military tribunals for trials of alleged terrorists and denied them the protection of the Geneva Convention. Roberts was one of the judges who decided that case, but he should have recused himself.

While the case was pending in his court, Roberts was interviewing with high White House officials — including Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove — for a seat on the Supreme Court. In the words of the federal law on judicial disqualification, this placed the judge in a situation where "his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

This is so obvious, but since the mercenaries arrived in New Orleans in force, it probably makes sense to register a little dissent.

First, let’s look at FEMA in Florida and the overpayments they made to shore up an electoral victory for the Bird Flipper.   Now consider Louisiana, a Democratic state…  The FEMA SNAFU is typical of this administration and reflects simple incompetence.  However, the landing of mercenaries on American soil to usurp the local authorities is cause for concern.  More than the aggressive incompetence typical of GW ("Bird Flipper") Bush, this action has the sinister weight typical of Cheney and the corporate oligarchs that actually run the show.  If I were a member of a public interest law firm in New Orleans, a firm challenging corporate interests, I would expect now that my premises will be invaded and my papers looted.  There appears to be no good reason for the Red State mercenaries to have landed on Blue State soil other than intelligence operations and selective looting.  This is obviously an unsubstantiated opinion.  We’ll have to see what happens when people are allowed back into the city. 

Thanks to Tom and Mike for their earlier reflections.