Year: 2005

Creating Special Dec. 26 Memories at PR

Trish

The water cooler (as if we had one) discussion at “work” the other night was over the supposed Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays flap much ballyhooed by the Christian police and in which Pres. and First Lady Bush have taken a stand abandoning Christmas. The consensus (almost) was that it’s ridiculous for Jewish people to mind being told to have a “Merry Christmas.” Right.

I noted that our company will be closed Monday, Dec. 26, which this year is the first days of both Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, although it has nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional Christian holiday. Everyone was silent for a moment, then agreed that whatever you want to call it, they’ll be happy to take the day off.

We at Pensito Review took a poll of our holiday efforts in each of our three corners. Jon, the California half, purchased and decorated the standard conifer, as he said, ala the “Currier & Ives snowy day that is LA in December.” He also put together the fabulous holiday greeting from the staff here at PR, which you can enjoy in the upper right column of our homepage until we need the space for something else. Note the absence of the C-word.

Buck, ever the sentimental one, and still recovering from the recent South Florida storms, said –

We did not do a “real” holiday tree this year, but opted instead for the plastic palm tree with permanent lights attached. It doesn’t have that pesky pine smell and hasn’t shed a single fake palm frond.

Here in North Florida (slogan: It’s not really South Georgia), Pepsi, Stinky, and I are still undecided about the tree situation. We may or may not purchase and furl (?) one but we’ll refer to it as a “seasonal display” if we do. And you?

Conservative Coulter Cut Off In Connecticut

Buck Banks

Just shut it: The “forces of political correctness” were astir at the University of Connecticut last night when a bunch of librul liberal education majors shouted down conservative commentator Ann Coulter when she tried to give a speech. The blonde wingnut ended the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

“I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am,” Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.

Coulter’s appearance prompted protests from several groups, including Students Against Hate and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center. They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and intolerance.

Nearly 100 students gathered inside the Student Union for a rally against Coulter. About a half-dozen people held protest signs outside the auditorium.

In her speech at UConn, Coulter called Bill Clinton an “executive buffoon” who won the presidency only because Ross Perot took 19 percent of the vote. She called California Sen. Barbara Boxer a good candidate for the Democrats because “she is a woman and she’s learning disabled.”

So what did the kids think about it? Here are two balanced viewpoints, one from a guy who was there and another by a nascent wingnut:

Eric Knudsen, a 19-year-old sophomore journalism and social welfare major at UConn, didn’t attend the speech.

“We encourage diverse opinion at UConn, but this is blatant hate speech,” said Knudsen, head of Students Against Hate.

Kareem Mohni, a 20-year-old junior and a member of a campus Republicans group, said he was disgusted with the Jorgensen crowd.

“It really appalled me that we’re not able to come together as a group and listen to a different view in a respectful environment,” he said.

Must Be the Christmas (or Holiday) Spirit — Bush’s Approval Rating On the Rise

Buck Banks

Early Xmas present: Today’s PollTrack from National Journal detects a sharp rise in the Worst President Ever’s approval rating. Note: nobody asked us.

After months of headlines about sinking numbers, President Bush might have something to smile about. A new CBS News/New York Times poll reports a 5-point jump in his approval rating — and it’s not the only one.

Bush’s number climbed from 35% in a CBS News poll from about a month ago to 40% in the current survey; his disapproval fell from 57% to 53%.

A few other surveys in recent weeks have recorded similar changes. A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey from late November put the rating at 42/48, compared to 36/53 earlier in the month. Polls released within the last week from Quinnipiac University and Time/SRBI don’t have comparison numbers from November, but both show his approval at or above the 40% mark.

CBS/Times pollsters also recorded gains in approval of the president’s handling of Iraq and the economy; numbers were statistically even on his handling of the war on terrorism and foreign policy. The poll’s right-direction indicator rose as well, gaining 4 points to hit 31%. Six in 10 still said the country is on the wrong track, down from 68% in the previous survey.
[…]

Weblog Awards: Go Vote for Pam’s House Blend

Jon Ponder

Another great site: Gawd, I’ve been so busy lately that I can’t seem focus on anything. I especially didn’t focus on the Weblog Awards, obviously.

Not only was our friend Bob Geiger’s site, the Yellow Dog Blog, nominated for Best New Blog, as we mentioned yesterday, but our blog heroine herself, Pam Spaulding, editor of Pam’s House Blend, was nominated for Best LGBT Blog.

I actually looked for the Blend on the awards site yesterday but didn’t see it. My excuse is that I don’t think of it as a GLBT site! (Anymore, frankly, than the PR is GL site, even though one of the editors – me – happens to be gay. But that’s another rant…)

One thing I admire most about the Blend is Pam’s fortitude. She regularly and willingly slogs into the slimey darkness of Freeperland and brings back hilariously scary wingnutiana. Her “Real Freeper Quotes” section is a priceless service to every normal person who is curious about what our enemies, the crazed mouth-breathers, are thinking. (And since they are running our great nation at the moment, it is important to know what bizarre thoughts are rolling around in their pea brains.)

The Weblog Awards are decidely tilted to the right, so it’s important that the reality based sites get your votes. You can vote once every 24 hours, so please do it:

Cunningham Bribe Figure Gave $70k to Schwarzenegger, Received Two Appointments

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

A businessman tied to the bribery scandal involving former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham donated more than $70,000 to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign committees and received two gubernatorial appointments.

At Schwarzenegger’s behest, Brent Wilkes, founder of the government contractor ADCS Inc., resigned Nov. 29 from the Del Mar Fair Board and from another panel that oversees the leasing of state land for racetracks, said Margita Thompson, the governor’s press secretary.

Schwarzenegger appointed Wilkes to the Del Mar board in April 2004 and to the State Race Track Leasing Commission last April. A seat on the Del Mar board is a sought-after post given the panel’s association with the Del Mar racetrack, among the most successful tracks in the nation…

When asked whether Wilkes’ appointments were linked to the donations, Thompson said: “Absolutely not…. There is no connection at all.”

…According to Cunningham’s plea agreement, Wilkes gave him more than $635,000 in bribes. Wilkes is not named in the Cunningham indictment or in the written plea agreement, but he is referred to as one of four unnamed co-conspirators, one of Wilkes’ attorneys has said. That lawyer, Michael Lipman, did not return phone calls Wednesday.

Wilkes’ company, ADCS, which is based in Poway, has received millions in federal contracts. According to the plea agreement, Cunningham pressured the Department of Defense to award contracts to ADCS, though it is not clear from the plea bargain that his intervention was pivotal.

Though ADCS appears to focus its efforts on winning federal contracts, the company also has done a small amount of business with the state. In 2001 and 2003, before Schwarzenegger took office, California selected ADCS as one of the vendors that could be hired to transform paper documents into computer images.

Why Do George And Laura Bush Hate Christmas?

Jon Ponder

War on Christmas : Keith Olberman called the Bushes the new “insurgents” in the Christmas wars. Yes, that’s right. Their Christmas cards do not mention Christmas:

“For over two millennia, Christmas has carried the message that God is with us,” President Bush said at the tree-lighting ceremony.

He is the most popular president among conservative Christians, but the greeting card he sent out this year was not Christian — or Christmasy — enough for some.

The card — with a photo of the family pets, a gold seal, and scripture from the Old Testament — reads “Best Wishes for the Holiday Season” and not “Merry Christmas.”

That infuriated William Donahue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

“At a time when a lot of Christians today are very upset about the way our society is dumbing down Christmas,” he said, “they certainly don’t want to see the president of the United States chiming in. We know he is a man of courage, so why is he giving in to the forces of political correctness?”

It’s that secular “Happy Holidays” phrase Donohue’s and other groups can’t stand. They also can’t stand its generic twin “Seasons Greetings.” In recent years they’ve organized boycotts of stores like Macy’s and Target for failing to mention Christmas by name.

“Prior to Clinton,” Donahue said, “none of the presidents had a problem saying Christmas at Christmas time. Now Bush is pulling a Clinton. I expected more from this guy.”

Well that’s not quite right. Both Presidents Carter and Reagan sometimes sent cards that never said Christmas. In short, President Bush is not alone.

UPDATE: Pam’s House Blend has more quotes from the wingnutosphere. (I don’t know how Pam does it. I have no stomach for reading their crap!)

Time Will Tell If Data Mining Could Have Prevented 9/11

Buck Banks

Government spookiness: Somewhere in the 2.5 terabytes (equal to about 12 percent of all printed pages held by the Library of Congress) of data Erik Kleinsmith destroyed in the spring of 2000 might have been the key to cracking al Qaeda and perhaps preventing the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks. In a fascinating and chilling article that explores topics like the Information Dominance Center and project “Able Danger,” National Journal’s Shane Harris investigates how the military, government and intelligence services routinely tread the line between mining essental data and harvesting personal information on thousands of U.S. civilians.

The American Talibanis’ War against Straight People

Jon Ponder

First they came for gay people: Ford Motor Company has bowed to pressure from ultra-rightwing Christian extremists led by the American Family Association and pulled its advertising from gay and lesbian magazines and its sponsorship of gay events.

The radical right is nearing victory on a three decades long crusade to give state law enforcement agencies absolute control over the reproductive rights of female citizens.

If you are not gay, you may think this attack on American values by the AFA only affects you indirectly, if it all.

In my youth, I did a 30-year stretch in the Bible Belt, and I believe that if Jesse Helmses and Jerry Falwells of this world had their way, after they have jailed (and/or executed) all the gays and lesbians in America, their next target would be adulterers, followed by single people who dared to have sex outside the holy bonds – and then everybody else who is not straight, white and Christianist.

Farfetched, you say?

The radical right is nearing victory on a three decades long crusade to give state law enforcement agencies absolute control over the reproductive rights of female citizens. It is unclear what the penalities will be for women and/or their doctors who violate the new anti-abortion laws by terminating zygotes, but what is crystal clear is that within five years after Samuel Alito is installed onto the U.S. Supreme Court, state police will start forcing women to reproduce.

Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger newspaper in Seattle, as well as his sex advice column, Savage Love, has more:

[…]

‘Memo’ Purloins Bush Admin Enviro Policies

Buck Banks

Wicked parody: Based on actual memoranda and policy advice from such wingnut luminaries as Karl Rove and Grover Lundquist, E — The Environmental Magazine offers up “Memo from the President’s Environmental Task Force.” If you don’t mind laughing through your tears or crying through your chuckles, it’s an intelligent, ironic and searingly sarcastic piece of work. In 12 evil recommendations, the “Memo” captures the spirit of the Bush administration’s approach to the environment (i.e., Kyoto, Energy Bill, drilling in the ANWAR — you know the rest).