Tag: Politics

Despite what the headlines will say Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton was not the big winner in Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses.

How pathetic. It’s clear that they’ll spin anything. Even to the point of directly contradicting the generals they claim to listen to.

I’ve been meaning to post about Free Hugs, but since Jenn has already done so and you guys aren’t giving her any comment-love, I’ll just point to her post. Yeah, the music is a bit over the top. But the campaign itself is commendable. Anything that can reduce people’s fear of each other is a good thing.

Paul Stephenson, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (From Times Online):

We are confident that we have disrupted a plan by terrorists to cause untold death and destruction and commit mass murder. This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.

President Bush:

The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.

…

But obviously, we’re still not completely safe, because there are people that still plot and people who want to harm us for what we believe in. It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America.

…

The American people need to know we live in a dangerous world, but our government will do everything we can to protect our people from those dangers.

Spreading fear kind of defeats the purpose of a “war on terror”, doesn’t it? Of course, if people would bother to stop and think for a minute or two, they’d realize that this fear is totally irrational and wouldn’t be affected by the tactics of the terrorists or those charged with defending us.

As usual, Ze Frank says it best.

OPB radio ran a story about Portland’s upcoming municipal wi-fi this morning. In the story, a spokeswoman from MetroFi said that users would have to agree to a terms and conditions page and could get to “virtually any website.” What are the terms and conditions? What websites won’t people be able to access? Will VOIP, SSH, and BitTorrent be allowed? What ports are blocked? These are questions that should be answered, especially if MetroFi is receiving money from taxpayers.

I’ll do some digging into this later today.

Senator John Edwards will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Gnomedex. Great work, Chris!

In today’s press conference, President Bush said:

I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.

He finished his tantrum with, “You’re not the boss of me!” Then he scampered back into the Oval Office to play with his GI Joes.

In his latest Washington Post column, Charles Krauthammer, who is far from being a liberal Democrat infidel, explains why the “intelligent design” movement is a bad idea (via Crooks and Liars):

The relentless attempt to confuse [science and religion] by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions — arguably, the most important questions in life — that lie beyond the material.

I think this is a big point that many people are missing. At the very least, the “intelligent design” movement makes Christians look stupid because they apparently can’t distinguish between science and religion. But, even worse, I think it’s going to foster anti-religious feelings. People don’t like to have religion force-fed to them.