Archives for November 2004

Did he really say it? Yes he did: “This is no longer George Bush’s war. This is America’s war.” — Barack Obama, speaking this morning about the war in Iraq on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopolous.” Too bad what Obama said is true to the extent that a heaping majority of the electorate — […]

Oh, brother: A newly revised “science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism” is causing a ruckus in Wisconsin. A state law governing the teaching of evolution was regarded by a local school board as too restrictive, the AP reports. The science curriculum “should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory,” said Joni […]

The Blessèd Reverend Repulski writes: “Dropped into the Albany town library and there noticed Hunter Thompson’s name on the current Rolling Stone cover. Guess what? He fell for the shoe-in Kerry jive too. Some forecasts are too painful to consider. He mistook the citizens of Aspen for the folks. Unwise.” Famous last words from the […]

Have you seen Sorry Everybody? It’s the website that keeps on saying “please remember that some of us — hopefully most of us — are truly, truly sorry.” Such good intentions. So many photo apologies. Such victimhood. So pathetic, exceptions notwithstanding. And such a hit magnet you may not be able to download it. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Few political analysts were more blistering about the Boy King before and during the 2004 election campaign than Kevin Phillips, the former Republican who identified and crafted the “Southern strategy” back in the late-’60s, which wasexploited by Nixon and Reagan and which is now largely responsible for the Boy King’s second coronation. But Phillips, who […]

How can Nicholas Kristof be so DUMB? Here’s how: “Time To Get Religion,” his column this morning, in which he offers the Democrats four suggestions for future success: • Don’t be afraid of religion.• Pick battles of substance, not symbolism. • Accept that today, gun control is a nonstarter.• Hold your nose and work with […]

The dust from the election of the chief ignoramus has not settled. May it never. Others are saying that, too. Straight Upper Joan Daniels, a regular reader, writes: I have come to the conclusion that the “majority” of Americans are simply morons and nothing now will ever convince me otherwise. I’m amazed by the people […]

“Democrats face this terrible arithmetic in the Electoral College where if they don’t carry any of the 11 Southern states [of the Old Confederacy] they need to win 70% of everything else,” says Merle Black, an expert on Southern politics at Emory University.BLESSED BE THE TRUE BELIEVERS A positive approach is neededIn these days of […]

Annie J. writes a blog called anniej’s livejournal, which was brought to my attention by a friend. Subtitled “the moon & antarctica,” it lives on a popular online publishing site. Annie J.’s journal is a pop culture fandom diary about, among other things, “porn, werewolves, wizards, gay boys fucking, and the hotness of David Thewlis” […]

Now that 11 states have voted by overwhelming margins for amendments to their state consitutions to ban gay marriage — Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Montana, Utah, Ohio, Michigan and Oregon — lending huge support to seven other states that already define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, will we soon be seeing “no-go zones” […]

A majority of American voters stuck its head up its ass yesterday and, by 58,154,413 to 54,616,818 (with 99 percent of all votes in), proved daredevil columnist Jimmy Breslin wrong, to say nothing of daredevil pollster John Zogby. Unless things change in Ohio, when the final final count is tallied, or some other miracle occurs, […]

The bookies are still giving shorter odds on Bush, which means bettors continue to favor the Ignoramus. But Kerry backers are closing the gap. There may be evidence that crowd wisdom under the right circumstances is smarter than the smartest, best-informed expert. But every time a long shot wins at the racetrack, there’s evidence to […]

It’s two-hour-old news by now, but here it is anyway: John Kerry will be the next president of the United States, according to daredevil pollster John Zogby. He had it right the last time when everybody else had it wrong, and now he predicts Kerry will beat Bush in the Electoral College, 311 to 213 […]

Voting was a snap in my election district. So I’m back earlier than I expected, and happy to see a joke called “The Balloonist” about Republicans and Democrats, which is making the email rounds. It’s being attributed to Garrison Keillor. The attribution could well be apocryphal. (Remember Kurt Vonnegut’s bogus commencement address at MIT a few years ago? Here’s the […]

Overnight reviews are back, in case you hadn’t noticed, at The New York Times. The first one in years — an opera review by Anthony Tommasini, of “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” — appeared this morning in the Metro section on page B2. (Online it’s listed in the Arts section.) Overnight notices used to […]

Please note: The odds that bookmakers are giving on the presidential election are subject to change. Some, as given here on Sunday, already have changed (though not by much). These are the latest betting lines. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Has free speech in America come to this? The 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot publish her memoirs in this country because of a U.S. trade embargo regulation “intended to punish repressive governments such as the regime in Tehran that once sent her to jail,” The Wall Street Journal reports this morning. The irony is […]