Category: politics

Leftist Buzzwords

Ivan KreilkampLeave a comment

Report Assails Political Hiring in Justice Dept.

Justice Department officials illegally used “political or ideological” factors in elite recruiting programs in recent years, tapping law school graduates with Federalist Society membership or other conservative credentials over more qualified candidates with liberal-sounding résumés, an internal report found Tuesda.

This is the funniest/most outrageous detail:

Investigators reviewed e-mail messages from Ms. McDonald in which she indicated that “leftist commentary” or “buzz words like ‘environmental justice’ and ‘social justice’ ” were grounds for rejecting applicants.

Other possible leftist buzzwords, grounds for rejection:

  • Habeas corpus
  • Rights
  • Organic
  • Global warming
  • Sustainability
  • Rational; Reason
  • Integrity
  • Fair
  • Impartial
  • Facts
  • Prius

Half-dressed man cavorting with a farm animal

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This story is so odd.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted a 48-hour stay in the obscenity trial of a Hollywood adult filmmaker after the prosecutor requested time to explore “a potential conflict of interest concerning the court having a . . . sexually explicit website with similar material to what is on trial here.”

In an interview Tuesday with The Times, Kozinski acknowledged posting sexual content on his website. Among the images on the site were a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. He defended some of the adult content as “funny” but conceded that other postings were inappropriate.

Kozinski, 57, said that he thought the site was for his private storage and that he was not aware the images could be seen by the public, although he also said he had shared some material on the site with friends. After the interview Tuesday evening, he blocked public access to the site.

By Wednesday afternoon, as controversy about the website spread, Kozinski was seeking to shift responsibility, at least in part, to his adult son, Yale.

“Yale called and said he’s pretty sure he uploaded a bunch of it,” Kozinski wrote in an e-mail to Abovethelaw.com, a legal news website. “I had no idea, but that sounds right because I sure don’t remember putting some of that stuff there.”

Coming on the heels of the revelation that John McCain uses neither a Mac nor a P.C. because he has no idea how to make those computer machines work, this raises concerns about the computer literacy of our retirement-age population. Could we get some additional funds for basic “how to use the web” workshops in our public libraries? With an advanced class for Kozinski on how to password-protect your pornographic images site?

The judge said he didn’t think any of the material on his site would qualify as obscene.

“Is it prurient? I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I think it’s odd and interesting. It’s part of life.”

Yes, I guess it is, in fact, technically the case that “naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal” are “part of life.” I also think it’s funny that he “sure [doesn’t] remember putting some of that stuff there” and so it must have been his son who did it.

Poor guy. I actually do not give a damn what he has on his webpage.

Condi Rice’s Favorite Kiss Songs

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May 31, 2008

Arts, Briefly

Kicking Back With Kiss

Compiled by FELICIA R. LEE and MELENA RYZIK

It is unclear whether they discussed makeup, but on Thursday in Stockholm, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a late-night meeting with the rock group Kiss. Ms. Rice was in Sweden for an international conference concerning Iraq; the band was there to play a sold-out concert and asked to meet her. After a dinner with Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, Ms. Rice joined Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer in the executive lounge of the Sheraton Hotel, where they signed autographs and gave T-shirts to her staff. “It was really fun” to meet them, Ms. Rice said, according to The Associated Press, adding that they seemed well informed about politics. Though she said she had never seen the band perform, she named “Rock and Roll All Nite” as her favorite Kiss song.

Her complete top five list:

  1. “Rock and Roll All Nite”
  2. “Goin’ Blind,” which details a doomed romance with an underage girl; the original title was “Little Lady.”
  3. “Rock And Roll Party” — untitled hidden track from Destroyer; it is a loop made up of the choral melody from “Great Expectations” and a concert clip of Paul Stanley telling an audience, “I tell you all, it looks like, it looks like we’re gonna have ourselves…a rock and roll party!”
  4. “Cold Gin”
  5. “Got Love For Sale”

First the voter I.D. law and now this

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First the voter I.D. law and now this: on July 1 a new law is set to go into effect in Indiana that will “force any bookstore that sold even one book that could be broadly described as ‘sexually explicit’ to pay a $250 license fee and be classified as an ‘adult bookstore.'” Indy Star story; NPR story. Under the state’s definition, according to a suit filed by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the ACLU, “nudes by artists such as Peter Paul Rubens and books ranging from John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men to many modern romance novels ‘could be deemed harmful’ to minors of varying ages.”

Perhaps they should combine the two laws so that one would have to show a state-issued I.D. to buy any sexually explicit material.

Panicked Republicans

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Panicked Republicans, such a harmonious, euphonious phrase, I enjoy just repeating it to myself…

Here’s Josh Marshall on why the Republicans are feeling panicked about the loss of an open seat in a heavily Republican district in Mississippi:

And here’s the Adam Nagourney article:

Scott Reed, a former chief of staff to the Republican National Committee, said the defeat would dampen fund-raising. “Republican leadership needs to really take a good look in the mirror,” Mr. Reed said. “They’re taking the party off the cliff.”

Republican House members said the political terrain was tilted against them, and some expressed despair about the months ahead at the private meeting on Wednesday. One House Republican rated the panic expressed at the meeting as a 7 on a scale of 10.

Eat Your Heart Out Chris Matthews

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Hilarious/great talking head commentary on the Democratic race by two five-year-old twins, one a Barack supporter, one in Hillary’s camp. There’s some nuanced discussion of their respective willingness to vote for the other candidate if he or she gets the nomination, etc.

These girls are a bit more politically sophisticated than Celie and Iris, who are Obama supporters but can’t quite seem to get it through their heads that Sarah and I are not also candidates for office.

Counting

Ivan Kreilkamp1 Comment

I enjoyed this Keith Olbermann diatribe about which states & votes “count”, according to the Clintons. “When you boil it all down, only one vote really matters: the 50-something conservative registered Democrat who’s not independent but not part of the base, and skipped college so they could go straight into teaching rather than become a casino worker, who votes on domestic issues but not in a primary or caucus in a big state that doesn’t border Illinois….” etc.

It was exciting to count for once here in Indiana yesterday.

ABC Debate

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Check out this amazing question from George Stephanopoulos , 2:24 in:

“If you get the nomination, what will you do when Rev Wright’s sermons are played over and over and over again?”

What will you do when pundits bring this up over and over and over and over again?

Also note Hillary practically licking her lips and saying “oh goody!” when the moderators immediately bring up the “bitter clinging to guns” issue.