If you’re planning to commit a crime, it’s probably not a good idea to use your home computer to contact the intended victim over the Internet. It seems law enforcement people are onto some sort of Internet protocol address thing.
Let The Sunlight Return
Happy Winter Solstice! This is deemed the shortest day of the year, even though it doesn’t have the latest sunrise or earliest sunset.
In addition to Winter Solstice, this is also celebrated as Saturnalia or Yule. Your observation may vary. I’m just glad that Spring is on the way.
No Second Honeymoon
So much for all that political capital:
| Job Approval One Month After Re-Election |
|
| George Bush |
49 |
| Bill Clinton |
58 |
| Ronald Reagan |
59 |
| Richard Nixon |
59 |
| Lyndon Johnson |
69 |
| Dwight Eisenhower |
79 |
“Legal Reform”
The next time you hear “legal reform,” instead of buying into Republican images of towns without ob-gyns to deliver babies because of the price of malpractice insurance, picture instead special interest groups with beaucoup bucks in outstretched hands to Congresspersons, pleading “Shield us.”
See the Center for Justice and Democracy.
Subsidizing Impoverished Oil Producers
The Independent reports on the latest Bush administration efforts to sabotage an international agreement to combat global warming. Yes, this is the same administration that promised to offer some sort of alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. But that was a long time ago. And let’s face it, this kind of process will get little, if any, coverage on TV news.
But wait, this gets even better (emphasis added):
The Americans also objected to mentions of the need to tackle global warming as opposed to adapting to it, and backed an extraordinary demand from Saudi Arabia that oil-producing states should receive billions of dollars in compensation from the rest of the world if they burned less oil.
Huh? We should pay countries for not using as much of their oil?
I’m not sure if the administration really favors this proposal, or if it’s simply trying to insert a poison pill into the process. But either way it’s evident that the energy industry is priority one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Saving “Merry Christmas”
This has apparently become an even bigger media issue than it was just a few days ago.
That liberal media.
How do these hot issues bubble up to the forefront? Atrios offers a a typical flow chart:
Local News –> Free Republic –> Drudge –> Talk Radio –> Some Wingnut Congressperson/State Legislator –> Fox News –> Lou Dobbs/Scarborough/etc… –> Another round on local news –> CNN –> mainstream print media. [order can vary slightly].
I haven’t done any scientific research on this, but I’d guess the length of the above cycle has been reduced by at least 1/3 over the last three or four years.