Andrew Sullivan writes:

Cheney does not seem to understand that he is incriminating himself further with every interview, every time he adjusts his story, every time he moves from torture as a “no-brainer” to a “last resort”, every time he assaults yet another person who knows too much about him and what he did.

But does Cheney really believe that in a battle for the judgment of the American people, and for history, he will win a brawl with Colin Powell, with a man who is actually on record early on warning of the dire consequences of weakening or abandoning the Geneva Conventions?

Cheney wants a war with him? Now? Judged in the theater of public opinion – outside the Hannity-Limbaugh-Coulter ghetto?

They really do want to commit suicide, don’t they? Well, I’m not in a rush to stop them.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Tim Hagan will leave Cuyahoga County just as George Bush left the country – broke, broken and deep in the hole. They both arrogantly made decisions without much thought or concern for the public.

Hagan has put Cuyahoga County into position to explode with debt.

The Commission not only faces a $1 billion cost on the Medical Mart and Convention Center but now Hagan talks of moving its entire operations out of its presently owned administration building.

The cost would be enormous just to move.

What seems to be the reason for moving the entire Cuyahoga County operation? Hint: A new convention center hotel. Our next must! Continue Reading »

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

In these sorts of intellectual debates, black people aren’t people, as much as they are symbol of American sin. We are not discussing a group of loosely connected human beings who drink, eat, shit, piss, fuck, kill, fight, laugh and love. We’re discussing a thing–a club to inveigh against liberalism gone amock, a sword to inveigh against the backwardness of conservatives, a cudgel to beat on poor people everywhere.

My job is to report and write. But so much of what informs my view of race is shaped by the in between. I enjoy debating race, just like anyone else. But if you want to know about Negroes, don’t read this blog. Come to 128th and Second on any given Saturday in the Fall. That’s where my son plays little league football, and where you can find blackness laid out in all its requisite splendor. It’s all out there–the single mothers, the Puerto-Ricans, the Jamaicans, the kids on scholarship at Dalton, the Muslim fathers fasting for Ramadan, the boys one step from the corner. One big mass of conflicted and contradictory humanity.

Our problem is this–we have pundits who are geniuses at interpreting numbers, but rank failures at interpreting people. This is how someone looks at you with a straight face and argues that black men will use gay marriage to escape the altar. It’s a notion cultivated by a pundit who’s stared at the numbers for so long that they’ve started confusing them with people.

Man listen: Bring me all the stats you can muster. Bring me your illegitimacy rates, your marriage rates, your crime stats. Bring me your achievement gaps, your IQ chasms, your precisely weighted data. I’ll read it all with you and weep. But if you’re scared to be amongst the community you deign to interpret, I have only a pound and prayer to offer you. This isn’t exclusive to black people. This goes for “intellectuals” who analyze Iraq from the comforts of Washington think tanks, yet wouldn’t recognize a word of Arabic and haven’t spent more than a few days in the Middle-East.

The fear of people is real, and while it’s a barrier to saying anything original, it’s not a barrier to having a career explaining them. Thus, the dumb shit flourishes. So what do we do with the resulting flood of stupid? Do we let it stand? Do we ruthlessly attack every single instance of intellectual charlatanism? Or do we just move on to the new Star Trek movie and Brett Favre?

Roldo Bartimole writes:

It looks as though the Plain Dealer will suffer more editorial cutbacks soon as management looks for ways to cut costs.

The cutbacks at the Plain Dealer will include Teamsters and Pressmen in addition to editorial staff.

The total the PD management wants to attain: $5 million a year in savings from the three unions.
I”m told that the editorial people would consider taking cutbacks to make up the 12 percent management wants to save if management would promise no layoffs for two years. No deal, said management.

Here, by the way, is the pay schedule of editorial employees.

The talk is as many as 22 more people will be let go. Continue Reading »

Tim Russo writes:

How long will this take, and how can it be done? Ironically, the place the GOP needs to look for this road map is a European socialist party, Labour in the UK. In 1983, at the height of Thatcherism, Labour ran on a manifesto (platform for us Yanks) which was termed “the longest suicide note in history” for its wild near-communist Trotskyism.

After the resulting wipe out election, lone voices in Labour began a long slog to eliminate from the party”s platform those things which were suicidal, and it took 14 years to do it. That battle was on a micro level, person to person, long knives and stealthy determination by visionary leaders and loyal foot soldiers alike. When Tony Blair walked into Downing Street in 1997, the country had finally been convinced that Labour had become relevant again after a brutal, decade long internal struggle.

WOMBAT!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting annoying phone spam on my cell phone from putrid wastes of genome wanting to scam me with vehicle warranties. What the degenerate pond scum didn’t count on was this is the 21st century.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Who got screwed on the Med Mart deal? Well, you did as taxpayer, definitely. However, so did the city despite the $20 million deal for its properties – 18.5 acres of prime downtown land.

The $20-million was hailed as a victory for Mayor Frank Jackson. I”ll bet this $20-million shot in the city”s fiscal arm will be used up in a year or two by the Jackson administration.

Perfect example. Ralph Perk sold the city”s sewer system for $32 million back in the 1970s and used up the money in a couple of years. He did the same thing when he sold the Cleveland Transit System to its present regional system.

Mayors, always short of revenue, spend any revenue infusion quickly and often to keep patronage going. One-time infusions of money make for bad policy decisions. The money gets spent fast and usually not wisely.

Wouldn”t it have been better if Mayor Jackson insisted on a deal that kept revenue coming to the city year after year? Continue Reading »

[Update — 9 May: See also: Liar, Liar: Jim Carrey and the Misinformation About Vaccines and Autism and Neuroligica Blog…]

I got a tetanus shot a few weeks ago. Just a regular booster, a smart thing to do.

Dying from tetanus isn’t fun.

In generalized tetanus, the initial complaints may include any of the following:

Irritability, muscle cramps, sore muscles, weakness, or difficulty swallowing are commonly seen.

Facial muscles are often affected first. Trismus or lockjaw is most common. This condition results from spasms of the jaw muscles that are responsible for chewing. A sardonic smile — medically termed risus sardonicus — is a characteristic feature that results from facial muscle spasms.

Muscle spasms are progressive and may include a characteristic arching of the back known as opisthotonus. Muscle spasms may be intense enough to cause bones to break and joints to dislocate.

Severe cases can involve spasms of the vocal cords or muscles involved in breathing. If this happens, death is likely, unless medical help (mechanical ventilation with a respirator) is readily available.

As a regular practice of good public health, we vaccinate our children against the nasty little bugger when we give them the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis combination vaccine) shot.

Jim Carey, celebrity husband of anti-vaccination nut case Jenny McCarthy thinks that such vaccinations are dangerous.

Oprah Winfrey has decided to make matters worse, much worse, by championing McCarthy’s superstition and ignorance driven crusade and endanger the lives of millions of children.

Yes another example that wealth, power and fame do not necessarily correlate to intelligence.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees, Robert Feinman and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTOR, CARD CHECK AND 2010… Strictly speaking, this bit of political twistedness isn”t about Walmart. But I wanted to include this robocall to illustrate of how the legislation reaches far beyond plain intent of the bill. Republicans would rather face a newby in 2010 than an incumbant. Keep reading…

THERE COULD”VE BEEN A WALMART HERE… Poor Tony Zampedro, Mentor, Ohio”s assistant city manager. He”s stuck pointing to an empty field on which the city will collect minimal taxes because Walmart decided to not build, even after the city spent taxpayer money wooing the company. Keep reading…

IS DUKE AGAINST GAY COUPLES ADOPTING…? He may be if the signature on a petition for An Act Providing That An Individulal Cohabitating Outside Of A Valid Marriage May Not Adopt Or Be A Foster Parent Of A Child Less Than Eightenn Years Old. KnowThyNeighbor has the PDF of the signed petition. Keep reading…

DANG… I WISH I COULD GET A LOAN LIKE THIS… You may remember me writing about Walmart”s closing of a optical center here in Ohio after state taxpayers gave it a $1.8 million dollar tax gift to build the center here and employ Ohioans. Well the short story is that enough people screamed bloody murder. Keep reading…

AND A YEAR FROM NOW…? The caption for the above photo at NWAnews reads: Mark Phillips with Enderle Construction talked about the construction of a Wal-Mart decorated home during the Shadow Valley 2009 Showcase of Homes in Rogers on Saturday. Keep reading…

SPY VS….? Can Walmart out Mom & Pop the Mom & Pop stores? That, in part, appears to be the question the company wants to answer; at least in China, where the company has opened three,3,229 square feet stores. (The American average is 2,836 square feet.) Keep reading…

OOPS…! SORRY…! Do you remember Jdimytai Damour, the Walmart temporary worker trampled to death on Black Friday in Walmart”s running of the- desperate-for-cheap-plastic-crap at a store on Long Island, New York? Most of the rest of the world doesn”t. Keep reading…

Nick Carr writes:

But a whirl does not a relationship make. According to a study out today from Nielsen, at least three out of every five people who sign up for a Twitter account bail within a few weeks:

Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter”s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month”s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent. For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention.

Even Oprah, it seems, may already be losing interest. Of the 20 tweets she’s issued since joining Twitter 11 days ago, half came on her first day. She’s made nary a tweet in the last four days.

Quite possibly the only Wikipedia entries more controversial than those dealing with Israel are those devoted to a woman’s right to choose. Internet researchers tussled over labels in Tel Aviv yesterday in a cyber extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Cnaan Liphshiz writes:

In demonstrating what he defined as problems, Eli Hacohen, the Institute’s director, showed how Hamas is not defined as a terrorist organization in the first paragraph describing the organization on the English site of the reader-edited online encyclopedia, which is the world’s fourth most popular Web site.

Hacohen also documented his attempts to define Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as a Holocaust-denier. Each time he included his remarks on Wikipedia, users and editors removed the reference – despite Ahmadinejad’s frequent and public Holocaust denials.

The comments from Wikimedia’s Sue Gardner were the most interesting to me.

Also attending the conference, which discussed Wikipedia’s role in academia, was Sue Gardner, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia. Gardner told Haaretz that she is “quite comfortable” with the mistakes on the Web site. “I know that more or less the same mistakes can be found in the New York Times,” she explained.

Really? I’d love to hear from New York Times’ Executive Editor Bill Keller on that point.

But even more telling was this quote:

Before her address at the conference, she defined Wikipedia as a “just another mainstream news medium.” Wikipedia, Gardner said, “will never say anything as Wikipedia. It will only quote relatively well-respected sources, including other media. So it’s natural for Wikipedia to reflect public discourse as it fluctuates, and news is the first draft of history.”

When you co-opt the suffix pedia you’re telling your readers that you are an encyclopedia, not a news source. If this is truly the position of Wikipedia, then it has blatantly lied to the its readers. The Encyclopedia Britannica stands behind each and every word it publishes. If Wiki-whateverthefeckitis intentionally avoids that standard, then it needs to change its name.

Gideon Levy writes:

Last week nine activists from New Profile, a feminist-pacifist organization formed in 1998 that aims to demilitarize Israeli society, were arrested on suspicion of incitement and assisting draft dodgers. The police raided their homes and confiscated their computers. The military advocate general requested the raid, the attorney general obliged and the police carried it out.

The public reacted to the raid with typical indifference; it came just as we were busy enjoying the cheesy Independence Day holiday, complete with songs of self-praise about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East. But a democracy that raids the homes of political activists is no democracy. Democracies are tested by how they treat the fringes of society.

Locking up three and a half million Palestinians in the occupied territories and denying them basic human rights has already undermined Israel’s pretensions of democracy, but now dangerous cracks are appearing in our Jews-only democracy. They aren’t new – they first appeared in the early years of independence – and now they’re back. Those who make light of the recent arrests may soon find themselves dealing with a new regime instead of New Profile.

It was less than 50 years ago that the United States had its own 20th century underground railroad shepherding young men who refused to be drafted for the Vietnam War across our northern border into Canada. It was not until 21 January 1977 that those draft resistors came safely home after President Jimmy Carter pardoned them.

Certainly some were cowards who ran and hid. But not all. Not even many. The conscience of a nation depends upon those who say no. No to unjust war. No to international exploitation. No to bullying. No to torture.

Ian Frazier writes:

The circumstances under which I found out I’m not, in fact, 25 were that I was staying at a friend’s house after a deer-hunting trip, and this friend, who’s much younger than I, kindly gave me his bed while he slept on the couch downstairs; and in the late, late hours a girl (young woman, technically) came into my friend’s bedroom looking for him, and she found me there instead and retreated in dismay, and then an hour or so later another beautiful young babe also looking for my friend shook me awake, and at the sight of my not-extremely-young face she recoiled in frank horror…

Ouch. As an ungenerous person my own age later put it, these girls thought they were getting the Wolf but got Grandma instead-Grandma, of course, being me. This kind of negativity, and especially the unflattering inferences aimed in my direction, enrage me. If I am, in fact, an incipient “old” guy, then let me fill you in on a few things that are great about old guys-some important facts you still-young adventurers out there may not know, and I do.

Wisdom and guile trumps youth and beauty every time.

And, oh yeah. The above picture? It’s been framed on the wall in front of my weight bench for about 10 years.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Cuyahoga County taxpayers have now “contributed” $55,664,264 in sales taxes for the not-yet-settled Medical Mart and Convention Center.

Thank you, Tim Hagan, Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones.

The tax was instituted with an added one-quarter percent in the sales tax by the County Commissioners in January, 2008. It raised the County sales tax to 7.75 percent, the highest in Ohio.
The additional tax raised $2.9 million in April, the latest figure available.

The money should also be raising earned interest for the County.

The $55.6 million plus interest puts a tasty pot of cash in the hands of the Commissioners. It could be an alluring lure for Mayor Frank Jackson. The city owns land the Commissioners want for its convention project.

It might be a signal to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson that the County has plenty of money to pay a reasonable price for the Mall site and the present Convention Center and Public Hall. The land itself should be worth more than the $17.5 to $20 million the County wants to pay the city. Continue Reading »

Robert Reich writes:

Having General Motors or Chrysler cut tens of thousands of jobs in order to be eligible for a government bailout reminds me of “saving” Vietnam by bombing it to smithereens. Aren’t we giving these companies billions of taxpayer dollars to save jobs? If not, we’re just transferring money from taxpayers to GM and Chrysler bondholders and shareholders.