At the Huffington Post, Nora Ephron writes that “It’s hard to be a Democrat“, saying: It’s hard to be a Democrat, don’t you think? There’s no alternative, of course, but it’s hard. Someone asked me the other day to write something about why I was a Democrat, and I had no trouble making a list…
Author: marc
Marc is a software developer, writer, and part-time political know-it-all who currently resides in Texas in the good ol' U.S.A.
Saudi, Forgotten Terrorism Sponsor
Printed in in big, bold letters, the Times Online’s headline reads: “Saudi Arabia is hub of world terror“. Perhaps that’s why King Abdullah recently received a less-than-warm greeting in when he arrived in Britain for a state visit, the first such in two decades. Evidently not all the English were happy to see him: Beyond…
Should Schools Dispense Birth Control?
Demonstrating that a lot of Americans aren’t too bright, 30% of those surveyed by AP said that public schools should give out birth control to students regardless of whether their parents have given their consent or not. (The media is reporting 67% of parents agree with the idea, but that includes the 37% who think that…
Lawsuit May Bankrupt Phelps’ "Church"
After members of Reverend Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church demonstrated at the funeral of Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder his father was justifiably upset. But Albert Snyder didn’t just get mad – he got even: A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals in the…
Diplomats Say "No" to Iraq
There is a lot of good news coming from Iraq these days: Violent deaths of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians appear to have fallen sharply in Iraq in October, according to the latest Associated Press tally. The AP’s figures mirror other reports that the levels of bloodshed are falling here. But the meaning of these…
Of Youth and Discipline
The NY Times Board wrote today: The Government Accountability Office exposed a national outrage earlier this month in a report that found thousands of allegations of abuse and neglect at treatment programs that sell military-style discipline as a way to set delinquent youngsters straight — sometimes known as boot camps. The GAO report, unveiled at…
SCOTUS to Halt Executions?
The NY Times says: Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal injection case from Kentucky next spring. ……
Blackwater Shooters Given Immunity
Why? Three senior law enforcement officials said all the Blackwater bodyguards involved — both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above — were given the legal protections as investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security sought to find out what happened. The bureau is an arm of the State Department. The…
Donnie McClurkin Strikes Back
Peter Hamby at CNN writes: The controversial Gospel singer at the center of a gay and lesbian backlash against Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign struck back at his critics Sunday night … "Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay, when I have been touched by the same feelings," McClurkin went on. "When I have suffered…
Presidential Press Coverage
Journalism.org has an interesting post up in which the press coverage of the 2008 presidential election is analyzed by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Check it out. Highlights: Barack Obama was 3 times more likely to receive positive coverage than negative while…