Arte Et Labore

Semis of the FA Cup today. Rovers face the near impossible task of taking on Chelsea or as they are snidely known, the World Cup All Stars.

UPDATE: Jason Roberts equalizes at 1-1 in the 64th minute! YES!

UPDATE II: Extra time!

UPDATE III: Dreams dashed by the German. Ah well.

Saturday Stupids

The word traveled swiftly, up and down the coast, and by nightfall the downtown streets were crowded with people who had come from as far away as South Point and the Waipio Valley to see for themselves if the rumor was really true - that Lono had, in fact, returned in the form of a huge drunken maniac who dragged fish out of the sea with his bare hands and then beat them to death on the dock with a short-handled Somoan war club. ~Hunter S. Thompson, The Curse of Lono

Quote Of The Day

Someone please tell me what pagan ritual I need to perform to get Dollar Bill back into politics. Former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley last night on Bill Maher, speaking about Iraq.

It was a conceptually flawed policy. You are not going to create a liberal democracy out of three provinces of the former Ottoman Empire that are really a figment of Winston Churchill's imagination.

Wow.

My Morning Wooten (And Erick)

My morning irritation is causing me to focus on a single issue.

Another clue as to whether congressional Democrats have any interest in legislating or simply politicking for 2008 will come on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The Democratic bill, which President Bush has vetoed once, is a slippery slope to embryo farms. The votes don’t exist to override. Georgia’s Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson authored one the president will sign that allows federal funding only for stem cells taken from deficient “naturally dead” embryos. It has risks, too, but is the best deal that supporters of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research will get out of this president. Isakson does have a knack for finding the middle ground on contentious issues

And then there's Erick at Peach Pundit.

The Speaker and Senator Shafer are working to move Sen. Shafer’s important bill forward while making sure living embryos are not destroyed in the process.

Forgive me, for by internet standards, I am about to do something very crass.

WHAT ABOUT UNWANTED EMBRYOS DISCARDED FROM FERTILITY CLINICS?

The question will remain in caps and the font will grow larger and larger until one of these conservatives finds the stones to answer.

Thousands of embryos are discarded every year. Do we save these as well? Sen. David Adelman authored a reasonable bill to simply provide storage for couples who want to donate their excess embryos created in fertility treatment. It was promptly shot down and faced the usual rhetoric of "embryo farms" and portraying stem cell researchers as modern day Frankensteins.

So, Jim and Erick. What do we do with all these embryos which will eventually be dumped in the garbage with the rest of the medical waste? Do we store them until the rapture calls them home? Do we force them to be implanted? Or do we ban fertility treatments as in your world view it ultimately destroys life? Or do we just do what you and your brothers and sisters in arms continue to do. Ignore them because you can't easily pop forth a lurid description to provoke visceral reactions?

The question will continue to be asked. And it will continue to be asked loudly.

My Morning Wooten

Can someone please explain to me the right wing's obsession with the Duke "rape case"?

Like most conservatives, my first inclination is to support the cops, the prosecutors and the men and women in the criminal justice system who are constantly under the gun. But as former governor Roy Barnes was fond of saying, “I gotta tell ya” And this “I gotta tell ya” is that the prosecutor’s conduct in the case of the Duke University lacrosse players scares the bejesus out of me.

An inclination to support the cops and prosecutors? No kidding. In most cases, right wing pundits are a breath away from advocating behind the barn shooting for anyone seen in handcuffs. Yet, from the get go the more rabid right wing spew mouths like Sean Hannity questioned everything about this case. Turns out they were right and bully for them. This fact will of course blind all to the question of why the hell did the usual law and order crowd turn so quickly on a prosecutor in a local case?

Admittedly Jim is pretty late to this party. But I can't help but compare how certain Georgia Republicans desire to emphasize that Genarlow Wilson is no choir boy yet anyone who comments on the Duke case, including Wooten, conveniently omits the less than choir boy antics of the Duke lacrosse players. Also ignored is both cases suffered from overzealous prosecution. Yet, in the Wilson case, Georgia Republicans, despite changing the obscene law on which he was convicted, continue a campaign to paint him as a rapist and sexual predator. But in the Duke case, the allies of these same politicians paint the accused as victims and scream for the blood of Nifong. It's hard to ingnore the one obvious difference in the cases.

I want to say as sincerely as possible that I do not believe Jim Wooten is in any way racist. However, if it starts to walk like a duck and talk like a duck. Maybe this is one party where he shouldn't even walk through the door.

An editorial postscript: I often find myself siding with Republicans on certain issues. And I am certainly not comfortable with how Democrats seem to be up to their asses in being beholden to certain special interests. You know the difference? Almost never does the Democratic Party pull one of these. Actions that just make my skin crawl. I mean even when they are right their actions make my skin crawl! There may be nothing more insidious. For that reason, although I am no Democrat, unless they change their ways, I sure as hell will never be a Republican.

Geek Moment

I have an odd fascination with maps. Now Coturnix is enabling this not so normal obsession by leading me to this fascinating place: Strange Maps.

My Morning Wooten

A logical fallacy which makes my skin crawl and my limbic system fire adrenaline through my body spurring the urge to hit walls: apply an extreme outlier to a broad, complex issue in an attempt to portray the problem in the worst possible perspective.

DNA tests establish California photographer Larry Birkhead as the daddy of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby...It’s the baby/daddy DNA search, however, that prompts today’s commentary.

Anna Nicole Smith was at best a pathetic soul deserving sympathy. At worse, she was an irresponsible example of the species who unfortunately procreated, passing along potentially aberrant genes. What she was not was part of the pool Jim Wooten so casually throws into the mix.

As noted here before, a nation that suffers an epidemic of out-of-wedlock births, as this one does with 70 percent of black babies, almost half the Hispanic and a quarter of the whites born into homes without a mother and a father present, is in trouble.

Unlike Anna Nicole Smith, most of these women are not wealthy. They do not jet to the Bahamas in an attempt to solve custody issues. They may or may not be drug addled but if so chances are the substances are not prescribed by a doctor. They certainly do not have svengali-like attorneys but instead rely on the public defense system. A system some conservatives, notably Jim Wooten, wish to gut.

Government, along with Hollywood, the church, civil rights leaders and the middle class, all have a role in changing that.

This is conservative ideaology? Somehow government can repair social ills? Different political persuasions can certainly wrestle with the different shades of the concept but hearing it from such a staunch "conservative" causes pause. As we shall shortly see, government tinkering with the family unit and procreation inevitably leads to the bizarre.

When a pregnant woman presents herself for public assistance, she should be required to identify the male she suspects as having caused her pregancy. That accusation would be sufficient to obligate him, by law, to submit DNA samples. If he is, indeed, the responsible party, every dime the state spends on the baby should be on his tab, with the state willing to spend $5 to get $1 from him. The message to him is: You can’t cause children and walk away. If the first DNA test is negative, the woman carrying the baby would be obligated to name other candidates. The failure to establish the daddy’s identity would constitute child abuse.

And now into the breach we travel. Based on a single witness' testimony, the government will now wipe away the Fifth amendment and begin removing tissue from citizens who have committed no crime. What if the women has had multiple partners? Shall we have a parade? A genetic lineup of the usual suspects?

And if the woman is wrong? Charge her with child abuse. It's telling that Jim leaves out the consequences of immediately jumping to the nuclear option. Such a charge would remove the child from the mother's custody. So, at the end of the day, the likelihood is instead of forcefully creating a family, government inteference will lead to an even further splintering, a child deeper into the system and an burden greater than the original.

I used to cohost a radio show on Friday nights. But my partner and I did not wish to go on air every week. At the end of each show we finished with the tagline that we were here every Friday night except when we ain't. Conservatives like Jim remind me of that old tongue in cheek sign off. They are conservative, except when they ain't.

Collective Media Unconcious

On the same day Atlanta's Fresh Loaf reports on restructuring at the AJC, sister blog Blurbex reports on staff cuts at the Tampa Tribune.

Which leads one to the ultimate question.

Is there really peace in the Matrix or did Neo's absorption in the core just restart the entire system?

N.R.A. Wants Florida Too!

Just in case you thought Georgia was the only place the N.R.A. is poking a finger squarely in the eye of property rights, it's happening a little further south too.

A second Senate committee this morning endorsed the National Rifle Association's push to make it illegal for businesses that try to prevent employees from keeping guns in their cars when they park at work.

More evidence the N.R.A. is completely around the bend. Jackasses.

Welcome To Dekalb!

I really have to start attending commission meetings.

Today's DeKalb County Board of Commissioners meeting devolved into chaos, with the majority of the seven member commission walking out — and the CEO threatening to legally force their return. Four commissioners left the meeting, complaining about the way Chief Executive Office Vernon Jones was running it.

Please, please run for Senate Vernon! Things have been so dull since Cynthia and Katy left us!

Holy Jesus! We Lost A Satellite!

I seem to be in a screaming religious expletive mood.

Actually, we haven't lost a bird. Yet.

The QuikSCAT, which stands for Quick Scatterometer, is equipped with a sensor that provides tropical meteorologists with a storm's wind patterns. Without it, the accuracy of track forecasts could suffer 16 percent, when storms are three days out, and by 10 percent when storms are two days out, Bill Proenza, hurricane center director, said... The problem: When the satellite was launched in 1999, it was designed to last only five years.

Fortunately, Florida Rep. Ron Klein is going to root up some emergency funding. A friendly reminder. Hurricane season is less than two months away!

Jesus Gawd! Fine!

I'm twittering.

Crime Rampant In Roswell

But the po-lice have it under control.

A challenge. Without using the bible, someone explain to me why gambling should be illegal.

The next time you hear about the po-lice being strapped for resources, remember this story.

Headin' North

Everyone down here blames me for bringing the weather this far south. Normal ranting will resume tomorrow.

Further South

Dang! Who left the door open? It's cold in here! I need to head further south. See what's happening in the Sunshine State.

My Morning Wooten

Sadly, a feature that may soon go the way of the dodo.

But while we have him...

The problem now with a sensible middle-ground compromise, like the one U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) proposes on stem cell research using flawed embryos that can’t survive in the womb, is that we do live in a slippery-slope world and in one where ironclad guarantees are never that.

What about the unneeded embryos from fertility clinics that are discarded with the rest of the waste. Oh, better not to speak of those. It's a very southern thing to act as if something doesn't exist if you don't speak of the subject.

I thank the border guards who bravely protect our borders and also arrested the violators, and I grant them the bravery medal to their commander,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said of those who took 15 British sailors and marines hostage. The Brits lost big. They looked and sounded weak. They just bought themselves more terrorism on the home-front.

New rule (apologies Bill Maher), before demagogues can start spewing about how someone "lost" or appeared "weak, he or she must explicitly describe what action would be considered winning or strong. This should include details of collateral damage both human and political.

And now your moment of zen (apologies Jon Stewart)

Writing on an American flag is offensive because it’s cheap emotionalism and not art. Painting the Mona Lisa on the American flag would be offensive, too, but it would be art.

That type of thinking is going to be pretty tough on car dealers, Fox News chyrons and the bumper sticker industry

Henry Reaves Passes

1919-2007


A good friend of Georgia farmers and a good friend of mine.

Headin South

For a few days. Time to start cutting grass again.

Jay Bookman Gets It...Maybe

In the midst of his continuing campaign to expose how the Bush Administration is as D.L. Hughley put it on Bill Maher "mired in bullsh*t", Jay Bookman offers a revealing bit of self-examination:

To cite an example uncomfortably close to home, newspapers have long embraced the mythology — backed by some 500 years of history — that what we do is indispensable to an informed society. That mythology has now been exploded with the arrival of the Internet, pushing the industry into a desperate search for a narrative that better fits the world around us. We are coming to realize that if you ever let your mythology become too distant from how the world really works, you're in trouble.

I've always wondered why Jim Wooten, as ass backwards as you can get at times, at least cautiously embraces the new world with his blog "Thinking Right", while Jay Bookman, a talented writer with great grasp of the issues, sits on the sidelines. Local media insiders have told me Jay is not comfortable with the new medium. Well, maybe he's getting past the discomfort zone. I certainly hope so. He's a voice the community needs.

The Tease

I'm sniffing around a story but it's going to take some time to put together. To give you a hint, it's going to involve this.