My thoughts on whatever

Contact address
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blogs I read on a far too regular basis

 
I haven't been paying close attention to the Laci Peterson murder saga, but I couldn't pass up the following quote from this Slate article by Jack Shafer. The article is about Keith Olbermann's new show on MSNBC. I might have to temporarily break my boycott to check it out.
Olbermann is speaking here about the case against the husband.

Exhibit A, that alibi. Maybe you often get to go fishing alone 80 miles from home on Christmas Eve with a pregnant wife at home. That would make you the first married man in history to be able to pull that one off. Not likely.

posted by Slim at 9:52 PM

 
The question of the day, from New Scientist magazine is "Does beheading hurt?".

I don't want to give the answer away, but let me say this. Try not to commit a major crime in 16th century England.
posted by Slim at 9:03 PM

 
Digby provides a truly terrifying vision.

Newt has not yet outlived his usefulness

posted by Slim at 8:03 PM

 
Shane Kosakowski of BATHTUB gOULASH explains how America is trapped in a bad John Hughes movie.

We were the fun, rich, good-looking, popular country. We drove the coolest car and had the tasty girlfriend with the big tits and the pool. We hung out with all the other cool countries, but still said hi to Mexico in the hallways (even though he smelled like a spicy sweatsuit). We were the best athlete and played guitar in a shitty band. We would get drunk and prank Russia and do coke on the away bus. We would kick somebody’s ass if they fucked with our friends and we would lend money if our friends were fucked. We were a superhero in the history of the world.

Thanks to Tbogg for pointing me to this.
posted by Slim at 7:37 PM

 
Finally from Atrios, something almost local, Orrin Hatch talks about polygamy.

"I'm not here to justify polygamy," he said. "All I can say is, I know people in Hildale who are polygamists who are very fine people. You come and show me evidence of children being abused there and I'll get involved. Bring the evidence to me."
Hatch said he could not take unsubstantiated claims and enforce law, and he would not "sit here and judge anybody just because they live differently than me. There will be laws on the books, but these are very complicated issues," Hatch said.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me if the chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee knows people who are actively engaged in breaking the law, he really should be required to act on that. I guess he can't afford to offend the invaluable "religiously justified" criminal constituency. WIth each family having 5 or 6 adults, it adds up to a voting block quickly.
posted by Slim at 7:21 AM

 
Let's see, do I support Bush or the Dixie Chicks. Hmmmmmm. Well, Bush hasn't posed naked (not that I know of, I don't read National Review) so I am going to go with the Dixie Chicks
posted by Slim at 9:46 PM

 
I never thought anything would make me want to tell people I am from West Virginia. Rick Santorum is making a run at it. The latest outrage (link via Atrios) Bush more Catholic than JFK

• U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has blasted President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 endorsement of church-state separation, saying that Kennedy’s vow not to take orders from the Roman Catholic hierarchy has caused "much harm in America."
Interviewed in Rome while attending an event sponsored by Opus Dei, a far-right Catholic group, Santorum told the National Catholic Reporter, "All of us have heard people say, ‘I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it’s not right for someone else?’ But it is the corruption of freedom of conscience."
According to Santorum, Kennedy was not the nation’s first Catholic president. That distinction, he said, belongs to George W. Bush, a Methodist.
"From economic issues focusing on the poor and social justice, to issues of human life, George Bush is there," Santorum said. "He has every right to say, ‘I’m where you are if you’re a believing Catholic.’"

This is not a new report (March 2002), but it sure is obvious that Santorum has some way out views. So, if Kennedy's vow not to take orders from the Catholic hierarchy has caused "much harm", does Bush vow to take orders from Rome? If so, why would he ignore the Pope on the issue of war. He must have been in confession when that came out.
posted by Slim at 9:01 PM

 
I just posted this to the Political State Report. If you haven't seen this blog yet, check it out.

It was suggested to me that it might be interesting to try and show what really drives Idaho politics. News of a political nature is really limited in non-election years, so I thought I would just put this out as an opinion piece of sorts. I hope I can give you a sense of Idaho from the viewpoint of an East Coast Liberal.
I moved to Idaho about 3.5 years ago from Santa Fe. Before that I lived in Berkeley and I don't recommend this exact series of moves. A brief cooling off period, perhaps in Denver or Salt Lake City, would have eased the transition to Southeast Idaho.
I didn't really expect when I moved to Idaho that it would be so dominated by the Republican party and by conservatives in particular. It is no exaggeration to say that there is no place in the Idaho Republican party for Lincoln Chaffee. In fact, he might very well be considered a librul, as Molly Ivins would say it. Ok, that is a little unfair. People here in Idaho don't sound like Texans when they say the word, but the disdain is the same.
Anyway, the state, at least the southern part, is dominated by agricultural concerns. Farming is huge here. Potatoes, cattle, wheat, barley, if it requires a lot of space or responds well to irrigation, we grow it here. Is it a problem? Well, farmers and ranchers are overrepresented in the legislature and they get some tax breaks, but I am sure it is no different than in a lot of midwestern states. The northern part of the state is far less agricultural and far more dominated by industries like logging or mining. I will return to this point a bit later.
Idaho really is a bit of a sandbox for conservatives. Republicans dominate the bi-cameral legislature and we pretty much get the total package. Tax cuts, right-to-work, low welfare payments, you name a conservative talking point of the last 10 years and it has probably either passed the legislature or been seriously considered.
But this isn't really shocking. Once you understand how much Republicans dominate the landscape here, the rest just follows. What didn't occur to me before I moved here was the massive importance of federal lands and resource management issues. This may be the only Republican state where Bill Clinton is hated as much for his roadless policy as for his moral lapses. I am only now starting to see the depth and breadth of this and it is something I may never come to fully understand. I hope never to come to the position where the federal government is an evil entity only here to steal my money, my water, and my livelihood in resource development.

I haven't said much about Democrats, and there isn't much to say. Support for Democrats is really centered in only four or five places in the state and there is a long tough road ahead if Democrats want to become relevant again.

I hope I have said something you might not have known about Idaho. We may never be relevant in presidential politics, but we do have something to contribute. I think any Democratic candidate who is palatable to a significant number of Idaho voters is likely to do well anywhere. Ok, maybe not Berkeley. Who is that candidate for 2004? Probably none of the front-runners. They are all too East Coast (Lieberman, Kerry, Dean) or too much like Bill Clinton (Edwards). Wesley Clark or Bob Graham might do alright here. I am still not sure. I will try to keep everyone updated on how they are coming across here. I don't think I need to say that the President is still massively popular among the majority of residents.

posted by Slim at 10:34 PM

 
ORDER THE SERVANTS TO ROAST THE FATTED CALF AND LAY OUT THE SATIN SHEETS, THE VESTAL VIRGINS HAVE ENTERED THE PALACE!!!
This piece by Jim Caple is simply brilliant.
posted by Slim at 10:44 PM

 
I am not saying that a 14-year old published conservative columnist is the seventh sign of the apocalypse, but it must be around the third or fourth sign.
posted by Slim at 10:32 PM

 
Yet more evidence that we are the perfect family! Not only is our tax burden remarkably near the magical 33% mark, we have a marriage penalty/bonus of under $100 dollars. Thanks to Matthew Yglesias for pointing me to Virginia Postrel's post.
posted by Slim at 10:17 PM

 
Another wonderful post from Michael Finley. This time on how to recognize and defeat the Mighty Wurlitzer.
posted by Slim at 9:46 PM

 
I posted this in the comments in Brad Delong's site and I think it pretty much sums up my philosophy well.

HIM: (another commenter, not Prof. Delong)

"What do you propose to cut from the federal budget? Be specific."

Everything. (That specific enough? ;-))

In rough order of importance of cutting:

1) All U.S. troops on foreign soils, starting with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait...and quickly followed by Germany, South Korea, and everywhere else.

2) Every single drug statute, and all drug enforcement activities.

3) Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.

4) The Department of Education.

5) Department of Energy, Agriculture, Interior, etc. etc. etc.

In short, everything that wasn't there in the 1880s, when the federal government was actually following the Constitution. Which is essentially everything.

That would add 2 to 4+% per year to our GDP. We'd establish ourselves far and away the front-runners in liberty for the 21st century.


Posted by Mark Bahner at April 16, 2003 07:51 PM

ME:

I think anyone who seriously proposes to roll the government back to the 1880's should be willing to commit suicide at the point of their 1880's life expectancy. My rough estimate is that it would cost about the last 15 years of your life. Anyone not willing to make this deal should just sit quietly and watch FoxNews.

Posted by Christopher McGrath at April 16, 2003 09:34 PM
posted by Slim at 9:40 PM

 
E. J. Dionne makes a good point on The Price of Liberty. One memorable quote:

"Our legal and social orders disproportionately benefit the well-off. That makes it reasonable for them to pick up a larger share of the social costs."
posted by Slim at 9:17 PM

 
I somehow forgot to include Al Franken in my list of "People from Minnestoa I have come to admire". This recent column, Norm and the Other 1 Percent, is well worth a read.
posted by Slim at 8:04 PM

 
Brad DeLong and CalPundit have both had recent posts on their individual tax situations and it inspired me to do some figuring of my own.
I added up pretty much all the taxes that the missus and I paid in the last year. Unlike Professor Delong, I don't know how much sales tax I paid to the nearest dollar, but I took an educated guess. I was a little surprised by what I found. We paid in taxes about what the average Idaho family earns in a year. But, surprisingly, it worked out to just under 32% of our income.
Is that too much? I must admit, the actual dollar amount seems like a lot of money. However, 32% seems like a pretty good deal to me. I guess tax rates must be almost perfectly defined, though. Even though my wife and I moved into the top 20% for income this year, we don't cross the magical 33% boundary in taxes. Thank God the president isn't proposing any irresponsible new taxes.
posted by Slim at 8:00 PM

 
My love of baseball has not, so far, been able to overcome this Hall of Fame/Bull Durham thing, and I think the last vestige of my fandom is about to shatter. As a kid, well teenager I guess, I was a huge Dale Murphy fan. He swung hard, he ran hard, and he looked like he was having a great time. Now it seems he is considering running for governor of Utah as a Republican. I guess he couldn't just retire to obscurity and leave my childhood memories intact.
posted by Slim at 10:33 PM

 
Ted Barlow (no permalinks right now) is all over homophobic Texas state representative Robert Talton. It is heartwarming to see Texans acting exactly as I expect. Ted's last paragraph scared the crap out of me, though:

'I can be persuaded on a number of conservative arguments. Really, I can. But as long as Republicans are "the party that hates gay people," I'm not coming inside.'

Say it ain't so, Ted. We all know that it should be " the party that hates everyone not like themselves"
posted by Slim at 10:26 PM

 
Mark A. R. Kleiman with an interesting question about produce. Why is it so much more expensive in a supermarket versus a retail produce market? I have often wondered this as I paid way too much for potatoes that were grown just down the road from my house. Yes, I know I could buy straight from a farm, but the MegaLoMart is so convenient.
posted by Slim at 10:21 PM

 
Good to see that Republicans are becoming massively overconfident. Maybe if there are twelve straight years of Bush presidents, the position of president will be downsized away.
posted by Slim at 10:12 PM

 
I have to say that I am not happy to see TBOGG trashing Kevin Smith. As for someone who is more overrated than Kevin Smith, how about James Cameron. I mean, has this guy been involved in a good movie that didn't star Arnie?
posted by Slim at 10:10 PM

 
I think a flying pig just crapped on me. Thanks TBOGG for the link.
posted by Slim at 9:46 PM

 
Yeah, these guys are a bunch of amateurs. If I was Dubya, I wouldn't listen to them either.
posted by Slim at 9:34 PM

 
I will go to sleep to night thanking the powers that be that Ted Barlow introduced me to The Hall of Douchebags.
posted by Slim at 9:16 PM

 
CalPundit asks an important question:

"Isn't it about time for the U.S. military to join the 21st century too?"

Hell, I would consider it a victory if some parts of the military would join the 20th century.
posted by Slim at 9:09 PM

 
I am starting to get a little worried. It seems like all the people I have recently come to admire are from or in Minnesota. I came late to the party that was Paul Wellstone, but I mourn his loss none the less. I find I am enjoying Garrison Keillor more and more lately. I hope it is because he had the stones to trash Norm Coleman and not because I am getting older. Finally, of all the blogs I read, I find that I enjoy most of all Michael Finley's. I really don't know why, but I recommend it heartily.
posted by Slim at 8:42 PM

 
It is probable that nobody is interested in this, but due to the vagaries of the msn search engine, I am the #1 site for "other countries thoughts on abortion". A proud moment indeed.
posted by Slim at 8:34 PM

 
Eric Muller posting at the Volokh Conspiracy revists an old Supreme Court decision to revisits an old Supreme Court decision (Maryland v. Craig) to make the point that Justice Scalia is brilliant. The salient question seems to be the following: Could the state alllow an alleged molester to "confront" his accuser only over closed-circuit TV? The idea being this would be easier for the child, but would still allow the questioning of the accuser.
Scalia joined with Brennan Marshall and Stevens in the dissent. Scalia's brilliance was allegedly displayed by pointing out that the state was trying to have its cake and eat it too. It was trying to protect the child and try the molester. The thinking was that each was perhaps slightly harmed, but Justice was served. Scalia's arguement seems to have been that the state must choose one path.
Why is this brilliant? I think it is ridiculous and infantile. Adults can compromise. Only children (and fundamentalists) believe that compromise is evil. It is this sort of view that makes Justice Scalia not brilliant but scary.
posted by Slim at 9:42 PM