Archive for the 'General Knowledge' Category

Quick Hit: Drilling Is A Fraud!

Terri Whitehouse June 19th, 2008

I guess some people think that if you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes magically true. Click here to learn why the Bush/McCain/McConnell energy “plan” is a great big FAIL!

UPDATE: And Krugman for the TKO:

Mr. McCain has now aligned himself with an administration that, even aside from its blame-the-environmental-movement tendencies, has established an extensive track record as the gang that couldn’t think straight about energy policy.

Remember, they didn’t just insist that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators; on the eve of the Iraq war, administration officials were also adamant that regime change in Iraq would add millions of barrels a day to the world oil supply, driving oil prices way down. (In fact, Iraq’s oil output took five years just to recover to preinvasion levels.)

So why would Mr. McCain associate himself with these characters? The answer, presumably, is that it’s a cynical political calculation.

How can anyone really delude themselves into trusting Bush/McCain/McConnell/and the ever-desperate Northup on energy policy? All the sugar in the world wouldn’t make that snake oil go down!

Nobody Puts Sweetie In a Corner!

Terri Whitehouse May 20th, 2008

I hope you stocked up on booze yesterday, because you’re SOL until after the polling places close. Something tells me that you won’t *really* have to worry about stocking up until the general elections in November, though.

Check out the ballots where you live here, and double-check your polling location here.

For Jefferson County voters, ballots for individual precincts can be found here. The Courier-Journal provides profiles for down-ticket candidates here, and Metro Council candidates answered questions here.

Per the State Board of Elections, if you’re in line by 6:00 P.M., you can vote. You must be known to the precinct officer or provide identification. Acceptable forms of I.D. are driver’s license, Social Security card, credit card, or other I.D. that has your picture and signature. The Voter Fraud Hotline number is (800) 328-8683.

For some leisurely reading, check out this new post at Crooks & Liars. It reports on the fallacy of “voter fraud” and the wastefulness of Republicans who wish to suppress the franchise at taxpayer expense.

Consider this an open thread for today’s election. If you have any anecdotes to share, local information, profiles for other candidates throughout the state, etc., please do so in the comments section. Keep it above the belt!

Quick Hit: It’s Their Nature

Terri Whitehouse April 15th, 2008

There’s an excellent post by Pam Spaulding about a racist comment that Rep. Geoff Davis made at an event in which Sen. Mitch McConnell also gave the world the opportunity to see just how low class the Kentucky GOP can be. I can’t remember where I read it, but my favorite defense of Davis’s racist remark so far is that he was hopefully just drunk. Desperate measures, indeed.

Quick Hit: Recommended Reading

Terri Whitehouse March 10th, 2008

Law Student Jill Filipovic has two excellent posts up on Feministe this week, which follow up on that 1 in 99 statistic that was recently reported.

In “America Behind Bars”, Filipovic discusses the economic and social impact of the incarceration rate:

And entire communities depend on prisons for their economic stability. They have disproportionate political power — prison inmates count as residents, meaning that the areas are allocated greater resources that the inmates don’t benefit from and they’re counted in the population of Congressional districts. And inmates, of course, can’t vote — and in many states, they can’t vote once they get out, either.

Piggybacking on that post in “Judicial nominees, prison exploitation and discriminatory country clubs”, Filipovic takes a closer look at the prison-industrial complex and those who profit from it:

…like the private military contractors that the Bush administration pays to do our dirty work in Iraq, private prison employees were long not subject to the same laws that federal and state prison employees are…

The Sky Lit Up

Terri Whitehouse February 6th, 2008

As a western Kentuckian, tornado watches and warnings were so frequent that I find myself, as an adult, not heeding them as I should now that I am on my own, far from where I grew up. I’m not proud to admit such foolishness.

It saddens me to see pictures and hear accounts of landscapes I know so well - by geography, by song, by poem - devastated. For anyone whose lives my have been affected by last night’s tragedies, you are in my prayers.

Ooooooh! Buuuuurrrrn!

Terri Whitehouse February 2nd, 2008

There is an excellent editorial in today’s Courier-Journal about Sen. Mitch McConnell titled, appropriately enough, “The Back Of His Hand“:

Millions of Americans are in economic trouble, while the Big Energy friends of George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell wallow in historic profits. Yesterday, Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual gain ever by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion. The rest of us are left to cower at the gasoline pumps.

Mitch McConnell feels he deserves re-election because he “does so much for Kentucky.” Never mind what he and his friend have done to America.

For real, though! Go read the whole shebang.

He Got 935 Problems, But A War Ain’t One

Terri Whitehouse January 23rd, 2008

The AP is reporting that the Bush administration issued nearly 1,000 false statements about national security in the two years after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001:

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another statement of the bleeding obvious. But still, it gives me a massive headache this morning. Doesn’t Sen. Mitch McConnell know that ignoring something doesn’t make it go away? Time to send him packing so he and his BFF George W. Bush can have more free time together next year.

All Of Us & Open Thread

Terri Whitehouse January 21st, 2008

Some of us weren’t given the day off. Some of us work two jobs, even. So some of us just have time to post a teensy little roundup of worthy reads on the day all of us celebrate the life and contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr. (And some of us will likely have to do the same tomorrow.)

Scott Lemieux excerpts Letter from a Birmingham Jail, the first thing I ever read by Dr. King when I was a youngster.

Pam Spaulding profiles Dr. King’s views on the Vietnam War.

Shark-Fu talks about the dream vs. reality.

Adam Howard examines the radicalism of Dr. King.

MediaCzech calls out the mouthbreathers.

Leonard Pierce makes me snort when I laugh.

Any other good links for the day? ‘Preciate it!

Quick Hit: Fischer Makes It Official

Terri Whitehouse January 17th, 2008

As had been speculated, Louisville businessman Greg Fischer has officially announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate:

“Senator McConnell just doesn’t represent us anymore,” Fischer said. “He could have done more to stop the assault on the pocketbooks of working Americans, more for education, more for health care. … But he has chosen a different course.”
…
“The founders of our nation warned against career politicians and we now understand why,” he said. “I am not a career politician obsessed with power. I’m a problem-solver, a lifelong Kentuckian, just sick and tired of a political process that is broken.”

Echoing what Matt said previously, I look forward to the messages of Kentucky democratic candidates getting out during the primary season, making it that much easier to DITCH MITCH this fall!

Who’s Your Daddy?

Terri Whitehouse January 11th, 2008

Republicans sure love their daddy state, don’t they? Oh, sure, they’ll raise stink about big government when it comes to public health or helping families, but damned if they’re not itching to bend you over their knees for a fierce spanking when it comes to issues of bodily autonomy or privacy.

OMG! Sex Ed Works!

Terri Whitehouse December 20th, 2007

Though likely to be overshadowed by the fact - and all the sexism and judgment it entails - that some teen starlet went and got herself knocked up, the CDC has released a report that comprehensive sexual education works:

They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex, according to the study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

So why is it, again, that lawmakers continue to extend funding of a program that provides youth with lies and misinformation and, what’s more, doesn’t work?

Scientists Urge Congress to Quit Funding Ignorance

Terri Whitehouse December 2nd, 2007

A group of scientists sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid encouraging them to discontinue federal funding of abstinence-only sex education. Some highlights:

Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions...Governments have an obligation to provide accurate information to adolescents and adolescents have a right to expect health education provided in public schools to be scientifically accurate and complete.

The large-scale Mathematica evaluation of the Section 510 program, released in April 2007, found no measurable impact on increasing abstinence or delaying sexual initiation among participating youth or on other behaviors such as condom use…One of the few measurable impacts of the programs was a decrease in adolescent confidence regarding the ability of condoms to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

A spring 2005 longitudinal study by Bruckner and Bearman found that abstinence pledgers, when compared to non-pledgers, experienced similar rates of sexually transmitted infection. Pledgers did delay sexual intercourse for a limited period, but when they did start having sex, they were less likely to use condoms. They were also less likely to seek reproductive health care compared to non-pledgers.

Importantly, the emphasis on abstinence-only programs and policies appears to be undermining critical public health programs in the U.S. and abroad, including comprehensive sexuality education and HIV prevention programs.

We also note that a December 2004 Congressional report on federal abstinence programs from the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform - Minority Staff found that 11 of the 13 most frequently used curricula contained false, misleading or distorted information about reproductive health - including inaccurate information about contraceptive effectiveness, purported health risks of abortion, and other scientific errors.

We would note that all of the mainstream organizations of health professionals that focus on the health of young people have strongly criticized federal support for current abstinence programs. These include the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine. We have also attached the weblinks to the policy statements from each of these groups.

The full letter, along with valuable links to sources, can be found at RH Reality Check.

And, while we’re on the subject of pound foolishness, WIC funding is in danger of being cut.

Quick Hit: Bush Has Landed

Terri Whitehouse November 13th, 2007

Pres. George W. Bush has landed. He will be in New Albany, IN, talking about how freakin’ awesome the economy-n-shit is.

The Courier-Journal has ongoing coverage, and it’s unbelievable that their readers seem to be even more cynical than I am about the President’s visit.

UPDATE: C-J columnist Bob Hill gets it right:

It’s not that the Democrats have done themselves proud in this Congress either, sir. They are a major disappointment to many who voted for them. Clearly tax-and-spend is not the answer to all our problems, but what makes you and your party believe borrow-and-spend is any better?

Frankly, Mr. President, if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan required so much American blood and courage to fight, then why didn’t you have the courage to ask Americans to pay for it? If you could explain that to me, sir, I’ll be glad to buy the second cup of coffee.

UPDATE: An excellent play-by-play of the speech at First Draft.

SCHIP Vetoed

Terri Whitehouse October 3rd, 2007

I know we are all stunned by this.

UPDATE: There is a protest of Bush’s veto in Louisville at 4:00 today outside of Mitch McConnell’s office. Details here.

I’ll Give You A Nickel if You Wiggle My Trickle

Terri Whitehouse September 10th, 2007

In today’s New York Times, Pal Krugman sheds some light on the true impact of the Bush economy:

It’s true, as the Bushies never tire of reminding us, that the U.S. economy has added eight million jobs since that 2003 tax cut. That sounds impressive, unless you happen to know that a good part of that gain was simply a recovery from large job losses earlier in the administration’s tenure — and that the United States added no fewer than 21 million jobs after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich, a move that had conservative pundits predicting economic disaster.

What’s really remarkable, however, is that four years of economic growth have produced essentially no gains for ordinary American workers.

Wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated: the real hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers, the most widely used measure of how typical workers are faring, were no higher in July 2007 than they were in July 2003.

Meanwhile, benefits have deteriorated: the percentage of Americans receiving health insurance through employers, which plunged along with employment during the early years of the Bush administration, continued to decline even as the economy finally began creating some jobs.

And one of the few seeming bright spots of the Bush-era economy, rising homeownership, is now revealed as the result of a bubble inflated in part by financial flim-flam, which deceived both borrowers and investors.

Now you know why 66 percent of Americans rate economic conditions in this country as only fair or poor, and why Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy almost as strongly as they disapprove of the job he is doing in general.

Yet the overall economy has grown at a reasonable pace over the past four years. Where did the economic growth go? The answer is that it went to the same economic elite that received the lion’s share of those tax cuts.

Is anyone surprised at all by this? Here at DM-KY, we’ve highlighted several items which illustrate the hostility with which regular working Americans are treated by the GOP. McConnell and Co: we’re on to you and you should be very afraid.

Safety? Schmafety!

Terri Whitehouse August 22nd, 2007

Dave Meyer of OpenKY.com has a timely post about Mine and Health Safety Administrator, Richard Stickler. As has been reported in the media, Stickler is a former mining executive whose safety track record was less than satisfactory. And, as Meyer points out in his post, Sen. Mitch McConnell played a big role in Stickler’s recess appointment:

I know there has been a hold on the MSHA Director nomination on the other side of the aisle. I have been told that there will be an objection yet again today. But I want to plead with those from the other side who may believe that this is not the perfect nominee— he is the nominee, nominated by the President, reported out of the HELP Committee. If he were to be drawn down and this whole process were to be started all over again, we wouldn’t have an MSHA Director for months and months into the future. We need a permanent Director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

The McConnell/Chao/mining connection has been previously documented on DM-KY. Meyer’s post on the topic is definitely worth the read.

More Picnicking in Western Kentucky

Terri Whitehouse August 6th, 2007

If you didn’t get your fill of delicious food and fiery political conversation at Fancy Farm, there’s still a chance to belly-up at O’bryan’s in West Louisville, KY. O’bryan’s is playing host to the second annual Red, White, & Blue Picnic, the successor to the picnic formerly held at Red’s in Sorgho.

Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer’s Owen Covington reports (no link; subscription only):

For decades, politicians followed up a weekend at Fancy Farm in western Kentucky with a stop at Red’s Fish House of the South in Sorgho, where Thomas “Red” Saltsman hosted a political picnic with free food and speeches.

O’Bryan’s owner Jamie Murphy estimated that the first year of the Red, White & Blue picnic drew about 900 people with candidates for U.S. Congress as well as state and local office taking their turns on stage.

[…]

O’Bryan’s will be cooking more than 400 chickens to provide the free dinner for the event, which is sponsored by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce and the Daviess County Democratic and Republican parties.

[...]

This year features all state constitutional offices on the ballot, with a contested gubernatorial battle between incumbent Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, and Democratic challenger Steve Beshear.

Fletcher has said he will be in West Louisville for today’s event, and Beshear running mate Dan Mongiardo of Hazard, who currently serves in the state Senate, will represent the Beshear camp, according to the chamber.

As some know, Red’s hosted its own picnic for nearly 50 years, the last one being held in 2004. Owner Red Saltsman died in 2005, and the restaurant closed in 2006. Red’s place was sold earlier this year. With 900 people showing for the Red, White, & Blue Picnic’s inaugural year, O’Bryan’s seems poised to be every bit as treasured as its predecessor.

T.G.I.F.

Terri Whitehouse August 3rd, 2007

The DM-KY team has a jam-packed weekend, and while I won’t be attendance at Fancy Farm, my posting, too, will be sporadic. Don’t let that stop you from checking in, though, as I know that I am looking forward to hearing about YearlyKos and Fancy Farm from some of my favorite bloggers. (I’m not just saying that, I promise.)

To kick things off, check out Sam Youngman’s national coverage of Kentucky’s governor’s race and the impact it will have on the 2008 U.S. Senate campaign. I think all this interest will make for a very interesting picnic!

Sen. Mitch McConnell Is a Heckuva Busy Man!

Terri Whitehouse August 2nd, 2007

Between hiring a stealthy campaign strategist for his 2008 reelection campaign, working to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and reluctantly voting for greater transparency in government, how on earth does Sen. Mitch McConnell find the time to draft some b.s. anti-family and anti-children legislation and find the nerve to call it the “Kids First Act”?

Being a literary sort of person, I should probably recognize this whole nonsense of cleverly naming legislation so that Americans will not be outraged at what the legislation really says and does as an ironic device. Fortunately, my low-brow aesthetic most always trumps my literary one, and from here on out I will refer to this practice (system, manner, or condition) as it occurs in politics, as “oppositism.” The noun “oppositicity” will describe the state or quality of being of an “oppositist” mindset. An “oppositist” shall henceforth refer to any politician who insults my intelligence by engaging in oppositism.

Big Government? Big Lie! (And Other Matters of Note)

Terri Whitehouse August 1st, 2007

The Courier-Journal today ran an insightful piece written by E.J. Dionne Jr. on the myth of “big government.” Big government is, of course, a scare tactic used to justify lots of awful things, from lax gun control laws to not providing for the nation’s poor. Just exactly how big our government has actually gotten under the leadership of a Republican president, however, is worth a closer look.

In slightly unrelated news, Mark Hebert reports that nearly two-thirds of Kentuckians want some sort of U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq.

Also, I’ve been meaning to blog about abstinence-only (mis)education for a number of weeks now, but Mary Q. Burton at the LEO does such a first-rate job in “Sex, lies and abstinence” that I’ll just quote in part:

Teri Lloyd was surprised when the sex education books her children brought home from school seemed woefully incomplete. The books omitted certain parts of the female anatomy — specifically, the clitoris.

“That’s got to be a shame, fear-based thing,” says Lloyd, 49, whose daughter, now 23, attended school at Myers Middle. “We just failed to educate them about their own bodies. What we leave out can be shaming, too. I wondered why that part wasn’t mentioned. I’m not opposed to teaching abstinence; what I’m opposed to is pairing it with shame or with lack of information about birth control and the human body.”

They can give enough of my tax money to fund religious anti-choice pregnancy centers, but can’t find a few hundred bucks for an accurate scientific rendering of the female anatomy? Nice.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Terri Whitehouse July 12th, 2007

Everyone’s jumping overboard and President Bush finally acknowledged that the Plame leak likely came from the Whitehouse:

“And, you know, I’ve often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, `I did it.’ Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter?

Ya think? Gee, champ, what insight.

Happy Independence Day!

Terri Whitehouse July 4th, 2007

…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

Terri Whitehouse July 2nd, 2007

No matter what your political leanings may be, there is surely one source of common ground for all Kentuckians: Springfield, KY, is the “real” Springfield, and, as such, is a great source of civic pride. Please watch the videos and vote for Springfield, KY in The Simpsons Movie hometown premiere contest.

A Victory For Reverse-Racismists!

Terri Whitehouse June 28th, 2007

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports that the Supreme Court has struck down race-based public school integration programs in Louisville and Seattle:

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts wrote. On the two school plans, the majority found that the districts have “failed to provide the necessary support for the proposition that there is no other way than individual racial classifications to avoid racial isolation in their school districts.”

This is great news because Louisville children are no longer adversely affected by Jim Crow practices that ended decades ago.

Snarkiness aside, I don’t have a dog in the fight, really. I didn’t grow up in Louisville and don’t have kids. Living in the country, long bus rides to and from school were a way of life.

Part of being a big-mouthed know-it-all is asking questions. What will be done to ensure that de facto segregation doesn’t happen again? Whatsmore, what, if anything, will be done to ensure that all public schools and communities are provided with the resources they need to help students achieve academic success? Where does our dialogue about poverty, housing, education, and race go from here? Does this court decision effectively shove cotton in the ears of those who continue to say that the playing field was leveled long ago?

The Courier-Journal offers local coverage of the SCOTUS decision, and if article comments are any indication, I’d say the answer to that last question is, “yes.” Daily Kos and Think Progress offer opinion on the court decision. I think that both sides of the busing debate make compelling arguments, but in the end, I can’t help that this decision makes me extremely uneasy. Makes you wonder who those “activist judges” really are.

Addendum: Check out the C-J’s editorial response to the Supreme Court ruling.

Hell, Hast Thou Frozen Over?

Terri Whitehouse June 27th, 2007

Laurie Kellman of the AP reports:

The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush’s warrant-free eavesdropping program.

Also named in subpoenas signed by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., were the Justice Department and the National Security Council.

The committee wants documents that might shed light on internal squabbles within the administration over the legality of the program, said a congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity because the subpoenas had not been made public.

Oy! Executive immunity, anyone?

Addendum: Nope, that didn’t take long at all!

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