Obligatory disclaimer: Not that I want to be the Schwarzenegger apologist on this blog...

But: look at this WP article, summarizing Ahnold's reaction to the outing of his Oui interview.

I never lived my life to be a politician. I never lived my life to be the governor of California. Obviously, I've made statements that were ludicrous and crazy and outrageous and all those things, because that's the way I always was.

Straightforward, honest. Does anyone really think this (or similar dirt) is going to hurt him? (And if you do, scroll down to the end of the article and observe at least one of his opponents refusing to make a greater issue of it.)

Robin's petty left-wing peeves are not going to sink him, either. Complaining about his Hummer? Come on, that's so Arianna of you. Internally inconsistent on abortion? So are most voters.

Hey, look who's become a regular reader of the Washington Post...

Actually I shouldn't talk - I was just perusing a piece there on my new pet topic: the Federal Reserve, the mixed signals between it and the all-powerful bond market, and the subsequent abrupt end to the home-refinancing boom. Keep an eye out for that incoming housing crash!

One more point tonight: I find it interesting that in the case of both the loss of the shuttle Columbia, and the great Northeast power blackout of 2003, we are confronted with extremely complex systems which, in the past, experienced embarassing failures. In detailed post-mortems of these failures, systemic flaws in the systems themselves, as well as their human operators, were identified and (it was claimed) fixed. Then in 2003, both systems suffered failures of almost identical nature due to almost identical causes. What do you think - are we ever gonna learn?

That ain't cool! In a WaPost Editorial, GWU Law Professor Jonathan Turley mentions that, from in prison, accused sniper John Allen Muhammad raised protest to a legal point -- he was about to be subjected to a medical test not ordered by the court nor discussed with his attorney. He probably doesn't have to take the test.

So the guards did the most obvious thing: they forced him to take it. By giving an 8-second 50,000 volt shock with the stun belt attached to him.

Lessons learned: it's easy to forget what you can't do when, in fact, you can do it. (Okay, how many of you just thought "Well, but how bad can THAT be?")

Would someone please tell these devout Christians that the removal of a monument to the 10 Commandments from an Alabama courthouse is not equivalent to repealing them? And so they can go home and continue to keep the Commandments?

These people are seriously distressed! But, I suspect the histronics are about something else. Like that they think symbols count.

Hey guys, check this out: 13 Dickinson St at CafePress.com.

No up-front charges, and we get the proceeds above CafePress retail (I've set all prices for a $3 net). The semi-lame thing is that they only let you sell one white T-shirt design per free store-front: If we want to make all designs available as white T's, we have to fork over $5 per month for a "premium" store.

I'm more inclined to open five free stores, myself....

As for Robin's liberal renaissance -- I suspect that it must begin like the last one did: heralded by the ingestion of enormous quantities of drugs, and end the same way too: a murderous amount of analysis through the eyes of the ingestees. Talkin' 'bout my generation.

Of course, given my side of the action below, I'm vulnerable to the accusation that I'm on a coke binge:

Resolved: That Arnold Schwarzenegger will win the replacement election.
Pro: Erica
Con: Bob

Resolved: That Richard Riordan would win the replacement election.
Pro: Bob
Con: Derek

Resolved: That Gov. Gray Davis will not be recalled in the recall election.
Pro: Bob
Con: Derek


Oh, Derek? I hereby concede that Richard Riordan will not win the replacement election. I owe you a cappa.

I'm no longer offering action on these questions. Which is humility, but not concession.

Thanks for the morning links, Robin. Borowitz is great, however, the part about hosing Ann Coulter down with three fire hoses was pure liberal wet-dream.

The impending Recall (oh yes, Gray will lose) is certainly causing contortions for idealogues of all stripes. AC's chief gripe with Davis appears to be the huge deficit hole he's dug us into - okay Ann, so what then do you make of this?

Where can I buy my Al Franken (/Brian Flemming) T-shirt?

Speaking of which, we need to tabulate T-shirt ideas. Apart from the "Homeland Security Threat Level" T's, I'd also like to see a "Fsck Ashcroft Puce Ribbon Campaign" T (his recent PATRIOT Act World Tour has really brought the urgency back for this one), and maybe others.

If a liberal-minded commentator sputtered a word like "parasites" (used by Ann Coulter to describe illegal immigrants in California, link in Robin's post below), conservative shouting of "discredited P.C. mindset" would drown out the sound of the plural "s" expiring.
But, I think Ms. Coulter has earned the liberal doppelganger to the conservative name-calling. A well-read girl, Ms. Coulter no doubt knows that this is the same word used by the Soviets and Nazis -- in rare cross-ideological convergence -- to describe Jews, but why she wants to join the Nazis is beyond me.

Let's get this once, right, and with feeling: "Ann Coulter is a Nazi".

Can we go about ignoring her now? Participating in name-calling is a dirty and unpleasant business. I think we're better off taking the ball and going home.

I propose that we change the motto of our group blog to fair and balanced.

ps. I'm especially fond of the "wholly without merit" characterization. Three huzzahs for the independent judiciary (while it lasts).

So, did we already know that our President fantasizes about dictatorship?


The New York Times reports a quote from Joshua B. Bolten, white house budget director and formerly the President's chief deomestic policy advisor: "Even the president is not omnipotent. Would that he were. He often says that life would be a lot easier if it were a dictatorship. But it's not, and he's glad it's a democracy. "

Glad? What kind of lousy spin on Bush's delicious fantasizing is that?

Bob