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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Tuesday, February 08, 2005
   
   

Re: What a Contemptible, Self-Righteous Lying Gasbag

Kudos to Bill Moyers for doing the right thing:

Earlier this afternoon, Bill Moyers called James Watt and "apologized profusely" for misquoting him and misrepresenting his views on the environment. Moyers says he will produce a written apology and think about ways to make the apology as public as the smear was....

But I still want a refund.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 09:54:30 PM
Categorized as Media & Political.


   
   

The Blog from the Core at Wittingshire

Amanda Witt blogs, Feb. 6, a link to an article by Richard Beban at LAT, also Feb. 6.

Today, she kindly blogs links to our Sunday Poetry Series and Random Poetry List, along with other poetry links of interest.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 08:41:36 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff & Literary.


   
   

Re: Easongate

You may have heard already, Faithful Reader, that WaPo's media man Howie Kurtz broaches (and, apparently, closes) today the subject of the overseas sedition by CNN's Eason Jordan. As others have already opined, it's a half-hearted, half-witted examination — really, what has come to be called a "limited hangout".

I wonder, how much does Kurtz get for his CNN gig? What's a man's credibility, personal integrity, and professional reputation go for these days?

Little did we expect, then, that JunkYardBlog would be able to report that CNN itself has also broken the silence.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 08:13:41 PM
Categorized as Media.


   
   

Re: The Social Security Trust Fund

A rare image has been found!

Thanks to quick- and keen-eyed reader John for directing our attention to this invaluable image of the Social Security Trust Fund.

Unicorn Solstice / Nathan John Tillett

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 07:55:04 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

A Sincere Thank You to Hollywood Vacuumheads

Yes. Sincere. Really.

A Sincere Thank You to Hollywood Vacuumheads
A Sincere Thank You to Hollywood Vacuumheads

[Follow-up: A Sincere Thank You to Hollywood Vacuumheads II.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 07:43:26 PM
Categorized as Photos & Political.


   
   

::::w i l l i n g t o n w o r l d::::

Vide.

(Thanks, Jonah.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 06:55:42 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

Eternity Road

Vide.

(Thanks, Amanda.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 06:42:56 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

Catholic Carnival XVI

At doxology this week. Your Humble, Faithful Blogster has an entry in this week's Carnival.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 06:23:46 PM
Categorized as Catholic Carnival & Religious.


   
   

The Torch

A brand, spanking new weblog from FIRE.

Vide.

(Thanks, Michelle.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 06:16:36 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

The Social Security Trust Fund

Arlen spills the beans?

One phrase heard often the past couple of weeks is The Social Security Trust Fund. But WaTi publishes today a Feb. 4 interview with the senior senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter (all typos in the horribly edited original):

.... Q. Do you agree with the president's plan for changing Social Security?
A. I'm waiting for a specifiation and the details. I have an open mind on it. I'm not going to give the president a blank check, nor am I going to line up with the people who say they're unalterably opposed. I'm against cutting Social Security benefits. I'm against borrowing extensively. But I want to see what the presient has in mind.
Q. Do you support private accounts?
A. I'm prepared to listen.
Q. You sound skeptical.
A. Well, I'm prepared to listen to see how they would be done. How will they be financed? How much money will it take out of the system? We pretty much a pay-as-you-go program, paying out as the contributions are made. How will it work? People are talking about gigantic borrowing. I'm not for that....

A pay-as-you-go program? We're paying out as the contributions are made?

But... but... but... what about the The Social Security Trust Fund?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 05:35:23 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

A Spark, a Tiny Spark

Thanks to Stephen for sending us this Chicago Sun-Times article, Feb. 5:

A frozen embryo destroyed in a Chicago fertility clinic was a human being whose parents are entitled to file a wrongful-death lawsuit, a Cook County judge ruled Friday.
Attorneys on both sides of the abortion issue said it was the first such ruling they had heard of as the country debates whether stem cells derived from embryos can be used in research and medicine.
Alison Miller and Todd Parrish hoped to conceive a child with help from the Center for Human Reproduction, but the one fertilized egg the couple created was thrown out "in error" by a clinic worker.
Friday, Judge Jeffrey Lawrence II said "a pre-embryo is a 'human being' ... whether or not it is implanted in its mother's womb" and the couple is entitled to seek the same compensation awarded to other parents whose children are killed.
"Philosophers and theologians may debate," he wrote, "but there is no doubt in the mind of the Illinois Legislature when life begins. It begins at conception." ....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 07:52:16 AM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

"The Dems' Week from Hell"

Thanks to Margaret for notice of this delightful article by Noemie Emery at The Weekly Standard, dated Feb. 14 (quoted ellipsis in original):

.... With a few brave exceptions (a faction of one named Joe Lieberman), the Democrats split into two major camps: the wingnuts — Dean, Boxer, and Kennedy — who know what they think, which alas sets them at odds with the rest of the country; and the caucus of cowards — Bayh, Edwards, and Kerry — who believe in nothing so much as their own career prospects, and change their minds on the gravest of war and peace issues on the basis of what serves their ends.
For the Democrats, this is not a new problem, and has been with them since the war in Iraq first emerged as an issue. "More than a dozen Democrats, who requested anonymity, have told the Post that many members who oppose the president's strategy... are going to nonetheless support it because they fear a backlash from voters," the Washington Post reported on September 26, 2002, in the run-up to that year's midterm elections, which made history when the Democrats lost. Five weeks later, "The Note," the widely read blog of ABC News, reported: "Voters may not know this explicitly, but if there were a secret ballot vote, Democrats in the House and Senate would vote overwhelmingly to repeal the Bush-Baucus tax cuts, and to stop the president from going to war in Iraq." From here, it is a straight line to Bayh, Kerry, and Edwards, surfing their way around public opinion, and getting upended by shifts in the wind.
And there you have the real vision gap between the two parties: Republicans want to win wars and spread freedom; Democrats want to save their rear ends. Bush thinks freedom is better than terror and tyranny; Democrats think they themselves are better than Bush. In 2004, Bush made it clear he was willing to lose on the basis of his convictions — and won in spite or more likely because of this. Democrats had no convictions beyond the end goal of winning, and therefore quite properly lost. No party deserved to lose more than the Democrats did in these past two elections, and unless they make changes, they stand to lose many more.
Since Black Tuesday last November, Democrats have spent hours of airtime, gallons of newsprint, and billions of words trying to find out why wonderful people such as they keep on losing. They'd be better off taking a hard look at Hell Week. All of the answers are there.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 07:47:41 AM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

On Churchill and Summers and Academic Freedom

One cannot help but be struck by the disparate treatment by academia in the cases of Larry Summers and Ward Churchill. Summers, you should recall, has had to beg, borrow, and grovel for having made some arguably, if not outright demonstrably, true statements about differences between men and women. Churchill is a stereotypical FDH who hates America and Americans and slanders both with abandon. Though many outside the academy want his head on a platter, all the cries from inside are for "academic freedom".

Though I did say the other day that academic freedom means a professor can say any damn thing he wants and nobody can do anything about it, it would have been more correct to have said Phooey. There's no such thing as academic freedom.

Summers is a fine example of what I mean. He'll end up having to mortgage his grandchildren's homes to get the academic archfeminists off his case. None of them, nor any of their academic colleagues, are applauding Summers for his courage or the intellectual diversity he might have stimulated. None of them are asserting his academic freedom to even mention what the Leftists have decided is verboten. Nope. He's being silenced as quickly and effectively as they can manage.

Anyway, two blogs you ought to check out for much deeper thought than I have mustered here are A Radical Tool in Service of Reason and Ward Churchill is not the problem.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 02/08/05 07:35:13 AM
Categorized as Educational.


   

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