Drinking Liberally in Cincinnati

DLD2 @ HPT, Tuesday, December 8, 2009 7:30PM

2009-12-07T13:28:00.001-05:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. Look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

This week we saw Kathleen Parker say something reasonable and the disclosure of the code that runs the right-wing blogosphere..

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

The 69 bus stops a short walk away at Marburg and Erie, just past The Coffee Emporium. The 51 bus stops just north of Victoria Ave and Paxton Ave, a pleasant three-quarter mile walk or bike ride away, straight east down Victoria Ave to Erie.

John Karabaic

Open source code has its downside

2009-12-02T17:58:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of a commenter at Balloon Juice, we've been able to uncover the programming code used to operate the right-wing blogosphere. Shockingly, it's far more complex than I thought it would be.

10 variable x,y
20 function GetWhatObamaJustSaidOrDid
30 x=GetWhatObamaJustSaidOrDid
40 y=concatenate(x," is the most traitorous act in the history of mankind.")
50 print y
60 goto 10

It's all come 360 now

2009-11-29T10:26:00.003-05:00

Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist, published in the Enquirer, that writes about things like "family values" and typical right-wing soccer mom topics.

Kathleen Parker once wrote a column defending intelligent design that was so mind-numbingly stupid that I spent almost 600 words ripping it to shreds.

Kathleen Parker called on Sarah Palin to step down as the VP candidate, because she was out of her league. For that, she was excoriated by the right, to the point that Red State inducted her as the initial target of something they called Operation Leper (apparently something to demonize those who veered 1% from party orthodoxy).

Kathleen Parker penned a pretty solid, though hardly 100% agreeable, column this week, arguing that the items in the so-called purity checklist being considered by the RNC "aren't so much statements of principe as [they are] dogmatic responses to complex issues that...require more than a Sharpie check in a square", and laments the GOP's equation of nuance with indecisiveness and a lack of leadership skills.

Kathleen Parker has become one of the reasonable thinkers of the right.

Dear FSM, we're so screwed.

DLD2 @ HPT, Tuesday, November 24, 2009 7:30PM

2009-11-23T17:33:00.002-05:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. Look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Thanks to everyone who showed up at the Comet last Thursday for our 5th Anniversary bash. It was great to meet at the original site of DL Cincinnati again, have some big-ass burritos and strange-dream-inducing™ queso dip, and Bonbonerie cake. Pictures will soon be in our Flickr feed.

This week we saw some climate change deniers take the law into their own hands as well as the fight for health care for all move to the Senate. We're still waiting for a good explanation as to why the Hamilton County BOE takes so long to tally votes. Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

John Karabaic

News Flash: Some Climate Scientists are Assholes

2009-11-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

There's an old joke: Why are university politics so nasty?

Because the stakes are so low.

Climate skeptics have violated UK law by breaking into an email server and publishing a load of correspondence full of scientific slang (a "trick" is the scientist's equivalent of a computer engineer's "hack": an elegant (or inelegant) solution to a gnarly problem), personal vindictiveness and childish photoshopping.

Nothing they've released invalidates the scientific truth of global warming.

RealClimate.org, another intended target of the hackers, said it best:

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Yes, folks, climate skeptics have stooped to breaking the law and violating the privacy of personal communications to warn us that...scientists are human.

Challenge to the Hamilton County BOE

2009-11-07T05:57:00.004-05:00

At somewhere around 7:30 on election night, we saw our first results fron the Hamilton County Board of Elections. They published the absentee ballot count - partial absentee count, that is.

And then...crickets. 8:00, nothing. 8:30, nothing. Around 8:45, I got a call from a friend viewing the results at the BOE, telling me that they said they won't have any new results for another hour (to be fair, they were able to overdeliver - about 9:30 they were able to post votes from 1% or so of the precincts).

Yes, more than two hours after the polls closed, the BOE was practically unable to post vote counts from a precinct. And I don't know how that happens. By my count, this is at least the fifth consecutive election where precinct vote counts seemed to be significantly delayed for no good reason (or at least no explained reason).

I had a conversation with someone knowledgeable about the process, and he gave me an explanation that, if I understand it right, was so shocking to my system that I needed to quickly grab another beer.

I don't know why things seem to move so much slower at our BOE than others around the state/country/world. Maybe it's the speed in which the poll workers get the ballots to the BOE. Maybe it's the vote counting software. Maybe the chairman is spending too much time searching for pictures of Dr. Evil.

Whatever the reason, I'm dumbfounded. So I'm issuing this challenge to the BOE: explain why it's so much tougher to count votes in this town than it is anywhere else. If someone working there can send us an explanation (to cincinnati@drinkingliberally.org) of how the whole system works, and what seems to hold up the process, we'll publish it verbatim.

I'd just like to know whether it's worth coming down on election night next year, or if it's better to just stick at the celebration parties for a few hours before worrying about how the actual elections turn out.

Dems starting to learn to act like wise guys

2009-10-30T19:49:00.001-04:00

Shorter Tom Harkin: "My, Senator Lieberman, that's a lovely chairmanship you have there. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it."

DL Lecture Series and Drinking Liberally Downtown

2009-10-15T09:59:00.001-04:00

Next week we're moving from our regular venue at Fries to take part in a special event hosted by Oxfam America.

Next Tuesday, Oxfam America will be giving a presentation on Global Poverty and Climate Change at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.

Climate change affects our entire planet: natural resources, wildlife, and people. Any solutions to the challenge of climate change must address all of these different impacts in a fair and equitable way. By cutting emissions and providing funding for adaptation, the US can reduce damage to our planet's ecosystem while at the same time helping the poorest people survive the changes to their climate.

Please come join us at 7PM at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, 200 West 4th Street, for the presentation and a Q&A session. When it ends around 8:30PM, we'll go to the Rock Bottom Brewery in Fountain Square and probably close it down at 10PM.

Please RSVP to us and Gene Gardner at 513-681-2794 or GeneGard24@aol.com if you plan on attending the Oxfam event. If you can't make that, please join us at the Rock Bottom Brewery afterwards.

Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Together with individuals and local groups in more than 100 countries, Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice. Oxfam America is an affiliate of Oxfam International.

Ownership on loan from the devil

2009-10-10T06:32:00.002-04:00

The ownership of the NFL's St. Louis Rams has let it be known that they might sell the team if the price is right. Several groups have stepped up and made bids to purchase the team. One of those groups is led by, among others, Rush Limbaugh.

On its face, I think this is an incredibly bad idea. Obviously, Limbaugh is a terribly divisive personality, and it's just not smart to have an owner that's going to offend half your fan base.

Of course, if players don't want to play for him either, that's a big problem too.

"All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama's America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting 'right on,'" [New York Giants defensive end Matthias] Kiwanuka told The Daily News. "I mean, I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play."

"I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment, but when it is time after time after time and there's a consistent pattern of disrespect and just a complete misunderstanding of an entire culture that I am a part of, I can't respect him as a man."

On Friday's edition of ESPN's Pardon The Interruption, co-host Michael Wilbon added, "I don’t know whether Rush Limbaugh is a straight-up bigot, or if he just plays one on TV or the radio. But he is universally reviled by black people in this country, and justifiably so…he’s referred to the NFL as Bloods and Crips without weapons…does he not think that black people had TV’s and radios in the 20th century, when he started saying these things?"

Peer pressure is a powerful thing. And if Kiwanuka and Bart Scott (also mentioned in the embedded article) feel this way, I've got to believe there's many others that do also. And if they believe he's racist, they're probably going to make it known to their cohorts that they should probably consider whether they want to play for such an owner. It wouldn't surprise me if players that sign with the Rams would be treated like someone that crossed a picket line.

For a league that prides itself on parity and competitive balance, the possibility that one of its 32 teams could put itself at such a disadvantage simply because of their owner ought to seriously worry its leadership. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the other team owners need to think long and hard over whether they want to approve this group's bid if Rams ownership accepts it.

A million freeper heads are exploding this morn

2009-10-09T08:35:00.002-04:00

First, congratulations to President Obama on the Nobel peace prize. I can't wait to see the reaction from the wingnuts.

PS: Just getting settled Down Under. So far so good. Definitely miss DL!

Always check the fine print

2009-10-03T13:38:00.001-04:00

What happened yesterday? Let's see, Chicago got knocked out of contention to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and the right-wing press got all excited and stuff.

Soon after news broke that the International Olympic Committee had rejected Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics, which President Obama had personally lobbied for, Weekly Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine’s blog, titled “Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!.” McCormack wrote that “Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters”.

Glad to know that the righties were so excited that America's not going to be hosting a worldwide event that gets broadcast internationally for two weeks straight.

Oh, and then there was the senator that took a little trip to Central America.

One of the de facto government’s main supporters in Washington, Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, has announced plans to visit Tegucigalpa on Friday. One Congressional staff member said Mr. DeMint hoped to meet with members of the de facto government and other Hondurans. Other staff members said he intended to encourage [interim president and coup leader Roberto] Micheletti and his supporters to resist.

Never mind that just about every legitimate government in the world does not recognize the current leadership of Honduras, or that they've practically imposed martial law and given themselves the authority to shut down any news outlet that "attack peace and public order". No, senator DeMint needs to go check out how the new banana republic is doing.

I seem to remember a time when criticizing the president, rooting against the country, and defying U.S. foreign policy was considered to be unpatriotic, and made you a terrorist supporting, cheese eating surrender monkey. I guessed I missed the line in that memo that said it was set to expire on January 20, 2009.

George Will is full of hot air too

2009-10-02T20:19:00.002-04:00

George Will at the Washington Post has a tendency to slap together some pretty shoddy columns on global warming. He threw another one together earlier this week. Multiple bloggers have gone after this column and poked holes in Will's logic, which usually isn't too difficult to do.

Ezra Klein offers a subdued, yet reasoned, approach to the dissection of the piece:

...[G]lobal warming is not shorthand for “every day will be hotter than the next everywhere on the planet.” It is shorthand for for the observation that an "anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is amplifying the natural radiative forcing of the troposphere’s temperature," thus creating a general trend toward higher temperatures. The year-to-year variability that forms the basis of Will's column is not a challenge to this theory. It is built into it.

If Will is aware of this, he does not show it. There is not a line rebutting this thinking, much less a paragraph. Given that, it is perhaps no surprise that more technical disputes are not aired, either...[B]ecause he is not using [the U.K.'s National Weather Service, the Met Office's measurements] firsthand, he is relying on a report that arguably understated the Met's conclusions. Their data actually show that the 2000s were the hottest decade on record, much hotter than the 1990s. Indeed, if you look at the 10 hottest years on record, eight were in the 2000s. Two were in the '90s. Those two were in 1997 and 1998, which the Met says was a function of the weather event El Niño. They explain their data at length here. Will gives no airing to their explanation.

Nor does he explain why he's using the Met's data. After all, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies thinks that the 2000s have seen triple the warming that the Met estimates. I have no idea who's right. If Will has a considered take on this question, he's not yet published it.

There are several other more detailed takedowns of the column than Klein's, but what I find most interesting is who he's employed by - the Washington Post. The fact that they're allowing him to go after the paper's sacred cow is something that I find mildly refreshing.

But then I see that their opinion writers also think that prosecuting a child rapist is outrageous, and I lose faith in Fred Hiatt's paper again. Oh who am I kidding, I didn't have any faith in it in the first place.

Burt Rutan is Full of Hot Air

2009-10-02T01:13:00.006-04:00

At the Experimental Aircraft Association "Airventure" in Oshkosh on 29 July 2009 and 01 Aug 2009, aerospace engineer and X Prize winner Burt Rutan gave a presentation on the Anthropogenic Global Warming "hoax". It's available at http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/Rutan.AGWdataAnalysis%20v11.pdf. It's full of the usual climate change denialist nonsense.

The first part of the presentation lays out Rutan's qualifications. I won't challenge those. (Likewise, I will not challenge his ad-hominem attacks on professional climate scientists, his love affair with the petroleum industry, his lies about meteorologists, and even his nonsense about the ozone hole being a hoax.) I will challenge his statements where they are in error, I will argue with his interpretations where his facts are correct and I will point out his "selective use" of facts in the climate change debate.

What is astonishing is that he attacks the "cherry picking" of data by climate scientists, yet never cites his sources or methods.

What follows are links to pages on "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic", a set of tutorials created by professional climate scientists which demolish each of his arguments one by one. For each slide where he makes one of the usual arguments, I'll provide the link to the refutation by climate scientists. You should read his presentation, and then the data in the links.

Pages 15-16. "Natural emissions dwarf humans" (I would gladly show him how compound interest works, but I'll do it in a way that hits home. Please, Mr. Rutan, give me 3.42% of 3.62% of your income, increasing as we increase emissions on a compound basis for the next 100 years!)
Pages 17-18. The argument here is twofold: "There is no correlation between CO2 and temperature" and "Geological history doesn't support CO2's importance." He mentions that we're close to the level 300M years ago. He neglects to mention that CO2 levels have not had this rate of increase, or been at this level, while humans have tried to scratch out a living on this planet. We don't know how to live in any other kind of climate.
Pages 19-20. "Manipulation of CO2 data" I suppose this is also covered by "CO2 is a fertilizer." There's also a more recent "controversy" on this which was answered quite nicely by the Real Climate folks.
Pages 21-22. "Temperature correlates with sun". This is also called the "solar forcing" argument.
Pages 23-24. "It was Warmer During the Holocene Climate Optimum", "The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as today", and "It was so warm 1000 years ago, Greenland was actually green". And if you're interested in what the Younger Dryas is, try Greg Laden's great explanation.
Pages 25-26. As stated before, the medieval warming never happened. He's also playing with data here, covered by "One Hundred Years is not Enough".
Pages 27-28. This is addressed by "There are problems with the temperature records" His statement about James "Hanson" falsifying data is just flat-out untrue, as Hansen himself explained. There's a very detailed analysis of the measurement glitch by the guy who discovered it. Rutan doesn't have enough of a commitment to accuracy or proofreading ability to even spell Hansen's name correctly.
Pages 29-30. Pretty much a detailed ad-hominem attack on Jim Hansen. But it's full of lies. Jim Hansen did not call for the jailing of climate change skeptics. (Maybe this "Hanson" fellow that Rutan keeps referring to did.) Harrison Schmitt's degree is in geology, not in climate science. What industry do geologists usually work in...I wonder? I could equally--and as relevantly--cite Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, who supports the Planetary Society's roadmap that Schmitt quit over. Rutan, if you're saying that only "Scientists" (your capitalization) have credibility, you miss one thing. You're not a "Scientist". Why should I believe you? Credentialism goes both ways. And, lastly, saying that it cooled in 2008 means you just don't understand what "climate" is.
Pages 31-32. As stated before, the medieval warming never happened. And, since he's impugning the Hockey Stick by name, I should include "The Hockey Stick is Broken"

It's late now, and I have to get to bed. I'll continue with the refutation of slides 33-66 another time.

I don't mean to belittle Rutan, but he's clearly out of his depth here and relying on arguments which have been refuted for years. It's common for experts in one field to think that carries over to other fields.

There are climate scientists who have made searching for the truth their life's work. Who have been giving each a hard time about the data and its interpretation for the last hundred years, ever since "Svante Arrhenius first calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming".

When the fate of the planet is at stake, I'll go with them.

For the batshit crazy loved one

2009-09-28T21:56:00.002-04:00

It's the Sarah Palin & Michelle Bachman action figures.

I'm speechless (and this is coming from someone that owns a Jesse Ventura action figure).

Free advice for the Dems

2009-09-28T21:08:00.002-04:00

Better get prepared to deal with this as the new media meme:

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for [the New York Times] news, agreed with [NYT editor Clark Hoyt] that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies. Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person “a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere.”

Yes, this is something that should be a much bigger concern for the Times. Don't hire editors for the purpose of doing things like...ummm, editing, or silly tasks like "fact checking and determining whether something is newsworthy or not. No, much better to go out and get a young, enterprising conservative newsroom guy to monitor the wingnut right (to be safe, you might want to hire someone that comes from a long line of republicans, since you can't come out and ask about political affiliations in the interview process).

Come to think of it, the Washington Post tried something similar to this three years ago. I believe his name was Ben Domenech. From what I can remember, it did not go so well.

Nevertheless, they better be prepared to deal with the fact that Fox News is basically getting its own news bureau now.

Iron City Lockdown

2009-09-28T11:31:00.002-04:00

A couple of interesting videos from Pittsburgh last week. Who are these uniformed men, and what are they doing with this person?

And what exactly do the words "inappropriate use of force" mean to the Pittsburgh Police?

And, to make it clear, I understand that clearing the streets may be necessary to ensure the public safety, particularly at an event like the G20.

Almost as important as making sure that the crowd is free of guns at an event where the President is speaking.

It's not that the "ordinary" student poses a threat; it's because troublemakers cold be using them as camouflage

The same way a potential assassin could use a group of law-abiding, gun-toting citizens as camouflage.

By the way, would the right wing be as off the hook about these protesters if they *were* asserting their 2nd Amendment rights?

Thoughts on the Cadillac Ranch/Midpoint controversy

2009-09-27T20:31:00.003-04:00

Since we've held events at Cadillac Ranch in the past, and our group is full of Midpoint fanatics, I felt it was worthwhile to chime in on the fiasco from last night at Cadillac Ranch. Basically, the GM at the Ranch decided to cancel the rest of the acts for the evening after a poor turnout for the night's opening band.

Some people have latched on to the notion that the Midpoint organizers should have planned their schedule better, and put bands at the Cadillac Ranch that would fit their regular clientele. I have to say, I was quite surprised that the Ranch was even hosting any events at all associated with Midpoint - it doesn't really seem to fit their style. Of course, the GM at Cadillac Ranch could have spent 20 minutes on Google, checked out the bands, and then suggested to the organizers that maybe they ought to rethink their scheduled lineup (the GM says that he wasn't given a say in the matter - he may be right, but a little proactive work might not have been a bad idea).

But this isn't about suitability - this is simply about a bar not holding up to its end of a deal. The GM at the Ranch said he'd host bands for the entire festival. Then, when the first band didn't bring in a ton of people, he cancelled the rest of the acts, without making any sort of arrangements as to where those bands might be able to play the rest of the night. Never mind that people tend to flow in and out of the bars during a festival, he just decided to cut ties on a whim.

Not living up to a deal is among the worst sins a business can commit, especially when its done in plain view. I'm disappointed in how the Cadillac Ranch conducted itself. I hope everyone that ever considers organizing an event there has paid close attention to this incident. Better have a backup plan as well.

Sorry

2009-09-27T16:20:00.001-04:00

I posted something earlier today that, in hindsight, probably wasn't a good idea. It's been pulled from the site. My apologies to those that were offended by it.

Why healthcare reform needs to pass

2009-09-27T09:05:00.002-04:00

This is just sad.

News of Kimberly Young’s death Wednesday, Sept. 23, came as a shock to those who knew the vibrant 22-year-old who was working at least two jobs in Oxford after graduating with a double major in December 2008.

Young became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost, according to Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate.

Mowery said Young eventually went to an urgent care facility in Hamilton where she was given pain medication and then sent home.

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Young’s condition suddenly worsened and her roommate drove her to McCullough Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford, where she was flown in critical condition to University Hospital in Cincinnati.

“That’s the most tragic part about it. If she had insurance, she would have gone to the doctor,” Mowery said.

Grownups will look at this and decide that not one more person should die because they don't have insurance and can't afford basic care. Partisan children will look at this and scream about death panels, socialism, and a government takeover of healthcare.

Enough already.

This says it all about the public option

2009-09-22T11:22:00.002-04:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Whose holiday is it anyways?

2009-09-21T21:51:00.003-04:00

From Glenn Beck's radio show today:

By the way, I just thought I would put this out there, and what you do with it is your own business. But, this weekend, I put out a tweet on Twitter that September 28th is the Day of Atonement for the Jewish faith, and I thought it would be a good day for all of us to fast and pray, you know. And I got this idea from Thomas Jefferson. After they put together the Continental Congress, the first thing they did was put together a day -- a national day of fast and prayer, and I thought the Day of Atonement would be a good day to do it.

Aside from the obscene, dishonest, and completely warped misinterpretation of Jefferson's views on government endorsed days of prayer...as someone who was raised Jewish - hell, as a human with multiple brain cells - I can really only muster a short phrase to respond to Mr. Beck, which Dick Cheney said far greater than I ever could.

Oh, and for those of you that are more offended by my use of language, than by the behavior of Mr. Beck, I will take your concerns under consideration. But, in the meantime...

DLD2 7:30PM, Tuesday, September 22 2009 at HPT

2009-09-21T14:42:00.001-04:00

Drinking Liberally District 2 will be meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at The Hyde Park Tavern, 3384 Erie Ave at 7:30PM. We may be outside on the patio, depending on the weather. If it's wet out, look for us at the top of the stairs to the right. Look around for the Drinking Liberally table tents.

Remember to follow us on Twitter for reminders and updates.

This week we saw

local weather and global climate are not the same.

Nuts for ACORN, casually incurious about jobrolling, negligent homicide, rape and murder at those doing business with the Bush administration.

Coming Soon:

Michael Pollan is coming to Cincinnati on Sunday, September 27, lecturing at 1PM at the Cintas Center at Xavier. We'll be having a Brunching Liberally event for those who want to get together. Tell us if you're interested.

This month is a Trivia Month. Tuesday, September 29 we'll be at Molly Malone's for Trivia Night.

Add our Google calendar to your calendar! Use XML, iCal or a web browser to keep in sync with Drinking Liberally Cincinnati!

The Hyde Park Tavern has good parking, an excellent drink selection, a unique and delicious "gourmet bar food" menu, and friendly, efficient staff.

John Karabaic

Consistency in outrage would be a really good thing

2009-09-19T15:57:00.002-04:00

I'm sure everyone's seen the ridiculous ACORN videos of employees trying to give tax advice to a pimp & prostitute. Certainly their actions were deplorable - if you take at face value that they were actually being serious, which I don't, but that's another story entirely - and the president of the organization called for an immediate investigation, something many companies given government funding have refused to do. I'm looking in your general direction AIG...

Nevertheless, the House of Representatives voted Friday to strip all federal funding for the organization, so people who would have used its services to, among other things, keep their houses from being foreclosed upon will just have to do without, and probably lose their house. Two presidential hopefuls - Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal - cut off all funding towards ACORN. Of course, a two minute conversation with one of their staffers would have unearthed the fact that their states don't provide any funding to the organization, but that's an inconvenient fact - you have to prove your commitment to the wingnuts to get to the top in the party.

I could possibly take this seriously - a few bad apples don't represent an entire company, but you do want to find out how many bad apples you have - had they shown half this level of zeal in investigating Haliburton/KBR when employees were implicated in the rape of co-workers. Or when their negligence in wiring on U.S. bases caused the deaths of multiple soldiers and U.S. armed forces members. Or when the founder of Blackwater (now here's a logical concept, perhaps the creator of a company represents the values of the whole organization better than a few staffers) was implicated in multiple murders. Or when both firms were found to have overcharged the U.S. government by millions of dollars.

Or maybe I'd take it more seriously if they were in some way interested in the latest scandal involving Gale Norton, the former Secretary of the Interior - that's a cabinet level position. She awarded three prime drilling contracts to Shell, which will net them hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue, and then - POOF! - she goes to work for Shell. Surprisingly, there's some question as to whether she was engaged in talks concerning future employment with Shell during the negotiation of the leases, and if she might have steered the leases to Shell because of these discussions. Shockingly, both of those are against the law.

All of these are far more egregious, shocking, and wasteful of taxpayer money than this whole ACORN mess. But the GOP doesn't really care much about any of these because...well I'm just not sure anymore. Maybe it's because these are associated with big business, and government corruption that benefits Bush-era employees, and that's a no-no in the modern republican party. And maybe it's because Obama had dealings with ACORN in the past. Or maybe it's because they find it easier to go after an organization that helps poor people, because it's politically more expedient.

Whatever the reason, call me when you guys are ready to get serious and be consistent with your outrage. As I've said many times before, I won't hold my breath.

It's getting hot in herre, even if it feels cold in herre

2009-09-17T19:37:00.002-04:00

I don't know about you, but I've heard more than my fair share of righties spouting off this summer about "I guess this cold weather proves that fat Al Gore wrong, there clearly is no global warming." And it has been a very cool summer; July 2009 was the coldest July in recorded history. No doubt August was probably among the coldest as well.

So I guess this means that everything's just fine and we can stop worrying about global warming right? Not so fast, my friend.

The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August (Northern Hemisphere summer/Southern Hemisphere winter) season according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The preliminary analysis is based on records dating back to 1880.

NCDC scientists also reported that the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for August was second warmest on record, behind 1998. For the June-August 2009 season, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was third warmest on record.

I guess it's just another example of how some people don't understand the difference between weather and climate. Or between trends and outliers. Or between rational thought and knee-jerk reaction.

Our liberal media at work

2009-09-13T09:33:00.002-04:00

So I'm watching ABC's This Week, and who is on their weekly roundup? Cokie Roberts (simply regurgitates right-wing talking points), Sam Donaldson (kinda liberal-ish, but still a Washington insider that spews the 'pox on both their houses' crap), David Brooks (conservative columnist), and George Will (less intelligent conservative columnist).

Yep, that Obama-controlled media sure is pushing their lieft-wing agenda on the country...