Bark Bark Woof Woof

Wings Over Miami

2009-11-21T06:42:00.002-05:00

The Florida car show season kicks off today with the second annual Wings Over Miami show at the Wings Over Miami Air Museum at Tamiami Airport today, so if you're out and about and want to see some cool antique cars and airplanes, head on out. The show is from 9:30 - 3:30, and the weather forecast looks good. I'll be there.

Nanny Statement

2009-11-21T05:54:00.006-05:00

Some conservative Christian denominations have issued a proclamation: we're sniveling busybodies and we're ready to prove it.

Conservative Christian leaders unveiled a declaration Friday calling on Christians not to comply with rules and laws forcing them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other ideals that go against their religious doctrines.

The declaration urges Christians to practice civil disobedience to defend their convictions, even though some signers of the document backed away from the strong language.

[...]

"We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them," the declaration says. It lists the "fundamental truths" as the "sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and the rights of conscience and religious liberty."

Just to be clear, none of the laws they're prepared to break require anyone to get an abortion or marry someone of the same sex.

If they want to prevent women from getting abortions, it makes a lot more sense to do everything they can to support the teaching of comprehensive sex education and pregnancy prevention before the conception; wagging your finger and handing out nostrums like "Just Say No" doesn't work. They'd accomplish a lot more if they would spend their money and considerable lung power working to end rape and domestic abuse. Meanwhile, there are plenty of laws in this country that assault the sensibilities of good people; for example, the Florida ban against adoption of children by gays or lesbians for no other reason than they're gay or lesbian. I wonder where these so-called defenders of the faith stand on such unfair treatment, not to mention helping the children languishing in a woefully-inadequately funded state system? And if they are so adamant about not one tax dollar going to pay for an abortion, where is their outrage at their tax dollars going to pay for the war in Iraq?

Oh, and of course you know who they blame for all of this.

Although the declaration's positions are hardly new for religious conservatives, it says social ills have been exacerbated by the election of President Obama, an abortion rights advocate, as well as a general erosion of what it calls "marriage culture" with the rise of divorce, greater acceptance of infidelity and the uncoupling of marriage from childbearing.

News flash: Roe v. Wade was decided when Mr. Obama was eleven years old, and his marriage -- to a woman -- is intact. The recent examples of the erosion of the "marriage culture" have all been thanks to the fine folks like Mark Sanford, John Ensign, David Vitter, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani? (PS: Trivia question: who was the first -- and so far only -- president who was divorced?) Do you really want to bring up the question of out-of-wedlock babies with Sarah Palin? Why is it that these people are so worried about someone else's private life?

It also should be noted that these folks don't speak for every Christian or every denomination. For each of these orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical church, there's a denomination that is willing to reach out and support a woman's right to choose, bless same-sex marriage, and actually put their money where their mouth is when it comes to making an effort to, in the words of Jesus Christ, "love thy neighbor as thyself."

Short Takes

2009-11-21T05:23:00.003-05:00

An explosion in a mine in China has killed a number of people.

It's working -- a consensus of economists say the stimulus is showing signs of success.

Eye on the middle -- the conservative Democrats hold the future of the healthcare bill.

If you can't be good, be loud: the only thing the GOP has to offer in the healthcare debate is a lot of noise.

We'll take them: Thomson, Illinois, seems to like the idea of being the new Gitmo.

The more we learn about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the more we wonder why the military didn't do something.

A former State Department official and his wife confess to thirty years of spying for Cuba.

Four of the Liberty City Six "terror" cell get sentenced.

The Terrible Shock of Reality

2009-11-20T06:21:00.007-05:00

Steve Benen examines the foolish inconsistency of the right-wing outrage over the plans to put terrorists on trial in civilian courts.

In 2002, the Bush Justice Department put Zacarias Moussaoui, an al Qaeda terrorist often referred to as the "20th 9/11 hijacker," on trial in a federal court near D.C. No one, at the time, said then-President Bush was putting American lives at risk or undermining U.S. national security interests with the trial. Despite the conservative apoplexy of the last week, the Moussaoui trial was simply considered appropriate and routine.

[...]

Likewise, let's not forget that Rudy Giuliani, one of the leading Republican attack dogs on President Obama, said he considered the Moussaoui trial a testament to the strength of our legal system and the American dedication to the "rule of law." Giuliani called the verdict "a symbol of American justice," and said the trial itself might improve America's standing internationally. After Moussaoui was convicted by a civilian jury, the former mayor boasted, "America won tonight."

This gets to the larger point that Jon Stewart made when he interviewed Lou Dobbs: if, as the right-wing talkers are proclaiming, Americans think the country is "out of control" and they're worried about what's going to happen next, why is it that all of this angst and concern is suddenly being expressed when we have a Democrat in the White House? Didn't these issues exist before January 20, 2009?

Of course they did. But the reason the wingers didn't shriek and carry on was because it was their guy who was in charge and to raise any concerns about how he was handling the job or question his motives was disloyal. And no matter how rotten the economy was, no matter how bureaucratic and expensive monopolized healthcare was, no matter badly the education system was crumbling before their eyes, no matter how incompetent the government was at providing disaster relief, and no matter how many people were dying in a war that had been instigated against a nation that never raised a hand to us, they were comfortable in the knowledge that the president was one of them. Even if he was comfortably numb, he was a known quantity, and everything was going to be all right -- it's Morning in America -- so no matter how terrible reality was, it was better than the great unknown: that Other Guy who might not even have been born here will take away your guns, turn your kids gay in the military, and tear down the Jefferson Memorial to replace it with a mosque. Or something; that's what they keep telling them on the radio, anyway.

What's piteously ironic is that if we had had that kind of mindset in 1776, we'd still be a British colony. The teabaggers who think they're emulating the Spirit of '76 by demonstrating against the tyranny of our government are actually trying to maintain the status quo that we had when things were rotten. Picture Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck railing against the rabble-rousing John Adams, the agnostic Thomas Jefferson, and that secular humanist Benjamin Franklin who wanted to rebel against the system and replace it with a dangerously experimental form of democracy; talk about a radical socialist plot. No matter how insidiously oppressive the British colonial government was, it was still safe and secure as opposed to the scary adventure of going -- literally and figuratively -- into the wilderness of the New World or, at the very least, trying to make things better for everyone, not just the rich white guys who didn't want to pay their taxes.

The worst thing that Barack Obama did was tell us that not only were things not all rosy, it was going to take some hard work and sacrifice to make things better. After eight years of an artificial high, reality is a terrible shock.

Jon Stewart and Lou Dobbs

2009-11-20T05:20:00.003-05:00

Jon Stewart once again proves that he is the best interviewer on television as he talks to Lou Dobbs.

Part 1:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Lou Dobbs Extended Interview Pt. 1

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Part 2:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Lou Dobbs Extended Interview Pt. 2

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Part 3:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - Lou Dobbs Extended Interview Pt. 3

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

When we've gotten to the point that the sharpest and most incisive questions come from an interview on a comedy channel, it begs the question as to why David Gregory and George Stephanopolous are on TV at all.

Short Takes

2009-11-20T03:44:00.003-05:00

A suicide bomber killed 16 in Pakistan. It was the sixth bombing in two weeks.

640,000 jobs created by the stimulus? Really?

The healthcare bill will face its first vote in the Senate on Saturday.

The Pentagon will look into the Fort Hood shootings.

A bad piece of FAA computer equipment in Salt Lake City meant a ton of flight delays and cancellations around the country yesterday, including South Florida.

New York court rules in favor of gay spouse benefits.

Rudy Giuliani rules out a run for NY governor. Oh, darn. And he won't run for the Senate, either. Double darn.

Embattled Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones will run for her seat again.

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez gets more attention in Washington than she does in Havana.

Oprah Winfrey will end her TV talk show in 2011. She has a talk show?

Fox News seems to have a lot of technical glitches when it comes to archival news footage.

Friday Blogaround

2009-11-20T03:00:00.000-05:00

Here's the week as seen by the LC.

- A Blog Around The Clock: Greek temples align with the stars?
- archy: block that metaphor!
- Bark Bark Woof Woof: it's an honor.
- Bloggg: Moi takes exception to the mammogram suggestion.
- Dohiyi Mir: help the March of Dimes.
- Echidne Of The Snakes: what the Stupak amendment means.
- Florida Progressive Coalition Blog: making choices.
- Left Is Right: some bits.
- Musing's musings: sweating the small stuff.
- Pen-Elayne on the Web: what's not to love about Firesign Theatre?
- Rook's Rant: the minutiae of novel-writing. (Oh, I know that...)
- rubber hose: who proof-reads the Texas Constitution?
- Scrutiny Hooligans: a long read.
- Speedkill: perhaps this is goodbye.
- Steve Bates and hunger in America.
- Stupid Enough Unexplanation: wrong again.
- The Invisible Library: NaNoWriMo update.
- WTF Is It Now?? Squirrels!

Can you believe another holiday season is practically at our throats?

Friday Catblogging Classic

2009-11-20T00:00:00.001-05:00

Good thing it's the dry season....

Classic Thursday Night TV

2009-11-19T22:09:00.002-05:00

Barney Miller

Actual Headline

2009-11-19T06:33:00.005-05:00

Someone over at the Toledo Blade needs to do better proofreading.

Finkbeiner staffers gets wine flu vaccination

With a titillating bouquet, it's an impudent little virus without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumptuousness. Shall I have the steward bring you a full vial?

For those of you who aren't familiar with Toledo politics, Carleton "Carty" Finkbeiner is the outgoing -- in more ways than one -- mayor of the city. He's been a fixture in Toledo for as long as I can remember with a varied career -- I remember when he was a sixth-grade teacher at Maumee Valley Country Day School in the early 1960's -- and he's belonged to just about every political party there is. So "wine flu" doesn't surprise me in the least.

Update: The Blade has since corrected the headline.

On This Date

2009-11-19T06:07:00.002-05:00

November 19, 1863 -- President Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of a cemetery in Pennsylvania.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Judge Not

2009-11-19T04:24:00.003-05:00

President Obama said that he expects Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others to be convicted and executed.

In an interview with NBC News, Obama said those offended by the legal privileges given to Mohammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal won't find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

Obama quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed's trial. "I'm not going to be in that courtroom," he said. "That's the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury."

Yeah, I get it that Mr. Obama was speculating and probably trying to show the people who don't trust the Constitution to do its job that justice and punishment would be delivered. But it's probably not a good idea to hand the defense counsel material for a change of venue motion and an argument that the defendants can't get a fair trial when the President of the United States is already declaring them guilty and readying the firing squad. Besides, that's Bill Kristol's shtick.

In the Long Term

2009-11-19T04:11:00.004-05:00

The Stupak/Pitts amendment to the House version of healthcare reform was supposedly inserted to prevent public funds from paying for elective abortions; a backstop for the Hyde amendment that's been on the books since 1976. But a study by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services says that it goes a lot further than that.

The report concludes that "the treatment exclusions required under the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange."

In other words, though the immediate impact of the Stupak amendment will be limited to the millions of women initially insured through a new insurance exchange, over time, as the exchanges grow, the insurance industry will scale down their abortion coverage options until they offer none at all.

Far be it from anyone to suspect that that was the intention of Rep. Stupak (D-MI) all along; let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he had no idea whatsoever of the unintended consequences of his amendment or that he misled his colleagues who supported the amendment that it was only there to make sure the Hyde amendment was enforced. I'm sure.

It may be a moot point; early reports indicate that the Senate version of the bill changes the language of the Stupak/Pitts amendment to the point that the National Right to Life Committee is not happy.

What We'll Remember

2009-11-19T03:31:00.006-05:00

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post has a first look at what is in the Senate's version of the healthcare bill.

The numbers came first. The Senate bill, we now know, costs a smidge under $850 billion during its first 10 years, cuts the deficit by $127 billion, and covers 31 million people. In the second decade, it cuts the deficit by an improbably large $650 billion. But we don't know anything else. We haven't seen the CBO's full score yet, nor do we know any of the specifics in the bill. Reid's office released the numbers before it let anyone see the language. It wants the numbers burned into the media's mind. They're the message, at least for now.

In a way, it's fitting. Health-care reform is increasingly hostage to numbers that are disconnected from the reality of the bill and its purpose. It's a real victory to push your bill below $850 billion if the point is to get it below $900 billion. But what if that's not the point? Most experts think the bill needs about $1.2 trillion to be truly affordable. Compromising beneath $900 billion might be necessary, but it's nothing to celebrate. It's a concession, not an accomplishment.

It is, in fact, quite far from the questions that will determine the bill's success. In 10 years, no one will remember whether the bill cost more or less than $850 billion, and I doubt that the public option, if it remains in the legislation, will be particularly relevant either. They'll remember whether the bill worked -- whether it covered people at a price they could afford, and began the overdue and urgent work of cost control.

It's part of the collective short-term memory loss that we all have; we quickly forget how much we paid for something if it gives us what we want or need. Quick; how much did the Medicare prescription benefit cost when the Republicans passed it in 2003? ($42.75 billion, and none of it paid for, but it's working so who cares?) That's why the US Chamber of Commerce anti-healthcare reform ads on cable TV, replete with grainy monochrome pictures and scary music that warn us about the cost of the bill Congress is considering (which, based on the scary talking points, is woefully out of date with what actually passed), are falling flat. Trying to scare people into calling their congressperson because healthcare might be expensive is a waste of time; the American people don't care how much healthcare costs the taxpayer, they care about how much it will cost them.

That also holds true for the philosophical part of reforming healthcare. We've heard a lot of noise about socialized medicine and bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor. As a lot of people have noted, we already have socialized medicine in the form of the VA health administration, Medicare, and Medicaid. Under the steaming cloud of irony, a lot of people at the town hall meetings this summer were adamant about keeping the government out of meddling with Medicare and VA benefits. As for bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor, we have that already in the form of insurance company regulators who view domestic violence as a pre-existing condition.

We're now about to enter the granular phase of the healthcare debate and for the next few weeks we're going to get breaking news and breathless stories about who's meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the delaying tactics of the GOP who, one hopes, will drop all their pretense of worrying about the deficit and just come out and say they don't want to pass the bill because they know that by the time the next presidential election comes around, the voters will remember who voted against healthcare.

That's the Ticket

2009-11-19T03:14:00.000-05:00

Sarah Palin joked (apparently) that she might run in 2012 with Glenn Beck.

"I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I'm not there yet," Palin told Newsmax. "But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He's a hoot. He gets his message across in such a clever way. And he's so bold — I have to respect that. He calls it like he sees it, and he's very, very, very effective."

We need a touch of comic relief in the presidential race now that Gracie Allen and Pat Paulsen are dead.

Short Takes

2009-11-19T03:00:00.002-05:00

Hamid Karzai has been sworn in for his second term as president in Afghanistan.

Knock it off -- President Obama is stern to North Korea and Iran about nukes.

Drumroll, please -- The Senate unveils its healthcare bill: it's under $900 billion, it covers 94%, it cuts the deficit, it has the opt-out public option, it slices, it dices.... and still has some Blue Dogs worried.

At a Senate hearing, Attorney General Holder defended his decision to hold the KSM trial in New York in civil court. Several GOP senators wet themselves.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) sets the record for the longest-serving member of Congress. (Yes, I know he was once in the Klan. That was during the first Cleveland administration, I believe.)

The broken deadline at Gitmo is not a surprise.

Raúl Castro is just as bad as his brother. This surprises you?

The price of the recession in Florida: the jobless tax is going up.

Miami is getting a new police chief.

Oops -- Banning gay marriage in Texas may have banned all marriages there.

It's An Honor

2009-11-18T06:25:00.009-05:00

A lot of pixels have been wasted on President Obama bowing to Japan's Emperor Akihito last week. The right wing fulminated that the president was being subservient to him, which they say is something an American president should never do, and ignored the history of presidents from Eisenhower to Bush doing the same thing to other leaders, including the Pope and French President Charles de Gaulle...who were not one and the same. (Chris Matthews got it wrong last night on Hardball when he said that the president did it out of respect for the Japanese belief that the emperor is divine. Emperor Hirohito publicly renounced the idea of imperial divinity in 1946.) To some people, especially those who seem to have a problem with self-confidence, it was an inexcusable display of deference to people who don't deserve it. But what it really was is a simple sign of politeness and respect, and it takes a great deal of cynicism and shallowness to see it as anything but that.

Showing respect for others doesn't diminish you, and in what is supposed to be an egalitarian society, it's a sign of class. Not class in the social sense, but class in making others feel as if you respect them and their beliefs as well as your own. As my parents taught me -- and still remind me -- showing simple signs of respect such as standing to greet people, shaking hands, addressing them as "sir" or "ma'am," using "please" and "thank you" is evidence of, as my grandmother used to say, good manners. She was right: you do it out of respect for their traditions and sensibilities. If you are introduced to someone older than you, you address them by an honorific such as Mr. or Mrs. until you're told not to. (I still do that in middle age, and true to my background, I'm a tad offended when people presume to call me by a shortened version of my first name without asking.) When you're in a country that has different traditions, such as bowing, you make an effort to respect their customs, and if you enter a home where it's customary to remove your shoes, you do so. Even in our ever-casual society, people still like it when they are treated with simple respect.

What it comes down to is something they teach you in kindergarten: put the other person first, and when you are an invited guest, you don't make it about you as if you were Sheridan Whiteside. Only a bully and a coward would worry that showing someone else honor and respect is a sign of weakness.

As a sidebar to this discussion, as a convinced Quaker I sometimes find myself at odds with my upbringing. Quakers have a long tradition of plain speaking and not using honorifics; they refused to address royalty as "Your Highness" or "Your Majesty," and in court would not address a judge as "Your Honor." (That got them into a lot of trouble back in the 17th century in England.) They prefer to address other people by their name without adding a Mr. or a Mrs. since that's a sign of social structure and patriarchy. I, however, don't go that far. I use "sir" and "ma'am" reflexively, both out of habit (thanks, Mom) and out of the idea that to do something else, such as follow the old Quaker tradition of addressing them as "Friend," would call attention to the fact that I was a Quaker. That defeats the purpose of manners and would be -- ironically -- an un-Friendly thing to do.

A First in Broward County

2009-11-18T06:21:00.002-05:00

Ken Keechl has become Broward County's first openly gay mayor.

The seat held by Josephus Eggelletion before his arrest almost two months ago remained empty as commissioners chose Keechl to succeed Stacy Ritter in the largely ceremonial post.

Keechl vowed to work closely with a task force to draft a new code of ethics for the county government.

While the investigation by federal and state prosecutors will loom large over the commission during the next year, Keechl's ascension to mayor was a milestone for the area's large gay community. Keechl is the first openly gay person to hold the county's top position, placing Broward among a small number of communities in the nation with gay or lesbian mayors.

"I ran for the commission not as a gay man but as a fiscal conservative and as someone concerned about the environment, but I am aware of the historic nature of becoming mayor and am proud of it," Keechl said.

Leaders of the gay community as well as Keechl's partner, Ted Adcock, joined local elected officials to watch the commission unanimously name him mayor.

Congratulations, Mr. Keechl, and good luck. That said, I look forward to the day when something like this isn't newsworthy.

Rubio vs. Reagan

2009-11-18T04:41:00.003-05:00

Marco Rubio, running for the Senate from Florida, beats up on Ronald Reagan for being nice to immigrants.

In 1986 Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to 3 million people. You know what happened, in addition to becoming 11 million a decade later? There were people trying to enter the country legally, who had done the paperwork, who were here legally, who were going through the process, who claimed, all of a sudden, ‘No, no no no , I’m illegal.’ Because it was easier to do the amnesty program than it was to do the legal process.

It sounds as if he was alive and running for office today, Ronald Reagan wouldn't be right-wing enough for the party that he rescued from oblivion when Marco Rubio was in elementary school.

It also seems a tad ironic that Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is so tough on illegal immigration when Cubans basically get frontsies when it comes to immigration thanks to the wet foot/dry foot policy. It smacks of "I got mine, f**k you," but then, that's not an unusual stand for conservatives.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-18T04:37:00.003-05:00

Andrew Sullivan:

The only reason we even know about Sarah Palin is John McCain.

He picked her so carelessly, and his thought process was so cynical, that he should stand in the dock of public opinion before Palin does. Her vanity led her to say yes to his crazy offer. But he gave her that chance. And in the end, she is his responsibility.

Hold That Pose

2009-11-18T03:45:00.003-05:00

I may not agree with any of Sarah Palin's views on the issues, and I think the chances of her becoming president are on a par with the Earth being assimilated by the Borg, but regardless of my views or whether or not she's a serious candidate, posing her on the cover of Newsweek like she's a pin-up girl -- the pose is strikingly reminiscent of Betty Grable's famous World War II picture -- is sexist and silly. Ms. Palin says the same, even though she willingly posed for it... for Runner's World magazine. The idea that Newsweek considered it and chose it tells me that it's going along with the celebrifying (if that's a word) of political figures in order to keep our attention on the shiny objects and forget about the boring old substance. Healthcare reform and financial recovery? Sure, but wow, she's in sneakers and running shorts!

If the goal of the editors of Newsweek was to make Sarah Palin into a laughingstock and minimalize her as a serious contender in the future of American politics, this wasn't the way to do it. They could have accomplished that by doing an in-depth analysis of her book and her views and let the lightness and the lack of substance come out when she sat down with their political and editorial staff, not by taking pictures of her legs or speculating about the status of her grandson's father's posing for Playgirl. That kind of critical review would have been far more devastating to her future as a candidate than making a mockery of her by emulating People or the National Enquirer.

But it wouldn't have sold magazines, and that's the whole point. It's also the reason that I've let my subscription to the magazine lapse.

Short Takes

2009-11-18T03:20:00.003-05:00

President Obama avoids politics in China.

Unsettling -- The US is not happy with Israel's plan for new settlements in Jerusalem.

Three Democrats hold the future of the healthcare bill.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), though, is optimistic about the bill's ability to get 60 votes.

The Senate may vote to bring Gitmo detainees to the US.

War of words -- Peru accuses Chile of spying.

Florida's high-speed rail may get a special legislative session.

Miami's City Commission is still in turmoil.

Scott Rothstein volunteers to give up his law license.

That Bites

2009-11-17T19:33:00.002-05:00

When they say the fish are biting in West Palm Beach, they aren't kidding.

A boy fishing last month in a pond near his condo complex, at Arabian Road and Lake Arbor Drive, pulled from the water not the bass or catfish he was used to but a writhing, red-bellied piranha.

Ten days later, officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission combed the same pond and discovered a second piranha lurking beneath the surface. Investigators said the toothy fish probably were kept as pets, a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine in Florida, before their owners turned them loose.

In response, wildlife officers this morning were plying the roughly four-acre pond with rotenone fish poison, an "extreme measure" meant to kill off any piranha still hiding out there, said wildlife commission spokeswoman Gabriella Ferraro.

As a side effect, the effort also will kill every other fish living in the pond.

You bring the lemons, I'll get the tartar sauce.

Hate To Disappoint You

2009-11-17T06:27:00.004-05:00

A group of conservative Christian ministers showed up in Washington, D.C. to protest against the new hate-crimes bill that was recently passed by Congress and to see if they could get arrested for denouncing homosexuality in public.

Anything other than sex "between a male and his wedded wife," announced the Rev. Paul Blair, "is a perversion, and the Bible says that homosexuality is in fact an abomination."

No arrest was made.

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, quoting Scripture, listed "homosexual offenders" along with thieves, drunkards, swindlers and idolators as those unwelcome in the kingdom of God. "To fail to call homosexuals to repent of their sin and come to Jesus is the highest form of cowardice and sin," he said.

No charges were filed.

"Had people listened to our plea, there would be tens of thousands of people who had not died of a dreaded disease," contributed the Rev. Jim Garlow. "This breaks our heart to see people die of AIDS."

No hands were cuffed. In fact, the few cops in attendance were paying no attention to the speakers, instead talking among themselves and checking their BlackBerrys.

The evangelical activists had been hoping to provoke arrest, because, as organizer Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission put it, "we'd have standing to challenge the law." But their prayers were not answered. Nobody was arrested, which wasn't surprising: To run afoul of the new law, you need to "plan or prepare for an act of physical violence" or "incite an imminent act of physical violence."

It got interesting when a group of gay-rights supporters showed up and engaged the ministers in a lively and at times amusing discussion about hate crimes and the rights of LGBT citizens to be afforded the same rights as everyone else.

Ironically, it is the preachers who are claiming to be the persecuted victims.

"Preachers will soon be targeted for prosecution, and their speech will be monitored," Scarborough warned.

"Christians have civil rights, too," declared Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr., an African American minister. He said he spoke "for the many martyrs of the civil rights movement who have gone before," including Martin Luther King Jr., in saying that "none of them died to advance the cause of homosexuality."

That's more than a little presumptuous on the part of Bishop Jackson; I doubt that Dr. King would have excluded gays and lesbians from his determination to seek equal rights for everyone, and he had at least one notable counselor, Bayard Rustin, who was gay. And I really don't think it's a good idea to bring up the question of people being killed for being gay since the law they are protesting was named for Matthew Shepard.

The First Amendment protects the right of every citizen to make a complete jerk out of themselves and pass off fear and loathing as "Christian" ideals. The new law hasn't changed that.

Bark Bark Woof Woof

Wings Over Miami

Nanny Statement

Short Takes

The Terrible Shock of Reality

Jon Stewart and Lou Dobbs

Short Takes

Friday Blogaround

Friday Catblogging Classic

Classic Thursday Night TV

Actual Headline

On This Date

Judge Not

In the Long Term

What We'll Remember

That's the Ticket

Short Takes

It's An Honor

A First in Broward County

Rubio vs. Reagan

Quote of the Day

Hold That Pose

Short Takes

You Are Here

That Bites

Hate To Disappoint You