I don’t read the famous wonkette (really!) but happened across this following a lead. It’s a good read, though she did overlook the following quote.mjh
ABC News: Vargas Interview: The Personal Side of President Bush
BUSH: Presidents are able to pick their own rugs or design their own rugs.
Elizabeth Vargas’s Bush Interview: President Bush, He’s Just Like Us – Wonkette
Post-9/11 Drive by Republicans To Attract Jewish Voters Stalls By Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post Staff Writer
DeLay’s problems, likewise, have set back GOP efforts in cultivating Jewish supporters. He has been one of Congress’s most aggressive and outspoken backers of Israel’s Likud government, and sponsored resolutions of support that were often so strongly worded that some Democrats — including those who had supported Israel’s Labor Party — abstained or voted no. Republicans cited these votes in arguing that the Democratic Party could not be counted as a reliable ally of the Jewish state.
Notice DeLay used partisanship within another country to advance his cause of founding the 1000 Year Reich for the Christian Right. What an evil genius. mjh
Media Notes from the Washington Post
A new U.S. Central Command team, according to a news release, “contacts bloggers to inform the writers about any given topic that may have been posted on their site. . . . The team engages bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information.”
While that may sound ominous, the release says the unit works with more than 250 bloggers “to try to disseminate news about the good work being done by U.S. forces in the global war on terror.” This, says Army Reserve Maj. Richard Norton, has a “viral effect” that drives Web users to CentCom’s Web site. The team’s motto: “Engage.”
I have been updating my Ah, Wilderness! blog. Have a look. peace, mjh
Along with more conventional writing, I love to tinker with code. One of the reasons I switched to WordPress from MoveableType, and, before that, GreyMatter, is the accessibility of its PHP and MySQL code, as well as a host of third-party plug-ins, most of which allow lots of tweaking.
So, you may have noticed a few new things in the left-hand sidebar and elsewhere:
“Popular Entries” ranks entries by hits (always a suspect number). This might help you discover an entry you’ve missed. Bear in mind that most people read the main page (index.php) without ever going to a specific entry page. So, most of the numbers under this heading are from people going directly to that entry page, either via RSS-feeds or search engines. There is an odd bug with the first item under that heading: the count is for index.php but the title displayed is always the top entry; in effect, each new entry in turn seems to be the most popular.
“Top Links” ranks the links people follow leaving this main blog page. So, this shows links people have chosen to follow, for what that’s worth. (It certainly interest me.)
“Recent Comments” have been showing for a while and may be self-explanatory.
Further down the sidebar are category links (each with its own RSS feed) and number of entries in each category. Then, “Blogs I read” (just a few of them), and my other blogs. Next you will find all the members of the Edgewiseblog Collective, my web-hosting and blog-evangelizing site/service, then links to WordPress related sites for plug-ins and such. Finally, you’ll see the 5 most recent photos in my flickr photo site.
You should see flickr photos in between each entry, as well. These are random; each is a thumbnail you can click to see the larger version. Those of you who have Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer may see a difference here (and elsewhere).
For items in the poems or photos category, I have added a method to “vote” or rate the poem or picture. To do so, place your mouse over the 1st (lowest) to 5th (highest) star before clicking.
I have recently added a “Random Entry” link between each entry to encourage you to explore the archives. The constant flow of new entries is the life-blood of blogging but leads us to forget or ignore what’s gone before.
Towards encouraging reading of older stuff, I’ve added a “my favs” category and will flag a few entries I think are worth a re-visit.
You are always welcome to let me know what you think, in comments or email. Thanks for reading. mjh
NOW. Transcript. February 17, 2006 | PBS
MARIA HINOJOSA: Jim Dyer, a Republican, served 24 years on the staff of the House Appropriations Committee. Dyer says most earmarks have been a force for good. …
Dyer concedes though, and most everyone agrees, that the number of earmarks has skyrocketed. In 1994, when the Republicans took over Congress there were 1,300 earmarks in appropriations bills. Last year,that number had jumped to 14,000. The total cost to taxpayers? $27 billion dollars.
Dyer was one of the players when Newt Gingrich took control of the Republican leadership and earmarking became more of a political tool.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Wasn’t it true that Newt Gingrich in 1994 told the appropriations chairs to give more earmarks to Republicans in vulnerable districts in order to help them stay in office and get them reelected?
JIM DYER: Yes, that is absolutely true. And one of the– one of the items that has probably led to a proliferation of earmarks has been the determination on the part of the leadership to protect its own.