If you don’t know the Whiskey Bar by Billmon, you should check it out. He writes straight-forward criticism, but he also branches out into semi-fiction. Read the whole piece I’ve just excerpted below. It is the epitome of satire. If you don’t know Abramoff, start searching for him — he makes Delay look noble. mjh

Whiskey Bar: Order Up

Abramoff: (alarmed) Look Tom, really, take a break. I can work the grill for awhile. You should rest up. You gotta give the keynote tonight. Ya don’t want the boss to see ya like this — ya know how angry he can get.

DeLay: That sumbitch Bush can kiss my ass. I’ve stepped on fire ants who were bigger men than he is.

Abramoff: I said the boss, not the owner. And ya sure as shit don’t want Mr. Rove hearin’ ya talk like that. So c’mon, you go lie down now.
—–
But the ‘real’ DeLay is self-satirizing…

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Ari Berman

Here’s a chronology of DeLay’s recent infractions, followed by The Hammer’s responses. You might notice a pattern. … DeLay keeps blaming the same people: liberal Democrats, liberal groups, liberal media. It’s a one-size-fits-all approach that’s likely to intensify in the weeks to come.

April 13, 2005, after Republicans Chris Shays, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich questioned DeLay’s conduct:

“I’m not here to discuss the Democrats’ agenda.”

[9 more…]

Labs scramble to destroy deadly flu virus by Mark Oliver

Scientists around the world were scrambling today to prevent the possibility of a pandemic after it emerged that a deadly influenza virus had been sent out to thousands of laboratories.

The scare was prompted after US firm Meridian Bioscience, sent out the H2N2 virus – similar to one associated with the 1957 Asian flu pandemic that killed up to four million people – in routine testing kits to almost 5,000 laboratories in 18 different countries. …

Klaus Stohr, who coordinates the WHO global influenza programme, said sending out the virus had been “unwise”. …

Meridian, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, had decided to use the H2N2 virus in testing kits as one of the blind samples that labs must correctly identify to acquire certain certifications.

Usually the influenza virus included in the kits is one that is currently circulating or has recently circulated. The H2N2 virus has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, and anyone born after that date will have little or no immunity to it.

A US medical company selects a virus that hasn’t circulated in almost 40 years and ships it to 5000 labs around the world. How many of those labs didn’t figure out what they got in the mail and stuck those samples on a shelf? What are the odds that one person in one lab mishandled the sample — or stole it to sell to the highest bidder (check eBay)? Surely the odds are as high as those for the original mistake. To err is human but in this case it could be fatal for millions. Do you think Meridian Bioscience should stay in business?

By the way, according to the Motley Fool, these fools are also “recombinant DNA manufacturers.” If they decide to sell Cat DNA to allergy suffers, they better hope it doesn’t come with the flu.

President Motto happens to have sold 160,000 shares in February 2005 for about $2.5 million. But it’s not like he was trying to profit before the story got out — cuz the stock went UP after this news broke. Investors ignore incompetence, even when it threatens to kill them. I wonder how many folks born after 1968 have this in their portfolio.

Looks like a great weekend to rent “Twelve Monkeys.” mjh

Funny that this story didn’t make it onto the Meridian Bioscience Rapid Medical Diagnostics Testing and Laboratory Diagnostics website.

“The quality of our products and technologies is assured through our commitment to a Total Quality System. We are dedicated to continuous learning and continuous improvement of our systems, processes and products to maintain our competitive advantage.”

Yahoo! – Insider Trades – MOTTO, WILLIAM J.

The Writer’s Almanac – APRIL 11 – 17, 2005

It was on this day in 1633 that Galileo was put on trial for publishing evidence that the sun and not the earth is the center of the solar system. He was a devout Catholic but didn’t believe his ideas should threaten the church. He wrote, the “Holy Sprit intended to teach us in the Bible how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.” …

So Galileo wrote a book in which three friends discuss whether the earth or the sun is the center of the solar system. The book presented the sun-centered argument as convincing and the earth-centered argument as idiotic, but at the very end, the three characters agree that no one really knows the truth. When it was published, the book became a best-seller.

The pope decided Galileo’s book had crossed a line, and mocked the church, and he ordered the printing stopped, all copies seized, and Galileo was put on trial for heresy. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest. …

It took more than 350 years for Pope John Paul II to declare, in 1992, that Galileo had been unjustly condemned by the Catholic Church.

If the trial were held today, how would Tom Delay and Duhbya vote? And if they managed to vote for truth over lies, how many of their supporters would rage at them? The Dark Ages are back. mjh

The New York Times > Washington > G.O.P. Consultant Weds His Male Partner By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

“I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners,” he said. …

Mr. Finkelstein has regularly described himself as a libertarian who supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights while opposing big government. In an interview with Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, after the American elections last year, he criticized the Republican Party as growing too close to evangelical Christians, warning it could cause long-term damage to the party. …

Mr. Finkelstein live[s] with his partner and two children….

[S]ome conservative friends said Mr. Finkelstein’s marriage would roil conservatives and highlight divisions among them over the importance of social issues to their movement.

“In recent years, Arthur hasn’t pretended to be a social conservative,” said one longtime conservative associate, who cited Mr. Finkelstein’s aversion to publicity in declining to be identified. “But this is the same man who was the architect of Jesse Helms’s political rise.”

I’m not outing Finkelstein. I’m not even calling him a complete hypocrite. I’m highlighting this story to underscore my confusion over what “conservatives” want and what they are willing to do to get it. Like work closely with people who wish they were dead.

Note: they’ve been a couple for 40 years (since 1965!). How many conservatives have gotten multiple divorces in that time? mjh

[via dangerousmeta!]

ABQjournal: ABQ 2nd in Sprawl in Rockies StudyBy Jim Ludwick, Journal Staff Writer

The Albuquerque area ranks second in the Rocky Mountains for its urban sprawl, according to a new study from Colorado College.

Only Pueblo, Colo., has more sprawl than Albuquerque, the study says. Colorado Springs, where the college is based, falls just behind Albuquerque.

The report was released this week at the State of the Rockies Conference on the campus of Colorado College.

Researchers used census data and computer mapping to study residential housing density, as well as changes in metropolitan areas from the 1970s to the 1990s. The study compared the 11 largest cities in an area including Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

ABQjournal: SF Ranks Third for Regional Small-City Sprawl By John T. Huddy, Journal Staff Writer

Santa Fe has the third-worst urban sprawl among 10 small metropolitan cities in the Rocky Mountain Region of states, according to the 2005 Colorado College State of the Rockies Report Card.

The report evaluates sprawl, pollution and socioeconomic issues in the Rocky Mountain region’s eight states — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Outranking Santa Fe as the worst for sprawl is Grand Junction, Colo., No. 1 on the list, and Flagstaff, Ariz., which is second.

From News Hounds: We watch FOX so you don’t have to.

Fox News Channel ad introduces new motto

A sexy female voice-over says “We’re always live” ….

FNC shows re-runs from 11pm ET to 5am ET weekdays.

Maybe I misunderstood and she’s saying “We’re always lies.” Yeah, that must be it – they’re replacing their ridiculous old motto with a more accurate new one.