"In an interview last night on MSNBC, Mr. Williams said NBC had been concerned about the sensitivities of broadcasting as much of the material as it did.
“This was a sick business tonight, going on the air with this,” he said."
"The NYT may also have found the ride a bit rough. There's this vibration, you see, caused by the big spinning three-blade thingies on the front of the engines of GA-ASI's King Air. Memo to NYT. If you really want to get your credibility above the Jayson Blair level, maybe you should assign aerospace stories to someone who knows the difference between a propeller and a jet."
Johnson, 55, acknowledges his Republican roots. But he takes offense to the suggestion he has purposefully left his property, including an old garage he leases for use as a car shop, in dilapidated condition.
Johnson said he has lived his entire life on the property, which he said his family purchased before the Great Depression. He said he's spent a lot of money to try and fix up the 42-acre tract.
"I have to budget. I have to live within my means," Johnson said. "I don't have millions of dollars to fix the place."
"The new House and Senate majorities have now passed budget resolutions -- five-year budget outlines -- that include the repeal of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Republicans are overstating things when they imply this means a tax increase this year. The Bush tax cuts don't expire until the end of 2010, and Democrats aren't about to tip their tax hand before the 2008 election. But under the cover of zero media attention, Democrats are constructing a budget process that will make a tax increase all but inevitable."
Given that the changes that affected New Orleans happened many months ago, we were a bit surprised by some of these recent comments.
Citing an Associated Press report from Thursday, the House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight asked Google Inc. Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt to explain why his company is using the outdated imagery.
"Google's use of old imagery appears to be doing the victims of Hurricane Katrina a great injustice by airbrushing history," subcommittee chairman Brad Miller, D-N.C., wrote Friday in a letter to Schmidt.
"Mr. Stephanopoulos doesn't mention his own valuable expertise on the subject of fired federal prosecutors, the kind of expertise that might help place the current mess in context. Mr. Stephanopoulos was the Clinton White House communications director in 1993 when the Justice Department cleaned its slate of all 93 U.S. attorneys, and he was central to the administration's finessing of the episode--just the sort of insider experience, presumably, that prompted ABC News to hire Mr. Stephanopoulos fresh out of the White House in 1996."
"Making loans to developing countries is central to the bank’s very reason for existence — so the threat to quit borrowing is a blow at its mission, and to the job security of some 26,000 World Bank bureaucrats, staffers and consultants around the world."
"'One must unfortunately note that Europe seems to be going down a road which could lead it to take its leave from history,' the pontiff told bishops in Rome for ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, a major step toward the creation of today's European Union."
"If you believe the Gospel of John and Yoko represents a higher morality, you will naturally begin to resent such obstacles in the way of “progress” as reason, the rule of law, common sense, the need to be a master of your own life, and the responsibility for your own well-being. And since the United States of America was built on such values and remains their most dedicated proponent, any honest and consistent “progressive” is bound to develop a seething hatred towards this country.
In the “progressive” book of virtues, American values are the quintessence of evil. So if you are a “progressive” and you aren’t mad at this country, that just means you’re neither honest nor consistent. But then again, because living by this dead-end moral code is logically impossible, one has to resort to hypocrisy and seek compromises, forever balancing on the edge of madness."
"the spirit of this earmark rule is about openness. It is about allowing the public the ability to scrutinize the use of their tax dollars during the lawmaking process. A constituent has every right to know where their money is going and which members are spending it. Yet, the Democrats have decided that the public is better served by Democrat staffers removing all their parties’ earmark request letters and hiding them away in some closet until the 11th hour. So much for transparency – but then again, Democrat rules were made to be broken."
"To the contrary, the problems at Walter Reed are further proof of the Democrats' failed domestic policies -- to wit, the civil service rules that prevent government employees from ever being fired. (A policy that also may account for Robert Byrd's longevity as a U.S. senator.)
Thanks to the Democrats, government employees have the world's most complicated set of job protection rules outside of the old East Germany. Oddly enough, this has not led to a dynamic workforce in the nation's capital."
"Sordid the episode is, but not because of anything Libby did. And "a troubling picture" of Washington it is-but not of this Administration. The Bush crowd is guilty only of terminal naiveté and the foolish idea that high standards of probity will ever beat the opposition's utter unscrupulousness and willingness to misuse the legal system to their own partisan ends, even if it means the ruination of an innocent and capable man and enormous hardship to his family."
"Fitzgerald was overzealous," Zelnick says, and "the effect is serious and adverse. It's going to take a long time for reporters and their sources to figure out how to deal with each other in a way that doesn't risk contempt citations and imprisonment."
"The reality that Armitage was the original leaker doesn't change the fact that Libby subsequently dined and whined with reporters to push the bosses' agenda. But Armitage is not a Cheney guy, and his revealed role does question the presumption of White House conspiracy and Cheney guilt.
The truth is that everyone at the top gossips. I hate to say leak for that suggests a piece of information of greater importance. Gossip fuels Washington, and the relationship between the top reporters and the top officials shape the news and fuels the ship of state.
Saying everyone gossips also isn't meant to excuse Libby or the government cesspool: My attitude is always that it is a great day for America when a government official is led away in handcuffs. These people are not above the law.
But they are above it all. "
"Mr. Libby's conviction should send a message to this and future administrations about the dangers of attempting to block official investigations.
The fall of this skilled and long-respected public servant is particularly sobering because it arose from a Washington scandal remarkable for its lack of substance."
"Mr. Wilson's case has besmirched nearly everyone it touched. The former ambassador will be remembered as a blowhard. Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were overbearing in their zeal to rebut Mr. Wilson and careless in their handling of classified information. Mr. Libby's subsequent false statements were reprehensible. And Mr. Fitzgerald has shown again why handing a Washington political case to a federal special prosecutor is a prescription for excess.
Mr. Fitzgerald was, at least, right about one thing: The Wilson-Plame case, and Mr. Libby's conviction, tell us nothing about the war in Iraq."
"The whole Libby affair remains something of a mystery. President Bush ordered all executive branch personnel to cooperate with the Fitzgerald investigation. Other people, apparently including Dick Cheney, told investigators that they had discussed Wilson and Plame with Libby. It's hard to understand why Libby's testimony was so out of step with that of the other Executive Branch witnesses. At the end of the day, imperfect memory seemed as good an explanation as any. But the jury didn't see it that way."
Father Brooks made a point of trying to recruit a lot more African Americans to campus in the months before you came. Do you think that recruitment drive helped you?
Oh no. I was going to go home to Savannah when a nun suggested Holy Cross. That's how I wound up there. Your industry has suggested that we were all recruited. That's a lie. Really, it's a lie. I don't mean a mistake. It's a lie.
I had always been an honors student. I was the only black kid in my high school in Savannah and one of two or three blacks in my class during my first year of college in the seminary. I just transferred. I had always had really high grades so that was never a problem. It was the only school I applied to. It was totally fortuitous.…The thing that has astounded me over the years is that there has been such an effort to roll that class into people's notion of affirmative action. It was never really looked at. It was just painted over. Things were much more nuanced than that….You hear this junk. It's just not consistent with what really happened.
"In a display of courage equal to proclaiming undying support for Mother's Day, the Virginia legislature has voted to apologize for the state’s role in slavery. According to one report, “This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed this resolution,' said Delegate A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who sponsored the bill. No, Mr. McEachin. This session of the Virginia legislature will be remembered in the same way that the 109th Congress will be remembered: for doing what is expedient instead of what is necessary."
"Hillary Rodham (who wasn't the valedictorian of the Wellesley class of '69, no matter what Wikipedia has said since July 9, 2005) was indeed an honors student and received an A on the thesis after her oral defense of it that May, recalls professor Schechter, who was one of the three graders."
'In her paper, she accepted Alinsky's view that the problem of the poor isn't so much a lack of money as a lack of power, as well as his view of federal anti-poverty programs as ineffective. (To Alinsky, the War on Poverty was a “prize piece of political pornography,” even though some of its funds flowed through his organizations.) “A cycle of dependency has been created,” she wrote, “which ensnares its victims into resignation and apathy.” '
"You can't have both, either what they did in the past influences who they are now or it doesn't. You can't insult Bush for actions at 21, and then say what Hillary did at 21 doesn't matter because she was young. They're both accountable or neither are accountable."
"'Environmentalism has largely superseded Christianity as the religion of the upper classes in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States,' Mr Evans says in the publication.
'It is a form of religious belief which fosters a sense of moral superiority in the believer, but which places no importance on telling the truth,' he says.
'The global warming scam has been, arguably, the most extraordinary example of scientific fraud in the postwar period.'"
"Utility records show the Gore family paid an average monthly electric bill of about $1,200 last year for its 10,000-square-foot home.
The Gores used about 191,000 kilowatt hours in 2006, according to bills reviewed by The Associated Press spanning the period from Feb. 3, 2006, to Jan. 5. That is far more than the typical Nashville household, which uses about 15,600 kilowatt-hours per year."
Tax Cuts - As Explained By A Democrat
If you don't understand the Democrats' version of tax cuts (and you are not alone), maybe this will help explain it:
50,000 people go to a baseball game, but the game was rained out. A refund was then due.
The team was about to mail refunds when the Congressional Democrats stopped them and suggested that they send out refund amounts based on the Democrat National Committee's interpretation of fairness.
After all, if the refunds were made based on the price each person paid for the tickets, most of the money would go to the ticket holders of the most expensive tickets. That would be unfair and unconscionable.
People in the $10 seats will get back $15, because they have less money to spend. Call it an "Earned Income Ticket Credit." Persons "earn" it by demonstrating little ambition, few skills and poor work habits, thus keeping them at entry-level wages.
People in the $25 seats will get back $25, because that's only fair.
People in the $50 seats will get back $1, because they already make a lot of money and don't need a refund. After all, if they can afford a $50 ticket, then they must not be paying enough taxes.
People in the $75 luxury seats will have to pay another $50, because they have way too much to spend.
The people driving (or walking) by the stadium who couldn't afford to watch the game will get $10 each, even though they didn't pay anything in, because they need the most help (sometimes known as Affirmative Action!).
Now do you understand?
If not, contact Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Ted Kennedy or Senator Hillary Clinton for assistance.
Mr. Woodward's testimony provided Libby's attorneys a victory in making that argument. They persuaded a judge to let them play a one-minute excerpt of Mr. Woodward's taped interview with Mr. Armitage. In it, Mr. Woodward asks about a CIA fact-finding mission that Mr. Wilson says helped him debunk prewar intelligence on Iraq.
"Why would they send him?" Mr. Woodward asked.
"Because his wife's a (expletive) analyst at the agency," Mr. Armitage replied.
"It's still weird," Mr. Woodward said.
"It's perfect. That's what she does. She is a WMD analyst," Mr. Armitage said.
