Pat Bagley/Salt Lake City Tribune
Don’t know what paper this was in and can’t read the cartoonist’s signature, but somebody sent it in and it tickled me, so . . .
Two items show all you need to know about the relative qualities and concerns of our politicians and major parties these days:
(a) POTUS, no longer thinking in terms of a single “car czar,” will instead have Tim Geithner and Larry Summers head up a presidential panel of advisors, “reserving for himself any decision on the viability of G.M. and Chrysler.” Ron Bloom (“known for bringing his Wall Street experience as an investment banker to an advisory role as the ‘in-house’ banker for the steel workers’ union”) becomes a senior adviser to Geithner.
(b) Four House GOPers are generating some mirth back home in Tennessee.
Thirty years into the state GOP’s “anti-tax jihad,” at last — inevitably — California is fixing to go bankrupt (whoa, won’t that be a going-out-of-bizniz sale?!). And wouldn’t you know: for lack of one last GOPer vote in the senate.
Things about torture that the Bush DoJ really didn’t want to come out are starting to. hilzoy and Scott Horton are among those saying “About time!” (Even if Obama or Holder don’t push it, a friend of mine was saying yesterday, the evidence is bubbling up as if out of saturated ground; at some point, prosecutions at the level of Cheney, Addington, Yoo, and Bybee will become unavoidable. I think she’s right.)
The only story in the Mississippi papers that jumps out at me (so far) makes me mad. Sure as hell didn’t have classes like this when I was an undergrad English major.
This might be of some interest to the litigators among us: an NYT story about how Alex Rodriguez’ nonverbal signals (mildly) suggest to an expert that he was lying to Katie Couric.
Have any of you noticed particular patterns of clues from lying witnesses? For instance . . . ?
I can spot a liar from a mile away. Sometimes. But I’ve gotta see their eyes. Few things irritate me more than “conversing” with a person wearing sunglasses. The eyes are truly the windows to one’s soul.
But on to the B’ham Southern English class: I can see where the BBQ boondoggle could work for a creative writing class, but the expenses must be exhorbitant. They could have accomplished the same thing by sending the students to Mississippi Highway Patrol driver license stations and charged them with describing the run-down facilities, the paths worn in the floor tiles by tens of thousands of shuffling footsteps, layered dust resembling coral reefs on the venetian blinds, chairs and desks that were worn out when they were obtained years ago from federal surplus junk depots, and surly staff “officers” stuffed into uniforms that may have fit, more or less, when they were issued 15 years and 45 pounds ago. I could go on and on, but you get the picture ….
Vividly. You make A.
Lotus, the cartoonist is Pat Bagley of The Salt Lake Tribune. Spot on.
Thanks, soms — I’ll add that.
I’d be interested in foloers’ reactions to this in today’s NYT.
Adam Cohen: Is the Supreme Court About to Kill Off the Exclusionary Rule?
Or what about Jarvis DeBerry’s Melton/DeLaughter musings in the Times-Pic?
I get a 404 “Page Not Found” error on your item “b” above…
Doggone. It was there earlier this morning, Plexix — a piece by a woman columnist at Tennessean.com whose name didn’t stick with me. For now, here’s part of it, as quoted at WaMo:
I dunno, the HTML code for it looks okay — maybe heavy traffic of laffin’ lefties crashed the site? Check back there later if you want to read the rest.
Thanks for the update, Lotus. Didn’t the SCOTUS just turn down a lawsuit concerning Obama’s birth certificate? Very strange to spend your efforts on something like this.
BTW, are you familiar with a Lotus car? An acquaintance of mine owns one here in Hattiesburg, it looks like the Batmobile. I’ll try to take a picture and send you.
The Tennessean columnist is Gail Kerr. Try this link to the story, Plexix.
And yep, it is strange but MS doesn’t have a corner on the strange doings of “public servants” market.
Yes, SCOTUS did, Plexix, as this column notes.
I know there’s a Lotus race-car, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, so that’d be great!
Meanwhile . . . fancy a little AM snark from Michael Berube (just to tide you over ’til lunch)?
Thanks, that link works, GG. Meatheads.
More of interest to our litigators (and Dr X?): WiredScience reports some research about how easy it is to create false memories.
If the name of the woman heading up the research, Elizabeth Loftus, is familiar . . . Scooter Libby’s defense team called her as an expert witness on all things memory-related, to bolster their argument that all his perjury was really just misremembering. During cross-examination by Pat Fitzgerald, Ms. Memory said she didn’t remember that she and Fitz had met before: yer basic QED.
Y’all wanna get up a pool on how long before Roland Burris gets indicted for perjury? Anyhow, SHOULD he survive to 2010, I wouldn’t call his chances of party support strong. Something about “lack of acumen” . . .
Rolling on with “lack of acumen” . . . Rodney may be among those who’ll enjoy this proof of same on the part of Eric Cantor and/or WaPo.
George Will makes up shit on climate change, gets his head handed to him. Fun.
Catvertising? Sfw link http://tinyurl.com/cgkevf
JD and Isom woke up, saw that, and chortled on their way back to sleep, DLM.
(A “clowder” of cats? Hmm, new one on me.)
DLM, them kitties look like they share this sentiment:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/05/09/funny-pictures-u-dy-frum-it/
Lotus i gotta great idea for an interweb scam. Are you in on it? See we propose to sue this Barry Obama guy for being a citizen of the world or some such. We set up a donation site: wwww. obamaisan alien.com and we sue him in Federal Court in this Oxford MS. place. We visit there frequently- you can fly first class and limo down form Memphis or up from Jax. We can have meetings at CG and hire this Feeland guy at some inflated price, say $50/hour. I can limo on in from Belden. Whatta great idea.
I got hte diea from some financial site-cannnot tell you the name . It is a secret but Bernie runs it.
Let me know tonight I already registered the address.
NL