The New Bishop Laud...

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has called for new laws to protect religious sensibilities that would punish “thoughtless and cruel” styles of speaking.

Dr Williams, who has seen his own Anglican Communion riven by fierce invective over homosexuality, said the current blasphemy law was “unworkable” and he had no objection to its repeal.

But whatever replaces it should “send a signal” about what was acceptable.

This should be done by “stigmatising and punishing extreme behaviours” that have the effect of silencing argument.

So watch those ears....

What Did I Tell You

TOPEKA, Kan. - Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday endorsed Barack Obama for president, a Super Tuesday boost in a GOP-leaning state that Democrats hope to reclaim in the White House campaign.
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Sebelius has impressed Democrats nationally by election success, and party leaders let her give the Democratic response Monday night to Bush's State of the Union address.

She is coming off a year as head of the Democratic Governors Association, a group that Bill Clinton once led. The governor made Democrats' lists of potential vice presidential running mates for nominee John Kerry in 2004, and while there's less of the same talk this year, she is seen as possible Cabinet appointee in a Democratic administration.

I however seem to remember this little moment which the AP (shocker!!) fails to mention...

Paging Dr. Mengele V

The latest in our series...

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.

And what on earth is a "social abortion"?

Knowing Someone From The Company They Keep

.....or in this case from those that praise them.

Just as I start warming up to McCain(out of desperation more than anything else) we have the endorsement from the New York Times and now the support of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which damns him with.....

Perhaps his most courageous political stand in the current campaign is his moderate view on immigration reform. Here is a senator from a border state who joined with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and others to defy reactionary forces by sponsoring a comprehensive and compassionate immigration reform bill. That the bill failed is not the fault of Mr. McCain.

...and apparently he's smarter than the average conservative...

He has little patience with the scientific know-nothings of the modern right, having long ago recognized the threat of global warming and — despite his long pro-life voting record — the promise of embryonic stem cell research.

Notice the use of the word "promise", as in it doesn't actually work but it's a convenient brickbat to beat Republicans until a Democrat takes office then the press can safely forget it "promise".

And what is the deal with big city papers and Giuliani.
First the New York Times...

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power.
...Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking.

...now the Post-Dispatch...

We find former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to be cravenly narrow and mean.

Maybe somebody needs to buy the Editorial staff of the Post-Dispatch a dictionary, because mine says that "cravenly" is the adverb form of craven which means..."cowardly; contemptibly timid; pusillanimous".

I'd call Giuliani a lot of things, a coward isn't one of them.

The Millstone In The Democratic Party's Eye...

....is that they (and their water carriers in the press) are overlooking how race is going to doom their chances at the polls this year.

The reality is that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is going to be their nominee and either one of them alienates an important part of the Democratic base.

If Hillary gets the nod Black voters will stay home in droves driven away by what is perceived as the racist way the Clintons went after the first Black candidate to have snowball's chance of getting near the Presidency; especially if she keeps getting ahead of him in the delegate count while he keeps winning a plurality of the votes. (more on that later)

And if Obama gets the nod, the truth is, a significant number of the white working class will not vote for a Black man. A young Black man. A young Black man named Barrak Hussein Obama. Maybe a Morgan Freeman look a like would have a chance but (sorry George Stephanopoulos) all those millions of Whites still in a swoon over the likes of JFK and LBJ (and especially older voters still thinking fondly of Truman and Roosevelt) will not push the button for a Black man. A young Black man. A young Black man named Barack Hussein Obama.

Enlightened residents of Manhattan and Georgetown not withstanding, just because some people think all Republicans are plutocrats or religious fanatics doesn't mean they have suddenly become color blind.

Is It Me? (pt. II) .....

.....or is the Democratic race starting to resemble James Watts famous (OK, infamous) line.


...so does that make John Edwards the "cripple."

Is it Me ?.....

......or is David Letterman starting to look like the town crank.

As well as sounding like one.

Or maybe An Enemy Of The People.

Seeing The World Through PC Glasses, Or.....

.......all the news that's fit to print. And I do mean fit.

An interesting science piece from the New York Times on the theory(attacked over the last couple decades) that the crew of Columbus' ships contracted syphilis from the natives of the New World and brought it back to the Old.

Even more interesting is the titles of the piece, "Genetic Study Bolsters The Columbus Link To Syphilis".

Almost makes ol' Christopher seem like some fifteenth century Typhoid Mary doesn't it ?

.....and a quick little search of the article reveals that words "native", "Native American", and "Indian"(that last one isn't surprising) appear....absolutely....no where.

Are They After Huckabee Because He's An Evangelical ?

Of course they are.
And I support Thompson.

I might... I might take the protestations of the members of CMSM (that's Conservative Mainstream Media) that they're actually so concerned about Huckabee's conservative credentials if so many of them where not trumpeting the candidacies of those Conservative titans....... Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

Case in point. To paint Huckabee as some strangely Christian-Democrat type of Republican while whistling past the pro Big Government records of Giuliani and Romney is to seriously stretch the credulity of the politically informed.

As for him raising taxes in Arkansas......folks, it's Arkansas, maybe they needed more revenue.

And I thought Conservatives were in favor of handing back more responsibility to the states?