:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Saturday, October 18, 2003 ::

Panel Approves Leavitt's Nomination for EPA (washingtonpost.com): "The Environmental Integrity Project yesterday disclosed a May 2001 memo from then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to Vice President Cheney, warning against undertaking the rule change. 'We will pay a terrible political price if we undercut or walk away from the enforcement cases,' Whitman wrote. 'It will be hard to refute the charge that we are deciding not to enforce the Clean Air Act.'"

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 11:35:00 PM [+] ::
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And we wonder why people hate us?

This is just bad P.R. not to mention a prime example of the "they hate us for our freedom (and our whiteness) that is just below the surface. General Casts War in Religious Terms

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 11:30:00 PM [+] ::
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Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.


"Governor-elect Schwarzenegger, who said he would fund his own campaign, ended up raising $2.4 million from real estate developers, $1.5 million from bankers and $1 million from car dealers and equipment sales operations. He also loaned his campaign $4.5 million, getting around a $100,000 limit on the amount California candidates can give to their own campaigns. Of course, that loan will now be paid back by wealthy interests eager to curry his favor."

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 11:24:00 PM [+] ::
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thehomelessguy.net

The cool thing about the net is that it makes you realize how hollow our ability to truly grasp reality is because you can't really know if this guy is really homeless, really a guy, or really even an american. For all we know it could be a small child from south africa. Okay that part I doubt.

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 10:46:00 PM [+] ::
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OxBlog: "some bullet-pointed observations:
(1) Reagan got 8,420,000 more popular votes and 440 more electoral votes than Jimmy Carter. So he was installed in office by the American people, not by five reactionary Republicans.

(2) Reagan was as 'scripted' as Bush, but didn't sound as scripted. So he didn't remind me how much I disliked him every time he opened his mouth.

(3) Reagan was a self-made man and had been at least moderately successful at everything he did. The governorship of California is a real job with
real power. The Texas governorship is a cipher. So you had to, grudgingly, perhaps, respect him at least a little bit.

(4) Reagan's tax cuts, as irresponsible as they were, were much more broad-based than the Bushies gift the the rich.

(5) Brezhnev did have weapons of mass destruction and had invaded Afganistan."

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 10:07:00 PM [+] ::
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John & Belle Have A Blog: Conservatism Considered: "My thought for the night about conservatism. I've been sort of mulling a long post, but it's really a simple idea: there is no way even to begin to conjoin so-called social or cultural conservatism and economic conservatism. Because the latter assumes that (economic) laissez faire is good: change will tend to be for the better. And the former assumes that (cultural) laissez faire is bad: change will tend to be for the worse. It would of course be possible to render these theses consistent by arguing that human beings tend to make good economic decisions but bad cultural or social ones. But it's a little hard to see how this could be made plausible."

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 10:00:00 PM [+] ::
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I love it

Budget deficits, cause when you have no money the Government can't help but get smaller!! Ignoring the fact that you have potholes in the road and schools without books.

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 09:41:00 PM [+] ::
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Crooked Timber: Inside the blogger's studio:
"the NRA has made a list of organizations with anti-gun policies or views. The list includes Britney Spears, Oprah Winfrey, Hallmark Cards, Jerry Seinfeld, and the Kansas City Chiefs."

Oh my... digging the music. Here is the real list. But the other site is funnier

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 09:37:00 PM [+] ::
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U. S. pride, brandished in Little Havana policy
The National Review Baby!!!

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 09:29:00 PM [+] ::
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TAPPED: "THAT'S A NICE TOUCH. Just a couple of months ago, President Bush was lecturing the rest of the country about how 'we can never take our military for granted.' I'd suggest he send copies of his speech to Republican members of the House, nearly all of whom voted against an amendment this afternoon to increase the basic rate of pay to all military services by $265 million, which would be enough to provide an extra $1,500 to every American soldier serving in Iraq or Afghanistan this year. As the Center for American Progress notes, this isn't that much more money than the administration stands accused of overcharging taxpayers for -- in the words of the Newhouse News Service -- 'the purchase and importation of petroleum products.' "

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 09:24:00 PM [+] ::
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Well duhhh
State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq. Anyway what would that matter, the Administration has done its best to not list to the state department. If we had listened to the State Department we probably wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 09:12:00 PM [+] ::
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Daily Choice Turned Deadly: Children Left on Their Own
We do recognize how wrong it is to punish someone who we are forcing to work while we at the exact same time we do not make sure they have child-care. What a joke.

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 09:11:00 PM [+] ::
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Azerbaijan: Police Attack Protesters on Election Day

I know it can't help but sound patronizing when someone says this but... just think. Some people here don't even vote. Then again I personally don't think most people should vote... I also think if you aren't smart enough you shouldn't odd contradiction? No. The sad fact is that those people who don't vote tend (in my experience to be smarter than the average voter--hence why they don't vote. And therefore it is not irrational to expect them to make better decisions than most current voters do--and therefore it is not hypocritical for me to both try to motivate and chastise the same people in one breath (if you need further explaination on what I just said email me--maybe by then i'll have figured it out myself).

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 08:55:00 PM [+] ::
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Life ain't nothing but a marketing scheme
Plan-it-x--of Operation: Cliff Clavin fame (I think that might be an oxymoron)--is ten years old. That doesn't really mean anything to me. I like OCC. Well done guys, happy birthday. That is all.

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 08:47:00 PM [+] ::
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TAP: Vol 14, Iss. 10. NOW What?. Sarah Wildman.

Speaking of NOW did anyone see this weeks? Had a good piece on the No Child Left Behind Act. And a good interview with Simon Schama and Samantha Power.

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 08:38:00 PM [+] ::
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the math of tweedle dum:
"'Some new Cakes are nice.'
'No new Cakes are nice.'
'All new cakes are nice.'"

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 08:26:00 PM [+] ::
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Virgin Mothers and Virgin-Born Gods: "Many are the cases noted in history of young maidens claiming a paternity for their male offspring by a God.
In Greece it became so common that the reigning king issued an edict, decreeing the death of all young women who should offer such an insult to deity as to lay to him the charge of begetting their children."

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 08:14:00 PM [+] ::
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The Challenge of Every Great Philosophy: "This is how Schopenhauer's philosophy, too, should always be interpreted first of all: individually, by the single human being alone for himself, to gain some insight into his own misery and need, into his own limitation. . . He teaches us to distinguish between real and apparent promotions of human happiness: how neither riches, nor honours, nor scholarship can raise the individual out of his discouragement over the worthlessness of his existence, and how the striving for these goals can receive meaning only from a high and transfiguring over-all aim: to gain power to help nature and to correct a little its follies and blunders. To begin with, for oneself; but eventually through oneself for all. That is, to be sure, an aspiration which leads us profoundly and heartily to resignation: for what, and how much, can after all be improved in the individual or in general? . . . "

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 07:11:00 PM [+] ::
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Don't bother trying to save the Brainforrest
The Challenge of Every Great Philosophy: "and between one and none there gapes, as always between something and nothing, an infinity."

:: Jim Nichols 10/18/2003 07:07:00 PM [+] ::
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Liberty Island

I don't know. A libertarian voting democratic. Actually after writing that out and thinking about it I'd have to say I could definately see it. Though at this point I could see about anyone voting for someone other than Bush. That will change before the election.

:: Jim Nichols 10/14/2003 07:42:00 PM [+] ::
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Dead

My computer died. Long live the computer.

:: Jim Nichols 10/14/2003 07:40:00 PM [+] ::
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Check out this blog

:: Jim Nichols 10/14/2003 07:39:00 PM [+] ::
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