Politics: 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006

More Slate year-end fun.

Politics: Ford's pardon of Nixon wrong then, wrong now

Says Slate editor Timothy Noah.

Sparkgrass Policy Statement

The death penalty is barbaric, even when used on barbarians.

The only time it is justified to kill someone is when you are Jack Bauer. Otherwise, unacceptable.

In the above statement, I'm assuming that Jack Bauer is second only to Christ in that whole omniscience thing. In no way interpret that as condoning inhumane methods when you aren't as bad ass as Jack Bauer. When you're less bad ass than Jack Bauer, such methods are just sloppy absurdity.

Even if you are Kiefer Sutherland in another role, you aren't as bad ass as Jack Bauer.

NCAAF: Why it's so warm in Michigan (for December, of course)

Hell is freezing over, so the heat is being pumped up to Michigan.

Medicine: Pediatric hospitals that serve fast food raise more alarm

An article in Pediatrics, suggests that having fast-food restaurants in children's hospitals influences patients' families to eat fast food and to think that it's relatively healthy. And apparently, at least 59 of the nation's 250 children's hospitals have fast-food restaurants. This isn't shocking, although the logic behind it is kind of odd. I mean, hospitals are full of sick people; why can't they associate sick kids with fast-food? What do we have to do to let people know that (tasty, delicious) fast food is bad for you? My idea, instead of toys, give kids insulin syringes and aspirin to prepare for a future of type two diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Any other ideas?

MedPol: Bastards from the FDA say food from clones is safe

So the FDA has looked at all the evidence and announced that it can't find anything dangerous about consuming cloned food products (not that shocking since clones are pretty much delayed twins). But instead of being pleased that the FDA, charged with "assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of . . . our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation", has acted on a wealth of scientific information, we're pissed that they didn't take our feelings on cloning into account. I for one don't want the FDA to take my feelings into account; that's how Plan B ended up on the shelf (and not over the counter) for several years. If people don't want to buy it, then they can try to find something wrong with it, or (as many people already do) buy products labeled with "organic" (which I'm sure this whole debate will make more popular). Either way everyone gets what they want, and I can't wait till I can have the same exact burger every time I go to McDonalds (same cow, same cheese from same cow, same lettuce substitute, etc.)

Politics: John Edwards for President

Lord help us. I honestly have no idea what his politics are. To me, he'll always be that idiot from the Vice Presidential debates who made Dick Cheney look well informed and intelligent. Oh, and apparently he loves YouTube so as a young voter I must love love him.

Politics: only the good die young

Former President Ford dies at 93.

Condolences in order. Ford's death leaves Jimmy Carter as the least competent former president alive. Apologies for the offensive subject line. It's mostly an inside joke with my wife, and my traffic isn't high enough to justify excluding inside jokes.

Merry Sparkgrass Christmas

If you're visiting those uber-conservative family folks, and feel a need for some nice liberal inoculation, ThinkProgress's Naughty and Nice List should give you a nice cathartic moment.

Elementary school teachers aside, what do you prefer: thinkprogress's or thinkprogress'. I know we were taught various useless rules about which is "correct," but the s-apostrophe thing just always made me feel a little empty, like I was bastardizing that poor genitive ending. Granted, I had speech therapy as a little'un for an s-sound articulation disorder, so maybe I just have personal issues surrounding memories of my hissing 9-year old self, but I still just dislike the inconsistency of the s-apostrophe. Apostrophe-s is where it's at.

But yeah, Merry Christmas.

A sampling:

NAUGHTY: Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), for attacking incoming Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress.
NICE: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), for still wanting to be friends with Rep. Virgil Goode.

NAUGHTY: The 109th Congress, for doing nothing.
NICE: The 110th Congress, for promising to work five days a week.

NICE: Nancy Pelosi, for becoming the first female Speaker of the House.
NAUGHTY: The Capitol, for having no women’s restroom in the Speaker’s office.

It goes on, and includes some obvious partisan hackery (including the 5-days a week line, which is fun to say, but obviously quasi-irrelevant). But it's Christmas. Indulge.

It's only 334 days until Bill O'Reilly launches the next "defensive" "War on Christmas^®."

Politics: Obama too African for African-Americans?

African-Americans however, who are are accustomed to leaders who emerge from the civil rights movement, sometimes appear to struggle to relate to Obama.

"For some African-Americans, he has not really affirmed their identity. He has affirmed his own mixed identity, but he has not strongly affirmed the right and the claim of African-Americans in this society to equal treatment," said Walters, a professor at the University of Maryland.

Others said Obama is simply an unknown figure to many African-Americans who are almost reflexively suspicious.

As a white Southerner who knows practically nothing about his genealogy and what his ancestors might have been doing pre-1863, I know nothing about what it means to be an African-American with a slavery legacy, other than what I can get from books. As a kid born in the final weeks of the Carter administration, I know nothing about the civil rights movement outside of books and interviews.

That said, my initial impression is that if there are individuals who don't like Obama because he's not black enough, then said individuals should get their heads out of their asses, because I'm sure John McCain is white enough for white people, and they'll be glad to vote accordingly.

I don't care if Obama is paisley purple with green stripes. If he's traveling around telling people that one of his top three priorities is health care for all, he's got my positive attention. And he'd certainly be paisley enough for me.

Merry Christmas, Reds fans: Griffey proves he can get hurt doing anything

Ken Griffey Jr. broke his left hand in an accident at home, the latest in a series of injuries that have derailed the career of the All-Star outfielder.

Griffey's throwing hand will be in a hard cast for three weeks, then will be re-examined, Reds spokesman Rob Butcher said Friday.

Butcher said he could not say when or how the accident occurred because Griffey did not authorize any more details to be released.

General manager Wayne Krivsky wasn't sure whether Griffey will be ready for the start of spring training. The club will have a better idea when the hand is examined again in three weeks.

Harry Potter and the ...

If you go to jkrowling.com, click on the eraser and you will be taken to a room — you'll see a window, a door and a mirror.

In the mirror, you'll see a hallway. Click on the farthest doorknob and look for the Christmas tree. They click on the center of the door next to the mirror and a wreath appears. Then click on the top of the mirror and you'll see a garland.

Look for a cobweb next to the door. Click on it, and it will disappear. Now, look at the chimes in the window. Click on the second chime to the right, and hold it down. The chime will turn into the key, which opens the door. Click on the wrapped gift behind the door, then click on it again and figure out the title yourself by playing a game of hangman.

Or you can just click on the damn link and it'll tell you in the last line. But it's much more cracked out to go through the seventeen arcane steps.

Btw, that's one lame title.

Happy Birthday, Jack Bauer!

Any guy who can put up with Joel Surnow's right-wing bullshit deserves Sparkgrass props. The lead vampire from the Lost Boys (or lead jackass medical student from Flatliners, or lead dude-who-wakes-up in Dark City) is 40 today.

Medicine: J&J wins FDA approval for Risperdal 2.0 (Haldol 3.0)

The new treatment is designed to deliver paliperidone -- the active ingredient in Risperdal -- through a technology that allows the drug to remain in the body over a longer period of time.

I'd hate for somebody to have to come up with, ya know, a new drug. Not to say that a longer acting atypical isn't a nice addition to the palette, but the fact that J&J's stock is suddenly worth more because their chemists did some reformulation work on the weekend is pretty frustrating.

Medicine: What, not Why, most important for change

My least favorite psychiatrist ever (in competition with Peter Breggin), American Enterprise hack Sally Satel, has a fairly reasonable, albeit provocative, article in the NYT about the importance of behavior change over insight in drug addiction recovery. Now, I can't say that I appreciate the degree to which she is a condescending jerk about her patients who are just trying to find some meaning in their shitty lives, but in between all of her AEI hackery, I still think this article is good enough to link. Imagine that.

LGBT: Service with a smile

A new poll reports that approx 3/4 of American GI's are comfortable serving with lesbian and gay colleagues. In fact 1/4 of those polled were aware of a gay or lesbian colleague currently serving with them. I really hope this Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy can be "straightened" out with the new legislature coming to town in December. We're at the point were we need every soldier we can get, gay or straight!

Premarital Sex is the norm

It seems, according to this study of 38,000 Americans, that premarital sex isn't just the norm, it's almost universal. 95% of Americans have premarital sex... then why do we still have this false notion that waiting for marriage is the ideal and what we all should be shooting for? I can't imagine having an ideal that only 5% of people actually attain. We need to strengthen our sex ed by teaching children how to protect themselves, not ignoring the role of condoms and birth control to spew an abstinence-only message. Abstinence works, but so do condoms and OCPs.

Old Dog Trey: Ernest?

Birds of a feather are flocking outside.

LitPol: Michael Crichton is a douchebag

Summary: You write a pseudoscience novel about global warming in which you claim that ecoterrorists are trying to destroy the earth and take rich people down with them. A Washington political columnist for TNR writes a cover-story trashing you for your crappy pseudoscience.

Do you
A) write a letter-to-the-editor to the New Republic, defending your stance
B) ignore it, because it's not like the anti-global warming crowd reads TNR anyway
C) write the columnist into your next book as a child rapist!

It doesn't take a Harvard Anthropology degree to figure out the answer to this one. Obviously, it's C! Mick Crowley not only rapes a two-year-old, but also has a small penis!

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. ...

It turned out Crowley's taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]--as was his custom--tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child's mother as "fantasizing feminist fundamentalists" who had made up the whole thing from "their sick, twisted imaginations." This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley's penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler's rectum.)

Real mature. Real Crichton.

Understand that Michael Crichton was amazingly important in my career choice, back when I was twelve. I thought Jurassic Park was awesome, and Crichton went to med school, and then Crichton wrote fun stuff that my twelve-year Dickens-reading self thought was the greatest literature the world could have to offer.

Then I turned sixteen or so and read some James Joyce and some Fitzgerald and learned a little about neuroscience and, well, that was that, I was on my way to being an English-major med student.

Which is why it pains the hell out of me to state the obvious: Michael Crichton is a right-wing douchebag hack. I wondered after reading the racist Rising Sun, but I didn't know any Japanese people, and my dad worked at an oil refinery, so I cut him a break. There was a certain male populism to Disclosure, which I now understand was abject anti-feminist women-hating. And even Prey took a few shots at liberal politics, but hey, nanotech was cool.

Then State of Fear, which I won't even waste my time on. I'd love to see Al Gore and Michael Crichton in a steel cage match.

So, Michael Crichton, write me into your next one. I'm a senior med student at the University of Michigan, in a Master's program in clinical research, and I'm going into Child Psychiatry. I haven't raped any children, and I believe by most metrics I don't have a small penis, and my family was way too poor to be heir to any sort of pharmaceutical fortune, but I'm sure you can figure out something. You're a douchebag like that.

Politics: Bayh not running in 2008

"As you know I have been exploring helping the people of my state and our country in a different capacity," he wrote. "After talking with family and friends over the past several days, I have decided that this is not the year for me to run for President and I will not be a candidate for the presidency in 2008.

"It wasn't an easy decision but it was the right one for my family, my friends and my state. I have always prided myself on putting my public responsibilities ahead of my own ambitions."

Please send Daniel Solzman at Kentucky Democrat your condolences. He basically had his next two years' schedule cleared to campaign for Bayh. We have to make sure he doesn't start hitting the Manischewitz too hard.

Daniel, I'm sure Barack could use your help on universal health care.