Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Spanky]

I have started eating Krispey Kremes again. I had gone months without going through the drive through at 1:00 AM to buy the Crack - I mean Doughnuts. I could be wrong, but recently, I believe there have been many references to Doughnuts around me that may have led to my addictive relapse........

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by taxwonk
But, they had such success with the Tuskeegee Study under similar circumstances.

At least "Tuskeegee Study" is neutral, and not trying to sound perky and harmless. It's like naming a bill that imposes uncompensated labor requirements on unemployed healthcare workers "Forcing Unemployed Nurses to Truck Itinerant Mexicans Everywhere" so that it can be referred to as "Funtime."

OK, that was a crap example. Where is Argus when we need him????

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Oooh, and from NYT article about a hold-up on the confirmation of the guy nominated for EPA chief:

"Ms. Boxer's objections were based on a little-known research program near Jacksonville, Fla., sponsored by the agency and the American Chemistry Council, that offered money to low-income families willing to allow the agency to measure the effects of pesticides on their children under one year of age. The project, called Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or Cheers, was suspended last year after negative public reaction that prompted the agency to call in outside experts to assess its feasibility.

The program was limited to families in Duval County that routinely used pesticides inside their homes. It offered parents $970 over two years if they made sure their young children went about their usual activities as the use of pesticides continued. Researchers would then visit the home every three to six months to collect data. "

I like the name. "Cheers." Perky.

Yes, I'm sure that there is a different, nicer-sounding way to spin the program, and that the damn liberal media has spun it so sound as bad as possible. But it's kind of an unerasable initial strike against them when they call a "keep exposing your kids to pesticides!" program something deceptively perky.

you came out against animal testing right? What was left?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

John Quiggan does a rough cost-benefit analysis on the invasion of Iraq and says it wasn't worth it:

• After months of delay and dispute, the BBC reports that the Iraqi Parliament has finally mustered the two-thirds majority needed to nominate a president and two vice-presidents. These positions are largely ceremonial, but the deal presumably implies an agreement to select a Prime Minister, after which an interim government can finally take office, with the task of drawing up a permanent constitution. Some good news is that the Allawi group has been kept to the marginal position its weak electoral support implies.
  
  There are still plenty of big problems ahead – the delays reflect fundamental divisions between Kurds and Shias about the future of Iraq and, except for some token appointments, the Sunnis have been excluded altogether. And the insurgency continues with little letup, having no doubt found many recruits among the refugees from Fallujah, almost completely destroyed in the November campaign there. Still, it seems reasonable to hope that a reasonably democratic, and only moderately Islamist government will eventually emerge.
  
  Assuming this happens, was the invasion worth it? In my view, No.
  
  As far as the Iraqis themselves are concerned, they are rid of an odious dictatorship, but tens of thousands of lives have been lost in the process, and many more will be lost before this is all over[1]. If the decision to invade had been made in support of a domestic insurrection, this kind of trade-off might be justified, but it was not for the US to make this kind of decision. An invasion to change a government can be justified, if at all, only when it is assured of quick and fairly bloodless success, and of a rapid handover of power to a reasonably democratic alternative.
  
  From the viewpoint of the world as a whole, the issue is much clearer. The $200 billion spent on the war could have saved millions of lives if even half of it had been allocated to health care in poor countries. Even if the money were spent in the US, it could have saved tens of thousands of lives (the usual estimate is that marginal health interventions cost about $5 million per life saved).
  
  A fraction of the military resources used in the war could have supported a more robust international intervention in Darfur (not an invasion, but peacekeeping with vigorous rules of engagemetn), again with a huge saving in lives. Or there are a bunch of other dictators who could have been pushed aside with less cost in lives, some of whom are allies of the US. Cheerleaders for the war are hailing the possibility of partially free elections in Saudi Arabia and Egypt as a consequence of the war. But particularly in the case of Egypt, the US could have ensured free elections any time it chose by telling Mubarak that his aid would be cut off unless he held them (ideally with a carrot of more aid if he did hold them).
  
  As far as weapons of mass destruction are concerned, the real problems in Korea, Iran, Pakistan and the former Soviet bloc have got steadily worse while we spent years chasing shadows.
  
  The costs of the war were also great in terms of the lies needed to promote it, the crimes committed in its course and the international distrust and hatred that was generated. It’s hard to chase down the costs of such things, but they are real. It’s clear for example that, no matter what evidence the US produces about Iran’s nuclear program, it will have little or no credibility.
  
  Finally and obviously, if the US government had been willing to make the kind of commitment in Afghanistan that was made in Iraq, instead of leaving the job to local warlords, bin Laden would be dead or in jail by now.
  
  fn1. I don’t want to get into numerical disputes here, as these have been aired in detail elsewhere. As far as I can see, no credible authority is now claiming that death rates from violence and related causes like malnutrition have fallen since the invasion. Saddam killed hundreds of thousands in his foreign and civil wars of the 1980s and early 1990s, and sanctions killed many more before Oil-for-Food, but neither of these were relevant to an invasion in 2003.
  
  fn2. A more difficult hypothetical question. Suppose that the US had held elections in 2003 as Sistani demanded at the time. The election result would have been much the same (maybe with a better Sunni turnout), and perhaps some of the disasters of 2004 would have been avoided or mitigated. I still would not judge the invasion to have been justified, but the ratio of benefits to costs would have been much higher.

Crooked Timber

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Ignore me. I care not. I just never new that there were lawyers who confused "knew" with "new". Seriously. It is knew to me.

"I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way."
-- Mark Twain

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
"I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way."
-- Mark Twain

n/a (this is my new term for whiff) -- it's two words, not "a" word.

[Spanky]

Is that guy running against Delay a Republican for the primary or a Democrat for the General?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
So, why is the staffer the fall guy?

Schiavo talking points memo author canned.

Because the members' agreement with it didn't poll well?

I thought that the memo was another part of the vast left wing conspiracy. Who knew....?

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I thought that the memo was another part of the vast left wing conspiracy. Who knew....?

The "memo is part of the VLWC" is just another part of the VRWC.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky
Is that guy running against Delay a Republican for the primary or a Democrat for the General?

Richard Morrison is a Democrat. He's an environmental lawyer here, family guy, church goer, interested in transit issues that DeLay has been blocking for years. I thought he was warm and personable.

There's a lot about the call he did on Tuesday at Off the Kuff. ETA I found the post and linked to it.

There was a Republican who ran in the last election against DeLay and Morrison. He ran as an independent, and I think he lost to DeLay in the primary with 22 percent of the Republican vote in 2000. I'm blanking on his name, but Morrison seemed to think that the most likely Republican to run, should DeLay not run for whatever reason, would be the Mayor of Sugarland and not that guy.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Richard Morrison is a Democrat. He's an environmental lawyer here, family guy, church goer, interested in transit issues that DeLay has been blocking for years. I thought he was warm and personable.

There's a lot about the call he did on Tuesday at Off the Kuff. ETA I found the post and linked to it.

There was a Republican who ran in the last election against DeLay and Morrison. He ran as an independent, and I think he lost to DeLay in the primary with 22 percent of the Republican vote in 2000. I'm blanking on his name, but Morrison seemed to think that the most likely Republican to run, should DeLay not run for whatever reason, would be the Mayor of Sugarland and not that guy.

What is the Republican and Democrat registration in that district? Can a Democrat even win there? Is the only real hope taking him out in the primary by another Republican?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

The WSJ defends the Berger plea:

• After a long investigation, [the Department of Justice] says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn't exactly know how to return the documents once he'd taken them out.
  
  More than a few conservatives have been crying foul, or whitewash, in part because Mr. Berger's plea means he'll likely avoid jail and lose his security clearance for only three years. So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission."

via Political Animal

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The WSJ defends the Berger plea:

• After a long investigation, [the Department of Justice] says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn't exactly know how to return the documents once he'd taken them out.
  
  More than a few conservatives have been crying foul, or whitewash, in part because Mr. Berger's plea means he'll likely avoid jail and lose his security clearance for only three years. So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission."

via Political Animal

Let's keep this liberal blog shit out of it, Ty. Remember, Burger Lied !!!!

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The WSJ defends the Berger plea:

• After a long investigation, [the Department of Justice] says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn't exactly know how to return the documents once he'd taken them out.
  
  More than a few conservatives have been crying foul, or whitewash, in part because Mr. Berger's plea means he'll likely avoid jail and lose his security clearance for only three years. So we called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. "There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals," said Mr. Hillman. "There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission."

via Political Animal

The liberal MSM strikes again.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
The "memo is part of the VLWC" is just another part of the VRWC.

All this can now be called "Powerline-was-completely-fucking-wrong-gate."