Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

Whenever this miserable sort of shit has happened to me I’ve always just placed buckets and plastic cups in strategic locations and steered the cat clear of the sickly, brown, poisonous spooge that collected. One time I even pulled my mattress into another room just to avoid having to deal with it. But I’m a lazy twit. You can ask anyone. Mithras gets an A for effort in my book.

Sorry about doing this, but if anybody has any idea when all of the problems with comments, permalinks, the search feature, and whatever else started, could you send me an email and let me know. It would really help me track down the error. Thanks.

[Update] I fixed the problem I think. Exciting, right?

This Kevin Drum post is pretty interesting if a bit creepy. While I generally don’t go overboard with the Iraq - Vietnam comparison, it’s always enlightening to compare past to present in order to glean some insight and avoid past mistakes. Hey, I wonder if the administration could hire somebody to do that. Nah.

-Lame post. Sorry. Just trying to fix some technical problems and using lame posts to do it.

It seems I’ve broken my comments. Oops. It’s kind of funny, even when I don’t have the time to keep the site updated, I can always find the time to break something.

[Update] The permalinks are busted as well. Hurray!

[Update II] I know this stuff is exciting. I’m pretty sure the problem has to do with a Perl failure on my server. I’ve failed to track it down as yet but, oh man, am I ever having fun trying.

Hi all. Chris said that I could post my press release for my latest project, Justice For Philadelphia, so here it is:

————–

For Immediate Release: January 30, 2005
Contact: David A. Lynn, Webmaster, JusticeForPhiladelphia.Com
Email: webmaster@justiceforphiladelphia.com
Web Address: http://justiceforphiladelphia.com

ANTI-LYNNE ABRAHAM WEB SITE LAUNCHES DO-IT-YOURSELF ACTIVISM KIT

JusticeForPhiladelphia.Com has launched its “Do-It-Yourself Activism Kit”, it was announced today.

“The Do-It-Yourself Activism Kit is designed so that individuals and small groups can create their own campaigns to oppose the reelection of Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham,” said David Lynn, the site’s owner and Webmaster. “I have included several flyers, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with the results of the 2001 Primary election between Abraham and Alexander Talmadge, broken down to the district level, U.S. Census Bureau map creation tools, and other resources.”

It is Mr. Lynn’s hope that individuals will use the resources on his site to act in an “ad-hoc” manner in creating their own spontaneous campaigns to oppose Abraham. “Anyone can use the site,” said Mr. Lynn. “There is no need to contact me in advance, or to coordinate with me or other individuals in any way.”

Recently, Mr. Lynn distributed flyers in the 7th division of the 39th ward where Lynne Abraham received 346 votes in the 2001 Democratic Primary. Mr. Lynn also distributed flyers outside Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, a focal point for African-American community activism. “The response was overwhelmingly positive in both instances,” said Mr. Lynn. “I look forward to doing more ’street-level’ work of this type, and I hope others will join me.”

The website, found at http://justiceforphiladelphia.com, is critical of Abraham. It examines issues such as Abraham’s “passionate” support of the death penalty and its cost to tax-payers; the 5-to-1 ratio of African-Americans vs. non-African-Americans sent to death row by Abraham since she became district attorney; an examination of whether prosecution decisions made on her watch are based on race; mistakes in prosecution that have had a tremendous financial and public safety cost to the citizens of Philadelphia; and questions about Abraham’s successful attempt to block the appointment of Common Pleas Court Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson to Federal Court.

The Webmaster, David A. Lynn, recently gained national attention as founder of the Shadow Protest, http://www.shadowprotest.org.

- # # # -

If you haven’t read these comments by Seymour Hersh, you should take a few minutes and do so.

It’s hard to predict the future. And it’s sort of silly to, but the question is: How do you go to him? How do you get at him? What can you do to maybe move him off the course that he sees as virtuous and he sees as absolutely appropriate? All of us — you have to — I can’t begin to exaggerate how frightening the position is — we’re in right now, because most of you don’t understand, because the press has not done a very good job. The Senate Intelligence Committee, the new bill that was just passed, provoked by the 9/11 committee actually, is a little bit of a kabuki dance, I guess is what I want to say, in that what it really does is it consolidates an awful lot of power in the Pentagon — by statute now. It gives Rumsfeld the right to do an awful lot of things he has been wanting to do, and that is basically manhunting and killing them before they kill us, as Peter said. “They did it to us. We’ve got to do it to them.” That is the attitude that — at the very top of our government exists. And so, I’ll just tell you a couple of things that drive me nuts. We can — you know, there’s not much more to go on with.

I think there’s a way out of it, maybe. I can tell you one thing. Let’s all forget this word “insurgency”. It’s one of the most misleading words of all. Insurgency assumes that we had gone to Iraq and won the war and a group of disgruntled people began to operate against us and we then had to do counter-action against them. That would be an insurgency. We are fighting the people we started the war against. We are fighting the Ba’athists plus nationalists. We are fighting the very people that started — they only choose to fight in different time spans than we want them to, in different places. We took Baghdad easily. It wasn’t because be won. We took Baghdad because they pulled back and let us take it and decided to fight a war that had been pre-planned that they’re very actively fighting. The frightening thing about it is, we have no intelligence. Maybe it’s — it’s — it is frightening, we have no intelligence about what they’re doing. A year-and-a-half ago, we’re up against two and three-man teams. We estimated the cells operating against us were two and three people, that we could not penetrate. As of now, we still don’t know what’s coming next. There are 10, 15-man groups. They have terrific communications. Somebody told me, it’s — somebody in the system, an officer — and by the way, the good part of it is, more and more people are available to somebody like me.

Well, sort of. It’s going to take me a while to get back into the swing of things.

Probably until the weekend.

Just for a bit. Recovering.

“America’s belief in human dignity will guide our policies. Yet rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.”

-George W. Bush, on the occasion of his second inauguration.

Just in case you thought I was lying, here is the Vince Fumo calling card, sent to me shortly after I refered to Mr. Fumo as, well, never mind.

I’ve been so pleased with the recent discussion of blogger ethics (here, there, everywhere), if only because there is little in life I enjoy more than reading the revelations that inevitably result when a young man or woman casts a lusty gaze upon their own navel. Ah, for just a little bit of the sweet and succulent taste of newly discovered lint, I’d gladly part with all my worldly possessions.

As the least insightful, and in a certain sense, the most grammatically challenged blogger of my generation, I feel duty bound to use my advanced muscle relaxation techniques to cast a lusty gaze on my naval with one eye, look you in the eye with the other, and swear that I am as ethically pure as the driven snow. Everything I say, save the lies, is true. This has always been the case and always will. I will never change my personal opinions for gifts or money, even if that’s not reflected in what I write here. This I promise.

As a case in point, in October of last year I called my state senator, Vince Fumo, something rather less than flattering. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Fumo sent me a five dollar calling card featuring his a picture of his smiling face superimposed over the billowing image of the flag. Now, I haven’t said anything mean about Mr. Fumo since then but I swear it has nothing to do with the fact that he presented me with that fine keepsake, which I still keep in my wallet to this day. See — Ethics. Hurray!

Hell, I even have a code of content I adhere to strictly and enforce with all of my guest posters. No porn. Not even the soft stuff. There never has been any, and there never will be any. This I promise.

P.S. By way of full disclosure, I’m still not promising to read or understand the stuff I link to.

What Will says.

-with a 3 word post like this I always feel as though I should throw in an “indeed” or something. Oh well. Forgive me.

“…the same guys are behind us, they’re still enjoying their adult beverages, and we’re not getting soaked.”

Um…well….um…pardon?

A worthless Eagles story - don’t worry about taking a look.

Good job on the no vote by Senators Kerry and Boxer. The other Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should really consider drinking more milk. It builds strong bones I hear. Anyway, the reason to vote no on Dr. Rice’s confirmation is that she so horribly fucked up as National Security Advisor. It’s that simple and, if explained in that manner, easily justifiable. Blah blah blah.

If ever there was such a thing as a “must read”, it is this.

In case you missed it, Seth Williams officially announced his candidacy for Philadelphia District Attorney on Saturday, at Vernon Park in Germantown. He will be running in the primary against Lynn Abraham, America’s deadliest D.A., or so they say. In the last primary, Abraham was opposed by Alex Talmadge, who I believe had no prosecutorial experience but managed to receive 41 percent of the vote, despite running a severely underfunded, and largely unnoticed campaign. Unlike Mr. Talmadge, Seth Williams has a great deal of experience as a prosecutor and if he runs a good campaign, should have an excellent chance of winning the primary.

In the July 16, 1995 edition of The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Lynn Abraham was quoted by the New York Times say she didn’t care “how many millions it costs” to put somebody to death. She also stated, in that same article, that “when it comes to the death penalty, I am passionate.” That’s some pretty ugly stuff. According to that same article (sorry no link, you have to pay to read it), her office seeks the death penalty in greater percentage of cases than any other District Attorney’s office in the United States. Although I haven’t seen any recent data, I would assume that is still the case.

Even if you aren’t opposed to the death penalty, you should be disturbed by the attitude displayed in those quotes. The application of the death penalty consumes many times the resources, both financial and human, consumed by prosecution and execution of life sentences. Philadelphia’s criminal justice system can scarcely afford the burden placed upon it by Abraham’s enthusiastic pursuit of the death penalty. That burden may be one reason that 50 percent of felony prosecutions in Philadelphia are thrown out due to the unpreparedness of the District Attorney’s office.

It should be noted that Mr. Williams also supports the death penalty but has said that “It should be the exception, not the rule.”. A refreshing if, in my mind, imperfect change.

Seth Williams’ campaign website is up and running. You can view it here. If you are at all interested in Philadelphia’s future, Please consider contributing to his campaign and/or signing up as a volunteer. It’s doubtful too many prominent Philadelphia Democrats will stick their necks out on Williams’ behalf, and he will need all of the grassroots support he can get.

Update: Rotan E. Lee wrote an endorsement of Williams in the Philadelphia Tribune on the 14^th.

Update II: I’ll let him get into the specifics when he feels like it, but David, who sometimes posts on this site, has a new site opposing Lynn Abraham here.

Update III: I made a mistake in the orginal post regarding Seth Williams’ website. It does exist and it’s here.

Some of us never believed. Perhaps that’s a weakness on our part. A crisis of faith, as it were. Anyway, no big surprise in the revelation (does that even make sense?), most were well aware long ago.

I do find myself puzzling, however, about what the possible justification for our war in Iraq could have been. Actually, justification may be too strong a word — reason will have to do, I suppose. Try as I might, I’ve never managed to wrap my head around that one.

Oil is a popular theory, even receiving some attention if Fahrenheit 911, but I’ve never bought into that myself. I recall discussing the invasion of Iraq with a friend of mine shortly before the Senate voted to authorize force in October of 2002. Both of us had considerable disdain for the idea that Iraq posed anything like a threat to the United States of America and spent the evening discussing what we thought was “really” behind the push for war. Naturally, being classic anti-corporate liberals we discussed the possibility that it was all about oil. We both had a problem with that though.

Invading a foreign country to secure a needed and domestically scarce source of energy, however despicable or evil that may be, requires some degree of foresight and some concern for a nation’s needs. Foresight is something I refused then, and refuse now, to credit President Bush with. At the time I assumed the “real” rational was instead a crude political calculation, designed to shore up popular support which was finally and naturally waning, one year after September of 2001. I won’t stand by that assumption, because, obviously, I really don’t know.

I couldn’t imagine, in my most gruesome of dreams, the insanity that overtook our country in those months, if I hadn’t experienced it personally. I still can’t fathom how our elected leaders can bear the prospect of remaining in positions of power and decision when they have so clearly failed. They are failures and should do themselves, and us, the only dignity they have left, by resigning, en mass.

The post-war justifications for the war have proven themselves just as laughable as the pre-war justification. If there is, or ever was, an interest in bringing democracy to Iraq, or bringing stability to Iraq, or brining basic human rights to Iraq, or ending cruelty, or halting brutality or whatever, then, quite clearly, this was not the way to do it.

Whenever a Philadelphia sports team is hosting a playoff game, I always do enjoy reading the scathing reviews of the Philadelphia sports experience, which are inevitable printed by the opposing team’s hometown newspaper, warning their readers against the horror of rooting for their team in my hometown. God bless their little hearts, but we couldn’t be that bad, could we?

Well who knows, but as I learned from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, this morning, the fearful residents of Minnesota can take heart because “it’s not like risking your life”.

Plenty of tickets are available for the Minnesota Vikings’ second-round playoff game against the Eagles on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, in part because verbal and even physical abuse clearly await Vikings fans, some travel professionals said Wednesday.

…For the safety reason and others, numerous tickets are available through some ticket agencies and tour companies, who buy the seats from season-ticket holders and sell them at higher prices.

I particularly like the quote “The stadium is beyond civilization.” God bless. That’s touching. Really.

I feel bad for the poor, visiting Minnesotans. They shouldn’t be scared. We’re really very nice. Really. You can trust me.

As a side note, my very first Philadelphia sports memory is of watching Steve Carlton warm up at Veteran’s Stadium, prior to one of his starts in 1980. My second Philadelphia sports memory is of two very large, disheveled gentlemen tumbling down the steep, poured concrete steps of Veteran’s Stadium, all the while trying to beat one another to death with their fists. I was quite young and very nervous about the situation, but my father told me he would take care of it if they managed to fall far enough to reach our seats. Luckily for him, they never did.

Fond memories, both.

As another side note, and with all due respect to Wampum, Steve Carlton was the greatest left handed pitcher of all time. Here’s a stat to chew on; in 1972 Steve Carlton’s record was 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA (!), on a Phillies team that only won 59 games.

Just until tonight I think.