bark, bugs, leaves, and lizards

“What is necessary is an objective investigation,” [Senator Arlen] Specter said at a news conference in the Capitol [regarding the National Football League’s “Spygate” investigation]. “And this one has not been objective.”

This from the guy who served as the Warren Commission’s counsel and who authored the “magic bullet” theory in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Who said . . .?

False accusations and race-baiting politics have no place in our public discourse . . .

That’s the spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, of course. He’s referring to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee flyer distributed in Mississippi’s 1st District accusing the Republican nominee in the election, Greg Davis, of racial insensitivity. As TPM reports, the DCCC charges are true (that as mayor of Southaven, MS, he endorsed the notion of moving a statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who later founded the Ku Klux Klan, to Southaven).

But check out how Jonathan Martin at Politico frames the story:

B = A. One cancels out the other, they both suck, that’s how I read Martin, despite the accuracy of the DCCC claims. And what’s with that phrase of his, “racially tinted late mail”? Tinted?

Davis lost his race by 8 points. Not even close.

George Bush gives up golf for the troops. Politico:

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

This one is up there with declaring victory on the aircraft carrier.

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed [Sergio Vieira] de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life,” he said. “I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It’s just not worth it anymore to do.’”

(Paul McCarthy, White Head, 2007; photo credit: admkrm)

Update: War Room suggests Bush is wrong about when (and why) he sacrificed his golf playing:

It actually turns out that the day Bush refers to was not the last day he played. The man he refers to as de Mello is Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was the U.N.’s top official in Iraq. He was killed when the world body’s headquarters in Iraq was bombed in August 2003. But according to records kept by CBS News, Bush played his last round of golf in October 2003.

Also, as Warren Street at Blue Girl, Red State points out, at the time he apparently stopped playing golf, he was also dealing with knee problems that had forced him to stop his running routine.

Some members of the Louisiana House want to allow students to carry concealed firearms on college campuses. Sure it’s nuts, but it could be nuttier. I mean, let’s go for broke. This story out of Texas got me thinking:

SPRING, Texas — A 9-year-old on a Spring Independent School District bus held up a small kitchen knife to his throat, cut into the back of a seat and held the knife up to another child’s throat, according to a video KPRC Local 2 obtained Monday.

How are the rest of Louisiana’s students to defend themselves? They’re too young for guns, so maybe high schoolers should be allowed to carry concealed clubs, let the middle schoolers have knives (serrated okay), elementary kids should be able to keep ice pics in their pencil boxes, and pre-schoolers (I’ve seen some berzerker toddlers, don’t let ‘em fool you) should be eased in by slipping little packets of nails or rocks into their diapers. They’ll all have to earn permits, but maybe we can just fold that process into LEAP tests.

Update: I see Mr. Clio has beaten me to the punch.

NYT:

“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” he once said, “because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”

(image credit: David Design)

(h/t HuffPo)

Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens on his upcoming contract negotiations:

I’m going to let God fight that battle for me.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today multinational companies could be sued “on behalf of all persons who lived in South Africa between 1948 and the present and who suffered damages as a result of apartheid.” Well, actually, that’s not how the Supreme Court ruled–it couldn’t rule because four of the nine justices recused themselves for conflict of interest.

NYT:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. could not take part because they own stock in some of the companies involved. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy does not, but his son Gregory is a managing director at Credit Suisse, one of the defendants, so he recused himself as well.

Which means “a decision handed down in October by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, will stand as the last word on the issue.”

I’m pleased the case gets to go forward–it surely wouldn’t have if the justices had ruled on the case. Maybe the justices should look into blind trusts. And maybe Justice Antonin Scalia will begin to own up to his conflicts when they arise.  I’m deluded, I know.

(credit: _borna; © Josh Gosfield/Corbis)

I recall a conversation I had with a law student after the Virginia Tech massacre. The student said the way to prevent such shootings is to arm all students. I knew it was a right wing talking point, but I hadn’t heard anyone actually say it before. It flummoxed me. I didn’t think many people actually believed that nonsense. But lo and behold, the Louisiana House Criminal Justice Committee has approved a bill, sending it to the full house for vote, that would legalize permitted handguns on college campuses. I’m not feeling Louisiana these days, and bonehead moves like this make me want to flee the South altogether.

I work at Loyola University, so I was very pleased this morning to see that Kevin Wildes, the university president, has sent an email encouraging the university community to lobby against this idiotic bill. He wrote:

Loyola believes concealed guns represent a perceived danger to our students as well as to faculty and staff. The safety and well-being of the Loyola community is our main priority, and it is our belief that concealed guns on our campus would jeopardize that.

He goes on to list liability concerns (which would lead to “skyrocketing” liability insurance costs) and onerous “administrative burdens” as reasons to lobby against the bill.

For my money it’s basic safety. Staff and faculty are often placed in the position of delivering unwelcome news to sometimes highly stressed students, so to now add the possibility the students may be legally armed is nothing short of frightening. Add to the mix the prospect of students eager to “help” others with their guns in times of crisis, and we’re looking at making campuses far more dangerous places.

This bill passes and next year I’ll make a budget request for a flak jacket.

(h/t Suspect Device)

Update: G Bitch concurs.

Update II: Amorphous Funk, too. Or I should say I concur with her.