Saturday, May 14, 2005
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Flash Mob
When Bill Frist tries to go nukular, be ready to respond. Sign up for the PFAW mass immediate response.
Thanks to Digby for the link.
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Flash Mob
When Bill Frist tries to go nukular, be ready to respond. Sign up for the PFAW mass immediate response.
By giving us your cell phone number, we will text message you as soon as Senate Republicans trigger the "nuclear option." Embedded in that text message will be a link to the Senate switchboard. With the push of a couple buttons, your call – along with thousands of others – goes right through to the corridors of power demanding preservation of the filibuster.Unless, of course, you think it's more important for Congress to hear from the religious wrong instead of you.
Thanks to Digby for the link.
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Wal-Mart Goes Nazi
then says they're sorry
Apparently the ad campaign that Wal-Mart is funding to fight the Big Box ordinance in Flagstaff, Arizona (see Wal-Mart Lies below), is getting national attention. A recent full-page ad in the Arizona Daily Sun that was paid for by the Wal-Mart funded group compared the Flagstaff's Big Box Ordinance to Nazi book burning. This has prompted understandable outrage among some veterans as well as the Anti-Defamation League.
Feeling some heat, Wal-Mart now says they will apologize (this link may not work - the Arizona Daily Sun seems to be unusually stingy about sharing archives):
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Wal-Mart Goes Nazi
then says they're sorry
Apparently the ad campaign that Wal-Mart is funding to fight the Big Box ordinance in Flagstaff, Arizona (see Wal-Mart Lies below), is getting national attention. A recent full-page ad in the Arizona Daily Sun that was paid for by the Wal-Mart funded group compared the Flagstaff's Big Box Ordinance to Nazi book burning. This has prompted understandable outrage among some veterans as well as the Anti-Defamation League.
Feeling some heat, Wal-Mart now says they will apologize (this link may not work - the Arizona Daily Sun seems to be unusually stingy about sharing archives):
Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters announced Friday the company would issue an apology to Flagstaff voters for an ad relating a Nazi book burning to the big-box ordinance.Yes, what's important right now is that Wal-Mart put a pretty face on the way they use lies and distortion to bully a small mountain town into doing things the corporate way.
The company's apology came after condemnation of the ad by the Anti-Defamation League and the United Food and Commercial Workers' Wal-Mart watchdog campaign. The ad drew comment from several members of Congress and attracted the attention of the Washington Post, Bloomberg News and innumerable bloggers.
The ad ran in the Daily Sun on Sunday as part of the No on Proposition 100 campaign, which seeks to overturn a big-box limitation ordinance that would effectively prevent a Wal-Mart Supercenter from locating in Flagstaff.
The photo as produced in the newspaper ad was blurry but appeared to show civilians as well as soldiers tossing books onto a flaming pile. Overlaid on the photo at top was the phrase, "Freedoms worth keeping." Below the photo was the bold-faced headline: "Should we let government tell us what we can read?"
The ad drew local criticism from several veterans as insensitive to the sacrifices of millions to defeat a genocidal regime.
"We fought for freedom and democracy, not corporate greed," said Frank Brandt, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and a leader of the Yes campaign. "The No campaign is trivializing these ideals."
APOLOGY TO COME IN NEW AD
The ad was paid for by Protect Flagstaff's Future, which has received more than $280,000 from Wal-Mart for the campaign, and produced by High Ground, Inc., a Phoenix-based firm that has a retainer with Wal-Mart and was hired by the corporation to produce the ads.
Wal-Mart Regional Community Affairs Director Pete Kanelos had originally declined to comment on the ad because he said he had not seen it.
But High Ground, Inc. President Chuck Coughlin said Friday he believed Kanelos had seen the ad, and a Wal-Mart spokesperson said Friday the company was prepared to apologize.
"The ad was approved by Wal-Mart," said Daphne Moore, director of community affairs for Wal-Mart. "What's important right now is that we apologize and apologize to the right individuals."
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The New Morality
compliments of the Religious Right
Start with a self-righteous prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush Administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who forces his wife into sodomy (and writes her large checks for the occasional blowjob).
What I hate is the hypocrites who lecture the rest of us about values.
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The New Morality
compliments of the Religious Right
Start with a self-righteous prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush Administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who forces his wife into sodomy (and writes her large checks for the occasional blowjob).
Sex was always a source of conflict in the marriage. Though it wasn't emotionally satisfying for her, Davis says she soon learned that sex could "buy" peace with Hager after a long day of arguing, or insure his forgiveness after she spent too much money. "Sex was coinage; it was a commodity," she said. Sometimes Hager would blithely shift from vaginal to anal sex. Davis protested. "He would say, 'Oh, I didn't mean to have anal sex with you; I can't feel the difference,'" Davis recalls incredulously. "And I would say, 'Well then, you're in the wrong business.'"Then add a virulent anti-gay politician who gets nabbed for trying to meet gay young men online:
On Thursday, The Spokesman-Review reported on West's online activities, along with allegations that West molested boys while he was a sheriff's deputy and Boy Scout leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s. West denied the molestation claims but acknowledged that he had visited a gay chat room and had relations with men.I don't mind a little sin every now and then. It seems to be part of the daily fare of the human condition.
What I hate is the hypocrites who lecture the rest of us about values.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
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The End of John Kerry
I still have a Veterans for Kerry bumper sticker on my car. I keep it there for two reasons. I like to piss off the Repulsives when I cut them off in traffic. And it serves as a sort of badge of courage on the street: The Proud, The Few, the 48 Percent.
But I may have to take it off. John Kerry has just compromised himself into irrelevance.
From the Boston Globe via Daily Kos:
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The End of John Kerry
I still have a Veterans for Kerry bumper sticker on my car. I keep it there for two reasons. I like to piss off the Repulsives when I cut them off in traffic. And it serves as a sort of badge of courage on the street: The Proud, The Few, the 48 Percent.
But I may have to take it off. John Kerry has just compromised himself into irrelevance.
From the Boston Globe via Daily Kos:
BATON ROUGE, La. -- US Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday that he believes it's a mistake for the Massachusetts Democratic Party to include a plank in its official platform in support of same-sex marriage, saying that such a statement does not conform with the broad views of party members.It's understood that candidates for office sometimes have to take stands that compromise what the really believe. But the election is over. If Kerry can't show some spine on the issue of gay marriage now, he is irrelevant.
Kerry, who opposes same-sex marriage but supports civil unions, said in an interview with the Globe that he would prefer that the party not mention gay marriage in its platform, because Democrats continue to disagree on how to handle the issue.
''I'm opposed to it being in a platform. I think it's a mistake," Kerry said shortly after hosting a forum on his universal children's healthcare bill in Baton Rouge. ''I think it's the wrong thing, and I'm not sure it reflects the broad view of the Democratic Party in our state."
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Wal-Mart Lies; Big Surprise!
Sometimes the juxtaposition of events is just too good to pass up. Take Wal-Mart, for instance.
The Sunday NY Times quoted Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. saying that Wal-Mart would never again "try to go over the heads of local politicians in their quest for store growth, as they did in Inglewood, Calif., where they sponsored a referendum last year to try to sidestep city zoning." He lied.
At this moment, Wal-Mart is deeply involved in fighting a local government over a "Big Box" ordinance.
Flagstaff Arizona is a college town of about 60,000 people in the mountains of northern Arizona. The town has a unique and historic character. The city's motto is "They don't make town's like this anymore." The Flagstaff city council wants to keep it that way. So last year, they passed an ordinance limiting the size of new retail establishment to 125,000 square feet. By comparison, the Wal-Mart in Flagstaff is 106,000 sq. ft., and the Target is 98,000.
A few real estate moguls and development Nazis took offense at the ordinance. With the help of Wal-Mart money, they collected enough signatures to challenge the ordinance with a referendum vote. The vote is happening right now. It's a mail-in ballot. The County Recorder will count the votes on May 17.
According to the latest campaign finance report, Wal-Mart has spent more than $280,000 trying to overturn one local ordinance. This makes this little local election the most expensive in Flagstaff's history. The Wal-Mart money is spent on full-page newspaper ads and mailings, both full of vicious Orwellian rhetoric implying that a zoning ordinance that limits store size is somehow the same as burning books. Yeah, go figure.
So, when H. Lee Scott Jr. says that Wal-Mart doesn't do that sort of thing anymore, he's a liar.
I'm so surprised.
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Wal-Mart Lies; Big Surprise!
Sometimes the juxtaposition of events is just too good to pass up. Take Wal-Mart, for instance.
The Sunday NY Times quoted Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. saying that Wal-Mart would never again "try to go over the heads of local politicians in their quest for store growth, as they did in Inglewood, Calif., where they sponsored a referendum last year to try to sidestep city zoning." He lied.
At this moment, Wal-Mart is deeply involved in fighting a local government over a "Big Box" ordinance.
Flagstaff Arizona is a college town of about 60,000 people in the mountains of northern Arizona. The town has a unique and historic character. The city's motto is "They don't make town's like this anymore." The Flagstaff city council wants to keep it that way. So last year, they passed an ordinance limiting the size of new retail establishment to 125,000 square feet. By comparison, the Wal-Mart in Flagstaff is 106,000 sq. ft., and the Target is 98,000.
A few real estate moguls and development Nazis took offense at the ordinance. With the help of Wal-Mart money, they collected enough signatures to challenge the ordinance with a referendum vote. The vote is happening right now. It's a mail-in ballot. The County Recorder will count the votes on May 17.
According to the latest campaign finance report, Wal-Mart has spent more than $280,000 trying to overturn one local ordinance. This makes this little local election the most expensive in Flagstaff's history. The Wal-Mart money is spent on full-page newspaper ads and mailings, both full of vicious Orwellian rhetoric implying that a zoning ordinance that limits store size is somehow the same as burning books. Yeah, go figure.
So, when H. Lee Scott Jr. says that Wal-Mart doesn't do that sort of thing anymore, he's a liar.
I'm so surprised.
