Politics

I keep hearing stuff about how most people see those attending anti-war protests as out of touch liberals and wacky leftists. Here is the text of a flyer put out by the NYU College Republicans, according a story in the NY Daily News:

Save the Children … Bomb Iraq

I suppose only good Christian American children count as children.

Arianna got a huge response to her anti-SUV advertising proposal. There is now a fund set up to pay for such ads on TV.

Salon has an interview with the author of the book “High and Mighty” about SUVs, in which he explains that they’re not only bad for the environment, they’re not even safer than other vehicles.

Even the Car Talk guys are starting to speak out against them.

The government is so concerned about our children’s welfare. Apparently, the “No Child Left Behind Act”, President Bush’s education law passed earlier this year, contains a small provision regarding military recruiters in its 670 pages. Secondary schools must provide a list of addresses and telephone numbers (even if unlisted) of all students to military recruiters, or risk having federal education funds withheld. The same thing happens if they don’t allow them access to the school for recruiting events. A number of cities have tried to bar military recruiters from public schools because of the military’s anti-gay discrimination.

At least one school in Vermont is not happy.

This is HORRIBLE. One of the only liberal members of the U.S. Senate has died in a plane crash.

There’s an article in Backstage (via Yahoo) on Penny Arcade‘s run for the state assembly. It starts out talking about antiwar sentiments among performers, but ends up as an article about her and politics.

I would vote for her if she were in my district!

From the Washington Post:

For Bush, Facts Are Malleable

Other times, the president’s assertions simply outpace the facts. In New Hampshire earlier this month, he said his education legislation made “the biggest increase in education spending in a long, long time.”

In fact, the 15.8 percent increase in Department of Education discretionary spending for fiscal year 2002 (the figures the White House supplied when asked about Bush’s statement) was below the 18.5 percent increase under Clinton the previous year — and Bush had wanted a much smaller increase than Congress approved. Earlier this month, Republican moderates complained to Bush’s budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., that the administration was not spending the full amount for education that Congress approved. Daniels said it was “nothing uncommon” and decried the “explosively larger education bill.”

Why does the reporter use euphemisms like “the president’s assertions simply outpace the facts” rather than say he chooses to lie to the American people?

Arianna says, if we’re going to run those stupid “drug users fuel terrorism” ads, why not run ones that really say who pays for terrorism — gas guzzling American cars. I would donate money to run these ads:

So how about using the same shock-value tactics the administration uses in the drug war to confront the public with the ultimate — and much more linearly linked — consequences of their energy wastefulness? Imagine a soccer mom in a Ford Excursion (11 mpg city, 15 mpg highway) saying, “I’m building a nuclear bomb for Saddam Hussein.” Or a mob of solo drivers toodling down the freeway at 75 mph shouting in unison, “We’re buying weapons that will kill American soldiers, marines, and sailors! Yahoo!”

It’s not just a fantasy. Last week, talking to my friend Scott Burns, co-creator of the “Got Milk?” campaign, I was delighted to hear that he already had two ad scripts ready to go. The first one feels like an old Slim Fast commercial. Instead of “I lost 50 pounds in two weeks” the ad cuts to different people in their SUVs: “I gassed 40,000 Kurds,” “I helped hijack an airplane,” “I helped blow up a nightclub,” and then in unison: “We did it all by driving to work in our SUVs.”

The second, which opens on a man at a gas station, features a cute kid’s voice-over throughout: “This is George.” Then we see a close up of a gas pump. “This is the gas George buys for his car.” Next we see a guy in a suit. “This is the oil company executive who makes money on the gas George buys.” Close up on Al-Qaeda training film footage: “This is the terrorist organization supported by money from the country where the oil company does business. ” It’s followed by footage of 9/11: “We all know what this is.” And it closes on a wide shot of bumper to bumper traffic: “The biggest weapon of mass destruction is parked in your driveway.” Pretty effective.

Remember that the Bush administration found time in its busy schedule this month to weigh in on the side of Detroit in a lawsuit against California’s stricter automobile mileage regulations.

I should get one.

… are going speak up as soon as it seems like the right time — Tom Tomorrow.

James says I should take credit, but I doubt it’s my doing. The NY Daily News has an article about the White House denying “it did anything wrong by sitting on the bombshell disclosure that North Korea had nuclear weapons until after securing the congressional okay to attack Iraq.”

Another interesting thing, given the Daily News publisher’s and editorial board’s support for bombing Iraq, is that there are a number of anti-war letters in today’s Voice of the People. I’ll quote part of my favorite one:

You dilldocks! President Bush isn’t FDR, he’s Japanese Emperor Hirohito, attacking a country that hasn’t attacked his just because he sees a threat.