Stories I Am Not Posting About
I’ve got a big raft of Actual Work to do in my Actual Life right now, so I’m not really able to obsess as much as I’d like to about a bunch of stories getting lots of coverage. And somehow, given said high levels of coverage in everything from mainstream news outlets to leetle teency blogs, I suspect you, the loyal lies.com reader, won’t suffer too much if I fail to link to any of these stories.
I realize this lays me open to bitching about fairness. I mean, how could I make such an insanely big deal about every single lefty rant on the non-discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq for months, and then suddenly claim boredom when righties are making a ruckus about some Iraqi nuke scientist who buried some centrifuge parts under his rose bushes 12 years ago? Don’t I know that this is The Smoking Gun That Proves Bush Was Telling The Truth All Along?
Well, no, I don’t know that. In fact, I think that’s a fairly ridiculous assertion. But having gone through all the lies in so much detail for so long, I find myself unable to summon the energy required to go through them all over again, just to refute someone who wasn’t paying attention the first time, and who, honestly, isn’t going to pay attention this time, either. So whatever, yeah, knock yourself out. My tiny little attention span has moved on.
Let’s see; what else? Oh yes. The Supreme Court overturns Texas law banning same-sex sodomy. Woo! Go Supreme Court. You rock. (Except for dissenters Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. You guys suck! Heh.)
Um, Nike got rejected in their appeal claiming they had a First Amendment right to lie about conditions in their Asian sweatshops. Sorry, no.
Am I missing anything? No, I think that’s it. Those are all the stories I was feeling guilty about not linking to. Oh, wait: That Memory Hole thing Tom Tomorrow is up in arms about: the video showing Bush’s five-minute deer-in-the-headlights performance just after he was told about the second plane crashing into the WTC on 9/11. Yes, I watched it, and yeah, it’s kinda shocking, or would be if I gave any weight at all to his media team’s ongoing efforts to protray him as a purposeful Man of Action. But the main thing I felt in watching that was to cringe at the ruler-slapping teacher leading the kids in reading aloud. Jeez; what kind of HitlerYouth program are they running down there? You will read now! You will pause for the comma! Louder!
So. Anyway. I am not linking to any of those stories. If you’ve somehow missed them, and you’re feeling deprived by my failure to link, talk to the hand. Or just go find them yourself; it’s not hard. Thanks.
June 27th, 2003 at 10:05 am
Incidentally I feel compelled to mention jbc’s first comment when he heard about the gay-sex-ban overturning decision:
“Fuckin’ a!”
June 27th, 2003 at 10:36 am
Well, I won’t deny it, though as I admitted in the ensuing pun-point discussion, I actually can’t remember if I meant the double meaning when I said it.
As long as we’re doing full disclosure of our Ishar conversations, I have to admit that I stole the “Go Supreme Court” line from you (ymatt), too.
Sigh. I’ll have no reputation left before long.
July 1st, 2003 at 11:29 pm
Do you think that it’s reasonable for someone to think that anti-sodomy laws are bad policy, and yet to also think that the federal government has no business overturning them because they are a state matter and not a national matter?
July 2nd, 2003 at 12:14 am
I’m not sure what you mean by “reasonable” in this context. If you’re asking, “do I agree with that position,” then I’d have to say no, I don’t. If you’re asking, “do I think a person could believe that without being a raving lunatic,” then I’d have to say yeah, sure.
July 2nd, 2003 at 2:51 pm
I’m just not sure exactly what part of the Constitution you think gives the federal government the power to intervene in this situation. Even if the outcome pleases you, doesn’t it bother you that the federal government is overstepping its bounds?
Here’s a hypothetical: would you rather be in the current situation where the federal government has lots of power and can tell us what we are and are not allowed to do in the bedroom, or would you rather be in a situation where the federal government could not get involved, but the state governments would be free individually to prohibit sodomy if their voters chose to do so?
July 2nd, 2003 at 3:21 pm
I didn’t actually read the majority opinion in this case. What did the justices say their justification was? I assume they offered one, and that they at least made a passing attempt at grounding it in some sort of constitutional argument. That nifty emergent “privacy” right, maybe?
I don’t want to get into the hypothetical scenario. Whether or not I want it to, the federal government today asserts all kinds of power I wish it didn’t have. At the same time, I have no particular desire to let individual states pass anti-sodomy laws. So, um, I choose “Neither of the above.”