The Haze Filter

University Whoring ::

Snagged from The Agonist:

April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Ayn Rand's novels of headstrong entrepreneurs' battles against convention enjoy a devoted following in business circles. While academia has failed to embrace Rand, calling her philosophy simplistic, schools have agreed to teach her works in exchange for a donation.

The charitable arm of BB&T Corp., a banking company, pledged $1 million to the University of North Carolina Charlotte in 2005 and obtained an agreement that Rand's novel ``Atlas Shrugged'' would become required reading for students. Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, say they also took grants and agreed to teach Rand.

Somehow I'm not surprised!

Sad, But Interesting ::

Scott Horton Takes A Break ::

I am a subscriber to Harpers and I have been reading Horton's posts and writings for a long long time and I have wondered just how long he would be able to keep up the pace he had set for himself. Here is the entire announcement of his hiatus:

Sunday I read the New York Times article discussing the health issues surrounding blogging. It was a troubling piece to read. And I thought, how thankful I am no longer to be worrying about it.

After 1,322 posts at the No Comment page of the Harper’s website, I am hanging up my blogging hat. The simple fact of the matter is that 2,000 words a day is too time-consuming. It gets in the way of my other writing obligations, especially the long-form journalism, and the still longer-form and languishing book projects, and even those ridiculous law-professorly, footnoted articles. So today is the last day of regular No Comment posts.

Not to say that it’s entirely over. I’ll still do something from time to time, and in fact there are a number of interviews that will be coming down the pike (two next week, in fact), a few reviews, and the occasional speech or two. I will also be continuing to contribute pieces addressing legal affairs questions to the print version of the magazine.

I look forward to keeping in touch with my faithful friends and readers. You’re a wonderful support network, and even though it’s beyond my ability to respond to all the correspondence, I do read every line of it and often benefited from your suggestions.

Horton has an appearance scheduled in my area soon and I am looking forward to it along with many other local progressive types. I'll have more information a bit later, but, in the meantime, we wish Scott Horton well and we still look forward to reading his thoughts!

The Pope Snubs The Shrub ::

This is just too great. I ran across a headline on Raw Story earlier, but there was no link as this was breaking at the time. The White House has scheduled a dinner in honor of the pope who will be visiting the U.S. next Wednesday evening, but it seems as though the pope will not be able to attend because the dinner is not on his schedule although there seems to be nothing else scheduled at that time. Here is a snippet from the Raw Story piece:

From Friday's press briefing:

Q Just to clarify, for the pope's visit to the White House, you said that now there's a dinner in the East Room in honor of the pope?
MR. STANZEL: Yes.
Q Will the pope actually be attending that dinner?
MR. STANZEL: I don't believe so, no.
Q Okay. Thank you.
[...]
Q I'm sorry. The pope doesn't attend a dinner in his honor?
MR. STANZEL: No.
Q (Off mike.)
MR. STANZEL: He doesn't come into the building.
Q Well, then it's not a dinner for the pope, is it?
MR. STANZEL: It's in honor of his visit. There will be leaders from the Catholic community from all over the country who are in town for that visit.
Q Is there a reason the pope doesn't attend the dinner?
MR. STANZEL: I don't know. I don't have the full extent of his schedule.

Benedict's schedule does not indicate any events that would conflict with his ability to attend the 7:30 p.m. dinner that Wednesday. He is just scheduled to return to the Vatican embassy in Washington at the same time after a meeting with US bishops at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

I look forward to seeing how the mainstream media types handle this!

Craig Supports Vitter In His Hour Of Need ::

by accompanying him in toe-tapping The Star Spangled Banner! Snippets from The Hill:

Embattled Louisiana Sen. David Vitter (R) is getting support from fellow Republicans who say he should not resign over a public sex scandal — including from someone who can speak from experience.

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho was among several GOP senators who say Vitter’s testimony in the “D.C. Madam” prostitution case should not compel his resignation.
“First and foremost, in these kinds of issues, it’s the state and the relationship you have with your state that really determines where you ought to go,” Craig said. “That was certainly my case. The Senate itself wasn’t going to judge me. I would allow the citizens of my state to do so. And there is still strong support there.”

And these guys are the public face of the republican party!

The Petraeus/Crocker Show ::

I was able to either watch or listen to most of the hearings yesterday on C-Span's web stream as both Petraeus an Crocker danced around the truth of the Iraq Occupation. I should have time for a longer post later, but listening to Crocker is just terribly painful. If the state department cannot afford some public speaking coaching maybe Crocker could spring for the cost hinself!

David Vitter Feeling The Heat ::

The video is courtesy of Talking Points Memo

Let me be very clear in stating that I have no problem with Vitter having visited a prostitute: I wonder about his wife's presence at the earlier press conference, but that is between them and I certainly would not insert myself into their family situation. My problem is with the family values hypocrisy exhibited by the right wingnuts. Spitzer is gone, yet Vitter remains to the cheers of his colleagues. What a hypocritical gang of bastards!

I certainly hope that the DC Madam succeeds in forcing Vitter to testify!

(Oh yeah, at some point I will share with everyone how I spent my 21st birthday at Helen's Truck Stop in Hartsville, South Carolina just 30 days before I went into the U.S. Navy!)

That Surge Thing Is Really Working! ::

I look forward to Petraeus and Crocker offering their spin on how well the surge is going given the continuing deadly attacks on the green zone. From this evenings CNN post (and I would not be surprised if more bad news doesn't follow this):

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and 31 others wounded in two rocket attacks Sunday afternoon in Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

An attack involving a "couple of rounds" of fire on the International Zone, also known as the Green Zone, killed two soldiers and wounded 17 others about 3:30 p.m., a military official said, declining to give the specific location of the attack for security reasons.

Blowing Coffee Through The Nose ::

The image is snagged from the Dependable Renegade and pretty much says it all! Oh yeah, the newspaper is The Austin American Statesman.