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A bit late, innit?

Clare Short resigns over war.

Via Eschaton comes the following
news item:

SANTA FE, N.M., May 10 — About 340 workers at an Omaha plastics factory will lose pay or have to work next Saturday to make up for time lost during a visit by President Bush on Monday to promote his “jobs and growth plan,” their boss said today.

Brad Crosby, president of Airlite Plastics Co., said about 170 of his workers will lose a full day’s pay and another 170 will be docked for part of their pay for Monday unless they make up the time they spend attending Bush’s speech.

Airlite, which will shut down for its first shift and part of the second shift to provide a photogenic backdrop for Bush’s speech, will be the Monday afternoon stop on a two-day swing by Bush to pressure senators to support a large tax cut as the measure heads to the Senate floor. Bush will stand near a production line that makes polystyrene containers for shipping steak, vaccines and other goods

?Just because you?re on their side doesn?t mean they?re on your side.?

—Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Ampersand on the 2004 elections:

My prediction is that the Democrats will end up running Kerry or Gephardt, either of whom will run a safe, predictable campaign. They’ll do everything the smart money in the smoke-filled rooms suggest; they’ll support a health care initiative that’s confusing and can’t possibly work, and spend hours debating the minutia while the partisan blogs cheer every minutely-analyzed word and the American public dozes off.

And the press will hate whichever one it is, and run barely-rewritten RNC press releases smearing them, just as they did with Gore. And the public will not be energized, just as it wasn’t with Gore. And the Democrats will be outspent. And they will lose.

But thank goodness they didn’t take a chance on supporting a health care policy that could actually work. That would be a political disaster.

An interesting day: Bush’s movements and actions on 9/11

found via Eschaton.

Eschaton: why are thoughtful Christians letting
the loons represent them?

I’ve been puzzled for some time why Christians seem to be tolerant of the fact that Jerry Falwell is the media face of Christianity. I’m not exactly sure there’s all that much they can do about it, but I’d be pretty livid if my deeply held beliefs were represented by someone like that. Of course Falwell and his fellow travellers do have a genuine following, but their brand of Christianity is highly overrepresented on TV – sort of like the the way prosecutors are kind of overrepresented by really really angry blonde women.