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Friday, November 14, 2003 |
In today's Team Leader meeting to the Republican true believers, Ed
Gillespie, RNC leader says it's time for there to be an "up or down"
vote on Bush's court nominees, and talks about how the Democrats used
to ask for that:
During the Clinton
administration Senate Democrats pleaded to have fair and simple up-down votes
for judicial nominees. Now their tone and voting record have drastically
changed. In 1999 Sen. Tom Daschle said he found it “baffling that a Senator
would vote against even voting on a judicial nomination.” Sen. Tom Harkin said
senators needed to, "have the guts to come out and vote up or down.... And once
and for all, put behind us this filibuster procedure on nominations."
The Democrats were right
then. Judicial nominees deserve a
fair up or down vote in the senate, and our
courts are no place for politics. Politicizing judicial nominees leads to Senate
gridlock, empty benches and justice delayed is justice denied.
Of course, the hypocrisy here is amazing. If the Democrats were right a
few years ago, then the Republicans must have been wrong! Gillespie
doesn't say this. He also doesn't promise that when there's a
Democratic administration, the Republicans won't change their minds
again about what "advise and consent" means. No, the whole tone of this
debate, on both sides, is increditbly hypocritical. But ask Orrin Hatch
why he refused to even give many of Clinton's appointments hearings?
Not only did they not get an up or down vote, their nominations weren't
even considered. I guess that's because Democrat-appointed judges are
intent on taking the law into their own hands, while the Republican
appointees only want to do what the sainted founders explicitly stated.
2:51:07 PM Permalink
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The Physicist's Diet
From MIT Technology review, this reminder of how hard it is to lose weight by exercise alone:
Exercise is a very difficult way to
lose weight. Here’s a rule of thumb: exercise very hard for one hour
(swimming, running, or racquetball)– and you’ll lose about one ounce of
fat. Light exercise for an hour (gardening, baseball, or golf) will
lose you a third of an ounce. That number is small because fat is
a very energy-dense substance: it packs about 4,500 food calories per
pound, the same as gasoline, and 15 times as much as in TNT.
The alternative? Eat less. But then you're hungry. This author
tells how he made friends with hunger and dropped a lot of weight.
Food, as they say, for thought.
7:48:26 AM Permalink
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What makes Hamlet popular
From a post on the Nabakov mailing list this morning, an excerpt from a
play about the Nabakov/Wilson relationship. "Bunny" Wilson asks Nabokov
why he thinks Hamlet is so popular on the stage:
There
are several reasons why Hamlet, even in the hideous garbled
versions current on the stage, should be attractive both to the
caviar eater and the groundling: (1) everybody likes to see a
ghost on the stage; (2) kings and queens are also attractive; (3) the
number and
variety of lethal arrangements are unsurpassed and thus most
pleasing--(a) murder by mistake, (b) poison (in dumb show), (c)
suicide, (d) bathing and tree climbing casualty, (e) duel, (f)
again poison--and
other attractions backstage.
Works for me.
7:43:17 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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