Month: June 2005

Feeding at the Trough.

“The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750 while the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has increased by as much as 100 percent.” One thing you can say about Dubya’s tenure in the White House — It’s been gold rush days for corporate lobbyists. Among the cats getting fat in the GOP influence-peddling industry of late are Casino Jack Abramoff and DeLay flunky Michael Scanlon, who, as it turns out, had a special “gimme five” relationship they used to scam their clients and fraudulently line their pockets. Give ’em five-to-ten. Update: Tim Noah has more.

Ghosts of Mississippi.

Edgar Ray Killen, the 80-year-old Klansman mastermind behind the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in 1964, is found guilty of three counts of manslaughter. To some extent, as with the recent Senate sorry-about-all-that-lynching resolution, I feel justice delayed is justice denied here. This fellow Killen got to live out the 41 years since — a lifetime he denied his victims — in freedom. Still, for the families of the slain, for the rule of law, and for the history books, it’s good to know that these crimes will no longer go unpunished. It may take a lifetime, but, as a purported man of the cloth such as Killen should’ve known, eventually the sins of the past will catch up with you. Update: Killen gets the max — 60 years.

Sail on, Silver Bird.

All systems are go today for the launch of Cosmos 1, a satellite designed to test the possibility of interstellar travel via solar sail. “Because it carries no fuel and keeps accelerating over almost unlimited distances, it is the only technology now in existence that can one day take us to the stars.” (Well, it worked for Chris Lee.) Update: Uh oh…

Hardwired?

It’s an ugly day for voter rationality in today’s New York Times. According to a new study by several political scientists, our political predispositions may be genetic (and last summer’s Zellout may have been the result of a lingering discordance between genetic and environmental factors in Miller’s make-up.) Whatsmore, we seem to choose our elected leaders immediately by their physical attributes, namely a general look of competence: “Both babies and baby-faced adults share certain characteristics: round faces, large eyes, small noses, high foreheads, and small chins. No one trusts the competence of a baby, and few, apparently, trust that of an adult who looks like one.” (Don’t lose heart, fellow advocates of an informed and capable electorate — There’s obviously a huge gaping hole in this latter theory.)

Kenny’s Boy.

The GOP attempts to break PBS grow murkier, as Dems unearth a right-wing stooge secretly on CPB President’s Kenneth Tomlinson’s payroll, assigned to track “bias” on Bill Moyer’s NOW. Nebraska Senator Byron “Dorgan said that data concluded in one episode of ‘Now’ that Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, was a ‘liberal’ because he questioned the White House policy on Iraq and that a second ‘Now’ segment on financial waste at the Pentagon was ‘anti-Defense.’

In the Game.

“‘I like Kobe, O.K.?,’ Albert Arce said, referring to Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star. ‘But I like to play him because I can make him pass to the other guys. When I see him on TV, it’s like he doesn’t know how to pass.‘” The NYT wonders if sports video games are eclipsing the real product. (As someone who enjoys both, I wouldn’t really think so.)