Peoria Pundit

http://www.wchstv.com/abc/portcharles/monaco.jpg
Notice the pun in
this lede:

NEW YORK (AP) — Low ratings have taken a bite out of “Port
Charles,” forcing ABC to cancel the daytime drama.

“Port Charles” has been mired in a vampire storyline for months. The
very few times I’ve seen it, the dialog has been horrible. Imagine
“Buddy the Vampire Slayer” without good writing or a sense of humor. The
only good thing about it: Kelly Monoco
(right).

The Chicago Report has been sending
folks my way.

The /New York Times/ may hire an ombudsman
. There is
no way in Hell any editor of the NYT will ever give anyone that much
power. Can you image legendary A. M. Rosenthal putting up with that
nonsense?

An ombudsman is supposed to be readers’ last line of defense against bad
reporting and bad editing. The best newspaper in America shouldn’t need
a last line. Hiring an ombudsman is exactly the same thing as saying
that the /NYT/ is no different than any other newspaper and a fatal blow
to its mystique.

What Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. needs to do is make sure he hires
an editor who will insist that the newspaper return to objective
reporting and tone down this “flooding the zone” in service of liberal
bias that Executive Editor Howell Raines brought to the table. An
ombudsman will do the paper no damn good whatsoever if the ombudsman
also thinks good newspapering means promoting liberal ideas.

http://www.cabbage-soup-diet.com/images/cabbage-1.jpgI am on a diet.
It’s the “cabbage soup” diet . I am
in the middle of the fifth day of this week-long excursion into Hell.
Today. I get to eat three bananas and skim milk and all the cabbage soup
I can swallow. I’ve already dropped one pant size. But there are
drawbacks. Right now, I am so agitated and angry, I am a danger to
myself and others. Tomorrow, I get to eat up to 10 ounces of meat and
tomatoes, plus at least one bowl of soup. Wednesday, I can eat as much
beef and vegetables I can stomach, and at least one bowl of soup. After
the week is over, I have to wait at least three weeks before I can go
back on the soup. I don’t know what I am going to on Thursday, but I’ll
tell you one thing: It ain’t gonna eave any $*@%*! cabbage in it.

Normally, I’d rather rip my car’s stereo system, speakers included, out
of the dashboard than listen to Rush Limbaugh. But this afternoon, I was
inside someone else’s auto so I didn’t have the right to even change the
channel, much less rip out the radio. That’s why I heard Limbaugh spread
this intentionally misleading piece of propaganda concerning libertarians.

Libertarians, he said, are happy the Supreme Court overturned Texas’
sodomy laws because they have no concern about the constitution says.
Conservatives, unlike libertarians, want the courts to base their
decisions only the Constitution.

What a pile of rubbish. Limbaugh noted that every one of the 13 original
states made sodomy illegal at the time of the ratification of the
Constitution.

Anyone slightly familiar with the Libertarian Party platform or
libertarian doctrine recognized this as a obvious lie. Libertarians
support the Constitution, and the constitution includes the 14th
Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law for everyone.

By the way, Rush, the 14th Amendment didn’t exist when the Constitution
was ratified, so it doesn’t matter that they all had anti-sodomy laws at
the time.

Doing away with anti-sodomy laws passes Constitutional must AND makes
libertarians happy. Unlike the recent Supreme Court decision upholding
“diversity” programs that give minority applicants preference in college
applications, this decision does not ignore the 14th Amendment in order
to accomplish a laudible goal. No one’s rights are being diminsihed
exept a state’s right to interfere in private, victimless behavior.

Why does Rush want his listeners to get the wrong idea about
libertarians? Because libertarian philosophy makes more sense than does
conservatism, which claims the government has no right to raise taxes or
mandate diversity programs, yet HAS the right to tell people what to do
in their bedrooms and how to medicate themselves. For the same reasons,
Republicans want to kick republicans off the ballots. A great many
people who vote Republican because they cannot stand the Democrats would
vote for the Libertarians if they thought the Libertarian had a chance
of winning. There are even a few people who hold their nose and vote
Democratic because they cannot abide voting for Bible-thumping,
gay-bashing GOPers.

*UPDATE:* Justin Dustin, a conservative, agrees with me

on how the 14th Amendment applies to homosexuals.

Good news, via Wired:

/The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday that Web
loggers, website operators and e-mail list editors can’t be held
responsible for libel for information they republish, extending
crucial First Amendment protections to do-it-yourself online
publishers.

Online free speech advocates praised the decision as a victory. The
ruling effectively differentiates conventional news media, which can
be sued relatively easily for libel, from certain forms of online
communication such as moderated e-mail lists. One implication is
that DIY publishers like bloggers cannot be sued as easily.

“One-way news publications have editors and fact-checkers, and
they’re not just selling information — they’re selling
reliability,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. “But on blogs or e-mail lists, people aren’t
necessarily selling anything, they’re just engaging in speech. That
freedom of speech wouldn’t exist if you were held liable for every
piece of information you cut, paste and forward.”

The court based its decision on a section of the 1996 Communications
Decency Act, or the CDA. That section states, “… no provider or
user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker of any information provided by another
information content provider.” Three cases since then — Zeran v.
AOL, Gentry v. eBay and Schneider v. Amazon — have granted immunity
to commercial online service providers.

Tuesday’s court ruling clarifies the reach of the immunity granted
by the CDA to cover noncommercial publishers like list-server
operators and others who take a personal role in deleting or
approving messages for online publication.

“Here, the court basically said that when it comes to Internet
publication, you can edit, pick and choose, and still be protected,”
said Cohn. /

While this ruling isn’t the law outside the Ninth Circuit, and the
Supreme Court can always rule otherwise, it’s good news because it could
provide direction to other circuits.

Thanks to Jeff Jarvis for the link.

The Sunday, June 15, strip:

http://billscontent.com/images/affordtaxes.gif

I found a heart-warming story on Romenesko’s Obscure Store about a
worker-friendly strip club
.
Actually, it’s more of a peep show because instead of dancing on stage,
clients pay the dancers to perform in private, glass-enclosed booths
where, as they say, anything goes. In 1995, workers at San Francisco’s
Lucky Lady joined Service Employees International Union. Recently, they
bought the joint and turned in into a co-op where workers can join for a
$300 entry fee and are paid a portion of the profits, prorated for the
number of hours they worked that year.

“We might have a great management system right now, but the union
guarantees protections down the road, when a whole new bunch of
people might be in charge,” said a dancer, adding that the union
guarantees she will be treated with dignity and respect. “Now excuse
me, this guy is paying me $50 to stick and a feather duster up my
butt while I pinch my nipples and moan.”

Sorry, I made up that last part. No word on where they stick their union
label.

I certainly hope everyone found their way over to MSNBC
where Eugene Volokh
(substituting for Glenn Reynolds ) blogged
about the paternalistic
attitude behind those (now paging Maureen Dowd [r.r.]
) who criticize
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for insufficient gratitude for
affirmative action. Volokh writes:

…Thomas? critics aren?t really faulting him for opposing policies
from which he himself benefited. They?re really faulting him for
opposing policies that they like. But instead of acknowledging that
they simply disagree with Justice Thomas on the substance, they
engage in personal attacks ? saying that his actions aren?t simply
mistaken as a matter of constitutional law (a matter on which
reasonable minds may differ), but ?disgust[ing]? because of his
personal history.

And the saddest thing is the racial double standard that this
produces. When white Justice Scalia opposes race preferences, people
at least debate him on the merits. But let black Justice Thomas do
it, and he gets vitriolically and personally attacked. Not fair, not
egalitarian, and not good for constructive, thoughtful dialogue
about race.

Exactly. Dowd’s attitude exposes a mindset which liberals believe only
applies to conservatives — that there’s no way blacks can achieve
success on their own.

How sad it is that blacks who achieve success in the workplace are
assumed to have done so only because of the color of their skin.
Diversity programs and affirmative action only perpetuates belief in
racial inferiority. It doesn’t end it.

Ann Coulter isn’t just a lying, foulmouthed religious bigot who got
where she is today on her looks, she is also a tease. It’s been days
since it was announced she is starting a blog and /there is yet to be
one single entry/. Hrmph!

When — more likley ‘if’ — she actually starts blogging, I will eat my
shoe if she has the balls to allow readers to comment or post readers’ mail.