Smythe's World

Of all the discredited arguments used to support the nomination of Miguel Estrada, perhaps the stalest is the one that it is unprecedented for the Senate to attempt to filibuster an appellate nominee. In fact, as Daily Kos points out here and here, you have to go back almost three years to find the last attempted filibuster of a Latino judicial nominee, by the Republicans.

Alias has been renewed for a third season, which probably means it will live on for years afterward in syndication. O Happy Day !!

Phoebe !?!

With spring training beginning in some quarters, here are a couple of good baseball blogs to check out: Baseball Musings, by David Pinto, and Braves Journal, by my occasional co-contributor to Condredge's Acolytes, Mac Thomason.

Back when it was Bill Clinton who was being investigated for every silly thing, one particular writer, Stuart Taylor, went out of his way to publish a distorted brief in American Lawyer magazine supporting Paula Jones' tall tale. While other wack-jobs were similarly impressed by the veracity of the Arkansan Temptress, Taylor tried to give his argument a certain credibility by "claiming" that he voted for Clinton in 1992, and that he had liberal views on other issues. Since that article, of course, Taylor became an almost fanatical supporter of the Ken Starr witch hunt, sanctimoniously proclaiming at one time that "I'd like to be able to tell my children, 'You should tell the truth'. I'd like to be able to tell them, 'You should respect the President.' And I'd like to be able to tell them both things at the same time." Needless to say, he was, like most "liberals", a fervent supporter of impeachment.

He was obsequious in his praise of the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore, even going so far as to claim that seven Supreme Court justices supported the ruling. He has attacked affirmative action, while at the same time saying it's o.k. for Republican Presidents to name unqualified minority candidates to the federal judiciary. Just in case there was anyone out there who was still ignorant of the hard-right views of this ubiquitous legal talking head, comes this little gem, claiming that the real threat to America in the "war" on terrorism comes from "civil liberties hysteria". That's right, the only thing we have to fear is the ACLU, and those other commie organizations that support free speech and due process.

A good rule of thumb: if someone begins an argument by saying: "I'm a bleeding heart liberal, I voted for Clinton in 1992, I support gun control and abortion rights, but...", you can be certain that the speaker is somewhere to the right of Pat Buchanan, and probably objects to Al Qaeda only because their means aren't justified by their ends.

On the day the all-time leading rusher in NFL history was released by the Dallas Cowboys, Terrell Davis moved this much closer to coming out of exile and returning to the Denver Broncos. Since it was clear that Emmit Smith was not washed up from the way he played last season, I hope that he gets a chance to play somewhere (the Raiders?)

Soapbox Canyon has an interesting review of a possible primary challenge to John McCain next year. It's important to remember that in spite of McCain's occasional forays into decency, he's still one of the most hawkish members of the Senate, and his record on civil libertarianism is dreadful.

The great thing about the Estrada filibuster is that it has shown the Democratic minority in the Senate that they have a backbone. Two more judges face significant opposition, including the Scalia clone mentioned earlier in the week, and that doesn't count the likely filibuster of Judge Pickering. Keep those cards and letters coming.

As you probably know, Fred Rogers died last night. A beautiful tribute can be found at Jeanne d'Arc's blog, Body & Soul.

The good news for Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia and Colin Montgomerie is, there is still enough time to play in the Phoenix Open.

According to the Washington Post, an Arab-American should now be presumed a terrorist until proven innocent.

Looks like Dennis Kucinich may have a distinctly more interesting background than previously thought....

One of the few forms of bigotry that is still socially acceptable is Francophobia (well, anti-black and anti-gay bigotry are also considered socially acceptable, if you are a Bush judicial nominee). Right now, the government in France is not allowing President Bush to use it as his bitch, so demagogues of all stripes are piling on. When they are not being attacked for being pretentious snobs (btw, how is it that it's ok to ridicule the French for liking Jerry Lewis back in the 60's, but not praise them for being ahead of the curve on John Ford or Clint Eastwood), they are ripped for lacking courage. Some of the kinder terms now being used are "weasels" and "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". I think it's safe to say that if those same generalizations were to be used describing Israel, there would be a firestorm of criticism.

The notion that the French are cowards, frankly, is bullshit. France basically carried the load for the Allies in World War I; almost the entire war was fought on their soil, and a large part of a generation was killed on its battlefields defending it. Napoleon came this close to conquering all of Europe; although he was a despot, his rule would have almost certainly been preferable to the other petty tyrants of Central and Eastern Europe at the time. And of course, without the French, we don't win the Revolutionary War. But of course, to the Francophobes all of that gets trumped by the fact that the French stupidly relied on the Maginot Line to defend it before WWII, and were unprepared for the German tank divisions invading through Holland and Belgium.

To put French "cowardice" into perspective, consider this passage from a recent Molly Ivins column:

George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried."

That was certainly amusing.

One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Adolf Hitler.

On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny.

In the few places where they had tanks, they held splendidly.

Relying on the Maginot Line was one of the great military follies of modern history, but it does not reflect on the courage of those who died for France in 1940. For 18 months after that execrable defeat, the United States of America continued to have cordial diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany.

France was burned once in the last century following a policy of appeasement in response to an aggressive bully. Perhaps Chirac's position on Bush's little war is to not let such a thing happen again. [link via Doc Searls.]

Who says MoDo is washed up? A delicious column, with the focus on America's new "Warsaw Pact" alliance.

Left Wing Wackjob Alert: Noam Chomsky, in his own words, on one of the most evil men of the last century. If Lyndon LaRouche had a teaching gig at MIT, he'd be Chomsky.

Well, spring training can really begin, now that Jose Offerman has signed with the Expos.

I haven't blogged much about the upcoming war on Iraq, in large part because in spite of the fact that I dread the fact that my country might purposely start a war (or, at least, acknowledging same), I genuinely believe Iraq is a very real threat. The fact that North Korea is a similar threat, or that Saudi Arabia is a stronger supporter of terrorism, or that such a war is supported largely by a collection of chickenhawks both inside and outside the Administration, is interesting, but do not justify doing nothing about Saddam Hussein. If Clinton was still President, or if the will of the people had not been thwarted by the Supreme Court, I would have no difficulty supporting a preemptive war to "disarm" Saddam.

Nevertheless, I have great difficulty mustering any enthusiasm for the Administration's goals in this instance. As this typically excellent column by Paul Krugman makes clear, the shifting rationales and slippery reasoning used by W. and the likudniks to manuever the international community into a war have backfired terribly. It's not just "old Europe", to use the term which has earned our Defense Secretary such ridicule; it's countries like Russia and Mexico, that rely a great deal on American aid and trade, where we are having difficulty mustering support. The fact of the matter is, the only countries that support our plans are those countries that have never had a tradition of independence in their foreign policies.

What I guess I'm saying is, I don't like being lied to. I didn't like it when Clinton denied having sexual relations with "that woman", even though it wasn't any of my business; he should have just offered a pithy "no comment" and left it at that. Lying debases democracy, and makes the ability to freely choose between candidates and policy impossible. But Clinton was just lying about his personal life, and as David Brock so accurately wrote, the people who pursued the charges were infinitely more malevolent. In the end, the only people who were really hurt were the members of his family.

Bush, and the rest of his Administration, lie about policy. And that hurts all of us. We are now being told (for example, here and here) that because Bush has backed us into a corner with his stupid games, we might have to go to war now or risk losing face, a setback that would encourage Saddam, and other despots, to develop nukes of their own. I look at Iraq, and see an oppressed people, and a dictator who brutalizes them, and a region that is destablized by his presence. There are plenty of good reasons to fight, but all I see is a President who is more interested in starting a war to bolster his reelection chances, or to get cheap oil for his backers, or to divert attention from an economic mess he created. Or all three. I don't trust him, so I can't give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Once we get done with Estrada, this fascist should be the next filibuster target.

Apparently, the Democrats have lost one vote for the Estrada filibuster in the past week (Nelson of Florida) but still hold an impressive 44 votes in favor. It looks good, but it's not over yet.

The Rittenhouse Review and Bob Somerby make it official: the Washington Post sucks !!

I attended my first blogger meeting, or convention, or seminar, or whatever you want to call it. Officially, it was the American Cinema Foundation's Web Logs: Technology and Freedom in the 21st Century, held at the A.F.I. school in the Hollywood Hills. The seminar itself was pretty dull, with bloggers ranging from the right-of-center to the far right, and only Matt Welch standing up for the rest of the human race. The most interesting panelists, Emmanuelle Richard and Heather Havrilesky, discussed their largely non-political blogs, giving a good sense of where this technology might actually be heading, particularly the vast artistic potential of this new medium.

The exciting news, for me at least, concerns the new L.A. Examiner, which its publisher, Ken Layne, assured me will be available at your nearest bar or convenience store in June. The prototype brought to the seminar looks to be a combination of the late New Times, the National sports paper from the early 90's, and your typical tabloid weekly. The backgrounds of Messrs. Layne and Welch give me hope that their new venture will go beyond the stale, cliched format of other newspapers and tabloids and provide some interactivity between publisher, writer, and reader via the Internet. Anyways, check for it sometime around the start of the NBA championships.

Afterwards, all of us (panelists and audience) got together and shared a single bottle of wine, reinforcing my belief that journalists are congenitally incapable of throwing a good party. Still, I had a good time, met some of the most decent people in town, and was able to get a number of right-of-center sites for my blogroll. As a favor to me, check out the site for Howard Owens; not knowing me from Adam, he offered me a ride back to the subway stop at Hollywood and Western around 11 p.m. last night, enabling me to avoid walking through a rather nasty four-block section of Los Angeles in the process.

As you might expect from someone whose expertise on the internet is limited to skimming Andrew Sullivan and Instapundit, "Michael Kelly" chimes in on the "diversity" of debate within the punditocracy, particularly as it pertains to blogs. You know you're dealing with a serious argument when the occasional columns of Molly Ivins, Alexander Cockburn and, of course, noted radical (and Moonie Times writer) Nat Hentoff are equated, in terms of access and influence, with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Only Kelly could make the opinions of John le Carre and Harold Pinter seem rational.

Bizarre Google Fetishes: "But I want to do an Oompa-Loompa NOW, Daddy !!"

Someone reached this site this morning searching for "Julie Dawn Cole" and "porn".

Last night I attended a blogging conference at the A.F.I. in Hollywood. I will definitely have more on this later, but one thing it has led me to do is compile a section of local bloggers on the roll. Check 'em out.

My long-anticipated rebuttal to Charles Kuffner regarding Michigan basketball is up at Off-Wing Opinion. I really hope I don't have to explain who Sam Gilbert was.

Keith Olbermann writes a column decrying the invasion of Sandy Koufax' privacy, then returns a substantial sum of money from the publishing wing of the News Corp. Reich, and what does he get for it: a nomination for the coveted Begala Award !! Why can't I win one of those? Who do I have to f *** ?

A good essay on the topic of depression, and the use of anti-depressants, such as Prozac, here. I think it's safe to say that taking Prozac constituted a turning point in my own life, mostly for the better. I feel more confident, and do things now that I would avoid, or procrastinate before doing (one example is what you are reading: there is no way I would have freely published my thoughts six years ago, even if the technology had been available, and if I had, I would have quit after the first week, horrified that something I wrote might not please everybody). Where I differ from the writer is how I recall the emotional extremes; what I lost when I began taking medication was the intensity of the feelings, of the highs and the lows. I still think of those feelings as the times I felt most human.

My active social calendar brought me to Los Feliz tonight, for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Eric Alterman, The Nation columnist and author of the bestselling What Liberal Media? For those of you who haven't read it yet, the thesis of the book is that the notion of the "liberal media" is a myth, manufactured by conservatives in order to influence more favorable coverage of their agenda; as one former GOP chairman put it, to "work the ref" in the same manner that a Bobby Knight or a Gary Williams might. Although his book doesn't really go into detail about blogs, or the role they played in the fall of Trent Lott, he did note that this was a way in which progressive voices could similarly influence the coverage of the news.

Also, I found out that although this site has been on his list of favored links for the better part of the last six months, he's not sure if he's ever visited. Since I get about a quarter of my traffic from Altercation, and was admittedly thrilled and honored to have been linked there, I have to admit feeling humbled knowing that. Still, his lecture tonight will be on C-SPAN next week, with yours truly making a cameo appearance. Also, he told a great variation of the joke about the comedian's convention, which I will happily pass along to any who are interested.

Finally, a Michael Jackson interview you can trust....

Since The News Corp. purchased the L.A. Dodgers back in 1998, fans have had to swallow boneheaded trades, classless midnight firings of long-time personnel, front office policy that seems to be dictated more toward appeasing the sensitivities of white sportswriters than winning games, and of course, zero playoff appearances. Murdoch's thugs have traded away a certain Hall-of-Famer (Piazza) because they didn't like his contract demands, then signed a lesser player (K. Brown) for more money than what Piazza was demanding. They treated the player obtained for Piazza, Gary Sheffield, with contempt, even though the numbers he put up were, by and large, better than Piazza's, and he played with greater commitment and intensity.

All of that was well and good, since Murdoch has been trying to dump the team for the last year, so at least there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Just when it seemed Dodger fans might be able to breathe a little easier, Fox has apparently decided to drop yet another turd in our chili. The team's greatest pitcher, and arguably the greatest southpaw in the history of baseball, Sandy Koufax, has disassociated himself from the team because the N.Y. Post, a newspaper that holds the distinction of being the least redeeming and least profitable of all of Rupert the Mad's holdings, published an item in its gossip column claiming that the female writer of a best-selling biography of a Hall of Fame baseball player had to agree not to mention rumors of his homosexuality. Although Koufax wasn't named in the article, it was clear the allusion was to him; there just weren't that many best-selling bios written by female authors about closeted Hall of Fame players that were published in the past year.

Good for Sandy. The most disreputable form of journalism is the blind gossip item; there is no accountability for the writer, and the information usually turns out to be wrong (or significantly out of context) anyways. If you're going to out someone, than do so, straightforwardly. As you might recall, it was the N.Y. Post that spent the better part of last summer trying to spread rumors about the sexual preferences of Mssrs. Piazza and Alomar. Before Fox manages to do further damage by alluding to Jackie Robinson's "bizarre" fetish for cats, or to Duke Snider's "interesting" friendship with Don Newcombe, lets just hope they get out of baseball altogether.

Took in the CAL-UCLA game at Pauley last night with the lovely Miss Deborah Siemer (btw, we're just friends). Although my beloved Bears ended up losing in overtime, I did have the satisfaction of seeing a complete reversal in the positions of the schools during the course of my lifetime. When I was going to CAL, the UCLA game was the big draw on our home schedule, even bigger than Stanford, and was the one game guaranteed to sell out Harmon Gym. Still, about a quarter of the fans would be for the Bruins; at the time CAL did not have a very good team, KJ not withstanding, and UCLA was, well, UCLA.

Last night, CAL was actually favored to win at Pauley, which might be unprecedented. The Bears were ranked 18th going into last night's game, while the Bruins had lost ten straight in conference, and had not won at home since mid-December. At least a third of the fans, including the majority of the fans sitting outside the student and alum sections, were for the mighty Bears. And those chokers still got beat.

Gee, who could have seen this one coming? I mean, Prof. al-Arian had only taken on Gov. Jeb Bush and the entire state of Florida for his wrongful termination, so it's a bit of shock that the normally moderate and cautious A.G., John Ashcroft, would aim both barrels at him. The charges against him read like a McCarthy-era indictment of a Hollywood screenwriter, or a Red Scare persecution of a Wobbly cell: conspiracy to provide material support to the group, conspiracy to violate emergency economic sanctions, extortion, perjury, obstructing justice and immigration fraud. How the hell do you take part in a "conspiracy to provide material support" to an alleged terrorist group, or "to violate emergency economic sanctions?" Aren't such activities better known by their technical term, "speech"?

I assume there might be a few of you out there who still haven't already purchased What Liberal Media? If you haven't, you might like to join me tomorrow night at Skylight Books in Los Feliz, where the illustrious author might even autograph the book, if you're nice to him.

He was due for a letdown after his marvelous ten-game run, and especially after the previous night's 52-point effort in their double-OT win over Houston. Desperately battling fatigue and attempting to carry a Shaq-less team on his shoulders, Kobe Bryant was held to only 40 points in last night's 93-87 win in Utah. Sometimes, even the great ones slump.

Did you know that gay men are having consensual sex at the University of California? Well, one right-wing affirmative action diva didn't, so she writes this column. [link via Pandagon]

In case any of you missed The Shield last night, my new favorite actress, Melanie Lynskey, once again lit up the screen with her presence, portraying a gorgeous young woman with a dismemberment fetish. She's awfully young to keep getting typecast as a psycho killer, though.

The most important thing to come out of Arizona since Mo Udall and Byron Scott, "Them Durn Librals", is back, with a name change ("Soapbox Canyon") and a shiny new haircut.

The perils of publishing: yours truly gets taken to the woodshed by Charles Kuffner over my recent piece about Michigan basketball at Off-Wing Opinion. Doesn't he understand that if the Wolverines are banned from the tournament this year, the terrorists win? My response to follow....

Memo to the Washington Post: if you really want to convince Democratic Senators to end the filibuster against Miguel Estrada, do not use one of the most corrupt judges in the federal judiciary, Lawrence Silberman, as your key witness.

Having seen Magic and Michael at their peaks, I can say without qualification that Kobe Bryant's last ten games have been the greatest exhibitions of pure basketball I've ever seen. Tonight's performance (52 points, including all 9 in the first OT) in the Lakers' 106-99 double-overtime win over Houston made him the first player since Jordan to score 35 points in ten consecutive game, and may have been the most impressive game of his career.

John Kerry is being set up to be the Al Gore of this election, attacked not for the substance of his views but for trivial personality quirks. Apparently, Kerry, who recently discovered that a grandfather of his was Jewish, is being attacked because the Boston Globe referred to him several times over a twenty-year period as "Irish", and he supposedly didn't demand a retraction. A grave sin, to be sure; I mean, do you want someone facing down Saddam, cutting the federal deficit, or aiding the underclass if he doesn't write irate letters to the hometown newspaper everytime it gets his ethnicity wrong. In any event, it's like George Bush not demanding a correction from a newspaper everytime he's referred to as a "successful businessman".

In any event, there is an undercurrent of anti-Semitic/Our Crowd snobbishness in the attack on Senator Kerry, and after what happened in the last Presidential campaign and in the Whitewater "investigation", it is safe to say that the Washington press corps is neither a very good judge of character nor a reliable barometer of truthfulness. I have no preference in the 2004 campaign as of yet, but Senator Kerry has already chosen the right enemies: if the Media Heathers don't like you, you might have what it takes to be a great President !!!

An interesting column here takes the media to task for enabling the anti-Asian bigotry of Howard Coble, Shaquille O'Neal, et al. Much of the stereotyping resembles that of classic anti-Semitism, in which evidence of academic or financial success is indicative of the group's duplicity, with no less poisonous a result.

The stunning death of Baltimore Oriole rookie Steve Bechler has once again raised the issue of whether sports teams adequately monitor heatstroke. Bechler is the third athlete in two years to die of heatstroke: Corey Stringer and Rashidi Wheeler, two football players, died in 2000 following lengthy practices. As with Stringer and Wheeler, Bechler was seriously overweight, and the use of the weight-loss drug ephedrine is suspected as having been a contributing factor. He was 23 years old.

Obesity seems to be a distinguishing characteristic of the modern athlete. As Sports Illustrated noted several weeks ago, Warren Sapp has become a role model for other football linemen, weighing in at a not-so-slender 303 lbs (the Raider he bested in the Super Bowl, Frank Middleton, tips the scales at an even more corpulent 360 lbs !) On the other hand, Mo Vaughn has seen a certain Hall of Fame career go into the proverbial toilet as his weight has ballooned, and the Lakers' chances of winning a fourth straight title were shattered when Shaq was unable to get himself into shape at the start of the season.

Fat athletes usually are the subject of good-natured ridicule; George Foreman has practically built a second career out of his love for food. Not too long ago, the LA Clippers had two 300 pound centers, Stanley Roberts and John "Hot Plate" Williams, neither of whom could last more than five minutes out on the court. Local basketball fans always got a good laugh out of that, ignoring the fact that both men were taking severe health risks by playing an arduous sport while out of shape. It may take the death of a young athlete to force teams to view this problem more seriously.

Another blogger has nailed the social and cultural phenomenon that is J-Garn. But remember, I saw her first !!

Every Sunday, readers of the Los Angeles Times are treated to vanity ads featuring some philanthropic achievement by Donald Sterling. Usually, its something along the lines of the Police Protective League granting the uber-landlord and Clippers owner their "Humanitarian of the Year" award at a dinner next week, where he will be feted by the likes of Norm Crosby, Billy Crystal, Al Davis, and other similar worthies. I can't believe anyone actually contributes money to those charities after seeing these pathetic cries for help; basically, the ads exist to justify the continued existence of Mr. Sterling, who otherwise could not provide a reason to the basketball fans of the city to not publicly stone him.

I attended my first (and last) Clippers game of the season Saturday night. Lord, what an awful franchise. In terms of raw talent, they probably have more good players right now than the Lakers; if Shaq and Kobe were injured, the difference wouldn't even be close. Elton Brand and Andre Miller are good young players, and Lamar Odom and Michael Olowakandi have shown flashes of brilliance. But even though the Lakers have just completed a dreadful first half, barely rising above the .500 mark, the Clippers are even worse, 7 games behind their co-tenants at the Staples Center. The team plays with no heart, no spirit, and it is evident that the players view their current predicament with no concern; as Ron Harper said years ago, he's just serving out his prison sentence. Sterling will not spend the money to keep good players, or do anything to indicate that he is serious about winning. But when it comes to hyping his philanthropy with cheesy ads, he has a deep pocket.

My first article at Off-Wing Opinion is up and presentable, and can be found here. Lots of pressure, now having to write something that more than a dozen people are going to read.

Los Angeles' worst sportswriter, Bill Plaschke, has decided to go after one of the last Los Angeles Dodgers with any heart, Kevin Brown, in his column this morning. Plaschke, who ran the Dodgers' best everyday player of the last twenty years, Gary Sheffield, out of town, and who attacked Game 7 hero Garret Anderson as a choker during the World Series last year, has now chosen to pick on Brown for wanting to pitch through injuries, and for selfishly pushing his team's interest ahead of his health. What makes this column historic, however, is that Plaschke has, for the first time, decided to attack a white athlete, rather than perform fellatio on him. It's so sad; he misses Eric Karros.

The Senate will recess tomorrow with no action on the Estrada nomination. Without at least the threat of keeping the Senate in session and forcing the Democrats to actually filibuster, there is nothing to compel weak Senators from caving in and agreeing to a vote on the nominee. The genius of Leahy's strategy has been to make the issue the non-cooperation of the White House with Democratic requests for background memos drafted by Estrada, rather than his ideological views. The White House has shown no signs of compromising (why would they, when they not shown any willingness to share other communications within the executive branch), so the nomination is close to death. Estrada was a relatively unknown pick, so the threat of a filibuster will be even greater the next time, when it's someone like Pickering (or better yet, a Supreme Court nominee).

Great Kinsley article about the Estrada nomination, and the increasing use of the "Fifth Amendment" by controversial judicial nominees who wish to hide their positions. Let's keep up the pressure, kids.

Some housekeeping to take care of: the college sports blog that I edit, Condredge's Acolytes, is shifting its focus from commentary on games and teams to longer pieces on college sports in general. Anyone who would like to contribute should drop me a line. I have also been invited to contribute to Off-Wing Opinion, which is only the best general sportsblog going nowadays. That offer was too good to pass up, so I will be offering my two cents on West Coast basketball on that site.

A certain amount of political hyperbole is to be expected, but this comparison is truly odious. The phrase, "weapons of mass obstruction" smells like it came straight out of a Karl Rove power point demonstration. In the meantime, another DLC favorite, Mary Landrieu, has come out in support of the filibuster.

It's official: Andrew Sullivan has discovered that there are gays in Hollywood.

First he claims to be a "war hero". Then he "discovers" a Jewish ancestor. Now he "contracts" prostate cancer. Will John Kerry ever quit reinventing himself?

Believe it or not, this is not a story from the Onion.

Today is the day Tom Daschle is supposed to announce whether the Democrats plan to filibuster the Estrada nomination. So far, only three members of the caucus are off the reservation, and the GOP's clumsy attempt to make the nominee's ethnicity his sole qualification for the position has backfired; what was a longshot last week is now being seriously discussed by Democrats, whether they have the yarbles to prevent the capture of the judiciary by an ideological fringe. The best way to help Democrats like Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Fritz Hollings, and Evan Bayh overcome their natural predilection for following the path of least resistance is to call, fax, and e-mail them 'til they surrender. And while you're at it, drop Charles Schumer a line thanking him for the brave stand he has taken on this issue.

UPDATE: The decision has apparently been made to filibuster. The battle is joined !!!

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning. It's too early to pick any of the winners with absolute certainty, but there is a quick and easy way to handicap a couple of the awards. For best supporting actress, pick the nominee who is most likely to fade into mediocrity within one week of the pageant. For best actress, go with the person most likely to embarass herself with a narcissistic, maudlin speach that goes on forever, and is interrupted several times by uncontrolled sobbing. I see Queen Latifah as the one who can best follow in the tradition of Marcia Gay-Harden, Mira Sorvino, Whoopi Goldberg, and Mercedes Ruehl. And I'm sure Renee Zellweger's acceptance speach will be one for the ages.

It's almost Tuesday, and the Senate has still not confirmed Miguel Estrada. Let's keep up the pressure....

If Melanie Lynskey can have a fansite (actually, two), then why doesn't Phoebe Nicholls have even one? Still, I'm not complaining; having seen the Kiwi starlet's absolutely wicked performance in The Shield a few weeks back, I might start one of my own.

Years ago, my parents decided to do a "family tree" for my grandparents on the event of their 50th wedding anniversary. Among the things we discovered was at some point, about three generations before my grandfather, most of our ancestors began to have names like Levi, Moses, and Aaron. I wasn't sure what it proved, if anything; five generations is going back awhile, and I've had a hard time identifying with my mother's faith, much less my great-great-great grandfather's. But it sure was groovy fun informing my late granddad, who was somewhere to the right of your average Republican congressman on issues of race and ethnicity, of our research, while also serving to remind the rest of the family that the answer to the question, "where are you from?", is, as for most Americans, likely to be more complex than we may have originally thought.

Now, apparently, it's John Kerry's turn to be eviscerated by the Alpha Girls, this time over whether he has taken too much pride in the fact that a recent geneological investigation of his family turned up a Jewish grandfather. The notion that this is somehow a character flaw strikes me as nothing more than thinly-disguised anti-Semitism, certainly more poisonous than anything likely to be dreamed up by Al Sharpton on the campaign trail, but it seems to be the conventional wisdom in the media. In some respects, it is not dissimilar to the racist glee the far right had for years about rumors of Clinton's black "love child". For a particularly crude anti-Semitic take on this, check out this "investigative story" in the Boston Globe, which seems to be particularly offended that Senator Kerry, actually visited a synagogue in Florida recently. Or this piece, where the writer all but accuses the junior Senator from Massachusetts of being a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty. Since the man is currently the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, we must resign ourselves to the fact that this will be the level of political discourse over the next year and a half.

Caught Catch Me if You Can this afternoon. A nice way to kill 2 1/2 hours, but it kind of irritates me that I have to spend between $15-20 for an afternoon at the movies. If I can spend less than that per month for cable, then I better get something special, something better than The Shield, or The Sopranos (at least, the first three seasons), or Alias, or even 24; the latter two shows I don't even have to pay for. The problem with the movie I saw today was that there was absolutely no reason for it to have been shot as a film. It could have easily aired as an original cable movie and lost nothing artistically, and I (and other patrons) would not have been out $20. And the annoying thing is, it was actually a pretty good flick.

If I didn't think my comparison was so obvious as to be banal, I would swear another blogger had ripped off my nickname for Ann Coulter.

Apparently, the GOP received a bit more help than just a campaign visit by W in last year's battle to retake control of the Senate. In New Hampshire, where John Sununu eked out a narrow victory over Jeanne Shaheen in a race for an open Senate seat, an out-of-state firm was hired by the Republican Party to crank-call Democratic phone banks on election day, thereby impeding efforts to get out the vote. This writer logically suggests that this was a tactic probably useful in other states as well. To me, this story, and not paranoid fantasies about rigged electronic voting machines, is troublesome, because it shows how far the current clique in office is willing to go to seize power.

One reason to filibuster the Estrada nomination, quite beside the fact that it might work, is that it allows us to see which Democrats in the Senate are worth keeping. One member still on the fence, Mary Landrieu, is quoted here as saying that while she is impressed with his personal story, she has some doubts that he is in the "mainstream". If he is having problems getting the support of one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, someone who boasted in her recent campaign for reelection how often she votes with the President, it signifies that his nomination may be in trouble. Keep up the pressure, kids.

Fascinating interview of LeBron James, by noted writer Neal Pollack. Who knew he dreams of becoming a novelist?

Life is good. I came home tonight to be greeted by a shipment from Amazon: What Liberal Media by Eric Alterman. The first page I opened to describes the early-90's editorship of Andrew Sullivan at The New Republic as being akin to "watching a middle age accountant try on a pair of nipple rings". Priceless ! Buy this book now !!

Let the games begin. The debate over the Estrada nomination has begun in the Senate, with a decision to filibuster the nominee expected some time next week. So far, one Democrat has publicly broken with the caucus (Breaux), although it goes without saying that Zell Miller will knife us in the back over the long run. If an appropriate precedent is going to be set, this filibuster has to focus on his lack of honesty before the Judiciary Committee and on his ideology, in order of importance. The filibuster is a powerful weapon, but it is also a dangerous one. This is not a tactic that we can use against every conservative judge, and we certainly do not want the precedent of having the minority party shut down the Senate every time a President nominates someone for the federal courts.

I just realized that I will turn forty in exactly eight months. When my father was my age, he was married, had four children, he was preparing to take the bar exam, had already gone through a bankruptcy, had run the Southern California operations for two presidential campaigns, been the chief assistant to the State Assembly Rules Committee, and had run for office twice (unsuccessfully). He used the occasion of the big 4-0 to quit drinking, thereby changing the life of our family dramatically. I still think about him every day, and occasionally will dream he is still with us, having rationalized that sometime after his death, his cancer went into remission and he was miraculously resuscitated. The only edges I have on my dad is that I passed the bar exam when I was twenty-six, (although, unlike him, I loved the whole experience of taking the test so much, I took it twice), and that, in spite of a lifetime of incurring debt, I have yet to file a BK. There's still time, however....

Fox News is reporting that the Democratic caucus in the Senate is set to filibuster the vote on the Estrada nomination. However, Senators John Breaux and Byron Dorgan are apparently trying to find a face-saving way to support the nominee, seeking talking points from the GOP staff of the Judiciary Committee. Drop them a line, if you will, and let them know where you come down on this.

A terrific anecdote about the wackjob who produced Then He Kissed Me and You've Lost that Lovin Feelin', in today's Altercation. How was that guy ever able to avoid being institutionalized? Sad, how some stars burn brilliantly for such a short time, only to have to live out the remaining decades of their lives (btw, the story of the actress whom he murdered is especially poignant).

It seems if I upgrade or use another blogging program, I can post pictures. That's something I'm definitely going to look into.

Orrin Hatch today predicted that the Democrats would tie up the Senate until next week, but that ultimately the GOP would have enough votes to confirm Estrada. Hah !! If this goes past the weekend, we got 'em.

Meanwhile, more nefarious plots are being hatched concerning American foreign policy. There's no rest for the wicked....

For those of you too intimidated by this new-fangled web technology to send an e-mail to your Senator, you can always fax him your opinion on the Estrada vote, thanks to People for the American Way. It's easy, and you don't even have to think about what you want to say.

Apparently, the Moonies seem to think that the possibility that the Democrats will filibuster the Estrada nomination is something of a joke. The vote is scheduled for Wednesday morning...btw, Mr. Estrada was also on Ted Olsen's legal team in the Florida vote challenge, so if you liked the jurisprudence revealed in the Bush v. Gore decision, you'll just love his lifetime tenure on the federal courts.

The Senate is scheduled to begin floor consideration of the Estrada nomination tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. E.S.T. For those of you who want to bitch about the Bush judicial picks with a clear conscience, other than whining about Ralph Nader, here are some more Senators to contact: Presidential candidates John Kerry and John Edwards; Diane Feinstein; Joe Biden; and moderate Republicans Lincoln Chafee and Susan Collins. Let them know that not filibustering is not an option.

I'm involved in a rather interesting discussion over on the Eschaton board concerning electronic voting machines, and the potential they have to be abused by parties and politicians. As always, I am a skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories, but the issues raised should not be ignored. In Florida three years ago, numerous counties did not recount the ballots after the November election, relying instead on a re-reading of the electronic tally taken that night. If the first count was wrong, or if the computer tallying the results had been misprogrammed, we won't know whom the electorate picked.

They are not wasting time over the Estrada nomination. Bush's nominee, and likely future Supreme Court pick, goes before the entire Senate on Tuesday. The Democratic response, to date, has been tepid; other than some perfunctory talk about Pickering, there has been no call for a filibuster, even though Estrada, his obvious intelligence aside, is an extremist who pals around with white supremacists and has refused to allow his legal memos be released for public scrutiny. Anyone who cares about the make-up of the federal courts for the next generation needs to act now to contact Senators and remind them that "advise and consent" is not merely a throwaway clause in the Constitutution, and that any far-right nominee put up by the President for consideration to the appellate courts must be stopped. My 1/30 post has the e-mail addresses for five swing Senators; spam 'em all.

Interesting take on one ramification of the Estrada nomination, by labor lawyer Sam Heldman. Part of his larger point is that many of the protections we think workers receive from unions get shredded by the courts, which seem to bend over backwards to appease companies, even those in blatant violation of the law, at the expense of workers. I think it goes without saying that most of the practicing lawyers who get nominated to the federal courts tend to come from the management side of the equation.

Unbelievable. The Space Shuttle explodes over Texas, with no likely survivors. No explanations forthcoming as to why. My thoughts are with the astronauts and their families.