I'm getting more and more hits these days for the phrase "Daschle sucks." If you'd like to read everything I think about our Senate Plurality Leader, please be thorough. W
The Hotline's Tom Dalton thinks Jim Jeffords lied to Mike Wallce about former President's Bush's supposed admission that he had swung too far to the right:
Forgive me for being skeptical, but does anyone really believe that an embattled president would find time in the middle of a campaign to go tell a lowly senator from Vermont that he should have taken his advice and been more moderate? Apparently Mike Wallace does.
Dalton says:
Certainly anyone who had a pulse from 1988 to 1992 knows that it was conservatives, not moderates, who felt alienated by Bush 41... Jeffords’ account of the alleged Bush 41 apology is peculiar, and Wallace should have challenged him on it. In a 1996 interview with PBS’ David Frost, Bush himself acknowledged that the “biggest mistake of my presidency was that I damaged my credibility by agreeing to a tax increase.” Therefore, wouldn’t it be contradictory for the former president to admit that the 1990 budget deal foiled his presidency, but at the same time, also believe he should have followed Jeffords’ advice and been more moderate?
Why did Mike Wallace not follow up on this harder? He may have been running out of time.
NOTE: This link will probably expire within the week. W
The official U.S. government translation of the bin Laden tape left out a lot of crucial information, including the names of nine of the hijackers, and bin Laden's advise to followers immediately before the attack:
When you hear a breaking news announcement on the radio, kneel immediately, and that means they have hit the World Trade Center.
My advice to him: when you hear our bombers, kneel immediately, and that means we have hit you. W
In response to John Sutherland's Fifty-two things they do better in America, I present Fifty-two things they do better in the United Kingdom. W
I just this minute got another telemarketing call - from a different company for a different charity - and they handled it much more professionally. W
The pleasure of getting a telemarketer fired.
I just got a call from a telemarketer on behalf of a regional organization. I don't like phone solicitations, and have learned to ask them for company name, address, telemarketer's name, a hard copy of their Do Not Call policy, and when I'll be receiving it.
So some cretin calls me this afternoon, and when he stumbled over the name - as they always do - I began to ask him some questions. He refused to give me a company name, correct address, and then, when I asked when I'd be receiving my copy of the Do Not Call Policy, he told me, "Probably never," and hung up.
That made me unhappy.
I called the regional organization the cretin purportedly represented. They were very concerned about the rude treatment I had gotten, and gave me the name of the telemarketing company they use. Then I called the telemarketing company in West Virginia - one with a somewhat checkered past - and spoke to the cretin's boss.
The boss was extremely concerned about the call and recognized that his employee had violated several provisions of federal law. He promised that he would mail me the Do Not Call information along with a follow-up note informing me of how he handled the employee in question.
Aaaahhhhh. W
Vegas was very cool - in fact, it was downright freezing. The coldest, wettest weather they'd had all year, said the locals. Other than that, Vegas was both lavish and tacky - more lavish and less tacky than I expected, but still heaps of both. Spec-tacky-lar. We stayed at the Mirage, one of the nicer places in Vegas, for dirt cheap since it's off-season and slumping.
The wedding turned out great - they got married, and to the best of my knowledge, they still are.
Dineen and I also got to have brunch with a friend of ours who lives out in Vegas now and enjoyed the chance to catch up with her for a while.
I even won a nice little sum on the slot machines, although I think we were still slightly in the red for our three days of gambling - depending on how the college bowl games turn out.
Would I ever go back? Sure, if someone else I know gets married, and I'll have a good time again. But I'd probably rather go someplace warm. W