Arguments Yard

see you on the 27th.

leaving CNN.

Hope he takes his teeth over to FOX.

having children is certainly expensive.

But it's well worth it.

Today, CNN told a sad story about couples who choose not to have children. One woman said, "You can turn the tables and say, gosh, isn't it selfish that you've had children that you expect to take care of you when you're old? Isn't [it] selfish that you want a replica of yourself?"

I had children so I could raise them in love, not to have replicas of myself. Still, if that's her attitude, maybe the world is better off without the children she'd bring into it...

Media bias. We all know it exists. But can anyone prove it?

UCLA thinks it has.

"Iraqi voters turned out in force countrywide Thursday to elect a parliament to remake their troubled nation, with Sunni-led Iraqi insurgent movements suspending attacks for a day so that Sunni Arabs could vote en masse for the first time."

Hum. Democracy putting a halt to violence?

Who could have written such a thing as this? "In the end, democracy -- the will of the people -- will prove especially dangerous to those who wish to rule by decree or establish a new caliphate."

I just don't get how conservatives can claim government is so incompetent that it can't even teach biology, but do think government is competent enough to execute its own citizens without ever making an error.

I just don't get how a party that claims to support a "culture of life" can overwhelmingly support the death penalty.

I just don't get how religious conservatives continue to support a process whereby government gets to decide when people will die, regardless of how much life they may have remaining in which to repent and try to build a relationship with God.

I just don't get how people can look at a guy who is actively campaigning to reduce gang violence and decide it's better for society if we execute him than if we let him continue to work to save the lives of both gang members and, by extension, their potential innocent victims.

I just don't get how a civilized society can continue to support revenge masquerading as justice.

Look, I don't care for Stanley Williams. What he has done in his life is abhorrent, and it has hurt a lot of people. But what he was doing from prison was helping society. It wouldn't ever make up for what he has done, but in what way does society benefit from killing a guy who is working to reduce gang violence? A guy who had the kind of life experience and influence to get the attention of gang members, and thus maybe persuade some small number of them to go straight, redeem themselves, and not follow his path of killing innocent victims?

Instead, government killed him. Some people will argue that executions serve as a deterrent, but to my knowledge no data back that up. Meanwhile, Williams was working actively as a living, breathing deterrent. Had he continued to live, it's entirely possible that he would have saved lives. Now he won't. His execution will likely contribute to more death.

But at least we got our revenge.

In his annual year-ender, George Will reports, "In a Las Vegas suburb, the United Food and Commercial Workers union hired temp workers at $6 an hour to picket a nonunion Wal-Mart, where wages start at $6.75 an hour."

"I have the right that every other author has, not to have the review assigned to someone whose book you've slammed," NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd whined recently.

Three things about this:

1) She has no such right.
2) Would it really be possible to find an author who's book Dowd hasn't slammed?
3) The spell checker wants to replace "Dowd" with "dowdy", which seems about right.

When I write a book, I'd be happy to have Dowd review it, even though I've slammed her.

MSNBC's Rita Crosby to report from "Porn Valley."

Since Rita insists on being visible in EVERY SINGLE camera shot, this could get interesting. Will she don a teddy and join the Playboy girls on the couch?

the sinking of the Titantic, I doubt he would later have written an op-ed about it.

Steve Case has.

Here's a guy who probably ought to be in jail. Throughout 2000, as AOL was attempting to buy Time Warner, AOLiens propped up the company's ad sales so its stock wouldn't collapse. Case either knew about this, in which case he's responsible or he didn't, in which case he's criminally (in my humble view) responsible. That's why CEOs make the big $.

Anyway, it's grating for me, a man who lost my job because of this mega-merger, to read Case write "As one of the largest individual shareholders in the company, with holdings worth more than $250 million, I obviously have a stake in seeing all of Time Warner do better."

Yea, I feel for you, buddy. You only made out with $250 million? How do you possibly get by?

Here's a deal born in lies, built on a fantasy (that AOL was an actual company, making money, rather than a pretend artifice given substance by the silliness of the dot-com bubble) and held together by criminal activity.

As I said when the deal was announced in 2000, Time Warner was foolish to attempt to sell itself, a company that earned money, owned valuable properties and had a chance of long-term survival, to a company that was nothing more than an artificial stock price.

However, if I was Steve Case, I'd keep my mouth shut and count my loot, instead of reminding the world of the role I played in one of the greatest heists ever played on a corporation, its stockholders and employees.

this woman needed to have sex with a 14-year-old.

He looks like a dummy (well, he is a dummy, he looks like a mannequin) propped up in a chair. Nothing moves but his mouth.

Last night on the local news, the anchor reported he'd spoken to someone on the Southwest jet that skidded off a runway in Chicago.

The witness reported the plane "picked up speed" after it hit the ground.

Shades of Phil Rizzuto calling a Yankees game. "That ball picked up speed when it hit the artificial turf..."

The sounds of silence?

(I wonder if I could do a post that was ALL song titles?)

Miles O'Brien on CNN this morning says, "Now to Iraq, where we're less than a week away from the elections we've heard so much about..."

Heard so much about? Have you heard much about them? I sure haven't.

A Google news search shows the NY Times and IHT have written about them, but they're far from mainstream front page news.

Now, put in Murtha, and then you get some hits!

"War debate keeps Murtha in public eyeThe Tribune-Democrat, PA"

"Jack Murtha and the Lessons of VietnamTech Central Station, DC"

"Murtha's Tough Stand Boosts His ProfileABC News"

"Murtha’s nerve rattles the rightCentre Daily Times, PA"

On and on and on and on.

But be honest -- in 20 years, no 10 or even 5 years, what's going to matter more, Murtha's speeches, or the Iraqi elections? My money's on the voters.

even if the stars come out on his behalf.

Why not?

Look at those arms. Think Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to take the chance he'll ever have to face this dude in a pose off if he goes back to professional bodybuilding? No way.

that the CIA killed John Lennon.

The truth is more mundane.

Apparently, the CIA was trying to kill Vladimir Lenin, because it was unaware he had died in 1924. Such is the state of our intelligence.

The Braves trade Johnny Estrada for two pitchers.

Not a bad deal. They've got a couple of catchers ready, McCann and another kid who's name escapes me. That's a tough position to have a backlog at.

Meanwhile, by losing Furcal to the Dodgers, they open a slot for Wilson Betemit at SS. They'll be OK next year.

it's Christmas, after all!

That's so funny -- just this week, my minister made a big deal out of the fact that Christmas was on a Sunday, and how we should come to church.

I can't believe any church would close its doors on Christmas.

I do have something of a different take from Mother Jones -- big surprise there. It seems to me the mega-churches are the ones that are more fundamental, not less.

Here's one from Kansas City that's growing fast by being more traditional. Pastor Adam Hamilton says "his church is successful because it doesn't water down its message and the congregation with all the trappings of a traditional church."

Then there's Rick Warren, of the best-selling book and megachurch. And the McLean Bible Church here in the D.C. area.

So maybe we can say that mega churches cater either to really religious people or people who really can't be bothered about religion?

I'm an atheist, but religion is something that I think about a lot - heck, I have a major in philosophy and religion to go with my degrees in psych. Anyway, I was struck by this article, about some megachurches across the nation closing on Christmas Day.

Mother Jones had an interesting article on megachurches earlier this year, one point of which was that these churches often water down religion to some extent in order to appeal to larger crowds, especially husbands who may be less interested in church than their wives. Not tied t specific denominational beliefs, they try for broader appeal of Christianity in general as opposed to doctrine at a specific level.

I'm not sure what to make of these - Rich likely has some views, I'm sure - but it does intrigue me that their consumer-driven approach apparently extends to the point of not making church services available on Christmas morning.

"Under no circumstances will this stadium cost $700 million," Mayor Anthony Williams told the D.C. city council.

I agree. Probably closer to $850 million. Certainly nothing like the $535 million Williams insists upon.

Meanwhile, baseball continues to violate its promises to Washington. It has no plans to sell the Nationals until a stadium deal is in place.

Of course, without an owner, there's no way this franchise can compete off the field. It's already lost one starting pitcher to free agency, and won't sign any players of its own.

The Senate should call baseball's bluff and tell Selig to sell the team right now. That's only fair.

Otherwise, Senators should lift baseball's immunity from anti-trust laws. Baseball is rigging the game because it can. But rest assured that, in an open market, the Tampa franchise would love to relocate to D.C. and its 30,000 fans per game.

coming off the train today, there were a couple of people handing out flyers explaining that, as one dude put it, "it's all Dick Cheney's fault."

That's not what I agreed with.

I agreed with his partner, who said, "It's time to end all the Dick jokes."

Yes, indeed.

Reminds me of Riz Khan, a former colleague at CNN International, who's now an author and an anchor, I believe, at al Jazeera.

He told me one time he was at a party, and the two people he was chatting with were "Richard Jones" and "Richard Smith." When he was asked to introduce himself he said, "Well, I'm no Dick..."

to watch "It's a Wonderful Life," here's a 30 second version. With bunnies!

Washington can be lovely when it snows, so I decided to take a stroll past the Supreme Court building on my way to work this morning. What I saw there was ugly.

A small group, maybe 5 or 6 people, was holding signs reading "God Hates You" and "God hates Fags." You see, I've always known that missing that week of Sunday School back in 7th grade would come back to haunt me, and now it has. I'd totally missed that message somehow.

These protestors are apparently stirred up about this case.

Somehow I was able to resist the urge to pelt these fools with snowballs. Maybe because the snow was too fluffy to compress easily. Or maybe because it wouldn't be worth getting arrested for these idiots.

I did, however, pelt a mailbox and a road sign with snowballs.

For some reason, the Mets are bringing all the Marlins north.

Hopefully Willie Randolph will do a better job managing these guys than Jack McKeon did.

As Colin notes, there's no luxary tax this year. The Mets, Red Sux and Dodgers are certainly taking advantage of that.

back on my keychain, without worrying I'll lose it at an airport.

Of course, it'll put these folks out of business.

by improving cow's diets?

Does this mean we can keep burning coal?

if I was a brutal dictator.

Can't feel too bad for the Dear Leader.