Under Mayor Giuliani, municipal workers were forbidden to talk to the press without permission. Not surprisingly, the city lost a lawsuit over this. Now that we have a mayor who has heard of the Bill of Rights, the city won’t appeal the decision.
I’m not writing much on the blog, as I have an icky sinus thing and the drugs are making me incoherent. Here are two recent posts on other blogs that I’ve enjoyed:
As I’ve heard Ann Northrop say more than once, “How do they sleep at night?”.
Bob Barr, Georgia Republican and the House impeachment manager during the Clinton impeachment travesty, is suing Clinton, James Carville and Larry Flint for $30 million, claiming “loss of reputation and emotional distress”. (This is a Salon Premium article, so unless you’re a subscriber you’ll only see the beginning.)
Barr has quietly filed a suit against Clinton, Carville and Flynt for “participating in a common scheme and unlawful on-going conspiracy to attempt to intimidate, impede and/or retaliate against [Barr]” for his role as an impeachment manager in 1999.
At the same time, he’s championing a bill that would limit non-economic medical damages to $250,000, saying “a national liability insurance crisis is ravaging the nation’s healthcare system.”
There’s a mention of the lawsuit in the Washington Post, but not the bill limiting damages.
Speaking of Bob Barr… here is a nice little anecdote that was reported on the local NBC affiliate, plus the Alanta Journal and Constitution, about him calling an airport guard an “idiot little nigger”.
Matthew Engel of The Guardian, on Fifty ways to love America.
Actual AP headline: Bush pledges fight against evil:
“Evil is evil, and we will fight it with all our might,” the president said.
I am bouncing around all of the stations at soma fm.
Interesting article in the Washington Post:
A conservative group is suing the Bush administration for access to documents about last fall’s anthrax attacks, asserting that top officials might have known the bioterrorist attack was coming.
…
Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, said administration officials said last fall that some White House staff members had begun taking the antibiotic Cipro on Sept. 11, weeks before the anthrax attacks were made public.
“We believe that the White House knew or had reason to know that an anthrax attack was imminent or underway,” Klayman said. “We want to know what the government knew and when they knew it.”
I’m not posting much lately because I’m going to a lot of films at the New Festival. I’ll make comments later on my favorites. Almost nothing I’ve seen has been sold out (since I tend to shy away from this sort of material), so all of you reading this should go see some movies!
Good column in the SF Chronicle, courtesy of Sam:
I think I better plan my trip to Sicily soon. This might change it, and not necessarily for the better.