Ridge resigns. See who’s left here.

Webraw is hosting Memphis Blogger Bash III — this time with liveblogging potential. Fishkite readers 1 and 2 (of 2) are welcome to join us, I feel certain…

John Peters comments below:

you are totally blinded by the rightwing propaganda. This president is a miserable failure who has not only failed in the war on terror he has increased the likihood of another attack inside our borders.

We are the most hated country in the world and this putz who plays at being president will likely destroy the economy of this country before he is through..

The dollar has never been weaker .. our trade deficit has never been higher and the national debt is at record levels and climbing.. .The only answer seems to be raise interest rates and reduce more taxes for the rich and gut social securty a recipe for disaster..

The walls between church and state are slowly being torn down [actually, these Christians want to build the wall! - FK] and they are selling books in the National Park bookstore at the Grand Canyon saying that the Canyon was formed from Noah’s flood.. The only people that can’t see this president as an abomination and the bleak future we have ahead of us while this putz is president wear blinders and go baaaah..

GOD SAVE AMERICA from BUSH and WHACKS LIKE YOU!!

[sic, sic, etc.]

Love the all-caps, John, thanks. I also love the book-burning twist — more evidence that true leftists are actually just hemp-wearing fascists.

I hadn’t heard about the Grand Canyon debate before. I suppose a news roundup is in order…

WaPo:

Visitors to the information plaza at Grand Canyon National Park are told how the Colorado River carved the great chasm over millennia through the rocks of the Colorado Plateau. But nestled among the hiking guides and souvenirs sold at the plaza bookstore is a book that tells a very different story of how the canyon came to be.

A federal review of whether the book — which asserts that the canyon was created in a matter of days as a result of the same flood that had threatened to sink Noah and his ark — should be sold at the park has been delayed for months as officials wrestle with the issue of separation of church and state.

“Grand Canyon: A Different View,” compiled by Colorado River guide Tom Vail, includes essays by creationists who maintain that the canyon’s sedimentary strata were formed by deposits from Noah’s flood and that the canyon’s age should be based on a biblical rather than an evolutionary timeline — making it just thousands of years old, not the 6 million years that geologists say.

…

Meanwhile, the book has been moved from the natural science section to the inspirational section in the store.

The bookstore is run by a nonprofit group, but park officials approve which books can be sold there. Several others have been rejected in past months for including outdated or inaccurate information. Members of the scientific community are questioning why Vail’s book was approved.

NYTIMES Correction: “An article in Science Times on Tuesday about a debate over the sale of a book offering a creationist view of the formation of Grand Canyon in bookstores at the national park referred incorrectly to a letter written by the presidents of seven scientific organizations to the park superintendent. The letter asked that the book be clearly separated from materials offering scientific information about Grand Canyon geology, not that it be removed from the stores. As the article reported, only the main store is large enough to have separate sections; there, the operators say, the book is shelved with “inspirational” materials rather than scientific ones.”

TIME: “The creationists have demonstrated again that they are scientifically illiterate, and out of step with the 21st century.”

Beliefnet:

Answers in Genesis, a ministry whose president wrote an essay in the book, is urging its supporters to ask park service officials to permit “Grand Canyon: A Different View” to remain on the shelves of the park’s three bookstores.

…The book, compiled by Tom Vail, features colorful photographs of the canyon and essays reflecting a creationist’s view of its development. “For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years,” writes Vail on the Web site of his Phoenix-based Canyon Ministries about the book. “Then I met the Lord. Now, I have ‘a different view’ of the canyon, which, according to a biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than a few thousand years old.”

I blame scientists; after all, they are the ones forcing the flood issue! Again!

Here’s something to read if you’re a science junkie looking for a Christian perspective: Does God Exist?

If you’re interested in the Flood book, or if you just want to annoy John Peters, buy it here (Fishkite gets a bonus if you do).

John Derbyshire offers his election 2004 analysis with two top-ten lists. I don’t agree with all his notes, but I had a similar idea this morning - the top ten campaign blunders of 2004.

As you can tell from the title of this post, it didn’t turn out the way I intended. First of all, I couldn’t come up with ten goofs made by Bush/Cheney; sure, there’s the time the VP mistakenly directed debate viewers to a website controlled by liberal billionaire George Soros, and Bush’s repetition and peeved facial expressions during the first debate, and the President’s poor handling of the media’s “cite your mistakes” question - those qualify. But overall the Republican ticket ran a very good campaign, staged a brilliant convention and held their own in the debates.

Kerry/Edwards, on the other hand, stepped in it daily and produced gaffe after gaffe. Adding them all up, it’s impressive that the Democrat ticket finished as well as it did; that’s why I’m not so sure about what some on the right are hailing as a lasting conservative regime. I don’t see that in the cards at all. I think what we had was a left-leaning electorate that, in the end, simply couldn’t support the lousy candidates they nominated, and was still dazed by the “fading but still potent aura of 9/11.” It won’t be as easy next time.

But for now, we have a two-year window, and 43 reasons to be thankful this holiday season. Why 43? Because that’s how many goofs immediately came to mind as I thought back on the Kerry/Edwards campaign - the 43 mistakes that kept Kerry from beating our 43rd U.S. President.

By the way, Democrats can be thankful, too, in knowing that they probably only lost because John Kerry was such a terrible candidate.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Kerry, a Boston Red Sox guy, says he is a big fan of “Manny Ortiz,” otherwise known as David Ortiz or Manny Ramirez. Earlier, Kerry says his favorite Red Sox player of all time was Eddie Yost, who never played for them.

2. Kerry refers to “Lambert field,” otherwise known as Lambeau Field.

3. Kerry praises the Ohio State Buckeyes, while in Michigan; he recovers: “…but that’s when I was in Ohio…”

4. Kerry says the use of American military force must pass the “global test.”

5. Kerry says, “I actually voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it.”

6. Kerry and Edwards exploit Mary Cheney in the debates.

7. Kerry and Edwards exploit Christopher Reeve; Edwards says people like him will get up and walk again if they win the White House.

8. Kerry says he still would have voted for war in Iraq, even if he knew we wouldn’t find WMD stockpiles.

9. Kerry says his “article of faith” cannot factor into his voting record, then he says “faith without works is dead.”

10. Kerry has no answer for Jon Stewart when asked about his tale of spending “Christmas in Cambodia.”

11. Kerry promises to release all his military records, then fails to sign a Standard Form 180 to release them.

12. Kerry says all his military records are available at his campaign headquarters, then refuses a reporter and later admits they are not public.

13. Kerry arrives at his convention, “reporting for duty.”

14. Kerry bases his entire campaign on 4 months of service in Vietnam, 30 years ago, and his disputed record of heroism.

15. Kerry’s minimum wage plan backfires.

16. The Democrat convention features speakers other than a conservative-sounding Barak Obama.

17. Kerry fails to draft John McCain for VP.

18. Edwards doesn’t live up to the hype and doesn’t deliver even his home state (bonus: visit link for prophetic “values” comment).

19. The Kerry/Edwards campaign remains unsure if there is one America or if there are two.

20. Kerry claims he hasn’t “spent negative money attacking Bush,” but he runs a negative campaign, fails to offer a credible alternative and settles for being not-Bush.

21. Kerry says he has a plan for every conceivable topic but offers very few details.

22. Kerry keeps his plans secret, reminds reporter of Nixon.

23. Kerry’s campaign holds up Ambassador Joe Wilson as the standard-bearer of truth and honesty, before Wilson is exposed as a liar by the 9/11 commission and has a meltdown.

24. Kerry’s campaign retains Sandy Berger as advisor on national security issues, before Berger is investigated for mishandling top secret documents and has a meltdown.

25. Kerry’s campaign manager collaborates with CBS’s 60 minutes story and contacts Ben Barnes, before the guard docs are shown to be forgeries and Dan Rather has a meltdown.

26. Kerry votes against ban on partial-birth abortion, although Kerry says he believes “life begins at conception.”

27. Kerry tells Miami audience he voted for an anti-Castro Helms-Burton bill, but he actually voted against it.

28. Kerry adopts Bush’s campaign 200
0 slogan, changing only one letter - Hope is on the way - but ending up with a meaningless phrase (you might need to wait for help, but hope is always there).

29. Kerry says Iraq war is “the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time,” even though he authorized it.

30. Kerry spreads military draft rumors, while offering a plan for mandatory service on his website.

31. Campaign manager calls visiting Iraqi Prime Minister a puppet and a liar, Kerry calls U.S. allies “the coerced and the bribed,” while claiming that he can expand the coalition and bring more allies on board.

32. Kerry flip-flops on the war, again and again.

33. Kerry flip-flops on everything else.

34. Kerry dresses in a funny space suit.

35. Kerry dresses in a funny hunting suit; says each hunter got one goose, but fails to produce his catch.

36. Papers find that Kerry voted to ban a firearm he owns.

37. Kerry says, “I don’t own an SUV,” then says his family has one, not him.

38. In 2002, Edwards says “Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country,” then he campaigns against the war in 2004.

39. Kerry says we need to “get back” to where terrorists were only a “nuisance” and compares terror war to prostitution and illegal gambling.

40. Kerry praises Bush 41 for his Gulf War leadership and the coalition he assembled, but Kerry actually voted against that war.

41. Kerry claims to have passed 56 bills he had “personally written” in the Senate; FactCheck.org finds there were only 11. Kerry’s Senate record begins to look even less distinguished than people thought.

42. Kerry speaks French on the campaign trail.

43. Kerry claims to have “met with” foreign leaders who endorsed him, but he was never around any on the campaign trail and was unable to produce any names.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude plan to wrap Central Park in fabric. Way cool:

For two weeks in February, walkways in Central Park will be festooned with 23 miles of saffron-colored fabric gates by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude in a public art project they have sought to do for 23 years.

The artists had unsuccessfully been trying for years to win city approval for the piece, titled “The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979 to 2005,” until Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is a patron of the arts, agreed to it.

I believe that’s the first good thing the new mayor has done in office.

“All our work is about freedom,” the artists said Monday in a statement, addressing the impermanence of their work. “Nobody can buy our projects, nobody can sell tickets to experience our projects.

“Freedom is the enemy of possession and possession is equal to permanence. That is why our projects cannot remain and must go away forever. Our projects are ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ and ‘once upon a time.’”

This will probably come back to haunt me, but I love that. I love freedom. I love the expressions of freedom. But I have a nagging suspicion that Christo is just another artist trying to advance communism, relativism or some other unpleasant -ism. Until I have proof, I’ll assume the best.

The artists… have previously wrapped the German Reichstag and the Pont Neuf in Paris in fabric and surrounded part of Australia’s coast in sand-colored cloth…

But wait, there’s more!

Out of admiration, tonight I’m going to wrap myself in a blanket.

One of my favorite new blogs, the Daily Recycler, is back after a short break with this video of President Clinton’s interview with Peter Jennings. The clip is revealing, but Slate’s Mickey Kaus has an insightful reaction I hadn’t considered:

Ex-President Bill Clinton, in an interview with Peter Jennings:

You know, my position on the Iraq War was different from almost everybody else’s that I’ve heard talk. I supported giving the president the authority to take action against Saddam Hussein if he did not cooperate with the U.N. inspectors, or if he was found to have had weapons of mass destruction he wouldn’t give up. I did believe that the administration made a mistake going to war when they did, and that’s what alienated the world. Most Americans still haven’t focused on this. [Emphasis added]

Wait. Wasn’t that John Kerry’s position on Iraq? It sounded like a flip-flop when Kerry said it! … [But Kerry said he'd have supported giving the authority even if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--ed. Staff error.]

Heh.

Daily Recycler also has video of the basketbrawl , and of Bush clearing his secret service agent in Chile.

Powell says we should watch Iran.

Iran denies any nuclear activities. This part is interesting:

The NCRI also said Iran was enriching uranium at an undeclared site in northeast Tehran, despite promising to halt such work as part of a deal with France, Britain and Germany.

…An IAEA report of its two-year investigation of Iran’s nuclear program said on Monday Iran had not diverted any of its declared nuclear materials to a weapons program, but did not rule out the possibility secret atomic activities existed.

The NCRI is the political wing of the exiled group known as the People’s Mujahideen Organization (MKO). Both are listed by the State Department and the EU as terrorist organizations.

President Clinton’s trailer opens tomorrow. Check out the website. What’s up with the scrolling flags? Wasn’t Clinton the leader of the U.S. only, or did I miss the part where he took over the U.N., too?

Oh, and we must have some fun with the about page:

The Clinton Presidential Center has been designed to encompass the vision of President Clinton and capture the imagination of the millions of visitors who will pass through its
doors[, lounge in the oval office] or linger in its gardens. The Center, located within a 30-acre city park along the south bank of the Arkansas River in Little Rock, is a gift to the American heartland and will serve as the base of operations for President Clinton’s national and international public service initiatives and as a forum for the promotion of progressive ideas. The Presidential Center site includes the Presidential Library and Museum, the Rock Island Railroad Bridge which will be renovated to become a pedestrian bridge crossing the Arkansas River and the Choctaw Station, built in 1899, which will house the Clinton School of Public Service and Clinton Foundation offices.

Why, it’s like a bridge to the 21st century - an alternative 21st century, where “your grandchildren will live under socialism” and “understand the progressive nature of a socialist society!”

“[There's] not any example of where I ever disgraced this country publicly. I made a terrible public-personal mistake, but I paid for it, many times over. And in spite of it all, you don’t have any example where I ever lied to the American people about my job, where I ever let the American people down.” - Fmr. President Bill Clinton

“I have a very, very powerful faith in God. I’m a really religious person, and I don’t believe that I was put on this earth to be sour, so I’m eternally optimistic about things.” - Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor