Quick Hits

When a news story falls through the cracks, I catch it and write 50-75 snarky words about it, for a segment I like to call Quick Hits.

• I seem to remember some report about how Bush was doing a U-turn and becoming "the environmental President." I guess the first step in that evolution is blocking a report that links the increased frequency and strength of hurricanes to global warming. Baby steps, baby steps.

• I agree with John Zogby that the environment would be a powerful issue in the election. Al Gore put it on everyone's minds, and the public is overwhelmingly convinced there's a problem, and the current leaders in Washington aren't doing a damn thing about it. After all, who are you going to believe on global warming, Gore or James Inhofe, the craziest person in the Senate?

• Continuing the "fuck up colossally, win a medal" approach to the war in Iraq, the Lincoln Group, who planted propaganda in Iraqi newspapers, just won a federal contract to - get this - do PR work for the military. Your tax dollars at work.

• NH-02: Charlie Bass, in a tough race in New Hampshire against Paul Hodes, claims in an ad that his opponent "wants to pull out" of Iraq and "send troops into Kurdistan."

Um, Kurdistan is in Iraq.

This guy's a CONGRESSMAN. I never new just how stupid our political leaders were before the Internets. You know, the series of tubes.

• Here's the deal on gas prices: they are NEVER the election issue everyone thinks they will be in the summer. The gas companies intentionally raise prices in the summer (because they believe more people are on the road and on driving vacations then) and dip them in the fall. Every year. Plus the party in power DOES have the means to control prices a bit. Ask Bill Clinton in 2000. So candidates should never run ads about gas prices because they'll always come back to haunt them.

• I believe the Ph.D. in economics on this one, but even a two year-old could figure it out:

If the Dow reaches a new record that'll mean it'll reach the level it reached in... early 2000, before Bush's tax cuts. And, of course, there's been inflation since then, so...

• According to ABC, the US Army has only two or three combat brigades that aren't committed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, if anything happens requiring troops, we have about 7-10,000 left to spare.

Feel safer?

• Speaking of other threats, umm... wasn't it three months ago that Kim Jong Il tested long-range ballistic missiles, one which failed, but may have been capable of reaching US protectorates like Guam?

How's THAT whole thing going?

• Brad Friedman got a lot of heat generated in Washington with his call for emergency paper ballot legislation. Both Houses of Congress have introduced a resolution, and I got information via email from Sen. Boxer on it this morning. Boxer, Dodd, Feingold and Kerry are now aboard, with Rush Holt on the House side. Those are some big hitters, and I hope they push it through. We need voter integrity in this country. E-machines can be hacked in minutes, and the POTENTIAL for that is the problem whether you believe it has been done or not.

• And finally, in a most amusing tale of washed-up and disgraced New York politicos, Jeannie Pirro (running for Attorney General in the state, which is hilarious when you hear what's next) asked her friend Bernie Kerik to bug her family boat so she could find out if her husband was cheating on her. Kerik, of course, was booted from being the nominee for head of DHS in late 2004 for his "nanny problem" which also included mob money and corruption and USING A CITY-OWNED PROPERTY FOR AN AFFAIR. So Jeannie must have figured "If anyone knows how to nail an adulterer, it's Bernie Kerik!"

This story is delicious.