Politics Daily
Inside Politics Daily
Scott Brown and the Palin Path: Will He Choose Brassy or Boring?
Democrats Leave Health Care Behind for Jobs, Toyota, Gays in Military
Murtha Turned Against War, but Not Grab-While-You-Can Politics
Rep. John Murtha, Advocate for Pa. District, Pentagon, Dies at 77
Liz Christman, Enemy of the Passive Voice, Who Rocked Some Jaunty Hats
Is Obama's Search for 'Common Ground' Real?- Tim Tebow's Brilliant Fake Leads to Pro-Life Score
'Snowmageddon' in D.C. -- The Politics, Talk Shows and Snowball Fights Go On
Sarah Palin Serves Tea Party Delegates Red Meat and Certainty
My Left Breast Put Fancy TSA Scanner to the Test
From a Grass Roots Tea Party, a PAC Blooms
At Nashville Tea Party: Saving the Country, Waiting for Palin
Empty Chair at the WaPo Salon
They would have had not a chair, really, or even an empty place at Katharine Weymouth's health care reform "salon." Her dining table would have been crammed full, since there's no shortage of politicos willing to ante up the $25,000-per-lobbyist admission price for dinner. But for patients – the people most affected by health care reform – sorry.
PD toolbar!
It's a moot point now, since Weymouth has canceled the planned July 21 get-together at her house after an uproar about the opportunity for lobbyists to meet with the paper's health care reporters, as well as Obama Administration officials, for an off-the-record discussion of important issues. But even if the idea hadn't blown up in their faces, patients were never invited to the table.
Perhaps Weymouth was just being considerate. Maybe she assumed people living with chronic illness couldn't afford the $25,000 to attend, since practically every dime they have goes for co-pays, medication, insurance premiums and the rent.
Furthermore, patients might lack the right clothes. Sometimes they drag along cumbersome equipment like oxygen tanks. Not to mention unattractive teeth and thinning hair.
And patients do tend to go on about their diseases. At the salon, as the kick-off in what The Post hoped would become a tradition, the conversation must be light and breezy.
Take a cue from the invitation emailed – from Weymouth's personal email account – to Representative Jim Cooper, now posted on The Atlantic Web site. Washington Post Publisher Weymouth, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and health care reporter Ceci Connolly are hosting:
The evening will be absolutely delightful, dahling!
In her own defense, Weymouth says she didn't approve the flier that advertised the event, which she said in a note to readers in Sunday's Post did not "accurately reflect what we had in mind.'' So, she didn't understand the significance of the event and how it might violate the ethics code? A newspaper publisher who doesn't understand plain English. Or journalism ethics. Hmmm.
Maybe Weymouth would have garnered less scorn had she also invited, say, the widow of pancreatic cancer patient Randy Pausch. [Disclosure: I am a survivor of the often-fatal ovarian cancer.] Or someone with Lou Gehrig's disease. Or someone from I'm Too Young for This, an advocacy group for cancer patients aged 15 to 40, a demographic that has seen zero improvement in death rates for the last 30 years.
As it is, Weymouth might find herself in the same boneyard as politicians seized by an irresistible urge to spend more time with their families. May the gods have mercy on her. May she never be struck down by one of the devastating diseases that afflict The Uninvited.
But the gods do love irony, don't they?
Follow PoliticsDaily On Facebook and Twitter,
and download the new Politics Daily toolbar!
PD toolbar!
It's a moot point now, since Weymouth has canceled the planned July 21 get-together at her house after an uproar about the opportunity for lobbyists to meet with the paper's health care reporters, as well as Obama Administration officials, for an off-the-record discussion of important issues. But even if the idea hadn't blown up in their faces, patients were never invited to the table.
Perhaps Weymouth was just being considerate. Maybe she assumed people living with chronic illness couldn't afford the $25,000 to attend, since practically every dime they have goes for co-pays, medication, insurance premiums and the rent.
Furthermore, patients might lack the right clothes. Sometimes they drag along cumbersome equipment like oxygen tanks. Not to mention unattractive teeth and thinning hair.
And patients do tend to go on about their diseases. At the salon, as the kick-off in what The Post hoped would become a tradition, the conversation must be light and breezy.
Take a cue from the invitation emailed – from Weymouth's personal email account – to Representative Jim Cooper, now posted on The Atlantic Web site. Washington Post Publisher Weymouth, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and health care reporter Ceci Connolly are hosting:
". . . what we hope will be a lively, sophisticated, civil and useful conversation about health care reform with a small group of people who really know the subject . . . Please let me know at your earliest convenience; we will send the address and directions to my Chevy Chase, DC home."
The evening will be absolutely delightful, dahling!
In her own defense, Weymouth says she didn't approve the flier that advertised the event, which she said in a note to readers in Sunday's Post did not "accurately reflect what we had in mind.'' So, she didn't understand the significance of the event and how it might violate the ethics code? A newspaper publisher who doesn't understand plain English. Or journalism ethics. Hmmm.
Maybe Weymouth would have garnered less scorn had she also invited, say, the widow of pancreatic cancer patient Randy Pausch. [Disclosure: I am a survivor of the often-fatal ovarian cancer.] Or someone with Lou Gehrig's disease. Or someone from I'm Too Young for This, an advocacy group for cancer patients aged 15 to 40, a demographic that has seen zero improvement in death rates for the last 30 years.
As it is, Weymouth might find herself in the same boneyard as politicians seized by an irresistible urge to spend more time with their families. May the gods have mercy on her. May she never be struck down by one of the devastating diseases that afflict The Uninvited.
But the gods do love irony, don't they?
and download the new Politics Daily toolbar!
-
PRINT
-
IM
-
E-mail
12 comments
+ add your own
Donna Trussell
Donna Trussell is a poet, fiction writer, and former film critic. Her 2008 poetry collection, What’s Right about What’s Wrong, was published by Helicon Nine... more
Comments (12)
bonbon
7:41PM Jul 6th 2009
and exactly where does this 25,000.00 dollars a plate go go, anyway.
reminds me of the stimulus package, seems the people who really are in dire need are the ones who never get asked for their much needed in-put.
reminds me of the stimulus package, seems the people who really are in dire need are the ones who never get asked for their much needed in-put.
RATE THIS COMMENT:
(0)
(0) 
bonbon
7:42PM Jul 6th 2009
excuse me, I meant go to, not go go
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) joedenver60
7:56PM Jul 6th 2009
Yes, the gods do love irony........good article
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) giles chauvin
8:03PM Jul 6th 2009
a lot of these posts sound like that old 60's joke about people's go-go being gone-gone.
next there'll be complaints about having to pay to have your picture taken with notorious politicians.
next there'll be complaints about having to pay to have your picture taken with notorious politicians.
RATE THIS COMMENT:
(-1)
(-1) boredwell
8:52PM Jul 6th 2009
Weymouth, like Mark Sanford, needs to learn a thing or two about locking down your personal ISP account. Someone purloined the governor's emails and now the publisher is blaming the ad dept for sending hers!
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) wheeljc
8:52PM Jul 6th 2009
When will Weymouth reveal the following:
* Her contacts in the White House, and the names of those who were going to attend her 'dinner' during the month of July.
* Her contacts in the Congress, and the names of both members and staffers who were going to attend her 'dinner' during the month of July.
* Names of the 'WaPo journalists' who were going to attend this august group.
* Whether or not there was a paper trail (including Emails) with Robert Gibbs regarding the overall strategy.
Until such time as the publisher starts naming names, then she is not serious about cleaning up the mess she has created -- not to mention the loss of integrity and credibility in old WaPo!
* Her contacts in the White House, and the names of those who were going to attend her 'dinner' during the month of July.
* Her contacts in the Congress, and the names of both members and staffers who were going to attend her 'dinner' during the month of July.
* Names of the 'WaPo journalists' who were going to attend this august group.
* Whether or not there was a paper trail (including Emails) with Robert Gibbs regarding the overall strategy.
Until such time as the publisher starts naming names, then she is not serious about cleaning up the mess she has created -- not to mention the loss of integrity and credibility in old WaPo!
RATE THIS COMMENT:
(3)
(3) giles chauvin
12:48AM Jul 7th 2009
it's like she's madame de stael and mata hari all roled into one.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (1)
(1) Truth
1:14AM Jul 7th 2009
Speaking of news media corruption. Has anyone heard of global warming and the horrific disaster it will be? The entire media has been scare mongering about it for years. Bigger hurricanse, incineration, starvation, flooding , tidal waves, etc. etc. 2008 was predicted to be one of the hottest on record, according to the environmental experts! The media beat the global warming drum, and dutifully promulgated the liberal enviro/political agenda. There was NO MORE DEBATE NECESSARY, THE SCIENCE WAS COMPLETE!
Well bite this, my liberal chicken little, sky is falling friends:
Environment & Climate News
The Heartland Institute's national monthly outreach publication for common-sense environmentalism.
Global Cooling Continues
Environment & Climate News > March 2009
Environment > Climate: Temperatures
Email a Friend
Written By: James M. Taylor
Published In: Environment & Climate News > March 2009
Publication date: 03/01/2009
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continuing a decade-long trend of declining global temperatures, the year 2008 was significantly colder than 2007, and global temperatures for the year were below the average over the past 30 years.
The global temperature data, reported by NASA satellite-based temperature measurements, refuted predictions 2008 would be one of the warmest on record.
Data show 2008 ranked 14th coldest of the 30 years measured by NASA satellite instruments since they were first launched in 1979. It was the coldest year since 2000. (See accompanying figure.)
Satellite Precision
NASA satellites uniformly monitor the Earth’s lower atmosphere, which greenhouse gas theory predicts will show the first and most significant effects of human-caused global warming.
The satellite-based measurements are uncorrupted by urban heat islands and localized land-use changes that often taint records from surface temperature stations, giving false indications of warming.
The uncorrupted satellite-based temperature measurements refute surface temperature station data finding 2008 to be one of the top 10 warmest years on record.
“How can an ‘average year’ in one database appear to be a [top 10] warmest year in another?” asked meteorologist Joe D’Aleo on his International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project Web site.
“Well, the global databases of [surface station reports] are all contaminated by urbanization, major station dropout, missing data, bad siting, instruments with known warm biases being introduced without adjustment, and black-box and man-made adjustments designed to maximize [reported] warming,” explained D’Aleo.
Warming Trend Overstated
“The substantial and continuing La Niña cooled the Earth quite a bit in 2008, to the point that it was slightly below the 30-year average [1979-2008] but slightly above the 20-year average [1979-1998],” said John Christy, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).
“From research we have published, and more to come soon, we find that land surface air temperatures misrepresent the actual temperature changes in the deep atmosphere—where the greenhouse effect is anticipated to have its easiest impact to measure. Surface thermometers are affected by many influences, especially surface development, so the bulk atmospheric measurements from satellites offer a straightforward indicator of how much heat is or is not accumulating in the air, for whatever reason,” Christy explained.
“Recent published evidence also supports the long-term trends of UAH as being fairly precise, so the observed rate of warming is noticeably less than that projected by the IPCC ‘Best Estimate’ model simulations which, we hypothesize, are too sensitive to CO2 increases,” Christy added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James M. Taylor (jtaylor@heartland.org) is a senior fellow of The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
Well bite this, my liberal chicken little, sky is falling friends:
Environment & Climate News
The Heartland Institute's national monthly outreach publication for common-sense environmentalism.
Global Cooling Continues
Environment & Climate News > March 2009
Environment > Climate: Temperatures
Email a Friend
Written By: James M. Taylor
Published In: Environment & Climate News > March 2009
Publication date: 03/01/2009
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continuing a decade-long trend of declining global temperatures, the year 2008 was significantly colder than 2007, and global temperatures for the year were below the average over the past 30 years.
The global temperature data, reported by NASA satellite-based temperature measurements, refuted predictions 2008 would be one of the warmest on record.
Data show 2008 ranked 14th coldest of the 30 years measured by NASA satellite instruments since they were first launched in 1979. It was the coldest year since 2000. (See accompanying figure.)
Satellite Precision
NASA satellites uniformly monitor the Earth’s lower atmosphere, which greenhouse gas theory predicts will show the first and most significant effects of human-caused global warming.
The satellite-based measurements are uncorrupted by urban heat islands and localized land-use changes that often taint records from surface temperature stations, giving false indications of warming.
The uncorrupted satellite-based temperature measurements refute surface temperature station data finding 2008 to be one of the top 10 warmest years on record.
“How can an ‘average year’ in one database appear to be a [top 10] warmest year in another?” asked meteorologist Joe D’Aleo on his International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project Web site.
“Well, the global databases of [surface station reports] are all contaminated by urbanization, major station dropout, missing data, bad siting, instruments with known warm biases being introduced without adjustment, and black-box and man-made adjustments designed to maximize [reported] warming,” explained D’Aleo.
Warming Trend Overstated
“The substantial and continuing La Niña cooled the Earth quite a bit in 2008, to the point that it was slightly below the 30-year average [1979-2008] but slightly above the 20-year average [1979-1998],” said John Christy, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).
“From research we have published, and more to come soon, we find that land surface air temperatures misrepresent the actual temperature changes in the deep atmosphere—where the greenhouse effect is anticipated to have its easiest impact to measure. Surface thermometers are affected by many influences, especially surface development, so the bulk atmospheric measurements from satellites offer a straightforward indicator of how much heat is or is not accumulating in the air, for whatever reason,” Christy explained.
“Recent published evidence also supports the long-term trends of UAH as being fairly precise, so the observed rate of warming is noticeably less than that projected by the IPCC ‘Best Estimate’ model simulations which, we hypothesize, are too sensitive to CO2 increases,” Christy added.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James M. Taylor (jtaylor@heartland.org) is a senior fellow of The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (1)
(1) giles chauvin
11:53AM Jul 7th 2009
and yet, the great state of Louisiana started hitting 100 degree temperatures in the second week of june, so that by july 4th everybody was used to the 106 degrees it got that day, when in the 50's school teachers used to horrify La. students by telling them that in arizona it often got to be 105 degrees in the summer...and no one could fathom it getting that hot.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (-1)
(-1) bonbon
12:14PM Jul 7th 2009
while here in NYS we are seeing temperatures well below the normals for this time of year.
june was cool and rainy, while the predictions were for hot and dry.
July , our normal hot month, has thus far, has not had temperatures much above the very low 70's during the days, and most have been between 65 and 69, and our nights have been much cooler than normal as well.
last winter was much colder than predicted.
must be global warming in reverse.
june was cool and rainy, while the predictions were for hot and dry.
July , our normal hot month, has thus far, has not had temperatures much above the very low 70's during the days, and most have been between 65 and 69, and our nights have been much cooler than normal as well.
last winter was much colder than predicted.
must be global warming in reverse.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) tom
2:17PM Jul 7th 2009
Health care may become the flash point that causes true 'social unrest' when working people cannot take care of the people they are responsible for and are forced to do nothing while loved ones suffer and die. This isn't an exaggeration. It is happening right now on the fringes and will become more prevalent as our states deal with insolvency. Back when I had insurance I had a brush with cancer and the care I received was pretty good.If I were diagnosed with cancer today my only option would be to find a safe place to die. Anybody spare a Vicodin?
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) tom
5:07PM Jul 7th 2009
Such interesting articles here at Weather.com!
Here is the comment that I would have left on NY Times columnist David Brooks latest article entitled ‘In Search of Dignity’, had they not closed the comments and had they deigned to print my comment if they were not closed.
Mr. Brooks writes:
“Today, Americans still lavishly admire people who are naturally dignified, whether they are in sports (Joe DiMaggio and Tom Landry), entertainment (Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks) or politics (Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr.).”
The wide discrepancy in examples of dignified people (reagan AND MLK, really?) underscores what I have come to understand about human dignity which can be illustrated thuswise-
“Should one observes a human acting with apparent dignity one should look upon this as one would look upon observing ones dog engaging in an unusual pursuit, such as skeet shooting or driving; with alarmed bemusement. ” TFitz
I know it’s a little stilted but this comment was meant for the Times, after all.
Here is the comment that I would have left on NY Times columnist David Brooks latest article entitled ‘In Search of Dignity’, had they not closed the comments and had they deigned to print my comment if they were not closed.
Mr. Brooks writes:
“Today, Americans still lavishly admire people who are naturally dignified, whether they are in sports (Joe DiMaggio and Tom Landry), entertainment (Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks) or politics (Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr.).”
The wide discrepancy in examples of dignified people (reagan AND MLK, really?) underscores what I have come to understand about human dignity which can be illustrated thuswise-
“Should one observes a human acting with apparent dignity one should look upon this as one would look upon observing ones dog engaging in an unusual pursuit, such as skeet shooting or driving; with alarmed bemusement. ” TFitz
I know it’s a little stilted but this comment was meant for the Times, after all.
RATE THIS COMMENT: (0)
(0) Add your comments
Woman Up on Facebook
Now Commenting
- vhgolfer36 on:
Transcript of News Conference by President Obama - sandsnnydz on:
Robert Gibbs Gets Hands On About Mocking Sarah Palin - gigantosapiens on:
Democrats Leave Health Care Behind for Jobs, Toyota, Gays in Military - Laura on:
Former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder Calls for White House Staff Shake-Up - onekansasmom on:
Robert Gibbs Gets Hands On About Mocking Sarah Palin - nancy on:
Americans Held in Haiti Plead for U.S. Government Help
Submit Your Favorite Links
No.
Props
Props
- 32
- 40
- 27
- 23
- 23
- 21
Follow Politics Daily
Other News
- Did a soldier waterboard his daughter?
- Surprise guest at White House briefing: Obama
- Pork is in the eye of the beholder
- State Farm: we warned government on Toyota in 2007
- Rich Lowry's brain
- Michael Steele Suggests Racism Fuels His Critics
- Robert Gibbs Pokes Fun at Sarah Palin
- World Likes Obama Much More Than Bush
- Obama Makes New Plea for Bipartisanship
- Sarah Palin Must Heed Yogi Berra
- This Week's Hot Reads
- A Greek Economic Tragedy
- No Idol for Stern
- Iran on the Brink
- The Race Card and the Jackson Doctor
- Iran's Acts 'Not Acceptable'
- Boehner: Why Discuss Dead Bill?
- Senate Rejects Obama Nominee
- Clinton Hostage-Taker Now a Fugitive
- Panic, Rescue Before World's Tallest Tower Is Shut Down
- President Obama: 'Put Aside Matter of Party' of Jobs Bill, Health Care
- Gloves Off: Gibbs Disses Palin From White House Podium
- Michelle Obama Responds to Palin Pokes
- Punch: Does Killing Democratic Legislation Create "Certainty"?
- PUNCH: Michelle Obama Kicks Off 'Let's Move' Initiative to Fight Childhood Obesity
Politics Daily More Links