Ruh-roh … « a Fascist nerd-twit on the Federal Elections Commission just made a shot across bloggers’ collective bows » in what is probably a typically nasty campaign by the Fascists to destroy McCain-Feingold:

‘Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over. In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign’s Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate’s press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines. Smith should know. He’s one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet. In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. “The commission’s exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines” the campaign finance law’s purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.’

— News.com

‘Bradley’ … sounds like a brat/twit, doesn’t he? (Just look at his picture on the article.)

Oh well. I don’t really link much to campaign sites here; I can’t think of any that I did in campaign ‘04 (although I could be wrong). And I have very mixed feelings about McCain-Feingold. This will also bear close watching.

Folks are a bit up in arms because « British Airways flew a 747 on two long trips with just three operating engines » [gasp]:

‘A British Airways jet that continued on an 11-hour flight from Los Angeles to London after one of its four engines lost power also flew on three engines on a later flight from Singapore to London, the airline said Friday. The Boeing 747 left Singapore on February 25 and landed at London’s Heathrow Airport the next day, arriving only 15 minutes behind schedule, BA spokesman Jay Marritt said. Three hours into the 14-hour flight, an oil pressure indicator showed there was a problem with one of the engines, which the captain shut down as a precaution, Marritt said. It was the captain’s decision to continue with Flight 18, which was carrying 356 passengers, he added. “It’s still very safe to fly a 747 on three engines,” Marritt said. “It is certified to do so.”

— CNN

Well, it’s certified to finish a flight on less than four engines if it’s in the middle of nowhere with no landing strip in sight (as opposed to, say, a few miles from KLAX), but sure, we could quibble over that small detail.

Those evil gentlemen in the so-called liberal media are trying to draw a connection between these two incidents and a new comma-nistic, anti-bidness European Union regulation dictating fair compensation for inconvenienced passengers:

‘The decision not to return that flight after the engine lost power raised concerns about a new European Union law which requires European carriers to reimburse passengers for substantial delays. U.S. officials said they have no evidence the airline’s decision to continue on was influenced by the regulation. “We would never compromise the safety of our passengers,” said British Airways spokeswoman Diane Fung on Monday. “The plane is certified to fly on three engines. It is perfectly safe to do so. The pilots are trained for such situations.’

Right. You flew a 747 from KLAX to KLHR and again from KSIN to KLHR on three engines because it’s such a bitchin’ fine airplane (and hey, not operating that fourth engine saves expensive fuel!) and not because you’d have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars in compensation to 100+ inconvencied passengers.

Hmmmmmm.

Well, I’m an unrepentent old socialist; I love the new regulation. It would have been wonderful if it had existed back in April of 2000 when I was stuck for nine hours in the Venice, Italy, airport by Air France and just got a voucher for a $4.50 slice of cold pizza for lunch. The worst pizza I’ve ever eaten was in Italy. But I digress.

This one bears more watching.

Now, here’s yet another reason to consider Canadian citizenship: « somebody above the 49th has a spine and knows how to stand up to the Fascists »:

‘Dear Condi,

‘I’m glad you’ve decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It’s a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more. I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.’

— Winnipeg Free Press

Great stuff, eh? O, Canada! Thanks, Lloyd!

« Further proof that Lincoln was gay », by Paul Rudnick:

‘The first draft of the Gettysburg Address began, “Four score and seven years ago-ish …”

… ‘Lincoln urged Congress to bind the nation’s wounds “with malice toward none, with charity for all,” although under his breath he murmured, “except for a certain red-headed lieutenant, and he knows why.”

… ‘Another friend, Billy Greene, said that Lincoln’s thighs were “as perfect as a human being’s could be.” Lincoln was said to have responded, “It’s called Pilates.”

… ‘When Lincoln was told that Lee had surrendered, he gasped and exclaimed, “Oh no she didn’t!”’

— The New Yorker

And so on …

Shhhhhh. Don’t let the Fascists know it, but one of the Empire’s favorite uber-patriotic songs is actually all about [gasp] faggotry! Ahhhhhh! « The horror »:

‘A macaroni, was a fop or dandy with an extravagant hairstyle and affected mannerisms. More literally, a macaroni was a small tricorn hat placed on top of a high wig. Hence, when Yankee Doodle ‘stuck a feather in his cap, and called it macaroni’, it was the entire cap, not just the feather, that constituted a macaroni, and which symbolized him as a Dandy and a bit of a buffoon.’

— Rictor Norton, “The Macaroni Club: Homosexual Scandals in 1772”, Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 19-Dec-2004, updated 1-Mar-2005

Ooopsy! We already know that The Star-Spangled Banner tune is actually a tavern drunken drinking song … what’s next? America the Beautiful is actually a coded homage to the beauty show circuit?

Cool. Yankee Doodle Dandy is now AirBeagle’s theme song.