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Saturday Video Roundup: Men without…

Howdy folks - time now for yet another episode of Scholars & Rogues’ critically acclaimed Saturday Video Roundup! Today we pay tribute to men, mostly. It’s hard to be a man, especially when there are so many things that a man is without. For example, here are some men without shirts.

Net neutrality is back on track, thanks to corporate stupidity

“The hands-off approach hasn’t served consumers well. And the Web is far too important to entrust the free flow of information to the shifting whims of a few big companies. Government must step in and tell them to leave our content alone.”

Sounds like something you’d expect me to say, right? Or maybe Matt Stoller over at OpenLeft. But this memorable turn of phrase doesn’t belong to either of us, but to BusinessWeek’s Stephen Wildstrom, who wrote an editorial yesterday decrying the recent bad decisions of major telecom companies that decided they had the right to control the content their subscribers could access:

Following Hillary over a cliff

Zogby’s recent poll asking “Whom would you NEVER vote for president?” was kind of mischievous, wasn’t it? But if I were a member of the Democratic National Committee, not to mention a congressional Democrat, I’d be sweating bullets over it.

A neat 50% claim they would never, even under pain of waterboarding (kidding), cast their presidential vote for Hillary Clinton.

“Never say never,” Howard Dean or the Democratic Leadership Council’s Harold Ford might say. That may have been right seven months ago when 46, not 50%, claimed they would never vote for Hillary. But now, at a time, when other polls show her pulling ahead of Senator Obama in the Democratic race, it’s looking more like “Always say never.”

Tell Harry Reid to block granting telecoms immunity from the spy scandal

It’s heartening to see how Democrats and the American public alike are rallying behind the idea that the major telecom companies should not be immune from prosecution for their role in abetting the NSA’s illegal spying. The common wisdom is that Americans care less about esoteric issues like privacy than those that hit them in the loins or the pocketbook, but if that’s the case, then how do you explain Chris Dodd’s massive fundraising jump after his challenge to the new FISA bill?

Prescription for congressional democrats…

Something from Mark Fiore for those congressional democrats who keep voting for FISA and war funding, and can’t seem to muster the political will to treat Bush like the lame duck he is:

Spineocrat!

Pandemic flu vaccine will be rationed - and you may never get vaccinated

An influenza pandemic strikes the United States. Tens of thousands of people have died, hundreds of thousands of people are sick, and the pandemic shows no signs of abating. The first pandemic flu vaccines are finally coming out and several of your neighbors have been vaccinated by the county health department, namely the police officer, the guardswoman, the paramedic, and the pregnant woman, along with several children, all of whom are younger than three years old. But there’s not enough vaccine yet for your three children, ages 3 1/2, 6, and 10, or for you and your spouse. The health department is saying that there will be enough vaccine for all kids up to 18 years old in another few weeks, but they don’t know exactly when it’ll come because there’s 50 million people at higher risk and “more important” than your family is, and they don’t know how many doses of vaccine can be produced weekly.

Quotabull

Our purpose is, and has always been, to ensure a civil and safe environment where the many types of campus activities and open discourse can occur.

— University of Florida Police Chief Linda Stump. According to an Oct. 25 Associated Press story: “University of Florida police were justified in using a Taser against a student who refused to stop questioning Sen. John Kerry on campus last month, according to a state investigation released Wednesday.”

If you decide abstinence is right for you, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But if you decide that you’re ready for a sexual relationship, the best way to protect yourself from HIV and other [sexually transmitted infections] is to be faithful to your partner and use a condom every time.

— Jenna Bush, daughter of President George W. Bush, in her book “Ana’s Story,” about a Central American teenage mother who is HIV-positive, that exudes an attitude that The Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus calls “refreshingly reality-based about sexual behavior — in a way that her father’s administration resists.”

Evangelical litmus tests and the World Series: why we all need to be rooting against the Colorado Rockies

The World Series starts tomorrow night and people around here have gone Rockies crazy. I’m getting asked a lot if I’m excited, and the answer is yes - Go Red Sox! They all want to know “why aren’t you rooting for Colorado?” So I’m answering them:

First off, the Red Sox are my favorite team. Second, I cannot abide the arrogance and stupidity of an organization that makes decisions according to a religious litmus test. It’s offensive, and would be so if they were using my beliefs as the test just as much as it is using evangelical Christianity, which is how they operate now.

Is that a bottle in your vagina, Rep. Pete Stark?

…because, good Sir, you are the star of your own dirty shame today.

I guess if you’re going to hang yourself, your own spine is as good a noose as any. Slithering up to the podium like a worm, apologizing for:

Fire in the western United States

For anyone concerned about the fires burning in San Diego county (by far the most serious of the southern California fires), here are two more links: the Union-Tribune’s breaking news site at Blogspot and the official San Diego County emergency site.

In the western United States, fire is a major threat to life and property, as we’re seeing today in southern California. the climate is pretty much optimized to create massive fires. The winter rains provide the moisture that the plants need to grow, and as with most arid climate plants, they grow and mature fast when there’s water around - if they didn’t, the plants might not reproduce before the next season’s rains. Once they’ve matured, the hot and water-less summer dries out the large, mature plants and creates perfect kindling for massive fires. Finally, right before the winter rains come again, a massive high pressure system forms over the high desert, a low pressure system forms over the nearby Pacific, and the combination of the two drives the Santa Ana winds. The Santa Anas bring down blistering hot and near hurricane force winds that will (not “may”) stoke any spark (like a discarded cigarette or a blown-down power line) into a fire. (Other fire links: San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS, NBC-San Diego)

The “untouchables” of Virginia

Today’s Washington Post looks at the net result of anti-illegal immigration measures passed in Virginia’s Prince William County last week–an exodus of Latinos (both legal and illegal) from the region:

Diaz, a supermarket checkout clerk, was one of nearly 400 people who waited for hours to comment on the bill during the marathon pre-vote session that stretched into Wednesday’s wee hours. “Even after they passed that July resolution, I had hope that [the supervisors] would change their minds,” said Diaz, 37, who has legal status but worries about relatives who do not. Now, she noted bitterly, “I’ll be selling at a loss. But I don’t care. I no longer have any affection for this place that treats us this way. I just want to get out.”

Lucky Dube and the choice for Africa

Cast your mind back. Some banana republic. Perhaps it was Cuba, or some backwater in India, definitely anywhere in Africa.

You were traveling in one of those beat-up old vehicles that passes for public transport in the most impoverished parts of the world. And they had only one album playing at that tree-splitting volume so necessary for third-world travel.

It was Bob Marley playing, wasn’t it?

Except, sometimes, they had a second tape that would also be played. Round, and round, and round. Also reggae. Also loved beyond the singing of it. Maybe you never knew who that was?

That was Lucky Dube.

Saturday Video Roundup: Mahmoud Benatar vs. They Might Be Seagulls

Ready to have a little fun? Good, because this week’s SVR is more fun than a barrel of monkees. Doing music videos. Let’s kick it off with an ode to lip gloss. Because, you know, it be poppin’.

Dodd threatens filibuster of FISA bill

“Why does Harry Reid hate America and freedom?”

That’s the question I was asking myself after S&R reader “Dee Loralei” pointed out in comments to my post yesterday that Senate Majority Leader Reid was planning to move ahead with a vote on the FISA update, even in the face of Dodd’s hold on the bill. Sure enough, that seems to be the case.

In response, Dodd is threatening to flat-out filibuster the bill if it comes to the floor.