Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
Establishment media have dropped the Nancy Pelosi/American Samoa minimum-wage controversy like an overheated tuna melt, but the question remains: Are the islanders' tuna plant workers going to be treated fairly or not? ... House Speaker Pelosi tried to defuse her latest controversy – over military jumbo jet air transportation to her home district in San Francisco – by playing the abused-woman card.
''Now as a woman,'' she said, ''as a woman speaker of the house I don't want any less opportunity than the male speakers have had when they have served here.'' Culling news reports yields statements that indicate this is precisely what she was offered by the Department of Defense. ... Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow has called the airplane controversy a ''silly story'' and ''unfair to the speaker.'' This means (a) Snow thinks it's a silly, unfair story, or (b) some big Republican wants or already has received perquisites on a par with those requested by Pelosi. (Put your money on choice b.). ... Pelosi turned darkly conspiratorial when she said that the ''leak'' from the Pentagon about her aircraft preference – a plane that could make it from Washington to San Francisco nonstop – served ''somebody's purpose.''
''It is very strange that the Department of Defense/Pentagon, which I have been a constant critic of the War in Iraq and where I understand Mr. Rumsfeld still has a desk ... has decided that they would go public on an issue that applied to the previous speaker,'' she said.
Well, that certainly clears things up as far as we're concerned. Obviously, Rummy's desk did it.
Governing from the center?
Democrats of the California Assembly trekked from Sacramento to the Napa Valley wine country last week to discuss such issues as health care, global warming and budget balancing. However, citizens of the Golden State won't know what really went on because, as a Democratic Caucus press release made clear, ''The sessions are closed to the press.''
However, you might make some guesses based on the list of speakers. It included Markos Moulitas Zuniga, described as publisher of ''the nation's leading progressive Web site,'' and Lawrence Bender, executive producer of ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' Al Gore's global warming horror flick. Zuniga's Web site is full of portentous ''progressive'' headlines like, ''Why 2008 Matters now: The Right Never Sleeps.'' Remember our ''Blind Partisan's Dictionary'' definition of ''progressive – adj., socialist.'' ... Regarding rising temperatures: We won't rehearse the entire global warming debate, but recent news on the topic affords an opportunity to note an apparent conflict between mathematics and logic. This would be the announcement that an assemblage or scientists had concluded ''with 90 percent certainty'' that our planet's warming was caused by human activity. Simple subtraction might lead one to the conclusion that this means the scientists were only 10 percent uncertain. But here is where logic obtrudes: Ninety percent certainty actually implies 100 percent uncertainty.
How can you tell a big election is approaching? One indication would be an upsurge in media stories about the plight of the homeless. The homeless surge already is under way, although the '08 elections are nearly two years in the future. Or are we alone in perceiving this? ... What's the cost of sleeping with a trusting subordinate's wife? San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom figures his recently revealed dalliance is worth $15,000 a month. The S.F. Chronicle reports that's what his ''honor'' will shell out – from his own pocket – to sustain his re-election campaign manager. Alex Tourk quit after confronting Newsom about a past liaison with the Tourk's spouse. The contrite mayor – who will enter an alcoholism rehabilitation program – figures the sum should keep his former ally going until he finds a new job. Hey, the Bay Area is expensive.
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