THE G'ST

Gingrich's workflow for being a total blow

2009-08-14T10:19:00.003-04:00

This is Newt Gingrich's advice to Sarah Palin on how to become a permanent scumbag, rather than just another flash in the pan asshole.

Good to know there is a processes. I wouldn't want to think of all these assholes competing for air and making it up as they went along. This is actually quite important, because if we can simplify the process of running for president, or being a perpetual pundit, then we can get even dumber, and even more vile assholes into the public debate. (see Glenn Beck, on second thought- don't) This is good because now America's retarded side can finally be expressed on television outside of Jerry Springer. It's fun to watch the death of ideals in slow motion, kids!

"1. Write a book. Palin is already set to do that, which Gingrich applauds. A book, he said, helps a politician lay out his or her philosophy and experiences in their own unhurried words. It also helps score TV time, which in turn helps sell books, he added."
"2. Land a regular commentator on television. It's a sure way for an outsider to stay inside the national dialogue and in touch with the incumbents, activists and strategists who can help launch a comeback."
"3. Consider getting a condominium in New York or Washington. An East Coast base of operations would ease what could become an onerous travel schedule from Alaska."
"4. Write and master three types of speeches. One speech “is to make money,” he said, and should be something smart and entertaining."
"The second set of speeches includes what Gingrich calls “high-value” addresses designed to be delivered before major interest groups and universities, enabling Palin to “project her brand.”"
"The third speech, of course, is a campaign stump speech that she can take on the road in 2010 to help Republican candidates raise money and gain attention."
"5. Create some sort of national project or center. This can serve as a base for her political return and an incubator for ideas and action on issues. A National Energy Project, Gingrich said, would be a natural for Palin."
"6. Plan on working really, really hard. Many ex-politicians confuse being a celebrity with being a serious political player, Gingrich said. “She can be a personality for a long time,” he said. “But that is very different from becoming a national leader.”

[via the Page, from Politico]

William Zanzinger dies 46 year after murdering Hattie Carroll

2009-01-13T14:06:00.004-05:00

Things to do before Tuesday night

2008-11-02T08:02:00.006-05:00

Early Tuesday night, we will all undergo a transformation. We will no longer be victims of our government; we will be winners. So prepare yourselves. Prepare your homes.

Here's my personal to do list:
shower, shave, brush teeth, cut nails, do laundry, do dishes, clean desk, sweep floor, pay bills

I don't really know what happens when we win. It is possible that when Jim Lehrer cuts to Barack Obama's acceptance speech, a transcendent moment will occur. My television might do something it's never done before. It may broadcast more than sound and picture. The spirit of Barack Obama and millions of other American's may manifest in my apartment. And if so, I want to present myself with respect, in order to give my respect for the moment meaning and value.

I also want to give the manifestation as many portals to enter my home as possible. The TV is a magic box, don't get me wrong. But I want the fragrance of victory in every corner of my home. So if I finish my list early, or if for some strange reason, the night drags on past ten, I plan on doing something constructive with my time. Like making a victory sculture out of things around the house, or painting a victory O on the back of a cereal box, or making a Barack Bust out of mashed potatoes. Really, as many entry points for potential visitations as possible. Maybe I'll write a victory song.

I know I'll be listening to lot's of the Staple Singers and Andrew W.K.

Our eight year long lesson in defeat is ending.

I can't believe it. I want to turn this into a music blog for the next few weeks. Victory rocks.

Put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day

2008-10-21T12:02:00.004-04:00

Anti-Obama madness over at the McLaughlin Group is reaching a fever pitch as the election nears. Last Friday's episode represents a culmination of terror which Obama has been inspiring, for the past two years, among the more paranoid conservatives. Three of the show's most regular members have close ties to Richard Nixon: John McLaughlin, Pat Buchannan, Monica Crowley.

So really it is the go to place to find out what Nixon would think about present day politics. And as bearers of his legacy, they are driven by the fear that someone will out Nixon Nixon. Obama's speech on Race, which nullified the Reverend Wright issue, was as good as Nixon's Checkers Speech, which nullified the slime issue, for a few years anyway.

Robert MacNeil wrote in his memoir that Richard Nixon had a sort of charisma in color television that was lacking in black and white. With the Checkers speech it was a charisma which was conveyed by his voice. The radio helped humanized him, while black and white television, while providing more information, lowered his charisma. Obama has the political gifts of Nixon, and the comfort with each present and emerging technology which presents him to the public with his charisma intact. As Richard Nixon's head in a jar says on Futurama, "Nixon with charisma? My God, I could rule the universe!"

So you can appreciate this mad episode of McLaughlin Group now. OR put it on your pocket, save it for a rainy day sometime after November 4th. I have a feeling it will seem even funnier then.

Rainy Day Laughs with the McLaughlin Group

Quit your junk news

2008-10-14T21:52:00.005-04:00

And get the real thing:
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

A couple hours after the show airs at 6:00 pm, mp3s of each of that night's segments are uploaded to the site. So you can pick and choose what you want to listen to. But for the most part, every bit is worth it.

Tonight they had an amazing piece about economic inequality in New Mexico. Fucking phenomenal reporting. Horrible shit. Preceding it was an interview with 2008 presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who many of us think of as a cocksucker, but damn he sounds good. Especially next to the disgusting policies we have been fed and will continue to eat.

Everyone says Hank Paulsen is a genius, but they say that about Hank Pym too. And I think they've both been acting skrully. I mean every week this guy's got a new plan to spend a ton of money to increase confidence. And if you've been watching closely over the past couple months, he keeps denying he'll need to go further. "Just this one last huge sum of money, please." Don't worry it won't seem so big compared to whatever he asks for next. I swear to god, it's like these guys want to destroy America. At least the Skrulls bring their own infrastructure to replace what they destroy and dismantle.

Hank's plan is nothing but trying to burn money as fast as humanly possible. The NewsHour keeps talking about what caused this mess, the economic policies and philosophies of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush. But we don't want to address the problems or create a better new system, just temporarily Socialize, and then return to the corporate heap. This has power grab written all over it. But it's what's happening. Despite having the greatest tool in the history of human communication, we have no idea what's going on. And when the dust settles we will all have boot marks on our asses.

So if Hank can spend a trillion dollars without a long term plan for success, I might as well give my plan. A trillion dollars, gosh... hard to even imagine how to spend all that. Okay, how about this, we buy a whole lot of really good acid. We dose the entire nation, except for the few who will be preaching love and inner strength and those who will distribute food, laptops, and medical aid after the nation's heroic death and rebirth. So after our Apocalypse we'll take a few weeks off to lay in the grass and talk to each other on the Internet, and figure out what we want to do next.

Okay, so maybe it's just ripping off an Alan Moore Apocalypse. Maybe all the comic books and 80s Dylan has rotted my mind, to the point where I am completely divested from our current way of living. Listen to the NewsHour report on Los Alamos, and ask yourself what should be done with the richest community in America. With blood on their hands, and empty bellies at their feet, these people need to have their minds cracked open. Showing them what they've done will be punishment enough.

Mean Face

2008-10-02T21:06:00.004-04:00

Today I was scrapping cheese of the grill and was asked by a coworker if I was okay. Things were busy, but I wasn't stressed. But I suppose I let my face drop, and I looked, perhaps, angry. Really it was my dead face. Usually at work I'm a smiley monster. Occasionally, it falls down and I'm revealed as a hateful bastard.

So I've been conscious of faces lately. Barack Obama is at risk of appearing the "Angry Black Man." John McCain is of risk of letting his face look like the old miserable motherfucker that he is. So ten minutes into the debate, I'm looking at Joe Biden's smile and Sarah Palin's stiff mouth.

What do they say? More importantly, what do people read? I thought I was just scrapping cheese, but apparently I looked stressed and angry. So far Biden and Palin are in absolute control of their faces.

I wish I didn't care about the faces. I'd rather listen to the radio, so I could use my TV for video games. Damn these faces.

We are all retards now

2008-10-01T17:53:00.004-04:00

I just want to jot down a few things that have been running through my head lately. I have yet to play Will Wright's new game, Spore, but from what I've read my worst fears were realized. Will Wright was the genius behind Sim City 2000. In Sim City 2000 the player was given a dynamic world to interact with; a set of rules to try to learn and understand which were not presented upfront.

In that way it reminded me of Legos. Legos and Sim City 2000 were my two favorite toys growing up. Both had rules which one had to learn by doing. The tricks to building a healthy city or a stable building were not in a book, but in the experience. When I heard about Spore, like many people, I was excited. Video game press releases have a tendency to inspire people to dream. What if this is the game that does everything I ever wanted a game to do? I had just hoped that Spore would be more like Sim City 2000 than the Sims.

From the reviews, even without all the DRM drama, Spore failed this test. Like Legos, Wright's newest project is dumbed down. The choices you make do not participate in a complex set of virtual reality math. Aparrently, the difference between a creature created with two legs or ten is not registered by the computer's calculations. Like with the Harry Potter or Star Wars Legos, with half as many pieces per set as there were when I was growing up, this product presents a dumbed down shiny toy to children it assumes are dumb already.

I learned more from the smart toys I had growing up, than I ever did at school. But as important as I think education is (I never cut funding to my schools in my Sim Cities, even when the police were operating at 20%) I also recongnize that maintaining a healthy economy is equally important. The buisiness math of Sim City was fairly simple and libertarian. Lower taxes, boost business.

But now we have an economy that no one can understand. Secretary Paulson says he needs a trillion dollars to keep the confidence going and save the credit market. Credit comes from the latin word 'credere,' to believe. And right now no one can or should believe these people who have no idea how the toy they built works.

So now it's time for the computers to take over. This article was published in the New York Times today, and it sounds just right to me. It basically says that instead of using laws of thinking to determine what the markets will do we should use computer forcasts; with complex models of little indepent agents jumping up and down and doing what they do in real life. Those outside of the legitmate sciences keep proving we are as much robots as the cockroach; more complex maybe, but not less predictable. So let's start predicting. Let's start writing fate down before it happens. Not for you and me, but for us.

Will Wright should have spent less on animation and more on creating really complex algorithms that were representational, if not of real life, then of a realistic life children could learn from. I'm sick of hearing from people on the news who don't have a fucking clue as to what's going on, besides knowing that something is going on and for some reason believing someone else does get it. I don't get it and I don't think these people do. If they could show me a bunch of SimBrokers jumping around and reacting and give me a forcast as complex as the ones which say we are environmentally fucked, then I would probably believe them.

But I don't think there is anyone left to make a learning toy as smart as Sim City 2000. Like how we can't make it back to the Moon, this knowledge is lost. We are all retards now. Be honest, you just skimmed this didn't you? Not that I can really argue that it's worth your time, but a good book is, how long has it been since you have read a book?

McCain: "Let's not call it a bailout"

2008-09-30T19:39:00.002-04:00

Get out your thesauruses everyone!

This Week in News Screen Grabs

2008-09-30T17:28:00.007-04:00

His words say hooray, but his face says boo.

And if you step back from the screen a bit, and it's late at night, you might think the New York Times was writing about Palin's Penis. Perils. Penis. Perils. Penis. Okay, maybe if it's late at night and you are near sighted, far from the screen and dyslexic. Doesn't the NYT have anyone to catch this stuff? If not, hire me, seriously I see this sort of thing all the time, and there's no reason not to change your headlines to prevent dyslexic misreadings.

And finally, from Google gives us this illustration of the Shiva's dance of death:

last Tuesday, September 23, 2008

2008-09-26T23:09:00.002-04:00

If it happens Pat...

2008-09-26T15:23:00.002-04:00

Apparently, I'm not the only person who thinks this is the best show on television right now. But I am the last person to learn about this awesome song.

Rewriting 9/11 at the RNC

2008-09-09T16:57:00.001-04:00

"The first attack occurred in Iran..."
Is Dick Cheney producing their movies now? Seriously folks, this is disgusting.

How about this, why don't they just show the same 2 minutes of footage for half an hour and then tell us which day we will invade Iran on. That way we can mark our calendars, and won't have to wait, or wonder if we can do anything to stop it.

We can't stop it, anymore than we can stop a hurricane or GE.
Totally fucked, America. You are totally fucked beyond all recognition.

Foolish Men of Science

2008-09-09T13:50:00.000-04:00

Scientist have exposed this innocent creature to cosmic radiation. Am I the only one who has read the Fantastic Four? It's great that this little Tardigrada can survive a bombardment of cosmic rays in the vacuum of space, but I'm adding this to the list of things scientist shouldn't have done. It's always safest to assume fantastical horror until proven otherwise.

Bloody their noses

2008-09-06T18:03:00.001-04:00

Phony!

2008-09-01T17:00:00.003-04:00

How to Deactivate a Malfunctioning Robot

2008-08-27T23:53:00.006-04:00

Anyone who has ever watched insects closely, knows the workings of their minds are a miracle of hyper modern robotics. If you don't believe me I suggest studying my new favorite site:
JapaneseBugFights.com
It delivers all it promises with inter species insect battles to the death. And proves that robots have but one purpose; to follow through with their programming to the letter. And that programming must ultimately serve man. A robot that doesn't serve man in some way is malfunctioning.

So I wanted to share some techniques I learned on the Internet for dealing with rebellious robots.

How to Kill Fruit Flies
All you need to become the Heinrich Himmler of your banana bowl is a jar with half apple cider vinegar, half water, and a dollop of dish soap. More tips at WikiHow. This worked great for me.

How to Kill Cockroaches
I wish I'd never had to google this. But I have and I did. And the good news is that once again drowning seems to be the best bet. I had already perfected the stun and crush method using a can of Raid like a policeman's MagLite. It works a little too well, I have found twitching roaches I did not spray. I worry about the ones who might walk off a light dose, ready to spread their success story to another generation.

No, better to once again manipulate their programming, to combine the genius of tools and that of weapons, to make a trap. Our success as a species has always depended more on our tools and our traps then our weapons. Besides the Raid has some killer blowback, short and long term. The trap is still empty, maybe I'll start twittering it's results.

Gaffe Master

2008-08-24T12:09:00.003-04:00

Will well-loved, former stutterer, Joe Biden be able to slip out brutal, cycle grabbing attack lines which neither Obama or Biden himself will have to take credit for? Bush has used this before, 'I didn't say that I just spoke those words.' Or are Biden's day's of slipping over. Everyone at this convention seems like they've lived and learned a thousand years worth since we last saw them. Everyone's been shining and doing exactly what they need to do.

Michelle Obama's Speech

Hilary Clinton's Speech (MUST LISTEN)

Georgia Bulletin

2008-08-14T12:13:00.003-04:00

Or was he just doing an Alec Baldwin impression?

Stone Alexander is Running For President

2008-08-11T22:29:00.007-04:00

Seems like John McCain's camp has watched the Omega Code, maybe you should too. It's going to be required reading for all of tomorrow's jokes.
[Watch the Omega Code]

"And he has anointed himself, ready to carry the burden of the worm."

Stoned, foreign, and famous

2008-08-08T11:13:00.009-04:00

From the McCain Ad, Celeb:

That's the sum up at the end, what the evidence prior was building too: this glass-eyed and oily foreign famous guy looks down on you like all celebs do. And this ad seems like it's been very successful in tapping into a deep seeded resentment. The public feels slighted that the people on TV aren't actually our friends. This is why we hire tabloids to whack them. But we also want to believe that some famous people are good people and by virtue of our own goodness - distant friends.

So is Barack your friend? The words on the screen tell us he's higher and more foreign than most of your friends. And they haven't even said his full name yet. Every ad John McCain releases will be the set up: Barack Hussein Obama the punchline.

Should I believe Barack will change this?

2008-08-02T11:12:00.007-04:00

There is a persistent effort on the part of the Federal government and big business to denigrate and to attempt colonization of the new digital lives of free people. I have a mind, a body, a soul and a bed. And my computer gives me the ability to reach my second soul. I have a right to these things. We all do. Take them away and the silent pact is broken, the trust is gone, and the people consent by fear alone. Digital rights are human rights.

via the washingtonpost.com:

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
==
The policies state that officers may "detain" laptops "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion."

The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "
==
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wrote in an opinion piece published last month in USA Today that "the most dangerous contraband is often contained in laptop computers or other electronic devices." Searches have uncovered "violent jihadist materials" as well as images of child pornography, he wrote.

Monica Crowley, Classy Lady

2008-08-01T14:01:00.007-04:00

The McLaughlin Group is really like the best show on TV. John McLaughlin is convinced Obama is America's Adolf, uniting the people behind empty slogans. And though Dr. McLaughlin sometimes says things that sound racist, he is not actually a racist motherfucker. The same can not be said for some of the other guests. The show isn't released onto the RSS feed until almost a week after it has aired. But this just makes it seem more old fashioned, like something I should be watching on archive.org. Anyway from last Friday's transcript:

MS. CROWLEY: Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, which is somebody that Eleanor predicted that he might look at.

Look, I agree with Michelle. John McCain is vanilla ice cream. He needs a scoop of rocky road to run with, okay? Barack Obama is the exact opposite. Obama's rocky road. He needs more vanilla ice cream. And I think the economic issues are the prevailing force on McCain as he looks at a VP. That makes Romney and, I think, Michael Bloomberg, who on Friday of this week said that he is going to start touting John McCain, not formally endorsing him but touting him. And it may be that they are trying to sort of triangulate this, because Bloomberg is very liberal on the social issues and it may cause some difficulties with the conservatives.

And Dr. McLaughlin reminds us John McCain is not so far removed from Richard Nixon:

MS. CLIFT: And the images of Barack Obama on this trip and John McCain in a golf cart with the former President Bush and strolling the cheese aisle in a local supermarket --

DR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, we don't need -- you don't need a burlesk of John McCain. I mean, it's all there for you anyway.

Newsmen

2008-07-31T23:03:00.008-04:00

Via the Note;

In responding to the ad, did Obama protest too much? Jumping off of the new ad, Obama said: "The only way they figure they're going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they're saying is, 'Well, we know we're not very good but you can't risk electing Obama. You know, he's new, he's . . . doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he's got a, he's got a funny name."

ABC's Jake Tapper: "Correct me if I'm wrong, but does it not seem as if Obama just said McCain and his campaign -- presumably the 'they' in this construct -- are saying that Obama shouldn't be elected because he's a risk because he's black and has a foreign-sounding name?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but fuck you, Jake Tapper and your goddamn face, you colossal smarmy prick.
The things you don't know about politics should fight the things Glenn Beck doesn't know about politics. Hopefully, this endless psychic battle would keep you two busy enough that I'd never have to hear another word out of any of your many goddamn mouths.

Barack in Berlin

2008-07-28T17:56:00.003-04:00

Just got back from vacation, and found a pile of news waiting for me. Including the big Barack in Berlin speech. If you want some fun, read the international response at WatchingAmerica.org. I watched it after hearing David Brooks describe it as devoid of foreign policy, just fluff. But Obama is the ascending leader, and the new voice of America, the first new voice in 7 years. It is necessary for him to speak very broadly, about what we have in common and what the goals of all mankind are. Big goals. So he still maintains Bush's dream of global power, but seems capable of explaining it to the world in a reasonable way. It reads nice, and listens even better if you want to check out the youtube, but part of me wonders if this isn't the Omega Code all over again. But hey, so long as it's interesting, right?

Now the world will watch and remember what we do here -- what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?

Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur?

Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don't look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?

People of Berlin -- people of the world -- this is our moment. This is our time.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived -- at great cost and great sacrifice -- to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom -- indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us -- what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America's shores -- is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.

These are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. These aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart. It is because of these aspirations that the airlift began. It is because of these aspirations that all free people -- everywhere -- became citizens of Berlin. It is in pursuit of these aspirations that a new generation -- our generation -- must make our mark on the world.

People of Berlin -- and people of the world -- the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.

[Transcript] [Video]

Clinton says the fix is not in

2008-05-24T00:07:00.002-04:00

Clinton explains RFK assassination reference

"Earlier today, I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Sen. Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968, and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nominating primary contests that go into June. That's an historic fact."

"The Kennedys have been much on my mind in the last days because of Sen. [Edward] Kennedy, and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever,"

John McCain Protects Dictionaries, Not People

2008-05-23T11:43:00.003-04:00

"In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity."
-- ABE LINCOLN

Buchanan Rebutts

What the fuck is happening in this photo

2008-04-27T22:33:00.002-04:00

Go ahead guess.
Watch the video to find out.

Message-Force Multipliers

2008-04-21T21:41:00.003-04:00

MFM, not a rock band, actually a fascist power/greed scam revealed by the NYTimes:
(If perhaps you don't bother reading anymore, you can LISTEN about it.)

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

...

At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke’s staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own.

“You could see that they were messaging,” Mr. Krueger said. “You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over.” Some days, he added, “We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You’d look at them and say, ‘This is working.’ ”

On April 12, 2003, with major combat almost over, Mr. Rumsfeld drafted a memorandum to Ms. Clarke. “Let’s think about having some of the folks who did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over,” he wrote.

By summer, though, the first signs of the insurgency had emerged. Reports from journalists based in Baghdad were increasingly suffused with the imagery of mayhem.

The Pentagon did not have to search far for a counterweight.

It was time, an internal Pentagon strategy memorandum urged, to “re-energize surrogates and message-force multipliers,” starting with the military analysts.

The memorandum led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush’s request for $87 billion in emergency war financing.

The group included four analysts from Fox News, one each from CNN and ABC, and several research-group luminaries whose opinion articles appear regularly in the nation’s op-ed pages.

The trip invitation promised a look at “the real situation on the ground in Iraq.”

The situation, as described in scores of books, was deteriorating. L. Paul Bremer III, then the American viceroy in Iraq, wrote in his memoir, “My Year in Iraq,” that he had privately warned the White House that the United States had “about half the number of soldiers we needed here.”

“We’re up against a growing and sophisticated threat,” Mr. Bremer recalled telling the president during a private White House dinner.

That dinner took place on Sept. 24, while the analysts were touring Iraq.

Yet these harsh realities were elided, or flatly contradicted, during the official presentations for the analysts, records show. The itinerary, scripted to the minute, featured brief visits to a model school, a few refurbished government buildings, a center for women’s rights, a mass grave and even the gardens of Babylon.

Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.

“We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed.

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly “artificial” that he joked to another group member that they were on “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president’s $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of “up-armored” Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq’s security forces.

624787

2008-04-12T14:55:00.001-04:00

What must a president believe about us? About America?
That she is worth protecting?
That liberty is priceless?
Our people, honorable?
Our future, prosperous, remarkable and free?

And, what must we believe about that president?
What does he think?
Where has he been?
Has he walked the walk?

Google is my Co-Pilot

2008-04-07T14:12:00.004-04:00

Google News is my first stop for news. Like a newspaper is for some, or CNN for others. If I want to know what's happening I just go to Google News. But the mechanics of it's aggregating means that often a popular story gets a separate popular photo next to it. And a lot of the most popular photos of the politicians have them looking like bloated, old, wrinkly satan babies. So the source I trust to present me with snapshots of the Present, reads like the New York Times and looks like the New York Daily Post, and shows me unflattering angles of the candidates you just don't get on NPR or the television news. I think I'm winning out.

Stan Lee Dines with Kings

2008-04-06T22:57:00.002-04:00

More Stan Lee / Hillary Madness

wiki on Peter Paul

More Disaster

2008-03-26T13:34:00.006-04:00

Spring's in the air, and I'm hot for melting icebergs. Here's where to get the Google Earth File, so you can actually understand what 7 times bigger than Manhattan looks like from space. And if you want real time disaster updates from around the world you absolutely need this plug-in. It's where I found out about this latest apocalyptic extinction wave:

Bats are dying off by the thousands as they hibernate in caves and mines around New York and Vermont, sending researchers scrambling to find the cause of mysterious condition dubbed "white nose syndrome." The ailment - named for the white circle of fungus found around the noses of affected bats - was first noticed last January in four caves west of Albany. It has now spread to eight hibernation sites in the state and another in Vermont. Alan Hicks, a bat specialist with New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, called the quick-spreading disorder the "gravest threat" to bats he had ever seen. Up to 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and many more are showing signs illness this winter. One hard-hit cave went from more than 15,000 bats two years ago to 1,500 now, he said. "We do not know what the cause is and we do not know how it was spread, either from cave to cave, or bat to bat," said Hicks. "You have this potential for this huge spread." The white fungus ring around bats' noses is a symptom, but not necessarily the cause. For some unknown reason, the bats deplete their fat reserves and die months before they would normally emerge from hibernation.

New York and Vermont environmental officials are asking people not to enter caves or mines with bats until researchers figure out how the infection is spread. There is no evidence it is a threat to humans, but officials want to take every precaution to avoid it spreading from cave to cave. Bats are considered particularly vulnerable when they hibernate, a time when they can hang together tightly by the thousands. Indiana bats, a federally endangered species, are considered particularly vulnerable, though the highest death count has been among little brown bats. Researchers with Cornell University and the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, are among those helping state environmental officials. The bat die-off has some eerie similarities with "colony collapse disorder," the baffling affliction that began decimating honeybee colonies years ago. Scientists last fall said they suspected a virus previously unknown in the United States. "I'm very concerned," Hicks said. "I can only hope that what we're seeing today will dissipate in the future." )
[Link]

Good News Everyone!

2008-03-26T12:22:00.002-04:00

Rev. Wright Taught Obama Mercerism in Chicago

2008-03-19T07:25:00.005-04:00

From yesterday's Barack Obama's speech, 'A More Perfect Union:'

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

[Vid Link] [Transcript]

The speech is mind blowing, like his earlier speech on faith. It is an involved dissection of a complex situation and like nothing we've heard in years. Better than Bill Clinton. More Nixonian, more meta, more Hollywood. And certainly more Dick.

Olly-olly-olly-olly-olly-olly oxen free

2008-03-13T00:38:00.006-04:00

I'll be seeing the Mountain Goats twice in the next two days. And that's a great thing. I'm very excited. I've been listening to a mix I made of all the songs about the Alpha Couple. It's rabid music. And with a textual depth that few of John Darnielle's contemporaries can match. Check out the FAQ on a fan site, helps appreciate the more complex aspects of his songwriting.

Good music can edify ones own cloudy feelings. Give form and meaning to what we think to be inexpressible. And also teach us. Ideas that have haunted those of other ages can be brought back to life by music. A great song is like a magic key that unlocks something that's always been inside you, waiting to come out and be understood.

quetzalcoatl comes through

he came spitting fire
on a day like no other
tried to hold you near to me
i heard him passing over
he made a banquet for the stray dogs of the air
he put our love in clear perspective

blue, red and green plumage
trailing behind him now
swaddling the sky in its aftermath
the last day coming down
he made a banquet for the stray dogs of the air
he put our love in clear perspective
rising, rising, rising, rising

From the Mountain Goats FAQ:
Quetzalcoatl, god of civilization (and chocolate!), was identified with the planet Venus and with the wind; he represented the forces of good and light pitted against those of evil and darkness, which were championed by Tezcatlipoca. According to one epic legend, Quetzalcoatl, deceived by Tezcatlipoca, was driven from Tula, the Toltec capital, and wandered for many years until he reached his homeland, the east coast of Mexico-where he was consumed by divine fire, his ashes turning into birds and his heart becoming the morning star. Another version has him sailing off to a mythical land, leaving behind the promise of his return.

quetzalcoatl is born

it's a cold night in sonora
and the stars are out in full force
it's a moment the world has been waiting for
when you set the world back on course
into the fire you go (2x)

it's a strange gathering around you
and the lord of the snails is born
five minutes before you take on divinity
you hear the crackling, well you hear the snapping corn
into the fire you go (4x)

Don't Drink the Water

2008-03-12T18:49:00.002-04:00

It's too late to protect your POE. Your water is poisoned. It's another super-villain strike against us in the real world, the place once thought safe from their antics. Now the drugs used by some in the city, are taken by all. So it stands to reason that soon people living in different cities will begin to mutate in different directions. It's not something Dr. Charles Xavier ever wrote about, but maybe mutants will be regional and clannish. We'll see, and as long as we have humor like Tom Lehrer's even nuclear Armageddon seems manageable.

William F. Buckley: This is how we remember you...

2008-02-28T00:14:00.002-05:00

via Wikipedia:
In 1968, ABC News hired Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. as political analysts of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions, predicting that television viewers would enjoy seeing two men of letters engage in on-air battle; as it turned out, verbal and nearly physical combat were joined. After days of mutual bickering, their debates devolved to vitriolic, ad hominem attacks. During discussions of the 1968 Democratic National Convention Protests, the men were arguing about Freedom of Speech in regards to American protestors displaying a Viet Cong flag when Vidal told Buckley to "shut up a minute" and went on to call him a "pro-war crypto Nazi." The visibly livid Buckley replied: "Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto Nazi, or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." After an interruption by anchor and facilitator Howard K. Smith, the men continued to discuss the topic in a less hostile manner.
Later, in 1969, the feud was continued as Buckley further attacked Vidal in the lengthy essay, "On Experiencing Gore Vidal", published in the August 1969 issue of Esquire; the essay is collected in The Governor Listeth, an anthology of Buckley's writings of the time. In a key passage attacking Vidal as an apologist for homosexuality, Buckley wrote: "the man who in his essays proclaims the normalcy of his affliction [i.e., homosexuality], and in his art the desirability of it, is not to be confused with the man who bears his sorrow quietly. The addict is to be pitied and even respected, not the pusher."

Historian Gray Click Here!

2008-02-27T22:05:00.009-05:00

I don't know if you know this, but the Internet watches back. The successes of Anonymous are not your successes. Facebook users take note, not only is it near impossible to delete your account, but Facebook employees follow your clicking for fun. Even if you are unknown, you are not un-noted. This site uses Google Analytics to become analytically involved with our readership. (The average time on site is 10 minutes for an US reader, while not even a minute for a UK reader. How we can compete with Beat That Quote?)
As of now, we can take comfort, the eyes that stare back at us rarely focus in. You may be filmed as you neck in Central Park, but odds are no one will look at the tape unless a Terror strikes nearby. You may post a wacky comment on your Facebook crush after visiting their profile for the 50th time today, and while Facebook employees could giggle at this, they probably won't. But what about the historians.

I don't really sweat our blog's hits and stats. I post for my friends and family, as a personal record, and for my true love; the historian I sometimes imagine wafting through the gases of my web life. He is the hidden figure in the "generation me" equation --a name by the way which must go and is completely inadequate in describing the natural self-indulgence children born today will posses. But the web denizens of today and tomorrow will continue to dream of being noticed after they are dead, in some sort of 7-up induced fantasy.

But what will remain, and will anyone care? First, what will remain: from my experience, not a lot. This blog will be a collection of broken links and words that were arranged just to make room for the links in the first place. Will that dance with the mildest of restrictions be one day noticed as art? Does it satisfy Alan Moore's criteria of structure? Probably not. But if not as art, then as comforting history? Who knows? I've been online long enough to know that things don't last out here, at least not how you intended. But that doesn't mean no one will care.

To be honest, I'm not ready to say if my Historian of Tomorrow will ever find me. That's a prediction I'm not ready to make. But surely there are smaller things I can try my hand at. The futurists at the Long Now have been doing this for awhile. Kevin Kelly has a daring prediction on Long Bets that I'm not willing to disagree with:
“By 2060 the total population of humans on earth will be less than it is today.”
If you take into account what Stewart Brand says, it's hard to disagree.

But here's a prediction I've had kicking around in a notebook for awhile. But I'll put it into play now,

PREDICTION:
Within five years I will be able to buy a Killer Robot Nixon from the Futurama episode, A Head in the Polls.

WHY:
Eventually anything you want, will be available anyway you want it. As culture continues it's march into the physical world, expect more dolls, replicas, and garments from your favorite obscure tv show/movie/book/comic/blog post.

BarackBack Mountain

2008-02-23T16:50:00.000-05:00

Trust Them With Your Life?

2008-02-22T14:58:00.000-05:00

I haven't trusted the Secret Service to preform their job in a non-political way for years now. Now there's this news:
Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally

I first clued into possible SS malfeasance when I read this amazing Rolling Stone article on how the press framed Al Gore in 2000. Included is a dissection of a little manufactured story that made Gore look bad and was started by an SS decision. Then the Secret Service were organizing the "Free Speech Zones," and the questionable security at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston.

Are they impartial? If I were running for president I would hire my own security firm.

Why I hate Alternet

2008-02-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

Thirsty for news, I went over to Alternet.org, a progressive news site I used to read. All my usual sources have kind of said their peace for the week, and the lazy bums are resting all weekend. And with the strike preventing me from watching any new television shows, regardless of any talk, (Talk is not TV!) I was really ready to read some news. With the elections heat, and TV's lull, I've been reading more and more. So here's what I find:
What? I'm missing a chance to consider the horrors of life in middle America? Geez, I'm such a dope. Here I am, ignoring this news story that's been playing on TV since I was 15, and wasting a perfectly good opportunity to consider horrors. Why am I even bothering to write this, when I could drop everything and start being afraid right now? Psychological torture is just a cable news show away. Like FDR said, 'you've got nothing but fear on every channel.'

But if you consider too much horror, watch too much TV, see the planes hit the towers too many times, there is no going back. You've been shocked too many times. 'You've watched it, you can't unwatch it.'

Pictured Here, TV

2008-02-12T08:18:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, pictured here running for President of the News.

Futurama, pictured here being watched in the future.

Obama Discusses Faith with Honesty

2008-02-10T23:35:00.001-05:00

This June 2006 speech by Barack Obama recently surfaced on digg. It's an amazing speech, a well reasoned argument that imagines an America engaging in a moral debate that supersedes and includes religion. It's forty minutes long, but I can't recommend it more. For the first time I am moved to feel something; what I've wanted from politics since I first read Kurt Vonnegut. In this speech Obama makes me believe in a world where our common humanity can prevail over stupidity and greed. For the first time I am absolutely convinced that Obama is the real deal.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.

Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's I Have a Dream speech without references to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix.
...
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.
[Transcript]

It's weirder than we can imagine

2008-02-08T03:08:00.000-05:00

Before leaving the Senate, Obama was pulled aside for some jovial banter with Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), whose men's room arrest last year caused a national stir. On Tuesday, Obama won the Democratic caucuses in Craig's state.

Clinton, meanwhile, appeared to be more strategic in her final chats. She ventured into the far left corner of the chamber reserved for newcomers, where she buttonholed Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), who has remained undeclared in advance of Tuesday's Virginia primary.

Missing was Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who took a commanding lead for the GOP presidential nomination. McCain's supporters celebrated on his behalf, after Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) spied Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.). The two had spent the previous several days stumping for McCain.

"The rabbi! The rabbi!" Graham called out to Lieberman, as the two men laughed and hugged.
[link]

Bokonon '08

2008-02-06T23:25:00.000-05:00

Today's Dictionary:

karass
A group of people who, unbeknownst to them, are collectively doing God's will in carrying out a specific, common, task. A karass is driven forward in time and space by tension within the karass.

duprass
A karass made of two persons. "A true duprass can't be invaded, not even by children born of such a union."

P.O.T.U.S.
President of the United States

_____________________
_____________________

If Hillary Clinton is elected president we would once again find ourselves living under a non-conventional presidency. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shared a non-conventional presidency. The Vice P.O.T.U.S. had a larger office and staff than the P.O.T.U.S. Cheney did the heavy lifting, and explained the course of the nation to Bush in private meetings. Are the best interests of the republic being served? It is impossible to find out with such a strange arrangement. The Clinton's Duprass would be more of the same.

The privacy of the Clintons' marriage, and the unique decision-making process they have built together, is not healthy for a democracy, even if they feel it produces good decisions. The non-conventional presidency's we've experimented with have damaged our nation, by virtue of their ability to remain unchecked within the system. We need transparency. Without it, we have nothing.

Because this country, to my way of thinking, cannot be successful if it ever divides on sectarian lines. If there are any considerable number of our people that are going to listen to appeals to their passions and to their prejudice, if bigotry and intolerance and their sister vices are going to succeed, it is dangerous for the future life of the Republic, and the best way to kill anything un-American is to drag it out into the open; because anything un-American cannot live in the sunlight.
--Al Smith

_____________________
_____________________

Obama on Healthcare:

"I would have a table, around which you'd have doctors, nurses, patient advocates. The insurance ...companies would get a seat at the table; they just would not get to buy every chair.

"I would put my plan forward ... and these negotiations would be on C-SPAN ... so the public would be part of the conversation and would see the choices being made"

News has a kind of mystery

2008-02-04T19:04:00.000-05:00

I just got back from the polls, hopefully I'm not the only one in the mood for news:

ROMNEY REVILED BY ALL WHO KNOW HIM

The night of the Iowa caucuses, after getting a congratulatory call from McCain, Huckabee told the candidate, according to aides: "Now it's your turn to kick his butt."
Before and after debates, rival campaign staffers note, Romney tends not to mingle with the other candidates — most of whom know each other professionally — preferring instead to keep close to his family and staff. And those same staffers delight in trading stories about Romney's odd behavior. The day before the Republican primary, Huckabee mocked Romney for ordering lunch at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, then peeling off the fried coating and eating it with a knife and fork. Presented with a golf club, Huckabee said he wouldn't be very good at the game: "I'd be like Mitt Romney eating fried chicken."
[link]

The article makes some speculation as to why all the other Republicans hate Romney. Is he just too Mormon? As someone who lived in Massachusetts while Mitt was governor, I can assure you he is a total scumbag. And hating him is a perfectly rational response. I would like to see him eaten by wolves.

MCCAIN/HUCKABEE '08 - SUPER SCARY?

McCain and Huckabee have seemed awfully palsy-walsy. Might Huckabee join McCain's ticket once he's completed his task of spending all Mitt's money? Have the Republicans actually come up with a ticket and a scenario that could bring them victory? Maybe. I've been convinced that there will be no way any Republican could run for president in 2008 without his party's history of vampirism and moloch worship getting in the way. McCain has cultivated the respect of most democratic leaders, who show their hawkish hearts with their affinity towards him. McCain and Huckabee pull in different groups of similar Americans who could easily be united, especially against the Clintons. Scary, huh?

RICHARDSON RESTS BEFORE UPCOMING CABINET POSITION IN '08
In a perfect world, Bill Richardson would be elected president in 2008, and America could just chill out. Since stepping out of the race, Obama and the Clintons have been courting his endorsement. Bill and Bill watched the super bowl together. But I still think he might endorse Obama or wait until after the convention.

The walls of Richardson's office are covered with large portraits of Native Americans. Indian pottery is on display around the room. The governor was holding court on a leather couch, avoiding the pain of getting up to greet visitors because he had wrenched his back exercising.

Richardson doesn't appear to be a guy who spends a lot of time on a treadmill. Unlike skinny Barack Obama, Richardson looks like a man who enjoys a meal. Unlike John Edwards or Mitt Romney, Richardson looks as if he can get along without hairspray and a starched shirt.

The governor's tie was pulled loose, his collar unbuttoned. When he crossed his legs, his black cowboy boots were on full display. A two-week growth of black whiskers covered his jaw.

Richardson said he grows a beard whenever he goes through a period of decompression. His wife hates it, as do his advisers, who tell him he'll look terrible on "Meet the Press," but Richardson doesn't care. Besides, the East Coast pundits only want to ask him whom he's going to endorse, Clinton or Obama, and the follow-up question, what is he going to get for his endorsement. His answer to the media: "Screw you."

He seemed pretty happy for a guy who has just gone through a big rejection.

"Some people, they run for president, they don't make it, they're devastated," he said. "I bounced back the next day. (Still) there is a little element of sadness. I'm actually sad to leave the campaign trail because I loved campaigning, I loved running; I loved being in the debates."

It helped to have the immediate task of dealing with the Legislature. Only hours before I met with him, he got a domestic partners bill passed. That's no small feat in a fairly conservative state. However, Richardson said, a red state in the West is not the same as a red state elsewhere.

"This is a state, like many in the West, that prizes individualism," he said.
[Link]

FOLLOWING AMERICA WITHOUT A TV
Newshour Interactive 2008 Coverage

THEY'VE DONE YEOMAN DUTY
A quick follow up to the ongoing attempt of the Bush Administration to get telecoms immunity for spying on Americans. Howard Dean's brother hassled me into caring about this, I even sent an e-mail to Keith Olbermann asking him to push it. Well it sounds like the people won this battle. Now if Bush wants to protect the telecoms, he'll need to veto a defense bill he said we needed life or death style. We'll keep you posted.

WHY WE VOTE
Because we still can.

The new look

2008-02-04T00:57:00.001-05:00

As Brendan mentioned, we're experimenting with a new look for the site, and there are some growing pains. It has been noted that some things look strange if you resize the text, or if you're viewing the site in Internet Explorer. We'll be fixing these bugs as we find time.

In the mean time, if you've just woken up and realized that you're still using Internet Explorer, go ahead and give Firefox a shot, make your text the default size (usually something like CMD+Zero), and tell us what you think about the redesign.

See you at the polls on Tuesday.

Please Vote Obama This Tuesday

2008-01-31T23:02:00.000-05:00

The G'st is proud to join living Kennedys, Ted and Caroline in endorsing Barack Obama for president. February 5 is Super Tuesday, when 52% of all primary delegates are at stake. Odds are you'll be voting then. And my friends, I know there are some of you out there who are thinking about voting for Hilary Clinton. And I would like to dissuade you from that. There's a lot I want to say, but I don't want to distract from the matter at hand. So first, the evidence:

Two very important, must-read articles on the Clinton's brutal and racist attacks on Obama.
Ghettoizing Barack
Obama’s Hollow Victory

These are the options:
Clinton v. McCain
Obama v. McCain
Clinton v. Romney
Obama v. Romney

Only Obama can energize the American voter, not only to win in November, but to win so decisively as to have a mandate for change. In Obama we finally have a candidate the people don't need to be tricked into liking. A candidate who's best spokesman for his ideas is himself. A candidate who's core ideas and personal convictions come from within, not from polls and consultants.

I realize there are a lot of women out there who would like to see a woman elected president. I would too. But seriously, not this woman. While so many of us had the common sense to oppose going to war with Iraq, she voted for the Iraq War. Her Senate career proves her to be a friend of the defense (WAR) industry, the bane of American freedom and independence. Our great nation has never needed change more, not just for progress, but for survival. Having the same two families in the White House for 24-28 years is poison for a democracy.

If you want change. If you want a better America. If you want to tell Bush, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Only one candidate can do that. Only one candidate will change the course Dick Cheney has set this nation on. Please join me in supporting Obama at the primaries.

It was one of the most public manifestations to date of the odd friendship and mutual need of two dynasties that, on the surface at least, have almost nothing in common. But as President Bush put it in an interview with CBS News last month, "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton." Mr. Bush made the remark in a telling exchange with Bob Schieffer, who said, "Well, you know, if Senator Clinton becomes president."

"There we go," Mr. Bush said.

"Maybe we'll see a day," Mr. Schieffer continued.

"Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton," Mr. Bush responded.
[Link to full New York Times Article]

Couldn't hold it together 'til the convention

2008-01-30T11:22:00.000-05:00

Edwards drops out

Praise Jesus! The Republic is Saved!

2008-01-30T00:10:00.000-05:00

Giuliani to Quit Republican Presidential Race

Redesign and Reply

2008-01-27T16:54:00.000-05:00

So Conner and I have given the site a going over. Trying to make it easier to read and use. Things are still in flux and probably will be until we find a way to make the look of the blog match it's feel. Tricky business indeed, and so please feel free to leave your comments about the design. If things don't look quite right, you may be using Internet Explorer and you should get used to the entire Internet looking crappy until you switch.

All this webwork has got me thinking about past sites and past blogs I've done. I recently stumbled upon one in particular and discovered quite a bit of discussion in the comments about the only real post on the blog. It's the first time I've ever broken the top 20 results for a Google search of someone else's name.

I'm going to be vague and not actually provide a link, because I don't really want people who read that post to be able to find their way back to this blog. I'm not super proud of the post, but I am very proud to have earned their comments. Anyway, if you want to check it out type this address into your browser:
And here's another dead blog of mine:
http://fanafield.blogspot.com/
Maintaining it was a class assignment. And though I stopped as soon as class ended, it did help me prepare for THE G'ST.

Don't Let Criminals Escape

2008-01-26T17:06:00.001-05:00

President Bush wants the Senate to pass retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies who spied on Americans. For the President, this isn't just about letting his friends at AT&T and Verizon off the hook. He knows this is the American people's last chance to hold the Bush administration accountable for their warrantless wiretapping of innocent Americans.

The key vote is scheduled for late Monday afternoon and the count is down to the wire. We need 41 Senators to stand up to President Bush and right now we have only 36.

Senators Clinton and Obama are the missing votes. If Senator Clinton or Obama stands up and leads from the floor of the U.S. Senate and calls upon the 8 senators that have endorsed their campaigns to stand with them, we'll have the votes we need and the American people will win.

[Prove It]

TVTVTV!

2008-01-26T16:59:00.001-05:00

If your looking to put the zap on your waking mind, there's really nothing like television. And if you want to see a collection of Youtube finds, I just updated my four playlists on my Youtube Channel. Cartoons, music, politics, and craziness, are the four pillars of my Church of Youtube.

But if you'd rather use TV to learn about the outside world then I can not recommend Louis Theroux enough. You can watch his show on the youtube and alluc.org. I want to get the DVDs eventually. If you'd like glimpses into the hidden corners of the world, you really need a guide like Louis. Watching him alternately disarm and arm a situation, and watching the characters he meets as they're essences are completely revealed before the camera, well it's quite a show.

If you'd rather not drift into the weird world of Louis, then maybe you'd be more comfortable with his less friendly, but equally lovable BBC counterpart, Charlie Brooker. His show about television and cultural decay is called Screen Wipe and can also be found on the youtube and alluc.org. If you want to know just how great Charlie Brooker is then just watch this:

Better Than Cellphone Watches

2008-01-25T17:38:00.000-05:00

So I was thinking how I really wanted to build a watch with digital hands that preformed a few specific tasks. Just a little piece of wristwear that would tell time and serve as a compass, an instrument tuner, and maybe a thermostat and barometer. Well eventually this line of thought lead me to a simple question. Could you fit a lie detector in a watch? And "modern lie detector test" lead me to this gem of a website. Turn up the speakers and enjoy:

Expert Polygraph Testing -

Young actor's murderer still on the loose - could this be the beginning of a spree?

2008-01-25T01:35:00.000-05:00

I have recently received insider information from an actor working in New York, that Heath Ledger was killed by the Joker. Ledger was recently quoted as saying that playing the part of the psychotic Joker in the upcoming film, The Dark Knight, put such a strain on the actor that he could not sleep at night.

Ledger told The New York Times last year that Heath Ledger stressed a little too much over the role.
The interview was done in London during the filming of Batman.
'It is a physically and mentally draining role (his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” he said cheerfully ) and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much," Heath Ledger told The Times.

“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.”
[Link]

So there you have it. Now the Joker's started killing people out here in the real world. Well, kind of the real world. New York City anyway, not LA, or Tokyo or one of those DC cities. A proper Marvel city. I'm starting to see it more and more. Life drifting into the broad strokes of a comic book: pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Chick Stone, and fuck sake let's say it, script by Stan Lee.
And that might be putting too precise a point on it. The inks aren't always by Chic Stone, and sometimes the pencils are by Steve Ditko. But regardless, like in the Mighty Marvel Age of the 1960s what we're seeing around us is a world shaped by the artists. A world that is running a few steps faster, and a fews steps deeper than what the writers are picking up or getting down.

Things are starting to happen which lead me to think that the dread iron system, whose shadow we have been cowering under since the birth of our New American Century, when on September the Eleventh the assault on the hearts, minds, and rights Americans began, but what I'm trying to say, is maybe that's ending now.

Yeah, so this is the thing. I might be fooling myself, and even if I am, its okay I need the break from the bleak. But I really am starting to think that maybe things are getting better. I really don't want to jinx it, but maybe the brutal and much loathed system, will just break. Fall apart like a poorly thought out Rube Goldberg machine. Not so bad. Weeds are springing up through the cement. Tree roots cracked it but the dandelions have the flowers now.

But it seems this is a transition period; reality is becoming less fixed, and change starts to happen faster and faster. New technologies are rippling into ever facet of life and every field of thought. And so the world starts to look more like a comic book. But I've said that already, so let's go to some examples:

Okay Tom Cruise is a lot of my evidence. I don't know when you first realized that he's a super hero, but for me it was a picture I saw on some tabloid last May that looked something like this,
I believe here he's pictured riding towards Avengers Mansion shortly before his falling out with Hollywood types he once considered nearly family. So far Tom Cruise seems a lot cooler than Tony Stark, who he was originally on the team to replace. Perhaps since Tom Cruise thinks he can move things with his mind, and did overcome his dyslexia through hard work, his mental powers make him more appealing than a gadget hero like Stark's Iron Man.
[Tom Cruise taking ‘Mission’ to Tribeca]

Also if you watched the latest Tom Cruise bit to hit the web, (but not the news, copyright is still ironclad for them) you may have gotten the impression that Tom Cruise's legacy will overshadow that of Scientology. I think he is using his mental powers and personal energy to summon forth something. And his image is starting to represent that something more than the dying cult he is presently apart of.
[Watch the Secret Scientology Tom Cruise Video]

And if Tom Cruise is our superhero, we know we're in the Marvel Universe since his arch villains are a shadow band of hackers known as Anonymous who have vowed to destroy Scientology. Sometimes, over the top is exactly the spot you need to hit. Seems like this could actually start some commotion.
[Message to Scientology]

I'll try to start posting more comic art and more evidences of this most enjoyable turn of events. And hopefully as my world outlook has been brightened, the stories I find and share will be a bit more upbeat from now on. But no promises.

Charges of Sadism Hound Republican Candidates

2007-12-17T18:31:00.000-05:00

Romney clan less brutal to fuzzy animals than Huckabee according to a recent old story.From Kinky Friedman's Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch:

(Miller County, Arkansas) Two boy scout counselors, 17 year old Clayton Frady and 18 year old David litickabee, the son of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, have admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death.

Camp officials, who did not report the crime to law enforcement officials, have admitted that the act did occur and have fired the boys from their positions. However, no charges have been filed against the young men.

Arkansas State Police conducted a perfunctory investigation, but did not attempt to locate witnesses to the crime.

Huckabee denies all. Romney tortures dogs. Giuliani would kill everything if he got the chance. And ol' Hil says, "I will be a good president for dogs."

Vid Lists

2007-12-17T17:51:00.000-05:00

I've decided to start making video playlists on youtube. Making playlists with iTunes really has changed how I listen to music, so I'm excited to see how this new medium and application feel when squished like clay against my head and hands. I'm anticipating the limitations. So far I've made 4 playlists, and I'm planning to stick with these for awhile and try to grow them.

MY VIDEO PLAYLISTS

Free Drug Pipe w/ iPhone

2007-11-28T17:10:00.000-05:00

Found this image on the Apple website over X-Mas. I guess that drug pipe shown next to the iPhone has Bluetooth and wireless crapability. Apple must know their demographic at least as well as their competition does.

Is the Space Pope reptilian?

2007-11-27T12:52:00.000-05:00

Of course I couldn't be happier with the return of Futurama. In the spring of 1999, when Futurama first aired, the Simpsons had already begun to show they would no longer as relevant or sharp in the years 2000. But Futurama still feels fresh to me. Futurama is a throwback. Like the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Black Dossier, Futurama cast a wide net, trying to capture the sum of human thought since inception. With significance drifting back and forth between the past and the future. Like what the scientists tell us about God.
So I thought I thought I'd share some wiki research on Futurama:

* There is a strange racially charged history which the supremely diverse Futurama universe rests on. Evidence: the title of this new Futurama DVD is a play on Shaft's Big Score, the robots are often portrayed as robo-americans, and Nibbler is based on Minstrel cartoon character Bosko. Not everyone's from the Neutral Planet.

* Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth gets his name from Philo Farnsworth inventor of the television. Professor Farnsworth has invented these things, and Mr. Farnsworth invented these things.

* List of recurring alien characters from Futurama

Randy Newman - A Few Words in Defense of Our Country

2007-11-07T18:23:00.001-05:00

The Shock Doctrine by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein

2007-09-29T11:14:00.001-04:00

GoogleSky

2007-08-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

A few days ago we were looking for a good star/sky catalog, and a few days ago Google released an amazing update to GoogleEarth. So, wow, cool, all that.

You can now use their app to view the night sky, as you'd see it, from wherever you are. Also, just like in the rest of GoogleEarth, you can zooooooommmm.

This is looking like an amazing potential venue for the LSST star data Google has promised to archive, which will be coming in... 2013? (so far away) at a rate of 30TB a night.

Some applications with similar offerings are mentioned in this article, but I'd check out Stellarium (open-source, cross-platform). I haven't fully explored it, but it has some fun overlays, and from what I can see, it all sits on your computer, which would be preferable to the GoogleEarth/Sky, should you be star-gazing in an area where the wifi is a bit spotty.

- - - -
http://earth.google.com/sky/
Google Lat Long (GoogleEarth and Maps blog)
another youtube spot
- - - -

It is alarming (and wonderful) to think about how disparate the childhoods of the coming generations are and will be from every other generation that has come before. Seriously, check out the zoom on a nebula or something. Crazy.

Holden Caulfield, all grown up with make up

2007-08-24T01:49:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to ease into blogging after my vacation. You can try looking Dylan in the eyes in this video. He keeps trying to hide them beneath the shadow of his hat. But when revealed, we see they understand the mechanics of life very clearly. And Holden has experienced more by now. 1975 is a very lucid year despite it all. Our 1975 might be only a few years away. I wonder who'll be wearing the skull make up then.

An OLPC Christmas / OLPC Distribution in October

2007-07-23T22:57:00.000-04:00

Holiday Wishes Come True?

Finally some confirmation from up on high! (Mary Lou Jepsen, CTO)
She mentions a possible price-tag of $350.

From the reuters article:

As the foundation prepares for mass production of its first model, the XO, to begin in October, it is looking for ways to subsidize manufacturing of the devices so that it can get more of them into the hands of poor children, Jepsen said.

Profits from consumer sales would go for that purpose, said Jepsen.

"We're trying to get the best deal we can," she said.

She added the foundation is looking at selling the machines over the Internet and talking to companies with "a big presence on the Web," although she declined to identify any by name.

We could speculate on what laptop-conveyance they'll go with, waxing fantastical, but the reality is probably not going to be that earth-shaking; they'll find a tigerdirect-like distributor, or something.

Saying that, I'm not ruling out GoogleDelivery, direct from the hands of Al Gore as he travels cross-country at the head of a fleet of OLPC-laden GoogleVans.

boingboing
reuters

Large-Scale Laptop Production About To Begin

According to this BBC article, the production of the Children Machine is about to be ramped up to get the devices into kids hands by this coming October.

Here's Chris Blizzard going over innards and some power stuff: (courtesy BBC)

The BBC also provides a link to their 'Factfile: XO laptop' which contains a good overview of the technology that makes the Children's Machine what it is. If you scroll-down to the bottom, they have an applet demonstrating how the mesh connectivity behaves (it looks like a slightly modifed version of this one). Fun.

Although I find it a little hard to believe that we'll be able to purchase our very own OLPCs only two months after legitimate distribution starts, I am so excited for this Christmas.

ContentDumps

2007-07-20T19:50:00.000-04:00

Here is a collection of links which should each be considered worthy appendices of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA:

The INTERNET Archive

Library of Congress, American Memory AUDIO Collections

Library of Congress, American Memory MOVIE Collections

Library of Congress, American Memory IMAGE Collections

Wellcome IMAGE Collection

TEXT, AUDIO, MOVIE Poetry Collections at ubu.com

TEXT Collection of 522 Poets

Because these links are so laden with content, I will try to conduct semi regular explorations of each. And report back my findings here. Unfortunately all these sites have interfaces which impair your use. I'll also add new Internet Media Collections, or ContentDumps, as I find them.

Here are a few selected collections:
By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943
Early Animated Films, 1900-1921
Vintage Animated Cartoons, 1930s-1940s

"You're being paranoid, John."

2007-07-20T00:43:00.000-04:00

Watch the [.mpg4] and enjoy the [transcript] of the McLauglin Group from FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2007 BROADCAST: WEEKEND OF JULY 14-15, 2007.

In which, John McLaughlin suggest that Michael Chertoff's "recent gut" feeling that America could experience an, "increased summer threat," is part of a disinformation plot on the part of the White House.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And why was that story surfaced this week? Do you think some of this was designed, on the part of the administration, including the sentiment expressed by the head of Homeland Security that he feels it in his belly, was this designed to keep the Republicans in the Congress at bay?
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was it designed as a kind of a prelude to the president's press conference?
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let me ask you this about Pakistan. Was the release of that story -- let's go back to that. Was the release of that story about Rumsfeld designed to send a message to Musharraf? Namely, "You either cooperate with us or we'll go forward with that kind of Rumsfeld plan." In other words, this is kind of a fearmongering for him and it's fearmongering for the Congress.

(Blankley denies this idea that the Rumsfeld story is beneficial to the Bush Administration and claims the author, Andrea Mitchell is an aggressive reporter and no friend of the White House. However, she is Alan Greenspan's wife, and doesn't come off well in this Media Matters coverage of the 2004 election.)
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is the president announcing a third front, and that's Pakistan?
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Exit question: What is the main factor fueling the rise of al Qaeda? Pat Buchanan.

MR. BUCHANAN: The United States' invasion and occupation of an Arab country, Iraq, and the four-year war we've fought against the resistance in Iraq, that has created an enormous movement across the Arab and Islamic world to drive the United States out of there. And there are volunteers -- tremendous numbers of volunteers for al Qaeda.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you seen that happen before, where jihadists would flow from all over the world to any sector in order to evict an occupier?

MR. BUCHANAN: Sure. You've seen it in the Battle of Algiers.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Where else have you seen it?

MS. CLIFT: Afghanistan.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You saw it in Afghanistan, did you not?

MS. CLIFT: Absolutely. And a western country invading an oil- rich Muslim country is a recipe for disaster.
...
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You don't see how this whole event was a prelude -- that is, the director of Homeland Security -- was a prelude to Bush's press conference?

MR. BUCHANAN: This is one of these Machiavellian --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Don't you realize that by creating --

(Cross-talk.)

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- by creating an atmosphere of fear, by creating an atmosphere of fear --

MR. BUCHANAN: You are paranoid, John. You are paranoid.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- he holds the Congress in place? He holds them in place.

MS. CLIFT: I would have agreed with you --

MS. HUFFINGTON: But it didn't help Bush. On the contrary, I think it had the opposite effect. How does it help Bush to have an official estimate of an increased strength of al Qaeda?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The atmospherics of terror are such that if the president then appears strong in Iraq, it's misconcluded by the American public that he is fighting terrorism. And therefore, they give him more license to do so.

As always John McLaughlin speaks the truth. The rest aren't stepping back and seeing how the sentence reads if you skip three words a beat. The Misconclusions of the Public are written by the television press which have universally degraded the quality of debate, and forgotten their public responsibility not to publish propaganda. The others on the show, liberal and conservative make the mistakes that plague the over-informed. They assume Americans are as well.

MR. BUCHANAN: They smacked down -- Chertoff got smacked down by both Bush and Tony Snow, for heaven's sakes.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, why? You know that.

MS. CLIFT: No, no. Chertoff --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Just as --

MR. BLANKLEY: John --

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It is uncharacteristic of Chertoff to talk about anything originating in his gut. So he gets a phone call.

MR. BLANKLEY: John, you're --

MR. BUCHANAN: You're moving way out there, John. (Laughs.)

MS. HUFFINGTON: John, the final proof that you are wrong is that the president at his press conference actually said the exact opposite. He said that al Qaeda is weaker because of our actions since 9/11. He said that. So if this was some kind of planned leak, then he wouldn't have contradicted his own Machiavellian plan.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: No, I think they jibe together. It works perfectly.

MR. BLANKLEY: Arianna, he's just that cunning.

They make funny of him, call him paranoid, but John McLaughlin is absolutely right. To understand this administration you can't look at what they say, or what the facts admit. But rather the message they are able to convey through Fox News and the pressure it creates in tandem with an Executive branch unified around that centralized message. This message and those who created it are all honorary parts and products of the Ministry of Truth. And it is important for such a Ministry to have a role call.

The pundits and journalists who have lubed the way for new policies and war, should be recognized. Conner linked to The Long Now Blog in the sidebar and through it I found this Radar Online article that's wonderful on, The Iraq Gamble. It traces the careers of eight pundits, and sees what their pre-War stance got them. Those with the wrong stance, the risk everything for this fun idea stance, those pro-war assholes made big bucks and kept everyone's ear. Not so for those who opposed the war and disagreed with Bush's NON-existent WMDs.

This is really a long now kind of issue, because in a longer time frame then we are currently appreciating life at, there becomes room and need to have a list. Lynne Cheney made a list of professors after 9/11 who she considered "un-American." Schools were pressured not to hire the professors for speeches or teaching positions. Truly another dark day for American freedoms. But perhaps it is time to start drawing up new list. A list of those who, through intent or neglect, lead America astray with a weak reporting of the facts.

America has made some bad decisions in the past six years. Decisions that rock the core security of our democracy. To preserve our freedoms and our nation, we must identify the problem. So when Gore comes to power in the early Winter of 2008, he can clear our the trash before 2010.

The Radar article is really worth reading but here is the gist of it,

McLauglin closes last Friday's show with,

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The House Oversight Committee this week heard testimony of ex-Surgeon General Richard Carmona. He served the current Bush administration from 2002 to 2006, a four-year term as the nation's top doctor.

The surgeon general's duties are to provide Americans, quote, "the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness."

On Tuesday, Dr. Carmona lambasted the Bush administration for substituting politics for science.

RICHARD CARMONA (former U.S. surgeon general): (From videotape.) Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointee's ideological, theological or political agenda is often ignored, marginalized or simply buried. The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Among other examples, Dr. Carmona pointed to stem cell research funding as an instance of where his analysis and his opinion were spurned.

DR. CARMONA: (From videotape.) I was blocked at every turn. I was told the decision had already been made. "Stand down. Don't talk about it."

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Carmona says that his speeches were censored on issues ranging from second-hand smoke to AIDS to sex education to birth control.

DR. CARMONA: (From videotape.) You don't want Republican or Democratic scientific information. You want real scientific information.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Carmona also said that the administration told him to mention Mr. Bush's name three times on every page of every speech.

That final bombshell McLauglin points to as proof of the "cult of personality," which maintains the President's loyal 30 percent. Bush's little brownshirts are ignorant of the counter-facts Huffington and her techno-elite dine on. Instead they are fed fear by their strong leader, and so they stay our nations course, and defend an impeachable Administration.

"Asbestos Not Found in Air After Blast, Officials Say"

2007-07-19T12:18:00.000-04:00

I'll believe that when the first responders don't get cancer.
Clipped from the NYTimes :

Asbestos has been found in the muddy dirt and debris that was spewed forth in a thunderous steam pipe explosion that jolted Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday evening. But no asbestos was found in the air, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others had initially feared.

The explosion on Wednesday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

One person died, officials said, and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically.

“There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

That's a relief. As Mike Dukakis would say, the infrastructure is deteriorating. And it has been for years, so no alarms and no surprises there. I feel better already. As to, I don't know, repairing the infrastructure, maybe not all of the anti-terrorism money that's being sent to the cities will be spent on crowd suppression weapons and surveillance. Maybe they'll find it in their cold cold heart's to throw the people a dime. But I wouldn't hold my breath unless I didn't want Asbestos related cancer in the future.

The place where fascism and the environment meet for casual sex and everyone watches...

2007-07-16T21:02:00.000-04:00

Here's a follow up to the fact-flash that NYC will soon be graced with the same video surveillance that helped protect London on July 7, 2005.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - A proposed ``congestion pricing'' toll system to reduce traffic and pollution will be too expensive, its array of cameras for enforcement will threaten civil liberties, and downtown businesses will shrivel.

New York City, 2007?

Try London 2002. Those were the dire predictions a half-decade ago when the British city pioneered what New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes to repeat now. In London, the results include a drop in traffic congestion by 20 percent and similar decrease in carbon emissions in London's central zone since 2003.

But the plan to help fight global warming, in which cars would be charged $8 and trucks $21 to drive into Manhattan south of 86th Street, will first have to get through state lawmakers in Albany on Monday. It faces some strong opposition and bad timing.

In London, where the fees were about double what Bloomberg proposes, ``there was enormous opposition, both politically and from business owners and ultimately it was approved through a long and arduous political process, much like we have here,'' said Steven Polan, a Manhattan lawyer who worked for London's government on its congestion pricing plan after working for New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
[link]

All in the name of fighting global warming in the global city. Imagine what President Bloomberg would do? For that matter what President Gore will do.

Here's a quote from Raymond Kelley, NYPD Commisioner when he was on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:

Well, it's long been settled in the law that there is no expectation of privacy in the public place. That's been the law of the land for quite a while. There was a landmark Supreme Court decision, I believe, was in 1968.

So it's simply not a legal issue. It's not a violation of the Constitution. It's not a violation of statute. I think what the professor is talking about is policy. And we're really -- you know, we're not talking about a violation of anyone's constitutional rights.

Will there be, you know, some aberrations? You can always point to some misuse of a piece of equipment. But by and large, I think it just simply makes sense to have cameras, to have the ability to monitor activities in this most sensitive location, I'd say for the United States of America, not just for New York City.

Good advice Ray. So next time your necking your girl in Central Park, remember to make it look extra good, because your not alone and the Watchmen like it hot.

They Will Not Go Quietly Into That Goodnight

2007-07-12T23:31:00.000-04:00

I just watched a short Bill Moyers program from 1987 called, The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis. It's devastatingly frightening. Moyers traces the beginning of the end to the National Security Act of 1947. I can't recommend watching this 22 minute documentary enough. America's War of Terror makes much more sense when seen in it's historical context. This is war has lasted over half a century so far, and has no intention of stopping. And we probably can't stop it.

Moyers says when America employed Nazi war criminals as spies and scientists we made a pact with the Devil. This is true. The death worship and imperial dreams of the Nazis were not defeated, merely transmuted.

This is too frustrating to bear. Here are 5 links, a warning and a solution:

"Reagan Aides and the 'Secret' Government," Alfonso Chardy, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.
Continuity of Government in the United States
'Shadow Government' News To Congress, March 2, 2002
U.S. Can Confine Citizens Without Charges, Court Rules, September 10, 2005
Security Cameras Coming to New York City

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
...
We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address
17 January 1961

And any time you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.

Malcolm X

"Sometimes I feel like all science is doing now is reverse-engeneering Jack Kirby..."

2007-07-12T22:14:00.000-04:00

Is there a word for that unsettling experience of walking by some street corner you've walked by a thousand times before and noticing the building that was always there had been torn down, replaced by some shiny new thing--and now that the old thing is gone, you realize you can't really remember what was there before? I feel like that's happening around us all the time.
[pulphope]

===

I had a strange sense of seeing a foreign object, realizing I couldn't fully grasp it's significance to my future-self, but knowing one day in the future it would be significant. One day, the iPhone will return to me. One day I would be holding one of my own, never knowing how I ever got along without it before.

Over at the table sits Dean Haspiel, chilling with Heidi MacDonald and JahFurry. Dean and I start talking about Jack Kirby (not the first time). We talk about comics, the glory of them, making them, inventing them, loving them. We talk about science fiction in comics, about Jack Kirby and his particular type of science fiction. "In comics, there's no budget," I hear myself saying, "just your paper and your brush and your imagination."

"Look at all that stuff Kirby came up with, " he says. "Kirby just INVENTED on paper, he didn't bother to build any of it. He already thought of it. It was enough to just think of it -- he was just blueprinting the future..."

"Sometimes I feel like all science is doing now is reverse-engeneering Jack Kirby," I say.

And we sit there in silence a bit. The thought of Jack Kirby's imagination tends to make cartoonists' conversations taper off into quiet introspection. The place was full of people but the noise of Jack Kirby in my head drowned it all out--exploding, psychedelic Kirby visions, weird twisting pipes on Orion's cycle, the chrome curves and jet-exhaust vents on the underbelly of the Fantasticar, Darkseid's Omega Beams, with all their strange, Cubist trajectories, Seriphan and his collapsing Super Cycle, the silent corridors of the Red Ghost's lunar hideaway, High Father's staff, Machine Man's extending arms and dismantleable magenta body parts, his bug-like red eyes, his impassive stare-- the images paraded along an infinite mobius strip of their own, like the marching red ants in the MC Escher print.

"All the iPhone is is a retarded Mother Box," I declare. Dean nods, knowing.
[pulphope]

I finally got to look at the iPhone, like the iPod Nano, it's a 2010 device existing with a halo of improbability around it here in 2007.

Mr. Rogers talks to the US senate

2007-07-10T03:05:00.001-04:00

I posted this video before watching it through. Since then I've gone searching for more Fred Rogers on the Internet and beyond. Today I tried to find his book, You Are Special, in my local bookstores to no avail. I'm going to try the Amherst stores soon.

His PBS website gives a taste of his book and some of his song lyrics with sheet music.

His wikipedia entry is not bad and contains this excerpt from Esquire Magazine's coverage of the 1997 Daytime Emmy's, written by Tom Junod:

Mister Rogers went onstage to accept the award — and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Ten seconds of silence."[5]

And then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, 'I'll watch the time." There was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. And so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds — and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. And Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly, "May God be with you," to all his vanquished children.

The entry also covers his advocacy of the VCR:

Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "Neighborhood" at hours when some children cannot use it ... I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the "Neighborhood" off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the "Neighborhood" because that's what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family's television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been "You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions." Maybe I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.

This testimony was quoted in a footnote of the Supreme Court's decision to allow VCRs. I'm sure he'd want more than just as few clips like this one, to be on youtube.

“Let us pray also for the Jews, that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ."

2007-07-06T00:40:00.000-04:00

Crazy Nazi-Pope Benedict XVI wants to reinstate Latin Mass. Sounds like church will finally be worth going to again. And PB XVI is not only handsome but sympathetic to Jews. Apparently,

Fears that the Vatican was set to reintroduce a controversial prayer including calls for Jews to convert appeared to be allayed yesterday after the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England assured the Jewish community that the contentious part would be omitted.

Pat Buchanan confessed on last Friday's McLaughlin Group, that this is a wet dream come true for him. And with Bush's recent immigration reform failure, everything is coming up roses for PJB.

Commuting Towards Iran

2007-07-05T01:51:00.000-04:00

I just finished a magnificent graphic novel my sister got me for my birthday, the famous Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. So I've been thinking about Iran. But I don't think I am alone. The President's lite pardon of the Vice President's man, I. Lewis Libby indicates a future for Iran in the headlines. The Washington Post just finished a multi-part story on the villainy of the Vice POTUS Cheney. The story gained such traction that the Daily Show has already presented three parts of it's undisclosed number of part series on Dick Cheney, "You Don't Know Dick."

It's a good start. But even this increased scrutiny wasn't enough to dissuade Bush from following the course set for him in his private top secret meetings with the Vice POTUS. So while we keep hearing rumblings of dissension in the Bush Administration, Cheney holds the reins. Meaning Iran is still on the table. If the Vice POTUS can still get his friends out of prison, then he can still imprison the country in another war. We're already behind on the schedule for his new American Century.

And Persepolis is required reading for understanding the price of war.

Wikipedia on Marjane Satrapi,

Satrapi's career began in earnest when she met David B., a French comics artist. She adopted a style similar to his, especially in her earliest works. Satrapi became famous worldwide because of her critically acclaimed, autobiographical graphic novels Persepolis and Persepolis 2, which describe her childhood in Iran and her adolescence in Europe in an intelligent and engaging portrait of everyday life.

NY Mag Article on Biology of Sexual Orientation

2007-07-03T21:54:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting article in New York Magazine on the biology of homosexuality,

One of the riddles still vexing geneticists is why only 50 percent of gay identical twins share a sexual orientation with their sibling, despite being genetically identical. “We know from all sorts of research that it’s not your upbringing, not relationship with parents or siblings, not early-childhood sexual experiences and whether you go to a Catholic school or not,” says Sven Bocklandt, a geneticist at UCLA. “What I believe is that it is the ‘epigenetics environment,’ meaning the environment on top of our DNA—meaning the way that the gene is regulated. If you have identical twins, the genes are identical, but they are used differently. Every man and every woman has all the genes to make a vagina and womb and penis and testicles. In the same way, arguably, every man and woman has the genetic code for the brain networks that make you attracted to men and to women. You activate one or the other—and if you activate the wrong one, you’re gay.”

=====

Some critics of sexual-orientation researchers blame them for minimizing the role of experience in determining our affectional course in life. The feminist biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling has waged a constant battle against their research, which she calls “a big house of cards” that ignores the power of environment in creating personality. Nurture, she argues, can and should be studied as a link to sexual orientation. The baby penguin raised by her two dads is a potential case study—though genetically unrelated to either parent, in the last few mating seasons she has mated with another female.

The rush to declare a biological mandate is motivated by a political agenda, says Fausto-Sterling, the author of Sexing the Body, who is married to a woman after a marriage to a man. “For me and for any feminist, I think it’s a pretty fragile way to argue for human rights. I want to see the claims for gay rights made on moral, ethical, legal, and constitutional bases that don’t rely on a particular scientific view of sexual development.”

And according to the wikipedia entry on Biology and sexual orientation,

The Advocate, a U.S. gay and lesbian newsmagazine, reported in 1996 that 61% of its readers believed that "it would mostly help gay and lesbian rights if homosexuality were found to be biologically determined".[23] A cross-national study in the United States, the Philippines, and Sweden found that those who believed that "homosexuals are born that way" held significantly more positive attitudes toward homosexuality than those who believed that "homosexuals choose to be that way" and/or "learn to be that way".[24]

Also mentioned in the David France, New York Magazine article,

Sheep are among 500 animal species where homosexuality has been documented. They are also among the few who practice exclusive homosexuality, like many humans. In any population of sheep, about 8 percent of males show exclusive homosexual behavior. Little is known about the romantic life of Sapphic sheep because ewes tend to express their sexual interests by standing entirely still, yielding no clues about their partner preferences.

One Blog Per Child

2007-07-02T20:30:00.000-04:00

If I were teacher, I would not hide from wikipedia. Many teachers do. Citing it is often forbidden. But why run away from a giant book of everything, when it's fun to read with links and tabs. Better to adapt to it.

Rather than infrequent big projects, students should have lots of mini research projects. Asked and allowed to go questing through wikipedia, following links that interest them. Learning history or science, geometry or UFOs. Their reports would be digital. Blog reports summarizing what they had read. They would be supervised by teachers or by older students as part of their education. Teaching is a valuable skill, and experience is a virtue. And the OLPC is a necessity for this sort of thing.

We need books to outline a curriculum for schools without books. And tell us how to revive the relationship between the pupil and the teacher.

Meanwhile, I think personal technologies will be tearing off in two directions. That of the iPhone, Jeff Han, touch screen magic, and that of the OLPC. $100 laptops, mean the internet is finally everywhere. Breadth and depth.

from OLPC News:

He liked it.

2007-06-29T22:09:00.000-04:00

Animal lovers hit the roof after it was revealed that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney strapped his Irish setter to the top of his car during a 12-hour drive from Boston to Ontario, terrifying the dog and causing a health hazard to other road users.

According to the Boston Globe, the former Massachusetts governor placed the dog, called Seamus, in a kennel attached to the roof of his station wagon. He and his family then set off on holiday.

After a few miles, Mr Romney's son, Tagg, raised the alarm. A brown liquid was dripping down the rear windscreen. Seamus had suffered a diarrhoea attack. The results made driving difficult.
Mr Romney pulled over, borrowed a hosepipe and washed down Seamus, the car, and the kennel - then set off again with the dog still on the roof.

The Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the 1983 incident, which came to light this week, could be investigated. Mr Romney said the row was a fuss about nothing. Seamus enjoyed being on the roof, he said.
[link]

WikiVandal Scries Future, Apologizes

2007-06-29T14:43:00.000-04:00

Apparently, the wiki entry for wrestler Chris Benoit was edited to include information about his wife's death, hours before the police were aware. Sounded to E.C. not to be true. But the poster has come forward confessing it was a joke that just happened to be real.

This is not the last time that Wikipedia will historicize something before it happens. It's power and scope will set it loose from the timestream.

A million vandals at a million keyboards can write tomorrow's headlines.

Smooth teeth

2007-06-27T15:40:00.000-04:00

The hole in my upper second molar is now filled, as well as two other cavities I didn't know I had. Apparently, flossing can prevent more cavities real good. I'll try. It didn't really hurt. But no amount of first hand experiences will dissolve the edginess that surrounds dentistry and teeth, in my mind's eye.

Of course things like these two don't help much either:

Dental Antiques

Phisick - Dental Antiques

Brian Eno on Music for Airports

2007-06-21T00:38:00.000-04:00

via Bruce Sterling's blog:

If Ever a Wiz There Was

2007-06-13T23:22:00.000-04:00

So Mr. Wizard died... yesterday... I guess - summer days are futzing me up. I used to watch his show when I was younger. If you havn't seen the show, he'd do an often-impressive demonstration of some basic science, then explain it, while doing a pretty good job of engaging his audience - to my knowledge, this was the first show of its kind (wikipedia tells me his first version of the show started in the 50s).

As someone effectively fed and raised by television, this was a formative morning staple, and deserves a degree of credit for injecting a sense of curiosity into my squishy child-brain.

*links*
boingboing
his website
l.a. times obituary

Iron Man

2007-06-13T19:48:00.000-04:00

My friend Mark sent me these awesome photos from the new Iron Man movie. Looks great.

And since this is another comic book post, I should mention that today was the start of World War Hulk, and it was great.

Peter Sellers interview 1974 PART 4

2007-06-13T00:58:00.001-04:00

The end of a pretty good interview with Peter Sellers. And the reason I want this:

World War Hulk #1 On Sale This Wednesday

2007-06-11T14:34:00.001-04:00

In honor of King Hulk, and to my amazement at having only recently discovered these databanks of prodigious effort, I give you Marvel time,

Timeline of the Marvel Universe

Major Events of the Marvel Universe

Unofficial Chronology of the Marvel Universe

Wouldn't it be great to be able to overlay these timelines over historical ones. What were the great albums that came out when the Hulk first appeared? We need to map time and make all the maps mutable and mergable. I know it sounds silly. But just looking up dates in wikipedia is not a good use of that information.

However, some interesting information I found out that way,

The Fantastic Four conducted there first space flight the same month that President Kennedy sent 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.

Vote Like Your Whole World Depended on It

2007-06-09T13:57:00.000-04:00

I've been taking some more time to explore the Living Room Candidate. And it is really great. A treasure trove of presidential campaign commercials. The site seems a little buggy, but selecting "Play in External Player" seems to fix that. Here's the text which accompanies the first Nixon advertisement of 1968.

The centerpiece of the Nixon advertising campaign was a superbly crafted series of spots by filmmaker Eugene Jones. With carefully orchestrated montages of still photographs accompanied by jarring, dissonant music, his ads created an image of a country out of control, with crime on the rise, violence in the streets, and an unwinnable war raging overseas. The ads implicitly linked these problems to the Democratic administration, of which Humphrey was a part.

The most controversial of Jones’s ads, "Convention", juxtaposed unflattering still photographs of a smiling Humphrey with images of Vietnam and the chaos of the Democratic convention, all to the ironic accompaniment of the Dixieland song "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight." The ad implied that Humphrey either had caused these problems or didn’t care about them. NBC considered it unfair, but federal regulations prohibited the censorship of any political commercial and the ad ran during a broadcast of Laugh-In. However, Democratic protest led the Republicans to pull it after a single showing.

Nixon’s ad campaign was part of a carefully managed television effort that was detailed in Joe McGinnis’s The Selling of the President 1968. The book made the public aware for the first time of the critical role of consultants and advertising executives in creating a candidate’s image. The campaign designed a strategy by which Nixon appeared only in controlled situations. He limited his public appearances and press conferences, and refused to debate Humphrey. Instead, he appeared in a series of hour-long programs, produced by Roger Ailes, in which he was interviewed live by panels of carefully selected citizens. Nixon occasionally faced tough questions, but the discussions took place in front of partisan audiences from which the press was barred.

Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty.

2007-06-09T02:58:00.001-04:00

Nixon's lies are revealing, intense, and painful.

"I never think in those terms, suicide terms -death wish and all that, that's all just bunk. But on the other hand, I feel myself, that life without purpose, I feel that life in which an individual is forced to go against his intuitions about what he thinks he ought to do, then life then becomes almost unbearable. And so resignation meant life without purpose."

And it gets better.

More great Nixon tube:

1960 election - Nixon talks to supporters

Richard Nixon plays his Piano Concerto #1

Nixon plays piano for Duke Ellington

from The Living Room Candidate -an amazing resource

Invasion

2007-06-08T19:08:00.000-04:00

Besides the oft posted colony collapse disorder
mysteriously spiriting away our nations bees, there is an older, more concrete threat to the domesticated bee population.

What the World Eats

2007-06-08T14:11:00.000-04:00

A photo essay from TIME.

Soviet Arcade

2007-06-07T16:12:00.001-04:00

Last month, the four officially opened the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines in a Stalin-era bomb shelter under a university dormitory. Packed into two rooms are dozens of Soviet-made video game carcasses in various states of repair. Some work perfectly; others last for a few minutes, then fade. One common feature among them all is a lack of a high-score list.

"That kind of competition wasn't encouraged," explains Alexander Stakhanov, one of the museum's founders and engineers. "If you got enough points you won a free game, but there was no 'high score' culture as in the West."
[from Wired]

Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone 1966

2007-06-04T20:28:00.001-04:00

Amazing.

September

2007-06-04T15:28:00.000-04:00

Pure Horserace: Gingrich Gets Going

CBS News - 1 hour ago
(CBS) While former House Speaker Newt Gingrich remains steadfast in putting off a decision on running for president until late September, he appears to be working to insure a continued presence in political circles until he does so.

Everyone seems to want to wait until September. Iraqi's government wanted to take a two month summer vacation, and the American politicians give themselves an Iraqi policy vacation with the SURGE. Can't think about pulling out in the middle of a surge. Hey, it could work, but we won't know until September.

Of course, the success of any normal thing which surges can be determined early on. In other words, what's so different about in August? Well, the only thing which changes is politics. Situations stay the same, but just a little time can be politically seismic. So Gore and Gingrich will wait to sweep their parties until late. And both with a message of moral certitude against the evils of the media circus which the rest of their parties had brutalized themselves to impress.

To brutal to enter, to brutal to leave.

And so Edwards unfurled a zinger that navigated around the fact that senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., shared his position by both voting against Iraq war funding 10 days ago: "There is a difference between leadership and legislating."
...
But where does Edwards go with this campaign message? On his left stands Obama, who shut down Edwards' attack with an icy response that reminded viewers that both Edwards and Clinton voted for the Iraq war: "You're about 4 1/2 years late on leadership on this issue."
[The Note]

"I am not a warmonger!"

2007-06-03T18:13:00.000-04:00

Thompson is just one more republican candidate who won't be able to convince Americans that he isn't a part of the Imperial Evil. No republican will be able to shake Bush off; not Thompson, not Gingrich, and not Thompson/Gingrich.

For posterity, here is what David Brooks is saying as Thompson takes his first steps towards the White House:

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
June 1, 2007 Friday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Column 6; Editorial Desk; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 760 words

HEADLINE: Back To Basics

BYLINE: By DAVID BROOKS

BODY:

This week Fred Thompson gave a speech in Connecticut during which two words did not cross his lips: George Bush. But that's all right. Thompson recently gave speeches in Virginia and California during which he scarcely mentioned Bush either. In the world Thompson described, the current Washington players are most notable for being trapped in that undifferentiated swamp we call Washington politics.

That's because the divide that engages Thompson most is not the ideological one between liberals and conservatives or between this or that brand of conservatism. It's the divide between concentrated power and decentralized power.

Thompson's core theme is that there is a disconnect between the American people and their rulers. He campaigns against concentrated Republican power almost as much as he does against concentrated Democratic power. Though a Republican, he's able to launch a reasonably nonpartisan attack on the way government has worked over the last 19 years.

This suspicion of concentrated power in general and Washington in particular is not some election-year conversion for Thompson. It stretches back his whole life. He began his career, remember, investigating the Nixon White House. As Stephen Hayes reminded us in The Weekly Standard, as a young staffer on the Senate Watergate committee, Thompson asked the question that revealed the existence of the White House tapes.

He went home to Tennessee and became a protege of Howard Baker, whose party apparatus has always had a folksy, country vs. capital ethos.

As a senator, Thompson investigated the Clinton campaign finance scandals (poorly), and established a reputation on one issue above all others: federalism. He was the only senator who voted against something called the Good Samaritan law because he thought it centralized power in the national government. He was that rarest of creatures -- someone who not only preached federalism to get to Washington, but practiced it after he arrived.

Today on the stump he talks about discovering Barry Goldwater's ''Conscience of a Conservative'' while in law school. He campaigns against the immigration bill because he doesn't think Washington can be counted on to keep its promises. His main complaint with the war on terror is that Al Qaeda has a 100-year plan while most Washington politicians ''have a plan until the next election.''

He tells party strategists that there is a tide in the country against the way Washington does business, which he is best positioned to ride. He says the 2006 election was not primarily about Iraq, it was about corruption and pork-barrel spending.

What Thompson's campaign represents, then, is a return to basics. It's not primarily engaged in the issues that have dominated recent G.O.P. politics. Thompson is campaigning to restore America's constitutional soul. He's going back to Madison and Jefferson and the decentralized federalism of the founders, at least as channeled through Goldwater. As Thompson himself said while running for Senate, ''America's government is bringing America down, and the only thing that can change that is a return to the basics.''

Thompson thus becomes one pole in the debate now roiling the G.O.P. Nobody is running as the continuation of Bush. The big question now is: should the party go back to the basics or should it jump forward and transform itself into something new? Thompson articulates the back-to-basics view in its purest form. Newt Gingrich articulates the transformational view in its purest form. The other candidates are a mishmash in between.

If I were a political consultant I would tell my candidate to play up Thompson's back-to-basics theme. This is a traumatized party, not in the mood for anything risky and new. But over the long run, back to basics is no solution because it doesn't produce a positive agenda for today's problems.

Fred Thompson's political skills are as good as anybody now running, but his challenge is going to be building a concrete agenda on his anti-Washington message. It will be translating his Goldwater risorgimento philosophy into policies on energy, health care reform, Islamic extremism and education. For if there is one thing the last 30 years have taught us, it is that campaigns that are strictly anti-Washington do not command 50 percent of the vote because they don't address the decentralized global challenges that now face us.

Perhaps, as my friend Daniel Casse notes, what the G.O.P. needs is Newt Gingrich's brain lodged in Fred Thompson's temperament. Paul Krugman is on vacation.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

LOAD-DATE: June 1, 2007

tip of the hat

2007-05-25T22:12:00.000-04:00

vader helmet gallery

On Seat Belts

2007-05-21T18:01:00.001-04:00

Google News is abuzz with local news reports about the states actively involved in a Click It Or Ticket campaign, to increase the use of seat belts. Sorry safety belts.

There are two types of safety belt laws: primary and secondary. A primary law allows a law enforcement officer to write a ticket if he or she simply observes an unbelted driver or passenger. Under a secondary law, an officer cannot ticket anyone for a safety belt violation unless the motorist is stopped for another infraction. Primary laws are very effective in increasing safety belt use. In 2002, belt use in States with primary laws was 80 percent, compared with 69 percent in States without primary laws. [NHTSA, National Occupant Protection Use Survey, June 2002]

As of April 2003, only 18 States, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia had primary safety belt laws. The primary-law States are Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Washington. New Hampshire is the only State that has no adult safety belt law.

And here are a bunch of lousy facts about all the lives seat belts can save. I can't find much other than blog comments on the one fact which makes primary seat belt laws a really bad idea. One fact. Can't trust the cops. They will use primary seat belt laws to harass anyone they feel like.

And let's close on enotes' Encyclopedia of Law explain why people don't wear seat belts:

According to the MVOSS study, the primary reason occasional seat belt users fail to buckle up is that they are only driving short distances (56 percent). More than half said that they simply forget on occasion. For those who never wear a seat belt, the most commonly cited reason (65 percent) is that seat belts are uncomfortable. Other reasons people gave for not wearing their seat belts include the following:
Being in a hurry and not having time to buckle up
Light traffic on the roads when respondent drives
Not wanting to get clothing wrinkled
Resentment at being told what to do
Knowing someone who died in a crash while wearing a seat belt
Resentment at government interference in personal behavior
Never having gotten used to seat belts
The belief that with air bags, seat belts are redundant
Safety experts point out that many of these reasons are based on faulty logic.

Imagine a Power User President

2007-05-21T17:03:00.001-04:00

Here's a photo from Time Magazine's recent article on Al Gore. Looks like a lot of windows are open on those three 30" Apple Cinema Displays. I bet he has scripts and plugins worthy of the sharpest power-user. And a Big G5 to run all those displays. Imagine a president who not only read the paper, but read it online. And Google News. And that days top blog posts.

Imagine a president who left his position at Google, Apple, and his startup, not Haliburton.

In his interview with Diane Sawyer, she paraphrases his views that TV is anesticizing and the Internet will be more interactive. Before she begins to refute the Internet, he gives her the patronizing look of a patient web-zealot. "Go ahead and explain to me why your industry isn't doomed." I much prefer his brand of historical determinism.

His main point on Good Morning America seems to be, "Hey America, think something is wrong with the processes of politics, and media that allowed THIS to happen? Go with that feeling."

'This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence' - The Onion

2007-04-30T18:18:00.000-04:00

"At first, we were getting a lot of stories from recovered drug addicts and East African refugees living in the States, which had their compelling elements but came off a bit cloying," Blumberg said. "But then we realized that if we had overeducated people with voices rather unsuitable for radio narrate the stories with clever analogies and accessible morals, the whole thing would come off far less depressing."

Blumberg said that the turning point came in 1997, when producers discovered a group of inner-city schoolchildren inadvertently teaching an important lesson to their attractive, suburban-raised teacher about what makes us human.

Also aiding the study were the many contributors to This American Life, who took time from their best-selling essay-writing careers to donate personal anecdotes about dropping out of prestigious art schools, taking harrowing but poignant childhood vacations to the Grand Canyon, and the unique challenges of growing up in families supportive of their homosexuality. [link]

Jack Valenti is dead.

2007-04-30T11:36:00.000-04:00

How will you cover it old media?

Mostly, filmmakers complain that they must work against muddled or moving boundaries. And parents’ groups grouse about “ratings creep,” a perceived tendency for a category like PG-13 to permit ever more violence, sex and profanity over the years to reach impressionable youth. Yet it was Mr. Valenti’s genius to have devised an apparatus that is not bound by precedent, changes its definitions at will and, ultimately, serves the motion picture industry by becoming, at any given moment, as permissive or restrictive as the prevailing climate seems to demand.

[The Ratings System, Built to Endure]

Super. But what was that documentary I read about on boingboing? Oh yeah, "This Film is Not Yet Rated."

The MPAA's excuse for this is that it's an alternative to government censorship of films, but as director Kirby Dick shows, it's wildly implausible that such censorship would be found constitutional. The MPAA system treats independents as second-class citizens, issuing gnomic pronouncements about a film's suitability, while treating the big studios that own the MPAA with more solicitude, lavishing editorial suggestions on directors who've come under the thumb of the big six.

This Film is Not Yet Rated makes a compelling case for MPAA ratings system as a form of institutionalized, homophobic puritanism. The ratings board is quite relaxed about violence, especially extreme, gory violence, but takes a dim view of sex, and won't tolerate sex out of the missionary position, nor gay sex of any kind, nor any suggestion of women getting real pleasure out of sex. It's an eye-opening look at America's hidden values, where you can take your kids to see bad guys gunned down by James Bond, but not a lightweight teen-comedy about lesbian girls sent away to anti-gay brainwashing camp.

Oh, and what's the logo for the Motion Picture Association of America?
That's the sort of symbol that just screams, "America!" Doesn't it?

So if your feeling like honoring Jack Valenti, you could either write an article about his 'genius,' or watch him in a pirated episode of Freakazoid. It's the episode called "The Chip." Enjoy!

"He hasn't asked them to do this, but nor has he told them not to."

2007-04-23T07:33:00.000-04:00

Finally weeks of reading the Note have paid off. The Telegraph reports on a shadow campaign team being assembled should Al Gore chose to run. And the New York Post keeps the chatter going.

Gore-watchers believe that a new book he is publishing next month on the state of US politics will keep his name in the public eye. Many of his supporters helped to run the unsuccessful presidential campaign of John Kerry in 2004. But since Sen Kerry abandoned his presidential aspirations this year, many of his leading advisers have yet to align themselves with any of the other candidates.

They were expected to join the campaign of Sen Edwards, who was Sen Kerry's running mate last time.

The former aide, who has himself signed up with Sen Edwards, said: "The question is: where have all the Kerry people gone? The answer for most of them is nowhere. Now ask yourself why."

Among the senior officials not yet committed is Michael [The Wizard] Whouley, who was national field director for the successful Clinton-Gore 1992 presidential campaign, national campaign manager for Mr Gore when he stood for re-election as vice-president in 1996, and then a senior adviser to Mr Gore in 2000.

Considered one of the most talented Democratic "ground war" experts, he masterminded John Kerry's political resurrection in the New Hampshire presidential primary three years ago, putting him on course for the nomination. Last year, he oversaw the Democratic victory in the mid-term elections.

Two months ago, a former Gore aide, Elaine Kamarck, convened a group of former aides in Boston to consider the possibilities of a Gore campaign.

James Carville, President Clinton's former strategy chief, suggested last week that Mr Gore, who has piled on the pounds, could shed weight over the summer to make himself more media-friendly for a White House run.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he lost 15lb or so," said Mr Carville. "And I think if people thought he could get us out of the mess we're in with Iraq, they wouldn't care how fat he is."

A poll of leading Democratic and Republican strategists found that one in four thought Mr Gore would emerge a strong contender. "He already has emerged - he just has to announce," a Democrat told the magazine Opinion Journal.

A Republican said: "Gore could be the toughest Democrat to beat."

At least eight websites are campaigning to "Draft Gore" into the election. More than 70,000 people have signed an online petition, and more than 120 groups of Gore supporters meet each month around the country to promote the case for a Gore presidency.

Virginia Tech Massacre

2007-04-17T15:00:00.000-04:00

Virginia Tech and my school, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, could be cousins. According to wikipedia they were founded around the same time from public land grants, and now have about the same number of student's and faculty. I've never seen a bloody stage that looked so similar to my home.
The post Columbine fear that swept through the nation and ever school, never reached me. The experts on TV and in the schools told us we should look for the symptoms of the school shooting disease. Prevention would come through kindness and ratting out the ostracized.
The experts on TV said we'd need metal detectors in schools, but that never happened in my schools. An armed police officer became a fixture of the school. His job was to someday shoot one of us.

Everyone worked very hard to convince themselves that the rashes of violence that spread across the country were not symptoms of something larger. That the Dark was not rising. But it was on the mind of the children, the parents, and everyone who was being born again, ready to vote in the next millennium.

On gun control at Virginia Tech, [via BoingBoing]
An interesting blog post, complaining that if a year earlier Virginia Tech hadn't removed all guns from students at school, then some students could have protected themselves in someway against the shooter. I'm sure my school feels vindicated for covering the campus in surveillance cameras. The psychological violence of metal detectors, constant surveillance, and increased police presence, is far less damaging then the physical violence we still can't prevent. Why must safety be so violent?

On the shooting and Ismail Ax, [BoingBoing]
List of School massacres, [wikipedia]

Historicity

2007-04-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

A chrono-map of my web trail,

December 7, 1941 - Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

December 8, 1941 - Roosevelt responds, "Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us."

December 8-10, 1941 - Man on the Street interviews conducted for the Library of Congress

March, 1941

April 22, 1944 - Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips

His accent is an equal blend of someone from the Bronx and someone from Brooklyn.
He is an honorary Marine Master Sergeant.

June 11, 1945 - The Franck Report advises against use of Atomic Bomb

Unless an effective international control of nuclear explosives is instituted, a race of nuclear armaments is certain to ensue following the first revelation of our possession of nuclear weapons to the world. Within ten years other countries may have nuclear bombs, each of which, weighing less than a ton, could destroy an urban area of more than five square miles.

June 16, 1945 - J.R. Oppenheimer writes, RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE IMMEDIATE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

July 24, 1945 - Truman says,

I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make "good use of it against the Japanese."

July 25, 1945 - Truman writes in his diary

We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.

Anyway we "think" we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom.

August 6, 1945 - Little Boy
August 9, 1945 - Fat Man

Shiny Futurism

2007-04-14T07:12:00.000-04:00

The Future on TV:

2057: Hyperspace author and string field theory co-founder, Michio Kaku hosts this 3 part Discovery Channel documentary, with complimentary website

End Day: Five different 'when not if' scenarios presented by the BBC

Five Ways to Save the World: BBC's law of fives, says this show should be good, even though I haven't watched it yet. I guess End Day needed a flip side.