Nationalism is a weird thing.

Seeing The Forest as the goods.

BTW, at what point do people who say things that stupid stop getting jobs on Fox news, MSNBC, and CNN? Just wondering....

At least not necessarily. Max has the proof.

I am sure some of my more conservative RTB brethren will hype the fact that Tennessee is tenth on the list of "index of freedom", but I doubt they will mention the low GDP rating - 36th.

So, in essence, it seems that libertarians have proved that their policies do not automatically lead to economic success. Thanks for the work, guys.

This is not the sign of a healthy economy:

A record-high 375,000 jobless workers will exhaust their unemployment insurance this month and an estimated 2 million workers will find themselves in the same predicament during the first half of the year, according to an analysis of Labor Department statistics by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Republicans, of course, don't think this is a problem:

While the unemployment rate dropped to 5.7 percent in December, down from 6.3 percent in June, businesses added only 1,000 jobs that month. The country has lost more than 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in a steady erosion over the past 41 months.

Congress voted in 2002 to give unemployed workers an additional 13 weeks of benefits and extended the program twice. But it expired just before Christmas. Congressional Republicans said another extension wasn't necessary because the economy was gaining strength and job growth was near at hand.

This is unconscionable. There is a number of new jobs that the economy must produce simply in order to account for demographic changes. Anytime the employment rate is below full employment and the number of jobs created in a month is less than the number mentioned above, then there are not enough jobs being created. people who want to work will not be able to, because there is no work for them to do. And that is precisely the situation we find ourselves in right now. Extension of those benefits, meager as they are, should be automatically extended in circumstances like this.

The Republicans, of course, disagree:

We're in a deficit situation, and we need to be very careful about government expenditures," said Jack Finn, a spokesman for Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who opposed a recent effort by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) to seek unanimous consent for a vote on extending unemployment insurance benefits again.

"We can't get into the position where benefits are extended indefinitely," Finn said. "There needs to be a point where we draw the line."

Except, of course, when it comes to tax breaks for the super wealthy, preventing steroid abuse, and having the government involved in saving marriages (all items proposed by the Republicans recently). Those things, unlike unemployed workers, are important.

The Bush campaign has spent $31 Million in a campaign in which they are running virtually unopposed. Apparently, Bush's inability to mange money isn't just reserved for the federal deficit.

The New York Times has an interesting article on what they say is an increasing number of homosexuals being married in religious ceremonies with the blessings of clergy. The article is completely anecdotal, since no one admits to keeping records on the number of religiously married gays, but whether or not this is actually a rising trend is secondary to what caught my eye.

The article discusses a segment of the population we hear nothing about: deeply religious homosexuals.

It is a perennial complaint among members of the clergy that many straight couples regard the chapel as little more than a stage set for a picture-perfect wedding. In contrast, many of the gay couples who are heading for the altar are regular worshipers who say in interviews that religion is central to their lives.

They represent an often-overlooked slice of gay America: the monogamous homebodies more likely to have met their mates at Bible study than at a bar.

These religious homosexuals speak in the same terms as evangelicals:

"Our relationship is faith-based," said Mr. Bernhard, an actor and producer who immigrated to the United States from Indonesia as a teenager. "We truly believe, and that's what keeps us fairly strong. We do our prayers and our Bible readings together, and depend a lot on our faith to carry us through difficult times."

(snip)

Mr. Manley, 39, and Mr. Bernhard, 45, say they believe that God brought them together. They met weeks after Mr. Manley's evangelical study and support group began praying for him to find a partner.

They speak of a God that directly interferes with their lives, takes a hand in helping them through difficult times, and finds them mates. That is precisely the intimate relationship that many fundamentalists and evangelicals claim to have with God.

I wonder how their theology accounts for that? Do they believe this people are deceived in some fashion? Do they believe these homosexuals are lying? If not, they must believe that God takes the same personal, loving care of homosexuals as He does of them.

If that is the case, then how is the out-sized hatred of homosexuals justified? After all, their is nothing I have ever seen in evangelical literature or theology that suggests someone who watches pron, a manifestation of coveting if nothing else, be denied the right to marry.

I do not mean this rhetorically. If Homosexuals are having the same personal relationships with God that fundamentalists and evangelicals claim, then what justification can their be for treating homosexuals worse than other sinners - particularly considering the fact that Jesus Christ never spoke of homosexuality?

Interesting tidbit in this otherwise bland story about the race. In addition to the obvious (Democrats don't like Bush or his policies, and many Democrats felt betrayed by the Party's acquiescence on many issues before 2002), there comes these two paragraphs:

Al Gore ran a populist campaign in 2000, of course, casting his message as "the people versus the powerful." The Democratic Leadership Council, the incubator of Clinton Democrats, was critical of that message after the election, arguing that Mr. Gore had run as an old-style populist instead of a "new-economy Democrat." But these are different times, officials of the leadership council say.

"There's nothing wrong with sticking up for the little guy against this administration," said Bruce Reed, the group's president. "Bush has relentlessly shifted the tax burden off of wealth and onto work." Council officials assert that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards are advancing a more "positive populism" aimed at protecting the broad middle class and all who "play by the rules."

The DLC, remember, has been warning for months that Dean's populism was a death knell for the party. now the President of that organization -- after Kerry, Edwards, Clark and Dean have ridden the populist message to success -- has essentially endorsed Dean's message. For now, at least, it looks as if the drift to the right has been halted if not reversed in the Democratic Party.

Al Gore ran a populist campaign in 2000, of course, casting his message as "the people versus the powerful." The Democratic Leadership Council, the incubator of Clinton Democrats, was critical of that message after the election, arguing that Mr. Gore had run as an old-style populist instead of a "new-economy Democrat." But these are different times, officials of the leadership council say.
"There's nothing wrong with sticking up for the little guy against this administration," said Bruce Reed, the group's president. "Bush has relentlessly shifted the tax burden off of wealth and onto work." Council officials assert that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards are advancing a more "positive populism" aimed at protecting the broad middle class and all who "play by the rules."

Ther was some growth, which is good, but it was less than analysits had expected, which is not good.

I've often joked about moving to Canada. This makes me consider it more seriously:

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites) granted a request from the Bush administration to stop a lower court from communicating with a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) had planned to notify the detainee of that court's ruling in December that Guantanamo prisoners should be allowed to see lawyers and have access to courts.

O'Connor granted the government's request to put that ruling on hold, but she said the high court could reconsider after it hears from lawyers for the detainee, Falen Gherebi.

O'Connor has jurisdiction over appeals from the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.

Fortunately, this is only temporary, since it's not a full court decision, but is still troublesome because O'Connor is usually the swing vote on such matters. So I'm not feeling good about how the ultimate ruling will go.

Maybe Canada is a good idea after all.

George W. Bush wants to treat you like you are a criminal. Bush, in his State of the Union Address, called for the extension of the sun-setted provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Here is a comparison of what the PATRIOT Act allows and how Federal prisoners are treated. All the links for the prison regulations come from the Buerau of Prison's on-line manual. Unfortunately, there are no direct links to individual pages.

Under the Patriot Act

1. Wiretaps without probable cause are allowed
   
2. Inspection of financial transactions allowed without probable cause
   
3. Searches without your presence and without your notification
   
4. Indiefinite detention of non-citizens on administrative -- not judicial -- decision
   
5. Monitor reading material without notice or probable cause
   

Treatment of Federal Prisoners:

1. Phone and mail conversations monitored, except generally for attorney/client conversations.
   
2. Prisoner finances are monitored to ensure compliance with restitution requirements
   
3. Prison cells may be searched without the knowledge or presence of prisoner
   
4. Prisoners may be separated and detained when, in the judgment of prison officials, such separation form the general populace is warranted. In almost every case, however, there are restriction on how long the prisoner may remained separated.
   
5. Prisoners reading material is subject to inspection, and prison officials may access borrowing records of prisoners when they deem necessary
   

Obviously, I am not suggesting that citizens are now literal prisoners. But, like prisoners in the federal system, the authorities have the right, under the PATRIOT Act, to know just about everything about just about anyone they want, all without having to provide probable cause that a crime is being committed. That level of intrusion is not the hallmark of a free society - and George W. Bush wishes to continue to lay open the lives of Americans to the federal employees forever.

And to what end - security? If so, then it is a poor imitation of security. I can find no record of any terrorist being arrested or captured due to the PATRIOT Act.

What is worse is that this is only one example of the Bush Administration's assault on civil liberties. Things like CAPPSII, the TIA, and the holding of American citizens without charge or trail on the word of the president without judicial review combine with the PATRIOT Act to radically change the relationship between citizens and the government. I have said this many times before, but if the government can know everything about your life without having to provide probable cause to suspect you of a crime; if the government can track your travel and your Internet usage without having to provide probable cause to suspect you of a crime; if the government can lock you away without appeal, without a warrant, without access to the outside world, without legal help, without charge, and without a time limit, then you are not free. You merely haven't been noticed by the government. Yet.

Body and Soul on why the Iraq war was not a humanitarian war. It is too complicated to excerpt, so just go read the whole thing.

Now, some of this sounds good. But. lets face it, its not a very conservative position to support public funding of the arts - not even a compassionate conservative position. Could anything be more of a transparent political ploy? I mean, whats next - proposing a huge and hugely expensive government initiative to put a man on Mars ...

Never mind. I think I just answered my question.

it isn't that interesting that Kay would ask for an investigation, Anyone in his position who isn't a complete party hack would quickly realize that there were serious flaws in the intelligence he was asked to work with, and that those flaws constituted a serious threat to the nation. What is a bit surprising is that the White House would so quickly and defiantly reject the idea out of hand.

The White House immediately turned aside the calls from Dr. Kay and many Democrats for an immediate outside investigation, seeking to head off any new wide-ranging election-year inquiry that might go beyond reports already being assembled by Congressional committees and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Kay has been very careful to blame the intelligence community and only the intelligence community for the failings. The White House has been pressing that line in public, but I find it interesting that they won't press if officially, in the form of an investigation. That very strongly hints that the stories of intelligence manipulation from earlier in the year are true. Just as a reminder, here is what Kenneth Pollack - a war supporter - said about the manipulation of intelligence:

Part of the answer lies in decisions made early in the Bush Administration, before the events of September 11, 2001. In interviews with present and former intelligence officials, I was told that some senior Administration people, soon after coming to power, had bypassed the government’s customary procedures for vetting intelligence.

A retired C.I.A. officer described for me some of the questions that would normally arise in vetting: “Does dramatic information turned up by an overseas spy square with his access, or does it exceed his plausible reach? How does the agent behave? Is he on time for meetings?” The vetting process is especially important when one is dealing with foreign-agent reports—sensitive intelligence that can trigger profound policy decisions. In theory, no request for action should be taken directly to higher authorities—a process known as “stovepiping”—without the information on which it is based having been subjected to rigorous scrutiny.

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic—and potentially just as troublesome. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book “The Threatening Storm” generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was “dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them.

“They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information,” Pollack continued. “They were forcing the intelligence community to defend its good information and good analysis so aggressively that the intelligence analysts didn’t have the time or the energy to go after the bad information.”

The Administration eventually got its way, a former C.I.A. official said. “The analysts at the C.I.A. were beaten down defending their assessments. And they blame George Tenet”—the C.I.A. director—“for not protecting them. I’ve never seen a government like this.”

In other words, the Administration was deliberately cherry picking its intelligence information to conform to its pre-conceived notions. That, I would hazard to guess, is not something that the Bush Administration would want widely known. Their immediate and almost desperate rejection of an independent investigation only serves to confirm they notion that the Bush Administration shares a large portion of the blame for the WMD debacle.

Slavery is better than taxes.

And this guy is not some fringe nut - he was the assistant secretary of the treasury under Reagan. He is mainstream and establishment.

Link via Entry Link | Politics | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Joe Trippi, the architect of Dean's rise, has been let go

Howard Dean (news - web sites) shook up his presidential campaign on Wednesday after absorbing back-to-back defeats, replacing his campaign manager with a longtime associate of former Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) to try and stabilize his faltering candidacy.

"Governor Dean asked Roy Neel to join the campaign CEO and Joe Trippi resigned as campaign manager," said Dean campaign spokeswoman Tricia Enright.

Dean offered Trippi a spot on the payroll as a senior adviser, a source said, but he decided to quit the campaign rather than accept the demotion.

A lot of anti-Dean forces despise Trippi, preferring to think that his methods were the political equivalent of the dot-com bubble. they are completely wrong. Dean was able to raise more money form more individuals than any other Democrat, and that is because of Trippi and his methods. Dean was able to vault himself to the front runner status and completely change - much to the benefit of the Democratic Party - both the terms of the debate and the prevailing conventional wisdom that winning meant trying to be Bush-lite. Trippi's tactics helped allow that. If future campaigns ignore the lessons of Trippi's efforts, they will suffer.

What Trippi could not do, apparently, was use the volunteer army he helped create as effectively as possible. Their traditional media ads were also very poor, from what I am told. Still, the new manager would be wise to continue Trippi's grassroots and fund raising efforts. If they can do that, marshal those forces more effectively, and present a better media face, then Dean has improved his chances. If they reject all of Trippi's work because of shortcomings in some areas, then Dean is through. the next week or so will tell.

Trippi may have trouble finding a campaign management spot, but I don't doubt he will be sought out by clever campaigns in the future. To the extent that Dean has had an impact on the race - and that extent has been considerable - then we have Joe Trippi to thank in large measure.

Jeralyn Merrit of TalkLeft has a series of posts about how our justice system fails to provide even the most basic assistance to help juveniles become better citizens.

A failure to provide mental health care

A failure to keep them safe from harm

A failure to deal with suicidal inmates.

The stories are as important as they are heart rending.

The other day, Kevin and I were coming back from lunch, and noticed a car double-parked in the lot. Now our lot is already overcrowded, and parking is at a premium, and here's this jughead taking up two spaces. Somehow, don't ask me how, we started speculating about what the libertarian solution to such parking problems would be.

Clearly, laws forbidding double-parking are out of the question, because these are ineffective, don't prevent double-parking, and constitute overbearing government intervention into our personal parking freedoms. So a ticket is out of the question. Similarly, since our employer is providing free parking out of the goodness of its heart, we cannot expect them to enforce parking restrictions or to tow offending vehicles, as there is no profit motivation for them to do so.

What we need, instead, is personal parking responsibility! This person's inconsiderate parking has cost me time, and by extension, productivity, which means lost value for me. The correct solution would be for me to sue the person who parked so inconsiderately, for damaging my earning potential. The threat of such lawsuits would result in people taking personal responsibility for their parking, and so parking restrictions become unnecessary.

Or, perhaps better still, sue the company for failing to provide a stable parking environment. The threat of such lawsuits, especially in larger numbers, would give the company a financial incentive to strictly enforce parking requirements on the land it owns.

See? Libertarianism really does have all the answers!

NOTE: With any luck, this will be the first in an ongoing series where Kevin and I present libertarian solutions to common problems. Let us know what you think! :)

This sounds very cool:

Philips Electronics announced Monday that it is preparing to mass-produce a slim, five-inch display panel upon which users can download newspapers and magazines. The display can then be rolled up and tucked into a pen-sized holder.

Something like that could be great. i could have my newspaper subs emailed to me, download them into the reader, and easily carry the around with me. of course, they still have to solve the reading on a screen problem, but if they do, I would be very interested in one.

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. If you haven't read the Watchmen, and want to, skip to the next post.

I have this strange attraction to comics. I don't understand it, not at all. I barely read the bloody things (the occasional Sandman trade, or something like Hell, after I have seen the movie), I think its a lousy bang for my entertainment buck, and I only worked in the industry peripherally (I managed a distributor's warehouse and ran a comic shop for that same distributor), and only for about two and a half years. Yet I am constantly drawn to discussion about comics. It is an affliction. Having said that, I am going to indulge the affliction yet again.

There has been a lot of discussion about this piece on the Watchmen by Eve Tushnet (who, by the way, while to the right of me on just about everything, is a very thoughtful writer). Jim Henley (just scroll down - there is a lot of stuff) has dealt with quite a bit of it, as have others here and there. It is really a fascinating read for anyone who knows the premise and the basic plot line of the books. Eve makes a very good case that the Watchmen deliberately mined some great literature to good effect. I want to talk about only one bit, though I should preface my comments with the statement that I have never read the entire work. I don't think that's relevant to what I want to discuss, but I thought I should let you decide for yourselves.

Eve writes:

A few people have suggested that Veidt's plan is obviously stupid, and so Dan and Laurie look dumb for thinking it could work. I suppose you could point to the notable lack of other countries rallying around the US much after 9/11; but in Moore's defense, the US did ally with the USSR to fight Nazis, so there's precedent for a common enemy overcoming major hostilities. It's not unthinkable, and worth the suspension of disbelief. Dan and Laurie also see the plan apparently starting to work, as they watch Veidt's bank of television monitors. So their decision to go along with it, while definitely an exhausted capitulation, is understandable.)

First, I think its pretty clear that the world did rally around the United States after 9/11. It just didn't stay rallied. Now, we can argue as to why that was, if you like, but its not central to my point. Readers of this site know why I believed it happened, and I am sure Eve has a different reason than mine, based on her politics. But it doesn't matter to the central point: the dissipation of rally effect was perfectly predictable; indeed, it was almost inevitable.
Faced with an immediate and direct threat, the world rallied to the United States. But as that threat became less immediate, it was inevitable that differences of opinions would re-emerge. Something similar happened in the Cold War. As the likelihood of Soviet invasion and/or conquest of the world decreased, the willingness of non-aligned nations (like India) and even Western nations to fall in lockstep behind the United States waned. They all wanted the same thing with regard to the Soviet Union, but since the Soviet Union was no longer seen as an immediate threat, there was more room for debate on tactics and for other, more contentious issues to come to the forefront for a time. That dynamic is why the Watchmen premise is " ... obviously stupid, and so Dan and Laurie look dumb for thinking it could work..."

The premise of the Watchman is that a superhero will save the world form an onrushing World War III by inventing an alien race to serve as the "enemy". Part of that plan involves a murderous attack on New York City, killing, if memory serves, hundreds of thousands, if not millions. The world then rallies to the defense of the United States and all is well.

Except that there will never be another alien attack. Or if there is, it will be the result of the superhero. If the superhero is not willing to obliterate random chunks of the world's population, eventually, as the sense of threat recedes, so will the sense of community and peace. Alternately, the attacks could continue, but since the aliens are not real, there could never be any real, dramatic success against them. There will never be aliens captured to parade on TV, or to try before humanity, etc, etc. Eventually, the world will again fracture, this time based on tactics. Nations that have not been devastated will be less and less willing to throw their resources away against an enemy the affected world doesn't know how to fight. In short, there is no scenario under which this plan has any hope of being anything other than a very temporary pause. It's one of the reasons I have never finished reading it. The suspension of belief required to believe that so many people would believe such a ludicrous plan was just too much for me.

Well, Charles wife is actually going to be the one having the child but, at any rate, Charles is going to be a daddy soon. Go over and congratualte him.

Prof. Delong tears apart the nonsense in a Washington Post editorial

What is interesting about this lame Safire column is not the content. It hardly ever is. Its the fact that the Clinton obsession has so penetrated the mainstream Republican consciousness. Safire seems (and I say seems, cause Safire isn't the clearest writer to begin with, and when he tries to be funny, well, all he really manages to do is be incomprehensible) to arguing that the Democratic Party's leaders want a brokered convention so that they can have Hilary run either in 2004 or 2008. It is bizarre.

The Republican Party needs and intervention in the worst way. Couldn't the Libertarian Party and Tony Blair sit it down and explain to it that the world doesn't actually revolve around people named Clinton? That, at some point, they are going to actually have to have an answer other than "its Clinton's fault!". Someone, please help the poor Republican Party. They are obviously crying out for help. Isn't their a twelve step program somewhere than can help these poor, benighted souls? Will no one help this sad, pathetic wretch of a party? Please someone stop them before they obsess again.

I would love to see Bush and his supporters try to justify denying this

The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks announced on Tuesday that it was seeking an extension of its deadline to complete the investigation until at least July, raising the prospect of a public fight with the White House and a final report delivered in the heat of the presidential campaign.

Advertisement


The White House and Republican Congressional leaders have said they see no need to extend the congressionally mandated deadline, now set for May 27, and a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said Tuesday that Mr. Hastert would oppose any legislation to grant the extension.

But commission officials said there was no way to finish their work on time, a situation they attribute in part to delays by the Bush administration in turning over documents and other evidence.

notice that the reason they need the extra time is because the Bush Administration has not been cooperating. Apparently, it isn't important to the Bush Administration to find out exactly what went wrong where on 9/11. Apparently, its more important to save the President's re-election chances than to try and make the country safer.

Administration officials have acknowledged concern that Democrats, particularly the Democratic nominee for president, will try to make use of the report's findings to embarrass Mr. Bush, especially if the report contains any suggestion that the White House failed to act before Sept. 11 on intelligence suggesting that a catastrophic attack might be imminent.

The White House confirmed news reports last year that an Oval Office intelligence summary presented to Mr. Bush shortly before the attacks suggested that terrorists might be planning an attack using passenger planes.

"It smacks of politics to put out a report like this in the middle of a presidential campaign," said a senior Republican Congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The Democrats will spin and spin."

First, apparently the Republican Party thinks the country is populated with morons that would be "spin" instead of the truth. Second, what actually reeks of politics is the President pushing the Republic Nominating Convention back so it can coincide with 9/11 memorials. What reeks of politics is Bush's continual attempts to link Saddam and al-Queda in the public mind. What reeks of politics is scheduling the war vote right before mid-terms. What reeks of politics is accusing war heroes of being unconcerned with the safety of America because they differ on policy details.

Bush, obviously, intends to run for President as a strong defender of the country and effective fighter of terrorism. The country has a right to know whether or not thats true - and this commission will help them decide that. If Bush did not take appropriate actions before 9/11, if Bush has not addressed the problems of 9/11 since, if Bush has spent time and money changing the wrong things, or if Bush has asked for tools that are not useful to address the dangers of terrorism, then the public needs to know. Its not politics to give the American people the information they need to make informed decisions about our leaders and our policies.

Bush and the Republicans apparently are not interested in the American public having that information. Apparently, protecting their political hides is more important than protecting their country.

UPDATED by tgirsch: Figured I might as well make the advertisement actually go somewhere.

Okay, thats as much coverage as I can take.

First, Kerry is now clearly the front runner. He has adopted elements of birth Dean's and Edward's campaigns, and seems to have a real talent for campaigning. I suspect he will do well in the non-Southern parts of February 3rd. He is already polling well in most Feb 3rd states without having spent a dime. Thats a very good sign. Now we will see if John Kerry can handle the media pressure as the clear front runner.

Dean is in trouble. He has changed the terms of the debate of the election, but he doesn't seem to have been able to recover from his fall in Iowa. The compressed schedule really hurt him. However, he did stop his free fall and reverse the fall to some degree. He put quite a bit of space between himself and the rest of the candidates. He is not dead, but he needs to win some states on February third. If he can win two of Arizona, New Mexico, and Missouri -- especially if he wins Missouri -- then he is right back in the race. But its going to be a hard run for him - none of those state are naturally favorable to him. If he doesn't win a state on Feb. 3rd, I think he is effectively done.

Clark is in real trouble. Before Iowa, he was a solid second, closing fast on a win, in New Hampshire. Now, he will finish in something close to a dead tie for third. Not good. A man who was in complete free fall last Tuesday beat him by about 13 points tonight. Clark's campaign just doesn't seem to be taking off. Some of the Feb. third states are naturally favorable to Clark, but they are also naturally favorable to Edwards, and Edwards is a better campaigner. If Clark doesn't win South Carolina and Oklahoma, and probably Arizona, I think he is done.

Edwards is in pretty good shape. He beat a candidate from the region, he tied with a candidate with better foreign policy experience and who had an enormous lead over him a week ago, and he is going to get a lot of free media. February third has several states naturally favorable to him. He MUST win South Carolina and Oklahoma, and a win in Missouri would be a huge boost. Its not assured, but he seems to be a lot better positioned to do so than Clark and Lieberman. I think after February third, this a Kerry Edwards race.

Lieberman, well, Senator is a nice job. He id done. Stick a fork in him. He come in fifth in his own region, behind a guy who wasn't even a Democrat last year, and a guy with a Southern accent so thick he could cut wood with it. there isn't anywhere (except maybe Delaware, where he is the only one spending time or money) he can win a Democratic primary at this point.

Kucinich will probably drop out soon, probably to endorse Edwards. Hobbits, for better or worse, cannot win Presidential elections in this country.

Sharpton will continue to march on, but I wonder how much coverage he will get, especially if he does poorly in South Carolina.

Can be found in this week's Onion. I especially enjoyed the "Hot Scrapple Pie." Does anyone else remember Scrapple?

Via The Onion comes this chuckler:

Addressing guests at a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser, George W. Bush pledged Monday that, if re-elected in November, he and running mate Dick Cheney will "restore honor and dignity to the White House."

"After years of false statements and empty promises, it's time for big changes in Washington," Bush said. "We need a president who will finally stand up and fight against the lies and corruption. It's time to renew the faith the people once had in the White House. If elected, I pledge to usher in a new era of integrity inside the Oval Office."

8:56 Liebermann is spinning hard. He came in fifth in his region behind a guy who wasn't a Democrat last year and a dude with a Southern accent so thick it could cut trees. Thats not a good sign. Just saying.

8:45: Cutting away from Kerry to show Edwads speech. Man, is he good.

8:43: Good lines in the Kerry speech, but so far, all domestic, no foreign policy.
Ouch "Benedict Arnold CEO or company."

8:40: Kerry attacking HMOs by name, and attacking Bush's treatment of veterans. "economy of piviliege" is a good phrase.

8:33: "An America that belongs to all Americans" Kerry's people have been paying attention to Edward's speeches.

8:31: You know, I am tired of people hyping the fact that Kerry was down 32% two months ago. Most people decide their primary votes in the last two weeks or so. Two months go might as well have been ten years ago.

8:29: Would the candidates PLEASE give their speeches so i can stop watching these talking head cable news idiots. How our democracy manages to survive these pinheads is beyond me.

8:27: Huh. Bob Woodward doesn't look a thing like Robert Redford. Kinda disappointing.

8:25: Back on CNN. There was a record turnout today. Probably not good news for Bush. New Hampshire was close, and the fact that the Dem primary had a record turnout could mean that its back in play.

8:21: Oh God, that stupid "Dean was done in by Saddam''s capture" bullshit. 60% of Ameircans agreed with Dean about that! It had nothing to do with anything, and the fact that it pundits keep repeatng it shows just how disconnected from reality our pundit lass really is.

8:19: Looks like Dean is going to fall about 14%behind. That is not enough to claim comeback kid, but its enough to claim that he has stopped the bleeding and is a legitimate contender - especially considering how much of a difference between second and third.

8:15: Mathews is now talking about John Kerry's step-son's ability to do a great Ah-nuld impersonation. Why am I watching this?

8:08. Consensous on MSNBC seems to be that Dem have a better chance to pick up a red state than Bush seems to have of picking up a bluie state.

8:07: MSNBC talking head is saying that Bush doesn't have a pick up state and that Bush needs to win everything he won in 2000 to have a chance. The others keep trying to cut him off.

8:06: MSNBC thinks the veteran vote will carry Kerry in the South.

8:00 Okay, King is one - time to change channels.

7:55: CNN's exit polls were apparently crap. They have gone from "close for first" to "Kerry wins" to "Kerry wins by around 10%" to "Kerry wins by at least 10%"

7:48: CNN is now saying that Kerry will win by about ten percent. So much for their "close race" talk of earlier.

7:46: That idiot Schneider just said that "Kerry and Dean have to prove that they can win outside of their native New England." Did someone move Iowa when I wasn't looking?

7:43: Geez. Blitzer is reduced to asking someone reporter what Kerry is going to say when he speaks in just a couple of minutes

7:39 What I really want to see are the exit polls. CNN is strongly hinting that Dean will finish very close, and ed wards will win a close race for third. But while Edwards does have a slight lead, Kerry is up 14 points on Dean with 33% of the precincts. What gives?

7:34: Liebermann campaign says they have already spent the money, so they will continue. Reporter says campaign workers says Lieberman's war support was killing him.

7:32 - Carlson tried to say Dean is dead, Blitzer of all people, corrected him.

CNN just let the Republican pollster Schneider say "Dean is a moderate in Vermont, which is like saying Bush is a moderate in Texas". Without mentioning he is a Republican.

Early spin:

Media: Howard is too liberal! No one who has won New Hampshire has ever won the presidency!

Kerry: Greatest comeback in new Hampshire history.

Dean: Comeback kid

Edwards: Better than expected, great favorablity ratings. UPDATE: This was a new England state- of course the two New Englanders were going to do very well.

Clark: None so far, but they have to be worried a bit.

Lieberman: None yet, but there isn't much to spin.

Based on their exit polls and 20% of the precincts reporting.

Why, exactly, can we not be trusted to see those exit polls?

And, of course, CNN was quick to point out that no one who has won New Hampshire has ever won the election. Cause, of course, this election is like every other election that has ever taken place.

He just said something that needs to be said "In anhour we will know something more." The biggest problem with 24 hour media is that no one knows anything, but they have t say something to fill the time. And because of that, they say tings that aren't really connected to reality, and yet, its taken seriously.

This is a huge problem, not that I know how to solve it. We essentially have news coverage being driven by stuff reporters have pulled out of their rears. Case n point, I just heard someone on CCN say something like "To show you how competitive this year, Kerry was actually out on the bridge campaigning at 4, and the Dean was out there at 6!". Umm, yeah. That happens every year - New Hampshire is famous for its late deciding voters. Candidates glad handle until the polls closed. But there is a better than even chance that that anecdote, or something equally as vapid, will be held;d up as an "example" of how unusually competitive this race was.

Our national discourse is being driven by none-too bright people looking to fill time on a television program. This cannot be a good thing for our democracy.

There are a couple of things I want to talk about in this post, but I will start with this statement:

I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit. I don't think that the mainstream media will ever be able to co-opt the Internet entirely because the Internet is, by its nature, a decentralized medium. New servers and new sites can always be created and connected to the Internet, allowing for ways around the mainstream media's servers and sites. I can conceive of only two impediments to the decentralized nature of the Internet. On impediment is corporate regulation in two forms: by means of software that cannot go to sites that haven't been certified by the company or companies producing the operating system and web browser, or by means of search engines that won't register sites that haven't been certified by the search engine's founders and funders, either of which would create a monopoly and prevent customers from finding viable alternatives. The other impediment is government regulation along the lines of the FCC's regulation of television and radio. Thankfully the first impediment can be conquered by open source software and its infinite, easy mutability (unless the operating system begin to be hardwired into the computer systems themselves, in which case alternative chip manufacturers, be they companies or pirates, would pop up). The second impediment is not currently an issue as the range of the Internet is theoretically infinite, meaning that a server that is illegal in the United States can be moved to a friendlier country without much problem.

This is not true. And it is dangerously not true, since it has lead to a brand of triumphalism that leads people to ignore things like politics and laws. I can kill the Internet. it wouldn't be easy, but it could be done.

I could prevent people from getting IP addresses (they do come from somewhere, you know). I could have the companies that control the backbone pipes stop routing packets to certain addresses. i could prevent the root name servers form listing certain sites. I could cut the pipes that connect the US to the rest of the world. I could jam the wireless channels. I could do dozens of things to keep people from seeing information I did not want them to. I could pressure nations to shut down certain servers.

But for the longest time, people have said that cyberspace is somehow immune to the real world, that the decentralized nature of the Internet prevents attempts to control it. This is not true. Cyberspace is imaginary and dependent upon the real world. The tools that cyberspace depends upon reside in the real world, and they are subject to the rules and control of real world powers. By ignoring this fact, people allowed things like the DCMA to come into existence.

The Internet isn't magically indestructible. it is the creation of human beings, nothing more, nothing less. It depends upon the good offices of human beings to make it work. Anything that depends upon human beings can controlled or destroyed. If people don't pay attention, at some point, someone will.

More of the former, less of the latter for me today. I started feeling ill around the baby's midnight feeding, was really out of it this morning. High fever, chills, the works. Even had a fever dream. At least, I hope it was a fever dream. God told me not to take Tylenol. If it wasn't a fever dream, who knew Tylenol was the tool of Satan?

I actually just got about twenty minutes ago. The fever seems to have broken, so I imagine I will be around to pontificate about New Hampshire results.

It seems that in this post, I offended some folks, and upon re-reading it, it's pretty easy to see why. It's clear that the message I intended to convey is not the message that came across, so some clarification is in order. But first, apologies to those that I may have offended. Despite the offensive poor attempt at humor, this was not my intent.

My points in posting the story were as follows:

• Opening to door for non-traditional marriages such as homosexual marriages also opens the door for non-traditional marriages such as consanguineous marriage
  
• Those of us (myself included) that tend to take a "holier-than-thou" attitude with people who oppose gay marriage need to understand that we have similar unfounded prejudices (such as mine against consanguineous marriage), and that irrational "icky" reaction is exceptionally difficult to overcome.
  
• Issues like this help "bring home" the objections others might have to things like gay marraige in a way that can help us understand why their reaction is so vehement.
  

I should also disclaim that while I was raised Catholic, I'm currently an atheist, and I've got negative attitudes toward all sorts of marriages, including traditional ones. ;)

Much of this has led me to wonder:

• What percentage of people who support homosexual marriages also support consanguineous marriages, and vice versa?
  
• Are there other reasons, besides risk of "inbred" or deformed children, to oppose consanguineous marriage?
  
• What about bigamy?
  

It appears that the people responsible for handling our aging nuclear arsenal have some competency issues:

WASHINGTON - Workers dismantling an aging nuclear weapon improperly secured broken pieces of a highly explosive component by taping them together, federal investigators found. An explosion could have occurred, they said.

The incident was among several recent safety lapses at the Energy Department's Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas, noted by the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Last fall, workers taking apart another old warhead accidentally drilled into the warhead's radioactive core, forcing evacuation of the facility.

This month's unorthodox handling of the unstable explosive increased the risk that the technicians would drop it and set off a "violent reaction," the safety board said Tuesday in a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

Such a reaction could have "potentially unacceptable consequences," board chairman John T. Conway said in the letter, which raised disquieting questions about safety at the Pantex plant.

About 250,000 people live within 50 miles of the Pantex plant, where the motto on its Web site is "Maintaining the safety, security and reliability of America's nuclear weapons stockpile."

Nothing exploded, and no one was hurt.

Link via FARK.com.

With Gay Marriage highly visible on the political radar, I wonder how much attention this is going to get:

Cousin marriage, or consanguineous marriage, is commonplace throughout history and around the world - except in the United States. Here, many states ban the unions based on the long-held notion that cousin marriages are "inbreeding" that produces defective offspring.

Those laws are based on outmoded social stigmas and incorrect scientific studies, genetics experts say. Cousin couples are speaking out increasingly for their right to marry.

Many of the myths date to one particularly erroneous study issued in 1858, said Martin Ottenheimer, author of "Forbidden Relatives: The American Myth of Cousin Marriage." That study, in the Transactions of the American Medical Association journal, concluded that first cousins were too closely related to reproduce safely.

"The research upon which it was based was very, very, very poor. Absolutely wrong," said Ottenheimer, an anthropology professor at Kansas State University in Manhattan.

Maybe the marriage slope really is that slippery. When gay first-cousins demand the right to be married, I think my head will explode. Speaking of my head exploding, check out some of these distinctions that are already on the books:

Twenty states prohibit marriage between first cousins.

Four, including Ohio, additionally prohibit unions between cousins once removed (a difference of one generation).

Six states allow cousin marriages only if the couple is above child-bearing age.

One state, North Carolina, allows first-cousin marriage but bans "double cousin" unions. (That occurs when, for instance, two brothers from one family marry two sisters from another; if each couple has a child, those offspring are double cousins.)

Nineteen other states allow first cousins to marry without restrictions.

Link via FARK.com.

UPDATE: Clearly, the message I was trying to convey here isn't what came across. What was intended to be mostly a light-hearted bit still managed to be offensive, and that wasn't my intent. Clarification is here.

It looks like Miranda is safe for the time being. Heck, even Scalia voted to uphold Miranda.

I don't know how comprehensive this is, but the people who control the media, control what gets covered and who gets hired and fired, seem to really like Bush

Lik via Eric Alterman

Well, I no longer think Dean is going to win in New Hampshire. Kerry had a very good, if dormant, organization in New Hampshire, and has done well enough in the debates and public appearances to keep Dean down. The spinning of the speech hurt Dean enough in the short term to prevent him form regaining enough support to win in New Hampshire. That slide seems to have stopped, however, and I doubt it will be an issue in the future.

Obviously, I think Kerry wins tomorrow, but I don't think by a whole lot - 5% tops. New Hampshire had doubts about Kerry before, and as Dean has come back form his Iowa mistakes, some people are revisiting those doubts, particularly since Kerry has only been good, not great, the past week. I think Dean loses by a small enough margin to claim the mantle of the comeback kid. That, in turn, will help him on Feb 3rd. He has invested a lot of money and time in those states, and the momentum for a better than expected New Hampshire probably pushes him over the top in quite a few.

But not in the Southern states, because I think that Edwards continues his surprising finishes by beating Clark in New Hampshire for third. I think his "two Americas" speech is really resonating in a way that Clark's biography is not. Considering the history of New Hampshire voters making their minds up in the booth, I think a lot of the undecideds break Edwards way tomorrow, and I think Clark suffer for it. I don't think Edwards can pull out a second place. Dean's support is pretty strong, and a lot of the undecideds will break for someone they once supported (Dean) over someone who hasn't really been a presence (Edwards).

Hopefully, Lieberman takes the hint and leaves, but I doubt he will.

So what does this mean for February 3rd? If this plays out the way I have it above, it means that Clark and Kerry are in trouble. Kerry had limited resources in those states to begin with, and was counting on the momentum form new Hampshire to bring in new donations, just as Iowa did. Without that, he is going to be hamstrung. Never count him out, though. As we have seen, he is a heck of a campaigner when he is behind. He doesn't need to win everywhere, so I suspect that eh will concentrate on a few winnable states if he starts to run low on cash. Clark is in deeper trouble. He was counting on the South to push him over the top, but that doesn't appear likely if Edwards beats him. The states having primaries or caucuses on the 3rd are:

Arizona Presidential Preference Election (Closed)
Delaware Democratic Presidential Primary (Closed)
Missouri Presidential Primary (Open)
New Mexico Democratic Caucuses
North Dakota Democratic Caucuses
Oklahoma Presidential Primary (Closed)
South Carolina Democratic Presidential Preference Primary

I expect Edwards, assuming my predictions about New Hampshire hold, to take South Carolina, Oklahoma, and maybe Missouri. If he doesn't take Missouri, then I think Dean will, with Kerry coming in third. I see Dean winning most of Arizona, Delaware and New Mexico, with Kerry and Clark fighting for second and third. Kerry, I think could either win North Dakota or New Mexico. Clark might take Oklahoma or Arizona, but if he doesn't win two states, he is in trouble

I suspect that Dean and Edwards will each win enough to have their campaigns share the front runner label after the third. Kerry will win and place just enough to beat expectations, thereby keeping his campaign afloat. I really think Clark and Lieberman are done after the third in this scenario. They were bothy counting heavily on doing well in the "conservative" areas, and I don't think either will.

This morning, I stumbled across this moderated debate between a pro-Atkins doctor and an anti-Atkins doctor. Both are somewhat guilty of selective use of statistics, but to me the "winner" of this debate seems clear. That said, I'm fairly biased on the subject, so I won't taint your opinion until after you've read the transcript.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Wampum has the finalists for the Koufax awards up now, and voting has commenced. Make sure you scroll down and vote in all the categories. We are up for most deserving of wider recognition. While you are voting, make sure to read the posts and blogs you aren't familiar with. There is quite a bit of good writing out there.

A small town in Texas (called "White Settlement," but that's another preconception for another post) is trying to overturn its liquor sales ban. This has created divisions and disagreements throughout the town. How does Faith Baptist Fellowshp pastor David Dye intend to fight to keep the ban?

"We'll not just use the Bible; we'll attack ... logically."

Hat tip: FARK.com

This weekend I was on a long drive, and I got to thinking, as one often does on long, boring drives. I had been listening to NPR and some stories concerning the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. I was wondering to myself: Why doesn't the administration simply come out and say "Hey, we thought they had weapons, but we were wrong?" Pretty much everybody knows we're not going to find anything substantial there now, so why not just come clean, say we did what we thought was best, and move on?

One reason that Kevin has suggested is that this would call the intelligence into question yet again, and further damage the administration's relationship with the CIA, already strained by the Plame affair and by having taken the heat for the yellowcake faux pas in last year's State of the Union speech.

But on my drive, I had a minor epiphany, and came up with another reason, one that I think is significant: Pete Rose.

No, Pete Rose isn't directly related, of course, but there's a lesson in Pete's story. For years, "everyone knew" that Pete Rose bet on baseball, including on his own team, the Reds. For years, Pete adamantly denied the allegations, even though he voluntarily agreed to be banned for life from baseball. Recently, in his new book, Rose came clean (sort of) and admitted that he had, in fact, bet on baseball, including on his own team (although, he claims, never against them). It's clear that he did this in a last-ditch effort to gain admission to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Cooperstown: by making the admission, he pissed off a core group of supporters. There was a vocal group of Rose supporters who had, through thick and thin, believed Rose's earlier claims that he had never bet on baseball and that he was being "railroaded," etc. To that core group, Rose's admission amounted to a betrayal of the highest caliber, and Rose lost a lot of people who were previously his biggest boosters.

And this is where the Bush Administration's wishy-washy position on WMDs in Iraq (and similarly, al-Qaeda ties) comes into play. Sure, "everyone knows" that we're not going to find anything of substance in Iraq. There won't be any huge chemical weapons stockpiles, or an advanced nuclear weapons program, or any substantial ties to al-Qaeda pre-9/11, and "everyone knows" this.

But there's a core Republican constituency out there that still believes that we will find exactly that. And if the administration openly admits that it was wrong (giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they really believed they would find links and weapons), this core constituency will be Very Very Angry, and Bush risks losing them to a protest candidate or to voter apathy.

So the administrations position will continue to be what it has been since shortly after the invasion began: they won't openly say that there are WMDs in Iraq, or that al-Qaeda and Iraq worked together before 9/11, but they won't openly say those things aren't true, either. And in this way, they get to have their cake and eat it, too. They get to keep the core constituency, and they get to keep the fence-sitters, who don't believe that WMDs were there, but who supported the invasion anyway.

So, to keep the gambling analogy alive, it is incumbent upon whoever wins the Democratic nomination to "call" the administration on both of those points. Because without WMDs, and without al Qaeda ties, and without any real likelihood of finding either, and properly spun by the opposition candidate, the American public's patience for American lives lost overseas will wear very, very thin, and the Iraq war could go from being a point for Bush to being a point against him.

The boxer pup (name: "Buster") is home at long last. This gives me an excuse to post the obligatory puppy picture:

This is a story with frightening implications.

These are the "bloodline" attacks, as Tomlinson's superior, Capt. Todd Brown, calls them. Samarra is only about 15 miles from where Saddam was captured at Ad Dawr, but "what we're seeing now is much more tribal," he says. "It's the Arabic rule of five. If you do something to someone, then five of his bloodlines will try to attack you." The insurgency is self-replicating, like a virus, through the vengeance of brothers, sons, cousins and nephews. "That's Bedouin culture," says Brown, a handsome 29-year-old triathlete from Michigan who is revered by his men, although they accuse him of "going native" because, he says, he treats detainees too kindly, likes Iraqis and takes a scholarly interest in Arab culture. Brown's theory is shared by some intel analysts, especially in Sunni Triangle towns like Samarra and Fallujah, which continue to foment violence despite a general tail-off in attacks since the fall.

(snip)

They're professional soldiers, smooth and sure at urban fighting tactics. But once inside the houses, pressed into a counterinsurgency role they've never been trained for, they improvise, often amateurishly. Until a month ago, they didn't even have an Arab translator. They relied on Captain Brown's pidgin Arabic (his own description) and a lot of "pointy talk"—hand gestures—to question detainees.

(snip)

Most often the One-Eighth is led on wild-goose chases by bad intel. "Lot of times it turns out to be some guy who has it in for another guy who's [seeing] the same girl," says one soldier. For this reason, the men cynically call their night raids "Jerry Springers." Many soldiers have come to believe that the enemy is everywhere—even on their own base. "Those guys should be gone," says Lieutenant Hays before the mission, pointing to Iraqi laborers working on a roof at the base. "After the mortar attacks, we found out some of the locals were telling the bad guys where to attack."

This is an ugly picture. Soldiers learning to reflexively hate the Iraqis; harsh tactics brought on by a lack of training and a lack of success; a complete lack of understanding of the local culture and, therefor, a lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions; a complete lack of understanding about who the soldiers are actually facing.

That article makes Iraq look like a mess. More, it make sit look like a mess that we won't be able to get out of cleanly. if we continue to stumble around Iraqi culture, knocking over taboos and breaking customs like a drunken bull in a china shop, then we will never be able to reach the point where we are trusted enough to help set up a national government. If a national government cannot be set up, then we face the risk of the different factions trying to seize control for themselves once we leave.

It's a mess, and it doesn't look like we have a way out.

If this is true, then America is bearing the brunt of the killing and the dying and the hatred by itself because of Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney, US vice-president, "waged a guerrilla war" against attempts by Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to secure United Nations backing for the invasion of Iraq.

Mr Cheney remained implacably opposed to the strategy even after George W. Bush, US president, addressed the UN on the importance of a multilateral approach, according to a new biography of Mr Blair.

It may not have been possible to get UN help, but if Blair, and not Bush, had been allowed to be the face of that effort, things might have gone differently. We will never know, now, of course, largely because Cheney's own arrogance and stupidity got in the way:

But Mr Stephens writes that Mr Cheney's opposition to UN involvement left Mr Blair uncertain whether Mr Bush would go down the UN route until he uttered the relevant words in his speech to the UN general assembly in September 2002. One Blair aide remarked: "[Mr Cheney] waged a guerrilla war against the process . . . He's a visceral unilateralist". Another agreed: "Cheney fought it all the way - at every twist and turn, even after Bush's speech to the UN."

In the US, Democrats have also accused Mr Cheney of putting pressure on intelligence agencies to produce evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. On Friday, David Kay, the top US weapons inspector in Iraq, resigned, saying he did not believe Iraq had large stocks of biological and chemical weapons.

Mr Stephens' book reveals a string of acid interventions by Mr Cheney during critical talks between the president and prime minister at Camp David in September 2002. Once, he directly rebuked Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's communications director.

In occasional contacts with British officials, Scooter Libby, the vice-president's chief of staff, made little secret of his boss's scorn for multilateralism. He once jibed: "Oh dear, we'd better not do that or we might upset the prime minister."

That kind of stupidly arrogant posturing has lead directly to the denigration of the United State of America all over the world, and the lessening of our national security through the needless trapping of our best troops in Iraq.

All of that because of Dick Cheney's petty little personal vendetta against the United Nations.

All right, thats a little harsh, but c'mon people. Three to six inches and your whole city shuts down? It's embarrassing. Chicago wouldn't have even noticed three inches.

My first winter in Memphis, it snowed two inches. Without thinking, I got up, got dressed, and walked to class (I was living in the dorm at the time). I didn't notice that the school was closed until I got to the engineering building and found the doors locked. It never even occurred to me that a light dusting would paralyze the city. Being the genius that I am, I figured I could take advantage of the gift and drive back to Chicago (this was the Friday before Martin Luther King Day). Surely, the highways would be clear. After all, a city that gets two or three snow or ice storms of a significant size a year would have enough salt and plows for the highways, right?

That turned out to not be the case. Things were no better in Arkansas. It took me almost six hours to get to the Missouri border. And, just to add insult to injury, I got stopped doing ten over. When i told the cop I was trying to make up time because of the snow storm mess, he laughed and said I should be smart enough not to live someplace where people are terrified of snow.

It's supposed to snow tonight. I don't think it will stick, but if there is so much as a sprinkling on the ground, I am working from home. I have learned my lesson.

Orcinus
has a good wrap up of the pros and cons. It definitely looks more pro.

Well, the core of the matter is fairly simple, and boils down to two facts that are simply not in dispute:

Bush blew off his physical in the spring of 1972, thereby ignoring a direct order from his superiors.

Bush then definitely performed no drills at all for any unit of the National Guard between early May 1972 and late November 1972 at the earliest. This is a period of nearly seven months.

David has more, much more, and its all very damming. There is simply no way to defend Bush's conduct in the Guard. it is bad enough that he used his father's influence to get a cushy job, safe from danger, in the middle of a war he supported. But to skip out on even that minimum obligation to advance his political career is inexcusable. The people who are trying to are pretty much telling the world that they aren't interested in anything other than covering the hide of their political hero.

David ends with this, telling point:

A few of those on the right have tried to compare Bush's behavior here to Bill Clinton's well-chronicled avoidance of the draft. The difference, of course, is not merely one of degree but substantively of kind: Clinton neither broke the law in his behavior, nor flouted or undermined basic rules of military conduct, nor waste taxpayer dollars in the process.

Though of course, we all remember how many critics of the mainstream right have referred to Clinton as a "draft dodger" -- which, like "deserter," is a term that refers specifically to acts of law-breaking. But then, I can't recall anyone demanding that George H.W. Bush or Bob Dole renounce the people who uttered those characterizations, either.

I did not know this

But based on the track record of four years ago, they could be way off the mark.

Then, most of the polls published just before the voting picked the winners in the primaries, but they missed the margin of victory by a mile.

Most had John McCain with a narrow lead over George W. Bush in the Republican primary. One, the American Research Group, forecast a tie. In fact, Mr. McCain won by 48 percent to 30 percent.

On the Democratic side in 2000, prominent final polls broadcast by CBS News and CNN had Al Gore with a double-digit lead over Bill Bradley. Mr. Gore ended up winning by 50 percent to 46 percent.

Essentially, it is hard to get an accurate sample. I suspect that is whey the tracking polls are both all over the place and consistent. By that I mean that the individual polls are consistent within themselves, will none of the polls really agree at all. That is almost certainly a function of the methodology used to determine the sample.

Polls are only as good as their samples. For a poll to be accurate, the sample should be a randomized selection matching the over all population of the group being polled. In other words, if you are doing a national poll, you find a sample that mirrors the country's registered voters in class, race, sex, economic status, location and political affiliation. This is difficult to do in New Hampshire because independents are allowed to vote in either primary, and people can register at the polling place.

In other words, the polling companies are guessing what the voter population is going to look like. Nobody really knows. Taken together, the polls can probably tell us trends, but it looks like they aren't going to be worth much in terms of predictive power.

We managed to get a baby sitter and see the Lord of the Rings. It was a fine capstone to the series, even if it did drag in places. The character of the King of Rohan was marvelously played and written, and everyone did a fine job of playing melodrama in a believable fashion. The battle senses were both awe inspiring and horror inspiring. For fights born from the imagination, they were remarkably gritty and un-heroic in nature. People die in great numbers, and their pain is transmitted through the screen remarkably well. At the same, the movie does a great job of conveying the sense of belonging to something important, something greater than you alone. All in all, worth the seven-fifty for the ticket.

But....

In the second movie, Arragon sees a little boy arming himself at Helms Deep. In trying to calm the boy, Arragon rediscovers his own ability to persevere. And we never see the boy again. In the scene of celebration at the hall of the King of Rohan in Return of the King, there are plenty of shots of the "name" characters, but none of the minor characters used to illuminate the essential heroism of the main characters. In the siege of Mina Tirath, Gandalf screams for the women and children to be evacuated as the orcs and trolls break through the outer defenses, yet we never see them being taken to safety, and we never ear what becomes of them after the battle.

I cannot help but wonder about those characters when I see or read so-called High Fantasy. I am more interested in solider number three, or barmaid on the left than I am in the heroic figures. I expect the mighty wizard and the long lived king with the magic elfin sword to get by. After all, they have magic powers and unbreakable swords and other assorted equalizers -- usually including a royal guard, or an elf who never misses a shot and an indestructible dwarf. They are presented as heroic, and I suppose, by some definitions, they are heroic. The bad guys do have equally powerful equalizers, and there are usually more of them. But what about solider number three? He has no spells, no magic swords, no indestructible companions making wise cracks as they slay giant elephants and indestructible monsters by the score. And yet he goes, and stands, and fights. That is courage.

I know this sounds tongue in cheek, and it is to the extent that we are talking about fictional characters, but I do think High Fantasy has serious flaws, and this is one of them. Aragorn is nothing without the soldiers of Gondor and the riders of Rohan, but they never rise above the level of scenery, either in Jackson's film or Tolkein's work. Without those faceless soldiers, Gondor falls before Aragorn has the chance to play hero. Instead of the recognition of the efforts of the non-heroic characters, High Fantasy concentrates its glory and attention on those few extraordinarily lucky, or blessed by the right bloodlines. That is not a message my little-d democratic soul is comfortable with.

Great things are the efforts of all involved. Arragon may have won the genetic lottery, but it would have meant nothing if spear man number five and his mates had run. The fantasy genre would be a lot more interesting if it would remember that.

Steve Gilliard's News Blog

On the phone right now with Steve's Mom...he went back to the hospital at 1 AM Tuesday night. He felt like hell and had trouble breathing--turns out he has a bum heart valve. Surgery may take place some time next week.

Pray for our beloved Gilly, folks. This time, he's in ICU and I don't have a number for him even..I'm glad that I thought to call home when he hadn't posted, called, or emailed...

Send whatever prayers/karma/good wishes you can his way.

August J. Pollack knows how.
And, Dear God, what did we do to deserve this media?

This is Bush's man, I might add

David Kay, who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said Friday after stepping down from his post that he has concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year.

In an interview with Reuters, Dr. Kay said he now thought that Iraq had illicit weapons at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but that the subsequent combination of United Nations inspections and Iraq's own decisions "got rid of them."

In other words, Iraq had been perfectly contained, and Bush was absolutely incorrect when and his Administration said they "knew" how much and what kinds of weapons Iraq had.

If thats the case, how can we trust the Bush Administration to know what threats are real or not? Either they were lying, they were listening to only what they wanted to hear, or they were receiving bad information. Press reports indicate that it was some combination of the first two, but even if it was the third, you cannot trust this administration. Why? Because in the past several months they have done nothing to correct the situation. no investigations, no hearings, no firings. Assuming they were the victim of bad intelligence, they are still relying ion the same people who produced that bad intelligence.

There is simply know way to trust this Administration now. It refuses to own up to its mistakes in this matter, and as a result, we have no way of knowing whether or not they are making the same mistakes. They simply cannot be trusted.

At least according to two highly respected Jewish leaders

Two of the nation's most prominent Jewish leaders said yesterday that they had watched recent versions of Mel Gibson's unreleased movie "The Passion of the Christ" and found it anti-Semitic and incendiary in the way it depicted the role of the Jews in Jesus' death.

One said he was angered that a scene he and other Jewish leaders had found particularly offensive remained in the version of the movie he saw, though Mr. Gibson had once said publicly he would remove it.

The leaders — Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League in New York — have been critical of the movie during the last year as scripts and versions of the film have leaked out. But until recently neither man had seen the movie because Mr. Gibson and his company, Icon Productions, had declined to provide them with a copy or to allow them into special screenings.

Apparently, Jews are pictured as physically vile and responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.

Rabbi Hier said he was "horrified" by the movie, which he said depicted all Jews, except those who were Jesus' followers, as villainous, with dark beards and eyes, "like Rasputin."

(snip)

Mr. Foxman said that in one scene in the version he watched, the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring, of the Crucifixion: "His blood be on us, and on our children."

Of course, thats not what the Bible actually says happened:

In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 27, Verse 25, the only place in the Bible in which that statement appears, it is said to come from a crowd of Jews shouting for Jesus' death.

And, of course, the whole idea of Jews being "Christ killers" has been thoroughly repudiated by the Catholic Church:

The message of that passage, that the Jewish people were guilty of deicide, was repudiated by the Second Vatican Council. Mr. Gibson practices a traditionalist form of Roman Catholicism that does not recognize the changes of Vatican II.

And Gibson's people are apparently trying to spin this movie like crazy:

Mr. Foxman said that at the Winter Park screening audience members were asked to sign an agreement that, according to a copy he read to a reporter over the telephone, required them to keep confidential their "exposure, knowledge and opinions of the film" and of a question-and-answer session with Mr. Gibson. But the agreement, as read by Mr. Foxman, added that "pastors and church leaders are free to speak out in support of the movie and your opinions resulting from today's exposure to this project and its producer."

Mr. Foxman said he did not sign the agreement. He said he had initially felt bad about sneaking into the showing, but later changed his mind. "I decided yesterday, `Why am I uncomfortable? Let him be uncomfortable,' " he said, referring to Mr. Gibson. "For him to say, `You can only see it if you love it?' I felt it was my moral duty to see it."

So, the movie is not biblically accurate, uses broad stereotypes to caricature Jews, and blames all Jews for the death of Christ. What, exactly, is not anti-Semitic about any of that? And why are so many people on the right lining up to defend this apparent piece of trash?

Link via Hesoid

This better not be still the case:

Many have heard about the reservists on medical hold at Fort Stewart, GA. Medical Hold Soldiers of the National Guard and Army Reserve were kept in Barracks at Fort Carson, CO that were scheduled for demolition. Many soldiers got sicker during our stay there. The toilet facilities were mostly broken, and mold covered everything. Soldiers that could not stand or walk had to live on the upper floors. Nothing was done about the problem, regardless of who we complained to. I, like others, simply left at the first opportunity to come home. Many of us did not ever get our problems taken care of. Although I am now healthy (relatively speaking) I know of several soldiers of my state who are still sick at home. They cannot work, but have not been paid by the Army for their Active Duty Medical Extensions. The paperwork has either not been done, or has been lost, or something. There are stories like this from all over the country.

My unit served in Iraq. We were originally deployed to provide security in Kuwait. We had trained for the security mission, essentially guard duty, for several months, without doing any offensive operations, convoy ops, or any other training. Shortly after our forces secured Baghdad airport, my unit was put on planes to Baghdad, and we began convoy security operations. We also undertook offensive operations against guerrillas in the Sunni Triangle. Please understand that these are bread-and-butter operations for infantry like us, but you need to keep training to keep the edge. We never had the Interceptor body armor, and at times we were low on ammunition, food, and water. We had several contacts. I am so proud of my soldiers. You should’ve seen them. They performed brilliantly, but God alone knows how we didn’t loose anybody. I never will.

Our troops deserve so much better than this. Every time Bush and the Republicans speak of patriotism, I remember the veteran cuts, and the shoddy planning, and the attempt to slash combat pay and my blood boils. But this, this makes me shake with rage. If this is even remotely true, if our soldiers were actually treated this way, then God damn George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to hell. And that's not profanity - that's a prayer.

No link, but my wife just emialed me to let me know that Captain Kangaroo has died.

I particulalrly like Delay in plaid golf pants. It just seems so him.

Yahoo! News - Dean Delivers Top 10 List on Letterman

I know you've been wondering to yourself, "What would it be like if the GOP actively tried to appeal to urban youth?" It's a question we've all asked ourselves at one time or another.

Now we know the answer.

I suppose, in the interests of fairness, I should include the DNC.

Source: AskSnoop.com

Could be

Prosecutors say they think they have evidence that Limbaugh committed at least 10 felonies by illegally obtaining overlapping drug prescriptions, according to documents released to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Thursday.

They offered to end the investigation if Limbaugh pleaded guilty to a single felony for "doctor shopping" and agreed to a three-year term of probation, a deal that Limbaugh's Miami attorney Roy Black called "preposterous" on Thursday.

One wonders of the deal would have been so light if the person involved had not been Limbaugh.

Op-Ed Columnist: Democracy at Risk

So what should be done? Representative Rush Holt has introduced a bill calling for each machine to produce a paper record that the voter verifies. The paper record would then be secured for any future audit. The bill requires that such verified voting be ready in time for the 2004 election — and that districts that can't meet the deadline use paper ballots instead. And it also requires surprise audits in each state.
I can't see any possible objection to this bill. Ignore the inevitable charges of "conspiracy theory." (Although some conspiracies are real: as yesterday's Boston Globe reports, "Republican staff members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media.") To support verified voting, you don't personally have to believe that voting machine manufacturers have tampered or will tamper with elections. How can anyone object to measures that will place the vote above suspicion?
What about the expense? Let's put it this way: we're spending at least $150 billion to promote democracy in Iraq. That's about $1,500 for each vote cast in the 2000 election. How can we balk at spending a small fraction of that sum to secure the credibility of democracy at home?

Well, no one hit a home run, and no one struck out. Kerry did well enough, though he tended to wander in his answers sometime. Edwards did better than I expected. I wasn't happy with his answer on gay marriage, but he spoke eloquently and powerfully about poverty and equality of opportunity. Edwards also did a great job of handling hostile questions and turning them aside in an easy sounding, easy to understand, sound bite friendly manner. Dean seemed a little off, but he was self-deprecating about the Iowa scream, and stayed on message without going unglued. He, too, tended to wander a bit. Sharpton apparently doesn't really know squat about a lot of things a president should know. Dennis Kucinich, bless his heart, is a humorless gnome. Libermann continues to try to out Republican the Democrats. Clark gave good answers, but ran from the deserter question and seemed uncomfortable talking about domestic issues.

Overall, I think Edwards may have helped himself, Dean probably did enough to stop his free fall, and no one else did much to hurt or help themselves.

And next time, can we please have questioners wh ask questions in less time than the candidates are allocated to answer them?

From The Roots :: Pulling the Bush Out, and its done the right way. its a SCOOP based install, like DailyKos, so it allows users to have diaries and interact in a deep way with the site. So far, the content has been mostly diaries, but I am sure that will change.

At least, the Republican theft of Democratic documents is more extensive

With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives.

But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staffers and others familiar with the investigation say.

The revelation comes as the battle of judicial nominees is reaching a new level of intensity. Last week, President Bush used his recess power to appoint Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, bypassing a Democratic filibuster that blocked a vote on his nomination for a year because of concerns over his civil rights record.

Democrats now claim their private memos formed the basis for a February 2003 column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to filibuster certain judicial nominees. Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs.

Citing "internal Senate sources," Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.

Its details and direct quotes from Democrats -- characterizing former nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" and describing the GOP agenda as an "assembly line" for right-wing nominees -- are contained in talking points and meeting accounts from the Democratic files now known to have been compromised.

This goes all the way to at least First. And the Republican response. They seem to admit it:

As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem.

Other staffers, however, denied that the Democrats were told anything about it before November 2003.

(snip)

"There appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule," Miranda said. "Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to a government document. . . . These documents are not covered under the Senate disclosure rule because they are not official business and, to the extent they were disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff."

Whether the memos are ultimately deemed to be official business will be a central issue in any criminal case that could result. Unauthorized access of such material could be punishable by up to a year in prison -- or, at the least, sanction under a Senate non-disclosure rule.

Where is the media on this story? Imagine if the Democrats had done this. This is theft, plain and pure and simple, and its theft meant to stifle the democratic process. Honor and dignity indeed.

A lot of people have talked about the case of Dixon. It is fairly obviously a miscarriage of justice, and one perpetrated because of race. TalkLeft, for example, has covered this case very well. I won't rehash the particulars here, but I did want to highlight something in the Times article that stood out for me:

Although a jury acquitted Mr. Dixon of rape, sexual battery, aggravated assault and false imprisonment, they found him guilty of statutory rape, a misdemeanor, and because of the girl's injuries, the more serious charge of aggravated child molestation. Bound by Georgia's sentencing laws, the judge gave Mr. Dixon the minimum 10 years. After learning of the sentence, five of the jurors said they would not have voted to convict Mr. Dixon if they had known he would spend so much time in prison.
Georgia's legislators toughened sentencing guidelines in 1995, when they categorized child molestation as one of the "seven deadly sins." Since Mr. Dixon's conviction, many of those who voted for the more stringent codes have said they did not realize aggravated child molestation could be applied to consensual sex among teenagers.

Why aren't juries told of the potential effects of their verdicts? Isn't the jury system designed to facilitate justice? How can people sit in judgment of a crime if they do not know whether or not the punishment fits the severity of the crime they believe has been committed? If we are going to have juries, then we must trust them to be smart enough to decide, based on all the information, what is an id not appropriate.

If we had, this travesty would not have taken place.

Almost every poll has the New Hampshire race Kerry-Dean-Clark-Edwards. I would hold off on reacting tho those polls, though. Tonight is the last debate in New Hampshire, and considering the fluid nature of the race, I expect a lot of Democratic voters to pay attention to it. All of the Candidates have strengths and weaknesses. This is Dean's chance to remind voters that he is not, in fact, insane. This is Edwards chance to speak to the voters as a serious candidate for the first time. This is Kerry's opportunity - if you want to use that word - to remind voters of why they left his side in the first place. This is Clark's chance to remind voters that they did like him just a week ago. In other words, this debate could very easily change the dynamics of the race in a short amount of time.

Is up

I want to like John Edwards, I really do. He has a great biography, good policies (Yes, he voted for the War - but he has adopted the appropriate critique of its execution now. Yes, he voted for the PATRIOT Act, but so did everybody. people were scared, and they made a mistake. Edwards is willing to correct that mistake.), and a near brilliant way of expressing them. Obviously, he has a great deal of personal charisma. In short, he would make a good candidate, maybe a very good candidate. But he still scares me.

There is a convention in literature: the Heroic Last Stand. You all know. Plucky band of outnumbered heroes, determined to go down fighting against overwhelming odds. In tragedies, everybody dies. In stories with happy endings, almost everybody dies before they are rescued by some sort of cavalry. Its all supposed to be heroic and moving and meaningful and bring tears to your eyes because oh what brave men they were, etc,etc,etc.

Well, fsck heroic last stands. Dead is dead. The first thing that crosses my mind when I see or read about a Heroic Last Stand is "how did you idiots let yourself get into this mess in the first place?" There would be a lot more Riders of Rohan trotting around Tolkien's imaginary world if their king had paid attention to Gandalf instead of setting up for a heroic last stand. And I am afraid that Jon Edwards is a Heroic Last Stand personified.

Edwards, as I have already mentioned, has just about everything to be the perfect Democratic candidate, short of military experience (why it's necessary for Dems to have military experience but Repubs to trust an AWOL National Guardsman with the country's safety is a rant for another day). But he never caught fire. He would give an amazing and amazingly well received speech, and then his campaign would allow it to drop out of the press. he would do something good, then go on a Sunday talk show and get creamed by Russert or one of the other shills. Now he has a pulled a surprising second place out of Iowa, and heads into February 3rd well positioned. And that scares me. I know of no reason why his campaign suddenly became effective, and I am afraid that this is a large scale version of the pattern we saw last year. Except this time, if it happens after he has won the nomination, then we all suffer.

Go to war, so to speak, with John Edwards if you choose. But run if he wants to lead you into a valley with only one exit, or brags about the stout walls of the position he has decided to hold.