For all you Ronald Reagan sycophants, I hereby present…the real power behind the fall of communism!

I was listening to this interview with John Kerry on NPR earlier today and my heart sunk. The sonofabitch sounds like a squeeze-box and refuses (like a typical politico) to answer questions. This is NPR for Gods sake, who does he think is listening? Unlike most people, NPR listeners actually want to hear cognizant explanations of strategy.

On the other candidates:

I don't know. You'll have to ask [the other candidates]. I'm just trying to...[blah, blah, blah]

On his support:

You know, that's for voters to decide. I don't try to make those decisions. I just...[blah, blah, blah]

Only in response to the final question (on being prepared to defend his voting record) did he sound like a human person.

Sure, I know we all ought to be concerned with substantive issues and not form judgments based on whether a candidate has cheap suits, bad hair, or a Botox forehead. And I appreciate that Kerry is trying to act "Presidential". And I have a vague awareness that pragmatic political strategies are preferable to the politics of hope. But I’m already starting to pine for the likes of Bill Clinton, Jesse Ventura, and (yes) Howard Dean: men who answer questions. Indeed, their answers were sometimes so oily it hurt, or so blunt it'd make you wince...but at least they answered the friggin' questions! My heart don't pump no Kool-Aid, and if it keeps getting fed this thin gruel I may end up voting for the ferret. To steal a phrase:

And all day whenever this stuff strikes me I start tearing up again, getting ready to start crying, and only keeping myself from crying because of the cubicles' low partitions and how everybody can see me and would be concerned, … and it's tiring as hell, my girlfriend would say emotionally draining, and I sign out early and go home and I'm so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open, and when I get home I go right in and crawl into bed at like 4:00 in the afternoon and more or less pass out.

Gee, blogging is hard. Though I still don't believe Kerry is electable, I'm looking more and more wrong:

Some Republicans indicate that they believe the public will eventually reject Kerry because he is a Massachusetts liberal. However, at this point in the process, just 37% of Americans identify the Massachusetts Senator as a liberal. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Americans view him as a moderate while 11% say he is a political conservative.

What makes a blog good is pragmatism, not solipsism. I'll be sure to discuss this with my therapist.

Reader e-mail! Concerning this post:

And corporate grants don't? Wanna ask Diego Rivera how well he got along with Rockefeller and Standard Oil when he was painting a mural for Rockefeller Center.

And for an example of perhaps tolerant public spending on the arts, we could look at Great Britain.

Whenever the money comes from someone else, you can always be beholdin'.

We can look to Great Britain for a lot of things -- honest journalism, unrestrictive arts funding, better dance music, and government that is much more fun to watch on C-SPAN than our own.

I do have to differ with your point on Diego Rivera. There's a huge difference between receiving a donation from a corporate entity and being a hired contractor. If Microsoft hired me to design a billboard for them, and I delivered a poster featuring Mussolini, I have a feeling I wouldn't get paid. Diego Rivera wasn't given money to explore his own work; he was paid to paint a mural for Norman Rockefeller. Though I admire Rivera's testicular fortitude, you have to admit that he didn't really think about his client.

However, your point is well taken. If an art gallery accepted grant money from R.J. Reynolds, and then did an exhibition featuring paintings of emphesema-riddled lungs, I would imagine they couldn't count on money from R.J. Reynolds ever again.

I still hold to the original assertion, though -- it is a private entity's perogative to spend their money as they wish, as long as it isn't for duplicitous means -- perhaps you heard about our gas bills from two years ago? However, an administration that has placed so much emphasis on managing their propaganda, incurring opprobrium for their Orwellian steps to recharacterize history -- such behavior makes their proposal to increase arts funding highly suspicious. Using government funds to influence the freest of speech is far more -- far, far more -- reproachable than a private entity not wishing to support messages contrary to their own.

And while we're on the subject, check this out:

The play praises patriotism, but the judges only saw teens cutting up an American flag.

It was enough to disqualify Archbishop McCarthy High students from a competition early this week for their performance of The Children's Story. In the play, first published in 1963 by Shogun author James Clavell, third-graders in a classroom in a United States that has been defeated by a powerful enemy, presumably Communist, cut the flag into pieces. Their new teacher tells them if the flag is so good, everyone should get a piece and tells them to hand out the shreds. It's a message about the dangers of mindless political indoctrination.

Hell, even Antonin Scalia would be on the side of the kids.

Why the self-deprecation? Because I'm stupid.

I'm not making predictions anymore, but Atrios sure is.

Forgive me being overly defensive of my industry, but from the article Arlo referenced below comes the following blast of flatulence:

Government involvement is designed to take the arts from the grand citadel of the privileged and bring them to the public at large

Why so interested in bringing the arts to the plebeians...as opposed to, say, medicine, literacy, opportunity, or decent housing? Don't get me wrong, funding the arts is a good thing, but this guy's reasoning strikes me as a more than a little patronizing. Perhaps more importantly, the value judgments being piggybacked along with this increase in funding (i.e., civilize the savages) simultaneously corrupt and marginalize "the arts" in our society. Let's take Chicago Theatre as an example:

The members of the League [of Chicago Theatres] represent approximately $347 million in annual economic activity for the State of Illinois.

Of course, this is a staggering number when you factor in that it only represents Theatres affiliated with the League; there are hundreds of companies in Chicago without such affiliation. In this sense, the arts help fuel the economy in ways that would make any cold-blooded GOP minion proud. Chicagoans in particular are well aware that it is invariably the artists who drive up property values, eventually being forced to abandon their own neighborhoods. Don't support the arts because it seems high-falutin' to do so, support them because they friggin' matter.

I may be taking that button off my bag soon enough. I haven't given up hope, but my hope is waning.

I so totally, completely wish that I didn't have to view President Bush's plan to increase funds for the NEA with such dire scrutiny. If Clear Skies increase emissions, if prescription drug benefits increase the price of drugs, and if No Child Left Behind leaves entire schools behind, how am I supposed to trust him not to use increased funding of the NEA to control the sort of art that gets made?

Defiant Theatre's Casting Director and former Artistic Director once said that she'd rather take grants from corporations than from the government, that government funding smacked of the state stamping approval on particular messages. Someone like George Bush wanting to increase arts funding smacks of exactly that fear.

Of course, in order to attempt to Ann-Coulter-proof my post: I hope I'm wrong.

As imperfect as his assumptions sometimes are, I yield to Arlo regarding election politics. I can only contribute blindly incautious, fist-pounding rage. Or, to put it another way, I know only enough to be able to recognize that my political acumen is powered almost exclusively by personal desire at the expense of cold reason. The counterintuitive consequence of this is that I am prone to be disloyal to candidates who best represent my views. Ideology, as it turns out, has always been dependent on communal support (or at least shared values). My own utter absence of ideology has resulted in my passions overtaking my intellect; making me only somewhat more capable of rational judgment than, say, a turd. Like the candidates themselves, I’m likely to want to believe something so darn much that I convince myself that it’s actually true (i.e., Howard Dean will not only win the nomination, but he will so brutalize Bush in the November election that he [Bush] will petition some backward African dictatorship for asylum). I really believe this crap. Which is why I demure in such discourse to more level heads. See where I’m heading with this? The President said this:

We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

Well, this just wasn’t true. What are the chances that, like me, Bush just wanted a thing to be true so darn much he just went on ahead and believed it? Or was it just “bad intelligence”? Some retarded Captain of the 75th Exploitation Task Force (XTF) who picked up a rusted muffler and said, “Heck, boys! I think we gots here a tank of boo-bonik plague! Oops, I think my weenus is leaking…”. Yeah. Bad intelligence. Now, since we have come to expect erumpent bullshit from this President, I doubt that the political ramifications of his limpid lies will be very severe…but let’s stop kidding ourselves about “bad intelligence”. On “speaking truth to power”, a certain dude has famously said:

…power already knows the truth. They don't need to hear it from us. Secondly, it's a waste of time. Furthermore, it's the wrong audience. You have to speak truth to the people who will dismantle and overthrow and constrain power.

I think in this case, it’s fair to say that “power already knows the truth”.

Today's Altercation (scroll past the New Hampshire stuff) points out the way both sides of politics are only reading the parts of the Kay report that they want to read. To wit -- the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Kay has also made clear that, stockpiles or no, Saddam's regime retained active programs that could have been reconstituted at any time. Saddam tried to restart his nuclear program as recently as 2001. There is also evidence, Mr. Kay has told the London Telegraph, that some components of Saddam's WMD program "went to Syria before the war." Precisely what and how much "is a major issue that needs to be resolved." The most logical conclusion is that Saddam hoped to do just enough to satisfy U.N. inspectors and then restart his WMD production once sanctions were lifted and the international heat was off.

...

As intelligence failures go, we'd prefer one that worried too much about a threat than one that worried too little. The latter got us September 11.

And the former brought us thousands of dead US troops, scores of dead innocent civilians, and the revulsion of the global community.

The Right, however, will continue to say, okay, perhaps there weren't WMDs in Iraq -- well, excuuuuuuse me! -- but Saddam wanted them, and that was a good enough reason to invade. I want to eat an entire pizza on my own, but it doesn't mean it's time for a weight loss intervention.

But I digress.

Across the aisle, the left is looking specifically at that whole but there aren't any weapons there thing. Washington Post:

In the interview yesterday, Kay said the ISG had found some "contemporary documents" that proved Iraq destroyed weapons in the mid-1990s -- steps that were not reported to U.N. inspectors.

Senior Iraqi scientists interviewed by Kay admitted hiding their chemical and biological weapons programs in the early 1990s. In 1995, however, Hussein's son-in-law Hussein Kamal, who directed the illegal weapons programs, defected. At about that time, the scientists said they tried unsuccessfully to convince U.N. inspectors that they had destroyed their weapons and agents. They tried to "come clean, but we wouldn't believe them," Kay said.

Alterman makes the most interesting point of all, which he makes as if he's pointing at the farting elephant in the middle of the room:

What David Kay is really saying is ... drumroll please, Saddam Hussein was disarmed ... by ... Bill Clinton!

I like Eric Alterman, but I think that's a pretty large jump to make. After all, also from the Washington Post:

Kay said he believes Hussein may have been pursuing a course of "constructive ambiguity" before the war, bluffing about having weapons to give the illusion of power and to put up a deterrent. "Saddam wanted to enjoy the benefits of having chemical and biological weapons without having to pay the costs," Kay said.

The conclusion I come to is the Kay report proves that UN sanctions worked, that inspections worked. To attribute Saddam's disarmament to Clinton, however, makes little sense. How else could Saddam continue to bluff if no one was calling his bluff? Perhaps everyone already knew he was bluffing...

To this day, I hold true to the belief I had before the war, that Saddam did, indeed, need to be taken out, but it wasn't the right fight to pick at this time. We needed to finish the job in Afghanistan first -- remember Afghanistan?

The real issue the Kay report brings up is the reliability of intelligence, and the real investigation will begin when -- more aptly, if -- an independent commission can examine why the intelligence was faulty. Was the intelligence coming in the result of Saddam trying to look more powerful than he actually was, or was the intelligence doctored by the White House? This question needs to be answered by investigators now and not by historians later.

UPDATE: Corrected some grammar.

Ugh.

Well, at this point, you know how bad my ability to make predictions is. So no more predictions except one: in November, there will be a Presidential election.

I'm still a Dean guy, and he does still have a chance -- he still leads in delegates. And though he was beaten handily by Kerry, Dean handily beat Edwards and Clark. Dean really does have to win a state next week, though. His chances look slim, the reason being people don't perceive him nearly as electable as Kerry. I've said bullshit to this assertion before, and I still say bullshit.

Is electability even a viable issue? With differences -- albeit subtle -- on how to lower health care costs, how to deal with the war in Iraq, how to improve schools, and how to handle homosexual relationships and guns and free trade and job loss, shouldn't we support the candidate that most closely represents our personal politics than who we think can beat the incumbent? I emphatically, unquestionably must answer "not really." Electability is important; it was a factor in why I didn't support Nader in 2000 (that, and Nader is a loon), though I wasn't the biggest Al Gore fan in the world. I want to punch that butterfly ballot in November with pride instead of resignation.

I still believe that Howard Dean can beat George Bush, as the McGovern comparisons simply can't stick. I could certainly see a scenario in which Kerry/Edwards ticket -- or a Kerry/Graham ticket -- gives Bush a run for his money -- I doubt it, but I could see it. I want Dubya out of office as much as the next sane person, but not at any cost. I want to vote in November because I truly believe in the candidate and not because he isn't George Bush. I think we all do. At least, those of us who aren't full blown fascists.

That last part was satire.

Is it just another example of borrow & spend, or just another example of how laws don't matter? The choices are just so yummy, I can't make up my mind!

I was staring gloomily at some text on my computer screen, quietly fostering a determination to use it to buttress some arcane point I felt needed to make (a point germane to the furious dialogue perpetually raging in my lonely, captive mind), when it occurred to me that if I weren't so emotionally starved and socially isolated I would probably be doing something more productive with my life than building up a frothy head of steam at every warped little nuance in a national debate that has as much relevance to my actual life as, say, this. That said, I think I'm going to go get myself a nice cup of coffee and stare blankly into the middle-distance, the soft thud of my forlorn heart providing the sole respite from the all-encompassing vacuity that has come to define my life.

The President's speech of March 17, 2003, is well worth revisiting:

Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

The revisionist history we are being repeatedly subjected to by this administration regarding the war in Iraq cannot be permitted to dominate our discourse. The President made it very clear on the eve of war that we were going for one overarching purpose: to disarm Iraq. If peaceful efforts to do this had failed, then where are the WMD's? The contention that there was "no doubt" that Iraq possessed such WMD's is pure deceit. To assert that everyone (including Clinton) believed that Saddam possessed WMD's is likewise deceitful.

Beginning in mid-2002...the official statements of the threat shifted dramatically toward greater alarm regarding certainty of the threat and greater certainty as to the evidence. This shift does not appear to have been supported by new, concrete evidence from intelligence community reports – at least those now publicly available. These statements were picked up and amplified by congressional leaders, major media, and some experts.

Most of the official statements on Iraq's weapon programs were supported by a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq that was produced, partially in response to congressional requests, over a three-week period in September 2002. It was delivered to Congress ten days before the vote authorizing the use of force to compel Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions. The Director of Central Intelligence released an unclassified version of the estimate, "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs", in October 2002.

Three aspects of this NIE merit particular attention: It was produced far more quickly than is normal for such documents; it went far beyond the consensus intelligence assessments of the preceding five years; and, it had more serious dissents to its key findings than any other declassified NIE.

In a statement clearly intended to both revise history and to throw a blanket of political immunity over a series of politicized manipulations of pre-war intelligence, Donald Rumsfeld asserted the following:

The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on September 11th.

From "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications" (ibid above), comes the rebuttal:

The Bush National Security Strategy reflected this transformed world view in a posture toward deterrence poles apart from [Condoleezza] Rice's earlier treatment: "Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past." This is a profoundly incorrect portrayal of the Cold War strategies of deterrence and containment. They were anything but "reactive" policies, because there could have been no acceptable reaction to a Soviet first strike. Deterrence and containment were active strategies to prevent an attack, not respond to it...

…the assertion that the threat that became visible on 9/11 erased deterrence against states can rest only on the belief that rogue states will give WMD to terrorists…and/or that they are led by madmen. Neither can be considered to be automatically true or very likely. Fore example, Saddam Hussein had shown beginning with the 1991 war that he did not use his chemical weapons against the United States and for years afterward in his modulated responses to international pressure and international weakness that while unpredictable and sometimes hard to understand even in retrospect, he was not undeterrable. The assertion may, instead, reflect excessive fear due to the shock of an unprecedented attack on the U.S. homeland.

Perhaps I'm just unpatriotic (and a little manic), but I just can't seem to let this WMD thing go.

In the spirit of pointing out the obvious in a world wherein facts no longer seem to matter, check out The Buying of the President 2004. Here's a taste of the fun therein!

Contrary to my previously expressed inclination to read a book, I couldn’t help myself. I watched Dennis Miller’s debut on CNBC. This just is not going to work. Now, I loved his HBO show, but here’s the thing: you’ve got to either deliver (a) comedy, (b) drama, or (c) news in order to survive on television. If his interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger tonight was any indicator, there will be neither comedy nor drama – only the obsequious stroking of a nascent senior-citizen intent on applying his ambidextrous tongue to…bootlicking. Consider this reflection from an old Media Life article:

Did we learn anything from the Dennis Miller debacle on ABC's "Monday Night Football?"
Fans did. They learned they didn't care much for the gridiron rantings of an ex-cable talk show host. When it comes to TV football, fans prefer their commentary from insiders, either ex-players or on-air talent.

True dat. Likewise for those of us who are fans of politics and, well…facts. As for real news, Mr. Miller is a self-proclaimed comedian, hardly a source of journalistic integrity.

To add to Kelly's post below about the Democratic candidates' favorite songs:

The candidates were asked this question once before in a debate, and on the most part, made far less interesting and far more politically motivated choices.

UPDATE: It's also important to mention the reasoning behind the Ferret's choice.

Some great news. If the Patriot Act were any more invasive, I'd have to refer to this news as doubleplusgood.

Presidential candidates name the albums they most like to have in their CD players:

Wesley Clark: "Journey - Greatest Hits"
Howard Dean: Music by Wyclef Jean
Sen. John Edwards: "The Essential Bruce Springsteen"
Sen. John Kerry: "Abbey Road" by the Beatles
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Music by Willie Nelson
Sen. Joe Lieberman: "Sueno" by Andrea Bocelli
Al Sharpton: Music by Yolanda Adams

Thanks to our man Stiggie for reminding us that it is the music that matters!

I think it's time that we forget 9/11. Seriously. Let's just forget the damn thing ever happened. The continual jabber from Bush about how he "will never forget the lessons of 9/11" (notwithstanding the fact that those lessons are as protean as all hell) and the relentless use of 9/11 as a knee-jerk excuse for virtually any military action taken (or not taken) has rendered it little more than an ideological weapon. More importantly, however, the unquestioned assumption that it is inherently good to keep the visceral and emotional shock of any tragedy close to our hearts "substitutes memory for morality." When it comes to the affairs of a nation, it is sometimes necessary to introduce a little Verfremdungseffekt into the mix, otherwise we run the risk of perpetuating nothing but our own fear and appetite for revenge. And that's not good.

Dennis Miller is making his CNBC debut tonight. What a great opportunity to curl up on the sofa with a good book.

New Hampshire tomorrow! Will Dean catch up with Kerry? Can Edwards catch up with Dean and Kerry? Did Clark screw himself by not participating in Iowa? Can Sharpton have a good showing next week, and if so, so what? Is Lieberman actually a Republican? Doesn't Kucinich look like a ferret?

All of these questions, and more, will continue to confuse you after tomorrow night. Except for that Lieberman question -- Lieberman is actually a Republican.

I won't have a chance to post anything truly substantial today, but I do plan on dozens of blog-related program activities.

Reader e-mail!

...Dean was screaming in Iowa! Haw! Haw! Boy, that guy is completely insane. Did you see him scream? He was screamin', alright. Just like this - "Aaaaiiiiggghhh!!" I saw it and I'll tell you that guy is totally crazy. "Aaaaiiiiggghhh!!" I mean, if he gets the nomination how is he going to debate Bush? Bush: "It's my job as President to protect the Americans of the Homeland." Dean: "Aaaaiiiiggghhh!!" Bush: "Some people think this isn't about terrorism. Well, it's too risky to not have war. War on Terrorism." Dean: "Aaaaiiiiggghhh!!" Huh. Yeah, right.

I laughed so hard…I think I pooped a little.

There are important questions that are simply not being asked (or answered) by our current candidates for President:

What level of military and civilian casualties is justifiable, and what moral or ethical tools exist to judge collateral damage and acceptable economic costs to the Armed Forces of the United States and our allies?

What are the morals and ethics of preemption against Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear weapons and offensive counter proliferation for the leadership of the Armed Forces of the United States and our allies?

While I think most people would agree that as threats escalate, a proportional escalation in levels of "acceptable" casualties (both civilian and military) is justified. However, when threat analysis becomes politically motivated to confirm only pre-conceived judgments, civilian casualties sustained as a result can be fairly described as, well…murder. However, to be fair to American military men and women (who usually respond to day-to-day threats wisely and with due caution), an increasingly large portion of civilian casualties in Iraq are a consequence of insurgents attacks. But the larger question facing the leadership (current and potential) of the Armed Forces is whether the combined casualty figures are, or have been, justified. Was the threat to our national security so great, given what we now know about WMD's, to justify over 500 American soldiers killed, 2,515 American soldiers wounded, an unknown number of American and coalition civilian contractor casualties, and 8,037 to 9,874 Iraqi deaths?

The cost-benefit questions being hurled at the candidates regarding Saddam's removal are often badly misguided. They assume that if so-and-so candidate were President "Saddam would still be in power". Perhaps. But it's wildly disingenuous to suggest that any serious candidate would not have pursued strategies to deal with (or remove) Saddam. In many cases, there is a strong argument to be made that other strategies would have worked much better than full-scale invasion. For example: (a) declare Saddam a war criminal, (b) extend the no-fly zone over the entire country, and (c) unfreeze billions of dollars worth of Iraqi assets outside the country and turn them over to anti-Saddam expatriates to fund internal revolt. While this may sound like Monday morning quarterbacking, it is widely acknowledged that the largest foreign policy blunder we made with respect to Iraq was our decision to withhold support for the 1991 insurrection in Southern Iraq (well, either that or Bush Sr.'s scrupulous response to the infamous Highway of Death). There were alternatives to invasion other than fiddling with sanctions and inspections. Our war in Iraq was a war of choice, not of necessity. Hopefully, the candidates will make this case to the electorate and stop kicking each other's shins about who voted for what Senate resolution and why.

Moment of silence for Bob Keeshan

Oh... my... God...

I'll quote it, but you have got to read the whole thing:

THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?

Q An answer.

Q Can we buy some questions?

THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people -- they make a lot of money and they're not going to spend much. I'm not saying they're overpaid, they're just not spending any money.

And Howard Dean is the difficult, inconsiderate candidate.

Courtesy of Pandagon.

In the past, when I've missed the debate, I would respond by reading a transcript. I have, yet again, another busy day at work today, so I'll defer to Daily Kos.

Did you e-mail a cable news organization yesterday? I did. And what was the big news yesterday? Ben and J-Lo. Sad.

Right wingers, bless their cold little hearts, scorn vegetarianism and environmentalism and conservation. As Bush has said: "You cannot conserve your way to dominance" & "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption". Now, for all the merits of conservation and alternative energy sources, there is a perfectly defensible justification for all this SUV-driving, red-meat-eating, and fast-food-napkin-hording: the defense of liberty via the assertion of liberty. We possess a God-given right to make individual choices contrary to utilitarian ideals. In other words:

The state should not impose on its citizens a preferred way of life, even for their own good, because doing so will reduce the sum of human happiness, at least in the long run. It is better that people choose for themselves.

That sure sounds fine and freedom-loving, and there's more than a little truth there too. But anyone who's ever been cornered at a party by a libertarian, or who has screamed, "Hey Pal, we live in a society" upon begin cut off in traffic, knows there are (and ought to be) limits to this doctrine. Limits that meet basic standards of equitability and moral (gasp) accountability. I accept that. Now, as long as government mandates fuel economy standards there will be people who will regard subverting such mandates as a point of pride; not unlike the college sophomore who has a bi-sexual liaison to prove to his/her parents that they are, incontrovertibly, their own person, thank you very much! Hey, I understand this. I applaud it, actually. And I'm certainly not going to go around slashing the tires of SUV's in a lame attempt to punish people for what is, essentially, an act of environmental non-conformity. Promiscuity and tailpipe exhaust both contribute tiny blows to the betterment of humanity, but to restrict either too much would be even more detrimental to the purposes of human liberty. Which brings me, at long last, to the President's call to "protect the sanctity of marriage" and promote "abstinence" while refusing to tighten limits on emissions and/or provide incentives to automobile manufacturers regarding fuel economy. I am left to draw one of two conclusions after analyzing the President's position; either (a) liberty truly is the handmaiden of economics or (b) the President is a hypocrite.

I haven't written about hydrogen power in a while. I said last July, "[Scientists should] present a plan by which we can use fuel efficent cars now to achieve the desired effect in the meantime while we move towards fuel cells."

How about both?

The problem with building an engine that uses conventional gasoline (in this case, diesel or jet fuel) to replenish fuel cells means we still rely on oil. It also means that the byproducts of the engine are still carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and sulphur, the stuff that makes cars bad for the environment in the first place.

However, it seems that this engine would travel three-times further on a tank of gas than an internal combustion engine. That's better gas mileage than current hybrid vehicles. This is more than just a baby step towards a hydrogen economy -- it's a toddler step. Get fuel cells in the marketplace, then figure out ways to replenish the fuel cells directly while slowly weaning the planet off of oil. Then you can have all of the SUVs you want without damaging the environment. Ta-da.

If you read the article (as they say in nerd speak, RTFA), you'll see the other reason why this idea is going to take off -- the military is backing it. Better fuel efficiency for blitzkreiging means better fuel efficiency for soccer practice. Like I said, it's a toddler step; like a toddler, prospects are getting better, but there's still a lot of screaming "MINE!"

Perhaps the television media could stop reporting on Howard Dean's speech Monday night (and the techno dance remix) for one minute and report some real news:

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.

This is a huge deal, and Americans should be outraged. Today, I plan to e-mail as many cable news networks as I can begging them to talk about this story:

MSNBC

Countdown
Abrams Report
Hardball
Scarborough Country

CNN

Lou Dobbs Tonight
Anderson Cooper 360°
Paula Zahn Now
Newsnight with Aaron Brown

Fox News

All the e-mail addresses you need are right here.

Please join me by writing newspapers, network and local news stations, and get this story on the front page and at the "top of the hour."

UPDATE: Forgot to include one link.

Matthew Yglesias, in responding to Jonathan Chait, continues to celebrate (albeit rightfully) the merits of “murk” in analyzing the political and military machinations that put us in Iraq. It’s worth noting that what sleazy Bush apologists like David Brooks continue to call “so six months ago” (i.e., the Iraqi WMD debate, et al.) are issues no less relevant than the “events of 9/11”, which Republicans continually (and self righteously) fling up in our faces to justify their appetite for destruction. We are constantly reminded that “9/11 changed everything”; a position that is rarely challenged. I can recall, in the months following 9/11, the expressions of absolute certainty that “we will be attacked again”, usually “within a year”. Of course, it didn’t happen. With this in mind, it’s interesting that the radical viewpoint in America today asserts that the ideological certainty that Bush ostensibly provides is, in fact, both a diplomatic liability and a natural consequence of his intellectual disengagement. Terrorism and the situation in Iraq are difficult and complicated subjects without simple and user-friendly manuals. Bush’s ideology is not sharp enough to cut the Gordian Knot (as it were) of the Middle East in large part because no ideology is sharp enough. Murk and effort and details: these are the long and delicate nails that will ultimately untie this knot. The sooner we can discredit the notion that brute force is a useful tool in this “war on terror”, the sooner we can elect an intellect capable of moving us towards peace.

More State of the Union BS-ing:

The other key piece of Bush's proposal involves college funding. The president said last night, "I propose larger Pell grants for students." But he did not mention his recent decision to "cut the Pell Grant program by $270 million"6 - a move his own Education Department admits will cut off 84,000 students, and reduce grants for "an additional one million students."

The Bush giveth, and the Bush taketh away. Mostly taketh away.

I slept hard last night and somewhat regret my earlier posts. I confess, I have only had cable television hooked up in my apartment for approximately three weeks. There is simply no way to adequately prepare for the monstrous shock that cable television (inevitably) delivers to the mind and heart. From a recently published Abstract:

Research examining media effects on political attitudes has put forth broadly conflicting explanations: media use diminishes knowledge and involvement and contributes to political cynicism and declining turnout; media use contributes to learning, political involvement, trust, efficacy, and mobilization. … A dual effects hypothesis is supported: regularly watching television news on the public service channels has positive effects on cognition, efficacy, and turnout, whereas regularly opting for commercial television news has negative effects. Viewing behavior thus separates the more knowledgeable, the efficacious, and the politically involved from those who are not, revealing what might be described as a "virtuous circle" for some and a "spiral of cynicism" for others.

It appears that for some of us, channel-surfing can cause a bi-polar fracturing of mind – not unlike dating. In the calming aftermath of the SOTU, however, I find a great deal to be heartened about. Regardless of what any one person thinks about the candidates, we do have a choice. Bush may live in the White House, but the country does not belong to him. A great many programs he pushed for in his speech have little chance of becoming a reality. The resistance to his moralizing, scolding, pandering and spinning is very much alive. The divisions in the joint session last night (evidenced by the scarcity of universal standing ovations) should give us all hope. Occasionally, a leader rises up in a democracy who earns the respect of a huge plurality. We do not currently have such a leader, and it should reassure us all that this is being recognized. Even the blogosphere's favorite sellout is showing signs of catching on:

To brag about a growing economy without some kind of passage of empathy for those still struggling reveals major political obtuseness. I was also struck by how hard right the president was on social policy. $23 million for drug-testing children in schools? A tirade against steroids? (I'm sure Tom Brady was thrilled by that camera shot.) More public money for religious groups? Abstinence only for prevention of STDs? Whatever else this president is, he is no believer in individuals' running their own lives without government regulation, control or aid. If you're a fiscal conservative or a social liberal, this was a speech that succeeded in making you take a second look at the Democrats. I sure am.

Who knows, maybe he'll be the next David Brock.

Anyway, I apologize for slipping into a miasma of despair. I'll try to invest a little more thought into my discourse forthwith.

The Annotated State of the Union

Well, I for one got wasted last night. I'm kind of a lightweight, so when I finished my first beer in 10 minutes, I had to slow down and be considerate of my health.

I'm going to skip the first half of the speech, the defense of his Department of Defense. it's the domestic stuff that interests me. It's also when I was the most drunk.

The general impression I got from the State of the Union last night is that this was Dubya's best chance to steal as many issues from the Democrats as he can. Saying that any attempt to take away the Medicare reform he signed will "meet [his] veto" is the sort of duplicity that politicians pull off all the time.

But it didn't stop at healthcare. He talked about job training and community colleges. If No Child Left Behind is an indication of his committment to schools, community colleges don't stand a chance.

Oh, and he talked about God a lot.

I believe that God has planted in every human heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again.

Did I say "a lot"? I meant A LOT.

The same moral tradition that defines marriage also teaches that each individual has dignity and value in God's sight.

A lot.

We can trust in that greater power who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.

I'm okay with God being an abstract concept in our country. "In God We Trust" is on our money, a reference to the fact that the whole of America is greater than the sum of its parts. When God, however, is paraded before us by our leaders to defend unjust wars, to deny human rights and fair treatment to homosexuals, and to influence the way we look at calendars, then I have a problem.

So the State of the Union was another self-serving sermon. When powerful leaders consider themselves as doing the work of God, uh, that always goes well. Right? RIGHT?

I've got a very busy day ahead of me, so blogging will be light today.

State of the Union? Nope. I tried to sit through the thing. I really did. I poured myself a nice big cup of soda, kicked my slippers up onto the coffee table, and plopped a Chloraseptic throat lozenge in my mouth (preemptive anesthetization against bile). But after about 45 minutes my lower intestines started to liquefy and my vision blurred. It suddenly became clear what was happening to me, and my condition was too far advanced to be reversed. Over the past few years I have undergone a barely perceptible transformation from a curious, involved, pragmatic, independent, and well-read student of America’s political and social landscape into a Bush Hater; a distant (but inbred) cousin of the Clinton Hater. Mongoloid, incontinent, knuckle-dragging, myopic and belligerent. That’s me. I never meant for it to happen. Hell, I used to have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. But it happened. I can’t pretend otherwise. Fuck Bush. And fuck little Ashley too.

This morning as I stood on a frigid corner waiting for a walk signal and eyeballing a particularly bodacious turd-cutter waiting alongside me, it occurred to me that the real dilemma facing us in this election is not which pony to bet on, but whether or not the nominee will shoot to kill. The oft-maligned "intelligentsia" backed Dean because, as educated and informed citizens, they have a weakness for the truth. The truth is, of course, that Bush is the worst thing to happen to America since smallpox. An honest victory in November would need to be predicated upon bringing this truth into the light. Being positive, manly, cute or well funded is all well and good, but it won't make a substantive difference in the character of our country unless the message remains brutally honest: Bush is wrong and stupid. To that end, it would serve our candidates well to retire the worthless and insulting habit of consulting "talking points". The discussion needs to return to deep, rock-solid truth. To help out, I suggest that you pepper your political discourse with the following axioms:

War is an unholy shitpile of misery, death, necrophilia, and hopelessness; not a strategy for human betterment.

We are all taxed. To deprive some Rockefeller Fauntleroy of his 5th yacht so that an orphan can have his broken arm set does not deprive him [Rockefeller Fauntleroy] of the fruits of his efforts and thereby the foundation of his liberty; it educates him on the meaning of the word "fair".

John Ashcroft anointed himself with Crisco for Gods sake.

A clean environment is a good thing. There is no need to apply any "buts" to that statement. There is no need to put any qualifiers on it whatsoever, or interject some non sequitur about "jobs". Just let it sit there, all by itself: A clean environment is a good thing. See? There's a kind of simple truth there.

Pandagon writes about the new Civil War between Republicans and Democrats: swearing.

Well, I was close, but I certainly deserve no cigar.

I got some stuff right. I projected the correct winner. I said that Gephardt's campaign would be damaged.

But beyond that, whew! Was I wrong!

I knew nothing about the Kucinich/Edwards deal. If you haven't heard, supposedly the Edwards camp struck a deal with Kucinich's camp, that when Kucinich was deemed not viable at a caucus, the Kucinich supporters would join the Edwards supporters. I'm not sure if that's what really happened; plenty of Google News searching turned up nothing, and the only reference I can find about it is this Daily Kos post where Tom Schaller says it was "real." I don't know how much this supposed horse-trade affected Edwards' second-place finish, but I would presume it affected it very little. Edwards came in second because he ran a positive campaign in Iowa. Dean and Gephardt bitchslapped each other into distant third and fourth.

Dean has also had a tough few weeks. "You sit down. You've had your say, and now I'm gonna have my say." No minorities in his Vermont cabinet. And it certainly didn't help that last night, his let's-go-get-'em-in-New-Hampshire speech sounded like Randy Savage encouraging you to Snap into a Slim Jim. That angry candidate thing that Salon argued was a myth? How much of a myth is it?

I still support Dean because of the issues, because of his record, because he can give George Bush a serious run for his money, and because his campaign and his platform should define the Democratic party. I still think Dean can win in New Hampshire next week. He's gotta chill out, stick to issues, and stay positive.

Then there's electability. Kerry took the top spot because he's more electable.

What a crock.

John Kerry is one of those Kennedy-like, limousine liberals that Republicans are always complaining about. He cannot beat Bush.

I also disagree with him on several issues. Here's an example of my preferred Dean position to the Kerry position:

Q [to Kerry]: You have accused Gov. Dean of playing on workers' fears and advocating protectionism and saying that under him it threatens to throw the economy into a tail spin. It that fair?

KERRY: Yes, it is fair, because Gov. Dean has said very specifically that we should not trade with countries until they have labor and environment standards that are equal to the US. That means we would trade with no countries. It is a policy for shutting the door. It's either a policy for shutting the door, if you believe it, or it's a policy of just telling people what they want to hear.

DEAN: I supported NAFTA, I supported the WTO. We benefited in Vermont from trade. But in the Midwest, our manufacturing jobs are hemorrhaging. We have to go back and revise every single trade agreement that we have to include labor standards, environmental standards & human rights standards. If we don't, the trade policy that we seek to help globalize and help workers around the country & the world is going to fail.

Well, Mr. Kerry, if you're so damn liberal, why do you favor free trade over human rights? I like buying cheap plastic shit at Wal-Mart, too, but if no one in the US is employed to buy said cheap plastic shit, then what's the point?

One of the criticisms during the Gore/Bush race was that they were too similar, as was argued in that Michael Moore-directed Rage Against the Machine video. Granted, we now know that was wrong. However, with a moderately popular president and with the media skewing towards the right more and more, we need a candidate to balance it all out, and the only one who has the energy and drive to do it is Dean. Kerry is just another 2000 Al Gore, meaning Kerry would lose bigger than Gore lost, and Gore didn't really lose all that much.

So don't give me that Kerry electability crap. It's bullshit.

Edwards' electability is perhaps better. His two-Americas message is pretty convincing. He's from the South. And he's cute. I think Edwards is more of a running mate than a President right now, and his strong showing in Iowa will affect that.

As for New Hampshire, we simply have to wait and see how the week goes. Besides, I'm not going to worry about New Hampshire for the next 24 hours. I've got hard drinking to do tonight.

Well, now that we’ve all seen how Arlo’s Iowa predictions have played out, allow me to offer some predictions of my own:

The candidate with the most womanly, sissified, and surrendering disposition will be the next one to buckle under the ungodly weight of Dubuque opinion and withdraw his candidacy. (Ah…ah…ah…GHEparDT!! *snif* Pardon me.)

George Bush will issue a statement insisting that he has nothing to say about the latest news coming out of Iowa because he doesn’t read the news. He’ll say something like, “Leadership is about leading and ships, not about sitting around reading news and that kind of thing”. Fox News will praise his “simpleton mystique” and declare him immortal.

Michael Jackson will intentionally set his “great big silky shoulder-length Jackie Kennedy Ocean-Spray-curl” hair on fire in an attempt to gain the sympathy of his jury.

Gov. Dean will slip quietly out the backdoor of his campaign headquarters in New Hampshire, take a redeye flight to Washington D.C., and ambush Karl Rove and his junkie hooker fish-puppet mistress in a dark alley, bludgeoning them both to death with a sledgehammer.

Alright, maybe that last one is a little unlikely. Dare to dream.

Blogging will be light for Arlo today. I have the day off from work and am at home with a dial-up connection, and I'm doing homework. Not that I spend all day at work blogging. I work pretty hard at my job... so I have more time to blog.

I know we're all eagerly anticipating the Iowa Caucus results. I'm keeping a level head about the whole thing. George Bush the First beat Ronald Reagan in the Iowa Caucus in 1980. In 1988, the Iowa Caucus chose Bob Dole and Dick Gephardt. Tom Harkin won the 1992 Iowa Caucus, but he's from Iowa. (source)

The importance of the Caucus on the national scale this year is not to see who is going to become the nominee but to see who will say in the race and be strong in New Hampshire. Clark isn't even competing in Iowa, and I agree with the argument from several pundits that the Edwards and Kerry surges in Iowa would be Clark's surges if he were there.

The only thing worth looking for from the Iowa Caucus is to see who is going to drop out and endorse someone. So here come my predictions:

Kerry will win tonight (though I won't be surprised if Dean pulls it out). Dean will come in a very close second. In fact, the top three will be very close: Kerry, Dean, Gephardt. However, with Gephardt in third, his campaign will be damaged.

Iowa will have little impact on New Hampshire except give a small boost to Kerry. Dean will still win New Hampshire.

After the Iowa Caucus, Kucinich will drop out and endorse Dean. After New Hampshire that Joe Lieberman will drop out; he may not endorse anyone, but if he does, it'll be Kerry. Edwards won't drop out until he loses South Carolina (and he will). I think Edwards may actually endorse Clark...

My prediction that it'll be a Dean/Clark ticket seems pie-in-the-sky now. If Dean gets the nomination, he'll ask Clark, and Clark will probably say no. My money for a Dean running mate is now on Tom Harkin.

If Clark gets the nomination, he'll probably ask Edwards. Two southerners would be a huge boon to the Democrats in November.

And Al Sharpton will continue to be entertaining until the convention.

That's it. I'm going to put the Magic 8-Ball down now.

Here's yet another reason to hate Microsoft:

A Vancouver Island high school student who does Web site design part-time is locked in a legal battle with one of the biggest companies in the world.

Microsoft Corp. of Seattle, currently valued at $300 billion US, wants Mike Rowe to give up www.mikerowesoft.com as his Internet domain name. The company claims copyright infringement of its name.

Buried deep within an old and dog-eared copy of a novel high up on my bookshelf comes the following:

Analysis as an instrument of enlightenment and civilization is good, in so far as it shatters absurd convictions, acts as a solvent upon natural prejudices, and undermines authority; good, in other words, in that it sets free, refines, humanizes, makes slaves ripe for freedom. But it is bad, very bad, in so far as it stands in the way of action, cannot shape the vital forces, maims life at its roots.

So, to stave off spiritual strabismus, I am taking a calming departure from fustigating Bush.

I was going through an old pile of papers in my apartment and I came across a poem I wrote five years ago, shortly after I moved to Chicago. I titled this poem “Wjorksex”. Enjoy!

            Linoleum



            Long driblets of spittle arc from his lip

            And waiver in their descent

            To the inner lining of his underwear



            Hangover.  Sweaty.  Ready to die.

            The bathroom door glides open and

            His head snaps up from his knees, awake.



            The Associate by his cubicle is from Tel Aviv.

            She has fluffy, wet eyes.



            He is too crapulent to even fantasize

            About the woman from Tel Aviv.

            So he looks away and points and clicks.

            He makes an alpha-numeric mess.



            The woman from Tel Aviv asks him,

            “So, what is it you do?  I assume you…”

            She looks at him with requisite interest.

            He stops thinking.  He blinks.



            “I’m an actor.”

            She relaxes and looks surprised, bouncing.

            “Oh, another one!  There are so many working

            In this office.  Have you met Phil?  You should

            Talk to Phil.  He’s in a show, I can’t remember

            Which one.  You should talk to him.”

            She is impressed with herself.  She has talked.



            He shrugs and smiles and says, “Yeah.”

            He looks at the clock and figures it’ll be

            Ten more minutes before another nap



            In the stall.  In the bathroom.

            Pants down.  Knees clutched.



            Drooling into his underwear.

As we take this weekend to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., who helped make America better for all it's citizens, I think it is also appropriate to acknowledge people throughout the world who have helped to create environments wherein you're actually better off if you're black.

It looks as if Defiant's server migration is complete and successful. I'm the company's Webmaster (my good friend Jim is my WebBitch), so I still have a lot to go as far as redesigning it -- a new server deserves a new design, right?

Anyway, because of the sever migration, I totally wanted to post these two items yesterday but was unable to.

First, that theory of mine that the Bush Administration wants to turn NASA into a branch of the military? I guess it wasn't a theory after all.

Secondly, yesterday, because I couldn't blog, I shared with some friends over e-mail something that Eric Alterman wrote about how the Democrats can win in November. Here's my original e-mail:

The quote below is from Eric Alterman's blog, the author of WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? and a contributor to THE NATION. It makes a ton of sense, and has even made me question my candidate loyalty a smidgen. A smidgen of a smidgen. I'm not taking the button off my bag, we'll
put it that way.

And doesn't the last paragraph remind you of a joke? "Two blacks, a jew, and a ferret walk into a bar..."

If you'd like to read the whole article (and I encourage you to do so), it can be found at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3937747/#040115

-Arlo ;->

I believe that from the very day of Clark's announcement I said the Democrats' best chance was a Clark/Dean ticket in that order. General Wesley "I don't think it's patriotic to dress up in a flight suit and prance around" Clark as a candidate drives a power drill into all of Bush's advantages, save money. His early waffling on the war, while I don't like it, may actually help him in the general election. I admire a lot about Dean, but he seems to me too dangerous to trust with the nomination in this moment of maximum national peril. He has earned a place on the ticket and his people have earned a place in the room. In the coming decade or so, they may form the backbone of the Democratic party-which I think helps explain Al Gore's endorsement and quite a few others.

. . .

I say Clark, Edwards or Gephardt, in that order, and Dean. I'd add Kerry but only if he won New Hampshire outright, which I think impossible. If Dean wins the nomination, he should pick Edwards and immediately announce a shadow cabinet, so everybody on it could run against Bush, and make Clark his secretary of Defense and Anthony Zinni his Secretary of State. Or the other way around. I don't care. But he had better do something to shut up reporters who prattle on about the "national security" gap, even though they are dead wrong.

And I think Lieberman, Sharpton, and Kucinich should join Braun in a bar somewhere for the next nine months and quit strengthening Bush by diminishing the likely nominee with their silly ego trips.

The first to respond was my friend David (I call him D.J.) who makes some very good points:

Amen. Arlo knows I am loving this...

I like Dean, but let's get practical. We want to win. Yes? It's a fucking shame that his Democratic peers are turning Dean into swiss cheese with their collective negative rhetoric. The basic problem, however, is that you cannot combat Bush's "Evildoer" scare tactics with grass roots leftism. Dean does not pack the recipe to unseat Bush. Not without an event of such reckoning to rival Watergate... and (as Bush will tell ya) the O'Neil book ain't a'gonna deliver such revelations.

Clark is the candidate that any Democrat can feel fine with. What's more important, though, is that each and every Republican that has a scruple with our Imperial foreign policy will also gravitate to the guy. And luring Republican and Independent votes is the key to winning. Remember what we are up against. Bush thinks, in order to win re-election, he only needs to score 500,000 votes LESS than the other guy.

You don't like the war in Iraq? You steamed that your kid joined The Guard for college cash, and had his weekend warrior status re-negotiated to include payback deposited in a body-bag outside of Basra? You scared that our general population will be reviled for decades like German households who were too confused to oppose Hitler?

All these questions can be answered by the NATO General who deposed a Balkan tyrant with a real International coalition, resulting in the loss of no soldiers and only one Chinese Embassy. I think the fact that the Pentagon forced him to resign is exactly the reason why he should have the big chair. America needs to relearn the value of participation in the global community. We need to relearn this quickly, and over a path paved with lots of apologies.

And I would love to have Dean as V.P... and even President some day down the road. Make no mistake. I will vote for whomever runs against Bush (except Nader). I just hope everyone else will too.

And Sean piped in, as well:

I wonder if Dean would allow himself to be second fiddle like that. Dean is volatile, and it is that volatile nature which is both his blessing and his bane. Clark has a larger base with the Clintonites and moderate Republicans and could sway a significant number of votes our way. I'd prefer Clark on Iraq rather than Dean on Iraq if for no other reason Clark knows how to get the job done now, no learning curve for him.

For me Arlo, it comes down to this. We are in peril. Bush made another comment about letting Jesus influence politics. That scares me silly. Dean is an admirable man, but I don't know if he can pull it out. Goal #1 is to get rid of Bush. That is my only concern because he is damaging sooooo many things. I think a Clark/Dean ticket is wise if only to get rid of Bush. I don't know. If we get stuck with another 4 years....and I thought Reagan was bad!

Also good points. Then my girlfriend Jen made an excellent point, something we often overlook in presidential election years:

I support Clark...i think...I still want Joe Biden. Oh, baby do I want him.

I do hope that people remember that we are more then likely going to lose four seats in the Senate (Check out the Southern four vacancies.) The presidency is always very important but a president like George W with a very compliant large majority senate is really scary.

Please note I did not complain about Dean although I have not really taken to him -- I am speaking about who will resonate with the American electorate. There I feel Clark has a real edge.

Politics is local, as is the mantra. So Jen is absolutely right -- we have to remember congressional seats, as well. Though there's four seats we may lose in south, here in Illinois, we have a Senate seat being vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald, an important race that I've neglected and promise to have an opinion on soon. Hopefully a Democrat can fill that seat, and with Illinois' first Democratic governor in decades showing high approval ratings, it's very likely.

But I must give the last word to co-blogger Kelly, who I am sure will soon upstage me on this here blog one day with his big brain:

I think Alterman's point is a touch off target (see the articles I referenced below). An important consideration is how Bush will run his campaign. We haven't really heard an awful lot about that. I predict that he is going to have it pretty rough; the country is divided and his political base is already pressuring him to move (if you can imagine) further to the right. That would be disastrous for him. On the other hand, his base is all he has in this polarized climate. I agree
strongly with the points made in the NYT & Newsday (ibid below) that Dean has both the vitriol and centrist credentials which Clark lacks (a fiscal record for balancing budgets, healthcare background & expertise, etc.) to force Bush into a very uncomfortable corner.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/opinion/16KRUG.html

And this one:

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpkam153626813jan15,0,1291105.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

Also, check out this atlas of the blossoming number of neo-conservative
think tanks in America:

http://www.urinal.net/cgi-bin/map.pl?lat=37.5&lon=-95.2&wid=50&ht=24&iht=470&iwd=800&murl=http://www.urinal.net/locations.html

I hope the authors of these e-mails don't mind my sharing them here because it makes a good point. There's the adage that when Democrats line up for a firing squad, they stand in a circle. The fortunate part is that we're all arguing for the same outcome -- getting rid of Dubya and his minions. We all -- and I mean all, not just those represented here -- simply disagree on who can and will carry us to victory. I'm sure we will come together after a nominee is chosen.

After reading Kelly's e-mail and having a long, drunken conversation with him last night where I sobbed about my growing doubts that Dean could win, I've been set straight. I support Dean all the way, whether as the nominee or the running mate. I still believe, however, that the chances of Bush winning are realistic enough that we should all be prepared for it. What I truly want from the Dean campaign, as referenced in Alterman's statement, is for the drive towards progressive change with individual citizen support to define the Democrats in the next decade. Only then will the Democrats be able to loosen and eventually release the stranglehold the GOP has on our culture and livelihood. I almost lost faith, and it took a great e-mail thread, a brilliant blogging buddy, and five pints of beer to get back on the right path.

Well, duh:

More than 2 million manufacturing jobs have been lost nationwide over the past three years. Administration officials knew that job creation would be the last part of an economic recovery to kick in, but they were taken aback by a Labor Department report last week showing that only 1,000 jobs were added to payrolls in December.

Maybe we'll get lucky and the president will realize that supply-side economics doesn't support workers.

Do you know how hard that was for me to write without bursting in laughter?

I have one addition to make to the State of the Union scorecard:

Acknowledged: Drink once
Ignored: Drink twice
Spun: Drink thrice

Which makes for a short drinking game, really. Hopefully this page will be updated before Tuesday.

(Props to Kos)

I can't get off how ridiculous this proposal to go to the Moon and Mars is. And it's not just because it was proposed by George Bush. Though, think about it -- any self-respecting Democrat who would prefer to spend money on, oh, I don't know, helping the people who walk on Earth, wouldn't even propose such an outlandish proposal like this. Unless we had to do it before the Russians did.

But seriously, what do I know about walking in space other than from watching Star Trek? Maybe this guy can help us understand why this plan is wackier than putting a hungry ferret in your trousers. Here's a really long quote.

...the president laid out a big plan today here. The money, though, to pay for this was something that was not mentioned, except to say that he‘s going to ask NASA to rebudget $11 billion and ask for, as I understood it, $1 billion over the next several years from Congress. That's not enough to do the whole thing.

I think, back in 1989, when the president's father, then President George Bush, was asked to do the same kind of thing, he asked for a study to be done. And they said, when it came back, that to go to the moon and do Mars like he was proposing would be somewhere around $400 billion. And I think that was questioned at the time. But I suppose, to put that in today's dollars, it would be $700 billion or $800 billion.

So, I think the main thing I'm concerned about, though, is that we not reprogram money in NASA that is now on the International Space Station. We're just about to get it completed in another couple years, once the shuttles are flying again. And that's where we've been promising people for 20 years that we're going to have a good research return coming back from that station that would be of value to everybody right here on Earth.

. . .

It is going to be difficult at a time when we're all running record deficits of nearly $500 billion a year in this country. But I think the money is going to be crucial to whatever the president wants to do.

. . .

And the things he's talking about are going to require far, far, far more money than just an $11 billion reprogramming within NASA, which only has a total budget of $15 billion.

So why spend the money on something that offers little merit to humans when we're running a huge deficit when we've already comitted to an outer space plan that offers direct benefit to us on Earth? Well, I'll be damned if that don't make sense.

You'll be especially pleased to note that these statements were made by John Glenn, first American in space and former Democratic senator from Ohio.

Things sure could have been different had he better managed his presidental campaign in 1984.

By the way, the quote was taken from John Glenn's interview on last night's Countdown on MSNBC, still the best news show you're not watching.

I haven't caught up with Tom Tomorrow lately, so this is three days old. It's still worth sharing.

Here is a This Modern World strip from January 6, 2004.

Here is a post from Tom Tomorrow's blog from January 11, 2004.

If you haven't read this Salon article, you should -- it'll put the above life-imitating-art event in context. (You'll need one of those Salon day-passes; today, your day-pass is sponsored by the Atkins diet -- bread is evil.)

Matthew Yglesias offers this gem of an idea:

Instead of allocating $1.5 Billion to marriage-promotion initiatives, I think the president really ought to consider establishing a Cabinet-level Federal Dating Service or something. It could be like Friendster and a goofy reality TV show rolled into one. And it'd make a hell of a State of the Union topic: 'For too long, millions of Americans have spent their Saturday nights at home, watching lame television shows...'

Brilliant. But you see Matt, the problem isn't that folks aren't getting married or dating, per se, it's just that they're poor and black.

This year, administration officials said, Mr. Bush will probably visit programs trying to raise marriage rates in poor neighborhoods.

"The president loves to do that sort of thing in the inner city with black churches, and he's very good at it," a White House aide said.

Riiiiiight.

Reader e-mail!

I'm not exactly sure what your (or is it Cirincione's) point is. You excerpted this tidbit from Frontline, but is this in support of a thesis that missile defense isn't viable, and not worth pursuing?? My recollection is that after-action reports on the Patriot system from Gulf War I clearly illustrated its shortfalls. It was an imperfect system, and everybody knew it. This is certainly NOT any kind of grand revelation. Nevertheless, it is a truism throughout history that the capabilities of new weapon systems (especially those as cutting edge as Patriot) are largely unknown until actually used in battle, regardless of the amount of field testing that occurs before deployment. I refer you to the stunning failure rate of the M-16 rifle when it was introduced in Vietnam, and the scathing reviews the F-117 Stealth Fighter received when it was first deployed in the Panama conflict. Between Panama and Gulf War I, the F-117 evolved from the "wobblin' goblin" to one of the most potent and lethal weapons systems deployed in the Iraqi theater. We've seen an even greater improvements in the Patriot systems between Gulf War I and Gulf War II.

As for SDI as a whole, one cannot dismiss the greatest accomplishment of the program which was not military in nature, but political. Reagan was very much aware that, due to the technical complexity of SDI, the US was unlikely to achieve a deployable system for many decades. However, the program was enthusiastically pursued and funded because Reagan was also very much aware that the THREAT of SDI would force the Soviet Union to respond by diverting increasingly diminishing economic resources to military usage, pushing the entire Soviet system to the breaking point. This, of course, was proven true, and has been testified to by any number of former Soviet leaders.

As for O'Neill... he was a fish out of water from the day he entered the cabinet. That is why he was forced out. His revelations are hardly revelations, but are sure to be squeezed for all their worth (which ain't much) by Bush opponents. I just don't see any damage to Bush here.

Allow me to apologize for not making the point clear. First, the way the post Gulf War SDI initiatives were sold to the appropriations committee and to the public are not dissimilar from the way that the Iraq war was likewise sold; wrapped in a façade of grubby lies. Your assertion that the imperfections of the Patriot were something that "everybody knew" is false. Speaking of false, one point Cirincione is making (quite compellingly) is that great care was (successfully) taken to create a false impression (i.e. "Everybody thought that missile defense would work"). While I'm on the subject of false, comparing the failure rate of weapons systems like the M-16 and the F-117 to that of missile interceptors creates the false impression that SDI systems are anywhere near being viable (either technologically or financially). However, in fairness, I would welcome any evidence to support your claim that the improvements in the Patriot system between Gulf War I and Gulf War II were "even greater" than those that transformed the F-117 into "one of the most potent and lethal" systems in Iraq.

As for SDI as a whole, I do not dismiss the power of it's threat. Deterrence and other forms of manipulation always rely substantially less on the capability to follow through with threats than instilling the belief (often erroneous) that such capability exists. As the technology was never a real possibility, it was never necessary to fund it fully; merely to sell the lie to our enemies, rather than ourselves.

Finally, we are in complete agreement that O'Neill's revelations were hardly revelations. There is almost universal acknowledgment that Bush is more ideological than pragmatic, beholden to the wealthy, and perhaps the most incurious and unengaged President in modern history.

As always, I'll allow you to have the last word.

Anyway...

Thank you. We're out of time.

So first, Rush Limbaugh says of drug users, "...if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up." [source] He then does drugs and goes to rehab, not jail.

Now for more irony: Rush Limbaugh has accepted help from the ACLU. (Scroll down past the Roger Clemens thing.) Seems the ACLU is helping Limbaugh keep his medical records private, and Limbaugh, no friend of the ACLU – or civil liberties, for that matter – isn't turning them away.

I'm looking forward to hearing if Rush comments on this hypocrisy. I doubt he will.

(Via Atrios.)

From time to time I get an article in the mail from my brother regarding Joseph Cirincione. Mr. Cirincione's has been talking up the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's recently released study "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications", an indispensable probe of perhaps the most serious blunder of the Bush Administration. Eight months ago he sat for an interview with Frontline on the topic of Missile Defense. Some interesting tidbits:

I spent about 10 months of my life investigating the performance of the Patriot missile in the Gulf War, and found out that it hit few, if any, Scuds. The basic agreement, among all the independent studies that have looked at it, is that it hit between zero and four Scuds out of about 44 that it tried to intercept.

But when the Patriot seemed to work, when we had that first briefing from Riyadh that, for the first time in combat, a ballistic missile had been intercepted -- a claim that was later proven to be incorrect, but everybody thought it was true at the time -- well, missile defense stocks literally and figuratively rose dramatically. The perceived success of the Patriot was worth about a billion dollars for the SDI program that year. It jumped from a $3 billion appropriation to a $4 billion appropriation.

Then-Secretary of Defense Cheney came to Congress and testified that this shows that missile defense can work. President Bush made the famous claims then that 43 of 45 Scuds have been intercepted and destroyed -- a claim that's later proven to be completely wrong -- but nonetheless everybody thought it was true. Everybody thought that missile defense could work. So it gave the whole program, theater and strategic missile defense, a new lease on life, and cost us billions of dollars more in research and programs that still haven't proved to be viable.

As with the commentary following the O'Neill revelations (consistently boiled down to a plaintive, almost maudlin query: "Will any of this make any difference?"), you can almost hear the exasperated sigh. Sighing is good, though. One must remember to breathe in between concussive slams against the proverbial brick wall.

So how did I miss last year that Rhino had rereleased the first two albums by Guadalcanal Diary? Next paycheck...

When someone dubbed "Deep Throat" gave information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about impropriety in the Nixon Administration, it became a national scandal forcing Nixon to resign. The identity of Deep Throat is to this day unknown.

Some 30 years later, again someone comes forward to talk about problems and trangressions inside a Republican administration, but it's handled a little differently: he writes a book with a journalist and appears on 60 Minutes. Though Democrats are grabbing a hold of the Paul O'Neill story, Paul O'Neill has opened himself up to right-wing attack.

It's also a different world than it was in the early 1970s. The Republican party manages the media better. Hell, they own most media outlets. Thus, Paul O'Neill -- and the Democrats' chances of using his name in debates -- is screwed.

Don't get me wrong: I think Paul O'Neill is telling the truth. I can't be sure, but at least his truth seems more plausible than the fair-and-balanced truth. However, if Paul O'Neill wanted to take down his old boss, he would have remained anonymous instead of opening up an opportunity for the neocons to cast stones at his character and turn him into a disgruntled ex-employee out for vengence and a payday. Sure, Fox News, Newsmax, and National Review would still poke holes in the story, but then it's just a story, not a face. Perhaps that's easy for me to say now that it's all out there; perhaps I'm being a Monday-morning quarterback about the whole thing. History, however, is always full of good lessons, and the lesson today is if you want to take down a president, do it secretly.

This Slashdotter sums up the problem with Microsoft better than anyone I've read before. I'm not sure if Scheme (-32768) is the original author, but at least he shared.

Regarding the recent story about a man who jumped into a lion's habitat, there is a telling characteristic in some versions. On CNN, as the footage was being aired, the man was described as being “mentally disabled”. While on Fox News (and other sources) it was simply stated that the man claimed “God told him to do it”. Now, is it “PC” to use the term “mentally disabled”? Is it hard-hitting, no-spin coverage to “tell it like it is” and simply quote the man? What if the man had said something like, “Moon muffin and lung cancer are two quadroon dog turds making tea and puppies”. I guess the question I’m asking is how firm a grip must disease have on a mind for us to have sympathy for its owner?

God be praised. This is my first post. First, allow me to thank Arlo for accepting me as a contributor to this odd little blog. Now, let's dispense with all that foolishness and get right to the point.

As arguements downplaying the failure to find WMDs continue to slither into the op-ed pages from the right, Kenneth Pollack, author of the massively influential tome The Threatening Storm, has written an article called Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong, which I recommend reading. For those without the time, however, I've selected a few highlights:

Administration officials reacted strongly, negatively, and aggressively when presented with information or analysis that contradicted what they already believed about Iraq.

The Administration gave greatest credence to accounts that presented the most lurid picture of Iraqi activities. In many cases intelligence analysts were distrustful of those sources, or knew unequivocally that they were wrong.

Requests were constantly made for detailed analyses of newspaper articles that conformed to the views of Administration officials—pieces by conservative newspaper columnists such as Jim Hoagland, William Safire, and George F. Will. These columnists may be highly intelligent men, but they have no claim to superior insight into the workings of Iraq, or to any independent intelligence-collection capabilities.

Bush Administration officials also took some actions that arguably crossed the line between rigorous oversight of the intelligence community and an attempt to manipulate intelligence. They set up their own shop in the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans, in order to sift through the information on Iraq themselves. To a great extent OSP personnel "cherry-picked" the intelligence they passed on, selecting reports that supported the Administration's pre-existing position and ignoring all the rest.

Most problematic of all, the OSP often chose to believe reports that trained intelligence officers considered unreliable or downright false.

He concludes his article with the following:

Fairly or not, no foreigner trusts U.S. intelligence to get it right anymore, or trusts the Bush Administration to tell the truth. The only way that we can regain the world's trust is to demonstrate that we understand our mistakes and have changed our ways.

I can think of no better way to do that than to elect new President.

"'If I were the paranoid-conspiracy type, I would speculate that since it's not Adobe's software, what else is it doing?'"

That server migration thing I mentioned on Friday won't happen until this weekend. I'm up to my eyeballs in UNIX-y crap.

In the meantime, I'd like to welcome a new contributor to ...like you really care..., my good friend Kelly Cooper. Perhaps Kelly will post something and tell you a little about himself. I'll tell you that he's a smart guy who is more well-read than I am. I hope you enjoy what he shares here because if you don't, I'll kick him off.

All posts now will include the author's name next to the time. Furthermore, you can now link to individual articles in this blog -- if you click on a particular post's time, it will open in a new window with an address that you can copy and paste into your own blog or in an e-mail to a friend.

Welcome Kelly. Let this blog be your prancing prentention playground. Excelsior!

I had to link to this Atrios post about Bush's Moon/Mars plan. It comes to a similar conclusion that I came to last month. I don't point this out for prententious reasons (okay, maybe a little). I point it out because it shows that this idea of NASA being used not for reasearch but for financial gain for backers is most likely true. Whether my theory that NASA will become a branch of the military -- or that it already is -- remains to be seen.

By the way, there's this AP article titled "Moon, Mars Proposal Stirs Mixed Reaction." And yet, I found the article on Google News, where the title was listed as "Moon, Mars Proposals Stir Excitement." Is Roger Ailes running the Google News search now?

Kos on poor job growth and the falling dollar. Like I've said, the rising economy the administration is trumpeting only means one thing -- rich people are spending more money on rich-people stuff. It doesn't mean life is improving for the middle-class or the poor.

Welcome to the Let Them Eat Cake Economy.

UPDATE: A groovy graph found by Atrios.

This weekend, Defiant Theatre, the gracious host of this blog, is moving to a new server. (Actually, I'm the one doing the actual moving.) So you may not be able to access ...like you really care... this weekend during the transition. We'll definitely be back on Monday, however, with a surprise announcement. (Here's a hint.)

The puzzling economics of recovery without job creation. Economistsayswhat?

A friend, I'm assuming in response to my earlier posting today, sent this Ann Coulter column. I can't really take a huge bite out of this laughable article mostly because I just had to choke down a huge mouthful of vomit. I will, however, take a little nibble.

Her argument is that Democrats are heathen sinners, know nothing about God, and have no right bringing him/her/it up. It's, of course, telling that Ann the Man makes no mention of the argument that Jesus' behavior most resembles that of a liberal than a typical Republican.

Here's my favorite quote, however:

Never has a major political party talked so openly about their plans to fool the voters.

It's hard to laugh with a mouthful of vomit, but I did it. Pot, kettle. This is the woman who defends an administration that named one environmental plan Clear Skies, an initiative that actually allows for more emissions than were previously allowed by the Clean Air Act.

Okay, one more nibble:

Though Dean is pursuing the Jesus thing with a vengeance, the results so far have been mixed. In Iowa last week, Dean said, "Let's get into a little religion here," and then began denouncing Christian minister Jerry Falwell. "Don't you think Jerry Falwell reminds you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does of the teachings of Jesus?" I don't even know what Dean means by that. I am sure his audience doesn't. [Emphasis added.]

So much for journalism. I Googled "pharisee", and got this entry from Dictionary.com:

phar·i·see


n.

1. Pharisee A member of an ancient Jewish sect that emphasized strict interpretation and observance of the Mosaic law in both its oral and written form.

2. A hypocritically self-righteous person.

Even better, I got this wiki:

This sect was present in the days of Jesus. Christians have traditionally seen Jesus as an opponent of the Pharisees, accusing them of being only outwardly religious, rather than inwardly observant of the Law. Jesus was opposed to the Pharisees emphasis on observance of religious purity laws. Some modern day scholars argue that this reading is no longer tenable, and that when the New Testament is read in its historical context, Jesus's attitude towards the law was more like a liberal offshoot of Pharisee thought. [Emphasis added.]

In your face, Ann!

Granted, making a critical equation of Falwell to the Pharisees is similar to Dean's confederate flag misstep, considering that modern day rabinical Judaism is descended directly from the Pharisees. However, since Ann Coulter won't spend the whopping two minutes I spent Googling, I think Dean is safe.

Perhaps Ann will notice the other definition of pharisee, the one with the small "p."

I tried to make this same argument* to my mom's husband two weeks ago. I said, what happened to that whole camel passing through the eye of a needle thing? He scolded me, saying that the "eye of a needle" referred to a geographical location and that the Jesus was admonishing people who glorify earthly riches over heavenly ones. Nothing he said negated my argument, really. However, he brought his massive 6'4" frame upright and told me that no one will ever take care of me -- basically calling me a Communist. He then said that he felt sorry for me and stormed out of the room.

It was uncomfortable, seeing as how this is the man who has been sleeping with my mother for seven years. In retrospect, though, it was pretty awesome to argue something to a conservatarian that elicited a childish hissy fit. I doubt he learned this tactic when listening to his shelf-full of Tony Robbins tapes.

For the record, this came up when he was confused by my argument that meritocracy encourages the pursuit of wealth over the well-being of others. He didn't know what I meant by "meritocracy," and when I had trouble explaining it, I floundered and instead went for the suckerpunch and brought up scripture.

The truth is, I was using the word meritocracy incorrectly. I regret that error, but looking back on what I chalk up as a small victory in a much larger battle, the mistake was worth it.

*Though bloggers are mostly hobbyist pundits and not journalists, we still need to be careful. The blogger linked here should have referred to the source for the quote.

Another year, another MacWorld keynote from Steve Jobs. Normally, something is introduced at these events that blows me away. Last year brought the 17" PowerBook. This year was disappointing, and I'm actually a little miffed.

Rumors were rampant about a smaller, cheaper iPod last month. Seeing as how my heart lusts for that awesome scroll wheel but my budget can't allow it, the idea of a cheaper iPod was rubbing me the right way.

Ends up that everything about the new iPod mini is indeed smaller – size and capacity – except for the price. As someone who thinks the iPod is better than anything other MP3 player out there, why would I spend $249 when another $50 would get me 375% more space for my music. The iPod mini is too expensive to bring the financially challenged into their digital music revolution. Nice try, Steve, but a clear miss.

A 2GB iPod mini for $150 would sell like gangbusters. I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Perhaps they can still do it. Here's hoping.

As for the other announcements, GarageBand is pretty awesome. It's missing some features I would want from a music application, like odd time signatures and the ability to make your own loops, but for something that is only $49 as part of iLife ($29 with my student discount) and comes free with new Macs, I'm very impressed. Not PowerMac-G5-impressed or 17"-PowerBook-impressed, but impressed.

Reader e-mail!

You are wrong.  Mad Cow does not occur "because industrial farms feed cows other cows".  Yes, it can be amplified (see below) when such practices are followed, but it will only occur if the feed animal was previously infected.  Such infections are usually transmitted from one species to another – not from one species to itself (see below).  It may seem like a quibbling point, but it is true nonetheless.  The real issue is not whether laws exist to prevent such an outbreak, but whether they're being enforced and who is lying about what.  Check out these statements issued by the FDA prior to the latest discovery of Mad Cow in the United States:

"The outbreak in the United Kingdom may have started from the feeding of scrapie-contaminated sheep meat-and-bone meal to cattle.  Scrapie is a disease of sheep that is related to BSE [(Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)] in cattle.  There is strong evidence that the outbreak in cattle was amplified in the United Kingdom by feeding rendered bovine meat-and-bone meal to young calves.  The nature of the transmissible agent in BSE is not known.  Currently, the most accepted theory is that the agent is a modified form of a normal cell surface component known as a prion protein.  Why or how this substance changes to become disease-producing is still unknown.  Prions are resistant to common treatments, such as heat, to reduce or eliminate its infectivity or presence.

"...to prevent BSE from entering the United States, firm restrictions were placed on the importation of live ruminants and ruminant products including meat, meat-and-bone meal, offals, and glands from countries where BSE was known to exist.  These restrictions were later extended to include importation of ruminants and certain ruminant products not only from BSE-positive countries, but also countries thought to be at high risk for BSE, even if the disease hadn't been identified in those countries.

In addition, FDA prohibits the use of most mammalian protein in the manufacture of animal feeds given to ruminants because this kind of feeding practice is believed to have initiated and amplified the outbreak of BSE in the United Kingdom."

"It is believed that BSE is spread when cattle eat animal feed that contains the mammalian protein from other infected rendered animals.  FDA, with its feed ban, has restricted the use of rendered mammals in ruminant feed."

Also, your screed against vegetarianism has prompted me to forward this link to you.  As a man who enjoys meats, I found this article to be the best I've read on the subject.  Enjoy!

http://orion.oac.uci.edu/~cohenp/food/animalsplace.pdf

I apologize for the misunderstanding. I never meant to say that cannibal cows get mad cow because of the cannibalism. The spread of mad cow is not just due to the feeding of cow remains to other cows but of any farm animal remains to other farm animals. I guess the point I should make is that if an animal is an herbivore, it should be fed as one.

As for the cross-species infection, it's important to note that there is considerable evidence that mad cow can infect humans. In humans, the disease seems to be variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). Another similar spongiform disorder is kuru, a disease that ravaged cannibals in New Guinea. However, it was not the cannibalism that caused kuru, but the cannibalism spread it.

We certainly do agree that the conditions in which animals are kept and slaughtered is pretty nasty and is causing horrible problems for the animals and putting humans at risk. I do think that eating more organic meat will be a good resolution for 2004.

Thank you for the clarification.