Uneven Steven

V: 1983 & 2009, Part Seven : Why are They Here?

2011-01-20T20:59:00.000Z

V 1983-1984 & V 2010-2011:
Part Six, Part Five, Part Four, Part Three, Part Two,Part One

Why the Aliens Are Here
Obviously the Reptilian meme among alien abduction/Area 51 conspiracies plays a strong part in both series. In both series the aliens hidden agenda is disguised by medical gifts to help humanity. However, their hidden agenda for coming to earth, and their time lines, are vastly different.

Time Lines, Purpose & "Red Sky"
While the original V series implies that that the Visitors are relatively recent arrivals to our solar system, this is not the case with the remake. The new series takes a page from conspiracy culture and states that the the Visitors have been here for generations, and are harvesting human DNA for reproductive purposes, instead of for for food. According to the most recent episode "Birth Pangs," the Visitors are harvesting the best DNA from around the universe to accelerate their evolution.

To that end they have been trying to carefully increase the phosphorous levels in human females to help reproduce Visitors, as well as in males they find genetically superior. This has been a multi-generational project. However, in contravention to conspiracy culture, the genetic manipulation wasn't done during abductions, but rather through disguised Reptilians on earth. Additionally, the Visitors release "Red Sky" to rapidly enhance the phosphorous levels, which fuels fears among the human population; in the original series the red dust in the atmosphere was a biological weapon against the Visitors and humans cheered when it was released into the air despite not knowing what it was for.

V 1983 & 2009, Part Six: The Changing Role of Reporters & Mercenaries

2011-01-19T21:13:00.023Z

Part Seven: V 1983-1984 & V 2010-2011.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Post-Modernism in V.

It' been interesting to watch the old V series on my TiVo and compare and contrast with the new ABC series.

The Role of Reporters
1983: Donovan/Woman - There were two different media personalities during the two original V miniseries, embodying America's complex view of the media at the time. On the one hand you had the ambitious female reporter, Christine, who would do anything for a scoop. She becomes a PR mouthpiece / Press Secretary for Diana, but later reveals that the Visitors are not friendly and should be resisted and is killed for doing so. She does not join the resistance despite exposing the Visitors.

Donovan on the other hand represents the intrepid foreign correspondent, willing to go anywhere to get the story but who became a journalist out of strong pro-liberty passions. He is the kind of patriotic reporter America wishes we still produced. Donovan, an experienced foreign correspondent in war zones, becomes a natural leader of the resistance. Unfortunately, he doesn't put his PR skills to good use advancing the cause, as would be expected today.

2009: Chad Decker's character development is roughly similar to that of Christine, but as he gradually becomes skeptical of the Visitors he becomes a full fledged member of the Resistance. In the 1983 episode, the Fifth column was chiefly disaffected Visitors show disapproved of their species' agenda.

The Role of Mercenaries & Terrorists
1983: Ham Tyler - While Michael Ironsides may have fit the Hollywood ideal of a freedom fighter back in the days of the Contras, his character feels dated. He appears after several events in LA draw lots of attention and announces that the LA resistance fighters led by Donovan and Julie, need to join the worldwide resistance of which Tyler is a crucial leader.

2009: Kyle Hobbes - the current cultural zeitgeist is much less kind to fictional mercenaries and this character is much darker than his 1983 counterpart, Ham Tyler. However, mercenaries are a more accepted fact of American life now than then. The rise of private security firms such as Xe (formerly Blackwater)has allowed the U.S. military to increase the number of combat forces it has without putting it directly on their budget.

However, the primary mercenary contact Kyle Hobbes, while a member of the inner circle, is displaced by an Israeli Terrorist named Eli Cohen as the main resistance military leader and has set up cells around the world. What he and Ham Tyler have in common is that they are both parts of the larger resistance movement that exists outside of the isolated groups banding together which we first encounter.

V: 1983 & 2009, Part Five: The Role of Women & Minorities

2011-01-19T20:27:00.009Z

The Role of Women
The Resistance
1983: Julie, medical student and reluctant resistance leader. She is unsure of herself, and this is made worse by her interrupted Visitor Conversion attempt.
Diana, is merely one captain in the larger V squadron. Her primary source of authority comes because she is the lover of the Supreme Commander.

2009: Erica, FBI agent, part of 5th Column (5th Column as assimilated the resistance in this series) even has a feminized man's name. The most feminine thing about her in terms of attitudes prevalent in the 80s is that she is alien abductee whose fetus was modified by the Visitors. This fits in neatly with modern conspiracy theories as to why the "Grays" are here.

The Visitors
1983: Diana is merely the captain of one starship in a larger squadron, her position in the Visitor's hierarchy is assured through her sexual relationship with the Supreme Commander. While she is hard edged and successful enough to run a ship, she has not yet proven herself able to manage and lead a larger population. She engages in kinky sex with a subordinate, in this case kinky is defined as wearing their human skins.

2009: Anna is Queen of the Visitors, a position she secured by overthrowing her mother. She controls her people through dispensing a chemical called Bliss to her species. Her reptilian nature is emphasized more strongly in this series by her mating to produce an army of warriors. We later find out she is unable to produce additional non-drone children of her race. The future of her species depends on her daughter Lisa laying eggs and becoming Queen. Unfortunately, they are far from a suitable planet for her offspring, necessitating the transformation of Earth into a planet better suited for the Visitors.

V is fortunate though to have two strong females going head to head as leaders of different teams. I don't recall seeing anything like that before. This seems to indicate a growing acceptance of female leadership.

The Role of Minorities
1983 - Elias, a street hoodlum and criminal before the Visitor's arrival, and then a freedom fighter and resistance leader afterwards. This reinforces mid-80s American fears of black urban youth, to which even Jesse Jackson admitted having. Additionally, the Hispanic resistance fighter promotes cultural stereotypes of Mexican immigrants.

2009 - Ryan, the primary black character in the 2009 V, is a Visitor and member of the 5th column who may turn on his fellow freedom fighters for his own benefit making him a triple spy. Essentially he is an immigrant who assimilated but may retain allegiance to his original civilization. This corresponds nicely with the Zeitgeist of the home-grown home-radicalized domestic terrorists attacking us. There have been a number of these attacks or attempts from Ft. Hood to Times Square, and there is a fear of more out there. V uses a black character to embody this fear, presumable out of PC sensibilities of using an Arab, and a desire to avoid causing controversey.

Uneven Steven Has Been On Hiatus

2010-08-01T21:24:00.006Z

Since late last year, I have been working on a project that did not afford me the time to blog, nor even to delve into pop culture or political debate.

I hope to resume blogging again soon on the following topics:

V - 1980s vs. 2010s - A more in depth examination of the original television story compared against that of the current one. I intend to focus on the difference of the Cold War cultural background of the original vs. the Global War or Terror cultural background of the current one. I also intend to contrast how the more recent Battle Star Galactica & V address the political and cultural events of the last decade. Finally, I would like to do a comparison of the

The Upcoming Congressional Midterm Elections

Some Intriguing Political Developments in Alabama - A Political Upset No One Saw Coming.

Health Care & the Piece-Work Economy

2009-12-03T01:33:00.005Z

The following is a quote from Kristi Vogel of The Gulf Stream in late 2008:

Piece work is a term that dates to the 16th century, in the context of the guild system for master craftsman, and is perhaps the oldest type of performance-related pay. The concept is quite simple: the worker is paid a fixed rate for each item or part produced, or for each operation or task performed. In the US, many assume that the piece rate pay system is linked with low wage jobs in which the workers may be exploited, such as garment assembly in sweatshops, or field laborers in agriculture. However, this pay system also applies to craftspeople in the modern economy, e.g. those who produce custom furniture, handmade clothing or jewelry, and artwork. As a teenager, I learned the hard way that this latter path to financial independence can be very difficult, perhaps impossible . . .

In academic science, at least in the US, most of us are paid neither by the piece, nor by the hour. Calculations for hourly pay can, in fact, lead to temporary depression, especially when compared to those for other professionals. But what if researchers could be paid a fixed rate for each item produced or task performed? Imagine for a moment that you could charge your boss or your collaborators for certain assays or computational analyses or microdissections or imaging techniques at which you’re particularly skilled … how much would you charge for each “piece”? Would such an economy benefit anyone . . .

I can state now that many of my friends in academia already have resorted to participating in a piecework style economy. Mostly they are doctoral students with strong math or economic skills. I also have friends who make their living by blogging (usually for clients, sometimes blog-for-pay), and many Washington colleagues who work for themselves as consultants, strategists, event planners or lobbyists. My point is that this is becoming more common in white collar jobs and some have predicted it is direction that our economy is evolving - most people paid for piecework and few permanent jobs except for a shrinking elite. As an aside, in 1995 Newsweek dubbed the then-likely emerging elites as the "Over Class.'

If our society is moving towards a piecework economy, then it is crucially employment and health insurance be de-linked from each other. Otherwise, continuity of health care coverage becomes almost as greater a problem than lack of insurance itself. To adapt to this new economy, health care either needs to be made radically cheaper for individual purchasers through the tax code and market incentives, or we need to establish dome type of national health system, again based on the free market. The single payer, government program many desire just isn't feasible for a nation with $52 Trillion in unfunded obligations, regardless of its merits.

Oh, and complaining about health insurance anti-trust exemptions just reveals a lack of understanding of math. Health insurance costs are based on actuarial science - variations of risk and expense based on population characteristics. Two companies competing for the same pool of customers will arrive at the same cost for insuring that population. Without anti-trust exemption, you could have the ironic result of one insurance company dominating so much of the American market, that their market power would allow them the ability to dictate payment terms to doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.

British Fraud Investigator Agrees: It Was About the Benjamins

2009-12-03T00:57:00.005Z

Lord Monckton was Margaret Thatcher's equivalent of a Special Prosecutor for Scientific Fraud. He has a lot of credibility exposing past scientific frauds, and has been a consistent critic not of global warming, but of how the data was used.

In the article below, he discusses the evolution of the climate fraud, as well as the financial resources that have been dedicated to climate research.

link

Climate Fraud: It was all about the Benjamins

2009-12-02T01:33:00.002Z

My take on how the scientific fraud started is simple. I simply listen to Woodward and Bernstein and follow the money. The greatest beneficiaries of climate change hysteria and research have been university professors. You may ask why and how these professors had an incentive to create a global climate hysteria. The answer is simple: they had been right about ozone layer problems caused by chlorofluorocarbons and had goaded the world into collective action which stabilized the ozone layer, which is now repairing itself.

However, by solving one problem for humanity, the scientists had created a new problem for themselves. Governmental funding of climate scientists declined while governments focused on other priorities. This left many graduate students and professors needing new sources of grant money simply to survive if they wanted to remain employed. What were they to do?

Later, a few of these same climate scientists whom we had trusted previously, and whom had been proven right, decided to abuse that trust to gin up a new climate crisis to maintain their funding. Fortunately for them, the new age Gaia movement was growing and the climate “crisis” became infused with a semi-religious fervor. It is this same fervor which lead scientists like those at the Climate Research Unit located at the University of East Anglia to act like the Medieval Catholic Church: punishing those who challenged then-current knowledge, sometimes by acts of violence similar to those threatened in some of the stolen emails, and suppressing this same inconvenient knowledge. We are now told that the original data records, from which CRU claims to have derived its results was destroyed decades ago. We are told to accept on faith by those who committed fraud that the original data was transferred correctly. But now no one can ever check CRU’s results against all the original data.

The other financial beneficiaries of the global warming hysteria: third world, less developed nations of the South want a portion of the wealth of the successful, industrial Northern Nations. The Southern nations know that the most effective way of getting this money or technology is through playing upon liberal, Northern guilt. And the best way to do that is through Northern created institutions such as the United Nations.

V: 1983 and 2009 Part Four: The Shadow Government , One World Government & Nazi Allusion

2009-11-07T06:33:00.000Z

From the very beginning, the Nazi allusions are right in your face right from the name of the Jewish Resistance Fighter (Abraham) down to the brown shirts and youth brigades, though at the time many Americans also associated youth brigades and secret police (brown shirts) indicative of the Soviets. Only this time instead of “The Jews” its “The Scientists” with the evil conspiracy against the powers that be. The Visitors use a false flag conspiracy to justify rounding up scientists, and then eventually stage "Wag the Dog"-type false flag attacks around the world, similar to what some "Truthers" believe really happened on 9/11.

All of this occurs after the Visitors claim to want to honor all the covenants of the United Nations Charter (revealed in the first 25 minutes), which itself is interesting because it implies the Visitors will be co-equal to one individual nation-state instead of co-equal to an entire planet (Step 1 - Fool' em). Obviously, they really see themselves as occupying the latter position when they ask to (or imply they should be)treated as co-equal to the U.N. or entire world (Step 2 - Set your stage under smokescreen). Because they are co-equal to the planet their very presence begins to gradually transform the U.N. into a de facto governing body of the earth - or at least one empowered to negotiate on behalf of all of us. The Visitors then intimidate the U.N./NWO into acting as its surrogate ruling apparatus.

Interestingly, this progression of elements could be sued to demonstrate the left- leaning inclinations of the V writers (so-called Coastal Elites).

However, in the 2009 version, instead of working through the UN as much, the Visitors want to establish embassies on the ground, directly establishing themselves as a potential nation-state. Additionally, in the 2009 V but the Hitler allusions are less pronounced. Perhaps this is because the newer generation doesn’t identify as much with this epochal event 25 years later than the original and 65 years after the event was revealed to the world.

The Shadow Government and Alien Infiltration meme also emerge explicitly during the 2009 pilot. These memes are nowhere present in the original miniseries. These are both revealed during of the nascent Resistance; the second when Erica, the female FBI protagonist, is attacked by her own Visitor infiltrator partner at the end of the Resistance formation meeting.

V: 1983 & 2009 Part Three: 2009 Pilot Summary, Characters and Emerging Memes

2009-11-05T19:45:00.000Z

The 2009 V starts with a comparison of 9/11, JFK’s assassination, and the arrival of the Visitors, as a means of foreshadowing for the generation that didn’t see the original. This version describes the state of Obama’s America with opening scenes discuss the ongoing housing crisis. However, the most important cultural aspect of V 2009 is the prevalence of terrorism and terrorist investigations in the show. In the first place, the show is set in New York City instead of Los Angeles like the original, and 9/11 is the second phrase shown during the introduction. Of course, it’s easy to see that the one terrorist cell that increases its chatter post-visitor arrival instead of dropping off like the others will turn out to be the beginnings of what becomes the Resistance. But this is not an Islamic terrorist group, it is composed of Visitor sleeper agents who disrupt the beginnings of the Resistance’s formation.

From the first scene it looks obvious that African-American buying the engagement ring will be the 2009 version of Dr. Ben, but this time he’s a Federal Agent, former militia member, and likely future Counter Revolutionary. It seems they’ve consolidated the two brothers into one this character, which makes a certain amount of sense because Dr. Ben was only in the miniseries for the first hour or so and Elias was in all 10.5 hours of the V marathon on SyFy. And the meme regarding struggles and competing visions seems to be resolved, at least in the writers’ minds.

The falling of the Catholic Crucifix inside the first 4 minutes represents two memes not especially present in the 1983 version, but which have gained increasing currency among conspiracy culture insiders. We’ll call Meme A the Fallen Christ Meme and Meme B the Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy meme. The Fallen Christ Meme is common among those who continue to suggest that the arrival of an extra terrestrial alien species would pose an existential threat to all religions, thereby causing mass chaos. It sometimes is cited as a reason justifying government suppression of any real evidence of alien visitation. The Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy Meme really didn’t emerge in America until after the publication of Graham Hancock’s Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the emergence of websites and books on Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus and mother of Merovee, the founder of the Merovinginian line of French Kings.

The “Question Authority Meme,” always favored among the now-empowered left until the Democratic Party has power in Congress and/or the Presidency, emerges 11 minutes into the pilot. This comes from the youngish priest character, whose doppelganger in the original version had served with anti-communist guerillas in Angola, but whose credentials on this front in the 2009 version are still in question.

Illustrative of women’s success in the intervening 25 years between the two series is that the sympathetic, ambitious reporter who becomes the Visitor’s spokesperson is no longer a woman using feminine wiles, but is now portrayed by a metrosexual male. Additionally, this character seems to have less backbone, and be much more compliant with the Visitors and their requests. Moreover, one primary protagonist is a female FBI counter-terrorism operative,

Significantly, the 2009 version's Hitler allusions are less pronounced. Though interestingly, the neighborhood kid who signs up as a Visitor "Brown Shirt" is driven to it due to maternal neglect by the FBI agent (thus reprising the "Law Enforcement is Hard on Families" Meme. In the original series, the character who joins is much like the guard in The Bridge at Andau: someone who is generally a loser, but has ambitions above his abilities. I preferred the 1983 motivation better because it puts the onus squarely on the child's decisions. Perhaps in our post-Columbine world they were afraid to portray similar a high-school character with these psychological motivations. The other explanation is that the "Bad Mother Meme" has picked up cultural relevance due to the ongoing culture wars.

Post-Modernism in V

2009-11-05T02:15:00.005Z

My favorite POMO moment in the 1983 version the intentionally ironic scene of Visitor Bryan playing Space Invaders on an Atari 2600 with Robin, the soon-to-be-pregnant girl.

Of course since the 2009 version is completely self-aware of its status as a media creation, it's amusing when when one character's quip “Dude, this is Independence Day,” prompts his companion to wryly remark “Which was a rip off of numerous alien invasion predecessors.” It also illustrates the show is already relevant in popular culture, and the kids are not alright: they’re much more interested in discussing abstract cultural relevance of the Visitors arrival, than the more likely impacts on reality.

V: 1983 & 2009 Part Two: 1983 Summary & Memes

2009-11-04T06:22:00.023Z

The protagonist in the 1983 version is Donovan, a a foreign affairs correspondent whom we first encounter covering anonymous, admirable revolutionaries against a Central American dictatorship (Contras anyone?). He later shares the stage with Ham Tyler in V: The Final Battle. Ham is an American guerilla/ arms dealer he runs across in his work. In the 2009 version, the protagonist seems to be a synthesis of Donovan and Tyler. The pains of the reporter's divorce and conflict with his ex over his seeming upper hand in the competition for his child’s affection reflects the then-prominent "Divorce is Hard on Families Meme" in the 1983 version which seems absent from the new series, largely because as a society I think we're over divorce as a social issue.

Another meme prevalent through the first few hours of the miniseries is the conflict in the black community between “the streets” and “selling out,” epitomized by the conflict between ne'er do well Elias Taylor and his brother Dr. Ben Taylor over life and their father’s affection. The show resolves this conflict by having Ben die, which ultimately leads Elias to declare that it should be him not Ben because Ben had made something with himself. However it is Elias's skills and contacts from “the streets” that help the Resistance obtain shelter, useful intelligence and necessary supplies. This may reflect the inability of the writer to resolve the issue satisfactorily for himself or us.

V is also one of the first sources for the meme of illegal immigration in California in the mid-80’s, and the issue of “visitors” taking Californian jobs is even addressed explicitly within the first 45 minutes of the show. In fact, during that scene, Caleb explicitly complains about job competition from “honkeys” and Mexicans since this was produced before political correctness craziness became the norm.

The meme of environmental catastrophe, in this case on the Visitors planet, began to emerge into political and pop culture around this time, and the environmental "disaster" on the Visitor's home planet (their cover story for coveting our water) is mentioned in the first 30 minutes. The meme is not referenced explicitly again, and may explain why the show has emerged now: we have a major environmental bill working its way through Congress, which many on the left who tend to include television writers support. In fact the New America Foundation recently hosted a briefing in Washington, DC titled "Go West Young Policy Wonk" focusing on whether those interested in policy making should head to Hollywood instead.

The Nazi allusions are right in your face right from the name of the Jewish Resistance Fighter (Abraham) down to the brown shirts and youth brigades, though at the time, many Americans also associated youth brigades and secret police (brown shirts) with the Soviets. Only this time instead of “The Jews” it's “The Scientists” with the evil conspiracy against the powers that be. The Visitors use a false flag conspiracy to justify rounding up scientists, and then eventually stage “Reichstag bombing” attacks around the world, using means similar to those in Wag the Dog. In the 2009 version, the Hitler allusions are less pronounced. Perhaps this is because the newer generation doesn’t identify as much with this epochal event 25 years later than the original and 65 years after the event was revealed to the world. Additionally, in the 2009 series, the Visitors seem to be setting up the foundations for a religion as a means of Social Control. This fits into the "All Religions Are Shams" meme that has emerged forcefully in the past decade.

The "Abortion is Completely Acceptable" meme appears early on V: The Final Battle,when the Catholic Priest's moral objections are dismissed out of hand, and represents a different cultural era. 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Last American Virgin both showed the really problem with getting an abortion was having the guy pay for it. This is before the deluge of shows in the 1990s and 2000s, including Friends, in which the potentially pregnant character ends up not having to make a decision /resolve the conflict because the test was wrong or their was a miscarriage, "getting them off the hook" for having to make a decision. I expect that in the new series, this will be replaced with teh "Abortion is a Serious Issue" meme and there will be a more weighty debate about the potential abortion of the hybrid fetus. If I'm correct on this, it will reflect the ascendancy of the Christian Right during the past 25 years. Whether they are now on the decline is a debatable point.

V 1983 & 2009, Part One: Reptilian Aliens & Conspiracy Culture

2009-11-04T06:07:00.018Z

I watched the V and V: The Final Battle this weekend in anticipation of the debut of tonight’s series. It was ten and a half hours of my life extremely well spent, and the 25-year-old show has held up well though the special effects leave a bit to be desired. I believe it speaks much to the cultural state of Reagan’s America in 1984and will point out the cultural memes prevalent in the two mini series and I’ll compare these with what I observe in the first few episodes of the 2009 V series.

V and the Conspiracy Culture
In terms of conspiracy culture, V 1983 marks the first time the MSM-Entertainment Complex used Reptilian aliens as the main galactic villains, a meme prevalent, but debatable among conspiracy culture insiders. This introduction of the Reptilian meme comes just 6 years after Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind , and two years after his E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial introduced mainstream culture to what have become known as the Greys.

Obama's Sept 9 Health Care Speech

2009-10-18T22:28:00.001Z

Below is something I blogged for another site last month

President Obama gave his health care speech tonight. It's primary goal is to help rebuild momentum for health insurance reform after a strong battering over the 5-week August recess. Sen. Harkin's assumption of the HELP Committee Chairmanship (post Sen. Kennedy's death) will also provide a strong hand to help steer the bill.

Policy Advocacy
He explicitly stated that he wanted to build upon what we have now and not upend what people have now. This is a huge blow to the liberals who are demanding a single-payer public option. He statement means that they're just going to have to suck up what they can get because the President won't expend his own political capitol on behalf of the single-payer (government takeover) health care option.

He also came out in support of an individual health insurance mandate (requirement). This is excellent policy because it will expand the actuarial pool, making it younger and healthier thereby making it cheaper.

He also wants a public option (not single-payer) in the insurance exchange. Only open to the uninsured. Decent fall-back, face-saving position.

He'll get a bill he can sign, if only to say he got one.

The Nefarious Company's Many Tentacles

2009-06-05T22:01:00.003Z

Mrs. Uneven and I were discussing the merits of the various Prison Break seasons the other day when I was brought up short by her comment that she had really enjoyed the show up until they were going after "The Company." She went on to complain that The Company had been showing up on more and more shows and that she found the whole thing boring. How many people do they have working for them that they're on a bunch of different shows.

She was jesting, but the concept of the "The Company" being behind several nefarious plots/operations has been an omnipresent and mutating meme in the collective unconscious for decades. Until that conversation it had never occurred to me that The Company in Burn Notice could be the same as the one in Prison Break. Does Carla work for the General too, and is he only one part of MANAGEMENT? What other shows and characters does the Company manipulate and harass? Are they the shadowy group leading and misleading Fox Mulder too? How deep is their reach?

Is this the way the Illuminati reveal themselves in the Information Age? They take control of all mass media and then produce entertainment which blatantly depicts hidden power manipulating events to its own ends? Isn't that what the conspiracy memes tell us? What better way than for the hidden group to call itself by one name repeated over and over in many different fictional tales. The fact they keep referring to themselves as "The Companay" simply produces the same ironic enjoyment of James Garner's dog named Dog and horse named Horse. BTW The Company as shadow government meme originally started out at the CIA before moving to FEMA. Presumably this movement of the meme's signifier was due to exposure of the CIA's utter incompetence during Congressional hearings in the 1970s. This of course begs the question of where The Company moves to now.

No Flu Vaccines for Creationists pt. 2

2009-05-02T01:17:00.005Z

A few years ago . . . Of Cabbages and Kings wrote the following when we were all afraid of bird flue . . .

"No one wants bird flu to turn into a pandemic but if it does, I kind of hope it strikes first at the creationism and "intelligent design" folks not lethally mind you, just enough to put them in bed for a few days so when their heads clear they might wonder. You see, the pandemic, whether it comes or not, is living proof of evolution. In fact, influenza viruses are superb examples of how evolution works in quick time."

As I wrote at the time:

I have to agree with this. No vaccines or anitbiotics of any kind should be given to folks who don't believe in evolution. If evolution were false, there would be no need for new antibiotics to replace penicillin or amoxicillin since these organism would not evolve resistances to anitbiotics through the mutation and survival of the fittest processes. For the same reasons, flu shots wouldn't have to be updated every year if evolution were false and therefore one shot at anytime should be sufficient.

Let's see these people put their health where their beliefs are.

Recent work by the CDC further validates the evolutionary process, by tracing the genetic history of the new flu strain. I still believe the other statements above even though there is no vaccine for the recent flu outbreak at this time(which really isn't swine flu despite having that time), and there may not be one developed in time for the Northern Hemisphere flu season. If you don't believe in evolution, you shouldn't be allowed a shot. It's a great way to ration them out and also weeds the religious whack job christianists out of the populations.

(Poor spellers and people who blog drunk should not be prevented from obtaining future vaccines though.)

So Obama Got One Right - Let's Hope it's the first of Many

2009-04-15T23:37:00.004Z

Some have pointed out that comments I made about the Obama Hostage Crisis make me look like an ass now. I'll avoid the whole ad hominem attack issue and just say this:

The SEALS did an excellent job, and Obama outperformed Carter in this situation.

However, Obama didn't authorize the attack until after I posted my blog entry. Not that I had anything to do with it, but he did take too long to make the decision. It should've been a no-brainer from the start. It shouldn't have taken that long to get the SEAL team into position (they're all over the world, with a plethora of special forces right there in the region - Afghanistan and Iraq - who could've been there within hours if he'd had the balls to make the call immediately, instead of hemming and hawing like a good liberal.

Hopefully this has given him the cojones to take on the Congressional Democrat Out of Iraq Caucus and Progressive Caucus on military matters. I want him to succeed and be a good leader, but I'm still afraid he's like past Democrat Presidents who have been afraid to make, or made ill-advised, military decisions.

Obama's Hostage Crisis (Carter in a dress)

2009-04-11T00:46:00.003Z

At least Carter attempted to rescue the American hostages. It's just that his complete incompetence led to its failure). Obama hasn't even bothered to try, making him Jimmy Carter in a dress. The pirate threat has been a well known, growing threat for months now, yet Obama is the first President since THOMAS JEFFERSON to let pirates take Americans hostage. And Jefferson went to war over it - hence the "Shores of Tripoli" in the Marines Hymn. Even Jimmy Carter, a good Navy man, wouldn't tolerate piracy threatening U.S citizens or business interests.

If George W. Bush were still President ,or Hillary Clinton were elected President instead, a SEAL team already would've rescued the Americans and killed all the pirates. And the pirates should be killed. I'd like to see the part of the Geneva Conventions that allows piracy.

The lack of action to date makes it obvious Obama doesn't know what to do about this. He doesn't want lose World Opinion by authorizing a military action so soon after succeeding George W. Bush in office. And if he does, he doesn't want to alienate World Opinion by killing the pirates.

So he'd have to imprison them somewhere for their unnecessary trial.Piracy isn't like other crimes. When you beat/capture the bad guys, you know they're guilty. There's no need for a trial to determine that. All that's left is to determine their punishment/fate.

Traditionally, pirates have been executed. But Obama doesn't have the balls to do it. So he'll have to find something to do with them. There's not really anyone to turn them over too, so he'll have to stick them in a military prison. But if you bring them to the states, the obviously guilty pirates get a trial which uses U.S. taxpayer resources. He really should just execute the pirates.

Then again, some pan-European Court (the International Criminal Court) may decide his allowing their execution is some kind of war crime and try to indict him. Life is so much harder when you care if the Europeans to like you more than you care about doing the right thing by your own citizens . . .

Oh, and I guess he'd alienate he hippie-peacenik supporters too. That mike make his approval ratings plunge. Can't risk losing a little political capital to rescue American hostages, can he? Not if he wants to push his radical leftist agenda. But then, the longer range view should be that NOT acting will diminish his political capital and ability to lead even more in the long run.

Shamrock Festival Tomorrow!

2009-03-13T20:24:00.001Z

HiBall Events
Social Media Release
03.05.2009

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ShamrockFest '09 Happening All Day March 14 at RFK Festival Grounds
50+ Musical Acts to Perform, including Flogging Molly, Junior Sanchez, Carbon Leaf, Aggrolites, Burnt Sienna, Scythian, Mr. Greengenes, Joel and Benji Madden

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ShamrockFest 09 March 14 RFK Grounds 50+ Musical Acts Flogging Molly Junior Sanchez Burnt Sienna http://xrl.in/1onl
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Summary
ShamrockFest '09 will take place March 14 from 1pm until 9pm at RFK Festival Grounds. More than 50 musical acts will perform, including Irish rockers Flogging Molly and Scythian, Aggrolites, regional favorites Burnt Sienna, Mr. Greengenes, and Flip Like Wilson, local standouts Practically Einstein and Scott's New Band and DJ's Junior Sanchez and Joel and Benji Madden. With 10 stages, an "authentic" Irish village, rides and amusements, food, crafts, NCAA hoops viewing areas and lots of Bud Light, this event offers something for everyone. Advance VIP and General Admission tickets on sale now-- http://ShamrockFest.com

Media and Bloggers seeking credentials or interviews contact sallyingforth@gmail.com or Twitter DM "AlbrightDC"
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News Facts

* Tickets: General Admission currently $19.99; VIP currently $79.99. Prices will increase at any time and without notice.
* Detailed information and advance tickets can be purchased through the event web site: http://www.shamrockfest.com
* Portion of proceeds to benefit Stop Child Abuse Now.
* Rain or Shine. All Ages. Must be 21 to Drink.

Abstract Show full release

Full Lineup: Flogging Molly, Carbon Leaf, Aggrolites, Burnt Sienna, Mr. Greengenes, Scythian, Dr. Fu, Scott's New Band, Flip Like Wilson, Sick Feed, Practically Einstein, Ceann, Icewagon FLU, Lost in Paris, Overdrive Superthruster, Junkfood, The Godshites, O'Neil James, Flatfoot, Donegal Express, SMZB. Pubcrawlers, Maple School of Dance, Status Green, Dub Trio, Passafire, Minus One, Rome in a Day, Charm City Saints, Girls Girls Girls, Culkin School, Justin Trawick Group, Flying Cows of Ventry, McGrath Academy, DCFD Pipes and Drums

o VIP Ticket Price: Currently $79.99, $129+ at door. + You must be at least 21 to enter VIP areas and receive VIP benefits. + Tickets only available through ClicknPrint, via the methods listed below
+ There is a very limited supply of VIP Tickets + VIP Ticket includes access to all Main Event party areas, as well as access to multiple VIP areas featuring: # All your beer is included in the VIP ticket price featuring: Bud Light, Budweiser American Ale & Bass # Premium viewing areas of all major performance stages # Private VIP band stage with special performances by major acts # Hot 99.5 Club VIP tent featuring famous international, as...

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Full Release Show abstract

Full Lineup: Flogging Molly, Carbon Leaf, Aggrolites, Burnt Sienna, Mr. Greengenes, Scythian, Dr. Fu, Scott's New Band, Flip Like Wilson, Sick Feed, Practically Einstein, Ceann, Icewagon FLU, Lost in Paris, Overdrive Superthruster, Junkfood, The Godshites, O'Neil James, Flatfoot, Donegal Express, SMZB. Pubcrawlers, Maple School of Dance, Status Green, Dub Trio, Passafire, Minus One, Rome in a Day, Charm City Saints, Girls Girls Girls, Culkin School, Justin Trawick Group, Flying Cows of Ventry, McGrath Academy, DCFD Pipes and Drums

o VIP Ticket Price: Currently $79.99, $129+ at door. + You must be at least 21 to enter VIP areas and receive VIP benefits. + Tickets only available through ClicknPrint, via the methods listed below
+ There is a very limited supply of VIP Tickets + VIP Ticket includes access to all Main Event party areas, as well as access to multiple VIP areas featuring: # All your beer is included in the VIP ticket price featuring: Bud Light, Budweiser American Ale & Bass # Premium viewing areas of all major performance stages # Private VIP band stage with special performances by major acts # Hot 99.5 Club VIP tent featuring famous international, as well as local DJs
# Exclusive NCAA hoops viewing areas # NEW: VIP "Sideshow" Tent - Gotta see it to believe it. Too wild for words! # New: VIP food vendor area # A complimentary, limited-edition ShamrockFest '08 mug # Separate VIP entrance # Additional bathrooms # VIP seating areas

o Main Event Ticket Price:Currently: currently $19.99, $39+ at door.
+ Access to ELEVEN Main Event party areas + Entertainment by over THIRTY-THREE spectacular bands and DJs + EIGHT kilt-raising performance stages + Ginormous college basketball viewing area + Acres of amusements, rides and games + The Main Event areas feature Bud Light Beer

Washington DC-- Get ready for the most exciting festival on the East Coast. Munich has Oktoberfest, Tennessee has Bonaroo, New Orleans has Mardi Gras, Brazil has Carnival…and now ShamrockFest, which rocks the Nation’s Capital, has joined the party elite. After eight years of extraordinary growth, the 9th annual ShamrockFest has now graduated to an entirely new level AGAIN. Taking place at a massive, spectacularly-crafted festival grounds, with a multitude of entertainment areas, dozens of incredible performers, and much more, the National ShamrockFest is now recognized as one of America ’s premier festivals. So get your green on and get ready to party like never before – at SHAMROCKFEST `09!!

Brought to you by: Bud Light, DC101, Hot 99.5 & HiBall Events

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@AlbrightDC posted to Twitter: #ShamrockFest Mar 14 RFK 50+ Acts Flogging Molly Junior Sanchez Burnt Sienna http://xrl.in/1onl http://pitch.pe/5558 Media Passes Available

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@AlbrightDC posted to Twitter: ShamrockFest 09 March 14 RFK Grounds 50+ Musical Acts Flogging Molly Junior Sanchez Burnt Sienna http://xrl.in/1onl http://pitch.pe/5558

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Unenven Steven's 2008 Political Wrap Up

2009-01-24T18:50:00.003Z

Just to close some loose ends from the election:

Barack Hussein Obama proved that America truly is moving past its racist past, and Americans will get over his middle name, though pockets of racism still persist. He also achieved election by being as hopeful and direct as Reagan, and being FOR something as opposed to being against something.

Nancy Pelosi won the Battle of the Alpha Females by using her lieutenants to push Sen. Clinton out of the Presidential race and getting President Obama elected. Though given Hillary's predominance on Foreign Policy as Secretary of State now, I'd say Hillary ended up ok.

George W. Bush finished the dismantling of the Reagan Coalition which he started by imposing tariffs on foreign steel early in the decade and accelerated by using the federal government to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case in 2005. Of course firing Don Rumsfeld at two years too late and getting new management at DoD didn't help; neither did his failure to override the poor decisions of Louisiana Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco.

John McCain was doomed by his "Mavricky" past (thank you Tina Fey) which had alienated most of the GOP's campaign foot soldiers; everything. He will now return to being a thorn in the side of conservatives of all stripes.

Sarah Palin became an instant Rock Star with her speech at the Republican National Committee. She then imploded in a manner which will haunt her future ambitions. This implosion was caused either because (a) she's an idiot; or (b) she listened too much to her McCain camapaign handlers, depending on whom you believe. I opt for option C: Steve Schmidt didn't give her enough notice she would be the VP nominee and she was unable to get up to speed on the issues she needed to.

A Woman WILL become president in the near future. Both major parties have now nominated women as Vice Presidential candidates, and Sen. Clinton ran an amazing campaign that could've been won with better strategy and if Mark Penn had actually understood the nominating process.

Republicans continued to lose Congressional seats, further retreating towards being a regional (Southern) party; this is not good for Republicans or the nation. Arguments over rebuilding the party essentially now pit social conservatives (whose positions have driven away the moderate middle) against libertarians and others whom the party has marginalized, and whom the social conservatives can't tolerate. IMHO leaving the social conservatives ascendant will doom the party for years to Minority status.

The Democrat Party became more ascendant by becoming a somewhat bigger tent (most of their gains in the last two cycles came from electing more conservative Dems in Congressional Districts that usually go Republican). However, these conservative Dems will be rolled repeatedly by Speaker Pelosi and her liberal California allies in their quest to rollback every conservative achievement from the Reagan-Gingrich era.

Thanks for the Bailout, Now F@#! Off!

2008-12-23T00:17:00.004Z

Mrs. Uneven and I currently are in the Midwest visiting the Uneven Parents. As folks out here are accustomed to doing, I went out to start the rental) car engine for a few minutes so that the car battery wouldn't die. Upon returning to the car to turn the engine off, I discovered to my chagrin that the Chrylser PT Cruiser automatically locks the car doors if the key is in the ignition. I consider this a minor design flaw, but nothing to get too upset about since most people, most of the time (i.e., non-Midwesterners and Midwesterners during warm months) don't leave their cars running for extended periods of time. What I am upset about is that Stu Hanson's Chrysler dealership in Des Moines, which has the ability to cut keys, refused to do so for me and in fact was quite rude about it. This comes despite the fact that Chrysler just received a boatload of my taxpayer dollars to stay in business.

Now, anyone paying attention to the U.S. auto industry should be aware that one of the industry's fundamental problems is that there are too many car dealerships and state franchise laws stop the Big 3 from reducing their number. Given the shabby treatment I received, it's no wonder the Big 3 are going under. When they finally go bankrupt, I'd like to see Stu Hanson's be one of the first dealerships closed.

Obama is NOT the President-elect (Yet)

2008-12-03T22:34:00.004Z

In point of fact, former Senator Obama has not been elected President yet. November 4, 2008 was merely the election of Presidential Electors. The new members of the Electoral College in turn will meet on December 15, 2008 in their respective State Capitals to cast their votes for President of the United States. The Senate will meet on January 8, 2009 to count the ballots. Whomever (99.999999999999% certain to be former Senator Obama)gets the most vote will then become the President-Elect for a whole 12 days before taking the oath of office as POTUS.

What should we call former Senator in the meantime? President-designate. Because the results of the November election clearly indicated that Americans wanted him to be the next President (i.e., we collectively designated him to be the next POTUS).

No one else probably cares about this, but I find it extremely irritating and further evidence the MSM is lazy and stupid.

Rosenberg's Accomplice Admits Their Guilt

2008-09-19T00:23:00.007Z

Morton Sobell told The New York Times that he helped pass to the Soviet Union information about an aircraft gun during World War II when the Soviets were U.S. allies.

Sobell also implicated Julius Rosenberg in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information. He said Ethel Rosenberg was aware of her husband's espionage but did not actively participate. "She knew what he was doing," he said, "but what was she guilty of? Of being Julius' wife."

He said that information from Rosenberg was of little value to the Soviets, except to corroborate other reports. The Rosenbergs were executed in 1953.

Now I'm all for getting your husband's back, but there really are a few instances when you have to look into your soul and decide whether loyalty to your husband trumps his execrable treason against your nation. At least if you are in any way patriotic or care about your country and fellow Americans.

Step Down Mr. Young!

2008-09-19T00:23:00.002Z

You have won your moral victory by winning the Alaska Republican primary today by fewer than 400 votes. But that is not the whole story. You and Lt. Gov. Parnell both received about 45% of the vote, and your other primary opponent won 9% of the vote. This means that 54% OF ALASKA REPUBLICANS DO NOT WANT YOU AS THE PARTY'S CONGRESSION NOMINEE OR TO REPRESENT THEM IN CONGRESS.

If 54% of your own party doesn't want you representing them any longer, do you really think that you have a shot in hell of winning the election in November? Please do your constituents, your party and your nation a favor and STEP DOWN. We have had enough of your corruption, venality, temper tantrums and pork barreling. And it is only a matter of time before you are indicted in the same corruption probe that ensnared Senator Stevens and his son. If you step down now you will be helping your party keep the Alaska Congressional seat, and maybe a small measure of whatever dignity you think you have left.

After all, you have already won the moral victory of technically becoming the party nominee even though more people voted against you than for you.

Apparently I'm a Cylon Infiltrator

2008-08-22T05:08:00.002Z

I love Battlestar Gallactica. Best re-imagining of any TV series ever! Plus, it's chock full of conspiracies and aliens (ok evolved artificial intelligences) - two of my favorite things.

Actually went to the website and took the personality test. I'm a guerilla warrior resistance leader fighting for freedom. Pretty much the values I love and believe in - I would've loved to have fought in the Revolutionary War - establishing an entirely new government (New World Order - spooky!) unlike anything existing at the time and based on the innate nobility and equality of all men instead of divine right.

Though I wouldn't be a secret double agent unlike Sam or Gen. Arnold.

Snap Review: Virgin Festival

2008-08-10T23:13:00.000Z

No - not the sacrificial kind. Though it does sound like a pro~abstinence rally.

STP rock the racetrack!
Iggy still Pops! Stooges not blind (from eye pokes)!
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

Testing Mobile Blogging

2008-08-10T17:14:00.001Z

I'm going to take a crack at live-blogging the Virgin Music Festival. We,ll see how it goes. Yesterday Mrs. Uneven did it from her phone and it was pretty cool, so I,m setting up blogger email so I can try it.

Please excuse all typos. It's a tiny keyboard.

Get Your War On Gets Animated

2008-08-03T02:47:00.003Z

Love it! One of the earliest dissenters against the Global War on Terror gets animated. Amazingly, the first episode translates the comic to its new medium with great verisimilitude. Check out the comic here, and the animation below:

In Memoriam: Tim Russert

2008-06-14T02:40:00.001Z

From Today's Congressional Quarterly

Remembering Tim Russert
By Bruce Drake, CQ Staff

Tim Russert, who died of a heart attack today at 58, will long be remembered for becoming such a force in political journalism that when he declared the Democratic nomination battle over after the May 6 Indiana and North Carolina primaries, well, for many people, that made it official.

But I’ll remember Russert for something else, which is that he was one hell of an impersonator.

I found that out when I started out covering Congress in Washington for the New York Daily News and Russert was starting out as press secretary to the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

I needed to get Moynihan on the phone one day for a story and a few hours after leaving a message, my phone rang and I heard Moynihan’s characteristic, “Uh . . . uh . . . Bruce . . . This is PAT Moynihan . . . (he always seemed to hit the “Pat” hard) . . . What can I do for you?”

He was right on time because we had a 4 p.m. first edition deadline for the Daily News “Night Owl” edition, which hit the streets in Manhattan at 7 p.m., and it was already 3:30 p.m.

I interviewed Moynihan for 10 minutes then said, “Gotta go, Senator. Deadline.”

“Go get ‘em,” Moynihan said.

O.K. You already know the punchline.

I had just interviewed Tim Russert for 10 minutes, completely fooled by the $%*#.

Now, I do have to say that all his answers were correct. They just didn’t come from Moynihan.

Which Tim was kind enough to call back five minutes before deadline and tell me.

I did exact some revenge. A few weeks later, when I knew Russert was out of town, I put in a call to Moynihan for another story, even though I didn’t really need him for it. He called back in about 10 minutes.

“Uh . . . uh . . . young Bruce, this is PAT Moynihan. What can I do for you?”

Remembering Tim Russert
I asked Moynihan where I could call him back. He seemed to be taken somewhat aback, not only at the idea I’d push off a call from a senator, but probably because he couldn’t figure out why I had to ask him for a number when he was in his office.

I called him back five minutes later and when he came to the phone, I said, “Sorry, Senator. I just needed to make sure it was you and not Russert.”

I think Moynihan thought it was funny. Maybe. Well, maybe not.

But Tim always had a way with his bosses. I don’t know 100 percent for sure that the following story is true, it sounds kind of apocryphal. But, still, it sounds like Tim.

Tim had gone on to work for New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and was with him around the time that Cuomo electrified audiences with his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, which was probably the high point of Cuomo’s career as far as the national stage.

The story goes this way: Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa was visiting New York, and was riding in a limousine with Cuomo.

As the two chatted, Tutu was said to have told Cuomo, “I met that delightful young man who works for you, who said he wrote your San Francisco speech.”

I never really knew Cuomo. I did know of his ego. I don’t think Cuomo thought it was funny.

So, maybe Tim liked to claim credit for some stuff. But he was never full of himself, and always open and outgoing whether you were a VIP or just someone standing next to him at the bar.

Speaking of standing next to him at the bar, I got a little taste of Tim’s liking to make sure that credit was paid where it was due.

Tim had been one of my references back in 1991 when National Public Radio hired me as senior Washington editor.

After I had moved up to be vice president of news at NPR in 2000, I bumped into Tim at Billy Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown.

He congratulated me on the promotion and said, “You know, I GOT you that job at NPR.”

Remembering Tim Russert
So, I bought the next round over his weak protests.

The Clash of the Alpha Females Comes Out of the Shadows (Part 3)

2008-05-30T08:46:00.000Z

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally brought her subterannean campaign against U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton into the light today. In today's edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker Pelosi said "I will step in" if there is no resolution by late June regarding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, the two states that defied party rules by holding early primaries.

Speaker Pelosi's now frontal assualt on Senator Clinton is being waged in the name of "Democratic Party Unity," but is really rooted in her own ambition.After all, "There can be only one" Alpha Female in town, and Pelosi desperately wants to avoid her historical moment as first female U.S. House Speaker not to be upstaged by the first female U.S. President.

When the Speaker "steps in," it will be to attempt to bum rush the remaining uncommitted (cowardly) Superdelegates into supporting Barack Obama. It's no secret that her more ardent supporters support Senator Obama and the remanining uncommitted superdelegates who are U.S. House Democrats are afraid to endorse Senator Clinton out of fear of the Speaker.

Speaker Pelosi will also try to use her influence and statements to undermine the argument that sexism is the root of Senator Clinton's failure to win the Democratic Nomination. This would be false for two reasons: (1) managing to get elected by a majority of the 230+ House Democrats to the most powerful Constitutional position does not actually mean sexism doesn't exist, it just means Pelosi's a smart Pol (i.e., a female Speaker does not equal a lack of national sexism); (2) Just because a powerful female comes out and engineers things to benefit a man, does not mean that the man did not previously benefit from sexism.

Those are are just logical flaws in Pelosi's attempts to undermine the sexism argument. They don't even address her hidden agenda, which I discussed above and earlier (click on the Alpha Female tag below)

You Always Lose the Debate When You Invoke Hitler

2008-05-17T02:51:00.005Z

It's just a basic rule of political/philosophical discourse. Anytime you invoke a comparison to Hitler or his enabler's, you lose the debate. Period. End of discussion.

Even taking the Bush Administration at their word that they were really criticizing Carter's visit with Hamas (which I find contemptible due to their support of terrorist tactics, despite my support for the Palestinian cause), invoking Hitler was not politically smart. Hitler allusions are the last refuge of the intellectually weak who can't justify their positions/opinios without referencing one of the most evil men in history (Stalin and Mao killed more people indiscriminately and therefore arguably were more evil if you count simple bodies. However, the evil of Hitler's agenda, while banal, was well thought out, organized and rationally planned on a level of magnitude far different than the latter two).

To their credit, the Obama campaign was quick to use Bush's address to Knesset as a way of jump starting/ furbishing their weak foreign policy cred and taking the fight to the deeply (and deservedely) unpopular President. In doing so, they not only elevated themselves to the same level as the President by taking Bush on directly, but they further kept Hillary Clinton out of the news for another cycle, and possibly the weekend, thus hindering her campaign efforts in Oregon.

In short, Bush is a moron and Obama possesses a top-notch and savvy political team. Which really shouldn't be unexpected given that many of them were the Daschle Presidential campaign in waiting before John Thune beat him (barely) in 2004).

Another Step Down the Slippery Slope of Designer Babies & Transhumanism

2008-05-13T00:32:00.006Z

AP reports that for the first time in known history researchers have aktered the genetic code of a human embryo. The entire story can be found here, but the money quote is:

The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes into embryos to produce babies with desired traits like intelligence or athletic ability. Some people find that notion repugnant, saying it turns children into designed objects, and would create an unequal society where some people are genetically enriched while others would be considered inferior.

The fear articulated above is completely legitimate. Afterall, no one really wants to live Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The article referenced above quotes a scientist from the Center for Genetics and Society that said these techniques could be used by others to make genetically modified people, "and they're doing it without any kind of public debate." I'm all for scientific advancement, but bioethical issues such as this deserve to be debate fully by our society. It's bad enough that we have a meritocracy which looks down on those who fail to climb up as far. Establihing a new caste system created because those Thomas Jefferson referred to as The Natural Aristocracy in his Notes on the State of Virginia have access to wealth and resources which allow them to further priviledge their offspring through genetic engineering threatens our entire national identity. It also would profoundly alter social dynamics throughout the world.

There is an alternative movement called transhumanism which embraces the concept of germline genetic engineering and human nuero-interfacing with computers etc. as a way of furthering human potential. It's an active movement with whom I don't have as much quarrel on the neuro-interfacing issue because those hardward based modifications won't permanently be encoded and passed down in our genes. However it embraces a philosophy which essentially believes that anything which can be done should and will be done. Unfortunately, this philosophy is a pretty close approximation of how technology is advancing on our planet. Anything which is abhorrent to Western Civilization or Judeo-Christian Values will likely just take root and advance in Asia which does not necessarily share the same moral/philosophical values.

Such a step actually makes the prospect of a new caste system even worse because it further limits access to these technologies to those rich enough to travel to Asia and stay long enough to have the procedures performed.

I'm not sure what the answer to this is. But it is another step down the slippery slope.

Obama Owes McCain an Apology (and is just plain weak)

2008-05-10T03:20:00.007Z

First of all John McCain simply repeated what Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Prime Minister said when he said that Hamas preferred an Obama Presidency. Here's the quote in its entirety:

"We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election." This statement was made in an interview with Aaron Klein and John Batchelor interviewed on WABC.

Now we know why Obama was so sensitive to accusations that Hamas would prefer him as President - one of his advisors had been meeting with members of the radical terrorist group which wants to annilate Israel. The Washington Post piece on the meetings is here. Even Politifact.com - a non-partisan political fact checking website validates McCain's statement is "mostly true." You can find the entire analysis here.

Of course Chris Matthews and the liberal MSM won't discuss this on the Sunday morning shows - it would undermine their efforts to impose a liberal agenda on the nation. Anyone thinking Obama represents a restoration of Camelot misunderstands not only Obama's but also JFK's ideology. JFK was much more conservative than Nixon - an irony the left refuses to acknowledge and he aggressively fought Communism in every corner of the globe.

JFK confronted Communism throughout the Western Hemisphere, in Europe and in Asia. He backed at least one attempted coup against a Communist regime (Cuba) and a war to stop Communist insurgency in Southeast Asia (Vietnam). And he did these both without negotiating with our enemies.

Like it or not for the multi-culti left, Terrorism is the new Communism and the Global War on Terror is the new containment. Even Europe is beginning to wake up to the threats posed by the Iranian backed global terrorist movement (Hamas, Hezbollah and and has begun electing center-right governments which support taking the fight to the extremists before they bring it back here (again).

Obama's Victory Speech Demonstrates Ignorance of U.S. History

2008-05-08T05:33:00.012Z

Two of the Presidents that Obama cited in his post-North Carolina victory speech as negotiating with U.S. enemies did no such thing. These would be FDR and JFK.

FDR negotiated with the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France in Yalta. However, at the time, the U.S. and Russia were allies against Germany, with whom the FDR did not negotiate, unlike the infamous appeaser Neville Chamberlin. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. did not become become adversaries until the post-World War II period, and the impetus for that actually was Roosevelt's Yalta concessions to Stalin which condemned half of Europe to Soviet Oppression for 50 years. If that's Sen. Obama's model for negotiating with our allies, he has no place in the Oval Office, let alone the U.S. Senate.

Additionally, the Soviet Union, while an adversary and competing power whose values we despised, was not an enemy, which is why the 1945-1991 period is called The Cold War. JFK's conversations/negotiations with them were aimed at preventing conflict and containing their ideology. He never negotiated with actual U.S. enemies such as Cuba's Fidel Castro (whom he tried to overthrow during the Bay of Pigs Invasion and then lost the cojones to call in U.S. air support to help our allies). In fact, JFK negotiated a secret treaty with Cuba promising not to invade in exchange for removal of the Soviet missiles - hardly a profile in courage. JFK also did not negotiate with our enemies in Vietnam, the war against whom he took over from the French.

If these are Senator Obama's models for negotiating with our enemies, I'd hate to see how he handles Iran, Hamas and Al Queda. He might as well just sell out Israel and abandon all hope of human rights and freedom East of the Mediterranen. And let's not forget that the real puppet masters of Hamas reside in Tehran.

Clash of the Alpha Females (pt.2)

2008-04-25T01:13:00.005Z

From Time Magazine's piece on the End of the dem nomination contest:

All that could change after the last two states, South Dakota and Montana, vote on June 3. That's the time party chairman Howard Dean, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are expected to tell the superdelegates — about 300 of the roughly 800 delegates overall who have yet to commit — that it is time to make up their minds. Pelosi in particular is key, as more than 70 of those uncommitted superdelegates are House members. For many, holding back now is more a matter of principle than preference. "They don't want to be perceived as telling voters how to vote," says former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, who is heading Obama's superdelegate effort.

Don't underestimate Pelosi's influence here. She'll come down hard for Obama for reasons I discussed here. Additionally, her position that the elected delegates should decide and the automatic delegatees shouldn't weigh in is completely slanted towards Obama, instead of being neutral as it is commonly portrayed.

The 70 uncommitted House Members mentioned above are all beholden to Speaker Pelosi for their House Committee assignments and leadership positions. Don't forget that Pelosi took Jane Harman's Intelligence Committee Chairmanship away from her because Harman disagreed with Pelosi on aspects of the War on Terror. ALL Democrats remember that and are afraid of that. For that reason, they won't go against Pelosi in order to stay in her good favor. The Obama supporters generally come from the rival pro-Hoyer (House Majority Leader) faction of the party.

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut

2008-04-23T02:49:00.005Z

Ok, so Barack Obama doesn't have a bad haircut. But the rest of the P.J. O'Rourke quote stands. She's been around and knows how to play the game even if she's down. He thinks you can have reasonable conversations with people whose main mission in life is to kill you and your friends.

She's gonna pull this off. If not, Obama will get crushed in November by the Republicans.

Jericho & The False Flag Meme

2008-04-19T21:05:00.008Z

I was watching the Jericho series finale again today (TiVo Rocks!) and realized that the "9/11 Truth Movement" has succeeded in firmly planing the "False Flag" meme in our popular culture. False Flag refers to covert intelligence/military operations undertaken by a government and designed to appear as if they were conducted by another government or outside group. Until the last decade or so many historians considered the explosion of the USS Maine in Cuba a false flag operation engineered by the McKinley Administration to justify war with Spain to take over/liberate Cuba (in the past decade or so additional research has shown that the Maine's boiler probably exploded on its own accord, but there is no evidence of Spanish of American sabotage).

In Jericho, the false flag operation is conducted by officials at the Department of Homeland Security and blamed on Iran and North Korea, justifying the further perpetration of nuclear holocaust on these two nations. This furthers the meme of the "neo-conservatives" or members of the Project for the New American Century as war mongers against those two nations. This meme is based somewhat on reality, as it well known that neo-conservatives are international realists instead of Wilsonian idealists and are very concerned about those two nations' relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and long range missle capability, (even to the point of entering space as Iran propose).

In the show, the shadow government's attack occurs in order to purge the government of the pervasive influence of Jennings & Rawl, an obvious proxy for Haliburton. This "Haliburton is evil and associated by Vice President Cheney" meme is very widespread throughout our culture, especially among the hard core left. It's amazing how sutbtly anti-Bush Jericho really is. After all, you'd expect that a show based on an American nuclear holocaust would really be more pro-killing terrorists.

Getting these memes (further) embedded in the mainstream culture is an enormous success for the 9/11 Truth Movement. It helps make people more receptive to their misguided conspiracy agenda.

Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement believe that elements inside the Bush Administration or federal government (or the Israeli government) engineered the 9/11 attacks. The typical motive for this alleged false flag operation frequently is attributed either to justifying a Middle East war over oil or changing the political issue matrix to benefit the Republican Party and ensure continued political dominance. Oh yeah, and to enrich the President's friends.

Now, the first reason is laughable. The Israelis are in a strong enough position to take care of themselves, and war is always an enormous drain on a nation no matter how necessary (WWII was a necessary war for example). The second motive is somewhat more plausible (though still absolute crap). Here's why: in late 2001 almost the entire political issue matrix was geared against the Republican party and its principles. Good economic times in the 1990s had produced not only a balanced budget, but one in large and growing surplus. People were happy and shifting their attention away from the international sphere and back to the domestic issues on which the Democratic Pary had an advantage. Additionally, a United States government able to pay back most of its outstanding debt and eventually pay it all off would prove economically damaging to the banking industry.

These facts provide a kernel of truth from which to grow an entirely ridiculs conspiracy theory based on any substantiated association or causality. The "theory" : the executive branch initiated treason against our nation in order to put its political party back in political advantage ensuring its own continued power and accumulating even more power by taking advantage of the extreme national culture shock of 9/11 to accumulate more power through the Patriot Act and other measures.

The History Channel showed a documentary last week called "The 9/11 Conspiracies" which explored the conspiracies and then offered rational responses to the execrable false flag charges.

These Truthers cling much to hard to the conspiracy meme of a "supercompetent federal government." We're talking about a bunch of guys who actually tried to kill Castro by giving him an exploding cigar. The same people who masterminded the disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco in which they lost their nerve and declined to call in air support for the invastion, thus guaranteeing its failure. Plus there are enough potential whistleblowers in the government that any such conspiracy would have become exposed since it would have had to involve officials at multiple federal agencies. Even within the same Department, and especially within Homeland security due to the disjointed and spread out nature of its buildings, it is difficult to coordinate anything without the help of people lower down the food chanin than the "principals" (Administrators, Assistant Secretaries and their Deputies, Directors of Progams).

The Ks (our present decade)

2008-04-19T01:45:00.003Z

I've always thought it odd that the pop culture didn't adopt "k" as a meme to refer to years in the first decade of the 21st Century. After all, we spent most of the 1990s hearing all about "the why [two] [kay] problem" (Y2K). After years of conceptually thinking about the year 2000 Anno Domini in abbreviated metric (2k= two thousand [duh]), why didn't we refer to 2001 as 2k1, 2002 as 2k2, etc?

I think we should. Every decade needs a name like "The Roaring Twenties." And even if "The Ks" isn't quite as glamorous, we still need something at least somewhat numerical to use as a reference for this, our current, first decade of the 21st Century. Sure as hell beats "The aughts."

Alicia Keys' Far Out Conspiracy Theorry on the Rap War

2008-04-12T00:55:00.004Z

Now, I believe that the LAPD likely was involved with Tupac's death. I also believe that the East Coast-West Coast Rap War was much more serious than the mainstream media or federal government were willing to acknowledge. However, it is just plain far out to think the federal government conspired with the media to kill both Tupac and Biggie to stop the rise of a new black leader. If that was the goal, you could've just stopped at Tupac. Despite my admitted West Coast bias, I just don't see Biggie having the same ideology nor political upbringing that Tupac did.

Interestingly though, our nation has had a surge in prominent black leaders since the death of Biggie Smalls. James Clyburn is now the House Majority Whip (the #3 most powerful position in the U.S. House of Reps); Oprah's empire has flourished; Barack Obama became a U.S. Presidential Candidate and the second African-American Senator to be elected from Illinois within a 12 year period.

Alicia Keys conspiracy theory is below.

NEW YORK (AP) - There's another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. 'Gangsta rap' didn't exist."

Keys, 27, said she's read several Black Panther autobiographies and wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck "to symbolize strength, power and killing 'em dead," according to an interview in the magazine's May issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

Another of her theories: That the bicoastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."

Keys' AK-47 jewelry came as a surprise to her mother, who is quoted as telling Blender: "She wears what? That doesn't sound like Alicia." Keys' publicist, Theola Borden, said Keys was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Though she's known for her romantic tunes, she told Blender that she wants to write more political songs. If black leaders such as the late Black Panther Huey Newton "had the outlets our musicians have today, it'd be global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself," she said.

The multiplatinum songstress behind the hits "Fallin'" and "No One" most recently had success with her latest CD, "As I Am," which sold millions.

Clash of the Alpha Females, p.2: Hillary Strikes Back

2008-03-05T04:27:00.009Z

The competition to be the Alpha Female is well under way. Speaker Pelosi is now under attack from the Clinton campaign for her repeated assertion that the remaining uncommitted automatic delegates should discard their right to vote for their first choice and instead vote for whomever has the largest number of elected delegates.
This position is such an irritant to Senator Clinton's Presidential aspirations that financial backers of Senator and former President Clinton sent a letter to the Speaker asking her to avoid further public pronouncements along these lines. Implied by the "shakedown letter," as it has become known, is that the donors will cut off fundraising for and donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Speaker Pelosi's House Democrats.

The Speaker's position is inconvenient for the Senator because if heeded, it would serve to ensure that Barack Obama (see article inset below) becomes the nominee even if his delegate lead shrinks to an insignificant number. Despite the Speaker's constant since early February (find cite)her repeated public pronouncements of it

Pelosi's Delegate Stance Boosts Obama
By DAVID ESPO – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it would be damaging to the Democratic party for its leaders to buck the will of national convention delegates picked in primaries and caucuses, a declaration that gives a boost to Sen. Barack Obama.

"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party," Pelosi said in an interview taped Friday for broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

The California Democrat did not mention either Obama or his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, by name. But her remarks seemed to suggest she was prepared to cast her ballot at the convention in favor of the candidate who emerges from the primary season with the most pledged delegates.

Obama leads Clinton by 142 pledged delegates — those delegates picked in nomination contests to date, in The Associated Press' count.

Barring an unlikely string of landslide victories by the former first lady in the remaining states, he will end the primary season with a delegate lead, but short of the 2025 needed to win the nomination.

That gives the balance of power to the so-called superdelegates, prominent Democrats who are automatically entitled to attend the convention because of their status as members of Congress or other leaders. Clinton leads Obama for their support in the AP count, 249-213.

Pelosi's comments could influence other House Democrats who are neutral in the presidential race and will attend the convention as superdelegates.

In her interview, Pelosi also said that even if one candidate winds up with a larger share of the popular vote than the delegate leader, the candidate who has more delegates should prevail.

"It's a delegate race," she said. "The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee."

More than 500 delegates remain to be picked in primaries beginning on April 22 in Pennsylvania, which has 158 at stake on April 22.

In addition, Democrats in Michigan and Florida are demanding to have their delegations seated, even though they moved up the dates of their primaries to January in defiance of Democratic National Committee rules.

Clinton said Saturday she supports an effort by Michigan Democratic leaders to hold a do-over primary in early June, but the Obama campaign has not yet said whether it will agree. A full delegation would give the state 128 pledged delegates, not counting superdelegates.

In Florida, a plan for a mail-in primary appears doomed, leaving two major possibilities if the state's Democrats are to participate in selecting a nominee.

One is for a full-scale primary.

The other is a negotiated agreement in which Obama and Clinton split the 185 pledged delegates that would have been awarded had the Jan. 29 primary counted.

One prominent official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there have been preliminary discussions among the state's House Democrats to see whether a compromise can be reached along those lines.

Clinton would have won 38 more delegates in the primary than Obama, had the primary results been used to award delegates, according to The Associated Press' calculations. Merely dividing the delegates evenly would leave Obama's delegate lead unchanged. Obama appeared to open the door to some sort of agreement earlier this week, when he spoke of a procedure "that doesn't advantage one candidate or another too much."

In Defense of Superdelegates: They Actually ARE Elected

2008-03-05T04:03:00.004Z

It is a common meme in the MSM that superdelegates are unelected. That is not true.

First of all, the term superdelegate is a misnomer - they are more accuratey referred to as "automatic deleates." There are 796 superdelegates in the Democrat party. Approximately 230 of those are elected Members of the U.S. House of Representatives (I can't recall the exact make up right now), and another 50 are elected U.S. Senators. Therefore at least 280 of the 796 superdelegates are elected. They are just elected by their own states or Congressional Districts during federal elections.

Most of the remaining superdelegates are State Party National Committeemen, State Party National Committeewomen and State Party Chairs. These positions also are elected, abeit by the activist core of each state party. About the only "automatic delegates" who have never been elected to anything are the 54 Executive Directors of the state (and territorial) parties. The remaining automatic delegates are current and former party leaders in the U.S. House and Senate (i.e., Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt are both automatic delegates because they are previously elected leaders of their respective Congressional Caucuses), as well as a former Presidents such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. These last two categories are insignificant both percentage-wise and in absolute numbers.

Ergo, 742 of the so-called superdelegates actually are, elected to positions of leadership within their state parties, within the nation or within their respective Congressional caucuses. Given that over 90% of the automatic delegates ARE elected in some capacity, then the claims that they are somehow unrepresentative of the party is just plain B.S. (or lazy journalism).

Often overlooked is that the current presidential election cycle is the first time that the Republican Party has implemented automatic delegates. However, this number is limited to 200 some odd delegates consistin of the State Chairs, State Party National Committeemen, State Party National Committeewomen and State Party Executive Directors of the 54 states and territories. According to a GOP State National Committeewoman, the reason for this is that in the past these people, ironically, have sometimes not been elected as delegates due to their responsibilities within the state party interfering with their ability to compete for a delegate position.

The Coming Clash of the Alpha Females (Pelosi & Clinton)

2008-02-13T01:32:00.000Z

Speaker Pelosi has already made history as the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives since our founding. Little wonder that rumors persist that Speaker Pelosi will endorse Obama as the Democratic Party's Presidential Nominee. After all, why would she want to have her historical moment eclipsed by the first female President of the United States? Even The Hill notes that the two women have virtually no relationship, and why should the Speaker seek one anyway?

If Senator Clinton does become the next President, we can expect a below the radar struggle between the two of them for dominance in the Capitol. The Presidency has the bully pulpit, but the Speaker is the most powerful Constitutional Officer in the United States. As the saying goes, "Congress proposes, the President disposes." Speaker Pelosi will be able to win any power struggle between the two of them simply by ignoring President Clinton's agenda or requests, or outright opposing it.

President Clinton will have to be careful not to alienate Speaker Pelosi. The last time Senator Clinton was in charge of a domestic policy initiative (Hillarycare), also with a Democratic Congress, she thought she could put a package together inside the White House and ignore the relavant Congressional leaders (Senate Finance Chairman Moynihan, House Commerce Committee Chairman Dingell and House Ways & Means Chairman Rostenkowski) and simply present Congress her own package for them to rubber stamp. Any return to that type of attitude will raise the hackles of the Speaker and her Chairman. And a Speaker is not to be trifled with - remember, Jimmy Carter's Presidency was destroyed by Speaker O'Neill, not by minority Republicans.

2006-2008 TV & Commercial Soundtrack Play List

2008-02-07T16:40:00.000Z

Once again, I am compiling a playlist of songs from television shows that have been in rotation during that past year. However, unlike previous playlists, this one also contains songs from commercials as well instead of segregating the two. Below is what I have so far:

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears) - Kid Nation theme song
Come Anytime (Hoodoo Gurus) - Thank God You're Here theme song
I know, You Know (The Friendly Indians) - Psych theme song
Calling All Friends (Low Stars) - What About Brian? theme song
Hello Goodbye (The Beatles) - Target commerical
Blister in the Sun (Violent Femmes) - Burger King commercial
This is the Day (The Thes)- M&Ms commercial
It's a Jungle Out There (Randy Newman) - Monk theme song
Ice Cream ((New Young Pony Club)) - Intel commercial
Hockey Monkey (James Kochalka Superstar and the Zambonis) - The Loop theme song
God Only Knows(The Beach Boys)- Big Love theme song
We're Not Going To Take It (Twisted Sister) Yaz birth control commercial
Superman (R.E.M.) Toyota Sequoia commercial
The Part Where You Let Go (HEM) Liberty Mutual Insurance Company
Put A Little Love in Your Heart (Annie Lennox & Al Green/Jackie Desharm) Smart Balance fake butter commercial

I appreciate suggested additions.

The Yankee-Cowboy War Looks to Continue

2008-02-06T06:05:00.000Z

After Tsunami Tuesday, it looks like the Big Mo is with Senators Clinton and McCain, thus setting up another battle in the Yankee-Cowboy War. The Yankee-Cowboy War is a way of conceptually understanding that the Post-World War II period produced a shift in the source of American ruling-class (oligarchic) power from the Northeast to the Southwest/West fueled by shifts in the sources of economic wealth.

The Southern Rim drawn from a line South of North Carolina across the nation to San Francisco (Cowboys) with its oil, natural resources and technology based sources of economic power has risen to challenge the banking and industrial power of the Eastern Establishment based in Chicago, New York, Boston, and the industrial states (Yankees). The Eastern Establishment ruled the country more or less unchecked,from our founding until the oil, aviation and aerospace (and later technology) industries matured and the Southwest (and West) became a rival source of economic power, producing its own social elite. It has dominated Presidential elections since 1960 (see below).

The Yankee-Cowboy War is essentially a post-Marxist conception of ruling class infighting between rival factions. It's important to note that the war is actually fought by political donors, corporate executives etc., and the actual politicians are not necessarily conscious (beyong their own class interests) of this ongoing war. Whether you agree with the premise or not, a look at our Presidents and Presidential contests post-Eisenhower shows that the fundamental battles for political control have been fought between representatives of these two establishments.

1960 - JFK v. Nixon - Yankee (JFK) Won
1963 - Cowboy (LBJ) comes to power in a putative coup engineered by his supporters.
1964 - LBJ v. Goldwater - Cowboy v. Cowboy, though LBJ had deep ties to the Yankee faction.
1968 - Nixon v. Humphrey - Cowboy (Nixon) won
1972 - Nixon v. McGovern - Cowboy (Nixon) won
1974 - Yankee (Ford) comes to power in a putative coup engineered by his supporters.
1976 - Ford v. Carter - Cowboy (Carter) won
1980 - Carter v. Reagan - Cowboy (Reagan) won
1984 - Reagan v. Mondale - Cowboy (Reagan) won
1988 - Bush 41 v. Dukakis - Cowboy (Bush 41) won
1992 - Bush 41 v. B. Clinton - Cowboy v. Cowboy. Bush 41 and Clinton both had deep ties to the Yankee faction through educational background and professional ties. In this case however, Clinton represented the interests of the Yankee faction and Bush's deep financial ties to the Cowboy (oil) establishment align him with their interests.
1996 - B. Clinton v. Dole - Yankee (Clinton) won - Georgetown, Yale and McGovern Presidenial Campaign experience make Clinton more of a Yankee representative than a Cowboy one.
2000 - Gore v. Bush 43 - Cowboy (Bush 43) won - Gore, though putatively from Tennessee spent his life growing up within the Eastern Establishment, even attending Harvard, and thus represented the Yankee establishment
2004 - Bush 43 v. Kerry - Cowboy (Bush 43) won - Bush's time in the Northeast seems not to have influenced him as much as it did Clinton despite his being a Yale Alum and member of the elite Skull & Bones Society
2008 - McCain v. H. Clinton - a classic showdown during which the Yankee faction may finally claw its way back to power. Despite spending time in Arkansas, Senator Clinton has alway been a Yankee, from growing up in the Chicago suburbs to attending hte elite Wellesley and Yale universities.

It's worth noting that in the elections from 1960 to present, the Cowboy faction has been dominant, winning 9 of 12 contests. In the cases where two putative members of the Cowboy faction competed against each other, the one more closely tied to the Eastern Establishment at the time has lost. Bill Clinton is the only President to be elected from the Yankee faction during this time, and the other two Yankee Presidents came to power through the death or political destruction of their Cowboy predecessors.

2008 Music Festivals

2008-02-03T20:01:00.000Z

This the Second Annual Uneven Steven Music Festival list. Last year's list is here. I started doing this last year because I have far missed too many festivals by not knowing their exact dates until it was too late. Some of these are a bit off the beaten path, but should be well worth it.

Like last year, I would like for this list to be as comprehensive as possible, so please let me know (and include a link) about festivals left off this list, no matter where they are in the world. Thanks!

Additionally, please let me know if the Pixies or Garbage are playing near you, so I can figure out where I can see them play again. I will be eternally grateful.

2008 Music Festivals

January 7 - March 30 Emergenza Music Festival - (travelling music festival to discover new, unsigned talent)
February 26-March 2 Spark Music Festival of Electronic Music (University of Minnesota)
March 6-9 Langerado (Florida's Big Cypress Indian Reservation)
March 12-16 South x Southwest Music Festival (Austin, TX)
March 15 Shamrock Festival 2007 (Washington, DC - RFK Stadium)
March 20 - April 5 Savannah Music Festival
March 28-29 Ultra Music Festival (Bicentenniel Park - Miami, Florida)
April 18-19 Dewey Beach Pop Festival(Rehoboth,DE)
April 25-27 Coachella (Indio, CA)
April 25-27 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (New Orleans, LA)
May 1-4 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
(New Orleans, LA)
June 6-8 Rock im Ring (Nuremberg, Germany)
June 5-8 Chicago Blues Festival
June 13-15 The Download Festival (Donnington Park, Leceistershire, UK
June 20-21 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (Booneville, CA)
June 27-29 Glastonbury Festival (U.K.)
Early July - TBD Pitchfork Music Festival (Chicago)
July 3-6 Roskilde Festival (Roskilde, Denmark)
July 4-6 Essence Music Festival (New Orleans, LA)
July 11-13 Vancouver Island Music Festival (Vancouver Island, Canada)
July 17-20 Festival Internacional de Benicassim (near Valencia, Spain with an excellent line-up)
July 23-26 10,000 Lakes Festival (Detroit Lakes, Minnesota)
August 1-4 Eclipe Outdoor Electronic Music Festival (Montreal, Candada)
August 1-3 Lollapallooza (Grant Park - Chicago, IL)
August 6-11 Shambhala (Canada)
August 16-17 V Festival (Hylands Park, Chelmsford & Weston Park, Staffordshire - UK)
August 22-24 Reading and Leeds Festival (U.K.)
August 25- September 1 Burning Man
August 28-31 Chicago Jazz Festival (Grant Park - Chicago, IL)
August 30- September 1 Bumbershoot Lineup to be announced in Spring 2008. (Washington State)

Festivals To Be Determined for 2008
TBD Virgin Festival 2008
TBD Goodstock (West Virginia)
TBD Ozzfest begins
TBD - Last year cancelled due to tornado Heineken Jammin' Festival (Italy)

OK GO New Orleans Benefit @ 9:30 Tonight - Want my tix?

2008-02-02T19:46:00.000Z

I can't go to the show tonight. If anyone wants my tickets, please leave a comment with your email address. Below is an excerpt from the press release. The entire press release can be found here.

On February 2, OK Go and Bonerama will join forces for a benefit at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club. The show is in support of You’re Not Alone, a digital EP the two bands put together after OK Go spent the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina recording with the New Orleans funk-soul band deep in the city’s Upper 9th Ward. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the EP - available exclusively at iTunes - will benefit Al “Carnival Time” Johnson and other members of New Orleans’ music community who are still struggling to rebuild their homes and their lives in the wake of Katrina. The five-song mini-album will be released on February 5 - Mardi Gras.

“New Orleans is one of the last places in America where music is truly a fundamental part of everyday life,” says OK Go’s Damian Kulash. “People get together on the weekends and parade through the streets just playing songs; 12-year-old-kids learn funk on the tuba; everyone actually dances. Life elsewhere in the world simply isn’t as awesome. If we allow the culture of New Orleans to die by leaving its musicians marooned around the country, it will be a terrible blow to American music.”

Hillary Clinton is a Disgrace to Feminists

2008-02-01T09:15:00.000Z

I can't believe that Hillary Clinton wants the world to think that whenever she gets into political trouble, she's going to have her husband come roaring about, breaking furniture, sucking up oxygen, spewing carbon dioxide. My impression is that she's strong enough to defend herself--she certainly showed that in the recent Democratic debate. But apparently she's not strong enough to control Mr. Bill...and if that's the case, any sane voter would have to think twice before enabling this sort of circus act in the White House.

Maureen Dowd

I'm not one to generally agree with Ms. Dowd, but in this case she's on to something. Hillary Clinton should be out defending herself and not sending her husband to do it for her. And the "all the other spouses do it" doesn't apply for two reasons: (1) no other spouse's megaphone is as big as a former President's; and (2) Hillary is a woman. Having a man step up to defend her just undermines her claim to be a feminist icon and sets the women's movement back decades, unless fish really do need bicycles.

Additionally, the more she attacks Republicans the more she loses the residual good will built up by working in a bi-partisan way with her Republican colleagues. She is setting things up for a re-run of hte 1990s and we really don't need that. Additionally, no one in the Republican Coalition will refrain from dredging up all of Clinton's mis-deeds and mis-judgements from his post-Presidency from pardonning big donors to his investments with the sketchy Ron Burkle. They also have no interest in helping further the Bill Clinton legacy and will do everything they can to hang him like an albatross around Hillary's neck.

Well Yeah - There's Even Two Books about Elite Betrayal etc

2008-01-30T21:02:00.000Z

The Raw Story | Old-line Republican warns 'something's in the works' to trigger a police state

One is Revolt of the Elites by Christopher Lasch. The other is The Irony of American Democracy by Dye and Ziglar.

The "Margin of Error" Does Not Mean What Journalists Think It Means

2008-01-29T06:40:00.000Z

In the Princess Bride, the kidnapper Vizzini keeps using the word "inconceivable" to describe various events until Inigo Montoya states "That word, I do not think it means what you think it does." This is a good metaphor for the continual, repititous mis-use of the political polling "marging of error."

Polling is a branch of statistics which is mathematically sound in every way except when it comes to evaluating the relative positions of candidates vis a vis the voters. This is because to get an accurate sample for your poll, you have to know what the general population is. Gallup or Quinippiac or whomever can accurately poll the American people on anything but politics because the U.S. Census Bureau provides data on the entire U.S. population which allows them to accurately gauge the citizenry's preferences based on a small sample.

However, for political polling the population of voters is undefined until after the election and polling organizations have to make assumptions based on historical and other models of what the voting population will look like in order to draw a sample from which to poll. This is why political polling is as much art as science.

Now we get to the part where journalists continually demonstrate their poor educations. The size of the sample directly correlates with the poll's margin of error, e.g., the larger the sample size the smaller the margin of error. Generally any poll with a margin of error greater than 3.5% is worthless and there's no point really paying attention to it. Political campaigns use polls with larger margins of error (and smaller samples) because they are easier to obtain.

The "margin of error" in actuality is the percentage chance that the sample population is completely wrong on either side of the bell curve. So a margin of error of 3.5% means that the poll has a 1 in 30 chance of being COMPLETELY WRONG because the sample is off.

Reporters frequently report that if Candidate D beats Candidate R by 2% in a poll and the margin of error is 3% that "the candidates are statistically tied." That is in no way true. It means that Candidate D has 2% more support than candidate R, but that there is a 1 in 33 chance that the entire poll is wrong, meaning either candidate could be ahead by 10%, 20% or more. By constantly repeating this defective meme the mainstream media perpetuates a misunderstanding of polling by the general public as well as constantly reminds the educated among us that they are undereducated with no real understanding of what they are reporting on.

Jazzfest Lineup Announced

2008-01-28T19:52:00.000Z

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has announced a partial line up (below). If you have never been, you really should go. It's a great opportunity to see loads of great music and is a complete blast. The official line-up is here.

Announced Line Up
Neville Brothers
Stevie Wonder
Billy Joel
Jimmy Buffett
Tim McGraw
Santana
Maze feat
Frankie Beverly
Sheryl Crow
Widespread Panic
Dr. John
Al Green
Diana Krall
Keyshia Cole
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
The Raconteurs
Irma Thomas

And Thousands More Scheduled to Appear Fest

How Bush Fractured the GOP

2008-01-28T10:36:00.000Z

I originaly blogged about the Democratic and Republican party crack ups here. While I said the crack up was coming, Peggy Noonan correctly points out in yesterday's Wall Street Journal that the Republcian party already is fractured and George W. Bush caused it. She is 100% correct, but doesn't detail his actions that caused this. Therefore below I have briefly outlined the actions of the Bush Administration which have torn the party asunder. You can read her op-ed below my comments or here.

First, in mid-2001 he alienated free traders by imposing anti-trade steel tariffs in a blatant attempt to buy votes in West Virginia. Then after after 9/11 he alienated civil libertarians by pushing through the Patriot Act (however, much of the Patriot Act simply gave the FBI the same legal authority that the DEA already had in terms of certain investigatory techniques) and then pushing for wireless warrant tapping and blatantly violating our civil rights. He alienate fiscal conservatives by creating the largest entitlement since LBJ - the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit - which is bankrupting the Medicare Trust Fund at an even faster rate than before. He further alienated this crucial block by increasing domestic spending at a faster rate even than LBJ. On that last point, I believe the President is only guilty of acquiescing to the actions and desires of former Republican Whip and Majority Leader Tom DeLay in his attempt to buy more House seats to preserve power for its own sake instead of to enact positive public policies.

Now to Peggy Noonan's Piece

DECLARATIONS

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
By PEGGY NOONAN
January 25, 2008; Page W14

We begin, as one always must now, again, with Bill Clinton. The past week he has traveled South Carolina, leaving discord in his wake. Barack Obama, that "fairytale," is low, sneaky. "He put out a hit job on me." The press is cruelly carrying Mr. Obama's counter-jabs. "You live for it."

In Dillon, S.C., according to the Associated Press, on Thursday Mr. Clinton "predicted that many voters will be guided mainly by gender and race loyalties" and suggested his wife may lose Saturday's primary because black voters will side with Mr. Obama. Who is raising race as an issue? Bill Clinton knows. It's the press, and Mr. Obama. "Shame on you," Mr. Clinton said to a CNN reporter. The same day the Web site believed to be the backdoor of the Clinton war room unveiled a new name for the senator from Illinois: "Sticky Fingers Obama."

Bill Clinton, with his trembly, red-faced rage, makes John McCain look young. His divisive and destructive daily comportment—this is a former president of the United States—is a civic embarrassment. It is also an education, and there is something heartening in this.

There are many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats who support Mr. Obama and John Edwards, and who are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so. Here is William Greider in The Nation, the venerable left-liberal magazine. The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."

That, again, is from one of the premier liberal journals in the United States. It is exactly what conservatives have been saying for a decade. This may mark a certain coming together of the thoughtful on both sides. The Clintons, uniters at last.

Mr. Obama takes the pummeling and preaches the high road. It's all windup with him, like a great pitcher more comfortable preparing to throw than throwing. Something in him resists aggression. He tends to be indirect in his language, feinting, only suggestive. I used to think he was being careful not to tear the party apart, and endanger his own future.

But the Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans. And to do it in a way that signals, to his supporters, How dare you have the temerity, the ingratitude, after all we've done for you?

Watch for the GOP to attempt swoop in after the November elections and make profit of the wreckage.

* * *

As for the Republicans, their slow civil war continues. The primary race itself is winnowing down and clarifying: It is John McCain versus Mitt Romney, period. At the same time the conservative journalistic world is convulsed by recrimination and attack. They're throwing each other out of the party. Republicans have become very good at that. David Brooks damns Rush Limbaugh who knocks Bill Kristol who anathematizes whoever is to be anathematized this week. This Web site opposes that magazine.

The rage is due to many things. A world is ending, the old world of conservative meaning, and ascendancy. Loss leads to resentment. (See Clinton, Bill.) Different pundits back different candidates. Some opportunistically discover new virtues in candidates who appear at the moment to be winning. Some feel they cannot be fully frank about causes and effects.

More on that in a moment.

I saw Mr. McCain this Tuesday in New York, at a fund-raiser at which a breathless aide shared, "We just made a million dollars." What a difference a few wins makes. There were a hundred people outside chanting, "Mac is back!" and perhaps a thousand people inside, crammed into a three-chandelier ballroom at the St. Regis. When I attended a fund-raiser in October there was none of this; perhaps 200 came, and people were directed to crowd around the candidate as if to show he had support. Now you had to fight your way through a three-ring cluster. (When I attended a Giuliani fund-raiser this summer I saw something I wish I'd noted: The audience was big but wasn't listening. They were all on their BlackBerrys. That should have told me something about his support.)

Mr. McCain is in the middle of a shift. Previous strategy: I'm John McCain and you know me, we've traveled through history together. New strategy: I'm the old vet who fought on the front lines of the Reagan-era front, and I am about to take on the mantle of the essentials of conservatism—lower spending, smaller government, strong in the world. He is going to strike the great Reagan gong, not in a way that is new but in a way that is new for him.

In this he is repositioning himself back to where he started 30 years ago: as a Southwestern American conservative veteran of the armed forces. That is, inherently if not showily, anti-establishment. That is, I am the best of the past.

Mr. Romney, on the other hand, is running as I Am Today. I am new and fresh, in fact I'm tomorrow, I know all about the international flow of money and the flatness of the world, I know what China is, I can see you through the turbulence just as I saw Bain to success.

It will all come down to: Whom do Republicans believe? Mr. Romney in spite of his past and now-disavowed liberal positions? Or Mr. McCain in spite of his forays, the past 10 years, into a kind of establishment mindset that has suggested that The Establishment Knows Best?

Do conservatives take inspiration from Mr. Romney's newness? Or do they take comfort and security from Mr. McCain's rugged ability to endure, and to remind?

It is along those lines the big decision will be made.

* * *

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.

I believe that some of the ferocity of the pundit wars is due to a certain amount of self-censorship. It's not in human nature to enjoy self-censorship. The truth will out, like steam from a kettle. It hurts to say something you supported didn't work. I would know. But I would say of these men (why, in the continuing age of Bill Clinton, does the emoting come from the men?) who are fighting one another as they resist naming the cause for the fight: Sack up, get serious, define. That's the way to help.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on The Editorial Page.

Bill Clinton Shows He's Just Another Cracker

2008-01-27T02:23:00.001Z

Bill Clinton's continual use of symbols and code words to inject race into the Democratic Presidential contest, not only to drive white voters away from Obama, but also to devalue Obama's South Carolina victory (such as comparing him to Jesse Jackson) shows that he fully understands exactly what he is doing. The fact that he would do this shows that the Clintons care more about retaining their own power and are willing to drive a racial wedge through the Democratic party to do it. The Clintons are still about the politics of personal destruction and nothing will change by putting them back into the White House.

If you don't believe me read this quote from President Bill Clinton, as reported here:

"They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender. That's why people tell me Hillary doesn't have a chance of winning here," the former president said at one stop as he campaigned for his wife, strongly suggesting that blacks would not support a white alternative to Obama.

Clinton campaign strategists denied any intentional effort to stir the racial debate. But they said they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as "the black candidate," a tag that could hurt him outside the South.

The Coming Political Realignment

2008-01-23T02:22:00.000Z

The fractious competition in both the Republican and Democratic presidential selection process threatens to tear asunder the coalitions that have undergirded both for years. The nomination of John McCain will alienate most supply siders and free speech libertarians. Rudy Giuliani's nomination will alienate the values voters, and Mike Huckabee's nomination will alienate non-evangelicals and non-christianists as well as all right thinking Americans who think it's an abomination that Southern States incorporated the Confederate Battle Flag into their state flags during the push to end segregation. Mitt Romney's nomination obviously will alienate the evangelicals and anyone who prizes ideological consistency.

The likely nomination of Senator Clinton will split the black vote along generational lines. The younger generation of black leaders already is questioning the unwavering support of the black community for the Democratic party, and the Clintonian savaging of Barack Obama will cause them to take a second look at the Republican Party. House Democratic Whip James Clyburn's recent acknowledgement that Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen did much to advance civil rights is one reason for this second look. Additionally, the black community likely will come to realize that the Clintons are pitting Hispanics against them and will resent that.

All of this means that parts of both parties will be alienated and up for grabs post the 2008 Presidential election regardless of which party wins. It's conceivable that Republicans could regain their share of the Hispanic vote and enlarge their share of the black vote, while Democrats would gain the allegiance of more social and fiscal libertarians (provided they keep to their DLC roots and don't revert to their big spending LBJ era ways).

A Little Intellectual Honesty from President Clinton (and many Republicans) Would Be Nice

2008-01-21T05:01:00.000Z

Bill Clinton's recent attempts to burnish his record as President while simultaneously attempting to destroy the first viable black candidate for President (Senator Obama) are worth noting for their disengenousness. Especially the claims about the economic success and policies of the 1990s.

Now, I realize that Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992. I also know that Newt Gingrich and the Republicans seized the Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1994 elections after Senator Clinton's disastrous health care plan and President Clinton's massive tax hikes. The first time in decades that federal spending declined year over year was fiscal year 1995. It's not a coincidence that this happened when Republicans controlled Congress.

The Clinton Presidency with the Republican Congress is the only functional government that has existed in my lifetime (except for President Clinton's self-destruction by cheating on Senator Clinton). The reason is simple: The Republican Congress wouldn't let the Democrat President increase spending as much as he wanted and was able to force through necessary legislation such as the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (Primarily written by Republican Ways & Means Chairman Bill Archer and Republican Finance Committee Chairman Bill Roth) and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (welfare reform)of 1996. And the Democrat President wouldn't let Republicans cut taxes as much as they wanted.

To claim that the budget would have been balanced with a Majority Democrat Congress is a flat out lie and intellectually dishonest. This is because President Clinton himself even said in 1993 that cutting the deficit through reduced spending wasn't a priority. He only changed tactics and triangulated his way to re-election (with the help of uber consultant Dick Morris, who BTW never misses a chance to take a cheat shot at Senator Clinton). While Bill Clinton is right that many good policy ideas in the 1990s did originate with the Democratic Leadership Council's think tank, he chose not to pursue many of those ideas and instead pushed through a series of small, targeted policies which only had peripheral impacts, but were hugely symbolic.

BTW, the DLC, which President Clinton Chaired, was founded because the Republicans DID have some of the best ideas of the 1980s and he, Senator Lieberman and Al From thought that the Democratic party needed to move away from the San Francisco Democrat fringe (so-named because of the site of the 1984 Democratic National Convention) and towards the middle - i.e., where the Republicans were. So a little intellectual honesty on that front would be nice.

Back to the main point - a Majority Democrat Congress in the 90s would've gone on a massive spending rampage just like the Republicans did when Tom Delay destroyed the Republican party by spending like sailors on shore leave in an attempt to buy more House seats to retain power for its own sake instead of to advance positive policy solutions. The Democrats just would've spent the money on different things.

The economic success of the 1990s wasn't due to politicians per se, it was due to divided government keeping both parties in check. Specifically a Democratic President and Republican Congress - we've seen too many times that the reverse never produced economic success of that enjoyed in the 1990s.

Therefore, President Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama are out right disengenous. But his relationship with the truth has always been worse than his relationship with his wife.

The Europeans Really Are Worthless Allies

2008-01-18T04:40:00.000Z

In this story, U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates states the obvious about our so-called European allies. Of course, he had to make nice and apologize to keep up decent trade relations, but that was just to let the Europeans save face.When the chips are down they are essentially useless.

This is because they spend virtually no money on their defence budgets. Of course, they are able to do this because they have enjoyed the U.S. Security Umbrella for 60 years. During which time, Western Europe has grown fat, happy and lazy. While we have bankrupted our society to defend Western Civilization, they have been happily free-riding and using the money they don't spend on defence to fund lavish social welfare states - little wonder unemployment is so high - there's really no incentive to work when the government gives you free money.

It's not just me or Secretary Gates who espouses this view. It's also shared by Distinguished Professor and U.S. foreign policy expert Graham Allison (perhaps best known for his 1969 essay "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis "). During the terrifying and all to real Oil Shockwave simulation in Washington last November (featuring such luminaries as Carol Browner, Robert Rubin and Richard Armitage) I had the privilege of sitting next to him and asking his opinion on this very topic. His response was that Afghanistan had proven that our NATO allies were simply incapable of fighting alongside U.S. forces because they are undertrained and their governments don't buy equipment that works alongside U.S. high tech equipment - the so-called interoperability problem.

NATO originally was formed "To keep the Germans down, the Russians out, and the U.S. in." Well, the Russians are now in, the Germans are up and if it weren't for the fact that our Eastern European friends such as Poland and the Czech Republic need our protection we should be out. With the exception of our British cousins, the Europeans are useless. The Brits, Scots and Irish are the only Westerners who share our and the Eastern European values of freedom and democracy and know that they have to be fought for generation after generation to be maintained. "Old Europe" as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld termed it is even too tired to even manage to reproduce its population - with the exception of France which almost has a replacement rate population growth (fueled by Muslim immigrants), the entire continent can't even manage to get close to the 2.1 child per family reproduction replacement rate. It's dying and therefore not even worth defending the next time they're attacked.

The Downside of Anti-lobbyist Rhetoric by Obama and Edwards

2008-01-16T00:17:00.000Z

The Politico has picked up on the "potential downside of being anti-lobbyist" meme, which I posted on 10 days ago. You can read my original post here. Their story even validates my point about how banning lobbyists from a Presidential Administration radically reduces the talent pool, and quotes no less an authority than Paul Light, formerly with the Brookings Institution. However, it does not go into the potential damage such an action would do to the Capitol Hill Democratic Leadership, which would have been nice follow through. Just goes to show how lazy reporters really are.

Imitation really is a nice form of flattery. The Politico story is below:

Anti-lobby pledges easier said than done
By: Jeanne Cummings
January 14, 2008 09:07 PM EST

John Edwards and Barack Obama are taking their bans on donations from Washington lobbyists one step further: pledging to limit the role of the persuasion class in their administrations.

Needless to say, this isn’t sitting too well with lobbyists here in town, and at least one expert wonders whether it makes much sense.

“It’s easier to say you are going to ban lobbyists from your administration than actually doing it,” said Paul C. Light, an expert on federal appointments and hiring.

“We know from past research, back to the Kennedy administration, that almost two-thirds of presidential appointees come from within the Washington standard metropolitan area — almost a three- or four-mile radius around the White House,” he added.

The pledges from both candidates are aimed at bolstering their argument that they can change the way Washington operates. Neither is proposing an all-out ban on lobbyists-turned-presidential-advisers, although that might actually be easier to implement than what they are planning.

If elected, Edwards says he wouldn’t hire or appoint Washington-registered corporate lobbyists or those who represent foreign governments.

“It is unrealistic to think that you can sit at a table with drug companies, insurance companies and oil companies and they are going to negotiate their power away,” he says on the campaign trail.

Obama is keeping the door open to hiring them. But any lobbyist who joins his administration wouldn’t be permitted to work on “any project, law or regulation related to their former employer.” And, upon leaving his service, the former appointee would be prohibited from lobbying the Obama administration for the duration of his term.

On the campaign trail, the Illinois senator vows to “challenge the money and influence that’s stood” in the way of major policy changes. He also reminds audiences that he co-sponsored sweeping ethics reform legislation passed last year. “I’ve gotten something done,” he says.

Certainly, there are reasons for any administration — and particularly a new one — to be cautious. The most obvious one: Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff, who was convicted in a bribery scheme involving members of Congress, never officially worked for the White House. But in 2001, he used his ties to the new Bush administration to promote the hiring of some of his allies in the Interior Department and the General Services Administration. Then he used those connections to advance the interests of his clients. (Some of his Bush administration allies ultimately were convicted, too.)

The Abramoff scandal was the subject of hearings chaired by Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain of Arizona. The fallout tarnished Congress more than the White House. But it fed the story line of Bush critics who claim the administration has been too cozy with corporate interests and lobbyists.

While it makes sense for the Abramoff scandal to prompt a prospective president to raise his guard, cases such as his are pretty rare. Meanwhile, there are some downsides to the Obama and Edwards pledges.

Lobbyists, for all their baggage, also happen to represent some of the best-trained advocates in Washington. The community also is home to a slew of experts on policy ranging from health care to energy to foreign affairs.

The Edwards and Obama approaches could wind up excluding, or discouraging, an impressive pool of talent from assisting their White Houses.

“I just think it’s silly,” said Charlie Black, a longtime lobbyist who is now helping McCain’s campaign.
“There are a lot of CEOs who have to register as lobbyists and their executives who come to town to meet with members. It’s demonizing a group of people who are mostly honorable people and who are knowledgeable about how government works and public policy,” he added.

Indeed, the pool of registered lobbyists is expanding today under the ethics reform law pushed by Obama.

Ethics attorneys in Washington spent much of last year urging corporations to err on the side of caution by registering anyone who touches, or even confers about, a strategy for influencing Congress. That could shrink the potential employment pool under Edwards’ no-corporate-lobbyist rules.

The fine wording of Edwards’ hiring ban is also likely to lead to some predictably edgy headlines, warned Light, a professor of public service at New York University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Among the scrutiny the former North Carolina senator would face: questions about the fairness of hiring a former labor union lobbyist while shutting out any corporate advocates, or headlines that note an appointee had once been a registered lobbyist.

“It’s a nice promise to make, but the people who have to implement the rules could go crazy,” Light said.

The decision by both candidates to ban federal lobbyists — not state lobbyists — from their donor lists already has led to the same sort of technical attacks.

At a New Hampshire debate, Hillary Rodham Clinton noted that a high-ranking figure in Obama’s campaign is a lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company. Obama shook his head and muttered that the charge just wasn’t so. But the adviser is indeed a lobbyist, albeit at the state level.

Finally, the policies overlook some new realities: Many in Washington want to be, or wind up becoming, a lobbyist. Republicans have long used lobbying shops as a refuge while their party was out of power. In the Bush years, Democrats had begun to follow the same path. Democratic lobbyists’ ranks swelled significantly last year after their party took over the Congress, making them sought-after hires for groups that had lost touch with the once-minority party.

That phenomenon would not only limit Edwards’ personnel choices, but it could make Obama’s post-service rules unpalatable to many who would lose significant income if they lost their ability to lobby the administration.

“It’s hard to be in this town without doing some lobbying to get by,” Light concluded.

TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company

Do the Old Civil Rights Guard Fear an Obama Presidency Will End Their Influence?

2008-01-15T03:00:00.000Z

The seeming generational split among African American leaders between Obama and Clinton, raises a number of questions. The first among these is whether the older generation simply wants to "dance with the one that brung ya" by supporting those in the White Establishment who enabled their success. There is a very disrepectful term in the black community for African Americans of this ilk.

The second question is whether the older generation is so acclimated to perceived limits on their ability to achieve power beyond a certain level that they simply can't imagine one of their own ascending to the heights of power and are going with the safe bet? If so, this is cowardly.

The final question about those black leaders who support question is whether they're really concerned about preserving their own power. After all if Obama wins the Democratic Presidential Nomination, let alone the Presidency itself, wouldn't that effectively end the Civil Rights movement? All of a sudden there would be no need for the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton et al. These people would have to stop talking about how racist our society is and how we collectively keep the black man down if a black man actually wins the Presidency.

The last seems like the most likely, despite its inherent venality.

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Conspiracy Culture Critique

2008-01-13T00:49:00.000Z

Ok, so I've gotten away from it for a while, but I would like to make an observation on the 2007-2008 Television Season and its relationship with conspiracy culture.

It is worth noting that two successful television shows, Bones and NUMB3RS, have embraced conspiracy culture and the multiple episode story arc formula this year. Both of these shows are excellent in their own right, but apparently their writers/directors thought a little bit of conspiracy-related intrigue would jones up their shows.

Bones took the direct route of tying its season to a Templar-related conspiracy regarding a cult of people called Gorgothans or some such (can't remember right off hand). This story arc has surfaced in a handful of episodes this past season, and it looks to be starting off in a manner similar to the Smoking Man-related episodes of the X-Files. It's not clear if this story arc will be wrapped up in the current season (or I should say was intended to be wrapped up in the current season given the Writers' Strike) or whether it will continue for several seasons until it metastasizes into a a primary focus of the series.

NUMB3RS took a more convention approach to conspiracy media culture, firmly embedding their conspiracy in the realm of possiblility - counter espionage and mole hunting within the FBI. Agent Colby Granger was a triple agent - helping conduct an internal investigation of the FBI/Department of Justice for moles while posing as a double agent for the Chinese governement and feeding them false information. The show dealt credibly with the fallout of the Colby's exposure and subsequent rescue before being killed at the hands of the Chinese mole - his partner and team had serious reservations about him and conflicted loyalties after feeling they had been spied on by him. So far this conspiracy element is wrapped up and it looks like similar conspiracies won't surface again, at least for a while.

Interestingly, the NUMB3RS conspiracy arc started with the investigation of the murder of a Chinese consulate employee in what looked like a typical NUMB3RS episode. The conspiracy element was slow to emerge with Agent Colby Granger later appearing on a master "Janus List" of double agents in another seemingly typical NUMB3RS episode. I have to say that the NUMB3RS writers did an excellent job of introducing and weaving the conspiracy elements into the ongoing story arc. Well done.

She's Proved She Can Fake Sincerity, I Guess She Can Fake Anything

2008-01-12T05:40:00.001Z

I realize this is a bit late to the Zeitgeist, but Hillary Clinton's "emotional breakdown" were a classic tactic learned from the master himself. Her husband. Funny how she was able to still launch right into her talking points even after being on the verge of tears.

A girl running for class president in my high school did the same thing in the 80s when she realized she was going to lose. It works like this: everyone feels sorry for the girl becuase she's so so distraught and figures that since the other guy has such a strong lead, their vote to demonstrate pity/moral support, won't detract from their first preference actually winning. I call it the "Niki Effect" after the girl for whom it worked.

Bill Clinton Undermining Hillary's Campaign

2008-01-12T05:13:00.000Z

The continuing controversey around Bill Clinton's remarks about Senator Obama and the civil rights movement, as illustrated by the reaction of House Majority Whip and Civil Rights Leader Jame Clyburn, illustrate why he should shut the hell up and get out of his wife's way.

While I'm a Libertarian, I give credit where it's due. Bill Clinton was a much better President than Republicans gave him credit for, and Hillary Clinton was rated as one of the 100 best lawyers in America by Legal Times years before she became First Lady. She is smart, accomplished and completely able to run her own campaign and win without Bill's surrogate/public appearances and attendant media coverage. (Though she would be a fool not to take his advice behind closed doors as he is likely the greatest American politician since Lincoln).

Everytime Bill Clinton says or does anything on Hillary's behalf he becomes a news item. This detracts from news coverage of her and potentially damages her campaign. The lastest "fairy tale" quote being a perfect example. I believe his explanation and wathcing the video clip in its entirety validates it, though the statement itself was inartful and not the best example of Bill Clinton's exemplary speaking ability or rhetorical style. (I also believe what Senator Barack Obama said recently about not wanting to undercut John Kerry in 2004 by voicing an opinion on the Iraq War contrary to his own party's nominee - call me naive, but I like to take people at their word especially when they're not obviously dissembling - which doesn't mean to that I believed Bill Clinton in 1998 about Monica Lewinsky)

My point being that Bill Clinton's comments, miscontrued as they were, were broadcast widely and loudly throughout the media establishment. This sucked the oxygen out of the air for anything newsworthy Hillary did or wanted to do. Afterall, the media are only going to cover the Clinton's so much and it's either one or the other.

Additionally, Bill Clinton still evokes visceral hatred from Republicans and conservatives alike, which means that everytime he speaks on his wife's behalf conservative commentators have an opening to trash her more and the Republican base gets a bit more riled up against Hillary. She might have a fighting chance of getting some Republican votes if he'd shut up since most Republican opposition to her in the 90s was based on, to quote a friend, "the fact that no one elected her to do shit, and she was never confirmed by the Senate for anything." A lot of GOP angst about Hillary started to dissipate once she was elected to the Senate in her own right.

I have no doubt this is unconscious behavior. Professional women are often warned not to bring their husbands to business dinners because the husbands will subtley undercut them unconsciously. Bill Clinton is doing the same thing.

Hillary has showcased him enough. It's time for her campaign to ship him off to Antarctica where he won't be able to garner any media coverage. He is a distraction that hurts her whenever he opens his mouth.

Obama NH Campaign Victim of "David Duke Effect"

2008-01-09T04:44:00.000Z

After his stunning upset in Iowa, the NH polls suddenly showed a giant uptick for Obama, which was not reflected in the outcome of tonight’s election. A large portion of this was undoubtedly due to the David Duke Effect. The David Duke Effect is named after a Senate candidate in Louisiana in the late 80s/early 90s named David Duke who was a Ku Klux Klan member. Polls of the race consistently showed him garnering the support of fewer than 10% of Louisianans. On Election Day he received substantially more votes than that. The general conclusion: racists didn’t want to admit they were supporting Duke and gave the “correct” answer.

Given my previous post, you likely know I believe the same thing happened in New Hampshire this year. People in NH didn’t want to admit they were not supporting Obama, but said they were anyway, because it was “the right answer” after his Iowa victory. The tragedy is that the Obama campaign believed the polls and discounted the David Duke Effect. Being ahead, especially after a hard fought victory like Iowa, his staff undoubtedly started believing their own press and unfortunately got complacent.

None of which to is to say that Hillary did anything untoward. The point is that while neither campaign knew it (and Hillary's almost imploded over it) Hillary Clinton was always ahead and winning, albeit narrowly. Therefore there really is no point in asking how she recovered. However, her near implosion and the Obama campaign's overrconfidence do betray a strong faith in America and our collective journey away from racism. That those at the heights of power believe this is both reassuring and comforting in some small way.

I wish them and their hardworking staffs the best of luck for the rest of the campaign season.

Clinton Administration Infighting Impacts IA Caucuses: Richardson Knifes Hillary (Field Report Four)

2008-01-08T06:13:00.000Z

According to another campaign colleague, during the Iowa Caucuses, Richardson decided to ask his supporters to back Obama if he wasn’t “viable” in their precinct. In the Democratic Caucuses, a candidate must receive 15% of the vote on the first round in order to be eligible to win delegates. Supporters of candidates deemed “unviable” are cajoled, sweet talked, persuaded and threatened by their neighbors into supporting their 2nd preference. Richardson was always the only viable candidate among the 2nd tier under these rules and this actually explains why he didn’t come in with more than 2% of the vote.

Going into the Caucuses, Edwards was the 2nd choice of a majority of caucus goers. In fact, many political observers thought that he would win on that basis alone. By asking (and getting) his supporters to back Obama on the 2nd round instead of Edwards, Richardson essentially threw the election to Obama, kneecapping Hillary in the process. She would have been able to withstand an Edwards victory (after all, he has no money) but as we’ve seen an Obama victory is something else – a victory for the forces of real change and an inspiration our nation hasn’t felt since the days of RFK (apparently – I wasn’t here yet). Ironically Hillary really is not perceived as “a change agent” since she has been on the national scene at least since failing to get Congress to enact her misbegotten health care plan. Obama on the other hand, really is a new fresh face who does represent change and a new direction for the Democratic Party (i.e. away from the Clinton’s).

Now the question arises as to why Richardson, whom many perceived as angling for Hillary’s VP or Secretary of State slots, would do this. It’s quite simple really and it goes back to the Clinton Administration: Terry McAuliffe. Apparently there was some dust up between the Governor and the former Democratic Party Chairman/fundraiser extraordinaire in which it was strongly intimated that not backing Hillary would result in some type of retribution. Given McAuliffe’s position it could either be a threat to cut off Richardson’s funding for the NM Senate Primary (assuming he gets in during the short deadline after Feb. 5) or the promise of being excluded from a future Hillary Clinton Administration.

Ironically, whatever threat McAuliffe made obviously backfired and put Clinton in the position she’s now in – on the verge of losing a 2nd straight primary/caucus by double digits (assuming the David Duke Statistical Lie problem isn’t affecting the polling outcome, which based on my previous posts I believe it is though I still think Obama MAY be able to squeak through a victory). Should Hillary be unable to regain her footing before Feb.5, she will tarnish the Clinton legacy and effectively end the Clinton Machine’s hold on the Democratic Party. It would be morning in the Democratic Party.

To paraphrase Nixon, “Richardson knows a little about politics too.”

Oh, and just for the record, Hillary saying she knows how to beat Republicans is bunk. A Republican Minority, lead by Senator Phil Gramm of Texas beat her health care plan to smithereens in 1993. In both 1992 and 1996 more people voted against Bill Clinton than voted for him. He only received 43% of the vote in 1992 and 49% in 1996. The Clinton’s only know how to beat Republicans in a three-man race (Perot ’92, Buchanan ’96) in which the 3rd guy appeals to core Republican values. Put her head to head with anyone but Huckabee and she’ll have a hard time of it – Romney’s actually achieved universal health care in his state, McCain is definitely more trustworthy and likeable despite the establishment’s attitude towards him and can play the military b ackground card in a way she can’t, and Giuliani can counter the change argument easily (“I changed the country by bringing down the mob,” “I changed Wall Street culture, at least temporarily, by bringing down Ivan Boesky,” “I changed New York City, the untamable city, and made it livable for families again” – how does she counter that?).

Romney Tried to Suppress Giuliani IA Support (IA Field Report Three)

2008-01-08T00:47:00.000Z

According to another colleague of mine who was monitoring Iowa Caucus 0precincts for his candidate in parts of Eastern Iowa, Romney County Chairs were demanding that Giuliani representatives not be allowed to speak since some of them were from out of state. This is a blatant abuse that should have been dealt with by the Iowa GOP County Chair or the state party.

As a veteran of Iowa caucuses, I can tell you that anyone can be authorized to speak on behalf of a candidate, regardless of state of voter registration. This is completely acceptable under party rules as long as the "outsider" doesn't attempt t vote. I'm a native Iowan, but not registered to vote there, and I've given multiple nominating speeches for different candidates.

In fact, last week both Governor Dave Heineman (Nebraska) and Governor Matt Blunt (Missouri) were allowed to speak on behalf of their respective candidates (can't remember who campaigned for whom). Either they shouldn't have been allowed to speak, or everyone should have been, regardless of where they were from as long as they didn't attempt to vote.

Putting on my analyst/pundit hat my observation is this: Despite Giuliani's lack of a strong presence in Iowa (And I do admire his attempt to run an entirely new strategy), Romney felt the need to keep Giuliani support down in Iowa in order to damage the viability of the person most likely to threaten Romney's ascension to the nomination. Huckabee is a joke - like Pat Robertson he'll get crushed in New Hampshire, where McCain will will. I already wrote about Thompson's dubious Iowa victory, though he has a strong chance of winning South Carolina if he plays it right. After two defeats for Romney and a mixed bag of other winners, Giuliani's strategy may prove wise, in which case he and Romney stand the best chance of being the last men standing and forcing a Feb. 5 showdown (Where, if all goes to their plan, Giuliani is likely to win California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and a few other big delegate states). Romney obviously wanted to damage Giuliani as early as possible to undercut this possible scenario.

This is likely the last Iowa field report. I should be posting some from other states later this month. If you have anything to report, please let me know, and I'll do my best to verify it and put it up.

Thompson IA "Momentum" fueled by Ron Paul Database Crash (Field Report Two)

2008-01-05T22:25:00.000Z

One of my well connected political contacts learned yesterday at a Midwestern airport that Ron Paul's 10% Iowa showing was due to a database crash that severely hampered their Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts. I feel badly for the unknown staffer/volunteer who accidentally caused this and debated posting this item due to the potential pain it might cause the anonymous person in question. The anonymous Paul staffer/volunteer went into seclusion after this debacle. I wish him the best of luck in the future and empathize with his embarassment / personal pain.

In any event, Fred Thompson lived in Iowa for the 18 days prior to the Iowa Caucuses, while Ron Paul did not make nearly as many appearances. The fact that Thompson only beat Paul by 3000 votes illustrates that his momentum is mostly an illusion. Had the Paul GOTV operation been operating properly, it is quite likely he would have been able to garner at least another 3500-5000 votes either by turning out additional voters or taking some away from Thompson (Paul actually has more appeal to the conservatives that voted for Thompson than Thompson does due to his "purity" on their issues).

Thus, the late "Thompson surge" is more a product of accidental, technological failing by a competitive rival with unparralleled grass-roots support among non-evangelicals than any indication of real support for Thompson. This is true despite anything Rich Galen has to say on the matter.

Edwards Alienates Hundreds of Potential Volunteers, Endangers Country and Party

2008-01-04T21:04:00.000Z

About a week before the Iowa Caucuses John Edwards stated that if he became President, he would not hire anyone who had been a federal lobbyist. Now, I understand that he doesn't think trial lawyers are a special interest or that his actions as a trial laywer are actually what has caused the health care crisis (health insurance companies raise rates due to jackpot jury awards, thus making healthcare unaffordable and causing companies (especially small firms)to drop their health care coverage for employees.

However, there are literally thousands of people who have been lobbyists and frankly, most of the top lobbyists are the pre-eminent experts in their fields. Why would you want to forgo the expertise of someone simply because of a job they may have held? This is especially concerning considering that some of our nation's top foreign policy people have worked as lobbyists for one firm or another, and sacrificing their knowledge due to some populist BS concern that they're tainted could put our nation in real jeopardy.

Additionally, if he is serious about this, his administration would basically have to depopulate the ranks of senior political/policy experts on Capitol Hill. The effect of this would be to essentially disarm unilaterally against the Republicans on the Hill by taking away all the top Dems with institutional memory and knowledge of how to get things done, while leaving their Republican counterparts in place and able to outmaneuver his own party. In the wake of this past disastrous year for Congressional Democrats, why would you want to make them even weaker?

Finally, lobbyists and former lobbyists are the people who are willing to fly in from out of state on their own dime and help you get out the vote, ID supporters, etc. Telling them they'll have no place in his administration pretty much guarantees they'll drop their plans to help out. After all, why help an ingrate? No one, even "evil lobbyists," volunteers on campaigns simply for future jobs, but a telling them that you're not grateful and won't even consider them for a job in the future pretty much guarantees the loss of a lot of money (from their personal accounts) and help from people who otherwise share his values.

New Hampshire Racism Imperils Obama Momentum (Field Report One)

2008-01-04T20:42:00.000Z

I've been doing some volunteer campaign work recently for one of campaigns. Doesn't matter which one or where (but it's not Obama - I'm a Libterarian and am VERY pleased with Ron Paul's 10% result in Iowa).

One of my colleagues on another campaign told me that they have a South Asian volunteer who has been harassed, threatened and called the N word more times than anyone can count. While I am EXTREMELY pleased with what Obama's Iowa victory says about our nation slowly transcending race as an issue, the treatment of this volunteer by New Hampshire residents is discourgaging in the utmost. Not being representative of the country in terms of diversity is ok if you're openminded (witness Iowa last night), BUT BEING LILLY WHITE AND RACIST is just one more example of why New Hampshire should lose its first in the nation primary status. I don't support Obama due to policy disagreements, but the way New Hampshire is treating this volunteer indicates that he has a hard row to hoe there.

Putting on my analyst/pundit hat, this does not bode well for the Obama campaign and New Hampshire racism could halt his momementum and pitch the race towards Hillary or Edwards. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are good Americans who hate racism and don't want to win this way. It's just unfortunate that this racist little state will get to kneecap Obama before he can really take full advantage of what President George H. W. Bush referred to as "The Big Mo." I mean, it's not like this is happening in the South where such things are to be expected.

I wish our country would finally embrace MLK's dream of judging us by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. New Hampshire residents obviously don't share this dream.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised - after all New Hampshire is populated by former Boston residents, and it's no secret that Boston is one of the most racist cities in the country.

Thompson Advisor Insults Iowans' Intelligence

2007-12-15T22:59:00.000Z

During a rant about how badly he was treated during the Des Moines Register/Iowa Public Television GOP Presidential debate, Senior Thompson Advisor Rich Galen earlier this month wrote in his Mullings Cyber Column:

"It is also possible that there is a law in Iowa forbidding the use of any form of the word 'abysmal.'"

Now, I am from Iowa and find this offensive. This statement implies that Iowans are uneducated and don't know the meaning of "abysmal." In fact, Iowans read more books per capita than the residents of ANY other state in the Union. Iowa high school students also score number one or number two in both the SAT and ACT EVERY YEAR. Hardly the hallmarks of an uneducated populous. Taking potshots at the residents of an entire state (Iowa) simply out of pique directed at one person does not seem smart politics for a senior advisor to a campaign (Thompson) which desperately needs to come in third just to keep alive.

And he wrote this just after a soliloquy of getting into fights with people who buy ink by the barrel.

The Lastest Stupid Conspiracy from Late Night Shots

2007-12-15T10:30:00.001Z

A member of Late Night Shots, that exclusive networking site, recently posted the most inane political conspiracy theory I have come across in a long time:

Whisper on the street... Hillary strategists consider independent candidacy

Posted By: Karl Drove on 12-14-2007 1:06 pm
Report as shockingly offensive

Heard some amazing speculation today from a credible source that Hillary’s brain-trust is considering a worst case scenario should she drop early primaries in IA, NH, SC. Hillary would declare as an independent. Such a move would clearly fracture the Democratic party, but would major advantages. Hillary is polling 10% higher nationally than in early primaries, but with early loses, she would be forced to campaign all the way through, burning up time, money, and energy. Stepping out early would allow her to save her cash horde for a costly general campaign.

Also, the electoral process would support such a bold move. No candidate in a three way race Hillary/Obama/Republican race would be able to get required 270 votes. So the race would be settled in the house…

“If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each State delegation has one vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice Presidential candidates with the most electoral votes. Each Senator would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House.”

My measured response to this absurd notion:

This is a really flawed analysis and if people in Hillaryland really believe this, you have to wonder if they're literally smoking crack. If she did this and lost she'd destroy her political career, damage her husband's legacy and harm the Democratic party for years to come. The only upside for the Dems on this is that it would bring a lot more of them to the polls and likely increase their down ballot victories substantially.

This scenario is much less plausible than a brokered GOP convention. It could happen, but it's more of a secret desire for something interesting/cool to happen in politics than it is a likely scenario. Of course I could be wrong and it could be a smart move politically for Hillary, but I doubt the analysis above. And the statement below is absolute crap:

"No candidate in a three way race Hillary/Obama/Republican race would be able to get [the] required 270 votes." Let's look at the last two signficant three candidate races:

20% of voters chose Ross Perot in 1992's 3-man race and he didn't receive a single electoral vote. Instead Clinton won the Presidency with 43% of the vote, which is what would happen to the GOP nominee, though the percentage would vary. George Wallace's electoral votes didn't hurl the election to the House either.

If Hillary did run as an independent, it would come down to Hillary vs. the Republican with Obama the odd man out due to money. Obama likely wouldn't win ANY electoral votes, and if he did they would be in heavily Democratic states that would hurt Hillary; not in states the GOP would win. This scenario also would essentially erase the money gap between Hillary and the GOP nominee since she'd have to fight on two fronts.

As someone who likes divided government, this scenario would almost guarantee a Republican electoral vote landslide for the GOP because the Dem fracturing would be so pronounced and would motivate their base WAY more than anything else could. Winning the Presidency would be the only way for the GOP to have a hold on power.

Also, even though the House has and likely will have a Democratic majority, as it states below the way it works is that EACH STATE DELEGATION gets one vote. It's not even clear that the GOP doesn't/won't control enough state delegations to impose a GOP President despite being in the minority - especially because some Democrat-controlled delegations (i.e., Illinois) would still vote for Obama instead of Hillary since he'd be the official Dem nominee. Also, we basically control all the small state delegations (Alaska, Montana, etc), and those votes count just as much as the one vote each for California and New York.

Plus, the Blue Dogs could throw in with the GOPers in their delegation to get their state to vote for the more conservative, i.e., Republican candidate. It might be hard for the Speaker to retaliate against them for it too because if she did, they could just cut deals with the Republicans to switch parties, and keep their committee slots and seniority when their mass defections make the GOP the Majority.

Also, if Huckabee is the GOP VP nominee, in this scenario he'd likely still end up as VP since too many of the Dem Senators are/would be from states with strong pro-life constituencies which would punish them in the next election. Dems likely to vote for Huckabee:

Nelson (NE) - up in 2012 and sold his soul to Nebraskans United for Life to get their endorsement.
McCaskill (MO) - up in 2010 in a state that is among the most pro-life in the country - most of the significant right to die and abortion cases the Supreme Court has ruled on came from Missouri.
Baucus (MT) - up in 2012 - a pretty pro-life state.
Bayh (IN) if he's not the VP nominee - up in 2010 and won't want to alienate the pro-life voters in his state - he even votes pro-life on some issues. He'll still win re-election though.
Johnson, Tim (SD) -- not up again til 2014, but in a VERY pro-life state.
Lincoln (AR) - it would be hard for her not to go with her home state Governor who has always won more votes than she.
Pryor (AR) -- same reasons, plus he's about as pro-life as Bayh if not more so.

So that's 7 potential Democrat votes for Huckabee as VP and the Dems are really only likely to pick up about 3-5 seats this cycle, giving them 54-56 Senators. By no means are any of these Senators guaranteed to vote for Huckabee, but to varying degrees each would face pressure to vote for him. Their votes, when combined with their Republican colleagues would install Hucabee in the White House VP.

My scenario is equally inane by itself, but it illustrates the abusurd possibilities that could be spawned by a Hillary Clinton independent Presidential Run.

The Stupidest Thing Ever Said on TV , , ,

2007-09-21T00:52:00.000Z

When asked which was closer, the sun or the moon, one of the applicants to be on the show Beauty and the Geek actually said "aren't they the same thing?" Now, I realize that not everyone's parents are middle class or interested in science or understand the basic nature of the solar system by age 5, but you shouldn't be allowed to graduate from grammar school without knowing that the Sun (Sol) is enormous; Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun; the Moon revolves around the earth; Jupiter is the largest planet; Saturn's Great Red Spot is actually a storm that has been raging for over 300 years and its moon's are the most likely place for extraterrestrial life in the solar system; Neptune is the only planet which has rings that orbit perpendicular to the equator instead of a parallel manner; and Pluto is the 9th planet. Ok, that last one will no longer be true, but this lets me work in that I think it's interesting that they decided to downgrade it from a planet instead of promoting a few more Oort Cloud objects to planet status.

It's things like that answer which make me think No Child Left Behind is a good idea and that WE SHOULD HAVE A NATIONAL CURRICULUM. I get that lots of teachers (including the two generations of teachers in my family) oppose NCLB because it fosters "teaching to the test," but teaching to the test is not necessarily a bad thing. If the test is properly constructed around questions central to understanding the subject (e.g., the transitive property in math, or the proper use of semi-colons - please note irony) then teaching to the test can be an incredibly valuable tool for improving general education levels. And of course recent immigrant children should not be included in the measurement of a school's performance.

Competition is a good thing and in most cases brings out the best in people. It's also the fundamental basis of our society - we are primates and mammals after all and exhibit the same range of programmed behaviors - and would force schools to focus on education as an output, teaching as an input and administration to act like good managers - paying teachers by their merit instead of seniority and firing teachers who don't care or are poor performers.

End of Rant.

The Problem With Thompson

2007-09-07T04:05:00.000Z

isn't that he's lazy; it's that he most definitely is not the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan. The comparisons with Reagan are facile at best as simply being actors and politicians does not make them the same, or even very similar.

Reagan had been active in politics and had honed his ideology and principles since his days at the Screen Actors Guild. He also was was a sucessful two-term Governor of California who almost denied a sitting the President the nomination of his party before obtaining the nomination. Thompson is a former Republican Senate Committee Counsel who engaged in a bit of political theatre that helped bring down a President. He later served as a Senator with an undistinguished record, and I would argue that his actions as a Senate staffer were as or more important than his actions as a U.S. Senator. They could not be more different in terms of the experience and commitment to firm principles.

Reagan was a strident anti-Communist and forger of a great political realignment based on the conservative ideology he developed from Goldwater's campaign. Every knew were Regan stood on any given issue because he was committed to his ideals. Thompson however is presumably a strong anti-terrorist, but we don't really know what he believes - after all he was willing to lobby to liberalize abortion laws but then claims to be 100% pro-life. He was also willing to lobby for a deposed Haitian dictator trying to get the U.S. to launch and invasion to reinstall him as the nation's leader. This rasing issues about his commitment to human rights, which has other implications in the wake of scandals like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

As I said Thompson is Reagan. He's simply an echo of what the right yearns for - clarity of purpose derived from a coherent ideology (which we now lack) and a strong leader who doesn't betray our faith in some way.

Hell No! No Immunity for Telecoms That Helped Bush Spy on You

2007-08-31T23:59:00.000Z

The Bush Administration's own Justice Department had to browbeat an incredibly sick man into approving procedures and wiretaps that he rightly believed to be unconstitutional (as so declared by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals). And now they want to help protect the people who helped them break the law instead of refusing on the grounds that Bush Administration's requests were illegal. Those corporate CEOs had a responsibility to their shareholders to do the right, legal thing - they have no responsibility to help the government break its own laws. For this reason alone the companies should be subject to, and hopefully lose, class action lawsuits from their customers.

Who is the WH Official Most Deserving of Blame for the Katrina Debacle?

2007-08-30T03:38:00.000Z

The Bush Administration continues its self-flagellations over the Katrina Debacle,but the press has never really pushed for a full accounting of who really was responsible for the government-wide failure to prepare for and address the catastrophe. If it wasn't Brownie (and it wasn't), who was responsible for this failure?

That answer is easy: Andy Card. Not only because he was Chief of Staff at the time, but because (a) he was on vacation when this happened; and (b) he had the most experience with hurricane disaster clean up. In fact, during the Bush 41 Administration, he was President George H.W. Bush's point person coordinating the recovery from Hurricane Andrew, another devastating hurricane to hit the U.S. - it's even on his official WH bio. In fact, he did such a good job in this role, that it became a model of how to handle these types of situations.

If anyone in the Bush 43 White House should have been able to manage this disaster, it was him. And what's more, he was the WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF at the time. He should have been on the ground helping organizing the recovery. Afterall, he had the most experience dealing with this of anyone close to the President.

It wasn't Brownie's fault; it was Andy Card's, but the MSM hasn't really picked that up at all.

Of Course Hillary Won't Pick Obama - She'll Pick Harold Ford, Jr. Instead

2007-08-25T19:23:00.000Z

Robert Novak wrote last Saturday (8.18.07):

Against Clinton-Obama

Anticipating that Sen. Hillary Clinton will clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, some supporters are beginning to argue against her principal rival -- Sen. Barack Obama -- for vice president.

They maintain that Obama provides no general election help for Clinton. As an African-American from Illinois, Obama represents an ethnic group and a state already solidly in the Democratic column.

This school of thought advocates a Southerner as Clinton's running mate. The last time Democrats won a national election without a Southerner on the ticket was 1944. Prominent Democrats from the South are in short supply today. The leading prospect: former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

Novak is right that Obama brings nothing to the table, and it is debatable wheteher he really does share much of the African-American experience in the United States. (It doesn't matter what I think about this, but it does matter with African-American grassroots and grasstops members think). However, Novak is wrong in predicting Mark Warner as the leading Veep candidate.

The leading dark horse candidate should be, and I believe is, Harold Ford, Jr. Unlike Obama he hails from a red state in the South, has actually had to run competitively statewide (does anyone really think Obama gained a lot of solid campaign experience beating Alan Keyes?) and many Democrats believe (incorrectly or not) that he was robbed of the Senate seat due to blatant race-baiting which should increase Democratic turnout in Tennessee if he is on the ticket. This could be especially important if Fred Thompson upsets Giuliani to become the GOP 2008 Nominee.

Ford also is the current Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, formerly chaired by Bill Clinton during his days as Governor of Arkansas. Additionally, the Obama phenomenon and the decent results achieved by Bill Richardson have acculturated Democratic activists to the idea of a minority on the ticket (beyond a privileged white woman of course). However, picking Richardson or any hispanic politician would enrage the nation's black community who beleive their time for a more prominent place on the national stage/in the national debate, and who likely would view an hispanic pick as "skipping over" one of their own.

Additionally, while it's crass to say this, Harold does not look especially black, thus blunting nationally any latent racism. In fact, the emergence of narrowcasting means that his ethnicity would be more promoted in some regions of the nation and less in others, and the liberal media would do much to protect him this time around from a nationwide repeat of 2006. Additionally, while his family is from Tennessee political aristocracy, it is much harder to argue that he doesn't understand or hasn't shared in the African-American experience, or "isn't black enough."

Clinton-Ford '08. The ticket even sounds like the name of a reliable friend who'll help you out. It also subtley evokes fond memories of former President Ford, making him an even better choice and a familiar name in Michigan (a potential battleground state) even if he's not from there.

Hillary-Harold or H2 would be good campaign bumper stickers too.

Morrissey Still Not Over it: Turns down Smith Reunion with Johnny Marr

2007-08-25T18:33:00.001Z

Rolling Stone : Morrissey Turned Down Mega-Bucks Smiths Reunion Offer Over Johnny Marr

From RS Online:

Morrissey has once again broken the hearts of millions of already-damaged Smiths fans by refusing to reunite the band. The Mozzer’s publicist has confirmed that the crooner declined a $75 million offer to tour as the Smiths in 2008 and/or 2009 even though the only requirement was that Johnny Marr also be a part of the reunion. What does this new information tell us? That the theory surmising that Morrissey’s legal battles with former Smith Mike Joyce were behind his resistance to reuniting the band is flawed. Apparently Morrissey isn’t up for any kind of Smiths reunion … yet. In the meantime, Marr is still an integral part of Modest Mouse, and Joyce is counting the Smiths back pay and royalties he collected in 1996 and releasing an album with his latest band, Vinny Peculiar, in October.

For background on the Smith's break up click here.

Traveler: A Retread of the Da Vinci Code & National Treasure?

2007-08-24T20:40:00.000Z

Traveler has been one of the real joys of the summer season for a conspiracy fan like me. Like the X-Files, the show revolves around a conspiracy composed of high-level government officials involved in a shadowy project. They claim to be derived from the "Fourth Branch," of which the only clue we have regarding them is a painting which seemingly depicts the Continental Congress at work.

And of course the primary conspirator of which we are aware is a high level official at the Department of Homeland Security, since DHS has replaced FEMA in conspiracy/public consciouness. Under the aegis of the Fourth Branch, the conspirators start to implement a plan of domestic terrorism in order to gain more power at the expense of public freedom.

Where I'm going with this is that the painting implies that the Fourth Branch was created at the beginning of the Republic and is a secret branch of the government dedicated to protecting it from internal enemies (remember the Alien & Sedition Acts?). This bears some similarity to the conspriracies in both National Treasure and the Da Vinci Code.

I would argue that the conspiracy in Traveler is more engaging and franklyT simply more interesting than that of the above mentioned movies. Most of the episodes share Prison Break's break-neck pace and cliff-hanger endings combined, with great effect, with an equally intriguing story line. The most interesting contrast between the two shows is that with Prison Break, the audience witnesses the inside of the conspiracy, while in Traveler we witness the quest for knowlege of the consipiracy.

To answer my own question: No. It is not.

Jericho: An Illustration of our Deepest Fears

2007-08-22T23:02:00.000Z

Jericho is the story about an American Nuclear Holocaust, told in an idyllic setting, leaves many questions unanswered at the end, much like Surface and Invasion did a few years ago.

(They too were conspiracy shows with season long arcs to maintain interest and slowly reveal the full conspiracy as well as its purpose. The mid-run format change of both Alias and Veronica Mars from season-arc to several mini-arcs throughout the season also demonstrates that we collectively are too impatient to apply to Jericho too watch a conspiracy unfold over that long a time period. This seemed to applies to Jericho as well.)

The Show
Jericho itself seems a relatively good representation of what could happen after a mulitple nuclear strike attack on the United States. Commications systems would break down due to the EMP pulses from the detonations, some towns and cities would remain relatively peaceful due to strong leadership, some would become dictatorial compounds, and the nation itself wold divide along regional lines as competing centers of power vied for supremacy. Learning why it happened would be of secondary importance for the first few months after the attack. The show implies that the man pulling the strings in Jericho, like the man pulling the strings in Traveler is deeply embedded in the Federal Government as, of course, an official at the Department of Homeland Security and is attempting to use the respective attacks to cause choas and fear out of which a New Order would arrive.

Thankfully the Jericho writing campaign resulted in seven more episodes being made for the fall. Hopefully the full conspiracy will be revealed in these episodes and we'll have an interesting resolution to the series.

The Cultural Implications of Its Cancellation
One of the questions regarding its cancellation is whether we collectively are we getting tired of season long story arcs that gradually unfold with a series of twists and turns? You could argue that the third season of Veronica Mars changed from the above mentioned format to one with several multiple-episode story arcs instead of just one. I do believe however, that Veronica Mars was one of the recent catalysts for the emergence of several season-long story arc programs such as Prison Break and Burn Notice.

My answer to the question posed above is no. The two shows mentioned above mentioned programs are the reason why. They are both well written and have compelling story lines within each episode along with an overarching goal towards which each episode moves the characters at a relatively fast clip.

Huckabee Victory Not A Surprise

2007-08-19T05:29:00.000Z

Ok, so the post is a little late, but Senator Huckabee's 2nd place showing in the Iowa Straw Poll on the 11th, seems to have shocked members of the political cognoscenti who thought he would be eclipsed by Brownback or Tancredo. However, had you seen Huckabee at CPAC in March, you would understand why: Huckabee already has a coherent theme that encompasses his entire agenda: he's a "Freedom Conservative," a name almost calculated to bring the "leave me alone coalition" back into the party fold after their collective disgust with Republican venality, corruption, and betrayal of core principles. His speech was very well received by those of use who attended it. Romney by comparison was a surprisingly flat speaker and eclipsed by his eloquent wife.

Governor Huckabee is also a former minister and has a knack for connecting with audiences that other candidates don't have, which was definitely an advantage. Having that in his background allows him to focus on other issues that can expand the party base, since his previous occupation and positions pretty well cover the issues important to the largest segment of the Republican Coalition.

The Straw Poll's importance was obviously diminished this year compared to 1999 due to the decisions of the McCain and Giuliani campaigns to skip the party fundraising event. However, it is still important enough that Huckabee likely will get a bounce and needed fundraising assistance out of his Second Place showing. This should be enought to elbow himself past McCain (the fork's been stuck in him a while yet - now he's just holding on to get FEC matching funds to pay his debts) into the top three position depending on how Fred Thompson performs over the next few weeks. Huckabee is even set to challenge both Romney and Thompson on pure accomplishments. He's simply done more as Governor than Romney did, and does anyone remember anything substantive that Fred Thompson did while in the Senate?

Huckabee is currently doing everything he can ((and doing, and doing it) and doing it well). With a little luck, he could become the conservative alternative to Giuliani, and much more comforting to the base in general than a Mormon. Plus, the fact that he lost all that weight is a testament to his will power, and demonstrates commitment to follow through on necessary issues.

This could be the start of something interesting . . .he'll just have to maximize his earned media and try to keep the MSM more focused on him than on their favorite: Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson.

You Know You're Campaign's Going South When You're a Game Show Joke

2007-08-19T05:15:00.001Z

Responding to Power of 10's Drew Cary, a contestant replied that her haircuts cost $200. Mr. Cary went on to make a joke about the price of Senator Edwards's haircut. Once a campaign blunder becomes a cultural meme, it's clear the campaign is going South, and that it needs to recover quickly. The Edwards campaign has not. $400 haircuts and a woman fighting your fights (Elizabeth and her feeble attacks on Edwards' opponents) does raise questsions as to whether the whispers about him, publicly aired by Ann Coulter to howls of liberal outrage, are true.

What's worse is that as the haircut meme spreads throughout our popular culture, self-replicating as a it moves along, it continually undermines the Senator's poverty/Two Americas/class-warfare agenda. This is a huge problem for him, and because it wasn't dealt with properly fast enough, has likely already sent his campaign into a death spiral.

A Victory in the Battle to Retain Our Constitutional Rights

2007-08-18T00:43:00.000Z

In the wake of the Democratic Congress granting the Presidency almost totalitarian powers of citizen suveillance, the ACLU has won and important court case

ACLU Press release regarding recent court victory below:

In Unprecedented Order, FISA Court Requires Bush Administration to Respond to ACLU's Request That Secret Court Orders Be Released to the Public (8/17/2007)

Government Must Respond by August 31

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

WASHINGTON - In an unprecedented order, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has required the U.S. government to respond to a request it received last week by the American Civil Liberties Union for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. According to the FISC's order, the ACLU's request "warrants further briefing," and the government must respond to it by August 31. The court has said that any reply by the ACLU must be filed by September 14.

"Disclosure of these court orders and legal papers is essential to the ongoing debate about government surveillance," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "We desperately need greater transparency and public scrutiny.We're extremely encouraged by today's development because it means that, at long last, the government will be required to defend its contention that the orders should not be released."

The ACLU filed the request with the FISC following Congress' recent passage of the so-called "Protect America Act," a law that vastly expands the Bush administration's authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails. In their aggressive push to justify passing this ill-advised legislation, the administration and members of Congress made repeated and veiled references to orders issued by the FISC earlier this year. The legislation is set to expire in six months unless it is renewed.

"These court orders relate to the circumstances in which the government should be permitted to use its profoundly intrusive surveillance powers to intercept the communications of U.S. citizens and residents," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The debate about this issue should not take place in a vacuum.It's imperative that the public have access to basic information about what the administration has proposed and what the intelligence court has authorized."

FISC orders have played a critical role in the evolution of the government's surveillance activities over the past six years. After September 11, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to inaugurate a program of warrantless wiretapping inside the United States. In January 2007, however, just days before an appeals court was to hear the government's appeal from a judicial ruling that had found the NSA program to be illegal in a case brought by the ACLU, Attorney General Gonzales announced that the NSA program would be discontinued. Gonzales explained that the change was made possible by FISC orders issued on January 10, 2007, which he characterized as "complex" and "innovative." Those orders are among the documents requested by the ACLU.

Since January 2007, government officials have spoken publicly about the January 10 orders in congressional testimony, to the media and in legal papers - the orders remaining secret all the while. They have also indicated that the FISC issued other orders in the spring that restricted the administration's surveillance activities. House Minority Leader John Boehner stated that the FISC had issued a ruling prohibiting intelligence agents from intercepting foreign-to-foreign calls passing through the United States. To a large extent, it was the perception that the FISC had issued an order limiting the administration's surveillance authority that led Congress to pass the new legislation expanding the government's surveillance powers. Yet the order itself, like the January 2007 order, has remained secret.

The ACLU's request to the FISC acknowledges that the FISC's docket includes a significant amount of material that is properly classified. The ACLU argues, however, that the release of court orders and opinions would not raise any security concern to the extent that these records address purely legal issues about the scope of the government's wiretap authority, and points out that the FISC has released such orders and opinions before. The ACLU is seeking release of all information in those judicial orders and legal papers the court determines, after independent review, to be unclassified or improperly classified.

A copy of the FISA court order, the ACLU's motion to the FISC, as well as information about the ACLU's lawsuit against the NSA and other related materials are available online at: www.aclu.org/spying

In addition to Jaffer, lawyers on the case are Steven R. Shapiro, Melissa Goodman, and Alexa Kolbi-Molinas of the ACLU and Art Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.

Pop Culture Gets the NSA Wrong Again

2007-08-17T20:43:00.000Z

The latest episode of Burn Notice repeats a government-conspiracy meme about the NSA that seems to have emerged in Enemy of the State and become embedded in Hollywood's conception of government covert operations (not that Hollywood has a real grasp on anything internationally-related beyond the superficial, Syriana included).

The NSA officially has supplanted the CIA as the official spooky agency in American pop culture, much like the Department of Homeland Security has supplanted FEMA as the source of traitorous governmental conspiracies against the U.S. government.

The meme I'm speaking of is the conception of the NSA as a spy agency like the CIA, but on steroids. The NSA is a an intelligence gathering organization. They monitor electronic signals around the world from emails to cell-phone calls to landline calls. They do not run assassination squads, train covert agents or anything of the sort. That is what the CIA and possibly parts of the military/Department of Defense do.

This meme seems to have emerged in the early 1990s because it was then that the U.S. government officially acknowledged the agency's existence. Until that time, its entire existence was classified.

By repeating this meme, Burn Notice is contributing to the misinformation/miseducation of the American people regarding what our government really does. It also perpetuates the meme, making it even more likely to survive, and contributing to the general public's misunderstanding of which parts of the government do what.

The Redeeming Qualities of Greeks

2007-08-08T03:29:00.000Z

By far, the most surprising pleasure of the evolving summer season is Greeks on the ABC Family Network. The show revolves around Rusty the Freshmen negotiating his way through the ins and outs of rushing a fraternity. Rusty's adventures are impacted by his geekiness and the role his sister plays in one of the school's premier sororities.

Dale, Rusty's abstinent, evangelical electronic engineering major of a roommate is by far one of the most innovative side characters in a long time. My favorite line of his to a fraternity boy he was evangelizing to: "No, David smote the Philistine with a stone, he didn't smoke with the Philistine and get stoned!"

However, the most intriguing thing about Greeks is the subtle exploration of the issue of meritocracy vs. aristocracy and their uneasy co-existence. Meritocracy in Greeks is embodied in the character of Rusty's sister Cassie who plays by the rules and does what it takes to achieve her goals. Aristocracy by Cassie's sorority little sister, and daughter of one of the states Senaors, who posesses a lesser sense of ethics which is driven by a sense of entitlement.

Cassie's boyfriend cheats on her at the beginning of the show with the Senator's daughter, thus setting up the series of subtle conflicts between the two that presumably go on all semester. The conflict culminates in Evan, Cassie's boyfriend, having to ditch Cassie in favor of the Senator's daughter as his date for a benefit with his parents. He does it without hesitation, because of the connections he will help forge for his family. Meanwhile, Cassie the Meritocrat is left on the sidelines because of her ethic of earning everything she has/needs.

Rusty also earns his way to what he wants. He rushes all the fraternities and ends up in the one most laid back, and coincidentally run by his sister, which rewards him with cheers of admiration when he exhibits various skills which benefit the fraternity. He isn't required to conform to any standard, unlike the implied members of the rival fraternity lead by Cassie's new boyfriend.

Pop Culture really hasn't explored issues of class like this since the heydays of the John Waters film.

Smashing Pumpkins Is Still a Heavy Metal Machine

2007-08-06T23:02:00.000Z

I hope Virgin decides to keep its Festival in Pimilico for the next several years. It will be a welcome replacement for the HFStival and a good place to hear new bands. And this year's show was replete with excellent performances by some of the best bands around. It was a hard choice at first when deciding between this and Lollapalooza in Chicago. I love Chicago, and I love My Morning Jacket. But the Pumpkins weren't playing there this year, and all the other Lollapalooza bands I wanted to see were at Virgin Festival. (oh, and I liked the jokey riding guitar pick logo - very cool post-modern allusion to Preakness.

The atmosphere was free and fun, and as the Washington Post alluded to, there was plently of pot to go around if you're into that. I have always adhered to the South Park philosophy: "There's a time and a place for everyting, and it's called college."

One not-so-new-band that continued to Rock the House was Smashing Pumpkins with a tour de force performance of their new material interspersed with classics from their past CDs. They even hit "Heavy Metal Machine" from their ill-fated Machina/Machines of God concept double albumn. Of the six performances I've seen beginning with the inaugural date on the Siamese Dream tour (more out of luck, than rock knowledge), this was by far the best. The performances were outstanding, and the giant screens focused a lot on Billy's chord-play and Jimmy's stick banging. The fact that it dien't really focus on the bassist or other guitarist reminded me of rumors that D'Arcy and James Iha have not rejoined the band. However, Jimmy is back in despite almost dying of a heroin overdose.

While I got a teasing taste of The Police at Live Earth, their full-on concert rocked from beginning to end, demonstrating why theirs has been one of the most anticipated reunion tours in years. Evey song was played perfectly, and they thrived off the crowd's energy with one of the best performances I've ever scene. And Sting was gracious enough to reintroduce Stuart Copeland and Andy Sommers after their 20 year eclipse by Sting's solo act.

The Beasties of course rocked the house as well, setting up the crowd for the afore mentioned performance. Like the Pumpkins, they performed a variety of classics from each albumn. Unfortunately, they did not perform the always crowd pleasing"Paul Revere". Either that or I was overserved at that time.

Panic At the Disco won thousands of new fans with their performance. Reports of their eleclectic sound are not to be dismissed, and a major reason why you should see them at the next opportunity.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs put on a solid performance, that slowly built the crowd into a frenzy as Karen O crooned all our favorites.

Interpol was good. They may be a good studio band, but they need more festival experience. Not that they didn't rock, but they just didn't seem to connect with the crowd as much as they could have.

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals put on another first rate show and converted me to full on fan. Their music is complex, mellow, funky, and radically fun. Anyone who hasn't checked them out, should definitely do so.

Incubus put on the first great performance I witnessed at the show. Though I got there late due to working on Saturday.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Vindicated

2007-08-03T23:52:00.000Z

According to Congress Daily/AM, it turns out that it was Congressman Anthony Weiner who caused the ruckus which Congressman Terry went over to discuss with Rep. Jackson. Jackson, being completely in the right and not understanding why Rep. Terry was confronting him, reacted in a very natural way. Mr. Rothman of New Jersey made sure nothing untoward happened that night, and Lee Terry later apologized to Jesse Jackson, Jr.

As a native Chicago Southsider, I'm proud of him for standing up for himself in the manner in which he did.

Though I still like the Cat in the Hat pic vs. the Karate pic.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting (in Congress)

2007-08-03T04:51:00.000Z

Congressmen Lee Terry vs Congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr.!!!

Nebraska's Second District Rep. Lee Terry went toe-to-toe with Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL). I guess you can take the boy out of the South Side of Chicago . . .

Terry and Jackson

Hat tip to Leavenworth Street for the below post which I blatantly stole (but at least I admit it).

And by toe-to-toe, we don’t mean they argued their positions – we mean they nearly came to fisticuffs off the House floor.

Apparently House Republicans have been using delaying tactics on some bills that have come through lately and the Democrat House Leader decided to take action against it. The Dems say they had a deal, the GOP said they’re being railroaded. (Lawmakers Shout Across House Floor Over Kids Health Spending Bill - FOXNews - 8/1/07.)

So, according to Congressional Quarterly, it went like this:

The dustup nearly touched off a fight between two members. Profanity flew after Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D-Ill., yelled out that Republicans "can’t be trusted." "Shut up," Lee Terry, R-Neb., shot back. The two squared off later, and Terry said Jackson used the F-word repeatedly and invited him to "step outside" the chamber. They didn’t, thanks in part to a third lawmaker who separated them.
Now we’re not saying that Lee would have gotten his butt kicked – ok maybe we are. I mean, check out these pics on Jackson Jr.’s freaking campaign website! He’s apparently some kind of Kung-Fu grand-master, and he has pics of him breaking this little guy’s jaw!

But I’ll tell you this: Lee Terry may only be 5’7” (5’10” with the hair) and 190 lbs dripping wet, but he’s scrappy. He’d be in there biting ankles and gouging eyes. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

So there’s your new campaign slogan: “Lee Terry: Fighting (literally) for Nebraska”.

(Come back to Leavenworth Street as we update.)

[Update: Congressman "Fightin'" Lee Terry's office responded to Leavenworth Street that Terry decided not to "go outside" with Congressman Jackson (good choice), and that today they shook hands and decided to put it behind them. (No word on whether it was one of those handshakes where each of them grips really hard and tries to crush the other guy's hand.)

Apparently some other Members suggested they have a Smack Down for Charity. Lee (again, wisely) declined.]

[Update 10:00 PM 8/1/07: Well, how about the OWH and Washington Post reporting on this story and BOTH referring to the Jesse Jackson Jr. karate pics. And the Post even using the Kung Fu term, just like Leavenworth Street. And the OWH using the exact same photo as Leavenworth Street. How about that? And not a single hat-tip to Leavenworth Street. It's all flattery, right? Right?]

Will Traveler's Painting That Reveals All

2007-08-01T03:05:00.000Z

I found a copy of the painting that Will Traveler stole from the Drexler Museum. The copy I found is a giant mural on the landing between the 2nd and 3rd floors of the U.S. Capitol, and it depicts the Continental Congress at work.

The central figure (by which I mean the one in the center) in the painting is holding up 4 fingers, which must relate to the 4th Branch which seems to be the central conspiracy/mystery of the Traveller series. There likely is some historical reason for the 4 fingers,e.g. casting proxy votes for other colonial/patriot delegates to the Constitutional Convention, but that's not relevant for our purposes.

Oh, and Robert E. Lee's war horse was named Traveller. Since he was a leader of the Rebellion Against the Union, maybe this means that the 4th Branch is in rebellion against the current government.

I'm So Tired of The Hillary/Obama Discussion

2007-07-31T02:52:00.000Z

Of course Hillary will beat Obama. She has the institution behind her, the political savvy gained from being one of the top 100 lawyers in the nation (so designated before Bill became President), serving on corporate boards and being First Counsel to a United States President. The Clinton's also have a knack for destroying their enemies. As their close friend and campaign manager James Carville puts it "When you're enemy is drowning, you don't just let him, you throw the sum bitch an anchor."

And there is no way in Hell the ticket will be Hillary-Obama. She will not pick her political rival and reward him for her attacks while she looks over her story. She will pick a minority though, and it won't be Bill Richardson either. That would just alienate the black vote completely and demonstrate to African-Americans that the Democrats take their votes for granted.

No, it will be Harold Ford, Jr. He is currently the head of the DLC, which will give Hillary cover after she runs far enough left to get the nomination. Harold Ford also has run a statewide campaign and knows its rigors. He also likely feels cheated by the race-baiting ad and therefore likely to work harder for the ticket since he has no other political office to fall back upon, unlike both Hillary and Obama.

Mr. Ford has the charm, savvy, political background and past positions to make him an ideal VP Nominee. And I predict he will be.

USA: Master of the Summer Season

2007-07-29T15:55:00.000Z

USA Network has moved aggrerssively over the past few years to capitalize on the "summer season" for television, during which the major networks priarily run ru-runs of thei existising programming.

Check out all of these programs which are all well written and well acted:

Burn Notice (Thursday)
Psyche ( (Friday)
Monk (Friday)
The 4000(Sunday)
The Dead Zone (Sunday)

These are all exceptional shows, some of which have won emmy's Obviously Burn Notice and the 4400 are my favorites of those above, since they involved conspiracies, etc. Burn Notice expertly handles the tedium of what a spy really does duing inner monologueo ver the dos and don'ts of spycraft in teh form of a lecture. This show obvisously caters to our collective yearning to learn what our spy agencies are up to while the rest us of live in sweet bliss

The 4400
The 4400 is interesteting because it's gone all meta on us this season. First The 4400 were sent collected along the timeline, given powers through genetic engineering (or some type of synaptic manipulation) and sent back to prevent and unspecified disaster for the human race. However, last season primarily was about Isabel Tyler who was a special arrival on earth with special powers and the , and who made the number of returnees officially 4401. Isabel fell under the sway of one of the "the marked" and became convinced her purpose was to eliminate the 4400. To this end she cooperated with the former head of NTAC (basically DHS under another name) leaving under a shroud of disgrace for his plan to kill the 4400, only to emerge working for Defense Department Contractors manufactring promycin, the miracle drug that allows anybody to acquire 4400 abiliites. His plan was thwarted when the promycin was acquired by a radical 4400 splinter group called Nova (a reference to the sun as a star) that it begarn being distributed to anyone who asked.

This season began with the implied resurrection of Jason Collier (J.C - Jesus Christ - the messiah's reappearance - only reinforced when we see him emerging from a lake covered in water - evoking the image of Christ's baptism) season is about a group of 10 indviduals from the future who are part of a movement to stop the timeline changes the 4400 were sent back to change. Their faction is satisfied with their existing status quo and don't want any changes because it will wipe out their existence and accomplishments. This is the same faction (presumably) who sent Isabel and are referred to as "The Marked" - as revealed in a 4400's film that claimed to expose the conspiracy before he was "gotten too."

The conspiracy within conspiracy within conspiracy leads one to wonder which is true, which is lie, and which is somewhere in between Gotta love it. Tonight we get to find out whether JC truly is good or whether he is still manipulative and desiring only to accomplish his own ends.

Burn Notice
Burn Notice is about a spy who gets black listed or "burned" and dropped in his homw town with few resources and only two reliable contacts, one of whom is playing double agent for Michael and the FBI. It's a fun romp, with Michael and his motley crew echoing the A-Team, but less formulaic and more interesting because of the ongoing, overreaching story arc ( a la Veronica Mars's first season). I highly Nip/Tuckrecommend it.

Fox and F/X virtually invented the summer season. The first with the summer seasons of Beverly Hills 90210Melsose Place
and latter with the first few seasons of Nip Tuck and Rescue Me, as well as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

TBS has been trying to break into the summer season market with their programs
My Boys

And let's not forget SciFi Network with their summer series' Flash Gordon and Eureka.

Dingell vs. Pelosi

2007-07-24T00:42:00.000Z

New York Times Story

This week’s National Journal article on the conflict between Chairman Dingell and Speaker Pelosi over the shape of future energy legislation illustrates a point I have long maintained: leadership of small majorities is inherently different than the leadership of large majorities.

Speaker Pelosi has demonstrated that she inherently grasps this concept by adopting the Republican model of using the Committees as an extension of the House Leadership, and bypassing committees entirely when they likely wouldn’t obey leadership’s desires as Republicans did with abortion-related issues and the Energy & Commerce Committee or alternatively creating new Committees to bypass those found troubling a la the new Global Climate panel. Like Speakers Gingrich and Hastert before her, Speaker Pelosi rewards those who fall in line, or need fundraising help, with seats on so-called “A Committees” or “Super A Committees” depending on the party by using the Democratic version of the Republican Steering Committee to dole these seats out. These Committees happen to be: Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and Appropriations.

Large majorities, such as those the Democrats enjoyed for approximately 70 years before Gingrich Revolution (give or take a few Congresses), and those enjoyed by Republicans for the 70 years prior than that have a different dynamic. The House Leadership needs to adopt a Laissez-faire attitude towards Committees because the larger the majority, the larger and more numerous the competing party factions it contains, and Leadership needs to spend more time negotiating and finessing the fissures among these factions. This leaves far less time for involvement in policy development per se.

Chairman Dingell hails from “Old Bull” era of large majorities when House Committee Chairmen were all Barons with their Committees as their individual fiefdoms. The new arrangement must be somewhat of a shock to the Committee Chairmen like Dingell who have been around for a while and remember the days of their former glory.

For personal reasons I wish him well in the conflict over the shape of energy legislation.

Snap Review: The Ms. DC Pageant – Few Contestants Knew Anything About DC

2007-07-22T04:43:00.000Z

Q: How come in a “chocolate city” like DC (apologies to George Clinton), African-American contestants were outnumbered 3:1?
A: Most of them likely came here to try for the Ms. DC crown because they thought it would be easier to win than their own state pageant.

Note: How do I know pageant contestants do this? Ms. America 1990, Debbye Turner, told me in an interview that year that she moved to Missouri to participate in Missouri’s pageant after being runner up in her native state. It was her victory there that qualified her for the Ms. American Pageant, which she won.

Another reason I believe that most of the DC contestants aren’t really from here is that most of them could not answer any questions about DC that were related to their “platforms.” One contestant was asked about a DC institution, musical group, performance group etc which inspired her. Her answer: The Kennedy Center. How completely trite, and it doesn’t even require any knowledge of DC to say that. There are a million things she could have said including HR 57 – the Center for the Preservation of Jazz and Blues – after all, she claimed to be influenced by Jazz and blues in her interview and her talent was vocals.

I’m very pleased that the girl who won, Shayna Rudd, obviously was was familiar with DC and beat the others.

The pro-life contestant, Ashley Ahlquist, came across as borderline racist. Her platform “Providing Positive Solutions for Crisis Pregnancies” basically boils down to tricking poor women who want an abortion into entering a center where she will be lectured to and threatened with eternal damnation. Regardless, her question was along the lines of “How would you make DC safer for women?” Her answer: “I would increase police presence in certain areas” and used the phrase “certain areas” two other times in relation to how more police in “certain areas” would reduce crime. I wonder to which areas this Catholic University student was referring? Hmm. Anyone else care to hazard a guess?

On to the review:
The audience was composed primarily of contestant's family members and supporters, and had a surprisingly low number of drag queens in attendance Though one did seem to have more than a passing acquaintance with the outgoing Miss DC. (Oh for the good old days of Zigfield’s).

I have only this to say about the rest of the interviews: those girls need to learn better grammar, and it would be nice if they bothered to learn a thing or two about our fair city beyond the typical crap any tourist could tell you. (I know, it’s ironic because I sometimes use bad grammar, but my excuse is drunken blogging, not that I don’t know better).

The talent portion was surprisingly trite (including a Mariah Carey song and “All that Jazz” from Chicago) until one of the contestants sang a Porgy & Bess song.

In the Miss Teen DC Pageant, the dramatic readings were powerful. And all of the girls had great poise and posture throughout the show, and the little Princesses (girls 4-12) were of course adorable.

Live Earth Post-Mortem: We Were Only In It For the Music

2007-07-09T23:49:00.000Z

I forgot to mention in my last post that the scientists playing in Antarctica were surprisingly good, and of course we all love penguins, so their images crossing the screen during the performance produced serotonin unloading among the rocking masses.

Anyway, the most discouraging thing about the concert was that immediaty outside the show, as we walked back to the shuttle buses back to Port Authority, there were no trash cans and loads of litter stacked along barriers or simply on the ground. This was the result of concert goers being given free Sunchips and Dannon Yogurt drinks as they left the show. The willingness of everyone to just blatantly litter after spending the whole day being lectured on the importance of being environmentally correct shows just how serious the concert goers were about the political message.

The products demonstrated by the concerts' sponsors showed how unserious they were about the global climate change message as well. Philips wanted everyone to switch to their new highly efficient, helix-like light bulbs which happen to contain mercury and therefore will only result in worse landfill problems, albeit gradually since the lightbulbs really do last significantly longer. And Democrats in Congress want to mandate that all schools and nursing homes have these mercury filled lightbulbs. If you don't believe me, read the official outline of the bill here.

And Smart, a Mercedes subsidiary showed off their 3-cylinder death bubble. This car, about the same size as the Mini with a bubble top, doesn't look like it could make it over a steep hill, let alone get you anywhere you needed to be in rural America. And you'd likely die in any accident, given the design of the car and the use of light materials to build it. However, my bigger point is that the majority of cars in the U.S. are 6 or 8 cylinders. Even most European cars are at least 4 cylinders. This car can't get you anywhere.

When I asked the company representatives if the car was either flex-fuel or a hybrid, the almost literal response I got was "No. We just want people to change the way they approach driving and then we'll work on those things." They would rather get you to change your behaviour than actually manufacture a car that produces less exhaust through better catlytic converters or other advances in technology.

I was not impressed, and little disgusted. A car that won't be able to do a damn thing on a farm and will kill you in a wreck. What's Mercedes trying to do - kill us and wreck our ag economy?

Live Earth: Snap Reviews

2007-07-08T15:49:00.000Z

The concert yesterday rocked! Of course it would - the lineup was amazing, but the performances uneven (like me). The only real problem was that the artists only played 4-6 songs each.

The Police - Started off with a strong performance of Roxanne, and then seemed to play the order of their set list from the their 1980s best of albumn. Their solid performance definitely earns them a strong recommendation that you see them at Pimlico for the Virgin Festival on August 4th.

Roger Waters - First time I've seen him perform, and it was excellent. His superb performance of Us and Them seemed to be especially attuned to the current zeitgeist. For the less intelligent in the crowd, he beat them over the head by mixing the final juxtaposiiton of the song and war images with that of President Bush in a flight suit and the Mission Accomplished banner in the background.

Smashing Pumpkins - Gave a strong performance out of the gate with a lot of guitar gnashing before going into a new song from their next albumn (Zeigeist, out on Tuesday). Great performances of crowd pleasers Bullet with Butterfly Wings and Today. Based on this performance, I highly recommend you buy tix to their Tuesday show at the 930 Club, and see their August 5th performance at Pimlico during The Virgin Festival, on August 5th.

Bon Jovi - Obviously, the hometown favorite, after all the Meadowlands is actually in New Jersey. Added thousands of new faces that he's rocked at the concert. Ok, he spent his alotted time mostly playing from Slippery When Wet, and seriously rocked the stadium with Dead or Alive , which was one of the highlights of the night. The rumors of a surprise Bruce Springsteen appearance to paly with Bon Jovi proved unfounded. Unfortunately.

Kelly Clarkson - Put on a solid perfomance and really moved the crowd with Since You've Been Gone. Her newer music didn't sound as good.

Akon - Definitely won new fans with his great performance.

Dave Mattews Band - Not as strong as other performances I've seen. Mostly focused on early favorites that seemed to especially please the folks who came up from Virginiga. a surprisingly high number of the much younger fans could sing along to the early favorites too.

Missed John Mayer and Alicia Keys, both to my chagrin. Also missed Melissa Ethridge - a good artist, i just felt like eating instead.

The Problem With Romney

2007-07-03T02:40:00.000Z

Isn't that he is a born-again converst to social conservativism. The problem isne't even that he is a Mormon. The problem is that he is an inhumane subhuman who intentionally made his Irish setter ride for 12 hours in a carrier on top of the car. He didn't stop to walk the dog for exercise or bathroom purposes and instead let it soil its cage. That is an inhumane act in terms of interaction with dogs. This by itself is a fatal character flaw which should disqualify him from ever occupying the White House.

And not only is what he did inhumane, it is against the law in Massachusetts, where he lived at the time.

For more on this disturbing story, please visit:

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1638065,00.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011591.php

Why Illegals Should Not Be Allowed to Become Citizens

2007-06-29T22:57:00.000Z

Unfortunately, the comprehensive immigration bill died this week - likely for the rest of the Bush Administration. Establishing a path to legalized status is a good idea, but allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens is not. Here's Why:

The right to vote is the only true right anyone possesses in our society. And it is a powerful possession we exercise periodically in order to elect individuals in whom we vest the power to establish the laws (or rules) by which we all agree to live.

People who have shown a willingness to break our laws should not be given the privilege of participating in the process of their creation. For this reason, anyone who entered this country illegally or illegally over stayed their visas in order to remain in America should not be allowed to become citizens. They should be allowed a path to legalized status, but it should be a status below that of current legal permanent residents. Because they were unwilling to obey our laws, they should not be given the privilege of inviting any of their family members to benefit from their illegal behavior with the exception of MINOR children and one spouse.

I also believe that US fellons, except for those convicted of non-violent drug offenses, should be permanently stripped of the franchise for the same basic reason: an unwillingness to obey the laws that exist disqualifies one from participating in the creation of new laws.

The Best Thing Ever!

2007-05-27T02:34:00.000Z

The upside of bio-genetics - Scientists jave bred cows that give skimmed milk. This is an incredibly efficient way to get skimmed milk, which most people like, and will reduce the amount of operating expenses dairies have to pay. Looks win-win right now. Now all we have to do is eliminate the outdated milk pricing system.

Scientists breed cows that give skimmed milk-News-UK-Science-TimesOnline

WTF? Giant Wild Pigs in the South?

2007-05-26T15:02:00.000Z

Since this is the second giant boar (both about 1000 pounds) caught and killed in the South, does that meant there is a whole species wandering around down there in wild forests? It also gives credence to the idea that there are stil large, undiscovered mammals even in North American. If these animals can go so long undetected, is it possible that Bigfoot and the Chupacabra actually do exist?

Perhaps wer're only encountering these creatures only now has to do wtih the growth of the human population and destruction of wild habitat. Perhaps.

And the kid that killed it was 11! Dude, what an adventure. I bet there will be few things in his life to top killing this monster. And I especially like the fact the kid is going to get 700-800 pounds of sausage from this, AND have the head mounted.

How they Screwed the Subway Hero

2007-05-26T00:28:00.000Z

The subway hero is a guy in New York who risked his life to save somebody else. They way I understand it is he jumped down onto the subway tracks to save person having a seizure by pulling them both into a crawl space on the other side of the tracks. A truly selfless act committed in a very selfish city. He is a hero.

Now for the disturbing part which proves that no good deed goes unpunished - This guy has been completely fucked over by everyone who's gotten near him. He lost his job, his time is not his own because he is expected to make so many public appearances, someone screwed him out of the rights to his own life story, he had to pay his own expenses for his trip to Washington. He can barely afford his own legal fees, much less the taxes on the "free" jeeps he got from Chrysler and Deal or No Deal. I feel for him.

Poor Jimmy Carter . . .

2007-05-20T06:48:00.000Z

The only President worse than him in recent memory is George W. Bush and he's so obsessed with erasing the disaster that was his administration, that he'll attack Bush on anythimg.

Carter's administration has now done the nearly impossible - moved up from worst Presidecny of the post-World War II period to the 2nd worst Presidential Administration since World War II. His administration was an utter disaster from start to finish (anyone else remember singing "Cause Jimmy Carter has a way of screwing up teh USA to the tune of the Oscar Mayer weiner song?)

Had Carter the courage in 1979 to have the Marines protect the US Embassy in Iran from the student rioters, there would have been no hostage crisis and it is likely that we would have avoided the series of events that eventually lead to the current War in Iraq because Middle Easterners would have known we meant business The events I refert to specifically are the US support for and arming of Iraq in its 1980-1988 war with Iran, which emboldened Iraq to invade Kuwait in 1990 in order to recoup its financial expenses from that war. However, President H.W. Bush's US Ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, played a "small" part in letting Iraq think that the US wouldn't oppose its Iraq invasion.

That of course led to one well conducted war and over ten years of no-fly zones before the 2nd Iraq War.

Getting back to the main point, had Carter any real courage during his Presidency, these later events would not have happened in the way they did and the Global position of the U.S. would be much enhanced.

All the good works in his post-Presidency can't make upfor his disastrous administration. All he can hope for is to be rated better than W. Bush. I doubt that'll be hard at this point, but he'll never get higher than W.

Is Battlestar Galactica Racist?

2007-05-19T13:41:00.000Z

The mini-marathon last night got me thinking about this. And I'm not talking about the complex human-cylon relationship - I'm talking about in real American terms. The original series had a much better integrated cast and black characters that were greater parts of the show. Does adding central hispanic and asian characters really make up for the lack of black actors on the show?

Out of the entire human population in the civilian and military fleets, there have only been two black characters. One completely minor, and the other the subject of an entire episode (which exposed Admiral Adama's abandonment of him in Cylon territory previously.

How do we even attempt to measure racism in a science fiction show? Is it just that there weren't that many blacks that escaped Caprica, the colonies and New Caprica? Earth presumably represents the Atlantis-like 13th Colony, and those settlers came from the same places as the other members of the fleet. We know empirically that earth has a diverse racial/ethnic mix (which are meaningless terms outside of politics - biology and genetics have demonstrated that there is more variation within racial groups, than there is between them).

At least the show makes up for the extreme lack of diversity by beginning to address class issues that exist on the fleet and its original (now destroyed) civilzation.

The Downside of Commodifying Your Body

2007-05-08T23:31:00.000Z

Black-Market Scandal Shakes India's Ban on Organ Sales -

I, and Western Culture illicitly support the commodification of the body in multiple ways. We pay for superior egg and ova, we pay to enhance our physical attributes through such means as breast and calf implants, and we pay to abort unwanted fetuses. (The entire idea that it is an unwated fetus actually comes from the commodification of the body. But we have to support it illicitly to fool ourselves that we don't really commodify the body). We ban the sales of organs, though most of the middle and upper classes oppose this ban and will purchase the organs they need in China or elsewhere.

I also support unfettered capitalism. I support the right to sell any part of my body and patent any gene sequence or protein, prion, bacteria, etc. that is unique to me.

But the intersection of unfettered capitalism and growing commodification of the body, are likely to produce a very ugly period in World History. The poor, often from the poorest nations, will increasingly sell their organs. In a moderate-sized population this could result in the need for many new caretakers for all of the new post-operative complications that will pop up. The poor won't be able to pay for these health care procedures, and the rich, safe continents away won't care.

It's going to get ugly before it gets better,

The Slope Gets a Bit More Slippery

2007-05-08T01:12:00.000Z

A British clinc recently obtained permission to screen embryos for a COSMETIC defect. Screening features to date have focused on congenital defects. Now this specific cosmetic defect can be screened for, and there likely soon will be other cosmetic defect screening tests.

Once we start doing this, there really is no bright line between cosmetic and athletic/eugenic screening tests. If you have have enough money, you'll be able to create the perfect embryo from the egg and sperm of you and your partner. Even if such procedures are banned here, China and other nations don't share "our" values a and will proceed with such research. Western doctors will look the other way when pregnant women begin showing up for pre-natal care they weren't aware of needing to perform in advance, much the way western doctors treat the side effects of liver transplants on Westerners who receive their new kidneys from Chinese prisoners etc.

It just seems like the the slope is getting steeper. While I may like where it's going, not everyone will. And our society really does not debate the cultural impact of these technologies in a sober, reflective manner.

And as I've mentioned before, once technology like this becomes widely available, those with the money and foresight to jump on it first, my succeed in permanently embedding a social strata alien to America's national DNA.

The Beginnings of Brain Implants & Artificial Intelligence. . .

2007-04-29T03:56:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Technology | Mouse brain simulated on computer

This is the first necessary, but not sufficient step towards the creation both of artificial intelligence, but also brain tissue-computer chip interfacing. This last presents the possibility of being able to "download" entire sections of world history, quantum mechanics, or learn a new language relatively effortlessly.

Of course Terminator predicted that AI would spontaneously generate and become a threat to humanity on August 29, 1997. We've made it 10 years past that deadline, and I'm not sure how to feel about the advent of AIs with complex reasoning skills. Its possible that their emergence will cement the current social strata and hinder vertical income movement.

From the BBC article:

US researchers have simulated half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer.
The scientists ran a "cortical simulator" that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer.
In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains.
Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain.

Potentially scary stuff. How do our politics catch up with such potential social change? How will the current faux left-right structure be replace by a dominant, shared national ideology that could be effortlessly transmitted to anyone by virtue of a brain-computer automatic "update." How do such advances interact with advances in biotechnology and is there some type of possible synergy.

Looks like 20th Century Science Fiction may eventually become 21st Century science and consumer goods.