Bliss

Bush Has Lost PA

2004-10-17T21:26:00.000-04:00

We drove today from our home just outside of Pittsburgh to Indiana, PA, 40-50 miles away to the northwest. Once we got onto PA state route 286, we decided to take a totally unscientific survey of presidential road signs from Monroeville (where we got onto 286) until Ellen's parents' house in Indiana. This is a pretty rural area. Lots of hunting and fishing to be done. This is some of the area that James Carville was referring to when he described Pennsylvania as "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and Alabama in between." This is, in short, Bush Country.

We counted multiple signs in one yard (or in one immediate area, such as a patch of public road near a country intersection) as one sign -- one person or family's approval of a given candidate.

Total signs: 31.
Bush/Cheney: 7 (22.5%)
Kerry/Edwards: 24 (77.5%)

And no, no Kerry - Specter signs, by the way.

The earpiece thing

2004-10-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

So here's my feeling about the earpiece thing. I genuinely don't care if the President has an audio prompter into his ear during public speeches. Maybe Bush is dyslexic and can't read and speak well simultaneously. Maybe he's got weak eyesight but doesn't want to be seen with glasses or contacts. Whatever. It really doesn't bother me in the slightest -- the stuff is assistive technology in that case.

But in a debate? No. This is cheating. Even if it were explicitly allowed-for in the debate rules, it's cheating. We want to see the candidate, not the candidate plus the secret whispers of his advisers. We're voting for the guy, not his hidden staff.

Even if, I dunno, I guess we're getting his advisers and secret staff if we elect the candidate. I still don't like it.

Shocked, shocked

2004-08-29T11:52:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen anyone else comment on the fact that the FBI obviously buried the Franklin story by revealing it after 6pm on a Friday night. Sure, the liblog-o-sphere is running with it, and there're good articles on msnbc.com and in the Washington Monthly, but is the Real Media going to run anywhere with it? It won't have any legs, because the FBI kicked the legs out from under it with its choice of release date. Mmmm, politicized espionage investigations. Lovely.

REMAIN VIGILANT

2004-07-23T09:39:00.000-04:00

SPIES ARE EVERYWHERE

FEAR STRANGERS

STAY ALERT

And Another Thing God Dammit

2004-07-13T15:15:00.000-04:00

So I had a choice to make: Either take the word of a madman, or defend America. Given that choice, I will defend America every time.

I call bullshit. That wasn't your choice, George. Your choice was to allow America's intelligence agencies to interpret data they'd received fairly and honestly, or push them to reach impossible conclusions based on decisions you'd already made. I don't know if your base would have tolerated it if you'd said "So I had a choice to make: Either stand firm with the decision I'd made before receiving any intelligence from anyone, in January of 2001 when I took office, or allow a madman to remain in office." They might have. The rest of us wouldn't have, of course. We shouldn't tolerate this either.

Abu Ghraib

2004-07-13T12:54:00.000-04:00

From the NYT, I think:

Among the more shocking exchanges revealed in the Taguba classified annexes are a series of E-mails sent by Maj. David Dinenna of the 320th MP Battalion. The E-mails, sent in October and November to Maj. William Green of the 800th MP Brigade and copied to the higher chain of command, show a frantic attempt to simply get the detainees at Abu Ghraib edible food. Dinenna pressed repeatedly for food that wouldn't make prisoners vomit. He criticized the private food contractor for shorting the facility on hundreds of meals a day and for providing food containing bugs, rats, and dirt. "As each day goes by, tension within the prison population increases," Dinenna wrote. " . . . Simple fixes, food, would help tremendously." Instead of getting help, Major Green scolded him. "Who is making the charges that there is dirt, bugs, or whatever in the food?" Major Green replied in an E-mail. "If it is the prisoners, I would take that with a grain of salt." Dinenna shot back: "Our MP s, medics, and field surgeon can easily identify bugs, rats, and dirt, and they did."

I'll be honest here. I can understand the skepticism on the part of Maj. Green (unless he was working at AG himself). But I would really like to know what company was the private food contractor. And have those people strung up.

Timmmmmmmmmmmberrrrrrrrrrrr

2004-07-12T19:36:00.000-04:00

New logging rules. Great.

So, it goes like this: The Forestry Service now says that it's up to governors, not the feds, as to whether or not a particular patch of virgin federal forest can be logged, roads built in it, oil and gas mined from it, etc. But let's remember: once you've built a road into a stretch of forest, you can't un-build it. Once you've logged and/or strip mined the motherfucker, it's gone. You can't undo that.

Now the feds know that if they said "go get 'em, boys," and just cut loose federal forests across the country, the Goddamned Hippies would be up in arms, and they'd take a lot of abuse for it, and they might even lose some of the outdoorsmen who see the GOP as a better home than the Democratic Party (and who like their wilderness relatively unspoiled, for hunting and fishing, hiking, camping, etc).

But most federal forest land is out in the west -- 12 states that tend to lean pretty well (small-L) libertarian Republican. By turning over the decisions on foresting and energy prospecting to governors of the affected states, the GOP can say "well we didn't do anything to harm those forests, we turned control of that decision over to the local authorities." And governors out there tend to be pretty well in tune with natural-resource-industry concerns, so they'll scratch the back that got 'em there, and turn over the forests to the energy and timber industries.

And even if the governors don't do it right away, well hey, they've got time. Remember our thesis: You can't un-build a road. So even if only one governor a year turns over his state's virgin forests to the timber and energy industries, it isn't as though subsequent governors are going to turn back on that. It may take a few years, patchwork, but the GOP has just successfully turned over the nation's federal forests to the energy and timber industries.

Thanks, George! Thanks, Dick!

Favorable/Unfavorable

2004-07-06T20:25:00.000-04:00

Dick Cheney: 22% have a favorable opinion while 31% have an unfavorable opinion.

John Edwards: 31% have a favorable opinion while 17% have an unfavorable opinion.

God, I can't wait for the debates.

Reagan

2004-06-06T13:32:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it means precisely that Fafblog has the most cogent post regarding Reagan in the blogosphere today.

Tear It Down

2004-05-25T15:17:00.000-04:00

Gut reaction: Tearing down Abu Ghraib twelve months ago would have been genius. Now? Seems like they're grabbing for something symbolic to do oh and also destroy any further hard evidence of further depravity.

I'm reasonably sure that they aren't actually tearing it down to destroy evidence. But man, it's hard to believe anything coming out of this White House these days.

Punitive Damage and State Funding

2004-05-18T20:07:00.000-04:00

Chris Wage at My Quiet Life suggests that Schwarzenegger's proposal to give 75% of punitive court damages to the state rather than the plaintiff is a "great idea."

I respectfully disagree. Seems like a good idea on the surface, but think about the second-order consequences a bit:

We're giving the state a vested interest in private citizens' suits against one another, and in fact giving the state a benefit from a successful suit that it would not see in a failed suit. So we pull the state over to the side of the plaintiff in every lawsuit.

Related to that, we're now tying part of the state budget to lawsuits. Oh, sure, maybe we SAY that we'll never budget that money in, but we all know how government works. Two years pass and suddenly lawsuit proceeds are funding public schools.

Property forfeiture by proxy seems like a bad idea. The state gets some dummy to file a suit against someone with unpopular or "unpatriotic" opinions -- say this guy, for instance, and seizes 3/4 of his property. Erf. Bad.

That's just off the top of my head, and I'm neither devious nor a California state politician.

Reason #1 of N Not To Vote For Bush

2004-05-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

To keep Alberto Gonzales, liar and White House Counsel, off the bench.

ATTENTION RETARDS OF EARTH

2004-05-14T15:00:00.000-04:00

The death of Nick Berg does not excuse the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib does not excuse the death of Nick Berg.

This is simple goddamned stuff. The perpetrators of these crimes, their assistants, enablers, and leaders all deserve to be punished to the limits of the law.

College Pranks?

2004-05-13T23:32:00.000-04:00

I can't believe the Right's talking points on the abuses at Abu Ghraib seem to be able to be distilled down to "well hey, all those liberals love sex, they should love this stuff!"

Is there so much cognitive damage on the Right that they are unable to tell the difference between consensual sex and rape? My god, maybe that's their problem.

2004-05-08T11:30:00.000-04:00

Billmon remains a hero:

"We did not release the Taguba report to the press. That was done by someone to release against the law a secret document."
Donald Rumsfeld
Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee
May 7, 2004

Q: "Mr. Secretary, can you say why it was classified secret?" Do you know?
RUMSFELD:"No, you'd have to ask the classifier."
Donald Rumsfeld
Press Briefing
May 4, 2004

In no case shall information be classified in order to: (1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; (2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency.
George W. Bush
Executive Order 13292
March 25, 2003

2004-05-08T09:53:00.000-04:00

I know this is yucky, but I think that the unreleased photos and video described on msnbc.com should come out:

Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.

The country needs to be shown precisely what atrocities it is tacitly authorizing in the interest of its perceived safety, and make its electoral decisions based on the whole truth.

I hate that this administration makes me feel like a nutball conspiracy theorist.

2004-05-05T08:57:00.000-04:00

Caught a beep or two of NPR's interview with Donald Rumsfeld this morning. Noticed two things that made me curious.

First, Rumsfeld said that foreign fighters continue to trickle into the country. I have to wonder why, if we had to invade somewhere, we didn't invade one of the countries that seems to be providing insurgents/terrists/unlawful combatants/whatever we're calling them today. There wasn't any evidence last year that Iraq was sponsoring terrorism in other states; is this a War on Terror or is it a War on Countries that Piss Us Off?

Second, Rumsfeld said that if Gen. Abizaid wanted more troops, more troops would be pulled in. He was asked if this meant that troops might be pulled from other hotspots, such as South Korea. Rumsfeld said that if troops were pulled from hotspots that they would be pulled in such a manner as not to reduce their deterrent effect. What does that mean? Does Rumsfeld think that we'll be able to pull US troops from South Korea and replace them with our fabled high quality missile defense systems?

2004-05-03T21:09:00.000-04:00

At the end of an era of CEO glorification -- glorification that covered up the failures of Enron and its ilk, is it any wonder that the American people were snookered into hiring a horrible CEO-President?

2004-04-30T14:53:00.000-04:00

Senator John McCain has words for the owners of the Sinclair stations. Note: the link is from Drudge.

Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war's terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves.

2003-03-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

I guess it's starting tomorrow.

I'm flying to New York tonight for a conference. Great fucking timing.

My main objection -- before things get started, so that I'm not accused of hindsight -- is priorities. Aren't there a few things on the collective national table more important than going after this guy? He's a criminal, a murderer, a villain of the highest order, but god damn, he's got a lot of competition. Al-Qaeda; North Korea; the utterly hosed national economy; trying to jab Israel and Palestine to a peaceful settlement of some kind -- and that's without even trying very hard. How about the money we promised the Afghanis? How about the ruthless military dictator with nukes in Pakistan? Why are we elevating IRAQ to a national priority?

2003-03-17T10:08:00.000-05:00

Went -- crankily -- to the candlelight vigil last night, at the Quaker meeting house in Shadyside, in Pittsburgh. There were about 200 people there (I counted what appeared to be our half of the lawn, and there were 105 or so). I was cranky because I'd been watching the kids all weekend and had just about half a nerve left.

I don't have a lot of patience for the hippie protest culture. The signs, marching, drumbeating, tie-dye, guys who should have gotten a haircut 30 years ago, etc. I'm kind of a (small-c) conservative guy. I don't have any interest in joining a group like that, nor being associated with one. But that's not what we saw last night. Last night was 200 people, adults of all ages, dressed like grownups, silently holding candles in front of a church to make a point. It was solemn and respectable and fairly pleasant. There were kids also present (we brought Jimmy and Jack) and they behaved better than you might think.

There was a van from WTAE TV in Pittsburgh, and a cameraman taking footage, but there weren't interviews, he wasn't interrupting, he wasn't blaring a spot on anybody, which was good.

At the end of the hour all of the older folks started to sing an old quiet sort of protest song. We just shifted uncomfortably and backed up a little because clearly all the old hippies knew this song by heart and we had no idea what they were singing.

As we drove home we noticed several other vigils breaking up -- one across from the Presbyterian church at Forbes & Braddock, and one at the Unitarian Universalist church on Ellsworth in Shadyside.

2003-03-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

Stinking Liberal Media

The stories on tonight's 20/20:

These soldiers were tortured by Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991
I'm a rich guy, but my son is a Marine
Napster is forcing rock and roll acts to charge a lot of money for their tickets
John Stossel is apalled that those filthy Puerto Ricans don't want the Navy doing bombing runs on that one island of theirs.

Lordy.

2003-03-13T12:16:00.000-05:00

I've added a couple of new blogs to the list to the left. Do you belong there? I bet you do, you're a decent person. Drop me a line and I will add you.

2003-03-13T12:13:00.000-05:00

I'm going to a candlelight vigil for peace, Sunday evening, March 16, at the Quaker meetinghouse on Ellsworth Avenue in Pittsburgh. It's not a protest rally, there's no planned shouting, signs, etc. This is most unlike me -- by which I mean going to something like this at all, not going and keeping quiet. :-)

2003-02-14T21:17:00.000-05:00

Here we go. I've decided that I'm pissed.

I'm irritated about the war to the point that I'm considering taking part in public anti-war events, and frankly I'm not one prone to stand up and do that kind of thing. This thing is about two main issues.

(1) We're terrified of global terrorism, but our armed forces and our constitution are not set up to allow us to fight global terrorism effectively. So rather than engage in a fruitless global manhunt that will neither impress the TV-viewing, voting public, nor ultimately succeed, let's find a COUNTRY we can attack, because COUNTRIES can't run away and hide and release ebola eighteen months after we forget about them.

(2) Our entire economy depends on petroleum in ways that most Americans don't even realize. The longer I work in the chemical industry the better I understand that. The petroleum industry bought and paid for the presidency, don't let Wayne LaPierre's bullshit fool you. There are only a few major oil-producing regimes that don't rely completely on the US and don't suck up to us in whatever way is most effective: Russia (they have nukes); Venezuela (no, no, we didn't /actually/ support that coup, no, that wasn't US); and Iraq. Hey, great, let's take care of /one/ of them. I'll bet you a dollar that we'll see another attempt on Venezuela if GWB is re-elected.