Wednesday, December 5, 2007
There must be a backstory to all this. Sure, Bush lies all the time, but how often does the White House basically admit it:
CNN reports:
President Bush was told in August that Iran’s nuclear weapons program ‘may be suspended,’ the White House said Wednesday, which seemingly contradicts the account of the meeting given by Bush Tuesday.”
The White House statement released by Dana Perino tonight also states McConnell told Bush “the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program.”
One must wonder why the word “seemingly” is in there. The statement directly contradicted Bush.
Could it be that McConnell served notice on the White House that if they didn’t “correct” Bush’s statement, McConnell would go public. After all, Bush was, in effect, accusing him of being an incompetent, if not worse.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
1% more Conscious has an interesting post on something of which I was unaware. Iowa caucus goers vote their top two choices. The second place votes of those who voted for the bottom tier candidates (Biden, Richardson, and, alas, Dodd) are added to the top tier candidates. I agree with IC’s conclusion, those votes are unlikely to go to Hillary.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
When I tried to log on to my site today, I was not allowed to enter, on the grounds that I had been identified by my spam catching plug-in (Bad Behavior) as a person who had engaged in malicious behavior on the site. This seemed rather unkind, since after all it is my website. Technically, I should be allowed to be as malicious here as I want. Beyond that, I plead not guilty. Cranky maybe, but not malicious.
Luckily, with a little help from the tech folks at Blue Host, and access through my wife’s computer (she apparently was not perceived as malicious) I was able to turn off Bad Behavior. This may result in a lot more of the mechanized spam it formerly blocked showing up in the comments. I’ll do my best to scrub it, but I’m normally on the site in the evening, so things may pile up during the days.
Also, on the advice of the Tech guy, I have to approve comments from first time commenters, after which they will be posted automatically. I think that starts from today, so those of you who have commented in the past may find that your first comment posted after today won’t appear until I’ve had a chance to approve it.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Yesterday my wife and I went to the Stroll in Mystic, and stopped in to see Dan Curland at the Mystic Disc. Dan told us that he has had to concentrate more on selling vinyl these days. Downloading is part of it, but a large part of the problem stems from monopolistic or semi-monopolistic practices on the part of the corporations that control distribution of compact discs. That’s par for the course but here’s worse. Dan said that he couldn’t sell the latest Eagles CD at all. Cuz why? Starbucks, I guessed. No, worse, he responded. “Wal-mart?”, my wife and I said in stunned unison.
Bingo.
The deal is explained charitably here at an Eagles fansite. Dan Henley is impressed with Wal-Mart’s PR about its environmental sensibilities. So the Eagles haven’t sold out. Not by a long shot. Why Dan even told us that there’s a ten minute song on the CD blasting corporate America, a song you can only hear by buying it at your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart.
Way to go, Eagles.
Maybe Henley really believes the Wal-Mart environmental bullshit. It’s always possible. Even the most cynical can sometimes be credulous. I remember years ago reading a book by Harlan Ellison called the Glass Teat, a book primarily about television. Elllison is a great science fiction writer who wrote a story with the greatest title I’ve ever seen: I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. The Glass Teat was actually a collection of columns, in one of which Ellison lauded the Shell oil company because it had added “platformate” to its gasoline, which it touted in a mercilessly long advertising campaign as some sort of wonder additive that increased gas mileage. (I know I’m dating myself here) He took their advertising at actual face value, something totally out of character for him. He got a lot of feedback to that column, and in the next he expressed wonder that his readers could be so cynical as to believe platformate was nothing but hype. So he actually contacted Shell, asked for the data to back up its claims, and discovered, to his surprise, that platformate was just..hype. Methinks if Henley looked closely he would find that Wal-Mart’s environmentalism is 21st century platformate.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
I’m not a Hillary Clinton fan, but I had the same reaction as Kevin Drum to this morning’s article in the New York Times that claimed that Hillary would be a threat to the re-election of some of the (if there are any) vulnerable Democrats in the House. The article specifically mentions Kansan Nancy Boyda, who beat Jim Ryun, the Olympic choke artist, last year:
So Boyda is nervous about sharing the ticket with Hillary?
Of the presidential race, she said: “It is something I have no control over, quite honestly. They will demonize any Democrat who becomes the nominee. I just put my head down and work.”
They will demonize any Democrat who becomes the nominee. Smart woman. So who is worried about Hillary’s anti-coattails? Answer: Kansas Republicans, who claim that a Clinton nomination will help them out. An entirely impartial assessment, I’m sure. Who else? “House Democrats” who are “privately nervous” about Hillary’s reverse coattails. No names, of course. What else? Well, there’s this:
Democrats say they have not polled on the issue, though a private survey that surfaced this year found that the nomination of either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama could cut into support for House Democrats in tough districts.
I’m actually open to the idea that Hillary Clinton might not have downticket coattails that are as strong as Barack Obama’s. But if you want to convince me of this, you really need more than a few Kansas Republicans shedding crocodile tears, some allegedly “privately nervous” House Dems, and a survey — the only piece of actual evidence in the entire article — that concludes just the opposite. Just sayin’
The article proves no more than the fact that Democrats in right leaning districts (like Republicans in left leaning districts) have a tougher time in Presidential election years when turnout is greater. The article doesn’t come close to proving its basic premise: that Democrats are worried about Clinton in particular. Once again the press turns to Republicans to tell us what Democrats are thinking and/or what Democrats should avoid, but isn’t it possible that they’re just pulling their regular scam. On the internet we have learned to ignore concern trolls, the New York Times puts them front and center. This is yet another example of the press trying hard to propagate a meme that reinforces the narrative it has chosen for this campaign.
The Democrats have more chance of blowing the presidential election than they do of losing Congress. And, by the way, if some of the freshman must lose, it couldn’t happen to more deserving people that some of the folks mentioned in the article (e.g, Heath Shuler).
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Many of my readers are probably wondering: Why has the writing on this blog sucked so much lately? How is it possible that it could have gotten any worse than the lows to which it habitually descends?
There is a perfectly logical explanations for the wretched prose I have spewed forth of late. I am engaging in a sympathy strike for the members of the Screen Writers Guild. I am expressing my solidarity with my unionized brothers and sisters by refusing to cross the mental picket line between me and good writing. So long as the strike goes on, the American people do not deserve good writing, and by golly, so long as I have anything to write about it, they won’t get it. If I must endure weeks without the Daily Show or Colbert, then I have no choice but to pass the suffering along, in my own small and ineffectual way.
A lot of very unsurprising things have been revealed lately. A few days ago I noted that Bush and al-Maliki had all but sealed a sweetheart deal that, in the case of Bush, helped his cronies tremendously, and in the case of al-Maliki, promised to preserve his power, all to the detriment of their respective countries. Now we learn that despite the fact that Bush has known for months that the best intelligence available indicates that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, he has been, in those very same months, spewing heated rhetoric about those very, once again, non-existent weapons.
I’m sure someone else has noted, though I haven’t seen it, that the fact that the various intelligence agencies felt free to give this assessment, in the teeth of Bush and Cheney’s preferences, says something about their waning power. The Democrats might still be cowed, but the bureaucrats, apparently, are not. Rightly or wrongly, they must have decided that the Prince of Darkness and his puppet are no longer a threat.
Now we will see whether there will be a replay of 2002, when the far more tentative conclusions of the intelligence community, which cast some, but not enough. doubt on the Iraqi WMDs, were ignored or ridiculed by the neocon ideologues. This time, no doubt, they will argue that since the intelligence agencies were wrong before (having concluded that Iraq might, just might have WMDs) they are no doubt wrong again, proving beyond doubt that Iran most certainly must have them.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0gzmBxsFMg[/youtube]
Friday, November 30, 2007
Elton John and Billy Joel team up on their best songs.
Sir Elton’s Your Song
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Tud0xdpE8[/youtube]
Billy Joel’s Piano Man
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WXjU2i99HE&feature=related[/youtube]
Friday, November 30, 2007
The move to steal about half of California’s electoral votes has been quashed for now. The folks with the deep pockets behind the campaign apparently weren’t willing to collect legitimate signatures for their ballot initiative, preferring, in time honored Republican fashion, to do it by fraud. Unfortunately for them, they were caught, so they had to withdraw the initiative. We may not have seen the last of this. This is the second time they have had to back off, but expect them to come back again.
In case you’re not familiar with the proposal, it seeks to allocate California’s electoral votes by Congressional District. If the Republican candidate wins in 15 districts, for instance he (no need to say “or she”) gets 15 electoral votes. If such a proposal were adopted nationwide it might be something of an improvement over what we now have, but probably not. It is entirely possible that a candidate could get 60% of the votes in a given state, but only 40% of the electoral votes, if that candidate did extremely well in a few districts and lost narrowly in a lot of the others. Such a result is not unlikely, what with the way districts are often gerrymandered.
A fairer way would be to allocate the votes proportionally. Even better, there is a plan being floated whereby a state could pass an act allocating its electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote if and only if a sufficient number of states comprising a majority of the electoral college follow suit.
Of course, the Republicans behind the California shenanigans are not interested in being fair. They are interested in finding yet another way to subvert the national will. Suppressing Democratic votes may not work in 2008.
Speaking of suppressing the vote, there’s a documentary on PBS tonight on Now, documenting the spreading movement in the backwater states to restrict the vote-the Democratic vote that is. It’s on WGBH at 8:00 PM
