You know - for the kids...

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Bill O’Reilly, Man of the White People

One wonders how often Bill O’Reilly has dealings with non-white folks. I suggest that his unfamiliarity with peoples of a darker complexion would explain the following, as I firmly believe that a prominent television and radio personality could harbor no racist inclinations. Really, I do.

O'Reilly, who describes himself as a populist and traditionalist, has been accused of "velvet racism" for comments on his radio show about the famous Harlem restaurant Sylvia's. The remarks referred to a dinner the commentator had enjoyed there with the Rev Al Sharpton, the black preacher and political leader.

The dinner itself passed off uneventfully, by all accounts. But when O'Reilly reminisced about the evening he portrayed it in a way that set alarm bells ringing across the blogosphere.

He started out by praising the staff and largely black clientele of the restaurant for being "very, very nice" and "tremendously respectful". Warming to his theme, he said: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks." [Ed. Note – emphasis mine and you have got to be fucking kidding me]

To compound matters, in a separate radio broadcast he referred to the dinner again. "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' [Me again - seriously, wtf?] You know, it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb. People were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

“Velvet racism”, eh. How about old fashion “those Negroes don’t know how to behave themselves” racism? I cannot believe that he is going to get a pass on the “even though it’s run by blacks” remark. A real news organization would have fired him in a New York minute, which, incidentally, tells you all you need to know about Fox News.

Oh, and one more thing, Bill’s all-white suburban Italian quietude is a thing of pure fantasy. If you want real honest-to-goodness dinnertime chaos, try having a meal with a big Italian family. Talk about craziness; it is like a rugby match played indoors with cutlery and every diner is their own team. There is cursing, shouting over each other, indeed I have seen elbows thrown. And if you want the last helping of Calamari Marinara or Chicken Parm, you gotta get in there and fight for it.

When are you folks going to sack up?

In last night's debate, not one of the top tier Democratic candidates would commit to a complete withdrawal from Iraq by 2013. 2013?!?!?!?!?! Just kill me now.

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

Oh come on people, show some goodamn backbone. Well over half of the country wants us out in a year and this is the best that you can do? Makes me proud that I will get to vote for such steadfast leadership. And as bad as those answers were, Hillary had, by far, the most cowardly response of the night.

Several times she refused to give answers, but she couldn't duck when Russert threw her a curveball, asking if she would back the Yankees or Chicago Cubs, her childhood home team, if they met in the World Series. So she waffled.

"Well, I would probably have to alternate sides," she said.

Oh my God. The GOP is going to have a field day with that sound bite. The ads will practically write themselves.

Corporate censorship

How is this not a violation of the First Amendment?

Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

There has long been an unresolved Constitutional question regarding the degree of censorship that private companies may exercise on public speech. But most cases dealing with this issue have concerned speech over privately owned networks. What makes this different is a portion of Verizon’s network resides on the publicly owned transmission spectrum and it would seem to me that in that arrangement, Verizon must be considered a common carrier and, therefore, prevented by law from discriminating. Time for Congress to take another crack at a net neutrality law.

UPDATE: Verizon has reversed its text message policy.

But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.

“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Iranian boogeyman?

So I have watched bits and pieces of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad address at Columbia yesterday and I have to say that the Iranian President is quite the rambling buffoon. Really, his remarks ran all over the place, swinging wildly from the bizarre to the patently untrue to the completely absurd and fantastical. He nearly brought the house down by saying, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country". Dana Milbank covers most of the highlights here but suffice it to say, Ahmadinejad’s performance revealed a stunningly ignorant blowhard. For all of his posturing and demagoguery, there appears to be very little substance or intellectual discipline to the man.

Contrast his bumbling randomness with the commanding, focused presence of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini was a convincing menace. By comparison, Ahmadinejad looks like a dullard who buys his suits off the rack from J.C. Penney’s, the Frank Drebin of Middle Eastern autocrats. Were it not for the fact that he is in charge of a potential nuclear threat, he would be hard to take seriously. It was so bad that Columbia’s President, Lee Bollinger, concluded the debate thusly, “Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for."

Sounds about right to me.

A new low

A while back, the Onion ran a really funny bit of satire spoofing Rudy Giuliani for running for the “President of 9/11”.

"My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise," said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. "As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all."

If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world's conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.

See, funny and whoever designed the banner is a genius. Well, in a moment of life imitating somewhat tasteless art, a Giuliani supporter is holding a fundraiser seeking contributions of $9.11. I wish I were making this up.

WASHINGTON — A supporter of Rudy Giuliani's is throwing a party that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican's presidential campaign.

Abraham Sofaer is having a fundraiser at his Palo Alto, Calif., home on Wednesday, when Giuliani backers across the country are participating in the campaign's national house party night.

But Sofaer said he had nothing to do with the "$9.11 for Rudy" theme.

"There are some young people who came up with it," Sofaer said when reached by telephone Monday evening. He referred other questions to Giuliani's campaign.

"I'm just providing support for him. He's an old friend of mine," Sofaer said of Giuliani.

Even this Sofaer fellow seems to understand how shameful this event is, going so far as to hide behind “some young people”, the Giuliani campaign and the fact that he and Rudy go back. Nice…

Monday, September 24, 2007

Oh hell no

If I were to have brain surgery, I would want, nay demand, to be unconscious. Under no circumstances would I desire some casual conversation whilst a doctor routes around a half-inch hole in my head. No thank you very much.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Cognitive dissonance

There is delusional and then there is completely out of touch with reality. Our President is the latter; occupying it seems a Twilight Zone-like dimension in which he is popular, wise, and trusted. That is the only way to account for this:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush insisted on Thursday he will be a "strong asset" for Republicans battling for election in 2008, despite shaky opinion poll ratings born of a tumultuous presidency.

Bush, who has 16 months left in his second term, laid out a battle-plan for 2008 Republican candidates, based on a robust 'war on terror' policy, support for Iraq and low taxes.

"Strong asset," Bush said emphatically, when asked at a White House news conference whether he would be an asset or liability for Republicans in presidential and congressional elections next year.

Are you kidding me? Seriously, are fucking kidding me? That is what popped into my head once I picked myself up off the floor, having collapsed into uncontrollable hysterics from the absurdity of that remark. I am sure that if you asked any of the Republican candidates for an off-the-record assessment of Bush, strong asset would not be a frequent response. Suggest to McCain that Bush should stump for him and I bet the man would break out into hives. Indeed, I think the field regards Mr. Bush as an anchor, a drag on the Party, persona non grata, the albatross around their necks, the Sword of Damoclese poised ever so precariously above each of their heads. This atmosphere is the most hostile to the GOP since Watergate and Chimpy McHalfwit thinks he will be a strong asset. What a maroon…

Called out

Crooks and Liars has the video of Olbermann’s Special Comment in which he excoriates Bush’s cynical use of the military to shield from criticism his Administration’s policies. It is a bravura performance. This was no simple dressing down of the President; Olbermann just OWNS him. If only we had a thousand more Keiths patrolling our nation’s newsrooms.

Stung

Even more trouble for Ted Stevens.

WASHINGTON - The FBI, working with an Alaska oil contractor, secretly taped telephone calls with Sen. Ted Stevens as part of a public corruption sting, according to people close to the investigation.

The secret recordings suggest the Justice Department was eyeing Stevens long before June, when the Republican senator first publicly acknowledged he was under scrutiny. At that time, it appeared Stevens was a new focus in a case that had already ensnared several state lawmakers.

I wonder what the over/under is for him keeping his seat through the end of the year.

The rich get richer

My inner Communist finds this kind of wealth concentration deeply disturbing.

One billion dollars is no longer enough. The price of admission to this, the 25th anniversary edition of the Forbes 400, is $1.3 billion, up $300 million from last year. The collective net worth of America’s plutocrats rose $290 billion to $1.54 trillion.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Newt says “Send me your money”

Newt Gingrich has announced that he will get into the Presidential race if his supporters pledge $30 million by November.

Translation: I am way too lazy to actually campaign and raise money like a real candidate, but if you people beat a path for me, I will be gracious enough to lead you down it.

I don’t know about you but that reminds me of the classic Oral Roberts con in which he told his congregation that unless he raised 8 million bucks in one month, God would strike him down. Roberts ended up collecting over $9 million.

In that spirit, please enjoy “Send me your money” by Suicidal Tendancies. Sacrilicious!

Betrayal

Dana Milbank has a good piece in the Post today covering John Warner’s monumental flip-flop on Jim Webb’s deployment bill.

Just two months ago, the courtly Virginia Republican went to the Senate floor and sided with his Democratic colleague from the commonwealth, Jim Webb, on a plan that would shorten troop deployments in Iraq. Yesterday, he went to the same place to announce that he would now vote against the same bill.

[Snip]

Webb was rather less pleased to discover that Warner had retreated from their shared foxhole. The White House "turned up the political heat, and that made people, like particularly Senator Warner, uncomfortable," he deduced.

And when did Webb learn of the betrayal? "Um," Webb replied, "he told me five minutes before the debate began this morning."

What a truly spineless maneuver by a Senator for whom I had a fair amount of respect. But let’s face it, anytime one sides, on defense issues no less, with the likes of chickenhawk sonuvabitch Saxby Chambliss over decorated vet Jim Webb, chances are pretty good that one is doing the soldiers a profound disservice. Not to mention selling out ones negotiating partner at the last minute or as Milbank put it, “fragging his home-state colleague”. Ugh.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Ugly day in the Senate

First, the Senate rejected a bill that would have restored habeus corpus to military detainees. Then the world’s greatest deliberative body stalled Jim Webb’s bill to grant soldiers as much time at home as they spend on deployment. Special thanks to John Warner for torpedoing that legislation.

Not exactly covering yourselves in glory today, are you fellas?

Embracing the whiteness

Hot on the heels of skipping the Latino-centric Univision debate, the top tier GOP candidates have announced that they will not attend the forum that will focus on African-American issues. This development has many in the GOP worried, and rightly so. America as a whole is getting darker and Republican policies have alienated many if not most of that population. Refusing to address those audiences is not going to help matters. Even worse, those that recognize the problem don’t seem to grasp how to fix it.

"We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us," said former congressman Jack Kemp (N.Y.), who was the GOP vice presidential nominee in 1996. "What are we going to do -- meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we're going to be competitive with people of color, we've got to ask them for their vote."

Sorry Jack but just asking for the vote is going to cut it. There is far too much history between people of color and the GOP what with the infamous Southern Strategy, the Willie Horton ad, Trent Lott’s Dixiecrat pining, etc – one could go on for days. The upshot is that a whole generation of African-American and Latino voters is lost to the GOP. Furthermore, it will take a sea change in policy priorities to alter that reality and any attempt to do so risks disaffecting the substantial Cracker wing in the South. So, they are damned if they reach out to minorities and damned if they don’t. The GOP made this bed and now they must lie in it.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What is really important?

Sweet merciful crap. John McCain just let the cat out of the bag when it comes to religion and a good portion of the modern conservative movement. Thomas Jefferson must be rolling over in his grave.

AIKEN, S.C. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that questions over whether he identifies himself as a Baptist or an Episcopalian are not as important as his overarching faith. "The most important thing is that I am a Christian," [emphasis mine] the Arizona senator told reporters following two campaign stops in this early voting state.


That’s right ladies and gentleman. Being a Christian is the single most important qualification for the American President. Welcome to Jesusland; Jews, Hindus, et al. need not apply. Now please excuse me while I go vomit.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Progress, Saudi style

There is a debate going on in Saudi Arabia on whether or not women should be allowed drive. Even more ridiculous, this could be considered progress because the last time the issue had something approaching a public airing, the discussion centered on whether women had the right to petition over the driving privileges.

What a sad state of affairs...

This is so, so wrong

I do not care how developed, mature, whatever a kid can be at 12, they should not be models for adult fashions. Children simply do not belong in that world. Anyone who cannot understand that fact needs to have his or her head examined.

Not a frontrunner but…

I, like most other people, dismissed Chris Dodd’s campaign for the Democratic nomination because he is little known outside on Connecticut and faced the media theme that this would be a Clinton/Obama or Clinton/Edwards fight. I like his politics for the most part (his vote for the war notwithstanding) but I just didn’t think he could garner enough attention to really make a go of it. Dodd, however, has been forcing people to take notice.

Ames, Ia. - Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd said Saturday that he will introduce an amendment in the U.S. Senate next week that would require a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq by April 2008.

This is one of those “good policy is good politics” situations. First, the amendment demands a withdrawal date, obviously a good thing. Second, it forces Hillary to put up or shut up. She has very carefully straddled the withdrawal issue. The Dodd Amendment will compel her to take a stand (Obama as well). Third, Dodd comes across as the anti-war candidate that can actually help end this disaster – and no, Kucinich still doesn’t count. For Democratic primary voters, Iraq is THE ISSUE. His amendment should help him gain some attention, if not, momentum.

If you are so inclined, Dodd’s issue outlines are available here.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Keyes for President

Alan Keyes has entered to GOP race for 2008. I wholeheartedly endorse him for the Republican nomination. This is huge opportunity for all the true blue conservatives and any comedy writers out there, as Keyes will no doubt bring the crazy like no other. If you are looking for a firebrand lunatic theocrat to get behind, this is your guy. For everyone else, dude is pure comic gold during a debate. In that vein, he plans to participate in the Values Voter debate on Sept. 17. Now, I would normally never watch something called a Values Voter debate because I would probably kick in the television within five minutes of the thing starting. But with Keyes in the mix, I might just watch. People, he is that out there.

Another shoe drops

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is in a whole heap of trouble.

Former Veco chairman Bill Allen might have been on the witness stand to present bribery evidence against a state legislator, but the biggest shock of the day -- perhaps the entire trial -- was his assertion Friday that he or his company financed a substantial portion of the remodeling of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' Girdwood home.

That, boys and girls, sounds a lot like bribery.

Friday, September 14, 2007

A leopard cannot change its spots

As usual, Paul Krugman sees what is going on.

All in all, Mr. Bush’s actions have not been those of a leader seriously trying to win a war. They have, however, been what you’d expect from a man whose plan is to keep up appearances for the next 16 months, never mind the cost in lives and money, then shift the blame for failure onto his successor.

In fact, that’s my interpretation of something that startled many people: Mr. Bush’s decision last month, after spending years denying that the Iraq war had anything in common with Vietnam, to suddenly embrace the parallel.

Here’s how I see it: At this point, Mr. Bush is looking forward to replaying the political aftermath of Vietnam, in which the right wing eventually achieved a rewriting of history that would have made George Orwell proud, convincing millions of Americans that our soldiers had victory in their grasp but were stabbed in the back by the peaceniks back home.

What all this means is that the next president, even as he or she tries to extricate us from Iraq — and prevent the country’s breakup from turning into a regional war — will have to deal with constant sniping from the people who lied us into an unnecessary war, then lost the war they started, but will never, ever, take responsibility for their failures.

Exactly. George Bush has a long history of shirking responsibly for his failures, business, political, or otherwise. That is not going to change now.

Scary

In reading the breakdown of the latest AP poll for the primary race, this struck me as ridiculous and insane:

Lisa Baudoin, 40, a student and homemaker in Sugar Land, Texas, said she is a conservative and supporting Thompson because of his views on abortion and immigration. She said she does not like Giuliani's more moderate immigration stance or his three marriages, and doesn't like McCain's opposition to the U.S. torturing terrorism suspects.

"How are you going to get information? They don't play nice. Why do we have to if no one else is," she said. [emphasis mine]

Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously, one can find fault with any number of McCain’s policy positions but being anti-torture? Really? Note to self – stay the hell out of Sugar Land, Texas.

Small price

In case you had an doubts that the current Republican leadership views our armed forces as a pawns in their real-life Risk game, consider this the nail in the coffin. I give you House Minority asshole Leader John Boehner(R-OH), who says that our investment in Iraq (of billions of dollars, thousands of dead soldiers, and many thousands more injured) has been a “small price” to pay for stopping al Qaeda. If empathy were oxygen, this guy would suffocate.

You can watch it here at ThinkProgress.

And the hits keep coming

It must really suck to work for the RNC right about now. John Sununu’s New Hampshire Senate seat was the most likely Democratic pick up in 2008. With immensely popular former Governor Jeanne Shaheen getting into the race, it just became doubly so.

Anyway, here is the math as I see it right now: we have a better than even money shot of gaining seats in New Hampshire, Virginia, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado. Add to that some wild cards: there is Craig in Idaho, Hagel’s retirement in Nebraska, Stevens and his corruption scandal in Alaska, and finally, Dole and Cornyn are under 50% in North Carolina(!) and Texas(!?!?!?!?) respectively. Those numbers get us close to a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate. If a few things break our way and we have some luck, we are looking at a gain of around ten GOP seats. Oh happy day!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Fame

Colin Farrell is one cool motherfucker.

(Hat tip to HuffPo)

But I thought the surge was working!

Turns out, things may not be going so well after all. A car bombing killed one of the more prominent allied Sunni Sheiks. That can’t be good.

BAGHDAD, Sept. 13 — The leader of a group of local Sunni tribes cooperating with American and Iraqi forces in fighting extremist Sunni militants in Anbar Province was killed by a bomb today, Iraqi police officials said, in a blow to an effort President Bush has held up as a model of progress.

The Sunni leader, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, who met and shook hands with Mr. Bush during his visit to a military base in the province last week, led the Anbar Salvation Council, an alliance of clans supporting the Iraqi government and American forces. Initial reports suggested he was killed either by a bomb in his car or by a roadside bomb close to his car near his home in Ramadi in Anbar Province, the sprawling region west of Baghdad.


And what little progress there has been on the political front appears to be unraveling.

BAGHDAD, Sept. 12 — A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here.

[Snip]

The oil law — which would govern how oil fields are developed and managed — is one of several benchmarks that the Bush administration has been pressing the Iraqis to meet as a sign that they are making headway toward creating an effective government.
Again and again in the past year, agreement on the law has been fleetingly close before political and sectarian disagreements have arisen to stall the deal.


But not to worry because in a year, everything will be hunky-dory.

This makes me want to cry

The world’s gorillas may be on the brink on extinction.

GENEVA - The most common type of gorilla is now "critically endangered," one step away from global extinction, according to the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species released Wednesday by the World Conservation Union.

The Ebola virus is depleting Western Gorilla populations to a point where it might become impossible for them to recover.

Commercial hunting, civil unrest and habitat loss due to logging and forest clearance for palm oil plantations are compounding the problem, said the Swiss-based group known by its acronym IUCN.

"Great apes are our closest living relatives and very special creatures," Russ Mittermeier, head of IUCN's Primate Specialist Group, told The Associated Press. "We could fit all the remaining great apes in the world into two or three large football stadiums. There just aren't very many left."

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

A blue Virginia in 2008

The conventional wisdom here in the Commonwealth is that Mark Warner will announce his candidacy for the Senate seat occupied by the retiring John Warner today. Warner’s likely opponent is either center-right Rep. Tom Davis or Virginia’s worst Governor since the Civil Rights era, Jim Gilmore. Simply put, Davis is the Republicans’ only hope. He is the fairly moderate (by Virginia standards anyway) protégé of John Warner and has a solid base in populous Fairfax County. Gilmore, on the other hand, damn near bankrupted the state. In fact, many here regard Warner, Gilmore’s successor in the Governor's Mansion, as something of the savior of Virginia’s credit rating. If I am Warner and Gilmore is my opponent, I don’t think I could highlight that enough. In short, if Gilmore wins the primary, it will doom the GOP’s chances of retaining the seat. Even if Davis wins the primary, he faces a real uphill battle against one of the most popular and successful Virginia politicians in recent memory. Which makes it these comments from a couple Virginia’s GOP political operatives all the funnier:

Several Republican strategists said Warner is no shoo-in for the Senate in 2008 and could face a bruising race. They said Warner had the luxury of never having held elected office when he ran for governor.

"This time, he has a record and he'll be held to it," said Chris LaCivita, an adviser to Davis, a possible candidate. LaCivita noted that Warner raised taxes as governor despite making repeated campaign promises that he would not.

"The free ride is over," said Dick Leggitt, an adviser to Gilmore.

Oh yeah guys, what with a record of fiscal responsibility and approval ratings in the mid-70’s, Warner must be quaking in his boots. The race has not even begun but this is Mark Warner's seat to lose.

With friends like these…

During the Cold War, the US propped up all manner of beast and bastard in an effort to thwart the spread of the Red Menace. Be it Pinochet in Chile, the horrible military dictatorship of post-war South Korea, or the Shah in Iran, we backed some pretty horrible individuals. In the realpolitik sense, the strategy succeeded in that Communism is pretty much a dead economic philosophy but it set a precedent on which our foreign policy operates today. Essentially, we substituted the Commies for Islamic radicals as the threat and viola; we have a rational for maintaining the corrupt and anti-democratic governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand the necessity of this. I firmly believe that having someone as bad as Musharraf in power is better than your average nut but the whole business is unsavory and wins us few friends. Nothing drives that point home better than when our buddy deports his political opponents. It sort of undercuts our whole freedom and democracy message, don’t you think?

Schadenfreude

One of Senator David Vitter’s (R-LA) New Orleans hookers is going public about their relationship. And God help me but I do love Larry Flynt – America’s Greatest Troublemaker.

Monday, September 10, 2007

No more excuses

Petraeus says we have at least another year in Iraq and the U.S. Institute of Peace says we need five more. I don’t know about you but I find the prospect of either almost too depressing to contemplate. Congress gave the Administration everything they asked to run this war. A rolling five-year disaster has been the result and yet, the gang that could not shoot straight continues to demand more bullets. And Congress continues to provide them - ugh.

It remains a mystery to me how anyone could give a cogent, intellectually honest argument for staying in Iraq when the prosecution of the war, up to this very moment, has been so wildly fucked up. To lift an expression I once heard, the Bush Administration is so incompetent, they could not spell cat if you spotted them the “c” and the “a”. This is not the A-Team, never has been, and never will be. I wish we had players at the table that could save Iraq from itself but we don’t. So for what it is worth (damn little I know), I say no more wishful thinking, no more second (umpteenth?) chances, no more "we just need six more months”, and no more Plan B’s, it is time to get the hell out yesterday.

The brain is an interesting place

A new study of human brain function finds a relationship between cognition and political views.

Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances.

[Snip]

The match-up was unmistakable: respondents who had described themselves as liberals showed "significantly greater conflict-related neural activity" when the hypothetical situation called for an unscheduled break in routine.

Conservatives, however, were less flexible, refusing to deviate from old habits "despite signals that this ... should be changed."


To my mind, this seems intuitively correct (think Iraq or tax policy).

Happy Petraeus Day

From the AP:

WASHINGTON - Democrats and moderate Republicans in Congress have tough questions for a top military commander in Iraq who is warning against major changes to President Bush's war strategy.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Marion Barry logic

The much awaited Petraeus Report, you know the one being drafted by the White House, will show a sharp decrease in sectarian violence. The report, unfortunately, is based on “cherry picked” data. I know what you are thinking, how could the Administration deceive the country about something so important and why would a General sign onto something like this? To which I say, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and Dick Cheney’s gotta drink the blood of infants. Since Colin Powell is no longer available, carrying Bush’s water is now Petraeus’s gig. So how does the Post define cherry picking? How about this:

Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome."

I should say. Or this:

Among the most worrisome trends cited by the NIE was escalating warfare between rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that has consumed the port city of Basra and resulted last month in the assassination of two southern provincial governors. According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. "Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances," the spokesman said, "we do not track this data to any significant degree."

Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda -- are also excluded from the U.S. military's calculation of violence levels.

Natch - why would any of that count? Then there is this:

A senior military intelligence official in Baghdad deemed it "odd" that "marginal" security improvements were reflected in an estimate assessing the previous seven months and projecting the next six to 12 months. He attributed the change to a desire to provide Petraeus with ammunition for his congressional testimony.

The intelligence official in Washington, however, described the Baghdad consultation as standard in the NIE drafting process and said that the "new information" did not change the estimate's conclusions. The overall assessment was that the security situation in Iraq since January "was still getting worse," he said, "but not as fast."

So, at best, we have slowed the rate of Iraq's disintegration. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the surge.

Look, the bottom line is that this Administration lied us into this war and continues to lie about the efficacy of their war policy. Now, the goal seems to be to change how one measures the success of same. As the old saying goes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Or to put it another way, you could go with former D.C. Mayor Marion Berry’s infamous remark describing the level of crime in the District:

If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate.

Un-huh. And one could say the same about Baghdad.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Delusional or just a dick?

I swear to God, our President needs to have his head examined by a serious, competent psychiatrist. He is either disassociated from reality or a borderline sociopath (hat tip to Atrios):

"We're kicking ass," he told Mark Vaile on the tarmac after the Deputy Prime Minister inquired politely of the President's stopover in Iraq en route to Sydney.

What the fuck!?!?!?!? How can any (sane) person believe that? At this late date, with thousands dead, trillions spent, and so damn little to show for it, one would think that this asshole would drop the ridiculous cowboy bravado and act like a goddamn adult instead of the Bruce Willis character from Die Hard. But then one would, of course, be wrong. And while I am at the metaphorical wishing well, it would also be nice if for once, he went abroad and didn’t make a fool of himself. A boy can dream can’t he…

The GOP may be reaching for the Panic button

In what has to be one of the most outrageous and egomaniacal political moves of the decade, Senator Larry Craig (R-Chutzpah) may renege on his promise to resign from the Senate. Apparently, he is going to fight his own guilty plea to charges that he solicited gay sex in a public men’s room (BTW – I cannot believe I just wrote that sentence). Craig may be gearing up for a kamikaze mission of mythic proportions. Here is why:

Many have asked why Senator David Vitter (R-Brothel) got a pass on his sex scandal while Craig got the hook. Some say it is because a Democrat would have replaced Vitter. Others, myself included, believed that a sizable portion of the GOP finds trolling for gay sex more insidious than actual, adulterous sex. At any rate, most of the Republicans that called for his resignation claimed that because Craig admitted guilt in a court, he was unfit to serve, something Vitter did not do. It is a mild distinction, I know, but a distinction on which they cling. So imagine this scenario.

Craig could very well beat his disorderly conduct charge and in doing so, undercut his critics’ rationale for demanding he leave the Senate. So the damaged Senator returns and runs for re-election. Craig then forces every GOP member of the House and Senate to respond to the question, “Do you think the Sen. Craig should have resigned and why?”

Here are the options:
1. One can say yes, he should go, which will please the base but runs seriously towards the homophobic because a good reporter would immediately follow up with “And what of Sen. Vitter?” Checkmate, you’re a bigoted hypocrite.
2. One can say no, he has cleared his name and as such, there is no reason for the Senator to resign. Unfortunately, that would kill your support in the Christian Conservative wing.
3. Run, obfuscate, dodge, spin, or “No Comment” your way out. And now you look like a huge pussy.

As you can see, there are no good answers. In a year that is already shaping up to be a real challenge for Republicans, Larry Craig may just push the whole thing over a cliff. If you are running in a tight race, this is not what you want to talk about, ever. Not to mention the delicious irony at work here. Craig, abandoned by his friends like a sinking ship when the scandal broke, returns to scuttle their chances in 2008. The whole thing reminds me of the Count of Monte Cristo, only less noble and more tawdry.

Ouch

McCain just got owned by a high school kid (hat tip to ThinkProgress).

Student: “Do you support civil unions or gay marriage?”

McCain: “I do not. I think that they impinge on the status and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Student: “So you believe in taking away someone’s rights because you believe it’s wrong?”

McCain: “I wouldn’t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours.” […]

Student: “I came here looking to see a leader. I don’t.”

Snap!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Live fast. Die young. Leave a pretty corpse.

























A new study found that rock stars are two to three times more likely to die prematurely than the rest of the population. Not really all that surprising but pretty interesting that the study could actually quantify the ratio. In that spirit, my money in the celebrity dead pool is totally on Amy Winehouse, though Pete Doherty is also a solid pick.

165 MPH

Felix made landfall as a Category 5 storm this morning.

Hurricane Dean struck Mexico two weeks ago as a Category 5 storm, and Felix's landfall marked the first time that two Category 5 hurricanes have hit land in a season since 1886, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only 31 such storms have been recorded in the Atlantic, including eight in the last five seasons [emphasis mine].

And yet, we still need to debate global warming?

Sunday, September 02, 2007

An emotional day for the Hokie Nation

The Pilot has a terrific article about Tech’s season opener and all of the emotion that went with it. Let me just add that the people responsible for coordinating the commemoration of the victims did a fantastic job. It was a lovely tribute, especially the video, and it hit just the right note.