13D Lead Picked Up by Joe Conason

As you may recall, a recent 13D entry pointed out a very telling instance of Republican amnesia on the pre-war UN weapons inspections led by Hans Blix.

Today, that very same episode forms the basis of Joe Conason's Journal entry at Salon. Joe uses it to impugn the brains or motives - take your pick - of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This is not accidental - in the wake of Joe's Tuesday entry lamenting our President's second public reference to Saddam "not letting in" the inspectors, I emailed Joe directly with the Sen. Roberts quote and the link to the official CNN transcript of the show. That same link is referenced as the key source in his journal entry.

So I think we can safely chalk this one up to 13D.

A 2fer for Michael Kinsley?

Why is it that Kinsley can publish an article twice in the same day in two different publications: Never Say Die (washingtonpost.com) and also as Never Say Die (slate.com) .

Krugman asks the stinging question.

Op-Ed Columnist: Where’s the Apology?: "Still, the big story isn't about Mr. Bush; it's about what's happening to America. Other presidents would have liked to bully the C.I.A., stonewall investigations and give huge contracts to their friends without oversight. They knew, however, that they couldn't. What has gone wrong with our country that allows this president to get away with such things?  "

Cheney goes 'round the mulberry bush

Ceratinly, loyalty counts for Bush and Rove. However, let's take a look at this week's headlines: Cheney says WMD are still in Iraq and the two vans were used for producing them. Bush, however, comes out to say "Well, mebbe not, mebbe we were misled by those dang CIA people."

Think of how this plays during debates. You've got Howard Dean (in my own little fantasyland) beating up Cheney on his claims of WMD, while he continues to affirm their exsistence; while Edwards hits Bush with "How do you expect the country to follow you if you can't even lead your own Vice President?"

This is a nice big fat stick. If Bush hugs Cheney in a death spiral, it should not be left to the side of the road. From this, Bush will learn the valuable life lesson that Loyalty's great and all, but in politics, loyalty will leave you with exactly one friend. Not a lot of votes in one friend.

This just in: Cheney retreats from WMD claims . Dang. Sounds like Cheney is learning the price of loyalty.

13D Beats Dowd

13D, ahead of the game once again, has beaten Maureen Dowd to the punch on the "Dump Dick" front: Dowd's Thursday NYT Op-Ed.

I've decided I don't believe W will dump Dick. To qualify that: W will not dump Dick for palpably political reasons, no matter how many times Dick shoots his mouth off about Saddam's empty semi-trailers cum high-tech mobile bioweapons labs. To dump Dick in this manner would be to concede weakness, and if W (=Rove - thanks Jamie!) is about anything, it's about never conceding weakness, doubt, or second thoughts. So: Not gonna happen.

However, the calculus changes completely if Dick encounters some serious health problems. In that case, the entire dumping can be framed as "at Dick's (and his family's) request" and for the good of all. The only downside of this approach is that it is not easy, with modern medical technology (and Dick's heart as it is), to orchestrate a "serious health problem" that does not in fact threaten the life of the patient. Thus the inevitable conclusion: If Dick's numbers continue to fall, he could well become the first known instance of a Veep who was killed because of lousy ratings.

But why should we listen to Kay anyhow? He got his job through nepotism.

And now, my secret Washington sources tell me that David Kay's wife was a CIA assassin in Columbia during the 80's, killing over 200 members of the Medlin cartel singlehandedly, and that's the only reason he was sent to Iraq, not his competency to comment on WMD issues.

Ooops -- was that supposed to be a secret? Cause I just thought the people ought to know that Kay wasn't there for his own competency, but through the connections of his CIA assassin wife, who is very highly regarded for her 200 assassinations in the Medlin cartel (she's retired now). So I'm told. By certain senior administration officials.

Cheney

Cheney's baggage:

• A leading hawk, forcing WMD-slanted intelligence summaries by the CIA. Not so good post-Kay. Hawk is so June 2002.
  
• Haliburton's $60M overcharge on a no-bid contract.
  
• Think he's going to be indicted in the Plame scandal? I give it 50/50. Maybe 30/70.
  
• Heart trouble. Let's not forget the guy appears to still like those bacon rinds. He has a heart attack, and we're talking Vice President..... Haastert?
  

He's a drag on the ticket, not pulling in any Dems for sure, and his hawk/business constituency is now George's constituency. Bush's smart move 1: Drop Cheney. Smart move 2: Powell for VP. BIG democratic cross over. And they'll hold the right.

Will WMD Stick to Dick?

Interesting think-piece on fallout from the current round of WMD disclosures: This might slip Dick Cheney right off the bottom half of the ticket he still shares with W. This would be the realization of a longstanding prediction of Bob's that Dick would end up taking a fall before November.

The article points out an amusing irony: Political observers have taken it as a given that the Veep's current visibility (Davos; Europe; Da Pope) is part of a strategy to bolster his position in the party and on the ticket. Yet he keeps saying the darndest things. Plus, every time he emerges into the sunlight he gets hit with Halliburton questions. So it may have suited his interests better to remain in seclusion, after all...

On SCO, UNIX, and Lawsuits

Actually, SCO claims to own UNIX, and also claims that Linux utilizes code from the UNIX source base that it owns, specifically the Linux that IBM ships with all their servers as well as the Linux distribution from SGI, which SCO has named in a separate lawsuit. As for SCO vs. Microsoft, Microsoft licenses UNIX technology and patents from SCO, and is rumored to be behind a $50 Million cash investment from an investment firm that occured last October. The firm, BayStar, has been involved with Microsoft investments before this one, but denies that MS has anything to do with this one to SCO.

SCO has also sued Novell, and a firm in Australia (whose name I can't remember at the moment). SCO has also failed to provide any evidence (source code) to date which proves that IBM's Linux has anything to do with their UNIX source code.

MyDoom (Novarg.A/Mimail.R) virus is a DDOS on SCO

According to this WaPOST article, the latest, hottest email virus is performing a distributed denial of service attack on SCO's main website. SCO's the company suing IBM, claiming that SCO owns Linux, in order to create the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt of Linux on behalf of Microsoft, because Microsoft doesn't like Linux (after SCO filed the lawsuit, the teetering company got a huge cash infusion from Microsoft; it's litigation as a business plan).

Bush's Issues

• Spending. Bush has so many new government programs, Ted Kennedy can't keep up with them all. $1.5B to shore up marriage an an experimental adventure to give "problem solving skills" to poor couples who argue -- when really what they need is jobs and healthcare, so that they don't have something to argue about; $400B adventure to Mars -- to do what? Who in this country is demanding to go to Mars? Sure, we could do it -- but when we do, who will care? In the meantime, we spend $150B to go find WMD in Iraq which aren't even there, and you're saying "we didn't know about it" -- well, we did, Bush just didn't know we didn't know about it, while everyone else in the world did.
  
• No WMD in Iraq: David Kay's recent statements
  
• Valerie Plame: the grand jury is hearing testimony, which means we can probably expect an indictment to be handed down later this spring. Nothing like a good old-fashioned scandal in the White House to bring the troops down. And here's the kicker: Bush is big on loyalty -- so either Karl Rove and Cheney (oops, I mean, whoever it is who gets indicted) either resign and move out, and Bush loses is loyalty marks, or they stay in and the administration takes collateral damage as the grand jury fires its shots. The fact that the administration, by the way, played politics with the safety of one of our CIA officers and every contact she ever met, combined with their ignoring CIA evaluations of WMD in Iraq, shows that Bush Jr. thinks the organization his Dad was the head of in the 70's is nothing more than a tool for his political ends.
  
• Deficit deficit deficit. $850 billion in debt so far? Really? That's a lot of debt. And it's just going to get worse you say? When is it going to drive up interest rates, which in turn causes drops in that investment to re-start the business cycle, thus depressing stock prices, and sending the entire nation's 401Ks into the sewer.
  
• Values. Look at all these promises Bush made before the first election. Remember the faith-based initiative? He hired some professor from Penn State for 6 months, who ended up quitting in disgust, and nothing since? A bunch of empty promises for values in the White House. We can do much, much better.
  
• Safety from terrorism. Bush's vision of the future is either a nation in which we are all in permanent lockdown in our individual cells, or in which bombs are constantly going off in our local markets and football games. I say, we can offer a vision of neither -- when American's don't have a choice of either living in fear, or being locked into cells, never to come out. The US has much to be proud of, and it's time that we won the ideological war against terrorism: that our way -- individual liberty, financial opportunity -- is the choice they should come for, and that every government should offer its citizens these choices, at a minimum. And when they do not, we should recognize that governments who suppress their citizens and point to us as a boogey man are packing the nails into bombs which kill our children, and should be dealt with severely.
  

Ladies and Gentlemen, We can do it Again!

Bush is vulnerable from the right.

In the midst of undeniable revelations that there were no WMD in Iraq, and that the idea that there were was a smoke screen thrown up to fool Saddam -- and fooled the CIA as well -- come revelations of a record deficit in ’04 of $477B by the Congressional Budget Office.

If you've been paying attention to your CNN headline news, the "traditional" conservatives are in a fix about the fact that government has gotten bigger under Bush. And with bush wracking up an astounding $1Trillion in debt since taking office (roughly -- actually, it's $850B, but why be fair?) Democrats can once again say, "It's the deficit stupid!"

This will divorce Bush from his traditional base of financial support -- although he's been doing okay there so far -- of fiscal conservatives, which is all of big business. IF a democrat steps in claiming Clinton-like economics plans, they can seize the business and financial conservatives.

Moreover, by screaming about the economy and deficit during the election, that will take the wind out of the sails of the far right of Bush's supporters, who may just stay home on election day.

WMD story still building

Thanks to the Democrats who are at the center of the news cycle today and tomorrow (at least), Kay's resignation and associated issues of Iraqi WMD are still in the limelight. Best catches so far:

White House to Review Prewar Intelligence on Iraqi Arms (NYT/IHT): I can imagine they'll be looking into this about as deeply as they looked into the Nigerian Yellowcake assertion - and once again, if he wants to keep his job, George Tenet will take the fall.

Bush Administration Retreats on Iraq Weapons Claim (Boston Globe): This angle is a result of White House Spokesperson Scott McClelllan's refusal to assert today, as he and his predecessor (and higher-ups) have in the past, that the WMD "will be found."

White House: Iraq Weapons Search Will Continue (Newsday): This article points out that Kay himself had in the past denigrated the ongoing UN inspections, and chief inspector Hans Blix, but has now - after nine months and the expenditure of about $1 billion - come to the same conclusions.

WMD in the News

US Weapons Inspector David Kay has resigned his job and this, along with W's SOTU v3.0 (you try saying weapons of mass destruction-related program activities with a deadly-sincere look on your face, and then tell me W has it easy) seems to be the occasion for a bunch of WMD-related stories today.

A couple of notes on the LA Times story:

First, regarding the failure to find the promised WMD, David Kay says, "I actually think the intelligence community owes the President, rather than the President owing the American people." This is a pretty remarkable quote. Interesting in that it gets the situation precisely backwards - since as we know, it was the President (or, more accurately, the Veep) who leaned on the services to distort the intelligence to the point where he could claim knowledge of WMD in SOTU v2.0. Also interesting in that it seems to imply Kay is indeed looking towards a future in either politics or lobbying.

Next, feast your eyes on this excerpt from the LAT:

The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday that his panel is investigating the prewar data. But Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas told CNN's "Late Edition" that if Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction, "why on Earth didn't he let the U.N. inspectors in and avoid the war?"

Two points: First, as we know but prominent Republicans keep forgetting, Saddam did let the UN inspectors in when he saw the US prepared for war. The inspectors were withdrawn when the US told them to go lest they be shot at. Second, if you read the quote carefully, you'll see that Sen. Roberts is actually conceding that if we had known Saddam didn't have any WMD, we would not have attacked Iraq. This is the only possible explanation for his idea that Saddam could have "avoid[ed] the war." After all, if attacking Iraq was justified independent of Iraq having WMD by Saddam's brutal regime and his past use of chemical weapons, then clearly, there was nothing he could do to "avoid the war" - after all, nobody has ever suggested that he might have given over power voluntarily, or stood for free and democratic elections.

Update: I've checked the Sen. Roberts quote against the shows' transcript and it checks out. Moreover, the remark went unchallenged on-air (as expected).

Gail Collins in Her Genre

Commentary on a Presidential Election. Like Tennessee Barbecue, Maine Lobster and California Salads.

Afghanistan, Iraq -- and now to Syria

David Kay, who last week resigned as leader of the US's Iraq WMD search team revealed in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph (registration required) that WMD-related materials had been moved to Syria shortly before the war. "'We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons,' he said. 'But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.'"

A Syrian official, demonstrating a his lack of grasp of Aristotelian logic, responded: "These allegations have been raised many times in the past by Israeli officials, which proves that they are false."

Bets between Bob and Steve

1. LOTR: Oscar Best Picture. Pro: Steve, Con: Bob.

2. Bush Re-election 2004. Steve doesn't want him to win, "unfortunately, Bush will win the Election". Pro: Steve. Con: Bob.

Terms: luxury caffienated beverage.

I'm kind of liking this...

You know, I'm kind of liking this as an argument:

George Bush didn't give *you* a tax cut -- George Bush as President borrowed one half a trillion dollars last year to give to his contributers in the form of tax cuts to the wealthy. But whose money is that? It's *your* money, because *you* are going to have to pay back that loan in *your* taxes in the future.

And how do Bush's wealthy contributers thank you for that $500 Billion payoff? They're giving back, but less than 1% -- only $300M. Oh, and they're giving it directly to George's re-election campaign, to keep the gravy train rolling from 2004 to 2008. You won't see any of it.

Pardon me, did someone say class warfare?

Some context

The lengthy considerations we make in discussing our next President are certainly well contextualized by this article.

The Rich get a Low Interest Loan from the Governement --- Oh, and the Middle Class will be paying it back.

Kinsley makes a point in his article reviewing Bush's compassionate conservatism: [here]: " But the notion that tax cuts are money being 'returned' to American citizens is an authentic Reaganite conceit. When the government is running a deficit of half a trillion dollars a year, a tax cut isn't giving folks their own money back. It is borrowing money to pass out, until it has to be paid back."

That is, the national government borrwed $500B last year, paid it to the wealthy who saw it as a tax cut, and now we as a country will pay interest on that loan, and with the tax burden shifted toward the middle class, it is the middle class of this and the next generation who will have to pay back the estimated $2 Trillion in borrowed cash for the wealthy.

You know, I haven't heard the White House complain about "class warfare" yet, as they did in the previous election when Democrats complained about these "soak the poor" policies. Perhaps they're be afraid it would be taken up as a chant.

Only a few months later.

Paul Krugman declares the electoral fraud enabled by poorly designed electronic voting machine systems to be a threat to the Republic. [Here]

Against Dean

Bill McKibben's email, reproduced below by Robin, arguing that Dean's fund-raising strategy of using the Internet to get $40M of donations in <$100 increments -- involving hundreds of thousands of people -- is "radical democracy, far more important than any particular position that he stakes out" makes as much sense as saying that McGovern, being the first candidate in 1972 to use direct mailing to raise money was "radical democracy, far more important than any particular postion that he stakes out".

What is true is that the most important contribution of Dean to politics is that he has demonstrated that using the Internet for fundraising -- in analogy to direct mailing -- is a new and unexploited technique which can raise significant funds. However, if one assumes, for example, that all $300M of Bush's likely war coffer came from special interests, to counter that in $50 donations, one needs 6,000,000 of them. Bloody unlikely.

Also, just as many $50 donations will go to the Republicans from Bubba and Josie, once Internet fundraising is mastered and sold as a technique just like Direct Mailing already is. This is just a newish flavor of money, and we should expect that as much will go to Republicans as will Democrats. Dean just has a jump on it this year. Congratulations!

Why would I support Dean just because he invented the new Direct Mailing? What's so politically exciting about a new direct mailing fundraising technique?

Answer: it's about as politically exciting as responding with checks to the first direct mailing fundraising. That is to say, not very much. And it didn't help McGovern to be first -- Nixon still trounced him. Bush can do that as well.

I'm still looking for someone who can smack Bush around in an unfair fight -- not meaning somebody who has meaningfully thought about health care, since Democrats congenitally think meaningfully about health care. I want somebody who doesn't have a lot of sticks lying around him that Bush will pick him up and beat him with. Today, I think that somebody is Edwards, with Dean on the bottom of the ticket for balance. Dean made the tactical mistake of identifying too strongly as an "anti-war" candidate, which Bush will paint as anti-patriot. Still, it will be useful to have him around, and I'd like to see him in open debate, not with Bush, but with Cheney. I'm not ruling out Kerry for the bottom spot yet, but I am ruling Kerry out for the top spot, because Kerry is a re-tread Gore -- and we've already seen that movie, and I hated the ending. I'm still waiting for Clark to bring it.

I'm with Derek

What the heck is Friedman talking about when he expresses hope that a credible Democratic opposition was just re-born in Iowa, because they largely ignored Dean (whose popularity had been based on an anti-war message) and voted for Kerry (whose popularity is based on that lantern jaw of his).

Kerry -- nor the second place guy Edwards -- had zero to say about the war. They avoided the topic as much as they could. This is in strong contrast to Friedman's hope that a Democratic candidate emerges to micro-manage political transition in Iraq by : (1) making overatures to Iran, Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and (2) Bush should scrap their approach to new gov't in Iraq, expand the Governing council from 25 to 75, and make THAT the new gov't.

Who the high-holy-heck has been talking about *THAT* in the democratic field. Nobody! Friedman produced a bizarre exercise in wishful thinking -- oh, and I know from wishful thinking.

Ex-CIA agents ask Congress to Get to the bottom of the Plame affair.

And I'm sure the first thing Hastert and Frist said was "Oh, yeah, that's *real* important to us."

The NYTimes article contains some very interesting updates, and is a must-read if you are following this --- which, if you are at all interested in the political independence of our intelligence agencies, and unfolding cloak-and-dagger politics in the highest circle in the White House, you should be.

• Justice Department officials have said almost nothing in public about the status of the investigation. But they have said they are focusing on conversations between White House officials and reporters that both sides might try to cast as private.
  
• Critics of the White House, including Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, have said they fear that the administration may eventually call a halt to the inquiry by announcing that investigators have found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing
  
• The ex-CIA agents wrote: "The disclosure of Ms. Plame's name was an unprecedented and shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, has damaged U.S. national security, specifically the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence-gathering using human sources".
  
• In the letter, the former officers called on Congress to act "for the good of the country" and said it was time to "send an unambiguous message that the intelligence officers tasked with collecting or analyzing intelligence must never be turned into political punching bags."
  

More Annoying Than Brooks

I nominate Tom "Good War of Choice" Friedman for the "Even More Annoying Than David Brooks" prize (this week).

Go on - read the column. I dare you.

The Achilles Heel is in the Silences

Apparently, officials in the Bush re-election campaign and the RNC were frank that Bush would hit on topics where he was broadly popular or with which he believes he could win support says the WAPost.

This might explain his broadside against athletes taking steroids -- which was accompanied by no action for the government to take, was prompted by no obvious recent scandal, and which has never come up in casual conversation with the President before. In other words -- George, what the high holy heck are you talking about? Where did this indignation about steroids come from, and why are you mooning about it in front of 1.4 Billion people? Because you think you set a moral example of not using drugs?

More importantly, Bush (as WaPost pointed out) dropped his mission to Mars from the speech -- it bombed in the polls and, predictably, neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress liked it -- as he also didn't bring up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since it makes him look like an ineffective leader.

For Democratic strategists, the meaning is doubly clear: the President can't meaningfully talk about his failures, and if you hit him with it, he can't respond. If this is done during real-time debates, expect him to go apopleptic, which would be interesting to watch.

AT&T Wireless Up for Sale

I knew my wireless carrier sucked, so this comes as no surprise: They're up for sale.

Cat math

2 dimentional character + 1 dimentional personality =3 dimentional disaster. How did Garfield get a full length movie? The tag line for the movie? "It's all about ME-OW"

Somewhere in the world right now, a Garfield strip is being run next to a "new" Family Circus. Who says Garfield sucks? "Not Me"

Brooks

I'm beginning to not like Brooks in the way righty's don't like Krugman.

In today's column he talks about the archtypical Democratic voter, who he regards as a 55-year old female school teacher. She, apparently, "is upset by the billions of dollars the drug companies spend on commercials, which drive up the cost of her prescriptions," as if drug company profiteering were due to bad managerial decisions which have to be legislated. He says that, to her, "Bill Clinton offered to rekindle her hopes but squandered it all so needlessly." as if Clinton led the fight to impeach himself, rather than it being led by politically motivated Republicans who used one woman whom he made a pass at (who was happy to help them out), and another woman who he more than made a pass at (who was not willing to help them out, so they turned her unwillingness into a prosecution for obstruction of justice.)

Sure, he can say, "Oh, it's not me who says this, it's the 55 year old Democrat". As if.

This is going to be tough

The first political horserace of the season is done and it was Kerry, Edwards and (way behind) Dean.

Now, I like a good patrician lantern jaw like the next guy, but I don't think Kerry's our guy. Bush's people fight hard, and -- like Gore -- Kerry is imminently qualified but -- like Gore -- he doesn't come off as having the vinegar for a brawl. And it's going to be a Brawl.

I'm not ready to choose yet, but I'm glad to see Gephardt out of it, being a one-world free-trader myself. Lieberman should also be gone gone gone gone gone -- I disagree with him on many of his issues, and I couldn't take four years of his "but you are so unreasonable and I hate you" whiny voice.

This leaves Kerry, Clark, Dean and Edwards.

I'm going to exclude Clark. His Republican history will probably not sell with the Democratic core, and you have to have a core before you get 51%. Sorry Clark -- unless you can get a core somehow, we're parting ways.

No, looking past the nomination, we have to get Republicans as well as Democrats. The bad news is, I don't believe Dean can bring it with an anti-war message. Bush will stand up next to him and paint him a traitor, and it will be a lie and disingenuous, but it will play like "You're no Jack Kennedy". And, as I've said, I don't think Kerry has the heart to bring it, period.

This leaves, by process of elimination, Edwards, who had a surge in the poll because he was endorsed by a well respected Iowan newspaper, and he stayed on a positive message. His Southern heritage is a +, I don't mark his trial lawer status as a minus -- it might even draw out the Bushies on an issue which most Dems don't care about (tort reform). In fact, his background as a trial lawyer no doubt gives him the ability to bring it when it's time -- a scrappy fighter, I'm expecting.

If Edwards lead a ticket with Dean on, that would be enough to secure the core and put in the top spot a guy which would be attractive to Southern Democrats, while keeping Dean's organization involved to energize a traditionally passive voting block (youngens).

So, my call today is for Edwards/Dean.

13D Shops Updated

Check it out.

Includes special requests from Robin (lower-case on the baby dolls) and Jon Miller (alert status boxers), as well as merchandise sporting a cartoon image from the best Economist ever.

Stephen Hawking assaulted

According to this Yahoo article, Hawking appears to be the victim of an assault, possibly from someone suffering from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.

Congressional Freshmen 2006

But only if Gephardt wins.

NYT on Pop-Ups

The NYT has a pretty far-ranging article on the evils of pop-up and pop-under ads today, focused on how much people (apart from advertisers) hate them. This is occasioned by reports that the next edition of MS Internet Explorer will allow pop-up blocking (thank goodness MS is still "free to innovate"). My question: Does this mean that nytimes.com will stop launching pop-unders when you follow a link from their home page?

Personally, I have been browsing with the new version 1.6 of Mozilla (see also Firebird). Pop-up blocking is standard, and if you also install a few extensions (Firebird) you can also get ad-blocking and, my favorite, Flash "click to play".

Try it - it's available for all platforms.

Stats

NPR had a story a few days ago on an investigative report being done on the number of non-lethal injuries sustained in Iraq since the beginning of the war. The number that the reporter was able to come up with: 9000. What wasn't clear was if this was a typical number (are these numbers similar to the number of people being injured in Afghanistan?), or if this is an extremely large number.

The reporter couldn't get any classifications on these injuries (broken arms, vs. dysentery vs. etc...) but the angle they were pursuing is that the number of injured is potentially much more shocking than the number of deaths reported recently (500).

Robin has John Edwards

On the eve of the Iowa caucases, I remind Robin of the bet we made on Wednesday, July 31 2002:

Resolved: That John Edwards is on the Democratic presidential ticket as president or vice-president in '04. PRO: Robin. CON: Bob. As of today, Edwards is looking pretty good.

Not to engage in navel gazing

but what's stopped me before? Being tied to pop culture isn't just being exposed to it -- it's being able to sort through and figure out what is interesting for itself, interesting for the irony, interesting for the nastolgia. I see junk food sitting around doing nothing, and I get bored. But, obviously, more viewers than regularly watch Jay Leno or Dave Letterman do not.

Consumed: Adult Swim

Bob, you're tied to pop culture, but you don't have the patience to consume it. I showed you some Aqua Teen Hunger Force about 8 months ago, but you didn't think it was funny, so I shut it off and I never spoke of it again.

"The innocent shall suffer. Big time." -the Mooninites

I"ve Crossed Over

I think it's time for an open acknowledgement that I'm no longer tied in to popular culture, since I now know that I learn about mass culture movements through the New York Times, like this article on Adult Swim.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force?

I love the BBC.

While the US Press is reporting the premature death of Hubble as a fact story, the BBC asks the obviously important question which the press is NOT asking Bush: Is it right to retire Hubble?

Colonizing Mars: The Hottest New Reality Show

In a NYTimes OpEd (The Citizen Astronaut), Greg Klerkx makes weak argument about how to go into space exploration, to make human space-flight popular: give money to companies trying to bring the cost per pound factor down. BORING.

What America really wants is what it had in the moon landing: a high-stakes reality show. In 1969, it was the US against the Russsians. The Russians were pushing into Vietnam, and soon the Red Menace would conquer the moon leaving us out of it, if we did not get there first, and plant a flag on it. Whew. Good thing that flag is there.

But now, Mars. Why Mars? Here's the answer that America is waiting for: Mars, so that we can colonize it. What does this mean? Our primary mission should be to send a couple to Mars, where the woman is impregnated, gives birth, and they raise the children together. Decades down the line, we send a mission to Mars to bring the first true non-Earthling back -- a visit to Earth by a real live Martian!

The most economic way to do this: polygamy. Send up one guy, and three women (say, Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton and -- to grab that edgy demographic -- Ellen Degeneres). For the guy, I cast George Clooney -- NASA should be able to afford his $20M fee. Best of all, this is the reality show America wants to see.

Thrill! As the happy foursome launch from Cape Canaveral in their love capsule. Chill! As the arguments between Degeneres and Hilton escalate over who gets to sleep in the lead cosmic-ray casing. Worry! In episode 20 when the women rebel and stop talking to George. Laugh! As Simpson realizes that the rebellion was just a ploy by Ellen to get into her pants! On-the-edge-of-your-seat anticipation: who will get pregnant on Mars first? Ellen? Jessica? George? *SEE* the birth on live Television with stereoscopic 1M pixel resolution! Watch as the child grows up, has the usual childhood problems (potty training in low-gravity; lost teeth; radiation sickness; awkward puberty; straining to figure out how they can get into Harvard). And, finally, the awesome episode to end all episodes -- the Martian's voyage back to earth! As he emerges from the pod -- should we shoot him? He's a Martian! Should we embrace him? He's one of us! We've got episodes and spinoffs as far as the eye can see.

Now that's great Televison.

The Most Chilling Words I Have Read In Years

Bush Seats Judge, Bypassing Senate Democrats: "While confirmation of Judge Pickering in the coming session is improbable, he could conceivably be renominated should Mr. Bush win a second term and Senate Republicans win a filibuster-proof majority in the next election." .

George Bush Kills Hubble

To shift money away from Hubble and into the Mars mission, George Bush's NASA administrator took away Hubble's remaining lifetime. They cancelled the servicing mission -- even though there are two new instruments ready to go onto it -- and they won't replace the gyros, which have a high failure rate. Hubble is expected to be dead by 2008, leaving American astronomers without space based eyes for at least 8 years.

O'Neill Intimidated?

I hadn't heard this, but Krugman states that the investigation over weather or not a document marked "secret" was leaked to CBS news during an on-camera interview with Paul O'Neill about his new book "The Price of Loyalty" has cowed O'Neill.

How has it cowed him? What's happened? Does anybody know anything about this?

1Tb for $1200

Slashdot reports a LaCie desk top drive using Firewire.

Judge rules that Microsoft violated a patent

Today a judge ruled that Microsoft violated a patent held by Eolas and University of California. Not surprised? Of course not. Microsoft is always violating patents. This is not even their first or their tenth or twentieth time they've been found guilty of this. What IS shocking is the cost ($512 MILLION dollars), and the scope. The patent pretty much covers the way ALL metadata is viewed through Internet Explorer

Tired of being Single?

The Bush administration is going to spend $1.5B to hook you into marriage.

This will be interesting

Slate magazine has just begun a week-long discussion Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War which will include Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens, Fred Kaplan, George Packer, Kenneth M. Pollack, Jacob Weisberg, and Fareed Zakaria.

US to perform Criminal Background Checks on All Airline Passengers

According to this article, the US will require the airlines to provide your name, home address and phone number, and travel itinerary. They'll feed it into Lexis-Nexis to confirm that you are who you say you are, and then they'll see if you have a criminal background.

Iraq Invasion on the Table days after Bushs' Inaguration.

CNN reports that Paul O'Neill, former Bush administration Treasury secretary, is claiming in his book that Bush began planning of an Iraq invasion within days of taking office.

Tom Cruise is delusional.

Apparently, Cruise set up a Scientological Detox center in NY for 9/11 victims.

Cruise: Hubbard "figured out how to eliminate toxins from the body.... doctors do not know how to remove toxin's from the body. ..... I remember how one woman, the doctors were going to put a metal bar in her chest, because she was having trouble breathing... And these people are on drugs.... The toxins go live in the fat tissue, and long term, we're talking about various cancers."

Be ready

We are back down to a yellow alert reports the BBC. You can stop sitting on the edge of your seat now.

A Base on the Moon, so that We can Go to Mars.

Bush to Announce Ventures to Mars and the Moon, Officials Say

NASA Goes Hollywood

Nasa's home page now opens with a flash animation: M2K4: Roaming the Red Planet, which declares "We're Back!...."

Absolutely.

W., Madonna and Britney?

Maureen Dowd (pace, Derek) posits two things have caught America's attention: George W. Bush and Lesbians. Um, okay, but what's the second thing?

More Whining from the IMF.

I dunnot what it all means. Too many words. Something about the huge US foreign debt threatens the financial stability of the global economy, because we'll have a debt of 40% of our total economy within a few years, playing havoc with the value of the dollar and international exchange rages. Blah blah blah. The Fair and Balanced Whiite House says "alarmist".

Apple - iPod - iPod mini

Bob, your $99 price point for a mini iPod was not met.

119

Number of the year: 119. That's the number of cumulative vulnerabilities reported in Windows 2000 (47) Windows XP (46) and Windows 2000 server (26). Microsoft issued 76 security updates, not including the one that got issued twice. Still, the number of customers actually downloading patches has increased more than 200 percent, according to Microsoft statistics," Michael Kanellos reports for CNET News.com.

David Brooks Dances with the Devil

Brooks comes perilously close to fwapping critics of the neocons in the Bush administration with the charge of anti-semitism
in Today's column.

Brooks writes that the label "neocons" ( applied to Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith ,Bill Kristol and others), is broken down as "neo" stands for "new" and "con" stands for Jewish.

The adminsitration has principled critics, who object to the neocon foreign policy -- and domestic policy -- who are far from being motivated by anti-semitism. This is an inflammatory argument, and it rightly damages the arguments of the right, who lately have taken to throwing firebombs at the left, and then writing the left off by saying "look! they're so emotional [read: illogical] they can'[t keep from exploding".

Not that I care about Pete Rose

I'm not a big baseball fan, but I do respect the sport and the way it has been managed by Major League Baseball to stand for honesty and good behavior, in a country where such is not always rewarded.

Pete Rose is going around admitting he lied about the fact that the bet on major league baseball, and his own team, while he was manager of the Cincinnatti Reds ten years ago, after a decade of calling those who quoted facts about this a bunch of lying liars. Now, let's note he hasn't apologized for doing the betting -- which damaged his sport in a very selfish way. He hasn't apologized for lying about it -- he just admitted to doing it. And he hasn't apologized for attacking those people who pointed out before that he was lying about it -- also, very much not nice behavior which people in MLB should not be doing.

Screw him. Who cares if he admitted to wrong doing. I don't think I even care if he apologizes for all three of his mistakes. The only reason he's doing it is so that he can be elected to the Hall of Fame before his time runs out in 3 years.

He'll be remembered for his great baseball. There's no benefit to being in the Hall of Fame (other than ego) when you have his record.


Oh, and an article in the WaPost reported for the first time today that he attempted to smuggle $100,000 into the US, avoiding taxes, earned in Japan, as cash in a suitcase. Not once (for which he got off, and was never made public) but twice (for which he, again, got off, and was never made public). Article here.

A Simple Question

Ted Rall asks a simple question, which has been on the lips of every many Republicans in the country.

ANOTHER REASON TO DRINK COFFEE

A study at the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that long-term coffee drinkers can cut their risk of developing type-2 diabetes by 30-50 percent, compared with non-coffee drinkers. Of course, that 25% error bar is a little unsettling, since it means the result is a 4 sigma result.

Most dispiriting quote from the article from a coffee-drinker: "Anyway, studies are like opinions. Next week, they'll change."

They Say We Lose 21 Grams at the Moment of Our Death.

Who knew death could be so slimming?

Married In Vegas, And Maybe In Jest (washingtonpost.com)

The Pope has a strong opinion when it comes to gay marriage, and is vocal about it, but just sits back in his chair when events like this happen.

Further proof that only straight people are ruining the sanctity of marriage.

Novak has something more to say.

Bob Novak was on The Capital Gang tonight commenting on the stepping up of the Plame affair, as Ashcroft recused himself from from further involvement in the investigation. Novak said:


The person who told me was not a political gun-slinger, what they said was not politically motivated. It was not motivated by revenge.


This seems to be Novak's way to say, believable or not, the leaker wasn't Karl Rove. He also said:


Before the column appeared, my contact at the CIA said that it was unlikely that she would ever have an overseas post again.

What We Will Do in 2004

I think Powell left out "Run for Vice-President." And the running has already started. Powell is out there announcing policy -- umm, in the NYTimes, not exactly Bush's base.

So, Bush will have his base solidified by the Republican Convention. He doesn't need Cheney any more to give that air of experience and insiderness. But, after his base is solid, he has to worry about the "Where are the WMD" Dems. If you put up Powell against any one of them, Powell would win. A Bush-Powell ticket would make major inroads with African-Americans, that traditional Dem constinuency, and set up a Powell-headed ticket in 2008.

Look for the announcement no sooner than the week before the Democratic convention, but of course no later than the Republican convention.

Like adding two and two.

Macworld Rumor

You won't find it anywhere in this article, but the rumor I heard at the coffee shop this morning was that for the Macworld Keynote speech, Steve Jobs is going to come running out, stomping and yelling at the top of his lungs, sputtering hoots and hollers, wearing a fat suit.

The Old Fashioned Squeeze Squeezes a Republican out of a Democrat

Eighty-year old Congressman Ralph Hall of Texas switched parties because, as he put it,

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Ralph Regula zeroed out all spending in his district because he was a Democrat.
Regula apparently killed funds for road projects and $13M for UT Tyler in Hall's district.

No denials from the Republicans yet, but the article quotes Bush and Haastert as saying they're thrilled to have him.

Derek has Holden Nipping at his Heels

In a piece in the NYTImes, Stephen Holden reviews the somber films of the holiday season.

He's breaths away from picking up on Derek's as yet unannunciated meme -- the films of desperation.

Derek, how about it?

Conjoined Twins Filmography

Conjoined twins (sometimes called "Siamese twins", after the most famous pair of these people) are appearing as a motif in movies and plays. Nows the time to jump on the meme, while the viewing is easy:

1. THE CORSICAN BROTHERS (1941)
   
2. TWIN FALLS, IDAHO (1999)
   
3. STUCK ON YOU (2003)
   
4. BIG FISH (2004)
   

Uh oh.

Today I ran out of the coffee I brought with me from the US (i.e., the bags of Peets I had hoarded).

So, I'm on a search for new coffee.

The Three Worst are what?

David Edelstein reviews the year in film, giving the films he loathed as: (1) THE CAT IN THE HAT, (2) CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE, and (3) 21 GRAMS.

What was that last one? 21 GRAMS was the most emotionally devestating films I'd seen in years. I can't remember being that exhausted over anything. Its complete absence from film lists for "best of 2003" boggles me.

Then again, of his top 10, I'd seen exactly two movies. I'm clearly not keeping up.

House of Sand and Fog: Blows

I saw this movie a few days ago, but just now saw a TV ad promoting it. If the makers of the film do not have the humanity to pull the ads for this useless nothing of a film, decent people must speak out.

With a very capable cast, this show does nothing. The plot begins reasonably, but unfolds ridiculously. Jennifer Connelly lives in a house left by her husband to her; a mistake by the county has them seize it, which Connelly hardly fights herself, due to her depression over her husband's departure. It is immediately sold to a former Iranian general, played by Ben Kingsley, for 25% of its value -- he is poor in the US, and he aspires to sell it and regain his family's happiness. As Connelly's charachter's legal assistance works its way through, the general refuses to sell back to the county for anything but the full value of the home. Subsequently, both their situation's deteriorate.

And this is why the plot unfolding is ridiculous. In real life, the general and Connelly's character would come together and force the county to pony up for the full value of the home, which would make the general move out and let Connelly move back in. Problem solved. It was obvious to me as soon as it came up, and so the rest of the film lost my interest. I can chalk this up to bad writing.

However, Derek has an un-annunciated theory about this, and a few other, flims. Derek suggests that, if one assumes intelligent writers, the inability of the characters to respond rationally to their difficult siutations with simple solutions is always related to depression in the characters. The flim plot becomes harrowing, because we can see the simple solution, and are dismayed that the characters do not take it. He calls this "desperation" -- essentially, that these films are about tragedy which happens to people whose fundamental flaw is crippling depression and an apathy about their situation.