The most important perspective on the Kerry nomination in the NYT opinion pages today isn't from David Brooks; it's from Licorice.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Friday, July 30, 2004
What Strain on the Middle Class?
If Bush's fiscal policies were hitting the middle class, wouldn't we hear about it? Maybe we are -- Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge is telling colleagues he's thinking about resigning from his $175K/yr job to enter the private sector, back home to Pennsylvania and his $900,000 home, to put his two sons through college.
Then again, maybe it's not the money. Maybe he just can't run away from Bush fast enough.
Then again, maybe it's not the money. Maybe he just can't run away from Bush fast enough.
Why Powell Will Not Be VP
I've long been speculating that Colin Powell would take Cheney's place on the Republican ticket. But now, I have an argument for why he will not.
Powell's goal is to be elected President in 2008. Bush is -- to my view -- in the process of crashing and burning in 2004. So, if Powell joined the ticket, and won, Bush would continue to use him -- just as he does now -- as a red-headed step-child, making him take the bullets while Bush gets the credit. And, Bush is going to continue to make enemies, while accruing few new friends, so that by the end of 2008, if Powell would be seen as the establishment candidate, that would hardly work in his favor. It's not worth the benefit of having held one elective office, which would improve his credibility not one whit. AND, if Bush lost -- well, Powell would have as much chance in 2008 as Lieberman did in 2004.
So why risk it? He can sit on the outside, and, even if Bush/Cheney or Bush/McCain won, he can still run credibly as the new Republican in 2008.
When there's nothing to gain, there's no reason to take the step.
Powell's goal is to be elected President in 2008. Bush is -- to my view -- in the process of crashing and burning in 2004. So, if Powell joined the ticket, and won, Bush would continue to use him -- just as he does now -- as a red-headed step-child, making him take the bullets while Bush gets the credit. And, Bush is going to continue to make enemies, while accruing few new friends, so that by the end of 2008, if Powell would be seen as the establishment candidate, that would hardly work in his favor. It's not worth the benefit of having held one elective office, which would improve his credibility not one whit. AND, if Bush lost -- well, Powell would have as much chance in 2008 as Lieberman did in 2004.
So why risk it? He can sit on the outside, and, even if Bush/Cheney or Bush/McCain won, he can still run credibly as the new Republican in 2008.
When there's nothing to gain, there's no reason to take the step.
When Bush attacks...
One reason why it's good to be the King: You can deliver a manifest untruth in your campaign speech:
When, in turn, the average citizen of your country reads in the paper (NYT or otherwise) that you have said this, without any contradiction in the article or elsewhere in the paper, they will assume that you are telling the truth, and marvel at the venality of your opponent - even when said opponent has done nothing like what you accuse him of doing.
In other words, you can lie without consequence.
During eight years on the Senate intelligence committee, [my opponent] voted to cut the intelligence budget, yet he had no record of reforming America's intelligence capability.And get it picked up in the fourth (or fifth) paragraph of a wire service article that in turns runs in a place of prominence (lead story when I saw it) at the NYT, the nation's paper of record, without any caveats or qualifications.
When, in turn, the average citizen of your country reads in the paper (NYT or otherwise) that you have said this, without any contradiction in the article or elsewhere in the paper, they will assume that you are telling the truth, and marvel at the venality of your opponent - even when said opponent has done nothing like what you accuse him of doing.
In other words, you can lie without consequence.
The Village **WITH SPOILERS***
I saw THE VILLAGE tonight.
Whatever.
Here's Night's main innovation in film: discovering that, if you include a plot turn which, if revealed, ruins the entire effect of the movie, people will not talk about the film. Even reviewers. And you cannot criticize a film which you cannot talk about. ***So I have spoilers below***. And you know, it's not difficult to fabricate such plot twists. Good ones are hard to come by.
THE VILLAGE contains such a twist, which may have taken all of 30 seconds to come up with. So what? What do we get out of the film otherwise? A bare inspection of the nature of fear and cowardice.
The village is, actually, a village built by modern people, escaping from the modern world into a fabricated preserve, because each of them had someone they love die violently. They apparently resolved to raise their children ignorant of the outside modern world, pretending it is 1897, and enforce this by fabricated bogeymen in the surrounding woods. Every so often, they costume up at night to freak the little ones out, and make red a "forbidden" color. So when one of the boys is stabbed by the village idiot, the woman who loves him (although blind) resolves to go through the woods "to the towns" to get "some medicines". Odd that people ignorant of the outside world should somehow have faith in the quality of their medicines.
Anyhoo, her father reveals all to her before she goes, so she would not be scared. Nonetheless, in the woods, she's briefly confronted by a bogeyman ("there were stories of beasts in the woods", her father had explained), who she kills (it was the village idiot, escaped and in costume), nonetheless proving that courage can overcome fear.
In short, not nearly as good as THE SIXTH SENSE, but not as bad as UNBREAKABLE -- but close.
Whatever.
Here's Night's main innovation in film: discovering that, if you include a plot turn which, if revealed, ruins the entire effect of the movie, people will not talk about the film. Even reviewers. And you cannot criticize a film which you cannot talk about. ***So I have spoilers below***. And you know, it's not difficult to fabricate such plot twists. Good ones are hard to come by.
THE VILLAGE contains such a twist, which may have taken all of 30 seconds to come up with. So what? What do we get out of the film otherwise? A bare inspection of the nature of fear and cowardice.
The village is, actually, a village built by modern people, escaping from the modern world into a fabricated preserve, because each of them had someone they love die violently. They apparently resolved to raise their children ignorant of the outside modern world, pretending it is 1897, and enforce this by fabricated bogeymen in the surrounding woods. Every so often, they costume up at night to freak the little ones out, and make red a "forbidden" color. So when one of the boys is stabbed by the village idiot, the woman who loves him (although blind) resolves to go through the woods "to the towns" to get "some medicines". Odd that people ignorant of the outside world should somehow have faith in the quality of their medicines.
Anyhoo, her father reveals all to her before she goes, so she would not be scared. Nonetheless, in the woods, she's briefly confronted by a bogeyman ("there were stories of beasts in the woods", her father had explained), who she kills (it was the village idiot, escaped and in costume), nonetheless proving that courage can overcome fear.
In short, not nearly as good as THE SIXTH SENSE, but not as bad as UNBREAKABLE -- but close.
Soak the Rich!
It's a bad week for those whose yearly incomes are above $200k.
I don't have references: but, the NYTimes had an article earlier this week loudly proclaiming that income was down by 5% since 2000. However, a closer look at the numbers showed that, for people who made less than $200K in 2003, their incomes either went up (a few percent, corrected for inflation) or held steady since 2000. It was the people who had incomes above $200K who took huge hits -- 20-40% -- which fed into an overall decline of 5%.
The biggest hits percentage-wise were those unfortunate souls who made in excess of $10M/year. They saw their incomes drop by 40%. The bit they made on the margin from the Bush tax cut is cold comfort compared to their income drops. Want some more?
And then, last night at the Democratic National Convention -- zing! -- Kerry announced that he would give a middle-class tax cut, but roll back the Bush tax cut on incomes above $200K. This, to pay off the $400B budget deficits Bush has been wracking up.
Where should the big money go this election cycle? Big money-earners should learn to not back politicians who can't do sums -- and get out from behind Bush. Bush's bad fiscal policies caused their incomes to drop.
I don't have references: but, the NYTimes had an article earlier this week loudly proclaiming that income was down by 5% since 2000. However, a closer look at the numbers showed that, for people who made less than $200K in 2003, their incomes either went up (a few percent, corrected for inflation) or held steady since 2000. It was the people who had incomes above $200K who took huge hits -- 20-40% -- which fed into an overall decline of 5%.
The biggest hits percentage-wise were those unfortunate souls who made in excess of $10M/year. They saw their incomes drop by 40%. The bit they made on the margin from the Bush tax cut is cold comfort compared to their income drops. Want some more?
And then, last night at the Democratic National Convention -- zing! -- Kerry announced that he would give a middle-class tax cut, but roll back the Bush tax cut on incomes above $200K. This, to pay off the $400B budget deficits Bush has been wracking up.
Where should the big money go this election cycle? Big money-earners should learn to not back politicians who can't do sums -- and get out from behind Bush. Bush's bad fiscal policies caused their incomes to drop.
Another First for Bush!
Let it not be said that Bush is not a President to be remembered. Today, the White House announced a record budget deficit of $445 billion dollars. Sure, it's $76B below what they predicted in February -- but that just goes to show that Bush can't figure out a budget 4 months in advance, much less the 10 years he did during election 2000, when he said we'd have balanced budgets out to 2010.
I can't wait for the Bush presidency to be a memory.
I can't wait for the Bush presidency to be a memory.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
As If It Never Happened
In the 2002 Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, Janet Reno lost to Bill McBride, by 4794 votes, in the first election using electronic voting machines (ones which lacked an audit paper trail). The ACLU found that 8 percent of votes cast in that election -- about 1544 -- were lost on the touch-screen machines.
So the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition asked for all the records
taken during the election by those electronic machines.
Turns out, all those records were accidentally erased.
So the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition asked for all the records
taken during the election by those electronic machines.
Turns out, all those records were accidentally erased.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
That's no moon... that's a battlestation!
Uhh... then again, maybe it is a moon, after all. My bad.
Brand spankin' new images courtesy the Cassini mission.
Brand spankin' new images courtesy the Cassini mission.
Ballot Fraud with Electronic Machines
Paul Krugman gives another real-life example of how what looks like fraud, but cannot be verified as such, serves to undermine confidence in an election.
Monday, July 26, 2004
The Truth Behind "The Poseidon Adventure"
That's right, it turns out that rogue waves are for real. They have been observed from space and systematically characterized by a group of European researchers using the ERS Earth-observing satellites of the European Space Agency.
Over a three-week period of study they detected ten "rogue waves" with heights of more than 25 meters - well above the height of all the waves around them. Prior to this, some had estimated the rogue waves' frequency (in the absence of earthquakes or undersea avalanches) to be as low as one or two per century. To the contrary, now, all those salty tales of "walls of water" coming out of nowhere cannot, in fact, be chalked up to ready availability of distilled spirits and the tedium of long sea voyages. Such waves may even be responsible for the great majority of ship sinkings that occur each year.
That ought to liven up your next cruise vacation.
Over a three-week period of study they detected ten "rogue waves" with heights of more than 25 meters - well above the height of all the waves around them. Prior to this, some had estimated the rogue waves' frequency (in the absence of earthquakes or undersea avalanches) to be as low as one or two per century. To the contrary, now, all those salty tales of "walls of water" coming out of nowhere cannot, in fact, be chalked up to ready availability of distilled spirits and the tedium of long sea voyages. Such waves may even be responsible for the great majority of ship sinkings that occur each year.
That ought to liven up your next cruise vacation.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
9-11 Commission Report Quick-Read
The 9-11 Commission report has been nicely excerpted at Kottke.org.
Worth a read, if you weren't planning to page through the whole thing.
Worth a read, if you weren't planning to page through the whole thing.
Richard Clarke Weighs In On the 9/11 Commission Report.
NYTimes OpEd: Among the stunning statements:
- What the commissioners did clearly state was that Iraq had no collaborative relationship with Al Qaeda and no hand in 9/11. They also disclosed that Iran provided support to Al Qaeda, including to some 9/11 hijackers. These two facts may cause many people to conclude that the Bush administration focused on the wrong country. They would be right to think that.
- But at the F.B.I. and C.I.A., the key posts are held almost exclusively by those who joined young and worked their way up. This has created uniformity, insularity, risk-aversion, torpidity and often mediocrity.
- We must also place the C.I.A.'s analysts in an agency that is independent from the one that collects the intelligence.
- The commission properly identified the threat not as terrorism (which is a tactic, not an enemy), but as Islamic jihadism, which must be defeated in a battle of ideas as well as in armed conflict.
- The commission failed to admit the obvious: we are less capable of defeating the jihadists because of the Iraq war.
Saturday, July 24, 2004
You do not get to choose what others are fighting you for.
NoteDavid Brooks' take on a codicil of the 9/11 report, in which the Senators state that, while this war has been called a "War on terror", Terror is not what we fight against. In fact, those who attack targets in the US have a specific ideology -- Islamic extremism -- with the goal of wiping out ours (secular capitalism and democracy).
Quite right. "Terror" is a technique; the US is no more in a war against terror than minutemen of 1776 were in a war against ball and powder. If one is beat up by a bully on a playground, one is not in a fight against fists, but in a fight against a bully and irrational domination. When attacked, one does not get to choose the attackers reasons. To fight back, and fight the right opponents, we must fight back over the same reasons we are attacked.
In a defensive war, we do not get to choose the reasons to fight it. We have been attacked by Islamic extremists with the purpose of destablizing our society. The war we have to fight must be against Islamic extremists who would attack us to destablize our society.
Oh -- and not against secular middle-eastern dictators who have never attacked the US, nor have any capability of doing so, nor any capability of helping others do so. That too.
Quite right. "Terror" is a technique; the US is no more in a war against terror than minutemen of 1776 were in a war against ball and powder. If one is beat up by a bully on a playground, one is not in a fight against fists, but in a fight against a bully and irrational domination. When attacked, one does not get to choose the attackers reasons. To fight back, and fight the right opponents, we must fight back over the same reasons we are attacked.
In a defensive war, we do not get to choose the reasons to fight it. We have been attacked by Islamic extremists with the purpose of destablizing our society. The war we have to fight must be against Islamic extremists who would attack us to destablize our society.
Oh -- and not against secular middle-eastern dictators who have never attacked the US, nor have any capability of doing so, nor any capability of helping others do so. That too.
Friday, July 23, 2004
Bush Protects his Friends, Edwards protects average Americans.
I was just reading the John Edwards biography at the johnkerry.com website. He makes an issue out of the fact that it took 3 years for Ken Lay -- who made thousands of his employee's pensions worthless, bankrupted his company, and zero-d out the accounts of anyone who held Enron stock -- to come to trial. John Edwards says he'll take back America from corporate crooks like Ken Lay.
And there's your answer to Bush's Trial Lawyer sneer. Everytime Bush brings up the trial-lawer sneer, you simply point out that it's trial lawyers who bring corporate crooks like Bush's buddy Ken Lay to account -- even when they aren't breaking any technical laws, just when the betray the trust of people who give them their money. Bush protects his friends, but Edwards protects average Americans.
Ta da.
And there's your answer to Bush's Trial Lawyer sneer. Everytime Bush brings up the trial-lawer sneer, you simply point out that it's trial lawyers who bring corporate crooks like Bush's buddy Ken Lay to account -- even when they aren't breaking any technical laws, just when the betray the trust of people who give them their money. Bush protects his friends, but Edwards protects average Americans.
Ta da.
Bloomberg gets it: No Payroll Record = Bush Didn't Show Up For Guard Duty
First: a correction -- Reuters broke the story (Derek commented on it first). A.P followed up with the clarifying point that there among the payroll records, no payments went to Bush. Even so, both were wrongly saying "no new information" -- that what was being shown was nothing new.
But the Bloomberg news service gets it. Pointing out that there's no record of payments to Bush, they conclude that he did not show up for flying hours between July and Sept 1972 (no word on the other months of May-Oct 1972, where the gap in Bush's military records had been).
But the Bloomberg news service gets it. Pointing out that there's no record of payments to Bush, they conclude that he did not show up for flying hours between July and Sept 1972 (no word on the other months of May-Oct 1972, where the gap in Bush's military records had been).
Bush Bailed on his Vietnam National Guard Commitment, and where's the press?
It's 9:35 -- 4 hours after the story broke (AP, below) that Bush's Nat'l guard payroll records for summer of '72 had been found, and there's no record of payment -- and where's the press? The NYTimes even pulled the AP wire story link off it's website.
What's ridiculous is they are repeating a refrain: "no new information" -- when clearly, the fact that he wasn't paid for service in summer of 1972 means he was either the first freebie national guardsman, or he didn't show up.
Our President didn't show up for his National Guard Duty.
What's ridiculous is they are repeating a refrain: "no new information" -- when clearly, the fact that he wasn't paid for service in summer of 1972 means he was either the first freebie national guardsman, or he didn't show up.
Our President didn't show up for his National Guard Duty.
Bush "kept his commitments"
I guess I could have read the story before blogging, but where's the fun in that?
1. Bush kept his commitments because he was honorably discharged. This is putting the cart before the horse, my friends. Everyone knows that W was honorably discharged - that is a matter of proven, written (never mysteriously almost-destroyed) record. The issue, rather, is whether this politically well-connected young man of draftable age was given special treatment. No - I take that back. Everyone knows he was given special treatment. The question is whether he looked the gift-horse of National Guard flyer-boy duty square in the mouth and told it to go fuck itself. Coincidentally at or around the time that the Guard instituted mandatory drug-testing. While John Kerry was getting shot at and pulling men out of a jungle river in Vietnam. And still got an honorable discharge (early - no less - so that he could attend HBS).
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush kept his service commitments, pointing to the fact that Bush was honorably discharged in 1973.Let's examine these two statements.The White House says Bush attended enough training during other months in 1972 to fulfill his service commitment for that year.
1. Bush kept his commitments because he was honorably discharged. This is putting the cart before the horse, my friends. Everyone knows that W was honorably discharged - that is a matter of proven, written (never mysteriously almost-destroyed) record. The issue, rather, is whether this politically well-connected young man of draftable age was given special treatment. No - I take that back. Everyone knows he was given special treatment. The question is whether he looked the gift-horse of National Guard flyer-boy duty square in the mouth and told it to go fuck itself. Coincidentally at or around the time that the Guard instituted mandatory drug-testing. While John Kerry was getting shot at and pulling men out of a jungle river in Vietnam. And still got an honorable discharge (early - no less - so that he could attend HBS).
2. Bush attended "enough training" during other months in 1972 to fulfill his service commitment for that year. This is a new argument, and one worth paying attention to. Specifically, I would like to see commentary from an actual National Guard officer on whether this is satisfactory behavior for a Guardsman who has been ordered to report for duty to a new unit.
Bush wasn't paid = Bush didn't serve
This has been a fast-developing story (for late on the Friday afternoon before the Democratic National Convention), but I appreciate Bob's not taking me up on the offer in my previous post.
I was thinking that if the Pentagon found the documents, that must mean W actually did get paid. But Bob has the better angle: They don't show W getting paid, and that's why they're being released now.
Now, I have as little faith in our national media as the next citizen, but I can't believe we won't see continuing coverage of this story throughout next week. How is W going to respond to this? How is McClellan? There is really no spin that they can give this - it is a given at this point that W did not serve a day of Guard duty in Alabama during that famous summer of '72. They will have to fall back to the next level of defense: That in spite of not serving a day of duty during that summer, W still managed to "fulfill his obligations."
I was thinking that if the Pentagon found the documents, that must mean W actually did get paid. But Bob has the better angle: They don't show W getting paid, and that's why they're being released now.
Now, I have as little faith in our national media as the next citizen, but I can't believe we won't see continuing coverage of this story throughout next week. How is W going to respond to this? How is McClellan? There is really no spin that they can give this - it is a given at this point that W did not serve a day of Guard duty in Alabama during that famous summer of '72. They will have to fall back to the next level of defense: That in spite of not serving a day of duty during that summer, W still managed to "fulfill his obligations."
Pentagon Releases HUGE story at 5:30pm on a Friday before the Democratic National Convention
Remember how earlier the Pentagon said that they couldn't honor a Freedom of Information Act request by the A. P. for Bush's military payroll records in 1972, because they had been accidentally destroyed?
Turns out -- you're going to laugh at this -- that was wrong. They had the payroll records all along! Ooops. So the records have been released. Ummmmm.... but, Bush doesn't seem to have any payroll slips for the summer in question when supposedly he showed up for duty in the Alabama National Guard (that is, while he wasn't helping a friend of his father's campaign in Alabama).
Considering that the Pentagon is a bit of a stickler for paperwork, the absence of any payroll records for Bush can only mean he never showed up.
Turns out -- you're going to laugh at this -- that was wrong. They had the payroll records all along! Ooops. So the records have been released. Ummmmm.... but, Bush doesn't seem to have any payroll slips for the summer in question when supposedly he showed up for duty in the Alabama National Guard (that is, while he wasn't helping a friend of his father's campaign in Alabama).
Considering that the Pentagon is a bit of a stickler for paperwork, the absence of any payroll records for Bush can only mean he never showed up.
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