October 30, 2004
IRS sues NAACP - Gimme a break
It seems NAACP said some things critical of the Bush administration. Given that it is a non-profit, it shouldn't have. But, gimme a freakin break.
Over the last year, I've watched church after church condemn Kerry's policies. Gay marriage, abortion, stem cells. Is the IRS going after them?
Frances Hill, an authority on non-profit groups at the University of Miami Law School, called it "amazing" that the IRS would audit a group based on a public speech.
October 29, 2004
Hardball Tears Bush a new A-hole
I had Hardball on last night while working, and glanced up to catch them ripping the Prez a new one:
DAVID SHUSTER, NBC ELECTION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Under fire for the disappearing explosives in Iraq, President Bush in Michigan today counterpunched hard.GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This week, Senator Kerry is again attacking the actions of our military in Iraq with complete disregard for the facts.
SHUSTER: But that is not true. The International Atomic Energy Agency, as Kerry has stated, warned the Bush administration before the war the Iraqi weapons site was important and needed protection.
And when it comes to blame for the missing explosives, it's actually a Bush campaign surrogate, not the Kerry campaign, blaming U.S. forces.
Ouch.
October 28, 2004
Happy Halloween!
2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes
My fave? The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib, hands down.
One Hundred Thousand
One hundred thousand lives.
That's how many lives our madman president saw fit to end in pursuit of his half-baked schemes.
Was arresting one dictator worth one hundred thousand deaths?
One hundred thousand mothers, children, sisters, brothers, fathers and sons.
October 27, 2004
Different Planets
Today, while randomly flipping around XM, I ran into a charming little talk show hosted by John Batchelor. They were talking about the missing tonnage, so I listened for a bit. I was quickly glancing around, making sure I hadn't been teleported to some alien planet. This guy was unfrikinbelievable.
He was interviewing Stephen Hayes, who writes for the Weekly Standard. They were discussing, matter of factly, how dumb we libruls were in believing there was no operational connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. They even made fun of people who quoted the 9/11 Commission's report - I guess our reality was intruding into their world again.
When people are so far apart on such basic issues, when segments of our population are (willfully?) dumb enough to not realize that "operational" means "operational", and credulous enough to believe cretins like these, then there no hope. We live under the tyranny of fools. Regardless of the results of the upcoming election, we've all lost.
Election Fatigue
Being in California, I know I've pretty much done all I can... I've donated time and money, I've twisted the ears every republican I know, I spam my friends (perhaps alienating some). Now I'm reduced to repeatedly reloading dailykos and Atrios, waiting anxiously to read about the next outrage.
I'm seriously heading for some major Outrage Fatigue (I was going to link to the July Onion, which had a good spoof about 'Liberal Outrage Fatigue' , but they now require that you have a premium account to read old articles - is nothing sacred?).
What's my point? I'm out of points, folks. I have no points. Anything I could say is being said elsewhere, more lucidly, more eloquently.
Come Tuesday, I'm just going to sit back and watch the boobs on CNN (and reload compulsively, I'm sure), surrounded by wonderful family and good friends, and hope for the best.
October 26, 2004
Yawn. Another GOP antidemocratic plot.
So what else is new?
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.
erm...
ARRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH!
More:
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day." [...] Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections.""Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."
And, WHY AM I READING ABOUT THIS IN BBC, and not in NYT?!?
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | New Florida vote scandal feared
October 25, 2004
XM Makes a Funny!
XM Radio has no ads (at least the music stations don't), but they'll occasionally do 'station identification' (more like station branding), and sometimes they're pretty funny.
I was just coding away when one of these come over the air on Lucy (a alternative hits station, Bush/Live/U2, really very good). Scary music plays. Movie announcer voice says "Those liberals over at Fred are at it again" - I should point out 'Fred' is a 70/80s (Cure, Talking Heads) alternative station which also rocks - "[...] They've been known to play songs condemning the eating of meat [...] They even play music by artists known to be from other countries [...] When asked if they owned any records by that muslim hugging traitor, Cat Stevens, first those hackysack playing hippies said yes, then they said no, then they said yes again'.
I glanced at the radio, it said 'Fred Hates All'.
It was funny. Hats off to them for breaking my monotonous day.
October 23, 2004
Richard Clarke Talk
Guess where I am tonight :-)
UPDATE: Richard Clarke rocked. I went into this thinking I wouldn't hear anything new, expecting to be bored. I was (almost) right about the former, wrong about the latter. Richard is a rivetting speaker, and drove his points home with a clarity which would challenge even the most closed minded Foxite.
I left the talk disturbed and frustrated. Disturbed that the president is dangerously uninterested in the truth (and this mostly came across during the Q&A, wherein Richard shared some of his personal experiences with Bush, and contrasted him to previous presidents), and doesn't hold a candle to Clinton, or even his father. Frustrated that only a few thousand people, at most, will have the opportunity to listen to him, and more frustrated still by the sneaking suspicion that about half my compatriots would dismiss his assertions out of hand, aping their hero's disregard for reality.
October 22, 2004
Doh!
For decades, scores (if not hundreds) of scientists worked their asses off to put Gravity Probe B together and into orbit, to measure a central prediction of Einstein's General Relativity, that masses drag space and time as they rotate.
In what amounts to an end-run, a group of scientists figured out another way to measure this 'frame dragging' before the Probe was ready to start measuring. Doh :)
'Gravity Probe B' is still a big deal, because the more detailed results it will provide could find discrepancies with theory, which is the Holy Grail of science (or one of them, anyway). It is also a big deal because it involves what could possibly be the most complicated, technically challenging experiment ever undertaken by Humankind. Engineering frontiers were pushed on multiple fronts, hundreds of masters and Phd student made (thesiastical) hay.
This is pure science, one of humankind's apex pursuits. The ultimate Reality Based community.
Herald.com | 10/22/2004 | Rotating Earth drags space, NASA says
Yahoo Does it Again
The offending headline? Yahoo! News - Bush Opens New Line of Attack on Kerry. The 'new line of attack? Bush said "presidential race boils down to who can keep American homes safer from terrorists and contended his opponent was not up to the task during wartime."
OMIGOD! NEW! WAY NEW! Bushy Pie is on to something here! Stop the presses!
Wanting to know if AP (who's byline this is) or Yahoo is responsible for the headline, I searched around. Apparently, the AP writer came up with this zinger.
Interestingly, the other 'hits' on this story where all Really Big Media Names (not): The Cheboygan Daily Tribune, Daily Interlake, Natchez Democrat, and Huntsville Item (just to name a few) are big indeed.
I'm disgusted, and not knowing who to be disgusted at, all just pick both Yahoo and AP.
I briefly considered closing all my yahoo accounts, but realized that since I'm not paying squat for them, they're actually costing Yahoo money
October 21, 2004
Another Yahoo Editorial 'Tell'
I've commented on this before. And this morning, I noticed these two headlines:
AP Poll: Bush, Kerry in Dead Heat (on Yahoo News)
Reuters Poll: Bush Grabs One-Point Lead on Kerry (Yahjoo News on my phone)
Say WHAT? BTW, 'dead heat' is a 3 point Kerry lead. 'One Point Lead' is a 1 point Bush lead. How two-faced can you get?
Kos caught this one too:
October 20, 2004
October 19, 2004
Proof: Repugs Really DO Think We're Dumb
And so does Yahoo (I'm really getting fed up with the yahoo news feed).
They print a headline like "Yahoo! News - U.S. to Get 2.6 Million Flu Shots in Jan", which gives the impression everything is OK. Buried in the story, though, you find:
Vaccine supplies to the United States — expected to be about 100 million doses — were nearly cut in half this month when authorities discovered that vaccine from one of two suppliers, Chiron Corp., was potentially contaminated and could not be used. That cut off 46 million to 48 million expected doses.
So, they found another ONE TWENTIETH of the amount we need to make up the shortfall. Well, I guess everything is hunkydory then.
On the other hand, I don't really think the Dems should be making such a big deal about it. This a problem with deregulation, a basic flaw in the free market system. Both Repugs and Dems (to a lesser extent) support and encourage this, since it pay$ well. Still, it was a negligent screwup, and will result in more deaths than 9/11, and the guy at the wheel needs to take responsibility.
Back to Community College for me
Bumbling Bush's response to every 'job loss' question has been "send 'em back to college!", as if the problem is that we aren't educated enough. High-tech jobs are 'apex' jobs - if our years of college aren't enough, what are we expected to do? Go back and study landscaping at the local community college?
Bottom line: if a company making $700000 per employee can't afford to keep their positions open, then we're fooked, every one of us.
October 18, 2004
Sunset over SF Bay
Apropos of nothing in particular, here is a pic from a recent night sail out on the SF Bay. Just looking at it makes me relax.
But Moooooom!
Imagine the Whiner In Chief's reaction to his mom saying:
“No one’s perfect,” she said. “No one can make the right decision 100 percent of the time. But I think he does what he thinks is right.”
Sounds like my mom defending me when I've done something bad :P
October 17, 2004
Civil Liberties Are Obscene
The repugnicans, those paragons of Americanosity, have apparently risen to new levels of patriotism:
Janet Voorhies said she was curious to see how Republicans would react when she and two other women showed up at President Bush's Central Point rally wearing T-shirts stating "Protect Our Civil Liberties."She got her answer before the president even spoke. The three women were ejected from the rally and escorted from the Jackson County Fairgrounds by state police officers who warned them they would be arrested if they tried to return.
Proud Member of the Reality-based community!
In case there was any doubt. No magical thinking for me.
Dubious George and his wild boys can clap their hands and chant 'I do believe in Empire' all they want, but I'll have no part of it.
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: October 17, 2004 - October 23, 2004 Archives
(sorry tinkerbell)
UPDATE: The awesome Atrios now has "Proud Member of The Reality Based Community" as his blog banner. I came up with my post first, though (of course, a gajillion other bloggers posted about the story at this same time - I stole it off TPM :)
UPDATE Deux: Its a movement!
October 16, 2004
Flickr So Rocks
I've been playing with digital cameras since way back when. My first digital pics are 7 years old, captured off my first DV camcorder. My first actual digital pictures (from a Casio QV-100, a real antique) date for 1998.
Lately, I've slowed down, mostly because there really wasn't much you could do with digital pictures. Even though I have this webpage, I only have 200MB of storage, so I couldn't just post everything. Also, even though I played with a number of different interfaces on my page, none was truly easy.
Flickr isn't perfect, but it solves most of my issues. It could still be improved in how pics are protected, and the interface could be improved, but it's fast, it's easy, and if you have a pro account, it's practically infinite.
Eventually I plan to upload all my pics, but for now I've just uploaded a hundred or so images from a Oahu trip we did a few years ago.
October 15, 2004
October 14, 2004
Embracing Democracy (almost) Everywhere
Furious George (or is that Funny George, I really wish he'd make his mind up) constantly harps on how important it is to spread democracy to every corner of the planet.
Maybe he needs to start with his own party.
MyDD :: One Party Wants You to Vote; One Party Does Not
In state after state, his party wants to reduce the voter rolls. In state after state, Democrats want to increase them.
Democracy Schmemocracy.
800,000 New Govt. Jobs
As usual, the Big Media's fact checkers treated Bush's Big Lies and Kerry's mistatements equally, which is unfair of course, but expected.
One of Kerry's Huge Lies (apparently) is that 1.6 million jobs have been lost under Bush. The Pundits are fond of pointing out that these are private sector jobs, and the number is only accurate if you don't count new government jobs (economists tend not to, so Kerry is doing the right thing).
Come again?
Bush ADDED 800000 new goverment jobs? I thought he was a republican? You know, one of those 'small government' types?
If we started laying off goverment workers (not that I'm advocated that, of course), at a rate of 1000 per DAY, it'd be THREE YEARS before we got the federal govt back to where it was in 2000.
Chew on that, wingnuts.
October 13, 2004
Yay! I'm American, the Prez said so!
Furious George said during the debate:
"You‘re equally an American if you choose to worship an almighty and if you choose not to. If you‘re a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you‘re equally an American."
How very NICE of him to be so inclusive! Only, I'm kinda sad he stopped there, since he was so obviously on a roll... why, he could have followed that up with "Even if your skin isn't white! It's true! It's right there in the Constitution, believe it or not!".
After all, it was only 16 short years ago when Pappy Bush said:
"I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. "
Im shocked!
O'Really is a perv? Suprise!
Yahoo! News - Producer Sues O'Reilly for Harassment
/me dances the Happy Dance of FoxFookedness
Flickr Photopage
Now that I've upgraded to Flickr Pro, I'm going to use flickr to host all my pics. You can see 'em all at:
Bus Stop in Rincon
Took this last time I was in P.R.
Rincon rocks, btw - it's a little surfer-type town on Puerto Rico's west coast. Kind of a expat enclave, too.
Making Dictators Proud All Over The World...
For the freedom-hater-haters amongst us, a heartwarming tale of democracy as dasrulinkparty sees it:
Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed
"Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.
"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee."
... must.... take... my.... glycerin/zantax/pepcid/valium....
October 12, 2004
Bush Is Dead Wrong, sayeth YANL
YANL - Yet Another Nobel Laureate
"True, the economy was stimulated a little by the tax cuts. But there were other policies that would have provided far more stimulus at far less cost. Bush's objective was to push forward a tax agenda that shifted the burden away from those who could best afford to bear it. "
OK - before you cover your eyes and ears and yell "PARTSISAN, LIBERAL HACK, IGNORE! IGNORE!" - this guy won the Nobel Prize for Economy. He knows more about money crap than you do about ANYTHING. Period.
Read the rest, it's awesome:
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Joseph Stiglitz: Bush is dead wrong
Science and Furious George
Over the last four years, Bush has done his damnest to stifle and politicize all things scientific. This way lies soviet-style scientific mysticism - Lemske would love the New US.
Great summary:
October 10, 2004
The Math of The Desperate
I could barely suppress a guffaw when I read this:
Poll shows Bush won the debate by a stunning two-to-one margin
AHHHAAAAAHAHAHAAAAHAAAhahahaaaaa! (breath) HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAHAHAAAA ha heh...
The reasoning?
"there were twice as many Kerry supporters who thought Bush won as Bush supporters who thought Kerry won"
Don't bother clicking on the link the above posts gives you for ABC - it's dead. I found what presumably he was trying to link to here.
The poll results they're referring to? Well, among Kerry Supporters 85% thought Kerry won, 2% thought Bush won, and 12% thought it was a tie. Among Bush Supporters 1% throught Kerry won, 84% thought Bush won, and 13% thought it was a tie.
So, TWO percent vs. ONE percent? Reaching for straws is hardly an apt metaphor.
The next paragraph gives you the really important, yet conveniently ignored, fact: 44% of INDEPENDENTS thought Kerry won, where only 34% thought Furious George did, and even that 10 point spread was inside the margin of error.
Using fetus = bad, killing iraqi babies = good?
In Friday's debate, Bush worried about using some frozen (and let's face it, destined for destruction) embryos to save and improve thousands of lives. He didn't, however, care one bit about the thousands of lives he caused to be destroyed on his stupid personal vendetta.
And, by the way, WTF? Kerry wins every post-debate poll, and wipes the floor with the simps smirking face, and all the stupid media can say is Pundits see Bush win in second debate? Idjuts.
October 08, 2004
The last shred of crediblity...
Yesterday, with the Ministry of Fear started making noises about scary things happening to our schools, I immediately dismissed it as another desperate "BOO!" from the Chump Administration.
When I got home, and heard on the local news that the alert was based on documents obtained from an Iraqi insurgent containing building plans for schools around the nation, I was chilled. That *was* scary. It made me sit up and take notice.
Now it turns out the 'insurgent' didn't have "any ties to terrorism", and in fact was connected "to civic groups doing planning for schools in Iraq".
So after being amused, then terrified, how do I feel now? OUTRAGED! They LIED to us, to scare us. This doomed administration has no shame whatsoever.
Is KTVU (local fox affiliate, though their news is generally reflective of the liberal bay area) going to correct the story tonight? HAAAAAHAHAHAAAAAA! I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt, though.
October 07, 2004
No WMDs - Duh.
Yahoo! News - Bush, Cheney Concede Iraq Had No WMDs
So today it turns out Saddam had no weapons, no weapons programs, nothing. And hadn't had any since 1991. Since I was in friggin college...
When the US demanded that he produce his WMDs, he had nothing to produce. When he said as much, we didn't believe him. When he let in the inspectors, and they found nothing, we didn't believe THEM, and forced them to evacuate. When we were done bombing the hell outa them (for nothing, no reason, mind you), we sent in Bremer, and he found nothing, so we replaced him with this latest guy, who found NOTHING.
$140 BILLION dollars blown on a wild goose chase. Tens of thousands of innocents murdered. Over a thousand american lives wasted. Our image tarnished. Our credibility in tatters. Anti-american sentiment (read "hatred") at an all time high.
Deposing a dictator, brutal as he may have been, is not a justification. Brutal Dictators are a dime a dozen. We had no more right to go in there than (say) Canada would have invading us.
It was wrong, selfdestructive, and above all, stupid.
Cheney must think we're all idiots
This guy is unbelievable. If I believed in souls, and in Satan, I'd say this guy had sold his soul to Satan.
Yahoo! News - Cheney: Weapons Report Justifies Iraq War
HAAAAAAA HAAAAA hahaaaa ha....
not funny
October 06, 2004
More from that long comment discussion
Listen: I know some people are driven by hate and greed. I know some people are stupid, and small, and craven. I know religious and political ideology often lead people to evil acts.
In the short term, violence may quell violence. Fear may bring the false peace of terrorized silence. But the hate lives on, seething, for generations.
In the long term, though, destruction can only breed destruction. Fear can only breed hatred, and hatred more violence. War, murder - these are fool's solutions.
I'm from Puerto Rico, and know a bit about being conquered. For 40 or 50 years, a large percentage of puertoricans were violently anti-american. They hated their conquerors, the foreigners which had stolen their 6 month old fledgling autonomy. Nothing the US did calmed the situation. Force created resistance and resentment, nothing else.
What the stick couldn't achieve, the carrot did handily: McDonalds, Cable TV, and a couple generations of kids educated in an americanized system is finally winning over the island.
I'm watching Farenheit 9/11 as I type this. They're interviewing a Iraqi man, standing beside a pickup full of bloody corpses. The man picks up the body of a small child, horribly burned, shoves in front of the camera, and with a voice full of deep hatred says:
"What's this baby's crime? Was he going to fight the soldiers? Cowards! I went out with a bat and asked the soldier to hit me. I swear on the Koran. Those who do not fear death don't die."
This man, all the men standing around that pickup - they will never "thank the USA". I'm a father, my kids are about the same age as that body, and it is all too easy for me to understand the emotions they're feeling.
Once you go to war, you've lost.
As I watch F911 (again)...
As I watched F911 again, I remembered a post I wrote ages ago, three weeks after 9/11. I'm glad I wrote it - it reminds me of my frame of mind back then. One passage proved, unfortunately, prophetic:
"Over the next few days, I mourned for the thousands of lost people, for their families. For their children. I also mourned the loss of our nation's innocence. I mourned the impending, predictable loss of my civic freedoms. I mourned for the hell innocent middle-easterners were enduring, and which would probably worsen. I listened to Bush's speech, with a heavy heart, and where there talking heads heard 'a great speach', I heard talk of revenge, of bloodshed, of pain, of escalation, of paranoia. "
About a year later (after the disastrous 2002 elections), I wrote:
"Reading the other day, I came across a decidedly apropos paragraph from a speech given by Richard Feynman in 1963, at the height of the cold war, during what was probably one of the darker episodes in American history. He was discussing how one of the roots of the worlds problems is that people are certain of their values, and how the uncertainty of values is not only logically evident, but central to the progress of humanity. He said:
"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determint the aesthetic value of artistic creations, not limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has the duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race"
I believe this wholly and truly, and it breaks my heart, daily, to see the dark swing our national course has taken in the short span of a year. I mourn for my future, and my children's future, upheld by the feeble but unchangeable fact that this too will pass, that the historic, slow swing will invariably return to the side of reason. Where today we are arrogant in the inarguable presumption of our righteousness, somewhere in the future we will return the humbleness of our ignorance. "
Are we nearing the beginning of the swing back to sanity? We'll know in 25 days.
ps. Reading through my old log posts - I realize I was a much happier person back then.
October 05, 2004
October 04, 2004
Darn that Librul Yahoo!
Here is another fine example of fair and balanced news headlines at Yahoo:
Yahoo! News - Bush Blasts Kerry, Signs Tax Bill in Iowa
And the lede:
"President Bush said Monday that rival John Kerry's foreign policy stands "are dangerous for world peace," leveling some of his harshest criticism of the campaign during a trip to an important battleground state. Bush also signed tax relief legislation for 94 million Americans and hit Kerry on that issue, too. "
Boy, I'm glad Yahoo is a librul lapdawg. Can you imagine if they weren't?
My Great Uncle and Junior
From time to time, life throws you a curveball. My great uncle (Carlos Morales Troncoso, www.carlosmoralestroncoso.com) is, it turns out, the Dominican Republic's Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Because our email addresses are so similar, I occasionally get email addressed to him (I also get email addressed to www.carlos-morales.com, but that is a different story).
Sigh.
