The New Road

Kerry eats president

Of course Fox is spinning this as a win for Bush, but anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear (as Rush says) would call this for Kerry. Kerry crushed Bush mercilessly. He dragged Bush around like a dog. I had heard all this stuff about Bush going on the offensive and not letting Kerry get a word in, that didn't happen at all. Kerry was relentless on the attack.

Since the Republicans have decided to take this election into the schoolyard I also noticed that Bush has no problem trashing Kerry on the road, but seems to be reluctant to make much of a peep in person. Where was all the 'flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop' Mr. President? I also note that the debate rules had the candidates avoiding any physical contact, on Bush's insistence. Perhaps he was afraid that Kerry would simply kick his ass.

Take into account that this is Bush's strong point. He has run his entire campaign on being strong on defense, strong on terror, strong on Iraq. And he came out bumbling, stumbling, incoherent and incompetent. It can only get worse here from the Bush perspective. They have a lot of road to haul if they want to get back to the White House.

I would slam Bush point by point, but that would be kicking a guy when he is down.

Fox is doing the hard spin on this he goes to the oval office every morning to work on how to make us more secure. Bush hasn't been in the oval office physically for over a month, and he has spent 47% of his days in office on vacation. He is a real hard worker.

Final Answer

It's apparent now that Bush's big line of the night is going to be: "Is that your final answer?"

To which I would answer. "It's was my first answer, my last answer, and every answer in between. Perhaps if you spent as much time on the war as you do on spin we would be better off. My question to you, Mr. President, is war your only answer?"

CBS not backing down

CBS appears to be shirking the right wing media choke chain. They hit back with a two fisted report that covers both Bush and Kerry flip-flops.

In other news, a Wall Street Journal sent this message to friends about the situation in Iraq. Choice quotes:

I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't.

Then this:

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war.

Then on to:

In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health, which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers-- has now stopped disclosing them.

To cap it off:

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

She has to be wrong, Allawi says, We will have those elections in Iraq on time next year, because that is what the vast majority of Iraqis want." And our dear President says, "We are winning, defeating terrorists in Iraq. Unfortunately the media have not been covering these significant gains in Iraq." Right.

Perhaps McNamara can explain it a little bit with this insight about Vietnam, "One reason the Kennedy and Johnson administrations failed to take an orderly, rational approach to the basic questions underlying Vietnam was the staggering variety and complexity of other issues we faced.  Simply put, we faced a blizzard of problems, there were only twenty-four hours in a day, and we often did not have time to think straight.".

al Qaeda for Bush

This stuff about how al Qaeda is for one candidate or another is pure hocum. But why not play the game anyway? Ivor Roberts was quoted as saying:

"If anyone's ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush, it is none other than al-Qaeda,"

And:

"Bush is al-Qaeda's best recruiting sergeant."

I concur with the second statement. Bush's misguided war in Iraq obviously a key recruiting tool for anti-American insurgents and terrorists.

Debate time

Now is the time for all good people (of the Democratic party) to come together to kick some ass. Bush is completely out of touch with reality and now is the time to open his eyes, and the eyes of his of supporters.

First we have to pound on him on the bad things. His war on terror is nonexistent. He took the fight to al Qaeda and then let them go. They are now once again growing. He started a diversionary war for no sane and sensible reason in Iraq. His wise fiscal policies have left us with a debt estimated to be between 5 and 7 billion dollars. His appointees have enacted un-American legislation such as the, inappropriately named "Patriot act". He has completely polarized the country even after the astounding unity of purpose after 9/11. He has given our nation, once a beacon of light in the world, a black eye in the eyes of the international community. We are now hated around the globe. He is a dangerous man of extremist ideals, and even more dangerous because his is completely out of touch with reality and operating in a Berlin bunker mode.

But there is hope. The international community will come back to us if we simply remove Bush from power. It won't be easy. The Republicans are tampering with the election process in the battleground states. The right wing media, which now dominates the political debate, will certainly attempt to skew the results of the debate, and the polls, to their advantage regardless of the true outcome. Against all odds we can still pull it off. The President has made himself a lightning rod for the angst of both young and old through the insanity of his politics and his misguided actions.

We have to fight. We have to win.

Ralph Reed - Liar

Ralph Reed was on the Daily Show on Tuesday (9/28/04). He was once the head of the Christian Coalition, now he is the Bush campaign manager for the southeast. He is also a liar.

Ralph Reed from the Daily Show interview:

"On page 66 of the 9/11 report it documents that in the spring of 99 he sent Intelligence to the Pakistani Afghan border and invited Osama Bin Laden to come to Baghdad."

Nope. That's not on this page, or any other page. It never happened. Though thoughtfully he did point out the page 66 where the 9/11 does commission say:

"...to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carring out any attacks against the United States."

The truth is actually much more compelling. Compelling... against the President.

As usual, statements by Republicans claiming facts and quoting sources are invariably simple lies or distortions once you take the time look them up. But that doesn't matter because they assume that their constituents will get all of their information from Rush Limbaugh or Fox News which would never call them liars, or would even repeat the lies for them.

And even when they do get caught in a lie they can just say they misspoke or that it was unintentional and they are really good men. In other words, it's ok for Christian Evangelicals to lie because down deep they are at least good Christians.

Whatever happened to fact checking? What ever happened to the good, old fashioned truth? I thought this administration was supposed to a turn away from what they considered to be the lying of the Clinton administration.

Mommy wants a new president

So does Daddy.

Who are these people?

Apparently a recent poll found that 51% of respondents now found the Iraq war to have been a bad idea, or something along those lines. I believe it was flawed as there were only one hundred people involved, fifty-one Americans, and fourty-nine Klaktoons from the Vorbulon Nebula, where Iraq is the name of a famous movie star and the term 'war' is a synonym for sex.

Who the hell are these people that think that Iraq was a good idea, and continues to be a good idea? Is the continuously escalating violence not a clue? How about the recently leaked CIA reports? How about the abandoned State Department reports? How about the generals who have come back from Iraq saying that it's a political quagmire? Or the generals who didn't think we were sending enough troops in the first place? What will it take to convince these people that the war is a bad idea? The draft. Be careful what you wish for. Four more years of Bush most likely means sending our 18-22 year old males to fight and die in this debacle.

More voting nonsense: Turns out Ohio is screwed up too. Lots of people want to vote but the government won't let them because the paper they registered on wasn't thick enough. The Republicans are turning our country into a banana republic. Actually that's wrong since Carter's group cited several banana republics that have fair voting procedures, unlike Florida.

Intersections

This is going to be a really boring cathartic blog that is completely meaningless to anyone but me. You see, it seems to me that the brain has idle cycles, where you aren't thinking of anything, but you need to think of something. At these times my brain seems to default to pictures of one of two intersections, literally road intersections, one in Media Pennsylvania, the other in Miami Florida. Now when I say intersection you are probably like, oooo, intersection, that's deep. Nope. These are just stupid road intersections.

As meaningless to me as they are to you. However, perhaps explaining them will get them out of my mind forever. And they have been in there are long time.

So the first is in Pennsylvania:

The intersection is where a side road meets tram tracks (highlighted here in garnet). The intersection is the blue star. Just down the road the pink star is, or was, the Media movie theatre (it looks like it turned back into a playhouse) where I saw the Blues Brothers and Tron with my Dad. The green star is where my Mom used to work. Also in the area is Pinnochio's Pizza where I took a date once, and the Dunkin Donuts where my sister and I used to go for breakfast when she was camp counselor at my summer camp.

Moving onto Miami, I have this intersection in mind:

I keep remembering the pulloff onto I-something or other that's covered by the blue dot. Not the southbound lane or the other turn-offs onto Killian but that particular pull-off. Who knows why. The red star is the house where Lori grew up. The green star is where we used to do laundry and rent videos with Michael. The purple star is MDCC where Lori and I took a course in metaphysics from some bizarre dude. The red arrow points towards where I used to work. The blue arrow towards where Lori and I lived with Michael. And the green towards I lived with Mom and Carlos.

Man I hope this gets these crappy images out of my head. It worked before to get images of Swarthmore and Morton Pizzeria out. I think I always had in my head that I would write a book about these places but now I don't think there is enough to write a book without serious embellishment. ;-)

Anyway, told you it would be boring and cathartic. More politics and stuff tomorrow. I guess.

O'Reilly was right

Or at least, he couldn't be proven wrong because Comedy Central didn't have statistics on how many people watch the Daily Show stoned. But they do have statistics that show that the people that watch the Daily Show are better educated than those that watch the O'Reilly Factor. Which makes sense because it takes a special type of person to believe anything O'Reilly says.

My favorite O'Reilly was when he decided to boycott France. He lives in such a skewed world that he actually thinks he personally sent the economy of France into a downslide.

Two great stories to follow

First, Paul Samuelson, the 81-year old Nobel laureate in Economics, is going on the record against outsourcing with a new article. He says, "the mainstream defenses of globalization were much too simple a statement of the problem." Really, no kidding!

Second, Jimmy Carter, the fair elections ex-President, is saying that he can't vouch for the election results in Florida. According to the article:

... Florida's failure to have a nonpartisan official or commission conduct the election process violates the "basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process."

Yet another shocker.

Ouch

A couple of days ago we moved a bookcase around in the hallway. I'd all but forgotten that fact at six o'clock this morning as I was stumbling around trying to do some pre-work chores. Of course I slammed my pinky toe into it at full speed. I heard the crack. And I can now feel the bones moving around in there. Not so good. I feel a lot better with shoes off rather than shoes on. I think the shoe moves my toes in unison, which just walking in bare feet doesn't.

I needed to drop Sadie off at the vet, which meant I was a little later than usual, which meant parking farther away from the office. That didn't help my condition as I had to stop three times on my three block walk to the door.

Ouch. This sucks.

New Vernon Wermer

Our local Republican radio host, Brian Sussman, who is a fascist is also adding crotchety old Dean Vernon Wermer clone to his repertoire. Apparently he went to a Stanford game this weekend and didn't understand that the Standford band runs a comedy routine. He went on and on about how disgusting it was, and how they should be ashamed. How USC had a much more professional and practiced show. I think he was trying to sound conservative cool but he ended up sounding cantankerous, crotchety, old and very uncool.

How is it that people think that being cantankerous and close minded can be the new cool? It just sounds like what it is, close minded and foolish.

One film and one show struck me on Sunday. The film was Outfoxed. That showed how one rich old white dude bought a network, stuffed it with his cronies and is trying to apply the McDonald's model to network news. I learned nothing new about Fox, but I recommend this movie to anyone who thinks that Fox is just the conservative alternative to the mythical liberal media.

The second was the reality show American Candidate. There were two progressive candidates and one conservative candidate. The conservative candidate was a white old man, and all of the people he interviewed for vice president were white, and all but one were old men. How can anyone justify that the Republican party is one of inclusion. The vast majority of the delegates at the convention were white. The vast majority of the party membership is white. Their platform is fiscally centered around rich white men, and socially centered around the values of whites in the heartland states. Karl Rove's vision of a forty year Republican Reich may achievable given the disparity in birth rates. There is only so much redistricting the party can do before they are forced to pay attention to non-white voters.

Classical movie music

I have to admit that I get most of my classical music recommendations from watching mainstream movies. For example, Ocean's 11 turned me back onto Debussy. Excalibur turned me on to Orff a long time ago (though Joel Cohen does a better job with the source material for the Carmina Burana.) So I'm glad someone finally cataloged all of the classical music used in each movie.

Pictures from Sunday

More pictures available here.

Day at the gardens

I took Megan to the Tilden Botanical Gardens on Saturday. I was hoping for a lot of blooming plants but Lori says that's a Spring/Summer thing.

There was a group of charcoal artists there:

This was the Desert section of the gardens:

Megan decided to get out of the stroller and have a look around this part:

She picked some of the few flowers that were there and then decided to run back to the ranger station to show him. Thankfully he wasn't around at the time.

On the way back to the house the view from the Berkeley hills was beautiful:

Proudfeet

Megan certainly has her own unique sense of style:

She is so in love with her fuzzy pink slippers she won't take them off at night to go to sleep and she wants them on first thing in the morning after she wakes up (after pulling them off and sleeping with them.)

Splitting the country apart

I hate to see how polarized we all have become about this election. Case in point I listened to Al Franken yesterday and his daily chat with his "ditto-head" friend Mark Luther. According to Mark and Al they have been life-long friends, and continue to be friends. But after the treatment Al gave him on Friday I think that friendship would be severely tested. I thought it was a bad idea to have a debate, on a national show, with a friend, and now I think I'm proven out.

Al has been on a tear for a few days now. I'm not sure if someone asked him to ratchet up the rhetoric a notch, or if he is just at whits-end about what to say to convince people to vote for Kerrry. Now when I say he is up a notch, he is still well below Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly, who all seem to have no respect at all for anyone.

I just hate to see the country ripped apart like this.

Republican fear mongering

Here is a picture of the pamphlet that Lori mentioned. The one where the RNC said that the Democrats were going to ban the Bible.

Thoughtful apology

Jimmy Swaggart offered this thoughtful apology, "If it's an insult, I certainly didn't think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology."

My, that's nice. What was he apologizing about? How he would response to the hypothetical advances of a gay man; "And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died,"

Lovely. This sort of apology nonsense is ridiculous. You don't have to apologize, you blame the person for having to apologize to them, and kind of apologize all at the same time.

"If you are an idiot, and you interpret what I say incorrectly, and you get offended by your own misinterpretation, then in that case (and only in that case) then I apologize to you for saying something that you stupidly misinterpreted. Weazel."

If you have to apologize, which in this case Swiggart clearly does, then apologize. It goes like this, "What I said was stupid and insensitive. I apologize. I won't say dumb stuff like that again."

Hannity/Limbaugh USO tour

I'd like to see Hannity and Limbaugh go on a USO tour to Iraq. I think it would really help the troops. Al Franken has gone on four USO tours. Hannity and Limbaugh never have. Limbaugh hasn't said boo about it, but Hannity's bio page says that: "He has gotten an offer to go on a USO Tour with Wayne Newton, but can't believe there is enough people who know who he is." Strange that, given that he repeats continuously that he is the number two radio show in America.

Let me pull a Rush and offer the real reason these guys don't want to go to Iraq; They don't want to die. They know the situation is bad there and getting worse. So they will keep their staunch support of the troops and Bush's foreign policy right where it ought to be, in the safety and comfort of their posh air conditioned studios. Sort of like Bush, who yesterday said, "...because I live in America where it's nice and safe and secure."

Or it could be that the USO can't pay Hannity's vaunted $100,000 speaking fee.

But I suppose, in Limbaugh's defense I should say that he doesn't bring much to the table for the USO. His act isn't funny at all, at least to me. Which is strange because every time he gets into hot water, like the Abu Gharaib "blowing off some steam" line, he claims that he is a comedian who is just trying to be funny. In fact this petition, which seeks to maintain Rush's exclusive contract with Armed Forces Radio, references him as a comedian and political satirist.

So they should be all good to go.

Shaun of the Dead

I'm not sure why I want to see it, but I want to see Shaun of the Dead.

Star Wars slams

There are some great slams in this article on Star Wars. From Carry Fisher: "Whenever I get lost on the way to someone's house, or I just forget your name, it's because I remember the speech. ... 'General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars ..."' she said. "I'm a thousand years old and I still remember that thing. It's very disturbing. I have to take medication, and yet it still won't go away." And this point about the wisdom of Yoda: "Not very profound, although young people consider it profound. I wish they would read more."

Republican insanity

Just in the last couple of weeks the level of insanity coming from the right has gone up tenfold. Apparently they now think windsurfing is bad. Can't really figure that one out, thought I suppose that would work in the heartland because they aren't near an ocean.

But that is just silly stuff, what blows my mind is how the Bush camp seems to think that it can survive five more weeks on the "everything is going great in Iraq" platform. What the hell is that? Even some congressional republicans think that Iraq is deteriorating quickly. There has been a serious escalation in the violence and beheadings. The number of American soldiers killed this month will approach the number killed during the entire 'combat phase', and given the trend will likely exceed that threshold next month. This is bad. Really, really bad. As Commander and Chief, and as the man who decided to go to war with Iraq, he is responsible and he needs to go.

Bush yesterday; "I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America. It was pretty darn strong. I mean, the people see a better future." He was happy about that. What the hell does that mean? Does he even understand?

Peter Jennings was spot on a couple of days ago when he showed Bush lying about what Kerry said, and then showed what Kerry had in fact said. More proof that this flip-flop nonsense is unfounded. I heard a republican spokesman on NPR this morning trying to prove a Kerry flip-flop, both times he cited his own interpretation of what Kerry said, each time interpreting a different way. Proving once again that it doesn't take much to make your opponent look bad if you are willing to lie.

Update: Here is a fun graphic that shows the political path of the three storms that hit Florida. God has spoken. (Thanks Bill.)

On a roll again

Man it's early... We're on a roll again, Hot damn, we're on a roll again. Crushing teams that I've never seen before, I'm just glad to be on a roll again. Berlin aint bad, The reject from FSU aint bad, Gonna have to find that long ball sometime, But I'm just glad to be on a roll again. Gore is great, His running game really penetrates, But Parrish needs to catch and hold, If we just want to be on a roll again. Man our D is good, Really, really, really, really good, This Cougars just brought some flukey crap, Our D is really on a roll again. My Canes kick ass, Not fourth, or third, or second ass, But first place ass and you know what that means, I'm just glad to be on a roll again.

Stoned slacker

According to O'Reilly I am a stoned slacker because I watch the Daily Show. O'Reilly even had numbers: "Eighty-seven percent are intoxicated when they watch it. You didn't see that?" I'm sure they were anally extruded as all of O'Reilly's numbers are. It was a great interview. Especially the part about the pretzels and ice cream. Mmm... Pretzels or ice cream. Pretzels or... ice cream. That is the question.

Wacky C-Span caller

This caller on C-Span had some great lines: "I’m going to vote for President Bush because, after all, you know, God made us there, you know, in His image, free from any black color and all..." and then, "Like when Clinton was in, he made – he tried to make whores and faggots out of our little girls – whores out of our little girls. He put the pornography in the schools. And God’s gonna condemn him for that."

Lovely.

Liberal bias push

It's obvious that we are starting to see a concerted effort by Brand Republican to turn the Dan Rather thing into proof positive of liberal bias. As opposed to just one guy screwing up.

As I noted earlier, this article on Fox is clearly biased:

Although reporters took turns asking Kerry what his plan for Iraq entailed and how he would have done things differently, the Massachusetts senator did not give a solid answer.

While critics on the right have pointed out this section of an article on Alawi's speech to the UN:

Allawi's two-day visit comes as troop casualties and civilian kidnappings in Iraq have increased, large parts of the country have come under the control of insurgents and doubts have surfaced at the United Nations that democratic elections can be held in January as planned.

Biased? It's just facts. Those silly facts. They are so liberal!

What I love is how conservatives who would never concede that the abuses at Abu Gharaib were signs of systemic problem, now feel very comfortable using the isolated Dan Rather incident as definitive proof of a systemic liberal bias.

More Fox fun, they have no problem admitting that they vetted the Swift boat crap. Strange that a news agency would vet the charges of a 527. But if some organization had to do it I suppose Fox would be the logical choice. They didn't do a good job though as it is full of holes you could drive a boat through.

Canes tonight

Big game tonight against the Houston Cougars (1-2). Seriously though, it's always these teams that trip us up. So this could get interesting.

America

NJ just brought around a copy of America and it is fantastic. The few pages I looked at were hilarious and the production value is great. I thought it was just going to be a bunch of bits from the show but it isn't that at all. It is unique content that is just as funny as the show. Big thumbs up for this book.

War news

Kiwis are coming home. Apparently they aren't too keen on the deteriorating security conditions.

From this report it appears that the Army is telling soldiers that if they don't re-enlist they will be sent to Iraq.

Apparently there was also a report from The Observer of Britain pulling one-third of it's forces out of Iraq. I can't find the article though.

(All of this courtesy of Harry Shearer.)

Dinner with Doodle

It was great seeing Doodle and David Zhang last night. We met for dinner in Millenium in San Francisco.

Lori loved her dinner but I wasn't too happy with mine. Strangely I couldn't find much that I was excited about eating and what I picked didn't have great taste or texture. No big deal though. It was probably my problem, since the other two time I ate there I was blown away.

Origami insects

Wow. This stuff is far better than anything I ever did. It's amazing.

Megan

More Fox

As if there was any doubt about the right wing bias of Fox News, there is this recent article about Kerry's speech on Iraq. That included this line from the un-named reporter:

Although reporters took turns asking Kerry what his plan for Iraq entailed and how he would have done things differently, the Massachusetts senator did not give a solid answer.

What about giving me the facts and letting me decide? Oh, wait, that was the old Fox, now that the Old Media is gone, the New Media (Fox) no longer has to play at being fair and balanced.

Pentagon blocking voters

It sounds like conspiracy theory, but here it is. The story says that the Pentagon is shutting down external access to the voting registration site for security reasons. Perhaps they should just fix the security problems as opposed to blocking the right of Americans abroad to vote. More information here.

Fucking Crazies

This one is being reported all over the place. But it shows Colin Powell in a refreshing new light. According to a new book he called the neocons fucking crazies. Quoting this article:

At least since September 11 2001, the neocons, who were well described by Colin Powell in a conversation with Jack Straw as "fucking crazies", and who comprise Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton, Libby (Cheney's chief of staff), Abrams, Perle and others, have dictated the foreign policy of the Bush administration. They are, to coin a phrase, "the axis of evil" in Washington. Yet as late as 2004 the British prime minister did not "quite understand" about them.

Go Colin! He nailed it on the head there. I actually don't think he will pay much of a price for this. First, he was going to leave this crazy ass administration anyway. Second, I heard some administration representative trading on Colin's good name as a justification for how Bush is going to bring foreign countries into the Iraq quagmire in his second term.

One has to wonder why Bush can't court more allies today. I suppose one also has to wonder why Bush continues to blame everything wrong on Clinton's administration when he has been in power for four years, and the Republicans control every organ of the federal government.

Pictures from L.A. trip

Here are some pictures from my recent trip to L.A. to see my brother:

It was great fun down there, but I think he would have seen more interesting stuff up here. On Saturday we went from Torrance to Sunset Blvd. We stopped in Beverly Hills to have a look around. Then went to Hollywood and toured the walk of fame. We finished up by going to Venice beach.

More pictures here and here.

Right wing media machine

Obviously I like Kerry for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons is his ability to withstand the withering onslaught that is the right wing media machine. It's literally a twenty-four hour a day Kerry hate fest on the radio. There are several hours devoted to it on Fox. And the mainstream media, despite allegations of left wing bias, are really no help. In fact they often reinforce the right wing agenda by covering the right wing lambasting.

Now Kerry has gotten a day or two of respite from the laser like focus because now the great eye is turned towards Dan Rather. And what an onslaught he is receiving. Not just from the right wing media, but also from representatives of Congress. It's really a marvel to behold. Flip the dial, or watch Fox and you will hear the same allegations over and over again like some horrible screeching buzzsaw.

What we are seeing is an old fashioned power struggle. Fox and the rest of the right wing media have found a chink in CBS' armor and are going to break them. That's why Rather is still standing up on the few legs he has remaining. If he caves they will chant their victory hour after hour, day after day, until, well, I don't know. I'm not really sure. Obviously Dan will go, and they will overhaul the newsroom, but then what. I suppose it just becomes another totem to pull out of the right wing grab bag of liberal of events that somehow prove the supposed distortion, lying and bias of the left. And I suppose it stands as a warning to CNN, ABC and NBC to stay away from criticizing the right wing.

CBS has always been moderate. But moderate is as good as left when you view it from the right. What the right wants is a continuous flattering portrayal of the right in all circumstances. It makes me wonder if the people at Fox really genuinely believe that they are "fair and balanced". That their world view is so distorted, so hateful of the left, that they believe anything on the left is wrong and therefor covering the right almost exclusively is "fair and balanced."

This is bigger than the presidency at this point. The culture war is now in full swing. It used to be that abortion was the issue that you couldn't bring up. Now it's almost anything that can be attached to a right wing political agenda; Vietnam, abortion, religion, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, the flag, the pledge, the President, the Congress, the budget. You name an issue, it's probably a hot button that will draw fire from the right. Even if we win the White House back the impeachment will start allegations and investigations will start immediately.

America is being ripped apart. We need somebody who is going to come in and fuse it back together into a working nation again. I have no idea if Kerry can do that. I know Bush can't because he is one of the factors that ripped it apart in the first place. I'm sure that even this is a contentious statement, but how can you argue with that statement when half of the country feels mislead, lied to, and disenfranchised. Maybe those are misperceptions, but a uniter brings everyone together and makes them feel reasonably good about their country. Of course you can't please everyone, but 50% vehemently hating Bush and feeling ostracized. That's not united. That's divided.

Megan and Hummingbird

Bush on the run

"It's the most tired, pathetic way to campaign for the presidency." Nice. What's really strange is that this came from Bush himself. It's been policy so far that Bush stays clean while Rove runs the rough stuff (e.g. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth). But if you look at the Republicans and Conservatives overall, this is nothing new. Kerry has been attacked from the first moment he got on the stage. The call him Lurch, John Fraud Kerry, Johnhammed al Qerry, Frankenstein, Hanoi John (used against this blog if I recall correctly), John Francois Kerry, and many more (these were just a few choice ones from the Freepers at Freerepublic.com). And whole Democratic party is called demonrats or demoncats (or just plain old communists). And if you listen to conservative talk radio you shouldn't be shocked when they call you (if you are not a Republican) a communist, a traitor, or un-American, stupid, lazy and fat.

So if you are surprised by the name calling you shouldn't be. If Bush didn't use this type of stuff he would be alone in the Republican party. From my experience, Republican's start by telling you their points. If you don't agree, they yell them at you. If you still don't agree, they start in with the derogatory stuff and it just gets worse from there. If you want to avoid a fight just agree to disagree quickly.

I think what happened here is the same thing that happened to Cheney last week. Bush and Cheney talk to Republican only crowds. Hordes of cheering fans that clap at anything, never ask real questions and never ever say anything negative. So they always feel at home. So at home, that they feel they can open up and say what they really think. Like calling Kerry pathetic. I'm sure that word, and many many worse, have been used in private all over the west wing.

If it isn't that at home, foot in mouth problem. If they are really campaign words. Then they are pretty tough words for a man who is well ahead in the polls. Everyone knows that in politics you don't interrupt your enemy when they are defeating themselves. So why is Bush being so aggressive? The answer is that darned electoral college thing again. You know, that system that ensures that majority actually doesn't win. The overall polls have Bush ahead, but in the battleground states things it's either dead even or slightly Bush or slightly Kerry. That's why even Bush is getting into the fray.

A quick aside about being labeled a demonrat or demoncat. First off, I'm a dog lover, so demoncat is just way wrong. And on the demonrat thing. I went to the crossroads to try to sell my soul for some talent. The devil said that he wouldn't pay for something he was going to get for free anyway. Only his fellow conservatives need apply. (That's a joke, btw.)

Freerepublic is a gold mine. John O'Neill has posted some outrageous stuff there. Here are some choice quotes:

About Democrats: "If they wanted to round up every violent terrorist sympathizer, all they had to do is go after the entire demonrat (aka communist) party membership." and "Democrats = Nazis."

In reference to journalists (termed "people"): "The logistics of trying and executing millions of "people" will be awesome. And don't go telling me execution is too hartsh on these "people". You know it's too god for them."

On Islam: "Islam is Satan's scourge on mankind." and "I don't want Sharia law visited upon my women, and I don't want a goat-roper "culture" infesting my land."

On the British: "If the Brits don't take this Muslirat out and waste him immediately, it will only confirm that there is not a single living testicle remaining south of the Scottish border."

On Colin Powell: "I would like to see Colon Bowel grabbed by the collar and thrown out the door on live TV."

On Europe: "P*SS on the EURINALS, they can police their own slimebucket continent."

On Hillary Clinton: "Why am I reminded of Jabba the Hut and that @ss-kissing rat-like creature that hung around Jabba's couch and bowed, sniveled and sucked-up to the disgusting slug?"

This site is amazing, it's like walking around inside Ann Coulter's brain.

Update: A quick search around the news sites for freerepublic and the associated Free Republic Network finds that only one network pays attention to this conservative radical group. Care to guess which one? I'll spare you the suspense. It's Fox! What a shocker.

Another early morning

I decided to get up a little early this morning to get some more panoramic photos. First stop was Paddy's:

Paddy liked the last set of panorama but we agreed that it would be better if I got a little more of the door and less of the surrounds. Plus if it were a little sharper. This one does that, but it's way too early so the light is wrong. The last time I got this shot the sky, which is actually in this shot, was a deep blue as opposed to the pitch black it is here.

So having gotten some coffee and a muffin I headed west across the 92 and up to skyline boulevard. Where I took this image looking back towards the bay:

Still really really early, so I decided to go into the city. I took 280 through the Presidio and turned off towards the marina:

Why this one came out so light is beyond me. I thought the sun had already risen but it hadn't. I think the dawn is a little brighter than sunrise. I was going for a forrest of little sailboat masts but it wasn't to be had. I think I was a little too close, but there is something in this shot. Next time I'll get it.

Next I turned north again and went into nearby Crissy field, where Andy Baker had done wetlands restoration work. I hadn't see the results, but it was amazing:

And then the bridge a little closer up:

Then the sun really started to rise. You can see that in this picture. The little hump to the right is the Palace of Fine Arts.

So I went a little east and took a long shot of the bay:

The golden gate is on the left, Alcatraz is about three-quarters of the way across to the right, and the sun is on the far right.

I figured that would pretty much be the end of it, but it turns out that there was one more shot left in the morning:

This is the shot that I really didn't get right the first time I did this. This time I was back a little ways from the bridge, which lessens the parallax effect. I was also lucky enough to get the sun right as it intercepted the shaft of the arrow and the span of the bridge.

I think the next time I will go north up 880 to the Marin headlands and stake out just at the north end of the golden gate. I think the sun will rise and shine through the cityscape. Should be very cool. Once I am done with that I could come back south over the bridge and pick up a couple more shots of the marina and the pier complex.

Missed opportunity

Turns out one of the people I was sitting next to at Eric's Wedding is one of the maintainers of MLCAD the Lego CAD system that allows you to create amazing Lego projects on your computer and then render them from any angle. I would have loved to have talked to him about that, but he didn't bring it up. ;-(

Wam, wam, wam!

Kerry is finally hitting back on the connection between Iraq and 9/11. Yes!

Speech analysis

I read through the entirety of Bush's speech. He made twelve statements about Kerry. One was actually true. Seven were lies. Four were distortions.

Why hasn't the press been covering this? I think it's the recent dilution of the press because of the constant emphasis on profits. Investigative reporting has been cut. International reporting has been cut. Now all we are left with is reporters who simply dictate the words of the speech and print them without any critical analysis.

I also think the press has a pro-Bush bias, and I don't just mean Fox, which is an obvious extension of the Republic spin machine. The mainstream outlets are pro-Bush because they fear being labeled as liberal, they want access to the President, they don't want to be too critical of the President during a time of war, and because the President comes off as an intellectual cripple, which makes it difficult to be critical of his lies and distortions.

The Democrats and the public still live in a world where the press is acting as it should, as a source of information that has been thoroughly researched and verified. The Republican spin machine has realized that this protective layer is gone and are operating with impunity. Actually I don't think the protective layers is gone entirely. The part critical of Kerry and the Democrats remains in the form of Fox and the right wing spin machine.

Another Bush lie

Will Bush lie about anything to win? Will anyone ever question him? The lies are so blatant, so ridiculous, that anyone who spends even the slightest amount of thought on them will see right through it. Take this blatant lie from a recent speech:

The newest wrinkle -- the newest wrinkle is that Senator Kerry has now decided we're spending too much money in Iraq, even though he earlier criticized us for not spending enough.

Obviously Kerry is being taken out of context by comparing statements about two completely different issues. The first is a statement about how we could have saved a lot of money for domestic concerns by not going into Bush's stupid Iraq war in the first place. The second was him saying that, now that we had going into Iraq, we should make sure the troops are well funded. Duh. To believe Bush on anything is to believe blindly. Even a cursory investigation of what he says expose fundamental lies and distortions.

Whatever happened to the value of critical thinking? Must we all suffer under the Republican notion that thinking about issues is a sign of weakness? We were blessed with thought for a reason, we ought to use it.

As an American, after being reminded yesterday of 9/11, I weep for the lost opportunities and blatant misuse of public trust that occurred after our national tragedy.

Star Wars changes

More changes to the first three Star Wars in the DVD set that is coming out. Including changing Annakin to Hayden Christensen at the end of Return of the Jedi. Ugh.

And they didn't clean up my pet peeve with Return of the Jedi. This little black splotch that follows the emperor's face around:

Uhhhhgggleeee

This is perhaps the ugliest jersey that the 'Canes have ever worn:

Frankly, I, as an non-alumni, ex-employee, who has never contributed one dime to the athletic department (not that they need it), and who no longer lives in Miami nor is in any way associated with the school, feel entitled to express my dismay at just how bad this jersey is.

The front is workable, but the back is ridiculous. What is that stripe for? It looks like a wedgie gone wrong, wrought in orange underwear. I don't want the first thing our opponents to see is our team clad in wedgies. They should see a uniform that looks so striking, so aggressive in style as to turn their knees to jelly. They should be so inspired as to leave the field immediately, certain in the knowledge that they have avoided sure death.

Can't we get the old jerseys back?

Sixth time is a charm

The 'Noles D was crushing, and it was a nail-biter all the way through, but somehow we pulled it off in overtime. Finally Berlin showed some signs of life in the last few minutes and in overtime. Our D, however, was absolutely insane the entire way through. This is the best UM defense I have seen in some time. Rolle is amazing. And Gore is going to be great. Now we get to see the rest of what the ACC has to offer. But without Boston College I don't see how this season is going to offer excitement as intense as tonight.

Canes! Canes! Canes!

Here we go again! Why not test the age old philosophy of saving the best for last? Let's kick some 'nole ass.

Made the paper

Yep, I guess I made the paper. Though I'm not sure if I'm in the hard copy.

Jack Herrington left his 2-year-old daughter at home in Union City. He came to the vigil to protest the war and mourn the dead, he said. But he wanted to make sure he wasn't politicizing the fallen soldiers.

"I didn't want to carry a sign other than (one that said) '1,000 dead,'" he said.

Of course, I'm being inherently self-contradictory because I was flustered at being interviewed. I started by saying it was a protest, but immediately retracted it to say that I was mourning the dead. Doh.

Honestly, I wish this could have been something that all sides could have come together on. I would like to see a way where all Americans can get information about vigils like this. Because it's not a political issue. These men and women paid the ultimate price for ourselves and our country. We should honor that and honor them.

1000th war dead vigil

I went to the vigil to honor the 1,000 soldiers lost in the war in Iraq. At least 70 other people showed up at just this one location:

Here are some of the photos I took:

	The flag at the top of the tall flag pole where we met up.
	A better view of the congregation area while it was still light.
	My best picture of the night.
	Some nuns from the local convent showed up.
	The mood was somber and restrained.
	At the end we sang "Amazing Grace". I only knew the first chorus of that. And "Give Peace a Chance".

This was the first time I have been to anything like this. It wasn't a protest. It was very reserved and somber. Though it was fairly obvious from the few conversations that I had that everyone was against the war and against Bush. But it wasn't a protest.

I was interviewed by a reporter from The Argus. Lori is going to buy tomorrows paper to see if I'm quoted. It was a horrible interview on my part. I like being the interviewer, not the person being interviewed.

Morning pictures

Here are the pictures from this morning. This is the church steeple with the moon above:

Lori tells me the two dots directly to the down from the moon are planets. Then there is the picture of Paddy's:

Next I took a picture from Candlestick Point:

Here was the Tai Chi lady:

And the Bay Bridge:

And some more pictures from downtown:

World to Bush; "We hate you"

According to the BBC (long a bastion of extreme leftists ;-) ) the rest of the World hates Bush. Not surprising in total, but I was amazed by the numbers for the UK (47% Kerry, 16% Bush) and Canada (61% Kerry, 16% Bush). Obviously the French hate Bush (64% Kerry, 5% Bush). I guess the French don't like being vilified.

Just one of the reasons that John Kerry is a better choice than Bush is that he is simply a different person with a different administration. That alone will get us back some support in the community of nations. Which will help us in the Iraq War, and in pursuing terrorists around the globe.

Other reasons to vote for Kerry; a better likelihood of avoiding the draft which is sure to come into effect right after the election if it goes for Bush, absolutely avoiding war with Iran and Syria.

Woke up early

I woke up early this morning. Really early. About four. I watched a Nova on the World Trade Center collapse, then started a bad movie called Landspeed. At which point I decided to TiVo the movie because it was so bad and either try to get back to sleep or wake up. I tried the sleep bit, but that didn't work. So awake I was at 5:30. I showered and decided to drive to work, well before the break of day.

I got to Paddy's around 6 and decided that some photography was in order. I got out the camera with the new Tamron 28-300 (which replaced the old Tamron 28-200 which had gotten into such poor mechanical shape that it could no longer hold focus.) I was never all that happy with the original Tamron, it felt cheap. But the new lens has a nicer feel and I was sold on the fact that if I bought Canon I would be buying a re-branded Tamron and paying more for the privilege.

My first panorama was a vertical one of a Southwestern style church where I located the cross directly beneath the setting waning moon. Then I turned around and took a before sunrise panorama of the exterior of Paddy's, which should have that classic coffee shop look with the lights along the sides casting an erie glow on the surrounding sidewalk.

I then headed north across the San Mateo bridge where a a crash sent three into the water (with one still missing) on Tuesday. And up the 101 to Candlestick Point, where I took a few more panoramas of the rising sun. Some older Chinese folks came by to talk to me about what I was doing before their morning Tai Chi. All we could communicate was the word Sun but we all enjoyed the view.

I got into the city around seven. The light was still nice so I drove up around the Embarcadero looking for some more shots. I found a nice view on the Bay Bridge with the sun just behind the support stands. That should be cool. I have always been a fan of the silhouette shot.

Frankly, the light was so pretty this morning that I could have taken pictures on tin plates with a lens made out of a graham cracker with a pin hole in it and it would have been fine as wine. If the shots don't come out the fault will entirely be my own... er... the equipment.

Getting up before the sun has it's advantages. Unfortunately work is not one of them. I'm currently blocked and waiting on someone today and he won't arrive until at least ten. Which leaves me writing a blog and looking at header files. Trying to decode a C++ macro nightmare that I'm sure he will fix in a few keystrokes.

I wish I could post the pictures. I have all I need here to do the work except for the card reader to get the images off the camera. Grrr... Ah well, I'll do it at the house tonight and have it up tonight.

I'm not quite sure why I woke up so early. My nose has been bothering me for days, but that is probably a mix of allergies and spare the air days, which are synonymous with poor air quality. Megan has a slight head cold. So I could have a cold as well. It's almost impossible to know where the allergies symptoms start and stop and where a cold could be. I did have one of those tingling hair sensations that I always get with a cold on Tuesday night.

Too much, too fast

Man, the political mud is flying fast and furious now:

• There is the new book out by Kitty Kelley that calls George a coke fiend, and accuses both George and Laura of being potheads. Fine with me, but non-hypocritical conservatives should probably think differently.
• There is Cheney's nutty fear mongering. Flash news item for Cheney; 9/11 happened on your watch!
• Edwards responded with calling Cheney un-American. That's not cool.
• Then there is the 1,000 casualty in Iraq. Which is being politicized left and right.
• Bush's war records came out. Surprise, surprise, he didn't show up. Tell me something I didn't know.

And the list goes on and on. It's too much to comment on everything. What's amazing to me is that each of these stories would be a huge election changer years ago and now it's just another day.

The best thing I have read all week is this reprint of a Harpers article which unwraps the entire Republican media machine.

Fun with Sadie

Rush stupidity

Rush's approach to the 1,000 war dead headline; it's a liberal media debacle. He didn't address the war. He didn't talk about war on terror. He didn't even try to say that the war was a good idea, or justify it. It was just attack, attack, attack on the media. And the coverage from what I can see, has been really light. It's the usual conservative bullshit. They know they can duck the hard questions if they just attack the messenger.

Death toll passes 1,000

We have now reached a death toll of 1,002 in Iraq. That doesn't include contractors and civilians, of course. It's 870 more since Bush declared Mission Accomplished. What the hell are we doing there? Isn't the war against al Qaeda.

We have about 10,000 (last I heard) troops in Afghanistan, and about 130,000 in Iraq. Now you figure that there are about 20,000 al Qaeda in Afghanistan (many died, but al Qaeda has grown in Afghanistan since our war in Iraq), and there are only two acknowledged al Qaeda in Iraq. Does it make sense that we have a 60,000 to 1 numerical advantage in Iraq, and they have a 2 to 1 (or more) advantage in Afghanistan? Why aren't we fighting al Qaeda where they actually are?

Photography weekend

This was definitely a kid friendly weekend. We spent almost all of the three days tooling around with Megan, going to the pool, or having fun with her friend Josephine. Of course the camera got a lot of use:

This is Megan's friend Josephine. Most of the shots were of her. Both Yvonne and I spent a lot of time trying to get pictures in her best light. She really is a beautiful kid, and Megan and her have great times playing together.

I'm playing with RAW digital photography now. The idea is fairly simple. Instead of doing the conversion to JPEG during the shot the camera stores the pixel values of every point on the CCD straight to a file. The format is dependent on the make of the camera, so you have to do a conversion to get the RAW images into JPEG format.

The advantages are two fold. First, you don't lose image quality because of the hasty compression that cameras make in their conversion to JPEG. Second, the gamut of the CCD is larger than the gamut of JPEG. Take this picture:

When I took the shot Lori's face was largely overexposed. Most of her cheeks and forehead would have just been one flat pink skin-tone color, or perhaps even brilliant white. But having taken raw I could rescue these overexposed pixels from outside the JPEG gamut and put them back into the picture. Giving you an image that would be very hard to get otherwise.

Especially on bright days when you are shooting in the heart of the afternoon you will often get areas that are over or under exposed. Or areas with an abundance of shadow where you lose detail.

With the RAW conversion software I use you can change the exposure and color saturation, you can change the white balance dynamically, and you can change the type of virtual film that's used to either get more shadow or increase contrast.

All of these things work to rescue good shots from a quick demise because elements of them are off. A classic example is the indoor shot without a flash where room lights provide the illumination. These lights provide a sickly blue tint to the picture. The trick to fixing that is to set the white balance on the camera to compensate. But what if you forget? With JPEG you are out of luck unless you know how to diddle color curves (which is a real pain). With RAW you just play with the white balance options until you find the one you want, and viola, you are fixed.

So, long story short. If your camera supports RAW mode then learn how to use it. It will give you much higher quality pictures with no extra equipment costs.

Spam

First time I have ever gotten something like this:

Eternity is a very long time.If you or someone you care about to you has not accepted God please do so tody. The following prayer can save you or someone that you love.

Say, "Oh God, save my soul. I'm so sorry that I have sinned against you, but I have come home. I will serve you, Lord, the rest of my life. Deliver me from all my sinful habits. Set me free! I do believe
Jesus died on Calvary for me, and I believe in His blood, that there is power in His blood to wash away
all my sins, all my sins!" Say, "Come into my heart, Jesus; come on in, Jesus. Come on in!"

If you meant it, He has come. If you meant it, Jesus is yours. Start reading your Bible, pray daily and believe that somebody's listening; His name is Jesus.

I like the end of the prayer. It's so homespun. "Come on in Jesus. Come on in. Sit down right cheer, an have a set a while."

I thought the Calvary thing was interesting, so I Googled it. The first hit I got was an article from the Vail Trail also giving the spam a review. I like Barry's take on the whole "come on in" thing better:

[No, really, come on in. Here, let me take those sandals for you. You must be exhausted after that whole resurrection thing. Have a seat. I just pulled some jalapeno poppers out of the toaster oven.]

More on Frances

Turns out my brother and his family are alright. No damage at all, but they lost power. Thank goodness for that.

Next up Ivan. Thought hopefully not. And possibly a trip to come out and see Marcia and I in California on Friday.

Brand Republican

I've come late to the revelation that the Democrats think they are fighting against Bush, when fact they are fighting against brand Republican. Understanding the genesis of the Republican brand requires repeating the well known story of the party starting with Reagan.

We all know that Reagan brought evangelicals into the Republican party. Before that the Republican party was mainly fiscal conservatives. This new set of Republicans were the social conservatives. Who rally around issues like abortion and family values.

That remained the status quo for twelve years until Newt Gingrich whipped the party into a new radical frenzy. He mixed fiscal conservative debating techniques; Always shoot the messenger, always claim sources, even if you know those sources are wrong, and personal attacks are ok, even encouraged. With a social conservative thought process; there is only right and wrong, belief before reason, even to the exclusion of reason, god, family, and America.

This mindset is at the core of brand Republican.

But everyone thinks and sees things a bit differently, so how do you get everyone to think and act alike. How do you achieve the staggering 94% loyalty to Bush that the Republicans now enjoy. That takes a brand identity, not unlike Coke, Nike, or Marlboro.

There are several elements to a brand Republican:

Beliefs: You need a clear set of well understood beliefs. Anti-abortion, anti-gun control, God, kids, country, unilaterism, protectionism.

Terminology: You need to control the way that you communicate your beliefs. The tone. The terms. For example, anti-abortion becomes "pro-life". And kids, God, country, protectionism and all that get tied up as "family values". If you control the terminology you control the conversation. I could write a whole article on just that.

Consistent Content: Every official the company (or party) should talk and write around consisten points using the right terminology. This is the talking points that get some attention now and again. Yes, there are talking points and it's just more evidence that there is a brand Republican. There is simply no way that both politicians and the right-wing media could use exactly the same terms on exactly the same subject on the same day without there being talking points.

Communication: You need a way to get the message out. Of course the President himself, as the icon of brand Republican is a great outlet for the content. But there is also the right wing media. Fox News, Hannity, Rush, the rest of right wing radio. These are great outlets for the content.

The great thing about a political brand is that you are branding an ideology, a way of thinking. Life is complex. People want to have their lives simplified. Especially Americans, who all want a 'fire and forget lifestyle'. They don't want to have to think to much, or at least they want to control what they want to think about, and that wouldn't include politics. So what the Republican's present is a whole way of thinking about the world from cradle to grave.

With control of the media they can distribute this message to you twenty four hours a day. You can wake up to Rush, watch Fox through the day, drive home with Hannity and then watch Fox at night. If you listen to just the radio you can get the right wing message every hour of every day on some stations. There are right wing books. And many papers have a right wing slant in their editorial pages.

You can get the message out, but how do you get people to listen? The first is by having sticky content. If you listen to the shows they always talk about being novel, different, away from the mainstream. They appear to be naughty. Then there is the mythical liberal media bias. If the content isn't enough, convince the listeners that everything else is biased, that everything else is poison, that you are fair, and that people that listen to that other stuff are stupid. Humans have a natural aversion to appearing stupid. These shows emphasize that people on the left are stupid every day through a variety of techniques. A personal favorite of mine was when a caller rang up to say that the commentators should keep an open mind, to which they replied; "An open mind is like an open trash can."

Linkage: Unfortunately you can't control the images in everyone's face all day. People will want to watch baseball, go to church, or the gym, or whatever. So how can you keep reinforcing the content during these disconnected times? The first is to co-opt the terminology. When the preacher talks about "family values" he will be backing up the brand Republican message. Another way is to link up your brand to symbols, names and key phrases. The Republicans do this wearing American flag pins, showing waving flags behind them on the television, chanting and cheering on words like USA and America, and key phrases like "God Bless America".

Republicans have no problem being associated with, or associating themselves, directly with key elements of an American's life. They want to be known as God's Own Party, the party of American, or simply, what it means to be a real American.

Lifestyle: The final element is the summation of all of the elements as a lifestyle. There are more than just one, but my personal favorite is the 'real American man'. God fearing, macho, believes in what is right, doesn't think too much about complex issues, likes Country music, drinks beer, works hard, hates the French and is a true blue American who loves our troops, and supports the President at all times, especially during times of war. Painting a lifestyle package for people presents the notion that it's an all or none proposition. That you take the complete package all the way because that is who you are.

All of these elements create the Republican brand identity. They reinforce each other. Though my hunch is that it's not complete. There are too many mistakes in the presentation at the conference. But even as it is the results are impressive. The two conventions were compared by presenting delegates with questionnaires about core issues. The Democrat delegates never scored above 20% on the core issues. The Republican delegates were 90% coherent on their issues. 90% of them agreed on key issues. 94% of Republicans will vote for Bush. When was that time you ever saw 94% of people agree on anything. It's a clear result of conditioning, the day in and day out media/message/brand saturation. All of this has the effect of replacing thought around issues with conditioned responses to issues.

It's all starting to add up for me now. The more I talked with Republicans about their views the more it felt like I was getting canned answers and conditioned responses. When I was talking with a woman in Portland about politics I asked her about invading Iran she said that she would support the President if he thought that was the right thing to do. Unconditional trust and belief in the party (and the brand).

Her observation of Kerry was more illuminating. She said that she didn't understand where he stood on the issues. When I asked her about particular issues she told me what she had heard, which was his position on those issues, but still said she didn't know where he stood. I think this is primarily because Kerry isn't backed by a brand. Bush is the icon of an entire branding system. It's a warm comforting belief blanket that provides which, like the church, has an answer for every issue and provides you with a sense of completeness, clarity and superiority.

I'm not really sure how to fight this. If you attack the icon you will simply bring the brand loyalists in tighter. Which is one reason why this election season is so heated. Democrats call Bush stupid, and Republicans take that insult to their brand icon as a critique of their entire belief system.

I'm not sure Democrats can do the same branding of their ideology. The only consistent Democratic belief at this point is a hatred of Bush. Republicans had or core set of beliefs with the social conservatives to build a brand around. What is interesting is to see how poorly the fiscal conservative beliefs meld with social conservatives beliefs. Social conservative want religiously based legislation in place that will cost enforcement dollars, which is against fiscal conservative views. Perhaps one strategy would be to lure the social conservatives across to the Democrats (where they were originally). Unfortunately that would be like moving people from Pepsi to Coke.

What's clear is that voting by brand is bad for America. If the Republicans get to a point where they have a voting majority in all elections then we will have a dictatorship. People need to think about what and who they vote for.

Frances

I'm not even sure what to say about Frances. It's a monster. It's so completely different from Andrew. It's huge and slow. Andrew was over us in about six hours. Frances pounded away for twenty-four, and it took it's time getting to you.

I can only imagine what it must be like at my brother's house in Boynton Beach. They must be completely strung out and exhausted. I hope they are alright.

I'm just shocked. Really. The whole state is a disaster area. Not just one or two counties. It's crazy. Florida will quickly recover though. It always does. Nothing could keep that state from getting back to it's screwed up self. ;-)

Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth

Classic spoof on the Swifties.

The Accessible Bush

There are lots of fundamental beliefs that Repubicans hold dear which are far from reality. One of those that I find most amusing is the notion that Bush is just an average guy, who understands average people. First, it's obviously untrue, and second, we wouldn't want it to be true.

First, he isn't an average guy. He doesn't live anywhere near an average persons life. He has no wallet, no keys, no ID, no credit cards. He hasn't driven himself (unless he is vacationing, which he does a lot more than you and me) in ten years. Before that he was the owner of a baseball team, and before that the CEO of several corporations. He was born into privilege and it was that privilege that bought him out of service in Vietnam.

No, he isn't like you and me at all. He has the launch of 1,500 nuclear missiles at his fingertips in a football that follows him everywhere he goes. His day to day activity is completely choreographed. He doesn't have a secretary or two, he has the entire department of government, the Office of Management and Budget, which implements his orders from the oval office. He can negotiate trade deals with foreign governments. He can force workers back to work during a strike. He can privatize whole industries for national security reasons through an executive order. He can pardon any convicted person in the United States. He can start a war anywhere on the planet without consent of Congress for a full thirty days. He is the most powerful person in the most powerful country on the face of the Earth.

Does that sound like anyone you have hung out and drunk beers with? And frankly, would you want any of your beer buddies to control this amount of power? Bush hasn't lived a life that you and I would relate to for at least ten years, and realistically, he has never lived a life even resembling that of the average American. He has never had to worry about making ends meet, or making the mortgage, or deciding between food and medicine, feeding the pets or feeding themselves, or getting creative with their accounting in order to make their personal ends meet.

Does it even matter if he is an average guy, or can relate to average people? No. If you lose your manufacturing job because of his policies, or if your laid off because your IT job went to India, does it matter if you can drink beers with the guy behind those policies?

It does matter that his advisors analyze trends that impact average folks. It also matters that he meets with average people. Which is why this restrictions on people seeing Bush during the campaign is so frightening. Is he President for all of us or just his supporters?

No President that in the modern era has been someone that you and I can relate to. Clinton was a rich lawyer. Bush Sr. was a rich oil man and career politician. Reagan was a popular (sort of) actor, a governor and rich before he was President. Carter was a governor and rich. And on and on.

Sure it's important that a President make his policies based on things that matter to Americans. But how could a single person understand the problems of all of the people in different professions and locations. How IT professionals feel in danger from outsourcing. Or how people in the entertainment industry in L.A. are worried about their jobs going to Canada. Different people in different places have a variety of problems. What's important is that the Executive Branch keep an eye on it's various constituencies. Not just Republicans.

It's a little silly but a recent quote from a site that Lori loves illustrates George's disconnection with the common man pretty graphically:

REPORTER 1: You're not going to Athens this week, are you?

DUBYA: Athens, Texas?

REPORTER 1: Nope, the Olympics, in Greece.

DUBYA: Oh, the Olympics? No, I'm not.

REPORTER 2: Have you been watching them?

DUBYA: Oh, yeah, yeah, it's been exciting.

REPORTER 2: Any particular moment stand out?

DUBYA: Umm -- particular moment? I like the -- let's see -- uhhhh -- Iraqi soccer. I liked -- I liked seeing the Afghan woman carrying the flag coming in. I loved, uhh -- you know, our gymnasts. I've been watching the swimming. I've seen a lot, yeah. Listen, thank you all.

Once again, I don't care that W is personally disconnected from the average person. I expect that from a President. It's a special office that isn't just for the average person. What's important is that his office has it's finger on the pulse of the people, and frankly, I haven't seen any of that at all.

Real Texan

Great ad this week from MoveOn. Puts the truth out there that the Bush camp is not taking care of us, but taking care of their own. Love it.

Possible alien contact

Possible alien contact through SETI@Home. Cool.

Swift Vets Stealing Identities?

The Swift boat vets for truth included a vets name without telling him? Shocking! I expect better from the Bush campaign... oh, right... Karl Rove... oh, wait... The Swift Boat Vets for Truth. Right....

My particular favorite was when they recounted Kerry's three man night patrol story, but added a fourth guy who contested it all and called them liars. And this mysterious fourth guy... isn't available for interviews.

I wonder who Karl Rove is trying to get to with the Swifties. He can't be trying to motivate the base. They support Bush without thought or logic. It's completely unconditional. You could tell the base that Kerry eats human children for breakfast and just nod in agreement. It has to be the swing voters. But if it's the swingers, shouldn't he be presenting an argument that at least in some form holds water.

I think we should keep pounding on the Swift boat vets. They took their shot and hurt Kerry, but I think exposing the connections between the Swift boat vets and the Bush campaign, and then exposing their lies, could do a nice reverse job.

Regardless of which side you support, you can't endorse Karl Roves brand of sickening mud-slinging politics. This is the man that attacked McCain as a race traitor.

Car troubles

Somebody rummaged through my car last night in our driveway. I left the doors unlocked by accident. They didn't find much. The only thing that was gone was the CD holder on the visor. What I thought was funny was that they found my opera CDs and just tossed them aside.

Daily Show Bush video

Great Daily Show video on Bush.

N.Y. Strip Club Waitress

Here are a great bunch of observations from a waitress at a New York strip club during the RNC convention.

Favorite bits include:

One group of three men who confessed to being in town for the convention bought at least $400 worth of lap dances, which breaks down to a little over five dances each. They were equal opportunity employers, sampling every race and body type, giving the dancers--many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants--the very shot at fortune Arnold spoke of in his speech. But as one man told me around 2 a.m. that he had been drinking for eight hours straight, it's quite possible they missed the speech.

The Republicans, meanwhile, seem to believe they're invincible. When I asked one table of guys whether they were coming from the party for delegates, one said, "No, we would never do that." He looked at his friends and laughed. "Yeah. But hey, don't tell anyone, OK?" His voice seemed devoid of anxiety.

On balance, I have no complaint with Mr. Pioneer. He told me he knew how hard my job was and left me a 35 percent tip. Appropriate, really, because Tuesday's convention theme is the compassion of the American people.

Then he said, "I like playing with two girls at once--but that's not a requirement. If I wanted to pay for a girl to spend the night with me, I could." He wrote his cell phone number on the back of a business card. "But that makes me uncomfortable." He handed me the card. I saw the name of an energy firm. ... The man later told someone in the club he was a Washington lobbyist. I wondered if he would try to add a clause allowing "two girls at once" into the Republican Party's plan for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The horny Republicans have a big day ahead of them, after all. John McCain's opening the convention Monday. The day's theme: A Nation of Courage.

I don't have any problems with what these guys are doing. They can do whatever they want to do. These are transactions amongst consenting adults. It's none of my business. In fact, I'm all for the freedom that they have to do this kind of stuff.

The problem here is the hypocrisy. That this is a party of family values, a sort of prurient family values that obviously aren't on display here.

One of my favorite lines

One of my favorite lines from tonight's speech was; "There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat." Since it mixes so nicely with my other favorite Bush line from Monday; "I don't think you can win it."

Trying to explain this "I don't think you can win it." appears to be tough, but it shouldn't be because "There is nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat."

Another great line was; "We will build a safer world and a more hopeful America - and nothing will hold us back." So what was holding you back? You have had control of every single organ of the federal government. It must have been those pesky Democrats who control... nothing.

Um, Dad, did you...

Yeah, son, I said in the State of the Union that I was cutting the B-2 and cruise missiles that we used in your war on terror:

... After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bombers. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. ...

Turns out Cheney testified before Congress hat we had enough of the other things that Zell talked about in his speech too:

Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements . . . You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s — all great systems . . . but we have enough of them.

He also recommended cutting the Apache to Congress:

The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward. AH-64 . . . forced the Army to make choices. I said, "You can't have all three. We don't have the money for all three." So I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out. That would save $1.6 billion in procurement and $200 million in spares over the next five years.

Check it out for yourself at the Annenberg Center.

To connect the dots here, turns out when Kerry was voting against the weapons systems that Zell Miller ranted about, most of the congress, Bush Sr. and DOD administration agreed.

On a lighter note

this

Church and State

I think we can all agree that, at a certain level (comfortable to some and not others) church and state are separated in the United States. Some American feel they should be merged. Which is something I don't understand, even at a practical level.

For example, which religion would be the religion of the state? Southern Baptist? Unitarian? Lutheran? Seventh Day Adventist? Jehova's Witness? Judaism? Buddhism? If you support merger of church and state you need to answer this for yourself. It becomes clear quickly that we will need an official religion if we merge the two because we will have to answer questions like; which version of the ten commandments do we hang on the courthouse walls. Which version of creationism shall we teach to our children?

You could say that this is a matter for the states, but what happens when one state picks Unitarianism, which supports gay marriage, and another picks Catholicism, which doesn't.

Then there is the matter of extending our laws. For example, it may be a religious violation to drink on sundays. But how would that be prosecuted. Do we need new police to handle religious crimes? New courts to handle religious offenses?

To find the answer we need look no further than the Middle East, which has had a long proud tradition of the merger between church and state. They have Sharia law which allows them to prosecute both business, criminal, and religious offenders. In fact, there is little distinction between the elements of the law. And prosecution can be swift and judgments severe.

But doesn't that seems a little off-the-map for America? Doesn't it seem like imposing all of these new laws and constructs feels a bit out of place?

One of the arguments I have heard for the merger of church and state is that this is what the Constitution had always intended. That somehow the separation of church and state was just a misinterpretation. Alright. But it does seem odd that a Constitutional Congress who was meticulous in laying out the structures and powers of government, down to the days of voting, the powers of the executive branch, and the value of slaves, would somehow forget to lay down any role for the church. Especially if they intended there to be one. Don't you think the Constitution would have mentioned religious courts, or the official religion?

Maybe not. Maybe they hadn't thought of it yet. Like stem cell research! Well, no, probably not. Being that the pilgrims were fleeing the tyranny of a monarchy that enforced an official religion of the state.

So they wrote this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

In the very first line, of the very first amendment. Which it seems to me is a sign of importance. And they didn't make any mention of religious courts, or official religions, because, they figured that this very first line of the very first amendment, would make it fairly clear that they didn't want that.

So why is this so important? What does it matter if a few kids learn that the earth was created in seven days? For that we need only look to the Middle East again. Under Sharia law a woman is almost worthless. A man can divorce his wife by uttering the word divorce three times. Women have no right to vote and must be covered from head to toe in Burkhas. Music and alcohol are forbidden. Seems a bit retro, even for Republicans.

But hey, maybe Christian Sharia law would be comfortable for you. You are already living a good clean Christian life. Why should it matter to you? It matters because of which religion the country goes with. Maybe it wouldn't be your sect. If you are a Southern Baptist, the government might go Catholic. In a Catholic government a woman's right to vote might be struck down. So a happy Christian woman's vote for a religious government might be the last vote she ever makes.

This all sounds very far-fetched doesn't it? If you think this could never happen here you are probably right. The separation of church and state is woven into the cultural fabric of America. Once you look beyond the first step of the merger of church and state it's clear that it could never happen here. Which leads me to my final point about this issue. If someone is telling you to vote for them, because they will bring religion into government, they are lying to you. Politicians understand how ingrained separation of church and state is. They know it will never change, and frankly, they never want it to. What politician in their right mind wants to give power to the priesthood?

You have the right to vote on whatever basis you please. But if you vote because you think it will merge church and state (as it never was) you are just being used.

Zell Miller