The New Road

Fox skew

The Fox skew is really starting to show. I just watched some of their coverage of the weapons story. They completely left out the embedded video that every other network showed. If you watch Fox, you are hopelessly misinformed. It's no wonder that people that watch Fox believe that Saddam Hussein planned the 9/11 attacks.

Hannity's interview with Bush was a hoot. "President Bush, I love you so much. Is there anything I can do for you? Perhaps something involving a loofa... and some falafel?"

Happy Halloween

Megan's endorsement

It's impossible to say for sure, but I think Megan would go for Kerry. Here is my thinking. I would have both the candidates come in and spend some time with her and Finding Nemo. Bush would come in and would want to turn Nemo off, because he hates Hollywood, and because it would interrupt his presenting his stump speech. Bush would say, "No Nemo. No Nemo."

Kerry, on the other hand, would leave Nemo on because his is ok with Hollywood, and because he has dealing with the incessant attacks of Rove and the Republican media hate machine and he needs a bit of a break. So watching a movie would be fun. Kerry would say, "Yes Nemo. Yes Nemo."

Therefore Bush is anti-Nemo, and Kerry is pro-Nemo. So Megans vote would go for Kerry, the pro-Nemo candidate.

Go Nemo! Go Kerry!

BTW, another Megan Harrington feels very differently. So she has engaged in voter fraud to ensure that her god king is selected for another four years.

Wow, that sucked

Well, we lost. We had been playing it close to the edge all season and we finally got cut today. We were way off our game, particularly in run defense, which is miserable. And North Carolina was on it's game in a big way. The running back, Scott, was a machine. When he was out I was convinced of a close victory. When he came back in, I knew we were in trouble. The great thing about a Miami loss is that we come back the next week to annihilate the opponent. Clemson should prepare to be crushed. Plus, all of the rest of the Florida teams got trashed as well.

Respect for my Dad

I have a certain respect for those folks, like my Dad, who didn't oppose the war in Vietnam. It was our first real loss. It was tough to see how we couldn't win against a tiny little country when we had overwhelming firepower and troop strength, and when we had won the war against Japan and Germany.

In hindsight, it was not a war we could win. It was a civil war. There was support in the populace for the insurgency. Even if we had crushed them on the battlefield we would have had the type of quicksand quagmire we now have in Iraq. McNamara says so. And the few war histories that I have read that have covered the Vietnam war say the same.

In hindsight this is why people like Bush and Cheney talk about having a clear mission and exit strategy, and having the support of the populace. That's referencing Vietnam. Vietnam was clearly a failure by the leadership of this country. And that is well accepted.

So I have little respect for people that, given a basic understanding of the importance of clear competent leadership grounded in what we learned from Vietnam, fail to apply that to Iraq. The parallels are obvious on their face. We need to replace our faulty leadership. The ones who made the mistake by getting us in there in the first place; George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Then we need to wrap it up and get out.

And for those who think that Bush and Cheney are doing that, your wrong. They are playing this war out of the political pocket. That should be obvious by now. And what's more scary is that the next stops are Syria and Iran. If you don't believe me just read up what their neocon backers have to say about the five act play they have for world domination.

For those who think that being anti-war is un-American, like O'Reilly. You clearly don't understand the intentions of the founding fathers who knew all too well that absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's why we are so fiercely protective of the role of the fourth estate. An informed populace who is willing to speak out and change our leaders when necessary is fundamental to the survival of America.

Being American isn't about what car you drive, what shops you buy at, or your accent. It's about using your brain to make informed choices and to take an active role in our participatory Democracy. It's a pain in the ass, but it's the duty of every patriotic American to question our leaders and to decide for ourselves what is in the best interests of our country.

Morning idea

On the way to bagels this morning I thought about my Dad and how I would talk with him about Iraq. We haven't talked about it at all. Though I have talked with my Mom about it. She is anti-war and pro-Kerry. She said that during the Vietnam war she was also anti-war and that caused a rift between her and my father who accused her of aiding and abetting the enemy.

I haven't talked with him about it because I doubt I could sway him. First, I don't have that 100% break you out of fantasy-land argument. The right wing media is so influential, through Fox, through the radio, and through their influence of the mainstream media, that it's difficult to break through the fog.

Second, I think being in a fantasy world is really attractive. I was in a distorted world myself with the Clinton impeachment. I wanted to believe that he didn't lie to us. He did lie about Lewinsky. Was it important, no. Was it as greivous as what's going on now? Hell no. But he lied. Was it an impeachable offense? No way on Earth. But I didn't want to believe it at first.

So I can understand how Bush supporters can't believe that Bush is lying to them continuously. Especially when they have a whole media network that is trying to convince them that he is telling the truth. But the fact of the matter is that they are being lied to, and when you step outside of the bubble and look in, they just look pathetic. Head nodding. Four more years! Flip-flip, flip-flop! They just look stupid. They are living in a fantasy world any they revel in it.

One thing I did learn from the Clinton impeachment was to go get the news for myself. To read the information and not just get the interpretation. Whenever I hear something earth shattering from any source, before I go with it, I check it. If listeners to Hannity or Limbaugh did that just once, they would see right through these people. Hannity, Limbaugh, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, they are all hoping you don't do the research.

What I fear is that people know they are being lied to, and they just don't care anymore. That's a scary one for me. Especially if it's a large portion of the country. However, my guess is at this point that it's just the party faithful, which means middle income, thirty-something, church going , ultra-conservative white folk. Which, when you do the numbers, is not a majority of this country by a long shot.

Anyway, back on point. I was trying to come up with ways to break my father out of the fantasy bubble (my brother already tried). I came up with the RBCC on the way to just giving up on my Dad's vote. If my mother can't break Dad out of his belief that Vietnam was a good war, I don't know what will.

P.S. It's strange that my Dad took me to Apocolypse Now when it first openened, and he enjoyed it. Though I think he enjoyed it for the helicopter scenes and not for it's anti-war message.

RBCC episode one - The reality games

Dear Dad, Things are pretty crazy here at Reality Based Community Camp. This was a very exciting week. We got to play games against our sister camp, the Bush-Cheney camp. Woo, what a laugh riot that was. The first game we played was spot the liar. First they showed president Bush at the debates denying that he ever said he wasn't concerned about bin Laden. Then they showed Cheney denying that he had ever associated Iraq and al Qadea. Then they showed Kerry saying that we had spent $200B on the war. Those crazy Bush campers said Kerry lied. It was a trick question though, since both Cheney and Bush lied. Then we played basketball. We beat them 86-0. We think it's because they though they were playing volleyball. Oh, well. Then it was story time. But this one had a special twist. We got two stories and we were supposed to tell which one was true and which was fake. Our counselor got up first. He talked about a weapons dump in Iraq that the administration didn't care about and left to looters. He even showed us a tape of some troops walking around the installation on their way to Baghdad and having a look at the explosives. It was very compelling. Then the Bush-Cheney camp counselor got up and what stories he had to tell. He started by saying that our counselor was an un-American liar. Then he said that there were no weapons there. That they had troops in there but nobody saw anything. Then he said there were explosives, but the Russians took them. Then he started to blame the troops (we all boo'ed). Then he said that there were explosives there, but we took them, and we don't know where they are. Then he summed it all up by saying that the entire Reality Based Community Camp was filled with un-American un-patriotic treasonous liars. Suffice to say that his arguments weren't so compelling. Everybody voted and as usual, reality won. As usual, the simplest explanation is almost always the right one. Dad, they lost every single game. I guess it's better to be in touch with reality than living in a fantasy land. But they said that with God's help they would win the big game next Tuesday. We reminded them that "God looks after those who look after themselves". We had a surprise guest at the camp right at the end of the night. Osama bin Laden himself showed up. Turns out everyone was too tired though, so we all went to sleep because we couldn't give a shit what he had to say. Somebody should have shot the guy a long time ago. Well, that's it. My first postcard from Reality Based Community Camp. More to come later I'm sure. Your loving son, Jack P.S. Some of the campers from Bush-Cheney camp staid when the bus left. Turns out that the camp had returned all of their parents money at the beginning of the season, so they didn't have anything to buy food with. The counselors kept saying there was food but when they went to eat the trays were always empty.

Damn

We owned the news cycle this week. We had Bush, Rove and Cheney on the ropes. And now there is this Osama thing. This reeks of Rove to me. I knew it would be late in the week, and it was.

We had the 380 tons. We had bad economic numbers. We had the news about the 100,000 Iraqi casualties. All of that news, while devastating and awful, just reinforced that fact that this president and his administration have been a disaster for us.

Now the question is whether this Osama appearance will break for Bush or Kerry. I'm sure on the Democrat side it will break for Kerry because it's more proof that Bush failed in the war on terror. There is Osama, for all to see. Osama who, according to Bush, should have been captured dead or alive. Looks mighty alive and free to me.

The question is how this will break with Republicans and undecideds. I can't wait to hear the Republican spin machine tomorrow. Then we will really know if it was Rove.

Cult of Mac

Two big things in one day! My Cult of Mac review got home page on Slashdot, which is huge. And I dropped below the 1,000 mark on Amazon. So I am now, officially, an Amazon 1,000 ranked reviewer. Woo hoo!

More Florida voter fraud

The trend continues. This time in Democratic Broward county where the Republican controlled election office says that they lost up to 70,000 absentee ballots. Seriously, if Republicans win with all of the fraud they have been perpetrating, can they really be happy about it? What do Republicans tell their kids about elections, "Son, sometimes you have to cheat and steal to do God's work." If this is God's Own Party, is this the way Jesus would want to win?

This makes me so angry. Why couldn't the Bush administration have done a competent job? They would have won in a landslide. Now they have to pull this Karl Rove disgusting, dishonest, lying, lowbrow, cheating and stealing campaign to try and weasel their way back in for four more years. It's disgraceful.

Go! Go! Go!

The FBI is finally doing the right thing! They are starting the investigation into Halliburton and it's no-bid contracts. This one could take down Cheney!

Radio contrast

On my morning commute I switch between 960AM Air America, 560AM Hot Talk KSFO, and 910AM Crackpot Nonsense. 960 is left wing. 560 is ridiculously right freeper radio, and 910 is right, but not insano (until Michael Savage gets on in the afternoon).

The big contrast is between 960 and 560. On 960 they do get a little derogatory on the president and his close cabinet. Usually in the form of adjectives like ignorant, incomeptent, lots of talk of incompetence. 560 on the other hand, goes for the name calling. They have names for everyone. One commentator this morning even lamented that she had gone to the bucket and run dry of names to call Michael Moore (what a shame). And then they go into hate speech, like this classic from Lee Rodgers two days ago:

"Somebody should take him in an alley and stomp on his nuts"

In regards to one TV political talk show guest who called John O'Neill a liar. Seriously. Think about that one. He said that on the radio. Can you even say that in your office? Can you get up right now and say that out loud? It's not only obscene, it exhorts extreme violence.

The contrast is really frightening. The liberal radio hosts tend to talk about issues and occasionally get nasty. The conservative radio hosts spend a couple of seconds on facts and then immediately get into name calling and hate speech.

I'm confused by the dichotomy. On the one hand you have a party that is supposed to stand for what's best in America, god, home, family, values, and respect. And on the other hand you have the proponents of that philosophy using name calling and hate speech on a routine basis. And it's not just the morning crew, it's Limbaugh, it's Hannity, it's Novak, it's Coulter, it's the whole chain. They all do it. The best and the brightest of the conservative camp use name calling and hate speech as their primary method of communicating their principles and ideals.

These adults use words and phrases we teach our kids not to use in order to swing us to vote for the supposedly pro-family values party? The hypocrisy couldn't be clearer.

It's said that in some cases, the right has clear and compelling positions on relevant issues. Positions that, if they were communicated properly, could drive people into their camp and to the polls. But yet they are mired in this hateful speech and name calling which only serves to undercut their arguments and to drive would-be believers away from them.

End times

I'm not a Christian, but doesn't the Sox coming back from 3-0 down to get to the series, and then sweeping the World Series, mean that we are in the end times?

Seriously though, Go Sox!

Utter disgust

My level of disgust of this president has actually gone up another notch, and Rudy Guliani to boot. This morning on GMA this is what Guliani had to say about the 380 tons of explosives gone missing:

"The president was cautious the president was prudent the president did what a commander in chief should do. No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?"

As they did with Abu Gharaib this administration has now directly shifted the blame directly onto our soldiers. Sickening.

Update: I've updated the quote to be more accurate.

Couldn't have put it better myself

Check this thread out from Freerepublic.

Yeah. It's this kind of stuff which drives people away from the Republican party.

Rush yesterday

I taped the whole Rush show from yesterday and listened to it today. First, I feel like I need a shower, even though I have had one today. Second, he spent the entire show trying to debunk the 380 ton story. If it as irrelevant as he wants you to believe, why spend the entire show? He spent very little time debunking the facts, and most of the time attacking everyone involved with the story. Classic shot the messenger stuff.

His debunking was not very effective. He said positively that the explosives were gone when we got there, which has been positively proven by on site reports. And the administration undercut him today saying that they don't know if they were there or not, and that investigations are ongoing. That's bad news for the administration either way, since, obviously, they should know. That's their job.

Rush was spitting and burbling at points. He was audibly extremely agitated. He compared this story to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Stating that my daughter's birthday (which is coincidentally the date that the New York Times broke the story) would be a day that would live in infamy. Hardly. Bush has made so many mistakes, and been so completely incompetent, that history will record no single event that was the coup de grace. His administration will simply be recorded as the worst presidency in the full history of the united states, surpassing Nixon by a long shot. Kids will wear halloween masks of Bush, and his name will be synonymous with arrogance, ignorance and incompetence.

It's obvious Rush and Hannity are scrambling to try and keep the base in line and get them out there on election day. The Republicans can't block every Democratic voter, they are going to need some real votes, and that means moving the base. And that means keeping people energized about this failing presidency which is taking daily poundings by lying to them continuously.

At this point I have two things I am wondering about when it comes to this campaign:

• Will Fox break down and go into complete campaign mode for Bush? Obviously the editorial part is just right wing shill, but will they reduce the news side to overt right wing pandering, beyond just to normal appalling spin?
• When will Rove's right wing bomb drop?

My take on Rove is that he is too static. He had the Swift Boat stuff planned well in advance but he deployed it too early on. He wanted to take Kerry out before the debate but anti-Bush sentiment kept Kerry in the race despite the Swifties and then Kerry just destroyed Bush in the debates. If he has something planned for now, my guess is that it will be too out of touch at this point. This campaign is too aggressive, too fluid for any single bomb shell attack. But, hey, we will see, according to the Atlantic Rove is 34-7 in political races (but he has only run one nationally.)

If Bush recovers from all of this stuff, pulls this thing out and actually wins this will be his will be his present to his supporters.

Mosh

Lori and I watched Eminem's Mosh last night on MTV. It was brutal and very well done. I'm sure people will either be motivated or pissed off by it, but few will remain unmoved. It's impressive how much he can say with the lyrics and the relatively primitive imagery in such a short time. I'm not an Eminem fan, but he struck home with this one.

Lemon tea

I wasted my throat on Sunday morning. In the last couple of days I've been really hoarse. So I tried lemon tea yesterday, about four cups of it, and it has helped. Turns out that I like it. It's a nice taste. Probably be good with some honey.

"380 tons" story has legs

Check out this timeline from Democratic Underground. He has links to a number of stories that support a timeline that puts the 380 in al Qaaqaa well after the invasion.

I think this story has some serious legs to it. This could be the end for Bush.

Of course, I expect Rove's October present will come on Thursday or Friday to limit the number of news cycles the Kerry camp can use as a response.

On the positive site, Hannity and Limbaugh were en fuego today. They are desperate to motivate the base. Hannity is quite the screecher for someone who detests screeching.

Rove's morning spin

This mornings spin on the 380 tons of explosives issue is, "it wasn't there when our troops got there." So it was under monitored lock and key by the IAEA before the war. Then sometime right before the actual operation began the IAEA pulled out. And sometime between then and when our troops got there, the explosives were gone. So it's not the administrations fault. So who's fault is it? Whose fault is it that the weapons were contained, and now they aren't?

I thought this was supposed to be a "new era of accountability". Where is the accountability here? The president wants to take responsibility for that war when it's 'mission accomplished', but starts playing the blame game when the going gets rough. What a joke.

2nd Birthday pictures

Some pictures from Megan's real second birthday last night with just Mom and Dad:

She really enjoyed her 'happy' (her word for cake). It blew her mind when Lori lit a match. You should have seen her eyes. Fire! What a concept.

Back to the well

Bush is going back to the well for another $70 billion for Iraq. How did we get here? Rumsfeld said they would great us with flowers and chocolates, and we would be in and out in six weeks. He had to be convinced into sending as many troops as we did. And Bush was convinced we wouldn't have any casualties at all. Everyone outside the bubble knew that was b.s. but our commander and chief didn't. Incompetence, arrogance, ignorance. "I guess I hit the trifecta." -George W. Bush

Megan's birthday pics

Megan's birthday party was a big hit. She loved every minute of it. Not only did she have her friends around but she also got to play in the gym. There was cake, of course, not the right cake, but a cake all the same. Megan's word for cake is 'happy'. I love that.

She unwrapped her presents when we got home. She liked them all but was happiest with just some simple stickers. I was most impressed with an electronic story telling machine. You put in a cartridge and then plop the book into the reader and as you flip pages it reads them to you. There is no interface to speak of. You turn it on by opening it up, and turn it off by closing it. You can adjust the volume and that is it. To turn the pages you simply... turn the pages of the book.

More pictures here.

Saturday

Pam and Yvonne had their housewarming on Saturday. Super big crowd. And when the Red Sox came on everyone huddled around the TV to watch.

The kids had a great time and having everyone inside because of the rain forced a fun close knit atmosphere.

Jon Tyon's kid Julius (pictured center) was a riot. It was impossible to take a bad picture of that kid.

More pictures here.

Another Bush administration screwup

Last night it was widely reported that the Bush administration lost track of 380 tons of high explosives. They were in an Iraqi weapons depot that we were told to secure by the IAEAbefore the war. But we just neglected to, and the depot was looted and the explosives stolen.

This is a sign of serious incompetence by the Bush administration. As is Condi Rice's sitting on this news for a month. It also something we need to do something about, something we need to act on. We need to find out where the explosives went and get as much back as we can. We need to act.

But instead of acting, the Bush administration's first move is to... claim that this justifies the war, that these explosives were WMDs. Why not tell us you are going to find them? Why not come clean about how this was a mistake that won't happen again?

This is the central problem with the Bush administration. It's all about politics and perception and not policy. It's about shifting blame and never ever admitting a mistake or taking responsibility. Wouldn't it have been easier to simply do the job? To secure the weapons. As opposed to doing the whole blame game after the fact?

Rove Herring Response: As to the WMDs issue, they aren't WMDs. C4 precursors are not WMDs. These high explosives are nasty, but they don't fall into the category of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. They are standard military explosives that have been in use since the first world war.

Death of a cake

I was at the door of the little gym. One hand balancing the twenty point two layer, 13x9, four batch of icing, three color, six hour monstrosity. The other hand trying to open the door. Nobody was around and I was too impatient to wait.

Then the door bumped the cake and shifted the balance forward. It started to slip. I looked to the right, and quickly tried to grab the cake, my fingers digging in. Ahead of my fingers the cake split in half. The first half hitting the ground and the other half, only seconds later shifted the balance backwards and then slammed itself into the ground.

And that was Megan's 2nd birthday cake. All over the ground, a mere ten steps from the table where it was supposed to sit.

Megan had a great time at the party anyway. She saw the cake earlier and I'm sure she has no idea that it was supposed to be for her. But given my lack of sleep it hit me pretty hard. I ended up getting a cake from Safeway.

Megan's 2nd Birthday party

Megan's second birthday party is today. Her actual birthday is tomorrow.

Here is the cake we made for her:

The theme is fish since she is all into fish and turtles at the moment. It took about six hours to make and ice the cake. It should have taken a little less but Sadie ate the first white layer while we were at a housewarming party yesterday.

The cake isn't done. There are still some Nemo characters to go on top and a big '2' candle.

War news from the 23rd

This is what an average day in Iraq looks like:

Bring ‘em on: Ten Iraqi policemen killed, 40 wounded in car bomb attack near Ramadi.

Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis killed in roadside bomb ambush of US convoy near Latifiyah.

Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi children killed, four wounded by tank fire near Fallujah.

Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting reported near Baquba after US patrol ambush.

Bring ‘em on: Five US soldiers wounded by car bomb in Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers, one Iraqi civilian wounded in fighting in Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: Six US soldiers wounded by car bomb in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Three Danish soldiers wounded in two patrol ambushes near Basra.

Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi policemen wounded by car bomb at police station near Ishaqi.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police break up pro-Sadr demonstration in Kufa.

Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers wounded by roadside bomb near Fallujah.

Bring ‘em on: US air strikes, ground fighting continues in Fallujah.

Bring ‘em on: Green Zone mortared in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Two Turkish truck drivers killed, two wounded in convoy ambush near Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: Three Macedonian hostages executed by insurgents in Iraq.

Bring ‘em on: Two oil pipelines ablaze near Baghdad.

CENTCOM reports one US soldier died of a non-combat related injury near Tikrit.

Australia orders soldiers moonlighting as civilian contractors out of Iraq.

US soldier sentenced for going AWOL from Iraq deployment.

Lieutenant AWOL’s flu vaccine fiasco impacts military readiness.

Everything is going swimmingly there. Riiiight. I wonder which one of those (or which none of these) will make Fox News.

Wolves

Man, I gotta get my ballot back. The Wolves are going to eat us all unless we vote for Cheney/Bush, or Man God King, or whatever that is.

Oh, oh, wait, wait, the wolves are ok. Yeah, it's the wolves in the Whit House, who are getting endorsements from Iran who we should be worried about.

More election hanky panky. At this point it's fair to assume, given that Ohio Republicans have gotten permission to scare old ladies from the polls, that the majority of the election fraud will be coming from the Republican camp.

Once again I ask, wouldn't it simply be easier to be a good president? To do a good job? Wouldn't that be easier than making crank phone calls, coercing election officials, supporting already corrupt election officials, and scaring people from the polls?

PIPA report

The PIPA report is amazing. I always hear that Bush supporters "know their candidate", but this report conclusively shows that they don't. On 6 out of 8 issues the majority, and sometimes the vast majority, of Bush supporters believe that Bush has a different position on the issue. Only in one case out of eight do Kerry supporters believe that Kerry supports a different position than he actually does, and that is only by a slim margin (-7%).

And that's not really the core of the report. The core is the analysis of the misinformation on Iraq, WMD, and the world perception of the president. Bush supporters are clearly found to be misinformed about the basic facts surrounding the war.

More Florida fun

People are going door to door in Florida trying to convince folks that they will handle their absentee ballots. This is getting sick.

My coffee guy this morning told me that two of his patrons almost got into a fist fight over the election.

100 reasons and one opinion

One hundred reasons to vote against Bush, and one opinion.

Republican Strategy

I think I'm starting to understand the Republican strategy. The idea is to have at least a few polls to point to so that they can declare the election done before it starts. Buchanan was on MSNBC yesterday declaring the election a landslide for Bush. Once again, more voter intimidation. It's what they did in Florida in 2000, except in this case they are doing it before the polls even open. (More vote nonsense for Bush.)

Hell hath no fury like a populous scorned. The Republicans have the audacity to think that they can get away with rigging another election. They live in a fantasy land. If these elections fail to be free and fair they will learn quickly how tenuous their hold on power really is.

I still can't understand how people can have un-wavering support for the president at this point. Time and time again a respected official will leave the administration and blast it for having no policy, or being a culture of group-think, or whatever, and the administration will smear them. But wouldn't you have to ask yourself? If they are all idiots, then doesn't the president an idiot for hiring them in the first place? And if they aren't idiots, then how can you believe the president is competent to lead. Either way, given the overwhelming number of people turning their backs on this administration, it should give even the most hardened supporter pause.

The more I hear from Bush supporters the more I think they are in a cult mentality:

• Everything is going great in Iraq
• Saddam was behind 9/11
• There is a liberal media machine out there that will try and destroy Bush any way they can
• God is, literally, in the White House
• To be a real American you have to be a Republican, conservative, and a Christian
• To oppose this particular war is treasonous (though you can oppose Democrat lead wars any time you want to)
• The division in the country was caused by the spawn of Satan named Clinton
• All bad things are caused by Clinton
• Getting a blow job in the oval office is far worse than sending thousands of soldiers off to die in an unjustified unnecessary war
• You should have the same type of faith you have in God in president Bush
• The rest of the world is behind us in Iraq
• It was the Democratic party who divided us after 9/11
• Bush is both hands-on and hands-off Iraq, whichever one is better in a given argument
• There won't be a draft, even though our military is stretched too thin right now
• We could easily invade Syria with the troops we have right now
• In order to win the war on terror we have to invade more countries
• There were WMDs in Iraq

I could go on and on with the weirdness, but it wouldn't do anything more than just add onto the fact that the basic premise is that facts and logic don't matter. The only thing that matters is faith. Faith in god. Faith in the GOP. Faith in guns. Faith in being anti-gay. Faith in being anti-choice.

Some of this stuff is in the shocking PIPA report. Some of it is just my experience.

This pretty much sums it up:

When did we become a theocracy?

Tenet says Iraq war was wrong

Yet more wood for the anti-war fire:

Addressing the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan Wednesday night, George Tenet, former director of central intelligence, called the war on Iraq "wrong," according to Clark's article today.

Technology in action

Even if you don't believe in the Sinclair boycott you have to admire the work done on the boycott site in mere days. The scandal has only been going on for seven days and yet the site is professionally put together, and organized effectively to make an impact. The Internet has changed politics forever.

Voted for Kerry

Today I made a surprise turnaround and voted for Kerry:

I know it may come as a shock to most of you, but I have recently ascertained that George W. Bush, is incompetent and is an habitual liar. So I looked around and here is this man, John Kerry. Who turns out to be a strong and consistent leader, who tells the truth, even when it is inconvenient, and who would make a great president to lead this country out of it's hour of darkness.

So I will stand together with Kerry against the tide of conservative Christian extremism that has taken a vocal minority and given them power beyond their comprehension and together we will take back our country.

Sinclair changes mind

Looks like the Sinclair group will now air some news piece that may contain sections of Stolen Honor, but not air Stolen Honor in it's entirety. This is a fantastic win for activists and bloggers. If the Swift Vets were willing to pay for the time, then fine air it, but the time was being giving away for free over broadcast frequencies to air an hour long hate piece on Kerry.

What amazes me is that CEOs still try to lie. They know we will be watching in force. This one says that they never said they were going to show Stolen Honor, but within minutes of the release of his statement a blogger found the Yahoo TV! listing of Stolen Honor.

Lying by these politicians and CEOs is simply restricted to connected people. We will know they lie, but he rest of America who remains unconnected and seemingly uninterested in how they are being lied to on a daily basis.

Fox bias

Here is a beautiful demonstration of the Fox bias. This is a clip from their home page:

On Bush the Kerry is on the same plane. Bush is smiling, and is shown in a long shot. The idea, Bush is a man of the people. Kerry, on the other hand is shown underneath, from the perspective of a groveler. He looking away from you. And nobody is around him, or supporting him. This projects the idea that Kerry is an elitist, who is above you.

Wouldn't it be great if the Republicans had a candidate and a record that allowed them to win without stacking the deck? All this lying, cheating, scaring, suppression, and on and on, wouldn't be necessary if they would just do their jobs. Why can't Bush just simply read what is given to him and make informed unbiased decisions with the help of his aides. He picked some of the best people in the country to help him run his administration and they have run this country into the ground.

Dungeons and Dragons video

This is geeky awesomeness.

Story behind the man

When I looked at CNN's web page this morning I was impressed by the contrast of two parts of the page:

If hispanics "hold the keys to the White House" and make up 16% of the population of Florida, and the black percentage is 14%, where are they? They certainly aren't on Bush's campaign route. Time after time I see these pictures of Bush bracketed by his supporters and every time it's been all white.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Bush is only interested in motivating his base. Bush is and would be, a president for conservative Republicans. Kerry would be a president for all of us.

Update: The trend continues. CNN updated their four more times and the photos continue to prove the point:

And so it begins

Florida is already having troubles.

Tom Wilson

A co-worker of says that I remind them of Tom Wilson, who played Biff in the Back to the Future films. Grrr...

Without a doubt

Here is an excellent New York Times piece on Bush's faith and how it has an effect on his policies. Some choice parts:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'

And:

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

What I don't like about the article is that he starts by saying that there will be a civil war in the Republican party and then never follows up to explain how that might happen. I know about Bush's faith and his arrogance, I want to know more about how the Republican party will implode.

My personal guess is that the Republicans from the coasts are not interested in the faith stuff, they want a government that works for business, and this one clearly doesn't. So the rift will come between the social and fiscal conservatives and cleave this crazy mess of a party in half at the seams. That way the Dixiecrats can go back to the tent revival stuff and the back room cigar smokers can go back to figuring out how to suppress the working man.

Eye opener

This was an eye opener this morning:

Especially since the Honda is in the shop at the moment, so I'm driving the 6-cylinder gas guzzling Dakota, which I should have sold months ago.

This can't be good for the president. I've never seen gas prices this high. The highest I saw last year was $2.19. I thought the plan was to drop gas prices right before the election. That's only two weeks away. Certainly our memories can't be that short, can they?

Another thing, what's with the $0.10 differences between regular and plus, and plus and supreme? Shouldn't the differences be a percentage? Is the value of the additives really $0.10? If it's extra refining, should it be a percentage of the oil price? I've always been curious about the $0.10 increments. It's just marketing from what I can see.

Tosca

Megan was sick yesterday, so Lori stayed home with her as Mel and I went to see Tosca. It was a beautiful production. The set design and lighting was very simple. That put the emphasis on the actors and the orchestra. The actors were great. Mario was a little understated, but Tosca and and Scarpia, who are the central characters, were played boldly. The orchestra and chorus were spot on, but never detracted from the actors.

The hall itself was beautiful. Everything was carved in marble. The ornate decorations were beautiful and it was obvious that the house had been well cared for.

All in all it was a great nice and a wonderful birthday treat. I think Lori would have enjoyed it. But by going with Mel I learned a lot about the history of the opera and about how the shows are put together.

Outrage at the outrage

What the Republicans are now trying to do is sickening. Manufacturing some outrage about Kerry outing Mary Cheney, who has been out for almost two decades? Do the think we didn't see the vice presidential debate just a couple of days earlier when Cheney and Edwards talked about it? Or Cheney using his own daughter to deflect heat of the same-sex marriage issue a couple of months back. The hypocrisy makes me ill.

The adminstration spends so much time on these political games. Feigning outrage, manipulating the media, outing CIA agents, firing generals, disgracing people. All that takes a lot of time. Wouldn't it simply be easier to do the right thing? Wouldn't it be easier to make the right choice? George got all cowboy after 9/11 and decided to attack a country that was contained, hadn't attacked us and presented no threat to us. It was a mistake. Why didn't he do his homework and simply avoid the mistake in the first place? Then the administration wouldn't have to spend 90% of it's time manufacturing scandal to try and win the election, they could run on their record.

Pirates and Emporers

This is excellent.

Earpiece

I've been staying away from the earpiece thing, but now I think it's time to point some stuff out. Here is a Fox video (17MB) that clearly shows the President getting audio prompting during a speech. Then you have the debate gaff where the president clearly told nobody in particular to let him speak.

Now I understand that people think that Bush is a good man. And the they voted for a good man in the 2000 election, and now, nothing has changed, he is still a good man, so they should vote for him again in 2004. But don't we know more about him now? Is a guy who is clearly cheating in a debate a good man?

My guess is that the first debate was horrible because he hadn't practiced wired. They had practiced the debate, and they figured it would just help to have the wire, but Bush was overwhelmed by having at least three different people talking to him; the moderator, Kerry, and the person in his ear. For the second and third debates they probably practiced with the wire, and I imagine all of the funny eye stuff was his way of telling the prompter which questions he was going to take and when he needed help.

Apparently he started wearing a wire after 9/11. Which is why he hadn't practiced with it before in debates. He didn't win in the Gore debates, but then the right was so motivated against Clinton and the left had become some complacent that it didn't matter. Now Bush actually has to debate and he knows he is awful at it. His lousy skills, combined with the worst presidential record in history, signaled to him that he needed to cheat in order to win. And he did. Nice. Pappy should be proud.

The tell-all books that come out in the next couple of years are going to be great! I can't wait.

Elections in January?

Probably not if the minimal crew the UN has in Iraq is going to pull out. "Just one staff member is one staff member too many in Iraq".

Jon Stewart on Crossfire

I was really impressed with Jon Stewart. The Crossfire guys didn't even know how to respond when they had Jon on there slamming on them.

Liberal is bad?

I replaced the word liberal in some of Bush's debate rhetoric:

That's what [those having political or social views favoring reform and progress] do. They create government-sponsored health care. Maybe you think that makes sense. I don't. 

They don't name him the most [generous; bounteous; open-handed] in the United States Senate because he hasn't shown up to many meetings. They named him because of his votes. And it's reality.

First, the National Journal named Senator Kennedy the most [tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others] senator of all. And that's saying something in that bunch. You might say that took a lot of hard work.

How is it that liberal has become a bad word? How is it that we could have people on the radio saying that "an open mind is like an open garbage can".

Real Genius t-shirts

Somebody liked Real Genius as much as I did. He recreated Chris Knights' t-shirts.

Nightline on Kerry

Excellent Nightline story on the Kerry silver medal. There are two segments where the crew went to Vietnam and talked directly with some of the people there that day. Much of what they found disproves the Swift Boat Vets.

So in the third segment Nightline had O'Neill of the Swifties on and he tried the usual tricks of lambasting the sources and not talking, even once, about anything the new sources had to say. What O'Neill doesn't realize is that slamming the sources only works once or twice, after the fifth or sixth time everyone notices that you are just dodging facts as opposed to having anything real to say.

What a game, what a win!

What a game last night! We were getting outplayed in the first half, but came back big time in the second. Both of these teams have huge heart. This is going to be a great ongoing battle.

Falaphilia

We were talking at work today about how domains get named instantaneously nowadays. Here is a new one, Falaphilia, which coins a term for the strange fascination that Bill O'Rielly seems to have with turning falafel into a sex toy.

Another recent one is is Bush wired which is a site that covers the Bush earpiece scandal.

This is a fascinating trend. People say things one day and there is a whole site dedicated to it the next.

Another example of this instantaneous response are the political advertisements that run the very next day after the debates. An example is Bush's failure to recall how he told us a while back that Osama bin Ladin was no longer of any concern.

New Sadie

Sadie is a brand new dog since we put her on insulin:

She is springy, plays a lot, and barks a lot. The only thing she doesn't do is cuddle. She used to avoid cuddling because she felt bad. Now she just has too much to do, or because she wants to sleep, as the case may be.

Mr. President

Mr. President,

I remember the day when my president betrayed me. I remember my jaw dropping. I remember my heart sinking. I remember my trust being violated. That day when you said we were no longer interested in bin Ladin. I remember the day when the my president betrayed my nation.

You said, standing on the rubble of ground zero, that you would find him, Mr. President. And then you said you didn't care. You said, standing on the ground where 3,000 died, that you would kill him, Mr. President. And then you said you weren't concerned with him.

We trusted you. We believed in you. When you went to the site just days afterwards and you stood with the firemen and the police on that burning ground, you said you would stop at nothing. And then you stopped. Why?

Yes, Mr. President. Your betrayal is no exaggeration. Your betrayal is nothing to snicker and smirk at. You betrayed our trust. The trust that we placed in you to lead this nation to find and kill bin Ladin.

Why couldn't you find him? Why didn't you kill him? Why did you just let him go?

Did you have to betray our trust? Did you have to divide the nation? We believed in you. You told us you would lead. And then you said you didn't care. You betrayed us.

Kerry Victory

Certainly not the compelling victory I had hoped for. I think both candidates were fairly lackluster, but Kerry got in better punches that actually stuck. Bush was once again off in his timing. Stumbling here and there and attempting to make a joke that just fell flat.

Republican judge goes Democrat

This is a beautifully written piece from a Republican judge who decided to vote against Bush. About the war he says:

"He has taken us into a pre-emptive war, misleading the country by alleging without qualification that there was an immediate threat to our safety. No weapons of mass destruction have been found despite the president's unconditional declarations that he had to pre-empt Saddam Hussein's use of weapons of mass destruction.

He engaged in this war without any workable plan to win the peace. While the ultimate outcome of this adventure is unknown, the loss of human life and the imposition of human suffering weigh heavily against us.

The effect of this adventure is to solidify the deadly opposition of radical Muslim extremists, who are currently leading of the Muslim world. He has exacerbated a dangerous confrontation, a conflict of religious dimensions."

He finishes with this:

"I am, as American citizens ought to be, free to express my deeply held convictions, derived from my conscience and sense of justice, and to vote for candidates who in my opinion will act in the best interests of the country. In this, as in other life actions, my prayer is I am in line with the will of God."

If only more Republicans would open their eyes to see what destruction Bush has wrought.

Best O'Reilly stuff EVER

There is some great stuff on Bill O'Reilly at the Smoking Gun. Lots of kinky weird sex stuff.

Difficult to keep up

It's really difficult just to keep up with all of the negative stuff flying around at the moment. There is the question of whether Bush was wired during the debates. I personally don't think it matters. He got his ass whupped both times. Yes it does show the usual lying and treachery, but what is new there?

Then there are stories about Republican operatives ripping up Democratic voter registrations. That is disgusting, but once again, not particularly shocking, given that Republicans are always against voter registration because they know which way new voters vote.

To me the worst of all is the administration admitting that they are running the Iraq war around the U.S. election. This was one of the major problems with Vietnam. Military historians roundly criticized Johnson and Nixon on running the war from the White House. This is wrong. The war is the war, and if you call a war, you fight the war. Choosing war strategy and tactics based on events that occur thousands of miles from the battlefield is irresponsible and puts our troops in jeopardy.

I'm cherry picking though. There is a lot more information out there on a daily basis, and a lot of it clearly points to the fact that this administration is on the run.

Going Upriver

I watched Going Upriver last night. The content was great and the production was good but not great. It's nice to see a movie that responds to the pounding that the Swift Boat Vets have been putting on Kerry. You can download the movie for free. If you took the Swift Boat Vets seriously you owe it to yourself to at least view this film as a rebuttal. Especially since it's free. The Swift Boat Vets say that John Kerry earned his silver star by jumping out of the boat, sneaking up on an unarmed kid dressed only in a loin cloth and shooting him in the back. On it's face it makes no sense and this documentary provides a much more plausible recounting of the events. Not only that. It makes you feel great about the idea that Kerry could be president. He is a very smart man who is wise beyond his years who will do a great job as president of this country. I would very proud to have John Kerry as my president and I am a Kerry supporter.

Megan picture

I took this one last night as Lori as going out to see a movie.

This is the face you get when you say 'Bye'.

Aquarium

We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium this weekend and saw the captive great white shark. It was amazing. It had the look of a killer, even though it wasn't much larger than the other sharks in the tank. People turned out in droves to see it. It's the only great white to last this long in captivity.

More pictures here.

You can run but you can't hide

The president really liked the line, you can run but you can't hide. But what the hell did he mean by it? Some observations of this classic movie line:

• It's almost always spoken by the bad guy
• It happens around the end of the second act when the good guy, oppressed by the bad guy gets away to regroup before the good guy's final victory
• The good guy is generally running away, thus the run in the phrase
• To retain the tension the villain needs to look very powerful at this point
• It should only be used once. Two or three times turns this cliche from a fierce statement to farce

None of this applies here. Certainly Kerry was not running away at that point. Yes, he is running for office, but I don't think that's what the president meant.

I think he meant that Kerry can't run from his record. But that is a very unusual use of the phrase. So he needs to say that Kerry is running away from his record. Which turns the phrase into the unworkable; You can run from your record, but you can't hide from your record.

Has the president ever seen a movie where this line was used? Has Rove? Have the speech writers? They must not have because this line went horribly wrong.

Argus editorial #2

I submitted this editorial to the Argus this morning:

Bush Unhinged

For a presidential debate this is unhinged. I find it interesting on a number of levels:

• Once again Bush was led around by Kerry who controlled Bush's temper like an expert fiddle player. It was clear that after this blowup Kerry backed off and let Bush rest a while. But had he wanted to Kerry could have kept Bush in blowup mode all night. I think the reason he didn't is that it would have made them both look bad and after a while it would have been obvious to everyone who was pulling the strings.
• It was rude on the part of the president. Straight up rude and disrespectful. Is that what we want from a president. Is this how a president should act?
• For those who say that Gore has been unhinged lately in his speeches. Can you see the difference between passion and anger illustrated here? Gore is passionate and intense. Bush is simply seething with anger.
• Notice how quickly it happened. This fragment is a mere thirty minutes into the debate. A carefully managed debate where participates can't even speak directly to each other. And yet Kerry was able to goad Bush into exploding very quickly after the debate started.
• This value of demonstrating Bush's temper and short fuse is to illustrate to the voter how this man acts in office. Kerry showed us clearly that if you disagree with this man that you will be attacked. Bush was as angry as he could be in the confines of the debate hall. Imagine what he would do to you if you were in his office and he had no limits. This is why people in his administration are fired for telling the truth. This is why he is at war with the CIA.
• It was clear to me that people in the audience were at times scared by Bush. He was loud, sometimes to the point of yelling, and unhinged. People know the power of the presidency. This man is scary. He isn't a man you drink beers with. He isn't a common man of the people. In the context of this debate he was clearly angry and scary. And that is indicative of a larger syndrome. I would not have wanted to be in that debate room. I'm sure he is as sweet as Tupelo honey to those that support him, but watch out if you disagree with anything he has to say.

Upon second viewing this was a masterful performance by Kerry and a clear victory for him. He controlled Bush, the audience, and himself perfectly. What's more impressive is that he did it while presenting the illusion that it was a fair fight.

Tim Ryan

Tim Ryan tells it like it is in the Congress. Kids know there is going to be a draft because they know the facts and did the math. Not because they read it on their Internets.

The Abortion Question

One of the most telling questions of the second debate was the abortion question. To many Kerry supporters they will see Kerry as weak on this question, but I saw him at his most presidential.

Kerry took it first. His approach was amazing. First he talked about his respect for the questioners beliefs, then about his own beliefs. But then he did something amazing, he tried to bridge the gap between pro-life and pro-choice. To bridge what has become a polarizing issue in America by saying that one man's beliefs cannot be imposed on a union as diverse as these United States.

Then Bush spoke. Instead of showing vision. Instead of showing any respect for the viewpoint of the pro-choice movement. He simply issued his stance, pro-life, and let the country stand divided. On one of the most partisan issues of our time he takes a side and leaves it at that. Does he even know what a "uniter not a divider" means? Does he even care? How can a man who so blatantly chooses a side on such a partisan social issue create anything other than division in the nation.

I recently looked through quotations of various presidents. The ones that stuck out showed wisdom the wisdom that comes from understanding and respecting a diversity of opinions. I saw that in Kerry tonight.

What this nation needs is healing. What this nation needs is unity. What this nation needs is real leadership. This nation does not need four more years of petty partisan divisive politics. This nation does not need four more years of someone who looks at a divided country as an opportunity for political gain. This nation does not need for more years of someone who champions squelching dissent and demonizing those that oppose him.

Bush does not tolerate differences of opinion. Bush does not tolerate discussion or dissent. Bush does not tolerate diversity. For these reasons, I cannot tolerate Bush.

Another Kerry victory

Of course you would expect me to say that, but I think Kerry won. Bush was once again mumbling and stumbling. He became extremely agitated, at one point verbally knocking over the moderator in an extremely rude manner to answer a question. Often Bush simply didn't answer questions. An example was the well phrased 3 mistakes questions. To which Bush replied:

"Now, you ask for mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I don't want to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV, but history will look back, and I'm fully prepared to face any mistakes that is history judges to my administration, because the President makes the decisions, the President has to take the responsibility."

He never answered the woman's question. Once again he demonstrates that he considers himself infallible and beyond question.

On the other hand Kerry was focused and coherent. His answers were focused and direct and his manner was presidential. He didn't get mean and angry when he was criticized. He kept his cool, and had genuine respect for the moderator and the audience.

Thank goodness we have a real president in the running. We need a president who can keep his cool under fire, be aggressive, determined, stay on course, tackle the issues, but still have respect for those around him. Kerry showed me that in spades tonight, while the President once again demonstrated the meaning of the word petulant.

Cool Harpers Article

Sam Smith compiled a history of the Iraq war told completely in lies. It's a strange, disturbing read. I remember being scared by some of these things. I remember thinking that they were absolutely true. Looking back on all of it is fascinating.

Great cartoons

From Natalie Dee: Cheese Soup, Awkward Coworker Coversation #682, All The Mousse, Die Hard, and Why I Hate Cats. Full index here.

Like two? How about five?

If you listen to the extreme right neocons every one in a while you get a whiff of the "five act play". Where Iraq and Afghanistan are only the first two acts. The next is Iran:

"One thing is certain: There will be no peace in Iraq so long as the terror masters rule in Damascus, Riyadh, and Tehran."

So now that we are in Iraq we have to go into Iran.

This is what we get when we have extremists in power.

Pre-Debate Spin

Bush has come up with yet another justification for the war. This time he said that it was because of Iraq's abuse of the oil for food program. If you aren't familiar with that then you should watch Fox News. Fox, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest of the right wing machine spin "oil for food" continuously. Nobody else pays much attention.

Megan at Paddy's

Megan loves Paddy's. It's her favorite 'go go' place. Whenever I say, 'go go', she finds her shoes, then after I put them on she runs to the garage door.

Another favorite activity is going out the back of the coffee shop into the little green area, where we look for hummingbirds and play in the rock area.

Purple roses

I went to the flower market yesterday to take some backdrop pictures of flowers. While I was there I picked up a couple dozen purple roses for Lori:

It was a bulk flower place, so I had to do all the trimming, cleaning and cutting myself.

Hearts

San Francisco decided to go with hearts as their town art form. Some are better than others:

Art is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

Art

Here is some quick art. I even named it.

Ode to the fact that I work in a freaking basement and this is the only source of light

More Cheney Lies

This is from the Democratic Underground, which is biased, but they do provide a link to check the facts for yourself:

1999 Cast 371 out of 274 votes for a 99.2% voting record
2000 Cast 298 out of 298 votes for a 100% voting record
2001 Cast 377 out of 380 votes for a 99.2% voting record
2002 Cast 253 out of 253 votes for a 100% voting record
2003 Cast 281 out of 459 votes for a 61.2% voting record
2004 Cast 84 out of 198 votes for a 42.4% voting record

Turns out Edwards wasn't 'Senator Gone' as Cheney says (the hometown paper also denies that claim). How many lies and distortions does that make in one Cheney attack paragraph? Five? That's impressive.

In answer to the "What about the last two years? question. I think Edwards saw that defeating the worst president in history was more important that being a minority member of an ineffective Republican Congress.

Everybody knew Cheney would lie and distort. He always does. But what I really wanted him to do was, in the cutaways, to lean back in his chair, strum his fingers, and say, "Excellent...".

Update: According to Jacqueline the home town paper did indeed call Edwards Senator Gone:

The Pilot hasn’t “taken to calling him” anything. In fact, the vice president’s obscure reference sent us scrambling to our library. And sure enough, we did publish an editorial 15 months ago, on June 25, 2003, headlined, “Edwards Should Do His Day Job.” In it, we noted that Sen. Jesse Helms used to be called “Senator No.” And we added: “Four and a half years into his first term, John Edwards is becoming known as Senator Gone.”

More Iraq WMDs

Yet more specific evidence that Iraq was not developing WMDs, was no threat to us, and was contained. Thus the central justification for this optional war is once again disproved.

Audio Hijack

When I was in line for Franken I talked with a guy from Pixar about listening and recording Air America. I mentioned that I use Wire Tap, which I think is excellent. It can take anything going to the speaker and tap it off into a file.

He said he uses Audio Hijack. I tried it out this morning and it really is amazing. In one button press I can have it launch Real Audio and connect to Air America, then dump the audio stream to a file. It can also mute the sound. That means I no longer hear the beeps as I get mail, and I can listen to my iTunes at the same time I am recording.

Even better, it actually has a scheduler in it. So I can say when I want the recording to start and for how long it should last. As long as the application is running it will go get the feed and record it for me automatically.

This is great. Now I can record the entire show into a file and fast forward over any parts I don't like, and my sound system isn't hung up doing it. Awesome.

A.Q. Khan

I was really surprised when Bush talked about bringing the A. Q. Khan network to justice. I followed that story for a while because it was incredibly important. First, it dealt with nuclear weapons secrets. Second, I was interested in how Pakistan, ostensibly an ally, would be handled by the Bush administration when their national hero was found selling state secrets. I was disappointed. By all accounts he got a wrist slap, which hardly qualified as being brought to justice.

Turns out other people were surprised too. They asked Condee Rice and this is the answer that they got back:

"AQ Khan, in a sense, has been brought to justice because he is out of the business that he loved most," said Rice. "And if you don’t think that his national humiliation is justice for what he did, I think it is."

Riiight. Justice.

The story is being hardly mentioned outside of Pakistan. On the same, media dropping the ball note. Fox seems strangely silent. I think the two debates, the mounting series of scandals, and the bad news out of Iraq has forced them into a strange position. The people watching there network will see through them if they echo the out of touch Republican line too much. So they have been forced to tell the truth now and again. Check this out from a recent Fox on-line article:

Bush's scowling and annoyed appearance in the debate was widely panned, prompting Bush's campaign to substitute the speech for a re-election event in Wilkes-Barre that was to focus on medical liability reform.

Of course, it's a shared AP article, but they are starting to get the point. There is a reason why people didn't believe Pravda.

No WMDs in Iraq

Even more evidence that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

You know, I actually believed Bush and Colin Powell about the WMDs in Iraq. I didn't think that was a good enough reason to go to war, and it troubled me that other countries that were in the know thought otherwise. But I still thought that they had WMDs. I freely admit being wrong on this point.

But I thought, as Kerry did and still does, that we went in too fast and didn't give inspectors enough of a chance to do their job. I was particularly unhappy about Rumsfeld saying, at the time, that we needed to hurry the conclusions on the inspections because we had troops in the desert and it was getting hot. Troops that we had decided to put there. I could never understand that argument.

I also believed, as Kerry did and does, that we didn't have the backing of a real coalition. And, we still don't. In fact the opposition PM in Australia has said that if elected he will pull all of the 280 Australian troops out of Iraq.

Google and lying

Like drinking and driving, Google and lying don't mix. Cheney should know that by now. He said he never met Edwards before, but it turns out that they met at a prayer breakfast in 2001.

This definitely cancels out Cheney's best line of the night:

You've missed 33 out of 36 meetings in the Judiciary Committee, almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee. You've missed a lot of key votes: on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform. Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you Senator Gone. You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate. Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."

Pictures say a thousand words. Lies, lies, lies, yeah.

Courtesy of Eschaton.

Update: The official count of Bush/Edwards sightings is up to three. Including a joint appearance on Meet The Press. Turns out the count of Cheney lies in that diatribe is two with one more distortion. The second lie is that he is in the Senate almost every Tuesday, he has only shown up twice in four years. The distortion is that he would have met Edwards in the Senate. He only meets with the Republic caucus at the Senate.

Why is this important? It's important because these were planned lies. This was obviously a canned block of text that he was just waiting to deploy. And in a single planned paragraph there were two lies and a nasty distortion.

Edwards versus the President

Edwards did well against the President tonight. Oh, wait, Vice President. Riiiight.

The VP was always looking down, around, snickering, holding his hands over the microphone and mumbling. I have to say he was strong in the beginning, especially with the response after Edwards second Halliburton jab. But after that he sorta dropped away. After a while his had this attitude like, "I was done after 30 minutes. Aren't we done? We're done."

Edwards was effective in a home-spun style way. He wasn't as succinct as Kerry. He tried to land a blow or two and the kinda glanced. His delivery showed his inexperience.

I'd give this one to Edwards, but it wasn't the ass-whuppin' that Kerry put on Bush.

Worse than Watergate

Every day the administration gets hit with charges that would level any other administration, and they don't even feel the sting. How is that done? My guess is that it's an expectations game. But that is a different article.

Over the past several days that story has been the tubes. So how did Bush convince us to go to war? It was by telling us that Iraq was a gathering threat, that they were working on weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear weapons, where we would only find out when there was a mushroom cloud above one of our cities. I remember it specifically. It was in the state of the union. This particular part of the speech is often considered the most chilling and compelling case against Iraq.

Turns out, it was lie. The aluminum tubes that were cited as evidence were for rockets. In fact, the tubes matched the exact specifications for the Italian rockets that the Iraqis were copying. That's why they went to so many bidders to find the lowest price. So clue #1, people who go looking for tubes to put in secret uranium enrichment projects aren't going to try and shop the purchase around. Clue #2, the tubes met none of the specifications for use in a centrifuge. Clue #3, there is only one guy in the country, or the world, who thinks these would be good in a centrifuge. Everyone else knows that these are rocket parts.

Do you think that the Bush administration was clued in? Of course not. They cherry-picked the evidence over and over. They used the debunked evidence at the state of the union, and in the U.N. to drive us to war.

And this is just one of the recent bombs around the administration. Another one from today is Paul Bremer, you know, they guy who was in charge of Iraq, saying that we never had enough troops and that our after-action plan, such as it was, was deeply flawed.

What amazes me is that people who were so nit-picky about Clinton. Who wanted to know the shape of the stain on Monica's dress. Now completely ignore news like this. The article on the tubes covers facts, people have gone on he record, the investigative reporting is complete, the facts speak for themselves, this administration cherry-picked and lied to convince us to go to war. But you won't see it on Fox. It will get a couple of days of coverage and then vanish as all of the other stories have.

Why? Primarily because people have long ago decided that WMDs, or any actual legal justification for the war, is gone. That we went to war to remove a bad man. Unfortunately for those that think that way, removing a bad man is not a legitimate reason to attack and invade a sovereign nation.

Mercury

I'm not a fisherman. I used to fish when I was a kid, but I really sucked at it. I enjoyed it though, and I always thought it would be a great thing to do, especially with kids, even though I would throw the fish back because I'm a vegetarian.

Now it turns out, thanks to George W. Bush and his friends in the coal industry, the decision to throw the fish back has been made for us because the fish in 1/3 of America's lakes is polluted with mercury. I heard about it a couple of days ago and I couldn't believe how bad it sounded. So I checked around the advocacy groups and the government at the federal and local level and it is bad. Kids should never eat the fish, adults should only eat a little once a week, and women who are pregnant or are going to be pregnant should never eat fish.

This is a result of coal plants that won't spend a little money to reduce their mercury output. The Clinton administration had laws in place to reduce the mercury levels over the next several years but the Bush administration has repealed those. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to fish with our kids again? For a tiny fraction of the money that coal plants make they could clean their output and we could have clean water to fish in again.

Think this doesn't apply to you? Here are some resources for other states: Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas.

If the Republicans want you to think of their party when you see the flag, I want you to think of their party when you see the Don't eat the fish sign. One of the things your choice this year will effect is what you can put in your mouth next year. The bright side of this story is that if we can get the coal companies to stop the fish should be edible fairly rapidly.

You Forgot Poland

Dude! You forgot Poland!

Democracy is treason?

I'm beginning to wonder if Republican's think that even fielding an opposition candidate at a time of war is treason. Generally the most important issue at a time of war is the war itself. To run against the candidate almost requires having a contrary view on the issues. So the opposition candidate either has to be against the war, or how it's run, or how it was started. I think Kerry has struck a nice balance. His position is that we are now in Iraq, so debating how we got there is secondary, what is important is how it's fought and he can do a better job.

Even so, how critical can one be of the president during a time of war before people start to consider it treason. I listened to an interview on NPR of a woman who said that you must support the mission to support the troops, and that to fail to do so was treason. Even saying that one could prosecute the war better, is to imply that the war is being run poorly. Is that treason?

So, how can anyone, Republican or Democrat, run for the presidency during an election without inviting this notion of treason? And is it treason?

I wonder about this not because I think John Kerry, or the Democratic party, is guilty of treason. I wonder about it because of this hatred that Republicans have for Kerry. i can understand Democratic hatred of Bush. We have had four years of Bush's policies. But why hate Kerry? He has only been center stage for six months or so. Total up everything bad that people have said about him, and you can come away thinking that he is not presidential material. But to hate him? Makes me think that any candidate would have raised the same level of ire. Which gets me back to; do Republicans think that even fielding a candidate was treason?

RNC Convention Compression

This is a hilarious and disturbing Quicktime Movie on the Republican convention.

Two Faces of Bush

Great site that shows Bush's flip flops.

27 - 3

Wow! What a great win! It's even sweeter because two people in my office are Georgia Tech alums who gave me crap all day Friday about how they were going to win.

Night out with Ivan

Landon, Mel, Eric, Katie and I took Ivan and Monica out for dinner last night. I worked with Ivan at Certive many moons ago.

it was great seeing them again. I think Ivan is having a good time in Germany, and Monica looks great and has her head on very straight as usual.

More pictures here.

John's Birthday party

We went to John's birthday party today. John is the father of Stefan, a friend of Megans. Megan and Stefan had a lot of fun playing:

More pictures are here.

Al Franken Show

The Al Franken Show just started broadcasting in the Bay Area. We were always able to get it on the Internet, but now it's just on the radio live. Love it.

They are on tour this week and next and today was the day that they came to the Bay Area, to our Punch Line comedy club:

The first one hundred people got in free and people were supposed to start showing up at 7:30. I was a gunner though and showed up around 5:30 to get a good position. Turns out I got a really, really good position as the second person in line.

That gave me and the little crew of people around me in line great front row seats:

Franken and Lanpher were amazing. They were very friendly, great with the crowd, funny and intelligent. The guests were also fantastic. The California Treasurer almost stole the show, and Willie Brown was hysterical and spot on with his political insights.

It was a great day for the show. They were excited about Kerry blowing away Bush. And they had some new deal with Clear Channel for an even wider distribution of the show. It's been obvious for a while that the Al Franken Show is the best content on Air America. Getting syndicated on Clear Channel just proves that out.

As you can see I got a picture with Al at the end and had him sign a book for Lori and Megan. He misspelled Lori's name and that took the wind out of the special present.

One last thing, the guy in front of me is an animator from Pixar. He has worked on all of their movies. He did the animation for the scene were Marlin and his wife play around inside the anemone, and the long shot of Crush grooving in the EAC. He says The Incredibles is going to be... incredible. Apparently it has a much more sophisticated plot than any of the previous Pixar movies.

What a way to start the day. I got to meet and idol of mine, watched a live radio show, got a signed book and met a couple of cool folks, one of whom is a Pixar animator.

A few more photos are here.