Hunting The Muse

2004 Projection #2

All right, I've analyzed the electoral map some more after reading up on a bunch more conventional wisdom, and I really think now that the #1 most important state is Missouri. The Democratic candidate needs to get Missouri if they don't get Florida. If they don't get Missouri, it gets tougher, because they have to start aiming for Arizona, or all of: New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Nevada.

Of those three, I do think it's pretty likely the Dems will land New Hampshire due to their libertarian leanings. But it's not enough - If they get one of the other two, then we've got a 269-269 tie.

So, in my mind the 2004 trifecta for Bush is: Florida, Missouri, and Arizona. If he gets all of those, he's re-elected. If he loses one, then he's out on his ear.

Conservative Thought

07.22.2003 - Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

Hallmarks of conservative thought:

• Intolerance of ambiguity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Need for cognitive closure

Read on for details...

2004 Projection #1

That's my first cut at an entirely reasonable projection of the 2004 election. The democratic frontrunners right now are from the Northeast, which brings New Hampshire in play. Given the competitiveness of Florida, Arizona, and New Mexico, and given the closeness of Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas, there are definite possibilities for the Democrats, and it could be a real challenge for the Republicans.

The above map has the Democrat winning 270-268.

Details on the Prison Bill

TalkLeft: The Stop Prison Rape Bill: What it Does and Doesn't Do

It's a significant step forward, which just goes to show you how far forward we didn't go in the past.

My Friend The Satanist

OBJECTIVE: Creation Education: Evolutionism Propaganda

"Daemon" Wright witnesses for evil.

I really want to think this is satire. Every ounce of sanity in my body screams that this is satire, just because the site is so over-the-top-crazytalk. But I really think it's not. And, and, evidently my buddy is a devil-worshipper.

This is an excellent day.

Prison Rape Prevention

Stop Prisoner Rape - Press Release - House and Senate Pass Legislation to Curb Prisoner Rape

Hooray!!

You know, I have no idea why I care so deeply about this issue in particular. I just do.

10-15% of our male federal prison population are nonviolent drug offenders who are victims of rape.

Update: According to this article, our overall prison population is rising while our overall crime rate is dropping. That's just stupid. And there's the obligatory quote where a justice department official says that white collar criminals are especially scared of prison, so it's a good deterrent. This after the justice department changed policy so that less white-collar and nonviolent offenders would be assigned to halfway houses and instead go to major prisons. They know that prison means a high likelihood of rape for these nonviolent offenders. They know that that's the deterrent, and they're not only condoning it, but taking advantage of it. Why are they deliberately sending men to a place where they are more likely to be raped, a punishment that isn't even close to fitting their crimes?

Pimps in Rap

Everybody wants to be a pimp

Snoop Doggy Dog defending pimps:

"(People) just think it's, take money from a girl and slap her and send her to the corner, but nah, it's other things about this pimpin' that you really don't even know," he adds. "(It's about) the freedom of the females and the thought of a female getting you money."

Defending the freedom of a female to give him money. Yep.

Music

You know, I like to think that I'm carving out a pretty good life for myself - I'm out of debt, freelancing, cushy schedule, enough money for a streamlined lifestyle. I'm doing it by programming for a couple of clients, billing hours working from home and needing to pull in the very occasional stressful week (like this one) to meet a deadline, sitting here in front of my iBook and coding in perl.

The problem is, I'm just not a geek at heart. And I'm sitting here programming and then on iTunes, in succession, I hear a beautiful french (basque actually) piano prelude from the early 1900's, another classical piano tune by Grieg that was the entire reason I became a pianist (Notturno), and one of the songs I wrote that I'm pretty proud of for a roughdraft and actually think has a lot of potential but has long since left my fingers... and I start to go insane. What the hell am I doing?

Japan OKs sending troops

Well, here's the article on Japan's contentious vote to send troops to Iraq, but the real news is the picture! Check this out!

Iraq Casualties

Huh. I didn't catch this earlier, but I guess there are now more US casualties in Iraq since the statue came down than before the statue came down. Here are the stats.

And if you didn't get to see the exposure of the farce that was the falling statue (with throngs, throngs! I say of Iraqi celebrants!), here you go...

Lions Fined

NFL fines Lions%u2019 Millen $200,000

This is the outcome of the minority hiring case that I wrote about before.

Diebold Flaws

E-voting flaws risk ballot fraud

This is huge news. This whole subject has been buzzing along on the grass-roots level for a while, but here it broke through to the media including the New York Times. This also came from the internet - it was one of those sites that everyone writes off as a conspiracy site that made the source code available, these scientists grabbed and analyzed the source code. A huge win for the internet.

O'Reilly And Frankendead

Hunting The Muse: O'Reilly And Franken

I finally put a merciful end to that discussion. :-) I suppose it was fun while it lasted.

Details On Dean

I found a one-hour interview with Howard Dean, hosted on Radio Nation - here is a synopsis on what he said, followed by my reactions. Please note I'm paraphrasing throughout and it's possible I'm phrasing things differently than the Dean campaign may like. :-) This entry is very long.

Dean was asked about the "A" rating he was given by the National Rifle Association, and whether he viewed the NRA as a positive social force.

Dean explained that the NRA is actually diverse on a local level, and in Vermont, the NRA means hunters. He said the NRA was helpful to him in his effort to protect land for conservation, as he was able to put together a coalition of environmentalists and the NRA.

Dean reiterated that he is in favor of re-authorizing the assault weapons ban, in favor of the Brady Bill, and in favor of closing the gun show loophole, as long as you have insta-check.

He said beyond that, that states should set their own laws for gun control, because one state's gun control infringes on the rights of hunters, while another limits access to guns from gang members.

He was asked about the difficulty this approach puts on interstate commerce since the state boundaries aren't exactly controlled. Dean mentioned about how NY found out that their residents were buying most of their guns in Virginia, but that was handled by a law limiting the number of guns you can buy, and how VA did that on their own. I would have liked to hear an expansion on this point.

Next up, Dean was asked about his health care plan. He was asked about plans such as Hillary Clinton's (and his first attempt for Vermont), and about single-payer plan. Dean was emphatic that the problem with those efforts is that they entailed massive reform, and in doing so, you divide the Democrat vote in how to implement them, while the special interests can then use the openings to keep them from passing. He says that something like single-payer may very well work, but the problem is that it simply won't pass, so why bother. His plan builds on existing structures to get results. His basic approach is to not do reform first - it's been tried twice and failed both times - so, get the people into the plan first, and then have conversations about reform. He said not to victimize the 42 million people that don't have health insurance, by arguing on how to have the system.

He also slammed Bush on his plan to give $2,000 cash (I haven't heard of this), and said he has no credibility, talks a big game, doesn't implement anything, and that his answer for health insurance needs is to cut children's health insurance and cut veterans' benefits in order to pay for a massive tax cut. He also said something somewhere in here about how giving cash isn't the best idea because then the people might just use the money to buy a Harley and then they'd really need health insurance. The interviewer said, "There goes the biker vote." Dean said, "Well, that's true..." :)

He would pay for it by removing the tax cut for those who make more than $300k/year. The cost of the program is less than half of the Bush tax cuts. He wants to fund special education with the money as well. He emphasized that this plan wouldn't replace health plans given by, for instance, IBM, and wouldn't threaten their power in attracting workers to the strength of their benefits. The health plan would be for catastrophic coverage, with some preventative measures included like colonoscopies and mammograms, with a big deductible after that.

In reference to the subsidy given to small businesses, he mentioned that small businesses give more jobs to americans than big businesses.

In his argument against single-payer, he again made the argument that it might work, but won't pass, so why bother. He also brought up the whole argument about the "patients bill of rights" because he simply considers it the wrong fight to have - a waste of time. I don't remember his explanation for this.

He was asked about allegations that Vermont's Health Care is having severe financial difficulties, and he denied it - said that Vermont is in very good financial shape compared to other states, that they set away a rainy day fund, had paid down 23% of their debt, and that any problems could be taken care of with copayments and deductibles.

The topic switched to Iraq - Dean was asked about some seemingly contradictory remarks he's made about Iraq, including when he said he was in favor of giving Iraq sixty days to comply with U.N. demands, when other times he said he was against the war.

Dean explained his viewpoint exactly: In order for war to be warranted, there needs to be imminent danger. Unilateral action is not warranted unless there is an imminent threat against the United States, defined as either a nuclear threat, or in giving WMD (nuclear, chemical, biological) to terrorists.

Dean also stated that Saddam does (did?) need to be disarmed.

But the distinction was that if there was an imminent threat, it was to the region, not to the United States - therefore, that should have been a judgment left to the United Nations, and any action leading from that judgment should have been a U.N. action.

It appears to me that this stance fully reconciles with all of his seemingly contradictory statements, when you consider that the 60-day limit was something that would have triggered U.N. action.

He was asked about the democrats reaction to the war and he made the same comparison between the principled democrats who stated what they believed (like Lieberman), who he simply disagreed with, and the other democrats who stated they were only in favor of U.N. action but voted to give Bush a free pass. He theorized that those voters were probably just trying to position themselves for a run at the presidency. It was a surprise to me how respectful he was towards Lieberman, but I suppose he's advocated his reasons for disagreeing with unilateral action heavily enough elsewhere.

He was asked why he thought Bush was pursuing it so relentlessly, and he responded that he didn't know and didn't like to speculate on motive. So he criticized Bush for a while, said that we didn't have a coherent oil policy, wasn't telling oil companies to stop funding Hamas or fundamentalist Arab schools teaching their kids to hate America. Talked about how the emphasis on Iraq was failing to protect us again al-Qaida, how Iraq is actually third most important behind al-Qaida and North Korea, and also brought up how Bush turned down giving five million (billion?) to states for local police and law enforcement help. Basic criticism was how priorities were all out of whack.

He was asked his criticisms of the Democratic Party. He said that people feel like"we don't know who we are" to an extent, don't see a different vision, and think that too many will say whatever it takes to get elected. That's a mistake because standing up for one's principles is more important. If that isn't there, then it inspires no excitement.

He was asked about Wellstone - his comparison is that he like Wellstone says what he believes, isn't driven by polls, and is driven by principles. Dean said he probably isn't as liberal as Wellstone is, but Wellstone stood up for what he believed.

He was asked why the democrats have not embraced rolling back the tax cut. Dean theorized about election positioning again. He again railed on the democrats about folding into other arguments, like when the R's proposed the second round of tax cuts at $670 billion, and the D's countered with an offer of $130 billion - at that point we already lost the debate, and the question should have been whether we can afford it at all.

Dean mentioned advocating a public works program, water, sewers, roads, rail, airports, schools. He was asked how that compared to a balanced budget. Dean mentioned his preference for a balanced budget but not slavishly so. He again mentioned freeing up money by getting rid of the tax cuts for those who make 300k, because that portion of the tax cut simply undermines the economy because that money doesn't get spent as consumer spending, not when the person is that rich. As for the balanced budget, he said that would be the priority for when the economy turns around.

He was asked about Vermont again - how he stopped the progressives from raising taxes, and how a Vermont progressive is very different than a national progressive. He was asked about how on his watch, prison budgets went up 137%, while state college budgets went up only 47% comparitively. Dean said it was simply because more people had been getting arrested (I would have liked to hear him expand on this - for instance, what is Dean's view on mandatory minimum sentences?). Dean responded that they responded by focusing on children - every mother is visited in the hospital by the state to be asked if they want assistance - 91% say yes. Now, child abuse rates are down 43%. The intent is to help the children before they turn three, rather than just focus on after-school programs when they might already be behind the curve. His theory is that they'll see prisons go down later on in reaction to this program.

Dean was asked how the 60's and 70's affected him, given that he wasn't very politically engaged back at those times. He said that it was more of a personal learning experience than a political learning experience for him. During the civil rights movement he was teaching and tutoring. As for the anti-war movement, Dean shared his distrust for ideologues on both sides of the debate, defined as people who find facts inconvenient. Dean likes to focus on facts, and for instance was very opposed to people who blew up the ROTC building in Wisconsin (?) when there was a person inside, etc. But he emphasized that he thought Vietnam was a mistake, that the government was dishonest, and that he had been to SE Asia to see the remnants of the action himself.

The subject turned to race, and Bush's use of the term "quotas". Dean criticized Bush's usage as racially divisive. Dean advocated using affirmative action based on income and class as well as race. He made the comparison that 50% of his judge appointees in Vermont were women, and that since the screening panel was mostly men, they focused on recruiting more women to apply and get through the screening panel, rather than applying quota directly to the screening panel. (I don't honestly see what he means in terms of extrapolating this to a larger policy, if he was trying to do that.)

He was asked about U of M's point system, and Dean pointed out that Bush got into Yale from a point system - being awarded extra points for being son of an alumni. There are points given for all sorts of things, like being a violin player, and Bush went specifically after race, which, he said, is what these republicans do.

Dean was then asked about himself after being critiqued as imperious and thin-skinned and impatient with process. Dean said he is not a process person, he wants results and gets impatient with process. But this focus on results is what makes him able to focus on facts rather than ideology. He brought up the needle exchange, how he was very much against it under the belief that it would increase drug use, until the yale studies came out, and he changed his position overnight. Dean said he sometimes gets impatient with purely emotional arguments that avoid facts, and he is not defensive about his positions because facts make the difference to him. In context, he mentioned being furious that the Bush Administration took reference to condoms off of the CDC website, similar to something else they did with something having to do with Africa and AIDS/condoms.

He was asked about challenges becoming a president, and he said that he knew that the governor->legislature relationship is actually very different than the president->congress relationship, in that Congress is more powerful relatively, and that an incoming president needs to work harder on having a good working relationship with them.

The subject then turned to Israel-Palestine. He was again asked about some out-of-context quotes of his from the past, including something about agreeing with Bush's approach. Dean clarified that what he was in favor of was a two-state solution. Bush has stated his support of this but hasn't put serious work into the effort (I'm not sure of the date of this interview or how this relates to the recent news about the peace plan). Dean mentioned how there is no oil conservation plan, which skews our middle-eastern foreign policy, and how oil is in effect financing terrorism, and how Bush just isn't very engaged in the process, far less than previous presidents.

In terms of applying pressure on Sharon and Arafat, Dean agrees that Arafat is simply not invested in peace, and he also stated that realistically speaking, the terror has to stop first before Israel can seriously think about withdrawing from those territories.

Dean mentioned being against "the fence" originally, but now views it as critical. He mentions how it is along the border that Barak and Arafat almost agreed to, and pushes off several Israeli settlements that would then be indefensible.

I personally am still not sure about this - see a previous entry I made on this topic - but I also am cognizant that there are militant palestinian interests whose only goals are to destroy israel outright and would oppose any peace plan that results in any Israeli state, and would oppose it by advocating further terrorism. So my belief that Israel has to pull out first is something that I'm not completely firm on. There's so much that I don't know.

Dean was again asked about Bush's efforts on HIV/AIDS - this was some of the strongest language and tone that Dean took against Bush in the interview. He mentioned about how the fifteen billion that Bush promised in the State Of The Union was simply taken out of a pre-existing foreign aids package, and how it was just "hype, hipocracy, and show". He said something about how Bush has done "not one damn thing", just lots of talk and no money.

Dean was asked if federal government should go after medical clubs that dispense marijuana. Dean said in general, no, but details would have to be looked at. He was asked about states legislating (through ballot measures) in favor of medical marijuana and he said he absolutely hated that because of what I take to be his objection to the decision making process being outside of the medical process. Or maybe it was because of the states making medical decisions - he says he's pro-choice for the same reason. Regarding marijuana, he'd ask - force - the FDA to evaluate marijuana and would be prepared to push for action depending on what they found. He said he expected it wouldn't be approved for glaucoma since there are other drugs that are more effective for less risk, and that they may be approved for kikeksia (sp?) for aids and nausea for chemo, but he couldn't be sure until after the process was complete. He again criticized using legislators or voters instead of scientists for these decisions. As for the drug war, he mentioned that users should be sentenced to rehab, not jail.

He described a simplistic view on the whole marriage/civil unions debate; how marriage is for churches and he didn't believe in asserting rules on to what churches could or could not recognize, and civil unions are for states. I read a counterpoint once that made this a lot more complicated, but can't remember what it was - something about states being forced to recognize what other states do, and I'm not sure how DOMA intersects with that.

Kyoto - his philosophy sounds familiar when I try and remember Clinton's philosophy, but I always got the feeling that Clinton was just stonewalling. Dean says that Kyoto should be supported but is flawed, in that in doesn't require developing companies - specifically Brazil and China - to do anything about greenhouse gasses. He was asked about the idea that maybe that's okay since USA has been first-mover and has had the advantage of being able to go through that polluting phases. Dean responded that the problem is that it would only provide an incentive for polluting American companies to relocate operations off-shore, like the WTO encourages. He suggested Kyoto be rejiggered a bit to require greenhouse/environmental controls for these developing countries, but perhaps over a longer period of time, or require the G8 to contribute environmental equipment to assist them. In general his view was that Kyoto should have changes be made to it, and shouldn't simply be thrown away like the Bush Administration did.

Dean was asked if he supported a living wage. Dean said yes, and described what they did in Vermont - increase the minimum wage about a buck over federal, and offer a "middle class safety net" of child care subsidies and health care plans. He said that you can't simply require a minimum wage of $10.25 without putting small businesses out of business, so you do it by supplying government benefits instead.

Dean was awarded the Paul Wellstone award and one other for his labor achievements, in this case for helping nurses organize at the hospital where he used to work. I don't know anything about labor laws right now so I won't be paraphrasing this too well, but Dean said that workers need more help organizing, that labor laws need to be revamped and that he would get rid of bush appointees to the national labor something-or-other that are anti-labor. Something about organizing low-income workers who are immigrants, and how we need a better(?) trade union, because they help make it possible for the middle class to be made up of average working class people. A decent wage means that you participate fully in society so that is why a vital and protected labor force and trade union is important. He mentioned he has a 100% AFL-CIO "cope" (?) record, and while he may not always agree with some leader there he mentioned, he has a reputation of integrity.

In the context of Vermont, he mentioned that NAFTA wasn't so bad, but the free trade agreement five years earlier was what damaged them because their machine tool industry went to China. But through NAFTA their trade with Canada quadrupled. He said that in the future, there shouldn't be more free trade agreements like WTO without environmental and labor restrictions.

Dean evidently used to be a stockbroker and was asked what could be done about corporate accountability. Dean immediately rattled off:

• Expense options at time of vesting
• Transparent accounting practices
• Accountants making the rules, not politicians
• Portability of pensions
• Pensions not controlled by their parent corporations, so they can be protected in case of bankruptcy

He said that would be a good start.

Dean has traveled to 51 countries, more than he believes Bush will have visited by the end of the term - has also lived abroad. He believes that one thing that he would be doing differently is negotiating with North Korea - Bush's refusal to do so is what could mean Korea would be lost and become a nuclear power under Bush's watch. He believes there need to be american-based but independent television and radio stations that appeal to the arab population, like al jazeera but not slanted. He said he didn't want to say balanced because "Fox contends that they are balanced, which I think is unlikely". He advocates more resources in tracking down bin laden. He mentioned again how Bush denied states 5 billion (million?) on local law enforcement.

He agrees that sending 2000 troops to the phillipines makes some sense, and contended that the rebels there are more criminals than freedom fighters. Dean supported getting rid of the taliban, but says that allowing warlords to run the country now is bad. He said that because of Bush's inattention and obsession with iraq, we risk that it would be a shame to win iraq at the cost of afghanistan.

When asked if he thought Bush actually wanted what was best for the country, Dean said he imagines Bush probably does, but that his administration thinks short-term, is blinded by ideology, and doesn't pay attention to facts.

Dean was asked about the Patriot Act. Dean wasn't so concerned about the occasional time that Congress reacts emotionally and passes a bill that is ultimately unconstitutional. What he was comparatively very concerned about was Bush's court appointments and the erosion of the courts. Bush has a litmus test that any appointee has to be in the right-wing federalist society or be otherwise partial to it, and that's a long term danger. The courts are there to protect against the unconstitutional acts from remaining, and when they are changed to the point that they stop protecting, as his appointees won't, that's a real danger. The patriot act overreaches, but Bush's judges won't call him on it. So he doesn't explicitly condemn the patriot act, but he does condemn Bush for appointing judges that don't uphold the constitution. In other talks, Dean has said that there are parts of the Patriot act that don't work, but I don't believe he has every entirely opposed the entire thing.

He was asked about the education act, and Dean got very emphatic about this one again. He called it an unfunded mandate and he hates unfunded mandates. He said that Vermont paid for universal testing, and the state government helped the schools implement the entire thing. With the education bill, he used the example of new hampshire, how it required a $109 million property tax to fund the new federal requirements. It also requires constitutionally protected school prayer, which he couldn't believe Democrats signed on for, and also required the name of every student to be sent to the military, which, among other things, he said were all inappropriate power grab away from school boards. He kept on saying it was a very bad bill, a terrible bill. He said it took a texas testing standard, with the worst schools in the country, and applied it to other states with the best schools in the country. Said the bill was backwards, made no sense, harmed local school boards and property taxes, was a typical big brother approach, and took the approach of punishing 100% of the schools because of the 5% that weren't doing their job. He was asked about Kennedy going along with the bill and he said he believed it was because money was promised in title 1, which isn't there... he was asked if Kennedy was suckered, and he said it looked like it.

Finally, he was asked about the trade deficit and what we could do. Dean said it was an enormous problem, and that the net deficit has exploded because of lack of investment in united states by foreign investment - that previous deficits were counterbalanced to an extent with foreign investment, but the falling dollar gets in the way of that. So we have to balance the budget, and can't continue to keep doing the "borrow and spend" that republicans do, because that is what got Argentina into trouble.

That was the conclusion of the interview. In addition, I found a questionnaire that Dean answered for the Committee for a United Independent Party, and it included the quote:

We also need serious election reform in this country. If we are going to move toward more electronic methods of balloting, we need to ensure that there is a paper trail to track any possible fraud that may occur.

That's a concern for me and I'm hugely relieved that he said something about this. With that and the recent courting of Lawrence Lessig (he guest-wrote on his blog for a week), this guy is pretty much turning into a dream candidate for me. If the primary were held today, I'd definitely vote for him. I can't officially say I endorse him because I need to have that "click" feeling of watching him in public or on television, and I haven't had that yet - but I suspect that's just a matter of time.

Abortion Thoughts

I've probably written about this before in a previous entry, but I just made this comment over at the Howard Dean weblog and thought I worded it well:

Regarding the abortion issue - when someone is asked exactly where they stand on an issue by being asked to answer a series of highly specific questions, it's a bit of a catch-22 because sometimes a pointed premise or allegation can be snuck into the question. On the other hand, avoiding the questions too obliquely can look too much like day-to-day politics.

The previous commentor mentioned that viability was the issue. I think this is a loser issue because the date of viability is going to move backwards as time goes on and as technology increases. It's a good thing that a premature fetus's survival chances are increasing due to technology, but the abortion conflict has never been about the life of a fetus/unborn-child versus the power of technology. It's been about the life of a fetus/unborn-child versus the liberty of the mother.

As viability moves back, if this is accompanied by laws that make the date of illegality move back, then this is accompanied by the liberty of the mother decreasing. This should not be eroded.

I do believe, however, that a president (especially a doctor) has the responsibility to face the abortion issue head-on and support policies that continue to ease the conflict.

What's important to recognize is that pro-life and pro-choice are not contradictory; they are merely oblique. I think the best approach to take is to recognize that both sides of the debate (when they are not being disingenuous) agree on one thing: the need to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Then using *that* as the objective, a president can advocate a series of programs that are proven to reduce unwanted pregnancies in a population. These programs would not be limited to left and right; there is no reason why a birth-control-education program could not be funded along with a program to counsel uncertain mothers on how to adjust to their recent accidental pregnancies and actively support them.

What would be perfect in terms of society and pregnancy would be if every pregnancy were aligned with the conscious, active intent of the parent(s). This is of course impossible to attain, but it's not impossible to support programs that move us further in that direction.

That's what I'd be advocating if I were running, anyway. ;-)

Right Wing Thinking

Personal Testimony of George W. Bush

(via DailyKos)

During the more than half century of my life, we have seen an unprecedented decay in our American culture, a decay that has eroded the foundations of our collective values and moral standards of conduct. Our sense of personal responsibility has declined dramatically, just as the role and responsibility of the federal government have increased. 

The changing culture blurred the sharp contrast between right and wrong and created a new standard of conduct: "If it feels good, do it." and "If you've got a problem, blame somebody else. Individuals are not responsible for their actions," the new culture has said. "We are all victims of forces beyond our control.” We have gone from a culture of sacrifice and saving to a culture obsessed with grabbing all the gusto. We went from accepting responsibility to assigning blame.

That's from George W. Bush's pre-election book. Just a good example of some of the double-talk thinking that you see over on the right side of the aisle. Since when does "If it feels good, do it." equate "If you've got a problem, blame somebody else"? In that crazy world, the very concept of sacrificing has its own honor, independent of the circumstances of what is being sacrificed. Anyway, if this is an example of Bush's thoughtfulness, he's missing a few synapses. He doesn't even attempt to offer evidence - he "proves" his allegations by offering more allegations.

And in this article, Senator Rick Santorum shows his pretzel thinking about free will. In reference to "homosexual urges":

"And we have many temptations to do things we shouldn't do. That doesn't mean we have to give in to those temptations. I have temptations, as we all do, all the time, to do things we shouldn't do.

"Whether we have that disposition because of environmental factors, genetic factors, whatever, it doesn't mean you have to submit. We are people of free will and free choices.

So, free will is valid when it means the ability to choose not to make certain choices, but not when it means to actually make those choices. Got it, Rick.

This is incidentally one thing that has always bugged me about the whole homosexual "instinct/choice" debate. Is homosexuality genetic and/or part of someone's innate nature, or is it a choice? It's another example of a question being framed badly, of a false choice. The answer is neither and both. People make choices that are right for themselves. It's the intersection between instinct and conscious choice that makes us human. Yes, we make choices when we act, and we are responsible for those choices. But those choices are suggested by internal desires and urges we have, the source of which are impossible to isolate. We all have different natures, and we have the ability to choose to act against our nature or in a manner that aligns with our nature. Men like Santorum deny the very concept of internal nature, in favor of following codes that are asserted onto us from the outside.

Hardball

Was flipping through and saw Kucinich on Hardball. First it was yet more evidence that Matthews is a bit of a right-wing shill, despite his near-endorsement of Dean. But it also brought up the question of what Kucinich was even doing on Hardball - isn't there a point where a candidate should consider that beneath them? Finally, Kucinich unfortunately let himself get railroaded by Matthews. He implied that the pro-life folks would be in support of criminal charges against women who had abortions. Matthews asked him to name a congressman who was on record as being in support of that, which was different than what Kucinich implied. He tried to avoid the question but then Matthews actually SCREAMED "Name one!!" ... and Kucinich blinked, and mentioned someone, Chris Smith I believe. So of course Matthews brought Smith on the next day and Smith denied it up and down and volleyed back all the softballs. Anyway, my point is that Kucinich blinked. A candidate HAS to be able to dictate his own terms of debate, and if he can't then in my mind it means he probably doesn't have enough power (the internal kind) to lead effectively. It's uncomfortable to watch someone fold like that, but it is a good indication of how susceptible someone is to the right's bullying tactics. I watched both Gore and Lieberman fold last election and I just think we need someone who won't do that. The best parriers I've seen so far have been Dean and Clark, so right now I'm torn between them.

Franken And O'Reilly

Hunting The Muse: O'Reilly And Franken

Boy. Now there's a comments thread that just won't die. I don't know any of these people.

Political Truth

Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal: X is true if and only if...

This is a great explanation of what truth is, in the context of Bush's State Of The Union speech. Is a statement true if it is factually accurate? Or is it only true if the statement actually aligns with its implied meaning?

Clinton And Logging

Clinton-era forest road ban blocked

Interesting potential Supreme Court battle brewing about logging in national forests and Clinton's attempts at protecting them.

Non-Binding Apologies

You know, there are a lot of things for public figures and companies to apologize for out there. The reason they don't is because they are afraid it would open them up to legal action. It's different over in Japan, CEOs apologize all over the place. Cultural Honor, etc. So here's my bad idea of the day: there should be a way for parties in the U.S. to apologize without accepting legal liability. They'd still experience the public relations "change of perception" (for better or worse) but the statements would be shielded against legal action somehow. I don't know. This is an idea that comes from the grumpy section of my brain.

Shifting Politics

Democrats uniting behind criticism of Bush on Iraq

Things are shifting - it's odd when they do, it's like a big lumbering giant with creaking joints made out of steel. It's loud and it's slow and it's awkward. It also doesn't move until just about everyone knows it has to. Dean calling for resignations, implying Bush's lie about the yellowcake stuff, Graham's criticisms about the costs of Iraq, and especially this television ad. I have a feeling the row about Blair overseas might be having an effect here as well.

Perl Two-Dimensional Hashes

This one's for the search engines...

They say that perl doesn't really support two-dimensional hashes, that it instead supports multi-dimensional hashes, or hashes of hashes, through a reference syntax:

$hash->{dimension1}->{dimension2};

But, it actually does support two-dimensional hashes:

$hash->{"dimension1", "dimension2"};

which, I believe, is deprecated from a bygone era. The question is how to loop through the damn thing - how to even isolate the value of "dimension1" from "dimension2".

foreach my $key (keys %$hash) {
    print $key;    # glommed together
}

That doesn't work. Turns out you need the subscript separator, which is $; . How would you know to look for the definition of the subscript separator? Right. You wouldn't. I lucked out by finding a three-year old article posting on usenet after searching for "2-D Hash". Bleah.

foreach my $key (keys %$hash) {
    my ($dimension1, $dimension2) = 
        (split %;, $key)[0,1];
}

Then you can push them back in a real multidimensional hash at your leisure.

White House Photo Ops

Win a Chance to be Photographed With the President! - White House for KIDS!!! - WHITEHOUSE.ORG

This is absolutely hilarious. For the humor-impaired, it's a satire... (what a coup that he got whitehouse.org)

Hart On Patriotism

Gary Hart is getting free with his words. Good for him.

Amazing how stepping out of a presidential race can free your tongue...!

Conspiracies And Bigotry

The right gets a lot of mileage out of making fun of the left's "conspiracy theories" whenever the left implies there is a general hidden, coordinated movement against their interests. It's always been hard to counter these crowings, as conspiracy theorists have long been painted as loonies by the popular press.

But it occurred to me that there is a way to explain it. It exists, without being a conspiracy, much in the same way that racism exists without being a conspiracy.

Racism clearly exists, and it manifests with similar symptoms all over the place: lower hiring rates, higher incarceration rates, lower pay rates, higher poverty rates, etc. These symptoms occur repeatedly even though it's an entirely different population in each place. No one seriously makes the claim that there is one committee that manages herculean efforts to keep the statistics out of balance throughout the nation. Yet, the effects are real and measurable, and the machinations are oftentimes mysterious and hidden.

When our population experiences an erosion of civil liberties, rights, and powers, we feel the variety of sources this erosion comes from. We see the restrictions being handed down from many different directions, we sense a coordination behind it all. And yet, it doesn't mean that there is a conference room powered with gargantuan scenario documents and spreadsheets. It can simply mean that a critical mass has been reached, where those in power happen to share a common interest against citizen power and civil liberties. They haven't entered into a secret society, they aren't members of a secret conspiracy. What they are, are bigots of personal liberty.

Tape analysis

U.S. analyzes alleged Saddam tape

You know what cracks me up is the whole tape analysis game. There's got to be this whole huge division somewhere in the government, with major funding, whose only job is to wait for Osama or Hussein to release a tape and then do all this expensive analysis - on a badly recorded, muffled voice that could be anyone - and then either proclaim with full government authority that the tape is EITHER: possibly valid, or maybe invalid. Man. Just roll some dice.

The Gods Must Be...

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Bushman in 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' dies

This just makes me chuckle. Not because he died... but just because that life must have been so funny and interesting. I think a biography on that guy would be more entertaining than any of the movies he was in.

Bush, Iraq, 9/11

Citing 9/11, Bush defends Iraq war

I've seen a few different articles phrasing their headlines like this. It's interesting to me because it strikes me as pretty suggestive, almost as if they are begging a question. It's not quite far enough, though - none of them make the explicit point that there is no linkage whatsoever between Iraq/Hussein and 9/11. Maybe someday.

Polls

I should learn more about polling organizations. For political polls, one of the things that seems wrong is that they can't really make a distinction between the likely voters and the people that can't even bring themselves to vote in an election. Over half of the eligible voters in the nation don't vote, they are just okay with anything and will probably choose the choice that has the least conflict and confrontation.

I imagine a counterpoint about our voter participation. Another way of looking at it is that the nonvoters are just content to let the other half of the population represent them. They are volunteering for one more layer of representation in our large representative democracy. After all, we're huge and our politics are a lot more complicated than that of other countries. It may be that we require another layer of representation.

Anyway, just musing... this particular blog entry doesn't exactly have a thesis.

California Energy And Budget

Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment

Scott comments about the link between California's manipulated energy crisis and their current budget crisis and the effort to recall the Governor.

Dr. Dean On Drugs

Blog for America: Comment on Thank You!

Howard Dean himself comments on his blog to answer a question on drug policy:

drug abuse ought to be treated as a public health problem not a judicial problem. I do not favor legalization because we already have enough problems with the two drugs that are legal, alcohol and tobacco. I also believe that if people are dealing heroin to kids or shooting people that jail is more than appropriate. But if your "crime", is being a substance abuser you belong in rehab, not jail.

Yes, yes, yes. Earlier, I found some some stats that suggest what an impact this policy would have.

Winer's Doubletalk

Dave Winer said... (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog)

Aaron asks a question. Dave answers. Unbelievable.

I know better than to criticize Dave. I don't want to enter that black hole. But I can stick up for Aaron. I've been following the weblogs of a few RSS folks for a while, and Aaron has been one of the most polite and straightforward writers out of the whole crowd. "Watch out Aaron" is completely unwarranted. The more I read Dave's words, the less I respect him.