Hunting The Muse

Bush's Chances

I really think Bush is fighting a losing battle here. The GOP, loosely speaking, has two crowds it has to reach out to - its base, and the moderates in the center.

Bush won in 2000 by preaching the "compassionate conservative" line. Ultimately, however, this was an argument aimed at deceiving the people who would vote for them. His base heard Bush's promises to the center and winked and nudged at each other, knowing that he was one of their own. The center took him at his word, though, believing he'd be a moderate.

Bush doesn't have that card anymore. The voters that really wanted someone moderate realize that Bush isn't as moderate as he acted. And Bush's choices since then have shown over and over again that he is aiming to solidify his base rather than reach out towards the center.

In the battle for the center, there are, again loosely speaking, two groups of voters that are key. One is the number of Bush-2000 voters who will now vote Kerry. The other is the number of Gore voters who will now vote Bush. The question is which number is greater.

Because of the center-base problem, we're seeing a large number of Bush-2000 voters who will now vote Kerry. However, there is one key group of people who voted for Gore in 2000 and may now vote for Bush. These are the people that were freaked out by 9/11 and are preoccupied with the idea of terrorists wanting to kill us.

There are a lot of otherwise reasonable people that just completely freak out when they feel threatened.  Call it a huge root chakra presence, or an overactive sphincter, or unmoved fear, or Leo rising, or whatever - they'll completely shift their paradigm and forget about the other stuff they care about.  I think that out of all the Gore->Bush switchers, this is probably the largest group, and Bush is going to keep playing to them.  Our challenge is to find another way to reach them.  Bush's appeal takes them to a baser place, so you combat that by figuring out a way to allow for that reaction without feeding it.  I think empathy can work wonders in those cases - validating their fear as being a reasonable reaction, while also showing that it's not the only thing out there.  It's a difficult line to walk, because many of these people - especially the ones that lean right - are ashamed of their fear and are extremely sensitive towards any suggestion that it's silly. So you have to convince them there's a place for it, while there's also room for optimism. Also, I think there's an empowerment that can be found in the experiences of being victimized.  I keep on thinking about how on 9/11 and 9/12, the first reaction of so many people was to line up around NYC blocks to give blood.  They tried to take our blood and we lined up to give more.  That's amazing.  It's also an action these people took from feeling highly emotional, and scared, and grieving, and indignant, and attacked. It's an intense direction to direct the charge someone feels from being attacked.  (I also think that this is more what Jesus meant by sacrifice, rather than the concept of diminishing oneself.) Maybe focusing on those sorts of stories will encourage someone to channel the emotional intensity they feel about the issue, into something that is more constructive, rather than reflexively moving towards Bush, who only wants to remind them of how threatened they are and how much more supposed danger they will put themselves in by voting for Kerry.

Right now, Bush's only hope in convincing the center to vote for him is to scare them into it. And it's here where I think Bush is in danger of drastically miscalculating the American people. Osama tried to scare the American people into bending to his power, and instead we had a nation that unified, came together, and cared for each other a little bit more. Sure, we've had some people that are scared enough to want to give them anything they wanted, and some people that are convinced to support Bush no matter how counterproductive his actions are, but overall, Americans respond to victimhood by waking up. This is why I think Bush is toast.

Kerry's Speech

I think the thing I liked most about his speech is that it looked like he was trying hard, and enjoying trying hard. He looked vulnerable and strong at the same time. That's what made him seem like a human leader to me.

Put It On Your Queue

OutFoxed will be availble on Netflix on August 15th.

Great Moments In Headlines

Bush's search for clean Cuban hookers goes awry

The story is actually about an Internet search regarding something Castro was thought to have said about hookers.

But just reread that headline a few times and... just enjoy it.

I love the British.

(Via Jeff.)

al-Qaida Suspect Arrested

MSNBC - Pakistan arrests al-Qaida suspectin 1998 U.S. embassy bombings

It's the main headline on msnbc.com right now, and it's Pakistan who arrested him.

This is on the day of Kerry's convention speech. Two weeks ago, the blog world intercepted instructions from the Republican Government to Pakistan, to supply high-value terrorist suspects, and do it preferably between July 26th and July 29th.

Proof that the GOP has these guys on ice. Proof that these guys will choose power over keeping America safe. Proof that they are betraying America for their own political purposes. Proof that they will delay the capture of one of the 25 most-wanted terrorists - thereby heightening danger against the US - in order to score political points.

I'm so pissed off that we even have to have an election to get rid of these guys.

Update: The Washington Post is on it...

Switching Banks

I'm thinking of switching banks from Wells Fargo to Washington Mutual. WF's fees are just insane, especially for corporate accounts, one of which I'm about to start. If anyone has anything good to say about other banks, let me know. I'm looking for low fees and good features - bill pay and quicken integration most importantly.

Will Ferrell as Bush

Home - ACT Video Hosting Page

A hilarious video of Will Ferrell as George Bush, trying to convince people not to vote.

Black Senators

Consolidated Truth (via Atrios) catches the AP in some more incompetence:

Democrats also are looking to their keynote speaker, Barack Obama, their Illinois Senate candidate who would be the first black Democrat ever to serve in the Senate, to energize the party's base.

First, they're overlooking Carol Mosely-Braun, who is also black. And was a Senator. From the same state.

Second, there were actually three other black Senators: Hiram Revels, Blanche Bruce, and Edward Brooke. See here for more details. Now, it's true that they weren't Democrats, but they were all originally elected before Nixon brought racism back as an overt part of the Republican M.O. Besides, look at their legacies: "... an outspoken opponent of racial segregation." "... championed the causes of low-income housing and an increased minimum wage..."

Can modern day Republicans seriously champion their legacies with a straight face? These men would be present-day Democrats.

House Status

So, since the offer got accepted, I got worried that the living room wouldn't hold the grand piano I want to buy. So I went by with a tape measure to do some measurements and had my fears allayed. We came up to the house at the tail end of an open house, which was weird. But it turned out it was just because the open house had been scheduled before they accepted the offer. And they're probably trying to keep interest drummed up in case I, as a first-time buyer, gets cold feet and backs out (I won't), or if the home inspection craps out (hope not).

Then, the next day my mortgage broker called me up and said that he's transitioned to real estate sales and wasn't up on the products as much as he used to be, and didn't feel like he could offer me the service I deserved. This is the guy with whom I had my preapproval. So I had to do another round of mortgage broker hunting, which I wrapped up after two days. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going with now. Now I have to decide when to lock in my rates. I might just do it tomorrow. The loan sounds great, with a rate better than I thought and a payment lower than I planned for.

Even though I was preapproved, I have been looking long enough that my previous credit scores expired, which means they have to run my credit again. I didn't realize that either - and, since I'm self-employed, they want to look at my bank statements again, which I didn't realize. I don't like that because I've actually been holding some checks, which makes my income appear lower than it actually is, because I'm waiting to set up a new bank account somewhere else. So, that kind of sucks - it could mean the difference of a quarter or half point in interest.

Next up is the home inspection, on Monday. I've got all this anxious energy now - I just want to move!!

And I want my piano! I've been away from Chopin and Ravel and Prokofiev for far too long!

Obama's Keynote

Chicago Tribune: Text of address by U.S. Senate Candidate Barack Obama

Actually cried tonight listening to parts of his speech. That came out of nowhere.

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief-I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper-that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America-there's the United States of America.

There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here-the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

Here's the video.

This Land Ain't The Same

For those of you who haven't seen the JibJab treatment of Bush and Kerry singing "This Land Is Your Land", go see it.

You should probably see it soon in case it gets taken down, because they are being threatened with a lawsuit for copyright infringement. This for satirizing a song whose songwriter said of it:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

Thanks to Tamara for the tip.

Hrm...

Is Atrios Duncan Black?

Update: Yup.

F9/11 Record

MSNBC - Damon’s ‘Bourne’ supreme at box office

This rundown of box office receipts notes that Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke the $100 million mark this weekend. Right now it is at $103.5 million.

Dem Convention Week

Well, it's the week of the convention. I'm not enough of a hound to watch all the footage live, but I also don't want to miss anything in hindsight. I think the best solution here in Portland is to Tivo all of the OPB footage - they seem to be doing three hours of coverage a night for all four nights. Not as thorough as the incredible bore of CSPAN's probable all-day coverage, and not as sparse as the network's drop-in of only three speeches. But I honestly doubt I'll watch any of it live. I'm more of a highlights kind of guy.

Just Add Urine!

Army rations rehydrated by urine

So, yeah. In order to eat your food, you have to pee on it first. hahaha. Well, not really. But you CAN.

It's a membrane that will filter out all sorts of bacteria in dirty liquid, while rehydrating the dried food. But it won't filter out, uh, urea.

If you eat food that is hydrated with urine, does that make you a cannibal? A cannibal twice removed?

Anyway, I think advanced food technology is really cool, but... yuck.

Bush: Dems Take Blacks For Granted

Here's an article describing how Bush says that Democrats take the "black vote" for granted.

Leaving the question of racism aside, I've seen this attitude before and it has always struck me as being completely stupid. I'm echoing something that Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has talked about before. It's not as if blacks support Democrats just randomly - there's a reason why they support Democrats. It's akin to Democrats saying that the Republicans take the fundamentalist Christian vote for granted. But really, if I go up to a fundamentalist Christian and say, "Bush is taking your vote for granted", are they really any more likely to say, "Gosh, you're right, I'll vote for Kerry"? Again, who's his audience? Is his argument tailored to actually convince black voters that have a history of overwhelmingly supporting Democrats? For all of Karl Rove's alleged genius, they sure pull a lot of incompetent stunts like this. This doesn't seem to be tailored to any audience except for the snickering talking-points crowd who don't understand blacks (and don't advocate the right policies) any more than Bush does.

The best they can hope for here is to reduce turnout - it's a twist on trying to drive up your opponent's negatives. It drives yours up too, but hopefully it drives your opponent's up more. Horrible way to run.

House

Made an offer on a house, for the sixth time. And I guess sixth time is a charm, because this time the offer got accepted. There's still the home inspection, but I think I have my house.

Electoral Voting

It looks like the folks over at Electoral Vote have set up a web services interface, very cool - check the right sidebar. Hope it works!

Nader Fails Again!

Nader's second attempt to gather signatures for the Oregon ballot has failed! Evidently, they were about 50 signatures short of the 1,000 that were needed, despite the efforts of the Republicans to pack the hall and sign for him even though they had no intention of voting for him. This is good news for Oregon, which has been in the "battleground" column for a while (even though I think it won't really be close this year).

Here are more details. Thanks to Torrid's World for the tip. (I love receiving tips.)

Senator Barney Frank?

Representative Barney Frank has been one of my favorite representatives ever since I saw him give a speech on the differences between Republicans and Democrats. It struck me how reasonable he was without being centrist. He's also incredibly intelligent and very able to express complex political points of view in clear language, making the concepts feel simple. When someone can do that, it is like a physical relief to hear them expound.

Anyway, here's an interview with him. I've heard people wishing for the following revelation in discussion boards, but didn't know it was confirmed until now:

Q: If Kerry wins in November, will you run for his Senate seat?

A: If the Democrats don't take the House back. If they take the House back, I'd be chairman of a major committee, and I'd stay. But if Kerry wins and the Democrats don't take the House, yeah, I'm going to run for the Senate.

The Daily Show Primer

Do we need any more proof that The Daily Show has the best political commentary anywhere? This even reaches beyond simple political commentary into welcome exposure into how corrupt the rest of the media is. I swear, it's like the relief of cleaning out an infection.

Ronstadt Villainized

MSNBC - Casino gives Ronstadt the boot

I don't have enough of an opinion about Linda Ronstadt to declare myself a fan, but it sure looks she got a raw deal here. For calling Michael Moore a "great American patriot" and encouraging people to see Fahrenheit 9/11, she was escorted off the property and not even let back into her dressing room. Go read.

Update: Well, well, well. I guess it's possible we might have been had. Scroll down to see an alternative take....

Children At Abu Ghraib, Part II

The news has started hitting the blogs, and it has more legitimacy now. Seymour Hersh, one of the most credible investigative journalists out there, gave a speech. Daily Kos has some reporting on the matter - the biggest allegation in Hersh's speech is that there are reports of children being sodomized at the prison, on tape, and that the Pentagon has seen the tape. Atrios has pointers to the summary, audio, and video of the speech that Hersh gave.

Blog Shrinkage

Forgive me for the blog shrinkage. I got socked with a slammer of a cold and I've been out of commission all week. More coming soon...

Children at Abu Ghraib

This Modern World and other locations are starting to pop up with news of children being arrested, interned, and possibly tortured at American-administered detention centers in Iraq. Follow the link to see the status on this story. This is a story I actually heard first through word-of-mouth - it appears to be making the rounds a lot in the overseas press, but there is barely a word of it yet in the US media. I'm not sure how credible the story is yet, but it definitely needs attention if there's anything behind it.

GOP Offshore Fundraising

Evidently, the GOP wants more online donations, so they are using an affiliate program that awards up to 30% to the affiliate - who could be located anywhere.

So, you're someone who donates to Bush online. How would you feel to know that 30% of your donation went overseas?

Stories That Fell Behind - The CA Energy Crisis

The California deregulation nightmare is still a huge story that has not gotten the coverage that it deserves in the press. It was kind of like the Iraq war - any of us who were paying attention knew it was a sham when it was happening, but were treated like we were left-wing conspiracy-theorist scum when we tried bring up the possibility. And then later we dealt with news - quiet news cycles, mumbled admissions - that confirmed everything we were trying to say. It hasn't been acknowledged yet in the mainstream media, not in the way it deserves.

This was corporations holding families and businesses hostage for political purposes. A huge energy shortage that caused fear and anxiety and caused billions of dollars worth of damage was invented and manipulated for political purposes. If the blackouts and brownouts led to any deaths, it would be tantamount to a terrorist attack. The fact that this hasn't ruined political careers (other than Gray Davis's, who was right all along) is an exposure of how grotesquely incompetent the mainstream media is at uncovering the real story.

There's still opportunity to make up for it - Ken Lay was indicted, and while the scam was much bigger than just Lay, it's a huge opportunity for the press to make up for their eight years of incompetence on this matter and finally grow some balls.

Nader On Daily Show

So, I caught the Tuesday episode of Ralph Nader on The Daily Show. It was freaking weird. They had Steve Colbert as the host because Jon Stewart's wife is having a baby. Colbert was really funny. Nader kept hamming it up to the audience for cheap applause points, and it was annoying Colbert, so he interrupted and said, "Who wants Cool Ranch Doritos?!?" Applause ensued, and Colbert said, "We're even." Then Nader would continue and said something like, "Who wants more... uh... garlic on their fried eggs?!" The audience just didn't know how to respond, it was like a big collective "Huh?"

I swear, the guy is just broken in the head.

Bush's McCain Ad

So, the GOP is running an ad showing McCain as Kerry's first choice. It's funny because I just don't understand the psychology behind it. Who's their intended audience with this one? "Ha Ha, this guy was their first choice but he actually likes us." I guess they have the bitchy high school prom queen vote locked up.

Exclusive!! Well, not.

So, I was pretty excited to find both the aviation hangar tip (pointing to Edwards) and the Murdoch-sponsored NY Post howler. But neither were certain, and I was looking forward to waking up today and being part of the blog community, reading all the articles as they came out, etc.

So I wake up, and my network is down, and I turn on Air America, where I hear an "encore" Franken episode of Katherine torturing Al with nipple clamps. That was really disturbing. Nothing about the VP race. So I had to call up a friend of mine that hardly cares about this stuff at all and she said, "Oh... yeah. It's Edwards. I think I heard it on NPR."

Talk about underwhelming!

Anyway, I am now back online, basking in the glow of a very good day in politics. I'm much more encouraged about Kerry now. I really wasn't sure how committed Kerry was to the actual Democratic movement that is out there. It was hard to tell whether he was actually changed the Dean experience, or was just cynically adopting it on his way to picking someone from the old guard. This proves to me that he's inspired about what is going on these days. I might start donating money again.

Post: Kerry picks Gephardt

The NY Post has an article that claims Kerry has picked Gephardt as his VP. This article is the only one out there right now, and there is no other confirmation, so I'm really only pointing to it on the off-chance that the Post has just completely embarrassed itself. :-) That would be fun.

At the same time, there are several reports about an airplane mechanic that supposedly witnessed Edwards decals being affixed to Kerry's plane.

That's the level of insanity!

Kerry Waxes Non-Poetic

MSNBC - Kerry tries to connect with Midwestern farmers

“Look at the power of that land. You can just feel it. You see it,” the Democratic presidential candidate told about 100 farmers and others gathered in a barn at a family-owned dairy farm in western Wisconsin. “I know what you love. I know why you’re here. It’s the way that you feel about this.”

Bleah. I don't know if this capture what he was like, or if it's a journalist reflecting poorly on Kerry, but there he is attempting to make tribute to farmland, and he does it without uttering one single adjective.

Oh, I forgot. Adjectives are politically divisive.

Breakups

Hunting The Muse: How To Get Over A Breakup

This weblog entry I wrote two and a half years ago is starting to get more traffic via google and it's really heartbreaking and sad to see all the comments. I haven't written any of them back but I kind of want to, but it's probably not a wise thing to do.

Iraq Statue Pulldown Staged

About a year ago, I wrote an entry that linked to a site that showed the Saddam statue pulldown was staged and managed for the media (and for Bush).

Atrios links to an L.A. Times article that has the military finally admitting it was staged.

Given the adulatory treatment this received in the press, I would think this should be a huge story, that the military and administration duped them. But somehow I don't think it will be. Remember the issue is that it was presented as huge crowds of spontaneously celebrating Iraqis.

Open questions: who suggested the operation? Who was aware of it ahead of time? Was this something just intended for the Iraqi people that the Bush administration then simply took advantage of, or was it more tied together than that?

I think it's harder for mainstream America to laugh at left-wing media than it used to be. At times it is the only place that has room for the truth.

Bad Name For An A Cappella Group #2

"Clef Palette".

I'm serious, that is a bad name.