Spatula City

Web Browsers

2010-09-17T14:39:00.001-07:00

It has been exactly one year and one day since my last post here. I just read through my previous post and found that I was remarkably prescient concerning the Rangers 2010 success:

Barring a miraculous comeback, this Rangers team appears to be headed to a 9th consecutive season without a playoff appearance. It appears, however, that they have very good chance to stop that streak before it hits 10.

This isn't my first rodeo in the sports prediction business either. I also predicted that the 2001 Mavericks would make the playoffs for the first time in 10 years and that the 2007 Mavericks would have the best record in the NBA. I have witnesses.

Moving on -- I want to get my dork on and discuss web browsers. With Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 in beta, I am actually excited about the evolution of web browsers going forward for the first time in a very long while. We have come a remarkably long way from the dark days where 90% of the world used Internet Explorer, despite its substantial technical inferiority to just about every other browser on the market.

I have decided to put together a small history of the web browser because I believe the current era of browsers is unique in the short history of the world wide web. Without further adieu, here we go, in awesome, awkward present tense bullet points:

The Netscape Era -- 1994-1998
- Netscape Navigator takes out NCSA Mosaic with innovations like javascript and frames. In 1996, Netscape reaches a dominant market share of nearly 80% at which point innovation stagnates.

The ~~Dark~~ Internet Explorer Era -- 1999-2004
- Microsoft, sensing a threat from Netscape, pours a bunch of money into the development of Internet Explorer. They come up with a few new ideas, but generally just copy Netscape and gain market share by bundling IE with Windows.
- IE eventually grabs 90%+ market share and Microsoft, resting on its laurels, disbands the Internet Explorer development team, effectively putting a halt to all browser innovation for years
- Netscape's browser undergoes a complete rewrite and its new codebase is released as open source. The Mozilla Foundation is formed to manage the open source project. Mozilla begins releasing a new product called "Mozilla Application Suite" which was modeled after Netscape's old Communicator all-in-one browser/email/composer product. Netscape releases versions 6 and 7 based on the Mozilla suite, with version 6 famously based on a pre-release quality version of Mozilla (version 0.6). The public, expecting one last hurrah from Netscape, is disappointed with the pre-release quality of Netscape 6. Netscape 7 is then released based on Mozilla's 1.0 version, but the public takes little notice. Mozilla, meanwhile, continues developing its rendering engine under the radar and makes regular releases of the Mozilla Suite, none of which garner much attention -- that is, until Mozilla changes its tack by creating a new, light-weight browser called Firefox.

The Firefox Era -- 2005-2008
- Firefox 1.0 is released on November 9, 2004 and, due to the fact that IE innovation is virtually non-existent, quickly and easily establishes itself as a vastly superior product. Tech savvy people take notice and Firefox eventually gains 20-25% market share. Despite Mozilla's efforts, IE continues to dominate, albeit to a lesser degree, by virtue of Microsoft's operating system monopoly, but is so clearly inferior that Microsoft engineers even admit as much publicly.
- After reaching ~25% market share, Mozilla's innovation machine seems to run out of steam. Microsoft releases versions 7 and 8 of Internet Explorer, but these are so feeble (especially version 7) that Firefox's superiority isn't really threatened despite Mozilla's relative stagnation.
- Apple launches Safari, but doesn't make much of a splash in terms of market share or innovation. (This is not to say that Safari was bad -- it just wasn't terribly original.) Actually, Safari was released in 2003, but the Windows version didn't launch until 2007. To this day, Safari's primary innovation was acceptable Mac OS X performance (which IE and Firefox did not provide at the time). The Windows version of Safari has never brought much of anything to the table, except for its WebKit rendering engine which became the foundation for Google Chrome.

The Chrome Era -- 2009 - ?
- Google releases Chrome on December 11, 2008, bringing major innovations with their new UI design and super-fast javascript engine. While Chrome's market share doesn't exactly explode, Google is extremely aggressive in Chrome's development. Meanwhile, unlike previous times in history, the existing browsers don't appear to be willing to let Chrome win without a fight. Mozilla and Microsoft are both beta testing new major releases of Firefox and Internet Explorer, each of which takes several of Chrome's ideas and attempts to improve on them. Apple released Safari 5 in June and is probably secretly preparing another release to keep pace.

This is really the first time that there has been more than 1 major company (i.e. not counting Opera) doing the innovating. In the Netscape era, only Netscape innovated. In the Internet Explorer era, nobody innovated. In the Firefox era, only Mozilla innovated. Now, however, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla are all innovating which is pretty exciting. Competition is definitely the driving force behind innovation. If you think about it, it's really amazing that it's taken over 15 years for us to have a healthy, competitive web browser market.

Finally, I would be remiss to discuss the history of the web browser without mentioning Opera. Opera has been a major innovating force in the background during all of the abovementioned eras. Version 1.0 of Opera was released in 1994 around the same time Netscape was founded. Many of the new features credited to mainstream browsers were actually lifted from Opera -- most notably tabbed browsing which most people probably assume was Mozilla's idea. There have been several times since 1994 when Opera arguably had the best browser, but it never really gained much adoption, in large part because they tried to charge for it while IE was free. Opera faces a pretty tall task going forward. In 2001, it was easy to create the best web browser, but now Opera has to compete with the three biggest names in tech (Google, Microsoft, and Apple) all of whom are putting major resources into their respective browsers, plus Mozilla which continues to be the standard-bearer of the free software/open source movement. Despite this onslaught, the latest version of Opera is fairly competitive with the mainstream browsers. It will be interesting to see if they can keep up.

2009 Rangers (nearly) postmortem

2009-09-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

The recent dive by the Rangers likely ends their playoff hopes after a season that has been a breath of fresh air for beleaguered Ranger fans. The plan to develop from within that management committed to a few years ago has really started to pay dividends. The future looks bright.

After all I've seen this year, I'm not going to totally count them out, but, given that young pitchers frequently don't have the stamina to pitch late into September, the prospects are looking pretty grim. So, with that said, here is my review of some of the important players on the team going forward.

Starting Pitchers

Kevin Millwood - What started as a great season for Millwood is flaming out in spectacular fashion. Sabermetricians from all corners predicted a "regression to the mean" for Millwood after the All Star break. His knack for leaving runners on base and ultra-low BABIP (batting average on balls in play) were unsustainable given his career norms. But, instead of a regression, we've gotten an all-out meltdown which, honestly, came as a surprise to me. The guy looks like he ought to be a workhorse, but clearly he's pretty fragile. The team may consider shutting him down, but if they do, they will inspire conspiracy theorists to say that MLB is forcing the Rangers' hand to avoid his $12 million guaranteed option if he reaches 180 IP. Should be interesting, anyway.

Scott Feldman - You think Feldman has a shot at making the rotation out of Spring Training next year? After two years starting the season in the bullpen, Feldman has really established himself as a solid starter. A couple months ago, Bob Sturm pointed out that Feldman's extremely low strikeout rates probably indicated that he will come crashing down to earth at some point, but since that time, he has boosted his strikeouts, including an amazing 11-strikeout performance against Tampa Bay in August. Perhaps Sturm overlooked the fact that Feldman is still evolving as a pitcher. His new cut fastball continues to be the best in baseball (click on the wCT column header twice to sort), but isn't a strikeout pitch (though it does break a ridiculous number of bats). In his latest good stretch, Feldman has started to mix in his other secondary pitches (curveball and changeup) and the strikeouts have risen.

Tommy Hunter - A workhorse in the making, Hunter has been very, very good since being called up. I forsee a 200-inning machine for many years to come. Earlier this year, I heard people comparing Hunter to Rick Helling. That would certainly be nice, but Hunter's numbers this year have been better than anything Helling ever did -- and that's pretty exciting.

Derek Holland - Holland showed a few flashes of brilliance before appearing to run out of steam. He has gotten his feet wet and I expect really big things in the coming years.

Neftali Feliz - Feliz rose through the minors as a starter, so you know the Rangers will eventually try him in the rotation. Whether that happens next year, or the year after, I can't say, but it will happen. At any rate, if he ends up as a super-reliever or a starter, I will make every effort to be watching every time he's on the mound. What a talent!

Brandon McCarthy, Matt Harrison, Dustin Nippert, Eric Hurley - Depth for the rotation. All of those guys have a chance to become quality MLB starters and they will provide a nice insurance policy for the Rangers next year.

Martin Perez - The 18-year-old super-prospect has finished his season in AA Frisco. He was inconsistent after his promotion to AA, but that is to be expected given that he's the youngest player in that league by fully two years. There is an outside chance that Perez could make an appearance in Arlington next year, but we probably won't see him until 2011. His bona fides are as good or better than Feliz and Holland.

Bullpen

Frank Francisco - Injuries slowed what has otherwise been a very good season. If Frankie can stay healthy for an entire season, he could be one the best closers in baseball. (He could help his cause by eating fewer pies in the offseason)

C.J. Wilson - Except for a handful of bad outings, Wilson has been very good this year. He is most useful in a set-up role because he can go multiple innings. (Wilson used to be a starter) If Francisco stays healthy, Wilson can man the 8th and sometimes the 7th as well.

Darren O'Day - Best waiver signing ever.

The rest - Grilli, Guardado, Mathis, Strop, and a few of the starters from above round up the bullpen and they've been pretty good as well. Juaquin Benoit could be in the mix next year, coming off rotator cuff surgery. Guardado will probably retire, so they'll need to track down another lefty from somewhere.

Hitting

2 - Catcher - Salty held this position for most of the year until he was sidelined with thoracic outlet syndrome (a rare condition unless you play for the Rangers). Salty's defense was adequate (in other words, much improved) and would have been fine if he could hit anything. His line of .233/.290/.371 (BA/OBP/Slugging) is abysmal, especially for a player whose strength was supposedly hitting. After Salty went down, we got a pretty good dose of Taylor Teagarden. Teagarden's defense was inconsistent which is disappointing, given his scouting reports. (He was compared to Pudge defensively in the minors.) Meanwhile, though he probably deserved more at bats to get a rhythm going, his offensive numbers (.212/.273/.376) were actually worse than Salty. So, a position that was supposed to be a strength for the Rangers has turned out to be a major weakness and that leaves the Rangers with some decisions for next year.

The Greatest Catcher of All Time

Happily, the Greatest Catcher of All Time is also on the roster and looks to be a viable option for next season. I say we start Pudge next season and let Salty try to straighten himself out in AAA. It worked for Chris Davis this year, maybe the AAA hitting coach can work his magic on Salty too.

3 - First Base - It looks like Davis has mostly solved his issues from beginning of the season. If he has, he could hold down the fort at first base for a very long time -- especially given his outstanding defense. However, hovering just below in AAA, the Ranger's top hitting prospect Justin Smoak (also a first baseman) figures to be ready for the majors next year. Davis is probably the better defender, but Smoak is no slouch. I expect those two to alternate between 1B and DH much of next year.

DH/1B Hank Blalock's once promising career as a Ranger will almost certainly come to an end in a few weeks.

4 - Second Base - Kinsler had a bit of a down year offensively, though it does seem a little ridiculous to complain when your second baseman has a 30/30 season. Kinsler's defense has been outstanding and he's really cut down on his errors. It helps to have a superior shortstop as a double play partner.

5 - Third Base - Michael Young bounced back from a down year (playing with two broken fingers) with a tour de force season offensively (.322/.375/.523). He was consistently the Rangers best hitter all year long and, with two more homers, he will match his career high. For a player that appeared to be in a decline, it was a pleasant surprise. Defensively, Young is the same as always. He has limited range, but is very sure-handed when he gets to the ball. Overall, the fielding metrics rate Young as a well below average third baseman, but I expect him to improve with more experience at the position. Besides, we aren't in great need for a standout fielding third baseman because we have...

6 - Shortstop - Elvis Andrus has been a revelation at shortstop. Only Jack Wilson has a better UZR rating (a stat that measures fielding -- click on the UZR heading twice to sort) than Andrus. When Andrus cuts down on his errors (and he will with experience) he ought to be the best fielding shortstop in baseball or close to it for years to come. Andrus is the single biggest reason that the team's pitching has improved so much from past seasons. His hitting (.275/.338/.391) has outpaced most of the predictions I heard before the season and he is very much in contention for the AL Rookie of the Year. At 21 years old, his hitting will only improve. As I've heard some commentators say, if Andrus had just played this season in New York, everyone would be calling him the next Derek Jeter. I think we may have just witnessed the beginning of a hall of fame-caliber career.

Utility Infielder - The old man, Omar Vizquel has performed admirably this season. Fangraphs.com show his defense at 3B and SS to be excellent, and about MLB average at 2B. The numbers are very small samples, but I think they reflect a very strong performance in the field from the future Hall of Famer. Meanwhile, at the plate Vizquel rebounded from a very poor season last year and posted a respectable .273/.324/.354 (right in line with his career average, amazingly). All of that, and he doubles as a personal coach for Elvis Andrus; Vizquel has more than carried his weight this season. If he wants to play next year, I think the Rangers will welcome him back without hesitation despite the fact that he will turn 43 in 2010.

7-8-9 - Outfield

David Murphy - Murphy had a solid season, bouncing back from an 0-23 start. However, the Rangers outfield is so deep that he may be squeezed out next season.

Marlon Byrd - Byrd is a valuable player because he is so flexible. He can play all three outfield positions and he can hit almost anywhere in the lineup. Going forward, I see him as a super-4th outfielder. It will be more difficult to fit him in, however, if Justin Smoak is manning DH.

Nelson Cruz - After two aborted attempts in the majors, Cruz finally broke through in a big, big way this year. After 2006 and 2007, Cruz looked to be the epitome of a "AAAA" player. He scorched AAA pitching, but couldn't seem to hit in the majors. In 2008, the Rangers were naturally skeptical of his strong performance in AAA, but eventually his numbers were too overwhelming (.342/.429/.695) to ignore. When he was promoted to the majors, he finally broke through (.330/.421/.609) against major league pitching over 100+ at bats. This year, as pitchers adjusted to him, his numbers weren't quite as ridiculous as last (if they were, he would be Albert Pujols), but they have been respectable (.268/.342/.547, 32 HRs and counting). And, as an added bonus, his UZR has been the best in the majors among right fielders. Next year, Ron Washington needs to pencil Nelson Cruz at the clean-up spot every time he plays.

Julio Borbon - Borbon is the Rangers lead-off hitter and center fielder of the future. He has given every indication that he is ready take on that role right now. For some reason, the Rangers have been hesitant to play him in center field -- perhaps to let him concentrate on hitting -- but that should change next year. Borbon's elite speed will give opposing teams fits when he gets on base.

Josh Hamilton - And, of course, the biggest wildcard of them all: Hamilton. He set baseball on fire last year with an otherworldly first half, topped off with his fireworks display at the homerun derby in Yankee Stadium. Since then, however, he hasn't been nearly as good. This year, he was one of the Ranger's weakest hitters. Part of me wants to write off Hamilton's 2009 season due to injuries, and pencil the 2008 version of Josh Hamilton in the 3rd spot in the lineup next year. The Rangers, of course, will hedge their bets. That, more than any other reason, may be why David Murphy is a Ranger next year -- as an insurance policy.

Outlook for 2010

Barring a miraculous comeback, this Rangers team appears to be headed to a 9th consecutive season without a playoff appearance. It appears, however, that they have very good chance to stop that streak before it hits 10. The minor league system that produced Cruz, Borbon, Holland, Feliz, Andrus, Hunter, et al. is locked and loaded to produce several more waves in the next few seasons -- especially in terms of pitching. The aforementioned Martin Perez highlights a new crop of young arms that will continue pushing the Rangers into a new era where pitching is a strength instead of a laughingstock as it has been for a very long time. I, for one, am eagerly anticipating April 2010.

Health Care

2009-08-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

Below is a response to a Facebook thread. I ran out of space in my comment on Facebook, so I went to a place where I am free to write as much as I want. :) The original thread is here and it references an article from the Washington Post here.

Now, without further adieu, my ramblings:

Small industrialized nations? The article references Japan, Germany, France, Britain which are the Nos. 2, 4, 5, and 6 overall in GDP around the world.

Why does our larger land area affect anything? The hospitals are already in place all over the country. We're just trying to figure out how to pay the doctors.

The fact is that the health insurance industry in this country is woefully inefficient. Around 20 cents of every dollar paid in premiums does not go towards paying medical expenses. That's huge -- the article mentions that other countries are able to get that number between 1.5 and 2. Our insurance industry employs armies of "adjusters" whose job it is to deny claims based on technicalities and loopholes. In other countries, where insurance companies are required to pay claims submitted by doctors, those adjusters are not necessary. By properly regulating the insurance industry, we could eliminate that substantial cost. However, if the insurance companies have to pay every claim, obviously we need to lower our medical costs as well. Perhaps we can't get them as low as Japan (who spends less than half per capita than us), but, as the article's MRI example illustrates, there is no reason we can't implement $98 MRIs here too.

It is a myth that government is inherently more bloated than private industry. Governments all over the world are able to provide insurance at a tiny fraction of the cost that our private industry provides here. Indeed, our own government provides cheaper insurance than the private companies with Medicare. The Democrats' plan (among other things) essentially proposes to expand Medicare to the whole population (the "public option"). The private companies will be forced to compete, but that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. They're an oligopoly, so there's hardly any competition now.

But that's the plan that's on the table. Frankly, I don't think it goes far enough. Sadly, it is debatable whether even this timid plan is politically feasible. In an ideal world, we would have a single-payer system. (e.g. Medicare for all; no private insurers)

In my opinion profits made from health insurance are inherently immoral. They are literally profiting from the medical expenses of American citizens. Furthermore, they increase their profits by denying the claims of their paying customers.

Shared risk -- that's all insurance is. Why does that need to be a multi-billion dollar, for-profit business? What's wrong with the government handling that job? Clearly, it is capable of it (Medicare). The people who deserve to make money in the medical industry are the doctors and the drug companies. That's where the innovation and talent is. What does the insurance industry bring to the table? As far as I can tell, they perform a task that is better suited for the government while profiting substantially and denying millions of Americans access to health care.

This country isn't so different from the rest of the world that we are the only ones that can't have universal health care. It would certainly cut into the profits of drug and insurance companies, but it would prevent people like Kelly from owing Baylor Hospital tens of thousands of dollars for a 10-day hospital stay. If they had been on vacation in London when Lilly got sick, they would have gotten the same care and they wouldn't owe a dime.

Americans citizens are sick without access to doctors. They can't afford their prescription drugs. They hesitate before going to the emergency room because they're scared it might bankrupt them. Who are we? No other industrialized country does this to its citizens. If anything, we have a moral obligation to fix this problem, and the only thing standing in our way is the entrenched, super-wealthy health insurance industry which is the beneficiary of our misfortune.

Lipstick on a pig...

2009-07-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the guy I supported and voted for last year. You see, I supported Barack Obama with the impression that he wanted to overturn Bush's most egregious policies. But Bush policies, even when administered by Barack Obama are nothing more than, well, lipstick on a pig as John McCain might say.

The Obama Justice Department retains its power of extrodinary rendition. It continues the policy of show trials. (Only prisoners for whom the government believes it can obtain convictions get trials). It even claims the authority to overturn the result of any trial if it doesn't go the government's way.

Read Glenn Greenwald for the juicy details. (here and here)

Mr. President, this is unacceptable. Please stop.

Not another dead blog...

2009-07-09T15:35:00.001-07:00

And you thought I had quit blogging. I was just resting.

My friend Kelly alerted me earlier today about a new technology from Apple called HTTP Live Streaming. The linked AppleInsider article goes into great detail about the history of video streaming over the tubes, but I want to focus on a paragraph towards the end of their piece:

What's next? The obvious followup is to add support for HTTP Live Streaming in Apple TV, allowing for HD streams direct from broadcasters, facilitating the ability to only pay for channels you want to watch, skipping around the local cable monopoly while gaining access to content they don't carry.

That's right. HTTP Live Streaming + Apple TV = Over-the-Internet broadcasting. It could totally replace cable and satellite companies. I'm not saying that it will -- those companies will do anything and everything in their power to prevent that from happening. I'm just saying that the technology is there.

AppleInsider floats the idea of broadcasters (e.g. ESPN or MSNBC) bypassing traditional broadcasting vehicles and launching a HTTP Live Streaming feed. Anybody with a web browser could watch the channel in full HD. Anybody with an AppleTV (or any other HTTP Live Streaming-enabled device) could watch the channel on their existing television set -- no cable companies necessary.

More significantly, it would remove the obstacles of entry for startup TV stations. Under the current system, you have to have either a ton of cash or some really serious connections to start a TV station. Time Warner Cable et al. hold the keys to the empire -- you have to somehow convince them to put your TV station onto their channel lineup. But anybody can throw up a web server and broadcast via HTTP Live Streaming. It cuts out the middle man.

Al Gore had a really good chapter related to this in his book The Assault on Reason. (An excellent, excellent book which I very highly recommend) He talks about how our democracy was healthier before television because the news used to be more interactive. When the country was founded, the major news organizations consisted mainly of people with access to printing presses. You had stuff like Harpers Weekly, and less formal fliers etc. When newspapers came around, they were a little more removed from the readers, but still allow for a fairly high level of interaction. Heck, even I had a letter to the editor published in the New York Times one time.

Television, however, is totally non-interactive. There is virtually no way to contact a TV personality. It is one-way communication, and we're not involved at all. Also, TV triggers an instinctual reaction in humans that makes you focus your eyes on a moving picture. That is a survival instinct in the wild, but TV uses it to grab your attention and not let up. It triggers that instinct on every frame -- 30 times per second. In addition, TV tends to put your brain in a suggestive state, making you more susceptible to believe what you're hearing than you would otherwise. Reading, conversely, engages the brain and makes you more prone to higher level thought and critical thinking. Obviously, that makes TV a perfect tool to implement an Orwellian state and to kill democracy.

As long as TV is the primary way Americans get their news, democracy is in trouble. The vast majority of our nation's discourse is controlled by a very small number of people. That is why Gore founded his TV station "Current TV" which broadcasts viewer-submitted content.

Ultimately, the true hope for democracy, Gore says, is the Internet. It is far more interactive than anything before it with virtually no barriers to entry (anybody can start a blog). HTTP Live Streaming is just the kind of technology that the Internet can use to start whittling away at the traditional TV paradigm. Think how different the world would be if anybody could start their own TV station.

Let's just say that I don't think that it's a coincidence that Al Gore is on Apple's Board of Directors right now.

Whoo hoo!

2008-09-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hm... I saw both of the following while I was reading on the Times today.

Whoo hoo™ indeed...

I've been kicking around a blog post on all of this for the past few days. So, consider yourselves (all both of you) warned. I may actually post something on this blog every now and then.

National Alarm Clock

2008-08-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

After hearing some of McCain's remarks today speaking to the VFW, I was disappointed to see the rhetoric continue as if the Russia-Georgia affair didn't have any affect on our foreign policy prospects. As my Dad alluded to a few days ago, this ought to be setting off alarm bells: has the Iraq war so weakened us that Russia believes it can invade any of its neighbors with impunity? Does Russia believe it can safely ignore the President of the United States?

Not only has the Iraq war physically weakened our military, it has also forced us to cede the moral high ground -- we can't (with a straight face) demand that Russia not go around unilaterally invading countries.

Furthermore, by putting our military in such an untenable situation, it has given the rest of the world the impression that we are weak. The great United States can't even take care of a country as small and pathetic as Iraq. Had we shown restraint and stayed out of Iraq, no such impression would exist. Perhaps the most important function of our military is its ability to deter other countries from military action. Russia, clearly, doesn't feel deterred by our military at this time.

So, with all of that in mind, it was especially disillusioning to see Senator McCain resume his campaign of calling for "victory" in Iraq and accusing Obama of wanting to "lose" the war, whatever the hell that means.

McCain's advisers are cynically banking that the American people won't notice any of the above. They continue to aim their rhetoric at the lowest common denominator -- Americans whose knowledge of world affairs doesn't go much past the ability to point to Russia on a map and who get their news from People Magazine Television (er... CNN).

We've got to get the American people to wake up. I sure hope Obama has a plan.

CNN Newsworthy Event of the Day

2008-08-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

It's a tie!

McCain's Op Ed That Wasn't

2008-07-21T15:35:00.001-07:00

Today, the New York Times declined to print an op-ed piece by John McCain. I have to say that I don't think any major newspaper ought to be turning down an article from a major candidate; however, I was extremely curious to see what exactly in the article was so offensive to the Times. Naturally, the McCain campaign has already posted the article at other venues already and will undoubtedly use this to bludgeon the Times into oblivion.

I think I may have found the passage the Times objected to:

To make this point, [Obama] mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

But, here is the quote from Maliki:

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Senator McCain, it is my duty to inform you that your pants are on fire.

McCain will tell you that the Iraqis have since pulled back from that statement, but evidence has emerged that they only pulled back after much pressure from the White House. Also, McCain is insinuating that Maliki never said anything like that.

A few paragraphs down, McCain leads with this gem: "No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges." Wow. It sounds like John McCain wants to cut and run instead of staying the course. Also, didn't he say something about 100 years and that leaving would be surrender? In today's article, McCain says he hopes to have most of our troops home by the end of his first term.

Here's another one:

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war?only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us.

McCain loves this line. He wants to win the war! But what the hell does that mean? I don't think we're going to be getting the terrorists to sit down with us to sign a treaty. Now, you'd think that the fact that McCain is backing away from his original position and moving towards Obama's might dissuade him from accusing Obama of being for surrender. But not John McCain. He's so honest and independent that he can copy the other guy's plan, and then accuse him of surrendering to the terrorists.

The influence of McCain's new Karl Rove surrogate advisors is beginning to surface. A Rovian campaign believes it can say anything it wants whenever it wants and get away with it. I sincerely hope he is not able to convince the public that he has been for withdrawing troops from Iraq since the beginning.

As for the NY Times, I suppose they must have decided that they're not willing to print a whole bunch of bald face lies, no matter who penned them. I can't imagine this ending well for the Times. After all, they printed an op-ed piece by Obama just last week. If it had been my call, I would have run McCain's piece, but I also would have included a small fact-check in the adjacent column.

What digby (and Jimmy Carter) said

2008-07-17T09:30:00.001-07:00

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/mourning-in-america-by-digby-jonathan.html

Let's go Rangers!!

2008-07-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

Rangers are now 38-26 since May 1 -- a .593 winning percentage, the same winning percentage the Angels have on the year. If only the Rangers had been only moderately terrible in April...

FISA

2008-07-08T23:34:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Turley, a man my Dad believes to be a preeminent authority on the Constitution, today on the new FISA bill.

The argument for it is quite simple. Nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the President committed a felony -- not once, but at least thirty times. That's a very inconvenient fact right now in Washington.
...
It's like one of those stories where someone is assaulted on the street and 100 witnesses do nothing. And, in this case, the 4th amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow and 100 people are going to watch it happen because it's just not their problem.

When you talk about expanding the President's power, it's coming out of the morrow of the 4th amendment; it's coming out of the bone. And it's going to hurt. And it's being done for political convenience. There's not an ounce of principle, not an ounce of public interest in this legislation.
...
[The telecoms] are going to have a great victory. But it's a pyrrhic victory for the rest of us and what we will lose tomorrow is something very precious. It's going to be part of the 4th amendment. And that is beyond measure.

That Senators Feingold, Leahy, and Dodd's opposition to this bill is seen by most legislators as politically risky, is a reminder of how far our country has to go to cleanse itself of the stench left by the Bush administration. In our current political climate, the 4th amendment, like the Geneva Conventions, has been "rendered quaint" by the Global War on Terror(tm).

I suppose I have no choice but to trust Barack Obama's political senses. He obviously believes the backlash from GOP attack ads would be an unnecessary burden for his campaign. In exchange for that trust, I expect President Obama to urgently restore the 4th amendment after he takes office. Of course, that lets the guilty actors in the Bush administration and the complicit telecom companies -- who have likely committed felonies -- off the hook. As much as I hate to see Bush get away with this, it is more important that we restore the rule of law and not allow this illegal program to continue for one day after Bush leaves office.

What hypocrites we must look like to the rest of the world. America -- the beacon of Democracy in the world -- allows its government to openly violate the supreme law of the land; allows its President to incarcerate any man for any reason for any length of time; allows its military to torture prisoners using techniques developed by Communist China to obtain confessions from American prisoners. Meanwhile, our population is more interested in what Paris Hilton did last weekend than any of that stuff.

It is, truly, a sad state of affairs.

Gaggle of Douchebags

2008-07-08T23:29:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart wonders what our government's classification of North Korea is now that they are dismantling their nuclear program.

Torture

2008-07-02T00:55:00.000-07:00

New York Times:

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

I don't really know what to say except: Gore for VP!!

Incidentally, that is an excerpt from perhaps the best speech I've ever seen Gore give. Here is a video of the full speech (unfortunately, I can only find it in RealPlayer format). Note also that that speech was given May 26, 2004. Gore was ridiculed at the time for being overly critical of the Bush administration.

What Digby Said

2008-06-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

Which is what Atrios said.

But really, digby has a good post on bipartisanship in Washington.

(This has been another edition of What Digby Said)

Saint McCain

2008-06-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

StraightTalkerMaverickReformer™ John McCain evidently can do no wrong in the eyes of the media, even when he does something wrong.

In a column for CNN.com today, Roland Martin said the following:

McCain can now call himself the candidate who is prone to keeping his word and not making the politically smart move.

Don't be surprised to see McCain make this decision a significant part of his campaign, and he and his surrogates will hammer Obama repeatedly between now and November on the one issue that the senior senator from Arizona has made his calling card.

The first sentence, incidentally, appears to have been edited out of the story now, though it was in there when I checked a few hours ago. I wrote Mr. Martin an email:

Given the above passage from your article today, I have inferred that you are unaware of the shenanigans the McCain campaign has gone through with the public financing in the primary season. For starters, I recommend reading this Washington Post article.

To summarize, when McCain's campaign was struggling last year, he opted into the public financing system so that he would get $5.8 million in public funds in March. But, by February, when it became clear that McCain would be the Republican nominee, he decided to back out of the system because it would have limited his spending to $54 million through the end of August. According to the Post, he had already spent about that much through February.

So, McCain sent the FEC a letter informing them that he was opting out of the public financing system. But there was a problem. FEC Chairman David Mason informed McCain that it may not be legal for him to opt out of the financing system because he had already received benefit from the public monies. (as collateral for his bank loan) Unfortunately, four of the six FEC board seats were empty because the nomination process had stalled in the Senate. McCain's lawyers argue that, because the FEC had no quorum, the campaign is not obligated to follow its decisions. So, McCain pressed forward and has now spent well over the $54 million limit, ignoring the Chairman of the FEC.

Further complicating matters are ethical concerns about his bank loan. Ostensibly, McCain would have paid his loan back in one of two ways: 1) either his campaign would take off and he would be able to raise money from standard GOP sources, or 2) his campaign would flop and he would pay the loan back in March after receiving the public funding. Under the later scenario, McCain would have artificially kept his campaign going, long after he was politically dead, so that he could receive the $5.8 million to pay his loan back.

Certainly, the law did not intend for public monies to pay back bank loans for dead campaigns. McCain may be able to argue that his actions were technically legal, (though Chairman Mason apparently believes they may not be) but they sure don't jibe with his reputation as a straight-talking reformer -- and campaign finance reform, as you say, is McCain's "calling card".

So, given that, how exactly can McCain honestly call himself "the candidate who is prone to keeping his word" with respect to campaign finance?

Dodd!

2008-06-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4476

More on the FISA "Compromise"

2008-06-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald comments on the absurdity of the claims coming from Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer that the Democrats scored a major victory on the FISA rewrite.

Perhaps the most telling part is the udpate at the bottom: a Fox News poll that shows Republicans give Congress a 23% approval rating while Democrats give only 18%. So, in the wake of this major victory for the Democratic party, a Democratic majority in Congress has managed to score a higher approval rating among Republicans than among Democrats. Well played, guys.

Another point that Greenwald hits on is the strategy the Democrats seem to be employing here. Basically, they cede that the Republicans are better on national security, so they give in to all of the Republicans' demands to protect themselves from the GOP bludgeoning them with the "soft on defense" label. How pathetic -- especially when the Republicans have an abysmal record on national defense during the course of this administration.

Furthermore, the Republicans' lousy record on national defense isn't too cerebral a point to make to the public. If they're so good on national defense, why aren't we going after Osama bin Laden? If they're so good on national defense, why is our army struggling to recruit to such a degree that they're letting criminals in now? If they're so good on defense, why did they tell us that the Iraq war would only last a few weeks, and then, on May 2, 2003, why did Bush declare the war was over? If they're so good on national defense, why did they allow themselves to be duped by a con man (Ahmed Chalabi) and a source named "curveball" into believing that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program? If they're so good on national defense, how did they manage to not prevent the 9/11 attacks after an August 2001 Presidential daily briefing told them that bin Laden was determined to strike in the US?

The Republicans have no standing with which to claim strength on national defense. Why are the Democrats passing legislation that shreds the 4th amendment instead of shining a public spotlight on the Republicans' national defense failures?

Rambling Sundry Thoughts on Current Happenings with the Texas Rangers

2008-06-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

Gerald Laird pulled a hamstring today and was placed on the DL.

As much as I feel sorry for Laird, we just called up Max Ramirez from Frisco to replace him. Ramirez was the guy we got in return for Kenny Lofton last year and he has just been smoking hot all year in Frisco. He is batting .363 with 17HRs and has an on-base % of .457.

And, amazingly enough, he's not the top catcher in our farm system. That honor belongs to Taylor Teagarden who is a very good defensive catcher. (Ramirez is a slugger that happens to play catcher). I've heard a few people compare Teagarden to Pudge Rodriguez, though I doubt he's that good.

I am eagerly awaiting to see how Ramirez does in the majors.

Meanwhile, our über first base prospect, Chris Davis was named minor league player of the week by Baseball America. He hit .400 with 5HRs and 12RBIs last week. Also, Neftali Feliz was ranked #5 minor league player of the week, playing for our lower Class A team. Feliz came over in the Mark Teixeira trade and has been really good all year. He is apparently a big-time fastball-strikeout pitcher. I've heard he has the biggest "upside" of any of our pitching prospects -- that is, he has the biggest chance to become a "#1" starter. (you know, like Edinson Volquez...)

Speaking of Volquez, the man we gave up for Josh Hamilton went into Yankee Stadium and kicked some ass today. He is now 9-2 with a 1.71 ERA and 110 strikeouts. His 110 strikeouts leads MLB and the ERA is tops in MLB by half a run. It is also impressive that he's 9-2 on such a crappy team as Cincinnati.

The "pitching triple crown" consists of wins, strikeouts, and ERA. Currently, Josh Hamilton and Volquez each lead in two of three of their respective triple crown categories. Hamilton leads the AL in HRs and RBIs. He is #6 in batting average, 14 points behind A-Rod. Volquez is 3rd in wins in the NL, 2 behind Brandon Webb. Talk about a blockbuster trade.

On the new FISA "Compromise"

2008-06-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Demorats in the U.S. House today have brokered a "compromise" with Republicans on a new version of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act. In this new version, the telecom companies that very plainly violated the law at the behest of the Bush administration will have immunity from prosecution if they can prove that they were, in fact, acting at the behest of the Bush administration.

What a joke! As Glenn Greenwald says, "When you read it, it's actually hard to believe that the Congress is about to make this into our law. Then again, this is the same Congress that abolished habeas corpus with the Military Commissions Act, and legalized George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program with the "Protect America Act," so it shouldn't be hard to believe at all."

This is getting ridiculous. We can't keep making excuses to justify the Congress's pitiful lack of backbone. I recently listened to a speech given by Al Gore in January of 2006, when the details of the warrantless spying program were just coming to light. Someone ought to march into the House chamber and read this excerpt to them before they go to vote:

The executive branch time and again has co-opted Congress' role. And too often Congress has been a willing accomplice in the surrender of its own power.

Look, for example, at the congressional role in overseeing this massive, four-year eavesdropping campaign that, on its face, seemed so clearly to violate the Bill of Rights.

The president says he informed Congress. What he really means is that he talked with the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees and, sometimes, the leaders of the House and Senate.

This small group, in turn, claims they were not given the full facts, though at least one of the committee leaders handwrote a letter of concern to the vice president.

And, though I sympathize with the awkward position, the difficult position in which these men and women were placed, I cannot disagree with the Liberty Coalition when it says that Democrats as well as Republicans in the Congress must share the blame for not taking sufficient action to protest and seek to prevent what they consider a grossly unconstitutional program.

Many did. Moreover, in the Congress as a whole, both House and Senate, the enhanced role of money in the re-election process, coupled with the sharply diminished role for reasoned deliberation and debate, has produced an atmosphere conducive to pervasive institutionalized corruption that some have fallen vulnerable to.

The Abramoff scandal is but the tip of a giant iceberg threatening the integrity of our legislative branch of government.

And it is the pitiful state of our legislative state which primarily explains the failure of our vaunted checks and balances to prevent the dangerous overreach by the executive branch now threatening a radical transformation of the American system.

I call upon members of Congress in both parties to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government that you are supposed to be under the Constitution of our country.

I hope the folks at Daily Kos and TPM are taking notes. Any Democrat who votes for this bill ought to have a well-funded opponent in the primary next time they're up for election. We must demand better from our elected officials.

On a side note, what a disaster it is that Gore wasn't our President over the past eight years instead of this unmitigated disaster of an administration. For more of Gore's views on matters like this, I highly recommend his book The Assault on Reason which should be required reading for all voters.

Update: I am sorely disappointed to find that Barack Obama has endorsed this terrible bill. I expect better from a constitutional law professor and from someone promising to bring "change." I'm not sure what sort of change he has planned, but I was kind of hoping for the kind that restores the rule of law to the Executive Branch of our government.

Privatizing the Military

2008-06-17T23:48:00.000-07:00

As any good Republican will tell you, privatization is always a good move.

MSNBC Channeling Karl Rove

2008-06-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

One of the more obnoxious media narratives of this campaign season is the one that suggests that Obama substitutes "soaring rhetoric" in place of substance. I have heard variations of that narrative bouncing around ever since I first saw it in this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Karl Rove.

It has survived despite Obama's groundbreaking speech on race relations and despite such substantive comments from his opponents as "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran." So, today when I saw MSNBC's web page leading with the below headline, I felt compelled to write them a letter.

To the Editor:

I thought your headline today "Can 'substance' trump star power?" was offensive. It parrots the Republican talking point that Barack Obama is a good speaker, but that there is no substance to his words.

Meanwhile, John McCain's record includes the following:
- He repeatedly asserted at a press conference that Iran was training al Qaeda operatives, evidently unaware that Iran is a Shiite country and that al Qaeda is a Sunni organization. Joe Lieberman eventually had to lean over and correct him.

- He keeps accusing Obama of wanting to talk with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even though the President of Iran has no power in the foreign policy arena. Any diplomatic discussion with Iran would be with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His name, of course, is less radioactive politically than Ahmadinejad.

"Substance" requires a command of the facts, and McCain who presents himself as a foreign policy guru, has some serious cracks in his armor. Continuing:

- He intentionally avoids "substance" when he resorts to fear and smear tactics such as pointing out that Hamas had endorsed Obama and comparing Obama's proposal of diplomacy with Iran to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in the lead-up to World War II.

- He sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann" at a campaign rally -- a highly "substantive" look into his philosophy on American foreign policy.

To be certain, all presidential candidates deliver countless speeches that lack substance in large part. Leading a frenetic crowd in a chant of "Yes we can!" is hardly an intelligent discussion of the issues. But those are stump speeches whose purpose is to rally the crowd. And John McCain gives just as many as Obama does. But Obama has also given an historic and seriously thought provoking speech on American race relations and actually does have a comprehensive policy platform that epitomizes "substance."

For example, my area of expertise is in computers. I am the IT Director for my company. I watched Obama's speech at the Google campus on Net Neutrality and found him to be incredibly well informed on some fairly technical issues. I feel, from watching him speak extemporaneously in that video, that Obama not only has a platform that will truly bring our government into the information age, but that he understands how to achieve that goal on a fundamental level.

That is what substance is. It doesn't come from wrinkles in the face and it doesn't even come from being a war hero. It comes from a combination of intelligence, a command of the facts, and good judgment. Early in the campaign, Karl Rove wrote an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal accusing Obama of lacking substance. Why, in the absence of corroborating evidence, are the claims of such an obvious partisan hack allowed to reverberate on the top headline on your web page?

Wow

2008-05-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.

"John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either."

Wow.

Stars, redux

2008-05-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how teams in sports can look invincible one day, and mediocre the next. It appears the Detroit Red Wings team that I saw in Game 3 was a trick of the eye. Or, perhaps the Stars themselves were an illusion. The two teams that showed up in games 4 and 5 bear little resemblance to the teams I wrote about in the previous post. Suddenly, the Red Wings can't score at will and the Stars are capable of entering the offensive zone.

Marty Turco has been nothing short of a brick wall in the last two games and the team is playing some inspired hockey. The only people that are more surprised than I am about this turnaround appear to be the Detroit Red Wings, who are clearly on their heels now. The Stars are still an extreme long shot to reach the Stanley Cup Finals, but they have emphatically proven that they belong in the Western Conference Finals. If Game 5 ends up being the last hurrah of the season, the Stars have nothing to hang their heads about. For the first time in several years, a Dallas team has managed to not end their season with a giant face plant. We may not be parading the Stanley Cup through downtown Dallas this year, but we finally have a team we can be proud of.

Thoughts on the Stars

2008-05-13T09:16:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, our football team did generally the same thing every year. We would dominate during the regular season -- usually going undefeated -- and then we'd win a playoff game or two. But then we would hit a brick wall. Some other team from somewhere else in the state would waltz in and just beat the ever loving snot out of us. It was bizarre, frankly, watching a team dominate for an entire year, only to lose by 35 points in the 3rd round of the playoffs. But that's what we did every year I was there.

Though the Stars certainly haven't been dominant this season, this series against Detroit has a similar feel to those old high school playoff games. Against San Jose and Anaheim, the Stars could win if they played well, and they were fully capable of hanging around and making things interesting even when they didn't play well. But against Detroit, I feel like the Stars could play their best game of the season and still lose. It's like watching a college team play against a high school team.

Midway through the first period last night, Detroit coach Mike Babcock called a timeout (which I thought was odd at the time). The Stars had been making a push and were generally hanging around. I think Babcock wanted to pull his team aside to tell them something along the lines of: "You know, guys...I know the plane flight was long and that you are looking forward to eating some good Texas barbeque tonight, but that doesn't mean we need to allow this to be a competitive game. Frankly, it's rude getting the crowd's hopes up like that. I'm just asking for a little bit of effort here. Get ahead by a couple of goals and then prevent the Stars from getting past the blue line. It's not rocket science, guys. Go team!" and then, he turned to his assistant coach. "Man... I haven't done that much coaching in weeks. I think I'm going to go take a nap. Could you handle things for the rest of the period?"

I think the Stars could play the Red Wings 20 times and they'd lose every game. So, for the first time as a sports fan, I am not particularly upset that my team is losing in the playoffs. We aren't beating ourselves; we're not grossly underperforming. We just ran into a team that is waaaaay better than us. And they're kicking our ass.

On a side note, I noticed that the Sharks fired Ron Wilson. Evidently, they wanted the privilege of getting slaughtered by the Red Wings.

McCain's Iraq Strategy

2008-05-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg on John McCain's Iraq strategy:

McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal -- that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay.

John McCain: StraightTalkMaverickReformer™

Mark Penn is the Smartest Man Alive

2008-05-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

From Time Magazine:

Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game.

That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates.

It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all.

Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified -- and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?"

And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee.

What is CNN thinking?

2008-05-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

CNN.com, the web site of the Most Trusted Name In News(tm), appears to have been authored by Terry McAuliffe this evening. Either that, or it is a takeoff of Stephen Colbert's bit the "No Fact Zone."

In an evening where Barack Obama outperformed almost every poll in both Indiana and North Carolina, and came through the night with a boost to his pledged delegate lead, all but squashing Hillary Clinton's already remote chances at winning, this is how CNN decided to cover the news:

Also, its top two headlines under "Election Coverage" are:

Delegate Counter: Can Obama be Overtaken?

Ticker: Limbaugh's Operation a Success?

Just as Hillary proclaimed that she wouldn't "put her lot in with economists" on the gas tax issue, CNN has decided not to put its lot in with reality. Crikey...

Worked Out For Both Teams...

2008-05-03T01:55:00.001-07:00

Don't look now, but the major league leader in RBIs and strikeouts are Josh Hamilton and Edinson Volquez, respectively.

Never would have thought Volquez would be this good so fast. I suppose it does help to be pitching in Quadruple-A (aka the National League). I have a really hard time picturing him having the same success in a Rangers uniform, but who knows...

I still think this was a great trade for the Rangers. It's a very well-kept secret that our offense is, in some ways, weaker than our pitching. When Millwood and Padilla pitch the way they have in the past, (relatively competently) our rotation can be a small step above abysmal. But, with the loss of Teixeira, we really had a gaping hole in our lineup. It appears Hamilton may fill Teixeira's shoes and then some. Plus, he's a very good center fielder. Today, he saved Every Day Eddie's butt with a spectacular diving catch against the wall.

That being said, it is a little painful watching Volquez dominate for someone else. I had high hopes for him here.

Exxon

2008-05-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

New York Times headline today: For Exxon Mobil, $10.9 Billion Profit Disappoints

If they don't want it, I'll take it off their hands. I can think of 3 or 4 things I could buy with $10.9 billion.

Our National Discourse

2008-04-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

Tom Friedman today:

The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

I don't always like Friedman, (in fact, he's pretty goofy more often than not) but he hit the nail on the head there. We are currently in the middle of a dark period in our nation's history.

We appear to be past the worst of it. Back in the 2004 campaign, John Kerry had to refrain from being too critical of Bush because the majority of Americans would be shocked to the point of disbelief to be exposed to a dose of reality. The media has been so bad that there are just some things that you can't say in a public forum because the American public isn't ready to hear it.

I work in a company that is full of people who are in the 20% or so of the population that would support Bush even if he went on national TV and started clubbing kittens with a baseball bat. When politics comes up, I just keep my mouth shut. They're not even on the same planet as me. Their core beliefs are built on layers and layers and layers of Fox News propaganda. If I were to, for instance, describe the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby scandal from start to finish, they would think I had gone mad. It would be like I told them the sky wasn't blue or that the Rangers will win 80 games.

The cause of this divorce from reality in our discourse is two-fold: First and foremost, the major players in our media are owned by an increasingly small number of corporations: GE, Viacom, Disney, Time Warner, and News Corp. That's just about it. And those companies all have infiltrated their respective news branches and actively filter content, and hire and fire employees based on corporate loyalty. Secondly, the media has been corrupted by GOP intimidation. The Republicans have managed to convince everybody that the media has a strong liberal bias -- never mind that much of the media has become little more than a fog horn for the Bush administration; they're still liberal!! Whenever the media is critical of the administration, they can expect to get angry phone calls and threats from all directions. Simply put, they're just scared of the Republicans.

As I have discussed previously, I believe talk radio is also part of the problem. Anti-intellectualism is at an all-time high. Many attempts to discuss issues intelligently are ridiculed when, obviously, an intelligent discussion of issues is exactly what we need.

I'm not sure exactly how we can pull out of this tailspin we're in, but I do know the Internets need to be heavily involved. That's why Net Neutrality is so important. I didn't pay a dime to start this blog, yet it is readily available to anybody in the entire world who wants to read it. If my blog were to take off (stick with me now) for whatever reason, and start getting 700,000 hits per day or something, my content providers are going to want to charge me for that exposure -- but I shouldn't be charged. That's precisely how we will tear television's death grip on the national dialog away.

This is also another reason I'm supporting Barack Obama. If you watch his speech to the Google campus on technology, you'll see that he plans to not only push for Net Neutrality, but also he wants to use the Internet to help make the operations of the federal government much more transparent. The more transparency there is, the less corruption is possible, and the harder it becomes for the media to spin a narrative away from reality.

Maybe some day, I will be able to walk up to my coworkers and tell them that George W. Bush is trying to usurp power away from Congress and the Supreme Court, that he is openly violating the Constitution by holding "enemy combatants" in prison indefinitely without access to a lawyer or to our legal system, that he is actively covering for Alberto Gonzalez in the U.S. Attorney scandal, and covering for somebody high up (probably Cheney) in the Plame scandal and not have them stare at me like I'm from outer space.

Radio Silence on Military Analyst Scandal

2008-04-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

Good article by Glen Greenwald at Salon

Final Thoughts on Rev. Wright (promise)

2008-04-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

I watched a few minutes of the Q&A session in Washington yesterday.

Rev. Wright is clearly a very intelligent man and a very good speaker. But it appears to me that he's been living in an atmosphere were conspiracy theories are engendered and that he is under the illusion that American society hasn't made significant strides to move past Jim Crow. Just as Obama said in his Philadelphia speech, Wright seems to think that American society is static.

The sad thing to me is that, watching his speeches and the vast majority of his comments, I really like the guy. 95% of what he says is good. The problem is, the remaining 5% is talking about how the U.S. government invented AIDS to keep the black man down and that we brought 9/11 on ourselves because our government conducts state sponsored terrorism.

Coming back to Bob Herbert's column, I still don't think that Wright was intentionally trying to hurt Obama. I think he believes that he is charismatic enough that he could just charm the country into liking him, given enough air time. He seemed to be legitimately unaware that claiming the U.S. government invented AIDS might not play well with, well, anybody.

Also, on Farrakhan, Rev. Wright's answer wasn't as bad as Obama made it out to be. When he called Farrakhan "great," he made it pretty clear he that he meant it in the "Time Magazine Person of the Year" sense. I don't know anything about Louis Farrakhan aside from skimming his Wikipedia page, but clearly, he's politically radioactive. Obama doesn't have the luxury to equivocate or speak in shades of gray in that area. I'm not sure if Farrakhan even deserves that consideration, but Wright's point seemed to be that Farrakhan isn't all bad, not that he was one of the greatest (as in a force for good) people of the 20th century.

Anyhoo, I it will be nice when this stuff blows over (if it ever does). It surely can't be helping Obama much in Indiana and North Carolina.

More Reverend Wright

2008-04-29T11:49:00.001-07:00

Updated Below -- I hadn't seen the really stupid stuff Wright said when I made this post originally. I would still stand by what I say here had he just stopped with the speech in Detroit, but evidently, he felt the need to go off the deep end on national TV the next day in Washington.

It appears that Obama will be reacting to Rev. Wright's latest by recoiling and further distancing himself.

From a political standpoint -- in our current political climate -- I can certainly understand that, but I still found Rev. Wright to be engaging, funny, and informative in his speech to the NAACP (though I haven't seen his comments to the National Press Club). It just goes to show how backwards our national discourse has become. When somebody takes on a media narrative on a level that a 5th grader might not understand, it is seen as a blunder.

Bob Herbert says that Rev. Wright was intentionally trying to hurt Obama. Having watched his speech, I thought it was pretty clear that he was trying to help Obama. His goal was to present himself to the country as a reasonable person, so he would not be seen as a caricature from a YouTube clip. I felt he accomplished that. Now, clearly, Wright is a very passionate person, and I didn't agree with everything he said, but he is not some radical hate-monger.

Rev. Wright had every right to be angry about the treatment he has received from the media. Given 30 years of sermons from any preacher in the country, you could probably come away with a handful of 15-second sound bytes that sound bad. And that is especially true of a black preacher because their speaking style is so thoroughly foreign to most of the population. So, I am sad to see that Obama is going to throw him under the bus. Politically, I understand the decision, but it makes me sad nonetheless. If our media was willing to cover a complicated and controversial issue with honesty and integrity, Obama wouldn't be in this position. But we don't, and there is virtually nothing Obama can do to prevent the media from framing Wright's words as anything but radical Black Panther hate speech.

Ugh!! We have got to fix the media in this country.

Update: Now even my Dad disagrees with me. I didn't see Wright's comments the following day in Washington. Did he set something on fire?

Update #2: I might add that I do not currently have a functioning television at home, so my views here are based on my viewing of Wright's speech, unclouded and unperverted by the flatulence that undoubtably followed from the Chris Matthewses and Wolf Blitzers of the world.

Look: the political timing of the speech was undoubtedly poor. We're knee deep in the "silly season" of politics where everything is blown out of proportion already, so long, passionate, thought-provoking speeches are probably sensory overload. And Hillary will do everything in her power to exploit it to the nth degree. But that doesn't mean it was a bad speech. It just means Hillary is a whore. (politically speaking)

Update #3: It seems that the fuss was indeed caused by the appearance at the National Press Club. I will watch that and make a new blog post if I feel it is necessary.

Update #4: Couple Wright quotes from the National Press Club meeting:

"I said to Barack Obama last year, 'If you get elected, November the 5th, I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.' All right? It's about policy, not the American people."

"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles."

OK, so it seems I spoke too soon. I certainly am not on board with those statements. If he had just given his speech and stopped, it would have been fine.

Update #5: I've been reading through some of Obama's comments today. Obviously, if I had known that Wright had been saying that he thought the U.S. government was intentionally spreading AIDS or that Farrakhan was a great voice in the 20th century, I wouldn't have made the preceding post. I don't understand how that's the same guy who gave the speech in Detroit... oh, well

More Propaganda

2008-04-28T10:30:00.001-07:00

The Pentagon was shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that its relationship with ex-military officers, turned Pentagon lobbyists could be viewed as improper.

Reverend Wright

2008-04-28T00:04:00.000-07:00

Update 4/30/08: I still like this speech, and there really isn't anything horribly offensive in it. There are a few things in there that raised my eyebrows, such as the assertion that black children all learn differently than whites do, but, on the whole, I thought it was an interesting and entertaining speech. However, several of his comments the day after this speech in Washington were obviously ridiculous. I still think that most commentators that are blasting Rev. Wright now probably were only exposed to sound bytes of the worst parts of his comments in Washington. Really, the vast, vast majority of what he says is good. What's bad is his timing and the 5-10% of what he says that is just bat sh*t crazy. I still recommend watching this speech. There is much more nuance to this issue than has been portrayed.

I saw a clip of Rev. Wright's speech to the NAACP on CNN.com earlier, and I went to track down the whole speech. After watching CNN's clip, they clearly tried to take the most incendiary segments to prop up their Rev. Wright story against Obama. But, listen to the speech -- the whole speech -- for yourself. I thought it was a hell of a good speech. (it's about 45 minutes long -- oh, and the Fox News commentator's reaction to the introduction is priceless)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Mavs Rip Fans' Hearts Out (again)

2008-04-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

The date was June 13, 2006 in Miami, Florida. The Dallas Mavericks were up 2 games to none against the Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals, looking to close out a relatively easy win in Game 3. The fourth quarter was about half finished, and the Mavs were nursing a sizable lead they had held for virtually the entire game. Neither game 1 nor 2 had been competitive, and the Mavs were toying with their prey in Game 3. At the time, the Mavericks had beaten the Heat six straight times, dating back to the 2004-2005 season and most of those wins had been blow-outs, too. Dallas mayor Laura Miller was busy back at home planning the parade route.

But then something funny happened: the Mavericks suddenly lost the ability to play competently in the playoffs. The floor dropped out from under them, and, to this date, nearly 2 years later, they haven't recovered. The same team that had beaten the two powerhouses of the Western Conference (Phoenix and San Antonio) suddenly couldn't beat anybody in the playoffs. The Heat went onto win Game 3. And then 4, 5, and 6 as well. Instead of a parade in downtown Dallas, Dwayne Wade started his own parade starring himself. To the free throw line.

At the time, I cursed Bennett Salvatore, the referee who called a bogus foul on Wade from half-way across the court at the end of Game 5 (which I attended). But, now I realize the team that I had been rooting for had already left the building. With 7 minutes remaining in Game 3, they checked out and never returned.

The following year, the Mavericks mounted a very impressive mirage during the regular season. They won a staggering 67 games, despite losing the first 4 in a row. Dirk Nowitzki was named MVP, and the city of Dallas was yet again primed for a run at the title. The playoff seeding favored Dallas in a very big way: unlike the previous year, they would only have to beat one of their rivals because Phoenix and San Antonio were on course to face each other in the second round. But the instant the ball dropped and the playoffs began, the strange, lifeless team that lost to Miami the previous year reemerged. Our first-round opponent Golden State had barely even made the playoffs and, after they had dispatched the zombie-Mavs, were hardly challenging to the Utah Jazz in the second round. But, for some inexplicable reason, the Mavericks were unable even to mount token resistance.

Fast forward to today. The Mavericks didn't bother with another 67-win mirage this year. Instead, they half-heartedly sleepwalked through the regular season, promising this time they would finally revert to the fine form they had displayed in the opening rounds of the 2006 playoffs. We Mavericks' fans turned on our televisions to cheer on our 7th-seeded team, hoping beyond hope that the real Mavericks would finally come back to us.

But if the first four games of this current series against the New Orleans Hornets -- a team that we had beaten 21 consecutive times coming into this year; and a team that hadn't won at Dallas since 1998 -- are any indication, the magical run through the 2006 playoffs is all the Mavs are going to give us. With Devin Harris traded away, Jason Kidd getting older by the second, and two first-round draft picks lost to the New Jersey Nets, the window on the Mavs' championship aspirations appears to have shut and sealed itself. Our chances to see Dirk Nowitzki hold the Larry O'Brien trophy over his head are becoming maddeningly slim.

It is truly painful to remember back to June 13, 2006 when that seemed inevitable. I much prefer the Rangers' style of losing. They show their colors early and often, so we fans know to not get our hopes up.

Rangers Hit Rock Bottom (again)

2008-04-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Well, your Texas Rangers hit a new low yesterday. Facing Kenny Rogers who is finally starting to show his age, the Rangers pelted out 5 runs through the second inning. And then the wheels fell off:

Luis Mendoza apparently was hiding a shoulder injury which cropped up in the second inning, preventing his breaking pitches from breaking. The Tigers took advantage and quickly erased the 5-run lead in the bottom of the 2nd.

Frank Francisco, who had been lights out in AAA, relieved Mendoza and looked less than sharp, giving up two runs in 2 1/3 innings

In the top of the 4th, the Rangers loaded the bases with one out. Josh Hamilton -- one of the few bright spots on the team -- walked to score a run, but then Milton Bradley grounded into a double play. The Rangers must be on pace to set a record for men left on base...

Jamie Wright entered the game with a 0.82 ERA. 1 1/3 innings later, he had a 4.38 ERA.

Wes Littleton followed. Entering the game, his ERA was 2.35. Afterwards, it was 8.64. Wright and Littleton were the masterminds behind the Tigers' 11-run 6th inning.

Joaquin Benoit came in and continued his season-long search for the strike zone. So far this season, Benoit is apt to either strike out the side on 10 pitches or walk the first 5 batters he faces.

CJ Wilson was the last Ranger pitcher and the only one to not allow a run.

Total damage: 19 runs on only 14 hits. The Rangers also issued 10 walks. 10!! Amazingly, they only committed one error, down from their season norm of 12 or whatever it is.

The Rangers are playing some seriously ugly baseball. This is bad even for a rebuilding team. At some point, somebody's got to get fired for this.

A side note: I'm much too lazy to look at my blog's template today, but, I have to say, the flower-looking bullet points really need to go. Not sure what Blogger was thinking with those...

Straight Talk Express

2008-04-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

A conversation between George Stephanopoulos and John McCain:

GS - A lot of Senator Obama's allies and others say that you should condemn the comments of Reverend John Hagee, an evangelical pastor...

JM - Oh, I do. And I did. I said that any comments that he made about the Catholic Church I strongly condemn.

GS - Yet you solicited and accepted his endorsement.

JM - Yes, indeed I did.

GS - So, was it a mistake to solicit and accept his endorsement?

JM - Oh, probably. Sure.

GS - So you no longer want his endorsement?

JM - I'm glad to have his endorsement. I condemn remarks that are...that are..uh...that are any way viewed as anti-anything.

Hagee, incidentally, has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the Great Whore" and accused them of having "a Godless theology" and that it spawns a "theology of hate."

Additionally, Hagee claims that the Qur'an contains a "mandate to kill Christians and Jews." He said that Hurricane Katrina was God punishing New Orleans for "a level of sin that was offensive to God". More from Wikipedia:

Another reason for God's wrath [against New Orleans], Hagee claims, was the Bush administration's pressure on Israel to abandon settlements and the associated land. Therefore, God took American land in a "tit for tat" exchange.

Additionally, Hagee received $1.25 million in 2001 alone for his position as CEO of the non-profit corporation Global Evangelism Television. Hagee later argued: "I deserve every dime I'm getting."

Right... enough of that. Let's attack Obama some more for not wearing a flag pin.

"Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews." - Rev. John Hagee, 2007

Microsoft and OOXML

2008-04-21T15:47:00.001-07:00

According to this Slashdot article, Microsoft Office 2007 fails badly to meet the official OOXML specification. So, after bullying their way into making OOXML the ISO standard, Microsoft's real strategy is now surfacing.

Microsoft's nefarious, strong-arm tactics in getting OOXML passed through ISO showed the company was very determined to defeat the competing ODF format. Why would Microsoft care so much about an ISO standard? They're already the de facto standard. Well, it turns out that Microsoft Office 2007, which purports to be using the OOXML file format, completely fails to conform to the official ISO specification. ZDNet ran Office 2007 through a series of tests and found 122,000 instances where it failed to conform to the standard.

So now we're about to enter an era where there is an official standard called OOXML, while the de facto standard remains Microsoft's proprietary format. Only this time, they've dressed up their proprietary format with the aura of being a public standard. Microsoft is betting that nobody will notice the difference. (or at least that nobody important notices)

It sure would be nice if our government would step in an actually regulate the Microsoft monopoly. The abuse of monopolistic advantages has become their central business strategy.

Propaganda

2008-04-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has a very important article up for tomorrow's paper that confirms in detail what has long been suspected. This administration has been behind a well-organized, pervasive propaganda machine with the goal of brainwashing the American people to fall in lockstep behind their policies.

The Bush administration has already been caught paying journalists, and planting fake news stories on TV. And now, the Times has uncovered a far-reaching scheme involving retired military officers. Many of these military officials, after leaving the army, became lobbyists for defense contractors and other industries that bid for Pentagon contracts. As lobbyists, they told their clients that they could use their military connections to help them get an inner track towards lucrative defense contracts. Clearly, maintaining good favor with the Pentagon was essential to their livelihood.

Taking advantage of this situation, the Pentagon recruited many of these ex-military lobbyists to be "talking heads" on TV. They would get to meet personally with Donald Rumsfeld and other high-level Pentagon officials, -- which was good for business -- and the Pentagon would issue them pro-administration talking points. The next day, they would disperse and appear on CNN, Fox, NBC, etc..., presented to the public as objective ex-military officers, and parrot the administration's line. The public was rarely, if ever, informed of the fact that most of them were also simultaneously working as Pentagon lobbyists.

If any of them were ever caught criticizing the administration, their access to the Pentagon would be cut off. The Times uncovered emails showing that many of them privately had serious misgivings about the administration's story, but, as soon as the cameras turned on, they turned into loyal puppets.

These tactics are frighteningly reminiscent of those employed by the Nazis in their rise to power in Germany. I hope the media will resist the temptation to brush this under the rug. Obviously, they will be severely tempted, given that it speaks very poorly to their credibility. Maybe Clinton and Obama will start bringing it up in their stump speeches... That might force the spotlight on it a little.

Update: I'm excited. Kelly linked to my blog, so someone may actually read it now. :) Seriously, though, I highly recommend reading the whole New York Times article. It is quite long, I know, but the details are really damning.

Basketball

2008-04-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

You know... from 2004-2005, there were 3 point guards taken within the top-5 picks:

Devin Harris

Deron Williams

Chris Paul

Nothing against Devin Harris, but, damn, sure would have been nice to have one of those other two.

Journalism

2008-04-17T23:09:00.000-07:00

David Brooks today:

The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable...

I suppose the next debate will feature the candidates in a room at 110 degrees fahrenheit while being poked with sharp sticks.

Seriously, though, yesterday's debate was truly awful.

Rangers

2008-04-15T23:56:00.001-07:00

The truly painful thing about the Rangers is that they take their mediocre to average talent and still manage to underperform.

The Rangers hitters have an OPS (on base percentage + slugging percentage) of .735 --right at the AL average. But, with runners in scoring position, they've managed a pathetic .644, which is second-worst ahead only of the Yankees.

And then there's the fielding. They lead the AL in errors with 14. So, over all, they have an average to slightly above average offense that suddenly goes stone cold with runners in scoring position. And they are routinely flubbing playable balls. The Rangers lead the world in unearned runs (well, except for the Phillies).

The pitching has actually been decent. Jennings has been awful, but Millwood, Padilla, and Gabbard have been good. And the bullpen (except for Kazuo "careful how you say it!" Fukumori) has been decent -- especially by Rangers standards. Maybe we need to hire a psychologist for the position players.

This recent stretch of 5 straight losses feels so much like last season where the team seemed to invent a new way to lose every day. One day, the hitters, and the relievers would be good, but the starter would suddenly have his worst game in 10 years. And the next day, the starter would go 7 strong innings, only to have the offense get totally shut down by a below average pitcher. I can't count the number of times I've heard Eric Nadel say, "Well, this guy has really struggled this year, but he really seems to be throwing well today." The Rangers consistently bring the best out of their opponents. I understand the team is rebuilding (as always), but at some point, they need to lay a solid foundation. Our talented minor leaguers shouldn't look up a the big league club and see a circus.

I keep hearing that the Rangers are pressing -- that they're trying too hard. Since the players are evidently not capable of getting out of this funk by themselves, the manager needs to do something. I think Ron Washington is trying. He called a team meeting the other day. But, if this keeps on for much longer, you gotta start wondering if he's in over his head. The Rangers need one hell of a good manager to exorcise all of their demons... I'm beginning to seriously doubt Ron Washington is up to the task.

Fast

2008-04-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

IBM has released a new Power6 processor that they claim is the fastest in the world. The Power6, like the IBM processors that run the XBox 360, require water cooling. IBM Chief Technology Officer, Bernard Meyerson comments:

...the faster chips run, the hotter they get, and IBM has created water-cooling systems akin to the radiators in cars to keep its processors from overheating. Not doing so, Meyerson quipped, "results in setting fire to the user, which is bad."

I think IBM has Meyerson in the wrong job. Move that guy over to the marketing department. I can see their new slogan: "IBM Processors: So fast, they can self-combust and set your pants on fire before you can get out of your chair!"

Yahoo! Sports!

2008-04-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

I guess both teams were just really cold in the first quarter.

Let's see how long it takes Yahoo! to catch this one.

Update:10 days later, and it's still there. :)

Glenn Beck

2008-04-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

It's not every day that I see something on the internets that makes my head spin, but today, on CNN.com, Glenn Beck (!) of all people wrote an article that didn't completely offend my senses.

Now, this is not Pulitzer Prize material (nor remotely close) but he actually comes across as reasonable. And that's saying something, because Glenn Beck is completely insane.

Anyway, I felt the need to put this up here since I harped on him a few weeks ago. When a conservative talk radio (turned tv) host says something like this, I'll at least tip my hat:

If you want to teach our kids about Vietnam, that's fine, but you better also teach them about World War II. And if you want to talk about our wars, you better also talk about our welfare. America is one of the most charitable countries in the history of the world, yet our mistakes are always glorified far more than our generosity. That needs to be reversed.

Anti-intellectualism

2008-03-30T13:04:00.001-07:00

Nick Kristof has a really good column up in the Times today.

The extent to which anti-intellectualism has infiltrated our society is really alarming. Despite a disastrous war in Iraq, a tanking economy, and a power-hungry administration threatening to unravel some of the most basic tenants of our democracy, our evening news continues to be dominated by Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and the pretty missing white girl from rural Kansas. But, perhaps more importantly, on the few occasions the media turns its attention towards politics, or the war, or some other serious matter, they rarely engage in substantive dialog. Rather, they talk about how certain events will affect public opinion without engaging in any discussion of the events themselves.

On talk radio, anti-intellectualism is taken to new heights. I can't listen to talk radio for more than about 5 minutes without becoming nauseous. But, on occasion, my morbid curiosity wins out and I'll tune in for a few minutes. You'll notice that all talk radio hosts speak with a similar cadence. It's loud, and each point they make comes with an understood clause that "if you don't agree with me, you're a pussy." I listened to a long rant several months ago about why Mexican immigrants were threatening to destroy our country. The "illegals," as they were repeatedly called, are draining our resources and they <gasp> don't speak English! So, we must kick them all out, regardless of what the repercussions may be. Repercussions are for pussies.

A similar speaking cadence and style has spilled over into sports talk radio. Try making this argument to someone who listens to The Ticket regularly: The Texas Rangers have a solid bullpen. Never mind that the Rangers had the 5th best bullpen ERA in baseball last year (3.69), and had a 33-22 won/loss record, despite logging the most innings of any bullpen in MLB due to an historically awful starting rotation. In fact, a reasonable argument can be made that the Rangers had the best bullpen in baseball last year. But, clearly, I'm a pussy for making such a ridiculous assertion.

Last week, I listened to several great American speeches, after hearing Obama's speech on race. If you have ~45 minutes to spare, listen to FDR's Arsenal of Democracy speech. I think it ought to be required listening for every voter. It really drives home the point that the threat we face from Islamic terrorism is a minor annoyance compared to the Nazis. They had taken over most of continental Europe, and people legitimately worried that Hitler would be able to take over the entire world. And, yet, in the face of that, when FDR addressed the nation, he didn't try to obfuscate or dumb down his points. He made some rather complex arguments, expecting his listeners to keep up with him. If George W. Bush went in front of the TV tonight, and delivered a speech with coherent, complex arguments, that didn't try to obfuscate the facts, I might go into shock.

As Kristof points out, the really scary thing about all of this is that the rest of the world is not inflicted by this anti-intellectual disease. If you tune to CNN International, they broadcast actual news. How in the world can we expect to compete with the rest of the world if our citizens are not only poorly educated, but willfully so? I sure hope the spectacular failure of the Bush administration will mark the beginning of the end of this dark era for our country. It will be difficult to unwind all of the damage it has inflicted.

wow

2008-03-26T01:25:00.000-07:00

This is a new low for Hillary...

Some of the very nastiest rumors about the Clintons in the 90s were started by (or at least heavily stoked by) Richard Mellon Scaife. Now, she's using Scaife to attack Obama.

Hillary, for the love of God, please just drop out. Go back to New York and be a really good member of the Senate. As I read earlier today, you're employing the "Tonya Harding Strategy." Just stop it. Go back to New York while you still have a shred of dignity left.

Obama's Speech and Various Other Ramblings

2008-03-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

Unless you're living in a cave (or are a habitué of the Fox News Channel), you have probably at least heard people talking about the speech Barack Obama gave on race relations the other day. It was a very fine speech, and reaffirmed my belief that we very well may be witnessing the rise of a truly great American president.

It has been compared to JFK's speech on Catholicism, and even has been mentioned as one of the very best speeches on any topic delivered in the past 50 years. Given the dearth of rhetorical prowess from our recent leaders, I decided to peruse the Internets for other great American speeches so I could better view Obama's in perspective.

I found a page, entitled "Top 100 American speeches of the 20th Century." I listened to bits and pieces of several of them, including JFK's and FDR's first inaugural addresses, both of Barbara Jordan's speeches and the RFK speech after the MLK assassination. A couple observations:

Barbara Jordan was one hell of a good speaker.
It's impressive how often JFK made his way onto this list, given his relatively short tenure in the spotlight.
It's really too bad that we don't have any recordings (or at least this site doesn't) of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

I also listened to FDR's famous "Four Freedoms" speech which delivered for the 1941 State of the Union address. In the speech, Roosevelt discusses the very real possibility that the Germans would eventually try to invade the U.S.:

The first phase of the invasion of this hemisphere would not be the landing of regular troops. The necessary strategic points would be occupied by secret agents and by their dupes -- and great numbers of them are already here and in Latin America. As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive they, not we, will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack.

And that is why the future of all the American Republics is today in serious danger. That is why this annual message to the Congress is unique in our history. That is why every member of the executive branch of the government and every member of the Congress face great responsibility, great accountability. The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily -- almost exclusively -- to meeting this foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency.

In every State of the Union speech I've ever seen, the President will proclaim, "I am pleased to announce that the State of the Union is strong!" . Any other admission would be dangerous politically, and politicians just don't subject themselves to unnecessary risk. But, in 1941, Roosevelt delivered this line:

Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the union," I find it unhappily necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.

And, shorty later, this:

In times like these it is immature -- and, incidentally, untrue -- for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.

Can you imagine George W. Bush admitting that we weren't all powerful? Or, for that matter, delivering the most famous part of that speech:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

While George W. Bush seeks to create fear in the American people in order to strum up political support, FDR looked the Nazis -- a threat of a far greater magnitude than al Qaeda -- in the eye and promised to deliver a new vision for the world, free from fear, and that it would happen "in our own time and generation."

I hope Barack Obama can return us to the true ideals upon which this nation was founded and show the world that we reject the un-American policies of George W. Bush.

CNN: The Most Trusted Name in News

2008-03-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

On CNN's main page this afternoon, an article by Glenn Beck declares that Florida and Michigan should be out of luck because they broke the rules.

Glenn Beck, who is of the "if you disagree with me, you're a pussy" ilk, says that Florida and Michigan need to step up to the plate and take some personal responsibility. Never mind that Florida and Michigan aren't "persons."

But, ranting about a stupid article by Glenn Beck isn't worth my time, nor is it worth your or anyone's time to read a blog post ranting about Glenn Beck. What is really got me is the "comments" section at the bottom of the article. Go ahead; open the article up in a new tab. (For you Internet Explorer 6 users, click here, here, or here, for information on tabs) Scan through those comments... Every single one of them is positive. All of them. Now, I submitted a comment to this article six hours ago and was told that it would go through a CNN moderator before being posted online. Normally, that means that they would be checking it for vulgarity etc...

I present to you here the text of my comment, and will let you, the readers of my blog, (all both of you) judge whether it should be worthy of CNN:

OK. This is ridiculous. "They" didn't follow the rules, so "they" should be punished? Problem is, we're talking about two different "theys" here. The Democratic party leaders didn't follow the rules, so millions and millions of voters should be punished!?

Democracy is not a game, Glenn. Your article reads like Florida and Michigan committed hooking penalties and now have to sit in the penalty box.

The party leaders in Florida and Michigan wagered that this would be a close race, and that their states' votes wouldn't be decisive to the outcome. Obviously, that was an idiotic move. But it was also not their move to make. There shouldn't be any way for a few idiots to disqualify an entire state from an election.

Obviously, my comment was far inferior to the likes of:

HOW can ANYbody (of sound mind) refute this line of thinking?! Well said. Period!

YOU'RE ON FIRE MY MAN
KEEP IT UP

As a Democrat from Los Angeles, I can always count on Glenn Beck for his insightful and (mostly) bipartisan commentary. In this case, I couldnt agree more with him

That last one has to be a CNN plant. That's like saying that you're a conservative Republican, and your favorite author is Gore Vidal.

Oy. I suppose I should count my blessings though. At least it wasn't about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Josh Marshall Wins Polk Award

2008-02-25T09:56:00.000-08:00

Now this is cool. The blog that you (all both of you) may have noticed I link to most often just won a Polk award for its involvement in reporting and uncovering the recent U.S. Attorney scandal.

Talking Points Memo is one of the most important web sites on the many internets. It is different from the better-known Daily Kos because it features legitimate, high quality journalism to complement the editorial nature of regular blogging. TPM was also involved in pushing back Bush's social security privatization attempt awhile back.

Marshall now has his sites set on combating the GOP slime machine. He has a post up now wondering aloud how a smear from a blatant GOP dirty trickster can wind up becoming an Associated Press article, and then a CNN front page article, and now, a CNN poll. I will be keenly following whether Marshall is able to affect the process in any way. Already, he has clearly caught the attention of the mainstream press. If he continues to harp on them for allowing stupid GOP dirty tricks to waltz onto their front pages, maybe they will catch some flak for it.

Ye Olde GOP Slime Machine

2008-02-24T16:30:00.001-08:00

Beginning to get into gear...

Apparently, Barack Obama isn't patriotic. Also, he refuses to say the pledge of allegiance.

The former claim is especially frustrating. The Associated Press lends credence to this crap. The AP's source for Obama's alleged lack of patriotism? A guy named Roger Stone who makes Ann Coulter look calm and credible.

This is undoubtably the tip of the iceberg. oy

Obama at Reunion Arena

2008-02-20T20:24:00.000-08:00

This post has been a long time in coming. I attended the Obama rally at Reunion Arena last month and took some pictures with my iPhone.

This line was seriously long. It poured out the back of the Reunion parking garage, and, once inside, wrapped up the ramps all the way to the roof, and then back down again. I was highly skeptical that we would be able to get in.

View of the line from the roof. The speech was only a few minutes from starting at this point. Luckily, there was nearly an hour's worth of introductions.

Heading back down again. We're on the second-highest floor here.

A look at the line , several floors below us...

To my great shock, we actually got in. Turns out, the Obama staffers thought it would be a good idea to have everybody go through one doorway.

We got in just as Obama started to speak. Unfortunately, we missed Emmitt Smith's introduction which would have been fun. Oh, well... c'est la vie.

Here Come the Rangers!!

2008-02-15T00:40:00.001-08:00

Anyone got a problem if we field a sexagenarian closer this year?

Shenanigans in Washington State

2008-02-11T14:57:00.000-08:00

Now here's an interesting story. The Republican Party in Washington state is having a hard time counting all of the ballots from their caucuses the other day. With only 87% of the ballots counted, and with McCain nursing a lead of less than 2% over Mike Huckabee, state GOP chair Luke Esser declared McCain the winner. Here is a brief rundown of the night's events, courtesy of Josh Marshall of TPM.

Maybe calling an election off with only 87% isn't enough to make you think there's something fishy in these degraded times of ours. Maybe this will.

This was based on my recollection. But this afternoon we went back and checked our election night notes (remember we report results in real time). And here's the progression of events.

According to our records (and I would strongly suggest other people with information check this against their data), the first report came in at roughly 9:30 PM eastern. With 16% of the vote, McCain ahead 27% to 26%.

Then at 10:15 PM, with 37% of the vote in, Huckabee moves ahead 26% to 23%.

Then there was an hour delay until the next update. That comes shortly after 11:15 PM, with 78% counted, McCain has moved ahead -- 25.4% to 23.8%.

Then there's another delay of an hour and twenty minutes. Shortly after 12:35, they get to 83% of the vote and now it's McCain 25.6% and Huckabee 23.8%.

The next update comes at 1:30 AM eastern. By this time they've counted a whopping 4% more of the vote. And with 87% reporting, it's McCain 25.5% to 23.7%.

So just to summarize here's basically how this works. We start out with McCain ahead. Huckabee jumps ahead with a 3% margin with almost 40% of the vote counted. Then everything slows waaaaay down. And we don't see anything else until about 40% more of the votes been counted and McCain is back in the lead. Things then proceed a glacial pace with Huckabee a little less than 2 percentage points back until 9% more of the vote is counted. And then they decide to declare McCain the winner. Not quite as cut and dry as the conclusion of a Scooby-Doo episode. But pretty close.

Sound fishy to you?

Anyway, Huckabee thinks things are fishy and has hired a bunch of lawyers to head up to Washington to look into the results.

But what really got me interested in this was a quote from an article Esser wrote in 1986 while he was in college. Remember, this is the guy who is in charge of counting people's votes:

Like any sport worth its salt, in politics you have adversaries, opponents, enemies. Our enemies are loudmouth leftists and shiftless deadbeats. To win the election, we have to keep as many of these people away from the polls as possible.

Now your average leftist loudmouth is a committed individual and can almost never be persuaded to ignore his constitutional rights. The deadbeats, however, are a different matter entirely. Years of interminable welfare checks and free government services have made these modern-day sloths even more lazy. They will vote on election day, if it isn’t much of a bother. But even the slightest inconvenience can keep them from the polling place.

Many of the most successful anti-deadbeat voter techniques (poll taxes, sound beatings, etc.) that conservatives have used in the past have been outlawed by busybody judges.

The only means of persuasion left available to us are Acts of God, who we know is exclusively on our side. I’m talking about seriously inclement weather. I want Biblical floods and pestilence. I will settle for rain, sweet rain. The deadbeats won’t even go out in the rain for their welfare checks (they send one of their social workers to pick it up). There’s no way they’ll vote if it’s raining.

Busybody judges, eh? Wouldn't it be better if we went back to the 19th century when we just killed black people for showing up at the polls? That's a damn effective way to stop someone from voting as it has the added bonus of preventing them from trying again in the future.

Wow... and this isn't like we're talking about Strom Thurmond here. It's not like Esser wrote this back in the Jim Crow era. He wrote this in 1986. How in the world did this guy get elected chair of the state GOP? Yikes.

I will be following this story with great interest as it continues to develop. If you want to follow it as well, Talking Points Memo is following things pretty closely.

Update: Huckabee is now demanding a recount.

Update #2: Turns out, Esser is a close political ally of state Attorney General Rob McKenna who helped get him appointed as Washington GOP chair. McKenna is the chairman of the McCain campaign in Washington.

Fry's

2008-02-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

I have had some pretty lousy experiences at Fry's over the years, but the kind folks at the Plano Fry's seemed determined to take the cake this afternoon. I had finally diagnosed the problem with my home theater PC today: bad power supply. So, I took off for Fry's, knowing exactly what I wanted and where in the store I wanted to go. In and out... I was not in the mood for browsing the aisles. I walked in, grabbed my power supply and two gigabit ethernet switches, and headed towards the checkout line.

Now, the checkout line at the Plano Fry's resembles the line for a ride at Six Flags more than your average retail store. It has switchbacks, is nearly half the width of the store (and this is a *very* large store), and merchandise lining both sides of the aisle. Today, they had all of the switchbacks open, and the line spilled out the back, nearly half of it sticking out of the normal area. Straightened out, this line would have gone around more than half of the store's outer wall.

Naturally, I didn't have a cart with me, so I was forced to carry my merchandise (power supplies aren't all that light) for nearly an hour waiting to check out. Apparently, their POS server was down or something... (Here, POS may stand for "Point of Sale" or something else, you decide)

You know... Fry's ran CompUSA out of business by giving people a better selection and offering competitive, up-to-date pricing. Someone else needs to run Fry's out of business by running a store that doesn't take a giant crap on the customer every third time he shops there.

Attorney General Mukasey: It's Legal If My Department Says It's Legal

2008-02-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

Well, if you were wondering whether Michael Mukasey would be any improvement over Alberto Gonzalez, we got our answer today. When asked whether he would investigate whether waterboarding was a crime, or if he would investigate the administration's warrantless wiretapping, Mukasey responded that both programs were legal because they were signed off on in advance as legal by the Justice Department.

More here.

Worst. President. Ever.

Also, I would like to hear what Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein have to say about this. Those two were the main Democrats that caved and let the Mukasey confirmation go through.

Shaq to Phoenix?

2008-02-05T22:33:00.000-08:00

Wow.

I really think the Suns are underestimating how much they will miss Marion. This trade is a big step back for their perimeter defense. Meanwhile, Shaq has given very little indication that he will be able to stay on the court. He is clearly not the same player he was two years ago -- and he was already well off his peak then.

If Shaq can get over his various injuries, the Suns will still be a good team. Even fat, old Shaq will score some points with Nash setting him up. I just don't think this will make them any better than they already are. Plus, by this time next year, Shaq will be chasing criminals for Miami PD and Marion will still be in his prime.

Not sure what Steve Kerr was thinking there...

Health Insurance

2008-02-04T20:56:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman wrote a column that ran in the Times this morning that has created a bit of a firestorm. Krugman has been harping on Barack Obama's health care plan for some time, and now, just before Super Tuesday, he seems to have hit on some nerves.

I am almost always a big Krugman fan, though he does write with a fairly blunt instrument. If you care about the health insurance implications of this election, I highly recommend reading Krugman's column, and a couple responses:

Clinton, Obama, Insurance, by Paul Krugman

Krugman Wrong on Obama and Mandates, by Dean Baker

Dean Baker is Wrong, by Paul Krugman

An Open Letter to Paul Krugman, by Harold Pollack

I think, of these, Pollack makes the best point:

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that everything you say is right. President Obama gets himself elected. He successfully enacts health reform, but he leaves out an individual mandate. Indeed, let's suppose that we later discover that too many people fail to buy insurance coverage or try to free-ride. We would have to address these problems.

In the meanwhile, all we will have accomplished would be:

1. to bar insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions;
2. to provide significant financial subsidies to millions of low-income people to help them buy coverage;
3. to prevent people from losing their homes because they are diagnosed with cancer;
4. to cover all children;
5. to make safety-net providers (and the local governments that run them) more financially secure because they no longer bear the burden of treating 47 million uninsured people.

I'd be pretty darned happy with this outcome--although I (like you) would ultimately prefer "Medicare for All" or some other version of a single-payer system.

This really is a question of incremental progress. Clinton's plan is more aggressive than Obama's. But, obviously, the new president will not be writing any laws; that's Congress's job. The best plan may not be the one that looks best on paper, but rather the plan that will be the most painless to get passed through Congress. Once either of these plans is passed, we will set in motion a march towards real universal health care: a single-payer system. Clearly, the current state of our health insurance system is abysmal, but it is unrealistic to expect it to become perfect overnight. If the next president can at least get the ball rolling, the public will stop seeing universal health care (or "privatized medicine," as the health insurance industry calls it) as an albatross.

The insurance companies tell us that "privatized medicine" means that we will have exorbitant wait times at hospitals, that we won't be able to get prescription drugs, and that the sky will fall. When people realize that universal health care won't stop the planet from turning, we will really turn the tide against the health insurance industry and better laws than either of the plans proposed by Obama and Clinton will be possible.

Yikes

2008-02-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

Can we hold the election tomorrow? We can't get these anti-privacy fetishists out of power soon enough.

Great Infield or The Greatest Infield?

2008-02-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

Dayn Perry of Fox Sports details the worst every-day position players in MLB, by position. Amazingly, the San Francisco Giants managed to take top honors at three out of the four infield positions. Nicely done.

Fixing the Internets

2008-01-31T14:24:00.000-08:00

$100 billion

We will spend twice that in Iraq this year. $100 billion will bring fibre to every home and business in the country.

We need to to do this.

No no no no no no no no no

2008-01-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

Harris to Portland?

Portland is getting Oden back next year; they're already pretty good. Add Devin Harris to that mix and look out. The Mavs shouldn't be in the business of creating monster teams in the Western Conference.

Jason Kidd

2008-01-28T19:43:00.001-08:00

Rumors are flying every which way that the Mavs are interested in Jason Kidd.

For the record, I think that's really lousy idea. One scenario I've heard is a package of Terry, Harris, and parts. The other is Diop, Stackhouse, parts (maybe Terry, too).

The first trade is just silly. There's no way the Mavs would give up Devin Harris for a 34-year-old point guard. I'm not really sure that Kidd is that much better than Harris right now anyway. The second trade is somewhat more reasonable, but it would still mean Devin Harris would have to come off the bench.

Jason Kidd is a great player, but Dallas just isn't a good fit for him. He's not a huge upgrade over Harris, especially considering that Harris keeps getting better by the minute. He's certainly not worth both Harris and Terry. Terry (when he's on his game) is just as good a finisher as Nowitzki and Kidd is a notoriously bad shooter.

I think the team that makes the most sense for him is Houston. He would be a force playing with McGrady and Yao. I don't think the Rockets have the pieces to get him, though. (or at least I hope they don't)

Creative Ethernet Wiring

2008-01-28T18:32:00.000-08:00

So, having just moved into a new apartment, I have been working on laying out an ethernet network. I had to overcome several obstacles, not the least of which was the location of my outbound internets connection: a Verizon box in my bedroom closet, a room in which there are no electrical outlets.

Last week, I managed to get an ethernet wire going across the tops of my kitchen cabinets to my wireless access point. Today, I ran another cable into my study through, of all places, my air conditioning vents.

May I present to you a pictorial: Daniel's Apartment Ethernet Wiring or A Lesson in How to Lose All of Your Deposit Money

The Verizon box in my closet that has no power outlets

My router, with two cables heading back into the closet (the third cable goes to my server)

Heading from the closet, through the bathroom to...

...the utility room

and then above the kitchen cabinets

How did that get there?

The next cable heading into the A/C duct

The same vent from eye level

In the study, out the other side

NFL

2008-01-28T00:10:00.001-08:00

So...the Super Bowl is in a week.

I would like to say, on the record, that I really don't care anymore. I'm really not sure which would be more upsetting to me: watching the Patriots further their dominance and clearly move ahead of the 90s Cowboys in the hierarchy of NFL dynasties, or watching the New York Giants, a team the Cowboys beat twice this year, walk away with the upset and have to suffer the next 10 years listening to Giants fans gloat.

Yuck. What a miserable outcome this Super Bowl is for Cowboys fans.

I may not even watch.

Prediction:
New York Giants 0, New England Patriots 0; NFL cancels game after 42nd overtime period and awards neither team the Lombardi Trophy

Bill Clinton

2008-01-27T23:34:00.000-08:00

Up until recently, I had been relatively noncommittal for my choice for President. If I had to rank them in order by preference, I think it would go something like this:

1) Al Gore (who I really wish had run...)
2) John Edwards (sadly, now pretty much dead)
3) Barack Obama
4) Hillary Clinton

I would have been happy with any of them, and I still will be. But in the last few weeks, I have begun to sour on the Clinton campaign. Bill Clinton had largely kept to the shadows until Iowa. But when Obama took Iowa and had some serious momentum going, Bill engaged. Since then, he has been equally as visible as Hillary -- sometimes even overshadowing her.

Now, I have always liked Bill Clinton. I thought he was a very good president. But he evidently doesn't mind getting himself or Hillary dirty in the name of winning this election. His comments the other day comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson were especially below the belt.
That, coupled with the Clinton's effort to close voting areas in Las Vegas because the Culinary Union endorsed Obama have left a foul taste in my mouth.

For me, this election is about rejecting the Bush administration in its entirety. Bush has been so bad on so many fronts, it's difficult to keep track of them all. There's Iraq, no-bid contracts to GOP-friendly companies, Plame/Libby commutation, FISA/wiretapping, frightening secrecy, Cheney's energy task force, the systematic campaign to politicize every aspect of the federal government, etc., etc., etc... But, included in that litany of misdeeds is the Rovization of politics. To be sure, politics has always been a messy business, and I don't discount that. Democracy is never a pretty process. However, I have always been repulsed by Rove's ploys to divide along racial lines, gay-baiting, and by what he did to John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary.

That's what gets me about the Clinton campaign in these past few weeks. Trying to shut down voting areas? Leave that to the Republicans, guys. And comparing Obama's win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988? That's offensive. I expect better from the Democrats, especially Bill Clinton.

I will support the Democratic nominee in November, whomever it is, (barring irrefutable evidence that he/she is a neo-nazi sympathizer or something of the like, in which case, I may move to Canada) but I am definitely now pulling for Obama to win the nomination.

Bandwidth Caps

2008-01-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

http://slashdot.org/articles/08/01/22/1659239.shtml

Bandwidth caps are a really, really bad tactical move for Time Warner. The internets, I believe, are on the brink of a major speed breakthrough in this country. With FiOS and the upcoming DOCSIS 3.0, Time Warner seems to be stuck in a time warp.

I don't have as much faith in the wireless internets as the poster above, but Time Warner is going to look pretty silly with their 8mbit capped bandwidth while the rest of the industry enters into the bandwidth arms race.

Net Neutrality

2008-01-21T16:14:00.000-08:00

AT&T is apparently thinking about filtering out BitTorrent file transfers.

OK. Plain and simple: the internets are a threat to corporate control over the discourse in this country. With TV, our national discourse is controlled by GE, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and Rupert Murdoch. The internets are a threat to that control.

The U.S. media is really a sad state of affairs now. Even when the companies controlling the media aren't actively filtering content (which they almost certainly do) they emphasize tear-jerking, emotional stories over newsworthy ones. Read this piece by former Dateline NBC journalist John Hockenberry for some good insight into how things work.

As evidence of the media's performance, consider their miserable failure to counter the administrations' constant dishonest comingling of Iraq and 9/11. In early 2005, 64% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda and 46% believed that he helped plan 9/11. Look again at those percentages. That is a terrifying percentage of the country whose knowledge of the reasons we were fighting a war was demonstrably false.

We can't expect the media to reform itself. The only way to fix it is by 1) creating our own TV station that reports actual news, or 2) find a medium other than TV. The internets are that medium. I fully expect an all-out assault from the establishment media to kill, marginalize, obfuscate, and/or discredit internets-oriented media in the coming years. Net Neutrality is only the first phase of that attack. It is essential that our next President put this fire out.

For further reading on this subject, I highly recommend Al Gore's book An Assault on Reason. Gore has a very deep understanding of these issues and their implications. Just think where we'd be if the Presidency in this country was determined by who gets more votes instead of by arbitrary, partisan Supreme Court decisions...

NFL Predictions

2008-01-17T00:12:00.001-08:00

Well...as evidenced by my picks for last week, my ability to pick NFL playoff games is wholly infallible.

Moving on...

I really want San Diego to win this game against New England. Assuming Tomlinson is healthy, there should be some room for him to run. But I just can't see Philip Rivers surviving the Bill Belichick experience. It reminds me of something my Dad said during Dave Campo's run as Cowboys head coach. He said that he tried to imagine the Cowboys in the Super Bowl with Dave Campo standing on the sidelines, in charge. Kind of funny, right? There is no way that Dave Campo was ever going to take a team to the Super Bowl. (unless, of course, he was handed the reigns to the 1995 Cowboys... I maintain that either of my cats could have coached that team to a Super Bowl win)

Likewise, I can't imagine Philip Rivers going an entire game against the Patriots without throwing at least a couple debilitating interceptions. The Chargers won't be able to overcome more than a few minor mistakes to beat the Patriots.

That being said, I'm sure as hell rooting for them. Go Chargers!

As for the NFC Championship game, I keep hearing that the Giants are red hot right now. I'm not seeing that. The Cowboys didn't show up on Sunday. I'm not sure how much credit is due the Giants for that one. Meanwhile, Green Bay dismantled Seattle last week. The Packers aren't as good as the pre-December Cowboys, but they're still pretty darn good. I expect this game will demonstrate that the Giants are still the same team that lost to the Cowboys twice in the regular season.

My only fear is that Osi Umenyiora or Michael Strahan will come around end and injure Favre. Opposing QBs will take a few hits against the Giants' pass rush. It's a good thing that there are two weeks off before the Super Bowl.

Predictions:
New England 35, San Diego 17
Green Bay 28, New York 13

Time Warner

2008-01-17T00:02:00.000-08:00

It appears that Time Warner may be moving in reverse while Comcast presses ahead towards DOCSIS 3.0.

I'm sorry...but for $45 / month, I should be able to use all of my 8 megabits 24/7 if I want to. In terms of the value of bandwidth in Japan, my 8mbit internet should only cost $1.13 / month. Obviously, American ISPs have been sitting back, collecting money from us consumers while the rest of the world actually spent some money to upgrade their backend capacity.

There ought to be mass exodus from Time Warner if they implement a bandwidth cap. Unfortunately, 99.99% of Americans have no idea how badly they're getting screwed vis-à-vis Europe and Japan.

Feel the Rudy-mentum!!

2008-01-16T00:36:00.001-08:00

As reported by TPM, in a rare cross-party race, Rudy Giuliani narrowly defeated Dennis Kucinich today (or, rather, yesterday) in the Michigan primary by fewer than 3,000 votes.

Rudy only trailed Romney by 313,141 votes. So close!

Thoughts on Open Source

2008-01-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

In the past year or so, I have become more and more opposed to Microsoft than I had in the past. Obviously, the advent of "Windows Genuine Advantage" and the draconian DRM features in Vista played a major role in my decision, but there has also been a shift in my mentality.

Over the past few months, I've done a bunch of research on open source server OSes. I have become fond of OpenBSD which, by all accounts (that I've seen), is one of the most secure operating systems in the world. The project is headed by a Canadian named Theo de Raadt and is a derivative of 4.4 BSD, which itself is a derivative of the original UNIX. de Raadt was originally a NetBSD developer, but split from the NetBSD team in the mid-90s. OpenBSD, as its name implies, is entirely open source. de Raadt is a major proponent of the open source movement and has done a lot of work getting hardware vendors to release specifications that allow open source drivers to be written.

I have installed OpenBSD several times over the past few months: first trying to get it to be a print server at my apartment, and then later to be an SMTP server up at work. I have long preferred text file configuration over Microsoft Management Console, but OpenBSD really drives that home. It is so well organized that I rarely run into problems that I have had elsewhere. It was generally a positive experience. There are some areas that they can improve on, but given their limited resources, the OpenBSD team does a tremendous job.

That experience was fresh in my mind when, on Friday, my work computer spontaneously combusted and died on me. Naturally, this is just about the worst possible weekend for this to happen. I've got a giant day coming up tomorrow, so I couldn't afford any downtime, plus I had planned on moving this weekend. Scrap those plans. Got to fix the computer.

I decided to replace most of the guts in my machine to make sure the impetus of my motherboard frying was no longer in the case. So, with the new parts in my computer, I set out to boot from my hard drives. The Windows XP loading screen flashed briefly, and then blue screened. My first beef: open source operating systems certainly aren't above crashing or bugs in general, but this would not have happened to me in Linux. If the Linux kernel supports my hardware, it's gonna boot -- or at least get me to a point where I can modify settings and change things up.

So, I decided to try out a Windows "Repair Install." I put my Windows CD in the drive, and powered on. The installer started up and everything was fine until it told me that it couldn't find any hard drives in my system. (!!) I immediately knew what the problem was: the Windows installer didn't have drivers for my RAID. The only way around this is with a floppy drive. And not just any floppy drive, but an old-school, ribbon cable floppy drive. USB floppy drives do not work with the Windows installer. Beef number two: This would *never* happen in an open source OS. Every open source OS installer that I've ever used will always let you drop to a command line and load drivers via any means available. What a miserable shortcoming in the Windows XP installer.

During the repair install, I was prompted for my product key. Damn lucky that I had been smart enough to stick my Certificate of Authenticity to the side of my case, or else this might have screwed me. Why do I need to re-enter my product key during a repair install? In fact, why should I have to enter a product key at all!? I paid $160 for that copy of Windows XP. Shouldn't that spare me from entering 20-digit, random, alphanumeric character sequences that are obnoxiously difficult to read?

Then, when things finally booted up, Windows informed me that my activation was no longer valid. I suppose the change in motherboard was suspicious. Hey, Microsoft! I'm not using the old board because it FRIED ITSELF. Luckily, I didn't have to call a Microsoft surrogate in India and explain myself. (I've had to do that before). I'm sure if I ever go and do something like that again, I will have to waste 30 minutes of my life demonstrating to Microsoft that I still have a legal Windows license.

Further souring my mood, Adobe Photoshop popped up with the same complaint. It also let me re-activate without incident. I paid over $900 for Adobe Creative Suite. I damn sure shouldn't have to call them.

If this had been an OpenBSD computer, I would have put the new motherboard in, hit the power switch and I would have been done. I could copy my OS onto 25 computers, and I wouldn't violate any license. I could modify the source code, compile it, put it in a propriety box of my own, and sell it for millions of dollars and I still wouldn't violate any license. Legally, I wouldn't owe Theo de Raadt a dime. Of course, if that happened, I would make a large donation to the OpenBSD project, but I would be under no obligation to do so.

So, after the events of this weekend, my stance against Microsoft has hardened. My intention is for Windows XP to be the last Microsoft OS that I ever use. If I can help it, it will also be the last Microsoft operating system that my company uses. I am hoping, that by the time Microsoft ends its support for XP, Linux will have made itself a viable alternative. There are a few things that need to happen before I can recommend Linux for my company, but those things CAN happen, and I fully expect them to.

There are three software packages that my company uses that have no Linux counterparts. Two of them are very specialized packages made especially for my industry. The vendors for said packages are relatively small and ought to be interested in what I have to say, given that I represent a rather large client. I will inform them that we are going to be moving to Linux at some point before the end of Windows XP's support period and that, if they do not intend to port their programs to Linux, we will need to begin exploring alternatives in the near future.

I feel a little like a caged animal here. When a company behaves like Microsoft, I should be able to react by ceasing to do business with them. But I can't. They're a monopoly and I have to use their software. So, I press forward and deal with the problems and expenses that come with using Microsoft software. But at some point, they're going to push me to the point where I will make some sacrifices to avoid using their products.

More politics...

2008-01-09T01:16:00.000-08:00

I must admit... I did not see Hillary pulling this one out. What an interesting race this is. John Edwards, who I think is a great candidate and well-liked across the country just doesn't have a chance next to the mega-candidacies of Clinton and Obama.

My Dad said earlier that this is the best presidential election since 1960. The Democratic primary race was between four extremely high profile politicians: Kennedy, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, and Adlai Stephenson. The Republicans meahwhile, had Nixon, Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller running. What a group! Three Presidents, and the rest all very well-known guys.

He thinks that this one may be even better. I think 1960 probably still wins unless Al Gore enters the race. The smattering of politicians isn't quite as impressive this time around, but Clinton and Obama are certainly unique. I mean, either of them would have just killed John Kerry four years ago. Edwards, who is much stronger now due to his 2004 notoriety, is still a 3rd wheel at best.

I do think that the ramifications of this election are much more important than in 1960. Civil Rights and the Cold War are certainly not issues to scoff at, but the county really is in a perilous situation now. Never before has America been so universally hated around the world. I don't care how powerful we are; we only make up 3% of the world's population. It is not good foreign policy to go around pissing 97% of the world off. Yet, though the arrogance and stupidity of the Bush/Cheney trainwreck, we have pulled that off. We have squandered the good will of the rest of the world that our predecessors had painstakingly built for the first 220 years of our existence. People around the world used to dream of coming to America for a new start on life. Now we have to wear sweat shirts with a prominent maple leaf sewn on the front when we travel abroad.

The Iraq war has done unmeasurable harm to our volunteer army. Never again will our government be able to look potential recruits in the eye and say "We will not take advantage of the sacrifice you made for your country." We have taken these people who have put their lives on the line for us and treated them like absolute crap. When they go off to war, we don't adequately arm them. When they come home, we don't adequately provide medical care, especially for post-traumatic stress syndrome. When we say their obligations are over, we renege and send them back to Iraq again and again. How are people so thoroughly brainwashed that they accuse people like me of not "supporting the troops."

But I digress. This election is important not only for the tactical moves the next President will make or the policies that he or she will enact. It is important for the future of our country that we regain the respect of the world. This country is doomed to failure if the world looks at America and sees an arrogant country, wantonly displaying its military strength expecting everyone else to cower in fear. And while John McCain or some of the other Republicans may very well make decent Presidents, we must show the world that we repudiate these disastrous past 8 years by *not* electing another Republican.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.
- Theodore Roosevelt

It's Comcastic!

2008-01-09T01:02:00.000-08:00

Clearly, Comcast must read my blog.

I certainly can't think of any other explanation for this.

If DOCSIS 3.0 can get up and running quickly, maybe the sky really isn't falling. It's nice to know that American companies are evidently concerned the internets are 1/20 as fast here as they are in Japan. I figured FiOS would spur a response from the friendly, neighborhood cable companies, but it seems they feel a threat not only from 15mbps fibre, but from Europeans who can stream four simultaneous HD movies for $10/month.

Tomorrow, I will be moving to an apartment where FiOS is available. I hope that by this time next year, the cable companies will make me think about switching. The only way this thing is going to get fixed is if there is an arms race between TelCo and cable.

On a side note that makes me laugh, one company that's just got to be hating this is Sony. They finally win a format war, only to have their victory spoiled within days by a technology that will allow people to download an entire HD movie in 4 minutes. Tee heehee. Two years from now, people will be chunking their Blu ray players into the closet on top of the old Betamax. And, of all companies not to see this coming... a company from Japan! Nice going, guys.

New Hampshire Primary

2008-01-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

Things to watch:

On the Democratic side, obviously, Hillary Clinton needs a strong showing. Obama could get some serious momentum going with a big win. The latest polls show Obama with a double-digit lead. Hillary may be in serious trouble.

As for the Republicans, things are, as always, highly entertaining. We have the odd dynamic of the national leader, and winner of the Iowa Caucuses (Huckabee) as a total non-factor. There aren't many evangelical Republicans in NH, and that's not a good thing for Huck. This primary is between McCain and Romney. Thompson is a dead man walking, and Guiliani has employed the patented Wesley Clark "ignore Iowa and New Hampshire" strategy which worked so well for Wes.

I didn't watch, but apparently Romney killed at the GOP debate earlier today. (Feel the Mittmentum!) He has to overcome two unprecedented anti-endorsements from the big NH daily newspapers, but this debate might give him an edge.

A big wildcard is where the independent voters decide to vote. If more than expected vote in the Republican primary, that will give McCain a boost. I don't see that happening, though. With the general dissatisfaction with Dubya, the Iraq War, and with all the momentum that Obama is generating, independents will be with the Democrats tomorrow. I'm not sure which of the Dem candidates that helps... probably Obama.

Thoughts on the NFL

2008-01-06T21:50:00.000-08:00

A few thoughts from this weekend's playoff teams:

San Diego:

San Diego is a really interesting team. They are essentially trying to copy the early 90's Cowboys formula with the "triplets" (and by hiring Norv Turner). The problem is that I'm not really sure that formula is possible under the salary cap. The 90's Cowboys pounded people into submission with their giant offensive line. They had hall of fame quality players in Aikman, Smith, Irvin, and Novacek on the offense, but what really made them *great* was the combination of those players with the line. Emmitt Smith didn't have to work his ass off for every yard. Nate Newton and Erik Williams handed him 3 yards on a silver platter every time he took a handoff. Likewise, Aikman was rarely running for his life when he dropped back to pass.

I'm not sold on the Chargers offensive line. The Titans made Tomlinson look like Julius Jones today. Maybe Albert Haynesworth is just that good, but I don't think so. Tomlinson is past the point in his career where he is going to rip defenses apart without any help. Don't get me wrong, he's still really, really good, but he's past his absolute peak.

Plus, I still think they never should have gotten rid of Drew Brees. Philip Rivers looks like Troy Aikman. Hell, he might be about as talented as Aikman. But, like Aikman, he is most effective at the helm of a super-team. He can't move much in the pocket, so his receivers have to get open quickly. And, with the exception of Gates, his receivers aren't much to write home about. Brees can move around a little and he's smarter than Rivers.

I don't see them going much of anywhere this year. They're just not good enough to beat the Colts in Indy. This offseason, they need to go after a big-time wide receiver. If Antonio Gates isn't the only receiver commanding a double-team, they will be dangerous. An upgrade in the O-Line wouldn't hurt either.

Jacksonville:

Now this is an interesting team. Forget Minnesota; the team with the best 1-2 running back punch is the Jaguars. I can't believe Fred Taylor is still good! He was always great when he wasn't hurt, but I just assumed all of the injuries would have caught up with him by now.

Meanwhile, the Patriots have their worst nightmare staring at them in this next game. New England's defense is really good at scheming to stop a passing game and confuse a quarterback, but they're not particularly physical and they're really, really old. A big-time running game is exactly what they don't want to see this next round.

Still, it will be an up-hill climb for the Jags. They need to play relatively conservatively. Their key will be to dominate the time of possession. Mike Martz/Andy Reid-style play calling will kill them. No flea flickers. No surprise onside kicks. Those plays will just end up giving Tom Brady more chances to kill them. They need to consistently get good yardage on 1st down so they aren't forced into 3rd-and-longs. Garrard isn't good enough to beat New England by himself. If the defense can force a turnover here and there, they might have a shot.

New York Giants:

The Cowboys are writing thank you notes to Mike Holmgren for beating the Redskins. We never did really have a good game against them this year and I was really scared to play them again. Now, Eli Manning -- I don't mind that so much.

The Giants without Shockey aren't that imposing. They still have their super pass rush. If Umenyiora and Strahan have big days, the Cowboys could be in trouble, but I don't see it.

This is all assuming, of course, that the pre-December Cowboys show up next week. If the team that lost to Philadelphia and barely beat Carolina shows up, all bets are off.

Seattle:

Seattle is a little more dangerous than the Giants. Hasselbeck can get in a good grove and put up some points. The ghost of Shaun Alexander isn't much of a threat at running back. I think they might upset Green Bay, but only if it isn't 5 degrees and snowing.

That game will be about Favre. If he plays like he did in the first half against Dallas, Seattle might win by 20 points.

Predictions:

Jacksonville 31, New England 21
Indianapolis 24, San Diego 17
Green Bay 35, Seattle 31
Dallas 31, NY Giants 13

I had to pick at least one upset... :) Dirk Nowitzki will send Brady a condolence card.

High Entertainment

2007-12-29T13:29:00.000-08:00

This campaign -- for a political junkie like me -- has been a lot of fun. I've been anticipating these few days before the Iowa caucuses for some time now and, so far, the candidates are delivering -- well, at least the Republicans are anyway.

I always thought Giuliani would have to survive some serious hits to win the nomination. After all, he is on his third wife, who was his mistress while he was mayor of New York. He is estranged from his children. Video footage exists of him dressed in drag, kissing Donald Trump. (I'm still waiting for Mike Huckabee to use that in one of his ads). His close friend and former chief of police, Bernie Kerik is in all sorts of trouble with mob ties. He has no real foreign policy experience. Well, all of that has come out, plus Shag-gate where we find out that Giuliani hid the fact that he was using city money to protect his mistress with NYPD escorts. He now claims that everything was "transparent." Right... that's generally the way people handle their mistresses -- with transparency. I'm sure wife #2 knew what was going on.

It appears that Giuliani's strategy to overcome his growing pile of scandals is to say "9/11" as often as possible -- even if it has no relevancy to what he's saying. (Actually, that was his original campaign strategy, too. It's just become a little more desperate lately.) Like today, for instance, in response to John McCain questioning his national security experience, Giuliani responded, "Well, all of us have our different experiences that we rely on. I would say that my experience goes back well before Sept. 11."

I'm not sure how 9/11 gives Rudy national security experience. To whatever extent Rudy was involved in national security on 9/11, he did a really shitty job.

Then there's Mitt Romney. Romney, as you are likely aware, is a former governor of Massachusetts. Now, in order to be elected governor of Massachusetts as a Republican, one has to take some rather liberal positions -- and Romney did. Now, just couple years later, Romney has positioned himself so far to the right, an average person could easily mistake him for a rabid dog during his speeches. Mitt is against evolution, global warming, taxes, stem cells, jihadists, big government, and hippies. Oh, and he really hates Mexicans -- er... immigrants. Unfortunately for Mitt, he was for most of those things about two weeks ago -- and there's video evidence. All of this has culminated a vociferous "anti-endorsement" editorial from the Concord Monitor where the paper calls him a "phony." Not to be outdone, the Union-Leader blasted Romney for making a "string of demonstrably false claims." Ouch.

It's getting interesting going into the final few days. The Republican "first tier" has 5 members: Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, Thompson (sort of), and McCain. McCain's out of money, Huckabee doesn't know anything about Pakistan... My prediction: a 5-way tie for last place. As Bill Kristol said the other day, this thing has a chance to go to the convention. Of course, Kristol also thinks that Dick Cheney will emerge as the candidate and then beat the Democrat in November. I don't see why not... Cheney is beloved by all and is always honest with the American people. (A side note: evidently, the New York Times was so impressed with Kristol's bold prediction that they have decided to hire him. I predict that Benito Mussolini will emerge from the depths of hell and storm the GOP convention. Can I have a job too?)

Yikes

2007-12-11T10:41:00.000-08:00

Orwellian/Rovian Scary Misinformation Campaign of the Day:

The War is Over!

2007-11-15T23:58:00.000-08:00

It just seems wrong of her now to be dating your clock radio.

- Alan Shore

Robertson and Giuliani

2007-11-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

Pat Robertson, who, in 2001, said that we were attacked because "God Almighty is lifting his protection from us" due to abortions, and the lack of Christian religion in our government and schools has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for President.

Of course, Rudy is a long-standing pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, relatively secular politician who is twice divorced.

c/o Huffington Post

My only question is this: which one of these guys is the bigger hypocrite...?

Waterboarding

2007-11-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

Waterboarding.

In the U.S. Senate, they have been debating whether or not it constitutes torture over the past few weeks. Well, it hasn't been much of a debate, actually. Our soon-to-be U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasky has refused to say whether or not he believes it to be torture. Of course, it clearly is. To any sane person, forcing somebody believe they are drowning is torture. Period.

Years ago, I was swimming in my Aunt and Uncle's pool. I was in the deep end and decided to swim across to the other side. So, I dove under and kicked off. When I got to the other side, I had been under water for a little longer than I normally do, so I headed up to get some air. But one of my cousins inadvertently got between me and the surface. He delayed me getting some oxygen by only a matter of seconds, but those two seconds are vividly implanted in my mind. I don't remember anything else from that day. I couldn't tell you what the occasion was or even who all was there, but I remember the sensation for a split second that I might not be able to get to the surface for air. It was not a sensation that I care to relive.

Of course, it shouldn't even be up for debate whether intentionally triggering the natural human drowning panic reflex is torture. The only reason that this is an issue is because George W. Bush needs waterboarding to not be torture so that he hasn't been breaking the law since 2003.

Bush's actions don't surprise me, as they shouldn't surprise anybody. He has shown his colors. What is surprising is the behavior of the Democrats in the Senate. 34 years ago, Richard Nixon appointed Elliot Richardson to Attorney General. The Democrats, suspecting foul play, insisted that Richardson appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Watergate break-in as a condition of Senate confirmation. John Dean, Nixon's White House Counsel, discusses the parallel:

Nixon’s Attorney General had been removed (and was later prosecuted for lying to Congress) – a situation not unlike Alberto Gonzales’s leaving the job under such a cloud. Nixon was under deep suspicion of covering up the true facts relating to the bungled break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, not to mention widespread rumors that he had engaged in abuses of power and corrupt campaign practices. Today, Bush is under even deeper suspicion for activities far more serious than anything Nixon engaged in for there is evidence Bush has abused the laws of war, violated treaties, and ordered (or approved) the use of torture and political renditions, which are war crimes.

Since Judge Mukasey’s situation is not unlike that facing Elliot Richardson when he was appointed Attorney General during Watergate, why should not the Senate Judiciary Committee similarly make it a quid pro quo for his confirmation that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate war crimes? Richardson was only confirmed when he agreed to appoint a special prosecutor, which, of course, he did. And when Nixon fired that prosecutor, Archibald Cox, it lead to his impeachment.

Before the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee completely cave-in to Bush, at minimum they should demand that Judge Mukasey appoint a special prosecutor to investigate if war crimes have been committed. If Mukasey refuses he should be rejected. This, indeed, should be a pre-condition to anyone filling the post of Attorney General under Bush.

If the Democrats in the Senate refuse to demand any such requirement, it will be act that should send chills down the spine of every thinking American.

Of course, the Democrats aren't demanding a special prosecutor. They aren't even demanding that he say whether or not he believes that waterboarding is torture. This pathetic display by the party thrust into power in 2006 by a public disgusted by the Bush presidency is indeed chilling. If Charles Schumer can't grow a backbone, how can we reasonably expect rank and file Democrats to find one?

I'll let Keith Olbermann take it from here:

How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison.

- Al Gore, May 26, 2004

Nauseating Programmer Joke of the Day

2007-11-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

re·cur·sion [ri-kûr'zhum]
n. See recursion.

c/o a dork from ubuntu

hehe

2007-10-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

Red Sox fans sure took notice fast. After their team won the title for the second time in four seasons, they stood behind the visitors' dugout at Coors Field and chanted: "Don't sign A-Rod!"

Update:

I hope A-Rod signs with San Francisco. That way, as he approaches Barry Bonds's home run record, even his home team fans will boo him. Either that, or the Tampa Bay owner could sign him in a bout of insanity and A-Rod would be banished to a perpetual 90-loss team and 20 trips every year to Yankee Stadium.

A-Rod

2007-10-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

Couple things...

First, A-Rod, as always, shows utmost class when his contracts are up. This time he even upped the ante by announcing that he was opting out of the largest contract in the history of mankind (and turning down the Yankees' offer to pay him even more) during game 4 of the World Series.

But, secondly, I want to know why George Steinbrenner didn't expect this? There's a reason that A-Rod creates mortal enemies of the fans of every team he leaves (or spurns, like Boston). Now he has earned the ire of the largest fan base in baseball. Good luck with that, A-Rod. Future trips to Yankee Stadium are not going to be very pleasant for you. Might want to sign in the National League.

On the bright side, though, this is great for the Rangers who have been paying a chunk of A-Rod's salary. Jon Daniels now has an extra $10 million to work with for the next three seasons. Here's hoping they don't screw it up.

(aw hell... they're going to screw it up... never mind)

2007-10-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I should expand on the preceding post.

I just got back from a week-long trip with some friends to Colorado. I have been with my family to Colorado every summer since 1989 except for 2003 -- late July to early August. When my Dad told me he wasn't going to go this year, I decided that I, with my own "income" and all, would just go myself. The mountains are an excellent relaxing agent. I know that I am at my best in the "real world" in the immediate weeks after I get back. I highly recommend spending a week in Ouray, Colorado if you need to get away. It's not very expensive and it's the prettiest place I've seen in the continental US.

I had never been to Colorado during the fall before, and I was really surprised by how pretty the Aspen trees are. They are bright green during the summer, but they turn almost fluorescent yellow in October. From a distance, they almost make it look like the surrounding pine trees are on fire.

Fake looking Aspen Trees

Same area, Autostitched together

On our last day in Ouray, we drove down the Million Dollar Highway, (aka US 550), to Silverton. Silverton was also once a mining town, but now serves a gift shop at the top of the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, albeit a very pretty one with very old buildings. Buildings that once were saloons and brothels, now sell T-shirts and postcards. We rode the train down to Durango -- an unbelievably scenic ride, especially in fall foliage. I highly recommend putting down the $45 and making the trip. I took some movies from the train that I will post after I've had some time to edit.

They use coal-powered stream engines, built in the 1920s

A shot taken from the train

The Animas River, from the train

Our luxurious cabin was about 10'x10' and provided electricity, but no plumbing and no bedding.

Luxurious!

More to come later. I'm tired of uploading pictures.

The Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad

2007-10-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the finest way to get yourself covered in soot.

Posted from my iPhone.

30-3

2007-08-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

My baseball team, the Texas Rangers, is 18 games back in the standings. And that's after their comparatively strong play after the All Star break. In the first few months of the season, they were historically bad in several facets of their game. So, being an avid baseball fan, I am very happy that, for the first time this season (to my knowledge), the Rangers did something that was clearly the most important sporting news of a particular day: they did something that hasn't been done in 110 years.

That, and they caused ESPN's Tim Kurkjian to make this phone call:

The Internets are Too Slow!

2007-08-12T22:14:00.000-07:00

I've been using computers now for about 15 years. My first computer was the powerful (ok...not really -- even back then) Macintosh LC II. The LC II featured a mighty 80MB hard drive, a 16MHz Motorola 68030 processor, and 4MB of RAM, expandable to 10.

Since then, almost every facet of computing has increased in speed/size etc... at an incredible exponential pace. I currently run a computer with two processors, each running at 2GHz, over 250 times the clock speed of my LC II -- and, due to other advances in processor technology, is effectively much more than 250 times faster. This weekend, I configured a server with 4GB of RAM, or 1,024 times as much as my LC II had. And, at my office, I have a network attached storage unit that has 1TB of storage space, or 13,107 times the capacity of my old 80MB drive.

The speed of Internets connections followed a similar path -- at least for awhile. I first started using the Internets in the mid 90s. My first connection was to an ISP called OnRamp over a 14.4kbps modem. 14.4kbps begot 28.8 which begot 56k. Soon after, I got my first broadband connection through Marcus Cable, later Charter. While that was a nightmarish experience due to Marcus/Charter's total lack of competence, it was certainly fast when it worked.

I soon fired Charter and switched over to August.net DSL around 1997-98. I was getting 1mbps and it was really nice. And then came Sprint ION. Sprint's ill-fated ION service was a DSL/IP telephony combination that was in beta testing. We ran our phones over the DSL line and the data was totally uncapped. In 1999, I was getting over 7mbps (nearly 500 times faster than a 14.4kbps modem) and I was getting it for free thanks to the money-hemorrhaging folks at Sprint.

But, then, suddenly, the advancement in speed stopped. I have never, in the 7 years since Sprint cancelled the ION program, had an Internets connection as fast as I had in 1999. I'm close -- my Time Warner cable service gets me over 6mbps. About 40 feet to my north, the fine citizens of Plano, TX have access to Verizon's FiOS service which offers a 15mbps package at a reasonable price. So, there has been a little progress, but nothing like similar progress in computer hardware technology.

Business Internets service is even more backwards than the residential realm. My business has the incredible misfortune of being just out of the reach of the cable network, so our options are DSL -- and crappy DSL at that -- or a T1. T1s are absolutely ancient technology. They costed about $1,500/month in 1997, and they cost about $700/month now. Running at about 20% as fast as my old Sprint ION service, T1s are very reliable and very, very, very slow. More than one Internets salesman has tried to convince me to buy a T1 for my office, arguing that their superior reliability somehow justifies their brobdingnagian cost, but I would sooner set my hair on fire than pay for a T1. So, we settled for SDSL, at 1.5mbps -- shared by the entire company. This is, in fact the only time I can think of when I have ever yearned for the superior technology of something 8 years in the past.

So, there you have it. The Internets have stalled. I accepted that fact, and moved on -- until a few months ago when I received a phone call from one of my business partners. Said partner offices across the street (where cable service is available, much to my chagrin) and recently moved here from Sweden. He was calling to complain that his Internets connection was slow. I had him run a speed test and he was getting 2.6mbps which was about right for his 3mbps DSL service. So, I walked across the street figuring that he probably had a massive spyware infestation causing his computer to run slowly. But, instead of spyware, I discovered that, unlike just about every other person that I work with, this guy actually understood what 2.6mbps meant. He told me that, back in Sweden, he had a 100mbps connection and that 2.6mbps was painfully slow.

100mbps!!?? Surely he was talking about his internal network ethernet speed.. Nope, he insisted; 100mbps is fairly common over there -- and not expensive either. Suffice to say, I had a hard time believing him. If Europe had Internets connections 66 times faster than my office DSL, surely there would be some fuss about it. People would be picketing in front of Time Warner headquarters, demanding faster Internets. There would be riots! I mean, think of the fantastic competitive disadvantage America would have if Europe was light years ahead in Internets speed.

Well...it's true. In Japan, you can pay $10/month to get 100mbps. I pay $45/month for my 6mbps. Apparently, the telecom industry pocketed the money that it would have taken to improve our infrastructure and, decided to deliver crappy service instead. Imagine that. Europeans have enough bandwidth to view 4 uncompressed high definition video streams simultaneously while we are stuck with YouTube.

So, spread the word, all both of you who read my blog. People need to know about this. It's totally unacceptable.

Bourne

2007-08-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

After watching The Borne Ultimatum the other day, my friend Brian and I noted the obvious sequel set-up at the end of the movie. We've been compiling a list of potential names for the fourth Jason Borne movie.

The Bourne Mundanity

The Bourne Monotony and its DVD release, The Bourne Redundancy

The Bourne FATALITY in which Jason Bourne adds moves from Mortal Kombat to his repertoire

The Bourne Ambiguity in which Jason Bourne struggles with his sexuality.

The Bourne Senility

The Bourne Infidelity

The Bourne Polygamy in which Jason Bourne overcomes infidelity

The Bourne Liquidity in which Jason Bourne converts his assets to cash

The Bourne Frivolity

The Bourne Endoplasmic Reticulum in which Jason Bourne studies cellular biology

The Bourne Again Identity in which Jason Bourne finds religion

The Bourne Infertility in which Jason Bourne becomes the face of erectile dysfunction

The Bourne Quietude in which Jason Bourne must conduct a series of frenetic car chases inaudibly

Fair and Balanced

2007-07-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

President Bush Thursday:

Uh...first of all, I thought the Scooter Libby decision was a fair and balanced decision.

Did he just say "fair and balanced?"

Bush was responding to a question posing whether he was discouraged that a member of his administration had intentionally leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent. It's worth watching his response...take a look: (courtesy of Talking Points Memo)

So, clearly he has acknowledged that somebody in his administration did, in face, leak Valerie Plame's identity. Makes you wonder if he forgot about the time when he said this:

I don't know if anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

...or the time that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said this:

The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in [the Plame leaking], they would no longer be in this administration.

When Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence, there was a large portion of the media that cheered the decision. They said that there was "no underlying crime" and that, because Libby wasn't the original leaker, he shouldn't have to go to prison. Both of those assertions are very dishonest. The people saying that stuff must believe that, because the general public doesn't really know what's going on, they can just sweep this under the rug and get back to pretty missing white girl stories that bring in their ratings.

Let's review the Plame scandal from the beginning:

1) In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said that Saddam Hussein had been trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. That discovery, Bush said, was one of the main reasons that he wanted to invade Iraq. Problem was, it wasn't true. Further, Bush knew it wasn't true when he said it -- or at least the State Department knew, and had known for 6 months. The CIA had determined that the documents upon which the President's statement was based were "obvious forgeries."

2) The man who lead the CIA investigation to Niger to investigate the alleged yellowcake purchase was Joseph Wilson, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Upon hearing the State of the Union speech, Wilson wrote an Op-Ed piece that was published in the New York Times. Wilson, apparently, didn't approve of the President telling bald-face lies in his State of the Union address.

Robert Novak,
Douchebag of Liberty

3) Shortly thereafter, Douchebag of Liberty Robert Novak published an article that, among other things, revealed the fact that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson was a (now formerly) covert CIA agent. Turns out, someone in the Bush administration leaked her name to Novak and to a few other journalists.

So, in retribution for daring to point out a major flaw in the State of the Union speech, the Bush administration responded by ruining the career of Wilson's wife, revealing classified information to the public, and destroying all of the connections and contacts she had made while acting as an undercover agent. So, again...no underlying crime. I wonder what George H. W. Bush thinks about this whole mess...

I could go on ... and I will later, but you (all both of you) probably aren't still reading. To be continued.

Garland's "Finest"

2007-07-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

Mark Teixeira vs. Michael Young

2007-07-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Teixiera:

"You never hear teams that win World Series with Scott Boras clients on their rosters complain," Teixeira said. "When I was drafted out of Georgia Tech, Scott Boras told Tom Hicks that I was going to be a big-time hitter for his team. I think that worked out pretty well.

"When it comes to me, I think the Rangers should be thanking Scott Boras every day. I was about five hours from not signing and going back to school."

Young: (subscription required)

Michael Young didn't get into the All-Star Game and still went into Jim Leyland's office to thank him for being selected and being there. "I'm sorry I didn't get you in," said Leyland. "Stop it," said Young. "I'm honored to have been here."

You can't win in professional sports without talent, and, unfortunately, the world's best athletes are not always the world's best human beings. I don't mean to pile on Mark Teixiera...there are certainly worse things in this world than a little arrogance. Still, though, Michael Young is a refreshing reminder that talent and class can, in fact, coexist in the same person.

a blog...

2007-07-07T13:54:00.001-07:00

I am proud to announce my creation of an exciting new medium on the "internets," a series of tubes, called a web log, which I will call "blog" for short.

These "blogs" will revolutionize the way people interact, thrusting the world into a new age of hyper-modern communication. They will become an important force in American politics by allowing the people to hold their politicians and the traditional media to account in real time.

This blog marks the beginning of that revolution. And I'm going to get right on it as soon as I finish this game of Starcraft.

- President George W. Bush

- Senator Ted Stevens (R, AK)

Spatula City

Web Browsers

2009 Rangers (nearly) postmortem

Health Care

Lipstick on a pig...

Not another dead blog...

Whoo hoo!

National Alarm Clock

CNN Newsworthy Event of the Day

McCain's Op Ed That Wasn't

What digby (and Jimmy Carter) said

Let's go Rangers!!

FISA

Gaggle of Douchebags

Torture

What Digby Said

Saint McCain

Dodd!

More on the FISA "Compromise"

Rambling Sundry Thoughts on Current Happenings with the Texas Rangers

On the new FISA "Compromise"

Privatizing the Military

MSNBC Channeling Karl Rove

Wow

Stars, redux

Thoughts on the Stars

McCain's Iraq Strategy

Mark Penn is the Smartest Man Alive

What is CNN thinking?

Worked Out For Both Teams...

Exxon

Our National Discourse

Radio Silence on Military Analyst Scandal

Final Thoughts on Rev. Wright (promise)

More Reverend Wright

More Propaganda

Reverend Wright

Mavs Rip Fans' Hearts Out (again)

Rangers Hit Rock Bottom (again)

Straight Talk Express

Microsoft and OOXML

Propaganda

Basketball

Journalism

Rangers

Fast

Yahoo! Sports!

Glenn Beck

Anti-intellectualism

wow

Obama's Speech and Various Other Ramblings

CNN: The Most Trusted Name in News

Josh Marshall Wins Polk Award

Ye Olde GOP Slime Machine

Obama at Reunion Arena

Here Come the Rangers!!

Shenanigans in Washington State

Fry's

Attorney General Mukasey: It's Legal If My Department Says It's Legal

Shaq to Phoenix?

Health Insurance

Yikes

Great Infield or The Greatest Infield?

Fixing the Internets

No no no no no no no no no

Jason Kidd

Creative Ethernet Wiring

NFL

Bill Clinton

Bandwidth Caps

Net Neutrality

NFL Predictions

Time Warner

Feel the Rudy-mentum!!

Thoughts on Open Source

More politics...

It's Comcastic!

New Hampshire Primary

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