More on Minnesota
(Rereading the article, it appears Minnesota does not identify party registration on its lists of eligible voters, so the GOP's effort does make some sense, but still....aren't they flirting with the possibility of a backlash? Is it that hard to target their base? What is really going on?)
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Wilson's Veracity
One thing that is beginning to bother me regarding the entire Joseph Wilson truth-telling brouhaha is whether or not the combatants are talking about different periods of time. Most of the supposed contacts between Iraq and Niger were said to have taken place in 1999 or earlier. In 2002, Wilson was dispatched to evaluate whether anything recent had happened in Niger. So - what period of time are we discussing here - old news (1999 or earlier) or new news (2000 and later)?
In any event, to me, the damage done to Wilson so far appears slight. The Republicans don't have a lot going for them, and the continued sniping just brings unwanted attention again and again and again to those precious 16 words.
One thing that is beginning to bother me regarding the entire Joseph Wilson truth-telling brouhaha is whether or not the combatants are talking about different periods of time. Most of the supposed contacts between Iraq and Niger were said to have taken place in 1999 or earlier. In 2002, Wilson was dispatched to evaluate whether anything recent had happened in Niger. So - what period of time are we discussing here - old news (1999 or earlier) or new news (2000 and later)?
In any event, to me, the damage done to Wilson so far appears slight. The Republicans don't have a lot going for them, and the continued sniping just brings unwanted attention again and again and again to those precious 16 words.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
The Party Wants to Know!
"But it's not as if we're asking for Social Security number and make and model and serial number of car. We're asking for party preference," he said. "Party preference is not something that is such a personal piece of data."
Actually it's the most important thing to know, isn't it? But that's available on the list of registered voters anyway. So why ask? I suspect the point is not to identify party preferences, but rather the snoopiest, most effective volunteers. For more important missions, to come soon!
"But it's not as if we're asking for Social Security number and make and model and serial number of car. We're asking for party preference," he said. "Party preference is not something that is such a personal piece of data."
Actually it's the most important thing to know, isn't it? But that's available on the list of registered voters anyway. So why ask? I suspect the point is not to identify party preferences, but rather the snoopiest, most effective volunteers. For more important missions, to come soon!
Ad Buys and Battleground States
There was an interesting article in the Sunday New York Times showing where the Bush and Kerry campaigns are buying television advertising (maps unfortunately appear only in the print edition). Not surprisingly, most of the money is going into places considered electoral toss-ups. Nevertheless, there are some battleground areas where very little money is being spent, and I find that a puzzle.
For example, despite large TV ad buys in New Mexico (my home state), there appears to be nothing happening in the Las Cruces area (second-largest city in the state). That's no doubt because Las Cruces is far from Albuquerque, the state's largest city, but much closer to El Paso, Texas, and since Texas is considered a Bush lock, little advertising is coming their way. Nevertheless, the state went for Gore by just a few hundred votes in 2000, and it would seem just prudent for both campaigns to toss some money into the El Paso TV market. What gives?
Similarly, entire states are being neglected that have shown rather close margins in recent polls. For example, Tennessee. Or North and South Carolina. Arizona too (I wonder how solid those recent polls are that showed a Bush surge there after McCain squelched the Democratic veep talk, given how equivocal the polls had been before? Times, they may be a changin'.)
There's a lot of room for mistakes here!
There was an interesting article in the Sunday New York Times showing where the Bush and Kerry campaigns are buying television advertising (maps unfortunately appear only in the print edition). Not surprisingly, most of the money is going into places considered electoral toss-ups. Nevertheless, there are some battleground areas where very little money is being spent, and I find that a puzzle.
For example, despite large TV ad buys in New Mexico (my home state), there appears to be nothing happening in the Las Cruces area (second-largest city in the state). That's no doubt because Las Cruces is far from Albuquerque, the state's largest city, but much closer to El Paso, Texas, and since Texas is considered a Bush lock, little advertising is coming their way. Nevertheless, the state went for Gore by just a few hundred votes in 2000, and it would seem just prudent for both campaigns to toss some money into the El Paso TV market. What gives?
Similarly, entire states are being neglected that have shown rather close margins in recent polls. For example, Tennessee. Or North and South Carolina. Arizona too (I wonder how solid those recent polls are that showed a Bush surge there after McCain squelched the Democratic veep talk, given how equivocal the polls had been before? Times, they may be a changin'.)
There's a lot of room for mistakes here!
What a Crock!
July 20, 2004 Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- President Bush said Tuesday his re-election will ensure safety for Americans as well as for those in the rest of the world in the war against terrorism.
"After four years more in this office I want people to look back and say, 'The world is a more peaceful place,"' Bush told supporters at a community college in Iowa. "Four more years and America will be safe and the world will be at peace."
July 20, 2004 Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- President Bush said Tuesday his re-election will ensure safety for Americans as well as for those in the rest of the world in the war against terrorism.
"After four years more in this office I want people to look back and say, 'The world is a more peaceful place,"' Bush told supporters at a community college in Iowa. "Four more years and America will be safe and the world will be at peace."
Friday, July 16, 2004
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Monday, July 12, 2004
Easterbrook Mismeasures Moore
Gregg Easterbrook tells bigger fibs than Michael Moore does (Daily Express, TNR On-line, July 12th). Moore stretches and simplifies, but he rarely lies outright. Concerning whether a B-52 was killing Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972, who is more likely to be to correct: Moore, who extrapolates from the commemoratory plaque that the bomber wouldn't have encountered a MIG unless it had been so engaged, or Easterbrook, who seems to suggest that the encounter between the B-52 and the MIG was purely accidental. It is possible to celebrate the amazing skill required to shoot down a MIG while also deploring the mission of the B-52: these are not contradictory positions. Easterbrook thinks Moore is anti-American, but maybe Easterbrook is just anti-Vietnamese. Most of the supposed errors people like SpinSanity and others seize upon are of the same sort: small technical omissions that obscure a larger and deeper truth that the rest of us can clearly see if we just open our eyes.
Gregg Easterbrook tells bigger fibs than Michael Moore does (Daily Express, TNR On-line, July 12th). Moore stretches and simplifies, but he rarely lies outright. Concerning whether a B-52 was killing Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve of 1972, who is more likely to be to correct: Moore, who extrapolates from the commemoratory plaque that the bomber wouldn't have encountered a MIG unless it had been so engaged, or Easterbrook, who seems to suggest that the encounter between the B-52 and the MIG was purely accidental. It is possible to celebrate the amazing skill required to shoot down a MIG while also deploring the mission of the B-52: these are not contradictory positions. Easterbrook thinks Moore is anti-American, but maybe Easterbrook is just anti-Vietnamese. Most of the supposed errors people like SpinSanity and others seize upon are of the same sort: small technical omissions that obscure a larger and deeper truth that the rest of us can clearly see if we just open our eyes.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Reno 911
The Monday, July 5th trip to Reno was pretty disastrous, but what was stranger was the peculiar illness that took hold of me on Wednesday. It felt much like a hangover and pretty-much debilitated me for a day (but I had just one glass of wine!) Science News suggests that hangovers may be a form of inflammation. And I do have a shin splint (either a tear or a form of inflammation, which arose inexplicably, given that I've been idle since the weekend, at the same time as the hangover). It's strange that there was such a lag between drinking the wine and the hangover, but it may have been precipitated by the cumulative effect of several nights of poor sleep. In any event, with the help of aspirin, I hope I can reassemble myself in time for 'Damn Yankees' this weekend.
The Monday, July 5th trip to Reno was pretty disastrous, but what was stranger was the peculiar illness that took hold of me on Wednesday. It felt much like a hangover and pretty-much debilitated me for a day (but I had just one glass of wine!) Science News suggests that hangovers may be a form of inflammation. And I do have a shin splint (either a tear or a form of inflammation, which arose inexplicably, given that I've been idle since the weekend, at the same time as the hangover). It's strange that there was such a lag between drinking the wine and the hangover, but it may have been precipitated by the cumulative effect of several nights of poor sleep. In any event, with the help of aspirin, I hope I can reassemble myself in time for 'Damn Yankees' this weekend.
Nostradamus
Keith over at Subway is involved in an interesting project: using numerology to interpret the writings of Nostradamus. Keith is using the writings of Nostradamus like a Web Page, and using the various quatrains as hyperlinks. So far, he has discerned that there are at least two texts hidden within the the writings of Nostradamus, one in first-person and one in third-person.
I wonder if Keith will eventually conclude, as others have, that George W. Bush is the Anti-Christ?
Keith over at Subway is involved in an interesting project: using numerology to interpret the writings of Nostradamus. Keith is using the writings of Nostradamus like a Web Page, and using the various quatrains as hyperlinks. So far, he has discerned that there are at least two texts hidden within the the writings of Nostradamus, one in first-person and one in third-person.
I wonder if Keith will eventually conclude, as others have, that George W. Bush is the Anti-Christ?
Useful Links
Stories of a list of compliant reporters who parroted Ahmad Chalabi's lies
Eerie parallels between the price of gas and Bush's popularity
Evil NASA administrators plan to ditch a satellite in perfect working order, just because they think it costs too much
Mubarak's battle against the Muslim Brotherhood
Is the Bush administration trying to spring a July surprise?
The Palms of California
and lastly, but not least:
Flesh-Eating Bacteria
(important, since Chavo actually suffered from this horrible disease last year, and lost part of his abdomen as a result.....)
Stories of a list of compliant reporters who parroted Ahmad Chalabi's lies
Eerie parallels between the price of gas and Bush's popularity
Evil NASA administrators plan to ditch a satellite in perfect working order, just because they think it costs too much
Mubarak's battle against the Muslim Brotherhood
Is the Bush administration trying to spring a July surprise?
The Palms of California
and lastly, but not least:
Flesh-Eating Bacteria
(important, since Chavo actually suffered from this horrible disease last year, and lost part of his abdomen as a result.....)
Sunday, July 04, 2004
Damn Yankees
The Davis Enterprise review came out regarding DMTC's "Damn Yankees." The reviewer wrote: "'Whatever Lola Wants' is fine, but - again - could use a bit more oomph to make it sizzle." I thought this critique was a bit odd...Megan Soto does an admirable job with her dancing. How much more oomph would be required? I thought maybe it was a matter of interpretation: Megan's cold and manipulative, vs., say, someone else's angry and fiery. A friend then pointed out that Megan's interpretation didn't have enough levels, and so the character couldn't evolve sufficiently during the show. Hmmm.... So maybe Megan had too much oomph at the beginning, and not enough at the end? I don't know, acting is all such a mystery!
The Davis Enterprise review came out regarding DMTC's "Damn Yankees." The reviewer wrote: "'Whatever Lola Wants' is fine, but - again - could use a bit more oomph to make it sizzle." I thought this critique was a bit odd...Megan Soto does an admirable job with her dancing. How much more oomph would be required? I thought maybe it was a matter of interpretation: Megan's cold and manipulative, vs., say, someone else's angry and fiery. A friend then pointed out that Megan's interpretation didn't have enough levels, and so the character couldn't evolve sufficiently during the show. Hmmm.... So maybe Megan had too much oomph at the beginning, and not enough at the end? I don't know, acting is all such a mystery!
The Producers
With Katherine Arthur, I saw the travelling Broadway show, "The Producers", on Thursday July 1st, at Sacramento's Community Center Theater. As expected, a very, very funny show! "If your intention was to shoot an arrow through my heart.....Bullseye!"
Mary Young and Peter Baldridge also saw the Thursday performance.
With Katherine Arthur, I saw the travelling Broadway show, "The Producers", on Thursday July 1st, at Sacramento's Community Center Theater. As expected, a very, very funny show! "If your intention was to shoot an arrow through my heart.....Bullseye!"
Mary Young and Peter Baldridge also saw the Thursday performance.
Fahrenheit 911
I missed the opening of F911 on the weekend, but I did catch it on Monday, June 28th. The Tower Theater was remarkably crowded for a Monday, and I had to settle for an inferior seat.
There was only one part of the movie that I considered a stretch: just prior to the recent war, Baghdad wasn't all happiness and light, and the Iraqis DID have American blood on their hands, if not so much recently, then from Gulf War I.
Nevertheless, the movie is a triumph and many of its points have needed a public audience for too long. Once again, Moore's critics are going to miss the point and go after secondary matters.
For example, immediately after I got home, I caught Joe Scarborough on MSNBC declaiming against Michael Moore. Scarborough repeatedly insisted that Moore had stated that the U.S. had gone to war in Afghanistan to safeguard UNOCAL's pipeline project: having just seen the movie a few minutes before, I knew that what Moore had said was that the Bush Administration had continued negotiating with the Taliban over the pipeline even after the African embassy bombings and the Cole incident had given us ample reason to shelve the pipeline project, and that the new leadership of Afghanistan contains former UNOCAL advisors (people like belabored President Karzai).
Scarborough's desperate efforts to punch holes in F911 continued on Tuesday night (fact-checking is an unfamiliar burden to right-wing pundits, who usually just make up stuff, and doubly frustrating too, since its so easy to get their own facts wrong...all you have to do is casually watch F911 to see how badly Scarborough screws up his own analysis).
Then there are the professional fact-checkers, people at Spin-Sanity.org, who often miss the forest for all the trees. SpinSanity chastizes Moore for using Jeffrey Toobin's point about Gore winning the 2000 election if overvotes were counted statewide in Florida, and not clarifying that this was the only scenario by which Gore would have won, when the real crime is that the overvotes WEREN'T counted because of the U.S. Supreme Court intervention. Once again, as with 'Bowling for Columbine', Moore's crime was he oversimplified the matter under consideration, in order to make his point. Gosh, flay Moore's hide for that! It's not like anyone else ever oversimplified - Rush Limbaugh, for example, or shall we say, George W. Bush and his certainty concerning Saddam's WMD?
The Saudi flights out the country after 9/11 are another point: the fact of the flights, with the need for special permission, is not nearly as important as the absence of FBI questioning of bin Laden's closest relatives and what they might have known of the plot.
Moore is right to focus attention on business connections between the Taliban, oil companies, and the Bush Administration. After all, it wasn't until recently I learned California's right-wing Republican Dana Rohrbacher lobbied on behalf of the Taliban. These connections need to be understood.
I'm thinking of following the advice of Andrew Sullivan (A Blogosphere Challenge) and taking a tape-recorder into the movie, so I can get a solid transcript of the movie so as to counter the critics more easily (and not, as Sullivan wants, so as to criticize Moore more easily). Moore has done the nation a service. We should all applaud his efforts!
I missed the opening of F911 on the weekend, but I did catch it on Monday, June 28th. The Tower Theater was remarkably crowded for a Monday, and I had to settle for an inferior seat.
There was only one part of the movie that I considered a stretch: just prior to the recent war, Baghdad wasn't all happiness and light, and the Iraqis DID have American blood on their hands, if not so much recently, then from Gulf War I.
Nevertheless, the movie is a triumph and many of its points have needed a public audience for too long. Once again, Moore's critics are going to miss the point and go after secondary matters.
For example, immediately after I got home, I caught Joe Scarborough on MSNBC declaiming against Michael Moore. Scarborough repeatedly insisted that Moore had stated that the U.S. had gone to war in Afghanistan to safeguard UNOCAL's pipeline project: having just seen the movie a few minutes before, I knew that what Moore had said was that the Bush Administration had continued negotiating with the Taliban over the pipeline even after the African embassy bombings and the Cole incident had given us ample reason to shelve the pipeline project, and that the new leadership of Afghanistan contains former UNOCAL advisors (people like belabored President Karzai).
Scarborough's desperate efforts to punch holes in F911 continued on Tuesday night (fact-checking is an unfamiliar burden to right-wing pundits, who usually just make up stuff, and doubly frustrating too, since its so easy to get their own facts wrong...all you have to do is casually watch F911 to see how badly Scarborough screws up his own analysis).
Then there are the professional fact-checkers, people at Spin-Sanity.org, who often miss the forest for all the trees. SpinSanity chastizes Moore for using Jeffrey Toobin's point about Gore winning the 2000 election if overvotes were counted statewide in Florida, and not clarifying that this was the only scenario by which Gore would have won, when the real crime is that the overvotes WEREN'T counted because of the U.S. Supreme Court intervention. Once again, as with 'Bowling for Columbine', Moore's crime was he oversimplified the matter under consideration, in order to make his point. Gosh, flay Moore's hide for that! It's not like anyone else ever oversimplified - Rush Limbaugh, for example, or shall we say, George W. Bush and his certainty concerning Saddam's WMD?
The Saudi flights out the country after 9/11 are another point: the fact of the flights, with the need for special permission, is not nearly as important as the absence of FBI questioning of bin Laden's closest relatives and what they might have known of the plot.
Moore is right to focus attention on business connections between the Taliban, oil companies, and the Bush Administration. After all, it wasn't until recently I learned California's right-wing Republican Dana Rohrbacher lobbied on behalf of the Taliban. These connections need to be understood.
I'm thinking of following the advice of Andrew Sullivan (A Blogosphere Challenge) and taking a tape-recorder into the movie, so I can get a solid transcript of the movie so as to counter the critics more easily (and not, as Sullivan wants, so as to criticize Moore more easily). Moore has done the nation a service. We should all applaud his efforts!
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
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