Happy Halloween

Hey Kids,

Despite Dr. SenorC's prescription, this shit is pretty f'ng funny.

Lassie Ain't Got Shit on Me

So I've been in Denver learning about our nation's veterans' hearing aids. So Sue me. So I haven't posted. I take Senor C.'s frustration with blogs as a siren. Namely, I'm just going to post about news NOT RELATED to the election until the election is over. That includes my usual posting of World News, maybe some environmental news, and of course weird news! It starts now. Can we have more dogs as First Responders? Seriously, read this several times.

A dog saved a Washingtonian (that's 5th's Washington, not mine), by DIALING 911, BARKING INTO THE PHONE, and UNLOCKING THE FRONT DOOR FOR THE PARAMEDIC. Wow. This goes beyond man's best friend. Obviously our pets are usually more capable and more attached to us than we give them credit for, but this dog seriously revolutionized outside the box.

Cover Your Ass

Gas up your cars up on Saturday, just in case. Did you hear about the Osama video that was released today? Pray....

Gasp

Okay, so it took me less than a day to break my own doctor's orders. The rest of you (sans Ken, C.O, and skywalker) will probably shoot me, but here's a pro-Bush endorsement, and a very good one at that.

Megan Mcardle, libertarian extraordinaire, makes the longest, most lucid case for a Bush presidency that I've read. While I obviously don't agree with her entire assessment (most notably in environment, tax policy, budget, poverty policy, and the Supreme Court), her endorsement carries more weight than someone calling me an anti-American, terrorist hugging, atheist devil.

Doctor's Orders

Okay folks, I have one recommendation for you. STOP reading blogs between now and midnight on election day. The overly partisan tone, even at my favorite daily reads, are just pissing me off. Even reading pro-Kerry blogs make my blood boil. Maybe I've finally hit the saturation point when it comes to campaign rhetoric, truths and falsehoods alike. Just pray for it to end with a clear winner (which, in all likelihood, it won't) and that the country will be in one piece come Wednesday morning. See you guys on the flip side.

Head Bangers Balll

This has got to be the saddest argument in favor of voting for President Bush; it's from a Slate piece on who its employees and contributors are voting for:


Steven Landsburg, Economic Writer: Bush

If George Bush had chosen the racist David Duke as a running mate, I'd have voted against him, almost without regard to any other issue. Instead, John Kerry chose the xenophobe John Edwards as a running mate. I will therefore vote against John Kerry.

Duke thinks it's imperative to protect white jobs from black competition. Edwards thinks it's imperative to protect American jobs from foreign competition. There's not a dime's worth of moral difference there. While Duke would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of skin color, Edwards would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of birthplace. Either way, bigotry is bigotry, and appeals to base instincts should always be repudiated.

Bush's reckless spending and disregard for the truth had me almost ready to vote for Kerry - until Kerry picked his running mate. When the real David Duke ran against a corrupt felon for governor of Louisiana, the bumper stickers read, "Vote for the crook. It's important." Well, I'm voting for the reckless spendthrift. It's important again.


Literally, I read that and banged my head on my desk. Then, I re-read it just to make sure I read what I read and then banged my head on the desk. Then, I translated it into Indonesian and then re-translated it back into English just to make sure ... I banged my head. On a specific note: SenorC, this is the guy who wrote that tax article you mentioned.

Senseless Criticism: Shimizu vs. Shimizu

Thank you, Japan, for keeping me from sleeping right for what will probably be about a month. Last night I probably had about seven nightmares that I can rememeber, and I'm sure it's not going to end there! The subject of the terror is twofold: Ju-On and The Grudge, which for maximal effect and due to maximal stupidity I saw back to back. 5th and some other were in attendance and they seemed similarly shaken Because, as Edelstein said about another J-horror film, it "gave my willies the willies." Seriously.

First, Ju-On. It was the third iteration of the movie by Shimizu, the first two being TV and video versions. From the basic descriptions, I pretty much expected it to be the typical haunted-house movie. Wrong. While it's true that the house of focus in Ju-On is haunted in the sense that ghosts are there, it's more cursed. Meaning, when your ass crosses the threshold, those ghosts kill you. Whether you're in the house, in your apartment, in your office, or hiding behind a wall of newspaper and tape. The body count in Ju-On, needless to say, is enormous. No matter if they are police investigating the crimes or what, if they cross the threshold, it's over. The narrative format takes advantage of this by telling the story with time distortions. The order of events is shuffled around, and each section of it involves one of the characters, and has several of the others in it, but focuses with laser clarity on how the curse does them in. Shimizu keeps the movie interesting because the terrible experiences each person has are different. They see their own special version of the terrible ghost specters trying to kill them. Some of them go about their lives as if they're just imagining it, some become paranoid and try to hide behind taped up windows and darkness, others get killed so fast they don't have time to do either.

The visual effects themselves are good, but lo-fi by American horror standards. They do the job though. Particularly, the camera angles are effective, often hiding parts of the scene to leave your imagination to what horrible things are happening. Peripheral vision is also manipulated a lot, with things going on to the sides and edges of the camera. The constant and quick prancing through the screen of the trademark freaky little boy is also powerful. The one problem is the fragmentary nature of the narrative makes it difficult to discern the connections between the characters and the movie also lacks much explanation as to where the curse came from and its nature but in brief passing moments.

That was frightening enough. Then Shimizu, with the assistance of the seasoned Sam Raimi, decided to do his fourth version of this story. The Grudge, despite being based on Ju-On, turns out to be a completely different movie. Shimizu drastically trimmed the number of characters, combining several at a time. Sarah Michelle Gellar's character is essentially two (maybe three) of the Ju-On's characters in composite with their own unique spin. The body count is also considerably lower for this reason. The back story receives more attention, and the nature of the events is explained more thoroughly. For that reason, The Grudge hangs together more coherently. The trademark big scary sequences in The Grudge are also done better than in Ju-On in several cases, with more lavish special effects and quicker pacing. Most likely this is done from the director having extra experience choreographic these scenes and shooting a thinner and leaner movie. Several of the freakiest scenes, especially one involving three zombified Japanese school girls, are missing. And the crawling ghoul appears less often as well.

So which version is superior? It's difficult to say. I would say that in the pure quantity of freaky and scary moments, Ju-On clobbers The Grudge with way more death, scares, and jerky and disorienting narrative. In actual movie cohesiveness, though, The Grudge probably wins out. It also focuses a lot more on the few characters it does possess, rendering their deaths more effective. Especially the insertion of several American main characters experiencing a sort of stranger in a strange land gone worse effect creates more pathos. All the same, both will scare the holy shiznight out of you, and both are worth watching because while they're based of a similar story Shimizu goes in very different directions with the two stories.

One Down, Two To Go

Axis of Evil member endorses George W. Bush for President.

MAXIMize it!

Those jokers over at McSweeney's.

My personal favorite is the "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

Hell Freezes Over

Drezner endorses Kerry. Andrew Sullivan, I'm looking your way.

McDraft

Here's a viable alternative to the draft; compulsory service in fast food. I would sign up for the Chicken and Biscuits Brigade.

Senseless Criticism: Michelinphobia

Allergies to trademarks? Worldwide plots involving the Russian mafia, a secret Otaku cabal, a Belgian advertising mogul, a surly Russian-American ex-CIA operative with friends in Echelon, antique calculators, 9/11, and mysterious pieces of film footage randomly appearing on the internet. Sounds like cyberpunk. It is, but not quite. The kicker is, as always, that it's set in present day. The even bigger kicker is, this interesting twister of a novel is by the great William Gibson (bloglink!) The book is Pattern Recognition, and it's received honors from El Wapo, the LA Times, and the NY Times.

As per some of Gibson's other works, this book is windy spiral of plot that's almost always uncertain. The main character, Cayce Pollard, shows up in London, drained by jet lag. She exhibits "phobias" or "allergies" to certain trademarks and other such corporate logos and wears clothing deliberately stripped of all such things. Due to her sensitivies, she's found a rather comfortable career as an advertising consultant, able to tell immediately whether a trademark or designs works or not. In her free time, she has one obsession: the footage. The footage is something she discusses in an online forum of mysterious other obsessors and consists of random fragments of film, all of a similar style and featuring the same two basic characters, that materializes on the web. On Footage Fetish Forum (F:F:F), she discusses with others theories about the footage, it's nature, and where it comes from. In the meantime, as part of her consultant job, she begins work for the Belgian mogul Hubertus Bigend (who constantly where's a cowboy hat). Soon he hires her to pursue the maker of the footage, which he believe is the most ingenious type of marketing he's ever seen (since there's actually no product, but it has still inspired a sort of underground movement). Cayce reluctantly accepts this mission to pursue her obsession.

The trip she finds herself going on involves a scuffle with an ex-industrial spy named Dorotea (who confronts her with her greatest fear, the Michelin Man), a failed entrepreneur named Boone Chu, the elusive footagehead Parkaboy, the alcoholic intelligence genius Hobbs and his obsession with old calculators, and two daughters of a Russian oil billionaire. It traverses London, Tokyo, Moscow, and Paris. Cayce also receives strange messages and contact with a phantom of her father, who disappeared without a trace on the morning of 9/11. It's a thriller that involves bizarre encounter after bizarre encounter and has an interesting ending. I enjoyed this novel a lot, especially Gibson's trademark fragmentary and wandering style. It's sophisticated.

In the end though, it didn't leave me with much. This book was fun, but to me didn't contain any real insights, any real total innovations, or any real hidden messages or statements. Maybe I'm not postmodern enough for it, but in the end I expected a globetrotting adventure like this that involved the internet, advertising, marketing, industrial espionage, 9/11 and Russia to have some master narrative it was trying to tell about our times. Sadly, it didn't. But then again, maybe it's true that our times really are so disjointed that you can't really grab one out of them. So it goes, but that would be my one criticism of it. Otherwise, it's one helluva read.

Re: Crimson Pride

Okay, I knew I needed more than the comments box on this one ...

Yeah, I read that article. I need to look at his math 'cause I don't really agree with his incidence analysis. Check out this and this report.

However, I felt his argument was more normative, against progressive tax structures in general; completely valid as a personal policy preference (which of course, I disagree with). From his article, he seems to infer that he champions a flat tax under the guise of horizontal equity:

"My own opinion is that the rich already pay too much - it seems patently unfair to ask anyone to pay over 30 times as much as his neighbors (unless he receives 30 times as much in government services, which strikes me as implausible)."

I depart with him 'cause I believe you also need to consider vertical equity when it comes to tax policy.

However, I do agree with him on his point that:

"Well, you might say, at least everyone got a tax cut. But that's true only under a ridiculously literal interpretation of the term "tax cut." In fact, federal spending has increased dramatically under President Bush (with only a small fraction of that spending attributable to the war). Sooner or later, somebody's going to have to pay for all that spending, which means that just as the president's been cutting the taxes of today, he's been raising the taxes of tomorrow."

Someone's going to have to pay and it appears it's going to be my future children, Felix and Daphne.

Calling on Crimson Pride

Hey 5th, I've got another tax debate for you:

"My own opinion is that the rich already pay too much—it seems patently unfair to ask anyone to pay over 30 times as much as his neighbors (unless he receives 30 times as much in government services, which strikes me as implausible). If you share my sense of fairness, you'll join me in condemning the president's tax policy.

But if, on the other hand, you believe that the tax system should soak the rich even more than it already does—or, to put it more genteelly, that the tax system should be more progressive than it already is—if, in other words, you are a mainstream Democrat—then George W. Bush is your guy."

Ketchup Watch

Blathering Blatherskite! Everyone's favorite 'African-American' is at it again, and this time she's channeling Hillary.

"Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good," Heinz Kerry said in a USA Today interview published Tuesday. "But I don't know that she's ever had a real job -- I mean, since she's been grown up."

Memo to Karl Rove: THK is your last, best hope for bringing down JFK once and for all (Okay, not 'last'. Okay, not 'best' either.).

Another One Bites the Dust

Sully linked to this, but it's worth posting all the same. Another Republican of some prominence is horrified by C-Plus Augustus.

Oh yeah, and why did they take Lowe out last night? Sure, when Martinez took the mound he through total fireballs after awhile but those first two runs they got off him almost made me have a heart attack! But whatever, the Yankees are gone. However it happened it's a miracle from heaven.

Poor John Kerry

No one told him soccer is not meant to be played wearing a helmet.





Oh, my bad. That's his hair.

(post also syndicated to Shepherd's Pie)

Freedom Costs a Buck Oh Five

I could roundup the criticism of Team America, but this link will link to appropriate other sources. There's been a lot of hemming and hawing about this movie, and it's been highly politicized. Left-wingers look approvingly on the insult of macho topgunism, but decry the portrayal of the Film Actors Guild (snick snick) as in an alliance with Kim Jong Il. Right-wingers, well pretty much the opposite. Also, the whole dicks, pussies, and assholes speech in the movie is often looked at as a vindication of Bush's policy. Some others, who hopelessly want to just enjoy films and entertainment this election and (probably like most of us) are growing at the same time more agitated about this and more weary just want to write the whole thing off as a Jerry Bruckheimer parody. I'm fine with that interpretation, myself. I mean, come on, "America, Fuck Yeah!" It's so perfect.

There's one thing that troubles me, though. One line of criticism bashes Stone and Parker (I mean this movie isn't without flaws, you can insult it all you want) as being nihilists. Why? Because they insult and mock all sides. So they must be nihilists. Both sides look on Matt Stone and Trey Parker and want to shout at them, as it's become popular to do nowadays, "You're Either With Us or You're With the Terrorists" (right) or "You're Either With Us or You're With the Fascists" (left). It's this line of criticism that has me terrified. And While I singled out good old Ebert, he's not alone with that sentiment. It's as if by the fact that the few unsophisticated statements in Team America and trying to lampoon both sides as absurdly lost in their own dogmas, that they've committed some atrocious sin. So why is it a bad thing to see some of the absurdity in both sides? Why is the middle and skepticism suddenly nihilism? Is there no room for anything but extremes left in this country, even when it comes to the arts?

Honestly people. While at times I'm very partisan, there's nothing wrong with skepticism. There's nothing wrong with looking at both sides right now and saying "what a bunch of maroons," because honestly both sides are a bunch of maroons. If anything, the haughty full scale attack on the right and left in Team America is what we need more of. You have to see things like that to feel self-aware at all. It's the fact that right and left both want to claim Parker and Stone and that those who can't see a clear allegiance get irritated that shows we've grown too entrenched in viewing things we do. Chris Rock is right, political parties have become little more than gangs now, gangs that demand allegiance and won't let anyone straddle the sides or refuse to take a side in this political gangwar. And that analogy isn't just right, it showcases how juvenile this country is in it's juvenile reaction to a pretty juvenile movie.

And really, if you watch this thing it definitely is more of a Jerry Bruckheimer slammer than political movie anyway.

Terrorist Toolbar

Google saves lives!

A Little Rumor I'm starting:

This guy has already been hired by Marion Barry for get-out-the-vote efforts in the next D.C. mayoral election. Pass it around.


Voter fraud case traced to Defiance County registrations volunteer
124 registrations falsified, allegedly for crack cocaine

Staton Zoom

By JOE MAHR
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Mary Poppins. Jeffrey Dahmer. Janet Jackson. Chad Staton.

Defiance County elections officials were confident the first three hadn't moved to their small community. But the fourth one lived there, and - in exchange for crack cocaine - tried to falsely submit the first three names and more than 100 others onto the county's voter registration rolls, police said.

Now Mr. Staton, 22, of Defiance, faces a felony charge of false registration in a case that has quickly gained national attention as part of a hotly contested presidential battle that's attracted a flurry of new voter registrations across the country - and a flurry of complaints of voter registration fraud.

Defiance County Sheriff David Westrick said that Mr. Staton was working on behalf of a Toledo woman, Georgianne Pitts, to register new voters. She, in turn, was working on behalf of the NAACP National Voter Fund, which was formed by the NAACP in 2000 to register new voters.

Sheriff Westrick said that Pitts, 41, of Toledo, admitted she gave Mr. Staton crack cocaine in lieu of cash for supplying her with completed voter registration forms. The sheriff declined to say how much crack cocaine Pitts supplied Mr. Staton, or to say whether Pitts knew that the forms Mr. Staton gave her were falsified.

"That remains under investigation," he said.

Defiance County sheriff's deputies and Toledo police searched Pitts' home on Woodland Avenue and found drug paraphernalia and voter registration forms, the sheriff said.

My Fellow Americans

This inspires much faith in my countrymen. "Some call you the idiotic, I call you my base."

One Eyed Monster (World Roundup)

Islamist Cyclops Supreme Abu Hamza was charged with 19 criminal counts in British Court today. Most of it involves clear examples of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or more appropriately, shouting "jihad" in a mosque. Essentially the man clearly incited and advocating murdering people, and in Britain that's a clearly defined crime. Sometimes it must be nice not to have a First Amendment so you can clearly wipe out Thug Wizards like this piece of misguided garbage. But again, here's an inconvenient example of success in the WOT through law enforcement (like almost all of the key successes ARE through law enforcement).

Burma on the road to democracy? I don't think so. Khin Nyut, who seemed committed to some level of reconciliation with the opposition, was canned by the junta. Probably to be replaced with worse. Khin Nyut was highly corrupt though, and involved in all kinds of trafficking activity, so maybe that will end. But probably not. For those who didn't know it, Burma is the classical definition of a mess. I actually saw Aung San Suu Kyi speak one time at UVA back during the divestment push and he was a moving man. That all his efforts are about to be jeopardized because the only person who seemed willing to move a deal was a dirty thief (and probably worse) is a shame.

In China, it looks like some more movement away from their increasingly foolish retro-Stalinist policies. Independent courts? WHO KNEW! China Reform beat the pants of a state-owned developer, who sued them, and then China Reform actually was vindicated. Perhaps the "constitution" of China isn't such a sham at all and people are starting to take rule of law there seriously.

You'd think that a multi-national force of Muslim troops from MidEast countries assigned to guard UN workers holding elections in Iraq sounds like a great idea, would you? Well, Bush doesn't. How constructive. Another piece of good news, though, Somalia has a President! Finally there could be an end to all the warlords. There is still going to be a crackdown on the remnants of the militias, but Kenya has done an excellent job spearheading the peacetalks and uniting the fragmented country.

Gag Order

Oops. I completely forgot this particular event was taking place today. I'd like a barf bag please. From a previous email:

"If women shut their purses and didn't shop for a day, would the Economy
suffer? The idea gets tested on Oct. 19 by 85 Broads, a Networking
group founded in 1999 by Janet Hanson, who worked for Goldman
Sachs-headquartered at 85 Broad St.

Business Week has learned that 85 Broads is asking its
4,000-plus members in 450 companies, colleges, and B-schools not to
spend that day. Hanson says the "buycott" will show the gap between
women's purchasing power and their under representation in boardrooms
and executive suites. Members plan to spread the word to friends and to
women on college campuses. Women control $3.3 trillion in yearly
consumer spending, 44% of national spending - a sum that isn't just
symbolic.

According to Business Week, the U.S. economy has become increasingly
female-driven...

Did you know that women in the U.S.:
1) Control $3.3 TRILLION in annual consumer spending?
2) Make 62% of all car purchases?
3) Take more than 50% of all business trips?
4) Control over 50% of the personal wealth in this country?

UNFORTUNATELY, WOMEN'S PURCHASING POWER STILL HASN'T TRANSLATED INTO
ECONOMIC POWER.

According to Catalyst, only 6 CEO's in the Fortune 500 are women, 12.4%
are board directors, and 5.2% are among the top earners in the country.
On TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19th, we invite you to leave your checkbook and
credit cards at home as a symbolic gesture that we no longer "buy" the
glacial pace of change for working women in America. Instead of
shopping, go for a walk in the park, write a letter to a friend, enjoy
a museum, or help someone in need.

PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS."

Into the Lion's Den

Thanks for bringing me aboard, guys.

I'll try not to disappoint. I won't soap up your backs with those little loofa things, but otherwise we'll see how much of an O'Reilly-like asshat I can be. In all seriousness though, I try to be fair and not take cheap shots, but I can roll with that too as my latest volley of emails with my liberal friends can attest.

About me: I'm from Maryland, born and raised. I'm a pretty solid conservative but have a distaste for insane ideological extremism. I'm a UMd. alumnus, and damn proud of it. That's about it for now. Thanks again for the soapbox.

Tangled Records

It's always struck me odd in this election how we have two candidates tangled up. Basically Kerry is only viewed, ONLY viewed, as his pre 9/11 self, and Bush is only viewed as his post 9/11 self. Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly makes the case that we should think about the possibility that, you know, MAYBE Kerry's mindset changed after 9/11. After all, Bush has gotten a free pass on everything he said in the 2000 election and all his promises and all of his advisors too from that logic. But, again, Kerry receives no such consideration. We never obsess over the fiscal mess Bush left Texas in, or the environmental state he left Texas in, or his "no nation building" pledge in the 2000 debates, or . . . Rumsfeld and Saddam shaking hands!

Honestly. Kerry is battered for voting against Gulf War I when the current Secretary of Defense saw to it that Saddam had weapons to fight it in the first place. That's fine. I'll say Rumsfeld probably understands the error of his ways now, and so do all those in the Bush administration. They probably feel immense guilt at having armed a madman back then and that's also in large part what Gulf War II is about. I grant them that. It's okay with me, because it was A DIFFERENT GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION. Just like post 9/11 it's A DIFFERENT GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION. If I can excuse something like that, why are we obsessing over these votes cast, i'll say again, in A DIFFERENT GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION? Sure Kerry made some bad calls, you know like voting against Cold War relic weapon systems and cutting intelligence (which many people didn't think we needed as much of after the Cold War). Sure he voted against some tax cuts. But that was in a different era, just like a lot of things Bush's people (Negroponte) did. They accuse Kerry of suffering from a pre-9/11 mentality. . .and their evidence? Pre 9/11 votes! Surprise, surprise.

Money in Mouth

Ladies and Gentlemen of Restless Mania ... I think we should have some forecasting fun and put our money where are mouth is ... it's time to predict the Presidential Election! I say that whoever is closest gets to hold the Restless Mania Championship Belt.

The 5th's call ....

Popular Vote: Kerry - 52%; Bush - 48%
Electoral College: Kerry - between 299 and 272; Bush - between 241 and 268

Unkind

"In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''
Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''
The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.
A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. ''You were right,'' he said, with bonhomie. ''Sweden does have an army.''
This story was told to me by one of the senators in the Oval Office that December day, Joe Biden. Lantos, a liberal Democrat, would not comment about it. In general, people who meet with Bush will not discuss their encounters. (Lantos, through a spokesman, says it is a longstanding policy of his not to discuss Oval Office meetings.) "

Nuff said

Bowing to Boeing (Government Muck of the Week)

A year ago, the news was abuzz (at least the toolish government news), about the Boeing Tanker Lease. McCain was on top of it, and largely responsible for its explosion, as he is always a crusader against revolving-door based scandals. At the time I had a conversation with a colleague who had worked at Air Force. She described her frustrations with the Air Force to me, because the Air Force justified new planes, equipment, parts, and specs all with the phrase "Because Boeing says we need it." Well well. Hooray for outsourcing the Pentagon.

With Druyun's revolving door conviction and now that she's due to begin serving jail time any day now, it's worth bringing up again. For those of you who don't know the details, the hyperlinks can bring you up to speed. The gist basically involved a $29.8 multi-billion dollar lease of 100 tankers to replace the mid-air fueling tankers in the air force. The Armed Services Committee, when confronted with this proposal, asked the obvious question. "Why?" They were supplied with no good answer, which stunk to high hell. After vicious probing by my two favorite Republicans, John Warner and John McCain, they found a trail of emails basically where Air Force procurement personnel continually asked Boeing to please give it good reason to do this, which in turn led to the realization that the whole thing was not only untenable and financially idiotic, but was Boeing's idea in the first place and they were basically taking the Air Force, Uncle Sam, and the taxpayers along for the ride.

The scandal led to a 500 million dollar fine for Boeing, and caused Boeing's CEO to resign. The revolving door has always been a tricky issue, especially with the Department of Defense, and aside from that the sheer dominance of what the government's requirements and needs are by the profit motives of the private contractors they've become completely dependent on, as showcased in this Center for Public Integrity report on "The Shadow Pentagon". Last week I pontificated briefly on how decision-making in the government has become difficult because of massive outsourcing, brought on partially by the enormous deficiencies of personnel regulations. Boeing is a testimony to that, and so is the Tanker Lease. It's happening today, and it will continue to happen, in large part due to the fact that government itself has lost the institutional capacities for decision-making, and must put these decisions (in the tons of Advisory and Assistance Contracts I've processed in the past month alone) in the hands of, in the words of Citizen Kane, "money mad pirates."

Sayanora OLN!

Choice in cable? I've talked about this for a long time. If someone offered me the chance, I can easily think of the five channels I'd pick (and none of them would ABC, CBS, or NBC, or CNN for that matter). Why subject me to all the programming I don't want and keep raising a "basic" package in price and channels everytime? The fact, for one, that part of my cable bill money goes to Fox News disgusts me. And the fact that I help fund OLN, G4, and Pax is just irritating. Why not let me be a consumer and have some choice, even if it in the end I might have to pay more PER CHANNEL than I do now.

Turns out a la carte cable programming is a touchy issue. It's a telecom industry nightmare because it would involve imposing actual regulations on a completely unregulated market. And, it's become wrapped up with. . .civil rights? That's right, somehow the issue of minority programming became part of the equation. That is, AFTER the cable company lobbies contributed huge amounts of money to these foundations, of course. The issue has become so muddled now that it's unlikely any movement will be achieved in the near future, which is a sad loss.

Now, I'm normally one to think Telecom laws and regulations on the whole are pretty asinine. Most of the time they turn out to be anti-competitive and create little room for innovation and lots of room for high prices. There's potential here, as there is sometimes with regulatory environments, to actually CREATE competition, if not amongst cable providers then amongst the channels. In this case I'd argue that imposing a regulation of this variety actually makes cable channels MORE competitive with one another and MORE market-based by not just affecting their advertising dollars but also their collection of cable fees. Lastly, even the advertising would be helped in the end by audience segmentation. Marketing would be more clear cut because they would have a better idea what consumers of a given channel are like since they paid for the channel and aren't just surfing. Just a thought. If we don't keep the FCC around for stuff like this, then what use are they?

My Favorite Danny...

...and his last name is not Snyder.

Drezner is on the verge of promising his vote to the Kerry folks. The clincher for me:

Given the foreign policy stakes in this election, I prefer a leader who has a good decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I don't like, over a leader who has a bad decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I do like.

If Bush gets re-elected, he and his team will view it as a vindication for all of their policy decisions to date. Whatever groupthink occurred in the first term would pale besides the groupthink that would dominate the second term. Given the tactical and strategic errors in judgment that this administration has made, I have to lean towards Kerry.

Someone give this guy a lollipop, STAT!

Monday Morning Quarterback

So not too long ago I posted suggesting that UVA was going to beat the holy stuffing out of FSU. This is me eating humble pie. There were two Seminoles in particular that made UVA once again rue the day they made it into the top ten: Wyatt Sexton and Ernie Sims. Sexton has clearly shown that Rix was the no talent hack we all knew he was. Why would Bowden ever start Rix with a weapon like Sexton in his arsenal? The old man's just stubborn I guess. Sims continuously tore up Hagans for an ungodly amount (4) of sacks. Ouch. And the fact that Hagans and Elton Brown got injured is not good.

FSU is flying high now, and it probably helped Miami capture the BCS position and will keep them hold it, since Miami beat FSU and FSU just beat another top ten team. That and the moon is in the 8th house and a butterfly in South America is flapping its wings or whatever important parts of the BCS equation there are.

Temple of Boom?

Remember in the late 90's, when KRS-One was back in mainstream hip-hop as a rapper/writer/educator (you know the days when I picked up breakdancing as a before/during/after-school activity)? I always thought his hip-hop temple concept, where attendees would learn about the 4 elements of hip-hop, was a neat idea. He’s one of my favorite Old School rappers from the great 80s and I was elated that he was finding success again in the community.

But according to the folks over at VodkaPundit, me thinks that KRS-One might be smoking a bit of the chronic:

If Osama bin Laden ever buys a rap album, he'll probably start with a CD by KRS-One.

The hip-hop anarchist has declared his solidarity with al-Qaida by asserting that he and other African-Americans "cheered when 9-11 happened," reports the New York Daily News.

The rapper, real name Kris Parker, defiled the memory of those who died in the terrorist attacks as he spouted off at a recent New Yorker Festival panel discussion.

"I say that proudly," the Boogie Down Productions founder went on, insisting that, before the attack, security guards kept Blacks out of the World Trade Center "because of the way we talk and dress.

"So when the planes hit the building, we were like, 'Mmmm - justice.' "
The atrocity of 9-11 "doesn't affect us the hip-hop community," he said. "9-11 happened to them, not us," he added, explaining that by "them" he meant "the rich ... those who are oppressing us. RCA or BMG, Universal, the radio stations."

Parker also sneered at efforts by other rappers to get young people to vote.
"Voting in a corrupt society adds more corruption," he added. "America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place."

Check out the Comments section and my defense of the hip-hop art form, NOT KRS's words. There are definitely some cracked out fools posting to that thread.

Everybody Needs a Glass of Water Today

To chase the hate away! All right, something happened to me today that is definitely blog worthy. I got up very early this morning after a late night at the Big Hunt in Dupont to go put Kerry-Edwards and Moran signs out at a park in Alexandria, not too far from the Landmark Mall. The event was Family Fall Day at Armistead Booth Park, so I figured it was about as low-impact as possible. As I'm putting these out at the street, I hear a car screech to a halt behind me. The driver abruptly honked his horn. When I turned to see what the fuss was all about, there was a mild-mannered 60 or so year old man there wearing a sweater and some typical gray old man pants. He then flicked me off. Flipped me the bird. Gave me the one fingered-salute.

Wow. As I continued to put up these Moran and Kerry-Edwards signs I could only shake my head. This is one hell of an election, and I just got a first-hand piece of it. I especially think this is funny, because he did it WITH CHILDREN STANDING NEARBY who definitely saw the incident and giggled.

No, YOUR Daughter's Gay

Okay, so I mentioned that I thought Kerry's citation of Cheney's lesbian daughter was in poor taste. I still stand by that remark, BUT there's something to be said about the GOP reaction. The Cheney's and the rest of the GOP attack dogs are aching to beat the tar out of Kerry, but why is this ire not directed at anyone else? Edwards commited the same low blow in his debate with tricky Dicky, and so did everyone's favorite GOP Senate candidate from Illinois.

'cough' HYPOCRITES 'cough'.

A Fisking (Sort of)

Vodkapundit's got an angry post up about a Demo. memo encouraging operatives to wreak havoc at the polls. See the below fisking for my post-venting rebuttal (sort of):

If Drudge has it right, then the Kerry-Edwards campaign is going to do its damnedest to turn our fine nation into a banana republic.

From the headshot on your website, I never thought you’d have a problem with their clothing line.

To these guys, winning office is more important than the sanctity of elections. Holding power is more important than the Constitution.

Much like Tom Delay and his meddling in the redistricting of Texas? Holding power isn’t more important than the Constitution, but discrimination (via the FMA) is? Tsk, tsk. And whatever happened to the balancing power of checks and balances? You may be eager to bring the fight to the terrorists (heck I was in favor of the Iraq war myself), but taking power away from those that wield the power recklessly, I think that’s of utmost importance in this election.

Much as I despise at least half of what most Republicans stand for, they don't seem nearly as willing to trash the system they're trying to run. Too many Democrats, especially at the national level, just don't care that our system, our nation is far more important than any single election.

Your argument would be more credible if we didn’t already know you to be a single-issue voter Stephen. Is there anything more important than our nation? A bottle of Stolichnya perhaps?

I could mention the Lautenberg Trick in New Jersey. Or Gore's ballot shenanigans in Florida. Or the voter-registration fraud currently going on in Colorado, Nevada, and elsewhere. Or the Democrats' successful call to bring election observers into this country. Bring them in from where, Venezuela? Hey, no big deal sullying the reputation of the world's oldest continuously-functioning democracy, just so long as we can make the Republicans look bad, right?

Do you honestly think that these ‘observers’ will scrutinize Republican conduct while completely overlooking the actions of Democrats? Please. I fully expect many Dems to perpetuate the negative stereotype that Americans are all idiots too.

The rules don't matter. The reputation of the country doesn't matter. The political health of the nation doesn't matter. Power matters.

Introducing Tim “the Toolman” Taylor everybody… arf, arf, arf!

I don't mean to say that Republicans haven't used dirty tricks, or won't in the future. But I have yet to see them pull anything as crass as replacing a losing candidate with a more-popular one just weeks before election day, and in violation of state law. I have yet to see Republicans calling on the world's most corrupt international organization, run largely by apparatchiks from the world's most brutal dictatorships, to pass judgment on how we run our elections.

Since you don’t like Plan A, you choose Plan B instead: Improving our image by keeping our sitting President in office for another four years?

I have yet to see the Republicans encouraging their own to commit fraud by shouting "Fraud!" where none yet exists, putting at risk everything we've built here in the last 228 years.

Instead they’re encouraging discrimination (228 years), religious indoctrination (228 years), a renewal of the Cold War (60+ years), fiscal disaster (10 years)…

Because, in the end, that's what the national Democrats are doing: They're trying, however inadvertently, to destroy the Republic in order to rule it.

That’s very Fight Club-esque of them. I don’t really understand why more Frat guys aren’t backing the Dems. Anyone got polling numbers on this demo.?

Democracy is the free market of political systems. And like any free market, it can't function without some basic level of trust. That trust comes, slowly, from hammering out rules even competitors can live with. That trust comes, with difficulty, by honoring those rules, even when your candidate doesn't win. That trust exists in relatively few places around the world.

That’s the same line my dad used to feed me about relationships and marriage. Too bad my parents are divorced now.

That trust is hard to come by – and it's easy to lose. Ask the German voters of 1933. Or the people who voted in Afghanistan's first-ever presidential election last week. Or the people of Iraq, whose lives are, quite literally, on the line as they try to make something decent of their nation.

You’re assuming the electorate had trust to begin with. Tell me Mr. Green, if voters trusted the voting system so much, why do less than 50% show up to fill out their ballots on election day? Obviously, many Americans abandoned the political process precisely because there was no trust in the system. Who’s to blame for this distrust? Don’t tell me it’s the sole responsibility of the Democratic Party.

The system, the trust, is far more important than anything else. It's more important than the White House, or Congress, or Social Security, or jobs, or even the Terror War. Our Constitution is rigged to make it hard for any party to screw things up in the short time of four years.

Oh but they can, when they have no opposition party to balance their agenda.

There's always another election around the corner, if you think the current crop of office-holders is screwing things up – that's the beauty of our system.

Too bad mid-term elections have even less voter turnout than Presidential election years. And what if I wanted to vote for a continuation of party stewardship in the White House, BUT wanted someone else besides the incumbent? Our system is about as beautiful as Teresa Heinz-Kerry in a bathing suit.

But maybe there won't be another election, if you cause the people to lose faith that elections work. I was raised in a very Republican family. The first election I could vote in was 1988, and I voted straight-ticket Republican. But only the one time. I grew up – I learned that my own convictions were more important than party affiliation. I learned that my own estimation of individual candidates was more important than whether they had a D or an R next to their names. Since then, I've voted for a lot of Democrats, including for President.

I voted against abortion before I voted for it too. You flip-flopper.

Now, I know this is an angry essay. However, I don't mean to imply that all Democrats are evil and all Republicans are sweetness and light. Far from it. But for the first time in 16 years, I'm going to vote Republican straight down the line. If I have to punish a couple of local Democrats I'm fond of, then so be it, but I have to try to get a point across: The national Democratic Party is bad for this country.

Actually, I think you’re implying that all anti-war Democrats are evil. Point well taken, BUT I’m not so sure you should substitute your typical stress-relieving regimen of a martini a day, instead opting for the unconventional voting booth rampage. Stick to what works!

I don't say that because of their policies, which I probably agree with more than I do the Republicans. But because their tactics would cause more harm to this country than the Federal Marriage Amendment, the Republican budget deficit, and Congress's corporate tax giveaways, combined.
I'm just one guy; I don't expect my vote to mean much. But the Democrats are willing to treat – in advance - my vote, and all it represents, with feigned contempt. So I can't, in return, treat the Democrats with anything less than genuine contempt.

And Republicans are willing to respond to my opinions with accusations of being un-American, treasonous, or un-Godly. And I plan to respond in kind.