October 2006 Archives

Atrios points out this nugget by Republican Congresswoman (and amateur historian) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen:

And, you know, there's been that comparison that was made this week about World War II. Remember that the casualty count for World War II, how many lives were lost there. And each life that has been lost in Iraq is a terrible, terrible loss, but it's only been a short amount of time.

--Length of U.S. involvement in WWII: 1,244 days
--Number of days since Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq: 1,269

Perhaps a more favorable comparison for Ms. Ros-Lehtine would be the Seventh Crusade; that one lasted six years.

In Glenn Greenwald's smackdown of Peggy Noonan he digs up this gem of hers from 2004:

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He's normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He's not exotic. But if there's a fire on the block, he'll run out and help. He'll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, "Where's Sally?"

Running out to help. Directing the rig to the right house. I couldn't come up with a more accurate way to describe Mr. Bush than that, as he flew over New Orleans two days after Katrina struck.

Wow, wasn't it just a few weeks ago that all the wise D.C. pundits were saying that President Bush need only mention terrorism and patriotic voters would flock to the GOP? Now this:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says if Republican candidates want to succeed on Election Day, they should turn their focus away from the Iraq war.

"The challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue," Frist said in an interview with the Concord Monitor on Tuesday.

I guess Iraq isn't going so well.  But things aren't all bad.  The chaos apparently hasn't damped Frist's sense of humor:

Frist suggested that Republicans remind voters of subjects like tax cuts and lower gas prices, the result, he said, of the energy bill passed by Congress last year.

What?  GOP candidates should be running on the energy bill?  Three months ago you couldn't find a Republican talking up the energy bill if you had a search warrant.  I know many Americans have a short memories, but they aren't that short.  The specter of $3.00/gallon gas lies just over the horizon.  What candidate is foolish enough to conjure up those recent images?  Would-be presidential candidate Bill First, apparently.

This post notes that punctuation on the Internets is slipping. Duly noted.

Obviously, modern phenomenons such as text messaging only make matters worse.

Family Research Council and Focus on the Family award Rep. Don Sherwood (R-PA), who settled a $5.5 million lawsuit for allegedly beating his mistress, an 85% on their latest vote scorecard.

Enough said.

Classy.

I tuned in after he said the above and heard him say that Fox was "exploiting" his disease. Apparently, anyone who mentions an unfortunate circumstance in an anti-GOP context is "exploiting" it. Interesting how the same rules don't apply to Republicans.

Another glimpse into the surreal mind of President Bush.

Heh:

KBR has kept the company [Halliburton], once led by Vice President Dick Cheney, under lawmakers' microscope for its work in Iraq since a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country three years ago.

Halliburton's Iraq-related work contributed nearly $1.2 billion in revenue in the third quarter and $45 million of operating income, a performance that pleased analysts.

"Iraq was better than expected," said Jeff Tillery, an analyst with Pickering Energy Partners Inc. "Overall, there is nothing really to question or be skeptical about. I think the results are very good."

Nice that someone is doing better than expected in Iraq. Too bad the same can't be said for American troops.

A visual breakdown of content at "the most trusted name in news'" website.

A commenter points out that the international version actually contains news. Apparently the American version of the site is now being run primarily for entertainment purposes.

With talk of the Democrats potentially picking up control of Congress, many people have been asking if we are about to experience a watershed election, like 1994. Chuck Todd offers five similarities and five differences between 2006 and 1994.

It's an interesting analysis, though I did laugh out loud at this line: "Voters are taking their political decisions very seriously, and that means there could be hesitation toward change." Yes, one only need watch a few of the intellectual campaign commercials this season to realize we have entered the new age of the "serious" voter. Heh.

I don't have a firm expectation on what we'll see November 7. Many Democratic-leaning blogs are making a big deal out of yesterday's NBC/WSJ poll, which has Congressional approval at the lowest level since 1992. I don't take much from this for two reasons:

(1) generic ballot polls are pretty worthless. People only vote in their local race, not a national one. And, in most cases, they end up voting for their incumbent even if they disapprove of Congress at large.

(2) I'm suspect of polling in general. What kind of turnout will we have November 7? Is the general population more interested in this election than a typical mid-term? Are religious rightists sufficiently turned off that they will stay home this year? No one really knows. And thus the sampling methodology is largely guesswork.

If I had to bet today what will happen, I'd predict that the Democrats will win a narrow majority in the House, and pick up three or four seats in the Senate. Of course if I was good at making predictions, I'd be much richer than I am today, so that's not worth much.

Interestingly, in recent years the Senate has been more of the bell weather in shakeup elections, i.e., it's the chamber more likely to change hands. Odds seem against Democrats picking up the Senate without the House, but history says it's possible.

A Republican running for Oklahoma state educational superintendent has a nifty school safety platform: arm students with old textbooks to protect them against school shootings. [Video included.]

Yes, it really is that stupid:

Bill Crozier, a Union City Republican going against incumbent Democrat Sandy Garrett, said he believes old textbooks could be used to stop bullets shot from weapons wielded by school intruders.

If elected, he said he would put thick used textbooks under every desk for students to use in self-defense.

If only the Secret Service had thought of this idea years ago. We should have had the president riding around in a bookmobile for protection.

Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Turley discuss the
suspension of Habeas Corpus. The entire segment is worth your time. In particular, Turley made a salient point:

People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is for the American system.—The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to Dancing With the Stars. It's otherworldly..People clearly don't realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I'm not too sure we're gonna change back anytime soon.

Indeed, one only need flip over to "the most trusted name in news" the same night to see his point. CNN devoted about two hours of prime time programming to the mind of John Mark Karr and whether or not Hillary Clinton is named for the climber.

Yesterday, Senator Russ Feingold rightly described the signing of the Military Commissions Act as "a stain on our nation’s history." And sadly, pathetically, most Americans weren't even paying attention.

Vice President Cheney:

Well, I think there’s some natural level of concern out there because in fact, you know, it wasn’t over instantaneously. It’s been a little over three years now since we went into Iraq, so I don’t think it’s surprising that people are concerned.

On the other hand, this government has only been in office about five months, five or six months now. They’re off to a good start. . . If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

The U.S. military reported Wednesday that nine American troops had been killed in bombings and combat, raising to 67 the number of U.S. troops killed in October.
. . .
For the U.S. military, October's death toll is on a pace that, if continued, would make the month the deadliest for coalition forces since January 2005, when 107 U.S. troops died.

And:

A government statement said Wednesday that a much-anticipated Iraqi national reconciliation conference aimed at building political consensus and stemming spiraling sectarian violence in the country will be held Nov. 4.

The conference was originally scheduled to start Oct. 20, but had been indefinitely postponed for unspecified "emergency reasons.'"

And:

The Iraqi government removed the country’s two most senior police commanders from their posts on Tuesday, in the first broad move against the top leadership of Iraq’s unruly special police forces.

The two generals had led Iraq’s special police commandos and its public order brigade, both widely criticized as being heavily infiltrated by Shiite militias. Their removal comes at a crucial time for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who has come under intense American pressure to purge Iraq’s security forces of the militias and death squads that operate within their ranks.

Yes, remarkable--that's one way to describe things.

. . . er, I mean American.

• "Managed withdrawal"--not to be confused with "cut and run."


• Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) provides another example of what GOP personal responsibility is all about.


• Some religious rightists are distressed about the "deferential treatment" a homosexual appointee and his partner received at the State Department swearing in ceremony. I guess they wanted him to be publicly flogged, or something.


• Viewers watched 88 million video clips at MSNBC.com in September. Too bad the TV network probably didn't have 8 million viewers all month.


• As if the Saturday night's footbrawl between Miami and Florida International wasn't bad enough, here's what the CSS color analyst said during the broadcast:

  "Now, that's what I'm talking about," [Lamar] Thomas said as the brawl raged out of control. "You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don't come into the OB playing that stuff. You're across the ocean over there. You're across the city. You can't come over to our place talking noise like that. You'll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing."
  . . .
  "I say, why don't they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more? You don't come into the OB, baby," Thomas said. "We've had a down couple years but you don't come in here talking smack. Not in our house."

  Mr. Thomas has since been fired.

The fact that these kind of comments constitute "news" is a story in itself:

Two leading Republican senators called Sunday for a new strategy in Iraq, saying the situation in getting worse and leaving the United States with few options.

Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John Warner of Virginia are part of the growing list of Republicans who are speaking out against President Bush's current plan for Iraq as U.S. casualties rise.
. . .
"We need to find a new strategy, a way out of Iraq, because the entire Middle East is more combustible than it's been probably since 1948, and more dangerous," Hagel said. "And we're in the middle of it."

Apparently these guys must have missed President Bush's memo that the U.S. operation is constantly adopting its tactics to conditions on the ground.

Recently former House Majority Leader Dick Armey has taken some shots at the religious right (e.g., calling Dr. James Dobson a "bully"). In a statement published yesterday, Armey elaborates on his concern with power-hungry "religious" activists."

In this passage, Armey explains one of the problems he has with religious movements becoming politically entangled:

Freedom works. Freedom is a gift from God Almighty, and we have a responsibility to protect it. Christians face a temptation to power when we are fortunate enough to have a majority of support in Congress. But government can never advance a faith that is freely given, and it is corrosive to even try. Just look at Europe, where decades of nanny-state activism— including taxpayer support for churches and for religious political parties— have severely eroded the faith. In America today, too many of our Christian leaders fail to recognize the temptation to power and the danger it holds for our society and our faith.

I don't share many policy positions with Mr. Armey, but I do agree with what he says here.

I wonder if after seeing this, coupled with the revelations in David Kuo's new book, it might finally dawn on some rightists that perhaps a church/government alliance isn't best for our society. One can hope.

• Cool pictures of Saturn.
• Freedom on the march: Steve Howards was arrested for saying, "Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible" to Vice President Cheney. The Secret Service claimed this was an "assault."
• Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner will not run for president in 2008. That's too bad; I've considered him a candidate of interest. From a distance, he appeared like a moderate, results-oriented candidate who has proven he can win in the South.
• Glenn Greenwald questions the Department of Justice's first treason indictment in 50 years. Politics at play behind the scenes? Perish the thought.
• A USA Today poll found that 42% of respondents believe there's a political component to plummeting gas prices. A more recent Washington Post/ABC News poll says it's 32%. Whatever the case, it's a sizable number of Americans.

  Anyone who knows much about oil markets realizes that the president has little influence over market supply and demand, which supposedly dictates price (though frankly it doesn't satisfactorily explain the recent price volatility). So I don't believe President Bush has been engineering the $20/barrel drop in oil.

  However, I am a little suspicious in this regard: during the surge in oil prices, traders said a few dollars of the price was attributable to geo-political tensions. I found it quite curious that during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when the rightist noise machine was ramping up the march toward World War III, that the White House suddenly came out in favor of a truce (after it had been condemning prior "fake" peace deals). And since then, we've heard very little hawkish rhetoric from the White House--you know, those statements which would cause concern in the oil market.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chávez give inflammatory speeches at the UN? The White House choses not to dignify them with a response. North Korea claims to hold a nuclear test? This isn't something diplomacy can't fix.

  Call me suspicious, but it seems that Operation Don't Rock The Oil Markets Until After November 7 is in effect.

Another sign the American educational system is being flushed down the drain.

"Cursive writing becomes passé"

Or not. In short, schools are devoting less and less time teaching students to write, particularly in cursive. Many students and teachers don't care:

"I can't think of any other place you need cursive as an adult other than to sign your name," she [teacher Debbie Mattocks] said. "Cursive -- that is so low on the priority list, we really could care less. We are much more concerned that these kids pass their SOLs [standardized tests], and that doesn't require a bit of cursive."

Older students who never mastered handwriting say it doesn't affect their grades. "A lot of kids have just awful handwriting. . . . Teachers don't take off points for poor handwriting," said Matt Paragamian, a 10th-grader at St. Albans School in Northwest Washington. Many of his classmates take notes in class on their own laptops and do homework on computers.

Unfortunately, I came of age in an era when there wasn't laptops and we did have handwriting class. It's not a memory I'm fond of. Usually, once the teacher issued an assignment, my classmates and I raced to see who finish first. I almost always lost. And since I was trying to write too fast, developed bad handwriting in the process.

Then it got worse; in addition to print we were required to start writing in cursive. I've never liked cursive and have never used it unless required to do so. I never got the point: if cursive is supposed to look nicer or more stylish, well, mine doesn't. My loops and curls are irregular and jagged. And if you're supposed to write faster in cursive than print, I don't.

So although I agree students should spend enough time in penmanship so they can read cursive, I frankly don't see the point in going further than that. There are more relevant things to learn.

. . . we'll keep standing:

The U.S. Army has plans to keep the current level of soldiers in Iraq through 2010, the top Army officer said Wednesday, a later date than any Bush administration or Pentagon officials have mentioned thus far.
. . .
Schoomaker said he has received no new guidance from commanders in Iraq as to when the U.S. will be able to begin reducing the number of troops there. Last year officials had hoped to be down to about 100,000 by the end of this year, but escalating violence and sectarian tensions have prompted military leaders to increase forces.

Another stirring testament to the success of the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.

Pundits are often speculating on the effect domestic political statements have on the morale of American troops in Iraq. I wonder how these same troops must feel when they are falsely promised they will get to leave as Iraqi forces are trained. Perhaps it's akin to being stood up on a big date . . . with bombs and bullets flying about.

• Technology then and now: how gadgets looked when they were first introduced and how (small) they are now
• Tonight is the Harvest Moon
• Know your oil fields--potential vulnerabilities of the world's largest oil fields
• Slang of the 1920's
• Top ten weather events affecting history

Keith Olbermann confronts Bush's lies, slander, and rejection of reality.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Why don't we hear Democrats speaking with this force and passion? Are they not doing so? Or is it simply not being covered? Part of the party's perceived weakness on national security issues stems from their reluctance to appear bold even on the campaign trail.

Stand tall and speak as though your words are coming from your heart, rather than being read from a focus group report.

This afternoon I had a medical appointment in Maryville. Since I was headed down there anyway, I loaded up my bike in hopes of getting a Blount County ride in afterwards.

Turn out to be a great call; the weather was fantastic (temperatures in the upper 70s). I had downloaded the cuesheet for this ride (my first time), and headed to the Hubbard school.

The first five miles was a nice warm up featuring a few flat stretches amid gently rolling hills. I should say the first seven miles, because I took the wrong entrance to Butterfly Gap Loop Road and thus had bonus riding. Along the way I saw an interesting mixture of some nice (and not so nice) country homes.

Then I turned into the woods and hit what a presume is the basis for the name "The Wall": Butterfly Gap Road. That's a bugger of a climb; probably the steepest prolonged one I've done. I don't know what the grade is, but it's noticeably steeper than the Foothills Parkway. To make matters worse, much of it resembles a staircase, with short "landings" between sharp rises. The landings aren't nearly long enough to catch your breath, what they do is prevent you from developing any sense of a rhythm.

I had to stop twice to catch my breath during the climb. It's not unusual for me to stop when going up a mountain, but most of the time it's because I'm sweating or want to give my legs a break. Here, I stopped because I was winded. There's clearly room for improvement on that road next time I'm looking for a challenge.

Much of the way, Butterfly Gap Road (then Flatt Road) is a narrow ribbon of pavement through the woods (incidentally, fall colors are emerging on the mountain). But about 3/4s(?) of the way up, it goes through the "Top of the World Estates" area. Oddly, though I've traveled the Foothills Parkway many times, I've never been up the back way before. There's a "hidden" lake, a retreat, and an assortment of houses and cabins. One can discover neat things while cycling!

I finally made it to the Parkway at the intersection with the campground. Since I had done all that climbing, I decided a short trip down the other side to the overlook was warranted. It was worth the extra time. I'm not good at flowery descriptions, but suffice it to say it was beautiful. The sinking "late summer" sun lit up the mountains to the east, while casting an orange-tinted shadows over the hazy ridges to the south. It's one of those sights I wish I could save in a bottle; sadly, I only had about 10 minutes.

Funny thing happened while I was standing there. A pair of motorcyclists drove in and parked in the parking lot. A couple minutes later the guy walks up and asks if I would briefly leave so his female partner could go to her bathroom spot, right by the overlook (apparently, they'd done this before).

I said, "OK" (what else am I going to say?). As she is strolling up, he made a comment about there not being female facilities around. I told him of the bathroom at the picnic area (about a mile away).

"Yeah," he acknowledged, as she proceeded to walk to the overlook and do her business. You'd think if they didn't want to take five mintues to drive over to the bathroom she could at least go in the woods, away from where people stand to enjoy the view. But no, she had to go right there. Weird.

The ride down the parkway was fun. Approximately six of the seven miles is downhill, most of which I cruised at 33-35 mph. I passed five cyclists who were making an evening climb. With less than half an hour until sunset, it seemed a little late for that, but perhaps a night ride was in the works. Along the way, I caught glimpses of a half moon rising over the mountains. It was a great evening to be outside.

At the bottom, I took a left. And after a short (but thrilling) stretch on 321, I exited onto Old Walland Highway. An easy spin along the Little River was the perfect cool down from the afternoon climb.

All in all, another great ride.

Ride stats:

33 miles
15.7 MPH average
2:05:30 riding time

No one could ever have imagined that a National Security Advisor would forget a CIA briefing like this:

One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a "10 on a scale of 1 to 10″ that "connected the dots" in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again...

"The briefing was intended to `connect the dots' contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden," said the official, who described the tone of the report as "scary."

Actually, we don't have to imagine that, because it actually happened.

Why is it that Rice has one of the top posts in government? Oh, that's right--all those diplomatic achievements we've seen in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Darfur, Lebanon, and elsewhere. It's been a golden age at the State Department.

I generally don't try to read too much into events such as yesterday's killings at an Amish school. But one point here is obvious: if a "Christian" father of three can walk into an Amish school and kill several students, "senseless" tragedy can occur anywhere.

I sometimes see bad stories on the news and think, "Good thing stuff like that doesn't happen around here." It's true it's highly unlikely I will ever witness a tragedy like that. But there's certainly nothing inherent to shield me from it. No one is completely safe.

I just heard "America's Anchorman" on WGOP-AM suggest ("just thinking aloud") that Mark Foley may have been "set up" from the get go. After all, how hard would it be to get to one of these Congressional pages?

The party of personal responsibility strikes again.

UPDATE: Media Matters has a quote:

LIMBAUGH: I'm just thinking out loud here. What if somebody got to the page and said, you know, we want you to set Foley up. We need to do a little titillating thing here. Keep it and save it and so forth. How would you get a kid to do that? Yeah, who knows? You threaten him or pay him. There's any number of ways given the kind of people that we're dealing with and talking about here.

I know the Democrats are bad at coordinating things, but really--if they were really conspiring to set someone up, would this be the best thing they could come up with? Text messages to a Florida Congressman? Yeah, forget our state of war and economic issues, this is the fault line which is going to bring a political upheaval.