Tunkamerica

Strawman

2006-03-22T01:35:00.000-05:00

This is interesting as well...CBS calls bullshit on Bush. And he debated at Yale. He knows what he's doing.

This was news a few days ago, I just didn't get to add it.

2006-03-22T00:59:00.000-05:00

The Pew Research Center released the funniest (funny/sad) poll results on the 15th of March. Respondents (among other questions) were asked to give a one word description of George Bush. The results are below. Here is the link to the Pew site's poll and analysis.

I like the people who gave the answer "president". That answer didn't make the cut the last two times the poll was given. Was this group just less creative? Carbon based life form should get a few next time. Maybe they didn't want to pick a side. I did notice that good was given a few more times. Unfortunately those three new people who said "good" were outweighed by the "ass" contingent by more than a 2:1 ratio.

Check out the link, there are some other interesting results. Especially the "Changing Impressions of Bush's Ideology". I think maybe the republicans who are unhappy with Bush are using the rationalization that he's turning liberal or "is" liberal as justification for their viewpoints.

Also, the comparison of Bush to Reagan in terms of how "in touch" they are with government. Wasn't Bush supposed to be the return to those halcyon Reagan years?

Texas Primary recount halted, Chicago...

2006-03-22T00:32:00.000-05:00

Texas halts their primary recount due to "irregularities": link here (thanks to the Bradblog and democraticunderground) "Apparently, McKerley said, new electronic voting machines provided by vendor Hart InterCivic are not printing ballots for every vote cast on the machines."

Ready4change on democraticunderground brings up the question: [paraphrase without sarcasm] Are the irregularities favoring one party over the other? Specifically, Republican over Democrat?

in related news:

NBC reported that a machine had been stolen in Dallas: link here Thank God the people in charge have assured us that the machine can't be used to hack into the system! I wonder though if the information gleaned from the machine could make it easier to rig future elections? Truthfully, I'm less afraid of the thieves than of the people in charge.

24 California citizens suing Secretary of State over his conditional certification of DIEBOLD voting machines despite their numerous flaws: link here Will this lawsuit be concluded before the mid-term elections? the 2008 elections? We can only hope.

South Dakota...death of the modern Republican Party?

2006-03-12T01:39:00.000-05:00

So, I should've written about this when it happened last week, but I'm on a weird schedule. You know how it goes.

Will South Dakota's law preventing abortion except in the extreme case that the pregnancy threatens the mother's life be.... what the fuck will it be?

Republicans seem to have been pushing for this for at least the last 6 years. The renunciation of that vile activist Supreme Court decision so many years ago. The SD law, signed (and followed, more heinously, by a law setting up an ANONYMOUS legal fund to defend the law) last week by SD governor Mike Rounds could be the shot heard round the hill or the death knell for congressional republicans.

While confusing, the idea is to fight for something just hard enough to look like you're fighting, but not hard enough to actually get it because then you don't have anything to fight for anymore and your opponents suddenly do. Republicans (and I'm talking about elected Republicans) never really wanted to strike down Roe vs. Wade. Restrict it slowly, very slowly (like once every one or two terms by tiny bits...) that's okay, no one will notice.

Unfortunately for the Republican party, SD didn't get the whole message. They actually thought that the Republicans wanted incest and rape victims, underage girls and unwanted mothers to carry their babies to term. They actually believed the hype that that's what the American people wanted as well. It was a "mandate" after all. The truth, according to a recent Newsweek article is that 2:1 Americans believe in the basic tenets of Roe vs. Wade. Where they tend to differ is on distinctions such as parental notification (which is an iffy subject even to the most liberal and really should be decided on a case by case basis....which it can't be because that would require a trial for each case).

Anyway, ranking Republicans are shying away from this issue and it looks as if Ole Miss' might be following SD's lead. Why aren't the Dem's stepping up? Go ahead and guess... Cause they always lose on the abortion issue. It just SOUNDS better to be against abortion cause there's no way to misunderstand that stance while a nuanced and considered approach can be made to sound like revisiting Hitler's Germany with very little effort.

Do I think Dem's need more balls? Yes. Do I envy the job? No. Do I think questioning myself and then providing the answer is a little pompous? Of course.

Ding...ding......dead

2006-03-12T01:23:00.000-05:00

So, Slobodan Milosevic is dead. As I listened to the radio (mostly the BBC since it's the weekend) throughout the day the idea that his death might not have been natural seemed to gain volume. I doubt he was poisened. He was sick, that was established, and he thought (the day before he died) that he was being poisened was reported.

The question that I automatically ask myself is "Who would benefit?" The truth is that he was never going to see the light of day again. The only group that would benefit from his untimely death would be his supporters or the nationalist party of Yugoslav if he was considered a matyr for "the cause". Noone else had anything to gain.

A commentator on the BBC, a journalist who had spent a lot of time with Milosevic prior to his death, said that he was a communist who transformed into a nationalist at the fall of communism but who was really neither. Instead he was an opportunist that only cared about his own power and wealth. I'm inclined to believe that assessment from what I've read and heard, though I could easily be wrong.

Just a little note...

2006-03-12T01:20:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to say that the comments that are erased are not real comments; people can post whatever they want as long as it's not a blatant ad for penis enlargement. I've had a lot of those since I've been gone. Seriously, I've all about free speech as long as you're not using a free forum to make money for yourself.

get me as much of that juice as you can

2006-03-08T03:58:00.000-05:00

jeffrey k skilling sez: "get me as much of that juice as you can"around a giant bearhug as they defrauded investors and wall street. I get a warm feeling when I hear enron executives getting all lovey-dovey in the boardroom as they bled their investors and employees dry. A business culture that rewards carnivores won't quit when the chips are down and it's every man for himself in the courtroom. ( a paraphrase from the whistleblower who exposed the shiesty accounting "practices" of enron and fastow).

Patriot Act Redux

2005-07-24T18:32:00.000-04:00

"Why sunset legislation where there's been no actual record of abuse and vigorous oversight?" Sensenbrenner said.

The very nature of abuse implies that damage has been done. Must our rights be stripped, innocents jailed, and our lives intruded upon before we decide to limit our government's power? I believe we are smart enough as a nation to think throught the possible (likely) scenarios in which our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms to privacy, from illegal search, and from search without probable cause might be compromised without any "actual record".

This lack of record is exactly the problem. Call me a cynic, but I don't trust this administration (or any other) to put my rights before their concerns. During trying times is exactly when we need to be most valiant in protecting the rights that countless Americans have fought and died to ensure.

Excuses

2004-09-22T06:05:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been too long... I could list a couple of reasons why I haven't written here, but it would be a disservice to you, the imaginary readers, so I'll just say that I wasn't feeling the passion for writing about the same issues that I felt great passion for in the rest of my life. I've decided to give it another try. Since this is the political hemisphere of my weblog I guess I should try and recap what's been going on in the world in the last 2 months.

It really seems like years since the end of June. In the presidential race Kerry looked like he was narrowly in the lead for most of the time. He did not get the traditional "bump" in support after the Democratic National Convention. This has been attributed by some as an effect of trying to keep the speeches positive and free of blatant attacks on the Bush administration. Some also put forth the networks' huge cut in coverage for this year's conventions as a possible cause. This doesn't seem to be the case though, since George Bush seemed to jump anywhere from 4 to 12 points ahead of Kerry after his party's convention. That being said, it looks as if things have pretty much evened out again.

(As an aside, polls are notoriously flawed in both their methodology and their results. A good example is that a Gallup poll released just before the 2000 election had George Bush winning by 13 points which obviously didn't happen since Gore won the popular vote by all accounts. The place I stole this information from [and where they stole it from] also pointed out how the youth vote is always discounted because youth frequently aren't the head of their household, don't have the time or the inclination to take a phone poll, (and my own situation) don't have a land line to even receive the call.)

The conditions in Iraq have consistently deteriorated. It seems from watching and reading that we are being pushed into a corner despite what the officials say. Most agree that the situation is getting worse weekly. Even Pres. Bush admitted he made a ‘miscalculation of what the conditions would be’ in postwar Iraq.” [New York Times, 8/27/04] (I'd put the link, but you have to pay for articles more than 7 days old. The remarks have been quoted enough that they should be easy enough to find on Google). Both Rumsfeld [Rumsfeld News Conference, 4/15/04] and Powell [Associated Press, 9/2/04] have admitted to miscalculating "the conditions in a post-war Iraq".

As of today 2 more Americans have been decapitated, and the remaining Brit threatened. We met the demands of the kidnappers (which we never used to do). Additionally 2 more beheaded bodies were found on the side of the road last week.

The official count of US casualties in Iraq are over 1000 (Iraqi casualties have been estimated to be somewhere between 12,778 and 30,000). Even the actual number of US deaths is hard to find since we passed the 1000 mark last week.

But you can go on about Iraq all day.

How about health care? Health care costs are rising at five times the rate of wages . Neither candidate is harping on health care (which I find to be one of the bigger issues, certainly more important than Vietnam-related stories or anything that ends in -gate). Kerry has a plan to cover approximately 27 million (a little more than half) of the uninsured for anywhere between $656 billion (his number) to $1.5 trillion (American Enterprise Institute's [self-described proponent of limited government, so take with a shaker of salt] number). Bush's plan (also according to AEI) will cover 6.7 million people (approx. 1/7th of those without health care) and cost $129 billion over 10 years (I'm assuming Kerry's costs are over the same time period).

Kerry would repeal Bush's tax cuts on families who make over $200,000/yr to pay for his plan & would also allow the government to negotiate w/drug companies for lower prices. Edwards' background as a trial lawyer could be a liability when talking about medical malpractice reform (which is one of the causes of skyrocketing insurance premiums.) thought the Kerry camp is claiming it as an asset: "Only John Edwards and John Kerry have the ability to put sensible malpractice reform in place that protects peoples' rights but also gets rid of the frivolous suits and reduces the cost,'' said Kerry.

Anyway... I'm exhausted. Tomorrow's topics for review are : civil rights, the environment, world opinion, foreign policy... and that's just the presidential topics.

I defy you...

2004-06-29T10:34:00.000-04:00

... if you care at all about the environment, children, anyone else, or even just your own skin to read this and still vote for bush this november. None of it is really new information, but it's put together well, shies away from statistics ("There are lies, damn lies, and statistics". S. Clemmons) and presents a totally convincing and damning view of the current administration's view of and attitude towards our environment. I mean I don't think that they would hate the environment so much if there wasn't money involved. If it made them and their old white friends money to clean up rivers and streams, cut emissions, and save forests they'd all be wearing Birkenstocks and beards smelling of patchouli. But, it doesn't so they put us all in mortal danger so that they can make more money.

Tom DeLay

2004-06-29T09:50:00.000-04:00

Tom DeLay corrupt?!

No?!

Really?!*

I agree with one of the authors. The committee on ethics should investigate all claims made to it, fuck who gets taken out and "let the chips fall where they may". Special [read corporate] interests are one of the biggest threats to a democracy [read so-called constitutional republic (or parliamentary democracy?) who's constitution is respected less and less by the ruling class].
_______

* I started reading a few more blog entries by the Nation's editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and they were fairly well written. Her Parallel O'Reilly post would have been great if it was what really happened.

2004-06-09T03:57:00.000-04:00

There's just too much to report. Every day there are enough lies and dirty, disgusting conduct from this administration that it all gets so repetitive. I feel like linking everything that I read even though I know that with such an overload most won't get out.

How the fuck is Bush still in office? When a president takes the oath of office they swear on the bible and their country to act honorably at all times when in office. Bush has done the opposite in almost all things. Gore Vidal said the other day that Bush could be brought up for impeachment on at least twelve counts.

There are already irregularities in Florida with regards to the impending (sense of doom) election. The head of Florida's election division resigned because of pressure to purge thousands of "felons" from voting rolls in the state. Anybody remember last time?
Diebold's (the company that makes voting machines not to mention many of the nation's ATM machines) president has pledged to do what he can to "deliver" Ohio to Bush.

Each passing day marks another scandal that goes under-reported. Anything that does get reported gets immediately squashed, spun, minimized, and/or distorted by any number of neo-con/fundamentalist talking heads (ingraham, limbaugh, hannity, coulter, o'reilly et al...).

Each passing day marks another freedom lost, another opportunity to fight missed or taken away. The people in the GA town where the G8 are meeting are blaming the protestors for the loss of tourist revenue, not the tanks or the soldiers with machine guns in the streets. We have very little time to stand up and fewer tools with which to work. But, too many more lost days and we won't be able to do anything and we'll no one but ourselves to blame.

Oh, and take this quiz.

What is wrong with our Government?

2004-05-27T01:20:00.002-04:00

When they don't look like the scariest people on Earth they look like the biggest fools. Is anybody following the Chalabi story? We got used by Iran to topple Iraq? IRAN?? I mean are we going to attack China for Taiwan? Apparently Bush told King Abdullah of Jordan he could piss on Chalabi which I think is actually pretty funny. We gave this guy secrets and almost thirty million of our tax dollars just so he could make America even more of a bad, scary joke. Not that we really needed any help with that one. We were going to take down Saddam. Chalabi's lies just made it easier.

mandatory reading

2004-05-24T04:53:00.000-04:00

Here are some articles culled from other sources that I've read recently that bring up some good points. Read them all, or pick one based on these descriptive words:

the draft

college voting (this was a problem for local elections in Boone, where I went to school. They were tricky. They held elections during fall break. On purpose? Maybe, maybe not. It seemed more than a coincidence after two or three years though.)

GNU radio (i really just like the metaphor at the end because it can be applied to so many things and used to win so many arguments.)

government and middle class (this report, while very useful and interesting, fails to take into account the party pressure and politics of votes in the house and senate. Also, the drum institute probably had its own motives for performing the study. Take the report with a grain of salt.)

That's all for now, but rest assured that I'm on the case, for you dear reader, to find interesting and informative articles. Oh, and I'll try to use a few more sources from now on.

Sound Familiar?

2004-05-13T05:10:00.000-04:00

The movie industry says the proposed revisement to the DMCA (that allows consumers to copy DVD's they own [imagine that]) is going to "legalize hacking."

Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA:
"It legalises hacking. It allows you to make a copy or many copies, and the 1000th copy of a DVD, Mr. Chairman, is as pure and pristine as the original."

Besides the pristine quality, this was the argument against consumer VHS and Beta video tape recorders. And the average consumer doesn't care overly about an exact copy.

Do these guys even think? The damage done in public image to the RIAA and MPAA has cost them more than any new technology ever could. Let the people have the technology. See the effects. If it really hurts your sales then fight or adapt. Stop whining.

So, what's happening this morning?

2004-05-13T04:41:00.000-04:00

Oy.

Well, The top story today has to do with Israelis and Palestinians. Big Surprise. Israelis killed three and wounded nine with a missile strike and the Palestinians responded by killing an officer and four soldiers and injuring three others presumably in the area to retrieve the "remains" of soldiers that had been killed last week. In the last two days at least 20 Palestinians and 11 Israelis have been killed with hundreds more (mostly Palestinians) injured.

Eventually this is going to get old, right? Wasn't it only a month or so ago when everything looked like it might be getting better? Didn't Sharon say troops were to be withdrawn from the Gaza strip? I realize that the vote failed, but are troops helping anything? When are the troops themselves simply going to refuse to fight?

Post 0.1

2004-05-12T03:33:00.000-04:00

So, this weblog is a way for me to express my interest in politics and world events without resorting to my usual method of getting drunk and ranting to friends who have stopped pretending they give a damn.

I'll post links to stories that I consider important and/or under-reported. Hopefully, it'll help me to focus my understanding and arguments so if I ever revert back to my old ways I'll at least be able to cite a few sources.

Even if no one reads or cares, I hope to keep this site humorous and relevant. Wish me luck!