Work tidbit

If you've ever watched TV with the closed-captioning on, you know it's, um, inexact. Part of my job is researching local-tv coverage for big Fortune 500 clients, which sometimes requires deciphering captioning like this:

well, it's a theft investigation that stretches from California to Texas. a woman used Craig's list to sell her weri she claims ria man in league city ripped her off. now she is without herrings and the money she need to pay for medical bills. wendell edwards has the story.

Yes, Wendell, please tell all... I wish I could pay my medical bills with herrings.

Feeling anti-political

It's been a long campaign -- too long -- and at least it ended well for us as progressives. I'm not at all convinced that Obama will be anything other than a traditional bipartisan security-state curator. As liberal as he may be in his own views, he's unlikely to implement revolutionary environmental laws, bring us national health care, return the powers usurped by the Bush junta, or end government wiretapping of its citizens. The K Street lobbyists are firing their Republicans and bringing in Democratic whores, but they're not changing clients. And the military-industrial complex isn't going to give up their cloaks and daggers. Obama may close Guantanamo and end torture, but I don't see that he's going to make any real move left. We've traded in a nutball for a competent centrist, and I'm sure lots of people will be satisfied with that. I'm not.

Obama is a far shrewder political operator than anyone gave him credit for before the election. His disciplined campaign reflected the ultra-disciplined man at the top, who has almost unparalleled management and political skills. While Bill Clinton was a master at reaching voters, I think Obama is a master organizer as well. He's a political chess-player, seeing several moves ahead. He's already made a lieutenant out of Joe Lieberman, and he's flirting with Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State. She either kneels before him, or he ruins her by vetting her into retirement. Taken together, these moves show he's basically installing into power the foreign-policy philosophy he ran against as a candidate. So all that talk about change? Good-bye to all that, perhaps.

Well, what do I care? He won't be Bush, and maybe that's all we can ask for. We don't get to run the government; we only get to choose which flavor of acceptable moderate the two major parties and their billionaire backers offer unto us. It's like choosing between milk chocolate and dark chocolate. One can pop a vein debating the relative merits, but you're just fucked if you like strawberry.

My wife and I are expecting a child a month from now, and I'm sure that will be my focus over the next few years. Meanwhile, I've come to believe that little great change comes from the government. Real change happens with the people, and when after the people change, the government must follow suit. Civil rights, social security, the environmental movement, worker protections: These things happened because people demanded them, not because elected leaders proposed them.

Sometimes political leaders can accelerate the timetable (Lyndon Johnson and civil rights) and at other times they can delay the inevitable (Bush & Co. and alternative energy), but they're trailing indicators of public opinion. That's why climate change has to be addressed, regardless of which party is in control, and that's why health care has to be tackled at some point. But expect semi-effective half-measures; what government comes up with will ultimately be disappointing because it won't be nearly revolutionary enough to actually solve a problem.

The Future of the Republican Party

Although it may seem like an oxymoron at this point in time, there actually must be some sort of future for the Republican Party in the United States. Having failed in every respect in this election (with the sole exception of the anti-gay-marriage ballot initiatives, which have now taken hold in 30 states total), the GOP must now go through purgatory.

People often take the word to be synonymous with "banishment", but purgatory also carries with it the idea of purification or transformation. For Republicans, many of their partisans are currently in denial and refuse to admit the depth of their own rot, but their intellectual leadership (such as it is) -- including Peggy Noonan, George Will, David Frum et. al. -- have already incurred the wrath of the hard-core faithful by beginning the self-exam. Interestingly, Andrew Sullivan has been beating this drum for years now, but he was written off as a crank by many. It turns out, he was entirely right.

Perhaps a die-hard progressive like me ought not help Republicans find their way out of the wilderness by offering them my suggestions, but I'm not deluding myself into thinking they're trolling my blog anyhow. But I do think it's important to have two vital, positive parties to contend for power, in order to prevent corruption and promote progress. So between you and me, here are my observations:

1) The Republican Party cannot win national elections again until they "walk the walk" of racial inclusiveness. Perhaps the one thing that George Bush "gets" that the rest of his party hasn't caught on to is that the Republican Party's traditional message of self-reliance, small government and opportunity can be very appealing to the growing Latino community in the United States. But they simply won't vote for a party that harbors the likes to Tom Tancredo, George "macaca" Allen, or Good ol' boys like Trent Lott. Two years ago, Corker won the Senate seat in Tennessee with a campaign which used a lot of coded racial messages to defeat Harold Ford, Jr. That might work as a local tactic in a single election, but as a strategy for a national party, it's bankrupt. For every vote it won for Corker, that approach turned off dozens of other voters elsewhere. The world of under-40 voters does not tolerate racism as an electoral strategy. The future is multi-ethnic diversity. The GOP had better get used to it; embracing this reality isn't optional.

2) The jury's in on Global Warming, and the Republicans were wrong. The next generation of Republican leaders can't hope to win nationally by flying in the face of the preponderance of scientific evidence. It's like denying evolution: Simply not a tenable position for a party aspiring to majority status. As with race, there is a generational shift regarding the environment. 21st Century conservatism MUST offer a philosophy which embraces the goals of the environmental movement and must offer an alternative vision of how to achieve those goals. The kids are green -- it's not a fad, it's a deep cultural shift.

3) The Republican Party needs to become more honest. I know that's like asking a leopard to change its spots, but the GOP has gone past the point of self-serving spinning to the point where they've convinced themselves they can sell wholesale fictions to the American people. Over time, a party simply can't do that. These things only work in the short term, but "the truth will out." Some of the baldest lies: Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and we know where they are; Iraq was involved in 9/11; Oil will pay for the war; Global Warming's a hoax; Republicans don't rig elections or suppress votes; The fundamentals of the economy are strong; Wealth trickles down; etc.

4) Respect the Constitution, and constitutional rights.

So how do these things translate to policy goals? Present realistic plans to actually cut carbon emissions. Recruit more non-white candates, and repudiate the confederate flag as anti-American. Apologize for the Katrina response (and for putting Karl Rove in charge of the reconstruction). Make a visible campaign against racism, using party money. Push sensible immigration reform which doesn't vilify and alienate millions of Latino voters. No more unfettered spying on Americans' lives.

It will take the party a while, but eventually Republicans will have to bend to reality, or suffer another 40-year minority.

Dancing in the Streets

It's a term you've heard a thousand times, but sometimes, it really does happen.

Congratulations Ann Arbor... You've waited a long time.

A great point, well-put

From the BBC News blog "Justin Webb's America"

Looking at the McCain crowd in Arizona, you realise that the Republican party is in trouble. To base a party on white and elderly and socially conservative people is to base a party on a dwindling electoral resource. To manage to lose Hispanic people, as McCain appears to have done, is beyond careless. The Republicans will find someone to gather a new coalition together but it will not be Sarah Palin.

I've been trying to say that, but have not put it nearly so well.

Where we're at

So, it's 24 hours until America votes -- that is, except for the 30-odd million who have apparently already voted in an avalanche of early voting.

I'm currently listening to Sarah Palin address a crowd in Jefferson City, MO., and say, with no apparent sense of irony, that Barack Obama is untested, unready to lead, and an unknown quantity who can't be trusted. This, coming from a woman who Americans had not heard of as of the 4th of July. This, coming from a woman who made her national political debut during the same season of NFL football currently unfolding before us, and who has not yet been able to count a single vote in any precinct outside the state of Alaska. And this Neiman-Marcus-wearing hockey mom is telling the crowd that Obama isn't who he says he is? Ahem. Yes, well...

I'm listening her tell a ravening crowd how excited she is about their plans to mine, baby, mine for coal and drill, baby, drill for oil and natural gas right here in the United States, and they love this idea like few others they've ever heard. They're just out of their minds with delight about the prospects of thousands of wells in our national forests and parks, dotting our coastlines and fouling our waters. This, despite the emerging international consensus that these are exactly the sources of energy we need to migrate away from in a wholesale national movement. The jury's in on Global Warming, but she's as oblivious of the verdict as that other fine Alaskan, Ted Stevens, is of his own conviction. Apparently, such facts cannot stand in the way of the Red Meat Express.

People talk about her as a candidate for 2012. As a proponent of the record of John McCain, I must concede that she's somewhat effective. Not only does she excite the GOP base with aplomb, but she's certainly a talented cantor of her talking points. She speaks with assurance and makes the appropriate flourishes.

But imagining her running against an incumbent Obama in four years requires her to overcome the challenges of winning a Republican primary: This means building an effective national campaign organization, campaigning coast-to-coast and defeating a slate of talented campaigners who will have a lot more experience and in many cases more political savvy than she has. She would then have to face Obama without the fig leaf of McCain's experience to protect her. Unable to argue that he's inexperienced (after his 4 years in office), presumably unable to make hay of his associations with Bill Ayers, his preacher or anyone else from his past, having to defend her own picayune ethical transgressions as mayor of Alaska, and on the wrong side of Global Warming (and evolution), she'd have a steep hill to climb. To put it mildly.

The point which seems to be lost on so many is that she's not the Veep candidate through any real merit of her own, but because the guy at the top of the ticket took a shine to her. She hasn't WON anything, and if her current ticket goes down to spectacular defeat, the appetite for her might be somewhat suppressed. No, it seems more likely to me we'll see Palin in the Senate, if anywhere.

Anyhow, it's the silly season, and Sarah Palin is indisputably its Queen.

Get out and vote, folks.

The Thing Forgotten

Politicians are inherently reactive creatures. In the mean, they must respond to the will of the voter, or they shall quickly forfeit their office. It does not matter whether an individual official bends to the will of the voter; If he does not, his replacement will. In the long view, political leadership will mold to the views of the electorate.

Presidents are particularly reactive creatures. They may arrive in office with the thought that they will implement a bold proactive agenda. But Presidents have responsibilities, and they inevitably find themselves forced to react to events, and spend the greatest part of their time engaged with issues they did not anticipate. In the end, they almost always must settle for implementing some rump of their plans -- and that is almost always the part of their agenda most amenable to the polity at large.

The philosophy of a president can be deeply influential. But rather than helping to drive an agenda, it serves most often in helping to shape his response to events. It emerges from a long series of decisions -- some large, some small -- which are then judged by the people as a whole. The effects of this philosophy are weighed, both consciously and unconsciously, by voters, and that may influence future votes. And a President has an unrivaled platfrom from which he can attempt to influence the values and philosophy of observers with his words. Thus, Roosevelt left a legacy within the federal bureaucracy and judiciary, but he also left a legacy within the electorate, and deeply shaped the philosophies of a generation. The same can be said of Reagan.

Politics, then, is a Darwinian game. You can be a paragon of princple if you like, but if that principle is unpopular, your time in the sun will be very short. And that is as it should be.

For a healthy political system, it is absolutely necessary to have adversaries, and necessary for the widest range of opinions to be represented, at least among candidates standing for office. Even candidates who have no chance of winning are important to the process because they can become significant to the outcome of some election. They can influence by offering contrast. Even with just a small fraction of the electorate behind them, they can become forces to be reckoned with. The major political party who suffers most at their hands is forced to incorporate some aspect of the minor party's philosophy, in order to absorb some of their supporters. This is the true role of politicians like Ralph Nader or Ron Paul. Even Nader's gruff and unpolished exterior is a meme in this Darwinian battle, if only as a reminder of what it sounds like when a man tells you what he really thinks.

What Al Gore realized was that by not being president, an individual is able to focus much more intently on changing the ecosystem in which political creatures must live. Unhampered by the burdens of the Presidential office -- and maybe more importantly, now unhampered by such ambitions -- he is able to focus on a proactive agenda, and he has been astonishingly successful (though not soldiering alone). Gore realized that once you change societal awareness and opinion on an issue, you have moved the ground beneath the feet of the politicians.

We now have an election where the presidential candidates of both parties acknowledge that Global Warming is real, is man-made, and must be addressed. Both of them are dealing with the issue far more realistically than either candidate did four years ago. That's because there has been a sea change in the electorate. A different electorate would have produced -- in fact, did produce -- different candidates. Denial of the reality of global warming, which was considered a respectable political position within the last decade, is now virtually an impossible position for a national candidate.

If the Republicans had offered a candidate identical to John McCain in every respect, but who denied the reality of Global Warming, he might be behind by 20 or 25 points in the polls, rather than 7 or 10. It's a non-issue in this campaign mostly because there isn't a gulf between the candidates on the topic, and their prescriptions are quite similar. As soon as this election sweeps away the last vestiges of the Republican political ascendancy which obstructed action on global warming, concrete policy changes will ensue. When Republicans return to power in the U.S. in the future, it will be as a party which has accepted the reality of climate change.

Policy battles aren't the same as political battles, and politicians are only one influcene on the opinions of the electorate. Political battles are over which people have actual power. Policy battles are essentially cultural: Leaders must make their case to the people, and win their support. Leaders influence the basic beliefs and values of a society.

So, amid our present obsession with partisan electoral politics, the thing forgotten is this: THESE LEADERS NEED NOT BE POLITICIANS. Indeed, very, very few politicians are actually influential on the thinking of the people, and few real leaders hold political office. Once the electorate embraces a certain vision of the way things must be, the politicians will follow. Because they are inherently reactive creatures.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

So, maybe I missed this tidbit the first time around... But how fitting is it that "Joe the Plumber" isn't really a plumber. And he isn't really named Joe.

Could anyone sum up the outrageous state of modern politics more symbolically than that? It's ridiculous. It's a cultural problem. The political class, of both parties, has gotten so accustomed to blowing smoke up our asses that I guess nobody's really surprised that this guy is -- well, not quite a fraud, perhaps -- but he is certainly not what he seemed.

This is another symptom of my criticism that Sarah Palin is the ultimate post-modern candidate. The same people who unveiled Palin as though they were launching a product were also responsible for the invention of Joe the Plumber.

Then, we find out that the McCain volunteer who claimed she was assaulted over her bumper sticker IS a fraud, and police are calling the whole thing a hoax.

As the Republican Party retreats to rebuild itself over the next 4-8-12 years, perhaps they ought to focus first on changing their own mendacious culture.

Love sponge

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of Cali. says that Sarah Palin "will get to be qualified" by the time of the inauguration. The reason for his optimism?

Do you have the will to get up to speed? Are you a sponge that absorbs information very quickly? That's the kind of person she is.

If she's such a sponge, how come she hasn't absorbed a little more information at the age of 44? Has she kept her sponge in a vacuum-sealed wrapper all these years?

What a joke: Republicans are trying to paint their veep candidate as a towering intellect -- as maybe the only person in America who can go from "I don't know what the vice-president does" to "Totally the best choice in America to be Vice-President" in just five months. Amazing!

I'm sure there are many brilliant women in Alaska, but none of them are governor. Sarah Palin is a woman of average intelligence and very average education who was plucked from an aerobics class to help put a youthful, energetic face on a plan by Wasilla elders to implement a local sales tax. She discovered that her good looks, naive self-confidence, her penchant for snark and her churchy bona-fides made her a darling to a particular political group which is ascendent in Wasilla and in Alaska generally.

Her approval ratings? It's easy to get good approval ratings when you replace an absolute scoundrel, your state budget is paid for by the oil companies, the roads are paved with federal gold, and you get to send every Alaskan a refund check for several grand each year. Being governor of Alaksa is unlike running any other state in the country -- most governors have to struggle to balance budgets and have to figure out where they're going to get the revenue they need to pay for basic government services. In Alaska, the money just comes out of a spigot.

Quick Quiz!!!

Which prominent figure from the McCain campaign has conducted more live press conferences? Is it:

A) Sarah Palin, vice-presidential nominee
-or-
B) Joe the Plumber, lengendary source of folksy debate anecdotes (and incidentally, apparently not a plumber)

Extraordinary facts

Today, exactly 2 weeks before the United States of America goes to vote for their 44th President, and nearly 6 weeks after the Republican convention at which she was introduced to the world, Sarah Palin gave her first-EVER interview to a reporter for CNN.

Since being selected by John McCain to be his vice-presidential running mate, Sarah Palin has held zero press conferences.

And she has the gall to suggest that we don't really know Barack Obama well enough? What planet are we living on?

Here's a bonus factiod: In her only statewide election for public office, Sarah Palin received exactly 114,697 votes . Prior to that, she had been mayor of Wasilla, AK, (population 5,469 as of the 2000 census). What does the mayor of Wasilla do? The Daily Show reports.

Thinking long-term

Yes, the markets have been crazy. The news is bad all around. Gloom, doom, and the sky is falling. I'm not a trader, but like many of you I am an investor through my various IRA accounts. Like many of you, I sure wish I had sold off stocks and mutual funds when the market was bumping along at all-time highs. I didn't, and here I am.

If you have a long-term view, as I do, I just thought I'd tell you I think it's a good time to begin returning money to the market. Not sure we've hit bottom? Neither am I, but I know we're a lot closer to it than we were 6 months ago. Long-term, this period will look like a good buying opportunity for people thinking long-term. Everything's on sale.

I'm 30-something. For the first time in a long time, today I'm adding a little money to companies I believe are in a great position to benefit from long-term trends: Alterantive energy, health care, Apple, etc. I added some shares of Intuitive Surgical. These stocks have really been hammered. But robotic surgeries will be the rule for virtually all operations within a generation. But do you think Apple is going anywhere? Anybody think we're not going to move to solar power in a big way?

If you are retiring soon, or in retirement now, I sure hope you're mostly in safe investments. But this could be a good time for you to put modest part of your portfolio in blue-chip, dividend-paying stocks that have been beaten down. The next few years could be rocky -- Go for companies that make things people need through thick and thin. But stay away from financials -- they're too risky for retirees.

Oh, and pay down debt, especially credit card debt. That has a guaranteed rate of return equal to your card's interest rate. Right now, that's a GREAT guaranteed rate of return.

Get well soon...

I hear that Dick Cheney was in the hospital today with more heart trouble. Never fear, however, because the word is that George Bush assumed his powers while he was incapacitated.

Odd jobs

Bet you didn't know there were openings for the position of "pirate spokesman". But it's been confirmed by no less an authority than the New York Times. Scroll to the bottom of this story.

What Obama Should Have Said

I thought last night's debate was fine. The candidates rehashed their positions on a number of issues, and both sounded reasonably well-informed and critiqued each other's record. There were no real headlines, and so a couple of items which should have been subheads carried the day: McCain proposed a big new government program, and the Obamaniacs feigned umbrage when McCain called their man "that one." Yadda, yadda. I call it a draw, basically, which plays to Obamas favor. It's like a scoreless seventh inning: An advantage for the team leading the game.

There was a huge missed opportunity for Barack Obama in last night's debate, though: An e-mail question from a 78-year-old who wanted to know what kind of sacrifices average Americans could make to help today. See the video here. McCain asked people to sacrifice government programs. Blech. Obama started well, but bunted, essentially, when he made the obvious reference to George Bush's infamous call to all Americans to "go shopping." He talked about alternative energy, which was the right direction, but he didn't actually propose any real sacrifices. He moved the runners, but didn't score. He didn't make a clear call that would galvanize people, or better yet, make a big headline to help brand himself. Here's what he should have said:

"Thank you for your question; I think it's a profound one. Americans want to be part of the solution, but aren't sure what one person, what one family can do. But families can make a very big difference that helps the economy, improves national security and makes America greener all at the same time.

Tonight I'm calling on every American who can afford it, to support alternative energy by installing wind or solar power at their home. I think it's the patriotic duty of every wealthy American, and I'm serious about that. Consider it a smart investment in today's markets. You'll get a guaranteed return in the form of decades of green electricity. You'll also be supporting this technology and making more affordable for more Americans. And you'll be helping to employ thousands of Americans in a growing industry, to design, manufacture and install these systems. It's so much better than sending our dollars overseas to buy polluting fossil fuels. And of course, it's exactly the sort of thing we need to do to start solving our climate crisis.

The government is helping, by offering tax incentives to do this; the Senate just approved extending tax credits for new solar installations for seven more years. But many Americans don't have five or ten thousand dollars to "go solar." We're fortunate that there are more than a million millionaires in this country. From this day forward, companies that install these systems should never have a day off. Their phones should be ringing off the hook. Americans need to call this week, this month, and get started on installing solar and wind at home.

If you're fortunate enough that you don't have to worry about the next paycheck; if you don't have to worry where the next house payment is coming from, and your needs are met, this is something you can do now. It will benefit all Americans. It will help our economy, make us more secure, and protect our planet. And I think it's clear right now, you have an obligation to act. Let's go!"

If Obama had said that yesterday, it would be the debate headline on every paper in America today.

Debating the Debate

My friend Jason told me yesterday that he was looking forward to the Veep debate like few other political spectacles he could remember. Another train wreck like Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric, he judged, and this thing "would be all over."

Did that happen? No, but it was close.

My take on the debate is that it came through loud and clear that Joe Biden had the intellect and temperament to handle the responsibilities of high office. Even to those who disagree with him or don't like him, it had to be clear that Biden knew what he was talking about. After a few overly complicated answers early on, he hit his stride marking out clear differences. He vigorously supported his ticket and tied John McCain to the Bush administration's policies. He was devestatingly effective at critiquing John McCain's record without being at all vicious on a personal level. I actually think he holds McCain in some esteem, and that came through to me. When Palin floundered, he was neither dismissive or derisive, but treated her with respect. He responded to her points. He was composed and coherent. He also seemed very genuine to me -- these are issues he really cares about, and has cared about for a long time.

Sarah Palin didn't embarrass herself, but she didn't exactly move the chains for her ticket, either. On issue after issue, he showed mastery and understanding, while she mouthed platitudes and repeated talking points. I guess she stayed on message, and hit reliable GOP talking points. But she talked way, way too fast, and sounded to me like many of the high school debaters I faced: Excited, nervous, and eager to talk her way back to key points written down on her notecards.

She was better than she was on Couric, but not much better. Asked about her Achilles heel as a politician, for example, she could only produce a lot of vapid happy talk. Her answers on rights for gay couples didn't make sense to me. And it seemed to me that Biden was more familiar with the details of McCain's policies than Palin was.

I don't think she's stupid -- in fact, I never have. She's no towering intellect, but she's moderately intelligent. She can rub a couple thoughts together. But the cutesy demeanor and can-do attitude do smack of the class-president elections. I can certainly see how they would be reasonably effective in a campaign for small-state governor or even Congress. But people pay attention -- really pay close attention -- to the Presidential elections, and will not forgive a candidate for vast shortcomings. As Palin said herself, "I've been at this now for, what, five weeks?" Yeah, exactly, Governor.

In baseball, they often talk about a prospect's "tools." That doesn't mean talent, but rather their raw abilities. Tiger fans were deliriously excited about Cameron Maybin's "tools" as a player, but understood why the team traded him for the polished talent of Miguel Cabrera.

I can understand why Republicans have been excited about Palin, who displayed some of the political "tools" that helped her win in Alaska. In addition to having a folksy charm, she shows some abilities like poise, positivity and adherance to message which are important for a politician. But she's about 20 years away from being ready for the debate she had last night. Her grasp of the national issues is no better than that of most callers to political talk-show programs.

For those of you who think bashing her inexperience and featherweight grasp of the issues is somehow sexist, here's a dose of equality for you: If she were a male candidate, the label that would stick to her right now is "Empty Suit."

By contrast, Biden was polished, prepared and yes, presidential.

Her performance stopped the bleeding; It wasn't enough.

Who won?

Here's an instant read on who won the debate... Take a close look at the green bars on each topic:

MediaCurves

Unfortunate headline.

From today's "Cay Compass", the tax-advantaged national newspaper of the Cayman Islands:

"DHL helps storm hit Haitians"

To be charitable, I believe they meant "storm-hit Haitians" ??

Riley on the Road to Recovery

As some of you have heard, Riley has had an awful, awful week. We found him struggling to stand at the top of the stairs when we returned from the Tigers game a week ago today. It was heartbreaking and terrifying to see him unable to control his left legs, and looking to us for help. We made an emergency trip to the local vet, who ruled out poisoning or stroke, and said it looked like a neck problem. By Wednesday morning, he was much worse -- virtually paralyzed in all four legs. His big tail seemed the be the only thing working normally.

After a trip to MSU's animal hospital, we were refereed to private-practice specialists. Dr. Galle at the Animal Neurology and MRI Center in Commerce Twp. diagnosed a ruptured disc in Riley's neck. We left Riley in his capable hands for a Thursday morning surgery to remove the ruptured disc material, which was pressing down on his spinal cord. He didn't seem to recover much in the first 48 hours; A second surgery was required Saturday night in the same spot to remove a blood clot which formed in the area.

After several days where things looked a little bleak, he has begun to rebound. He's walking again, I understand, but not necessarily very well. It will be a pretty long recovery for him, as the surgery itself involved cutting through a lot of muscle to get to the spine, and of course the recovery of neurological function is somewhat unpredictable. But it's a very good sign that he has motor function... it means he's on track for a recovery. We're now cautiously optimistic that he'll recover 80-90% of his mobility and strength.

We're silly, sentimental pet owners, I guess. A week ago, I really feared losing him, and I still don't know if it will be worth the effort and expense. I just hope Riley is able to recover enough to enjoy several more healthy years.

I understand it's sort of an unusual injury for a retriever mix, but the MRI that revealed the rupture also shows he has degenerating discs. Our crash-o-matic red rover isn't a puppy anymore, and is going to have to endure some lifestyle changes to prevent a re-occurance. He'll probably get more walks to prevent rambunctiousness, and he'll be a downstairs dog from now on, as his love of leaping off the stairs is a no-no.

It's been stressful and sad... I apologize that we haven't been able to keep everyone up to date, but those aren't easy phone calls to make. We'll let you know when we know more. Riley may be coming home later this week... Think good thoughts for him, everyone.

The Meltdown

Dad wrote this morning, expressing amazement that I hadn't commented on "this week's triumph of Reaganism." With a few edits, here is my reply:

============

Reaganism?

Financial crises have been around a lot longer than Reaganism or, for that matter, the Republic. Maybe Reagan et. al. bear some responsibility, but the biggest culprit was a lack of investor scrutiny toward the banks they invested in. It's easy and seductive to claim this is a political problem. I think that's secondary to the fact that this is a business problem, brought on by a cultural obsession with short-term profits. We're finding that such profits often come at the long-term expense of these financial companies, and the chickens have come home to roost. And these sophisticated big banks weren't ignorant buyers of these shaky mortgages in the first place -- if they were going to invest tens of billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities, they could have done a bit more homework on what they were buying. Wall Street lost its appreciation for credit risk, and that wasn't the fault of any politician. Goldman, in particular, did a good job of recognizing these risks and unloading them.

The main political issue, to me, has been the loss of manufacturing jobs and the turmoil that comes with the massive job turnover we've had in a "globalized" economy. Families which used to be able to depend on a stable, well-paying job now find that they've been living much closer to insolvency. Rather than a secure job that pays $25/hr, blue-collar guys are in tenuous jobs which pay $17. They lose their overtime for a few months, gas prices spike, and suddenly they can't make all the mortgage payments... Down comes the house of cards. The mortgage-holders didn't appreciate the actual default risk, and now the effects are cascading through the system.

So, maybe Reagan and his cronies bear some blame, but the lion's share goes to the management of these companies, who sold out their shareholders for immediate gain -- an old, old tale. But I'd be interested to hear why you think this is all Reagan's fault.

Modern-Day Robin Hood?

St. Pioneer Press:
GOP delegate's hotel tryst goes bad when he wakes up with $120,000 missing

I'm sure it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy:

The theft occurred early on Sept. 4, hours after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave her speech accepting her party's vice presidential nomination. A police report said Schwartz told officers he met a woman at the bar and took her to his $319-a-night room.

"Victim reported suspect made victim drinks, told him to get undressed, which is the last thing he remembers," a police narrative said. "Upon waking, victim discovered money, jewelry gone; total loss over $120K."

...Aside from the watch, ring, necklace, earrings and belt, Schwartz also reported a $1,000 purse or wallet, a $1,500 cell phone, $500 in cash and a couple of rings worth $50 had been taken.

Schwartz is now mum on the event, but he was more talkative with media beforehand:

In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency.

"Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.

A few more thoughts on Sarah Palin

To use a baseball anaolgy, Sarah Palin has done well in AAA. Now she's being asked to bat cleanup for the Yankees, and there's no real reason to think she's up to the job.

Four or eight years from now, after having a chance to build a track record in a position of real responsibility, maybe she would make a strong V.P. candidate. Maybe she serves a couple terms as governor, and gets herself elected to the Senate. Maybe she authors some legislation and gets some visa stamps on that brand-new passport of hers. After all, she seems to have some of the prerequisite characteristics:

Palin might be one tough cookie. I had a boss at my first gig in New York, working for TIME Online, who was also one tough cookie. That boss, Janice, was smart, no-nonsense, likable and professional. She knew a lot about a lot of issues, as you'd expect of an editor for TIME. Palin may also be one tough cookie. But that doesn't qualify her to be president.

Palin might be an admirable person. She is raising a child with Down Syndrome and dealing with a rebellious teenage daughter who is proving to be a challenging kid. But America is filled with millions of great people -- even other people who have raised kids with Down Syndrome. They're not necessarily qualified to be President.

Palin might have an ability to get things done. If I lived in Wasilla, I know that during those long Alaskan winters, I'd appreciate the hockey arena she worked to build as mayor. Hell, I'd even think it was worth the debt the town took on to make it happen. And as governor, it seems she did move quickly on some of her agenda. But that is still small potatoes. Lots of people get lots more important things done everyday, and mostly, they're not qualified to be President.

Palin might have some real political skills. She fought to the top of Alaska's old-boys club, delivered a much-admired speech (at least in some quarters) and seems to be more polished than you'd expect. But then we didn't expect much, and every state capitol has a few truly skilled politicians in-house. So that doesn't really qualify her to be President.

None of that qualifies her to be President of the United States of America. Not even close.

There is no G.E.D. to replace actual experience in national and international issues. Maybe in 4 or 8 years, Palin would be ready to make a bid for one of America's top offices. I'd still disagree with her politics. But at least she'd have some preparation.

Sarah Palin: A Postmodern Veep candidate

Sarah Palin read a capable speech last night. But she is not qualified to be President. Therefore, she isn't qualified to be Vice-President.

If she's so qualified, how come even Republican insiders are all over the television admitting that they didn't know much about her before last week? Aren't most qualified candidates, you know, people we've heard of?

Choosing her as a Veep candidate embodies the most blatantly cynical post-modernist aspects of our political process. Palin was chosen precisely because she is an unknown personality -- a blank red slate onto which all the right-wing crazies can write their own opinions and beliefs. America has never seen a Veep candidate chosen so much for symbolism as Sarah Palin.

In the last 48 hours, I have heard an astonishing amount of propaganda about Sarah Palin from the mouths of Republicans. Propaganda is distinguished from actual argumentation by the fact that it's disingenuous, and designed to make an emotional appeal. She read a speech, written by George W. Bush's speechwriter, whom she had met just a week ago. She had met John McCain exactly once in her life before being chosen as Veep candidate.

I've heard that she is being discriminated against because she's a working mother. They say that questioning the value of her almost-2-years as governor of Alaska (population, 670,000) and her stint as small-town mayor (Quoth Palin, "It's not rocket science") is an insult to working mothers everywhere. I've heard that examining her experience is "sexist", because the same standard isn't applied to Barack Obama... a patently false claim. Obama's experience and preparedness to be president was a question fought over 50 states for some 18 months. The voters have given their verdict, and Obama passes the test. In her speech, she assaulted Obama's experience. She must have brass balls under that skirt. Consider: He has been a candidate for President almost as long as she has been governor of Alaska (about 1 month less).

I've heard that she represents certain values. I'm listening now to Pat Robertson explain that this really shows that -- despite a career of showing a distaste for "agents of intolerance" -- John McCain really is a fire-breathing God-in-government conservative. Thank the Lord, say the Christianists, he chose this God-fearing exemplar, this hero of the right wing, to be his co-pilot.

The Republicans at the convention, good partisans all, tell us how much -- how DEEPLY they love Sarah Palin. That seems improbable, since most of them couldn't have told you the name of Alaska's governor a week ago. But she's the blank slate, the empty vessel into which they must pour their adoration. They have no choice; they must.

It's all propaganda. If she were a second-term governor who had some serious accomplishments on her resume, you could take this nomination seriously. I can't. I'm going to venture a guess that there are approximately 10,000 Republican women currently living in the United States with more "executive experience" and more seasoning than Sarah Palin.

Hey, being a working mom is hard, do doubt. It's a credit to her. But it's also a credit to about 100 million other American women who have done it. What makes her so special? Running a suburb 30-odd miles from Anchorage which has a reputation as the Meth capital of Alaska? Being elected governor as the hand-picked choice of "Uncle Ted" Stevens, the dean of the Alaska's Republican machine? She should thank her good fortune.

People point to her 80% approval ratings -- in a state that keeps electing Don Young, Ted Stevens and the Murkowskis. It's a lot easier to keep those approval ratings up when people don't pay taxes, and the government distributes $3200 bribes from the oil industry on an annual basis to each and every resident. You don't have to make many "tough decisions" when you never have to think about raising unpopular taxes and there's a trans-Yukon pipeline of federal money rolling into your state.

Can you imagine her -- really, now -- six weeks into the McCain administration thrust into the Oval Office if the aging McCain's ticker fails? The neophyte governor, so excited about building roads and getting to fire political appointees, would be a doe in the headlights having to make future-of-the-world decisions. She hasn't the first bit of understanding how to wield power. THAT is the key to being a President. Understanding what power is, how to use it, how to store it up. Does anyone truly think she is the best lieutenant for John McCain?

No... No... She's been chosen entirely for image purposes. Substance is not the issue. McCain disagrees with her on key issues like global warming, religious intolerance, and so on. Palin, not McCain, thinks Iraq is a mission from God.

Yet he abandoned his principles to choose her, and in so doing, the key question for the voter is, What the hell does he stand for anymore?

Minority Report tech in real life...

Well, it's pretty damn close...

Perceptive Pixel

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

Clark's comments

I'll take it for granted that you, dear reader, have seen the whole firestorm about Gen. Wesley Clark's comments about John McCain. If you have not, you can catch up here, among other places.

Clark, a man I admire deeply, has run aground on the shoals of political naivete. He's out of his element playing in politics, and I think he proves it. There's nothing really wrong with what he says, as long as it's seen/heard in the full context of the questions he was asked and his full reply. But if you grab a line or two, it sure sounds really bad, and a lot of voters only listen to a line or two. Saying that "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification
to be president," well, that just sounds insulting. But when you learn that he picked up the verbiage Bob Scheiffer used in the question, and hear him go on to explain that he views McCain as a hero and a courageous man, but he's concerned about McCain's lack of executive experience -- well, then the comment makes quite a bit of sense, and doesn't really come off all that mean-spirited.

But it was an amatuerish mistake by Clark, and is the perfect sort of coal to stoke the furnaces of fake outrage. Now Obama has to distance himself from Clark and those comments to cool this down, and it puts the nominee in the strange position of essentially having to say, yeah, getting shot down and tortured DOES qualify McCain to be President.

Which probably isn't the outcome Clark wanted.

For what it's worth, I think McCain's POW episode says a great deal about his character and mettle, and that probably matters to voters. On the other hand, I don't think his military service provided a great deal of executive experience, and I don't think it necessarily endowed the man with good foreign policy judgment, as McCain's votes in the Senate and bone-headed comments re:Iraq attest.

Mmmmm.... Beer.....

I've heard from other women who have had children, that when they were expecting-- the idea of taking a drink of alcohol (beer,wine, etc.) really didn't appeal to them. They "didn't miss it." I'm going on record to say that they're all lying.

I have had no cravings to mention except for that of a good hoppy beer. Then again, any good beer would do just fine.

I will never, of course, put the health of a child behind that of wanting a good pint of beer. So I will wait, and wait. And probably wait some more. I haven't taken a sip since April 13th. That's forty-six days. I'm not even through the first trimester. I'm in a sad, sad, state.

It's important to look after the mental well being of an expecting mother. And so, in order to make myself feel better, I'm placing a sign up list for all those who want to buy me a beer when I can finally drink again. It is on my refrigerator. You can sign up via phone, email, fax, or in person. There are no limitations on space. You may sign up more than once.

No pressure. But I will not like you very much if you don't sign up at least once.

Cheers for beers.

Peak Oil: Coming soon

The old guard has been badmouthing the utterly sensible predictions of the Peak Oil crowd for some time now. It now appears that, when closely scrutinized, the estimates of the world's oil reserves and ability to pump it out have been overly optimistic.

Today's Wall Street Journal features a front-page article which lays it all out:

Energy Watchdog Warns Of Oil-Production Crunch

The world's premier energy monitor is preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil-supply forecast, a shift that reflects deepening pessimism over whether oil companies can keep abreast of booming demand.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency is in the middle of its first attempt to comprehensively assess the condition of the world's top 400 oil fields. Its findings won't be released until November, but the bottom line is already clear: Future crude supplies could be far tighter than previously thought.

To translate this to the words of Chief Engineer Scott of Star Trek fame: "She's givin' it all she's got, captain!"

I'm expecting $8/gallon gas by the end of the decade. This just shows how unbelievably dumb the Clinton/McCain gas tax holiday is: It guts transportation spending, and doesn't make a lick of difference in the price of gas. It might be, what 4% of the current price?

Big News

We've been trying to tell folks in person, but word's getting around. If we haven't had a chance to see you or talk to you yet, sorry that we haven't seen you!

The news is that Teresa and I are expecting our first child in mid-December. We're very excited, and thanks to everyone who has shared this excitement with us. Our families seem to be beaming with approval, and the grandparents-to-be are all on Cloud 9.

It's all a bit odd at this stage... We KNOW something huge has happened to us, but so far, life hasn't changed all that much. But soon enough, we'll be getting rooms ready and figuring out daycare plans. Teresa has started to feel some of the effects of the hormone soup racing through her body, and giving up beer will be hard for her.

But in watching so many of our friends find so much joy in parenting, and in seeing their beautiful children grow and flourish, we feel certain that we're going to enjoy all this so much!

This is asinine.

I'm going to do something a bit unusual for me, and talk a bit about a stock I own. Normally, I figure that this sort of thing is A) sort of a private issue and B) kinda boring to other people, but in this case, I have a few points to make. First, let me post for you part of a short AP story from today about a company in which I own significant stock:

"NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of Intuitive Surgical Inc., which makes the da Vinci robotic surgery system, tumbled Friday after the company forecast weaker sales growth in 2008 than Wall Street had expected.

After reporting strong first-quarter results, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company said it expects revenue to increase 42 percent for the year, which implies sales of $853.2 million. Earlier, the company projected 40 percent growth.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected $857.2 million in revenue, or growth of almost 46 percent. Intuitive Surgical Inc. shares skidded $57.50, or 16.5 percent, to $291.

ThinkEquity analyst Stephen Ogilvie downgraded the stock to "Accumulate" from "Buy" on the news. Ogilvie said Intuitive's first quarter was good and the company is in good shape, but he does not expect the stock to rise. He kept a price target of $360 per share."

Okay. First let me say that you can't get mad at the market: It is what it is and it does what it does. Fine. But analysts and media are another story. They're usually a beat slow and a step behind.

In this case, the writer points out that the company's forward earnings expectations fall $4 million short of analyst expectations, out of a total $850+ million. Fair enough, but for those keeping score at home, that's LESS THAN HALF OF ONE PERCENT!! And if you know the company's product -- surgical robots -- you understand that's a shortfall of two -- 2! -- systems. Over the next 12 months.

I would submit a better reading of events is that the stock had been speculatively bid up just prior to yesterday's earnings announcement and conference call. Maybe worth mentioning, if you're a decent reporter.

Secondly, ThinkEquity analyst Stephen Ogilvie is an ass. There, I said it. He's closing the door after the horse has left the barn. If he'd had something to say BEFORE the earnings announcement and 15% share price drop, that would have been worth something.

But if, on Wednesday, when the stock was at $350/share, he had a "buy" recommendation and a 12-month target price of $360, how is it a worse investment two days later at $295/share? I mean, as the AP article clearly states, he's not changing his expected target price. Most people think a thing is a better deal when it's on sale, not a worse deal.

Anyhow, not that I'm blaming Stephen Ogilvie or the AP for my little turn of fortune this week (and I'm not worried about this company in the long term AT ALL), but sometimes this kind of stupidity just needs to be called out.

He's ready

If you watched/read about/heard about the ABC "debate" that took place this week, you probably share my disdain for where we've come. America's political discourse has never been the angelic model of civic-mindedness many people seem to "remember" but I don't ever recall it getting quite this inane before at the presidential level. I do have to admit, the Goring of Gore came close, but the ABC charade was a new low, because it dwelled so happily and delightedly in the muck of this campaign, with a blissful ignorance of all the huge issues pressing in on our world.

And while Barack Obama came off as a bit beleagured during that debate, he did not crack, and did not sink to... oh, let's call it bitterness. He didn't dive in. And the next day, I think he adeptly turned that debate into an object lesson of why he's running. I think he's ready for this job.

A Malaria X-Prize?

In historical terms, almost wiping out a disease isn't much use. It may greatly help a few generations, of course. But almost certainly, absent a total victory over these pathogens, they will incubate, mutate and replicate again, more virulent or resistant than before. So, while we may all pat ourselves on the back for the brilliance of modern medicine, I've always felt we've been fooling ourselves.

Eradicating polio -- which the world almost, almost did -- would be an immense relief. We're not out of the woods yet.You may be surprised to learn that about 2,000 people are still diagnosed with the disease every year. Vaccinations have cut the incidence of polio by about 99 percent, but fewer and fewer of us have had the vaccine.

If polio were truly and finally eradicated, humans could all breathe a collective sigh of relief. No child would ever again be laid low by that disease. We're close, and continuing international programs have a good chance to finish off the poliovirus in our lifetime. It would be only the second disease ever declared eradicated, after smallpox (see Wikipedia for more.)

Similarly, malaria is a disease that we probably COULD eradicate if we had the money and political willpower. There are four strains of malarial parasites which can cause disease in humans. These protozoa still kill about 3 million people a year. And Wikipedia says that as many as 515 million people -- a good percentage of the world's population -- fall ill every year. It may be a chief cause of perpetual poverty in the world's tropical societies.

The big pharmaceutical companies of the world have no incentive to cure these diseases, of course. As Chris Rock astutely points out, the money ain't in the cure, it's in the treatment. Given the truth of that point, maybe the challenge is to put the money back in the cure.

So what if the great health charities, such as the Gates Foundation, were to sponsor a contest. The could raise great piles of money and offer it as a prize to the company which can succesfully eradicate these pathogens worldwide. There could be smaller prizes for partial success, but the big prize comes from permanent victory. We might attack other diseases in similar fashion. Put the profit back into the cure.

The idea of using a prize to spur innovation is nothing new. From the X-prize for a privately-financed spaceship, to the quest for a 100 mpg car, piles of money drive the world's visionaries to put their ideas into practice. The best ideas find risk-tolerant entrepreneurs to back them, and even when they fall short of the final goal, they move the ball forward.

I think that would work with disease. As we pick off diseases, we should be able to devote more and more of our resources on the ones that remain. Let's do it before natural selection produces generations of "superbugs" which overrun the progress we've made.

TOXIC: Garbage Island

A floating island of plastic garbage the size of Texas. A crusty old boat captain. A doctor. A Mexican scientist. And film crew of geeks. Makes for good TV, but this show is on the Web.

This will give you some serious thoughts about all the extraneous plastics in your life.

So far, 4 of 12 episodes of "Garbage Island" are online... I'm eager to see the rest soon. Go check it out.

Oh my Tigers!!!

It has been pointed out to me by helpful friends that the Detroit Tigers have failed to win a single real game since, in the heat of pre-season excitement, Tdec and I purchased a 27-game package of tickets. While I'm more likely to blame the Tigers' all-too-quiet bats, I have to admit that according to the laws of quantum physics, it IS possible that our decision to buy these tickets is the primary reason the Tigers are losing. But the odds are against it.

My preferred theory is that the Tigers are just enduring a perfect storm of slumping pros. And there's a common thread to them all: This team wasn't ready in time for the regular season. I understand the feeling of Leyland & Co. that the starting pitchers and everyday players are all established pros, and you don't need to harangue them to get ready. But these guys were not on their game coming out of Florida (by way of Houston), and they still are not. They're still a step behind the Royals and White Sox, obviously, and those 6 losses will hang around their necks like a weight the rest of the season.

I notice that the Tigers starting pitching has looked good for about four innings or so, and then fallen off considerably in quality. That's a TREND thus far: Good stuff, generally, but not enough stamina. Bonderman's speed tailed off in the 5th, and the other starters have marred their first four innings with substandard fifth and sixth innings. The Tigers' bullpen has been pretty good, actually, after clearing the basepaths of inherited runners. That caveat is a big deal though: If memory serves, I think almost 100% of runners inherited from starters have crossed the plate. The inability of Tigers pitchers to strand inherited runners has been a peeve of mine for a couple years now.

And of course the big bats have been silent. Some people think that maybe -- because Polanco, Guillen, Rodriguez, Cabrera, Renteria and Ordonez all just happen to be slumping players born, raised and trained to play baseball in much-warmer climates -- that maybe just maybe the weather has been a factor. It's not a crazy theory, but I have no idea how you prove it.

There's no doubt that players need to prepare for the cold, as it does change the game. I noticed that a lot of pitchers had control problems on the coldest days. The difference is that our opponents were pounding pitches into the dirt, while the Tigers arms were peppering the backstop. Which reminds me of Dontrelle Willis' pre-season comment that he had never SEEN snow. How much snow do you think Willis' perenniel teammate Miguel Cabrera has seen?

The fact remains, however, that their bats have been cold as ice the past week, and the weather can't be an excuse. Opponents are playing in the same conditions. So, even if cold wasn't the cause, my hope is that averages rise with the thermometer. But I know things will get better, as of course they can hardly get worse.

From his cold, dead fingers...

So Charlton Heston has passed away at the age of 84.

Can we have his gun now?

Odd fact...

According to a pair of stories in this week's TIME Magazine:

-- The Peace Symbol turns 50 on April 4, 2008. It was invented by an Englishman for an anti-nuke rally, and the symbol melds the semaphore signals for "N" and "D" as in "Nuclear Disarmament."

-- April 4, 2008 is also the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

I'm sure that the irony of this coincidence has been noted often before, but it was news to me.

Tigers Pitching woes

Seems like all the Detroit Tigers die-hards are worried sick about the state of the team's pitching staff. Everyone whose last name doesn't rhyme with "Jerlander" seems to be under suspicion. Francisco Cruceta can't get out of the Dominican Republic due to visa issues, lefty Tim Byrdak stunk so bad this spring he was given an outright release, Rodney seems to be perpetually troubled by tendonitis, and starter Dontrelle Willis has a combination of electric stuff and control problems that remind you of Charlie Sheen of "Wild Thing" vintage.

Yet, all the focus has been on the problems, and not the bright spots. Denny Bautista, picked up in a trade for prospect Jose Capellan, has looked fantastic, with three great pitches -- maybe Pudge and Chuck Hernandez can teach him how to mix them up correctly. Zach Miner is a legitimate major-league bullpen arm. Todd Jones has been there before and done it before. And Tata, Cruceta and Rodney could be back by May, for all we know. All is not lost. And fans are fooling themselves if they think other teams aren't facing the same sorts of questions.

And in the end, they simply need the bullpen to be average. Much has been said about the astonishing bats in this lineup -- all of it deserved. This team has starting pitching that, if all five guys get right, will shut down opponents' bats. Robertson and Bonderman were dogged by injury last year, but both have been sublime at times when healthy. Rogers is old as dirt, but he's also smarter than 95% of the guys he'll face. Verlander, well -- he's a great one. (Seeing his no-hitter in person was one of the greatest sports memories of my life. Who pitches a no-hitter in their second season? Who does that?).

So all the hand-wringing about the bullpen and the last two position players on the bench is a bit much. It's easy to imagine May 1 rolling around, with Rodney, Cruceta and Tata in the bullpen, Granderson in CF, Willis and his control problems sorted out after a slow start, and all of us asking ourselves, "What were we all so worried about?"

Me to Pennsylvania: "End it."

Hey, I believe in democracy. I'm a big believer. So I'm opposed to any and all shenanigans that Democratic bigwigs are talking about using as a way to end the Democratic Party's presidential race. Now, I'm backing Obama, so I wouldn't mind if Hillary had an epiphany and decided to drop out tomorrow. But if she decides to stay in it and try to win, well, OK.

A lot of people are nervous that a long primary will doom the Democrat in the general election. My feeling is that it would be hard for a Democrat to lose. People have talked about Clinton using the "Tonya Harding option," whereby, in losing, she essentially cuts Obama off at the knees for the general election. That's a possibility, of course, but that's just not cricket. If she pulls that shit and costs the Democrats the 2008 election out of spite, good freakin' luck finding support from your less-than-ecstatic Congressional colleagues over the next 4 years.

So, as a believer in democracy, here's what I'm asking of the voters in Pennsylvania: Just end this. Give Obama a 5-point win. That breaks the back of the Clinton campaign and drains the destructive energy out of her increasingly cynical campaign. To me, that's the best outcome: the voters decide.

Come on Pennsylvania!!

An old friend returns

I just knew he'd be back the day I heard the Wings were buying out his contract to fit under the salary cap... The Free Press reports:

(Darren) McCarty has been on a tumultuous path over the past few years, and his career looked over last summer. But last December he leaned on longtime friend and former Grind Line mate Kris Draper, and Draper came through with a gym membership and a contract for the IHL team he co-owns, the Flint Generals. From there McCarty played for the AHL's Grand Rapids Griffins, and Feb. 25 the Wings signed him to a one-year contract.

Darren McCarty's 36, so I wouldn't expect miracles. But he's a proud man, and I'm sure he'll get himself in game shape and do all he can to be ready during the playoffs. You'd expect McCarty to be a scratch most days if the rest of the team is healthy, but if the Wings make any sort of run, you can bet they'll call on McCarty at some point.

I know he's had his troubles, but man -- I like the guy. Welcome back, Darren.

I'm so bloody smart...

...sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm real.

I've been telling people for a long time that the day would come when we don't need solar panels -- we'll just be able to paint stuff, and it the paint will not only capture solar power, but be conductive enough that we just need to embed some wires in it to collect the power. Well, almost -- the idea is to put solar paint on steel siding. Close enough, folks. Keep thinking about it, and I'm sure the micro-wire idea will come to you, too.

No idea how far along the lads at Swansea University are to a finished product. But, how fantastically cool will this be?

We just need to put all efforts into getting this sort of stuff to market ASAP. It's got to be a strategic priority.

Tigers' Opening Day

Hard to believe, but real baseball is now less than 2 weeks away!

As a partial season-ticket holder, I got to jump the queue yesterday and buy Opening Day tickets. But I didn't see the e-mail alerting me of this until an hour and a half after the sale started, so I didn't end up with great ducats: All I could get was a pair of standing-room passes. Man, these things are going like hotcakes.

If you're a hardy soul, you might be interested in attending the Tigers' March 31 opener vs. the Royals. If so, let me know: I'm willing to sell the pair. Make an offer.

Too much junk mail

From the Stockton (CA) Record:

On average, every household in America receives 848 pieces of junk mail a year. That's more than 100 billion pieces of unsolicited paper using more than 100 million trees...

ForestEthics, an inter-national environmental nonprofit group based in San Francisco, launched its campaign Tuesday to stop junk mail and "take our mailboxes back," according to a statement...

Junk mail distributed by the U.S. Postal Service in the United States accounts for 30 percent of all the mail delivered worldwide, and ForestEthics says 44 percent of that goes to landfills unopened.

All that, and it pisses me off, too? What a deal!

Ferraro and the race card

I don't know that what Geraldine Ferraro said was racist; that is, I don't think it reveals a hatred of blacks on her part. But it does reveal a real cynicism about racial politics: She and other Clintonistas probably think it's good strategy to try to take a little of the shine off Barack. But Ferraro has proven to be ham-handed in the wrealm of bark-knuckle politics. If you're going to take the gloves off, be careful not to punch yourself.

Ferraro's clearly tried to insert race more overtly as a campaign issue, and that's absolutely unacceptable in a Democratic primary. But her boneheaded-comments also bothered me because they smack of the sort of entitlement mentality which has beseiged so many old-guard Democrats who support Hillary: The idea that she's earned her shot, while he's just "lucky," in Ferraro's words. Those are the sounds of a rat on a sinking ship.

Off all the chatter I've seen on this topic, maybe the best rebuttal to Ferraro came buried in the comments section beneath an item on the Huffington Post:

BrooklynLager: Imagine a goodlooking, charismatic graduate of Columbia, Harvard Law School who becomes the editor of the Harvard Law Review. He decides he wants to go into politics, so he moves back out to Chicago, but no one will back him for any office, despite his resume, obvious political skills, and talent. So he works for a while at a law firm to build up contacts and pay the bills.

Years go by, and FINALLY he's able to get financial backing to run for state senate in a heavily black district, because that's all that's available to him. He works there for years, forming alliances, meeting with people whose support he's going to need (some of which will come back to haunt him later, but he has no other options), and finally almost 20 years later, he wins in a tightly contested primary for Senate and explodes on the national scene. As we've all seen what Obama is capable of in strict terms of electability - the guy is a phenomenon - his lack of experience in Washington should be striking. The man is 46 years old, not 36.

Now consider Bill Clinton, someone with comparable charisma and a similar educational background. Three years out of Law School, he's the Attorney General of Arkansas. Two years later he's Governor. It's as easy as that.

Agreed: Ferraro is just wrong. There's no excuse for a Clinton to so bungle race issues that she loses 90% of the African-American vote in Mississippi. Hillary is half of a political partnership which has made huge commitments to improving the economic opportunities of black America, to appointing blacks to positions of power and influence, to healing racial divisions. It is so sad to see them walk away from that here, in this chapter of their lives. It's deeply short-sighted, and reinforces my conviction that for the Clintons, all is calculation, and nothing is principle.

Black candidates have to deal with the reality that a real chunk of the electorate is just never going to vote for them. And while it may be true that some voters are excited about Obama because he's black, history clearly shows (Jesse Jackson, for instance) that you can't win just by being an exciting, eloquent black leader. There's so much more than that to Barack. He's sharp, graceful, shrewd, hard-working, and pretty clearly running a campaign which taps into all of the pent-up RAGE at what's been going on in Washington. He doesn't have to run against Bush -- it's so fucking obvious that Barack Obama is Bush's antithesis.

Now, Hillary Clinton is an intelligent and talented politician, who excites a lot of people (not me, incidentally, but no matter). And she was at her best when she was showing positivity, humanity, humility, energy and even a little spontanaiety. To me, she's always been a bit like meatloaf (the food): You know, it's fine, it fills you up, not really objectionable. I'd choose meatloaf over plenty of other options, but it doesn't get me really excited. If she were the nominee, I'd vote for her in November knowing that, you know, at least she'd run an Administration where people had some respect for the Constitution and the law, and that counts for a whole lot.

But while Hillary Clinton is an adept politician and a really good senator, Obama shows the promise of greatness. He offers America a chance to really break with he political tropes of the past few decades, to heal some of its wounds, to mend its fences with neighbors, and to really build a vision for America into the 21st Century. Hillary, like George H.W. Bush, has trouble with "the whole vision thing."

This is it in a nutshell: Ferraro needs to stop fighting the political battles of 1984.

I got stripes...

Maybe it was rash, maybe it was a foolish way to tie up several "Benjamins", especially in these days of $3+ gasoline. But baseball fever has gripped the Woods household this year in a big way. And on the last day of our trip to Australia, Trase and I went online and plopped down the money for a pair of 27-game Tigers ticket packages.

Yesterday, the FedEx guy delivered a little bundle of joy. They're beautiful.

So on April 2, and 1:05 p.m., you shall find me in Section 321 of New Tiger Stadium -- (I'm not going to advertise for that carpetbagging bank anymore; they didn't pay me a naming-rights fee) -- cheering my lungs out as Jeremy Bonderman takes the mound.

Maybe I'll get ambitious and post my breakdown of the Tigers '08 lineup. But I might have to charge for that content through my ArbINSIDER subscription program.

This is not a tax bill

Got the letter from the township tax assessor's office today. It says "THIS IS NOT A TAX BILL" in big letters, so I guess it's just a friendly update from the friendly people down at the friendly twp. hall. They say the assessed value (which isn't REALLY the assessed value -- there's some formula based on the real assessment) for my property went down 8% this year. Yikes.

Of course, my "taxable value" went up, thus my taxes will, as well. Guess we should be thankful that tax hikes are capped in Michigan, but it does mean that after 5 years, the taxman is still playing catch-up, even in a down market.

A low blow?

I just saw a picture of John and Cindy McCain at his press conference where he denied having "sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Or maybe it was some other hanger-on. I know this isn't exactly profound political commentary, but Cindy looks like a pretty tightly wrapped package, doesn't she?



I had a chuckle thinking that she looked a lot like Cruella De Vil. Taking an inspriation from Nancy Nall, I decided to Google "Cindy McCain cruella". Astonishingly, it turned up 830 results, so I decided that maybe I didn't have such an original insight after all. But isn't shared experience at the heart of humor? You know it's kinda funny.

Comments on the Presidential Race

Hillary Clinton keeps saying the Barack Obama hasn't passed the "Commander in Chief" test. I hope I'm not letting a national security secret out of the bag here, but neither has she -- she's been in the senate 7 years, which is about 13 years less than the Republican nominee has been in the same august body. So I think she's playing with fire here. But when you're 100 delegates behind, maybe that's a game worth playing.

Who did pass the "C in C" test? I think Al Gore did, but I didn't get a chance to vote for him this time around. George Bush the lesser definitely didn't -- he just sat in the big chair in Texas for a few years, oblivious that there were continents across the sea (he was vaguely aware of Mexico).

Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy, Nixon -- none of them really passed the "C in C" test prior to becoming leader of the free world. I think of all of the recent "deciders", George Bush the "greater" had the best preparation, and he ended up using all his moxie for the largely successful Gulf War Vol. I to some effect. But Truman did all right in the Commander in Chief department, I'd say, and he didn't have a whole lot more prep than either of this year's Democrats.

In the end, we relied on the judgment of these men.

Clinton's done

So, rumor has it that Hillary Clinton had a big week last week, winning Ohio and "winning" Texas. But according to Kos, Obama had such a "bad" week that he ended up gaining 8 delegates on Hillary. Here's the math. A few more weeks like that, and she'll have to drop out sooner rather than later, methinks.

So, I'm already 0-1 on predictions (I said it would be Huckabee for the GOP), and I'm now predicting that I'll be 0-2 on my predictions, as I think it's clear that Obama will win. If I'm right about that, I guess that will actually be 1 right, 2 wrong. (Am I hedging my bets here?)

Incidentally, I endorse Obama, for all that it's worth.

Scientists: We must slash our carbon outputs

The scientists tell us that to avert more warming, we're going to have to cut carbon emissions faster and more dramatically than Kyoto or any other plans have been calling for. It's serious folks. And as quaint as the warming-deniers are, the weight of the evidence and the seriousness of the problems warming will cause justify serious national action.

As I watch coverage of the Presidential primaries unfold, I continue to be amazed by the ability of candidates, commentators and news professionals alike to ignore virtually all serious discussion of the life-or-death issues in front of us. Instead, they focus in with laser-like intensity on the most sophomoric, personality-driven aspects of the election. To my knowledge, nobody has asked either candidate, "What do you plan to do when oil reaches $150 a barrel?" or, "What if Greenland melts?"

Lately, I've gotten a little worried that maybe this isn't just a recession or a cyclical downturn in the American economy. When you look at what's happening to the U.S. dollar, and what's happening to our manufacturing base, and you add to it the aging of our population, and the huge demands that Medicare and Soc. Security are going to put on all of us... well, I start to get a bit gloomy. When you add in the prospect that fuel could get three times as expensive as it is now, that we will see huge resource wars and the displacement of hundreds of millions of people due to warming, the loss of huge amounts of natural habitat for the same reason, and potential shocks to the planet's ability to produce food... well, I get downright worried.

So, whatever else happens, it's pretty clear to me we have to cut carbon outputs now.

Nice work, Nancy!

Congratulations are in order. A Lone Buffalo colleague of mine, Nancy Nall, was responsible for the big national story last week which brought down White House faith-based liaison Tim Goeglein. You've probably seen/read about the little scandal, which has cost Goeglein his job, even if you haven't heard the backstory.

Now, the Arboretum is always happy to see one of the Bushies felled by the journalistic axe. It helps clear the way for proper trees to grow. But this story is especially delicious, because it's the epitome of citizen-journalism.

Nancy used to be a staffer at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, and still reads it online. And over the past couple years, she's had plenty of fun at the expense of Tim Goeglein, an Indiana native who made good as a White House aide and, inexplicably, took to filing "slice of life" guest columns with the News-Sentinel. (Oddly, as she notes, they had nothing to do with his day job, which you'd have to think was pretty interesting, actually.)

But Nancy, like me, is now in the news-digestion business, not the news-reporting business, so her sleuthing was nothing more than curiousity. In one of the columns, she spotted the name of an obscure Dartmouth professor -- an odd name, it seemed -- and just out of curiousity ran it through Google. (Googlin' Goeglein, as it were, tee-hee!) And what to her wondering eyes should appear?* An eerily similar 10-year-old essay in the Dartmouth Review, by someone else.

In her blog, she called out Goeglein. As a courtesy, she also tipped off her former editors at the News-Sentinel, who put a team to work on the story. In less than 24 hours, Goeglein copped to the crime, and was unemployed. That's the speed of the Internets for ya, George. To date, 27 of Goeglein's 38 columns have turned up blatant examples of straight-up plaigerism.

I know I'm just adding to a chorus here, but let me add my own, "Way to go, Nancy." Makes me proud to be a colleague. Go click the link to read her initial post -- she writes very well.

*(That's an allusion, not plaigerism, by the way)

Fiji

Message from the Non-Natives in Fiji:

"We're having a
WONDER-R-R-FUL
time."

Last day here

It's sunny and 90 degrees, with nothing but a few fluffy white clouds in the sky. The breeze is hot but not too humid. It's a typical Brisbane summer day, and of course it's the first one we've had since we've been here. We leave tomorrow.

The Pyne's house on Payne street (at the corner of "Hume and Payne" as it is often joked -- pronounce it out loud) sits in a tranquil little valley which blocks out the sounds of City traffic which you would hear just a few blocks either way. You can hear the music that various neighbors up the hill might be playing. While we've been here, a house at the top of the ridge to the south of us has been undergoing renovations, and we can hear all the construction noises at a comfortable distance.

Tonight we're planning to have a few of Tony's friends over for a "bon voyage" of sorts, and it sounds like we're going to get absolutely plastered. Tony's ambition is to empty the liquor cabinet, or at least make a valiant attempt to do so. He and Irene are off to buy the mixers and some snacks to see us through.

So I'm sitting here on a teak verandah next to the pool, working furiously to get the work done for my weekly deadline -- or at least reach an acceptable quitting point. Because I know that whatever ain't done by 7 or so, well, it ain't getting done.

We've had a fantastic time, and have seen a good deal of cricket. Not only have the Indian and Sri Lankan teams been in the country this summer, but we've seen quite a few of the boys' matches. Josh and Jimmy are both turning into formidable bowlers. Josh is a spinner; Jimmy is a fireballer.

Australia is a friendly and happy country. You don't sense the same sort of dissatisfaction, alienation and angst that you often feel in the U.S. -- at least, anecdotally I can tell you I haven't felt it. I'm sure the weather has something to do with that, but I think it's also the approach to work and play. There's a healthier balance here. I like that. Who wouldn't?

We're heading back to Michigan after a few days layover in Fiji. Back into the freezer, as it were. Cold weather is hard work; there's no way around that. Just going about day-to-day operations is hard. There are lots of little inconveniences and discomforts, and we pretend we like it to get us through. We tell ourselves that we'd miss winter, that we like the snow. We like to think enduring cold winters builds character. We ought to consider the possibility that it just makes us disagreeable.

Anyhow, I do miss friends and family, and if I can't have them all here, I'm looking forward to seeing them all back there in Michigan. I'm looking forward to meals at some of my favorite American restaurants, and drinking some of my homebrew. So, two months is a good spell to spend in a sub-tropical paradise. And I sure am glad that I skipped the depths of winter.

See you all soon, friends. If they sober me up enough to put me on that plane to Fiji.

That's not Earl the Pearl...

... he just plays him on teevee.

(Sorry, inside joke. Apologies to those who don't know the real Earl the Pearl.)

Edit: Tip of the cap to the hilarious HCwDB blog.

Consistency

This, for real, is the forecast for the coming week in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia:

Thursday A shower or two Min 21 Max 28
Friday A shower or two Min 21 Max 28
Saturday A shower or two Min 21 Max 28
Sunday A shower or two Min 21 Max 28
Monday A shower or two Min 22 Max 28
Tuesday A shower or two Min 21 Max 28

See for yourself

And, um, yeah, those temps are in degrees Celcius, so it should be pleasant when it's not showering.

Following up on Bhutto's bombshell

I've uncovered a further twist in the Bhutto/bin Laden story. (Read the post below first to get the full story on this). After explicitly saying on Nov. 2 that Osama bin Laden had been murdered, Bhutto apparently referred to bin Laden as presumably alive ten days later:

Bhutto asks Musharraf to resign as President

Lahore, Nov 13 (PTI) In a significant shift in her stance, former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto Tuesday asked General Pervez Musharraf to quit as President and ruled out serving under him in any future government after she was put under house arrest for the second time within a week...

The former prime minister, who was earlier on Friday put under house arrest in Islamabad to stop her from addressing a rally in the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi, said more than 7,000 of her supporters had been arrested overnight.

"This is just terrible, that the police who should be used to find out where Osama bin Laden is hiding are focusing their attention on my supporters. There is a total revulsion of the naked force used against peaceful protesters."

So, ten days after the interview I mention below, Bhutto is quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying that Pakistani police should be looking for bin Laden. Which would seem to suggest Bhutto accepts the premise that bin Laden is alive. That would support the BBC's supposition that she simply misspoke. On the other hand, if you're a conspiracy theorist, you might think it just indicates that "they" got to her -- "They" being the people who stand to benefit from maintaining a fiction that bin Laden is alive.

Whatever. It's very mysterious. But the key is, it's a mystery THAT SHOULD BE COVERED BY THE PAPERS. Maybe they can pull some people off the non-existant Republican presidential campaign.

Or better yet, off Briney Spears' front porch. At least those reporters are good at finding people.

The biggest story not covered in my lifetime.

Well, I've Googled and I've looked in Factiva, and haven't found a single mainstream U.S. news source which has a single mention of this. Zero coverage. And this is beyond odd.

Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and leader of the flawed-but-ultimately-democratic opposition in that country, was assassinated earlier this year. Who was ultimately behind the act, we may never know. We do know that the government, led by her adversary, is using the event as an excuse to target a warlord. Now this guy may have been guilty up to his ears, or maybe he wasn't. But in the labyrinthine world of Pakistani politics, nothing is really what it seems, so it seems.

But you know what is really odd is that a few weeks before her murder, Bhutto gave a prescient interview to Sir David Frost, formerly of the BBC, but now doing a show for Al Jazeera in English. The date was Nov. 2, 2007. The occasion was the previous attempt on her life, and she was discussing -- in astonishingly cool-headed terms -- the various parties who would try to kill her.

LINK to the video

Frost asks (about the 3:50 mark) if anyone knows who was responsible for the assassination attempt, and if reports were true that she had arranged for a letter to be delivered to President Musharraf in the event of her murder. She confirmed that she had written to Gen. Musharraf. The letter named various people in the goverment who might be behind organizing various terror-linked groups to have her killed.

Said Bhutto: "I sent back a letter saying that while these groups may be used, I thought it was more important to go after the people who supported them, who organized them, who could possibly be the financers or the organizers of the finance for those groups..."

Eerie, to be sure, but here's the real barn-burner: Frost asks her if the three people named were members of, or associated with the government. Bhutto says yes, then (at the 6:00 mark):

"One of them is a very key figure in security. He's a former military officer... He also had dealins with Omar Sheikh (ph.), the man who murdered Osama bin Laden. Now I know..."

TO RECAP: The former head of state of Pakistan, and the then-current leader of one of the political parties, said clear as day that Osama bin Laden had been murdered.

The BBC ran the interview, too, on its Website. But somehow, felt that the claim about bin Laden's murder should be omitted from the replay. You can see the two videos back-to-back here:

LINK to the "back to back" video

The fact that there has been no coverage in the media of this issue is not merely odd, it's dereliction.

All I found was a mention in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a letter to the editor of the Hattiesburg American (located in Mississippi) and a tut-tut item in the "Day and Night" briefs column of the UK's Daily Express, chiding Sir David Frost for failing to follow up on the HUGE bombshell that Bhutto had just fed him. Thankfully, the Express reported the BBC's explanation for the edit:

A BBC spokeswoman confirms: "During the interview Ms Bhutto made an allegation that Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh.

This claim was so unexpected that it seemed most likely that she had mis-spoken and had intended to say that Omar Sheikh was the man who murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl, not Osama Bin Laden.

"A decision was therefore taken to edit out the reference. With the benefit of hindsight the interview should have been reproduced in full or not used at all." Alas, following her assassination last month, we'll never know if Bhutto meant what she said or not.

Well, I guess that's that, then, right? Nice and tidy. Oh, nevermind. The briefs column then immediately dives into a story about George Harrison stashing away old Beatles costumes. Nicely done, Express. Looks like you bungled the story, too.

Look, the issue isn't whether she's right or not. This should have been a fundamental fact mentioned in EVERY SINGLE STORY about Bhutto's assasination. The mere fact that someone of such importance even uttered such a claim -- that the words passed over her lips even once -- should be worldwide news. It deserves a great deal of digging and follow-up from teams of energetic reporters.

But it can start with one reporter. In any paper.

A lot of your freedom died yesterday.

Were you paying attention?

Terrible storms

The storms down south have killed more than 50 people, and devastated some pretty widespread areas. The story of these unseasonal storms was eclipsed somewhat by the SuperTuesday primaries. The area is very much in need, so help if you can.

"Monkeyfister" is blogging exclusively about the storm damage, and appealing for donations to charity.

Assorted Aussie stories

In no particular order....

... It's been rain-free, partly cloudy and in the mid-80s here for a week, but today it rained some. About an hour ago, we had two brief showers. The first one lasted about 15 seconds, and the second lasted 20. Both would have gotten you quite wet. Not at all like Midwest rain, with its big, cold drops. These are finer, warmer tropical raindrops....


View Larger Map

... Trase and I took Joshie to North Stradbroke Island today. I've added a map above. We took the catamaran ferry from Cleveland to Dunwich ("Dunnitch"), and a bus thence to Point Lookout. It rained there, too, while we were on the Gorge Walk at the furthest point from shelter. We all got good and drenched in our clothes, but got to see 3 grey kangaroos about 20 yards away. Then it cleared and we swam in the warm Pacific for more than an hour. (Zoom in on Point Lookout on the map above; we were at the end of Kennedy Dr.) Josh and I worked on our body-surfing skillz...

... Walking back up the hill from the beach, two cars passed us, and we heard something hit the pavement as they rounded a corner. A beach bag had fallen from the roof of the second car, containing keys and a wallet, among other odds and ends. We waited a while for them to return, but in the end, brought the whole kit and caboodle back with us to Brisbane, since the owner's address was also in the city. We called and got his parents. Turns out the guy is staying on "Straddie" all week, but he'll be glad to know his vitals are safe...

... No only are the power plugs here 200 volts, but each outlet has an individual switch on it. Also, Australia has passed a law banning incandescent lights. Easier to do in a country where it rarely freezes. (My experience is that compact florescents don't like Michigan winters out-of-doors.)....

... The last vaunted India vs. Australia cricket test ended on Monday as a draw. If the teams aren't able to complete two innings in five days, it's a draw regardless of the score. When the first innings took nearly four days to complete, it was pretty obvious the whole last day that there was no point for the players to play or the fans to watch. This is my main complaint with an otherwise laudable pastime...

... Two great European beers you never see on tap in the U.S.: Old Speckled Hen and Kilkenny. Both can be found here. Brisbane has an enormous number of "hotels", which are mostly really century-old bars. Lots of them are on corners. But the residential areas have few. Real hotels, like the Marriott, etc. are virtually skyscrapers, and have fancy modern-looking bars....