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....

Australian breezes

Hmmm... long time, no post. The fine Australian weather has a way of seeping down into your limbs. You kick back, open a beerie, turn on the cricket match and get lazy. Things you know you should do -- posting on your blog, for instance -- just don't seem so pressing....

And suddenly it's been four weeks, and you haven't posted a peep about your adventures. Oops. It's a problem, I guess.

We've had several days of beautiful weather, but the first couple weeks here, all the days fell into two categories: occasionally rainy and very rainy. As a semi-tropical climate near Brisbane, monsoonal rains are a possibility, though it hasn't rained much in recent years. Three years of below-average rains meant severe water restrictions, including bans on washing cars or watering gardens. People have installed rain barrels to save what does fall, and the dam levels are reported nightly on the news.

When we arrived, the reservoirs were below 20%, but some of the rain has gotten over the foothills, and the dams are now nearly 27% full -- giving this part of Australia another 7 months of municipal water supply. The drought has been broken with record flooding in some places -- a mixed blessing for many. But everyone's generally happy to have the rain.

Everyone, I think, except my brother-in-law Tony, who had taken several weeks of January off as a summer vacation. Now, it's true that he's gotten a healthy tan, but many days were spent indoors this past month. We've played some Mah-Jong, watched a good deal of cricket, and consumed lots of beer (responsibly).

Instead of trying to tell you about all our Aussie adventures at once, I'll just try to post more regularly and keep you filled in.

We're doing well, actually losing weight (thanks to the beautiful pool) and both thankful we haven't seen snow in a month. Yeah, it's rough.

Brisbane Australia

I'm Proud of You Lloyd Carr

This is to all you fans, (my husband included,) who were critics of Lloyd Carr. Many of you believe that in order to be a good Michigan coach, you need to win. Well yes, of course, else you don't have a job. And yet, Lloyd's critics are happy with Lloyd Carr today because he put one up in the win column. But in ten, twenty, thirty years, this game will be a statistic. You won't care- you'll be off criticizing the next coach. (In fact, you already are and he hasn't stepped on the field with the team yet.) But the players will remember that they played for him- they told him so in the locker room, and that's who really matters. Not me, or you, or the alumni club, or even the university football program.

Here's what should be said about being a Coach (capital C)- whether you're a little league soccer coach in a small town somewhere, or in the major leagues- coaching to millionaires. And since a majority of that team will not be professional football players, perhaps it is the lessons that Carr gave in respect to being humble and disciplined and hard working that should matter more that whether or not Michigan had a winning season this year. Maybe we should be happy that he stuck around long enough to gives us this many winning seasons. Not a lot of other Big 10 programs can say as much.

Carr is a Coach... From Navarre, who needed a swift kick now and then to do anything, to Manningham and Perry who needed to learn some humility to do everything, Carr didn't let the media nor the fans dictate to his program. And honestly- do you really want that? Do you want a coach who is going to come in and change to whims because someone who pays a lot of money isn't happy? Those of us who have no money (and there are more of us that have no money and have) wouldn't be very happy then either.

So let's hear some of the critiques about Carr.
1. Carr isn't a good public speaker. Check. Got ya. He's dull, even tragically boring at times. But there are a lot of dumb sideline and press conference reporters out there who haven't asked a good question in years. Do I want to hear the same statement over and over again like I do from other coaches? "We just need to keep doing what we're doing and play hard." "We need to play good football." "Our defense needs to step up- and our offense needs to move the ball." Well, DER--- I would rather skip all that crap and have him head to the locker room to get ready for the next half/game/whatever... Not give lip service to a bunch of fans that are going to critique him no matter what he's done or said. How many of us have said, "He's doing a great coaching job this game."

2. Carr doesn't run a "this or that" offense and he doesn't win bowl games (neither did Saint Bo.) But more times than naught, we were happy on Saturday evenings in the Fall because Michigan had won. He won Big Ten Championships, year after year after year. He has more players going into the NFL every year than any other Michigan coach-- including Bo. (gasp!)

3. He doesn't show enough emotion. (Cry and/or talk enough trash.) Nope. But if he did- y'all would call him a pansy. FYI- neither does the anti-Christ Jim Tressle, or many other coaches that stick around for very long. What Carr does do is point out the good and bad plays on this ("boring old") television show every week. He praises his players-- or tells them (and us) how they really messed up and what they need to work on.

4. He retired too early in the season- not allowing Michigan to have good leverage on who they really wanted for their next coach. Hmmm... I agree with you here on this one too. He made a mistake with that one to be sure. One question though: Would his critics have shut up long enough for people to enjoy the win yesterday if he didn't state his intentions as early as he did? Who knows.

Instead, Lloyd Carr:
Runs a program that other teams respect, fear, and have to get ready for weeks and weeks in advance. Anti Christ, JTressel even says that OSU's season is spent getting ready for Michigan.

Helps sponsor/run events that earn thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for charities.

Makes his players show respect to other teams and their coaches (some trash talk excluded, of course) and holds his players accountable when they're making asses of themselves.

Puts in his second, third, and fourth string players when the game is won--- as to give them practice and as to not run up the score on the other team just because Michigan can.

Quietly, yet firmly reprimands other programs when they haven't done the same.

Gives his kids the benefit of the doubt and the support needed to get past their own critics.

Remembers the name of one of my students, (who sees him every year at Carr's Car Wash for Kids,) and his family members, and his teachers (wink-wink,) and his friends, and introduces him to the new players every year.

He gets down from the shoulders of his players as he's being carried off the field and into the locker room on his last game as a coach to shake hands and congratulate the other team on a game well played.

That's the type of man that I'm proud to have running the team of my university.

So- maybe it's because I'm a member of the Pollyanna School of Optimism and Niceness, (which has served me well- ask Bud and Pat about the MSU game,) or maybe I'm just a sucker for sweet endings. But I say, Hail! Hail to Michigan--- Well Done Lloyd Carr- I'm going to miss you heaps and heaps.

a bit of news

Scot and Trase are in Australia. When we get news, we'll pass it on.

life

Mountain Man and beast

The next Michigan coach

Nobody's asked me for my opinion on who Michigan should go out and hire as its next football coach, but I've been thinking about it a good deal. The thing that concerns me most is that this search, which ideally would be conducted rather quietly, has been nothing but a circus. In the process, a lot of negative things have been said about a lot of good people, and it's a shame it's all gone down like this. Perhaps Lloyd Carr thought he was doing a pretty good thing by announcing his intention to retire the Monday after losing to Ohio State, but I don't think so. In all of the controversy over this job, I haven't heard anyone point out that the damage to Michigan's reputation is Lloyd's fault. But, it is. The other culprit is the Michigan athletic department itself, which has more leaks than a Cuban refugee raft.

Carr should have made his intentions known to the top levels of the Michigan athletic department, so they could at least begin the process of identifying and contacting potential candidates quietly. The intense media scrutiny, and the not-so-secret overture to Les Miles put Michigan's best candidate in an absolutely impossible position. LSA wasn't dumb: They knew the call from Michigan was coming, and intended to play hardball. Miles was given the option of signing a long-term contract, or being prevented from coaching his team in the SEC championship. The intensity of the media circus virtually required them to do so:

I presume Miles was motivated as much by a sense of loyalty to his players as anything else in agreeing to sign the extension. Some people have criticized Miles as being after nothing but the money -- FOR KEEPING A JOB HE ALREADY HAS!!! Duh! After all, you'd be a fool to give up a great job for the CHANCE to talk to some folks about another job -- no matter how attractive. And coaching LSU in a potential national championship season qualifies as a GREAT job to have.

Even if Miles wanted to come to Michigan, Carr and the leakers at U of M made sure he could only do it by very publicly turning his back on his current team mid-season. People demanded that Miles swear loyalty to LSU -- OR ELSE. What elite school wouldn't? Imagine the uproar if a Michigan coach were entertaining offers at the end of a championship-caliber season! The alumni would raise holy hell. This is why big schools tend to recruit coaches from smaller-conference programs, which don't feel so hurt when big-time programs come calling. If you're in the MAC or Conference USA, the Big East (in football) or Division I-AA, it's a fact of life when you have a hot coach. You live with it.

But if you're a big program -- and LSU certainly is -- you don't want your star dimmed by having your coach beat a path to a rival. Michigan and LSU are both top-flight programs with tradition and talent. All of this was SO predictable.

Look for Michigan to snag a quality coach from a non-BCS conference in the next week or two. If the job stays open until Christmas, it means they're waiting to make another pass at Miles.

Searching for myself -- and finding TOO MANY

No, this isn't some existential journey. And tell me if this sounds a little weird, but... Have you ever Googled yourself? You know, just to see what the rest of the world finds when they type your name into Google?

I found out that I, Scot Woods of Grass Lake, am much less interesting than Scottish craftsmen who make things out of wood, motels named Scot Wood, and a Canadian chef who has a cool-looking restaurant in Toronto:

Restaurant review of 'Lucien'

The reviewer calls the restaurant "upscale yet unpretentious". Unpretentious, huh? So, flashing my ID won't get me any special treatment?

There's also a Scott Woods who is the president of West Arete Computing, and a short-haired fiddler from Canada who runs the Scott Woods band, which provides "Old Time Country & Fiddle Music." (He plays Mon Dec 17, 7:30 pm at Bethany Church in St. Catharines, ON. 905-684-1401)

All of these were very interesting. But the one who really made the ego-search pay off was the only Black (as in, of African descent) Scott Woods I found. He describes himself as a "Poet. Musician. Ne'er do well." But this Ne'er do well is the writer of "over nine books," which of course is a euphemism for, like, 10 books. So I'm poking around the Ne'er-Do-Well's Web site, and find this funny little link:

"Who Scott Woods Isn't"

I'VE FOUND MY PEOPLE!!!! I was lost, but now I'm found. And it turns out, I'm not the only Ne'er-Do-Well. I've applied to get on the list... cross your fingers!

Factoid

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the release of “Thriller.”

You're getting old, friend. Have you checked your IRA lately? What's your cholesterol level?

More bragging about Michigan

Today's headline is from Reuters: "Houses cheaper than cars in Detroit"

Detroit really used to be a great city. But man... Someone needs to bring some jobs here.

Huckster now #2 nationally

Huckabee is gaining quickly on the tumbling Giuliani, says the LATimes/Bloomberg poll.

Current national spread is thus:

Giuliani: 23%
Huckabee: 17%
F. Thompson: 14%
McCain: 11%
Romney: 9%
Paul: 5%

The wild card is that 17% still say "don't know". If they didn't like Rudy before, do you suppose the the revelations about his "Shag Fund" have helped? Me neither.

On the other hand, Huckabee apparently didn't know the shocking news about the National Intelligence Estimate which found Iran hasn't been working on nukes since 2003. (Maybe he's been watching Fox News, which would explain his campaign's ignorance). Seems like the sort of thing a serious candidate should know. Probably not fatal, but Huckabee can let this happen but ONCE.

Huckabee leads in Iowa

Mike Huckabee continues to enjoy the "Arboretum bump", rising to first in the latest Iowa GOP polling. Since I made my famous predictions, Huckabee has been rising like a rocket on the 4th of July. The Huckster leads Mitt Romney by a statistically significant 5 percentage points, and has more than doubled up on Rudy Giuliani (29% vs. 13%). Now, I'm not saying Huckabee's rise is due solely to my bringing attention to him. My observation is that of all the candidates, he's the one with the fewest flaws, the best "story", and the most in common with the broad coalition of interests that remains the GOP base.

In other words, I wasn't endorsing the man, just predicting that the GOP would find him and embrace him. Let me say a few words about him, though: While I disagree with him on creationism and half a dozen other key topics, I do think he's a really smart guy. And my first impression of him is that he's "real" -- what you see is what he really is. As the Des Moines Register reports, "Huckabee outscores Romney and the rest of the Republican field as the candidate seen as the most socially conservative, the most civil in tone and the most principled." And should he become the candidate, Huckabee will be tougher to beat than many people think. But I do think he'd lose to Obama or Hillary by maybe 4 percentage points.

Romney might be okay, but he's trying way too hard to pretend to be a red-meat conservative, which doesn't jibe with his record. He's an investment banker trying to play the pork-rind circuit, and it shows. He's a fake -- the perfect encapsulement of a post-modern USA presidential candidate. Meanwhile, the word on the street is that Fred Thompson is still considering whether or not to enter the GOP presidential contest. And Giuliani, well... I don't give him much of a chance. The people who vote in GOP primaries don't vote for liberal New Yorkers.

The GOP nomination will quickly become a two-horse race between Romney and Huckabee, I think, as Rudy practices immolation by in the oils of his NYC history. This includes his longtime man-love for felon Bernard Kerik and the emerging stories that he provided NYPD "protection" for his mistress while his wife was home in Gracie Mansion. Oh yes, and he hid travel funds for his booty calls in the budgets of various and sundry NYC departments. Now, there are lot of things the GOP will forgive -- Negroponte's assassination squads in Nicaragua come to mind -- but hidden money, misappropriation of funds and public girlfriend-shagging are not sins likely to be forgiven for a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage candidate in a anti-choice anti-gay-marriage party.

As the wise man said, "So ends the reign of Denethor, son of Ecthelion."

Yeah, Giuliani's toast.

Saginaw: Home of highest dioxin levels. Ever.

My hometown, ladies and gentlemen, currently can boast a world record. Yes, Saginaw Michigan is can claim to be the home of dioxin levels 20 times higher than any ever found anywhere else (except, you know, in a tank full of dioxin). Call up the folks from Guinness.

AP: Dioxin Spot in Mich. Could Be Worst Ever

The levels of dioxin found were, in fact, 1600 times the threshold which requires cleanup action under law. I'm sure this will just be a splendid bit of good news for the already roaring Saginaw-Valley real estate market.

Here's the money quote, proving that satan-worshipping child-beating mass-murdering rapists have nothing on the worst corporate PR types:

"We don't believe there's any imminent or significant human health or environmental threat," Musser said.

Nah, cancer's never significant -- and hardly ever imminent, right folks?

Back in 1986 I think it was, the Titabawassee River flooded its banks, and my aunt and uncle's house ended up with a couple feet of river water in their basement. When the water receded, everything was coated with a crusty white film. Probably dioxin. We helped them clean up. Dow was saying the same shit then about this stuff. As a company, it should be treated with zero credibility at all times -- even if they do sponsor the local minor-league baseball team and concerts in the park. So I imagine the cancer clusters will start emerging any year now.

Actually, if I were a property owner in Saginaw (or an enterprising lawyer, hint hint) I would start asking around to see if other people were interested in suing ol' Dow Chemical for compensation for depressed real-estate values. Should be much easier to prove than health claims. It would be one way to take a bit of flesh out of the Dow monster.

Spin this

USA TODAYHagel: Bush administration is 'incompetent' and he would consider joining a Dem ticket

If only he'd said so before the 2004 elections!

Click link

Huckabee running even in Iowa

I'm telling you, folks, this guy is sitting right in the middle of today's Republican Party, and he's the only candidate I can see who can excite all the various "bases" in the GOP. Take him seriously.

Political Wire: Huckabee Catches Romney in Iowa, Clinton Fading

Every other candidate has a terminal shortcoming WRT Republican electoral politics. I'm reiterating my predictions: Huckabee v. Clinton, with Clinton winning. I'll add that I think it will be Clinton by 5 percentage points.

Insomnia Theatre

There's greatness, certainly, in this:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1786412

Inky Hinky Pinky

Confectioning monster stunned

Mukasey and Waterboarding

So he's going to be Atty. General. Just great.

Hey, let's set aside questions about the Geneva Conventions for the moment... Regardless of whether you think waterboarding is technically torture, it's certainly assault, no?

The same is true for numerous other "interrogation methods" the Administration believes are appropriate for the unlawyered, untried, unconvicted detainees it is holding.

When did government officials (such as interrogators) get exemption from basic criminal law?

Snakes in a tub!

They make 'em different down there...

Texan sets record with 87 snakes in tub

But if he was really hard-core, he'd do it wearing nothing at all.

(Author confesses that with regard to rattlesnakes, he is not "hard-core".)

The Presidential race

My official position is it's WAY TOO EARLY for a civilized nation to begin discussing a presidential election more than a year away.

The Constitution ought to be amended to prohibit any candidate from receiving campaign contributions more than 365 days before the general election and prevent any primary from taking place more than 9 months before the general election, meaning the first primary or caucus would be held at the beginning of March. (I also have devised a sensible system for holding the primaries which respects the Iowa/New Hampshire tradition, while giving every state an equal chance to be influential in the selection of the parties' candidates.) We could then have several months of meaningful primaries, ending in June, leading up to a nice July convention/coronation. That would be followed by a little more than 4 months of campaigning for the general election.

That would make sense, but instead we have our current system wherein we are already talking about "frontrunners" and watching the first of the hopeless candidates drop out. Not a single vote has been cast, nor will any be for three months! The general election is still over a year away. This is insanity. The issues which the candidates are running on today are not likely to be all the same issues on the political agenda a year hence, and then what do you do if your presumptive nominee dies? Yes, it's all asking for chaos, and chaos is increasingly what we get. And there's no respite from the campaign bullshit for my fragile eggshell mind.

Anyhow, that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is to offer my predictions on who will take the nominations of the two major parties. This is NOT an endorsement on my part, and it's not even a wish list. But it's what I think will happen. About four years ago at this time, on my then-blog The Mighty Pen, I predicted John Kerry would emerge as the nominee, though the "smart money" was on Howard Dean or John Edwards. Kerry was a good candidate, ran a pretty good campaign (though he really bungled the Swift Boaters) and became a pretty darn good stump speaker by the end of the contest (I saw him at Joe Louis Arena a week or two before the vote, so I saw it firsthand). Anyhow, I called it, that's all I'm sayin'.

The Democratic nominee is going to be Hillary Clinton, a prediction which I know won't surprise anyone. She's smart, she's well-funded, she's disciplined as hell, and she's surrounded by a team of people who have been through this before. Obama is a compelling person and story, and I hope he'll be part of our political landscape for a generation, but he's just not experienced enough to overtake Hillary. It's not the B.S. lapel-pin issue -- that's just symptomatic of the problem: He needs to learn how to do one of these modern campaigns. He gets a B-. She gets an A. He's the student here; she's the teacher.

The Republican is going to be.... drum roll.... former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. I've thought and thought about it, and I think he's the only candidate with a prayer to win this nomination. Let's first dispense with the crap: Guiliani is NOT going to win the nomination. He doesn't deserve the nomination, he's rather unlikeable, and there's the problem that there's now video of him as NYC mayor explaining why he wouldn't attend the 1996 GOP convention (now THAT is an awkward clip to explain away). But that's not the real killer for him. The real killer is that he's pro-choice. I know a bunch of people have told him he can turn his fame from 9/11 into national office. But they're wrong. The Rudy show doesn't play all that well outside New York, nor does the liberal Republican motif. In a six-way race, Rudy can look like a front-runner, but as also-rans drop out the picture will become clear: Pro-life voters will not cross the rubicon to vote for Guiliani.

The other strong candidate is Romney. Again, he's a liberal northern Republican, only he's made a better flirtation with the paleolithic Christianist power brokers of the right. He's getting them to consider exchanging vows, but they haven't committed to the union just yet. His problem, you see, is that he's a Mormon. This is no small matter in a political party so thoroughly beholden to the Bible belt, and it is nothing like the problem JFK had trying to win the Democratic nomination as a Catholic. JFK appealed for religious tolerance (and certainly didn't convince everyone) but the GOP base isn't playing that game. While the base may be willing to swallow Romney's politics, they don't buy his religion, and that matters a great deal. Bob Jones III sort of endorsed Romney, but even as he did so felt compelled to remind voters that he views Mormonism as "a cult". Romney is wicked smart, and an enormously competent manager, but he's pretending to be a good ol' boy to appeal to the base. I just don't think the GOP base will embrace him.

That brings us to Huckabee. The first thing going for him is that, as far as I can tell, he's genuine. He's genuinely conservative, and he communicates very clearly. He says what he really thinks, and who he is puts him squarely in the middle of the Reaganite GOP. Fortunately for him, his positions allow him to appeal to the whole range of traditional Republican demographics. A former minister, he's a genuine born-again Christian. But he's no fire-breather; he's had to baptize babies and bury the dead, and I think his faith is more about conviction than condemnation. He's likeable. There are no flambouyant divorces or flip-flops on his record. He's pro-life, pro-gun, economically conservative, non-slick, amiable and genteel. None of the GOP candidates is another Reagan, but Huckabee is the best fit for that coalition, and he's comfortable in his own skin. So I believe that over the next couple months, he's simply going to appeal to the most Republicans.

The X-factor in all of this is Al Gore. He could conceivably announce his candidacy even as late as December and still give Hillary a fight. Even if he missed the ballot deadlines in a few states, he could clobber her in California and some of the other populous states and make a run at the nomination. But my feeling is that this is unlikely. He doesn't see his mission as being President -- he sees it as changing the world. He's happy now, in ways that he wasn't when he was a politician. And he's getting a whole lot done. It may be that as a person, he's moved on beyond politics. Maybe he's done compromising himself. I'd vote for him, but if he didn't want to run, I can't say I blame him.

Tongue Twiddle answer

Okay, for those of you who have been trying, and want the answer, I've posted it as a comment in response to this post. (I wouldn't want to ruin it for those who are still working.

If you HAVE NOT given up, here's some clues:

-Three words all begin with the letter "P".
-The fish in question is commonly found in pet fish tanks.
-Think of synonyms for "after death".

Now you're on the right track.

David Copperfield raided by FBI

Yeah, it's THAT David Copperfield...

Reuters story

So the guy who made the Statue of Liberty disappear couldn't find a way to get rid of $2 million? What is he, some kind of amatuer?

How you know it's the 21st Century

I'm not sure what this means, but it means something:

TIME Magazine has an article this week about the small-town gay Spanish mayor who recently conducted a gay wedding dressed as Gandalf.

An alarming chart

I'm posting a chart which looks really technical because it is. I happened to spot an intriging headline at Reuters today, and following it, stumbled on this very complex article about oil production in Saudi Arabia. Before you let your eyes glaze over and roll back in your head, here's the point: Saudi Arabia's huge oil fields are crashing.



The two key lines are the dotted rust-colored line -- which shows declining production from the world's largest oil field -- and the spiking green line, which shows a frantic expansion of oil rigs to try to keep the field producing crude oil. Even if this strategy were successful, logic says that this super-giant oil field is getting more and more expensive to run. But it does not appear to be succeeding.

You might also notice the odd horizontal blue line -- "Proven reserves". In a chart with lots of spikes up and down, odd how that line doesn't move, isn't it? De Nial ain't just a river in Egypt -- it seems to be characteristic of the Saudi government's oil policy.

Also note the second graph on the page I link to. It shows that Ghawar is currently about 50% of Saudi Arabia's total production. That's how big this one field is.

As Matt Simmons writes about in "Twilight in the Desert," the stark reality is that Ghawar is symptomatic of the other giant Saudi oil fields. These huge fields have been in production for over 50 years, and they are nearly tapped out. The decline in production at these fields is predicted by many to be rather shocking. I think this chart shows that this is what we're seeing now.

The upshot of this post is that Saudi Arabian production is going to decline by millions of barrels/day (it's currently around 8 million barrels/day) So, $5/gallon gasoline is right around the corner. Dump your guzzlers now, while they still have resale value.

More later on other implications of the collapse, which is apprently impending.

A tongue-twiddle

That is, a riddle with a solution that is a tongue-twister. So, when you get the answer, you'll know it.

What do you call an algae-eating fish that dies of a venereal disease? (3 words)

I'll post the answer after 5 guesses -- or the correct answer -- have been submitted to the comments.

Odd occurance

For about 10 minutes this afternoon, a pair of fighter jets were circling in the skies over the Chelsea area. They departed to the Northwest. Could be a training mission, but I don't recall that happening before in the 5 years I've lived here. Rather odd.

Bless You Boys

"You know, when I first got here, I took a taxi from the airport and the driver said, 'This is a baseball town that's sleeping. You guys start playing well, the fans will come out of the woodwork.' There's really been an uprising ... and to have the seat I have and to see it soldout most nights, it's incredible."

-- Justin Verlander, young Tigers phenom. on the Tigers good-but-not-quite season. Thanks for the thrill ride.

Well said

"I told her that it wasn't about the 50 cents, it was about the principle. Any idiot would understand the principle - it's about simple human decency."

-- Elizabeth Schaper, of Harrison, N.Y., who was vexed that a library staffer coldly insisted she pay the fine on a book taken out by her recently-departed mother. Story here.

Once again: HughesNet sucks

Another example of how awful HughesNet is

I just spent another hour on the phone trying to pry a refund out of HughesNet. It's an hour I'll never get back, and just the latest example of the "pain in the ass" factor involved in being their unwilling customer. It was a qualified success, and I'm going to move on. But first, I want to put this on the record as a warning to other prospective customers. And maybe, just maybe, a HughesNet exec. will see this and they'll address the alarming problems within their company.

Many of you know that I have been suffering mightily under the oppression of HughesNet, the satellite communications monopoly which sells Sat. Internet service. I had an older DW4000 modem, which had served me tolerably well for several years. The old dog still should work, technically, but early in August, the tech gnomes at HughesNet began disabling a variety of services. They want us all to upgrade, and they have eschewed the carrot for the "nothing but sticks" approach.

For a time, I thought these were just glitches that would be resolved, but after contacting tech. support several times, I learned that in fact my old DW4000 was being abandoned and I required an upgrade.(They called it "obsolete", but of course that's just because they decided to make it so.) My unsatisfactory options included paying them a $125 ransom for a new modem, or paying just shipping ($25) and binding myself to them with a 15-month indentured servitude contract. (Not happy, Jane!)

Before I get too far, let's start with a simple timeline:

June 24: Monthly bill: $59.99 for 6/24-7/23; Service working acceptably (not great).

July 24: Montly bill: $59.99 for period from 7/24-8/23

About August 7 (guessing here): Problems begin. Some browsing works, but secure Web sites, e-mail, IM, video files, file transfer, etc. are not working. There was NO WARNING from Hughes that this would be happening. I begin working from the road most of the time.

August 19: I call "Gotcha" -- HughesNet says this is the first record they have that I reported a problem. Maybe. Of course, their engineers knew there would be a problem months ago, when the made the decision to put the squeeze on all of us DW4000 users, but this is the date I call them out on it.

August 24: Montly bill: $59.99 for 8/24-9/23

Late Aug./Early Sept.: I win an eBay auction for a DW7000 modem, pay for it, and await its arrival. Very time-consuming. Costs me about $90.00 (but no service contract, and no $ to the leeches at Hughes).

Sept. 6: I call HughesNet to activate new modem. An installer is dispatched, "old" account is closed, and a pro-rated refund of $34.83 for the unused portion of the month is made to my account. (First thing HughesNet has done right!).

Sept. 11: Installer arrives and sets me up. Works great (finally!). $100 charge.

Sept. 24: Montly bill: $85.15 on the "new" account for 9/12-9/23 (end of previous billing period) + regular monthly bill through 10/23. Service is much better than it ever was with the old DW4000.

So there's your timeline. You'll note from this history that at this point, ZERO dollars have been refunded to me for the service interruptions CAUSED BY HUGHES. The only refund was for the post-cancellation days on the "old" account. Today I spotted the fat $85.15 charge on my bill, and call 'em up to ask about it. After a long time on the phone, I'm able to bring the very nice woman from billing up to speed on my case.

First, we ascertain exactly what the last bill was for, then I try to figure out what the refund was for, exactly. After being put on hold several times, we determine that it was a pro-rated refund for the post-cancellation days. I ask for a refund of ALL the days service was interrupted, or more than a month. They won't budge: Since I reported the problem Aug. 19th, that's the earliest date they'll issue a refund. INFURIATING, since they knew full well they were shutting me down, but what can you do? Sue them over thirty dirty bucks?

So, she says she'll refund me the six days from 8/19-8/24. I point out that's still asking me to eat the next couple weeks, when we all know service wasn't working. Ah, she says, let me talk to my support team members (i.e.: boss). On hold. She's back: OK, we'll refund you a total of 17 days. Grrr... Ok, that's satisfactory. Clearly, that's all I can get back. That will amount to $33 refunded for at least ONE MONTH of unacceptable service. But, it's something. Bloody and wounded, I declare victory and retire from the field with minimally-acceptable spoils from HughesNet.

I'll never get a refund for the two weeks pre-"gotcha." And I'll never get back all those hours on the phone with tech. support, sales, installers, and billing. And there were hours spent working on the road, and numerous costs associated with working from cafes and restaurants. What a HUGE headache for me. Aren't they supposed to WANT me to be a customer? It's a refrain I've heard from so many other HughesNet customers: If I had another choice, I'd take it. But I don't have another choice where I live.

The real joke here is that from a business management perspective, the BIG loser is HughesNet. First of all, their lack of communication with me cost them nearly a month in lost service fees from me. But the real cost was in their labor: Clearly, nobody told their front-line tech people that they were shutting off hundreds or thousands of their oldest customers. Their second-tier tech staff didn't have a clue, either. Billing had no idea what tech was doing, nor did they seem aware of the issue affecting 4000-series customers. Their insanely uncoordinated corporate structure means that this whole episode generated at least half a dozen "case numbers" from my contacts with them, tied up their personnel for HOURS, seriously disgruntled a long-time customer, and generated bad publicity. And it's not just me: Peruse the appropriate message boards, and it's clear they threw hundreds of their oldest customers under the bus in the same way, and nobody's happy. Call it, "How not to succeed in business, because you're not really trying."

Contrast all of this with the way DirecTV recently handled a similar situation. I got a recorded phone message from them saying, "Scot, you need a new dish to get all your HD channels. Call us at XXX-XXX-XXXX, and we'll send someone out to install it, pronto. FREE." There was no interruption of service, no hassle, no charge, and I had to make just ONE three-minute phone call. No wasted motion on their part or mine. I love that company. And I would have paid $50 for the new dish, if they'd asked.

HughesNet, pay attention: THAT is how it's supposed to be done.