TreadHouse

Wagoner: out. Wall Street execs: remain

2009-03-30T12:48:00.000-04:00

So John Wagoner was forced out as CEO of GM by the White House. Good. I wish they'd do the same to the banking sector but the double-standard that was on display between the TARP money and the auto bailout remains firmly in place.

Wagoner has been at the helm at GM for long enough to not be held responsible for the fact that GM is now in the toilet. I wish they could get rid of the entire tier of upper-management, but that would probably be disastrous in the short term for obvious reasons. I wish they would do the same for Wall Street and the financial sector but they won't. The financial sector guys who would be fired are the ones with their fingers on the levers that move the financial industry. Unfortunately, making cars is a lot easier to understand than whatever goes on in and around Wall Street. Someone last week (was it Obama?) called the financial sector guys suicide bombers because if they are forced out they're going to take the entire world economy with them. They have some serious bargaining chips while the auto industry execs are not that powerful and don't hold a special knowledge that makes them irreplaceable.

I accept that this could be all smoke and mirrors, that the Wall Street execs could be fired and the world economy would not fail and people who understand the industry enough to navigate out of this could be found and brought on board (also important in this exercise is the fact that the new execs would do things differently than those they replaced). But between the suicide bomber-execs and the people in Washington who believe every word they say, I don't see this as a political feasibility. Unlike the auto execs who everyone loves to crap on.

I'm also fine with the fact that just the GM CEO was booted. For one, Ford hasn't asked for federal money (yet), so they're clearly better managed than GM and the government doesn't have any leverage to push them around. Chrysler would probably be dealt the same fate except no one believes that Chrysler is going to be around any longer than they have to be. Everybody is just trying to find someone to fold Chrysler into, so there is no point in firing an exec if he is just trying to shut his company down ASAP.

It is disheartening that there is political will to play hard ball with the auto industry and not Wall Street, but I suppose this is the reality of the situation and I admit that it is possible that the Wall Street execs could be so specialized that they are the only ones who can lead the financial sector back into solid ground.

Very Interesting

2009-01-13T22:36:00.002-05:00

So I guess the Tennessee legislature has 99 people in it and the Rs hold a 50-49 advantage.

So how do the Ds retain power? By getting one R to vote for himself for Speaker and then have every other D vote for the same guy.

Pretty amazing. Read the whole story here.

Bush's Legacy

2008-12-29T10:20:00.003-05:00

Benen (and Digby) put it better than I ever could:

It must be comforting for Bush, Rice, and other top officials in the administration to think this way. It's no doubt frustrating to wake up every morning, and go to work knowing that you're reviled by most of the public, here and around the world. If you can convince yourself that you'll be appreciated years from now, it probably takes the edge off.
But that doesn't make it true. Indeed, wishful thinking about history's judgment, in the midst of widespread failures in every aspect of government -- foreign policy, economic policy, constitutional policy, domestic policy, environmental policy -- borders on delusional.

As Digby concluded, Bush and his team "need accept that the best they can hope for is to end up among history's inept clowns instead of history's villains. It's not much, but it's all they've got."

I sometimes and reluctant to go on the record with predictions that could prove wrong. That said, the Bush administration will surely be seen as one of the worst in US history by me, my children, and my grandchildren.

MN Senate: UPDATE

2008-12-24T12:34:00.003-05:00

As commenter Joanie points out, Wonkette has a pretty good take on the Lizard People thing.

Original post is here.

Oh yeah, and it looks like Franken is going to win this one although Lizard People has (have?) yet to concede the race.

Tom Friedman is dumb

2008-12-24T12:32:00.000-05:00

While Matt Taibbi, evidently, can see into the future.

Krugman Speaks

2008-12-23T11:34:00.001-05:00

We should listen:

Think of the way almost everyone important missed the warning signs of an impending crisis. How was that possible? How, for example, could Alan Greenspan have declared, just a few years ago, that “the financial system as a whole has become more resilient” — thanks to derivatives, no less? The answer, I believe, is that there’s an innate tendency on the part of even the elite to idolize men who are making a lot of money, and assume that they know what they’re doing.
After all, that’s why so many people trusted Mr. Madoff.
Now, as we survey the wreckage and try to understand how things can have gone so wrong, so fast, the answer is actually quite simple: What we’re looking at now are the consequences of a world gone Madoff.

The column is from last Friday, I somehow missed it and I've been bad at blogging the last few days, so here you go.

MN Senate

2008-12-18T10:37:00.002-05:00

The Update is live streaming the canvassing board meeting today as they take up the challenged ballots. When I clicked on the link, I was expecting anything interesting but that was not the case.

The board - made up of 2 supreme court justices, 2 elections officials and the Secretary of State - was discussing if they should count the vote for a guy who filled in the Franken bubble but wrote the name "Lizard People" in the space for a write in.

It is actually pretty interesting to see all these challenges discussed and determined by a board of election officials.

Someone just pulled the same trick and wrote in "Flying Spaghetti Monster"! Hilarious!

Sean Hannity

2008-12-18T10:29:00.001-05:00

Media Matters Misinformer of the year.

I can't think of anyone less concerned with facts who would be better for this award.

Juan Williams.

2008-12-17T11:29:00.001-05:00

Is dumb

Attackerman Raps

2008-12-15T12:39:00.003-05:00

I like how he rhymes "Blagojevich" with "destroy-a-bitch"

The artist is, of course, Spencer Ackerman. H/T to Ezra

It would be irresponsible not to speculate...

2008-12-15T11:07:00.000-05:00

...or so they say...

Historical hanger-on: The Electoral College

2008-12-15T10:25:00.002-05:00

Of course the Electoral College is stupid and every four years on this day we discuss how stupid it is then forget whatever we said by the time we wake up on Dec 16.

I would like to get rid of it, but the problem is what to replace it with. I'm not convinced a straight national popular vote would work. My concern is that if the national election were within a thousand votes we would not have any way to isolate the recounts to specific states or regions - we'd have to recount every single vote (125 mil voted in '08). It sounds easy but think about Florida in 2000 or Minnesota this year and then multiply that times 50. Literally. Challenging ballots in every inner city, suburb, hamlet, rural district and citizen abroad - because they are all added to the same national running total. We're talking about provisional ballots across the country, 'voter intent' being upheld one way in one state and another in a another state, and missing or un-recountable (ie no paper trail) from sea to shining sea.

To me, the compromise between the Electoral College as it is and a straight national popular vote would be to allocate electors based on congressional district. The NY Times Op-Ed page argues for this today:

Election theorists talk nobly of moving America’s presidential election to a popular vote, but that would require a Constitutional amendment. Swing states would never pass it, because it would mean giving up their influence. Neither would small states, which have a disproportionate influence in the Electoral College. But if every state apportioned its electoral votes as Maine and Nebraska do — one for each Congressional district, plus two for the overall state winner — millions more voters would suddenly become worthy of the candidates’ attention.

They have a cute (and probably practically impossible) way of doing this by having similar sized red and blue states pass the legislation - the same legislation that Maine and Nebraska have - in pairs.

Under this system, we wouldn't have 'swing states' but 'swing districts' and Republicans would campaign in Orange County, California and Upstate New York just like Democrats would now campaign in Memphis and exurban Dallas or Atlanta.

The HUGE problem with this, of course, is that it creates even more incentive for gerrymandering - as if the drawing of Congressional districts could be any more of a clusterfuck. The upside is that it wouldn't take Consitituational amendment to pass this (since the states do it themselves) and at least creates more swing areas that are actually more likely to swing in more geographically diverse parts of the country. It also decreases the chances that someone could win the electoral college while losing the popular vote (it does not, however, decrease the chances of that person getting shoes thrown at them at a press conference).

Every option for the outdated Electoral College imperfect so, for now, this is my preferred least-worst solution.

Pop Quiz

2008-12-14T18:02:00.001-05:00

Who said this?

"I believe that when people join organizations to love their neighbor, that is . . . not only a recruiting tool, but it's a powerful incentive for effectiveness on the ground,"

Your President

The Sad History of Iraq War

2008-12-14T16:52:00.002-05:00

NY Times has a sneak peak at the first official US Gov't history of the Iraq War.

It isn't pretty:

The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.

“What do you think that’ll cost?” Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expansive plan.

“I think it’s going to cost billions of dollars,” Mr. Garner said.

“My friend,” Mr. Rumsfeld replied, “if you think we’re going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken.”

In a way he never anticipated, Mr. Rumsfeld turned out to be correct: before that year was out, the United States had appropriated more than $20 billion for the reconstruction, which would indeed involve projects across the entire country.

DOH! How is this for the kicker:

At the end of his narrative, Mr. Bowen chooses a line from “Great Expectations” by Dickens as the epitaph of the American-led attempt to rebuild Iraq: “We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us.”

The sad thing is that there were lots of people - from people on the street to people in high levels of government - that knew this would happen and were ignored intentionally.

New Twitter Follower

2008-12-14T12:38:00.005-05:00

And here I thought that people followed Him, but here He is following me.

Sick and Disgusting

2008-12-14T11:41:00.002-05:00

This is seriously messed up:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's home church was badly damaged by arson, leading the governor to apologize Saturday if the fire was connected to "undeserved negative attention" from her campaign as the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Damage to the Wasilla Bible Church was estimated at $1 million, authorities said. No one was injured in the fire, which was set Friday night while a handful of people, including two children, were inside, according to James Steele, the Central Mat-Su fire chief.

Seriously, what makes someone think this is acceptable?

Obama Logos

2008-12-13T17:45:00.000-05:00

An interesting post that includes those that didn't make the cut

How we got here and how we help those who need it

2008-12-12T19:14:00.003-05:00

I just read two interesting pieces by Joseph Stiglitz. In the first he discusses 5 points in the last 21 years that brought the economic crisis to this point. There were many revealing insights that I had not considered before but perhaps the most interesting was about the Bush tax cuts:

Then along came the Bush tax cuts, enacted first on June 7, 2001, with a follow-on installment two years later. The president and his advisers seemed to believe that tax cuts, especially for upper-income Americans and corporations, were a cure-all for any economic disease—the modern-day equivalent of leeches. The tax cuts played a pivotal role in shaping the background conditions of the current crisis. Because they did very little to stimulate the economy, real stimulation was left to the Fed, which took up the task with unprecedented low-interest rates and liquidity. The war in Iraq made matters worse, because it led to soaring oil prices. With America so dependent on oil imports, we had to spend several hundred billion more to purchase oil—money that otherwise would have been spent on American goods. Normally this would have led to an economic slowdown, as it had in the 1970s. But the Fed met the challenge in the most myopic way imaginable. The flood of liquidity made money readily available in mortgage markets, even to those who would normally not be able to borrow. And, yes, this succeeded in forestalling an economic downturn; America’s household saving rate plummeted to zero. But it should have been clear that we were living on borrowed money and borrowed time.

He also lays into Alan Greenspan who I have a lot of problems with, mostly because he was in charge during so many of the good times and then left us holding the bag:

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

The second article I was less thrilled by, but it was still an interesting read. Basically he says Chapter 11 is the way to go for the Big 3. He sort of glosses over the fact that people don't want to buy cars from bankrupt car companies but his general point is one with which I agree - basically that we need to make sure we are helping the people who deserve the help and not reimbursing shareholders and bondholders.

O, Man is that a weak knock-off

2008-12-12T18:41:00.002-05:00

One of the corner stores within a block of my house (there are 3 or 4 depending on how you define "corner store") sells some of the cheapest knock-off Obama merchandise around.

Really, the photoshopping of Obama's senate picture in front of the White House with a random MLK floating-head above it is kinda strange.

But I should probably just be happy that people care enough about a politician to want to wear him on their chest, no matter how low-quality the design work.

What Bush Should do...

2008-12-12T15:10:00.002-05:00

Bush needs to extend the bridge loan to the Big 3, I think that is pretty clear.

But he has an opportunity here to do the right thing AND actually endear himself to some of the citizens of the country that he, in theory, runs.

If I were Bush, I'd get the $15 Billion out of Secretary Hank's hands and then go to Michigan and give a speech. I think the people of Michigan would probably be at least civil to him - which is more than he is getting anywhere else in the country.

I mean, Bush is on legacy-patrol right now anyway, right? When you are less popular than a root canal, why not pander for a little round of applause?

Quote of the day

2008-12-12T12:15:00.003-05:00

Goes to Michigan Lt. Gov John Cherry:

"We are witnessing Congressional unraveling of the American Dream and the demolition of the very foundation of our national security. A few beltway insiders who are completely out of touch with the struggles of American families decided to settle old political scores at the expense of millions of jobs and our national economic security. While bankers get the keys to the Treasury our manufacturers get a one-way ticket to bankruptcy and American families are left unprotected."

I couldn't have said it better myself. The Senate Republicans blocking the bridge loan to the Big 3 makes me so angry. I wonder how they sleep.

Here we go again...

2008-12-12T12:14:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try this blogging thing again. Lets see how long that lasts....

"He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country."

2008-09-10T15:53:00.004-04:00

I don't really read Andrew Sullivan that much, but someone linked to this and I found it very compelling. For all McCain's 'maverikeiness' he may have once been, he is no longer. He is just another Neo-Con:

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.

And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil.
[snip]
Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.

Joe Biden: I can haz a strong opinion on GOP crap

2008-09-07T14:12:00.001-04:00

"It's like [they] take pride in being ignorant"

2008-08-06T09:59:00.002-04:00

It is kind of like that, isn't it?

What is going on in Iraq?

2008-03-26T19:10:00.002-04:00

I've been reading the news reports of the last few days, trying to make sense of what is going on in Iraq. Whose side are we on? Why? What is so bad about the other guys? And what should we be doing?

While Matt Yglesias doesn't explain it all, he does lend some particularly interesting insights:

Eric Martin rounds up some evidence that "should make US policymakers wonder whether, yet again, we are backing the less popular local elements simply because they tell us what we want to hear." That seems wrong to me. The would-be imperial power has to back the "less popular local elements." The key thing is to find groups that are strong enough to hold on to power with external support, but too weak to come to be in a position to kick the ladder of external support away.

Yes, it seems stupid for American soldiers to be risking their lives for the sake of Iranian-backed Islamist parties' struggle against a nationalist Islamist party, but that's the perverse logic of the situation. If ISCI had more popularity and legitimacy, they wouldn't need us. And if they didn't need us, we wouldn't want them, just as we don't really want anything to do with the self-confident Sadrists. The only problem is ginning up domestic political support in the United States for the gambit. Hence we hear a lot about Iranian support for Sadrist elements or even al-Qaeda, and very little about Iranian support for their primary allies in Iraq -- allies who just happen to be our allies too.

Emphasis is mine

What Atrios Said

2008-03-22T13:28:00.002-04:00

This is too good, too accurate and too maddening not to reprint:

It's absurd but nonetheless completely normal that 5 years later, anti-war voices are almost completely missing from our mainstream public discourse and all of the idiots who cheered this thing on are given platform after platform to describe their intellectual journey or whatever. I don't really understand the degree of narcissism that many of them exhibit, unable to recognize that what the world really needs is for them to shut the fuck up and turn their microphones over to people who didn't cheer on this horrible disaster.

Can they do anything right?

2008-03-13T17:58:00.003-04:00

A screen grab from washingtonpost.com today. The GOP gets money stolen from its candidate committee, abuses power it demanded and failed to perform oversight. Will somebody please relieve these guys of their authority?

I can only assume the Villanova coach is a Republican, too.

Border-fence boondoggle continues...

2008-02-28T12:09:00.003-05:00

Sometimes you judge projects based on what they were trying to accomplish and give them a grain of salt since the goal is so noble.

In this case the goal is neither noble nor is the execution competent:

The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.

Technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson prompted the change in plans, Department of Homeland Security officials and congressional auditors told a House subcommittee.

But can you tell me exactly how, and in what particular areas, this "virtual fenc" is uselss?

GAO investigators said that Boeing's software could not process large amounts of sensor data. The resulting delays made it hard for operators in a Tucson command center 65 miles to the north to lock cameras on targets. Radar systems were also triggered inadvertently by rain and other environmental factors. Cameras had trouble resolving images at five kilometers when they were expected to work at twice that distance, Stana said.

And who is at fault?

A nongovernment source familiar with the project said that the Bush administration's push to speed the project during last year's immigration debate led Boeing to deploy equipment without enough testing or consultation.

Before and After

2008-02-27T23:16:00.003-05:00

Today, I bring you a before and after of my return from a six year hiatus of cutting my own hair:

Before

After

Paul Wellstone: July 21, 1944 - October 25, 2002

2007-10-26T18:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of Senator Paul Wellstone's tragic death. If we had more people like him, even if everyone were just a little bit more like him, our country and our world would be a better place.

His early death is truly tragic.

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

2007-10-22T13:46:00.000-04:00

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Qwest, warrantless data mining, 9/11 and imunity

2007-10-13T15:56:00.000-04:00

Geez... Where do I start?

Qwest was asked to do some no-so nice stuff:

A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.

Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week.

[snip]

In May 2006, USA Today reported that the NSA had been secretly collecting the phone-call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by major telecom firms. Qwest, it reported, declined to participate because of fears that the program lacked legal standing.

They didn't do said no-so-nice stuff. Because the program "lacked legal standing" which I think is a fancy way of saying "illegal".

So, that is interesting (but not really new)... The Bush Administration was doing something illegal (I know, shocking).

But this was before 9/11! So that means that (a) not only did their illegal data mining not prevent the terrorist attacks but (b) their desire to illegally count the number of times you call you girlfriend was a decision independent of planes crashing into buildings. I don't think that is what they've been telling us for the last six years.

Now, a guy on the business end of an insider trading trial isn't exactly the most credible guy around. But given what we've learned over the last 6 years about the Bush Administration, is there anyone short of Rush Limbaugh and Dana Perino who is going to stand up and claim this is untrue? I didn't think so.

And because Qwest didn't play ball Cheney-style, they cut them off other unrelated government contracts. Some would call that 'not rewarding bad behavior'. Others would call it blackmail.

Finally, there is a new FISA bill winding its way through the corridors of Capitol Hill as we speak. One of the most hotly contested aspects of it is to include immunity for Telecom companies who broke the law when they gave the US Government access to private information without one of those messy little warrants. Some folks don't want to give immunity and others are making a big deal of it. Bush said he'd veto anything without immunity for telecoms. I doubt that is Bush is overly concerned with keeping Telecom company execs out of prison as much as he is concerned with the messy trials and all the other messy crimes our government has been committing since Cheney got his dirty fingers on the levers of power. I don't have a fully formed opinion on Telecom immunity. I can't honestly say what I would do if some high-level government types showed up at my office in black SUVs with tinted windows and talking into the radio in the palm of their hand. That can be pretty intimidating and when my government asks me to do something ("You mind stepping out of the car, sir?"), I usually do it. The real criminals here are not the Telecom executives who OK'd this program, it is the guys in black SUVs that asked them to do it. I'll bet my next student loan that Dick Cheney's hands are on this somewhere. That guy just hates privacy!

One of the main reasons I don't want immunity is we can learn what the heck this is all about during the inevitable trial.

What really gets me about all this is that this was going on pre-9/11, but they then used 9/11 to justify it. Grrr.

Wherein I give my opinion on something

2007-10-11T11:51:00.000-04:00

I don't do a lot of analysis on this blog. That is mostly because 1) by the time I think of something, it has already been written 2) I don't have of time or readers, so it doesn't make that much sense. But now, I've got something to say!

Mark Ambinder writes a really great blog over at The Atlantic. He asks some questions about Michigan and it's bizarre primary. Questions I'm ready to answer!

Those Democrats who removed their names from the Michigan Primary ballot sure angered a lot of important people, but did they do irreparable harm to the party's interests in the state?

The jury's ... hung.

1. Michigan's economy being what it is, the state is sometimes shielded from national crosswinds. If Granholm's tax hike proves unpopular, Dems could have a tougher-than-expect time in '08 and the GOP base in Michigan (alone) could be energized. But -- the crosswinds kept Granholm in office in 2006, the UAW is still the state's most powerful political force, the state is still probably more blue than red, and only certain Republican candidates have a plausible shot here.

2. Are state Dem activists likely to punish the Democratic nominee if he is among the opter-outers? Unclear. Would their level of activity be diminished? Would the Democratic coordinated campaign here be riven by internal disputes?

3. Is Michigan completely discounted in the primaries? I asked the executive producer of an influential television program last night whether he'd cover the delegate-less Democratic primary like the half-delegate-less Republican primary. No, he said. The GOP primary was real; the Dem primary wasn't. The answer to question three can be found in the degree to which other media gatekeepers believe this particular executive producer.

4. Will Iowans punish Hillary Clinton (and Chris Dodd) for remaining on the ballot? Probably not -- they're mercurial, generally, but tend to care about more important things.

5. Will this redouble the efforts of Debbie Dingell, Carl Levin and others to crush Iowa and New Hampshire once and for all when the DNC begins to think about the 2012 cycle? Yes indeed.

6. Will Hillary Clinton get important national endorsements because of the sleight to Michigan? Maybe the UAW's.

7. Will the winner of Iowa and New Hampshire (and Nevada, assuming that it goes on the 12th of January), exert an influence on how the media covers Michigan? Yes.

The short answer is that none of this matters. Michigan will not turn red because of this. Who cares about the primary anyway? Not most people. Next November, if you ask people, on the exit poll, if the primary situation effected their vote, they'll answer no.

Even if people cared enough and could possibly remembers something so 'inside-baseball' as this from January to November, no one understands it. It is fun for political junkies to blather on about when the only other things going on in campaign coverage is visits to diners in New Hampshire and hay-rides in Iowa.

I suppose this could change depending on the media narrative surrounding it when the primary actually takes place, but I honestly believe whoever wins Iowa will be come the "presumptive candidate" and everything that happens after that is political theatre.

Norway makes a funny

2007-10-10T23:30:00.000-04:00

This is a Norwegian Daily Show-like fake news show that has a little fun with NY City Councilman, and GOP minority leader, James Oddo. It could be said Councilman Oddo didn't get this joke. This is hilarious.

Krugster: Flawless

2007-10-08T20:14:00.000-04:00

It's Paul Krugman's World we're just living in it

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, who had been shocked by the hunger he saw in West Virginia, made the fight against hunger a theme of his presidential campaign. After his election he created the modern food stamp program, which today helps millions of Americans get enough to eat.

But Ronald Reagan thought the issue of hunger in the world’s richest nation was nothing but a big joke. Here’s what Reagan said in his famous 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which made him a national political figure: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”

Today’s leading conservatives are Reagan’s heirs. If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.

People ask me why I'm a Democrat. See above.

Law & Order: I don't want your vote

2007-10-04T10:53:00.000-04:00

This has to hurt. The picture depicts Fred Thompson, in four frames, talking to an Iowa voter. It is clearly an uncomfortable exchange. And in the caption we learn that after the discussion the voter said he would vote for Mitt Romney.

You're Fred Thompson, you don't connect with a lot of voters on a one-on-one basis, and you get one and after words he says he is voting for Multiple Choice Mitt?

Ouch

Bush could have gotten rid of Saddam without war

2007-09-27T13:07:00.000-04:00

This is simply unbelievable:

Saddam Hussein was prepared to take $1 billion and go into exile before the Iraq war, according to a transcript of talks between U.S. President George W. Bush and an ally, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Wednesday.

... snip ...

"The Egyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he's indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he's allowed to take $1 billion and all the information he wants about weapons of mass destruction," Bush was quoted as saying at the meeting one month before the U.S.-led invasion.

So there it is. Undeniable proof that this was a war of choice and that all of Bush's aims could have been met with $1 billion (that is 1/200th of what Bush wants to spend on this war in 2008) and no, nill, not one, exactly zero American deaths in Iraq.

You should read the entire article, it is appalling.

Juan Cole helps to document the lowlights:

' Bush to American Allies: support war or starve

[Condoleezza Rice has just described the diplomatic situation to Bush and Aznar, explaining that Iraq is continuing to insist that it has no weapons of mass destruction.]

Bush: This is like Chinese water torture. We have to put an end to it.

Aznar: I agree, but it would be best to have as much support as possible. Have a little patience.

Bush: My patience has ended. I’m not thinking of waiting beyond mid-March.

Aznar: I’m not asking that you have endless patience. Simply that everything is done to [have maximum international support].

Bush: Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola, and Cameroon should know that what’s at stake is the security of the United States . . . [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos should know that the Free Trade Accord with Chile is awaiting Senate confirmation and a negative attitude about this could put ratification in danger. Angola is receiving Millennium Account funds [to help alleviate poverty] and that could be jeopardized also if he’s not supportive…

Aznar: Tony [Blair] wants to wait until March 14.

Bush: I prefer the 10th. This is like a good cop, bad cop routine. I don’t care if I’m the bad cop and he’s the good cop.

Bush on Iraq: the future is bright

“We’re developing a very strong package of humanitarian aid. We can win [the war] without much destruction. We’re planning for a post-Saddam Iraq and believe there is a strong base to build a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and relatively string civil society.”

Bush on French President Chirac: Mister Arab

“Chirac knows perfectly well the reality. His intelligence services have explained. The Arab countries are sending Chirac a clear message: Saddam Hussein must go. The problem is that Chirac thinks he’s Mister Arab and is making life impossible.” '

I assume Representative Jerry Lewis (CA) and Senator John Cornyn will be bringing motions to the floors of their respective houses to condemn Bush for leading us into an endless war of choice.

Bill -> Bullseye

2007-09-27T01:11:00.000-04:00

Bill just nails it on the head right here. The GOP keeps up this "condemn MoveOn" B.S. because they don't want to talk about their failed war.

A New York Times ad has never killed anyone.
A New York Times ad has never voted against children's health insurance.
A New York Times ad has never underfunded the VA.
A New York Times ad has never sent our troops into Iraq in Humvees armored with canvas.
A New York Times ad has never leaked the name of a CIA agent.
A New York Times ad didn't promise "weeks and months, but not years".

They don't want us to stop talking about the ad because they are much better at spinning media than administering sound policy.

Dick Cheney: Where you at?

2007-09-20T09:13:00.000-04:00

Reminds me of a certain VP:

SAN DIEGO -- An emotional Mayor Jerry Sanders on Wednesday abruptly reversed his public opposition to same-sex marriage.

Sanders, tears welling and voice breaking, said he realized that he could not tell his daughter Lisa, who is gay, that her relationship with a partner is not as important as that of a straight couple.

"I've decided to lead with my heart. . . to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice," he said haltingly.

I don't know this San Diego Mayor from Moses, but it warms my heart to see this small step toward true equality.

My guess is that we're going to see this a lot in the coming years, as former haters decide "to take a stand on behalf of equality and social justice."

As for Mr. Cheney, based on Mayor Sanders' comments, I can only presume that our VP is physically unable to lead with his heart due to not having one.

The Jena 6

2007-09-17T12:06:00.000-04:00

I just happened to be watching CNN this morning where they were reporting from Jena, LA. It appears the residents of this town are upset at all the attention they are getting. Here is a little tip... stop being racist and the attention will go away.

I'm sorry, but this case couldn't be clearer to me, charging a high school student with attempted murder, as an adult, for an in school fight? And this in a town where you can hang a noose on a tree and only get a 3 day in-school suspension? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!

I'm glad this is getting national attention, it is seriously messed up and it needs to be made right before the national media will shy away. (hopefully)

Bush puting lipstick on a pig...

2007-09-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

I didn't see Bush's televised speech last night because I had class, but an editorial in today's Washington Post puts things in perspective:

PRESIDENT BUSH'S explanation of his latest plans for Iraq last night was marred by a couple of important omissions. First, the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible. Instead he focused on the real but reversible military gains achieved in and around Baghdad and on the unexpected decision of Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaeda, a development facilitated but not caused by the surge.

Mr. Bush also failed to mention one of the principal reasons for the drawdown of troops he announced. The president said that the tactical military successes meant that American forces could be reduced in the coming year to pre-surge levels. What he didn't say is that the Pentagon has no choice other than to carry out the withdrawals, unless Mr. Bush resorts to politically explosive steps such as further extending deployments. Another way of describing Mr. Bush's plan is that it leaves every available Army and Marine unit in place in Iraq for as long as possible. If the war were going worse than it is, the deployment schedule probably couldn't have been much different.

I'm not sure that I agree with its conclusion (that Bush's plan is the least-worst option), but it does illustrate that this administration is always more concerned with successful sales than successful policy.

Is it Kristol Clean?

2007-09-12T17:41:00.000-04:00

9/11/07

2007-09-11T13:53:00.000-04:00

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

- Martin Luther King, Jr., "Strength to Love" (1963)

Iraq, the surge and what to do?

2007-09-10T12:20:00.000-04:00

I don't have a solution to the Iraq mess. I have some opinions but they are very far from a coherent policy that can be implemented. I want our troops home ASAP and I want to leave the country in the least-worst shape possible (meaning as stable as possible, not a terrorist breeding ground and no genocide). I think this is pretty much the consensus of mainstream America although I can't say I know that for sure.

I've read a lot over the last week about Iraq and The Surge. I trust the GAO more than any other government agency. They don't do partisan stuff. So when they say "the Iraqi government has achieved three of the 18 benchmarks that its own leaders established, partially met four and has not met 11." I believe them (quote is from a USA Today article, not the GAO report).

OK, so now that I'm convinced that the progress we're making is slow if at all existent, now what? I read something this morning that was most helpful in putting this all into perspective.

Kevin Drum is a smart guy who has written for Foreign Affairs magazine. He was initially for the war but turned against just before it began (these sources are lifted from his wikipedia page):

I supported it initially, but before the war started I switched to opposition on practical grounds (i.e., that George Bush's approach was incapable of accomplishing the goals it was meant to accomplish). Since then, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that, in fact, I should have opposed it all along on philosophical grounds: namely that it was a fundamentally flawed concept and had no chance of working even if it had been competently executed.

So, he is a smart guy. His post this morning is one of the most sensible things I've read about Iraq in a while, and for that reason, I'll let him tell it. I had planned on pruning his post down, but it is too good. (For context I'll note that he refers to advocates of the status quo as "Chaos Hawks" based on their desire to stay in Iraq and their argument that chaos will ensue as soon as we leave.):

Having admitted, however, that the odds of a military success in Iraq are almost impossibly long, Chaos Hawks nonetheless insist that the U.S. military needs to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because if we leave the entire Middle East will become a bloodbath. Sunni and Shiite will engage in mutual genocide, oil fields will go up in flames, fundamentalist parties will take over, and al-Qaeda will have a safe haven bigger than the entire continent of Europe.

Needless to say, this is nonsense. Israel has fought war after war in the Middle East. Result: no regional conflagration. Iran and Iraq fought one of the bloodiest wars of the second half the 20th century. Result: no regional conflagration. The Soviets fought in Afghanistan and then withdrew. No regional conflagration. The U.S. fought the Gulf War and then left. No regional conflagration. Algeria fought an internal civil war for a decade. No regional conflagration.

So where does this bogeyman come from? Hard to say. Probably a deep-seated unwillingness to confront the fact that the United States can't really influence a course of events we originally set in motion. But Iraq is already fighting a civil war, and that civil war will continue whether we stay or go. If we go it will likely become more intense, but also shorter lived. The eventual result, however, will almost certainly be the same: a de facto independent Kurdistan in the north and a Shiite theocracy in the south. The rest of the Middle East will, as usual, watch events unfold without doing much of anything about them, and will accept the inevitable results. The U.S., for its part, will remain in the north to protect Kurdistan, in the east in Afghanistan, in the west in the Mediterranean, and in the south in its bases in the Gulf. We'll hardly be absent from the region.

I think it's worthwhile for proponents of withdrawal to be honest about the likely aftermath of pulling out: an intensified civil war that will take the lives of tens of thousands and end in the installation, at least in the short-term, of an Iran-friendly theocracy. This is obviously not a happy outcome, but neither is it the catastrophe the Chaos Hawks peddle. The alternative is to babysit the civil war with American troops, spilling blood and treasure along the way, without truly affecting the course of events in any substantial measure.

Politically, this is the key battleground now. As long as the Chaos Hawks are able to panic the public into believing that withdrawal will result in a Middle East in flames and ten dollar gasoline at home, no Congress will have the backbone to defund the war and force a pullout. This means that it's time for more sensible regional professionals to screw up their courage and tell the truth: pulling out won't be pretty, but if it's done prudently neither will it be Armageddon. The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can leave Iraq.

Until then, though, our foreign policy will continue to be held hostage to a senseless war that does us no good. Al-Qaeda will continue to recruit and grow, Afghanistan will slowly slip away, a shooting war with Iran will become more likely, our military will continue being stretched and drained, and our country will become less and less safe. And all for nothing. It's way past time for us to start formulating a sane national security policy for an age of terror. Leaving Iraq is the first step.

I still don't know where that leaves us on the supplemental now before Congress. I do feel that the country voted for the Democrats last fall because they wanted an end to this war. And I think it is made tremendously more difficult by the intellectually dishonest debate that Drum suggests we are now in. As I said in the beginning of this post, I don't have the answers.

This is dumb.

2007-09-09T12:23:00.000-04:00

Univision is hosting a Democratic debate tonight and here is how it is going to work:

Here's how it's supposed to work at the University of Miami tonight: Univisión anchors Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos will ask the questions in Spanish. Wearing United Nations-style earpieces, the candidates will hear the English translation. Their responses -- in English -- will be translated into Spanish by a single translator for television viewers. Minor time delays are anticipated.

So far so good... Now the dumb part:

If the logistics seem confusing, consider that the two candidates who are actually fluent in Spanish -- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd -- have been told they can speak only in English.

How can a Spanish language channel honestly hold back a candidate that speaks Spanish? My only guess is that the top three would have not agreed to come if they knew the deck was stacked against them and in favor of two second tier candidates.

Still though, it is pretty dumb.

Fancy New Feature

2007-09-09T12:14:00.000-04:00

For a few months now I've been using Google Reader as my RSS Reader. This is a blog aggregator that allows me to quickly file through dozens of blog posts without having to go to the actual website.

They have a "share" feature which allows me to simply click a button and a link from the blog post I've clicked will appear in the box on the right column of this blog that says "Nolan's Shared Items". I think this is pretty cool. Also, since it is obvious that I'm not good at keeping this blog up to date, this might be a good way for people to find things on the internet that I once found interesting. (this is, assuming that the people who visit this site are nearing the end of the internet and in dire need of reading material)

Lack of blogging

2007-09-05T22:50:00.001-04:00

Joan and Nolan
Originally uploaded by nolantreadway

It has recently been brought to my attention that it has been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. In fact, I was even given a brief list of news items that have occurred since my last post.

I'll try get back to political blogging somewhat regularly in the near future. For now, this will have to do. (this picture was taken last November, at a Jim Webb rally also featuring Wes Clark and Michael J Fox)

I am an Aussie TV Star

2007-07-26T19:35:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago, one of the PR people for the YearlyKos Convention (of which I am Logistics Director) said they were talking with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about a story they were doing on how the internet has changed presidential politics in America. The story was to run after the CNN/YouTube debate.

I was initially not interested since I'm not really a blogger and there are tons more people in this town that know way more than me. But after talking more with ABC it was clear to me I could fit the bill. I am told "The 7:30 Report" is a bit like "Nightline," a long format show that follows the evening news.

I went down to the offices in downtown DC where, upon my arrival, the assistant declared to the reporter in her office "your talent is here!" (how long have I been waiting to be greeted with that response!). After a 10 or 15 minute interview I was out the door and waiting for it to be posted online. That day has come!

Click here to watch my performance. It is about 10 seconds of camera time around the 3:30 minute mark of the segment. I kind of come off sounding like a surfer by inserting the word "like" where it doesn't belong. They also label me a "liberal blogger" which I don't think is really true despite the fact I'm writing this on a blog and I'm liberal. Anyway, it was a good time.

hehe

2007-07-21T01:45:00.000-04:00

John Kerry makes a funny:

"There once was a man named Vitter
Who vowed that he wasn’t a quitter
But with stories of women
And all of his sinnin’
He knows his career’s in the -- oh, never mind."

-- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), quoted by The Hill, on Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) prostitution scandal.

Michigan: America's High Five

2007-07-20T11:48:00.000-04:00

I'm from Michigan, I love Michigan, I think it is the best state in America. I'm sure many people find their home state to be their favorite and that is fine, mine is Michigan.

This video is great for a few reasons. First, the guy is wearing a T-Shirt that says "Michigan: America's High Five" and while I've always recognized Michigan as the 'Mitten State', I've never heard 'America's High Five'. Now I have and I will incorporate it into my life as much as possible. Second, the song playing in the background is 'Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!' by Michigander Sufjan Stevens.

Finally, the guy is talking about how screwed up Michigan is right now. The economy of the state is in the toilet, the governor and the legislature can't pass as budget or agree on what should be done. Of course, Republicans feel that tax cuts are in order, and what this guy is talking about (and, AFAIK, the Democrats agree) is that Michigan needs an unprecedented investment in itself. It needs infrastructure, education services (some colleges in Michigan are raising tuition 20% this year!), economic diversity and it needs to make itself attractive to business. Taxes are your membership fee to the country club that is America, if you want a new tennis court down at the club, to compete with the club down the street, you've got to raise fees. Contrary to popular belief, tax cuts don't increase consumption and spending, they increase saving for rich people. You know who spends money when they have it? The government. They hire construction workers to build roads, they hire people to fill cubicles and clean the cubicles, all while providing services to the population.

Here is a little proof of how beautiful Michigan is:

"Honor Grads, Dis-Card"

2007-05-27T20:00:00.000-04:00

This is a pretty amazing reaction Andrew Card receives as the commencement speaker at UMass-Amherst:

In general, I think there is something solemn about commencement ceremonies but I have to say I respect the UMass community (students and professors alike) for recognizing that this is a special case.

The administration of George W Bush should not be treated as an entity that merely has political opponents that disagree with their policies. The administration, including all those who make up the core decision making team, should be treated as perpetrators of the biggest foreign policy mistake in the history of the United States. Traditional honors that are bestowed upon the holders of the highest offices in government should not be given to the Bush Administration, or else they will be worse than "honorary", they will be meaningless.

Blitzer Reports....

2007-05-24T10:58:00.000-04:00

Nanotechnology

2007-05-11T11:52:00.000-04:00

Hmm... what's this?

"It did not appear to be electronic [analog] in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high-power microscope, it appeared to be complex, consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire-like mesh suspended on top."

What is this mysterious material that US Defense contractors were worried about?

The 25-cent piece, featuring the red image of a poppy, was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nanotechnology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.

That would be what we call here in the United States "coin" or "money". That's right, thank God they didn't see millions of Canadian children using this "nanotechnology" to play video games from coast to coast.

Back.... and not talking Politics

2007-05-07T17:17:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted on this blog for a while. To my reader: I apologize. Here is my attempt to get back in the saddle (and it has nothing to do with politics):

Michigan State is the best basketball program over the last 10 years. Who can argue with this:

Over the past 10 seasons, Michigan State has the most Final Four appearances of any school in the nation (four) and also has a fifth Elite Eight appearance in that span.

The Spartans have a national title, four conference championships and two conference tournament titles to go with 10 straight NCAA Tournament appearances (the fifth-longest streak in the nation).

Want more? Michigan State has had NBA draft picks (10 since 2000) and graduates (29 out of the 35 players who completed their four years on campus earned a degree). The Spartans have excelled on their home court, posting a 141-13 record (72-8 Big Ten) and selling out the 14,759-seat Breslin Center for 145 consecutive games. They also have an elite practice facility in the Berkowitz Basketball Complex, and are consistently good in recruiting, bringing in eight McDonald's All-Americans and five players who were named Mr. Basketball in Michigan.

GO GREEN! GO WHITE! GO STATE!

AFSCME: "Doin' a lota shit work you don't wanna to do"

2007-03-11T10:18:00.000-04:00

Let the eagle soar..... on satellite radio

2007-03-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

John Aschroft, [behind subscription wall] of the clear morals:

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who sent a letter this week to his successor Alberto Gonzales blasting the proposed merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., approached XM in the days after the merger was announced offering the firm his consulting services, a spokesman for XM said Saturday.

The spokesman said XM declined Mr. Ashcroft's offer to work as a lobbyist for the company

Unofficial YearlyKos Video

2007-02-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

It's unofficial but it's really good...

Our Shame

2007-02-19T15:48:00.000-05:00

It's not a hat tip because it's completely and totally ripped off Crooks and Liars... Washington Post reporting...

Perks and stardom do not come to every amputee. Sgt. David Thomas, a gunner with the Tennessee National Guard, spent his first three months at Walter Reed with no decent clothes; medics in Samarra had cut off his uniform. Heavily drugged, missing one leg and suffering from traumatic brain injury, David, 42, was finally told by a physical therapist to go to the Red Cross office, where he was given a T-shirt and sweat pants. He was awarded a Purple Heart but had no underwear.

David tangled with Walter Reed's image machine when he wanted to attend a ceremony for a fellow amputee, a Mexican national who was being granted U.S. citizenship by President Bush. A case worker quizzed him about what he would wear. It was summer, so David said shorts. The case manager said the media would be there and shorts were not advisable because the amputees would be seated in the front row.

" 'Are you telling me that I can't go to the ceremony 'cause I'm an amputee?' " David recalled asking. "She said, 'No, I'm saying you need to wear pants.' "

David told the case worker, "I'm not ashamed of what I did, and y'all shouldn't be neither." When the guest list came out for the ceremony, his name was not on it.

Can someone explain to me what is going on in my country?

Senate Republicans: Want it both ways

2007-02-08T15:45:00.000-05:00

We all saw it on Monday night, Chuck Hagel and John Warner showed their true colors, they care more about their party than they do for this country and ending the Iraq debacle as quickly as possible. Warner and Hagel voted against opening debate on THEIR OWN bill after Darth Cheney showed up at the Republican Caucus meeting and scared them into voting no.

Now they say they actually do want to debate the war:

Senate Republicans who earlier this week helped block deliberations on a resolution opposing President Bush's new troop deployments in Iraq changed course yesterday and vowed to use every tactic at their disposal to ensure a full and open debate.

In a letter distributed yesterday evening to Senate leaders, John W. Warner (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and five other GOP supporters of the resolution threatened to attach their measure to any bill sent to the floor in the coming weeks. Noting that the war is the "most pressing issue of our time," the senators declared: "We will explore all of our options under the Senate procedures and practices to ensure a full and open debate."

I just threw up in my mouth.

While they deserve partial credit for recognizing that "this is the most pressing issue of our time" - they lose all brownie points for being totally insincere about wanting to have a "full and open debate"

You had your chance for a full and open debate, it was a vote on Monday night and you voted "Nay" - because you are scared of a lame duck vice president that has an approval rating just above herpes.

Feingold: "They [The Senate] don't want to take the steps to end the war and we need to take the steps to end the war now"

2007-02-05T23:18:00.000-05:00

We need to end the war. Now. It is that simple. Sen. Russ Feingold agrees and you should go watch his entire segment on Countdown tonight:

They want to sort of say they are against the war, but they don't want to take the steps to end the war and we need to take the steps to end the war now.

It appears that Majority Leader Reid kind of got his ass handed to him by not even getting a non-binding, meaningless Warner-Levin Amendment passed (or even begun being debated).

Democrats need to be clear on this issue. There is only one position on this war. Our men and women have done their best for four years and it has only gotten worse. It's time to redeploy them outside of Iraq. End the war now.

A Report from the Anti War Rally

2007-01-29T10:08:00.000-05:00

I went down to the National Mall on Saturday for the Anti-War Protest. It wasn't as crowded as I would have imagined it but I guess when you are in a crowd you can only see what is around you, not the full view of what is around.

It was good, I was nervous that the speakers would drift off topic, which often happens at liberal protests, but they were pretty much on task. Several congresspeople were there and I think my favorite comment I heard from the stage was John Conyers quoting Maureen Dowd's Saturday Column asking a facetious question about Darth Cheney:

Has anyone in the history of the United States ever been so singularly wrong and misguided about such phenomenally important events and continued to insist he’s right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

My favorite sign I saw at the protest:

A file photo of Bush (looks like he is walking from the White House to his helicopter). Underneath it simply reads:

Nobody Likes You

And another gem from Maureen Dowd's article:

They [W and Cheney] are perpetually guided by the wrong part of the body. They are consumed by the fear of looking as if they don’t have guts, when they should be compelled by the desire to look as if they have brains.

Bush's State of the Union preview

2007-01-20T13:19:00.000-05:00

The NY Times has a little preview of Bush's State of the Union on Tuesday. Included is this gem:

As he heads into the address, his first delivered to a Congress controlled entirely by Democrats, Mr. Bush faces intense skepticism from lawmakers over his new strategy in Iraq. But while he will not be able to avoid the subject of Iraq in the speech, White House officials hope to use the address to shift the national conversation away from the war and toward the possibility of bipartisan cooperation in Washington.

Dear President George W. Bush:

You can get people to stop talking about the war you created by ending it. Now.

Regards,
Nolan

Heh

2007-01-16T13:55:00.000-05:00

"He has 24 months left in his presidency. I don't think I'm being mean-spirited by saying [that in] the first six years of his presidency, there's been nothing accomplished except the biggest foreign policy fiasco in the history of our country."

-- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by Time magazine.

H/T Political Wire

Olbermann on Bush and "Sacrifice"

2007-01-03T11:04:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to comment on Keith's words because it cannot be said any more eloquently than the words he used last night:

If the BBC is right — and we can only pray it is not — he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree, cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for "sacrifice."

Sacrifice!

More American servicemen and women will have their lives risked.

More American servicemen and women will have their lives ended.

More American families will have to bear the unbearable, and rationalize the unforgivable — "sacrifice" — sacrifice now, sacrifice tomorrow, sacrifice forever.

[snip]

This is not temporary, Mr. Bush.

For the Americans who will die because of you… it will be as permanent as it gets.

[snip]

Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and more over, they do not want you to do this.

Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.

Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!

[snip]

to the rest of you in the Republican Party.

We need you to speak up, right now, in defense of your country's most precious assets — the lives of its citizens who are in harm's way.

If you do not, you are not serving this nation's interests — nor your own.

[snip]

We… will have to live with it.

We… will have to live with what — of the fabric of our nation — you [Mr. Bush] have already "sacrificed."

The only object still admissible in this debate, is the quickest and safest exit for our people there.

But you — and soon, Mr. Bush, it will be you and you alone – still insist otherwise.

And our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers will be sacrificed there tonight, Sir, so that you can say you did not "lose in Iraq."

Our policy in Iraq has been criticized for being indescribable, for being inscrutable, for being ineffable.

But it is all too easily understood now.

First, we sent Americans to their deaths for your lie, Mr. Bush.

Now we are sending them to their deaths for your ego.

[snip]

Our meaningless sacrifice in Iraq must stop.

And you must stop it.

There is no room for debate about our options, the only answer is to leave. I have heard "just six more months" far too many times and at the end of each six month interval the situation is more dire than before. We have done all we can. We must leave Iraq now.

YearlyKos Convention: #5 Thing to look forward to in Chicago in 2007

2007-01-01T20:28:00.000-05:00

So says the Chicago Tribune (on page A1!):

5. Blogorama In August, Democratic presidential candidates will come a-courtin' the bloggers at the second convention of the Daily Kos blogging collective and its readers. With the 2008 election year drawing near, the second Yearly Kos, held at McCormick Place, should outdraw the hugely popular 2006 edition and might serve as an unofficial campaign-season kickoff.

I think that is pretty dang cool. You can also read my take on it on the YearlyKos Convention Homepage.

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager

2006-12-30T10:52:00.000-05:00

Hilarious!

RIP President Gerald R. Ford, but we needed you to speak up

2006-12-28T12:35:00.000-05:00

President Gerald Ford pictured here with warmongers Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in 1975

I don't have strong feelings either way on Gerald Ford outside of the obvious, he is a Republican from a tainted administration and a graduate of the hated University of Michigan.

But then Bob Woodward comes out today and says that Ford told him two years ago that he didn't agree with the war:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified.

[snip]

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

Are you kidding me? President Ford, even in death you are coming off like a tool. How could you, a former President of the United States, an elder statesman and respected leader not have the balls to say this publicly?

Your country needed you to say this out loud! Your country (hell, even your planet) needed you to start this debate! People have different sized megaphones, lots of people with small megaphones were saying this but you had an opportunity to say this from a large megaphone! You had a responsibility to say this! Men and women are still dying for what you knew was a mistake but didn't have the guts to call it such.

Were you concerned that you would be disowned from your party? Were you concerned that you, one of FOUR ex-Presidents, would have your reputation tarnished? Were you afraid Dick and Lynne would take you off their Christmas card list?

I am left to assume that you didn't want to diminish your party and the President from your party, which is very sad. Thanks for nothing.

Where's the Democrat?

2006-12-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

It's like Where's Waldo trying to find the Democrat on THE ENTIRE LINEUP of Sunday Talk Shows:

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C; U.N. Secretary-General-designate Ban Ki-moon; former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara Bush.
---
CBS' "Face the Nation" - First Lady Laura Bush.
---
NBC's "Meet the Press" - Rev. Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life"; Newsweek editor Jon Meacham.
---
CNN's "Late Edition" - Repeats of past interviews with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others.
---
"Fox News Sunday" - Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney; Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl; Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham.

I could say "I'm F'n sick and tired of the press being called liberal in the face of this obvious conservative bias" - but instead I'll say

"I'm sure Democrats were invited but in an effort to keep the sabbath holy and spend time with their families during the holiday, they declined all invitations to the Sunday talk shows. And Conservatives, hating God, family, and Christmas, were all to excited to spend Christmas Eve on such a secular pursuit as politics"
(Not that it explains why CNN is showing re-runs of Republicans)

Thanks for holding it down for the left Senator Dodd, I'm sure they were trying to call Lieberman and accidentally got the liberal Connecticut Senator, but they've never been strong on details.

And, because I love Tim Russert so much, and think he is such a fair guy, why don't I point out that last week he had a real "fair and balanced" line-up:

GUESTS:
• Fmr. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Speaker of the House 1995-1999
• David Brooks, Columnist, New York Times
• Tom Friedman, Columnist, New York Times

Seriously? You couldn't find someone other than Tom Friggin' Friedman to represent the left????? A guy who supported the war in Iraq from the get go, is against getting out now and boasts about how he didn't even read CAFTA, he just saw the words "free trade" and knew he liked it???? Yeah, this guy is a flaming liberal. Russert pisses me off like no other - what a partisan hack.

Sorry I haven't posted in two weeks (I didn't realize it had been that long until I went to put this post up), but I had finals, Chistmas duties, a job and traveling which all kind of took priority for now. I'm back on the horse now.

Howard Dean Post Election Thoughts

2006-12-10T14:32:00.000-05:00

At the risk of this blog turning into a Howard Dean/Paul Krugman/Jim Webb propaganda tool, I'll let Governor Dean tell you what he thinks of the 2006 election:

I have to admit, I kind wish this guy were president.

Webb gives Bush the respect he deserves...

2006-12-04T16:36:00.000-05:00

Which is to say, not much at all:

Krugman gets it right (again!):

At a reception following the midterm election, President Bush approached Senator-elect James Webb.

“How’s your boy?” asked Mr. Bush.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” replied Mr. Webb, whose son, a Marine lance corporal, is risking his life in Mr. Bush’s war of choice.

“That’s not what I asked you,” the president snapped. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” said Mr. Webb.

Good for him. We need people in Washington who are willing to stand up to the bully in chief. Unfortunately, and somewhat mysteriously, they’re still in short supply.

I had a friend of mine tell me that Jim Webb should have shown more respect for the Presidency, and shook Bush's hand like everyone else. Well, Virginians didn't send Jim Webb to Washington to make nice and go-along-to-get-along. They sent him there (among other reasons) to clean up our dirtied foreign affairs - starting with Iraq.

And if losing an election and a war won't get Bush to wake the fuck up, then maybe some cold words over cocktails and chicken satay at the White House will get the Frat-Boy-President to understand that a change is needed. Of course the irony is so much more potent when you consider that Bush's veep famously thought so much of the institution of the Senate that he told Senator Pat Leahy to "fuck off" ON THE SENATE FLOOR. I think Webb was nicer to Bush than Cheney was to Leahy ... and Leahy didn't even put Cheney's daughter on the front lines of an unwinable war!

Preach on Paul....

So Mr. Bush will keep sending other men’s children off to fight his war. And he’ll always insist that Iraq would have been a great victory if only his successors had shared his steely determination.

Does this mean that we’re doomed to at least two more years of bloody futility? Not necessarily. Last month the public delivered a huge vote of no confidence in Mr. Bush and his war. He’s still the commander in chief, but the new majority in Congress can put a lot of pressure on him to at least begin a withdrawal.

I’m worried, however, that Democrats may have counted on the Iraq Study Group to provide them with political cover. Now that the study group has apparently wimped out, will the Democrats do the same?

Well, here’s a question for those who might be tempted, yet again, to shy away from a confrontation with Mr. Bush over Iraq: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a bully’s ego?

Iraq: Get U.S. the hell out of there NOW!

2006-11-28T19:34:00.000-05:00

I am in a hurry but I've had this post kicking around my head for a couple days now. Pretty much ever since 200 people were murdered in one day in Iraq. It is time for the US to get the hell out. Right now. Right. Now. There is nothing more that we can do, we are not doing anyone any service by staying. Every time I pull up a news site, I see more evidence of how messed up it is. It was kind of messed up when we went into Iraq, and then it got really messed up, and now it's beyond horrible and getting worse by the day.

This is the latest story of how bad things are:

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.

The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, the official said.

The failures in Iraq have nothing to do with the brave people that serve and everything to do with the cowards in Washington. I only hope that they put the good of Iraq, the United States and the world ahead of their own egos and get the hell out.

As I said, we have done everything we could and at this point the only option is to leave.

Rahm: Great move.

2006-11-26T12:42:00.000-05:00

This great news about Rahm Emanuel is predicated on a huge if, that is if Douche bag of Liberty, Robert Novack can be believed then Rahm is doing a tremendous, great, outstanding, wonderful thing for our country:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, newly elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, has sent colleagues a one-page memo emphasizing "real lobbying and ethics reform" as the key to his party's future electoral success.

Emanuel, architect of taking over the House as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, in the memo cited eight extra seats won by Democrats in Republican districts because of scandals. That included the defeat of Representatives John Sweeney (N.Y.); Richard Pombo (Calif.); Curt Weldon (Pa.); Don Sherwood (Pa.), and Charles Taylor (N.C.), plus Republicans in seats formerly held by Representatives Tom DeLay (Texas); Mark Foley (Fla.), and Bob Ney (Ohio). A ninth scandal-blemished Republican targeted by Emanuel, Rep. John Doolittle of California, escaped with a four-point victory.

Emanuel intends to push reforms restricting earmarks, gifts and travel. "Failure to deliver on this promise," said his memo, "would be devastating to our standing with the public and certainly jeopardize some of our marginal seats."

As I said, I don't know if I can trust Robert Novak, but I sure hope this is true. With Rahm distancing himself from James Carville's crazy-man post-election rantings and this memo here, Rahm is endearing himself to me quite a bit.

The Nancy and Harry Show: Doing the things America likes

2006-11-25T00:14:00.000-05:00

I saw Thomas Edsall speak on a panel a couple months ago and between his dooms-day comments regarding the left in America on that day and his horrible column in Sunday's New York Times, I'm trying to figure out why this guy has any credibility at all:

To stay in the fight, Democratic leaders will have to acknowledge political realities affirmed by the electorate in 1994 and 2006. Many Democratic constituencies — organized labor, minority advocacy organizations, reproductive- and sexual-rights proponents — are reliving battles of a decade or more ago, not the more subtle disputes of today. Public sector unions, for example, at a time of wide distrust of government, are consistently pressing to enlarge the state. For these players, adapting to a re-emergent center will be costly.

Democrats won on Nov. 7 by carrying a 59 percent majority of independent, moderate voters angered by the Iraq war and Republican corruption. These voters demonstrated 12 years ago that they can easily turn against Democrats.

Now these groups he mentions, they have seen how bad it is to be out of power and they aren't going to sprint off the left flank because they have sniffed some power, they are cooler than that.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are much smarter than you think. They, also, have been in the minority too long to take the plunge into craziness and they have enough populist, common-sense legislation backlogged from 12 years of Republican rule to more than fill a two year session - so just watch them. There will be controversial bills and things that are hard to pass, but on balance, I have the feeling the 110th Congress is going to be a lesson on how to do popular things and force your opponents to take unpopular stands.

Howard Dean: My Kind of Democrat!

2006-11-19T10:53:00.000-05:00

It was Howard Dean's birthday on Friday which has had me thinking about how much I like that guy. Everyone to the right of Hilary Clinton seems to think Howard Dean is plain crazy, so let me explain my admiration. And let me put it in clear terms...

Howard Dean said the war was wrong at a time when most Democrats were too scared.

Lots of the same people who question why I love Dean, also complain that the Democrats have no spine, that they don't state their opinions with conviction, basically, that they are too much like John Kerry. Well here is what Governor Dean said to the California Democratic Convention on March 15, 2003, or 5 days before "shock and awe." Six 04 candidates spoke to the convention. Governor Dean stole the day:

What I want to know, what I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?

What I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting tax cuts which have bankrupted this country and given us the largest deficit in the history of the United States?

As Paul Wellstone said -- and as Sheila Kuehl said when she endorsed me -- I'm Howard Dean, and I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

I want a Democratic Party, I want a Democratic Party that'll balance the budget. Bill Clinton balanced the budget, starting in 1993 with not a single Republican vote, kicking off the greatest ten years of prosperity in this country's history. No, no Republican president has balanced the budget in this country in 34 years. If you want to trust somebody with your taxpayer's dollars, you better elect a Democrat because the Republicans can't manage money.

I'm not surprised that only 15 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 25 vote because we haven't given them a reason to vote, and we're going to give them a reason to vote now.

If you are looking for spine look no further than DNC Chair Howard Dean.

And even as you're reading this I'm sure you're thinking of the scream. The scream that ended his presidential aspirations. I can only say that he made a very large PR mistake and it is sad when someone passes judgment on another at their lowest moment.

Even as I re-read that speech I can't help but think what a greater country we'd be if Dean were president, or even if Dean were the Democratic nominee in 04. We may still have lost, but at least we'd have lost standing up for what we believe, and hindsight being what it is, we still lost in 04, we just lost while compromising ourselves.

And for the record, the place I go to find these kind of values in the 2008 Presidential race is General Wesley Clark

Belated Post-Election Thoughts: BORN FIGHTING!!!!

2006-11-17T12:44:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been slacking, but that isn't news to the one reader of this site (me). But here are my thoughts on what happened last Tuesday....

It was a great day! I honestly didn't think we would take the Senate, I thought that was out of reach and despite the fact that I predicted differently below, I didn't actually think Jim Webb would win his race. Throughout the election when I was knocking on doors and calling people for Jim Webb, I felt good but I didn't really feel like I was making a difference. But since the election and since it was called for Webb, I've felt myself feeling more pride that I was some small fraction of a part of that victory.

On election day I headed out to Fairfax county to one of the largest precincts in the country with about 4000 voters. We got out there around 9am and honestly stood around for about 2 hours. The voting place was a school and we were working out of the house of some supporter across the street. It was really amazing and great to see all these people, who don't know each other, who just felt the duty to do this, all showing up on one day, getting out the vote. It's really great.

We were supposed to check our target lists against the lists of those people who've already voted (so we don't waste time knocking on doors of people who've voted). It was pretty unorganized at this point and getting the lists checked off was a bit of trouble. One of the worst things you can do is get volunteers out and then have them stand around and feel useless. But, eventually, we were out there, knocking on doors.

For whatever reason the list I got wasn't cross-checked so I was knocking on all the doors on my list (but not all the doors in the neighborhood) and I was unsure if they'd already voted. So about half the people I actually got to talk to had voted and the other half said they were going to vote. It was a great sign, but it was still really early. I was cautiously optimistic.

We then went back to HQ, got some pizza and sat around for a few hours, waiting to make another run on houses. We started to get numbers of people who'd voted in the precincts in our area at this time and it was truly startling. By about noon we were already over 50% of the numbers of people who'd voted in 2004 - and this is a midterm! It was really amazing how many people were voting. It almost overran the entire GOTV operation because we were set up to get out marginal voters and all the marginal voters were already voting! At our operation we actually abandoned doing a second sweep through out listed neighborhoods and targeted some large apartment complexes. In the afternoon I was still using the lists since there were a couple that hadn't been hit the first time, so we took care of those. Again, we hadn't cross referenced the list so I was knocking on doors of people that may or may not have voted. Of all the people I talked with on this afternoon run, there were literally two people who HADN'T voted. One who was going to vote and the other I couldn't budge with a crow bar. I had a couple interesting encounters on this afternoon run...

I knocked on a door, did my intro pitch "I'm Nolan, I'm a volunteer with the Jim Webb campaign and we're just going around to make sure people get out to vote today...." to which the woman at the door replied "I don't like Jim Webb"

Hmm. "Well," I said confident that I could change her mind "why don't you like Jim Webb?"

"I'm not sure about all that tailhook stuff, and I called the campaign office to get an answer and they didn't give me a sufficient response"

Hmm. I wasn't really expecting that and I wasn't really sure how to respond, so I asked "So you're not voting?" (I was not sure what answer I was expecting to this question that was going to lead me to a better place)

She said, "No, I voted. I voted for Jim Webb. I don't like him, but I voted for him"

Well at this point I realized I had nothing to gain and everything to lose so I thanked her, picked up my confused look and walked away.

A few doors down I knocked on the door of what should have been about a 35 or 40 year old man. A kid in his mid-teens answers and I explain who I am and say that I'm looking for so-and-so. Before I can complete this sentence he is silently gesturing me in the door. I'm a little unsure about that so I continue and he opens the door so I know that I'm supposed to come in.

I enter the house and I'm standing in the living room and in this room is the mid-teen boy and a man on the couch in the far corner that is easily 300+ pounds and looks like he may not have moved since George Allen was GOVERNOR of Virginia. In a confused state I went right into my pitch and when I got the part about "we're just trying to make sure you get out and vote today" I thought I might offend him with the temptation of getting out of the house. At some point I noticed that they were watching CNN on TV, so it gave me hope that they are somewhat informed about current events. Well, this man had voted, he voted that morning and he also informed me that he knew George Allen personally and didn't like him to which I replied "well, I don't know George Allen personally but I don't like him either" which got a chuckle from the teenager. I politely said "thanks" and exited, relieved that he had not only by the fact that he'd left the house that day but also that he'd voted for Webb!

So after the afternoon canvass, we went back to HQ and I spent the rest of the day handing out Democratic sample ballots to people entering the polls. This was the best encounter of the day...

I'm standing outside the polling place, in the cold, light rain. A man is walking up in a tie and I say "Sample ballot sir?"

He says "Which one?"

I respond "Democrat"

He lets out a sigh, kind of turns his head from one side to the other showing the kind of disappointment and frustration that you express when the dog has crapped on the floor for the 20th time, snatches the ballot from my hand and says "first time in twenty years"

I turn and look at the guy I'm standing with handing out ballots and we just grin "we'll take it!"

So after the long day, it was off to the Webb Victory Party! I'd never been to an official campaign victory party and it was pretty fun. We were in a huge hotel ballroom, and people were spilling over every side of the corridors and hotel bar and everything all pushing for a Webb victory. There were two huge screens with CNN at the front of the ballroom and huge risers for TV cameras at the back of the room aimed right at the stage.

The first big cheer went up with the first Dem victory, Menendez in New Jersey. It was one we all expected but it was great to get it under our belts. The next big cheer was for Rick Santorum going down. Santorum is a special kind of crazy and it just feels good to know that guy won't be speaking on the floor of the Senate again. The biggest cheer I heard that night was when Cardin and O'Malley were called in Maryland for Senate and Governor. Everybody there was very aware of the Maryland races and very happy to see good prevail over evil there.

I was at the party with Joan, my co-conspirator throughout the campaign. She and I met because we're tasked with starting a group supporting Wes Clark for President at American University and through that we've volunteered together for the Webb campaign.

At this point it was around 10 or 10:30 and things were not looking good for Jim Webb, add to that the fact that we were about 45 minutes away from the District and there was a party in the District that we wanted to stop into, we decided it was time to leave. On the way back to DC we called the guy to whose house we were driving and we were all sort of lamenting the fact that it didn't look good at all for Webb.

We got to the party and it was more of the having-people-over type party than the band-and-a-keg party and again we're sitting there, watching returns lamenting Webb's defeat when someone says "um, Webb is UP!!"

We all looked up at the TV, trying to subtract two numbers that were in the 1.2 million range and separated by only a couple thousand votes and then it hit us all WE ARE UP!!!! WEBB IS UP!!!! It was great. By the time the night was over Webb was up by about 5000 votes and when the sun rose on Wednesday he was up by 7000 votes. Jim Webb won!

On Thursday Allen conceded the race and Webb held a rally pictured above. Throughout the campaign he wore his son's boots from basic training. His son is in Iraq. I went to the corner store to buy a soda on Thursday and saw this picture on the front of the Washington Post and bought a copy and promptly posted it to my door. I love the photo.

Bad Idea of the Day: Election Predictions

2006-11-06T12:17:00.000-05:00

Election predictions are probably a bad idea, but they are also something every liberal blogger is obligated to do. This is the law regardless of readership, blogs that have 0 readers (me) or blogs that have millions of readers, it's gotta be done. And the primary reason that it's a bad idea is because they are usually wrong, which mine certainly will be.

Every good liberal has tried not to get their hopes up, knowing that it just leads to the extreme depression (ie Nov 04) and confident in the knowledge that if the Democrats can find a way to screw things up, they probably will. But inevitably when you read more blogs and newspapers than a normal person should, and when you care so much about politics, hopes are bound to rise. And thus, I am trying to be pessimistic about tomorrow but it's too late for that, the truth is I'm very hopeful.

In completing this election prediction, I have been trying to quantify the exact threshold of number of seats where I would be disappointed. So, that is where I'm at.

Senate
I think the Dems are going to pick up 5 seats. I'm calling pickups in Montana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia. We're going to win one and lose one between Missouri and Rhode Island, but I'm not sure which is which. And I should mention here that I'll be getting out the vote for Jim Webb (Born Fighting!!!), so I'm obligated to call that race for Webb, even though it's way too close to call. People are talking about Maryland flipping but I just don't see that happening, Michael Steele is nothing short of bat-shit crazy.

House
Speaker Pelosi, here we come! I think we're going to pick up 30 seats including Charlie Brown in CA-04. Much the same way as I have to call Jim Webb, I've got to give Charlie the W, because I just love that guy. Lots of these new guys are going to be conservative Dems and veterans, and there has already been talk of inter-party conflicts that are going to come of that but the Democrats don't have an ideological agenda the way the Republicans do. We don't call votes on things that we know won't pass just to show off our hate to our base. If we concentrate on sound policy and good government it won't matter where these new congresspeople came from. And I have a lot confidence in Nancy Pelosi not to step on any land mines or take on any policy that doesn't have real support. She has kept these Dems together in the worst of times and she'll do the same in the better of times.

Governorships
I have no business commenting on these races in their entirety, but Granholm will win in Michigan (woo-hoo!!!) and Arnold is going to win in California (boo!!!). O'Malley wins in Maryland also, despite what people have been saying.

So there it is - the much anticipated TreadHouse election 2006 predictions. How wrong will I be? Only time will tell.

How does it feel to know that your party's priority is that fewer people vote?

2006-11-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to pretend that anyone reads this website, let alone any republicans, but this just makes me wonder how it feels to know this is a published strategy for your party:

A recently distributed guide for Republican poll watchers in Maryland spells out how to aggressively challenge the credentials of voters and urges these volunteers to tell election judges they could face jail time if a challenge is ignored.
[snip]
The GOP poll-watcher program, outlined in a 13-page document, states: "Your most important duty as a poll worker is to challenge people who present themselves to vote but who are not authorized to vote."

It cautions, "Undoubtedly, the challenge process will be awkward and may cause consternation on the part of the challenged voter as well as the judges." It advises, "If there is cause to make a challenge, you should not hesitate to do so merely because it upsets the challenged voter or the election judges."

It adds, "If the election judge should try to ignore your challenge, point out that they would be committing a criminal offense punishable by not less than 30 days in jail."

I really do wonder how it feels to know that part of your party's published strategy is to allow fewer people to vote. I don't know how it feels because it's my party's published strategy to make sure that everyone that is qualified to vote, does so:

"The key is the perspective each party brings to the process," Marcus [an attorney for the state Democratic Party] said. "Our philosophy is, if we have a qualified voter, we're going to turn things inside out and upside down to get them to be able to vote."

The fact is the GOP wants us to believe there is some boogeyman voter fraud going on, but voter fraud almost never occurs through people using fake IDs to vote or voting for someone else - and when it does happen it's so relatively small that it's insignificant.

But God forbid we would require paper trails for voting records, now that would be over the line....

On Iraq, Jim Webb, and great vs. perfect candidates

2006-11-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

One of my classmates saw my Jim Webb (Born Fighting!!!) sticker on my folder last week and proceeded to chastise for supporting someone who "said all those bad things about women." Now, I've gotten in the habit of dismissing comments like that from people who are so quick to talk but so slow to invest time into seeing their "prefect candidate" get elected, but this time I explained to her that if (God forbid) John Paul Stevens dies in the next term, George Allen could be the difference between getting another anti-choice judge on the Supreme Court for what could be the rest of my working life or putting a moderate in that seat.

Then later in the day I was sitting with a different group of classmates and we got to talking about MoveOn and someone mentioned how they were turned off by the way that MoveOn had become part of the apparatus instead of trying to change the system. And I told them that change is made at the margin, and that if you're looking to overthrow our political system of government, MoveOn probably isn't the place to do it, but if you're looking to elect leaders that don't start wars against sovereign nations that do not pose a direct threat to the United States, MoveOn is a good place to go.

Then I was making calls for Jim Webb on Sunday and by the time I got the words "asking you to vote for Jim Webb on November 7th" the person on the other end of the line cut me off saying "I'm sick of politics" and hung up. I so wished that they would have stayed on the line (although it is perhaps a good thing they didn't). This is what I would have said:

"You're sick of politics? I'm sick of calling voters! I'm sick of knocking on doors! But unfortunately neither you nor I have the luxury of apathy anymore. There are American soldiers dying in the desert EVERY DAY and all you can't put down your US Weekly long enough to vote for someone that won't put us back in that quagmire?"

And that is how I feel. That is why I got into politics, because when George Bush got reelected I realized that I no longer have the luxury of just bitching to my friends, it was time to be a part of the change that I wanted.

So I volunteer for Jim Webb, even though it disgusts me to think that this guy holds any respect for Ronald Reagan. Because at this time in our country it's more important that we throw the warmongers out than wait for the next JFK or FDR or whoever.

And I feel this way most often when I read things like this:

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded the removal of American checkpoints from the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday,

Mr. Maliki’s public declaration seemed at first to catch American commanders off guard. But by nightfall, American troops had abandoned all the positions in eastern and central Baghdad that they had set up last week with Iraqi forces as part of a search for a missing American soldier.

Mr. Maliki had been under pressure from his Shiite backers to push the Americans to lift an eight-day-old cordon around Sadr City, where American authorities believe the kidnapped American soldier is being held.

So, in short, an American get captured, we go in to find him and the Prime Minister of Iraq makes us leave a solider in the field. Someone please explain to me how this is making me safer.

Now if you want to get upset, look at the faces of the men and women who have died in Iraq. These are real lives, people who have parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. These are not abstract numbers, they are humans who were taken from this world for what can only be described as a war of choice put there by people like George Bush and George Allen. And we have a chance to take away some of their power and I'm not going to pass up the chance to put someone who shares my views on the most important issue of the day just because he likes Ronald Reagan or was a sexist 20 years ago. This is too important to be nit-picky.

Reason #86745 why I'm a Democrat

2006-10-25T09:57:00.000-04:00

My econ professor encouraged us to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, he passed around a signup in the first class where you could get the WSJ for pretty much the entire semester for about $15. Now being a card carrying liberal, I tend to the New York Times over the WSJ any day but I thought it would be a good chance to broaden my horizons, and at $15 it wasn't that big a deal if it turned out to be trash, so I signed up. I've learned that every page except the editorial and op-ed pages in the Wall Street Journal is a well-written, informative unbiased source for what is going on in the world, in and out of business. The editorial page and op-ed page is certified right-wing trash, today they had an op-ed about how things are actually going OK in Iraq and that if the Democrats win in November it will be a win for the terrorists, rationale like that just plain makes my head hurt and I don't think I need to explain how truly demented it is.

But set out to write this post about a good article that was front and center on A1 this morning. The headline pretty much sums it all up: "Fearing a Democratic Victory, Drug Makers Fund Key Races":

Few businesses have more at stake in next month's congressional elections than pharmaceutical makers. Assailed by Democrats, drug companies are pouring millions of dollars into close races, giving some Republicans a financial edge.
[snip]

Through early September, drug-company political action committees had given about $8.7 million to campaigns, compared with $7 million for all of 2002, the last midterm election, according to CRP. Employee contributions are up, too, rising to about $5 million from $3.3 million four years ago. About 69% of the industry's campaign contributions are going to Republicans.

Other industries are also pouring money into races in the hopes of protecting their favored candidates. Oil and gas interests worry about a Democratic Congress axing subsidies and have spent $13.6 million on the campaign so far, of which 83% has gone to Republicans. For all of 2002, they and their employees contributed $14.8 million in hard-money donations. Montana's troubled Republican Sen. Conrad Burns is the second-biggest recipient of oil money, according to CRP. He supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

[snip]

Electric utilities, fearing tougher environmental rules, have contributed $11.9 million, with 66% going to Republicans, compared with $12.8 million in 2002. Commercial banks, bracing for tighter lending standards, account for $19.2 million, 63% of which is going to Republicans. That's already more than 2002's $16.5 million.

It goes on to talk about how the pharmaceutical interests in our country are so damn smitten by the love they've gotten from Sen. Rick Santorum that they are doing just about everything they can to make sure he gets re-elected (which he won't). The article is all about the money that big PhARMA, big oil and electrical utilities give to republicans and how scared they are that the Democrats could actually win in November and start representing (ghasp) the American people's interests instead of business interests.

And go on, talk about Ted Kennedy and Ben Nelson, that is 8-2 on Dems vs. Non-Dems. And don't even mention Joe Lieberman, we purged him for a reason.

And this is reason #86745 why I'm a Democrat, because the business interests that I consider to be some of the slimeyist in America support and fund the Republicans. If these guys are so scared of the Democrats that they would pay literally millions of dollars to get Republicans elected - what are they getting in return from the Republicans??? My guess is it's not a fruitcake at Christmas.

Could the contrast be any more stark???

My favorite '06 candidate

2006-10-25T09:35:00.000-04:00

My favorite candidate this year had a great piece in the Washington Post this week and I had to share.

There are two types of candidates: the obvious ones, who are recruited to run in key races and get lots of financial and organizational help, and the bootstrap cases, who do it all on their own.
[snip]
[In last week's debate] Brown lambasted Doolittle for his relationship with Abramoff and a San Diego businessman implicated in the bribery case that sent former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) to prison. Brown noted that his opponent had accepted a $1,000 donation from Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who resigned from Congress last month in a scandal involving male teenage congressional pages. "Mr. Doolittle knows more about man's love than I do, with his support of Congressman Foley," Brown retorted.

That last thing is the meanest thing I've ever heard Charlie say and it's probably the nicest thing anyone could say about that special-interest-bought-and-paid-for Doolittle.

I first met Charlie Brown at an innocent DFA get together in San Francisco last winter. He immediately struck me as an incredibly honest and straight forward guy. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if Charlie loses this race it will be because he didn't shake enough hands in his district, because once you meet this guy you know you can trust him - he is unlike any politician I've ever seen. I met Charlie again (and sat next to him, his lovely wife Jan, and his campaign manager Todd) at a Nancy Pelosi town hall meeting in San Francisco in January (the event which led to the opening of the TreadHouse) and he was also at YearlyKos, which doesn't hurt you're Nolan credibility factor.

It pains me that I've moved out of the area and I can't help Charlie on his campaign. It's a true grassroots campaign and, win or lose, Charlie Brown is nothing short of an inspiration that hope is not dead in American politics.

Don't bring a slingshot to a knife fight

2006-10-23T01:44:00.000-04:00

Paul Krugman hits it out of the park again:

As long as polarization is integral to the G.O.P.'s strategy, Democrats can't do much, if anything, to narrow the partisan divide.

Even if they try to act in a bipartisan fashion, their opponents will find a way to divide the nation which is what happened to the great surge of national unity after 9/11. One thing we might learn from investigations is the extent to which the Iraq war itself was motivated by the desire to have another wedge issue.

There are those who believe that the partisan gap can be bridged if the Democrats nominate an attractive presidential candidate who speaks in uplifting generalities. But they must have been living under a rock these past 15 or so years. Whoever the Democrats nominate will feel the full force of the Republican slime machine. And it doesnÂt matter if conservatives have nice things to say about a Democrat now. Once the campaign gets serious, they'll suddenly question his or her patriotism and discover previously unmentioned but grievous character flaws.

It doesn't give me any satisfaction to know that we have to play hardball to win in today's political climate, but at the same time the stakes are too high not to. Democrats could take the high road, treat the other side with the respect they don't pay us and the country and the world would be worse off.

If we want this country back, we've got to take it back

On a similar note, The WaPo has an interesting profile of Rahm Emanuel:

"Look, you're never as tough as they say you are," he says finally.

But the self-reflection lasts only as long as it takes for him to remember the tactics of the other side.

"They call Tammy Duckworth a cut-and-runner when she left two legs in Iraq?" he shouts, jabbing a finger in the air, drawing stares from around the deli. "How dare they! I'm going to give them the medicine that they've been giving out. That's what shocks them."

Now, make no mistake about it, I come down hard on the Howard Dean side of the Rahm vs. Dean divide, but this is the kind of balls we need to have. This is the only kind of communication their side understands.

R.I.P. Habeas Corpus

2006-10-20T01:22:00.000-04:00

Here is why it's such a bad idea to allow the president (one man and one branch of the three branches of government) to label ANYONE an enemy combatant and thus relieve us of our habeas corpus privileges:

Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that "no court, justice, or judge" can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

You see, the President, if he so choose, could label ME an enemy combatant if he so choose and I would have no right for anyone to look at my case and say "yeah, this guy should be held in prison" or "nope, this guy has nothing to do with terrorism" - that is no longer a right of anyone in America.

I wish that Democrats like Sherrod Brown and Debbie Stabenow hadn't voted for this bill, but they did. And it disappoints me to no end. But, at the end of the day I believe that if Dennis Hastert, Bill Frist and George Bush weren't running this country this bill wouldn't have been seriously considered, and that is why I vote Democrat.

Your words are lies, Sir. They are lies, that imperil us all.

2006-10-19T12:45:00.000-04:00

That is Keith Olbermann on President George Bush. Keith has been speaking out a lot lately on the disgusting infringments of civil liberties that this president and this congress (sadly both Democrats and Republicans in this congress) have perpatrated upon the citizens of this country. Go watch the video, but here is some of what you can expect:

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

But even within this history, we have not before codified, the poisoning of Habeas Corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere — anywhere — but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria… ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

This kind of stuff pisses me off more than anything else. When the leaders of our country aren't just doing something that I disagree with, they are doing the exact opposite of what should be done. Instead of protecting and expanding our liberty, they have dimished it. The only thing I can say now is that those leaders have to be removed from office.

Ballot Initives vs. On The Road

2006-10-17T18:52:00.000-04:00

I know that since I've moved to DC I should start reading DCist and stop reading SFist, but it's stuff like this that keeps me coming back for more (and not just because I will be voting in California for the last time this fall):

In one of those great, hedging your bets type headlines that the press so loves, there's a story going around entitled "Some fear California's bulky ballots may intimidate voters." Really? Do you think? We love reading hundred page tomes of arcane political and legislative arcana.

Let's look at the ballots we've gotten so far. The state ballot this year clocks in at 192 pages, same as the city of San Francisco ballot. Let's see, that's...eight...carry the one... 384 total pages of election goodness to read through before voting. Why wouldn't people not be thrilled about all of this? To put that in perspective, our beloved "The Stranger," clocks in at 123 pages and in that book, you'll at least figure out how to discover meaning out of meaningless. "On the Road" is about 254 pages and that launched the Beatnik movement. And Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City?" 272. Voting is like having to cram for a test in that you have to set aside a couple of hours to read through really boring stuff you really don't want to read, except if you don't do a good job, instead of failing, you wind up with a Hollywood actor running things.

See that's funny, right?

And for the record, I do read DCist also.

This leaves me speechless

2006-10-17T13:47:00.000-04:00

Unbelievable

Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

I'm not saying that every American has to know the difference between Sunni and Shiite, I'm just saying the guys that vote to start wars over there do.

Hit tip digby

Democrats do the smart thing!!!!

2006-10-16T10:29:00.000-04:00

(I wish that were not worthy of a headline with 4 exclamation points, but it is)

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune

BATON ROUGE -- In an extraordinary vote against an incumbent congressman, Louisiana Democratic Party leaders on Saturday endorsed state Rep. Karen Carter of New Orleans for the 2nd District House seat held since 1991 by Rep. William Jefferson, whose campaign for re-election has been hampered by a federal bribery investigation.

You remember William Jefferson, the FBI found $90,000 in his freezer.

As sad as it is that I'm congratulating the Dems for distancing themselves for someone who is under investigation, we know from Connecticut how hard it is for a party to leave an incumbent hanging.

It's crucial that we, as a party, walk the walk. And that means letting crooks who inevitably pop up in the party piss off and die.

If this is true, the Dems win the Senate

2006-10-15T23:44:00.000-04:00

The New York Times is saying that the GOP has written off Mike DeWine as a loss and:

Republicans are now pinning their hopes of holding the Senate on three states — Missouri, Tennessee and, with Ohio off the table, probably Virginia

Well, I'll take those chances any day of the week.

I believe Harold Ford is going to win in Tennessee even though I thought that was impossible six weeks ago. Missouri is a total toss up, it's been polling 50-50 for about six months now. And sweet Virginia, after seeing some new polls showing Webb closer and knocking on some doors in Arlington yesterday, I think Jim Webb can win this race.

All that being said, and it being a Dem year, we're going to take 2 out of the 3 that the GOP is needing to hold.

How many times can Bush disregard facts about Iraq in one week?

2006-10-13T12:27:00.000-04:00

Here is my current problem with Bush's handling of this war. Everyone except Bush knows that our situation is dire and that we need to change our strategy to have anything that would even vaguely resemble a desirable outcome.

In fact, Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt had this to say about the continued presence of the British Army in Iraq:

The presence of UK armed forces in Iraq "exacerbates the security problems" and they should "get out some time soon", the head of the British Army has said.

But Bush can't even hear this, because it disagrees with what he "knows" to be true.

It's just like the recent study that was released that says that 655,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the occupation began. Bush said this when asked about the report:

"I don't consider it a credible report," President Bush said Wednesday.

Because, again, these are just random numbers and professional assessments, they have no meaning compared to what Bush knows in his gut. It is like Stephen Colbert said "He believes the same thing on Wednesday as he believed on Monday no matter what happened on Tuesday"

Truthiness is a joke Mr. President, not a foreign policy. Wake up and make a change.

Back on the horse

2006-10-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted for over 2 months, but I've decided to get back into the game and start posting again.

Mostly the content will probably be political in nature, but perhaps there could be some human interest stories out there as well. (When I say human interest I mean things of interest that happen to this human)

See, I've got this new RSS Aggregator (NetNewsWire) and it just makes it so easy to take in so much content, and I spend so much of my day sitting in front of this computer, I figure I can throw out the most interesting thing that I read on a daily basis and it won't cut into my free time too much.

So, here we go.....

Home in Michigan

2006-08-10T23:33:00.000-04:00

Well, as any TreadHouse watcher can tell, I haven't been very diligent at keeping my blog up to date. I'm now in Northern Michigan (Traverse City to be exact) at the Treadway family cottage, where I took the picture above from the porch (that is Lake Michigan in the distance).

Since leaving Brooklyn I traveled to Boston, then across Canada to Michigan for a few days last weekend before heading to Chicago for Lollapalooza and back here until the end of next week.

I'll try to keep y'all posted on my future movements, but I can't make any promises.

Brooklyn

2006-07-17T13:10:00.000-04:00

I got in to Brooklyn last night after driving through Maryland to the Delaware coast then taking a ferry to New Jersey and up the Garden State Parkway to New York City.

After I arrived we checked out a cool free concert series they have running at a huge, empty, abandoned pool down the street. (pictured above)

I've been slacking!

2006-07-15T13:35:00.000-04:00

It took me 3 tries to get this right
Originally uploaded by nolantreadway.

Here I am getting to Virginia which was last week. I was then in Roanoke, for a few days and then drove on up to DC with a pass through Monticello and a week here house-hunting and hanging out. I'm on my way to New York City tomorrow to see my brother and enjoy some more muggy weather (maybe "enjoy" is the wrong word).

I would like to promise that I'm going to write more soon but, let's be honest, that may not happen. However, the Treadhouse is always open over at flickr, where I have been uploading a few photos.

Our Nations Capitol

2006-07-11T11:55:00.000-04:00

I'm in DC now, I got in last night and I'll be here for a few days. I'll post more pics and stuff soon.

Sweet Virginia

2006-07-09T23:49:00.000-04:00

I'm in Roanoke now and headed to DC tomorrow. I don't have wireless access here so I can't update any pics but those should be coming in the next few days, along with a proper update of what I've been doing since I left Atlanta.

From Asheville, North Carolina

2006-07-08T09:14:00.000-04:00

I made it in here last night and I'm leaving shortly for Roanoke, Virgina where I'll give a full update. Asheville is a great town!

Good bye Atlanta

2006-07-06T23:18:00.000-04:00

I'll be leaving Atlanta tomorrow morning for Asheville, North Carolina. I've had a great time here the last few days seeing the Peachtree Road Race, going to the Carter Center and seeing the new (huge) Georgia Aquarium.

Not to mention I got caught up in a murder mystery (more on that when some light gets shed on the mystery itself), got to play some pub trivia (we lost but got a consolation prize for having the best team name: "Ken Lay, that SOB, owed me like twenty bucks"), got to eat some barbecue, watched a bit of world cup, and got to hang out with my sister and some of her friends. So all in all, time well spent.

Louisiana to Atlanta

2006-07-04T23:59:00.000-04:00

A hair dye job even a Republican could love!

I was actually looking for a patriotic picture to post earlier today and I had to settle for stealing my brother's picture of the Blue Angels that is featured below. When I saw the pictures he took at the 4th of July parade at the cottage, I had to steal another one, it was just too good to pass up.

Now back to the open road.....

Since I left California on June 15 I have driven 4,067 miles. 613 of those miles came yesterday from Louisiana to Atlanta.

I have been checking the weather channel and www.weather.com religiously, trying to figure out the best way to avoid the rain. I decided that I could drive east on the interstate out of Lafayette, through Baton Rouge and then cut north into Mississippi and get away from the gulf coast that has been counjuring up all this rain. I managed to stay mostly dry on my ride east and as I cut up into Mississippi I figured I would be dry the rest of the way which turned out to be mostly true.

Now I went into Mississippi with an open mind and a willingness to overlook the dozens of jokes I'd heard in my life at the expense of these surely fine, upstanding people. But I had not been in Mississippi 5 minutes, even before I took the picture you see above, when I stopped for gas and as I was leaving what should I see but a man smoking a cigarette while filling up his gas tank! Literally playing with fire. I would say I did a double take but it was more like a quadrupple take and I might have asked the guy to put it out but I was already in my helmet and with my earplugs (headphones) in I'm neither a friendly face nor can I hear half of what people say to me - so I just took off as quickly as I could.

That was maybe the most interesting thing that happened to me all day.

I spent the rest of the day wondering how I got myself in the position of doing 600 miles in a day. I've now realized that being that time is not an issue on this trip I really should take it easier on myself and insert another day when it's appropriate.

And I trudge ahead on into Alabama. The last time I can remember being in Alabama was driving through to get to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 2000. The time before that was in 1996 when my friend Kris and I road tripped to Atlanta to see the Olympics and went to Brimingham to see a couple early round soccer games. One thing I remember vividly from that trip, was waiting for one of the soccer games to start and the skies opening up to a torrential downpour. While most everyone else in the stadium went under the bleachers of Leigon Field since it was in between games and there was nothing to see, Kris and I sat in the rain storm, getting absolutly soaked to the bone. I can't say that we made the right decision that day but being that I still remember it maybe it 10 years later, maybe it was worth it. Anyway, it rained on me again as I was driving by Brimingham.

I have a lot of time to think while I'm driving and on this ride a lot of that time was spent trying to determine the weather. Specifically, trying to answer the question, "is it going to rain on me?" or "am I driving toward the rain?" or "how close is that cloud and will that cloud produce rain?" You get the idea. I've developed several techniques for trying to tell if it's going to rain on me, none of which are very reliable or scientific. I can look at the clouds and see what they look like, but that only really allows me to see the clouds that are ahead of me a bit, I can't really tell what the clouds right above me look like becuase it's hard to get your head pointed in that direction with a helmet on while you're going 70mph. I also can't really tell from the coulds if they are producing rain or not and I certainly can't tell if that cloud in front of me is one I'm going to be driving under or if the road will turn before I get there.

I can look at the pavement and see if it's wet and try and determine if it's rained on this spot earlier, this is somewhat helpful because if I'm trying to track the rain producing clouds in my head (which I am) than it's helpful to know where they've been. I can also make a half-assed guess at which direction the weather is blowing but, just like the rest of this experiment, it's less than precise.

I often find myself looking at the windshield wipers of the cars approaching and that has been helpful probably once but it doesn't offer much warning because if the cars coming toward me are in the rain than I'm either in the rain also or going to be within the next 5 seconds. Looking at the headlights of the cars approaching can also be helpful but again, it's just a guess as to why these cars have their lights on.

I can sometimes see the sky get darker when it's about to rain but then again sometimes this doesn't happen and it rains anyway. I can occasionally feel the air get a little bit colder, like the humidity has been taken out of it, and this can be a sign of rain, too.

It's all a very frustrating exercise as I try to figure out the last possible moment to put on my rain pants, which sometimes remind me of pant-shaped-garbage-bags. They actually remind me of the plastic suits that I wore several times in high school while trying to drop weight to make it into the lightweight boat on the crew team. Those suits are designed to make you sweat off water weight, these pants are supposed to keep my legs dry but I find I'm often as wet when I take them off from sweat as I would have been from the rain. (OK, that last part was an exaggeration).

But really the most frustrating part of the entire process is that when I'm right, and it is about to rain, my reward isn't something I want anyway.

So it rained on me in Birmingham.

And I finally make it to Georgia and about 50 miles after this picture I cross Perimeter Road and I'm on the home strech. And, as if to kick me one last time on the way out the door, the skies opened up on me while I was driving through downtown Atlanta and I got drenched for about 90 seconds, just long enough to make everything wet, and then stopped as soon as it started.

I may have made this day out to be more painful than it was, in fact, on the balance I'm quite glad I did it, but I don't want to do it again.

Alicia had brought some dinner home from her carbo-loading session and I had a great night sleep last night.

Happy 4th of July!

2006-07-04T11:31:00.000-04:00

I made it to Atlanta after the longest ride yet yesterday, 613 miles. Starting in Louisiana, passing through Mississippi and Alabama and landing in Atlanta, Georgia proved to be a longer day than I wanted.

All is well here, my sister Alicia finished the Peachtree Road Race this morning and I'll post more later.

Since I haven't had a chance to upload any of my pics, I borrowed one my brother took this week in Traverse City, Michigan of the Blue Angels.

Lafayette LA - Not Quite New Orleans

2006-07-02T22:44:00.000-04:00

Well, I write to you now from Lafayette, Louisiana. I was supposed to be in New Orleans tonight but weather and time prevented me from making it.

I started the day at Iftikhar and Rabia's house and I was set to leave at 10 am but Iftikhar, knowing my weaknesses, got me to stay for another half hour to watch the first 30 minutes of Meet the Press. Anyway, I got started on the road at 10:30 and it was drizzling out, just barely raining.

I knew when I started this trip that I didn't have any rain gear but I also knew that it would not rain on me until after Austin. When people would ask me what I would do about rain I would tell them "it's not going to rain until after Austin and I'll take care of it there" - so I did. I bought some rain pants in Austin and I figured my motorcycle jacket would take care of me above the waist. That was kind of true.

I pulled over within the first 10 miles of leaving this morning to put on those rain pants and get ready for a rainy day. It didn't rain for another hour or so. For the better half of the day, I would only put on my rain gear after driving in the rain for long enough to be completely wet and then when I would finally breakdown and put it on, it would stop raining.

It wasn't bad through Texas. I kept seeing ominous clouds that I knew better than to take a picture of, because it wouldn't turn out anyway. I've gotten very good at spotting rain clouds from far away. I haven't yet figured out how to get the highway in front of me to redirect itself away from said rain clouds, but I'm working on it. I gleaned some knowledge from the weather channel this morning and I learned that the weather I was getting was blowing in from the gulf, it was blowing north. So I avoided the gulf as long as possible, I took backroads so I would stay well north of Houston and everything was great.

As I approached the Louisiana boarder, things got dicey. I was keeping steady on my eastward bearing but the Gulf of Mexico was cutting north to get closer to me and, as a result, so were the rain showers. As I got close to the Louisiana border, I was about 50 miles from the coast and it started raining. It would rain on and off for my entire trip across half of Louisiana. I debated with myself if I would make it to New Orleans from the moment I crossed the state line.

You can see when you are about to get rained on. It doesn't happen out of no where, you can see it because you drive under a dark cloud and then it starts to rain. This feeling overtook me as I was driving over the tall bridge that is the western gateway to Lake Charles, on the downslope of the bridge it started to rain on me. It was rather unpleasant and caused me to stop at the next underpass and review my option, which were few.

As the day went on and I got more understanding of how the rain works, I learned that any safety concerns about the motorcycle and the rain were not anything in comparison to the uncomfortable feeling of being wet all over and forcibly driving yourself into more uncomfortable wetness. I take extra caution when driving in wet conditions but, besides slowing down a bit, there isn't much you can do and judging from the 2 motorcycles that blew passed me on the highway, it would appear you can drive faster than me and turn out alright.

Finally around 6pm I realized that I wasn't going to make it, I found a Wendy's and drug my water-logged self in and started making arrangements over a single combo. I was able to cancel my room in New Orleans without penalty and I actually found another hotel room in Lafayette, about 25 miles down the road, for the same price (still milking the pseudo-employee discount, of course) and by the time I finished with my meal, it was done raining, of course.

So, tomorrow, I have to wake up early and get on the road to Atlanta. It's another 600 mile day tomorrow but this time I'll be starting early. I am hoping the skies are clear tomorrow so I can take the drive through New Orleans and some parts closer to the coast (away from the highway) and perhaps see some of what has been done (or hasn't) over the last 10 months since Katrina.