Lightning Strikes Again

For the second time in four apartments, I have returned home to find my refrigerator ceased working. At least I was returning home from work this time, instead of from two weeks' vacation. Still, I lost about $30 in groceries, and will subsist on takeout for the time-being.

posted at: 20:55 | permanent link to this entry

Pimping and the Rational Voter

Backhand me now, and I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine." "Pimping" is the word of the week, and the topic has provided the Clinton campaign yet another opportunity to kick themselves in the shins. Given the campaign's use of the first daughter to actively court uncommitted DNC delegates, there are numerous adequate responses to the MSNBC analyst's suggestion of "...pimping out Chelsea in some weird way." Having MSNBC management fire said analyst is not one of them. And Apparently, CNN has acted similarly, firing one of their staff for "running a non-authorized blog" (and adequately discussing the situation. With large-volume media outlets being made example of, it's (yet again) the webmongers' role to hold said outlets, and the Clinton campaign, to task. The question, as stated in the context of the interview and the campaign, was completely legitimate. There is no legitimate reason for either party to be fired from their respective positions. This exactly the kind of politics that is the hallmark of the American School, and is exactly the kind of politics that directly confirms the notion that Chelsea may be less of a willing participant than a duty-bound participant in the overall Clinton campaign.

posted at: 20:53 | permanent link to this entry

De-spin: Experience

Regarding the issue of experience in the Democratic primaries: there is exaggeration on both side of this issue. There is no such thing as an inexperienced, second-term Senator. The only experienced first-term Presidents are sitting (or former) Vice-Presidents. The claim of "35 years of experience" is just nonsense. Obama has a legitimate weak point here: the near-inheiritance of his current Senate seat. In that regard, he is relatively untested in a general election. Fortunately for his campaign... Eight years of Bush Administration provides a negative proof that legitimacy can overcome inexperience.

posted at: 20:17 | permanent link to this entry

Set Phasers to: De-spin!

And now, to despin some of the foreign evil lurks among us. To review: Democrats spike the current Intelligence Authorization bill with an amendment to use the (newly written) Army's Field Manual to set rules for interrogations by the intelligence agencies. Senator McCain voted against the bill, and now we have a flood of garbage like this article. The statement conveyed by the linked article is bullshit, and by extension, its writer is little more than a shill. Why? The short answer: The bill specifies what agencies can do, as opposed to what they cannot. The long answer: Here are the 19 approved methods of interrogation for the U.S. Army (and, I believe, the rest of the armed forces): [I] == (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). See? look at them. Nineteen methods, reduced to enumeration. Here are the methods of interrogation which are torture, under various law: [T] == (24, 34, 58, waterboarding, ...) Here are the methods which are neither torture, nor listed in the 19 above: [X] == (e, pi, 42, ...) The amendment specifies the Agencies use set [I], excluding sets [T] and [X]. The amendment may even specifically prohibit some methods in [T]. Sponsors of the article would like everyone to believe that voting against the exclusion of sets T and X is the equivalent of voting to include waterboarding, and that is a false statement, because the following are not true: not(X) and not(T) == not(waterboarding) not(X,T) == not(waterboarding) not(e, pi, 42, 24, 34, 58, waterboarding) == not(waterboarding) and (e,pi,42) And yet, (hundreds of ) thousands of fools will take the bait.

posted at: 19:53 | permanent link to this entry

Senator McCain and Diverging Frames of Reference

[as elaborated from an earlier post at Safe as Houses] Several reports--both legitimate and manufactured--are in circulation, of John McCain receiving assistance and employ from various Bush campaigners in the past week or two. Some of this support is due to island-hopping by Romney supporters after Super Tuesday, but I believe some of these folks have been with the '08 campaign for its duration. This is going to be Sen. McCain's biggest problem in this election, at least for now. There's a legitimate disconnect between McCain and the electorate, and that disconnect is measured in frames of reference. Where McCain seems to view these contributors in terms of past elections and politics, the electorate definitely views them as contributors to the sitting administration and its ills. I wonder if these hirings are a result of both staying within the GOP, and the electorate's lemming run away from the GOP. What self-respecting non-GOP'er would volunteer to work for any GOP candidate in 2008?

posted at: 05:06 | permanent link to this entry

Today's topic for discussion is:

In lieu of working on actual tag-based groupings for this page, I'm now playing with formats a bit.

posted at: 04:31 | permanent link to this entry