McCain On HIV Prevention

Adam Nagourney, on NYT's political blog, The Caucus:

     ...

A transcript of the encounter follows. (Weaver is John Weaver, his senior adviser, and Brian is Mr. Jones, his press secretary):

Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

(Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

Mr. McCain: “I haven’t thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

This went on for a few more moments until a reporter from the Chicago Tribune broke in and asked Mr. McCain about the weight of a pig that he saw at the Iowa State Fair last year.

Let me repeat one paragraph of McCain's statement, so you don't miss it among all the blather:

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

This is happening to McCain frequently enough that one can no longer write off his errors as "senior moments." McCain is showing the early stages of some sort of senile dementia. I've seen the onset of Alzheimer's disease "up close and personal," as they say, in my dear departed mother, and it's very much like that.

It's not that McCain is too old to be president: it's that the physical basis for his past mental acuity is collapsing. Put aside his politics for a moment, and ask whether today's America can survive even one term of a president whose elevator doesn't run all the way to the top.

Steve
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Blog Maintenance Again

I have finished tinkering with the blogroll mechanism for at least a day or two. The code is right out of the oven; let me know if you encounter problems. (If you use Firefox, you might try a hard-refresh, Ctrl-F5, before contacting me.) The next task is adding a couple dozen blogs I've found over the past year or so since the last time I maintained the blogroll; I hope to do that in the next few days. If you comment here regularly and I have somehow neglected to blogroll you, please remind me of that.

Steve
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Saturday Signs

Students majoring in literature, history, philosophy, sciences, etc. at Alvin Community College must really be getting out of hand...

... if they need a police department just for them.

Catherine, in her role as a jazz flutist in the Houston Community College stage band, Texas Jazz Central, participated in a festival concert of several such stage bands in the region, held in the performance hall at Alvin Community College (a very nice hall indeed from an acoustical standpoint, enhanced by a good sound engineer for today's performance), a few tens of miles south of Houston. Stella and I listened to Catherine's band's performance and that of two other bands, and I must say that the quality of jazz education in the region is very high. A good time was had by all!

Steve
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The Wright Letter

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. has a few things to say to the reporter, Jodi Kantor, who interviewed him for the New York Times. Of course I wasn't there for the interview, but if by any reasonable interpretation Rev. Wright is describing it accurately, the NYT turned its "spiritual biography" of Obama (their phrase, not mine) into a hit piece.

Since at least sElection 2000, the broadcast media have forced every news item into a prewritten script; we have all seen that with our own eyes. My first realization of the seriousness and the depth of this phenomenon came as I watched ABC's post-debate analysis of the first Gore-Bush debate; I wondered if those talking heads had watched a different debate from the one I watched. But no: clearly, Sam Donaldson et al were doing their hatchet job according to plan, probably as specified by ABC's owners. And now we seem to have the "newspaper of record" doing the same.

I hereby proclaim the New York Times to be "the newspaper of wreckers." Will I continue to read and quote the NYT? Of course I will; I don't get to choose who the major players are in the presentation of our national dialogue. But we have lost a great deal if our most respected print publications are following the path of the broadcast media in scripting major political stories.

(H/T terrette, in comments. terrette, I sincerely hope you resume your blog someday; you've been away from it at least a year, and I miss reading it.)

Steve
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Miscellany

• Media gives McCain a free ride:

  Media Matters is collecting a record of instances in which, to quote Chris Matthews, "the press loves McCain. We're his base." (9/10/2006) The compilation is coordinated with the release of the book Free Ride: John McCain and the Media by David Brock and Paul Waldman. See notes by Atrios, Steve Benen, and Nico Pitney of The Huffington Post.

  McCain may be the most widely misrepresented figure in American politics today; this could be a significant book.

• Siegelman released pending appeal:

  The false prosecution and dubious conviction of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D) is among the more egregious examples of Bush's (Rove's) politicization of the DoJ. Apparently, the 11th Circuit is beginning to notice that Siegelman's "due process" was anything but by-the-book. Steve Benen has some thoughts.

  I have just one thought: when you start monkeywrenching the judicial process to throw your opponent in jail for the crime of being your opponent, you are no longer practicing politics... you may as well proclaim yourself a dictator and be done with it.

• Macbook not-so-hot Air cracked in 2 minutes:

  It was done by a security expert named Charlie Miller, in response to a contest's offer of a $10k prize. Mac fans, please note that the contest involved a Macbook Air, a Windows Vista box and a Linux box... and the Mac was cracked first. Oh, and even Windows users need to know this: the exploit was through Safari.

  The name of the contest? PWN2OWN. Heh.

• The Space Shuttle Endeavour

  is back after its marathon 16-day construction mission. According to plans, there won't be many more Shuttle missions. Commenters on the associated thread (some apparently quite knowledgeable) discuss where we've been and where we go from here.

• Ancient voice:

  A few seconds of a French folk song was recorded... this is the interesting part... in 1860. Yes, you read that right: 1860. The recording, made by a Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, was not intended for playback; it was made on paper as part of scientific research on sound. That visual image was resurrected as sound at LBNL. It's not going to win a Grammy award... the sound quality is awful... but think of it: this recording was made 17 years before Edison's first.

Steve
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Friday Interspecies Nap Blogging

Stella and Tabitha admire each other just before settling in for a nap, while the psycho-ceramic cats stand watch over them.

Steve
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A Reminder

... of the rules for commenting on this blog. Basically, there's just one rule:

My blog. My discretion.

The YDD is not a free-speech zone for self-proclaimed "conservatives," most of whom these days are of a sort that surely make Barry Goldwater and Saint Ronald turn over in their graves. There are plenty of sources of allegedly conservative spew on the web these days; this site is not going to become one of them. If wing-nuts find that there are not already enough outlets for their bile, blogs can be had for free; they can get their own. Meanwhile, I pay storage and bandwidth for this site out of my pocket personally, and I have no intention of paying to host right-wing rants, insults, etc. If you visit this blog and choose to leave a comment, be liberal, be progressive, be a Democrat, be nice, be interesting... or begone.

If you approach me with conservative dialogue, I may engage you, if I feel like it. If you assault me or the regulars on these threads with insults, no matter what your political views, I will ban you. If you are a repeat offender, or manage to get past the ban, I will "trex" you, i.e., rewrite your posts in a manner so embarrassing to you that you will wish you had never come here. But in every case it's my decision. Guests who are strangers do not get to make the rules or insult the cook.

Steve
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Condi For Veep?

You. Must. Be. Kidding... Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

And yet the rumor is out there.

Rice taught Bush everything he knows about foreign policy... and it shows. Rice was incompetent as National Security Advisor. Rice is incompetent as Secretary of State; disaster flows in the wake of her every action in that capacity. What possible motivation could, say, John McCain have for nominating her as his running mate? Oh, wait... incompetents choose incompetents...

Steve
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Greenwald On American TV Version Of Iraqi Invasion

This may be the most significant post you read today about the US role in Iraq. Or not. But it certainly was for me.

Steve
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Blogkeeping Note

Over the next few days I'll be making some changes to the left sidebar, where the blogroll and other links live. If you're using IE or Firefox, and if you notice serious problems with the scrollable blogroll, please let me know. In addition to keeping things near the top, the iframe should serve to make the blogroll easier to maintain. Once I am confident the new mechanism is working properly, I'll begin a blogroll update I have put off for far too long. (Preemptive note: the YDD does not intentionally support Opera or Safari. So sari!)

Steve
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Money Money Money Money... (No) Money

Amazingly, McCain's fundraising is not keeping up with that of either Obama or the free-spending Hillary. MoJoBlog:

     ...

With the media focused exclusively on the battle between Clinton and Obama, Republican nominee John McCain has been spending his time shoring up support for his candidacy—and, presumably, fundraising. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, he really, really needs to: In the month of February, he raised just under $11 million, compared to $34 million for Clinton and $55 million for Obama.The numbers get worse when you look at the whole election cycle: in total, McCain has raised just $64 million, less than half of Clinton's $170 million, and a third of Obama's $193 million.

But what's most striking is the debt. The Clinton campaign has amassed a staggering $8.7 million worth, double McCain's $4.3 million. Obama, on the other hand, owes only $625,000. By campaign standards, he's debt free.

     ...

Don't pretend it doesn't make a difference. Early money is like... well, y'all know the saying.

Steve
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Make It Stop

This is just one instance, provided us by Greg Sargent on TPMElectionCentral. There are many others recently, from both Hillary and Obama, but those from Hillary are getting altogether out of line:

Hillary Amplifies Criticism Of Obama Over Wright
By Greg Sargent - March 25, 2008, 4:02PM

At the presser today, Hillary answers multiple questions about Wright, reiterating -- and amplifying -- her suggestion that Obama should have left Wright's church...

[See video on original site - SB]

A couple quick things. Note how tightly Hillary stuck to the line, "I was asked what I would do," a rhetorical device designed to maintain that this isn't really a negative attack on Obama. Indeed, at one point, she made this explicit, saying:

"When asked a direct question, I gave a direct answer. And I feel very comfortable with that. I don't think that's negative. That's what I would have done."

Also, note that Hillary appears to be reading much of her material on the Wright questions, suggesting that real care went into working out precisely how she'd deal with the issue.

     ...

Make it stop. I don't want to witness the ascent of President McCain because of crap like this.

I mean it. Candidates: make it stop. Now.

Steve
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Petraeus: Ooopsie, I Lied

... about when the number of troops to be drawn down after the increasingly fraudulently named "surge" will be announced. He was scheduled to tell Congress this month. Now, it's anyone's guess, but NYT guesses as follows:

But it now appears likely that any decision on major reductions in American troops from Iraq will be left to the next president. That ensures that the question over what comes next will remain in the center of the presidential campaign through Election Day.

Right. Mr. Bush lied to get us into this war. When public demands for withdrawal became strident a year or so ago, Bush created a fiction called the "surge" which, just as we suspected, is another word for "escalation." If you are surprised at this, raise your right hand...

     ...

That's what I thought. No surprise here. Bush is lying to keep us in this war until he can absquatulate to Paraguay or wherever the current rumor has it. Until then, he'll presumably continually order Petraeus to lie to Congress about the war and the "surge." How many more Americans and Iraqis will die? Bush doesn't give a good damn.

Here's a theoretical question for the constitutional law geeks out there: can a president, as Commander-in-Chief, order a general to perjure himself before Congress? I know, I know; it's silly to speculate: Bush is not merely C-in-C; he's the Deciderer, the dictator. He can order anything, and expect it to be done. And the cowardly Democratic leadership in Congress will not impeach him.

(H/T TPMMuckraker.)

Steve
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More About PZ Myers And Richard Dawkins

Here, from PZ. And here, from the great Richard Dawkins himself.

This is not, at least not primarily, about whether you accept Myers's and Dawkins's atheist views. I, for example, do not, but that is utterly irrelevant. What is important here is whether people like the producer of Expelled... sorry, no link from me... are willing to represent themselves and their theses honestly, and whether they obtain their information and interviews forthrightly. This jerk is not, and does not. There is no shred of honesty in his approach to the film, and none in his approach to PZ and Dawkins. In my opinion... full disclosure here, I am the son of a middle school science teacher and a high school English teacher... that tells us everything we need to know about the people who made Expelled, and deceived Myers and Dawkins into participating, by misrepresenting the nature... nay, even the name... of the film itself.

In America, and in my personal philosophy, religion must be orthogonal to science. Religion must take no position on science, or on any specific result of scientific research. Any religion that takes sucn a position immediately invalidates itself in my opinion. If my own religion were to do so... I am confident it never will... I would throw it over in an instant.

That said, I am still rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off about the idiots who ejected... expelled... PZ while admitting the far better-known Richard Dawkins to their silly film. Somehow, it seems appropriate to their intellectual and emotional level. I know young children who are more mature than they are.

Steve
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4,000

As of today, America has lost the lives of at least that many of our troops in Iraq. You and I know the number is imprecise, and quite possibly much greater. A few tens of thousands of American troops have returned home wounded in life-altering ways; modern medicine in theater saves far more lives of people who once would have died. But the quality of their lives is abysmal, and the way our government treats them like used toilet paper is execrable. And of course their families often end up in poverty.

The entire Iraq war was based on lies perpetrated by the Bush administration. Was it all worth it, so that Messrs. Bush and Cheney could have their endless war, to secure their own political power and their cronies' wealth?

(This page will remain dark for today, in token of those whose lives have been lost or ruined because of this senseless, illegal war.)

(Modified to add the photo of flag-draped coffins. This news photo is over four years old, because the Bush administration has decreed that we may not even have pictures of our dead as they return to America.)

Steve
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Sunday Sign - Easter Edition

Nah... not for me. Must be a different God...

Steve
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No Act Too Low

I missed this political atrocity on Valentine's day:

Republicans disrupt Lantos memorial service
by John Aravosis (DC) · 2/14/2008 11:14:00 AM ET · Link

     ...

Even the dead are political pawns to the Republicans (then again, we already knew that post-September 11). House Republicans, at the bidding of the Bush White House, are upset that House Democrats are voting on contempt citations for Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton today. So the House GOP members are disrupting proceedings in the House today, calling for "protest votes" and the like that eat up 15 minutes of the day at a time. Well, they just called one such protest vote in the middle of recently-deceased Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos' memorial service, which they certainly knew was taking place. This is akin to forcing people to leave a wake on purpose. The House Republicans and the White House couldn't wait for Lantos' service to be finished before forcing everyone back to the House floor to vote for something silly. They intentionally disrupted a dead man's memorial service for political gain.

     ...

Damn them to hell. Damn them to rot in hell, for disrupting the funeral of the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress. Yes, of course, Lantos was a Democrat... what's your point? Imagine the situation reversed: if an honored GOP member of Congress, a survivor of the Holocaust, had a memorial service, would Democrats have disrupted it? I rest my case: these GOP zealots are not merely our political or ideological opponents; they are evil people. Damn them to hell. May the ghost of Paul Wellstone haunt them to their dying day.

Steve
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Hillary's Campaign In The Red?

It looks like it, based on FEC reports for February. This is not good news for Hillary:

     ...

It should be noted, however, that Hillary isn't obliged to repay the $5 million debt to herself. Nonetheless, even factoring in that, once you subtract the other debts her cash on hand number would be in the neighborhood of $3 million.

By contrast, Obama has over $30 million on hand for the primary.

     ...

Part of me hates to see results influenced strongly by the absurd and exorbitant costs of running a presidential campaign. Part of me sees it as inevitable. And as Greg Sargent notes at the link above, this is going to hurt Hillary with the superdelegates, to whom she has represented herself as the better fundraiser.

Maybe it's time...

Aside: wouldn't we love to be in a position to loan ourselves $5 million? Hell, I'd settle for $1m myself.

Steve
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Fish Food For Thought

AP via TPM:

Scientists Find Giant Marine Life and Potential New Species in Antarctic Sea Survey
RAY LILLEY
AP News
Mar 21, 2008 06:44 EST

Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand's Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish.

A 2,000-mile journey through the Ross Sea that ended Thursday has also potentially turned up several new species, including as many as eight new mollusks.

It's "exciting when you come across a new species," said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "All the fish people go nuts about that — but you have to take it with a grain of salt."

     ...

Maybe Chris Jones needs to take a lunch break...

Steve
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Time To Get Tough

Via TPM, we have Yahoo/AP writer Pete Yost:

White House: Computer hard drives tossed
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Fri Mar 21, 7:34 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.

The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.

"When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.

It has been the goal of a White House Office of Administration "refresh program" to replace one-third of its workstations every year in the Executive Office of the President, according to the declaration.

Some, but not necessarily all, of the data on old hard drives is moved to new computer hard drives, the declaration added.

In proposing an e-mail recovery plan Tuesday, Facciola expressed concern that a large volume of electronic messages may be missing from White House computer servers, as two private groups that are suing the White House allege.

Facciola proposed the drastic approach of going to individual workstations of White House computer users after the White House disclosed in January that it recycled its computer backup tapes before October 2003. Recycling — taping over existing data — raises the possibility that any missing e-mails may not be recoverable.

     ...

Now wait a minute. Wait just a damned minute. It's not about the hard drives. Businesses lose hard drives to crashes all the time; I lost one last year... and I did not lose a single byte of data. The notion that there are no backups... indeed, that there aren't a dozen or two backups... of everything that ever traversed the White House network is so improbable as to beggar belief. Once more, and with feeling: it's not about the hard drives.

Perhaps it is time for Congress to subpoena the White House network administrator, and if s/he doesn't show up, actually do something this time. There is no reasonable argument that a network administrator is somehow a part of the high-level decision-making team at the White House and therefore able to claim executive privilege (a dubious concept at best, in my opinion). A network administrator is a government employee, not a Bush adviser. As with any other government employee, the network admin's required loyalty is indisputably to the United States, not to George W. Bush or any other individual Bush administration official. What I'm getting at is this: unlike, say, Harriet Miers, if the network admin fails to show up in response to a congressional subpoena, s/he can be and should be arrested and compelled to testify. Congress can offer the network admin immunity from prosecution in exchange for sworn testimony about the locations of all possible backups of the missing emails.

And believe me... there are such backups, somewhere. The whole statement about the hard drives is obfuscation... bullshit, pure and simple. We are governed by a bunch of goddamned liars, and that statement is another baldfaced lie.

Steve
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Saturday Signs - Midtown Art Center

I'm not sure if this can truly be called a sign, as it is part of a mural that covers the entire Holman Street side of the Midtown Art Center. And no, I regret I do not know who the person depicted is, but she has the world's kindliest face...

Midtown Art Center is on LaBranch at Holman Street, across from the part of HCC in which Stella has her saxophone lessons. Among other things, the Center, which has been in operation since 1982, offers instruction in several kinds of dance, studio rentals to serious artists, etc. Sometimes while I wait for Stella to finish her lesson, I see people carrying not only artworks but all sorts of interesting materials in and out of the place. Someday I'll find an excuse to go inside...

Steve
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The Dark Side

Fear is the path to the dark side.
Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.

- DODa

(Photo via Dependable Renegade.)

Steve
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Pollen It On -- DOGGEREL!

Tree pollen is in the "extremely heavy" category in Houston today. If you live here, you may have known that without visiting a web site. This seems like a good time to publish a bit of doggerel I wrote in 1999 but never got around to posting (well, at least not here)...

In Houston, it's
Tiptoe Through the Tulips,
Hold Nose, Wipe Eyes, Take Med's

Steve Bates

Steve
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When Ignorant People Do Stupid Things

H/T to andante for pointing me to a real-life story told by PZ Myers about his encounter with the ID creationist movie Expelled. Truth is often stranger than fiction... and in this case, it's also a whole lot funnier. You just can't make this stuff up. Follow the link; you won't regret it.

Steve
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Bill Richardson Endorses Obama

This Reuters article says Richardson is "to endorse" Obama, but there's an email from Richardson in my political list inbox, and he has done exactly that. The Boston Globe's Political Intelligence says the announcement will come today. Considering Richardson's long association with the Clintons, holding various positions in the Bill Clinton administration, this is something of a surprise, and may actually have some influence among some groups of voters.

Steve
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Friday In-Sink Blogging

Samantha concentrates her full mental power (note: not to be confused with Samantha Power) on willing me to turn on the water:

This time, it didn't work. Better luck next time, Samantha.

Steve
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In A Cavern, In A Canyon...

looseheadprop of Firedoglake informs us of newly disclosed data mining performed by DHS in compliance with the Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007. Why is there so much newly disclosed activity? Because Congress has since supplied DHS with a definition of "data mining" ... a term with fairly vague implications even for a data professional... and the new definition plugged a lot of the loopholes DHS was previously using to hide some of its activities.

I know it's not news to any reader here, but I'll say it anyway: we cannot trust these people or this agency. They will behave in ways as fundamentally dishonest as they can get away with. Why? My best guess is that it is because DHS is about something quite different from HS. And it ain't Clementine.

Steve
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Best Post Headline: 'Crappy Anniversary' - UPDATED

And it's from Attaturk on Firedoglake:

Today is the Fifth Anniversary of the Decider's crowning glory...upon his intellectual throne, a thunderbucket of immense intellectual bankruptcy causing uncounted and ever mounting death and destruction. Each year adds a new level of intellectual dishonesty and miserable accountability for him and his enablers.

Yes, George Bush who proclaimed there would be "no casualties" has overseen more than five years and 25,000 of them and thanks to advances in medicine and emergency care slightly under 4,000 have been terminal, so far. But, of course, that's just on the American side of the ledger. No one really knows how many have died because of this war and subsequent occupation. It could be 100,000 it could be a million or more. One out of every five Iraqis has become a refugee within or without their country.

     ...

And of course all this death and suffering has led to a reconciliation among the parties in Iraq, right? What do you think?

The Madman-in-Chief says he has no regrets about the Iraq war. Think about that for a moment: four thousand Americans dead, 25,000 injured and in many cases debilitated for life, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis' lives ended or effectively destroyed, America shamed on the world stage... and Mr. Bush has no regrets.

Meanwhile, McCain... that's "Sunni-Schmuni-Shia-Schmia-they're-all-terrorists" McCain... has a slight lead over either Democratic candidate in a Reuters-Zogby poll. (UPDATE: for clarity, there are other polls that show Clinton or Obama either one defeating McCain. I have little confidence in any poll at this point, and Zogby doesn't have the best track record in recent years.)

Make sure that any undecided voters you know see this YouTube video of McCain's statement, with Lieberman pointing out McCain's ignorance. This was not an isolated incident, by the way; McCain is reported to have said this several times since he arrived in Iraq. Ignorant? Lying his ass off for political gain? Who knows. With McCain, it could easily be either one.

And this man holds may hold a slight lead in the presidential race. Dog help us all. We have work to do.

UPDATE Wed. evening: McCain said it again, after being corrected by Lieberman. I guess that answers the question of whether he is ignorant or lying.

Steve
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Shiite, Sunni, Whatever

McCain doesn't know the difference. I'm not kidding. WaPo on McCain in Amman, Jordan:

A McCain Gaffe in Jordan
By Cameron W. Barr and Michael D. Shear

AMMAN, Jordan -- Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.

He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

The mistake threatened to undermine McCain's argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists. In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy makes him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.

     ...

If he were president, McCain would be as dangerous as George W. Bush. And that's saying something. Haven't we had enough of arrogant ignorance and recklessness combined in a president?

Steve
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The Speech

Impressive. Powerful. Inspiring. Choose your own word, but acknowledge that Obama, in his speeches, says things many Americans need to hear, framed in ways they need to hear them.

Obama crafted this speech to address a particular political problem: the angry and indefensible statements his minister, Jeremiah Wright, made in sermons, statements with which the GOP and some Democrats have repeatedly attempted to tag Obama. He could have done just that, in a formulaic, 10-minute speech, and let it go. Instead, he unleashed a blockbuster of a speech about the issue of race in America. There is no way I can adequately convey the essence of this speech; you must watch it... and read it. Few speeches survive in both media; this one does.

It is conventional wisdom these days that Obama has nothing to offer but a great speech. Maybe that is what America needs most, in this painfully fragmented time of economic decline and failure on the international stage. Perhaps we really do need to be reminded that, unlike our current leadership, we are not a nation of hostile, selfish incompetents, that we really do have the capacity for greater things than the inanity on display in today's White House.

I do not mean to equate Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy when I say I am reminded of Kennedy's own inspired and inspiring speechmaking. I was too young to vote for Kennedy, but no one, not even a 12-year-old, could forget the speeches. Of course speeches are not enough. But a few more like this one certainly would help my outlook, my confidence in America.

This post is not an endorsement: I do not intend to endorse until the Democrats pick a nominee. And notwithstanding her recent actions, I still have great admiration for Hillary Clinton. Both candidates no doubt have many mistakes to make between now and August, and between then and November. But the ability of Obama to craft such a speech, at once topical and far-ranging, and to deliver it so convincingly, is an admirable ability, an ability which should not be discounted in choosing a candidate.

Steve
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I'm The Taxman, Yeah...

Not that kind of taxman. I'm a man who has an appointment with his tax accountant tomorrow morning. I'm passably well organized about such things, so I'm finding the paperwork with little trouble. But I'm also lazy, and reluctant to tend to posting of books on a regular basis, so I have a lot of catching up to do. Thanks for your patience.

In the meanwhile, Éireann go Brách, and all that good stuff. Sorry I didn't do more for the day. I'll see you either late tonight or else sometime tomorrow evening, depending on how much I get done tonight.

Steve
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More 'Presses', Less Freedom?

The publication of the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual "State of the News Media" report has triggered a lot of responses. Apparently, publishers of mainstream newspapers are not happy with their lot in the new era. The consequences are not what we bloggers would have predicted, either. Here's Charles Cooper, outlining those consequences on his (ahem) blog at CNet News:

• News is shifting from being a product to more of a service.
• The days when news sites were final destinations are over.
• Prospects for user-generated content now appear more limited.
• Madison Avenue does not yet grok the world of new media.
• U.S. media coverage is becoming increasingly narrow.

Please read Cooper's post for details of what he means by each of those. If this is all true, and if money makes the American version of the world go round, this is not good news for the future of democracy and of blogging... or, for that matter, of mainstream news sources.

Here is another good article on the subject from, of all places, SFGate. Joe Garofoli makes the argument that the phenomenon is bad for the news-gathering side of print journalism:

     ...

So while there may be more readers out there for big media, there is less advertising, leading many print operations to cut staff as a way to reduce costs - the latest being 157 Media News employees in the Bay Area being let go over the past few weeks.

     ...

A couple of years ago, I had a conversation on this very subject with the owner/editor of a small-town newspaper. The newspaper is a twice-weekly, locally oriented publication that has survived since at least the 1930s (possibly longer; that's the earliest reference I can find). The editor, a man of long experience in the news business, was convinced that the web spells the demise of print-only publications. He has joined with the owners of seven other newspapers in nearby small towns to form a common web hub, to reduce the cost and complexity of maintaining the online side of his publication. Forget everything you ever thought you knew about small-town newspapers: they live in this century and feel its pressures as surely as our big-city fish-wraps.

As I told that gentleman, I personally do not see blogs and the mainstream press and media as serving the same function in society, though they may to some small extent compete for the same readership. As I have often repeated, I am not a journalist. My site depends on the published work of real journalists (and some not-so-real ones, but let's not emphasize those). The blog is a technology applicable to many mostly visual applications. Political opinion is only one such application. If personal political blogs have an historical analogy, it is probably the broadsides distributed on the street.

Steve
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Why 'Eliot's Mess'?

Greg Palast has the answer:

     ...

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

     ...

Follow the money. Start by following the link.

Steve
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Brother Thelonious

Thelonious Monk (October 10 1917 – February 17, 1982) needs no introduction for most of you. The cheekiest, most distinctive of jazz pianists of his generation, also a fashion plate, also possibly mentally disturbed due either to medical events or to drug use, influenced jazz as much as anyone of his era. If you are not familiar with his work, please read the wiki, then go buy a few albums' worth of his tunes for your iPod (or whatever). No, buy one set of tunes first, before you invest a lot of money: Monk is nothing if not an acquired taste. I've long since acquired the taste.

When I first noticed that there is an American-brewed Belgian abbey style ale named after Thelonious, I took the picture you see at the left. I was intrigued by the keyboard halo, of course, but even more so by the "vanitas" signature of the artwork: a skull, a glass of wine and a pipe, conventional symbols in artworks perhaps four centuries ago of the transience of all worldly things ("vanity of vanities; all is vanity") and the caption "carpe diem vita brevis" (seize the day; life is short) so appropriate for most jazz musicians of that era, not least among them Monk, who died only a few years older than I am now.

I am drinking the ale as I write. I drink it in memory of Brother Thelonious and in honor of the memory of Monk and all his colleagues of his era. I've no idea how a Belgian abbey ale is supposed to taste, but this one is mostly dark, sufficiently edgy, a tiny bit sweet in the finish, and just the least bit bubbly. That should do for Monk.

I'd have tried the ale before, but unlike most comparable ales, it is priced like a bottle of decent wine, i.e., like wine I rarely feel I can afford. But the bottle will serve as a decorative object... yes, I'm just enough of a bubba to see the decorative potential in a beer bottle, and I'm unapologetic about it... indeed, that is the primary reason I allowed myself an expensive treat. Tonight, I shall empty the bottle. Tomorrow, I'll stick an artificial flower in it and place it on the inner window sill of my office-at-home. I think Monk would probably understand. Rest in peace, Brother Thelonious.

UPDATE: Here is the link to the page for this ale at North Coast Brewing Company. You can read an endorsement of the ale by jazz pianist Geoffrey Keezer and also see a better picture of the label. Label aside, the ale was everything I had hoped for... and I slept well!

Steve
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Selected Links To Recent Posts

 
Click any permalink below to go to the original article on a previous page. Click a comment link below to add a comment to the original article. Your comment will be noticed, by the YDD at least: HaloScan has a page allowing me to view recent comments, no matter which post they refer to. Some very recent posts may be included in their entirety.

The McCain Game

Here are three ways in which John McCain is wholly unsuited to occupy our nation's highest office:

• 'Ace' McCain:

       ...

  John Sidney McCain III is known among many of his Vietnam flight buddies as "Ace" McCain. This title has not been bestowed upon McCain because he destroyed five enemy aircraft. On the contrary: It was five on our side -- in fact, five of his own. Since throwing his hat into the presidential ring, the fact that McCain was graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy nearly at the bottom of his class has been publicized. His star-crossed flying, on the other hand, remains unknown to most.

       ...

  There's not much I can add to that. Another quote from the same article:

  "John McCain," says another Navy pilot and acquaintance of that era, "was the kind of guy you wanted to room with -- not fly with. He was reckless, and that's critical when you start thinking about who's going to be the president," [t]he old pilot laughs, and then continues: "But the Navy accident rate was cut in half the day John McCain was shot down."

  There is no requirement that a president be a pilot at all, let alone an excellent one. But McCain persists in running on his service record from several decades ago, so it is important that we see all of it... especially any aspects that reflect on whether he might be (ahem) "unfit for command."

• "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam":

  David Corn at Mother Jones notes that John McCain has a "spiritual adviser," Reverend Rod Parsley, a pastor at a megachurch in Ohio, whose extreme statements can match anything said by John Hagee, who is, um, well, he's another McCain adviser, demonstrably anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic. McCain voluntarily continues to associate with these extremists. He could, of course, at least disavow and reject their statements, as Barack Obama has done regarding Louis Farrakhan's unsolicited endorsement ("I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan," said Obama) and that of his own admittedly nut-case pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But no... instead, McCain throws a bone to the radical religious base of the GOP. So much for Mr. Moderate Maverick.

• McCain The Hypocrite:

  McCain claims he has never, ever, cross-his-fingers-behind-his-back-'n'-hope-to-die, requested an earmark. This comes from the man who might as well have sponsored a (purely hypothetical) Lobbyists Full Employment Act, implementing its provisions by hiring more lobbyists in his own campaign than any other presidential candidate.

Of course that is by no means all that is wrong with McCain. But I know you haven't got all day, and neither have I. I'll save some McCain-related items for later posts.

(CORRECTION: changed "unfit to command" to "unfit for command." Hey, I don't read obscene books like that.)

Steve
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Saturday Signs

Bag dog. Bag, bag dog!

When I first saw this sign, I read it as "bad dog food," leading me to assume that, depending on how you parse the expression, either it came from China and contains melamine, or else it contains some psychoactive ingredient to settle your mean-tempered pooch. Or both.

Steve
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Consolation Post

OK, I screwed up in the previous post, and of course I don't want the screw-up sitting at the top of the page all day. Oh, hey, look at the pretty clouds at sunset!

This was taken on the day the International Space Station was supposed to have been visible from here. Some people saw it; I wasn't so fortunate. But the sunset was magnificent anyway.

Steve
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Dems Abandon SCHIP - POST REMOVED

Bush Whacks Ozone Regs

Steve
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Friday Psycho-Ceramic Blogging

Steve
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Eat Your Spinach?

Steve
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That Was The Day That Was

Steve
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What Jams Is Up To

Steve
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Who Knew They Had It In Them

Steve
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Bulletproof But Not Fact-Proof

Steve
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Shuttle Endeavour Headed For Space Station

Steve
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Spitzer Tied To Prostitute - UPDATED

Steve
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Drugs In Drinking Water

Steve
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Palast Tells Real Story Of Exxon Valdez

Steve
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Armed Cathouse

Steve
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McCain: Neocon Zealot With No Self-Control

Steve
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Well, Wasn't That Fun

Steve
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Dem Foster Beats GOP's Oberweis

Steve
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Saturday Signs - Bookstore Edition

Steve
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Obama Wins Wyoming

Steve
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Bush Vetoes Torture Ban - UPDATED

Steve
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Right-Of-Center Nation?

Steve
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Friday Political Dialogue Blogging

Steve
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Many Miscellaneous Things - UPDATED

Steve
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Tinfoil Hat Time

Steve
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Blowin' Up Iran -- DOGGEREL!

Steve
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Blowin' In The Wind

Steve
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... And The Ugly

Steve
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Clinton Takes Texas Primary

Steve
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Some Much-Needed Inspiration

Steve
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Profiling Immigrants

Steve
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Vote Today

Steve
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Krugman On Democrats, Clinton, Obama, ...

Steve
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Why Mukasey Should Be Impeached

Steve
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Misdemeanor Pastime

Steve
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Saturday Signs - Armored 'Dillo Edition

Steve
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