Nero's Fiddle

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2008-05-30T10:57:00.002-04:00

Gas, guns, God and a free oil change

2008-05-27T14:15:00.003-04:00

High gas prices and a collapse in the credit sector have combined to make life miserable for car dealers, particularly those who made their living off of high-margin, low-MPG trucks and SUVs. Now that the gravy train has derailed, exploded and contaminated everything in a 50-mile radius, the uncertainty of the future has brought a tinge of wild-eyed insanity to the ad campaigns of some dealers (which were pretty lunatic even in good times).

Take these guys in California who have decided to turn selling cars into a jihad of sorts:

But did you know that 86% of Americans say they believe in God? Since we all know that 86 out of every 100 of us are Christians, who believe in God, we at Kieffe & Sons Ford wonder why we don't tell the other 14% to sit down and shut up. I guess I just offended 14% of the people who are listening to this message. Well, if that is the case then I say that's tough, this is America folks, it's called free speech. None of us at Kieffe & Sons Ford is afraid to speak out. Kieffe & Sons Ford on Sierra Highway in Mojave and Rosamond, if we don't see you today, by the grace of God, we'll be here tomorrow.

While Kieffe and Sons is busy depriving the infidels of their ability to move about and undermine the highways of America, another dealership in Missouri is taking a more direct approach to defending our way of life: offering a free handgun with every purchase.

Imagine what these two could do together. They could even go nationwide and cater to the "warrior for Jesus packing heat" demographic. You may want to take that Flying Spaghetti Monster emblem off your car until some of this blows over.

When even Chris Matthews can't abide the stupidity

2008-05-16T09:20:00.004-04:00

When the President not-so-subtly accused Obama of seeking "the false comfort of appeasement," displaying an unsurprising lack of awareness of what "appeasement" actually is, the conservative talking heads (in this case, shouting heads) fell right into line on cable news shows.

Chris Matthews decided to see how deep the argument of one of these third-string Rush wanna-bes actually went. Turned out it was the kiddie pool. Watch below, if you have a strong stomach for seeing annoying blowhards get thoroughly humiliated on national TV:

Of course, Matthews then proceeds to misdate the Cole attack as being during the Bush presidency. This is what passes for "expert opinion" in our media these days.

The Divine Right of Combustion

2008-05-07T14:09:00.002-04:00

If you already believe in the fairy tale that gas will always be $1.50 a gallon forever and ever, then this might seem like a reasonable response to shrinking supply and rising demand:

"Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices," Twyman said to a chorus of "amens".

"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life... We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high," Twyman said on the gas station forecourt in a neighborhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.

"Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the power in the world," he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida Jolley led the group in a modified version of the spiritual, "We Shall Overcome".

"We'll have lower gas prices, we'll have lower gas prices..." they sang.

Too bad Jesus isn't around to turn water into premium unleaded. (Before long, though, we'll need divine intervention just to get the water.) Such sad days, so lacking in miracles...

The 5% solution (Updated - now 3.75%. Or maybe 0.2%)

2008-04-29T14:37:00.006-04:00

As the grumbling from the SUV-driving masses gets louder, and the media start talking about $10 a gallon gas, President Bush was drug into the Rose Garden this morning to announce his bold plan for averting energy-based economic catastrophe: blame Congress.

Americans are concerned about energy prices, and I can understand why. I think the last time I visited with you it was like -- I said it was like a tax increase on the working people. The past 18 months, gas prices have gone up by $1.40 per gallon. Electricity prices for small business and families are rising, as well.

I've repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems. Yet time after time, Congress chose to block them. One of the main reasons for high gas prices is that global oil production is not keeping up with growing demand. Members of Congress have been vocal about foreign governments increasing their oil production; yet Congress has been just as vocal in opposition to efforts to expand our production here at home.

They repeatedly blocked environmentally safe exploration in ANWR. The Department of Energy estimates that ANWR could allow America to produce about a million additional barrels of oil every day, which translates to about 27 millions of gallons of gasoline and diesel every day. That would be about a 20-percent increase of oil -- crude oil production over U.S. levels, and it would likely mean lower gas prices. And yet such efforts to explore in ANWR have been consistently blocked.

A million barrels a day? Whoopee! The US uses about 20 million barrels a day, so ANWR represents a whopping 5% increase in supply (assuming we don't export anything). That'll break the back of the problem, yes sir. We could probably cut consumption by that much if everyone made sure their tires were properly inflated.

And that million barrels assumes you could bribe any of the oil companies to go drill for oil there in the first place. They don't seem particularly interested:

A Bush adviser says the major oil companies have a dimmer view of the refuge's prospects than the administration does. "If the government gave them the leases for free they wouldn't take them," said the adviser, who would speak only anonymously because of his position. "No oil company really cares about ANWR," the adviser said, using an acronym for the refuge, pronounced "an-war."

Wayne Kelley, who worked in Alaska as a petroleum engineer for Halliburton, the oil services corporation, and is now managing director of RSK, an oil consulting company, said the refuge's potential could "only be determined by drilling."

"The enthusiasm of government officials about ANWR exceeds that of industry because oil companies are driven by market forces, investing resources in direct proportion to the economic potential, and the evidence so far about ANWR is not promising," Mr. Kelley said.

But who cares about that? The President has decided that ANWR represents the solution to high gas prices:

And yet this is a litmus test issue for many in Congress. Somehow if you mention ANWR it means you don't care about the environment. Well, I'm hoping now people, when they say "ANWR," means you don't care about the gasoline prices that people are paying.

(At least I think that's what he's saying. Even after eight years, his mangled syntax still flummoxes me.)

An extra million barrels of oil a day (which is an optimistic figure in the first place) isn't going to matter when the world consumes 80 million barrels a day and demand from India and China will drive it to 100 million or more soon. (Assuming the supply is there -- most people who know about these things don't think we'll ever manage to produce even 90 million barrels a day.)

Anyone who claims the solution to high energy prices is to be found in expanding petroleum production isn't being serious. At best, you can maintain the status quo. At worst, you're squandering resources that should be used for developing non-petroleum energy sources.

Telling people that gas prices can be brought back to turn-of-the-century levels is pure and simple negligence of duty. People should get used to the idea that cheap oil is over, and their lives are going to change in ways they're not going to like. The longer we live in denial, the worse the wake-up call will be.

Later edit: It's even dumber than I thought. According to this analysis, even if ANWR had been opened up in 2002, we wouldn't be getting anything out of it until 2011 at the earliest, and even then it would only be a measly 40,000 barrels a day. (Or about 0.2% of current consumption.) By 2020 we'd get a rip-roaring 780,000 barrels a day, only 3.75% of the *current* US consumption of 20 million per day. (This would slash our import dependence from 62% all the way down to 60%.)

That oil will be useless in 2020, for one of two reasons. Either (a) we'll have successfully cut our consumption (either via science or non-catastrophic economic collapse) thus making that trickle of oil unnecessary, or (b) we'll have collapsed so hard under the weight of oil shortages that there's no economy left to fuel, and the additional oil will get exported to the capital in China.

Housekeeping note: Over the next few weeks, I'll be dropping the ISP that provides my current web hosting, so many of the pretty pictures will go away temporarily. I'll move some/most of them to new digs and change the links as I can. I know you read for the articles anyway (at least, that's what everyone says).

Catblogging returns!

2008-03-19T08:32:00.002-04:00

Griz attempted to use the Douglas Adams method for divining the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything. Here's what she came up with. I think she's having us on.

Facts are stupid things

2008-03-17T14:29:00.003-04:00

Reality: 85-year-old financial institutions are being sold for pennies on the dollar, as the Fed bails out lenders who got in over their heads in the subprime morass and frantically cuts rates and pulls out Depression-era tricks to try to minimize the brutality of the recession.

Our President this morning:

[O]ur financial institutions are strong and [...] our capital markets are functioning efficiently and effectively.

Reality: Global trends of supply and demand are triggering a permanent condition of ever-increasing oil prices, which will at the very least significantly impact First World standards of living and at worst set off global economic and military turmoil.

A random American filling up her van last week:

Faith Dansby, who was putting gas in her van at a Shell station on New Circle Road, said she is coping by trying to cut down on trips, such as getting her groceries once a week rather than making multiple runs.

"As Americans, we shouldn't have to go through this," she said.

Reality: The world consists of measurable events about which we can make several useful observations subject to repeated experimentation. These useful observations, sometimes called "math" and "science," can help us solve and avoid crippling problems like the two discussed above. Things like "math" and "science" can be taught to children in "schools," thus equipping them to improve the world in the future.

Government responds to the challenge:

The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student’s religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student’s incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.

The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student’s belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct.

Christians and Muslims unite against a common enemy

2008-03-14T14:03:00.002-04:00

Amid all the talk of a Clash of Civilizations and all of the heated and outright murderous rhetoric (and actions) being traded between the followers of two slightly different variations on monotheism, it's heartwarming to that there's one thing that can cause Muslims and Christians to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and struggle together for common gain.

Fear of science.

War makes strange bed fellows, especially in Turkey, where a dispute over creationism vs Darwinism has created an unusual alliance between the country's Islamists and conservative Christians in the US.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution, in layman's terms, proposes that life descended from organisms through "survival of the fittest." Creationism holds that life was created by an all-knowing being, that is, God.

Creationism advocates from the US traveled to Istanbul May 2007 to meet with their counterparts, seeking to galvanize their link in the fight to bring creationism to schools and universities in their respective countries. The meeting was endorsed by Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas, a member of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

"There are outstanding figures within Islamic theology who have participated in this discussion. There is no reason to be surprised, there is a very rich tradition," David Berlinski, keynote speaker for the meeting and an analyst for the US-based Discovery Institute, an organization that opposes what it terms "neo-Darwinism," told ISN Security Watch.

"This is a hot issue. We are in the midst of a worldwide religious revival. Historians 500 years from now will talk about the religious revival of the late 20th century and early 21st century."

The meeting appeared to be well received by the audience of college and high school students, drawn from the city's elite education institutions.

"Darwinism is, of course, against Muslim belief system as well," Ayse Sayman, a 20-year-old student at Istanbul's Bosphorus University told ISN Security Watch. "That is why it makes sense that it is debated here as well. And counter-arguments should be developed to the theory. That is why I am interested in this."

I've always said that extremist Christians and extremist Muslims are more alike than different. What I'd never considered is that they might figure that out. Shudder.

In case anyone still cares

2008-03-12T15:48:00.002-04:00

Future of America found within

Five years, 4000 American lives, many thousands of Iraqi lives, half a trillion dollars and a still-smashed country later, the US military tells us:

This study found no 'smoking gun' (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda.

At risk of boring you, let's sum up.

- No weapons of mass destruction
- No involvement in 9/11
- No links to al Qaeda
- No region-wide flowering of democracy
- No lessening of the influence of radical movements

The Iraq War represents nothing less than a colossal, criminal failure of policy and morality, a completely indelible stain on American history. Period. Can anyone suggest a single positive outcome of this adventure?

And no, having a gang of Shiite thugs hang Saddam while taunting him does not count. Yes, we ejected Saddam from power, which is in a vacuum not a bad thing. But there is not yet any evidence whatsoever that we have replaced his regime with a superior alternative. In fact, all signs point to a monumentally corrupt fundamentalist Shiite-dominated coalition that is currently being held together with a steady supply of bribes to various Sunni warlords. So deposing Saddam is not yet a positive outcome, because Iraq is not yet better off.

And yet John McCain can point to his support for the war as an asset, not a liability in his campaign. George W. Bush can claim the credibility to decree that the United States should be allowed to torture people, and that claim goes largely unchallenged. (Although torture clearly didn't help us get accurate intelligence on Iraq.) The talking heads on TV can discuss the crippled US economy as though $275 million every day isn't being siphoned into the abyss of Iraq.

In case anyone still cares.

Like punk never happened

2008-03-12T10:30:00.003-04:00

Here's noted right-wing windbag Brent Bozell filling column-inches in the Washington Post:

It is time for McCain to be Reagan.

This is what conservatives call on him to do:

McCain must present a strategy to defeat the threat of radical Islam. He needs to call on the United States to rebuild its military infrastructure, so devastated by the Clinton administration.

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. It's still Clinton's fault, despite eight years of GOP rule. (One can only wonder how much "infrastructure rebuilding" could have been done with the military if we hadn't poured $500 billion down the Iraq war black hole.)

And while it's tempting to compare Reagan and McCain strictly on the basis of age (McCain would be two years older than Reagan upon taking office), the comparison falls apart pretty quickly after that. A better comparison would be to Bob Dole -- a grumpy war hero whose main claim to the Oval Office is, "It's my turn, dammit."

Like 1996, one gets the feeling that the GOP is more or less sitting this one out. Unlike 1996, when things were good and Clinton looked unbeatable, in 2008 things are rapidly devolving and I sort of suspect the Republicans would be glad to let Clinton or Obama take the fall for the next four years.

Also in the file of dubious advice from high-profile right-wing babblers, we have this from Bill Kristol in the New York Times:

Perhaps the most obvious way McCain could upend the normal dynamics of this year’s election would be a bold vice presidential choice. He could pick a hawkish and principled Democrat like Joe Lieberman. He could reach beyond the usual bevy of elected officials by tapping either David Petraeus or Raymond Odierno — the two generals who together, in an amazing demonstration of leadership and competence, turned the war in Iraq around last year. He could persuade the most impressive conservative in American public life, Clarence Thomas, to join the ticket. There are other unorthodox possibilities.

Hee hee. Really? Joe Lieberman (who, last I checked, isn't a Democrat, principled or otherwise)? Clarence Thomas?

Amazing.

Looking big by acting small

2008-03-05T15:37:00.002-05:00

That's the photo from the White House web site of Bush's endorsement of John McCain today. As far as I can tell, it's the only photo of the event on the site, therefore it's the alpha and omega of how the Administration wants you to perceive what took place.

Did they make him kiss Bush's ring, too?

AG: Torture, spying legal if POTUS says it is

2008-02-07T14:58:00.000-05:00

Can't have one without the other

OK, Americans, here's the eulogy for your system of government:

The Justice Department will not investigate whether CIA agents engaged in torture by waterboarding detainees, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said earlier.

Ditto goes for the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, Mukasey added later, when asked by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) whether he would appoint a special counsel to investigate.

The question came after Mukasey had baldly asserted that it was not a "practical view" that the president could order someone to act outside the law. Nadler wanted to know if the president hadn't done just that with his warrantless wiretapping program, which had ignored the constraints of FISA.

Well, Mukasey said, the President had ordered that on the advice of the Justice Department that it was lawful. So, just as he will not initiate an investigation of waterboarding since the DoJ had given its OK, he will also not investigate whether the warrantless wiretapping was lawful, since it was legal, because the DoJ said it was ("there are views on both sides of that" he acknowledged).

And there you have it. It is not a "practical view" that the President could ask someone to do something illegal. It is impossible for George W. Bush to break the law. He is the law.

Somewhere out there, one of the Founding Fathers just collected on a bet concerning how long it would take for the system of checks and balances they set up to be dismantled. I guessing Jefferson lost, since I'm sure he thought it would happen sooner.

Romney fights terror by quitting race

2008-02-07T14:49:00.000-05:00

Here's the Mittster announcing that he's failed to purchase the Republican nomination:

If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

So if a Democratic victory represents a surrender to terror, what are we surrendering to if we elect the GOP?

Fed cuts lending rate by two fishes and a loaf

2008-01-23T12:11:00.000-05:00

Here's Our President announcing the "President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy":

I have asked people from the business world, the faith world, the non-profit world, to join this council in order to come up with recommendations as to how to better educate people from all walks of life about matters pertaining to their finances and their future.

After eight years of ruinous budgets and regulatory laissez-faire, I suppose that prayer might be the best option for the average citizen.

On the other hand, perhaps this is the closest Bush has yet come to publicly acknowledging the tension between his policies and the reality-based community. Which, in light of his oddly endearing phrase "faith world," we should probably term the "real world."

Huckabee Crazy Watch: Lie Down with Dogs edition

2008-01-18T10:15:00.000-05:00

In what's becoming a series (which I hope will end with his exit from the race, please), here's the latest in radical Christian cleric Mike Huckabee's nutball observations:

Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

That's right, folks -- according to Mike Huckabee, being in favor of gay marriage means that you also endorse pedophilia and bestiality. According to Mike Huckabee, gays are morally indistinguishable from child molesters.

A win in South Carolina will give this clown far too much clout. If that happens, I can only hope he gets smothered in the big-state primaries on Feb. 5th. He may in fact be the second-most-dangerous man running for the GOP nomination, after Rudy "Bombs Away" Giuliani.

Huckabee wants to amend Constitution to please "living God"

2008-01-15T15:13:00.000-05:00

The crazy keeps on coming from the Huckster:

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

I find it fascinating that the only Biblical prohibitions that the fundies seem to care about enshrining in legislation are those that have to do with sex (specifically, sex they don't approve of). Where's the anti-bacon bills? A ban on goatees and tattoos? The regulation of female head covering? How about the death penalty for proselytizing?

One can only conclude that they don't truly care about legislating God's law and are in fact obsessed with sex. Ask Larry Craig about it the next time he's in the next stall over.

6 million Jews died for Bush's foreign policy

2008-01-11T12:31:00.001-05:00

Here's our President, after visiting the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem (I'm assuming he wasn't wearing his gold-embroidered bathrobe at the time):

I would hope as many people in the world would come to this place, it would be a sobering reminder that evil exists and a call that when we find evil we must resist it.

Never mind that it makes no sense grammatically (is that even a surprise at this point?), just soak in the narcissism on display. The lesson of the Holocaust? For George W. Bush, the lesson of the Holocaust is that his preemptive war strategy is correct.

Of course, if Bush had been President in 1938, we'd probably have invaded Spain.

The President gets what he wants

2008-01-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

The Israelis are very good at sucking up:

Lights in the Old City of Jerusalem will be turned off before dawn this week so visiting US President George W. Bush can get a better view of the sun rising over its ancient walls.

Bush, who arrives in the Middle East on Wednesday for a visit lasting more than a week, had made a request to watch the sun rise over the Old City from his suite at the King David Hotel, a municipal spokesman said on Tuesday.

To make the scene more dramatic, the authorities have decided to turn off the lights illuminating the limestone walls before dawn on Thursday and Friday, the spokesman told reporters.

The gesture is just one of several that Bush's Israeli hosts will extend to the president of their main ally during his landmark three-day visit this week -- the first by a sitting US president to Israel and the Palestinian territories in nine years.

Awaiting Bush at his King David suite -- reportedly costing 2,600 dollars a night -- will be a white terry bathrobe embroidered with his name in gold, local media have reported.

Israeli television broadcast footage of the garment throughout the day on Tuesday.

And the main highway leading into Jerusalem from the west -- already plagued by traffic problems -- will be completely closed in one direction for an hour on Wednesday after Bush arrives to allow the unhindered passage of the convoy containing his hundreds-strong entourage.

Opinions differ on the antiHuck

2008-01-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

Here's Josh Marshall's take on who becomes the anti-Huckabee:

Still not looking good for Mitt tomorrow. But the final swing of the pendulum, picked up by various observers like Marc Ambinder and winger reporters like Bob Novak and others is that Romney's regrouped in the final 48 hours and could pull off a surprise by nudging ahead of McCain.

My gut tells me that McCain probably pulls through. But perhaps not.

But let's plot out this map a little further. Let's say McCain takes first tomorrow with Romney a very close second. It's close to fatal for Romney but not quite. What's more, and what you need to look at to game out the significance is what comes next. The next big fight is in South Carolina. And two new polls out today (Rasmussen and SurveyUSA) show Huckabee in a dominant position in the state. So Huckabee looks likely to take Secessionville with either McCain or Romney coming in second.

At that point you'll have to say that Huckabee, who the GOP establishment is roundly against, is the frontrunner in the campaign. And the others are going to coalesce around an anti-Huckabee candidate. It's not clear to me that McCain is a shoe-in for that role.

If the GOP can prop up Romney as the antiHuck, they'd certainly prefer to do so. If he repeatedly loses to McCain, though, it won't be easy. Tonight is vital for Romney. He'd like you to believe that a "close second" is a moral victory, but the fact is that he's assumed victory in NH for a long time and his strategy changes mightily without it. A solid win by McCain would be fatal IMO. A close win by McCain would give Romney a second chance, but there won't be a third. And a Romney win will probably turn this in to Romney vs. Huckabee, in which case the edge would have to go to Romney.

All the tired horses

2008-01-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

After months of running in place, the now-exhausted field of Presidential hopefuls have started moving forward. Here's some quick thoughts on how they're stumbling along.

DEMOCRATS:

The Dems are already winnowed to three, and Obama is looking strong.

HILLARY CLINTON: Third place in Iowa is not what was supposed to happen for Clinton, and the press is writing her off as a result. This is not entirely warranted -- the full weight of the Clinton machine should not be underestimated -- but her campaign appears to be in chaos as they struggle to switch over to underdog mode. A poor showing in NH could be fatal -- not winning in MI or FL definitely would be.

JOHN EDWARDS: Smilin' John is in about the same place he was in '04, with about the same prospects. (In fact, one could say that the whole Dem situation looks a lot like '04 between IA and NH, with Obama playing Kerry, Clinton playing Dean, and Edwards playing himself. Of interest is that the upstart and the establishment candidate have switched places.) He might do well in MI and beat Obama in SC, which would make FL and especially the 2/5 megaprimary vital. The press seems to treat Edwards as yesterday's news, saving most of their ink for the fresh blood.

BARACK OBAMA: Obama has all the momentum on the Dem side, at least if/until Clinton bows out and it becomes Edwards vs. Obama, which could possibly be a slugfest depending on how Edwards does on 2/5. If Obama wins NH convincingly, Clinton is most likely done as without her aura of inevitability she's greatly diminished as a candidate. If Obama then crushes Edwards on 2/5, Obama is the nominee.

As they sing on Gilligan's Island, "and the rest..."

BILL RICHARDSON: He'll hang on until he runs out of money, which should be in a week or two.

DENNIS KUCINICH: Nothing if not stubborn, he'll stick around for the duration and make things a bit more interesting.

MIKE GRAVEL: Dead candidate walking.

CHRIS DODD: My personal favorite has withdrawn after IA.

JOE BIDEN: Bailed after IA.

REPUBLICANS:

This is still very murky.

RUDY GIULIANI: After a spectacular December implosion, former golden boy Rudy is reduced to hoping he doesn't get too embarrassed in NH. (When your biggest PR victory of recent weeks is the revelation that the security detail for your mistress was properly paid for, you're probably not doing too well.) An also-ran until proven otherwise.

MIKE HUCKABEE: His schtick plays in Peoria (or at least next door), but whether it translates to the delegate-rich states is the big question. (I see his win in IA much like Pat Robertson's second there in '88.) Should be a relative non-factor in NH and MI, should do well in SC and FL, then will sink or swim on 2/5. Not especially popular among the GOP establishment, but puts butts in voting booths.

DUNCAN HUNTER: Comedy relief only.

ALAN KEYES: See Duncan Hunter.

JOHN MCCAIN: McCain could actually end up getting the nomination by default as voters become exasperated with the weakness of the field. Third was better than expected in IA, and a win in NH could make him the de facto anti-Huckabee. What makes this interesting is that the Republican establishment hates him (Romney is the choice of the smoke-filled room), while the press loves him. If Romney flops, seeing the GOP elite choose between McCain and Huckabee has high comedy potential.

RON PAUL: Yet another internet phenom gets dashed on the rocks of actual voting.

MITT ROMNEY: A poor showing in NH is the end of Romney. His money-driven ride in the polls is played out, and now he has to stand or fall on comparisons to the other guys. Since Romney possesses no coherent record to compare, he fares badly in that arena. A comeback is unlikely.

FRED THOMPSON: Most of the red-meat faithful who hounded poor ol' Fred to run have flocked to Huckabee, and Fred must be wondering why he bothered in the first place. Without a built-in base, Thompson's prospects are very dim.

So, after all that, it's not at all unlikely that we'll have a McCain-Obama general election, which ought to be a whole heap of fun. Stay tuned.

How crazy is Mike Huckabee?

2007-12-12T14:42:00.000-05:00

This crazy:

The Arkansas Legislature scrambled today to rewrite a bill intended to protect storm victims after Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, objected to language describing such natural phenomena as tornadoes and floods as ''acts of God.''

Mr. Huckabee said that signing the legislation ''would be violating my own conscience'' inasmuch as it described ''a destructive and deadly force as being 'an act of God.' '' The Governor, a Republican, said the legislation was an otherwise worthy bill with objectives he shared.

Mr. Huckabee did not veto the bill but instead asked that it be recalled by the General Assembly. He suggested that the phrase ''acts of God'' be changed to ''natural disasters.''

The House of Representatives refused today to remove the offending phrase, but added the words, ''or natural disasters'' after the words ''acts of God.''

Mr. Huckabee was away from the capital, but his press secretary, Rex Nelson, said the Governor would not decide whether to accept the amended version until the Senate had considered the language.

The legislation would bar insurance companies from canceling coverage solely on the basis of claims filed after losses from storms. It was introduced before a series of tornados on March 1 killed 26 people and destroyed hundreds of houses and businesses, leaving damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

State Representative Dennis R. Young, a Texarkana Democrat who was the bill's sponsor in the House of Representatives, said, ''We've used the term 'act of God' in insurance since there has been insurance -- before there was insurance.''

Governor Huckabee's explained his objections in a letter to the bill's authors, saying: ''I feel that I have indeed witnessed many 'acts of God,' but I see His actions in the miraculous sparing of life, the sacrifice and selfless spirit in which so many responded to the pain of others.''

Because God would never cause a flood. That doesn't sound like something God would do at all.

Romney: Believe or else

2007-12-06T10:36:00.000-05:00

Here's the sound bite from today's big "My weird religion isn't really any weirder than your weird religion" speech from Mitt Romney:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

So this is the message he's carefully crafted for months? "Freedom requires religion?" If you don't "commune with God" you don't deserve basic rights? That sounds like something the Taliban would cook up, or Sudan (where they throw people in jail for naming teddy bears Muhammad).

And what's with the reverse? "Religion requires freedom?" Again, look at the more repressive Muslim nations -- they're religious as can be, but no one can call them "free." You're free to be a rigid follower of Sharia law, I guess, but that's about where it ends.

The rest of the speech is more of the same. Random sample:

Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me.

A "believer in religious freedom" seems to be the same thing as someone "who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty." If you've never prayed to the Almighty (or failed to kneel while doing so), then you're on your own in Romney's America.

Yes, I'm exaggerating a little for effect (though Romney's sloppy wording makes it all too easy), and what Romney's spouting is mostly meaningless, of course; it's just meant to reassure the base that he'll take his orders from the voices in his head just like Bush does. (Whether or not this will help him regain the ground he's lost to the anti-evolution Baptist minister Mike Huckabee remains to be seen.) But all kidding aside, it's clear that as far as Romney's concerned, freedom of religion means the freedom to be religious. Non-believers can move to the back of the bus.

A broken clock is wrong almost all the time

2007-12-04T10:01:00.000-05:00

I hope that this time we can figure out that we're being sold a fake war before the carnage starts.

Go read Glenn Greenwald's telling comparison of hype vs. fact in cases of Iraq in 2003 and Iran in 2007.

My favorite bit was John Bolton's dismissal of the IAEA:

BLITZER: In fairness to Mohamed ElBaredei, before the war in Iraq, when Condoleezza Rice and the President were speaking about mushroom clouds of Saddam Hussein and a revived nuclear weapons program that he may be undertaking, [ElBaradei] was saying that there was absolutely no such evidence, he was poo-poo-ing it, saying that the Bush Administration was overly-alarming and there was no nuclear weapons program that Saddam Hussein had revived. He was right on that one?

BOLTON: Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

So ElBaredei was completely right about Iraq, and the war hawks were completely wrong, and we have untold tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars flushed down the toilet of history as a consequence, and Bolton is telling us to ignore ElBaredei on Iran for no reason other than an appeal to Bolton's authority?

If I were Blitzer, I'd have savagely beaten Bolton with a teleprompter after that.

Later Update: Presented without comment from today's Washington Post:

President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.

Even Later Update: Responding to the above report, here's Bush in this morning's hastily arranged press conference:

Q Mr. President, thank you. I'd like to follow on that. When you talked about Iraq, you and others in the administration talked about a mushroom cloud; then there were no WMD in Iraq. When it came to Iran, you said in October, on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in '03 had already come to light to this administration. So can't you be accused of hyping this threat? And don't you worry that that undermines U.S. credibility?

THE PRESIDENT: David, I don't want to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze. Why would you take time to analyze new information? One, you want to make sure it's not disinformation. You want to make sure the piece of intelligence you have is real. And secondly, they want to make sure they understand the intelligence they gathered: If they think it's real, then what does it mean? And it wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.

Um, wow.

Even if you grant the proposition that Bush is so incurious as to make such a conversation plausible (which, I admit, isn't much of stretch), you're still left with this astonishing calculus:

You have important new intelligence on the threat posed by a volatile state in a volatile region of immense strategic importance. The best thing to do in this situation is ignore the new intelligence while further analysis is done, and not even ask about its general nature. In the meantime, accusing the state of wanting to start World War III is a wise diplomatic move.

Remember, foreign policy is the GOP's strength.

Just passing through

2007-11-28T13:50:00.000-05:00

If any of you out there have been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that as of about six months ago, we had four cats. I'd post pictures of them from time to time like the proud cat dad I am.

Well, that's changed a little.

Back in June, we took one of the four in for a vet visit, and one of the vet assistants showed us what appeared to be a dirty cotton ball. It was, of course, actually a kitten that someone had found, only a few days old, in the parking lot of a Lowe's. The vet assistant had nursed it back to health over the intervening weeks, and was looking for some kind sucker to take her in. We certainly weren't intending to go to the vet with one cat and come back with two (or roughly one and a half, really), but that's what happened.

She arrived with her only possession -- a little red mouse toy she had had practically all her life:

We named her Penelope, which was quickly shortened to Loopy. Penelope is a tremendously affectionate cat who loves to be petted and will crawl not just into your lap but right up your chest and nuzzle your neck with an enthusiastic purr. She's playful in the way only kittens are, and quickly found a place in the house. Griz was not at all happy at first, but after weeks of hissing and yowling and further months of indifference, the two gray tabbys will now romp around the house and play with impressive vigor. The others were largely unimpressed but not particularly bothered by the newcomer.

Which was a bit of a surprise in Athena's case, since we expected she would resent the arrival of yet another distraction from the proper object of attention in the house. In fact, she handled it well. If she had any resentment, she took it out on her usual target of milk jug rings:

Soon enough, we learned why she treated the new arrival with such equanimity -- she may have known we would soon need a lively young kitten in the house to fill an enormous void. For just a week after Penelope came home, the kidney disease Athena had battled with for seven years suddenly gained the upper hand. For months we had been feeding her special food and giving her sub-cutaneous fluids to keep her systems in balance, and as the above photo shows she was still happy and playful (when that particular mood suited her, of course). In late June, though, she suddenly lost interest in everything, including eating and drinking. Her once overwhelming spirit withered and vanished. She wandered the house aimlessly, staring at her water as though she *ought* to know what it was for, dammit, but just couldn't place it. Then she just wandered in circles.

Late on a Saturday, it became clear that whatever time she had left would be filled with misery (or at best frightened confusion). The vet assistant who brought Penelope into our world generously opened the vet clinic to help usher Athena out of it. The cat that throughout her fifteen years until her last days required a small SWAT team to take to the vet, even at her sickest, went along without a struggle or even a cat carrier.

Which reminds me of my favorite Athena story, and how I'm sure she would want to be remembered:

Back when a year-old Athena was our only cat, just before Chloe showed up, we went on a driving vacation out west. Athena was sent to stay at the vet where we found her, and where my mother-in-law took her dogs. A few days into Athena's stay, my mother-in-law got a call from the vet. Athena refused to eat or drink and would violently attack anyone who tried to come near. The vet refused to continue to keep her, and in fact questioned the wisdom of keeping such a brutal animal as a house pet. They demanded she be picked up immediately. When my mother-in-law arrived, a vet worker donned gloves that could be used to train a German Shepherd and wrestled Athena into a box that looked like the one they'd ship the Tasmanian Devil in. She took the box back home and stayed well clear as she opened it.

Athena sauntered out, purred, and nuzzled my mother-in-law's leg. She then ate some food and drank some water and curled up for a nice nap.

Some people thought Athena was a mean cat. She wasn't and was actually quite affectionate in her own eccentric way. She simply knew what she wanted and wasn't terribly interested in alternatives.

Chloe, on the other hand, was always as far from mean as is possible. She and Athena were wildly different -- while Athena was fearsomely smart and assertive, Chloe was a bit dim (and somewhat dotty as she grew older) but the sweetest companion you could hope for. Nothing made her happier than purring in our laps or on our chests as we napped. It was in these moments that she looked serene and fulfilled, rather than her usual aura of mild bewilderment. She could also make sleeping look like art.

One of Chloe's oddest talents (and she had many, including inducing sleep, slaying bugs and talking to socks) was her ability to get sick on national holidays. More than one Christmas, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve were spent with Chloe at the emergency vet. So when at Thanksgiving (a month after she passed her annual physical) she suddenly stopped eating, became lethargic and started vomiting, we were concerned but not surprised. This time, however, a shot and some pills would not cure her holiday woes.

Either through cancer or some other necrosis, her pancreas was riddled with growths, which were also appearing in her liver. Her abdomen was full of fluid and further growths. She vomited up dark green bile. There was no more purring, and she walked with great difficulty. There was no hope for recovery, only prolonging things for at best a few months with surgery and frequent treatments which would be painful and stressful. And she was already clearly in pain. So yesterday Chloe left us only a few months after Athena, after the two of them had been with us for nearly fifteen years.

Even with Rosabelle, Griselda and Penelope doing their level best to take up the slack, the house and our hearts feel oddly empty. Time moves on and the pain will of course fade, but we'll always miss them. Rest in peace, kids. And Athena, don't chase Chloe. You know she doesn't like it.

Hold the extras

2007-11-28T13:43:00.000-05:00

Helpful tech hint: lots of USB flash drives these days are coming with what's called U3 software on a separate partition that shows as read-only. It apparently tries to give you familiar menus and settings when you plug your drive into different computers. This stuff automatically installs and runs on whatever PC you plug it into. (Unless you don't use Windows, in which case it just takes up space on the drive.)

Someone out there must like this, but I just want a device to store files on, not some pushy application trying to unify my digital life. Fortunately, you can get a program to reformat your drive as a gloriously empty vessel waiting for you to do as you choose with it:

http://www.u3.com/uninstall/default.aspx

The site will plead amusingly with you not to delete this precious, precious invasionware from your drive, but will eventually relent and let you download the uninstall program.