A few months ago, Kevin Drum linked to this great Gene Lyons column about the senate primaries that’s been on my mind a lot today :

Of course the race isn’t being held nationally, or even state by state in the ordinary sense. What hasn’t yet sunk in among journalists covering the race is the likely impact of the amazingly complicated rule changes the party has imposed on itself for 2004 in the interest of “fairness.” Massive confusion appears likelier. There are no winner-take-all primaries. Instead, delegates will be awarded proportionally to all candidates receiving more than 15 percent of the vote in each congressional district, from sea to shining sea.

To be nominated, a candidate must win a majority (2160) of delegates to the June convention. Given that there are 796 party-appointed “superdelegates,” to lock up the nomination before the Boston convention, somebody has to win 61 percent of the elected delegates in a nine candidate field over two short months between February and early April 2004. Given strong regional differences and favorite son candidates, the odds of a deadlocked and/or brokered convention appear extremely high.

Would that make for good TV? Maybe. Or it could degenerate into farce, perpetuating the notion that Democrats are too ineffectual to govern.

I haven’t seen much written about this scenario, but what I’ve read has been negative. While I don’t think this would be best for the party, I could see some good coming out of it as well. While I think a brokered convention is a longshot, anything could happen. Here’s what I see as the Pros and Cons :

Pros :

The Democrats get months of extra free publicity as they continue to campaign against each other. Throughout this time, while highlighting their differences, the one thing they can all agree on is how awful Bush is.

The field is crowded enough that Bush can’t attack any of the Democrats directly without inadvertently propping up one of his rivals.

Cons :

The possibility that the losing candidates let their egos get the best of them and refuse to concede to and/or support the eventual nominee.

The months between the primaries and the convention make the candidates loose steam and serve to highlight the unsenate nature of the whole “superdelegate” system.

The nominee doesn’t have enough time between the convention and the election to raise the necessary money and organize a campaign effective enough to beat Bush.

What do you guys think? Am I being too optimistic here? Do you think this is likely to happen at all?

Oh shit, it just dawned on me…the governor is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The actor.

Dammit.

Jeez, and to think that conservatives call us the “language police”

Georgia students could graduate from high school without learning much about evolution, and may never even hear the word uttered in class.

New middle and high school science standards proposed by state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox strike references to “evolution” and replace them with the term “biological changes over time,” a revision critics say will further weaken learning in a critical subject.

Outraged teachers already have told the state it is undercutting the science education of young Georgians.

“Just like any major issue people need to deal with, you need to know the facts,” said David Bechler, head of the biology department at Valdosta State University. A member of the committee that worked on the biology standards, Bechler said he was stunned to learn that evolution was not in the final proposal.

“Whether you believe in creationism or not, evolution should be known and understood by the public,” he argued.

Cox declined requests for an interview on the issue. A spokesman issued a statement Wednesday that said: “The discussion of evolution is an age-old debate and it is clear that there are those in Georgia who are passionate on both sides of the issue — we want to hear from all of them.”

I don’t really have the energy to write about this to the extent that it deserves. Instead, I’m just going to quote extensively from my friend Ross’s hyperbolic and infrequently-updated blog This Space for Rent (from which I also got the link above). His commentary pretty much mirrors what I was gonna say anyways. Just for kicks though, I’m adding a couple comments of my own in italics.

Of course, this article illustrates two very serious problems. In the first place, I’ve italicized that last part to point out just how full of shit the So Called Liberal Media is when reporting on issues largely beneficial to the Religious right and the know-nothing, anti science, anti culture, anti education crowd. Using a deliberately dissembling expression like “Critics Say”, they not only feed their almost pornographic obsession with appearing “fair and objective”, they also rather deftly imply that people who accept the theory of evolution as valid, and as the basis for all modern biological science, are merely one in a sea of possible, equally valid opinions on the subject of scientific inquiry into way biology works, or the origins of and processes of life.

People, this is utter bullshit. Evolution may someday end up being replaced by another theory, but said theory ain’t gonna be that a magical sky god lovingly infuses everything personally with the spark of life, and that the world has been exactly as it is since the dawn of time, some 6,000 years ago.

[Not to mention any scientific theory that replaces evolution will need to include every piece of data that is currently explained by the current scientific paradigm (a criteria that the story of a girl being made out of a rib can't meet). In short, you can't just dismiss all the archological data that's been collected with "The devil put those bones there to confuse us."]

Which brings us to problem number two. We need to wake up and realize that we’re in the middle of a rather serious debate over the future of our nation. What we’re seeing here is similar to how neo-conservatives push their agenda. The Religious funduhmentalists who can’t win in the lab, or with the facts, use feel good, obfuscatory language like “Biological changes over time” to make themselves seem like reasonable, thoughtful people, when in truth, their goal is the elimination of all non God-centered thinking. Lay persons are made to feel like elitists when they question it. After all, isn’t “Biological changes over time” essentially the same thing as evolution?

[Maybe we should replace the "God" in the pledge of allegiance with "a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship". Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue (and thus easier to inject into secular life), huh?]

Well, yes, and no. While this obtuse phraseology can include the idea of evolutionary changes, it can also include that old creationist canard “Adaption” – That’s the science-with-blinders-on view that, while you can see animal species adapt to sudden environmental changes, these changes in no way proves any evolutionary action at all. Of course, that larger animals require millennia to show real evolutionary change is a fact ignored and derided by these people. It matters little this this is a major reason why biology spends so much time with microscopic life – namely that microscopic life can show real, concrete and permanent evolutionary change within excessively shirt periods of time, since a single year can hold thousands of generations.

You’ll also find that these are the same people who deliberately mis-define the word Theory, as being roughly equivalent to the word hypothesis. (A common trick one should always be prepared for.) This of course is the real goal. If you can’t win with facts, keep changing the terms of the debate until no matter what your opponent says, they can’t possibly win. They’re to our era what the Imams are to the Middle East and what the Catholic Church was to Europe until the 1600s; A force for true evil that will, if kept unchecked, ruin everything about our civilization that they can, and set back progress of culture decades. They won’t succeed in creating a new religiously correct utopia, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to do a lot of damage trying.

If you’d like to see more of my writing on the evolution/creationism debate, check out these posts from my archives :

Who’s your daddy?
Bush slept through science class
The new “monkey” trials
Winning Entries from the Creationist Science Fair
Reason Triumphs Over Superstition

I’m starting to warm up to John Kerry. I liked his reference to his “band of brothers” in his speech last night. The idea of him getting his war buddies back together for one more big fight is pretty cool. Speaking of cool things about Kerry, his favorite album is Abbey Road. That makes up for his Fonzie imitation on the Tonight Show.

I’m also warming up to his position on the war. Specifically, I think the “I feel like I was duped!” line will resonate with voters more than Dean’s “I was right when you were wrong” will.

Dean had a respectable showing, but I’m not sure what his prospects are after this. If he doesn’t win Arizona and/or New Mexico, then he’s finished. The rest of the states already feel like they’re evenly divided among the other candidates.

He also hit all the right notes with his concession speech. With the exit polls showing that he lost the “angry vote” to Kerry, it’s time for Dean to get his claws back. The key is to hit Bush hard without raising his voice (and I don’t mean to toot my own horn here, but I’m the king of being pissed without raising my voice). Dean should ramp up his rhetoric and get some headlines. The “code words” speech is a start. When he hits the stump today he should just go for the jugular and say something like “There’s no room in White House for someone who’d rather appease racists than help children.” Here’s another line that somebody should steal.

I really with John Edwards would have beat Wesley Clark. I think as people start dropping out, Edwards’ star will rise. My theory is that he’s everyone’s second choice. If Edwards can’t win big in South Carolina, not only is he screwed, but it also casts enough doubt about his ability to “deliver the south” that it would ruin any VP chances.

Lieberman is a goddamn crack smoker. Did you catch his speech when he talked about a three-way tie for third? In your dreams. At least when Kucinich says things like “I’ll drop out when I take the oath of office”, it’s funny and endearing. Lieberman on the other hand really thinks he’s gonna pull off some sort of Clinton-esque electoral upset (if anybody’s gonna do that, it’ll be the doctor). He needs to drop out right now.

There’s a good summary of Dean’s current message over at DailyKos :

On the stump, Dean has three major themes about his candidacy. (He is also emphasizing at least three, equally important arguments about the electoral situation for 2004 — but I’ll have to write that up on the bus back to Manchester. He’s almost done here at Phillips Exeter…and we are departing immediately afterward.)

Number 1 is that, on issues ranging from Iraq to civil unions to No Child Left Behind, he has taken courageous positions on issues when others dared not. He says leadership is 80 percent doing what the people expect of you, and the other 20 percent “is standing up for what you believe in and asking the voters to come with you.” I feel like I’ve waited my entire life to hear a politician say this, in this way. I’d only quibble with the percentages: 20 percent is too low.

Number 2 is actually a twist on Bush’s “reformer with results” horseshit he immediately started shoveling after McCain whupped him here in New Hampshire in 2000. Dean’s point is that he’s an executive who has balanced budgets and brought health care to most children and expanded it for those over 25 as well – that he has accomplishments, not merely positions.

Number 3 is that, as Dean puts it simply, “I don’t owe anything to anybody except for you.” He talks about the problem special interests (who doesn’t?), and notes that 89 percent of his donations are in amounts of $100 or less.

All three make for a solid stump speech, and if they sound terribly familiar (especially the middle one) it’s because, well, they ARE familiar. This is the pre-frontrunner Dean, who has since realized that the campaign is not about itself.

These are the main reasons that I support Dean.

Unfortunately, that message isn’t getting out. If you think about all the big memes about Deans candidacy over the past year, none of them encompass the message outlined above : the internet candidate, the anti-war candidate, grassroots, the new McGovern, endorsed by Gore, , too liberal, too angry, out of control. These have all gotten people talking, but they haven’t told people why they should vote for the doctor.

And there’s the rub. At this point Dean needs to speak up and make sure his message gets heard. But if he raises his voice above a whisper, it’s going to play into the “Dean is a madman” story. So Dean is straddling the line between not getting his message out or looking even crazier on TV.

Which leads to my prediction/warning about the New Hampshire primary. Dean needs to win or he’s done. Coming out of tomorrow, Dean needs a week of positive press to help him get over the (as It was described on CNN) “I Have A Scream” speech. If the story is lukewarm, the lead will still be frontrunner Kerry fighting back nutcase Dean. Unless the story is “Dean is surging” then I don’t see how he’ll be able to fix dismal showing in the polls for next week’s primaries.

But then again, Dean has a lot of money and the other guys don’t. That seemed to work for Bush last time.

This morning when I stumbled out of bed and turned on CNN (as I often do), I was greeted with a video of this bizarre spectacle (Here’s a link to the video via TBogg):

Try not to think too much about the fact that you’ve now seen more pictures of the Pope looking at breakdancers than you have of the President looking at a newspaper.

This should come as a surprise to no one :

Federal deficits will total nearly $2.4 trillion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office projected Monday, a worsening of nearly $1 trillion since its last forecast in August.

In its annual wintertime economic update, Congress’ nonpartisan fiscal analyst also projected that the red ink would hit a record $477 billion this year.
. . .
The most marked deterioration was for the decade ending 2013, for which the office projected cumulative deficits of $2.38 trillion. That was $986 billion worse than it estimated last August, and $3.7 trillion deeper than it projected a year ago.

The forecast worsened in part because the budget office assumed ? as it is required to by law ? that the $87.5 billion approved last year for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be renewed annually for the decade. Many lawmakers and analysts consider that unlikely.

The office also factored in new costs like the prescription drug benefit created last fall. In addition, the report projects lower federal revenue than was anticipated earlier, partly as result of lower inflation that the budget office now expects.

But the budget office did not include the costs of programs or initiatives lawmakers are considered likely to approve in coming years. These include making at least some tax cuts permanent, changing the alternative minimum tax so it doesn’t affect growing number of middle-income earners, and spending increases for popular programs or unforeseen needs like war or disasters.

If you look at the trends for the last 25 years, it’s been Democrats who balance the budget and create surpluses, while it’s the Republicans who spend like there’s no tomorrow and leave us with enormous debts. At this point can we stop referring to people who are reckless and irresponsible with the economy as fiscal conservatives?

Over the weekend at the World Economic Forum, Billmon attended the “Will Mainstream Media Co-opt Blogs and the Internet?” panel. He’s got a rather lengthy post on the subject, but this excerpt is especially scary :

One of the worst moments at the Davos session was when some twinkie from a New York advertising firm stood up and described how her firm has started turning first to blogs to place ads for certain products. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why the big media companies don’t swoop in and buy up some of these blogs while they’re still cheap.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. On the one hand, this person clearly didn’t have the faintest idea what the blogs are all about, or why most bloggers do what the do. She didn’t understand how quickly a major media corporation could take a great blog and run it into the ground. Buy up blogs? It would be like trying to catch snow flakes.

But if the thought has occurred to her, it’s probably already occurred to others. Just the fact that blogging showed up on the agenda at Davos this year is probably a bad sign. I can’t shake the suspicion that the golden age of blogging is almost over — that the corporate machine is about to swallow it, digest it, and regurgitate it as bland, non-threatening pablum. Our brief Summer of Love may be nearing an end.

Since my blog hardly gets the traffic or attention that the larger blogs get, I don’t really have any insight here. But it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the bigger bloggers are already headed down that road. Atrios, DailyKos, and Calpundit are all running ads (which already seems weird to me). What’s next? Will all the big media companies start shopping around for an official blogger? Will CNN hire Ezra Klein and the guy who does Little Green Footballs to do a Crossfire-style blog? Will Oliver Willis become a cyber-Bill O’Reilly?

While I think the writing is on the wall as far as the big media companies wanting a piece of the pie, I can’t imagine any good will come out of this. Like every other trend that’s not controlled by big corporations, there will probably be a lot of money thrown at the blogosphere. When the smoke clears though, they’re going to end up with a bunch of overpaid amateurs without a viable business model (You’d think the internet bubble burst would have taught them something).

This leads me to my big announcement. I’ve been offered a six-figure salary to be the official blogger for McDonald’s. The blog’s title is going to change from The Talent Show to I’m Lovin It!™ and the color scheme will be changed from the current sepia-tone to a more exciting red and yellow. Other than that, the content will be relatively unchanged. Here’s a preview of some of the upcoming posts :

How eating four McRib sandwiches without the buns is a great for those on the Atkins diet.

The economic benefits of super-sizing.

What the heck is Grimace

In the wake of Mad Cow disease, the benefits of Chicken McNuggets (especially now that they have “real” meat).

A devastating criticism of Mayor McCheese for his failure to capture the Hamburglar.

See? It’s not about selling out. I’m buying in.

Here’s a couple things I’ve been meaning to post, but haven’t gotten around to.

One, a few of you have noticed the new “Easy HTML” feature in the comments. I hope you like it. For some reason, it doesn’t show up in Netscape. I dunno how to fix this, since I stole the code from the Movable Type administration templates. For those of you with blogs, I’ll post the code and instructions for this in the extended portion of this entry.

Two, I got some pictures of our New York trip from Tom last week. Rather than plaster the site with photos of myself, these will also be in the extended entry. In case you’re curious, I’m the one with the freakishly painted-on smile.
(more…)

My apologies to you Kucinich fans out there, but this post by Dr. Frank is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time :

It certainly will be a sad day when Kucinich drops out. I can’t remember who, but someone recently observed that he looks like a Star Trek villain. That’s dead on, though Batman Arch-Criminal might be as accurate. You just know that if he had his way he’d wait till just the right moment before whipping off his suit in one deft motion, to the sound of trumpets, revealing the Arch-Criminal outfit underneath (a black unitard covered with infinity symbols, maybe); then he’d have all the other candidates tied to giant chess pieces, or fed through a player-piano score printing machine. Or, in response to a question by Brit Hume, he’d announce that he has developed a special germ that makes all women beautiful and kills all men over 4′6″. “Only I have the antidote, Mr. Kerry. So I would choose my next move very carefully if I were you. We are not so very different you and I… more cognac?” Something like that.

Okay, I linked to it in a previous post, but you all really have to check out The American Presidency Project. They’ve got a treasure trove of presidential documents more than 200 years old. After surfing the site for a few minutes, I’ve already found these gems :

The executive order from FDR to investigate Pearl Harbor issued a few days after the attack. (Compare this to Bush’s continuing obstruction of the 9-11 investigation)

The 1904 Republican and senate Party platforms.

Harry Truman’s announcement about the bombing of Hiroshima.

The inaugural address that William Henry Harrison gave in the freezing cold without a coat on. The address was so long, that Harrison got pneumonia and died a month later.

Lincoln’s first State of the Union address, in which he sums up the Civil War as “A disloyal portion of the American people have during the whole year been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union.”

Nixon’s one sentence resignation letter.

Okay, I know you’re probably getting tired of posts about “Dean’s breakdown”, but this article at the History News Network is particularly insightful :

Early in Richard M. Nixon’s 1968 campaign for president, his speechwriter, Raymond K. Price, was among those charged with a delicate task: Review Nixon’s disastrous “last press conference” speech of Nov. 7, 1962, and figure out how to handle it in the upcoming race.

Nixon had delivered that rambling address after losing his bid to unseat Pat Brown as governor of California. Surprising reporters by venturing down from his hotel room the morning after his defeat, Nixon sneered at “all the members of the press [who] are so delighted that I have lost” and chided them for biased coverage. He concluded, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you.”

Combined with his failed 1960 presidential bid, the 1962 loss and the emotional speech ? especially its signature phrase ? were seen as consigning the former vice president to oblivion. Five nights later, ABC aired a special titled “The Political Obituary of Richard Nixon.” But when Price and others screened the dreaded speech years later, they found that it didn’t seem so bad.

Nixon’s remarks were indeed raw and spontaneous, especially for a man given to controlling his public image tightly. The barbs at the press displayed an unmistakable hostility.

But the candidate neither shouted nor raged. His manner was far more restrained than printed accounts ? or public memory ? suggested. He even conceded: “I’ve given as good as I’ve taken.”

In short, in its many retellings, the “last press conference,” though reflective of some real bitterness, was magnified into a debacle more damning than it had to be.

This story comes to mind after watching the Washington punditocracy indulge in a giddy round of derision at Howard Dean’s expense. The former Vermont governor and onetime front-runner for the senate presidential nomination was judged to have lost his moorings during his concession speech following his disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses Monday night.

In short, people (myself included) are as quick to predict the end of Dean’s candidacy as they were to declare the inevitability of his nomination. Since I’m not lucky enough to live in a state where my primary vote counts for much (the primary system sucks), I have no idea how “average voters” are interpreting Dean’s outburst, his appearance on Letterman, last night’s debate, etc. All I can really do is sit back and hope they don’t end up nominating a Lieberman/Sharpton ticket.

Hmmm…does this 1989 speech by former-President George H.W. Bush wound familiar? (via Altercation)

In 1961 it took a crisis — the space race — to speed things up. Today we don’t have a crisis; we have an opportunity. To seize this opportunity, I’m not proposing a 10-year plan like Apollo; I’m proposing a long-range, continuing commitment. First, for the coming decade, for the 1990’s: Space Station Freedom, our critical next step in all our space endeavors. And next, for the new century: Back to the Moon; back to the future. And this time, back to stay. And then a journey into tomorrow, a journey to another planet: a manned mission to Mars.

Each mission should and will lay the groundwork for the next. And the pathway to the stars begins, as it did 20 years ago, with you, the American people. And it continues just up the street there, to the United States Congress, where the future of the space station and our future as a spacefaring nation will be decided.

If Dubya seems to be taking all his cues from his dad (ie. attacking Iraq, jobless economic recovery, going to the moon), I hope his next move is to throw up on the Japanese Prime Minister or get really confused when he sees a supermarket scanner. Like I said earlier, this administration is really lacking in the comic relief department.

Okay, this is just getting crazy. The news has just reported that Captain Kangaroo (R.I.P.) has died, and this is the picture they’re including with the obituary :

Seriously media, every story this week doesn’t need to relate to Howard Dean in some way. They should have used this picture instead.


Is it just me, or does the Captain look like he’s about to pop a cap in someone’s ass?

Here’s a question for you Kucinich fans out there. What do you think about his back-room deal to get his supporters to go for John Edwards in the Iowa Caucuses? Does it somehow undermine his anti-war views that he’d work with an obviously hawkish candidate like Edwards instead of someone more dovish like Dean? Personally, I don’t think it’s a big sellout or anything, but it’s definitely an icky look behind the scenes (ie. the title of this post).