Bowtie Boy Breaks

"I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it," he said. "It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually." -Tucker Carlson, Yes, Tucker Carlson, AKA "Bowtie Boy."

Huh, couldn't agree more.

How Long Is a Last Throe?

I try not to reproduce too much from blogs as well-read as Kevin Drum's, but this stuff is so rich, it begs to replicated in as many places as possible. Drum excerpts Terry Moran's persistant questions from this recounting of a briefing with Scott McClellan:

Q Scott, is the insurgency in Iraq in its 'last throes'?

Q But the insurgency is in its last throes?

Q But they're killing more Americans, they're killing more Iraqis. That's the last throes?

Q Right. What is the evidence that the insurgency is in its last throes?

Q What's the evidence on the ground that it's being extinguished?

Q Well, I'm just wondering what the metric is for measuring the defeat of the insurgency.

Q Yes. Is there any idea how long a "last throe" lasts for?

I mean, you hafta laugh. Hard. One day, these turkeys (AKA Busk lackeys) will answer a question honestly and surprise us all.

I toast Moran for his persistance. All journalists should be this dogged with this (any) administration's waffling/prevaricating.

And tangentially, Is there any idea how long a 'last throe' lasts for? Man, that's comedy gold!

Drum also suggests that "maybe the White House should institute 'wiki-briefings' that allow us all to go in and edit the transcripts." Oh, man, that's rich, too.

Problems with Polling

I came across this poll on CNN's home page Friday and sent it over to Mark Hurst for his This Is Broken site:



See the problem? Later that day they got it right:




Or did they?

I'd argue they still didn't get it right, and that this question suffers from the same problem many online polls do.

You'd have to add some additional choices in order for this poll to be accurate, e.g. C) both D) neither and potentially some additional more specific selections. Otherwise, as polls often do, you're presented with a fallacy of limited options. Here, you can only choose one one thing or another. Arguably, the scenario isn't as bad here as elsewhere, though, as many people taking the poll may feel comfortable assigning motivation to one of the two choices, politics or principles.

A great example of this fallacy (or propaganda technique) is how the Bush administration has presented the problem with social security. They present a crisis (another propaganda technique: creating a crisis) and reduce what may be a myriad of solutions to only two choices: A) leave it as it is (bad) or B) privatize (good). Behold, the fallacy of limited options.

As commenters over at This Is Broken pointed out, there are additional problems with the poll, too, including the spacing and alignment of the radio buttons, etc.

I seldom talk about work on this blog, but this is related to the sort of thing I do: presenting and arranging information so it's intuitive and easy for end users to navigate.

Roadcasting

Is roadcasting the next big thing?

Here's the gist:

The real innovation, though, comes from what happens once a playlist is created. While a driver is listening to music from his or her choices, the songs will be broadcast and available for reception by any other car with a roadcast-equipped car stereo. So, if a driver gets bored with a personal playlist, the software's collaborative filtering capabilities will automatically scan the airwaves looking for other roadcast stations that match the driver's stated preferences, and return any matching available stations. Listeners can search by bands, genres, and song titles, and skip through other users' radio stations to find music they want to hear.

Sounds way better than ol' commercial radio, that's for sure. Maybe even better than satellite radio, too. No commercials though? What's the bet the music companies will want to declare this illegal?

George W. Bush V. The United States of America

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. --the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Clause 3

We need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. Those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench.--George W. Bush, 2002

Defining Chutzpah

"What you are ethically bound to do is go to a grand jury and seek an indictment and not go to a single news source." - G Gordon Liddy on "Deep Throat," Mark Felt. He lead the Watergate break-in.

Here's a Newsday article detailing the (self) righteous idignation leveled at Felt from Liddy, Colson and Buchanan.

Pat Buchanan's espcially laughable: "Here is an individual," Buchanan explained, "sneaking around at night leaking things to damage the president of the United States in the middle of a campaign. And I don't see what is heroic about ... that."

Sneaking around? At night? Trying to damage a campaign? Hey, didn't something like that happen at . . . what's the name of that big ugly hotel on the Potomac?

The outrage. Oh, the outrage!

It's not TV, oh, Wait a Minute, Maybe It Is

So, I'm watching the first episode of the new season of Six Feet Under and so far Federico mentioned Match.com and then the first single from Coldplay's new album--which debuts tomorrow--was playing in the background of a subsequent scene.

I don't know that either of those were product placements for sure, of course, but . . . you know. Walks like a duck.

God's Away on Business

Review: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

I think this documentary may have made me a lot angrier than Fahrenheit 911, perhaps because, as outrageous as Michael Moore's effort was, I did feel I was being manipulated much of the time. Now it may just be because "Enron" largely avoids making political points (though it inevitably does, considering the coziness of the Bush family with Ken Lay and company) that it's easier not to notice that the documentary actually does utilize many of the same tricks Moore does: the smartly-inserted damning quote, the ironic music--brilliantly selected I might add. The flick opens with Tom Waits sounding positively Satanic as he coughs out the lyrics to "What Is He Building in There?" as the camera pans up and down the glassy phallic Enron towers. You couldn't ask for a more terrifying composition. Later the camera glides over vast smoking oil fields to the tune of "Old Black Magic."

Amost universally acclaimed, "Enron" is a barrage of facts and figures, not to mention almost unbelievable quotes, video and audi tape. Visit the site where you can hear some of this insanity caught on audio tape and download transcripts. Prepare to be repulsed and revolted, though, and I don't use those terms loosely. It's so much worse than I ever imagined.

Some of the most daming quotes come not just from Lay and Skilling and Fastow, but from 20-something stockbrokers, wielding their power like malicious greedy gods over the state of California, as they literally decide whether people will get power their homes, based upon their whims and their desire to make a killing for themselves and the company.

The documentary makes the point that these employees were like Milgram's subjects, zapping away at innocents because an authority told them to. Problem is, at least Migrams subjects protested a little along the way. These young Turks can only laugh and joke about retiring before they 30.

A sample:

Trader 1: So are we going to steal some more electricity from Grandma Millie [in California] today? ….. I heard that a wildfire was threatening one of the main power lines in the _____ Valley.

Trader 2: Burn, motherfucker, burn.

And there's loads more where that came from. Likely the most gripping and horrific documentary I've ever seen.

Penny Klepuszewska

Stark beauty from Penny Klepuszewska's "Made in Poland" series.

The Pecking Order at Ground Zero

Thanks, but no thanks, Donald: Trump proves once again that just because you're insanely rich doesn't mean you have a modicum of taste.

Paul Goldberger, the epitome of the tasteful architectural critic, has an excellent, if saddening update on the rebuilding progess being made at Ground Zero in the May 30th issue of the New Yorker. (Apparently not available online.) Sounds like Larry Silverstein and Governor Pataki have enough craven interest between them to undermine any elegant or dignified solution to the challenges endemic to the site. Goldberger makes a compelling case for offering a lot more living space and less commercial space on those 16 acres.

Of Trump's plan, Goldberger says, "I think the challenge of Ground Zero goes beyond anyone's individual ego, and the problem of Donald Trump is he's never gone beyond his own individual ego."

Hear, hear.

Found Time

Download yourself this tres cool desktop clock from Blu Dot, which utilizes a random image (photo) of a number to represent the time every minute.

A Prediction for the Peanut Gallery

So. I wonder how many guys like this are rushing to correct their assertions that Deep Throat was a fictitious character?

Of course, that guy's actually fairly reasonable in his assertions--though nonetheless incorrect. Others maintained Deep Throat was just a hoax crafted by Woodward and Bernstein to hype All the President's Men. Or by their editor.

But what about all the folks who said Deep Throat was a lie conjured up by a liberal attack dog media to bring down a great President? I suspect silence from many, but some of them will probably just weave a richer conspiracy theory in order to carry on believing what they would really like to, regardless.

A brief dip into FreeRepublic.com today reveals that those folks seem willing to accept that Felt is Deep Throat, but they're also happy to deflect wrong-doing from Nixon to Felt:

IowaHawk: [T]he media will try and celebrate this man...and what he did...and we shouldn't allow that to happen.

There was a serious crime committed here....the FBI or people in the FBI brought down a sitting President.

No one should skate and get a free pass on this one. . . .

Dog: Yes, Felt illegally leaked confidential FBI files, authorized illegal FBI raids, and has now been tied to Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers, peripherally.

...If the FBI was behind Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers, then we have ourselves a criminal enterprise posing as lawmen.

Breaking into Watergate to capture a Presidential election, though, presumedly was not a criminal enterprise.

Relevant as Ever

There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. --Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species

As Dr. Charles F. Urbanowicz notes, a reference to God was only added later and, as Martin Gardner points out "to conciliate angry clerics."

Therefore, creationists and theistic evolutionists who attempt to enlist Darwin's support these days need to do their research properly and alter their arguments, so they're not misleading folks unfamiliar with Darwin. Here's a creationist who gets it.

Oh, and Darwin's so-called deathbed conversion? Urban legend.

Two Words

Boo-hoo Dick.

Are you, like me, overdosing on all this mock outrage? Just the other day, a blast of untempered hypocrisy Bush administration almost caused a rift in the time-space continuum when they criticized Newsweek for damaging US interests overseas by disseminating inaccurate information and endangering lives on foreign soil. (The late night comedians made good use of that one, as you can imagine.)

And now Cheney's offended by Amnesty International? Right, Dick. 'Cos there's little or no proof of any U.S.-lead human right violations at Gitmo and elsewhere is there?

Of Amnesty International, Cheney says, "I frankly just don't take them seriously." Doubtless, neither will millions of loyal Cheney acolytes take the allegations seriously now. The Veep has given them permission to dismiss the world's most esteemed human rights organization and lump them together with all the other commie causes out to keep America from maintaining its (her?) rightful place in the world.

The hits just keep on comin'!

You're Free to Practice Whichever [State-Approved] Religion You Like

Many conservatives scoff when the left complains about the wall between church and state eroding, but what are we to make of this Indiana judge, who has ordered a family not to share their "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals"--Wicca--with their own son?

Anyone on the right care to defend this? Any conservatives outraged by this activist judge? Hello? Can you hear me now? Hello?

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)