Fort Worth Blogorrhea

Steve Buckellew (1968-2008)May the wind take your troubles away...

2008-04-24T15:54:00.002-05:00

Stephen Hunter Buckellew, 39, passed away Tuesday evening, April 22, 2008, after a brief illness. Memorial service: 11 a.m. Friday at Roberston Mueller Harper. Memorials: In lieu of flowers, consideration of contributions to The WARM Place, 809 Lipscomb St., Fort Worth, Texas 76104, www.thewarmplace.org, in Steve's memory, is suggested. A native and lifelong resident of Fort Worth, Steve was the son of Cleveland Oren "Buck" Buckellew Jr. and Pamela Ann Hunter Buckellew. He graduated from Southwest High School in 1987 and Texas A&M University before receiving his M.S. from the University of Texas at Arlington. Steve was an intellectual with varied pursuits spanning literature, music, movies, politics, blogging, crossword puzzles, woodworking, photography, food and sports. He was also a highly talented pool player. Above all, Steve was friend to countless who will treasure the many good times enjoyed and lament the lost opportunities to share in his company. He will be deeply missed. Survivors: Steve is survived by his wife, Mary Jane Richardson; mother and stepfather, Pam and Al Esquivel; brothers and sisters-in-law, Phil and Lisa Buckellew and Bruce Hervey and Katie Barber; grandmother, Christine Wesley; parents-in-law, Jim and Ann Richardson; brother-in-law, James Richardson; and many throughout Fort Worth and beyond whom he called friends.

Published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on 4/24/2008.

Hellscape: Iran

2008-04-19T23:22:00.005-05:00

I know I've gone quite far with the Orwellian metaphor relating to the Bush administration. But to put things into perspective, I've been doing a little research on Iran. Iranians are very poor, despite the oil-wealth of the nation, and they have terrible drug problem with Afghani opium. Yet, they have this group called the Basij, which is basically a Hitler Youth to enforce the fundamentalist Islamic moral code.

These young folks were orignially recruited as cannon fodder in Iraqi minefields during the Iran-Iraq war of the eighties. Their role has changed quite a bit in peacetime. While they have some legitimate responsibilities like disaster relief, they mostly man checkpoints where they make sure women aren't wearing makeup, are dressed in proper hijab, and are accompanied only by male relatives. They also do other wonderful things like suppress student protests for freedom, break up mixed-gender parties, and tear down satellite dishes.

Sucks to be in Iran. So lets go bomb them to bring freedom. (Also see this article on the Iranian drug problem. We have to realize that they are frail people, just like us, despite the monolithic fundamentalist talk from our government.

The Unfortunate Mr. Quest

2008-04-19T22:44:00.002-05:00

Stumbled on this article today while reading the news. Richard Quest, CNN International reporter, was busted in Central Park last night. From the NY Post:

CNN personality Richard Quest was busted in Central Park early yesterday with some drugs in his pocket, a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot, law-enforcement sources said.

You think he'd like a do-over? The Post, never known for being subtle, goes on:

He was reportedly once offered a position for the English-language version of the controversial Al Jazeera network, but said he turned it down because being gay and Jewish, he didn't think it would be a good fit.

This bespeaks a monolithic fundamentalist view of the middle-east (Iran has one of the biggest drug-abusing populations in the world.) But in light of current events, maybe it was the right call.

Main Street Arts Festival

2008-04-19T16:17:00.003-05:00

The biggest and coolest festival in the Metroplex is going on this weekend. They use tickets for beer and food so you don't realize you're paying usurious prices. But I don't give a fuck. I love festivals. It's an opportunity to become anonymous in a crowd and check out the zeitgeist (as far as FW can be a gauge of the zeitgeist.)

Here's some major themes I took away from the festival:

Obesity - everyone is fat now, and I'm no exception.
Dogs - they are now carried, not walked, mostly by dickless men. (see first bullet)
Beer - still very popular (see first bullet)
Hot chicks - must have been elsewhere, I thought I was in Chicago (see first bullet)
Tattoos - still don't get it. Ugly. Crutch for something, maybe vapidity.
Live music - still the best, I don't really care what they're playing. I enjoyed the 65 year old men playing "Funky Cold Medina."
Art - as it should be, a matter of taste. Original art is expensive...as it should be. As a knuckleheaded woodworker, it took several days/weeks to make a piece worthy of using in my own house. What am I worth per hour? (Ladies?)
Food - I'm exclusive to Schmidt's. They throw down great Brats and other sausages. One ticket extra for kraut. (see first bullet)
Babies - ubiquitous. I saw a two-year-old on a five-point leash.
Overall - can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon.

Blog News

2008-04-17T01:08:00.002-05:00

My friends over at the West & Clear site generously asked if I would begin contributing to their site from time to time. The first post appeared today and can been read here. Thanks to their heightened sense of style, they added some appropriate art to my post.

We Love Our Storms

2008-04-11T22:51:00.002-05:00

As this past week has proven in spades, we North Texans are subject to some of the most violent weather in the world, and it comes at a moment's notice. Typically tornadoes give you maybe five minutes warning. What a load of shit! We're by god cheated out of a decent gallows party. When the air raid sirens go off, I barely have time to pour a scotch on the rocks, much less margaritas for the multitudes. People on the gulf coast at least have a few days notice to get down to the liquor store for some tequila and maybe hit the grocer for a modest cheese plate or something.

And it seems that the ripest time for foul weather also includes late afternoon at the office. You'd have to keep a hip-flask of Cuervo and some margarita mix in your desk while watching the beast come hither through your 25th floor western exposure. A 55 cent bag of Dorito's out of the machine doesn't do justice to the massive destructive power of a Texas-style thunderstorm.

But, yet, we North Texans love our thunderstorms. The worse the better. It's a strange kind of schadenfreude where we sit glued to the TV or the internet just hoping a tornado is going to drop somewhere. We run with a strange dour glee from office to office telling one another about the funnel cloud that was spotted just north of Weatherford as the leading edge sheets of rain alight on our plate-glass office windows.

Long time Fort Worthians see major storms as mile-markers in life; they are points of inflection. The big April hailstorm back in 80 that caused 60 million bucks worth of damage and everyone got a new roof, and the Mayfest hailstorm in 95 where fathers were jumping on top of their children to protect them, along with the colossal downtown tornado in 2000 that turned a proper office tower into a plywood obelisk for the next three years or so.

We know the cost of storms in both blood and treasure, but we have persevered and thusly wear them as a badge of honor and with a sense of humor. It's a lot like racing, we watch to see the big crash and hope everyone walks away safely.

Movie Night

2008-04-11T21:41:00.002-05:00

I guess tonight is movie night. I've been scouring teh internets for clips from some of my favorite flicks, culling out only the best to provide to the dear reader. Here's an incredibly relevant Elizabeth Taylor in the awesome, yet jarring, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".

The Hustler

2008-04-11T21:03:00.002-05:00

I was chatting with a friend recently about how Oscars are sometimes given for good-not-great roles or movies, because they are making up for mistakes in the past. Scorcese winning for The Departed is a good example. It's a good movie, but it's no Goodfellas, Raging Bull, or Taxi Driver. The other example, for me, was Paul Newman winning for The Color of Money (coincidentally directed by Scorcese). I haven't looked at the list of nominees for Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butch Cassidy, or The Sting, but as anyone who has seen these movies surely know, he's more than a pretty face.

Predictably, my favorite Newman movies are Hud (Texas, Larry McMurtry, etc.) and The Hustler (Pool). I ran across this fantastic clip of the climax of The Hustler. Total spoiler if you haven't seen the movie which is a four-star absolute must watch movie. But if you have seen it, take ten minutes and watch the interplay between Newman, Gleason, and George C. Scott (as the embodiment of evil).

Petraeus Hypocrisy?

2008-04-11T01:06:00.002-05:00

I saw a good bit of the Senatorial grilling of General Petraues and Ryan Crocker, and a fair bit from the House. The General (as he will be referred to, because I'm not too confident typing his last name) responded to bipartisan grilling about when we can extract our troops. His refrain, for two days, was that it will depend on the "conditions". He could never define these conditions, yet he introduced some great new terms like battlefield geometry and politco-milatry calculus.

In the end, we're still left with the same ol' open ended military commitment that could last for John McCain's 100 years. There was no shortage of catastrophizing what would happen if more than the surge troops were withdrawn (apparently conditions for this have been met.) But one thing stuck out. What if things get worse? The General said that he could not foresee adding anymore troops. This sound like a serious flaw in his "conditions based" logic.

What if the battlefield geometry and politico-military calculus called for another surge? In his testimony, he said adding more troops wasn't going to happen. So what of his lofty "condition based" theorizing? Smells like political bullshit to me. If I'm boiling some pasta and it's boiling over the pan, I turn the heat down; If it's not boiling, I turn the heat up. To me, this is "condition-based decision making". But Petraeus is apparently OK with undercooked pasta.

Not that I want more troops, I'm just trying to illustrate his logical flaw. Any day, it might be happening how, the Mahdi army could call off the cease fire and restoke the civil war against the Badr Brigades and the Sunnis. Any day the Sunni militia could get a better offer than the $10/day we're paying them to keep quiet. This seems a very tenuous peace and our General Officer seems to have his lips firmly attached to a Republican butthole.

Cuss-O-Meter

2008-04-11T00:07:00.002-05:00

I think these cocksuckers don't know a fucking shit-ass thing, dickless shit-ass pussies.

Created by OnePlusYou

Thanks for the Link

2008-04-10T23:51:00.003-05:00

Thanks to the folks over at The Whited Sepulchre for noticing my travails over the weekend and giving me possibly the weirdest summary title ever: Briskets, Semicolons, Trial and Error.

If you haven't checked this page out, you should. They're right leaning libertartians who manage to really crank out well-written, well-thought posts that I occasionally agree with, in part, sometimes. Oh, and they have a cool banner as well.

He fancies Dennis Kucinich a short-busser, when, in fact, he's just a good ol' fashioned bomb thrower. Every presidential election needs their Ron Pauls and Al Sharptions and Dennis Kuciniches who are willing to speak unvarnished truth to the masses. They never have the cash or the party-backing, but they can get folks' thinking.

I'll defer to the owners, but I'm thinking of a Whited Sepulchre as a line in Heart of Darkness. We'll let them elaborate....

Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk

2008-04-07T23:13:00.004-05:00

Fitting, it is. Every year I go over my NCAA bracket and I'm always tempted by the perfumed inner-thigh of Kansas. I've been a Kansas fan since Danny Manning's squad bested the unbeatable Billy Tubbs' Oklahoma team in 88. I loved Roy Williams, and Jacque Vaughn, and Paul Pierce, Kirk Hinrich and all the small white guys that could shoot threes with thier eyes closed.

But they always disappointed me in the tournament. I'd pick 'em high every year and they would inevitably fail me. So this year I did something different. I knocked 'em out early. It might have cost me my bracket, but bracket be damned.

I know getting into x's and o's is boring, but I think Kansas made a big error in the second half, after having the momentum throughout the first half, in going to zone defenses. The box-and-one against CDR didn't work and sparked one hell of a run from Memphis that left Kansas dead meat down 9 with two minutes to play. I really can't explain the rest, other than that Memphis' traditional poor foul shooting caught up with them. KU hit the clutch three to kick it into OT where they never looked back.

This was one of the best NCAA tourneys I've seen in years culminating in a fantastic up-and-down game with plenty of lead and momentum changes. Excellent way to spend a Monday evening.

Meat: Epilogue

2008-04-07T18:44:00.003-05:00

Do you have any idea how much liquor it takes to sit outside and smoke a brisket for nigh on 24 hours? As soon as that internal temp hit 190, I wrapped it in foil, threw it in the oven to rest, and passed out. I stuck it in the fridge Sunday morning and forgot about. This ordeal had left me withered and crapulous. I spent Sunday laying around watching the two basketball games I had missed the night before and whatever I had recently recorded off Discovery or History. I didn't even open my laptop.

So it wasn't until today that I saw what I had created. Upon my initial inspection of the exterior, it looked like a proper brisket, and it smelled like a proper brisket. I located the grain direction and cut a few perpendicular slices. Proper red smoke ring, check, perfect meat color elsewhere. It was hard to cut because the damn thing was cold; I'll chalk that up to a lesson learned. And I'll be damned if the sumbitch didn't taste like a proper Texas brisket ready for a sandwich near you. I sliced up the flat (lean) part of the brisket, then roughly trimmed and chopped up the point (more marbled) to be used for chopped brisked at a later date.

After all that hard work, I'm happy to say it was a success. I've only learned about 1500 things I'd do differently, but, by god, it worked.

Semicolon Update

2008-04-07T18:41:00.003-05:00

I'm apparently not the only soul who's about had it with the semicolon. I came by a link today, from and article last Friday, that showed some very incisive commentary on this vestigial punctuation mark. Read it here.

Meat III

2008-04-05T22:39:00.002-05:00

This shit is wearing my tired ass out. 24 hours later it appears that the brisket is within five degrees of being done. I've learned alot in the process. I've also drank a superhuman quantity of vodka and listened to a shitload of good music. The ribs cooked flawlessly in just a few hours. But the brisket will be the piece de resistance. More later.

Adventures in Meat Smoking II

2008-04-05T18:15:00.003-05:00

Well, last night's attempt at smoking a brisket was fraught with error. I apparently need to go down to the supermarket and shanghai some tow-headed boy scout in hopes that he can impart to me the rudiments of fire (or shall I offer a sacrifice to Prometheus?)

The smoker apparently is allied with the Bush administration in its moral absolutism. Last night, it knew only two temperatures: 7000 degrees or ice cold. My inexperience with the smoker and my experience with Tito's Vodka surely weren't helping.

I chunked a couple of logs on before I logged off for the evening about 3:30 or so. I checked it at 9am and it was stone cold, so all my internal temp measurements were thrown into a giant shitspin. I've had it going again all day and I'm still not at my desired internal temp.

There are silver linings, however. The smoker did a bang-up job of heating up some hot-links. Of course the microwave could have knocked this out in about 45 seconds, but it would be lacking the crispy exterior. And I've got a rack of ribs on, for which everything has gone very well and look and smell tasty.

I've yet to taste any of the food yet, so look forward to episode III.

Adventures in Meat Smoking

2008-04-05T00:10:00.002-05:00

So I got this smoker. I've been wanting to start smoking briskets, ribs, pork shoulders, etc for years. Now I have the means. And tonight I'm putting words into action, by god. My wife picked up a good looking brisket rub at Pendery's today. I went to Costco to grab up a cryovac Brisket, but apparently everyone in the metroplex is smoking briskets this weekend and they were stone out. So on to Albertson's where they only had two left. I picked, of course, the biggest.

I get it trimmed up, and get the rub on, and now it's time for the fire. In reality, it was time for the fire well before this other stuff. It's the fire that's killing me. I've chopped up a bunch of pecan that fell over my fence from my neighbor's tree, so I'm good on fuel. But I'm aiming for a fire at about 225 and this son of a bitch was hot enough to forge metal. It's been burning for hours and it's still too damn hot. Of course I already put the brisket on 45 minutes ago.

Now I'm just hoping that thing will cool off a bit and I can add another log before I go to bed in a few hours.

Any advice is more than welcome... As I'm sure all the readership will be waiting with bated breath to hear about the condition of my meat, I'll shoot an update tomorrow.

Semicolon

2008-04-04T21:05:00.003-05:00

I'm puttin' the word out on a matter of the utmost importance to the population. Urgent reply requested. Does anyone feel rock-solid certain and comfortable in the use of a semicolon? It's apparently an important enough punctuation mark to warrant not having to hit the shift key, while the lowly colon requires a shift. I don't know about you, but I'm on pretty firm ground with the colon.

The semicolon is an enigma to me. When I feel it may be called for, I fall into a morass of self-analysis; evaluating my writing in terms of dependent and independent clauses, transitional words, etc. I usually end up just starting a new fucking sentence.

What use is the semicolon? And why does it merit such prominent placement on a keyboard?

Again, this is truly urgent. And did I use it correctly in the second paragraph, second sentence? I have no clue.

REM Accelerates

2008-04-04T02:44:00.002-05:00

I saw REM on Colbert last night promoting their new album Accelerate (I think that was the name). It was not the jangly McGuinn-Rickenbacker sound that Peter Buck (Tom Petty, The Plimsouls, and others) made a living off of. Although Peter was playing a fine-looking six-string Rick. McGuinn always favored the twelve-string, as I recall (and my recollection is mostly of the live shots of Tambourine Man for which he admitted stealing the beat from the Beach Boy's "Don't Worry Baby").

All that is beside the point, I was an REM fanatic in their 85-90 college radio greatness. I could probably still warble every note from Murmur, Reckoning, Fables, Pageant, Document, and Dead Letter Office (which was a compendium of B-sides and their first EP Chronic Town). They started really losing me on Green, and by Out of Time or Monster (can't remember the order), I was out of patience. I've mentioned on more than one occasion that I'm an "old shit" kind of guy, but in the case of REM, the 80s shit was way better than the 90s shit.

At long last, to the point. The new album rocks. No elaborate production. Short songs. No massive strings. Ripping guitar. See, I like to rock. And finally, it seems like REM might like to rock as well. Accelerate doesn't rock like, say, Pageant, which rocked all the way through with the exception of Swan, Swan and Flowers of Guatamala, but it definitely does rock. Cheers to them, the spirit of Bill Berry is back.

And as a bonus, I learned something. When I download from iTunes, I typically go for single songs. This is the first album I've downloaded in a long time. And what used to be my greatest complaint about iTunes and albums is now resolved. Now you get a PDF doc with all the album art and liner notes. Big step forward.

Now if I could just find an iMax theatre that had the new Scorcese-Stones movie without having to drive to Dallas.

Poll Summaries

2008-04-04T02:00:00.002-05:00

I sincerely want to thank everyone that voted in the polls. I know some polls were slightly frivolous, while others were dead serious. I wouldn't ask for your response if I was genuinely interested in your response. I've recently made this blog public. That may or may not increase traffic, but I'll still be posting anonymous polls (and they are completely anonymous, I have no idea on anyone's votes unless I ask.) So now to the results....most important first:

Bigfoot: Vote tightened toward the end. We're inside the margin of error, so I don't think we're going to be breaking news on the Bigfoot front, despite my purposely vague question. I know we had at least one Phd in Biology or some such vote against. We also had one guy that watched a very compelling show on the Sci-Fi channel vote for. So that balances out.

Guns for Students: I think we can safely infer that, among our demographic, college kids shouldn't be packing heat.

Grandparents vs. Drinkers: by 2:1 people would rather run the gauntlet of folks that my have had a couple of pops than octagenarians.

Gladiators vs. Clean Athletes: by 2:1 folks would rather see clean athletes than cheaters. Good luck. I guess Hollywood stars shouldn't have plastic surgery either.

Hillary at first was clearly electable, but the more she threw her kitchen sink at Obama, the worse her electability numbers, ending up about 50/50 in this demo. As an anti-Republican and an Obama supporter, I think she and her husband are carrying too much baggage. Recent polls say the same. It's becoming more and more evident that with her this is a campaign of ego and destiny rather than what's best for America.

Obama is a little less than 2:1 electable. There's still a block out there that doesn't feel like he can pull it off. Anecdotally, my conversations with Democrats still think that America won't vote for a black man.

We've got a couple still open, so please participate.

More Devo

2008-04-03T23:24:00.003-05:00

I'm sifting through the video archives of Devo on YouTube and couldn't resist posting this inteview with Jack Cafferty about 25 years ago. As anyone that ever glances at CNN in the afternoons, Jack Cafferty now plays the role of the cynical Fred Mertzish uber-serious editorialist. And he looks the part.

But back in 1982, he was very much trying for the dashing Chip Moody look, except he just couldn't pull it off. What I found funny about this video was not Devo, but Jack, who may have well been Ed Sullivan talking to Elvis in the fifties. He was trying so hard to be cleverly condescending while keeping his newsman's objectivity. Of course the Gerald is smart enought to know the game. Here's Jack, with Gerald and Mark from Devo 25 years ago

Most Underrated Band Ever

2008-04-03T22:52:00.002-05:00

Devo. To wit:

And I'm not ashamed to admit I have my own energy dome. Caught it their last show in Dallas at the Fair Park Bandshell...in August, I believe.

Dating Demographics?

2008-04-02T15:04:00.004-05:00

Are you a single male looking for love in DFW? Your screwed, pal. Check out this graph.

Looks like you should close up shop and move to Memphis or Atlanta.

Gas Prices vs. Profits: Huh?

2008-04-01T02:26:00.003-05:00

I've been blogging about this for years. If I weren't so lazy, I'd link to all the previous posts. I freely admit that I don't understand the world of high finance. I have friends that have that intuitive ability which I lack.

But this oil business seems to me to be straight supply and demand (and maybe this is where I'm fucked). Granted there's a scarcity factor, but I don't know how deeply it's inolved in this play.

So I'm willing to be educated. But I smell collusion at the pump. And here's my rationale:

OPEC is setting prices. So the raw material cost, so to speak, is the same. I don't think any refiner has such a techonlogical advantage over another that would lead to markedly cheaper refining costs. Transportation costs are also about equal. And therefore, the prices at the pump are about equal give or take a few cents on the gallon that may vary on location marketing and upstream efficiencies.

But the kicker is that they're all making humongous profits. While raw material costs are as high as they've ever been, they're all making out like King Farouk

How can this be? Given a basic business like making spark plugs (I'm no economist by a long shot), but if raw material cost rises, it will cause a rise in prices, but no rise in margin. Producers will raise prices but maintain profit and pass the increased raw materials cost to customer. Some customers will be unwilling to pay the increased price and look to other vendors, who may reduce margins to gain business. This is the free market.

But on the street, when people need gas there seems to be little separation between gas prices. Every oil company is recording record profits when oil prices are at an all time high. This makes me think that I'm being taken advantage of. Surely, there is some oil company that's willing to lower their margins, and thus reduce gas prices, to gain volume business. But this never seems to happen, which, to me, flies in the face of the free market.

We live in a cut-rate, dollar-store universe. Everything is price-sensitive. People will go to Wal-Mart (despite the smell) to buy their Pringles for ten cents cheaper. Tightwads and coupon clippers abound. So why can't the oil company that's made the lowest, yet windfall, profits cut their margin by a few basis points, which would surely drive all the cost-concious consumers to their door?

This is not even Harvard Business School thinking, it's Biz 101 at TCC. Unless....there's collusion. And we've got to find a competitor to stop this collusive monopoly.

Chasm of Defense Funds

2008-04-01T02:06:00.002-05:00

From the Washington Post:

Government auditors issued a scathing review yesterday of dozens of the Pentagon's biggest weapons systems, saying ships, aircraft and satellites are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average. In addition, none of the systems that the GAO looked at had met all of the standards for best management practices during their development stages

That says it all. But I will elucidate. I'm guessing that none of these systems have anything to do with embedded human intelligence amongst terrorist organizations or preventing loose nukes from former SSR's, but rather they are designed to fight another cold war against China that will line the pockets of Lockheed while doing nothing against our real enemy. Our military budget is a scandal within a scandal. Eisenhower is rolling over in his grave.

War Manifestito

2008-04-01T00:33:00.004-05:00

The one thing in this war and the coverage of this war that bothers me to no end is how American-centric it is. Every news channel had big reports last week about 4000 dead. We lost multiples of that at Okinawa alone in a week, not to mention the loss of life in the Civil War. It seems to me that because this war doesn't include conscripts, just volunteers shanghaied under stop-loss and other fine print, we Americans don't feel the loss as we might have in Vietnam (when any young man might be drafted.) There's really not that many kids dying, so who cares? The US is not vested in a war until there are really serious casualties, especially if they are conscripts.

But what about life in general? Iraqi deaths are immeasurable, but to Americans they are either ignorant or ambivalent. You rarely hear about the cost of this war to the Iraqi, who, believe it or not, is just as much as person as any American. You only hear the party line that we've invaded to secure their freedom. Meanwhile, conservative estimates put the Iraqi loss of life around 100,000 and liberal estimates are closer to 600,000. Refugees by the millions have poured into neighboring countries. I've heard numbers associated with Syria and Jordan, but Iran has certainly had its own share as well. Iraqis that stay live in a poor state with Baghdadis getting but one hour of electricity per day. Their drinking water is disease-ridden filth and they shit in the streets. Employment, such as it is, is rare. Those employed are targets for assassination by militia.

I don't mean to say that life under Saddam was a piece of cake or that freedom doesn't come without a price. I've been watching the HBO series on John Adams lately and learned that freedom does certainly come with a price. The American Revolutionaries decided on their own to be indepenent and free, not at the gun-barrel of a superpower like France. But John Adams' freedom was his own choice and his fellow countrymen were free to disagree and take up arms alongside the British as Tories.

I think it is astoundingly arrogant to think that we can decide others' fate without their input. In the case of the Iraq war, we substituted the plebiscite of the Iraqi people with nefarious politicking by Ahmed Chalabi and many other untrustworthy informants. As a result of their input and the policy decisions made by those who's opinions were shaped by Chalabi and curveball, we've displaced millions, and killed hundred-thousands without hearing their voice. Who knows what they may have chosen? There were other options other than outright invasion. What if, this time, we really assisted the Shi'a with a coup, instead of leading them to the slaughter like we did after the first Gulf War? Our decision making seems not only arrogant, but anti-democratic.

I'll state again that our invasion of Iraq has been the greatest present ever to our enemies in Iran and our enemies in Afghanistan. GW was duped. General bin Laden caught General Bush in the pincer movements of all pincer movements. Bush's team of idiots was flat outsmarted by a dude living in a cave, and a tin-horn dictator.

Getting back to the genesis of the enterprise, the war was never about freedom and the "domino effect" in the Middle East. That was something Cheney made up after he didn't find his precious WMD's. This war never was about terrorism, that's just the rationale given now by McCain which is really just a result of unintended consequences. "The US ran into a morass in Iraq, that's a friendly place for us terrorists to go blow them up," so goes the al-Qaida thiking.

But Bush now contends we're fighting terrorists, surely to stoke up the flag on the lapel crowd (I'm frankly offended that the flag has been co-opted by the right, but that's another post). This is hogwash. Al-Qaida makes up much less than 10% of the violence, many studies agree. But this is Bush's only political move to keep his numbers from dropping far below Carter or Nixon. Keep conflating 9/11 with Iraq. It worked in 2004 with an assist from Fox. I'm waiting to see if McCain stoops to this level.

So why the hell are we there?

Maybe it's just geopolitics and we need airbases? Seems like the new "State of Forces" agreement (which is really a treaty that should be ratified by the Senate) aims for permanent bases.

Maybe it's a Shakespearean tale of revenge against a vile dictator that put out a hit on Daddy?

Maybe it's just hubris. We didn't feel like Afghanistan was enough of a retaliation for 9/11 and we just needed to kick some more ass (Henry Kissinger's viewpoint).

Maybe it was just a power grab for Iraqi oil. If that's the case, I'd like to know who was getting Iraqi oil before the war (Russia, China?) and who is getting the oil after the war (ExxonMobil)?

Maybe Bush's second SOTU speech was true and he seeks to spread democracy around the world, like god told him to do. And he's a moral absolutist that sees just good and evil. Eh, no.

Truth is...oil. We wouldn't give a shit about Iraq if it wasn't for oil. And given his presidential charge, he may be right. Oil is the blood of our livelihood. Not just cars, but manufacturing (here or elsewhere), consumption, you name it, petroleum is in it. The American economy, and therefore the American life doesn't exist these days without oil from the Persian Gulf.

I believe this calls for a Manhattan Project for this century. Tell me where to join up.

War Chaos + Movies!

2008-04-01T00:15:00.002-05:00

From this AP report,

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had promised to crush the militias that have effectively ruled Basra for nearly three years.

Why is Bush running around proclaiming the brilliance of "THE SURGE" when the second largest city in Iraq has been run by a renegade militia for three years? How has the US allowed the main petroleum port in Iraq to be run by the Iraqi mafia and varying militias for three years? If "THE SURGE" was so successful (which it wasn't because it didn't achieve any of its goals), why didn't our hawks propose a "SURGE" in Basra. The answer is, of course, we're out of troops and if we extended tours, there may be a mutiny. Our coalition allies, the Brits, apparently turned the whole beehive over to the militias and retreated to their bases. God, what a clusterfuck.

Why is anyone surprised that war movies like "Stop-Loss" are tanking at the box office? We've seen nothing but war chaos for five years...maybe six or seven. Why would anyone go to see a movie about more war chaos. Movies are escapism. It takes a minimum ten years before people are willing to see movies about a failed war. Witness The Deer Hunter, or even later the first real portrayals of Vietnam, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.

Another War Lie

2008-03-30T01:41:00.003-05:00

In the last few weeks or so, it's become clear that "THE SURGE" may not be all that McCain/Bush made it out to be. General Petraues may not be the genius everyone thought.

The real reduction in violence was supplied by you and I, the American taxpayer, in the form of bribes. We payed off Sadr for a cease-fire, we paid off the Sunni's to stop the civil war and oppose the Iraqi formed al-Qaeda, and we've paid zillions to the Iraqi government which runs the Badr Brigades (and is pretty much run by Iran) the other main militia in Iraq.

So, like an episode from the Sopranos, we must have missed a payoff this week and people got pissed. What kind of money is it going to take to make these people stop fighting? How long will our tax money be taxed by Iraqi militias? I don't think that quagmire has ever been as appropriate as now.

What to do? Keep bribing? It's fucked. Back out? That's fucked too. We're fucked ten ways till Tuesday. Our bumbling ignoramus president brought about our downfall, and it appears that we will elect his step-brother.

McCain's rhetoric is wrong (retreat, and all that), but his basic principle, in my opnion, is right: we started all this this shit, regardless of right or wrong, and if we back out it's going to be anarchy (and the British retreat in Basra will serve as the object lesson). Al-Qaeda is our enemy. They were not in Iraq before the war but they are now. The only reason Sunnis are opposing them now is because were paying bribes. If we, and our bribes, leave, then they have a new safe-haven. We can shift troops to Afghanistan, but then Al-Qaeda will just go to Iraq. We're fucked of our own doing.

Anyone have any good solutions?

I read something very interesting the other day about the Iraq conflict that expresses just how motherfucked we are. I believe it was said by shitass number one, Ahmed Chalabi, who probably had more to do with getting us into this mess than we realize. He said something along the lines of this: your best friend is allied with your enemy, and your enemy is allied with your best friend.

To translate: He said something along the lines of this: your best friend (elected shiite Maliki government) is allied with your enemy (Iran) , and your enemy (Al-Qaeda) is allied with your best friend (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt).

Blech.

Lambert's

2008-03-30T00:39:00.002-05:00

I went to Lambert's on White Settlement for lunch on Friday. It was great. I was with someone who hates Grady Spears with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns, and this person had nothing but compliments. I always thought a club sandwich was a club sandwich, but they've got something up there that absolutely transcends the description. I had a delicious prime-rib sandwich with havarti and horseradish, with some arugula. It was accompanied by some pretty delicious fries; as it happens they make all their fries, chips, and bread there from scratch.

I'd pretty much written of this location as cursed, when so many previous occupants have failed. These guys might have something. Parking is a bitch, so it's handy that they have a valet alternative. It's not terribly expensive at lunch however. The sandwiches are all under 10 bucks, and when coupled with a $2 iced tea is not that bad a deal for this quality. We didn't settle for iced teas, of course, and had four bottles from a very limited wine list. We also sampled all five items from the appetizer menu and all were deemed good. Corn muffins were abundant and tasty.

You should know, in case you order the queso as an appetizer, that the accompanying peppers are serranos, not jalapenos. One of the members of our party made this mistake and learned an invaluable lesson.

Reader Creativity Contest

2008-03-25T17:24:00.002-05:00

A Special Award awaits the reader who can most creatively explain the following two sentences (source article here):

A scheme that trades one male status symbol for another has achieved a large rise in the number of men undergoing vasectomies in a bandit-ridden region of central India.

Shivpuri district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, an overpopulated area renowned for its machismo culture, has started to offer fast-tracked gun licences for those who agree to be sterilised.

Tactical vs. Strategic

2008-03-25T01:23:00.003-05:00

In the current debate about the effectiveness of "THE SURGE" in Iraq, I think an important point is being missed. As anyone that's ever taken an management course knows, there's a big difference between tactical and strategic plans. GW Bush, our first MBA president, from Harvard no less, should know the difference:

Tactical thinking focuses on means and narrow ends, not global ends, and sees things through a relatively short time period. It is narrow in scope, and affects few functional areas.

Strategic thinking employs tactics. There is a parent-child relationship where a strategy seeks the end; and tactics provide the means to that end. Strategic thinking is broad and has a long time horizon.

The "end" that we are talking about is a stable Iraq with political reconciliation. The Bush folks have enunciated this end in many various ways throughout our five years of war, but with respect to "THE SURGE", they did what any proper businessperson would do. They established benchmarks and timetables (to evaluate the accomplishment of these benchmarks.) This is Management 101...you can't manage what you can't measure.

The tactics employed were a combination of military ("THE SURGE") financial assistance, and diplomatic efforts to effect accomplishment of 18 goals (the strategic "end"). All of this was beat to death in the press right after the 2007 SOTU speech with the promise being that we'd have concrete evidence of results in the early summer of that year.

Well, the deadline was extended into September (which might have got me fired as a project manager). And when Petraeus and Crocker reported back to the government in September, only a couple of the 18 goals that had been promised to the American taxpayers to be complete months before had been accomplished. September was six months ago and there is still very minor progress on those 18 goals that were layed out after the SOTU speech in January of 2007.
This can been seen only as a massive strategic failure.

Yet, the government and Republican nominee have been shouting from the hilltops about the success of "THE SURGE". Let me remind you that "THE SURGE" was but one tactic employed to achieve those 18 goals, two or three of which may have been accomplished. Other tactics were dimplomacy and financial assistance.

But yes, violence is down, and there has been an achievement of a narrow end. This narrow end was but one component for accomplishment of the strategic end. Reduce violence so that the government can achieve reconciliation. The politicians claim that "THE SURGE" has been a success. As more and more information filters out from the Iraqi morass, it seems the "financial assistance" may deserve more credit that "THE SURGE". I've heard more and more that the additional US troops have helped a little, but the bribes we've been paying to former militia are helping much more. All the while the US economy heads for recession. We're paying blood money to keep people peaceful. That does not sound like a lasting peace.

But yet again, the goalposts have been moved. Instead of admitting that the strategic end of the 18 goals declared in January 2007 has been a failure, we're being told that one component...one tactic of the overall strategy worked. McCain has taken this as his clarion call for election. But the questionable success of one tactic does not make a strategic victory.

Suppose I were to introduce a new line of shoes. I had a marketing person with a brilliant campaign where people flocked to stores to check out the shoes. Yet when people tried the shoes on they were uncomfortable and did not buy them. The performance of the marketing person is superior (tactics), but the performance of the offering is terrible (strategy). (We could have paid them money to wear the shoes, but how long could we do that without going broke?)

Basically, John McCain and George Bush are running around telling everyone that "THE SURGE" worked, but we didn't sell any shoes.

Pendery's

2008-03-20T12:02:00.001-05:00

As I lifelong resident of Fort Worth, I was unfamiliar with the history of Pendery's. I just knew it was one of the best smelling stores I've ever entered and our ouside freezer is full of the familiar bags of spices and blends.

Pendery's is a spice merchant extraordinaire, specializing in chile blends. They have an excellent catalog, but that is no substitute for the retail store, which has been in FW for 140 years give-or-take in various locations. Check out this article to learn about their history. Or hit their website here.

Temporary Gas

2008-03-18T02:07:00.002-05:00

I think the most important thing that I took out of the podcast about gas (below) is how short the shelf-life it. We're going to be a natural gas boomtown for 5 to 10 years before they've extracted all of the juice out of the Barnett Shale. And I totally support the ideas of turning the Barnett Shale revenue into a FW that is a center for renewable energy. If we don't capitalize on our our current benefits and attract long-term high-paying jobs along with renewable energy, we're poised to be a ghost town.

Scarce resources gave rise to the term ghost-town. We should heed this warning.

Heads up for FW Residents

2008-03-18T01:51:00.002-05:00

The guys over at West and Clear hosted the attorney for the Trinity Trees case on their weekly podcast. Some of you might remember me jabbering on in their podcast from two weeks ago about national politics. But this time they're focused on the issue of how taxpayers of FW are being cut out of the decision about locations of high-impact natural gas wells. I would encourage all FW citizens to have a listen.

Just go to this site and you'll see a "play" button at the bottom. Click play and you'll listen to a bunch of people who are in the know about drilling in FW, including the attorney for the lady that's fighting a high-impact gas well next to a city park where there was some apparent underhanded dealing.

How Dumb are Americans? Now With ODDS!

2008-03-14T22:54:00.005-05:00

Here's my prediction: somehow, someway, Osamy bin Laden will ENDORSE the Democratic nominee.

We're already seeing signs of it. The Republican Scare the Shit Out of People Machine is at work as it has been in '02, '04, and '06. Didn't McCain say that 9 out of 10 terrorists prefer Obama over McCain or some such? Will the people continue to believe that terrorists are afraid of Republicans but emboldened by Democrats? The Republican Party might as well be considered the recruiting arm of Al Qaeda. Republicans are the Super Bowl team that gurantees a win in the press before the game. They keep guaranteeing victory and terrorists keep posting the clippings on their cave-bulletin boards.

Haven't we seen where all this bipolar victory or death guaranteeing gets us? In a bind, by god. With no leverage, because we've sworn off negotiation or compromise as pure French pussy-ism.

Petraeus came out today and announce the surge has failed. It wasn't reported at all. The goal of the surge was achieve 18 benchmarks, 2 of which have been partially achieved. Republicans like Lindsay Graham (McCain's biggest supporter) were saying when the surge was announced during the 2007 SOTU speech that if these 18 goals weren't met by last summer we'd need to consider pulling out. Well, it's 9 months later and they haven't been met. Petraeus said as much today...the Iraqi government isn't reconciling...the goals that were supposed to be met nine months ago or we had justification for withdrawal, per a hawk ex-military Republican, haven't been met. How does everyone forget this?

But Bush does what he's best at. Moving goalposts. How many times have we "turned the corner", or captured the #3 guy. The worst job in the world is Al-Qaeda's #3, because he's killed once a month. How much smoke can one collective country have blown up its collective ass?

The unspoken collusion between Republicans and Al-Qaeda is so Cold War obvious. It's such a win-win proposition. McCain will guarantee a 1000 year crusade thereby energizing Osamy's base and Osamy will guarantee a 1000 year jihad against America thereby energizing McCain's "security-over-freedom, assault-weapons for all, old people and Red Dawn lovers" base and maybe manage to grab up some evangelical rapturists. Meanwhile we keep funneling half the earth's GDP into Lockheed and Boeing who reciprocate by contributing to all the Republican campaigns. I know Eisenhower's quote is trite now, but the Government-Military Industrial Complex circle jerk has gone off the radar.

And America will, by god, buy it. Hook, line, and sinker. McCain will scare the shit out of everyone, and they'll vote for him, and the circle jerk will remain unbroken.

I'm not willing to make a prediction quite yet (but I'll give the Blogorrhea line later), but I'm feeling like McCain will take Rove's 2000 South Carolina playbook and work the Obama Hussein angle, carefully hidden through proxies and surrogates, and win his necessary eternal war by slime. His VP might be someone with economic chops because the economy has tanked and the Swiss Franc is worth more than a Wasington, but more likely, and much more unfortunately he'll sell himself out to get someone to pull in the Christianists. That timeworn formula has worked too well for too long, especially when you have a Democratic Party irrevocably fractured by Hillary and Bill's scorched-earth path to victory or death.

Despite the incalculable seven-year monotony of stupidity, cronyism, law-breaking, scandals, secrecy, vengeance, division, warmongering, and on and on and on... Blogorrhea has Pachyderms 3-2 over Asses. Odds are likely to rise on the Pachyderms unless Hillary chooses a path other than mutually assured destruction. (as an aside...isn't her campaign enough to disqualify her from any leadership position? The hell with that 35 years load of crap, I've seen enough in the last six months to know she shouldn't be in charge of anything more than a hot dog stand.)

A final plea: Americans, please follow the money. Post cold-war Republicans have realized they NEED terrorism to keep the money flowing into their coffers and the terrorists NEED bellicose Republicans to keep up the flow of recruits. A more peace-minded candidate stagnates terrorist recruiting based on lack of invective (and lack of holy-land invasions), and diminshes trillion dollar wars bought on Chinese credit cards, which is better for the economy.

Ramble Over.

Kincaid's Under Siege

2008-03-13T21:32:00.003-05:00

Gas wells be damned. Put one in my backyard. Just don't take away my Kincaid's. The previous links to a story in the Startlegram about how the slumlords over on Collinwood are trying to stick it to FW burger institution Kincaids. I charge fraud!, blackmail!, extortion!, graft!, usury!, burgernapping! They're trying to charge Kincaid's, the lessee, $10 more per square foot than any building in that area could fetch, while garnishing 6% of the take. Plus the building is grandfathered out of many existing regulations, thus making the retrofit cost skyrocket. This is dangerous game of chicken these blackguards are playing with my beef.

The Anti-Bigfoot Faction

2008-03-13T21:25:00.002-05:00

The Anti-Bigfoot crowd has been making a surge in the polls. Now it's tied between those that think a bigfoot could exist an the skeptics out there that are damn sure he/she doesn't. By the way, I take Skeptic magazine, but you might be surprised how I voted. Maybe I'm skeptical of my skepticism sometimes. Although you'd think with all the heat-signature infrared whizbangery we have now, we might be able to detect a ten foot apeman in the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest or the Okeefenokee.

Our Romantic President

2008-03-13T21:20:00.003-05:00

Check this out regarding Afghanistan:

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger..."

When I think Afghanistan, I think romance. As I recall, he had his shot at the romance of bringing democracy to that Gay Paree of the Far East, Vietnam. I guess he just wasn't as romantic back then.

SW to NE Rail Line

2008-03-11T22:20:00.003-05:00

From a post by the West and Clear guys, I got clued in to the public meetings about to be held for a southwest to northeast commuter rail line in Fort Worth. It's about time. Basically the line goes from my house to downtown to the airport. How cool is that. So instead of asking my wife to drive me 35 miles to the airport, I can ask her to drive me one block to the station...easily done in PJ's and comfy slippers in about three minutes. Hell, I could even hoof it on a pretty day. It's pathetic that rail transportation isn't prevalent in Texas. We should have TGV's down the 35 and 45 corridors, but I'm sure we can thank the gas lobby for that. This, to me, is a great first step in the right direction.

Plus Ca Change, Plus C'est La Meme Chose - Au Revoir La "Wire"

2008-03-10T19:34:00.001-05:00

I was going to have a big post signifying the end of The Wire, including characters and their Shakespearean or Dickensian analogs. But I'm not that smart about Shakespeare or Dickens, and my greatest hope is that The Wire has great success in the DVD market. It was an amazing run with too many great characters to even mention. I defy those that didn't like season 2, because it made seasons 3-5 possible and turned the show from a street vs. cops drama into a magnum opus with the City of Baltimore as the main character.

To those of you who haven't watched The Wire, rent it. Watch season one, and see if you don't get hooked.

Spitzer

2008-03-10T19:04:00.002-05:00

All I've got is rhetorical questions...

How did this knucklehead think he wasn't going to get caught? He's the most famous white-collar crimefighter in America and now the Governor of NY freakin' State? Think he may have made a few enemies along the way that have the means to get some dope on him? He makes his name busting Wall St. crooks and he doesn't think they will hire a P.I.? Everyone gets caught. How can the hoi polloi think they are so far above the law?

It saddens me that a true crusader against corporate graft gets taken down by his own hubris. I expect it from congressional bribetakers that have always bent over backwards for they corporate chieftans.

And he gets brought down on a wiretap. Word to all that seek to evade the police: watch The Wire, seasons 1-5. The hoppers on the streets of Baltimore are smarter than the Harvard Law educated Governor of New York.

Makes me miss the passing of The Wire even more.

Joe Ely

2008-03-05T23:56:00.002-06:00

I hate to take the headline away from more important stories about the election, but I saw the Joe Ely show at Bass Hall tonight. Joe Ely is to me, the best live act I've seen. But Bass Hall ain't his forum...Gruene Hall is better, or a parking lot. But I have to admit I was mesmerized by the first six or seven songs...they were food for my heart, a chance to relax and see a seasoned master at his work. We lucked out and got some last minute seats in a box right on the curve between stage right and dead center. Problem was, the box stageside was populated about six songs in by a couple who had neither bought box seats, cared about the show, or cared about anybody that cared about the show. They spoke at high volume throughout the balance of the show, driving me to near fever pitch. Were it not for my wife (who is not known as a patient sort), I was ready to throw down. I went to seek ushers and none were around such was their disrespect. My wife asked them to pipe down and they seemed to wear hear reproach as a badge of honor and kept on yakking. My fury was honed to a sharp blade by the time the show ended and I was ready to turn into American Yakuza. However my wife kept me from this.

All in all, I hate people that have no respect.

Jim Crow or a Metaphor of Modern Life?

2008-03-05T23:19:00.003-06:00

If you haven't read my report from my caucus, please read it below before reading this.

I've been reading the stories of the caucus catastrophes and stories of the pure Jeffersonian bliss experienced by FW'ers yesterday. I'm struck by how the chaotic stories tend to happen in minority rich areas (like mine) and the Jeffersonian stories are from predominantly white areas. I've received feedback about how nobody in my precinct knew how to run a caucus, a fact that was self-evident to everybody waiting in that line last night. And that if we had people that were experienced, it would have run better. I don't know about that because the facilities we were given were not suited to the crowd that showed up. There would have had to have been outdoor heaters, PA systems, hundreds of chairs, etc.

After thinking about it, it just appears like another situation where people don't allocate resources or planning for minorities (see Katrina.) It was my first caucus and I could have been, and should have been, trained up on caucusing. But I was just as bewildered as fellow line-standers. Had I been fully trained, I would have needed an army of people and a facility ten times bigger to deal with the crowd.

Hundreds of people in our precinct were told to caucus where you voted, even if you voted early. The S-T printed that. It wasn't true. If you voted early at place x, you likely caucused at place y.

I can guess how it appeared to the folks in the crowd that remembered Jim Crow. Short-end again. The man ain't letting us vote. These are sentiments I heard many times while standing in line, and I don't blame them because I had the same feelings, minus 150-300 years of disenfranchisement.

So was my experience just a witnessing of classic Jim Crow voter suppression? I don't think so. I think it's more endemic of modern life, where the minorities and the lower classes always seem to end up with less resources and less education than the rest. Were there not enough people that knew how to run a caucus? Apparently there were plenty in lilly-white precincts where Jeffersonian democracy prevailed. There damn sure weren't any in my precinct, which was probably 50% black, 20% latino, and 20% white. I guess it's just like schools, though, no good teachers and no proper resources where they are needed most.

Seems like we continue to provide the most help to those who need it least, and provide the least help to those who need it most.

Bad Caucus Experience

2008-03-04T20:59:00.002-06:00

Having never participated in a caucus, I was looking forward to rockin' out with my caucus out. However, I was sorely disappointed by the nexus of chaos that was the Southwest Sub-Courthouse. Talk about voting irregularities. I haven't had time to fully digest what I experienced, and therefore cannot even attempt to form cogent analysis. So I can only present you with some observations:

An election official named Gene Cates provided what appears to be misinformation leading to potential disenfranchisement of voters. Former city manager Charles Boswell can confirm as the following was spoken directly to his face about five people in front of me. I paraphrase Cates: if voters didn't stay on-site for the actual election of delegates after they signed in, their votes would not count.

This appears to directly contradict the Texas Election Code Section 174.022 (c) which says: If...participants have signed in, any participant who wishes to leave may do so and their sign in WILL count toward the delegate allocation for each candidate.

Not only do Cates' statements appear to be wrong, it would have been logistically impossible for the hundreds, maybe up to a thousand people to wait for the three hours in a heated area. I saw groups of people leave after hearing this message. The workers behind the table were telling each participant the opposite...that they were welcome to stay but did not have to. This was terribly irregular, and it must have been very disappointing for first time voters. Some voters would have to wait in line for at least an hour and in many cases much longer to receive this message. Cates was sending surrogates (other voters) to spread the "your vote wont count unless you hang around for three more hours" message to the incredibly long lines of participants waiting to sign in.

Additionally, the scene completely lacked order. They were running out of sign-in sheets and people were rushing around to make copies. Lines were around the building, and it wasn't until I'd been waiting for about 30 minutes that somebody told us there was a much shorter line for my precinct. There was no signage and such a severe shortage of precinct workers that people were being pulled out of the crowd to work behind the tables checking names and addresses.

Obviously, very disappointing, and I hate the effect that this must have had on the high percentage of voters that have been energized by this amazing election where we will have an African-American or female Democratic nominee.

Turnout Problems?

2008-03-04T09:54:00.002-06:00

Voted today. No line. In and out quick. Nobody at the Republican table. Four or five folks at the Dem table. Weather is always the big variable in primaries and last night's snow could have scared people in.

Podcasting Debut

2008-03-04T08:23:00.002-06:00

I was a guest contributor to this week's West and Clear Podcast. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm really hoping Pete edited out some of my more nervous moments where my way with words was, er, compromised at best...stumbling and incoherent at worst.

I really want to thank Pete, Steve-O, and Kevin for letting me check things out from the other side of the microphone.

Is the Old Stuff Always Better?

2008-02-29T21:53:00.003-06:00

I was commenting over on West and Clear, who were kind enough to give me a shout out for my 80's Texas Music post, about whether, in Uncle Tupelo terms, I was a Farrarist or a Tweedyist.

But it got me to thinking about a music conversation I'd had with Jim a while back. I seem to have a bit of old-timers disease. I may have posted about this before back in the first iteration, but it's a good question. I always seem to like (enter band name here)'s old shit better than their new shit. The only example of newer stuff that I like might be the Beatles. I like Rubber Soul better than the yeah, yeah, yeah stuff of the early Beatles. But the Beatles were a paradigm buster. Some examples, yeah? Totally off the top of my besotted head, in no order:

Johnny Cash
Willie Nelson
Queen
AC/DC
U2
Son Volt
Wilco
Jayhawks
Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Old 97's
Steve Earle (although some may argue with me here)
Police/Sting - by far
Clash
Robert Earl Keen
Bob Dylan
Jefferson Airplane/Starship- hah!
Elvis by god Presley
Rush
Eric Clapton

This is clearly subjective, but let's hear what you think. I'd like to hear about bands that defy the paradigm as well as theories as to why my theory my exist. Is it me? Or do bands just get rich and lose their creative will?

Terror Attack in Fort Worth - The Manchurian Rodent

2008-02-29T20:24:00.010-06:00

Make no mistake, today Fort Worth was attacked by terrorists using a most cunning and evil plan. A martyr-squirrel was directed, possibly through mind control or some other nefarious terror technique, to gain entry into a major power transformer in Southwest Fort Worth. On the premises, the squirrel, imagining the 70 slinky squirrel virgins that awaited him in a better place, carefully positioned himself (making use of his extensive terrorist jungle-gym training) such that power would arc through his squirrel body, thereby taking down the grid for about a half-second, but also making denizens of SW Fort Worth, like me, be confronted with the extreme deprivations of boiling water (or just walking out to the garage to get one of the 6000 bottles of Ozarka we bought at Costco last weekend.)

The major side effect, however, was taking down all the irrestistable eateries frequented by we SW Fort Worthers. The terrorists obviously had their eye on havens of freedom, their admitted enemy, like Lotus Chinese Buffet, where mostly obese diabetics may freely eat just about anything they want in the quantity preferred. Ditto for Golden Corral, another bastion of democracy. Sadly, there will be no Monte Cristo or French Dip sandwiches served at Bennigan's tonight...Long John Silver's and Arby's will remain empty as an example of our underestimation of the terrorist threat. Domino's will not deliver tonight, Mr. bin Laden.

This attack is not without precedent, however. In a training exercise in College Station, TX yearly 18 years ago, al-Qaeda and its evil minions put their to 9th century ideology to bear on Texas A&M university where another martyr-squirrel was used to short out the transformer, thereby cancelling a day of classes. Their diabolical plan resulted in thousands of A&M students drinking themselves silly at numerous watering holes...thereby weakening their resolve to fight radical Islam.

Wake up, people! Start wearing flags on your lapels, for that is the only real way to defeat these depraved caliphatists.

UPDATE: It has just come to the attention of this news gathering organization that Mike Huckabee, in town campaigning for the Texas primary, has gone to the transformer station and requested that he is given the carcass of the martyred squirrel. Huckabee, responding to questions from reporters about the purpose of his visit, said, "I'm a conservative, and as a conservative, I'd hate to let a perfectly good barbecued squirrel go to waste. I picked up some hot dog buns and mustard over at the Kroger's, and we aim to eat some squirrel-dogs tonight."

Poll Results

2008-02-27T22:57:00.002-06:00

We have so small a sample size, it makes the margin of error huge. But I think I know a little bit about the demographics that visit the site. I think it's interesting that right now according to my poll, Hillary is more electable than Obama. I say this with some knowledge of national polling which would suggest a different result. But at this time, I'm still just an uninterested statistician.

Also, I'm really interested in how the bigfoot voting turns out. Right now, it's a clean shutout. I'm researching all things bigfoot right now and will comment after the poll is over.

Thoughts While Lying Awake at 4 am

2008-02-27T03:37:00.004-06:00

The point at which one goes from awake to asleep is a physiological mystery to me.

Was it Nietzsche or one of those communists that said "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Maybe it was Lenin. Too lazy to google it. I do know that Nietzsche said that a casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith doesn't prove anything. Anyway, please alert Bartlett because Steve by god Buckellew has a new quote: Religion is welfare for the simple mind. That's right. How imperious is that? I thought about just saying: Religion is welfare for the mind. That might have been better, but then I'd have to argue with all the C.S. Lewis folks.

I know it's so often quoted as to be a cliche, but the last line from The Great Gatsby is fabulous. Hope I get it right (f it, I'll google). "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." True that. Fuckin' brilliant line.

I checked a Nietzsche website to validate that it was a Red that said the above about religion vis-a-vis opiates and ran across this quote, "A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy." This subject came up in our salon (read: barroom) earlier tonight with divergent opinions, of course. What else would you want in your salon?

OK Pepys...and now to bed. (I'm so embarassed by that but I'm compelled to leave it in.)

Alt-Country Reminiscing

2008-02-25T23:07:00.003-06:00

Back when I was in too deep in the alt-Country scene, we witnessed a young cocky prick Ryan Adams with Whiskeytown, an amazingly good band that unfortunately was always labeled as an Uncle Tupelo wannabe band, kind of like Slobberbone. Here's a live cut of them doing one of their earliest songs on Austin City Limits:

Compare this with Uncle Tupelo of a similar vintage:

Every time I saw Uncle Tupelo or Son Volt, whenever Jay Farrar would put that maroon Angus Young Gibson SG over his neck, you'd know Chickamauga was coming up, and, in Son Volt's case, the lead guitar could just step on back.

I saw that Wilco was up for a grammy this year. Proof positive that Jeff was Paul all along...as if there was any doubt.

Of course Gram Parsons started the whole thing. Precious little Gram of quality to be found on YouTube.

Gyroscope musing

2008-02-25T20:14:00.002-06:00

I've been down with the flu pandemic for the better part of week, and thus have had plenty of time for cold-medicine induced musings on the nature of everything. While most of this resulted in predictable self-absorption, one bright light was my memory of a gyroscope I owned as a child.

While sick I lacked both the cognitive function and the dexterity to research this further, but today I am somewhat hale and hearty and thusly dived into Wikipedia to discover the fascinating world of the gyroscope.

Well, it appears I've overrated several things: 1) my current cognitive ability, 2) the benefits of my engineering degree from Texas by god A&M University, and 3) my memory of the greek alphabet. All you common men and women out there, like me, need to consider the gyroscope as a black box that does good things for us, sort of like electricity. Know that the gyroscopic effect is, in effect, a good thing if you are riding a bike, travelling by ship, or, er, launching ICBMs.

I have vague memories of lower-case omega (w to most of us) meaning angular momentum, but absolutely no intuition or perspicacity whatsoever into what this means. I'm not sure if I ever knew, if I forgot after the test, or if my brain has atrophied so much from my lifestyle choices. I'm absolutely sure I never knew the importance of the gimbal. Selah.

For those of you bold enough to seek new horizons in physics, search no further than here.

More Examples of Sickening Kowtowing by the Bush Administration

2008-02-20T21:28:00.002-06:00

And this one has to do with the ludicrous border fence.

Just 69 miles north, Daniel Garza, 76, faces a similar situation with a neighbor who has political connections that reach the White House. In the small town of Granjeno, population 313, Garza points to a field across the street where a segment of the proposed 18-foot high border wall would abruptly end after passing through his brick home and a small, yellow house he gave his son. “All that land over there is owned by the Hunts,” he says, waving a hand toward the horizon. “The wall doesn’t go there.”

In this area everyone knows the Hunts. Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his relatives are one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world. Hunt, a close friend of President George W. Bush, recently donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush’s presidential library. In 2001, Bush made him a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where Hunt received a security clearance and access to classified intelligence.

Wouldn't want to piss off the Hunts, would we?

What I dislike about Democrats

2008-02-19T20:14:00.002-06:00

In a comment to a previous post, Jim asked me to describe what I didn't like about Democrats. There's plenty of things I dislike about Democrats. I don't like the welfare state, I don't think giving people money encourages them to be productive. And from my experience, the government runs things badly and is terribly behind in terms of automation of menial tasks. I'm not all that against universal healthcare, on economic terms, because the countries we compete with have it and our healthcare cost is built into the price of our products which makes us less competitive. I agree with the Democrats that we should treat our veterans well. I dislike their coupling with Hollywood and the sponsorships that are borne of that relationship. I don't think that's good marketing to middle America...but it surely makes them campaign money.

Most of all, I guess, I'm leaning Democratic because of all the awful, callous, retchingly heinous things I've seen in the last seven years. I like the Democrats because:

they haven't used legalese to put themselves above the constitution
they haven't ok'd torture
they haven't put party cronies in positions of power and failed to do their duty
they haven't issued one-sided contracts to companies they used to run, and milked the taxpayers while reaping exorbitant revenues and providing sub-par services to out soldiers
they haven't lied to go to war
they haven't neglected a legitimate war against our enemies to fight an illegitimate war against our non-enemy
they haven't outed CIA agents out of revenge against truth-tellers
they haven't made political hay and an unprecented monarchical power-play out of a national tragedy
they haven't made a yes-man attorney-general
they haven't sat on their ass while New Orleans was sinking
they haven't been anti-science
they haven't refuse to send condoms to Africa because of the bible and accompanying political implications
they haven't treated veterans like shit
they haven't chosen an ambassodor to the UN that is opposed to the existence of the UN
they haven't been associated with Donald Rumsfeld
they haven't been in bed with the Saudis
they haven't disputed the existence of global warming
they haven't dilly-dallied on the urgency of adopting renewable energy
they haven't outsourced a war to mercenaries who are above any law
they haven't created a prison in Guantanomo which is beyond the law
they haven't blamed only lowly officers in a torture scandal that was approved at the highest levels
they haven't been lax with Russia because they "saw into their soul" or some such.
they haven't fired attorneys that didn't meet their political ends
they haven't threatened war with Iran, when prior intelligence says there is no causus belli
they haven't failed to caputure bin Laden. Everyone needs an enemy to justify their bellicosity.
they haven't suspended habeas corpus
they haven't broken the law by bypassing the FISA court to wiretap without warrants
they haven't ok'd black sites and extraodinary rendition of people that are not charged with a crime and all too often innocent of anything
they haven't been involved with Jack Abramoff
they haven't let oil industry executives, including Ken Lay of Enron, write the people's energy policy
they haven't diagnosed Terri Shiavo from the Senate floor via TV
they haven't been borrow and spenders, thus making the deficit more and more and more....
they haven't stacked the Supreme Court with religious idealogues
they haven't created a Medicare drug program that is anti-competitive
they haven't allowed the VP to create his own intelligence operation to cook the books on Iraq and justify war leading to hundreds of thousands of dead people
they haven't allowed the head of he Bush campaign in Florida to oversee a recount in which he most likely lost
they haven't been responsible for trying to torpedo the 9/11 commission (why?) and then refusing to provide documents
they haven't been responsible for not implemeneting the recommendations of the 9/11 commission
they haven't been the authors of a doctrine of preemptive war
they haven't screwed the reputation of the US worldwide...diplomatically and personally.
they haven't been oblivious to the Israel/Palestinian issue which is at the heart of most Arab/West problems
they haven't been behind any of the egregious signing statements in which the president claims to be above the law
they haven't authored any guidance related to the "unitary executive"
they haven't stretched the military to the point of breaking, including using national guard troops in extended duty overseas
they haven't allowed people such as Karl Rove to keep their security clearance after outing a CIA agent
they haven't nominated a crony like Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court
they haven't staffed HHS positions with religious idealogues
they haven't called for a freakin' Constitutional Amendment disenfranchising gays
they haven't banned photographs of caskets showing the cost of war
they haven't been stewards of the housing bubble
they haven't been involved with Karl Rove and his attempted politization of everything.
they haven't been fans of Paul Wolfowitz
they haven't "lost" all of their email required by both an archive policy and presidential records policy.
they haven't nominated Bernard Kerik for anything
they haven't shot anyone in the face
they haven't rewarded failures like Tenet, Bremer, and Franks
they haven't hired all their lawyers from evangelical shoolx (Monica Goodling et al)
they haven't said that everthing would get better after the fall of Baghdad, the capture of Saddam's sons, the capture of Saddam, the creation of the parliament, the fist vote by the people, the purple finger vote, etc. This Republican Party is all about spin.

US becomes African Dictatorship Watch: Iraq for Sale

2008-02-19T18:18:00.005-06:00

Iraq for Sale is a documentary about the shit-fuck way our corrupt government has lined their pockets by killing hundreds of thousands of people. And they don't give a fuck. In Bush's signing statement that I blogged about a few weeks ago, he reserved the right to prevent audits on contractors. Why in the holy-hell would he do that if he's a conservative and cares about keeping costs down? It's so corrupt it is frightening. And idiots like me and you are funding it. Just as an example, Halliburton charges us, the people, $100 for one serviceman's load of laundry. And they don't even get it clean. One guy decided to do his own laundry in the sink to actually clean it and his superiors told him that was verboten...he had to use Halliburton. Where is the competition that the free market provides? It makes me sick.

Halliburton's stock price has quadrupled during the war...and they've provided the shittiest service to our beloved volunteer army. They've also served them with filth-water and sent civilians into battlezones when they knew in advance they would be attacked. Where is the rage?

Updated: The situation is so bad, it makes me more cynical than usual. The nature of the cost-plus contract between Halliburton and the government encourages Halliburton to be inefficient. If a seatbelt in their Hummer breaks down, they burn the vehicle and buy another one. The more they spend, the more profit they make. Which takes us back to service level agreements. Why in the fuckity-fuck wouldn't someone in the government write SLA's into the contract? This just makes me think it was a Cheney deal to make his stock go up. Sickening.

Jon Katz

2008-02-19T17:20:00.003-06:00

Jon Katz was born in the city, but one day decided to load up his naivete and head for the country. It's an earnest Green Acres that he describes. Relying on the kindness of strangers, he's managed to turn himself into a some sort of farmer/rancher in upstate New York. He reports in occasionally with a column on Slate. This latest effort is all about his goats. The wife and I went to hear him speak recently while he was on a book tour. He filled Casa Manana, such is his following. His transition and the bulk of his work centers around border collies and their amazing work effort, and I'd recommend starting with this story about Rose. It's a great teaching point about working dogs and their relationship to humans. He also maintains a pretty good blog about life on the farm here.

Mittens!

2008-02-17T07:17:00.002-06:00

Mark it down, people. I've had it. As of today, February 17, 2008, I will no longer be wearing those ineffective, clunky garments we call gloves. Put me in the mittens column. They provide a modicum of tactile dexterity while also keeping your fucking hands warm...something that gloves don't do. Selah!

Fascism Roundup

2008-02-16T19:06:00.004-06:00

I've been painted as a hysteric on other websites because I took the bait and made a most unfortunate move...playing the Hitler card with respect to our goverment. Without a doubt, we are not headed down that path, as we will have a peaceful tranfer of government next year and there will be no holocaust here. I mentioned Hitler, in my comment, as a cautionary remark because of the gradual manner in which he took power, which reminds me of the Bush administration's gradual power-grab.

Hitler was popularly elected and manipulated the government to concentrate powers in the executive branch, much as Bush has done. He relied on Joseph Goebbels to spread propoganda across Germany, similar to how Bush relied on Cheney to continually link al-Qaeda with Iraq long after the jury was in and decided there was no connection.

My argument, that I've made here many times, is that our government relies on checks and balances, which have been absent in the last eight years allowing the executive branch to call all of the shots. I firmly believe this was based on a callous decision to take advantage of 9/11 to push the neo-conservative agenda.

I mentioned Hitler, obviously, because he's the best known dictator of our age. I could, and possibly should, have referred to what Robert Mugabe has done in Zimbabwe, or Mao, Idi Amin, Suharto, Duvalier, Franco, Mussolini, or Pol Pot.

Smoker

2008-02-16T00:17:00.002-06:00

I got a new smoker back in the fall and I've yet to properly deflower the thing. I've got some folks helping me, but, I'm asking you, dear reader, to provide me with some ideas for the smoker. I'm open to everything...from technique to dry rubs. Let me know what you think.

Goodbye to a River

2008-02-15T23:59:00.002-06:00

I've been re-reading John Graves' "Goodbye to a River". This is a brilliant tapestry in which Graves weaves tales of the Comancheria with his last trip down the pure Brazos between PK and Whitney. At the time, the BRA figured they'd turn the Brazos into a "string of pearls", meaning a river dammed quite frequently between PK and Whitney. Our naturalistic protagonist puts in at the PK dam in a canoe with a dachsund, some rations, and a shotgun. The output is a dazzling portrait of an otherwise bleak landscape of scrub mesquite, gravel shoals, and an unstoppable river. Graves stops frequently to recount the history of a certain bend in river and how it shaped the future. This is one of the truly great regional books that any Texan concerned with conservation of our natural environment should read. If just to hear the internal angst within Graves' mind over shooting a goose when he is starving.

Crossposting Rants

2008-02-15T22:13:00.002-06:00

I've been involved in an interesting discussion over here. Francis took umbrage at Keith Olbermann referring to Bush as a fascist. I agreed with him at first, then I thought about it a bit. Something I didn't mention in my comments was the craven way in which Bush took advantage of a national tragedy, 9/11, to fearmonger and create an environment for more war. We should have been in Afghanistan stronger and not in Iraq at all. This is possibly why I like Obama. The last election was about fear...Bush trying t scare the hell out of people into a second term. He scared his base enough to get elected by two or three percent, then claimed a mandate. What a fool. Maybe I'm a fucking sucker, but I like a campaign that's not based on trying to scare me into a bomb shelter. I think McCain will run on fear and try to repeat what Bush did in 2004...he's got nothing on the economy. Sheesh.

Realization

2008-02-12T21:34:00.003-06:00

Shout out to Food and Fort Worth Blog

My friend Francis writes about serious subjects like the gold standard, classical art, and our current political maelstrom, then he drops a serious muffin recipe on you...or how to make the perfect cornbread...then it's on to debates, technology...and then how to make perfect scrambled eggs. Scrambled Eggs is a nice metaphor for his blog. I cheer him for his ability to make that work, while I toil away with my half-drunk political invective. I am truly humbled, because he's as much a political junkie as I am.

I've learned from him and I hope to bring you more stories of leatherback turtles that cross the Pacific for mating.

Excellent Reivers Remembrance

2008-02-12T14:28:00.000-06:00

Apparently the Reivers, one of my favorite Austin bands from the eighties played a couple of reunion shows in Austin. Steve-O over at Caravan of Dreams has an excellent write-up of the show and a remembrance of the band here. Included is this great vintage youtube of "In Your Eyes" featuring Kim Longacre's soaring voice:

Breaking Turtle News

2008-02-08T09:48:00.000-06:00

A leatherback turtle swam across the Pacific Ocean...from Indonesia to Oregon. The results were presented last month at the sea turtle symposium. Why don't I ever get invited to events like that? It sounds far more interesting than a wedding shower. I need to learn more about the leatherback turtle. Stay tuned.

My Problem with Republicans

2008-02-07T15:09:00.001-06:00

I've been chatting today with a Republican friend on issues that would most likely bore readers to tears. Statistics on the effect of tax rates on equity prices and the rigor involved in the analysis. Nuff said. He said, "I blame the Republicans on spending. They are supposed to be about small government. They haven't been."

This made me wonder what they are about. As many of you know, this is something I've devoted quite a bit of time thinking about. So here's my rant/response:

They're [Republicans] about centralization of power...the so called unitary executive that, in an era of neverending war, can claim constitutional authority to ignore the constitution. Who's the best candidate to return traditional separation of powers? Who's the best candidate to bring some independence to the rubber stamp supreme court (instead of installing huntin' buddies?) Who will prize competence over loyalty? Long-term constitutional erosion and centralization of power certainly is in the best interest of no American whatever your point of view.

I was reading the CIA factbook on Kenya the other day trying to smarten up on the turmoil over there. I noticed that the head of the judiciary is appointed by the president. I immediately thought that this was a tremendous conflict of interest, until I realized that, with the complicity of a congress that has valued party loyalty as the greatest virtue, we have the same system. Add to that the head of our justice department has been a lockstep crony, we're practically a freaking sub-Saharan African government.

This is the stuff that riles me up a lot more than tax policy, we don't have any perfect candidates obviously, and I think Hillary's just as likely to continue Bush's trampling of the constitution. So my choices are McCain and Obama. I think McCain will have to pander to the far right and appoint far-right activist culture-warrior judges that will affect the country for 20 or 30 years. Obama will bring back some balance there, hopefully will be checked by congress on more liberal paternalistic tendencies, quit throwing good money at a recalcitrant Iraqi "government", maybe put more effort into Afghanistan, and, hell, maybe there is something to a hopeful vision (people seemed to like Reagan...)

CORRECTION to Texas Primary Delegate Allocation

2008-02-07T12:33:00.000-06:00

Proving that the internet is a flawed medium. I was recently made aware of a retraction to the post on delegate allocation in the Texas primary. Correction here. Salient bit:

A total of 126 delegate positions (three-quarters of the base delegation) will be distributed to presidential candidates based on the results of the primary. Forty-two delegate po- sitions (one-quarter of the base delegation) will be distrib- uted based on the number of people attending the party’s conventions. The delegates themselves will be elected at our State Convention June 6-7, 2008, in Austin.

That first post did seem awfully convoluted. I deleted it so as not to misinform any further.

Notes on Super Tuesday

2008-02-06T16:16:00.000-06:00

To prove my masochistic bona fides, I watched nine straight hours of Super Tuesday last night on MSNBC. Here's my unusually brief thoughts...

Republicans:

I was really surprised by the complete repudiation of Mittens as a candidate. Given how Huckabee suprisingly won all the south, it appears that the rednecks just can't swallow Mormonism.
McCain, for the most part, won a bunch of blue states that the Pachyderms don't have much hope of winning in the general election.
While McCain is much more tolerable to me than the others, I still worry about judicial appointments and would have trouble pulling that lever for him.

Democrats:

I agree with the punditocracy that Obama and Clinton pretty much fought to a draw.
One good thing I saw was that Obama did very well in the deep South among white voters.
Hillary still owns the Latino vote. Is this a vestige of the ages-old ethnic tension between Latinos and African-Americans? I'd like to see the exit crosstabs on Latinos that would not vote for a black candidate.
Will the Texas primary matter? It certainly could. Polling numbers here show Hillary has a huge advantage because the aforementioned Latino vote, but Obama has spent no time or advertising here. He has the cash and it would be interesting to see if he could close the gap. Plus, I'd love to go to an Obama rally. Stay tuned for March 4.

Inside a Presidential Signing Statement

2008-01-29T16:20:00.000-06:00

With all the other calamities and electoral bluster from the hustings, we haven't heard much about the President's usurpation of signing statements as his own unconstitutional line-item veto. Today, thanks to this article, we can pull back the curtain on a particularly onerous signing statement.

From the White House website:

Today, I have signed into law H.R. 4986, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. The Act authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, for military construction, and for national security-related energy programs.

Here's the kicker (bold mine):

Provisions of the Act, including sections 841, 846, 1079, and 1222, purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the President's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as Commander in Chief. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.

Keep in mind, this is signed into law just like the Schoolhouse Rock video showed us when we were kids. Wondering what those sections might be that our Chief Executive is choosing to ignore?

One such provision sets up a commission to probe contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another expands protections for whistleblowers who work for government contractors. A third requires that U.S. intelligence agencies promptly respond to congressional requests for documents. And a fourth bars funding for permanent bases in Iraq and for any action that exercises U.S. control over Iraq’s oil money.

To recap:
1. He can ignore a law that calls for a commission to probe contracting fraud.
2. He can illegally deny protection to whistleblowers who work for government contractors.
3. Contrary to the law, Congressional requests for documents from intelligence agencies can be ignored.
4. He can controvert the law and set up permanent bases in Iraq and he can continue to assert US control over Iraqi oil money.

When I say monarchy, I mean it. Erase Schoolhouse Rock from your memory banks, because government doesn't work that way any more. The sheer gall of this goverment is appalling, certainly impeachable, and potentially treasonous.

Kennedy Endorsement of Obama

2008-01-29T10:28:00.000-06:00

From comments to this post...

I agree that TK will not help BO with crossovers at all. This is a big risk on BO's part that he doesn't lose the crossovers that he's been successful with so far by aligning himself with a polarizing liberal. It's obviously an attempt to chew into HRC's hispanic and white blue-collar base.

The strategyI see playing out in the Democratic primaries right now is a battle of personalities. The issue positions between HRC and BO aren't that different until you get down into the weeds, and once this stuff gets into congress it'll change quite a bit from their positions in stump speeches. The galvanic Obama movement now is largely a reaction to the win-at-any-cost approach of the Clintons. Democrats are remembering the primrose path they were carried down in the nineties and are becoming convinced that they'd prefer an alternate path to four more divisive years of potential Clinton scandal and the vitriol that will be induced from the right-wing.

Rush Limbaugh goes to sleep at night with wet dreams of a Billary presidency. Most of the country is beginning to realize that eight years of Bill and Hill might not be all that fun, not to mention a bitter general election that will top the charts for the lowest form of sleaze-mongering.

If you didn't hear the State of the Union, let me congradulate you. But if you'd like to read my condensed live-blogged analysis, check it out below.

Semi-Live Blog of the SOTU

2008-01-28T20:26:00.000-06:00

I'm going to attempt a semi-live blog of the State of the Union. It's Tivo'd so I can FF thru clapping. So no timestamps with comments. Warning this is long and boring. Read at your own peril.

Sergeant at Arms does his bit and Bush starts glad-handing down the aisle.
Why did Chris Shays (R-Conn) kiss Bush on the cheek?
Obama is sitting with Teddy. I'm curious how much of a punch Teddy will give Obama. I'm thinking mebbe not so much.
Shot of the first family. Jenna either is injured or was never taught how to clap like a normal person.
Pelosi introduces Bush. Everyone hollers. Don't get that.
He's pleading for compromise and bipartisanship. Little late for that pards.
He just said he believes the appropriate guide for our country is the "collective wisdom of ordinary citizens." Good line, but I haven't seen much of that in seven years. Haven't we become more oligarchical (sp?) and relied more on the few? I believe we've turned our backs on this collective wisdom and moved closer to monarchy. If I truly believed that, why would he have claimed a mandate in either election with either no majority or a very small one? Both of his elections have been characterized by the alienation of half of the electorate after gulling most of the other half with fear-mongering. Collective wisdom, my ass.
"Trust in the ability of free people to make wise decisions." This shit infuriates me. I'm five minutes in and ready to turn this bullshitter off. There's about five people in his administration that make all the decisions and to hell with the "free people." None of these decisions have anything to do with "free people making wise decisions" or the "collective wisdom of ordinary citizens." What horseshit.
Stimulus Plan...borrow and spend...still don't get it. Congress' fault.
Tax Relief. Also Congress' fault.
Veto any tax increases. Just keep borrowing.
Government should balance the budget. No shit sherlock.
Seven years in, he's ready to take a hardline on spending.
I like the sound of this. No earmarks can be slipped in through the transom at the last minute. Somehow he's going to only allow earmarks that have had a vote. That sounds like a great idea that should have been done a long time ago. Congressional hypocrites all stand and cheer.
Mortgage relief, blah, blah.
Health care, blah, blah.
Education, blah, blah. Boys and girls with dreams, blah, blah. Reduce dropouts, blah, blah.
Trade, blah, blah.
He just said, "embolden the purveyors of false populism in our hemisphere." He said it really slowly, but he got through it. I think what he meant was that if we don't sign a free trade agreement with Columbia, look out for another fucking Hugo Chavez, but I wonder how many of his "ordinary citizens" caught that.
Euphemism alert: Trade Adjustment Assistance = what the Federal Government will do for you when you get outsourced.
Energy. Security, prosperity, environment require lessening our dependence on foreign oil. We've made some progress in seven years. No. 1 idea...clean coal. Cop out. He slipped in "renewable power" very quickly before he hit a big applause line with nucular power.
Now he wants an international agreement to slow, stop, and reverse the effects of what he euphemistically calls "greenhouse gases." Seems like we could have done that about seven years ago if we'd have really tried. Standing O. Cheney claps lacklusterly.
Says we need to trust our scientists and engineers to go forward and conquer. Now I'm waiting for the stem-cell shoe to drop... Double funding for the "physical sciences" he says as he sashays away from evangelical controversy with this clever code. Go kick some ass all you geologists, we'll get some out of work geneticists to help you.
Here we go. "Moral boundries." Shoe has dropped. Standing O from all bible-thumpers.
On to Justice. I just hit pause right after he said, "...trust in the wisdom of our founders." I can't imagine how much what he's about to say is going to piss me off. His AG has a picture of Orwell hanging in his office for chrissakes.
...pause again..."empower judges who understand that the constitution means what it says." Or are willing to interpret it with amazing creativity for everything having to do with war powers, justice, habeas corpus, unitary executive, etc. What a hypocrite.
Now to volunteerism. All about faith-based stuff.
Katrina and the "Armies of Compassion"??? Some meeting's gonna be held in New Orleans. Hopefully they'll have some breakout meetings in the ninth ward.
Entitlements, blah, blah. Didn't like my idea, you guys fuckin' fix it then.
Immigration. He just said that we need to create a lawful way for foreign workers to come here and support our economy. I thought we already had a lawful way? In fact I'm sure of it.
On to WarTalk. This year's policy: "We trust that people, when given a chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace." I would certainly choose it, but I'm not sure that I trust that everyone else would choose it. Sounds like he's choosing for them. Nothing new here.
Some stirring moments in the history of liberty in the last seven years: Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq. I'm not so sure all of those have worked out so well buddy. How about what we've seen in Russia over the last seven years, or Venezuela? I'd agree those are stirring moments in the history of liberty.
"Deliver justice to our enemies" and Cheney springs up like a gymnast.
There's Jenna clapping like a four-year old again.
3200 Marines headed for Afghanistan. About time.
Here we go. SurgeTalk. I wonder how often he mentions the political benchmarks for which there has been little progress...the justification for the troop increases. Let's see... He just changed the whole justification for the surge...just like that. He said we gave the troops a new mission: protect Iraqi people, pursue the enemy in strongholds, and deny terrorists sanctuary. Of course, the surge didn't have anything to with political progress. And there's some conflation of "terrorists" and "the enemy" but that's old hat.
"The surge has achieved results none of us could have imagined just one year ago." One year ago, he said the Iraqi government was going to meet all of these benchmarks or we were going to bail. So, logically, he knew that there would be no political progress in a year? I'm very happy for the improved security of the Iraqi people and I'm gratified that our troops, along with the Anbar folks have enabled security improvements, but let's call a spade a spade. You said by doing x, z would happen. Y happened, which is nice, but it's not z.
He mentioned Osama almost as if he's part of the intelligence community. If Osama says it, it must be true.
Troops are coming home. Huge applause. But didn't they have to come home because their tours were up in March and we couldn't extend tours again?
Just hit the benchmark issue and claims that some progress is being made politically. Pretty much danced over there.
Quoting more Al Queda leaders as though they're part of our intelligence operation. I'm sure they're telling the truth.
More standard "we will prevail" saber rattling. Blah, blah.
Another call for two-state solution in Israel/Palestine.
More Iran axis of evil type stuff. Said nucular twice. Some tough talk to Iranian mullahs.
Here comes torture/domestic spying talk. More warrantless wiretapping fear-mongering. More protect AT&T from breaking the law talk.
Just called Sudan a genocide for the first time.
Good God this is getting tiresome.
Now we're going to stop famine by buying our crops from poor countries. Bet that'll go over good in Iowa.
Hey, spend some real money on AIDS. Like that.
Another great idea, pay for veterans benefits.
Sounds like this shit's about over. About time. He said the state of our union's strong. I wish he would say that it's not so hot right now.

Olbermann is reading the freaking riot act right now.

Confused about the Stimulus Package

2008-01-28T17:59:00.000-06:00

Unwise borrowing and profligate spending have the been the primary causes of today's economic crisis. But, it seems there is bipartisan, unanimous support for more of the same as the solution to the problem. The economic stimulus package basically is to borrow a bunch of money and give it to people so they can go spend it thereby making the economy better. I don't understand this thinking.

Why not, say, build high-speed rail between here and Austin? Wouldn't this have the same "trickle-up" effect? People get employed, they buy stuff from people who then need to hire more people to make up for the increased demand, and so on. And in the end you have something that's good for the economy, the population, and the environment. And every dollar gets spent, whereas with a handout, some fool may decide to save some of it (not many of those types left.)

Maybe I'll be enlightened by George tonight during what is sure to be the lamest-of-duck speeches. Hopefully more on that later.

SC/Florida Political Roundup

2008-01-26T18:43:00.000-06:00

I have to say I'm heartened by the results coming out of South Carolina showing Obama with a very large lead. Last week's troubling win-at-all-cost intercession by Bill Clinton on behalf of his wife was at the very least unbecoming a former president and probably very enlightening to many left-leaning independents. While it appears that part of the victory was due to a large African-American turnout, I still want to believe that independents are gravitating towards the uniting Obama and against the divisive political hatchet-job machine of the Clintons. I shudder to think of a Clinton general election and possibly a presidency. Things were incredibly divisive with Bill, become ten times as divisive with Bush, and I fear would be 100 times worse with Hillary. I feel now, more than ever, that it is time to end the Bush-Clinton dynasty.

That said, the Republican primaries seem to have devolved into the predictable dick-measuring, bible-thumping, fear-mongering and flag-waving that it always does. If given the choice between McCain and Robo-Romney, I'd clearly take McCair despite his warmongering consistency. Throughout the Bush administration he hasn't been afraid to ask for accountability. And frankly, while I don't think the Democrats are proposing this, precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake. Going into Iraq was a bicentennial calamity, but what's done is done. It's like sunk cost in economics...you can't think about money already spent when evaluating the path forward. What's done is done. Now what do we do from here?

Thankfully, it appears that the Huck-demon has been exorcised. I hope Ron Paul stays in and throws bombs as long as he can, although his version of libertarianism is anathema to me. I'm also thankful that the megalomaniac Giuliani seems to have been neutered, lest we best Orwell.

By the way, I read somewhere that our new Attorney General had put a portrait of Orwell on his office wall. How long until the election? I'm hoping for the following question in a future debate:

MR. RUSSERT: Would each of you support an AG that hung a portrait of Orwell in his/her office?

As if you couldn't tell...

2008-01-24T13:56:00.000-06:00

My "Poem" below occured after the last drop of Chivas began to wreak havoc on my questionable liver...

Poem, maybe.

2008-01-24T00:14:00.000-06:00

And don't forget, the men and women that we quote, revere, and dogmatize are still men and women.

When they arrive home in the evenings, they are harried by their spouses about their uncut hair, ill-kempt pants, and shabby shirts.

Listening to the daily gossip, they feign interest or ignorance. They still must take their pills, drink their liquor, ingest their tobacco, and do their business.

And after they've eaten their frozen whatnot and watched their reality slop on the TV, they head off to bed. And sleep is not easy. Sleep is the hardest of all.

They've awakened finally yet fitfully, tossing back deathly dreams, and it's time to face another day. Not dispirited, they go.

PED's in Sports

2008-01-23T22:32:00.000-06:00

Performance Enhancing Drugs in Professional Sports. I'm going to hit it theoretically first. I'm sure this argument has been made many times, but our professional athletes are our gladiators, with the exception that our athletes choose to enter the arena. In this case, when I am a spectator and the subjects are basically meat...albeit they've chosen to be meat...what do I care what they've done to their bodies? Let 'em get the glory, money and the girls, they'll burn out quickly. They're adults and they should be able to choose. If they choose to burn fast and brightly, who am I to say that's wrong. We live in a chemical society, but is it really so different than societies of our ancestors? Do you think that if the Romans knew of steroids they wouldn't have pumped it into the veins of their warriors?

But there's the rub. What about the kids who want to be warriors? There's lots of non-moneyed kids that see no future in being anything except a warrior. So what do we do? Invest in high-technology, high-cost, and potentially civil-liberty encroaching testing regimes for all children involved in athletics? Decide that as a culture we will have a chemically-enhanced warrior class? Bitch of a question.

Option 1: Allow the chemically-enhanced warrior class. Freedom of choice. But spend bundles of money on testing the 18 and unders that don't have freedom of choice. The cheaters tend to always outwit the testers...the old proactive vs. reactive argument.

Option 2: Test everyone all the time. Massive cost and massive first amendment issues. Still the cheaters will be ahead of the testers.

Option 3: Do Nothing. Leave it up to the parents and local authorities. Some parents and local authorities will be unscrupulous and not protect the well being of children.

Option 4: You tell me....

Not surprisingly, some people over at Reason Online share some of my opinions. Just read this article. I really wish it delved deeper into testing and underage athletes.

WNC Podcast

2008-01-23T22:00:00.000-06:00

I've been consume with podcasts for the past couple of years. Every day at work and at night I'd consume all of the best radio and internet audio possible. Basically, podcasts are Tivo for radio and internet audio. True on-demand listening. I've been in a bit of a lull lately...I'm way behind on "Wait, wait don't tell me" from NPR and "Anything you ever wanted to know" from KERA.

I guess KERA was the closest thing I'd ever listened to that approximated local content. I've been reading the local blogs now for several months and have recommended many of them to you. Especially West and Clear, which brings various FW bloggers together. They're the Led Zeppelin of FW bloggers. Well, since a few of them drop by here every now and again and I'd hate for them to get big heads, maybe they're the Asia of FW bloggers. Anyhow, they do a weekly podcast that I just got caught up with. They cover all FW local issues political, recreational, gustatorial, etc. So, podcast veterans and novices should check 'em out here.

Guys, if you need someone to sit in, I'll buy the beer (and it won't be Lone Star.)

7th & Throck - Park Needed

2008-01-23T21:29:00.000-06:00

Anybody know the plans for the former Landmark tower site at between 7th and 8th and Throck and Houston? I drive by there everyday and walk around there a lot. I think this would be a fantastic spot for some central downtown greenspace. Wouldn't it be great if there was a big park with a fountain in the middle? The majestic FW Club building to the West makes me think about great inner-city parks in giant cities abutting great old buildings. As a downtown worker, I think this would be a great boon to the area.

Germania

2008-01-18T01:25:00.000-06:00

A girl from Germany has been hanging around my gang lately. She's from Cologne (Koln). There will be more to come later, when she sends me some pics from back home. I've been pretty relentless in questioning her about German psychology in the wake of the holocaust. Apparently and appropriately, the feeling is giant communal grief and regret which has manifested itself in a kind of anti-nationalism. Saying "I am German" is completely verboten. Flag flying doesn't happen. She says it's way too early in the healing process. Actually saying that your German doesn't happen, so large is the the communal grief over the actions made sixty-five years ago. She also told me of copper cobblestones laid at the entrance to houses formerly owned by Jews. They list the names of the disappeared. No German steps on these cobblestones.

Coupla Thangs

2008-01-17T03:52:00.000-06:00

Here's a list of the retailers planned for the Museum Place development at 7th and University. For former Austin residents, we should be excited about a Z-Tejas in FW...especially the brunch.

And here's a site for a bunch of jingoistic belt buckles that was up on my wife's laptop. Lucy, you've got some 'splainin to do.

Condensed Book Reviews

2008-01-17T02:49:00.000-06:00

Recently, I've finished the last two Cormac McCarthy books. I'm really not one for book reviews, but I'll do my best...or something. I decided to knock out The Road, and No Country for Old Men on advice from a friend.

I'm used to the beautiful Faulkner-esque sentence construction, combined with the blood-and-guts brutality of his border trilogy and Blood Meridian. These latest books deviate quite sharply from his former writings.

They are both well worth reading and I highly recommend them both. I'll say that I can't wait to see No Country the movie because it reads like a screenplay. The Road, however, should be read not seen. This is no pulp fiction thrill ride. I've never read anything remotely like it in my life. No character in the book has a name, or needs it. The best books demand that the reader manufacture the scenes, characters, and interactions. This book demands a lot of the reader, and the reader is better off for it.

OK, enough book reviews. I'm reading some crazy shit right now that my mother-in-law gave me. She and I generally enjoy the same books so I'm sticking with it...

No Title

2008-01-17T02:12:00.000-06:00

I haven't had much heart to blog lately. My heart hasn't been in it and my brain has been dormant. The dreary, seemingly endless holiday season sapped all of my vacation days while returning very little in the way of fun. Constant managerial shakeups at my employer. Political ennui stemming from the primary season. The turgid end to the Cowboys season. The bitterly cold weather that I will wake up to in the morning. I don't believe there's an English word to describe my state of mind, but there's probably one in German.

I've spent the first part of the week at an "off-site" meeting with my new boss. When I darkened his door at 7:30 AM the other day, I have to admit I was a little shocked to be greeted by life-size cardboard cutouts of Kirk, Spock, and Picard, among thousands of dollars worth of Trekkie memorabilia. I can't express the internal conflict in going from his holodeck-inspired A/V room, to his immaculately garaged Lamborghini, then out onto the yard where horses, dogs, cats, and every manner of fauna frolick unabated.

It takes far less than this to drive me to drink, but drink seemed the only refuge short of a Kerouac inspired road trip. I needed something predictable...reliable to screw my head back on. Luckily the lunchtime mafia was settled in at the speak-easy at about two (I can't give away names or places). After the four-hour lunch, we spent time at the former Pirates' Cove and the unfortunately-name Mule. My head was screwed, but not yet screwed-on.

Now I can't sleep, or see straight, and am accompanied only by a lifeless cat curled up like a breakfast pastry. What's to say? I have no wisdom to impart to you, dear reader. There's a shitpot of gas wells up in the north country, but that will come as no surprise. Also unsurprising, there's an assload of traffic on local highways that makes me glad I usually am able to reach work on major arterials. The cat just left and Dell is notifying me that if I do not find a power cord, I face impending death. As the clock nears three AM, I must look elsewhere for inspiration. The book beside me promises no solace, and I dare not turn on the TV...I'll go get the power cord.

Need Financial Answers

2008-01-11T23:42:00.000-06:00

Finance ain't my thang so I'm delegating. This is directed at our CFO, Jim L (who will be bullish) and anyone else that cares to comment...

Admit it, we're heading into a recession?

Oil-profit laden Arab countries are buying the debt of our banks. How is this good?

We're funding the war in Iraq (and everything else) with Chinese investments. How is this good?

If we keep dropping interest rates like we did five years ago, what's to prevent another bubble? Wont it just create another rush to refinance or grab home equity? Thus kicking up home depot stock for a short time until the check comes do?

Roman Empire reference: how do we pay for all of our wars? While cutting taxes? Guns or butter? I'm starting to be serious about this now. Talk of empire was cheap 7 years ago, but we've really got to re-evaluate the situation. Ron Paul has a point, in my opinion, that we just can't afford our colonial impulses.

Jim, I'm going to need a better answer than "cut the corporate gains tax". I feel we're in desperate times.

Technological Convergence

2008-01-08T12:35:00.000-06:00

As I'm slowly getting back to normal after the holidays, I have to admit that I'm facinated by the technological convergence we've seen this season with smartphones, iPhones, wi-fi enabled iPods, and the like. One of these days we'll have true robust convergence of all of these devices with richer content. But, I have to admit, I didn't see this particular feature as part of my dream device:

You know what a bother it is to carry both your MP3 music player and your Taser gun?
Worry no more.
Today at CES, Taser International introduced the Taser MPH -- the first combination hand-held music player and Taser.
The player, which has a 1-GB capacity that can hold about 150 songs, is embedded in a holster that slips on your belt. Feel the need to zap someone and you can unholster the Taser, use the built-in laser pointer to aim, and blam -- a couple of darts carrying 50,000 volts hits your victim.
And you don't have to miss a beat.

What's next? GPS enabled handgun?

2007 Best Of Fort Worth

2008-01-02T05:21:00.000-06:00

First of all I would like to give thanks to the Famous Grouse, who has made this possible. Thanks to the folks that contributed. Unfortunately, this is a monarchy.

Song/Album that you dug the most (doesn't have to be released this year): Tin Soldier by the Small Faces. Forty years ago, but I had to go through hell to find it.

Book: The Road - Cormac McArthy. I read a ton of books this year, but none was as moving as this Pulitzer Prize winner.

Accomplishment: I accomplished nothing other than getting the blog back up. My wife has yet to murder me and the cats are all happy.

Prescription Drug: Xanax

Technology: 500 Gig external hard drive.

Shoe Store: That online shoe store that sells the flip-flops I like. The ones with the silly bottlecap openers on the sole. I can't remember the name.

Place to get a haircut: I like Sundance Hairstylists. Joe is missing a few fingers, which I think helps make the hair wash better.

New Purchase: my second iPod, after I left the first one out in the rain.

Pet: Our Poofus is still the best cat.

Reunion: I guess my 20yr, but it was a catastrophe.

Movie: Ratatouille hands down. Although I just finished "No Country for Old Men" (Cormac McArthy again) last night and I'm anxious to see the movie.

TV Show: The Wire is the best show on TV but I don't think it was on this year. I'll go with the Sopranos. I enjoy Dirty Jobs and Mythbusters as well. The Wire started its final season Sunday and I aim to enjoy every minute. Keep your eye on Snoop.

Spanish Language show that you watch but don't understand: El Rojo Vivo or some such. News show at 4pm with the two hottest Latinas you've ever seen.

Thing you've subbed out: Everything lawn related.

Addiction:Malady/Disease/Infection/Sore that won't go away: Got this thing on my elbow...

Day Bar: Shamrock. I can usually be found there at 3pm on Saturdays.

Nightspot: Oui Lounge

Drink: Chivas Rocks

Patio/Al Fresco Dining: This is an area where I think FW needs improvement. I'll cough up an out of the way joint...The Point. It's by Lake Worth, has good bar food and a great view.

Restaurant: Sapristi. While Del Frisco's rarely disappoints, Sapristi offers such a variety of great options that you don't get at a steak place. I've definitely had my most enjoyable meals this year at Sapristi. Sunday Brunch is awesome.

Lunch: My favorite lunch place, The Parthenon, went the way of the dodo. The best place to have lunch in FW is Bella Italia. It'll cost you, and it's best to know someone. It's damn near a private club, and that's the way Chef Carlo wants it.

Dinner: Steak at Del Frisco's. Plain and Simple.

Entree: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite Mexican food. This year I've become enamored with the Milano de Res at El Asadero. Mexican chicken fried steak that is three kinds of delicious.

Appetizer: Fried Oysters at Del Friscos. I was there the other night and we ordered them as an appetizer. This guy we were with liked them so much he ordered up a humongous plate as an entree.

Burger: Lili's Burger with the gorgonzola dressing is about the best thing I've ate all year.

Soup (the most anticipated category): Caldo de Pollo at El Asadero. If you have a cold or allergies, this will help.

Pool Hall: I think I've played 'em all, and Rusty's has the best tables to lose you money on.

Bar Tables: They all suck. Get the straightest stick you can find and shoot 'em hard...don't let the crooked table f you up.

Note on Pool: If you're really serious about playing pool on a good table with good sticks, email me.

Best Beer: Anywhere, but I like Swithwick's on tap at Shamrock.

OK, I'm done for this year. Let me know if there's something I've omitted.

Polls

2008-01-02T05:05:00.000-06:00

I think I'm going to ditch the polls for two reasons:

1) The high-minded resaon...such a low sample size severely weakens any statistical inference.
2) The low traffic makes me look silly.

Judge for yourselves the predominating factor.

Back

2008-01-01T22:03:00.000-06:00

Back from holidays. Looking real forward to 2008. Peace be among you....or something.

Immigrants

2008-01-01T21:28:00.000-06:00

I believe immigrants should learn English. Most immigrant groups, desiring to be assimilated, have also wished this same thing although it usually takes a generation. But, of course, there are zealots like Sen. Tom Tancredo (R-Co) for which this isn't enough. Tancredo, oblivious to history, says this:

"English is the language of this country, and we should not be ashamed of that. It holds us all together regardless of where we come from, regardless of our backgrounds, our histories. It doesn't matter. We need that thing to hold us together."

Sounds like he would like to sweep cleen any evidence of immigration other than the Mryflower. Sweep clean the Chinese and Irish immigrants that built the railrod. Sweep clean the Africans that, as slaves, reaped our crops. Sweep clean the humongous amount of work Mexican laborers do all over the country.

I think if Tancredo had his way he'd rename all of our cities. If you look at the names of cities, you see how diverse we are:

San Anonio = Tancredo would rename to St. Anthony
Pennsylvania = Penn's Woods
Vermont = Green Mountain

No telling what Tancredo woul do to Indian names like Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, and Arizona.

St. Pat's New Steeples

2007-12-25T00:45:00.000-06:00

St. Pat's downtown will finally get steeples after 100 years in the waiting...

Religious Right Backlash Against Santa Claus?

2007-12-24T23:44:00.001-06:00

I'm wondering why there isn't a backlash against Santa Claus among the religious right. They rail against Halloween as a pagan holiday. While Easter and Christmas are clearly pagan holidays that were conveniently adapted to Christianity (Feasts for the changes of seasons...I think in Roman times it was Saturnalia and Lupercalia but I lack the wherewhithal to look it up right now.)

If he (Santa) sees you when your sleeping, knows when your awake, and knows when you've been bad or good, he's either a member of the NSA or some sort of omniscient god. Since it's probably not the NSA thing, I'm going with the latter.

If it's the latter, then Santa Claus is either the GOD or "a" god. Doesn't this go against the monotheistic claims of Christianity? The religious right certainly takes a more literal reading of the bible, and I don't think there are any claims about gift-giving, mall-habituating, red-coated elders that fly reindeer from here and yon. Clearly then, Santa Claus screws up the whole monotheistic tenet of Christianity. Why haven't I heard Bill O'Reilly or Mike Huckabee decry Santa Claus? Sure it's fine when there's a specter of witchcraft involved, as with Halloween. But, I would contend that getting reindeer to fly is certainly witchcraft.

Yes, I'm being hyperbolic and cynical, but again all I want is consistency. I wonder how many Christian children ask about the relationship between God and Santa, and I am especially curious about the responses given by the evangelicals. It may be easier with Catholics, because there is a trace of paganism intrinsic to the religion...worshipping of saints and whatnot.

It seems the truth is that Santa Claus is all about marketing, just like Valentine's Day. Some merchant in New York City read some stories from Europe and the U.S. and concocted what we now know as Santa Claus.

In 1863, a caricaturist for Harper's Weekly named Thomas Nast began developing his own image of Santa. Nast gave his figure a "flowing set of whiskers" and dressed him "all in fur, from his head to his foot." Nast's 1866 montage entitled "Santa Claus and His Works" established Santa as a maker of toys; an 1869 book of the same name collected new Nast drawings with a poem by George P. Webster that identified the North Pole as Santa's home.

Not noted was that this was in the middle of the American Civil War (which is the only "war" to outlaw slavery...every other nation seemed to figure out slavery was wrong without a war.)

I have no children, except cats who could give a shit about Santa Claus, but how does an avowed monotheist justify Santa Claus? For those that are not literalist Christians, it seems like a fun thing for kids, but for the hardcore Christians, I wonder how they can justify this? Rudolph's nose is clearly deviltry.

S-T Article on Our Friend in Baghdad

2007-12-20T10:54:00.000-06:00

I'm certainly no war-mongering neo-con Cheney zealot, but I admire my friend Steve for making a decision to make some sacrifices to be part of the solution in Iraq rather than sit here and complain. Here's an article on him from yesterday's Star-Telegram.

More Polls

2007-12-18T23:28:00.000-06:00

As a feller with quite a bit of statistics under his belt, I'm compelled to keep adding polls now that I figgered it out. However, as a feller with quite a bit of statistics under his belt, I realize I got me a serious issue with sample size and the resulting confidence intervals I can use to infer actual preference (along with some pretty serious demographic issues). Fuck all that. I encourage all readers to vote just for the hell of it. It's anonymous and interesting, and I can do some mild inference based on this blog's demo.

Consistency Found!

2007-12-18T20:12:00.001-06:00

I'm always prattling on about consistency and hypocrisy. There's finally an organization that I can applaud for "Outstanding Consistency in 2007" award. And the winner is...Blackwater.

Blackwater shot the NY Times' dog after the dog refused to comply with their orders. Outstanding consistency. They treat everyone the same whether Iraqi civilian or canine. I have a feeling they view them both about the same, and both have the same command of the English language. Way to go, Blackwater.

It's five A.M. and I'm obviously idealistic, naive, and delusional

2007-12-18T04:37:00.000-06:00

I was speaking with a friend the other day that is a died-in-the-wool advocate of supply-side economics that is knowledgeable enough to correct my misconceptions about the Laffer Curve. He told me that it was necessary that our government reduce the tax rate on corporations lest they would all relocate to Caribbean tax shelters, thus diminishing our revenue.

I haven't really thought about it until just now...a sleepless night, and I'm lying in bed thinking about the relative effect of tax rates on government revenues, what a life a mess can be. Back to the story, he's promised me statistically inviolable evidence that cutting taxes increases revenues, by the way. I hope to share that with you good people. But that's not what's been eating at my craw while I lie awake in bed.

What's eatin' at me is the constant assault on the patriotism of individuals and small groups coming from the likes of Bill O'Reilly and his Fox cohorts. A lack of patriotism for one or two folks while traditional (that's a key word here) American companies dive for the nearest tax shelter or overseas headquarters to avoid paying American taxes to fund the programs that they have lobbied to enact. If patriotism is so damn important to these Fox people, why don't they apply the same standard to the people that really have their hands on the wheel? (Answer: because they know who butters their bread.)

It's no secret that our government is run by corporations that pay huge amounts of money to K-Street firms to write legislation that increases their bottom line or eliminates their liability. But they do this while employing teams of lawyers and accountants to take advantage of every loophole and offshore opportunity to duck paying the taxes that pay for their legislation.

O'Reilly gets his ratings on a kind of traditional populism. He's a classic patriotic flag waving fear monger that is willing to shred the constitution if it means killin' terrorists. He conducts "War on Christmas" campaigns to rally the bigoted elderly Christian majority against the sometimes equally repugnant far left multiculturalists (that he labels Secular Progressives). It's a pretty easy fight considering his major demographic is the seventy plus crowd.

Well I've got a storyline for you Mr. O'Reilly. Stop being a hypocrite and start some true populism. Rage against the machine (that owns you). If O'Reilly were true to his populizm, he should demand that corporations that are profiting from war pay their taxes. Likewise, corporations benefiting from lenient regulations garnered through lobbying should pay their taxes. Corporations based in Nassau should lose their lobbying privileges (in the US, that is. They are welcome to lobby the government of Bermuda for anything they like.)

In conclusion, it's five A.M. and I'm obviously overwhelmed by idealism, naivety, and delusional thinking. I'll return to my normal cynicism sometime tomorrow (today) or the next day (tomorrow).

Speaking of Food...

2007-12-18T00:53:00.000-06:00

I darkened the door of Lili's for the first time today at lunch. I've read and heard reports that I was missing out on the best new thing to hit the hospital district. They were doing a land office business so it took us a while to get in, but get in we did. Man, did I throw down on the Lili's Burger. This was a sloppy burger, because of the gorgonzola dressing, bounded by two jalapeno buns (that may have been biscuits.) It was a rare nap-inducing treat. Of the table of four, the CFS was also highly recommended, with the King Ranch Casserole and the Lettuce Wedge/Grilled Chicken garnering only middling reviews. They should have known to go straight for the burger. Soup was good too.

The environment at the joint seems equally suited to hipsters, business types (we saw a lady being interviewed), and your run-of-the-mill Joe...although it'll cost you eight bucks for a burg. High female-male ratio.

I may have illegally parked at Panther City Bikes, so I apologize for any lost sales I may have caused.

On a Lark...Adding Voting to the Page

2007-12-18T00:48:00.001-06:00

Just for the hell of it, I decided to try out blog voting. To start out with, I picked the ever-contentious topic of food - namely Italian (or, in some cases, what passes as Italian).

So for the love of everything Stromboli, vote! I just want to see if this sumbitch works.

I guess I could have been more controversial and asked which type of music do you like best...country or western?

Ownership Society

2007-12-17T21:09:00.001-06:00

I was reading an article earlier about how Greenspan and Bush were defending themselves against accusations that they enabled the sub-prime crisis because of their Orwellian "Ownership Society".

Then in this article about Iran shutting down Internet Cafes, I realized an entire new level of ownership society. Witness the following quote:

"Our people want their women to be able to go in the streets with respect and want their dignity to be protected," senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami told worshippers in Tehran on Friday. "Our people want the society to be morally clean."

The keyword in the quote above is the first "their". Women are still property over there. I bitch quite a bit about about the erosion of freedom in this country, and I'm shocked that women have only been enfranchised for 87 years, but I really feel sorry for people with no freedom.

Which is reason enough to protect the rights we have. There are plenty of people in America that are willing to shred the constitution to make America "morally clean" in their eyes.

I urge support Chris Dodd's filibuster of the Telecom legislation that pretty much holds them harmless for their illegal collusion with the Bush Administration on wiretapping. I anxiously await what Sens. Clinton and Obama do to support Dodd's actions (I have a feeling I know how Ron Paul would vote).

Speaking of Bush's dint for Orwellian titles, I think the name of the legislation in question is the Protect America Act or some such.

Progress in Iraq?

2007-12-17T16:54:00.000-06:00

You can't swing a cat without hitting three or four people trumpeting all of the success we're now experiencing in Iraq and what a great strategy we have in the "surge". I find all of this unsuprisingly short-sighted given that the "surge" was supposed to be about abating violence to foment political reconciliation and progress. No less a surge advocate than Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this back in September:

"What we do can affect the outcome. But if we don't see progress on two of the three big issues -- oil revenues, de-Baathification, provincial elections -- in the next 90 days, it may not happen. And Iraq could be a failed state."

Last I checked, no political progress along these lines has occurred? Is Sen. Graham (for whom I have some respect for his independent thinking and tough questioning) ready to make a pronouncement? Or do we just keep dragging it along...?

Will on Subprime Crisis

2007-12-17T16:47:00.000-06:00

Here's a quote from George Will on the subprime crisis that I find particularly salient:

Perhaps Washington's intervention in the subprime problem reveals the tiny tip of an enormous new entitlement: People who voluntarily run a risk, betting that they will escape unscathed, are entitled to government-organized amelioration when they lose their bets. The costs of this entitlement will include new ambiguities in the concepts of contracts and private property.

I like the analogy of an ARM to a bet, because that's basically what it is.

Scat Lounge Question + Whisky tasting

2007-12-13T01:57:00.000-06:00

I have it on pretty good authority that there's no cigar smoking inside the Scat Lounge. Can anyone from the W&C community confirm? I can see both sides, but a few of our readers (and the writer) enjoy a good smoke now and then.

By the way, I attended a very good scotch and cigar tasting at Bar 9 tonight and heard that there will be another one next week on Wednesday about six. Scotch is provided by local distributors and smokes by my good friends at Tobacco Lane downtown (in the Sinclair Building at 5th and Main).

New Oil Maps

2007-12-13T01:34:00.000-06:00

I love these new maps that show the relative importance of areas according to criteria. Here's a map that depicts countries by size according to their oil production. Click on the map to take you to where I found this on Andrew Sullivan's site.