27 February 2006

If you didn't see him during Bush vs. Kerry '04...

...Jimmy the Cab Driver (actor Donal Logue) did an important public service by explaining why he supported Bush. Check out my favorite, Episode 6: Halliburton, and the rest...they're scattered in the left column of this page from MoveOn. Somehow even more glorious, nearly two years later.

25 February 2006

Here's a gem from Dan Savage...

...who has written a delighfully sassy sex advice column in my favorite newspaper, The Onion, for years. Savage is proudly and loudly gay, and once dedicated a lot of energy to circulating a new meaning for Santorum, the surname of the huge homophobe senator from Pennsylvania. Looks like Dick Cheney's birdshot-related mishap has inspired Savage to focus on a new phrase-of-the-moment:

Confidential to everybody:
"Pearl necklace" is out.
"Cheney" is in.
Pass it on.

24 February 2006

I love stencil art...

...talented people can do some compelling work in the medium, be it on the street or on a more formal canvas. Stenciling is fairly simple but often quite visually engaging - and when political symbolism enters the mix, stencils become a great example of a picture being worth a thousand words. Here's a striking design I came across on the Internet...I've misplaced the source, unfortunately, but I think the piece is interesting enough to share anyway:


22 February 2006

I've mentioned Bob Filner before...

...he's the U.S. Representative for California's 51st District, which includes the southern chunk of the city of San Diego and stretches eastward along the US/Mexico border all the way to where California meets Arizona at the Colorado River. I just discovered Filner last year, and he is one of my favorite players in politics - one of the most persuasively progressive voices in the House, and the type of person whose background and positions strike me as embodying precisely what I want in a politician.

I've seen Filner speak on two occasions; he spoke intelligently, and with charisma, and I'm growing to like his writing, as well. Here's an excerpt from a recent editorial on health care for veterans he penned for The Nation:

A decade ago American veterans' healthcare system had become notorious for its deteriorating facilities and mediocre quality of care. It was no way to treat our veterans. But under President Clinton the VA system underwent a sea change. Where it had mainly offered inpatient care in often dirty, antiquated hospitals, the VA system was rebuilt to focus on outpatient care in modern clinics built in locations readily accessible to veterans. Equally important, eligibility requirements were changed so that every veteran could enroll. The number of patients doubled to nearly 5 million a year, and the quality of care rose with it.

By 2003 a study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that veterans' healthcare, once ridiculed by conservatives as a travesty of "socialized medicine," had come so far that it equaled or surpassed the quality of even the most expensive private healthcare systems in America. VA healthcare had transformed into a promising model for a full-scale public healthcare system.

In the full article, Filner goes on to note that, in contrast with Clinton's budgets, President Bush's spending plans have stopped well short of fully funding the VA system, which sure seems like a strange way to "support the troops," and could be related to the VA's success as a publicly financed and managed healthcare program. Filner also endorses a recently introduced bill that would ensure the VA system is adequately funded from year to year.

15 February 2006

But a hunting accident's an accident...

...the real story from Cheney's interview with Brit Hume, which I originally mentioned in the post below, came toward the end:

Q: On another subject, court filings have indicated that Scooter Libby has suggested that his superiors — unidentified — authorized the release of some classified information. What do you know about that?

A: It's nothing I can talk about, Brit. This is an issue that's been under investigation for a couple of years. I've cooperated fully, including being interviewed, as well, by a special prosecutor. All of it is now going to trial. Scooter is entitled to the presumption of innocence. He's a great guy. I've worked with him for a long time, have enormous regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case and it's, therefore, inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the case.

And here comes the chess move.

Q: Let me ask you another question. Is it your view that a Vice President has the authority to declassify information?

A: There is an executive order to that effect.

Q: There is.

A: Yes.

Q: Have you done it?

A: Well, I've certainly advocated declassification and participated in declassification decisions. The executive order ...

Q: You ever done it unilaterally?

A: I don't want to get into that. There is an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously focuses first and foremost on the President, but also includes the Vice President.

I'd guess that this issue is going to come up again in the near future.

So Cheney's always made me queasy...

...and this past weekend’s Dick-shoots-hunting-buddy story had already struck me as incredibly bizarre, symbolic, ironic, karmic, et cetera. And then I read the transcript of today’s Cheney interview by Brit Hume of Fox News and the bizarro factor clicked up another notch.

There was one laugh-out-loud line from Mr. Hume, who – after Cheney described how his errant shotgun blast had struck his homeboy in the face, neck, and torso – came through with this follow-up:

Q: And you — and I take it, you missed the bird?

Other than that, it was Cheney time, which was less funny and more strange and shiver-inducing, much like Cheney himself. Here’s Dick telling Hume how he and one hunting buddy had split off from another hunting buddy:

Q: There was just two of you then?

A: Just two of us at that point. The guide or outrider between us, and of course, there's this entourage behind us, all the cars and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there.

So you’re out there in the country…you’re creeping up on quail…with an entourage of cars and so forth following behind you? Oh. Okay.

A. But the bird flushed and went to my right, off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. Didn't know he was there ...

Q: You had pulled the trigger and you saw him?

A: Well, I saw him fall, basically. It had happened so fast.

Q: What was he wearing?

A: He was dressed in orange, he was dressed properly, but he was also ... There was a little bit of a gully there, so he was down a little ways before land level, although I could see the upper part of his body when ... I didn't see it at the time I shot, until after I'd fired. And the sun was directly behind him — that affected the vision, too, I'm sure.

Ah, the old sun-in-eyes-defense - touche. But there was an interesting “oops” moment in the middle of that second sentence, wasn’t there?

A: But the image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired, and there's Harry falling. And it was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life, at that moment.

Welcome to Iraq, Dick. But maybe there's a bright side...maybe this tragic experience will be for the better - will foster positive change in you - will impact how you live your life?

Q: Will it affect your attitude toward this pastime you so love in the future?

A: I can't say that. You know, we canceled the Sunday hunt. I said, look, I'm not — we were scheduled to go out again on Sunday and I said I'm not going to go on Sunday, I want to focus on Harry.

Kurt Vonnegut's new A Man Without A Country...

...is a skinny little book that recycles a lot of old material but also offers some choice new gems:

Our government's got a war on drugs. That's certainly a lot better than no drugs at all...But get this: the two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed, or tiddley-poo, or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was sixteen until he was forty. When he was forty-one, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

And in case you were wondering, the other abused and addictive and destructive substance Vonnegut talks about is one that has also played a big part in President Bush's life: oil.

06 February 2006

I love how a good analogy drives home a point...

...as we see in this excerpt from a NYTimes article entitled "Holding Fast to a Policy of Tax Cutting":

[In his new budget] Mr. Bush proposed an array of savings in domestic programs, including big reductions or cuts in 141 programs. Critics asserted those reductions would do little to ease the deficit even as they imposed real hardship on some people, constituting pain for little gain. Gene B. Sperling, a former economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, compared it to a man who leases three fully loaded Hummers, finds it stretches his family's budget to the breaking point, and decides his family has to start buying cheaper peanut butter.

04 February 2006

Recently made a couple cost-saving changes...

...First, I changed Wavelength's Internet subscription from a $30-a month merchant plan to a $12 a month plan that drops the merchant-related frills but still includes the website and the associated storage space. I then incorporated a shopping cart from PayPal, which accepts not only PayPal but credit cards, as well. The new cart allowed me to end Wavelength's subscription to a credit card processing service, which saves another $20 a month.

Previously, Wavelength yielded a total of 4% of each sale to the web host and to the credit card processing company. Now, PayPal will take about a 4.5% slice of site revenues.

Nonetheless, that minor uptick in variable costs doesn't faze me because the total overhead for the website - with plenty of bandwith and the ability to accept credit cards - is now just the hosting fee of $12 a month. Not an unreasonable price for a global storefront, IMHO.

01 February 2006

Here's The Onion on last night's Bush speech...

President Creates Cabinet-Level Position To Coordinate Scandals
February 1, 2006...Issue 42•05

WASHINGTON, DC—In his State of the Union address to the nation last night, President Bush announced a new cabinet-level position to coordinate all current and future scandals facing his party.

"Tonight, by executive order, I am creating a permanent department with a vital mission: to ensure that the political scandals, underhanded dealings, and outright criminal activities of this administration are handled in a professional and orderly fashion," Bush said.

The centerpiece of Bush's plan is the Department Of Corruption, Bribery, And Incompetence, which will centralize duties now dispersed throughout the entire D.C.-area political establishment.