December 31, 2006
Happy New Year
My cab is on the way and I started drinking a while back. Have fun and be safe tonight...DWI's are way more expensive than cabs, yo!
Posted by mcblogger at 06:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Weak sister
When I worked for a hedge fund, we used the phrase 'weak sister' to describe assets that were not performing well. That came to mind recently when I read this article at the El Paso Times. Norma Chavez is our weak sister
Her name was one of 84 remaining on a pledge list Craddick released Thursday. Before other Republican speaker candidates came forward, 109 House members were on that list.Last week, Craddick told Chávez and state Rep. Chente Quintanilla that $43 million for the Texas Tech University medical school would be in the budget next year.
Money for the school has been in the budget before but has been cut out by House leaders. In 2005, the medical school money was stripped at the same time $13 million was appropriated to a clinic in Craddick's hometown.
Asked why she believes the money will stay in the budget this year, Chávez said, "I have (Craddick's) word this time, and in previous sessions there were broader discussions, not the commitment I see this time."
State Reps. Quintanilla, Pat Haggerty and Joe Pickett were on the older list supporting Craddick, but they did not appear as supporters Thursday.
Haggerty said he told Craddick he had not yet decided who would get his vote. He said he has been unsatisfied with current House leadership and would vote for the candidate who promised a more inclusive administration.
Craddick has a reputation for wielding vise-like control over the House and quickly stifling opposing viewpoints while forcing members to vote in line with his agenda.
Pickett and Quintanilla did not return repeated calls requesting comment on the speaker race.
State Rep. Paul Moreno, D-El Paso, said he planned to stick by Plano Republican McCall's bid to lead the House.
He said that money for the medical school would come no matter who leads the House but that his constituents and poorer Texans would benefit from less-partisan leadership. "That medical school (funding) is just wiggling a carrot, that's all," he said.
Norma... the loyalty? How about loyalty to your constituents, all of whom could, as Rep. Moreno elegantly put, benefit from less-partisan leadership? The money for the med school is finally going to come but after all the lies and bullshit, you're still going to stick with CradDICK? What's he have to do to get you stop carrying water for him Norma? Set your hair on fire?
Posted by mcblogger at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 30, 2006
Hang high, Saddam; Bush cowers in Crawford
Regardless of what you think about Bush’s war of choice, the death of Hussein is welcome. Unfortunately, the time line of questionable decisions that got us to this point will go down as a dark period in U.S. history. Also, the potential for escalated violence due to his demise is real.
Only time will tell if his execution will initiate a positive or negative response from the Iraqis. The vast majority of the Iraqi people have had a huge burden lifted, but wasn’t that the idea behind the U.S. liberation.
You still have to question the timing. Why couldn’t this have waited till after the Kurds trial? Didn’t it seem hurried so as to take the heat off from the coverage of the worst sectarian violence since the U.S. invasion? Somehow you get the feeling that his execution is part of Bush’s “new” direction.
What will be the consequences? Hard to tell. Not to make light of this event, but less than an hour after his execution, Arab websites were advertising upcoming pictures and videos. Saddam as cottage industry? Some believe that Uncle Sam finally put down the old mangy family pit bull that had outlived its’ usefulness.
If we are putting people on trial for giving orders that led to the death of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, then maybe we should broaden our search. You might start by looking in Washington.
Oh, what the hell, let the conspiracy games begin.
Posted by Captain Kroc at 07:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wanna end the possibility of nuclear war?
Let's make sure that, in the event of a nuclear war, the leadership understands that it won't survive. All military leaders above the rank of Brigadier General and all civilian leaders including legislative and executive will be subject to automatic execution without trial.
There will be no leadership bunkers and those that exist currently should be dismantled.
If we can't get rid of the damn bombs, let's make sure the people who will make the decision to use them will die along with the rest of us, or be executed by the survivors. Seriously, what good would they be anyway in the world they ruined? After all, it will be their 'leadership' that led to the use of nukes.
I know, the Constitution would have to be amended. OK. I know that it sets up the possibility for a nasty coup, though the coup planner would probably be included on the list of those to executed. As for the compliance of other nations, I guess we could use Prompt Global Strike.
Maybe it is a useful program after all.
Posted by mcblogger at 12:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 29, 2006
From the cheap seats
Since I lack class and decorum, I’ll be the jerk to give a different take on Gerald Ford.
By pardoning Nixon, he stopped a much needed public debate to define appropriate presidential power, and the process to set clear legal standards by increasing transparency and accountability of all government. I don’t buy into the idea that Ford’s action healed a nation, stopped divisiveness, and restored confidence in our government. Considering what has transpired over the last 30 years, that pardon worked well, didn’t it?
Personally, I think the man was manipulated to pardon Nixon. With Cheney, Rumsfield, Greenspan, and Kissinger playing significant roles in his presidency, and with people like John Mitchell advising him the few years before he was elevated to Vice-President, Ford was probably constantly bombarded by a political ideology that cared little for moderation and bipartisanship.
The result of the bloodletting of the 1974 midterm election that saw vast numbers of Republicans voted out because of the pardon was a party purged of many who might have pushed back against the coming Glorious Reagan Revolution. No doubt, Reaganites wanted Nixon to be a faded memory by 1980. Having investigations that constantly kept Nixon and Republicans in the hot seat would have diminished Reagan and brought certain party operatives missed by Watergate out in the open. It would have halted the nascent neo-conservative movement.
Let’s not forget Ford’s conservative bona fides. He was a fierce partisan and protector of conservatism. He voted against public housing, the minimum wage, and repeal of the right-to-work law provision of the Taft-Hartley Act. He also led the failed effort to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. The reason? Because Douglas’s liberal leanings were an impeachable offense. He supported going into Laos and Cambodia, and the bombing of North Vietnam. Yes, he voted for the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, but the handwriting was already on the wall. How would his western Michigan constituents have reacted to a representative labeled as a bigot and racist? His ramblings about how his vetoes of spending bills would improve the economy were baloney.
Ford knew and practiced hard ball politics. You don’t become House leader of your party by putting on ice cream socials. As for presidential campaigning, he used the same methods as Reagan, the current doofus, and others by staying the high road and letting his VP nominee attack his opponent. Bob Dole said as much.
Though I don’t believe that there was any deal between him and Nixon, I do believe he thought what he was doing was best for conservatism. Instead of restoring confidence, he made it acceptable to bury our heads in the sand.
But considering the douche that was voted president in 1980, Ford did come across as a caring man of reason.
Posted by Captain Kroc at 08:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A Dildo interviews the Photobucket TOS 'tard
The Dildo, pissed about having to take ANOTHER picture, decided to talk to PhotoBucket about their 'Terms of Service' by interviewing the person at PhotoBucket (one Censor McCensorson ... what, you thought we'd post his/her real name?). Honestly, I thought the idea was dumber than a box of rocks but The Dildo persuaded me that it was, in fact, a fabulous idea. And by 'persuaded' I mean threatened to beat me to a point close to death, then comsmetically 'enhance' me until I looked like Dr. Hospital Bed. Not wanting to be fucking ugly, I graciously accepted The Dildo's more than reasonable proposal.
The Interview
D:Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. I'll just go ahead an jump right in by asking you what it's like being such a douche.
CMcC: Well, I don't think of myself as a douche-
D: Your self image is largely irrelevant. You are, in fact, a douche. So how does that feel?
CMcC: I'd really rather not answer that.
D: Alright. What's it like sitting in a room being a censor?
CMcC: I don't really think of myself as a censor. I just do my job which is to monitor pictures stored by users for violations of our Terms of Service.
D: Do you even HAVE sex? I mean, come on... only someone pretty fucking lame and tight would have a problem with a picture of a dildo and shots of Britney's cooter. Have you ever been laid? Kissed a boy or a girl?
CMcC: They warned me you might get a little abusive...
D: "They" warned you? Who's "they"? As for abusive, you don't know the half of it. This is me being nice. You're lucky I haven't decided if I want to make you my bitch.
CMcC: Whatever that means.
D: How long have been a communist?
CMcC: What?
D: You heard the question...
CMcC: I'm not a communist.
D: Oh, I assumed you were since you have their flair for censoring the press. I noticed you also removed the image of the Todd Staples buttplug. What was wrong with that?
CMcC: It was another picture of a sexual nature that violated our ToS.
D: So it wasn't removed because it bore Todd Staples likeness?
CMcC: Hell no. That guy is a douche.
D: Well, we agree on that. Tell me what it's like to be a pedophile.
CMcC: (clearly uncomfortable) I'm not a pedophile...
D: Oops. My bad. That was a question for my Mark Foley interview.
CMcC: So, are we done here?
D: Sure, except for the part where I molest you in a number of different ways.
CMcC: I thought you were kidding about that.
D: So did I, but as it turns out not so much.
At this point the interview ends except for screaming, moaning and other noises commonly heard when someone is being fucked by a giant dildo from hell. I really hope I never have to do this again.
Posted by mcblogger at 04:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yet another example of how full of shit Republicans are
One of the arguments against raising the minimum wage has been the supposed deleterious effect it will have on small businesses, most of whom are already paying over minimum wage. The cool thing about it? They never actually ASKED small businesses about this. Discover Financial Services actually did ask the question and 70% said they would be unaffected by an increase in the minimum wage. From the Statesman (via Jobsanger)
A rise in the U.S. minimum wage would have little effect on small-business labor costs, according to a survey of small-business owners by Discover Financial Services LLC.According to Discover, 70 percent of the 1,000 small-business owners it surveyed said an increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour would have no effect on labor costs. The minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.
Posted by mcblogger at 01:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
An idea for making Texas schools better
Here's an idea for what to do with part of the giant mega surplus that will greet The Lege when it returns in January... supply computers to every student in Texas. Sounds expense, right? Not really and we can afford it. Project Inkwell is doing it now and it's working. From strategy+business
I will never forget a visit I made to a math classroom in an elementary school at Lemon Grove School District in San Diego, Calif. We were there in the spring, and a bar chart on the wall showed that each of the students had already finished the full year’s curriculum, months ahead of time. This is not an upscale, highly privileged district. Half of the kids are on the free lunch program, and English is not the native language of many of their families. (Thirty-seven languages are spoken in their homes.)I had gone there with a theory that when students are given their own computers to use at school and at home, under the right conditions, “superlearners” will emerge. But we weren’t completely prepared for the overwhelming success that we found at Lemon Grove. We asked the math teacher about the potential for improving student performance. She smiled and pointed to the bar on the chart that represented the best achiever. “He’s already two years ahead of this class,” she said.
This is happening not just in San Diego, but in the other areas where it has been pushed. The US spent a ton of money wiring classrooms for broadband but no computers have yet materialized. That, among other things, has to change. If you're serious about remaking public schools, about really making them the best they can be and giving Texas kids a chance to learn, then this is something you need to read. With all the talk about bullshit vouchers people forget that we should be demanding more for our public schools, not expecting less.
I'm posting the entire thing in the supersize, just in case you have any issues at the site.
From Laptops to Backpacks
by Mark Anderson
I will never forget a visit I made to a math classroom in an elementary school at Lemon Grove School District in San Diego, Calif. We were there in the spring, and a bar chart on the wall showed that each of the students had already finished the full year’s curriculum, months ahead of time. This is not an upscale, highly privileged district. Half of the kids are on the free lunch program, and English is not the native language of many of their families. (Thirty-seven languages are spoken in their homes.)
I had gone there with a theory that when students are given their own computers to use at school and at home, under the right conditions, “superlearners” will emerge. But we weren’t completely prepared for the overwhelming success that we found at Lemon Grove. We asked the math teacher about the potential for improving student performance. She smiled and pointed to the bar on the chart that represented the best achiever. “He’s already two years ahead of this class,” she said.
We hope such stories will be typical of the future; they certainly are not typical of the past. Last May, Goldman Sachs International Vice Chairman Bob Hormats put into words (in a keynote address at the 2006 Strategic News Service [SNS] Future in Review conference) what many businesspeople know instinctively: Education can be a country’s greatest weakness in a globalized business environment.
We also know that simply throwing money at the problem does not help. Education funding in the U.S. has been climbing for decades, but reading scores continue to decline. Meanwhile, Western education systems are increasingly unable to produce enough candidates for high-value jobs, involving research and development, programming, engineering, and the like — jobs that increasingly go instead to candidates in India, China, and other developing regions. So what is the answer, and who can provide it?
These questions led me to form SNS Project Inkwell in 2003, a global consortium chartered to “accelerate the deployment of appropriate technologies onto K–12 desktops.” My cofounders and I believed that only technology could deliver a revolution in K–12 education. But not just any technology. Specifically, what is required can be expressed in a phrase: “one-to-one computing” — that is, the revolution that takes place in the classroom when each child owns his or her own PC. Yes, the devices have to be better designed than they are today — and much cheaper. That’s been our primary goal. And no, the device itself is not nearly as important as the training of educators for its proper use and introduction into schools. That’s a related goal, which we are working on right now.
Three long-range trends are coming together to make one-to-one computing particularly relevant now. First among them is computers in schools. During the Clinton administration, the U.S. spent $50 billion per year on wiring schools to the Internet. Each school launched its own computer lab, and kids learned to type. But in the end, it was an embarrassing showing: The government spent $200 billion bringing technology to schools during the 1990s without any noticeable improvement in learning or test performance.
It turns out that having a computer lab, or a PC on a teacher’s desk, or even one machine for every four students, is essentially worthless — in fact, it’s probably a distraction. As far as we can tell, real improvement takes place only in classrooms with a one-to-one computer/student ratio.
Hence the second trend: the movement toward providing individual children with computers. Its best-known incarnation is One Laptop per Child, the handiwork of MIT Media Lab pioneer Nicholas Negroponte and Logo programming language inventor Seymour Papert. But this program, according to Dr. Papert, does not include, or require, any educator training at all. Just plug in the machine and the education outcome should change. It turns out that this is not plausible. Without teacher training, computers cannot be introduced into classrooms effectively.
Fortunately, the third trend is a rise of interest, mostly unseen outside education circles, in better “staff development,” as educators call it. And when these three trends come together, here’s what we see:
• Schoolrooms self-organize into study pods (usually of four members), and students begin working and learning in teams. Learning is more project-based, with each student taking responsibility for a particular part of that project.
• During oral and written questioning, all children answer all problems at their computers, so it isn’t just the bright kids who jump in. The teacher can see how each child is doing and provide help in real time to those students who most need it. Students take their machines home at night and do homework on them in a connected environment (this, too, is part of the Inkwell goal). For students in needy homes, this is a great equalizer.
In a survey by the Greaves Group and the Hayes Connection, titled “America’s Digital Schools 2006: A Five-Year Forecast,” 88 percent of the schools operating one-to-one programs that tracked their academic outcomes reported “moderate to significant positive results.” The survey concluded: “It appears that properly implemented ubiquitous computing solutions can help improve student achievement to a significant degree.”
Former Maine Governor Angus King (who is now chair of the Inkwell Governor’s Committee) was a pioneer in understanding the power of one-to-one. In 2002, he ordered laptops for every seventh grader in his state — about 37,000 of them. Maine is currently in its fourth year of this program. “We realized early on that this was not just about education,” Governor King said. “This is about economic development.”
Massachusetts, Michigan, and South Dakota have similar statewide one-to-one programs. Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, and another 11 states are also now moving toward statewide implementations.
One-to-one computing could produce a windfall for computer makers. That’s why they will be motivated to tackle the performance and cost improvements required to make this concept a success. There are 54 million kindergarten through 12th-grade students in the U.S. alone. At a hypothetical technology budget of $1,200 per child — which includes not only the PCs but learning devices, servers, software, network, and training — there is a potential $64 billion in the Inkwell U.S. market. Apply this formula around the world, which we are doing, and the numbers grow much larger.
But to take advantage of this boon, computer makers will have to produce machines at reasonable prices that better meet the needs of students and teachers. We have more than 30 corporate members of Inkwell so far, and we are working to establish standards for machines that are simple, durable, and accessible to children. A typical Inkwell computer can outperform business laptops in a variety of measures, from higher survival rates in the classroom to less time lost to booting and support, with a lower total cost of ownership.
Even in an age of ever-tighter education budgets, the movement toward one-to-one PCs is inevitable. The success in states like Maine and districts like Lemon Grove is so dramatic that even if some educators resist, parents and politicians will surely overrule them. In fact, the revolution is under way: The Greaves/Hayes survey found that 24 percent of all U.S. education districts are already in the process of transitioning to Inkwell’s approach. Starting in schoolrooms, the magnitude of this change may be the catalyst that ushers in the next wave of lightweight computers, which will be associated less with the airplane seat of a business traveler, and more with a student’s backpack — and ultimately with a new style of lifelong learning that emerges on this new, near-ubiquitous platform
Posted by mcblogger at 11:20 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Dude, where's my island?
Global warming claims it's first inhabited island ahead of schedule
Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.
The reason it's not happening yet this far north is that the warming is mostly expanding water, consuming islands close to the equator. As the atmosphere continues to warm, the oceans will absorb more of the heat further north which will have the effect of swallowing up coastal areas in the northern hemisphere. Combine with melting sea ice and things could get very bad, quickly, for a lot of people in this country.
Posted by mcblogger at 09:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
CradDICK's got to go...
What can you say about a man like Tom Craddick? A man that makes Joe Stalin look perfectly reasonable. I kid. Stalin was actually much more reasonable. The guy's a dick, thoroughly unreasonable about everything and seemingly quite proud of it. Oh sure, he may look like a kindly, older gentleman but make no mistake; I think he'd love nothing more than to gut punch you over and over again. When you're doubled up on the floor, he'd probably like to kick you in the huevos. Then he'd feed you to pigs, I would assume, while feasting on the puppy you just brought home for the kids.
Can we all admit the State of Texas House of Representatives needs a new Speaker? Maybe one a little less petty and vindictive? I can, however some Democrats can not.
Some Democrats want him to remain Speaker. WTF is up with that? Oh sure, we know they've benefited from CradDICK's Speakership but they've had to carry water for a guy who balances the budget on the backs of children and thinks public eduction receives too much funding and needs to be privatized. That can't feel good, can it Kino Flores? Knowing that you're preserving your 'power' in the Lege, power that really isn't even yours (it's CradDICK's) by hurting your constituents? You aren't even IN a swing district.
There is a guy (sure, you already know this... I'm writing this for the slow children like myself who actually, you know, enjoyed Christmas) named Brian McCall who says he has the votes, even without the 'CradDICK Democrats!'. To be sure, CradDICK has probably made enough enemies in his own caucus to tip the balance with 60 Democrats. Because of the peculiar laws surrounding the election of Speaker, we won't be endorsing as a blog, nor will we be endorsing as the Texas Progressive Alliance. For myself, I'd like to see Speaker Thompson, however I know that I'm as likely to see that as I am Leslie, with wife and kids in tow, walking into the Great Hills Baptist Church. Which leaves us with CradDICK and McCall.
I, if I ever stooped to being a State Rep, would cast my vote for McCall. I can't believe I'm actually writing something nice about someone from Plano. I hate Plano. I'm not a big fan of Dallas in the first place and I hate, if I'm there, having to venture north of 635. When I was a kid, that was Oklahoma as far as my family was concerned... there was no reason to go there. A trip to the Galleria was really venturing out of mi madre's comfort zone. If we were bad, she made us go to Town East. However, she never made us go to Plano. I always assumed Plano was kinda like Mesquite. I still think it is. This is, for me, a little like hoping that Jethro Clampett is elected Speaker. Of course, it's better than Boss Hogg.
I've heard from too many of you on this issue and you should all know my position on this is adamantine. We need a new Speaker. I've heard that it could end up hurting Democrats in 2008 which is retarded since no one needs CradDICK to have a reason to vote against Republicans. Sure, it makes the job easier but you can still run and win with a solid strategy. Krusee almost lost because of Krusee. CradDICK could drop off the face of the earth and it wouldn't change the fact that as things stand now he'll be gone in 2008. It's the same for a lot of Republicans.
We also don't get anything from these CradDICK D's who are consistently voting against the interests of their districts on issues big and small. Their decision to support CradDICK flies in the face of common sense and is truly justifiable only in terms of their narrow self-interest. Texas deserves better.
No threats, no silly attempts at intimidation, just my sincere hope that when the votes are counted we'll have 68 Democrats on board with electing a new Speaker. I've given up on Turner. That, plus 8 Republicans, will put a new Speaker into the House. Today McCall pulled in Robert Talton. Quorum Report (via Kuff) has published a list of CradDICK supporters that seems highly suspect at best (Patrick Rose? Dawnna Dukes? Aaron Pena?) especially since it was released by CradDICK himself. Jim Pitts was also on the list but this afternoon he decided HE should be Speaker. I kinda like Jim, but this is dumb. Sweets...well, just no. I'm not sure where CradDICK's arm ends and your ass begins. Oh, I know, you've shown your 'independence' and that's nice and all. However, I'm a little nervous about all this (not to mention your position on air pollution) and would rather have someone Leininger tried to take out. Anyone who earned that kind of attention deserves a little love. Even if they are a Republican.
So, that leaves McCall. As for CradDICK, let's hope the members are smart enough to shun him in every way. Let the people of Midland suffer a little for a change.
Yeah, I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire and I'd just drunk a bottle of Scotch. It's not hate, it's indifference. So long, asshole.
Posted by mcblogger at 01:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 28, 2006
Here's something the Lege could do to help homeowners
My job is to buy loans. It's exciting, it's fun and I get an expense account which rocks (it's kind of like being a lobbyist, except the people you're taking out actually need you as much as you need them). At least once a week I get a call from a client regarding the purchase of a loan in which the borrower would like to liquefy equity (AKA, a 'cashout') in their owner occupied property. Normally, these aren't that big a deal (despite the ridiculous home equity laws in Texas) and I deal with them all the time. The problem that crops up is if it's a multi-unit property, like a duplex. Did you know that if you buy a duplex in the state of Texas, live in one unit, homestead it and rent the other side it's almost impossible to borrow against the equity in it?
The reason is that no case law has been established to support the lender's ability to perfect title in the event of foreclosure. The law (50(a)6) doesn't specifically address it and Texas judges, when it comes to homesteads, are notoriously borrower friendly. Which makes people nervous about lending in Texas, period. Don't get me wrong, legal protections for homeowners are important. However, lenders have to be able to foreclose cleanly should the borrower not pay.
While this happens in the metro's more than the rural areas, it is an issue that affects a surprisingly large number of homeowners. Any legislators out there want to take a crack at fixing it?
Posted by mcblogger at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Stupid people doing stupid things at Whole Foods
I really like Whole Foods. I don't usually buy anything there other than vitamins, cheese and occasionally a lunch, but I do like the stores. The people are always so friendly, even when I ask things like "Where ARE the Cape Cod chips?" and "Where's the goddamn Diet Dr. Pepper?" The store downtown rocks, however, the surface parking lot does not. Actually, that's not really fair. Let me be more specific:
The people turning into it from
5th suck.
Last Wednesday night I was heading to meet some bloggers for drinks and dinner (specifically, EOW and Muse). I would have even been on time had I not had to sit through the light at Lamar and 5th for three cycles because of retards trying to get into the surface lot at Whole Foods. Of course, I realize people have to buy groceries but you folks don't realize that the people behind you, as you take your sweet time entering the lot, are causing a jam up almost all the way back down 5th to El Arroyo. Yes, your Volvos and Toyotas, small though they may be, are in the way.
So what's the solution? Whole Foods in their wisdom built a garage for shoppers. So, in the future, why don't you use IT? Why even bother trying to look for that elusive spot in the surface lot? And for the love of all that's good and decent in the world, turn FAST off 5th. Don't make us all suffer because you need some weirdo cereal.
Either that, or maybe Whole Foods could just turn the damn lot into a park. Surface lots downtown are dumb.
Posted by mcblogger at 11:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Edwards announces he's going to announce
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at 09:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
When Dolphins Attack
They say dolphins' intelligence rivals that of humans (or at least that of the Texas Legislature}. God help us if they ever develop nuclear weapons.
A New Zealand woman is in critical condition in hospital after being crushed by a dolphin that leaped on to her boat, media reported on Wednesday.
The 27-year-old woman had been watching from the bow of the small boat cruising among the marine mammals off the North Island's Coromandel Peninsula on Tuesday when the bottlenose dolphin landed on her, the New Zealand Herald said.
She suffered serious head injuries and was flown to hospital in Auckland.
The dolphin also smashed the boat's windshield and bow rails before jumping back into the ocean, witnesses told the Herald.
Remember, if a cow could eat you, it would.
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at 08:41 AM
December 27, 2006
Jerry Ford
Unlike Sister Ruth, I don't obsessively monitor the 24/7 news and propaganda channels. In fact, last night I dozed off watching some show on cable where they were counting down the top ten ways in which civilization could be wiped out in an afternoon (pleasant dreams!) so it wasn't until this morning that I heard President Ford had died.
I'm not going to spin some wild tale about Ford being a great president. He wasn't. But after the Great Presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon, the wars and upheavals, the riots and assassinations, the last thing we needed was another Great President. We needed a chance to catch our breath and take stock of how the country had changed over the past decade and a half. Ford provided that breathing spell.
Gerald Ford was the last President from an earlier time, a time before fundamentalist religion began to slither into national politics, a time when it was possible to disagree with someone's politics without vilifying him. I mourn his passing, and the passing of his era.
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at 04:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Good job, Kirk Watson...
(McBlogger says: Hey! I'm finally back in my office and in front of the computer. It's been so long (4 days) that it feels like an eternity... especially when you're blogging from a BlackBerry. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to New Year's debauchery (or, as The Mayor and I like to call it, A Night Out With Sister Ruth))
Watson calls for a delay on the CAMPO Phase 2.
Watson, an Austin Democrat succeeding longtime state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos in January, will be one of eight new or nearly new members of the 23-member Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board. Given that influx of inexperience, as well as a recent report indicating that increasing the state gas tax with inflation could eliminate the need for tolls on some roads, Watson said that CAMPO needs to step back.And, as it considers further action on toll roads in general, Watson said, the CAMPO board needs to make sure "the people of Central Texas are treated like valued constituents, not just resources to be harvested."
Good to finally have a player on this board with the stature to pimp slap Krusee, who had this to say about the delay and a possible reorg of CAMPO
"I think a smaller board is a good thing because it's become unwieldy," said state Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Williamson County, a CAMPO board member and the chairman of the House Transportation Committee. "And some members clearly have not been interested in actively participating."
People don't want to participate? Well gee, Mike, I don't suppose that could have anything to do with how you've dictated terms and conditions to the board over the last few years. What was it again? 'Toll roads or no roads'? Wasn't that basically what you were telling folks?
You know, if I were running PR for Krusee I'd take away his mobile and make sure that all calls came through me. Then I'd never let him talk to the media. Every time he's quoted he comes across as an asshole.
Funny how reality always shows.
(photo credit to the Statesman, yo!)
Posted by mcblogger at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I'm falling for Edwards...
Here's what Political Insider had to say about Edwards 'campaign'...
The subtext of the Edwards campaign will be that it's not enough to represent Americans who have been locked behind walls of power, you need to tear down those walls and deal head-on with issues of poverty, job creation and health care accessibility, the three prime impediments to expanding and strengthening the middle class. While others will try to craft the perfect Iraq policy, Edwards will take the more emotionally satisfying approach of bringing 40,000 troops home immediately and the rest as soon as possible.
In short, it will be 180 degrees from the Kerry/Edwards campaign of 2004, a campaign of pure emotional appeal and as little intellectualism as possible. Who knows if it will work, but there's no doubt that the Edwards' have put a great deal of thought behind this race and will be formidable, tough opponents that no one can take lightly.
I don't know if he'll make it through the primary. He's got an excellent chance I know for certain he'll run a better campaign than Hillary. For one thing, he'll win.
Posted by mcblogger at 09:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 26, 2006
Uhm... Sen.-Elect Brown... Habeas Corpus IS important
Amy Goodman, who writes for Democracy NOW (found viaAs Ohio Goes) did an interview with Senator-elect Brown...
AMY GOODMAN: Right before the election, you voted for the Military Commissions Act, which stripped habeas corpus. Why?REP. SHERROD BROWN: I think that if we had done nothing, the prisoners would continue in Guantanamo Bay with no resolution. That will at least move the process forward. They’re either tried, or they’re freed. I didn’t think they should be given more rights than American troops who are court-martialed. I think we can fix that. I think we can make the bill better. I think we ought to go back and do that, come this year.
AMY GOODMAN: Restore habeas corpus?
REP. SHERROD BROWN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: You would support that?
REP. SHERROD BROWN: I would support that.
AMY GOODMAN: Would you introduce that?
REP. SHERROD BROWN: Probably not.
AMY GOODMAN: Why not?
REP. SHERROD BROWN: Because I have other priorities.
AMY GOODMAN: What are your priorities?
REP. SHERROD BROWN: My priorities are a fair trade policy in this country, increasing the minimum wage, going after the drug companies for the way that they charge and their whole pricing structure that have put absolutely amazing drugs out of reach for so many Americans.
Senator Brown, you really need to make THIS a priority. It's a large part of the reason so many libertarians and republicans switched sides this cycle. Don't let them down!
Posted by mcblogger at 09:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 25, 2006
Okay, just one more then I swear I'm giving them up
Merry Christmas, suckers!
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at 04:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
All I want for Christmas is a new Speaker of the House
Speaker Tom Craddick must be feeling a little uneasy. Why else would he bother using the ever-useful Round Heels in today's Slag to float a story predicting smooth sailing for his re-election plans?
The most important vote the Legislature will take when it convenes on January 9 is likely to be the election of the speaker. That choice will signal whether Texans can expect the Culture of Corruption to continue to dig the state further and further into last place in education, in health care, in every other category that connotes modern civilization; or a bipartisan effort to at least stop the digging and maybe even make a little progress toward getting out of the hole.
The previous speaker, Pete Laney, was widely haled as a "Speaker for all Texans". In contrast, Craddick's style has been termed "petty", "partisan", "vindictive", "dictatorial", "biased", "snake-like", "corrupt", "dishonest", "authoritarian", "biased", "hateful", "mean-spirited" and "disastrous". And that's just what his friends have to say.
The first challenge to Craddick's continued leadership came this spring when liberal icon Senfronia Thompson announced she would be a candidate for speaker. She is a great representative, a powerful orator, and has about as much chance of being elected by the republican-majority House as I do. Recently Plano republican Brian McCall announced his challenge to the regime, and for the moment he seems the leading challenger to Craddick.
The election of the Speaker is a very serious matter for the members of the House. The hand that wields the gavel wields power: supporters of the Speaker can expect good committee assignments and their legislation being heard on the floor, while enemies can be cast into outer darkness, their bills left to whither on the vine. I hope our legislators find the candidate and the courage to replace Tom Craddick on January 9. Texas has a lot of problems that need to be addressed. Overthrowing Craddick isn't the solution to the problems, but it is a precondition.
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Merry Christmas
We love all of you and wish you a wonderful Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, Festivus). We may not always like you (I'm looking at you, Republicans) but we do love you... especially when you get out of our way on the freeway. In the spirit of the season, I'll impart one essential piece of advice on last minute gift giving...
Cash and liquor ALWAYS rock. Even when the recipient is baptist (I know you bitches drink... don't lie). Reuben's/Twin has some great stuff on sale.
At least, that's what we heard. Just kinda sucks THAT THEY'RE CLOSED TODAY.
Posted by mcblogger at 09:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 24, 2006
but the employment agency is closed on Christmas
During the homily, my parish priest said to "Get rid of those things that hinder your experience of the joy of the Christmas spirit.
Posted by Captain Kroc at 09:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Another one of those oh-so-funny YouTube things that are so popular these days
Way back when I was just a lad any sort of phrase or item of popular culture followed a predicatable arc from actually being "new" and thus "cool" to being "square" or "totally lame":
1. Actual teenagers use it
2. Rock musician uses it
3. Hollywood uses it
4. Johnny Carson uses it
5. Time Magazine uses it
6. The President uses it
I guess you know what to expect in the State of the Union this January.
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at 12:52 PM
Fun, new weapons at DoD (and corruption, too!)
Via The Somervell County Salon comes a tale of a new weapon in America's war on everyone else, euphemistically called Prompt Global Strike.
When the order comes, the sub shoots a 65-ton Trident II ballistic missile into the sky. Within 2 minutes, the missile is traveling at more than 20,000 ft. per second. Up and over the oceans and out of the atmosphere it soars for thousands of miles. At the top of its parabola, hanging in space, the Trident's four warheads separate and begin their screaming descent down toward the planet. Traveling as fast as 13,000 mph, the warheads are filled with scored tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel. Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with thousands of rods-each one up to 12 times as destructive as a .50-caliber bullet. Anything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling, metallic storm is obliterated.
From the time the order is given until the time the weapon reaches the target is no more than 60 minutes. Not bad, when you consider it takes me that long just to get through Costco most of the time.
While I agree, in theory, the US needs such a capability, my problem with this idea stems from the fact that this is a massively destabilizing weapons system. The worst part is that no one will know until AFTER impact that the payload is not nuclear. I'm sure other countries will just 'trust us' when they see us launching SLBM's.
Before we start thinking about spending money developing and deploying ANOTHER super expensive weapons system, can we please have an investigation of DoD CONTRACTORS?
The investigation by the Government Accountability Office, which released the report Tuesday, found that the Defense Department's inability to manage contractors effectively has hurt military operations and unit morale and cost the Pentagon money."With limited visibility over contractors, military commanders and other senior leaders cannot develop a complete picture of the extent to which they rely on contractors as an asset to support their operations," said the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.
Perhaps the new Senator from Missouri will take up that task, just as one of her predecessors did so long ago.
Posted by mcblogger at 12:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 23, 2006
Accenture massacred
EOW tipped me off on this and LightSeeker over at Texas Kaos has more. Apparently, the contract has been severely redrawn to limit the responsibilities of the completely inept Accenture. The contract will allow the state to clawback some money and will hopefully get benefits restored to hundreds of thousands of our neediest citizens in relatively short order.
The director of HHS had this to say...
"What we found is that we didn't draw the line between vendor work and state work in the right place," said Albert Hawkins, the state's executive commissioner of health and human services.
After all the pain and suffering the outsourcing caused, this is all you have to say, Commissioner Hawkins?
My only regret is that this didn't come out during the campaign. If it had, the results may have been different. To all those Republicans who voted for Perry... can we acknowledge now, finally, that privatization is not always best and that real world implications should ALWAYS trump ideology?
It's called pragmatism and it rocks!
Posted by mcblogger at 01:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 22, 2006
Oh, damn it Mark Warner. No mas.
A couple of different places are saying that Warner is thinking about getting back in the race a la Ross Perot in 1992. Dan Conley at Political Insider is reporting that horseface is indeed considering re-entry and Pink Lady was just about to spontaneously combust over the prospect of Warner coming again. I'm thrilled because I still have all this great art and tons of mean things to say about Mark Warner. Because I'm not from VA, I don't buy his bullshit and I think he looks like a horse. I bet his breath smells like pig ass as well and he probably double parks all the time.
Betcha I'LL never be invited to a Mark Warner liveblogging event!
When the hell are Democrats going to realize what Republicans were smart enough to get years ago? LOOKS MATTER. If I hear another moron whine about how we should look at someone's soul I'm going to puke blood. DO.THEY.LOOK.GOOD.ON.TV? Do they speak well or do they sound like Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley? Why can't Democratic primary voters for once focus as much on aesthetics as they do on the candidate's position on mango import subsidies and fair trade?
And not so much with Hillary's ugly ass either. Seriously, she and Carville should marry. Their kids would look like freaks from some kind of bizarre nuclear accident. What IS it with the ugly national Dems? We have good looking Dem's down here.
Posted by mcblogger at 03:26 PM | TrackBack
Who is this Serge I keep hearing about?
And what's so special about him that he's the only one who can fix up this Iraq mess? And if it's so important, why is the president waiting to ship him over there? Is he scared? Or just at some undisclosed location in a menage a trois with those slutty Bush twins?
Is this the same Serge who sent me this lovely poetic email?
Lackluster radioactive viagra, Godzilla of my pants defeated
Hi, I'm Serge, I'm looking for group mashed potato sex, can u help me?
Meet me here: married but looking
Honey, you had me at "Godzilla of my pants"!
Posted by sister ruth at 12:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bitch has a street named after her?
I gotta say, on the list of Things I Don't Get naming buildings, roads, aircraft carriers, etc. after people BEFORE they are dead is pretty high. There's a reason you wait on something like that... what if the person you're honoring turns out to be some kind of freak? Case in point, Cynthia McKinney has a street named after her. I like Cynthia. I think she's comical in the same way anyone who is basically batshit crazy is comical. I'm weird like that. Right on Target has alerted me to the fact that she DID have a street named after her. Now someone is trying to get her name removed from that street because
"She has a history of bad behavior and it's not reflected well upon the people of Georgia," Walker said.
Well, if the metric for naming something is reflecting well upon the people you serve, can we assume that no Republican will try to name crap after Connecticut native George W. Bush? I guess, if you have to name something after him, I'd be OK with a toilet. At the Bellmead Exxon.
(Welcome to the Tex-O-Sphere, RoT!)
Posted by mcblogger at 11:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Iraq is sooo the new Vietnam
(via Think Progress) Connecticut native George Bush is taking a page from Nixon's play book... throw more troops at the quagmire and it's sure to do the trick!
Retired General Jack Keane is an “influential member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board” who met with President Bush last week to push his plan to send 40,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq. According to media reports, President Bush is leaning toward taking Keane’s advice.In the most recent issue of the Weekly Standard, editor Fred Barnes lauds Keane’s plan. He explains that is an “application” of the “counterinsurgency approach” that was executed “so successfully” in Vietnam:
The Keane-Kagan plan is not revolutionary. Rather, it is an application of a counterinsurgency approach that has proved to be effective elsewhere, notably in Vietnam. There, Gen. Creighton Abrams cleared out the Viet Cong so successfully that the South Vietnamese government took control of the country. Only when Congress cut off funds to South Vietnam in 1974 were the North Vietnamese able to win.
Barnes is parroting the view of Henry Kissinger. Bob Woodward explained in his book, State of Denial:
Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw it through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to stick it out.In his writing, speeches and private comments, Kissinger claimed that the United States had essentially won the war in 1972, only to lose it because of the weakened resolve of the public and Congress.
You know Iraq is going badly when people suggest the way to turn it around is to make it more like Vietnam.
But wait... there's more in the supersize...
UPDATE: Rick Perlstein explains why Kissinger was wrong:To begin unraveling the true meaning of Kissinger’s advice to the White House, we have to go back to August 3, 1972. On that date, President Nixon repeated to the good doctor, his national security adviser, what he’d been saying in private since 1966: America’s war aim (standing up a pro-American and anti-Communist South Vietnamese government in Saigon) was a fantasy. “South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway,” the president sighed. But a presidential election was coming up. He had long before promised he was removing the U.S. presence, more-or-less victoriously (though “victory” was a word Nixon, by then, wisely avoided; instead, he called it “peace with honor”).
It was Kissinger, who had been shuttling back and forth to Paris for peace negotiations with the enemy, who named the dilemma: “We’ve got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which–after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January ‘74, no one will give a damn.” Thus was confirmed what historians would come to call the “decent interval” strategy. Having pledged to Saigon–and American conservatives–that Communist troops would not be allowed in South Vietnam after a peace deal was signed, Kissinger negotiated the opposite. “Peace is at hand,” he announced on the eve of the 1972 presidential election, in one of his rare appearances before the TV cameras. The United States left the following spring; the Communists moved in; Saigon fell.
That’s not how Nixon and Kissinger told the story, of course. They blamed the defeat on a combination of the liberal congressmen who refused to vote for continued aid to South Vietnam in 1974 and Saigon’s own unfortunate lack of will.
Posted by mcblogger at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 21, 2006
Turkmenbashi croaks
Once upon a time there was a place called the Soviet Union, which was ruled by a series of evil dictators. Eventually they ended up with a not-so-evil dicator and after a few years the country fell apart. Some of the successor states, Russia and Ukraine for example, are somewhat familiar to Americans; others, like the stans of Central Asia, have remained much more obscure. These are to this day mostly run by evil dictators in the worst Soviet tradition; now the leader of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov has died, perhaps ending a bizarre cult of personality rivalling anything dreamt of by Kim Jong Il or Kinky Friedman.
Known as Turkmenbashi, or Father of all Turkmens, Niyazov was renowned for such peculiar acts as ordering citizens to get gold teeth extracted, outlawing opera and banning men from listening to car radios.
During a 21-year rule he turned his country into a hymn of praise to himself: kindergartens, towns, factories and a month of the year (January) were named Turkmenbashi. He erected a revolving gold statue of himself in the capital Ashgabat and giant billboards of the leader hung all over the country.
He often feigned embarrassment at the adulation. "I'm personally against seeing my pictures and statues in the streets - but it's what the people want," he once said.
But the pressure to worship the leader was relentless. Children in the gas-rich state were forced to learn his book of poetry, the Ruhnama, at school, and a copy of the book was sent into space for good measure.
Posted by mayor mcsleaze at 03:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Union of Concerned Scientists poops all over Bush
The UCS has released a periodic table to political interference in science. It's an interesting thing to play with, especially in light of the fact that the UCS declaration on behalf of 10,000 scientists has now been opened to people like you and me. You can sign on here and please, if you have a moment, tell EPA to stop destroying documents!
Posted by mcblogger at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bridging the gap...
The lovely and always tactful (moreso than my obnoxious ass) Anna of Annatopia announced a project to bridge the gap between the netroots/grassroots here in Texas and the party heirarchy. Recently there have been a number of discussions on the lack of TDP support during the cycle for the statewide candidates. I have a wide range of opinions on this subject... there's just no way you can look at one candidate the same as another. Comparing Hank to Bell would be like comparing a Ford Diesel to a Honda Civic. Comparing the levels of support they received would be similarly useless... Bell raised and spent millions. Hank raised and spent less money than you'd pay for a moderately priced home in Jarrell. What can be compared is how people worked for them despite the fact that they were considered a loss from the day they won the primary.
My pet theory on why these arguments have sprung up is this: the reformers, the populists, and anyone *not* associated with the state institutions chose to buckle down and get to work after the convention. We decided to put aside our differences and support our candidates with time, money, and innovation. We expected our institutions to do the same. What we didn't know was that the institutionalists had gotten together back in 2005 and decided not to compete statewide in 2006. Apparently this was common knowledge within the power structure, but it caught many activists by surprise. Rather than cause a huge stink in the middle of campaign season, we held our tongues.Not any more. The election is behind us. And while there was some progress made, it is my sense that the reformist wing of the party feels that this season was marked by missed opportunities, miscommunication, misfires, and misunderstandings.
This has been going mostly over at Kaos and BOR where frankly I've been happy to have it. I've read the comments on the threads and more than a few times got pissed enough to post something. The common denominator on the part of the consultants and those 'in the heirarchy' was that our statewide candidates were uniformly a joke (which isn't so much a 'reason' as it is a 'bullshit excuse').
They miss the point, which is that THEY were the people who got through the primary. I disliked Bell intensely after the primary. However, that didn't stop me from doing everything I could to help him win. I hear a lot about what TDP DID do in so far as promoting straight ticket voting in targeted House districts. That's great... but what else did you do? Where was the email to work on TrueBlueAction? Where was the email announcing early voting and the slate of candidates?
There are tons of things they could have been doing. I really don't want to get into here... my only interest is in making sure it doesn't happen again. I've worked with professionals and I've worked with amateurs. Often the two groups don't work well together because of mutual condescension. It's easy for me to work with them... I'm condescending to everyone. However, we need the two groups working together as equals. The best campaigns I've ever been part of mixed professional and volunteer efforts seemlessly. We need to spread that and this is a great first step.
Posted by mcblogger at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Republicans can't legislate for shit...
Is Betty Brown senile and/or retarded? She's filed a bill to make it illegal for Teachers to use instant messaging to solicit sex from students cause you know it's rampant these days (if you're a regular viewer of Dateline NBC... )
I guess someone should tell Betty that it's already illegal and the law really didn't need to be amended since it already covered electronic communications (Betty amended it to include 'text messages' which alreadyfall under 'commerical online service'. However, she LOVES to amend things). This is one of those bills which Betty can take back to her constituents and say "This is what I've been doing". To which her constituents are going to say, "Where's our goddamn school funding? Where are my roads? Where's my property tax cut?"
Betty, you're truly a worthless waste of space. You'd be better off legislating less and napping more. Happy Holidays.
(via Capitol Annex)
Posted by mcblogger at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
She's running...
Honestly, I'm not excited about this... Hillary Clinton is running for President. From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
According to ABC News, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) now says she would not have voted in 2002 to give President Bush the authority to attack Iraq "if she knew everything she knows now."Clinton "has long been viewed as potentially vulnerable on her left flank with regards to the war in a Democratic nomination fight where primary voters and caucus-goers tend to represent the more liberal wing of the party." She "has made strides over the last year in speeches, committee hearings, letters to her constituents, and television appearances to criticize the Bush administration's general handling of the war and specifically calling for former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s resignation."
She could have said this in 2004. Or 2005. Only now, with the primaries a little over a year away does she say what would have won Kerry the Presidency in 2004. The comical part is that Clinton is perceived as vulnerable on the left for never admitting this. I have news for the smart people at ABC... she's vulnerable period on this issue. In case you didn't know, THE COUNTRY is pissed as hell which is why Bush's numbers suck almost as much ass as a porn star.
What happens to you when you're in Washington? Does your IQ drop 40 or 50 points? Do they seriously not get this isn't 2004 and we're all upset about the lead up to the war and how Congress just kinda rolled over for Bush?
Posted by mcblogger at 08:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 20, 2006
Next stop for interest rates? Steady... then up
The rosy outlook in stocks for 2007 is based on an assumption that the Fed is going to beging to lower interest rates next year. Problem is, the President of the Dallas Fed thinks inflation is still an issue which means he is less than inclined to begin dropping rates...
Markets displayed little reaction to comments by Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert W. Fisher, who said in a speech Tuesday that inflation remains troublesome for the economy and that an increase in interest rates could be warranted.
I wouldn't mention this but for the fact that lower interest rates are already cooked into equity pricing. The market likes to trade six months out which means investors are, on balance, anticipating a drop in interest rates in the next few months. I'm not sold. You shouldn't be either.
Posted by mcblogger at 06:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cheney to testify?
This would be the first time in history a sitting Vice-President has had to testify in the criminal proceeding...
"We're calling the vice president," attorney Ted Wells said in court. Wells represents defendant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction.
From the outside, it's hard to know which scenario is closest to the truth. But should a courtroom appearance by Cheney come to pass, it will be yet another dramatic twist in the long-running saga of the Plame affair--and one that will probably not play well for the White House.
Posted by mcblogger at 03:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Burka : Democrats will not be saved through demographics alone
Paul Burka is growing on me like a bad rash. First he's on point with the toll road crap, then he puiblishes this... an article detailing just how delusional Democrats are if they think that demographic changes alone will sweep them back into power.
Assuming that net immigration continues at the pace established in the last decade of the twentieth century, Hispanics will constitute 59.2 percent of the state’s population in 2040, Anglos but 23.9 percent. Long before then, Texas will be a Democratic stronghold again.Or will it? Both the numbers and the anecdotal evidence suggest that Republicans are doing increasingly well with Hispanic voters here—so well, in fact, that the Democratic dream may be turning into a nightmare. This ought not to come as a surprise. The Hispanic population has become economically diverse. Even in South Texas, which lags behind the rest of the state economically, an upper middle class is emerging. But more than economics is involved. South Texas Democratic politics remains mired in the ways of the past—clan warfare, boss rule, and petty (and not-so-petty) corruption—and the Republican party has been the beneficiary.
I got this emailed to me from someone in Houston and posted the entire thing in the supersize. After you do that, click on his name and go read the interview with Dick Armey and his comments on that.
On DeLay: I always said Tom DeLay was a perfect example of somebody raised in the Legislature in Austin: somebody who's in business for himself, who has a very limited view of public policy, which I think he did, and a very self-centered view of public policy, which I think he did . . . In all the years I knew him, I don't ever remember Tom DeLay having an idea. I remember Tom DeLay saying, "I can tell you where the most vocal and militant people in our base expect us to do."My comment: Sad to say, Armey's description of the kind of politician who is raised in the Legislature in Austin fits Rick Perry and Tom Craddick like a glove.
Minority Report
Argue all you want about the level of Hispanic turnout in the 2006 elections, but one thing is certain: Demographic inevitability alone won’t save the Democrats.
THE DAY OF RECKONING IS COMING. It could occur as soon as 2010, more likely by 2014, or perhaps as late as 2022, but nothing can prevent the moment when demographics takes over and the sleeping giant of Texas politics—the Hispanic vote—awakes at last and restores the Democratic party to its rightful hegemony.
Or at least that’s the dream. The stuff the dream is made of can be found in the projections of Texas’s population by state demographer Steve Murdock, at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Assuming that net immigration continues at the pace established in the last decade of the twentieth century, Hispanics will constitute 59.2 percent of the state’s population in 2040, Anglos but 23.9 percent. Long before then, Texas will be a Democratic stronghold again.
Or will it? Both the numbers and the anecdotal evidence suggest that Republicans are doing increasingly well with Hispanic voters here—so well, in fact, that the Democratic dream may be turning into a nightmare. This ought not to come as a surprise. The Hispanic population has become economically diverse. Even in South Texas, which lags behind the rest of the state economically, an upper middle class is emerging. But more than economics is involved. South Texas Democratic politics remains mired in the ways of the past—clan warfare, boss rule, and petty (and not-so-petty) corruption—and the Republican party has been the beneficiary.
The division of the Hispanic vote between the two major parties is one of the most crucial—and most disputed—statistics in Texas electoral politics. The William C. Velasquez Institute, in San Antonio, has long been regarded as the most authoritative source for how Hispanics are voting. But its exit polling of the recent gubernatorial race, based on 440 respondents in 32 selected precincts across the state, is simply not credible: Chris Bell, 39.5 percent; Carole Keeton Strayhorn, 28.6 percent; Kinky Friedman, 14.3 percent; and Rick Perry, 13.9 percent. Perry campaigned vigorously in South Texas. He had the support of eleven mayors (presumably Democratic, although the office is nonpartisan). Democratic sheriffs appeared in his TV ads on border security. A Dallas Morning News poll a few days before the election showed him getting 37 percent of the Hispanic vote. His actual performance in the big South Texas counties suggests that he did considerably better than the 13.9 percent in the Velasquez Institute’s exit poll. Perry got more votes in Cameron County than Bell did (the margin was only a few dozen votes, but he carried the county). He got approximately four thousand more votes than Bell in Nueces County. He lost Hidalgo County to Bell but still received 33.5 percent of the vote to Bell’s 42.67 percent. El Paso was even closer: Bell, 36.2 percent; Perry, 33.04 percent. Even in Webb County, Tony Sanchez’s home base, where Bell beat Perry by a two-to-one margin, Perry had 25 percent of the vote.
Granted, this is not a scientific analysis: There is no way to know how many Hispanics were represented in Perry’s total votes in these counties. But we do know from 2004 population estimates that Hispanics outnumber Anglos by approximately seven to one in Cameron County and by nine to one in Hidalgo County. To be competitive, Perry had to get a lot of Hispanic votes—a lot more than 13.9 percent.
The Velasquez Institute was not alone in doing exit polling in Texas. CNN and the Associated Press, among other national organizations, collaborated on far-more-extensive exit polling—2,090 respondents statewide. Their findings were considerably different from the Velasquez Institute’s: Bell, 41 percent; Perry, 31 percent; Strayhorn, 18 percent; and Friedman, 9 percent. What might account for the considerable variation? In 2004, when the Velasquez Institute gave George W. Bush a lower percentage of the Hispanic vote than most other polling organizations, critics suggested that the culprit might have been an unduly heavy reliance on inner-city precincts, which could have missed the move of upwardly mobile Hispanics to more-affluent areas, where, the theory goes, they are more likely to vote Republican.
Two questions emerge as crucial in the battle for the Hispanic vote in Texas: How do Hispanics vote, and why don’t they vote in greater numbers? Nationally, the increase in Hispanic voting is startling. The pollster John Zogby wrote recently that Hispanics constituted “5 percent of 95 million voters in 1996, 6 percent of 105 million voters in 2000, and 8.5 percent of 122 million voters in 2004.” Projecting to 2008, Zogby says, “With a highly competitive election and a heavy voter registration drive, we could be looking at an electorate that includes a Hispanic component amounting to 10 percent of 130 million voters.”
Imagine what might have happened in Texas had Hispanic participation grown by 65 percent over the past three election cycles. But it hasn’t. Mike Baselice, a well-regarded Republican pollster, says that the portion of the voting electorate that is Hispanic increases by roughly half of a percentage point every two years: for example, from 16.5 percent of the electorate in 2002 to 17 percent in 2004. At that rate, it will take sixteen years for the Hispanic vote to become a quarter of the electorate. And this was a lost year: Compared with the 2002 gubernatorial election, when Tony Sanchez headed the Democratic ticket, turnout in South Texas was dismal. Maverick County had a 15 percent turnout of registered voters, the lowest in the state, down from 26.5 percent in 2002. In Hidalgo County, the turnout dropped by a third; at 17 percent, it too was one of the lowest in the state. In Webb, the turnout was only 18 percent.
The low participation rate, particularly in traditional barrios, has been the subject of considerable discussion on the Internet. “What’s up with the decreasing Hispanic voter turnout [in Nueces County]?” asked a writer for the South Texas Chisme blog. “Blockwalkers were falling all over each other in the west-side precincts. Many of the low performing neighborhoods had 4 or 5 visits to each door.” But Republicans won three high-profile races in Nueces: county judge, sheriff, and court of appeals judge. Some of the explanations offered are obvious (the absence of a big name at the top of the Democratic ticket, strong Republican candidates at the local level), and others are familiar concerns (the perception in South Texas that the Democratic party took the border for granted when it was in power and still does, the grinding effect of poverty, which leads people to believe that voting benefits only the politicians, not the voters).
History and culture play a role as well. I learned a great deal about the history of Hispanic political involvement from the late Ruben Munguia, who, in addition to being Henry Cisneros’s uncle and political tutor, was one of a group of small-business owners who, in the years after World War II, first gave San Antonio’s West Side a voice in the affairs of the city. Munguia’s father was a printer in Mexico who came to San Antonio in the twenties when the successful Mexican Revolution turned left. “In Mexico,” Munguia once told me, “the government never did anything for you, it only did things to you.” That culture was transplanted to Texas, where the patrón system evolved, in which local political bosses exchanged favors (such as paying for funerals or arranging for a job) for votes. Straight-ticket Democratic votes. This was palanca (lever) politics: Vote Democrat and shut your eyes to what was going on. It was enforced by politiqueras, political workers (mostly female) who were, and still are, paid to get out the vote. Politics often took the form of a battle of clans in which power was an end in itself. Take over a county, a city, or a school board and you gained control of patronage: The “outs” got fired and the “ins” got hired. And so it went, decade after decade.
Democratic state representative Aaron Peña, of Edinburg, took on the subject of low Hispanic turnout in his blog, A Capitol Blog. “I am frequently asked why incumbent Court of Appeals judge Fred Hinojosa lost his race to [Republican] Rose Vela out of Corpus Christi,” he wrote. Peña mentioned the respect accorded the Vela name in South Texas and the growing number of Hispanics in the middle and upper middle classes. But he condemned “the sad legacy of South Texas boss or strongman politics which relied heavily on patrón-managed turnout rather than the advocacy of ideas.”
I called Peña to ask his opinion of the Velasquez Institute’s finding that Perry received only 13.9 percent of the Hispanic vote statewide. “That can’t be right,” he said. “Republicans are gaining ground. There has been a dramatic change in my lifetime of an educated middle and upper middle class, a tremendous growth in wealth. The banks are Hispanic friendly. There’s more capital available. This area is not hostile to Republicans. City leaders responded to Perry. Most Hispanics are socially conservative when it comes to gay marriage, respect for the military, and, if you’re older, abortion.” But Peña also assigns part of the blame for Hinojosa’s loss to “the historic neglect of the region by the state and national Democratic party.” There were no Democratic signs up, he said, but Perry and comptroller candidate Susan Combs went to Hidalgo County and put up signs. Even the politiqueras are no longer reliably Democratic; they’ll sell their services to the highest bidder.
Democrats are going to have to clean up their act or they are going to lose more and more races in South Texas. The older people who have lived under the patrón system all their lives are dying out. Younger, upwardly mobile Hispanics will not put up with it. The old ways will not go peacefully, but they will go. If Democrats ever hope to dominate this state again, they are going to have to recruit and elect clean candidates like Juan Garcia, a former Navy pilot and graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, who defeated an incumbent Republican in a legislative race in Corpus Christi. They are going to have to base their appeals to voters on issues, not party loyalty. Otherwise, Republicans will have every bit as much claim to the Hispanic vote as Democrats do.
Peña ended his blog post with “Only time will tell.” He might well have added: “And time is running out.”
Posted by mcblogger at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bush : Mistaking the will of the people...
I'm watching this asshat doing his little press conference. He's just been asked a question about how he feels in the context of the war and how LBJ physically aged (mostly because he wasn't sleeping) during Vietnam. "My heart breaks..." which follows up this article that David Corn posted in which the Connecticut native Bush said he sleeps better than you'd expect.
Prior to that, he was asked if he'd go against the will of the American people in listening to Democrats. He said that the will of the American people was to have bipartisanship in Washington. He's now seeing the election as a slap on the hand instead of the very real bitch slap it in fact was. He's still talking like he wasn't castrated in November.
Good to see bravado is alive and well at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Posted by mcblogger at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)