Friday, October 29, 2004

Bush Campaign Withdraws Digitally Altered Ad

Ad Age reports that the Bush campaign doctored an image to show more soldiers at a speech than were really there. They blamed it on the editor, of course; he must not have gotten the memo about the campaign's strict code of ethics. (registration required)

Thursday, October 28, 2004

"Hype, hype hype" on Fox Sports

USA Today observed, following Fox's sponsor-saturated presentation of the World Series, "fans get stuck with games filled with onscreen pop-up ads."

Did anyone else find the Fox broadcast difficult to watch, like being cornered at a family wedding by that one uncle who's a little strange, and being forced to listen to him blabber on about stocks or Bible passages or his favorite strip club, when all you really want to do is see what the bride and groom are doing?

Joe Buck's got a great voice and Tim McCarver's got a keen baseball mind, but please, just tell me about the game. Setting the sponsors aside for a moment, I didn't want to hear about the amazing Red Sox comeback for the twenty-eighth time. (And I'm a Red Sox fan!) It also drive me nuts to come back from commercial break just as the pitcher releases the first pitch of the inning. I want to see the batter come up to the plate, see how the pitcher looks at him, see the infielders get positioned. That's baseball.

The unlabeled interview with the ad character was an inexcusable insult to viewers. The repetition of ads was mind numbing. Luckily for Fox and us there was a great story playing out on the field.

Mr. President, we salute you too!

I'd like to see this in a campaign commercial! Here's a lovely video clip unearthed by Texans for Truth, via Salon.com.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

The Oracle continues to praise the Red Sox

After it correctly predicted the outcome of the Red Sox vs. Yankees, I asked the I-Ching oracle how it's going to go now that we're up 2-0 on the Cardinals.
"Easy Progress"
The general situation is one of easy, natural progress. What has been weak is steadily ascending, and by gaining a prominent position, becomes more powerful. The image is the light of the rising sun, which at first appears dimly through the mists. But this weak light later radiates with powerful clarity once the sun has reached a high position in the sky.
Sounds like a sweep to me!

Monday, October 25, 2004

Computer resurrection

My poorly chosen Compaq 7470 finally bit the dust after 4+ years of crashing and causing one headache after another. Sadly, though, I can't cough up the change to get something new, so I'll have to just get a new hard drive and resurrect the beast. Not looking forward to it.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Republicans shift tactics

Changing tactics is something you do when what you're doing isn't working. After the first two debates turned out the way they did, Bush dropped the "flip--flop" attacks in favor of the L word, something his father used successfully against Michael Dukakis in 1988.

From CNN:
Bush's internals must show female voters don't like attempts to paint Kerry as a "flip-flopper." It's a phrase, ubiquitous in Bush's stump speeches, that we didn't hear once last night.

Indeed, Bush-Cheney aides say they'll instead focus in the final 19 days on Kerry's "liberal" record -- a strategy that explains Bush's best delivered line last night. "You know, there's a mainstream in American politics and you sit right on the far left bank," Bush said to Kerry. "As a matter of fact, your record is such that Ted Kennedy, your colleague, is the conservative senator from Massachusetts."

Kerry already preempted this line of attack by portraying Bush as the fiscally irresponsible candidate. If "conservative" means blowing a budget surplus and turning it into a strangling debt, etc etc, then being labelled liberal might be a benefit.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Iraq rationale: what's left?

The al-Qaeda link has been debunked. The WMD are confirmed to never have existed. Some Republicans are still maintaining a Cheney-esque state of denial, like that senator who went up against Dick Durbin in the Senate the other day, but most, I think, have to admit that the war rationale has been seriously undermined by the facts.

The central question, then, remains: Why did we invade Iraq? What changed to make it imperative that we topple Saddam and install a friendly government? Was the administration simply duped into thinking that Saddam was a bigger threat than he really was?

I don't think so. Over the past 2 years, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and even Powell have pushed these lines of reasoning unrelentingly despite their questionable foundations. The urgency with which they made their case was far greater than the facts and suppositions at their disposal justified.

There was a much bigger reason for going to war, something vital to our strategic interest but too sensitive to speak about. It was a shift in thinking brought about by 9/11, but it had nothing to do with terrorism on US soil and everything to do with oil.

What 9/11 showed the world, and our national security brains, was that Saudi Arabia was suddenly at far greater risk of an Iranian-style revolution than we realized. With Osama bin Laden aiming to overthrow the monarchy and legions of young, angry, Muslim men available and willing to die for the cause, it's only a matter of time before this revolution takes place. The CIA has probably even assigneed probabilities to various potential outcomes, and with a probability of X% that Saudi Arabia would fall to anti-US revolutionaries within, say, 10 years. Losing our Saudi friends, or more specifically their oil, could have catastrophic economic repercussions for us.

This is only a theory, but it's the only plausible rationale that I can think of for all the lying and cajoling that even respectable leaders like Powell stooped to to get us into war. By installing a friendly government in Baghdad, we ensure (or so it seemed at the time!) a safe flow of oil for the next two decades. And if a few of W's friends happen to get rich in the process, well that's just gravy. (After 20 years, his oil buddies will all be retired anyway.)

Don't forget, Bush's energy plan includes switching to hydrogen-based fuels, but not for at least 2 decades. Hence the need to have a long-term, oil-rich friend in the Middle East.

Friday, October 01, 2004

Under surveillance by the federal government!!!

My SiteMeter log shows two visits from the state.gov domain early this morning. Apparently they caught wind of my terror map post. I just hope there's no secret Patriot Act indictment coming my way.

I wonder if they had anything to do with the stolen Kerry sign...