July 2004 Archives

There's a great movement afoot in America. House parties aimed at making sure that George Bush doesn't get re-elected.

What's a house party? To quote from the Party for America

A house party is usually a gathering of 20-40 friends and neighbors who come together for a couple of hours. After chatting informally for a while, they sit down to get acquainted with one of the many campaigns to stop Bush.

In some house parties, they watch a documentary or a video of a candidate's speech. In others, they join a conference call with hundreds of other house parties occurring simultaneously around the country to listen to a prominent speaker.

Afterward, they talk about the campaign to stop Bush. The party ends with action - usually writing letters, making phone calls or donating money.

Take a look at the SF Gate's article on a recent documentary "Outfoxed" to see some specifics on house parties.

Robert Fisk, of the Independed, has written an article called The Cirsis of Information in Baghdad that brings up an interesting point. Is the situation in Iraq calming, or does it just appear that way because journalists don't feel safe to travel outside of Baghdad, especially not to areas such as Fallujah?

Here's the thing - the US and Iraqi governments say that, in an air stike, they killed a band of terrorists. The Iraqis on the ground say it was all women and children. Who's right? Nobody knows.

This lack of verified information makes it very difficult to determine what is really going on in Iraq. It seems to me, though, that if the journalists don't feel safe travelling, Iraq isn't becoming safer, it's becoming more dangerous.

There's a great graphic that shows the overall trends on opinion polls for President Bush. Take a look.

It sounds like the GOP is going to procedurally kill their own bill proposing a Constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.

The GOP must really be in disarray if they can't even get their people to line up for this purely political maneuver.

Here's what John McCaine had to say

"The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," McCain said. "It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them."

10:45am update - They just killed it by procedural vote. Only 48 senators voted to bring it to the floor. That means they couldn't even get a vote on it.

The GOP is, I think, starting to realize that they don't have a lot ofsupport, even within their own party, for a constitutional ban onsame-sex marriages.

On Monday, July 12, 2004, they filibustered their own bill so thatthey could scramble to get enough votes to get a simple majorityvoting for the amendment.

Read that again - they filibustered their own bill.

One of the reasons this is so odd is that they knew when they craftedthis bill that they would never get the 2/3's majority they needed topass the amendment through Congress. They knew that this vote wasonly going to be symbolic. Even so, they can't get all of theirmembers to vote for it.

One more time, for those just joining us, a Constitutional amendmentagainst same-sex marriage is wrong. It targets a segment of ourpopulation and unfairly denies them rights.

Regardless of how you feel about same-sex marriage, you should beagainst this. The Constitution is designed to keep the majority fromforcing their will on the minority, that's why we have freedom ofreligion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and many otherfreedoms.

If this amendment passes, it makes it clear that, in America, themajority can deny rights to a minority. That is against the very coreof our political and social beliefs in America. Nearly everypolitical party, even the Libertarians, with the exception the GOP, isagainst this amendment. They know what it means.

Once more, just in case you missed it. I don't care if you thinksame-sex marriages should be allowed, that's not what's at stakehere. What's at stake is something much more fundamental - ourrights. Each of us, no matter who we are, is part of a minority,either in our religious, social, or political thoughts. Do you wantyour rights denied because you are a part of the minority?

Remember this November, when voting for your representatives, a votefor this amendment is a vote against American values of freedom forall, not just the majority.

You know, some days I feel a bit sorry for George Bush. Clearly he really believes he did the right thing in ordering the war against Iraq. No matter how many facts come out showing that it was a mistake, he cannot shake that belief. It's makes me feel sympathy,even pity for him, because I understand that feeling. Hopefully he'll be able to take some time and really look at the situation before he becomes an icon for a mistake, like George Wallace when he tried to stop school desegregation.

Okay, so what brought this up?

Yesterday the President gave a speech where he declared that the war in Iraq made the US safer. It clearly didn't. Not only has it energized terrorists against America, not only has it frightened many countries into believing that they might be next (look at North Korea's responses), but it has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans, both in the military and supporting the military. I'd like to see the numbers of those killed in Iraq and compare it to the number of deaths due to terrorism in the last 10 years. My gut tells me more people have been killed in Iraq.

Anyway, more about the speech.

Bush once more has changed his story in an attempt to make people agree that the war against Iraq was a good thing. Now instead of it being about WMDs, or al-Queda, or even about Sadaam Hussein, it's part of a three prong policy - defend the peace, protect the peace, and extend the peace.

Okay, point one, defend the peace. His administration initially did the right thing in Afghanistan. Now we need to finish the job, and that's going to require more money and more military support. Neither of which Afghanistan is getting because we are focusing on Iraq. We did not defend the peace by unilaterally attacking Iraq. Instead we broke the peace.

Point two, protect the peace. We are not protecting the peace in Afghanistan or in Iraq. We are not spending enough money or committing enough troops to help those countries.

Point three, extend the peace. Okay, I'll admit, I don't know what that means. The only thing I can think of is that it means that the President believes we need to invade more countries to make them peaceful.

It's an old speakers tactic - three items, with a bit of alliteration to join them up helps the crowds stay energized and focused. Like so often, though, the President's speech, while well written and given,makes no sense.

I'm trying out Google mail. So far it's been great. Today, upon logging in, I got an interesting error message.

If we knew exactly what the problem was, we would tell you instead of giving you this useless error message. Actually, if we knew, we would most likely have fixed it already.

Rest assured. As you read this, alarm bells are ringing at the Googleplex, signifying something has gone horribly wrong in this quadrant. A report will soon be in the hands of our engineering team, detailing the bad thing that happened here. This team will work without rest to address the problem you have brought to their attention.

If, after a decent interval (about 24 hours), you encounter this problem again, please email us at accounts-support@google.com . The more specifics you include, the better (e.g., what kind of computer and browser you were using, what page you looked at last, what you clicked on, etc.). Sometimes, even our engineers need a little help.

Thanks for using Google.

©2004 Google

This is a good example of writing that is properly aimed at its audience. I thought it was funny, without being smarmy.

There appears to be an error with the archives. Sorry about that. I'm sure it's due to the change in blogger a few weeks back. I'll try to fix it up soon.

Many people support the Bush administration because they believe in Bush's good character. Here's more proof that his character is not good.

Top Medicare officials (you know, people working for Bush), intentionally withheld data from Congress showing that Medicare drug benefits would probably cost more than the White House acknowledged. The administrator of Medicare, Thomas A. Scully, threatened to fire the chief actuary, Richard S. Foster, if he gave the real data to Congress before they voted on the the changes proposed by the Bush administration.

In other words, the Bush administration willingly withheld the true cost of its proposed changes to Medicare from the Congress, resulting in Congress believing they had properly funded the changes, when in fact, they fell far short. I'm not talking about just a couple of bucks, either. The President's team said the cost would be $395 billion over 10 years, but in January they submitted a budget that estimated the cost at $534 billion. In other words, $139 billion dollars difference, or $13.9 billion dollars a year.

So what? Well, two things. The Bush administration threatened someone's job for telling the truth (not very high moral character, and possibly illegal) and created a higher deficits. Aren't economic conservatives against that? Aren't those who don't care about the politics, but only care about character concerned about this?

Once more, I don't understand how anyone could vote for Bush. This is yet more proof that his character is poor, and his politics, both economically and socially, are horrible.

I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 with my wife Friday night. I have to admit that I was a bit bored, but then I'm not really the target audience for the movie. It appears to be aimed at making an emotional impact on people that haven't really kept up with the henious behaviour of the Bush administration. It's good at that. My wife and her sister couldn't stop talking about it.

Anyway, there are a lot of web sites cropping up pointing out mistakes in the movie. One, at the Independence Institute, by Dave Kopel, caught my eye, and I wanted to comment on it. Just for reference, the document (not including the italicized prologue) is about 14k words long.

Mr. Kopel starts by writing about Micheal Moore's ideology. Mr. Kopel's idea on what Micheal Moore believes may be interesting, but has nothing to do with whether the movie is factually accurate. In this paper, Mr. Kopel talks about what he claims are differences between Micheal Moore's beliefs and sections of the film. I hate to tell you this, Mr. Kopel, but people's opinions do change. Just because Micheal Moore said something in 2001, doesn't mean he still feels the same way in 2004. Changing your opinion does not count as deceit, in fact, in many cases, it's a sign of maturity.

Next up, a section he calls "2000 Election Night: Deceits 1-2".

Deceit 1: Mr. Kopel says that Moore "creates the impression that Gore [celebrating at a political rally] was celebrating his victory in Florida".

Rebuttal: It's quite clear, in context of the movie, that Moore was using the part as an analogy for the Gore campaign's excitement when they believed they had won Florida.

Verdict: Not deceitful.

Deceit 2: "Moore thus creates the false impression that the networks withdrew their claim about Gore winning Florida when they heard that Fox said that Bush won Florida."

Rebuttal: Fox was the first network to call Florida for Bush, and, as Moore points out, the person that made the call is related to George Bush. The other networks soon followed. Clearly, when Fox issued their call, the other networks, which at that time still had Florida as a toss-up, would revisit their call. Mr. Kopel says that Fox was not the first network to retract their call for Gore. That's true. But Fox was the first network to call Florida for Bush. The others followed.

Side note: Mr. Kopel rehashes NBC's early (10 minutes before the closing of the polls in the Florida panhandle) call for Gore and claims that Bush lost thousands of votes because of it. Once again, this has nothing to do with the movie. But in addition, it's hogwash. There's a very good study on this at http://www.be.wvu.edu/div/econ/work/pdf_files/01-07.pdf showing quite clearly that the impact was not statistically significant.

Verdict: Not deceitful.

I could continue on every deceit listed, but I don't have that much time to waste. However, I will talk about one more, an important point that Mr. Kopel has labeled Bush on 9/11: Deceit 9.

Deceit 9: Fahrenheit mocks President Bush for continuing to read a story to a classroom of elementary school children after he was told about the September 11 attacks.

Mr. Kopel says "Moore does not offer any suggestion about what the President should have done during those seven minutes, rather than staying calm for the sake of the classroom and of the public. Nor does Moore point to any way that the September 11 events might have turned out better in even if the slightest way if the President had acted differently. As with the previous item, people may differ about whether this segment should be considered deceitful, or perhaps just a very cheap shot"

Rebuttal: It's the President's duty to respond to national emergencies, not Michael Moore's. Could President Bush have done something to help in the 7 minutes after he was told the country was under attack? We don't know, that's not our job to know, but it is the President's job to try to respond. Can you imagine FDR doing the same thing when he was told about the attack on Pearl Harbor? I can't. Sure, tax cuts for the rich are important, but don't we really want our president to be on hand when a real emergency occurs? Isn't that really what we elect him for?

Verdict: Not a deceit

Mr. Kopel, if you want to be taken seriously, get an editor, trim your article down to things that are about the movie, and contain your comments to something other than your impressions or opinions about what the movie maker intended or opinions he has stated in the past. That will be a much more interesting read, and those of us that are genuinely interested in hearing the opinion of everyone, not just those who agree with us, will have something we can really talk about.