Site go bye-bye

I've decided to retire my own personal site, for lack of interest and motivation. Instead, I'm embarking on the creation of a new group site that will include lively debate and discussion across party lines.

Please visit the new site, just now operational, at The Columbia Critic

I'm not going to say anything about the London bombings right now (though if the Bush administration starts seeking to use as justification for Iraq I might explode). For now, I'll only place volatile London mayor Ken Livingston's speech here, thanks to Talking Points.

"This was a cowardly attack, which has resulted in injury and loss of life. Our thoughts are with everyone who has been injured, or lost loved ones. I want to thank the emergency services for the way they have responded.
Following the al-Qaeda attacks on September 11 in America we conducted a series of exercises in London in order to be prepared for just such an attack. One of the exercises undertaken by the government, my office and the emergency and security services was based on the possibility of multiple explosions on the transport system during the Friday rush hour. The plan that came out of that exercise is being executed today, with remarkable efficiency and courage, and I praise those staff who are involved.

I'd like to thank Londoners for the calm way in which they have responded to this cowardly attack and echo the advice of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair - do everything possible to assist the police and take the advice of the police about getting home today.

I have no doubt whatsoever that this is a terrorist attack. We did hope in the first few minutes after hearing about the events on the Underground that it might simply be a maintenance tragedy. That was not the case. I have been able to stay in touch through the very excellent communications that were established for the eventuality that I might be out of the city at the time of a terrorist attack and they have worked with remarkable effectiveness. I will be in continual contact until I am back in London.

I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.

That isn't an ideology, it isn?t even a perverted faith - it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I'm proud to be the mayor of that city.

Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.

I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

I must bang the "Stop the OSAA" drum one more time and point everyone to an opinion piece that ran in the Portland Tribune today, calling for a reconsideration of the realignment plans. And yes, I wrote it. I cannot tell a lie.

Let my people go!

There is a great post over on TPM Cafe about why Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices often "drift" over time to become more liberal than expected in their decisions, and why Democrat-appointed SC justices don't "drift" the opposite direction. It is an interesting argument about their sense of a place in history, and parallels are drawn to a similar argument about why newspaper reporters "write liberal" but aren't necessarily uber-liberal.

Well, the anti-OSAA ball keeps rolling in Oregon. My HS district, the Portland Public Schools, by far the largest district in the state, and also home to the most populous sports league, the PIL, has come out publicly in opposition to the 6A redistricting plans.

PPS opposition

Now, if all works out, I should have an opinion piece running on the issue in the Portland Tribune tomorrow (cross my fingers...)

I was randomly playing albums on my iPod at work today, and I happened to play two female groups in a row, which for me is a rarity, seeing how much male singers and groups dominate my 8,000 song collection. I got to thinking, since the women i spin are so rare, who are my favorites.

Tegan & Sara (best album: So Jealous)
Sugababes (best album: Three)
Kelly Clarkson (best album: Breakaway)
Anna Nalick (debut album: Wreck of the Day)
Maria Mena (debut album: White Turns Blue)

All I know about these women is that they can rock when they have to. Take Kelly Clarkson, for example. She comes out of the American Idol factory that has thus far made crap singers popular, given them audience-tested songs to hit it big initially (exhibit A: the pedestrian Carrie Underwood), and then the world turns away next season to a new crowd, leaving the old winners with their thumb stuck out at some rural bus stop, trying to get home from their last, cancelled show. The dustbin is filled with them. Ruben, the Martin Short lookalike Clay Aiken, Fantasia, etc. Kelly was supposed to disappear too. She was good, but not great, on her first album. Did you see her Ms. Independent video? She looked like she didn't even know what to do with her hands the whole time. And after everyone learned the song was originally for Christina, well, they started imagining what could have been. So there goes Kelly, into the dustbin. Then she hits the radio with her second single from Breakaway, Since U Been Gone. And damn Gina, if it didn't rock harder than Creed (i keed, i keed!). The whole album is a joy, and a realization of her potential.

On that note, Anna Nalick's debut is amazing. I'm seeing her with Howie Day on Aug 10.

Tegan & Sara are sisters who are lesbians (they avoid each other). They have somewhat nasally voices, but are great songwriters who have been around for years.

The Sugababes are a girl group that straddles pop, techno, and R&B. They avoid the girl group dynamic by focusing less on being girls who sing, and more on the music, which is catchy as hell.

And Maria Mena is a waifish looking girl who has the oddest voice ever to hit the Top 40. But she too, amidst some traditional pop songs, lets wail on a few tracks.

did he really say this?

Bush in his press conference said we cannot set deadlines to leave Iraq because we don't want to make the terrorists think they can wait out the troops (and Rumsfeld has said the insurgency could last another decade)

then a minute later, he says the reason he won't send more troops to Iraq is because we don't want the Iraqis to think we are planning on staying ... and because his commanders say they don't need more troops.

So we can't pull out because the insurgents are still strong. But we can't send more troops because we don't want Iraqis to stay... wow, we're fucked.

Of course, he won't mention that he refused to send more troops after the initial strike so we wouldn't screw up the rebuilding process. And of course he didn't mention that one reason we can't send more troops is because we don't have many left...

I was under the impression that revenge was a goal that was supposed to be pursued subtly in Washington, in order to avoid looking like a petulant child. But baseball, of all things, seems to be interfering with the normal affairs of politicians.

Among the numerous groups bidding for the Washington Nationals is one that includes billionaire financier and political bankroller George Soros, who heavily supported Dems in 2004 to the tune of $20 mil. Understandable that Republicans don't like him. But for them to publicly say that it would be better if he didn't win the bid, because if he did, they might refuse to ever help the team again?

"They enjoy all sorts of exemptions' from anti-trust laws. Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.), vice chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that covers the District of Columbia budget, said if Soros buys the team and seeks public funding for a new stadium or anything else, the GOP attitude would be, "Let him pay for it.""

Why, this is amazing! Liberals may hate American soldiers and love terrorists, but i'll be goddamned if the Republicans aren't even worse. They hate baseball! Sickening.

This week's Time magazine reports on the Christian evangelism that is being encouraged at the Air Force Academy by the increasingly bold and intolerant establishment. This revelation, drawn out through reports in past weeks, after a long period of unproven allegations, only serves to increase the depth of my feeling that ROTC must be reintroduced to liberal campuses that have banned the program for the post-Vietnam era. It is an indisputable fact that the makeup of the military's officer corps, in terms of political beliefs, have shifted from largely liberal, with a huge portion nonreporting, to largely conservative, with a huge portion still nonreporting. While some of the shift can be attributed to the shift of the military to all-volunteer, that does not cover the whole shift.

In Evan Wright's book, Generation Kill, in which he tracks the Marines First Recon unit as it storms into Iraq, we meet Lt. Fisk, a Dartmouth grad with liberal political tendencies. As I noted on this blog previously, he directly addresses, from his experience joining the military after attending a college that had banned ROTC, issues I have raised:

"Despite his cavalier humor, Fick finished at the top of his class in Officer Candidates School and near the top of the Marine Corps' tough Basic Reconnaissance Course. He is also something of a closet idealist. His motivation for joining the Marines is a belief about which he is quietly passionate. "At Dartmouth, there was a sense that an ROTC program, which the school did not have, would militarize the campus," he explains. "They have it backward. ROTC programs at Ivy League campuses would liberalize the military. That can only be good for this country."

When we see the conservative religious values being introduced at the Academy, in large part I would assume because there is little intellectual opposition present anymore, I would argue it makes it even more imperative that we agitate at Columbia for the presence of ROTC on liberal university campuses.

Check out the latest Zogby polling report for a fascinating picture of the changing political landscape. In a Bush-Kerry rematch, people are now saying they would choose in a manner that would lead to a 45-45 tie. Bush's poll numbers are his lowest ever, and he is now actively disliked by nearly 60% of those surveyed. Even in many Red States, his popularity is below the 50% mark.

But those numbers were ones we saw coming. Other, more interesting results include:
-Only 2% of those polled think the Senate is doing an excellent job. Nearly 70% disapprove of the Senate's actions currently.
-In a head to head match up, John McCain would beat up on Hilary Clinton by nearly 17%, and would beat up on John Kerry by 20%. Clinton v. Kerry would end in a solid Clinton victory. Interestingly, McCain won nearly every voter category against Clinton, tying only in the under-30 demographic. This means that Democrats are willing to vote for him, as are moderate Republicans. The big question leading up to 2008 is, what is the religious right going to do? We all saw how Bush destroyed him in South Carolina in 2000 by playing dirty and pandering to the conservative base; can a Bill Frist or a Rick Santorum do that again, or will McCain become a Rockefeller Republican standard-bearer for at least one term?

Also, due to random brainstorms, a glimpse at topics I will expound on in the near future:
1) The problems with the music/movie monopolies, including how the Big Corps that dominate both areas stifle creative independence, force ticket prices when demand is decreasing for supply when the supply is available only at 10 bucks a pop, etc.

2) Nostalgia for Billy Graham and Barry Goldwater. Remember the old days, when small "c" conservatives like Goldwater ranted about the negative effects religion would have on politics if religious leaders gained power in the Republican Party? Or how Graham, despite missteps like his in-private Jew-bashing with Nixon, always chose to befriend politicians of both party, and chose not to speak out on political issues that touched on established church beliefs? He was a class act, a man who wanted people to live by the Gospel's basic tenets, not listen to his personal views on how one could twist religious texts to apply to contemporary political situations. He was like John Paul II if ol' JPII had quieted down on the evils of homosexuality and stayed more centered on basic faith and human goodness.

3) How to create a proper parody movie. Do: take broad swipes at the area you are parodying, but try to make the movie solid in its own right. Don't: re-use every scene from the movie you are directly parodying (Not Another Teen Movie, cough cough). Do: mix physical sight gags with broader, more subtle running jokes (see: Airplane, Anchorman, some of Spaceballs). Don't: try to make as many parody movies as there were movies in the series you are parodying; you are bound to fail (see Scary Movies I, II, III, and conceivably a IV). So on and so forth. Stay tuned.

As everyone who knows me understands, I'm in love with Jon Stewart. If he weren't Jewish, I would go to Massachusetts to marry him. Showing once again why he is the freshest thing on TV since Mr. Clean debuted on commercials, he pontificates about hyperbolic rhetoric in the U.S. Senate "reality show," and then goes on to discuss the devious "War on Christianity." It is Stewart at his satirical best.

Talk Talk Talk

I've often argued, based on the fact that youth and young adult crime rates have been dropping for years, that violent video games do not lead to violence. A new study out shows that young men who play several hours a day show brain activity similar to that of someone engaged in actual violence. This does not, as the article points out, answer the larger question: do violent people tend to gravitate toward such games, or do games make people more violent? I, in response to the "sky is falling" group that sees violent video games leading to our ruin, still believe that young adults have in general an ability to differentiate between real and virtual violence, and to separate their actions on the screen from their actions in real life. Thoughts?

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In other news, the US House, for the third time in a decade, has passed an amendment that would allow Congress to place a ban on flag burning. The last 2 times, the Senate was unable to achieve the two-thirds consensus necessary to send the amendment to the state legislatures. This time, with at least 65 senators seeming to support it (67 are necessary), there is a strong potential for the amendment to pass. Rep. Duke Cunningham, who is already in hot water for potentially illegal real estate dealings in California, thinks people who oppose the amendment are out of touch with the American people. But Rep. Jerrold Nadler of NY has a good reply: "If the flag needs protection at all, it needs protection from members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents." Sept. 11 did change how we lived in small ways represented in big government actions. Yet our lives remain essentially unchanged, and the role of our flag as a symbol of the nation, not of a single ideology, should remain unchanged as well. I hope this bill gets shot down.