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November 17, 2004
Lots of good stuff in these 2919 theses. Some are even inspirational. Now all we need is the positive vision, the words to put it in, the leaders who can lead us towards that vision, a functioning organization on the ground, and 15,000 red. white and blue balloons attached to the ceiling of a large facility.
(Thanks to Seth Gordon for the link.)
November 16, 2004
Salon has a point/counterpoint on election fraud in Ohio featuring the name-callin’, contempt-drippin’ Greg Palast saying Ohio belongs to Kerry and Farhad Manjoo defending his article saying that Kerry really did lose. If it’s not obvious, I think Farhad comes out ahead on this one.
On Thursday Night, I heard Farhad lay out the issues at the beginning of an NPR talk show. He was excellent. then Heather Gerken and Steve Ansolabehere, from Harvard and MIT respectively, were interviewed. They were good, too, but I was quite surprised to here Ansolabehere say that he was “100%” confident that Bush won Ohio. Gerken responded similarly. When do researchers and academics ever say they are 100% certain? Is it literally beyond all imaginings that the e-voting machines were hacked? I mean, I’m 98% certain they weren’t, but how could I ever get to 100% on such a topic? Maybe I’m over-reacting — and I was listening in the car and not taking notes, so I may not have gotten the exchange right — but I feel like the media are on a mission to reassure the public. And that is not the media’s role. That’s why we have politicians and soma.
Tom Hartmann was also on the show also, and while I am not as alarmed as he is, it was good to hear a skeptic.
November 15, 2004
Three years too late to protect his reputation and three weeks too late to have saved us from Bush’s reelection.
So, which tough-talkin’, big-stick wagglin’ fasco-utopian neocon is W going to install? One shudders to think…
November 14, 2004
Micah Sifry on Open Source Politics at The Nation. He starts with a Dean anecdote I’d never heard before, and barrels on through the topic. Good piece.
November 11, 2004
Dan Gillmor puts it well:
As noted, the Bush administration’s anti-liberty record isn’t the responsibility of outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, despite the zeal with which Ashcroft has torn into Americans’ civil liberties. Now Bush has nominated for attorney general the man who so infamously endorsed torture as a tactic in the war on terrorism, and has defended the administration’s claim that the president can lock up anyone indefinitely without even providing access to a lawyer. It’s going to be a long four years.
November 10, 2004
So, while W postponed invading Fallujah until immediately after the election in order to avoid bloody headlines, the insurgents escaped.
Who will pay for this craven commander in chief’s self-interested political calculation? Any chance that maybe the commander in chief will?
Haha. Just kidding.
November 9, 2004
Dean’s World replies to John Perry Barlow‘s attempt at reconciliation, smacking it upside the head. The post is angry, ranting, and paints a convincing and distressingly believable picture of how folks like me look like to folks like him. (See also the long comment thread to my blogging of Barlow’s piece.)
Newt Gingrich this morning on the NBC Today Show told Katie Couric something along the lines of: Think about what the liberals are getting away with. They’re telling Americans that if you’re a practicing, faithful Roman Catholic, you can’t be on the Supreme Court. If you’re a practicing, faithful evangelical, you can’t be on the Supreme Court.
No, Newt, we’re saying that if you can’t distinguish between your faith and the US Constitution, you shouldn’t be on the Supreme Court. As you, Newt, well know because you are one smart cookie. You’ll just say anything if it spins right.
Katie Couric moved on to the next question. Jon Stewart would not have let him get away with it unchallenged. That’s why Jon Stewart is a better journalist than most of what goes by that name on TV.
November 8, 2004
Scroll through to see maps way cooler — and more accurate — than the simple-minded red/blue ones that only reflect the gross view of electoral numbers.
The conservative site, VDare has a column by Paul Craig Roberts about how our re-electing Bush has ended “The American Century.” I find myself generally nodding along.
I explore the site and find it’s a “project of the Center for American Unity,” which is all about whipping up some good ol’ anti-immigrant fervor, lobbying against “mass immigration, multiculturalism, multilingualism, and affirmative action.” The fact that we are a nation of immigrants seems to me to be such a great strength — perhaps our greatest — that I’m willing to tolerate a fair bit of abuse of the system. So, we disagree.
I will say this about the site, though: Click on the bio of its president, Peter Brimelow, and centered under his glossy photo it says, “(more obvious signs of decay airbrushed out).” Sort of takes the edge off…
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