IOUs?
On the Dave Ross radio show Wednesday, he talked about attending a forum on Social Security held by 8th District Congressman Dave Reichert. Ross disputed one of the panelists, someone named Paul Guppy, who explained to the audience that there was no real Social Security trust fund--that really all we have are a bunch of IOUs. Ross disputed this saying the trust fund was a promise--"That's an IOU to me" he said. That's not true, of course. It's not as if the US government bought a bond with Dave Ross' name on it that he can cash upon retirement. There's no contractual agreement that requires the US government to provide Ross with a certain amount of money from the bonds. Even if there were, the government IOU would be made with no money behind it. As the New York Times pointed out a few weeks ago, "Retirement benefits are paid monthly from the trust fund. Any tax money left over is lent to the federal government. The government issues interest-bearing Treasury bonds to the trust fund and immediately spends the money for other purposes. When tax receipts are not sufficient to pay benefits, the Treasury is supposed to redeem bonds in the trust fund and use the proceeds to meet the monthly payments." So the man with the unfortunate name of Guppy is right and his larger point is that there is no money being saved from the current surplus in pay roll taxes. Future retirees will be paid through the same limited amount of government money used to fund defense, welfare, education and all the other countless federal programs. I know we've pointed this out before but we'll have to keep pointing it out since even reasonable and informed folks like Dave Ross don't understand it.
Sam, 3/31/05

More Ross
The main point of the segment on Dave Ross' show was that the Democrats stacked the audience with people against President Bush's wish to reform Social Security. The panel, Ross said, was actually informative but the audience was full of professional protesters who hissed and hooted not allowing the panelists to make their points. This illustrates that hatred for Bush is trumpeting creating some sort of workable solution for future retirees--for today's children these protesters so cravenly wrap themselves around when it's otherwise convenient.
Sam, 3/31/05

New Villages
I was talking to a woman the other day who raised her two kids in Nairobi. She said it was true about the "It takes a village" mentality in Africa in raising her children. She didn't worry about where they were in the neighborhood because everyone kept an eye on the children. She used to leave her kids at the check stand when doing her grocery shopping--the cashiers played with and kept an eye on the kids. There was corruption and crime there she said, but there was a protecting attitude towards children. Once her husband was pulled over by the cops for doing a U-turn. They took him to jail and called her expecting her to come bribe them to get him out--typical stuff she said. She went down to the jail with her one-month-old baby. The cops cooed and played with the kid, all googly eyed over him, while at the same time they demanded the bribe from her. She paid and left with her husband and child. As a kid, I remember roaming the neighborhood as parents kept an eye on us. I don't think life is more dangerous now; it's just that we are more paranoid. Let's get back to a Nairobi style of life.

MARCH 31, 2005

More tonight
Something's come up but I hope to be blogging more later tonight.
Sam, 3/29/05

MARCH 29, 2005

God, Man and the Navy
I was at a dinner Friday night hosted by the US Navy in honor of a visiting Indian Admiral. At my table was a Commander in the US Navy. He was born in Egypt. He was an arrogant SOB browbeating the rest of us at the table with his stern and inflexible views. He was certainly sexist asking for the business cards of only the men sitting at the table. He was also anti-Semitic. I do not throw the term around lightly, especially since I think far too many people like to make this accusation nowadays. But, how else to describe a man who believes that a person can't become president of the United States without the approval of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), someone who thinks the Jews control the government, someone who thinks Arnold Schwarznegger could become president because he has businesses in Israel? It's somewhat scary that a person like this, with his views, is in a position of power. It was almost comical as he argued the ole classic about AIPAC and Israel and the Jews being the real powers behind the throne. He also asserted to the table that no Indians have been arrested as terrorists since 9/11. He asked us why this was so. I asked him how we could know this is so since the U.S. is secretly holding prisoners incommunicado without access to lawyers or overseas without access to the International Red Cross. He said to trust him, there were no Indians held as terrorists. Of course, how can one trust such a man? Which is the whole point of the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions--we should not trust individuals to do right--it is the law that we must trust.
Sam, 3/25/05

The Current Account Balance
Old man Richard Russell, who's been in the finance business longer than most of us have been alive, recently wrote, "...in my opinion the only thing that has allowed the US to remain prosperous rather than bankrupt is the fact that we own the world's reserve currency. Thus, the US can pay off its international debt in a currency that it alone creates. No other country in the world can do this." How long can this last? Russell says, "This will work as long as the rest of the world is willing to accumulate dollars. As I see it, the trend is already turning against the international accumulation of unlimited quantities of dollars. As long as the US deficits continue, the US will continue to export dollars. But the trend is changing. This trend to diversifying away from dollars is probably the single most ominous economic trend in the world today. It's a trend that the Fed cannot control." This is your day after Easter words of optimism. You're welcome.
Sam, 3/28/05

A Good Barrel of Oil
Many people say we are running out of oil as explanation for why gas prices will continue to rise. We'll see if we are running out of oil but more accurately to the current situation, what's really happening is the increase in supply can't match the increase in demand thanks to more nations becoming developed and America's continuing large appetite. As Charlie Maxwell--known as the "Dean of Energy Analysts" wrote a few months ago, "There will be many who claim that the root of the problem is that we are "running out of oil." This is not an accurate way to describe the situation. We are running out of the ability to produce 2% more barrels
each year to meet world demand that increases about 2% annually. The potential loss of the incremental barrels of output in the non-OPEC world as early as 2009-2010 would put the availability of additional barrels -- and power over the price at which the world's consumers might purchase them -- in the hands of five OPEC nations: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. (Under some circumstances, Venezuela might be an additional member of the club.)"
Sam, 3/28/05

MARCH 28, 2005

Stranger Steal
To steal from Last Days in The Stranger, nothing happened today...
Sam, 3/25/05

March 25, 2005

Waits Hits
Tom Waits lists his 20 favorite CDS describing them in typically wonderful Waitsian words. For example, his take on James Brown:

Sam, 3/24/05

The Conservative Crack-up
Two of the most popular blogs in the business are both talking about the Republican conservatives "cracking up". Instapundit's piece writes, "After talking about small government and the rule of law, Republicans overwhelmingly supported a piece of legislation intended to influence a single case, that of Terri Schiavo." Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan notes, " President Bush has added $1 trillion (£520 billion) to the national debt in only four years and is proposing to add at least another $2 trillion with his social security reform. With his Medicare prescription drug benefit, about whose massive expense he deceived Congress, he has enacted the biggest new entitlement since Lyndon Johnson. Bush has increased spending on medical care for the poor by 46%. He has doubled education spending in four years; federal housing spending has gone up 86%." Both are right, of course. There's nothing conservative about the Bush Administration and in just a few years the Republican-controlled Congress has been corrupted at least as much as 40 years of control corrupted the Democrats when they ruled the capital roost. When I worked back in DC the Republicans in the minority complained about the same kind of shoddy behavior Tom Delay and his cronies are committing every day now. The biggest shame is they are going to set back the ideas and ideals of more limited government and individual liberty for perhaps a generation.
Sam, 3/24/05

MARCH 24, 2005

Steroids Scoop!
SamSpeak is proud to announce an advance sneak of the work of the Seattle Times' newest writer, Nic Layton, who will have a piece on steroids in baseball this Sunday. Nic, age 11, writes, "I think that there needs to be a serious punishment for taking steroids in baseball and people need to quit being so relaxed about it. Steroids could ruin a game that was once said to be won by pitching and defense." Nic deserves special kudos for including Gary Sheffield in his hall of shame: "Maybe it's fun to watch guys like Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, and Gary Sheffield hit homers but if you really think about it half of those home runs may have been long fly balls if they hadn't used steroids." For the life of me I can't understand why Giambi gets all the grief on the Yankees for steroids usage when we know from leaked grand jury testimony that both used the illegal substances. The only difference is Giambi issued a pseudo apology. For the rest of Nic Layton's piece, check out this Sunday's Seattle Times. Also, inside sources in the Layton family tell me that other young boys are similarly concerned with the use of steroids in baseball. You can certainly see the concern Nic has as evidenced by his splendid piece in the Times. Nic still plans on going to Mariners games this year which makes sense although foolish pundits will take this as evidence the public doesn't care. It's a classic case of misusing data. One does not indicate the other. The public can be outraged and want something serious done about the problem and still attend baseball games. Nic is a great example of this.
Sam, 3/2305

The Inmates Guarding the Prison
Speaking of steroids in baseball, I was at a fascinating lunch where Bob Bavasi spoke. Bavasi once owned the Everett Aqua Sox and is part of the famous Bavasi baseball family. At the lunch someone asked Bob Bavasi about steroids and he told a story about his brother, Peter, who a number of years ago was general manager of the San Diego Padres. Peter was in the owner's box watching a game. One of the Padres banged home the winning run with a key hit in the 9th. The owner went crazy jumping up and down applauding; Peter just sat there. Finally, the owner looked at Bavasi and asked what was wrong. He replied that the player was taking cocaine. The owner looked at Bavasi and said, "Well, if that'll get the winning hit let's get them all to start using cocaine." This little anecdote, of course, illustrates not that cocaine causes game winning hits but that the owners, players and everyone else is interested in other things than the integrity of the game. The Nic Laytons in the world have a lot of work to do.
Sam, 3/23/05

Striking Back
Instapundit referenced this NY Times piece but it is so important I repeat it here. Plus, it builds on the protests against Jordan I referenced earlier.

Sam, 3/23/05

MARCH 23, 2005

The Ponzi Scheme Continues
Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley on some fly by night junket to Asia wrote recently, "The message from overseas is that this game is just about over. One by one, Asian central banks -- America's financiers at the margin -- have dropped the not-so-subtle hint that they are saturated with dollar-denominated assets. From Korea and Japan to China and India -- not to dismiss Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore -- there is a growing protest to massive dollar overweights in official reserve portfolios. The standard American response borders on arrogance: "What choice do they have?" The presumption is that the US has externally driven Asian economies over a barrel -- unwilling to accept a deterioration in export competitiveness that currency appreciation might bring. This misses a key cost-benefit trade-off -- weighing the hit to exports against the fiscal cost of a portfolio loss on holdings of dollar-denominated assets. The bigger the build-up of dollar reserves, the more this trade-off is likely to tip toward dollar diversification --spelling the end of America's cut-rate foreign financing."
Sam, 3/22/05

Campaign Finance on the Internet
The Washington Post has an article on the FEC looking at what regulations will need to be imposed on the Internet as a result of the freedom of speech restrictions (otherwise misleadingly called the McCain - Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law) laws passed by Congress a couple years ago .The blogosphere was apocalyptic about the possible restrictions the FEC might impose but this article makes it seem as if the fears are misplaced. At any rate, the sooner we start calling these so-called "reform" efforts "regulation" efforts the better we'll be.
Sam, 3/22/05

It sounds like this should be getting more attention in our media. Free speech rights are under assault from both the left and right in this country but I didn't know Saudi billionaires were engaged in this as well. We need to keep a close eye on all these attacks on the first amendment.
Sam, 3/22/05

MARCH 22, 2005

No Free Lunch
Critics of Bush's social security reform efforts are right about one thing: Medicare and Medicaid programs are in even dire shape than Social Security.. In fact, the health care system in the United States creates all sorts of problems for private business and local governments. That's because health care costs continue to experience prolonged rapid inflation and because too many people are uninsured. The Democrats in the Washington State legislature want to raise taxes even though new revenues are far above the amount of government-calculated inflation because the real inflation rate--at least for government services--is in the high teens when you factor in health care costs. Bush has been advocating medical savings accounts while others want to nationalize medicine in one form or another. Those that argue for the latter need to start using honest language, however. People love to argue for free health care when what they mean is we will pay for it in a different way than we do now. An article from the Associated Press on Canada's health care system reprinted in Sunday's Seattle Times repeats this flaw: The article states: "In 1984 Parliament passed the Canada Health Act, which affirmed the federal governments commitment to provide mostly free health care to all." Well, that's just not true. Health care isn't free or mostly free in Canada--it's paid for by increased taxes or financed by budget deficits. There's no such thing as free health care. If and when we get around to tackling Medicare and Medicaid and the whole health care system in the United States we need to remember it's not whether health care is free or not but how and by whom it will be paid.
Sam, 3/21/05

The Tide
It didn't receive much attention but last week after a suicide attack against Iraqis was determined to have been committed by some Islamic fanatic idiot from Jordan (good riddance to him) Iraqis took to the streets and protested in front of the Jordanian Embassy. The Iraqis appear to be increasingly fed up with foreigners using their land as the latest staging ground for jihad against modernity. The dispute between Iraq and Jordan has escalated as the two countries have recalled their envoys.
Sam, 3/21/05

Weasel: Species Otherwise Known as Bud Selig
Congress had no business holding hearings on baseball's steroids problem. But since they did, despite what the blind and deaf want to believe, Mark McGuire pretty much admitted he used steroids. But, steroid and human growth hormone use was essentially encouraged by baseball's leadership in the 80s and 90s. Hall of Famer Peter Gammons has a pretty good article on this. And btw, don't let the pundits fool you by saying fans don't care about steroid use just because attendance goes up. Why should we fans punish ourselves just because baseball is screwing itself over. I'm a fan, I'm very concerned about steroid use in baseball screwing up historical records, but I'll still be going to games.
Sam, 3/21/05

MARCH 21, 2005

The Now Infrequent Doom and Gloom Report
Just because we haven't been reporting on the doom and gloom doesn't mean it isn't there, just that we here at SamSpeak are shirking our responsibilities--surely another sign of doom and gloom! But today we report, courtesy of the Financial Times, that "Bankruptcy advisers are hiring extra staff amid fears that an end to the global credit boom could spark a surge in business failures in the US and Europe." Hmm, a global credit boom? What could they be talking about? Maybe it's the giant game of fiscal chicken the large economies of the world have been playing for the last five years since the global recession. Greenspan and the Fed expand the money supply to fight off slow job growth here as the rest of the world pumps up their currencies to save their exports to the U.S. It can't go on forever can it? But when does it end. Well, apparently the bankruptcy advisors think it will end soon and badly.
Sam, 3/17/05

More Doom and Gloom
U.S. consumer debt went up yet again in January increasing by $11.5 billion. This brings the total outstanding consumer debt to $2.12 trillion. Yes, we Americans like to spend, even when we don't have the money. But why let an empty wallet keep us from our plasma TVs and I-Pods and everything else we need and must have. Buy stock in bankruptcy advisors.
Sam, 3/17/05

Even More Doom and Gloom
Doug Noland of the Prudent Bear reports that bank credit has "expanded an alarming $226.5 billion over the past 8 weeks...Real estate loans are up $335 billion or 14.8% over the last year. So housing's still going strong and being bought on credit but the National Association of Realtors reports that much of the buying, unlike in our past, is by people buying second or third homes or for investment purposes. "I am astonished," said David Lereah, the associations chief economist, "What we're seeing is that real estate is no longer just a place to live. It's a viable alternative to stocks and bonds." Let's hope it's not a new post 9/11 bubble.
Sam, 3/17/05

26
That's the number of prisoners who have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. Of course, I shouldn't have used the passive tense. They didn't just happen to die, they were killed by military and intelligence officials. BTW, only one of the 26 murders took place in Abu Graihb prison.
Sam, 3/17/05

MARCH 17, 2005

Follow the Money? No, Follow the Women
Light posting today but I must point out this: As I noted here quite some time ago, the Lebanon freedom movement appears to be a great example of what someone once said, "If you want to know which movements will be successful, look at the ones with beautiful women in them." Many others are also noting this and this site has photographic proof.

MARCH 16, 2005

Irish Eyes
Was at a lunch at which the Mayor of Galway spoke, a city I will be visiting in a few short months. Much has been written about the economic turnaround of Ireland in the last twenty years as they earned the "Celtic Tiger" moniker. But perhaps the Mayor said it best in her succinct lyrical voice, "For the first time, Ireland is exporting product not people." Before the potato famine, Ireland was a country of some 8 million people. By the 1960s, it had 2.8 million and today is back to 4 million, still half its size of more than 100 years ago. It's something to keep in mind as demographers predict the future--who really knows what lies in store for a country and a world?
Sam, 3/15/05

All the News
Lots happening in Lebanon not that you'll hear about it on our national news. The MSNBC story I link to was buried on their web site. NPR didn't mention it on their news last night. The CBS radio news leads with Michael Jackson's trial, followed by the judge's ruling for gay marriage in California. Obviously the second story is newsworthy and the first is the typical entertainment scandal piece our media specializes in. But after the gay marriage story, CBS news next talked about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at which U2 is being inducted and then followed it with the story of the death of the lead singer of Molly Hatchet. Molly Hatchett????? A somewhat popular 1980s band is more important than a million or so people taking to the streets in Lebanon to demand Syria get the hell out? The baby boomers continue to rule our land pushing U2's induction and the death of Molly Hatchet's lead singer above real news just as they push their debt-ridden retirement plans above future generations. What was the title of one of the late Hunter S. Thompson's books? A Generation of Swill.
Floyd, 3/15//05

New York Times Has All the News
Although the New York Times didn't front the news they have a nice story about the protest: "Seemingly every available space around the heart of the city overflowed with people waving the red-and-white striped Lebanese flag in what was being billed as the largest demonstration ever in Lebanon's history." The article also notes that in traditionally factionalized Lebanon, "The most notable element in the rally was that it did represent a broad cross section of Lebanese from all around the country. 'They can say that they represent a wide spectrum of Lebanese factions, including some Shiites, and they have been able to bring the Sunnis into the streets, which is not easy,' said Ghassan Salame, a former minister of culture and political science professor, speaking by telephone from Paris. 'They have an upward momentum now after a week that was full of uncertainty.'" Like the run up to the Iraqi elections, the fight for independence in Lebanon, even if we do not know whether it will lead to progress or problems, is nothing if not an interesting story.
Sam, 3/15/05

MARCH 15, 2005

H.G. and Orson
I get into my car, turn the key in the ignition and KOMO AM radio comes on from when I was listening to the Mariner spring training game earlier in the day. I cruise on down the freeway back to Seattle from Bellingham about to insert a CD into the player when I hear the radio announcer say, "We're getting hundreds of phone calls about a bright blue-green light that streaked across the sky right around 7:43 p.m. tonight." Well, who can turn off the radio when they hear words like that, especially when it's AM radio with that special static noise and "what's the frequency kenneth" sound to it? And then moments later, "We're also getting reports of an earthquake centered somewhere in Kitsap." The radio announcers were breathless and quickly started taking calls on the air from myriad witnesses of the blue-green streak across the sky and from others who felt the jolt of the earthquake. Of course, the two had to be connected somehow, didn't they? Well, the listeners and radio announcers thought so. And as I drove on the dark part of I-5, just south of Bellingham, where the hills loom over the freeway, obscuring any artificial light from the villages beyond, it seemed as if were 1932 and Orson Welles was on the air. More people called into the radio station claiming the power went out in Fremont (the center of the universe!) at 7:46 p.m. So let's review, said the radio announcer. An earthquake hit at 7:41 p.m., a blue-green object streaked across the sky at 7:43 p.m. and at 7:46 p.m. the power went out at the center of the universe. The callers, the announcers, everyone speculated on what it all meant , illustrating yet again that strange and wondrous innate characteristic of we humans--the wish to believe. Plus, we humans must find order in the universe. If an earthquake, a meteorite and and a power outage take place within minutes of each other one is causing the other or something unseen is causing them all. Oswald did not act alone. Bush did it for the oil. Clinton murdered Vincent Foster. It is a funny aspect of humans, helpful in all sorts of ways and damaging in others. A natural event like a meteorite must be much more and a minor earthquake is sound and fury signifying? It's peculiar and funny and not all together rational--and yet, as I sped south through the night, I peered up more than once into the star-lit sky...
Sam, 3/14/05

The Dogs of Demagoguery
An Egyptian blog says Mubarak is "unleashing the dogs of anti-Americanism" in response to Bush's recent speech about spreading democracy to the Middle East and in response to Mubarak's government arrest and then release of a prominent leader of the opposition in Egypt.

Sam, 3/14/05

Social Security Numbers
This site helps lay out some of the Social Security numbers. One problem with the current system is it really is "pay as you go" even though it's advertised as a trust fund. The problem is since there will be far fewer workers per retiree, we're burdening future generations to pay for today's plush old people. Because demographics are always difficult to predict 30 to 40 years hence, it would make more sense to institute a forced individual retirement saving plan rather than have all of us pay into the government which in turns buys bonds that will be redeemed in an uncertain fiscal climate in the distant unpredictable future. If you're concerned the stock market is too risky or that Wall Street barons will make a killing off of ordinary folk, then make the mandatory individual retirement savings plan be one where people have to invest in long-term CDs or some other stable investment. Yes, their return will be smaller but the key is that the burden is not placed on future generations but paid by individuals today. It would be a true pay as you go system. It's a far more honest and stable system than one where we collectivize all our funds and buy bonds that must be redeemed years later through government printing presses.
Sam, 3/14/05

MARCH 14, 2005

Good Source for Outsource Info
I was at a meeting today where the head of a trade policy organization gave a presentation to the Seattle civic leadership on the misinformation out there about outsourcing. It was a great presentation showing how outsourcing is not the bogey man of American jobs that opportunists like Lou Dobbs and misinformed leaders say it is. He even used the stat we've posted here about China losing more manufacturing jobs than the United States in the last five years. He's sending me the presentation and I'll post more on this issue next week.
Sam, 3/11/05

China's New York Times
A news source from China emailed information about the transformation of China's media. The changes in the media illustrate the larger changes in China and shows that the country may progress the way Korea and Taiwan did--economic liberalization followed by political. The writer notes that "Ad spending has grown 25 percent last year, much faster than the economy did on average. Growing room to maneuver makes at least the print media much more interesting than a decade ago. The number of titles is growing very fast to such a degree that nobody is able to really follow the Chinese media scene. Competition between different media outlets is fiercer than ever. During the World Soccer tournament for the first time Chinese media sent out larger number of journalists to cover a global event. After the tsunami about hundred of them found themselves back in Indonesia and other country, for many journalists the first time on an international assignment to a disaster area." There is fierce competition in the Chinese media to be the paper of record, says the writer, "Already four daily papers claim to be the Wall Street Journal and I have lost count on how many want to be the New York Times of China." And despite Chinese government efforts, the Internet and other new technologies are delivering all sorts of new information to the populace: "Every media consumer has only 60 minutes to use in every hour, and those minutes are increasingly used to watch DVD's, get their information and entertainment from the internet." And perhaps this is the most illuminating part of the email: "The recent emergence of Craig-like websites..." We are living through what historians will be writing massive tomes about many years hence.
Sam, 3/11/05

The Dreaded Diversity
More countries are talking about diversifying from the dollar. When it's Japan doing the talking you know the days of the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency are numbered.
Sam, 3/11/05

A Thousand Sadats
This just in from Al Jazeera: armed men break into Palestinian ruling coalition meeting. FYI, I haven't confirmed it with other news media.

MARCH 11, 2005

Rather Wrong Lesson
In all the hubbub of Rather's retiring last night, people are missing the real lesson of the Rather National Guard memo flap. Yes, Rather and CBS went with a story despite the fact the memos were forgeries. Whether they did this out of political bias or journalistic bias to get the story first I'll leave for others to decide. But the real scandal isn't so much that Rather and CBS screwed up the story but why it was a story at all. What people aren't castigating Dan Rather for nor his cohorts in irrelevancy at the other news networks is that for the purpose of deciding who would be a better president--Kerry or Bush--it wasn't important what Bush did or didn't do more than 30 years ago. Kerry brought on the examination of his war record by his inane campaign that focused on his military career of more than three decades past. But, that examination should have only lasted a short news cycle not the months that it did during the campaign. The real scandal of CBS news and all the national news outlets is that once again they did not focus on the issues but instead spent their time on perceived scandal mongering and horse race monitoring. Wouldn't it have been more useful to have engaged in today's Social Security debate last summer and fall when we could have held Bush and Kerry's feet to the fire on if they thought there was a problem with Social Security and if so what they would do about it? Mary Mapes, (the CBS producer of the Bush guard story) instead of running around Texas tracking down forged memos, could have rummaged around Bush's entitlement reform plans or what he would do about health care or any number of other stories. If she and Rather did have a political bias against Bush it could have been more productively scratched investigating the state of the US military as a result of the Iraq war. Or, if they wanted to actually be balanced, they could have done stories on what was going right and what was going wrong in Iraq. But because these reporters and producers are shallow and not very intelligent people, they concentrate on the miscreant ways of a 22-year-old--a young man completely removed in time and relevance to the current occupant. That's the lesson of the Rather fiasco. Remember it for the next election.
Sam, 3/10/05

Gay Marriage Through the Courts
The Washington State Supreme Court heard arguments today to overturn the Defense in Marriage Act passed and signed by the Governor in 1998. I'd prefer gay marriage law was enacted in the legislature rather than by judicial opinion but I haven't read all the ins and outs of this particular court case (then why are you commenting on it?--Floyd). Because I haven't written on this fundamental issue in quite some time and one thing that does need to be reiterated is that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry. Whether this court case is the proper way to win that right I'll write about later. But, the Christo-fascists, like their Islamic Fascist brothers in the Middle East, are clearly in the wrong on the overall issue and make fools of themselves invoking God's name in a public policy battle that should only be argued based on logic and facts, not religion.
Sam, 3/10/05

March 10, 2005

Sonic Stupidity
Was out later at Sonic game than anticipated but will have a few posts later this morning.
Sam, 3/9/05

March 9, 2005

Weasel Battle Royale
Okay, so I didn't follow the Neuheisel case closely but even before the trial revealed the NCAA was breaking its own rules in ambushing the weasely former UW football coach, I thought he got a raw deal from the university and the NCAA. UW officials leaked inflated basketball pool participation dollar amounts to the media so that when articles were written about Neuheisel's NCAA basketball pool it would look worse than it was. Even the sums he did pitch into the pool were likely not that much money to he and his cronies in the rich neighborhood of Montlake. In the trial we learned the university tried to cover up the existence of the memo by their enforcement guru which incorrectly stated it was okay to participate in such pools. So, after the fact, when they realized they could be sued by Neuheisel, the UW claimed they fired him for the same act they were guilty of themselves--dishonesty. Yes, Neuheisel is a weasel and good riddance to him but Hedges and her cronies at the UW acted just as weasely and disreputably as Neuheisel. And the NCAA are the biggest hypocrites on earth. We now know they too broke their own rules in ambushing Neuheisel that fateful day in the Sheraton Hotel. Further, we learned from trial that a year before they ambushed him in the Sheraton they were told he participated in a basketball pool but rather than talk to him at that time they waited a year to essentially trap him because the NCAA is about punishment more than it is about solutions. And it's more than a little hypocritical of the NCAA to act concerned about non-basketball personnel participating in NCAA basketball pools when the whole foundation for the popularity of college basketball and thus TV ratings and thus money to the NCAA and to their weasely officials is those very pools themselves. So this group of weasels, this flock of admitted liars, got together last night and negotiated a settlement. But, of course, the NCAA which will pay Neuheisel a couple million dollars, meaning they essentially admitted they were wrong, doesn't fess up to their ethical challenges. Instead they take the now time honored way of pretending they won a lawsuit they, in fact, lost. From today's Seattle Times,

Yes, it's all the court's fault and didn't have anything to do with the fact we lied to the court and Neueheisel's attorneys about the existence of the rule that the NCAA should not ambush the accused. What was needed was a well placed asteroid to hit the gaggle of weasels collected in the courthouse the last few weeks.
Floyd, 3/8/05

The Big Social Security Lie Continued
The Seattle Times reprints an LA Times article on Social Security in which the Democrats continue the big lie that there is a Social Security Trust Fund with plenty of money for future retirees. After quoting Bush pointing out this is not true, the article quotes Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Social Security subcommittee,

Of course, what he doesn't say is how between 1959 and 1981 the $26 billion bonds were cashed to make up the difference--by the government printing money or taking from other parts of the budget. It's not like there was some bank out there that was holding this $26 billion. The article notes this later on when it states:

Later on in the article the author makes the point even more clear:

In other words, what became of the payroll taxes you, me and everyone else have been paying lo these many years? It's gone, down the rat hole of other government spending; even worse it's flushed down a sewer drain of deficit spending creating trillions of dollars of debt. Which, of course, is the crux of the Social Security and Medicare entitlement crisis: even as our deficits have grown larger and the debt more enormous, in five years time Social Security will place even greater pressure on deficits when the surplus crests and becomes smaller and smaller until in 2018 it too is in deficit as far as the human eye can see. But still too many Dems, horrified at the Bush partial personal retirement fund, lie about what is really going on with Social Security. Apparently, the precious children they always go on and on about--our nation's future as they so often remind us in other policy debates--don't count a damn when it comes to Social Security or other entitlement programs--issues in which the Dems think they can suck votes from old people.
Sam, 3/8/05

MARCH 8, 2005

Syrian Ice Block
A blog by a Syrian author does not hold out much hope for change in Syria:

Read the whole thing:
Sam, 3/7/05

Pump Up
Gas prices were up again I noticed when I filled up at the pump today. As we've noted before, it's no longer just the U.S. driving demand and thus putting pressure on prices. China consumption of oil went up to more than 6 million barrels of oil per day in 2004 and analysts think it will rise another 10% in 2005 to 7 million barrels a day. On the other hand, gasoline inventories are at their highest rate since the spring of 2002 so perhaps in the short term, future trips to the pump won't be so traumatic.
Sam, 3/7/05

MARCH 7, 2005

The Forces of Ostrich
The AFL-CIO came to my door last night asking me to sign a petition asking Congress to oppose Bush's plan to "privatize Social Security." They argue there is "time to fix" Social Security. One of the reasons Bush's Social Security plan is so unpopular in the polls is the concerted, organized effort by the usual reactionary suspects--AARP, labor, Move-On and all the rest. You can argue all you want that Bush's particular plan is a bad one but the truth is Bush has said "He will listen to any good idea that does not include raising payroll taxes." Go to the link above and you can read what the Administration is really saying about Social Security reform. Few have been more critical of Bush over the years than I but he deserves credit for raising the need to reform Social security. Yes, we could listen to the AFL-CIO and their Amish-like cronies and take some unspecified amount of "time" to fix Social Security (they state they are against raising the retirement age, btw) but delay has been these forces game for years. The longer we wait the harder Social Security becomes to fix and the greater the chances of fiscal calamity besetting the nation.
Sam, 03/04/05

Achilles Heals of the Parties
Matt Yglesies in the online journal Prospect writes (hat tip: Instapundit):

While this may be true the "upshot" is also that the Republican Party has been miserable at convincing people of its domestic agenda. The truth is the American public supports big government and has come to expect something for nothing. If not for national security issues, Republicans would be doomed. In the 1990s, the Republicans offered no effective spokesperson for non-governmental solutions to problems such as escalating health care costs, lack of savings, a failing educational system and other big, far reaching crises. Bush, of course, has compounded the problem by his overseeing the largest expansion of federal power and spending since Lyndon B. Johnson and by his inarticulate ways. There is a huge opening for a candidate who can articulate a vision of how non-governmental solutions can solve some of these problems. Will anyone step into it for the 2008 race?
Sam, 3/4/05

MARCH 4, 2005

Irish Revival
Was at the Hothouse Flowers show at the Croc last night. It was like an Irish gospel revival. I'd never seen them live before; they were fantastic. More blogging a little bit later today.
Sam, 3/03/05

MARCH 3, 2005

Syria's Next Step
What's Syria's next move? The Syrian-installed government in Lebaon has resigned. The protests continue in Lebanon. Al-Assad says Syria will pull out its troops within a few months. But the likely scenario is Syria will work to sow dissension within the Lebanese opposition. They will try to create the same factionalism among Muslims, Christians and Kurds that has bedeviled Lebanon for decades. If successful, they hope to remind the realpolitikers of why the US and West essentially welcomed Syria into Lebanon many years ago--stability. The Lebanese opposition--so far miraculously cohesive--has a tough challenge before it. The hope is that freedom and liberalization will prove greater draws than ancient factional prejudices in the face of Syrian attempts to provoke this factionalism.. It's a fools hope but at the moment seems more possible than ever before.
Sam, 3/2/05

Follow the Beautiful Women
I used to live in Washington, D.C. and nearly every week there was another protest gathering of one sort or another on the mall--that wonderful human playground stretching from the capital to the Lincoln Memorial. I can't remember where I read it or if someone told me this theory but the gist of it was you could tell which movements would be successful by the number of beautiful women involved. The idea was that if lots of attractive women were involved with a protest, large gobs of men would join in because--being the shallow gender that we are--we would join up with the movements that offered the best chances to hook up with good looking women. I bring all this up because I notice that the photos of the protests in Lebanon are chock full of beautiful women (being a man, I'm too damn lazy to provide any links but check out the blogs and web sites for examples).. Perhaps this is a function of the photographers who may all be men looking to turn their cameras on what they find most fascinating and attractive. But, if the get-Syria-the-hell-out-of-Lebanon movement is full of these women than the theory will hold that the men are joining too in large numbers making the odds of success even better. How's that for careful, astute geopolitical analysis?
Sam, 3/2/05

Germany's Slide
A provocative article in Britain's Daily Telegraph on Germany's continuing economic difficulties. The article notes that if current trends continue (always a dangerous assumption, btw--lines on graphs do not go only in one direction) then "By 2011, per capita income in Germany will have been overtaken by Spain, until recently one of the poorest in the European Union." The article also notes that "Most startling is the finding that Germany has fallen way behind Britain in economic performance and individual purchasing power. While Germany was eight percentage points ahead of Britain just a decade ago, now Britain is nine points ahead." I was in Munich last summer and it is true the country is trying to grapple with an unsustainable public support system made more so by dramatically aging demographics. Interestingly, many here in the United States point to Germany and France and other parts of Western Europe as places we should emulate in social policy. These are the same people who are so agitated by Bush raising the problems with Social Security in our country. It will be interesting to see what happens in Germany in the next ten years and what lessons it will hold for the US.
Sam, 3/2/05

MARCH 2, 2005

A Bush Wave?
The protests in Lebanon continue after the fall of the government. Reuters reports, "Jubilant opposition supporters in Lebanon have vowed to carry on with their protest in central Beirut in a bid to drive Syrian forces from the country after the collapse of the Damascus-backed government." It's starting to feel like Ukraine all over again and the conservative blogosphere is abuzz with hope that this is the beginning of a wave of democratization in the Middle East arising out of the Iraq elections. And hope we should (as well as work hard) but a note of caution. The government of Syria has a long record of brutality and a willingness to use it to retain power. Al-Assad may resist world opinion and strike back hard. Plus, my guess is it's no accident there was a Palestinian suicide bomber over the weekend. So even as we hope, let's remember it's still early. The protests in Egypt give hope and the Palestinians condemning the suicide bombing (instead of celebrating as in the past) give hope. It appears we may be witnessing a sea change in the region--something we should have been working towards since the end of the cold war instead of using the misguided realpolitik policy--but the weather is tough to predict. It's early. Yet still, today we have, more than at any time before, that wonderful concept, hope.
Sam, 3/01/05

The Fix
As promised, here's a few fixes to the Social Security system. First, we need to raise the age of retirement to 73. As William Saletan notes in Slate, "In short, if you were designing a system in 1999 for people who could expect as many active years as a 65-year-old person could expect in 1935, you'd set the retirement age at 70. And by 2015, you'd raise it to 73." Second, we'd index the Social Security benefits to prices rather than wages. Of course, if wages stagnate as they have been the last few years and inflation takes off, this may not save money like some think but historically this should save money over the long run. Third, by doing both of these things, you could reduce the payroll tax slightly and with that money require individuals to invest in personal retirement accounts. Unlike Bush's plan (at least as much as we know about the plan so far), which in the short run would lead to greater deficits and not solve the social security shortfall, doing all three of these fixes would solve the coming shortfall and allow Americans to start to take control of their own retirement. Like welfare, before it was reformed by Clinton and the Republican Congress in the 1990s, Social Security encourages shortsighted thinking. Why should I save if I think the government will be there with a big fat Social Security check? Yes, this plan entails some pain for people who have to work until an older age than they originally thought but a little bit of pain for our spoiled boomer generation is better than massive amounts of pain for the coming generations facing a Social Security system that would eat up all remaining parts of the federal budget. Those who want to retire before the age of 73 can start saving and preparing to do that. For those who want no pain as we address Social Security, well, they're the kind of folks that have gotten our country to where it is now. See "Debt, Debter, Dead" post below.
Sam, 3/01/05

Debt, Debter, Dead
Good old man Richard Russell supplies us with a few facts this week. "At the 1929 stock market high, total US credit was 176 percent of GDP. In 1933 with GDP collapsing and the Depression in full force, total credit rose to 287 percent of what was left of GDP. Now get this -- in 2000 at the top of the late bull market, total credit was 269% of GDP. That was wild enough, but do you know where we are today? Currently, total credit is 304 percent of GDP!" As I said yesterday, never have so many spent so much of other people's money. Of course, as was once said, the fish rots from the head down. The federal government spills out red ink like an octopus in a shark tank. We have become a nation of spoiled brats buying whatever we want right now damned the consequences. Like all such brats, we better hope we grow up and change our ways before life teaches us a painful lesson.
Sam, 3/01/05

Volcker Knows
Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who harnessed inflation in the 1980s, recently talked about the risky economic and fiscal plank on which we now walk, "Below the favorable surface [of the economy, there are as many dangerous and intractable circumstances as I can remember.... Nothing in our experience is comparable. But no one is willing to understand [this] and do anything about it. We are consuming about six per cent more than we are producing. What holds the world together is a massive flow of capital from abroad. It's what feeds our consumption binge... the United States economy is growing on the savings of the poor. A big adjustment will inevitably become necessary, long before the social security surpluses disappear and the deficit explodes. We are skating on increasingly thin ice."
Sam, 3/01/05

MARCH 1, 2005

A Big Day in Lebanon, perhaps
By the time you read this we may know how big.

A Modest Final Solution
Rarely have so many spent so much of other people's money. But the party must soon come to an end. The Social Security surplus crests in five years, cascading against the ecologically fragile shore of the federal budget. Thereafter, the strain on the budget will grow larger and larger each year until we will all drown in an un-parted red sea of fiscal impudence. The simple fact of the 21st Century is the American population is aging. Where once there were 42 workers for every retiree, in a few short years there will be three. In short, it has become quite obvious there are too many old people and not enough young. Because it is ludicrous, of course, that we would restrain benefits or raise revenues or make any changes at all to the Social Security system, I offer a few, feasible, politically palatable, modest solutions to our country's problem.

The first thing we need to do is reduce the number of old people in our country We can do this in four painless ways.
1. We will immediately replace all anti-smoking campaigns with a concerted program to encourage as much of our population as possible to take up cigarettes.

2. The FDA's food pyramid will be turned on its head. Instead of seven servings of vegetables and fruit, it's cheeseburgers and french fries.

3. Companies will be required to not provide health care.

4. All medical research will be prohibited.

The second thing we need to do is increase the number of young people. Believe it or not, we can do this in 5 painless ways.
1. Abortion will be immediately banned.

2. Holes will be pricked in all condoms.

3. Sex and nudity will be mandatory in all G and PG rated movies (this would be required even if we weren't trying to save Social Security--Floyd)

4. Gay marriage will be legalized but each couple will be forced to adopt two kids.

5. Illegal immigration will be encouraged for all people under the age of 30.
Sam, 2/28/05

Coming Tomorrow
My solutions for Social Security.

Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson
Tom Wolfe--who differs from Hunter in almost all ways save for the glee each takes in attacking the perceived establishment--wrote a wonderful obit about Hunter in the Wall Street Journal. One of the great gems of life is that two people so different could be friends and back in the day help each other in their careers. Wolfe recounts his first meeting with Hunter after he received research from him in writing his book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.

Wolfe ends the piece by placing Thompson high in the American literary pantheon: "Thompson: was also part of a century-old tradition in American letters, the tradition of Mark Twain, Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby, comic writers who mined the human comedy of a new chapter in the history of the West, namely, the American story, and wrote in a form that was part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention, and wilder rhetoric inspired by the bizarre exuberance of a young civilization. No one categorization covers this new form unless it is Hunter Thompson's own word, gonzo. If so, in the 19th century Mark Twain was king of all the gonzo-writers. In the 20th century it was Hunter Thompson, whom I would nominate as the century's greatest comic writer in the English language."

FEBRUARY 28, 2005

No More Brain Disability
I was going to write more about Mary Johnson's inane attack on Million Dollar Baby but tonight we watched the video of the Red Sox 2004 season followed by the 1995 Mariner season video (something we watch every year around this time) and I figure why focus on bad when there is so much good just around the corner come early April. I can still remember driving up to Baltimore years ago when I lived in DC to catch an Oriole game at the end of the season. Scott Johnson and I drove up there for one of the last games of the season since the Orioles were in a pennant race. We arrived, parked in the lot out back of old Memorial Stadium and when we got out of the car already you could feel something different in the air. As we walked into the stadium the crowd was making noise usually reserved for late innings. As we sat in our seats in the second inning, the crowd around us broke into spontaneous chants spelling out O-R-I-O-L-E-S. Scott and I were bewildered. We didn't know what was going on. We'd grown up in Seattle and only knew the Mariner who up to that point had never had a winning season. As the game continued we suddenly realized what was going on--this was pennant fever! We'd never experienced it, never been around it. I remember we hoped one day we'd experience that with the Mariners. And, of course, in '95 we did, in the most spectacular and emotional of ways. Late February and early March are a time of false optimism. A period when anything seems possible. Felix will be an ace. Sexson will be healthy, the pitching staff will miraculously coalesce into a fearsome unit. So even as a tinge of melancholy hangs in the air of an Edgarless spring, let's forget about the Mary Johnson's of the world for the moment.
Sam, 2/26/05

FEBRUARY 26, 2005

Lost Critics
I read earlier this week that critics and so-called experts are saying the producers of the TV show Lost need to start revealing mysteries or they will lose their audience. Such advice is the kind that ruins shows. First of all, there is no evidence viewers are leaving the show. Second, the show is getting better and better thus far so who are these critics to butt in? Third, let the show's creators and writers produce something the way they want and let's see how the audience reacts rather than trying to figure out what the audience wants and cater to it. Ironically, the show nearly never got made because the so-called experts didn't think it would be popular.
Sam, 2/25/05

Bar None
Old Woman: If we really thought about our plight, we'd either go stark raving mad or sink into a deep, blue depression as bottomless as the darkest depths of the sea..

Stay tuned for more on the screenplay Bar None I'm writing for a friend of mine.
Sam, 2/25/05

Brain Disability
Mary Johnson writes a column in the Seattle PI about Million Dollar Baby, castigating it for it's supposed--Spoiler Alert!!!!! pro-assisted suicide stance. I've written about this before but I can't let Johnson' column go by without comment. First, as produced in the PI, it is nearly incomprehensible--an assembled montage of thoughts adding up to nothing. I wondered if the PI had edited it so badly that it no longer made sense so I found the full original column on the Internet in the disability rights magazine, Ragged Edge. Sure enough, the PI had cut the introduction to the column which makes clear that Johnson is attacking the media for portraying the opposition to Million Dollar Baby as coming only from the Religious Right by Michael Medved and his ilk. Funny that a mainstream media outlet would do that. Hmm, wonder what they were thinking? Of course, Johnson also attacks the movie and takes a cowardly cheap shot at Eastwood when she says, "Some disability rights activists found it overly ironic that the man who waged a very public battle in 2000 to further delay requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act (AAA) for access to businesses would then make a movie in which he helps a quadriplegic die. It was a good opportunity for some finger-pointing. But the moral complexities of Baby are not about access to buildings. They're about access to assisted suicide." First of all, there's no evidence that Eastwood made the movie as an attack on people with disabilities out of some bitterness in his complaints against certain aspects of the AAA. And second, the movie is not even a proponent of assisted suicide. It's tells the story of three characters in a particular situation. Eastwood's character makes a decision for which he knows he will suffer mental anguish. His priest tells him so. He makes the decision for his own reasons. Mary Johnson and the other disability rights advocates are misguided in attacking the movie and, unlike Eastwood, are the ones apparently blinded by the director's complaints about the AAA. Let's hope Million Dollar Baby takes the Oscar Sunday so both the religious right and misguided disability lobby can seethe even more. More on some of Johnson's other points later this weekend.
Sam, 2/25/05

FEBRUARY 25, 2005

The Gathering Sun?
David Ignatius has an interesting piece in The Washington Post about the increasing calls for liberalization by citizens in Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries. Ignatius writes, "

At the time of the Iraqi elections I wrote:

FEBRUARY 24, 2005

Bonds Continues his Racist Ways
Barry Bonds is obsessed with Babe Ruth, as I've pointed out before. He desperately wants to pass Babe Ruth's mark because Ruth was white. He's said this in the past. Now, however, in trying to deflect attention away from his use of steroids, Bonds claims he's being singled out because Ruth is white. On Espn.com, Bond's is quoted as saying, "Because Babe Ruth is one of the greatest baseball players ever, and Babe Ruth ain't black, either," he said. "I'm black. Blacks, we go through a little more. ... I'm not a racist though, but I live in the real world. I'm fine with that." Well, Barry, the fact is you are racist. That's not to deny the US still has racism problems but you're repeated obsession with passing Babe Ruth because he is white is racist plain and simple. Of course, you're not the first great racist baseball player. Ty Cobb was racist as well. But, he's dead and we can't do anything about it. You, however, we can call on it.
Sam, 2/23/05

Free Iranian Bloggers
I'm a day late and a dollar short but yesterday was free two Iranian bloggers day, the two bloggers being Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad. More ideas on how to help the two imprisoned bloggers here.

More Middle East Democracy Protests
Now they're clamoring for liberalization in Egypt.
Sam, 2/23/05

Why You Should Read Running on Empty by Peter Peterson
Because you'll get nuggets like this: "If you look back at the federal budget from George Washington through Dwight Eisenhower and exclude only years of declared war or catastrophic depression, the record is remarkable: 127 years of budget surpluses and 44 years of budget deficits. Even these deficits on average were less than 0.5 percent of GDP. Since 1960, the scorecard changes dramatically: just 5 years of surplus and 39 years of deficits...and these figures do not include the much larger liabilities racked up in recent decades, off the books, through unfunded benefit promises."
Sam, 2/23/05

FEBRUARY 23, 2005

Good God, is there Hope?
Protests in Lebanon, Kim Jong Il may come back to the bargaining table, Israel pulling out of Gaza, Sunnis wanting to be part of the political process in Iraq. The world is turned on its head with too much hopeful news today. Where's the doom and gloom so I can feel normal again?
Floyd, 2/22/05

Interview with the Vampire
Interesting interview with the last surviving person to be in Hitler's bunker in the last days.
Sam, 2/22/05

Out of Town
But more blogging later today.
Sam, 2/22/05

FEBRUARY 22, 2005

Hunter S. Thompson, RIP
"When a man gives up drugs he wants big fires in his life--all night long, every night, huge flames in the fireplace and the volume turned all the way up. I have ordered more speakers to go with my new McIntosh amp--and also a 50 watt "boombox" for the FM car radio. You want good strong seatbelts with the boombox, they say, because otherwise the bass riffs will bounce you around inside like a goddamn ping-pong ball..."

Gotta Dance
Sometimes you just have to dance. (Tip to KF)
Sam, 2/21/05

FEBRUARY 21, 2005

China Recycles
For what it's worth, I thought you'd want to know that the U.S. is the largest exporter of scrap metal (Good God, we throw away a lot of stuff). And the largest importer? China, which last year imported over $1 billion worth of scrap metal (and that doesn't include US dollars!).
Sam, 2/18/05

The Cowardice of Opposition
The Democrats continue their strategy of claiming Bush is exaggerating the problems in Social Security. They do this because they think it will doom his personal accounts plan but also because they don't want to take any political risks by putting forward their own plans. CNN reports that, "The president has said he would prefer to discuss with Congress ways to overhaul the retirement program rather than to 'prescribe the solution.' But Democrats view that approach as a maneuver aimed at getting them to step forward first with politically sensitive ideas." Maybe Bush is being cute trying to put the onus on Democrats to propose tough solutions (although Bush has walked part way out on the plank of raising the $90,000 payroll tax cap) but the Democrats deserve no praise by trying to avoid the problem, and even worse, claiming there is no problem with Social Security.
Sam, 2/18/05

Japan and Taiwan
The Washington Post reports that Japan is apparently going to sign a joint agreement with the U.S."that Taiwan is a mutual security concern." Much of this, of course, has to do with Japan's growing unease with China. Although China surpassed the U.S. this year to become Japan's largest trading partner, the two countries have also seen tensions rise on a whole host of issues, which is typical historically for these two Asian giants. Those who remember the "Japan Can Say No" movement back in the 80s, when a Japanese writer and his followers thought Japan needed to stand up to the United States, will be amused that these Japanese are now saying they must say "no" to China (more evidence that the U.S. is already no longer as important as we like to think we are as I've noted many times before in this blog). Whatever Japan's motivations, their stance on China is welcome. One of the great modern tragedies would be if China took back Taiwan's democracy. This probably won't happen since China appears to be on a path much like South Korea in the 50s, 60s and 70s which slowly liberalized their economy and then once economically established, democratized as well. But, there are no guarantees and China has been steadily building their naval assets over the last decade. Currently, however, China does not have a Navy which could successfully invade Taiwan. As the Washington Post article notes, it will be fascinating in the coming years to watch "what diplomats and scholars call the defining drama of East Asia for the 21st century -- the competition for economic and political dominance in the region between Japan, the world's second-largest economy, and China, the world's most populous nation and a fast-developing economic and military power."
Sam, 2/18/05

FEBRUARY 18, 2005

Monorail, NoRail?
The Seattle Times story yesterday revealing the lone remaining monorail contract team's bid is $200 million over budget confirms the fears people have had ever since the negotiations went into overtime in secret. This, of course, is not redemption for those who supported the Monorail recall last fall. That was an unnecessary, inappropriate and unwieldy way of killing the monorail. However, for those of us who have voted for the monorail, we may have to face reality that the heads of this agency may be every bit as incompetent and mendacious as the team that was originally in charge of Sound Transit's light rail. If the financing scheme does not work, if it is not possible to build the monorail within the budget proscribed, then we need to face up to it and not just defend a project only because we once supported it and voted for it. Let's see what the coming days and months bring but we should not let misplaced pride command the day.
Sam, 2/17/05

Light Rail Mendaciousness
Wow, I used the word mendacious two posts in a row. Coincidentally, on the same day as bad news is made public about the monorail, the local media continues to play blind cheerleader for the wrong-headed Seattle light rail plan. The Seattle Times article says the light rail plan is on budget and on time which is completely untrue. The new version of the project developed after the plan the voters approved--which was $2 billion over budget and more than three years behind schedule--is apparently going well. But it is completely misleading to say the light rail plan as a whole is. Plus, the plan still suffers from the fatal flaws built into it. The light rail is being built along the I-5 corridor where express buses already adequately serve commuters, getting them to downtown and back in the same time as rail. Plus, light rail will permanently displace some buses from the bus tunnel which will make traffic worse. In fact, Seattle must be the only city in the world with a transportation plan that will make it harder to get around rather than easier. Now, just because I'm a critic of this light rail plan does not mean I'm a critic of rail or mass transit as some light rail proponents like to paint us. My problem is with this particular ill-conceived plan. The good news is the new team brought in after the crisis of three years ago--led by the incredible Joni Earl--continues to do a great job. But, this just means that a bad plan will be competently implemented.
Sam, 2/17/05

Read This Update
In my post yesterday I mistakenly said Dante's Inferno was on the restricted book list. I was wrong. It was challenged by some parents but survived the challenge and is neither banned nor restricted in any of Washington state's school districts. My apologies to the school districts (although shame on them for the bans and restrictions of the other books on the list) and congratulations to our man Dante.

FEBRUARY 17, 2005

Paper Cuts
Couple of interesting articles in the two local papers on how paper work is part of the problem in rising health care costs. The Seattle Times story talks about a small percentage of doctors and pharmacies who are "cash only" and don't go through insurance companies. The Seattle PI column by Bill Virgin talks about using a "credit card" system for tracking doctor bills. What both articles have in common is the idea of extending the consumer power revolution to the medical field. Today, when I go to buy a new car, through the Internet I can determine real costs of the car to the dealership and what the average consumer pays below the sticker price for the car. In other words, unlike the old days, I, the consumer, now have the bargaining power with the dealership. This is increasingly true with all products and services. This has been one of the most important consequences of the information age. The question is how best to apply this to health care. One 60 year old standby--that companies should be responsible for our health care--is a dinosaur. Such a system creates portability problems, takes away individual control over our health care and is outdated in an economy where more and more people are setting up their own businesses.
Sam, 2/16/05

Don't Read This!
The Seattle PI has a list of books that have either been banned or restricted in Washington state by schools. Some of the books would make up a good beginning to reading list for a high school or college literature class. But, of course, the paramount idea is we shouldn't be challenged by ideas we don't agree with and shouldn't risk offending anyone. Makes me want to add a bunch of sex, swear words and violence to this blog. Here's a few of the banned and restricted books:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (if I ever have a book published I'll consider it an honor if it's still offending and being banned a century and a half later)
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Inferno, Dante
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Sam, 2/16/05

Pitchers and Catchers Report!
Woo hoo!
Sam, 2/16/05

FEBRUARY 16, 2005

More Not Entitled
The other inane argument one hears in the Social Security debate is that Medicare is in much worse shape so we should ignore Social Security and concentrate on shoring up Medicare. While it is true that Medicare will run larger deficits than Social Security--by 2021 Medicare will run a deficit of $467 billion while Social Security will be $100 billion in the hole--logic doesn't lead us to ignore Social Security just because we also need to fix Medicare. We should fix both. Instead of castigating Bush for raising the issue of Social Security because there is a problem with Medicare, critics should say "Yes, let's address Social Security" and then say "And we need to fix Medicare too."
Sam, 2/15/05

Can't Retire from the Field of Combat
Okay, I'm not forgetting about Medicare and will discuss it soon but let's talk about our aging population and the retirement prospects of the boomers for a moment. In 2000, the Census Bureau reported that only 50 percent of all workers between the ages of 25 and 65 participate in any kind of retirement plan other than Social Security. Peter Peterson's book, Running on Empty, points out that "according to the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances, half of all households aged 45 to 54 possess total financial assets (everything from bank accounts to insurance policies to 401ks) of less than $46,000." So even as we have to figure out a way to pay for Social Security benefits, our lovely boomer generation has not saved a penny. By the way, that $46,000 figure is not net--it does not include liabilities such as credit card debts so many people's total cash and asset savings are even less than $46,000. Adding to the problem, of course, is the current trend in demographics. Again Peterson: "Between 2010 and 2030, roughly the years the first and last boomers turn 65, the Social Security Administration projects that the elder share of the U.S. population will surge from 13 to 19 percent." And remember, the number of workers paying into Social Security will not be the same ratio as in the past. The number of workers to retirees – as high as 16-to-1 in 1950 – will shrink to 2-to-1 within 40 years if current trends continue. So, argue all you want with Bush's plan, whatever the specifics of it turn out to be, but please don't argue there isn't a problem. And even as you may castigate Bush's solutions, at least give him credit for putting the issue on the table. If you've read this blog at all you know I take a dim view of Bush's policy prescriptions but he is right that we need to address the Social Security problem.
Sam, 2/15/05

FEBRUARY 15, 2005

I'm Back
And this time I'm taking no prisoners. Or, if I do, I won't torture them like the Bush Administration.
Sam, 2/14/05

Not Entitlements To Their Own Opinion
I've been meaning to write about this for quite some time and hope to write about it in more detail soon but the current debate on Social Security reform is a great example of what is wrong with the Democratic Party right now. They have put themselves in the position of a) again only being against something--in this case Bush's so far vague proposal to reform and change Social Security--rather than being for something different than what Bush is for and b) out of angry pique against Bush they pretend that Social Security does not need some fixes. Too many Democrats are currently saying there are no problems with Social Security and that Bush is just trying to scare the American public so he can do away with the Social Security system. Bush certainly is trying to scare people but that doesn't mean we don't have something to fear. The Social Security system is unsustainable. There is no real trust fund. In 1983, when Republicans and Democrats came together to "fix" Social Security, the original idea was to create an actual trust fund so that money would be socked away for the army of retirees expected in the future. However, Congress easily succumbed to the temptation to use the surplus of payroll tax revenues to cover existing deficits and thus allow more spending and tax cuts. So instead of creating a true trust fund the federal government sold Treasury Bonds. So, when the surplus of payroll tax ebbs in the near future, and the federal government cashes the bonds how will they pay out the money? By deficit spending, of course. The problem is actually more immediate than the 2021 date you hear about when the surplus will begin to turn into deficit. In five years time the surplus will crest and each year's surplus will be smaller for each year thereafter meaning the deficits the payroll tax surplus has been masking will start to grow larger, or more accurately, be revealed to be larger. So, it's one thing to say you are against Bush's plan to create personal accounts but you lose all credibility if you fight Bush's plan by saying there is no problem with Social Security. Much more on all this later.
Sam, 2/14/05

FEBRUARY 14, 2005

More Blogging Soon
Have been out of town unexpectedly but hope to begin blogging again soon.
Sam, 2/10/05

FEBRUARY 10, 2005

Off to Oregon, Be Back Monday
I'm jammed at work today and then off to Mt. Ashland for some snow shoeing. But I'll be back blogging on Monday.
Sam, 2/3/05

FEBRUARY 3, 2005

Netherlands Munich
A New York Times article describes the capitulation to Islamic Theocratic threats in the Netherlands: "The Netherlands' main film festival, now going on in Rotterdam, canceled a showing of a short documentary denouncing violence against Muslim women that was made by Theo van Gogh, who was killed 10 weeks ago. An Islamic militant is accused of the crime. The film's producer said he had pulled the film on the advice of the police after receiving threats." When the world looks away from such barbarity or capitulates to it, we only embolden the hopeful gate crashers. When the Taliban destroyed the ancient Buddhist icons in Afghanistan, it was a sure sign of things to come and the world ignored it. Obviously the film festival people have to worry about their lives and their workers' lives but the Netherlands's government should be providing the protection necessary so that the Muslim fanatics don't win the battle. It's not just van Gogh's work that's being threatened as the article points out, "At about the same time, a Moroccan-Dutch painter went into hiding after a show of his work opened on Jan. 15 at a modern art museum in Amsterdam. The museum director said the painter, Rachid Ben Ali, had received death threats linked to his satirical work critical of violence by Islamic militants." Of course, some in the Netherlands do get it, "It would be very regrettable if we had to start accepting self-censorship, if we could not show this kind of protest art," said John Frieze, the curator of Mr. Ben Ali's show at the Cobra Museum.

Good Question
A friend writes, "So, now that they have had what appears to be a successful election (I realize this doesn't guarantee they will be a democratic country six months or a year from now), does it justify going to war there?" Let's make the assumption (an admittedly large one) that things will turn out okay in the next 3 to 5 years in Iraq. Does that mean the decision to go to war in Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein was a good one? I think it's a tough argument to make. It's great that Saddam Hussein is out of power and it's great the elections went relatively well on Sunday but the invasion was too great a risk. The option was to continue to try to contain Saddam and from what we now know about WMDs that was even easier to do than we thought it would be before we went to war. Saddam, from all reports, wanted nuclear capability and was planning to get it at sometime in the future but he didn't have it or anything close to it at the time we attacked. The chemical and biological weapons question is more difficult to answer since the technology and substances are easier to hide and those programs can be restarted more quickly than nuclear. However, evidence shows that at the time we attacked these WMDs were also being contained. The United States, as I've said before (starting in the late 1980s, in fact), should have been working to liberalize the Middle East, including in Iraq. That can be slow work using public diplomacy, strong-arm pressure, the bully pulpit, public relations programs, hectoring and any number of other tactics that we've used in other parts of the world. I believed back then that we had time to push for liberalization since Saddam could be contained, at least for a few years. Yes, there were risks to this policy since we know there were contacts between Al Quada and Saddam (though no evidence Saddam had anything to do with 9/11) but the risks paled compared to the risks of invading Iraq and trying to build a stable and liberal (in the old fashioned sense of the word) society there afterwards. It's also true, of course, that the Iraqi people would have suffered had we not attacked. Saddam would have continued to syphon off funds from oil sales with the corrupt help of UN and foreign officials that were meant to help the people of Iraq from the effects of economic sanctions in place at the time. So, I'm not even saying it was the more moral thing to do not to go to war. But, it was the more prudent policy, the more effective one and the one with the best chance of success. In addition, I was worried that the Bush Administration, which had already shown much incompetence on any number of matters, would not be able to competently prosecute the war and its aftermath. So, no, I don't think the stirring, dramatic elections justified the war. We will never know for sure, of course, if we could have succeeded in promoting a liberalized Middle East had we not gone to war in Iraq but we'll find out over the next few years what will happen by attacking Iraq. That, of course, should now be our focus. How to succeed out of what we have already done. I wouldn't have gone to war but since we did I'm hoping for the best. And if the war does lead to a liberalized, stable Iraq which spreads liberalization to other parts of the Middle East, nobody will be more pleased (what about the folks in the Middle East? Won't they be more pleased?--Floyd. Good point. I'll be more pleased than most).
Sam, 2/2/05

FEBRUARY 2, 2005

We will Program You to Think Like Us
I hadn't known of the Million Dollar Baby controversy until just the other day. Apparently right-wing talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved as well as disability-rights groups are calling on people to boycott the movie because...(whoa!!!!! Don't give the movie away--Floyd. Sorry, you're right. !!Spoiler Alert!! If you haven't seen the movie read no further! ...it shows Eastwood's character killing Hillary Swank's character in an assisted suicide after she is paralyzed from the neck down. Has everyone lost their fricking mind? It didn't even occur to me when I watched the movie that it was advocating for assisted suicide. I saw the movie as merely telling the story of these characters, of this particular situation, and telling it compellingly After all, whether it is right or wrong, assisted suicide does happen. Tragic situations like the one depicted in the movie do happen. Are movies, books, plays and songs not allowed to depict the real world? And even if the movie was advocating for assisted suicide, can't we watch it and debate it rather than trying to forbid it?
Sam, 2/1/05

Common Sense
Judge rules against Bush in Guantanamo.

FEBRUARY 1, 2005

Hope Votes
The Iraqi elections, already a dramatic story, turned out to be a hopeful one as well. Scenes of joyful Iraqis voting, an apparently larger than expected turnout and violence more under control than predicted filled the airwaves. Even as the tough work of governing takes center stage, one hopes Churchill's word will accurately describe the January 30th Iraqi elections: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Clearly Iraqi's gave the tyrants and Islamic Theocrats the Finger of Freedom. Now, as in any country, after the necessary and celebratory (and in this case heroic) feast of elections, comes the long hard clean-up of writing a constitution, holding together sectarian factions and continuing to battle fascist insurgents. Fred Kaplan, an opponent of the Iraqi war, writes in Slate, "The real questions of democracy are what people want to do with that freedom, whether their contesting desires and interests can be mediated by a political order, and whether they view that political order as legitimate." But he also notes, and remember he opposed Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq and has been very critical of the conduct of the war and its aftermath, that it was a hopeful day yesterday:

Some Sunni leaders a few days before the election noted that although they called for a boycott of the election they wanted to play a role in the writing of the constitution. The hope of election day must carry on towards pragmatic deal-making amongst Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds as a country artificially conceived tries to organically grow from infertile ground. But as Kaplan notes (and these Kaplan guys can be quite wise) in Slate, "Voting for leaders is a vital but very early step in this process." So yesterday was one of hope as the Iraqi people fertilized the ground to perhaps reap a liberalized, secure country in the future.
Sam, 1/30/05

No more Face Paint
For too many politics has become a surrogate for sports. We blindly root for our teams regardless of reason. It's okay for me to cheer on the Mariners, to stand by them and express contempt and hatred for their divisional rivals even if the Oakland As management may be more praiseworthy or my team isn't full of great upstanding individuals. We watch sports to cheer on our home teams in part to leave reason and the world behind. To do so in politics is like painting your face with the color of irrationality and strutting into the stands of the arena like a mindless drunken hooligan. To back George Bush or John Kerry no matter what their stand on an issue because he is a Republican or Democrat is to leave reason at the door. In Iraq, both sides are guilty of doing this. When someone criticizes the use of torture, or the lack of adequate troop strength or the underestimating of the difficulty in building Iraq into a civil society, that does not mean they are a "bad" Republican. A Democrat who points out that the so-called insurgents are fascists and despite whatever mistakes were made in deciding to go to war, it's still clear who the bad guys are in Iraq, has not betrayed the principals of liberalism or the Democratic party. After yesterday's dramatic and hopeful elections, both sides need to remember this. That we disagree with George Bush on a host of issues does not mean we should try to put some negative spin on the Iraqi elections. If together we can achieve some sort of success in Iraq, that is a good thing, whatever the political consequences. And, by the same token, Republicans should have every right to prevent the confirmation of a man who sanctions torture and criticize a Defense Secretary who woefully misunderstood and planned for postwar Iraq, even if it has negative political repercussions for their standard bearer.
Sam, 1/30/05

Liberalizing the Middle East
Bush was right that we need to liberalize the Middle East even if he was wrong that the best way to do it was by gun point. The 80s and 90s saw a remarkable sweep of freedom throughout the world. From the former Soviet Union to Central America to Asia, democracy or liberalized economies took root. In China, while there is still no democracy, there is much economic freedom. Even in Africa there has been progress made. In all of these places, the West worked to promote liberalization. The West and especially the United States worked for liberalization in every part of the globe save one--the Middle East. For the most part this was because of oil. We valued short-term stabilization to keep the blood of our economy flowing at lower prices. It was also due partly to age-old prejudice that "these people" were not up to the task of economic and political liberalization. Bush, to his credit, has pushed for such liberalization, although he did it late, haphazardly, incoherently and even dangerously by risking an invasion of Iraq. But one reason we see foreign insurgents pour into Iraq from Syria and Iran is because their despotic leaders understand too well their power would be undermined by a liberalized Iraq. Ordinary Syrians watched as Iraqi-born Syrians went to the polls in Syria even as they themselves are denied that right. The Associate Press reported over the weekend that the rest of the Arab world closely watched the Iraqi elections. The AP quotes a Saudi Arabian columnist who understands the implications, "Arab governments may not say it, but they don't want Iraq's democratic experiment to succeed," said Turki al-Hamad, a prominent Saudi columnist and former political science professor. "Such a success would embarrass them and present them with the dilemma of either changing or being changed." So even if the way Bush has been going about liberalizing the Middle East is flawed, even if the Iraq war was a shortsighted idea badly implemented, the ultimate goal of liberalizing the Middle East is a good one.
Sam, 1/31/05

JANUARY 31, 2005

Viva La Finger

JANUARY 30, 2005

The Greatest Story
Whatever else the Iraqi elections are, as I noted before, they are an amazing story. A CNN reporter tells us she interviews one woman Iraqi voter who says, "my voting is a bullet into the head of the enemy." Elsewhere a suicide bomber blows himself up at a polling place to stop people from--voting! Again, wherever you stood on the war, whatever concerns we have at civil war or other disasters that may happen after the elections, it's too bad there was not more vocal support from the left in the United States, from Europe, from around the world for the Iraqis right to vote. The sides have been clearly drawn and while the insurgents may win in the coming months, they are clearly on the wrong side.
Sam, 1/29/05

Crazy CNN Anchor
It's late Saturday night and after we get home I turn on CNN to see what's going on in the dramatic story of the Iraqi elections. Most of the CNN reporters are trying to be objective and tell the whole story but one female anchor--I didn't catch her name but will post it when I do--is almost hysterical in her obvious negativity towards the elections. She talks about the Iraqis not knowing who they are voting for and about the massive violence occurring. At one point she says there is light to non-existent turnout even as the cameras show a huge line of Iraqis at a polling place. Later, after interviewing a reporter at a polling place where Iraqis are dancing and singing with joy at the act of voting, the insane anchor woman says, "Well, they're are not joyful elsewhere in Iraq on this violent day at the polls." It's too bad this one anchorwoman is marring the otherwise brave CNN reporters in the field trying to provide straight information in a difficult environment. She is giving plenty of ammunition to the conservatives who complain about bias at CNN and other major media outlets. Get her off the air and let the professionals do their jobs. I'm afraid to turn on Fox and see if they are pulling the same sh** from the other side of the story.
Sam, 1/29/05

JANUARY 29, 2005

Even More Electing on Elections
The depressing counter weight to the great drama I described earlier is ably told my Lawrence Kaplan in The New Republic: "We have to admit the terrorists have won," he says. "People cannot engage in civil society; the war has stopped progress; liberalism is over for now." Asked what, if anything, can be done to revive the liberal project, Sarraf replies, "We need an emergency government that does nothing but security. When there is stability, then liberalism will begin to emerge, but only when there is stability." (hat tip to Andrew Sullivan).
Sam, 1/28/05

Roger Wilco on File Sharing
Jeff Tweedy of Wilco has a different take on music downloading. Not sure I agree with it but it is interesting.

"Music," he explained, "is different" from other intellectual property. Not Karl Marx different - this isn't latent communism. But neither is it just "a piece of plastic or a loaf of bread." The artist controls just part of the music-making process; the audience adds the rest. Fans' imagination makes it real. Their participation makes it live. "We are just troubadours," Tweedy told me. "The audience is our collaborator. We should be encouraging their collaboration, not treating them like thieves."

Sam, 1/28/05

More Chinese Scolding
Chinese officials are again scolding the U.S. and our "unstable currency." Fan Gang, director of the National Economic Research Institute of the China Reform Foundation (the longer the name the more important the institution?) said at the World Economic Forum in Davos,"The U.S. dollar is no longer (seen) as a stable currency." He also indicated that China is getting ready to wean itself from the dollar peg. "The real issue is how to change the regime from a U.S. dollar pegging to a more manageable reference, say euros, yen, dollars, those kind of more diversified systems,'' said Fan Gang. In addition, the rumor is that Jin Renqing, China's Finance Minister, is heading to the G7 meeting that takes place in London next week to engage leaders there in "a deep dialogue" on China's exchange rate. Stay tuned for another episode of How the Dollar Turns.
Sam, 1/28/05

JANUARY 28, 2005

Mapping the Violence
Work and other stuff has jammed me up but check out this interesting map of the violence in Iraq since 2003, courtesy of HealingIraq.com
Sam, 1/27/05

JANUARY 27, 2005

Doom, Doom, Doom
Ahh, our favorite subject which we've been ignoring too much lately--Doom. But fortunately, Stephen Roach, the chief economist at Morgan Stanley, recently raised the red flag of doom for us. Roach says, "While low real rates may keep the party going, the celebration is hardly without consequences. Which brings us to the endgame -- how world financial markets and the global economy are weaned from abnormally low real interest rates. This is likely to be a delicate surgical operation, to say the least." Roach thinks the Fed will not only continue to raise interest rates but will be compelled to do so in a "restrictive way" that will tighten up the US economy and have a big effect on the rest of the world. Roach continues: "There is always the risk that the asset-dependent US economy -- and by inference, the US-centric global economy -- is far more sensitive to real interest rates than might be the case for a more normal, income-based economy. If that turns out to be the case and the economy quickly weakens, then Fed tightening will undoubtedly be curtailed. That would have the effect of limiting the downside of the real economy, but at a cost of perpetuating excesses in asset markets. Therein lies the most worrisome aspect of the real interest rate conundrum -- an asset economy that won't allow for an easy exit strategy. That should not keep central banks from acting responsibly and attempting to return real rates to more normal levels. The longer the world resists such a normalization, the more treacherous the endgame." See, I'm a fountain of optimism compared to the Roach.
Sam, 1/26/05

Elections than Handover?
We shall see, of course, and Blair has been plenty wrong about Iraq but right now the Financial Times is reporting that Blair says the security handover will speed up after the elections.
Sam, 1/26/05

JANUARY 26, 2005

Electing for Elections
In attacking the Bush Administration over going to war in Iraq, mishandling Iraq after the war and using torture as a policy in Iraq and elsewhere, it might be easy for some to start confusing the situation in Iraq. The lines in the upcoming Iraqi election have been pretty clearly drawn. On one side we have Iraqi's--Shiite's, Kurds and even some Sunnis--attempting to hold elections to place in power a government using the legitimate levers of democracy. On the other we have former Baathists--a group who previously ruthlessly wielded power, oppressing millions--and foreign Islamic theocrats who want to create a world where there is no democracy, where women are treated as third class citizens and where gays would be stoned to death. Those of us who opposed the war should still be standing up and shouting against the forces trying to derail the elections in Iraq just as we supported Yuchenko in Ukraine. We should not let our contempt of Bush blind us from the moral choices we face. And by "we" I mean not just paltry little SamsSpeak but the voices of those with power: France, Germany, Canada, Spain, The Nation, John Kerry, Harry Reid, the Blue Umbrellas, Michael Moore and all the rest. As the world stands by silent, maybe even equating Bush with Zarqawi and his 12th century political henchman, we only allow the thunder of reactionary forces to lower the boom. I wish we had not gone to war in Iraq but we did and now that we are involved, even those of us against the war should support Iraqis trying to hold an election, as flawed as they may be.
Sam, 1/25/05

Who's Racist?
I didn't follow the ABC Monday Night Football/Desperate Housewives towel controversy too closely. But I do remember being puzzled by Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy's reaction that the skit was racist. Dungy claimed it was exploiting the "hypersexuality" stereotype of the black male. That seemed a bizarre accusation to me. I fiigured they used Terrell Owens because he was the most famous and controversial of the players in the game that night. It turns out that apparently John Madden was originally slated to be in Terrel Owens' role further exposing Dungy's accusation as absurd. But now Andrew Sullivan, claims, "If Madden had indeed been in the skot, I bet it wouldn't have provoked such outrage. Why? Because we wouldn't have seen a sexual encounter between a powerful black man and a sexy white woman. Almost thirty years after Loving vs Virginia, inter-racial sex is still taboo in many parts of this country." Maybe so and the last sentence is probably true but isn't it true that it makes Dungy's accusation look stupid too? I've only read about the skit and never saw it so maybe I'm full of sh** but it appears to me the dust up has more to do with this country's immature grappling with nudity and sex than with race.
Sam, 1/25/05

JANUARY 25, 2005

Johnny
I was driving in my car and when instead of the usual news theme music they played the old theme from The Tonight Show I knew instantly that Johnny Carson had died. For a night owl like myself, this was big news Although like most guys my age I was a bigger Letterman fan, it was Carson who initially introduced me to Letterman and, of course, Carson entertained me first as I became old enough to stay up into the nether regions of the night. There's something about late night that offers more possibility, more hope (and fear) than any other part of the 24 hour daily cycle. Watching Carson and later Letterman gave one the sense you were in on something that only few hardy nightowls knew about. You were connected to a wise guy late night network. As I watched a few news broadcast about Johnny Carson today I was struck by how amazed the news people were that once he went off the air he stayed off the air. They were even more amazed he wasn't in the public eye. In an age when to be famous is confused with being interesting or worthwhile or talented, it must be hard for these purveyors of trivia to understand a man like Carson who knew to be "on" for 90 minutes late at night and then lead his own life the other 1410.
Sam, 1/24/05

Sideways
Saw Sideways this weekend and it lives up to its hype as one of the best movies of the year. Although you are constantly worried it will turn into an NPR version of Old School, Sideways manages to sidestep this trap, mainly through a great set of characters that you come to love despite themselves. In past films Alexander Payne exhibits a disdain for the great unwashed, reaping laughs by cruelly picturing people who are unlike his educated, cultured self. About Schimdt is a classic example of this. . Too often it is not sympathetic to the characters but instead smugly elevates the director above these ha-ha uncultured, simple-minded folks. Sideways, for the most part, manages to skirt around this, even with the main character waxing eloquently about Pinot Noirs and Syrahs. Of course, the one character from the lower class, the American red stater, the waitress, is ridiculed in an admittedly hilarious sex scene. But in the scene, when Miles retrieves his friend's wallet while the waitress and her husband screw while doing some funny role play, you wonder why did the two have to be lower class characters engaged in that type of dirty talk sex? Do not upper class, wine drinking folks have the same fantasies? Why not make fun of them? But, putting all that aside, Sideways really is a great movie. It's about all the things you've read it's about but it's also about friendship, in its own dysfunctional way. Miles and Jack are as different as can be. They've become friends, as so many do, through happenstance--they were thrown together as roommates their freshman year in college. Life is nothing if not a series of chaotic events, a bundle of roads haphazardly put in front of us, down which we trod on some and others not through pure and unadulterated luck (or bad luck as may more often be the case). And yet, despite their differences and despite Miles knowing what a shit Jack is, they do care for each other, they do love each other, they do want the best for each other. When Miles drops Jack off at home after their week-long bachelor party wine tasting, adultry-sipping trip, he looks at him from the car, sees Miles lying, well, actually acting, and we don't see contempt or hatred in Miles' eyes, we see amusement at the foibles of an old friend. By the time the movie ends, we think the same of the characters and are sad to see them go. You can't ask more from a movie.
Sam, 1/24/05

No 20/20 Vision
Saw Sabrina Harman, the military guard last seen smiling next to the pyramid of naked prisoners in Abu Graihb, interviewed on 20/20. I'll be the first to admit I'm a horrible judge of character at first blush but she sure looked like she was lying through her teeth to me. She was trying to peddle the story that she was really upset by the torture and only didn't report it because she didn't know who she could report it too. I didn't buy it at all.
Sam, 1/24/05

JANUARY 24, 2005

Barak 2005
Saw Barack Obama on Oprah yesterday (you're watching Oprah again???!!!!--Floyd. Hey, my wife likes it and every once in a while Oprah does a good show) and read some of his questioning of Condoleeza Rice during her confirmation hearings. I know the Barak Obama bandwagon has been as full as the drunk tank on New Year's Eve but he really is impressive and intriguing. During the hearings he asked interesting tough questions while at the same time being fair to Rice.He was also very substantive in his questions on a subject--foreign policy--in which his previous work wouldn't have prepared him for. But he's obviously very interested in the subject, and has thought hard about the issues. He wasn't pandering to the cameras or to any constituency, he didn't grandstand--he was just doing his job. On Oprah he appeared to have the sudden huge fame thing under control; his wife helped with that, making fun of him at all times on the show. Let's hope a few years in the nation's capital doesn't screw him up.
Sam, 1/21/05

Obligatory Inaugural Comment
I wasn't going to post anything on Bush's inaugural address, partly because even after all these years I can't spell or type innagural correctly, but also because I found it to be a boring speech. I listened to it while I drove to a meeting and even though Bush wanted to give a soaring visionary speech it sounded like that's what he and his writers wanted the speech to be rather than what the speech was. I'm sympathetic to the liberty and freedom spreading mission (though I would try to accomplish this in different ways than Bush has) but it seemed all out of proportion to the situation. When Reagan gave such speeches, when Kennedy poetically evoked liberty imagery, we were faced against a totalitarian state with a huge army, one equipped with nuclear weapons and one determined to spread its philosophy and control around the world. The Islamic Theocrats want to spread their philosophy too but they are not a superpower; instead they are rag tag groups spread about or insurgents trying to take over governments, or factions of fairly weak governments. The battle against Islamic Theocrats is important and Bush is right to say freedom spreading is not some reverse-Marxian inevitability. But neither is the battle the same as the one in the Cold War. It need not be waged with an enormous defense build up; it needs different soaring words and imagery than Bush's flights of fancy today. It was not a bad speech although I thought it was flatly delivered but the scale and tenor were wrong. Perhaps if I had seen it instead of just listened to the speech, perhaps if I had not been distracted by rain and traffic, I'd feel differently. But, I was and I did.
Sam, 1/21/05

JANUARY 21, 2005

A Budget Test
As Bush begins his second term today we should lay out a few ground markers for him. Bush has claimed he will halve the budget deficit by 2009. Never mind that he's already playing budget games with the numbers--he now claims he will halve it from the 2004 predicted deficit of $521 billion rather than from the actual 2004 deficit of $419 billion. The real test is how he tries to cut the deficit. If he goes the standard route of freezing domestic spending across the board than he has failed. The problem in any budget isn't that government spending as a whole is outstripping revenues. The problem is that we do not set priorities and measure whether programs are effective. If government spending on some issue or project is not effective, then eliminate the program of find a different way to do it. In other words, Moneyball the situation. Some programs may be outdated, others just have never worked. Of course, we should also look at the defense budget and some will argue for raising taxes. In addition, any serious look at the budget must include entitlements which now make up the largest portion of the US budget. But, for the domestic discretionary part, we need to examine the budget in a new way and not just lazily freeze spending across the board.
Sam, 1/20/05

One Place To Cut
It won't make a big dent in the deficit but you have to start somewhere and we need to start a precedent of eliminating unnecessary programs. Public radio and TV do not need to be funded by the government. There's currently a gazillion channels on TV including programming such as the Discovery Channel, History Channel and Learning Channel which produce programs PBS was known for doing. Yes, Ken Burns produces great documentaries for PBS but if the channel was no longer he'd still find funding and other outlets for his films. Similarly, in an age of satellite radio and Internet radio there is no reason why government dollars should go to NPR. I listen to NPR all the time, including All Things Considered and Car Talk. Since so do a lot of other people, NPR will survive without taxpayer money. As I said, eliminating this funding is but the smallest of nibbles in the deficit but it sends an important message that we are now setting priorities in the domestic discretionary budget.
Sam, 1/20/05

JANUARY 20, 2005

In Reality, Anything Goes
From the NY Times today we learn that the Bush Administration, under our soon to be confirmed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, is giving the CIA carte blanche to do whatever they want with prisoners: "Officers of the Central Intelligence Agency and other nonmilitary personnel fall outside the bounds of a 2002 directive issued by President Bush that pledged the humane treatment of prisoners in American custody, Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, said in documents released on Tuesday." The Bush Administration continues its charade of pretending to be against torture when it is setting up policies to allow torture to take place. On the one hand, In written responses to questions posed by senators as part of his confirmation for attorney general, Mr. Gonzales also said a separate Congressional ban on cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment had "a limited reach" and did not apply in all cases to "aliens overseas." Ahh but that's okay the Bush Administration says because Bush has stated he is against torture: At the same time, however, the president has a clear policy opposing torture, and "the C.I.A. and other nonmilitary personnel are fully bound" by it, Mr. Gonzales said. The sheer shameless audacity of Gonzales's talking out of both sides of his mouth is almost awe inspiring. The Bush Administration repeatedly asks us to trust them, claiming they know what they are doing. So when they hold US citizens incommunicado we are supposed to believe the Bush Administration would not make any mistakes in who they hold. When they interrogate people we are supposed to accept the techniques they use are acceptable even when we don't know who is being held or which techniques are being used. As the NY Times article points out, "Mr. Gonzales declined to say in his written responses to the committee what interrogation tactics would constitute torture in his view or which ones should be banned." We're just supposed to trust them. Would the Republicans trust the Democrats with such power? No, they wouldn't and they shouldn't. Nor should we be trusting this administration especially since we know torture has been practiced by interrogators, and many times practiced on innocent victims picked up at random. This is by far the most egregious abuse of power by a presidential administration since Nixon was in power. And, we are about to confirm a man as attorney general who basically says anything goes in the treatment of prisoners.
Sam, 1/19/05

House O Cards
I was part of a panel last week predicting what would happen in the national and international economy in 2005 (and where are the predictions you promised for this space--Floyd. I was worried the SamSpeak readership just wasn't quite ready for these earth shattering prognostications. Stay tuned though!). Of course, the trade deficit came up with some seeing it as more evidence of America's coming crisis. One of my fellow panelists referred to an article in the Wall Street Journal by Arthur Laffer in which he argued the trade deficit is evidence of America's strength not weakness. The idea is that we have a deficit because people are selling to us because we're the strongest economy. They are investing in us because we are the strongest economy. This is a good argument--in the 1980s. At that time we did have a strong economy that was far more versatile than the rest of the world's. We had federal government deficits but consumer debt was more under control. At that time half the world struggled under communist command economies. I remember using Laffer's argument at that time with people who thought Japan was going to gobble us up. The difference today is that our economy is growing because consumers are buying things they don't need with money they don't have, to borrow a phrase. The economy is growing because of the incredible stimulus provided by the Fed setting interest rates well below inflation levels and by the Bush tax cuts. In earlier years, international private investors funded our current account deficit. Today it is foreign governments buying Treasuries to prop up their currencies so they can continue to export to us in an ever growing pyramid scheme. The question is what happens when US consumers finally realize they have to start saving and paying off the debt they've accumulated. What happens if interest rates continue to go up or the dollar crashes from the Fed's money spigot being turned off and/or foreign government's no longer propping up their currencies against ours? The circumstances today are far different from what Laffer describes. In previous times a large trade deficit did mean we were strong. Today, we have an economy as artificially stimulated as Jason Giambi's body. It's a crucial difference.
Sam, 1/19/05

JANUARY 19, 2005

Gonzales Shouldn't Be Confirmed
The Washington Post is right when it says in today's editorial that Alberto Gonzales should not be confirmed as Attorney General. "Some expressed dismay at his reluctance to state that it is illegal for American personnel to use torture, or for the president to order it. A number of senators clearly believe, as we do, that Mr. Gonzales bears partial responsibility for decisions that have led to shocking, systematic and ongoing violations of human rights by the United States. Most apparently intend to vote for him anyway. At a time when nominees for the Cabinet can be disqualified because of their failure to pay taxes on a nanny's salary, this reluctance to hold Mr. Gonzales accountable is shameful. He does not deserve to be confirmed as attorney general." It boggles the mind that Gonzales is going to be confirmed and likely to be confirmed by a large margin.
Sam, 1/18/05

From a Soldier in Iraq
Here's one soldier's recent report on his activities in Iraq:

Just got back from my (hopefully) last mission. This time, it was to Abu Ghuraib prison. Wow. My first gut-check moment was on the helicopter flight there.We had to make two stops before the prison, and on the second, they brought an EPW (enemy prisoner of war) on board. His hands were bound in front with plastic handcuffs (the quick-cinch kind) and he had a strip of engineer's tape over his eyes. They made him kneel on the floor and secured him in
position with numerous cargo straps. A Marine sat down next to me (directly across from the prisoner) and raised his rifle. As the blue lights inside the bird were turned off (as they always do, because we fly black), I saw the faint green of NVG (night vision goggles) come down on the Marine's face--he never took his eyes off the EPW. I was struck by some uncomfortable (and definitely not predictable) emotions. I felt no pity for the man in front of me--I didn't care that it was near freezing and he was wearing sandals, or that he was kneeling on the hard floor. I didn't care that he might be scared. I hate admitting
it, but all I felt was resentment. Sort of throws the whole "innocent until proven guilty" out of the water (although with our current rules of engagement, it makes it almost impossible for us to apprehend the "wrong" people). Anyway, I have a lot going on inside my head right now, and I anticipate it taking a long time to sort out.

My feelings of apprehension about our involvment here were settled somewhat, however, with what I saw in the prison, including Hussein's torture chambers. One of the rooms contained two sets of gallows, with controls in the center of the room. This was a place where Uday and Qusay would throw parties and execute Iraqis. Only they didn't use regular rope to hang their victims. They used electrical wire so the heads would be severed. Another room, called "The
Green Mile" was at the end of a long (80 foot?) hallway. Apparantly, people were brought to the hallway by the hundreds, told that they would be released, and then were brought in 10 at a time to the room. Where they were gassed. This was repeated until the room was so full of bodies, that people in the hallway were enlisted to clear the room, then go in themselves to receive the same treatment. My question is this: why didn't we stop this earlier?

Sam, 1/18/05

JANUARY 18, 2005

Ahh, that Seattle Media
In the great tradition of Seattle newspapers, Les Carpenter's column in Sunday's Seattle Times tells us everything we needed to know about Bob Whitsit's work at the Seattle Seahawks now that it doesn't matter. He describes what a jerk Whitsitt is to work for, how damaging he is to the organization and his utter contempt for the fans. Here's one fan contempt anecdote Carpenter prints:

There's a story they tell around the team's headquarters, and it sums up the Whitsitt years precisely. The way one former employee says he heard it, is that Whitsitt was overseeing a meeting to discuss possible ways of marketing a charter-seat package for the new stadium. A package that at $72 a seat plus a fee in the thousands of dollars must have seemed like a pyramid scheme. At some point, someone suggested they could put the purchaser's name on a bronze plate that would be attached to the seat, perhaps as a token of appreciation. And as the story goes, Whitsitt snorted. "Yeah," he reportedly said. "They could write 'suckers' on it."

Now, this would have been news if Carpenter told us this while Whitsitt was still in power, when such information would have been useful to the fans and to the readership of the Seattle Times. But Seattle's sports press only dishes the dirt after the targets are no longer in power or run out of town. We don't hear about Shawn Kemp's drug problems until he is no longer a Sonic or Vin Baker's alcoholism until he is long gone or the foolish ideas and actions of management until they are fired or retired. I'm not arguing our press should turn into the National Enquirer but when athletes are breaking the law or in Whitsitt's case are acting like tyrannical buffoons who are killing an organization, that is news. Reporting after the culprits are out of power is useless. Maybe our NEWSpapers will eventually understand this.
Sam, 1/17/05

Saving Face in Iraq
No, not we Americans but the Sunnis, the minority in Iraq who ruled the country the last three decades thanks to Saddam. Healing Iraq, no friend of the American invasion points out, " I have heard some terrible prejudices against Iraqi Shia from people I have contact with, some of whom are educated and sophisticated. Although I have heard these things for all my life, it has never been as widespread as it is now. This is the underlying reason for boycotting the elections, Sunnis know they will lose even if the whole governorates of Nineva, Salah Al-Din and Al-Anbar vote. They believe they can save face by not participating." What will be interesting is whether enough Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis will be able to vote despite the Sunni's best violent efforts and then how the Shiites will react to the continued Sunni violence sure to occur after the election. If more and more Iraqi's are trained and the Shiite's strengthen their military and police forces, will they rule with as violent and iron a hand as Saddam did or will American influence temper it?
Sam, 1/17/05

Million Dollar Baby
Saw the new Clint Eastwood flick Sunday and it truly is a great movie. I thought Mystic River was overrated and a little too heavy handed. Million Dollar Baby flirts with the weighty palm as well but in the end it's a character picture bolstered by great performances by Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Hillary Swank. The film is worth watching for Freeman and Eastwood's not in a hurry banter alone. Even at times when the plot may seemed contrived you care about the characters so much you don't really care. Unlike Mystic River, this one really does live up to the hype.
Sam, 1/17/05

JANUARY 17, 2005

Cat No Like Blog
Another reason for the infrequent blogs is every time I sit at the computer to write Buffy leaps onto my lap and demands attention. She apparently doesn't like my typing at the computer.
Sam, 1/15/05

Bush Behavior
Saw a bit of Bush interviewed by Barbara Walters last night (wow--big Friday night!--Floyd, hey, Buffy the cat wanted a relaxing night of TV). I don't know if it was recorded before or after the Washington Times article but Bush was actually straight forward in saying it didn't matter if you are religious or not as president. He did say his faith helps him tremendously as president. So, again, I'm guessing I misinterpreted his words in the previous interview.
Sam, 1/15/05

I'm a Liar
Okay, so I didn't blog later in the day like I said I would. Meetings in the afternoon took precedence. Plus, the cat got my tongue. But to make up for it here's a little weekend blogging.
Sam, 1/15/05

JANUARY 15, 2005

Conference Man
On a panel last night--where I helped predict what was going to happen in the economy in 2005 (I was ever my rose tinted optimistic self)--and at a conference this morning. More blogging later today though. "
Sam, 1/14/05

JANUARY 14, 2005

The Tide is Turning?
Are Americans finally starting to crawl out of the debt hole? Credit card debt fell at an annual rate of 11% in December, leading the way in making for the largest reduction in consumer credit on record. Household debt is currently 115% of GDP but maybe, just maybe, we are finally starting to see the light and cutting back on spending beyond our means.
Sam, 1/13/05

Torture and Torturous Logic
Andrew Sullivan has a thorough examination of the various reports on the Bush Administration's use of torture. He concludes that the use of torture was widespread, that it was made possible by the President's words and stated policies and that the other higher ups in the administration who created policies allowing torture have since all been rewarded, including the nominee for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. : Here's a few important excerpts.

Excerpt 1. (Bush's stated policy). ''As a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.''

Excerpt 2. Bybee asserted that the president was within his legal rights to permit his military surrogates to inflict ''cruel, inhuman or degrading'' treatment on prisoners without violating strictures against torture. For an act of abuse to be considered torture, the abuser must be inflicting pain ''of such a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure.'' If the abuser is doing this to get information and not merely for sadistic enjoyment, then ''even if the defendant knows that severe pain will result from his actions,'' he's not guilty of torture. Threatening to kill a prisoner is not torture; ''the threat must indicate that death is 'imminent.' '' Beating prisoners is not torture either. Bybee argues that a case of kicking an inmate in the stomach with military boots while the prisoner is in a kneeling position does not by itself rise to the level of torture...Bybee even suggests that full-fledged torture of inmates might be legal because it could be construed as ''self-defense,'' on the grounds that ''the threat of an impending terrorist attack threatens the lives of hundreds if not thousands of American citizens.'' By that reasoning, torture could be justified almost anywhere on the battlefield of the war on terror. Only the president's discretion forbade it. These guidelines were formally repudiated by the administration the week before Gonzales's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation as attorney general.

Excerpt 3: When the general in charge of Guantánamo was sent to Abu Ghraib to help intelligence gathering, the ''migration'' of techniques (the term used in the Pentagon's Schlesinger Report) from those reserved for extreme cases in the leadership of Al Qaeda to thousands of Iraqi civilians, most of whom, according to intelligence sources, were innocent of any crime at all, was complete. Again, there is no evidence of anyone at a high level directly mandating torture or abuse, except in two cases in Gitmo. But there is growing evidence recently uncovered by the A.C.L.U. - not provided in Danner's compilation - that authorities in the F.B.I. and elsewhere were aware of abuses and did little to prevent or stop them.

Excerpt 4: No one has any reason to believe any longer that these incidents were restricted to one prison near Baghdad. They were everywhere: from Guantánamo Bay to Afghanistan, Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and Tikrit and, for all we know, in any number of hidden jails affecting ''ghost detainees'' kept from the purview of the Red Cross.

Excerpt 5: According to the I.C.R.C., one prisoner ''alleged that he had been hooded and cuffed with flexicuffs, threatened to be tortured and killed, urinated on, kicked in the head, lower back and groin, force-fed a baseball which was tied into the mouth using a scarf and deprived of sleep for four consecutive days. Interrogators would allegedly take turns ill-treating him. When he said he would complain to the I.C.R.C. he was allegedly beaten more. An I.C.R.C. medical examination revealed hematoma in the lower back, blood in urine, sensory loss in the right hand due to tight handcuffing with flexicuffs, and a broken rib.''

Excerpt 6: The Schlesinger panel has officially conceded, although the president has never publicly acknowledged, that American soldiers have tortured five inmates to death. Twenty-three other deaths that occurred during American custody had not been fully investigated by the time the panel issued its report in August.

Excerpt 7: At Guantánamo Bay, newly released documents show that some of the torturers felt they were acting on the basis of memos sent from Washington.

Excerpt 8: Who was responsible? There are various levels of accountability. But it seems unmistakable from these documents that decisions made by the president himself and the secretary of defense contributed to confusion, vagueness and disarray, which, in turn, led directly to abuse and torture. The president bears sole responsibility for ignoring Colin Powell's noble warnings. The esoteric differences between legal ''abuse'' and illegal ''torture'' and the distinction between ''prisoners of war'' and ''unlawful combatants'' were and are so vague as to make the abuse of innocents almost inevitable.

Excerpt 9: The fact that American soldiers were guilty of torturing inmates to death barely came up. It went unmentioned in every one of the three presidential debates. John F. Kerry, the ''heroic'' protester of Vietnam, ducked the issue out of what? Fear? Ignorance? Or a belief that the American public ultimately did not care, that the consequences of seeming to criticize the conduct of troops would be more of an electoral liability than holding a president accountable for enabling the torture of innocents? I fear it was the last of these. Worse, I fear he may have been right.

Sam, 1/13/05

More Explanation Please
Drudge did not get Bush's quote wrong implying that one can only be patriotic if you are religious. Here's the article from the Washington Times. A reader explains to me that Bush is probably saying people are misinterpreting him even though he hasn't done anything to make them think he has said "you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person." He's just resigned to the misinterpretation, "I think that's just the way it is." Well, the reader could be right. Maybe I'm being too hard on Bush here and misinterpreting him myself (it's the cat, isn't it?--Floyd. Yes, the cat continues to insist I get no sleep).

January 13, 2005

Explanation Please
I'm not even sure I know what this means but here's Bush in an interview on the role of faith in the presidency:

"President Bush said yesterday that he doesn't "see how you can be president without a relationship with the Lord," but that he is always mindful to protect the right of others to worship or not worship. Mr. Bush told editors and reporters of The Washington Times yesterday in an interview in the Oval Office that many in the public misunderstand the role of faith in his life and his view of the proper relationship between religion and the government. "I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person," Mr. Bush said. "I've never said that. I've never acted like that. I think that's just the way it is.

What the hell does "I've never said that. I've never acted like that. I think that's just the way it is" mean? When I first read it I assumed that his Cronkitean phrase "that's just the way it is" meant he does believe you can't be patriotic unless you're a religious person. This would be the most outrageous thing I've heard a president say in my life time if that's what he meant. After I calmed down, I decided surely this can't be really what he means, that I must be misinterpreting the words.. But if I'm misunderstanding Bush, then what do his words mean? The above quotes are from Drudge so maybe it's all wrong anyway. But if Bush did say this and if he means what he appears to mean, then we are all in a lot more trouble than I realized. If someone else can explain what the hell Bush is saying and think I'm misinterpreting him, please let me know.

Rocket Man!
The Strangest (and funniest) five minutes in the history of mankind (watch it to the end, trust me).
Sam, 1/12/05

Rather Blather
Howard Fineman has an interesting article on the end of the power of the mainstream media and the Dan Rather affair. He says, "...the 'mainstream media' is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards." Unlike Salon.com (more on that in a moment) or the CBS panel that investigated the 60 Minutes report that used forged documents, Fineman is willing to admit that it was bias that brought Rather and 60 Minutes down. The panel says it couldn't find evidence of such and tried to blame competitive and time pressure on the screw up. But the report doesn't particularly present evidence for this being the case. Salon's article points out:

Back in September, the issue of sizable gaps in Bush's Guard record had once again returned, with scores of newspapers chronicling -- if rather tentatively -- the obvious discrepancies in the president's military records. But CBS had what nobody else did: an exclusive interview with Barnes and exclusive Guard documents. As the panel details, CBS held lengthy negotiations with Burkett and at one point discussed his request for a CBS consulting job; the network also promised to help him relocate if needed. So couldn't CBS have been assured that Burkett would not share the documents with other news organizations? That's a common agreement between journalists and sources on juicy exclusives. If they'd had his assurance, CBS would have felt no burning desire to air the segment so soon.

So after dismissing that argument and noting that the report found that it was not political bias which caused the problem, Salon states, "But what still remains a puzzle is exactly why either Mapes or her CBS colleagues felt pushed to rush the story on the air." Of course, they don't consider that bias could have played a part. It's just a "puzzle" as to why this happened. Now that Fox exists and all the conservative talk radio stations bleat each day I think the network news and CNN feel even freer to exhibit their biases. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that it's just that they should not be considered objective news sources just as we don't consider Fox an objective source. Every media outlet is going to have its biases one way or another but there's a difference between trying to present news from a variety of viewpoints and be objective and trying to get ratings through catering to a certain audience. Fox, CBS and most if not all of the other networks fall in the latter category. This has really been the case for a long time. Fineman states, "At the height of its power, the AMMP (the American Mainstream Media Party) helped validate the civil rights movement, end a war and oust a power-mad president...Later, he [Cronkite] and CBS's star White House reporter, Dan Rather, went to painstaking lengths to make Watergate understandable to viewers, which helped seal Richard Nixon's fate as the first president to resign." It was, of course, good that the media uncovered all the wrong doing of Nixon and his cronies. The problem is that they did this because he was a Republican. Johnson and Kennedy were guilty of almost identical crimes as Nixon but the media didn't go after them. It wasn't healthy for the media to be controlled by one ideology. The current decentralization of the media has its own problems, of course, but it's better than what came before.
Sam, 1/11/05

Currency Update
Program this morning wasn't all that enlightening. The speaker, like many, thinks the dollar will rally in the short term and fall some in the long term. The question is whether it will it glide down like a feather or fall like a rock (I think you have your physics wrong--Floyd. My economics probably too).
Sam, 1/12/05

JANUARY 12, 2005

More Rock, Paper, Scissors
Well, as the front page Seattle Times article shows, the contest of the election is drawing more attention to the problems in Washington state's election system. With only a 129 vote margin between our two candidates, who only have the best interests of the public and state in mind--cue patriotic music, start 30 second commercials now--then it's pretty obvious that a court ruling only on the various mistakes-- in provisional ballots, felons voting, dead people voting, some people not getting their absentee ballots in time, unreconcliable numbers--would say a revote is in order. But 129 votes out of nearly 3 million is smaller than the margin of error in counting in any election system so the true purpose of contesting an election is to try to make our errant election system better, albeit not perfect or even good enough to account for a 129 vote margin. Maybe the best thing that could happen is for the current process to continue--let the Republicans and media and blogs dig up more problems and raise the visibility of these problems so high that the legislature will be forced to address them. Make sure that King County, which certainly has its fair share of troubling processes and problems is finally cleaned up. Dean Logan was brought in to clean up the mess and hasn't been there that long to be blamed for all of the current problems. But don't let him explain away the problems either in an attempt to say there was no fraud or to claim the problems are no big deal. Let's have an honest assessment of absentee voting, provisional ballots and what kind of ballots we use and then work to create a better system. After that's all over maybe we'll have a revote or maybe our two august candidates can finally take up my suggestion and rock, paper, scissors for the office.
Sam, 1/11/05

Inflation, Deflation, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
All the big shot economists argued last year on whether we would have inflation or deflation. What's great is it turned out to be both. What's even greater is that deflation hit goods that we don't really need but that we buy with all the money we don't have, driving ourselves deeper and deeper into debt. Electronics, toys, fancy new clothes even some cars (with 0% financing) cost less money last year. But the things we need--oil or natural gas to heat our houses, medical care to heal our bodies, milk to build our bones, gas to power our cars, homes to house ourselves--all of these types of items have been sky rocketing in price. Of course, official government statistics don't really show it--inflation is still tagged as being reasonable and yet if you look at your household expenses, what you really have to spend money on--there's no doubt we have raging inflation in the country. But as long as that I-pod comes down in price who cares? But if the dollar continues to fall (and why wouldn't it after the current rally expires?) will we also lose the cheapness of all those imported goods too? Or will China's economy slow down and demand there and in other parts of Asia tail off and we all submerge into torpid deflation making our debts even more difficult to pay off.
Sam, 1/11/05

More on Money
I'm at a program this morning where the speakers are going to predict where the dollar is headed. I'll let you know what they say.
Sam, 1/11/05

JANUARY 11, 2005

Cat Blogging
My wife's aunt's cat is with us for the next two weeks. She arrived yesterday and in typical cat fashion was traumatized by the change in surroundings. When we were trying to sleep last night she kept attacking our feet and I awoke very early this morning opening my eyes to find a cat staring at me from about two inches away. So, if you find some nonsensical postings the next couple weeks, even more than usual, you can chalk it up to our Buffy, our visiting feline.
Sam, 1/10/05

No! No! No! No! No! No!
The worst part about Rossi's contesting the election? More campaign commercialsEarlier in the weekend I heard the Rossi sanctimonious (and somewhat inaccurate) commercials about our poor military overseas who were denied the right to vote. Today, on the way to the Sonic game (another big, big win over the Heat), Gregoire has an extraordinarily annoying commercial talking about how it's time to move on, all as some schmaltzy music plays in the background. This never would have happened if everyone would have agreed to Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide this election.
Floyd, 1/10/05

The Continuing Slide
Everyone knows the U.S. trade deficit is at unprecedented levels. In recent years, even as the merchandise goods deficit grew and grew, we counted on our large export of services to help diminish the overall deficit. The United States still does maintain a surplus in services--exporting more than we import. However, this could disappear too. Although we continue to increase the number of services we export, the increase in service imports is even larger.
Sam, 1/10/05

JANUARY 10, 2005

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Evidence
For those who think the torture was isolated to Abu Graihb or was used only against guilty terrorists or wasn't beyond the pale or the Geneva Conventions, read here, oh, and here, and btw, here, and here as well.

Don't want to read all these articles? Here's a few choice quotes for you:

Quote 1: One FBI report said a Guantanamo Bay detainee in May 2002 was spat upon and then beaten when he tried to protect himself. At one point, soldiers apparently were "beating him and grabbed his head and beat it into the cell floor," knocking him unconscious, the report said.

Quote 2: The detainees who made public claims of torture at Guantanamo Bay describe a prison camp in which abuse is employed as a coordinated tool to aid interrogators and as punishment for minor offenses that irked prison guards. They say military personnel beat and kicked them while they had hoods on their heads and tight shackles on their legs, left them in freezing temperatures and stifling heat, subjected them to repeated, prolonged rectal exams and paraded them naked around the prison as military police snapped pictures.

Quote 3: Lawyers familiar with his case, and British detainees, said Habib was in "catastrophic shape" when he arrived in Cuba. Most of his fingernails were missing, and while sleeping at the prison he regularly bled from his nose, mouth and ears, but U.S. officials there denied him treatment, released British detainees said in a report.

Quote 4: He added that some detainees were arrested because targets were not at home when homes were raided. A family member was instead captured and then released when the target turned himself in -- a practice that, Herrington wrote, "has a 'hostage' feel to it."

Quote 5: Herrington's report also noted that sweeps pulled in hundreds and even thousands of detainees who had no connection to the war.

Quote 6: Intelligence officers of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq estimated that 70 percent to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake, the Red Cross said in a report that was disclosed Monday

So, we know the use of torture was widespread and not just isolated to some bad apples at Abu Graihb. We know that the type of torture used was severe and in some cases lead to death. We know that the torture was used on mainly innocent victims. We know that White House legal counsel was busy setting the policy for making torture permissible. Meanwhile, Gonzales is likely to be confirmed all the media are telling us.
Sam, 1/7/05

JANUARY 7, 2005

The Game is On
It seems to be increasingly clear that the Republicans are going to contest the Governor's race in hopes of getting a re-vote. At least that's what my sources are telling me. The question remains as to whether it is a good idea from a political viewpoint and/or from a moral viewpoint. If the recent King 5 poll is at all accurate--the one which finds "59 percent of residents statewide say yes, let's vote again" and also finds that 56% think Rossi won the race despite the third count--then we know it's at least not a bad idea politically for the Republicans.. In other words, unless the Republicans have no case at all, they are unlikely to be hurt politically by contesting the election. So is it a good idea in general? Although we should probably wait until Friday when we find out if and how King and other counties were able to reconcile the fact there are more ballots cast than voters to definitively answer this question, we can at least start to frame the question pretty easily.

The Seattle Times article on provisional ballots being intermixed with regular ballots is pretty damning in itself even if we don't know if this happened more than 129 times and who those ballots were cast for. A Republican poll worker wrote with regards to the provisional ballot issue:

"I didn't see this happen at the polling place I observed (although I was not watching the ballot box at all times) but a guy I know who was a poll judge at the polling place at The Josephinium on 2nd Avenue told me on Election Day that it happened there. (And, the times I stopped in there on Election Day, it was bedlam -- no access control, people wandering through on their way to their flop rooms, totally unsuitable for a polling place.)"

In addition to the mixed up provisional ballots, there have been a few cases so far of dead people and convicts voting, according to the admittedly biased web site Soundpolitics.com . As of yet, I don't believe they've found 129 cases and the allegations they have made need to be investigated and verified (uh, P.I., Times, isn't this your job?). However, in a race this close and in an election system that is obviously riddled with errors, I think it's safe at this time to assume that a good case can be made in the courts that there is more than enough errors to make 129 votes smaller than the margin of error (even beyond the margin of error of counting 3 million votes). However, as of yet, there does not appear to be evidence of fraud widespread enough to account for 129 votes (Update: the Building Industry Association of Washington claims they've found more than 129 instances of illegal voting.). So the question, as of today, boils down to whether there should be a revote because of error rather than because of fraud. One argument for this position is that by contesting and forcing a revote we are more likely to fix a faulty election voting system. If Rossi concedes will the new governor and legislature really take the steps necessary to address the issue? As I've written before, the difference of opinion basically comes down to Democrats wanting a system that makes sure anyone who wants to vote can vote and Republicans wanting a system that makes sure only those eligible to vote can vote. The current system clearly falls too heavily on the Democrats' value. There is no serious checking of voter eligibility, provisional votes are mixed in with other ballots, the registration rolls are not cleaned up, homeless can vote with no checking that prevents double voting and a whole host of other problems contaminate the system.

There seems to be two good arguments against a revote: 1) it's a mathematical tie so Gregoire just happened to be the lucky third count winner as Rossi was in the first two counts and 2) in the revote we'd be counting under the same inept system that created the need for a revote in the first place. As readers know from previous posts, I'm enamored to that argument. The fairest thing really in this election is for a rock, paper, scissors best three out of five between Rossi and Gregoire. But since I'm probably in the minority in favoring rock, paper, scissors as a solution (why didn't King 5 poll on that question--Floyd) I have to decide between the other options out there. The best counter argument to the mathematical tie claim is what I said earlier: will having a revote force serious election reform in the state? I tend to think that by contesting the election in court in order to force a revote and thus presenting all the evidence of problems in the voting system, the legislature may be forced to address the problem. Currently, there is already evidence that absent some new development we will go on with the system as it is. Take this quote from the Spokesman Review for example: "'I think the election went really well,' said Corky Mattingly, Yakima County auditor and president of the state's association of county auditors. 'We all stand with our count.'" (blog bow to SoundPolitics).

So what of the second question? If the election is contested and we get a revote it will happen under the same inane rules, same haphazard system as before. It's a good argument. However, it's possible, perhaps probable, that the new vote won't be anywhere as close as the current one. Either Gregoire or Rossi are likely to win by a margin larger than the margin of error in the election. (which one will win is open to debate, of course. A good argument could be made for either one being the favorite in the new vote).

Finally, I know one argument being tossed into the ring that is not a good argument against a revote: that the provisional ballot problems, the discrepancy between number of votes cast and number of voters, the impossibility of checking people with no real address not voting twice, all happened in previous elections so why should it cause a revote now? Well, for one because this vote is so close it actually impacted the race this time. And two, since these errors didn't get fixed in the past than maybe the high visibility of a contested election and revote will finally force our negligent legislature and county election divisions to do something about the problems.

It's true you can never eradicate all problems and all errors and reduce the margin of error in an election to zero but our election system is less accurate than the accounting at your neighborhood casino. So, after this ridiculously lengthy post, I think I've talked myself into believing the Republicans should contest the election and work to a revote. However, let's see what happens with the vote reconciliations and give the Dems and election officials (and hopefully the daily newspapers) time to respond to the provisional vote allegations, the Building Industry Association allegations and all the other accusations out there before making a final determination.
Sam, 1/06/05

Military Explanation
Horsesass.org, the Democrat web site, has a refutation of the Republicans' claim that a bunch of overseas military personnel were disenfranchised. The refutation comes from a King County FAQ on the vote count. Here's the gist of Horsesass's argument: "246 ballots went out on Oct. 1, the bulk were mailed by Oct. 6, and an additional 3055 went out on Oct. 10. KC issued 15,289 military and overseas ballots in all, and of these, 12,694 were received back… exactly matching King County’s overall 83% turnout rate...it is despicable to attempt to turn this into a partisan issue, when all the facts indicate that King County conscientiously issued military ballots in a timely manner, and in full accordance with federal law."

Andrew Sullivan Continues to Nail Torture Issue
If you're not reading Andrewsullivan.com on the Gonzales torture issue, you should be. I generally shy away from long quotes but this is important enough and he nails the issue so well that I quote Sullivan at length:

TORTURE AGAIN: Today will be an important opportunity to see what this administration has wrought with respect to the humane treatment of prisoners in U.S. military custody. Let's retire at the start the notion that the only torture that has been used by the U.S. has been against known members of al Qaeda. This is not true. Many innocent men and boys were raped, brutally beaten, crucified for hours (a more accurate term than put in "stress positions"), left in their own excrement, sodomized, electrocuted, had chemicals from fluorescent lights poured on them, forced to lie down on burning metal till they were unrecognizable from burns - all this in Iraq alone, at several prisons as well as Abu Ghraib. I spent a week reading all the official reports over Christmas for a forthcoming review essay. Abu Ghraib is but one aspect of a pervasive pattern of torture and abuse that, in my view, is only beginning to sink in.

PERVASIVE AND EVIL: This brutal treatment occurred, according to various government reports, only at internment facilities which were also designed to get intelligence. Up to 80 percent of the inmates at Abu Ghraib - which was used to get better intelligence - were utterly innocent. The torture was done by hundreds of different U.S. military officers and soldiers from almost every branch of the military. There is no assurance that it has stopped. And there's plenty of evidence that many senior officials knew exactly what was going on. When Alberto Gonzales says he now backs a recently instituted anti-torture policy, it necessarily implies that he once supported a pro-torture policy. (If he didn't, why the reversal?) Orwell urged us against the kind of terms favored by torture-justifiers as "coercive interrogation." That's why I've cited just a few of the methods. These methods are evil, counter-productive to the war effort and deeply wounding to the integrity and reputation of the United States and the entire free world. After Abu Ghraib, you might expect some kind of reckoning. But what's stunning about this president is his complete indifference to these facts. His nomination of Gonzales to attorney general is a de facto statement that he believes that someone who enabled these things needs rewarding, not censuring. This from a president elected in part on something called "moral values." If "moral values" mean indifference to torture, they are literally meaningless.

Slowing the Speeding of Gonzales
Here's a link to the memo Gonzales wrote that stated Taliban and Al Queda prisoners are exempt from the Geneva Conventions. Here's a link to the memo Gonzales asked to be written from the Justice Department that okayed the use of torture. These documents, along with the Rumsfeld and Bush's explicit wishes, helped set the atmosphere for torture conducted by U.S. personnel, torture that we know led to the death of five prisoners (and perhaps more), torture that we know in some cases was used against people who were innocent. It is not partisan to raise these issues at Gonzales confirmation hearings. He should be questioned on these issues. As Attorney General, he will have direct responsibility for any future findings on torture. To not question him closely on his involvement in these memos, on his thinking then, his current thinking and his future plans for okaying torture, would be to abdicate responsibility.

Retake America
I caught the last 45 seconds or so of Ashlee Simpson's half-time performance at the Orange Bowl last night (was it the Orange Bowl? Sugar Bowl? BCS Bowl? Who the f*** knows anymore). If she was lip synching, the person in charge of the tape system should be fired. If she was actually singing it was the worst performance in the history of music, or at least since the last talentless but uber-promoted, mass manufactured performer took stage. It was an embarassment--she was as artificial as Barry Bond's muscles, a punk attitude created on Madison Avenue, a screechy voice worthy of Saved By the Bell. But the really cool thing was as soon as she ended you could hear boisterous boos from crowds, letting her have it, finally screaming that we aren't going to take the talentless hacks fed down our consumer throats anymore. ABC quickly changed to their announcers so we could no longer hear the outraged boos but it was too late, the curtain had been raised on the pathetic man behind the wizard. Perhaps we no longer will have to bear the voice-ehanced losers that the oh so smarty pants marketers create for us. Perhaps talent will once again take the stage. Perhaps Paris Hilton really will be swallowed up by someone's a**hole (uh, that last is an allusion to a recent South Park episode for those confused out there--Sam)
Floyd, 1/5/05

I Owe U
Just an FYI, this from Richard Russell, "Household debt of all kinds now totals $10 trillion or about 115% of personal disposable income. IN 1945 it was only 20 percent of personal disposable income." I guess the question is whether debt can continue to rise faster than income. For the third quarter of 2004, 89% of GDP was from consumer spending. At the beginning of last year I was wondering whether the stimulus of the Bush tax cuts and the huge increases in spending would be enough to get the economy through the election. Yes, they were, we now know. Now that the stimulus is more or less used up, what will keep the economy going? The world economy grew at one of its fastest rates ever last year. Will this continue through all of 2005? I guess we'll find out (what happened to your promised New Year's predictions?--Floyd). They're coming, they're coming.
Sam, 1/05/05

Torturing Gonzales
As we get ready for the Gonzales confirmation hearings, here's a link to the now infamous memo.

Evans Update
Following up on Dan Evans comments below, today he is quoted in th P.I. as saying with regards to whether there should be a recall, ""If they can explain that and there are no other significant errors, in spite of the fact of a close election, it's time to say 'OK, we'll accept it," Evans said.

No Speeding of Gonzales
As I've noted before, some friends of mine have been gathering to figure out what to do after the reelection of Bush. They've been quite concerned about figuring out their values before they take any action. In the meantime, Bush has nominated Alberto Gonzales--one of the architects of Bush's torture policy--to be the next attorney general. At the least, the hearings on his confirmation should debate the wisdom of a policy that has led to a number of deaths in detention and asks us to allow government to secretly have the greatest power--the power over life and death and physical harm, a most unconservative position for a so-called conservative president, I might add. At the most, Gonzales should be voted down. I hope my Democratic friends gathering to figure out their values will get to work on this. More on Gonzales later.
Sam, 1/04/05

Pulsing the Revote
It turns out there are now 8,000 or so more votes than voters in the Governor's election in the four largest counties. The counties have said they are working to reconcile the discrepancy. It will be interesting to see if they are able to do so and if they are, what the explanation is for the original variance between number of votes and voters. One of the frustrating factors in all this is the lack of any investigation by the newspapers and media in the region. Soundpolitics.com is doing all sorts of investigations but it is a group blog run by Republicans. Nothing wrong with that but wouldn't it be nice for the newspapers to do some investigative reporting, either disproving or proving many of the allegations being thrown around by partisans. Some days there is hardly any coverage at all about Republican allegations. In the old days perhaps this was permissible; the media could ignore a story and it didn't matter. But now, with media decentralized through blogs and talk radio, large portions of the population are hearing stories about the election that will have a deep impact on how people will accept the election. If the stories are true then the mainstream media should be publishing them. If they aren't, the mainstream media should be publishing stories discrediting them. Instead, they do neither, content to lazily quote spokespeople for the two parties as if what those hacks say is news.
Sam, 1/04/05

I continue to think the onus is on the Republicans that there should be a revote. But, I will admit that when Dan Evans speaks I do generally at least give him a good lesson. Here's what he's saying on the Revote web site.

We do know that in King County alone, a number of irregularities or questions exist. For example:

Elections workers “enhanced” more than 55,000 ballots, but contrary to state law, they permanently obscured the original marks on many, preventing a review of their decisions.

Poll workers fed some provisional ballots directly into counting machines, commingling them with legal ballots and circumventing the process of keeping them out of the count if they proved to be illegal.

There are numerous reports of military personnel either never receiving their ballots or getting them too late to vote.
King County has counted 3,539 more votes than they can provide voter’s names for.

The County “discovered” additional ballots to be counted on nine separate occasions. Questions exist about whether those ballots were always secure, as required by law.

Sam, 1/04/05

 

Iraq the Model Explanation
A while back I noted that Ali from Iraq the Model blog had left the blog. Here's his explanation of why.

JANUARY 4, 2004

Bush League Math
When I worked for a U.S.Rep way back when, Republicans would rightly complain about the budget tricks the Democrats would pull to pretend they were addressing budget deficit problems. Bush would fit right in with those Democrats. We already know that the budget deficits Bush presents don't include the supplementals in funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the NY Times reports that Bush, to fulfill his pledge to halve the size of the budget deficit in four years, is using the predicted deficit of $521 billion from last February rather than the actual deficit of $413 billion. In other words, he says he only needs to reduce the deficit to $260.5 billion rather than to $206.5 billion. He's also not going to include the transition costs for his social security plan. Maybe the Republican Party has reaped short-term benefits from Bush but he will be a mid-term to long-term disaster for the party (and for the country!--Floyd).

Bush League Reaction
There has been much chattering on the initial reaction of the U.S. government to the tsunami disaster. Crossroads Arabia explains how the U.S. government disaster aid process works to explain how the Bush Administration was not stingy. He does note that Bush was silent in the first few days of the disaster. This is really a minor issue in the much larger horrific tsunami story but it is somewhat baffling why Bush wasn't more out front from a public relations standpoint. One assumes it's not because Bush is an uncaring bastard. If you read David Woodward's recent books, Bush actually appears to have a visceral reaction to human suffering around the world despite what some critics like to believe (if only he had a reasoned reaction too). So why didn't Bush comment quickly or say the U.S. would do everything it could to help the victims? Perhaps he was isolated from the issue? He claims not to read the papers or watch the news (does he read blogs?--Floyd) so perhaps holed up Crawford he didn't understand the full extent of the tragedy if he was only receiving information from aids in dry memos and reports.
Sam, 1/03/04

JANUARY 3, 2005

Indian Blogger Describes Horror
India Uncut describes the horror of the tsunami in Nagapattinum. Warning: If you are squeamish, do not read this link.

 

Becoming Jerry Lewis
FYI, the donations through Amazon.com for tsunami victims now total more than $9 million and total American contributions through private organizations has gone past the $100 million mark. So you don't have to scroll down, here's some links to find places to contribute. Here, and here.

What They're Saying
If you're interested in what Republicans are saying about the Governor's race and their allegations of negligence, try Soundpolitics.com. For the Dem side, try Horsesass.org.

 

Preparing Predictions
As we prepare for the new year, I'm preparing the Sam Speak 2005 predictions. They will tell you exactly what's going to happen over the next 365 days. They will be so accurate you can go out tonight and get so blottoed that you can lay hungover in bed all year and not worry that you've missed something.
Floyd, 12/31/04

 

Money Ball It
The Sonics have hired a statistician to help them evaluate talent. This is something the newspapers need to do to evaluate public policy. We live in a land of old baseball scouts basing public policy on feelings and intuition. Programs need to be subject to analytical rigor. We need to figure out what works and what doesn't and then fix or eliminate programs that aren't doing their stated job. The governors race coverage would benefit from some objective statistical analysis. Read the stories of the last month in the two dailies and almost all you get is regurgitated information from the two political party camps. How 'bout some real reporting, some independent crunching of numbers by our newspapers rather than relying on accusations by Rossi and Gregoire?
Sam, 12/30/04

Wait, I've Got an Idea
So Rossi's gambit is to latch onto the Munro idea to have a new election. I suppose it's understandably human that Gregoire asked for the manual hand recount even though it was not more accurate and she was only hoping to win what was essentially a tied election through whatever means she had available. It's probably equally understandably human that Rossi, after winning the first two counts, would try to find someway to re-snatch victory from the electoral jaws of defeat. It's interesting that Rossi wants to hold a new vote under the same system he calls flawed, the same system that he is saying lead to "a situation where nobody really knows who won this election." He's presuming that the disgust with how Gregoire has handled the first election will lead to a relatively easy victory for him in the rematch. It will be interesting to see what the public's reaction is to this ploy. If Rossi really thinks there was fraud or massive negligent error in the election, wouldn't it be important to get it out into the open in the process provided for by contesting the election? Or maybe there isn't evidence of such fraud or maybe like Gregoire he just cares about winning the governorship and all other considerations are secondary. Rock, Paper, Scissors anyone?
Floyd, 12/30/04

 

DECEMBER 30, 2004

Rossi Announcement at 5:40
Apparently Dino Rossi is making an announcement at 5:40 today. I have no idea what his announcement will be. What should he say? If he has uncovered specific evidence of fraud that would account for more than 129 votes (the amount Gregoire won by) then it would make sense to contest the election. If he does not have such evidence but rather only has evidence of sloppiness then what should he do? Clearly the election system (really it's systems since procedures and ballots can differ county by county) could be improved. I am doubtful that any election system could be devised that would have a margin of error smaller than the margin in this race. However, it's clear vast improvements could be made and safeguards to future possible malfeasance instituted. Someone with a cold or evil heart looking at this election would see numerous ways you could cheat the system in the future. The question then is what is the best way to get to election reform. Does Dino think contesting the election and bringing all the mishaps and errors to a court of law will shine the spotlight bright enough to force the legislature (now Democrat-controlled) to institute sensible reform or would his motivation in contesting the race only be to somehow win the race? If he graciously concedes tonight but says he will spend the next year reaching across the aisle working to make sure the mistakes of this year's election don't happen again by putting together reform laws will that work? Or, would Gregoire and the Democratically-controlled legislature, satisfied in their win and busy with power, brush off such reform efforts? I don't necessarily know the answers but I think these are the right questions.
Sam, 12/29/04

More than $2 Million
Between the time I wrote below and posted the total went up over $2 million. Update: An interesting tsunami blog with information and links to organizations that can help can be found here.

 

Amazon Update
The total pledged to the American Red Cross through Amazon.com is now nearly $2 million. As I said earlier, when I work with other countries, they are always surprised by how much of a role the private sector plays in charity and fundraising for issues. The bad news today is that experts are now predicting that more than 100,000 people may die from tsunami/earthquake disaster.

 

More Places to Donate
A reader sent this CNN link with more places to donate. After our just ended season of consumerism, this would be a good way to cap off our December spending.
Sam, 12/28/04

Helping the Tsunami Victims
You can make donations to the American Red Cross to help the earthquake/tsunami victims in Asia through Amazon.com by clicking here. None of your donation will go to Amazon, it all goes to the Red Cross. Update: A reader sent this CNN link with more places to donate.
Sam, 12/28/04

 

Private Relief
Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian aid chief, has complained about rich countries being stingy in their relief efforts for the earthquake/tsunami victims and in aid in general. It's true the US foreign aid budget is not large and quite a bit of it goes to Egypt and Israel in military aid but it's also true that much of US aid is also in the form of private aid unlike most other countries. For example, after just a few hours, donations through Amazon.com already total more than half a million dollars.
Sam, 12/28/04

Governing the Governor's Race
Republicans continue to ponder contesting the election and I see on the Soundpolitics group blog they continue to insinuate malfeasance in the counting. What's interesting is as of yet not one actual piece of fraud has been found by this web site or Republicans. It's true there's lots of messy, sloppy counting and strange coincidences but let's hold off making accusations until there's actual evidence. I'll have much more on the Governor's race when I have moment to actually sit down at the computer for more than five minutes.
Sam, 12/28/04

 

DECEMBER 28, 2004

Here Comes the Blogger
Holidays, family and all that other stuff put a crimp in posts but they will start coming soon (probably later today). In the meantime, how some more leftovers and go to the mall to exchange your gifts.

 

DECEMBER 27, 2004

What to Say
Will Dino concede? How many votes will Gregoire pick up in the 723 votes now to be counted? Was there fraud in the election? To be honest, I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I do know that again tonight I talked to someone who voted for Gregoire and this person thinks the process has been unfair and suspects fraud. Without seeing any polling, I think this is a widespread belief. Whatever the case, the Gregoire camp and the King County elections division needs to address the issue.
Sam, 12/23/04

 

What others are saying
A source in the Republican camp wrote to me,

"There is more questionable stuff going on in King County elections than people realize. I spent all Election Day pollwatching my polling place, and it was very interesting. Drunks were coming in and voting, illiterates were having the poll inspector mark their
ballots for them (the law says that can be done by TWO poll workers from two parties, not one person), they were letting people vote outside of the booths (and consult with each other on the voting), and so forth. Lots of electioneering in the polling place, a gross misdemeanor, but the poll inspector would not enforce the law. (Okay, she did call a cop on one egregious offender, but the cop didn't know the law and so did not enforce it, either.) I had a report from a guy at a polling place in Fremont that a guy came in and voted who said he had no address -- he voted a provisional ballot, and one would hope it was not counted.

I also know other Republicans are talking about precinct 1823 where a bunch of homeless people voted for Gregoire giving the county courthouse as their address. The Repubs are worried that many of these people weren't eligible to vote or could have voted twice. The basic dividing line is those who want to err on the side of making sure anyone who wants to vote does vote and has their vote counted and on the other side those who want to make sure that only people who have the right to vote can vote. I'm guessing a liberal Democrat wouldn't have any problem with the illiterate person or drunk voting without proper safeguards to ensure they have the legal right to vote. The Dems may be influenced, of course, by the fact they assume such people will vote for their candidates or that Dem activists have worked to
get such people to the polls. I tend to fall towards setting the rules and making sure people vote by those rules and if some people don't get to vote in an election then that's the way it goes. Of course, I'm not a liberal Democrat.
Sam, 12/23/04

 

So What Should We Do?
Should Rossi concede, should he contest in the legislature or the courts? Is the Ralph Munro option viable? What to do in a tied election? It's honesty day here at SamSpeak. I don't know the answer. I'm on the road for part of the day but if I come up with an answer you know I'll post it. If anyone else has the answer, feel free to email me.

DECEMBER 23, 2004

Rock, Paper, Scissors
The news media are reporting that the Dems claim they have won the Governor's race in the third count by eight votes. Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt is saying Dino Rossi should concede. I'm very curious what the Rossi and the Republican Party's reaction will be if Rossi has indeed lost by eight--only 8???!!!!, out of 2.8 million votes, almost mathematically inconceivable--votes in the third counting of votes and second recount. The understandable reaction by Rossi and crew is outrage. But I wonder if the smarter political bet is to concede gracefully. It would make Gregoire's behavior over the last month look even worse. Democrats that I talk to, much less Republicans, think ill of Gregoire's approach during this whole mathematically tied election business. If Rossi gracefully conceded at this point he would be incredibly well set up for a rematch in 2008 or a run for Maria Cantwell's Senate seat. Of course, if things are going well for Washington economically it may not matter what Gregoire did in the last month. And, I suppose, in the end, there is more likely to be a huge outcry, lawsuits, gnashing of teeth and other screams than a concession. I'm not saying the Republicans may not be justified in screaming bloody murder (I'm not sure if they are either) but it may not be the right political play.
Sam, 12/22/04

 

Gregoire Thinks You're Dumb
BTW, nobody bought Gregoire's transparent call yesterday to Rossi that they both accept the final recount. My sources tell me she already knew what the vote was going to be. It's so embarrassing to watch her think she's being so clever with such tactics, just like when she said she would only allow a full manual recount of all counties and not cherry pick if she didn't raise enough money for a full recount when she already knew she had raised the money. I've said it before and I'll say it again she's that smarmy kid you knew in school who ran for student body president just to pad her resume.
Floyd, 12/22/04

Hinge of Death
If I understand correctly, this is the relevant section of the Washington state code for counting the newly found ballots during the manual recount:

"Whenever the canvassing board finds that there is an apparent discrepancy or an inconsistency in the returns of a primary or election, the board may recanvass the ballots or voting devices in any precincts of the county. The canvassing board shall conduct any necessary recanvass activity on or before the last day to certify the primary or election and correct any error and document the correction of any error that it finds."

This is why the Republicans didn't think those 723 (or however many the final count was) ballots should be counted because they felt the law says those ballots couldn't be counted in the second recount unless they had been counted "on or before the last day to certify the primary or election."
Sam, 12/22/04

 

The Winds of Mars
The Mars Rover's solar panels are being mysteriously cleaned at night. How do I get this to work for my car?
Sam, 12/22/04

 

Message in a Bottle
Not to continue the self-serving applause of blogs but it's true they are a tool of dispersal of information, something cherished especially by those for whom information is restricted. Guess what the fourth most popular language for blogs is? Hint: we're worried about the country getting nuclear capabiilty. It's run by a bunch of religious thugs. It isn't the U.S. According to the Guardian, "With an estimated 75,000 blogs, Farsi is now the fourth most popular language for keeping online journals. A phenomenal figure given that in neighbouring countries such as Iraq there are less than 50 known bloggers." The movement there was started by a journalist, "In September 2001, a young Iranian journalist, Hossein Derakhshan, devised and set up one of the first weblogs in his native language of Farsi. In response to a request from a reader, he created a simple how-to-blog guide in Farsi, thereby setting in motion a community's surreal flight into free speech; online commentaries that the leading Iranian author and blogger, Abbas Maroufi, calls our "messages in bottles, cast to the winds". Of course, in the last six months, the theocratic mullahs have been cracking down on the bloggers. According to Human Rights Watch, "secret squads perating under the authority of the Iranian judiciary have used torture to force internet journalists and civil society activists to write self-incriminating confession letters." (blog bow to Instapundit).
Sam, 12/21/04

More Stuff Out of a Bottle
Interesting article on the baseball steroid scandal at the Hardball Times.
Sam, 12/21/04

 

The Perfect Christmas Gift
As I was making my way out of downtown Seattle this afternoon, watching people drift from lane to lane, moving from the far left lane to the right, coming to stops for no apparent reason, it became clear there is a great need out there. So make sure this holiday season, this time of goodwill and peace on earth, to put in the stocking hanging over the hearth, to give to every loved one, A GODDAMN TURN SIGNAL! (Easy there, Floyd--Sam).
Sam, 12/21/04

DECEMBER 21, 2004

Going up
A couple of weeks ago I got stuck in an elevator. How'd you like to get stuck about 70,000 miles above the earth in a space elevator? Well, actually, I wouldn't want to get stuck but I can't wait to ride one. One of the disappointing things about my adulthood (besides your lack...Careful, Floyd, this is a family blog) is that your average Joe is routinely going into outerspace. When I was young kid and we were on the moon I just assumed I'd be in outter space someday. Well, there's still time.
Sam, 12/20/04

Blogs
You may not have heard about it since I didn't mention it here and I'm sure the only thing you read is Samspeak but Michael Kinsley--he of Crossfire and Slate fame and now with the LA Times--recently used a couple of blogs to challenge people to convince him that his assertion that privatization of social security can't work is wrong. Here's what happened says Kinsley, "I sent an e-mail to some economists and privatizing buffs saying, look, either show me my mistake or drop this issue. Refute me or salute me. Disprove it or move it. Or words to that effect. As an afterthought, I sent copies to a couple of blogs (kausfiles.comand andrewsulllivan.com). What happened next was unnerving. A few days later, most of the big shots hadn't replied. But overnight I had dozens of responses from the blogosphere. They're still pouring in. And that's just direct e-mail to me. Within hours, there were discussions going on in a dozen blogs, all hyperlinking to one another like rabbits." And it wasn't just the quantity of responses, "What floored me was not just the volume and speed of the feedback but its seriousness and sophistication. Sure, there were some simpletons and some name-calling nasties echoing rote-learned propa- ganda. But we get those in letters to the editor. What we don't get, nearly as much, is smart and sincere intellectual engagement -- mostly from people who are not intellectuals by profes- sion -- with obscure and tedious, but important, issues." It is interesting how increasingly it's the non-professionals who are saying the interesting things on subjects. For example, I get far better and more timely information from the Mariner blogs out there then from either of our two Seattle newspapers. The Seattle sports reporters, who you would think would have more time and interest to get basic information right and be ahead of statistical trends, are almost always useless. Maybe it's because it's their job so they don't care, maybe because for some reason reporters are just naturally lazy or maybe because they are beholden to the teams as advertisers but the sports pages of our daily newspapers have become just about irrelevant.
Sam, 12/20/04

 

Angry Iraqi Blogger
Not sure what this means but Ali has left the blog, Iraqthemodel, with these words: "This is the last time I write in this blog and I just want to say, goodbye. It's not an easy thing to do for me, but I know I should do it. I haven't told my brothers with my decision, as they are not here yet, but it won't change anything and I just can't keep doing this anymore. My stand regarding America has never changed. I still love America and feel grateful to all those who helped us get our freedom and are still helping us establishing democracy in our country. But it's the act of some Americans that made me feel I'm on the wrong side here. I will expose these people in public very soon and I won't lack the mean to do this, but I won't do it here as this is not my blog. At any rate, it's been a great experience and a pleasure to know all the regular readers of this blog, as I do feel I know you, and I owe you a lot. Best wishes to all of you, those who supported us and those who criticized us as well."
Sam, 12/20/04

DECEMBER 20, 2004