Haloscan problems

I've been having some problems with my comment links disappearing ever since I paid to upgrade my Haloscan service. The links seem to randomly disappear throughout the day and I haven't any clue as to what is going on. This has not been a problem at my other non-upgraded blog. The folks at Haloscan have been less than helpful throughout all of this: Not responding to my e-mails, ignoring my posts in their technical service forum, and then finally giving me a weak "it's not our fault" response on Friday.

So anyway, I'm seriously considering switching to a different comment service although I hate to lose access to all my old comment, but I may not have any other choice.

The Decider

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best." — President Bush

When I first heard that quote from Bush it brought to mind an image of the dog Napoleon from Disney's The Aristocats.

"Wait a minute. I'm the leader! I'm the one that says when we go. OK, let's go. Charge!"

Of course, in my head I change "leader" to "decider" and change "we go" to "Rumsfeld goes" and so forth.

A weak effort at parody, I know. That's what comes with living with a 2-year-old who watches almost nothing but Disney movies, I guess.

But other folks out there have done a far better job of lampooning this newest Bushism. Frequent commenter Ann pointed me to this reworking of a popular Dr. Suess tale.

Also, via Atrios, comes this wickedly funny version of the Beatles' "I Am The Walrus".

Interestingly, "decider" is actually a legitimate word according to my dictionary, but it is certainly obscure.

Adjusting to reality

“I changed my mind as part of a necessary adjustment to reality,” — Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama, the famous neocon intellectual, did a brave thing recently: He changed his mind about the Iraq war.
In an Op-ed piece that ran in a number of papers over the weekend, Fukuyama makes some excellent points that are sure to rankle folks on both the right and left ends of the political spectrum.
First he says that “no one should be required to apologize for having supported intervention in Iraq before the war.”
I don’t necessarily agree with that, but fine, whatever.
But then he goes on to make this salient point:

The debate over the war shouldn't have been whether it was morally right to topple Hussein (which it clearly was), but whether it was prudent to do so given the possible costs and potential consequences of intervention and whether it was legitimate for the U.S. to invade in the unilateral way that it did.

I’ve made that same point here many times. Just because I opposed launching a pre-emptive strike and a massive land invasion of Iraq does not mean that I supported keeping Hussein in power anymore than Bush’s decision not to invade North Korea three years ago means he supports keeping Kim Jong Il in power.

Fukuyama makes a lot of other good points and I would urge everyone to go and read the whole article, but the part that struck me the most was right at the end where he bemoans the intransigence of most political opinion today:

Political debate has become a spectator sport in which people root for their team and cheer when it scores points, without asking whether they chose the right side. Instead of trying to defend sharply polarized positions taken more than three years ago, it would be far better if people could actually take aboard new information and think about how their earlier commitments, honestly undertaken, actually jibe with reality — even if this does on occasion require changing your mind.

This is sad but true in many respects. I know I have been guilty in the past of cheering on my “team” when I have not adequately studied and researched the issues being debated. Sometimes we all need to adjust our opinions to better align ourselves with reality.

Falling Georgie

Here is an entertaining timewaster for all those Bush bashers out there.
Just refresh the page to watch him fall again and again and again...

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend. We went to Houston and had my little girl christened at the same church where her brother was christened two years ago and where my wife and I were married 16 years ago. By the same minister, no less.
My sister and her family were unable to make it, unfortunately, but they sent a whole bunch of Easter goodies and christening gifts in the mail. My mom did make it so the kids had the full attention of both sets of grandparents.
My in-laws then treated everyone to a brunch at a nearby cafe and afterwards we went back to their house for an easter egg hunt. My little boy is 2.5 and his cousins are 3 and 1.5 respectively, so it’s a great age to watch them running around in the backyard excitedly looking for plastic eggs in the grass.
We always end up with tons of food whenever the family gets together like that and we came home with a cooler full of leftovers. Another big treat was the delicious Easter cookies that my sister-in-law made. Now if I can just convince her to make those cookies on other occasions as well.

Rumsfeld is doomed

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld just got the kiss of death from President Bush.

President Bush said Friday that embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has his "full support and deepest appreciation."

We all know what that means... In a few days, Rummy will be explaining that he needs to spend more time with his family, etc. etc.

Old comments are back

I finally ponied up some moolah to upgrade my Haloscan account so now all the old comments are back. Hurray!
Up until now, Haloscan had been dumping comments into a black hole after three months. The only annoying thing is that the comment number under each archived blog post still shows zero. So you don’t know if or how many comments are on any post and just have to click to find out. I’m not sure if this can be fixed, but I will check on it.

Kinky polls

The San Antonio Business Journal has an online poll up showing Kinky Friedman winning the governor’s race in a landslide with 53 percent of the vote compared to 24 percent for Rick Perry, 14 percent for Carole Keeton Strayhorn and an anemic 5 percent for Democrat Chris Bell.

The poll is no doubt a bit skewed today by the fact that Kinky is touting the results on his web site. But he was still winning with a healthy 40 percent of the vote before legions of Kinksters began flooding the site and driving up his numbers. Kinky also won a similar poll conducted last month by the Austin Business Journal.

While polls in general and certainly online polls are not the most accurate barometers for what will actually happen in November, it still raises the possibility that Kinky could be a big factor in the election. I think there is a good chance that Perry will not be able to reach 50 percent of the vote in November and will be forced into a run-off and it looks increasingly likely that his runoff opponent could be Kinky Friedman.

What will this mean for Texas? I’m not sure. It’s not great news for Democrats if their candidate comes in third or fourth in the election. But I’ve never held out very high hopes for Chris Bell. While I will vote for him in the general election, I just don’t think a one-term congressman has the stature or the name recognition necessary to pull off a victory in a statewide race like this. I hope I’m wrong. But that’s why I was hoping that John Sharp would have jumped into the race and that’s why I voted for Bob Gammage in the primary.
And while I’m not a “Kinkster,” I have to say that if the race came down to a Perry vs. Friedman runoff I would find myself asking “Why the hell not?”

UPDATE & CORRECTION

In comments, someone much wiser than myself points out there are no runoffs in general elections. D'oh! That shoots my theory out of the water. I don't see anyway now that Kinky can win the governership. It looks like we'll be stuck with Rick Perry for another four years. Damn.
Wait! Maybe if Chris Bell drops out and the Democrats cross-endorse Kinky and, and... Oh! Nevermind.

Local blogger additions

We have a prominent new addition to the local blogging community. District 10 City Councilman Chip Haass has launched a blog called Conversations With Chip at his regular web site.
In a news release, Haass said he plans to use the blog to take a stand on various public issues and to provide “yet another tool to listen to families and business owners” in his district.
So far he has three posts up covering a proposed bond referendum, the Animal Care Services Department and the city’s effort to land a professional sports franchise. The site does have comments, so head on over and give it a looksee.

Another new blogger since the last time I did my San Antonio blogging update is my friend Mack Harrison who runs Valley In Exile. Mack and I used to work together at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal many moons ago. He was until just recently the opinion page editor for the McAllen Monitor, but he is currently attending law school at St. Mary’s University here in the Alamo City. Mack’s blog is very much focused on happenings in the Rio Grande Valley so if you want to keep up with what’s going on to our south be sure and check it out.

Bush's Heartland values

Here at what may be the low point of the Bush presidency, it seems an odd time to begin touting a project to restore the old Bush family home in Midland.

There is no denying that people in West Texas are diehard Bush backers. I’m sure a lot of the 38 percent of the U.S. population that still thinks W. is doing a bang-up job in Washington resides thereabouts. But it seems they are in a bit of a quandry about how to promote the Bush family house:

Promoters of the house as a historic landmark acknowledge that defining its particular story line has not been easy. Although the house itself suggests modest beginnings, the young couple that occupied it belonged to one of the most powerful families in contemporary American history, combining the wealth and power of Wall Street with a record of high public office.

George H.W. Bush's father, Prescott Bush, had been a U.S. senator from Connecticut, for instance, and the family tree included an original partner of financier J.P. Morgan. In some ways, the family compound on the ocean at Kennebunkport, Maine, may be a more authentic symbol of who the Bushes are.

"We've understood throughout the project that we cannot portray them as coming from a lifting-yourselves-by-the-bootstraps background with no resources," said Bill Scott, a Midland real estate broker and one of the organizers of the Bush home project. "We do not want to portray them as coming from humble backgrounds."

Instead, in addition to honoring the family that — perhaps more than even oil and high school football — put Midland on the map, developers suggest that this is where the Bush family may have learned Heartland values.

Of course, those Heartland values. That’s why the Bush clan moved out to dusty West Texas, not so much to make their fortune, which they already had, but to ground themselves in the American Heartland values that would give them the political spit-shine that they needed to make themselves more politically viable and to distance themselves from their real New England patrician roots.

There is no doubt that it worked. Much of George W.’s political success can be attributed to his image as a West Texas good ol’ boy. Nevermind that he went to private schools in Andover and then on to Yale and Harvard, when people think of Bush they think of him in boots and jeans and wearing a cowboy hat.

The Bush’s have ridden that wave a long way and today you will find no place where Bush loyalty runs stronger than in solid Red-State West Texas.


So then, how does Bush repay these fine people for giving his political career the gloss of midwestern authenticity that it required? Why, by giving them the back of his hand, of course. I still can’t get over the fact that Bush would put his presidential library anywhere but in West Texas. What an ingrate! Texas Tech University in Lubbock had by far the best bid of any place seeking to host the library. It would have been the ideal place for the Bush library, in the town where Bush Sr. would often turn for poll results favorable to his presidency and where Bush Jr. launched his political career with a run for Congress.
But now after all the excitement and anticipation they are left heartbroken and disappointed.

Immigration question

Via Eschaton, I see that The Rude Pundit has an intresting question about the path to U.S. citizenship taken by Bush’s Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez.
It appears that Gutierrez and his family were illegal immigrants when they came to the U.S. in the early 1960s and then benefited from an amnesty program in 1966 that granted them citizenship.
I would think something like that would be of particular interest in light of the recent debate over immigration reform.

Defending Democrats

As a rule, I don't feel compelled to jump up and defend every statement made by every Democrat or outspoken liberal on the planet.

Whether the verbal perpetrator is Al Sharpton or Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan, I'm more likely to shrug and say 'so what' when someone complains about something they said that has stirred up criticism from the right. It's not like these people are in any kind of elected or elevated position within the Democratic Party.

Even when it is an elected Democrat, like Rep. Cynthia McKinney, I would still point out that she has little to no influence within the party.

Now if the offending bit of verbage sprang from the mouth of Howard Dean, John Kerry, Al Gore, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, then there is more of a necessity to offer a defense, or at least a clarification that one does not always agree with everything the party bosses have to say.

But on the whole, those of us among the 62 percent of Americans who think Bush is doing a lousy job as president don't always agree on the fine points and the details.

Kerry's little 10-point plan

John Kerry has been on the attack recently starting with this op-ed piece in the NY Times and now today a report of sharply criticizing the Bush administration at a political conference in New York.

"The Bush administration is wondering when Iraq will have a functioning government. I want to know when we're going to have a functioning government," Mr. Kerry said.

The Times article says at one point Kerry offered a "little 10-point plan" for Democrats in response to criticisms that they don't have an agenda for the nation. I thought the list, while obviously needing more details on most points, does a good job of summarizing the key differences and areas of dispute between Democrats and Republicans today.
Here is the plan:

1. Tell the truth.
2. Fire the incompetents.
3. Find Osama bin Laden and secure our ports and our homeland.
4. Bring our troops home from Iraq.
5. Obey the law and protect our civil rights.
6. Support health care
7. Support education
8. Support lobbying reform
9. Support alternatives to oil
10. Reduce the deficit.

A fickle fan

I should have learned long ago to base my sports allegiances on the teams and the cities rather than on the individual players. That way I wouldn’t get soured on a sport each year when I learn that half the players I liked are no longer on my favorite team. Some people are diehard fans of a team every year regardless of who is on the team - Cubs fans and Red Sox fans tend to be like that. But I would always get too attached to individual players such that when they left, so did my loyalty for the team.

I suppose I’ve always rooted for the Texas teams because it was my home state, but calling them my favorites would be a stretch. Growing up on military bases and moving around the country in the 1970s made it hard to form an attachment with struggling teams like the Houston Astros, the Texas Rangers and the Houston Oilers. For one thing, I rarely got to see them play since we lived so far away, and secondly they had no standout players back then and never were in contention for a pennant or a Super Bowl.
The Dallas Cowboys were the exception. Roger Staubach was my hero and the fact that he played for a Texas team made it easy to call them my favorites.
But baseball was another story. My favorite team from my youth was the Cincinnatti Reds because I loved Johnny Bench and Pete Rose. At the time, my father was stationed at Grissom AFB in Indiana and I could often see games featuring the Reds on TV. But I never had any connection to Cincinnatti, so when the Big Red Machine was dismantled in the latter part of the ‘70s I lost interest in the team.

I didn’t really have a “favorite” team again until 1998 when Chuck Knoblauch was traded to the New York Yankees. I had a personal connection with Knoblauch in that we both attended Texas A&M at the same time where I got to see him play and he had been one of my wife’s high school classmates at Bellaire High School in Houston. During Knoblauch’s first year in the majors in 1991 he helped the Minnesota Twins win the World Series and was voted Rookie of the Year. When he went to the Yankees, something seemed to click with the team and they went on to win three World Series championships in a row in dominating fashion.
So for a while I was a big time Yankees fan. Even after Knoblauch had his throwing problems (and ended up being benched and then traded to Kansas City where he ended his career in obsurity,) I continued to root for the Yankees because I had become attached to the other players on the team - Paul O’Neil, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, Orlando Hernandez, and so on.

But once again I am torn. The Yankees are still a good team with a lot of great players (but not the chemistry they had in ‘98-’00), but the only people left from the time I was a big fan are Jeter, Posada and Bernie Williams (on the verge of retirement). Even the coaching staff has changed with the exception of Joe Torre.
So do I continue rooting for the Yankees, or find someone else? (I had considered becoming a Texas Rangers fan a while back, but then they turned around the next year and traded Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro, etc. and I said the heck with it.)
Last year I decided to root for the Astros in earnest. I thought it was pretty neat when they picked up Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens from the Yankees so I decided to follow them for a while. Until San Antonio gets a team, the Astros are the closest thing to a home team for me now so I will keep rooting for them. But they haven’t risen to the level where they would replace the Big Red Machine or the ‘98-’00 Yankees in my estimation.

A&M gets Hammered

I knew there was a reason why I never liked Tom DeLay from the first time I heard of him.

Wikipedia has this interesting tidbit from DeLay’s past:

“...he had previously been expelled from Baylor University for drinking and vandalism (he was caught painting a building at Texas A&M green and gold, Baylor's colors).”

I wonder which building he was defacing? It’s a wonder he didn’t get strung up by the students after he was caught.

Just to put this in perspective, DeLay got a deferrment from the draft so that he could attend Med school at Baylor where he drank, partied and ultimately got kicked out. While there, he decided to vandalize the school (A&M) that was training many of the military officers who would fight in the war he was avoiding.

Years later, DeLay was apparently still resentful of the school that caught him vandalizing its property as well as the school that kicked him out over that incident. Speaking to a group attending a conference at First Baptist Church in Pearland, DeLay advised them not to send their kids to Baylor or A&M. Why? Because in DeLay’s opinion they aren’t good Christian schools since they don’t teach creationism.

The Virginian

Speaking of rats and sinking ships...
All good liberals are doing the Snoopy dance today to celebrate another great victory for the forces of light and goodness.

Rep. Tom DeLay, the former House Republican leader so powerful he was nicknamed "The Hammer," said Tuesday he will resign from Congress and drop out of his re-election race to protect his congressional seat from a Democratic victory.

In a videotaped announcement, DeLay credits liberal Democrats with his decision to turn tail and scurry away.

"I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative personal campaign," DeLay said.

While I would love to take full credit for this, this is just another dodge by the master of political manipulation. If you watched the video, you may have noticed DeLay’s lips moving which is usually a good indication that he is lying.
The truth of the matter is that with his second close aide now being fitted for an orange jumpsuit, DeLay will be needing to focus all of his attention on keeping his butt out of jail.

Meanwhile, it looks like DeLay is not only vacating his Congressional seat, he is abandoning the great state of Texas and changing his permanent residency to Virginia. This is apparently a manuever to allow Republicans to pick a replacement for his spot on the Nov. general election ballot.

(DeLay) said he will change his legal residence to his condominium in Alexandria, Va., from his modest two-story home on a golf course here in the 22nd District of Texas. "I become ineligible to run for election if I'm not a resident of the state of Texas," he said, turning election law to his purposes for perhaps on last time. State Republican officials will then be able to name another Republican candidate to face Democrat Nick Lampson, a former House members who lost his seat in a redistricting engineered by DeLay.

It’s just as well. As the Dixie Chicks might say, I was always embarrassed that Tom DeLay was from Texas. Good riddance.

Doing what he does best

President Bush was out today doing something that I fully support. He was throwing out the first pitch of the new baseball season.
As a former part-owner of a Major League Baseball franchise, I think Bush is imminently suited to this task and therefore I’d like to suggest that he make throwing out first pitches the priority of his administration for the rest of his term. He should plan on throwing out the first pitch at every game throughout the entire season. This will keep him fairly busy, so he will need to pass on those other bothersome tasks of governing to someone else. Deadeye Dick Cheney is clearly not mentally or emotionally stable enough for such a task, so I say let Condi have a go at it. Lord knows she couldn’t do a worse job and it will also give her the practice she needs so she can be ready to run against Hillary in 2008.
This shift of priorities would also help improve Bush’s dismal poll ratings which might even hit the 50 percent mark again before he leaves office.
Take my advice, Mr. President! Let’s Play Ball!!!

Broken contracts

My conservative friend Bill Crawford now has a regular gig writing a weekly column for National Review Online that purports to show all the good things happening in Iraq that the “mainstream media” has allegedly failed to report on.
I think that is wonderful for Bill and I offer him my hearty congratulations.

But what I don’t understand is why Bill and all the other ardent war supporters aren’t pulling their hair out over stories like this one.

BAGHDAD -- A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.

Is that the best we can do!?! Two years and $200 million and they can only complete 20 out of 142 health clinics as promised?
And apparently the Bush administration is fine with it. We are going to pay the contractor, Parsons Inc., the full amount and not hold them accountable for the unfinished work. Furthermore, we apparently have no plans to expend any more funds to have the work completed. Officials in Iraq are just hoping some foreign donors will step in and help fill the gaps.

I said a while back that Bush does not deserve the credit he has been given for rebuilding Iraq because it is clear that he never intended to commit the kind of financial resources necessary to do the job. Bush and Co. were half expecting the Iraq invasion to go something like the invasion of Grenada, a painless exercize meant only to boost Republican electoral prospects for the upcoming mid-term elections. What they got was an extended Vietnam-like quagmire that has engulfed all of our military resources and threatens to drag on for countless years to come.

Kevin Drum at Political Animal calls the war supporters’ bluff today, demanding to know specifically what they are willing to do to “win” this war.

So: what's the plan, hawks? "Whatever it takes" is just cheap talk. Are you suggesting higher taxes to fund a dramatic increase in military end strength? A draft? A ground invasion of Iran? A permanent military occupation of the entire Middle East?

Because that's probably what it would take. Right now, nearly a thousand Iraqis are dying every month, the per capita equivalent of about 100,000 deaths per year if this were taking place in the United States. And keep in mind that this is the result of a mere low level civil war, not the real thing. What happens when full scale civil war breaks out and the U.S. military is stuck in the middle?

What's the plan then?

No, Kevin, of course they would never raise taxes. Republicans don’t raise taxes, they just raise the debt limit.

Anti-immigration nonsense

I can't believe they said this.

'Let the prisoners pick the fruits'

I'm so glad these Republican yahoos are holding press conferences to spout their ignorance. The public really needs to see what kind of people we have running the House today.

UPDATE
Here is my conservative friend Mark Harden’s response from comments:

"Let the illegal aliens pick up the trash along the highways" instead of community service prisoners, then.

One thing about those protest marches. Wait, two things. First, they were about as "spontaneous" as an Imam-inspired crowd of Muslims storming out of the mosque after Friday prayers to scream "Death to the Jews!". Particularly high school students cutting class to be involved. How amazing they would do that! Second, some claim it's not possible to deport 11 million illegals - maybe we can start by rounding them up 400,000 at a time at these marches. Third, the comparison to civil rights marchers is logically flawed. Blacks marched in the 60s for civil rights that were due to them, which they were not receiving. These people are illegally here...they currently have no civil rights that are being unfairly denied them. So, you can say they are marching to convince legislators to provide them these rights, but they are not marching in the same sense as the civil rights marchers. [Preemptive response: maintain proper distinction between civil rights and human rights. Yes, we should be kind to these illegals...as we deport them.]

OK, so that was three things. So arrest me. Besides, laws aren't meant to be enforced if enough people ignore them.

First, they probably would pick up the trash along the highways if we would pay them a fair wage. Second, the idea of using prisoners to pick fruit would be an unprecedented use of forced labor to benefit a private enterprise - unprecedented at least since the time of slavery and indentured servitude. That is unless Dana Rohrabaher and his supporters are really communists and are calling for nationalization of our agricultural industry.

Now as to the marchers, no, of course they were not spontaneous. These people don’t pay that close of attention (or any at all) to what is going on in Washington. They had to be riled up - in this case by Spanish-language radio stations. But once aroused, the crowds are responding angrily to what they perceive as an attack on their heritage and their worth as human beings. This business of carrying the Mexican flag, which has gotten many on the right riled up, is no different than those good ol’ boys down south running around waving the Rebel flag from the back of their pickup trucks. It’s a symbol of defiance and cultural pride mixed into one, not an attack on the U.S.

Finally, I think there is a valid comparison between these protests and the ones for Civil Rights for blacks. In each case, you have a large segment of our society that is or was used for cheap labor, that has subsequently been left disenfranchised. In one case, the cheap laborers were forcibly brought to this country, in the other case they came on their own. Either way, they are here to stay whether we like it or not.

Still alive and kicking

I had heard about this website before but just today decided to check it out.
It seems kind of morbid, but it is really quite facinating. Just check out the list of people still living who are 85 and above. You will be surprised to learn that some people on the list are still alive, and shocked to learn that other people are that old.

Here is a sample:

John Kenneth Galbraith (97) The New Deal economist and prolific author of popular books on economics. I own a large collection of his works and got to see him in person when I was in college when he was touring around the country doing one-on-one debates with William F. Buckley.
Michael DeBakey (97) The famous heart-transplant surgeon from Houston.
Dolores Hope (96) The widow of Bob Hope who died a few years ago at age 100.
Karl Malden (94) The actor who was Michael Douglas’ older partner on the hit ‘70s cop show Streets of San Francisco.
Studs Terkel (93) Another prolific author and interviewer whose many works have found a place in my library.
Milton Friedman (93) Nobel Prize winning economist and proponent of right-wing free-market theories. Is in a contest with Galbraith to see who can outlive the other.
Lady Bird Johnson (93) Beloved former first lady and widow of LBJ.
Former President Gerald Ford (92) He made news recently when he went to the hospital with a touch of pneumonia, but he apparently pulled through and is back out on the golf course.
Harry Morgan (90) The actor who portrayed Col. Potter on the M*A*S*H TV series.
Sargent Shriver (90) Democratic vice presidential candidate who married a Kennedy and became father-in-law to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Augusto Pinochet (90) Facist dictator of Chile.
Eli Wallach (90) Actor who played Tuco (the Ugly) in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The list of Octogenarians is equally interesting, but I am out of time for now.