Post-Debate 2

Ok, so I'm beginning to accept that not everyone saw the same debate I did, or at least it didn't leave them with the same decisive impression. Whatever the press consensus is, I thought Kerry was incredibly strong, and Bush was just frightening misleading, angry, and incoherent. Of course, you'd expect little else from me, wouldn't you? But remember, I have never been a strong Kerry fan. The truth is, with his performance in these debates I feel like he's finally earning my support rather than just getting it by default. Here's a roundup of some good bits I've seen about the debate so far: Factcheck.org has already fact-checked both candidates' performances last night, and it's pretty much what you'd expect—they're both full of it. Watch Bush flip out on Charlie Gibson. Read how Bush bungled one of the few references to authority he even attempted when he tried to talk about the Dred Scott case. Scott Rosenburg hits Bush hard on his infallibility and the condescension he continues to express for the rest of the world ("I know how these people think!"). Josh Marshall also has good thoughts on the godlike president and he's going with the center spin that the debate was a draw. The AP's summary said "Bush Fights Emotion, Scowls In Debate." That's true. He seemed to have a perma-fake smile pasted to his face and every once in a while his jaw clenched as he fought to avoid showing his petulance. I recommend regular readings of Salon's War Room these days for great quick commentary on the election as it develops. Finally, have you heard about Bush's mysterious back bulge? Salon picked up the story from blogs, and the NY Times follows up today. New blogging rockstar (at least in my own little pantheon of blog rockstars) thisdarkqualm covers the story and includes a picture of Bush at the ranch w/the same bulge. So what the hell is it? Check out Is Bush Wired? for ongoing speculation, including links to real devices that may have turned Bush into Rove's remote-controlled toy. Also comments from Andy Card and some strong denials from both campaigns. You think this is just nutty crazy, right? Perhaps. But look at the record of this administration; I wouldn't put anything past them. And apropos of the brave new world of remote-control presidents and Bush as "a good steward of the land" (I can't believe he had the nerve!): I love it when I get email asking me to buy "Soma." If only....

Posted 09:36 AM | Comments (10) | election 2004

TKO

Just finished watching the second presidential debate between Bush and Kerry and to me it looked like Kerry delivered a knock-out blow. I'm not just saying that to join the post-debate spin machine; that's really how it looked to me. I think Bush lost it when he shouted down Charlie Gibson in his rush to say basically nothing in response to a Kerry answer. Kos already has the factcheck smackdown on Bush's “I own a timber company” smirky retort. I'm sure there's more of this to come. I can't wait to hear what the fact-checkers have to say about Bush's response to the question about the environment. It sounded like complete BS to me. There's more, and you'll be getting it elsewhere, so I'll let the spinmeisters go to work...

Posted 10:40 PM | Comments (1) | election 2004

Free Lunch

I'm late for work but I have a few extra seconds today because I don't have to make a lunch—there's a free lunch waiting for me at work. That's right, every other Thursday the office buys me lunch, and if there are leftovers, I get free lunch on Fridays, too! For those of you who have worked in law firms, I guess this is probably not such a big deal, but I've had quite a few jobs in my life and I don't think any of them has ever regularly bought me lunch, so I think it's pretty cool. (Ok, Backroads paid for my lunch every day, but that was different. How about this: I've never had an office job that regularly bought me lunch....)

Posted 09:01 AM | Comments (1) | 2L

John Stewart, Blog breaks, SYDHT

One: John Stewart will be signing his new book at Politics and Prose on Friday, 10/15 at 1 p.m. [link via DCist] Why, oh why, did I start a job and giving up having Fridays off? Two: Hmm. Near the same time that DG decided to take a break, Kelly at Just Playin' is thinking about going underground. And Musclehead is talking “break' too! Is there a spreading theme here? Three:L-Cubed has started a new feature called ”So You Don't Have To“ in which Scott reads something good in print and posts about it so you can save yourself the cost of the magazine or whatever. Brilliant idea! Four: Do you play computer games in class? In my ConLaw class, one person is usually playing something that looks a little sims-like. In Evidence, every day, for the entire hour, this guy in front of me plays emulated Nintendo games. He occassionally pauses the game to tap in a note about what's happening in class, but probably 98% of his time and attention is on the games. Incredible, really. The game looks pretty fun, though. Oh, another popular one: Snood. Five: Our home network has been down all week and Verizon can't even hook up our phone 'til next Tuesday, meaning we won't have DSL until sometime after that. At the moment, they can't even tell us whether our phone line is DSL-capable—they have to hook up the phone first. If we find the line doesn't support DSL, online life is going to be very sad, indeed. Anyhoo, my severely limited access to the 'net may mean lack of updates or responses to comments or emails until things settle down, just FYI.

Posted 09:52 AM | Comments (3) | 2L meta-blogging

Veep Debate

Political Wire has a good little roundup of post-debate topics. Grouchy Cheney told us to visit Factcheck.com to see the truth about Halliburton. Funny, that link takes me to “a personal message from George Soros” entitled “Why we must not re-elect President Bush.” Cheney obviously meant to send people to FactCheck.org, which seems to be getting slammed this morning, judging by how difficult it is to load the page. I haven't been able to access it yet, but they have a piece up claiming that Cheney & Edwards Mangle Facts. Also not-to-be-missed is Josh Marshall's coverage of how Cheney in particular mislead the world into thinking there was a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Scott Rosenberg thought Edwards cleaned Cheney's clock, but that's not exactly a unanimous opinion, as he notes. Oh, and don't worry about the election this year—the Florida ballot is completely fixed. [Link via Political Wire] Briefly, since this is getting out late and there are already plenty of opinions afloat on the whole thing, I thought Cheney was grouchy, mumbled a lot, and outright lied several times. Still, he did a heckuva lot better than his running mate. I think if the Republicans had chosen Cheney for Pres instead of vice, Kerry might be in serious trouble. ;-) Edwards did well in answering Cheney's dissembling accusations, and he got some good points across. However, he missed some great opportunities to turn Cheney's criticisms back at him. For example, Cheney kept saying Kerry/Edwards don't have the “judgment” to lead. You want to talk about judgment? Bush claims he agrees that nuclear proliferation is a number one security threat to the U.S. and world, and he's spending millions to research and build more nukes! Does that sound like good judgment to you? There were other examples, but it's easy to armchair-quarterback after the fact. Friday looks to be as important as ever, or more so.

Posted 02:58 PM | Comments (1) | election 2004

Veep Debate

Political Wire has a good little roundup of post-debate topics. Grouchy Cheney told us to visit Factcheck.com to see the truth about Halliburton. Funny, that link takes me to “a personal message from George Soros” entitled “Why we must not re-elect President Bush.” Cheney obviously meant to send people to FactCheck.org, which seems to be getting slammed this morning, judging by how difficult it is to load the page. I haven't been able to access it yet, but they have a piece up claiming that Cheney & Edwards Mangle Facts. Also not-to-be-missed is Josh Marshall's coverage of how Cheney in particular mislead the world into thinking there was a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Scott Rosenberg thought Edwards cleaned Cheney's clock, but that's not exactly a unanimous opinion, as he notes. Oh, and don't worry about the election this year—the Florida ballot is completely fixed. [Link via Political Wire] Briefly, I thought Cheney was grouchy, mumbled a lot, and outright lied several times. Still, he did a heckuva lot better than his running mate. I think if the Republicans had chosen Cheney for Pres instead of vice, Kerry might be in serious trouble. ;-) Edwards did well in answering Cheney's dissembling accusations, and he got some good points across. However, he missed some great opportunities to turn Cheney's criticisms back at him. For example, Cheney kept saying Kerry/Edwards don't have the “judgment” to lead. You want to talk about judgment? Bush claims he agrees that nuclear proliferation is a number one security threat to the U.S. and world, and he's spending millions to research and build more nukes! Does that sound like good judgment to you? There were other examples, but it's easy to armchair-quarterback after the fact. Friday looks to be as important as ever, or more so.

Posted 11:54 AM | election 2004

Au Revoir?

In a shocking move, Ditzy Genius recently bid farewell to her readers, “probably permanently.” Can this be? Can one of the bloggers I've read so regularly and enjoyed so completely really be calling it quits? Of course I hope she decides to return sometime soon, but at the same time, I also understand that she may have good reasons for taking a break—even a permanent one. I've thought about making the same move probably once a month since starting this thing, and more frequently since starting year-two of law school. It seems common for “law school blawgs” to fizzle before their authors make it through the process, and I've recently had glimpses of why that is. I'm guessing it's something about the demands of year two, the lack of novelty in the process, the priorities turning elsewhere. (Not that any of these reasons necessarily played any part in DG's decision; this is just my own perspective.) But as the process changes, so, too, can the blog. At least I hope it can. The dominant content of aihas changed several times over the last two years (at least I think it has), and that's fine with me. I know I lose readers and gain readers when my focus shifts from one main topic to anther (from leaving grad school/thinking about law school, to the democratic primary process, to 1L of law school, to the sort of transitional grab bag period of the present), but that's how it goes. Maybe somewhere around year two is adolescence for blogs? You know, the difficult years, the growing pains, the identity crisis? Whatever. I still enjoy it, so I'll continue for now.* Still, I understand making a different decision, so best of luck, DG! I know many of us will miss you while you're gone, and we'll be thrilled if you decide to return! *I may have mentioned this before, but to me this blog has become a sort of hobby, a project, a toy. Specifically, I think of a certain stereotype of a man who has a wife and kids and job and responsibilities (which I don't; I'm just painting a picture here), and in every way seems like a nice and normal guy, but you go in his garage and there you find a piece of junk old car that doesn't run and quite probably never will. Yet, whenever this guy gets a free weekend or even a few spare hours on a Wednesday night, he'll either be playing around with the car (“restoring” it), or talking to friends about where to get parts or what modifications to make or whatever. So the car takes up his spare time and money and energy and imagination, and it might drive his friends and family crazy except that they know he enjoys it and it keeps him from getting into trouble doing something else with those resources. So this blog is my piece of junk old car in the garage, my hobby and distractio. Except my piece of junk runs; I can take it for regular drives. Sure, there's always some tinkering I'd like to do under the hood (for example, last weekend I eliminated the annoying bug where all archive links turned into a link to a book about Howard Dean on Amazon; no, that was never intentional), but when I'm short on time I can also just take it for a spin around the block w/a quick post about whatever. I mean, if I ever have a house with a garage where I think I'm going to be able to stay for a good little while, I'll probably have a real piece of junk old car in there to play with. There's actually a 1972 MGB Roadster in Montana that would fit really nicely in my garage if I had one. But, in the meantime, this is my ambivalent hot rod. Perhaps the analogy only works inside my head.

Posted 12:13 PM | Comments (3) | 2L meta-blogging

Focus Grouping

I just got an email from someone connected to Frank Luntz, who is sometimes referred to as “Bush's pollster.” Not surprisingly, the Luntz folks will be focus-grouping the vice-presidential debate next Tuesday, and they're looking for people to be part of their “mini-America.” If you're in the D.C. area and would like to be part of a focus group for the VP debate on Tuesday night, fill out this form and maybe they'll call you. If they do, they'll pay you $50 to watch the debate and answer questions about it, and your opinion could represent the opinions of millions! (Insert evil laugh here.0

Posted 12:34 PM | Comments (5) | election 2004

Republican Canards

The new Republican spin on last week's debate is just too much. Kerry said Bush failed the global test for offensive military action when he failed to convince the U.N. and our traditional allies that a massive invasion and occupation of Iraq was necessary or wise. That's why this is Bush's war—he chose to fight it, and has basically been giving the finger to the global community (and a large percentage of Americans who opposed the war from its first mention) ever since. So now the Republicans are saying that Kerry said he would let U.S. foreign policy decisions be made in foreign capitals, that under Kerry, “the use of troops to defend America” would be “subject to a veto by countries like France.” Sorry, but that's just not true, and the only reason they're saying that is because they'd rather spin than try to defend their record because, frankly, they made a mistake. We all know there's a big difference between working with others and letting them tell you what to do. Since Bush became president, I've often felt the urge to compare political situations to playground etiquette. Here, Bush appears to see only two options for the U.S. on the global playground: we can either be the bully, or we're going to get beat up. But history shows that there's another option that has worked really, really well, and that is to hang out with a bunch of friends on the playground, standing together against the loner bullies and convincing them by example that they're going to have more fun on the playground if they accept the rules that most everyone but them agrees on. Sure, it's possible there will be times when the rest of the world is just wrong and the U.S. has to go it alone on something, but invading Iraq was so not one of those times. The Republican rhetoric is both wrong and dangerous because it's basically trying to convince Americans that global cooperation is unacceptable, that no one can tell the U.S. what to do, but that every other country should do whatever we say. If Americans really accept these ideas, where will it end? Why would any other country ever want to work with us on anything again? And while we're debunking Republican canards, how about we look at the one that says that “No one can seriously suggest that the world is not a better and safer place w/out Saddam in power.” Um, I can. What would have happened if we hadn't invaded Iraq in 2003? What if Saddam was still in power and we had continued with the most invasive inspections regime ever, and the sanctions and the global scrutiny and diplomacy? Very possibly something like this:

1. Thousands of Iraqis and over a thousand Americans would still be alive
2. Saddam might be a laughing-stock in his own country and in the world because the inspections would have shown by now that he had absolutely zero in the way of “WMD”
3. The U.N. would have been strengthened and gained credibility through its patient, determined, and peaceful resolution of a dangerous international issue
4. Iraq would have remained stable (if depressed) and would most likely have remained largely free of Al Qaeda-type terrorists (instead it has become a haven for them)
5. American prestige, power, and influence would be stronger than ever because the U.S. would still be acknowledged as a visionary moral leader in the world; the global goodwill the U.S. enjoyed after September 11, 2001 would only have been strengthened as the world saw that the world's most powerful nation was not just strong, but also wise.

Instead, Bush refused to work with anyone; he was right, everyone else was wrong, and consequences be damned. The consequences?

1. Thousands of Iraqis and over 1,000 Americans are dead
2. Saddam is a laughing stock, but so is the U.S. because it used its massive military strength to “protect the world” against WMD that didn't even exist
3. The U.N. has been relegated to a bit player, just where the Republicans want it to be, and the U.S. appears opposed to the idea of non-violent resolution of conflicts
4. Iraq is highly volatile, filled with anti-American terrorists, and there's no real end in sight
5. American has become a global pariah and to some extent a laughingstock; every ounce of respect and sympathy the world had for us after 9/11 has been squandered. Now when the U.S. says “we should do X because it's vital to global security,” the rest of the world laughs and gives us the finger.

So yeah. The world is so much better, and Americans are so much safer now that Saddam's not in power. Right. Gotcha. The fact that this is just taken for granted and simply cannot be challenged shows how good Americans are at managing cognitive dissonance, but also how dangerous Republican spin can be: It spun us into this war against Iraq, and if we buy the whole “global cooperation really means becoming enslaved to France's will” spin, god only knows what kind of tragic debacle we'll end up in next. People: Vote for Kerry. He understands both diplomacy and force, because really, can you understand the latter if you don't understand the former? I think not, but I'll save that for another day... Note: This post has been edited slightly to ad links to the AP story showing the Republican spin on the “global test.”

Posted 10:25 AM | Comments (7) | election 2004

Over the Weekend...

New phones: After 19 months with Sprint, L. and I have switched to Verizon phones. We traveled all the way to Alexandria (so far!) to find the nearest Verizon store and ended up with the LG VX600 picture phone. It's pretty low on geek-cool factor, but I discovered it has an active Yahoo Group for geeks who like to play with their phones. It's also compatible w/an open source program called BitPim, which is supposed to allow you to back up your contacts and pics and text messages, and to upload your own ringtones. I might invest in a data cable to see if it works, because I really need more toys to play with so that I get even less work done. Judging the ADR competition: I “judged” two rounds of the Alternative Dispute Resolution competition Saturday, which I wrote a little more about here. Protesting: The IMF and World Bank protests were this past weekend, but they haven't been a very big deal, it seems. The police have made far bigger problems than the protesters ever could have, but the protesters have made some important statements, nonetheless. Smoke Marijuana, Die in Jail: This is one of the saddest stories of overzealous criminal prosecution and the dangers of our current drug laws that I've seen in a long time. How could this judge have possibly felt that a jail sentence of any length was appropriate punishment for a quadriplegic found in a stopped vehicle—even if there was a loaded gun in the car? Yeah, someone was breaking the law w/that car and gun, but it sure as hell wasn't Jonathan Magbie. So, so, sad. More, including some crazy comments, from TalkLeft.

Posted 10:21 AM | Comments (6) | lists

Work As Break

After three days at the new internship (mentioned here), I'm enjoying it a great deal. I had a very interesting conversation on Friday w/a Denver attorney about Colorado's new Rule of Civil Procedure 16.1, which sort of creates an intermediate step for civil suits between small claims court and “regular” court, allowing suits involving less than $100,000 in dispute to use simplified procedure and seriously curtailed discovery so that litigants can get their day in court faster and more economically. It sounds great in theory, but time will tell whether it's great in practice. What's with Colorado getting all innovative with new rules these days? (A bit more on that here.) The strange thing is that “work” is seemingly almost like a vacation from the rest of my life. When I'm at the internship, I can put everything else out of my mind and just concentrate on the work they have for me to do. Homework? Can't do it there, so no need to worry about it. Applying for summer jobs? Can't do it there, so don't give it a thought. It's kind of nice. Is it a sign that you're sick of school when a job seems preferable? Of course, if I finished school tomorrow and started working full time, I'm sure it would be about two weeks before I started whining about how much better school was. I think it's called “grass is always greener” syndrome.

Posted 06:12 PM | Comments (1) | 2L

Getting It Up

A good friend of mine just published a new book about Viagra. Wanna know why you're always getting so much viagra spam? The short story is because men are insecure and the pharmaceutical industry is working hard to keep them that way by making them think they need drugs to be “normal” men. The long story is The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America. Here's a great interview w/the author. Of course I think everyone should buy this book, not just because Meika is a friend, but also because what's happened w/Viagra affects us all. Those effects go beyond “sexual dysfunction” to how the profit-motive encourages big pharma to focus its research and resources on lifestyle drugs, which means less research and fewer resources for cancer drugs or AIDS drugs or low-cost treatments for diseases and viruses that continue to kill hundreds and thousands of people every year around the world. You think there's nothing wrong w/for-profit health care? Read this book; you might just think again. I'm pretty sure a condemnation of for-profit health care is not the book's real point (I haven't read it yet), but it's a logical extension of the book's explanation of the lengths to which drug-makers are willing to go just to make a buck.

Posted 03:52 PM | ai books

Meta-Listing

What happens when a blogger gets a little too busy is lists start seeming really attractive. Lists make it easy to jump from topic to topic w/out transitions or excuses or explanations. They also make possible nice and unexpected juxtapositions of seemingly disparate topics. For example, there's often a great deal to read between the lines of the brilliant Harper's Index, the list of all lists. The trouble with lists on a blog with categories is that they're hard to categorize. Since you can cover so many topics, should you place a list-post in all the categories it touches, or in no category, or somewhere else? I'm busy. I'm thinking in lists. I'm going to start a list category. We'll see how it works.

Posted 11:25 AM | lists