record over your Al Gore videos, it's still good to recycle
 

Board motto!

record over your Al Gore videos, it's still good to recycle
 

turns out Hank was pwned....

Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11
 

Strong criticisms no doubt, but they can't be distilled to soundbites, so they are relevant only to those who watch the campaign closely and parse the factual details. The average voter (a) does not read VF and (b) hasn't the tolerance for deatil or attention span to connect the dots to develop a picture of Rudy as more opportunist than hero. And to the layman voter, the more ink it takes to prove Rudy's not a hero, the less credible the criticism.

And Hillary will never attack his hero credentials because it leaves her open to attack from the people who blame her husband for not killing bin Laden in Afghanistan when he had the chance.

Rudy's also got the hero pedestal whether he deserves it or not because it is already part of the general historical consensus.

And digging into 9/11 is the last thing the Dems want to do. They can't win a debate on the security issue because, facts be damned, they are perceived to be the weaker party in that arena. Their best course is to avoid it and battle Rudy on the economy.

If this election turns on security and foreign policy, the Dems will lose. They have a great hand in the economic malaise and populist call for wealth redistribution. That is where they should aim their money and efforts.

record over your Al Gore videos, it's still good to recycle
 

Watching the global warming debate evolve is like viewing a really dark comedy that isn't very funny. First it was a scare about the actual temperature rise, then it was a skeptic-as-celebrity dispute about the conventional wisdom, then for a brief time it shifted to the hypocrisy of the Hollywood do-gooders behind a lot of the global warming awareness measure and now its a front page discsussion in Newsweek about the global warming denial industry.

I gave up caring about it when Vanity Fair sent me the "Green Issue" a couple months ago. I don't know whether that's a win for the Right or Left but one thing's sure - just like the hopeless Palestine/Israel situation, I'm not reading about it anymore. I've been skipping that section of the Times since 1987. I can skip the "Green" section I'm sure the Sulzburgers are sure to add soon enough.

Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11
 

What piece is read by the average voter is the better question. I get VF and I like it. I also find it wildly naive and childish in its politics. Graydon Carter's a fucking buffoon, and giving Sy Hersch a five page spread on anything is just silly. But that's all irrelevant because what you or I think about VF doesn't mean shit. Our votes aren't the ones that matter this election.

The bigger stories are the ones emerging from North Carolina and California about attempts to piecemeal electoral votes.

And bigger than that is Hillary morphing into her husband ans selling out the DailyKos, or "idiot" wing of the Dem party.

record over your Al Gore videos, it's still good to recycle
 

I know. But there's a difference between understanding that fuck all is ever going to be done about it and denying that it's actually happening. The latter just makes one look like a tube.

Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11
 

On the VF article, since I don't read VF myself I'm not going to suggest that a lot of other people. OTOH, one wonders whether the conventional wisdom about Rudy will change if the reporters covering the race internalize that piece.

On the next election -- and this may come as some shock to you -- we are fighting a war in Iraq, and it is going poorly. As a direct result, Republicans lost the House and Senate in the last election and President Bush's approval ratings are in the crapper.

Carry on.

Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11
 

On the first, we'll just have to wait that out and see. Remember, the press has a vested unterest in seeing a Republican elected. They've had 8 wonderful, crazy news years out of W. Republicans mean more war on terror, which means more pretty colors of bombs going off, warnings of dire impending attacks and Wolf Blitzer and Sean Hannity sucking off retired generals. That shit sells.

On the Iraq war issue, I disagree. The fact is, nobody with their fingers on any of the levers gives a fuck about the soldiers over there. Those guys largely fall into a category of anonymous lower to middle class backgrounds and none of the people debating the war even discuss them, except to use their deaths for emotional effect every now and again. And all that posturing looks as scripted and vacant as it is. The average ambitious American is more interested in taxes and debacles like the mortgage lending nonsense going on. You care about the soldiers, and that's too your credit.
Most people only care about them in theory.

I loath what that ass has done in Iraq, but the situation, and the people in DC - and those running - offer no credible solution, and I stopped watching or caring months ago for exactly that reason. Churchill called the place an unholy quagmire early in the last century, and he was right. It's a hopeless futile mess that will never end.

If they institute a draft, then I'll care.

And run myself into bankruptcy paying for my son to study in New Zealand for high school and college.

I gave up having any faith in anything worthwhile coming out of DC a long time ago. We need to institute term limits. That's the only way.

earmarks
 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/images/earmarkspercap.jpg

per capita earmarked federal $$$, by state

earmarks
 

What states do the empty dots represent?

earmarks
 

Texas.

earmarks
 

Hah.



Note: The above is a completely non-substantive post. In. Your. Face.

Note to note: the comment was not directed at RT individually.

earmarks
 

States whose initials seem to be missing include New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, Michigan, Florida and Texas.

earmarks
 

Tom Delay's not looking so bad now, though.

earmarks
 

Actually, I think that his departure is part of the reason that Texas's bubble isn't there. For better or worse, he was a pretty fucking powerful member of Congress and could direct things to the state. This is the first time in a very long time that we don't have someone of his stature in Congress. Before him there was Jim Wright, before that Sam Rayburn, LBJ, etc.

Nowadays, what powerful Texas Congressmen are there? KBH? Maybe. Lloyd Dogget? Perhaps. Shelia Jackson Lee? Ha. But it's not like Texans are running the show up there anymore.

I of course blame Tom DeLay. His Republican World-Domination plan made it so powerful Dems in the state were targeted, to the detriment of Texas.