Monday, April 12, 2004

THE ELECTION COMES TO SECOND LIFE! Hey, that's my brother's poster! Let the record show that March 10, 2004 at 5:55pm (PST) was the first time I observed a reference to the 2004 United States presidential election, with this provocative sign advocating against Bush's re-election in Teal. More will surely arrive, as we near November, and New World Notes plans to cover this online campaign right up until the ballots start coming in. (And maybe even into inauguration day, if any celebrations/mourning ceremonies happen to go on in here.) Of course, NWN seeks to be at all times a non-partisan publication, so I'll be on the lookout for all variations of campaigning, regardless of political stripe-- pro-Bush/anti-Kerry, pro-Kerry/anti-Bush, even pro-Nader/anti-Nader, their in-world advocacy will be reported on here. [New World Notes] 5:49:25 PM    trackback []

	Wednesday, April 7, 2004

It's a boy! Healthy baby boy delivered at 1:50 a.m.Saturday! More at www.barbandroland.com soon. I will be off until April 12th. Email, blogging, etc. will take a back seat until then! [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] Congrats! 4:37:08 PM    trackback []

The Rice speech is now confidential? And there it is, the issue Bush doesn't want us to know about... his national defense strategy was missle defense, not terrorism defense. He was wrong in a big way, and he won't admit it. You'll remember a few days ago I posted a few comments about the speech Condi Rice was scheduled to give on September 11th, 2001 -- a speech endorsing National Missile Defense as the cornerstone of a new national security policy as well as a response to a speech by then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden the day before. Obviously, the speech is a sore matter for the White House since on the very day the country was hit with what was arguably the worst foreign attack on American soil in the country's history, Rice was scheduled to endorse a new defense strategy and technology which would have done nothing whatsoever to prevent it. Not surprisingly, the Commission would like to see the speech, only parts of which the Washington Post was able to get access to in their article last week. But the White House is saying 'no': the speech is 'confidential'. But you have to ask, why? Confidential work product? Unless the argument is that we can't let our enemies know the depth of the poor judgment displayed by the president's national security team it is searchingly hard to fathom what possible national security issue could be implicated by handing over the speech since it was -- do we have to say it? -- a speech! A speech for public consumption. [Talking Points Memo] 4:36:23 PM    trackback []

	Monday, March 22, 2004

Live for the moment Reflecting on a friend who has passed on, Jack Harrington writes about the importance of the here and now. Kids understand. They live for the moment. It's adults who learn to glide through the years. [Driving Sideways] Well said! 10:11:13 AM    trackback []

	Sunday, March 21, 2004

Bush Reality Talking about the Clarke interview that is airing on 60 minutes tonight, Josh makes some excellent points: Rather than adjust to this different reality, on September 12th, the Bush war cabinet set about using 9/11 -- exploiting it, really -- to advance an agenda which had, in fact, been largely discredited by 9/11. They shoe-horned everything they'd been trying to do before the attacks into the new boots of 9/11. And the fit was so bad they had to deceive the public and themselves to do it. [Talking Points Memo] 3:00:20 PM    trackback []

	Thursday, March 18, 2004

fake news reports Somehow I missed these over the last few days. Thank goodness for the Daily Show, which is, as usual, my most reliable source of news. Bush administration creates Medicare ads that look like news reports, complete with fake reporter: Karen Ryan isn't a reporter. But she plays one on TV. That's troublesome to stations like WTVQ in Lexington, Ky., which ran a report on the new Medicare prescription drug benefit that concluded with the voice-over, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." The problem is that Ryan was reading the script of a so-called video news release, a sales pitch packaged as a ready-to-run TV news segment. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted a public relations firm to produce the video news release, or VNR. The administration pressured a staffer not to release estimates of the true cost of the Medicare bill: Rick Foster, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has said that then-[Department of Health and Human Services] chief Thomas Scully threatened his job if he answered questions from congressional Democrats about the cost of the bill before a series of key votes last summer. "Tom Scully sent an e-mail directing that we not respond to these requests and warning that the consequences of insubordination were extremely severe," Foster said. "I took that to mean that if I sent the responses, they would go ahead and fire me." [nj] Amplifying... 11:04:45 AM    trackback []

	Monday, March 8, 2004

How earphones are changing the way people behave The BBC has an interesting article on Dr Michael Bull, one of the few academics, possibly the only one, to spend time researching what people do with music players, why they listen to them and what difference they make to their lives. "There's the visual domination of explaining urban experience," he says, "but if you look at it through sound you get different explanations." We live in a visually dominated culture and suffer constant bombardment by visible messages. Adverts, shop fascias, street signs, the clothes of fellow pedestrians, newspaper headlines, magazine front covers, car designs create a visual cacophony. Through interviews with Walkman owners and now iPod buyers, he found that listening to music acts as a shield, aura or cocoon. Using headphones helps to keep the world at bay and reclaim some space. [Smart Mobs] This is why I listen to my iPod at the gym. 10:03:40 AM    trackback []

	Tuesday, February 24, 2004

No to Bush, No to Nader John Shirley has some smart things to say about Nader: The Nader Illusion is that both major parties are alike. He claims the Demos and the GOP are just the same, both beholden to special interests to such a degree that they’re essentially paralyzed, no point in choosing one over the other. This is mostly hogwash. Yes they’re beholden to special interests, but there are limits on that factor, and in fact there is a very distinct policy difference between the two parties. It *matters* which one you choose. There’s not a chance that Gore would have supported –or that Kerry will support –a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. Bush will try to push one through and with a Republican congress he may well succeed. Gore or Kerry–never happen. And this is a watershed issue, like so many that distinguish GOP and Dems. Such an amendment erodes the distinction between church and state, sets a bad precedent, and of course puts a Constitutional imprimatur on discrimination against a class of people, gays. Bush has been a one-man environmental disaster, weakening the clean air and water acts, allowing mercury and arsenic pollution to go on. Gore would NOT have done this. The air will be dirtier because Bush was elected. Gore would have encouraged an increase in the minimum wage; Bush is against it. People will be paid less because Bush was elected. Too many special interests? Yes and that needs to be changed. But it matters which party you choose. Nader’s preaching a fantasy. Link [Boing Boing Blog] amplifying.. [my weblog] Bing! 2:12:59 PM    trackback []

Where have all the rational Republicans gone? I've been struggling to understand what Republicans the Bush Administration stands for lately, what with attacks on States Rights and the ballooning Federal Government. I'm glad to see the Log Cabin Republicans, who seem ready to retake the Republican Party back to its roots. See their press release in response to Bush's support for amending the constitution to discriminate. The press release begins: “Writing discrimination into the Constitution is wrong. It is not conservative, it is not Republican, and it will not strengthen America,” said Log Cabin Executive Director Patrick Guerriero, in response to the President’s possible support of an anti-family Constitutional amendment. “As conservative Republicans, we are outraged that any Republican—particularly the leader of our party and this nation—would support any effort to use our sacred United States Constitution as a way of scoring political points in an election year,” Guerriero said. And it ends with: Fair-minded Republicans, Democrats, and independents must work together to protect the American Constitution. Log Cabin is dedicated to doing everything possible to stop this anti-family amendment. This will be a difficult fight, but we will prevail because the American people instinctively understand that discrimination has no place in our Constitution. Amen. 2:12:42 PM    trackback []