Journal Feb 2006

28 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: 35% of American troops want out of Iraq within a year, 29% immediately; W at 35% approval
0930: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on the UAE port deal and conservatives (Buckley and Will) critical of the Iraq War or its government

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Audio of Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) saying he would override W's veto!
1300: Audio of Rush being a typical a-hole claiming the left made the civil war in Iraq happen
1330: Saudi Arabia traded their oil for our wheat, then hired agribusiness experts to do it in their own land.
1330: Call from former FNC employee
1400: Real vs. fake news both on tv (rarely real but existent) and in print (more commonly real). Real: Seymour Hersh, Joe Conason, David Brock (formerly fake), Elizabeth Bumiller.
1430: Call from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) on ports and Katrina

Other news and opinion from the day:

27 Feb 2006

What's this whole Electoral college thing? For the US, it's supposed to be a protection for states with smaller populations. I like to call it "round-off error," since the winner of one state gets all that state's electoral votes (most states), then the winner of the most electoral votes wins the presidency. It's round-off error. Now, I can understand why this is useful in low-tech situations, to take a representation (sample) of the popular vote and apply it to the general population. And in the US, states choose their electors (which is why the SCOTUS getting into a state matter in 2000 goes against the conservatives' push for state's rights). But we already have the ability, without electronic voting machines, to total the local votes and report them to higher levels until we get a national vote count in real numbers (meaning actual votes vs. percentages or electoral votes).

Maybe the larger problem is the two-party system. It has advantages and disadvantages, but it seems to favor the slowing of change, which may or may not be a bad thing. But our system of government already has that built into Congress. The Senate is conservative in the sense that change happens slowly; they represent a sort of ideological average and are elected every six years. The House is progressive in the sense that it directly represents the immediate concerns of the actual citizens in their district and thus has much faster change and must come for reelection every two years.

It's funny that I didn't really learn about the US government that well in high school, where I took an actual class. But I understand now that we have pretty much one-party rule and a questionable voting process (and physical voting mechanism) that all citizens must know how their government works.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Sam Seder filling in for Al this week.
0900: Sam's plays his recorded, tongue-in-cheek phone interview of (now ex-)Delegate Dick Black (R-VA) on State Rep. Ron Hood's (R-OH) anti-gay legislation HB 2921 (though Del. Black didn't know it was tongue-in-cheek).
0930: Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) on her report America for Sale
1000: Sen. Maj. Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) flip-flops on the UAE port deal (which is actually about 21 ports, not 6). Actually, Frist triple-flips since he opposed any Dem proposal to strengthen port security in the first place. Then, he opposes weakening it (via the UAE port deal), then supports it.
1000: Conservative Godfather William F. Buckley now agrees with Gov. Howard Dean that the Iraq War is a failure.
1030: Rick Hertzberg on Bill Kristol and his father (the father of neoconservatism) and on the Electoral College

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1230: Fair and balanced for Meet the Press yesterday was having 3 Republicans, with one (Rep. Peter King (NY)) disagreeing with the other two.
1430: The Clinton Administration's response to the USS Cole bombing was to send counterterrorism expert John P. O'Neill and 500 FBI agents into Yemen to seek the perpetrators, but the US Ambassador Barbara Bodine (a Bush Sr. appointee) to Yemen forbade them from entering Yemen. In Aug 2001, O'Neill resigned in frustration and took a new job as head of security in the WTC and died in the 9/11 attack.
1500: Audio of Lou Dobbs standing up for his reporting of the UAE port story.

24 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0930: Christy Harvey: Katrina commission "lessons learned" report not really critical of people who need criticism
1030: Steve Harley: last broadcast from the Tower, new studio next time (after a week of Sam Seder filling in next week from WLIB studios)
1130: Joe Conason: Medicare problems causing seniors to look negatively on the GOP

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1230: Details of UAE's financial connections with 9/11
1430: Call from Iqbal Ismail Hakim, author of United Arab Emirates Central Bank & 9/11 Financing
1500: Audio clips of scripted W vs non-scripted W

Other news and opinion from the day:

New image-based OS deployment premieres with Vista Enterprise CTP
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/22/vista_enterprise_ctp_with_image-based_deployment/
AJ showed me this, and it looks like quite an improvement, but I think I'll stick to XP and Fedora for now.
How To Replace A Broken Laptop or Notebook Display
http://www.mobilityguru.com/2006/02/24/how_to_replace_a_broken_laptop_or_notebook_display/
AMD: We are growing with or without Dell
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/25/amd_lenovo_dell/
Analysis: RIM can now literally settle for less with NTP
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/24/rim_can_settle_for_less_with_ntp/
Intel Mac mini in production
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/27/intel_mac_mini/

23 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Skit of Nigel Chesley in Iraq with "good news"

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1230: Connections to the UAE port deal: Bush Sr. (Carlyle Group), Tony Snow (former CEO of CSX/Horizon Lines), David Sanborn (former DPW Senior Exec), Neil Bush's software company
1430: Audio (repeat) of Lou Dobbs giving good reasons to question the UAE port deal in 1 minute, 15 seconds

22 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1100: David Brock on FNC's reporting on Cheney and Brit Hume's claim that FNC got the exclusive because the WH wanted to go with the "netw...news channel with the largest audience": viewership was 1.6M for Brit Hume, 9.18M for ABC World News Tonight, about 8M for CBS and over 9.5M for NBC.
1130: Jonathan Alter: the selection of Brit Hume is an example of what I call partisan accountability.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1230: Human rights abuses in UAE are detailed in the State Dept. (headed at that time by Condi Rice) report of such abuses.
1430: Eisenhower warned the American people of the "military industrial complex."
1530: Randi exchanges arguments about war profiteering with an Army Captain with two Iraq tours done.

Other news and opinion from the day:

AOL, Yahoo and Goodmail: Taxing Your Email for Fun and Profit
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004398.php#004398
So far, Google is 2 for 3 in protecting privacy. (The 1 that doesn't is Google Desktop (Beta) 3.)

21 Feb 2006

Moby gets the music industry. The way to prevent piracy is to stop gouging music fans and offer a cheap, easy, legal way to purchase music: "if someone can't buy a song on-line then they will steal a song on-line."

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1030: Dan Shea on the "widow tax" for military KIA
1100: Melanie Sloan on a new, right-wing, anti-union group CUF

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1300: W calls UAE an ally on the War on Terror(tm)!
1430: Call from John Dean on NSA spying, ports, and checks and balances

20 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Al reads a review of his show live in Eugene, OR last Friday.
0930: Al takes on the neocon claim that Dems hate Bush and have no ideas. We don't hate Bush, just what he's done. We're for clean water, clean air, and clean government. We're for increasing fuel efficiency and alternative energy research like the New Apollo Energy Act (Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA)). We're also for being accountable for doing what you promise and for engaging with our allies.
1000: Phil Giraldi (a conservative Republican!) on WH terrible handling of Iraq and corruption in the Coalition Provisional Authority

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Satire: Presidents' Day will now be Unitary Executive Day....
1200: Audio of Sen. Geary thanking the Corleones in The Godfather Part II followed by audio of the Wyoming State House thanking the Cheneys last week
1200: Audio of Mary Matalin using war language on opponents on Meet the Press; Maureen Dowd responds perfectly.
1430: Randi: watch Godfather I and II, and you will have an MBA.
Network (film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_%28movie%29
I didn't know the suicide threat in the movie was based on actual events.

Other news and opinion from the day:

Personal cell phone tower promises to boost signal reception
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/17/signalwide_cellphone_tower/
The personal ones are a bit costly and need to physically connected to the phone but provide an alternative to no service. But the multi-user ones would be a nice service for establishments that could spare 1k.
First recorded Mac OS X worm meets a well-prepared user community
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/17/macintosh_osx_worm_meets_preparedness/
The benefit of being built on a UNIX form of OS.
ZFMT93 - What?
http://www.niddle.net/creative/zf/mich93/what.htm
Interesting thoughts on the ending of Mostly Harmless.
Jimmy Hoffa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa
Curious.

16 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1100: Tom Oliphant: if you want to stop something [media uncertainty of one's policy], sit there and answer questions until there are no more questions.
1130: G. Gordon Liddy and his son James on Cheney's hunting accident, personal protection from terrorists, and national protection from terrorists (e.g. actually protecting our ports)

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1230: Audio of Jack Cafferty on Cheney's safe, canned interview with Brit Hume on the "F-word network" showing his lack of courage (to do a full press conference)
1330: Audio of Rush claiming Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is black (see his home page to debunk easily) so that the Dems picked him over Marine Maj. Paul Hackett to run for OH Senator against incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH)). He also pronounces his name sher-ROD instead of the usual SHER-rod, probably to make him sound black. A caller also notices that Rush says "reverend" sarcastically when referring to Rev. Jesse Jackson, the typical subtle racism that Rush spews.

15 Feb 2006

Yesterday, Randi sang a parody of "Janie's Got a Gun" for Cheney's shooting accident. Today, her staff (presumably) made the parody and played it for her at the beginning of the show. I've also got a copy of it for download.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Skit of interview with a doctor analyzing Cheney's possible motives for the shooting
1030: Rep. George Miller (D-CA) on public campaign finance and its cost savings on the American taxpayer
1100: David Brock on MMFA's study showing that Sunday morning talk shows have a clear conservative bias

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Real parody song (presumably done by Randi's staff): "Cheney's Got a Gun"
1330: Call from Anthony Romero on Abu Ghraib
1430: Call from Paul Hackett on his withdrawal from the OH Senate race
1500: Audio of Cheney's canned interview with Brit Hume on FNC (of course)

14 Feb 2006

Archival media labeling is a pretty important issue for regular computer users who backup their stuff regularly. I'm more of a thin Sharpie labeler myself, but if you don't mind paying extra for special Lightscribe-able media, Tom's Hardware has a good article on that below.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to Timmy (5) and Evelyn (1)! Happy Valentine's Day to everyone else!

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Skit of Cheney's morning drive

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Song parody: "Cheney's Got a Gun" (sung by Randi, with Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" playing in the background) -- I couldn't help laughing out loud here.
1200: Audio of McClellan fleeing the press conference
1300: Randi's Change for Change program now partnered with Habitat for Humanity!

Other news and opinion from the day:

Labelflash vs LightScribe DVD/CD Labeling
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/14/labelflash_vs_lightscribe_dvd/

13 Feb 2006

Wikipedia reads my mind! The Douglas Adams article is the featured one for today! With me, that is, of course, quite likely.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Skit of Dick Cheney interview.
0930: Christy Harvey: Sen Arlen Specter (R-PA) flip-flops on his promise of putting witnesses under oath; one of the Abramoff-Bush pictures surfaces
1000: Paul de Vries on evangelical Christians fighting global warming (as they should) and on "bankable ecology": if you do the right thing (e.g. implementing the Kyoto Protocol), in the end it costs less.
1030: Jeffrey Goldberg on W's speechwriter Michael Gerson
1100: Al explains why you can say the WH "lied" to get into the Iraq War.
1100: McCain flip-flops on public campaign finance (for it in 2002, against it yesterday).
1130: Norm Ornstein with a "don't know" poll on Cheney's hunting accident; the GOP in Congress is doing its oversight job for the first time in 5+ years (but only for the WH and DHS response to Katrina).

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1230: Audio of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) on Meet the Press
1330: Audio of Mike Brown's testimony in the current hearings on Katrina
1430: 1,000 double-wide mobile homes are sitting at the airport in Arkansas.
Nurse Investigated for 'Sedition' After Writing Letter to Editor
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995631
Intel pros say Bush is lying about foiling 2002 terror attack
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog/2006/02/intel_pros_say_bush_is_lying_a.html
Max Blumenthal: Ann Coulter at CPAC on "Ragheads" and Assassinating Bill Clinton (and Dr. Bill Frist's Diagnosis)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/ann-coulter-at-cpac-on-r_b_15434.html?view=print
Cheney Faces Heat for 'Canned Hunt'
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1210-03.htm

Other news and opinion from the day:

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 13, 2006 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_article/February_13%2C_2006
Funny, the first article I was going to look up today was, in fact, this exact article, Douglas Adams. Coincidence?
Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in Texas Accident
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR2006021200524_pf.html
Spying Necessary, Democrats Say
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR2006021201174_pf.html
New Grant System Excludes Mac Users
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR2006021200942_pf.html
SourceForge.net: Project of the Month - FreeMind
http://sourceforge.net/potm/potm-2006-02.php

10 Feb 2006

I didn't take notes on Al's show today, and Randi's out sick, so no news from them today. I listened to the HHGG Secondary Phase today and looked up what fairy cake is (British for cupcake).

-res

Other news and opinion from the day:

Google Desktop Beta v. 3 searches across computers, to the dismay of EFF
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/10/google_beta3_searches_across_computers/
While EFF (and most liberal and civil libertarian) applaud Google's resistance to revealing search info to the NSA, this Google product appears to threaten the security of personal information.
Is 64-bit Mobile Computing More Promise Than Reality? | MobilityGuru
http://www.mobilityguru.com/2006/02/09/is_64_bit_mobile_computing_more_promise_than_reality/
MobilityGuru is a destination site covering the mobility market
Cupcake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupcake
A.k.a. 'fairy cake' in the UK. The reason I decided to look this up is evident in the middle of this short article (namely, its relation to the Total Perspective Vortex).

09 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1000: Ron Pollack on Medicare D: you're locked into the plan for a year, but the plan can change during that period on subscribers. On health savings accounts: they're most attractive to wealthy, healthy people because of high deductibles.
1030: Al tells the story of the baby shower in 1981 for his daughter's birth (thrown by SNL cast members for Franni), the first SNL baby.
1100: Tom Oliphant: W tried to prove today that the NSA spying program is working by citing an example uncovered plot, but he got the name of the LA library building wrong ("liberty building"), and claimed a shoe bomb would be used to breach the cockpit.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: W's speech today mentioned terror, terrorism, or terrorist(s) 97 times and 9/11 10 times.
1230: NASA released a report on global warming; another crony infiltrated NASA to censor the report, a 24-year-old whose only qualifications were a journalism degree from Texas A&M (which turned out to be false resume padding) and work on the BC04 re-election campaign.
1330: Tom DeLay is now on the House Appropriations Committee and the Subcommittee that oversees the Justice Dept.!
1400: New Abramoff emails demonstrate a close relationship with W.
1430: Call from Cindy Sheehan on her SOTU experience, the merits of Beverly Young, and motherssaynotowar.org.

Other news and opinion from the past:

Bush Caught on Tape: "A Wiretap Requires A Court Order. Nothing Has Changed."
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/20/bush-caught-on-tape/
Actual video of the speech in Buffalo, NY on 20 Apr 2004.

08 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Audio of Cheney's total BS about Iraq on the NewsHour.
0930: Evangelical Christians are now treating global warming as a real and important moral issue.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Audio of a-holes (Tucker Carlson and Rush) claiming Jimmy Carter's and Rev. Joseph Lowery's speeches were partisan grandstanding (Rush also makes some racist/sexist remarks).
1300: Audio of Mayor Shirley Franklin's amazing speech at Coretta Scott King's funeral
1300: Randi: W's problem with the funeral was that he couldn't control the crowd attendance or suppress the truth coming from the speakers.
1330: Randi: who was there [at the funeral] for political reasons? W! Not the King family, who celebrated the life of Coretta Scott King and her 50-year fight for civil rights.
1330: MLK quote: "Blacks need whites to relieve them of their fear; whites need blacks to relieve them of their guilt."
1330: Randi: "...reciting the facts of her [Coretta Scott King's] life through her familiy and friends and people who knew her and loved her is not a political effort to make George look bad. George looks bad because George is bad, and the only reason he went was for political purposes."
1330: Bush Sr. campaigned against civil rights in 1964.
1400: Audio of Rev. Lowery's speech against racism, war, and poverty
1430: Audio of Carlson's call to Lowery, where Lowery explained that his speech wasn't about the president or himself, it was about Coretta Scott King and her life. Randi: it's not her fault the president's policies go against what she stood for.
1500: A US soldier was forced to reimburse the government for the armor that was blown off him together with his arm. Randi: then W should pay for his flightsuit and codpiece.
1530: RFK's wiretapping was to counter J. Edgar Hoover's wiretapping of MLK; JFK pushed Hoover to stop but was blackmailed with pictures of JFK's affairs.

07 Feb 2006

Yes, you can spell out letters in the English language! Pretty much the only time you'd want to do this, of course, is in the game Scrabble. But it's neat. I had no idea that the letter H is spelled out "aitch." It may seem silly to some, but we already spell out Greek letters, so there.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Gonzales claims that George Washington (and other presidents) used electronic surveillance!
0900: Gonzales responds to a reading of W's Buffalo speech, claiming it's only a response to a question about roving wiretaps (even though W said "anytime" you're talking about wiretaps) and doesn't answer Sen. Feinstein's question.
0930: Joel Barkin: no new net jobs under W except defense-related jobs (2M), but added $3T to the national debt; Iraq war costs not included in reported total deficit.
1000: Robert Greenstein: alternative minimum tax calculations not included in deficit.
1130: Al's praise and criticism of McCain; Tierney of NYT references the Stuart Smalley character

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: W goes to Coretta Scott King's funeral even after cutting programs representing what she stood for.
1300: Karl Rove is dispatched to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on NSA spying to blacklist GOP Senators who vote against W! (Source: the right-wing, Moonie Washington Times (Magazine section)!)
1330: Paul Hackett in studio on Rep. Schmidt's (R-OH) lying trash and Paul's campaign for OH Senator.
1400: Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) uses a joke Randi used: W seems to have a pre-1776 view of the world.
1430: Under Clinton (without expanded executive powers), we thwarted Millenium Bomb Plot (planned for 31 Dec 1999), Project Bojinka (11 airliners over the oceans), and bombings of the Seattle Space Needle, LAX, and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels. They warned the incoming W administration of Al Qaeda. W's administration never met (or very little) to discuss terrorism before 9/11.
1530: FISA was amended under W five times, twice by Leahy and thrice by Specter (each as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee).

Other news and opinion from the day:

06 Feb 2006

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Parody song for the liberal and moderate SCOTUS justices to hang on, set to the tune of "Hang on Sloopy"
0930: Little mention of UN Oil-for-Food program, even on right-wing talk.
0930: Christy Harvey: Plame was indeed covert, and Cheney leaked the name to Libby; Rush weighs in on pharmacists refusing to full morning-after pill prescriptions
1000: Jonathan Alter: the WH insists that it had Congress authority and also that they didn't bring it before Congress because they didn't think it would be approved.
1100: Norm Ornstein: this Congress has done virtually no oversight on anything.
1130: More Norm Ornstein: modest hope of new House Majority Leader Boehner

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: Gonzales doesn't like paperwork.
1300: Dems aren't allowed to playback W's Buffalo, NY speech in a hearing.
1430: Call from former FBI agent: the Hamdi(sp?) case does not give W a blank check (i.e., US citizens have legal rights)

Other news and opinion from the day:

9/11 Families to Watch Moussaoui Face Fate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020501195_pf.html
Boehner Opposes Sweeping Changes In Lobbyist Work
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020500934_pf.html
Coretta Scott King's Four Children Speak of Her Illness, Final Days
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020501074_pf.html
Plotter in USS Cole Attack Flees Jail
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/05/AR2006020500812_pf.html
Apple's touchscreen patent claim hints to tablet computer
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/04/apple_touchscreen_patent/
Very interesting technology. It's one step closer to the human interface technology used in Minority Report, the three-finger gloves for video playback and file management.
Linux leader attacks "anti-DRM" GPL
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/06/torvalds_on_gpl3/
French cops ditch IE
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/02/06/firefox_france/
Hopefully this doesn't increase IE use among anti-French right-wingers. Everyone benefits from less IE use, in terms of security and coding standards.
The Blue Pages Book is not a Buyblue Project
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/6/11196/80695
Stolen! Not so progressive, I'm afraid. The publisher did, however, publish Joe Conason.

02 Feb 2006

Yay! I finally got my CDs for the Primary, Secondary, and Quintessential Phases of Hitchhiker's from Amazon UK. None of these are yet (or any longer, for Primary and Secondary) available domestically. I got the Tertiary and Quandary Phases domestically, and they come in cardboard cases, while the UK Phases come in standard plastic jewel boxes. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see my previous entries linked from the movie entry in the HHGG section.

-res

Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: Al interviews his webmaster Eric Hananoki
0930: How Beverly Young actively supports the troops
0930: David Sirota on W's broken promises on education, budget cuts to programs helping the poor and middle class, and right-wing Grover Norquist vs. the WH on spying.
1000: Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) on the illegal spying being justified by the WH with legislation that actually prohibits spying without a court order; thousands of subpoenas during the Clinton administration
1030: Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) on public campaign finance; W honoring Coretta Scott King then dishonoring what she fought for
1100: Tom Oliphant on the SOTU, switchgrass, statement of addiction to oil (with no follow-up energy plan). If you made "light trucks" (pickups) and SUVs adhere to the same efficiency standards that sedans do, you would save the equivalent of the oil we import from Saudi Arabia.
1130: More Tom Oliphant on Tom DeLay, his district, and his successor; WH handling of Katrina and its relevance to any emergency preparedness; W's claim that troop withdrawal will come from commanders on the ground instead of politicians (debunked by actual commanders' words, starting with those of Gen. Shinseki)

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: "Fair and balanced" response to T-shirts at the SOTU; Beverly Young actually does support the troops (and is someone Randi could hang out with); Bill Young looked up what law Cindy Sheehan could have possibly have broken but found none.
1200: Even the Grand Ole Opry audience protested W's wiretapping! One protest sign read, "No warrant, no wiretapping, no W"!
1230: Al Gore pre-debunks W's 2-hijacker claim from the SOTU (actually in response to a claim by Cheney that W repeated in the SOTU).
1230: Randi: conspiracy simply means 2 or more people plotting secretly.
1300: Randi explains who John Negroponte is and what the Iran-Contra affair was about.
John Negroponte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte
Skull and Bones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones
1330: Audio of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asking Negroponte, "Respectfully, could you answer my question, which was who makes the decision [of what information will be brief to [only 8 members of] Congress]?" to which Negroponte succumbs, "Uh...it's the President and the Vice-President."
1500: Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) calls for a special prosecutor for the Abramoff case. Ken Lay (Enron) is finally on trial. CIA identity leak investigator, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, announces that WH email files have been lost.
Fitzgerald Hints White House Records Lost
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020102249_pf.html

Other news and opinion from the day:

01 Feb 2006

W shows us who he is in the State of the Union address.

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Selected notes from The Al Franken Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

0900: SOTU analysis and drinking game joke
0900: Probably the first ever sarcastic applause at a SOTU: when the Dems applauded over W mentioning not adopting his Social Security privatization
0930: Judd Legum on the SOTU: W said the military officials on the ground will make decisions about Iraq and not politicians, but he didn't listen to Gen. Shinseki on the ground asking for more troops than planned by the WH. Also, the definition of victory is unclear.
1000: Howard Fineman: this [coming] election is all about subpoena power.
1030: Paul Krugman on economic themes in the SOTU (health care, GDP, etc.); Al: making the tax cuts permanent will also make the deficit permanent; Abramoff's movies were financed by apartheid South Africa.
1130: Al explains that the joke, "that music/song can mean only one thing, that it's time for [11:30 guest of the day]," comes from Steve Martin's joke, "thanks for playing my theme song."
1130: Lawrence O'Donnell makes predictions on W's calls for various commissions and legislation, comments on health savings accounts.

Selected notes from The Randi Rhodes Show and related stories (indicated times are Pacific) (why this is here):

1200: SOTU recap: W mentioned 9/11 36 seconds into the SOTU; W wants civility now (I say then fire Karl Rove and stop using lying attack ads) (while Cindy Sheehan, a guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), was arrested for her anti-war T-shirt ("2245 Dead. How many more?"), visible half an hour before the speech, and Beverly Young, wife of Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), was asked to leave after revealing her T-shirt that simply said "support the troops"); W claimed two of the hijackers could have been wiretapped without a court order and prevented 9/11 (but they were wiretapped with FISA approval but didn't get translated until 9/12; also they were on the terror watch list but allowed to fly).
1230: More SOTU recap: W is trying to scare everyone with the cloning talk (human/animal hybrids); W lies on education status (and NCLB really doesn't work because it pushes teaching to a test); little mention of Katrina followed by statistics of African Americans and HIV/AIDS infection rates; W's words to the people of Iran sound eerily like his words to the people of Iraq shortly before he attacked Iraq.
1300: List of people removed from Bush rallies for their bumper stickers (or those of their rides), T-shirts, and lapel pins.
1300: Call from Cindy Sheehan on her arrest for a "thought crime"
1500: Charges against Cindy Sheehan were dropped, but it doesn't change how she was treated.
1500: Audio of typical "discussion" of Scarborough "County" (as Randi calls it), where it's 3 cons vs. 1 lib in a cacophony
1530: The 14 earmarks of fascism (generally prevalent in Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, Spain under Franco, etc.): (1) constant use of patriotic slogans/symbols, (2) disdain for recognition of human rights by pushing security, (3) using your [perceived] enemy (sometimes a generalized group) as a unifying cause, (4) a feeling that only the military can keep you safe (glorifying it and neglecting the domestic agenda), (5) sexism (where abortion and homosexuality become front-and-center issues), (6) controlled mass media (state-run or government regulation), (7) obsession for national security (fearmongering), (8) government/religion intertwining (Christianity, Islam, etc. (whatever the predominant one is in that country) even when tenets of that religion essentially opposes that government's actions), (9) protection of corporate power (mutually beneficial government/corporate relationship), (10) suppression of the power of labor, the only real threat to fascist regimes, (11) disdain for academia, (12) obesession with crime and punishment (giving more/unlimited power to police), (13) rampant cronyism and corruption (groups of friends and associates who only appoint each other and then protect them from accountability), (14) and fraudulent elections (by legislation, smear campaigns, judicial or media manipulation). The antidote to fascism: an educated, smart, alert, stalwart, decided citizenry.

Other news and opinion from the day:

Other news and opinion from the past:

Past Journal Entries: 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001

2006 Journal Entries: Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan

Common and favorite references and their acronyms:

Daily Kos (dKos): http://www.dailykos.com/
New York Times (NYT): http://www.nytimes.com/
Washington Post (WaPo): http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Randi Rhodes: http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/
Media Matters for America (MMFA): http://www.mediamatters.org/
Center for American Progress (CAP): http://www.americanprogress.org/
CAP blog (Christy Harvey, Judd Legum): http://www.thinkprogress.org/
Moby's journal: http://www.moby.com/journal/
Sojourners: http://www.sojo.net/
Tom's Hardware Guide (THG): http://www.tomshardware.com/
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): http://www.eff.org/
SourceForge.net (SF): http://www.sourceforge.net/

My referral link for a free Mac Mini (legit): http://www.freemacmini.com/?r=160454 (why this is here)