news

The trouble I have with stories like this has nothing to do with accuracy or the media at all:

But I'm not focusing on the accuracy of horse-race predictions here, but instead, on the fact that the traveling press corps endlessly imposes its own narrative on the election, thereby completely excluding from all coverage plainly credible candidates they dislike (such as Edwards) while breathlessly touting the prospects of the candidates of whom they are enamored. Their predictions (i.e., preferences and love affairs) so plainly drive their press coverage -- the candidates they love are lauded as likely winners while the ones they hate are ignored or depicted as collapsing -- which in turn influences the election in the direction they want, making their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.

My problem is that this is accurate yet Democrats often have so much trouble figuring out how it works.

If the Media love unfettered access, and the Media love to predict who will win and the Media are able to anoint the next president, then why aren't we better at working them?

I could, and did, say in the past that Hillary Clinton would be a great president but that, since the media dislike her, would be a poor general election candidate. Obama, by contrast, is loved by the media.

And there you have it: if Democrats were smart, we'd always choose the media savvy pol to run against the crusty, whiny GOP idiot. Instead of whining, why don't we recognize media bias and use to elect progressive, intelligent, hard-working officials!

Is that too much to ask?

New Hampshire is tonight, but the narrative has already been written.

Saw this on TPM, but it's worth posting:

This is fun. Watch these two successive promos for shows on Fox News Channel and tell me whether you can figure out which is the 'real' news show and which is the 'fake' news show ...

Hilarious!

Dear CNN,

If you continue to insist that you have "the most news in the morning" will you kindly refrain from showing segments about Tyra Bank's weight or a racehorse being euthanized? They cheapened an otherwise somber morning show covering politics and the war in Iraq.

Note to programmers: the weather man should be the time for humor and lightheartedness. Everything else that is "news" is typically serious fare, for adults.

Sincerely,

Edward

If you're not watching Countdown, you should be. Olbermann's special comment last night is worth watching in its entirety.

Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:

You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.

Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.

Olbermann, a television news anchor, alas, of MSNBC, has the courage to go where few public personalities have: to questioning the president's courage. Yes, yes, I know: the right-wing has long bemoaned the lack of "morals" or "ethics" in the Oval Office. But for too long the left, and by proxy, the "reasonable moderates" in America have been silent, preferring to elide "untruth" instead of "lie", to claim the president is merely "mistaken" rather than "dishonest". Olbermann puts the lie to that. Then he spikes the ball in the endzone, in a way that startled even me, running on a machine at the gym last night:

And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.

And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.

And there it is, Mr. Bush:

Are yours the actions of a true American?

Keith is the tonic America needs right now. Without a strong voice of opposition (and no, without the media on board the Democrats cannot get said message out) no real change can occur. This is what Edward R. Murrow understood: that to compromise journalistic ethics in order to not upset viewers was unacceptable. As are our current president's actions.

Did people miss Colbert's performance? Because as I was reading this oh-so-boring profile of Tony Snow I came across this gem of a final paragraph:

Some friends were surprised that Snow accepted Bush's job offer, given his recent health problems. "Why he is doing this is absolutely beyond me," Beckel says. But "he has got a great deal of spiritual faith."

And that may be what becoming the public face of an administration in trouble requires: a leap of faith.

"I agonized a lot about whether to do this," Snow says. "Now I have no doubt. It's just your gut."

At first I thought, "what an idiot, he sounds just like Colbert!" Later, after some reflection, I came to the conclusion that perhaps, oddly enough, Snow as referring to his bout with colon cancer, thus saying it was "just" (as in, only) his "gut" (as in, colon/small intestine) and thus not important. Maybe it's a weird Snow joke. Then I went back to my original conclusion that Snow is an idiot.

Why? Because of thoughts like this:

Snow majored in philosophy and wasn't sure what to do after his 1977 graduation. He was a caseworker for the mentally ill in North Carolina, driving tens of thousands of miles dealing with what he calls "really hard, gut-wrenching cases." He spent time teaching in Cincinnati and also in Kenya, which he says convinced him of "the incredible failure of socialism." And he spent a year doing graduate work in economics and philosophy at the University of Chicago.

There's that gut again! And wow, who knew that in the late seventies, the problems in Cincinnati and Kenya could be tied to "socialism"? I guess the war on poverty was pretty silly stuff, eh? A good thing the private sector swooped in to rescue both of those areas, right? (And what does Kenya have to do with socialism? Perhaps a better analogy would be counter-insurgencies...)

My gut tells me Snow is going to be the worst Press Secretary ever. Why? Because he's trying to be friendly to the journalists...as someone who wants the process to work properly (and it's been broken almost the entire Bush presidency) I admire his efforts. But the sad fact is that Fleischer and McClellan, while awful press secretaries, were quite useful in their roles to the administration. They ensured, day after day, that no news came from the White House. Snow, by contrast, will probably let slip some juicy tidbits from time to time. And in this administration, a "juicy tidbit" is often a "leak which damages credibility". Let's start the snowstorm!

I just came across this interesting history of the Netflix mailer.

Where do they go from here? Obviously: downloadable movies. It's the last mile of video-on-demand and Netflix seems like the player (perhaps with some help from TiVo) to actually make it happen.

In their last quarterly conference call yesterday, they committed to having a solution in place by the end of the year. That's ambitious, if they hadn't already done some groundwork. I'm excited, because with this advance, the final three problems with Netflix disappear (the return time, unplayable discs, long waits for good movies) and the only real question becomes one of revenue. By this I mean that any idiots who subscribe to a "5 out at a time" plan will immediately ratcheted back down to 3, because if there's no wait on return times, you won't need to have multiple movies out at once.

My company, it appears, will actually be merged in a few days. We'll see how things shake out...I'm less optimistic than I used to be, because it appears that my boss, whom I really like, who was going to head the new, larger firm, may now end up being the coo, instead of the ceo. But I'm sure there's a reason behind the switch. I just hope I get the chance to show the larger firm what I'm capable of.

A fun new public search site.

Actually, it's been up since February, but still, it's cool. Some people apparently don't think so. In my mind, if this is all public information, the silliest quote comes here in the piece:

"It's a fundamental invasion of privacy because they've put all these records together and give them away for nothing instead of keeping them separate and making people pay to get them."

Um, so if zaba charged money for their service, would it be any less an invasion of privacy? I don't think so. It'd just mean that rich people could snoop on others exclusively. I've never understood why so many people seem to think that public information must be protected. It's self-defeating. Just like the weather companies complaining that the national weather service is, gasp, letting people check the weather for free, if the government has this information and is making it public, isn't that good? I long for the day the IRS allows completely free digital submissions of tax returns for all Americans. Over the web. It'll happen eventually, trust me.

But to get back to the point, go check out zava and find out about the people you want to!

This Fox News Piece is simply too funny not to notice. Here's the quicktime movie itself.

It's amazing, but somehow in the first 30 seconds, the producers of a brief segment managed to evoke September 11th, not once, but twice! First the Fox reporter in a Freudian slip says the woman dialed "nine-eleven" for help instead of "nine-one-one". Then the woman herself starts mumbling about "the terror" as if she was a victim of a terrorist attack. Only on Fox, indeed.

Bizarrely, she later claims she couldn't remember flicking the guy off. Riiiight.

I just want to know if other Fox reporters refer to dialing 9-1-1 as 9-11. Because that's just downright creepy.

Read this piece on the new CNN chief. Guess what?

He just gets it.

Mr. Klein continually described CNN’s new news concept as "powerful, emotional storytelling," the kind of firsthand reality TV in which anchors emoted and opined more and even the most eye-glazing subjects—Social Security, campaign-finance reform—became stirring conflicts between opposing human faces. If it sounded like old-fashioned newsmagazine fare, well, Mr. Klein said he didn’t like the word "newsmagazine." It was something new, but he didn’t have a word for it.

"It’s almost like what you’d see on the History Channel five years from now," he said. "We can do it today. We’re living history."

Mr. Klein explained that this sort of long-form "storytelling" would fill more cable hours, so they wouldn’t be dependent on incessant interviews with Scott Peterson’s former girlfriend, Amber Frey. Mr. Klein said they had resisted covering the aftermath of the Peterson trial, which Ms. Grace and Mr. King had flogged ruthlessly for the last few years.

"You know, we killed our Amber Frey interview," said Mr. Klein. "We didn’t pursue it. Everybody else did an Amber Frey interview this week, and they did decent numbers. But we didn’t do it. You know, it’s about living up to the brand promise."

Sure, he says "emotional" a little too much, but the basic concept is straightforward: report the news rather than on the news, which Fox is famous for. The other day I saw a Fox anchor interviewing Zell Miller...he asked him, "Hey, remember at the convention, when you said that John Kerry was throwing spitballs at the enemy? Where'd you come up with that?" By contrast, instead of discussing useless political inside-baseball-trivia, CNN was showing a reporter standing in front of tsunami devastation asking questions to locals. That's news.

I'm glad Klein gets it. This is exactly what I've been clamoring for:

The question of whether viewers want straight reporting in America—the kind that CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN had the resources to provide and often have—remains an open one. Walter Isaacson, former CNN president, biographer, Time managing editor and chief executive of the Aspen Institute, suspected they do. "As the world of journalism fractures into more and more niche opinionated markets, there will become more of a demand among a lot of people for straightforward reporting," he said. "Somebody has to actually go to the scene and report the facts. And people are going to want it."

GIve us straight reporting! Now!

Whew.

Bad News for the Post.

In an effort to win new readers, Downie said Post reporters will be required to write shorter stories. The paper's design and copy editors will be given more authority to make room for more photographs and graphics.

The paper will undergo a redesign to make it easier for readers to find stories. It is considering filling the left-hand column of the front page with keys to stories elsewhere in the paper and other information readers say they want from the paper, which they often consider "too often too dull," Downie said.

"Newspapers should be fun and it should be fun to work at one," Bennett said.

Um, no. No. No. No!

Newspapers should not be fun, they should be informative. The WaPo has some of the best reporters out there with hard hitting stories below their bylines. Instead of making the front page a photo shoot, or putting a damn map to where important articles are, why not put the important articles on the front page where they belong. Hell, just have either of the two Danas, Walter Pincus, or David Broder write stories for above the fold, with Jonathan Weisman, T.R. Reid, Helen Dewar and Charles Babington sharing below the fold duties.

Yeah, I don't know any foreign reporters...but having at least two world stories on the front page would also be a good idea.Getting rid of the "Sunday Source" would be fine.

In the end, the WaPo is at its best when it covers politics with the gloves off. I think my changes would do a much better job than the proposed ones at highlighting what the Post does best. I'd buy a daily subscription to the Post if they did that...would you?

Consumer Confidence dropped to the lowest level since March in the latest survey.

Bad news for Bush.

The number was 92.8, for the record. The street expected 94. Evidently, every incumbent President with a number below 99 has lost re-election. That's huge.

After some furious coding, I've enabled comments on the "news" section of the website. I should be enabling it on the rest of the subsections sometime tomorrow. To post a comment, you must be logged in. Regular users can see posted comments without being logged in, but are unable to post themselves.

The comments also use Markdown, so you'll be able to style your text just as you can with regular stories. In addition, each comment is color-coded to the member who posts it, so be sure to go into the author section to change your color to something easy to recognize.

I've also tweaked the page so that you won't get the annoying refresh-accidental-double-post problem. When you click "add comment", the comment is added to the database and then the page is generated later. So no matter how many times you click refresh, you won't get an annoying "you submitted a form via POST" message or the equally frustrating sight of multiple posts.

After I finish adding the comment form to the rest of the subsection pages, I'll have completed 1/3 of the coding work left on the site. The remaining 2/3 should be just as difficult, but even more rewarding for you, the user. So go test it out today!

Okay, for the last time, altogether now: "Recycling Wastes More Energy Than It Saves". Got it? When Jane or John Doe takes their newspaper to the curb, and it gets delivered to the recycling plant, that plant has to burn energy to build new paper from the old. In many cases, the energy used by the plant is greater than that required to produce a brand new piece of paper. Hence, recycling is bunk.

There is, of course, a strong exception: if the material being used is in short supply and cannot be replenished, recycling makes sense. Of course, that's not true about paper (planting trees is fairly easy and in the long term, good) or many abundant metals. To be sure, dumping trash in a landfill isn't good either, but that doesn't make recycling better because of it. The world would be much better off if, instead of focusing on recycling, we managed to replace every coal-fired power plant with a nuclear one in the next ten years. That would result in cleaner air and a better environment. Period.

Class dismissed.

So Izzedin is dead and Sonia won't be PM because of idiotic nationalists. Not a good couple of days. I don't feel like ranting about either of these, since they are bad enough on their own.

On a lighter note, I just realized a second ago that I tend to "voice" my e-mails; that is, if I receive an e-mail from someone and I'm reading it, I hear the particular person's voice in my head. Obviously, this isn't true for everyone, but the realization was odd nonetheless. Maybe I've been working too hard lately.

Back to work now...tons of stuff piled up from yesterday, despite coming in for a few hours last night.

You know you love it. Sadly, I bet the President would prefer his PDB in Powerpoint format. And I bet Condi would be great at making up these little gems, too.

Head over to news.google.com and type in "president bush news conference" and check out the first result. Priceless.

Bush mangled his press conference this evening, and I found it painful to watch. Some moments were hilarious like the one below. Let's roll the tape:

Um, that wasn't an answer. At all. Sometimes Bush would respond with simply poorly chosen words, such as when he responded to a question of creating a domestic intel agency by saying, "Well, you're talking about one aspect of possible -- I think you're referring to what they call the MI5." I assume, should we create our own version of MI5, that we wouldn't call it that. And Bush's curious phrasing makes me wonder if he even knows that MI5 is the British domestic intelligence agency.

Sometimes, Bush's non-sequiturs almost seemed freudian, such as when he responded to a question about feeling personally responsible for September 11th with this answer, "I think the hearings will show that the Patriot Act is an important change in the law that will allow the FBI and the CIA to better share information together...We were kind of stovepiped, I guess is a way to describe it. There was, you know, kind of departments that at times didn't communicate -- because of law, in the FBI's case." We were kind of stovepiped?? What? Clearly Bush doesn't understand what stovepiping is. It's like he's playing mad-libs on primetime television with a bunch of nouns and adjectives he's overheard Condi Rice and Dick Cheney saying. Bizarre.

Overall, I think the decision to have him speak was a bad one. Bush never looks good in this format, even if it is tightly scripted, as this one was.

I spoke with Deborah last night, and due to some circumstances beyond her control, she's actually going to be forced to leave her current abode in the commonwealth.

The good news is that she'll be joining the fun here.

For all you guys who applied, I'm personally sorry things didn't work out. Many of you seemed like fairly cool individuals. (In fact, a couple of you I dreaded sending the announcement to, because you appeared to be fun-loving and didn't deserve such an abrupt e-mail.) Hopefully I'll get a chance to meet those of you coming for the summer months, especially anyone on the progressive side of things.

This whole process has left me with a better feeling than the last time around, but things could still be improved greatly. I've been on both sides of the coin for the past four years, so I think I can illustrate the gaps in the system well. The principal problem, of course, is that a renter has no idea what kind of person a rentee will turn out to be. Unlike checking someone's credit score, there's no way to determine whether an individual has been a good roommate in the past, will be in the present, or even has the cash flow to pay checks on time. Most people living in group situations are young, so a credit-check isn't helpful, and does little to establish a certain person's lifestyle. Further compounding the problem is that in DC, housing is incredibly expensive, so the pool of applicants available to rent a room shrinks considerably. Finally, although finding summer month people isn't too difficult (because of DC's intern subculture) finding yearlong people is much, much harder. Throw in standard caveats against pets and you're out even further. I personally want people (if they smoke) to smoke outside. There goes even more opportunities.

Of course, all these problems can be solved easily: I could move to a single bedroom apartment. But then I'd lose my garden, my roof and the ability to sun and grill outside. I'd lose the ability to throw huge parties. I'd lose the ability to play my music loud, knowing that the entire house is mine. In short, I'd lose the coolest part of my mostly maudlin life. That's unacceptable. But because of the wacky DC housing market, I can't even afford a house with a yard in the sketchiest parts of town. I've always been willing to trade security for square footage (although I would want to be close to a metro and within walking distance of DC hotspots like Adams-Morgan and Dupont Circle) but DC has become so gentrified even the unsafe side of town is too pricey for a middle income person.

This, then, is the real problem: DC has no houses for young, single, middle income earners to purchase. If it did, I'd buy one in a heartbeat and rent it out. But it doesn't. So the long, complex dance continues.

So Kevin pointed me to this hilarious article in the NYT (yeah, yeah, free reg, blah blah blah) which partially redeems it for dropping the ball on so many other occasions. Essentially, the Times figured out the government made a fake "news report" and then hawked it to different news outlets as actual news. Let's roll the tape:

Priceless. Be sure to read the whole article. It's very damning of this sort of approach to news ethics. I don't often feel that the government engages in overt propoganda (mainly because average joe civil servant doesn't want to lie for the bushies) but in this case, through the beauty of "private-sector outsourcing" the government handed its responsibilities over to a private firm who had no such squeamish qualms about being ham-handed and duplicitous. We need to fight back.

Deborah just agreed to go to Iowa with me.

Janklow was convicted on all counts and will resign January 20th.

Gore endorsed Dean.

I am full of tasty greek food and tastier Fincher conversation.

Life is good. That fortune cookie awhile back was right on the mark. If only I believed in fate!

I've been super-busy lately with fifty million different things flying around me but I finally finished up work on federalist an hour ago so I now have time to write some thoughts down.

Last night, before I run into the rats, I roll over to Woodley Park to catch 24. I leave with plenty of time to spare, but the link fails me badly, and I end up waiting 20 minutes to catch a bus. When I finally see it (on the other side of the road) the next bus is only 2 minutes behind it, meaning that it was running at least 15 minutes behind the normal schedule and that the next bus almost passed it.

By the time I roll into the Mariott to check out the show, there are only seconds before it begins. Fincher and I see a large sign announcing a conference and the low-level hum turns into a throaty roar as we stride into an atrium filled with chair after chair of defense contractors. They're already watching something on the big screen tv. That's right: Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.

Fincher and I walk around for a second before my mind is set and then we sit down at a table a few feet away from the tv. I casually ask the server if I can change the channel and she says sure, but that there's no remote. So I sneak up to the tv, in front of all of the old white guys, and switch it from Fox News to Fox. No grumbles of dissent. Then I turn up the volume.

Seconds later, a couple of guys who were even closer leave their table, allowing us to upgrade, just as the opening credits for 24 begin to roll. Perfection. Surrounded by slightly low-class contractors (I'm not going to repeat some of the stories Fincher overheard) I managed to have a terrific time.

Once I'm rich and powerful and have my own satellite network, I'm going to start a all-hards-news station, like C-SPAN, except covering the entire world. If there's a flood in India, a plague in Africa, a fire in San Diego, it'll be covered. But if Michael Jackson, or anyone of limited political significance, is charged with a crime, it won't get coverage. Between Stewart, Bryant, O'Donnell and Jackson, I'm sick of watching people walk into court. It adds nothing. It means nothing. Announce the charges. Annouces the decision. But drop all the rest of the fluff.

For god's sake, over 26 people died in a terrorist attack in Turkey and we're watching Michael Jackson land in a plane? It sickens me. My network would only show hard news. Any willing sponsors can e-mail me.

In a move that many political insiders view as a positive development, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice has been replaced by piece of white paper. No, I'm not making this up. Evidently Stanley has access to classified information but the 9/11 commission does not. Go figure!

While I was celebrating this weekend, the situation in Iraq detiorated further. The administration's response?

This signals progress. Um, yeah, sure.

Just once, I'd like to see someone in the White House admit they made a mistake. It could be a small one, like say, "Dick Cheney accidentally switched to decaf this morning" as long as someone was named, and culpability was the goal. Until then, we're forced to listen to month after month of black-is-white, up-is-downism about the economy, Iraq and health care.

First the exciting Sox victory (hopefully that late game collision won't knock Damon out for the next game) and now it turns out that Senator Graham is pulling out of the Presidential race. This is good for several reasons, the main one being that Graham's seat would be vulnerable should he abandon it. Without running, he's definitely favored for re-election. Unlike earlier, I now think Graham isn't angling for a veep spot. The pre-race buzz was that Graham's biggest anchor would be his odd journals. Now no one mentions his journals, mainly because he's a lousy guy to fire up people. Hardworking, sure. But his speeches just fall a little flat...he seems too nice to serve up red meat.

Given General Clark's announcement of raising $3.5 million in just a couple of weeks, the pressure should increase for at least one other campaign to drop out. Realistically, that campaign should be Joe Lieberman, who's drawing tepid support and falling in every major poll. Edwards at least can hold onto his South Carolina numbers, whereas Joe is in a free fall. Other than those two, everyone else is either already marginalized (Kucinich & Sharpton), irrelevant (Moseley-Braun) or close enough in a key state (Kerry and Gephardt) to stay in. If Clark or Kerry manage to team up with Dean in beating Gephardt in Iowa, he'd be the next campaign to fold up shop. Likewise for Clark & Dean in New Hampshire, only Kerry would have to bow out. But I don't see those dynamics coming true for at least a month.

Hmm.

Guess those Fox viewers must be out of the loop. I wonder what the statistics would be if the proposed GoreTV actually becomes a reality. A network devoted to truth. Imagine that!

Every so often, something happens to remind me that my life is very plush. Sometimes it's a little thing. Sometimes it's a big thing.

The news I received this morning was particularly apt at conveying this message. Most of the time I'm not squeamish about sharing lurid details of my life on this website. However, since in this instance said details involve another person, I'm not going to dish dirt here. If you know me, you should definitely speak to me. Everyone else can simply salivate and get used to disappointment.

I'll get back to the regular dirty laundry lists later.

You probably already saw it, but just in case you missed the boat, here's the latest scoop from Zogby: Bush is extremely vulnerable! Read the whole bit, but the important numbers to remember are that a majority of people (52%) now want someone else in the White House, with only 40% voting to keep him in.

As usual, the full nuanced view can be found over at Pollkatz which includes Zogby's numbers along with the rest of them. Zogby has been consistently down on Bush, but the line he draws is clear: the President's numbers haven't hit the floor yet. It seems as if there's no end to the troubles ahead.

I've restrained my desire to bash Bush on his press conference. It was, indeed, awful, as Tim Noah points out in Slate. Several questions were softballs, and the harder ones tended to be longer, which allowed Bush to get away with not answering directly. Here's the full transcript. Read it. Weep.

There were a few points where reporters asked short questions and received non-sequiturs. The worst moment, even from a softball type question, happened in this way:

QUESTION: Building, sort of, on that idea, it's impossible to deny that the world is a better place and the region certainly a better place without Saddam Hussein.

But there's a sense here in this country and a feeling around the world that the U.S. has lost credibility by building the case for Iraq upon sometimes flimsy or some people have complained nonexistent evidence.

And I'm just wondering, sir, why did you choose to take the world to war in that way?

BUSH: You know, look, in my line of work it's always best to produce results. And I understand that. For a while the questions were, "Could you conceivably achieve a military victory in Iraq? You know the dust storms have slowed you down.'' And I was a patient man because I realized that we would be successful in achieving our military objective.

Now, of course, the question is, you know, "Will Iraq ever be free? And will be it peaceful?'' And I believe it will.

Okay, first off, the question wasn't "Will Iraq ever be free?" Bush then goes on to answer his own question, but misses the real one. Back to his spin:

I remind some of my friends that it took us a while to go from the Articles of Confederation to the United States Constitution. Even our own experiment with democracy, it didn't happen overnight. I've never expected Thomas Jefferson to emerge in Iraq in a 90-day period. And so this is going to take time.

And the world will see what I mean when I say a free Iraq will peace in the Middle East, and a free Iraq will be important for changing the attitudes of the people in the Middle East. A free Iraq will show what is possible in a world that needs freedom in a part of the world that needs freedom.

Let me finish for a minute, please. Just getting warmed up.

(LAUGHTER)

I'm, kind of, finding my feet.

Here Bush makes a mistake that doesn't find its way into the transcript. After joking that he's finding his feet, he actually loses his train of thought. He continues on after an embarrassing pause, to mutter some banalites about Saddam being a threat. Later he makes the idiotic "speck/log" statement, which was clearly canned.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. Mr. President, many of your supporters believe that homosexuality is immoral. They believe that it's been given too much acceptance in policy terms and culturally. As someone who's spoken out in strongly moral terms, what's your view on homosexuality?

BUSH: Yes, I am mindful that we're all sinners. And I caution those who may try to take the speck out of the neighbor's eye when they've got a log in their own.

Too few have really analyzed what he could've meant by this. Let's take it point by point, with respect to the question about his view on homosexuality:

1. We're all sinners.
2. With respect to the question, then, homosexuality is a sin.
3. Because we're all sinners, maybe we should focus on our own sins first.
4. Hmm. Is Bush saying we all have homosexual urges? That's weird.
5. Should we then purge our sinful thoughts, and then rightfully condemn homosexuals?
6. This is absurd.

What a strange moment. What a strange president.

The Prez is giving a news conference this morning at 10:30. Very odd. I wonder what's up...or if he chose this last-minute arrangement to prevent reporters from getting their tough questions ready. Tune in.

A rainy memorial day. Ugh. And, of coruse, today isn't looking much better. Although the sun poked out for an hour or two yesterday afternoon, and again this morning for 1/2 an hour, overall things remain gray and cold.

To brighten things up, here's an interesting piece on the Clark campaign. The logic sounds good: if Clark waits a bit he can save money and then swoop in closer to the end, much in the same way that conservative idiots are salivating for Sen. Clinton to do so. Fortunately, I don't think she'll give them that chance.

To darken things, check out this article about the Texas GOP folks and yet another tape with a troubling "gap" that was erased due to an "equipment malfunction". Nixon's spirit is clearly alive and well.

Finally, to even things out buzz over to this piece from JMM about the IC and ongoing efforts to "find the truth". His view is much more nuanced than the pieces that ran in the Post and the Times that he cites.

Q Ari, to this point the President has blamed the sluggish economy on an inherited recession and the war. Since it's apparent now that he's going to get at least some tax cuts, and as you've said, it contains his proposals, if the sluggish economy continues and it doesn't improve, will the President then take responsibility for that and stop blaming it on other factors?

MR. FLEISCHER: I saw a story last week that said that with this tax cut this means the President has responsibility for the economy. This President accepted a responsibility for the country on January 20, 2001. He accepted responsibility for it in all forms, whatever form it was in. And that is what happens when you're the President. And so I think it's a nonissue. The American people know who the President is. They'll make their judgments about factors at the appropriate time.

But when you take a look at what happened in the economy, talk to private sector economists, and they'll tell you that for a rare time the tax cut in 2001 was actually perfectly timed. It did help us emerge that fall from the recession that we were in. It did give a boost to the economy. And clearly, the first quarter of 2002, right after the tax cuts were received, was one of those quarters where the economy in greater than 5 percentage points for that first quarter. Now, the economy has been uneven since then, meaning that this, too, could be a perfectly timed tax cut to give that boost to the economy to help it to get going in a sustainable period of higher growth.

Yeah, whatever Ari. At least Ron Fournier had the guts to call you out in the post article, saying exactly what everyone else thought:

A cautious and calibrating press secretary, Fleischer has been the public voice of the presidency through the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the Iraq war, loyally putting the best spin on events. He frustrated reporters by constantly dodging the toughest questions and sometimes irked his White House colleagues by pushing for access behind the scenes.

His meatless pronouncements on Bush policy are generally in keeping with a White House that keeps a tight lid on information. He often professes ignorance about details.

Well said, Ron.

It was a fairly rough day at work so I didn't have any free time to look at interesting stuff. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Someone once said that we'll know we've arrived in the information age when our desire for news becomes a continuous stream of information. Even now, I feel at the fringe of such an age. Blogs have inspired meta-blogs, and now even campaigns have been invited to participate in abc's new notepad feature. It's all about increased access to information, which has to be a good thing.

On a related note, my karma at slashdot just hit excellent. And, yes, it's a little geeky, but hey...don't knock it till you've tried it, right? Increasingly, news is becoming more and more slashdot oriented: tiny blobs of information coated with a bunch of greasy opinions. In a sense, the political campaigns are much like a slashdot conversation with the journalists as moderators. Now if only you could have meta-moderation in real life everything would be better.

Forget all that boring other stuff: the big news this week is that at my beloved workplace I received my frickin' huge monitor and set it up. It's gigantic! Colossal! Incredible! Words don't fail me, but as soon as we get our new computers in, I'll be able to punch up the resolution to a cool 1920x1440 at 75Hz. Now I just need to sneak in a copy of good ole' quake III and start using the bfg in the dredwerkz, like days of yore.

Of course, shortly after I post computer trouble grips the office and I go into overdrive. (Fortunately, we should be upgrading our systems shortly and instances like this won't happen anymore.) So with the little time I have, all the newsy stuff I could come up with is this: the metro closing later. Still, the idea is great. How many times have friends said, "I'd stay later but the Metro's closing now..." This would remove that burden, or at least push it back another hour, which in my mind is a good thing. In addition, it would hopefully cut down on drunk drivers who're inspired to risk everything for a party. Back to the final hour...

Wow. Maybe it's the blue skies outside or the chipotle inside me, but the news seems to be taking a turn for the better. First off, Graham and Dean News: namely, that Graham is about to declare and Dean has picked up some key Hollywood votes, which means more money. Either guy would go a long way to making this country a better place. But the icing on the cake? How about Bush's falling poll numbers? That's right. 43 is back to the same level he was at before September 11th. True, there could be a wartime bounce, but I think people are finally starting to grasp that the POTUS is inept at both domestic and international policy, whether it's insulting our longtime allies, shortchanging firemen, or ignoring the real threat looming in North Korea.

But hey, at least we got a few real terrorists, right? Maybe we should focus on Islamic Jihad, or Hezbollah or any of the other number of organizations with far stealthier capabilities than Iraq. Maybe we should focus on Syria and stop isolating Iran, perhaps...

Prophetically, when I reviewed Joe Millionaire, I noted that it was worth watching, but not every episode. Last night was that episode. In an idiotic attempt to keep advertisers happy with audience numbers, Fox aired an entire episode composed of flashbacks and canned edits. Even the final choice was avoided, despite everyone being aware that the fallout (Joe revealing the secret) would take place the next week. So, to sum up, nothing happened. Grr. This is the shortest series ever, and to devote an entire show to flashbacks seems idiotic. Combined with the incredibly low standards of the Fox network (Joe Millionaire made guest appearances on American Idol, Fox5 News kept plugging the show and having guests on it, and the news show even ran a segment about people watching said show, in one of the Fox5 News staff's houses!), this latest blow should have been expected. As soon as you blur the line between journalism and entertainment, bad things happen.

And, of course, I'll watch next week. And 24 tonight, as well. At least that promises to be more shocking than the "beheading" episode early on. Plus, they can't really flashback in time, due to the nature of the show.

So as of right now, my bridge/firewall setup is working. It's not fully complete, yet, but the code at least functions the way it's supposed to. You'd think I'd be elated. Unfortunately, I'm sick. Grr. This hectic schedule is killing me. Too many political things to impart.

It's times like this that I find comfort in the cold, calculated neutrality of c-span. It doesn't farcically pretend to be objective, like fox news, or equally ludicrously attempt to be professional, like cnn or even worse, the network news stations. Bias is always going to be there...the only way to deal with it is to either cut out commentary (like c-span) or admit the bias and move on (no takers yet!) When journalists pretend to be "objective" they end up hurting neutrality by advancing tired arguments or presenting outright lies as "the other side" in an attempt to remain neutral. If we're headed for a budget disaster, and one side says we are, and the other says we're not, that's not a matter of opinion. Empirically speaking, the facts dictate one conclusion, and to bring up invalid arguments that strain editor's credibility undermines the objectivity the American public thinks is being presented. End rant.

I'm now having to work on some hourly blog-like stuff for my new website, so I'm probably going to start losing some of the politically themed stuff from this blog to focus more on the personal stuff. I may continue the more radical themes over here (wouldn't want to get in trouble with my boss for "crazy" views like open borders and the like) but the majority should be at the peyser site. Look for it starting December 1.

Until then, though, check out this piece in the Post which mentions, in passing, that Gore has endorsed single-payer as a health care solution. It's about time! From the piece:

But as he began his book tour this week, Gore already was making political news. On Wednesday night, he told a New York audience he has "reluctantly come to the conclusion" that the only solution to the "impending crisis" in health care is a "single-payer national health insurance plan" for all Americans. That marks a sharp break with his past position, pushing him sharply to the left on what could be an important issue in the next presidential campaign.

In the 2000 campaign, Gore battered rival Democrat Bill Bradley for advocating a health care plan designed to move the country toward universal coverage. He said Bradley's bold plan would wipe out projected budget surpluses and damage the country.

Gore offered no details of what kind of single-payer system he favors. Spokesman Jano Cabrera said yesterday that Gore will address the issue in a speech. Cabrera called Gore's comments on health care consistent with his recent vow to "speak from the heart and let the chips fall where they may."

Three cheers for President Gore!

• Plan for Tax Increase Fuels Va. Senate Race

• Leaders to Set Emergency Protocol

• Arundel Schools' Man of Change

• Williams Spends Weekend on Stump

• When Immigrants Wed, Language of Their Vows Is Too Often Unfamiliar

• Customize this feed

  Add more items, descriptions, time stamps, etc...

• New Avenues Offer Shortcuts to Principal's Office

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:19AM ET

• For Tibetans, an Inspiration Emerges

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:19AM ET

• When Immigrants Wed, Language of Their Vows Is Too Often Unfamiliar: Need for Spanish Speakers to Perform Cere

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:19AM ET

• Plan for Tax Increase Fuels Va. Senate Race: Road, School Funds Top Fairfax Issues

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:19AM ET

• Housing Vouchers No Magic Key

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:19AM ET

• Leaders to Set Emergency Protocol: D.C., Md., Va. Officials to Sign Pact Addressing Weaknesses Exposed Sept. 1

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:18AM ET

• Tight Times for States Improve Gambling's Odds

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:18AM ET

• World

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• Ex-King Returns to Palace

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• Ukraine Resolves to Integrate With Europe

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• Bolivia's Ex-President Regains Post

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• Difficult Times For a Key Ally In Terror War

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• Forest Service Sued Over Backfire

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• Stevens Advises Judges to Hold Their Fire

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• Chemical Plants Face Oversight

  Washington Post Aug 5 2002 7:12AM ET

• doctor doom

  one of our relatives passed away last night. obviously i'm upset by it, but he had a particularly nasty form of cancer, was in his eighties and had lived a good and full life, so it's not so bad. he's far from the pain now, and that's gotta count for something. but it got me thinking; apart from putting the whole fear of mortality into me once again, i've started to muse over the ceremonial side of things. when you take a step back and look at it from a clinical perspective, the whole tradition of gathering around a bunch of people in black that you probably don't like to either burn or bury the body of someone you know in a wooden box just seems so freaking bizarre. to be honest, i try not to think about it. i know little to nothing about how death is handled in other cultures, so enlighten me (and possibly everyone else).

• make this easier

  yes, there's no better way to unwind after a long week or two of pure coding than by, uh, coding some more? so i rewrote more of the site's underbelly, mostly because it was bugging me and i worked out a cool way to make it cleaner. you won't notice any changes, but i sure will. i'm like that. elftor is one of the few web comics i read these days, so it makes this new fusion all the cooler: fusion: elftor i'd add a disclaimer about the violence and gore contained within, but this is waferbaby. we have pictures of pixelated men sexoring pigs.

• bulgarian hottie

  after enough requests, i've caved in and added a feed for this news page. you guys are fucking crazy, but i guess that's why i love you.

• kenya not

  i'm exhausted, which is amusing when you realise that i've hardly moved around all day; i have to get this site that we're building finished before tomorrow morning so we can present it to the client. i'm almost done, but i figure i'll still be up most of the night, so i popped in to my cafe and with impeccable timing arrived just before they closed. not only did i fill up my mug, but i stayed around to chit chat and watch them clean up. now you're probably thinking that, for you at least, there's probably nothing more boring than watching a bunch of people clean up a cafe at the end of the day. but, what with me being me and all, i was totally fascinated; i've never actually worked in a job that involved being in direct contact with the public, nor have i worked in the food industry (my first real job was in a dental warehouse, for fuck's sake). it's strange that i've never given it a second thought; i had no idea that it was so involved to clean out a food-related workplace, or rather, i'd just never bothered to stop and think about it. i mean, why would i have? i'm going there for coffee, not some damn hygeine lesson. on the same train of thought, i asked them if it's difficult to appear so polite and happy the whole time you're at work, and as i expected they all said yes. that's yet another thing i take for granted; the whole staff being courteous when you're ordering thing. i'm a big fan of the little details. could you tell? so, my fine feathered friends, i suggest that next time you go out for a coffee, introduce yourself to your barista, your waitress, or your chef, and then come back here and tell us all what sort of a reaction you get. it's all about spreading the love, baby. and i mean spreading.

• bowtie camera

  i really should be sleeping, so i'll make this quick, but congratulations are the order of the morning; to elftor for turning one today, and to sikuri for becoming the 1000th mybaby user. whee!

• wayne

  it's raining. it started raining today when the sun was out in full effect, being all sun-like and warm, and yet it was pissing down like godzilla with a full bladder, and it hasn't let up since. moving right along. you'll want to be sure to check out the brand spanking new fusion episode by my good friend emily; all the kids will be talking about it! fusion: potato's dream it's one of those busy weeks with lots of paid work to do and little waferbaby time to be had, but i'll manage to sneak some in. i always do.

• release the hounds

  you may remember him from such simpsons voices as mister burns, smithers, principal skinner, reverend lovejoy, ned flanders and about a bazillion others; the corner monkey sits down with harry shearer for a bit of a chat. corner: harry shearer, on the simpsons and voice acting. today's soccer match was awesome (it gets better every week!); our team won 3-0, i think. at one point during the game i managed to kick amy very very very very very hard in the shin; my first major damage inflicted during a match. sorry about that, amy.

• hey pig

  now that i'm happy with the new baby syndication stuff, i'm rewriting the feed tool to be much more reusable, as you do. if anyone is keen to check out the code (which is a php class), then let me know; if there's enough demand, i may just release it properly - honestly, it's not that big a deal, but it makes my life easier. nothing can stop me now. yay, soccer soon! i'm all pumped up and way too hyper - this morning i took one of my own mugs over to my cafe and they filled it with their steaming, sexy brew. rrowr! it's kind of scary: i know their coffee so well now that i'm able to tell which barista made it just by the taste. i shit you not. would i shit you? shit no. no shit. also, it turns out that my cafe is also frenzal rhomb's favourite cafe. there you go.

• hey come on

  nothing is as amusing as inebriated boys; we hung out at the duke hotel tonight, and half of us talked about immigration and the politics thereof while the others talked about dimples and some sort of deeply repressed homosexuality, from the sounds of it. but i digress. i can't remember being this happy in a long, long time; work is going well, i've been pretty damn healthy (touch wood, so to speak), i have awesome friends, and i'm actually being social and going out of the house and so on. look out, i'm getting all personal and misty. please note the exits to the front and rear of the craft. now that i think of it, it's unusual for me to be both single and very, very happy, but hey, there you have it. maybe i'm growing up? mmmmmmmm. so anyhow, how about that web-related stuff with all of those things with the thingie? way to deflect getting too personal there, daniel. why thank you, daniel! i should sleep, because we're playing soccer tomorrow, but i really like this song, so i do believe i will sit here and shake my little white butt just a little bit more.

• crawled up in side her

  hi. so i've actually been out and about, and stuff. weird, huh? life is good, and i love my friends. hopefully you're all having as good a weekend as i am.

much like electrons, romney can be in two places at once

why are you reading this? there's a war on!

new homeland security department: pay no attention to the woman testifying at the committee!

send in the blue-helmeted monitors. with riot gear, of course!

the president gets used to disasters

new homeland security department: now with extra terror fighting powder!

global warming isn't happening...just kidding!

dc cops find chandra's shin: reaction

dc cops find chandra's shin

wye oak bites the dust

wilkins pins against, then attempts to sweep under table

small group of protestors angers the powerful Grover Norquist, forcing him to order his interns in to restore american way of life

washington times prints unfortunate headline for partisans

the district finally has a home depot; the dredwerkz rejoices!

pennsylvania avenue to remain closed

district unveils balanced budget

beer sold from local vending machine

students forced to suffer year-round

students forced to go on boat vacation, claim they are learning

local abused man defended, in hindsight, by uppity new-yorker