Bogonomicon

In addition to more politically motivated decisions (like cancelling all global warming research- Bush has said it doesn't exist and that should be good enough for those liberal scientists), another thing being axed from the NASA budget is maintainance for Hubble. Next time something breaks, Hubble is done.

This isn't just Bush at work here. How much do you want to bet that in a year or two, when the political benefit of this plan has played out, that Congress will cut funding for the Mars mission? Of course, the projects that were axed to pay for the Mars mission won't be reinstated, heaven forbid. We'll end up with no moon base, no mars mission, and no global warming research or Hubble either. Let alone no space elevator. Bush has political reasons (especially the $7 trillion dollar debt) to be worse than your average elected figure- but cutting NASA's budget and scaling back NASA's mission is a feature of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The reason for this thirty-year death by a thousand cuts is depressingly obvious. The supporters of NASA approach the problem like the good scientists and engineers they are. Facts and figures and logic figure prominently in their discussions. Get this- politicals don't give a damn about logic and facts. They care about money and votes- and money only because it can be used to buy votes. Space supporters are multi-issue voters, and are unlikely to change their votes (or their contribution habits) on the basis of this one issue. As such, they're not worth courting- as a politican of either party, about half will vote for you anyways, and about half will vote against you, and there isn't much you can do to change that.

Think about it a for a moment- are you willing to change your vote on the basis of a politicians' support of space exploration?

When I ask that question at science fiction conventions, I can make rooms of 200 people all look at their shoes simultaneously. It'd be funny if it weren't sad. And until that fundamental fact changes- until the Planetary Society can claim to have tipped a couple of elections- NASA's budget will continue to get whittled down, in favor of tax cuts and other programs which do garner votes for politicians.

Today's required reading is, much to no one's surprise, Paul Krugman's newest installment. Especially for his second to last paragraph:

So what's the answer? A Democratic candidate will have a chance of winning only if he has an energized base, willing to contribute money in many small donations, willing to contribute their own time, willing to stand up for the candidate in the face of smear tactics and unfair coverage.

Unfortunately, that's not all a candidate needs. From personal experience, class-A smear jobs by the media are an emotional meat-grinder for the targets (and I had the advantage of being three steps away from the target, I have no idea what it's like to be the center). Everything you say can and will be misconstrued against you. Facts get ignored, and lies and innuendo get repeated over and over again until they become the truth for most people. And all your cries of "but that's not true!" fall on deaf ears.

But that's exactly the shit- and I use that word advisedly- that's comming down for whomever the Democratic nominee is. And guess what- the shit isn't going to stop November 5th either- has Leno stopped making Clinton penis jokes yet? I mean, it's early- Clinton has only been out of office for three years at this point. Is that Clinton death list still going around?

Do not expect fair treatment at the hands of the press. I'm not sure they could be fair even if they wanted to be. Especially if Howard Dean gets the nomination, I expect 2000 to be tame in comparison. But here's the thing- you can still win despite the media. Gore did (technically), despite being out of money for two critical months and not getting a single break from the media smear machine. People are wising up to the Wurlitzer, and getting their news from other sources.

But frankly, I have my questions about wether Clark could stand the heat. Dean's getting tested right now, and passing- to the point where people are talking about the Dean teflon. Dean, having run campaigns before, has some clue as to what he's getting into. Dean even managed to win re-election after passing the civil unions bill (which had 70% of the population opposed to it)- he knows how to woo over a hostile electorate. Clark, meanwhile, has never run a campaign for dog catcher before, let alone President. And thus doesn't have a clue as to what he's letting himself in for. When, in those old war movies, we see the grizzled old vetran of many campaigns and the fresh faced youngster just in from basic, we all know who is going to bite it first. For all the stars on his shoulder and medals on his chest, in this arena Clark is the fresh faced youngster, while Dean is the grizzled vetran.

If all you have is a nail gun, every problem looks like the Messiah. Which is certainly the case for this administration.

The Bush administration, hoping to fend off Democratic attacks that it has failed to come to the aid of the country's ailing manufacturing sector, is calling for the creation of a new presidential council to give U.S. companies a greater voice in government decisions.

They are getting hard to even parody at this point.

It's official. While 78% of news stories about Dean's Democratic opponents were favorable, only 49% of news stories about Dean were favorable.

Dean is winning despite the media's negative portrayals. Which just makes it that more impressive.

Subject says it all.

It's amazing how much Charlie sounds like the better sysadmins I know. Doesn't have as impressive a body count, tho. 'Course, he didn't have those handy raised floors to stash bodies under...

I've stated before that the problem we are facing, the Ur-problem as it were- is that as a society our communication channels are not free, but for-pay. Plutocratic, not democratic. And that there for money corrupts, among other things, the political process- he with the most money gets the most air time and has the most ability to spin information their way.

But at least it's a fair plutocracy- I mean, poor people are locked out, but at least if you have money, you can buy air time. Run your own superbowl ads if you feel so inclined, right?

Not exactly.

A spokesman for CBS said the Viacom-owned network has received the request from MoveOn to run the ad in the Super Bowl, but added that the ad has to go through standards and practices before CBS will say if it can run an advocacy ad during the game. The spokesman said he didn't think it was likely that the spot would pass standards and practices.

And no, this isn't one of the Hitler ads that Ed Gillespie's panties in a bunch. Those finished near the bottom of the barrel.

The problem is that it's not just about money. Nor is it about "community standards"- I flat out gaurentee that the beer comercials they'll be showing will be skating soft core porn, and will be much more objectionable than anything MoveOn.org came up with. No, what CBS objects to is political ideas being shown. Some concepts are simply not welcome, no matter how much money the people bring to the table.

And the politics doesn't have to be CBS's. The Coors family is notoriously conservative. Even a small chance of losing the lucrative Coors advertising budget for the Super Bowl would rapidly make any money made from MoveOn.org not worth it. MoveOn.org simply cannot replace Coors. So, from CBS's perspective, this is simply a good business decision.

But it completely ruins the concept of freedom of speech. Some speech is simply not acceptable, and not distributed, even if it has money to pay for the distribution. And this is why a plutocratic communication network is so corrosive. Because, in the end, it's not just plutocratic, it's autocratic.

Put on your tinfoil hats, boys and girls- it's time to explore Brian's World of Conspiracy!

Ranting about Zell Miller in the last entry, and remembering dKos ranting about TNR, I've come up with a new conspiracy theory. Republican operatives are infiltrating Democratic ranks and acting as Agent Saboteurs.

OK, as soon as you stop laughing, think about it seriously for a moment. Other than the Democratic party is the largest group of co-dependent wimps ever assembled, it's the only theory that makes sense. And it's exactly the sort of thing that would appeal to the evil overlords of the vast right-wing conspiracy. They are, after all, a bunch of Tom Clancy (and other spy-thriller-war genre) readers. Infliltrate a bunch of high-level operatives into enemy ranks, with code names and licenses to kill (the Democratic party at least), and when the agents are in place- whammo.

In either case, the response of the Democratic party should be the same. Even if we can't force these people to change their voter registrations, we can drum them out of the party leadership, out of seats they were elected to on Demcoratic tickets, and out of the limelight. And if we want to have any coherence as a party what so ever, I think we need to.

I do wish Dean would lay off the "Clark is a Republican" line. I mean, 'cmon- Clark is no more of a Republican than Kerry, Gephardt, or Lieberman. No, wait- that didn't come out right...

Seriously, compared to some "Democrats", Clark is radical left wing loony- in that he's not a radical right-wing loony, like some "Democrats" are.

Read those two news articles for a moment. Here we have a number of supposedly Democratic party members not only supporting George Bush, but endorsing him, fundraising for him, and campaigning for him. Could you imagine what would happen if, for example, John McCain endorsed Dean? There'd be blood in the streets.

And yes, this is a Democrat-Republican issue. Lieberman v. Dean OK, I can see. They're at least both Democrats. Staying silent, and not endorsing anyone (at least until the convention) I can see- especially if you don't want to make enemies. But if you're not willing to support your party, your party shouldn't support you- and they should find someone to run for your seat they can support and who will support the party. Every one of these bozos endorsing Bush should be facing well-funded party-endorsed challengers next primary season. I don't think the Democrats can technically kick someone out of the party- if you want to call yourself a Democrat and still vote for Bush, I don't think the party can stop you. But the party can damned well stop you from being elected again.

Of course, this requires a party leadership with backbone, and a willingness to take it's seriously unruly members out back of the woodshed and make an example of them. Which we don't have to worry about right now.

In the face of BS like this, arguing about wether Clark is a Republican seem, well, petty.

You heard it here first. Even if he manages to avoid being recalled- which he might, simply because the last one was enough of a zoo to put people off the whole idea (for a while, at least)- the next election cycle will simply be brutal for him. The conservative Orange County Republicans will denigrate him because he is insufficiently pure conservative- pro choice, married to a Kennedy, etc. He will probably face a serious challenge from the right. And the Democrats, still smarting from the recall, will pull no punchs. And what an arsenal they will have.

It's easy to run as a tabula rasa- and that's what Arnie did- and Jessie before him. Or better yet, a Rosarch ink plot candidate- all fuzzy and ill defined, allowing anyone to see what they want to see in the candidate. Getting elected the first time is easy. Getting re-elected, once you have a track record everyone knows about, gets to be a lot trickier. Once you have to make hard decisions and life by them, what sort of person you really are becomes apparent. Unfortunately, this only happens after you've elected them, as Californians are finding out.

I would argue that George Bush ran as a rosarch ink blot candidate in 2000. Yeah, he supposedly had a record as Governor of Texas, but it was so uninspected by the media that it might as well not have existed. If it had been inspected, campaign themes like "I'm a uniter not a divider" or "compassionate conservative" would never have flown.

Wesley Clark is the current Rosarch Ink Blot candidate. With no track record to speak of, he can be all things to all people. How do you fight that? It's like trying to nail jelly to a tree.

This is one place were Howard Dean stands head and shoulders above the rest. He has a track record, and it's not lying uninspected. Certainly not if I have anything to say about it. He was re-elected five time. The fifth time he was elected after making a seriously unpopular choice- when the civil unions bill was passed, 70% of Vermont's citizens were opposed. After doing this, he still got re-elected (granted, by much narrower margins than normal, but that is to be expected). Dean is many things, but a Rosarch Ink Blot candidate is not one of them. Nor does he need to be.

In the long run, I don't think Arnie is quite the bad news for Democrats many people thought him to be. He is, in fact, bad news for the Republicans. Can they win in many parts of this country not running as tabula rasa?

Building on Dave's riff that the administration invented a new category- "terrorist"- that was neither soldier or civilian in order to sidestep the Geneva Convention, we have this news that they're doing it again. You see, Saddam Hussein is not a prisoner of war- which is a defined category with various rights inherit in it in the Geneva Convention- but is instead an Enemy Prisoner of War, and EPW not a POW.

You see, a POW has certain rights under the Geneva Convention- like the right not to be tortured, and the right not to be executed- which is why we can't let him be a POW. But he's not really a terrorist either. So we introduce a new neither-fish-nor-fowl category, and merrily go on our way.

After the last post I got interested in what the headline was. It was this article, more bad news for the mutual funds.

I'm not 100% sure what's going on, but from the description:

The SEC's investigation into the practice, called revenue sharing of directed brokerage, revealed that 14 of 15 firms targeted for investigation accepted some form of payment from mutual fund firms to aggressively promote their shares over competitors. Only about half of the brokerages, which remained unnamed, disclosed the financial arrangements to customers

it sounds skanky to me. I still think that the national debt topping $7e12 was at least as big of news, but it's nice to note that corporate governance is once again on the headlines.

In an underheralded milestone, the national debt just passed $7 trillion dollars. That's $7,000,000,000,000. The IMF is warning that the increasing US debt is endangering world fiscal stability. 18% of federal revenue is going just to pay interest on the debt. Consider that for a moment. The debt is going to put upward pressure on interest rates, currently only depressed due to deflation fears. An increase (or worse yet, a dramatic spike) in interest rates puts any "growth based budget plan" at serious risk.

So what is the Bush administration doing about this? Nothing-

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, however, said Wednesday that the administration still intends to make permanent tax cuts the "very center" of its fiscal policy while slashing the "entirely manageable" deficit in half over the next five years. Snow maintains that sufficient spending cuts can be enacted to do so. But given Congress' enactment of increases in permanent, nondiscretionary programs like the new Medicare drug benefit, serious spending cuts are an illusion.

So, why isn't this the headline of every newspaper out there? I mean, we are talking the financial stability of the entire planet.

This rather long story over on Salon is today's required reading (the new Krugman, while good, isn't required). The media's caricature (I wouldn't even call it a characterization) of Dean is already more or less set- Angry, pessimistic, liberal, and doomed. The complete lack of facts to back this up is immaterial and irrelevent. What- you think news reporting is objective or something? Where have you been the last couple of decades?

Seriously, when I see a consistant pattern of behavior, I look for a consistant motivation. This is an application of the old saw that once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. So here we have multiple instances of the press echoing the spin the RNC puts out almost to the letter. Sheer intellectual laziness is not a sufficient explanation- the DLC puts out it's own spin as well. So if the journalists were simply interested in downloading pre-written press releases with a minimum of effort and/or investigation, both side's spin would be more or less equally adopted. No, there has to be some extra factor as to why conservative spin is choosen consistantly over liberal spin. What is the consistant motivation behind the consistant behavior?

I will accept without comment the assertion that most reporters are liberal. However- most editors and pretty much all media owners are most certainly conservative, and increasingly desire their political opinions to be reflected in the media outlets they own. And that this desire translates into a Darwinistic selection mechanism favoring conservative reporters and/or reporters who are willing to pretend to be conservative.
The fearless reporter who reports the truth no matter what the cost will sooner or later will discover it costs him promotions, payraises, and even his job. The reporter who mindlessly repeats liberal spin without any facts to back it up will be fired/demoted even sooner. The reporter who mindlessly repeats conservative spin, on the other hand, is rewarded. This consistant motivation then sets up the consistant behavior of reporting conservative fantasy like fact.

This is one reason why getting people onto the internet is so important- most people don't realize just how manipulative the media is, until they see the other side. Also, don't overestimate how effective this media smearing is. Gore got it about as bad as it can get, and still managed to win more votes than Shrub. And, basically, no one who voted for either Gore or Nader is going to vote for Bush in 2004 (assuming Nader gets the nomination)- the only question is how many people who voted for Shrub will switch. But it's still annoying.

I told you so! (in reference to this blog entry).

I'm not sure wether to laugh or cry, but according to Joe Conason, the reason Bush wants to go to Mars is... oil drilling contracts for Halliburton.

The problem with satire these days is keeping ahead of reality. Personally, as little as I think of the Bush administration, I still have a hard time buying this. The alternative explanation- that Bush was looking for some cheap political points and no more intends to actually fund a manned mars mission than he does to balance the budget- is just so probable I can't give it up.

The problem with manned space missions, from a bilk-the-goverment perspective, is that they actually have to work. No, ballistic missile defense is much better. The likelyhood that anyone will actually launch ballistic missiles at us is so small I don't worry about- cargo containers, that's the cost-effective way to get nukes to the US. So star wars allows you to rack up the tens of billions of dollars of profit, and what you deleiver will never be used. If it's never going to be used, quality control becomes so much simpler...

Most of the resistance against the US occupation is currently comming from the Baathist/Sunni triangle- Baghdad, Tikrit, and places like that. Unfortunately, it's starting to sound like the Sunni majority is getting unhappy with US plans.

Of course, one of several problems we are facing in Iraq is to prevent Shi'ite majority of the country from converting it into an anti-US theocracy like shi'ite dominated Iran. What fun, what fun.

So your ex-treasury secretary is on sixty minutes telling the world that you intended to invade Iraq days after taking office, what do you do? If you're the Bush whitehouse, you start trying to discredit the messenger. Even if you don't succeed, you've changed the subject. What the Mighty Wurlitzur grab onto this like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver.

The occassional Allen Hollub newsletter points me at this this gem.

We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.

This has implications all over- from programming to politics (Ed: there is something else?). For example: does Bush even recognize what a bad job he's doing?

This is one I'm going to have to cogitate on for a while.

And just in case you might be thinking that the mainstream media isn't biased, read this article over at the American Conservative (a left-wing pinko commie rag, no doubt).

But it will be on the internet.

Interesting news on Salon today. A new poll shows vastly increased usage of the internet (and, unfortunately, cable news) as a source for campaign news, compared to four years ago. About 1 person in 3 gets at least some news from the internet, while 13% primarily get their news from the internet. And an increasing number are worried about bias in the mainstream media.

Josh Marshall is accusing Dean of lying, or at least accusing Dean of saying things that are not true.

Too bad for Josh that in digging through old emails, I found this gem from the New York Times. Let me quote the relevent section (currently it's viewable only to subscribers):

"At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that's too simple a question," General Clark said.

A moment later, he said: "I don't know if I would have or not. I've said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position -- on balance, I probably would have voted for it."

...

"I want to clarify -- we're moving quickly here," Ms. Jacoby said. "You said you would have voted for the resolution as leverage for a U.N.-based solution."

"Right," General Clark responded. "Exactly."

Sorry Josh, you lose.

The news of the hour seems to be that former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is claiming that the administration had plans to invade Iraq back in January 2001- long before 9-11 "changed everything".

This is important because it confirms the influence the PNAC crowd had over thinking in the Whitehouse. That the invasion of Iraq was a planned afair. And if the invasion of Iraq was planned before 9-11, what to make of the PNAC call for a new Pearl Harbor?

Hmm. Thinking about it, I want this document preserved. I just grabbed a copy and made sure the quote is still there. Here's the MD5 fingerprint (taken with md5sum on my Redhat 9.0 box):

46d699cdca6a13ce3930da218c12b1e6 RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

This isn't my document to distribute, so I'm not putting it up on the web unless they take it down or change it. I just want to keep a copy myself. Yes, I'm being paranoid. Can I recomend you keep a copy too? Currently their attitude is "Yeah, we said it, so what?'" But if war crimes tribunals start getting called, expect this attitude to change in a hurry. And the evidence to disappear.

I have to admit it, but Josh has a point. Actually, I think wether Clark was anti-war a year ago is open to debate, but frankly I don't think it matters that much one way or another. And compared to some of the shit that has been directed Dean's way recently, it's pretty milquetoast.

What especially annoys me about this is that there are so many legimate reasons to critize Clark, why bother bringing up such a loser issue? You want to talk experience- has Clark every ran for office before? Or put together a budget? Or appointed a judge? Or managed an economy? Or rammed a bill through an uncooperative legislature? Or passed a highly unpopular peice of legislation (>70% disapproval rating) and managed to get re-elected immediately afterwards? Does Clark have the knowledge to spot when the pharma companies are blowing smoke? Or the financial companies? Health care and prescription drugs have been big issues in every election in the last decade- it's not that radical to think they'll still be important this election. And if corporate governance should be an issue. Yeah, Clark has the foreign policy experience over Dean. But foreign policy is Bush's home turf, it's where he wants to direct attention, away from the problems here at home. Try to run a campaign based solely on foreign policy and be steamrollered.

And Clark hasn't impressed me with his leadership ability. Take a long hard look at how he got into this campaign. The second the answer to wether or not he was going to run became "maybe" he should have started boning up on all those aspects of being president he doesn't have any experience with, thinking about the issues he hadn't really thought about before, and deciding what his positions would be. But no. Instead we get "Mary, help me!", and Clark still working out what his positions are even in general weeks later. I thought the month he took wimbling with his thumb up his butt he had spent studying. I would have thought that as a general he would have had the decisive thing down- maybe a week tops to make a 99% sure decision, then start calling in the experts. Obviously not.

The man is a tabula rasa, and thus actually hard to nail down. He doesn't have a record, therefor he doesn't have a record to run from. Or on. In this sense is like Arnie in California, or Ventura here in Minnesota. Or, I would argue, Bush in 2000 (who technically had a record as governor of Texas, but the record was so unexamined that he could run as a tabula rasa). The great advantage of tabula rasas is that having no record, they can define themselves however they wish, and be all things to all people. The big disadvantage of tabula rasas is getting re-elected when they no longer have no record and can no longer be all things to all people. Jesse the Governor discovered this. Arnie is going to discover this the hardway (if he isn't recalled). And I think Bush is going to discover this. The question is not just who can get elected in 2004- I think a chimpaneze could get elected in 2004, I think Bush is going to defeat himself. The question is who can get re-elected in 2008.

But this sort of BS doesn't help the campaign. When a Dean campaigner sees a Clark supporter, or a Kucinich supporter, or a CMB or Sharpton or even a Kerry, Gephardt, or Lieberman supporter, what they should see is a potiential Dean supporter. Attacking Clark is, in some sense, attacking Clark supporters. And that's stupid, and something we shouldn't be doing. This is the second real gaffe (as opposed to media distortion gaffe) I've seen the Dean campaign make in short order. I wish we'd cut it out.

Here is today's required reading. Income instability among the poor and middle class has been on a fairly dramatic and steady increase over the last thirty years. Meanwhile, real earning potiential has not risen signifigantly. The downsides are much greater, and there is less upside.

What has been happening, I think- and this is yet more evidence for it- is a steady shift of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich, especially the neuvo-aristocracy. The rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed.