27
May
Roger L. Simon asks a very simple question, "What does "fair and balanced" mean anyway?". This is a no-brainer to me, but for some reason it’s not a widely accepted definition. "It" being "just the facts m’am." Just give me the details, I’ll spin it, apply my own biases, and interpret it as I see fit. That I not being me as a blogger, but me as an individual person. It is not the obligation of bloggers to present the facts per se, it is the obligation of bloggers to present their interpretation of facts. If a blogger sees an obvious erroneous fact presented by the "media" environment, then it becomes their obligation to say so. Some blogs are great at presenting facts, but that is not the real definition of a "web log". When someone is making the claim they are "fair and balanced", that implies, to me, they are just going to present the facts on both sides of an argument.
And that’s all I want.
27
May
At this point, there is no source, no verification, and no purpose for the claims Newsweek made. Pathetic. Newsweek needs to clean house.
Bill Hobbs has the individual indictments on his web page. They make for some very interesting reading. The best one by far is John Ford’s. He actually apparently is taped saying he would kill someone if they were an FBI agent. He said it to, an FBI agent. He’s toast. The rest have apparently been released, not John Ford.
I’m still pondering, and I’m sure a lot of other people are as well, the effect all this will have on Harold Ford, Jr.. Ford was the rising star of the 2000 Democrat National Convention. Actually nominating Gore as a candidate for the presidency. He is John Ford’s nephew and it can be assumed there are a lot of connections there.
This could get very interesting before it’s over.
Well, that’s not a totally correct headline. Here’s why:
Hillary has possibly a 29% support base. 24% are saying "who else is going to run?". 7% are saying if nothing worse runs, I’ll vote for her. And 39% won’t vote for her under any circumstances. 39% negative vs 29% positive isn’t quite the spin USAToday is giving it at all. Considering no one else is really being considered as a candidate, that’s pretty awful actually.
Two other quick points:
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"This may also reflect that she has been recasting her image as a more moderate person," he ( Kohut of Pew Research ) says. I, and I’m sure most every political observer have noticed the swing to the middle if not the right by Hillary. IMO, this is the only chance she has. But, "An overwhelming 80% of liberals were likely to support her, compared with 58% of moderates and 33% of conservatives. Among those surveyed, 54% called Clinton a liberal, 30% a moderate and 9% a conservative." She still has a huge perception problem. ( Thanks to Kerry, Feinstein, and especailly Dean ). Where this problem will truly manifest itself is when a strong conservative jumps into the picture. And trust me, there will be a strong conservative.
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"Spokesmen for Sen. Clinton declined to discuss the survey. "She’s just focused on working and doing her job for New York," says Anne Lewis, a veteran Democratic operative working at Hillpac, Clinton’s political action committee." First she has to get past 2006. I think Hillary realizes that a lot moreso than most pundits. She might have an interesting race in 2006 with Jeanine Pirro jumping into the fray. If she wins in a cakewalk in ’06, that’s when you’ll hear a different tune from Anne Lewis. And justifiably so.
Until then, these polls are useless fodder.
26
May
There’s some interesting events occurring in Tennessee right now:
The Nashville City Paper has just posted a report the same names I had: State Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, and state Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland. The City Paper says the two were arrested by the FBI near the state Capitol this morning and led away in handcuffs.
UPDATE 9:44 a.m. : FOUR legislators have been arrested. WKRN blogger Brittney Gilbert reports that the FBI also nabbed state Sen. John Ford, D-Memphis, and state Sen. Kathryn Bowers, D-Memphis.
They have been charged with violations of the Hobbs Act. Better known as taking bribes to sponsor legislation.
This could get real interesting. Reminds me a lot of Boptrot in Kentucky many years ago.
25
May
I’ve been involved in a discussion on The Motley Fool with one of my buddies, CCSand, and others. Specifically regarding whether or not women voters tend to vote more with their libido than male voters. I expected to be trashed for suggesting such, and I was. However, I have experienced the political world, and do know that the better looking candidate usually wins. And, a better looking male will usually beat a better looking female. When put in the context of numbers ( I really like numbers ), it supports my point ( however loony it may sound ). Women nationwide represent 51.9% of the voting public. They are the majority bloc of voters, and have been for several years. Yet, even though women have made gains in the political spectrum, they still only represent 21.6% of statewide and national elected positions. There are no barriers preventing the majority bloc members from running, and no barriers to prevent the majority bloc of voters from supporting those candidates. But, they still lose. Here’s a state by state breakdown of whether women are the majority in a state or not, and how they fair politically. The only location where female elected positions almost equal the population of females is DC. The most liberal state, California, is 15% behind, which is worse than the perceived Southern conservative biases that would exist in Alabama, which is 13% behind. This doesn’t seem to be a political issue. It doesn’t seem to be social either as the society that exists in California couldn’t be more different than the society of Alabama ( women in Alabama are fairing 2% better ).
So, what is it? The commonly held philosophy of men voting with their penises just doesn’t hold up here. Men usually aren’t at all concerned with what another man looks like. The expectations that a clean shaven man, in the typical male view, does not indicate that he believes that good a lookin guy will do a better job.
I mean, look at who some of us have sent to DC:
.
However, men will more often than not vote for a male when running against a female. If the precept of “Men vote with their penises” were true, we’d be sending the women to office a lot more often than butt-ugly wimps like Waxman. True? If women vote for men more often than women, which seems to be supported by the numbers above, it would seem to me women tend to follow their genitalia more often than men do.
To challenge this theory, we need to run someone that would appeal to the penises. The Bella Abzugs of the world don’t work because I can assure you no man ever fantasized about Abzug in her political prime ( and if you did, I do NOT want to know about it. ):
We need someone that definitely appeals to the lowest instinct level and has no political appeal whatsoever. Plus, they have to be of legal age as well.
Therefore, I’m suggesting:
You heard it here first folks, “Jessica ’08!”.
23
May
Now that’s something I really didn’t expect to see anytime soon. What
that is is the Iraqi stock exchange.
It’s kinda small right now, in fact,
here’s every company
trading at this time. That’s a list of only 65 companies trading at
this time.
Now, the financial instinct I have is that their prices MUST be depressed at
this time.
( DISCLAIMERS: Buy at your own peril, to say the environment there is risky
is kind of a major understatement! Secondly, I am not investing in public stocks
at this time, so I won’t be buying into anything there. I just found this
interesting. )
I don’t even believe this one. Newsweek’s at it again. This was their February 2nd US cover:
And here’s their foreign cover:
It translates to:
The red text at the left just above the Newsweek logo says:
The big white and yellow text says:
The Day America Died The ideal of freedom falls to the ground due to Bush continuing in office.
Riding Sun blog absolutely nails it with their summary:
Aaron’s CC has a very appropriate response. My response is about the same. Newsweek has gone off the deep end. They have ceased being a legitimate news source ala Dan Rather.
My buddy Stormwarning posted this on The Motley Fool. I liked it so much I stole it ( again ). Here it is:
The Council on Foreign Relations is a very reputable and accepted website for accurate and objective information. It should also be noted (by any that care, that Steven Flynn. a member of CFR’s National Security Board is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies, and one of the authors of the Hart-Rudman Reports that predicted the attacks on September 11th, 2001.
Task Force on the Future of North America Proposes Roadmap to Security To cope with North America’s vulnerability to terrorist and criminal threats, increased economic competition from abroad, and uneven economic development at home, the Council on Foreign Relations’ tri-national Independent Task Force on the Future of North America has developed a roadmap to promote North American security and advance the well-being of citizens of all three countries. In a press release announcing the proposed roadmap, the Task Force applauds the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" issued in March by the heads of Canada, Mexico, and the United States but proposes what they are calling "a more ambitious vision of a new community by 2010 and recommendations for achieving it."
To ensure a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America, the Task Force proposes a number of specific measures:
Make North America safer:
* Establish a common security perimeter by 2010.
* Develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers.
* Develop a unified border action plan and expand border customs facilities.Create a single economic space
Spread benefits more evenly
Institutionalize the partnership
Building a North American Community Report of the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America
(its only 59 pages long)
…WHAT WE FACE Our countries face three common challenges: Shared security threats. Over the last decade, terrorist and criminal activity has underscored North America’s vulnerability. All of the 9/11 terrorists succeeded in entering the United States directly from outside North America, but the 1999 arrest of a person trying to cross the Canadian-U.S. border as part of a plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport shows that terrorists may also try to gain access to the United States through Canada and Mexico. This person was found to have cased Canadian targets as well, and al-Qaeda has publicly listed Canada as one of its prime targets along with the United States.Failure to secure the external borders of North America will inhibit the legitimate movement of people and goods within the continent. After the 9/11 attacks, delays at the Canadian-U.S. border prompted parts shortages in both countries, costing manufacturers millions of dollars an hour. Trade across the Mexican-U.S. border also suffered in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, which hindered U.S. economic growth. Continent-wide consequences mean that Canada and Mexico have an overriding commercial interest in increasing North American security, apart from any other considerations. In addition, future terrorist assaults could target critical infrastructure or sites in any of the three countries.
Beyond terrorism, all three countries must deal with a persistent flow of undocumented immigrants. International criminal activity also poses a continuing threat to public safety in the region, including drug- and gang-related violence along the Mexican-U.S. frontier. These cross-border threats cannot be adequately addressed by any one government alone.
Failure to address security issues will ultimately undermine gains on other matters. In the North American context, failure to collaborate effectively to address security issues will have a direct impact on commercial relationships as well as on our freedoms and quality of life.
Shared challenges to our economic growth and development. NAFTA has dramatically enhanced our ability to make better use of the abundant resources of our three countries, and thus made an important contribution to economic growth within North America. Over the last decade, however, our economies have faced growing challenges in increasingly competitive and globalized world markets. We need to do more to ensure that our policies provide our firms and workers with a fair and unfettered basis to meet the challenges of global competition. Unwieldy North American rules of origin, increasing congestion at our ports of entry, and regulatory differences among our three countries raise costs instead of reducing them. Trade in certain sectorssuch as natural resources, agriculture, and energyremains far from free, and disputes in these areas have been a source of disagreement among our countries. Furthermore, the NAFTA partners have been unable to resolve a number of important trade and investment disputes, which has created continuing tension in our commercial relationships.
Leaders in our three countries have acknowledged these challenges and discussed a wide range of responses during the 2005 Texas summit. Those involving changes in formal trade agreements will of necessity take time to negotiate and ratify. However, in other areas, notably regulatory cooperation and the expansion of transborder activities in critical sectors such as transportation and financial services, there is a shared recognition that the three countries can and should act quickly in ways that would make a real difference in improving the competitiveness of firms and individuals in North America.
Shared challenge of uneven economic development. A fast lane to development is crucial for Mexico to contribute to the security of the entire region. Mexico’s development has failed to prevent deep disparities between different regions of the country, and particularly between remote regions and those better connected to international markets. Northern states have grown ten times faster than those in the center and south of the country. Lack of economic opportunity encourages unauthorized migration, and has been found to be associated with corruption, drug trafficking, violence, and human suffering. Improvements in human capital and physical infrastructure in Mexico, particularly in the center and south of the country, would knit these regions more firmly into the North American economy and are in the economic and security interest of all three countries.
Leaders in our three countries have acknowledged these problems and indicated their support for a number of promising measures, including immigration reform, but there remains considerable scope for more individual, bilateral, and joint efforts to address development needs…
==============
Stormwarning- …..the Statue of Liberty reference had nothing to do with immigration, legal or otherwise, but that America remains open to people of all faiths and origins who wish to remain in touch with their heritage while adopting the United States of America as their new homeland.
And BTW, philosophically, I would deport anyone caught who has entered this country illegally.
Although Storm minimizes the content by suggesting one of the articles is only 59 pages, there is a TON of content in this topic. I would love to delve into each of these topics individually, and probably will through my interest in the legislative process, but I could blog for eternity and not cover it all as I would like. I would love some contributions from people out there.
As the price of oil skyrocketed, the pie in the sky hopes of the environmentalists and the pragmatists such as myself started to appear more realistic of finally seeing society accept the concept of alternatives to relying on petroleum. Yesterday was another important step in that direction:
Now, IMO, this puts Kentucky ahead of the curve. And, it puts Toyota ahead as well. For Kentucky, it’s producing a product that will most likely be sold about everywhere en masse but Kentucky. That means money coming into Kentucky. For Toyota, it establishes them as a leader for the future.
The Camry is a highly popular car, that pic you see is not the usual Camry, it’s the hybrid. Hybrids no longer look like something from the 25th century, they look like cars. Given the price of gas, these things are gonna sell.
IMO, this is the beginning of the true revolution in the automaking industry that will lessen our dependence on foreign crude. It won’t end it, but it will both send a signal to the Middle East that we are serious about lessening, if not ending, our slavery to OPEC, and, it will send a signal to the average Joe that hybrids are not a joke any more. And, lastly, as the auto industry realizes that people truly want hybrids and they can sell, newer, more efficient, and, for the hog minded, more powerful hybrids will emerge.
Now all they need to do is make a Camry that runs exclusively on ethanol and electricity and I will be in fifth heaven. And when they do, watch the price of oil drop to about $20. When Bush gave his speech on future energy needs in the US, and proceeded to get some of it passed, the price of oil dropped 10% immediately. I have a feeling that if this Camry sells like I expect it to ( more than 48,000 ), the price of oil will drop again. The only way OPEC can thwart the popularity of these cars is by dropping the price of oil to about $25 a barrel. And, I don’t rule out them doing just that.
