Jesus is back in Bakersfield:

At a contentious meeting Thursday, board members of one of the largest secondary-school districts in the state voted to change “winter recess” to “Christmas recess” and “spring recess” to “Easter recess.”

The decision was made amongst much controversy, including one protester setting fire to himself, which naturally attracted the most media attention.

The bigger issue, of course, is why the board decided to do this:

Officials of the 36,000-student Kern High School District said they were reclaiming terms that had been needlessly washed away by a tide of political correctness in the late 1980s.

Hmm. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with the terms “Winter” and “Spring.” The holiday breaks do have a foundation in the Christian holiday seasons (though most religious holidays do overlap), the terms “Winter” and “Spring” are accurate and sufficiently descriptive. There is no need to change the terms to overtly religious titles when those terms would necessarily exclude significant portions of the population. (I would not speak of offense, because everyone tends to be offended by something, no matter what.)

What is worrying to me is the use of being tired of “political correctness” as an excuse to inject religion into government-run public affairs. That is a highly disturbing precedent to set, and could be used to create any number of religious incursions that could then be used to excuse even more religion in government and mandatory public settings such as schools. Hey, let’s say that we’re tired of all this “political correctness” that says we can’t have “meditation” in classes–and hey, even “meditation” is part of that dirty, nasty “political correctness”! This is a Christian nation, after all, let’s get that out in the open, and have good, wholesome prayer in classes. It’ll be good for the kids.

And please, no “oh, that couldn’t happen here” response. It does happen here, and many people want to make it official and nationwide (and have for some time), or go further into religious instruction.

It seems pretty clear that the Bakersfield case is more one of religious advocates wanting to press their religious agenda and less one of being tired of some oppressive sense of fairness and neutrality–although I suppose that from a certain point of view, both of those could be seen as the same thing.

This story out recently:

The Japanese government recently looked into the possibility of developing nuclear warhead, a news report said Monday, citing an internal government document. …

The Japanese daily Sankei reported that experts affiliated with the government estimated that it will take at least three to five years for Japan to make a prototype nuclear warhead.

The experts also estimated that Japan would need to spend about 200 billion yen ($1.68 billion) to 300 billion yen ($2.52 billion) and mobilize several hundred engineers to produce a prototype nuclear warhead, according to Sankei.

The interesting thing here is that Japan is claiming that it would take three to five years to develop a nuke, after spending tons of money and employing “several hundred engineers.” This when Japan has been pretty much universally recognized as being within one year of producing a nuke; this Federation of American Scientists’ report from 1998 is perhaps a pretty solid source:

Japan’s extensive nuclear industry contains tons of already separated reactor-grade plutonium, which could be used for nuclear weapons. Within a year of deciding to develop a nuclear weapon, Japan could acquire the weapons materials and a workable design by drawing upon available unclassified information and its technical expertise.

So, what does the difference in the report mean? Were international estimates too high, overestimating Japan’s ability to fabricate a nuclear weapon? Or perhaps there is a difference in the type of nuclear weapons capability each estimate was measuring, with the FAS report guessing at the time to produce one nuke and the internal Japanese report estimating how long it would take to build a minimal arsenal? Maybe the Japanese study overestimates the time and effort needed due to bureaucratic or engineering standards that call for such so that actual performance can exceed expectations. Or, perhaps, the report is simply a fake or hoax of some sort.

However, the probable truth is that the report is real; Japan, after all, has been making various noises recently about a nuclear weapons program in response to North Korea’s own program. And, one has to admit, even if Japan is dead against building nukes, it would only be a reasonable, rational move to at least study what is or is not possible, just to have the information on hand in case things change. After all, it is not inconceivable that Japan and America could have a falling-out and North Korea could become much more overtly threatening in any number of ways; in such a case, Japan would have a real reason to consider nukes.

The worry, however, is not just that Japan might develop nukes (which itself would be enough of a worry, if for no other consideration than how other nations in the region would react), but that a nationalistic government of Japan were to have nukes along with a resurgent desire to assert itself militarily–something which also is not inconceivable.

This just in:

Top U.S. military commanders in Iraq have decided to recommend a “surge” of fresh American combat forces, eliminating one of the last remaining hurdles to proposals being considered by President Bush for a troop increase, a defense official familiar with the plan said Friday.

They have “decided,” hmn? Let’s see, in this administration, who is the “Decider”?

But the recommendation by commanders in Iraq is significant because Bush has placed prime importance on their advice. The U.S. command in Iraq decided to recommend an increase of troops several days ago, prior to meetings in Baghdad this week with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the defense official said.

Oh, yeah, that’s right–the whole “surge” thing is Bush’s idea, his way of politically reacting to the Democratic control of Congress and their desire to end the conflict due to the, um, what’s that called… oh yeah, the “will of the people.” So Bush instead says, “No, the War in Iraq is not a failure, in fact, I’m gonna show you by sending in more troops, and it’s gonna work unless those darn Democrats pressure me to withdr–hey!!!”

But, of course, Bush has to appear to be listening to his generals. After all, he made a big point about having done that from the start, even though every shred of objective evidence tells us the exact opposite. So, of course, this “surge” idea is one that the generals were for all along.

Commanders have been skeptical of the value of increasing troops, and the decision represents a reversal for Casey, the highest-ranking officer in Iraq. Casey and Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East who will step down in March, have long resisted adding troops in Iraq, arguing that it could delay the development of Iraqi security forces and increase anger at the United States in the Arab world.

The most interesting thing here: I don’t see much indication that the press is willing to get nearly enough backbone to call this for what it so transparently is: Bush ordering the generals to publicly recommend a strategy they disapprove of so that Bush can look politically sound as he sends hundreds more of our young men and women out to get killed in his very own meat grinder of a quagmire.

Update: Since I wrote this this morning (and didn’t have a chance to upload due to a busy holiday schedule), someone on Kos has blogged on this, as I am sure have others. The bloggers, of course, are not reticent. But the straight-copy reporters can’t go so far as stating the obvious in what is essentially a job that repeats the official party line where Bush is involved. They cannot dare cross that line.

As part of the fiscal responsibility pledge they have made, Democrats are putting a 1-year moratorium on the practice of earmarks. That is the practice of Congress detailing how money is spent by a department once the money has been given in the budget–e.g., you have to spend this much on such-and-such a project in my district.

Now, it’s interesting the slant newspaper stories can take. This story goes on and on about how some of the earmarks are focused on worthy causes, which will be cut out if the Democrats get their way.

Although earmarks are best known for financing big public works projects, the moratorium will come with a distinct human cost.

Like a $250,000 earmark for Best Buddies International in Miami to help provide friendships and employment for the mentally retarded. A $250,000 earmark for a Kansas City domestic violence shelter’s effort to expand a school-based anti-violence program. Another $250,000 earmark to expand services to the vision-impaired in Alaska. And $50,000 for the Hungry Lil’ Readers Club in Minneapolis.

Makes it sound like the Dems are doing something doubly bad: cutting charity spending so they can terminate public works projects.

But then you read the NY Times article on the same story, and suddenly the Democrats’ move, while earning the scorn of at least one Senator (Pete Domenici), is ineffective and hollow:

But many if not most earmarks are recurring items, like money for a university research program or a public works project that Congressional sponsors insert each year. No Democrats have suggested any plan to cut or redirect that money.

Executive agencies know from past experience where the appropriations committees want that money to go. They have no incentive to cross the lawmakers who will be financing their future operations. And it can be costly to scrap a research or public works project for one year only to start it up again when Congress renews its instructions.

Either way, the Democrat’s new move to curb spending is getting drubbed–but it is interesting that these two stories, both from mainstream news sources, run almost completely contradictory to each other. Either the move is toothless or it’s not. It can’t be both ineffectual and harming good projects. Maybe the McClatchy writers just completely missed the story. But it does show how at least one of the stories has got to be dead wrong. And that gives one pause about any story you read in the media. Essentially, you have to cast a skeptical eye on just about everything, and try to piece together the truth from what can be sensibly reasoned.

Of course, none of this kept Bush from trying to take credit for it:

The moratorium has the backing of President Bush, who called it “a good start” toward imposing fiscal discipline on Capitol Hill. In his weekly radio address Dec. 16, Bush said that the number of earmarks has exploded in recent years, going from about 3,000 in 1996 to 13,000 in 2006. He said Congress has created a system where earmarks are often approved with no public debate.

As if Bush had been working hard all this time to curb spending–when, in fact, he has issued one and only one veto, and that was to limit stem cell research. But all those massively pork-barrel-laden bills that came before him he signed without so much as blinking. And now the Democrats, not even in charge yet, aren’t do enough to suit Bush to cut spending. Clearly, he sees fiscal responsibility about to be imposed and wants to make it look like he was the one who forced the Democrats to do it all.

A fascinating experience, reading the news.

“Giant squid are a major source of food for sperm whales.” [Source]

Oh.

The Republican Right Wing is beginning to look pretty damn scared of Barack Obama. Hillary they think they can handle; they hate her with a passion, and they believe that they could have a field day blackening her name and making her into the Second Coming of either Lucifer or John Kerry. Edwards they feels they have already beaten, and they can use his association with Kerry to club him over the head. Both have legislative or other histories that could be leveraged against them, or other ways to ridicule or belittle them, always a favorite with the wingnuts.

But Barack Obama scares the living crap out of them. The reasons are simple: he has no sordid, scandalous past. He has no long track record they can hang him with. But most importantly, he is a liberal who does not come across as a liberal. He comes across as centrist, reasonable, and personable as hell. His books are well-written, intelligent, and thoughtful, but can’t be pigeonholed as liberal-elite. Even more, he can see both sides of an issue; where Bush claimed to be a uniter-not-a-divider but in action was anything but, Obama does not ostentatiously claim this, but he does display it. He does not give the easy answers to people, he doesn’t tell them exactly what they want him to say–but they leave feeling that they’ve been dealt with straight. And as far as straight-talking is concerned, he makes Bush look plastic and cheap by comparison.

In short, Obama is about as liberal as you can get while having the charisma that could appeal across centrists and even fairly deep into conservative territory. There is a couple I know who are very, very conservative; they hate Clinton and love Bush, and tend to be right-wing mostly across the line. And they like Obama.

This is what brings terror into conservative pundits and political players. If Obama can dodge Hillary and stride out in front without getting too sullied in the primary process, then he stands to be a major threat to John McCain or Rudy Giuliani. Early polls show him doing not much better than Hillary against them, but then again, Hillary has huge name recognition and Obama still has relatively little. Give him a national stage and time, and he’ll start steamrolling.

So what are the wingnuts doing? Well, they’re attacking him on the only point that their slimy hands can seem to get a grip on: his name. That’s right, they’re down to making a deal out of his name, and then trying to build on that. It began a few weeks ago, when GOP strategist Ed Rogers started using Obama’s middle name, Hussein, when talking about him. And when a person doesn’t use their middle name normally and you start strutting it out, it is done specifically to make a point. Imagine if people started calling “Dubya” “George Walker Bush.” Immediately you would wonder why. And with Barack Hussein Obama, the subliminal point is clear: think Obama, think Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Then it escalated: Jeff Greenfield not only mirrored the use of his middle name, but also compared his no-tie casual look to that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There’s no coincidence that the pundit chose the Iranian president, a threatening Islamic figure.

Now the gloves are off. Apparently confident that they can parlay the man’s name into a conviction that he’s an Islamic terrorist, another right-wingnut is now intimates that Obama, a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, is actually a Muslim and insinuates that he is the enemy, or at least on the side of the enemy (as loosely defined by the wingnuts as anyone who is Muslim):

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

So in their newfound panic, we are beginning to see signs of how dreadfully scummy these people are going to get over the next few years.

That’s the given title for the last Harry Potter novel. No details on it yet, aside from JK Rowling’s statements about writing the novel, including her experience about having an “epic dream” where she was both Harry Potter and the Narrator. That’s interesting in that the Harry Potter novels have almost exclusively been told from Harry’s standpoint (the exceptions being the first few chapters of the sixth novel only). But then, the dream was more dreamlike than storylike:

The author says: “For years now, people have asked me whether I ever dream that I am ‘in’ Harry’s world.

“The answer was ‘no’ until a few nights ago, when I had an epic dream in which I was, simultaneously, Harry and the narrator.”

She says: “I was searching for a Horcrux in a gigantic, crowded hall which bore no resemblance to the Great Hall as I imagine it.”

So far, it seems like she’s in the Harry Potter novel…

“As the narrator I knew perfectly well that the Horcrux was jammed in a hidden nook in the fireplace, while as Harry I was searching for it in all kinds of other places, while trying to make the people around me say lines I had pre-arranged for them.”

…and we begin to see the author entering the dream. And then:

“Meanwhile waiters and waitresses who work in the real cafe in which I have written huge parts of book seven roamed around me as though on stilts, all of them at last 15ft high.”

She adds: “Perhaps I should cut back on the caffeine.”

…then it gets to look much more like the frenzied dream of a harried author under a demanding deadline. OK.

Of course, if one wants to read a fully-completed Harry Potter novel series, then read the first five published and then my brother’s sixth, seventh–and later, eighth novels to complement Rowling’s first five.

Let’s look at a few Safari add-ons this time. By itself, Safari is a good browser, but has very large, gaping holes in its features. For example, being unable to shut down flash animations or animated gifs; that’s a deal-stopper for me right there. Fortunately, there are two very powerful helper apps available for Safari.

The first is PithHelmet. Described on its site as “an ad blocker for Safari,” it does much more than just that. But in that primary role, it does a great job. Just install PithHelmet, and pretty much all of those annoying, flashing, jumping ads simply evaporate. You can go with just that, or you can delve into the PithHelmet menu or preferences and start really controlling how your web sites appear. The add-on will allow you to set very specific preferences for each and every site that you visit. For example, if you want Flash on by default but one site you enjoy annoys you with non-advertising flash animations (ads will be blocked anyway), then you can turn Flash off for that site only. Or the reverse–if you have animated images turned off by default but you want to see them move on this or that particular site, PithHelmet allows that. In fact, each site can be customized by a few dozen settings. PithHelmet is $10 shareware, but you can use it for free by clicking “I paid” in the preference pane. I paid for it, it’s such a good add-on.

The second app, which I just recently found, is SafariStand (why these guys can’t put spaces between the two words of the app names I don’t know). SafariStand also has a good number of features. The two I use most are the ability to make “open in new window” links open to a new tab instead, and the ability to remember all the web pages you had open when Safari unexpectedly quits (something which happens more than I’d like). One feature I don’t use but is often cited as cool is the ability of SafariStand to create a sidebar with thumbnails of all the pages you have open; it acts like a graphic tab bar, and allows you to switch to or close any tab open in the window. SafariStand also has powerful search tools for your bookmarks, surfing history, and html documents on your computer. It also adds some extra preferences, like killing gif animations. You can even use the period and comma to toggle through your open tabs–but only if keyboard actions are not pointed at the address bar or some open text area. More is explained in these reviews here and here. SafariStand is free.

Both of these add-ons used the SIMBL method. Install PithHelmet first, and it’ll install SIMBL for you. That might make installing SafariStand easier.

For more on pimping up of your Safari, visit the appropriately-named Pimp My Safari.

I know that some of you will say that Firefox does most or all of this and does it better, and so on. Maybe so, but I did try Firefox, several times, using the extensions people pointed to and whatever else I could find on the Mozilla site, but in the end, it just didn’t suit me right, and there were too many problems. With Safari, the interface is just how I like it, and with these two simple add-ons, I can get all the alterations I want or need… for the moment.

Well, I finally saw one. Several, in fact. I’ve wanted to see the Cedar Waxwing for some time now, and frankly had not even heard that they existed in my home town until recently. It’s as if every time I come home, I discover new species of birds that seem exciting, but when I mention them, everyone says, “Oh yeah, they’re everywhere and have been around for as long as I can remember.” A few years ago that included the Stellar’s Jay, a very nice crested Jay, one of the first subjects of my new camera (before the nosebleed hit).

This time my birdwatching is newly affected by the acquisition of a new video camera, one with 30x optical zoom (almost twice my digital camera’s range). That advantage, however, is mitigated by the small image size (720 x 480), making it roughly the same–and transferring to the blog has problems due to interlacing (the subject and camera shot must be still for a good part of a second for a clear shot to be delivered). So let’s begin with the two shots given by the video camera:

…and contrast those with the digital camera shots, which also come with enlargements if you click on them. The quality is much nicer:

One good point about the video camera: you get a much better selection of shots and angles due to the continuous filming.

In this particular case, I only had a clear shot of the birds for a minute or so before they flew off. I will try again tomorrow to see what I can get of them and what other birds may be viewable as early on as I can manage to drag myself out of bed…

This from one of the more rational (and therefore former) voices of the Bush administration:

Powell said US troops should not act as policemen. He described the US army as “about broken”, with a shortage of equipment, officers going on repetitive tours and gaps in military coverage elsewhere in the world.

“The current active army is not large enough and the marine corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they are being asked to perform,” he said.

Not like this is news or anything; just a few days ago I commented on this fact myself. But note what Powell said: that the current army and marine corps isn’t large enough to handle missions asked for today. This is significant. If you recall, the Clinton administration was harshly criticized by Republicans for not maintaining a military capable of handling two new theaters of combat. This from the military’s 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review Report (PDF file):

For planning purposes, U.S. forces will remain capable of swiftly defeating attacks against U.S. allies and friends in any two theaters of operation in overlapping timeframes.

Of course, when it came down to it, the military Clinton maintained was able to go into Afghanistan and Iraq and swiftly command control of those countries. That they were unable to maintain a long nation-building phase while fighting substantial insurgencies armed with weapons looted because the administration allowed it and made dozens of other catastrophic strategic blunders, well, which military in the world could be asked to handle that? The point is, Clinton’s military was ready to handle the QDR challenge when it came down to it, despite all the whining right-wingers did about his stewardship.

Well, now it is Bush’s military. After six years of getting virtually everything he asked for in regards to the military (and just about everything else), he now owns the military; he can no longer blame Clinton for its state. And its state is now so weak and depleted that it cannot handle the missions it is being asked to handle today–much less meet the challenge of “swiftly defeating attacks” in a single new theater of operation, much less two. [And this is the military that right-wingers would have you believe makes tyrants of the world tremble, I would presume solely because Bush is at the helm.]

Bush was supposed to be the pro-military guy, the guy who would take the weakened and strapped military that Clinton had broken down, and build it up into a robust, bristling military capable of handling anything. The guy who bashed Clinton for nation-building and said that what he had been doing in Bosnia was depleting our forces. And now, this military genius has so depleted our forces that they can’t even handle the current mission, let alone any new threats.

So, why is almost no one commenting on this fact?

And hey, remember one of the main reasons why our military is stretching itself so thin in Iraq? We’re supposed to be building up the Iraqi military so “we can stand down when they stand up.” A bit more than a year ago, we actually saw Iraqi military readiness drop, not increase; and today, there is much evidence that this is still the case. And if you think that all this is a plot by liberal media or left-wing bloggers to fool everyone, why not take it from Iraqi Vice President al-Hashemi himself (again from the Powell article):

Yesterday Iraq’s Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, called for more US soldiers in Baghdad to quell sectarian violence. Mr Hashemi made the plea even though the Shia-dominated Iraqi government has proposed shifting US troops to the capital’s periphery and having Iraqis assume primary responsibility for security in the city.

“Who is going to replace the American troops?” asked Mr Hashemi, who met Mr Bush in Washington last week.

“Iraqi troops across the board, they are insufficient, incompetent, and many of them corrupted,” Mr Hashemi told CNN.

So it’s not just our military that’s broken.

And before some pissant right-winger comes along and tries to accuse me of blaming the troops (which is itself a roundabout way for right-wingers to blame the troops instead of Bush), let me make it clear that this is a failure of administration and policy, not the troops on the ground. Our military depletion is not due to our troops performing a whit below what they are trained for, it is due, fully and exclusively, to this administration’s incompetence.

So, all told, great job, President Bush!

I tend to challenge statements that I encounter, and that sometimes gets me into trouble. If someone makes a statement and there is a possible alternate view, I have a tendency to blurt out the alternate view, even if I don’t agree with it or have no stance on the issue myself. This sometimes makes people think I disagree with them when I really do not. One example might be the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; if an American says they were necessary, I challenge that; if a Japanese says they were criminal, I challenge that, too. Probably because both sides deserve challenging, mostly because of who is saying it. If an American said that the bombings were a crime, or a Japanese said that they were necessary, I probably would be less inclined to challenge either one–probably because the statements would sound much less self-serving.

I just came across this news story:

NAGASAKI — The policy chief of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Shoichi Nakagawa, on Sunday called the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 a “crime” that was impermissible from a humanitarian viewpoint.

In a speech given in the city of Nagasaki, Nakagawa said, “The U.S. decision to drop such a thing was truly impermissible on humanitarian grounds…Atomic bombings are a crime,” referring to the Aug 9, 1945 bombing of the city three days after an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. [no link due to the site’s ephemeral nature]

My immediate response? I would want to ask this person if he was aware that during WWII, Japan had not one but two atomic weapons programs. And how come that never comes up when a Japanese politician is speaking out against the evils of atomic weapons? Yes, some might think that it would give the politician less moral standing to make a claim of outrage. But in my opinion, stating such a thing would give him much more more standing to make such a claim. However, somehow I don’t think that this is the kind of moral statement that Nakagawa was thinking about, considering that he has recently suggested that perhaps Japan should consider arming itself with nuclear weapons.

And that’s where I start to worry a bit about statements like the one Nakagawa made about the U.S. bombings being a crime. Within the context of his other recent statements, it could be building to something less than encouraging. “It’s a country’s right to protect itself,” Nakagawa said about a month ago. “Of course we need to examine all options, including missile defense.” The “all options” bit is further worrying.

OK, so perhaps Nakagawa is simply raising the nuclear specter in order to put a few bargaining chips on the table for Japan, maybe to rattle the North Koreans a bit. For all I know, Nakagawa might be stridently anti-nuclear. But the things he has said are too close to what I would classify as ‘pulling a reverse-Santayana.’ I opined on the dangers here, but in short, if a nation forgets the bad things it did and focuses on its own victimhood, then starts saying that it has special standing to defend itself in light of that victimhood–it’s time to start watching out for armbands.

Within the context of moral superiority, the claim of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being crimes falls a bit flat due to Japan’s own atomic programs, and the rather inescapable fact that had Japan developed nukes first, there would have been no hesitation or remorse in using them first. Remembering that about yourself and your people is far more a claim to moral standing than is the claim of victimhood.

For Judith Regan. I mean, really. If you’re too scummy even for Fox News, then who on Earth would ever hire you? Outside of the RNC, that is.

Apple has got to be happy about this:

Image from Mac Daily News; alternate image from TIME here

The use of the iMac is not directly referential to the article; they simply had to use some computer, so they chose an iMac, probably for the simplicity of the appearance–though they over-painted the already-simple front-panel interface with a YouTube screen, used to indicate what you communicate over the World Wide Web. And as happy as I am that an Mac was chosen to represent the everyman’s interface with the web, I am even more pleased at the subject matter it represents.

I think that TIME made a fantastic choice here, though in the flowery prose and short storytelling, they do not explain the central point or theme all that well. They did run a story recently which also spoke to the heart of this issue but which also only described it peripherally. Maybe there’s an ink-and-paper version, or even an on-line one, which I am not seeing. But they do seem to be making a point here which I fully agree with, even if they are not making it clearly.

This is something of a special point to me, which I have blogged on before, about how the Internet is wonderfully subversive in that it opens up the potential for the individual to communicate to a world audience in a way never before possible. The main point is that before the Internet, communication was controlled by a very few people, a rarified “publishing class” to whom you had to genuflect in order to communicate with more than just a few hundred people in the world. The Internet bypasses the publishing class for the first time in history, and makes it possible for anyone to speak to the world based solely upon the strength of their message.

This is also one of the reasons I favor Network Neutrality so much: it keeps the playing field of communication relatively level and uncensored. Allow the Telecoms to control the Internet, and that becomes hobbled, with the average person’s voice suddenly becoming muted and leveraged, potentially even destroying the Internet as the free tool of communication I describe above and instead supplanting that new avenue of social discourse with simply yet another stripe of the publishing class, controlling what you say and taking tolls on yet another controlled and muted road.

Hopefully the Internet will stay what it is; the Democrats taking control of Congress, while not a guarantee, is a very good sign that it will. As such, the Internet is not a perfect answer; it is not a solution to the problem of unequal speech, but it is a step in the right direction. And any public celebration of that aspect of the Internet is something that I gladly welcome.

It’s interesting how things change when you see history from two different perspectives. See below two recountings of the 1984 election results from Indiana’s 8th District. It has come up because of the situation in Florida’s 13th District and the close vote there, and the options the Democrats have of simply not seating the Republican, who seems to have won by malfunctioning fiat of the paperless voting machines.

Here is the first telling of the ’84 tale:

[In 1984, there was] a vicious dispute [in the House] over a contested election, this time in Indiana. After a recount, Republican Richard McIntyre was declared the winner by 34 votes over Democratic incumbent Frank McCloskey. The Indiana secretary of state, a Republican, certified the McIntyre victory, but the Democratic House refused to seat him and left the seat vacant for four months while a special task force recounted all the ballots. The task force decided–and the full House agreed along party lines–that the Democrat had won by four votes. Republicans charged that the Democrats had recounted the ballots until their man was ahead and then promptly shut down the count. Newt Gingrich, the future House speaker, labeled the refusal to seat the certified winner “the Watergate of the House,” and led a walkout of GOP members from the chamber.

And here is the second:

In the 1984 election, Rep. McCloskey faced conservative state senator Rick McIntyre. Buoyed by President Reagan’s strong coattails, McIntyre trailed McCloskey by only 72 votes after the initial vote count. A tabulation error, however, resulted in an overcounting of McCloskey votes and the Republican Indiana Secretary of State certified McIntyre as the winner by 34 votes, ignoring other recounted tallies that actually showed McCloskey was in the lead. The Democratic-controlled House refused to seat either McIntyre or McCloskey and conducted their own recount. In the end, the House seated McCloskey after declaring him the winner by just four votes (116,645 to 116,641). The vote was largely along partisan lines and in response every Republican House member marched out of the chamber in protest.

This is what makes it so hard to judge from the sidelines: which story is true? Are both? That’s possible. The first story was told in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, and the slant is obviously that the Democrats overturned a valid vote. The second is the Wikipedia telling, which adds elements that make the Republican Secretary of State sound crooked. So how are we to take this story?

One disturbing thing is that were you to read just one of the two stories above, you would come out with the impression that one side played fair and the other did not. Another disturbing fact is that the full story is not easily findable; I know it must be out there, but probably not on a web page anywhere. But with the casual leaving out of a single fact (that the Indiana Secretary of State ignored other recounts, that there was a charge that Congressional Democrats stopped counting once their man won), the story takes on considerably different tacks.

However, there is something striking about this story: what the Republicans howled over in 1984, what Newt Gingrich later built his leadership upon ten years later, what they called an unacceptable injustice–pales in comparison to what that same party did in 2000. The Floridian Secretary of State using a ginned-up “felons” list, and then prematurely–and repeatedly–calling the race for the candidate of her own party. Ironically, this echoes not just what Republicans claimed the Democrats did in 1984, it echoes even more closely what the Indiana Secretary of State–a Republican–did to precipitate the crisis in the first place.

And now we come to the same impasse: in Florida’s 13th, the seat vacated by Katherine Harris, by ironic coincidence, the election is in serious question. Voting machines (which left no paper trail) were reported by a large number of people to have left out the House race, or not recorded the vote; these reports took place in Sarasota County, where the majority of affected voters were Democrats; and in those same areas, impossibly large undervotes were recorded. All point to the conclusion that the voting machines malfunctioned (I only reluctantly restrain myself from using scare quotes around the word “malfunctioned”), and the clear winner was the Democrat. However, the Republican state government “verified” the undervote and certified the Republican candidate to be the winner.

This leaves House Democrats in a difficult position: do they repeat 1984 and refuse to seat the Republican? If the Wikipedia telling is to be trusted, the situations are closely similar, in that Republicans in the state government ignored valid evidence and instead certified their party’s candidate to be the winner–but the Democrats stand to be tagged as the bad guys if they essentially do the exact same thing–even though they have far greater justification.

But Republicans have learned that in situations like this, possession is 9/10ths of the law; by having done their crookery first, they get to slag the Democrats for doing it later.

Hopefully, the courts will intervene and demand a special election–the only solution that is really viable. Here is a PDF file which lays out the argument very well. After all, the undervote was clearly not legitimate, and a special election (which Republicans thought was fine and dandy when the duly and legally elected California governorship was not to their liking) will serve to clarify the issue.

This time, without paperless voting machines, thank you very much.

I revisited Bayfront Park, but also went on to the Ravenswood Preserve and the Palo Alto Municipal Airport preserve. Tons and tons of birds, and some interesting ones today.

First, there was a Bufflehead at Bayfront. Not the most amazing-looking bird, but a really great name.

Here’s a bird from yesterday, but a nice shot of one: a Greater Yellowlegs:

Click for larger image

There were also more ordinary crows in attendance:

And among a flock of blackbirds, a Red-winged Blackbird:

Here is a neat new bird: a Cinnamon Teal:

There were quite a few sandpipers resting in groups, seen here along one Green-winged Teal who snuck in:

And a squirrel to break up the birds:

Here is a bird, possibly a flycatcher, which I could not definitely ID:

Here is a nice view of a White-crowned Sparrow:

And a sparrow I could not identify readily:

But one of the nicer birds I saw was at the Ravenswood Preserve near East Palo Alto, a lonely road out by the bay; a sharp burst of yellow, in the form of a Townsend’s Warbler:

There were a lot of interesting passerines out there; this one might be a Hutton’s Vireo:

And this might be a Field Sparrow:

A real surprise was a Ring-necked Pheasant that suddenly popped up as I was leaving:

That should do for now. There are more bird shots, but I’ll leave those for a bit later.

I think that I should build a widget that counts down the number of days until the iPhone and touch-screen video iPod will be released. The widget would display a different random number every four hours.

Today marked the release of many new rumors. This includes a hot rumor from a highly untested, not to mention vague, source: “Gizmodo Knows: iPhone Will Be Announced On Monday. I guarantee it. It isn’t what I expected at all. And I’ve already said too much.”

So far, everyone is taking this with a grain of salt approximately the size of Montana. Some people are even hedging that announcement to mean that it might not be next Monday, but some later Monday, which would be incredibly lame.

Think Secret, on the other hand, says that the release will be delayed, and is releasing yet another contradictory set of specs relative to earlier rumors. They say the iPhone will not be 3G, but instead will be 2.5G, and that Apple is trying to get carriers not to subsidize the iPhone, else it will become a simple “commodity.” They also say that it should be considered more an iPod with a phone than a phone with an iPod.

In the meantime, expectations are again high for Mac sales next year.

Here’s the question: does anybody really believe that anywhere between 20,000 and 100,000 extra troops in Iraq will really make a difference, long-term? Short-term, maybe, we could see some control return to the streets, but the way things are in Iraq, the control only lasts as long as our troops stay in place, and even then, at a cost in lives (money being a far second in concern).

Somehow, some people–possibly Bush included–believe that once some temporary control can be introduced, that it will become permanent, or at least will have enough of an effect to make a lasting difference. As if there is a threshold that can be so easily passed with a show of minor force that will tilt the country into peace, or at least a close enough stability so that we can “win” the conflict. Either that, or Bush thinks that he can parlay this into some sort of political advantage.

Neither scenario is understandable to me. How will any more troops make a difference now? Even in the unlikely scenario that more troops could make a temporary difference, that our troops could effect an immediate quiet on the streets of Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, how will that make the people involved in sectarian strife settle down and forget what has happened, or stop thinking about what will happen? Forget about the insurgency; the Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds will always be at odds over control of land, oil, and control. Each will remember for a very long time the violence carried out against their own over the past few years, and will act on it, if not now, then later. That alone is enough to shoot any stability to hell.

But we cannot forget about the insurgency either, even if we do not consider how it blurs into the sectarian violence and strife. Will even 100,000 troops get rid of them? Hell, no. Even if pushed back, they will still fight and otherwise bide their time, and like all insurgencies, they know that time is on their side and have known since the very beginning (this is not a matter of being buoyed by knowing America will leave if we admit Bush is wrong–they have always known that we will leave, it is the way such things work).

Then there are the surrounding nations–Iran, the Saudis, Syria, probably others as well–who both politically and religiously have a dog in the race, and who will effect influence on what happens.

Very simply put, there is potentially a great deal of power and influence to be dealt from a position of power in Iraq, and whatever government we support will, in the long term, not be able to hold together. It doesn’t matter how many troops we put on the ground now, the key is in the inherent stability of what has been built natively, what will remain after we have left. It is not stable, and it is not capable of standing on its own. This is not a matter of clap-your-hands-style believe-and-it-will-happen optimism winning the day. It is a simple, stark reality that the government in Iraq that Bush has built will collapse, and then it becomes a free-for-all between the many different groups and alliances, none of whom will shy away from massive violence to claw their way to the top spot. And there is no easy winner, no foreseeably viable power that can hold the country together. That’s why it doesn’t matter in the long run how long we stay. It is a matter of Iraq collapsing now or later, the only difference being how many of our own troops we lose.

From the beginning of the Iraq War, they may have been viable pathways to stability. A true international coalition with U.N. participation and oversight; an overwhelming number of troops; a clear interest in the people and their rights and stability rather than profit-taking and American self-interest; participation by many powers in the region with transparent control; a clear and smart exit strategy leaving a strong, stable and controlling force in power–and, of course, less of the colossal incompetence that has marked this administration’s management of Iraq. Fast, quick and decisive. Instead, we got this slow-motion tragedy of terror and ineptitude, and had to watch every last possible avenue which could have led to success blown to pieces as this administration pissed this war away.

What should be clear to anyone right now is that there is no realistic chance of success left, no matter how you define “success.” Who knows, maybe Bush and McCain truly believe that a Hail Mary play has a chance of working. But all it will actually do is deplete our military even more, kill our people and Iraqis even more, and eventually end in failure. Not a failure of the troops, who have done everything asked of them, but a failure of policy, a failure of the people doing the asking and commanding.

But the weakening of our military is not a consequence to be taken lightly. Remember back in 2000 when the conservatives complained that Clinton had hobbled the military? Well, Clinton’s military looks like a monumental powerhouse now next to the shambles Bush has made of it–and no one on the right seems to mind this at all, apparently in the deluded belief that Iraq was somehow necessary or worthwhile. The damage done will take a generation to repair, and that will lead to a weakening of our nation in the world at large, stopping us from acting in places where we should have acted–like, for instance, Afghanistan. In case you had lost track, the Taliban–the bad guys we thought we had won against–never went away, and are still fighting us in a place we should have cleaned out by now, but have not because we went into Iraq. In fact, our “allies” in Pakistan may even be harboring and helping them. And there are signs that it is only going to get worse.

Conservatives in denial, who believe that Bush has somehow strengthened our country, love to bring up Libya, as if their disarming had anything to do with Bush, as a sign of how powerful we are because Bush has all the evil tyrants in the world wetting themselves. What a crock. Bush has weakened the U.S. more than any U.S. leader in memory, and everyone in the world knows about it except wingnuts here at home.

The only best course of action for us right now is to concentrate as best we can in Afghanistan; to fight terror the way it should be fought, with tightly focused and solid investigative work and surgical strikes combined with global collaborative strategies; and otherwise to come home and heal ourselves–starting as soon as possible by voting out the lunatics who got us into this mess and taking on a new world view and strategy.

If we “stay the course,” however, we are literally asking for self-ruin.

While I’m here in the Bay Area, I’m going to try to get around to different places to do some birdwatching. I went to Bayfront Park today, a park at the end of Marsh Road between 101 and the bay, near (what else ) a sanitation plant. The weather so far has not been too great, but was good enough to get some good birding in.

One of the first birds I saw was instantly recognizable as a Curlew, in this case a Long-billed Curlew.

Around that area, a marsh pond right near the park entrance, were a ton of birds, more than you could shake a stick at. There were a lot of Northern Shovelers:

Several Green-winged Teals:

And some American Coots:

There were many beautiful, elegant American Avocets:

Click for larger image

There were a great number of Black-necked Stilts, all over the place:

Click for larger image

There were also a few Canvasbacks:

Birds I am less sure about but think I identified correctly included a Willet:

And a Greater Yellowlegs:

Here are some birds I am less sure about, and will fill in later as I get IDs. What could be a dowitcher; it has a broad bill more reminiscent of an oystercatcher, and the bill and the bird’s size make it less likely a dowitcher, but….

This was some larger duck or even goose I could not nail down:

And there are so many of these little guys, I have problems telling them apart:

There was also a flock of Canada Geese that you could get fairly close to:

And around them, a good number of colorful Western Meadowlarks:

It also seems that the Black Phoebe I saw around my house the other day was no fluke. There were several that I saw in the park, and most of them had an interesting perch-fly-and-reperch action going on.

Another interesting passerine: the White-crowned Sparrow, of which many grouped in bushes near the paths.

Finally, I was walking back to my car when I heard a hummingbird very close-by in a patch of low trees. I ducked into the patch, and one Anna’s Hummingbird flew right up and perched just a few feet away, letting me get some lovely shots. Click on either for blow-ups.

Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota has suffered a stroke some kind of head malady [Update: since I wrote this last night (but could not post due to lack of Ethernet access), it has been revealed that Johnson’s malady seems to have been a stroke caused by a congenital vascular formation; his prognosis is still unclear], and the situation has some pretty serious implications. Johnson is in surgery, and that means the condition is serious and could result in death. Johnson is a Democrat with 2 years left on a 6-year term, and the governor of the state is a Republican who would have the power to select any replacement he wants.

If Johnson lives, even incapacitated and unable to serve, the Senate Historian’s office said that the governor could not automatically replace him; he could only be replaced if he dies or resigns.

But here’s the thing: if Johnson died or became so incapacitated that he felt it necessary for him to resign for someone to represent the state, would the Republican governor appoint a Republican against the wishes of the Senator and the voters and in so doing wrest control of the Senate to the Republican Party?

Some say that there will be a lot of pressure for Governor Rounds to do so, and that would be the natural thing to expect. There is talk from Republicans about “that’s not how we want to take control of the Senate,” but after what they did with Paul Wellstone’s seat in neighboring Minnesota, I take that to be self-serving, posturing BS. I don’t know Gov. Rounds, maybe he’s an upstanding guy who’d be fair.

However, I do not in the least expect that to be the case. We’re talking about the Republican Party here, an organization that has displayed every propensity for stealing power they did not earn. The governor recall in California, the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the stealing of the 2000 elections, the non-census gerrymandering across the nation, the rigging of voting machines, disenfranchising voters with bogus “felons” lists, lying to voters about election times, places, and even party affiliations, jamming phone lines, the list goes on and on and on. This is a party without the barest shred of shame when it comes to grabbing power, and they will apparently break any law to do so.

This event will also rouse the conspiracy theorists; should Johnson die, he will be the third Democratic senator to do so in the third consecutive election where control of the Senate was a close thing. Mel Carnahan in 2000 and Paul Wellstone in 2002–both died in plane crashes shortly before the elections. In 2000, the Senate was split 50-50, and that with the dead Senate candidate beating John Ashcroft; had it not been for Carnahan’s widow taking over, the Republicans would have controlled 51-49. In 2002, Carnahan’s seat became open in a special election due to the special appointment, and was won by a Republican; furthermore, Wellstone’s death allowed his Republican opponent to win (Wellstone had been seen as safe for retaining the seat). These two turnovers gave the Republicans a 51-49 majority. In 2004, when the Republicans had a safe shot at maintaining control of the Senate, no Democratic senators died. But this year, when the Republicans expected to maintain Senate control but unexpectedly lost, a Democratic Senator falls just weeks after the surprise results.

Already the tinfoil hats are coming out, asking how long the CIA has been able to induce strokes. But in this case, the tinfoil hats can almost be excused–while it is almost certainly all a coincidence [Update: made more likely from the congenital nature of Johnson’s condition], it is one hell of a major, whopping coincidence.

Apple stock fell almost $3 on news of a report that Apple’s iTunes Store sales of music are “plummeting,” falling 65% over the past year. This report is stupid for several reasons.

First, the study did not measure overall sales; it measures only sales of “2,791 U.S. iTunes debit and credit card purchases between April 2004 and June 2006.” (This is not noted in most media articles.) Not all sales, not all types of sales, and not sales worldwide. In other words, a tiny and probably non-representative chunk of Apple music sales.

Second, the drop is measured by taking the peak sales number to compare by, and does not give a sense of the overall trends. Furthermore, the peak took place in January, after many people were given gift cards, and the “present” lull was actually last June, not necessarily a high sales month. Measure the sales in January 2007 and then you might have something.

Third, Apple does not profit much directly from iTS sales; it makes little difference to Apple whether people buy from the iTS or rip the music from purchased CDs, or even load pirated music onto their iPods–the key numbers for Apple are the sales of the iPods, which are booming.

The report as quoted in the media is alarmist, distorting, and out of context–and caused Apple’s stock to drop 3%. Like I said, stupid.

Update: I wrote this last night, but only uploaded it this morning (at my folks’ house, for some reason a blog entry won’t post if I do it from a WiFi connection, so I have to plug in an Ethernet cable to alter the blog). Since then, a new report from PiperJaffray blows the Forrester “study” to bits, noting Apple iTS sales growing steadily based upon sales milestones which Apple reports. The new report says that iTS sales have increased 78% between September 2005 and September 2007. Here’s another report from ZDNet also debunking the report.

Update 2: Now the writer of the report is backtracking, saying that he did not mean that Apple sales were “plummeting,” but that the media blew it all out of proportion. The writer says, “Now for the record, iTunes sales are not collapsing. Our credit card transaction data shows a real drop between the January post-holiday peak and the rest of the year, but with the number of transactions we counted it’s simply not possible to draw this conclusion… as we pointed out in the report.” He further clarifies by making most of the points I made: the data is partial, it measure a peak vs. the rest of the year, and Apple makes money from the iPods, not the music store.

Told ya!

Nevertheless, it took this joker a day to clarify himself while Apple’s stock tumbled 3%. Possibly because he recanted, and partially because it was clear to anyone who thought about it for a minute that the report was not worth paying attention to, Apple’s stock has since risen back to 30 cents above where it was when it fell yesterday.

Update 3: While more and more reports question the original story, and even the report’s author is debunking the media’s spin on it, some in the media–major news outlets, in fact–a few days later, are still running with the original and now completely discredited slant. Amazing.