The GOP is gradually turning us into a country with third-world elections. We have to have international inspectors now, and despite that, it is almost a dead certainty that election fraud will still be rampant. And isn’t it interesting that it always just happens to favor the GOP, performed by them or on their behalf?

The Florida situation is an excellent example of this. In 2000, just one of the many GOP frauds committed there was the issuance of a “felons” list that illegally disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters, most of them Democrats. That in and of itself should have been punished with a jail sentence for the partisan administrator who ordered it–but instead, then-Florida state attorney general Katherine Harris, who swore an oath to protect the law she violated, was awarded with a safely Republican congressional district, like a loyal vassal receiving a fief for services rendered.

Still, even with the crime exposed, if not punished, one would think that (a) no one would dare try to do it again, and (b) if they did, the repercussions would be severe. And yet (a) they did it again, and (b) again nothing is being done. Jeb Bush and his people put together another “felons” list–and tried to keep it secret, too. It took a court order to have it made public, and when that happened, again it was found to have illegally disenfranchised thousands of voters and additionally omitted a strongly Republican demographic.

The brazen fashion which Jeb Bush is acting is simply one of the more blatant examples of voter fraud being committed nationwide, as we speak. The Guardian provides this article detailing many of the problems in Florida. But then there is also the active suppression of minority voters by Republicans, as that group usually votes strongly Democratic. This was widespread in Florida in 2000, but not by any means limited to there. A Michigan state senator, Republican John Pappageorge even said publicly, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election.” More than 80% of Detroit residents are African-American. Other violations and cases of voter fraud have occurred across the country.

But that doesn’t stop the right-wing rags from claiming that Democrats are planning “massive vote fraud.” Their evidence? Democrats in Iowa are registering and requesting absentee ballots in record numbers. Those bastards! How villainous! They aren’t supposed to do that!

Sorry. It would be more funny if it weren’t so damned despicable. This is what they’re turning our country into. Well, I say prosecute the hell out of the bastards. With extreme prejudice. If the laws don’t exist, then make ’em. After all, if we don’t have a fair vote, then our very own “democracy” is nothing but a very sad, pathetic joke. Don’t let them do this to us. Let the election results wait too long so that the fraud can be investigated and force a constitutional crisis, if absolutely necessary, but don’t let them get away with it like they did in 2000.

I can’t believe it, I got a one-shot solution to blog comment spam. At least for now…

I followed instructions laid out on other web sites to write an .htaccess file in the root directory–just a simple 4-line script in a text file uploaded to the main folder on my site, designed to block access to the Movable Type comment script file. And where I had been getting as many as a hundred spams per day, in the last four days I have gotten a grand total of two, both blocked by MT-Blacklist. Let’s hope it holds!

The script is available on the net, but if you’d like to know what it is (I’d rather not post it here) to use on your site, just comment (using any URL to block the email address from being visible) and I’ll email it to you.

Now to see if I can’t get rid of that blasted referrer spam…

From the Washington Post:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that the insurgency in Iraq is getting worse and that the U.S. occupation there has increased anti-American sentiment in Muslim countries, but he said successful elections in Afghanistan and Iraq would turn the situation around.

Usually the Bush administration officials just deny the obvious problems and claim that things are peachy. I guess Powell is at least reasonable enough to admit things are bad when they’re bad. But not reasonable enough to let go of the “they’re going to love us” pipe dream. Powell thinks that just because flimsy elections where only US-approved candidates are on the ballot will make insurgents close down shop and everything will be okay? This ranks right up there with Cheney’s “we’ll be greeted as liberators” flower-throwing-on-the-soldiers fantasy.

Just having elections won’t solve things there. Even the best effort with far more done (see Kerry’s plans) will be a doubtful thing. But just have an election or two, in the current state, where huge chunks of the countries will not even be able to vote because the insurgencies are so strong?

As one example of how disjointed from reality Powell is, he also said, “Just as we would have difficulty with partial elections here in the United States . . . I think it has to be throughout the country.”

What? “Just as we would have difficulty with partial elections here in the United States”? If we had “partial elections” here in the United States, it would be a disaster. Look what happened when we had just a few percent of the vote nullified in one state out of fifty–but to have 20 to 25% of the country not allowed to vote? We would no longer be a Democracy. Which, of course, is exactly where Iraq is now and will be for some time: the elections are a U.S.-sponsored sham.

When you hear the administration handing out yet more of this “just around the corner” baloney, that things will get better right after November, take it for what it is: fiction.

Four years. For four long years I’ve been getting this hick-town-quality cable service. For four years I’ve paid them for really bad cable. Very few channels. Almost none of the good channels. For four years I’ve filled out and sent in those questionnaires about which channels they should get, and for four years they’ve consistently gotten nothing but the bottom of the barrel. Before I went to all the trouble of switching to satellite, I even asked them, point blank, when is there any chance of even one or a few stations getting changed. Nowhere in the foreseeable future, they told me. Not going to happen, they told me.

So I went out and paid about $300 to get the satellite installed. Just today I gave them back the cable tuner, closing my account (it had been prepaid until this date). And just today I open the new cable TV guide in the mail that arrived yesterday–they sent it to me for next month despite my cancelation. And now guess what?

That’s right. From November 1st, just a month away, they’re going digital (with an analog converter supplied), and they’re adding every single channel I wanted. Seventeen new channels, in fact. And they’re reducing their rates on top of that.

Do I have the worst timing you’ve ever heard of, or what?

Well, it’s not a complete loss. The Toshiba DVR/DVD recorder I got wouldn’t have worked with their service–probably–and the fact that it auto-records everything is something I have really started to appreciate.

But still, this couldn’t have happened one month earlier, or six months later? No one could’ve mentioned to me when I asked directly about this huge change which obviously they have been planning for a long time? I mean, for crying out loud.

After a beginning that has often been called “rocky,” with both good and bad news, Air America Radio is settling in for the long run and beginning a slow but steady pace upward. The maverick network is bringing in more and more stations, including the usually conservative Phoenix AR, Albuquerque NM, Boston MA, and next week (finally!) San Francisco CA (in addition to being added to the cable Sundance Channel). Rochester NY, Denver CO, Atlanta GA and San Diego CA were recent big additions, and Washington DC is coming soon.

One of the reasons for the addition of new stations is the influence of its ratings: the Albuquerque station manager said he’s picking it up because “It’s shown legs in other markets, with the ability to garner ratings and revenues,” and the Phoenix reporter notes that “[i]n Portland, Ore., radio station KPOJ jumped from No. 22 to No. 3 in the spring Arbitron ratings among listeners ages 25-54.”

Additionally, the station has three million monthly listeners on its streaming Internet radio feed (Real Player required), not counting those who listen to the archived shows at Air America Place.

The network, despite the new expansions, is still in its infancy and will likely take a few years to grow into a name brand on the radio dial. But despite constant put-downs and predictions of demise from the right wing (I’m a Mac user, and am used to hearing people predict the death of Apple time and time again), the network is steady, successful, and growing.

In his most recent speech at Temple University in Philadelphia, Kerry outlined specifics in how Bush badly mismanaged the fight against al Qaeda:

• Instead of using U.S. forces to capture Osama bin Laden, Bush outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who let bin Laden slip away.
• Instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, Bush rushed to a new war in Iraq.
• Instead of listening to the military, State Department, leaders in Congress, and outside experts about how to win the peace in Iraq,Bush listened only to nearsighted ideologues who pitched a pipe dream about being welcomed.
• Instead of responding to the greatest intelligence failure in our history, Bush dragged his feet and actually resisted reform. After opposing the 9/11 Commission, after trying to block its extension, and after finally agreeing to testify, Bush still refuses to fully implement the Commission’s recommendations.
• Instead of proposing a Department of Homeland Security, Bush actually opposed it – and then exploited it for political purposes.
• Instead of expanding programs to keep weapons of mass destruction in Russia out of terrorist hands, Bush first tried to cut the programs.
• Instead of facing the urgent nuclear dangers in North Korea and Iran, Bush allowed these dangers to mount.
• Instead of speaking forcefully to the Saudis and others about terrorist financing, Bush has said little and done less.
• Instead of providing our police and firefighters with vital equipment, instead of protecting ports, trains, subway lines and highways, instead of defending nuclear plants and chemical factories, Bush has under-funded homeland security.
• Instead of bringing the world together against the terrorists, Bush alienated the countries whose help we need to defeat them.

And Bush says he wants to “stay the course.” Spiffy. Kerry, in contrast, outlined his own ideas about how we should do things differently:

Kerry will build military and intelligence capability:

• implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations
• increase the number of troops by 40,000
• increase special forces
• develop new technologies for collecting intelligence on terrorists
• strengthen the intel community
• make Afghanistan a priority again
• get NATO to provide more troops to Afghanistan

Kerry will move to deny the terrorists weapons:

• secure all nuclear weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union within four years (as opposed to Bush’s 13 years)
• seek a verifiable global ban on the production of materials for nuclear weapons (Bush abrogated nuclear treaties)
• lead an international effort to impose tough sanctions on North Korea if they do not stop developing nuclear weapons (Bush has virtually ignored Korea, which has shared weapons with terrorists where Hussein did not)
• work with U.S. allies to get the six party talks with North Korea back on track

Kerry will wage a war on terrorist finances:

• trace terrorist funds to their sources and freeze the assets of anyone financing terrorism
• hold the Saudis accountable
• shut down the financial pipeline that keeps terrorism alive
• make the U.S. energy-independent of Mid East oil

Kerry will make homeland security a true priority, backing it with actual resources:

• prevent terrorists from entering our country (Bush has underfunded border patrol and cargo inspections)
• give border inspectors access to the terrorist watch lists
• seaports must be protected (Bush spends more in Iraq in 4 days than in the U.S. in 3 years)
• improve the way the terror aviation list is structured to keep terrorists from entering the country
• screen air cargo just like baggage is screened
• make sure our police, firefighters, and ambulance drivers have the latest equipment and emergency operation centers they need to respond effectively in a crisis
• cancel the $100 billion missile defense system which won’t work anyway, technically or strategically
• protect chemical plants and other high-priority terrorist targets (which Bush has neglected)
• reinstate the program to put 100,000 new police officers on the street (which Bush has scrapped)
• invest more than $2 billion to safeguard railroads and subways

Kerry will focus on the long-term anti-terror goals, denying them recruits and safe havens:

• show that America uses its economic power for the common good
• assist the world’s poorest countries
• lead the international community to cancel the debt of the most vulnerable nations
• enable children in poor countries to get a quality basic education
• work to pre-empt the radical schools teaching hatred of America throughout the Middle East

Kerry says that he will promote the development of free and democratic societies throughout the Arab and Muslim world:

• make clear to repressive governments in the region that we expect to see them change
• improve our outreach to the Muslim world
• train a new generation of American scholars, diplomats, and military officers who understand the region
• convene a summit with our European partners and leaders from the Muslim world

And finally, Kerry made absolutely clear that we will be stronger if we work with our allies.

That is a very strong case, and would be difficult to argue against–I invite conservative guests here to try, so long as you provide evidence to back it up and show how, in equal detail to the above, how Bush has done better than this. I don’t think there will be any takers, though, and certainly none who can prove such a point. In all areas Bush has been lacking. He has sapped the strength of the military to the point where we can no longer fight a new war without dropping all other balls, and he has had more than enough time with full control of Congress to get exactly that done–no more excuses about how it was the last guy’s fault.

Bush has done nothing to deny terrorists weapons: Iraq had none, and countries where such weapons are coming from are untouched and even more out of control than before. On finances, I would like to hear exactly what Bush has done–I certainly know of no achievements in that area. As for homeland security, it is a joke–used more often to infringe on non-terrorist Americans’ rights, and sometimes even as a political weapon (both in terms of publicity and as a physical resource). But the borders are porous, law enforcement underfunded and under-equipped, and our infrastructure, power plants, factories and transportation open to attack. But at least we’ve got John Ashcroft telling us what color we should be afraid of, right?

And if one thing is certain, it is that Bush has done an abysmal job of winning the hearts and minds of the people of the Arab world.

There are no easy answers, no snap solutions. After four years of Bush, Kerry will have his hands full just with damage control over the havoc Bush has wrought. But Kerry has better ideas and better plans, and we simply cannot afford four more years of Bush. This is not just mere partisanship; the way so many people who see what Bush is doing, and I myself, genuinely fear what might happen under Bush. It’s not just distaste for the man, it is a palpable fear and trepidation of what he will do over that much time.

We do not just need a change. Change is overwhelmingly essential to the well-being of our country and to the world, and to lose that opportunity to a well-oiled PR and dirty-trick campaign would be a disaster. And yes, I know how over-the-top that sounds. But I would be less than honest if I said that it was anything less than what I firmly believe.

To continue on John Kerry’s speech at NYU earlier this week:

The centerpiece of the speech was Iraq, with Kerry pointing out, in detail, exactly how Bush had gone wrong before and after the invasion. One aspect of that is the fact the Bush diverted resources away from Afghanistan–where the real fight against al Qaeda was centered–and instead focused them on Iraq, where there was no terrorist threat. As a result, Bush alienated our allies and sowed discord in the Middle East, while sabotaging the real war against terrorists. As Kerry himself summarized:

The President’s policy in Iraq has not strengthened our national security. It has weakened it.

And it is here where Kerry further clarifies his stand on the vote to authorize the president with war powers: that it was to give Bush the ability to play a strong hand so he could accomplish the desired goal of getting arms inspectors in. Instead, Bush abused the authority and rushed to war, flushing out the inspectors who Bush later outrageously claimed were thrown out by Hussein. Kerry pointed out how Bush violated his promises:

Bush promised to let inspectors do their work–instead, he drove them out of Iraq even though progress was being made;

Bush promised he would take “every precaution” and would “plan carefully”–he did neither;

And Bush promised he would only go to war with an international coalition, “allies at our side”–when in fact he went in with Great Britain only, all other members of the “coalition” playing only token roles.

Many people criticize Kerry for not providing a “magic bullet” for solving the Iraq problem, that his proposals are only marginally better than Bush’s–but the criticism is weak. There is no magic solution to the Iraq problem, and that’s the point: Bush got us into a mess that is now impossible to get out of cleanly, and as more time passes, the prognosis becomes worse and worse, so that even Republicans in an election year are criticizing Bush. It is less about the inevitable painful endgame in Iraq, and more about judgment: do we want to give Bush another four years so he can make many more fatal errors? Kerry has it right when he says what he would have done:

I would have concentrated our power and resources on defeating global terrorism and capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. I would have tightened the noose and continued to pressure and isolate Saddam Hussein – who was weak and getting weaker — so that he would pose no threat to the region or America.

And in Iraq, Kerry’s ideas are better than Bush’s.

First, an expanded international role could bring the benefits of true legitimacy to the forces working there–people would know it would less about the oil, the business, and the bases for America, and more about putting Iraq on its feet. Bush could never rally that support having alienated the world, but Kerry could achieve it. There is no denying Kerry’s advantage there.

Second, a large contingent of Iraqi soldiers must be fully trained, not the pathetic handful Bush achieved, and then later lied about their numbers.

Third, the reconstruction plan must be aimed at helping the people of Iraq; Bush has failed to spend what he was authorized to accomplish this goal, and has left the vastly unemployed Iraqi labor force out of it (so that Halliburton can overcharge us to obscene extremes). Push through “high-visibility, quick-impact projects” to encourage the people.

And fourth, bring about real elections as soon as possible, not the sham without even giving people in huge swaths of the country the chance to vote.

I will be the first to agree that these goals don’t stand a great chance of succeeding to the point where we can painlessly withdraw, but I cannot imagine a better plan considering what damage Bush has done–and Kerry would certainly be more able and credible in the effort than Bush could ever hope to be. Half a chance is better than none.

Kerry pointed out what anyone with an objective, informed view already knows: Bush misled us, committed gross errors in judgment, failed to plan properly, and bungled the post-invasion occupation. As a result, our people are being cut down with no hope in sight. I know people personally who have family members in the military who are scared to death at what they believe to be their loved ones’ inevitable assignment to Iraq. The soldiers are game, they want to perform their duty. But we owe it to them not to subject them to this.

Bush’s strategies in Iraq have failed miserably. A change is essential. Bush’s credibility is nil. Only Kerry can bring the right credentials to the table. Bush has done little more than fail and than lie about it. Kerry could not help but do far, far better.

Kerry ended on this important note:

I believe the invasion of Iraq has made us less secure and weaker in the war against terrorism. I have a plan to fight a smarter, more effective war on terror – and make us safer.

Today, because of George Bush’s policy in Iraq, the world is a more dangerous place for America and Americans.

If you share my conviction that we can not go on as we are …that we can make America stronger and safer than it is… then November 2 is your chance to speak… and to be heard. It is not a question of staying the course, but of changing the course.

I’m convinced that with the right leadership, we can create a fresh start and move more effectively to accomplish our goals. Our troops have served with extraordinary courage and commitment. For their sake, and America’s sake, we must get this right. We must do everything in our power to complete the mission and make America stronger at home and respected again in the world.

So I’ve been trying a few new spam-fighting wrinkles before taking the plunge and going to MT 3.0. First of all, I started using a .htaccess file in the root directory with instructions to deny access to anyone trying to directly access the “mt-comments.cgi” script. We’ll see if that works.

I tried to include a few strings in the htaccess file with instructions to deny access to anyone with a referral from a domain with certain spam-worthy keywords, but for some reason it shut me out of the site (giving a “500 Internal Server Error”–anyone know why?), so until I get that worked out, it’ll have to wait. Very disappointing, I really wanted that to work. It was supposed to block referral spam; “IP Deny” in my site’s cpanel doesn’t seem to be working at all.

But I’ve also noticed a new wrinkle in referral spam: since August, the referral area on my stats page has been overloaded with referrals from ordinary blogs that appear not to have any links to me. All of these referral links end in “…mt-comments.cgi” or “…archives” after the blog domain. Before August, I used to get links like that (most noticeably from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog site), but they never hit me hard–I never got more than six or seven sites with referrals like that in any given month. Then in August, I got 38 with the mt-comments.cgi (92 with the “archives” one), and now, just three weeks into September, 142 with mt-comments.cgi (28 with “archives”).

After a search on Google, I found several other blogs which are experiencing the same thing–but nobody seems to be offering any explanation as to why.

The only thing I can figure is that maybe this is a quirk in a recent release of Movable Type version 3.x. But it doesn’t seem to be typical referral spam–only bloggers’ domains are affected.

Weird.

John Kerry is back on track. He’s often been known as a strong finisher, and it seems like that’s what we’re beginning to see here. His speech at NYU is now considered a turning point, seen as strong, decisive, and capable of steering the issues in this campaign.

He started with a compelling vow on fighting terrorism, noting that he now has the official endorsement of the “Jersey Girls,” the widows of 9/11 victims now famous for dragging Bush, kicking and screaming, into allowing the 9/11 Commission to be formed. Kerry is backing its recommendations (which Bush has been dragging his feet on as well).

In the speech, Kerry focused on his strengths: the potential to form international alliances (in contrast with Bush’s ability to alienate the world against us), necessary if we want to fight effectively. In the wake of 9/11, there is no doubt that Kerry would have cultivated the sympathy and support of the world and used it soundly to implement a profoundly better offensive against al Qaeda, instead of pissing it away and insulting the world while letting a personal war sap our ability to focus on the real and dangerous enemy. Kerry has made it clear (to those who read or hear his entire quotes) that he would not have invaded Iraq. He would only have done so if inspections had shown that Hussein was a threat, and they wouldn’t have. But I digress–back to the speech.

Kerry outlined his ideas for fighting terrorism: strong alliances (vital!), a powerful military (not one sapped by a needless quagmire which has made America unable to fight another war elsewhere), diplomacy, and a true application of American values in the Islamic world (not the abortive attempts by the Bush administration to make a few lame videos and then give up). Bush has failed in all four of these areas, but it is clear that they are invaluable to our security. Kerry can make them happen.

But the cornerstone of Kerry’s speech, and to a great degree what made it so notable–in the media, finally–was his focus on Iraq. Kerry points out what should be obvious, but needs to be pointed out:

• Iraq was not related to terrorism, and diverted our focus away from al Qaeda;
• the Iraq war threatens to be a war with no end in sight;
• we have sacrificed the lives of too many good American soldiers;
• Bush failed to create anything close to a true coalition;
• Iraq is not headed towards freedom or democracy, it is deteriorating into chaos;
• American dead and wounded are rising to record numbers as violent attacks by insurgents soar;
• Bush has ceded large areas to the insurgents, “no go zones”;
• conditions for Iraqis grow worse and worse, with fewer jobs and a destroyed infrastructure;
• Iraqis are not coming to our side, they resent us.

Furthermore, Bush has made “a series of catastrophic decisions” in Iraq:

• Bush lied about why we went to war (he gave 23 different rationales);
• his main rationales (WMD & al Qaeda ties) have been proven false;
• he lied about what it would cost us;
• he lied about what kind of commitment was involved (taking years, hundreds of billions of dollars);
• he lied about forming a true coalition;
• he lied about our chances of success.

Kerry pointed out Bush’s devastating mismanagement of our image in the world, and our current lack of credibility; how our allies used to trust us implicitly (an excellent example in de Gaulle’s trust in Kennedy’s word), and how few would trust Bush today.

Kerry pointed out that seeing the errors Bush made in Iraq is not hindsight, but that all were seen in advance of the war. That’s where he used the now-famous phrase, “colossal failures of judgment.” Among them:

• We’d be greeted as liberators;
• looting would not be a problem;
• Iraq’s infrastructure would not be a problem;
• we had enough troops to handle the aftermath of the invasion;
• we could rely on people like Chalabi;
• the Iraqi police, army, and civil service would be able to take over security functions and run the country.

Kerry goes on to describe how things have deteriorated under Bush:

“Nuclear dangers have mounted across the globe. The international terrorist club has expanded. Radicalism in the Middle East is on the rise. We have divided our friends and united our enemies. And our standing in the world is at an all time low.”

North Korea is building nukes, as is Iran; Russian WMD are not secure; Afghanistan is destabilizing. Osama bin Laden is more popular in most places in the Middle East than America is.

And while Osama got away, Bush diverted resources away from fighting al Qaeda so we could invade a country which had not attacked us and posed no real threat.

That’s just the beginning of the speech. I’m not finished here, I’ll be back tomorrow. But I would urge you to read the speech in its entirety–you’ll see why some called it a campaign masterpiece, and you’ll see why the media had little choice but to pick this one up and run with it. It’s got the Kerry campaign energized.

Read by Kerry on “Late Night with David Letterman.”

10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.

9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.

8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.

7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.

6. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.

5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.

4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa (Heinz Kerry) to cover the whole damn thing.

3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.

2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it “nuclear” instead of “nucular.”

1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.

All the major news organizations are now featuring the CBS story about the Bush documents as their top story.

Pop quiz: can you name any other time when a story that broke big, was found to be in error, and the story of it not being accurate got pushed to the top of the headlines? Zzzzt. Time’s up. Neither can I. News orgs always push these stories down–the story breaks big, the news that it was all wrong gets buried. Except for Bush.

Damned that liberal media, at it yet again.

The impression that Bush & Co. are rejoicing at now is that Bush’s Guard scandal is as false as the CBS docs, which of course is a completely false impression in itself. The CBS docs would have simply been more nails in the coffin, and did not represent the coffin itself. The evidence that Bush (a) used family influence to get into the Guard and get special treatment there, (b) went because he wanted to weasel out of the war which he approved of and told others they should go fight, and (c) went AWOL and never completed his tour of duty–these facts are well-evidenced completely independent of the Killian memos. The forged Killian docs simply would have been further confirmation, and drew attention simply because they would be new.

And one should not forget: Col. Hodges, who worked with Killian, and Killian’s secretary, both stated that (a) they didn’t think the memos were authentic, BUT also that (b) they reflected real memos from that time, and they reflected what Killian spoke about during that time.

Not that many people will get this. Most people will hear, “the claims about Bush during Vietnam are fake,” and will go on believing that Bush’s character is not in question. Which is the grand disservice that Rather and CBS did, not to mention this Burkett fellow.

The news came in earlier today, the Bush team has caved. They wanted to skip one of the debates, the one to be held in town-hall style. The stated reason: they did not want Bush to be exposed to a question-and-answer session with undecided voters over concerns that members of the audience could be partisan (read: someone who might ask Bush a critical question). This is, of course, completely in line with recent Bush strategy, where “town hall” appearances are actually limited to strong Bush supporters, who either throw softballs or simply get up to thank and/or praise the president. Doonesbury has been doing a series of strips on the issue (see previous post). That debate is still being negotiated; even though the Bush side has pretty much agreed to all three, they obviously still want to get rid of the possibility that Bush may be directly challenged in public.

Nevertheless, we must be very cautious not to make the same mistake we made four years ago: underestimating Bush. When not prepped or scripted, he can be bumbling and inarticulate–but when he is prepared, he can be quite effective. Bush himself said it fairly well: “They misunderestimated me.” This was encouraged by his own people, knowing that painting Bush as the underdog could only help him in the end. It came to the point where everyone assumed that Bush would make such a fool of himself that simply getting through the debates without peeing himself would be considered a victory. We can’t let that happen again. Bush proved himself more than effective enough the first time around; if someone tries to say that Kerry will probably do better, remind them of Bush’s debates with Gore. Kerry has the disadvantage of appearing stiff and more than too articulate to the point of being boring; Bush has the “down-home” patter down, and if sufficiently prepped, could in theory do the same job on Kerry that he did with Gore.

And Kerry must be careful not to pull a Gore, that is, to appear awkward and manipulative in the debates. Remember Gore’s audible sighs? Remember that weird step forward he took while Bush was speaking. It’s little stuff like that which can throw your campaign down the toilet. Kerry has to be sure to do more than just be concise, he has to make sure he is natural up there, and not sound canned, not sound too practiced.

Still, if the popular “misunderestimation” of Bush can be stopped, and if Kerry can bring on the warmth and succinct eloquence, then this could be a big break for Kerry. Before now, Kerry has been held beneath the surface of media coverage, and has never been seen side by side with Bush. These debates could put him squarely at the same level as Bush in the public eye, something Kerry has not been able to do until now. Once that happens, things could go Kerry’s way–again, if Bush is not underestimated and if Kerry can polish his style.

The debates are scheduled for September 30 (Florida); October 8 (Missouri); and October 13 (Arizona). Cheney and Edwards will debate on October 5 in Ohio. All of the debates will last 90 minutes.

And thank goodness for them, a little comic relief is what we need at this point. Bizarro has often come up with some good ones, and this weekend was no exception:

Meanwhile, Garry Trudeau focused on Bush’s staged, sycophantic town-hall meetings last week:

Bush has been accusing Kerry of flip-flopping, primarily based upon gross distortions of Kerry’s voting record in Congress. When these accusations are looked at closely, they do not hold up at all–but Bush is on record as one of the biggest flip-floppers of all time. One prominent example is his position on the Iraq war and WMD:

First Bush claimed that he did not need Congressional approval to go to war with Iraq. Then he flip-flopped and decided he did need their approval. Then Bush decided he would not go to the U.N. for a resolution on the matter, and then he flip-flopped and decided he would go. But soon after, he flopped on his flip-flop and decided that he didn’t need the U.N. after all.

Then there was his ever-flipping position on WMD. At first he was consistent: in November 2002, before he invaded, he said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that’s why we had to invade. Then after the invasion, in May 2003, he said that he had actually found weapons of mass destruction. But then he had to flip-flop and admit we hadn’t found actual weapons yet, really.

But then he switch-flopped in June and said that Hussein had a weapons of mass destruction program, and that was why we went into Iraq. But then he had to admit that there was no evidence that Hussein had such a program since a decade ago. And by the State of the Union speech last January, he flip-flopped again with a backwards twist and a triple gainer, this time claiming we had found “weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.” Finally, when he had no choice but to face the facts, he admitted that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and upon doing so, did a huge, monolithic, record-breaking warp-speed flip-flop and claimed that the reason we went into Iraq was for humanitarian reasons.

An then let’s not forget one of his most gigantic flip-flops, so sudden and absolute that Bush must have gotten whiplash:

December 13, 2001: We will get Osama bin Laden, no matter how long it takes, “dead or alive — either way. It doesn’t matter to me.”

March 13, 2002 (exactly three months later): “I don’t know where [Osama bin Laden] is. I have no idea and I really don’t care. It’s not that important.” And on the same day: “I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.”

It’s hard to get more flip-floppy than that. But Bush has a long record of flip flops. The major ones are covered in many places, like here, here, here, and a long list here.

For some strange reason, every few months, the viewership of this blog tends to make a sudden jump. It just did it again, over the past few weeks–I’m now getting about 950 daily visitors on weekdays, and about 800 on weekend days, each up a few hundred per day over a month ago. The monthly total for September is likely to break 12,000.

At first I thought it was spammers, both blog comment spammers and referral spammers, and to be certain they have been on the rise–but they haven’t made that big a difference in the ‘unique visitors’ column. When the spam surged in June, the overall numbers did not.

It turns out that mostly the changes are from Google. Referrals from Google have, for some reason, doubled over the past few months, from over 4000 to over 8000, and that’s the only figure that jumped the same time overall numbers did. And it’s not search engines in general, but just Google.

Not that I am at all displeased–Google is the #1 search engine, and they have always sent more people my way than anywhere else. But it makes me wonder, why do these things happen so suddenly? What’s the equation? The only thing I can guess without research is that there must be thresholds involved; that if the total data on a site exceeds a certain amount, it gets ranked that much higher. And this blog’s archives are indeed getting rather thick.

I recently purchased of the Toshiba RD-XS53, the TiVo-like HDD/DVD recorder, and am quite satisfied with how it’s turning out. After a steep initial learning curve, I got it all programmed and am now training myself through the various procedures, which are lengthy–the thing has countless options, which can be both good and bad. If you’re not interested in techy, gadget-oriented home video kind of stuff, you may want to go on to the next post. Otherwise:

Essentially, this is like a TiVo or ReplayTV machine, but with added features. Like other DVRs, it records video on a hard disk in the MPEG-2 format (the same as on DVDs). Because it’s digital, it can then be manipulated in a variety of ways.

There are a variety of Toshiba machines that do similar things, but the RD-XS53 is the only one that has the ability to work with SkyPerfecTV. Although that connection is limited to turning the tuner on and off and changing channels, that’s really all you need, at least right away. The SkyP connectivity is important if you’re living in Japan and want to record a good amount of English-language video. Unless your local cable has a good selection of channels and its tuner can work with a DVR box, the SkyP-Toshiba combo is probably best. The machine can also get the “BS” satellite feed as well, and of course can record off of local broadcast stations. You can also record any video input, like from a DVD player, a VCR, a video camera (there is a Firewire/iLink port for digital video cameras) or from the video-out on a PC. Want to make a DVD of a demonstration on your computer? This will let you do it.

Also, the RD-XS53 (at least in Japan) has a whopping 320 GB of hard drive space, allowing for up to 570 hours of recording at the lowest quality setting–144 hours at “high.” That’s more than enough to have a great deal of video saved up before archiving is necessary–and that’s where the DVD recorder comes in handy; more on that later. The large hard drive also allows you to record all your shows while you’re on vacation, and it even claims (though I have yet to come close to figuring it out) that you can set programming by remote control using your cell phone, sending a text message with coded instructions that the machine will receive via the Internet connection.

The RD-XS53 does fall short in a few areas, such as ease-of-use, as evidenced that sharp learning curve I mentioned. There are four different main special activity areas, dozens of preferences screens, and so many menus that I can’t count them. And not all processes are easily performed; deleting commercial breaks, for example, requires you to go to the editing area, going through a process of determining “chapters,” and then going back to the recorded-shows area, and deleting the vaguely-titled chapters one by one, each time having to navigate back to the recorded-video area. Another problem not really Toshiba’s fault is the inability to record “bilingual” shows in English on Fox or Disney channels–they have a unique bilingual mode which must be set by hand each time.

But if you can put up with little stuff like that, there is a lot of compensation. You can access an Internet-based program schedule with the next week of programming included, with search options available. You can surf the programming schedule area, up and down for channels, left and right for times, with all the available broadcasts shown on the grid. Unfortunately, it’s all in Japanese (if you can’t read at least Katakana, then you shouldn’t get this), though the SkyP box can show you the same grid in English for reference if you want. The programming has to be done on the Toshiba, though.

Once you find a show, you can reserve it for automatic recording. You’re given the flexibility to change the exact time it starts and ends, which days it will record the show (every Tuesday, or every Monday-Saturday, for example); you can set the recording quality exactly on a 1-9 scale or use presets, and you can direct the recorder to save the show in a specific folder. Unlike most VCRs, which only allow 8 programmed recording times, this machine can keep a large number of pre-set recordings. I don’t know if there’s a limit–I have 21 set at present.

The machine also has two tuners/encoders, so it can record two shows at the same time–though only if they are on different inputs. For example, you could record two shows simultaneously if one is on SkyP and the other is on local antenna, but you can’t do that if both shows are coming from SkyP.

Like most DVRs, this one has “Timeslip,” which allows you to “pause” live TV. This comes from the ability to both watch and record at the same time. When you hit “Timeslip,” the DVR starts recording the show on the hard disk, and at the same time plays back the file it is recording, but pauses it at the start. The show can keep on recording for as many hours as you like, and you can come back any time and then play the recording from the beginning, going forward or “rewinding” or pausing or skipping around to your heart’s content, until you “catch up” with the live picture.

My father uses this on his ReplayTV to avoid endless commercials in football games. He sets the Timeslip, then keeps it on pause and does something else for half an hour. Then he comes back and watches the part of the game that was just recorded (as the recording continues), skipping through commercials until he catches up with the live game. Then when a live commercial rears its ugly head, he pauses and goes away for a half hour again so he can come back and skip through the commercials again. But this feature is handy in other ways, too–have you ever been settling down to watch your favorite show and the phone rings? Just pause it, and pick up where you left off.

While the file system is a bit clunky on the TV display, because this machine connects to your computer network (in order to download the programming information) it is also visible from your PC. The Toshiba people did a pretty good job of creating a browser control interface for the machine. Just find out which IP Address the machine was designated (e.g., 192.168.0.5) and type it into the browser’s address box, and you get the machine’s control interface. You can program recordings, create and title folders, see the recorded show titles and view and alter their information (titles, show info, assign chapter titles, etc.)–and most handy, you can author DVD titles and menus.

For example, I recorded Groundhog Day as a test. On the RD-XS53 directly, I then cut off the excess recording before the start and after the end so it was just the movie. Then I broke it into chapters, like on a DVD, and for each one set the thumbnail image. Then I went into the browser interface and viewed the thumbnails, giving each a title (it is so much nicer to type that than to use the cell-phone-like remote control typing feature). Then, also on the computer, I searched the Internet for a nice photo from the movie. I found a few, patched them together in Photoshop, and saved it as a BMP image, which I could them export to the RD-XS53. Also using the browser controls, I set the exact color scheme for the titles, then went back to the RD-XS53 and went through the DVD authoring process. After recording the DVD, I had the equivalent of a commercial DVD of the movie, with menus like this:

Granted, it’s a bit of a chore, especially at first, but if you don’t mind it or even enjoy it, you can build a pretty nice library on your own.

The DVD recording features are very nice–with them, you can archive any number of shows or movies. It is still a little pricey–the cheapest brand-name DVD-Rs I can find are ¥150 ($1.35) apiece. In high-quality mode, you could save three episodes of a one-hour TV show on one DVD, costing perhaps ¥1200 (about $11) for one season–but considering the $40 ~ $130 cost of these seasons on commercial DVD, this is an acceptable price. Record enough stuff like this and the machine pays for itself, in a way. The RD-XS53 can also record on DVD-RW or DVD-RAM media, for those of you who don’t keep permanent copies of your recordings (I usually do, so I stick with the cheaper DVD-Rs).

There are a lot more features, some too insignificant to explain, others I haven’t discovered or figured out yet. But as you can tell from the length of this post, I am sort of getting into it. One thing I’ll admit, it’s not gonna be good for my health; I am turning into a veteran couch potato!

When I first moved into my apartment building, something I considered a nice feature of the complex was the garbage removal. They had these big metal bins with covers so you could toss your garbage outside any day of the week, and not worry about the smell or crows getting at it. It was also easier for the garbage collectors; they could simply attach the bins to a lifting device on their truck, and it would all just slide in. They did it fast and didn’t have to get their hands too dirty.

But then, the city leaders of Inagi, in their infinite wisdom, decreed that bins like that could not be used. So we had to switch to the standard Japanese-style throw-your-garbage-by-the-side-of-the-street method, which stinks up the area and attracts crows and cats who fish through the garbage and make a mess, increasing maintenance costs. It’s harder for the trash collectors, too; they now have to sling every bag by hand, dealing with spillage and stink.

I would have thought that the city couldn’t go one worse, but I was wrong: now they’re telling us we have to pay for each bag of garbage thrown out. We can no longer use any garbage bag we please (say goodbye to pull-string bags, or to using grocery store bags, they get wasted now), we have to buy city-made bags at fee-inflated prices. It’s still relatively cheap–80 yen (about 75 cents) for ten grocery-store-size bags, 150 yen for double that size, and 300 yen for double that–but the point is that a price has now been set, meaning that price can easily go up anytime the city wants more money, and they inevitably will. This kind of thing should be paid for with tax revenues, at least then they can be honest about raising taxes. Though it is possible that this is a follow-up to the less-than-successful campaign of a few years ago when they tried to make everyone use transparent garbage bags and require people to write their names on each bag.

The change begins everywhere in Inagi City on October 1, and applies to burnable and unburnable garbage. Are there any other cities where they’re doing this?

If you haven’t registered yet, then do it now–time is running out. The web site Overseas Vote 2004 has voter registration and absentee ballot requests online. The deadline is now two weeks away.

Register. Get your ballot. Vote. Any way you can. This one is crucial, folks. Every vote counts.

Some soldiers say that they are being presented with a harsh ultimatum from the Army: re-enlist for three more years or start packing for Iraq, where they would stay for extended duty. If they do re-enlist, then they would be sent somewhere safe to replace soldiers who are being sent to the Middle East.

If this is true, then it is likely localized rather than a national policy, and yet it is not the first time we have seen recruiters resorting to harsh tactics against the soldiers to pressure them into extending their duty. Is this SOP for recruitment, or are things getting a bit desperate for the recruiters?

In my immediately previous post, I opined about the unreliability of polls, but now with more information in hand, the issue may be more clear–it may be the “very different models” answer. As I had mentioned quickly in a post a week and a half ago, Rasmussen had explained the discrepancy between their polls and TIME and Newsweek polls by pointing out that those two news magazines weighted Republican voters far more greatly than Democrats. And now it looks like Gallup has been doing the same.

This post by Steve Soto at The Left Coaster (via DailyKos) points to specific data about Gallup’s polling model: they predict that Republicans will make up 40% of all voters, and Democrats 33%, and that’s reflected in their polling data. So no wonder Bush is ahead.

The next obvious question is, are those numbers accurate? Steve points to this quote from Zogby:

If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000.

Read the whole Zogby article if you can, it discusses TIME and Newsweek in detail–just like the Rasmussen article.

But Zogby makes it pretty clear: in the last three elections, Democrats voted either just as much as Republicans, or more–D:34-R:34, D:39-R:34, D:39-R:35. So why are organizations like Newsweek (D:31-R:38) and Gallup (D:33-R:40) weighting so heavily for Republicans? If anything, recent elections suggest it should be the other way around, and in this election, Democrats are galvanized like crazy–I personally (and very unscientifically) am expecting a heavy Democratic turnout.

So a key question in evaluating a poll is, how do they weight by party affiliation? A new CBS poll just came out a few hours ago(source PDF file), and they have Bush ahead by 9 points (50% – 41%), and though their poll is not so outrageously weighted towards Republicans, it is still weighted in their direction (D: 31-R: 33), when, by the last two election figures, it should probably be more like 39-35 or 38-36, weighted towards Democrats–at least.

And where we find ourselves winding up is, essentially the same as in the last post–in the land of unpredictability–albeit with a crude compass for which data to dismiss with extreme prejudice. But there are still too many factors out there even after party affiliation weighting is factored out, I believe, to make any of the polls believable to a point where it would make too much of a difference. In other words, mind those margins of error, boys and girls.