Lou Dobbs claims that he is leaving CNN “because he wants a freer platform to state his opinion.” Over time, Dobbs’ statements have been becoming more and more controversial, and less and less based on fact or reason. For example, he claimed that illegal immigrants were bringing eradicated diseases back into the US, citing 7,000 cases of leprosy in three years; when it was proved that the number of leprosy cases over that time totaled 398 and had been falling for more than a decade, Dobbs stood by his “facts.” Dobbs has long railed against illegal immigrants, his claims tinted with racism, and upheld the Birther claim that Obama was not born in the U.S.

Hmm… an addled right-wing CNN personality leaving the network…. The announcement that he will get a show on Fox News coming in three… two…

Gizmodo has a piece today on a cool-looking capsule hotel. Looks aside, my own experience with capsule hotels was less than satisfying. Far less.

What happens is that all the drunk businessmen congregate there after partying too late and missing the last train. It’s a feasible alternative since the capsule hotel is cheaper than a taxi ride home, and they have to be at work in 4-5 hours anyway.

Now, you’d think that these guys, being drunk and tired, having to go to work soon, and being so close to beds, would simply tuck in and nod off. But noooo. They stay up and drink more, talking to each other in the corridor right outside the tubes, and those in their tubes often are watching TV with no headphones and the volume turned up. Imagine trying to sleep in a regular hotel room, except with several drunk businessmen partying it up at the foot of your bed.

The one night I tried one of these places, I had to go to the front desk to ask for a different wing, you know, one where people were trying to sleep at 2:00 am. The guy was surprisingly unprepared for such an odd request, and had to go to an effort, finally putting me in an unused wing of tubes located right across from the air conditioning system, which made loud throbbing noises all night. At least they were regular and rhythmic, and I was eventually able to get to sleep.

Maybe I just had bad luck and most capsule hotels aren’t like this, but I am not eager to find out.

More and more these days, the charge of using child porn can fall on unsuspecting computer users who would never in a million years even think of downloading child porn. Computer viruses exist which can make your computer download volumes of the filth without you being aware of it–until the police come knocking at your door. They’ll believe the initial IP evidence and then stop thinking about it–there’s porn found, so you’re guilty.

More than a year ago, I wrote about the case of a 53-year-old for Massachusetts’ Department of Industrial Accidents who was doubly victimized: the incompetent IT staff who gave him a computer with anti-virus protection turned off. The unsuspecting worker used the computer, not knowing it was riddled with malware, some of it downloading child porn. The same inept IT workers saw the stuff being downloaded, jumped to conclusions, and pointed the finger at this guy, ruining his life. Despite the fact that a cursory review of evidence would have immediately shown that a virus was responsible, IT staff and prosecutors alike simply assumed, and that was that.

To add insult to injury, a cap on lawsuit awards has made it impossible for the man to find an attorney willing to sue for damages.

But this guy is not the only one falling prey to this kind of virus. Anyone who gets it can have the same thing happen, and they will find that it is very hard to prove one’s innocence. Police believe the victim is just using the “SODDI” defense: “Some Other Dude Did It.” Hiring experts to sift through the data and prove it was malware can be prohibitively expensive; the Massachusetts worker spent a quarter of a million dollars to do so, pretty much wiping them out financially–and for the rest of his life, he’ll be fighting off the stigma applied to him carelessly.

Lesson learned: anti-virus protection is even more important than you realize.

Sarah Palin, and not a comedic parody:

Noting that there had been a lot of “change” of late, Palin recalled a recent conversation with a friend about how the phrase “In God We Trust” had been moved to the edge of the new coins.

“Who calls a shot like that?” she demanded. “Who makes a decision like that?”

She added: “It’s a disturbing trend.”

As it happens, the Republican Congress and George W. Bush were the ones who made that call. But that’s not the really disturbing thing here. Let me again pull out my soapbox.

There is a very specific and intentional movement to allow a merging of church and state in this country, and the “In God We Trust” motto is a big part of it. The motto is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the Bill of Rights, and should never have been approved. The same goes for what is now a de facto religious test that politicians must add “So help me god” at the end of their oaths of office (if they did not, they would be accused of heresy–today called “being anti-Christian”–and would never win another election), despite this being 100% unconstitutional. Nor is the injected “under god” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance constitutional, where government employees force children to mindlessly repeat it day after day.

None of these were part of the original plan for the United States, and despite right-wing claims, none would have been approved by founders like Jefferson. They chose they motto “E Pluribus Unum,” for example; that was replaced as the national motto in 1956; it was on coins since 1795, discarded when Congress assumed the power to appoint mottoes on coinage, and “In God We Trust” was imposed in 1873. The religious reference in the Pledge was tacked on in 1954.

At a few times in our history, pro-religious sentiment became so high that any protest on the grounds of constitutionality were simply not heard, and unconstitutional acts were made more or less official. And if anyone dared to challenge these illegal incursions, the two-pronged response was the same: first, the claim was made that the objections were an attack on religion, and second, the claims were belittled as frivolous, because these were not serious things. Just a few words in the pledge! Just a voluntary tack-on to an oath! What harm do a few words on a coin do?

The answer is: a lot. It is the proverbial camel’s nose.

Think I’m being paranoid? Then let me share with you words from a ruling written by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:

Presidents continue to conclude the Presidential oath with the words “so help me God.” … Our coinage bears the motto “IN GOD WE TRUST.” And our Pledge of Allegiance contains the acknowledgment that we are a Nation “under God.” …

With all of this reality (and much more) staring it in the face, how can the Court possibly assert that “ ‘the First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between . . . religion and nonreligion,’” … and that “[m]anifesting a purpose to favor . . . adherence to religion generally,” … is unconstitutional?

Scalia wanted to make government endorsement of religion–of a specific denomination of religion, no less–constitutional. That was the minority opinion in McCreary v. ACLU (PDF)–but is was a minority by one vote only. Had Sandra Day O’Connor not voted the way she did, that opinion would now have force of law. Had that case been heard after she was replaced by Alito, it almost certainly would be the force of law. And it could become the force of law very soon.

These incursions are NOT minor, are NOT harmless; as is clearly shown in the above dissent that came so close to being law, it is precisely these incursions which would allow corrupt Supreme Court justices like Scalia to use them as a legal wedge and inject their own religious views into the highest laws of the land.

Which is precisely why Sarah Palin is so rattled by the fact that the words were moved from the main body of the coin to the edge–she, and others like her, fear that these illegal incursions, which could make America into a theocracy, are being marginalized–literally, in this case–and see any attempt to modify them in any way as a threat.

Tell me, if “In God We Trust” on the coin is not serious, then why do people like Palin rant and rage and rend their hair when it’s even moved from one part of coin to the other?

There should be a movement to remove that motto from all coinage and currency; to forbid the words “under god” from oaths as they constitute a de facto religious test; and to restore the Pledge of Allegiance to what it was before the Red Scare made it possible to inject it daily into the minds of millions of schoolchildren. (A dozen kids singing about Obama twice is indoctrination, but tens of millions chanting “under god” every day for decades isn’t? Please.)

And before we forget, this is not some atheistic coup. It is about the restoration of the founding principal: if religion and state become too close, then all religions, all beliefs, and all people fall under peril.

If you wanted an example of how Republicans have become a party of bullying asses who want to suppress free debate, look no further. Warning: although containing no profanity or violence, this clip may induce illness.

According to the non-partisan CBO, the Democratic plan insures tens of millions more Americans than the Republican “plan”; it saves tens of billions more dollars, and makes it illegal for insurers to deny people for pre-existing conditions, whereas the Republicans would allow insurers to keep on discriminating.

Is this even really a choice? What are the Republicans running on? Are they saying, “Our bill will cost more, insure a lot fewer people, and keeps the worst insurance policies alive! Vote for us!”

More likely, they’re simply doing what they do best: lying, and making people vote against their own best interests by scaring them.

Thought I’d take a stab at establishing a new series: since the lies from the right wing are coming in so heavily and consistently, it’s impossible to blog separately on them all. So instead I’ll try to shoot off smaller posts documenting the more egregious whoppers of the day.

Today, aside from the lie about New Jersey and Virginia being “referendums” on Obama and his health care initiative (and how we should ignore NY-23), there are a couple of really good ones:

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The first is quite a whopper, and it has roots: tea-baggers and conservatives in general have come to habitually over-inflate crowd estimates at their events. See this crowd at Bachmann’s thug rally?

On G. Gordon Libby’s radio show today, his producer, Franklin Raff, was on the ground at the rally and reported that a million people were in attendance. Now, I know that crowds look bigger on the ground, but a million? Police estimates were at about 4,000, which looks about right, if not a bit high for the crowd in the photo above.

Eric Cantor put the crowd at “tens of thousands.” Bachmann herself boasted to drawing 20,000 to 45,000 people.

All of this echoes the tea-bagger 9/12 march on D.C. which had “two million” people in attendance. Other conservative numbers ranged from 500,000 to 1.2 million. Official crowd attendance was gauged at 75,000, which was immediately viciously attacked by right-wingers–after which official sources shut up, fearful of being labeled as left-wing shills. That kind of intimidation makes accurate numbers hard to come by, but I would guess that the real numbers did not exceed a few hundred thousand, at most. Making the right-wing case even less believable were a string of photos they posted of the event–which turned out to be fakes.

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In the long-standing tradition of right-wingers labeling any terror suspect or other nefarious criminal “Registered Democrat,” conservatives are now trying to label Nidal Madik Hasan, the gunman at Fort Hood, a someone who “played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama’s transition into the White House.” Did you get that? The terrorist was an Obama advisor.

In fact, no. He was, in truth one of about 300 audience members, his name listed only because he RSVP’d the event. There is no indication that he did anything more than simply sat there and watched. His level of participation could have been matched by literally anyone off the street who wished to attend. Nor did the ‘task force’ play any official role–it was an independent university organization, the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University, which had no official role in the Obama transition.

So we go from an off-the street audience member at an unofficial university event that played no official role in the Obama transition, to someone who “played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama’s transition into the White House.” Not surprisingly, the charge was made by none other than Jerome Corsi, the Swift boat man himself.

The story went across the right-wing news media and blogosphere (links to a few examples), and no doubt millions on the right have now heard the story and fully believe it.

To take such a tragic, horrific event and to squeeze a partisan political smear out of it–this is quintessential right-wing vomitous spew.

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Finally, putting together the Bachmann thuggery and right-wing vomitous spew, this photo is of a banner at the Bachmann rally:

Need I elaborate?

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All in all, a normal day for the right wing.

Sorry for my lack of blogging over the past week–I got hit with the Mother of All Colds this week. It lasted almost a full week, with severe congestion, sore throat, splitting headaches, and now bad coughs and laryngitis. Yeesh. Am just getting back to being semi-lifelike again.

I know I’m not the only one asking this, but why are Congressional Democrats so embarrassed, even scared silly, at the special election results? Sure, two important states’ governorships went to the GOP–but those wins have far less to do with the Health Care Reform bill than the Congressional elections on the same day, especially the NY-23 race–and Dems won both.

The governorships were actually pretty meaningless for the health care debate. One was in Virginia, a red state that Democrats had been lucky enough to win from the GOP for a while; Republican McDonnell led Deeds by an 8-point margin all the way back from early this year, when Obama was still highly popular and Virginians had turned out to elect Obama. Any Democrat who frets over Virginia is apparently under the delusion that the state had somehow turned blue, against all indications. Just because Montana has Democratic Senators and a Dem Governor doesn’t make it a blue state, any more than Alaska’s Dem governor makes that a blue state, or Schwarzenegger makes California a red state. It’s just that in Virginia, we ran out of strong Democratic gubernatorial candidates; it was going to happen eventually.

New Jersey was more of a biting defeat for Dems, but aside from all the mitigating circumstances (various economic problems blamed on the incumbent, an association with Wall Street, etc.), it is important to remember that governors don’t vote in Congress, and voters understand that–in a governor, they are looking for a manager, not someone to represent their political views. Governorships commonly have less to do with party politics than other elected officials.

Democrats have to realize that these two elections, while high-profile, have little or no impact on the current congressional situation. No matter what the GOP hacks claim, these two elections had nothing to do with health care, nor were they any kind of referendum on Obama. There are simply no facts or figures which support this.

On the other hand, there were two other elections that day–both for House seats–which were of far greater significance. One was in NY-23, the other in CA-10. the CA-10 race, being won by a Democrat in a relatively strong blue district, was of lesser importance; there was not much chance that any kind of upset would happen there.

But NY-23 was a district that has been deeply right-wing since before the Civil War; it was the epitome of a conservative “safe seat.” And more significantly, it became the very essence of tea-bagging: the moderate conservative was ousted by sharply conservative carpet-baggers, bringing in a ringer from the outside, imposing the deeply partisan party line and insisting that a highly political statement be made. In short, the partisan conservatives, in particular the ones attacking health care reform, made NY-23 exactly about being a referendum on their politics. They must have figured that this was a safe place to do so–they could shove their candidate down the throats of the locals, and because it was a safe seat, they could win easily, then claim victory and a referendum supporting their values.

But they lost. In a district which Republicans usually win by huge margins, 30% or better, the conservative candidate lost by 4%.

Governorships have far less to do with issues like the Health Care Reform bill than any other significant political office, and the CA-10 house seat was a safe Dem seat, won safely. NY-23 was the big test, because the tea-bagging conservatives made it so.

Democrats should understand that very clear, simple message. And so should the conservatives.

Yayy!! Some new terrible-looking thing we can blame Obama for! Yayy!!!

Of course, the truth is, it was Bush. Remember when unemployment went double-digit last time, and it was Jimmy Carter’s fault? Oh, wait, no–unemployment fell under Carter, and didn’t hit 10% (almost 11%) until two years into Reagan’s term. Of course, Republicans hold him responsible for all those jobs lost, right? Um, well…. And of course, they recognize that unemployment spiked the last four times under Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43, yes? Um, maybe not….

Of course, I have long since abandoned any pretext of expecting right-wingers to use actual facts instead of claiming whatever bizarre, hypocritical fantasy that suits their purposes for the moment.

The facts are, the current unemployment rate is solidly a Bush artifact. Take a look at the figures–first, job losses:

See how those jobless figures were dropping under Bush, and then they suddenly shot up under Obama? Oh, wait–the chart’s data reflects the opposite. Well, that can’t be! Jobless figures plummeting right after Obama passed the stimulus bill? Impossible!

Maybe the Unemployment numbers tell the tale better:

There, you see? Unemployment has risen under Obama! Just never mind the fact that it started to rise a year earlier under Bush! Pay no attention to that! Nor to the fact that though job losses have dropped steadily under Obama, he had to work from a massive 700,000+ job less per month that Bush saddled him with, and still hasn’t reached job growth yet.

You can bet that Republicans will crow about this wonderf–er, horrible news for the next week, month, whatever, blaming Obama for it 100%. America failed again! Yayy!!!

Until, of course, the unemployment rate drops under 10% again and steadily goes down, at which time it will be the distant hand of George W. Bush doing all the work!

This story from Ars Technica is rather galling:

Two high school student athletes got in hot water after pictures from a slumber party posted on MySpace—with privacy controls, no less—ended up on the principal’s desk. After being barred from extracurricular activities, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on the girls’ behalf claiming the punishment violated their First Amendment rights.

Reading the article, the pertinent facts are that the photos had been set up so that only approved individuals could view them; obviously, privacy was assumed. Apparently someone on that list, or someone who had access somehow, wanted to get the girls in trouble, and so handed copies of the photos to school officials. This is little different from the school accepting snapshots of the girls from a peeping tom, and then punishing the girls for that. The photos had been set for privacy, and the school, by taking possession of those photos, invaded that privacy.

One has to wonder, if a peeping tom were to point a camera into the windows of the school officials’ houses, what would come up? And how would they react if these photos were made public and they were punished for it?

A few news stories from Japan:

Last night was Halloween, and Halloween in Tokyo means the Yamanote Line. Or at least it used to. Every year for about two decades, there would be something akin to a flash party, where foreigners and their Japanese friends would all agree to ride the Yamanote line and party in costume as it made the last few rounds of its loop line for the night. Here’s a quick documentary on the phenomenon:

However, over the years, the partying has, according to some, gotten more and more out of hand–lots of drinking and obnoxious behavior, which has caused a good deal of concern among the Japanese citizenry. Some foreign revelers reportedly used it as an excuse to harass Japanese traingoers, and Japanese in general were intimidated and generally put off by the whole affair. More and more it became a moving display of drunken debauchery. However, many foreign participants beg to differ, saying that it’s a good-natured party mostly populated by Japanese, and most Japanese traingoers don’t mind–and even join in.

Still, Japanese police take the situation seriously. More and more, over the years, police populate the train stations and the trains themselves. Reports this year are mixed–some say that foreigners with costumes were politely ushered onto the trains by police, others say they were blocked. Whatever the case, it seems that this year’s party was muted at best–not many revelers came on the trains. In part, this may have been from the bad reputation the party has gotten–and in part, it may have been due to threats.

You see, the Halloween Train Party has become something of a symbol among Japanese nationalists, who apparently vastly outnumbered the foreigners this year. A mob of more than a hundred nationalists, many supporting hostile and racist signs, reportedly gathered at Shinjuku Station. There were scattered reports of harassment by these people against random foreigners, and it seems that the police had to focus more on the nationalists. Some nationalists reportedly rode the trains armed with video cameras, hoping to document how foul these foreigners are, reportedly with little or no success.

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In other news, the government is looking to increase speed limits on some non-turnpike roads to as high as 80 KPH. The story is relatively vague except to say that the limit could be raised to 80 for roads “not used by pedestrians, bicycles or motorcycles or those that meet other safety requirements.” I went “mentei” (license probation after receiving too many citations) after living in the suburbs close to the boonies out in Tama, not because I drove unsafely, but because the long straightaways with no intersection or pedestrian traffic were rated for 40 KPH speed limits–ridiculously low, and capitalized on by cops as a revenue stream for ticketing. As I noted here, Japanese traffic ops are notorious for issuing tickets not for safety concerns, but just because they can–likely for monetary reasons. Unsafe intersections are almost never observed by traffic cops. In my last two years in the sticks, I got many traffic citations; in the two years after moving to Ikebukuro, I got none–despite no change in my driving habits. Police simply don’t set up speed traps or other ticket traps very often in mid-town.

Conservatives are insisting that Obama is crushing the First Amendment by treating Fox News for what it is, namely, a partisan, right-wing propaganda machine. They’re hypocritical idiots, of course.

Back in the real world, things are a bit different. In fact, with a new journalistic shield law, Obama is moving to protect First Amendment rights far more assiduously than Bush ever did–more, in fact, than conservatives would like. But this was never about actual First Amendment rights; it was about abusing journalism and twisting it into a political tool, they trying to hide behind the First Amendment.

Just to get it straight: the First Amendment protects the individual’s right to speak freely, and protects the press from government interference or intimidation. It does not, as Carrie Prejean seems to think, shield you from being criticized when you say something stupid. And it does not mean, as most conservatives seem to think, that you can pretend a propaganda machine is an objective news outfit and be “protected” from others telling the truth. Nor does it mean that you can bully the White House into giving that propaganda machine the same access as actual journalists.

Jon Stewart tweaks both Fox and a less-than-articulate Obama official. As always, he uses archive footage to show how the conservative side is lying their asses off, and uses nothing but his scathing wit to admonish the Dems for being so lame. Enjoy.

One thing I know I’ll be getting when I go back to the U.S.: The Ultimate Matrix Blu-Ray set. Not just because I like the films, but because they are part of a new trend, one which I hope becomes the norm.

For a long time, Americans living in Japan have been in movie purgatory. We wait months for a movie to be released here, if it ever gets here at all. Movie ticket prices are high–$14 at discount price–and DVDs can be even more expensive. With classic DVD’s, you could buy them in the U.S.–but since there is region encoding, you have to make sure that you have a region-free player. If you wish to watch the film with Japanese people, however, forget it–Japanese subtitles are not included.

Blu-Ray discs have one nice benefit in this context: they have region encoding, but this time, Japan and the U.S. are in the same region, which means no more having to buy a special region-free player. But the problem of subtitles still remains–or at least, so I thought. As it turns out, many titles released actually do have Japanese subtitles included–though many are not listed as having them.

The Ultimate Matrix Blu-Ray set is an interesting example: it will have Japanese-language options only if your player’s menu is set to Japanese–they won’t show up otherwise. Contact does not list Japanese, but it apparently has the subtitles. The same with the Harry Potter movies, the new Batman movies, and several others.

This web site (in Japanese) lists Blu-Ray versions of movies with Japanese language options, and where they are sold internationally. This forum thread seems to keep a good running list in English. A few great guides if this is the kind of thing you’re looking for.

Frustrated that the FCC won’t respond to his threats, the Telecom-bought senator from Arizona introduced a bill that would make it so that the FCC could never “propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services.” A bill introduced by a colleague in the House says the same thing. As is usual for politicians, they named the bills to sound like panacea: the Senate bill is the “Internet Freedom Act of 2009,” and the House’s is the “Real Stimulus Act of 2009” (snark!).

So, the best way to stimulate the economy is… deregulation! Because that has worked so well in the financial sector. In short, McCain wants to prevent the FCC from protecting consumers so that the Telecoms can charge anything they want, restrict anything they want, do anything they want, and create any cartels or monopolies they want, without any competition or accountability whatsoever.

Swell idea! The best part about the bill is that it is almost sure to die quickly.

Imagine if this guy were president.

The common meme that is being pushed by much of the media today is that MSNBC is as liberal as Fox is conservative. This is being pushed especially by Fox News in its fight to counter the obvious fact that they are a Republican Party offshoot, as contended by the White House. The idea is that if another network can be shown to have a liberal tilt, then that somehow justifies everything that Fox does.

If you have been paying attention, this is not the first time that the argument has come up–but in the last few years, MSNBC has served nicely as the false counterweight. If you’ll recall, before Olbermann came to prominence, it was not MSNBC, but CBS that was supposed to be the equivalent.

There are striking similarities in Fox using the two networks as a false equivalent, the main one being that the equivalencies are entirely false. CBS was more striking, however. Why was CBS supposed to be liberal? Well, it was because of Dan Rather, of course! That flaming liberal!

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say, “Yes, Fox is right-wing, but look at Dan Rather and CBS.” I have heard individuals say it a lot, and before Olbermann’s ratings took off, you could hear right-wingers say it all the time. Hell, even on one episode of Boston Legal, an otherwise very liberal show, the character of Alan Shore used the equivalency. It became so common and unchallenged an idea that liberals even accepted and repeated the idea.

But was it true? Of course not. Not only was Rather not the entirety of CBS programming, there were only a small handful of incidences over the span of his 24 years as news anchor which could call his objectivity into question–and a few even suggested he leaned to the right. What was called liberal bias was usually little more than a willingness to challenge political leaders when the opportunity arose, mixed with a few cases of poor judgment. Rather became the CBS News anchor in 1981 and left in 2005, meaning that for the majority of his time as anchor, there were Republicans in office. But when Clinton was president, Rather did not hold back from reporting on Clinton’s scandals any more than he did with either Bush or Reagan; even though Rather admitted to hating the Lewinsky story, he nonetheless reported on it just as much as anyone else. When the Iraq War began, Rather was particularly uncritical and in fact was an ardent supporter–something he admitted regretting later on.

The primary example of his ‘bias’ was the Bush National Guard story. The irony is, there is a list as long as your arm of strong, verifiable evidence proving that the Guard story was 100% true–Dan Rather, in what was a gift to Bush, simply went after the one piece of faked evidence because it was so alluring. While there is no evidence that Rather wouldn’t have done the same were the target a Democrat, let’s assume for the moment that this one story showed liberal bias. Does this make Dan Rather the equivalent of Fox News? When Fox has spent pretty much every hour of every day for the past 13 years on a non-stop tirade of unprecedented proportions?

Holding MSNBC up as an equivalent to Fox is just as faulty, although it is a lot easier to do. With a talk-show lineup mostly ranging from former Democrats to outright liberal firebrands, MSNBC would certainly seem to fit the bill. However, there are substantive differences. The first comes in foundations and primary motivators: while Fox News was wholly contrived as a means of advancing a conservative political agenda, MSNBC was not created to supply a left-wing agenda.

While Fox News has always been stridently right-wing, MSNBC has not always been left-leaning–in fact, a decade ago, MSNBC was noticeably right-wing in its lineup. When launched in 1996, Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham hosted an MSNBC show called “The Contributors”; from 1999, Oliver North co-hosted one of their shows; Pat Buchanan had a show on the network in 2002-2003; and Joe Scarborough has been an MSNBC regular since 2003. While the network hired Matthews and Olbermann in 2003, it did not really begin to go more left-wing than right-wing until Olbermann proved a ratings success, after which they acquired Maddow and Schultz. In short, the reason why MSNBC tilts left is not because that’s its mission, it’s because that’s where its ratings have led it.

And finally, the bias at Fox is all-encompassing, and bleeds into everything it does, from the text in the “ticker” bar at the bottom of the screen to the reporting of the main news anchors. The former “straight news” anchor Brit Hume constantly exhibited bias. One good case in point was his cheerleading for Bush’s failed initiative to privatize Social Security. In one broadcast, Hume went so far as to make the claim that FDR never meant for Social Security to be permanent, but instead intended it to be privatized. As evidence, he “quoted” FDR–completely out of context. Not only that, but he did so in a way that was impossible as an error; Hume could not have chosen the out-of-context quotes unless he specifically intended to twist the meaning. Even if you believe that this was handed to him and excuse his ‘overlooking’ the error, it is hard to excuse bias when one considers that he left his news post to become Bush’s press secretary. On MSNBC, on the other hand, the bias of some of its talk-show hosts does not bleed in to its straight reporting, as to be expected from a news network which is not driven by an ideology.

The fact is, if MSNBC didn’t exist, the right-wingers would simply invent it. If not MSNBC, then CNN would be called “liberal.” And if not CNN, then CBS. And if not CBS, then anyone else who was handy. Not because there is a liberal tilt, but simply because they want to point to someone or something as a counterweight, a false equivalency so they can say, “See? There’s a liberal network out there, so our right-wing bias is excusable or even justified.” Or, more commonly, to make the outrageous claim that Fox is actually “fair and balanced,” and the liberal-scapegoat-of-the-day is evidence that the rest of the media is left-wing.

Why do I get the feeling that Lieberman was waiting for the microsecond after Snowe to become irrelevant before he jumped in front of the cameras so he could become important again?

One gets the feeling that he, as well as the conservative Dems who jumped on the stage right after him, are doing nothing more than holding health care for everyone hostage so they can benefit themselves. Holding the very lives of countless Americans as political game chips.

Of course, in Lieberman’s case, he is so much a Republican in Democrat’s clothing that one could imagine that he’s vying to become a right-wing hero.

Frankly, I have trouble seeing how Democrats held on to this ass for so long.They should have dumped him the moment he started actively campaigning for John McCain, an act of betrayal difficult to match. But now, for the schmuck to put his own political fortunes ahead of health care reform? He’s not just an ass, he’s a superlative ass.

They probably won’t do it, but if Lieberman is the downfall of health care reform or succeeds in watering it down one bit, Dems should strip him of every title and chair and dump him in the sewer with the garbage. If Lieberman does nothing for Dems and only sabotages everything of importance, he is worse than an enemy, and should be treated as such.

If I thought that he was doing this even in the least bit for his constituents, I’d feel differently. But it’s clear that Lieberman cares about Lieberman and no one else.

As the saying goes, with friends like these.

It’s hard to express as often as I would like the absolute horror we barely dodged last November. While tea-baggers and assorted wingnuts rant and rage and rend their hair over imagined, hare-brained delusions about Obama, the fact is, he’s been one of the most respectable figures in the Oval Office for quite some time. Before he came to office, the wingnuts created out of whole cloth a host of racist names and stereotypes for relatives populating his family; none were true.

Bush 43… well, he was Bush. Himself a former substance abuser, the family has lots of bad apples and skeletons, and way too much drama, between his wayward twin daughters and the brother involved in banking scandals, something which plagued the elder Bush 41 as well. Clinton had his affairs and other assorted scandals. Reagan had a dysfunctional family, and Carter had brother Billy. Ford’s wife had substance abuse. Vice presidents have added their own woes, though usually they are less colorful than the primary, they can be a distraction when something does turn up.

Compared to most recent presidents, Obama easily sails above the rest and wins hands-down as the most respectable in his personal life.

However, had we elected McCain… or, more to the point, in a few years, if somehow Palin were to be elected… Holy crap. I blogged on this before, the white-trash soap opera that is life in the Palin compound, and it just gets more and more lurid.

What’s new in the week’s episode? Well, Levi says that he has the goods on Sarah, stuff that would destroy her… while he signs on to pose Full Monty in Playgirl magazine. As you recall from previous episodes, Levi was the father of Bristol’s illegitimate baby, born out of wedlock after mommy raised Bristol on abstinence-only principles. Propped up to be Bristol’s husband for show on the campaign trail, that quickly fell apart and since then the Palins and Johnstons have been feudin’ something’ fierce. Yes, Palin would bring back real American family values to the White House! After those sluts Sasha and Malia have befouled the First Family’s abode, think how refreshing it’d be to have the nice Palins in residence.

I know, I know–melodrama is aside from the important issues. The reason I bring this up, however, is the same reason people make hay of the adulterous and other sexual dalliances among right-wingers: not because the acts themselves are really anything worth paying attention to, but because they highlight the rather stark hypocrisy inherent in right-wing culture.

In this case, it’s that the right wing constantly makes crap up about Obama in order to look down on him, while they adore someone like Palin, whose personal-life antics are extraordinarily scandalous.

Imagine if Obama’s daughter were 17 and became pregnant with some high-school jock after Obama went lecturing everyone about not having sex before marriage, and that after trying to effect a shotgun wedding, that fell apart and the boy starts spewing dirt and a whole-out family feud erupts. The right wing would experience a year-long orgasm of strutting the Superior Dance, while endlessly going on about how Obama is disgracing the White House and should resign.

But they can’t wait to elect someone whose family scandals are exactly that and far, far more.

Imagine that Michelle had belonged to a political party that promoted secession. Imagine that her brother were arrested on felony charges, or the boy who knocked up their daughter posed nude while his mother got arrested on drug charges.

Seriously, IOKIYAR.

You know that U.S. Telecoms are corrupt and greedy as hell when you read stories like this one, via Ars. A small town in Minnesota approached the regional Telecom, TDS, to ask if they planned to lay fiber optic in the town. TDS said no, they had no plans in the near future.

This is to a great degree because they know that they don’t have to, and without spending tons of money on infrastructure, they can charge just as much for low-speed “broadband” networks that already exist. This suits them: rake in as much cash as possible without laying out money for new systems. In the 90’s, the Telecoms got permission to hike rates substantially by removing the old “rate of return” regulations; in return, they promised (non-binding) to spend the extra money on upgrading infrastructure so that 86 million US households would have 45 Mbps broadband or better. Guess what? They took the money and didn’t upgrade. Surprise! Unless I missed something, and most of the U.S. gets 50 Mbps F/O for $50 a month nowadays. Nope. Instead, the Telecoms raised your rates to the tune of $200 billion and more, and did very little to earn it.

That’s why Japan, which had a successful “e-Japan” policy, got true nationwide broadband–30 Mbps and higher– five years ago. In Japan, the average connection speed is 61Mbps, and Japanese pay about 27 cents per megabit. In the U.S., the average is 4.8 Mbps, and they pay $3.33 per megabit–12 times more for 1/12th the speed.

Unhappy with the Telecom’s refusal to keep their promises, the small town of Monticello, Minnesota forged ahead on their own, voting for the installation of a municipal F/O network. Well, we can’t have that. TDS actually sued the town–how dare they build their own network and not let the Telecoms fleece them! When it was clear that TDS could not stop the town, they set out to lay a competing F/O network at warp speed–showing clearly that they were perfectly capable of installing FTTH anywhere they damned well pleased, not ten years from now, but immediately–but just didn’t want to make the investment when they knew they had a captive audience. Monticello only got action when they set to make their own network, threatening to put TDS out of business in that town. TDS’s explanation: they didn’t know that people wanted broadband. Bullshit: they knew full well.

It makes very clear what I think everyone has known: the Telecoms have long been able to deliver high-speed fiber connections–they just don’t want to because they can make more money by letting the U.S. wallow in high-cost, low-speed backwaters. Which is why my dad pays more now than I do for an ISP connection, while receiving speeds that were a joke in Japan just five years ago.

Want high-speed Internet? Do what Monticello did: get your city to make their own network. The Telecoms will get off their asses and deliver only when they discover that their customers are no longer apathetic chumps.