NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Sat, 31 Jul 2004
Humor
Equal time for George. Better even than the JibJab piece.
Posted at 10:17 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Fri, 30 Jul 2004
Now there's a helpful attitude...
From Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush
said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality
jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel
better.
"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on
Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman
Terry Holt.
[...]
Nearly 1.1 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office in
January 2001.
Posted at 08:56 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Go, John
Finally, a democrat with the grit to state the obvious.
"That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head, It was shot
through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the
wind. It draped the caskets of men that I served with and friends I
grew up with. That flag doesn't belong to any president. It doesn't
belong to any ideology. It doesn't belong to any political party. It
belongs to all the American people."
John Kerry, 07/29/04
Note to the current administration: You don't own patriotism. You
don't own the flag. You don't own our government. And you don't speak
for me.
Posted at 08:15 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Thu, 29 Jul 2004
Political Humor
heh...
Posted at 12:17 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Incomes fall -- a lot
Sorry about the lack of posts. Scrambling on about five fronts this week.
The Times reports on an analysis
of the last couple of tax years from the IRS. No real surprise to me,
having lived through it, incomes have fallen. But I am pretty
surprised that it is almost by 10%. This side of the Great Depression,
it is unprecedented.
The overall income Americans reported to the government shrank for
two consecutive years after the Internet stock market bubble burst in
2000, the first time that has effectively happened since the modern
tax system was introduced during World War II, newly disclosed
information from the Internal Revenue Service shows.
The total adjusted gross income on tax returns fell 5.1 percent, to
just over $6 trillion in 2002, the most recent year for which data is
available, from $6.35 trillion in 2000. Because of population growth,
average incomes declined even more, by 5.7 percent.
Adjusted for inflation, the income of all Americans fell 9.2 percent
from 2000 to 2002, according to the new I.R.S. data.
You know, as many things as there are for an old guy of my
political bent to grouse about, this one strikes me as the
issue for conservatives to worry about. This is kitchen table stuff,
and the Bush Pioneers aren't the ones sitting there trying to balance
the family checkbook and make the minimum on their credit cards.
One thing is for sure: it isn't going to be fixed by election day,
and people tend to vote their pocketbooks first.
Posted at 11:53 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Fri, 23 Jul 2004
Republican quotes on the current administration
Shamelessly lifted from Outraged Moderates, where they have an excellent Government Document Library as well. Be sure to look at the Military, Scientist and Religious Leaders quotes regarding The Preznit over there as well.
"If I knew then what I know
now about
what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the
war." - William F. Buckley, preeminent conservative
commentator and founder of the National Review. [The Hill]
"I would not have voted for [President
Bush's] tax cut, based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that
the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the
most benefit. . . . Too often presidents do things that don't end up
helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won't
tell them their actions stink on ice." - Former North
Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. [Washington Post]
"What the hell! What are these guys
thinking about? . . . Can't you get these guys back in the box?" -
Secretary of State Colin
Powell to General Hugh Shelton after Rumsfeld had
brought up the possibility of attacking Iraq in a September 16, 2001
National Security Council meeting. [Slate's
"Condensed Bob Woodward"; Woodward, "Plan of Attack,"
p.25]
"[How much Iraq has in the way of WMD's]
can be debated." - Former U.S. President George H. W.
Bush, in a speech given February 26, 2003, just weeks before the Iraq War
began. [Washington Post]
"Trying to eliminate Saddam,
extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have
violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream,
engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable
human and political costs." - Former U.S. President
George H. W. Bush on why he didn't occupy Iraq
in 1991, in his 1998 book, "A World Transformed.''
[Bush, "A World
Transformed"]
"It is interesting to me that many
of those who want to rush this country into war and think it would
be so quick and easy don't know anything about war . . . They come
at it from an intellectual perspective versus having sat in jungles
or foxholes and watched their friends get their heads blown off." -
Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. [MSNBC]
"If we go after Saddam
Hussein, we lose
our rightful place as the good guy." - Vice
President
Cheney, September 16, 2001. [Woodward, p.25]
"Woodward meets Bush at a White House
Christmas party in 2002. Though it's months before the prez would
declare war on Iraq, Bush suggests that a sequel to Woodward's
previous best seller, Bush at War, should be in the
works.'Maybe it will be called More Bush at War,' Bush
says. Laura Bush responds, 'Let's hope not.'"
[Slate's "Condensed Bob Woodward"; Woodward, p.25]
"We see an unprecedented secrecy in
this White House that ... we find very troubling."
- Larry Klayman, executive director of
conservative legal watchdog Judicial Watch. "This is a case where left and right agree ... True
conservatives don't act this way." [USA Today]
"This is not a monarchy." -
House Government Reform Chairman Dan Burton, a
Republican from Indiana, after President Bush invoked executive
privilege to deny Congress access to prosecutorial documents, which
have routinely been turned over to Congress by past
administrations. [ABC News]
Posted at 11:41 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Thu, 22 Jul 2004
Apollo 11 Photos
Just learned from Slashdot that NASA has digitized a large number
of previously unreleased photos from Apollo 11 in celebtaion of the
35th anniversary of the first moon walk. They're
magnificent. (Click on "11-pg2")
I don't know that I've ever seen a more poetically lonely picture than Armstrong's photo of the landing site from a distance.
Posted at 15:29 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Ted Turner Speaks
There's a really interesting article
over at the Washington Monthly by Ted Turner about the current media
climate. Here's an excerpt:
In 1990, the major broadcast
networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox--fully or partially owned just 12.5
percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent.
Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.
In this environment, most independent media firms either get
gobbled up by one of the big companies or driven out of business
altogether. Yet instead of balancing the rules to give independent
broadcasters a fair chance in the market, Washington continues to tilt
the playing field to favor the biggest players. Last summer, the FCC
passed another round of sweeping pro-consolidation rules that, among
other things, further raised the cap on the number of TV stations a
company can own.
It's well worth the time; interesting as an "insider" document, and
informative about how your airwaves are being co-opted.
Posted at 14:22 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sun, 18 Jul 2004
Your tax dollars at work
There is an excellent article entitled "The Price of Imperial
Folly" by Phyllis Bennis over at Alternet.
I'll let it speak for
itself:
The recently released Senate Intelligence Report demonstrates
what so many have known for so long: The claimed justifications for the
invasion of Iraq were based on lies. But lost in the Beltway debate
over intelligence failure is the enormous price we Americans, Iraqis,
the world are paying for the Bush administration's self-serving war.
In
sheer dollar amounts, the costs of this precipitate war are already far
higher than any number put forward by Bush officials at the outset of
the war. The price tag so far is $151 billion and climbing already
three times the initial estimate provided by Bush's Office of
Management and Budget and embarrassingly close to the "$100 to $200
billion" that White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay anticipated
just before he precipitously left the administration in December 2002.
For
most of us, $151 billion is an incomprehensible amount of money. It's
hard to imagine what that kind of dollar amount actually means. Well,
here are some facts to prod our imagination.
To begin with, $151
billion can pay for health care for 23 million uninsured Americans; or
housing stipends for 27 million homeless people in this country; or a
year's salary for 3 million new elementary school teachers; or more
than 678,000 new fire engines.
The international impact of that
kind of money is even more breathtaking. That same $151 billion could
feed half the hungry people in the world for two years and provide clean water and sanitation for the entire developing world and fund a comprehensive global AIDS program and pay for childhood immunizations for every child in poor countries that constitute the global South.
There's much more...
Posted at 07:38 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sat, 17 Jul 2004
On Corporations
Those of you that know me know of my interest in publicly traded
corporations, corporate "personhood", and the resultant corrosive
effect on free market capitalism. There's a fellow named David Korten who has devoted a
lot of time to this area of study. I highly recommend an interview
with Mr. Korten over at lilipoh.com.
Posted at 19:07 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Equal offense
This is the best,
funniest flash animation that I've ever seen; it's a satire on the
presidential race. It should be equally offensive to all political
persuasions. Enjoy.
Posted at 09:50 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Fri, 16 Jul 2004
Housekeeping
I've changed the URL for this weblog to a more logical http://www.kirchhof.com/randy/blog/. The old one will work, too, but will be turned into a redirect pretty soon. So bookmark the newer version; it'll be good always.
By the way, this thing gets between 150 and 250 hits a day on
average. That's pretty astounding to me. I have no idea who you are,
but thanks mightily for stopping by. Don't ever hesitate to write me if
you have comments.
Posted at 09:25 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Cool. Plankton make their own weather.
From Wired today:
Phytoplankton may be small, but that doesn't mean they can't do big
things -- like change the weather to suit their needs.
A recent study funded by NASA's Earth Science Department shows that
the tiny sea plants release high quantities of cloud-forming compounds
on days when the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays are especially
strong. The compounds evaporate into the air through a series of
chemical processes that result in especially reflective clouds. This,
in turn, blocks the radiation from bothering the phytoplankton.
Posted at 09:16 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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A long week...
I've been moving all week, with any spare time spent on a
programming contract. Hopefully I'll be able to devote more time to
the blog in a few more days.
Posted at 08:28 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Mon, 12 Jul 2004
Rhetorical question...
So why is it that seemingly every time we go through a right-wing
spasm of "deregulation", it is followed in a few short years by the
necessity to decriminalize (in the same semantic sense as "delouse") the
industry that was deregulated?
Telecom deregulation gave us MCI and Adelphia among others. Energy
deregulation gave us Enron and others. S&L deregulation not only cost
us billions in taxpayer bailouts, it killed the entire industry. Cable
TV deregulation is now in the "price fixing" stage of
investigations. Securities deregulation resulted in record fines to
Wall Street-based brokerage houses.
More on this later. It looks like a fruitful subject to
explore.
Posted at 09:06 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Semantics
This caught my eye over at Politics1. I think that it's a very good observation.
OP-ED ON POLITICAL SEMANTICS
Just
food for thought here -- and not saying anything pro or con here on the
topic of universal health care (or whatever you want to call it) -- but
why do critics always deride it "socialized medicine"? And why, when
people call it socialized medicine, do moderates quickly shy away from
any meaningful discussion on the merits of the topic? We have universal
public education through the high school level (to wit: everyone pays
taxes regardless of whether or not they will have a kid in school in
order to ensure that every child has the opportunity to attend
public schools for free) ... but no mainstream politician ever calls it
"socialized education." The same universal method of tax payments
coupled with full public access -- usually without user fees -- applies
to all of our public roads, parks, police, and fire/rescue. Despite
this, I've never once heard anyone decry "socialized streets" or
"socialized parks" or "socialized law enforcement" or "socialized
public safety." When do we set aside the rhetorical war -- and some of
this political polarization of the nation -- and start having calm,
serious, thoughtful discussions about real solutions to real problems
facing real people?
Indeed. Now let's talk about things like satellite communication,
weather prediction, standards of weight and measure, navigation,
medical research, military health care, insurance benefits for
Congress, and so on. My Gosh! It's all "Socialized!"
Posted at 08:59 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sat, 10 Jul 2004
So where are the updates?
Hmm. AFP, has a summary of the weeks activities in Iraq. There's an interesting sentence that caught my eye; it just kind of whooshes by:
Meanwhile, a dozen warheads that Polish forces said on Thursday contained mustard gas or sarin contained neither, according to US forces, who tested the 122mm munitions.
So where is the hysterical reporting of last week, now that the facts are in?
Posted at 09:34 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Wed, 07 Jul 2004
More on DHMO (humor)
The horror continues.
Meanwhile, some apologists, obviously
some well-financed shadow group, have a pro-DHMO page. They actually claim that DHMO is beneficial.
Posted at 11:22 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Alert! (humor)
I've just discovered a website
that is dedicated to one of the most under-reported perils of our time
-- the abundance of Dihydrogen Monoxide in our ecosystem. An acid,
chemical formula being H20, DHMO (also referred to by some
as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or
simply Hydric acid) exhibits a number of well documented dangers. From
the FAQ:
-
Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
-
Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
-
Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically
life-threatening side-effects.
-
DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
-
Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
-
Contributes to soil erosion.
-
Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
-
Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
-
Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
-
Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
-
Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest
and elsewhere.
-
Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor
to the El Nino weather effect.
This whole site is hilarious (if you're into deadpan geeky physics
satire/humor, anyway...) Somebody has put a lot of time into this. It's perfect. Just click on the image below.
Posted at 08:43 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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PBS? Healthy.
This is heartening. There's an article over at Media Matters
regarding some recent effluvia from Bill O'Reilly about PBS being
bankrupt. I won't give that discussion any space -- O'Reilly is a
right wing serial fantascist, and not even an interesting one at that.
But the numbers quoted in the story are really interesting. Not only is PBS quite healthy financially, it has more viewers than any cable operation:
Though its 2004 budget is not readily available, PBS's 2003
annual report disclosed net assets in excess of $184 million. On
January 10, the Associated Press reported:
"The flow of corporate money to PBS has increased after a three-year
dry spell."
[...]
Plenty of people watch PBS. Citing the Nielsen Television Index,
PBS's website reports:
"Over 87 million people in 51 million households watched public
television during an average week of the 2002-2003 television season."
They also note that "Americans continued to watch public television in
greater numbers than any cable network during the 2002-2003 season,"
which means more Americans watch PBS than the FOX News Channel.
That's a good couple of facts to start the day with..
Posted at 07:44 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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This should be fun
Micheal Moore now has a blog.
Posted at 07:26 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tue, 06 Jul 2004
Heh...
They watch Fox so you don't have to.
Posted at 07:39 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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A great service
Tired of being asked to register every time you try to to read the
morning news? I am. The people at Bug Me Not are there for you. Type
in a URL, and get a username and password that will get you access. Muy Bueno.
Posted at 07:21 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Campaign commercials revisited
Found 'em. You can take a look at Bush/Kerry campaign commercials
(or, indeed, any presidential campaign commercial since 1952) at The Living
Room Candidate. Marvelous stuff.
It is a nasty race for sure. But what else would one expect from Rove and Company?
Posted at 07:09 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sun, 04 Jul 2004
This is news?
The L.A. Times had a story entitled "Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue" on Saturday. In it they say:
As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines
converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous
statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel not joyous Iraqi
civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images who decided to
topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking
Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a
spontaneous Iraqi undertaking.
This passes as news? Fifteen months later? Anyone who has paid any
attention at all has seen the wide
angle photo that was published at that time -- well, published all over the
rest of the world, anyway.
One can only assume that The L.A. Times has decided to actually
report the news, and is starting by cleaning up the huge
backlog of factual information that it didn't report at the time.
Sheesh.
(A tip o' the hat to Atrios for catching this one.)
Posted at 09:39 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Fri, 02 Jul 2004
Bummer.
I keep reading about all of these millions of dollars spent on campaign ads, and the "he said" "sez you" nature of the hardball game that the candidates are playing.
Well, I live in Texas. Not a dime has been spent here on the presidential race. Does anyone have any pointers to these ads? Mail me.
Posted at 01:46 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Thu, 01 Jul 2004
A new feature
It's always a judgement call whether to make links in a medium such
as this open in a new window or not. I just pawned it off
on... you. Assuming that you have javascript enabled (and most do),
you can check the box at the top of the page to have all links open a
new window.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must ponder the philosophical question
of whether it should be checked or unchecked by default... :-)
Posted at 16:58 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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One job that I'd like to see "offshorced..."
Once again,
Josh Marshall comes through with a great observation. In today's
BizReport, there's an interview entitled "Chamber of Commerce CEO
Endorses Outsourcing." That's the head of the US Chamber, Thomas
Donohue. How about a quote from the interview?
Donohue acknowledged the pain for people who
have lost jobs to offshoring - an estimated 250,000 a year, according to
government estimates. But pockets of unemployment shouldn't lead to "anecdotal
politics and policies," he said, and people affected by offshoring should
"stop whining."
"One job sent overseas, if it happens to be my job,
is one too many," Donohue said. "But the benefits of offshoring jobs outweighs
the cost."
[...]
Donohue, 66, past president of the American
Trucking Associations and regional assistant postmaster general in San Francisco
and New York, likes to say that "business should stop apologizing" for perceived
abuses.
My opinion: this is exactly the kind of odious individual that forever
ensures the necessity of the government's regulation of capitalism
(that the so-called conservatives so rabidly deplore.) "Stop whining"
indeed. Start organizing, and start eliminating misanthropes like this from
positions of responsibility in our economy.
Posted at 16:52 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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