Going Coastal

Not that anyone expects me to post regularly, but I shall be even more irregular this weekend. A high school friend of mine is currently living out his dream in San Jose working for Lawrence-Livermore making cool super secret weapons with his Electornics Engineering PhD. I can only imagine the evil contraption he has in store for our future enemies...mwa-ha-ha!

Anyway, I shall be out there and not here - internet access may not be a priority. Don't expect any posts.

Mark Dayton - A Glowing Blue Lamp for Freaks Everywhere

I'll probably get in trouble for this - so let me do my best to first give all credit to Roll Call. The following comes from that fine, subcriber only, publication Roll Call. It was Roll Call and all it's greatness that has brought us this - oh, and National Journal too:

Roll Call'sAkers asks "if a certain soft drink making" Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) and his staff jittery?" Someone, "or many people" in Dayton's office are "guzzling Diet Coke by the caseload." On 7/26 Dayton office manager Kristin Gentile sent an e-mail "with the eerie two-word subject line: Diet Coke." Gentile: "On Thursday, I bought 18 cases of Diet Coke. ... We are now down to four. ... I think we can all agree that 168 cans of Diet Coke should have lasted us far longer than two business days! ... Unlike the water supply, the Coke is paid for by Mark personally. Please, please, please be respectful of his money ... and limit the amount of Coke you consume to a reasonable one or two cans." Dayton spokesperson Chris Lisi "rather testily" said "usually reporters call me about stories that make sense. ... Why are you calling me about Diet Coke?" Akers on her response: "Ok -- just lay off the Diet Cokes, give us a call back, and we'll be happy to explain!" (7/27).

Denzel - Decent Human Being

Most people generally give others the benefit of the doubt when determining
whether they are decent human beings.  This is true in my case as well. 
You generally have to prove to me that you are not one.  However I do have
one exception, and that is Hollywood.

In hollywood's case, I need definitive proof that they are decent.  I
recieved a good deal of evidence concerning Denzel this morning:

>Don't know whether you heard about this but Denzel Washington and
>his family visited the troups at Brook Army Medical Center, in San
>Antonio,Texas (BAMC). This is where soldiers that
>have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the
>States, especially burn victims. They have buildings there called
>Fisher Houses. The Fisher House is a hotel where soldiers' families
>can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in
>the hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base but as
>you can imagine, they are almost completely filled most of the time.
>
>While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of
>one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost
>to build. He took his check book out and wrote a check for the full
>amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed
>to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American
>public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.
>
>A true American and friend to all in uniform!


Amen.

Union Yips

The AFL-CIO just lost some serious backing this week. The last successful 'manly' unions including Teamsters, SEIU, Food and Commercial Workers and Unite Here have split. There are macro and micro implications for the AFL-CIO.

In losing the Teamsters they lose the one Union that is the most recognizable, most easily embraced by both political parties, and has the most recognizable leader in James Hoffa Jr. Maybe you saw the movie. In a macro sense, Teamsters are about moving goods around America, and you just can't outsource that. The SEIU has been the most agressive and successful union at organizing the last decade. Their leader is a liberal nut, but he's a nut who pours his energy into union drives as opposed to legistlation. In the macro, service employees are surging while manufacturing employees are eroding. The Food and Commercial Union has been taking on the big prize - WalMart. They have seen little success so far, but they are persistent. In a Macro sense, they're going after Walmart - enough said.

The AFL-CIO is now left with two widely disparate groups, who's only unifying factor is the election of Democrats. The old, shrinking, more 'manly' industrial unions such as the UAW and AMFA on the one hand - and AFCSME, the teachers union, and other 'girly' and growing unions that live off of tax dollars.

The splinter unions have argued that the AFL-CIO has spent too much effort on politics and not enough on organizing. I'm mildly surprised that these splinter unions were able to recognize that their bottom line is best served by a growing economy rather than government largesse.

The Republican in me is loving this. These large unions are pulling their dollars, manpower and focus away from elections. The absence of union influence will only allow the Moveon types a less cluttered message that will continue to scare Americans away from the left, and the vast effort at GOTV will suffer as well.

The manager in me is spooked. You now have 4 unions focusing on organizing the workplace and another shunted union that will probably try to compete. This means that hundreds of more workplaces will undergo the arduous unionizing drives which will kill employee morale and productivity. Target #1? The war for Walmart. This doesn't bode well for the old stock portfolio.

Just Enough of My Blog, But Way too Much of Yours

Over at Marty's blog, he goes over some stats with us. He is about the 70,000th most read blog which puts him in the top half of one percent of all bloggers. Clearly there are WAY too many people blogging, and it's time somebody did something about this. I mean, c'mon, who is going to read my blog when there are millions of other blogs distracting and confusing all of my potential readers?

It's time for all you other bloggers out there to stop. We need to institute some "voluntary" blogger abortions. I say we start with all Delaware based blogs, because seriously, who cares? Next we should look to the inspirational and successful blogger reduction programs in China and Iran. Those governments have had a high degree of success using new technology to weed out millions of blogs, of which most would have been of poor quality or irrelevant material.

Blogging is growing by leaps and bounds, and unless we stop the growth, and institute programs to reduce blogging levels, we will simply have an unsustainable situation that will eventually lead to the crashing of the internet. WE MUST ACT NOW!

Now on another and completely unrelated note, I read an interview with John Seager who is the CEO of Population Connection, or formerly known as Zero Population Growth. If you can bear to read through his confused and muddled manner of speech, you can read it here. Seager is worried there are too many people. It's not the people for people's sake, it's that people lead to global warming and that leads to all sorts of bad things. It makes me wonder what buggaboo Malthus pointed to 400 years ago when Global Warming wasn't a readily available harm...

(There were population concerns 400 years ago?)

Yep, goes all the way back to the later Roman Empire. We've always been worried about too many people, and yet - here we are).

Seagar was asked what the ideal population of the Earth was. His answer wasn't direct, but it was certainly interesting: "The impact is extraordinary, and I have to say that I'm not sure even zero population growth gets us to the point where we can address it. But I think we have to look at that as some kind of final goal."

Hmmm... so even zero growth won't work, eh? Well, then let the extermination begin!

Step One: Abortions - and lots of 'em! $2 billion worth to be exact. You can abort a bunch of brown and yellow babies with $2 billion!

(Note from appalled readers - Gilles you racist! Seagar never said abort any particular race. How dare you assert such a thing!)

Oh I dare, I dare. Let's see here... white russian population - decreasing; white European population - decreasing, white North American population - holding steady. Now the dirty little secret of the population growth activists is that the only growing populations are all those with brown or yellow hues. You stop any more of them from coming into the world, you get your "zero population growth". This is pretty convenient for the latent racists.

Step two is for John Seagar and the Silver Condom Band to distribute them far and wide and fully discredit abstinence programs. I think my favorite example of muddled thinking comes from this quote: "We would love to see an amendment offered to the effect that all sex education programs in this country have to be medically accurate. That amendment would fail in the House of Representatives because it would mean a death knell for the abstinence-only programs."

Riiiiiiight, because abstinence is not medically accurate... Seems to me it works every time it's tried. I even think the medical community might back me up on that one. But what do I know, I'm just a crazy puritanical reactionary.

Speaking of crazy puritanical reactionaries, step three is to follow the successful, "scientific", programs instituted by Iran in 1989. Iran dropped from an average of 5 kids per family to 2.5. Now those Mullahs know how to curb population growth! Seagar didn't go into any details of HOW this was achieved, but I'm going to take a wild guess and assume their methods wouldn't fly over here. Remember, this isn't John Ashcroft's America anymore.

At this point some of my more clever readers might recall first few paragraphs of this post. If any outrage was felt by the bloggers, I apologize. But I encourage you to bottle that outrage and realize Seagar wants the same thing - however, instead of killing off a cool internet publishing toy, he wants to kill off populations of PEOPLE!!!!

Sure, it might be easier if we could just kill every last person in this world who might annoy or inconvenience us. But we generally rise above the frictions of sharing space with others with manners and a good dose of technology.

I suggest Seager and his ilk show us some real leadership on this issue and go take a flying leap. Or at the very least, terminate all their blogs.

Audio Hose

Blogging is great, but sometimes it's just not enough to be able to spew your opinions on the home computer. No, sometimes it actually leaves the house, drinks a few beers, gets smoked at bar room trivia - and feels the need to blog RIGHT NOW, or else it gets the hose again.

Thanks to the good people at audio blogger, that is now possible. Marty has posted this interview of my spoken thoughts on blogging on his site: http://martinandrade.blogspot.com

Marty also has a radio show that will debut in St. Cloud Sunday the 31. So if you get radio from St. Cloud, tune into the station that has Rush on it, and hear Marty instead for a few hours.

Supreme Run Down

The general feeling towards the current make up of the Court is that it is closely divided with conservatives holding a slim 5-4 majority, with Sandra Day O'Connor as a swing vote of sorts. But let's break this down.

On the Liberal side of things there are 3 rocked ribbed liberals who always vote with each other - David Souter (Bush I), John Paul Stevens (Ford) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Clinton).

On the conservative side, there are only two rock ribbed conservatives - Scalia (Reagan) and Thomas (Bush).

(Liberals 3 - Conservatives 2)

Each side also has a 90-10 guy - someone who would be considered rock ribbed except for a few issues. For the liberals it is Breyer (Clinton) and the conservatives have Rehnquist (Reagan) who takes some liberal views on campaign finance. But overall, each side can pretty much rely on these guys.

(Liberals 4 - Conservatives 3)

In the middle we have a couple of GOP appointees who lean right, but surprise no one when they veer left. Anthony Kennedy is generally with the conservatives and I'd score him a 75-25. We lost him on Kelo, the property rights case, and a few other annoying decisions.

(Liberals 4.25 - Conservatives 3.75)

Sandra pretty much split the difference and approached the bench like a politician. If the decision was quietly conservative on issues like federalism, should could be counted on. On larger issues such as abortion, affirmative action, church and state issues - she would stick her finger in the air, take a poll, hold a focus group - and base her decision on the best marketing info Madison Avenue could buy.

(Liberals 4.65 - Conservatives 4.35)

Ideally our judges would make sound law based on the principles outlined in the constitution - liberty, life and freedom - and let popular opinion be damned. Sandy was a former politician, and you know what they say in the hood - you can take the girl of out politics, but you can't take the politics out of the girl.

The problem with political decision making by judges is that the difference splitting fails to settle the point of law and leads to a defacto "Lawyer Employment Protection Act of 2005". So I won't miss O'Connor.

The subtraction of O'Connor and the inclusion of Roberts will certainly shift the court away from a politically influenced court, to a slim conservative majority with the occasional shockingly bad decision by Kennedy. My assumption is that Roberts will mimic his mentor William Rehnquist and will behave as a 90-10 conservative. This might be optimistic, but we shall see.

(Liberals 4.35 - Conservatives 4.65)

Besides O'Connor, there are potentially 3 more judges who will need replacing during Bush's second term. He may have the opportunity to complete re-shape the court.

Rehnquist is on his way out, one way or another. Conservatives need an equal replacement in terms of ideology, but it is highly unlikely that a jurist will meet his legendary greatness as a judge. Rehnquist will go down with the likes of Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Marshall in the history books.

Ideally Bush will use this pick to put in a rocked ribbed Hispanic conservative along the lines of Miguel Estrada. This would be good politically and replace one conservative lion with another. This would also ensure a conservative majority for the next 10 years. However is AG Alberto Gonzalez were the pick, we would revert back to the court we have today, assuming Roberts in a 90-10 guy.

(Liberals 4.25 - Conservatives 4.75)

Liberal John Paul Stevens is 85. There is nothing other than his advanced age that suggests he will need replacement. But at 85, and 3 years to go in the Bush term - it doesn't take an actuary to deny this guy a life insurance policy. Stevens will go down as a footnote on the court. He didn't embarrass himself or wow the legal minds. But he is a staunch liberal and losing him will be a blow. Here I'd like to see Bush celebrate his liberal legacy by appointing the first black female to the court - Janice Rogers Brown - who of course was recently appointed to federal appeals court and consistently won 70% of the vote in the San Francisco area for re-election to the California Supreme Court. This would lead to a solidly conservative court and negate the weird decisions of Kennedy. At this point, you would see a lot of abortion laws short of Roe v. Wade being overturned - such as parental permission and partial birth.

(Liberals 3.25 - Conservatives 5.75)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is young by Court standards at 72, however she is a recent colon cancer survivor and her health considers to suffer. Her vacancy on the court would be no loss to the legal community. She is considered the high court's only lightweight and struggles not to embarrass herself or liberals. She does best when she keeps quiet and just joins Souter or Stevens.

Her loss would decimate the liberal influence on the court, leaving just Breyer and Souter. If Bush had it in him to eliminate Roe, he would put in another good conservative. If he wished to keep Roe around, we could expect Alberto Gonzales to be appointed.

Alberto Court (Liberals 2.65 - Conservatives 6.35)

Assuming this scenario, Bush would have established himself as the greatest consolidator of government power since Andrew Jackson. He would be credited with painting Texas a deep shade of red at every level, solidifying the GOP majority in the US House which was slowly eroding in 1998 and 2000. He will have completed a solid 10 seat GOP senate majority - not filibuster proof, but plenty big to offset crackpot moderates. And the court will have gone from a slight lean to solid right for the next 15-20 years.

And if, just if, a GOPer can take the Presidency in 2008, the impact on the federal bureaucracy will be cemented with an onslaught of retirements and replacements that are due. Something like 50% of all federal employees are retiring in the next 10 years. If a GOP administration can guide that process for the next 7-8 years, the impact will be significant.

John Jacob Gingleheimer Roberts

Last night the media was all atwitter staking out the white house to figure out who the next Supreme Court Justice would be. Towards the end they started to eliminate people based on flight times to DC and the tizzy just kept growing. I figured Bush would do the same thing he did the last time he had a secret nominee - pick Dick Cheney.

Turns out I was wrong, but what do I know about judges? The only judges I could name are the ones tied up in the recent controversy that resulted in the compromise by the 14 senators. Since Roberts wasn't part of this, I have no idea who he is or what he's all about. I turned to trusted sources this morning and got a mixed bag. The boys at Powerline know the law and they like Roberts. Freddy Beetle Barnes knows Washington (of which Roberts is an established figure) and considers the pick to be timid and uninspired. Rush had Giulliani on the show and Rudy gave Roberts a thumbs up. This is confusing on a couple of levels. Rush doesn't do interviews, and the few I recall involved someone with the word "President" in their title. Rudy isn't exactly a star of the Rush right and is considered soft or wrong on abortion, gay rights, and other social issues. That being said, barring a Jeb candidacy I'm going with Rudy or George Allen in 2008.

Ann Coulter fired a shot against Roberts, but I don't take her seriously. Schumer was his cheerful hostile self, but that's a given. Reid could only stoke the Rove-Plame controversy and suggested this was all part of a great conspiracy to cover up the TRUTH. All the other typical George Soros funded/Bush Hating orgs made the noises you'd suspect - but official Democratia was largely silent and acquiescent... and that's what I consider the most troubling. It could be the Bush surprise factor caught these folks with their pants down, and those liberals who know him on the DC scene simply know him as an affable fellow - as his reputation suggests. Maybe in the month or two Leahy is taking to drag out the process official liberal DC will wake up and take up the attack.

I'm with the general consensus that Roberts will easily be confirmed. But how will he rule once he's on the oligarchic throne of 9? Sounds like a good topic for another blog.

Dog Park Walker Reports...

One of my personal philosophies on blogs is that one should break news and offer truly unique insights and information as much as possible. Sure I could prattle on about what I had for dinner, how much sleep I didn't get, and how the man is out to get me - but outside my future self no one would care. Now I'm all for an Army of one, but an audience of one is just sad.

So today's post will continue the theme from the last three days - stories from friends about things to avoid. So far we have Sprint, the Chicago PD, and today we add St. Louis. From an anonymous friend, who's credibility I will vouch for:

"May I speak to the manager?" Just a few words that I always hate to mutter because at this point in the transaction I am usually very unhappy. Unfortunately I had to use that phrase twice in my recent visit to St. Louis, MO. The first time involved a Shell gas station.
I was pumping gas into my car and accidentally purchased a car wash at the end of my transaction. I walked into the store and asked the attendant to please remove the car wash purchase from my receipt. He looked at my receipt and slid it back across the counter and said that I was out of luck, he couldn't do anything for me. I thought this was a very odd statement and questioned him about a number that I may call to remove this charge. He said there was no such number. Still thinking he was full of $%*&, I asked to speak to the manager.

At this point he got very agitated and I think he was going to tell me there is no manager, but the manager just happened to walk up. Of course she said it would be no problem to remove the charge. It turns out the attendant just didn't know how.

The funny thing is that the tension of being outed as a liar really made this guy crack up. Lots of nervous laughter and he actually tried to walk away at one point. His manager kept asking him what was wrong and he started in with some real attitude. I thanked the manager and went on my way. The second occurrence was at the Residence Inn in St. Louis. I walk into my hotel and was greeted by the desk attendant. I said I was here to check in. She said she didn't have a reservation for me. I told her that I am positive this is the hotel. She told me there were absolutely no rooms. She swore up and down and told me that I had made a mistake. She couldn't put me in a room if she wanted to.
Still insisting that I was right, I asked to speak with the manager. At this point she called the manager and he confirmed that I DID have a reservation. She got very defensive at that point and blamed the computer and everyone else who works for Marriott.

I hand her my AMEX and she says sorry I can't take that, the computer says it is no good. I questioned her on that and she refused to call AMEX to find
out what was going on. She said I would have to do this. Finally I gave her my check card and she checked me in. The footnote for this story is that she took about 3 personal calls and stopped to watch a tv program once during this entire experience. I plan to avoid both of these business establishments in the future.

Fortunately for my friend, he did get a decent sushi dinner at something called the "Drunken Fish". So, don't go to St. Louis. But if you have to go, eat there.

GUN!!!

My friend in Chicago, Geoff, had a rough time last night. He and the wife were kicking back in their apartment trying to keep cool and no doubt catching up on their first season of Scrubs DVD. The purpose of that last sentence was to establish the fact that they are typical, mild mannered, white people. If you were lost in a dark alley and came across this guy, you'd probably be prompted to ask if HE needed help.

As the night went on, they heard a disturbance in the apartment downstairs. There were some raised voices, sounds of furniture and other items being disturbed, and eventually some crashing sounds. All of which was behavior atypical of these neighbors.

Geoff put a call down to his neighbors to ask if everything was alright, but the phone was answered by someone who was definitely not one of the effiminately voiced gentlemen who lived downstairs. This new, gruff and angry voiced demanded who was calling and Geoff explained he was the neighbor. The call didn't end well so the next call was 911.

The situation was explained to the dispatcher, who then asked that everything be repeated. Before the conversation ended there was a loud knock on HIS door and an angry voice demanding to be let in and the term, "I know you're in there!" was shouted through the door.

Geoff grabbed his hunting shot gun which hadn't been used in a couple of years. He had to get it unzipped out of the travel bag and the weapon was unloaded. He figured he could shout back through the door that the police were on the way and follow that up with the unmistakable (sha-SHINK!) of a shot gun to convince this angry door knocker to knock elsewhere.

In the time it took Geoff to hear the first knocks on his door, put down the phone, retrieve the gun from the closet, and unsheathe it - the door knocker eventually declared he was Chicago PD. Geoff had not yet declared he was armed yet, but the yelling voice was demanding that all guns be put down. The shotgun was put back in the closet, he put his hands on his head and the wife opened the door for the door knocker.

A cop flew into the room and started demanding where the gun was. Geoff motioned towards the closet where the cop found the shot gun. The cop then put Geoff on the floor with a knee in his back and started to demand where the drugs and hand guns were.

It was finally established that there were no drugs or hand guns, and that the shot gun was registered, sort of. The registration had actually expired in January. There were about a dozen cops in the courtyard who had raided the neighbors. The neighbors weren't there and cops had confiscated a small amount of drugs from that apartment. Apparently these neighbors were small time drug dealers and the cops had a warrant to search their apartment.

It was decided by the cops that the lapsed registration of Geoff's shot gun was a worthy enough crime to confiscate the gun, put him in handcuffs, parade him outside in front of all the neighbors, and keep him in the city clink till 5 AM this morning. Despite this show of bravado, just about every cop agreed that the late registration charge would be dropped. No other charges were levied.

Geoff is taking this fairly well. He just wants the charge dropped and his gun back. I'd be going for a pound of flesh - wrongful imprisonment, no warrant for search, police brutality, lost time, wages, sleep, and reputation for being paraded out in handcuffs. I'm guessing the cops just figured "What's one guy's reputation? We could be seriously embarrassed if we don't leave this raid without at least one person in handcuffs. Much better we protect the city's reputation."

I'd try damn hard to make them pay for that little piece of PR at my expense. But then again I have a lot of free time on my hands.

Flour the the Children? Why don't you flour my %^*&!

I once owned a Sprint PCS cell phone. It weighed approximately 7.8 lbs and had a sweet black leather sheathing that I sometimes confused for a dress shoe. The phone was affectionately known as the "Gromackiphone" after the guy who sold it to me. This phone was great except it wouldn't work at home, in the car, outside the city, or inside a building in the city.

I have moved onto verizon where I have had ups and downs, but not quite the drama swings. I have quite a few friends with Sprint who are happy with it. But I have one who isn't:

"My experience with Sprint this morning reinforces my perception of
them as having the worst customer service of any company I have dealt
with of their size. It is absolutely horrendous. They told me that I
needed an appointment to drop off my phone and that they couldn't see
me today at all. I was rather shocked and the receptionist girl
didn't seem interested in helping me any further. She just turned
away and did other things. I just walked out. Never do business with
Sprint PCS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Cubs - R.I.P.

As a good blogger, I thought I would do some research and catch up on some baseball reading. Peter Gammons managed to blame low attendance for the Cleveland Indians on George W. Bush using only the logic a sportswriter and John Kerry could love. He then went on to mention Len Kasper and Bob Brenly as one of the top 3 broadcasting teams. I honestly don't know when Peter Gammons started doing meth...

As I write this, it looks as if the Cubs will finally snap their 8 game losing streak. Excuse me while a stifle a yawn as the Cubbies crawl within 3 games of .500, 8 games of the wild card, and within oblivion of the Cardinals. Just a wee bit too late. There are many problems with the Cubs and Jim Hendry attempted to address two of them last night.

Corey Patterson, who is in his 4 consecutive major league year was sent down to Iowa last night along with first year pro Jason Dubois. Patterson's dismissal was of his own making. A .270 OBP just doesn't cut it in the bigs, even if you are clearing a near $3M paycheck. This is probably the end of the Patterson era and we can expect the Cardinals or Braves to pick him up next year and watch him become the next Lou Brock there, because he is done in Chicago.

Jason Dubois was the victim of bad management. Dusty decided he would rather turn career journeyman Todd Hollandsworth into a starter than nurture the Cubs best power prospect since... :-( rafeal palmeiro??? that can't be right, can it?). Anyway, most major league starters have gotten 300+ AB at this point. Dubois has 142. His OBP is a measly .289 - yet his SLG is an amazing .472! Imagine if the kid actually got a chance to get some AB's and push his Avg from the .230's to the .260's. He would easily have an OPS challenging .900.

But the Cubs have other issues. For one, they were robbed blind in the Rule 5 of the big lefty Andy Sisco who is now anchoring the Royals bullpen. The bullpen has been in shambles all year, the starting rotation has had the endurance of a 7-year old school girl, and Nomar went about 3 minutes before his groin fell off.

Now the hopes of the Cubs lie with a couple of young outfielders named Pie and Murton.

But there is another... hope that is. And that is the canning of Dusty Baker. He still has a year and a half on his contract. He is clueless when it comes to managing a bullpen. He somehow managed to turn Latroy Hawkins sucking and summer day games into national race baiting issues worthy of the late great Johny Cochrane. Forget about him making a reasonable decision concerning batting strategy or base runners. And when it comes to bringing along young players with promise, uh-uh. Somehow all those development at-bats end up with guys like Tom Goodwin and Jose Macias.

But then maybe that's why Hendry sent down Dubois - to protect him from Dusty till he gets canned.

Cubs Win! 9-6. Disregard the previous.

HA-HA, Your Historical Reference has been Usurped!

No theme or great thinking today, just some observations.

Maybe I'm the last person to pick up on this, I just haven't heard the requisite number of jokes and smirks - but Lance Armstrong's biking team is called "Team Discovery Channel". I am shocked at the total lack of Martin and Nelson references from the early days of the Simpsons. A french event, Martin's high pitched voice, and Nelson's shame are ingredients for comedic gold.

I wrapped up reading State of Fear the other day and I highly recommend it. Having nothing else on hand to read, I picked off a book from Franklin's book shelf - "Sons of the Profits". This book is about the founders of Seattle around 1850. The book was written in 1967 and went through some revisions through 1976. On page 9 was this gem, "Mike was to the town of Tumwater, Washington what Arthur Denny was to be to Seattle. He headed a group of seven men and their families (including George W. Bush, the first negro to settle in the territory)." Who knew?

I'll be attending blogger trivia tonight at Keegans. With any luck I will have more drinks than right answers.

The Quotable Mr. Gilles

There is nothing finer in this world than shooting off an email to a reporter and than a week later being told you were quoted in their publication. Such a thing happened to me today.

Kudos go out to Ms. Helal who actually made the important, but oh so boring fees committee, into an interesting story. Far too many fee committee types and reporters get bogged down by 'spreadsheetitis'. For those uninitiated with 'spreadsheetitis', it is an affliction that haunts fees committee members and symptoms include too much knowledge of Excel and the perplexing belief that there is nothing more important in this world than the office supplies line item for the Asian club.

This story was about the secretive process the administration is taking with the hope of gaining complete control, without any consequences, of the $20 Million paid in student fees. What's interesting is that this type of behavior is fairly endemic at the U.

*A few years ago the Regents wanted to pick the new U President in secret. They were later taken to court by the local media and lost resoundingly.

* During the Coffman renovations of the STUDENT Union that was paid for by STUDENT fees, the administration overrode the Coffman administration and arranged for all new revenues to flow to administration coffers, and not towards student programming or offsetting the $100 yearly increase in fees the renovation cost.

* Just a few months ago a strategy committee finished its recommendations, the most controversial of which was to close General College. While I agreed with that particular recommendation, President Bruiniks went to great lengths to deny anything was in the works in April, and didn't have to respond till everything was made public in May ~ nicely coinciding with finals and the end of the school year. GC was put to death by the Regents in their June summer meeting. Nothing like finals and summer to mute student input, discussion, or dissent.

* Now the U is suggesting that students pony up another $100 a year in fees to build a football stadium on campus. Will this extra $100 give students access to concession, ticket or parking revenue to support programming or offset the fee increase? No, all those things flow to admin coffers. Will students get season tickets with their fee? No, in fact ticket prices will likely soar with a new stadium. Will students be guaranteed access to tickets? Reserve 30,000 seats in a 40,000 seat stadium... forget about it - although a section or two might be put aside for students.

Most likely students will be railroaded once again on fees, the stadium and whatever else comes up next year. But here's hoping that the admin looks out their Morril tower windows and hears a gentle noise on the breeze...

THE PAIN TRAINS COMING! THE PAIN TRAINS COMING -WOO WOO! WOO WOO!

Can I get an amen?

Last weekend I watched a fantastic documentary on the 1994 Senate race in Virginia between Oliver North-R and Chuck Robb-D (inc). "A Perfect Candidate" was blessed to get just about the most interesting match up in the most interesting election in the last 50 years and get inside access to North's campaign.

On the one hand you had Ollie running as the bad boy turned good. He of course brought in all the baggage from those televised Congressional Hearings on the Iran Contra scandal and the infamous cover of Time where he's in his Marine greens and swearing on the bible with the military stiffness of a Marine salute. Because of all this Virginia's senior senator John Warner-R endorsed a third party moderate Republican who took 12% of the vote, Minority Leader Bob Dole refused to endorse or get the NRSC behind him, and John McCain took his shots at North too (that's no surprise now, but McCain was then considered an honorable GOPer). However, he ran as a Christian conservative who attributed his survival during that time to his faith in God. The documentary also shows us that Ollie is a fantastic campaigner, does a good job of connecting with people and has superior politician skills. He was THE perfect candidate for Virginia '94, except...

On the other hand you had incumbent Democrat Chuck Robb. Chuck was the golden boy of Virginia politics. Former Army officer, LBJ's son in law, his views and low key demeanor were perfect for the southern democrats who ran Virginia between the Civil war and 1994, he easily won a term as Governor in the 80's and had another easy election to the Senate in 1988. He had often been referred to as a serious Presidential contender. Then he got caught up, or pants down, with Playboy cover girl Tai Collins and half a dozen guys he used to party with in Virginia Beach were serving hard time for cocaine dealings. He denied the cocaine stuff and denied he ever saw it being done - which was pretty implausible, but had to eat the Collins allegations whole hog. Robb had gone from boyscout to cocaine sniffing, playboy philandering no-goodnic, and that dog don't hunt in Virginia.

In the end Robb won by 3 points, mainly because former Gov Doug Wilder dropped his independent campaign at Clinton's urging. What we saw in the documentary is that Clinton is the BEST when it comes to the stump. You also got a shot of current gov Mark Warner posing with Robb, Clinton and Wilder.

Religion played a prominent role for both candidates. You saw Ollie campaigning at church and giving his testimonial which was very powerful. His campaign was clearly fueled by the enthusiasm of the religious right. You even saw Robb at a black church listening to another powerful sermon encouraging everyone to be sure to vote. While you didn't get to see Robb's speech, it was assumed he had just addressed the congregation. This being 1994, one of the big stories was the emergence of the religious right as a political force. However, this campaign showed that religion was a tool for both parties.

Today, this is no longer true. The GOP is still clearly tied up with the faithful. However the Dems have taken a humanistic and in many cases anti-religious bent. Since 1994 the dems and liberals have painted the mixture of faith and politics as something to by abhorred and avoided at all costs. Pre-1994, religion was just another slight positive for them and part of the typical mix of a successful campaign.

Now many of my conservative friends who follow the Sean Hannity model of argument would just declare that liberals are hypocrites and leave it at that. I for one hate the debate that merely strives to call your opponent a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is an amoral sin. It does not discern motives and puts people who once favored coffee but now drink tea in with slave owners who later converted their practices.

Let's give liberals some credit. After 1994 they consciously chose to castigate religion in the belief that more people would be turned off rather than attracted by embracing morality as a political issue. There is certainly some validity to this strategy. Much or our country, pop culture, schools, and cities are quite secular and the mention of God or Jesus would seem awkward and out of place. An argument stating that religion had no place in politics may have been very well received by the vast middle. While this message is reasonable, it would not have generated volunteer armies or donations.

But this isn't the tact of the current liberal message - the message is one of hostility towards religion. Bible thumpers are little more than in-bred, unsophisticated, simpleton hicks. This message certainly fires up the secular elite and encourages their donations and volunteers - but it is also an extremely offensive message to the vast middle. Thus, it is an incredibly stupid message.

Republicans get the best of both worlds - lots of volunteers and donations AND sympathy from unattached voters who react negatively to hostile messages. And oh by the way, there is much more man power and dollars in the religious camp then there is in the secular camp.

The dems sort of got it after the 2004 election. Not the liberals mind you, but the elected leadership did. This partial enlightenment lead to the attempt to link religious values beyond life and morality issues and expand the definition to encompass the welfare state support for the poor. This works for your more liberal Catholics, Unitarians, and old line protestants. However, for the energized faithful, the priorities tend to go Faith first, personal morality second, alleviation of poverty third. Most faithful will say it is better to be moral and poor than immoral and rich.

This has lead to some awkward positioning. Hillary Clinton has pushed this message but she lacks credibility. Too bad for her, but the Clinton name is first and foremost associated with sexual promiscuity. Nancy Pelosi has also tried, but being a San Francisco liberal and all the baggage that implies really undercuts the message. Harry Reid, being a liberal catholic, is actually a pretty good messenger on this subject. Unfortunately for him he mostly speaks for a senate caucus that is best known for filibustering judges for being good Catholics.

This strategy sort of makes sense. It addresses the tertiary concerns of the faithful, but it is acceptable to the vast middle and shows a level of acceptance and understanding to the few remaining liberal faithful. It also exposes a GOP weakness amongst the faithful which is the lack of willingness to expand government to address poverty.

Sadly for the democrats, the secular elite are far more vocal and effective and are under cutting religion as a whole thus making the poverty focus sound hollow. While the strategy paints an emphatic hue on the liberals, it also spot lights their unpopular 'solutions' such as welfare, public housing, and soft on crime approach.

The dems are stuck. Republicans can easily embrace religion, and even if they don't they are not considered hostile. Whereas the dems have a confusing message that either seems hostile or disingenuous. Until the Dems make peace with religion or succeed in converting the country to vast secularism - advantage GOP.