Me: Frank Lynch

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"We don't know." Remember that dodge of Cheney's when Russert basically told Cheney to pony up with solid evidence that Iraq was connected to 9/11? Well, Cheney is doing the same kind of head fakes with his journo tour this week, opening himself up to tough interviewers like Larry King. King is not a very difficult interviewer. The transcript isn't up, but when it is, I'll take a look at it: I hope that from what I read at CNN and at McClatchy that answers were doggedly sought, but I suspect not:

Cheney took aim at critics of Bush's handling of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, telling King that time will prove them wrong.

"I think when the history is written that, in fact, it will reflect credit upon this president and his administration," he said.

Obviously the country needs more than wishful thinking on the part of the VP on this, especially given his horrendous track record. The man is simply not to be believed, especially when he goes on shows like Larry King Live. (Maybe Russert is still too p.o.'d after the way he was referred to by Cheney's office during the Scooter Libby trial.)

UPDATE: It didn't occur to me to look to the White House web site for a transcript, but over at Talking Points they did, and noted a significant failure of Cheney's to recall.
Link | | | 10:55 PM | Home
 

Use. Trash. Repeat. Uh, no: think hard, replacement parts could be readily available, and cost a fraction of the full cost of replacing something completely. And this is without considering the environmental implications of adding to the land fill, which are considerable too.

Example one, the smaller. We have a Cuisinart food processor which is over 15 years old, conceivably 20. Part of the work bowl broke apart, a plastic tooth which tells the unit that everything is safely locked in and it's OK for the blade to run. I don't curse the safety mechanism: Ab has a mangled finger from before they took these precautions in design. Somehow, though, after all these years, the tooth piece got broken out and it can't be properly reinserted.

A new machine would probably cost at least a couple hunnert; and then there's the issue of the 8-10 blades we have: would they be compatible, or would we have to buy new ones at further cost? Yeah, well, it's all moot: you can buy a replacement part for $30. This part of this story needs no further discussion. You just need to spend a little time looking.

Example two, the much bigger. Back around 1995 we needed a washer and dryer, and being apartment dwellers with limited space and no liberty to break through a wall to vent a dryer, we settled on a pair from Asko. Asko offered (and still does) dryers with condensers that don't need venting (woo hoo!), and washers and dryers which run on lower (?) amperage, making them more energy efficient. In addition, their washers have their own internal water heaters (cool, since the whites basically boil) and incredibly rapid spin cycles. Consumer Reports made it seem like a no-brainer back in those days when there were practically no front loaders, and we made the intelligent choice, even though it was more expensive initially. (Higher unit cost [maybe double the White Westinghouse which was the alternative], an electrician to change the circuitry, and the plumber to fix the pipes and so on.)

Time goes on, it breaks down here and there, needing a new belt or some such over all these years... Some of these repairs I can do myself by ordering a part from repairclininc.com: but the time came when a repairman said the motor on the washer was going, and he'd trash the whole thing.

But the implications were staggering: a new washer, alone, wasn't a solution, because where it used to be that the washer plugged into the dryer (or the reverse, I forget), the manufacturer has reversed it, and changing one means you change both. And because the units are larger now than they were 15 years ago, we'd have to rip out cabinets.

Solution? Find a new motor, at less than ten percent of the cost of replacing the two units (considering the price tag and all the installation costs, ripping out cabinets, and so on.)

I feel very Henry David Thoreau, but I also feel very Police: You make the best of what's still around.
Link | | | 11:57 PM | Home

Internet nostalgia. Remember "frames," those portions of a Web page with their own little scroll bars? And how difficult it was to recognize when your were on a 'framed' Web site, and find the appropriate scroll bar for the frame you were feverishly trying to read?? Oh yeah, those were the good old days: give me a something like a book that has pages within pages that can be turned without turning the page...

Has anyone spoken up and claimed that stunning innovation?
Link | | | 10:51 PM | Home

Iraq wins! Iraq wins! Iraq wins! You're probably lost in arcane details like the daily death-tolls from car bombings and similar acts of slaughter, but the important thing is to keep focused on the important details. Not too many countries, as best as I can recall have won the Asian soccer title while still only being a fledgling democracy. This is, truly, a sign that democracy is working, and soon the Iraqi team will be able to play in Baghdad with adequate lighting. (Where were the purple-stained "We're Number One!" fingers?)

OK, half a deep breath. Congratulations to the team on their victory, job well done. I don't mean in the least to diminish their accomplishment, any country would be proud of this feat. But let's not, obviously, take this as a sign of progress, it's a marginal note. Good for you all, but it's not the kind of "Good news" which the right wingers want reported as evidence that Bush has a clue. (He doesn't have one, which is what makes it so tough to find the stories which the wingnuts think is their right.)
Link | | | 10:38 PM | Home
 

Paging Dr. Nielsen!! Paging Dr. Jakob Nielsen!! Somebody really needs to get him on the case... I'm sure that if our daughter weren't away at camp, she would have immediately jumped into the trench and helped out, but she is at camp, and I had to fly solo. In a better world, I'd have useful product manuals or web instructions, but NOOOOOO!

I've always had an arm's length relationship with my cell phone, but tonight I decided I wanted a recognizable ringer. So I went to Verizon's web site, which for some reason wanted me to put my zip code in before it would display anything about the ringers. Wanting my phone model (a later step) I could understand, but the zip code thing baffled me. But I was able to enter my zip code, and because I was at home I was able to find my model number. Good so far.

Next step was learning about ring tones and rates and how to download, starting with downloading their interface. OK, that wasn't easy, and it presumes you know how to use the nav buttons. Embarrassing, but I got through it. Although at this point I'm longing for television sets with numbered dials that only go as high as 13, and then you're on that slippery slope of "you're on your own in these high numbers, bub."

So with the help of their web interface I figure out how to key in Todd Rundgren's "Bang the Drum All Day," figuring it will be great for meetings. Well, no, the thing is never on during meetings, but it will be distinct on a photo hike.

And I successfully download it, navigating through some package purchase which, at one point, told me the system was down, but maybe it really wasn't.

This is where the fun started. I have the ring tone on my phone. But how do I use it? At first, I don't even know if it's automatic: I call myself from the land line, and get the old ringer. OK, it has to be set somehow. Back to the manual: under ring tones there is only information about getting them or using them for alerts. Nothing about making them your ringer.

I go back to Verizon's Web site, and there are two tabs, one on donwloading them and one on using them. Both tabs, unfortunately, have information on downloading them.

Navigate navigate navigate through the phone for about 45 minutes, like a blind man, since you don't see anything like a site index or directory trees: finally I find it on the same page associated with downloading the ringer. It is not on a page associated with the phone's settings.

Not for a moment do I feel stupid: I feel cheated of my time by an arcane menu concept. Why wouldn't applying a ring tone to your ringer be on the page that has ringer settings?? Why?

Uh, Dr. Nielsen, wanna make even more moolah?
Link | | | 10:38 PM | Home
 

Let's see if I have this straight:

There have been repeated instances in which lawmakers have questioned Mr. Gonzales's competence and his recollection of events. But today's developments seemed to mark a shift toward suggestions that he actually committed crimes in testifying before Congress.

Checking my notes... Gonzales: if that's "Alberto Gonzales," that's the Attorney General of the United States, is that correct? (Checks Wikipedia, World Book, and Epicurious.com)... Hmmm. It seems that the U.S. Attorney General is the highest law enforcement official in the land. Now, this Mueller guy: he's just the head of the FBI, and came in to his role so shortly before 9/11, he has, like, no ass to protect, not even there for the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief. So why would he be contradicting what Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General, with ties to Bush going all the way back to Texas, testified to Congress under oath?

I just don't get it. Help me out: and if you're going to give me this crap about "Bush lied, people died," may I suggest you re-shape your tinfoil hat into something appropriate for roasting chicken? Because seriously, if the Attorney General says it, it must be true.
Link | | | 11:56 PM | Home
 

Forget Scooter Libby, can the Truth get some slack here? Okay, I'm usually late to the punch on these stories, and I know that at this point you've probably read more than your share about Attorney General Albert Gonzales latest round of weasel words in testimony before Congress. You know, it's bad enough that anyone would be so weaselly when testifying to Congress: come out and refuse to answer the question bluntly, don't just sit there and say that your dog ate your notes. It's truly bad enough when there's prevarication, qualification, hemming and hawing when it comes to some official at FEMA, but... the Attorney General? The highest law enforcement official in the land? The a-numma-one seeker of truth and justice? Yeesh. Well, you won't be surprised, I guess that some people remember his truthiness differently.

I mean, can we think about this? This is the Attorney General. Is there any other Cabinet member with a higher calling to the truth?
Link | | | 11:40 PM | Home
 

Lovely, just plain lovely. Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, had a little conference call today:

Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, said today that more borrowers with good credit histories were falling behind on their loans and that the housing market might not begin recovering until 2009 because of an unprecedented drop in house prices.

(...)

In a conference call with analysts that lasted a lengthy three hours, Countrywide's chairman and chief executive, Angelo Mozilo, said home prices were falling "almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression." He added that because of a large number of homes on the market, the housing sector would continue to shrink until sometime in 2008 and not begin growing until 2009.

Of course, it's easy to talk about this stuff in the abstract. Friday, on the PBS Newshour, Ray Suarez got the opinion of New York Times writer David Leonhart:

RAY SUAREZ: But if credit is tightening up and people who were on the bubble are losing their homes, isn't that a kind of market correction, where perhaps the over-lending and some of the excesses of earlier are being squeezed out now?

DAVID LEONHARDT: Absolutely. And I think it's really good that these excesses are being squeezed out, because we had a crazy situation in the last couple of years, in which people were getting mortgages for homes they couldn't afford without really having to prove that they could afford them. And sometimes they were just being foolhardy, and in other cases they were being tricked by lenders. And so I think it is really good to have the excesses wrung out.

The problem is, is that there is going to be some significant collateral damage in terms of people losing their homes and in terms of some other things. What's not clear yet -- and Bernanke's remarks got at this -- is that it's not clear yet that this is going to in some way derail the economy.

Fortunately Leonhart moved from the abstract to the concrete, and pointed out that no matter how you feel about the squeeze, real people are losing their homes.

Maybe one of the smarter visitors can chime in and say what the economy would have been like had Greenspan not been keeping interest rates down...
Link | | | 10:52 PM | Home
 

So little time, and SO much to thank Robert Moses for. According to an article at Wikipedia, Moses shortened the name of the peninsula "Throggs Neck" by one 'g,' to "Throgs Neck" so it would fit on more signs. Ain't that grand? (Learned this tonight, looking up info on where I was yesterday on the weekly photo-hike.)
Link | | | 8:43 PM | Home
 

A deadly game of hope. Readers of liberal blogs, as well as astute readers of the mass media, know that the majority in the Senate is not in control of what happens: it takes more than a majority to bring a bill to a vote, it takes 60 of the 100 Senators to call for the vote. Delaying or preventing the vote is called a "filibuster," and it's through this Constitutional provision that sufficiently large minorities can protect themselves from a majority which is full of itself. It's an important provision.

Through it, Republicans in the Senate have prevented all sorts of bills and amendments — bills and amendments which were supported by the majority — from going beyond discussion. Not just bills about timelines for our involvement in Iraq, but other aspects which I would have thought would have been broadly supported. In this latter instance, I'm thinking of Senator Webb's amendment which would have merely guaranteed more adequate time state-side for those who had been on tour: a guarantee that your state-side time would equal your tour time. Webb says it used to be one-to-three: one year on tour, three at home. Right now our troops aren't even guaranteed one-to-one, and this is because the war policy has overstretched our resources. (Bush is not willing to ensure that the sacrifice in Iraq is broadly shared, and so has refused to institute a draft, which would hit all sectors of the populace equally.)

Webb's amendment was simple, easily understood, and supported the troops and their families. I would have thought that allowing it to come to a vote would have been a no-brainer, but the Republicans in the Senate refused. So on this and so many other measures, we are in gridlock: and the rate of gridlock is so high, at the current rate it will exceed all previous Senates by a wide margin.

(As an aside, I remember a marketing research project I was involved in ten years ago, some of which was done in Germany, as well as Italy, France, England, and the US. The gentleman we dealt with in Germany corrected a language issue: I think the word which might have been used in the original translation might have been "zeitfleisch"? (Forgive my memory.) But the client wanted to convey sustainability (it wasn't an erectile dysfunction product, let's be clear) and whatever word the client had used had the wrong connotations: it was like Helmut Kohl sitting in a road, refusing to move, uncompromising, and holding up traffic. The concept of all out refusal to compromise is part of what's wrong with an editorial today in the Washington Post, which tried to explain away Republican intransigence as a problem which the Democrats created. Somebody at the WaPo is not only overpaid, but also stupid.)

Here, basically, is where the GOP stands: it is their apparent belief that should the US withdraw from Iraq any time soon many Iraqis will die. Many of them. I think the senators in the GOP are probably correct on this point. It's obviously their belief, though, that if we stay longer, and leave some undetermined time down the road, that when we eventually "leave" there will be significantly less bloodshed than we would have seen had we worked towards an orderly withdrawal earlier. That's their basic premise, and I grant them the sincerity of their feelings on this.

Unfortunately, I think this is under-supported hope: there's an immense amount of bloodshed right now while we're there, and while we continue to be there, that bloodshed will similarly continue. The "hope" plan is a bad gambler's plan, expecting some magically transformed universe some time down the road. But let's be clear: even though we are responsible for unleashing the pressure cooker prematurely, has anyone in the GOP seen any indication that the extremists in Iraq are going to think twice about the ongoing slaughter? If not (and I think not), this is a fallacious hope. They should all read their Samuel Johnson before they continue this wicked belief that tomorrow will be different from today.

Hope is not a plan, a tactic, a strategy. You cannot stand up at a blackboard of equations which are linked by "suddenly, a miracle occurs." Hope is deceitful and it is deadly. The Republicans in the Senate cannot confront the precipice which our President sent them to as well as the Democrats. They can be forgiven for their 2002 votes to authorize force, since the President and the CIA kept them blind about so much. But since then, they've had ample opportunity to understand how bad it is. When they continue on this obstructionist path, it is to no good and very much bad. At the end of the day they will not be proud of what they have done.
Link | | | 10:47 PM | Home

I think Selig could skip Bonds' record breaker without racism having anything to do with it. Over at Salon, Sandy Tolan argues that Selig needs to overcome the "race issues." Race is seen as an issue in Selig's decision for the following:

• Bowie Kuhn missed Aaron's record-breaker, and this puts a greater burden on Selig to be there.
   
• Other players seem to be using steroids, and it's wrong to single out Bonds.

I don't see it that way: I don't know why Kuhn wasn't there for Aaron, but even if it had anything to do with racism, Selig could miss Bonds' night for other reasons entirely. Such as ensuring that Bonds' achievement is minimized due to the steroid controversy. Is Selig singling out Bonds? Not at all: other players are receiving scrutiny, and if the issue is that not enough other players are receiving scrutiny, well, Selig may be the commissioner, but there are limits to what he can do. Selig is not alone in this — there are owners, who count the revenues, and there are collective bargaining agreements. And if you think some outside agency should get on its high horse and intervene, well Congress was mocked when it tried.

Bud should stay away.
Link | | | 6:34 PM | Home

Why John Edwards' haircut matters. Well, actually, it doesn't. Not a whit. But over at Media Matters, Jamison Foser details the continuing problem with a childish media distracted by stuff which shouldn't even be on the periphery, and steps to take to help change the quality of the election process.
Link | | | 12:20 PM | Home

Brigitte Bardot. Anita Ekberg. Sophia Loren. Country'll grow. That was Bob's advice to JFK (perhaps) on how to make the country grow. Bob is perspicacious, and worth thinking about, but while we might want to dismiss his joke, it's got a hell of a lot more veracity than the bait and switch which Bush is continuing to use about his tax breaks. Bush has been crying about the sunsets in the tax breaks he campaigned for early in his first term, saying that if the sun sets, these "tax increases," he describes them, will be onerous.

Can we just stop and take a tiny breath? (A deep one won't be required to understand the issue.) Bush is, essentially, suggesting that he didn't read the fine print in a contract which he proposed. Even that phrasing is kind. Bush swindled the nation on the terms: he proposed the tax breaks, with a sunset in them. And now, as it draws near, he wants to welch on the deal.

I haven't been able to come up with an appropriate parallel for the audacity of this ploy: I've considered bank robbers regretting their lack of hostages or the days they chose to rob the banks; I've considered swindlers whining they were outsmarted by the deputies; I've considered this and I've considered that, but so far I haven't come up with a simile or a metaphor which captures these basic facts:

• Bush sold the tax breaks, and their economics, with a sunset.
   
• When Bush persuaded Congress to accept the tax breaks and put them in a bill, he never said what the economic effects would be if they were continued or removed. The package he sold had a sunset.
   
• Now that the sunset is approaching, Bush wants to change the deal.
   
• As he tries to persuade us that the deal needs to be changed, he's characterizing the planned sunset as a tax increase from the Democrats.

Remember when Bush said, in a press conference, that he couldn't think of a mistake he'd made? Remember that? People who don't think they mistakes are constantly blaming others for the results of their own malfeasance. When Bush tries to position the sunsets on these tax breathers as a tax increase from Democrats in the Congress, what we really have here is a man who still, yet, has never learned to take responsibility for his own actions. This may be acceptable to parents who are trying to nurture and shape a child or teen, but Bush is well beyond that stage. For some reason or another, the lessons of Pappy and Babs haven't taken: parentage can only go so far, here and there we need to understand that there are bad seeds. And Bush, to complete the circle, is an obvious example: you can't propose your own contract and then welch on the terms you proposed.

I get tired of typing "Worst. President. Ever." When we see this irresponsible, infantile blame-it-on-others behavior, "Presidents" doesn't seem to be a relevant context for comparisons. This behavior goes beyond Presidency, it's more in the arena of "the dog ate my homework." Saying "Worst President Ever" is an injustice to everyone who served in the office. Bush is off the charts, and calling him the "worst President ever" no longer captures it. We need a new arena: someday there will be a President who merits "worst President ever." Bush no longer deserves a comparison to other Presidents, we need to start comparing him to the swindlers of history: Barnum was more benign, so let's not go there. We need a new yardstick. Comparing Bush to the prior "worst president" no longer has potency. Bush is not just the worst President ever, he eclipses the worst of myriad professions.

There are many horrid aspects of propaganda, of course, but let's be clear about Bush: he is putting out propaganda and he is claiming that he has no bias when he tries to persuade. We expect this from the Devil, obviously. Perhaps we'd view our President more truthfully if he admitted that he was trying to persuade us, or that he'd looked at the facts and showed us how he'd weighed them. But this is not the case - - let's look at what he says:

• "My job is the Commander-in-Chief and my job is the Educator-in-Chief..."
   
• "There were corporate scandals which created some thousand -- uncertainty about our system that needed to be corrected. And we responded to those problems by cutting taxes." (WTF??)
   
• "So if you're a average taxpayer, you're receiving $2,200 of tax relief. Some receive more, some receive less, but the average for all taxpayers is $2,216." (Wasn't the average on this measure debunked four or five years ago? Averages don't represent central tendencies when you have a core of incredibly rich people who pull the average into the stratosphere, while half of America doesn't see it...)
   

Basically, what we have here is a man who put all his chips, foolishly, on reshaping a region, perhaps because he wanted to better his father's efforts 15 years prior to the fact in some odd driveway facedown, I don't know, who has yet again encountered bankruptcy in a political arena, economical arena, I don't know if I can list all the arenas... But here he is in Tennessee, just sputtering out like a wino on the Bowery who says "I used to be somebody...," making it up and distorting everything as he goes along.

It's pathetic, really. I don't pray for him so much as I pray that he gets into a genuine rehabilitation program.
Link | | | 2:00 AM | Home
 

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