Copyright © 2009 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2009 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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The death of a good brand of cookies. No, not Hydrox, but Archway. The article doesn't explain what made the alleged accounting fraud necessary, but stuff like this would sure accelerate its demise:
A common practice in reformulating a product — either to decrease costs or to acquire new customers — is that when you test the new product, you don't compare the test results against the control with standard two-tailed, 95% confidence statistical tests. Since you don't want to do anything to tick off the base, you do one-tailed 67% confidence testing. That is, you make yourself especially sensitive to negative results from the loyal customers, since they are still the bulk of your business. Otherwise you face a greater risk of launching something inferior and screwing your sales. When Sunshine reformulated its "Golden Fruit" cookie and turned it into something more like a Kellogg's Pop-Tart, I was livid, and never bought them again. (OK, livid's too strong. No tantrums or scenes resulted, but, in the words of Samuel Johnson, "we did not express much satisfaction.") It seems as if Archway almost was pursuing a strategy to abandon ship. Message to the manufacturers: DON'T go playing with people's cookies. Just don't.
Did the Republicans really think this would fly? The First Couple was in New York City last night for dinner and a play, and the RNC had a hissy fit over it:
This is actually an odd form of class warfare. By suggesting that Obama is out of touch for going to see a Broadway play while his lieutenants are doing whatever with GM — or maybe even they had the night off — the GOP is implicitly complaining about the hypocrisy of everyone who's gone to a play while bemoaning the state of the economy. (Of course, if no one went to a Broadway, it too would tank, and along with Broadway much of NYC's economy. Now we see the Grand Plan: BRANSON!!) I just don't think this is going to resonate with very many people, and it's evidence that the GOP thinks they need to go further out on a limb. I mean, it's not like the RNC has looked back and admitted that the "go shopping" recommendations after 9/11 were cold, or that Bush's comment telling the press to watch his golf swing was mis-timed. Sure, the left got on Bush for those two callous moments, and turnabout is fair play I suppose. But the RNC could make a better argument if it led with "Just as it was wrong for Bush..." I bet they won't. That's my guess. (For what it's worth, I think the Obama's return helicopter to the airport passed over our building last night. That is, if they flew out of JFK; if it was Laguardia the geography makes so sense. But we heard a helicopter go overhead just before midnight, and the play let out at 11. UPDATE: The NYT says their airport was JFK.)
Defending Dick Cheney's visibility. I'm not really surprised that the Casper Star-Tribune would write an editorial defending Cheney's visibility. Casper is, after all, in Wyoming (Cheney's state), and a red state, and all that. Perhaps my familiarity with how one newspaper can dominate its market leads me to expect a paper to reflect its market, the moreso when they call themselves "Wyoming's online news source." Their argument may be built on a straw man ploy, as the headline reads "Cheney has every right to criticize new president." To my knowledge, no one has suggested that he doesn't. Unfortunately, the editors move beyond defending Cheney's visibility into defending his record with Bush as having kept America safe for the seven years since 9/11. If baseball teams were considered successful for holding the opposition scoreless for the last eight innings after getting blown out in the first, perhaps that argument would bear more weight. Clinton's responsibility or not, the record shows inaction on the part of the Bush administration in spite of the warnings. But here's a telling line, and I can't tell if they appreciate its full weight: "It's not a knock on Cheney, but if no one supplants him as the party's chief spokesman, the GOP will have to walk a long and dreary road to the next presidential election." I'm not sure how that's not a knock on Cheney. Still, after the "It's not a knock on Cheney, but" part the sentence makes a lot of sense. But that's kind of like, they kept us safe if you forget about 9/11. (Oh, by the way, I'm not normally in the habit of reading the Casper Star-Tribune. I only found this after doing a news search on Cheney. You see, I didn't think he'd been on the tee vee in the last 24 hours, and was wondering if it's time to file a missing persons report.)
Avoiding imploding over the Sotomayor nomination. At this point, it's tough to figure out what the game is with Republicans and conservatives who stand in opposition to the Sotomayor nomination. Opinions of hers they've found distasteful are in line with past comments by conservative SCOTUS justices Alito and Scalia, so those arguments are self-destructive. Arguments about her rulings having been overturned by the SCOTUS have also not held up in the light of day. The votes are there to approve her if it gets out of committee. So what gives? Are they merely ginning up the base, or are her detractors in some sort of competition to see who can be the most ornery person when it comes to playing a losing game? And who wants to be successful at a losing game, anyway? Is it possible that they're working the refs? That this is some shot across the bow, a line in the sand, to prevent someone even more liberal from being named? If so, the problem with this approach is that it's supposed to be a play to establish credibility. And their ploys so far seem more designed to waste credibility. So I don't get it. And I also don't get how no one is reading Arlen Specter's warnings, and making a stake for moderation. Sure, the value of appearing statesman-like may risk appeal to the hard liners, but wouldn't a savvy politician like to have this not just as a token of moderation for a general election, but also to bolster an "I can beat the Democrat" appeal in the primary? There are Republicans smart enough to figure this out. McCain is choosing a more patient tone. Why aren't there more?
Sotomayor too human for the SCOTUS? That's what Dahlia Lithwick sees as a mistaken attack on Obama's nominee. Of course, the conservatives aren't attacking the presence of human qualities so much as the extent to which they might eclipse adhering to precedent. Because, you know, um, the precedents they want upheld do not admit humanity.
Matthew Alexander ("How to Break a Terrorist") responds to Cheney's pro-torture views: Link | | | 8:34 PM | Home Credit where it's due: Powerline. They've moved from a forum which allowed anonymity to comments where you have to identify yourself by full name. The point is to elevate discussion, moderate the tone, and get people to stand behind what they post. So no more hit-and-run graphics of the Secretary of State being slapped, bloodied babies, strange pictures of Obama and so on. No one can act like a pig without putting a name to it. And (here's where their real work comes in), they plan to moderate the comments, putting them in a holding cell for approval. While it's certainly easy to come up with a fake name using a dedicated Yahoo or gmail account, at least people won't be hiding behind names that suggest no attachment to their opinions. And believe you me, there were some people who really abused the liberty of anonymous posting. It's a good start.
Memorial Day. I'm so old I can remember when the war mattered more than the fallen, and wing-nuts objected to Ted Koppel reading the names of the fallen on an April show leading into May. Remember that? 2004, five years ago. Limit it to Memorial Day, said some. Back then it was a precious little war that had to be lovingly nurtured. Others claimed it was a ratings ploy, forgetting that five years ago it fell outside the May "sweeps" period. A year later, when Koppel said he'd do it on Memorial Day, the humorists in Minnesota suggested that we should read the names of the living in active service, and dismissed what they saw as a "Johnny Come Lately" attitude:
Let's point out, first, that it takes a special mentality to politicize concern for the troops. Hinderaker denies others of his own patriotic feelings, and is willing to tell the Left to shut up (stifling care) in doing so. Perhaps the Left wasn't was quick as he would have liked to support our troops. But if you do a search at the New York Times on "1991 gulf war veterans" and set the date span to end in the waning days of the Clinton Administration, you'll find plenty of articles on troops' illnesses, Pentagon stonewalling, and actions by the Clinton White House to overcome the stonewalling. Hundreds of articles, all in the hated New York Times. And I shouild also point to an editorial printed on Veteran's Day 1991. So I can't point to a specific date when the Left "started caring" about the troops, but it's obviously longer than some wing nuts would like to think. And may I also point out, that we do not show our concerns for the troops by cavalierly sending them off to unnecessary wars, undereqipped and without the proper protection. Enough of that. Today we honor the fallen, and all that they sacrificed for us.
You had me at "irresponsible." A GOP member of the House has spoken out against an attack on ad on Pelosi; but really, after he called it "reprehensible," and "irresponsible," "unpersuasive" was unnecessary.
Segregated proms. Still.
Sean Hannity need no longer apply. Weeks ago, Fox News's Sean Hannity discounted the seriousness of what it's like to be waterboarded, saying he'd even do it for charity, and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann responded with an offer: Olbermann would give $1,000 to charity for every second Hannity lasted. Hannity has equivocated and avoided the bait (even for a good cause, charity and understanding), and in every recent show Olbermann has given a count of how many night's Hannity has ignored his challenge. Yesterday Hannity was superseded by Erich "Mancow" Muller, a conservative talk-radio host in Chicago. It wasn't pretty, as he only lasted six or seven seconds.
When we hear inexperienced people talk about waterboarding as if it's not torture, and then quickly agree after the experience that it is, we shouldn't be so surprised at their conclusion; after all, it was a tool used in the Spanish Inquisition, and I kinda sorta think they weren't exactly interested in molly-coddling suspected heretics. What should really surprise us (and disgust us) is their ingoing supposition that it's not serious. In spite of it being outlawed, and having been used in the Spanish Inquisition, there's a know-it-all presumptuousness that it's really not torture. Let the learning and conclusions of others be damned, these Doubting Thomases proclaim. Remember when the photos of Abu Ghraib came out, and Rush Limbaugh tried to discount the whole affair as a mere frolic to relieve stress? Like a fraternity hazing?
Perhaps (uh, oh, warning, I'm not really a psychologist) the cavalier attitudes of these hosts come out of some cognitive dissonance resolution: I love my country and it can do no wrong; it did some stuff that sounds seriously bad; I'm conflicted... it must not really be as bad as they say. (And by the way, this gives me another reason to hate John McCain, because he's one of the people who are saying this is a bad thing. Let's do another piece on why we hate John McCain.)
Cheney's proud of his accomplishments, I guess. You probably know that Cheney spoke at the American Enterprise Institute today, defending the Bush Administration's use of torture following 9/11 and how it supposedly prevented other, serious attacks. Did you know that in his 35-minute speech he mentioned 9/11 25 times? Odd thing, that. Because he was there in the months leding up to 9/11, he is a de facto authority on how many ways you can fail to act in response to dire CIA warnings. On that, I'm not only talking about the infamous August 6 PDB, but also the warnings issued beforehand by Clarke and Tenet. Cheney could have talked about Bush's June 2001 declaration reconfirming Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda as an enemy. But he didn't. It's really odd: one thing which Cheney is unequivocally an authority on, how to screw up, and he brings up 9/11 25 times in a 35 minute speech. Did he speak to the lessons of his inaction? No, he spoke only to his erroneous conclusions drawn well afterwards, that somehow torture is uniquely effective at revealing information. On that, he's walking on a hypothetical foundation, and it's not even supported by the success of the interrogations which happened before waterboarding began. Cheney was wrong when he was the Vice President. He's wrong now. The fact that he stands up to give a speech doesn't mean he merits full-blown coverage. He deserves coverage on this topic just as much as he does when claiming the world is flat. But he's out there, and the topic is serious, and so he needs to be responded to. Keith Olbermann had all chambers loaded, if you didn't see it earlier. UPDATE: More at McClatchy on the truths Cheney really found inconvenient.
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