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Low Bar for Financial Analysts
This morning I was watching CNBC, as I do every morning.
They were interviewing a nice young man named Brian Riedl from The Hertitage Foundation. He was a financial analyst for the Foundation.
The interviewer asked him if he thought that the deficit was an issue and that there was a problem with George Bush running the largest deficit in this history of the United States.
Mr. Riedl said, "The deficit is important, but not as important as national security." He then went on to say that the problem wasn't that we are spending billions of dollars at a botched attempt to re-conquer Iraq, but that we were spending too much money on education and social security.
When asked if Mr. Bush's tax cuts added to the deficit, Mr. Reidl said that the President's main failing was giving a prescription drug benefit to Medicaid.
Perhaps someone should send Mr. Riedl to an economics class or introduce him to a ledger. Leaving elderly or poor people to die in the street is ultimately more costly than providing them with care.
Perhaps, like Nancy Reagan, he'll learn this later in life.
Ban Your Jaw
This is amazing. Stem cells sure are powerful little critters.
One can only hope that the next administration isn't categorically opposed to the future of medicine.
Ignorance used to be bliss. Now it seems to be power.
This may or may not be scary.
I may or may not have read this article with may or may not have told me some things that may or may not have alarmed me. I may or may not be recommending that you read it.
IOC Bans Blogs
Apparently no olympians are being allowed to talk about their own experiences or their own lives. Pathetic.
Stay True
It's nice to see someone stay true to their ideals for a change.
Anti-GOP Bloggers Aggregate!
The Anti-GOP bloggers have set up a super-aggregator at The Tank. This is a nice bit of organization. But they don't have a link to the pro-GOP bloggers in, I guess, the hole.
If you are wondering where John Kerry is during the Republican Convention, he's apparently hanging out at the GOP web site. The GOP site's home page alone says "Kerry" 32 times (as of 21 Aug at 14:01 Pacific Time. It says "Bush" twice.
As mentioned before, you can go to the Republican FLOG to get info on what the GOPpers claim to be facts. The only blog they drive you to is Gillespie's safe-for-viewing blog.
However, if you want actual facts, keep away from either the GOP or the Dem's sites. Go to Factcheck.org. FWIW, Mr. Gillespie includes links to factcheck.org when they note problems with Democratic ads -- oddly enough there are no links to the problems with GOP ads, nor is there a link saying something like "The GOP supports truth in political campaigns, see Factcheck.org for details."
Sigh. Maybe someday we'll have a race run on substantive issues and not merely character assassination.
If You Lie Enough It Becomes Truth
John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted. John Kerry has no war record. George Bush was not a deserter. Repeat until taken for granted.
No matter how much you discredit them by providing eye-witness accounts and actual military documents, the Swift Boat Partisans for Truth keep pushing it. Without a shred of evidence proving that Bush didn't use his privilege as a Senator's son to skip out of his military service, perhaps they should let it lie. But, please do, click on the link above and give the SBPfT some money so they can keep that ad on the air. The longer it stays on when even the Bush Administration says it should be taken off the air will only make Bush look worse.
AOL Must Die
I have always hated AOL. Since the 60s, long before it existed, I hated AOL. And today, in 2004, I hate AOL even more than ever.
Because I am moving.
And, everywhere in this house were there is a neglected or forgotten nook or cranny, there lives an old AOL offer.
I've been here for 10 years.
I have floppy discs proudly proclaiming "NOW FOR WINDOWS" AND "NOW SUPPORTS 9600 BAUD!!!" And about a million of those metalic crash cases they've been sending CDs in. I swear I throw them away immediately, but some scurry away to the dusty regions... likely breeding and sending their spawn up between the studs in the walls, to pop out and fall into the mail box and start the cycle all over again.
Gimme That Old Tyme Religion
As I've blogged before, my new way to find new and interesting blogs is to go through Blogshares. Nearly every Blog on the planet finds its way into this on-line game that treats Blogs as companies and encourages stock-market-like trading these Blogs. There are millions of them.
Blogs are divided up into "industries" which can include things like "Conservative", "Gay", "Humor", "Science," -- there are literally hundreds of them. But this has created an interesting search engine for Blogs.
Some days I want to read a blog in, say, Biotech. So I go to the Biotech section and see what's catalogued. I choose one and start reading. When I choose one, a blog specific screen comes up. Here's the one for J. LeRoy's Blogfest. When that comes up, you can go to the blog itself or you can go to blogs that link to it or blogs it links to. Very powerful data and opinion mining all the way around.
So, today, I went bloghunting and found The Disseminary. Here is what I consider to be the active quote from the opening of the site:
We’re passionate about what Mary Hess has called
“open-source” theological pedagogy (at a 2002 Wabash Center conference)
So I push thee to the Disseminary.
Pooling Resources
One of my favorite "Spy to Try" beaters was related by my friend John von. Music enthusiasts would show up to concerts and toss in their cards for Safeway, Fry's, Kroger, etc. and pull out other cards. This allows them to go and buy lots of food without being attacked by tons of junk mail and directed advertising.
This could be my second favorite. Go forth and gain knowledge. Never be forced to give up your personal information to a newspaper or magazine you will read once on-line.
A Ray of Sense in a Storm of Misinformation
A court has recognized that P2P is not intrinsically bad. Where previous courts and lawmakers have failed to see the distinction between Napster and newer P2P system -- and where RIAA mudslingers have tarred all those who would share a file with a wide brush -- this ruling can begin to bring some sanity to the system.
File sharing is for everyone and is not inherently evil.
Imagine, for a moment, if you didn't have to try to explain to your grandmother how to send a picture from her new digital camera. She simply drops it into a shared folder in Overnet and you can get it just like accessing a file from your own hard drive. Her folder can be available only to people she trusts (you) and she doesn't have to worry about anyone else getting ahold of her stuff.
If she wants to look at pictures of her progeny, she can access the shared folder of you, your parents, your siblings, and see them all. Without clogging up e-mail, without having to download everything all at once, without having to even store it on her computer.
This makes her a file sharer in the first degree. She's totally legal. She's totally safe. And she's totally using technology to make her closer to those she loves.
Many people, myself included, use these technologies to share files in trusted networks and they work great. Seeing the technology vilified simply because the RIAA fears it was disconcerting. Having them get the backing of people like Hillary Clinton was downright infuriating.
Hopefully, this ruling will serve as a rallying point for saner legislation, legal decisions and technological development.
RNC Sex Mania
The RNC has their official Flog, in which they browbeat the electorate into submission.
"Would you like another spin?!"
"Thank you Mistress Cheney, may I have another?"
Only in this administration could this happen.
Given that every GOP ad is an Ass Plug, a Flog shouldn't be much of a surprise.
Charlie Watts
I had the opportunity to see the Rolling Stones back in the day when they didn't charge enough to warrant a second mortgage for tickets.
It was an amazing show. I saw them in Omaha. Where I also saw (though not at the same time) Starship (you, know Jefferson Starship when they were really whoring themselves out), The Clash, Sting, Kool and The Gang (no, really I did), Philipp Glass, George Thoroughgood (most of which I sat out while trying to keep a tripping friend from going insane), and others. Omaha was actually pretty active for concerts that year.
Yes, that was all in one year. I only really lived there for part of 1985.
Oh, and I drove to Lawrence, Kansas, to see the Residents during that year too.
So, now I wish good health to Charlie Watts. May your illness be brief, my friend.
Tired of Packing
I have now packed 12 boxes of nothing but video game cartridges ... and some books. Okay, six of them were cartridges and six were books. Nonetheless, there was a lot of stuff in boxes and it previously was in bookshelves.
So, I started blog bouncing. My new favorite way of doing this is through Blogshares. I bounce around and categorize blogs that haven't been categorized yet.
At any rate, I found this post with this picture: 
So, that helps.
Inspect Me
Well, even after the horrendous week last week, which ended horrendously .... we put in an offer on a house which was accepted. Now it has to go through inspection and all that -- so it's not entirely done yet.
But it is close. So now we have about a month to get 10 years' of stuff packed up. And, as much as bloggers blog, they also collect a buncha stuff.
I anticipate multiple trips to the dump. Multiple trips to the recycling places. Especially the computer equipment recycling station. Hey, if you know anyone who wants some old, huge Sun Sparcstation 330s, let me know. Right away.
The house has a good Chinese number 3233, which makes Vivian happy. I'll post pictures of it as we start to move in. It's a nice sized townhome in a comfortable Seattle neighborhood. It took us five years to find something and actually buy it.
Riding on the Bon Homme Richard
As part of Seafair, we rode on the USS Bon Homme Richard last Thursday. It's a pretty large aircraft carrier, not one of the super large ones, like the Ronald Reagan, but big enough to park a few dozen Harriers.
Jim, Vivian, William and Ryan all went and rode from Everett to Seattle. It took about eight hours. Very nice time.
Lousy Week
After the last week, which has been fairly horrendous, I was glad to find Alton Brown's weblog.
He may well be the only bit of pop culture in which I imbibe.
Bizarre Campaign Focus
It seems that negative campaigning is so ingrained into the Bush re-election machine, that they will attack any perceived strength without thinking about it too much.
The Bush Administration understands that the fact that Kerry actually fought in Viet Nam that they are now contesting eyewitness verified reports. I'm certain that in a war, you can find inconsitencies in people's memories. It is a highly stressful situation where most military people can tell you is difficult to get 100% reliable debriefings.
But as the Bush Administration seeks to discredit Kerry here, it just refocuses attention on Bush's AWOL, his parental string-pulling, and his past alcohol and drug abuse. One would expect that it would be prudent not to attack Kerry from an angle that calls attention to Bush's own skeletons.
If anything, this bad decision making should be an indicator that the Bush team does not plan very well. It would be like Clinton attacking Bob Dole for Dole's reported infidelity. Just wouldn't have been a good idea.
Spin me like a top baby
This is the best web site ever.
The site talks about George Bush's flip flops. While some are obviously outright lies by the Bush Administration - intentionally saying one thing and then doing another, others in this list are merely changes in policy dictated by changing global conditions.
When you have so many that are slam dunks, why keep the pot shots?
The inacurate and misleading ones greatly detract from the ones that are correct.
After reading this, I feel spun from spin. And it didn't need to spin me.
The Reagans and The Bushiz
In 1988, when George Herbert Walker Bush was running for president, there was a primary season with a lot of republican contenders. During that time, reporters asked Ronald Reagan, the previous president of the US who, at one time, was second to Bill Clinton as being the most popular president in history, "Mr. Reagan, do you support Mr. Bush in the election."
Mr. Reagan said, "I'll wait and see who else enters the race."
Then, after the primaries were over, another reporter asked the question again .... he received the same answer.
Reagan wasn't stupid, he understood that the elder Bush would not be good for his party.
If he could see what 90s and 00s did to all his work, he would be appalled.
Given this, Nancy's somewhat noncommittal attitude towards the current Bush administration is understandable.
((Hastening her husband's demise by not squashing stem cell research doesn't help Bush with Nancy either.))
However... right now in blog land there are reports that Nancy has completely written off the Bush Administration and won't support them in this election. Unfortunately, there are other reports saying that Nancy supports the Not-Great Communicator.
So, here's a quick list I've found:
Nancy thinks George Bush is a Steamy Pile of Crap: Here There
Nancy thinks George Bush Smells Fresh Flowers: Here There
So, the upshot is, there is currently no definitive answer as to how Nancy's olfactories are processing Dubya at this time. The Steamy Pile of Crap element appears to be in the lead, but the Fresh Flowers crowd have been covered by 1 (one) non-blog source. Both threads throughout the blog world only come back to the original "Here" sources.
Thanks to Trevor for letting me tell my favorite Ron Reagan story again.
Social Experimentation with no Criteria for Success
Bloggers come to the Democratic convention in 2004. They get badges. They get to sit in the seats that the Fleet Center can't sell to regular events. You can almost see the convention from there.
Nonetheless, as a blogger it seems pretty cool to have bloggers invited in the first place.
I read some of the blogs, but didn't really read many of them during the convention, because I was either working or watching the convention already.
Charles Cooper wrote not really a rant, more of a cranky musing, on how bloggers failed at the convention. He was apparently hoping for alternative journalism that looked like journalism. He was looking for a pundit with a funny hat.
The problem is that the "real" pundits are already wearing funny hats. In the interest of diversity, most of the networks covering the convention had people who were equally qualified to be wrong from a million different vantage points.
This can easily be seen by the pundits' (liberal and conservative and random wacko alike) responses to Rev. Al Sharpton, who brought the first interesting speech to the floor and got everyone engaged. The pundits were scrambling because they never listened to the speeches. They had transcripts ahead of time and then Sharpton said something else! The pundits couldn't use their scripts! Then we saw that they are all phonies. None of them had anything of substance to say about Sharpton's speech. They had to settle with "He shouldn't yell like that."
Did bloggers fail? Perhaps ... but only if we are operating by Charles Cooper's standardized exam. And he didn't provide any study guides ahead of time.
Bloggers are organic by nature, if you will. We write about random stuff daily. Anyone, even the most "serious" political blogger, will discuss their family, that their car caught on fire, or the weather from time to time. Because Blogs are WEB LOGS. They are not Blewspapers and we are not Blournalists.
Bloggers Blog.
They are vital forums for information. They are open and unabashed. Our readership comes because they want to read what we have to say. Our funding comes from our participation in society (we have to work for a living).
In closing, I'd like to say that yesterday was my fifth wedding anniversary. We had a lovely day.
Others have said similar things, David Weinberg did so with a cam corder and no editor. Dan Bricklin did so with big square paragraphs. And, of course, to check out all the blogs on earth that talk about this you can go to Technorati.
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