Why the Democrats are wrong and other meanderings

Name:
Location: Metro Phoenix, Arizona, United States

I'm too lazy to type anything about me. Read my blog and I'm sure you'll eventually learn a few things.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#92 Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish
Season 2, Episode 4 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
A reporter stops to talk to Bart and Lisa at the fishing hole near the nuclear plant, and writes a front-page story about the three-eyed fish he sees Bart catch. This spurs an inspection of the plant, which doesn't come close to meeting code. After failing to bribe the officials, Mr. Burns drinks the evening away, and, while leaving, runs into Homer, who just woke up after falling asleep on the job for several hours. After hearing Burns lament the corruption of the government (in his view), Homer points out that Burns could run for governor himself and change the laws (ignore that nuclear plants are federally regulated). Burns runs a campaign against the beloved Mary Bailey, and pulls even in the polls right before the election. The evening before the election finds him eating at the Simpsons' house as a publicity ploy. Marge, a Bailey supporter, serves three-eyed fish, which Burns can't eat and spits out, costing him the election. Memorable moments include Burns's first campaign ad, and, frankly, most of his campaigning, including the behind-the-scenes parts. This episode almost certainly gets a boost due to my interest in politics.

Labels:

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Sheehan

Just a quick note on self-aggrandizer Cindy Sheehan.

First, she already met with President Bush.
Second, Bush has already stated the reason we went to war.
Third, she's making her arguments in bad faith (i.e., asking for Bush to explain why we went to war, when he already has, and she still says it was a war for oil (a bogus theory that I might address some other time)).
Fourth, Casey Sheehan (her son) reenlisted after the Iraq war began. It was his own choice.
Fifth, this notion that we should all listen to her because her son died is bogus. First, her son apparently believed in the war (see last point). Second, if we were to listen only to military family members, the country would support the war by a wider margin.
Sixth, look at some of the rhetoric of this woman -- calling Bush the worst terrorist in the world, calling the Iraq war a war for Israel when not calling it a war for oil, protesting the Afghanistan war as well (saying that we were after al Qaeda, not Afghanistan), and questioning whether Osama bin Laden was really behind the 9/11 attacks. This isn't some "bereaved mother" -- this is a woman who needs a serious reality check.

What I Was Doing Last Night

Paging your boss at 2am is always fun.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#93 The Bart Wants What It Wants
Season 13, Episode 11 (guide from the Simpsons Archive)
The Simpsons go to a carnival at a classy private school, where Bart saves a girl from the school's wussy bullies. The girl turns out to be Ranier Wolfcastle's daughter, and she develops quite the crush on Bart, who is completely oblivious to it. After Lisa points it out to him, he decides to break up with her, but then becomes jealous when he discovers that she's dating Milhouse. She goes to Toronto for the filming of her dad's next movie, and Bart gets the Simpson family to follow them to America, Jr. She rejects Bart's advance, but dumps Milhouse also. The boys find concolation by joining Canada's Olympic basketball team. Memorable moments include Wolfcastle's SUV, "Laughing time is over", various other Wolfcastle moments, the Canada-bashing, the curling match (probably part of the Canada-bashing), and assorted carnival moments.

Labels:

Friday, August 19, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#94 The President Wore Pearls
Season 15, Episode 3 (no guide from the Simpsons Archive available; here is another poor summary from the official website)
In a musical spoof of Evita, Lisa wins the student body presidency after Martin is forced to resign in disgrace after a casino night fiasco. The faculty appeal to her womanly sense of vanity, and use her as a pawn while Skinner cuts gym, art, and music to save the school money. Lisa, realizing that she's been used, resigns the presidency, but not before calling a student strike, which finds much sympathy among random unions. Chalmers and Skinner get Lisa transfered to a magnet school, but Homer refuses to let her go there. The problem is eventually solved when the school scraps flu shots instead. This episode makes the top 100 entirely because it's a musical, which I always find amusing. Memorable moments include the musical numbers (I especially like the line "I'm so proud of my evil plan"), Willie making fun of Milhouse, Milhouse pathetic as ever, Nelson prepared for his inauguration, the random unions, the police, and the riot.

Labels:

Monday, August 15, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#95 E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) ("(Annoyed Grunt)"="D'oh")
Season 11, Episode 5 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
The episode starts with a nice take on how badly Hollywood distorts stories when making them into movies. As usual, Homer becomes easily influenced by something he sees and starts challenging people to duels. Everything goes fine until Homer challenges a southern man who is all too ready to fight a duel. The Simpson family leaves town and goes to the old Simpson farm, but can't grow anything due to the high soil P.H. Homer solves the problem by ordering plutonium from the nuclear power plant and spreading it over the fields. However, the tobacco and tomato seeds cross-breed to form a new crop which Homer names tomacco. The tobacco industry tries to purchase the rights to the highly-addictive crop from Homer, but are rebuffed by Homer's ludicrously large demand. Memorable moments include "H is for Homer!", "I'm with Lisa, let's take them to the cleaners!", "Is that plutonium on your gums?" "Shut up and kiss me!", and several other amusing bits. Also amusing is that someone created their own tomacco plant because of the show, though the fruit apparently contained lethal doses of nicotine. On the downside, the show dropped off from the moment Homer's demands were rejected.

Labels:

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#96 I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can
Season 14, Episode 12 (No guide available yet from the Simpsons Archive)
You can read the review from The Simpsons.com (the official site)
here, but you should know that it is, how you say, wrong. They must have gotten an early plot summary, because most of the second paragraph has no resemblance to the actual show.
On the first day back at school, a school-wide spelling bee is held, and Lisa wins over second-place Milhouse, who loses when he messes up on the word "choke" (Milhouse? Second? It was a good joke, though). She goes on to win the state spelling bee (led by Superintendent Chalmers, who uses Skinner in a derisive way whenever he's asked to use the word in a sentence) and adavances to the nationals -- the Spellympics. Meanwhile, Homer falls in love with Krusty Burger's new offering, the ribwich, only to be dismayed when he discovers that it was only a limited-time promotion. He joins up with a group of ribwich fanatics who travel the country going where the ribwich goes (although, according to their shirt, there was only one stop after Springfield ... not sure if it was bad writing or what ... bad editting, maybe; this ties in with what I mentioned about the "official" episode guide). Back at the Spellympics, Lisa is asked to throw the competition in return for free tuition to the seven sisters college of her choice (and a hot plate!), but, after struggling with the decision, she decides not to, but blows the competition anyways (making a rather dumb mistake, too, I might add -- almost as bad as Milhouse's). Memorable moments include the ribwich commercial, the ribwich mascot, cheering sections for Lisa and Homer, the newscast, and the scene where Krusty explains the demise of the ribwich. Still, the episode shows evidence of the series' decline, and makes this list partially due to the weakness of the shows around it.

Labels:

Friday, August 12, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#97 Bart to the Future
Season 11, Episode 17 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
The Simpsons visit an Indian casino, and Bart tries to sneak in, but is taken to a casino executive who shows him his future. Lisa becomes president and the family moves into the White House. Unsurprisingly, Bart is a deadbeat. Lisa has inherited a government in fiscal crisis from President Trump, and Bart ruins her plan to sneak a tax hike past the voters (you'll notice that budget cuts are all talk and no action for her -- just like the real government!). She sends him away to Camp David to keep him out of the way while she meets with the nation's creditors. Memorable moments include the reappearance of the Great Gabbo, Crazy Talk, Billy Carter's ghost, Homer's search for Lincoln's gold, Milhouse as pathetic as ever, and Helen Thomas still in the press room, as senile as she is today.

Labels:

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#98 The Homer They Fall
Season 8, Episode 3 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
Homer takes up a boxing career and we find out the secret to why he's able to take such a beating -- he has Homer Simpson Syndrome. Memorable moments include the musical montage, "surgical two by four", "lousy democrats", the parole hearing, and more. Classic Simpsons.

Labels:

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#99 Homer vs. Dignity
Season 12, Episode 5 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
While Smithers is in New Mexico to star in the Malibu Stacey musical he wrote, Mr. Burns looks for ways to entertain himself. As the Simpsons are in poor financial shape, Homer is willing to do anything for money, including humiliate himself for Burns's amusement. Lisa finds out and guilts Homer into quitting, but Mr. Burns is looking for a last hurrah. Memorable moments include Burns ordering candy from a snack machine, and Homer throwing pudding at Lenny and Carl.

Labels:

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#100 Homer's Night Out
Season 1, Episode 10 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
Bart uses his spy camera ("Just like the CIA uses!") to snap a compromising photo of Homer with a dancer. The photo gets copied and passed around the whole town, with appropriate hilarity. In all honesty, this gets a boost in the ratings, receiving some primacy points as it was from the first season; a few other episodes from the first couple seasons will get higher ratings than they might otherwise deserve.

Labels:

Monday, August 08, 2005

Mmmm ... Simpsons Episodes ...

Spurred on by Matt, I am creating a list of favorite episodes. However, this is to be no ordinary list. This will be a list of my top 100 episodes counted down on a wifli basis, something akin to daily, probably. So for those of you tired of the politics (or tired of the lack of new posts), this should keep you all busy. It'll keep me busy, at least.

However, I came up with a few groundrules. First, clip shows are not eligible. Behind the Laughter would probably make the list otherwise, but I discount clip shows from my least favorite episodes, so I'm doing it here, too. Second, no three-part shows/shows outside the "Simpsons universe" -- i.e., the Treehouse of Horror episodes and others such as the Simpsons Spinoff Showcase and Simpsons Bible Stories are not eligible. 22 Short Films About Springfield and Trilogy of Error are eligible, however, as the first is something of a Pulp Fiction knock-off, and in the second all three parts are part of one story, plus both are part of the "Simpsons universe" rather than departures from it. So I eliminated around thirty shows form the running.

I went through the list of episodes and I've nominated 154 shows for the running (yeah, I realize that it's a bit odd for me to nominate shows for myself, but deal with it). All of the shows on Matt's list were automatically entered. For other top lists, this page lists the No Homers Club top 100 (as decided before the start of the 16th season), the Simpsons Archive top 10 (as decided sometime before the 300th episode), and Matt Groening's top 10 (as published in Entertainment Weekly in the January 14, 2000 issue, so probably as of late 1999).

Number 100 on my list should be coming up later today, though possibly not until tomorrow (I have some whittling to do to the list and such first).

Update: Whittling has turned out to be a bit harder than I imagined; several episodes which evoked thoughts of "oh, that's a classic" when I was going through episode lists, compiling my nominees, have turned out to just not be top 100 material, which i think is a testament to how great the show has been.

Update, Again: I decided that the top 100 list will include at least one show from each of the first 15 seasons, though not the sixteenth; I still haven't seen every episode from the sixteenth, but none of the ones I did see really meritted inclusion.

Labels:

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Rove, Wilson, Plame, and all that jazz

This whole Rove/Wilson/Plame (along with Novak, Cooper, Miller, and others) thing is fairly messy (that is, complicated, not messy in the sense that it’s commonly portrayed) and I feel a long post coming on.

There are several issues at stake here that I’ll try to address: was a crime committed, was Rove the leaker, were Wilson’s assertions accurate, and was it wrong to name Valerie Plame.

First, was a crime committed? The law in question states that in order for the naming of the operative to be illegal, four requirements must be met: 1) the operative must be covert; 2) the person naming the operative has to know that they are covert; 3) the operative must have served overseas in the last five years; 4) the cover of the operative has not already been blown. Despite all the hullabaloo, it’s unclear that Valerie Wilson was even covert. While it’s been asserted that she is, there’s been no confirmation of this. Acquaintances trying to bolster this claim have provided three different jobs they believed she actually had – if she was covert, she did a really lousy job of it if she can’t even keep her story straight on such a basic concept as what kind of work she’s involved in. She did make a political contribution in which her employer was listed as a CIA front business (for those who don’t know, for all political contributions above $5, I think it is, you have to provide various information including your name, job, employer, and place of residence). Further, she was working as an analyst, and, while apparently some analysts do have covert status (but not by any means all of them), she wasn’t the spy that she’s been made out to be. As for whoever leaked her identity to the press knowing she had covert status, well, in the very least, that would be hard to prove. As for the State Department memo that’s being mentioned, it was apparently classified “secret” but to those in government circles, that’s not actually a big deal, it’s a very low-level classification that’s handed out like candy. Code-name, eyes-only – that’s the stuff where the true secrets are kept. However, all the talk on these two points is mostly speculative; the important matter is in the next two points. She was brought back stateside in 1997 because Aldrich Ames had blown her cover. She was “outed” in July 2003. You do the math. As already stated, her cover had been blown, so the fourth requirement is also not met. Not only did the traitor Aldrich Ames blow her cover, though, the CIA itself did so. The agency sent classified information to the U.S. interests section of the Swiss embassy in Havana, and was supposed to seal the documents from the Cuban government, but neglected to do so and the Cubans read the documents. Despite the hype on the front pages, 36 news organizations have said that no crime was committed, citing the fact that she had previously been outed in a friend-of-the-court brief for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the cases of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper. So while hyping the story and heavily implying, when not outright saying, that a crime was or could have been committed, it is the official position of all of these news organizations that no crime was, in fact, committed.

Next, was Rove the source of the leak to the press? According to Rove, the press was actually his source on the matter. In his conversation with Novak, Novak mentioned Wilson’s CIA wife getting him the Niger assignment and Rove said, “I heard that, too.” Rove was used to confirm the story rather than being the source (although it’s entirely possible that Rove and Novak were getting their info from the same place, in which case it’s not very effective as confirmation). In Rove’s conversations with Novak and Matt Cooper, the reporter was the one to call and was the first to bring up the topic in both cases. Neither reporter would exactly have been prime grounds for a right-wing conspiracy, either. While Novak is conservative, he wasn’t supportive of the war in Iraq and – what people really forget – his column naming Valerie Plame was actually rather favorable to Wilson. Was this the big Rovian plot to get revenge on Wilson? Sit in his office, wait for reporters to call, then wait for them to bring up the topic of Wilson/Niger and then either affirm what the reporter had already heard or say that his wife had got him the job? Seems kinda far-fetched. Judith Miller, New York Times reporter, is currently in jail for refusing to cooperate in the investigation by naming her source for the information. Who might that be? If it were Rove, she’d have no problem in telling, as he’s already being tossed around, mentioned as having conversations with at least two reporters, and he already waved any privilege to confidentiality. Scooter Libby (Cheney’s Chief of Staff) is also out in the open about this. So it doesn’t look like it’s either of them. Now, Miller had written several articles on WMD, could her source have been none other than CIA WMD analyst Valerie Plame? A few days after Novak’s column ran, David Corn published an article in The Nation magazine. This was the first article to assert that Plame was a covert employee, and the first to assert that the Bush administration outed her in an effort to get back at Joe Wilson. As Cliff May demonstrates, it’s highly likely that Corn’s source for the article was Wilson (May did some additional work to buttress this claim after the article).

Now, I’d like to go off the main path here and address Wilson’s initial claims about Iraq, Niger, and Uranium. These are important for a point I’ll be making in a bit. First, there are those “sixteen words” from Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” First, he’s talking about the British government; he doesn’t say that the American government has learned that. British intelligence did, indeed, come to that conclusion. After the start of the war in Iraq, the Brits did an inquiry into that report, and they stood by that conclusion. So, it’s true that the British government holds that position. As for the subject matter of Saddam seeking uranium in Africa, the most cited claim against it is that the Italian documents supporting the claim have been shown to be inauthentic. However, the British intelligence reports are not based off of the Italian documents. It’s possible that Saddam learned one of the Soviet’s favorite intelligence tricks – after inconvenient intelligence leaks, they would produce documents alleging the same thing that could easily be shown to be fake, so that the fake documents would cast doubt upon the legitimate ones. So intelligence veterans know that forged documents should not always cast doubt upon other documents. As for Wilson’s allegations, the first problem is that he normally says that Iraq did not buy uranium from Niger; however, this was not alleged, it was only alleged that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from Niger. As for his interviews in Niger, he met with former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that Iraqi officials had met with him wishing to discuss “commercial relations” which he (Mayaki) presumed meant uranium. So the Nigerian official himself believed that Iraq had sought to buy uranium. So does Wilson think the Nigerian official was lying to him or are Wilson’s powers of comprehension a little, let’s say, subpar? I suppose he could also be lying for partisan reasons, which he’s shown himself completely capable of already.

And why was Wilson sent to Niger in the first place? He’s an anti-Bush partisan (and was one before investigating the the claims in Niger, so don’t even try the “he was against Bush because he knew Bush was distorting intelligence” line). He got the job because of his wife. His supporters use the weasel words that his wife did not “authorize” the trip. However, you don’t need to be in a position to authorize in order to get a person the job. I’ve had jobs that I got because of people who were not the ones who actually hired me. It’s the same with his wife getting him the job. When the Senate investigated the matter, they came to the same conclusion, that he got the job because she recommended him for it. Why was she interested in getting him the job? Well, maybe she was just trying to throw him a bone, make him feel important; or perhaps they wanted some extra money that came with the assignment; or maybe she was after someone politically reliable to “disprove” the allegations. In the first case, the CIA should be interested in national security, not handing out favors to family members of employees. In the second case, well, basically the same thing. In the third case, she was deliberately undermining national security and/or American foreign policy. She did think that the allegations were “crazy” so she was predisposed to a certain outcome, but it would be hard to prove that she sought to undermine the intelligence-gathering process. Of interesting note, she was apparently on a “year’s unpaid … enforced leave of absence” that she apparently finished in June or early July, according to an article in the London telegraph from July10. There are some interesting questions to be raised about that. While some would be quick to raise objections that it was because Rove outed her (because such people mostly believe Rove is guilty despite the lack of evidence), that argument runs into two problems. First, her leave of absence didn’t start until about a year after she was mentioned in Novak’s article; wouldn’t make much sense to wait a year to put her on leave. Secondly, that it was “enforced” and “unpaid” make it highly dubious to claim that it was related to her “outing.” Even being “outed” she could still work her desk job as an analyst (as she did for about a year before the leave) and the CIA would still pay her for forced leave if it were actually related to something like that. She was not just taking time off, as it was “enforced” not voluntary. So, the question is essentially, what did she do wrong?

Was naming her wrong? Not a chance. Wilson has been popularly portrayed as a whistleblower in this case, but it’s been proven that he was lying. The true whistleblower would be whoever let the word out about his wife and her role in getting him the job (which could be Wilson himself, admittedly). In the least, it shows cronyism and incompetence at CIA. In the worst, it shows a deliberate attempt, by at least one CIA employee, to undermine national security, intelligence, and/or foreign policy. Either way, something’s broke and needs fixing.

Sorry, but this post was rather hastily done, and doesn't quite address everything I wanted to address or go into as much depth as I wanted. I just wanted to get something out there that contained my thoughts on the matter and some information that wasn't getting much play in the mainstream media.

I'm baaaaack

Well, it’s been awhile, but I’m back. I’ve been rather busy and they’ve been uptight about proper computer use at work lately, and while that doesn’t expressly forbid blogging, I figure that it’s best to avoid it. So I must find other means for doing most of my blogging. There have been several topics I’ve been meaning to get to, so I have some catching up to do.