Cobb

Cellphone Dependency

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/weekinreview/10bels.html?oref=login

"Cellphones foster a curious dependency," Ms. Rosen said. "The cellphone erodes something that is being obliterated in American society: self-reliance."

She offered an example. "I was taught how to change a tire so I can get a spare on and get to a garage," she said. "But who changes a tire now? You just call AAA."

Oddly, being able to keep constant track of friends and family can introduce a whole new kind of insecurity. For a parent, a call to a cellphone-carrying child may bring reassurance, but when the child doesn't answer the phone, the parent starts thinking the worst.

"The more available you are, the more worrisome it is when you can't reach people," Ms. Rosen said.

Who's Your Daddy?

Whenever I hear the word 'patriarchy', I curl into a fetal position and whimper. It has the effect of freaking out the feminist who utters it, and sometimes of wrinkling my pants. But it's better than the alternative which is to wash out her mouth with soap. That'll get you shackled in a dungeon.

I could probably think of a better and more intellectual reaction, such as this, but I'd rather just roll my eyes and make the universal sign for 'puke'.

By the way, what do you call a feminist with three children? An Afghan voter. As for the rest of them, I'll just turn the subject to baseball - something else I vaguely understand. I raise my glass to all the Dads in the world. You know who you are.

How to Bury Kerry

How many times have I written in these pages 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth'? None. I've paid little attention. But I am paying attention to this interview over at Dean's World.

Sure I've known that Kerry has made some considerably dodgy left turns in contradistinction to his service in Vietnam, but I've also been very hesitant to judge homey for what happened 30 plus years ago. I'm tired of the Vietnam war in particular standing in as litmus for the suitability for holding down the Oval Office. But when the man's CO says he's unsuitable, I've got to take that seriously. And it's true that good Senators (if he's that) don't necessarily make good presidents.

This is not the final nail in Kerry's coffin for me. This is six feet of dirt and a concrete slab on top.

I think George Elliott makes a good point about the mainstream media. They've really injured themselves in all this. It seems like every journalist wants to write a book and report on the 'trial of the century' or some such - and all that happens in the world isn't like that. Sooner or later folks are going to realize that it's not a good idea to be Sean Hannity (to name one particularly egregious and unlettered celebrity newsie). We're going to turn to peer networks on the ground and disembowel the entire process unless news organizations do a better job in several dimensions.

Weapons of Ass Destruction

A fight between Eminem and Michael Jackson is all over the news. Jacko can't handle being dissed on video and is bleating about being 'demeaned'. Such matters are of such consequence that we must rise to our duty to speak out.

It just so happens, that having loaded up on some old school rap, that I've been thinking about how the rivalry between Kool Moe Dee and LL Cool J amounted to nothing more that pretty good raps. In retrospect, 'Momma Said Knock You Out' is lyrically juvenile and so minimalist that it's hard to remember what was so good about it - ahh, the video. Tupac and Biggie's deuling was more serious, of course, and I am more of the opinion, fwiw, that Snoop or Suge should have taken the bullet instead of Shakur, considering the net loss to the business.

So what can we expect in this battle?

Well obviously Em has taken the initiative and Jacko the offense. But was Eminem morally justified in this unilateral action? After all, there is no smoking gun in Jacko's bedroom, perhaps Em should have given the investigators more time. On the other hand, it's hard to argue that the world won't be better off without Michael Jackson. It's true that he was once our ally, but times change. He got away the first time he crossed standards of decency, this time Em is out to finish the job.

You could have expected the liberals at BET to go invertabrate and pull support from Eminem. So there's clearly not an international mandate here. Eminem is probably not the most intelligent or well-spoken man for the task, and he is a white guy dropping bombs on somebody who ain't. But in these post Amber Alert days, there are new rules in operation.

The argument is made that if Eminem should have gone after somebody, it should have been R. Kelley. After all, we have evidence of his abuses, and he's getting away with it. Which rather brings us to the ugly and nauseating center of this controversy. Is Michael Jackson really a man capable of raping children? Does he possess, or could he construct a WAD?

We know he has the technology to add or subtract parts of his body. And he demonstrated his willingness and ability to do so in the past. But the documented existence of the crucial components is in doubt. Certainly people who are paid by Jackson have told us, but how reliable are they? He makes big entrances with his entourage of shills, flacks, and flunkies, but then he hides away in his palaces and travels with doubles so that his whereabouts are always unknown. It's impossible to get close enough to verify.

Many people are very loyal to this icon but we know those weasels are only in it for the money or they just hate Eminem. But I'm sick of the pretense that he is King, and I am hoping the Eminem takes him down. Heal the world! Do it for the children!

Black California

I overheard some interesting conversation about Blacks in Western history the other evening. Among these vaguely heard items was that there was a black trader who helped Washington become a state and not be annexed by Canada. Another was that one of the tallest trees in California is named the Booker T. Washington Tree. Another tidbit was that gold was discovered on black property but something happened. I also have reason to believe that the Buffalo soldiers were Republican by and large. The last thing I remember was that ronin who escaped death after the demise of the Japanese emperor chose to hide in Sacramento in the middle of a black community.

Cool stuff. More later.

The Buzz on Abuzz

Abuzz was one of the most innovative and useful websites I've ever used. It had everything necessary to generate interesting semi-expert information on every subject imaginable. I've been thinking about ways to incorporate such tech into a new site, and I found that it went belly up, sorta. It's hard to know how many users it was supporting and how much money they burned through, but it was very reliable and had some damned good stuff.

I'll be looking around for fragments of that code & staff. About.com is a little too commercial.

Halo2 Making Epic Strides

OK I have to admit that I'm a sucker for a new sense of things right about now. I'm dropping the sensitivity screens in order to develop a vocabulary for things hot. In my new role as CTO for a very, very cool web venture coming up I'm courting an interesting audience not too far off from where I was 10 - 15 years ago.

What has this got to do with Halo2? Well it turns out that Bungie has hooked up with Nile Rodgers (yes that Nile Rodgers) to produce the music for the Halo2 soundtrack. The first single is by a group called 'Breaking Benjamin' which sounds like a grown-up Blink 182 Linkin Park with a touch of Korn. It's called 'Blow Me Away' and it is slammin'. It's... (hmm how do the young people say it these days?) The lead singer has a touch of that Matchbox 20 guy and the guitars have a touch of the STP when they go epic. This is damned good music for a video game. It's actually damned good music, period.

I am starting to get the feeling that what we're going to be hearing a lot after the release of H2, is that video games are turning the corner into real cross-media starmakers. I've been playing Burnout 3 so I know how EA has been dropping little rock tracks into their cut screens, but that's kind of disposable stuff. As anyone who has played Halo knows, O'Donnell and Salvatori's music is outstanding. Now it rocks and a lot of people are going to be paying attention.

I'm just listening to the streaming version available here, and I've played it 8 times just writing this piece. It's that good.

Threat

The Right Framework

David Brooks nails it again:

Seen in these terms, this election is not just a conflict of two men, but is a comprehensive conflict of visions. Both these visions have been bloodied of late. Still, they do address the central issue confronting us: How do we conceive of an international order in the post-9/11 world? Bush, the conservative, conceives of a flexible, organic, spontaneous order. Kerry, the liberal, conceives of a more rationalist, planned and managed order.

Read the whole thing.

The Thumbchip Dream

I've had the same bad dream for almost 15 years now. I'm stepping off a Lear Jet, somewhere in the future, and the scanner in the doorway erases the chip in my thumb. I suddenly realize that everything I've ever created, other than my children, is contained on that chip and I didn't have a backup. Yike.

I've dismissed the dream many times, primarily because it is my experience that a great number of gigabytes of data I have already lost over the years mean very little to me. Even when the thing lost has been a favorite cassette recording of Jeff Beck, I've been able to recover it in a different way. Other things were only sort of valuable because of their format. I backed up a PC onto an Overland Data tape drive over a IBM data channel. That was cool back in 1987, but nothing then, including the font I designed myself using some old Xerox tools, is useful now for anything but nostalgia. What I continue to miss are the medals, ribbons and trophies I won in high school, and pictures of me when I had a jheri curl. Nevertheless, I do have a continual problem taking my data with me which continues to give the dream longevity.

Two summers ago, I purchased a 40GB external USB drive from Maxtor for about 300 bucks. It allowed me, for the first time, to retrieve Eudora mail when I was on the road and then use that same set of files when I got home. In those pre-GMail days, I never had much use for webmail precisely because of my inability to depend on it for long periods. Today, whether or not it's security wise, I route all of my mail through GMail as well as download it through Eudora to my hard drive. So I don't have to take my USB drive on the road. The other thing I was able to do with the external drive was keep my very large set of customer data, and trickbag. So I have about 2GB of files that I could reuse. I also have a goodly set of music on the USB drive. All that kept me happy when my laptop only had 8GB of disk, but there were always problems with synch, not to mention headache inducing problems between Palm and Outlook.

I've been sitting out the past few years on new hardware and portable devices precisely because of these problems. In the meantime I've been making a lot of use of FTP and my DVD burner. It's nice to have a couple GB of mp3s easily playable through my laptop and Winamp contained on a couple of burned DVDs, but I still wish there were a better solution overall. I almost bought Groove, but I was never able to get it to synch on demand, and I simply don't think it's worth $250 per seat. But I have been very happy with my USB key with 256MB. I keep all of my passwords and valuable volatile files there. It solves a number of problems, but not quite enough.

The other day I saw a woman pay for her lunch with money she took out of her iPod wallet. Cool. Wouldn't it be great if the iPod could be used for more than just music? I've also been following Oqo, hoping they get their stuff on the street, and of course I'm struggling with the pathetic internet access of my Sprint PCS phone (two years old) and my black & white Palm Vx. Still nothing quite does it for me, not a Treo 600, nor any of the other PDAs.

Just yesterday, the wife found a 7 year old removeable hard drive from an old Compaq laptop. 2GB, pocket sized. Wouldn't it be nice if... Hmmm. Now I've also heard rumors that the XBox 2 is not going to have a hard drive. You'd buy an iPod-like device for your game storage and probably everything else storage. But what's cooler still is this long post by Mark Cuban including this delicious bite:

I had a couple DVDs that I had PURCHASED, that I hadn’t had the chance to watch. I had a couple 512mb Flash Drives that I had bought specifically to test them out for video. I took the first movie, and using an encoder with compression (not going to tell you which one, don’t want to play favorites), I encoded the movies at DVD quality and saved the output onto each of the 512mb Flash Drives. I popped those tiny little puppies into my pockets and off I went to the plane. Keys, some money and my keychain flash drives in one pocket, phone in the other. No hassle, no fuss no muss.

On the plane, I popped the first keychain drive into the USB Port. Got the ready signal, got prompted to open my video player, and watched a nice movie right from the keychain drive. On the way home, did the same thing with the other movie. I loved it. Far less space than DVDs. Could put them in my pocket instead of filling up my briefcase. I immediately went out and bought a 1gb keychain drive so I could hold 2 movies on 1 drive, in addition to my first 2 drives.

So there could be a lot of convergence around the thing that we all want, which is massive portable read/write storage. It's clearer and clearer that DVD is not the way to go and that USB or Firewire based disk storage is. The trick is synching, but what incentive does MS have to make anything faster or smarter than those idiotic briefcases, or refrain from DRM shackles? Hard to say.

I want to add that wireless broadband is just a year or two away, but it won't solve the bigger problem which Cuban sees. It's got to be disk. So I'm going to learn CVS and see what happens if a generic iPod comes out.

CRP Urban Project Reception: Part Two

As I was meeting people like David and Bobby, Marvin and Tyrone, Kwame and Rev Amos (and his young son), Walter and Clarence, I found out that Bobby was counting Alphas in the room. There turned out to be six, and there was a Que sporting some USC paraphenalia. Although I didn't get a chance to meet Roxanne Petteway, I know that there will be plenty opportunities, because she's a mover and a shaker. I met the singer Phil Perry and his wife Lillian who raise funds out in the Inland Empire. So it was very good for me a sample of the blackfolks who are making a difference in the California Republican Party.

The first thing I noticed about Michael Steele was how much like his headshot he looks, except that the headhsot gives you no idea that he's something like six foot five with enormous hands. The next thing I noticed was how much he reminds me of Dr. J. I don't know why exactly, but whenever I see Dr. J. hosting or commentating at a basketball game, he's got this ultimate insiders knowledge and a kind of refinement that makes you scratch your head and wonder if this is the same guy who was so aggressive and dominating on the court. They both have a kind of quiet power.

Steele has what seems to be a rather standard yet still impressive story about his election, and the way it winds up, you cannot be anything but convinced that this is a working man. Some politicians try to convince you that they're on a mission from God, Steele doesn't have those kinds of pretensions. He's a very intelligent man with an important job. As he puts it, he's a public servant. The difference between a politician and a public servant is that the politician makes promises, the public servant makes progress.

Steele, like my best friend Lee, is a mama's boy in the best sense. His mother sacrificed, he took up the challenge and excelled. I know such men to be inherently trustworthy, who make no assumptions about instant fraternity, who understand very well where they come from and the value of achievement against all odds. These are qualities you cannot assess when reading biographies, but you can hear it in a voice.

Although he spent a fair amount of time reminding us what Bush has done for us lately, consciously paraphrasing Janet Jackson he also reminded us how we have failed for the sake of political strategies and in pursuit of demographics. Specifically, he spoke about how we dropped the ball after 1965. We? He means the Republican Party doesn't he? Yes he does, and he means that 'we' seriously. He reminded us of the work of Nixon and Arthur Fletcher to make Affirmative Action real and how that was not about political promise but public action, rooted in the values of liberty and ownership. But for the sake of some clever political strategies, the party sacrificed its committment to its core values and this cost us three generations of African Americans.

Steele often spoke about the difference between promises and action, and his insight into this matter was the most surprising, for me anyway, point of the night. He jumped right to a core issue. So what if Republicans invite you to a big dinner and introduce you around? So what if you get to speak at a big convention? Politicians do that all the time, what about the action? Where does the rubber meet the road? Steele says it's all about parity. He wants results.

In support of the concepts of the Ownership Society, Steele was pointed as he referred to 'legacy wealth'. I managed to contain myself as he spoke, as this is something I've been talking about since day one. He spoke about 50.8% home ownership for African Americans and referred to how his own mother's house increased in value from 12k to something north of 450k.

All in all, Steele impresses me as a good guy fighting the good fight. This impression may be coming to me late, as I didn't see him speak at the Convention. He's less of an ideologue than I am, rather he is all about the core values which serve blackfolks and keeping the party straight on them. As he said, it's not about putting a label on it - sure you can if you like, but the people know when you are doing right by them. It's all about public action, not political promises.

He makes an example of himself as proof that one individual can make the difference. The Segregationists eliminated the office of Lt. Governor in Maryland in response to the fact that the first one was an African American during reconstruction. Now his team is the first Republican team in the 20th century. He was inaugurated on MLK's birthday. Steele has a sense of destiny fulfilled and work to do. It's a balance that will not only take him far, but continue to inspire us people who are shorter than six foot five.

Conservatives Worry About the Police State Too

Of course you wouldn't think so listening to some. Here's a useful and informative site. Overcriminalized.

The origin of modern criminal law can be traced to early feudal times. From its inception, the criminal law expressed both a moral and a practical judgment about the societal consequences of certain activity: to be a crime, the law required that an individual must both cause (or attempt to cause) a wrongful injury and do so with some form of malicious intent. Classically, lawyers capture this insight in two principles: in order to be a crime there must be both an actus reus (a bad act) and a culpable mens rea (a guilty mind). At its roots, the criminal law did not punish merely bad thoughts (intentions to act without any evil deed) or acts that achieved unwittingly wrongful ends but without the intent to do so. The former were for resolution by ecclesiastical authorities and the latter were for amelioration in the tort system. In America today, this classical understanding of criminal law no longer holds.

The requirement of an actual act of some form is fundamental. As an initial premise, Anglo-American criminal law does not punish thought. For a crime to have been committed there must, typically, be some act done in furtherance of the criminal purpose. The law has now gone far from that model of liability for an act and, in effect, begun to impose criminal liability for the acts of another based upon failures of supervision that are far different from the common law's historical understanding.

Similarly, the law historically has required that before an individual is deemed a criminal he must have acted with an intent to do wrong. Accidents and mistakes are not considered crimes. Yet contemporary criminal law punishes acts of negligence and even acts which are accidental. In the regulatory context, as Justice Potter Stewart has noted, there is, in effect, a standard of near-absolute liability.

Liberty is freedom under the law. The bigger the law, the smaller the liberty. Something has got to change. I would hope that this has more than trickle-down thinking at its root. Surely this idea can be narrowly applied to strictly limit business liability with no other consequences for the common man. But given that the Supreme Court is very likely to review the Constitutionality of the Three Strikes and like Federal Sentencing Guidelines, we may be in for some interesting confluences of opinions.

As for myself, I think that for the most serious crimes, sentencing guidelines make practical sense. But I also believe that Three Strikes is just too radical, and I really cannot stand the politicization of the courts by the executive branch. Taking away the prerogatives of judges to assay the weight of a crime and apply sentences within broad boundaries is just highhanded, if not shady. If you can't trust judges, we're in a world of trouble. I think we should give judges the benefit of the doubt and not hamstring them to the political ambitions of prosecutors. When American justice ceases to be subtle, it ceases to be justice.

All that said, we should protect whistleblowers and get more people into courts. Accellerate jury duty I say. We should have more contact with the judicial branch as citizens. I think we'll all agree in the end that we have more than enough laws to keep our society stable, but that civil litigation is a bit out of control. It seems more like a lottery to me - a way to clog... but I digress.

Politesse

All Your Mullahs Are Belong To Us

Here is an interesting analogy between GWBush and FDR as regards their similar decisions to expend US military resources in a global war.

[D]estroy Japan, and Germany is unaffected. Destroy Germany, and the world is free to obliterate Japan.
...
destroy Al Queda, and Islamofascism is unaffected. Destroy Islamofascism , and the world is free to obliterate Al Queda.

There is something that annoys me about those opposed to the conduct, but not the aims of the war. They suggest that because they were not consulted about the military strategy, that they have the right to question the intent of the President. This flawed logic is perfectly clear to me. What is not clear to me is how much of the support for Kerry is actually logically pacifist, how much is simply anti-Bush and how much is genuinely convinced that we are fighting losing battles. In either case, I believe them all to be wrong, but at least I can respect the pacifists.

There's Hope For M10 After All

My boy is a junkie. But I don't despair. There's hope.

Video game skills and a good poker face online are becoming essential job qualifications in the financial markets, with recruitment drives assessing potential star traders in online gaming exams.

Geneva Trading recruits need to be quick on the mouse. This is especially true where electronic trading arcades have replaced traditional trading pits.

On the noisy floor of London's International Petroleum Exchange, boisterous pit traders strike deals for Brent crude futures under the time-honoured "open outcry" system.

"You've obviously got to be cool under pressure" said one trader, "and mentally alert. But I wouldn't have thought training people on GameBoys would help you down there."

But those game skills, developed despite parental fears for their offspring's social development, are exactly what is required for a lucrative future on the digital trading floor.

Whew!

How Not To Answer A Question

I think I understand why Stanley Crouch punches people in the mouth. Self-importance can really be a pain in the ass. Having never been copyedited myself, I shudder to think if someone like Mark Twain had an editor, that said editor considered his tweaking a mark of superiority. I find the prospect of suffering such chiggers completely loathesome, especially if they were 'colleagues'.

When I spoke to Star Parker last night, she mentioned something that sounds a bit familiar. When she writes for Scripps-Howard, her words must be repurposed if they are to be used outside of their control. There's a good chance that I'll never get to write for a nice fancy publishing house, which I could die happy knowing. But what a burden it must be to be the bearer of contemptuous eyes. Vetted though one may be by guardians of formalism, one still suffers the stinging little bites. And such words are to be more powerful than the sword?

Ahh what the heck. We all relish a little verbal combat, I suppose. But the fact that some have decided to restrict the diversity of their activity as humans strictly to verbal combat ought to recognize, intellects they must be, that unilateral disarmament carries with it certain risks. And in a world where maintaining one's reputation in itty bitty literary circles of New York hangs on words, it must be awfully tempting to quote the Notorious BIG. Touch my chedda feel my Baretta.

It's a wonder that being well-read in and of itself seems to be a pre-requisite for being considered sufficiently knowledgeable to be held as relatively serious. And yet if there is no universal standard (which I'm sure none would assert) what is the point? A writer writes, and sometimes a writer fights. But what's the point of writing if your audience is to be so steeply stewed in literature that everything merits criticism? Why not just quote the Bible and leave it at that? Well, because experience counts. Writers have to live and then spew, and so what if that spew stinks? Does everything invite comparison? This is a question I needn't have answered, because I don't care. Much.

What's better? A thick skin, a plastic ego or a quick left? Don't ask me, I make my money in a far less subjective world. Thank God.

Anyway I suppose all that is an object lesson in why academics and other writers-for-a-living probably stay away from this raucous and wild place known as the blogosphere. It can get ugly, even among the refined.

It certainly would be a shame if the blogosphere would degenerate into incestuous slapboxing. It's part of the risk of being connected. But it's rather annoying to see that we often opine without being connected - I mean what's the point of having the technology if it's not exploited for what it does best which is transcending time and space while still leaving enough distance to be brutally honest and otherwise transparent? Of course doing so makes people realize how insignificant they are, which can be disconcerting. Enough.

Speaking of all that, Derrida is dead. Long live Ernest Gaines.

CRP Urban Project Reception: Part One

It was good. It was better than good; it was surprising. Here's the ten-cent story. At the home of Archbishop Adler in San Juan Capistrano, a kickoff reception was held for the California Republican Party's Urban Project. The keynote speaker was Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. Steele was awesome, as was the company in attendance.

The aim of the Urban Project is simple. Turn around the weakness of Republican representation in African American and urban communities. It cost me a couple Franklins to get in, but I met some extraordinary folks.

As usual, my boy Joe Phillips was in attendance. He has been touring aournd the country a little bit with Steele whose message last night was that one person can make a difference. The two of them are quite a combination, and I expect that dynamic duo to make some enormous contributions.

The Chair of the CRP, Duff Sundheim was there. I'll be posting my picture soon. I picked Duff out the minute I got there. That's somebody, methinks. He's this big redheaded guy in a pale blue blazer who offered a strong paw saying he was glad to see me again. I never saw him before in my life, and I knew I was being handled, but that's the way I like to be handled. This guy has got energy coming out of his ears. I believe that I am coming to understand a lot about this level of the playing field - it helps when you have stars to watch.

The evening kicked off at about 6. The first thing I noticed about this lovely house in the hills of San Juan Capistrano, was how many tall people were in attendance. That and the clearly Catholic theme in the decor. Steele was already there having his picture taken with donors in the salon, his security guys had checked someone's camera bag just as I approached the guest list table. My name wasn't on the guest list. Horrors. I just about lost it. So I told them that I was a guest of Shirley, and since everybody knows Shirley, I was cool. It was true, but damn Shirl, she said I was on the list. It was bad enough that I forgot to bring my checkbook, andI washed the car and everything. I would be mortified to turn back now and head out of the gated community in ignomy. Still, it was cool. Shirley always has my back, even when I sometimes don't deserve it.

While there were still fewer than 30 folks there (I was right on time), it took me a while to get myself acclimated to the rarified atmosphere. The day before, I picked out my new Republican Suit from one of those little Italian pimp suit joints at the local mall. I was headed to Macy's but this branch turned out to only have furniture and housewares. The thought of getting a suit from Robinson's May wasn't attractive; I tend to think it's more May than Robinsons. Anyway, I know I pulled the most conservative charcoal grey with muted red stripes from the joint. The saleswoman almost couldn't believe it when I modeled. "Very conservative", she said. I discovered the hard way, having worked in the software trenches for the past 3 years, that I am no longer a 16 1/2 neck. The only shirts I have that fit are bizdev blue. Not gonna happen. So I'm in the black Kenneth Cole sweater under the Italian jacket thinking, man do I need an American flag pin. These are my thoughts having passed the winding staircase and heading to the wine.

Soon enough, I see Joe. And then James Spencer, who is running for the Assembly seat for southwest LA. Instantly, I'm comfortable. What a difference a familiar face makes. Spencer was to reveal to me some fascinating machinations of fundraising later that evening.

When I need to break the ice in a crowd of strangers, I have a strange but simple rule. First, find the man in the room who has a bigger beard than me, and start talking like we're old friends. Second, find the most meticulously clean shaven man in the room and start talking like he's somebody very important. It never fails. First, I met Paul who was a friend of Star Parker, whose beard was actually a touch smaller than my own. Real charming guy. Then I met Mary Young and her husband. Mary is a fabulously energetic and warm woman who heads the registration campaign for Orange County. She and her impeccably dressed husband are in the Real Estate business and are long time Republican fundraisers. I'd seen them several times before this evening and the way they walk together, you can tell they've been in love for at least 30 years.

They informed me, contrary to my theory, that there is a significant boost one can get from voter registration and bring out the vote drives. The newly registered Republican is only a slightly less reliable vote than the diehards. Furthermore if you put up a sign that says 'Republicans Register Here' there's about a 73% chance they will vote Republicans. Of course you can't refuse anyone else, but Democrats self-select out. Still, you get people who have just moved who need to reregister, and you get new voters. Mary also griped that Arnold is not stumping for the President. Hey! That's right. What's up with that Arnie? But also that San Bernardino and Riverside Counties are going gangbusters for new registrations, up something like 25%. A very informative chat. I asked Mary for a flag or elephant pin, but they had to leave early. They're crazy busy these days.

Star Parker was there and had many good things to say about my blogmate LaShawn Barber. I must say this of Star, I had no idea about her story and when she finally spoke I was quite surprised to hear that she had escaped from the black hole of indigence. The way people talk about her, I had the idea that she was always wealthy and successful, and seeing her in person betrayed no downscale secrets. She worked the room like a pro. So when she said she had no TV show, I was surprised. Her CURE program is humming along. I'm going to look closer. Someday I expect to be able to raise funds for good stuff like that. Do you see how this makes me giggly?

What continually surprises me about my meetings with California Republicans is how simple and straightforward everyone is. In my own personal quest to be an insider, I'm always going to trip on strategies and tactics, demographic trends and such matters. That's the geek in me - it's why companies pay me the big bucks to straighten out their financial reporting systems. But consistently, I have found a disarming warmth and earnest simplicity in the aims and demeanor of my Republican colleagues. And it only seems appropriate that when the evening kicked off with the Pledge of Allegiance and a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner... Wait a minute. Who is this guy Robbie? I didn't find out his last name, but let me tell you. Somebody must have snatched Paul Robeson's voice from the grave, because this boy can blow! The sooner the country hears this voice.. hmm. Bush's inauguration in January. This man must be on the platform. It's that deep and that simple.

VH1 Don't Stop

I kept finding myself saying "I didn't know that". Considering what I think I know about the Old School of hiphop, I am very pleasantly surprised by how informative VH1's documentary 'And You Don't Stop' has been.

I was up and energized until 0230 hours this morning checking out 4 out of the 5 Tivofied episodes of the series. It took me back. Even after having seen 'Style Wars' within recent enough memory to recognize scenes bitten from that documentary, there was more than enough new material here to clarify. A couple of journalists, one of whose middle name is Hodari, had some precision heretofore unexpected. I've been hearing Nelson George completely dominate hiphop history for too long, and here his interpretations were leavend by interviews with Ice T, Flash, and some of the originals.

I think the biggest surprise of the series was that Sylvia Robinson has written 'The Message' for Melle Mel and his gang two years before they decided to record it. What? I must confess that I had yet another Tupac Epiphany. He is suddenly comprehensible on the other side. Surely here is a young man who should have lived longer. It makes me even more angry at Suge Knight for the seedy life and Dick Griffey for his apparent ignorance.

The first episode 'Back in the Day' is definitive. It sticks tight to the core of hiphop and documents the transition from street phenom to record industry in a way never before done. It becomes even more clear how seminal Russell Simmons is to the commercial development of hiphop. It can be said to be a purist's view of hiphop.

I expect that in the missing episode will cover Biggie and De La Soul. (But it didn't). It's interesting that there was a whole section of hiphop that was left out which left me a little bit frustrated. To look at the entire series, you wouldn't know about a dozen hiphop artists who really held together the highbrow. As late as 1995, I believed hiphop could be saved, needing a renaissance that never really came other than with the Roots (not that I believed in them so much) and the Fugees. Common on the Stakes Is High album was a wowser, and the rumors that Dallas Austin was producing the new Fishbone album (which had Busta Rhymes on it but never went commercially big) kept hope alive for a while, but not long enough. By the time Lil Kim and Bonethugs were on the scene I was audi.

So completely left out was what I suppose one ought to call 'alternative hiphop'. Just as you could talk about Metallica, Aerosmith and Led Zep for years in rock and never mention Frank Zappa, Rush or King Crimson, I think there is always going to be a hiphop which deserves its own thread which simply is not pop hiphop.

In the alternative hiphop world, MC Solaar looms large. You really, truly cannot just get into this silly East Coast West Coast thing and leave France out of the picture, as VH1 did. Rappers like Menelik and all those produced by Jimmy Jay, the group Raggasonic took hiphop to new levels 10 years ago. Lucien was a member of the Native Tongues. You can't talk strictly about the commercial influence of hiphop without dealing with the artistic influence of hiphop. If you look at the tremendous difference between the relatively music of Quincy Jones' 'Back on the Block' in the late 80s and the work done on Buckshot LaFonque in the mid 90s, you know that jazz itself was undergoing a change. A far cry from Prince's Madhouse project. If you listen to smooth jazz today, half of it has a hiphop bassline. Artists like Ron Carter and Lenny White (if you don't have Lenny White's 'Edge', run don't walk.) have taken hiphop places that define the vacuum between the commercial actuality and the artistic potential of the form. Thirdly, although VH1 hit on it briefly, it's possible to consider all female rappers as alternative as well. Monie Love was a phenomenon no less extraordinary than Craig Mack.

And what about Kwame?

AT speaks of hiphop like a member of the family. I think of her as a beautiful woman gone bad, or more accurately a beautiful mistress gone behind your back with lowlife. But there are too many threads to look at her as just one woman or even as a multiheaded or schitzophrenic woman. It's time to give the alternatives their due. I think that this way I can be a purist, a snob and still enjoy the music and rhymes I know to be influential.

I listened to Slick Rick a lot today, and it's fascinating how many of the lyrics in just two of his songs 'Children's Story' and 'Ladi Dadi' have resurfaced. (or maybe I've just been listening to too much Black Sheep).

I wanted to say something else about Public Enemy while I'm thinking about the existentials of living hiphop. Nothing annoyed me so much as PE's insistance on permanent radicalism. It did PE in, just as it has claimed Spearhead. By the time they did 'Fight The Power' I was reversing the lyrics. I was the one rapping "Be the power that fights". But maybe that's why I'm a Republican and Chuck D is not.

Fess Up

West Coast Fundraiser

I'll be heading down to San Juan Capistrano this evening for a big fundraiser. I hear that Michael Steele is going to be there. Many details to come..

Move On

I didn't watch the debate. I'm getting sick of the monotony.

The blogworld seems to be full of 'our guy won' this morning. It's rather annoying, if not pathetic, that the opposition just keeps insisting that Bush is so wrong on the question of war. And now folks are harping on the fact that Bush himself doesn't bolster their arguments. What I'm hearing rhetorically is, why don't you just admit to the American people and the world that you were wrong, that you made a huge mistake? At this point more discussion is only ridiculous.

If I were Rove, I'd start talking about everything else. People who are against Bush's decision are hardheaded and wrong. Dismiss them and their smallmindedness and move on.

The Perversity of Democratic Opposition

But if I don't have enemies I'm not doing my job.
I might throw out a curveball but I'll never throw a lob.
And people criticize me but I know it's not the end.
I try to kick truth not just to make friends.
-- Michael Franti

One of the reasons that Democrats annoy me to death is because a goodly number of them are oppositionalists. They feel that it's their patriotic duty to 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'. In other words, to be a constant pain in the ass to successful people. Such creatures can only exist within a particular realm of comfort themselves, but they will buy stressed clothing and affect a certain studied shabby chic and bohemian mannerisms to cloak that comfort. And most of all they will distrust shiny, happy people. It's an interesting perversion that is often useful when done by people who are actually brilliant scholars, but most of the time it makes otherwise reasonable people look like complete idiots. At least it does to me. They're not making friends, nor are they speaking the truth.

So this 'Fight the Power' attitude has manifest itself in most of the partisan attacks on GWBush's initiative in Iraq. As usual, the perversion against a good idea has rejected every rationale for armed conflict. Isn't it interesting that such oppositionists were silent in regard to their president's ideas.

One thing that you can say about Bill Clinton was that he was never at a loss for words. So just in case people have been baffled by Bush's speech impediments, here's what he means, courtesy of Bill Clinton (and Q&O)

• ...we will pursue a long-term strategy to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction


• Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly.


• I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.


• Eight Arab nations -- Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman -- warned that Iraq alone would bear responsibility for the consequences of defying the UN.


• ...without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.
  
• ...if Saddam can crippled the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community -- led by the United States -- has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday -- make no mistake -- he will use it again as he has in the past.


• They are designed to degrade Saddam’s capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors.


• If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler’s report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons. [...] That is something we wanted very much to avoid without giving Iraq a month’s head start to prepare for potential action against it.


• The credible threat to use force, and when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.


• ...without the sanctions, we would see the oil-for-food program become oil-for-tanks, resulting in a greater threat to Iraq’s neighbors and less food for its people.


• The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.


• Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people.
  
  And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.

Now add AQ on top of that assessment and what do you get? According to the perverse, you get just another reason to delay and hope the Axis of Weasels helps out. That's perverse.

Slump

The Partition Scenario

I want to toss out an idea that I haven't heard anyone talk about at length: the partitioning of Iraq. It seems that rumors are in the air. It's a radical plan which essentially concedes that civil war is inevitable. It's hard to imagine a Bush White House hedging their own bet, but if GW wins, I suspect there will be some pressure from the descendants of Gore voters trying to make their mark on American geopolitics.
So basically I'm saying that partition is a concession that democracy across the 25 million is impossible or impractical and that Kerry fairies might raise that idea as a refutation of the entire PNAC theory.

I'm not so sure that a partition is such a bad idea, so long as we get military bases in one or two. But some of the characters who think it may be unavoidable are real stomach churners in my neighborhood. Leslie Gelb says there should be three big chunks. Unsavory folks who believe that ethnic antagonism is a permanent and insuprable feature of humanity are betting on partition. Even the immigration bears at VDare are in on the action.

From Slate's Kurd Sellout Watch:

Peters and Gelb seem to believe that the Bush administration's attempt to maintain postwar Iraq under a centralized government was doomed from the start. Galbraith, a liberal Democrat who opposed Saddam's regime well before the GOP did, thinks a unified Iraq may once have been achievable. But the failure of the United States to maintain order after the fall of Baghdad—most especially, to stop the looting of all the country's major institutions save the oil ministry—caused Iraq's professional class, "the very people the US looks to in rebuilding the country," to lose "confidence in, and respect for, the US occupation authorities." Now, Galbraith says, Humpty Dumpty can't be put together gain.

So. This seems to be the only strategic alternative to the GWBush plan, which Kerry is attempting to micromanage and hair-split in such a way that boosts his credibility. As his global testers continue to slam his trial balloons, perhaps he might try this angle. I mean, nobody will fault him for changing his mind - at least this is something original and very different from the Bush idea. I wonder if he'll make this speech.

X

When I made my predictions for this year I didn't think Tiger's grand slam would be marriage, but I was pretty sure Microsoft would do more hardware. The XBox is a big success but Scaled Composites was a total surprise. It seems that Paul Allen is getting pretty shrewd with his investments, and as the wags say - finally Microsoft has something that doesn't crash.

Rutan and McCready have always been heroes for me, to the extent that I engage in fandom. I should add Dan Bricklin in there as well. But this is Rutan's finest hour. WTG!

Warfare

Confessions of Saddam Hussein

Somewhere in Iraq, other than Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein has given interrogators the inside scoop on his weapons programs. This is a source of great satisfaction to pacifists and other anti-war protesters around the world. Apparently, we've been shown to be aggressive jerks of the greatest magnitude.

In other news Chiron, the drug manufacturer, has been injoined from distributing its flu vaccines around the world. Although this is flu season, and intelligence services around the world are suggesting that the flu virus harbors ill will and a threat to people. We really have no hard evidence of where this flu bug might be hiding. Intelligence services have been wrong before, and key figures are telling us that there is no real danger and no connection between the flu virus and Osama bin Laden.

So, here's to hope.

Tears of the Sun

The Tivo served up a selection of Bruce Willis movies based on the preferences I ascribe. Works for me. And so over the past couple nights, I've been allowing my emotions to be manipulated by a heart-wrenching story of a prototypical hardball American Special Forces Lieutenant with a soft creamy center. He goes off mission to rescue two dozen refugees from a village caught in the middle of a savage civil war. It has a happy ending.

Watching this film goes a long way in describing what I believe about the character of Americans and American soldiers, and the principles behind the story are those I support for our can-do troops.

There is a tangible tension I am constantly feeling in this film between the priorities of following orders in the context of what keeps soldiers alive and implementing a military strategy, and using those skills to do right in the context of what's in front of your face. It's the most basic of human dilemmas. Can one afford to step out from the safety of society to do a good deed? Surely soldiers must feel as Willis' character did - he hardly knows if what he's doing is good any longer. He simply bears heavy witness to the cruelty of combat and does everything possible to keep his men alive and well.

No matter what American soldiers are ordered or allowed to do, I think we all understand that they are basically good people doing dangerous and necessary work. Yet that sentiment tends to disappear as rank increases. No character is so routinely villified as the General. The General is a stock villain in just about every movie I can think of since 'Patton'. It's a contradiction which is apparent in our politics, but since we have an even higher figure, the President, behind all of this we have shifted the fault up the chain.

It was true of the reports about Abu Ghraib. It was true about the 'failure' to secure the Turkish incursion route. It was true about the interpretation of intelligence reports. Americans all want to blame the big guy at the top. I think that's the reason Kerry felt confident that he could suggest that we led a 'Coalition of the Bribed'. Yike.

But aside from the capture of Saddam himself we have had almost no news whatsoever about the actions of Majors, Lieutenants, Captains or Generals. What are they doing out there? To hear the news, they are standing around misunderstanding and insulting Iraqis or just dying senselessly. I can't say that I've been watching television news which may have captured some of this mid-level action and decision-making, but all the debate these days is centered on Presidents lying and grunts dying. This elementary school picture of war leaves us all at a serious disadvantage.

For people like me who support the entire theoretical thrust of the PNAC vision of international intervention, I am left with simply that: theory. I have no way of knowing how troops are working in the field, what objectives they are pursuing and how well the execution of those actions are going. I've complained about this before. For people like (oh I don't know whom, stand up and identify yourself), this same absence of coverage requires them to judge the entire context of the war based on the inconsistencies of the promises going in and the bad news coming out. It completely ignores the dynamic of war itself and leaves all of us with no real accurate way of determining whether or not soldiers are actually doing a good job. For all of us it's a slam dunk based upon an outcome we predict - which will never come in time for a realistic political decision.

In the meantime, things like movies about soldiers substitute for live coverage on the ground that our current class of journalists are completely unprepared for. Please remember that note as well - everyone in all the media outlets will tell you that they are doing the best job humanly possible, but there is a reason that Al Jazeera has made a name for itself in this conflict. It has to do with real American chickenheart reporters who don't have enough first hand material to do much more than use theories like the rest of us.

Stupid TEst

blah blah

Comment Moderation

This crap doesn't seem to be performing the way I want it to, so please be patient while I figure out what I'm doing stupid. Comments look like they are disappearing, but they're just being cached for me to moderate.

I thought that once I approved a comment, then that commenter would be approved for life, but it doesn't even take my comments. So I'm going to be flipping a lot of switches until I get it right. MT documentation could use a bit of work. But I'm short on time to get all this right... It won't be wrong long, just keep posting.

AQ Talking Point

Cheney, as expected, was pointed and sharp. This was actually an interesting debate, mostly focused on the past. I think Kerry's 'international credibility' position took another lump. But here's the point I think that Kerry Edwards keeps denying really makes them look stupid. Here's the way I think Cheney should have handled it.

Edwards: There is no link between AQ and Saddam.

Cheney: We have killed & captured AQ fighters globally. We knew then that AQ was in 60 countries. We knew then that Iraq was a sponsor of terrorists. Given those two simple facts would you have taken the chance that there was simply no Al Qaeda in Iraq?

Edwards: If we let the inpsectors do their jobs we could have avoided war.

Cheney: The inspectors were unable to do their jobs for 12 years. It wasn't until they had the assistance of American forces on the ground that they were able to uncover every rock. What we know today could not have been known without American troops on the ground. The inspectors and everyone in the UN was. Saddam was in material breach of his obligation to disarm and he had been warned over and over. We weren't going to delay, and we were right not to delay.

Upgrading

Cobb and VisionCircle are being upgraded. We're going to make a few changes around here. Please bear with us as we move to the newest version of Movable Type.

Obligatory Seriousness About Shark Tale

If I were over 25 and in the hiphop business, I would be embarassed by Shark Tale. In fact, there's a fish in there that I know is Missy Elliot and I know she's going to go uncredited. Quite frankly, I think Osmosis Jones will stand the test of time a little bit better.

This is not a classy flick. It's a silly flick, but it does have enough genuine emotion to make you care a little, enough comic timing to make you laugh a little and enough stereotypes and product placements to make you puke a little. Is it worth the money? Yeah sorta. It doesn't stink.

It starts out of the blocks entirely too predictably and feels like its about to self-destruct within 10 minutes, and then it saves itself. On the other hand, if you're the kind of person who thinks Will Smith is a complete punk, then you really don't want to face this movie. It thankfully doesn't try to double-entendre its way into parents hearts. On the other hand, boy does the music suck.

OK here's the analogy. A duplicate of a ripoff of a cover of a print of a sample of a song that's been done to death. It's like somebody trying to funkify a New Kids on the Block ripoff of a Motown song - without having ever heard the Motown song. It's really a twilight zone. Or better yet why don't I just give you a real example: Will Smith doing MC Hammer. Nuff said. Kids under 15 won't know the difference. You will and you will wince your eyes out of your socket. Then again, your kid is having a ball. So get over yourself.

Since I did a fair share of wincing, I can see how folks from the uplifting black images school are going to have a handwringing time over this film, which is why this one goes into the obligatory seriousness column. It's no Soul Plane, but it aint Sounder either. And since I'm 43 years old, it feels completely like a black and Italian movie straight outta Brooklyn. Everybody can say it's just fish, but it aint. So half the time I'm thinking about people who complain about the Sopranos and I wonder if they are as embarrassed about the Italian types as my father would be about the black types. I don't know the answer to that question, but since everybody (I predict) is going to go apeshit over the black thing, we'll never find out.

I don't know if being thick skinned is a blessing or a curse, especially since I am sensitively observant and I see these things. But I'll give a big whatever to that, and suggest as I usually do that there are a hundred worse movie (many of whom star Humphrey Bogart as my Tivo showed me last night "All Through The Night") and a hundred better books.

I'm sure I could have spent my 42 bucks more wisely, but it would have required me to spend more mental and physical energy this weekend, and I simply don't have it. Besides, the kids enjoyed themselves.

True

"You can't rise as a class. You have to rise individually. It's what
many of the civil rights-era people don't understand," he said.
"They want us to rise together, they keep telling us that we are
victims. If they keep telling us they are victims, then there is a role
for them to play."
-- Alphonso Jackson, HUD Sec'y

Expensive Hats

I just read that Ret Hat just acquired some $23 million worth of security parts for their enterpirse operating system. Not long ago I seem to recall being told that Fedora is the way to go for the most serious applications. Now correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Fedora not free software? A cursory look at the Red Hat site, and of their comments to spite Sun Microsystems shows me that Red Hat is a bit less Linuxy than other Linuxes, in that almost nothing is free about it.

Sure there are other distros out there, but I think this is a significant departure from the philosophy of open-source & free software. I don't have a problem with that and in fact I predicted that it would happen or Linux would fail. This is a different licensing scheme, ie different business model. But Red Hat is no longer free software.

Saturday Mosh

Oakley's Mad Scientists Do It Again
MP3 Eyewear. It doesn't get more radical than this. I like it.

A Few Measly Hundred Bucks
They Rule is a fairly interesting website, all nicey with flash animations, that searches various databases to tell us things about the boards of directors of various American corporations. I've spent quite a lot of time observing the political donations of various individuals before, and it's surprising how far a little bit goes.

Tivo is Cool
I know I'm about 3 years late to the Tivo party, but I've got to say in true fact that it does change the way you watch television. It also give truth to the old saw about 300 channels and nothing on. But in fact there are a lot of real interesting things on television that you're probably never going to find unless you have Tivo mining the data. Best of all, it saves you time. I will never again feel stupid for falling asleep on a good program or staying up to some ungodly hour just to see that one piece of something I missed.

On the Rip
Going through some CDs: No Sell Out:I found the Keith LeBlanc CD on Tommy Boy from 1983. Branford Marsalis - Random Abstract. Chick Corea - Piano Improvisations #2. Toto - Best of. Wynton Marsalis - Marsalis Standard Time Vol. 1. Kenny G - Best of. Tschaikowsky - Romeo Und Julia.

And a real classic from my days of obsession with the ON-U sound: Pay It All Back Vol. 2 with Prince Far I, Eskimo Fox, Mark Stewart, Singers & Players, Lee Perry & Dub Syndicate, Barmy Army and of course African Head Charge. Man those were the days.

Panopticon Update
I swear, that if I don't get live video of Mt St Helens' big explosion I'm really going to freak. Right now the USGS has ordered the evacuation of everybody within a 5 mile radius of the mountain. There's supposed to be fresh magma under there, and so it's going to be more than steam. Oh yeah - here's the liveblog.

Gale Snore-tin
Gale Norton is such a monotonous speaker, she can even make talk about potential volcano eruptions boring.

The Speech John Kerry Will Never Make

There is a clear choice for Americans in November. War or Peace. President Bush is the choice for War and I am the choice for Peace.

It is a rare occasion when the American people have an opportunity to, with one vote, decide the fate of millions who are currently suffering the ravages of war. But now is that opportunity. This conflict in Iraq is the wrong war at the wrong time. We made a mistake going there and I am the man to correct that mistake. All the possible good that could possibly come from this war has already been accomplished and every minute we remain, we lose the advantage of those gains. There is nothing left to win in Iraq that America is capable of winning. Therefore, I pledge that if I am elected President, I will order the immediate and unconditional withdrawl of all American troops in Iraq.

My fellow Americans there can be no clearer choice before you. There may be a million reasons for going to war and we can debate those forever. There are equally a million reasons for ending war and those too can be debated forever. But when it comes down to it, for you the American voter, you only have one choice - War or Peace. I am here to make that choice crystal clear. Whatever your reasons, if you believe that we belong in Iraq, then cast your vote this election for George W. Bush. But, if you believe as I do that it is time for peace, then your choice is clear.

Vote for me. I will end the war.

Kerry cannot and will never make this speech, because he'd seal his fate as a loser. Americans feel that we belong in Iraq, that we have a right and proper mission, and that is the mission of liberation. This is the strategy of George W. Bush and it is why he has my vote, along with the majority of right thinking Americans.

Period.

Boondocks

Attention

The Debate

I bought a Tivo yesterday but it was still talking to Tivo Central when the debate aired, so I didn't get a chance to record it or watch, pause and analyze. Instead, when I got bored, which was a number of times, I went into the other room to watch the spinning dials on the Tivo download screen.

So this morning I am checking out other blogs in search of the kind of rapt fascination and borderline obsession required to pull significant rabbits of analysis out of the empty hat of this particular debate. So far, there doesn't seem to be anyone who says that victory was decisive.

From my perspective it seemed to go well. Bush made a number of faces as Kerry droned on, but never seemed to be able to zing Kerry except on the North Korea bilateralism thing. Kerry brought up a lot of nice geopolitical points that the President had adequate responses to and kept Bush on the defensive. Bush beat his drum on Kerry's flipflopiness and putative inability to stay on message, as if the Bully Pulpit had telekinetic powers. Hmm, perhaps a little Karl Rove speaking through his puppet? Kerry gave a 7 year old 'Am not!' with his "I've never wavered in my life" response. Today he'll regret that one.

I can say that I've heard more about Sudan from this debate than in all the news. I can say with some certainty that we know where that's going. As for Iraq, it remains as muddy as ever.

Kerry began to remind me of the Kerry he started out to be a long time ago. A reasonably smart guy who has a shot. What I saw him do last night was behave like somebody who is not winning and smiling and taking photographs. In other words, he was a grownup for once. I think he's completely out to lunch in his desire to placate every possible ally and stretch diplomacy beyond its capacity, which is especially damning considering his gaffe on kicking China to the curb in dealing with the DPRK, but at least he appears to give everything considerable thought. He still smells like a Senator but he could step up.

The President seemed very much to be his same old self. But unlike many presidents at the four year mark, the gravitas grey hair just doesn't seem to be working for him. It's true that by the end, he gave me the impression of a man solidly and confidently in control. But he also gave me the impression that he just wishes he could curse Kerry out and show him what for. Part of this impression comes from a debating style analysis I heard the other night from James Fallows and I think it's quite accurate now. Bush bites his tongue and that's why he mangles, and he does it because he is somewhat overawed by the power of his words. So he has a trunk of stock phrases that he uses consistently lest he be misinterpreted. He can't be glib around the edges.

That doesn't change the fact that he has lousy rejoinders, and his inability to verbally pimpslap his challenger works against him. By being graceful GWBush has elevated his opponent slightly. Kerry is no upstart to be put in his place and he is the best hope the Democrats have. Still Kerry cannot outrun his rhetorical excess and record. There is little in the unknown quantity box for either of them.

By the way, Bush's story about telling the wife of the downed soldier that it was worth it, just grabbed all the emotion in the room. There was nothing else even close, and despite the fact that Kerry scored a cookie for suggesting that the reason wasn't as noble as the act, it was too little too late, and actually felt like a cheap shot.

So I'll continue my reading, and get back to this.