The Gunther Concept

2004-09-01T00:22:00.000-05:00

Bush vs Churchill

Since Rudy Giuliani referred to George W. Bush as “America’s Churchill”, I thought a direct comparison of the biographies of the two men was in order. The Churchill biography is taken from a web page devoted to Churchill at the National Library of Scotland.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) vs George Walker Bush (1946-present)

His early life: Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace on St Andrew's Day, 30 November 1874. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a younger son of the Duke of Marlborough. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was the daughter of an American business tycoon.

Winston's childhood was privileged but not particularly happy. Like many Victorian parents, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill were distant figures. Letters from his schooldays reveal a willful and somewhat rebellious little boy.

George W. Bush’s early life: George Walker Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 6th, 1946. He grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas, which made him slightly more of a Texan than his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, who would himself eventually become president. Bush’s grandfather would also serve as a U.S. senator, thus firmly establishing the younger Bush’s credentials as a man of the people. His mother, Barbara Pierce Bush, was an autocratic tyrant who could verbally disembowel the young man at 40 paces, and who’s angry glare once caused Lyndon Johnson to wet himself.

Bush’s childhood was privileged but not particularly happy. Like many upper class parents, Bush the Elder and Barbara were distant figures. Poorly crafted, almost dyslexic, letters from his schooldays reveal a willful and somewhat rebellious little boy. G.W. survived these rough early years by indulging his love of nature, which usually entailed torturing and then killing various small animals who were unfortunate enough to fall into his grasp.

A roving commission: In 1895 Churchill graduated from Sandhurst. He travelled to the United States and Cuba, saw action on the north west frontier of India in 1897, and the following year joined Kitchener's expeditionary force to the Sudan and participated in the cavalry charge against the Dervishes at the battle of Omdurman.

His adventures continued in 1899 when he sailed to South Africa as a correspondent of the Morning Post to cover the Boer War. He was captured and spent his twenty-fifth birthday as a prisoner of war, before escaping and making his way across the enemy lines to Durban.

GW’s roving commission: Between the ages of 20 and 25, GWB managed to graduate from both Yale University and Harvard. While at Yale he was a member of the exclusive Skull and Bones Society, and saw action at every available opportunity (nudge, nudge, wink, wink…). In his senior year he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon expeditionary force that crashed a keg party at the Sigma Chi house. He was also on the cheerleading team.

Bush’s adventures continued at Harvard, where he received an MBA degree, an achievement notable for two reasons. The first being that he thus was the first president to hold an MBA degree, and the second being that his economic policies and poor record of success in the world of business proved once and for all the worthlessness of an MBA degree.

Bush avoided military service in Vietnam and was not a prisoner of war during this period. He was, however, pulled over by cops on a number of occasions after drinking a few too many, and let off with a warning after they learned how well connected he was. He spent his 25th birthday passed out on a friend’s sofa after a particularly hard night of partying, but bravely made it home the next morning.

The Young radical: Churchill was first elected to parliament in 1900, shortly before the death of Queen Victoria. He took his seat in the House of Commons as a Conservative member for Oldham. After four years he crossed the floor and joined the Liberals, rising swiftly through their ranks. As President of the Board of Trade he helped to lay the foundations of the welfare state, while his brief tenure as Home Secretary is still remembered for the Tonypandy Riot and the siege of Sidney Street.

GWB’s Lost Years: Bush spent most of the 70’s in an alcohol and drug induced stupor while his well-connected father tried to keep him from getting into too much trouble. At one point GW managed to cross a floor successfully without falling down, and this was hailed as great success by all concerned.

A frank and clear-eyed friendship: In 1908 Churchill married Clementine Hozier, granddaughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie. They had five children, four of whom survived into adulthood. The marriage was to prove a long and happy one, though there were quarrels. Their personal correspondence sheds much light on the private people behind the public myth. From the first years of their marriage Winston and Clementine routinely ended their letters with drawings. He was her 'pug' or 'pig'. She was his 'cat'.

A bleary-eyed friendship: In 1977 Bush married Laura Welch. His wife went through a stop sign in 1963 at the age of 17, killing one of her high school friends. The Bush’s have twin daughters, and Bush reportedly gave up drinking after they were born, succumbing to demands from his wife. Well, not exactly after they were born, more like five years after they were born, and a full nine years after their marriage, but who’s counting? So far neither Bush daughter has been involved in a homicide.

Bush has pet names for his wife, sometimes referring to her as “the lump” or “the lump in the bed”. Laura in turn includes pictures at the end of letters she writes to him, because in Bush’s own words, he “don’t read so good”.

The world crisis: By the time war broke out in 1914 Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and already a major national figure. As the conflict in Europe degenerated into a stalemate he became convinced that the only way to end the war quickly was to mount a huge out-flanking attack on Turkey through the Dardanelles. But his attempts to force the straits using only ships foundered, leading to the disastrous Gallipolli landings and costing Churchill his job.

Rather than remain idle, Churchill sought active service on the Western Front. In January 1916 he was appointed as Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the 6th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers.

GWB goes into business: Newly married and with children soon to be on the way, the now 31 year old Bush started in the oil industry in 1977 with the founding of Arbusto Energy. The company was set up using the remaining funds from his educational trust that had not spent on cocaine and hookers. Despite the abject failure of this enterprise, (Bush’s company never found a drop of oil), Bush was bailed out by family friends in the energy industry, parlaying his ownership of the failed company into positions as CEO and Board member on two other energy companies. It’s suspected but not proven that Bush was also guilty of insider trading while at Harken Energy; as President, Bush has prevented release of the SEC report on it’s investigation of this charge.

The member for Dundee: Churchill successfully contested Dundee for the first time in May 1908. His ministerial responsibilities kept him away from his constituency. There were also clear differences in lifestyle and background between Churchill and most of his constituents. By the time of the 1922 election, support for the Labour party had grown and the local newspapers were hostile to Churchill.

Worse still, appendicitis kept him from active campaigning.

Clementine spoke in her husband's place, but was spat upon for wearing pearls. When the result was declared, Churchill was left, as he wryly observed, without a seat, without a party and without an appendix.

Bush’s fails miserably: Bush ran unsuccessfully for congress in 1978. This was just one year after his marriage to Laura, and obviously a sad attempt to “prove himself” to his father. When the result was declared, Bush was left without a seat, passed put at a party, and with an inflamed liver. Subsequently came the alcoholic years, then the dry drunk years, and finally the failed businesses, which he was saved from only because of his father’s contacts. This protracted neutering that Bush suffered through eventually broke him spiritually, and he made a pact with Satan, aka Karl Rove, who would eventually come to play an important role in the life of the younger Bush.

From war to war: Between 1922 and 1924 Churchill left the Liberal party and rejoined the Conservatives. Anyone could 'rat', he remarked, but it took a certain ingenuity to 're-rat'. To his surprise he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's government - a position he held until the Tory defeat in 1929.

During the 1930s Churchill fell out with Baldwin over the question of giving India greater self-government and became more and more isolated in politics. His dire warnings about the rise of Hitler and the dangers of the appeasement policy initially fell on deaf ears.

Bush becomes President: Bush finally realized that a rich network of family connections would carry a man of his obviously limited ability only so far. Politics seemed the way to go, but this time Bush reentered public life guided by the firm, clammy hand of Karl Rove, who engineered a surprise victory over a popular Democrat incumbent Anne Richards to make Bush the Governor of Texas. This success was achieved largely due to a whispering campaign initiated by Rove that intimated that Richards was a lesbian.

Subsequently Bush ran for President in 2000, and managed to win in spite of himself, failing upwards as he had from the earliest days of his post-1977 adult life.

The finest hour: Churchill's role in the Second World War needs little introduction. His immediate contribution was to instill in the British people his own fiery resolve and will to resist. Throughout the tense summer of 1940, when Britain stood alone, his speeches proved an inspiration.

Yet Churchill did more than just talk. He toured the country inspecting the bomb-damaged towns and cities. He also worked tirelessly on diplomatic and military initiatives to regain the offensive. It was from Scapa Flow that he sailed in August 1941 for a crucial secret meeting with President Roosevelt.

9/11: Bush’s role in the days subsequent to the 9/11 attacks need little introduction. After shrugging off the threat of terrorist attacks for the better part of a year, Bush spent the early hours of September 11, 2001 bravely touring the country in search of a safe bunker to hide in. Weeks later he traveled to Ground Zero, where he posed standing next to a firefighter. Afghanistan was invaded, the Taliban overthrown, and Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al Quaida, was allowed to escape. Bush responded to this utter failure by working tirelessly on diplomatic and military initiatives to find an excuse to attack Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

The tide of victory: As the threat of German invasion receded, the tide of war began to turn. Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union brought Churchill an unlikely ally in the person of Joseph Stalin. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour transformed the war into a truly global conflict. It also precipitated the United States into the war, and with the Americans came the promise of an ultimate Allied victory. By October 1942 Churchill clearly felt confident enough to accept the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh.

Churchill worked tirelessly to keep the Grand Alliance alive, shuttling between capital cities and conferences. It is often forgotten that he celebrated his 70th birthday during the war. While he tried hard to project a fit and active public image, the strain inevitably took a toll on his health.

Catastrophic success: Bush invaded Iraq with a grand “Coalition of the Willing” that included the combined forces of Albania, Azerbaijan, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Micronesia, Tonga, and a few former colonial powers. Victory came quickly over a decrepit and demoralized Iraqi army, and by May of 2003 Bush clearly felt confident enough to prance around in a flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished”. Subsequently the mission un-accomplished itself, and the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq approached 1000 by the time of the fall 2004 election.

While Bush tried hard to project a fit and active public image during this conflict, the strain inevitably took a toll on his health. On a number of occasions he fell off of various devices, including bicycles and Segways, and almost choked to death on a pretzel on at east one occasion.

The final years: Churchill did not allow his shock defeat in the 1945 General Election to silence him for very long. He remained a hugely important international figure, and used his status to speak out about the new threats posed by the Cold War and the need for reconciliation in Western Europe. In October 1951 the Conservative Party achieved a narrow victory at the polls and Churchill became Prime Minister once again. Failing health forced him to resign the premiership in April 1955, but he remained an MP until 1964.

The final years: Bush did not allow his shock defeat in the 2004 Presidential Election to silence him for very long. He remained a widely ridiculed international figure, but used his status as an ex-President to speak out about the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and poor reading skills. In November 2008 the Republican Party achieved a narrow victory at the polls and Bush’s brother Jeb became President. Bush was named to the cabinet in the newly created position of Secretary of False Compassion. Failing health brought on by years of substance abuse early in his life eventually caught up with him, and G.W. Bush passed away on July 14, 2009.

2004-08-31T13:38:00.000-05:00

Psst, George! Stick to the script! Somebody really needs to get these guys a script. Yesterday on FOX, Newt Gingrich tried to save Bush’s ass by saying that it would be "silly" to argue that the war on terror could be won, conveniently ignoring Bush’s previous statements on the matter.

FOX News Channel contributor and former Republican speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said Senator John Kerry would be "really silly" to argue that he could "win the war on terror." But President George W. Bush made precisely that claim just one month before he contradicted himself on August 30, saying, "I don't think you can win it."

Well I guess that Bush is a silly, silly man, because this is the news today:

President Bush tried today to stop the political fallout over his comments last weekend that the war on terror might not be winnable. Indeed, "we will win" that war, Mr. Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in Nashville. "We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win," Mr. Bush said. He spoke on the second day of the Republican National Convention in New York City, where Mr. Bush will deliver his nomination-acceptance speech on Thursday.

2004-06-30T16:32:00.000-05:00

Crossballs Update More on the conservative hand-wringing and whining over “Crossballs’. Not only is there a column up at the GOP website complaining about the show, but one of the expert guests is threatening legal action. James March, who is a lobbyist for the ‘Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms’, has whined about his treatment in this posting. Apparently ranting wasn’t enough for March, who in a letter dated May 28th, had his lawyer threaten Viacom that he would “exercise his legal remedies to the fullest extent of the law” unless they agreed not to broadcast the episode he was featured in. Here’s some commentary on a thread where the entire sorry episode is regurgitated:

“I thought the Debate Show (MTV Tv Production - I was interviewed and selected as a knowledgeable member of the gun community) would be an opportunity for me to support our side in protecting the Second Amendment. But, instead I was a set up for a comedy routine. I spent most of the day preparing. They stood me in the audience as if I were an audience member and asked me "what do you find interesting about shooting?". I answered that it is a zenish experience, timing the release of the trigger with the aiming of the firearm, that its fun and isnt an olympic sport for nothing. One of the panelists was an a**wipe commedian [ed: original spelling] and proceeded to show how i proved guns were just an extension of guys penis's. He had a penis pump that he brought out and asked one of the panelists if he'd agree to give up his guns in exchange for the penis pump. He reduced our gun rights to a penis pump. Basically i was the set up for HIS joke. I spent all f***king day prepping for this opportunity to debate about gun control and they reduced it to a joke. I walked off the set and demanded a car to take me home. that, or have the balls to put me back on. they didn't - i left... f**kers all. hollywood can suck my barrel! [ed: hmm, intended or unintended irony?].... they consider themselves so liberal, so passionate, yet they are a bunch of money hungry, dishonest sh**s! Pass along that the "Debate Show" is a bunch of liberal sh**ts setting up honest gun owners for their own comedic purposes. Dont be shy, they weren't. They tried to humiliate a member of our community. F'her the little lying biatch

And this is from Jim March himself:

Funny you should mention threats. The single biggest idiot was this...well, obviously professional actor, who supposedly had a psychology degree and was involved in "treating" people with "gun afflictions" by dealing with their underlying "sexuality issues". Ya. I knew things had gone WAY south once I realized this bizarre gadget he'd just handed me was something I'd vaguely heard of but never seen. A penis pump. Swear to God. Anyways. This same moron was also a "hunting advocate". 'Cept he didn't like guns. So he advocated "manly hunting". With rocks. Cut to video of three morons in camo wandering through the woods annoying various furred/feathered critters with thrown rocks. Ok, so by the end of this bizarre crap as the closing credits are rolling, he pulls out a fairly big rock and holds it in a throwing position, growling and snarling at me, and making pathetic throwing motions. I came *this* close to pulling a knife on his dumbass. Had my hand all the way in my pocket. Paused there, thought better of it.

WTF??!! No, I can’t imagine why anyone would think you’re a nutcase who deserved to be publicly ridiculed. March continued…

Another thing: the particular anti-gunner they "pitted me against" (camo hat boy) wasn't entirely acting. They've told me several times now that he does in fact hold strongly anti-gun positions. Which I well believe; he put a LOT of hardcore bitterness into his approach. Susan Marie Weber in contrast describes a more "playful, silly" tone on her episode, and the actor "pitted against her" didn't "go for the throat". My guy on the other hand... The sumbich literally had me in fear for my life once that dang rock came out.

Another participant in the thread chimes in with this helpful bit of advice…

You may have already covered this with your lawyer, but it strikes me that your biggest leverage in this whole mess is the guy with the rock. If he was an "employee" of the show (or otherwise "in on" the deception), it seems to me you have a really strong course of action against them due to the fact that an "employee" of theirs put you in fear of bodily harm. If the "rock guy" is NOT an "employee" of Viacom etc., it would seem you still have a good point to stick in them legally due to their negligence in creating an unsafe work environment and / or their participation in the conspiracy to create the tauma they caused you to suffer by their actions. Have you considered filing a police report against the "rock guy"? I seem to have heard that in many states it's a crime for one person to threaten the life of another person, and since you were feeling threatened enough to be prepared to defend yourself with a knife, what happened would certainly seem to qualify (and you have video tape as evidence!). The farther the police take this, the more likely ViaCom is to either hand you big gobs of cash, or at least never air your episode and maybe cancel the series.

And then there’s this…

Don't know if this matters, but was that rock real? When I was a kid I bought a fake rock, a tad bigger than a softball, but made of very soft, easily 'squish-able' foam. It looked like it came straight out of a granite quarry. Could not have weighed more than an ounce or two. The reason I ask is this; if it was real, you maybe could use that against the 'producers' for actually putting your life in danger. If it was fake, then the whole show was OBVIOUSLY misleading, and they then would not have a leg to stand on. Either way, you could use it to your (great) advantage.

You have to admit, that’s great legal reasoning. If the rock was real, Viacom is screwed because you’re safety was threatened. If it was fake, they’re screwed because it means the entire show was a fraud. Brilliant!! Actually, now I really want to see that episode.

2004-06-30T14:53:00.000-05:00

Crossballs Some conservative pundits are apparently upset at having been ambushed during participation in what they thought was a ‘Crossfire’ type talk show, only to learn that they’d been duped into appearing on a Comedy Central parody/prank show. The new show is titled ‘Crossballs’ and will begin airing shortly. The premise of the show is to invite one or two actual pundits or talking heads on the show, ostensibly to discuss a topic in their general area of expertise. However, the remaining guests on the show are actors who merely portray actual pundits/talking heads, and who do so in the most offensive, sophomoric, irreverent and humorous way possible. On paper it sounds like a better idea than it probably will turn out to be. Using over-the-top improvisational humor to skewer the pompous fakes who parade around TV spouting off about the topic du jour sounds like it could be highly entertaining. But I suspect the show will have limited shelf-life (at least one reviewer agrees). For one thing, the secret is apparently out. Recruiting serious guests to serve as victims will be increasingly hard once the show starts to air. It will probably become all but impossible to recruit anyone except the real fringe players, and embarrassing them on national TV wouldn’t really be entertaining; it would be kind of like making fun of retarded puppies. The second reason why this show seems destined to be a short-lived phenomenon is that judging from the few reports I’ve seen, the “experts” recruited to appear on the show are non-entities who even regular viewers of CSPAN wouldn’t be able to recognize. How is the Comedy Central audience supposed to be able to appreciate the humiliation of a gun-rights activist when they have no clue who the guy is to begin with? And if the point of the show is to watch the hi-jinks of the “fake” guests, why bother having real guests to begin with? Why not make the entire show a parody of talking head type confrontation shows? In the ads I’ve seen I recognized at least one of the actors involved on ‘Crossballs’ as being a member of the ‘Upright Citizens Brigade’, Matt Besser. When UCB appeared in Houston last year one of his bits involved playing for the audience a series of prank phone calls he’d made. It’s a long story, but apparently his actual phone number in NYC was only one digit removed from the support line number for an internet provider company. So, he’d get phone calls from perfect strangers at random times during the day and night, asking for help on getting their internet connection to work. After a while he got tired of explaining the mixup, and began to pretend that he was actually working at the help desk, providing useless but hilarious assistance to unsuspecting callers. Remembering his skill at improvising these bits with the increasingly confused customers makes me think that ‘Crossballs’ may be worth watching while it lasts. But don’t expect it to be around for long.

2004-06-28T16:51:00.000-05:00

Is Bush A Moron: Iraq Handover Today’s edition of IBAM is from a brief press conference held by Bush and Tony Blair during the NATO summit. The topic: the rushed handover of Iraq. Grade Level = 6.8 Reading Ease = 70.8 Grammar Measure = .113 (9 errors, 80 sentences)
He's a guy that stood up to Saddam Hussein.[“…who stood up to …”] And every conversation I've had with him has been one the recognizes human liberty, human rights.[???] He's the person that orders suiciders to kill women and children And we just -- and as Prime Minister Allawi has said publicly many times, he will not cower in the face of such brutal murder.[mangled] Look, they can't whip our militaries. They can't whip our militaries. [“military” or “military forces”] Afghanistan, which was a terrorist haven -- this is where the terrorists plotted and trained to come and kill, not only in America, but elsewhere -- is now heading toward elections. [mangled] And my position is, is the best way to defend yourself is to find the few, the few -- and I believe that's what he's saying, that we're going to find those few before they continue to bomb whoever happens to be in their way.[Just read it…] The more reconstruction there is, the more people willing to help with the education of children, the more people willing to help rebuild hospitals, the more people willing to be -- to help to rebuild this destroyed infrastructure, infrastructure destroyed by the Taliban or by Saddam Hussein, the better off the world will be. [mangled] And the -- actually, we've been contemplating this move for a while.[mangled]

2004-06-25T16:47:00.000-05:00

Is Bush A Moron: “Bomb Ireland” Edition Bush was interviewed by an Irish reporter prior to his visit to that country on the way to the NATO summit. It didn’t go exceedingly smoothly, because the reporter, unschooled in the protocol that American journalists have learned to follow, actually interrupted Bush a number of times when it became clear that he was not interested in really answering the questions posed. So expect the bombing of Ireland to start any day now… Here are the results: Grade Level = 5.8 Reading Ease = 74.1 Grammar Errors = .122 (15 errors, 123 sentences)
And if they think that a few soldiers represents the entirety of America, they don't really understand America then. [subject-verb agreement; “…then they don’t really understand America.”] Tony Blair has been a strong advocate for not only battling terrorists, but [also] promoting freedom, for which I am grateful. [but also] But, nevertheless, there's no doubt in my mind [that] President Chirac would like to see a free and democratic and whole Iraq emerge. But what they should be angry about is the fact that there was a brutal dictator there that had destroyed lives.[“…who had destroyed lives”] But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon.[what?] And no one can argue that the world is better off with Saddam -- if Saddam Hussein were in power.[mangled] But the God I know is not one that -- the God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom.[mangled] Because one of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, don't try to take a speck out of your eye if I've got a log in my own. [what? Should be: “Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," while the log is in your own eye?] I wouldn't have made the decisions [that] I did if I didn't think the world would be better. One of our greatest allies of -- in the world is your neighbor, Great Britain. {mangled] We just had a difference of opinion about when you say something, do you mean it. And same in Afghanistan. [not a sentence] And America -- I'm the first President to ever have called for a Palestinian state.[mangled] That's, to me, sounds like a reasonable, balanced approach.[“That, to me, sounds like…”]

2004-06-17T13:38:00.000-05:00

Is Bush A Moron: Jun 17, 2004 From comments made today after a cabinet meeting: Grade Level = 8.0 Reading Ease = 63.9% Grammar Errors = .225 (9 errors, 40 sentences) The errors were:

We discussed primarily the economy.[split infinitive] And I was pleased with the report I got. [“…the report that I received”] There's more to do to make sure [that] this growth is sustained throughout the decade. Primarily it requires a proper understanding of the role of government to the economy. [?? “…the role of government to the economy”?] …and to make sure [that] workers are trained for the jobs of the 21st century. We fully understand [that] terrorists will try to shake our will, The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, [is] because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. There's numerous contacts between the two.[number agreement]

2004-06-11T14:05:00.000-05:00

Is Bush A Moron: G8 Edition From Bush’s closing press conference at the conclusion of the G8 summit: Grade Level = 5.9 Reading Ease = 73.3% Grammar = .093 (26 errors, 281 sentences) The list of his errors follows:

There's excellent law enforcement operations -- joint operations.[“There are excellent…”] There's an enemy which lurks out there that is willing to kill on a moment's notice.[which/ vs that] The latest prosthesis were put on their hand -- were put on their arms.[protheses; hands] And in his lap was several weapons.[“…were several weapons…”] And therefore, it's a -- it's a easy place to start conversations.[mangled sentence; “an easy place…”] But democracy in the heart of the Middle East is going to be a -- an important change for that region, that troubled region. [a vs an] See, I believe [that] free societies best meet the aspirations of the people living in those societies. And now there's -- we will make sure he honors his commitment. [mangled] Okay, I'll give your question more answer.[WTF??] Because, you know -- and they're anxious that we honor what we say because they want to be free, they want to be free people. [mangled] No, I wasn't -- I was just kind of -- I'm trying to get to where your question is leading. It's -- that's -- that's the duty of a government, is to train and equip and provide police and army to protect their people from people who are willing to kill innocent life. I haven't talked to the Vice President about this matter, and I suggest -- recently -- and I suggest you talk to the U.S. Attorney about that. There's excellence -- there's excellent intelligence-sharing, And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government. What she's referring to is a -- members of a Delta team came to see me in the Oval Office and brought with me -- these were the people that found Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, hiding in a hole. Saddam Hussein -- if you -- we had seven people come to my office. Seven people came to my -- they had their hands cut off because the Iraqi currency had devalued. And I am -- I am -- it -- I'm grateful for their bravery Is any local press here, at all, by the way? It -- look, this is -- we made the right choice to come down here for this summit. Look, there is -- we're united by values. And so, therefore, it's -- this is a -- it facilitates good and healthy conversation. I've got a -- I've got the -- I will be paying tribute to President Reagan here in about an hour and a half or so,…

Bush included a definition of “sovereignty” for those who are interested:

We'll respond to their requests when sovereignty is fully transferred. That's the definition of full sovereignty. You see, when a government is fully sovereign, they then make requests on behalf of their people.

2004-06-07T21:04:00.000-05:00

Someone’s Brain Must Have Been Outsourced On Lou Dobbs this evening, he was showing some examples of viewer mail on a topic that has attracted a great deal of his attention lately, outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries like India. One of the letter sticks in my mind, and was from a Cathy Loring of Falls Church, Virginia. Thisd is taken verbatim from the transcript:

"I've heard numerous people on your show stipulate that the outsourcing of jobs will not affect our economy in a negative way and will actually allow for more jobs in the United States. However, in the mean time, who is paying into our social security system? People better wake up and smell the pitfalls before their cupboard is bare."

I’m sure that sets some type of record for the greatest number of metaphors ever to be mixed within the same sentence.

2004-05-13T11:51:00.000-05:00

Why Would Anybody Want To Win This? Okay, I’ve been taking a break. A lot has happened. Torture, beheadings, train explosions in North Korea. Yes, a lot of reason to be alarmed and/or outraged. But what finally tipped the scales and got me to begin posting again was this (via TSN).

TORONTO - The World Cup of Hockey 2004 Organizing Committee unveiled the new WCH 2004 Championship Trophy on Wednesday. Designer Frank Gehry presented it to WCH 2004 Organizing Committee members Ted Saskin and Ken Yaffe at the Hockey Hall of Fame. Gehry, a Toronto native and life-long hockey fan, was approached by the WCH Organizing Committee last year to create a new trophy for the upcoming tournament that would reflect the global spirit of the game. The trophy will be awarded to the winning team September 14. "I was raised with it (hockey)," Gehry explained. "We were a poor family so the only thing I could do was listen to Foster Hewitt on Saturday night. It is because of my interest in hockey that I was even interested in designing the trophy. I think my understanding of the game and what trophies mean to players, and to the fans, made it a very important assignment." The trophy is comprised of four components: a base, pedestal, cup and shell. It's made from a composite alloy of copper and nickel as well as solid cast urethane. The pedestal and base provide support or a "stage" for the shell and cup. The cup sits inside the trophy and is removable from the top of the shell for engraving and display purposes. The shell is made of an array of twisted rectangular shapes sitting on end that are reminiscent of skate marks in the ice. Water-clear urethane was used to give the trophy an "ice-like" appearance and Stereo Lithography Apparatus (SLA) was used to precisely shape the components into a multi-dimensional puzzle. "I've seen all of the (NHL) trophies," he said. "They are all very traditional. I think the one thing about the first World Cup of Hockey trophy is that it broke from tradition and it opened the door for us to do a new one."

My first reaction upon seeing this monstrosity was to wonder whether it had actually been purchased at Ikea. Is it a spitoon? A planter? An umbrella holder? Would any self-respecting hockey player actually take pleasure at carrying this thing around the ice in a victory ceremony? It would be like being a parent who was presented with their child’s first efforts at ceramic art. Exactly how are you supposed to react to the misshapen lump of pottery that is possibly an ashtray, possibly a bowl, possibly a doorstop or paperweight? You repress the urge to vomit in your own mouth, and tell them how much you love it and are glad that they gave it to you. But you manage to, over time, shift it from it’s prominent position in the living room, onto shelves that are further and further away from the judgmental eyes of visitors. You can’t come right out and say what’s all too obvious; that it’s an incredibly ugly piece of crap that you’d prefer not to have to look at ever again. Similarly with this contribution from Mr. Gehry. He may be (according to critics, who of course are never wrong) one of the greatest architects of the 20th century, but I do know that this is possibly the worst trophy I have ever seen. I wouldn’t be surprised to see teams in the upcoming World Cup intentionally throwing games in order to avoid having to be associated with it in any way.

2004-04-14T00:35:00.000-05:00

Is Bush A Moron, Episode 18: Bush Meets The Press Corps(e)

The White House press corps(e) showed a few signs of life tonight, but not nearly enough. When it gets to the point where Bush can joke about things being scripted, or make a big deal about getting asked a question that he wasn’t prepared for, things are pretty bad.

I just saw a bit of the analysis on the news shows, and astoundingly, it was almost praising him. Chris Matthews in particular kept going on about Bush’s “signs of humility”. I don’t know what drugs he was on when he watched the press conference, because I saw precious little evidence of humility. I mean, he was asked flat out whether he had anything to apologize for regarding the 9/11 attacks, and he just dodged the question. Where’s the humility there?

Anyway, here’s the data from the speech analysis:

Grade Level = 6.3

Reading Ease = 74.0

Grammar Index = .150 (62 errors, 413 sentences, or about 1 error in every 7 sentence spoken)

And now for the errors:

There's 135,000 now as a result of the changeover from one division to the next.[“there is/there are]

I'm constantly asking him does he have what he needs, whether it be in troop strength or in equipment.[“…whether in troop strength or…”]

He was a threat because he funded suiciders.[Ding! Ding! Ding! The magic word!

And one of the things was, he was amazed at how deceptive the Iraqis had been toward UNMOVIC and UNSCOM, deceptive in hiding things.[“…was that he was amazed…”]

This guy was a torturer, a killer, a maimer.[Is “maimer” a word?]

There's mass graves.[there is/there are]

I mean, he was a horrible individual that really shocked the country in many ways,[“individual who really shocked the country…”]

I was — on that day, I was angry and sad.[mangled sentence]

Angry that al Qaeda — I thought at the time al Qaeda, found out shortly thereafter it was al Qaeda — had unleashed this attack.[mangled sentence; missing “that”]

There was, you know, kind of departments that at times didn't communicate[“There was, you know, kind of departments…”????]

In other words, he would serve it as a blackmail.[Not sure what to make of this. Could be “It would serve as blackmail”, or “use it as blackmail”. “Serve as a blackmail” makes it sound like Hussein was serving shots.]

And I presume the 9/11 commission will find out — will follow up on his suggestions and his recollection, and garner the truth.[mangled sentence]

And my answer to that question is, is that, again I repeat what I said earlier, prior to 9/11, the country really wasn't on a war footing.[“…question is that…”]

And so what I'm telling you is, is that sometimes we use military as the last resort,[“…telling you is that sometimes”; “use the military as…”]

I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. [“…wish that you had given me…”; “so that I could have planned for it”]

our commanders on the ground have got the authorities necessary to deal with violence[“have the authority…”]

They want security so [that] they can advance toward a free society.

Every threat we must take seriously.[“we must take every threat seriously”]

I thought it was very interesting that Charlie Duelfer, who just came back — he's the head of the Iraqi Survey Group — reported some interesting findings from his recent tour there.[“thought that it was”; mangled sentence]

And that money is — it will benefit the Iraqi people.[mangled sentence]

And they were happy — they're not happy they're occupied.[mangled sentence]

Let me put that quote to Woodward in context, because he had asked me if I was — something about killing bin Laden.[mangled sentence]

And why — I say that because that provides the ability for our agencies to coordinate better and to work together better than it was before.[I just give up…]

The lessons of 9/11 — one lesson was we must deal with gathering threats, and that's part of the reason I dealt with Iraq the way I did.[mangled sentence]

the truth of the matter is [that] most in the country never felt that we'd be vulnerable to an attack such as the one that Osama bin Laden unleashed on us.

I changed the way that the relationship between the president and the CIA director.[This isn’t a sentence]

Yes, John, my response is [that] I don't think people ought to demean the contributions of our friends into Iraq. People are sacrificing their lives in Iraq from different countries.[“People from different countries are sacrificing…”]

We would have had — we hadn't got our relationship right with Pakistan yet.[mangled sentence]

And therefore, when we see threats overseas, we got to take them — look at them in a new light.[“we’ve got to take them/look at them”]

The American people need to know [that] my last choice is the use of military power.

It is something that — it's a decision that is a — it's a tough decision to make for any president because I fully understand the consequences of the decision.[mangled sentence; I guess this means that the decisions where he has no idea of the consequences are the easy ones.]

Libya was a nation that had — we viewed as a terrorist — a nation that sponsored terror, a nation that was dangerous because of weapons.[mangled]

It's a dangerous — it was a dangerous network that we — that we unraveled.[ditto]

You know, I just — I'm sure [that] something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer.[mangled sentence; He must have been having some sort of flashback episode to his MBA days at Yale at this point in the press conference…]

You know, I hope I — I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes; I'm confident [that] I have. I just haven't —you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not quick — as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.[mangled sentence. Actually this part of the transcript is rather creepy; classic psychopathic behavior – “The psychopath is one of the most fascinating and distressing problems of human experience. For the most part, a psychopath never remains attached to anyone or anything. They live a "predatory" lifestyle. They feel little or no regret, and little or no remorse - except when they are caught. They need relationships, but see people as obstacles to overcome and be eliminated. If not, they see people in terms of how they can be used. They use people for stimulation, to build their self-esteem and they invariably value people in terms of their material value (money, property, etc..).

A psychopath can have high verbal intelligence, but they typically lack "emotional intelligence". They can be expert in manipulating others by playing to their emotions. There is a shallow quality to the emotional aspect of their stories (i.e., how they felt, why they felt that way, or how others may have felt and why). The lack of emotional intelligence is the first good sign you may be dealing with a psychopath. A history of criminal behavior in which they do not seem to learn from their experience, but merely think about ways to not get caught is the second best sign. "

And I heard — I heard a summary of that from Director Mueller, who feels strongly that we — and he'll testify to that effect, I guess, tomorrow.

I shouldn't be prejudging his testimony, but what — my point was that I'm open for suggestions.

So long [as] I'm the president, I will press for freedom.

Those who yell will not be asked to -- I'll tell you a guy who I have never heard from.

I look forward to helping — for the American people to hear, you know, what is the proper use of American power?

One thing is for certain, though, about me.[“One things is certain, though, about me”]

2004-04-12T16:26:00.000-05:00

IBAM Episode 17: Happy Easter

Today’s episode is for a brief meeting Bush had with the press pool on Easter. The primary topic discussed was the famous PDB memo that was declassified earlier, in which Bush was warned about Al Quaeda’s plans to carry out attacks in the U.S. The short story: “If we’d known the exact date, time, place and flight numbers, we would have done something about it.”

Grade Level = 6.6

Reading Ease = 72.0%

Grammar Index = .152 (9 errors, 59 sentences)

The following is a list of most of the errors made during the Q/A session with reporters:

Obviously, I pray every day there's less casualty. [“..there are fewer casualties…”, “there’ll be fewer casualties…”]

But I know [that] what we're doing in Iraq is right

My response was exactly like then as it is today,…[“was exactly like then…”???]

As you might recall, there was some specific threats for overseas that we reacted to. [“…there were some specific threats…]

Had I known [that] there was going to be an attack on America, I would have moved mountains to stop the attack.

I would have done everything I can.[“I would have done everything that I could”]

That's -- we were doing precisely what the American people expects us to do:[“…expected us to do”]

…it was hijacking of airplanes in order to free somebody that was being held as a prisoner in the United States. [“…to free someone who was being held…”]

2004-04-06T16:52:00.000-05:00

IBAM Episode 16: Snarkiness, Freudian Slips and a Surprising Bit of Vocabulary

Today’s edition of “Is Bush A Moron” includes three samples from recent days. The first comes from a brief exchange with reporters, where Bush showed some level of snarkiness (or something) in his interaction with “the AP guy”. It was cited by a couple of bloggers as an example of --- well, I’m not exactly sure. My interpretation was that it was yet another case of Bush getting testy when members of the press aren’t sufficiently servile. In this case, it was a reporter who addressed him as “Sir”. This seemed to tick him off, as follows:

THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you a couple of questions. Who is the AP person?

Q I am.

THE PRESIDENT: You are? [Then ask it…]

Q Sir, in regard to --

THE PRESIDENT: Who are you talking to?

Q Mr. President, in regard to the June 30th deadline, is there a chance that that would be moved back?

And so it continued… Apparently members of the press are expected to address Bush as “Mr. President”, or failing that, as “Your Excellency” or “Oh Exalted One”. “Hey, Asshole” is not recommended.

The other two samples are pretty standard, and come from campaign appearances on 4/5/04 in Charlotte, NC and on 4/6/04 in El Dorado, AK. Summary statistics for these appearances are below:

language usage index scores

Sample Reading Ease Grade Level BRI-2

Press Pool (4/5/04) 69.8% 7.5 .152

Charlotte, NC (4/5/04) 68.0% 7.2 .123

El Dorado, AK (4/6/04) 75.5% 5.6 .116

Average 71.1% 6.7 .130

language usage index scores
Sample	Reading Ease	Grade Level	BRI-2
Press Pool (4/5/04)	69.8%	7.5	.152
Charlotte, NC (4/5/04)	68.0%	7.2	.123
El Dorado, AK (4/6/04)	75.5%	5.6	.116
Average	71.1%	6.7	.130

Samples pulled from these appearances are below:

But the family was pleased to hear that we -- its son would not have died in vain.[mangled sentence]

No, the intention is to make sure the deadline remains the same. I believe we can transfer authority by June 30th. [missing “that”;”…make sure that the deadline…”, …believe that we can transfer…”]

The United Nations representative is there now to work on the -- on a -- on to whom we transfer sovereignty. [mangled sentence]

…my judgment is, is that the closer we come to the deadline, the more likely it is people will challenge our will. [“…the more likely it is that people will challenge…”]

…that's why the CPA issued the statement they issued. [“…statement that they issued.”]

But, Stretch, I think throughout this period there's going to be tests. [“there are going to be tests”]

Because one of the things that's going to be very important for the next ambassador to Iraq -- this will be the person that takes Jerry Bremer's place -- will be the willingness and capability of working with a very strong -- a country in which there's a very strong U.S. military presence, as well as a coalition presence. [mangled sentence]

It took me very little time to make up my mind, once I determined al Qaeda to do it, to say, we're going to go get them.[????]

I want to thank the staff for putting up with me and the entourage. [the entourage and me]

I am optimistic about our future, not only because of what I see today, but because of what I know we have overcome.[“…but also because…]

Let me just review right quick the economic history of the last couple of years.

It's a day in which we realized oceans could no longer protect us from enemies which hate what we stand for.[“..realized that oceans…”; “…enemies that hate…”]

That was one of the changes that was necessary in order to protect this country.[“…that were necessary…”]

There's still a gap, but nevertheless, more people are owning their own home.[“…people own their own home”]

Biotechnology are strong.[“Biotechnology is strong.”]

…it seems reasonable to ask the question whether or not there's results.[…whether or not there are results”]

Money from those grants go to about 3,500 state and local one-stop centers around the country.[‘’goes to about 3,500…”]

We want the governors -- and let the governors distribute the money to programs which actually are training people for jobs which exist.[which vs that]

And as a result of micromanagement -- missed opportunities for jobs which exist in the communities, in which people are looking for work.[which vs that]

But, unfortunately, there's loopholes in the program.[“…there are loopholes…”]

It was a different -- we entered a different period on that day.[mangled sentence]

It's also that day, right after that day, I announced a doctrine that said,[“it was also that day (?)”]

I looked at the information on Iraq and -- the intelligence -- and saw a threat.

We're still being challenged in Iraq, and the reason why is a free Iraq will be a major defeat in the cause of terror.[“…the reason why is that a free Iraq…”]

Finally, another thing we need to do is we need an energy policy in this country.

What I'm telling you is, is that in order for this job base to be secure,

What I'm telling you just doesn't apply to the automobile manufacturing world.[“What I’m telling you doesn’t just apply to…”]

I mean, when you -- there's a lot of -- the main reason why people from around the world want to come here to study is because we're on the leading edge of change.[mangled sentence]

You just heard me describe how your state has changed, and it's going to even change even faster as time goes on.[“It’s going to even change even faster”????]

And the reason you ask that -- I asked that question, at least, is because I believe every child can learn.

And now people that were once in the textile industry are now in the health care industry, making more money, I want you to know.[“…people who were once…”]

The program spends about $4 billion a year in grants on states -- to states.

One of my jobs as the President is to analyze programs, and if they're not doing the job they're supposed to do, is to redesign them so they do the job they're supposed to do, so that we properly spend taxpayers' money.

In other words, we need to make the system more flexible, more available to workers, and less dependent on foreign -- of federal rules, in order to make sure that the money gets to the people who need it most.

So, step one is to change the system on how -- the relationship between the federal government and the state government.

We believe that by making sure the cap is a strong cap on overhead money, we will save about $300 million, which means an extra $100,000 -- a 100,000 workers get trained.

And so what we need to do is to make sure that people are judged -- people who are spending your money are judged on what we care about.

And if the state doesn't make progress, then it only makes sense to take some of the money that is being sent to the states and send it directly to the job trainers, so that we actually do meet what we expect to have happen, and that is people being trained for the jobs which exist.

It's a legitimate role of the federal government, is to help people who want to help themselves.

They realize their job -- they could be doing better.

And Mackham will tell you there's a lot of brave people there that want to be free [there is/there are]

There's economic isolationists that want to wall us off from the rest of the world.[ditto]

See, one of the things we did, in working with the Congress, is reduce the effects of the marriage penalty.[“…things that we did…was to reduce the effects…”]

We want there to be a small business sector which is really strong.[which/that]

There's jobs.[“there are jobs”]

It's just some people are used to working in different kind of fields.[“it’s just that…”; “…kinds of fields”]

If you've got yourself a retired NASA employee in your neighborhood, it seems like to me you want to be able to have that person go into the classrooms and teach science or math.[“…It seems to me that…]

That means people need to be, in some cases, reeducated for the jobs which exist.[“…means that people…..for jobs that exist”]

There's ways to find work, it's just up to you.[there is/there are]

There's a lot of people wondering whether or not they can go back to school.[ditto]

There's a lot of second chances in this world to go back to school.[ditto]

But let me remind you right quick what we have come through

When I was coming up -- in Midland, Texas, I want you to know -- there you go -- which is where Laura is today, helping her Mom move, and she sends her love -- but we thought oceans could protect us from harm's way.[mangled sentence]

Threats are dealt in different ways, by the way.[???? “Dealt with in different ways”???]

Not every threat is dealt with the way I decided to deal with the threat in Iraq. [this one just gives me a headache…]

We're not going to cut and run from the people who long from freedom.[“Long from freedom”???]

I want to appreciate your service.[This just confused me. Is he trying to say that he appreciates their service? That he wants to express appreciation? Or that he wants to be able to feel that he appreciates their service. But at some indefinite point in the future?]

If you're somebody looking for work, it's going to be harder to find work when the country is thinking about, we're going to war.

The cost of health care is tough to expand the job base.[What the hell does this mean?]

That's an interesting statistic I want people to focus on right quick.

In other words, there's going to be jobs

And there's ways to get retrained for the jobs.

I think all high schools ought to participate in what's called the NAEP. The NAEP is a national norming test. It's not a national test. It says, there is -- they take the Arkansas test and they compare them to other states to determine whether or not standards are being met. That's all it is.[That makes it perfectly clear. NOT]

In other words, we've got some kids -- one of the things that's important for those of us in positions of responsibility, you've got to be just flat honest about things.

But it says to a kid -- take math and science, is what it takes.

The other thing I want to do is to make a -- we've set up a Presidential Math and Science Scholars Fund, $50 million of federal money matched by $50 million in the private sector -- we'll be able to raise that -- that says that when you go to college, we'll enhance your Pell Grant if you continue to take math and science programs.

…that there's a lot of people that need help now…

See, that's the way you make sure people are trained for jobs which exist. [“…the way that you make sure…”; “…jobs that exist”]

That's what your -- you get productivity increases.

And I want to appreciate you very much, Bob, for being a responsible CEO,…[He did it again! “I want to appreciate you, Bob, but I’m just not in the mood today. Maybe tomorrow, when the voices in my head have stopped”]

First, I want to congratulate her on being her valedictorian of her high school class.

In order to make sure jobs are here -- stay at home -- in order to make sure the country is leading edge of technological change, we have got to make sure people have the skills necessary to fill those jobs.

Just to close with two points. One, and it may have been a Freudian slip, but during one of the speeches, Bush used the line “Laura reminded me that one time on the TV screens in the summer of 2000 we saw, "March to War." He usually phrases this as “summer of 2002” in his canned speech, but maybe the truth inadvertently came out.

Finally, and this was a shocker, he actually used the word “peroration” in a sentence, and actually seemed to be using it correctly. It came towards the end of the speech in Arkansas, when Bush said:

You want to say something? Yes, okay. Here I am in my "peroration." That's kind of the emotional part before the conclusion. Anyway, go ahead.

The dictionary defines “peroration” as follows:

Noun; the conclusion of a speech or discourse, in which points made previously are summed up or recapitulated, esp. with greater emphasis.

Wonders never cease.

2004-04-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

Is Bush A Moron, Episode 15

It’s been longer, much longer than I had planned on since my last posting to this site. But I’m back today with a new edition of IBAM, and am busily working on yet another one that I hope to have up by Monday. In the meantime, I welcome the small band of loyal visitors to this site; I had a brief a few weeks ago when a posting I’d done months ago concerning the Texas redistricting case was linked to by Bart Cop. But fame is fleeting, site visits are down, and I’m resigned to languishing in obscurity on the periphery of the world of blogdom.

Two sets of data today from back in late February. In one, Bush answers a few questions while meeting with Georgian President Saakashvili on 2/25/04. He also met with the German Chancellor on 2/27, and spoke on the economy during a campaign stop in Louisville, Kentucky on 2/26. I have a large backlog of these to post but for now this should satisfy the masses. Here are the numbers:

language usage index scores

Sample Reading Ease Grade Level BRI-2

Saakashvili (2/25/04) 63.1% 7.7 .057

German Chancellor 62.1% 8.0 .107

Louisville, KY (2/26/04) 68.7% 6.9 .108

Average 64.6% 7.5 .091

language usage index scores
Sample	Reading Ease	Grade Level	BRI-2
Saakashvili (2/25/04)	63.1%	7.7	.057
German Chancellor	62.1%	8.0	.107
Louisville, KY (2/26/04)	68.7%	6.9	.108
Average	64.6%	7.5	.091

Below are selected quotes from The Leader’s mouth. Some are annotated with the actual error, others are just there for you to marvel at.

We're going to start with the American press, and then there will be a Georgian press, and then there will be an American press, and then there will be a Georgian press.[Is he referring to journalists or wrestling moves?]

Hopefully, as the Georgia economy approves -- improves -- and I'm confident it will -- there will be opportunities for business opportunities.[approves vs improves; missing “that”; “…opportunities for business opportunities…”]

So the President has got a good vision and this has been a good trip.

It's one of the things that, I think, makes the country unique and strong.[“…one of the things that…make the country unique…]

Then we had some corporate scandals, scandals which affected our confidence.[that vs which]

And that obviously was not only in Afghanistan, but in Iraq. [“but also in Iraq]

But we can have an environment so if somebody decides to take the risk, that they can succeed and, therefore, end up employing people.
One of the exiting things about our country is that there's a lot of companies run by very skilled women.[“there are a lot of companies…]

And the best way to talk about it is to have people who are actually living lives that -- which have been affected by policy.

Jim was bragging backstage about the success of this company is really based upon the fact you've got great workers [“that the success of this company…”; “…the fact that you’ve got great workers”]

There's a person I met at the airport I want to herald.

It also affected our psychology, made us realize oceans were no longer -- could no longer protect us from an enemy which hates what we stand for. [mangled sentence; which/that]

But we dealt with it straightforward.[??????]

Saddam Hussein said, I'm not going to expose my weapons, I'm not going to get rid of my -- I'm not going to allow inspectors in, he said.

We overcame it because the role of government is not to manage the economy, the role of government is to create an environment in which entrepreneurs are willing to create risk and create new jobs.[Just what the country needs – more entrepreneurs who are willing to create risk!]

Now, let me talk about the death tax, right quick.

I think a person ought to be able to live their farm -- leave their farm to whomever they choose.

It makes -- it's, in my judgment, bad policy, and it's on its way to being put to extinction.

I say, on its way -- you'll hear me talk in a minute that these -- some of these taxes don't really go away.

The cost of frivolous and junk lawsuits is high on our society.

Going to change unless Congress acts.[Not sentence.]

We need to make sure our job-training programs work.[missing “that”]

This is a major initiative of our administration, is to provide the opportunity for people to retrain so that their skills -- they've got the skills necessary for the new jobs being created in this economy.

Because there's thousands of companies all across America.[there is/there are]

Women-owned business is, I think, a very hopeful part of the future of this country.

That's code word for, I'm going to raise your taxes.

And, by the way, you can't have investment unless there's savings.[there is/there are]

I often have to argue that the tax relief was better spent than government could have spent the money.

It's a -- it affected -- I appreciate the checks finally arriving.

2004-03-25T17:04:00.000-06:00

Yet More Evidence That The Democrats Should Ignore The South

Concerned that there hadn’t been enough recent news stories depicting southerners as stupid, ignorant rednecks, the Georgia legislature passed a law banning women from getting genital piercings. All women, young, old, whether voluntary or not.

Genital piercings for women were banned by the Georgia House Wednesday as lawmakers considered a bill outlining punishments for female genital mutilation.

The bill would make such mutilation punishable by two to 20 years in prison. It makes no exception for people who give consent to have the procedure performed on their daughters out of religious or cultural custom.

An amendment adopted without objection added "piercing" to the list of things that may not be done to female genitals. Even adult women would not be allowed to get the procedure. The bill eventually passed 160-0, with no debate.

Amendment sponsor Rep. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, was slack-jawed when told after the vote that some adults seek the piercings.

"What? I've never seen such a thing," Heath said. "I, uh, I wouldn't approve of anyone doing it. I don't think that's an appropriate thing to be doing."

The ban applies only to women, not men. The bill has already been approved by the Senate but now must return to that chamber because of the piercing amendment. Both chambers of the Legislature must agree on a single version of a bill before it can go to the governor for final approval.

I can only hope that the “I’ve never seen such a thing” comment from Rep. Heath refers to pierced female genitalia, rather than female genitalia in general. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter was the case.

2004-03-11T14:53:00.000-06:00

Susan Lindauer Follow-up

Another bizarre factoid concerning the case of Susan Lindauer, who has been charged with being an Iraqi spy. It turns out that her name shows up on a public petition sponsored by the “Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation”. Lindauer signed the petition, and her name and address can be seen here. the petition was for those who wanted to “stop the spread of the anti-terrorist war to Iraq”. As they describe themselves,

[The] WWFOR seeks to replace violence, war, racism and economic injustice with nonviolence, equality, peace and justice. It links and strengthens FOR members and chapters throughout Western Washington in promoting activities consistent with the national FOR statement of purpose. WWFOR helps members and chapters accomplish together what we could not accomplish alone.

FOR is a faith-based, interfaith, pacifist organization which works on a variety of peace and justice issues.

It is affiliated with the “National Fellowship of Reconciliation”.and the International Fellowhip of Reconciliation.

All of which raises the question: If someone is really involved in spying for Iraq, why in the world would they publicly sign a petition opposing the invasion of Iraq, knowing full well that signing such a petition would likely bring themselves to the attention of government authorities? More to the point, is Lindauer being targeted at least partially because of her opposition to the Iraq invasion?

2004-03-11T12:40:00.000-06:00

Is Susan Lindauer Really a Spy

According to this story, an American citizen has been arrested and charged with being an Iraqi spy.

Susan Lindauer, 41, was arrested in her hometown of Takoma Park, Md., and was to appear in court later in the day in Baltimore, authorities in New York said.

She was accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and with engaging in prohibited financial transactions involving the government of Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein

According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Lindauer made multiple visits from October 1999 through March 2002 to the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan.

There, she met with several members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence arm of the government of Iraq that allegedly has played a role in terrorist operations, including an attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush, the indictment alleged.

What makes this story interesting is that the same Susan Lindauer’s name pops up in a number of web posting concerning the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Specifically, concerning allegations that the U.S. government shifted blame from Syria onto Libya as payback for Syria’s support of the first Gulf war in 1991.

Lindauer, then a congressional staffer, met in 1994 with a Dr. Richard Fuiz, who was alleged to be a CIA operative in Syria during the 1980s. Fuiz had a gag order placed in him by the Clinton administration shortly after this meeting, preventing him from publicly commenting on the issue. The following comes from a web posting describing this initial meeting between Lindauer and Fuisz (see also here). Note especially the section where Lindauer claims that she was (at the time) a victim of surveillance and harassment.

Last month, MEIB reported that Dr. Richard Fuisz, a major CIA operative in Syria during the 1980s, met with a congressional staffer by the name of Susan Lindauer in 1994 and told her that that the perpetrators of the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland were based in Syria. One month after their meeting, the Clinton administration, which holds Libya responsible for the bombing, placed a gag order on Dr. Fuisz to prevent him from publicly discussing the issue.

While Dr. Fuisz is still unable to comment on this matter because of the gag order, MEIB has obtained a copy of a formal deposition filed by Lindauer in 1998 in which she recounts this conversation in detail. This deposition (see below) has been submitted to the court in which two Libyan suspects are currently on trial and to U.N. officials, who have attempted to persuade the Clinton administration to lift the gag order on Dr. Fuisz.

Lindauer says that she has been subject to intense surveillance, threats, and attacks since she began meeting with Libyan officials in 1995 to discuss her knowledge of the Lockerbie bombing. "Someone put acid on the steering wheel of my car on a day I was supposed to drive to NYC for a meeting at the Libya House. I scrubbed my hands with a toilet brush, but my face was burned so badly that 3 weeks later friends worried I might be badly scarred," Lindauer told MEIB. "Also, my house was bugged with listening devices and cameras -- little red laser lights in the shower vent. And I survived several assassination attempts."

So, is Susan Lindauer an Iraqi spy? Is she being set up? Is she a nut case? This is all very curiuous, and something tells me that there’s both more and less to this story than there would appear to be at first glance.

It does seem, from the meagre evidence I've found, that Lindauer may be a bit of a flake. "Little red laser lights in the shower vent", acid, and assassination attempts? If these staements from Lindauer are accurate, then either she is a victim of some serious government malfeasance or she is totally unreliable as a witness for anything. And if the later is true, why is the government wasting time chasing down and investigating someone who is possibly delusional?

2004-03-05T16:12:00.000-06:00

Group That Stopped Gay Marriages in New Paltz Was Involved in Florida (2000) Recount

The latest news out of New Paltz, NY is that a judge has issued a restraining order blocking the mayor of the town from performing any more same-sex marriages.

ALBANY, N.Y. - A state judge on Friday barred the mayor of a college town from performing more same-sex marriages for a month, saying Jason West was ignoring his oath of office.

State Supreme Court Justice Vincent Bradley issued a temporary restraining order against the 26-year-old New Paltz mayor at the request of the Florida-based Liberty Council, which acted on behalf of a local resident.

The Liberty Council is affiliated with Jerry Falwell Ministries. A little bit of research turns up the fact that the Liberty Council was also involved with attempts to stop hand-counting of ballots during Florida’s recount fiasco that followed the 2000 presidential election. According to this story at WorldNetDaily, the Liberty Council filed an appeal on behalf of three Florida residents to stop the hand counting, which ultimately was stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs the state of Florida, has agreed to expedite an appeal filed Wednesday by three Florida residents who claim the hand counting of ballots in selected Florida counties -- all of which have canvassing boards controlled by Democrats -- is unconstitutional. The appeal asks the court to immediately halt the manual recounts of ballots.

On Wednesday, a judge, appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton within the past six months, denied a request for a temporary restraining order on the hand counting procedures. Liberty Counsel immediately appealed that decision to the 1lth Circuit Court of Appeals. (Jim Bopp, an Indiana attorney, is assisting Liberty Counsel in this appeal.)

The three Florida residents bringing this appeal are represented by Liberty Counsel, the religious freedom law firm that recently became affiliated with Jerry Falwell Ministries. Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, and my son, Jerry Falwell Jr., serve as co-counsel of the organization. While Liberty Counsel has been involved in some crucial religious freedom cases in recent months, this appeal could very well be the most significant one it ever presents in court. In fact, this case could make history as a determining factor in the final decision of who will sit in the Oval Office as our nation's president.

I’d say that last statement was accurate. Yes, it’s interesting that the same outfit that was deeply involved in the sequence of events that ended up with George Bush in the White House, is also behind the legal actions to block gay marriages in New York. Also the fact that they’re linked to Jerry Falwell.

Liberty Council has been involved with a ton of lawsuits along this general line, including one where they successfully sued a transit system because they had refused to accept advertising for a seminar on “preventing homsexuality”. Also here, here, and here. Hell, let’s just let them tel you themselves the things they’ve been involved in, as they boast on this page.

They were also behind this nuisance suit that tried to overturn the civil union laws in Vermont.

2004-02-25T13:38:00.000-06:00

Is Bush A Moron Episode 14: Campaign Mode

This week’s episode of IBAM covers four recent events. Three of these amounted to campaign appearances, although they weren’t billed as such. The fourth was an interview that Bush did with a correspondent for an Arabic TV network (and no, it wasn’t Al Jazeera).

The three campaign appearances were on Feb 13 at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, DC; on Feb 16 at Nuair Manufacturing in Tampa, Florida; and remarks on the economy at an event held Feb 19 in the Presidential Hall of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in DC. The interview was posted on the Whitehouse website on Feb 18, although the transcript indicates that it took place on January 29. It was conducted by Mouafac Harb of the “Middle East Television Network”. The METN is the propoganda network created by the U.S. State Department and broadcasts Arabic programming by satellite from the ancient middle-eastern city of Springfield, VA.

The scores are mediocre as usual. It’s also notable just how poorly Bush did during the interview, where almost a fifth of his statements (17%) had some sort of grammatical error.

language usage index scores

Sample Reading Ease Grade Level BRI-2

Archbishop Carroll HS (2/13/04) 72.7% 6.3 .072

NuAir Manuf. (2/16/04) 70.7% 6.6 .069

Eisenhower Bldg (2/19/04) 68.7% 6.9 .085

Arabic TV (2/18/04) 66.2% 7.5 .172

Average 69.6% 6.8 .099

language usage index scores
Sample	Reading Ease	Grade Level	BRI-2
Archbishop Carroll HS (2/13/04)	72.7%	6.3	.072
NuAir Manuf. (2/16/04)	70.7%	6.6	.069
Eisenhower Bldg (2/19/04)	68.7%	6.9	.085
Arabic TV (2/18/04)	66.2%	7.5	.172
Average	69.6%	6.8	.099

Below is a list of representative speech errors by Bush from these four appearances. And believe me, I’ve dropped a lot of them out:

I think it's very important for us to work, not only in D.C., but around the country for…[missing “that”; “but also…”]

A society that doesn't want to leave any child behind is a society which says,…[“…a society that…”]

…why is Catherine making a unbelievably tough call to drive hours to another state, or out of this district to a state. [“an unbelievably tough call…”]

You know, when I was looking for a Secretary of Education, I wasn't interested in finding a theorist, somebody who talked about the philosophy of the education, or talking about somebody -- trying to find somebody who has actually done it. [broken/mangled sentence]

So I think we need to raise the bar everywhere [“… think that we need…”]

Then I think you've got measure. [What???]

And when you find a child that needs help. [“…who needs help”]

…a parent has got the ability to take extra money [“…has the ability…”]

But the other thing about local control of schools, is the more power there is at the local level, the more parents have an opportunity to change things. […is that the more power there is…”]

I know you got an advertising campaign getting ready to go. [“I know that you have…”]

They also take on a lot of students that are the so-called hard to educate, [“…students who are…”]

There's some other things we need to do here in this country. [“there is” vs “there are”]

There's some powerful interests in Washington that don't want to see this happen. [ditto]

There's a couple of things she said. [ditto]

There's a lot of fantastic community college systems here in Florida and around the country. [ditto]

But as the economy changes, as these new machines come into be, people need to learn how to use them.[??? “as these new machines come into be”?]

The American way is understanding people come here to put food on the table for their children. [verb use (“…is to understand”); missing “that” (“…is to understand that…”)]

The fact that you're willing to get in there and race those kind of cars on those steep banks says a lot about you, though -- positive, I might add. [“those kinds”]

But the fact that there's more money in your pockets have made this economy strong. [“…has made this economy strong”]

But there has been some pretty interesting points that have come out of it. [“have been…”]

And then, of course, there's the individual stories about hard-working, decent Americans worried about their families and what they do with the more money in their pocket. [“there are the individual stories…”; “the more money in their pocket”???]

The strength of this country is the fact we've got people who are willing to volunteer to serve a neighbor in need. [missing “that”]

It means our workers become the best in the world, [missing “that”]

One, the workers here, it means that there's reliable jobs. [“there is” vs “there are”]

And that's why so much talk with the economists are about -- are people investing, because that investment cycle will lead to the increase of employment.[“…talk with the economists is about…”]

And so Sam -- Sam is a person who -- Sam has got him a small business [mangled sentence; “Sam has a small business”]

And therefore we need a work system that is -- promotes legal activity, not illegal activity. [mangled sentence]

But we've also got to make sure -- but personal responsibility being responsible for your families, also an important part of making sure people get educated here. [mangled sentence]

It means they've got more money to make decisions, whether it's to save or go on a vacation to Texas, or to have a quality of life issue at home [just think about this one for a bit…]

There needs to be serious consequences for people who are -- don't tell the truth. [need/needs; mangled sentence]

Unreliable supplies of energy creates uncertainty for price. [“…supplies of energy create…”]

There's some special interests here in Washington… [“there is” vs “there are”]

And these tax relief will be -- will expire on an irregular basis. [“this tax relief…”; mangled sentence]

The tax burden will go up by $2,000 if they doesn't make the tax cuts permanent. [??? “…if they doesn’t”??]

Let me walk you through, right quick, of what these families and small business owners and large business and CEOs have dealt with, [“let me walk you through…of what these families…”??]

When you turn on your TV screen in the summer of 2002 and it says, "America's March To War," that's not very conducive for investment [“conducive to investment”]

Some estimates say up to -- and if you're interested in job creation, why not focus on the job creators? [mangled sentence]

I'm going to talk a little bit about in regards to one of our guests, but -- -- the death tax is a bad tax, bad tax. [mangled sentence]

There are very powerful interests here in Washington that prevent the kinds of laws to pass that will help control costs. [just, wow…]

But one thing's for certain, is we need to make the tax cuts permanent

That's $28 billion going into the U.S. Treasury out of your pockets -- be reducing demand by that amount, be taking capital out of small business coffers if that happens. [be speaking poor English…]

It made life easier by being -- that money, to help pay for the preschool tuition, it took pressure off of their bill paying. [mangled sentence]

I believe there needs to be a Palestinian state… [missing “that”]

…so long as there's groups of terrorists willing to murder… [“there is” vs “there are”]

And I fully understand there needs to be a firm commitment to fight off terror in order for that to happen. [missing “that”]

I mean, gosh, there's a lot of countries that are very much involved in Iraq. [“there is” vs “there are”]

Pakistan is another country which is evolving… [“country that is evolving”]

My views are one that speaks to freedom. [? Number agreement? “…views speak to freedom”]

I believe people can self-govern around the world. [missing “that”; “I believe that people around the world can self-govern”]

See, one of the interesting things in the Oval Office -- I love to bring people into the Oval Office -- right around the corner from here -- and say, this is where I office, but I want you to know the office is always bigger than the person.[Jesus. mangled sentence; missing “that”; “this is where I office”???]

King Abdullah of Jordan, the King of Morocco, I mean, there's a series of places -- Qatar, Oman -- I mean, places that are developing -- Bahrain -- they're all developing the habits of free societies. [mangled sentence]

One, I do believe they understand the need to reform. [“…believe that they understand”]

But I also know they agree that we need to continue to work together to fight terror. [“know that they agree”]

There's a -- the murderous ambitions of a few are trying to derail the hopes of many. [mangled sentence]

And it's -- I have visions of a university system that really leads the Middle East in education and on the forefront of science and engineering -- because I know the Iraqi-Americans who are here, very bright, capable, honorable people who have come to our country, realized the benefits of freedom, taken advantage of some fantastic opportunities and made great citizens. [mangled; missing “that”; not a sentence]

These are people that are willing to kill people… [people who are willing…”]

They kill innocent women and children and not care about it. [Tonto, Tarzan and Frankenstein…]

More Muslims have died at the hands of killers than -- I say more Muslims -- a lot of Muslims have died -- I don't know the exact count -- at Istanbul. [just read it…]

2004-02-24T15:28:00.000-06:00

Is Sullivan A Moron, Episode 1

Just saw this at andrewsullivan.com:

I wonder if the Bush administration even thought about how mean-spirited this was going to appear. And how nakedly political. Some journalists are reporting that White House sources are telling them that they do not expect this to pass but they need to fire up their base. They'd go this far for purely political reasons? I guess I really was naive.

Yes, I guess you were.

2004-02-24T11:44:00.000-06:00

Let’s Go Nuclear

Well we can’t say we didn’t see this coming. Republicans have no issues to run on – the economy is sluggish, and the new jobs just aren’t there; the budget deficit has exploded; Iraq continues to be a mess; the prewar excuses for invasion are now widely seen to be just that; and Osama Bin Laden’s trail is as cold as Spot’s corpse.

So what do you do when you have no issues to run on? You use a hot button issue like gay marriage to whip up a frenzy. It motivates your conservative base, scares a good number of moderates into considering voting for you, and lobs a couple of hand grenades into the Democratic camp. Accordingly, Bush today officially proposed the passage of a constitutional amendment that would “preserve the sanctity of marriage” by defining it to legally be only between a man and a woman.

It really is a smart, if sleazy, political tactic. Democrats are going to be forced to either support or hedge their response to this proposal. If they come out for it, or don’t come out sufficiently strongly against it, a good number of their supporters might stay home, or vote for someone like Nader. If they oppose it, they risk offending the vast hordes of middle America who might feel comfortable watching neutered gay men on TV shows like “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”, but who draw the line at letting them marry one another.

In an earlier post on this topic, I suggested that if Republicans went down this road there was a way to fight their efforts and force them to drop it as an issue. The logic was that if they could be convinced that the political price for this strategy was too high, then it would simply fade away and they’d start to base their campaign on other issue, like national security and taxes. A lot of the rationale I had at the time has now gone out the window because of subsequent event. At the time, I assumed that the goal was to prevent the issue from being brought up in the first place, and I thought there might be a reasonable chance of doing that.

Since my original post, of course, events have more or less forced things upon us. First we had the Massachusetts ruling, and for the last couple of weeks we’ve had gay marriages occurring in San Francisco. Over the weekend it seemed that Chicago and New Mexico might soon start following suit. So the issue is out there, front and center. It’s not like we can make it go away. Thus, it’s entirely expected that there’d be pressure for politicians to do something to stop the process. When Bush now proposes a constitutional amendment, he can claim to be bowing to pressure, because, frankly, a lot of conservatives are in an uproar.

Let’s revisit what I stated in my original post:

The question thus becomes how best to counter such tactics. The thing to keep in mind is that tactics like this aren’t used by Republicans because they are necessarily driven by an antipathy towards gays. Many of them might be, but that is not the primary motivation. Rather, it is simply politics. Republicans believe that this is a winning issue for them, and they’ll dangle the proposition of a constitutional amendment against gays in front of the more rapid zealots, and stoke the fires of fear in socially conservative moderates. But more likely than not, this issue will be immediately dropped after the election. It’s a way to win, not a crusade.

What I propose is a variation of the Barney Frank rule. Recall that back in 1987, Republican’s under Newt Gingrich initiated an infamous whisper campaign implying that Tom Foley was gay. Things got so out of hand that the openly gay Frank threatened to retaliate by publicly naming a number of closeted House Republican members. The rumors quickly stopped. The Frank rule says basically that “outing” of a closeted individual is acceptable only when the person in question is using a position of power and influence to engage in gay-bashing as a matter of politics or policy.

Using gay-marriage as a wedge issue in order to win an election certainly qualifies as such an instance in my opinion.

Accordingly, I’m amending my proposed strategy, and proposing the following. All those who oppose the proposed constitutional amendment, and Republican effort to gain votes by gay-bashing, should immediately begin to expose closeted Republican elected and nonelected party officials, as well as their staff, whenever there is sufficient evidence to do so. Why do this?

1. It’s already proven that it will work, as was shown by Barney Franks in 1987. As long as Republicans feel there is no cost for them in pushing this issue they will do so. When a few of them start getting exposed as secretly gay, the rest of them will start worrying about the possible damage to the party (as well as, possibly, themselves). It’s ugly but it will work.

2. It brings up hypocrisy as an issue. Why are so many Republicans who may actually be gay, supporting this gay-bashing strategy? Why aren’t they speaking out against it? Notice that this also applies to non-gay Republicans who may have gay colleagues or staffers. The public doesn’t like politicians or political parties that have the taint of hypocrisy about them, and this is a way of sticking it to Republicans.

[As an aside, any “liberal” who uses the Frank Rule in this manner isn’t open to the charge of hypocrisy. The assumption is that the amendment is being pushed for political purposes. Exposing supporters of the amendment as gay, and hypocritical, is perfectly legitimate. It really only becomes an issue if you start bringing third parties into it, since under the Frank Rule, they have no political power.]

3. It puts pressure on log cabin Republicans. There are, of course, a number of Republicans who are openly gay. They can, of course, choose to decry the exposure of closeted colleagues as unfair. But they need to be asked (repeatedly); why are you still in a party that is pushing such a discriminatory piece of legislation? Demand that they publicly announce their position. Challenge them, and ask them if they will refuse to support Bush (or any other politician) who supports such an amendment. Criticism of them must be loud, public and repeated.

4. Why bring in a politician’s or party leader’s staff? What can justify exposing someone who doesn’t hold elective office, or isn’t in a position of power? Let’s be honest. I think that a case can be made that a politician’s staff is as guilty he or she is when their boss takes a position that is sleazy but politically useful. These are not indentured servants. They are free to leave any time they wish. They continue to work for certain individuals because (a) they agree with them politically, and (b) they think it will further their careers. If Congressman Joe Blow is going to come out publicly in support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, then why shouldn’t their staff have to face the consequences of their boss’s actions? I repeat; this is about gay bashing in order to obtain political power. If staffer X is gay, but is willing to accept that his boss and colleagues push legislation that discriminates against gays, what he’s really saying is that he doesn’t care what happens to other gays and lesbians. His career is more important. He’s already chosen what side he’s on, and that makes him fair game.

It is very clear that the movement to push a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is nothing more than the open use of gay-bashing in order to win votes. If liberals, progressives and supporters of gay rights are serious about fighting against this bigotry, then they are going to have to try something other than appealing to people’s better nature. The Democratic party, and candidates, of course, will want nothing to do with this strategy (although I wonder what Barney Frank is thinking right now). So it will probably be left to the fringe media and the internet to get the ball rolling. May be a few highly recognizable names being outed could have an impact, as long as it was done with an explicit explanation of why it was occurring. Exposure and embarrassment shouldn’t be the point. In other words, the issue shouldn’t be “Governor Y is gay!”, but, “Why is Governor Y opposed to marriage rights for gays when he himself is gay?” (note: the use of the term “Governor” is completely gratuitous and is meant to suggest nothing about politicians in certain large southern states).

It’s all about framing. The fact that someone may be a closeted gay is not the issue. The fact that someone may be a closeted gay who publicly supports an amendment that is discriminatory towards gays isan issue.

2004-02-19T12:11:00.000-06:00

Normal Noonan

There are others who may be far better at this than myself, but today I decided to take a stab at Peggy Noonan. Her latest offering in the Wall Street Journal is titled “Broken Glass Democrats Can their anger overcome Bush's normality?” It brings hagiography to a whole new level.

Noonan opens

…A lot had happened since I'd last spent time with him, in July, for an interview for Ladies Home Journal, and I was eager to get a sense of how he's feeling, thinking and looking as the election gears up. Also I've been tough on him lately and wondered how he treats people under such circumstances.

That’s it; never mind about what he has to say about Iraq, the economy, what he intends to do during the election campaign. Let’s cut to the most important issue. What does he think about me?

The president bounded into the Roosevelt Room at 10:30 on a weekday morning with a flurry of aides behind him. He looked tanned, rested and perhaps preoccupied.

Perhaps preoccupied, perhaps drugged…

He made a point to make and maintain eye contact with each of us, now this one and now that, as he talked. He shared thoughts, observations and stories in a way that seemed both free-associative and thematically linked.

“In a way that seemed both free-associative and thematically linked?” I believe that I know what that means, since I’ve had to endure reading enough examples of this type of speech on his part, while working on the IBAM project. Is that kind of like, “totally unrelated thoughts that have a patina of lucidity if you don’t examine them too closely?” Or, “mindless blather that is meant to convince the listener that Bush knows what he’s talking about?” Like when you haven’t studied for the exam but are trying to con the teacher into believing that you understand the material.

What the president's associates and allies had been telling me seemed completely true. His spirits were high, and at points he seemed loaded for bear. He has rock confidence that his actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have been right and have helped the world. He suggested that you've got to stand your ground when it's the high ground. He made it clear he intends to.

He wound it all up, took no questions, and left with the flurry.

More macho posturing; no surprise there, or that Noonan swooned over it. But then we return once again to the point of the article; what did he think of me?

How did he treat me? I'd like to say he was cool because that would suggest he's been reading my columns and they've had a huge impact. In fact he was friendly as ever.

That’s probably because even if he has read your column, which is unlikely, he doesn’t have a clue who the fuck you are, Peggy.

There are several ways to interpret this. I choose to believe he is hiding his pain.

Kind of like when the really cool hunk in high school ignored you and pretended that he didn’t know you, it wasn’t because he really didn’t know you, it was because he cared about you too much and he was too shy to say so. Inside he was really hurting. because whatever explains his behavior, it has to have something to do with what he thought of you.

…Mr. Bush's poll numbers are down, but the blue states are blue and the red states are red. And no one knows what will change that.

…This year the Democrats do seem hungrier than usual, in part because of the continuing wound of the 2000 election… They feel a heightened passion. …Have you seen them out there? Teddy Kennedy revitalized and refocused, as if this is his last great campaign; the entertainment-industrial complex in full battle cry; television producers energized by the battle, political wives making passionate speeches, young voters entering the process, whether for Howard Dean or someone else.

Yes, the street are literally full of celebrities, entertainment moguls, and television producers crying out for justice.

This is rise of the Broken Glass Democrats. Remember Broken Glass Republicans in 2000? They'd crawl over broken glass to help their guy and get the change they wanted. I think we are seeing the beginning of that with the Democrats.

I was asked this week why the president seems so attractive to the heartland, to what used to be called Middle America. A big question. I found my mind going to this word: normal.

Why do so many people in Middle America admire Bush? To quote Charles Shultz, “Have you ruled out stupidity?” The rest of the column is just amazing.

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He's normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics.

I’m glad that he can speak at least one language. Too bad it’s not English.

You know him. He's not exotic. But if there's a fire on the block, he'll run out and help. He'll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, "Where's Sally?"

He’ll run out and help, but only after he first disappears for a few hours to an undisclosed safe location, returning after the flames have been extinguished to shake his head at the sight of the damage, “tsk tsking” for all to hear. He’ll then, after much prompting, agree that an inquiry into what caused the fire would be a good idea, but look at his watch and say, “I’d like to stick around and help with the investigation, but I’ve got a lot of stuff to do tonight…good luck, though!”, before running off to the country club for cocktails.

He's not an intellectual.

News Flash!!!

Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world. And then when the fire comes they say, "I warned Joe about that furnace." And, "Does Joe have children?" And "I saw a fire once. It spreads like syrup. No, it spreads like explosive syrup. No, it's formidable and yet fleeting." When the fire comes they talk. Bush ain't that guy. Republicans love the guy who ain't that guy. Americans love the guy who ain't that guy.

I don’t even know where to begin with this drivel. “Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world?” What the hell does that even mean? Fight the fire, yes. But after it’s out, it’s somehow wrong to ask, why did the fire start in the first place? How were the escapes maintained? Could we have done something to prevent it? What can we do in the future so that something like this won’t happen? I agree that Bush isn’t interested in the answers to these types of questions, but an attitude like his is one sure way to ensure that there’ll be plenty of fires to fight in the future.

But of course, what Noonan is really saying is that, when faced with a crisis or threat, there’ll be those who prefer to study the situation, to gather more facts and analyze them before deciding on a course of action. And there are those, like Bush, who act first. But let’s imagine that instead of a fire, there was the sense that a burglary or house invasion was occurring at little Sally’s house. Should good neighbor Bush wait to find out what the facts are, or instead burst in, guns blazing, shooting at anything that might be a threat? If it turned out that what sounded like a violent struggle was merely the sound of a loud TV, it’ll be no consolation to Sally that heroic neighbor Bush has gunned down her parents by mistake. There are times when action is called for and there are times when a “normal” person will think before acting. To put it in terms even Noon would understand, “Look before you leap” is not a recipe for intellectual paralysis.

So as far as Noonan’s statement that “Republicans love the guy who ain't that guy; Americans love the guy who ain't that guy” goes, I think that everyone would like the guy who “ain’t that guy”. But it’s a false choice that Noonan provides.

Someone said to me: But how can you call him normal when he came from such privilege? Indeed he did. But there's nothing lemonade-on-the-porch-overlooking-the-links-at-the-country-club about Mr. Bush. He isn't smooth. He actually has some of the roughness and the resentments of the self-made man. I think the reason for this is Texas. He grew up in a white T-shirt and jeans playing ball in the street with the other kids in the subdivision. Barbara Bush wasn't exactly fancy. They lived like everyone else. She spoke to me once with great nostalgia of her early days in Texas, when she and her husband and young George slept in the same bed in an apartment in Midland.

Cue the violins. Excuse me while I gag…

A prostitute lived in the complex.

Insert gratuitous Neil Bush joke here…

George W. Bush didn't grow up at Greenwich Country Day with a car and a driver dropping him off, as his father had. Until he went off to boarding school, he thought he was like everyone else. That's a gift, to think you're just like everyone else in America. It can be the making of you.

After he went to boarding school, of course, it was a 25 year blur of booze, drugs and hookers, interrupted briefly by some actual work when he had to get out of being sent to Vietnam. Years later, he would reluctantly use his family connections to jump start careers in business and politics, sobbing to himself each night as he slept about the simpler life that he had left behind, a sort of latter day Charles Foster Kane. Oh to be normal again!

2004-02-13T22:13:00.000-06:00

William Campenni on CSPAN

I just caught the repeat of the William Campenni interview on CSPAN. It was brief (less than 30 minutes), and here are the highlights:

He confirmed that he overlapped with Bush only during 1970-71 (exact dates unclear)

Campeni had been based in Pittsburgh; he served in Houston temporarily at Ellington AFB, and returned to Pittsburgh afterwards. This accounts for the article cited by some yesterday describing his story about a hijacking incident in 1972, which said that he was based in Pittsburgh at the time.

Exactly when he left Houston is unclear; it was sometime in 1971. He was definitely gone by 1972

Campenni said that he was not put up to it (the letter) or contacted by anyone in the administration, but says he wrote the letter on his own

He continued to defend the reserves; repeating much of what was contained in his letter (e.g., the reserves could be called up at any time)

He specifically drew comparisons between the reserves then (circa Vietnam) and now; seemed offended that others would try to make a political issue out of this. He said something to the effect of, “will someone like Terry McAullife in 30 years try make political points about someone who had served stateside in the reserves during the current war on terror?” He still tries to push the argument that there is no distinction between how the reserves operated then and now, and rejects the idea that people got into the reserves to avoid being sent to Vietnam.

Continued to say that it was Johnson and McNamara’s fault that the reserves didn’t get called up

My overall impression: This is someone who has practically nothing to add in terms of being a reliable witness to what Bush did or didn’t do during this time period. He’s certainly not in a position to comment on anything that occurred in 1972 or thereafter (and probably for a good portion of 1971 as well). He seems to be a career officer in the Air National Guard (30 years), who is more concerned with correcting what he sees as a set of mistaken beliefs about the nature of the reserves and how they operated then and now. He may or may not have an overblown view of the importance of the ANG; I don’t know enough to make a judgement one way or the other. But I think that correcting the facts about Bush is less important to him than correcting the facts about the ANG.

2004-02-13T13:54:00.000-06:00

Is Bush A Moron: Triskaidekaphobia Friday

Today being Friday the 13th, I thought it appropriate to take advantage of the date and post the thirteenth episode of IBAM. Following up on yesterday’s posing, today’s covers an appearance Bush made earlier this week at a factory in Springfield, Missouri (SRC Automotive, 2/9/04). The numbers were: Grade Level = 6.7, Reading Ease = 70.4%, and Grammar = .071 (21 errors, 297 sentences).

[As a public service, I’m also including this link to a site that provides treatment for anyone suffering from Triskaidekaphobia]

Here are the errors:

People are owning their own home. [verb use; “People own their own homes”]

One of the most important things our society must do is to train people for jobs which exist. [missing “that” (“…things that our society must do…”); incorrect verb form (“…is train people…”); “that” vs “which” (…”jobs that exist”)]

It's tough times when the country is in a recession. [number agreement; “It is a tough time” or “They/these are tough times”]

See, when you're a CEO of a corporation, you have a responsibility -- Jack knows that and I suspect he might talk about -- at least when he talks, you'll hear he recognizes that. [missing “that”; “…I suspect that he might…”, “…you’ll hear that he recognizes…”]

…and now they know there will be a consequence in America for not telling the truth. [missing “that”]

And then, of course, as you know, I made the tough decision to secure America by -- after having gone to the United Nations and after having worked to give Mr. Saddam Hussein a chance to disarm himself. [broken/mangled sentence]

War is not conducive to -- for investment. [ditto]

Small businesses are feeling pretty good about their future, because there's incentives for them to invest. [“there is” vs “there are”]

Anyway, I do want to talk to you real quick that -- this is one of the real challenges we face -- a couple of challenges. [broken/mangled sentence]

I believe we need to have tort reform… [missing “that”]

I know we need tort reform particularly when it comes to health care. [ditto]

We've expanded them in the Medicare law, but I want people to understand they're available now. [ditto]

I believe we need to make the tax cuts permanent. [ditto]

--. See, one of the things that's fabulous about this country is people can start their own business. [ditto]

That means that it was the tax relief passed by Congress encouraged him to invest. [ditto]

And I hope that the state of Missouri uses the community college system here in a way that says, let's devise curriculum based upon the needs of the employers, [missing article; “devise a curriculum”]

And the best way to do it is to trust the local people to put a curriculum in place to train people for jobs which actually exist. [“which” vs “that”]

Mr. Mayor, this is a good way to recruit business, by the way, is if you've got a good worker training program so that the employers know that they can find somebody who can do the job. [?? poor structure]

See, one of the things she's saying… [missing “that”]

See, tax relief can be used to spend, and that's good, because it increases consumer demand, but tax relief also is being saved by a lot of our families, and that savings are really important in a society that rests upon the flow of capital. Savings actually is capital to be invested so people can find work. [“those savings are really important…”; “Savings…are capital…”]

It's got good folks here, good, honest, down-to-earth, hardworking people that really represent the backbone of America. [“hardworking people who really represent…”]

I’ve also reproduced a couple of things he said that aren’t errors, but Bushisms. Not real classics, but weird all the same:

Before I begin to talk a little bit about the economy, and then of course have our panelists talk about what they think, and some of the decision-making they made.

Except when you're marching to war, it's not a very optimistic thought, is it? In other words, it's the opposite of optimistic when you're thinking you're going to war. [Might the word be, “pessimistic”?]

2004-02-12T15:34:00.000-06:00

Is Bush A Moron, Episode 12: Bush Visits Pennsylvania

Bush today spoke at a high school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The topic was “education and the changing job market”. It was not a speech, and was typical of the kind of forum he’s used to discuss issues – make a few points, bring up some commonly used catch phrases and issues, and parade a few citizens to bolster the arguments your trying to make. Previously, I’ve ignored these appearances because I assumed that since they were so scripted there would be no reason to expect sub-par performance on Bush’s part. But after looking at how he did today in Harrisburg, I may need to start paying closer attention to these types of things.

Overall performance; Grade Level = 7.3, Reading Ease = 68.2%, BRI-2 Grammar = .114 (35 errors, 306 sentences). Examples of his errors are below:

It's a high school that's willing to raise the bar, …, willing to use curriculum that actually works. [“use a curriculum”]

But the truth of the matter is the strength of this country is the heart and souls of the American people, [missing “that”; “…truth of the matter is that the strength…”]

Remember, this country has been through a recession, an attack by an enemy which clearly hates what we stand for. [which/that]

The first idea is to make sure there's certainty in the tax code. [missing “that”; “make sure that there’s certainty”]

There's too many junk lawsuits which are running up the cost of doing business. [number agreement; “there is” vs “there are”]

We need to get less regulations on people who are trying to create jobs. [“fewer regulations”]

You see, when you have blackouts or brownouts, and you're trying to employ people, it's awful hard to have -- to do so. [mangled/broken sentence]

In other words, there's a lot of things we can do. [“there is” vs “there are”]

I know the entrepreneurial spirit; I know the fact we've got the best workers in the world. [missing “that”]

And as we overcome the recession and war and emergency, we'd better make sure we've got a work force that is prepared for the higher-paying jobs of the 21st century. [missing “that”]

We've got to make sure that math and sciences are -- we've got to focus on math and science. [mangled/broken sentence]

And another interesting part of our society which oftentimes gets overlooked is the fabulous community college system in America. [“which” vs “that”]

You've got a great community college here in -- Community colleges are available and affordable. [mangled/broken sentence]

…, to prepare folks for the jobs which actually exist. [“which” vs “that”]

So what you're about to hear is educational excellence here in Harrisburg exists; [missing “that”; “what you’re about to hear is that educational excellence…”]

And by that I mean, is that it's important to have local control of schools so that good superintendents and good principals are able to be -- adjust according to the circumstances. [broken/mangled sentence]

What's changed is we're finally asking the question, are we getting any results for our money. [missing “that”; “What’s changed is that we’re finally asking…”]

There's been a -- because we haven't focused that intensely on measurement. [broken/mangled sentence]

There's some kids who are just being shuffled through. [“there is” vs “there are”]

If you don't know whether a child can read and write and add and subtract, it's likely that child will be just shuffled through. [missing “that”; “…it’s likely that that child…”]

I believe every child can learn, [missing “that”; “believe that every child…”]

And so what we're talking about really here is the basics of job training, aren't we? [“…what we’re really talking about here is…”; “is the basics” vs “are the basics”]

Would you share with us your story? [? technically correct, but unusual]

That's one of the bottlenecks, to make sure more advanced placement -- AP means raising the bar, is what it means. [missing “that”; mangled/broken sentence]

But you've got to able to have some -- got a skill set that makes you employable. [broken/mangled sentence]

There's jobs in this part of the world that may require a different skill set than you have. [“There are jobs…”]

Cari, first of all, understands her most important responsibility is to love her child with all her heart… [missing “that”] At home, we're going to be a society which understands the issues facing our fellow citizens, [“that” vs “which”]

I want to highlight a couple of passages that illustrate Bush’s inconsistent use of grammar. In the same setting, he can make a number of a particular type of error, and then say something in which he does not make the same error. For example, consider the term “curriculum”. You can say “the curriculum”, “a curriculum”, or “the curricula”. You can’t, as Bush does in the following cases, simply drop the article:

And what the measurement system allows you to do is, one, analyze curriculum –

…and, by the way, using curriculum that actually works, not curriculum that sounds good, not curriculum that may be based upon some interesting theory, but curriculum that actually makes a difference, so that when we measure we can see clearly that children are learning to read.

Yet, later on in the same appearance today Bush said the following:

And one of the reasons you measure, by the way, is to test whether or not the curriculum is working. And if the curriculum is not working, you need superintendents and principals and teachers bold enough to say, it's not working. And so you then you pick what you think will work, and then you've got to train teachers to teach curriculum.

What’s striking about this is that almost within the same breath, Bush correctly says “the curriculum”, but then also uses the term incorrectly.

[Kudos to Bush on one count at least. At one point in the appearance he spoke the sentence, “For those of you looking for work out there, take advantage of the opportunities available to embetter yourself”. Yes, “embetter” is actually a real word, albeit one that is rarely used. So his vocabulary may be broader than suspected. Either that, or even his mistakes sometimes take the form of actual English. After all, even a monkey at a typewriter could eventually produce Shakespeare.]

2004-02-11T16:36:00.000-06:00

Who Is William Campenni?

The folks at Free Republic are drooling over a letter to the editor printed in the Washington Times that is supportive of George Bush’s National Guard service record of 30 years ago. It’s from a Col. William Campenni (ret.), who now lives in Virginia. The letter staes that “George Bush and I were lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS), Texas Air National Guard (ANG) from 1970 to 1971". The letter goes on to state the names of two superior officers (Maj. William Harris and Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, both deceased) that they had in common at the time, and further states that “while we were not part of the same social circle outside the base, we were in the same fraternity of fighter pilots…”.

It’s doubtful what the value of this letter is, partly since Campenni more or less admits that he didn’t know Bush very well, and in any event the period in which he says that they served together seems to be prior to the one covering the events now in dispute.

What does seem clear is that Campenni is in no position to say what Bush was doing by late 1972, since according to an article posted on Free Republic just this past December, Campenni was stationed with a different unit of the ANG operating out of Pittsburgh by November of ‘72. So, not much new is added by way of explaining where Bush was and what he was doing.

Campenni’s sudden defense of Bush is rather interesting, since this letter is not his first on this topic. He wrote a letter to the Observer, a Virginia based publication, back in May of 2003, in which he defended Bush’s ANG service. Curiously, that letter includes a number of passages that are identical to some included in the letter just published in the Times.

2004-02-09T16:53:00.000-06:00

Is Bush A Moron, Episode 11: “Meet The Press Interview, 2/8/04

The reviews of Bush’s MTP interview on Sunday are in, and they aren’t pretty. Even conservatives were not impressed; Liberal Oasis and Calpundit both summarize the consensus with selected quotes from a number of sources, e.g.:

…stammering and unsteady.

"If he loses this year, this will be the day he lost it."

…bobbled his answers

…pretty dismal performance

The tongue-tied blather…

…tired, unsure and often bumbling

Evan Andrew Sullvan (!) cites an email from an anonymous conservative reader saying the following:

”It was the single worst performance by an elected official on that show that I've ever seen. The President was inarticulate in the extreme; he avoided answering almost every semi-difficult question, repeatedly asking permission to "step back" as a way to provide a canned statement about how he's had to make tough decisions during times of war (i.e., don't second guess any decision I made regarding Iraq); and he often seemed to fail to grasp the meaning of various questions, pausing awkwardly for long periods of time before giving non-responsive answers.”

I can’t put it any more succinctly than Josh Marshall:

”Most of his responses were disjointed collections of slogans and administration talking points, with a number of disingenuous or outright dishonest points tossed in.”

The Daily Howler was not impressed with Tim Russert’s performance, however.

What happened to that frightening bulldog—the one the press has talked up for years? You saw it—that bulldog turned to a puddy-tat, coughed a hairball and died. What became of Bulldog Tim? That “dog” didn’t bark, hunt or slobber.

Irrelevant “answers” went without follow-up. Blatant misstatements by Bush went unchallenged. Bush was allowed to give long, windy speeches—speeches so long and so slow that it sometimes seemed that Russert must have left the building.

I’ve looked the transcript over and I have to say that it wasn’t a particularly shining day for either of them. Pundits are shocked that Bush was inarticulate? Excuse me, but is this news? . The man is reasonably good at reading from a teleprompter, or delivering prepared speeches, but can’t do the job in an unscripted setting. This is something that I’ve tried to document on this site, simply by looking objectively at Bush’s actual performance during such unscripted speaking sessions. It’s just that there are so few opportunities to observe how bad he is, that people have a higher impression of his command of issues than he deserves. Keeping him away from the press has been a long standing policy. That’s why the decision to go on MTP was so surprising; no matter how much preparation went into it, there was absolutely no way that he was going to appear to be anything other than foolish.

Okay, let’s run the numbers for Bush. The table below summarizes the figures for Bush’s MTP performance. There were 371 sentences in the sample. One somewhat surprising statistic is the Readability Index score of 69.3%, which is a little lower than Bush typically gets [Remember, lower scores on this measure indicate simpler speech; it’s equivalent to the percentage of adult speakers who’d be able to understand it]. But as I believe I’ve alluded to previously, this can be a misleading indicator. The calculation of the Flesch Reading Ease Index takes into account average sentence length. And long sentences don’t need to be grammatical or particularly well constructed. Indeed, one characteristic of Bush-speak is that he uses either very short, simple sentences (which would result in a high Readability Index score), or he strings together a number of related thoughts or statements into a single, jumbled, ungrammatical sentence. This latter behavior would lead to a lot of grammar errors (BRI-2 Index), but might actually result in a relatively low Readability Index. As can be seen, the BRI-2 index shows that more than a tenth of Bush’s sentences had a grammatical error.

language useage index scores

Sample Reading Ease Grade Level BRI-2

MTP (2/8/04) 69.3% 7.7 .134

language useage index scores
Sample	Reading Ease	Grade Level	BRI-2
MTP (2/8/04)	69.3%	7.7	.134

Here is a list of selected quotes illustrating the grammatical errors that Bush made during the MTP interview. Read em and weep…

There is a lot of investigations going on about the intelligence service, [number agreement; “There is”/”There are”]

It was kind of lessons learned.[What? Not a sentence]

The Congress has got the capacity to look at the intelligence gathering without giving away state secrets, and I look forward to all the investigations and looks. [What?!? “…all the investigations and looks”? ]

There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made a good calls,…[number agreement; “a good call”/”a good calls”]

…and I look forward to that debate, and I look forward to talking to the American people about why I made the decisions I made. [missing “that”; “decisions that I made”]

I wish it wasn't. [missing “that”; “I wish that it wasn’t”]

Again, I wish it wasn't true, but it is true. [missing “that”; “I wish that it wasn;t true…”]

I will be glad to share with them knowledge. [“…share knowledge with them”]

…and I want that intelligence service to be strong, viable, competent, confident, and provide good product to the President so I can make judgment calls. .[missing “that”; “so that I can make…”]

Listen, we got some five let me let me, again, just give you a sense of where I am on the intelligence systems of America. [mangled sentence]

Sitting behind this desk making a very difficult decision of war and peace, and I based my decision on the best intelligence possible, intelligence that had been gathered over the years, intelligence that not only our analysts thought was valid but analysts from other countries thought were valid. [not a sentence; “was” vs “were”]

First of all, I strongly believe the CIA is ably led by George Tenet. .[missing “that”; “strongly believe that…”; also a split infinitive]

We've got people working hard in intelligence gathering around the world to get as good an information as possible. [number agreement]

We have given extraordinary cooperation with Chairmen Kean and Hamilton. [“with” vs “to”]

As you know, we made an agreement on what's called "Presidential Daily Briefs," and they could see the information the CIA provided me that is unique, by the way, to have provided what's called the PDB, because – [missing “that” (“…the information that the CIA provided…”; mangled sentence]

Now, let me which is—this is a vital question [mangled sentence]

And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. [“there is” vs “there are”]

And I made the decision to go to the United Nations, by the way, quoting a lot of their data in other words, this is unaccounted for stockpiles that you thought he had because I don't think America can stand by and hope for the best from a madman, [mangled sentence]

It's too late in this new kind of war, and so that's why I made the decision I made. .[missing “that”; “decisions that I made”]

And the worst nightmare scenario for any president is to realize that these kind of terrorist networks had the capacity to arm up with some of these deadly weapons, and then strike us. [number agreement; “these kind”/”these kinds”]

I'm dealing with a world in which we have gotten struck by terrorists with airplanes, and we get intelligence saying that there is, you know, we want to harm America. [mangled sentence]

Let me take a step back for a second and there is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron clad absolutely solid [not a sentence/mangled sentence]

Well, Tim, I and my team took the intelligence that was available to us and we analyzed it,… [“My team and I”]

His brother was one of the people that was assassinated early on in this past year [subject-verb agreement; “…one of the people that were assassinated”]

In other words, the worlds of the U.N. Security Council said we're unanimous and you're a danger. [“worlds”?]

In my judgment, when the United States says there will be serious consequences, and if there isn't serious consequences, it creates adverse consequences. [number agreement; “…there aren’t serious consequences”]

He obviously was concerned, but he I said, you know, I'm a Methodist, what are my chances of success in your country and your vision? [mangled sentence]

I call it a vital role because there is a lot of roles being played by different players, but the U.N. will play and this role is a very important role. [number agreement; “there are a lot of roles…”; mangled sentence]

And the reason why I felt like we needed to use force in Iraq and not in North Korea, because we had run the diplomatic string in Iraq. [not a sentence]

And the reason I'm not surprised is because there are people in that part of the world who recognize what a free Iraq will mean in the war on terror. [missing that; “the reason that I’m not surprised…”]

There is no question in my mind that people that I have seen at least are thrilled with the activities we've taken. [“people whom I have seen”]

And my only point to you is these people are committed to a pluralistic society. [missing “that”; “my only point to you is that these people…”]

I believe that and I believe this country must continue to lead. [missing “that”; …I believe that this country…”]

Every person that is willing to sacrifice for this country deserves our praise, and yes. [“Every person who is willing…”]

It's historic times. [number agreement; “It is a historic time” or “These are historic times”]

In other words, the evidence we have uncovered thus far says we had no choice.[missing “that”; “…says that we had no choice”]

If we still have them, but I you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records. [mangled sentence]

Military doesn't work that way. [“The military doesn’t work that way.”]

We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. [?? “…it is lessons that any president must learn…”; number agreement]

And what those numbers show is the fact we have been through a lot. [missing “that”; “…the fact that we have…”]

So, you show that the numbers kind of I'm not suggesting the chart only shows the bad numbers, but how about the fact that we are now increasing jobs or the fact that unemployment is now down to 5.6 percent? [mangled sentence]

And I look forward to debate on the economy because I think one of those things that's very important is that the entrepreneurial spirit of this country be strong and the small business sector be strong. [subject-verb agreement; “…one of those things that are” (vs “that is)]]

I have shown the American people I can lead. I have shown the American people I can sit here in the Oval Office when times are tough and be steady and make good decisions, and I look forward to articulating what I want to do the next four years if I'm fortunate enough to be their president. [missing “that”; “…that I can lead…”, “…that I can sit here…”]

Just FYI, John Edwards appeared on Fox this weekend and was interviewed by Chris Wallace. His numbers:.

language useage index scores

Sample Reading Ease Grade Level BRI-2

Edwards (Fox Interview)TD> 66.0% 8.3 .034

language useage index scores
Sample	Reading Ease	Grade Level	BRI-2
Edwards (Fox Interview)TD>	66.0%	8.3	.034

Previous Editions of IBAM can be found at these links:

IBAM 1: Introduction

IBAM: brief note

IBAM 2: 2000 Presidential Debates

IBAM 3: Interview with Brit Hume

IBAM 4: Dem debate

IBAM 5

IBAM 6: Dem debate

BAM 7: Press conference, Dem debate

IBAM 8

IBAM 9

IBAM 10: Bush Likes Ribs

2004-02-06T15:58:00.000-06:00

George Bush, Terrorist

For dumping mercury in a school.

Who knew?

2004-02-02T16:51:00.000-06:00

Wardrobe Malfunctions, Thousands Die

We may never know who he or she is, but the PR person who wrote the statement of apology for Justin Timberlake following yesterday’s Superbowl halftime show deserves to receive some type of special recognition. The statement released by Timberlake attributed the exposure of one of Janet Jackson’s breasts to an unexplained “wardrobe malfunction”, a phrase that will surely go down in history as one of the greatest examples of weasel-speak ever written, released, faxed or spoken.

I missed most of the Superbowl yesterday, having previously agreed to go see the play “Proof”. My luck with Superbowl watching has never been particularly good over the years. When I have watched the entire game it’s usually been a blowout, so two weeks ago when I was asked if I’d like to attend the play, I thought nothing of it. Little did I know that by doing so, I’d miss one of the better games ever, and most importantly the first step in the decline of American civilization as we know it. Otherwise known as the infamous breast exposure of Janet Jackson.

When I first read that “wardrobe malfunctions” were being blamed for the incident, all I could think about was that it night have been inspired by Houston’s association with NASA. Yesterday being the anniversary of the last shuttle disaster, perhaps unavoidable. Is clothing apparel really as complicated as the space shuttle? Does it require teams of scientists and engineers in order to operate smoothly? Perhaps hydraulic devices need to be used to make sure that Janet Jackson’s breasts don’t collapse under their own weight, brought down by gravity and exploding the thin layers of leather enclosing them. The words “wardrobe malfunction” seem to suggest some sort of complex human behavior; I’m sure that machines are involved, although I can’t say exactly how.

Well, at least now we know who the mystery guest was for the halftime show.

My guess is that there are at least three people who are pleased with the publicity that the yawn inducing “accident” has generated. The first is obviously Jackson herself, who has a new album coming out (if you’ll pardon the expression) next month. What a fortunate set of circumstances! Everyone is talking about her, and this might just help with sales of her new album!! FYI, here is the outfit that she was originally set to wear during the halftime show.

The second is Justin Timberlake, who managed to squelch all of those “Justin Timberlake is gay” rumors for at least another month.

The third is Kid Rock, who had a “wardrobe malfunction” of his own, offending a lot of people who have nothing better to worry about. Today, everyone is talking about Janet Jackson’s breast, and absolutely no one is complaining about pancho desecration.

2004-01-29T16:15:00.000-06:00

More Hummus Please; But Fewer Burned & Maimed Bodies

“Arabic programming was a cute detail, the volume was intrusively loud and the graphic images of burned and maimed bodies on the Arabic news channel were highly uncalled for.” – Jay Hallen

Here’s an update on the wunderkind who is busy setting up Iraq’s new stock exchange. The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday about the 24-year old who is rebuilding Iraq’s stock exchange. A strange job for someone so young. The first sentence of the article in fact says that “At Yale University, Jay Hallen majored in political science, rarely watched financial news stations and didn't follow the stock market.” It doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of person I’d pick to reopen the stock market for an entire country. Going to Yale, perhaps he was a member of “Skull and Bones”? But I digress… The Journal article goes on to say:

…Mr. Hallen, a private-sector development officer for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, was given the job immediately after arriving in Baghdad in September.

Mr. Hallen admits that he wound up in Iraq rather by accident. In 2002, he began pursuing a White House job, and though none materialized, he stayed in close contact with the man who interviewed him, Reuben Jeffrey. When Mr. Jeffrey went to Iraq last summer as a senior economic-development adviser, Mr. Hallen e-mailed to ask whether there were any job openings… A few weeks later, Mr. Hallen got a phone call from a Pentagon personnel officer, who told him he had been given a job in the Coalition Provisional Authority and needed to be in Baghdad in less than a month. "Needless to say, I was in a mild state of shock," he says.

Mr. Hallen, who graduated in 2001, has spent the past few months in a crash course in high finance.

Mr. Hallen's most difficult task has been winning and keeping the confidence of Iraqi investors and traders alarmed by his youth and lack of experience in the financial sector. It hasn't been easy.

In early November, Mr. Hallen traveled to Baghdad's Hamra Hotel for a lunch meeting with Luay Nafa Elias, who runs an investment company here. Mr. Elias says he was expecting to meet a middle-age man and therefore was astonished to see the baby-face Mr. Hallen sit down at the table and order a plate of kabobs. "I had thought the Americans would send someone who was at least 50 years old, someone with gray hair," says Mr. Elias.

As the lunch continued, Mr. Elias found himself impressed by Mr. Hallen's confident tone and his repeated promises to quickly open a stock market that is the envy of the Arab world.

Mr. Elias's faith in Mr. Hallen, however, began to evaporate when the market's opening was delayed without explanation, first to the middle of this month and then into February. "Maybe someone older and more experienced could have gotten this done on time," Mr. Elias says.

Far be it for me to question the judgement of the Coalition Governing Authority. I mean, they done such a bang-up job so far, what could possibly go wrong with choosing a 24-year old with no financial experience to set up the stock exchange for an entire nation?

Facts about Hallen are hard to come by on the web. I found one letter to the editor from him complaining about the sorry state of a bus tour company in NYC. He also was at one time a sportswriter (possibly sports editor) for the Yale campus newspaper. At one time, this daily published a response that someone had written, which took issue with an earlier published letter from Hallen. It seems that He had criticized the choice of the Indigo Girls as the main entertainers at some big campus event (“Spring Fling”), saying things like “they only appeal to women”. He was criticized for being sexist and homophobic; his original letter was unavailable so I can’t judge.

There was another notable mention of Hallen that I stumbled across. It was a review of a children’s play in which he had a role, Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax”. Not really germane to his present duties, but some of the passages in the review did strike a chord with me in the context of his present job aiding the reconstruction of Iraq:

The Lorax starts in an imaginary world full of colorful, nonsensical creatures and Truffula Trees, where everything and everyone is happy. The Once-ler (Jay Hallen, SM '01) presides over this little utopia, all the while dancing with trees and singing the praises of his green pet cat and miffmoffermoof suit. One day, the Once-ler stumbles upon the realization that the Truffula Trees sprinkled throughout the countryside can be used to create a wonderfully versatile product known simply as Thneed. The Once-ler induces a Thneed fad--similar to the polyester craze of the '70s--in which he encourages everyone to run out and get some of his fabulous new product. As demand increases and the Once-ler becomes greedier, more and more Truffula Trees are chopped down to aid his quest to "bigger" his business. The countryside becomes dead and polluted, and--here comes the moral of the story--harmony is lost.

…With a big cheesy grin spread across his face and eyebrows so highly arched they look like they're about to jump off of his head, Hallen stands out with his portrayal of the greedy Once-ler. His remarkably pliable, green-painted face creates a sympathetic villain,teaching the audience that the concepts of absolute good and absolute evil are often far too simple for the complexities of the real world.

Whatever. Perhaps the only interesting thing about him that I could find came in the form of yet another letter to the editor (Yale Daily News), containing a review of a certain Middle Eastern restaurant near the Yale campus that had apparently been praised in an earlier article. In addition to criticizing the décor, food, ambience, and, basically everything about the place, the letter contained the following passage:

The first shock came the moment we stepped into the restaurant, when our eyes were assaulted by bright fluorescent lighting that created a dining atmosphere about as inviting as a Rite-Aid. While the 36" TV playing Arabic programming was a cute detail, the volume was intrusively loud and the graphic images of burned and maimed bodies on the Arabic news channel were highly uncalled for

. So Mr. Hallen’s dining experience was ruined by the fact that Al Jazeera (or something similar) was showing explicit pictures of the victims of violence, possibly (dare I say?) victims of some Israeli attack that happened to occur that day. (I say this because I assume that Arab TV wouldn’t be focusing on the victims of Palestinian suicide bombers, but I could be wrong). Whatever the case, I hope that in his current position in Baghdad, Mr. Hallen is sufficiently insulated from anything that would affect his delicate sensibilities. No doubt the suicide bombings and random killings of civilians, soldiers and policemen are far enough out of his earshot that he can digest his meals more easily than he could on that distant night in New Haven.

2004-01-26T23:24:00.000-06:00

Is Bush a Moron, Episode 10: Bush Likes Ribs

It’s been a while and there have been a number of events that I’ve neglected to cover since the last episode of IBAM. So today’s posting is a compilation of recent Bushisms that goes back a ways. It covers the period roughly from the time of his Thanksgiving Day visit to Iraq, up to the most recent event, a brief interaction with the press pool in Roswell, New Mexico. Also included are the results from the last Democratic debate, held last week prior to the New Hampshire Primary.

Roswell, 11/22/04: There are no major mistakes, but it’s a very short exchange. I reproduce this exchange in it’s entirety because it seems so weird and funny. Maybe it’s just me, but the man seems to have an uncommon obsession with ribs (see also here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. At this photo op, Bush personally bought $42.95 worth of food to go, and left no tip. Read it for yourself (Bush at the “Nothin' Fancy Café” in Roswell, New Mexico, 1/22/04):

THE PRESIDENT: I need some ribs.

Q Mr. President, how are you?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm hungry and I'm going to order some ribs.

Q What would you like?

THE PRESIDENT: Whatever you think I'd like.

Q Sir, on homeland security, critics would say you simply haven't spent enough to keep the country secure.

THE PRESIDENT: My job is to secure the homeland and that's exactly what we're going to do. But I'm here to take somebody's order. That would be you, Stretch -- what would you like? Put some of your high-priced money right here to try to help the local economy. You get paid a lot of money, you ought to be buying some food here. It's part of how the economy grows. You've got plenty of money in your pocket, and when you spend it, it drives the economy forward. So what would you like to eat?

Q Right behind you, whatever you order.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm ordering ribs. David, do you need a rib?

Q But Mr. President --

THE PRESIDENT: Stretch, thank you, this is not a press conference. This is my chance to help this lady put some money in her pocket. Let me explain how the economy works. When you spend money to buy food it helps this lady's business. It makes it more likely somebody is going to find work. So instead of asking questions, answer mine: are you going to buy some food?

Q Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. What would you like?

Q Ribs.

THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let's order up some ribs.

Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?

Q An answer.

Q Can we buy some questions?

THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people -- they make a lot of money and they're not going to spend much. I'm not saying they're overpaid, they're just not spending any money.

Q Do you think it's all going to come down to national security, sir, this election?

THE PRESIDENT: One of the things David does, he asks a lot of questions, and they're good, generally.

It’s especially interesting to read Bush’s brief explanation of how the economy works. Extrapolating from his summary, I envision the following scenario: 1. Tax cuts give people extra money. 2. People spend extra money on ribs. 2. Café owner gets money. 3. Increased demand for ribs leads to expansion of restaurant. 4. More people are hired. 5. More ribs consumed. 6. More expansion. 7. Even more ribs consumed. 8. Entire population of U.S. drops dead from massive heart attack caused by over consumption of ribs.

The numbers for this performance are pretty grim, with a grade equivalent of 3.6, reading level of 85.6, and BRI-2 grammar score of .066 (missing “that”, i.e., One of the things [that] David does, [is that] he asks a lot of questions, and they're good, generally). But at least he seems to have this economy thing down pat.

These results are shown in the following Table along with scores from a few other recent Bush speaking engagements. Included in the Table are results from the Roswell episode, an 11/27 Q/A with reporters after Bush’s visit to Baghdad, a brief exchange with reporters during a visit by Jordanian King Abdullah on 12/4, a press conference held on 12/15, a press pool Q/A session on 1/4/04, a joint press conference with Mexican President Fox on 1/12, and a joint press conference with the Canadian Prime Minister martin on 1/13.

I’ve also made a minor, but long overdue, modification to the way that the BRI-2 grammar measure is calculated. Previously, Bush statements such as the following might not have turned up as grammatical errors under spell-checking:

And I think when people begin to realize that, when people begin -- that were, I would call them fence-sitters, when people begin to realize that the Saddam regime is gone forever, and that the new society that will emerge will be a fair society, it will protect people, and protect people from the -- protect them based upon their own religious views, for example, guarantee them rights -- is what I mean by "protect," that it's more likely people will begin to sign on to the future of Iraq.

There may not be any obvious errors, other than it being a long, run-on sentence. But strictly speaking, it’s not a long, run-on sentence, because it’s essentially a series of incomplete thoughts strung together. The structure is horrible. It’s as if the man can’t put together two complex thoughts into a single coherent sentence. Much of his speaking is characterized by this type of performance, which I just don’t commonly observe in the other people I’ve looked at. I can’t think of a good reason why this shouldn’t be taken into account, and so from now on these types of broken or mangled sentences will be counted as grammatical errors.

So, here are the Results for Bush from the samples I just described:

language useage index scores

Sample Reading Ease Grade Level BRI-2

Thanksgiving (11/27/03) 80.8% 5.3 .097

King Abdullah (12/4/03) 64.2% 8.2 .055

Press Conf (12/15/03) 68.6% 7.5 .068

Press Pool (1/1/04) 74.2% 6.3 .086

Bush/Fox (1/12/04) 64.8% 7.8 .100

Bush/Martin (1/13/04) 65.6% 7.8 .170

Roswell/ribs (1/13/04) 85.6% 3.6 .066

Average 71.9% 6.6 .092

language useage index scores
Sample	Reading Ease	Grade Level	BRI-2
Thanksgiving (11/27/03)	80.8%	5.3	.097
King Abdullah (12/4/03)	64.2%	8.2	.055
Press Conf (12/15/03)	68.6%	7.5	.068
Press Pool (1/1/04)	74.2%	6.3	.086
Bush/Fox (1/12/04)	64.8%	7.8	.100
Bush/Martin (1/13/04)	65.6%	7.8	.170
Roswell/ribs (1/13/04)	85.6%	3.6	.066
Average	71.9%	6.6	.092

The results of this sample, covering almost two full months of unscripted speaking engagements by Bush, are pretty mediocre. The average readability index is 71.9%, with a grade equivalent of 6.6. The average BRI-2 grammar index is .092, which is far worse than anything obtained by him in any of the previous episodes of IBAM.

In no particular order, then, here are some examples of errors in Bush’s speechifying, as discovered in the sources cited:

I-35, as you know, if you're a Texan -- well, you know. [broken/mangled sentence]

But I also reminded them what I said publicly, that it's up to them to seize the moment [“reminded them about what I had said…”]

I think the game plan they've got now in place is a good plan. [missing “that”; the game plan that they’ve got…”]

And he said, sir, I wouldn't take you in there if I wasn't convinced that we could do this in a way that would safely bring you to the troops. [“wasn’t” vs “weren’t”; split infinitive]

But I did encourage them, to let them know that we have confidence in their ability to self-govern and we respect their culture. And we want to help them. [missing “that”; “and that we respect their culture”]

It had a wonderful rainbow behind he and his generals. [“his generals and he”?]

Oh, met the chiefs -- head of the -- two council members, the chief of the council and one of his compatriots -- Baghdad. [broken/mangled sentence]

It was getting down to the grass roots level, to -- you've seen me enough to know when I see these mayors, I tease them about filling the potholes. That's what -- you know, they've got a job to do, and they're doing it. [broken/mangled sentence]

Well, I told her that -- she knew all along -- actually, I didn't mean Laura and the girls, I meant the girls. [broken/mangled sentence]

And that's -- they're upbeat. [broken/mangled sentence]
Well, I'm telling you, this is -- again, had this been jeopardized in any way, we wouldn't put myself and/or you all in this position. [broken/mangled sentence]

And it is in the Pentagon, as well, a copy of it, which I found to be very -- so I remember going into the Pentagon and -- somebody took – [broken/mangled sentence]

“The emergence of a peaceful Iraq will transform the region in a positive way, that will make it more likely that the world is peaceful.” [“That” instead of “which”]

And that we're constantly talking about that message and encouraging people to participate. [Not a sentence]

I think what need to happen is he needs to be brought to justice. [need vs. needs; missing “that”; “I think what needs to happen is that he needs…”]

It's in this country's interest that Afghanistan emerge as a peaceful country. [subject-verb agreement; “that Afghanistan emerges…”]

There's a lot of areas where we do work together. [Subj-verb agreement; “There are a lot of areas…”]

And I'm confident people aren't going to agree with every decision I make. [missing “that”; “I’m confident that people…”]

The strategy that I've outlined in order to do my solemn duty -- and my duty is not only to keep the country more secure, but more prosperous and a better country, as well. [not a sentence]

And then of course, there was the tax relief -- a stimulus package which was necessary to make sure that we had ample revenues coming into the Treasury in the first place. [that vs which; “a stimulus package that was necessary…]

See, without the tax relief package, there would have been a deficit, but there wouldn't have been the commiserate -- not "commiserate" -- the kick to our economy that occurred as a result of the tax relief. [inappropriate word used; meant to say “commensurate”, not “commiserate”]

When you say there's over 60 nations involved in Iraq, that means that there's international support in Iraq. [subj-verb agreement (there is/ there are); missing “that”, “”say that there’s…”]

Well, first of all, I have constantly said that we need to have a immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee. [“a” vs “an”]

Make sure everybody -- let's all start from the same basis, if you don't mind. [broken/mangled sentence]

To answer your question, we're -- the Defense Department will try to learn more from Saddam Hussein as time goes on. [broken/mangled sentence]

And that's -- I do believe that there are going to be some people who are persuaded that since Saddam Hussein has been captured, that he will never return, and therefore, they need to be a part of the emergence of a free Iraq and a free society, and that there -- and it's going to be very important for the Iraqi authorities to reach out to those people and talk about a system that guarantees minority rights, and a system which says that for some the future is bright. [broken/mangled sentence]

He's going to come back up and brief Condi and me in a little bit of time. [Condi and I? Condi and myself?]

And as well, it's very important for them to listen to those voices in their country who are demanding freedom. [who vs that; “listen to those voices in their country that are demanding freedom”]

I mean, I don't know the details which caused him to recuse himself. [that vs which; “the details that caused him to recuse himself”]

…we appreciate the fact the Iranian government is willing to allow our humanitarian aid flights into their country. [missing “that”; “the fact that the Iranian government”]

So that's one of my resolutions, which may require eating less desserts, kind of getting a little trimmer, to take the pressure off the knee. [“less dessert” or “fewer desserts”]

Democratic NH Debate: Finally, for the record, and for comparison to the abysmal performance shown by Bush, I’m posting the results of the last Democratic debate, held prior to the NJ primary. One thing that really jumps out at me is the poor performance of Dennis Kucinich; his answers to questions were too complex (high grade equivalent and low readability). Kerry tended to be more long-winded (confirming the knock that’s currently made on him), whereas Dean and Clark were almost at the same level as Bush in terms of language complexity, but none of the Dem candidates scored lower than Bush.

language useage index scores

Name Reading Ease

Kucinich 56.3%

Sharpton 64.2%

Kerry 64.8%

Edwards 66.3%

Lieberman 69.7%

Dean 71.1%

Clark 71.9%

Bush 71.9%

language useage index scores
Name	Reading Ease
Kucinich	56.3%
Sharpton	64.2%
Kerry	64.8%
Edwards	66.3%
Lieberman	69.7%
Dean	71.1%
Clark	71.9%
Bush	71.9%

language useage index scores

Name Grade Level

Kucinich 10.4

Sharpton 9.2

Kerry 8.5

Edwards 8.3

Lieberman 7.4

Dean 6.7

Clark 6.7

Bush 6.6

language useage index scores
Name	Grade Level
Kucinich	10.4
Sharpton	9.2
Kerry	8.5
Edwards	8.3
Lieberman	7.4
Dean	6.7
Clark	6.7
Bush	6.6

Kucinich also had many more grammatical errors than his Dem opponents (see below). On this last factor, at least, he’s really into George Bush territory. The other thing that should be noticed is the high performance of the remaining candidates on grammaticality of speech. Dean, Clark and Lieberman had perfect scores for grammaticality, with Kerry and Edwards not far behind. Bush trails all Dems, including Kucinich. In fact, once you exclude Kucinich, if you averaged the grammatical errors committed by all of the six remaining Democratic contenders (yes, even including Al Sharpton), their mean BRI-2 score of .0078 is less than 1/12 that shown by George Bush (see above). And if you limit it to only those four Democratic candidates who have a reasonable chance of winning the nomination (Dean, Kerry, Clark, Edwards), their average grammar score was .005. In other words, in unscripted performance answering questions from reporters, Bush made nearly 20 times as many grammatical errors as the people whom he’s likely to face in the upcoming election.

language useage index scores

Name BRI-2

Dean .000

Clark .000

Lieberman .000

Kerry .008

Edwards .013

Sharpton .026

Kucinich .085

Bush .092

language useage index scores
Name	BRI-2
Dean	.000
Clark	.000
Lieberman	.000
Kerry	.008
Edwards	.013
Sharpton	.026
Kucinich	.085
Bush	.092

2004-01-21T15:00:00.000-06:00

Pre-Emptive Action Against Republican Gay-Bashing: A Modest Proposal

"A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization."

"Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage."

So said G.W. Bush in his State of the Union speech last night. It has been expected that Bush would try to make the issue of gay marriage work to his advantage somehow during his reelection campaign. Recent announcements, as well as his speech last night, make it clear that this is going to be done in two ways.

One approach is going to be the $1.5 billion dollar “Healthy Marriages Initiative”. This initiative actually serves two purposes. First, it is aimed at low-income couple, and will provide training to help them develop interpersonal skills that sustain healthy marriages. A form of blackmail, it effectively requires that those dependent on certain forms of Government assistance be legally married, since they are only eligible for it if they are in fact married. There may be rational reasons for wanting low-income couples to be married (e.g., poverty rates for single- versus multiple-parent families), and “semi-coercive” measures like this are nothing new, having been enacted in one form or another since the welfare reforms of the mid 90’s. Bush’s proposal more than doubles the amount of money available for these types of programs from around $700 million to the stated proposed amount of $1.5 billion.

The second purpose served by these programs becomes clear. Surely Rove and company must know, and expect, that inevitably in an election year the issue will arise of how to deal with gay marriages. Are gay couples to be eligible for the same types of benefits, especially if they have a marriage that is recognized by their State? Now, statistically speaking, the number of low-income, gay couples who are married is likely to be miniscule (even moreso if children are involved). There may in fact be no one this policy actually applies to in the entire country at the present time. But if the issue gets raised by gay-rights activists looking for some type of equity and equal treatment, Bush gets to tout the sanctity of traditional marriage. This potentially wins support among conservative Democrats who are uncomfortable with the idea of gay marriage, and puts Democrat candidates into a bind. If they support the status quo (meaning that gay couples are not eligible for the programs, even in States that recognize their marriage), they lose support from gays and sympathizers. If they challenge the status quo and publicly advocate making gay couple eligible for these types of programs, they lose the support of conservatives who might otherwise be tempted to vote for a Democratic candidate in the fall.

The second way in which the “gay-card” will be played by Republicans is more overt, and will come in the form of proposals to amend the constitution in such a way that gay marriage will become illegal. Bush as much as called for such a measure in last night’s SOTU, and we can expect events such as this to occur with increasing regularity over the course of the year. In fact, we can expect that Bush will beat this issue to death, since it may be effective for the same reasons just stated; Democrat candidates will be put on the defensive and will lose no matter which side they argue. It also has the fringe benefit of motivating the conservative base.

The question thus becomes how best to counter such tactics. The thing to keep in mind is that tactics like this aren’t used by Republicans because they are necessarily driven by an antipathy towards gays. Many of them might be, but that is not the primary motivation. Rather, it is simply politics. Republicans believe that this is a winning issue for them, and they’ll dangle the proposition of a constitutional amendment against gays in front of the more rapid zealots, and stoke the fires of fear in socially conservative moderates. But more likely than not, this issue will be immediately dropped after the election. It’s a way to win, not a crusade.

What I propose is a variation of the Barney Frank rule. Recall that back in 1987, Republican’s under Newt Gingrich initiated an infamous whisper campaign implying that Tom Foley was gay. Things got so out of hand that the openly gay Frank threatened to retaliate by publicly naming a number of closeted House Republican members. The rumors quickly stopped. The Frank rule says basically that “outing” of a closeted individual is acceptable only when the person in question is using a position of power and influence to engage in gay-bashing as a matter of politics or policy.

Using gay-marriage as a wedge issue in order to win an election certainly qualifies as such an instance in my opinion. Accordingly, I’ll propose the following for discussion and consideration. If Republicans persist in pushing proposals that can only be interpreted as thinly-veiled forms of gay-bashing in order to win votes, should Democrats or anyone with insider knowledge threaten to “out” prominent closeted Republicans? Would this be effective, and would it be acceptable?

Regarding the issue of effectiveness, it’s already proven that it will work, as was shown by Barney Franks in 1987. Of course, one shouldn’t assume that Republicans don’t mean what they say. If they talk about constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, they may actually end up doing it eventually. All the more reason to stop them. If they are driven by fanaticism and principle, threatening a few Republicans with “outing” won’t matter to the Bush administration, and will not likely prevent them from pushing the issue of gay marriage. But if these “trial balloons” are merely a cynical way off manipulating public opinion in order to win an election (which I think is the case), I predict that this issue would very quickly be dropped by the Bush team when they are faced with threats of retaliation against closeted Republicans. At some point, someone will come to Bush and tell him that they’ve got 5 Senators and two dozen members of congress who are, to put it nicely, “unhappy” with the situation.

As far as fairness goes, again I see nothing wrong with exposing the hypocrisy of closeted Republican lawmakers who benefit from public campaigns that would seek to deprive other gays of their rights. When Republicans win elections, they win power, closeted or not. If there are Republican individuals in positions of power, then they should be “outed” if they support these types of policies, especially when a clear intent of proposing the measures to begin with is to win political power in the first place.

Should this type of tactic apply to anyone other than directly responsible individuals? For example, should staffers, family or associates be targeted as well? I’d say not, since they aren’t the ones engaging in rank hypocrisy. But elected officials should be fair game, it seems to me. So I’ll throw it out there. What do you think?

2004-01-16T13:20:00.000-06:00

Latest News on Austin PP Boycott I’ve been deliberately trying to steer away from this issue because, frankly, the less that I have to do with some of the nitwits involved in this boycott the better. But I came across a couple of items today on the Houston Coalition for Life message board that are worth mentioning. First, it seems that some limited construction has started once again on the new PP clinic. According to a post from Chris Danze, a portable building has been set up on the construction site, and several work trucks were on site Tuesday (none with logos, names or markings). Work appeared to be focused on underground electric. Second, the boycotters also asked for boycott supporters to call and put pressure on Ramon Carrasquillo, the owner of Rainbow Concrete Supply Company in Austin. According to the letter Danze wrote,

Rainbow Concrete Company until now has refused to supply concrete to the project. But now Mr. Carrasquillo is under TREMENDOUS pressure to give in and provide the concrete. The forces of darkness are bearing down with all their might to crush Mr. Carrasquillo and his company if he does not supply the concrete. The pro-abortion forces in Austin are pulling out all the stops to get their way. Mr. Carrasquillo needs our prayers and support now. This is time critical. His address is: Ramon Carrasquillo 5712 Hero Drive Austin, TX 78735 phone: 512-385-7676 (press the star key on your phone to leave a message.)

Here’s some more background information, from the main Coalition for Life site run by David Bereit:

Chris [danze] reports that the abortion forces have targeted Ramon Carrasquillo, owner of Rainbow Materials, who was cited in 2001 by the City of Austin and the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission for numerous environmental violations because of concrete dumping in and near the Colorado River. The owner is still facing the possibility of massive fines and possible jail time. But, as Danze said, "The case has still not been settled. This ominous 'cloud' has been hanging over Mr. Carrasquillo as he has worked to get required cleanup permits and actually do the cleanup while trying to satisfy the legal authorities. But now he may be off the hook. Mr. Carrasquillo has been told that if he will 'give the concrete' to the Planned Parenthood project these problems 'will go away'."

I have know way to know if there is any truth to this allegation by Bereit. But I was rather bemused by the rest of his post here”

Does this sound like bribery, extortion, or what? It seems that the abortion industry will stop at nothing to impose its harmful agenda. Efforts are already underway to investigate whether illegal actions have taken place. It appears that some city officials in Austin are willing to pander to Planned Parenthood and set aside the responsibility to protect the environment and enforce the laws of the people of Austin to get concrete for a privately owned abortion business.

My quess is that nothing illegal has occurred. I think we can assume, considering the state of politics in Texas these days, that the AG would be looking into this situation real fast if these allegations had any merit at all. Otherwise there’d be no need for the anti-choicers to pressure Mr. Carrasquillo, who presumably could simply notify the AG or the media about his plight at the hands of nefarious government officials. Something tells me that David Berewit could get through to the "appropriate authorities" if he really needed to. The fact that they haven't tells me there's nothing there. In any event, it’s a bit ironic to see Bereit and his ilk making accusations of bribery and extortion, when that is what the entire Austin boycott is based on. If you oppose the Austin PP boycott I strongly urge you to consider contacting Mr. Carrasquillo using the information posted above, making it clear to him how much community support there is for this facility, and that his efforts in assisting the construction will not be forgotten by those who believe in choice. And while you’re at it, give Danze himself a call and let him know how you feel about him and the boycott. As previously posted on his site, here is the contact info:

Home Tel.: (512) 306-1326 Maldonado & Danze Inc Business Tel.: (512) 837-9677 email: mdinctim@austin.rr.com

Also in local PP news, Texas anti-choicers are trying to actively recruit spies to infiltrate PP clinics in the state. It’s all because of a recently enacted law called the Woman's Right to Know Act (HB15), which became effective January 1st. The new law requires that women considering abortion be given “factual information” about the risks of abortion, their alternatives, and accurate full-color pictures of fetal development. Women are then forced to endure a 24-hour waiting period. They also must provide proof of identity and age. As the Coalition for Life site puts it,

Since Planned Parenthood has previously demonstrated a willingness to violate other laws that hamper their lucrative abortion business, the Coalition for Life will be conducting research to ensure that area Planned Parenthood abortion facilities comply with this new law or face stiff financial penalties. If you or someone you know are interested in helping with the research, please e-mail us at: xxxxxx

So two things: if there is anyone reading this who’s somehow involved in family planning/PP activities in Texas, be on the lookout for spies who are trying to obtain evidence that these draconian and intrusive laws are not being followed to the letter. On the other hand, if you yourself want to infiltrate the Coalition for Life to obtain information on what they are instructing their operatives to do, contact information for them can be found at at this website.

2004-01-15T12:26:00.000-06:00

~~Toby Keith~~ Aaron Sain Jumpstarts a Career Another nobody from the world of country music is attempting to jumpstart a musical career using a bit of opportunistic flag waving. You’ll recall that last year Toby Keith was able to parlay his song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” into C&W stardom, after struggling for years as a fry cook and male prostitute. [OK, he had previously had a few albums and some hits, but nothing comparing to the success he achieved with this jingoistic bit of crap. And while I can’t vouch for the fry cook and male prostitute sidelines, he must have been supporting himself somehow, since music certainly wasn’t doing it for him]. Meet America’s next stupid thing, Aaron Sain. If you’ve never heard of him, join the club. He is a producer/musician based in Nashville, who appears to be making a move to be this year’s Toby Keith. As I learned from Free Republic, he’s recorded a song called “Hey, Hollywood”. It’s meant to be “response to leftist attacks” from Hollywood liberals/entertainment types who have been denigrating America (or G.W. Bush; the two appear to be interchangeable to some people) through their nefarious causes and public comments. Just as Toby Keith went from has-been to super-star by jumping on the jingoism bandwagon, Aaron Sain is trying to make a name for himself by doing a bit of liberal-bashing.

A member of the conservative group RightMarch.com has recorded a new country song responding to the leftist attacks against President George W. Bush and America coming from country music artists such as the Dixie Chicks and Willie Nelson as well as liberal Hollywood actors. "Country music fans -- like so many of us -- are proud Americans, and don't take kindly to people taking unfair potshots at our Commander-In-Chief when our country is at war," RightMarch.com said in an e-mail to supporters on Monday. "That goes for anyone, from country 'stars' to Hollywood 'stars' -- it's a free country, and you're free to speak your mind, but that doesn't mean Americans have to listen to that drivel." The group points to country music legend Willie Nelson's latest "protest song" against Operation Iraqi Freedom and Bush as an example of the ongoing attacks from the left. …The lyrics to Nelson's song entitled "What Ever Happened to Peace on Earth?" ask "how much oil is one human life worth?" and "how much is a liar's word worth?" "Enough is enough," RightMarch.com proclaims in the e-mail. "Willie's obviously been hangin' around with his Hollywood crowd too much lately -- but we've got a way to help bring back the TRUTH, and we're gonna use country music to do it, y'all." RightMarch.com revealed in the e-mail that one of its members named Aaron Sain has a band named The Right Brothers and has written and recorded a song rebuking liberal actors called "Hey Hollywood." This single is not available in stores, but can be downloaded for free in various formats. "This is a fun way to fight back against the lies of the radical left, while also arming ourselves with the truth," RightMarch.com contends in the e-mail. RightMarch.com says they hope to "fight back against the lies of the loony left coming from Hollywood, the liberal media and groups like MoveOn.org."

Here are the lyrics to this bit of drivel:

"Hey Hollywood" by The Right Brothers Well I heard some movie stars talking on TV Said they were being a voice for you and me Saying things like "no blood for oil" and "not in our name" And just like the roar of an F-16, I heard this country say Hey Hollywood, we hear your message and it don't sound good Your just running this country down with our troops overseas Hey Hollywood, take a look around if you would And if you don't love this land you're free to leave. Now don't get me wrong I know you got a right To say what you want and never apologize You can protest all day and shout what you believe But the rest of America has the right to kindly disagree Hey Hollywood, we hear your message and it don't sound good Your just running this country down with our troops overseas Hey Hollywood, take a look around if you would And if you don't love this land you're free to leave. I'll even help you pack your bags if you want, if you wanna leave. Hey Hollywood, stop running this country down. Hey Hollywood.

Well it’s not exactly in the same league as “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” (or “Iraq and I Roll” by Clint Black), for that matter, but it’s an admirable effort. Not surprisingly, the idiots who wrote this song, as well as those who have been praising it, don’t note the irony of the lyrics which in one breath can state that ”I know you got a right to say what you want and never apologize. You can protest all day and shout what you believe.”, but in the next one say ”And if you don't love this land you're free to leave; I'll even help you pack your bags if you want, if you wanna leave.. I guess one shouldn’t expect intellectual consistency from idiots. Who is Aaron Sain? As I said, he’s a music producer/musician based in Nashville. Among some of the stars he’s had a hand in producing are the Backstreet Boys; someone named Josh, who apparently has been wowing the crowds at shopping malls in upstate New York; Plus One, a Christian boy band; and purported teen sensation Kaci Cassidy. Here are the lyrics to one of Kaci’s songs, cowritten by Aaron Sain:

Intervention Divine (written by: Jeff Boyett/Kelly Shiver/Aaron Sain) Sarah's screaming,another daddy's leaving How can that much hurt be justified Frankie's a dealer his nickname is "The Healer" He makes a living helping people die Babies making babies,people going crazy Andy's new best friend's a 45 Circle us with angels,walk us through the danger Give us light to get us through the valley full of shadows and Deliver us from evil,we are only people You know we can't make it on our own O.Lord,we need intervention divine Michael is surfin',revenge at school is certain He's clicking www.bomb Street gang invasion,we've become a dead-bolt nation Security and innocence are gone We're still discriminating, we're angry and we're hating We're living in a modern babylon From America to Asia, Europe to Australia We're on our knees, Lord hear your children cry Repeat Chorus

Yikes! Maybe it’s just me but this song seems just a tad depressing. With this kind of product on his resume, it’s no wonder Sain was looking to try another approach, one that has already proven to be successful in transforming talentless hacks into successful megastars. I’ll be watching with bated breath to see how this latest contribution to America’s cultural legacy fares.

2004-01-13T16:49:00.000-06:00

Cats, Dogs and Potatoes Another ‘NASCAR dad’ for Bush? David Albury, of Eland, Florida, is convinced that his cat is a living, meowing tribute to deceased NASCAR racer Dale Earnhardt.

David Albury was at home recuperating from surgery several months ago when he noticed the black fur on his cat's back was shaped in the number "3." The fur screamed "Dale Earnhardt" to Albury. He told his wife of 30 years, "Valerie, we're rich." Albury, a NASCAR fan who regularly watches the races on television, called up the Daytona International Speedway to see if officials there were interested. The Speedway officials suggested he call Dale Earnhardt Inc. based in North Carolina. He hasn't gotten a reply. [Ed. No fucking kidding] Earnhardt died in 2001 during a crash in the Daytona 500. The legendary driver's car bore the number 3. …This isn't the first animal born in Florida bearing the number 3 since Earnhardt's death. In 2002, a brown Nubian goat was born in north Florida that had a white "3" on its side. It was promptly named Lil' Dale and several Earnhardt fan's went to its farm to see it.

Here’s the goat in question. Not exactly Mother Theresa in a bagel, but good enough for white trash, I guess. Unfortunately there’s no picture provided of the cat. The whole thing reminds me of that Bloom County strip about the potato chip that looked like Elvis. I came across the following email concerning said goat from an interested fan. A mister Ernest Peeper (yes, that’s his real name) of Miami said “I have a couple down at my house from Ohio and they would like to go see the goat but we are having problems finding out where the farm is at. Could you or anyone help us find the directions to this farm. Yor help would be gretly appreciated. [Ed. Typos as in the original] Apparently, NASCAR fans visiting the goat were known to be moved to tears. Anyhoo, while attempting to Google the term ‘Earnhardt & cat’, I came across some really weird crap. Like this Dale Earnhardt Puppy Dog & Cat bed, and these cat collars, for both Dale Earnhardt Jr. andsenior, In other animal news, In Canada, a dead golden retriever named Gregg has mysteriously ended up on the federal Liberal party membership list, entitling the pooch to a Christmas card from Prime Minister Paul Martin and invitations to party functions. No word yet on whether he is eligible for a Senate appointment.

The Christmas card from Paul Martin came two years ago as did invitations to at least three Liberal party functions in the Victoria area, including one nomination meeting, said the dead dog's 81-year-old owner. The Liberal party cards and letters were addressed to Gregg Buchanan, but the only Gregg who ever lived at that address was a dog who died five years ago, the dog's confused owner said. "At the time I was baffled by the whole thing," said the man who didn't want to be identified. "I just thought they made a mistake somewhere." The dog received two invitations from B.C.'s Young Liberals to attend meetings at the University of Victoria, he said. The man said he is not a member of any political party. He said he decided to make his dog's political status public after speculation about Liberal party memberships began swirling after recent raids on the offices of two provincial Liberal ministerial aides. Liberal party officials in Vancouver could not be reached for comment about the dog.

This type of thing could explain at last how Mr. Martin managed to become Prime Minister. Finally, this last story is just weird.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police are investigating after an angry man returned a computer he had just bought saying it was packed with small potatoes instead of computer parts. The store replaced the computer free of charge but became suspicious when he returned a short time later with another potato-filled computer casing, police in the western city of Kaiserslautern said Monday. "The second time he said he didn't need a computer any more and asked for his money back in cash," a police spokesman said. Police are now investigating the man for fraud.

2004-01-12T15:08:00.000-06:00

Treasury To Probe O’Neill Well that didn’t take long. Less than 24 hours after Paul O’Neill appeared on ’60 Minutes’ with his criticism of the Bush administration, the Treasury department has announced that it’s seeking an investigation of his use of some supposedly classified documents in the interview. Seems like a rather ham-handed payback attempt. As O’Neill himself has remarked, there’s not much they can do to him; he’s old, and rich. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t try to bring him down.

2004-01-09T14:18:00.000-06:00

Friday’s Weird News Posting’s been extremely light lately due to the holidays, a recurring flu-like illness, and a return to work. All I can manage today is this week’s installment of weird news stories… A couple in China have tried to save money by sending their twin sons to school on alternate days.

For six months, teachers and classmates at the school in western China thought the two boys were the same pupil until the ruse was discovered. The parents said afterwards they came up with the idea to save "unnecessary expenditure", according to local newspapers. They would send one boy to school on even-numbered days of the week and the other on odd-numbered days. The boys were attending preschool classes for four and five year-olds at a primary school in Chongqing.

Three poachers in Poland are facing charges after forcing a giant pike to drink champagne. Insert your own Polish joke here…

Three Polish poachers are facing animal cruelty charges for forcing a giant pike to drink champagne. Two of them were spotted holding the freshly caught fish while the third drunkenly tried to pour the contents of the bottle into its mouth. Prosecutors claim the men deliberately poured the champagne down the fish's throat to kill it so they could take it home and eat it. But the men, who were not named, claimed they spotted the giant fish in difficulty at the side of the lake and had hoped the champagne might give it a new lease of life. Polish media quoted one of the men as saying: "The poor thing was on it's last legs, we wanted to warm it up so it could enjoy the New Year."

Two Toronto schoolgirls have been expelled after charging boys to watch them kiss each other.

Two Grade 7 girls were "encouraged" to leave their school after they were caught charging money for a public kissing session in the school cafeteria. The 12-year-olds charged boys $5 to watch the lunch-hour show late last year. The father of one of the girls said his daughter was basically expelled for her actions. "She was thrown out of school," the unidentified man said after calling a CJAD phone-in show. "She wasn't allowed back to school. She was told she had to go to a different school." The man said the girl's parents agreed to get counselling for their daughter. The students apparently got the idea for the kiss after watching Britney Spears and Madonna kiss during last year's MTV awards.

Remember, that’s $5 Canadian, which at around $3.50 U.S. is a pretty good deal when you’re a horny 13 year-old boy. Finally, a man in Croatia blew up his car while trying to defrost it. It seems he attempted to do this by lighting a fire under the engine. Insert your own Croatian joke here…

A Croatian man blew up his frozen car after trying to warm it by lighting a fire under the engine. Zlatko Grden, 52, lit some old newspapers under the engine of his Opel Kadett after it failed to start in freezing temperatures. He told local media: "I couldn't start the engine and realised it was frozen. I decided to warm it up. Maybe I used too much paper." Grden, of Donja Stubica near the Croatian capital Zagreb, added: "My lovely car is now destroyed."

2003-12-29T15:19:00.000-06:00

More Terrorism Idiocy According to an article appearing on AP on Monday, people carrying almanacs now are considered potential terrorists.

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning. In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs "to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning." It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways. "The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning," the FBI wrote.

When the FBI starts issuing bulletins like this one, it really makes me wonder whether the people charged with managing the so-called “war on terror” have any active brain cells at all. There are so many potential uses for almanacs that a blanket alert such as this can serve no useful purpose. How many millions of almanacs are sold in the U.S. each year? And is the information provided in almanacs really that useful to potential terrorists? I mean, I realize that the “Farmer’s Almanac” includes lists of the “best days” to engage in various types of activities. For example, according to the “Farmer’s Almanac”, December 1, 2, 17, 18, 21, 22, and 25-29 are the best days to cut your hair, and December 1, 2, and 21-29 are the best days to castrate farm animals. But to my knowledge, the Almanac includes no categories such as “the best day to carry out a suicide bombing”. Does everyone who happens to carry an almanac around in their car, or have one in their home, now have to worry about being harassed by overzealous law enforcement agents? More importantly, does this kind of an alert actually do anything concrete to make anyone safer from potential acts of terrorism?

2003-12-19T15:20:00.000-06:00

Heartwarming Stories of the Week From Ananova.com, here are this week’s most heartwarming stories: An incapacitated 86-year old lady is recovering after being chewed on by her cats for a week.

A Californian stroke victim is recovering in hospital after being chewed on by her cats. Mae Lowrie, from Panorama City, was found lying on the floor of her apartment after the alarm was raised by concerned neighbours. The 86-year-old may have been incapacitated for a week, and it's possible the animals bit into her because they were starving. Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said the woman had bites on her hands and feet. Her small, sick terrier also had been attacked. It's believed she had seven cats, reports the Los Angeles Times. Neighbours said Lowrie had lived alone for about 20 years. They became worried about her after noticing that she hadn't picked up a bag of goods on her doorstep for a number of days.

In Osaka, Japan, a man’s dead body lingered on a busy street corner for two months in one of the busiest areas of the city.

Police in Japan say a man's dead body was ignored by crowds on a busy street corner for two months. The body was found in front of a popular department store in the crowded downtown area of Osaka, Japan's second-largest city. It is believed to be that of a homeless man in his late 60s or early 70s and was only removed after a taxi driver finally alerted authorities. A police spokesman said it was partially decomposed by the time authorities collected it earlier this month. The corner is among the busiest in the city, with about a million people passing through the area each day. The spokesman said the cause of death had not been determined, but foul play was not suspected.

And finally, the commander of a U.S. military base near Southampton, U.K. has a unique way of instilling the holiday spirit in his troops.

The commander of a US base near Southampton has warned staff they face disciplinary action if they miss their Christmas party. Commander Raymond Langlais wrote to the 200-strong workforce, all but three of whom are British, saying they'll lose pay if they miss the party tonight. ….In a memo to staff, he wrote: "If you feel like I am trying to force FUN upon you, then you are correct." He added: "Let me make it clear that every employee's duty on December 19 is the Base Christmas Party. All employees not on approved leave will participate in the party." He said those who didn't attend "will be considered absent, will receive no pay and are subject to disciplinary measures", reports the Daily Telegraph.

2003-12-17T16:03:00.000-06:00
Texas Republicans Versus The ADA In the world of conservative Republicans, it often seems as if the “golden rule” that they follow is not, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, but “Do as we say, not as we do”. The latest installment of this sordid legacy of hypocrisy has just been brought to my attention by a helpful friend who sent me an email about this story. Apparently, Texas Attorney general Greg Abbott is suing to allow the State government to be exempted from Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to a story in the Austin American Statesman, Abbott is trying to have the ADA provision requiring State entities adhere to Title II declared unconstitutional.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott wants the courts to strike down a 1990 federal law that requires public buildings to be accessible to people with disabilities. Abbott's staff of state lawyers is fighting the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying the section of the law that prohibits public entities from discriminating against people with disabilities, Title II, is unconstitutional. The case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by two advocacy groups over waiting lists for services but could ultimately affect other areas, including government services and the requirement that public buildings be accessible. Ted Cruz, solicitor general for the attorney general's office, said Abbott is trying to protect the state's interests and limited economic resources. Abbott's office is not challenging the part of the act that bars discrimination by private entities. "Our argument is that Congress lacks the authority to dictate how states operate," Cruz said. "The attorney general has a constitutional duty to defend the State of Texas. That's the oath General Abbott took." …The disabilities act provides comprehensive civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities in the areas of employment, public accommodations, government services and tele- communications. …Texas' debate began in September 2002, when Arc of Texas and Advocacy Inc. filed a class action against the state. Their complaint: Texas did not provide community-based services to enough people with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. More than 25,000 people have been waiting years for services such as respite, rehabilitation and group home care. "We're talking about basic needs," said Mike Bright, executive director of the Arc of Texas. In their lawsuit, the groups ask that the state be forced to expand services for disabled people. No one knows how much that will cost. "That's the $64,000 question," said Garth Corbett, lawyer for Advocacy Inc. Although the case specifically targets the waiting lists, the attorney general's defense -- that Title II is unconstitutional -- could leave disabled Texans in the hands of state law, which advocates say offers narrower protections than the federal disabilities act and which does not allow individuals to sue over violations of the act.
Abbott himself is confined to a wheelchair, but check out these passages from later in the same article:
…In 1995, Abbott lauded the act after the Civil Rights Project settled a lawsuit to make the Texas Supreme Court Building accessible to disabled people. After Abbott's appointment [to the Supreme Court] the building was renovated. "It is kind of ironic that the Supreme Court Building, the gatekeeper of the law, had to be sued," Abbott told the Austin American-Statesman at that time. "Unfortunately, there are occasions where you do have recalcitrant business owners or entities that do not understand the requirements of the ADA, or, even worse, who do understand the requirements of the ADA and refuse to comply despite attempts at negotiations. And in those circumstances, a lawsuit is certainly warranted." In 1996, commenting on a Civil Rights Project report that showed that many Texas courthouses were not accessible, Abbott told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that it was "appalling but not surprising." In July 1999, Abbott suggested that the Civil Rights Project file suit after he could not gain access to a Houston hotel, Harrington said. Abbott's spokeswoman, Angela Hale, says the two scenarios are totally different.
As should be noted in the story, the original lawsuits that prompted this decision by the AG this aren’t a case of advocates for the disabled trying to get wheelchair ramps installed in public buildings. Such access is pretty much the norm now. Rather, the case stems from the fact that access to special services for the disabled in Texas suffer from obscenely long waiting lists. If you have a child with severe mental retardation, autism, or some other problem, for example, possibly one with severe behavioral management issues, you have a waiting list of maybe 5 or 6 years to get into a group home or facility where appropriate care and treatment might be available. Solving this problem is not going to be easy, nor will it be cheap. So rather than spend the money necessary, the AG’s office is arguing that Title II should not apply to state governments, and that they, but not private entities, should be exempt from it. Note especially in the article Abbott’s earlier quotes when it came to lawsuits that directly affected him. First, when the Texas Supreme Court building was forced to provide access ramps, conveniently just before he joined the court, and later when he could not get access to a Houston hotel. In itself, this would be a rather hypocritical and self-serving strategy on the part of Abbott and his ilk, but the background on Abbott shows what utter sleazebags these guys are. Abbott has been described by one commentator as a corporate judicial hack and tort-tycoon-hypocrite, which is a fairly accurate analysis. Abbott uses a wheelchair because a tree fell on him when he was jogging as a young man. Subsequent to the accident, he sued the tree’s owner and a company that had inspected it. He obtained a tax-free settlement that made him a millionaire, and may eventually receive as much as $10.3 million. The irony of this is that later in life, when Abbott was running for Attorney General, he based his campaign in large part on a platform of criticizing greedy trial lawyers, and advocating limits on court awards in some civil damage cases. While accusing his opponent for AG of raking in millions in medical malpractice suits and of abusing the system, Abbott said at the time that his own case was a “justified claim.” During his run for AG, Abbott had to deal with questions concerning his previous work with the law firm Bracewell & Patterson, which had earned hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for Enron, just then in the throes of bankruptcy. Abbott also had to return $12,600 Enron-related contributions he had received for his earlier Supreme Court races. (see also here). His Supreme Court campaigns were directed by none other than Karl Rove. Abbott was also in the news earlier this year during the months long struggle over redistricting. When Department of Public Safety was sued to prevent it from destroying documents concerning the pursuit of absent Democratic Senators, Abbott was criticized for being more interested in finding the whistle blower than in preventing the document’s destruction. He also tried to block legal depositions from three DPS officers and a Texas Ranger. So, the lessons are; it’s OK for Republicans to gain millions in civil suits after they are injured, but it's not OK for others to do the same. It’s OK for disabled people to sue the State as long as Republican Judges stand to gain, but it’s not OK for ‘ordinary’ disabled people to sue the State when they are being discriminated against.

2003-12-10T10:53:00.000-06:00
Parody or Travesty? You decide Tbogg, for those of you who haven’t yet visited his site, is a veritable cornucopia of humor and general snarkiness, most if not all with a leftish flavor. Today the site features a link to this site to Objective: Christian Ministries. The site leaves Tbogg “…speechless. And amused. And appalled”. That pretty much summed it up for me, too. However, there’s a bit of a mystery involved, namely whether the site is real or not. First the details. Among the highlights of the “Objective: Christian Ministries” site are this suggestion for children, on “how to treat an athiest”.
If you find an Atheist in your neighborhood, TELL A PARENT OR PASTOR RIGHT AWAY! You may be moved to try and witness to these poor lost souls yourself, however AVOID TALKING TO THEM! Atheists are often very grumpy and bitter and will lash out at children or they may even try to trick you into neglecting God's Word. Very advanced witnessing techniques are needed for these grouches. Let the adults handle them.
There’s a lot more, also summarized by Tbogg, but it’s well worth checking out. Personally, I was more curious to find out about Lambuel’s friend Peggy, so I clicked on this, which took me to a page describing some of the people working in this particular ministry. Apparently they are a bit upset about something called “Americhrist Ltd.” (more about that later). The background of some of them is quite colorful.
Jim Carlson: Jim is the creator and maintainer of the OBJECTIVE: Landover Baptist Shutdown website, providing our movement with an Internet presence and witness portal for the unsaved Web surfers… Dr. Andrew Miller: The Pastor of Mt. Fellowship Baptist. …has the uncanny ability to inspire and empower his congregation with his fiery sermon stylings and preternatural exegesics. [Time for the thesaurus! “exegesis: n. explanation, especially of Bible.”] Timothy Allmon: Treasurer, … As an accountant, he has to deal daily with the soulless secular world and so he takes great pleasure in putting his knowledge of accountancy to use in the righteous cause of Our Lord. If you ever need your taxes filed, come see Tim. He gives a 5% discount for all Christians and 10% discount for non-Christians willing to convert on the spot.. Dr. Richard Paley: comes to our movement through his involvement in fighting other forms of anti-Christian hatecrimes. He has lead successful boycotts against Sears and Piggly-Wiggly… Dr. Troy Franklin: has built a career around researching the occult and its attempts to destroy Christianity. Considered one of the foremost in the new school of Baptist demon exorcism specialists, Dr. Franklin has battled Satan up close and personal on many occasions, yet he always manages to come through unscathed thanks to the power of Christ. "Diamond" Jack Holgroth: is a Game Theoretician. Jack … enjoys vexillology and can signal Bible passages from memory in fluent semaphore. Wendy Tullar: works as a Consumer Rehabilitator and Mall Missionary …; was personally responsible for the removal of cursing Sesame Street dolls from toy stores nationwide in 1998. Kyle Goldman: Kyle started out hating Christians. He listened to anti-Christian music, played violent video games, and created a website attacking various Christian organizations while praising the work of Chris Harper [see below]. Kyle was a troubled boy. However, this all changed when he found Jesus. Since then he has gotten himself cleaned up, has started listening to Christian rock, and is now a respectable looking young lad. His parents - being Jewish - were hesitant to accept his new found faith, but they do consider it better that Kyle is now following Jesus instead of Marilyn Manson… Fred “Skeet” Hoskins”: Fred is a valuable member of the Mt. Fellowship Baptist congregation as well as having his own youth ministry rock band: Zounds!. He was recently appointed Abstinence Czar by the Fellowship Baptist Convention. [From the Zounds! page: ”We offer Totally Radical Salvation for today's totally radical kids!”]
All of this is wonderfully amusing for those of us who delight in the bizarre excesses of some religious types. The site, including the personnel descriptions, almost reads as a parody of Christians. So good a parody, in fact, that it’s worth checking into exactly who this “Chris Harper” character is. Chris Harper is the person behind Landover Baptist Church, a rather elaborate parody of a Christian website. The attacks on Carter and Landover featured in the OCM site may be entirely serious, but it has occurred to a number of people out there that the OCM site itself may be a parody. See this site or this one or this one. This site in particular makes me lean towards deciding that OCM is itself, in fact, a parody. But a good, subtle one. I mean we’re really into Andy Kaufman territory here now. If OCM is a parody, you have to wonder whether it’s intended target is the Christians it objectively appears to be mock, or the non-Christians who assume that it’s over the top references actually represent the thoughts of real people. [I see that even Tbogg has acknowledged this possibility in his latest update]

2003-12-09T19:28:00.000-06:00
An Email From David Bereit In the aftermath of last week's events surrounding the pro-life rally in Houston I posted a couple of brief pieces, the main one of which summarized my thoughts on the evening. Since I am not in the habit of checking my email I only noticed after the weekend that I had subsequently received an email from David Bereit. I also received an anonymous one asking me if I wanted to get to know Paris Hilton. After much reflection on which one I should read first, I opted for the Bereit message. I have no immediate desire to start up a mutual correspondence with him, but I thought that his comments might be of interest to those of you out there who have been following my minor obsession with the ongoing events in Austin. I've posted it in it's entirety, not with the implication that I endorse or agree with anything included in the letter (except, of course, where it reflects well on myself), but simply to have a public record. I plan on ignoring it for at least a couple of days before deciding whether there's anything in it that I'd like to comment on myself, either to him directly or using this venue. Your comments and opinions on his piece are welcome.
Dear Gunther, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for the SECOND posting on your blog today... (OK, I have to be honest- I wasn't thrilled with the tone of the first one, but then I realized the time it was sent: 2 AM. I got home around that time last night as well, and would not want to think about what I would write at that late hour. I'll move on without further comment!) I really appreciate that you shared your feelings and thoughts openly and honestly in the second posting. To be frank, some of your comments were more charitable than I would have expected. Thank you for saying what you did about me as a speaker. I realize that the content of the talk differed from your personal views, and as such, I was humbled by your comments about my delivery. I also want to ask your forgiveness for one thing. I did not really plan to discuss you and your blog, so I did not measure my words as carefully as other parts of my presentation. As a result, when I made the "hypocritical" comment, it obviously came across to you differently than I would have wanted. I meant to communicate that it appeared like a double standard to me (and I am obviously biased), but I meant to separate that from you as a person. I did not in any way mean to insinuate that you were a hypocrite, though it is clear that my comments were interpreted that way by you. I hope that you will forgive me for those words. Also, we videotaped the entire event and plan to make it available to anyone who wants it. Please let me know if you would like a copy (free of charge) to quote directly from rather than paraphrasing. It will probably be available in a couple of weeks. Sorry that I didn't give the website address for your blog last night to help with traffic. Let me know if you ever want to come to another one of our events in the future, and maybe I'll get another opportunity to put in a plug for you! :) As a last thought, I wanted to respond to a recurring theme from your postings... Unfortunately, some people who are opposed to abortion have used tactics that I (and the Coalition for Life) do not in any way condone. As an organization, we have tried to use our small platform to encourage people to only respond to abortion through peaceful, and legal means. Any time there has been an act of violence or threat against an abortion facility or a person involved with abortion, we have publicly condemned it via press releases, e-mails to our listserv, and letters to the editor. (I would be happy to forward any of those along to you to read, if you wish.) We have also spoken out on numerous occasions in large public venues against some of the other troubling tactics described in your postings, encouraging people to instead choose "the high road." There are many accusations that abortion advocates have circulated about our organization and about me personally. Many of them have been false, others exaggerated or twisted. I recognize that that comes with the territory. But it also causes me to continue to evaluate myself and how I can do a better job at what I do so that their are no misunderstandings about our efforts or intents. Your postings have helped me to do just that, and I thank you for that. I realize that some people may disagree with what we stand for, but I want to do a better job at communicating what we will NOT stand for. Personally, I am a big fan of Martin Luther King, Jr. and have always been impressed that he didn't just identify an injustice, he took the next step to encourage people to only use nonviolent means to combat segregation, disparity in voting rights, etc. Unfortunately some people who became aware of the problems of that day opted to use hatred and violence. But King always preached that there was a better way. I feel very strongly that whenever I speak out about the abortion issue, I need to challenge pro-lifers to act with peace and prayer. I can't control everyone, but I can keep preaching the recurring theme that there is a better way, and hopefully people will listen. I'm not perfect, and I do make mistakes, but I will continue to work on doing even more to channel people's energies in a positive way. Gunther, you and I obviously differ on the issue of abortion, and I won't try to change your mind. But I again want to thank you for expressing your thoughts with clarity and passion, and for helping me to be a better person. Have a great weekend! David Bereit Executive Director

2003-12-09T09:49:00.000-06:00
Challenging Sauron Charles Kuffner has an interesting interview with a Houston area environmental lawyer named Richard Morrison, who is planning on challenging Tom Delay for his congressional seat next fall. The tentative run is contingent on the outcome of the legal challenge to the Texas redistricting plan; if the new districts are upheld, it is likely that one of the Democrats displaced by redistricting will challenge DeLay. But if the plan is rejected, or an injunction keeps it from being enforced until after next year’s election, Morrison plans on running. Morrison seems to be, at least at this stage, taking a smart course by challenging DeLay primarily on the basis of local issues. If he can get the message across that DeLay has abandoned the area he is supposed to be representing, and that he isn’t effectively serving the local community’s interests, there might be some hope for an upset. The traffic situation in particular, and Delay’s legendary opposition to light rail as an alternative to building more highways, has the potential of revealing some deep-seated grass-roots level dissatisfaction with the Dark Lord.

2003-12-08T13:12:00.000-06:00
Yikes This story got my attention this morning.
An autopsy has determined a Winnipeg disc jockey who disappeared more than a year ago crawled behind the wall of a city nightclub, got stuck and choked to death. But police say they have no idea how 21-year-old Eduardo Sanchez got behind the wall in the club's basement. His body was discovered late Wednesday after police acted on rumours of a suspicious odour.
A different article about the same story provides the following unappealing detail:
This week, police found the mummified body of Eduardo Sanchez entombed behind a wall in the basement of the popular nightclub, 14 months after he was last seen alive. Police were called back to the nightclub -- the last place Mr. Sanchez was seen alive -- when neighbours complained about a foul odour coming from the Village Cabaret. If not for a recent citywide ban on smoking in bars, investigators said, they might never have found the body. Neighbours of the club, in a trendy downtown Winnipeg neighbourhood, said they noticed the foul smell more than a year ago, but put it down to spilled beer and stale cigarette smoke.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think that if your bar is so dirty that the patrons can’t tell that there’s a rotting human carcass on the premises, it might be time for a cleanup.

2003-12-08T11:53:00.000-06:00
Is Texas Becoming Too Liberal? The Free Republic message boards are speaking up on the results of Saturday’s mayoral election in Houston. Democratic candidate Bill White defeated Orlando Sanchez by 62% to 38%. In between a lot of discussion about the relative impact of Sanchez’s Cuban heritage and the possible impact that may have had, there were a few comments such as these:
- First off, let's be clear on this.....Mayor-Elect Bill White is a "TRIAL ATTORNEY" (aka Ambulance Chaser) as well as the former Head Of the DemocRAT Party of Tejas (opps! Texas!). Hardly qualified to call himself a "businessman". - I had already made plans to move out of the state of Texas, but, now I am really happy to see that day grow close. The Houston area (as well as Austin) is being overtaken by SOCIALIST SCUM and I pity the poor slobs that decide to either stay her, or move here. All that I can suggest, is to (1) learn Spanish, and (2) lock your wallets and or valuables up nice and tight. - Sigh, another city to avoid travelling to. And that's too bad, I remember some great friends and good times in Houston.
Wow. It’s more than a little disconcerting that there are people out there who are ready to move out of Texas because they think it's not conservative enough. I guess having a Republican Governor, control of both state legislatures, two Republican senators, and a gerrymandered congressional delegation favoring Republicans just isn’t enough for some people. Might I suggest Mississippi? There’s no point living in a state that’s ranked 43rd in child poverty when you can live in one that’s ranked 50th!

2003-12-05T13:11:00.000-06:00
Houston Rally for Life: or, How I Almost Came to Believe in the Power of God Rule No. 1: Do not announce on your pseudonymous blog that you will be attending and videotaping a pro-life rally, and then proceed to show up and be the only person in the audience with a video camera. More on that later. Well, the big rally for life tour wound itself up in Houston yesterday evening, and yours truly was there as had been previously announced. There were no fireworks, unlike the case apparently in the Austin rally, where pro-choice protesters attempted to disrupt the proceedings. Seeing everyone I’d been reading about up-close and personal was certainly an interesting experience. It wasn’t quite the Nuremburg rally I had been expecting, but all the same it was an experience that I’d just as soon not repeat any time soon. The audience of about 140 had a fairly broad distribution of ages, and was split about 50:50 between men and women. There were lots of people with babies, including one couple with twins who I would say were about 6 months old (the babies, not the couple). The thing I noticed about them was that even though they were so young, they had stereotypical clothing on them. I mean, the full getup. Boy dressed entirely in blue, with a baseball cap on backwards, girl dressed entirely in pink with a big ribbon and some kind of a pom-pom on top of her head. Obviously the parents are trying to reinforce the respective gender roles right from the get go. There were a fair number of somewhat hip looking kids in attendance (“hip” for this particular audience being a decidedly relative term). Basically college age. I first thought that maybe (yes! yes!) they might be affiliated with some pro-choice activist group, and that perhaps I'd get to tape Chris Danze or Jim Sedlak getting pied in the face. Either that or they’d chain themselves to the podium and chant “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries!” until security hauled them away. That at least would have been entertaining. Sadly, they were all pro-lifers, and in fact were some of the most enthusiastic of those in attendance. The crowd was pretty much entirely white; before the event started I was starting to wonder whether I’d wandered into an ice hockey game by mistake. I saw one Asian woman and there were another couple of people who may have been Hispanic, but other than that it was pretty homogenous. The opening speaker was Jim Sedlak, of Stop Planned Parenting (STOPP) and the American Life League (ALL). He spent about 35 minutes attacking Planned Parenthood, but basically his speech was all about sex. Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex. And more sex. The gist of his diatribe was that PP is trying to replace religion and spirituality with secular humanism, which means that illicit sex and promiscuity are infesting society. This is against God’s law and must be stopped. There was the usual tripe about PP being a racist organization with a hidden agenda, but during his entire speech I swear I didn’t hear a single word about the sanctity of life. To listen to his talk, the entire rally could have been about protesting sex education in schools, not ending abortion. Chris Danze would later describe Sedlak as “Planned Parenthood’s worst nightmare”. Chris Danze spoke next. While he was obviously less practiced than Sedlak, who does this kind of thing for a living, Danze struck me as more effective because his speech seemed less practiced and more direct. He is not a flashy type, and it’s easy to see why he comes across as a straight shooter. He recounted a number of stories about how individual contractors who had been working on the PP site came to join the boycott. The gist of it being that they looked at how much money they stood to make from the PP job, and how much they stood to lose over the next 10 to 15 years if they got blacklisted. They did the math and the decision was easy. At one point in the talk, Danze told the audience, “You know what my preferred weapon is in this battle?” With that he pulled out a string of rosary beads and held it aloft. So rosary beads, prayer, is the weapon that has helped them in their battle against PP. That, plus a prominent position in the local construction industry, and a good rolodex. He made no bones about how unpopular this thing has made him, but said “We’ve been called to serve, we haven’t been called to be popular”. The final speaker was David Bereit of Coalition for Life. I have to say that he was quite an impressive speaker, and may well have a national platform some day, as Chris Danze said that he should during his speech. He described a litany of some recent successes against PP in Texas, and painted Texas as ground zero in the battle over abortion. Success or failure against PP in Texas would determine the fate of the anti-abortion struggle in the whole country, according to Bereit. Which brings me to the title of today’s post. Towards the end of his talk, in a section talking about how difficult the struggle against PP would be, Bereit said something to the effect of the following:
“Everyone’s familiar with the internet. Have you heard of these things called “blogs”? Well, I’ve come across some and there’s one guy that has one that’s been really attacking Chris [Danze] and myself on his. Just slamming him. And you know what, he criticizes Chris for the boycott, and calling people up, and do you know what his solution is? He posted Chris’s phone number on his site, and he encouraged people to call him up! How hypocritical is that? He also has my phone number on there too, and my wife got one nasty phone call….”
At this point my ears pricked up. It had been a long evening, and by this time in the proceedings I was wishing that I could just lie down somewhere and rest. I thought, “I’m almost sort of famous!” What Bereit said next nearly floored me:
“And you know, he’s in this room tonight. And he’s been trying to videotape what’s going on here, having some problems with his camera, but he’s here. And what’s our response to this? Our response to all of our enemies is love. “[at which point people applauded]
I was busted. Two thoughts went through my mind in quick succession. I remember thinking, “Wow, how did they do that? How is it possible for them to identify me, and to know who I am? Do they have some type of super spy network or something?” This paranoia was immediately replaced by an alternative theory. For one brief instant, I wondered to myself whether I was wrong and they were right. Perhaps there was some type of divine intervention in this. Perhaps David Bereit got a sign from God telling him I was there and identifying me. Perhaps a tongue of flame appeared over my head, or else some disembodied hand pointed a finger at me. Might they actually have a hot-line to the guy upstairs, who was helping them in their struggle, in which case I’d have to reassess my thinking? Then it occurred to me, “You schmuck. He was just talking about your blog. He’s read it. You said that you [Gunther] were coming here and were going to tape the rally. You put that on your website, the one he just said he was reading. Look around. Do you see any other cameras here? NO. That’s how he knows who you are, idiot. That, and it probably didn’t help that you haven’t joined in the applause once, or that you were the only one who didn’t join in the standing ovation for Chris Danze. You don’t have to assume that some type of spiritual guidance played any role in this. You’re just an idiot”. My belief in secular humanism restored, I watched the remainder of the proceedings in a slightly more comforted frame of mind. I mentioned earlier that the crowd was virtually entirely white. Despite this demographic, a striking number of references were made to the issue of racism during the evening. In Sedlak’s talk, it concerned the alleged racist history and agenda of PP. In David Bereit’s talk, he compared Chris Danze to Rosa Parks. Given the whiteness of the audience, this concern with civil rights for minorities was rather surprising, especially considering the connections that many in the anti-choice movement have to extremist organizations with racist beliefs themselves. Since David Bereit saw fit to publicly accuse me of hypocrisy for posting contact information for those involved in the boycott, I’ll take this opportunity to clarify my position. Let me say first that I’d prefer it if Danze would call off the boycott efforts. Since he’s apparently not inclined to so, the question then becomes how to respond to it. I don’t think it’s hypocritical to believe that a tactic employed by the anti-choice side is cheap and low, but at the same time be prepared to use the same methods against them. That’s just common sense. If someone punches me in the nose during an argument, it’s perfectly reasonable for me to say that they’ve crossed the line. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t defend myself using as much force as necessary. And while we’re on the topic of hypocrisy, my previous posting makes it clear that there’s ample circumstantial evidence implicating supporters of Bereit’s “Coalition for Life” group as being responsible for harassing and threatening PP clinic workers. So public claims from him that the anti-choice movement rejects violence, threats or intimidation as tactics ring pretty hollow. The thing to remember about David Bereit is that he used to be a salesman for pharmaceuticals. I had a (mercifully) brief and unsuccessful career in sales a few years back. The one thing that I learned during that period was that the only job that a salesman has is getting other people to give him their money, using any means necessary short of pulling out a gun. A good salesman uses lot’s of mind games, lies and acting. I knew one guy who could cry on cue, and was able to get a number of sales in this manner, by convincing unsuspecting old ladies that he would be in dire straits if his sales didn’t pick up. I’ve seen enough motivational talks from those types to last me a lifetime, and what I saw from Bereit last night wasn’t any different. Only instead of motivating people to go out and sell $2000 vacuum cleaners to retirees who live in uncarpeted one room apartments, he was motivating people to go out and shut down Planned Parenthood. [David – Since you apparently don’t work for a living and have time to cruise the internet, I assume you’ll come across this sooner or later. Thanks for mentioning me during your talk. But the least you could have done was mention my website’s name; I could certainly use the hits. The meager number of phone calls that you and Danze have been getting are solely due to the relatively low profile of my efforts in this regard. Here’s hoping the count goes up in the future.] Continuing on the topic of hypocrisy, earlier this week I had a brief but civil exchange with Sheri Danze in the comments section of another website, which will go unnamed. I was interested in probing how she felt about a number of issues, and at one point asked what her opinion was of people who post pictures, videos, or identifying information about abortion clinic staff on the internet, or around town. Her response was basically that if people were embarrassed to have the fact that they worked at an abortion clinic publicized, then they should find a more respectable line of work. Is this attitude hypocritical? You be the judge. In this day and age, clinic workers have legitimate fears about the possible consequences of having information about themselves distributed in this manner. Pro-lifers who fail to recognize this are either in complete denial about the tactics used by some on their side, or else they implicitly endorse them. I came away from the night’s event with mixed feelings about how this is all going to play out. The anti-choice side is well organized and extremely motivated. A reasonable conclusion is that the strategies and tactics used by the pro-choice side need to undergo a serious reevaluation if they are going to be able to withstand the efforts of these people. But what does this entail? There’s a scene in “Apocalypse Now” where Marlon Brando, as Colonel Kurtz, is explaining why he became a renegade and began to use military tactics that the brass in the Pentagon thought went over the line. He said that years before, he had been a military adviser, and that a team had visited a village to inoculate all of the young children. After leaving the village some time later, an old man ran and caught up with them, tears streaming down his face, begging the Americans to return to the village. Kurtz returned to learn that after the advisers had left, the Viet Cong had come into the village and hacked off the arm of every child who had been inoculated. Kurtz saw a pile of small arms sitting on the ground. With this, he had a sudden insight, “Like a diamond bullet into my brain”, that the Viet Cong were going to win, because they were stronger. They were men with families and children of their own, yet they could do something like that, he said. I was thinking about this scene last night while driving home from the rally. The basic question is, when you are facing an enemy who is so fanatically devoted to his own side that he is willing to do just about anything to win, how do you successfully compete against him without losing part of your humanity? How can the pro-choice side compete against a movement that has as much fanatical devotion as the pro-lifers do? Is resorting to the same tactics that the anti-choice side uses something that is going to be necessary in order to defeat them? And is this something that pro-choicers would even have the stomach for? I don’t think that there are any easy answers, but after witnessing the level of intensity shown by many of the people at last night’s rally I can say that holding them off is not going to be easy. [Update 12/9/03: Apparently I was not the only pro-choicer in attendance at Thursday’s big rally. Ginger was there, as well as Charles Kuffner. Check out their sites for a pair of independent observations on how things went. This article in the Austin Chronicle also appeared in Friday with an update on the situation in Austin.]

2003-12-05T02:00:00.000-06:00
Rally For Life, Houston: Prelude I attended the big “Rally for Life” event in Houston this evening. I’ll have a full post about the evening’s events sometime tomorrow. It’s late, and I just want to say one thing: David Bereit: Fuck you. If you’re going to call me a hypocrite in public, have the decency to permit me to respond to you in that same venue. Please read the following closely:
1. Webster's 1913 Dictionary Definition:\Hyp"o*crite\, n. [F., fr. L. hypocrita, Gr. ? one who plays a part on the stage, a dissembler, feigner. See {Hypocrisy}.] One who plays a part; especially, one who, for the purpose of winning approbation of favor, puts on a fair outside seeming; one who feigns to be other and better than he is; a false pretender to virtue or piety; one who simulates virtue or piety. The hypocrite's hope shall perish. --Job viii. 13. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart. --Shak. Syn: Deceiver; pretender; cheat. See {Dissembler}. 2. Definition: [n] a person who professes beliefs and opinions that they do not hold Synonyms: dissembler, phoney, phony, pretender See Also: beguiler, charmer, cheat, cheater, deceiver, slicker, smoothie, smoothy, sweet talker, Tartufe, Tartuffe, trickster, whited sepulcher, whited sepulcher 3. Definition: one who puts on a mask and feigns himself to be what he is not; a dissembler in religion. Our Lord severely rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16). "The hypocrite's hope shall perish" (Job 8:13). The Hebrew word here rendered "hypocrite" rather means the "godless" or "profane," as it is rendered in Jer. 23:11, i.e., polluted with crimes. 4. One who plays a part; especially, one who, for the purpose of winning approbation of favor, puts on a fair outside seeming; one who feigns to be other and better than he is; a false pretender to virtue or piety; one who simulates virtue or piety. "The hypocrite's hope shall perish." (Job viii. 13) "I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart." (Shak) Synonym: Deceiver, pretender, cheat. See Dissembler. Origin: F, fr. L. Hypocrita, Gr. One who plays a part on the stage, a dissembler, feigner. See Hypocrisy. Source: Websters Dictionary 5. Hypocrite - (n.) One who plays a part; especially, one who, for the purpose of winning approbation of favor, puts on a fair outside seeming; one who feigns to be other and better than he is; a false pretender to virtue or piety; one who simulates virtue or piety.
Suits you to a tee, I think. Don’t profess to be against violence in your public statements and allow your followers to use the kind of tactics described below. Please read the following, and think about it for a bit [I’ve posted this previously]:
”With our local Planned Parenthood going full speed toward building a new clinic here in Austin, they've attracted the attention of the Pro Lifers, who seem to be concentrated in Bryan, TX, rallying around their head propagandist, David Bereit.” “Apparently last week Mr. Bereit sent an email to our local chapter requesting more information about The Choice Project (the campaign raising funds for the new clinic). My friend who works at PP admin offices received the message, which was from a B.E. Reit. Sensing something odd, my friend Googled and they soon discovered that "B.E. Reit" is actually David Bereit, an outspoken Anti-Choice activist.” “Let me share with you some of the tactics employed by these "activists." If you or someone in your car visit the PP clinic (abortions are just one of the services offered there), the Anti-Choice police will note your license plate number and send a letter to you stating that someone visited PP for an abortion (whether it is true or not). The "activists" also harass clinic employees to the tune of, "Hello, Jane Doe, we know you work at the abortion clinic. Now, we're sure you enjoy your nice life, enjoy going to First United on Sundays with your son and daughter, who attend John Doe Elementary School. We're sure you wouldn't want anything to happen..."” “Now, these are factual accounts of things that have happened, told to me by my friend who works at PP. I'm recounting them here, because these people, purporting to be doing God's work, employ the most terroristic methods of deception. I cannot believe it is God's work they're doing, and it strikes me as not only hypocritical, but pathological and criminal. It's sickening and infuriating.” So David Bereit gives false identities over the phone in order to gain access to information about the organization that is raising funds for the new clinic. Very interesting. I'm sure that all he wanted to do was send all the donors a "Thank You" note. Here is some more information concerning the activities of "Coalition for Life", the group that Bereit heads: “Seven days a week, ten hours a day, picketers line the sidewalk, trying to change hearts and minds. “What anyone passing by the squat, beige building on Twenty-ninth Street cannot see is the human drama that plays out each day inside the clinic. This is not just a place where questions of faith, conscience, and biology collide. It is also a place where a task as simple as opening the mail is done with caution. Here, the fear of violence has lingered for so long that its presence has become almost ordinary, as much a part of the fabric of life as the bulletproof vests that are casually slung over the backs of staffers' chairs. What rattles employees more than the protesters who stand at the gates is the enemy they cannot see--the people in their community who have, for four years, waged a campaign of intimidation. "Wanted" posters bearing a photograph of the clinic's doctor have been tacked to telephone poles all over town. Postcards with pictures of dismembered fetuses have been sent to clinic employees' neighbors, warning them of the "baby killer" in their midst. Nurses have been followed, volunteers harassed. Even clients have not been spared. The parents of several A&M students have learned of their daughters' abortions from postcards that arrived in the mail....” “DYANN SANTOS FIRST SAW THE "Wanted" posters as she drove to work one morning in the summer of 1999. They were hard to miss. Every time she stopped at a red light or took a right turn on her route from College Station to Bryan, a poster bearing a photo of the clinic's doctor fluttered at eye level from a street sign or a telephone pole. "Someone knew my way to work," she said. "Someone had planned this out for me to see."” “Soon her neighbors began receiving postcards. "Under current Texas law, abortion providers, like convicted sex offenders, are required by state law to register with the State," they read, listing her home address. Farther down, the tone became more informal: "Please feel free to call Dyann at [her home number] or possibly catch her in the Wal-Mart parking lot. She drives a small 1999 silver Honda with Texas Tag [her license plate number]." Dozens more postcards arrived without return addresses. One listed the "body count" Santos was responsible for and the warning "God has his own way of keeping score!" And so she took precautions. She transferred her teenage son to a private school. She took different routes home. She changed her phone number, twice. She stopped taking walks at night.” “Not all the harassment has been anonymous. Debbie McCall, the clinic's community service director, was manning a Planned Parenthood booth at an A&M health fair two years ago when a man she had never seen before ran up and threw a note at her, then disappeared into the crowd. Across the piece of paper was written one word: "Murderer." At another health fair that year, a man whom McCall had observed picketing the clinic before approached her. "I'm keeping an eye on you," he said with a grin. "You should be careful driving home down that lonely highway." McCall commutes from the town of Crockett, 72 miles away, along a two-lane road that threads through farmland. "I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck," she recalled. Still, she had little recourse. As with the anonymous mail and the "Wanted" posters, no one had broken the law. No threats of "imminent bodily injury," as the law requires, had been made. "They go right up to the edge of the law," observed Melissa Reyna, a nurse who worked at the clinic for three years. "They keep pushing that line a little further. The concern when I worked there was that someday, someone--that one loose cannon out there--would step over the line."” Planned Parenthood believes that the coalition has either participated in the anonymous mail campaign or knows who is carrying it out. "The coalition's members stand outside the clinic and write down license plate numbers," said Dr. Elizabeth Berigan, a local internist and a member of the Planned Parenthood board. "The postcards have slowed down, but when clients used to get them, it was always a few days after they visited the clinic, at the address their cars were registered to. This isn't rocket science. If the coalition isn't sending the postcards, they're not keeping very good control over their notes."
Once again, David, fuck you.

2003-12-03T09:00:00.000-06:00
Worst Movies Off The Kuff and Atrios have done it, so t appears to be the trendy thing. Here is my list of the 10 worst movies I’ve seen, in no particular order. This is limited to movies I’ve actually sat through, not ones that I heard were bad but haven’t seen. Tank Girl The only thing memorable about this movie was the fact that the night I saw it, I was literally the only person in the theater. Exorcist 2: The Heretic This one had Richard Burton, James Earl Jones, and Louis Fletcher (fresh off of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"), and STILL sucked. The climactic scene between good and evil was a house-destroying bit of drama between Burton and Linda Blair on a four-poster bed, and was the first time I remember laughing out loud in a movie theater. I also remember James Earl Jones spitting out a plum. Manos: The Hands of Fate. First saw this on Mystery Science Theatre. Director Hal Warren (up to the time of the film a fertilizer salesman) rented most of his equipment and rushed shots so as to return equipment before the deadline. The wife of the cinematographer remembered slinking out of the theater on the night of the movie's premiere in El Paso while the lights were still off. Can’t say I blame her. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I remember really cheesy special effects, i.e. the lava flows. Also lots of cheap thrills, e.g. eating monkey brains, bugs, etc. Seeing this movie made me first realize that Steven Spielberg just might have been more interested in making money than he was in making quality films. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians I remember thinking that this film was great fun when I was 7. It hasn’t aged well. Lambada: The Forbidden Dance Churned out during the 15 minute period in the late 80s when the Lambada was popular, this one starred the dark haired chick from "Mulholland Drive" (former Miss U.S.A.) as an Amazonian princess who goes to L.A., where she has to enter and win a Lambada contest in order to save the rain forest from an evil oil company. Man, hasn’t that plot been done to death? Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Starring the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, and a cast of thousands, including appearances by Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, and George Burns. This movie would have sucked even if there had not been a previous album by the Beatles with the same title and songs. I can do no better than to direct you to this review of the soundtrack album, which ranks it as the worst album ever made. I remember seeing this film in an old theatre that had a balcony, and I was sorely tempted to jump over the edge to end the pain. Can’t Stop the Music They should have renamed it “Can’t Stand the Music”. Starring the Village people, Valerie Perrine, Bruce Jenner, and Steve Guttenberg, in a film that even he is probably embarrassed to have been in. By the time this hit theater’s, disco was pretty much dead. Directed by “Rhoda”’s TV mother (Nancy Walker). Moulin Rouge One of the most annoying spectacles I have ever had to endure. The movie’s version of “Like a Virgin”, sung by a prancing middle aged man with sideburns, made me long for Madonna to appear and end the travesty. And if you knew how much I hated Madonna, you’d understand just how much I hated this movie. A long, loud, bad music video with not very good music. “Sheena” Starring Tanya Roberts as the Queen of the Jungle. Features Sheena riding a white horse painted with stripes to make it look like a zebra.

2003-12-02T14:58:00.000-06:00
Sheri Danze to Pro-Choice Protesters: “Let’s Do Lunch” Well, not exactly, but pretty close. A group affiliated with “Anti Racist Action Network” took to the streets this past weekend and staged a protest outside of the home of Chris Danze, the main organizer of the Planned Parenthood boycott in Austin. Actually, it wasn’t outside of his home, it was outside of the entrance to the gated community that he lives in. And neither Danze nor his wife was at home at the time. And only 20 people showed up. Still, it’s a start. Here’s the message sent out last Friday by “Central Texas Anti Racist Action” [the typos are in the original]:
Anti Racist Action vs. religous bigots LIVE by john brown 1:59pm Fri Nov 28 '03 (Modified on 5:07pm Mon Dec 1 '03) osowatamie@yahoo.com HOME DEMONSTATION of anti-choice and religous fundamentalists Chris and Sheri Danze.They are the mouthpieces and co-organizers of a well orchestrated campaign of intimidation to stop a Planned Parenthood facility from being built in Austin. The media has portrayed Chris as a down home contractor. He is in fact a long time anti-choice orgnanizer with his wife Sheri. They are part of the 'Gabriel Project" which is an anti-choice front for "other options" that ues intimidation and scare tactics on women and their choice on abortion. More info to come soon. Join us as we confornt them and say no to religous bigotry in Texas. Media Advisory A.R.A. TO CONFRONT RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY Demonstration of anti-choice organizer Chris Danze at his HOME Saturday November 29, 2003 2:00pm who: Central Texas Anti Racist Action, and other concerned citizens committed to supporting reproductive freedom for ALL women. what: Home demonstration at the residence of anti-choice organizers Chris and Sheri Danze at the cross streets of Navidad and Barton Creek Blvd. Great Photo opportunity. Spanish speaker will be available when: 2:00PM November 29, 2003 where: Navidad and Barton Creek Blvd. why: -To end to the harassment and intimidation of clinic staff and contracting firms in Texas. -To bring it home and make it personal in their lives as they have for others. -Give Chris and Sheri Danze a taste of their own tactics. -Increase awareness with his neighbors that they live next door to a fascist. -Show support for those in the reproductive choice field. …Central Texas A.R.A. has started this campaign because they saw the need for street actions to counter the religious right wing in Texas. The home demonstrations make the issues personal and hold the individuals accountable to their communities by not letting them hide behind institutions. These tactics have been used very effectively over the years.
The original posting was followed by a couple of comments, including, interestingly, one from Sheri Danze, Chris’s wife.
What institution are we hiding behind? by Sheri 5:07pm Mon Dec 1 '03 I find your information has some innacuracies about my husband and myself. Surely you do believe in truth. What institutions are we supposed to be hiding behind? If you are referring to the Gabriel Project there is no hiding there. We have been providing assistance and shelter for needy women of all colors and backgrounds for the last ten years. We have 3 Godchildren who are all a different race than we are. We give the moms accurate information about all of their options and they make their own decision about what to do with their pregnancy. We offer financial assistance, emotional, material and spiritual support. My husband and I don't just talk about the evil of abortion, which basically is another form of genocide which instead of assisting women in need just destroys their babies and their dignity but we put our time and resources into helping women. If you want to dialogue about it we are here. If we had been home we would have had you come in for refreshments. Glad to see you are practicing your free speech rights as are we. God Bless, Sheri Danze
There was also an article on the protest in the Daily Texan, the UT newspaper.
…"[Danze] was integral in spearheading a project to harass and intimidate contractors who were working on the new Planned Parenthood clinic," said protester Caren Panzer, a journalism senior. "This is just a reversal of his own tactics." They gave passersby pictures of Danze and his wife, along with the Danzes' contact information. Panzer said the protesters were out from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. …Central Texas Planned Parenthood Executive Director Glenda Parks said her organization was not involved in the protest, and she exchanged e-mails with protest leaders urging them not to go through with it. "We don't endorse boycotts, especially at anybody's home," Parks said. Danze, who was out of town during the protest, said he did not mind the opposition. "It's a free country, and people should exercise their freedom of speech at every opportunity," Danze said. "If I'd been around, I would have invited them into the house."
Sheri Danze’s offer to “dialogue” over “refreshments” was a nice gesture. Considering how well off the Danze’s are I’m sure there might have been some mighty good eating. It would also have been a good opportunity for the ARA people to case the joint (just kidding). On a more serious note, the “dialogue” offer is obviously meaningless. Chris Danze will be speaking at three rallies this week, sponsored by (among others) the American Life League and Life Dynamics. ALL’s motto is: “Pro Life – without exception, without compromise, without apology”. Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics envisions a world where abortion is perfectly legal, but impossible to obtain. It’s hard to find any reason to hold a dialog with people who think like that, and I have no doubt that the Danze’s feel the same way as their backers.

2003-12-01T13:16:00.000-06:00
What “IT” Is A couple of weeks ago I posted something that I pulled from an anti-abortion website, indicating that the zealots in Texas had something big planned for the evening of December 4th. Here was the message:
BIG NEWS COMING... If you haven't already noticed, there is a tremendous momentum building around the efforts of the Coalition for Life and other Pro-Life groups fighting Planned Parenthood around the state. Recognizing that we are in an unprecedented position to do incredible good, the Coalition for Life is taking the lead on a bold initiative that will capitalize on the many successes and educate millions of people across the state about the danger posed by Planned Parenthood. We can't release the specifics yet, since Planned Parenthood monitors this e-mail list, but please pray that God blesses the preparation going into these efforts. One thing we can tell you... You want to mark your calendar for the evening of Thursday, December 4th. Something BIG will be happening!
I have now learned exactly what the “big event” in question is. Fortunately, it’s not a bombing or assassination, although I’m sure that many of those attending and perhaps speaking would be sympathetic to such behavior if it was directed at Planned Parenthood. What is happening is that there will be a traveling road show, a rally, that will take place in Austin, College Station, and Houston. It will be in a different city starting on the 2nd, with the Houston event scheduled for December 4th. Featured speakers at each of the rallies will be Chris Danze and Jim Sedlak (the background on Sedlak can be found here, and his photo is here). Coalition for Life, the sponsors of the event, is of course David Bereit’s group out of Bryan, Texas. Here’s the posting from the message board announcing the rallies:
URGENT: Please forward this message on to people across Texas!!! ************************************************** This is the news you've been waiting for. You are invited to attend the most important Texas Pro-Life event of 2003... RALLY FOR LIFE: Building a united front ************************************************** AUSTIN City-wide event in response to the proposed Planned Parenthood abortion facility Tuesday, December 2, 7 - 9 PM Doubletree Hotel, 6505 IH-35 North (at the intersection of Hwy. 290) COLLEGE STATION Wednesday, December 3, 7 - 9 PM College Station Conference Center, 1300 George Bush Drive HOUSTON Thursday, December 4, 7:30 - 9:30 PM Jones Hall Auditorium, University of St. Thomas, 3900 Yoakum Blvd. Map ************************************************** FEATURED SPEAKERS AT ALL EVENTS INCLUDE: * CHRIS DANZE, organizer of the Austin contractor boycott that gained national attention by halting construction on a $6.2 million Planned Parenthood abortion facility * JIM SEDLAK, Vice President of American Life League, and President of Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP), widely recognized as the nation's leading expert on Planned Parenthood There will be other dynamic speakers at each location, testimonials, and much more! ************************************************** The momentum is building rapidly. The time has come for state-wide public Pro-Life rallies to educate Texans about Planned Parenthood's true agenda, and to unite individuals and organizations together to end abortion in Texas. Come join the Rally for Life as part of this historic movement. ************************************************** PARTNERING ORGANIZATIONS The following is a list of organizations uniting together for the Rally for Life events: * Coalition for Life * Houston Coalition for Life * Texas Alliance for Life * Texas Contractors and Suppliers for Life * Foundation for Life * Texans for Life Coalition * Aggies for Life * University Life Advocates * Silent No More * Greater Houston Pastors for Life * Houston-Area Help After Abortion * American Life League * Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP) * Life Dynamics * L.E.A.R.N.
I plan on attending the Houston event and videotaping it, if possible. I have no idea how large the venue is or how big a crowd is expected. But i’ll be there and will get into it if I can. Just last month, Jim Sedlak was attending a Right-to-Life convention in Oregon where he was quoted in a local newspaper as saying that Planned Parenthood actually promoted bestiality.
Sedlak and Shaneyfelt suggested that Planned Parenthood officials’ goals include encouraging sex among young children and bestiality. "There’s sex with animals," said Shaneyfelt. "They won’t say it up front, it’s not blatant, but it’s there."
The inclusion of Sedlak as a main speaker at the events is significant. Sedlak’s organization, STOPP, has a national profile, and it was Sedlak who trained David Bereit in the “how to’s” of anti-abortion activism when the latter decided he wanted to get involved in that activity. STOPP is also affiliated with the American Life League (ALL), an extremist anti-choice group and another of the rally sponsors. The people supporting the boycott clearly plan on taking this strategy national, and the three rallies planned for Texas are only the beginning, as this article that appeared on the weekend makes clear. How extremist is ALL? Here’s just a hint. At their main website, ALL used to have a document called the “Pro-Life Activists Encyclopedia”. It was an extremely long document (140 chapters plus appendices) that addressed a large number of issues and gave detailed insights into what these people actually believe. The information was so explosive that it no longer exists at the ALL website. Fortunately, at least one other site exists that links to the original documents (search for “pro-life encyclopedia”). Reading them is a real eye opener. For example, in Chapter 2, “Wellspring and Nature of the Anti-Life mentality”, we learn that abortion, homosexuality, atheism, infanticide; euthanasia, witchcraft; Communism and pornography are all linked through a common cause. It includes phrases such as, ”Pro-abortionists love death; 30 million babies have died and they still are not satisfied; they want tens of millions more to die, and scream like animals when they cannot kill freely.” In Chapter 12, titled “Anti-Life Groups: The Holocaust Enablers and Promoters”, we learn that ”There are very strong connections between the right-to-die groups, abortion rights organizations, and homosexuals. The sodomites commonly work in abortion mills and often lesbians and homosexuals act as clinic escorts. These are the most unpredictable and violent people of all; they do not tolerate anyone opposing them in any way. Pickets and sidewalk counselors are physically attacked with alarming frequency by so-called 'gays.' In Chapter 19, “Anti-Lifers: Violent to the Core”, we learn that “All anti-choicers are violent fanatics who should sit in jail until they renounce their terroristic movement.” This chapter also includes the following stunner, and this is an exact quote from the original:
The pro-life movement has the physical means to stop the abortion Holocaust right now. If only a small percentage of true Christians and Jews say five percent, or about two hundred thousand followed the lead of the Communists and repeatedly and simultaneously bombed every abortion clinic, killed all known abortionists, and pronounced the death sentence on any legislator who voted against life or any judge who rendered a pro-abortion decision, legal abortion would stop immediately. The "system" simply could not handle such mass violence. Pro-lifers could then root out and ruthlessly exterminate the Neofeminists who would turn to the underground "Jane" illegal abortion networks and serve notice that any woman who obtained an abortion, legal or illegal, was likely to be visited by a gang of vigilantes in the middle of the night. …Violence, if practiced on a wide enough scale, will prevail but it will always prevail temporarily. People instinctively rebel against its use and will eventually turn away from it. God will disavow it and defeat those who use it.
Note the neat little twist here. The ALL document tries to straddle both sides of the fence, simultaneously implying that violence could easily be used to eliminate all abortions, while simultaneously saying that it should not be used. But the only arhument raised against the use of violence is the belief that it wouldn’t work in the long run, not that there is anything inherently wrong with it as a tactic. So this is ALL, one of the sponsors of the rallies and home to one of it’s featured speakers, Jim Sedlak. The inclusion of Life Dynamics as one of the event sponsors should also raise a few eyebrows. Let me tell you a little bit about Life Dynamics, Inc. This organization is based in Denton, Texas. Their motto is "Pro-Life: without compromise, without exception, without apology." It’s director is Mark Crutcher. Crutcher has publicly supported James Kopp, who murdered Dr. Barnett Slepian, a Buffalo area abortion provider. Crutcher and Jim Sedlak both serve on the board of advisors of ProLife PAC, an organization that seeks to direct campaign contributions to pro-life candidates. According to NARAL, “Life Dynamics use a hostile direct mail campaign, a campaign to give lawyers tools and strategies to sue abortion providers, and spies to "cripple" the provision of reproductive health”. The NARAL report on Life Dynamics reveals the following:
Crutcher envisions “an America where abortion may indeed be perfectly legal, but no one can get one.” Crutcher … created LDI to serve as [an] “anti-abortion guerrilla campaign center,” a base from which to further his stated goal: “to make abortion unavailable by any means necessary” Crutcher and LDI use threats and intimidation to carry out their anti-choice agenda:
More on LDI can be found here. Interestingly, there is a Jim Phillips associated with LDI as Marketing Director. I can’t determine if this is the same Jim Phillips who helped start the Austin boycott, but regardless of whether they are the same individual, the activities of the one who works for LDI gives some insight regarding their strategies and views. Jim Phillips, the Marketing Director, has appeared in a number of ,“Life Talk” videos, a mail order series of videotaped programs distributed by LDI. He has also sent emails promoting the bogus “Child Predators” project that LDI started. This is an attempt to smear Planned Parenthood as a protector of pedophiles. Here’s an email from Phillips:
We are asking pro-lifers to help in getting the Child Predators information out to the public. In this regard, please consider posting a link (or links) for this project on your web site. We have designed a variety of button/banner links for the www.ChildPredators.com site. Visit http://ChildPredators.com/LinkToUs.cfm to view the current sizes and shapes. There are two basic themes on the current selection: A) Beware of Child Predators / Beware of Planned Parenthood B) Caught! Planned Parenthood / Caught! National Abortion Federation Contact LDI if you need us to do a different size or theme variation for your web site. We offer to sent a free printed copy of this report to anyone who would like one. It can be requested online at: http://childpredators.com/FreeReport.cfm or by calling 800-800-LIFE, so please feel free to offer this publication to everyone on your newsletter or e-mail list. Any help you can provide in this regard will be appreciated. Thank you. Yours truly, Jim Phillips, Dir. of Mktg. Life Dynamics (www.LifeDynamics.com) 940-380-8800
This page also suggests an interesting set of connections for Phillips and LDI. It shows up on the website of a Dave Leach, who sometimes goes by the name of Uncle Ed. In the passage written by Philips, he addresses the issue of anti-abortion activists photographing or videotaping patients as they enter Planned Parenthood clinics. This strategy is clearly meant to intimidate, but note that Phillips praises the efforts of Leach and Jonathan O'Toole in “photojournalism”. Leach had intended to show the video footage on his cable access show in Des Moines, “The Uncle Ed Show”. The page that includes the contribution from Phillips praising Leach’s efforts includes a link to this script for a racist play, presumably written by Leach for use on his show It has been widely assumed that Leach and O’Toole (who apparently works for the Army of God) were acting as agents for Neil Horsley, who has at various times had a website that features pictures and identifying information about abortion providers. [Here is a photo of Horsley and O’Toole together] The site has been described as a “hit list”, and Horsley was interested in taking the video strategy national. Horsley’s site had also included video footage from abortion clinics; the move to bring this technique to TV was a natural progression. Horsley’s original website is difficult to find, mostly because service providers remove it once they learn of it’s contents. As for Horsley himself, amongst other things, he advocates secession of Georgia from the U.S.A. through nuclear 'civil' warfare. He thinks that homosexuals should be arrested. He hates pornography, especially gay pornography. So much so that he collects it and posts it on his website. [One final note on Jonathan O’Toole, Neil Horsley’s protégé and videographer. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried, but I came across this website, for The Natasha Club. It lists brief descriptions from a number of “gentlemen” who are searching for a mail order Russian bride. And whose name do you think popped up there? None other than Jonathan O’Toole’s, who apparently spends so much time running around the country attending anti-abortion events and videotaping clinics that he doesn’t have time to meet girls. Here’s what he has to say about himself:
Jonathan O'Toole j.otoole@att.net Profile submitted: Sunday, July 25, 1999 Age: 20 Kids: None. Weight: 225 lbs. Height: 6'4" Education: I have attended college for three years. Occupation: I am a student. During the summer, I work for a tree nursery as a salesman and landscaper. Race: Irish-American Interests: Reading the Bible, prayer and meditation, hunting, fishing, swimming, reading history, writing short stories & poetry, debating, thinking, hiking, telling stories, & singing music (especially after a hard day's work) About: Most importantly, I am a Christian. I love the Lord with all my heart. I am currently renting an apartment in the small town square of Liberty, Missouri. I am a hard worker, and I plan to finish college as soon as possible, and begin building a traditional family. I am strong (I work all summer digging trees at a nursery, and shoveling gravel) and tall (6 feet 3 inches). I am very dark haired and fairly well-built at 225 lbs. If you write, I will send a photograph. I'm a big brother to 5 kids, the youngest of whom is my 2 year old brother, Sean. I love kids and animals, too. My little brothers have beagle hounds and hunting dogs which they and my father take rabbit and duck hunting. I'm a lover of the outdoors and fishing, hiking, biking. Do you like to travel in the mountains? Music? Dancing? I do. I have attended college since I was 16 and have spent the past two years in various internships. In addition to my regular college studies, I am learning Greek and Hebrew to prepare for Christian ministry. For the past year I have been working in Carrollton, Georgia with a political party and pro-life (anti-abortion) activist group. I am a communicator, a reader of the classics, and a thinker. I write poetry too, to express my feelings. I am committed to preparing for and maintaining my family securely to the best of my earthly ability. I am prepared to do whatever I must to utilize my abilities and resources to provide for those God entrusts to me. Such is my attitude toward family responsibility. Requirements: She should be younger than 26, traditional, physically strong and healthy, and interested in being the queen of a large Christian household. She should be a capable hard worker. She should be willing to wait on and be waited on, to serve and be served, and have an understanding of marriage as the sacred union of two persons to become one under God. She should be modest and comely; intellectual and communicative.
So let’s sum up. The rallies next week will feature Jim Sedlak, who is the head of STOPP, an anti-choice organization with a national profile. The rallies are sponsored by (among others), STOPP, the American Life League (which is affiliated with STOPP), and Life Dynamics, Inc. It is known that LDI has contacts and sympathies with people like Jonathan O’Toole (Army of God) and David Leach, who have links with Neal Horsley, who thinks that America should nuked so that Georgia can secede. It cannot be emphasized enough that the groups that are behind this series of rallies, as well as the Austin boycott, have a loose but consistent pattern of associations with some of the most extremist elements in the country. You don’t have to dig very far to find out some astonishing and disturbing connections.

2003-11-25T16:52:00.000-06:00
James Yee: Terrorist or Adulterer? Which of these offenses James Yee is really guilty of probably doesn’t matter in John Ashcroft’s America. FOX News and Drudge are both reporting that Army Capt. James Yee has been charged with, among other things, adultery and storing pornography on a government computer.
Army Capt. James Yee, who worked at the prison camp for terror suspects in eastern Cuba, was released from custody Tuesday after being served with the additional charges, Raul Duany, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command in Miami, told The Associated Press. He was arrested earlier this year in Florida and confined to the military brig in Charleston, S.C. Military officials brought the additional charges after an investigation, Duany said. The charges include storing pornographic images on his computer, having sexual relations outside marriage, disobeying an order and making a false official statement. Once a chaplain at Fort Lewis, Wash., Yee was charged on Oct. 10 with disobeying a general order by taking classified material home and transporting classified information without proper security containers.
The new charges, and Yee’s release, come at a curious time, just one day after Yee’s attorney asked President Bush to release him from the Navy brig he had been serving time in prior to his military trial, which is scheduled for next year. This follows a pattern familiar pattern for this administration. First, they pile on, overreacting and overcharging Yee for terror related crimes. Then they refuse to release him before his trial, meaning that he has now served more jail time than he would have received even if he was to be been found guilty. When demands are made for his release and the case against him starts to look weak, they finally relent and set him free. But they can’t let it end there. They had to bring in trumped up charges that have nothing to do with the original reasons for his arrest, including the rarely prosecuted military charge of adultery. The prosecution of adultery under military law has long been a contentious issue, with the main complaint being that it often gets applied selectively. Actually, “adultery” isn’t even an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

… adultery is not listed as an offense in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The UCMJ is a federal law, enacted by Congress, to govern legal discipline and court martials for members of the armed forces. Articles 77 through 134 of the UCMJ encompasses the "punitive offenses" (these are crimes one can be prosecuted for). None of those articles specifically mentions adultery. Adultery in the military is actually prosecuted under Article 134, which is also known as the "General Article." Article 134 simply prohibits conduct which is of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, or conduct which is prejudicial to good order and discipline.

Adultery charges are normally filed in cases where there is fraternization, or a relationship between a superior and a subordinate. It is rare to have it applied to cases where the affair is with a civilian, and a controversial case involving a female Air Force pilot’s relationship with a civilian drew a lot of criticism. Unless Yee’s alleged adulterous affair is with someone else in the military, the only nail that prosecutors appear to have available to hang this charge on is Yee’s status as a military chaplain. Presumably, one could argue that given his status as a man of the cloth, an adulterous relationship with a civilian would still be enough to bring “discredit upon the military” or be “prejudicial to good order and discipline”. Details will come out eventually, but I suspect this is yet another example of an administration that uses it’s power to attack and discredit anyone who might potentially embarrass them (remember Scott Ritter and Valerie Plame?)

2003-11-24T23:37:00.000-06:00

Austin Planned Parenthood Boycott: The Jim Phillips Connection Here’s an update on the boycott of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin. In some previous postings I’ve provided some information on Chris Danze and a couple of other people who’ve been cited in the media as being involved in the boycott. Today I came across another individual, who seems like a real piece of work. As I periodically scan the web searching for any new information concerning this fiasco, sometimes it gets to the point where I think that the entire body of knowledge on people connected to the boycott has been thoroughly mined out. But today I managed to dig up a few links that illustrate the extremism of the people behind it. A common misconception about the boycott in Austin is that it represents a “grassroots” effort, with a few dedicated citizens inspiring the involvement of a wider community of people with a common interest in seeing abortion ended. To be sure, the email campaign that spread the message about the boycott took advantage of a well organized, if loose, network of abortion opponents. The person cited in virtually every news article I have seen concerning the boycott is Chris Danze, who has a long history of involvement in anti-choice activities in Austin. This fact is only casually mentioned in most stories I’ve come across. Instead, he is usually identified first and foremost as the head of a construction firm, period. His long history of involvement in anti-choice activities in Austin is not given much attention. But a little bit of research provides further evidence that the people behind this boycott are not just “ordinary folks”, but are actually rather scary. Today’s lesson concerns an individual named Jim Phillips. I first came across his name at the Operation Save America website. Phillips had written an article for the OSA site titled “Miracle in Austin – The Gates of Hell Cannot Prevail!” (the wording here is one clue indicating that he just might be a supporter of the boycott). Reading the article itself it soon became clear that not only does he support the boycott, but he was also a key figure in organizing it. Here’s the intro to the article, written by a guy named Flip [more about him in a second]:

Jim Phillips, a simple Christian man who loves Jesus with all of his heart and soul, is painting for us a marvelous picture of what God can do when simple little Christians begin to live out their faith in the streets of their cities. When the theology of the church house becomes biography in the streets we give Jesus an opportunity to show up. And show-up He did, in Austin, Texas! The gates of hell are hemorrhaging in Austin, not because of what the Republican Party did, but because Christians are taking it upon themselves to give a voice to the voiceless. They are, "bringing it on!" in Jesus' Name. Jim has been a personal friend of mine and this ministry for the past 15 years. We have been on the streets together, in jail together, sued together, all the while the joy of the Lord has been our strength. He is a faithful and true man of God who fears nothing but God Himself. Enjoy.

“The gates of hell are hemorrhaging”??? I’m not quite sure what that means, but it can’t be good for Satan. Anyway, it turns out that Phillips was with Chris Danze when the latter came up with the idea for the boycott. Phillips helped Danze in sending out the initial 750 letters to construction firms to start the boycott rolling.

Then Chris had an idea. Why not send registered letters to the Austin building community asking them not to participate in the clinic construction? OK, I said, why not... yeah, we said, that might stop some subs (subcontractors) from doing the work. Now, we really can't stop the clinic from being built, for they're a lot bigger than us. But yeah, we could at least make it costly for PP. So we sent out 750 letters. We began to get help. And then Chris said, hey, let's call the subs, and yeah, the General Contractor over the whole project, Browning Construction of San Antonio, and respectfully ask them to withdraw from the job. So we sent out emails asking people to help make calls. Craig Teykl and Mark Hamilton stepped up and spent hours calling people, meeting Austin area subs for lunch, asking them to help our efforts and not to do the work for PP. George Transom, just another concrete guy who decided to be available, joined the effort, and soon 18 cement suppliers within a 60-mile radius said, we're with you guys, we're not selling to PP. All this when Austin area construction was down and some of those plants had laid off workers and needed the business.

You’ll remember Craig Teykl from an earlier post. I’ll have more to say on Mark Hamilton and George Transom later. Here’s more of the Phillips article:

…Early Wednesday morning, November 5th, Browning Construction made the electrifying announcement to all Austin media that "due to circumstances beyond our control," (a sub told the Austin paper he got 1,200 calls), they were pulling off the clinic job. In God's exquisite timing, that very same day was the 65th anniversary of Planned Parenthood in Texas. To further rebuke His enemies, that same day God had Missionaries to the PreBorn, in a stop planned months ago, visit Austin to preach, hand out gospel tracts, and show large posters of aborted children, revealing the real mission of Planned Parenthood. Whining and licking their wounds, the present and two former Austin mayors, two state legislators, and PP officials claimed in a press conference that day that "illegal intimidation" was used.

You’ll note that Phillips writes approvingly of a visit to Austin by the group “Missionaries to the PreBorn”. Missionaries to the Preborn are apologists for anti-abortion murderer Paul Hill, as this page clearly shows. The organization is led by an individual named Rev. Matthew Trewhella. In the past he has called for the formation of armed citizen militias. He was also a leader in the U.S. Taxpayers Party (since renamed), which represents a convergence of the violent wing of the anti-abortion movement with elements of the Radical Right in the U.S. There’s a great deal more about him at this Planned Parenthood site. More information on Missionaries to the Preborn can be found here. Some choice bits include the following:

Speaking to the Wisconsin state convention of the U.S. Taxpayers Party (USTP) … Trewhella called for church-based paramilitary training. "What should we do?" he asked. "We should do what thousands of people across this nation are doing. We should be forming militias." "...(T)here are plans of resistance being made," he continued. "Churches can form militia days and teach their men how to fight." …Demonstration spokesperson Monica M. Miller had previously argued in court that it is acceptable to shoot police officers escorting women into abortion clinics:... …After anti-abortion activist Michael Griffin murdered Dr. David Gunn in Florida on March 10, 1993, the Missionaries released a statement declaring that they "would not lament the Child Killers [sic] Death.” Rev. Trewhella said he "would not condemn someone who killed Hitler's doctors who committed atrocities against human beings, and neither will I condemn Michael Griffin." …The speeches at the USTP convention did nothing to ease the tensions. Jeffrey Baker called for doctors who perform abortions to be put to death. Trewhella then reveled in the glorification of militias and weapons: Recently our government tried to outlaw Black Talons, which is a bullet [that] when it hits opens up in five or six sharp edges so it tears out any flesh that it's going through and has much more chance of killing when it hits or at least permanently maiming when it hits... So I took my bullets, my Black Talon bullets, out of the closet and I sat down with my kids and I said, "see these bullets, kids" and they said "yeah". I said, "Our government wants to put your Dad in jail just for owning this here box of bullets." …Trewhella also conveyed an unusual sense of the spirit of Christmas: "This Christmas," he said, "I want you to do the most loving thing...buy each of your children an SKS rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition...." SKS rifles are popular among paramilitary groups because they can be altered into a fully automatic weapon that can fire 20 rounds in 1.6 seconds.

Here is a photo of the bullet shaped flyer that Trewhella distributed after the Columbine shootings. Jim Phillips runs something called “Renovation Ministries” in Austin. The main web page has his photo (scroll down; Phillips is on the right). Rummaging around the RM recent activities, you find out that Phillips was also involved in the protests supporting Roy Moore’s efforts to keep the 10 commandments displayed in Montgomery, Alabama. There’s also a photo of him preaching at the University of Texas campus along with members of Missionaries to the Preborn. So you can see that Phillips, one of the two originators of the boycott, keeps some rather strange and disturbing company. A final note on Phillips’ involvement in the 10 commandments affair; this article in the Montgomery, Alabama Advertiser shows that Phillips was one of five individuals who were detained by Montgomery police overnight, because they refused to provide social security numbers to police. All others involved in the protest were released without bail the same day. Who is Flip? The character “Flip” who wrote the glowing intro (remember the “hemmoraging gates of hell” reference?) to the Jim Phillips article cited above is Flip Benham. Benham is the director of “Operation Save America”, which is what “Operation Rescue” has evolved into. Here’s Benham baptizing Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey). Information on Benham is here. Among the highlights is the fact that in 1998, Benham and Operation Rescue were fined $10 million for stalking and harassing an obstetrician and his wife in Texas. Benham was ordered to pay $170,000 of the judgement. He has been quoted as saying that "Allah is a lie from the pit of hell", that America’s current war on terrorism is actually a war against Islam, and that followers of Islam can either be killed or converted to Christianity. Benham was also one of the leaders of the Ten Commandments Monument fiasco in Alabama. A final word on Benham: He actually supported the execution of Paul Hill, and was quoted as saying that he would volunteer to “pull the switch”. His rationale for this does not appear to be that he disagrees with the use of violence to prevent abortions. In fact his thinking on the issue is somewhat confusing, but it seems that he believes that Hill killed an innocent person, i.e. the abortionist. These are Brenham’s own words, taken from a transcript appearing on a pro-life website: “Yeah but that abortionist was simply the gun that Paul Hill was, or the, the gun that was going to be used to kill the baby. You see, it's the mother that is most culpable in killing the baby. The mother is culpable. So if you wanna, if you wanna operate on justifiable homicide, which is utter foolishness and sin, then what you, what you, what you've got, is you've got to, kill the mother, C section the baby and save the baby. That's what you do.” So based on this one article that Jim Phillips wrote, we’ve established three things. First, the article makes it clear that Phillips was instrumental in helping to organize the Austin boycott, and has known Chris Danze for some time. Second, Phillips is held in high regard by Flip Brenham, the leader of Operation Save America, a man who talks about the murder of women who want to have abortions, and who has already been fined for stalking and threatening doctors. Finally, Phillips praises the visit to Austin of Missionaries to the Preborn, a group that advocates violence against doctors who perform abortions and police officers who assist patients going into clinics. He also holds joint activities and protests with Missionaries members. Contacting the creeps: There are at least eight people living in Austin with the name “Jim Phillips”. So at this point it’s impossible to provide direct contact information for him. His email address listed at the Renovation Ministries website does not appear to work either. However, Phillips was kind enough to include an email address for Chris Danze, as cited in the following passage: “Our calling strategy has shifted slightly; please email Chris Danze at CDanze@yahoo.com for updates.” I strongly encourage anyone opposed to the boycott to use this address to try to find out what’s up. Craig Teykl, Mark Hamilton and George Transom are local contractors from the Austin area who got involved in helping out the boycott early on. I provided contact information for Teykl in a previous post. The contact information for Hamilton and Transom is: Mark Hamilton Centex Materials L.P. Mark Hamilton 3801 S. Capital of Tx. Hwy, Suite 250 Austin, TX 78706 Phone: 512-460-3003 - Fax: 512-444-9809 10706 Scotland Well Dr Austin, TX (512) 335-8649 George Transom Transom Construction 512-255-3875

2003-11-20T14:01:00.000-06:00

IBAM Episode 10: Bush/Blair Press Conference Tony Blair and George Bush held a brief joint press conference today. I’ve run the numbers for each of them and the results are shown in the table below.

language useage index scores

Speaker reading Ease Grade Level BRI-2

Blair 60.2% 10.2 .013

Bush 66.6% 7.2 .111

language useage index scores
Speaker	reading Ease	Grade Level	BRI-2
Blair	60.2%	10.2	.013
Bush	66.6%	7.2	.111

The results are not too surprising, but all the same Bush comes off appallingly badly in comparison to Blair. Blair is a full three grade levels ahead of Bush in terms of his speech complexity, and Bush’s BRI-2 index score of .111 is the worst that I’ve observed for him so far. Blair’s sole grammatical error was:

[missing “that”] I've already said in the House of Commons it will be resolved in one of two ways.

Bush’s errors were far more numerous.

[singular/plural] We could have less troops in Iraq, [“what is ever necessary”??] We could have less troops in Iraq, we could have the same number of troops in Iraq, we could have more troops in Iraq, what is ever necessary to secure Iraq. [number agreement; truly bizarre because he makes this error three times in one sentence, and then phrases it correctly twice more in the same sentence] There's Iraqis being trained for an army; there's Iraqis being trained for an intelligence service; there's Iraqis being trained for additional police work; there are Iraqis being trained for asset protection; there are Iraqis being trained for border guards. [number agreement] There's over 130,000 Iraqis now who have been trained, who are working for their own security. [“…brigades of THE Iraqi army…”] So part of the answer to your question is the -- is how fast the new brigades of Iraqi army are stood up, [just wrong; “…which is the ITC ruling that the industry…”] And I'm reviewing the findings about the restructuring of our steel industry, which is the ITC ruling basically said that the industry needs some breathing time to restructure.

What strikes me as the really appalling aspect of this is not necessarily that Tony Blair puts Bush to shame. I would have been surprised if he hadn’t. No, what occurs to me is that Blair would probably put to shame just about any of the 9 Democratic candidates as well. As much as people like to ridicule Bush’s speaking, it isn’t language level per se that sets him apart from other leading politicians. They all try to speak at a very basic level, and the reviews of the Dem’s debates that I’ve posted show that most of them aren’t speaking at anywhere near the 10th grade level. They like to keep it simple, presumably because the bulk of the people who are listening to them wouldn’t like (or it is assumed that they wouldn’t like) political figures who are too articulate. Dick Gephardt, for example, is probably more than capable of carrying out a debate on issues while speaking at something higher than a 6th grade level. The fact that he doesn’t, indicates that he’s been trained to aim his message at a broad and not particularly intellectual audience. The result is that we get politicians who talk like 13 year olds. Bush’s constant grammatical errors truly put him in a class by himself. But the low level of political speech in this country, and by this I mean language use as opposed to content, is really striking in comparison to what is expected from leaders in other western countries.

2003-11-19T13:55:00.000-06:00

Is Bush A Moron, Episode 9

Today’s version of IBAM includes three samples of Bushspeak from the past week. The first comes from a brief Q/A session with reporters that occurred on Sunday (11/16). It was short, as such encounters typically are, but even so it can’t be considered one of his better performances. The numbers for the Q/A were: Reading Ease 80.4%, Grade Level Equivalent 4.4, and BRI-2 (Grammar) index = .083. Given the brevity of the session I can only pull out two examples of speech errors.

[fewer] Somebody told me, they said, well, this means there's going to be less troops.

[was vs were] It's symptomatic of the fact that there was a lot of weapons lying around.

The second samples comes from an interview that Bush had with David Frost. This was much longer, and provided many more good examples of incorrect speech, for example:

[singular/plural] Well, I'm going to take a tux, and I'm going to take a – tails.

[that vs which] Again, we're not going to agree on every issue, but a Europe which works closely with America and an America which works closely with Europe means the world will be better off.

[not a word; is this man 14 years old?] I mean, you know, look. I mean, he's a man who has presided over suiciders,

[missing “A” or “the”] Serious consequence was with dealing with Mr. Saddam Hussein today, before it became too late.

[singular/plural] …and there's a lot of countries that made that decision with us…

[incorrect useage] We understand -- just like Saddam Hussein -- that he has been torturous to his people.

Besides these obvious grammatical errors, there were other cases that weren’t coded as errors by the spell-checker, but which nonetheless have to be considered examples of rather convulated language. Consider the following:

After all -- again, I repeat this because it's a very important point that people in your country must remember, and that is the world has spoken -- universally spoken -- about this man's danger for 12 long years, and in order for -- at the very minimum, in order for a multinational organization to be valid and effective, something has to happen other than resolutions. And when an organization says if you don't disarm -- in other words, in order to say they don't disarm, intelligence convinced a lot of nations, including France, that he had weapons; in other words, he had to disarm something.

This is one of those passages that seems to make sense when taken in small snippets, but when you listen or read all of them together it just sounds confusing. Here’s another:

We understand -- just like Saddam Hussein -- that he has been torturous to his people. The -- you know, people in North Korea are starving to death, and that weapons of mass destruction in his hands, given his history -- just like weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's hands, given his history -- is a very dangerous element. It's dangerous. It is -- inhibits the capacity for peace and freedom to spread.

Should adults be allowed to talk like this? And if they do, should they be put in control of nuclear weapons? Maybe he has very clear thoughts on these issues but can’t articulate them, but it’s been my experience that confused writing and speaking reflect confused thinking. Anyway, the scores for the Bush/Frost interview were as follows: Reading Ease 65.9%, Grade Equivalent 8.2, BRI-2 (Grammar) = .049. The score of 8.2 for grade equivalent is rather misleading. The sentence in the previous example that begins “The – you know,…”, as convoluted as it is, actually works in Bush’s favor in the traditional readability measures, since it counts as a very long sentence. Since these measures are computed taking into account average sentence length (among other things), sentences like this give him a higher score than should probably be allowed, based on how the sentence is actually structured.

The third sample for the week comes from Bush’s interview with Trevor Kavanagh of "The Sun", a Rupert Murdoch paper. The questioning was pretty sycophantic compared to the ones that David Frost were asking. Some examples of Bush’s errors during the interview:

[singular/plural; should be “things that are imnportant”] You've probably followed some of my domestic policy, but one of the things that's important is to call on people to serve their communities by helping neighbors who hurt.

[“dealt WITH al Qaeda”] Fourthly, we dealt al Qaeda.

[an old time favorite; “suiciders” = not a word] He is paying suiciders to go kill innocent Israelis.

[“singular/plural; “BREED anxiety””] Free nations won't create conditions of strife and resentment that breeds anxiety and terror.

[his first use of “militaries” is inappropriate] That's the other thing about militaries, both our militaries are full of compassionate people.

[not a sentence] When you think about somebody in America can start their own business and grow it, and then actually own something.

[“done pretty WELL”] We've done pretty good on our budget agreements, so far.

[that vs which] After all, we were a country which was able to sit back in our -- kind of in our geographical posture and pick and choose where a threat might emerge...

[incorrect word; adapt vs adopt] We can have the debate all day long as to whether the Middle East will ever adapt the habits of democracy and freedom.

[“but also”] I would tell the skeptics that not only is the world more secure as a result of the decisions we made, the Iraqi people now have a chance to live in a society which is hopeful and optimistic,

[singular/plural] Our goals are peace.

I had to include this one additional quote, which appears to be a Bushism in the traditional sense:

Really quickly, this is a desk given to us by Queen Victoria. A famous desk called the HMS Resolute, and it's wood from the Resolute. The door was put on by Roosevelt to cover his infirmities.

One wonders exactly how many infirmities that FDR had. Maybe one for each leg? Bush’s scores from the “Sun” interview were as follows: Reading Ease 67.3, Grade Equivalent 7.7, and BRI-2 (Grammar) = .067.

All told, this was not a good week for Bush in terms of unscripted public speaking.

2003-11-18T14:29:00.000-06:00

Bushspeak, Demspeak: Episode 8 of “Is Bush A Moron”

I finally got around to analyzing the Dems debate from the previous week (“Rock the Vote”), as well as some comments that Bush made last Monday to workers at a BMW plant in South Carolina.

Since this is the first time that readers of LoL may have seen this stuff, here’s the link to an early posting of the “Is Bush A Moron” project that explains what it is all about.

Bush’s comments were pretty much par for the course for him. He didn’t say “suiciders”, but his grammar score was on the low end, BRI-2 = .050. Some examples:

There's a little bit of a change -- it used to be that government would judge you on just did you have job training programs.

There's health care jobs, there's jobs in the manufacturing sector.

We ought to make sure that we tailor curriculum for the jobs which will exist.

And we've got an energy bill that we're trying to get out, an energy bill which says we'll work on conservation.

His Reading Ease score was 71.7, and Grade Equivalent score was 6.8.

Rock The Vote Debate: The “Reading Ease” scores for the eight candidates who participated in the last debate are shown below. Also shown is Bush’s score from the 11/10 speech in NC, along with his average Reading Ease score from the 2000 presidential debates.

Reading Ease
Lieberman 66.3%
Moseley Braun 66.7%
Kucinich 67.1%
Bush (new) 71.1%
Dean 71.2%
Kerry 72.1%
Bush (2000) 72.8%
Edwards 75.9%
Clark 77.7%
Sharpton 78.5%

Clark continued to get a higher Reading Ease score than Bush, while Lieberman, Moseley Braun and Kucinich got the lowest scores.

Grade
Kucinich 8.1
Moseley Braun 8
Lieberman 7.8
Dean 7.3
Bush (2000) 6.9
Bush (new) 6.8
Edwards 6.7
Kerry 6.5
Clark 5.7
Sharpton 5.4

Kucinich, Moseley Braun and Lieberman also received the highest grade equivalent scores. These three have tended to use the most complicated language in the debates so far. The surprise of the debate was that Edwards, Kerry and Clark (as well as Sharpton) received lower grade level scores than Bush, indicating simplified, more basic language. In previous debates, only Gephardt consistently challenged Bush on this measure of language useage.

BRI-2
Dean 0.000
Clark 0.000
Kucinich 0.000
Moseley Braun 0.000
Edwards 0.000
Kerry 0.000
Lieberman 0.014
Sharpton 0.025
Bush (2000) 0.040
Bush (new) 0.050

Finally, the grammar measure (BRI-2) showed that six of the Democratic candidates got perfect scores, making no grammatical errors at all. Lieberman made only one and Sharpton made only two. For Kerry, Clark and Edwards, this is particularly important since it means that they managed to speak in a manner that allowed their message to be understood by the maximal number of people, while at the same time doing so in an articulate manner. Bush may be reasonably good at the first, but not the latter.

2003-11-17T15:27:00.000-06:00

What Do They Have Planned? While browsing the website of a local anti-abortion group, I came across the following message.

BIG NEWS COMING... If you haven't already noticed, there is a tremendous momentum building around the efforts of the Coalition for Life and other Pro-Life groups fighting Planned Parenthood around the state. Recognizing that we are in an unprecedented position to do incredible good, the Coalition for Life is taking the lead on a bold initiative that will capitalize on the many successes and educate millions of people across the state about the danger posed by Planned Parenthood. We can't release the specifics yet, since Planned Parenthood monitors this e-mail list, but please pray that God blesses the preparation going into these efforts. One thing we can tell you... You want to mark your calendar for the evening of Thursday, December 4th. Something BIG will be happening!

Sounds rather ominous if you ask me. One possibility is that there’ll be some announcement or event related to broadening or expanding the boycott that’s been generating so much news in Austin recently, but exactly what’s planned is anybody’s guess. I don’t know what if any significance the date December 4th has. Another posting at the HoustonCoalition website included a status report about the Austin boycott.

In an attempt to shore up sagging public confidence in the project, Planned Parenthood hosted a glitzy luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel with a former Clinton advisor as speaker. At the event, the abortion chain announced that they will now serve as their own general contractor. Here's an update on the matters from Chris Danze: "The Planned Parenthood announcement yesterday that THEY will be the general contractor means they DO NOT HAVE a general contractor. In their statement they said they will protect the names of their subcontractors. Browning was doing that. They don't realize it is difficult even in a city Austin's size for a particular construction company to do anything without other construction people knowing about it. With the amount of attention the mayors have given this project it would be near impossible for anyone to work on the abortion chamber incognito. Putting the mayors up front on the attack may have helped morale for the pro-abortion people temporarily, but the fact is, it solidified the construction community against this project. At the fundraising luncheon held at the Four Seasons Hotel yesterday, Planned Parenthood had on display a 60 lb. bag of concrete mix with a sign on top that read: 'pro-choice concrete'. If they plan on pouring the foundation with 60 lb. bags of mix from Home Depot, we better pull up a chair, we'll be here a while. They are in trouble folks." Please continue to pray for these efforts!

Incidentally, the “Clinton advisor” at the luncheon was Sidney Blumenthal. The luncheon rasised over $180,000 for PP. Danze’s reaction to the fundraising effort by PP is also telling. The newspaper article that covered the luncheon asked Danze for a comment. Here it is:

This is good news for men who use women as sex objects. Bad news for women and children. The boycott continues."

“Good news for men who use women as sex objects”? What does that have to do with being pro-life? In this quote the mask slips, and you can see that the real agenda here has nothing to do with saving babies. Instead, it’s all about sex, or more precisely Danze and his ilk’s aversion to, but continued obsession with it. If you haven’t already contacted Danze to voice your opinions about his behavior, here is the contact information:

Home Tel.: (512) 306-1326 Maldonado & Danze Inc Business Tel.: (512) 837-9677 email: mdinctim@austin.rr.com

Continuing the assault on women’s rights, anti-abortion activists have forced the closing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Amarillo. The story is described on trhe same anti-choice website annoucong the “December 4th” event:

PANHANDLE PRO-LIFERS HELP CLOSE YET ANOTHER PLANNED PARENTHOOD The faithful prayers of many Pro-Life Christians in the Amarillo area have been answered as yet another Planned Parenthood facility has announced that it will be closing its doors forever on November 19. Several other Planned Parenthood facilities in the panhandle have now dropped down to a part-time basis as well. The Executive Director of Planned Parenthood of Amarillo told the media, "Basically we're in survival mode here." According to Jim Sedlak of Stop Planned Parenthood, in 1996 Planned Parenthood had 19 thriving clinics in the Texas panhandle region. Under the courageous leadership of Bishop John Yanta, the Pro-Lifers have seen Planned Parenthood's operations diminish to only one full-time and three part-time facilities. God is good!

Sedlak is the brains behind an organization called Stop Planned Parenthood (STOPP). Their mission statement includes the following description of the oirganizartion’s purpose:

The purpose of STOPP is really quite simple. We intend to cause such discontent with Planned Parenthood programs that it will have no choice but to close its doors and get out of town! That doesn't seem like too much to ask of an organization that has been ruthlessly attacking our children for years-abusing them in the womb and in the classroom.

Yes, that’s rigfht, PP is abusing children in the classroom. What STOPP is complaining about of course is the teaching of sex education, and other dangerous “secular humanist” activities. One of Sedlak’s pet peeves is underpopulation. He’s concerned that the world’s population is decreasing, because of decades of legalized abortion. At times he’s written of this so-called “crisis” in economic terms, emphasizing the problems that will arise when aging baby boomers outnumber the total population of working people who will be supporting them. To be sure, this might be cause for concern, but Sedlak’s solution is to have young people go on a “birthing spree”, with women supposedly acting as little more than baby factories, constantly pumping out a new litter every 12 months or so. Here he is in his own words:

You should plan for larger families," Jim Sedlak, director of STOPP International (STOPP), told students during an extended speaking tour in six cities and three states. "The world is facing a population shortage, and by early in the 21st century, there will be more people in the United States over 60 than under 20. The population pyramid has been turned upside down." "My generation has messed things up," Sedlak told the universally attentive students, "and it's up to you to correct things. Your generation must bring an end to legalized abortion, and must begin having three to five children per family. Only then will our birth rates grow and we will return to a healthy population increase." Sedlak said he is stressing this issue with students because "later this year, the world will reach a population of six billion people. These students will hear a lot of hype about the supposed 'overpopulation' problem. We want to let them know there is no overpopulation problem and, in fact, the real threat is just the opposite. The United Nations is predicting a world population decline by the year 2050, so we must begin now to change our view of abortion, children and family or face dire world-wide consequences."

It’s nut cases like Jim Sedlak who are responsible for closing down the abortion clinic in Amarillo, and who are behind the assault on the PP clinic efforts in Austin. Contact Mr. Sedlak and let him know how you feel about his efforts.

STOPP 540-659-4171 (voice) 540-659-2586 (fax)

Interestingly, a page at the STOPP website containing links to other related sites, include a link yto a group called Dentists for Life. Nothing odd about that, until you check and realize that both Dentists for Life and STOPP have the same phone numbers and fax numbers (the ones just posted above). The president of Dentists for Life is a Dr. Craig Bozzacco, who is among those that signed a petition urging the Pope to excommunicate a slew of Democratic figures (as well as a small number of Republicans like Tom Ridge and Susan Collins) for their stands on abortion and homosexuality. Among DFL’s many contributions to the debate over abortion has been the claim that the Pill causes gingivitis. Why do DFL and STOPP have the same phone and fax numbers? It’s because they are each part of an organization called the American Life League (ALL). According to a fact sheet on the Planned Parenthood website, the organization was “founded on April 1, 1979, by five families, including that of the current president, Judie Brown. Brown had previously worked for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).” ALL opposes abortion, cloning, sex education, contraception, federal funding for family planning, fetal tissue/stem cell research, homosexuality, international family planning, living wills, organ donation, Planned Parenthood, reproductive technology, right to die, and welfare reform.

2003-11-14T14:27:00.000-06:00

Kennedy’s Neurosurgeon With the 40th anniversary of JFK’s assassination coming up, this story makes timely reading. It’s about one of the neurosurgeons who attended the president after he was brought to Parkland Memorial Hospital. He’s still alive, living in Houston, and is currently chairman of neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine.

He cradled John F. Kennedy's head and turned it, parting the president's hair so that he could examine the wound caused by an assassin's bullet on that unforgettable day in Dallas, almost four decades ago. Even in that breathtaking moment in Trauma Room I at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dr. Robert Grossman thought "how handsome a man the president was." As the nation prepares to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of JFK, Grossman can't help but reflect on a day that he said he knew would leave the world a different place. Most Americans old enough to be aware of that day can tell you where they were, what they were doing, when they heard President Kennedy had died. Few recall it from the intensely personal perspective of Grossman. Now chairman of neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Grossman is a private man who has chosen to share his memories with few outside of family. Next week, he will fly to Washington, D.C., to appear on CNN's Larry King Live with other physicians who were present in the emergency room when Kennedy died. This week, in his Houston home, he talked about what he had seen as a young doctor in Dallas. It was Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, 1 p.m. Only 30 minutes earlier, the day was so ordinary, life so normal for Grossman, then an instructor of neurosurgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, making $11,000 a year, which "wasn't that much, even in those days." Back in 1963, Grossman's small, cluttered laboratory was across the parking lot from Parkland Memorial Hospital. He remembered sitting in his lab, "chatting about nothing in particular" with Dr. Kemp Clark, head of the Department of Neurosurgery, when the telephone rang. "I answered it, and someone said, `The president has been shot, come to the emergency room!' We began running." Kennedy was already in Trauma Room I when Grossman and Clark raced in, he said. The president, comatose on a gurney, was being examined by several emergency room surgeons. Grossman said he and Clark moved forward, one on each side of the gurney. They lifted Kennedy's head and parted his hair to examine the massive gunshot injury. They were the first to discover the head wound. The other doctors had only noticed the gaping hole in the president's throat. "We turned his head and saw the wound. It was obvious that he would not survive," Grossman said. ……. …"My whole life I've had people come up to me and say, `Your father is Dr. Grossman? He saved my wife's life!' He is so kind and soft-spoken. In my family, we just never spoke about the Kennedy assassination because he placed more importance on the people whose lives he was able to save," she said. Oakley said the family understood her father's dedication to his work. "There were only two times I ever asked him to turn off his pager: during my wedding and when I gave birth to my twins. Other than that, my family lived with the idea that at any moment, he could be called to go help somebody. This is what drives him. We accepted that and we loved him for it." His face will look familiar to many Houstonians -- he's the kind-faced doctor on the Methodist Hospital billboards around town. You may have seen them; he never has. His daughter has told him, though, that his grandchildren laugh whenever they pass the billboards. "I've heard about them, sure. My grandchildren point and say, `There's Grumpy.' That's their nickname for me. It makes me laugh, but the billboards don't mean much." …. ….Grossman recently visited Parkland Memorial Hospital for the first time since he moved to Houston in 1968. "I went with my son-in-law (Jennifer's husband, Judge Bruce Oakley of the 234th District Court). It was interesting. They have a waiting room for the X-ray department where the emergency room was back then," Grossman said. It was Judge Oakley who nudged Grossman back to Parkland. "I encouraged him to go and have his oral history taken by the museum up there. We were in a cab and drove by Dealey Plaza. He had never been to Dealey Plaza. Can you imagine that? "When we went into the old Trauma Room, I think I got more emotional than he did. He is a very reserved person. There is a plaque on the wall. To me, it was like breathing history, standing next to the man who tried to save the president's life."

If you really need a “JFK assassination” fix, there’s always this website, where someone has gone to the trouble of posting the entire body of testimony given to both the Warren Commission and the House investigation into the assassination.

2003-11-13T16:24:00.000-06:00

Republican Filibuster Drinking Game The Republicans are having a 30 hour filibuster in the senate to protest Democratic senator’s blocking of four judicial nominations. Scout at And Then has a post where he alludes to the overnighter as a kind of pajama party, complete with gossip about the four unfortunate victims of Democrat’s hate mongering; it’s mildly amusing. And, it comes with bonus geek trivia, namely the origins of the term”filibuster”. I dug up a bit more…

Actually, the "difficulties" referred to are somewhat inconsequential. What we know is that filibuster and freebooter are doublets, both coming ultimately from Dutch vrijbuiter "pirate", formed from vrij "free" and buiter "plunderer" (booty is a related word). This gave English freebooter in the mid-16th century. The Dutch word was apparently very useful, for the French took it, as well, but they mangled it a bit more into flibustier (not to be confused with lingerie!). English also used the French word, with various spellings, until the middle of the 19th century. The Spanish, too, took the word from the French and turned it into filibustero, and English, perhaps not realizing it already had two forms of the word in flibustier and freebooter, took filibuster from the Spanish in the mid-19th century. The only cloudy issue is how the word flibutor, yet another form of the word, entered English, i.e. directly from Dutch or via another source. However, there is only one recorded instance of it, in the 16th century. We'll put our money on the Portuguese simply by virtue of the fact that they always seem to turn up in the most unexpected places in word histories!

In any event, and unfortunately for fans of tedium, the actual filibuster began last night, and apparently was not televised in its entirety by C-SPAN. On the off chance that it gets shown on the weekend, when C-SPAN has a lot of empty air time, I thought it would be useful to have some way of passing the time. This “Filibuster Drinking Game” might do the trick. Here are the rules: Take a drink when… someone uses the word “outrageous” or “outrage” x2 if its said by Orrin Hatch someone uses the word “obstructionist” someone uses the phrase “litmus test” someone uses the phrase “original intent” someone uses the word “hypocrite” or “hypocritical” x2 if its said by Orrin Hatch x4 if Saxby Chambliss speaks x8 if Bill Frist strangles a cat x2 if Trent Lott gets to speak outside of the 1:00am to 6:00am time window

2003-11-10T13:55:00.000-06:00

Still More on Chris Danze. Here’s some more background information on the guy behind the PP boycott in Austin. He’s featured in this post from last December, detailing a continuing series of protests that were occurring at Austin's Reproductive Services (Repro) clinic. It’s a long post, but search for the word “Danze” and you get a photo of him (2nd from the left, I believe), as well as his wife and two of his sons. They’re apparently on some kind of family outing. To his credit, Danze was one of the main people behind the establishment of something called “Our Lady of the Angels Maternity Shelter” in Austin, which has as it’s stated goal “to provide shelter to women in crisis pregnancies by offering a loving and stable family environment to support the mother and child in their efforts to create a hopeful future for themselves”. Nevertheless you could argue that the Shelter’s services wouldn’t be needed if people like Danze minded their own business and didn’t make a habit of harassing abortion clinics, but damn it, no one ever said the man was perfect. I’ll finish off with a brief sample from our friends at FreeRepublic, who have started to address this topic in some of their message boards. Just read them and feel the love… Given the anti-growth sentiment of the environazis who run our local politics, I'm surprised a baby death chamber could be built at all without an environmental impact study and all the red tape they would make you go through just to put up a structure. The PP spokeshag did say, unashamedly, that the new center would be used for abortions. Maybe a creative architect could design it to look like a back-alley for them. 1 posted on 11/05/2003 3:43 PM PST by Tall_Texan They need some kind of recognizable symbol, just like the candycane stripes for the old barber shop ... A coat hanger perhaps? And a brand of course: "BabiesNoLongerRUs" 8 posted on 11/05/2003 4:01 PM PST by WOSG (I SUPPORT COLONEL WEST.) SerialKillers'R'Us" should be PP-hood's shingle name, but we know they wouldn't stand for that much truth being said about them. 14 posted on 11/05/2003 4:30 PM PST by MHGinTN I would just shorten it to "DEADBabiesRUs". 28 posted on 11/06/2003 7:21 AM PST by DrewsDad

2003-11-10T11:45:00.000-06:00

Abortion Rights Switcheroo Following up on the other day’s post concerning the Planned Parenthood boycott that’s going on in Austin, I’m posting some new contact information of individuals involved in the boycott. Chris Danze is the person who started the whole thing. When I first read the articles I found about the boycott, I thought that Danze just happened to be a contractor who’d heard about the construction, and then decided to rally the troops to shut it down. Essentially, it was his role as contractor that jumped out at me. I simply assumed that this became an issue for him only when the construction on the clinic started, e.g. perhaps he’d been contacted to do some work and decided that it was against his moral principles, leading him to organize the boycott. I don’t know for a fact whether he’d been a candidate to work on the site, but it seems I was wrong about one thing. Danze has been lurking around abortion facilities in Austin for quite a while. It seems more likely now that he saw the construction effort as an opportunity to use his unique set of contacts to do something he’s long been working towards, namely shutting down abortion services in Austin. Consider this article, which appeared at operationsaveamerica.org in early June. The article relates the story of a Peter Kropf, who had formerly been the owner of an OB/GYN clinic in Austin and had (for reasons that aren’t described) left the business. In the middle of the article I found this little tidbit: Kopf, the former owner of the Austin OB/GYN clinic, told pro-lifers he'd never been happier since he left the business. Austin activist Chris Danze, a leader of the witnesses faithfully proclaiming truth every Friday and Saturday at the clinic, and dentist Dr. Don Hartsfield have both been telling him of the Christian faith and he's listening. So Danze isn’t some “Johnny Come Lately” to the anti-choice movement. Rather, it seems he was obsessed enough to have been the leaderof a bunch of wingnuts who were showing up every Friday and Saturday to do god’s work. Call me cynical, but this puts him in a slightly less sympathetic light, in my opinion. Was there more? Oh, yes, yes. A website called “Family News In Focus” featured an article dated September 26 that covered the boycott. Most of the article contains material I covered in the initial posting, but towards the end of the story was the following passage: “Danze, meanwhile, isn't stopping with one abortion clinic. He has plans to round up like-minded suppliers to deny pest control and even bottled water to the entire abortion industry in Austin.” If you aren’t convinced by now that Danze is a major league religious nut asshole who needs to be taken down a peg, then you probably never will be. So, at the risk of being redundant, here once again is his contact information, which I intend to keep posting as long as this travesty continues: Home Tel.: (512) 306-1326 Maldonado & Danze Inc Business Tel.: (512) 837-9677 email: mdinctim@austin.rr.com There’s a new addition to our dishonor role today. While searching for information on Chris Danze, I came across an article that includes a quote from a certain Craig Teykl. Mr Teykl was quoted in an article about the boycott. Controversy surrounds a new construction project in South Austin, but that's not stopping work from beginning. Six years and more than $4 million later, construction at the newest Planned Parenthood site on Ben White Blvd. is underway. But the Austin area pro-life concrete contractors and suppliers are refusing to work on the project. The group doesn't object to some of the services that will be provided there, but they do oppose abortion. "Our stance is a construction community as a Christian community, that no matter what good that they provide, the killing of one innocent boy or girl does not justify all the goods that they think they will be providing at these facilities," says pro-life contractor Craig Teykl. OK, so Craig Teykl allows himself to be identified in a media report as a “pro life contractor”. He appears to be a willing and enthusiastic member of the group involved in the boycott, and for that reason you, Craig Teykl, have earned a spot on the dishonor role. Teykl manages the Austin branch of a company called “Aggregate Haulers LP”. Call his office and let him know you don’t appreciate his efforts to infringe on women’s rights, and that you’ll do what you can to see that his company gets no work from anyone you know. Here’s the phone number of his office: Craig Teykl Business: (512) 389-1400 (Austin) If you feel like it, put in a good word for Craig at his head office in San Antonio. The president of Aggregate Haulers LP is someone named Randy Wyatt. While I know nothing about Mr. Wyatt’s views on abortion or matters of choice, I think he deserves to know that one of his key employees is quite publicly involving the company that he owns in such a touchy matter. Ask Mr Wyatt how he feels about the publicity he stands to get from this affair, and whether he thinks his business might suffer if some potential customers get the idea that Aggregate Haulers LP is anti-choice, and take their business elsewhere. Randy Wyatt, President, Aggregate Haulers LP Office: 210-492-5501 Fax: 210-492-0031 email: rwyatt@ahlp.com More about David Bereit. I found the following at a site called Pealeaf.com. It seems that Mr. Bereit is in the habit of using false names to get information about Planned Parenthood activities. Here’s the story: With our local Planned Parenthood going full speed toward building a new clinic here in Austin, they've attracted the attention of the Pro Lifers, who seem to be concentrated in Bryan, TX, rallying around their head propagandist, David Bereit. Apparently last week Mr. Bereit sent an email to our local chapter requesting more information about The Choice Project (the campaign raising funds for the new clinic). My friend who works at PP admin offices received the message, which was from a B.E. Reit. Sensing something odd, my friend Googled and they soon discovered that "B.E. Reit" is actually David Bereit, an outspoken Anti-Choice activist. Let me share with you some of the tactics employed by these "activists." If you or someone in your car visit the PP clinic (abortions are just one of the services offered there), the Anti-Choice police will note your license plate number and send a letter to you stating that someone visited PP for an abortion (whether it is true or not). The "activists" also harass clinic employees to the tune of, "Hello, Jane Doe, we know you work at the abortion clinic. Now, we're sure you enjoy your nice life, enjoy going to First United on Sundays with your son and daughter, who attend John Doe Elementary School. We're sure you wouldn't want anything to happen..." Now, these are factual accounts of things that have happened, told to me by my friend who works at PP. I'm recounting them here, because these people, purporting to be doing God's work, employ the most terroristic methods of deception. I cannot believe it is God's work they're doing, and it strikes me as not only hypocritical, but pathological and criminal. It's sickening and infuriating. Things are heating up locally. The Groundbreaking for the new clinic is on September 23rd, and the protesters are sure to be there. I just did an emergency web site tweak to remove all donor and staff names from the project's web site (so they won't be harassed by the Anti-Choicers). So David Bereit gives false identities over the phone in order to gain access to information about the organization that is raising funds for the new clinic. Very interesting. I’m sure that all he wanted to do was send all the donors a “Thank You” note. Here is some more information concerning the activities of “Coalition for Life”, the group that Bereit heads: Seven days a week, ten hours a day, picketers line the sidewalk, trying to change hearts and minds. On Wednesdays, when abortions are performed, they hold placards ("Please pray! 1654 babies have been killed at Planned Parenthood in Bryan"), beseeching each woman who arrives to turn back. "Mom, we want to talk to you!" they cry, or "Please don't kill your baby!"… What anyone passing by the squat, beige building on Twenty-ninth Street cannot see is the human drama that plays out each day inside the clinic. This is not just a place where questions of faith, conscience, and biology collide. It is also a place where a task as simple as opening the mail is done with caution. Here, the fear of violence has lingered for so long that its presence has become almost ordinary, as much a part of the fabric of life as the bulletproof vests that are casually slung over the backs of staffers' chairs. What rattles employees more than the protesters who stand at the gates is the enemy they cannot see—the people in their community who have, for four years, waged a campaign of intimidation. "Wanted" posters bearing a photograph of the clinic's doctor have been tacked to telephone poles all over town. Postcards with pictures of dismembered fetuses have been sent to clinic employees' neighbors, warning them of the "baby killer" in their midst. Nurses have been followed, volunteers harassed. Even clients have not been spared. The parents of several A&M students have learned of their daughters' abortions from postcards that arrived in the mail…. ANYONE WHO ROUNDS THE BEND ON Twenty-ninth Street and pulls into the clinic's driveway arrives at a building that looks like a military outpost in enemy territory. "No firearms allowed" warns one sign on the front door. "Trespassers will be prosecuted" reads another. An eight-foot black security fence rings the clinic and the parking lot. Nine surveillance cameras watch the perimeter of the building, which has been fortified with a fire-retardant roof and windows made of bullet-resistant glass. If the perimeter is breached, the exterior doors can be locked with the push of a button. … DYANN SANTOS FIRST SAW THE "Wanted" posters as she drove to work one morning in the summer of 1999. They were hard to miss. Every time she stopped at a red light or took a right turn on her route from College Station to Bryan, a poster bearing a photo of the clinic's doctor fluttered at eye level from a street sign or a telephone pole. "Someone knew my way to work," she said. "Someone had planned this out for me to see." Soon her neighbors began receiving postcards. "Under current Texas law, abortion providers, like convicted sex offenders, are required by state law to register with the State," they read, listing her home address. Farther down, the tone became more informal: "Please feel free to call Dyann at [her home number] or possibly catch her in the Wal-Mart parking lot. She drives a small 1999 silver Honda with Texas Tag [her license plate number]." Dozens more postcards arrived without return addresses. One listed the "body count" Santos was responsible for and the warning "God has his own way of keeping score!" And so she took precautions. She transferred her teenage son to a private school. She took different routes home. She changed her phone number, twice. She stopped taking walks at night. Not all the harassment has been anonymous. Debbie McCall, the clinic's community service director, was manning a Planned Parenthood booth at an A&M health fair two years ago when a man she had never seen before ran up and threw a note at her, then disappeared into the crowd. Across the piece of paper was written one word: "Murderer." At another health fair that year, a man whom McCall had observed picketing the clinic before approached her. "I'm keeping an eye on you," he said with a grin. "You should be careful driving home down that lonely highway." McCall commutes from the town of Crockett, 72 miles away, along a two-lane road that threads through farmland. "I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck," she recalled. Still, she had little recourse. As with the anonymous mail and the "Wanted" posters, no one had broken the law. No threats of "imminent bodily injury," as the law requires, had been made. "They go right up to the edge of the law," observed Melissa Reyna, a nurse who worked at the clinic for three years. "They keep pushing that line a little further. The concern when I worked there was that someday, someone—that one loose cannon out there—would step over the line." Planned Parenthood believes that the coalition has either participated in the anonymous mail campaign or knows who is carrying it out. "The coalition's members stand outside the clinic and write down license plate numbers," said Dr. Elizabeth Berigan, a local internist and a member of the Planned Parenthood board. "The postcards have slowed down, but when clients used to get them, it was always a few days after they visited the clinic, at the address their cars were registered to. This isn't rocket science. If the coalition isn't sending the postcards, they're not keeping very good control over their notes." Here once again is contact information for Mr Bereit, or Mr. Reit, or whatever he is calling himself these days: David Bereit, Executive Director COALITION FOR LIFE 3601 East 29th Street, Suite 8 Bryan, Texas 77802 Phone: 979-846-2825 Fax: 979-846-0389 E-mail: david@CoalitionForLife.com Home Tel.: (979) 690-3009 The Ambassador’s Speakers Bureau represents David Bereit when he moonlights as a motivational speaker. Here’s their contact info: Toll-Free Phone: (877) 425-4700, ext. 235 Fax: (615) 661-4344 E-mail: gloria.leyda@AmbassadorAgency.com Mark Lynn Proeger I don’t know any more about this guy than I was able to discern from the one article he was quoted in last week. He seems to be a small player, a supporter of the boycott but not necessarily involved in it himself. Nevertheless, he’s quoted in at least news article supporting the boycott, and I learned that he’s trolled around at least one website that has addressed this issue, gleefully proclaiming how successful the boycott is. This is the number of an Austin coffeehouse where he holds a weekly “LQFA” meeting (“Lots of Questions, a Few Answers”). Call them up and let them know how you feel about the fact that they host an event run by someone who opposes women’s rights. Spiderhouse Coffee Shop Business Tel.: 512 480 9562

2003-11-09T20:23:00.000-06:00

New Blog Showcase Apparently I have now joined the League of Liberals. My first duty is to cast a vote in the new blogs Showcase over at the Truth Laid Bear. So, after much consideration I'm linking to this post at Clarified. It's a brief piece on the helicopter downing of last week, which contrasts the treatment given the victims of the September 11th attacks with the anonymity accorded thoise who continue to be killed in Iraq. Check it out.

2003-11-06T13:31:00.000-06:00

Harassment and Boycott Threat Stalls Construction of Planned Parenthood Clinic in Austin Planned Parenthood of Austin was in the process of constructing a clinic in Austin. Those plans have run into problems because the main contractor on the project has pulled out after harassment from anti-abortion activists. here are some details from an article in the Austin American Statesman: Austin American Statesman - Construction on Planned Parenthood's South Austin clinic took a hard hit this week when the project's general contractor walked away because of intense pressure from abortion opponents. Planned Parenthood officials said Browning Construction -- a San Antonio company that is one of the state's largest building contractors -- broke its contract to oversee construction of the 9,931-square-foot clinic. "They were afraid their business could not survive this project," said Glenda Parks, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Texas Capital Region. In a written statement, company President James Browning said, "We have requested that the construction contract be terminated because we are unable to secure and retain adequate subcontractors and suppliers to complete the project in a timely manner, due to events beyond our control." Planned Parenthood has not decided whether to take legal action and is exploring its options. … …Parks said two other contractors have volunteered to spearhead the construction but wouldn't give their names. Though work on the building has slowed, she said it has not stopped. …Browning's departure comes after hundreds and possibly thousands of people across the country participated in an Austin-led campaign to cripple the project. In September, Chris Danze -- president of Maldonado & Danze, a concrete construction contractor -- organized a boycott. "Planned Parenthood is an organization with a health care wrapper, but it is a social movement at its core," he said. It's "a social movement that promotes sexual chaos, especially among our youth. Out of this sexual chaos comes the violence of abortion. That is the heart and soul of this movement." The 48-year-old Austin man, who said he personally assists women who have troubled pregnancies, persuaded concrete suppliers to boycott the project. He kept a list of companies that worked on the facility, contacted churches and asked pro-life supporters to call the contractors. Word got out. News outlets across the country picked up the story, including the Christian Broadcasting Network, Parks said. Hundreds of people called companies working on the clinic. One contractor received 1,200 calls to his business line, Parks said. Another received several hundred at his home. Parks said the contractors felt harassed and threatened. Danze said he has told callers to be polite and respectful. "The calls involved two elements," Danze said. "The first is that it's wrong to build an abortion chamber. The second is that it's bad for future business." Former Austin Mayor Bruce Todd called that "economic blackmail." "It's about tyranny," he said. "It's about harassment." More information can be obtained from a website offering a “Pro-life” perspective: The conservative, pro-family residents of Austin, Texas, are shouting "Not in my back yard" to Planned Parenthood, and builders as far away as San Antonio are listening. As News 8 Austin first reported, the general contractor overseeing the construction of an abortion clinic has pulled out amid a burgeoning boycott by subcontractors. Browning Construction confirmed for WorldNetDaily it has abandoned Planned Parenthood's $6.2 million "Choice Project." WorldNetDaily reported local concrete contractor Chris Danze organized a boycott of the project shortly afterwards seeking to "stop it, slow it down or make it more expensive." "Planned Parenthood and its agenda is bad for our community, bad for women and bad for children," Danze told WorldNetDaily, calling Browning's decision to pull out "very good news." Danze, chairman of the Austin Area Pro-Life Concrete Contractors and Suppliers Association, sent a letter to more than 750 chief executives of construction-related companies in Central Texas and San Antonio, asking them not to supply materials or work on the clinic. The letter was signed by 88 local business owners, physicians, friends and family members. In the past six weeks, the boycott has gained momentum with the lumber supplier, roofing supplier and air conditioning contractor climbing on board, according to boycott supporters. Danze says as many as 70 contractors officially registered their participation and several others have unofficially pledged cooperation but do not want to be named. "We are up against monumental odds here, but the funny thing is that we seem to be winning this thing," Mark Lynn Proeger, pastor at nearby University of Texas, told WorldNetDaily. "I think things are screeching to a halt." …"The location of the clinic will undoubtedly invite some people of lower income and those with less educational opportunities to find a 'quick solution' to their struggle. This also is unfortunate." Bishop Gregory Aymond, leader of the Catholic Diocese of Austin told the Austin American-Statesman. The Brazos Valley Coalition for Life has held prayer vigils and protests near the construction site. The coalition is locked in a battle with Planned Parenthood over another clinic in its back yard in Bryan, Texas. David Bereit, an A&M graduate who gave up his pharmaceutical sales job to become the coalition's executive director at two-thirds the salary, aims to wear out the clinic's resolve by eroding its client base and financial support. "Can there be a resolution that allows abortions to continue? From our perspective, absolutely not because the stakes are too high," Bereit told the Houston Chronicle. …"Everything we're doing is legal, ethical and moral and we'll continue," Danze told WorldNetDaily. "We have truth and grassroots support and that will outweigh the support from washed up politicians," he added. Okay, so all’s fair in love and war. But it seems to me that the folks behind this boycott/harassment campaign should be fair targets as well. If they think that it is their right to threaten the economic livelihood of people they don’t agree with, and call them at their home or place of business, they should be prepared to accept the same treatment. With that in mind, I’m posting below contact information for some of the individuals mentioned in the story as being behind this effort. Please use this information responsibly. Be polite but firm. Let them know that you don’t appreciate their infringement on individual rights. Call often. For businesses, let them know that you will boycott them and encourage others who do business with them to do the same. Christopher Danze Home Tel.: (512) 306-1326 Maldonado & Danze Inc Business Tel.: (512) 837-9677 David Bereit Home Tel.: (979) 690-3009 Bereit is represented by the Ambassador’s Speakers Bureaufor his role as a motivational speaker. Feel free to call them and let them know how you feel about the fact that they represent a client who has no regard for women’s rights. Toll-Free Phone: (877) 425-4700, ext. 235 Fax: (615) 661-4344 E-mail: gloria.leyda@AmbassadorAgency.com Mark Lynn Proeger He lives in Austin. There is a contact number for a church he works at, but I do draw the line somewhere. However, he is in the habit of leading a series of informal meetings (“LQFA ; Lots of Questions, a Few Answers”) discussing faith type issue at a local coffee house. Call them up and let them know how you feel about the fact that they host an event run by someone who opposes women’s rights. Spiderhouse Coffee Shop Business Tel.: 512 480 9562

2003-11-04T16:34:00.000-06:00

Evolution And Texas Schools The long running, if largely ignored, battle over the textbooks used in Texas schools will come to a head when the committee charged with approving textbooks meets on Thursday and Friday. The state Board of Education will hold meetings and the main item on the agenda will be a series of decisions to approve or reject various textbooks that publishers submitted for consideration. The central issue, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, concerns a prolonged effort by religious activists and conservatives to change the way that the theory of evolution is taught in schools. This follows up previous efforts to challenge the way that social studies were taught. Austin American Statesman - Texas will be under the microscope this week in the fight over teaching evolution in public schools as the State Board of Education prepares to vote on biology textbooks that have been at the center of the debate. The board meets Thursday and Friday to consider proposed changes submitted by 11 publishers. The board's decisions, which could determine which textbooks publishers offer to dozens of states, will end a review process that has been marked by months of heated discussion over evolution. Religious activists and proponents of alternative science urged publishers to revise some of the 10th-grade books and want the board to reject others, saying they contain factual errors concerning the theory of evolution. Most mainstream scientists assert that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a cornerstone of modern research and technology. Board members can vote to reject books based only on factual errors or failure to follow state curriculum as mandated by the Legislature. "There's a bait and switch going on here because the critics want the textbooks to question whether evolution occurred. And, of course, they don't because scientists don't question whether evolution occurred," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. Among those questioning the textbooks are about 60 biologists from around the country who signed a "statement of dissent" about teaching evolution and who say both sides of the issue should be taught. Several religious leaders also testified against teaching evolution. Any changes to the textbooks will have implications across the country. Texas is the nation's second-largest buyer of textbooks, and books sold in the state are often marketed by publishers nationwide. Texas, California and Florida account for more than 30 percent of the nation's $4 billion public school book market. Three dozen publishers invest millions of dollars in Texas. A vocal advocate of changing the textbooks is the Discovery Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Seattle. Institute officials have argued that alternatives to commonly accepted theories of evolution should be included in textbooks to comply with a state requirement that the strengths and weaknesses of an issue are presented. "These things are widely criticized as being problematic. They aren't criticisms we made up; they're criticisms widely held in scientific community," Discovery Institute fellow John West said. Bruce Chapman, president of the institute, said his group simply wants publishers to present strengths and weaknesses of evolution theory, and that some have done so. "We think there's much more to be done, of course, and our proposal to the board is that further changes should be made," he said. Steven Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, said there are no weaknesses in current textbooks' explanation of evolution. Publishers are required to cover evolution in science books. The Discovery Institute has referred to a theory called intelligent design: a belief that life did not evolve randomly but progressed according to a plan. No book on the mainstream market presents that theory. Although the theory has become part of the debate, Chapman said his group isn't advocating it be put into textbooks. Samantha Smoot, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, said the Discovery Institute's arguments are rooted in religion. The Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that the teaching of creationism in public schools violates the separation of church and state. "It says that the theory of evolution can't explain the diversity of life on this planet and that there must have been a designer," Smoot said. "That is a very valid and commonly held religious perspective, but not one that is upheld by scientific evidence." The Discovery Institute has maintained that its arguments have no religious foundation, but Smoot disagrees. "The concept of intelligent design was crafted specifically to get around legal prohibitions against teaching religion in public schools," she said. "And as long as proponents of intelligent design deny that they're referring to God when they talk about the designer, they hope to be able to pull this off." At least one publisher has submitted changes in line with critics' recommendations. Holt, Rinehart & Winston has submitted a change that directs students to "study hypotheses for the origin of life that are alternatives" to the others in the book. Students also are encouraged to research alternative theories on the Internet. Okay, perhaps a bit more background would help. While longtime activists like Phyllis Schafley have been associated with attempts by conservatives to influence school curricula in Texas, a key figure now in the push to control the content of textbooks in Texas is James Leninger. Leininger is a 58-year-old San Antonio physician. [Texas Monthly, Nov 2002] - Few Texans have heard of James Leininger, as his involvement in politics takes place far behind the scenes. But his influence is pervasive. The founder of Kinetic Concepts, Incorporated, a specialty medical-bed company that made him one of the richest men in Texas, Leininger is among the state's most active political donors. He was the top contributor in the 1996 and 1998 election cycles, when he gave a total of $1.9 million and, in the latter, co-signed two last-minute loans, of $1.1 million and $950,000, respectively, to Rick Perry's campaign for lieutenant governor and Carol Keeton Rylander's bid for comptroller. In the 2002 election cycle, Leininger has again proven himself an aquifer of campaign cash: Between January 2000 and June of this year [2002], he dropped $1.5 million on state campaigns and causes. And while Leininger's giving is liberal, his leanings are decidedly not; he supports Republicans and conservative groups almost exclusively. What makes Leininger one of the most powerful people in Texas politics is less the amount of money he has given over the years than the broad reach of his spending and his commitment to a conservative agenda. By pumping tens of thousands of dollars into the previously ignored State Board of Education races, he turned an obscure committee of retired teachers into an ideological hornet's nest, whose debates over curriculum and textbook content have made national news. In addition to funding candidates personally, Leininger has launched several political action committees to support conservative judicial and legislative candidates and advocate for school vouchers. … In 1994 Texans for Governmental Integrity [a group started by Leninger] sent out a mail piece in East Texas, illustrated by a photograph of a black man and a white man kissing, which warned voters that Democratic State Board of Education (SBOE) incumbent Mary Knott Perkins had voted to approve textbooks that promoted abortion and homosexuality. Leininger also directly supported conservative SBOE candidates to the unfamiliar tune of tens of thousands of dollars, in races that had previously been low-key. "He single-handedly changed the composition of the State Board of Education," says Samantha Smoot, the executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, an organization founded in 1995 to counter religious-right initiatives. "It went from a body that had been dominated by parents and teachers to a group characterized by a bloc of members who are there simply to push a right-wing ideology." … In 1989 Leininger was instrumental in founding the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), because, he later told the Houston Chronicle, "I realized there wasn't any intellectual capital in the state of Texas." (Alas, he is neither the first nor the last to arrive at that conclusion.) Taking the Heritage Foundation, the conservative national think tank, as its model, the TPPF aimed to influence policy by publishing research reports on state issues; its early preoccupations mirrored several of Leininger's own: tort reform, vouchers, and reduced government. Working in tandem with the new SBOE members, the TPPF began objecting to textbook material deemed liberally slanted or morally suspect. The Legislature retaliated in 1995, forbidding the SBOE to question any aspect of textbook content other than "factual errors." Despite the restriction, the TPPF continued to analyze proposed books, hiring researchers to ferret out errors both of fact and of insufficient patriotism. Last winter the group helped bat down an environmental-science textbook (in large part because of a poorly written sentence linking democracy to pollution); this summer [2002] it criticized proposed social science and history textbooks for failing to disavow socialism. Some of the changes that were forced to be included in social studies textbooks during last years review by the Board of Education included; deletion of passages that describe Islam positively, addition of text on the appeal of Christianity, elimination of scientific dates so as not to conflict with Biblical timelines, deletion sections on other cultures, and elimination of critical thinking exercises that discussed social issues. For example, a reference in a sixth-grade social studies book to glaciers forming the Great Lakes "millions of years ago" was changed to "in the distant past." The phrase "Millions of years ago" supported the theory of evolution and excluded theories such as intelligent design. One publisher agreed to eliminate references to "fossil fuels being formed millions of years ago". That was last year. This year the efforts of conservatives have been directed towards changing the way that biology is taught, most significantly the way that the theory of evolution is addressed. Two key players in the battle have been the Texas Freedom Network, which is a group dedicated to fighting the influence of the religious right in Texas, and the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank based in Seattle. A visit to the Discovery Institute website shows that among recently posted articles, while there are three articles addressing the “intelligent design” and school textbook issue, there were actually more (5) that discussed Terri Schiavo (not surprisingly, these uniformly attacked her husband and supported efforts to prolong her life). Here is more information about the Discovery Institute: [Steve Benen] - While supporters of church-state separation frequently consider groups such as the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council their principal adversaries, the Discovery Institute has quietly positioned itself as the most effective and politically savvy group pushing a religious agenda in America’s public school science classes. Founded in 1991 by former Reagan administration official Bruce Chapman, the Seattle-based Institute has an operating budget of over $2 million. "Intelligent design" creationism has become such a central feature of the organization’s work that it created a separate division, the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, to devote all of its time to that cause. The Institute enthusiastically endorses what law professor and ID champion Philip Johnson calls the "wedge" strategy. (See "Insidious Design," page 8.) The plan is straightforward: use intelligent design as a wedge to undermine evolution with scientific-sounding arguments and thereby advance a conservative religious-political agenda. To promote the concept, the Institute works with 48 fellows, directors and advisors who are responsible for producing research, publishing texts and hosting conferences. The Institute team includes some of the biggest names in the ID movement. Johnson serves as an advisor, while Michael Behe, David Berlinski, William Dembski and Jonathan Wells are senior fellows. All of them have advanced degrees from respected universities, giving the group a level of credibility generally denied to fundamentalist creationists at the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis Ministry. Legitimate scientists reject the validity of intelligent design concepts, however, and are unimpressed with Institute activists’ credentials. "They’re trying to make it appear like they’re scientists who just disagree with other scientists," said Lawrence Krauss, professor at Case Western Reserve University. "A number of them have scientific credentials, which helps, but in no sense are they proceeding as scientists." Over the last decade, nearly every book used in the intelligent design movement has either been distributed by the Institute or was written directly by one of the group’s scholars. Of Pandas And People, Icons Of Evolution and Darwin’s Black Box are all staples on the Discovery bookshelf. _Institute representatives are well aware of legal restrictions on religion in public schools, so they rarely use theological criticisms of evolution in their work. Behe, for example, is a Catholic with eight home-schooled children. When asked about creationism in a February interview on National Public Radio, he said it isn’t his area of expertise. "To tell you the truth, I’m not real knowledgeable about creationism," Behe said. The strategy of making ID appear scientific, and not religious, is intentional. The Institute’s Stephen Meyer co-authored an article in the Utah Law Review in 2000 critiquing the legal landscape. While Meyer noted that the Supreme Court prohibits traditional creationism from public schools because it is based on biblical literalism, he wrote that excluding intelligent design, with its "scientific" underpinnings, would be tantamount to "viewpoint discrimination." In order for that scheme to work, ID advocates at the Discovery Institute try desperately to hide a religious agenda. Occasionally, however, one of the Institute’s fellows will slip and speak his mind. Two years ago, at a National Religious Broadcasters meeting, the Discovery Institute’s Dembski framed the ID movement in the context of Christian apologetics, a theological defense of the authority of Christianity. "The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ," Dembski said. "And if there’s anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ [and] the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.... It’s important that we understand the world. God has created it; Jesus is incarnate in the world." The Institute’s religious agenda has won it the backing of wealthy financiers and foundations. For example, California multi-millionaire Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., has singled out the Discovery Institute for big contributions. (Ahmanson is aligned with Christian Reconstructionism, an extreme faction of the Religious Right that seeks to replace democracy with a fundamentalist theocracy.) The Institute also has friends on Capitol Hill. In May 2000 the Institute held a briefing in the Rayburn House Office Building that attracted members of Congress and their staffs. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) spoke at the event. Though the Discovery Institute describes itself as a think tank "specializing in national and international affairs," the group’s real purpose is to undercut church-state separation and turn public schools into religious indoctrination centers. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon. As Institute President Bruce Chapman told The Washington Times, "[Intelligent design is] our number one project." See also here for a letter written by Dr. Steven Ettinger (Ohio State University) to the Ohio Board of Education in rebuttal to a submission by the Discovery Institute when that state was considering textbook changes last year.

2003-11-04T13:35:00.000-06:00

Four Little Words, Revisited [Note: The original was posted on 10/28, but events since then have prompted me to bring it up to date to include reference to new material that wasn’t available at that time – G] Last Tuesday, something strange occurred, which I learned of only because I happened to catch a bit of Monday’s press briefing between Bush and Bremer. It wasn’t a formal press conference, but the two of them sat in chairs and answered a few questions from reporters. What struck me about the briefing was something that I heard just before I turned off the TV and went out the door to work. An unidentified reporter tried to ask a followup question of Bush, and was cut off in a manner that I thought was rather rude and discourteous. What I heard was Bush saying something about something (I tuned it out, as often happens when he is speaking), and then after he’d finished, a reporter started to ask a followup. Bush said (and I remember this very clearly) “That was your question”, ignored them, looked very annoyed, and proceeded to solicit a question from someone else. I remember thinking “What an asshole.” It struck me as a display of the kind of attitude you’d expect from someone who’d been catered to by servants his whole life, someone who resents it when the press is anything other than subservient. What really struck me as odd was that when I went to the Whitehouse web page later in the day to read the transcript of the entire briefing, I couldn’t find any evidence of the exchange. After reading the entire transcript over twice, it was nowhere to be found. The closest I could see to what I had witnessed earlier was the following (taken directly from the Whitehouse transcript): THE PRESIDENT: Deb, you've got a question? Q Yes, sir. Mr. President, the attacks are getting more brazen, they're getting more frequent. What do you know about who is behind these attacks? Is it Saddam? And what steps did you all discuss this morning about better protecting U.S. personnel there? THE PRESIDENT: The best way to describe the people who are conducting these attacks are cold-blooded killers, terrorists. That's all they are. They're terrorists. And the best way to find them is to work with the Iraqi people to ferret them out and go get them. And that's exactly what we discussed. What was the other part of your question? Q What steps did you discuss this morning about better protecting U.S. personnel? THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think if you -- we've hardened a lot of our targets for U.S. personnel there. And today's attacks were against places like the Red Cross, or police stations. These people will kill Iraqis. They don't care who they kill. They just want to kill. And we will find them, exactly what we discussed on how best to do so. The Iraqi people understand that there's a handful of people who don't want to live in freedom, aren't interested in their children going to schools, aren't -- don't really care about the nature of the health care they get, aren't pleased with the fact that the electricity is coming back on line, aren't happy about the fact that Iraq is now selling oil on the world markets and people are finding work. And they'll do whatever it takes to stop this progress. And our job is to work with the Iraqis to prevent this from happening. That's why we're working hard to get more Iraqi policemen; that's why we're working hard to build up the Iraqi armed forces; and that's why we're working hard with freedom-loving Iraqis to help ferret these people out before they attack and strike. And – Q But, sir – THE PRESIDENT: Randy. Q Mr. President, much of the aid offered for Iraq at the Madrid conference was in the form of loans, rather than grants. What impact might this have on your threat to veto the U.S.-Iraqi aid bill if part of the reconstruction aid is in loans? … It continues from there. I was convinced that what Bush actually said was “That was your question -- Randy”, but the transcript apparently was cleaned up so that this small section, just four little words, were removed entirely. Why? One can surmise that the original exchange doesn’t put Bush in such an attractive light, making him appear either unwilling to answer followup questions, or arrogant and condescending. If so, then someone at the Whitehouse took it upon themselves to do some creative editing. Just four little words. But they say so much about the focus this administration has on controlling every aspect of it’s image. After a delay of days, CNN finally posted a transcript of the exchange I just described, and it can be found here. This is their version of the section I described: BUSH: And our job is to work with the Iraqis to prevent this from happening. That's why we are working hard to get more Iraqi policemen. That's why we're working hard to build up the Iraqi armed forces. That's why we're working hard with freedom-loving Iraqis to help ferret these people out before they attack and strike. And... QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) BUSH: No, that's your question. Randy? QUESTION: Mr. President, much of the aid offered for Iraq at the Madrid conference was in the form of loans, rather than grants. What impact might this have on your threat to veto the U.S. Iraqi aid bill as part of the reconstruction aid (inaudible) loans?… Pretty clearly, the Whitehouse transcript differs from what actually happened. Bush got a little snippy, and someone at the Whitehouse edited it out of the official transcript. While this episode might be considered somewhat minor, you have to wonder what the point is of posting transcripts if they’re not going to reflect what was actually said. This was brought home again by a couple of posts at Talking Points Memo, concerning Bush’s use of “see” versus “seek” in speech to Australia’s parliament (also here). What Bush actually said in Australia was: “We see a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people." This raised a few eyebrows, but the transcript that appeared on the Whitehouse website put it a little differently, having the President say: “We seek a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people." Which has a very different meaning. Furthermore, they had originally posted a version that used the term “see” (i.e., what he actually said), and then went back and changed it to “seek”. OK, a stupid mistake for Bush to make, getting a word like that wrong. But why cause confusion by posting what he meant to say on the Whitehouse website? Why not report his actual words? The lesson appears to be that transcripts appearing at the Whitehouse website are being massaged or tweaked to remove potentially embarrassing material.

2003-10-31T15:47:00.000-06:00

Crappy Movies From The Future I recently stumbled across this website, which is perfect for someone like myself who likes to know well in advance which truly bad movies they can expect to see. Actually, they have references to a whole range of movies, good and bad, but it’s the crappy ones that I like to find out about. How else would I have found out that there’s going to be a movie pairing the Alien monster against the Predator, in a film titled, appropriately enough, “Alien vs Predator”? Kind of reminds me of a lot of bad movies from years past like “Dracula vs The Wolfman” or “King Kong versus Godzilla”. My all time favorite in the “villain vs villain” genre has to be “Billy The Kid vs Dracula”, which actually was a real movie. Plot: While travelling through the American West by stagecoach, Count Dracula meets landowner James Underhill and becomes captivated with a picture of Underhill's niece Betty Bentley. After Dracula drinks the blood of an Indian girl, Indians attack the coach, killing all. Dracula then poses as Underhill and takes over his Double Bar B ranch. But as Dracula moves in on Betty to drink her blood, two European immigrants realize that Dracula is really a vampire. It is up to the reformed Billy the Kid, who is working as Double Bar B’s foreman and in love with Betty, to stop Dracula. In a matchup between Alien and Predator, I predict the loser will be the career of any actors signed to appear in the film. I also found out about a new movie that Jennifer Lopez is looking into, “Dance Lesons”. It’s described as a cross between Footloose and The Full Monty, whatever the hell that means. Perhaps John Lithgow will make an appearance as Jo Lo’s father, a minister who frowns on male strippers. Meanwhile, Lopez’s soul-mate Ben Affleck is apparently set to star in ”Glory Road”, a drama about the a basketball coach. Not just any coah, but Don Haskins, who led the first all-black team to the NCAA championship. Jerry Bruckheimer will produce, repeating the relationship he had with Affleck for Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. It’s not immediately clear how they’ll work a whole lot of explosions into a movie about college basketball, but I’m sure Bruckheimer will find a way. What else, what else? It seems that Rob Schneider is trying to develop an R-rated sequal to “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo”. Apparently the “artiste” Schneider is miffed at the restrictions cased by attempots by studios to make him adhere to a PG-13 type script, and wants the added freeedom that an R rating would allow. An example: One example is a date in the second film with a veil-wearing Katrina, who tells Deuce she was the survivor of a car accident that killed her twin brother. She was sewn back together with some of his parts and suffice to say, the nose came from him and the veil rises each time Deuce touches her. Yeah, hilarious. Just the kind of stuff we’d expect from Schneider. Anyway, wouldn’t this gag only make sense if Katrina’a brother was gay? Am I missing something? Finally, I already knew about this, but it seems like such a bad idea that it merits revisiting. Jim Cary’s been signed to do ”The Six Million Dollar Man”, which would turn a cheesy TV drama into a cheesy big screen comedy.

2003-10-31T15:02:00.000-06:00

Why Am I Not Surprised They Won’t Call It A “Black List”? A group of conservative college students at the University of Texas has announced what they call a ”watch list” of faculty who they accuse of excessive ideological bias. The Young Texas Conservatives have posted a list of 10 UT faculty on their website who they claim push a biased political agenda in their classrooms. While the group claims that professors aren’t targeted because of their politics, nine of the ten people listed are leftish/liberal, and there is only one token conservative. A University of Texas student group has put the names of 10 faculty members on a watch list designed to warn students about professors that the group thinks push a political agenda in their classrooms. UT's chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas created its Professor Watchlist in time for spring registration, which began this week and continues through Nov. 7. The group distributed the list Thursday at a West Mall table. The list also is posted on the group's Web site. "It's not a blacklist. It's a watch list," said Austin Kinghorn, a senior government major who is chairman of the UT chapter. "This gives students a little bit more control in their education to help understand what ideology a professor is pushing before they go to class." … The Young Conservatives say their list is the only one of its kind at UT. It is similar to one on a national site called NoIndoctrination.org, which offers faculty evaluations based on perceived political biases…. Some of the group's 50 or so members provided information based on class visits or classes in which they were enrolled. Kinghorn asked for nominations via the Web site, including details on the teacher, department, specific classes and examples of bias. The Web site also lists some faculty members on an "honor roll" for their perceived neutrality. The first three are government professors Bruce Buchanan, J. Budziszewski and Rhonda Evans-Case. The watch list blasts Bob Jensen, a vocal anti-war activist who teaches courses in media law, ethics and politics, saying he introduces students "to a crash course in socialism, white privilege, the 'truth' about the Persian Gulf War and the role of America as the world's prominent sponsor of terrorism." Jensen said he's not surprised. He describes his political philosophy as left-progressive. "There are students who thank me for bringing up these issues and being straightforward," he said. "I have also had complaints and comments from those who think I'm pushing a certain political agenda in class." Comments about government professor David Edwards say he "teaches one side of the story." Edwards, who has taught at UT for 39 years, said the critique is "selective perception." "It is true that most of the examples I use are from the Bush administration because that is the current administration," he said. "Any attentive student may have heard criticisms of the Clinton administration, as they may have heard about the Bush administration." Most of the faculty members were chosen for perceived liberal bias, but Kinghorn said the list is nonpartisan. He described economics professor Stephen Bronars as "economically conservative." "The group decided to do this because the majority of professors who push an agenda are liberal," he said. "That's not to say there aren't conservative professors out there doing the same thing." Indeed, the YCT criticism of Bronars is mild compared to the rhetoric used to describe it’s other nine targeted faculty. And since part of the basis for evaluating a faculty member’s alleged bias is “classroom visits”, it reasonable to assume that one could get on the watch list based on the opinions of someone who wasn’t even a student, and had done none of the readings for the course. The Young Conservatives of Texas recently attracted attention when in late September they had a bake sale. Actually it was a YCT chapter at Southern Methodist University, not UT, that held the controversial “affirmative action” bake sale, which was criticized at the time for being racist and offensive. University officials closed the event down early because they feared a potential confrontation between bake sale organizers and other students who might have taken exception to the message being sent. The sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. White women: 75 cents. Hispanics: 50 cents. Blacks: a quarter. The event Tuesday at Southern Methodist University was no PTA bake sale. It was a conservative student group's attempt at making a political statement, and it caused such a stir that SMU shut it down after 45 minutes. The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter ran its so-called affirmative action bake sale to protest the use of race or gender as a factor in college admissions. Conservative groups have held similar sales at colleges around the country since February. Group leaders say they were only making a point while exercising their freedom of speech, but a black student who filed a discrimination complaint with SMU said the bake sale was offensive. SMU officials said they halted the event because it created a potentially unsafe situation for students. "This was not an issue about free speech," said Tim Moore, director of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center. "It was really an issue where we had a hostile environment being created that was potentially volatile." During the bake sale, students were crowding around the table outside the student center, and several began to get into a shouting match, Mr. Moore said. David C. Rushing, a second-year SMU law student and leader of the conservatives' group, said the event didn't get out of hand and that at the most, a dozen students gathered around the table of sugar and chocolate chip cookies and Rice Krispie treats. "We copied what's been done at multiple campuses around the country to illustrate our opinion of affirmative action and how we think it's unfair," said Mr. Rushing, chairman of Young Conservatives of Texas at SMU and for the state. Chapters of the group held similar bake sales at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University this month. Both schools allowed the events, citing free speech policies. Mr. Rushing, 23, said the events strive to give students a sense of the inequality he says is created by unequal college admissions policies for whites and minority groups. Matt Houston, a sophomore, said the group's sign, which listed prices for the treats by the race and sex of buyers, was not a learning tool. It was offensive, he said. "My reaction was disgust because of the ignorance of some SMU students," said Mr. Houston, who is black. "They were arguing that affirmative action was solely based on race. It's not based on race. It's based on bringing a diverse community to a certain organization." He and Kambira Jones, a 20-year-old junior, both expressed their concerns to SMU officials. "When I saw this, I was like, 'I can't believe they let you guys post this,' " she said. "I felt they were attempting to make Hispanics and blacks feel inferior. We jumped over the same hoops to get there." SMU's freshman class this year is one of its most diverse ever – 20 percent are minorities. Overall, minority enrollment among the school's 10,000-member student body is 19 percent. Before the bake sale brouhaha, SMU already was planning a forum so students and others could debate the aftermath of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action. The court ruled in June that universities could use race as a factor in admissions under limited conditions. The ruling changes the landscape in Texas, where universities have been banned from using race as a factor since 1996. "We value free speech, and I think our record here shows freedom of expression is important to the academic community and especially this one," said James Caswell, SMU's vice president of student affairs. The students organizing the SMU event said they meant no offense. To get permission for setting up, students said only that they were holding a bake sale. The YCT chapter at UT did hold an “affirmative action bake sale” of their own in September, as their website documents. Their version seemed to be slightly more politically correct than the one held at SMU. The price list used at the SMU event gave its most expensive prices to white males ($1 per cookie), and least expensive to blacks (25 cents). At the UT bake sale, the price list dropped the gender factor completely, lumped whites in with asians and indians, and had as its most expensive price category that of “humans – if you prefer to be judged by the content of your character rather than the color of your skin”. Other photos of the YCT bake sale at UT are here and here. Oh, and Austin Kinghorn, the leader of the UT chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas. A bit more on him here: [Ed: letter to the editor in a college publication]Hi. I was a participant (antiwar) in the debate you mention at UT-Austin. While there was certainly some disrespectful behavior on both sides of the aisle, you (and CNN) misrepresent what actually transpired. Here's the real "fistfight" story: An antiwar person was being particularly obnoxious and a member of YCT - Austin Kinghorn - told him to shutup. The antiwar guy responded by grabbing his crotch. Kinghorn then got up out of his seat and started walking back to the antiwar guy with his fists raised. Kinghorn was swearing and was clearly enraged. His friends held him back from attacking the antiwar guy. That was basically the entire incident. Thought you should have the actual facts. -xxxxxx Posted by xxxxxx on May 11, 2003 07:04 PM

2003-10-28T13:24:00.000-06:00

Is Bush A Moron VII: Press Conference 10/28/03, and Democratic Debate 10/26/03

Bush held a press conference today and the results from analyzing his speech were as follows (debate 2000 numbers in italics):

Reading Ease = 65.2% 72.8%

Grade Equivalent = 7.9 6.9

BRI-2 = .043 .040

A little bit better than normal on the traditional readability measures, but still lagging on grammatical errors. Examples of some of the errors found:

We're trying to determine the nature of who these people were.

It is dangerous in Iraq because there are some who believe that we're soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken by suiciders -- and suiciders who are willing to drive up to a Red Cross center, a center of international help and aid and comfort, and just kill.

In other words, an Iraqi policemen did their job.

The tactics to respond to more suiciders driving cars will alter on the ground;

I have said the fence is a problem to the extent that the fence is a opportunity to make it difficult for a Palestinian state to emerge.

-- I value her judgment and her intelligence -- but her job is also to deal interagency and to help unstick things that may get stuck, is the best way to put it.

She's an unsticker.

In other words, we've got very close alliances now as a result of not only winning a war, but doing the right things in the postwar period.

And in the category of “just plain stupid” are the following:

There are going to be new textbooks coming, which no longer glorify the tyrant, Saddam Hussein, but glorify basic education -- or, at least, promote basic education.

She's doing -- the role of the National Security Advisor is to not only provide good advice to the President, which she does on a regular basis -- I value her judgment and her intelligence -- but her job is also to deal interagency and to help unstick things that may get stuck, is the best way to put it. She's an unsticker.

In America, we love the fact that we are a society in which people can pray openly -- or not pray at all, for that matter.

Also included today are the figures for the Democratic candidates debate held on Sunday, 10/26. The main things that jump out are that the Dems as a group still tend to perform better than Bush, and Kucinich (hard to understand and ungrammatical) and Gephardt (easy to understand and makes few grammar errors) are basically on opposite ends of the spectrum, at least in terms of English useage. An odd finding was that on the readability measures, Wesley Clark actually does worse than the Bush baseline, while he excels in grammar per se. Possibly an oddball result but he might be taking lessons in how to “dumb down” his speech so that he appeals to a wider audience. Time will tell… Anyway, the numbers (with Bush’s 2000 debate performance for comparision):

Reading Ease

Kucinich 57.6%
Dean 64.3%
Kerry 66.4%
Sharpton 66.4%
Edwards 66.7%
Lieberman 67.4%
Moseley Braun 68.1%
Gephardt 71.6%
Bush 72.8%
Clark 76.8%

Grade Equivalent

Kucinich 10.4
Dean 8.7
Sharpton 8.3
Moseley Braun 8.1
Kerry 7.9
Edwards 7.6
Lieberman 7.2
Gephardt 6.9
Bush 6.9
Clark 5.7

BRI-2 (Grammar Errors)

Edwards .000
Lieberman .000
Gephardt .000
Clark .000
Kerry .015
Dean .019
Moseley Braun .021
Sharpton .022
Kucinich .024
Bush .040

2003-10-28T09:40:00.000-06:00

Four Little Words Something strange occurred yesterday, which I learned of only because I happened to catch a bit of Monday’s press briefing between Bush and Bremer. It wasn’t a formal press conference, but the two of them sat in chairs and answered a few questions from reporters. What struck me about the briefing was something that I heard just before I turned off the TV and went out the door to work. An unidentified reporter tried to ask a followup question of Bush, and was cut off in a manner that I thought was rather rude and discourteous. What I heard was Bush saying something about something (I tuned it out), and then after he’d finished, a reporter started to ask a followup. Bush said (and I remember this very clearly) “That was your question”, ignored them, looked very annoyed, and proceeded to solicit a question from someone else. I remember thinking “What an asshole.” It struck me as a display of the kind of attitude you’d expect from someone who’d been catered to by servants his whole life, someone who resents it when the press is anything other than subservient. What really struck me as odd was that when I went to the Whitehouse web page later in the day to read the transcript of the entire briefing, I couldn’t find any evidence of the exchange. After reading the entire transcript over twice, it was nowhere to be found. The closest I could see to what I had witnessed earlier was the following: THE PRESIDENT: Deb, you've got a question? Q Yes, sir. Mr. President, the attacks are getting more brazen, they're getting more frequent. What do you know about who is behind these attacks? Is it Saddam? And what steps did you all discuss this morning about better protecting U.S. personnel there? THE PRESIDENT: The best way to describe the people who are conducting these attacks are cold-blooded killers, terrorists. That's all they are. They're terrorists. And the best way to find them is to work with the Iraqi people to ferret them out and go get them. And that's exactly what we discussed. What was the other part of your question? Q What steps did you discuss this morning about better protecting U.S. personnel? THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think if you -- we've hardened a lot of our targets for U.S. personnel there. And today's attacks were against places like the Red Cross, or police stations. These people will kill Iraqis. They don't care who they kill. They just want to kill. And we will find them, exactly what we discussed on how best to do so. The Iraqi people understand that there's a handful of people who don't want to live in freedom, aren't interested in their children going to schools, aren't -- don't really care about the nature of the health care they get, aren't pleased with the fact that the electricity is coming back on line, aren't happy about the fact that Iraq is now selling oil on the world markets and people are finding work. And they'll do whatever it takes to stop this progress. And our job is to work with the Iraqis to prevent this from happening. That's why we're working hard to get more Iraqi policemen; that's why we're working hard to build up the Iraqi armed forces; and that's why we're working hard with freedom-loving Iraqis to help ferret these people out before they attack and strike. And – Q But, sir – THE PRESIDENT: Randy. Q Mr. President, much of the aid offered for Iraq at the Madrid conference was in the form of loans, rather than grants. What impact might this have on your threat to veto the U.S.-Iraqi aid bill if part of the reconstruction aid is in loans? … It continues from there. I’m convinced that what Bush actually said was “That was your question -- Randy”, but the transcript apparently was cleaned up so that this small section, just four little words, were removed entirely. Why? One can surmise that the original exchange doesn’t put Bush in such an attractive light, making him appear either unwilling to answer followup questions, or arrogant and condescending. If so, then someone at the Whitehouse took it upon themselves to do some creative editing. Just four little words. But they say so much about the focus this administration has on controlling every aspect of it’s image. p.s. – The CNN website has a link to a transcript of the briefing, but the link doesn’t work.

2003-10-22T18:06:00.000-05:00

Is Bush A Moron VI: Democratic Debate 10/9/03

A couple of new updates on the IBAM project. Bush today had a roundtable Q/A session with reporters aborad Air Force One while en route to Australia. I‘ve analyzed the transcript of his speech, and the results are as follows: Reading Ease – 69.2%; Grade Equivalent – 7.2; BRI-2 = .046. Pretty much par for the course for Bush. Give him credit for remembering a long list of strange-sounding names of foreign leaders, but I’m sure he practiced a lot.

Also today are the figures from the last Democratic presidential candidate debate, which took place October 9th. Included are their accompanying numbers from the previous debate in italics. Along with Bush’s values from the 2000 presidential debates for comparison.

Reading Ease

Gephardt 76.4 71.7
Sharpton 73.3 67.8
Bush 72.8
Kucinich 72.4 59.5
Dean 69.7 62.4
Clark 68.9 68.2
Edwards 68.2 67.1
Kerry 67.1 63.8
Moseley Braun 63.2 53.9
Lieberman 62.4 61.4

Grade Level Equivalent

Moseley Braun 9.9 11.3
Lieberman 8.7 8.8
Kerry 8.3 8.3
Edwards 8.1 8.4
Dean 7.5 8.7
Kucinich 7.3 8.9
Clark 7.1 7.2
Sharpton 7.1 8
Bush 6.9
Gephardt 5.6 6.5

BRI-2 (Grammar) Index

Kucinich 0.061 .024
Bush 0.040
Gephardt 0.027 .011
Kerry 0.022 .000
Moseley Braun 0.021 .020
Edwards 0.013 .014
Dean 0.011 .000
Clark 0.010 .019
Lieberman 0.000 .014
Sharpton 0.000 .025

In the first Dem debate analyzed, the only Democratic candidate who did worse than Bush's baseline performance was Gephardt, on grade leval equivalent. In the most recent debate, Gephardt continued to perform worse than Bush on Grade, and now also did worse than Bush on reading ease (Al Sharpton also was worse than Bush). On the BRI-2 (grammar) index, Kucinich was worse than Bush.

2003-10-21T11:35:00.000-05:00

Just in Time For Christmas Via World O’Crap, via Tbogg, comes the latest contributions from the good folks at Talking Presidents dot com. There are the folks who brought us the George W. Bush Top Gun action figure a while back. They now feature, in addition to Presidential figures for Bush I, Bush II, and Clinton, new additions to their increasingly kitschy product line: Ann Coulter Donald Rumsfeld Personally, I don’t know how I’ll be able to contain myself waiting until the Paul Wolfowitz version comes out. I’ll have to make do with these in the meantime. If action figures aren’t your thing, there’s always art, whether it be Richard Nixon, or this “There’s a new president in town” poster of George W. Bush, which manages to make him look both clueless and simpering at the same time. Check out the rather bizarre “Don’t Mess With Texas” version listed below this one, and the “Bowling Nixon” poster as well.