] Important Senate news today. Several new polls there have
] changed the outlook. Just going by the spreadsheet (i.e.,
] the current poll numbers), the Senate will be split 50-50
] as a result of a new poll in Oklahoma that now puts Brad
] Carson ahead of Tom Coburn (the former obstretrician who
] has admitted to performing abortions but now says
] abortionists should be executed). In addition, the
] spreadsheet says the Republicans will win the Louisiana
] seat, but since no Republican has ever been elected to
] the Senate by the people of Louisiana since direct
] elections of senators began in 1914, my best guess at
] this point is that the Democrats will actually have a
] majority in the Senate (counting Jeffords as a Democrat).
] This scenario was unthinkable 6 months ago.

This is the slickest electoral college map site.

[ It's good, *BUT* to date, his methodology involves recoloring the map based only on the most recent poll *NOT* on an average of polls over the most recent sample cycle. This is ok, but recognize that it makes the map *much* more volatile. If you want a quick glance, that's somewhat more representative of general trends and likelihoods, check Slate's Election Scorecard.

Today's update indicates that he might add code to produce a similar map, which averages and accounts for trends, for monday. Perhaps a little late in the game, but, whatever, it's a free service and it's really well done, as long as it's read with knowledge of it's limitations.

This one is more for if you want to read, or if you want the state by state graphs, which are excellent. -k]

Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004

] Unfortunately, our leaders do not understand the Fourth
] Generation, so it appears we are about to throw this
] opportunity away. We continue to bomb and shell Fallujah,
] which pushes our enemies toward each other. We seem to be
] readying an all-out assault on the city, which will have
] the usual result when Goliath defeats David: a moral
] defeat for Goliath. Many Iraqis will die, the city will
] be wrecked (as always, we will promise to rebuild it but
] not do so), and any losses the insurgents suffer will be
] made up many times over by a flood of new recruits. Never
] was it more truly said that, "We have met the enemy,
] and he is us."

The man who wrote the Marines combat manuals drops the knowledge bomb. Linked from Gibson's blog...

[ Very good reading. -k]

William S. Lind On War Archive

Suprnova torrent of Stewart on crossfire. Currently very fast...

[ I'm gonna recommend this again because it's so damn good.

"It's not so much that your show is bad, as much as that it's *hurting america*." -k]

John Stewart Crossfire Torrent

] Why is Reeve an asshole?
]
] Simple: because he's selfish. Reeve didn't give a shit
] about paralysis before his accident, but now that he's
] paralyzed, suddenly he opens up a paralysis foundation
] and cares about the plight of cripples? Where was his
] foundation in '95 when he played the role of a man with
] spinal cord injury? Sure, some of you might argue that
] he's doing a good thing by bringing attention to
] paralysis, but the underlying message being sent here is
] that nobody gives a shit about cripples until a celebrity
] becomes one.

I'm sorry he's dead, but somebody had to say it.

[ That's fucking stupid. No one had to say it and no one should have. Don't get me wrong, it's not a new attitude, but it's disingenuous. As if it's somehow wrong for someone to change their outlook on life after circumstances change. Is it unfortunate that more people don't take up causes and work for them without prompting? Of course, but that doesn't make it any less appropriate to do good after a forced reckoning, so to speak.

The underlying fact that *most people* are selfish and don't pay attention until they either come face to face with calamity, or are made aware through some celebrity endorsement is, truly, a sad realization. The fact that this person saw that message means he's paying attention, but Christopher Reeves didn't send that message. The whole fucking human race does. At least Reeves took the event and made it as postive as he could, instead of holing up, spending his money on drugs and porno until the end of his days, or bitching about how unfair life is.

Yeah, what a selfish prick for taking personal tragedy and turning it into something beneficial for others. I wish he wasn't such a hypocrite, being all self involved for all those years and then just suddenly flip-flopping into some kind of philanthropist. -k]

Maddox: Christopher Reeve is an asshole.

I'm still not sure if I like more and more cartoonists going towards Flash, but this show how Flash can be more effective than print.

[ Yeah, mark feore is cool -k]

Mark Fiore: The Question

] We stood idly by while Baghdad was ransacked. As the
] occupying power, we had an obligation to maintain law and
] order, but we failed to live up to it. If we had cared
] about the people of Iraq we should have had more troops
] available for the occupation than we needed for the
] invasion. We should have provided protection not only
] for the oil ministry but also the other ministries,
] museums and hospitals. Baghdad and the country's other
] cities were destroyed after we occupied them. When we
] encountered resistance, we employed methods that
] alienated and humiliated the population. The way we
] invaded homes, and the way we treated prisoners generated
] resentment and rage.

[ Soros is engaged. Good stuff. -k]

GeorgeSoros.com

] Washington -- President Bush portrays his position on
] Iraq as steady and unwavering as he represents Sen. John
] Kerry's stance as ambiguous and vacillating.
]
] "Mixed signals are the wrong signals,'' Bush said last
] week during a campaign stop in Bangor, Maine. "I will
] continue to lead with clarity, and when I say something,
] I'll mean what I say.''
]
] Yet, heading into the first presidential debate Thursday,
] which will focus on foreign affairs, there is much in the
] public record to suggest that Bush's words on Iraq have
] evolved -- or, in the parlance his campaign often uses to
] describe Kerry, flip-flopped.
]
] An examination of more than 150 of Bush's speeches, radio
] addresses and responses to reporters' questions reveal a
] steady progression of language, mostly to reflect
] changing circumstances such as the failure to discover
] weapons of mass destruction, the lack of ties between
] Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and the growing
] violence of Iraqi insurgents.

[ Holy shit! More honest reporting? I can't believe it! -k]

NEWS ANALYSIS / Record shows Bush shifting on Iraq war / President's rationale for the invasion continues to evolve

Elonka wrote:
] It's clear hypocrisy: Accusing Bush of misleading the American
] public, while Kerry is systematically doing misleading of his
] own!

[ Even if that's true, at the very least, you have to admit that Bush is doing the same. And I think a fair analysis indicates that Bush is doing it more, and in more destructive ways. He says every day that Iraq is better, it's "turning the corner" or it's people are free as they never were under saddam. This is patently bullshit as the CIA, senior military staff, Colin Powell, prominent members of congress (many of them Republicans) have all recently indicated that the opposite is true. It's getting worse. Bush continues to frame the Iraq war in terms of the global war on terror when most credible analyses made in the past year (9/11 commission; CIA report, for examples) indicate that they were previously unlinked and only now is Iraq a hotbed of foreign terrorists. Framing Saddam in the same context as bin Laden is a nice rhetorical device, but it's not accurate.

As for Kerry's apparent misleading, I guess, yeah, I'm not a big fan of big declarative statements either. I don't think that Bush has been wrong on every decision and yes, the political rhetoric is abominable, on both sides. The point is that thinking people like us don't have to rely on the public face these guys are putting forward for the benefit of the general populace, who vote on amorphous qualities like "attitude" and "confidence" or notions of simpathetic identities. Bush knows that photos of him clearing brush are effective in exploiting that aspect of people, and it's also why the "rich, liberal, intellectual" frame is so good at demolishing populist appearances on the left. I'm not denying that those aren't valid things to take account of, but they should never have attained the primacy that they have. That's what this editorial is talking about. Most people don't analyze issues in depth, which is why the republican/Right tactic of framing the issues in linguistic constructs favorable to themselves is so incredibly effective. But we're all capable of seeing past the rhetoric, as infantile and simplistic and, yes, false as it is most of the time, and take a hard look at what the record *actually* shows about these two men.

For me, the record shows that Bush is largely incompetent. He didn't finish the job in Afghanistan, he's pursued a war on provably false pretenses which has cost us billions and, worse, thousands of lives, he's alienated our long time allies and marginalized the UN, he's spent my and my childrens money on benefits for the rich and for corporations, demolished environmental protections, worker protections and the public school system, and gutted the medicare system, not to mention lost millions of jobs while playing games with the numbers to achieve even that awful record.

That's my analysis, but I don't claim it has to be anyone elses, as long as they used logic to reach their decision and aren't basing their response on some intangible emotional response to flags and burning buildings or what a good guy they think Bush is. That's fine for the masses, or at least, it's not something i expect to change for the masses, but it's not a signifigant asset on either side of a logical debate.

At any rate, I understand and agree with your criticism to a large degree -- marketing, even marketing a candidate, tends to distort reality. Nonetheless, the reality is there, and I don't think being unhappy with the rhetoric is a reason to stop listening, and it certainly doesn't prevent us from looking at all the other extant information available to us. -k]

RE: The New York Times -- Op-Ed Columnist: Swagger vs. Substance

The result of this emphasis on the candidates' acting skills rather than their substance was that after a few days, Mr. Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory.

[ Thanks NYT. Will we see you doing any different this year? -k]

The New York Times -- Op-Ed Columnist: Swagger vs. Substance

] Recent surveys raise questions about Bush's assertion
] that only "a handful" of people are actively involved in
] the insurgency.
]
]
] A report issued Friday by the Washington-based Center for
] Strategic and International Studies cited a poll showing
] a third of Iraqi Sunnis and 11 percent of Shiites support
] attacks on multinational forces.
]
]
] "Violence is going up and Iraqi support for the U.S.
] presence is going down," said James Dobbins, a former
] Bush administration special envoy to Afghanistan and
] now a military analyst for the RAND Corp.
] "If we can't protect the population, we can't secure its
] trust and support."

[ Bush lives in a fantasy world. Or, at least, he's trying to sell that fantasy world to the American public. -k]

Yahoo! News - Iraq Violence Eclipses Rosy Declarations