Considerettes

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I read a lot of negative comments about how the bloggers handled the Democrat National Convention, but if it was as bad as those folks said, it would be because it was the first time. There was the novelty of it all (”Oh look, Clinton’s speaking now…”), and you can hardly blame those bloggers for the quality. I read some of it but not enough to form a good opinion of it (especially since I’d have probably done far worse), but it seemed OK to me. Hopefully, the RNC bloggers, having a bit of hindsight working for them, will do better. So far, it’s looking good. (But again, am I the guy to go to for a decent review? >grin<)

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Deskmerc has a good post on false dichotomies, non sequiturs, cold fusion and John Kerry. Of course, why didn’t I think of putting all those together in one cohesive post! >grin< Nonetheless, he makes some very good points.

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Congrats to marc who got interviewed about his blog. My brush with fame consisted of 2 sentences in a UPI article on blogging in January of 2003, but as I mentioned back then, it wasn’t due to quality–just a healthy dose of luck.

Enjoy your 15 minutes, marc!

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Y’know, this story just sounds like a Darwin award winner in the making.

Giuseppe Cannella had a big surprise for his mother-in-law when he put a jet engine on the back of her wheelchair.
Mr Cannella says the chair can now do top speeds of more than 60mph and has proved the star of a model plane championship during the Bank Holiday.

A model plane enthusiast himself, Mr Cannella has been putting on shows at Barkston Heath near Grantham, Lincs.

“It is just the wheelchair with the engine bolted on the back and steering on the front,” he said.

Now, the Darwin Award I cite has been confirmed to be bogus (a guy who died when the car he’d attached a jet engine to went airborne and hit a cliff). However, there is a cartoon on that page which was inspired by the story; “Backed by a new set of sponsors, Evil Kneivel [sic] re-attempts to jump the Snake river canyon in a rocket powered wheel chair”.

Prophetic? Only time will tell.

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Before you blame Bush for high oil prices, don’t forget that there’s a whole world out there that has an effect on it as well.

EVIDENCE is mounting that China is buying more oil than it consumes, raising fears that oil hoarding may be supporting the current high price of crude.
The signs of aggressive Chinese stockpiling emerge from research by Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, which suggests that China is importing crude and refined products at twice the rate of growth in actual demand.

Rampant economic growth in the People’s Republic over the past two years has enabled China to overtake Japan this year as the world’s second largest oil consumer, burning some 6.3 million barrels a day.

Projections of the rate of growth in consumption in the People’s Republic suggest that China’s power generators, road hauliers, petrochemical plants and factories will burn an extra 500,000 barrels a day of crude oil this year. But Merrill Lynch’s analysis of implied demand, based on import data in the first and second quarter of this year, suggests that demand will increase this year by one million barrels a day.

Michael Rothman, Merrill Lynch’s senior energy analyst in New York, reckons that the second figure is not real consumption and does not reflect actual burning of crude in Chinese cars and power plants.

“It appears to be a hoarding phenomenon and we think it has to run its course, and when it does pass, prices should gravitate much lower, somewhere down towards $30 per barrel.”

It’s easy to blame one guy (that you may hate) for all the ills of the world. Too easy. It’s also rarely correct.

Oh, and if you think Bush went into Iraq solely to get cheap oil, you’re in the same rut. (Of course, at this point in time, you may really be wishing that this alleged cheap oil would get flowing, so the pump prices would come back down, eh?)

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In the 80s there were “Reagan Democrats”. Ron Silver shows (in addition to Zell Mill, who we’ll hear later) that 2004 may be the year that “Bush Democrats” tip the scales.

Even though I am a well-recognized liberal on many issues confronting our society today, I find it ironic that many human rights advocates and outspoken members of my own entertainment community are often on the front lines to protest repression, for which I applaud them but they are usually the first ones to oppose any use of force to take care of these horrors that they catalogue repeatedly. Under the unwavering leadership of President Bush, the cause of freedom and democracy is being advanced by the courageous men and women serving in our Armed Services.

The President is doing exactly the right thing. That is why we need this President at this time! I am grateful for the chance to speak tonight to express my support for our Commander-in-Chief, for our brave troops, and for the vital cause which they have undertaken. General Dwight Eisenhower’s statement of 60 years ago is true today . . . “United in this determination and with unshakable faith in the cause for which we fight, we will, with God’s help, go forward to our greatest victory.”

Dubya will get their attention with his proper and principled stance on the War on Terror, and he’ll keep them with the growing economy. His speech at the end of the week should emulate Reagan’s approach; optimism for the future by giving people more control of their lives, taking that control away from government, and leaving government to its proper, constitutional role. One of those roles is fighting to protect us from those who would attack us. He’s got all cylinders firing. He just needs to share that with the American people.

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Redstate.org quotes a good roundup of press coverage of day 1 of the Republican convention. As much as the press tried to portray this as a moderate face to a conservative party, conservatism showed up quite obviously. I think you’ll find that conservatives are not afraid to identify themselves as such, and you’ll see that this week. At the same time, liberals are forever coming up with euphemisms for their beliefs, unable to call it what it is.

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From the Wandering Mind comes this information about connections between al Qaeda and Saddam, straight from the horse’s…son.

AMMAN, Aug 29 (AFP) - Iraq is attracting Islamic militants from across the world determined to join the “holy war” against the US-led occupation, the son of Osama bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam told AFP in an interview.

“Hundreds of Muslims from all over Arab and non-Arab countries go to Iraq to help the resistance end the occupation, spurred by the conviction that jihad is a duty against the occupier,” said Hudayfa Azzam, 34.

He also claimed that the former regime of Saddam Hussein “strictly and directly controlled” members of bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda terror network in Iraq before the US invasion, as charged by members of US President George Bush’s administration but refuted by other experts.

Experts who, no doubt, know better than bin Laden’s son what was going on in Iraq. Listen closely to how the American press will investigate this.

Or not.

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These days, “Everybody Loves Raymond” apparently serves the public interest more than the political process. An FCC commissioner (a Democrat) disagrees that “Last Comic Standing” is more important that covering the Republican National Convention.

As a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, I may not agree with many positions taken by speakers this week at the Republican National Convention. Even so, I believe our broadcast media owe us more coverage of an event that remains an important component of the presidential campaign. Yet tonight, if people around the country tune in to the commercial broadcast TV networks, most will not see any live convention coverage. That’s not right.

Let’s remember that American citizens own the public airwaves, not TV executives. We give broadcasters the right to use these airwaves for free in exchange for their agreement to broadcast in the public interest. They earn huge profits using this public resource. During this campaign season broadcasters will receive nearly $1.5 billion from political advertising.

What do we get in return for granting TV stations free use of our airwaves? Unfortunately, when it comes to coverage of issues important to our nation, the answer is less and less. Coverage of the 2000 presidential election on the network evening news dropped by a third compared to reporting on the 1996 election. During the last election cycle we heard directly from presidential candidates for an average of 9 seconds a night on the news. Local races? Forget it. In 2002 - the most recent midterm elections - more than half of local newscasts contained no campaign coverage at all. Local coverage has diminished to the point that campaign ads outnumber campaign stories by four to one. What coverage there is focuses inordinately on polls and handicapping the horse race.

TV executives tell us that the convention and campaign coverage provided by the cable channels is sufficient. I don’t think so. Around 35 million Americans don’t get cable, often because they cannot afford it. To put it in perspective, that’s more than the combined populations of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Furthermore, broadcasters legally undertake to serve the public interest themselves in exchange for free spectrum - their licenses don’t allow them to pass the buck to cable. Remember also that the vast majority of cable channels are national, not local. So don’t look for local campaign coverage on cable, except in the few towns where local cable news exists. Most Americans still must look to their local broadcaster for news of local campaigns and issues.

Well, then it’s a good thing we have the FCC in place to deal with this. Right?

The F.C.C. is doing nothing to help as the situation deteriorates. It has weakened almost every explicit duty stations once had for serving the public interest, like ensuring that stations cover local issues and offer viewers a diversity of opinion. Just as bad, the commission eliminated protections against media consolidation last year, even though critics warned that this would result in even less local coverage. Luckily, a federal court rejected this decision, so we have another chance to save these rules.

The F.C.C. has also failed to set guidelines for how broadcasters will meet their public interest responsibilities when digital TV and multicasting become more widespread. To make matters worse, the F.C.C. now practically rubber-stamps TV license renewals, usually without auditing station records to determine whether licensees are fulfilling their public interest responsibilities or checking with communities to ensure that stations are meeting local needs.

Whether we are Democrats, Republicans or independents, we all can agree that democracy depends on well-informed citizens. So as you flip through the channels tonight while the convention is largely ignored, consider whether TV broadcasters, sustained by free access to the public airwaves in exchange for programming in the public interest, are holding up their end of the deal.

Did the networks cover the first day for the Democrats? Do I even have to ask that question? Of course they did. Just more ammunition in the “Oh, that liberal media” campaign.

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An interesting report on peace breaking out around the world:

The chilling sights and sounds of war fill newspapers and television screens worldwide, but war itself is in decline, peace researchers report.

In fact, the number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meantime, are growing in number.

“International engagement is blossoming,” said American scholar Monty G. Marshall. “There’s been an enormous amount of activity to try to end these conflicts.”

For months the battle reports and casualty tolls from Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) have put war in the headlines, but Swedish and Canadian non-governmental groups tracking armed conflict globally find a general decline in numbers from peaks in the 1990s.

The authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in a 2004 Yearbook report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication, says 19 major armed conflicts were under way worldwide in 2003, a sharp drop from 33 wars counted in 1991.

The Canadian organization Project Ploughshares, using broader criteria to define armed conflict, says in its new annual report that the number of conflicts declined to 36 in 2003, from a peak of 44 in 1995.

What’s the main cause of this?

Why the declines? Peace scholars point to crosscurrents of global events.

For one thing, the Cold War’s end and breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989-91 ignited civil and separatist wars in the old East bloc and elsewhere, as the superpowers’ hands were lifted in places where they’d long held allies in check. Those wars surged in the early 1990s.

“The decline over the past decade measures the move away from that unusual period,” said Ernie Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares.

At the same time, however, the U.S.-Russian thaw worked against war as well, scholars said, by removing superpower support in “proxy wars,” as in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Cambodia. With dwindling money and arms, warmakers had to seek peace.

The Reagan “peace dividend” continues to pay off. Thanks, Gipper.

And now, what will we do with this new-found peace?

“The end of the Cold War liberated the U.N.” — historically paralyzed by U.S.-Soviet antagonism — “to do what its founders had originally intended and more,” Mack said.

Oh great. This may give them more opportunity for graft and corruption. One might pine for the days of UN paralysis. Their peacekeeping missions are laudable (although many Rwandans might disagree), but when they try to overextend their power, billions are lost. If it wants to remain relevant, the United Nations needs to stick to its original mission.

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A peek into Pandora’s Box:

A FERTILITY expert is set to provoke international uproar this week by claiming he has taken the first step towards cloning a dead human being.

In what many will regard as a grotesque experiment, maverick American scientist Dr Panos Zavos will announce that he has taken DNA from two corpses and used it to create embryonic clones of the dead people.

Zavos says he has taken DNA from an 11-year-old girl called Cady and a 33-year-old man, both of whom died in road accidents, and implanted it into living eggs that subsequently divided in the laboratory to form embryos.

But an attempt to make a third clone, using DNA taken from a dummy and nasal extractor belonging to a baby who died, has so far failed to provide results.

The controversial experiment is certain to provoke a furious backlash from critics, who will accuse Zavos, from Lexington, Kentucky, of using gruesome Frankenstein science and of playing God.

It will also lead to accusations that he is exploiting vulnerable people by raising false hopes that they can bring their dead loved ones back.

The road to human cloning is lined with hucksters like this waiting to exploit empty promises. If we really want to go down this road, these guy have to be dealt with early and often.

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Pre-convention bounce?

For the first time all year, President Bush has moved ahead of John Kerry in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projection, just as the Republican National Convention is getting underway.

The polling company says its latest numbers show Bush leading in states with 213 electoral votes, while Kerry is ahead in states with 207. There are 118 electoral votes in the toss-up column, and the magic number to win the White House is 270.

Over this past weekend, Arkansas, Virginia and Missouri moved from toss-up to “leans Bush.” Minnesota moved from “leans Kerry” to toss-up. Maine and Michigan moved in Kerry’s direction – from toss-up to “leans Kerry.”

Rasmussen considers any state where polls show a candidate leading by less than five percentage points to be a toss-up.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the convention, but most likely the results of the Swift Boat Vets’ challenge. I wasn’t sure if “Vietnam Fatigue” had already hit in this campaign season, but perhaps not. If that’s true, then further revelations from their book could be Kerry’s undoing.

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Chrenkoff on “doing nothing”:

So next time somebody tells you that we should leave the foreigners alone and let them sort their own problems, remember these three simple propositions:

1) sometimes the alternatives to war are even worse.

2) sometimes our interests don’t stop at our shoreline.

3) sometimes it’s better to fight them in Fallujah.

Read all of “Why We Fight”. It’s long but worth the time.

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From Brain Shavings, score one more actual success with adult stem cells (vs. embryonic stem cells, where the score is still 0).

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“Bring it on”, John Kerry challenged when asked about challenges to his Vietnam record. By “bring it on”, of course, he meant more accolades; anything critical requires him to try to stifle it, whether it’s filing FEC complaints or grandstanding. And it’s no wonder; every time someone looks at his record, there’s more contradiction.

Raising questions about John Kerry’s Silver Star medal won in Vietnam, two researchers say its accompanying citation was reissued twice, an “unheard of” occurrence serving to expunge from the record the shooting of an enemy solider [sic] in the back and upgrade the signer from an admiral to the secretary of the Navy.

To reissue a citation, regulations would have required Kerry to prove there was an error in the previous citation or that the existence of the citation somehow constituted an “injustice,” say Henry Mark Holzer and Erika Holzer, writing in Front Page magazine.

…

The authors, who want Kerry to release all documents related to the citations, have noted another peculiarity about Kerry’s Silver Star — its unauthorized “V” for valor which “makes it facially false, they say, and at variance with official government records.” That’s because Silver Stars are given for gallantry and never are accompanied with a combat “V,” which would be redundant. But Kerry’s DD 214, or “Report of Transfer and Separation,” displayed on his website, shows the “V.”

Oh, and in case you were wondering…

The researchers are not affiliated with Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, the group of 254 men who served with Kerry in Vietnam and now assert he is unfit to be commander in chief of the United States.

And here’s another account…

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman has no idea where a Silver Star citation displayed on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s campaign Web site came from, he said Friday. The citation appears over Lehman’s signature.

“It is a total mystery to me. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me,” he said.

The additional language varied from the two previous citations, signed first by Adm. Elmo Zumwalt and then Adm. John Hyland, which themselves differ. The new material added in the Lehman citation reads in part: “By his brave actions, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty, Lieutenant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself….”

Asked how the citation could have been executed over his signature without his knowledge, Lehman said: “I have no idea. I can only imagine they were signed by an autopen.” The autopen is a device often used in the routine execution of executive documents in government.

Autopen is one thing, but having comments supposedly from him added to the citation without his knowledge is certainly worthy of investigation.

Glenn Reynolds agrees and has more analysis. His view of the medal issue as simply a “distraction” is changing a bit due to this.

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