Saturday, June 12, 2004

Stuff

I have been adding to my now extensive audio archive of talks by noted intellectuals and other rabble rousing types.

A dear friend has given me his 80GB(!!!!!) collection of subversion to wade through and copy this weekend. Hence the lack of any updates today.

Five things tomorrow. Maybe six :)



Friday, June 11, 2004

Stern v Bush

This is pretty interesting. I know I'm probably the last person on the planet to comment on this, but..Hey, it's all Comcast's fault.

One of my favorite places to mine stories - Knight-Ridder, is reporting some pretty astounding numbers for a pivotal group of voters.*

In this piece about one Mr. Howard Stern, K-R makes some pretty eye opening observations.

Stern, in his on-air call to "jihad" to defeat W, may wield the biggest stick in political talk-radio.

Michael Harrison tells us that "Howard Stern is the most influential political talk-show host in America today." Harrison is the editor of Talkers Magazine, which covers the talk-radio scene(I'll bet that's a real page turner).

I'll let Harrison, Simon Rosenberg(New Democrat Network), and K-R take it from here:
Stern's listeners are less interested in politics and more likely to be undecided, and thus are better prospects to be persuaded one way or the other, Harrison said.

"The Hannity/Limbaugh audience already knows where it's going," he said. "The Stern audience is fertile ground."

Stern's listeners are older and more affluent than some might think, having aged with the 50-year-old star. "It's a myth that young people listen to Stern," Harrison said. "He's an old guy to them. Their world is far raunchier, far edgier than anything Howard Stern does. They live in the world of the Internet, of porn sites."

It's not just Stern's listeners who could be swayed to vote against Bush. When Clear Channel pulled the plug on Stern, it took him off the air in two cities in Florida, leaving untold numbers of irate fans in a state where the last presidential election was decided by 537 votes.

Nationwide, 17 percent of likely voters listen to Stern's radio show, according to the poll released Thursday by the New Democrat Network, a Washington-based group. They favor Kerry over Bush by 53 percent to 43 percent, and by 59 to 37 percent in 18 battleground states.

Of the likely voters who listen to Stern, 1 out of 4 is a swing voter who hasn't decided how to vote in November. That means that about 4 percent of the national swing vote up for grabs this fall listens to Stern, according to the poll.

"You're now seeing a guy who has phenomenal reach of swing voters and a huge percentage of people who are going to be critical voters in the election spending all of his day every day going after the president," said Simon Rosenberg, the president of the New Democrat Network.

"Rush Limbaugh has met his match."
Stern's call to oust Bush is due almost entirely to his being blackballed by Clear Channel in the post-Janet Jackson breast exposure climate that has gripped 'Murrika. Stern's on-air use of 'obscenities' caused him to be dropped by broadcasting behemoth Clear Channel. Fear Clear Channel was allegedly worried about repercussions from the FCC, and dropped Stern rather than risk fines and possible license revocations.

This could prove to be very interesting.

*I'll never call a given block of voters the pivotal block. This is a most certain way to be proven wrong by the populace.

Public Service Announcement

If you're like me - I mean that in the most superficial of ways - you appreciate the ability to listen to talks, in-depth news and critical analyses of important issues(saves on the eyestrain of reading :)

Don't you?

I'll presume that you do. I'd like to share my favorite 'download it now and listen later' websites with you.

I'm sure you're familiar with some of these.

My regular listens are these:

Democracy Now! Does Amy Goodman's and Juan Gonzalez's Monday through Friday show need an introduction? I don't think so. Running time: 60 mins.

Another Monday through Friday radio show is Free Speech Radio News. Headlines and analysis - sort of a junior partner to Democracy Now! Give them a try. Running time: 30 mins.

A weekly program that has become a must listen for me is the Radio Project's Making Contact. A half-hour dedicated to a single issue. This week's episode covers the new Central American Free Trade Agreement(CAFTA). Running time: 30 mins.

The last thing on my web listening list is Radio4All's Unwelcome Guests. I like the billing of this program: "A program about wealth, power, and peoples' resistance to the New World Order." I don't find it nearly so subversive. It is very good. There are 4 years of archived shows available for download. This is another weekly that really shouldn't be missed. Running time: 120 mins. (downloads are split into two segments)

So get out there and stir it up!

(I now have 6GB of audio from the various shows assembled into my own archive)

The beauty of these programs is the D/L now, listen whenever option. I hope someone finds something of value here.


Comcast: Fast, but poor service

I am back after a 3 day hiatus due to Comcast.

I lost my cable connection after a thunderstorm. I had two technicians here all day yesterday attempting to fix the problem. I asked a couple of questions about the nature of their network(serendity in action).

This morning I went to my local Comcast office to, well, bitch about the poor service. I then came back to the office armed with some tools of the RF trade.

Needless to say, I fixed the issue. I shouldn't have messed with Comcast's equipment, but when I was told that it might be ten days before 'maintenance' came out to look at the problem, that was too much.

I guess I must've paid some attention during the relevant courses at university. Some, not much :)

Comcast is a great ISP as long as you don't have any issues. It's also okay if you are an MSEE.

******************************************

I am really getting Saint Ronnie overload. I'm not going to comment about all the nefarious actions that occurred with 'Dutch' at the helm.

Democracy Now! has dedicated this week to reilluminating some of the less savory 'adventures' that were undertaken(no pun intended) during the Reign of Reagan. I'll let you, my dear, gentle reader listen and get the other side of the Reagan legacy from Amy Goodman and her guests. I have nothing to add.

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Geneva what?

Courtesy of Democracy Now!
Human rights groups and military lawyers are strongly condemning the Bush administration for concluding two years ago that it could ignore international and domestic laws and allow US soldiers to torture detainees.

A series of leaked memos have emerged in the press over the past two days that outline how lawyers for the administration determined U.S. soldiers could torture detainees during interrogations even it violated laws by claiming it was in the interest of national security.

One portion of a Pentagon report obtained by the Wall Street Journal concludes the authority to set aside laws was "inherent in the president" and that the president could shield any U.S. soldiers from being prosecuted for committing torture or other war crimes.

An official from Human Rights Watch said "It is by leaps and bounds the worst thing I've seen since this whole Abu Ghraib scandal broke. It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid legal accountability. The effect is to throw out years of military doctrine and standards on interrogations."

The New York Times reports that it has obtained a Feb. 2 2002 memo from the CIA where the agency asks the administration for assurances that the administration's public pledge to abide by the Geneva conventions did not apply to its operatives.

One military lawyer told the Wall Street Journal "It's really unprecedented. For almost 30 years we've taught the Geneva Convention one way. Once you start telling people it's okay to break the law, there's no telling where they might stop."

And the Washington Post has obtained a Justice Department memo from September 2002 that determined that if any government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity they would not be held criminally liable because it could be argued that it was done "in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al-Qaida terrorist network."

Memos leaked to the press indicate that lawyers from the Defense and Justice departments as well as the White House and Vice President's office backed the policy changes. State Department lawyers however dissented and warned that the US could be weakening the Geneva Conventions for US troops overseas.

In addition, the Times reports the memos contain a section in which the Pentagon lawyers argued that any torture committed at Guantánamo would not be a violation of anti-torture statutes because the base was under American legal jurisdiction and the statute concerns only torture committed overseas. That view, according to the Times, is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in the Supreme Court, where it has argued that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not entitled to constitutional protections because the base is outside U.S. jurisdiction.
That pretty much says it all.


Dang!

I didn't make an entry yesterday, so I gather there was nothing newsworthy. One think that managed to get my attention was this USA Today article that attributed yesterday's stock market performance to some kind of nostalgic relection upon Reagan's life.

So, what do we have to do to have a sustained rally in the U.S. equities markets? Have a legendary American politician die every day?

The same USA Today is reporting that there is a renewed push to have Reagan replace Hamilton on the $10 bill. The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, who is the primary driver for this change is headed by Grover Norquist.

Reagan was a polarizing figure. I'll leave it at that.

My favorite Reagan quotes:

1) "What does an actor know about politics?" – criticizing Ed Asner for opposing American foreign policy

2) "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles."

3) "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk."

Not under my desk.

Sunday, June 06, 2004

How to Get to the Beltway

A journalist's guide in four stages.

Stage 1: The young, dedicated, idealistic reporter investigates a story about worker abuse at a power plant. A power plant that happens to be a be a big advertiser in his newspaper. He takes this excellent piece of work to his editor, and his editor acknowledges the fine work, but after a minute of false reflection, the editor tells the young reporter that the paper cannot run the story.

Stage 2: The young, dedicated reporter comes up with a great idea for a story, but runs it by his editor before chasing it down. Again the editor, noting that the likely tone of the story won't reflect well on local business, tells the young reporter that he's sorry, but tells him to forget about it. The paper can't run that kind of story.

Stage 3: Finds our young reporter getring another great idea for a story. He tonelessly dismisses it himself, knowing that it's unlikely that his paper will run it.

Stage 4: He no longer gets any ideas. He no longer looks critically at these types of issues.

This reporter is now ready for duty as a Beltway reporter :)

I heard a variation of this some time ago. I'd give it an attribution, but I cannot recall who said something relatively close.

Nice story, now move along

Oops.

Didja hear about that angry guy with the armored bulldozer that terrorized a Denver suburb? Whacky stuff.

Need a link? Or seven?

Okay.

1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7.

I think someone at the Denver Post is a little excited.