A Sully post dedicated to my comment about the UK/Iraq boondoggle... Am I a total blog-geek (bleek??) for smiling widely about this? My office colleagues were impressed, so maybe not. Still... to have my observations played out on such a large stage ( a follow-up appears here ) is enormously gratifying. Even moreso, by someone for whom I have much respect. Now if I could only find Bill Maher's phone number...

I've been much to busy reading and debating other's posts to keep up this blog, but the UK/Iran drama has inspired me. During the the hostage/POW (depends on the context) ordeal, British confessions of trespassing into Iranian waters were released. These tapes and statements offered contrite prisoners, apparently well-treated and healthy. After a relatively brief period, they were returned home where they immediately repudiated the "confessions" as coerced. The conventional wisdom response... "OF COURSE they were coerced." Honestly, did anyone believe for a second that the British Navy had equipment so sketchy that they couldn't settle their location? No, the sailors said what they needed to in order to get home. Meanwhile, the U.S. position is that torture (or torture-like) techniques garner valuable information as opposed to false statements engineered to end discomfort. Anybody else see a disconnect here? Also, a brilliant poem by Suheir Hammad ...

For the first time in history there are three "minority" candidates with some real steam behind them in the Presidential race. Barack Obama announced first, the ubiquitous Hillary Clinton made it official next and now Bill Richardson has made his intentions clear. In constrast to the GOP offerings of McCain, Romney, Brownback and Giuliani (so far), the Dems have a truly diverse slate that speak to their base in a meaningful way. I just wish they were more electable... Debra Dickerson makes some interesting points about Obama at Salon.com (sign in required). I don't buy off on her rationale for calling Obama "not black," but I understand what she's saying. She also shares my concerns about his relative inexperience and other niggling little details that could derail him. DailyKos has some stats on the nearly worthless "hypothetical match-up polling. Clinton and Obama actually look pretty good here, but either/or polling this early in the game is...

Hometown boy Deval Patrick makes good in a big way with his SWEEPING victory in the Dem. primary for the Governorship of Massachussetts. Patrick handily captured 50% of the votes, leaving his competition to split the rest. All told, he won nearly every county in the state, painting an electoral map of surprising uniformity for this history-making win. I didn't hear much about his candidacy until election day, but his progressive positions give me a good feeling for our Bluest of Blue states. Job well done.

Apparently, Bush is creeping back up into daylight in the latest polls. USA TODAY has him unassailably in the 40s! Given that Iraq is as bad as ever and his "New Fangled Torture" effort is being blocked by heavy hitters from his own party ( Kudos to Graham for putting America over his candidacy BTW ), the only credible positive is falling gas prices. In SoCal, we've seen prices plunge nearly .40 cents/gallon in the last 4 weeks. That's more than a $5/tank difference for me. $2.89/gallon is nowhere NEAR Clinton prices, but anything lower than Bush's magical $3 threshold is like manna from heaven. Of course, the oil companies are also battling California's Prop. 87 which would chop into their profits while funding alternate energy. In an example of sublime political calculus, the oil companies started their price drop in a sweet spot that gives them just enough time for consumers to appreciate the price relief in the run-up to the election WHILE still maxim...

Plenty of people are BASHING Mark Burnett et al for the structure of this year's Survivor season. To wit, the decision to split the tribes into four groups on racial/cultural lines of Black, White, Asian and "Latino." IMHO, Latino is the sketchiest in terms of a "racial" category inasmuch as there are plenty of Black Latinos and Latinas thank you very much... I actually have a different view on this issue. In the rare Survivor seasons where there were two non-white competitors of the same ethnic group, they never allied with one another. Alliance-building has been a key component of Survivor and Big Brother so a (non-White) racial alliance runs counter to the generally accepted strategies of the show. However, with four tribes divided by race, each race will have a chance to develop WITHOUT the 800 lb. gorilla of race affecting alliances. Each racial group shares the focus... in the game AND on the show. Between the tribes, the competition will boil down t...

Look people...that unmarried Limpbaugh took Viagra on vacation to a sex tourism haven is nobody's business. His RIGHTeous listeners don't care that he prepared himself for fornication with Viagra. And being as racially tolerant as they are, they certainly don't care that 86% of Viagra-powered Limpbaugh's potential Dominican fornication partners are Black (or mixed). Nope, it's not news at all that Limpbaugh took the SEX AID Viagra to fornicate with Black sex partners. After all, it's not like the Domincan Republic is one of the busiest sex tourism sites in the world or anything. Let's leave him, his Viagra and his sex tourism travel plans out of our minds completely. His erectile dysfunction and penchant for paid sex are PRIVATE matters. For decency's sake, let's just leave Viagra, misdemeanor parole violation and prostitutes out of it. UPDATE: I was selected as an Editor's Choice letter on Salon !

Salon, and others, are picking up on the story that Dubya is taking Air Force One, AIR FORCE ONE, down to Crawford for a day trip, so he can vote. Appears his able staff forgot to request an absentee ballot. Courtesy of Google, I discovered ballpark estimates of the operating costs of a production 747 200 (the base model of the current Air Force Ones). $8,400 an hour (in 2000)... (UPDATE: RNC talking heads have estimated costs as much as SEVEN TIMES normal 747 operating expenses... That's $55,000 an hour, people) Mind you, that's gas and ground expenses BEFORE we started getting pimped at the pump. That does not include Secret Service costs, per diem, yada, yada... Extra special security considerations, and probably a press flak or two (priceless pictures of democracy at work dontcha know. $8,400 ($55,000) an hour... for 6 hours round trip, so this dim idiot can fill in some circles and cast a ceremonial ballot for another Republican... in a PRIMARY! Call me crazy, but ca...

Reading this AP article , I am starkly reminded of the 80s supergroup The Thompson Twins and their smash "Lies." Just so we're clear, Bush claimed that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Now the AP has footage of him ON VIDEO TAPE in a meeting where the levee breaches were discussed in depth. Is there ANY CHANCE that a lie of this magnitude... one that affected hundreds of thousands of citizens on OUR OWN SHORES does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense? Under oath or not, this is far more scandalous than "I did not have sex with that woman." We will see how much traction this story gets in the future, but given that Katrina was a big part of Dubya's slide into the abyss, his 34% can only get lower now.

Salon has long been a favorite site of mine. Among the best on-line investments I've made. Tim Grieve makes an excellent point about to coverage of American tragedies in his post here . On another point, I hope to be getting back in the groove on my postings. It's been far too long and too much stuff has been happening. Crooks and Liars and Steve Gilliard have the Wal-Mart DVD flap. Being a web-head, I happen to agree with Steve (for once). There's NO WAY, there could have been a relational match in those titles without some intentional keyword fixing. In Wal-Mart's defense, the site is huge and it could easily have been the work of an isolated person, but the relation was totally intentional.

I'm an early adopter (My wife would say, "Gadget geek"). As such, I've been burned a few times (MiniDisc, Atari Lynx, ReplayTV, DAT), but have also been on the cutting edge of a lot of cool new technology. I am also an avid film enthusiast. I love DVD and even went so far as to eBay a laserdisc player for some stuff that was (and is) only available in that format. As HD content was set to debut, I knew I would be on board, and when the next gen gaming systems came out, blu-ray support clinched the deal for a PS3. Through all the rabid, fanboy flamewars on hidefdigest, aintitcool and others, my satisfaction in my choice has steadily grown. Here's why: HD-DVD and Blu-ray offer IDENTICAL picture/sound quality on go-forward releases (VC-1 and TrueHD). I am astounded at how gorgeous the pictures are. Simply stunning. Blu-ray has the edge in studio support. Universal's HD-DVD-only stance hurts, but blu-ray has Fox, Disney, MGM and of course, Sony/Colum...

As I find myself considering the bravery of a woman's simple act of quiet defiance, I am called to ponder the cowardice of this administration's denial of Geneva protections to "terrorist" detainees. On a day when our nation mourns the passing of a civil rights icon, I am reading revelations of CIA-run prisons in foreign countries . Prisons, one presumes, where Abu Ghraib tactics are used to extract information from detainees with no regard for the very rights we purport to protect. I joined others in taking another blogger to task for his use of stunningly racist imagery in an attack against a Black Republican candidate. It's possible that there were more posts to that thread than any other in his site's history. Today, I find myself wondering if there will be a similar outrage over the far more serious accusations of government mandated torture centers across the globe. As Dubya blithely tramples his promise to fire anyone invloved in the Plame leak, Fitzger...

Others have memorialized this woman for her legendary stand against racism and oppression. The Detroit Free Press is blogging the funeral here . For my part, I will commemorate her passing with this simple photograph.

For a while now, the GOP has been floating the "legal technicality" defense regarding the Plame Investigation (now indictments). Basically, the leak had no teeth, so Fitzgerald chased down a lesser charge to cover his tracks. However, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, "You go with the indictments you HAVE, not the indictments you might want." During Fitzgerald's press conference, it became clear that he was intensely interested in only bringing indictments that he felt confident in prosecuting successfully. Interestingly, he made some crucial points about the indictments he did issue. National security was at the heart of the leak charge. CIA operatives have dangerous jobs and about the only security our nation can offer NOCs is that their identity won't be revealed. The leak was despicable and our safety has been threatened because of it. He also subtly implied that the specifics of the law may be too vague and narrow as written. The indictments are for ...

Following up on yesterday's post about Lott's predilection for the taste of his own foot, comes this one ... Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for an intervention...

So Trent "Foot in Mouth" Lott posits "In a month, who will remember the name Harriet Miers?" Hmmm, maybe her most important client, the President of the United States?!?! Damn, Lottie, the man promised to build you a nice, new porch and all you can do is pimp-slap his personal attorney. Didn't losing your Senate Majority Leadership during " Operation Credit Strom " teach you anything about sound bites? Sheesh. Still, I can't help thinking progressives lost their best shot at a moderate in this woman. We ultimately discovered very little about Miers, but her positions on Roe in particular were hardly set in stone. Further, the granite tough united front of the GOP was fissuring to say the least. A few more weeks of of fringe Right bickering and sniping, followed by a week or so of confirmation hearings would have shined the spotlight on Dubya's eroding influence. As others have noted, it would have been a true watershed moment had Democrats sup...

I play referee between two respected blogger/pundits. They happen to be Black. Steve Gilliard kicks things off with a post that defies description . Robert George weighs in after dropping hints to Andrew Sullivan and, one imagines, a few others... My comments to Steve Gilliard are here . To Robert George here . It seems to me that Steve has pushed the envelop too far, yet again, while Robert has played to "liberals are racist too" card, one more time. The posts are racking up on both sites... Definitely worth a look see...

Gotta hand it to Tom Delay. He takes a heckuva mug shot . In fact, he's positively beaming. This, in stark contrast to the permanent scowl that normally graces his pix. This is actually a great move on his part. Knowing that the pic would inevitably race across the Internet, he threw on a grin that would feel welcome at a TRMPAC corporate shindig. Subliminal message, "I'm happy cuz I'll be exonerated soon!" Don't take this the wrong way, Tom, but I hope you're way wrong...

Despite my description, there has not been a lot of pop culture of late. Dubya's cronies have kept me busy with other things. However, I do want to briefly comment on one of my fascinations... comic books. Specifically, the current Supreme Power spin-off feature centering on Nighthawk. Marvel's Squadron Supreme started as a barely-veiled anti-Justice League. Hyperion and Power Princess were Supes and Wonder Woman. Dr. Spectrum filled in for Green Lantern, Whizzer (WHIZZER!) for the Flash and Nighthawk for Batman. They eventually expanded to include analogues for Green Arrow, Black Canary, Zatanna, and even Firestorm among others. The problem was they always went up against the Avengers, so they always had their asses handed to them. A while back, they were given a 12-issue maxi-series that featured the team in their "own universe" where THEY were the champions. Interestingly, the plot turned on mind alteration, and the subsequent schism in the team after the technolog...

I've been off this topic because "revelations" have been flowing like California mud slides. The blogosphere has been chock full of analysis and the MSM have been elbowing each other like dateless, 39-year-olds with cake buzz at a bridal bouquet toss. But as the grand jury clock ticks its last tocks, the cross hairs appear to have settled on the VP's office. Scooter Libby in particular... but Cheney has NOT been excluded from the possibility of indictment. How big is this? To put things in perspective, the word TREASON and Vice President are being mentioned in the same sentence this week. TREASON. Ken Starr investigated everything from cronyism to "suspicious" land deals to Vince Foster to Lewinsky and all he came up with was a soiled dress. Fitzgerald's investigation pulls back the curtain on a deliberate, coordinated effort to manipulate facts in an attempt to garner support for a WAR! A war that has cost tens of thousands Iraqi lives, thousands of Ame...