Tis the Season

A supporter of former Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson once called out to him, “Governor Stevenson, all thinking people are for you!” Stevenson answered, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.” Truer words have never been spoken.

How did it come to pass that politics would become the only profession of which people want the C.E.O. to be dumber than they are? When we send our kids to school we expect the teachers to know more than they do. When we trust our money to an investment firm, we want the fund manager to be better with money than we are. When we go the hospital for surgery we expect the doctor to be better with the scalpel than we are. Yet for some reason, when we go to elect a president he want him to be just as “regular” as we are. We want him to sit down and have a beer with us, watch the game and make inappropriate jokes. We want him to pretend to understand our struggle and feel our pain. If that’s what we really want, why not vote for me? I can do all that stuff for far less than the current candidates are charging.

Barack Obama returned from his whirlwind tour of other parts of the world looking quite presidential. Apparently too presidential for some. After a brief two-point bounce following his trip, the race seems to have returned to the three to six-point spread it was at before he left. This has led to speculation that in attempting to appear capable of projecting an image of strength and leadership, Obama may have succeeded too well and may have appeared presumptuous. This discussion is foolish. The very same people who claimed to be unsure of whether or not Obama could appear presidential, complained that he appeared presidential. Getting exactly what they wanted wasn’t good enough for them. Which can only lead to the assumption that what they said they wanted, wasn’t really what they wanted. Eventually, the fence sitters are going to run out of phony excuses not to vote for the guy and are going to have to come to grips with the real reason they’re having trouble making up their minds.

Which brings us to the following observation. This election has little to do with John McCain. McCain’s campaign has more-or-less already admitted this fact. They aren’t bothering to waste time telling voters why their candidate is the right choice. (I guess it's possible they can't think of any.) They’ve skipped ahead to focus solely on why their opponent is the wrong choice. This election is a referendum on Barack Obama – nothing more, nothing less. I’m not the first person to come to that conclusion, and I certainly won’t be the last. Despite the absolute ineptitude of his campaign, McCain’s numbers remain largely the same, while Obama’s numbers fluctuate to match the mood of the electorate. If John McCain walked on stage at a town hall meeting tomorrow and told everyone he would raise taxes by 50%, store nuclear waste in kindergarten classrooms and sell California to Canada for a dozen donuts his support would only decline by a point or two. Maybe. But let Obama put on a tie that doesn’t quite match his blazer and watch millions of voters question his judgment and fitness to be Commander-in-Chief. It may not make any sense that so many Clinton supporters intend to vote against their causes and their own self-interest to spite their own nominee, but that’s the kind of election this is going to be. Obama needs to realize this quickly, get out heck out of Washington and back on the trail, squeezing as much blood from as many stones as he can find along the way. He’s going to need it all.

Being 70-plus-years-old and a long-time Republican politician, McCain has zeroed-in on two issues he believes to be damaging to Obama: experience and taxes. He is well aware of the visceral response voters have to both topics, (taxes are bad, experience is good) and believes – with some degree of accuracy – that he may be able to use them to his advantage. But instead of accepting McCain’s conventional wisdom, I’d like to offer a couple of contradictory observations.

First, taxes. I happen to believe that the president has little – if any – effect on the overall state of the economy. The market seems to function largely independent of whatever administration occupies the White House. Therefore I tend to neither blame presidents for recessions nor credit them for expansions. But many people do. So, for the sake of argument, let’s say the president’s policies do significantly affect the economy. McCain would argue that the Bush tax cuts – which he initially vehemently opposed – were responsible for at least slowing – if not reversing the economic slide of the early 00s, and mysteriously keeping the current economy buoyant in the face of mortgage and energy disasters, which may or may not have been contributed to by administration policies. But, if it were the simple truth that low taxes equal economic growth and high taxes equal economic stagnation, he would also have to acknowledge that the unparalleled economic expansion of the 1990s occurred in the thick of what Republicans at the time called, “the largest tax increase in history.” So, it seems obvious that the throwaway idea of high taxes (particularly on investment income) equaling economic stagnation isn’t necessarily true.

Second, experience. McCain claims, Obama lacks the experience to be president, experience that he, McCain, has an abundance of. Let’s be honest. No one who hasn’t been president has the experience to be president. One could easily make the argument that many who have been president left office without the experience to be president. But more importantly, experience is overrated. Don’t get me wrong, lessons learned from the obstacles life throws in your way are important, but judgment, creativity and intuition are just as vital – if not more so. There are few companies in America with more experience in their respective fields than Ford and Merrill Lynch. Yet both of those companies reported monetary losses of $8.7 billion and $4.8 billion respectively in the past week. Ford has been building automobiles in this country for a hundred years, yet they couldn’t see the coming rise in the price of fuel and the shrinking market for monstrous vehicles, even though other “less experienced” manufacturers could. Through it’s advertising Merrill Lynch likes to boast about the wealth of experience it has managing investments and making money, yet they were somehow unable to understand that loans made to people who didn’t have to verify their income were not a good investment and lost astronomical amounts of money. But on the flip side of that coin, are companies like Google and Apple, where creativity, innovation and judgment far outweigh experience. Somehow, those two companies still manage to turn a profit quarter after quarter in tough economic times. In a rapidly changing world, experience can get in the way of progress and growth.

A Justice Department probe has determined that senior department officials (Monica Goodling in particular) inappropriately and illegally used political litmus tests in hiring employees for non-political positions. Again, is anyone surprised by this? Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of all these probe of the Bush administration telling us things we already know. Why are we still wasting our time with these investigations? We know this was a lousy administration that tarnished the credibility and reputations of some good people. Six months from now they will be gone and hopefully forgotten, and maybe the next administration will be better. They can’t possibly be any worse.

Just a week after issuing a new $100 billion dollar bill, Zimbabwe has come up with a novel idea to combat their incomprehensible inflation rate. The treasury has announced they will simply knock ten zeroes off their currency. So, items that used to cost $100 billion dollars (like a loaf of bread say) will now cost $10. Inflation is such a disaster in Zimbabwe that the country’s computers, cash registers and automated teller machines cannot process simple transactions that now involve billions and trillions of dollars. I’m not sure how this helps, since workers who used to be paid a million dollars a week now earn just 1/100th of a cent over seven days, but who am I to question the economic genius of Zimbabwe.

No one’s talking about the oil spill that occurred on the Mississippi River near New Orleans last week. I guess in this age of $4 gasoline oil spills just aren’t sexy anymore.

Finally, a story from Texas not about people getting shot in the back. A 5-year-old in the Dallas suburb of Denton slipped out of a daycare and ended up half-a-mile away at a Hooters restaurant. That’s right, Hooters. According to the kid, he had only intended to grab some snacks from the gas station across the street. I guess he was hungrier than he thought. Tee. Tee hee. Tee hee hee.

Supply and Demand

Short update this week. I just finished mowing the lawn and I’m tired. I hate yard work. I need a Roomba that cuts grass. And pulls weeds. And trims trees. You get the picture.

Senator Obama embarked on his whirlwind tour this past weekend, making stops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Jordan, and will visit England, France and Germany before returning home. The first, Middle East portion of the tour was designed to shore up his foreign policy credentials and reinforce his positions regarding the “war on terror.” Judging from the reaction to his meetings with military personnel and regional leaders, he at least has not hurt himself in the eyes of the public - and may have raised his stock a little. The European segment beginning tomorrow, is Obama’s attempt to try to begin to repair the image of the United States among our allies. Europe is enamored with Obama. Some German news agencies estimate that up to a quarter million people may turn out to hear him speak on Thursday. That is a stunning amount of people to show up to see a guy they’d never heard of two years ago. Now granted, David Hasselhoff is a megastar in Germany, so maybe that’s not as impressive as it sounds. But in 2008, if a quarter million Europeans show up to see an American not named Jerry Lewis, and they’re not throwing rocks and burning him in effigy, he might be doing something worthwhile.

Senator McCain confuses me. Of course, he seems to confuse himself all the time as well, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. He constantly refers to countries that don’t exist, mixes up mortal enemy ethnic groups, rewrites event timelines and jokes about blowing people up. I guess he calls it straight talk.

For months McCain attacked Obama for never having visited Iraq, literally counting the days since the Illinois senator had last visited the Middle East. Now that Obama and the accompanying media circus are on the ground in Iraq, the McCain campaign is complaining that the media is giving his opponent too much coverage. There are two possible reasons for this. Either McCain is genuinely surprised by the breadth and depth of the coverage of Obama’s tour, or his complaints are intended to simply to guilt-trip the media into stumbling over themselves to ensure they split airtime given to the candidates right down the middle. If the answer is the former, (which it isn’t), then McCain fails to understand the fundamental economic principle of scarcity. He makes overseas trips on a fairly regular basis. So, when he made his trip to Iraq earlier this year he received a collective yawn from news organizations. Ho hum, another McCain trip abroad. But Obama is the new kid on the block, and this is his first visit to the war zone. Of course that merits more intense coverage. If you wear jeans and a t-shirt to work everyday, throw on a jacket and tie tomorrow and see what everyone says. If the answer is the latter, (which it is), the McCain campaign may have already succeeded. For such a juggernaut, the media is hypersensitive to criticism. The most offensive thing one can do to a reporter is label him or her biased or unfair. So, to compensate for perceived deficiencies and head off potential criticism, the media is paying meticulous attention to every speech and gesture McCain makes, and every town hall meeting he appears at. Be careful what you wish for, right?

Over the past seven days, the price of oil has dropped more than $27. Over the past seven days, the price of gas in my neighborhood has declined less than 10 cents. Supply and demand my @$$. McCain credits President Bush’s absolutely meaningless (due to the fact that a congressional ban remains in place) repeal of the executive prohibition against off-shore drilling with lowering the price. I suppose there’s a reason he prefers discussions of national security to discussions about the economy.

Former Vice President Al Gore issued a challenge to the nation this week; provide 100% of the nation’s energy with renewable sources by 2020. Gore’s timeline is unrealistic at best, but it does raise an interesting point. If we put half as much energy into energy efficiency and developing renewable energy resources as we put into fighting with each other about how to do it, we would be considerably further along than we are at this point. Republican’s want to keep drilling and mining, environment be damned, and Democrats want to wake up tomorrow and find all the coal plants magically converted to windmills. Neither of those “solutions” are viable. There is no good reason that the wealthiest, most productive, most advanced nation on earth should still derive 80% of it’s energy from fossil fuels. But because we’ve ignored the problem for so long, there is going to have to be a transition period in which we will need to use fossil fuel as a bridge to a renewable energy future. We may need to drill for and mine additional resources, but those have to be thought of as temporary, stop-gap measures on the way to a renewable energy future, and our energy policy - when we finally choose to develop an energy policy - needs to reflect that.

Finally, on a lighter note, race car driver Danica Patrick got into a heated argument with another (female) driver during a race last Saturday. Again. What is it about race car drivers and childish behavior? Why do these people seem to be incapable of acting like civilized adult human beings? Why not just focus on driving fast and turning left instead of pushing and shoving, throwing towels and drop-kicking windshields? A word of advise to Ms. Patrick. More winning, less whining. Your total number of televised altercations should not exceed your total number of wins.

Cette Bud Est Pour Vous

That’s French for cha-ching!

The New Yorker Magazine caused a stir on Monday when it revealed the cover of it’s most recent edition. The cartoon features Barack and Michelle Obama in the oval office, Barack dressed in traditional Muslim garb, Michelle as agent Foxy Brown, with an American flag burning in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama Bin Laden hanging above the mantle. The purpose was to expose the absurdity of the false, malicious rumors that have dogged the Obama’s throughout this campaign. But judging from the reaction, most people didn’t get the joke. The editor of the magazine spent most of the day defending the cover art and trying to explain the finer points of satire to an endless stream of reporters and their audiences. What he failed/fails to understand is the inverse relationship of humor to exposition. The more detailed the explanation of the joke and the more times it’s given, the less funny it is.

I have no doubt that the New Yorker intended no harm to Barack Obama. I have little doubt that they still don’t understand what all the drama is about. But that’s just the problem, isn’t it. People that read The New Yorker, and people that know what The New Yorker is about will get the joke. They will look at the cover and say, “Ha ha, aren’t those people stupid for believing this nonsense about Obama?” But what plays well on the Upper West Side, doesn’t play at all in Middle-of-Nowhere Kansas, South-of-Everywhere Alabama and West-of-I-Don’t-Know-Where Kentucky. That image is broadcast all across the country to people who aren’t paying attention and lack the context of the knowledge of of what The New Yorker is all about. All they see is the Muslim dress, the AK-47 and the flag in the fireplace and they remember that anonymous e-mail they received to the same effect and they say, “See, I knew there was something about that guy I didn’t like.” Obama’s political opponents reap the double bonus of being able to denounce the negative perceptions of the cover while reaping the benefits of reinforced negative perceptions of the candidate.

I understand subtlety may be used as an element of satire. I use it all the time. But only six people read this blog. I don’t have to worry about my satire being misinterpreted. In this political climate, political satire needs to be more poignant or less common. You cannot assume that an electorate with the attention span of a sound-bite will get the joke.

Overshadowed by the New Yorker cover incident were comments made by the Reverend Jesse Jackson about Barack Obama and a speech he gave at a black church on Father’s Day this year. Over a microphone he thought was off, Jackson complained that by calling for increased responsibility from black men in relation to their families, Obama was “talking down” to black people and expressed a desire to emasculate the senator for said comments.

This story received far more ink than it deserved given the fact that Jackson has a history of speaking before thinking. There is a serious problem of absentee fatherhood in the black community. Anyone who can interpret a statistic can see that. But for some reason, there is a perception among people of Jackson’s ilk that if white people hear a black man admit that black people need to take responsibility for the health and prosperity of their own families, white society will no longer feel responsible for their well-being. What Jackson fails to realize is that it is not society’s responsibility to make you a better person. America’s duty is to provide opportunity. It is the duty of the individual to seize that opportunity and make the best he or she can out of it. Society is/should be set up to help those who help themselves. When black men take on the responsibility of being fathers to their children they will create communities in which the family and the values of work and duty are cherished. And opportunities will flow toward people who value work and duty. Of course racism and bigotry still exist in America. But under Jackson’s “leadership,” forty plus years of sitting around waiting for society to to solve those problems has accomplished little. Accepting responsibility for one’s own actions is not a sign of weakness, it is a signal that one is mature enough to do what is expected of him, and will command the respect to demand what is due to him. Obama understands this. Jackson does not. Obama’s stock is rising. Jackson’s is falling.

Late last week Senator McCain’s chief financial advisor, former Texas Senator Phil Gramm, accused America of being a “nation of whiners,” and added that what we’re actually facing is a “mental recession.” That’s right people. It’s all in your head. A figment of your imagination. To support his contentions, Gramm cites numbers indicating a slow - yet growing economy and an expansion of U.S. exports, and surveys which seem to indicate that when asked about their personal financial situation most people say they are doing all right. All those things might be true, but what Gramm doesn’t seem to understand is that the economy is made up of more than just numbers. That increase in mortgage defaults indicates real people losing their homes. Each of the “several thousand” job cuts General Motors announced Tuesday morning represents an actual family left without a breadwinner. Gas at $4.15 a gallon means it now costs flesh-and-blood mothers and fathers twice as to get to and from work as it did a little over a year ago. Those things are not imaginary. And they cannot be solved through the power of positive thinking. McCain was quick to send Gramm to join Mark Penn and Jeremiah Wright under the bus, stating that Gramm doesn’t speak for him. If that’s true - and I certainly hope it is - perhaps Gramm should not be his chief financial advisor. Seems like you might want to be on the same page as the guy drafting your economic policy.

The Italian government has issued an order, validated by the Italian Supreme Court, demanding all “Roma”, or gypsies, be fingerprinted and registered with law enforcement. According to the government, Italy’s crime rate is directly related to the Roma and their children, and therefore, “for their own protection,” the police must be able to keep an eye on them at all times. Anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe isn’t limited to Italy. Neo-Nazism is on the rise in Germany, physical confrontations between police and African/Middle-Eastern immigrants in France are becoming commonplace, and Sweden - perhaps the most tolerant country in the world - is considering ending immigration altogether. There are many things the Europeans do better than we do. Unfortunately, xenophobia happens to be one of those things. How far are we really, from tattooing numbers on people’s arms again?

Both the Iraqi foreign minister and prime minister noted last week that there can be no agreement on the future of U.S forces in the country without a timetable for withdrawal. Oops. Apparently they didn’t get the Bush/McCain memo. You know, the one about the Iraqis not wanting a timetable for withdrawal and said timetable being beneficial to the purveyors of terrorism. The president has largely chosen to ignore al-Maliki’s statement, preferring instead to take credit for passing bills he opposed and whining about the congressional ban on off-shore drilling. But there is the pesky matter of a statement Bush has made multiple time before to the effect of, “...when the Iraqis want us to leave, we will leave...” Anybody care to make a wager on the validity of that statement?

I hate to bring up the past, but remember when gas hit $2.50 a gallon? You know, about a year ago? Remember the oil companies’ mantra? “Oil supply isn’t the problem, refining capacity is the problem.” According to industry “experts,” there simply wasn’t adequate refining capacity in this country to take advantage of an abundant crude oil supply. And the reason we were short on refining capacity is that industry-hating liberals we blocking attempts to construct new refineries. Didn’t anyone find it odd that in six years, an administration run by two oil men, with the power to invalidate environmental guidelines and legislation simply by refusing to open their e-mail couldn’t produce a single permit to construct a new refinery. And where did that discussion go? If there was a refining deficit then, isn’t there a refining deficit now? If crude from off-shore drilling magically showed up in the pipeline tomorrow morning, wouldn’t we still be unable to convert it into refined product? The truth, of course, is that with gasoline nearing $5.00 a gallon in some parts of the country, and profits (that means after expenses) nearing $50 billion a year, there is no incentive to build any additional refineries. For that matter, there is little incentive to retrieve additional supply. The scarcer the commodity, the more valuable it becomes. Simple economics, right?

Earlier this week Apple announced it has sold over 1 million new iPhones in their first week at two to three hundred dollars a piece. Guess we know where all those stimulus cheques went.

On a sad note, former radio talk show host and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow passed away from cancer over the weekend. Whether you agreed with his politics or not, one thing you could expect from Snow was a reasoned, rational, passionate defense of his views at a reasonable volume. Don’t underestimate how rare that was in the modern political/entertainment climate. He never complained about his situation, never seemed to feel sorry for himself and had a genuine zest for life, love of debate and concern for those he came in contact with. Rest in peace Tony Snow.

Miss Venezuela was crowned Miss Universe 2008 at the annual pageant broadcast this year from Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam. I’m not sure which part of this travishamockery was more amusing; watching Jerry Springer flounder, completely out of his element as host of a show without mispronounced expletives, incestuous cousins, food fights and partial nudity, or the sight of Miss U.S.A. wiping out in the evening gown competition on slippery high-heeled shoes - for the second year in a row. Somebody get that lady a pair of Nikes.

I don’t often get the opportunity to talk hockey, so I beg the indulgence of my reader. On New Year’s Day, the Detroit Red Wings will face the Chicago BlackHawks at Wrigley Field in the NHL’s third outdoor regular season contest, and second annual Winter Classic game. I have to say, there is nothing like a hockey game in January in the great outdoors. Speaking as a kid who grew up learning to skate in the backyard on a rink my dad made from 2x4s and a roll of plastic, this is the way hockey should be played. If the snow isn’t blowing and your face isn’t frozen, you aren’t playing hard enough. If the NHL could capture the energy of the 76,000 screaming, frost-bitten fans who showed up at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo last year to watch the Sabres play the Penguins with the players in turtleneck sweaters and the goalies in touques, and translate it to a wider American audience, professional hockey in this country would not be in the hole it’s in today.

Finally, Belgian conglomerate In-Bev agreed to purchase 150-year-old American brewing giant Anheuser-Busch this week for a premium of $70 per share. This after years of advertising ridiculing other brewers’ foreign ownership, and emphatically insisting not more than two weeks ago, in the wake of In-Bev’s initial offer of $65 per share, that the St. Louis icon would remain an all American brand. The price of patriotism? Approximately five dollars.

Sex on the Beach

I’ve been avoiding this subject like the plague since the rumors first began to surface several months ago. But, now that things have reached the level of exchanged text messages, I guess I have to say something. Apparently, Brett Favre wants to play football. Who could have seen that one coming. It seems as though both Favre and his agent have made unreciprocated e-contact with Packers management, and there may even have been uncomfortable phone calls between Number 4 and head coach Mike McCarthy about the possibility of returning to the team this season to reclaim his old job. A position now occupied by a guy who waited three years for his turn under center. It’s déjà vu all over again.

How do you tell a living legend, NFL icon and ambassador of the game that you no longer want him around? I don’t’ think you can. And I don’t think you should. Especially when he can still play the game at a Pro Bowl level. (Is there any doubt that if the Golden Boy hadn’t thrown 50 touchdowns, Favre would have been league MVP at the age of 38?) At the same time, it isn’t fair to the Green Bay Packers organization who took steps to retool the franchise when notified of his retirement, or to the quarterback groomed for three seasons to replace him.

In light of that, I’d like to propose the following rule. Retirement is forever. Period. No more un-retirement. Say what you mean and mean what you say. And that goes double for boxers.

In other sports news this past week, 41-year-old swimmer Dara Torres has emerged from double retirement to qualify for her fifth U.S. Olympic Team. See previous paragraph.

A new poll claims that Senator Obama trails Senator McCain among pet owners. I had macaroni for dinner. So what. Are there hamsters running around in their wheels holding up little placards that say “rodents for McCain?” Come on. Take a poll that matters.

Obama threw the DNC convention planners a curve ball this past week when he announced he wanted to move his acceptance speech from the 20,000-seat Pepsi Center where the rest of the festivities will be held, to (Invesco Field at) Mile High (stadium), a 76,000-seat venue. (The whole stadium name story is complicated.) The precedent for this was set shortly before the Oregon primary when approximately 80,000 people turned out to see him on a riverbank in Portland. Obama has referred to this as taking the convention to the people. The McCain campaign refers to this as, “Oh crap, do we really have to try to follow that?”

In a piece of campaign news that may interest only me, McCain hired former Mayor Rudi Giuliani’s presidential campaign manager to assist with managing his own. Really? Does he remember what happened to Giuliani’s campaign? I wouldn’t hire that guy to get coffee.

Die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters continue to perplex me. Recent polls seem to indicate that although a lower number of Clinton supporters now plan to vote for McCain, an increased number now plan to stay home on Election Day. So, I guess I made a mistake. From listening to debate and speak during the primary (still think an extended Democratic primary was a great idea?) I came to the conclusion that Senator Clinton and Senator Obama had staked out similar positions on most – if not all the issues. But obviously, if so many Clinton supporters would rather vote for McCain than for Obama, (and yes, this year, a non-voting Democrat is by default, voting for McCain), they must feel that Senator Clinton and her policies aren’t much – if any different from Senator McCain. Either that, or they are tremendously childish, petty, sore losers. I’d prefer to think they were throwing the election to the Republicans on principle, and not because they’re throwing a tantrum. Even Yankee fans don’t cheer on the Red Sox when the Yankees don’t make the playoffs. Please tell me Democrats are more loyal than drunken baseball fans.

North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms died last Friday, five years removed from a 30-year Senate career. Why don’t we just leave it at that.

Radio Talk Show Mogul Rush Limbaugh inked a deal to continue his radio program at least eight more years for between $300 and $400 million. Who said video killed the radio star?

Oklahoma oil tycoon and hedge fund manager T. Boone Pickens has decided there’s no need to limit himself to making a killing in the oil business. He’s decided to expand the killing making to the alternative energy arena. Pickens has unveiled plans to construct a 2,500 unit, 4,000-megawatt wind farm in the Texas panhandle. Once complete it will be the world’s largest wind farm, supplying enough electricity to power about 1.3 million homes. Well kudos to Pickens for bucking the industrialist stereotype and attempting to do something to drag this country kicking and screaming into the 21-century energy future.

Finally, whale watchers off the coast of Massachusetts got more than they bargained for when they stumbled across a group of nude men engaging in sexual activities on a Cape Cod beach. In light of a tripling of complaints, Cape Cod National Seashore Officials say they are cracking down on public sex acts. It seems families, boaters and whale watchers aren’t all that interested in sharing the beaches with writhing masses of sweaty men – and sometimes women working sand into places they didn’t know they had. What, like people are just supposed to know that’s inappropriate behavior? Come on. What kind of country are we living in that we don’t condone gay sex orgies on public beaches? What’s wrong with people? No word on Senator Larry Craig’s whereabouts during the incident.

Patriot Games

I love my country more than you do. To prove it I’ll purchase this automatic assault rifle and paint this flag on my underwear.

And so the madness continues. The patriot police rolled out in force last Sunday afternoon, sticking their flag lapel pins in the eyes of those deemed unpatriotic. This week’s victim is former Democratic presidential candidate and NATO General Wesley Clark. In response to a question from the host of the show in reference to Senator McCain, Clark made the mistake of uttering the phrase, “...I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.” From the reaction of the McCain campaign - among many others - you might think Clark had accused the senator of inviting Satan over for dinner and soliciting his foreign policy advise. Clark’s statement has somehow been interpreted as some kind of attack on McCain’s military record and by proxy, his patriotism. Really? What part of the sentence in question is false? If I’m reading my Constitution correctly, there are only two qualifications to be president. One must be a natural born U.S. citizen, and over the age of 35. Everything else is gravy. There was no attack on McCain, merely a statement of fact. Of course, Clark didn’t help himself by failing to clarify his statement. What he meant to say was that he doesn’t think McCain’s status as a war hero entitles him to be president. Anyone with an interest in fairness and accuracy can see that. I guess the problem is not too many people are interested in such antiquated notions.

Patriotism is not about how many flag pins you can fit on your collar. Any idiot can tack on a pin, salute a flag or recite a pledge. All it means is that they want people to believe they love their country. Doesn’t mean they do. Get beyond the token gestures and examine real thoughts and actions.

Sixty vehicles owned by the city of Orlando were found spray-painted with "Obama smokes crack," and other hate messages late last weekend. Business cards also found at the scene contained negative messages about both Senator Obama and McCain, but positive messages about Senator Clinton. Orlando police think the vandalism may have been politically motivated. Uh huh. The vandals seem to have confused Senator Obama with former Washington D.C Mayor Marion Barry. But I guess that's an easy mistake to make. I mean, all black people look alike, right? Morons.

A Texas man who has spent the past 15 years in prison is set to become the 33rd convict in the state to be exonerated by DNA evidence since 2001. Patrick Waller was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and robbery and cocaine possession largely on the basis of, what now turns out to be faulty eyewitness testimony. Fortunately for Waller, Dallas County archives it’s evidence instead of destroying it like many other counties do. He is also the beneficiary of the election of District Attorney Craig Watkins, whose willingness to re-examine closed cases has exposed what appears to be a chronically defective justice system and provided a second chance for nearly three dozen falsely accused and wrongly convicted men. Perhaps a state with this many erroneous convictions shouldn’t be quite so anxious to stick needles in people’s arms.

In another example of Texas justice, a Houston grand jury refused to indict 62-year-old Joe Horn for killing the two men he caught burglarizing his neighbor’s empty house. Horn placed a call to 911, telling the dispatcher that two men had broken into his neighbor’s home and asking for the police to be sent. He then went on to indicate he had a shotgun and was going to kill the intruders. The dispatcher spent the next six minutes on the phone with Horn trying to prevent him from following through with his intentions. But when Horn saw the men climbing out of a broken window with two bags of loot in hand, he decided he’d had enough, went outside and shot both men in the back as they were fleeing, killing them. Some people think Horn should have shown a little restraint, maybe waited for the police to arrive and take care of business. But to his neighbors, most of the state of Texas, and a sizable portion of the country, Horn is a hero. Heck, judging by the comments attached to the story, Joe Horn should be elected president. Many commend him for getting two more “scumbag illegals” off the street.

Horn’s lawyer notes that Horn was within his legal rights to do what he did. According to Texas law, a person is allowed to respond with deadly force to defend life and property, and someone else’s property, even if there is no immediate danger to the respondent (a fleeing burglar for example.) I just don’t understand what kind of a civilized society passes that law. Make no mistake about it, if Joe Horn had shot two intruders breaking into his own house, I wouldn’t be writing this, and the story wouldn’t be news. But Horn murdered two individuals who broke into a house he knew to be empty in broad daylight, as they were fleeing from him, with the police on their way. And Texas believes that trading irreplaceable lives for replaceable stuff is a perfectly reasonable, civilized thing to do. Advocates claim that allowing people carry weapons everywhere at all times and shoot people for whatever reason is key to reducing violent crime. If the criminals don’t know who’s carrying guns, the theory states, they’ll be less likely attack people. Yet, according to FBI statistics, the violent crime rate is Texas, where everybody and their dog has a shotgun and a semi-automatic, is about equal to that of Illinois, where firearms are much more tightly regulated. But I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for that.

Horn claims he regrets his actions, and given the same circumstances, would not repeat them. I don’t believe him. A listen to the recording of his 911 call tells me the opposite. He had multiple opportunities not to shoot two people in the back. He even had a voice in his ear begging him to stay inside and refrain from killing people. Yet he chose to do otherwise. And with all the support he is receiving, there is absolutely nothing to indicate he wouldn’t do it again. I wonder if the response would have been different had the victims been two college students who had forgotten their keys home for the weekend, breaking into their parents house?

Starbucks has announced it will close 600 stores nationwide as part of an attempt to return to profitability. The gas-guzzling SUV of the coffee industry is worth only half of what is was last year, suffering from reckless expansion, unwise diversification, cannibalistic competition and seven-dollar coffee that tastes like 70 cent coffee. The moral of this story, American’s need to drink more coffee! How am I going to survive without the six Starbucks cafes along the four mile route between my house and my office?

Finally, a 24-year-old American hiker was rescued from a ledge in the Bavarian Alps after she used her sports bra to attract the attention of lumberjacks working in the area. Jessica Bruinsma had been hiking in the Alps with a friend when she lost her way in bad weather and fell 16 feet onto a rocky overhang. She spent the next 70 hours on that ledge with a bruised leg and separated shoulder while rescuers searched for her in vain. However, in a flash of pure genius (and a feat of flexibility with a dislocated shoulder), Bruinsma was able to remove her sports bra and attach it to a (luckily) downed cable used by lumberjacks to transport timber down the mountainside. When a repairman restored the line, the cable car, along with Bruinsma's bra, began moving up the mountain to the lumberjack's base. Finding the undergarment, the men realized that somewhere along the cable car line was a young woman without her underwear, and immediately sprang into action. Bruinsma was picked up by an Alpine rescue team a short time later. So let that be a lesson. If you're ever going hiking or camping or wandering off in nature, carry an extra bra. It just might save your life.