The Full

McCain is In.

2005-06-07T20:50:00.000-04:00

Sounds like the team is starting to align. This from the Palm Beach Post.

A Bush By Any Other Name, Part III

2005-03-18T00:08:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, even though our country currently has a war going and is on the brink of economic crisis, The President of The United States today released an official statement on the Terri Schiavo right-to die case.

Here is the full text of the official statement:

President's Statement on Terri Schiavo

The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues. Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities.

END OF STATEMENT

Here we have another instance of our President taking a "complex issue" and boiling it down to black and white. Did we elect him President, or did we elect him Moralist?

How anyone who can send American soldiers to die in a war that was not started in self-defense is beyond me can claim this kind of moral high ground, calling for a "culture of life", is beyond me.

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As always, your comments are welcome.
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March Comes In Like A Lion

2005-03-09T02:14:00.000-05:00

Nine days into March, and mother nature is kicking us in the balls again. This is the most miserable time of the year in the Northeast - spring peeks through for 24 hours or so before Old Man Winter squashes it like a bug.

Meanwhile, Randy Johnson's fastball is in the low 90s. The president is trying to get rid of Social Security, yet the news is dominated by the Michael Jackson trial and Martha Stewart's emergence from camp cupcake to bathe in a swimming pool of hundred-dollar bills. I'm not worried about the Big Unit, but I am worried about the Big Trust Fund. I don't trust a guy who never ran a successful business, who didn't know that Social Security was a federal program, to find the solution.

There are times to be had, however. This month has been determined by fate to be remembered as the second coming of The Black Crowes, reunited with immortal lead guitarist Marc Ford for not only a seven-night run at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC, but a full-blown national tour.

With the spring thaw will come new movement on the political front. Everyone in both parties is waiting to feel out the first hundred days of the second Bush Administration before beginning the arduous tasks of political positioning and (more importantly) fundraising. By the time the year is out, we'll be so deep in handicapping both fields that we'll have forgotten that there was an election at all.

Early bird prediction...

Dems: Hillary Clinton

Repubs: Mitt Romney

All for now.

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As always, your comments are welcome.
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A Week Off From Fantasy Football

2004-12-10T04:10:00.000-05:00

Not only did my "Squared Sevens" squad recover from a dismal 1-3 start to finish 8-4 and win the division... but we (yes, that's right, I said "we" in reference to my fantasy squad) get a bye in the first week.

That's right, bitch.

The 'Cuse Has Definitely Been In The House On My Team This Season.

Why am I so attached to this team?

1. Donovan McNabb, 25 points/game. Culpepper, Vick and Manning have gotten all the attention, but McNabb's performances this season have single-handedly accounted for at least five of my wins.

2. After absolutely blowing a third-round pick using Quinten Griffin on the Mike Shannahan RB Corrolary (someone for the Bronocos will average over 100 yards rushing), I was in dire straits by week 4, particularly with Deuce McAllister (first round) hurt with a high-ankle sprain (so high on his ankle I think it was actually a vaginal sprain). On the same day, I pick up Reuben Droughns (11.4 ppg), Willis McGahee (10 ppg) and the Jets defense, which turned out to be VASTLY underrated at 12 ppg. I mean, this one day of brilliant GM-ing (I was working the injured reserve slot overtime with Deuce's status changing constantly from probable to questionable) basically carried me to a division title.

Have fun worrying about your lineups on Saturday, you poor bastards. Me and my boys will be taking this week off.

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As always, your comments are welcome.
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MUSIC: Marc Ford Taking A Break From Ben Harper... Crowes Nesting???

2004-11-19T01:19:00.000-05:00

In a statement released Wednesday on his official website, Ben Harper revealed to the world of "rock-rock" (my new, hyphenated subgenre) that guitarist Marc Ford would not be joining him (as a member of his supporting band, the Innocent Criminals, with whom Ford has played since mid-2003) for a handful of engagements in the immediate future.

Marc Ford's work with the Black Crowes is vastly underrated.

This begs the question: Are the Black Crowes getting ready to reunite?

Ford has not worked with the Crowes since parting ways with the band following the band's headlining jaunt on the 1997 Further Festival. With Ford in tow, the vastly underrated Crowes cut two of the greatest albums of the 1990s and were known (rightly) as one of the top bands on the touring circuit. When Ford left the fold, the Crowes' power was severely diminished.

For a solid exhibit of the Crowes in their prime, check out their second album (and first with Marc Ford), The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.

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As always, your comments are welcome.
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BASEBALL: I Can't F--king Believe The Red Sox Won The World Series

2004-11-17T02:25:00.000-05:00

There. Got that one out of my system too.

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ELECTION: I Can't F--king Believe That Bush Won

2004-11-17T02:13:00.000-05:00

There. I have it out of my system.

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As always, your comments are welcome.
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Review: U2's "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"

2004-11-16T21:05:00.000-05:00

This One Is No Bomb

ARTIST: U2
ALBUM: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
RATING: A

Rock and roll is normally a demonic art. As such, you don't expect 40-somethings who have already sold tens of millions of records and have more money than God (even after God gets his next round of Bush tax cuts) to fall from their creative peak for more than a decade only to regain form. It doesn't happen. The Rolling Stones tanked after firing Mick Taylor and falling victim to a desire to meld with the times rather than have the times meld to them. Pink Floyd parted with Roger Waters and their music became (pun intended) watered-down. Zeppelin were never the same after Plant's car crash during the Presence sessions allowed Jimmy Page to indulge a bit too much in his hard drug habit. None of these bands ever recovered (and in Zeppelin's case, John Bonham's death closed the deal on that ever happening) - but fear not. Despite the relentless annoyance of that the recent iPod commercial featuring "Vertigo", U2 have somehow done the impossible more than 11 years after the release of their worst album and slid back into the sound of their prime. While their latest, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb doesn't break any new sonic ground for the Irish quartet, their mastery of their craft and the ease of their command of still herculean talents have them breaking ground in a totally new way. Could it be that U2 are in the midst of an unprecedented second creative peak in their already Hall-Of-Fame career?

In 1991, when Bono and Co. broke out of a four-year recording hiatus to release the uber-brilliant Achtung Baby, that album's chaotic and "industrial" sound was instrumental in ringing in an era where virtually all rock-based music had some sort of label, often with a hyphen involved somewhere: Grunge; alt-rock; alt-metal; alt-punk; nu-metal; rap-rock; you get the idea. You couldn't just have one countdown show on MTV anymore - there had to be one for each genre. Eventually, frustrated programming execs grew frustrated [read: revelled in] the end of the rock star and stopped airing music videos at all on MTV. While helping rock become increasingly fragmented, Achtung and its genre-bending experimentation would go on to inspire another generation of rock bands (usually put under some "alt-" label) like Radiohead, Oasis, Coldplay and Wilco to varying degrees, whether or not they're honest enough to admit it, and the byproduct of this new trend of experimentation was that the music was often too frightening to the mass market to, say, carry the genre above the undertow of its subgenres.

If anything, Achtung Baby was too good.

This is not to blame U2 for rock's increasing irrelevance throughout the ass end of the 1990s. All told, if Cobain had any real friends (a better rehab program and fewer shotguns), or if Pearl Jam hadn't decided to practically take 3 crucial years off from touring because of a battle with Ticketmaster, things could just as easily have turned out differenly from the reality we eventually had of Boy Bands ruling the end of the decade. But alas, that's where we went. And while Pearl Jam's martyrdom didn't adversely effect their music, U2's Stones-esque elephantitis saw their music suffer to the point that they were nearly irrelevant. By the time 1993's Zooropa came around, it was becoming clear that the band was starting to go overboard on the whole irony thing, preferring to write songs that would be little more than props in an elaborate, themed stage show. And aside from the oft-forgotten gem "Stay, Faraway (So Close)", Zooropa was an absolute steaming dung pile of a record, and 1997's Pop wasn't much better. Where the band had built its name and following upon enormous anthems like "Bad" and "With or Without You" that were delivered with unparalelled emotion by a singer with golden pipes, self-indulgent mumbling and pseudo-rapping took precedent for Bono, while the rest of the band developed an unhealthy reliance on drum machines and synthesizers, the latter of which often crowded out the brilliance of guitarist The Edge, whose performance on Achtung Baby was so pivotal in the album's success.

Pop (1997) was definitely not U2's strongest moment.

All of this made it all the more exciting when in 2000, the band finally released a decent album in the life-affirming All That You Can't Leave Behind, which was actually quite good, at least through the first 7 tracks. It was refreshing to know that U2 could still care about writing great songs again, but it was still easy to worry that it was their last gasp, and that the band's regained success would again make them arrogant and lazy, leading them to release more recorded fecal matter. The other four tracks on that album weren't offensively bad, but certainl not very good or interesting, and one still had the feeling that even on the good tracks the band wasn't trying particularly hard, at least not the way they did back in the Unforgettable Fire or Joshua Tree days.

Thankfully, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb returns U2 to the precious balances that once made them the world's greatest band: the balance between the subjects of love and politics; the balance between overproduction and underproduction; the balance between whispering and shouting; and the balance between taking themselves too seriously and not taking themselves seriously at all.

There is no mistake throughout most of the album's 47 minutes - this is primarily a rock record. But its genius is that it mines many of U2's personalities from the past: there is the garage-rock brashness of the opening track, "Vertigo", and "All Because Of You"; the earnest, teach-the-world-to-sing global awareness of "Yahweh" and "Crumbs From Your Table"; ascending anthems in "Miracle Drug" and "Original Of the Species"; and "Man and a Woman" and "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own", which feature Bono-as-love-struck-lothario.

But what makes Atomic Bomb such a striking return to form is the combination of two factors, the first and probably most important of which is the fact that Bono sings on this album like he's in his 20s rather than his 40s. "The stars are in your eyes" Bono wails on "Miracle Drug", the album's second track, "I see them when you smile". Meanwhile, the Edge hammers away at his signature distorted stecatto riffs that often sound like sirens or bells, which happens to be the second crucial factor of the band's return to form - the Edge has his god damned guitars back. Finally. Electric and acoustic both, he's not afraid to use them with punishing virtuousity.

With those factors in place, Bono could be singing about dirt on his Porsche and it would kick ass. And as was the case with All That You Can't Leave Behind, Atomic Bomb doesn't completely abandon the electronica of the band's 90s experimentation - it merely utilizes those elements as garnish in the way they invented during Achtung Baby. This may not be quite as "challenging" to the band in terms of musicianship or "breaking new ground", but they seem to have poured some of that excess energy back into writing the best songs that they possibly can, which in my book is the preferrable dispersion of the band's resources.

One can only wonder what would have been if U2 hadn't decided to experiment most of the 90s away to virtually no avail, instead spending time trying to craft rock songs like "All Because of You" that would make any current "garage" band like The Strokes age jealous in its ferocity or the catchiness of its hook. While it's frustrating to think of what U2 had in the early 90s only to throw it away, it's heartening to know that they may finally have found what they're looking for.

I read recently that Bono said he wanted to avoid having U2 "become crap like everyone else does". They're off to a good start. How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is easily the best album I've heard this year, and the U2's best since Achtung Baby.

Long live rock and roll.

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As always, your comments are welcome.
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A Note About Comments...

2004-11-16T18:33:00.000-05:00

It is now possible (and actually has been for a while) to post comments for all entries. Feel free to do so.

If you left more comments, I would update more often.

Cheers,

Management

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As always, your comments are welcome.
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I'd Rather Not

2004-09-14T01:15:00.000-04:00

I don't pretend to know whether or not the documents alleging President Bush's failure to meet his requirements in the National Guard, presented this week by 60 Minutes, are real or fake. And I don't really pretend to care.

But I will say that I don't care at all for Dan Rather's demeanor in defending the story, practically daring detractors to prove them wrong, as if the burden of proof was on the people rather than the media.

It's not that hard to prove whether or not documents are, or even could be, genuine - and if you can't do that, maybe you don't have enough credible information to report the story to a trusting public.

Did Rather justify every Bushie's paranoid fantasy of "Liberal Media"?

Nobody wants Bush out of office more than I do. But if you're going to throw accusations of this nature at a sitting President of the United States, particularly in an election year, the burden of proof is squarely on YOU.

Is this how lazy our news gathering has become? Are all of the outlets just so eager to "outfox" Fox News these days (let's remember that Fox was initially responsible for prematurely declaring Bush as President on Election Night in 2000, causing all of the other outlets to follow suit long before the final numbers had actually come in?

Screw you, Dan. It's your job to prove it to us.

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The Odds, Volume 1

2004-09-13T02:57:00.000-04:00

As a semi-regular feature on this blog, I will now be posting odds and over/under dates for various things, just because I have too much time on my hands.

Britney Spears poses nude before turning 30 (she's 22) 12:7
Over/under number of ex-husbands she'll have at 30 3.5
Zell Miller curses publicly before election day 3:1
Bush wins the White House 2:1
More than 50 percent of the electorate votes 4:9
Red Sox catch the Yankees to win AL East 1-15

Britney: Only a matter of time?

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Football Forecast

2004-09-13T02:41:00.000-04:00

Just to get on record so we can all have a good laugh at the end of the season...

AFC East
New England 12-4
*N.Y. Jets 10-6
Buffalo 8-8
Miami 7-9

AFC North
Baltimore 10-6
Cincinnati 9-7
Cleveland 8-8
Pittsburgh 6-10

AFC South
Indianapolis 13-3
*Tennessee 9-7
Jacksonville 7-9
Houston 7-9

AFC West
Denver 10-6
San Diego 9-7
Kansas City 9-7
Oakland 7-9

NFC East
Philadelphia 13-3
*Dallas 10-6
N.Y Giants 8-8
Washington 8-8

NFC North
Minnesota 11-5
*Green Bay 10-6
Detroit 7-9
Chicago 4-12

NFC South
Carolina 11-5
Atlanta 10-6
New Orleans 8-8
Tampa Bay 7-9

NFC West
St. Louis 10-6
Seattle 8-8
Arizona 7-9
San Francisco 7-9

AFC Championship: NY Jets over Indianapolis
NFC Championship: Philadelphia over Carolina
Super Bowl Champs: Philadelphia

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Short-Term Culture Shock

2004-09-13T01:48:00.000-04:00

I know... I haven't updated in 5 months or so.

I've been fairly busy since then, and looked at this summer as an opportunity to shut up, try to ignore politics/current events to the extent that it was possible (I did pretty well aside from the amount of convention coverage I watched for both parties), and come back fresh this Autumn for the election sprint.

So after approximately 50 hours of convention coverage under my belt and 5 months away, I clearly have some things to get off of my chest. So without further ado, here is the current laundry list...

-You've got to hand it to the Democratic Party. Just when we thought we'd seen the end of charisma as we knew it when Al Gore ran in 2000, John Kerry actually seems to have invented what I'd like to call "negative charisma". Not good times. To demonstrate this theory, here are the charisma quotients for some recent U.S. politicians...

Love him or hate him, Clinton was the master

(scale from 1 to 100, 100 being most charismatic)
Bill Clinton 97
Ronald Reagan 90
John Edwards 75
George W. Bush 70
George H.W. Bush 40
Al Gore 30
Dan Quayle 20
John Kerry -25

I'm sorry, but Kerry just seems like kind of an asshole.

-One thing that is particularly disappointing is that neither candidate seems to have a workable position on Iraq. Seems like "stay the course" is pretty much out the window these days, mostly because there was never really a course to begin with. Furthermore, seems like John Kerry's subliminal promises to charm our old allies like France and Germany into providing some financial and/or military relief in this quagmire greatly overestimate his actual ability to do so.

-On the whole "what the candidates were doing in the late 60s/early 70s" front, why won't the democrats take off the kid gloves in order to permanently bring this issue to an end?

It's pretty well accepted in both parties that John Kerry went to Vietnam, came back, and testified about his experience in congress when he returned. The worst that you could possibly say about what he did is that he may have hastened anti-war furor. But those who place a lot of stock in this, people you might expect to look at the situation emotionally rather than cereberally (such as the POWs who have spoken out that Kerry "lengthened our stay" in the latest attempts to smear Kerry's record), seem to ignore that Vietnam was bound to end up as an unpopular war.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush seems to have spent the late 60s/early 70s snorting cocaine and drinking whiskey while not showing up for his duties in the Air National Guards of three states - Texas, Alabama and Massachussets. Now he's spent the last roughly 5 or 6 years lying about it.

It's just too damn easy

That is precisely the kind of bullshit that Bush pretended was below him in the 2000 campaign.

At any rate, I can understand why the GOP would want to hide from the truth on this issue, and thus far they've done an excellent job. What baffles me is why the Dems have been running away from it.

-Is Sean Hannity really serious? I mean really, who the fuck does he think he is?

-I'm not much for betting, but I'd put the odds that Georgia Senator Zell Miller curses while campaigning in public in support of a GOP candidate before the election at about 3:1.

-Why in god's name did the GOP allow Alan Keyes to contest Barak Obama in the Illinois Senate race? All told, he's been perhaps the most quotable politician of the summer. Just Keyes stated that Christ would not vote for his opponent, Barak Obama. He has also referred to Dick Cheney's daughter, a lesbian, as a "sinner", as well as accusing Obama of holding the "slaveholder's position" in regard to his views on abortion.

I have to admit, the Christ endorsement is some heavy shit.

You know it's a big election when Jesus enters the fray

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WHY THEY HATE US, REASON #4858

2004-04-07T16:29:00.000-04:00

As this story from Tampa, FL shows us, ignorance knows no bounds.

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THE ANNOTATED BUSH - APRIL 7, 2004

2004-04-07T16:00:00.000-04:00

Main text by President George Bush and his team of speechwriters
Delivered April 6, 2004
annotated by Jeffrey Monty on April 7, 2004

"If you don't say the 'under God' part, you'll be the only children left behind."

NOTE: Today, I have chosen to annotate President Bush’s April 6, 2004 remarks at a Community College in Arkansas. Oddly, as the U.S. suffers one of its worst days to date in its Iraq occupation, the President is in a particularly joking and light-hearted mood.

[TRANSCRIPT MADE AVAILABLE BY WHITEHOUSE.GOV]

South Arkansas Community College
El Dorado, Arkansas

11:05 A.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Thank you,
skinny. (Laughter.) Gosh, thanks for the warm welcome. It's great to be
here. Huckabee told me I'm the first sitting President ever to come to El
Dorado, Arkansas. (Applause.) And I'm glad I came. I'm really glad I came.
Governor, thank you, and Janet, for meeting me at the airport. It's great to
see you again. Thank you all for being here.
I really want to thank Kathy and her staff for putting up with us. It
turns out it's not easy to welcome a President. You've got to have a stage,
you've got to have this, you've got to have that. The entourages are huge.
We're really glad to be here, because this is going to be an economics lesson
coupled with a discussion about how to make sure everybody is educated for the
jobs for the 21st century. That's what we're here to talk about. I think
you're going to find it interesting.

>>>>Great, another “economics lesson” from the President, our “entrepreneur”-turned public servant who couldn’t even get rich on oil in Texas. Later tonight I’m watching a lecture on health tips from David Crosby.

The best news is I'm not doing all the talking. I've got some of your
fellow citizens here on stage with me that will help make the points necessary
-- make the points that say, look, this is a hopeful time; we've just got to
make sure we educate people for the jobs which will exist. That's what we're
here to talk about.

>>>>>I’m sure I’m just cynical and that isn’t possible that these “fellow citizens” were pre-screened by the President’s handlers to ensure that they would be “on message”. More importantly, shouldn’t true conservatives be insulted at the notion that the federal government should have a hand in job training? Seems to me that if jobs are there, people will do what’s necessary to meet the qualifications necessary to fill those jobs. The administration’s position here is a desperate attempt to blame the American people for the unemployment rate by saying in a backhanded way that it isn’t that jobs aren’t there, it’s that our workforce is too stupid to fill them!

A community college is a great place to have this discussion, because the
community colleges are very well-adapted to meeting the needs of local
employers. They're flexible, they're able to say to an employer, what do you
need, and we'll educate the people for the kind of workers you need. That's
why we're here at this community college. Thanks for receiving me.

>>>>>Good, let’s dwell on some positive words – “community” and “college”. Maybe if people hear him say those words enough they’ll forget that they don’t have jobs.

Lieutenant Governor Rockefeller is with us. Win, I'm glad you're here.
Thank you for coming. (Applause.) Congressman John Boozman, he's up from
north Arkansas, but he's down here in south Arkansas. (Applause.) Thank you
for coming, John. I'm glad you're here. And Kathy is with him, too. I
appreciate the Mayor, Bobby Beard. Where are you, Bobby? Yes, Bobby.
(Applause.) Bobby, you would think you would get a better seat. (Laughter.)
I appreciate you. Just pick up the garbage. (Laughter.) Thanks for coming.
Thanks for the hospitality.
I appreciate your troopers out there -- state -- the city police helping
us come into town. Thanks a lot. I want to thank all the local officials
here from El Dorado who are here with us, as well, and the county officials.
I appreciate the fact that you've allowed Lane Jean, who is the Mayor of
Magnolia, to be here. Mr. Mayor, I appreciate you coming over from Magnolia,
Arkansas. (Applause.)
When I landed out there, I met a fellow named Joe McFadden. (Applause.)
Joe brought his family. (Laughter.) Where are you, Joe? Oh, there's Joe,
right here, yes. Same guy I met at the airport. (Laughter.) Here's the
reason I want to talk about Joe, right quick. People say America is strong
because of our military. And we have a strong military, and I'm going to keep
the military strong. (Applause.) Or people say we're strong because we're
the most prosperous nation on the world, and that's positive. We want to keep
it that way.
We're strong, however, because of people like Joe. See, we're strong
because of the hearts and souls of our citizens. That's really our strength.
The strongest part about this country is the fact that we have people who are
willing to volunteer time, to make the community in which they live a better
place. See, Joe is involved with Main Street El Dorado. It's a way to make
sure downtown El Dorado, Arkansas, has been revitalized, which is good for the
community. He's also involved with the Boy Scouts. That's a wonderful
program. It's a good way to pass on values from one generation to the next.
Joe is a soldier in the army of compassion. That's what he is.

>>>>>”Soldier in the army of compassion.” Read that a few more times and see if it doesn’t make you crazy. We get it, Mr. President – Joe is a good guy. There are 2.5 million solid people out there who have lost their jobs in the last 3 years... are their hearts and souls any weaker than Joe’s?

My call to our fellow citizens is, serve your country by loving a neighbor
just like you'd like to be loved yourself. Help feed the hungry. Help find
shelter for the homeless. Help a child learn to read. Find somebody who is
lonely and surround them with love. See, government can hand out money, it
can dispense justice, but government can't cause people to love. Love happens
when you get inspired in your hearts. My call is to serve like Joe.
(Applause.)
I appreciate you, Joe. Thank you for setting such a good example.
(Applause.)

>>>>>Funny that nobody is in more of a position to do something to feed the hungry, find shelter for the homeless, help children learn to read, etc., than President Bush, yet he urges others to do what he will not.

First I want to tell you you're looking at an optimistic fellow, for a lot
of reasons. I have seen what our country has come through, and we're strong,
stronger than ever. The economy is growing. But let me remind you right
quick what we have come through, which makes the statement, "the economy is
growing," even more profound.

>>>>>More profound than “the economy is growing”?!?!?! Is that “I Am The Walrus”-profound or “no two snowflakes are alike” profound?

We went through a recession. That's a hard time for a lot of people.
That means the country is going backwards in the economy -- in other words,
we're not growing. And if you're somebody who is looking for work during a
recession, it's hard to find a job. If you're a small business during a
recession, your future is doubtful, it's cloudy. Things don't look so good.
We passed tax relief, which made this recession the shallowest -- one of the
shallowest in economic history. In other words, we started to grow.
Just as we started to grow, the enemy hit us. And that hurt. It hurt in
a lot of ways. It hurt our economy. We lost nearly a million jobs in the
three months after the enemy attack. Just remember, during this attack we
shut down the airlines; the stock markets closed down for a while. In other
words, it hurt our economy. It also changed our outlook.

>>>>>Let’s clear up a bit of revisionist history here. September 11 changed a lot of things, but it didn’t cause the recession. Furthermore, it didn’t do even close to the economic damage to our economy that the Enron, Worldcom and Tyco scandals did. Now that we have long since squandered our record tax surplus by giving it to corporate interests and the upper class while also basically going into Iraq with only token support from any nation other than the United Kingdom, foreign investors continue to worry about the stability of the U.S. economy and subsequently the world economy. Sorry, back to the message...

When I was coming up -- in Midland, Texas, I want you to know --
(applause) -- there you go -- which is where Laura is today, helping her Mom
move, and she sends her love -- but we thought oceans could protect us from
harm's way. And therefore, if you think an ocean can protect you from harm's
way, and you see a threat somewhere else, you can decide to deal with it or
not, you're pretty well assured that you would be safe here at home.
But they hit us. And it changed the way government must think about
threats. We can't take them for granted anymore. I vowed that day that we
would bring justice to the killers. We have been on the offense since that
day. We'll stay on the offense until those who have done us harm are brought
to justice. (Applause.)

>>>>>...and evidently, even those who have not done us any harm – can’t discriminate these days when it comes to dispensing “justice”. Not to be coast-centric or anything, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that on days where the President isn’t there, Arkansas is pretty safe from terrorism even now.

It affected us, it affected us. It was a challenge we had to overcome.
First we had to overcome a recession, then we had to overcome an attack on our
country. And just as we started coming out of that period -- and we came out,
by the way, because America refused to be intimidated. See, one of the
greatest things about this country is the spirit of the Americans. You just
heard me talk about the compassion. We've also got great spirit in this
country. We are a determined, strong people. (Applause.)

>>>>>Yeah, we got that. Compassion, spirit, soul, hearts, strength... we are all soldiers in your army of compassion.

Just as we started coming out of that, it turned out that some of our
citizens forgot what it meant to be responsible citizens. You know what I'm
talking about, those who didn't tell the truth to their shareholders and their
employees. We passed tough laws. Democrats and Republicans came together in
Washington, D.C., and sent a very clear message: We're not going to tolerate
dishonesty in the boardrooms of America; we'll hold people to account for not
telling the truth. (Applause.)

>>>>>Yet reports have shown that corporate salaries and stock options are already reflective of an economic boom, even as the economy struggles to overcome recession. I wonder how many jobs could be created at Disney with a couple million dollars’ worth of Michael Eisner’s stock options? Even conservative economists worry openly that stocks are dangerously overvalued... I don’t think the bad citizens got that message you spoke of, Mr. President.

However, that affected us, and it shook our confidence, when you think
about it. When you think people are lying about their numbers, it affects the
confidence. We're regaining that confidence, because you're seeing what's
happening to people who didn't tell the truth. One good way to clean up the
boardrooms is to send some of those who betrayed the trust -- bring them to
justice, is the best way to put it.
And then, as I told you, September the 11th changed our calculation. Let
me put it to you this way: When we see a gathering threat, we must deal with
it before it materializes, is the best way to put it. Threats are dealt in
different ways, by the way. Not every threat is dealt with the way I decided
to deal with the threat in Iraq.
We looked at the intelligence in Iraq and saw a threat. The United States
Congress, people in both political parties, looked at the same intelligence
and came to the same conclusion. They saw a threat. The United Nations
Security Council looked at that intelligence and, once again, it saw a threat.
So you might remember, I went to New York and gave the speech in front of the
U.N. Security Council and said, for 12 or 11 years, you have said this man's a
threat; let's make -- let's make your words mean something. If he's a threat,
let's give him a chance to disarm one more time and get rid of his weapons
programs. As you might recall, he chose defiance.

>>>>>As I recall, Hussein allowed the UN into Iraq. The U.S. spin machine is what convinced Americans that his compliance was unsatisfactory. Note that for all of our searching of a country that we now occupy, nobody can seem to find any WMD.

So I was in a dilemma. I had a choice to make: Do I trust the word of a
madman, a tyrant, somebody who had used weapons of mass destruction on his own
people and on countries within his neighborhood, or do I remember the lessons
of September the 11th and defend America? Given the choice between a madman
and defending the country, I will defend America every time. (Applause.)
Thank you all.

>>>>>What, specifically, were you defending America from, Mr. President? The most wanted man from the 9/11 attacks is still at large! It’s like a broken record – the administration always throws the first pitch on Iraq by grouping it with 9/11 and the War on Terror. If the pitch isn’t over the plate, they fall back on “liberation” and “democracy”. I’ll ask again... if there were no WMD, which there aren’t, what was the threat and how are we reducing it now!?!??!

Bob was telling me Brian Mackham (phonetic) is here. Where's Brian?
Somewhere. Brian, thanks. You just got back from Iraq?

MR. MACKHAM: My dad did.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, okay. Hi, Dad. Thank you. I appreciate your
service. (Applause.) Mr. Mackham. Mr. Mackham. Colonel Mackham. What are
you?

CORPORAL MACKHAM: -- Lance Corporal.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel now as far as I'm concerned. (Laughter and
applause). Thank you for your service. Thank you for helping make America
more secure. We've got tough work there because, you see, there are
terrorists there who would rather kill innocent people than allow for the
advance of freedom. That's what you're seeing going on. These people hate
freedom. and we love freedom. And that's where the clash occurs. See, we
don't think freedom is America's gift to the world. We know that freedom is
the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. That's what we
know. (Applause.)

>>>>>First off, I'm sure it's an honor for a real actual millitary man to be praised by a Commander-In-Chief with such a prestigious military record. When Bush uses phrases like “the Almighty” to justify his policy, his speech sounds too similar to that of the radical muslims who hate freedom. This underlines a total lack of understanding of the Middle East and the politics involved in the War on Terror. The radical muslim clerics in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran indoctrinate the masses with fears that the Christian infidels from the west will bring death and destruction in their quest to dominate the region and its oil, and then our very own leader continually invokes “the Almighty” in explaining our lofty goals. Moron.

And Mackham will tell you there's a lot of brave people there that want to
be free, but they've been tortured and terrorized and traumatized by a tyrant.
And it's going to take a while for them to understand what freedom is all
about. We will pass sovereignty on June 30th. We will stay the course in
Iraq. We're not going to be intimidated by thugs or assassins. We're not
going to cut and run from the people who long from freedom. Because, you know
what? We understand a free Iraq is an historic opportunity to help change the
world to be more peaceful. That's what we understand in this country.

>>>>>What country is he talking about, because ours certainly doesn’t seem to “understand” very well. Note the crafty alliteration in the first sentence – tortured terrorized traumatized tyrant.

I want to appreciate your service. For those of you who've got relatives
in the Armed Forces, email them and tell them the Commander-in-Chief is
incredibly proud of the sacrifice and service to our country. (Applause.)

>>>>>Yes, thank them for doing the Lord’s work, evidently.

Laura reminded me that one time on the TV screens in the summer of 2000 we
saw, "March to War." It is hard to have economic vitality when you're
marching to war. That's a negative thought. It's about as negative a thought
as you can think about. And so one of the hurdles we had to overcome besides
recession, attack, corporate scandal, was the fact that I made the decision to
defend us. We marched to war. It was a challenge we had to overcome. If
you're somebody that's going to invest capital, in other words, if you're
somebody that's trying to expand your business, you're going to probably
hesitate if we're marching to war. If you're somebody looking for work, it's
going to be harder to find work when the country is thinking about, we're
going to war.

>>>>>Bush’s team just looooves him mentioning his wife by name – note that this is the second time he does so on this day and quite clumsily at that. He is correct that in the summer of 2000 we saw a “march to war”, but it was disguised as Bush’s presidential campaign. I think the summer he’s referring to is the summer of 2002. But this undercuts a larger epiphany here.... is the President actually admitting that his Iraq war, which most would argue in hindsight was completely unnecessary, is partially responsible for hurting our economy?

We're now marching to peace. That's what we're doing. We've overcome
that hurdle. I saw we've overcome these four things. I just want to remind
you of the statistics. Economic growth in the second half of 2003 was very
strong. Manufacturing activity is up. One of the statistics I love to quote
is that home ownership rates are the highest in our nation's history. More
people own their home in America -- (applause). I'm particularly proud of the
fact that more minority families own their home now. And that's an important
statistic. We want more people owning something in America. (Applause.) The
more people who own something, the more they have a vital stake in the future
of this country. We want there to be a vibrant ownership society all
throughout our country.
Recently, we saw that we added 308,000 new jobs for the month of March --
that's a positive sign -- plus 750,000 jobs since last August. This economy
is strong and it is getting stronger. And I intend to keep it that way
through good policy. (Applause.)

>>>>>What hurdle is he talking about? It can’t be the Iraq war, because American soldiers are dying for that cause even as the President delivers this speech. It can’t be the recession, because we’re still down almost 2 million jobs since that started – even when you factor in the new numbers. Home ownership is up because of the ridiculously low mortgage rates have been the only thing keeping the economy afloat. Again, even conservative analysts think that real estate is a bubble market right now, so this is kind of like being proud that so many minorities owned stock in 1998. The truth is, Mr. President, the economy will continue to be hindered by its super-high energy bill, part of which has been made possible by the Iraq war.

Let me talk real quick about a couple of things we need to do to make sure
that people can find work here at home. First, we've got to make sure that
we're confident in trade policy. There's economic isolationists that want to
wall us off from the rest of the world. I don't think that makes any sense.
You're about to hear from a man who sells product overseas. And if he's
selling product overseas, it means somebody is working. That's what that
means. And, see, Presidents before me, of both parties, said, let's open up
our markets, for the good of the consumer. See, the more choice you have in
Arkansas, the more likely it is you're going to get something you want at a
better price.

>>>>>...and the easier it is to send your factories to Mexico. I think the “Presidents before me” that Bush is talking about was born in Arkansas – Bill “The Antichrist” Clinton. Kind of an underhanded, anonymous way to give him credit for something, but the mere fact that Bush giving undue credit to his own administration for NAFTA is striking in itself. But regardless of that, Bush’s assertion that rolling back NAFTA would “wall us off from the rest of the world” is completely disingenuous – supporters of such policy such as Dennis Kucinich favor bilateral trade policy, not isolationist trade policy. Were we walled off from the world before NAFTA?

And the problem is, other countries haven't treated us the same. That's
the problem. And so my job is to say to other countries, if we're going to
open up our product -- our markets for your products, you open up yours for
us, because we're the best at what we do. (Applause.) We're great farmers,
we're great ranchers, we're great timber people, we're great entrepreneurs and
manufactures. Give us a level playing field, and we can compete with anybody,
anytime, anywhere. That's my attitude.

>>>>>The President has had three years in which to do something about this and has done very little other than talk about it. He certainly hasn’t changed the approach towards China, which one assumes is the primary representative of his “other countries” reference. Funny given the uproar over outsourcing that Bush would include “anywhere” in his pro wrestling-style trade challenge that began “anybody, anytime...”

Secondly, we need good tort laws. You cannot run and expand your
business, you can't find work here if people are getting sued all the time.
We've got too many junk lawsuits. (Applause.) We've got to worry about the
cost of medical care. If you're somebody hiring somebody, if you're a small
business owner, the cost of health care makes it awfully difficult to put
people on the payroll. And, therefore, we need association health care plans
that allow small businesses to pool their resources -- pool risk, just like
big businesses get to do, so health care is more affordable for the small
business sector.

>>>>>The legal system is the only thing currently protecting the average citizen from corporate America right now, because the Federal Government sure as hell doesn’t want to do it. Rolling out a bunch of tort “reform” would do more harm than good in that it would increase the already infallible attitude expanding in big corporate America.

We need to expand health savings accounts. It's a new product. I'm
telling you, it's going to make a big difference at controlling costs. We
need medical liability reform at the federal level. See, docs are getting
sued too often, and they're leaving these small communities and rural
communities in America, which means you don't have health care, you don't have
access to a doc. Plus, those who are hanging around are having to practice
what's called defensive medicine, which is running up the cost. The cost of
health care is tough to expand the job base. If we want jobs to stay at home,
and if we want the job base to expand, we've got to do something about the
cost of health care.

>>>>>His failure to explain the policy of health savings accounts – apart from “it’s a new product” – is indicative of a lack of understanding of what he’s really talking about. He spoke about the recent prescription drug bill in the same vague terms, and that turned out to be an outright fleecing of the elderly. As long as the health care industry is pushed toward the private sector, it’s going to be run the same way other big businesses are run.

We need an energy plan in this country. I'm telling you, it's hard to
expand our job base, it's hard to keep jobs here at home if you're worried
about the reliability of electricity and if you're worried about finding
natural gas at reasonable price.
I put out a plan to the United States Congress a while ago. I think a
while ago means a couple of years ago, by the way. Sometimes progress is
slow. (Laughter.) It said, let's make the electricity systems reliable. See,
if you're a manufacturer, and you're wondering whether or not you're going to
have electricity the next day, if that worry is in your mind, it's hard to
expand your business. Let's make sure we utilize coal in America; clean coal
technology is important. Let's make sure we explore for natural gas here
within our territories. Let's encourage conservation. Let's be smart about
technology. But for the sake of jobs and job expansion, we must become less
dependent on foreign sources of energy. (Applause.)

>>>>>Could he really be referring to the energy “plan” drawn up by Dick Cheney and a panel of unnamed energy company executives during the first year of the Bush administration? The same plan whose architects Cheney refuses to name under the umbrella of executive privilege? If that’s the plan he’s talking about, the point of the plan is that we will rely foreign oil for the next 50 years, not “let’s make the electricity systems reliable”. Once again being disingenuous, Bush is indirectly trying to say that although he wanted to make electricity systems reliable, congress has been dragging its feet. What is disingenuous about it is that Bush said nothing publicly about the reliability of the electric grid until last year’s blackout in the Northeastern U.S., which the administration initially blamed on Canada. Furthermore, Bush has never done a damn thing to encourage conservation or becoming less dependent on foreign energy sources. That is, nothing other than talking about it.

I'm getting there, I promise you. I'm winding up. You're probably
wondering if anybody else is going to say a word. (Laughter.) Thankfully,
Laura is not here. She's be going -- (Laughter.) One of the reasons why we
grew is because of tax relief. And a lot of that tax relief is set to expire
this year. The child credit is going down, which means if you've got a child,
you're fixing to pay more taxes. It's a bad time to be raising taxes.
The marriage penalty is going back up. See, one of the things we did, in
working with the Congress, is reduce the effects of the marriage penalty. I
don't quite get a tax system that discourages marriage by taxing it. It just
doesn't make any sense. We ought to be encouraging marriage in America, not
discouraging that institution. (Applause.)

>>>>>Another akward strategic reference to the President’s wife, Laura Bush... and just in time for the President’s scary talk about tax cuts! The child tax credit is such a small part of the overall tax relief package that the President is looking to renew that it’s a joke – look at the numbers and look at who 98 percent of the money goes to. As far as marriage goes, maybe we should focus more on discouraging divorce.

I insisted, on the tax relief, we cut the rates on everybody who pays
taxes. Some of them howled up in Washington when I did that. See, my
attitude is, government ought not to play favorites in the tact of "you don't
pay taxes, but you do." My attitude was, everybody who pays taxes ought to
get relief if we're going to have relief. It also had this effect. You see,
most small businesses in America are sole proprietorships or sub-chapter S
corporations. That means they pay tax at the individual income tax. If you're
worried about jobs -- see, when I hear people looking for work and they can't
find jobs, I worry about it -- then what you want to do is stimulate small
business growth, because 70 percent of the new jobs in America are created by
small businesses.
And when you cut the individual income tax rates, you're affecting small
businesses in a significant way. You get more money in the pockets of the
small business owners, which makes it more likely they're going to hire
somebody. So by cutting the individual income tax rates, we sent a message,
loud and clear, that small businesses matter in America. Small businesses are
the primary job creators in this country. We want there to be a small
business sector which is really strong. Congress needs to make all the tax
cuts we pass permanent in order to make sure this economic recovery lasts.
(Applause.)

>>>>>Sounds nice, except the bulk of the tax cut went to big business and not small business. Sole proprietors such as myself often are in no position to hire somebody full-time, certainly not with benefits, so if these are the kind of jobs that the President is talking about creating, no thanks. I think the jobs that most of the country is concerned about creating are jobs with full benefits like the 12,500 that Bank of America cut earlier this week. At best, a sole proprietor will hire 2 or 3 people in a good year, and without benefits. Again, this is such a misrepresentation of the Bush tax cut that it’s ridiculous. Listen to John Kerry and Howard Dean and then look at the numbers – almost half of average Americans saw no tax cut, and those who did were compensated for it with skyrocketing taxes on the state and local level.

I told you we're creating new jobs. Let me tell you something really
interesting about Arkansas -- and this is going to get us to the discussion, I
promise you. (Laughter.) Jobs in computer and math-related fields are
expected to rise by nearly 60 percent by the year 2010 in the state of
Arkansas. Health care and technical jobs are expected to rise by nearly 40
percent. That's an interesting statistic I want people to focus on right
quick. In other words, there's going to be jobs. The question is, are people
going to be prepared to fill those jobs. That's really what we're here to
talk about today.

>>>>>Did the federal government have to subsidize job training during the industrial age? Was there a federal program to teach people how to use the cotton gin? IF THE JOBS ARE THERE, THEN THE PEOPLE WILL LEARN HOW TO DO THEM. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about this.

There's jobs.

>>>>>No, there isn’t. That’s why all of these Arkansans have the time to hang out and listen to you talk in front 5,000 American flags for an hour.

It's just some people are used to working in different kind
of fields. And there's ways to get retrained for the jobs. That's what we're
going to talk about here in a second. Before we do, I want you to know I
fully understand that we've got to get it right at early grades. The No Child
Left Behind Act is a really good piece of law, for this reason: It finally
asked a question whether or not our children are learning to read, write, and
add and subtract early. That's what it's asking. It doesn't seem too much to
ask, does it, for increased federal spending? You know, it's an important
question to ask, because if you don't ask, you don't find out. And we better
find out now, before it's too late.

>>>>>The No Child Left Behind Act is a good law, but laws are just words. Unfortunately, the President didn’t feel the need to give the funding necessary to this program, which is one of the reasons that the co-architect and the man single-handedly responsible for passing the bill through the Senate, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), continues to trash you at every opportunity he has, because you used him to run a bill through the senate that you had no intention of funding.

This business about shuffling kids through the system is going to end, as
far as I'm concerned. You know who is easy to shuffle? Inner-city black
kids; that's who is easy to shuffle. It's easy to quit on them. You walk
into a classroom, see a bunch of the so-called "hard to educate," let's just
shuffle them through. That's not fair. It's easy to quit on families who
don't speak English as a first language -- he's a little too hard to educate,
the best thing we've got to do here is just move him through. That's not
going to work. It's not American. You see, I believe every child can learn.
I believe every child has got it in him to learn. We must raise the
standards. (Applause.)

>>>>>Certainly nobody knows more about being shuffled through the system than our President. The problem, as always, comes down to money. When you refuse to give aid to the nation’s worst schools, they are unable to pay quality teachers and provide them the resources to teach ANY kids. One can only hope that black people can see though this crap, because the pandering to minorities here is insane. Hard to raise standards if you can’t fund the schools.

The reason you have an accountability system is to test what you're --
whether what you're doing is working. The reason you have an accountability
system is to solve problems early, before it's too late. Part of the No Child
Left Behind Act says, when we find a child who has fallen behind early,
there's extra help, extra money, extra ability to make sure kids get caught
up. That's a vital part of making sure that our children have the skills
necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century.
We need to do more. See, I think high schools need to be -- need to have
the bar raised. I think all high schools ought to participate in what's
called the NAEP. The NAEP is a national norming (sic) test. It's not a
national test. It says, there is -- they take the Arkansas test and they
compare them to other states to determine whether or not standards are being
met. That's all it is. You need to know. Your Governor needs to know, the
citizens need to know how you stack up relative to other places, if you expect
to educate children for the jobs of the 21st century. If you want Kathy not
to have to reeducate people, you better get it right early. That's what I'm
saying. (Applause.)

>>>>>So wait, is it or isn’t it a national test? Once again the President seems to have difficulty explaining one of the policies he’s endorsing.

We recognize that some of the kids haven't had the advantage of
accountability early, and so they've been shuffling through. So I put out an
initiative called the Striving Readers initiative, which is a competitive
grant program that will help intervention with 8th and 9th and 10th grade kids
now. In other words, we've got some kids -- one of the things that's important
for those of us in positions of responsibility, you've got to be just flat
honest about things. We've got kids who can't read, see, and they're moving
through. And we've got to stop it. And we've got to solve the problem.
And so this initiative I've sent up to Congress provides $100 million for
competitive grants so that the school district here, if you need it, can
access the money to have strong intervention programs. We've got a
mathematics and science partnership program. One of the problems we've got,
you heard me describe the kinds of jobs that will be available in Arkansas by
2010 -- you better make sure your math programs and science programs work.
See, a new skill-set is necessary to fill the new jobs. And therefore, we
put out a program, a math and science partnership program, which will help
teachers with curriculum, but also provide extra help for kids just to make
sure they don't get shuffled through. I mean, literacy is more than just
being able to read. There's math literacy, as well, that we want to effect.

>>>>>I’m just going to let the President’s empty words speak for themselves here. Read those last three paragraphs again.

We've got an adjunct teacher program. That's an important way to help
recruit professionals into the classroom to teach math. If you've got
yourself a retired NASA employee in your neighborhood, it seems like to me you
want to be able to have that person go into the classrooms and teach science
or math. One of the things the superintendent may tell you here, I know I've
heard it from other superintendents, is that we've got a shortage of math
teachers and science teachers. This is a practical way, Governor, to get
people into the classrooms, to make sure that kids have got the skills
necessary to be employable in the 21st century.
Perhaps you've heard of the Carl D. Perkins Act, which is vocational
training program. We spent about $1 billion a year for vocational training,
and that's good. The program was written in 1917. I don't know if they
understood what was going to be taking place in the year 2004. I suspect they
didn't. I suspect they would be shocked to hear us talk about the skill level
necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century. My attitude is, is that this
vocational training program ought to go forth, but it ought to make sure that
the kids learn to speak English and that there's algebra, and that there's a
science and social science component.
In other words, when kids are coming out of a vocational training program,
they're going to need to do more than just what's taught at the vocational
training level. They're going to need to be able to think. And we can't let
kids go through without raising the standards and raising the bar. So I'm
going to ask Congress to reform the Perkins Vocational Program. That's not to
cut back on the money; it's quite the contrary. It's to make sure the money
we are spending prepares these youngsters for the jobs of the 21st century.
I've got some other ideas I want to share with you right quick, and then I
promise you. (Laughter.) One of the challenges is to continue to raise
standards, it's to raise that bar. A great way to do so is to expand advanced
placement programs all across America. We've got a federal program that does
just that. It says we're going to train more teachers on how to teach AP.
(Applause.)

>>>>>AP programs are great, but shouldn’t we be focusing on raising the bar on the kids the President was just speaking of, the ones who can’t read in 10th grade?

Let me tell you one of the problems with advanced placement. You've got a
kid going through AP, and they go home and say, I need my money to take the
test. And if you're low-income, that money means a lot to you. We need to
help low-income students take the advanced placement test by paying for the
entrance exam, is what we ought to do. (Applause.) I think that will help
you attract people to the AP program. Advanced placement means you're taking
college-level-type courses in high school. It means we're preparing people
for the jobs of the 21st century.

>>>>>Finally, here’s some solid educational policy from the President that actually makes sense. It’s a start.

We've got a State Scholars program here in Arkansas. We're going to hear
-- right there is the leading evangelist for the State Scholar program. We'll
talk about it. It's a rigorous academic program. In other words it's one
thing to intervene and make sure kids don't get left behind; it's another
thing to keep raising those standards, raising the bar. What I want to do is
enhance the Pell Grants, that says, if you take the State Scholars program in
Arkansas, you get more money for your Pell Grant. It provides incentive. It
says, for rigorous academics, we want to help you more with the Pell Grant.
It means you get to go to college, get help. But it says to a kid -- take
math and science, is what it takes. You're going to hear what it means in a
minute.

>>>>>Here I was hoping to see the President take a pop quiz on algebra and plant biology, but unfortunately it was not to be. Remember, this is the same President who practically brags about the C average he dragged throughout his own academic career, despite being measured as having a very capable 125 IQ. I guess President isn’t one of these “jobs of the 21st century” he’s talking about.

The other thing I want to do is to make a -- we've set up a Presidential
Math and Science Scholars Fund, $50 million of federal money matched by $50
million in the private sector -- we'll be able to raise that -- that says that
when you go to college, we'll enhance your Pell Grant if you continue to take
math and science programs. See, we want people to be prepared for the 21st
century, that's what we want. We want to keep raising that bar. We want to
make sure nobody gets left behind, but at the same time, we want to provide
proper incentives, so people can have hope in this country. That's what we're
talking about.

>>>>>Here we go with the campaign slogans again – no child left behind, raise the bar, hope, etc. Shocking that he wasn’t able to invoke the army of compassion here.

Listen, the jobs will be there.

>>>>>Comforting.

We're going to stay on the edge of technological change. We've just got to make sure people are prepared for the jobs.

>>>>>Let’s make a deal – you show me the jobs first, okay?

You're about to hear two interesting stories about people who made some
decisions in their life. The final thing I want to mention to you, in
conjunction with these two stories, is that there's a lot of people that need
help now that have been out of school for a while. And that's where the
community colleges come in. Yesterday I gave a speech at a community college
in North Carolina -- before I went over and unleashed my fast ball in St.
Louis. (Laughter.) And I talked about a direct grant program to help
collaborative efforts between community colleges and job providers. See,
that's the way you make sure people are trained for jobs which exist. I
talked about reforming the WorkForce Investment Act so it actually functions,
by getting more people trained for the jobs.

>>>>>Hold on, I’m confused. You said the jobs “will” be there, but now you’re referring to “jobs which exist”. Where? There are millions of people who want to know!

But the community college system is really an important part of our
future, and that's why we're here. And so I want to first start off with
Kathy. I want her to describe to you some of the programs that she's doing
here. I think you'll find them interesting -- the nursing program, for
example.
Kathy, thanks for having me. Why don't you inform the good folks about
this great asset they have in their community? (Applause.)

* * * * * END OF SPEECH * * * * *

IN SUMMARY: In the interest of sparing the repetition, I stopped short of annotating the ensuing Q&A session with the preselected regular citizens of Arkansas. Overall, while delivering a couple of solid policy assertions, the President’s speech is once again full of empty catch phrases and promises to push his reelection campaign, not to mention justifying his increasingly costly and controversial war in Iraq.
Until next time,

jm

========================================================================================
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A Bush By Any Other Name Is Still A Pussy, Part II

2004-04-07T03:59:00.000-04:00

News of the casualties in Iraq didn't dampen the President's spirits as he visited Arkansas today. As demonstrated by a highlight reel produced by MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Bush was joking and laughing virtually the entire time. Bush seemed in such good spirits, one wonders whether it was because he had time to visit Bill Clinton's childhood home and urinate on the front step.

As for the last few days of horrors in Iraq, the Bush Administration has frequently asserted that it won't respond to every development in the war when it comes to our soldiers dying, but it will clearly respond to anyone who criticizes it... particularly friends of John Kerry.

On Monday, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) threw the first shot in a timely reaction to the weekend's heightened violence in Iraq. Delivering a heated speech at the Brookings Institute in support of his fellow senator John Kerry (D-MA) (that the major news organizations took only excerpts from), Kennedy attacked the Bush administration on a variety of issues, but most broadly its honestly - or lack thereof. However, the line that drew the attention of the media and the ire of the administration was the following analogy: "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."

While dozens of U.S. and "coalition" soldiers along with scores of aid workers and Iraqi civilians were slaughtered over the weekend in the bloodiest insurgency since Bush declared an end to major hostilities, Bush has deflected questions on the matter all week, reportedly going as far as to say that he "doesn't want to get drawn into commenting on every development" of the Iraq war.

Instead, Bush found a stool pigeon equal to the task of deflecting Kennedy's criticism in Secreatary of State Colin Powell, who appeared magically on the Tony Snow radio show on Tuesday to openly wish that Kennedy would be "more restrained and careful" when speaking about the war in Iraq.

Funny that Powell should say that, because he made headlines late last week for admitting that the intelligence which he dramatically presented to the United Nations Security Council in 2003 was "faulty". Perhaps Mr. Powell should have been "more restrained and careful" with his words while considering going to war in the first place.

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NFL: Coming To Grips With The Inevitable

2004-03-17T04:54:00.000-05:00

What can I say... if I'm anything, I'm a San Francisco 49ers fan.

The first hero athlete that I remember was Joe Montana when I wasn't even four years old, as he beat the mighty Dallas Cowboys in 1981. It was a thrilling last-second touchdown pass to Dwight Clark that introduced Joe Montana to the world, and after all of these years I think I've identified what drew me to him (if I even had a reason at 3 years old) was this: After he made that pass, everyone around the guy was going absolutely crazy. The announcers, the fans, my Dad (I'm guessing)... but Joe had this way about him. He was excited, but he had a look in his eye suggesting that he knew what was going to happen all along.

As I grew up, Joe Montana proceeded to rattle off no less than FOUR Super Bowl wins for the 49ers. The gold-rush symbolism of the team mascot was appropriate, because as a fan, I had struck gold. Following their first Super Bowl win over the Cincinatti Bengals in Super Bowl XVI, Montana led the Niners to championships in every way imaginable:

Beating back a young Dan Marino and his Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX

Chalking up a dramatic game-winning drive late in the game to defeat the Bengals again in Super Bowl XXIII

Blowing the Denver Bronocos out of the building with a 55-10 victory in Super Bowl XXIV

Obviously, I was in football heaven. And even though the years to follow brought humiliation (Roger Craig's fumble against the Giants, crushing the Niners' chances of a three-peat in 1990) and a quarterback controversy, when Steve Young emerged as the team's starter following Montana's elbow injury, it seemed only natural. I was gonna miss Joe and it killed me to see him go to the Kansas City Chiefs, but I also knew that Camelot couldn't last forever.

The Niners' fifth and final (to date) Super Bowl victory (Super Bowl XXIX) was perhaps the most inspiring, because it meant that the team had to rise from the ashes to behead the NFL's new dynasty, the Jimmy Johnson-era Dallas Cowboys, in order to even get there (once they did, they crushed the San Diego Chargers 49-26). Young had proven just as capable of a competitor as Montana, though not as cool and collected and probably far more intense, but the knowledge that he would run headlong into a 290-pound defensive end was endearing as hell.

Young's career was brought to a premature end after head injuries forced him into retirement. When he retired, he and Montana were the two highest-rated quarterbacks in NFL history.

Things got scary when Young started getting concussions, but it wasn't scary for fear of Young's health (he never got the frightening limp-on-the-turf-for-10-minutes concussions - he was the run-off-the-field type). It was for fear of who would fill his shoes. Over the years, playing backup in the Niners' powerful west coast offense made multi-millionaires of backups like Elvis Grbac and Steve Bono (who both went on to have mediocre-or-worse careers as starters but were paid well for it), and when things didn't work out with first-round draft pick Jim Druckenmiller, the ball was handed to former Canadian League standout Jeff Garcia.

Jeff Garcia

Who?

But the light shined on Garcia like it had on those who had come before him at the helm for the Niners. He never won a Super Bowl, but in five seasons with the Niners he threw for 113 touchdowns and over 16,000 yards for a QB rating of 88.3.

Now Garcia is a Cleveland Brown, and while Tim Rattay proved a capable backup last season, I'll be hoping from now until next season starts that some of that 49er magic rubs off on him, too.

Must all good things end?

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Democratic Nomination Post-Game... How They Finished, etc.

2004-03-16T00:15:00.000-05:00

A PAGE OUT OF THE BUSH PLAYBOOK?

With all meaningful contenders having pulled out of the race, it's clear that the Democratic Nomination belongs to Senator John Kerry (D-MA).

I'd liken the campaign for the nomination to a horse race - there were a few moves that made it interesting but the favorite won in the end, and it was short and sweet.

Kerry had a little more competition than President Bush did for the Republican Nomination in 2000, but their ascents to their respective nominations have paralells that are worth noting.

Think about it... wealthy Yale baby-boomer is deemed by the media and political elite as the front-runner. (Dubaya/Kerry)

Straight-talker emerges from the fringes with a grass-roots run at the nomination. (Howard Dean/John McCain)

In the end, the party elite portray the straight-talking underdog as "too angry" or "unstable" and the Yale alum wins in the long run by moving away from the center to the party's base. Hmm.

RATING HOW THEY RAN

Now that it's all over, here's how they all fared in retrospect...

1. John Kerry

Things looked grim for a while, but his patience and refusal to go negative paid off in the end. Delivered the message of "electability" just in time, cleverly letting Gephardt, Lieberman and Dean wound each other in Iowa as he pulled away unscathed. Carried that momentum all the way through the country.

2. Howard Dean

If Kerry goes on to win the Presidency, he'd better thank Howard Dean for getting the Dems good and riled up to oust Dubaya.

3. John Edwards

Began with a positive message and stuck to it, even when he could have made the race uglier by trying to drag Kerry into a dogfight down the stretch. Full of energy and charisma, his ability to engage in one-on-one debate is captivating.

4. Al Sharpton

Called the frontrunning candidates to the mat to talk about real urban and minority issues that otherwise may have been avoided by political speak, but never resorted to race-baiting.

5. Wesley Clark

The Clinton-inspired fanfare that accompanied his entry into the race benefitted the party twofold. First, it brought the issue of military background to the forefront, something which is now benefitting Kerry in his race with Bush. Second (and more importantly), his exposure as a fairly weak candidate showed the party's base that perhaps there is more to the future (and present) than the Clintons.

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Suspend Bertuzzi For A Year - Let The Law Do What It May

2004-03-11T02:38:00.000-05:00

Once again, the NHL is getting publicity for all of the wrong reasons.

After Vancouver Canucks forward Todd Bertuzzi's vicious suckerpunch on Colorado Avalanche rookie Steve Moore -- an attack that happened outside of even the most loose interpretation of the framework of sports -- is grabbing headlines for the sport in a way not seen since Marty McSorely's tomahawk chop on Canucks forward Donald Brashear, which oddly enough, happened in Vancouver's GM Palace, as well. Now Moore lies in a hospital with a broken neck, a concussion and his future in question.

Before looking at what led to an atmosphere where something like this could happen during a GAME, let's review the actual event, which transpired in less than 5 seconds...

Bertuzzi skates behind Moore in the neutral zone, uses his left hand to tug Moore's jersey while using his right to serve up a vicious, gloved haymaker to the side of his head, then proceeds to slam him face-first to the ice, getting another shot in to the head before Moore's teammates could pry him away.

In addition to this and the aforementioned McSorely incident, in recent years we've also had events like the LA Kings' Matt Johnson's suckerpunch to the back of Rangers defenseman Jeff Beukueboom's head, resulting in a career-ending concussion. Then there was Gary Suter's cross-check to the chin of then-Ducks forward Paul Kariya -- seconds after Kariya had scored a goal -- which left the rising young star with post-concussion syndrome for the better part of a year. [for many recent examples, check hotlink on the McSorely incident above]

I could go on.

I don't even think the circumstances leading to the Bertuzzi incident even need to be discussed. Moore's hit on Bertuzzi's teammate Markus Naslund when the teams played earlier this season and the resulting "bounty" the Canucks had on him -- all of these things are irrelevant now, now that there is a player in the hospital with a broken neck. None of it changes what Bertuzzi did. While how severely can be questioned until the cows come home, nobody can argue that he did not have intent to injure.

And as for whether or not the police should investigate, they absolutely should if they feel it's appropriate. Why should Bertuzzi be allowed to use the game to protect him from an action that he decided to commit outside of the very framework of that game? Perhaps it's dramatic, but if Bertuzzi had done that to someone in the parking lot, he'd be in jail right now.

I'm tired of hearing that it's "too harsh" and "too severe" -- this incident has had very real harsh and severe consequences for Moore, why in the hell shouldn't it have just as severe consequences for the man who assaulted him?

In order to save any sort of face, the league has no choice but the following...

1. Suspend Bertuzzi for a full calendar year without pay and fine him the maximum allowed under the collective bargaining agreement.

2. Cooperate in the Vancouver police investigation of the incident but lobby hard on his behalf in favor of a hefty community service sentence for Bertuzzi rather than prison. Bertuzzi obviously understands the gravity of the situation and in many ways has already been punished in that he'll always be associated with this incident. This also publicly shows support for Bertuzzi and will be a step toward the league's acknowledgement that they've helped create an atmosphere where things like this are happening. This leads to...

3. Getting rid of the god-forsaken instigator rule.

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A Bush By Any Other Name Is Still A Pussy

2004-03-04T01:39:00.000-05:00

Serving with distinctitude.

Just in case you haven't been keeping score, it seems that the President has no shame.

The first batch of official GWB campaign spots - set to be unveiled today - employ images from the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

[see the spots here]

It's one thing for him to bring up 9/11 in almost every speech he does, it's another thing entirely to use the images of those horrible moments for his own political exploitation. How cowardly and pathetic that he's already resorting to this kind of bullshit 8 months ahead of the election when he's trailing in the polls. One can only wonder with dread what depths will be plunged to during the Republican Convention -- during which we'll see the third anniversary of that horrible day -- if he still needs a boost in the polls.

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Finally, A Politician With Cojones

2004-03-02T07:17:00.000-05:00

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he is "fine" with gay marriages of the sort that are currently being performed in San Francisco... as long as the voters and courts formally approve of it, the Governor revealed last night on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Arnold's proclaimation comes on the heels of President Bush's biggoted and bible-centric proposal last week that an amendment banning same-sex marriages be added to the contstitution.

I give a free pass to the many lower-level officials who wish to enforce existing laws... such is their job. However, most upper-level officials in Washington who are opposing gay marriage will eventually be regarded in the same way that we look back on segregationists of the early 20th century. It's your duty to ensure that all Americans have the same rights, Mr. President, not to legislate morality.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Incubus Sets The Bar High For 2004

2004-02-26T04:21:00.000-05:00

ARTIST: Incubus
ALBUM: A Crow Left Of The Murder
LABEL: Epic
GRADE: A-

Spanning nearly an hour over 14 tracks, Incubus' fifth album, A Crow Left Of The Murder, is their most consistent and mature to date, and also marks the first true home run rock album of 2004.

Produced and mixed masterfully by longtime Pearl Jam ally Brendan O'Brien, the recording itself achieves the feeling that the listener is privy to a private jam session of the five-piece together in the studio, while at the same time taking that listener into an endless world of sonic textures.

With guitarist Mike Einziger and vocalist Brandon Boyd leading the charge, Crow succeeds in carrying on the holy tradition of great rock bands - drawing inspiration from much of the band's immediate musical ancestry (some of which are also now their contemporaries) and blending them into something unique that the band can call its own. Over the 14 tracks, Crow summons the finer points of some of the great rock albums of the last ten years: the heavy stoner neurosis of Soundgarden's Superunknown ("Made For TV Movie"); the blistering riffery of Rage Against The Machine ("Sick Sad Little World"); the tongue-in-cheekness of Weezer ("Pistola"); the semi-dissonance/resolve used to such great effect by Pearl Jam; and the mellow surfer swagger of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' recent work ("Talk Show On Mute", "Agoraphobia").

But while Boyd's voice soars with often amazing results, the MVP is Einziger, who has managed to put together one of the most inventive and inspired guitar performances in recent memory. Fusing metal, funk, jazz and ambient styles with the precision of a virtuoso, his playing often echoes but never mimicks players like Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave), Brian May (Queen), Vernon Reid (Living Color), John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Pepers), Alex Lifeson (Rush) and Stone Gossard (Pearl Jam). Judging by his work on this album, Einziger is the brightest and most promising guitarist to have emerged in the new century.

This is not to say that all of this experimenting doesn't have its drawbacks. While most of these songs have memorable hooks for those willing to put in the time to discover them, very few of these songs have you humming along on the first couple of listens the way many tracks on 2001's Morning View did. But one senses that this is due to a conscious effort on the part of the band to make more challenging music for both themselves and for their listeners, which in the end is pretty refreshing in these days of American "Idols".

Like all of their best work, A Crow Left Of The Murder finds Incubus as their moody and adventurous best. For those with any appreciation of the effort to push real rock music further in a world of plastic pop, this album is bound to stay in the rotation for years to come.

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Oil Is Not Well

2004-02-25T14:36:00.000-05:00

It appears as if Saudi Arabia's oil reserves aren't going to last forever. Who knew?

I only first remember hearing about running out of oil in the first grade. That was 21 years ago, and we basically haven't done shit. The U.S. Military is supposed to lead us in these grand pursuits of miracle technology, but the only significant vehicular contribution they've made to society is the Hummer, which drinks up gasoline like Larry Eustachy at an after hours party.

"Anyone wanna have a chugging contest?"

Why not save all the money that Bush wants to devote to discovering and drilling more oil fields, and instead spend it on finding another source of energy for when the oil runs out (an event which EVERYBODY agrees is inevitable), thus allowing the U.S. to be the clear-cut leader in the next frontier of energy?

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Ohio Sixth Grader Suspended For Posession ... Of Swimsuit Issue

2004-02-24T23:55:00.000-05:00

I wish this was a joke, but apparently it's true. A 12-year-old boy has been suspended from his Ohio school for 3 days for bringing the recently-released Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to school, which the school's principal claimed violates the school's policy on "nonverbal harassment and possession of lewd or suggestive material".

Lewd? Suggestive? Those are horribly subjective terms, aren't they?

If you want to talk about suggestive, take a good look at what teenage girls are wearing to school these days, or maybe at some of the ads on television or in popular magazines such as Rolling Stone.

Toting a magazine featuring the beautiful Veronica Varekova (above) will get you suspended for three days, but a magazine featuring a topless Britney Spears on its cover -- within which she talks openly about losing her virginity and her lesbian kiss with Madonna -- will probably not.

This is not only the ripple effect of Janet Jackson's boob at the Super Bowl. This is what happens when John Ashcroft sets the national tone for enforcing rules. Now we have armed cops busting into schools with live weapons in the middle of the day in their tireless search for the evils of drugs. At least this kid wins in the end though - he has three days home with the swimsuit issue to masturbate to his heart's content. Of course, if he's at home he'll probably use the same masturbatory aids that everyone uses - internet porn.

A lot of feminists have problems with Sports Illustrated's yearly indulgence, and while I somewhat understand that position (while not agreeing with it), I guess I just don't see what the fuss is about. There's nothing in that magazine that anyone can't see on a July day at Venice Beach, and those poor, objectified women in those tiny swimsuits charge $50,000 a day while they're on location. Meanwhile, men like myself are left to stare and drool, engaged in endless fantasies that will never come true while we should be worrying about more important things like how to get a bigger tax refund and women quietly take over the world.

I feel used.

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Going Down With The Ship?

2004-02-24T14:14:00.000-05:00

What's next? An amendment banning divorce?
Has the President already packed it in for the 2004 Election so much that he's trying to ram through the most conservative agenda possible on his way out the door? In a move that wasn't all that surprising, Bush went public today with his support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages.

What is surprising is that Bush, guided by the supposedly savvy Karl Rove, has offered no alternative to gay marriage as a means to ensuring that homosexuals have the same rights that heterosexuals do. Right now, that is what separates Bush from John Kerry, who has been on record in favor of "civil unions" that would function the same as marriages but would just have a different name. Critics have argued that such a move would create a "separate but equal" way of doing things that would echo the days of racial segregation.

I would tend to agree, but consider this: in hindsight, isn't it possible that "separate but equal" was a necessary step in the long-term transition out of slavery? Could civil unions be looked at in the same way?

It's all academic to our President. That is, if your textbook is the Old Testament. Clearly nobody would expect him to be progressive enough to support same-sex marriages, but I'd expect a self-proclaimed "uniter, not a divider" to emerge with a better alternative than "fuck you, and here's a constitutional amendment". This stance has the fingerprints of the church all over it.

Not sure? Consider this statement from Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday:

"There is widespread support in this country for protecting and defending the sanctity of marriage."

This phrase is being used throughout the country by those opposing same-sex marriage, but nobody stops to consider what it implies.

_____________________________________
sanc·ti·ty noun
1 : holiness of life and character : GODLINESS
2 a : the quality or state of being holy or sacred : INVIOLABILITY b plural :
sacred objects, obligations, or rights
_____________________________________

Even if the federal government passed an amendment legitimizing same-sex marriage (which it shouldn't), the "holiness" could still be protected by religious organizations opposed to homosexuality simply by their own decisions not to marry same-sex couples. Since most people of faith seem to only legitimize marriages performed by their respective church anyway, the "sanctity" of marriage would be perfectly safe.

Isn't it time we separated church and state in this country for real?

Bush is doomed if he continues to strengthen the resolve of the left. And things like deficit spending and adding unnecessary amendments to the constitution can't be helping him with bubble voters or with a lot of actual conservatives [read: people who actually understand what the word "conservative" means and still call themselves that].

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