Yesterday, coming home from Drinking Liberally, I was reading the paper version of the New York Times. And I guess it was seeing all of the headlines for the Op-Ed columnists all together. I noticed that all the headlines were shit.

They’re Not What They Used to Be doesn’t tell you what “they” refers to. People over 30 will say that about just about anything if given the opportunity. Maybe say “conventions” in the headline. The Elevator Speech refers to a common phrase that BoBo mentions in the piece. But again, it’s a common enough phrase, especially in the business world that just using that as the headline doesn’t actually tell you anything. The Hex on Paul Ryan is the least terrible of the headlines, and it’s not particularly good either. I guess you could probably guess that the hex is being picked as VP, but the piece probably spent more time on Biden than Ryan, so maybe something more VP related would be better.

Over at Seattle Transit Blog, there’s a discussion of the upcoming elimination of the free ride area, and answering some objections to it. While I generally agree with the post, this stuck in my craw: “while I would like to see more County programs that provide transportation assistance to the poor, giving everyone a break on downtown trips seems like a badly targeted way to do it.”

I’m not sure that it’s in the county’s best interest, in general, to separate things that help the middle class from those that help the poor. Programs tailored to the poor have a tendency to get the ax earlier than those with middle class support.

I readily admit that I don’t know what busing should look like downtown. And I support eliminating the ride free area (although I supported it a lot more before the fare increases). But in general, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have separate programs for the poor and the middle class.

– Desmond Tutu says Bush and Blair should be tried for war crimes.

– The terrible thing is that he’s right.

– Sure, Paul Ryan’s marathon time should be the lie that proves he’s a liar.

– What to do with the missing link if there’s still an EIS to do?

– One true soul mate.

– Theistic evolution

Labor Day weekend is here once again. And while we can all enjoy the barbeques, the sales, and Bumbershoot, it’s important to remember what this season is all about.

That’s right it’s LABOR Day. So when co-workers, shop clerks, and bank tellers tell me to “have a good weekend” or a “good long weekend” without mentioning labor, I let them know what’s up. When that well intentioned acquaintance wishes me the wrong words, I have no choice to tell them: “It’s Labor day. Labor. Labor. Don’t you celebrate LABOR DAY?”

You see, there’s a war on Labor Day in this country, and make no mistake about it, we are a laboring country. This country was founded by people who labored, and if it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for the rest of us. And you know, most Americans still labor today. The silent majority shouldn’t take it any longer. We need to boldly proclaim LABOR day.

Before the Republican convention, I’d have said that the GOP ID card requirements to vote in various states were mostly going after minorities and the poor. And that the suppression of the elderly that goes along with it is a side effect against a group of people who generally vote for them: Suppress more black votes than elderly votes, and you still get a more Republican electorate.

But after hearing Clint Eastwood’s speech* I think they want to suppress them because the elderly people they’re around have lost it. Now, don’t get me wrong, Clint Eastwood has had a fantastic career as an actor and a director. And I think he deserves the right vote.

But if you’re a Republican, and all of the old people around you are yelling at “Obama” in an empty chair, well, at a certain point, you don’t want them voting either. I see it now. My advice would be to spend time with a wider array of the elderly.

* And for serious, I just listened to it on the radio, so I didn’t realize he was talking to an empty chair. I’m not sure if that makes it worse or better, but at least it fills in some gaps.

7:30: I’m listening to it on NPR, but you can watch it here too.

7:36: He accepts the nomination for president. Phew.

7:37: If you say you’re humble, you aren’t.

7:38: First wrong thing: Janesville is not a small town. He’s making references to Ryan’s speech that I didn’t see. Whatever.

7:40: If you have to say you’re being positive, you’re probably not being positive.

7:41: He says nobody who came here doubted they would do better. Um, remember when your family fled the country because as you said “religious persecution“?

7:43: He’s listing all the problems after Obama got into office, not noting that the economy went to shit before Obama got there.

7:44: He says “I wish President Obama had succeeded” but maybe he should have urged his party to work with the president when they said defeating him was their top priority.

7:45: By the way, wasn’t Clint Eastwood awful? Was he drunk?

7:45: God Bless Neil Armstrong. I agree.

7:46: “When the world needs you to do really big stuff, you need an American.” Diplomacy will be fun under him.

7:48: Parents are more important than government. Um, sure, but we can have both.

7:50: Mitt Romney likes his parents. OK.

7:50: He thinks he made it on his own because he wasn’t in Michigan. Um, no.

7:52: Anne’s “job was a lot harder and more important than mine.” All right. Maybe make a little less money and spend more time having helped with her job.

7:52: God God God God Family Community God. God.

7:55: “Jobs to (Obama) are about government.” What?

7:58: He’s waxing poetic about commerce. Says we should encourage taking risks, but doesn’t say how maybe a safety net would get people more willing to take risks.

8:00: Romney says Obama can’t say you’re better off than when he took office. Um, the economy was in free fall when Obama took office. We are doing better. There’s still a long way to go, but yes, things are better.

8:01: “What America needs are jobs, lots of jobs.” Well, we need good jobs.

8:03: He says the military creates jobs. Those ARE GOVERNMENT JOBS.

8:06: “I have a plan to create 12 Million new jobs.”

– Drill the shit out of everything
– Education
– Make trade work. When nations cheat, there will be consequences. Yet, he doesn’t say how he’s going to do that.
– Cut the deficit. That isn’t a plan (also, it won’t work).
– Champion small businesses. Says he’ll repeal and replace Obama care, but doesn’t say with what.

8:07: We need a president who will respect women. Then by the time I finish typing that sentence, he attacks women’s ability to control their own bodies.

8:08: Now he’s making fun of the fact that Obama thinks global warming is a thing (will help turn back the rise of the oceans). I guess that whole global warming thing is no longer operative.

8:09: He’s lied about the apology tour, so naturally the crowd is chanting USA!

8:11: Now he says we need 23 Million more jobs. But he just said his plan is only half that.

8:12: Is he cribbing Obama’s 2004 convention speech? I mean I know there were a lot of cliches in that, but it really sounds like a poor man’s version of it.

8:13: We’re done.

– There was a debate last night between Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna.

– Fuck all of these hurdles to the Burke-Gillman Trail missing link. It might make it harder to get to 0 road fatalities.

– Family values.

– Seattle parks’ computer labs will be open during the rest of the library closure.

– Scab refs will be trouble.

– Park(ing) Day is coming up.

I know, I know. Everyone will tell you nothing of note happens at the conventions. They’re theater and the most newsworthy thing that happened, aside from the weather, is a few supporters of one person yelled things during the vote and someone did something that might be racist.

And so we’re left with the speeches, the videos, and the rest of the theater. But, you know what: the theater is important. The speeches are important. The parties, and especially the presidential candidates, set the tone of the rest of their campaigns at the convention. They lock themselves into policies. They showcase rising stars. They get people paying attention.

– I haven’t finished this piece on Obama and race yet, but so far it’s quite interesting.

– These are my favorite protesters at the RNC so far (may be NSFW).

– I realize the problems are worse in California, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a governor who could rally businesses behind raising taxes?

– Giving away the store.

– I’m not thrilled that super PAC’s are setting the agenda, but that’s a dumb resolution that Koster sponsored.

– Make him seem not stiff or mechanical.

A hearty congrats to everyone who worked the fire.

Firefighters have extinguished nearly all of the Taylor Bridge Fire between Cle Elum and Ellensburg, except for a few hotspots, within 40 miles of fire line built around the burn area.

Containment was at 91 percent on Saturday morning, according to a news release issued as command of the firefighting effort was transferred to a smaller, regional incident management team from Southwest Washington. Members of the original incident management team continued to work with the regional team that took command Saturday.

Restrictions were lifted Saturday in areas of Kittitas County previously under level 1 evacuation orders. Hidden Valley Road remains closed at its intersection with Lambert Road, and Lambert Road is closed 1.5 miles east of its intersection with Taylor Road. State Route 10 remains closed at Taylor Bridge for construction.

– The Crackpot Caucus [h/t]

– When more black men were killed in one year (2009) than all of the US soldiers killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to date, we must give this problem the utmost attention. We must find solutions to curb the violence.

– I’m going to wait until we hear what type of alien invasion we’re talking about.

– How in the hell did Florida voters look at this man’s record and decide to make him their governor? He’s a straight-up crook. He should be considered a felon many times over. And now people are surprised that he acts like a gangster?

– RIP Neil Armstrong.

– An app that shows where bike racks are.

[I’m reading and doing some metacommentary on Mitt Romney’s book. Enjoy, or skip over it: it’s a free country.]

We’re now at Chapter 3 of Mitt Romney’s book, and if you’ve read the title of this post, you already know it’s called “The Pursuit of Power.” Today we’ll learn about Romney’s general thoughts on nations getting power and China a case study. Next time* Russia and Jihad. He starts the chapter:

The best ally peace has ever known is a strong America.

I agree that a strong America is better than a strong his other examples in this chapter. But when Romney wrote this, we were at no-end-in-sight wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. I think we’re stronger and better as a nation because we got out of Iraq and are slowly, slowly, too damn slowly figuring out how to get ourselves out of Afghanistan. I doubt that’s what Romney meant.

After this statement, he spends several paragraphs saying that America is good. He talks in general about how America promotes human rights and peace but always in generalities. The only specific thing he mentions is after the 2004 Tsunami, the relief efforts. And, of course, we all support keeping America strong when it does those things. But the section doesn’t mention when America doesn’t live up to those things. It doesn’t talk about how we’re often selective in what human rights we enforce. Additionally, he admits that countries that are good may stop being good, but he doesn’t say how he’ll make sure America stays on the right path.

Then he starts the section “The Middle Kingdom Flexes its Muscles.” There’s a Cliff Notes version of China’s history in the 20th century. Mostly losing ground to the Japanese** but also the British make an appearance. And then Mao and the Korean war. After that war ended:

Mao never really took to modernity and technology, and his military continued to reflect that prejudice, maintaining a massive four-million solder army as only a weak compensation for the nation’s obsolete or nonexistent weapons systems and logistical support. It wasn’t until approximately twenty years ago that China decided to build a modern world-class military. Since the mid 1980s, the People’s Liberation Army has been reduced by two million soldiers, cutting its size in half even as military spending was doubled time and again. The new funds went to programs designed to professionalize and train Chinese soldiers as well as toward the purchase of modern arms from Russia: fighter aircraft, helicopters, destroyers, submarines, and antiship missiles.

Then he talks about China’s submarines and their cyber war capabilities. And he draws two conclusions from this. “First, China is catching up” to America. “Second, they have not yet built their military to challenge us heat-to-head around the globe. Instead, they have shaped it to deter us, to match us, or even to defeat us in the specific theaters that are most important to them.” Look, if you’re going to characterize China’s cyber war as mostly deterrent, then that makes it seem reasonable.***

“China has very little interest today in constructing a military capable of fighting us in Africa, Europe, the Americas of the Middle East.” God, I hope we don’t fight their military anywhere. That would be terrible. He gets into some specifics of America’s capabilities, and then, “they build submarines capable of checkmating our battle groups and they invest in cyber- and space-warefare that can blind or at least blinker our navy and air force. And if they become capable of declawing America’s military in Asia, they will gain freedom of action to do whatever they choose in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.” Look, they make a lot of aggressive moves in the South China Sea, and that’s pretty terrible. But I’m not sure it follows that they’ve stopped America (and our allies (?)) from responding in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Or that the other players in the region are just going to let China do anything they want without responding.

Also, other than the we’re good thing earlier, there’s no real reason why Romney thinks America should be the major player in that part of the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. I mean China is there and we aren’t. And it’s not that difficult of a thing to come up with something: stability of commerce around the world yada, yada, commitments to our allies, blah blah blah. The point isn’t that there isn’t an argument to be made about why America has a role in the region, especially over China, but it would be nice if Romeny would actually make the argument.

Then there’s a discussion of Taiwan that will (if the Chinese take this book seriously) probably give him headaches.

Taiwan is not China. It is an independent democratic country of 23 million people–more than Australia and more than four times the population of Israel. Taiwan holds free and fair elections, guards its citizens’ civil rights and political liberties, and is also a model of free enterprise, having the twentieth largest economy in the world. If the people of Taiwan were to unite with China, that would be their right, but that has never been the choice of a modern, free Taiwan.

To be clear, I think that’s largely true (except for the fact that Taiwan still largely sees itself as representative of all of China). But it’s always been the sort of thing that Americans with diplomatic power tend to finesse.

Anyway, then Romney is worried that if China takes over Taiwan (as if anyone is saying they should do that) then the next step is maybe Korea and Japan. Then the section ends with Romney saying we still have a lot of influence, and we should keep a strong military presence in the region and support our allies.

[Read more…]

Another day, another horrendous shooting.

Several people were shot, one of them fatally, by a gunman outside the Empire State Building shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday, according to the police and city officials. The gunman was killed by the police, officials said.

One city official said that eight people were wounded.

“There are two people on site dead, a civilian and the gunman,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide information to the media.

While the details are still murky, I think we can all agree that the shooter knew exactly what the founders were going for when they wrote the Second Amendment.

– Todd Akin is the logical conclusion of flattering people like Todd Akin for 30 years.

– You would think Tim Eyman would learn something after the biggest lie of his life. But no.

– Jay Inslee releases his tax returns.

– I was afraid for over 60 years and those 60 years were wasted

– First of all, I am neither an empty man-socket nor a fucking venus flytrap. I am not looking to “attract a man.” I am just trying to do my stuff and then maybe meet a person who likes me because I am also a person.

– If you must fact-check, develop a cutesy scale that talks down to your audience.

Following Todd Akin is a Jackass Gate, Josh Feit did an interview with US Senate candidate Michael Baumgartner. Then Baumgartner decided he wanted to talk about Afghanistan, but Feit still asked him questions about his positions on abortion and wrote about those extremist positions. Then, I guess because Feit’s focus, Baumgartner emailed him to “go fuck yourself” and has been digging himself deeper since. Now look, as someone who has been protesting the war in Afghanistan for over a decade, I’m sympathetic to complaints that the media do a bad job covering it. And I agree that Cantwell hasn’t been particularly good on war issues. And Christ knows there are times when Josh Feit has written stupid things and completely missed the mark.

But you know what, you don’t get to chose what the media write about. The best way to get better coverage of war issues is to be more compelling on those issues. And you really don’t have a leg to stand on when the media are responding to your press release.

Further, you don’t get to call a truce on social issues if you’re still planning to vote to force a woman to carry her rapist’s baby to term, or to force women — and other people who can become pregnant — to have to have all the medical problems that can go along with pregnancy and child birth. When you’re still planning to vote with the extreme elements of the forced pregnancy wing of the party, you haven’t actually declared a truce, and people are still going to talk about that.