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Do you want Denver's own Child's Pay to be the first political ad ever run during the Super Bowl? Make it so.

Building on the power and creativity of this work, were making an important announcement: With your help, we can take the winning ad to the Super Bowl. We were planning to play the winning ad nationally on CNN during the week of Bush's State of the Union address, but the response to the ads has been way beyond our expectations. We've been working to put together something even more exciting. A political ad has never been placed on the Super Bowl before, and with your help, "Child's Pay" will be the first. Together, let's send Washington a clear message: no more politics as usual.

The Super Bowl ad will cost $1.6 million to place nationally, but we can afford this if we can complete our $10 million dollar grassroots campaign, which now stands at $7.5 million. Can you help?

To make an instant, secure contribution, by credit card or check, go to:

http://www.moveonvoterfund.org/superbowl/

Remember, for every two dollars you give, a dollar is added by a matching grant, so your contribution goes even further.

[Update]

Child's Pay, not Play. I've been misreading it this whole time. Clever naming ;)

Slate is hosting a discussion (yesterday's entry and today's) with several liberal (generally speaking) hawks on the topic: "With the benefit of hindsight, do you still believe that the United States should have invaded Iraq in March 2003?" It will be going on all week and is a must read. The panel includes Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens, Fred Kaplan, George Packer, Kenneth Pollack, Fareed Zakaria and opens with Slate editor Jacob Weisberg's thoughts on the matter:

Let me kick things off by volunteering some of my own qualms. I had been in favor of deposing Saddam Hussein since the premature end of the first Gulf War in 1991 for two primary reasons, which I explained in an earlier Slate dialogue. The first was humanitarian: Saddam was (is) a genocidal butcher on an epic scale, and I wanted to see Iraq freed from his grip. The second was Saddam's seemingly incorrigible pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons. March 2003 was not the time of my choosing—I would have gone in back in 1993 (when Saddam tried to assassinate former President Bush), or in 1998 (when he booted the U.N. inspectors out), or waited for a genuine emergency and a more propitious moment to reassemble an international coalition. But when George W. Bush chose to finally act, I supported him despite serious reservations about timing and method because I wanted the job finished at last.

To me, the liberation of 25 million Iraqis remains sufficient justification, which is why I don't think the failure to find weapons of mass destruction by itself invalidates the case for war (though it certainly weakens it). What does affect my view is the huge and growing cost of the invasion and occupation: in American lives (we're about to hit 500 dead and several thousand more have been injured); in money (more than $160 billion in borrowed funds); and in terms of lost opportunity (we might have found Osama Bin Laden by now if we'd committed some of those resources to Afghanistan). Most significant are the least tangible costs: increased hatred for the United States, which both fosters future terrorism and undermines the international support we will need to fight terrorism effectively for many years to come. Of course, the fall of Saddam has made us safer and is likely to produce all sorts of positive side effects, such as Qaddafi's capitulation. But the diminution of America's ability to create consensus around actions necessary for collective security makes us less safe. So, while I still think the Iraq war was morally justified, I'm not at all sure it was worth the costs.

Many of those costs—human, financial, and diplomatic—could have been reduced substantially if President Bush hadn't gratuitously alienated so many potential allies, and sympathizers, and if arrogance and ideology hadn't prevented his Pentagon team from properly planning for the occupation. But as a supporter of the war, I can't get myself off the hook by saying Bush has screwed things up, because he has screwed things up in ways that were evident in advance of the invasion. This was elective surgery, and we had a pretty good idea what the surgeon's limitations were. The choice wasn't between an invasion led by George W. Bush and an invasion led by a president who would make an eloquent case to the world and build a credible global coalition. The alternatives were Bush's flawed war or no war. So, the question I'm asking myself now is whether the marvelous accomplishment of deposing and capturing Saddam justifies costs that I really ought to have expected.

[emphasis added by me]

Bush screwed the pooch. Help Wesley Clark clean up.

Clark appears to be emerging as TNR's popular vote choice for the nomination. Considering Lieberman's chances in the primary season, it's certainly one of the more realistic choice (as is being discussed in an internal debate over the endorsement). In any case, here's another take on Clark for President that again addresses some of my commentors unfair and uninformed charges that Clark would put multilateralism before real threats to national security.

That leaves one candidate who has made restoring America's position in the world a major theme of his campaign. It's unsurprising that it's also the man who led an awkward, 19-nation NATO coalition against Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo. Clark is alone among the Democratic candidates in having had to negotiate with foreign leaders, both friends and enemies. He has spent much of his life abroad as a soldier (and Rhodes scholar), as compared with Bush, who had barely left the country before taking office. Clark understands that it matters what the world thinks of America, and has promised to act accordingly.

An easy, and patently false, charge against Clark is that he is a reflexive multilateralist and NATO fetishist who would not protect America without asking permission first. But nothing in his record suggests he'd feel the need to consult Luxembourg before dealing with an imminent threat. If anything, the opposite criticism of him, also widely made, is probably truer--that he is intensely hard to dissuade once he has made up his mind. (Witness his doggedness in urging NATO to go into Bosnia earlier, and to intervene in Kosovo.)

Clark's opposition to the Iraq war is easily caricatured as putting him in the "antiwar" camp. But, unlike Howard Dean, Clark openly expressed jubilation at the liberation of Iraq. And, as J. Peter Scoblic's endorsement of Clark shows, his positions on the war are both far more consistent and more sophisticated than he has been given credit for: Simply put, Clark's instinct is that some elective wars--which few can now doubt Iraq was--should be fought, but only with as much forethought, and as much international support, as possible. Going into Iraq may have been justifiable, but the Iraq war that George Bush fought did not meet those tests, particularly not at a time when the war on terror loomed as a higher priority.

Good sense prevails: Child's Play wins! Incidentally, 2 of the 4 award winners are from Colorado. We rule.

A 30-second TV ad that focuses on George W. Bush’s trillion-dollar debt legacy to America’s children is the winner in the MoveOn.org Voter Fund’s nationwide search for the best spot to tell the truth about the Bush Administration’s policy failures. The ad also got the highest rating from members of the public, who gave it the “People’s Choice” award as well.

"Child’s Pay," by Charlie Fisher, 38, of Denver features young children working in difficult service and manufacturing jobs – washing dishes, hauling trash, repairing tires, cleaning offices, assembly-line processing and grocery checking – followed by the line: “Guess who’s going to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?”

The overall winner is an advertising executive who was a registered Republican until the end of the first Bush administration, in 1992.  He is currently on assignment in Denmark and flew in to attend the awards ceremony with his camera man, P. Dreyer.  The ad he produced will run nationwide January 17-21 sponsored by MoveOn.org Voter Fund, coinciding with the President’s State of the Union address on January 20.

Wesley Clark unveiled his plan today for closing the pay gap for women. The highlights:

Today, women still earn only 73 cents for every dollar men earn.  The statistics for women of color are even worse: African American women earn only 64 cents, and Hispanic women earn only 55 cents, for every dollar earned by white men. Wes Clark has a three-part plan to close the pay gap:

1. Increase penalties on employers who discriminate
• Allow women who have been discriminated against to recover compensatory and punitive damages
• Make it easier for women to build a case against employers who discriminate
• Enhance data reporting to eliminate discrimination
2. Improve pay for women
• Increase the minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007
• Promote Families First Tax Reform to benefit women
• Expand continuing education and job training
3. Support working women
• Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to business with 25 or more employees
• Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover routine school and medical appointments and appointments related to domestic violence
• Provide paid leave for employees
• Increase funding for child care and provide pre-school education for all children

Gregg Easterbrook over at TNR breaks down the costs and lack of scientific justification that make Bush's latest plan to distract the electorate from his previous plan to distract the electorate the most ridiculous plan yet.

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what possible reason--other than science illiteracy at the White House--there could be for George W. Bush to announce a plan to build a Moon base. Manned exploration of Mars is even crazier.

As this space pointed out last month, minimum weight at departure from low-Earth orbit for a stripped-down, austere Moon base might be 600 tons, and at current NASA launch prices, it costs $15 billion to place 600 tons into low-Earth orbit. Fifteen billion is NASA's entire budget--and that's just the cost to launch the Moon thing, not to build it, staff it, and support it.

An Apollo spacecraft at departure from low-Earth orbit for the Moon weighed about 45 tons, and the manned part was tiny--astronauts could not stand up or move inside--as most of the weight was fuel. Considering that Moon-base weight would also be mostly fuel, numerous launches firing 600 tons toward the Moon for the purpose of making a base would actually result in little more than a couple of metal huts, some supplies and some antennas. Program cost for the International Space Station, currently losing air pressure, is about $100 billion, and it does not leave orbit. A rough guess would be that to build something about the size of the International Space Station (ISS) on the Moon would cost at least twice as much, $200 billion. And the ISS itself is mainly cramped modules, supplies, and antennas.

Heee.

That fucking Saddam. He tricked us again. He had the weapons of mass destruction...but he and the U.N. Axis Of Beezle used their magic anti-Americanism to force the Earth to rotate on its axis several thousand times in between when he had the weapons and when we decided we cared about them.

Now, more than ever, we must go to war with the Axis of Axis and stop the dangerously pro-Saddam rotation of the planet.

Things are looking increasingly bad for the Administration's "Iraq as Imminent Threat" story.

O'Neill, fired by the White House for his disagreement on tax cuts, is the main source for an upcoming book, "The Price of Loyalty," authored by Ron Suskind. Suskind says O'Neill and other White House insiders he interviewed gave him documents that show that in the first three months of 2001, the administration was looking at military options for removing Saddam Hussein from power and planning for the aftermath of Saddam's downfall, including post-war contingencies like peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals and the future of Iraq's oil. "There are memos," Suskind tells Stahl, "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'" A Pentagon document, says Suskind, titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," outlines areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from...30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq," Suskind says.

Let's send Bush back to Texas. Put Wesley Clark in the White House.

Now is the time of year when everyone traditionally posts their "Best of" lists. Partially in that spirit, but more in an effort to chronicle for myself what I enjoyed in 2003, I present some lists of my own. Some of this stuff was just new to me in 2003, having been released in 2002. I also think the "Best of" tag implies some nonexistent objective authority in "judging" the merits of art. In light of these points, I'll call these lists "My Favorites of 2003 Or So" and leave it at that. I'll start with music. Since these lists are meant to be topical, I'm leaving off a lot of older recordings and films I discovered this year and by all rights should be here (Some stuff by Lee Morgan, Larry Young, Daniel Johnston and Cibo Matto come to mind). Assuming I find the time, I'll also have a list of favorite movies and reading of the past year in the near future. I know you will all be holding your collective breath. Let us begin:

White Stripes: Elephant

I was late on the White Stripes bandwagon for no good reason and to my own detriment. Seeing their week in residence on Conan O'Brian in April got me all aboard. This album is all over my most-played lists in iTunes, so I can't really single out a favorite song, but if pressed I'd have to point to "In The Cold Cold Night" and "Hypnotise" but only by a hair. In retrospect, the White Stripes sub-conciously opened up a world of music I never would have bothered with before, including several items on this list. I've since bought all their albums, but this one is still my favorite.

The Mountain Goats: Tallahassee

I wouldn't even have know about The Mountain Goats (aka John Darnielle and friends) if not for one of my then houseguests mentioning that they'd be playing a show in Denver and we should check it out. The show, at Larimer Lounge, was great (and actually contributed another entry on this list) and the CD better. Intense acoustic lo-fi folk rock with a story line. Strictly speaking, this was a 2002 release, but it was new to me and kind of entwined with the next entry, which was a 2003 release

Baptist Generals: No Silver/No Gold

More lo-fi rock from the aforementioned Larimer Lounge show. This album flirts with ear-grating rawness (mostly thanks to the vocals of Chris Flemmons), but somehow comes across as a very intimate and compelling personal effort. Not for everyone, but it's definately worth a listen to find out if it's for you.

Juana Molina: Segundo

Strange but beautiful, minimalist blip-blooping elecronica/acoustic music from a former Argentinean sitcom star. One listen was all it took to confirm its place on this list.

Anti-Pop Consortium: Anti-Pop Consortium vs. Matthew Shipp

This album is the greatest mix of hip-hop electronica and jazz that I've yet heard. It's part of the Matthew Shipp curated "Blue Series" on Thirsty Ear Recordings. There are many recordings on this label that deserve a place on this list (The Blue Series Continuum sessions and Spring Heel Jack Live spring to mind) but in the interest of space and diversity, I will let this be the placeholder. Shipp is mining the future of creative music in this series, and you should give every release in the catalog a listen.

The Bad Plus: These are the Vistas

Rock, Jazz, Both? The Bad Plus caught my ear because of some really good reviews of their live shows on several mailing lists I am on. Since there didn't seem to be many live shows circulating (a situation that still needs to be remedied) I decided to give their first major studio release a try and was quite pleased with the results. They often get written off as a novelty response from the labels to the jazz-rock scene, but that point of view ignores the fact that these guys are amazing musicians who make some great, straight-ahead music. Drummer David King is right up there with the best jazz drummers playing today.

Outkast: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

I'm not sure I can say anything about this that hasn't been said a few thousand times before. I'd say this album is everything good about hip-hop, except that it's so much more. Hey Ya might just be the catchiest pop song ever.

Junior Senior: D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat

Nothing really groundbreaking with this album, but this Danish duo makes really fun catchy music. Don't miss my favorite video of the year!

Miles Davis: The Jack Johnson Sessions

I owe Rob for setting me straight on Miles Davis. My past experiences with Mile Davis were characterized by the execrable "Doo Bop" and "Tutu". After hearing those album, I unfairly wrote off most all of his work. In hindsight (in any sight really) of course, this was absolute obstinate retardedness for which I have no excuse other than youthful musical stupidity. In any case, many thanks to Rob for setting me straight. This album is probably my favorite of the year and a must for any jazz (or rock or funk) fan.

There are a few items that, given more time, would probably end up on this list. Most of them I just picked up in the last few weeks, but I thought it important to mention them because of their potential for becoming a favorite: Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey: Slow Breath, Silent Mind, The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow and Kaki King: Everybody Loves You.

Further news on the WMD front. For those who haven't been daunted by the lack of WMD in Iraq, because everyone (or at least everyone who takes Debka and Newsmax as the gospel truth) knows they were moved to Syria before the war, here's the real word, straight from the horses mouth (via every hawk's favorite, al Guardian).

The United States has no credible evidence that Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria early last year before the U.S.-led war that drove Saddam Hussein from power, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Friday.

Rice said, "Any indication that something like that happened would be a very serious matter.

"But I want to be very clear: we don't, at this point, have any indications that I would consider credible and firm that that has taken place, but we will tie down every lead," she said at a White House briefing about Bush's trip Monday to a hemispheric summit in Mexico.

[via Drudge Report]