October 2003 Archives

I happened across this post by Josh Chafetz today and I just wanted to add a hearty amen. I'm always reassured to find others who are disturbed by the lack of civil discourse in modern political - and everyday - life.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge that, on almost every issue, there are people on both sides who are both intelligent and well-meaning? That doesn't mean that neither side is right, or that you should give up arguing for your side. It just means paying the other side some respect, listening to their position, trying honestly to grapple with it. I'm not saying that there aren't malevolent and/or stupid people out there -- but they're on both sides of every issue, and on almost no issue is everyone on one side stupid and/or malevolent. It's fine to point out when someone is saying something stupid (or when someone is being malevolent). If they're malevolent and/or stupid often enough, it's fine to conclude that they, as people, are malevolent and/or stupid. But to conclude that everyone who disagrees with you is ipso facto malevolent and/or stupid ... well, I envy your certainty, but you frighten me. That kind of certainty is precisely what extremist movements of all kinds -- left and right -- are made of.

Maybe I'm more attuned to this because most of my best friends have long disagreed with me on almost every topic. In college, my best friends were the far-left fringe. Two of my roommates and closest friends are now union organizers. One of my ex-girlfriends was a national leader in the student anti-sweatshop movement (she had the great good fortune to be criticized, by name, by Kathy Lee Gifford on national TV because she was leading a campaign against Gifford's clothing line). I didn't agree with them about much, politics-wise, but we were all great friends, and we all had tremendous respect for one another. And it was partly because of that friendship and that respect that we had some of the most intellectually rigorous and satisfying political discussions that I've ever been fortunate enough to be party to.

So, please. A little civility. A little respect. A little elevation of the discourse. It won't hurt, I promise.

Oops. My bad. The Rocky's Stump says to get those ballots in the mail today or else drop them off in person to make sure your vote is counted.

Election officials are warning that voters who waited until today to mail in ballots are taking a risk that their ballot won't make get to their county clerk before the 7 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

And voters shouldn't mail the ballot after today. Your best bet is to drop it off at an official site in your county. Call for locations:

• Adams: 303-654-6030
• Arapahoe: 303-795-4511
• Boulder: 303-413-7740
• Broomfield: 303-464-5899
• Denver: 720-913-8683
• Douglas: 303-660-7444
• Jefferson: 303-271-8111

[via Coyote Gulch]

A few congratulations are in order while I'm thinking of them. Congratulations to Rob & Meg on their new home. And (belated so they might see this after returning from their honeymoon) congratulations to Justin and Bethany on their wedding. It was a great time, even if the bartender was a Red Wings fan!

The DNC has some Halloween costume ideas.

Halloween is just around the corner. If you're like President Bush, you enjoy dressing up in all kinds of costumes.

There are lots of cool things you can dress up and pretend to be for Halloween. Do you need some ideas this year? Check out some of the costumes President Bush has worn since he's been in the White House.

[via Kicking Ass]

For those of you in Colorado, don't forget to get your ballots in by the 4th. Most of the larger counties are using mail-in ballots only, so you need to get it in the mail soon (by Saturday) or, if you're in Denver, drop it off.

My recomendations?

State: No on Referendum A, Amendment 32 and Amendment 33.
Denver: No on Intiative 101
Yes on Referred Questions 1A, 3A and 3B

Don't like my recommendations and want some more info to make your own decision? Check out the sample ballot or click through the links above to check out the Rocky Mountain News' excellent coverage of the issues.

General Clark laid out his health plan in a speech a few days ago. It's similar to the other Democratic candidates plans - there seems to be a consensus on the basic problems of the current health care system - but has an interesting focus on improving medical care in addition to expanding coverage.

General Clark's health plan would improve health care for those that have it by emphasizing preventive, medically-justifiable and cost-effective services and guaranteeing universal coverage for children, access for all Americans, and making health care more affordable for tens of millions of families currently struggling to pay their premiums. Based on the principles of value, responsibility and fairness, the plan would reorient expensive, often-inadequate health coverage towards preventive and diagnostic benefits, services proven to be medically sound, an emphasis on disease management, and proven competitive purchasing techniques that ensure Americans get the greatest value for their investment. Second, the plan ensures that health care is more affordable for all families and that no child goes without health insurance by guaranteeing affordable coverage and concurrently requiring families to purchase it for their children. It also guarantees that Americans without job-based coverage have access to the same guaranteed, stable health options provided to members of Congress. Finally, the plan provides additional financial assistance to lower-income Americans, workers in between jobs, and other vulnerable populations. General Clark's health plan shifts the focus of the health care debate by insisting that any investment on health insurance be accompanied by a commitment to improve as well as expand coverage.

A thid party analysis and comparison with the other plans is available.

I was on Cape Cod over the weekend and I took some pictures.

Reacting to the Administration's PR offensive against media coverage of Iraq, EJ Dionne relates an instructive experience from his days in Beirut.

While in Beirut, I regularly visited a lovely restaurant I found to be a refuge amid the bedlam, even though getting there meant braving a sniper point. The taxi driver would gun through a broad street that was the danger zone, hoping not to hear the crack of an automatic rifle.

But what was the overall "news" of this situation: the story of the intrepid entrepreneur who managed to keep his restaurant open -- and the countless others like him who behaved with the same energy and determination? Or that Beirut was a brutalized city where shells landed regularly, snipers plied their trade and car bombs would go off unexpectedly?

Yes, I tried to write about Beirut's brave souls, but here's a hint about what the real news was: The U.S. government was not overreacting when it sent those diplomats out to safety.

So I am sure that some good things are happening in Iraq and that there are Americans there doing difficult jobs well. But right now, the news is not of what's normal. When U.S. soldiers get killed and wounded, when explosions rip through buildings, when Iraqi leaders and civilians are dying, that, alas, is the news.

This news may contradict the optimistic predictions made by the administration, so I don't blame Bush or his supporters for not liking what they are seeing or reading. But changing the news won't change the situation. Improving the situation will change the news.

[emphasis added]

Work is real busy and I'll be out on Cape Cod for a wedding this weekend. Therefore, I probably won't be posting much until Monday.

The General presented his economic plan today. I've been real busy, so I haven't had a chance to take a close look at it yet, but I wanted to get a pointer up to it so others who might be interested were aware.

Putting America on a course for more fiscal responsibility in the future would be good for the economy today, helping to restore confidence, keeping long-term interest rates lower, while ensuring that America meets its obligations to the future. That's why Wes Clark is proposing a plan to save more than $2 trillion for America's future - providing resources to reduce the deficit and invest in priorities like healthcare and education. Wes Clark's "Saving for America's Future Plan" provides effective stimulus for the economy without increasing the deficit in 2004 and 2005 by redeploying $100 billion in tax cuts for the most fortunate families into bigger bang-for-buck investments in homeland security, state fiscal relief, and incentives for business to create jobs and grow.

I saw Primus last night at the Fillmore. As always, Les Claypool puts on an entertaining show. Great visuals and the inventive music and sense of humor that makes Claypool and Primus what they are. However, while sitting there watching the show, I realized the last time I saw Primus was 10 years ago, almost to the day - October 29th, 1993 at the Orpheum Theater in Boston.

I'm old.

The only consolation is that my fellow attendees at that Orpheum show are also old.

Someone leaked a memo from Donald Rumsfeld to several top Pentagon officials. I'm not sure if it's refreshing or disturbing to see such fundamental questions as "Does DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip and focus to deal with the global war on terror?" being asked now. I'm leaning towards refreshing, but that is a sad commentary on the group-think that seems to have gripped the upper echelons of government over the last few years. I suppose it's better late than never, but perhaps these issues should have been thought through before deciding we could unilaterally win the "War on Terror." To Rumsfeld's credit, he is the one asking these questions. I just wish he'd been asking them earlier. I'm sure there will be plenty of commentary on this memo in the days to come. I'll update as it appears.

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror? Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment? Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough?

[via DrudgeReport]

The UN Development Programme's second annual Arab Human Development Report is out. It calls for Arab countries to work towards knowledge-based societies in order to better integrate with the rest of the world, and presumably lessen the influence of radical Islamist teachings on the average Arab's everyday life.

AHDR 2002 challenged the Arab world to overcome three cardinal obstacles to human development posed by widening gaps in freedom, women's empowerment and knowledge across the region.

Looking at international, regional and local developments affecting Arab countries since the report was issued confirms that those challenges remain critically pertinent and may have become even graver, especially in the area of freedom. Nowhere is this more apparent than the status of Arab knowledge at the beginning of the 21st century, the theme of this second report. Despite the presence of significant human capital in the region, AHDR 2003 concludes that disabling constraints hamper the acquisition, diffusion and production of knowledge in Arab societies. This human capital, under more promising conditions, could offer a substantial base for an Arab knowledge renaissance.

The Report affirms that knowledge can help the region to expand the scope of human freedoms, enhance the capacity to guarantee those freedoms through good governance and achieve the higher moral human goals of justice and human dignity. It also underlines the importance of knowledge to Arab countries as a powerful driver of economic growth through higher productivity.

Its closing section puts forward a strategic vision for creating knowledge societies in the Arab world based on five pillars: Guaranteeing key freedoms; Disseminating quality education; Embedding science; Shifting towards knowledge based production; and Developing an enlightened Arab knowledge model.

AHDR 2003 makes it clear that, in the Arab civilization, the pursuit of knowledge is prompted by religion, culture, history and the human will to achieve success. Obstructions to this quest are the defective structures created by human beings- social, economic and above all political. Arabs must remove or reform these structures in order to take the place they deserve in the world of knowledge at the beginning of the knowledge millennium.

Colorado's own Governor Bill Owens. This isn't news - the National Review fingered Owens a while back - but the meme is spreading. George Will gently touches on some of Owens accomplishments.

Today it is just 51 months until the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary -- the 2008 caucuses and primary -- and some Republicans are looking to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains for a possible candidate to become the 44th president.

Take this Christian Science Monitor quiz.

I came out a realist.

[via OxBlog via Matthew Yglesias]

iTunes for Windows is ready for download! They've added some new features to the store as well. Celebrity playlists, gift certificates and an allowance account to allow parents to let their kids use iTunes without a credit card.

If you're stuck on Windows and have an iPod, you're already downloading it, but even if you don't have an iPod, but do have an mp3 collection you should check it out.

Welcome, Windows users, to the world's best digital music jukebox, with a great music store inside - and it keeps getting better. Welcome to a music store with hundreds of thousands of songs which you can conveniently browse and search, and an inviting way to preview, buy and download music online quickly and easily. And welcome to the best friend an iPod ever had: iTunes.

Incidentally, while browsing the iTunes web site, I noticed this little blurb.

Coming soon for more than 25 million U.S. members of America Online

Sure enough:

Apple(R) and America Online, Inc., the world's leading interactive services company, today announced an alliance to provide instant, one-click registration to the iTunes(R) Music Store for AOL's more than 25 million U.S. members starting later this quarter. America Online will integrate links to iTunes artists, albums and songs throughout its leading music site, AOL Music, which will give members the option to link directly to the specific iTunes Music Store page to preview and buy music as they browse and read music news and reviews.

"Apple and AOL are making it easy for AOL's 25 million U.S. members to legally buy music online," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With just one click, AOL members will be able to legally preview, purchase and download music from the iTunes Music Store's catalog of more than 400,000 songs."

"Apple's iTunes Music Store is a runaway hit," said Jonathan Miller, chairman and CEO of America Online. "Today, Apple and AOL are uniting the number one music destination site, AOL Music, with the number one music download site, Apple's iTunes Music Store, to bring customers the most complete online digital music experience."

This could be the nail in the coffin for eMusic, Napster MkII, etc.

WWBD?

Are the Dominos starting to tip? [ed. Apostrophes are bad]

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, has announced it will hold its first council elections, in a move seen as the kingdom's first real political reform.

The government decided to "widen the participation of citizens in running local affairs through elections", the state news agency SPA reported.

Half the members of future councils will be elected under the reform.

The desert kingdom has never had political elections at any level since its creation in 1932.

[via Andrew Sullivan who for some reason in this particular case felt no need to be snarky about the "Baathist Broadcasting Company"]

Clark got a nice boost today when the latest Field Poll found him to be the front runner compared to the rest of the Democrat field and President Bush. Ezra has the breakdown.

The internals of the poll are interesting. Clark beats Dean among men statewide by a significant 9% while Dean beats Clark among women by 1%. More interesting to me is that voters age 18-24 prefer Dean to Clark by only 1%, with Dean nabbing 8% and Clark nabbing 9%. In fact, every place where Dean beats Clark, the win is with MoE, but Clark beats Dean by statistically significant margins among males, voters aged 40-49, and voters who are over 50 (and who have the highest turn out in elections).

Further, Clark is the only Democrat who actually beats Bush in the polling, 46-42%. All other Democrats lost to him, but are within the MoE for a tie. Interestingly enough, Clark has slightly higher support among Democrats than anyone but Gephardt (73-74%) and significantly higher support among non-partisans. Among them, Clark polls at 51% while his closest competitor, Dean, is at 41%. Clark is looking really, really strong in California.

Clark's support amongst voters over 50 was the one aspect that struck me as a particularly compelling strength since, as Ezra points out, they vote. We've seen polls with The General beating out the rest of the field by a few points in the past, but I haven't seen this breakdown before.

Of course, the flip side of this is his weakness - compared to Lieberman of all people - with the younger crowd (18-39). Is this a name recognition factor? My hunch is yes, due to the large percentage of undecided voters in this age group. There's plenty of room for someone to grab the younger voters here and given the recent recall action, I'm betting this group is ripe for an outsider.

[via Political Wire]

TAPPED's Nick Confessore on why The General's plan for a Civilian Reserve is smart policy and smart politics:

It's good policy in the sense that encouraging more service, and finding ways to channel it in productive directions, is the kind of thing we need more of. It's good politics for several reasons. One is that national service is the kind of "high-centrist" stuff that pundits love to praise. Two is that it's the kind of thing you don't want to really be against, and making himself a champion of national service -- which fits nicely with his biography and message -- gives Clark a chance to whack President Bush for one of this administration's more notorious failed promises. You'll remember that back during his widely praised State of the Union speech in 2002, Bush promised to boost AmeriCorps by 50 percent. Instead, as the Democratic Leadership Council's Will Marshall and Marc Magee pointed out in this Christian Science Monitor op-ed, Bush installed incompetent leadership, who mismanaged the outfit to the point where House Republicans could claim AmericCorps was too troubled to deserve increased funding.

This is good news.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday opened the door for doctors in Colorado and eight other states to recommend the use of marijuana for patients with cancer, AIDS and other conditions.

The high court declined to hear arguments by the Bush administration that doctors should lose their ability to write prescriptions for recommending or even discussing marijuana use with patients.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that the sanctions would violate doctors' First Amendment rights to free speech.

I'm not a baseball fan, but I tuned in to watch the Cubs get screwed tonight. Will this man survive the night?

Are you kidding? Just when the Cubs appeared headed to the World Series, disaster struck. A fan's ill-timed decision to catch a foul ball was part of Florida's eight-run eighth as Chicago blew a 3-0 lead to lose 8-3 in Game 6 in the NLCS.

[UPDATE]

ESPN's Jayson Stark had this to say on the matter:

We don't know his name. We don't want to know his name. We hope no one in Chicago ever learns his name.

We hope he already has joined the witness-protection program. We hope he can start a new life somewhere, rooting for a team thousands of miles from the North Side of Chicago. We hope he forgets. We hope the people of Chicago forget about him.

But that will never happen. No way. Because the Cubs lost a playoff game they couldn't lose Tuesday night. And one reason they lost it is because a 26-year-old guy in a Cubs cap saw a baseball coming his way and decided to try to catch it.

[Yet Another UPDATE]

Meet Steve Bartman

Thanks Pete!

This afternoon The General is giving the first of four major policy speeches to come in the next few weeks.

General Wesley Clark will announce Tuesday a bold new initiative to allow Americans to serve their country in times of crisis. In the first of four speeches on Clark's vision for New American Patriotism, he proposes a Civilian Reserve. In the next three weeks, Clark will make more major speeches highlighting the economy, health care, and national security.

Clark will unveil his plan in New York City. The Civilian Reserve will focus on rekindling the spirit of volunteerism that poured out of Americans following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"In the face of new and growing challenges, we need to call on a New American Patriotism - from our leaders and our citizens," Clark will tell the crowd at Hunter College. "A New American Patriotism calls on leadership that will make the right choices for all of our people; it calls for an administration that unites our country and works with the world community, and it calls all Americans to action in order to make the commitments and sacrifices to meet these historic challenges."

The Civilian Reserve would allow Americans to register to contribute their unique talents and gifts. In the event of an emergency, those needed would be called on to help. This would create a safety net of skilled Americans who are willing to help in times of trouble without an added bureaucracy.

"Today, America faces serious challenges," Clark will say. "Our country has endured the deadliest external attack in its history. We feel our security threatened here at home for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. America has lost over three million jobs for the first time since Herbert Hoover."

Clark will speak at 2 p.m. at Hunter College in New York City.

The San Francisco Gate has some more details on the proposal

Every American age 18 or older could register for Clark's civilian reserve, listing skills that could aid the country in a disaster. Registration is voluntary and would involve a commitment to serve any time for five years.

In times of national emergency, such as floods, forest fires or terrorist attacks, the president would have the power to call to duty up to 5,000 civilian reservists. Tours would last as long as six months. Congress could authorize more to be mobilized.

Civilian reservists also could be sent overseas for jobs like reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Those who are called to duty would receive health care, a stipend, and the right to return to their jobs when their service is completed. Clark spokeswoman Kym Spell said the program would cost about $100 million a year and would be part of the Department of Homeland Security.

[UPDATE]

The text of the speech is now available.

Had a fine time tonight up in north Denver at the Larimer Lounge. Caught the Mountain Goats, Baptist Generals and Joshua Novak (who seems to have no online information, but struck me as a very talented Beck/Radiohead cross) on Paulette's recommendation and had a fine time. Fine performers all and you should check them out if they are in your area. Thanks to KVCU for the show.

We went up to Guanella Pass today and took some pictures. Here they are. More commentary later.

One of the few useful things the FBI's (now the DHS's) NIPC has ever done is work with SANS to produce the SANS Top Twenty. A new version was released this week. It's a great resource for those that don't sit around thinking about risk mitigation all day long.

Three years ago, the SANS Institute and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) at the FBI released a document summarizing the Ten Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities. Thousands of organizations used that list, and the expanded Top Twenty lists that followed one and two years later, to prioritize their efforts so they could close the most dangerous holes first. The vulnerable services that led to the examples above Blaster, Slammer, and Code Red, as well as NIMDA worms - are on that list.

This updated SANS Top Twenty is actually two Top Ten lists: the ten most commonly exploited vulnerable services in Windows and the ten most commonly exploited vulnerable services in UNIX and Linux. Although there are thousands of security incidents each year affecting these operating systems, the overwhelming majority of successful attacks target one or more of these twenty vulnerable services.

TAPPED's Matthew Yglesias (i'm glad they ditched the nameless posting) comments on this Michael Kinsley piece in Slate. Kinsley seems to think people supporting Clark are "in a swoon" over General Clark the Candidate because of the mainstream appeal of the uniform, and that in this misguided attempt at pragmatism, we are snubbing the one candidate, Dean, that everyone is excited about.

More fundamentally, though, Kinsley doesn't seem to have considered the possibility that some of us are attracted to Clark not just because we think he'd be a good candidate, but because we think he'd be a good president.

Clearly, in an election where national security is going to play an important role, a few stars on your shoulder isn't going to hurt. But the reason national security is going to be important in 2004 is that right now national security is important, and the reason high-ranking generals have a lot of foreign-policy credibility is that high-ranking generals know a lot about foreign policy. In particular, people like me who liked the liberal interventionism of the later Clinton years and now find themselves sympathetic to the ostensible goals of the Bush foreign policy but are disgusted by the gross dishonesty, shallow opportunism, rank hypocrisy, utter recklessness and general incompetence with which it's been carried out have good reason to think that Clark could be the best man to guide America on the international scene.

Amen. I have nothing against Dean. I agree with nearly all of his domestic positions but I think he treats national security and foreign affairs as an afterthought. This is something we can't afford in this day and age.

Fellow ex-Hartite Kevin Thurman is back tending his blog. I'm assuming he's spent the last few weeks working against the recall and he has a few thoughts on the matter.

Davis was in the position he was in because no one ever stood by him. In the middle of both his re-election and this recall labor and others talked out of both sides of their mouths, attempting to help turn out the vote against the recall, while the state labor federation lobbies to pass SB2 and the Illegal Immigrant Driver's License. While our Democrat fights for his career progressive like TalkLeft urged no on the recall while embracing Schwarzenegger. No one united against the recall, against the right wing power grab, they just said they did and went home.

I started off this post meaning to disagree with Kevin's message - that the Democratic Party needs more discipline, and that the recall was a result of this shortcoming - but now I'm not so sure I entirely disagree.

I do find it hard to believe a lack of discipline led to the 82% disaproval ratings I saw in one exit poll, but I certainly can see how it wouldn't help.

In any case, perhaps Gray Davis wasn't a "sleaze", but he certainly was a VERY unpopular governor.

"The people - not the elites or powerful interests - are sovereign" - Gary Hart

Welcome back Kevin!

I caught this Frontline episode last night, and I have to say it might be the best piece of journalism I've yet seen on the Iraq situation. Those who can't imagine anything but communist agitprop coming from PBS should try to suspend your Taranto-style disbelief and give it a watch, since it might change your mind about some things. They interview Ahmad Chalabi, Paul Bremer, Kanan Makiya, Jay Garner, Richard Perle, Joseph Wilson and others about how we got here, and how we go forward. It will be available online in full starting Saturday

Did America rush into a war in Iraq for which it was unprepared? Could the current volatility in Iraq have been prevented? And was the White House's rationale for war based on faulty and exaggerated intelligence reports?

As the Bush administration faces continuing questions about its failure to secure peace in Iraq, FRONTLINE takes an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at what some government officials say is the underlying cause of America's current problems in Iraq: the prewar political infighting among the Pentagon, State Department, and White House that hampered U.S. efforts to plan for an orderly postwar transition.

iTunes is about to get huge.

The Mac maker has scheduled an event for next Thursday at San Francisco's Moscone West convention hall. "The year's biggest music story is about to get even bigger," Apple said in an invitation to journalists.

The company is expected to launch the long-awaited Windows version of the iTunes Music Store at the event, according to Wall Street brokerage Needham. Apple earlier said it would release the Windows service sometime before the end of the year.

[via iPodlounge]

If she had some integrity, she would go get some straight up phat silicone titties, and part her blonde hair in the middle, take two Velcro rollers and make those stripper forehead curls that make the boys say "Whassup Shorty!!". If she had blonder, bigger hair, that would certainly add credibility to her conservative politics and her robotic upper class bigot ever-had-any-shit-come-down-on-them-like-a-hard-rain-so-why-should-they-care-about-anyone-but-themselves values. She cannot spit her ignorant angry rhymes successfully with that beige lawyer lipstick. Ann needs to get some Revlon's Cherries in the Snow, the ho's lipstick of choice. She is a ho in sheep's clothing, and it is about time she told the truth, the ho truth, and nothing but the truth. There is nothing wrong with docking cock for the things you believe in, but don't play the thinking man's bombshell with me. Because she doesn't think and she is not anywhere near being the bomb and I just wish that she could be detonated and explode. But the only way that she could blow up is to face the porn movie 70s dicksucking muzak and own up to her politico prostitution. I am a ho, for the people, and I love that, and I am proud, because I embrace my ho side, and never try to pretend like I know everything about everything because I don't. I don't have to front, because I actually care about people. I believe in equality for everyone. All I ask for is that. And it is not possible in the America we live in, for a million reasons. Ann being one of them. She won't put 'em on the glass, so she is not qualified to throw stones.

[via Eschaton]

For those in the area, Avs opening game at my place Friday after 6ish and then Kill Bill Vol 1 Saturday afternoon sometime.

Colorado gets no Stanley Cup Love from the ESPN crew. Plenty of them picked them to win the West, but all but one picked Ottawa to beat them in the finals (crazy Al Morganti chose New Jersey to repeat over the Avs). Presumably this is a function of Colorado's goaltending situation. Oddly enough, all Ottawa has is Patrick Lalime, who doesn't have a great post-season record. I can't figure it, but hopefully Aebischer will pull out all the stops, or we'll pick up Sean Burke. With the offense the Avs will hopefully have, goaltending is an afterthought. Don't forget, Edmonton won their cups with Grant Fuhr in goal.

ESPN's and ESPN.com's NHL experts give their predictions for division, conference and Stanley Cup champions, as well as the Hart, Vezina, Norris and Adams trophies.

Keep an eye on this site, unfortunately

recallarnoldnow.com coming soon! This page is parked FREE at GoDaddy.com!

Clark's campaign manager has quit. It appears to be further evidence of tension between the "Draft" movement and the Democratic establishment.

Donnie Fowler "told associates he was leaving over widespread concerns that supporters who used the Internet to draft Clark into the race are not being taken seriously by top campaign officials."

Kos says:

Dean is Exhibit A of how technology can be used to let people take control of the political process. The Draft Movement was Exhibit B.

Was.

And it's not just me ranting about it. Not anymore.

It's too bad Dean's position on the war makes me queasy or I might be more interested in helping him become the Democratic nominee, since on many of his positions I am in complete agreement. As it stands, I'll stick by my guns on Clark for now. Unlike paid netroots consultants - I don't have any particular inclination or incentive to rank a candidates proficiency with the netroots before their actual policy positions, especially security policy in these dangerous times.

But of course, in the end, I'm onboard with whomever wins the nomination.

[via Political Wire]

Here's the California Secretary of State's Live Election Returns site. While it's unlikely anything definitive will be known tonight, it should make for interesting watching and speculation.

[via First Read]

It's been a year and a half since their last album, Uninvisible. Bring it on!

john, billy and chris are busy in brooklyn laying down tracks for their ninth studio album, due out this spring. the big news this time around is the addition of producer john king, one of the Dust Brothers, and best known for his innovative work with the Beastie Boys and Beck. we can't wait. neither can you.

[via Ropeadope]

Pretty impressive showing.

Little Rock - Today General Wesley Clark's campaign announced a record setting $3.5 million in contributions in just two weeks of his presidential campaign. Even though Clark entered the race late in the third quarter, has yet to announce a formal campaign structure, and is operating out one campaign office, the newest candidate in the Democratic primary out raised many of his rivals who have been campaigning for a year.

"The response to my call for a New American Patriotism has been overwhelming," said General Clark. "In just two weeks, we have begun the next step in building a movement that can take back the White House."

Averaging a daily $250,000, the campaign took in contributions from approximately 21,000 donors. With an average contribution of $167, about two-thirds of the money was raised online. The $3.5 million is the total for the third quarter ending September 30 and those figures become public October 15.

Amen Ezra, Amen. Check out the comments for a fine illustration of Ezra's point.

Partisanship makes the world go insane.

While I'm in a hockey state of mind, ESPN Magazine has a cover story on Forsberg's future that makes for an interesting read. If you have an ESPN Insider account, you can read it here. Otherwise, check out the newsstands this week.

PETER FORSBERG WAS HERE.

Was.

Because soon, was might be all we've got.

Forsberg, the league MVP, could have signed a lifetime deal with the Avalanche this summer if he so desired, but he signed for only one season. One year. That's all he's giving the NHL. Everyone close to Forsberg says he took a long while this summer, back in his native Sweden, before deciding to come back to the States this season. "A real discussion with himself," says one longtime friend. "Very, very hard," says another. The man seems to be looking for a reason to leave. Now the league is about to give it to him.

This isn't Steve Yzerman or Mark Messier, legends who will retire anyway after another year or two. This isn't Dany Heatley or Todd Bertuzzi, North American stars who will wait out the storm and dazzle us again someday. This isn't Mike Modano or Sergei Fedorov, offensive wizards who had to learn a defensive game. This is, arguably, the most complete player in hockey history. The guy who, two years ago, led the league in postseason scoring without even making it to the Cup Finals. The guy who, last season, became the first man in 39 seasons to lead the NHL in points without scoring 30 goals. "He has the skill of the best who ever played," says Stars wing Bill Guerin, "and the toughness of the toughest who ever played."

A few weeks back, Verisign implemented a wildcard in the .com and .net top level domains, which they are responsible for managing. What this means is that non-existant names, rather than getting an error returned from the TLD servers saying they don't exist, resolve to a Verisign server, which provides search services, and presumably tracks what folks are mistyping. This is a fairly common practice amongst some of the smaller TLD providers, but it has caused quite a stink in this case because of the size of these TLD's, and the unanticipated (by Verisign at least) side-effects. ICANN - the folks who dole out TLD registries amongst other responsibilities - tried asking nicely and were rebuffed. On Friday they put their foot down. This will get interesting and should serve as a bellwether for commercial control over Internet operations.

Given the magnitude of the issues that have been raised, and their potential impact on the security and stability of the Internet, the DNS and the .com and .net top level domains, VeriSign must suspend the changes to the .com and .net top-level domains introduced on 15 September 2003 by 6:00 PM PDT on 4 October 2003. Failure to comply with this demand by that time will leave ICANN with no choice but to seek promptly to enforce VeriSign's contractual obligations.

A good summary of ICANN's investigation is here. Related blogosphere commentary is here).

The NHL 2003-2004 season starts Wednesday, so forgive me if I'm not devoting as much time to blogging as I normally might. I've been busy putting my fantasy keeper league team together after a fairly miserable performance last year. I'm happier with my goalies and defensive corp this year at least.

The Avs are looking to be a very interesting team this year. Not since the mid 80's, when I first succumbed to Whaler-mania, has there been such a ridiculously overpowered set of forwards on one team. Goaltending weaknesses might not matter (you'll note I picked both Avs goalies on my fantasy team) when they're scoring 8-9 goals a game. [UPDATE] I forgot to include this before, but the Av's won THN's player poll with 50% of players polled thinking Colorado will win the cup. [/UPDATE]

I've also got my ESPN-HD hooked up on the HDTvizzle. I'm not sure how many NHL games they'll be carrying (if any) but the anticipation is killing me.

My favorite hockey columnist/SportsCenter-in-training anchor Mr John Buccigross checks in with a recap of his summer and a preview of the Eastern Conference. Tomorrow he should have his Western Conference preview.

Hey John, Just to be the 435,000th person to ask ... Are you tuning up the Zamboni for another year? Looking forward to the next column...

Rich Glazerman

Actually, you're the fourth person, Rich. If you remember the e-mail that ended last year's final column.

But, this is a year of fan building for me, and fan containment for the NHL and its players. A dawn of a new era. So, in the spirit of unity and good faith bargaining, let's all get along. Let's cast aside our mistrust and bitterness and show some good ol' Darcy Tucker fair play. A man never stands so tall as when he stoops so low to annihilate an anterior cruciate ligament. Oops. Sorry.

Fred Kaplan has a Slate piece on John Zorn's evolution over the last 10 years and the "life-soundtrack that most compels him" - Masada.

There are, counting the multiple discs, 28 Masada CDs in the bins, not including Zorn's 14-volume Filmworks series, a few of which draw on the Masada songbook. Is this too much Masada? Yes, probably (though, I must confess, I own all of them). There is a compulsion toward "compleatism" in many subcultures, particularly those that have a slightly subversive bent, and the tendency is heightened in jazz because of its improvisational core: At least when the musicians are inventive (and all of Masada's are), no two versions of a tune are alike.

But the appeal of multiple Masadas stems from more than cultish esoterica. Not many compositions—in whatever musical genre—could sustain renderings by jazz quartet, string trio, string sextet, solo guitar, and so forth. Yet these Zorn compositions do. And the different versions reveal different aspects of a tune. Playing a song called "Khebar," for instance, the Masada quartet emphasizes its rhythm. The string sextet brings out the harmonic colors. On the Voices album, the downtown rock musician Kramer treats it, wittily, as electronica. They're subtle heads, these Masada tunes, richer and more complex than they seem at first hearing.

I don't have them all yet, but I'm working on it ;)

In tribute to John Zorn's 50th birthday (i know, I'm a month late) I've made a list of my favorite Masada albums and will feature them over to the left for a bit.

Ezra Klein (an ex-Hartite) has some observations on the need for a Democrat candidate who is strong on Foreign Policy/Terrorism to take on Bush in the general election and comes to the conclusion that Clark's four stars are the trump card over all other challengers.

Dean has done a very good job of toughening up his persona of national security and foreign policy, he comes off as a fighter which is a reassuring thing to the electorate. As you can see with Kerry, they'll take a fighter without military experience over an academic with military experience any day of the week. For that reason, the persona Clark develops is going to be crucial in deciding who, between him and Dean, is the stronger nominee. If he goes the way of Kerry and starts looking weak, he'll lose. If he goes the way of Dean but has 4 stars on his chest, he'll win easily.