November 2003 Archives

A few interesting items today I wanted to mention. First off, the Rocky has named John Hickenlooper Business Person of the Year for 2003. The article covers his business history from his childhood to today as well as some of his business victories since becoming Mayor. Congratulations!

Hickenlooper, 51, embodies the modern-day pioneer spirit of Colorado, said Tom Clark, president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

"He started anew in Colorado, earned his stripes the hard way and brought his passion for being a successful businessperson into civic life," Clark said. "He is the ultimate citizen politician. You couldn't ask for a greater definition of the Business Person of the Year. I think he is a great choice. He is so friggin' unpretentious. I hope he stays that way."

Also in the Rocky is a profile of Michael Bennet, Hickenlooper's chief of staff. It's a must read to understand the kind of dedicated people Hickenlooper attracts to make Denver a better place.

"At the end of the day," said Kurt Hall, one of the chief executive officers of Regal Entertainment Group, "he's one of the guys that I can count on one hand that I've dealt with in the investment world that have character."

Last, but certainly not least, the Colorado Supreme Court will be ruling on whether the Republican redistricting plan for the state will be allowed to move forward.

The court fight could have major implications, with Republicans now holding five of the state's seven congressional seats and hoping to solidify their hold on those.

Democrats on the other hand hope to pick up two of those seats - if they win the court fight.

Democrats need to gain 12 seats to take control of the 435-member House, an uphill fight in view of state-by-state redistricting in 2001. A GOP redistricting plan in Texas could add to the GOP majority - although that plan, too, is being challenged in court - and help President Bush in a re-election bid.

Political experts say if the redistricting plans in Colorado and Texas are allowed to stand, it could lead to similar changes nationwide.

The rulings will be available here on Monday.

I think we're going to be seeing a lot of this picture in the coming year.

Marilyn Musgrave and her Federal Marriage Amendment nonsense is one thing. The woman is a wackjob, and its up to her constituants to either remove her, or stand with her in wackjob solidarity. She doesn't represent me, and I have no say in what she does. Wayne Allard on the other hand, I can do something about. I had no particular problem with Allard before, but with this move we're beginning to look a lot like the "Hate State" once again. Whoever his opponent will be in 2008 - assuming my memory lasts that long - has earned themselves a volunteer.

Sen. Wayne Allard on Tuesday introduced a Senate version of a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, meaning four of the nine Coloradans in Congress have lent their names to the controversial cause.

Allard's measure is meant to short-circuit the debate being waged in U.S. courts by defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

"This union is sacred and must remain so," Allard added.

Allard's amendment is identical to one being carried in the House of Representatives by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a Fort Morgan Republican.

Good news on the electronic voting front. I thought I had mentioned the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 before in this space, but apparently I had not. In any case, this bill, assuming it passes, should address all of the concerns about the auditability of electronic voting in time for the November 2004 general election.

As criticism of electronic voting systems heats up across the nation, three Republicans have signed on to support a bill that would force e-voting machines to produce a paper trail. Previously only Democrats had vowed to support the bill.

Republican congressmen Tom Davis of Virginia, Christopher Shays of Connecticut and New Hampshire's Charles Bass have agreed to co-sponsor the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, which was introduced to the House in May by Rush Holt (D-N.J.).

The bill would require electronic voting machines that currently don't offer a paper trail, such as touch-screen voting machines, to produce a receipt. The receipts would allow voters to verify that a machine recorded their vote correctly and would be used as an audit trail in case of a computer malfunction or other election irregularity.

There are currently 74 co-sponsors of the bill. Davis, Shays and Bass, however, are the first Republicans to sign on as co-sponsors. Davis is the former chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

Congressman Holt said voter receipts should not be a partisan issue, as all parties should be concerned about the integrity of voting systems.

In other electronic voting news, David Chaum, noted cryptographer, inventor of eCash and founder of DigiCash (a mid-90's neighbor of mine at CWI/SARA in Amsterdam) has been working with other cryptographers in coming up with a very interesting way to provide voters with take-home receipts without the vote-selling concerns which have made this illegal in the past.

The new type of receipt is printed in two layers by a modified version of familiar receipt printers. You can read it clearly in the booth, but before leaving, you must separate the layers and choose which one to keep. Either one you take has the vote information you saw coded in it, but it cannot be read (except with numeric keys divided among computers run by election officials).

The half you take is supplied digitally by the voting machine for publication on an official election website. These posted receipts are the input to the process of making the final tally. A lotto-like draw selects points in the process that must be decrypted for inspection, but not so many points as to compromise privacy. Anyone with a PC can then use simple software to check all such decryptions published on the website and thereby verify that the final tally must be correct. Such audit cannot be fooled, no matter how many voting machines or other election computers are compromised or how clever or well-resourced the attack.

Huh?

"Communication Grill Chang-tei" (henceforth, CGC) are the works on the theme of "Communication" which cooks and eats roast meat, carrying out an impending partner and an impending chat using the chat software which can operate the electric heater which can be moved via a network, and an electric heater.

[via Swen's Blog]

This Monday, December 1st is the monthly Clark 2004 Meetup. In Denver, the Meetup will be held at the John Stewart VFW Post #1, 955 Bannock St in Denver (just north of Speer). 30 are already confirmed to attend, but 84 voted so it should be a good sized group. If you plan on attending, find out your precinct number ahead of time so planning can begin for the caucus in April. Denver residents can find out their precinct numbers here. Otherwise check your voter information card or contact your County Clerk. Also, they'll be holding a clothing drive to benefit soldiers recuperating at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. If you have any winter clothes, toiletries or international calling cards or want to get some, bring them along.

Clark participated in last nights DNC Debate in Iowa (transcript here). Not that I'm biased, but I think Clark came out the winner, and most of the MSNBC analysts agreed, including Jesse Jackson, Norman Schwarzkopf, and Howard Fineman. It's interesting to note that former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and Weekly Standard columnist Stephen F. Hayes thought Dean came out the winner. Take that however you like.

My favorite Clark moment came in response to the current RNC ad airing in Iowa which accuses "Some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists." Clark's answer: "I'm not attacking the president because he's attacking terrorists. I'm attacking him because he isn't attacking terrorists. And that's the problem with this administration."

His closing statement, also somewhat in response to the RNC ad, sums up why I think Clark is our best chance in the general election.

CLARK: Well, Tom, tonight we're in Iowa. But the real debate is not here. It's going to be a year from now with George W. Bush and we can already see the outlines of this debate.

It's going to be about the war on terror, foreign policy and who can keep America safe. And we see the ads trying to strip us of our patriotism and our ability to hold our president accountable for the mistakes he's made.

CLARK: Now, we know that we're not safer today and we know he's made mistakes. But we also see those ads.

And so I think the real question is before this party: Who is the person best able to answer the questions America will ask? Who can stand toe to toe with George Bush and argue foreign policy and security policy and the values that we, as Americans, believe in?

I'm the only person on the stage who's led major forces in an alliance in war. And I'm the only person here who's negotiated or helped to negotiate an agreement to end a war.

I am the candidate who can stand with George W. Bush and win this election.

On a side note, I was pretty impressed with Carol Moseley Braun's performance in the debate. I wish she had a reasonable chance, but she'll probably be out of money shortly. She's the kind of candidate that could be spending her limited campaign funds more effectively on an Internet oriented campaign, but a look at her website is a let down. Oh well.

Along those lines, it's time for the DNC to start winnowing down the field for these debates. How they do it is up to them, but there's too many candidates up there on stage, most of whom don't have a chance in hell of winning the nomination, let alone the general election.

Incidentally, the DNC unveiled a new ad featuring Ragin' Cajun James Carville and being that K-Street has been retired, it looks like that's the only place outside the talk circuit you'll be seeing him.

With Denver native John Grahame playing so well in Tampa Bay, might they feel a need to unload some salary? Aebischer is playing very well here in Denver, but Colorado had two scouts at last Saturday's Lightning game against Buffalo. It could happen.

As hoped, The Sunday Post has Opus. Go out and grab a copy.

I've been lax in my daily dosing. To make up, here is a profile of The General running in the NY Times today.

All of which is to say that General Clark is complicated. The very conjunction of general and Democrat suggests complication. Could someone who voted for Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, the first George Bush, Bill Clinton and Al Gore be anything but complicated? Could someone who as supreme allied commander of NATO presided over its 1999 victory in Kosovo and then summarily lost his job be anything but complicated?

A defender of civil rights, he is suspicious of the post-9/11 antiterrorism law and wants to see bookmobiles chug around the country with copies of it so people will understand its dark implications. And yet he favors a constitutional amendment to outlaw defiling the American flag. Complicated.

One more indicator: In searching for an aperture into civilian life, he sketched out three fresh careers. First he would enter business and amass $40 million (a figure he plucked out of the air to have a goal) and metamorphose into a modest version of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist. That done, he would recede into a university and teach leadership. He would also work at compressing his golf handicap (last seen stuck at 18) in preparation for Career No. 3: a teaching golf professional.

A Plato-quoting Rhodes scholar four-star Army general stationed on the practice range, reconfiguring errant swings? Correct. In golf, he finds profundity. "Golf is like life," he said. "When you learn a sport, you go through the cycle of humility. You learn about yourself."

He did not get deep into these new realms. He managed to round up roughly one-twentieth of the $40 million he sought before he detoured into Career No. 4, which he crisply introduces at each campaign stop: "I'm Wes Clark. I'm running for president."

Yesterday, General Clark unveiled his "Rural and Farm Security Plan"

During the economic boom of the 1990s, many of America's rural communities didn't enjoy the same prosperity and growth as our cities and suburbs. And now, with the whole country enduring an economic downturn, the situation in rural areas has gotten even worse. Now is the time to turn the country-and the heartland-around. With his Rural and Farm Security Plan, Wes Clark will: fight for America's family farmers and ranchers, jumpstart the rural economy, explore the promise of new energy and provide access to quality healthcare and education to all Americans in rural communities.

On Friday he presented his "Manufacturing Security Plan"

The manufacturing sector is the backbone of the American economy. In the 1990s, growth in manufacturing contributed an estimated 22 percent of overall GDP growth. In 2002, the manufacturing sector constituted roughly 16 percent of total U.S. economic output. However, the manufacturing sector has been hit hard by the Bush recession. Since President Bush took office, the manufacturing sector has lost more than 2.5 million jobs-one out of every seven jobs in the manufacturing sector. That's more lost manufacturing jobs 33 months than in the previous 20 years combined. The economy has shed manufacturing jobs each and every month George W. Bush has been President. Wes Clark's New American Patriotism agenda involves making smart economic choices to get America moving in the right direction again. Wes Clark proposes a three-pronged Manufacturing Security Plan:

• Jumpstart the manufacturing sector and get jobs growing today
• Stop rewarding companies that move jobs overseas and start rewarding companies that produce in America
• Create the conditions for the manufacturing sector of the future

The Frontline Iraq episode, "Truth, War and Consequences", which I've mentioned before as one of the best summaries of our situation in Iraq will be replayed tonight at 8:30pm on KBDI Channel 12 in Denver. If you're not in Denver, you can always watch it online anytime.

If you have a spare 30 minutes or so today, give a listen to Terry Gross's interview with Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog (and creator Robert Smigel) on yesterday's Fresh Air. I had a hard time not laughing out loud on the bus this morning while listening.

Triumph, a regular on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, is a puppet and the creation of Robert Smigel. Smigel also created the animated short TV Funhouse on Saturday Night Live. Triumph has a new CD, Come Poop With Me, featuring such tracks as "Underage Bichon" and "Lick Myself." He's appeared on Hollywood Squares and on the MTV Video Music Awards, where he almost came to blows with rapper Eminem.

Here is an instance of why Rather's post-interview comments concern me. Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate, in a conversation about Clark's new ads with political correspondent William Saletan, raises the following point:

Why did his determination to fight on humanitarian grounds in Kosovo not extend to Iraq? In the scale of his despotism, Saddam Hussein was Stalin to Milosevic's Mussolini. Saddam's efforts at ethnic cleansing and repression were bigger and more vicious than anything Milosevic was capable of. Clark objects to the way Bush went about making war on Iraq, and so do I. But everything Clark says now is calculated to leave the impression, true or not, that he wouldn't have used the military to end the humanitarian and human rights catastrophe in Iraq.

What distinguishes these two instances of humanitarian intervention isn't principle, but politics. Kosovo was Clark's war. Iraq is Bush's. The general's self-serving use of one war to flay his enemy for the other is hardly shocking. Yet I resent this ad for trying to wash the contradiction away with swelling violins.

The General's position needs to be clarified for the sake of consistancy.

I honestly don't think his position is that the humanitarian situation in Iraq was not comparable to Kosovo. I would expect from his past positions that perhaps he didn't see it as the imminent, organized campaign that was underway in Kosovo. Therefore, the reasoning would go, we could have taken the time to get the world behind a humanitarian liberation of Iraq rather than trying to scare the world with bogus intelligence on WMD and terrorist links.

It's starting to be spun badly and I think a more definitive statement on this matter would help clear it up.

Clark spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations today on the topic of Restoring America's Alliances.

Earlier this year, another British Prime Minister came to the United States. Before a joint session of Congress, Tony Blair told us: "There never has been a time when the power of America was so necessary." But like Churchill, he also delivered a warning. He said that we must work with our allies to defeat terror, and that "what America must do is to show that this is a partnership built on persuasion, not command." This time, however, our leaders did not listen. They did not heed the warning.

The key points of his plan for a New Atlantic Charter:

• Mutual Commitment - To address the security issues we face, America must declare its commitment to work with its democratic allies as a first, not last resort. European nations should make the same commitment
• Improving Rather Than Spurning Treaties - All allied nations must commit to improving international treaties and organizations rather than spurning them. This commitment includes the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Kyoto Agreement. Working on international agreements is not just good policy for the United States. It will breathe new life into the Atlantic alliance.
• Agreement on Action - Craft an agreement on collective responses - diplomatic, economic and legal - to new threats, including the menace of:
  • Terrorism
  • Failed states
  • Ethnic cleansing
  • International Disputes
  • Nuclear and Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation
• At Work Outside Europe - Work with our NATO allies on a political strategy to promote reform, human rights, and the rule of law in the greater Middle East. Look for inspiration from programs like NATO's Partnership for Peace.
• Willingness to Lead - Promise to return America to its historic role of peacemaker in the Middle East - by meeting, not abdicating, our responsibility to seek an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In recent weeks, past leaders of Israel's security services and the current Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces have said that military measures alone will never lead to peace in the Middle East. Clark agrees. We must encourage both sides to meet their commitments.
• Capabilities for Action - Set the conditions and create the capabilities to enable NATO to act. This reorganizes our government so that we can bring to bear the economic, diplomatic and political tools in our arsenal. And adapting our military not just for fighting contemporary wars, but also for peacekeeping and post-conflict operations.
• Force As A Last Resort - Only as a matter of last resort in the case of imminent danger NATO should prepare for collective preemption. "Of course," Clark noted, "unilateral action may be necessary when the threat is imminent, the evidence persuasive, and other options unavailable."

(summary cribbed from the Wes Points newsletter since I've had a very busy day and didn't want to deprive you all of your Daily Dose of Clark)

Don't miss The General tonight on David Letterman.

I just got this in my email:

Tenant Notice Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Training Downtown by the
Denver Police Department

To keep you informed of Downtown activities, we have received information from the District 6 Police that a training exercise will be conducted on Thursday, November 20, 2003. The Denver Police Department, in conjunction with the District Attorney's office and a local film agency, will be producing a training seminar. The training will involve the use of actors and simulated weapons. This event will take place throughout the Downtown Denver area and is scheduled to start at 1:30 pm. If more specific information becomes available we will notify you.

Odd.

Salon has an email interview with Bloom County creator Berkeley Breathed on his return to the funny papers this Sunday with Opus. Assuming the Sunday Post will be carrying it, I'll be subscribing. I can't wait - and you won't be able to either after reading the interview.

> Last we heard from you, via the Onion interview a few years back,
> the odds of you ever doing a strip again seemed pretty slim
> (to put it mildly). What changed?

The world went and got silly again. I left in 1995 with things properly, safely dull, and couldn't imagine why anyone would feel it necessary again to start behaving ridiculously. It would have been at least courteous of the Republicans to warn a few of us inclined to retire our ink-swords that they had King George waiting in his zoom-zoom jetsuit aching to start the Crusades again.

[...]

> Again, in the Onion interview, you claimed that it was no longer possible to

> satirize American politics. In the past two years, the (visible) political landscape

> has changed considerably. Do you still believe it's impossible to satirize?

I think there's both a saturation point and a failure point in events being beyond satire. I started stripping in 1981, the same month that MTV started. Daily satirical comment was either "Doonesbury" or "The Tonight Show." The horizon was clear. We had the whole playing field. You young punks just try to imagine that there wasn't even a World Wide Web. Michael Jackson jokes passed as edgy comedy in "Bloom County."

Now. Lord, now. The din of public snarkiness is stupefying. We're awash in a vomitous sea of caustic humorous comment. I hope to occasionally wade near the black hole of pop references only obliquely without getting sucked in with everyone else. Full disclosure: I'll admit that I had a momentary lapse and recently inked a strip where Opus' mom sees a picture of Michael Jackson in 1983, proclaims Jacko's old nose irresistible and voices an urgent wish to nibble it off down to the nub.

It took every thoughtful middle-aged fiber in my being for the courage to toss the finished strip. I did, but I wept.

General Clark appeared on 60 Minutes II tonight in a great interview with Dan Rather. The transcript and a short video clip are online. Clark got very emotional during this discussion of the Balkan genoicde:

DAN RATHER: You brought a book along with you this morning and before we get too much further along, I'd like you to tell me why you brought it along and what impresses you in it.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well I brought this book along. I was given this book a few days ago up in Dartmouth. And when I opened it and just flipped through it, I -- by the photographer who was there-- he-- I immediately realized why I had so strongly warned the Pentagon about the dangers and the need to focus on Slobodan Milosevic and what was going on in the Balkans.

And I brought it along because it's-- when you talk about policy disputes, sometimes it can seem academic. It's like words. They don't mean much. And I brought it along because I want to show you what a policy dispute's all about. This is Behelena (PH) in Bosnia, Herzegovina, in 1992. This is what ethnic cleansing is, or was, in the Balkans.

These are Serbs. These are dead Muslims. This is the casualness, the pornography of violence against civilians. And this is not real war. This is war against unarmed people. (UNINTEL PHRASE) these dead, he's kicking them. He's relaxing at the end of (UNINTEL), he's got a cigarette lit, he's got his sunglasses up. He just wants to make sure he's finished his work. And I just couldn't bear the thought that the United States would stand by and allow this to happen.

DAN RATHER: What is the other picture you have marked?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: In the summer of 1998, while I was in command, another round of ethnic cleansing started. And I was warning the Pentagon about it and trying to mobilize U.S. opinion and U.S. leadership to take action to prevent it.

Well, we did take some action. We tried to undertake diplomacy. There was a lot of discussion. And meanwhile the Serbs were moving some 300 to 400,000 Kosovar Albanians -- were driven from their homes. They fled to the mountains because they had to get away from the Serb military.

And in the mountains, this is what you saw. This is a five-week-old baby who's died of exposure. And the family's preparing him for burial. When you can stop something like this, you should.

DAN RATHER: ...Hearing you speak of this is the first time I've seen you speak with real emotion.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Yeah.

DAN RATHER: Deep-seated emotion. Tell me why that is?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Why? Because you're dealing with people's lives when you're dealing with things like this, Dan. This is about life and death. It's about the difference between academic theories and discussions of deterrence and prevention and preemption, and what the real impact is on the ground of U.S. actions.

And I don't think you can be a real statesman or a real leader and be-- can connect the two. Lots of people go to school and they study it. Lots of people on the ground. But there aren't enough linkages. It's easy when you're in the United States to depersonalize all that's happening over there.

And so we don't have an interest in it. You know, there were people in this case who said, "We don't have any interest here. I mean there's no oil. If there were oil here, we'd stop this." So we'd rather fight for oil than to save lives. I don't think so. I don't think that's what this country really believes or what we stand for. So I do get emotional about this. Because when you can do good, you should

This is a man who, unlike Bush, I trust with a muscular humanitarian foreign policy. My only concern... this doesn't seem to square with a comment Rather made after the interview was over, that Clark didn't think Iraq was a case of genocide justifying invasion. I think it's fairly clear, especially in hindsight - and maybe hindsight is the key - that it was. I'm not sure if this reflects Clark's actual position, or a misperception of Rather's. I'm not the only one concerned by this (see comments in the Clark Community Network thread on the interview here, here, here and elsewhere throughout the whole thread) and I'll be following up if I can clarify his actual position. In any case, I think it's clear what his visceral reaction to such a situation is, and perhaps this is just a case of confusion following his campaigns bungling of things over the last few weeks.

I see via Gregg Easterbrook that Beliefnet has won an Online Journalism Award for General Excellence. Good for them. Beliefnet has been around for a good long time and I've always found it to be a very useful, definitive resource for spiritual matters. It's about time it received some recognition. And - if you'll excuse the evangelism - they have a really good, enlightening Unitarian Universalist section.

Beliefnet is one of the very best things on the Web--surely the best site by far for spiritual issues, and one whose ecumenical worldview both embraces and criticizes all faiths and denominations. (Note: I played a small part in the establishment of Beliefnet, so am not exactly unbiased.) Beliefnet's strength is that it fills a role the "old" media generally seem uncomfortable with: that of taking faith seriously as a serious concern and a meaningful component of millions of lives. And the depth of content on the site is simply amazing: entire areas on all world religions and denominations, plus prayer circles, memorials to thousands of people, and many other features. If you haven't wandered around Beliefnet before, now would be an excellent time. Years of under-funded, very-high-quality work on Beliefnet has finally been recognized by the world.

Here's the niftiest thing I've yet seen to come out of the Clark Community Network. Clark's old Security Officer has started up a CCN blog to discuss his experiences serving under The General.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we, his security agents used the phase "Going Hot!" everytime General Clark landed in a combat or hostile area. I want you to know that the boss is "Going Hot" based on his appearance today on FOX. I haven't seen the boss this upset since the time he dressed down war criminals from Bosnia. The last time I saw the boss, I could see that his focus is on the mission. Hang on people!!!!, the boss has his war face on! Sir, Tomahawk Cruise Missles down range!! Mar 1999

Cris Hernandez, Chief Warrant Officer (Ret)

They're also in the process of integrating some new tools into the Network. The Clark Recruiter lets you keep track of the resources you bring to the campaign and earn incentives from them. The Clark Event Finder helps you locate Clark 04 events in your area. And On The Issues centralizes all of his policy briefs in one place.

Dan Conley's is getting on board the Clark Train, and so should you.

If you need more encouragement, go watch The General flip out on a Fox News talking head attempting to pull the same old "why do you disrespect our fighting men and women by opposing Bush" schtick.

Nicholas Kristof observes that Bush's plans for Iraq are starting to sound an awful lot like his plans for Afghanistan. Take the quiz below, and then read the column to see if that is a good thing or not.

1. In the two years since the war in Afghanistan, opium production has:

(A) virtually been eliminated by Hamid Karzai's government and American forces.

(B) declined 30 percent, but eradication is not expected until 2008.

(C) soared 19-fold and become the major source of the world's heroin.

2. In Paktika and Zabul, two religiously conservative parts of Afghanistan, the number of children going to school:

(A) has quintupled, with most girls at least finishing third grade.

(B) has risen 40 percent, although few girls go to school.

(C) has plummeted as poor security has closed nearly all schools there.

The folks that revealed the Iraq war perception biases of consumers of different news sources a month or so back have a new study on the public's feelings looking back on the leadup to war. There are some very interesting numbers in here, but I'm only going to concentrate on one for now:

College Park, MD: According to a new PIPA-Knowledge Networks poll, a majority of Americans (55%) believe that the Bush administration went to war on the basis of incorrect assumptions. An overwhelming 87% said that, before the war, the Bush administration portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat, while a majority (58%) believes that the administration did not have evidence for this and only 42% believe that it was the case. A majority believes that the US went to war precipitously, with 61% saying that the US should have taken more time to find out if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and 59% saying it should have taken more time to build international support.

For those that are trying to pretend through tortured semantic games that the Administration wasn't selling Iraq as an imminent threat, there is only one response: 87%. The proof is in the pudding.

If you're interested in the whole study and the other findings, including the 77% who think we have to keep our forces in Iraq until a stable government is in place, it's available here.

[via Juan Cole]

Gregg Easterbrook is impressed with John Kerry's writings from Vietnam. I just finished the excerpt published in this month's Atlantic Monthly last night. It's too bad the timing coincided with his staff bugging out, because it really is a pretty compelling story. It just showed up in the mail last week, so it probably won't make it to The Atlantic's web site until next week but check it out when it does - or you can borrow my copy when I'm done ;)

The name John Kerry and the word Vietnam are about to make big news. The December Atlantic Monthly cover story is an excerpt from Douglas Brinkley's forthcoming book Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Kerry gave Brinkley, a historian, complete access to the copious pages of diaries, letters, and notes that the presidential candidate wrote while serving in Vietnam. The material, mainly concerning Kerry's disillusionment with failed policies and needless killing, is relevant to the situation in Iraq, and potentially controversial.

A census study confirms that Denver rocks.

In the national competition to attract highly educated young adults like Shepard, Denver ranks among the top "brain gain" cities, according to demographers studying U.S. census data.

Despite the high-tech recession of the past two years, they count Denver among the lucky cities with the natural environment, cultural life and education-dependent industries to continue attracting an elite workforce.

The benefits of this migration, they say, range from the urban vitality that comes with diversity and worldliness to the chicken-and- egg phenomenon of educated newcomers bringing expertise that in turn creates new jobs.

Ted, with blue and marigold-orange colors, will start flying from its main hub, Denver International Airport, in February and will be integrated into the United route network.

Ted will offer food for sale and possibly pay-per-view TV programming. Tickets go on sale this month.

The carrier-within-a-carrier is part of United parent UAL Corp.'s effort to emerge from bankruptcy next year and fend off growing competition from discounters. One of Ted's chief goals is to wrest customers from Denver-based Frontier.

The Denver Post has a review of my recent Denver favorite, My Brother's Bar. As the article says, it's not for large groups, as its a pretty tight fit and the management is a bit odd about moving tables, but if you have a small group and you're in the vicinity of 15th and Platte stop by for a burger and a beer. There's no sign, just look for 2376 15th St.

Brother's serves its food hot and late. Its whiskey selection - notably the ranks of Scotches - is properly diverse. The drinks fit the restaurant's dark and moody surroundings. And, of course, Guinness is on tap.

While I will of course vote for Dean if he becomes the Democratic nominee, Kevin Drum and I both agree that the quickest way to Democratic defeat would be a Dean candidacy. As far as I'm concerned, Dean would be a fine candidate, and quite possibly - as a domestic centrist - my favorite, if not for his ardent anti-war stance. It's the thousand pound anchor around his neck that is guaranteed to sink him in the general election. You simply have to look around you at the state of mind of the average American today to realize this.

I have to say it: I think Dean is unelectable. Without going into tedious detail, just try to imagine that it's April and the $200 million attack machine has geared up. And think about what the ads are going to look like, especially to moderates who aren't true believers in the Dean phenomenon already. (Go ahead: use your imagination. And try to be brutally realistic.) To me, they look devastating. I know it's not fair, but this election isn't going to have anything to do with fairness.

And if you want one single thing to chew on, it's this: national security is going to be the main theme of the election. I don't care if we like it or not, the Republicans are the ones with the money and the bully pulpit and they're going to hammer on it. And while I know that a lot of liberals think that anti-war sentiment is going to wash over the country in a great wave, it's just not realistic to think that's going to happen. Really, it's not.

Presumably inspired by fellow Boston institution MIT's Open Courseware, the Berklee College of Music, one of the finest jazz and music business schools in the country, has started the Creative Commons licensed Berklee Shares.

Welcome to the Berklee Shares Web site. Here you will find free music lessons that you can download, share and trade with your friends and fellow musicians.

Berklee Shares is:

• Individual self-contained music lessons developed by Berklee faculty and alumni.
• Free and open to the music community around the world.
• A library of MP3 audio, QuickTime movie, and PDF files.
• A glimpse into the educational opportunities provided by Berklee.

This is amazing. It has everything from lessons on music production and business, to improv, to individual instrument lessons. Check it out.

[via unproductivity]

I spent most of my childhood in two places: Syracuse, NY and Hartford, CT. I grew up watching Big East basketball, and good Big East basketball at that. Now, for only the second time ever, a basketball program has both its men's and women's teams ranked #1 in the AP Top 25 poll. That program is UConn. It should be an exciting season, and I hope to find the time to follow the Huskies a bit closer than I have in the past few years.

The regular season is still several days away and expectations couldn't be higher on the Connecticut campus.

Both men's and women's teams are ranked No. 1 in their respective AP Top 25 poll released in the past 24 hours. Men's coach Jim Calhoun will try to blend one of the nation's top recruiting classes with the All-American inside-outside combination of Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon.

Women's coach Geno Auriemma has everyone back from last year's national championship team as the Huskies, led by national player of the year Diana Taurasi, aim for their third straight title and fifth overall.

The Post (and the City Council, and the Governor, and the former Governor, just about everyone but former Mayor Webb) gives Hickenlooper's first 3 months good grades.

"The biggest thing about Hickenlooper is that he's not bound by ideology, he's bound by finding a solution to the problem," said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.

In just the past seven days, Hickenlooper and his staff have:

Settled the United Airlines-Frontier Airlines gate standoff in a deal that lifts heavy clouds hanging over Denver International Airport.

Won lopsided voter permission to rewrite the rules for paying city workers by providing an incentive-based salary system.

Subtracted $70 million from the 2004 city budget without major layoffs and won the City Council's unanimous support.

Repealed the parking-meter rate increases that he used as a catapult to get into office.

The pace of announcements and accomplishments was not coordinated but an accident of timing, said Hickenlooper's chief of staff, Michael Bennet

I'm not sure I buy the "aw shucks, it was just an accident" line. As evidenced by his use of commercials, Hickenlooper and his Administration are pretty media saavy. But who cares!? He's done a great job and the public will benefit. Go Hick!

I know some of my readers enjoy a little homebrew[ing], so I thought I'd pass along that the fine local blogger, Colorado Luis, is expanding his occasional zymurlogical musings into a weekly feature. Join in and post about your own brewing adventures every Saturday, and send Luis a ping ;).

Calpundit has Friday Cat Blogging, one of my favorite features in the blogosphere. I've been thinking that I haven't been blogging enough about beer lately, so as a way of getting more beer posts I'm starting Beer Blogging Saturday right now.

Also, be sure to check out his many contributions as the most prolific Colorado correspondent for the Political State Report

Wired is reporting on The General's new 'Clark Community Network'

The Clark Community Network allows users to contribute content, organize themselves into groups and administer various aspects of the network. Barrett said this shared sense of responsibility would differentiate Clark's online community from the popular Dean campaign blog.

"The Dean campaign has a lot of momentum and they're utilizing it well, but they are missing the key aspect of online community, which is a sense of ownership to a group or affiliation -- geographic or special-interest -- providing a little bit of ownership of the campaign to every person who wants it, and providing a robust set of communities online that allow people to talk and plan events and do grassroots campaigning," he said.

At launch, Clark Community Network users will be able to create blogs, polls and e-mail lists. Soon after, Barrett said, developers plan to roll out additional features, including photo galleries, event planners and a feature that tracks and rewards users who bring in recruits to the site.

[via Political Wire]

This is one of the funniest take-downs I've read in a long time, and for that Philosoraptor earns a spot in my Daily Read. If you've got a spare 10 minutes, give it a look.

In the end, the essay does promote a caricature of masculinity, a caricature that's tied up with disrespect for both women and homosexuals (raising the question: who's left for this guy to have sex with, anyway?). And, to top it all off, du Toit apparently lives in some weird, right-wing dream world in which Republicans are upstanding defenders of the good and the true, Democrats are pansies, and liberal women are just waiting around to be ravished by Donald Rumsfeld. No, I'm not making this up. Read on, reader; you are about to be amazed. You are about to enter... The DuToit-light Zone...

[via Ted Barlow at Crooked Timber. Read the original post, it contains another funny piece]

Kevin Drum and I had similar reactions to Bush's recent speech, which makes all the right noises but is unfortunately belied by Bush's actions.

So I don't get it. I really don't. Hawks are in favor of scaring the Middle East into reform through force of arms, but George Bush isn't willing to take the political risks it would take to do that. Doves are in favor of softer efforts that rely on diplomacy and multilateral institutions, but Bush is pretty obviously not interested in that either.

In other words, he's not willing to do any of the things that might conceivably bring democracy and liberalization to the Middle East.

So: nice speech. But regardless of whether your ideas are good or bad, you're doomed to certain failure unless you're willing to seriously follow up on them. George Bush isn't, and since I think failure here has the potential to be catastrophic, I'll be voting for someone else next November.

This is the speech he probably should have started out the whole Iraq effort with, but unfortunately he didn't.

As I said just before the war started:

Those that are deceiving themselves into thinking Bush actually plans to follow through with the Grand Plans to democratize the Middle East are living in a fantasy world as should be readily apparent by now. Just because you hope something will happen doesn't mean Bush has any intention of letting it happen. And even if he does, the chances of it resulting in a government that's friendly to America are just about nil.

Boot Bush.

I'll preface this post with this: I didn't like the original Matrix all that much. I thought it was an interesting idea with some entertaining action sequences, but as soon as people started trying to interpret the philosophy of the Matrix, it was being taken way too seriously. But, as Slate points out, at least the original made some sense within the world it constructed for itself.

But in the sequels the Wachowskis drop the enduring but pleasingly simple appearance/reality problem, which is where the Matrix's real buzz comes from. They instead treat Morpheus' incoherent and New Agey murmurings about Fate as the central issue, which is a real buzz-kill. First, it leads to a series of numbing litanies on human agency. Reloaded airs out four distinct theories of causality and action: Neo's insistence on free will, Morpheus' benign fatalism, the Architect's malign fatalism, and the Mervingian's scientific determinism.

This is boring enough, but worse is that, with Fate displacing Reality as the central pseudo-philosophical issue, the Matrix loses its central place in The Matrix. Though Neo and his crew continue to nose around the nooks and crannies of the Matrix's program, both sequels ignore the fate of people still trapped. We no longer get to participate in the giddy, awful process of enlightenment and emancipation, and the fragile semblance of logic that drew from the original's tidy dualism totally collapses. (Reloaded signals its abandonment of even the pretense of coherence when Neo, head bowed and hand extended in the stance of a Pentecostal faith healer, stops several real-world machines in their tracks. By this time, the audience's response is, "Ah, what the hell. Why not?")

I haven't seen the latest, but I did just see Reloaded for the first time this weekend (on DVD) so, with it fresh in mind, I offer you the quote I most identified with in Slate's assessment.

The Wachowski brothers, moved by some inscrutable nerd-muse, apparently decided that the one glaring flaw of the original Matrix, besides the whole superfluous Matrix thing, was that it didn't feel enough like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I've been waiting for a reasonable assessment of Dean's Confederate flag statements. The American Prospect has delivered.

But, if he can reframe our nation's obsession with its race into a shared economic agenda, he stands a chance of making progress. Indeed, lost in the hoopla about Dean's remarks was his argument that those poor southern whites "ought to be voting with us because their kids don't have health insurance, either, and their kids need better schools, too." That's the part not enough people heard -- and that's what we need to hear more about from Dean.

The DNC had a little Bush haiku contest on their blog, Kicking Ass. Haiku good.

1st place: Mark L.
I pledge allegiance
to the United States of
Halliburton, Inc.

2nd place: doogieh
What Roves the hallways
of the Bush America?
Some say it's treason.

3rd place: Wayne Canne
YOU ARE EITHER WITH
deficit rich guy tax breaks
US, OR AGAINST US.

4th place: doogieh
Please watch what you say.
Patriots don't criticize
The Republicans.

5th place: acallidryas
New attacks each day.
Over one hundred more dead.
Mission Accomplished?

6th place: Mark L.
No child left behind,
Clean skies, healthy forests and
Iraq. Pants on fire!

7th place (tie): Rumblelizard
There should be limits
To freedom, he said. And now,
We see he meant it.

7th place (tie): Shant Mesrobian
Screwed the country bad
Two thousand four awaits him
He'll go just like Dad.

9th place (tie): Irfo
Preppy cheerleader
Pretends to be working man
But nothing's working.

9th place (tie): Debbs
Watch fat cats choke down
$2,000 hot dogs.
Hand me a pretzel.

Special Honorable Mention: Hollywood Liberal
Thank you DNC...
Can't stop thinking Bush haiku.
Now look what you've done!

The Denver Post has a good article summarizing bioenergy projects in Colorado. This bit caught my eye as something that might interest at least one of my readers

Blue Sun Biodiesel and Shoco Oil Co. next week will open a fueling station in Commerce City for biodiesel, a transportation fuel made from vegetable oils.

The product can be made by squeezing oil from crops or by recycling used cooking oils.

Biodiesel customers include the Regional Transportation District, city of Boulder, University of Colorado, Aspen Homes of Colorado, Rocky Mountain National Park and several school districts.

Emphasis added.

In an op-ed for the Boston Globe, General Clark previews his "success strategy" for Iraq. In summary his points are:

• End the American monopoly.

  "I would transform the military occupation into a NATO operation with US forces in charge. With US command, NATO authority, and UN endorsement, other NATO countries would send troops, and Arab countries would also step in."

• Find the right force mix.

  "The more conventional forces we have, the more logistics we need. The more unarmored Humvees on patrol, the more unnecessary American deaths from roadside bombs."

• Better border protection.

  "To stanch the flow of foreign jihadists into Iraq, we must seal the borders. That requires assistance from Iraq's neighbors. Using carrots and sticks, we can persuade these countries to cooperate."

• Secure ammunition.

  "Weapons dumps throughout Iraq are unguarded. It is estimated that 500,000 tons of ammunition is still not secure. We must patrol these sites and destroy these weapons."

• More intelligence resources.

  "Right now too many of our linguists and intelligence experts are working on the search for weapons of mass destruction. International inspectors should take over that search, which would free up enough experts to help us track down those who are killing our soldiers and creating chaos."

• Formidable Iraqi security forces.

  "We should recall the Iraqi Army to duty right now. If given good pay, good training, and solid background checks, Iraqi civilians can also help fill the intelligence and security gap."

• Give the Iraqis a rising stake in our success.

  "It would be wrong to transfer authority to the Iraqis before they are ready to succeed, but we can give Iraqis more control over their destiny. The administration says the Iraqis can't have a sovereign government without a constitution. This is backwards. Iraqis, appointed by representatives from Iraq's 50 elected regional councils, should name an interim government even while a constitution emerges. That is what our Founding Fathers did.

  If we give the interim government control over oil revenues and transfer authority on an ongoing basis, it will be easier for the Iraqi people to see that those blowing up pipelines are sabotaging their future. If we give civilians a stake in stemming the violence, they will help us solve this problem."

  
  

The plan will be more fully fleshed out in a speech he will be giving today in South Carolina.

[UPDATE]
Another important point from a USA Today article about the speech:

Clark said even though he opposed sending troops to Iraq, they must stay to finish the job. "Early exit means retreat or defeat. There can be neither," he said.

Retreat is not an option. We made this mess and we must clean it up.

[UPDATE 2]
A more fleshed out version of this is available on General Clark's web site. The key additional points in my view:

Create a new international governing authority. The Coalition Provisional Authority, which is the American-led de facto government of Iraq, should be replaced. But the United Nations is neither able nor willing to assume the daunting task of governing Iraq. General Clark would create a new international structure—similar to those used in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan to govern Iraq. The interim government would have representatives from the European Union, the United States, neighboring countries and others who support our efforts to build a democratic Iraq.

[...]

Elect a truly representative government. The Iraqi people have already elected 50 city and regional councils in Iraq. These councils could elect a new interim government in Iraq just as state legislatures once elected members to the U.S. Senate. This new government would represent Iraq internationally and control oil revenues, funds and any frozen assets through a transparent, internationally audited process. Transfer