Dumbest Idea Ever

Ok, I think that's a little harsh. I mean the Republican proposal to give everybody $100 rebate this summer to help buy gas is dumb, but the dumbest idea ever? LOL!

This is the problem when you govern based on ideology rather than results. Republican's answer to everything is to give money out of the treasury, thinking that this will make the voters love them. But $100 rebate won't have any effect on consumer sentiment at the gas pump. It may help them buy an iPod, but they'll still fume about gas.

I think the article, and the comments by various analysts from CATO, etc. are correct. You learn to deal with the gas prices you have, not the gas prices you want to have.

Since gas started going up in price, I've moved closer to work and I drive considerably less largely as a result. I fill up once every two weeks, rather than once every 5 days. So in a given month, I fill up twice rather than 5-6 times. Figure that out $40 * 2 = $80 versus $40 * 6 = $240. (Yes, it costs about $40 to fill up my 15 gallon tank)

Does it suck for a lot of people? Yes, obviously. But Americans have nobody to blame but themselves. Eveyrthing we've done, from urban design, to car design, to where we live, all assums low gas prices. Things are going to change.

Stupid Letter of the Day

This one is a bit borderline, but it shows a lack of understanding of the complexities.

HIGH-PRICED GAS

Thanks, but no thanks

• We can't drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• We can't drill off the East Coast.
• We can't drill off the West Coast.
• We can't drill in the Gulf of Mexico (but the Cubans and Chinese can).
• No new oil refineries have been built in the United States in the last 25 years.
• We shouldn't use the oil shale in Colorado even though it potentially could make us independent of Middle East oil.
• We should raise gasoline taxes to discourage consumption.

For all of these items, I would like to thank the Democrats and their environmentalist friends. They got what they wished for -- high-priced gas. If the
environmentalists were willing to negotiate, we could lower the price of
gasoline, but they don't want prices lower. They want to force us to be more
like the Europeans, no matter the cost.

JERRY BICH, WAYZATA

Several things here. About the only thing the Democrats or Environmentalists have been against has been the drilling of oil in ANWR.

Otherwise, the drilling of oil off the coasts, or massive strip mining in Colorado, I suspect you'd find a great deal of support against this by everybody who lives there. Certainly that has been the case in the Gulf Coast where you have Republican hegemony. Jeb Bush spoke out against drilling for oil off Florida's coast, because they were afraid it would hurt tourism business.

As to gas taxes. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of raising taxes to reduce consumption. But there's some balance to be had between us and Europe. European gas taxes are part of their general tax revenue. However in the US, while gas tax is a usage tax for the roads, we subsidize transportation through our general tax revenue.

We ought to fund our roads entirely from gas tax, and remove the income tax portion of their funding. Just my opinion anyway.

Sigh...

Sen. Steve Kelley came out last night floating an idea for a half cent tax increase to pay for those damn stadiums.

I see no justification for state sponsorship of sports stadiums. If the Twins and Vikings want us to pay for their stadium, they can turn over half ownership in the team. Or a contract saying they will stay here in the Twin Cities for the next 50 years, and if not they will pay back the initial cost of construction for the stadiums.

Otherwise, if they aren't loyal to us, I see no reason to be loyal to them. I don't pay blackmail.

No Sex?

What fun is a scandal without sex?

Ohwell. It appears that the Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour provided the initial funding for the telemarketing firm that's been convicted in a phone jamming scandal in New Hampshire.

Is there anybody left in the Republican Party who hasn't been indicted, arrested, or implicated? This one's an odd duck. The National Republican Party has been providing millions for legal defense to these guys, so you know there are a lot of people involved or they would have just shoved 'em over the edge of the ship.

Is The Watergate a National Landmark?

If the Watergate is not a national landmark, protected as a historical building, it ought to be. It seems whenever there is something bizarre afoot in Washington, that hotel makes the paper.

And this is a twofer... The watergate and a sex scandal.

Several of Wilkes' former employees and business associates say he used the
hospitality suites over the past 15 years to curry favor with lawmakers as well
as officials with the CIA, where both Wilkes and Wade sought contracts.

How do you curry favor?

A limousine would pick up Cunningham and a prostitute and take them to the ADCS hospitality suite, Wade reportedly told investigators. Federal agents are investigating whether other legislators had similar arrangements with Wilkes or Wade, a business associate of Wilkes who ran his own defense contracting company, MZM Inc.

Nice... And supposedly they've got pictures, and the FBI has been interviewing the women.

Pondering 2008...

This is a rather long post, just rambling really. But, once again today, I encountered several people promoting the Wisdom of the 2008 Presidential race. A race that's well over two years away, and my God considering how long the 2004 one went on, I think we could wait until at least August of 2008 to worry about the next one.

That being said, these discussions are kind of funny and they always boil down to the CW of Hillary versus McCain.

Let's start out with my "Why Hillary Ain't Running in 2008" theory, which I've been tossing around since sometime in 2003 when she was supposedly going to run in the 2004 race. She doesn't want to run. If you have watched her over the last six years in the Senate, she's quite happy and comfortable there. In fact if you watch C-Span, you'll notice quite often her off to the side of the Senate floor with a gaggle of Senators surrounding her, with her giving the lecture. I'm convinced that she's looking for a leadership role on a committee, possibly majority leader or whip. I still can't see her running for President, she doesn't want that negative attention again.

Now what's always amazing about these CW claims is that they come from the whacky right about as often as the far left, and neither group particularly cares for the Clintons.(I'm honestly not sure who hates them worse, seriously...) Now one thing I wonder if she were to run how much hold she'd have in the nomination process. I know the far left would stay away, more likely supporting Feingold, but I'm not sure about the center core. By and large, Hillary is adored by the party center, but even then there's a general feeling amongst the people I talk to that they'd like to see someone besides a Clinton or Bush in there, just because they are sick of all the crap.

Now many point to her fundraising as evidence she's looking long term. With about $20 million on hand right now. But New York is a big state, and if she has a challenger, it requires a good deal of money to compete. Consider Mayor Bloomberg spent at least $66 million in 2005, and he didn't even have much competition, winning with a 20 point spread. So I'm not buying that argument yet. If she's still got $20 mil in the bank going into 2007, then yeah, maybe.

We'll see, but I'm still placing my money on Hillary not running.

As for John McCain. Let's get real. Anybody who thinks McCain is going to win a Republican nomination is so out of touch with the Republican base, they probably can't tell what time of day it is. Last year, John McCain garnered more support from Democrats than Republicans. He's not very well liked in the Republican party, which is why lately he's been pandering so much.

I was a Bob Dole supporter in 1988. Not very hardcore, but I went to the caucus and cast my ballot. I was rather dismayed by what I encountered, as the Pat Robertson supporters were there in force. There's two likely scenarios that play out in 2008. It's either going to be a repeat of 1988, where the psuedo-Christian right declares they are pissed off because they were responsible for Reagan's election in 1984 and they didn't get what they wanted out of it(Essentially the Enactment of Sharia law in the US). So they'll try to run Ralph Reed or some other guy as their candidate in 2008. For those who don't recall, in that Iowa caucus in 1988, Pat Robertson came in second place with 25% of the ballots a strong showing to Dole's 37%.(Oh yeah, remember Bush the Greater? He got 19%)

The other scenario, which is possible but I have little faith in it, is that a whole boatload of former Republicans get mad, show up at the caucus/primaries and try to take the party back from the fruitloops. Chance of this happening? About 10%. A lot of these guys endorsed Kerry in 2004, and some of them are running in the 2006 midterms as Democrats, having long since given up a return to sanity in the Republican party.

So where does McCain fit in all of this?

Well as we all recall in 2000, he was an ardently opposed to the psuedo-Christian right . Now as it turns out, I think he was right. The religious right has "turned good causes into businesses". They've gotten smarter since the 1980s, and have learned how to hide the money better.[Queue in Pat Robertson]

His positions killed his campaign. The reality is, since 1984 increasingly the Republican party has become owned by the psuedo-Christian right. If you don't pander to them, you're not going to win any nomination. But it's a game, you have to pander to them, but at the same time not do anything which royally pisses off the other contingents within the party, what you might call the Business Wing. The Business Wing doesn't really much care about morality, they just want to make a buck. Generally, that's not a bad thing. Where they go off to lunch is that they often think that the Government should protect them from competition, which contradicts the foundations of a Free Market Economy as laid out by Adam Smith, but that's another topic in it's entirety.

Both sides have been beating on each other in recent years, with the Janet Jackson thing, the Terri Schiavo fiasco and such. The psuedo-Christian right has overstepped the rules of the game and hurt profit margins. So there's some heat growing between the groups.

But now we throw a new loop into the fruitloop bowl. The realization by many psuedo-Christians that they've been bamboozled for years. This was best exemplified by this little quote:

"The whacko's get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. ... Simply put, we want to bring out the whacko's to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public
lets the whole thing slip past them."

That's Michael Scanlon, a former Tom Delay aide and bagman for Jack Abramhoff, now rotting in prison having plead guilty to conspiring to bribe a member of Congress. Abramhoff and Scanlon collected millions from one Indian tribe to make sure another Indian tribe couldn't open up a Casino. They worked to accomplish this by hiring psuedo-Christian leader Ralph Reed and getting him to argue that gambling was immoral. Well, only certain kinds of gambling... Reed never told the church goers he was being paid by a Casino. [I did say the Business Wing thinks Government should exist to prevent competition, did I not?]

So where are we with McCain?

I honestly don't think his pandering to the psuedo-Christian right is going to amount to much. They're not interested in pandering any more. They want red meat, and they remember what he said in 2000. Without their support, he can't get the nomination. With their support, he loses all of the support he had in 2000 when he was trying to be honest.

Even then, the other problem for McCain is where will the mood be in 2008. Lately he's been fluffing Bush the Lesser to make up for dissing him previously. Probably one of the few people left in Congress to do so, most all the rest are running fast. What's that mean come 2008? If McCain is right, and there are a whole bunch of Bush loyalists around his strategy works. If he's wrong, and people are so sick of Bushism as a Republican message, he probably would have been better to stick to his 2000 message.

Ok, but what if I'm all wrong. What if the election is down to Hillary versus McCain? What happens then?

Now that's difficult to say. I guess in part it depends on how damaged McCain is by the nomination process.

Hillary on the other hand. I don't know. At one time you might have said her relationship to the former President was a handicap. However, the longer we put up with Bush the Lesser, the better Bill Clinton looks. If an election were held today between Bush the Lesser and Bill Clinton, it'd be Clinton by a 40% spread.

And Hillary is a sharp campaigner, and has good policy ideas. Some claim she's turned to the right in recent years, but they're out of touch. As I said, the left doesn't like the Clintons. The main reason is, they aren't ideological. Like Franklin Roosevelt, they understand that the goal is to address a problem, not to follow a blind ideology just to prove a point. (Roosevelt wasn't liked by the left either in 1932. They thought he was a flip-flopper. LOL!)

Honestly, I think if it came down to Hillary versus McCain, I think you'd see Hillary win. As people have gotten to know here, they are more impressed. She's polling at 63% right now. She won in 2000 with 55%, when Gore had 60%. You cannot say the same for McCain, as he tends to wear out over time, much like Bush the Lesser.

It's interesting to note when I was in England back in the fall of 2004, people were pondering who might win the US election. There were a lot of comments from people that in a way they kind of hoped Bush the Lesser would win, even though they couldn't stand the guy.

The reason? They figured that people would get so sick of Bush the Lesser and his bullshit that they'd turn to anybody else for a way out... in particular they hoped for a Hillary candidacy.

Obviously the first part of their prediction has turned out right. Americans are tired of Bush the Lesser and his bullshit. But does that mean Hillary will run, and garner the nomination? We'll see.

Who do I think will run in 2008?

On the Republican side you're going to see George Allen, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Bill Frist for certain. Possibly Condi Rice, but that's a long shot. There's been some rumblings that Bush should fire Cheney. The latimes suggested replacing him with Bob Dole. The London Times(via WashPost) says Bush should fire Cheney and replace him with Condoleezza Rice. If Rice was VP, she'd run for Prez. That'd be interesting, and is probably is are most likely scenario of a black female Prez. I mean can you imagine if the Democrats nominated a black female? The Republicans would get their sheets out of the closet and start burning crosses, anything to stop it.

Who else? Tom Ridge perhaps? Christie Todd Whitman? Rudi Guilliani? Not likely, the religious right isn't going to tolerate a pro-choice adulterer, and besides that people I've spoken with said he's got a lot of Mob skeletons in the closet. Not sure who the psuedo-Christians will fall behind, possibly Frist because he did diagnose Terri Schiavo on camera. Of course who could forget Alan Keyes? What better than Entitling Every American to Bread and Water for Life, and even beyond Death?

On the Democratic side. John Kerry will be back. Russ Feingold from Wisconsin is talking about running. You're going to see the return of Wesley Clark for certain and likely John Edwards. Bill Richardson possibly or Tom Vilsack.

However... There's another name that get's bandied about, and he's denied he is interested, but I feel it's a strong possibility if he can be talked into it. I'll give you a hint:

G O R E

Stupid Letter of the Day (netlet edition)

This isn't the stupidest letter I've seen, but it certainly shows that the writer just doesn't "get it".

Guns in the city: They don't belong

Why isn't the outrage over the recent tragic shootings in Minneapolis directed at the weapons that did the deed? Where is the outcry against guns; what does it take for "gun rights advocates" to understand the problem? These guns aren't being used for the recreational "sport" of hunting nor are they aiding ordinary citizens in their "inalienable right" to bear arms.

Please, please wake up and smell the gunpowder; take a stance, tighten the laws -- take guns out of circulation.

ANDREA BOLGER, MINNEAPOLIS

In recent months there have been a rash of shootings in Minneapolis. One mugging in the uptown area, and then a random shooting in the downtown area which have really got people up in arms. Along with several driveby shootings, shootings at cars, a hotel robbery if I recall correctly, etc.

Several writers have complained that the downtown shooting has gotten people up in arms only because the victim was white. I disagree. I was downtown the night a few years ago when a Gopher football player was shot, and I believe I heard the shot from several blocks away. That seemed to be an early indicator of a problem, IMHO, and people were upset then. The reason why the downtown random shooting has people up in arms, is because it was so unexpected. They were outside of Block-E at 11pm, with a fairly large crowd of people walking around when some guy just randomly fired into the crowd.

People tend to expect crimes in bad neighborhoods, and they stay away from them. They're less happy about crimes happening in public areas because the unexpected scares them. Wouldn't have mattered what race the victim was. Yeah, it's not fair, but that's the way it is.

Regardless, the problem isn't the guns it is the culture of violence. I offer no solutions for it, I just know that banning guns isn't going to solve the problem.

On a similar note, it should also be noted that since passing the concealed carry bill, crime has not decrease as it's proponents anticipated. In fact it has increased. I don't think that is causual, other than the bouncer at Nye's who was gunned down by a guy with a concealed carry permit.

People need to stop shouting past one another, and actually look at the problem from a non-ideological vantage point.

Beware of crazies...

Most people "with a cause" happen to be crazy. That's my claim after years of examining the evidence.

Such as Moussaoui, and now Katherine Harris.

If you've been following the Harris race down in Florida, it is doing only one thing and that is confirming that she most likely acted without the best of intentions in her role in the 2000 election.

Although, I do hope she stays in the race, despite all of the mistakes she has made. As I saw when I attended the 1988 Iowa caucuses to cast a vote for Bob Dole(when Pat Robertson nearly won), she is representative of the majority of Republicans. It'd be a shame if the whackadoodles didn't get a chance to vote for one of their own.

Minnesotans United For Minding Your Own Business

That's my new group. I just founded it yesterday when I heard some doofus on MPR whining about how the gay bashing amendment was dead. He claimed to be representing a group called Minnesotans United for Protecting Marriage or some goofy name.

Our membership(Otherwise known as me) is working on a charter, mission and vision statements.

Iraq The Sequel (Death to Iran!)

Kevin Drum has an interesting post up over at WashingtonMonthly.com

The jist of it is that shortly after invading Iraq, Iran actually tried to send messages to the US seeking to open a dialogue. The one quote, which is most interesting is that Iran was fully aware of what issues they would need to address, and that this discussion had the blessing of the highest officials.

In the spring of 2003, shortly before I left government, the Iranian Foreign
Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to
resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to
address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli
terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major
players in Iran's power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.

Sadly, the Bush Administration not only told them to buzz off, they apparently even yelled at the Swiss Ambassador who passed on the note.

I think it's interesting that in the late 1990s we were talking about Iran in terms of their reformers, a desire by the people to change the onerous nature of their government. It was quite positive, and I think had we dangled some carrots and encouraged the voices we could have seen a move towards freedom within Iran. Now we're at the polar opposite position, all in the span of five years.

Bush and his idiots are the same morons who were mad at Reagan when he began making overtures towards Gorbachev. Fortunately Ronnie didn't listen to them, and we ended up with a pretty good result with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But imagine if instead of opening up dialogue, they'd closed the door on Gorbachev and started threatening him instead. Chances are likely, he would have been ousted from power and replaced with a hard liner and we'd still be where we were in 1980.

This is Republican foreign policy. They're arsonists. They don't solve problems, they create them and then use them to campaign on.

Is Mark Dayton the Worst Senator?

So apparently says Time Magazine.

This article first starts out with the top 10 senators, which it's interesting to note with the exception of Jon Kyl is nearly all liberals(Durbin, Kennedy, Levin), moderates(Conrad, Lugar, Snowe, Specter) or those who play moderate(Cochran, Kyl, McCain).

The bottom five are Akaka, Allard, Bunning, Burns, and Dayton.

Anyway, so what's wrong about Dayton... (and why isn't Santorum on the list?)

Time notes two things... his closing of his senate offices, and claiming the Mayo Clinic was worth more than the whole of South Dakota. Kind of odd choices. The closing of his senate offices was a political point, that apparently got lost to the pundits, that being Dayton was basically pointing out the hypocrisy of the Republican Fear tactics in Washington. Granted, Dayton can't explain how to get out of a paper bag, he's that bad of a speaker.

But the Mayo Clinic comment? Wow, that's just really dumb. I mean dumb on Time's part. He's a Senator from Minnesota, and the Mayo Clinic is one of our crown jewels.

Dayton's been a pretty ineffective Senator, and the only reason I'd vote for him is that generally speaking the Republican candidates were worse(his opponent in 2000 didn't have time to campaign cause he spent most of his time chasing down his adult son wanted on kidnap charges), or our other illustrious Senator Norm "Mayor Quimby" Coleman, who event let Sideshow Bob out of prison.

Lousy senator? Sure. Worst Senator? Not even close. I know it would have generated a lot of hate mail to Time, but Bill Frist really takes that lead and he's the majority leader.

ATI X1300 has 256 Megs

According to the Dell website, the X1300 option for the Dell E1505 has 64 Megs of internal RAM and 64 Megs of Shared RAM. It's called Hypermemory.

Ok, so why does my laptop say it has 256 Megs of video memory?



Just wondering...

They've always been corrupt

A recent Washington Post article, talks about how the Republicans have become today what they railed against in 1994.

This belief is based on the assumption that the Republicans were not corrupt in 1994. Let's keep in mind that this was Newt Gingrich and his ilk in charge of things. Their declarations of supposed fraud were part of a political strategy, not to eliminate it, but rather to get their hands on it.

I was there, I remember the arguments, they've never made sense from a logical point of view.

Stupid Letter of the day (NetLet Edition)

Whoops, I missed one.

Apparently it's important to ban gay marriage because kids deserve both a Mom and a Dad.

People forget there are many valid reasons why this law is in place. One is
to promote a family unit with a Mom and Dad. Millions of Minnesotans including
myself do not feel it's "mean spirited" to believe that kids deserve a Mom and a
Dad. That's what's best for them emotionally, socially and psychologically.
Obviously opponents will disagree with me but no one can logically argue that
fact. Men and women are different. Kids need a positive male and female role
model in their life. Are there children of gay couples who grow up emotionally
and psychologically stable? Sure there are, but that does not mean we should
purposely try to redefine the family unit.

See, if your gay and you want to get married you can. You just have to marry someone of the opposite sex. Apparently the letter writer kind of forgot that you normally want to get married to someone you'll be happy living with.

I still don't understand the point of their argument. Why should I care what someone else wants to do with their life? I got enough problems dealing with my own.

Stupid Letter of the Day

Tom Delay resigning is not a stain on the Republican Party, nor is the Culture of Corruption he left behind. No sir, in fact it's a good thing, argues this writer.

The accountable GOP

Ever notice how when Republicans cross the line of ethical behavior, the party confers and the person in question steps down, aside or out of the way?

From the Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon to Trent Lott's fatal toast, the Republicans always do the right thing, the proper thing, the dignified thing. Even FEMA Director Michael Brown bowed out in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And of course even more recently, Rep. Tom DeLay announced that he would resign his seat and not seek reelection.

It doesn't matter with the Republican Party whether you are a congressman, a senator or the president -- if you cross the line, you fall on your sword.

Not so with the Democrats, however.

There's a reason the Republican Party has ruled the polls the past 12 years, and that reason is not likely to go unnoticed this election year.

BOB HUGE, EDINA

You don't get any more wingnutty than this spin. What Democrat is he thinking of? The guys in prison?

The main difference I see, is that the Republicans will defend all kinds of illegal behavior until it's too painful. Democrats tend to distance themselves right away.

Honorable Mention... John Kline claiming he was a critic of Tom Delay and he voted to reinstate the rules that barred him from serving as leader. Strange that he doesn't mention how he voted when they removed the rules. He's been kind of silent about that one.