The Phantom City

Born on this day:

• Christopher Wren
• Arthur Rimbaud
• John Dewey
• Bela Lugosi
• Art Buchwald
• Mickey Mantle
• Tom Petty
• Viggo Mortensen
• Snoop Dogg
• and me…

My Geek Horoscope:

Libra - Despite all your lobbying efforts you won’t be able to convince Apple to release OS X for the Commodore 64.

Oh, good. Our administration has protected Iraq, and by extension the world, from the danger of a small Islamic peacekeeping force under the command of the UN. I’m sure our troops are grateful to our government for saving them from a slightly increased likelihood for peace, free elections, and UN involvement. Yep, busy with such problems as this, it is no wonder the administration’s thought capacity has become so dangerously overextended.

Courtesy of The Daily Kos

Ron Suskind writes in The New York Times Magazine about Bush’s “faith-based” presidency.

While the article runs on the anti-Bush side — Suskind isn’t coy about what he thinks of “Bush’s faith” vs. the world of reason and picks and chooses the worst quotes, as most folks do when they are trying to prove a point — it brings up an interesting point: Is faith without doubt good for a fallible human being? Even — or perhaps especially — as a person who respects faith as much as I do, and who has and probably always will be a Baptist at heart, the idea of having certainty that your words are the voice of God bothers me a great deal.

However, as an American who is used to living in a country with checks and balances that tend to damp down our tendencies toward theocracy, I think what bothered me even more in this article was the idea that Bush talks in his “faithful” way to evangelical audiences and tones it all down in the swing states, where he might upset one of the undecideds. Apparently, for our President, the voice of God speaks loudest in situations where it can get you elected, and hushes up when it might offend. It’s good to know that our President’s belief in God is so convenient to his reelection, and that folks who should be most angered by his pragmatic appropriation of their beliefs may be out voting for him as a bloc come November.

Courtesy of The New York Times (free registration required)

Update: The Revealer has an interesting take on the difference between Bush’s version of faith and the more fundamentalist views. Of course, the President is not alone. The “magical realism” he describes is a old, venerated strain of religion in this country, and probably describes the beliefs and practice of as many evangelicals as New Agers.

Update link courtesy of William Gibson’s Blog

Update, Part 2: Al Gore’s take on the issue. (You know, I wonder what the world would have been like if Al could have won his own home state, or even perennially Democratic West Virginia?)

Update, Part 2 link courtesy of electablog

You know, I can only laud the fact that Saddam Hussein is out of power, but for President Bush to say over and over again that the world is safer now that has happened is to ignore events such as the removal of Iraq’s nuclear weapons research facilities by parties unknown, while we’re nominally in charge.

I’ve never read a Laurell K. Hamilton book, but my wife has read some of them, and therefore the description of Incubus Dreams from the New York Times Book Update actually makes sense to me:

Is a vampire serial killer preying on strippers?

BUSH: Gosh, I just don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama bin Laden. It’s kind of one of those exaggerations.

Of course we’re worried about Osama bin Laden. We’re on the hunt after Osama bin Laden. We’re using every asset at our disposal to get Osama bin Laden.

George W. Bush, Third Presidential Debate, October 13, 2004

Hit the Wayback Machine…

Q “But don’t you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won’t truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?”

THE PRESIDENT: “Well, as I say, we haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. ”

George W. Bush, Presidential Press Conference, March 13, 2002

Excerpts from the second Presidential debate:

BUSH: “I remember sitting in the White House looking at those generals, saying, ‘Do you have what you need in this war? Do you have what it takes?’

I remember going down to the basement of the White House the day we committed our troops as last resort, looking at Tommy Franks and the generals on the ground, asking them, ‘Do we have the right plan with the right troop level?’

And they looked me in the eye and said, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. President.’ Of course, I listen to our generals. That’s what a president does. A president sets the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy. ”

…

GRABEL: “President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it. Thank you.”

BUSH: “I have made a lot of decisions, and some of them little, like appointments to boards you never heard of, and some of them big.

“And in a war, there’s a lot of — there’s a lot of tactical decisions that historians will look back and say: He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have made that decision. And I’ll take responsibility for them. I’m human.

“But on the big questions, about whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan, the big question about whether we should have removed somebody in Iraq, I’ll stand by those decisions, because I think they’re right.

“That’s really what you’re — when they ask about the mistakes, that’s what they’re talking about. They’re trying to say, ‘Did you make a mistake going into Iraq?’ And the answer is, ‘Absolutely not.’ It was the right decision.

“The Duelfer report confirmed that decision today, because what Saddam Hussein was doing was trying to get rid of sanctions so he could reconstitute a weapons program. And the biggest threat facing America is terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

“We knew he hated us. We knew he’d been — invaded other countries. We knew he tortured his own people.

“On the tax cut, it’s a big decision. I did the right decision. Our recession was one of the shallowest in modern history.

“Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I’m not going to name them. I don’t want to hurt their feelings on national TV.”

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: “But history will look back, and I’m fully prepared to accept any mistakes that history judges to my administration, because the president makes the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility. “

Over the last several years, the question of the relevancy of past behavior — indeed, even current “private” behavior — for a person’s ability to fulfill the duties of public office has come up many times. Aside from Vietnam service and/or its lack in the current Presidential election, current reporting by The Oregonian about a U.S Representative’s past is probably the the most recent example of a big story concerning the relevancy of an act years in the past.

While relevancy is an issue that could be argued forever, and seems like it already has, what I find interesting is the lack of respect our own gut reactions have received. I know it’s not exactly correct to say “I know it when I see it,” isn’t that really how we judge the relevancy of past behavior, not by some set-in-stone moral code? Maybe it’s the final level of democracy…voting with your gut.

Link Courtesy of Romenesko

Today is the six-month anniversary of the day I married a woman I didn’t think could exist, at least before I met her: My soulmate. (As corny as it sounds, it’s true, which still amazes me.) It has been wonder-full.

Love you, Lorrie. Looking forward to a lot more anniversaries.

Back from one of those vacations I’m always afraid to announce online, since those warnings about robbers somehow finding out where you live and robbing you while you’re away have made me paranoid over losing our Precious, Precious Junk.

Another lesson in the need for precision on the Web last night. During the John Edwards/Dick Cheney Vice-Presidential Debate, Cheney asked the folks at home to go to FactCheck.com, a nonpartisan UPenn site which he claimed would defend his tenure at Halliburton. Now, there’s one problem. It’s actually FactCheck.org. According to reports, FactCheck.com, during the debate, was apparently owned by one of those domain name resellers that only shows a page asking you to buy the domain name. Not long after the debate, suddenly it was redirecting people to GeorgeSoros.com, a site that is not very friendly to the current Administration. So, the first site many saw when heading to read Cheney’s defense was one encouraging folks to think of the dangers of re-electing Bush.

In the meantime, while it’s refreshing to see a candidate ask people to go to a nonpartisan site to check up on his record, it’s not necessarily wise to send folks to a site where you don’t control or can’t predict the content the next morning. (If you have trouble getting to the site, it looks like it’s suffering the /. effect many times over. )

As for the debate, my impression watching it was that it was pretty even. Cheney’s decent performance didn’t surprise me, as it shouldn’t anyone who saw him dismantle Lieberman in the 2000 debate. I think NC folks know Edwards isn’t quite the master orator/miracle speaker he’s usually made out to be in a national press, but he is very good, and the debate worked out well for him.

Unfortunately, both VP candidates also managed to show their debate weaknesses as well. Cheney finds it hard not to look like a James Bond villain, which makes it more obvious when he prevaricates, which he proceeded to do a lot, immediately. Edwards, on the other hand, relies a bit too much on what seems to be “unnatural” charm — as opposed to Clinton’s more natural interaction — which always puts me in mind of an enthusiastic puppy. Not good when you’re 50 and look 30, and you’re trying to defend your absentee record in the Senate.

Anyway, debating season has been almost as entertaining as it could be so far, without Al Gore involved, and I’m looking forward to the next two. It’s all about the “strategery” now.