The House of David

Thursday, September 30, 2004

The first Bush-Kerry debate

I've outed myself as anti-Kerry already. Also, given the current polls, all Bush really needs to do for each debate is to run out the clock and to get Kerry to reveal his positions. So my take on this is going to be pretty basic.

Bush thrashed Kerry in the opening rounds by supporting the coalition against Kerry's sneers.
Bush stated opposition to the International Criminal Court but in a spectacularly inarticulate fashion. It left a bad impression on the casual, semi-inebriated viewer. Fortunately that is a popular stance that doesn't need an Abe Lincoln as its spokesperson.
Kerry needs to get out of Vietnam. Even though this is good advice for his campaign I'm giving it just out of sheer BOREDOM! His supporters should tell him it doesn't help move a Swiftie-swept electorate.
Kerry liked to talk about Iran and North Korea. He claimed Bush had ignored their nuclear-proliferating ways - fair enough - but promised to stem it all with "dialogue". That's not an improvement. Here the viewer has to put it down as a draw for now. If the viewer considers this further, he's going to think of the candidate's implicit promises. Bush implicitly promises he'll back up any negotiations with an aim to "regime change" or other pre-emption. Kerry implicitly promises Clintonesque talk and bribery. The Republican shill in me hopes that the voters will consider this further.
Kerry said he feared nuclear proliferation over terrorism - again, fair enough - but promised to fight it by cancelling research programmes, such as bunker-buster nukes. Baaaad idea.

FOX 26 here in H-town calls it a draw. That means it didn't pull Bush's poll numbers below the 8-or-so point lead he's got now, so that's a good second-quarter result. But in this debate, Bush gave shouts-out to Catholic Poland and to popular Tony Blair; and he's lulled Kerry into revealing some astonishing proposals for a Kerry administration, that everyone understands will weaken the US's power relative to its rivals.

Bush won; not by a large margin for now, but his long-term gain will be considerable. (The House of David: "the poor-man's Hugh Hewitt... but with added nuance!") Barring an implosion in the next debates (and electoral fraud) Bush is going to win and he's going to keep the House.

UPDATE: The window for direct Senatorial-campaign donations is closed now; we're all on 527-and-MSM time now, alas. Added a few grammatical and generally dealcoholising tweaks to account for visits from Al-Rahîm-Pundit (subhanaka! and thanks for the link).

UPDATE II: The MSM faction has to be reviewed, in this Age of Rather, and in this case that means the moderator Lehrer. He didn't do too badly. Part of me agrees with NZ Bear and Reynolds: if Bush's Presidential record is fair game, then so is Kerry's Senatorial record. (We don't have to go back to Kerry's Lt. Gov. or Dubya's Gov. days; neither position means much in their respective states.) But the problem is that Kerry's record spans so much more time than Bush's here. Even up to the 1980s Dubya was still the second-blackest sheep of the litter, poor guy. It was best to leave that decade for the party surrogates, for both sides, I think.

posted by Zimri on 21:42 | link |

More memo fraud

Here we go again with forged documents. A Dem-supporting prof by name of David Hailey is defending the so-far-presumed-fake Bush TANG memos as a "condensed Typewriter" font.

Only this time, we can follow the reasoning of a fraud in progress. Wizbang claims "firsties" on the most egregious hoax, the "TH".

That's not all that's wrong with the PhD's analysis.

Check out this bitmap saved from the site. Correct is its assertion: "The Times New Roman superscripts and Bush Memo superscripts are located at completely different heights relative to the top of the capitals". What is incorrect is its assumption that the forged documents were taken from a screenshot of the Windows environment. In fact the memos were printed with the "Print" button, whence Windows sent it to paper in a printer font slightly different from that of the screen.

This has long been known from LGF. I further submit that LGF's coverage is hardly something Dr Hailey could have avoided in the past four weeks or so.

Years of UseNet flamewars tell me that what Dr Demento here is using is known as a "straw man" argument. In that light, alumni of Utah State might be forgiven for wondering if their alma mater is running a "straw Interactive Media Research Laboratory".

posted by Zimri on 18:17 | link |

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

$200 for a better Senate

Well, I finally did it - I gave donations to Senatorial candidates. I'd made generally-pro-Repub noises back in 2002, but I didn't donate then... nor, for that matter, ever.

For my final shift to the Republican camp, I have a number of, er, accolades. I would like to thank Terry McAuliffe, head of the Democratic National Committee, for leading what was once an imperfect-but-tolerable party right off a cliff. "Honourable" mentions also go out to John Kerry and John Edwards, and to every other nitwit who picked them over, say, Lieberman. I also credit the remnants of what was once the mainstream media, for putting up against Bush their reputation for moderation.

Another pet peeve of mine is the woefully wrong-headed faction in the Senate. The ever-gravely-concerned Daschle. The blathering Murray. The First-Amendment-trashing Feingold. And the worst of it is, the polls have been showing them ahead. But the good news is, I can do something about bad politicians in an election year.

So I did something about it. For THAT decision, I must credit Hugh Hewitt and RedState. (I didn't add the 2 cents that RedState recommended, because I forgot to. Sorry! Hopefully this post's mention makes up for it!) RedState noted that I only have one day left. Tomorrow is that day.

I wanted to donate to my personal top three. The ideal recipient would be a challenger in a close race, a likeable fellow/lady, standing a chance of winning, needing the money, and running against someone I don't like all that much.

I researched my decision primarily through John Miller at NRO. The people I chose from that lineup were John Thune, Pete Coors, and George Nethercutt. I gave Thune and Coors a crisp $50 each. I gave Nethercutt $100. That should do for a few pizzas or road signs or something.

I apologise in advance for those to whom I didn't contribute (well, except maybe Keyes). I let Alaskans worry about Murkowski, although I'd like her to win; I figured Michels could pay for his own win or loss in Wisconsin; I consider Cali and Illinois causas perdidas for the GOP; I think that if Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and the Carolinas don't go for their respective Republicans then their Republicans doesn't deserve to win; and Louisiana is always settled in the runoff where the Demos will win by running for "balance in the Senate".

I wish the best of luck to all of the candidates, or rather to half of them :^)

posted by Zimri on 23:19 | link |

Monday, September 27, 2004

Seeing BS

Here's a nice puff piece for CBS's latest crime drama, Without A Trace (click here). I saw this episode, Gung Ho, last week. A reviewer contends that "it doesn't get swept up in rhetoric and controversy". I beg to differ.

The officer tells the enlisted soldier that he's doing good work in Iraq; the soldier complains there are "no W.M.D.'s" and that they're not stopping terrorism; and the officer tells the soldier he needs to stop thinking. There are hints all 'round that Iraq is full of secrets. Some soldiers in Iraq are crooked (looting on the side?). And in the while that this soldier stays in Iraq, his life falls to ruin at home - because of The Sluggish Economy (tm). The soldier ends up robbing a bank and shooting a woman because he's so depressed. This is a "Law and Order" episode as directed by Michael Moore.

As usual, we're to believe it's just harmless entertainment like that Timberlake song. Consider it a little morale-booster for our troops and their families.

Supposedly the thing aired last February, which means that what I saw was a re-run timed to take advantage of the Rather exposé. CBS want Bush to lose, and they figure one easy way for that would be for them to "question" the Iraq campaign. By "question" we are to understand "hammer with defeatist propaganda".

posted by Zimri on 23:50 | link |

What white folk want to hear

I probably shouldn't even bring this up - I risk a stern slapping-to from the New York city council - but I can't let this pass.

In the latest New Yorker, the Man Who Would Be Burke Breathed has called Larry Elder a hustler. According to McGruder, Elder "decided to be the black guy that makes money by saying the things that white people want black people to say." In a similar vein, check out George Curry's prologue to this transcript.

This would be what White conservatives and libertarians fear most about Black conservatives. We White folk have to attend to jobs and social gatherings from time to time, and overt racism is considered bad form. If we have come to hold views on the Right side of the fence, we'd like to believe that they don't count as racism. It helps our self-regard to think that there are some Blacks who agree with us. We need Black conservatives a good deal more than they need us. If they're only flattering us to rake in cash from book deals, political patronage, etc.; then that undercuts our case.

I haven't looked into the views of other Black conservatives, but I took the opportunity to pull up some views of Larry Elder. It turns out that McGruder is wrong. WAY wrong. In fact, if I were a racial supremacist on a hunt for an Uncle Tom to serve up flattery or propaganda, I'd mark Mr Elder more as an enemy than a friend.

Start with the War On Some Drugs. The Drug War is racist, at least in its effects. It takes young minority males into prison, so they can't compete with Whites in school or entry-level jobs; and then they get out of prison without skills and with criminal records, so they can't compete with Whites later in life. The thinking White bigot ought to support the Drug War. The bigot's puppets and flatterers ought to support it too. Larry Elder does not support the Drug War. White racists probably don't want to hear that there should be fewer Blacks in prison and more Blacks competing for their jobs. Elder 1, McGruder 0.

Moving on to public schools - White families often move to suburbs or else spring for private education. Minority families disproportionately have to send their kids to public school. The latter would rather their kids had a better education. Again, here is a status quo that is racist in its effects. The thinking White bigot should love this two-tier system. Larry Elder supports school vouchers. I doubt White racists want to hear that there ought to be more Blacks in their childrens' schools. Elder 2, McGruder 0.

Gun control is another easy "Elder 3, McGruder 0" moment; there are those who live in gated communities with specially-licensed security companies, and there are those who don't. I will however grant McGruder a point for Elder's "pro-choice" stance; that one hits minority populations by design (go for a Google on Margaret Sanger). Also I'm giving the various economic-libertarian arguments a pass. So the score got up to Elder 3, McGruder 1 until I got too tired to continue. If Larry Elder is an Uncle Tom then he's doing a mighty poor job of it.

As for McGruder, I see two options here. One is that McGruder is slopping out steaming piles of C.B.S. The other is that McGruder has noticed Elder's appeal to libertarian and integrationist Whites, and objects to it. Either way, McGruder is an asshat. It'd be nice if the papers would quit giving this schmuck a platform.

The good news is that the "hustler" case against Black conservatives and libertarians is shown to be, itself, a hustle. One hopes that undecided Blacks will be able to see this.

posted by Zimri on 23:17 | link |

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Who is Corky Cartwright?

A certain Dr Robert Cartwright has recently come up in the blogosphere's radar screen. Hugh Hewitt has been interviewing him concerning those controversial Bush National Guard memos. I thought I might add my two cents on the bits that I actually know.

What I know doesn't include specialised 1970s-era typewriter fonts or TANG protocols. I am however familiar with Dr Cartwright the Computer Science professor. Dr Cartwright in turn claims knowledge of 1970s fontage. I figure it is worth examining the ethics, partisanship, etc of Dr Cartwright for those bystanders who wonder if he can be trusted.

As I've mentioned before, here and there, I'm an alumnus of Rice University. One of the classes I took, in winter of 1995, was COMP 212. I'd taken this as a sequel to COMP 210, which was one of the prerequisites for one of my majors. (We can get into why I'd chosen COMP 212 another time.) COMP 212 was a combined course in computer algorithms and the mechanics of object-oriented programming, done in C++.

COMP 212 was taught by Dr Cartwright. We knew that his friends called him "Corky" but obviously less-favoured students (like myself) didn't dare call him that.

Dr Cartwright gave me a B- in that class, which is less than my GPA overall turned out to be. Ergo, I don't feel like he did me a favour. On the other hand, the stuff I handed in didn't work all that great - given that my major wasn't really Comp Sci anyway - and so I can't say I deserved even a B+. Ergo, I don't feel like he did me wrong. What I am trying to say is that I have no bias pro or anti Cartwright from a personal standpoint.

From a student's standpoint, though, I can say that he was an excellent communicator, and a scrupulously fair grader. What he taught me in C++, I carried over to Java and thence to the Microsoft realm.

Also, I can attest to Dr Cartwright's politics. He name-dropped Orson Scott Card in one lesson. O.S.Card is the author of "Ender's Game", the anti-"Starship Troopers"; and as of the mid-1990s, Card was a registered Democrat. In another lesson Corky told us that hoary flaming Nazi gasbag joke. This was in late 1995, remember, when Gingrich-phobia was starting to gain traction. At any rate it is safe to say that Corky carries no water for the Republican agenda.

To sum up, Dr Cartwright is both ethical and non-Republican. If Dr Cartwright says that the memos are forged, that is something you can take to the bank.

Next issue, please.

posted by Zimri on 19:56 | link |

Saturday, September 04, 2004

Pro-choice does not equal pro-woman

The title says it all.

It's nice that Cox & Forkum are on the right side of the War on Terror. It's also nice to see them helping prop up secular Republicans.

But this comic implies that George Bush is squashing a (telegenic) female for being pro-choice. Weet! Blow the whistle on that play!

Being pro-life does not make one an oppressor of women. Oppressing women makes one an oppressor of women; and given a world with folks like Hangin' Haji still breathing our air, for whatever reason, I'd say feminists ought to be concentrating on getting rid of the real oppressors of women instead. You know, the ones that actually exist.

Another thing: pro-life does not equal pro-religion. Not that I blame Robert Tracinki for not reading this blog. But I am pro-life and I am hardly pro-religion. If you think I'm irrational, then prove it without a sneering guilt-by-association, please.

posted by Zimri on 21:06 | link |

The Democratic nukes-for-mullahs program

I note that an Iranian cleric recently executed a sixteen year old girl for, as the feminists would say, "challenging the patriarchy". Here's an unfortunately-accurate cartoon about Mullah Justice.

I'm told that the Democrats are the most female-friendly of the US's major parties. So one would hope they'd have a plan for how to dissuade mullahs like Haji Rezayy from oppressing the World's Womyn. Solidarity, sisters! Yeah?

Well, we're in luck. John Edwards is our man with the plan for Iran. He opines that Iranian clerics need nukes. If His - uh - Honour, Haji Rezayy, may Allah be pleased with him, just had a few nuclear plants, then... then he wouldn't be lynching up his neighbour's kids! Iran would so totally mellow out, you know. We'd all be living in peace. (Come to that, he's probably right - and when I say "all", I mean ALL of us...)

Still, I don't know about you, but I find it hard to trust a nation led by practitioners of taqiyya. And when I think about Haji Rezayy with his Qur'an-stained fingers within reach of a red button, I consider that to be "bad". And what does a net oil exporter and pariah state (ergo, Least Likely To Care About Kyoto) want with nuclear power anyway?

posted by Zimri on 20:37 | link |

Question and answer time

I see this question an awful lot: "show me where in the US Constitution it mandates the 'wall of separation between Church and State'". We at the House of David are always eager to help the less intellectually fortunate, so I'll give it a shot.

It turns out to be carefully hidden in the dadgum FIRST Amendment. Whaddaya know? The Amendment says, roughly, that Congress MAY NOT establish a religion over all fifty states. This leaves aside a State theocracy, natch. But we're dealing with the Feds... right?

So what if the federal Constitution doesn't mention the "separation" of "church" and "state"? The Constitution doesn't have a rule whereby idiots are banned from posting their witless comments on the 'Web. The First Amendment protects anyone's right to prove himself or herself an assclown on a website, although it doesn't use those words. Likewise, separation of religion from the federal government is what the same Amendment demands, although it doesn't use those words.

I would apologize for my tone, except that my patience for this "itt duzn't SAY 'seperation'!" argument over and over again has officially run out. The argument is refuted, and has been refuted for centuries. There is no excuse for not knowing this.

As for those of you who continue to use that argument, a small personal note. I admit I don't know you, except for the fact that you're wrong. I figure you're a theocrat, a moron, or maybe just think you've got yourself a smug little 'clincher' argument like 'no-one died when Clinton lied!' and use it because you're lazy. Either way, kindly strike this one off your list of Approved Slogans That Make The Baby Jesus Giggle. I've asked the Baby Jesus, see, and he spat up milk and soiled his diaper when I told him. And then he got all colicky. I'm assuming that means he doesn't approve. So quit it already.

posted by Zimri on 20:20 | link |