This is not a tag line!
politics
More on Bush
Sep 14th
Election time goes ever closer. Rational Bloggers (though arguably one could qualify them of bloggers with a liberal/democrat/environmentalist bias) try to cut through the media machinery that seems geared towards belittling Kerry’s character and try to show Bush’s in a truer light.
Daniel Wilson points us to a letter to the NYT editor which equates Bush to a PowerPoint person. Tufte argues, in a Wired editorial, that the standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch, that its pushy style seeks to set up a speaker’s dominance over the audience… Seems almost like a description of Bush’s attitude to me!
Elsewhere, at the Gadflyer to be precise (via Backup Brain, twice), more points are made that despite his tough, resolute attitude, Bush is not much more than a coward and flip-flopper.
One might argue that, since the USA are considered the most powerful and influential country in the world, foreign countries should have a say as to who the next US president should be because of the potential impact his/her administration could have on their own societies. That would be, of course, an intolerable interference in the American internal affairs. Yet, Philippe Martin in “The world against Bush” points us to an interesting study:
The French newspaper Libération writes:
Georges W. Bush is lucky that the election of the world’s leader is reserved to a small part of its population: Americans. If the whole world could vote, John Kerry would be assured of a crushing victory.Liberation based its article on a study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) from Maryland’s University, that was released on last Wednesday. It says:
In 30 out of 35 countries polled, from all regions of the world, a majority or plurality would prefer to see John Kerry win the US presidential election—especially traditional US allies. The only countries where President Bush was preferred were the Philippines, Nigeria, and Poland. India and Thailand were divided. On average, Kerry was favored by more than a two-to-one margin—46% to 20% (weighted for variations in population, the ratio was not significantly different).
See the full report on PIPA’s site.
BTW, the study doesn’t mention it, but I’m sure that Bin Laden and his fans would vote Bush too. No one else would play their game as well as he does!
I have posted about the last point, I don’t think there’s much doubt about this either…
Backup Brain points us (again) to a Gadflyer article about Al Gore’s analysis of Bush’s character: “W stands for weak”. The analysis itself is taken from a New Yorkerprofile of the former Vice-President, in which Tipper Gore also said: What did you expect? I live with the man who invented the Internet
when asked about the couple’s matching Apple laptops. I know it has nothing to do with politics but this is my weblog and I cannot resist a little bit of Apple propaganda. 
Returning to Bush, his weakness is not surprising considering the guy doesn’t even know where his heart is (via DasGenie: !Scrap)… More from the Gadflyer about using the Republicans’ own tactics against them in a good example of framing the discourse towards getting Kerry elected. And with this, I shall refrain from posting about politics for a while.
Girls (idiotech Remix) from the album Always Outsiders Never Outdone by Prodigyremixed.com
Summing up the last four years…
Sep 10th
The Poor Man sums up the last four years. One thing that used to completely baffle me was how close the upcoming election is. Looking at the facts and at what happened in the last four years, I couldn’t fathom why would anyone vote for Bush. However, I’ve come to understand (in part thanks to Johann Hari’s “Why would a Wal-Mart shelf-stacker vote for Bush?”) that voting is not so much about voting for someone with whom you agree on subjects that matter than voting for someone who opposes the same things you oppose: somehow, the big issues (like health care, education, etc) are not considered decisive anymore because people don’t think there’s much difference between the parties’ agenda. Politicians from both parties are perceived as sold-outs to corporations and many people get tricked into voting for someone who’s going to promote an agenda that goes against their best interest because of real issues are put in the background while voting choices are made on comparatively trivial matters. Another example of framing in action?
Into the Sun Feat. Martina Topley-Bird from the album Florida by Diplo
Linguistics and its application to politics
Aug 30th
In a society dominated by talking points, it’s about time the Democrats take greater control over the language that they (and their opponents) use to debate issues. According to George Lakoff, conservatives have framed the debate and the Democrats by a smart use of language and investments in getting their message across and widely propagated thus advancing their agenda much more efficiently than Democrats do (or at least used to). Very interesting article. Be sure to read the follow-up article posted recently in UC Berkeley NewsCenter. Take also a look at the Rockridge Institute website for more information.
More on the same subject by Aaron Swartz who provides an example of how Republicans framed the debate in the 2000 elections. Seems like Lakoff’s book is going to end up in my “to-read” queue…
Satellites from the album Satellites by Tundra
Who would bin Laden vote for?
Jul 21st
From Aaron Swartz:
Who would bin Laden vote for?:Since Bush fans (including the New York Times and CNN) have been repeating that Al-Qaeda loves Kerry, going so far as to print up bumper stickers, I thought now would be a good time to investigate who Al-Qaeda really likes. [continued...]
I was thinking about posting something similar to this but, as usual, Aaron wrote about it much better than I could. And also, don’t forget to play Osama bin Lotto!
2+2=5 (The Lukewarm) from the album Hail To The Thief by Radiohead
Leading by example…
Jul 19th
No comments…
Mass Destruction (Paul Jackson Big Weapon) from the album Mass Destruction – EP by Faithless
Prevention vs. Agression
Apr 10th
In his recent Wired editorial, Lawrence Lessig says:
If we can’t defend against an attack, perhaps the rational response is to reduce the incentives to attack. [...] Rather than stirring up a hornet’s nest and then hiding behind a bush, maybe the solution is to avoid the causes of rage. Crazies, of course, can’t be reasoned with. But we can reduce the incentives to become a crazy. We could reduce the reasonableness – from a certain perspective – for finding ways to destroy us.
The point produced a depressing recognition. There’s a logic to P2P threats that we as a society don’t yet get. Like the record companies against the Internet, our first response is war. But like the record companies, that response will be either futile or self-destructive. If you can’t control the supply of IDDs, then the right response is to reduce the demand for IDDs. Yet as everyone in the class understood, in the four years since Joy wrote his Wired piece, we’ve done precisely the opposite. Our present course of unilateral cowboyism will continue to produce generations of angry souls seeking revenge on us.
Why don’t more people realize the truth of this very simple idea? You cannot destroy everyone who doesn’t like you because there will always be people willing to put more on the line than you can afford or are willing to. Even if you were willing to throw everything you have in the fight, were would that lead you? Mutual destruction at best…
More of the same (via mrbarrett.com). Damien says his “stomache [sic] hurts from reading”
the article from which the following is excerpted:
Citing how “assaults before major votes have [traditionally] benefited candidates who were seen as tougher on terrorists,” Rothkopf catalogued events in Israel, Russia, Turkey and Sri Lanka before explaining the symbiotic relationship between terrorists and hardliners. “So why would [terrorists] want to help [hardliners] win?” he asked. “Perhaps because terrorists see the attacks as a win-win. They can lash out against their perceived enemies and empower the hard-liners, who in turn empower them as terrorists. How? Hard-liners strike back more broadly, making it easier for terrorists as they attempt to justify their causes and their methods.”
I have been feeling pretty queazy myself about what’s going on with the world in general and the USA specifically lately… and honestly, those who don’t should take a closer look at what’s going on: when the leader of the most powerful country in the world allows himself to joke (via Boing Boing) about one of the reasons for war in Iraq, you know something is really wrong. Heck! Why do I care, we’re all doomed anyway… With that said, Happy Easter!
The Legend of Ashitaka Theme (End Credit) from the album Mononoke Hime (Soundtrack) by Joe Hisaishi
Big news of the week
Mar 28th
The big news of the week was of course Richard Clarke, his book, his 60-minutes interview and 9/11 commission testimony in which he asserts that the Bush administration seriously dropped the ball on pre-attack warnings and that, after that, Bush Jr. and his staff were hellbent on putting the blame on Iraq.
Al Franken was invited the day the Daily Show reported on the commission and said something to the effect (I don’t remember exactly) that the Bush administration was currently collapsing. Hopefully, he’ll be proved right.
Incidentally, Richard Clarke will be the Daily Show guest tomorrow. Promises to be interesting!
Oops, I guess I meant Tuesday instead of tomorrow…
After the Dean remixes, the Dean commercial.
Jan 26th
This post was erased because of MoveableType shitty comment erasing interface. However, I have been able to find a cached copy on Yahoo! which, luckily in this case, takes its sweet time to crawl sites and does not update the version of the pages it knows about very fast… Anyway, here goes:
This morning, while driving to work, I heard a commercial (don’t remember what it was for, sorry) on the radio that was made to sound like Dean’s now infamous speech, including the YEEAARRGHH!
Damn, advertisers are quick to pick up on memes!
