Tony Snow Has Colon Cancer Resurgence

The big story today is that White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's colon cancer has returned (source 2 3 4). Snow battled colon cancer two years ago successfully, but now a new crop of the same cancer has shown up in his liver. It was removed on Monday, and Snow is reportedly in good spirits, optimistic about his chances for survival.

Today, I urge all liberals, progressives, moderate-lefties and true patriots to stand with Tony Snow and send up your prayers to him and his family, just as we have done with Elizabeth Edwards last week. I feel like anything less would be hypocritical and inhuman, so please, think of him. This disease transcends political boundaries.

That being said, I decided to perform a little test to see how hard-core conservatives would react to a liberal offering good wishes to Tony Snow. I created a login name on freerepublic.com, the Freepers' domain, under Deep Blue Nevada. After acquiring my password (promptly changed), I posted a message of support for Snow on a thread (this one). It went a-little something like this:

Off the bat, I have to say that as a liberal, I may not agree with everything that you guys say most of the time.

However, my thoughts and prayers are now with Tony Snow. I wish all the best for him and his family, just as I have wished all the best for Elizabeth Edwards and his family. To do any less would be inhuman and soulless of me.

This disease reaches across the aisle, as it is a tragedy when anyone is afflicted with it, especially after previous occurrences. Having two family members that have died of cancer helps me identify with, and pray for, Tony and Elizabeth and anyone else suffering from it.

~ Deep Blue

I posted this message around 10:13 AM PDT on 3/27/2007. It told me that the post would be "reviewed," probably because of earlier abuse from other Freepers. Here is a picture of that page:

I then waited to see when it would show up and what the reaction would be. Five minutes went by. Then 10. Now it's been almost 25 minutes and my post hasn't shown up.

Now, it is their site and they can manage it anyway they please. But it will be a sad commentary on how they act if they decide that a liberal reaching across the aisle is not worthy of server time. I was not inflammatory (well, the first sentence could be), and I was not mean-spirited...I just wanted to show my support for Snow's battle. I haven't even called him by his nickname once in this post.

I will periodically check back to see if I've been approved, rejected, rebuked, and/or kicked off the site. I hope they lighten up over there.

~ Deep Blue

Update (10:58 AM PDT): My post still hasn't shown up, so I fired off an inquiry to the webmaster asking him if he could check on the status of my post to see where it went. I'll update ASAP.

Update (11:08 AM PDT): My comment was posted at 10:55 AM PDT on this page. I am post #480 on the page, shown here:

And now I play the waiting game...

Update (12:33 PM PDT): I received my first response from a Freeper who said that they went to Edwards' site and left them a message of prayer for them. I'm glad that the first response to my post was a positive one. Every word I said in that post was true and sincere, and I'm glad that I've at least got some people thinking about it. That's all I really wanted to do: show people that this disease knows no ideology, and that we should pray for recoveries for everybody. In some regard, it changes my admittedly preconceived notions about all Freepers.

Update (1:22 PM PDT): I just realized I made a typo when I posted my original message. I said "...Elizabeth Edwards and his family..." as opposed to "her family." My mistake. I will not correct it on this site because I cannot correct it on FreeRepublic. Stupid copy/paste and not proofreading...


Update (3:59 PM PDT): I got another positive response from a Freeper, saying that it took me a lot of courage coming in here. It really did...I had no clue what the response would be, just my aforementioned preconceived notions. I wish that more liberals would wish Tony Snow the best, in spite of his political leanings.

All my responses can be viewed here.

Do You Enjoy Being Shot At?

If you do, then International Executive Services, LLC, has the job opportunity of a lifetime!

You too can join other contracted employees in the Middle East fighting terrorists who plot against the United States! Dodge IEDs in the desert while making $134k - $200k per year with an 80 percent tax exemption! Do the job our military isn't getting paid nearly enough to do with equipment and weapons the 109th Congress wasn't ballsy enough to provide! The best part: Training only takes a grand total of eight weeks!

Sound like the job for you?

Not really.

The sad part is, it's all true. We have private contractors doing the military's job.

This International Executive Services LLC, website found at internationalexecutives.net, is now recruiting bodyguards to help be "part of the Security to help protect against anti terrorist that attempt to plot destruction against the United States." While they are clear to say that "[t]his site isn't a part of the U.S. Border Patrol or Homeland Security," this is clearly the job that these recruits are planning to do. It makes sense; we have corporations providing food to our troops, doing kitchen patrol, acting as mercenaries, torturing terror suspects, even taking over Walter Reed. Corporate armies are the next logical step, and it makes me sick.

They're advertising their jobs all across the country. I first learned about this on the Randi Rhodes Show on Air America, when a caller mentioned that this company was advertizing in the penny ads of a Brooklyn paper. I did a little digging (with some difficulty, because apparently International Executive Services is a business term and an unrelated non-profit organization in addition to this horrible company) and found that they also advertized for this position in Vegas (source), which means they could show up in Reno. On the company website detailing the position (source), the job requirements require the applicant to have 2 years experience in the military, 2 years experience as a police officer, or a 2-year degree in criminal justice. My guess is not too many applicants will have a degree.

By performing a WHOIS search of the domain (source), I found that the company that owns the domain name is TSV Group of White Plains, NY. According to their website (source), TSV Group is "a technology driven search and new media company that focuses on search marketing, local search and online comparison shopping," and apparently counter-terrorism contracts. They "[own] a network of local search and online shopping Web sites with millions of visitors each month, including more than 5,000 local-based Web properties." I checked their list of websites that they own, and International Executive Services is suspiciously absent from the list. Hmm...is it that they want to portray an image that doesn't involve crappy graphics of rotating handguns?

By the way, check out their photo gallery (source). Among pictures of these mercenaries in action include the stereotypical bald eagle superimposed on an American flag and a happy corporate woman on a laptop. That picture looks like it was stolen from a pay photo website...it even has a swirl watermark over it!

The point is: we don't need yet another contractor messing up a volatile Middle East situation. There's a reason why it takes a long time to train our soldiers. These mercenaries are luring our citizens into a dangerous situation where they are accountable to no-one and no government. We have enough to worry about from government mess-ups...we don't need World War III brought to you by TSV Group.

If you want to contact them and tell them that their job is a disservice to our armed forces, they can be reached at:

International Executive Services, LLC
c/o TSV Group
1 North Lexington Avenue, 5th Floor
White Plains, NY 10601
Phone 1: 1-914-328-5510
Phone 2: 1-914-428-8206
Toll-Free: 1-800-601-6603
Fax: 1-914-428-8251
update@webimage.com (an e-mail address associated with the domain registration)

LEGAL MUMBO-JUMBO: Since this information can be dug up using the links above, I am not legally responsible for any correspondences that come from this website.

~ Deep Blue

Low-TIDE

On its main page tonight, MSNBC has an interesting story: Terror Database Casts a Wide Net, by way of the Washington Post.

The gist of the article is that it documents the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, "a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States."

While cataloguing terrorists and their activites is a good idea in practice, the execution...well, sucks. First of all, the sheer amount of data coming into the TIDE system is overwhelming it. In 2003, the system managed 100,000 files; now, it has 435,000. Simply put, it is outgrowing its britches faster than a kid with a thyroid problem, and the people who manage it are having a hell of a time keeping in good working order.

Now I've worked with databases, and unless you know what you're doing and have enough people to manage it, it becomes very easy to corrupt and compromise the data. I feel sorry for these guys. It must really stress them out being overwhelmed by this system.

TIDE also casts a wide net. U.S. citizen and foreigner are combined into a single database for the first time, according to the article, and that has led to many mix-ups due to similar names and appearances. Worse still, once you're on the list, it's damn near impossible to get off. This problem is most likely a combination of poor design and the overworked managers listed above. They have to sift through thousands of documents daily to see what information is critical to TIDE. As a result, some vital information can slip through the cracks and other irrelevant information can gain importance, leading to mistakes. One famous one is that Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' wife was once stopped because her name (Catherine), when shortened, matches a famous folk-singer who converted to Islam and changed his name (the former Cat Stevens, now Yousef Islam). Yousef is banned from flying into the United States for undisclosed reasons.

Don't get me wrong. Intelligence gathering on terrorists is a good thing when done right. It sounds like this program is too bloated and ineffective at getting to the real terrorists while being all too effective at keeping those sleeper-cell senators' wives off them airplanes. For a massive database that I imagine costs billions of dollars to set-up and maintain, I'm surprised that it's not working well. Actually, I'm not surprised, but still saddened. They need to work out the kinks and get it protecting us from those international terrorists that do want to do us harm, not American citizens that just want to fly home with no delays.

~ Deep Blue

P.S. I'm purposefully not mentioning the Tony Snow/stomach surgery story. If I criticize people for making fun of Elizabeth Edwards' cancer struggle, and then proceed to make fun of Tony Snow's cancer struggle or accuse him of using it to his advantage, that would stoop me to their level. I wish him the best and hope for a speedy recovery.

Besides, there's still plenty to make fun of Zippy for, anyway.

Friday Funstack I

Being a major computer nerd, I thought that I'd take a break from politics and give my opinion on something that bugs the crap out of me: Comic Sans MS.

That's right, a font. For those not familiar, here's a sample:

I hate this damn font. It's not quite right for comic books, but too cute for anything else. Furthermore, it's overused. It was overused the first time it was used. On products, business signs, documents, computer programs, even MySpace...Comic Sans MS is everywhere. The only reason that it's around is probably because President Bush writes his memos in it before Cheney proofreads them for spelling and grammatical errors.

It needs to die and never be resurrected again.

I am not the only one who thinks this way. Yes, there is an entire site devoted to banning the ubiquitous typeface. Head on over to Ban Comic Sans and support the movement to off this typeface.

Macs have an equivalent called Chalkboard that is even worse because it's a derivative of a crappy font. Chalkboard is the Arial to Comic Sans' Helvetica. It should die twice and be drawn and quartered.

I feel dirty comparing Comic Sans to Helvetica, but I know designers' hatred for Arial, so you get the idea.

So ban Comic Sans, and punch anyone over the age of 18 using it for any important document or website design.

That's it for now. I'm off to add signatures to the bottoms of my earlier posts.

~ Deep Blue

Friday News Roundup

Here are the stories that got buried yesterday and that are being talked about today:

• Bush Campaigner's Conviction in New Hampshire Phone Jamming Case Overturned
  
  Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals First Circuit overturned the conviction of James Tobin, the Bush campaign chair for New England druing the 2004 election. He was convicted of jamming Democratic voting drive phone lines during the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election. Tobin, sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, 2 years probation, and a $10,000 fine, claimed throughout the trial that he had no clue about 800 hang-up phone calls placed to the get-out-the-Democratic-vote numbers. According to the first circuit, no intent to harass was alleged, proved, or disputed by the parties.
  
  Now I know why Laura Ingraham didn't get caught when she advocated people from her show jamming "1-800-DUMB-VOTE."
  
  That being said, others involved, including Allen Raymond, the former president of Republic consulting group GOP Marketplace, and Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, were convicted to the scheme. McGee actually admitted that he "paid a Virginia telemarketing company more than $15,000 in a scheme to jam Democratic Party phone lines with computer-generated calls."
  
  
• George P. Bush Signs Up for Naval Reserve
  
  President Bush's nephew has decided to join the Naval Reserve as an intelligence officer, being commissioned for an eight-year service. He said he was moved into joining the service when he attended the commissioning of the USS George H.W. Bush. "My grandfather's my hero, and what really sold me on the ultimate decision was having the chance to see the CVN-77 be commissioned under his name," he said. "That was pretty moving, and I had a chance to meet some Navy admirals, as well. I had a chance to talk to them briefly about the opportunity, and I was won over." At the bottom of the article, Bush said that he wouldn't talk about his own political plans, but "friends say they believe the family may soon be in store for another gubernatorial campaign."
  
  This is just what this country needs right now: Yet another offspring of the Bush dynasty in politics. Gag me.
  
  On a side note, it's the first time "Bush" and "intelligence" has been in the same sentence since H.W. was in the CIA. And I'm still holding out for the twins joining the Army infantry.
  
  
• UK Soldiers Captured at Gunpoint by Iranians
  
  Fifteen British Navy sailors have been captured close to the Iraq-Iran border aboard the HMS Cornwall. The sailors, on routine patrol, are so far unharmed, and that the 15 people were "understood to be safe and had reacted in an 'extremely professional way, in line with the rules of engagement.' "
  
  The reason for the Iranians capturing the sailors could be due to the dispute between Iraq and Iran over the waterway the ship was patrolling. This waterway, according to CBS Radio News, was in dispute between Iran and Iraq ever since Iraq was created. The British fleet claims that they were in Iraqi waters, the Iranians claim they were in Iranian waters, and everybody hopes it was just a mistake over territorial waters claim.
  
  I for one hope that the soldiers are okay and that they are returned safe and expediently. I also hope that this is not the major Tonkin-esque event that draws the Coalition of the Willing into open conflict with Tehran. Iran is a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation: The Iranians themselves want freedom, and we should give it to them, but China and Russia have oil interests in Iran and will defend their investment disproportionate to the attack from the West. My worry: We send a few missiles into Iranian airspace and the Eastern Seaboard gets nuked by Beijing and Moscow, putting the Sino-Soviet split to bed and starting World War III. That conflict will be worse than any conflict the right-wingers have seen (mostly because they all got deferments from Vietnam).
  
  Here's an overview of the area, courtesy BBC:
  

I'm waiting for comments from the GOPeanut Gallery on the Iran story. Should be interesting.

~ Deep Blue

Elizabeth Edwards' Cancer Returns

John Edwards announced that his wife's cancer has returned, but that he will not be suspending his 2008 presidential campaign bid after discussing it with Elizabeth (source).

The cancer was found in a cracked rib over the past few days. This isn't Elizabeth's first bout with cancer, receiving treatment for breast cancer in 2004 during the Kerry Campaign.

Not to be hindered by this latest setback, Edwards says that he will still run. "You can go cower in the corner and hide or you can go out there and stand up for what you believe in," he said. "We have no intentions of cowering in the corner" (same source as above).

Good for him. The decision to continue to run for president is a family decision, and it reinforces the great family values that this country stands for. I wish that more people in both parties would be more like him, although I've noticed that more of those people come from the left. I really wish the best for the two of them and their family.

That being said, I can't wait to hear what the right-wingers are gonna say about him. Will Ann "Succubus" Coulter say Edwards is a "faggot" for not stepping down? What will Rush say? What will Manders say?

I think I'm gonna have to go into Right-Wing Radio World and find out. (Why do I always feel so dirty when I say that?)

~ Deep Blue

Edit: Rush Limbaugh is hinting on his radio show at 9:52 AM PDT that the Edwards campaign will be testing the waters to see if there's a "bump" from this story, almost insinuating that Edwards revealed it to help his campaign as opposed to showing actual concern. His response to people calling him callous? "That's politics." No, Rush, that's sickening.

Further Edit: The Freepers are out in force echoing Rush about Edwards exploiting his wife's illness (link). There are a couple that sympathize, and some even say that Edwards was being very genuine, but most decide to make one-lines calling him every name under the sun for having the audacity to continue running (a joint decision between John and Elizabeth, remember) in the face of this terrible announcement. Thank you, sick predictable right-wingers, for proving my point. This is the reason while I will never become a conservative.

Furtherer Edit: Apparently I wasn't the only one on the left who caught Rush Limbaugh's comment about Edwards using his wife's illness as a boost to his campaign. Not only was this talked about on Air America by Stacy Taylor (filling in for Randi Rhodes) for the first two hours of his show, but also MSNBC's Countdown's Keith Olbermann named El Rushbo the Worst Person in the World for the stunt. Of course Rush won't apologize. After all, "that's politics."

Watch the clip here.

Zippy's Column

Gonzogate Update - March 22:

Tony "Zippy Longstocking" Snow is still defending President Bush's right to executive privilege in press conferences. This is in stark contrast to his opinion of President Clinton's right to executive privilege in a March 29, 1998 Detroit News column, as reprinted by the Chicago Tribune on March 21, 2007 (link). I've decided to take out all references to Clinton, exchange them for Bush references whenever possible (bolded), and reprint the article below. Enjoy:

From Day One, the chief challenge facing this White House has been to place maximum distance between George W. Bush and his behavior. That strategy has succeeded, but only with the help of mighty assaults on our common sense.

In order to exonerate the chief, aides have made fantastic claims: that they lied to their personal diaries, that Velcro-brained lawyers couldn't recall crucial incidents, that e-mails vanished or moved from one place to another as if by magic, that scores of people with nothing to gain from lying nevertheless perjured themselves, and that this contagion of amnesia, sloppiness and venality was just the gosh darnedest series of coincidences ever witnessed by man or beast.

The wall of separation between Mr. Bush and his deeds remains strong because minions have stuck to their alibis. But now comes an episode in which the Man from War stands alone. It is his recent attempt to claim executive privilege for Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Mr. Bush can't blame his lawyers for this latest feint. He alone can assert the privilege. The maneuver places him at the heart of his administration's ongoing effort to use executive privilege as a way of concealing the truth about whether the president exposed himself. It is almost impossible to think of this as anything but a tactic to delay Congress long enough for Alberto Gonzales and other red-ant assailants to nibble at Congress and pump as much venom as possible into the political system.

Consider the key issues:

• Are former White House counsels subject to privilege?

*snip of Hillary Clinton material that doesn't sync up*

• What kinds of conversations does executive privilege protect?

The courts have said a president generally can shield communications that reveal fundamental deliberative processes. That includes communications between aides as they try to develop recommendations for their boss.

But protected conversations involve predictable categories: military, diplomatic or national security secrets or law-enforcement activities. Jurists haven't found a constitutional writ for protecting damage-control meetings involving allegations of using politics to fire attorneys. So unless Alberto Gonzales were ... advising the president on nuclear proliferation or the tobacco deal, the assertion of privilege seems highly suspect.

• What are the limits on privilege?

Earlier in the Clinton administration, then-White House legal counsel Lloyd Cutler decreed that the White House never would assert privilege in the face of a criminal investigation. He merely was reiterating long-standing executive-branch policy along those lines. President Ronald Reagan didn't invoke privilege in Iran-contra, and neither did President George Bush.

But precedent is gone, and Mr. Bush wants to protect conversations about subverting checks and balances. In so doing, he becomes the second president since Richard Nixon to use executive privilege in a criminal inquiry. (Deep Blue note on the "second": fair is fair)

Evidently, Mr. Bush wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

One gets the impression that Team Bush values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in Mr. Bush will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold the rule of law.

Hypocrisy's a bitch, ain't it Zippy?

Aside from parts excluded about Hillary (which I almost could turn into a Harriet Miers comment if it weren't for the Kennedy Law), it translates perfectly.

Also of note is the comparison between Gonzogate and the -gate that started it all. In the 3,000 pages of e-mails released by the DOJ a couple of days ago, a 16-day gap was found, the loudest silence since the 18½ minute gap on the Nixon tapes. President Bush doesn't use e-mail (source), Alberto Gonzales doesn't use e-mail (source), and Harriet Miers has alleged that she doesn't use much e-mail (heard on Thom Hartmann show, 3-22-2007 9:17 AM PDT), so how do you think they communicated and why do you think the gap exists?

~ Deep Blue

Zippy Ruins a Bush Talking Point

Ellen Ratner of the Talk Radio News Service called the Thom Hartmann show on Air America Radio at 11:35 AM PDT today to give an update on the Ed Henry/Tony "Zippy Longstocking" Snow debacle. For back-story, what I didn't include yesterday in my Gonzogate post (because the news was coming so fast and furious) was that President Bush turned cowboy, making all sorts of veiled threats when the Democrats started threating subpoena power for his officials. The Democrats, spines intact, voted to allow subpoenas to be presented to White House officials today. Let's hope they don't wuss out.

Anyway, Zippy gave a press conference today saying that the decision to fire the attorneys wasn't made by President Bush or anyone in the White House but someone underneath him in the Executive Branch hierarchy. At this point, Henry asked "If the decision wasn't made by a White House official, why is the president using executive privilege to prevent White House officials from testifying under oath on these matters?"

Zippy's response was classic: "That's an intriguing question."

That's it. Four words long. And he never came back to it, according to Ellen Ratner.

This proves one of three things:

a. They're lying about not authorizing the attorney firings and they don't want to be found out.
b. They're telling the truth about not authorizing the attorney firings but don't want to reveal that they exerted influence on certain people.
c. They didn't have anything to do with Gonzogate but don't want this to set a precedent for subpoenas on, say, election fraud in 2000 or 2004, or misleading the country into Iraq, etc. ad infinitum.

It's not that they fear Gonzogate will be a media circus, it's that they fear their cronyism will be uncovered. Zippy showed that when he destroyed Bush's talking point on not allowing officials to testify under oath. The whole Executive Branch makes me sick.

I'm just glad the media is waking up from their post-9/11 slumber.

~ Deep Blue

Gonzogate Update

For those of you just tuning in, Alberto Gonzales just got bitch-slapped by the Senate. In a 94-2 vote, the Senate passed a bill that put the kibosh on a section of the Patriot Act, authored by the Justice Department, that allowed the embattled attorney general to fill vacant federal prosecutor seats without Senate confirmation and oversight (source). His resignation seems imminent (source).

Naturally, whenever any senior official is embroiled in scandal, President Bush gives out his "Heckuva Job" Award to that official before accepting (or forcing?) his resignation. This month, Gonzo joins Rummy and Brownie as the newest recipient (MSNBC source above).

The Justice Department, meanwhile, also released 3,000 pages of e-mails to congressional investigators, who will now sift through this material to determine wrongdoing on behalf of J.D. officials (MSNBC source above). I think it won't be long until they find something. Hell, they've already found a bunch of e-mails stating the original goal of firing all 93 prosecutors in one go, eventually reducing that number to 20% of prosecutors deemed to be "underperforming," keeping only the ones who were "loyal Bushies" (source).

The right-wing regressives are all up in arms over the Democrats' determination to bring this to light, whining on various sites (such as Free Republic) about all of the injustices that Democratic presidents did to the prosecutors when they were in office. For example, on one article called "Selective Amnesia on firing US Attorneys" (link), one Freeper pulls a reductio ad Clintonum, saying that Slick Willy fired them all (at the beginning of his term) and the mainstream media isn't mentioning it at all.

The problem with this logic is that while yes, Clinton did fire them all at the beginning of his term, so did Bush. This is the executive privilege that all presidents have. I and my liberal counterparts do not care that Bush and Clinton (and probably Bush Sr. and Reagan and Carter and…) fired the attorneys at the beginning of their terms. I don't even care that Bush did it 6 years in. That's not what matters.

What matters is why Bush fired only eight attorneys who had stellar performance reviews for investigating Republicans (such as with Duke Cunningham in California) and not investigating Democrats, according to congressional Democrats (source). What also matters is why Bush snuck in a provision in the PATRIOT Act saying that he can appoint any attorney without Senate confirmation. Bush hasn't seen a check-and-balance loophole he didn't like (why do you think he's using those signing statements all the time?), so naturally, he'd jump on the bandwagon on this one too.

I also like how rejected potential Supreme Court justice Harriet Miers was thrown under the bus again by the Bush administration, saying that she was the one who had initiated the program in 2005. Our old buddy Karl Rove also was accused of having a hand in this, because he does have a hand in lots of other scandals in Red Washington (source).

I really hope that when the Gonzales hits the fan for the Republicans that the Democrats grow a spine and do what we as a nation elected them to do: clean up our capitol. Right-wing corruption and cronyism appears systemic in the Executive branch, but apparently those held in GOP hypnosis in the Legislature are starting to wake up. The 94-2 majority to revoke the PATRIOT Act provision demonstrates that this is not a political issue but an ethics/morals issue.

The vote on the bill, S. 214, can be found here. Here are 2 that voted no and the 4 that didn't vote:

• Joe Biden (D-DE) - Did Not Vote


• Kit Bond (R-MO) - No


• Chuck Hagel (R-NE) - No


• Tim Johnson (D-SD) - Did Not Vote recovering from brain surgery


• John McCain (R-AZ) - Did Not Vote


• Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) - Did Not Vote

I'd like to know why Biden, Bond, Hagel, McCain, and Mikulski voted (or didn't vote) the way they did, especially McCain.

~ Deep Blue

Breaking News (12:00 pm PDT): Rove and Miers will be interviewed by committees probing the attorney firings, but not testify under oath., says Rep. Chris Cannon by way of CNN (source). Additionally, it will be behind closed doors with no transcripts, and "[a] representative of the Office of the Counsel to the President would attend these interviews and personal counsel to the invited officials may be present at their election" (source)

So they will once again sidestep the blame. Great, the same old song and dance. Why am I not surprised?

This cartoon from CNN's Bill Mitchell says it all:

Update (2:45 pm PDT): Patrick Leahy (D-VT) rejects the offer for interviews, stating that Rove needs to answer questions under oath and on the record, according to CNN's home page and MSNBC. I guess the Democrats are growing spines after all. Good on ya!

Is Tony Snow Dr. Evil?

Off-camera before a press conference today, Tony Snow lambasted the Democrats for supporting a so-called "Recipe for Defeat" for Iraq in the House today. Undaunted, CNN's Ed Henry decided to ask what the White House's corresponding "Recipe for Success" was. Snow, snotty and indignant, proceeded to ask Henry what his recipe for success was. Henry objected to the question, as it is not up to a reporter to define governmental policy, and repeated the question, where at that time Snow told Henry to "zip it" (source with video clip). Apparently, Snow revealed his true age to be five.

Snow eventually apologized and laid out the plan, which consisted of turning things over to the Iraqis at some point (without elaboration) but admitting "[y]ou don't know how things will play out" (same source).

Henry stated that it's the same thing that's been said for four years and one day now. I really wish that I had podcasting set up because at this point I'd play Sinatra's "Same Old Song and Dance" à la Bill Manders whenever he talks smack about the Democrats as of late. Put it on the to-do list, I suppose.

Which brings me to the question of the day: Is Tony Snow really Dr. Evil? I think I'm gonna start calling him "Zippy Longstocking" from now on. That's a great nickname.

~ Deep Blue

Another Great Wolf Pack Year Ends

7 Nevada 62 (Final)
2 Memphis 78

Congratulations Wolf Pack on another great year!

~ Deep Blue

RN&R - Catering to Californians?

So I was out and about today, and I decided to pick up the latest issue of the Reno News & Review. It had a cover story that listed all soldiers who have died so far in the War in Iraq. It is very striking to me that over 3,000 have died fighting in a country where not one of the 9/11 hijackers was from.

However, today is not the day where I give an anti-war rant. The cover is the focus of this blog entry. It has a darkened American flag overlaid by a partial list of the names inside and a pair of unworn Army boots. A small image of the cover is provided at the left, courtesy of the Reno News & Review website.

What caught my eye is that on the partial list, only the names of Californians are bolded. This would not be such a big deal normally, considering that California is only 10 miles away as the crow flies. However, not a single Nevada soldier was highlighted. Take a look at this scan from the front page below; Sgt. Evan Asa Ashcraft of California has his name bolded, but Capt. Joshua Todd Byers of Nevada is not.

I investigated a little bit on the RN&R website and found that the Sacramento News & Review and the Chico News & Review both have the same cover. So the RN&R has been the victim of a recycled cover, as if somebody did not want to do the extra work of making a separate cover that included Nevada's dead soldiers...only California's.

Now, I'm not saying that Nevada's fallen soldiers are more important than California's or vice versa...every one is important. However, for a Nevada audience, Nevada's soldiers should get the respect on the front cover that they deserve. It's as simple as that.

I should note that on the inside, this mistake was not duplicated. I hope in the future that the News & Review team honors our state's fallen soldiers by highlighting their names on the cover as a testament to how the war affects all of us.

~ Deep Blue

Edit: I guess this might take me out of the running for RN&R's "Best Local Blogger" award.

Inaugural Post

Welcome to the inaugural post of Silver State Blues, your one-stop shop for Northern Nevada politics from a liberal point of view. I've only lived in the fine city of Reno for the past 9 months or so, and I love it here. However, I've been following national politics for the better part of a decade, and I feel that there is not enough of the progressive voice in a town that I feel has a very strong, yet underrepresented, liberal undercurrent.

For example, compare the amount of time dedicated to local political talk on two radio stations: KOH 780 AM, and KJFK 1230 AM. KOH is a 50,000 watt right-wing station (source) with a local talk show hosted by Bill Manders that lasts from 3 to 6 pm daily. Being a high-profile station, they have major media presence in the area, from contests and on-location broadcasts to connections to local TV stations and online radio streaming. KJFK, on the other hand, is an 820 watt small-time station (source) carrying the Air America family of programming (along with Jones Radio Network staples Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz) with a local talk show that lasts only from 3 to 4pm, 2 hours less than Manders' rant-fest. In addition, KJFK's website has been under construction for almost two years, meaning that there is no chance for people outside of the tiny broadcast radius to listen to this station on-line.

But despite what Bill Manders may say about "Airhead America," KJFK happens to be doing quite well considering its small size. It has a 2.1 share in the ratings for this past fall, and though it is down from the 2.3 share in Spring 2006, it is an overall increase from a year ago. This makes it second among all Reno talk stations behind KOH's 11.7 share, a 557% difference (source). For those of you not in the radio business, a share represents the percentage of radios tuned to that station in a market. On the aforementioned "source" site, Reno's 12+ population is 384,900. So, assuming that the share is proportional to the population, KOH has 45,033 listeners and KJFK has 8,083 listeners, once again, a 557% difference. But KJFK has a higher listener-to-wattage ratio; KJFK has 9.86 listeners per watt, while KOH has 0.9 listeners per watt. This means, that for the wattage that they have, KJFK is better utilizing its signal, and if it were the size of KOH, it would have 10 times as many listeners.

Clearly the right-wingers would dismiss this as fuzzy math and not proving anything. But this shows that if KJFK had the market presence and wattage that KOH has, it would be the dominant radio station in town. But the station (rather, Americom Broadcasting, its parent company) isn't doing anything to promote the station. As I have mentioned, they don't have a website, they don't have streaming audio, and they have only an hour-long local political show. There are also no events promoting the station, or promotional materials, for that matter. I called up Reno Radio Representatives (Americom's Reno presence) asking for a bumper sticker to put on my car, and to my surprise, they don't make them! They also had no plans to create a website. I should've offered to build it for them. It shows that RRR has no plans to vault the station higher than it is now, despite clearly having the audience and the potential for growth.

That's where I come in.

I want to increase the liberal media presence because the actual liberal media won't do it. They won't add wattage, they won't promote the station, they just won't do anything. It is my goal, nay, my mission, to educate people and give them the facts on local and national issues that affect all of us.

I have enabled commenting for anyone on this site; you don't even have to be a Blogger member. You also don't have to be a liberal. At this point in time, your comments will go largely unfiltered, unless you make things like hate speech, reveal personal information that is not your own, or make threats of violence against myself or any American political leaders. So that means that you conservatives have a chance to respond to my ramblings. And to show I'm not a faceless machine, my e-mail address is silverstateblues@gmail.com. The same rules for commenting apply.

Also, if you've stumbled upon this blog and agree with the views, please tell your friends about it. Reader comments make me happy.

Finally, I am offering an open invitation for Northern Nevada bloggers that have a better grasp on local politics than I do to post on this blog as a contributor. If you're a liberal and feel that you have what it takes to join Team Reno, send me one of your lefty rants to the e-mail above. Amateurs and fellow bloggers only at this point in time; I like fresh faces and want to get people in on the action.

So that's it for my really long inaugural post. More will be coming soon, and remember, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

~ Deep Blue

Edit: I added sources on the wattage information for each station. Also, compare the coverage maps for KOH and KJFK. KOH's coverage envelops the central California valley, while KJFK's local coverage area stops short of Carson.