The Bloogeyman

News Flash – Bush Scurries into Spider-Hole After Scare

2005-04-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

This just came out over Reuters: Bush Taken to Bunker After Airspace Scare. Gee, it sure looks like it got tense for a few minutes:

Wed, Apr 27, 2005 01:26 PM ET

President Bush was hustled into an underground shelter on Wednesday amid fears an aircraft had entered the restricted airspace around the White House, officials said. The Secret Service determined minutes later that it was a false alarm.

Vice President Dick Cheney also was moved to a secure location as heavily armed Secret Service agents cleared the area in front of the presidential mansion.

You know, it kind of reminded me of this headline that CNN ran after we captured Saddam:

‘Saddam ‘caught like a rat’ in a hole’ – the cowardly bastard!

It’s a good thing this was a false alarm at the White House today. I’d hate for Bush to be pulled out of a spider-hole. Boy, would our face be red!

The Bloogeyman Travels

2005-03-28T10:48:00.000-08:00

If you’ve ever taken a flight out of Los Angeles you know that LAX can be a nightmare – in fact, it’s almost always a nightmare. First, the 405 freeway in LA (near LAX) always has a traffic jam – I’m not talking about jams between 6 and 10 a.m. and between 3 and 7 p.m., I’m talking about all the time – you could be on the 405 near LAX at 1 a.m. in the morning and find yourself in traffic (trust me, it’s happened to me…). So, from the first step, even getting to LAX is a hassle.

Once you get there, what do you do about parking? Well, I like to use Parking Lot C – it’s pretty much the cheapest parking for a couple days – the only problem is that this parking lot is large enough to qualify for its own zip code. Theoretically, this isn’t really a problem – they have shuttles that come by every 10 minutes or so and take you to the airport – there’s just the dreaded possibility of forgetting where you parked your car. Sure, you make sure to write it down in two or three places and find yourself muttering “area 7C…area 7C” as you board the shuttle.

Now, I’ve never lost my car in Parking Lot C, but I can only imagine what would happen if you did. This isn’t a normal parking lot, in which if you lose your car you can just wait till 9 or 10 p.m. when everybody goes home and only your car is left, this lot has thousands of cars and is always packed. One car leaves, another car takes its place. I imagine that if you don’t remember where you parked your car you’d just have to write it off and go buy another one. I’ve tried to mentally prepare myself for what would happen if I forgot where I parked my car. Sure, I could wander the desert that is Parking Lot C in a vain attempt to locate my car – I figure I’d eventually die of thirst. No, better to just go buy a new car and forget my old one ever existed. What’s the probability that you actually forget where you parked your car? Pretty slim, I gather, since most people seem to understand the danger of Parking Lot C. But, in the same way that I figure everybody’s bound to lock their keys in their car sometime, I figure that if you use Parking Lot C enough, you’re bound to forget where you parked sometime…

Yes, it’s not the threat of terrorist WMD attacks, the loss of social security, or the loss of civil liberties that keeps me up at night – it’s the fear of forgetting where I parked in Parking Lot C.

Well, this time as I get on the shuttle to the airport I’m pretty confident that I won’t forget where I parked (I wrote it a dozen times on my arm…). Now comes the next ordeal in the gauntlet that is airline travel: getting to your boarding gate. First, upon getting off at your correct terminal (you hope!) you’re faced with a couple choices of how to check in – -there’s regular check-in, e-check in, and e-check in with self-baggage check. Liking to feel self-reliant at all times, I choose e-check in with self-baggage check. Ok, I just slide my credit card in and it pulls up my name…all’s good…it shows my flight (to San Francisco!) and the gate…good. I push “Continue” and it takes me to a screen where it asks me if I want to upgrade to ‘Economy Plus’. This ‘Economy Plus’ costs $19 and gives you an extra five inches of legroom. Gee – a whole five inches…wow, and only for $19! I push “No” as I think to myself “Good lord, if the airlines have come down to hitting people up for $19 to upgrade to five more inches of leg room, they’re in more trouble than I thought” Of course, we all know that Delta announced this week that they were close to bankruptcy again.

Now comes the dreaded security perp walk. The funny thing about security is that if you fit the ‘profile’ you potentially have a lot to be worried about. Now, I’m not talking about your stereotypical bearded, middle-eastern man wearing a turban (do they even bother going into an airport anymore), but just the broad profile by which you might be considered a threat. I’m talking about any guy traveling alone, between the ages of...say…18-45, who has black or dark brown hair. Yep, I fit that profile. So, knowing that you fit a broad profile of the type of person they’d be interested in (somehow, little girls between the age of 12-17, with blonde hair don’t seem like the type of traveler that gets a lot of scrutiny) you now try to show that they’ve got nothing to worry about regarding you. You try to act non-chalant. The interesting thing about this whole little mental game you play with yourself is that you try to act non-chalant without acting non-chalant in a clichéd way. You sure as hell don’t whistle and tap your shoes. You try to kind of look at people, but not stare. You don’t want to look spaced out, or constantly look at your shoes either. Given the recent 60 Minutes report about how people are randomly being abducted and spirited off aboard ‘phantom airplanes’ to countries that use torture to get information out of you – I wasn’t looking forward to the possibility that I might draw any unwanted attention…

That's all for now, the Bloogeyman will get back to you with more tales of travel as his week of traveling adventure goes on.

Throw a Bucket of Cold Water on 'Em

2005-03-23T11:56:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks back the Bloogeyman related the first part of his epic story: The Trials and Tribulations of Installing a Water Heater. When we last left the Bloogeyman he was on his way to Home Depot to get a soldering kit to do the damn job of welding copper pipes. Why? Because the Bloogeyman doesn’t exactly fancy the thought of having some inbred plumber blow up his house. The Bloogeyman prefers to do the job himself.

So anyways, the Bloogeyman is on his way to the local Home Depot to pick up a soldering kit, some copper pipe, and some couplings. The great thing about Home Depot is that it’s basically like a huge candy-shop for men – I mean the amount of power tools, electrical gadgets, and just-plain-manly-stuff (PVC pipe) is astonishing. Of course, if you’re not used to doing things yourself, or if you don’t exactly know what you’re doing it can be as intimidating as parachuting naked into the jungle.

Luckily, since the Bloogeyman had been through the drill before (looking at water heaters, connections, etc.) he knew exactly where to find the stuff. Oh, how the Bloogeyman strutted through the wide aisles like he owned the place. The meek, who didn’t know what they were looking for, or the babies who were waiting for some Home Depot employee to guide their hand, scattered before the mighty Bloogeyman.

Of course, once I got to the water heater / pipe section I realized I couldn’t find any soldering kits. Great…now my turn to stand around helpless like a baby who just crapped his pants waiting for some grownup to come rescue him. Screw that, I’ll go find some employee. The first guy I run into, a kid, actually (is there some sort of pimple-count test you have to pass before becoming an employee of Home Depot?) starts walking with me towards the soldering kits while I tell him exactly what I’m going to be doing.

“Hey, you should use this stuff right here – CopperBond – you just put it on the pipes and bond them together, you don’t have to do the soldering”, he said as he grabs some epoxy glue-type stuff for bonding copper pipes.

“Yeah, but will this really work?”, I said as I scratch my head and look at the label denoting a $5.99 price (that’s gonna be $20 less than getting a soldering kit).

“Sure, that stuff will work. And look here on the back of the box, it says this stuff is guaranteed to provide a leak-proof joint. If this stuff leaks and messes up all your stuff you can, like, sue the hell out of them and get a ton of money”, he advised.

I actually started laughing out loud.

I mean, come on – like you can sue some large-ass corporation that’s probably a subsidiary of GE or something because their ‘CopperBond’ didn’t bond your copper and water-damaged your whole house. You’d get that lawsuit shoved up your ass so hard by some GE corporate lawyers that you’d end up paying them for slandering their product or something. I almost wanted to pat the kid on the head because he was so naïve!

“No, really, you could sue them and get them to pay for all your damages”, the kid defended.

“Yeah, well maybe, but probably not”, I said noncommittally.

Screw it, I’ll just go for the soldering kit, I thought as the kid walked away. If I’m going to do the job myself might as well do it right.

Of course, there was also some latent pride at being able to walk up to the counter and purchase a propane torch soldering kit. I’m a big boy.

So I get home and fire up that torch. First things first, I have to undo the previous joint the previous scumbag plumber welded into the wall.

So, I start to heat up that joint – once the solder gets hot enough I should be able to pull the pipe off.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

There’s molten hot soldering dripping onto my hand as I hold the torch below the joint. Goddamn, molten metal is hot! I go run my hand under some cold water – luckily I hardly got burned – and then go find some gloves.

To make the rest of a long, boring story short suffice it to say that there really weren’t any other hilarious mishaps (no, my eyebrows did not get burned off and I do still have a house). Frankly, I kind of enjoyed doing this project myself – it’s always cooler to do something with cool tools than say, sweep the sidewalk.

All-in-all I’m actually glad I didn’t have to deal with watching a plumber do a shoddy job and overcharge me when I could basically do the job myself in roughly the same amount of time. And I guess that’s what it’s come to – these days you either have to buck up and do the job yourself or resign yourself to the fact that you’ll probably get ripped off.

And that gets me to our current-day larger than life scandals. You can’t trust anyone anymore because they won’t think twice about ripping you off. Take Enron, for example, Ken Lay rips people off and just walks away. He is never going to trial. And hell, even if he does go to trial, he’ll probably get some lame Martha Stewartesque slap on the wrist. Raise your hand if you would gladly go to a minimum-security prison for 5 years if you got $100 million dollars out of it. Yeah, some of us have ethics, but face it, most people don’t. And, even if they try to take the money away from Ken Lay he’s had like 4 years to carefully stash, launder, and hide the money away. What a scumbag…

We need to revamp the whole prison system to create only two types of prisons: regular, and super maximum security. The super maximum security would be for people on death row, people who don’t behave (taking away their pudding doesn’t help), and psychos. Regular is for everybody else. That’s right – Mr. I-carjacked-somebody-and-then-shot-two-people right next to Mr. I’m-just-a-tax-accountant. I really think that if people like Michael Milken, Charles Keating, and Ken Lay had to bunk with some 300lb Bubba who’s serving 20 to life for gang-raping a Teamster they’d think twice before stealing pension money from old ladies.

March Madness, Part 3: Bracket Breakdown - East

2005-03-22T15:32:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to our coverage of March Madness. Previously our guest commentators, Gumby Bryant and Mad Johnnen, helped us break down the exciting 'North' region of the iNCAA bracket. Now we're going to look at the 'East' region - I'll let Gumby and Mad get right to it:

Oh, and if you haven’t gotten the whole bracket yet, or haven’t filled it out, here's the entire, printable bracket.

Gumby Bryant: Welcome back to our exclusive iNCAA coverage. I’m Gumby Bryant…uh…no relation to Kobe…and here’s Mad Johnnen…

Mad Johnnen: Welcome back everyone…

Gumby Bryant: Ok, let’s cut right to the chase – is the ‘East’ region the strongest in the iNCAA bracket? I’m starting to think so…

Mad Johnnen: Well, hold on a minute, let’s back up for a minute – I want to take a moment to introduce anyone who’s just joining us to the iNCAA tournament.

Gumby Bryant: Ok, but make it quick, we’ve got a lot to cover!

Mad Johnnen: The iNCAA tournament is a ‘last-man standing’ style tournament to determine who has the most control over Iraq at the end of the tournament. This tournament lasts 1 year and has six rounds (thus, each round lasts 2 months). At the end of each round a determination will be made as to which of the two teams has more control and authority in Iraq. For example, if you look at the ‘East’ region, #1 seed Theocratic Shiites is up against #16 seed Christian Iraqis – at the end of April we will determine who has more control and that team will move on to the second round.

Gumby Bryant: Hah – we all know who’s moving forward from that match-up.

Mad Johnnen: Well, yeah – the Christians are going to get crushed like this is a modern-day crusade!

Gumby Bryant: That’s what makes the current turn of events so interesting. Not many people realize that life was actually pretty good for Christians under Saddam Hussein. Ever since the invasion Iraqi Christians have been pretty much under siege with church bombings, kidnappings, and killings.

Mad Johnnen: Now, wasn’t the Deputy Prime Minister under Saddam Hussein a Christian?

Gumby Bryant: Yup, many people forget that Tariq Aziz, basically the number two guy in Iraq under Saddam, was a Christian.

Mad Johnnen: Well that’s too bad for Christian Iraqis – they had a good run.

Gumby Bryant: Yeah, you could say that they’ve been the ‘Cinderella story’ of the past 30 years – I think they’re going down and out after the first round.

Mad Johnnen: Now, how about that #1 seed for Coach Sistani’s team?

Gumby Bryant: That was pretty much a given – the Theocratic Shiites are arguably the strongest team in this whole tournament after U.S. Army. But, in addition to the #1 seed that the Theocratic Shiites deserved, I think they also got really favorable placement within the ‘East’ region.

Mad Johnnen: Come again? I was thinking the exact opposite – I think the ‘East’ region is potentially upset city…

Gumby Bryant: How’s that?

Mad Johnnen: Well, bear with me here, take a look at the top half of the ‘East’ region – you’ve got two other really strong teams in that part: Moqtada al-Sadr and Ba’ath Party

Gumby Bryant: But only one of those teams can move up to challenge the Theocratic Shiites…

Mad Johnnen: Sure, but whichever team moves up to challenge them in round 3 will have the benefit of a bruising second round match that will get them in shape for the Theocratic Shiites.

Gumby Bryant: And who do you think will move up to challenge Coach Sistani’s squad?

Mad Johnnen: I think Ba’ath Party, though seeded much lower than I thought they deserved, will move up and could possibly upset the Theocratic Shiites.

Gumby Bryant: Wow! I didn’t even think they could get by Moqtada al-Sadr in the second round!

Mad Johnnen: al-Sadr had his spark last April, but he’s really lost a lot of traction since then. You have to remember that the Ba’ath Party is really well organized and knows all the tricks of the game – they’ve been number 1 in Iraq for 30 years.

Gumby Bryant: Well, I guess you have a point, but I’m not sure I see them upsetting Coach Sistani…

Mad Johnnen: Well, it could happen – also take a look at the bottom half of the ‘East’ region. I was really surprised that the Theocratic Sunnis got a #2 seed!

Gumby Bryant: I guess you could say that was the shocker of this region – the Kurds were really unhappy at the fact that they were given a #3 seed.

Mad Johnnen: But that’s ok, they have a chance to take out their anger on the Theocratic Sunnis in the 3^rd round.

Gumby Bryant: Only if they get past the Saddam Loyalists in the second round…

Mad Johnnen: What? I was going to say that the Kurds were going to roll over the Saddam Loyalists, they sure have some vengeance to work out of their system!

Gumby Bryant: Hey, you can’t underestimate the Saddam Loyalists – remember, they were the ones who started the current insurgency way back in March 2003!

Mad Johnnen: Granted…they are a tough, scrappy little team.

Gumby Bryant: Well, in conclusion, Mad, give me your pick to win the ‘East’ region…

Mad Johnnen: I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the Ba’ath Party will make an astounding comeback to win it all in the East.

Gumby Bryant: That’s definitely a daring prediction – I’m going to play it safe and vote that Coach Sistani and the Theocratic Shiites stomp through the East. With that, we’re off – stay tuned for some more bracket breakdowns next time. We actually have a surprise for viewers…

Mad Johnnen: What’s that?

Gumby Bryant: Next time we’re going to break down the ‘West’ region and we have booked Coach George W. Bush of U.S. Army to give us some insight into the ‘West’ region and the whole iNCAA tournament.

Mad Johnnen: Should be exciting – stay tuned!

Poll of the Week Results: Please State Your Nickname for the Record

2005-03-21T08:33:00.000-08:00

Well, here are the results from our ‘pick a nickname’ contest. How did I even come up with such a contest… you should check out this post in which the Bloogeyman takes an opinion columnist to task for suggesting Condoleezza Rice might deserve a Nobel Peace Prize (WTF?!?). Just writing that post got the Bloogeyman so worked up, muttering various unflattering names for Condi Rice, that he decided to make a contest of it and let you decide what Condi’s nickname should be.

So, you all voted and…the winner is…’Condosleaza Rice’ (in case you have trouble reading the complex graph above…or, unlike Ross Perot, just don’t like reading graphs). Oh, I also forgot to mention that Condoleezza Rice agreed to abide by our decision and use our proclaimed nickname from now on.

Just kidding (I know, that really threw you guys for a loop…you’re so used to the Bloogeyman being dead serious)

Ah, nicknames indeed – we all know that George Bush has a penchant for providing his own little nicknames…but what would George Bush nickname Condi? Well, the Bloogeyman knows because the only vote that ‘Brown Sugah’ got came from George Bush himself. You see, the Bloogeyman called up George himself, disguised as a ‘reporter’ from ‘Talen News’ service and asked him this very question. George seemed to think I was asking him a non-hypothetical question, since he quickly provided the “correct” answer. “Uh, that would be number D, Brown Sugah”, he replied to my question.

The Bloogeyman was about to launch into a hard-hitting one-on-one interview with the President, but right at that moment I heard a knock and George said “Shit, I gotta go, that’s Dick – I’m supposed to be reading this report”. Oh well, now that I’ve got George’s personal line (I found out the number for the large red phone that sits on his desk – I figure with the safety and security that George provides the Russians will never need to use the ‘red line’, right?). So, enjoy the results and don’t be afraid for the Bloogeyman, intrepid reporter that he is, will surely call George back on the ‘red line’ and get an interview one of these days…

March Madness, Part 2: Bracket Breakdown - North

2005-03-18T03:20:00.000-08:00

Welcome again to our coverage of March Madness. Last time, we presented some opening comments and let everyone take a look at the bracket. This time, the Bloogeyman is proud to present Gumby Bryant and Mad Johnnen – they will be helping us take a closer look at the bracket. First, we’ll break down the bracket and look at each region – there’s some exciting stuff going on here, and plenty of controversy – then we’ll wrap it up by looking at the bracket as a whole along with some possible outcomes. Here’s the ‘North’ region of the bracket, I'll let Gumby and Mad take it from here:

Oh, and if you haven’t gotten the whole bracket yet, or haven’t filled it out, here’s the entire, printable bracket.

Gumby Bryant: Hello everyone, welcome to our iNCAA coverage. I’m Gumby Bryant…uh…no relation to Kobe…and here’s my co-host, Mad Johnnen.

Mad Johnnen: Hiya everybody!

Gumby Bryant: Ok, Mad, let’s get right into this, there’s a lot of interesting things going on in this North region.

Mad Johnnen: Well, hold on for a minute, I think we need to first introduce the iNCAA tournament to everybody out there who just got into this – it’s going to be an exciting tournament and we want everybody to play along!

Gumby Bryant: Ok Mad, take it away…

Mad Johnnen: The iNCAA tourney is pretty exciting because it’s a ‘last-man standing’ tourney – we’re looking at who has the most control over Iraq. Man, there are a lot of players and players who play a lot. The interesting thing about this tournament is that there really is no time limit – players drop out whenever. Basically, we update the bracket each year and during the year we follow the players at two-month intervals and then determine who has more control at the end of the round. For example, lets take a look at the ‘North’ region – the first round is over at the end of April. At that point we’ll take a look to see who has more control, #1 seed Britain, or #16 seed Netherlands. Round two is over at the end of June, and so-forth.

Gumby Bryant: I’m sure we all know who’s going to be out at the end of April in that match up! Remember, a #16 seed has never defeated a #1 seed in the history of the tournament – the Netherlands is going to get rolled.

Mad Johnnen: No objections here, Gumby. You know, when I first took a look at the North bracket I was amazed at how stacked this bracket is with the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ this year.

Gumby Bryant: Right Mad, but I was thinking they are more like the ‘Coalition of the Willing-to-Bend-Over-and-Take-it-for-Uncle-Sam’!

Mad Johnnen: No objections here, Gumby. But, you gotta like some of the ‘wildcard’ players they threw in here…Iran, Syria, Israel. This could get really interesting.

Gumby Bryant: That’s exactly what I was going to talk about – there was a lot of controversy over the fact that Iran got a #2 seed in this region – are they even playing in this tournament?

Mad Johnnen: Boy, that sure took people by surprise. Coach Howard of Australia was really miffed on this one – he was really hoping for a #2 seed. Not only did he not get that, he’s potentially going up against Italy in the second round! I talked to some of my sources and here was the rationale behind putting Iran in this bracket and for giving them such a high seed. Basically, any way you look at it, Iran has a lot of influence, even control, in Iraq: Sure, they don’t have troops on the ground but there have been a lot of reports about Iranian intelligence agents in Iraq.

Gumby Bryant: Right, and if you remember back in January, a British C-130 Hercules was shot down – some people say that Iran was behind that. You’ve got to be nervous if you’re Coach Blair because you might have to go head-to-head with Iran to win the North bracket.

Mad Johnnen: Let’s look at another pick that took everyone by surprise – Italy. Gumby, didn’t Italy announce just a couple days ago that they were going to withdraw troops from Iraq by September? How did they get on the bracket, and how did they get such a high seed?

Gumby Bryant: Well, here’s how I look at the situation: Sure, Coach Berlusconi announced a couple days ago that he was going to drop out of the tournament by September, but look what happened yesterday – he backtracked on that statement! Coach Bush (U.S. Army) called him up and twisted his arm...

Mad Johnnen: I bet he didn’t have to twist hard…the U.S. hasn’t owned Italy this much since they drove through Italy in a convertible during World War 2!

Gumby Bryant: …yeah, well I think that Italy will be there longer than September, but I know they’re going to have to get by Australia if they want to stay alive past the second round.

Mad Johnnen: Now what about these other two surprises – Israel and Syria?

Gumby Bryant: Israel was a real shocker – Coach Sharon had publicly said that he didn’t want to be on the bracket, but that didn’t stop Israel from being placed…favorably, if I might add…

Mad Johnnen: Wait just a minute here, did you say that Israel has been placed favorably?

Gumby Bryant: Sure, just look at the top half of the bracket – Britain’s a #1 seed right now, but I think Britain’s position is kind of shaky. Coach Blair’s been getting a lot of pressure lately and if he makes some move that indicates he’ll be out of the tournament – or even some comments undermining the appearance of Britain’s commitment to the tourney – I think there’s an upset in the making. Everybody knows that Israel has a huge stake in the outcome of this tournament, and I think you’re naïve if you don’t believe they have some level of control in this process.

Mad Johnnen: So, let me get this straight: You think Israel will sail past Japan in the first round…

Gumby Bryant: The Japanese are a bunch of wet noodles…

Mad Johnnen: And then they have a chance at upsetting Britain…wow…that would be breath taking. In that scenario, what about a possible match-up against Syria in the third round?

Gumby Bryant: That’s what makes the North bracket so interesting…I think that Israel would squeeze by Syria – that could potentially result in a 4^th round match up against Iran.

Mad Johnnen: Wowza!

Gumby Bryant: That’s right – this bracket has the potential to be a real powder keg of action. Good to have all you folks with us – let us know what your favorite picks are in the North bracket. Next time we'll take a look at the 'East' region of the bracket.

March Madness, Part 1: Iraqetology

2005-03-17T12:05:00.000-08:00

Well, March Madness has arrived and it looks to be a doozy. In fact, I’m a little late to the party because by my count March Madness actually started two years ago: I just never got around to filling out my brackets. Of course, I’m talking about Iraqi March Madness – the biggest, baddest bracket fest ever. So, sharpen your pencils because, without further ado, here is the bracket:

Click here for larger, printable version.

Also, I have a special surprise, I have scheduled Gumby Bryant (no relation to Kobe) and Mad Johnnen to do a region-by-region breakdown of the brackets. They’ll be swinging by later on to let us know the ins and outs of the brackets – who looks like they’ll be going far, who might be on the receiving end of an upset, and which surprises to look out for.

This looks like an exciting tournament - make sure to fill out your brackets and get ready for some madness!

Of Blogs and Boogeymen – Today in Iraq

2005-03-16T20:58:00.000-08:00

Today in Iraq is more of a news source than a blog. “But, it’s all just bad news!”, I’ll soon hear someone whining. Well, hell, lemme double check that. Yup, it’s pretty much all bad news. I’ll refrain from telling you whether or not that’s because almost everything happening in Iraq is bad or whether it’s just cherry picking of news. You Tell Me.© (Hah! Love how I used my copyrighted phrase? Take that Fox News!). Suffice it to say my view on this blog is 1) The people who keep up this blog obviously put a lot of time into getting practically everything that’s happening in Iraq at a given moment and 2) The ‘Commentary’ section of the blog gives you good insight as to what various editorials around the nation and world are saying about Iraq (whether you agree with them or not it’s good to know what they are saying).

Here’s my view on the whole good news/bad news thing: When the time comes that I’m getting only good news about anything I’ll start to feel like I’m living in some Soviet utopian nightmare. “But comrade”, the local party boss will say, “a half a loaf of bread a day is a feast fit for a king!” as I look down at my bit of moldy bread and realize that once again I’m gonna go hungry so Uncle Joe can afford another car. Given a choice between bad news and good news, I’ll take the bad news any day.

Yes, I know that good things are happening every day in Iraq. I know that kids are going to school and hospitals are being rebuilt. But, to paraphrase what someone else once said, “It was a sunny day in Dallas the day that Kennedy got shot, but most newspapers didn’t lead with the weather.” Damn right. Don’t show me a picture of some little girl going to school when her mom had to wear a burkha to go vote and her cousin just got blown up by some suicide bomber. That’s not much progress in my book.

So, Today in Iraq tells it to you straight – no embellishment, just the cold, hard steel. Remember, part of how the Bloogeyman works is to try to look at the cold, hard facts – or the worst-case scenario – it’s part of being “conservative”. For example, in the business world (where I work to put food on my family), to be conservative in your budget forecast or financial assumptions means to take the ‘most likely scenario’ and discount it. That is, take what you think is happening or might happen and knock it down a notch to see what happens if things don’t turn out as good as anticipated. Now, I’m not a military genius or anything like that, but if we finance people can plan for a worst-case scenario (in which all we lose is more dollars) then shouldn’t a military planner plan for a worst-case scenario (in which you lose more lives if something goes wrong).

A key foundation of capitalism is the fact that you must be rooted in reality. If your business is producing goods of inferior quality or high price, the market will make your business go bankrupt. No goody-goody communist subsidizing of your business to make it look like your plan is really working. We’re living in the real world! And if the basis of our capitalistic economy is to be rooted in reality, doesn’t it make sense to be rooted in reality in other parts of our life? That is why I prefer to keep one foot in reality and look at a worst-case scenario. When the worst-case scenario starts looking ok, then I know (just as in business) that we’ve got something pretty good on our hands.

The breadth and depth of information necessary to understand a situation and comprehend all of the future possibilities empowers one to make decisions that effect what will really happen in the future. The essence of that power lies in information and deduction. Today in Iraq does an admirable job of putting together about as much information on a pressing topic in today’s world that one needs to feel informed. For that reason the Bloogeyman recommends Today in Iraq.

Of Blogs and Boogeymen – The American Conservative Magazine

2005-03-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

“The American Conservative magazine?!? WTF?!?”, you will screech when you see this. No, the Bloogeyman is not smoking crack. Yes, it is Pat Buchanan’s magazine. No, the Bloogeyman does not agree with all (or even most) of what is in that magazine. Yes, The American Conservative is still worth reading – and here’s why.

No, this whole post will not be a “Yes, No, Yes, No” diatribe – whew, I could almost hear my readership declining by the second. The American Conservative magazine was founded in 2002 by Scott McConnell, Pat Buchanan, and Taki Theodoracopulos. Now, the Bloogeyman is by no means a close follower of Buchananite policies, nor does the Bloogeyman even contend to know each and every Buchananite stance on every issue. However, in the quest for political knowledge it is important, if not essential, to look at other political theory frameworks to understand their source, structure, and impact.

“Ah”, you will say, “A variation of the ‘know thy enemy’ theme”. Well, let’s take a look at several recent important nation/world events. Against runaway spending by Bush that has turned a $200 billion surplus into a $400 billion deficit? Against the continuing policy of outsourcing manufacturing jobs – a policy that has cost 2.7 million jobs in the first Bush term? Against the war in Iraq before the war was started? Against the neo-conservative march towards limiting civil liberties and individual rights? Against bad fiscal and monetary policies that are causing or augmenting the decline of the dollar? Against go-it-alone foreign policies and neo-imperialism? It could be Howard Dean, but it is also Pat Buchanan that holds all those positions.

I know, that’s how fucked up the whole neo-conservative / religious right / right-wing conservative movement has gotten – it actually makes Pat Buchanan seem like a moderate conservative. I never thought I’d hear myself say that. Regardless, The American Conservative is an important magazine to read because you are able to see the thought process behind many of the conservative ideas laid out by “old-school” conservatives.

Here is some text from their website that explains how they view themselves:

Many voices will appear in the pages of The American Conservative — often in disagreement with one another. We are of course in considerable part Buchananite—well disposed to the web of ideas that drew millions of voters during three Buchanan presidential bids. But our magazine’s mission is broader: to ignite the conversation that conservatives ought to have engaged in since the end of the Cold War, but didn’t.
We will question the benefits and point to the pitfalls of the global free trade economy; we will free the immigration debate from the prison to which it has been consigned. And we will discuss, frequently, America’s role in the world, turning a critical eye on those who want to cast aside every relevant American foreign policy tradition—from Robert Taft-style isolationism to prudent Dwight Eisenhower-style internationalism, in favor of go it alone militarism, where America threatens and bombs one nation after another, while the world looks on in increasing horror.
We believe conservatism to be the most natural political tendency, rooted in man’s taste for the familiar, for family, for faith in God. We believe that true conservatism has a predisposition for the institutions and mores that exist. So much of what passes for contemporary conservatism is wedded to a kind of radicalism—fantasies of global hegemony, the hubristic notion of America as a universal nation for all the world’s peoples, a hyperglobal economy. In combination with an increasingly unveiled contempt for America’s long-standing allies, this is more a recipe for disaster.
Against it, we take our stand.

Why not just read Fox News to get some “conservative” insight? Well, if we want to get philosophical for a minute, a Fox News argument usually goes something like this: A=B, B=C, therefore A=T (WTF?!?). Plainly said, it is rhetoric. Logic can not dent it because it does not exist in the plane of logic. You may not agree with many of the conclusions that the writers in The American Conservative come to (and even if the conclusion logically follows from the premise, you might not agree with the premise), but at least they try to start with a premise, add logic, and arrive at a conclusion.

The Bloogeyman believes it is important to keep an open mind and at least consider every point of view. Even if you arrive to the conclusion that a certain point of view is wrong, you should attempt to understand the “logic” of that point of view and the way that point of view is pitched or disseminated to people so that you can counter and unmask the boogeyman that hides beneath that policy. Amazingly, you will find yourself agreeing with some of the conclusions writers in The American Conservative arrive at and it will be interesting to see how they arrived at that same conclusion from a different philosophical starting point. For that reason the Bloogeyman recommends The American Conservative magazine.

When In Rome...

2005-03-14T23:21:00.000-08:00

One thing I’ve started to notice a lot in the last several years is how people seem to be declaring that something is X and then, when called upon to provide evidence that supports the assertion, demand that someone needs to prove that something is not X – else they’ll keep on declaring that this thing is X. The Bloogeyman is not a philosopher, but he did take one philosophy and one logic class in college (yup, that’s right – you’re reading a college educated blogger!). This line of thinking is called ‘proving a negative’ – that is, you’re calling on someone to prove that something doesn’t exist/didn’t’ happen/isn’t true. The fundamental problem with this line of ‘logic’ is that it is false – you cannot prove a broadly asserted negative!

Here’s an example: Let’s say you call up the Bloogeyman and say “You’re gay!”. And I say “No, I’m not”, then you say “Prove it!”. Well, herein is the problem I’d have to do impossible things to prove that I’m not gay. I’d have to let you follow me around all day long, or let you video tape me everywhere (yes, even in the shower) to attempt to prove that I wasn’t gay. Even if I let you do that you could simply say that either you hadn’t been following me long enough or that I was hiding my true intentions. Long story short, you’d have to follow me around for the rest of my life and I still couldn’t prove beyond a doubt that I wasn’t gay. You are asking me to prove a negative – something that is logically impossible.

The most salient recent example is the whole debacle we call Iraq. We went to Iraq and said to them, “You have to prove to us that you don’t have WMD!” To which Iraq said, “Uh…okay…we’ll let you look anywhere you want, whenever you want, to show you that we don’t have any WMD”. You can already guess where this discussion will lead. Eventually, we found ourselves (or our administration) saying, “Well, the inspectors haven’t found any WMD yet, but he could be hiding them anywhere, even in his pocket!” Of course, it’s impossible to prove that you aren’t hiding them anywhere, because anywhere someone looks at a single point in time somebody else can say that maybe they’re somewhere else at the time. Finally we went down the absurd route of saying that they had intentions to acquire WMD. How the hell can you prove that you don’t have any intentions? It’s not like someone can crack open your skull and count all the intentions you have in there!

Regardless, that’s the path we went down, and it seems to be a favored path these days. The Iraq example is only the most obvious recent example – there are dozens, and new ones pop up every week. Well, the Bloogeyman has looked at how all of this has played out in recent years and finally decided that a new maxim applies, “When in Rome, accuse the Romans of hiding WMD!”

Since we’re all about demanding that people prove negatives these days, I figure why not start applying some of that logic to this administration?

George Bush – you are a crack addict. We now have tapes in which you basically admit to marijuana use; we have people that say you used cocaine in the past; and we have access to right-wing research that proves that once you’ve used marijuana you become a crack addict in short order. Therefore, you George Bush, are a crack addict. Now, don’t send one of your sleazy boogeymen (lawyers) over here talking about libel and slander – I want you to prove to me that you aren’t a crack addict. Until you do, I declare you to be a crack addict.

Jeff Gannon – you are a gay hooker. I’m sorry, but when you have a website which offers your ‘services’ to men for $200/hour (or $1,200/weekend, for you hedonistic, but still value-conscious and fiscally conservative, Republicans) you’re a gay hooker. Period. In fact, you’re also a gay pimp because you’ve offered to procure other men for your clients. Don’t go on TV and proclaim your ungayness or denounce that people have been calling you a hooker – you need to prove to me that you are not a gay hooker. I know that’s a little tough to do, but hey, I didn’t make up the rules.

Karl Rove – you are a self-loathing homosexual. That’s right, there’s just too much evidence that you’re gay to ignore. Hell, I don’t even need evidence – you need to prove to me that you’re not gay. Until then, I pronounce you to be gay.

Bill Bennett – you are addicted to pornography. Yeah, I know that right about now you’re saying “WTF?!? I’m just addicted to gambling…”, but according to this right-wing pamphlet I received last month gambling leads to pornography (which leads to homosexuality…or is it the other way around?). You have admitted to being a gambler, ergo, you are addicted to gay pornography. I will continue to announce to the world that you, William Bennett, are addicted to gay pornography until you prove to me that you are not.

Whew, this logic stuff is hard to apply - takes a lot of thinking. I'm sure I missed a couple of obvious people. Is there anyone else that needs to be on this list? You Tell Me.

Poll of the Week Results: A Unibrow-raising Result

2005-03-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

Well, here are the results of the first weekly poll. For background reading regarding this poll you should consult this expert study related to the poll question.

The Bloogeyman was frankly surprised that people seemed to zero in on two likely suspects. It was interesting to see that most of you picked Karl Rove as the most probable lead actor in this romantic comedy of sorts.

The interesting breakdown of the results caused this Bloogeyman to raise one eyebrow (maybe with the intent of looking mischievous, or maybe just because the Bloogeyman only has a unibrow to raise…). After putting his crack team of detectives on the case, the Bloogeyman was able to obtain further information on who actually participated in this online poll:

Yes, that’s right – while most voters were just lazy employees wasting time at work, a full 7% of the votes were able to be tracked down to the computer that Karl Rove uses in the White House. It seems that when Karl saw that this poll wasn’t swinging his way he promptly logged on and voted 13 times for George Bush and 3 times for Dick Cheney (got to spread the blame somehow, right?). The Bloogeyman should have known that Karl Rove is the ultimate boogeyman – hiding in the shadows of every event and lurking in the corner of every room.

Of Blogs and Boogeymen – Another Day in the Empire

2005-03-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

Kurt Nimmo keeps a blog called Another Day in the Empire. Besides the fact that he is obviously involved in other things (photography, book-writing) he pretty much adds something to the blog every day. And I’m not talking about some chewed up and regurgitated crap like a party boss might send down in a memo as talking points for the day – I’m talking about insightful, well thought out material and analysis from the corners of the media. Stuff that you’d probably have to wait 20 years for the history books to write about before you ever heard a whiff of it in the “main-stream media”.

Now, some of you are going to write back and say, “What the hell, Bloogeyman, half of this guy’s stuff are deductions and conjecture – not stuff based on verifiable media sources.” And the Bloogeyman would reply (if he wasn’t too lazy to actually respond), “Well that’s exactly what we want to do! We don’t want to find out about stuff after it’s already happened and then debate whether or not someone should have told us it’s happening or whether we should’ve looked out for something! We want to use our noggins to deduce what is actually happening without waiting for someone to whack us with a rubber mallet.”

And then you’ll say, “Bloogeyman, what the hell is up with all of these imaginary conversations you keep having?!?” And the Bloogeyman will say, “Well, hell, nobody ever leaves comments on my posts so I have to pretend that people are actually reading the stuff I write.” I bet people read Kurt Nimmo’s stuff. Sad.

Also, unlike the Bloogeyman, this Kurt Nimmo guy obviously has the time (or just the work ethic) to diligently document and reference where he is getting all of his data for these conjectures. “But, Nimmo’s off the deep end!”, you’ll moan. That’s the best part! Here is Kurt Nimmo, Captain Kurt Nimmo if you will, boldly voyaging where no one else dares to tread. I kind of like the sound and analogy of that. This Captain Nimmo is not unlike the Captain Nemo of literary fame. As you remember, Captain Nemo traveled the earth in an underwater submarine, the Nautilus, in search of – truth! The empires of the day hounded and chased Captain Nemo, but he was concerned with one thing, the pursuit of truth through science. The Nautilus was a fantastic contraption, allowing him to spend weeks under water, unpestered and free to explore. And boy, did he find things in the murky depths of the ocean where no one else dared to go.

Our Captain Nimmo trolls the darkest depths of the vast information ocean to bring us unvarnished, unpolished bits of information. We decide whether he pulled up a pearl or a rotting piece of flesh. Does he have all the answers? No, but he does a damned good job of asking the right questions. Compared to the power of Captain Nimmo’s and his Nautilus our “main-stream media” look like a bunch of clowns in leaky old rowboats (that also means you CNN!). Remember, you don’t have to agree with everything (or even anything) that a person says as long as it makes you think – that’s my rationale for linking up Captain Nimmo. For that reason the Bloogeyman recommends Another Day in the Empire.

Forcing People Through the Gates of Education is Not the Answer

2005-03-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

I’m sure many of you have already heard about the comments Bill Gates made regarding education. He even had an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times a week ago. His argument was one that people almost universally agree with: American children are not getting the best education they could. However, Bill Gates goes one step further by describing our high schools as obsolete because “The idea behind the old high school system was that you could train an adequate work force by sending only a small fraction of students to college, and that the other kids either couldn't do college work or didn't need to.” In today’s world, Bill argues, we need to prepare every high school student for college. Now, let me preface this whole discussion by saying that I think Bill Gates is an extraordinary businessman and that I admire the fact that he has started to focus more on philanthropy in recent years. Now, back to the discussion regarding education and Bill Gates’ comments.

Sorry Bill, you’re dead fucking wrong. You should probably stick to sweating over software code, testing X-box games, or whatever it is you do these days. Simply put, the problem isn’t a lack of educationally qualified workers; it’s a lack of decent jobs.

“But…but…”, you’ll be saying, “we’ve added almost 2 million jobs over the last year! Unemployment is going down; the problem is that we need a lot more educated workers”. Granted, we have added 2 million jobs over the past year, but you have to look a little deeper than the surface number to get the real picture.

You see, Billy, there’s several types of jobs. You’ve got your standard breakdown between farm and non-farm jobs (non-farm payroll jobs are reported monthly in a report released by the Labor Department). Within non-farm payroll you’ve also got breakdowns by type and industry. Economists like to look at the breakdown between service-sector jobs and other jobs. What does this tell economists? Well, service sector jobs includes retail and fast-food jobs – that’s right, we’re talking about the ‘would you like fries with that’ type of jobs. Sure, there are plenty of ‘high-value’ service sector jobs (investment advisors, doctors, lawyers, hookers), but a large percentage of service jobs are minimum-wage paying jobs with no health or pension benefits. That’s why if you get a large increase in service-sector jobs it’s not really a great thing – sure, it’s good that more people have jobs, but by and large they’re not great jobs. That’s why economists often break down their analysis between Service sector jobs and Non-Service sector jobs.

We’re going to go through another example, but first for the sake of simplicity (yeah…that’s right…simple for you, Billy) we’re going to take away the euphemism (Service vs. Non-Service) and re-label our breakdown as Shitty and Non-Shitty jobs. Let’s take last week’s employment report that was released on Friday. This report was for the month of February and it showed that the economy added 262,000 non-farm payroll jobs in the previous month (Whoopee!). But wait just a minute…207,000 of those jobs were Shitty jobs (Bummer!). Non-Shitty jobs only made up 55,000 of those jobs. “So what?”, you’ll be thinking, “55,0000 jobs is a lot of jobs – that’s like 54,999 more jobs than I could use right now…”. Sure, it sounds like a lot of jobs, but economists estimate that with demographic shifts and population growth the economy needs to add 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep the unemployment rate constant. Any month in which we’re not adding 150,000 new jobs we’re actually losing ground. Additionally, if you care about things like poverty rates and the middle class, the 150,000 jobs we need to be adding per month should be Non-Shitty jobs. For sake of clarity, and to illustrate the effect of deterioration in the Non-Shitty job base, I’ve attached below a chart from an economic study conducted in 2004 by Professor A.G. Shinkleton:

Going back to the original issue at hand, the question of education, we start to see that simply having an education in-and-of-itself is not a cure-all for economic woes. As 90% of college grads will tell you, their jobs do not actually make use of their degree – the degree was just a piece of paper they needed to be able to interview for the job. Why should we start taking millions of kids who have no interest in pursuing a college education and force them to go through 4 years and $120,000 just so they can get a Shitty job? It’s gotten to the point where you practically need a college education to serve a cup of coffee!

What America desperately needs is a return to the ‘good job’ – the job that you could take right out of high school, which included health and pension benefits, and that could support your spouse and family (a one-income family? – I refuse to believe it ever existed!). Sure, it’s not a ‘great’ job – maybe you need a college education for one of those – but at least you’re not stuck working two jobs and turning your family into a 3-income family just to make ends meet. These days even college grads are stuck working 60-hour workweeks and find that at the end of the year they still haven’t saved any money. As an illustration here’s a real chart of the minimum wage adjusted for inflation (funny when your credibility sinks so low that you have to point out that you’re using a real chart this time…):

Yes, we all agree that education is a good thing, and that a college education is even better (maybe then more than 30% of the population would believe in evolution…), but we need to face the real fact: if everyone has an education and no one has a job it doesn’t solve anything. We need a return to the decent job – the job that an American knows he deserves if he is willing to work hard and live honestly.

A Dose of Cold Water: Burnt Fingers and Burnt Egos

2005-03-09T04:39:00.000-08:00

Well, last weekend the Bloogeyman was busy trying to install a new water heater. Now, if you’ve ever had your water heater break down you know two things: 1) Until you’ve installed a new water heater life is a living hell because you don’t have hot water and 2) While fairly simple devices, water heaters are a major pain in the ass to install.

First of all, you have to haul the old, rusty water heater out. I’m not sure when my old water heater was made, but it weighs 250 lbs (no joke) and nearly gave me a hernia on four separate occasions. Of course, the Bloogeyman is no hulk, he had someone else helping him, but I’ll be damned if it still wasn’t heavier than Dick Cheney after a trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet. In fact, I’m starting to suspect that its filled with bricks or something – seriously – it’s like some fucking leprechaun has been hiding his gold in that thing over the last ten years (and, yes, I did drain the water out of it before moving it – come on guys, I’m not that dumb). I wanted to crack the fat bastard open just to see what the hell was in it (I didn’t get around to doing that, but I did hit it a couple times with a sledgehammer, to my great satisfaction).

After moving the first water heater out we had to go get another water heater – luckily they’ve made some advances since the Stone Age and this water heater only weighed 148 lbs. It was still a bitch to carry up a flight of stairs. Next came connecting all of the water and gas connections. You have to really tighten the connections hard otherwise it’ll start leaking. Fair enough, after about 40 minutes we had made all of the connections and opened the valves for water. Well, hell – the fucking thing is leaking more than the CIA under George Tenet.

Now comes the hard part, we have to tighten the connections – but everything is already connected. I know that doesn’t make sense, but see if you can picture this: You have a solid pipe screwed into the water heater. Screwed onto the end of the solid pipe is a flexible copper pipe – you have two connections. Now, if you want to tighten one you have to move the other connection at the same rate otherwise it will come undone (if you can’t picture this scenario I’m not going to draw you a diagram, just trust me). Okay, so we start tightening the connection into the water heater, but we move the other connection too much. After a couple turns I notice that the flexible copper pipe is starting to tweak – fuck – I take off the insulation from the pipe and notice that the flexible copper pipe is major tweaked. Great, now we try to un-tweak it but, as you know, once copper gets tweaked it generally tears at the point of stress – now hot water is squirting out all over and we’re all yelling. We turn off the water valves and just stare at the thing for like five minutes. Then we think ‘Ok, this isn’t the end of the world, we can just unscrew the flexible copper pipe from both ends and buy a new one to put on…’. Yeah, right. Once we take off all the insulation we realize that the other end of the flexible copper pipe is soldered into the wall?!? Great, the last plumber-whore decided to screw us by basically welding the fucking thing into the wall instead of attaching a thread adapter like you’re supposed to ($0.97, in case you’re wondering how much it costs).

Long story short: now I have to go get a soldering kit and re-do all the connections. You’re probably wondering why I don’t just hire a plumber. Yeah, I can afford it, but I’ll give you three reasons (stories, actually) why I don’t want to:

1) I was talking to a friend about water heaters and he told me that his water heater broke a while ago so he called a plumber. The plumber said he needed to replace a part and took 30 minutes to do so. He charged my friend $50 for parts and $100 for labor. Later, my friend is at Home Depot and, being an engineer, decides to look at the part the plumber replaced. The part costs $5. WTF?!? I can understand that all plumbers / car mechanics / prostitutes mark up the goods, but marking an item up 10-fold?

2) Another friend took his car into the mechanic. Along with replacing a bunch of other stuff and doing a general tune-up, the mechanic says that the radiator needs to be replaced. Why? Well, because it’s rusted up. A week later my friend is sitting around his living room when he realizes something – the radiator is made of aluminum – it can’t rust! Everybody understands that mechanics make you replace things before they need replacing (semi-worn gasket, slightly leaky o-ring, etc.), but replacing something that never needs to be replaced? WTF?!?

3) Another friend had a leak in his wall – the copper pipe had started leaking. So, he calls a plumber and the yokel opens up the wall and starts to put in a new coupling. Luckily my friend was there watching him do this, because the guy is using the propane soldering torch and he set the wall on fire! How some guy who supposedly does this stuff for a living can set a wall on fire I’ll never figure out…but WTF?!?

So there you go – I figure to avoid getting charged 10x on parts I could buy all the parts (I already lugged up the new water heater) and just hire some plumber to do the work. But, wait a minute, then I’d actually have to stand there and make sure this monkey doesn’t set my house on fire or blow it up (we are dealing with gas connections…). Why the hell should I pay some rube so I can stand behind him and watch him work– fuck it, I’ll just do it myself.

By now, you’re probably thinking ‘That’s great Bloogeyman, but exactly why the fuck should I care?’ Well, this whole episode got me thinking: Is it just me, or has the work ethic in this country really deteriorated in the last 10 years? I’m not talking about how hard people work, I’m talking about the ethics of work. I’m talking about doing an honest day’s work and reaping the honest benefit. One of the most salient examples is the Enron scandal – ripping off little old ladies and laughing about it on tape, cashing out stock in a foundering company while publicly encouraging shareholders to buy more, and undermining a company to the point where thousands of retirees lose their pensions and walking away without shame or regret.

Maybe it’s just me…but I’d like to hear from some of you: Have you had experiences like my friends or I have had lately? I’m not just talking about things that count as over-charging or moderate incompetence – I’m talking about stuff that is grossly unethical, even criminal. Some time next week I’ll give you an update on how my weekend welding adventure went (stay tuned to see if I light my hair on fire or blow up my house…) and I’ll talk a little more about Enron and Texas. In the mean time, I’d love to see some comments on your close encounters of the unethical kind.

Italy – You Had Your Accountability Moment, Now Take Responsibility

2005-03-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

By now almost everyone has heard about the firestorm that has been unleashed in Italy over the death of an intelligence officer and the wounding of a hostage by U.S. troops as they were driving to Baghdad Airport after her release. There are several different versions of what happened floating around and several different viewpoints on who is to blame.

But we’re going to skip all the finger pointing right now because I want to take a look at the emotional impact of what is happening in Italy. Let me preface this discussion by saying that upon hearing about the incident I felt sorry for not only the Italians involved, but also for the U.S. troops involved because they undoubtedly regret what happened. This must be a very hard time for the family of the Italian killed and I sympathize with their grief.

However, I do not sympathize with the faux grief that the Italians are displaying in spades. It all started when right wing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi went on TV and played the crying game – putting on a farcical attempt to hold back faux tears. This is the guy who overruled his whole country and decided to send over 3,000 Italian troops to Iraq in the first place. This is a guy who is so scummy he makes Dick Cheney look like a clean whistle – he has had over a dozen trials involving bribery, tax fraud, illegal financing ( money laundering), false accounting, embezzlement, and bribing a judge. This is a guy who, when it looked like investigators were about to open the door to his dirty basement, had his party push a law through that granted him immunity from prosecution. Add in evidence of ties to the Mafia, the utterance of ‘Nazi’ slurs, and threatening to investigate ‘subversive’ judges (judges who were overseeing his corruption and bribery cases) and you start to scrape the tip of the iceberg that is Berlusconi. I guess no one does dirty politics like Italians.

But the Italians continue to go along with him. Sure any expert on Italian politics will tell you that since his party was elected in 2001 (and he was appointed Prime Minister), his party has lost seats in the mid-term elections and in the EU elections. However, if you look more closely, you’ll see that he actually didn’t do so bad. In fact, “Mr. Berlusconi's Forza Italia [the party he founded in 1994] and its partners generally matched their local election performance of two years ago or showed a slight improvement” in the mid-term elections and although his performance in the EU elections were less than hoped, “polls indicated no major shift in support for Berlusconi's governing coalition.” Make no mistake about it – the Italian government and its policies are supported by Italians and they are responsible for the outcome.

The blogger Raed of Raed in the Middle cuts right to the point in a post titled ‘Italians, Shame on You’ when he says:

If you, Italians, had one man (killed by the US army) to pay your respect to, Iraqis are having tens of thousands of civilians that are being killed because of the war Italy is supporting.

The time has come for the Italian people to demand that their government pull out its troops from Iraq. This will be the right step to take now, to avoid further destruction in the relationship between our people.
This doesn't mean that you will be freed of the responsibility you hold for the damage caused by the illegal war on Iraq, but at least you won't be directly responsible for the atrocities that are going to happen in the future.

Yes, the Bloogeyman is an American, and yes, he is being somewhat hypocritical – given that we Americans had our own ‘accountability moment’ a few months ago – but there are many Americans opposed to this war and who are working tirelessly to make those representatives who support it pay a political price. Just last year the Italian Parliament defeated a motion calling for the withdrawal of Italy’s troops – these are your representatives. There is no reason – if the majority of Italians really don’t support the war, and if they really feel sorrow every time an unfortunate incident occurs – for Berlusconi’s party to have remained standing after the mid-term elections.

Maybe more Italians support the war than openly admit – at least if Italians are going to support war they should understand the consequences and not shed faux tears every time they feel a pin prick while bludgeoning another country to death. There is ‘outrage’ right now in Italy over what happened – will they do anything about it? Or, will Silvio Berlusconi emerge victorious again, crying on the outside, but smiling secretly inside...

Bloggers are Breaking Out of the Closet

2005-03-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

In last weekend’s review of an article in the Los Angeles Time’s Opinion Section I talked about my shock that both bloggers and Gannongate were mentioned in the paper. Indeed, it seems that the mainstream media is loath to investigate anything related to Gannongate and even more determined to not even whisper about the dreaded ‘blogger’, as if the latter represents their own personal boogeyman.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened up this weekend’s Opinion Section and saw a column on Gannongate and bloggers written by none other than our very own esteemed blogger John Aravosis of AMERICAblog. John took the mainstream media, including the LA Times, to task for avoiding one of the largest scandals in recent history. This is a story that, if you’ve been reading bloggers such as Atrios and Aravosis, is not ‘new’. Of course, we’re talking about Jeff Gannon: a fake journalist and gay hooker who got regular backdoor White House entry to daily press briefings (via a daily pass) and somehow got access to classified documents and information. If you’ve never read a blog before you’re probably thinking I just made all this up because it seems too juicy for the generally tabloid-like press to ignore. No, you just haven’t heard about this story because for some reason in the twisted mainstream media world anything involving Michael Jackson or Martha Stewart (or both!) immediately gets top billing. That’s right, we’ve had a gay hooker visiting the White House every day for the past two years and there hasn’t been a peep out of the mainstream media! You’d almost think they were in on all this (Hmmm…).

John does a good job of taking the media to task for ignoring this multi-faceted story and for refusing to give credit where it is due (yes, they actively decided not to mention the bloggers responsible for scooping the story, it wasn’t just an inadvertent oversight). John also explores the possible reasons for why the media has decided to be so hands-off on this explosive story. Was it because the media is apprehensive about tackling sex and gays? Funny how the prudish aversion to sex didn’t apply circa 1998. And every time a movie star is even suspected of being gay we don’t see such hesitation – in fact it practically becomes a feeding frenzy over even the most minute of details. Was it because the media these days are too sensitive about being labeled ‘liberal’ by right-wingers? I think that does have something to do with it – though I actually think it’s more of a ‘corporate-controlled media’ problem than a ‘please-don’t-call-us-liberal’ problem. Is it because the mainstream media has blogophobia? The mainstream media is afraid of blogs to some extent (and resentful enough not to give proper credit), but in this particular case I don’t think it applies. In fact, one would expect that the mainstream media would try to hijack such a juicy story from bloggers rather than ignore it because of blogophobia.

All-in-all John does a good job of introducing the Gannongate affair to people who read mainstream newspapers, and he does a good job of exploring why this story hasn’t been covered. The area in which John does a weak job, and arguably most blogs have done a weak job, is in not cutting to the real foundation of the story. Gannongate isn’t about security breaches in the White House. George W. Bush runs a very tight ship and he sure as hell is not sloppy about his own security. Jeff Gannon didn’t slip by security – he was let in by security. Jeff Gannon didn’t cause classified information to be leaked to him – it was leaked to him by someone in the White House – and if he wasn’t there, someone else would have been privy to the leaked information. Why was Jeff Gannon in the White House? Because he was a gay hooker! That is the story – Jeff Gannon is a criminal for engaging in prostitution and pimping, and someone in the White House is a criminal for soliciting sex.

The weak point of this opinion piece is that it doesn’t get to that point. The reason Republicans succeed so well at presenting a policy, viewpoint, or agenda, is that they all sit down in a smoke-filled room and decide what their approach to the story is going to be. They decide what is pertinent and make sure everyone is on message when they leave the room. This isn’t conspiracy theory – the Republicans admit, even boast, about the fact that they do this effectively. Remember Paul Wolfowitz’s interview when he came clean about the run up to war in Iraq and said that the administration decided that the weapons of mass destruction story was the most effective way to get people to support administration policy? Well, it worked. Maybe bloggers covering Gannongate need to setup a chat room named ‘Smoke-filled’ or something so we can decide what our story is and what the pertinent information truly is. It would really help people care about this ‘story’ if bloggers could at least present a consistent message on why this is something that needs to be investigated.

I don’t know the whole story – maybe John submitted a hard hitting piece which put a dagger in the heart of the whole story but the editors of the LA Times pruned it down. Damn editors! (Ed note: the opinions in this column are solely those of The Bloogeyman and in no way reflect the opinions held by the editors – we love editors!). Despite the weak point in John’s approach towards Gannongate, I appreciate the fact that he took time to explore the story. Hopefully John’s piece is the catalyst that will cause the mainstream media to wake up and take Gannongate seriously.

The Trust is in the Mail

2005-03-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

Trust has always played an important role in American politics. Americans will follow a leader they trust even when the path is difficult and the journey is painful. One of the greatest examples of American trust is the amount of trust patriots put into George Washington. It was trust that kept the ragged Continental Army camped out through a harsh winter in Valley Forge. George Washington led his 11,000 troops to Valley Forge in December of 1777. George Washington himself commented on the dire state of his army, saying “…you might have tracked the army from White Marsh to Valley Forge by the blood of their feet”. By June of 1778, 2,500 had died of disease and cold – they did not desert – indeed, you might say they died because of their trust in their leader.

And George Washington kept that trust. After six years at the helm of a brutal fight for independence George Washington emerged victorious. He was offered kingship of the new nation, and turned it down. He served two terms as the country’s first president and then retired, setting the precedent for presidential term limits. There are examples throughout history of such leaders, worthy of the nation’s trust. Trust in President Lincoln led to re-unification, trust in General Eisenhower led the troops onto the shores of Normandy, and trust in Martin Luther King led marchers to bear brutality in the name of justice.

Trust can also be lost – President Johnson was precluded from pursuing a second term because people did not trust in his stewardship of Vietnam; President Nixon resigned, on the verge of impeachment, because people could no longer trust him; President Clinton lost the trust of the people when he perjured himself in front of a Grand Jury.

But, in order for trust to be lost – for people to understand that a leader should not be followed – they must constantly question and reassess the trust they have placed with their leader.

This is not some unique or taxing process for people to undergo, an example shows that we use it every day:

Trusting Person: “So, Honey, do you want to go out on Saturday night?”

Significant Other: “Oh, I’d love to, but I was going to meet some friends for dinner that night – lets do something on Sunday”
Trusting Person: Ok, sure – see you after work!
---next Monday---
Trusting Person: Thinking to themselves, ‘Damn, guess they forgot about hanging out on Sunday night’.
Saying out loud, “Honey, you sure seem to be working late all the time…”
Significant Other: “Yeah, well my boss is riding my ass at work…and we have a deadline for a big project coming up”
Trusting Person: “Hey, you want to hang out this Friday? I guess you forgot about hanging out on Sunday…”
Significant Other: “Oh, yeah, something came up on Sunday…sorry…but, I don’t think we should do anything Friday night – I’ll probably be working late”
Annoyed Person: “Oh, ok…see you later…”
---next Saturday---
Friend: “Hey, what’s up…I was looking for you at the club last night, couldn’t find you…”
Annoyed Person: “I wasn’t out last night…”
Friend: “Really? I saw Significant Other there and I figured you’d be there too. Hey, gotta go, talk to you later!”
Suspicious Person: “WTF?!?”
---Sunday---
Suspicious Person: “So, Honey, want to go to the movies tonight?”
Significant Other: “Not tonight, I’m trying to rest up, I’m going to have a rough week at work…I was working late on Friday and had to bring home some work to do on Saturday…hey, we’ll get dinner on Thursday or Friday…”
Non-Trusting Person: Thinking to themselves, ‘God damn, I knew something was going on. You don’t have to hit me over the head with a rubber mallet for me to know that when someone lies to you once you shouldn’t believe anything else they say. This relationship is finished! ’
Saying out loud, “Yeah…sure…whatever”

See how easy and intuitive that is? The Bloogeyman knows that all of us use this every day. One hour meeting at work? Yeah right. The check is in the mail? Hah, I’m not going to fall for that! No extra charges after I sign up? I’m not that dumb! You want to touch me where?

But for some reason we have utterly lost that intuition when dealing with national politics. It’s like we’re so used to being lied to by politicians that it’s just not a big deal anymore. Its just part of the background noise now…and journalists are content to ignore and not investigate any of it. Here are some quotes from several of our “significant others”:

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
Dick Cheney August 26, 2002

“Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities
that were used for the production of biological weapons”
George W. Bush, Sep. 12, 2002

“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments
leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
George Bush March 18, 2003

“We know where they [WMD] are. They are in the area
around Tikrit and Baghdad."
Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003

I'm starting to get a little suspicious, but I'm sure they were just working late that night...

Of Blogs and Boogeymen – The Rude Pundit

2005-03-04T07:16:00.000-08:00

The Rude Pundit tells it as it is. He fearlessly shines a light into the darkest corners of any dilapidated, crumbling edifice and looks for the boogeymen. And, upon finding said boogeyman, the Rude Pundit gives him the finger. The Rude Pundit doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about him. The Rude Pundit is not child friendly – in fact he so rude that he is almost the boogeyman of rudeness. The Rude Pundit is not afraid of anything or anyone, least of all the Bloogeyman.

In fact, let’s say he was to come home late at night to find his front door slightly ajar - something is in his house. Most people, trembling, would slowly creak open the door and peer in horror at it – shocked, mortified by fear. They would fall to their knees and beg and pray for it to have mercy. They would shake and sweat in agony, and, if they were able to get up the nerve, they would turn and run – screaming into the darkness for someone to save them. Were the Rude Pundit to peer inside and see the Bloogeyman he would not recoil back in terror as most would do. No, he would say, “What the hell are you doing in my house? And why are you wearing my pants?!?”, as he slowly reaches for a rusty iron pipe with which to beat the Bloogeyman senseless.

Now, the Rude Pundit is one vulgar mofo. I’m not talking about ‘ol boys down at the bar having a beer after work’ vulgar, I’m talking about ‘cross-dressing, heroin-addicted sailor on a one-way trip to hell’ vulgar. I mean really, you probably should not go to the Rude Pundit if you think ‘mofo’ is a bad word. Hell, you damn well better run your ass away if you think I was even the least bit vulgar in this sentence. Kids, that means if you are under 21, do not go to the Rude Pundit for advice (public service announcement – think of the children!). That said, I’m still going to get plenty of grief for recommending the Rude Pundit, but hell, we all have at least one crazy, cross-dressing uncle who lives in the attic and we still visit him, right?

Of course, it is quite cathartic to read what the Rude One has to say about something so infuriating that every time you think about it you feel the warm bile well up in your throat (Al Gonzo, anyone?). Oh, the string of expletives you will want to shout – the fury with which you will want to tear at your eyes for seeing such a thing. But the Rude One understands your pain – for every thorn that is thrust into your skin the Rude One writes painful poetry. Yes, it is painfully vulgar poetry, but it is poetry from the heart. For that reason the Bloogeyman recommends The Rude Pundit.

Of Blogs and Bloogeymen

2005-03-04T04:34:00.000-08:00

You will all notice that to the side I have a ‘Links’ section for links to other blogs and websites. “So what?”, you will undoubtedly ask, “I’ve seen a million blogs and every one is crammed chock full 'o links and other crap”. Well the Bloogeyman does not just link any blog or site like a crazed spider juiced up on ‘amphetamines trying to weave the largest web possible, blind to how untidy or ineffective it may be. Frankly, the Bloogeyman does not care who links to the Bloogeyblog – and the Bloogeyman doesn’t link up other sites or blogs in a sycophantic attempt to get those sites to link back to the Bloogeyblog.

No, the Bloogeyman will try to pick the most interesting, exotic fruit from the jungle of blogs. To you it may be the sweetest fruit on earth or a foul, fetid piece of fruit that explodes in your face, spraying you with acid, as you try to take a bite – to me, it’s just interesting. Not only will the Bloogeyman only link sites that he feels are actually worth looking at, he will explain and justify why he thinks that the site is worth reading (the Bloogeyman will also speak in the third person at all times – like Bob Dole). So, enjoy every link the Bloogeyman's got - the Bloogeyman only recommends the best!

Gannongate, Part 6: Republicans - Closing the Gannongate After the Horse Has Left

2005-03-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

This is part six of a six-part series. Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 in case you missed any. In the last part we talked about the Democratic strategy for squeezing out maximum potential from this affair. This time we’ll focus on the Republican strategy for suppressing this story and making sure that by this time next spring everyone’s saying, “Gannon, who?”

Republicans have three strengths and two potential weaknesses when facing this whole situation. The Republicans' strengths: control of the Executive Branch (the Justice Department decides whether to investigate the Gannon affair), Congress (Congress will be unable to pass a request for a special investigator), and the courts – any investigation need only be undertaken under an enormous amount of pressure and public outrage.

The two potential weaknesses are smart Democrats pursuing the best strategy (see previous part for the potential Democratic strategy), and the religious right. If the Democrats pursue a common-sense strategy their aim will be to either instigate a full-scale investigation and outing of senior administration officials as closet homosexuals (best case scenario from a Democratic perspective) or at least ensure that this White House becomes the butt of gay brothel jokes for the remainder of the term (worst case scenario from a Democratic perspective). A ‘best-case’ scenario can only come about if the religious right wing of the party starts to believe that homosexual activity is taking place in the White House and that it threatens their agenda regarding gay marriage and homosexuality in general. If the religious right wing comes to believe that its agenda is threatened, or that the administration was insincere in its statement of policy, then it will push for a deeper investigation and will want to ‘root out’ those senior administration officials that are undermining its agenda.

Republicans must ensure that the ‘best-case Democratic’ scenario definitely doesn’t come to pass and that any effect from the ‘worst-case Democratic’ scenario is mitigated. The ‘best-case Democratic’ scenario can be forced if the religious right-wing starts to doubt the sincerity of the administration. Now is the time to play the quid-pro-quo game and to throw in some hardball for anyone who still resists. The leaders of the religious right must be told that the whole Gannon affair was just an untimely thorn that has been long since extracted. The White House did not know about Gannon’s homosexuality and it was some low-level staffer who gave Gannon such access to the White House. Point out that President Bush never even met Gannon and only saw him once in a press conference. Both Gannon and the low-level staffer are gone from the administration. The religious right leaders must also be told that the marriage constitutional amendment will be introduced in the fall after completion of the Social Security legislation. It is clear that for the constitutional amendment to be introduced in the fall the president will need a victory in his efforts to reform Social Security. This administration needs their support for this. For anyone who resists and continues to display a proclivity towards asking questions show them that you also have dirt on their life – not embarrassing the administration will result in no embarrassment for them.

In order to mitigate the effect of the efforts of Democrats to tie the administration to gay hookers there must be a complete coverage blackout by most of the media (including non-conventional media such as radio shows, cable shows, right-wing bloggers, etc.). The right-wing radio and cable programs must be instructed not to even mention the story – send senior administration officials to talk about other important policies such as Social Security, the situation with Syria, and even Iraq. Any republican’s response to questions regarding Gannon will basically be “Gannon was just some hack who managed to slip by the background check process, but that’s been taken care of”. The benefit of this response is that it will focus any follow-up questions on the supposed “security breach” which can be addressed by sincerely stating that an investigation is being undertaken and that all issues will be resolved. There will be certain reporters who try to investigate this story, who continue to ask questions during the White House press briefings, but these reporters must be ignored and slowly pushed out of the daily Q&A. The standard response must not be harsh or defensive, and any retribution (towards religious right leaders, right-wing radio or media, and reporters) must be under the table and generally passive (radio host does a piece on Gannon? He’s not going to get a high-profile administration guest for a long time!) so as not to create the impression that there is actually a lot more to the iceberg than can be seen above the water.

Democrats can safely be ignored and any of their questions or comments dismissed as “conspiracy theories, “rumor-mongering”, or “gay-bashing”. If the right-wing media can keep absolutely quite on this whole affair, main-stream Democrats will find it more convenient to talk about other issues such as Social Security, Syria, and Iraq – they will not want to face the vicious rebuttals and accusations of “crazy-talk” and “gay bashing”. The key is not to be defensive about Gannon, but to be on the offense – accuse anyone who brings it up of going off on some crazy conspiracy theory path while ignoring real issues such as the Social Security crisis and Iran’s nuclear program. With discipline, this story will soon be forgotten.

This ends the Bloogeyman's six-part series on Gannongate. Interesting? Thought-provoking? Or, just crazy talk? You Tell Me.

Who is the Bloogeyman?

2005-03-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

The Bloogeyman might just as well ask “Who the hell are you to question who the Bloogeyman is?” But that would be rude. The Bloogeyman has crawled out from the depth of the shadows and now points a bony finger at you and asks “What is your purpose?” Are you here to discuss the uncomfortable, that which hides in the shadows and whose very existence is in question? Are you here to use not just the simple facts that the media presents to you, but deduce your own conclusions based on what you observe? As Sherlock Holmes said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. Thus, we must not say to ourselves “That is the story presented to me.”, but “Is that story logical?” The Bloogeyman is the guide – but you are in charge of the trip.

“Yeah, but who is the Bloogeyman?”, you may still ponder, “What makes him tick? Give me simple monikers such as Liberal, Conservative, Socialist, Libertarian, Republican Democrat, etc. so that I can peg whether or not I like him.”. Those you will deduce on your own soon enough, for the Bloogeyman says what he believes and in that way, is quite transparent. But, it is not relevant who the Bloogeyman is – it is far more relevant who you are. Whether any of those monikers fit you, you will be taken down uncomfortable roads at times. You will meet up with people diametrically opposed to your beliefs. Perhaps the Bloogeyman will be diametrically opposed to you. Perhaps the Bloogeyman’s favorite word is “perhaps” and he desperately needs a thesaurus.

The Bloogeyman thinks there are times we need to take names and kick ass. The Bloogeyman thinks the war in Iraq is not going so good. The Bloogeyman likes the environment. The Bloogeyman is a capitalist. The Bloogeyman does not like corporate hand-outs. The Bloogeyman is a corporate whore (Bloogeyman© and Bloogeyblog© are copyright of the Bloogeyman – take that Donald Trump, “You’re F****!”). The Bloogeyman makes good money at his job. The Bloogeyman thinks that taxes on the rich should not be cut. Are any of these contradictory? You Tell Me.© (Hah, I’ve copyrighted my own phrase – take that “Fair and B*******”). In short, the Bloogeyman is many things, but he is not you.

You will not like much of what the Bloogeyman says. Oh, how you will gnash your teeth and pull your hair when the Bloogeyman something quite atrocious. Oh, how the emails will flood in when the Bloogeyman misquotes someone or fails to link a reference. But the Bloogeyman says, “Do your own research!” – I will not be correct in everything, nor reference everything, nor provide all the answers wrapped up in a pretty little box with a bow – the Bloogeyman’s job is not be your personal fact checker, but to whisper those things into your ear that make you ponder before you pontificate, hesitate before you declare, and think before you decide.

Gannongate, Part 5: Democrats – Open the Floodgates!

2005-02-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 in case you missed any. In this part we’ll get a little more serious and talk strategy, first from the Democratic perspective.

By now, you’re all familiar with the main points of this story/emerging scandal. We know that a person with questionable journalistic credentials gained access to the daily White House press briefings. We also know that the person in question worked for a right-wing news organization which didn’t have exactly an exemplary record as a news entity. Indeed, certain reporters from more well-known and established news organizations were presumably denied access (only a limited number of seats for reporters in the daily press briefing room) because this person was given a seat. This person repeatedly lobbed ‘softball’ questions or threw out life-lines to the Press Secretary and even the President. Some serious sleuth work by dedicated bloggers (“real” reporters, if you will) unveiled a whole new layer to the onion. This right-wing reporter had not only gotten great access to the White House on a daily basis, he also was a gay hooker and pimp who ran Internet ads for his services. Oh, and apparently he had access to certain classified documents or materials during his stint as a White House reporter.

When faced with this embarrassing evidence, the White House declared that they had no idea about this person’s private (or not so private, given the pubic sex ads) life. Nor did the White House realize any connection with this dubious right-wing “news” organization. Now, there are several different potential conclusions one can draw from this scenario and a couple different paths one can pursue:

1) White House security (Secret Service, FBI) is grossly negligent for not knowing about this reporter’s dubious side-business
2) White House security is doubly-negligent for not knowing that this person somehow got access to classified material
3) White House security did know about this person’s
sextra-curricular activities, but some low level staffer, or even the Press Secretary himself, pushed it under the rug
4) The White House Political Advisor (Karl Rove) knew about this person’s other affairs, but decided that having a sympathetic reporter in the White House press pool superceded any concerns about this person’s other life
5) The White House (including the President) knew about this person’s other affairs, but decided that having a sympathetic reporter in the White House press pool superceded any concerns about this person’s other life
6) The White House knew that this person was a gay hooker and pimp and wanted this person in the White House

I find conclusion #1 (the reason du jour that most Democrats and left-wing bloggers are using to pursue this story) to be wholly unbelievable. I really have a hard time believing that the Secret Service and the FBI did not know who this person was. I don’t think that someone can walk around in the White House everyday without security knowing who he is. Also, Bush runs a very tight ship; I refuse to believe that he is actually really sloppy about his own security. If reason #1 is dubious, reason #2 is even more dubious: I don’t think that people can randomly walk around in the White House – and I don’t think that classified documents are just laying around in the White House for anyone to pick up. Any classified information that Jeff Gannon saw was leaked to him! Reason #3 is pure fantasy – if the Secret Service and the FBI knew about Gannon’s background (which I’m sure they did), they would not allow a low-level staffer or the Press Secretary to shove it under the rug! The Chief of Staff, or at least Karl Rove, would see the background report – I don’t think that staffers and Press Secretaries can make executive decisions on security.

Conclusions #3 and #4 don’t make any sense: If the White House (or Karl Rove) just wanted a shill reporter they could get a million people to take the job. If all they wanted was a cardboard-cut-out journalist they would not get one who is also a gay hooker and pimp! That only leaves conclusion #6 – the only logical conclusion.

From a strategic standpoint, this is actually the best conclusion that Democrats could hope for. Frankly, no one wants to hear Democrats and left-wing bloggers pontificate and provide faux concern over the President’s security. The Democrat’s strategy needs to be one which pushes conclusion #6 and asks the relevant questions which follow from that conclusion. Why did the White House want a gay hooker to visit them every day? Which top-level administration official was using the services of this pimp? How can the White House be so hypocritical as to stand on a platform against the “homosexual agenda” while participating in such behavior? The potential answer to any of these questions leads directly to criminal activity taking place in the White House (I haven’t checked in the last 10 minutes, but I still think prostitution, pimping, and solicitation of sex are illegal). These questions lead to the conclusion that this activity was taking place with the consent or participation of senior administration members. These are also questions that, if raised and repeated by the left, the religious right will soon find themselves asking. Therein lies the crux of the Democratic strategy for success: you must get the religious right to investigate these questions as vigorously as possible. The Democrats have no power in the Executive Branch, Congress, or the courts to push for an investigation. There will be no special investigator appointed without pressure from the religious right-wing.

If the Democrats continue to push the tired old “possible security breach” or “biased reporter” angle pretty soon no one will care. Nobody cares about which staffer potentially misplaced some paperwork or accidentally handed out a daily pass to which person. Nobody cares which reporter was supposedly paid off to have a bias. Nobody cares! People will only care if it becomes apparent to them that this White House has become a gay brothel and that this White House is being hypocritical in it’s position on gays.

In the next part, we'll tackle the Republican strategy for handling this whole affair.

Sire, the Bloggers are Storming the Gannongates!

2005-02-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Well, we’re back to my weekly review of the Los Angeles Time’s Opinion Section. Check out the inaugural edition last week in which I took an opinion writer to task for suggesting that Condoleezza Rice might deserve a Nobel Peace Prize (WTF?!?).

This Sunday I noticed the panel discussion had a couple interesting cartoons (The Bloogeyman loves cartoons since he doesn’t have to read much!), one of which talked about bloggers (!) and another which obliquely referred to Gannongate (!). Those are a couple things I didn’t expect to see any mention of in the main-stream-media, even in a notoriously “liberal” rag such as the LA Times.

I’ve reproduced a couple of the cartoons below for your enjoyment:

Let’s take a look at the first one…my heart went all atwitter when I saw that one. I imagined myself leading the charge, setting up the siege engines as we bloggers get ready to storm the castle of the main-stream media. I love the snooty king, dismissing the bloggers as if they still control the news flow. I mean, really, has any important news been broken by the mainstream media lately? Between Seymour Hersh and Atrios they’ve covered just about anything worth hearing about. Yeah, I guess if I want to get the “scoop” on the Michael Jackson trial I’ll know where to go, but if you’re serious about news you’re going to want to hang around bloggers. Yeah, we’re just that cool!

How about the White House Press Corps? Mr. Rogers really nails it with that one – it’s kind of funny how in the mad rush of bloggers that have elbowed their way into the Gannongate story (yes, that includes the Bloogeyman, check out my Gannongate series), few people have stepped back from the fray and said “Wait a minute, you know, just exposing one reporter who actually is a whore doesn’t change the fact that most other reporters are sluts”. Yes, most other White House press reporters are just plain-jane sluts. At least Gannon had the nerve to charge for it – the others basically tow the line for free. Sure, they get their six-figure salaries and get to go to White House Christmas parties, but basically they’re all sluts – they get some perks from time to time but they like putting out for free.

As for the last cartoon, titled ‘News’, the Bloogeyman looked at it and went “Hmmmm”. Now the Bloogeyman didn’t go “Hmmmm” because the cartoon launched a philosophically complex internal dialogue on freedom of speech and the eternal human struggle – the Bloogeyman went “Hmmmm” because he actually was a little confused by the cartoon. Now, most people will never admit to ‘not getting’ a political cartoon.

Let’s say your spouse, girlfriend, significant other, or friend is perusing the Opinion section with you one Sunday morning and shows you a cartoon:

“Hey, look at this”, they’ll say as they hand the cartoon over to you, “What do you think?”

Now, you look at the cartoon and think, as I did on this one, “OKaaaaay, let’s see – I see a guy walking down the street and looking at a newspaper dispenser with bars on it with a guy trying to get out…” And you say, “Boy, that’s a good one!”

“Do you think it’s true?”

“Yeah…sure…um, it sure says something about the plight of today’s media”

“You don’t think it talks about the current state of the news-consuming public?”

“Uh…yeah, that too…”

That’s about the situation I found myself in when I looked at it. Sure, it seems to make sense from a cartoon-perspective: you’ve got the ‘regular guy’ on the street, you’ve got some institution (this one is labeled ‘News’), and you’ve got bars signifying that something is being restricted. But, when you look closely you realize that you can’t quite put it all together (maybe it’s just the Bloogeyman, he’s not too smart). I see a guy walking past the “News” caged up – is the News trying to get out but the dumb American public won’t pay a quarter to let it out? Or, is there some big story that the News won’t let out? Or, is it decrying the new restrictions placed on the fourth institution vis-à-vis the Justice Department’s investigation of reporters' sources? Or maybe the lamp post is a critical component to this whole thing and the Bloogeyman is just too dumb to figure it out.

Funny how reading the Sunday Opinion can start out as a relaxing past-time but can quickly make you question your intelligence over something as simple as a cartoon…

Gannongate, Part 4: Who Got Gannon’s Cannon?

2005-02-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

In the first part, we talked about why we think this story is important, in the second part we deduced what was happening in the White House, in the third part (by popular demand) we did a redux on why we were able to ascertain what was going on in the White House, and now, finally, we get to use our vast logical and deductive powers for a truly profound purpose: guessing who got Gannon’s cannon!

In the next part, the Bloogeyman will get a little more serious and try to look at this whole thing from two perspectives. We’ll talk strategy: How should Republicans handle damage control and ensure that this whole episode is soon forgotten? How should the Democrats ensure that this thing is not only fully investigated, but also fully exposed to the public?

Gannongate, Part 3: De-deuce Bigelow, Male Gigolo

2005-02-25T15:46:00.000-08:00

Last time we talked about why Gannon and the White House need to be thoroughly investigated – criminal activity is going on! Also, we realized that when presidents commit crimes (Bill Clinton perjured himself), they need to be held accountable.

We have now deduced that criminal activity is taking place in the White House (prostitution, pimping, and solicitation of sex) and now comes the fun part of trying to deduce who is involved. “Hold on there Mr. De-deuce Bigelow”, you say, “I’m not sure you have enough evidence to even deduce what you’ve been deduce’n!” Well, previously we deduced that there was sexual (and criminal) activity going on the White House, but the Bloogeyman has gotten many comments from people who just aren’t able to take the logical leap that the evidence provides. So, we’ll just delay the next part in order to look a little more into the evidence available for us to deduce the events that have been taking place in the White House.

In the previous part we figured on a personal level that if the White House was just looking for a shill reporter they would get someone with no ‘personal-life issues’ or dirty laundry. There are millions of people willing to be pseudo-journalists if you pay them enough, and most of them don’t have much baggage or dirty laundry. Why not get someone to lob you easy questions during press briefings who doesn’t have a gay hooker/pimp background? Why, indeed. In fact, the more you think about the situation the more it becomes clear that Gannon was in the White House because he was a gay hooker, not because he was just a right-wing “journalist”.

We can also look at the whole scenario from a different perspective. The Bloogeyman is a capitalist and has studied a little economics. The Bloogeyman believes in supply and demand. For example, during the Clinton administration the whole ‘intern industry’ prospered because there was demand for fresh young interns – no demand, no sexy interns show up. But, if you didn’t know of the demand, you could still look at the fact that there was so much supply of interns (and the ‘price’ wasn’t declining) and deduce the fact that there was a lot of demand for interns.

Now, look at the current economic scenario. Suddenly, there are a lot of gay hookers in Washington (some would argue there were always a lot of gay hookers in Washington, but let’s not drag congressmen into this…). In fact, ever since the Bush administration moved in the supply of fresh young interns has dropped off the map (apparently the demand cratered) and the supply of gay hookers has gone through the roof. I mean, the fact that that a gay pimp/hooker is sitting in on press briefings and going to White House Christmas parties tells me that the market is hot. Hey, this is all Economics / Logic 101. Below is a chart from a recent study done by Professor Shinkleton regarding economic indicators in the Washington D.C. area:

Where there is supply, there is demand (or excess demand if prices are rising). And if you have supply you need distribution channels. Those distribution channels will lead right to the demand source. All roads lead to Rome, right? Well, it seems that all gay hooker distribution channels lead to the White House. We’re looking at a situation where the demand was so hot that a distribution channel had to be operating in the White House every day. Sure, they treated him like a whore by making him get a pass every day, but, well, I guess he was a whore.

In the next part, the Bloogeyman will finally get to where he was going all along: finding out where these distribution channels lead. That is, who the hell is using up all the supply of gay hookers in Washinton?!? (Inquiring congressional minds want to know!)

Gannongate, Part 2: This Administration Really Does Have A Man-Date

2005-02-23T22:32:00.000-08:00

Last time we talked about why this whole Gannongate thing is starting to get interesting – who Jeff Gannon is, what his journalistic background was, the seedy details of his private life, and why he was in the White House so often.

Any investigation on the Jeff Gannon / White House connection eventually leads to his…err…extracurricular activities. But, hey, it’s just some guy’s private life, right? No reason to go all Ken Lay on everyone, right? Well, I’m going to catch a lot of flak from Lefties for this: Bill Clinton deserved to be impeached. Now, Bill Clinton’s private life shouldn’t matter to anyone (and, in fact, after the “scandal” unfolded, his approval ratings went up!) and shouldn’t have been investigated in the first place. However, given that it was investigated, and given that Bill Clinton was summoned to testify in front of a Grand Jury, he has a responsibility to tell the truth. Bill Clinton perjured himself in front of the Grand Jury – and that’s criminal, plain and simple. The fact that he shouldn’t have even been in front of the Grand Jury has nothing to do with it. That line of excuses for Bill Clinton’s behavior is akin to saying that if you shouldn’t be somewhere to start with, all of your actions while there are excused. For example, let’s say a police officer mistakenly pulls me over. I’m mad and I shouldn’t even be in that situation because he’s “investigating” me for no reason. But just because I shouldn’t even be talking to the officer doesn’t mean that I should be excused if I whomp the officer with a 2x4. Whatever path you’re on, wherever you find yourself, you have an obligation to obey the law (especially if you’re the president), and if you don’t you should face the consequences.

How does this apply to Gannongate? Well, last time I checked, prostitution is illegal, pimping is doubly-illegal, and johns go to jail. The fact that this is all happening in the White House is triply concerning. Sure, it happens all the time all over America, but it’s illegal. And just as Clinton’s perjury should be held to the same level of accountability (if not higher) as anyone else’s perjury, illegal activity going on in the White House should be investigated and people should be held accountable.

Additionally, it’s in the public interest to expose who in the administration is a political hypocrite – who generally denounces homosexuality and supports administration policies regarding homosexuality, while engaging in such behavior himself – because it relates to public policy. For people on the Right, it’s of tantamount importance – they are probably feeling betrayed right now given that they supported Bush on the understanding that he would push for a ban on gay marriage. They already blew a gasket in early January when Bush said in an interview that the gay marriage ban thing wasn’t really high on his agenda and implied that it won’t ever get done. Apparently the White House’s phone lines started lighting up like a Christmas tree as furious social conservatives called in, foaming at the mouth, demanding to know whether or not Bush had hoodwinked them. At this point, the picture is starting to come together for social conservatives and before long they will realize that if they want to salvage any of their social agenda they will have to ferret out the those members of the administration who are undermining the administration’s commitment to act on its campaign promises.

For people on the Left, especially homosexuals, this situation provides a moment in which they can finally expose the hypocrisy of certain members of the administration. Yes, they take a perverse joy in the ironic turn of events, but at the heart of it the goal is the same: ferret out the political hypocrites that reside in the White House. While it was the Left who initiated the investigation and scandal, it will be the Right who takes it to completion. The Right will soon understand that to salvage any of its social agenda, and to stave off countless gay brothel jokes that are bound to follow, it will need to “clean house”. That includes looking in all the closets. That’s why this story will be around for a while – as long as both sides have a reason to keep it alive and see it through to the end, it will not go away.

In the next part, the Bloogeyman will take a look at who the key players might turn out to be…

Gannongate, Part 1: Should We Even Care Who Left the Gate Open?

2005-02-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

The Bloogeyman has thus far refrained from jumping into the Gannongate fray. For anyone new to the story - a journalist, Jeff Gannon, for conservative news source Talon News basically got a day pass to White House press conferences every day for the past two years and liked to lob easy questions to the press secretary and even the president. Also, it seems that this “journalist” had no prior journalistic experience, was using a fake name, and was operating a gay hooker service. Whew. Despite the intriguing possibilities, initially the Bloogeyman was not so interested in this story for several reasons:

1) A person’s private life, gay or otherwise, is none of my business
2) This story did not seem to necessarily have any bearing on public policy
3) This story did not seem to have “legs”; it seemed like a story that would be ignored pretty soon – anyone remember Harken Energy?

However, the more that the Bloogeyman thought about this whole surrealistic episode, the more he realized that there were reasons that this story is important:

1) A person’s private life, especially a public figure’s private life, becomes public business when that person is engaged in criminal activity
2) It is apparent that one or more of the administration members is a “political hypocrite” in that while publicly supporting a conservative gay policy, the person was personally engaging in activities he professed to oppose
3) This story is of interest both people on the Right and the Left: Any Right leaning person that has supported this administration’s policy regarding homosexuals has to feel uncomfortable that perhaps this administration is not sincere in its policy platform; Any Left-leaning person feels that any political hypocrisy needs to be exposed to inform the public about the administration’s true platform. Because both members of the Right and the Left have an interest in investigating this story to the fullest extent, this story probably has “legs”

Let’s talk about what we know and what we can deduce. We know that Jeff Gannon (real name, James Guckert) started showing up to White House press briefings in early 2003 using a “day pass”. He was frequently called upon during the press briefings (and even called upon by President Bush, who called him by his pseudonym “Jeff”, ahead of dozens of other reporters from larger, well established news agencies), and seemed to always offer up “soft-ball” questions. For example, here’s the question he asked President Bush:

Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work - you've said you are going to reach out to these people - how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?

We know that he went to the invitation-only White House press Christmas party in 2003 and 2004. He also allegedly had access to exclusive or even classified information. Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves- this is not a security issue, personal, executive, or national. There was never any danger to the President, White House, or to the nation – even the classified documents that he allegedly saw were shown to him by someone in the White House – that’s not a security breach, that’s a deliberate leak. Regardless of the level of background checks the White House admits to doing on Gannon, I’m pretty sure that someone who walks in and out of the White House every day has been thoroughly checked out by the Secret Service and the FBI. People don’t get in the White House 20 feet away from the President without the Secret Service knowing who they are.

But that leads us down a more fascinating path. If the White House knew about Gannon’s background - his pseudonym, his lack of journalism experience, his gay hooker service – why was he given a daily pass? Sure, maybe the White House was looking for a shill to ask them easy questions (when’s the last time you saw a politician sit down for a “hardball” interview - half of the time they know the questions in advance), but then why not get some guy with no background story and no baggage? No, if you just want a shill, there are a million guys out there – but, if you want a thrill, there’s only Gannon. And don’t give me this “oh, maybe some low-level staffer just put through some paperwork and got Gannon in”, with a background like Gannon’s any Secret Service or FBI file would go directly to the Chief of Staff and probably to the President himself before he was even let within 100 yards of the White House. Yes, the White House knew who he was, hooker and all, and wanted him there. The hard truth is: Jeff Gannon was in the White House because he was a gay hooker, not in spite of being a gay hooker.

In the next part, the Bloogeyman will discuss what this all means and why this story will continue to have legs...

This is Even Cheesier Than Rice-a-Roni

2005-02-21T21:14:00.000-08:00

Like many of you, the Bloogeyman enjoys his Sundays. He likes to sleep in and then wake up to read the Sunday newspaper over breakfast. Which paper does the Bloogeyman read? Well, I tried reading the New York Times – the print is too small and too much of the paper seems to be filled with weird New York-centric articles. The Wall Street Journal? Well, the Journal has to be about the most boring wide-circulation paper in the country. It’s funny, because the more you read the Journal, the more you actually start to like it. The Bloogeyman had a job once where part of his every-day activities was to read practically every article in the Journal (mainly for news on the market and its potential effect on positions). The Bloogeyman got to the point where he could go through the whole Journal – article by article – in about 2 hours and it wasn’t even that boring. But when it comes to leisurely Sunday morning reading the Journal is about as relaxing as an S&M session with an economist.

What about all of the other regional or national papers – New York Post (do these guys even pretend to be journalists?), San Francisco Chronicle (a paper so slim on content that I could breeze through everything worth reading in 15 minutes), or USA Today (These guys are just trying to be funny, right? Recent headline: Why NHL fell through the ice - After a 154-day lockout, hockey is the first pro sport to call off an entire season - Analysis, reaction, commentary, 1, 2, 4C. Good lord, who fucking cares? I mean if you guys spent that much time and space investigating something actually worth investigating (WMD? 911? Iraq? Iran?) you might be considered a real newspaper in my book). What’s left? The Los Angeles Times. The great thing about the LA Times is that you don’t have to live in LA to get it (plus they don’t print in microprint!).

I guess people consider the LA Times to be one of the preeminent large-circulation liberal papers. Apparently, these days if you engage in even a modicum of question asking you’re considered extremely liberal. But I’m not sure they are that liberal – yes the editorial board is pretty liberal, but you only have to open up the opinion section to get a good idea of the kind of mix of columnists they keep.

The Sunday Opinion section is usually a pretty good read – the articles are generally well researched and tend to present interesting, if not always water-tight, arguments. Since I like reading the Opinion page on Sunday I figured I’d start putting up a post every Sunday or Monday talking about a particularly interesting opinion piece. Sometimes it will be a thoughtful look at a though-provoking piece. Sometimes it will be an extension of a premise or discussion of a policy framework that was presented in the context of current events. Sometimes the Bloogeyman will couple a unique socio-economic framework theory with metaphysical philosophy. But mostly the Bloogeyman will just shamelessly ridicule some idiot writer who apparently slipped through the basic sanity/quality screen that I’m sure the LA Times has in place.

The opinion page does seem to have the now industry-standard brainless support-administration-policies-no-matter-what-guy©. Take editorial cartoonist Michael Ramirez for example – I don’t know much about this guy (except that he’s won a Pulitzer or two and his artwork is very nice), but I do know that I’ve probably seen him deviate from the administration line once or twice in the past five years. That’s right – out of hundreds of editorial cartoons he’s penned he has almost never deviated from the party line. It’s like he has a magical telekinetic line into Karl Rove (or just a fax machine). Hell, he should probably be up for an Armstrong award by now (I mean, come on, now that we know that Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher took payola – and I don’t even want to mention the G-man – Ramirez should be at the top of anyone’s suspicion list).

I’m pretty sure that even if the Bush administration announced a new policy in which anyone with the last name ‘Ramirez’ instantly gets deported to Guantanamo Michael Ramirez would quickly pen one last cartoon supporting the policy before he was dragged off by the feds shouting “Viva Bush!”. But I digress, suffice it to say that even though the LA Times has a reputation of being a ‘liberal’ paper, there are plenty of different view points expressed in the opinion pages.

Yes, the LA Times has got all kinds of columnists – conservative, liberal, libertarian, social democrat, fascist – but lately I’ve noticed that they’ve started adding a new class of opinion columnist: retarded.

This last weekend the Bloogeyman opened up the Opinion section to see the first headline ponder: “A Second-Term Shift?”. “Ok”, the Bloogeyman thinks, “an in-depth analysis of possible shifts in foreign policy and tactics?” – noting that the illustration shows a simian George Bush reaching across the globe towards Europe as a gap-toothed Condoleezza Rice glares on. Oh, and look at this, this opinion piece is written by “Nancy E. Soderberg, a senior national security advisor in the Clinton administration”…she should have an interesting take on what’s been going on thinks the Bloogeyman.

Now the Bloogeyman reads the first line: “Let me be the first to say it: Condoleezza Rice may be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize.” Wait a minute…WTF?!? Did you just say that Kinda-phoney Rice might be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize?!? WTF?!? Ok, breath deeply, let’s just relax and think this through for a second…lets think about and enumerate the things she’s done as Secretary of State that might warrant consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize. 1) Ok, she’s gone to Europe and…uh…she’s talked about…uh. Wait a fucking minute here…she hasn’t done anything! I’m pretty sure I haven’t been in a coma or anything since she was confirmed like just-last-fucking-week, but maybe I’m missing something. Let me think…nope…she hasn’t done one fucking thing! Yeah, she’s talked a lot – but hell, doesn’t everyone talk a lot – what matters is what you do. Look at this excerpt:

Going into the lion’s den of France earlier this month, Rice spoke of the need for “an even stronger partnership based on common opportunities” and laid out threats both countries face – terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts, failed states and organized crime. Over the last four years, we have lost ground in combating these threats. If she and her boss succeed in restoring America’s place as persuader, not just enforcer, dramatic progress is possible.

Where do I even start? Wow, going into the ‘lion’s den’ that is France was pretty fucking courageous – I think she deserves at least a Medal of Honor for that. And she “spoke” about this and that – blah, blah, blah. She still hasn’t done anything. But wait, “over the last four years, we have lost ground in combating these threats” – last I remember, she had something to do with what’s been going on these last four years – so she’s actually been doing a really bad job these last couple years? But maybe a ten minute speech promising big things that you have no intention of ever actually doing warrants a Nobel Peace Prize. Hell, if that’s the criteria, wait till Nancy Soderberg hears all the things I can promise. The Bloogeyman hereby promises …blah, blah, blah. Hey Nancy, will you be nominating the Bloogeyman for the Nobel Peace Prize?

Oh, and I’m pretty comfortable in Nancy’s assessment of Condoleezza Rice’s performance as Secretary of State given her firm grasp of reality in the context of other events. How about this quote:

…the recent elections in Iraq came off better than even the administration had hoped, with 8.5 million Iraqis voting despite insurgent violence. And they voted for a secular – not Islamic, Iranian-style – government.

Wow, I’m sure glad that the elections came off “better than even the administration had hoped” – but wait a minute…haven’t you heard of lowering expectations? I’m pretty sure the Bush administration had actually hoped that the elections were a fucking disaster, whew, good thing they turned out better than the administration hoped. And, hey, guess what? They voted for a “secular” government(!) – I didn’t know that. I’d think that when the party that got 51% of the seats in the new parliament was backed by the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq they’re pretty fucking non-secular. But, hey, I’m not a real journalist like you…I’m sure you did your homework and understand the situation better than me. Well, than explain me this – why the fuck is the leader of winning party (and now de facto leader of the Iraqi government) called Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani?!? Um, ok, I’ll do a Google search and see if I can dig up some information on this guy. Maybe the first name his mom gave him is ‘Grand’ and he really is just a secular kind of guy. But wait, according to this CNN article “Al-Sistani is known to be in favor of declaring Islam as the official faith of the country”. It’s pretty fucking sad when CNN out-journalizes and out-fact checks you.

Or, how ‘bout this little gem of gullibility:

…if the administration's newfound fondness for building partnerships and diplomacy holds, it has a chance to make significant progress in stemming the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The administration has a newfound fondness for building partnerships? Funny, you wouldn’t really get that idea from reading the news lately and actually looking at the administration’s actions instead of taking everything they say at face value like you just fell off the turnip truck. Good lord, I thought journalists were supposed to think about things, analyze, investigate, and not just parrot anything thrown their way like some dumb little puppy dog wagging his tail and waiting for a pat on the head! What the hell has happened when the readers have to fact check everything and do all the investigating themselves? Maybe I should just red-line the whole column and send it in to the editor so I can get paid for doing all the fact-checking. And does the editor of a paper even have to fact check an opinion article (or is it just an opinion so you can say whatever the hell you want)? Really, I’m not sure about that – if I become a syndicated opinion columnist does that mean I can really say anything I want without regards to fact?

The writer also mentions that “In his first term, Bush doubled aid to Africa, including $15 billion to fight HIV/AIDS”. Ok, did that even happen? Really, I don’t know. Yeah, everybody remembers the State of the Union address when he announced it and how everybody patted everybody on the back for being so benevolent, but really – did Bush even send any of the money? I’m pretty sure that he hasn’t sent even a significant portion of the $15 billion, another empty promise, but, frankly, I’m too tired to even Google it. *Sigh*, there was a time when being a journalist or an editor was actually a job – you actually had to work – but now it seems everyone is just a glorified press release transcriber.

Well, I got to get going; the Bloogeyman’s going to be writing his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize. Nancy, you’ll nominate me, right?

When You Play Gin Rummy With This Group You Always Lose

2005-02-19T18:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, let’s talk about Donald Rumsfeld. He had a pretty telling question-and-answer hearing in Congress a couple days ago. It’s interesting how throughout the history of the United States the Secretary of Defense either is one of the highest profile persons in government, or all but forgotten and anonymous. In fact, I’m guessing that Rumsfeld is perhaps the best known member of the Bush administration except for George Bush himself. How many people can name Clinton’s Secretary of Defense?

And it’s not just the fact that we’re tangled up in two wars and facing the prospect of a couple more – Rumsfeld is generally one really irascible old man. I guess you could compare him to your wrinkly, old uncle who gets really drunk and then starts picking fights with everyone – you can pretty much ignore the old bastard, unless, of course, he’s your Secretary of Defense.

Now, Rummy gets a lot of flak for his I’m-an-asshole-but-you-can’t-do-anything-about-it-so-take-this! attitude towards everyone from regular soldiers (‘you get shipped home in the box you have, not the one you’d like to have’) to congressmen (‘wow! I really can just say ‘fuck you!’ to every question they ask me and eventually they will just go away’).

He gets tons of hate from the Left – hated for everything from his mismanagement of the war (and his ‘fuck you’ attitude to anyone who points it out) to his seeming callousness towards dead soldiers (‘I could sign this condolence letter to his mother, but damn, my fingers are all tired from signing all those checks to Halliburton!’). The Right vacillates between lightly condemning him to an uneasy endorsement (‘Well, he is a tough guy…’).

But hold on, I’m not here to pile onto the hate heap, there are plenty of columns talking about that, I’m going to talk about why Rumsfeld is the right guy for the job – why I even *gasp* kind of like him. “WTF?!?”, you’re going to say, “The Bloogeyman’s off his nut”. I’m not saying that I’m sending Rummy love letters or anything, but let me take you through why I think that Rummy’s an important part of the administration. When it comes down to it, the Bloogeyman prefers the boogeyman that is out in the open to the one that is still hiding in the shadows.

I’ll admit that that’s kind of warped way of looking at things - to ignore some of the obviously incompetent or just plain horrible things Rummy has done (“But Mister Bloogeyman, his fuck ups are so many and so obvious!”) - but first lets look at what his part is in all this. Who sets the policy and who follows it? Sure, Rummy had a say in the decision to go to war, how to set up the war, and how to execute it – but it was Bush and Cheney who were the final decision makers – it’s their policy. The Bush administration, as we have all come to know and treasure, will never give anyone a straight answer on anything. They’re like a guy at the bar who will keep buying you drinks, joking with you and generally having a good time, only to stab you in the back later and take your wallet. Rummy’s kind of like some guy who steps out of a dark alley, shows you a knife, says he’s gonna stab you, stabs you, and then tells you he’s stabbing you as he turns the knife. Which is better? Well, there’s really not much difference in the end result (you’re still face down in your own blood and puke in a back alley, minus your wallet), but at least in the second case you know what’s happening and maybe, just maybe, you have a chance to take some action to prevent the end result.

It’s interesting to see how people pile onto Rumsfeld (even Republicans from time to time), but refuse to point a finger or raise a hubbub in regards to Bush. I’ll sit there and watch as everyone - newspapers, TV, Democrats, Republicans, bloggers – denounce or distance themselves from Rummy because of his latest gaffe or straight-talk but refuse to take the logical step and apply blame where it really needs to reside. Frankly, everything Rumsfeld says or does represents the Bush administration view of things and Bush’s policy (remember, he did submit his resignation twice – both rejected by George Bush). Rush to war? Bush. Don’t think about adequate troop levels or supplies? Bush. Don’t bother signing condolence letters to the families of the dead? Bush. Give Congress the finger if they try to question you? Bush. Give soldiers the finger if they want armor? Bush. Hello everyone, it’s Bush, Bush, Bush!

The only difference is that while Rummy tells it to you straight (through words or actions), Bush wraps everything in warm, fuzzy platitudes about honor, sacrifice, liberty, and freedom. And, there are actually times when Rumsfeld is right about things and the look on people’s faces (especially rank and file Republicans’) is priceless. Complaining about a “war” in which 1,500 soldiers have died? Shut the hell up, Rumsfeld basically tells you. When you kill over 100,000 people and lose 1,500 that’s not a war, that’s an administered beating, pretty much a massacre. When people complain about casualties to Rumsfeld he’s probably thinking, “Good lord, you fucking babies, stop complaining every time someone dies – 30,000 people died a day, every day, for six years during World War 2 – that was a war” What he actually says is “Well, sure they[casualties] bother me but remember they're volunteers.” When someone complains about inadequate armor he’s probably thinking, “Can you ever stop whining? I mean, the insurgents are running around in tee shirts and tennis shoes and you want me to armor your fucking toilet?!?” What he actually says is, “As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want”.

Oh, and here are some excerpts from his friendly little Q&A session:

Two dozen members of the House Armed Services Committee had not yet had their turn to question Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at yesterday's hearings when he decided he had had enough.

At 12:54, he announced that at 1 p.m. he would be taking a break and then going to another hearing in the Senate. "We're going to have to get out and get lunch and get over there," he said. When the questioning continued for four more minutes, Rumsfeld picked up his briefcase and began to pack up his papers.

The chairman, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), apologized to his colleagues for a rather "unusual" situation.

With the Bush administration asking Congress this month to write checks for half a trillion dollars for the Pentagon, you might think the secretary of defense would set an accommodating posture on Capitol Hill. But, to paraphrase Rumsfeld's remark in December about the Army, you go to budget hearings with the defense secretary you have, not the defense secretary you might want or wish to have at a later time. And Donald Rumsfeld doesn't do accommodating very well.

Asked about the number of insurgents in Iraq, Rumsfeld replied: "I am not going to give you a number."

Did he care to voice an opinion on efforts by U.S. pilots to seek damages from their imprisonment in Iraq? "I don't."

Could he comment on what basing agreements he might seek in Iraq? "I can't."

How about the widely publicized cuts to programs for veterans? "I'm not familiar with the cuts you're referring to."

How long will the war last? "There's never been a war that was predictable as to length, casualty or cost in the history of mankind."

The hope is that at some point everyone - Congress, soldiers, people, Democrats, Republicans - will realize that this is actually not how they want war and foreign policy run. That this level of respect for Congress and, ultimately, the American people is not acceptable. However, the blank, stunned look that people get when confronted by the bare, hard truth is only superseded by the faux outrage that they whisper afterwards. But outrage is nothing if not coupled with action. And, as Bush said, the moment for accountability and action has passed.

I’ll leave you with another nice little Rumsfeld exchange along with the translation:

In Europe last week, Rumsfeld joked that he was no longer the "old Rumsfeld" who disdainfully referred to France and Germany as "Old Europe."

But Wednesday, he made it clear that the new Rumsfeld would not be a softy. When he scolded Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) by saying she incorrectly described his role, Tauscher inquired: "Is that old Rumsfeld talking to me now?"

"I think so," Rumsfeld said, smiling.

"I'd prefer new Rumsfeld," she requested.

"No, you don't," he said.

That’s the Bush administration saying ‘fuck you’ to everyone – you had a chance to vote for a new path, but you didn’t so shut the hell up ‘cause we’ll tell you what you prefer now. At least Rummy has the guts to say it to your face.

Everything is Ponte’ing to Trouble

2005-02-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, I’m pretty sure that Charles Manson could get confirmed by this Congress. Just when I thought my blood pressure was coming down from the Alberto Gonzales and Condoleezza Rice confirmations guess which boogeyman comes crawling back? I’m not going to rehash John Negroponte’s long and despicable career (it looks like a ‘distinguished’ career if you’re in Congress). Instead, just take a look at some comments from people regarding his nomination (taken from these CNN and Fox News articles):

At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday, Rockefeller had criticized Bush for taking so long to name a director.

But Thursday he praised the president's choice. "I think that Ambassador Negroponte is a very sound choice," Rockefeller said. "Ambassador Negroponte has served bravely and with distinction in Iraq and at the United Nations during a time of turmoil and uncertainty. He brings a record of proven leadership and strong management."

……….

"I'm enthusiastic …he stands sort of midpoint between the military and the intelligence world … and he has as his deputy someone who knows more about the collection of intelligence than anybody else on Earth ... they have very good chemistry, I think they'll make a very good team," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told FOX News. "He'll get confirmed, I think, easily and quickly."

……….

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., however, said she is thankful Negroponte will be in the business of collection, analysis and dissemination of information, and not a policy maker or Cabinet officer.

"As one who has disagreed with Ambassador Negroponte for over 20 years, I am pleased that he is in a position now that doesn't have anything to do with policy."

……….

Both skeptics and hopefuls say the new director has more than a few challenges ahead — from turf battles at the major intelligence and national security agencies to bureaucratic resistance and the ultimate test of wielding the authority needed to transform the nation’s intelligence capabilities.

"He’s going to have to be a skull-cracker, that’ll make the difference," said Amy Zegart, a professor of public policy at UCLA, former student of now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice…

WTF?!? Ok, we’ll start with you Mr. Rockefeller. I understand that you’re a Senator from West Virginia. Yeah, I know that’s a dreaded ‘red state’. But for fuck’s sake, Robert Byrd is from West Virginia and the Bloogeyman doesn’t see him bending over backwards to sycophantically slaver over everything Bush does! Maybe you don’t have enough votes to stop the confirmation, or even attempt a filibuster, but you don’t need to jockey for the best doggy award.

Nancy Pelosi – you’re a fucking disaster. You’ve never agreed with him on anything but you’re pleased that he’s not in a position that has anything to do with "policy" like, say, head of manipulating intelligence to support policy, or anything?!? Whew, that was a close one, for a moment there I thought he might continue to be an ambassador. Good lord, there are like a million ambassadors – if I had like $20,000 dollars I could be an ambassador. But gee, from what I’ve heard this Director of All Fucking Intelligence thing doesn’t sound like a big deal. Does the name J. Edgar Fucking Hoover mean anything to you?!? And don’t give me that look. The Bloogeyman knows you - you’re a congresswoman from San Francisco for crying out loud. Your probability of losing your seat is like negative 500%! You could vote against all Bush legislation all day long – and you probably should, given where we know all Bush legislation leads us - and your poll numbers would actually go up. And you’re the Minority Leader in the House? Please, act like one – you can even use WWTDD if you have to. Just think, every time, “What Would Tom Delay Do?”

And that last quote – boy, it seems like there is going to be a lot of work to be done. Gee, it seems like there is always a lot of work to be done in the Bush administration and it all seems to be hard work. Man, there are going to be “turf battles”, and “bureaucratic resistance” (read: judicial resistance), and “the ultimate test of wielding the authority” – talk about some serious heavy lifting. Well, good thing we’ve got John Negroponte, you see, “he’s going to have to be a skull-cracker”. Wait…what?!? Now I’m really creeped out. I mean, I kind of gandered a guess at where this might lead, but you don’t just come out and say it. Think of the children! I’m pretty sure little Timmy will have a hard time sleeping knowing that some boogeyman just crawled out of the sewer and now is going to have to be a “skull-cracker”. I know I’m going to have a hard time sleeping.

Well, that’s the story – he’s been nominated and his confirmation seems like a “slam dunk”. I’m not going to rehash history or go into a tirade of often used accusations and evidence pointing to his many ‘shortcomings’ (to really, really understate the situation). The Bloogeyman will just get into a line of a little deductive hypothesis (some might call it rumor-mongering). That is, I’m just going to sit back a little bit and look at the whole situation and try to see if I can glean anything that has not been explicitly said or reported in the “media”.

We were all a little shocked when (*surprise!*) the Bush administration announced that John Negroponte would be the ambassador to Iraq. Hell, a lot of people thought that ghoul had long since passed. But, “What the hell”, we said, “he’s far over his days of mischief in Honduras and Nicaragua, right?” Right? Then came the news that the Pentagon was considering (read: already using) the ‘Salvador Option’ – the tactic of putting special-forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq to battle the growing insurgency. Now, I may be a little slow on the uptake, but when I hear “John Negroponte” + “Ambassador to Iraq” + “Salvador Option” I think “uh, oh…” Now, I’m pretty sure that the Shiites in Iraq are smarter than me and think “UH, OH…”. So, here’s how I think a conversation between Ali al-Sistani (de facto leader of the Shiites in Iraq) and one of his aides might have went (paraphrased, I’m sure they weren’t this eloquent):

Ali al-Sistani: So, what’s going on?

Lackey: Well, there’s news: the Occupation Forces just appointed John Negroponte as the Ambassador to Iraq.

AaS: WTF?!? Is that the John Fucking Negroponte I’m thinking of?

L: Yep, that’s the motherfucker.

AaS: Really? Hell, I thought that ghoul had long since passed.

L: Nope, he was actually the U.N. Ambassador before this.

AaS: Oh, that’s why I hadn’t heard of him – does anyone even pay attention to the U.N. anymore?

L: Well, not Saddam and definitely not the United States.

……seven months later……

L: Uh, you gotta see this article in Newsweek. It talks about how the Occupation Forces might use the “Salvador Option”.

AaS: Yup, knew that. Next.

L: WTF?!? How the hell could you know about this? It just came out!

AaS: Didn’t you get the memo? I sent it out a couple months ago.

L: What memo?

AaS: Don’t you ever check your inbox? Anyway, they’ve been using the Salvador Option for a while now. I mean, come on, the Sunnis have their hands full getting beat down by the Occupation Forces – they’re not dumb enough to start car-bombing Shiite mosques so we also come in and regulate on their asses. That’s why I’ve told everyone to play it cool and not get a civil war started with the Sunnis.

L: Wow, and to think I was about to open a can of Shiite on my Sunni barber…

AaS: Look, anything else?

L: Well, what do we do about this whole Negroponte situation?

AaS: I may look like Santa Clause, but I’m not dumb. I’ve already handled it.

L: What did you do?

AaS: Well, I sent an intermediary to talk to the Occupation Forces and basically said: “We’ve got your number so don’t try any tricky shit – get this John Fuckingponte guy out of my country or you’re in for a world of hurt. You can get him out after the election so it doesn’t look all weird and stuff, but I want him out!”

L: Wow, I never would have imagined…

AaS: God, you’re dumb – how much do I pay you?

L: You pay me with the promise of eternal paradise.

AaS: Really? Damn, I need to re-evaluate my health-care plan, sounds expensive.

So there you go. Of course it’s a complete, unsubstantiated rumor, but that’s how the Bloogeyman logically thinks things could have gone down. The Bush Administration had to get Johnnie boy out of Iraq, but wanted to put him in somewhere else so that things don’t look all weird and stuff. Am I right? You Tell Me.

But Director of National Intelligence? This guy has never been involved in anything remotely resembling intelligence (unless you count shredding classified documents as work experience). I mean, look at Bush’s explanation for why he would make a good Director of National Intelligence (excerpted from a Fox News article):

But Negroponte may appear to be somewhat of an unusual choice, some observers said.

"He has stature ... what he doesn't have is expertise in intelligence," said Walter Pincus, senior writer with The Washington Post. "He's been an ambassador, he's dealt with intelligence but he's never served in any of the intelligence agencies."

Bush responded to questions about the appropriateness of the choice by saying that Negroponte can maneuver through bureaucratic Washington because of a strong familiarity with using prior intelligence reports.

"He's a diplomat ... he understands the power centers of Washington, he's been a consumer of intelligence ... he's got a good feel for how to move this process forward to address the different interests," Bush said.

WTF?!? I mean, I consume a lot of donuts, but I’m pretty sure I’m not qualified to be the CEO of Krispy Kreme Donuts. “Ok, Bloogeyman”, you’re probably thinking, “who cares if he’s qualified or not, he’s just a Bush lackey. I mean, Bush isn’t qualified to run a lemonade stand and look at him.” Granted, just because an administration appoints an incompetent to a position (Janet Reno, anyone?) doesn’t mean that something sinister is happening.

But the Bloogeyman wants to take another deductive look at the situation. Let’s look at Negroponte’s history. He’s been involved in some pretty nasty, under the table-type stuff over the years. He’s practically the boogeyman of nasty plumbing – he gets into the stuff that really stinks. And why would you hire a plumber if you don’t got some plumb’n that needs a fix’n? Chew on that for a while and see if your skin doesn’t start to crawl.

The Bloogeyman Has Emerged

2005-02-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

Ah, the boogeyman. You all remember him from your childhood, right? You didn’t know exactly what he was and what he could do to you – all you knew was that he could “get” you. After that everything else was left to the imagination. Oh, and how we imagined! Indeed, we imagined not only what would happen to us if this “boogeyman” fellow got a hold of us but we also imagined how we could defend ourselves from that. Little kids may be a little deluded, but they’re not dumb. Faced with a survival problem like that we came up with plans, schemes, and rules that would keep us safe.

The boogeyman lived in the closet, or under the bed, and we knew that he couldn’t get us as long as the light was on. He couldn’t get us if our parents were in the room (why would a crazy mofo like the boogeyman be afraid of our parents?!? We never thought of that…). Once you were in bed (assuming you lived through the trip from the light switch to your bed), your blanket was your shield. If things really got bad, you could pull it over your head tight (you couldn’t see, but you’d listen with bated breath for any ominous sounds) and hope for the best.

Of course, we all survived the boogeyman, but what was he really? Perhaps he is a hardwired part of our psyche – a fear of the dark and the unknown. Even if we rationalize that something can’t hurt us, we are sometimes still instinctively fearful of it (note the case of a grown man’s instinctive recoil at the quick movement or thrust that a small harmless snake, or even a mouse, makes – we know that it can’t hurt us, but we will instinctively pull back from that quick movement). Perhaps as a child, when we have the least amount of control over our lives, we are looking to exert control over our very existence. Chillingly, sometimes the childhood focus on the archetype of the boogeyman blinds them to the real boogeyman down the street – the one offering candy or a ride home.

And why do we lose some of that fear as we grow older? Of course almost anyone will feel a tinge of fear walking down a dark, unfamiliar alley. But, for the most part, we have rationalized away the fear of great harm coming to us by way of this “boogeyman”. Perhaps we are old enough to understand that enough bad can happen to us at any time (car accident, cancer, the death of a loved one) that we don’t feel the need to think about such a low probability event as the boogeyman getting us. Hell, even if the boogeyman showed up at my door now I’d probably invite him in for some tea and crumpets (as long as he wasn’t wearing an IRS badge). Why, frankly, the boogeyman’s probably so far down on my list of worries now that he comes slightly after ‘finding out I don’t have any clean underwear’ and a little before ‘missing a meeting at work’.

But the boogeyman still exists. He has changed a little, but he still lurks in the dark corners of our mind. Sometimes he is a personal fear, something waiting to be discovered or a horrible thing waiting to happen. Sometimes he is societal – something we all fear (They’re coming to get us!). However, sometimes he is not what he seems. Just as chilling as in childhood, perhaps the boogeyman is not the archetype that we know. Maybe he’s just the guy next door, or the guy smiling at us on TV – we just don’t know it yet.

Interesting also is the use of the boogeyman in adult pop culture and politics. As adults we are rational and don’t give into irrational fears (right?). While some people are always yelling about boogeymen – Communists, Fascists, Terrorists – we “rational” adults take pride and pleasure in denouncing those boogeymen as fake threats. “Hah!” we say, “only a complete idiot would believe in boogeymen!” But, perhaps we have gotten so used to shouting “Fake boogeyman! Fake boogeyman!” that we are wholly unprepared to consider the idea that perhaps there is a real boogeyman. Maybe it’s not even hidden in the shadows anymore – it has gotten so used to being ignored by adults that it can walk right into the open and no one will notice.

Enter the Bloogeyman. The Bloogeyman has come to remind you that we are all still children. The Bloogeyman will help you take off your adult blinders and start to really look into the shadows. Of course, like children, in order to truly understand the boogeymen that walk among us we must allow some of our fear to return. We must understand that the boogeymen that walk among us will not simply waft away like some mild stench on a sweet summer’s breeze – they will only get stronger as they are ignored.

Like children we may not have all the facts, but we must use logic to deduce the truth. A child knows that if they heard a noise from some dark corner, if the closet door has creaked open on its own accord, if something is missing – has been snatched up by unknown hands – than there is something to fear. Not just something to fear, but something to be curious about, something to demand investigation, and something to eventually be overcome.

The Bloogeyman is simply the guide. Will he tell all he knows? Yes, but the Bloogeyman does not know all – it will be up to you to ask questions and provide answers. We will talk politics, recent events, philosophy, economics and all other manner of things – the goal will not be to just look blindly into the lights, but to peer into the shadows.

The Bloogeyman Signs On!

2005-02-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

The Bloogeyman is here - don't be afraid, he is only here to help.