Author: Glenn Hauman

Pandagon has some ideas about Government in Waiting, picking your cabinet candidates ahead of time.

Some folks claim this is illegal due to promising jobs in exchange for votes, although not for jobs that require Senate confirmation. My way to get around it is simple: list two people for every position. After all, they can’t both get the job, and you have two people double teaming the current crew doing the job. And lord knows there will be places for them in any new administration– do you know how many jobs are going to have to be filled?

Ashcroft hospitalized with gallstone complications

Having had kidney stones, I sympathize. But not by much.

Ralph Nader is polling 6%?

I suppose it means there’s mushy headed thinking all around– after all, Bush has 46% nowadays…

Something left over from thinking on Warren Ellis’s weblog, and only getting around to posting now…

When imagining the future, I always try to keep the following in mind:

AT ANY POINT IN THE STORY, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. And that happens in real life as well. We’ve just had the first confirmed case of Mad Cow in the US, this can change the face of the country if it goes bad. I saw the Twin Towers collapse one block from my house, and that changed the world.

MURPHY’S LAW IS BOTH A VARIABLE AND A CONSTANT.

THE DEFINITION OF A CRISIS IS AN EVENT THAT, WHEN IT HAPPENS, NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

LIFEFORMS ALWAYS MOVE TO INCREASE THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF THINGS AROUND THEM– OR THEIR CONTROL. What is problematic is when they attempt to do one without the other.

IT’S HARD TO PREDICT THE FUTURE WHEN THEY KEEP CHANGING THE PAST. On the other hand, if you’re the one changing the past, that gives you better odds on creating the future. Which is why so many people keep trying to do it.

STUPIDITY IS SELF CORRECTING. Eventually. But it can certainly take a while, and there’s no limit to the amount of damage it can cause in the meantime.

Yes, I’ve moving over to Movable Type (you can find it at http://www.movabletype.org) like all the other cool kids. Now, if this silly thing will work…

Seems that Google is cutting out some advocacy ads from its AdWords service.
Bloggers writing letters is nice and all– but if Google’s going to
keep this up, there’s a much more direct way to make the point.
1. If you are running Google ads, go into your account and filter all
ads from Royal Caribbean from appearing on your site. The link for your
account is https://www.google.com/adsense/filter.
2. Consider pulling your Google ads for a week.
And in both cases, let Google know about it.

I’m coming to the conclusion today that many of the screwups of the
world today is because there are dozens of deliberate disconnects
between what we think something costs versus what it actually costs.
This is prompted by:
* discussions with the Missus on the Sunday morning talk shows about
taxes (including her followup to Grover Norquist’s famous comment about
wanting a government small enough that it can be drowned in the
bathtub: “And what happens when somebody else decides to drown it?” I’d
always looked at it from the inside, and had never considered that such
a drowning could come from an external enemy as well…)
* Marv Wolfman’s comment on Hollywood and the garbage coming out: And
maybe, to help the cost of movies, start keeping honest accounting
practices so most of the star’s salaries can be back-ended based on
profits instead of being upfront. Twenty million dollars upfront means
if nothing good has been offered an A-list actor in a given year, they
might be less choosey about what they pick. But if most of their salary
is based on dollar one gate, then perhaps they will begin to choose
decent movies. And if the money is back-ended, movies simply won’t cost
nearly as much as they do. He’s right– the system is so FUBAR that
the only hope that stars have of getting their fair share is to hold
them up in advance. And why? Because the accounting is horrible.
This is not unique to movies, of course. Music and publishing are often
as bad, if not worse. But it also shows up in hundreds of industries–
software creation, mutual funds, what have you. (Add your own examples
in comments, please.)
* Multi-level marketing. Oy. A little math could go such a long way…

* Bush, the budget, and the huge deficit. See http://www.calpundit.com
for more.
* The difference between what a company reports as profits to
shareholders and what it reports to the IRS.
* FREE!* with three year contract on all children born during that
time.
And on and on and on…
There are so many cases of “the large print giveth and the small print
taketh away” that it really begins to grate. I’m still percolating on
this idea, so this is one big placeholder as a reminder for me to get
back to it later…

The Stepford Wives. Between this and I, Robot this is going to be one heck of a year for our plastic pals, isn’t it?

Dave Johnson (normally of Seeing The Forest, now contributing to The American Street groupblog) nails it:

What does it mean, that former Treasury Secretary O’Neill says they
were planning to invade Iraq right from the start, long before 9/11?
It means that after we were attacked on 9/11, the Bush administration
betrayed us, and instead of going after the attackers, and instead
of putting 100% of their efforts and resources and energy and
brainpower and skills and talents into protecting us from additional
attacks, they used that event to accomplish a different, PRE-EXISTING agenda. PRE-EXISTING!
They harnessed our shock and emotions, and redirected them, and used
them, and used us, and, worst of all, used our 3,000 dead in a cynical,
corrupt, dishonest, drive to win an election and then to commit aggressive war against a country that had not attacked us, had not even threatened us.

And, lest we forget, they let the people responsible for 9/11 go free. And people wonder why we’re pissed at Bush.

From Lloyd Grove:

What are the odds?: Virtues Czar Bill Bennett, who ran into a spot
of bother last year over his multimillion-dollar gambling habit,
slammed Pete Rose’s gambling during a speaking trip to New Hampshire
last week.
Yeah, I know Bennett’s type. I used to deal with them all the time at
the racetrack, guys who would sniff around us looking for tips on how
to bet, and then getting all pissed off and badmouthing us to everybody
when we didn’t give them one.
On the other hand, Rose ain’t no prince either, if some of the rumors
of his behavior in Vegas is to be believed.