POTUS

Me: Katie, I don't think I'm going to be able to sit here and watch the State of the Union with that penis candle on top of the TV.

My housemate Katie: You're not supposed to watch the State of the Union. You're supposed to sit here and take it.

Correllation.

Record high Exxon profits!!! (NYT)

Record high consumer gas prices!!! (CNN)

What. I'm not implying anything.

[Previously: Bad oil companies! Bad!...or not (11/9/05)]

Here's what I love about capitalism

Cingular is trying to patent emoticons. (The Register via Talking Points Memo). Specifically, the company seeks the rights to, and I quote:

:) Smile ;-) or ;) Wink :-D or :D Big smile :-)) or :)) Very happy :0) Big nose smiley |-) Cool! >:-) or >:) Evil grin >;-> or >;> Evil grin with a wink :-X or :X My lips are sealed }:-) or }:) Devilish :-{circumflex over ( )}) or :{circumflex over ( )}) Tongue in cheek :-P or :P Sticking out tongue :-& or :& Tongue tied :op Puppy face 0:-) or 0:) Saint :-)8 or :)8 Happy wearing a bow tie 8-) or 8) Happy with glasses #-) I partied all night %-) or %) Drunk :-###.. or :###.. Being sick %-( or %( Confused :-0 or :0 Shocked :-o or :o Surprised :-| or :| Indecision :'-( or :'( Crying :'-) or :') Crying of happiness :-( or :( Sad

But I'm gonna one-up Cingular by seeking to patent emotions. I think "guarded optimism" is a good one. Or maybe "nostalgia."

Laying odds

The official 2006 State of the Union drinking game rules are now posted at www.drinkinggame.us.

But I have one to add: "space terrorism" = 1 shot.

Excuse us, we're too busy rolling over

OK, so Senator Kerry's last minute attempt to organize a filibuster of Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination was a little feeble and embarrassing. (NYT) But not as embarrassing as the Democrats' general lack of scrappiness*. We're talking about a lifetime position on the Supreme Court here. But, quoth Harry Reid, "No one can complain on this matter that there hasn't been sufficient time to talk about Judge Alito, pro and con...I hope that this matter will be resolved without too much more talking." Oh, just get it over with.

*Though it must be noted that the Judiciary Committee D's totally kicked ass during the hearings.

Not sticking to Teflon

I remember when I was a kid we had this one Teflon-coated pan that had gotten a little bit old and flaky. When scrambled eggs were made in this pan, small, black flakes of Teflon ended up in them. I remember asking my dad about the flakes. "Oh, I'm sure they're harmless."

Ooops.

Harmful Teflon Chemical To Be Eliminated by 2015 (WP) Of course, the problem here is allegedly a processing agent used in making Teflon that is released into the environment. No harm is said to come to us from using Teflon-coated products. OK.

Paranoid computer tip of the day

As you may know, all sorts of metadata lives in your Word and Excel documents. Things like the entire history of Word's "track changes" associated with that document, or the author, or when the document was last saved--even, I am told, which other documents that you had open at the same time. And this stuff can even remain with the document when it's converted to a pdf.

I can think of a million reasons you might not want this information to remain encoded in documents you send out. Fortunately, the folks at Microsoft have generously provided this add-in that will scrub the metadata from your documents.

Collapse of federal government imminent

"The Supreme Court today rejected a petition from BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. for a rehearing of its patent-infringement case....RIM may face a court-ordered shut down of most of its 4 million BlackBerrys in the United States if it cannot settle its case..." (WP)

Remember the last time your e-mail server went down at work? The frustration? The lack of productivity? The use of the telephone for communication?

It would be like that, except times a thousand.

Rumble in CA11

78-year-old former California congressman Pete McCloskey is running to unseat House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo. It's sort of personal. McCloskey is a pro-environment Republican who helped write the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s. Pombo is an anti-environment whackjob Republican who has vowed to "update and modernize" the Act (if you know what I mean). Besides being generally in favor of liquidating the national and global environment.

McCloskey wants to start a series of debates with Pombo, but Pombo's office says "Pombo does not intend to participate in debates until he is facing a worthier opponent....'We might as well debate Austin Powers'... 'They're both stuck in the 70s.'" (AP via SF Chronicle).

Uh huh...stuck in the 70s...kind of like Pombo's tacky moustache... (above)

The double standard in bias in education

I don't know if it's accurate to conflate the intelligent-design-in-schools crowd and the fire-the-liberal-college-professor crowd. But I do think it's pretty funny that

• it's OK to mix politics and education when it comes to teaching innocent middle schoolers about life science
• but not OK for adult college students or professors to critically examine social and political issues, even outside the classroom. (see "Witch hunt at UCLA," LA Times today)

The man in the black hat

It is such a wonderful thing when fashion collides with politics. I wish committee hearings had red carpet coverage ("And who are you wearing tonight?" "Ann Taylor. I just love Ann--she designed this pantsuit just for me." "And who are you wearing?" "This is a vintage piece I picked up at Filene's Basement." "Exquisite, you look great. You know, here in Washington the 'little black suit' is truly a classic.")

Anyway, to the point. Note to self: never allow self to be photographed in scary black fedora and trenchcoat. Because you know if you get caught up in a corruption scandal that's the image everyone's going to run.

Trent Lott running for reelection

Well, he's already gotten mad. Guess it's time to get even. (The Hill).

In the current climate, any other discredited GOP leaders of Lott's stripe have my full blessing to run for reelection. Have fun, guys. Let's see how that policy of closing ranks around everything from racism to graft works out in the long run.

Al Gore "grew animated and frequently raised his voice"

NYT: Gore bawls out Bush over domestic spying policy.

Check out the video! (CSPAN) Where was this guy in 1999?

Corn is not the answer

Here's a line from an article on corn farmers and ethanol production in today's NYT:

"A global shift to farm-based fuel could reduce the need for oil and slow climate change."

Can we please put this one to rest, already? Yes, burning ethanol produces less CO2 than burning oil. But you have to look at all the energy that went into growing the crops and producing the fuel. Estimates on this number vary. One study concludes that it may take as much as six times as much energy to produce a given quantity of ethanol as it delivers when burned. Yet even if ethanol delivers an equal or slightly greater amount of energy than it takes to produce it, we're still investing resources in a cycle that starts with coal, oil, and other fossil fuels when we could be investing in truly renewable and clean technologies.

Ditto for the hydrogen car idea. Unless you're using solar or wind to create your hydrogen fuel or your ethanol, this is not a win from a climate change perspective.

Reasons my supermarket cracks me up

I don't know exactly why the P Street Whole Foods makes me laugh so hard. Maybe it's the people yelling across the aisles to their spouses, "Honey, what was that great Cab/Zin/Pinot we had the other night?" (Referring to varietals with a single syllable nickname is just about the most bourgeois thing you can do.) Maybe it's the fact that this is the first time in my life that I've gone impulse shopping and ended up with cheese. Or the fact that you can pay twice as much to buy a cool, zebra-stripey eggplant that tastes exactly like a regular eggplant. (I checked.)

But most of all I think it is because if you took a poll of people walking into the store, you would find that 90% of them know how to pronounce aioli.

You have to stop caring about ruining lives and reputations

Yeah, that's right. Attack John Murtha's service record. A website is now calling into question two purple hearts awarded to the anti-war Republican congressman during Vietnam. (WP)

The really sad thing is that this Swiftboatian* tactic may just work. These are the same forces that in 2002 allowed Saxby Chambliss to question the patriotism of incumbent Georgia Senator Max Cleland, the Democrat who lost three limbs in Vietnam. And win his seat!!!

Here's the problem: the conservative attack dogs have no shame. Too many in the Democratic party establishment do. Ditch the shame, guys. Go down to their level and win a race or two, wouldja?

*you like that?

Bjork rules

The ladies at Go Fug Yourself do not approve. But really, if you're the only human being on the planet who can remotely get away with wearing a dress emblazoned with Michael Jackson's face in sequins, it's just something you have to do.

New media wars of attrition

You've got the Wiki wars, as when anonymous contributors libel John Siegenthaler or degrade women on Wikipedia (the editable online encyclopedia) and the libelee strikes back. And then the original contributor strikes back. And so on.

You've got the blog comment wars, as when industry PR guys search the blogs and leave comments about nuclear power or corporate blog monitoring or whatever.

All of this takes effort, yet I've still never seen any solid numbers on the readership of blogs, Wikipedia, and similar online information sources. It stands to reason that this audience is likely to include opinion leaders or high-income consumers, but I haven't seen any research on that, either. Is it really worth it to spend precious hours editing a Wikipedia entry or writing comment spam? Just so your company/self/other interest gets more favorable search results? (Seriously, does anyone know? Show us some data on this.)

Take Texas--please!

A correspondent alerts us to this little tidbit:

Bush requests funds from Congress to teach American students neglected languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Farsi.

"In order to convince people we care about them, we've got to understand their culture and show them we care about their culture," Bush said. "When somebody comes to me and speaks Texan, I know they appreciate the Texas culture. (Kamen in the Post)

Putting the hilarity of this quote aside for a moment--Dude, George W. Bush doesn't even speak Texan. Birthed and raised by East Coast elite WASPs, Bush was born in Connecticut, and was indeed in Texas for the early part of his life but went on to high school at Phillips Andover, college at Yale, and Harvard B-School.

Oh, Guv'ner Dean...

This is not the way to go. On Wolf Blitzer yesterday, Howard Dean argued that no congressional Democrats took money from interests directly connected to Jack Abramoff. Other liberal bloggers are saying that Dean trounced Blitzer in this exchange. (Past Peak, Alternet). But I'm telling you, there is a Democrat with a horror story out there somewhere...and all it will take is the Fox News research department to uncover it. At which point, Dean's statements will be thrown back in his face.

It's a mistake to make a bold, cut-and-dry claim that has such high potential to be disproven with such embarrassing results.

Is Abramoffukah eight days long?

If so, I will have to write eight posts about the topic, and we're only up to 3. (1, 2, 3)

So this evening, I turn your attention to Think Progress's excellent Abramoff scandal page, which is a sort of pocket guide to the recipients of all that dirty, dirty money.

Advocates, government reps, whatever.

To continue my thoughts on Abramoff tarnishing the reputation of "lobbyists" (well, let's be honest--further tarnishing):

Jan Witold Baran defends the profession in the Post today. Thanks, Jan! The problem is not "lobbying" in the most basic sense.* It's money. Take the money out of the equation and you take out the receptions, the lunches, the campaign contributions, and, alas, the late night drinks. But believe me: Washington would run a lot less effectively (if that's possible) without lobbyists. Why?

Well, first of all, your great-aunt Elma would have to come to Washington and talk with her congressman's office about Medicare prescription drug benefits, instead of sending in her annual check to a non-profit advocacy group with professionals who'll do that for her.

Secondly, Hill staff are hard-working and skilled, but they can't do it all. They absolutely rely on advocacy groups to do much of their footwork--conducting research and providing information. Of course, staff must then sort through all of the information coming from different sides of the debate and decide the best course of action for their bosses. But that's their job.

And this is where the money and access issue comes in. Who do staff and members listen to? There's plenty of research out there to indicate that campaign contributions from lobbyists do influence who gets in the door and who gets listened to. In a perfect fantasy fairy world, that wouldn't factor in.

*Mr. Baran explains this well: "The framers of the Constitution recognized that citizens must be free to make appeals to those who govern and who make policies, laws and regulations that affect the citizenry. Obviously, most citizens are not physically located at the seat of government, may not know how government works, and are busy doing things other than lobbying. For those reasons, when they need help in making their petitions, they retain representatives who can more effectively seek redress on their behalf. In other words, ordinary folks need representatives to talk to their representatives."

Double tall epiphany

A real cappuccino bears little resemblance to the Starbucks tall cappuccino. In Europe, they make them much smaller--basically, teacup sized--with a higher ratio of espresso to milk.* That's how I like them (because I see milk as basically a caffeine delivery device), so at Starbucks I usually ask the barista to give me a double cappuccino with lots of room. End result? Stronger, less milky drink.

Now I learn that one can actually order a "short" cappuccino at Starbucks. It's an 8 ouncer, in a smaller cup, making it more like a traditional cappuccino. It isn't on the menu, and Tim Harford at Slate explains why.

*Also, they do a much better job with the foam.

Did I mention I have a subscription to Us Weekly?

OK, so I know I said I would never blog about Lindsay Lohan again. But here's the thing--it now turns out that LL has used drugs! And battled bulimia! I am shocked, astounded, and, I have to say, disappointed. (AP via WP)

Jon Stewart to host Oscars!

Oh man, this is gonna be good. (Reuters via NYT) I demand Wonkette/Defamer team reporting.

Fevered question:

Dayquil is legal, and pot isn't?

One bad apple

Uh oh, Abramoff and his ilk are giving everybody a bad name.

On Lou Dobbs last night, the poll question was: Do you believe lobbyists and all lobbying organizations should be completely banned? And here's how the vote came out:

Yes: 94%; 7163 votes
No: 6%; 424 votes
Source: Lou Dobbs Tonight

And people wonder why lobbyists, even those who work for charitable and/or non-evil causes, like to refer to themselves as things like "advocates" or "legislative representatives" in polite company.

Late at night in smoke-filled rooms, absolutely nothing happens.

Well, that settles it. Tom DeLay's office says that contributions to his campaign from a nonprofit interest group linked to Jack Abramoff had no impact on his legislative agenda. Like everyone else in Congress, "Mr. DeLay makes decisions and sets legislative priorities based on good policy and what is best for his constituents and the country. Any suggestion of outside influence is manipulative and absurd." (AP via Forbes)

Seriously, I don't know why special interest groups even bother giving millions of dollars to congressional campaigns each year. It's not like that money influences who gets into office or what they do once they're there. Sheesh. Losers.

New Year's pics

My New Year's resolution is to use Photoshop's automated web gallery tool more.

Some pics from last night's festivities are posted here.