Stand By for Mind Control!

What I want for Christmas

2010-12-17T16:30:00.004-05:00

Even though I don't personally celebrate Christmas anymore, a lot of my family does, so I feel entitled to make a list (in order from most likely to I wish):

1. Repeal of DADT.
2. Spurs aggregate win over AC Milan in Champions League.
3. Prison reform/marijuana legalization (not the same things but overlapping goals).
4. Jetpack.

Online Myths Gone Wild

2009-03-24T22:41:00.005-04:00

I don't mean to pick on John Derbyshire (well, maybe a little), but did it not cross his mind to be at least a little skeptical of this:

Well, there is an urgent need for firefighters in the West to battle about two dozen major wildfires. The Denver channel dot-com [?] reports that many of the new recruits are Hispanics who speak only Spanish, and in Oregon that means that some of the supervisors who speak only English are being laid off or demoted, because in Oregon a crew boss is required to be able to speak the language of the firefighters, even if it's only one worker on a twenty-person crew.

The state says the rule is necessary for safety reasons. So why not require the workers to speak English? The state has no clear answer on that.

Five minutes poking around brought me this, from the Oregon Department of Forestry:

The old saying, “Rumor can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on,” is borne out in information circulating on the web and elsewhere that claims the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) is firing and demoting fire crew bosses that do not speak Spanish.

This is not the case. Here are the facts:

ODF has no requirement that its employees speak Spanish, and does not demote or fire anyone because they don’t speak Spanish. And to our knowledge, no crew boss on the private contract fire crews we use has ever been fired because of inability to speak Spanish.
ODF and its partner agencies contract with private companies to supply fire crews for frontline firefighting work. The crews work under the guidance of incident management teams fielded by ODF and other agencies to manage large firefighting operations.
Because English is the language of firefighting in the United States, we must have the ability to communicate with all crews. Accordingly, the contract requires that the leaders of contract crews speak English. This requirement covers the crew boss and the three squad bosses on a typical 20-person crew.
Companies may choose whom they hire for their crews. If a company elects to hire employees who do not speak English, then the supervisors of that crew must speak English as well as the language of any crew members who don’t speak English. This is a matter of good communication, safety, and effectiveness for the agencies that hire crews under the contract. Over the years, this system has established a record of solid firefighting performance and safety.

Keep on tilting, Derb.

Dude

2008-11-13T15:41:00.003-05:00

Soon-to-be-President Obama collects comic books (specifically Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian) (via Matt Yglesias). This makes up for him being a West Ham fan. Though, come to think of it: skinny intellectual comic-book reading soccer fan? It's like Obama is me, only, you know, successful. And black.

That's President Barack Hussein Obama to you

2008-11-05T11:17:00.003-05:00

A day that was long overdue.

Of course, now comes the hard part.

The Great Gig in the Sky

2008-09-15T14:52:00.003-04:00

Rick Wright died today. I had pretty much given up on expecting any new work from Pink Floyd, and after The Wall they had never achieved the same level of quality they did when fighting together through the '70s. They all seemed fat and happy and deservedly content to rest on their laurels (well, Roger apart, of course). But of course there's always that small chance, until something like this happens.

So it's a sad day, partly because of that small chance being gone and mostly because 65 is still too young. But Rick Wright played a large part in a really great band, and that's worth being happy about. So cheers to you, Rick, and here's hoping there's a really finely tuned Hammond organ in the sky.

Overhead, Without Any Fuss, A Star Was Going Out

2008-03-18T19:29:00.005-04:00

I didn't really intend to go on a blogroll here, but now comes the news that Arthur C. Clarke has died. My extremely minor connection to Clarke is that when I was working at my first job in New York as an editorial assistant for Asimov's and Analog, I was responsible for gathering e-mail, and we received one brief one from Clarke (I can't remember to whom it was directed). I was actually not a huge SF fan (I think that helped me get the job, really), but that and taking a phone call from Harlan Ellison were cool moments (though maybe not as memorable as my encounter with the Star Child).

More importantly, he was responsible for helping Stanley Kubrick shape the brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film I loved as a child and still love today (though not for the exact same reasons), he wrote the classic Childhood's End (in important respects a forerunner of 2001), and generally was in the vanguard of encouraging space exploration and scientific discovery. There may have been arguments about who the B was in the ABCs of SF, but the C was always Clarke.

It Haunts Me

2008-03-18T19:18:00.004-04:00

It originated in Chicago and was syndicated in a few areas around the country, including the city of my childhood, Dallas, and it was the weirdest, creepiest children's show I have ever seen, like some methed-out version of Sesame Street. So naturally I want to share. I give you The Gigglesnort Hotel:

I'm sure the creators are perfectly lovely, nondemented people, but my sense is that if they televise a children's show in Hell, it's this one.

Derbyshire's Lies

2008-03-18T16:23:00.003-04:00

Wait, is that title disingenuous? Well, no way to change it now.

"Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation … came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land."

Segregation was not "the law of the land" in the 1950s. It was the law in a minority of states.

Maybe Obama should have parsed this further and made a distinction between de jure segregation and de facto segregation? Or maybe that distinction is needlessly fussy when compartmentalizing segregation into tidy "legal here" and "illegal there" or "legal then" and "illegal now" ignores the messy reality that segregation survived and survives outside and beyond its legal life span, and it certainly did not end at the handing down of Brown v. Board of Education.

"For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger … occasionally … finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews."

If, as Obama seems to be claiming, those are the sentiments only of Wright's generation, how come those whooping and clapping their approval in those sermon clips include lots of young people?

I don't think Obama is claiming that, or at least he's not excluding the possibility that younger generations of black men and women might have their own reasons for bitterness. I've known young women who absolutely cheer on their feminist elders, even though they can actually have credit cards of their very own!

"Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends."

Fear of crime is not a legitimate emotion? Or is it just not legitimate for politicians to appeal to it? If, oh, say, some liberal Democratic governor of some state gives weekend furloughs to the perpetrator of a hideously callous murder who then, while on furlough, commits armed robbery and rape, why should criticism of that governor for that act be out of bounds in a political contest? Or should it only be out of bounds if the murderer is black?

Is it really necessary to point out that the key word here is "exploited"? Given that Derbyshire seems to be still running the '88 campaign, maybe yes.

No one thinks that crime isn't a legitimate issue. What some people also think is that using singular, and not obviously representative, crimes as a stalking horse for racial fears is a bad way to create a framework for policymaking and not at all an obvious way to make decisions about policymakers.

"But it also means binding our particular grievances … to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family."

Well, I'm an immigrant, and I try hard to feed my family. And yes, I have grievances. For instance, I think I pay far too much tax in support of far too many public sector workers, most of whom do nothing useful. So … how will you bind your "particular grievances" to mine, Senator? Or am I somehow unrepresentative of immigrants?

This is kind of a weird response, like Derbyshire thinks the speech was directed at him, personally. And ... yeah, actually, you are unrepresentative of immigrants, unless you think that British immigrants who write for The National Review are typical.

"This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care …"

The lines in the Emergency Room at far too many U.S. hospitals are filled with illegal immigrants, preventing citizens from getting timely emergency help. What's your line on illegal immigration, Senator? Oh, right — you're fine with it, as is the rest of your party.

Not wanting to wall up the border and deport every illegal you can lay hands on does not equal "fine." Indeed, Obama "wants to preserve the integrity of our borders. He supports additional personnel, infrastructure and technology on the border and at our ports of entry" and has proposed legislation "to crack down on employers that hire undocumented immigrants."

"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students."

What on earth does this mean? It's true that there is widespread school segregation today. In my state, 60 percent of black students attend schools that are at least 90-percent black. From what I can see, the main reason for this is the great reluctance of nonblack parents to send their kids to schools with too many black students, which they assume are beset by all the problems associated with poorly run public schools. Do you think that they — actually we, as my wife and I share this reluctance — are wrong to think like this? How will you persuade us to think otherwise? Or will you depend on judicially-imposed forced integration of the schools?

What on earth does this mean? Obama argues that segregated schools are failing schools, and Derbyshire ... agrees, I guess. But apparently pointing out that segregated schools are failed schools isn't enough: Obama should have pointed out that they're segregrated because nonblack parents also think that segregated schools are failed schools. Good point!

And so on ...

For the record, any speech that references E Pluribus Unum is a good speech, and Obama's skill at pivoting on issues is very much in evidence here; whether it will tamp down the Wright controversy remains to be seen, but my gut instinct is that the issue will fade somewhat but loom in the background; it will certainly cost him votes at the margins, but not enough to cost him the nomination. In the general? Depends how far it fades.

Metaphorical Male Siblings Before Courtesans

2008-03-11T21:13:00.004-04:00

An under-commented upon aspect of the Spitzer brouhaha is the apparent fact that he used a friend's name to do his late-night business:

The law enforcement official said that several people running the prostitution ring knew Mr. Spitzer by the name of George Fox, though a few of the prostitutes came to realize he was the governor of New York.
Mr. Fox is a friend and donor to Mr. Spitzer. Asked in a telephone interview Monday whether he accompanied Mr. Spitzer to Washington on Feb. 13 and Feb. 14, Mr. Fox responded: "Why would you think that? I did not.”
Told that the Room 871 at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel was registered in Mr. Fox’s name but with Mr. Spitzer’s Fifth Avenue address, Mr. Fox said, "That is the first I have heard of it. Until I speak to the governor further, I have no comment."

It's possible that Fox actually knew about it all along and for obvious reasons doesn't want to say so to the Times, but if Spitzer used Fox's name without his knowledge, even if it's not criminal (I'd guess the circumstances wouldn't rise to identity theft or fraud), that's an unbelievably shabby way to abuse a friend. Then again, it seems like par for the course here.

The Prince and the Foxhole

2008-02-29T11:17:00.004-05:00

I can't feel too worked up about Drudge "outing" Prince Harry's presence in Afghanistan. The story evidently was first leaked by an Australian magazine, which was then picked up by a German newspaper. At that point it was probably inevitable that the cover would be blown, and it just happened to be Drudge who did it.

It's also worth pointing out that Drudge presumably had no agreement with the MoD to not publish the story. It's also also worth pointing out that at the end of the day we're talking about a single soldier whose presence is probably not critical to the overall mission. And since Harry has now been recalled, there's no reason to think that he or his fellow soldiers were placed in particular danger by this leak.

There's a bigger question here, anyway, about the circumstances where it is appropriate for the media to make common cause with the military, and where it is not. Arguably, there's not a particular need for the public to know every action of the princes, but Harry is third in line* for the throne. If he'd been killed in action, and that had been how the world found out where he was, how would the British media have justified not reporting his deployment in the first place? It's certainly hard to justify on a security basis: If the concern is that Harry would be a target and place himself and those around him in danger, the solution is simple: Don't send him. That's what happened when he was almost sent to Iraq. It's unfair to Harry, of course, but should the media bend over backwards for the military for his sole benefit?

As a rule, the press should be extremely reluctant to get into bed with the military on when and how to report, reserving that for only the most clear instances when the media holding off on a story is critical and for the public good. It's hard to see how this case qualifies.

* Corrected from "second in line."

There Are No Small Trophies

2008-02-24T14:25:00.003-05:00

Okay, it's only the Carling Cup, but it's Tottenham's first silverware in nine years (which is, to be honest, longer than I've been a fan). It doesn't hurt that they finished their Cup run by beating Arsenal and Chelsea in succesion. So does it matter that even past Cup winners don't think too much of the accomplishment? No it does not.

Go Spurs!

If Bart Had Been Named Petition to Redress Grievances Simpson, This Would Not Happen

2008-02-21T22:11:00.003-05:00

Apparently people find it easier to name Simpson family members than the "five freedoms" of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Of course, remembering five names repeated ad nauseum in pop culture is probably easier than remembering five concepts that might appear in a few history or civics classes in high school or college, so the result here is ... not that surprising.

For the record, I remembered four of the five freedoms (petition to redress grievances got me) and all five Simpsons. Take that, higher learning!

Dear Diary: Braaaaains!

2008-02-18T01:03:00.005-05:00

Back in the early '90s Roger Waters put out an album called Amused to Death. Like most of Waters's oeuvre, the album dealt with issues of alienation; in this he frets about the powerful technologies massed in the hands of a species not far removed from climbing out of the primodial soup: tribal warfare on a global scale, thanks to smart technology, delivered to your television 24 hours a day. Violence shades into entertainment; entertainment into violence. People still ruled by primitive gods at "command of a nuclear submarine."

If Waters is disturbed by humanity at a macro level, George Romero, in Diary of the Dead, has similar concerns on a micro scale: technology alienating individuals from each other, and from life, and death. This makes sense: in Waters's time the touchstones were MTV and CNN, worldwide corporate emblems of 24-hour television, infotainment. Now technologies have become personalized: YouTube, MySpace, iPods. The new media of the internet has created an army of citizen journalists.

If only Romero had grappled with the nuances of the Internet Age; instead his latest film comes across as redundant, inchoate ramblings. It's too little sharp social commentary and too much "You kids get off my damn lawn! And take your Internets with you!" Diary of the Dead is the stitched-together video of a film student, Jason, caught up in the first night of the rising of the dead: his only sure course of action being to record what's happening and upload it to his MySpace page (and taking note of the number of hits). His girlfriend Debra is frustrated by finding herself at the business end of a camera at all times, but she seems resigned to it more often than she fights it. And we know she's given over completely because it's her voice narrating the film.

Indeed, the first-person perspective isn't just alienating for the characters, it's alienating for the audience. Much of the violence and horror (there is actually not that much for a Romero film) is antiseptic. It's partly the POV, and partly that in creating characters distant from each other, Romero neglects to create characters interesting to watch on their own merits. The nerd, the pretty Texan (with an implausible accent), the alcoholic professor, all types lined up to play their parts. It's hard to blame the technology for not caring when they meet their respective fates: it's that they're boring.

Romero does have an argument, of course. He's not the only one to observe the potentially degrading effects of a world that interfaces through screens. But the nuances of the debate are given short shrift. When Jason argues that his videos might help people, Debra puts him down shortly by saying only that he always has an argument for what he does. It would be a good argument if he believed it, and that the camera was not a shield for him from the world dying around him, but he doesn't and it is. A video uploaded from Japan shows a woman giving advice on how to deal with the dead. But it's ultimately meaningless. Whatever valuable information there is to exchange is going to be lost on people who can't communicate with the person next to them.

And somewhere in there is an interesting film, but it's not this film, because (much like Waters, actually) Romero can't resist driving the point home. The scenes of Jason pissing off his friends by training his camera on them are repeated ad nauseum, as are Debra's observations about his disconnection. Other commentary, such as those aimed at the government and old media for failings in Iraq and New Orleans, are random and obvious. The film never feels like a coherent piece, but more like the frustrations of someone who knows things have gone wrong, but can't quite put their finger on just why, or how.

My Alternate Title for This Blog Was "The Garo Yepremian Experience"

2008-02-04T22:44:00.000-05:00

In the week running up to the Super Bowl, Mike & Mike did a "Greatest Moments in Super Bowl History" list. It was pretty terrible, if only for two reasons. First, they would include stuff like "Joe Montana's game-winning drive in Super Bowl 23." Yeah, that's not a "moment." (ESPN always does this sort of thing; they'll have "Plays of the Day" and #4 will be, like, three dunks. Just pick one, jackasses.) Second, and much worse, one of the top five "moments" (it was either 2 or 3) was Dolphins kicker Garo Yepremian's blooper interception (Damn!) that was returned for Washington's only score of the game in Super Bowl 7. Not only was it a bad play, it didn't affect the outcome: the Dolphins still won (and finished 17-0, as we are forever reminded). So, in the spirit of making a better list, and with the unbelievable play from last night's game still fresh, I give you The Ten Greatest Plays in Super Bowl History. The only rules are: it has to be great (no Leon Lett-Don Beebe plays here, no Scott Norwood either) and it has to be a play. I'll put it in context, and plays more meaningful to the outcome get more weight, but it has to be a single play.

(It helps if you imagine these being read by John Facenda.)

The Ten Greatest Plays in Super Bowl History (now with 10% less Yepremian)

1. Mike Jones's tackle of Kevin Dyson at the one-yard line to preserve the Rams' 23-16 win over the Titans in Super Bowl 34. A simple play, but great because of its importance. Mike Jones initially tracked the tight end coming down the seam, but peeled back to tackle Dyson as he caught the ball.

2. David Tyree's catch after Eli Manning's escape in Super Bowl 42, on the way to the winning touchdown. One could make a pretty good case for this being number one. Eli Manning eludes a couple of Patriots, then fires the ball downfield to Tyree, who catches the ball against his helmet, then keeps it from hitting the ground by what looked like centimeters, all while Rodney Harrison tries to wrestle the ball away. Only reason it's not number one is the Giants still had to go down and score.

3. Joe Montana's game-winning pass to John Taylor in Super Bowl 23. See? One play. By itself, not spectacular, but it distilled the essence of the '80s 49er teams. Who I hate, by the way.

4. John Riggins 43-yard touchdown run on 4th-and-1 against Miami in Super Bowl 17. The Redskins were down 17-13; they not only convert, they take a lead they never give up. And Sandra Day loosened up a little.

5. Dan Bunz tackles Charles Alexander on a swing pass at the one-yard line on 3rd-and-goal to preserve the 49ers' 20-7 lead over the Bengals in Super Bowl 16, part of a defensive stand that began at the three-yard line. The Bengals went for it on fourth and failed to score. They did eventually make it 20-14, but the stand blunted their momentum and they couldn't catch up.

6. Lynn Swann's catch (at 6:27) in Super Bowl 10 in the Steelers' win over the Cowboys. It should be remembered that the Steelers didn't actually score after this catch. But it was a spectacular catch, and it got the Steelers out from deep in their end on a third down.

7. Jim O'Brien's 32-yard kick to win Super Bowl 5. O'Brien was a rookie, and had made 56% of his kicks that year. The league average was 59.4%, so field goals were not gimmes, not even 32-yarders. And it was the first last-minute game-winner in Super Bowl history, so that's pretty cool.

8. Max McGee's 37-yard touchdown catch in Super Bowl 1. It was the first touchdown in Super Bowl history, McGee was legendarily hung over, and it was an excellent one-handed catch. Way to go, old drunk guy!

9. Marcus Allen's 74-yard touchdown run in Super Bowl 18. It's a pretty good run, and it makes Todd Christensen all verklempt (we miss John Facenda too, buddy), but on the other hand, the Raiders were already destroying the Redskins, so this was just icing.

10. Ken Norton Jr. stuffs Kenneth Davis in Super Bowl 27. Okay, this game was a blowout. And I'm a Cowboys fan. But hear me out. Dallas led, 14-7, but the Bills had 3rd and goal from like six inches away. Davis had a clean hole to the end zone, Jim Kelly had his arms up celebrating, and Norton flat stoned Davis. The Bills went for it on 4th and goal, and Thomas Everett intercepted Kelly in the end zone. If Davis scores, maybe it's a different game. I think I've been pretty restrained with the Cowboys here, so give me this one.

Final Four

2008-01-31T23:28:00.000-05:00

I've been sitting shiva for the Cowboys, but I'm back and it looks like things have gone basically to form, Presidential primary-wise. Clinton probably has a bit of an edge over Obama going into Super Tuesday, but Obama's entirely capable of closing that gap. It remains to be seen how Edwards votes split up, but Obama probably can't count on much more than a slight edge there. He needs to win over most of the undecideds, score a few defections, and hope that he continues to bring in new voters.

McCain is touted as the frontrunner, and the perception is that Giuliani's exit will help him (and Huckabee's continued presence will hurt Romney). As noted by Tom Bevan (via Ross Douthat), though, in Florida Giuliani supporters (by a thin margin) list Romney as their second choice, while Huckabee voters prefer McCain over Romney by a wide margin. It's almost as if no one knows what they're doing! Or supposed to be doing.

Pat Buchanan(!) and Rachel Maddows noted on MSNBC's coverage that one real bright spot for Dems in Florida is that 1.7 million people came out to vote even though the candidates didn't campaign, and Florida gets no delegates as punishment for their line-cutting. The GOP turned out 1.9 million for a hotly contested, significant primary(maybe, in retrospect, the significant primary). This bodes well for whoever the Democrats nominate, if they can maintain the enthusiasm.

Empty Spaces

2008-01-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

I'm not in a formalist mood these days, I guess, because the Coen Brothers' latest film, No Country for Old Men, based on Cormac McCarthy's novel, struck me as fantastic-looking and beautifully performed, yet strangely unsatisfying, devoid of humanity.

As much as it is about anything, No Country is about fate. Relentless, remorseless fate, sweeping humanity along a "dismal tide." But the film has nothing more to say about fate than that fate is and that free will is probably, at best, an illusion. There are two coin tosses in the film. In one, a man plays the toss, but doesn't know the stakes. In another, a woman, knowing the stakes, refuses to play. Who wins, who loses? Who lives, who dies? Fate decides.

Fate is embodied in Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a relentless, remorseless killer whose quirk is that he disdains ordinary guns for a hydraulic air gun. The breath of death, if you will. More Rutger Hauer's Hitcher than Hannibal Lecter, Chigurh appears from nowhere in west Texas and begins killing and does not stop, and when local Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across the two million dollars that survived a drug deal shootout, Chigurh tracks him with a deliberateness that is more fitting to the walking dead than a live assassin; indeed, by the film's end Chigurh acquires a shuffling gait of which George Romero would be proud.

Did Moss--floating in on the tide--have a choice in his fate? Maybe, but even he doesn't believe it, telling his wife: "Things happen. Can't take 'em back." And once he starts his path is set. He believes, at times, that he can choose his destiny, but over and over it is made clear that he cannot. He's even told it. But he doesn't know it, and he never learns it.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) has grown old enough--by his own devices, maybe, but probably by chance--to learn it, and he oversees the proceedings with the detachment of one who is unhappy about life's meaninglessness, but who has come to terms with it. Invited to accompany investigative revisits to crime scenes, he demurs, seeing little point in combing over the petty details of life's atrocities. Bell sees the tide coming in, and he'd best prefer not to get wet by it.

There is a cold calculation to the film that I can't help feeling let down by. It is a marvel, in a way, filled with exquisite moments, Coenesque touches, as in the shot of smoky light filtering slowly through a blown-out hole. The tension is incredible, and achieved through exquisite timing. The actors, Jones in particular, are mesmerizing. And at the heart of it all is an empty space.

Different molehills, different mountains

2008-01-08T22:40:00.000-05:00

So the Obama juggernaut narrative has gone into the Clinton comeback narrative. That will get plenty of play over the next few days, so for now I'll note other interesting tidbits:

Democrats drew about 280,000 voters, a 29% increase over 2004's 217,000. It looks like Republicans will hit about 240,000, about the same as 2000's 236,000. This continues to be a positive trend for Democrats in general; Democrats are energized by their candidates, Republicans are not, except maybe for ~~Chuck Norris~~ Mike Huckabee, and that's only a slice of the pie.

Independents constituted 37% of the vote in the Republican primary, of course helping McCain to win; they were actually a bigger force in the Democratic primary, constituting 44% of the vote (with 54% identifying as Democrats), and voting more for Obama but obviously not by a large enough margin.

This result hurts Edwards more than anyone; he'll surely hang in until South Carolina, but the longer Obama and Clinton drag this out, the more he looks like a third wheel. This result probably kills any chance of him moving past Clinton into a fight with Obama.

McCain is up, but given the Democratic result, it would be crazy to call him the winner. Romney will push hard to turn things around in Michigan, and he certainly has the resources to do it.

Fred Thompson received a hilarious 1%. Why did he do this again?

Mountains out of a Molehill

2008-01-07T11:46:00.000-05:00

Some takeaways from the Iowa caucuses on the way to New Hampshire:

Barack Obama won more than Hilary Clinton lost. Overall, the Democrats turned out about 220,000 voters, an impressive jump from the 124,000 of 2004. Tellingly, there was not a significant increase in independents voting in the Democratic caucuses. In 2004, the percentage of voters identifying as Democrats was 79%; in 2008, that number fell, but only to 76%. If that trend is any way indicative of sentiment nationwide (and of course, it may not be), that bodes well for Democrats in general, not just Obama, because self-identifying independents are much more likely to be fickle in their voting habits. It will be interesting to see if Iowa was a one-off or if the next few primaries see a similar swelling of Democratic ranks. My guess: they swell, but not to the extent they did in Iowa.

If Obama wins New Hampshire, and strong indications are he will, he is in great shape, because it will indicate that Iowa was not a fluke, it will show he can draw white voters in at least two (dissimilar) states, and he will have tapped into independent voters either as independents or, more significantly, drawn them into the Democratic fold. Clinton needs to win a primary before Super Tuesday or she is probably done; it's too early to rule that out, as the Clintons have been nothing if not resilient. Before New Hampshire there was still some doubt about Obama's ability to hold the black vote. I expect in South Carolina we will see that he can, because although black voters admire the Clintons, they will now see Obama as viable, not token.

Edwards still seems unlikely to overtake Obama but could conceivably pass Clinton; at this point he appears to be playing for second, positioning himself as the credible alternative should Obama falter along the way, or should voter concerns rise concerning electability.

The Republican campaign is messier, although it could clean itself up quickly if the right things occur. McCain, who appeared dead in the water just a few months ago, is in a good position to mess up my prediction. If he wins New Hampshire over Romney, he can position himself both as the choice for the Republican establishment and for the independent. The biggest problem for McCain in New Hampshire is that he is probably competing with Barack Obama for independents and Obama has the momentum of Iowa working for him. If Romney fails to take New Hampshire, he needs to win Michigan or he will be done. His money allows him to hang around, but without a win before Super Tuesday it would be pointless. Huckabee is still a very long shot, as much of his Iowa win was driven by evangelicals (as his complete lack of a bump in New Hampshire shows), he still lacks funds, and is not supported by the GOP establishment. His form of identity politics is too narrowly tailored for this particular campaign, even though he is, it must be said, making the most of it. Giuliani "wins" by no one else winning; as long as no one emerges as a clear frontrunner, he can justify staying in the race, although his one-note campaign seems to be wearing even on Republicans. It's not clear to me why Fred Thompson is running, as he doesn't appear to be that interested in it. Ron Paul might do well enough to make his acolytes believe he can win, but they'll be wrong. If even they see the writing on the wall, they'll blame his failure on the media.

The upshot is, after tomorrow, Clinton is likely to be in desperation mode (moreso), and the Republicans will still be a big bunch of Huh?

Don't hold me to these

2008-01-02T23:17:00.000-05:00

Following the example of the Millman Prophecies, only with less perspicacity and more sports, herewith my predictions for 2008:

Politics/World Affairs

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney gain their respective party nominations. Obama wins the general election. There is no October surprise. Bloomberg does not run as a third-party candidate.

The investigation into the destruction of the CIA tapes does result in indictments, but only of minor figures. Bush will pardon anyone implicated before his term runs out (this prediction goes slightly into 2009, yes).

Pakistan eventually gets around to holding elections, and Musharraf wins them, but nobody believes they weren't rigged. U.S. policy continues to vaguely support Musharraf because no one can think of anything else to do, and there is at least one serious cross-border incident involving U.S. forces/missiles that Pakistan has to pretend it didn't know about in advance.

The Israel-Palestinian negotiations grind into nothing. No one is shocked. Olmert and Abbas both become, if possible, more marginalized.

Sports

In football (American), the New England Patriots will continue to irritate the self-righteous and the '72 Dolphins by winning the Super Bowl (over the Dallas Cowboys) and finishing 19-0. And Bill Belichick will still be boring about it.

In football (world), Manchester United will again win the Premier League, Rafa Benitez will be fired from Liverpool, and my team, Tottenham, will not be relegated, but they will also fail to qualify for European play. Barcelona regains the Champions League title. Croatia will impress by reaching the finals of Euro 2008, but they will lose to Italy. Marco Materazzi is not headbutted by anyone.

In baseball, the Yankees eventually acquire Johan Santana, Alex Rodriguez has another MVP year in the face of Yankee fan quasi-disdain, and they still get knocked out of the playoffs. The Cleveland Indians win the World Series over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Miscellaneous

The writers' strike will drag on into early summer. The directors will reach an agreement with the studios, but it will fail to push the writers into a deal. When the actors are poised to go on strike, the studios will cave.

In spite of its stellar cast, Iron Man is a disappointment. Luckily, The Dark Knight is not at all disappointing.

Lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!

2008-01-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

I used to blog here. After countless requests (assuming you can't count past two), I am reviving my blogging career. The blog title, as if I needed to explain it, comes from Terry Gilliam's classic Time Bandits (2:55 in).