Voting your Basolateral Amygdala

Aired 10/30/06 Voting your Basolateral Amygdala
One of the latest ads by the Republican National Committee doesn't try to tell you why they will be better or the Democrats worse. It doesn't actually tell you anything. It just scares you. That is all. The presumption is that if you are scared you will vote Republican. After five years (or longer) playing on our fears maybe they are right.

The title of this peice refers to the part of the brain where conditioned responses to fear are processed

Tags: Amygdala, media, fear, Election, Republican, podcast

Stay the Stay

Aired 10/27/06 Stay the Stay
In a month where over one hundred US soldiers will be killed the huge political debate this month is over the words "Stay the Course". But "Stay the Course" isn't a strategy. It isn't a policy or even a fully fleshed out idea. It is a Slogan.

One hundred people are dying and we are arguing over which election year slogan we should be using?

Is the administration really that shallow? Are WE really that shallow?

Tags: Iraq, media, Stay the Course, Bush, Rumsfeld, podcast

Deja-Vu All Over Again

Aired 10/13/06 Deja-Vu All Over Again (with apologies to Yogi Bera)Spin Cycle began as a set of voter registration/turnout pieces, so it has been something of a pattern to always to a set of analysis peices on the Ballot Propositions, Because in this land of safe seats frequently the only thing interesting is the propositions. Also they are frequently terribly complex, perhaps intentionally so.

Sometimes a proposition, like a law or even a constitutional ammendment, isn't proposed so much so that it will pass as it will get atention. So California is voting on a Parental Notificaton law just after rejecting a virtually identical one in the last election. It makes no more sense that constantly having your flag burning ammendment stop short of passage again and again.

Tags: California, media, Ballot, Kelo, Parental Notificantion, Abortion, podcast

Shooting for the Moon

Aired 10/13/06 Shooting for the Moon Spin Cycle began as a set of voter registration/turnout pieces, so it has been something of a pattern to always to a set of analysis peices on the Ballot Propositions, Because in this land of safe seats frequently the only thing interesting is the propositions. Also they are frequently terribly complex, perhaps intentionally so.

The response to Kelo vs. New London has spawned a proposition in California to increase landowner rights. However when getting a chance to write the law that they always wanted there is a tendency to over reach, this time in the case of what is called regulatory takings.

Tags: California, media, Ballot, Kelo, Emminent Domain, Regulatory Takings, podcast

Tax and Spend

Aired 10/13/06 Tax and Spend

Spin Cycle began as a set of voter registration/turnout pieces, so it has been something of a pattern to always to a set of analysis peices on the Ballot Propositions, Because in this land of safe seats frequently the only thing interesting is the propositions. Also they are frequently terribly complex, perhaps intentionally so.

California loves causes but hates taxes, So there has been a trend to come up with specific special tax measures with a specific tax of an unpopular group or activity with the funds reserved for a specific popular cause. There are more than a few of them on this November's ballot and that's the subject of this item.

Tags: California, media, Ballot, Tax, podcast

Running Up the Credit Card

Aired 10/13/06 Running up the Credit Card

Spin Cycle began as a set of voter registration/turnout pieces, so it has been something of a pattern to always to a set of analysis peices on the Ballot Propositions, Because in this land of safe seats frequently the only thing interesting is the propositions. Also they are frequently terribly complex, perhaps intentionally so.

In the second of the pair of pieces on the debt proposals we look ath the specific items on the ballot.

Tags: California, media, Ballot, Debt, podcast

The California Credit Card

Aired 10/6/06 The California Credit Card

Spin Cycle began as a set of voter registration/turnout pieces, so it has been something of a pattern to always to a set of analysis peices on the Ballot Propositions, Because in this land of safe seats frequently the only thing interesting is the propositions. Also they are frequently terribly complex, perhaps intentionally so.

I know this may be a little dull to those outside of California, but remember that a great many national trends began as California ballot measures.

This election there is an exceptionally large number of Bond measures, so I start off with some general thoughts about state indebtedness.

Tags: California, media, Ballot, Debt, podcast

Studds

Aired 10/16/06 The Original Page Scandal

Recently former Massacheusets representative Gerry Studds died. Ironically in the week just before his death his name was again all over the news as conservative commentators tried to say 'hey look what democrats did', event though it was nearly three decades ago. I beleive though that if they had looked deeper they would have seen why this one is going so out of control on them yet Studds kept getting re-elected.

Tags: Foley, media, Studds, Page Scandal, podcast

October Surprize

Aired 10/2/06 October Surprize

This certainly hasn't been the week that Republicans had expected for launching their final campaign drives. A startling book by Bob Woodward sending the message on Iraq from Bush fighing this centrury's version of World War II (and winning) to Henry Kissinger trying to get a re-do on Vietnam and getting it right this time (and failing).

But that gets topped by the Mark Foley and the Sleazy IMs while the Republican Leadership looked aside. That one, unless the Republicans do something tough and harsh, if belated, is going to just keep going and going on them.

Tags: Foley, media, Election, Kissinger, Bob Woodward, podcast

Tired of War

Aired 9/29/06 Tired of War

We have this tendency in America to want to call everything a war. We have a 'War on Christmas' and an all-encompasing 'Culture War' not to mention the big 'War on Terror'. Not to mention the REAL war (with real bombs and guns and deaths) in Iraq. Don't we seem a little like those folks in the mideast who scream 'Jihad' at the stroke of a cartoonist's pen?

Yet the NIE confirms this week that the part of the War on Terror that is hurting more than it is helping is the WAR part (or at least the war in Iraq).

You may say "hey, it is just an expression" but when you call something a war then conflict is the realm and opponents become enemies. Positions become hardened, options become limited, and extreme measures become justified. Would congress have just approved suspending Habeas Corpus if we instead had spent the last five years talking about the struggle against islamic extremists, or the challenge of islamic extremists, or the confrontation with islamic extremists?

Tags: War, media, Iraq, islam, politics, podcast