Spin Cycle Radio

It's Not What You Say, Its How You Say It.

2008-08-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

The attack ads have fully engulfed the 2008 campaign, but if what they say is trite, overblown, contradictory, or just plain wrong, then what does matter?

Hillary as VP? No Thanks!

2008-07-25T00:42:00.000-07:00

A lot of people are asking whether Obama should name Hillary as his running mate. I ask a different question.

The Edge of the Democratic Platform

2008-07-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

I visit one of the many community meetings regarding the Democratic Platform and got some surprizes along the way

The Forced Move

2008-07-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Want to have somebody to blame for the Obama FISA vote? You may not like the answer.

My Obama Dream Team

2008-07-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

The Huffington Post requested contributors to name their dream team cabinet so I did my as a video just for fun.

Buying a Legacy

2006-12-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Aired 12/03/06 Buying a Legacy

week the news came out that Bush was preparing to start fundraising for his presidental library and was planning on raising five hundred million dollars. The announcement is astounding both in how early it is beginning and how huge the number is. It is orders of magnitude larger than any other recent presidential library.

The two facts are related. The president has two more years of presidential favor to trade for the 10 to 25 million dollar 'mega-donations' that will make most of the fundraising. Note that unlike ordinary political contributions these are unlimited in size and do not have to be named.

The reason why the fundraising is so huge is not that the library is going to be many times larger but because it is going to include the endowment of an institute. The purpose of the institute? To study the positive effect of the Bush Presidency on American History. In other words Bush is going to fight historians concluding that Bush was the worst president ever by paying historians to say nice things about him. Well, it goes right along with paying reporters to write fake news, doesn't it? But I guess there are plenty of wealthy folks who have a financial or personal stake in not having the Bush policies be regarded as a disaster and are willing to help pay to keep it from happening.

Tags: Bush, Media, Library, Iraq, Politics, Podcast

What is it?

2006-12-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

Aired 12/01/06 What is it?

This week NBC became the first major media channel in the US to make an editorial decision to call the situation in Iraq a civil war. (Fox by comparison on Friday issued an official memo saying that they are to absolutely not call it a civil war.) You might think of this as simply a battle of semantics, of spinning the situation more positively or negatively. It is in fact more than that, and Bush will fight adopting the designation tooth and nail. The situation inn Lebanon under Reagan and in Somalia under Clinton (as in the movie Black Hawk Down) were both blamed on putting US forces in the middle of a civil war. Thus congress has questioned the Pentagon, and the Pentagon's top generals have agreed in testimony to congress, that US forces would not be put in the middle of a civil war in Iraq. So agree that it a civil war and you are also agreeing that the troops have to leave. That is why the term will be opposed so strongly.

Tags: Bush, Media, Bush, Civil War, Iraq, Politics, Podcast

A Big Week

2006-11-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/27/06 A Big Week

On Sunday the War in Iraq passed the duration of our involvement in World War 2. And the first week past that threshold looks to be a very significant one, with reports, summits, and new developments on the ground.

Tags: Bush, Media, Maliki, James Baker, Al-Sadr, Iraq, Politics, Podcast

Public and Private

2006-11-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/24/06 Public and Private

The Decision by Rupert Murdoch's media empire to drop the OJ Simpson hypothetical-tell-all book and interview was seen as his finally having pushed the envelope of taste too far. But I am not so sure. On their own enough people would have still tuned it to make it a ratings win for Fox in the time period, which was the whole point of it. They might not have admitted seeing it to anybody afterword, but they would have looked at it anyway.

The sequence of events told a slightly different story. it was an advertizer abandonment of the show that started the ball rolling. Compared to watching a show having your ad appear during it is a public act. You can't pretend that you weren't there the next day.

Tags: OJ Simpson, Media, Rupert Murdoch, Politics, Podcast

The Imp of the Perverse

2006-11-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/17/06 The Imp of the Perverse

What on earth is OJ thinking? What makes him want to give what clearly everybody is going to regard as a detailed confession? It reminded me of a short story from Edgar Allen Poe, sort of a more intellectual version of The Telltale Heart. called The Imp of the Perverse.

In the meantime there are just so many great possibilities for this new genre, the Hypothetical Tell-All Expose. And there are a lot of other recent newsmakers with potential hypothetical blockbusters in the making.

Tags: OJ Simpson, Media, Mark Foley, Jack Abramhoff, Ted Haggard, Podcast
My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-8a7d164b4a101ea426de210f7b80f109}

Catching the Car

2006-11-18T13:02:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/17/06 Catching the Car

While the War in Iraq is certainly the big picture issue of the midterm elections there will certainly be no easy solution and no obviously good one. So I believe that an important thing will be for the Democrats to quickly validate to voters that things are different because they were voted in. That is not so easy because there are still President Bush's veto and the Republicans' veto power to get around. In this podcast I suggest three things that the Democrats could possibly pass in the first hundred days after being sworn in that would validate themselves to the voters.

Tags: Guest Workers, Media, Minimum Wage, Stem Cell, Podcast

Clark or Melvin

2006-11-11T21:39:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/10/06 Clark or Melvin

The resignation of Donald Rumsfeld was a big story, but perhaps the real question is what does Bush expect from his successor? I example this question using the two men who held the position of Secretary of Defense in the later days of the Vietnam War.

Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, media, Clark Clifford, Melvin Laird, podcast

Riding the Swing

2006-11-11T21:30:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/10/06 Riding the Swing
What to make of the Democratic takeover in the midterm election? There will undoubtedly be as many answers as there are pundits. My initial take; It shows that despite all the massive efforts to force them into extinction the swing voter still exists.
Tags: Swing Voter, media, 2006 Election, Democrats, podcast

Sin

2006-11-07T01:14:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/3/06 Sin

The story of Ted Haggard captures the media and audiences because nothing quite grabs the public like an ironic comeuppance. But the whole coverage, and people's reaction, maked it sound like his big sin is homosexuality. I disagree.

Tags: Ted Haggard, media, Sin, Homosexuality, podcast

What I'm Tired Of.

2006-11-07T01:08:00.000-08:00

Aired 11/3/06 What I'm Tired Of

As this midterm election drags itself toward a 2.6 billion dollar finish line I thought I would sum up with a bit of a rant about what I find most annoying about the entire state of american politics.

Tags: Idiot, media, fear, Election, podcast

Voting your Basolateral Amygdala

2006-10-30T13:06:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-30T12:53:00.000-08:00

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

2006-10-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-21T00:07:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-20T23:44:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-20T23:35:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-20T23:14:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

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

The Edit

2006-09-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

Aired 9/25/06 The Edit

Where is the real seat of media bias? Is it the leather high-backs in boardrooms and executive suites? The sensible cloth swivel chairs in News Directors offices? Or the ones at reporters' desks? Actually that place where bias is hardest to avoid, or easiest to insert, are the work chairs in the editing bays where audio and video are snipped and trimmed for broadcast. Its where some junior staffer is told to 'get ten seconds of tape to go with this story' or 'scrounge up some B-Roll to illustrate this'. It involves some very fine judgements about what is interesting or not, and the movement of the edit cursor just a bit one way or another can make a senator, president or pope sound brilliant or foolish.

Tags: Media Bias, media, Bush, politics, podcast

Who Would Jesus Audit?

2006-09-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

Aired 9/22/06 Who Would Jesus Audit?

It took the rest of the Nation a while to catch on to the story in Pasadena CA about the church being threatened with the loss of their tax-exempt status because of an anti-war speech made a few days before the 2004 election, but it was strange that it did on the day after a massive political rally by the tax-exempt arm of Dr James Dobson's media empire in which he exhorted to the audience the dire consequences of the Republicans losing control of Congress.

Exactly why All-Saints' sermon was 'political' and Dobson's was 'not political' is beyond me.

(One thing worth noting is that losing tax-exempt status would be devastating to a church. Most folks realize that it would mean that their donations would not be deductible. But that is just the start of it. The church itself would have to pay income tax on all those donations. Moreover it is quite likely that the church would have to pay property taxes on all of its land and facilities.)

Tags: IRS, taxes, Dobson, politics, podcast

The Elephant

2006-09-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

Aired 9/18/06 The Elephant

The utter absurdity of Iraq's Mujhadeen Sura council issuing a proclaimation calling for the destruction of anybody who did not convert to Islam -- over somebody quoting somebody criticizing islam for spreading itself by the sword -- was just overwhelming.

But it is wrong (including being wrong in the 14th century) to treat that as some sort of muslim problem. Every major religion has had some ugly examples of its followers using it to justify killing people. (Northern Ireland anybody?) The only contrary example among the major religions that I can think of is Buddism (for which +1 to the cross-legged guys). The use of religion to rationalize murder and violence is something which every faith should address rather than treating like the elephant in the room.

Tags: Religion, media, Pope Benedict, islam, politics, podcast

Wild Kingdom

2006-09-16T21:50:00.001-07:00

Aired 9/15/06 Wild Kingdom

So much was written about ABC's The Path to 9/11 that it was challenging to think of a unique thing to say. So much had been written about the scenes that never happened, the agenda of the filmmakers, of how ABC 'caved in' to pressure, and comparisons to The Reagans (which CBS pulled and sent to cable-only obscurity).

Perhaps because I regard myself as a journalist I realized that once you give yourself license to mess with the facts you start to do it for the most trivial of reasons. For example the show had Mohammed Atta being flagged at an American Airlines check in counter in Logan Airport rather than a USAir counter in Maine as happened. Why mess with such a fact that had nothing to do with the point the filmmakers were trying to make? I suspect that it was because Logan's terminal is more photogenic, nothing more. That's where you wind up when facts are secondary.
Then I heard ABC's disclaimer and thought of another disclaimer that was heard for years every week on TV and how the two were very different.

Tags: 9-11, media, Bias, islam, politics, podcast

The Al-Qaeda Fourteen

2006-09-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

Aired 9/10/06 The Al-Qaeda Fourteen

While the media for the next day or two will be obsessed with various tributes to 9/11 the main thing looking toward the future is the enabling legislation for having military tribunals for the high profile members of Al-Qaeda recently relocated from the CIA's black sites. It was no mere coincidence that this announcement was made mere days before the anniversary of 9/11, and in front of the families of victims. The President wants his authorization pushed through while the nation is plenty angry and plenty scared.

So let me say that these trials will not be about striking a blow at Al-Qaeda. These 14 guys, whatever their bigwig terror credentials before, they are pretty much useless as terrorists any more. They have, in spy parlance, been compromised. We know all about them and no active terror operative would go anywhere near them as a result.

That doesn't mean that these trials are unimportant. They are important for two reasons.

The first is to give us a sense of justice for the crimes which they committed. That is important, but for us to feel that justice has been served it needs to be a trial that we can feel was just. Secret evidence and coerced confessions is likely to make us feel more uneasy than justified.

The second is that these trials will get worldwide attention. If trying Khalid Mohammed doesn't get more attention than O.J. Simson something is wrong with reality. This is our chance to demonstrate American judisprudence to the world. But if it looks like something that they associate with their own repressive regiemes (again that secret evidence and coerced testimony) of course people will see and believe that there really isn't any difference between us and the other autocratic countries.

Elevating the Enemy

2006-09-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

Aired 9/8/06 Elevating the Enemy

From "Wanted Dead or Alive" to "I don't know and I don't care" to suddenly this century's combination of Hitler and Lenin combined...Osama sure has gone through some transformations in the administration rhetoric. While it is pretty clear that this kind of rhetoric is hoping that a fearfull American citizenry will vote Republican what does this read like in muslim countries? That Osama is on a par with the huge figures on the world stage? That the number one superpower is intensely worried about him? That's a lot of prestige for a guy living in hiding with tribesmen in the Pakistani Badlands. Does the administration even care how much they pump up Osama's respectability among potential future terrorists so long as it brings in enough votes to keep control of Congress?

The New Dominoes

2006-09-06T00:09:00.000-07:00

Aired9/4/06 The New Dominoes

With Presidnet Bush outlining the scarry scenarioes of what would happen in Iraq it reminded me of a lot of the old Domino Theory that surrounded much of the reasoning of those who felt that we had to stay in Vietnam: That if vietnam fell one after another other country would follow until it would be just the US alone in the free world. Actually this whole situation sounds more and more like Vietnam every day, including how much President Bush's program of Iraqis 'standing up' sounds like Vietnamization and how the people are not so much losing their nerve to fight communism (terrorists) but that the war is being seen as a distraction and waste.

The New Campaign

2006-09-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

Aired 9/1/06 The New Campaign

The Administration launched its new campaign on Iraq with all the focus of a well planned military campaign. Unfortunately it is Campaign 2006. When it comes to the situation on the ground in Iraq that seems just as mired as ever. On the other hand almost all of what the administration says about Iraq seems to be aimed at public opinion only. The details of how our efforts are doing in Iraq itself tend to get brushed over as 'hard work' or other broad generalities.

Not Where We Expected to Be

2006-08-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/28/06 Not Where We Expected to Be

With multiple anniversaries of significant events in Bush's terms in office I thought of trying to put together some sort of global sense of the national mood. Why are the polls so intractably negative on the president? Is it that these things have been costly? Other efforts, militarily and otherwise, have been costly. Is it that they are long term? Again that is hardly unique. Why such a sense of unease and dissatisfaction?

W.W.D.T.D.

2006-08-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

Aired 9/8/05 W.W.D.T.D
One year ago as the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina became known I was hardly alone in calling for Brown's resignation and criticizing Bush for not doing so himself. But I think I had one of the more memorable ways of phrasing it.

I don't often do a 'segment within a segment' but it worked here.

Decision at a Drug Store

2006-08-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/25/06 Decision at a Drug Store

Issues easy in the abstract become harder in reality, and sometimes they have a way of showing up at your feet. Such is the case of this thought provolking scenario It is a situation which I really think is much more realistic that the presumption that 14 to 17 year olds really going to find doctors to write a prescription for emergency contraception.

So listen and ask yourself what would you do in this situation.

The Silk Railroad

2006-08-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/21/06 The Silk Railroad

A story about news stories connecting fifteen thousand feet above sea level. I would venture to guess that two of the three stories I talk about in this audio clip weren't covered in your media sources, maybe all three. It is indeed true that despite their importance to our economy, their population, and their geopolitical importance less attention is given to India and China than for example Europe. What most people hear about China and India is just "that's where all the manufacturing jobe have gone". But if so, wouldn't it be rather important to understand these places if we are now so dependent on, and so in competition with, them?

Keeping an Eye on Them

2006-08-19T00:42:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/18/06 Keeping an Eye on Them

What to do about Hezbollah? Everybody is saying that they should be disarmed, but I don't think that is in anybody's best interest. Not Lebanon's, not Israel's, and not the United States. Depending on your point of view they are either too valuable, or too dangerous, to just let go.

Straw-Men

2006-08-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/14/06 Straw-Men

There were some big items in the news this week so it wasn't easy to decide to cover something that was mostly glossed over. But one of my goals is to prod listeners to examine more critically what is sent to them by the media and this one was to much of a breach of journalistic ethics to let go by. Journalists, particularly Anchors, aren't supposed to be interjecting biased argument into the discussion, but to do so and then disguize it as 'some people say' when it turns out that there are no 'some people' saying that at all is truly outrageous.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment looking at the state of current broadcast journalism, particularly cable news, is that the line between pundit, commentator, and journalist has been smeared. The cable networks have made stars of commentators who act like pundits and then expect their journalists to behave likewise so as to not contradict the wisdom of the stars.

Update: Chuck Roberts had Ned Lamont on the show and said the following:

"You know, I owe you an apology. Last week, I led into an interview with a guest analyst and really botched the set-up. The guest had wanted to discuss the Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman statements suggesting that terror groups — Al Qaeda type, to use Cheney’s words — would be buoyed by your win, but I posed it badly, stupidly ad-libbing about "some saying Lamont is the Al-Qaeda candidate." No one, in fact, used that construction. Anyway, I wanted to correct the record, and I’m glad we had this chance to do it. Now, let’s get to the insinuations that were lobbed…"

It seemed like a genuinely heartfelt apology, but it does point out part of the underlying problem, and that is turning the anchors and reporters into being subservient to the analyst and commentator. Roberts was there to 'set up' the pre-arranged questions that the guest already said he wanted to talk about.

It reminded me of a CNBC TV interview with Ann Coulter and a liberal commentator. The host gave Ann both first and last comments (which meant she had one more), agreed with her comments, always put her on top in the split screens, and then cut away to stock war footage when the token liberal commentator started speaking. I had expected such tactics from FOX, but they now seem common across cable news. Is that because CNBC has suddenly gone neocon? I think it was more because Coulter was the 'celebrity' and they didn't want to not be able to book her in the future.

The Waltons

2006-08-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/11/06 The Waltons

Those pushing for a reduction in the estate tax have certainly been putting up a lot of spin. I try to sort through some of the worst of it in this episode. Between the lifetime gift exclusion and the individual and the basic exemption you have to have a truly huge estate in order to have a chance of being dinged by it. So having Senator Frist talk about how 90 percent of family businesses not last the third generation is silly. Family business don't last three generations because the grandchildren aren't all that interested in running grandpa's business so they have either gone public or merged. Do you think that Paris Hilton is really interested in running hotels?

Come to think of it the Frist family is nearly as wealthy as that from its founding stake in HCA. I wonder how much Senator Frist's personal relatives stand to save from this little proposal.

Militia

2006-08-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/7/2006 Militia

It is pretty safe to say that american media is anti-Hezbollah. Which may be only fair since Hezbollah is anti-America. But in the rush to declare their disdain for Hezbollah there has been a tendency to make some bogus arguments. For example there has been a tendency to look at the high ratio of civillian casualties and say that it is Hezbollah's fault and not Israel's because Hezbollah was operating withing civillian areas. Unfortunately, operating out of their homes is what citizen militia do. Criticizing a citizen millitia for operating out of their home is like criticizing an air force for flying. High percentages of civillian casualties comes from relying on bombing to conduct urban operations. No matter how smart you make them bombs won't be able to tell whether they are killing a bystander rather than an enemy.

Six Nation Talks

2006-08-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

Aired 8/4/06 Six Nation Talks

Listening to the generals testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee about how they had never seen the sectarian voilence this bad yet it still wasn't a Civil War I thought...But what would make it a civil war? It then struck me that if it really was a full blown civil war then Iran would be dumping as much money into the Shiites as they were pumping into Hezbollah. And Syria and Saudi Arabia would be pressured to support their Sunni bretheren to match. Yes that really would be worse. That's when it hit me that Iraq can never be peacefull unless its neighbors were willing to let it be peacefull. And that was going to take...six nation talks, the subject of this audio.

My Favorite New Word

2006-08-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

Aired 6/21/06 My Favorite New Word

Having learned this new word called Takfiri I hit the search engines and web and gained some interesting insights. This sub-cult of Islam counts as its followers just about all the top names in Terrorism. Which is not surprising because if you were to design a set of doctrines specifically to justify terrorism this would be it. Not only that but the predecessors of the Takfiri in the Mideast go back centuries. The predecessors of this cult were the root of the English word assassin. Which brings back the point that talking about having a 'war on terrorism' makes as much sense as having a 'war on assassination'.

A New Word

2006-08-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

Aired 6/16/06 A New Word

Sometimes you come across a word that you wished you knew before because it so precisely describes what you had been wanting to say for years. This time it came in a press release that said what the Iraqis describe folks like Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi. The word is Takfiri.

Too Clever

2006-07-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/31/06 Too Clever

This week the House Republican leadership had what they were sure was a brilliant idea. Since polls show somewhere around 85% of the country was in favor of an increase in the federal minimum wage go ahead and give them one...but tie it to a massive cut in the inheritance tax that will be sure to make it a no-go in the Senate. In the process they wound up writing in two hundred and eighty five billion dollar high letters a declaration of who they really care about.

Snakes

2006-07-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/28/06 Snakes

It may take quite a chain of logic to get from Judicial Activism to a reference to Snakes on a Plane but I like a challenge.

Perhaps some of the most-spun people in history are our founding fathers. Everybody seems to have an idea about what they would say about this or that and inevitably it is the same thing that they are saying themselves.

Personally I think that they understood a lot more about some of our current issues than we often given them credit for. They knew what it was like to be ruled by a tyrant. They were. They knew what it was like to have a military police authority that could do what they want and answer to nobody. They were called Redcoats. They knew what it was like to be told what prayers you had to pray and what church you had to belong to if you didn't want to be a second-class citizen. A great many had come here just to get away from that.

The Sidewalks of New York, A tale of Media Bias Part 3

2006-07-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

Aired 2/24/06 The Sidewalks of New York, A Tale of Media Bias Part 3

Before completing this trio on media bias I felt obliged to discuss one more form of media bias, the one that answers the question 'Why is TV News the way it is?'

The Sidewalks of New York, A Tale of Media Bias Part 2

2006-07-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

Aired 2/20/06 The Sidewalks of New York, A Tale of Media Bias Part 2

Having already takled about how 90 percent of the references to Media Bias are actualy self justifications I get into where the real bias springs from. Fankly the same dynamic that makes the frequently despized New York Times Biased is the same one that makes Fox News biased and the Wall Street Journal biased. It can also help you understand why some media sources do not seem to be biased other than for good stories.

The Sidewalks of New York, A Tale of Media Bias Part 1

2006-07-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

Aired 2/17/06 The Sidewalks of New York, A Tale of Media Bias Part 1

One nice thing about starting this podcast is that I can go back to some of my earlier broadcast episodes that aren't outdated and give them another presentation. Like this set of three.

Compared to a lot of media commentators you won't find me constantly carping about 'media bias'. It is not that media bias doesn't exist (more on that in parts 2 and 3) but that the average ranter starts with "You won't see the biased media report on (fringe topic) it is usually to rationalize why the rest of the universe finds the story (false, unsupported, wacko or just plain not newsworthy) but they know better.

By the way, the events of the story are true.

Rubble

2006-07-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/24/06 Rubble

The 24 hour news machines sometimes gets way ahead of itself in term of pumping up a story. For example calling Lebanon "World War III" really is missing the historical context.

Which is really rather absurd. With 24 hours to fill instead of repeating the same stuff over and over again why not spend a few minutes of it giving viewers context and perspective. Maybe that isn't as fun as scaring the heck out of them with suggestions of Nuclear Apocalypse, but it certainly is more responsible.

A usefull Wikipedia article
And another on Israel Invades Lebanon 1 with many many parallels to the sequel.

The Veto

2006-07-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/21/06 The Veto
What was and wasn't significant about Bush's veto of the Stem Cell Research Funding Bill. Also a discussion of the history of thinking about abortion, which may go back a lot longer than you thought.

If you are interested in reading more on the subject of the history of philosophy and theology regarding when a fetus becomes a human being see the following:

Quickening and the Common Law

History of Abortion Laws in the US prior to Roe.

Essentially abortion was illegal only after quickening until the mid 1800's after which state laws were changed to protect once established in the womb until the late l960's

The Queen Sacrifice

2006-07-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/17/06 The Queen Sacrifice

Would it be such a terrible thing for the White House if Karl Rove resigned? In this segment I describe how it could actually wind up being the best thing that could happen on several levels to the Bush Administration, the neoconservatives, and even Rove personally.

The Boys are All Right

2006-07-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/7/06 The Boys are All Right

It is fun having something on a story that nobody else has. In doing an analysis/commentary series that usually counts as having a new viewpoint, but in this case it actually meant having content that nobody else had.

The story of the Chino Boy Scouts that caught the arsonist and put out the fire had the kind of cute quirkyness that quickly spreads around the net in odd news feeds and sites like Fark.com. I am told that it even got a comment on Letterman that night.

But the Scouts themselves were nowhere to be found. I found that sort of a pity because folks should get a chance to get their moment in the sun when they've earned it. Fortunately I had a contact with some of these boys. Also by talking with the boys I was able to get the facts a bit straighter than the other coverage.

For example the arsonist did not have to be chased far and was mostly restrained by the adults present. The boy's primary actions were taking care of the fire itself before any serious damage was done. They were a bit annoyed that the newspapers said that thirteen firefighters had put out the fire when they were clear (with the kind of certainty that comes from having been taught the rules of how to be sure that a campfire is completly out) that it was done when the fire truck arrived.

Extreme Genealogy

2006-07-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/10/06 Extreme Genealogy

I mostly seek items that will get people to think about what is happening in the world. There is just so much horror in the world being raised because of racial and ethnic divisions. Then you come to realize that in reality all those racial differences are nothing, that everybody, yes everybody, comes from the same few million ancestors if you go back far enough. As typical I searched the discussion forums and there were a lot of comments in the 'that can't be right' category, many of them I suspect from closet bigots shocked at the idea of who really could be in their family tree. But suffice it to say that three University professer are probably a bit ahead of you in considering the possibilities. If you look at the real paper tedlab.mit.edu/~dr/Papers/Rohde-MRCA-two.pdf you will find that they have indeed thought of those objections.

The Leak that Wouldn't Stay Plugged

2006-07-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Aired 7/14/06 The Leak that Wouldn't Stay Plugged

It wasn't hard to think about what to talk about for today's episode. As usual the difficulty was in deciding what to edit to get down to the 90-180 second radio format. In some respects that is a good thing as I look at the number of blogs and podcasts that are a half hour of rambling because ther is no time limit. Most of them could use editing pressure.

Another reason that is a good thing is that since my goal is --unlike so many others-- to encourage people to think rather than to tell them what to think I don't have the time for that. Real brainwashing requires repeating the same simple idea over and over again with slight variations

At the end of this episode I hint at an idea that has been bouncing around at the edge of my mind. Why doesn't the president just fire Karl Rove?

I think I will make this the subject of my next episode.