Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.28

Fox-Friendly Poll on Imaginary White House Policies
From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting comes a report of a dandy of a poll from Fox News and Zogby whereupon they ask the question if Americans think that Obama's communist diversity czar's imaginary desire to force out the "good white people" in the broadcast industry to make room for the blacks and the gays and the gay blacks represents a threat to free speech. Nothing like a little conspiratorial race bait push polling to start your day. Gee, I wonder why it is that the Obama Administration doesn't like Fox News?

Analysis: Public Option Is Likely Popular in Most Blue Dog Districts
Nate Silver of 538 works his number witchcraft to look at the popularity of the public option....in every single congressional district. The conclusion? That the public option has support in almost 2/3rds of all districts and in regards to the biggest Democratic gainsayers, the Blue Dog caucus, the public option holds majority support in 34 of 52 of their districts. The conclusion supposedly being that a public option should have more support of our elected betters. Ahh Nate, your cold robot logic has failed you again. Don't you know no one in Congress actually cares about what its constituents thinks? But we do appreciate you giving us yet another mathematically valid reason to hate everyone in Congress.

New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for Swaps Hits Taxpayers
Pop quiz: how do you get AIG to look good? Answer: Make sure they're being compared to Tim Geithner. That's right our beloved Treasury Secretary Timmy demanded that the US government pay AIG 100 cents on the dollar for their utterly worthless credit default swaps when AIG was only seeking to get 40 cents on the dollar for them. This cost taxpayers and additional $13 billion dollars. The kicker? This allowed AIG to pay back the $14 billion it owed to Timbo's former employer Goldman-Sachs. Next time Tim, can you put on some cowboy gear, cover your face with a black bandanna, tell us "to reach for the sky", and make us pile the money into a burlap sack with a dollar sign on it? If we're going to get robbed, can we at least get to appreciate the theatre of it?

Losing Net Neutrality: The Worst Case Scenario
Gizmodo links to a half satirical/half terrifying representation of what kind of internet deal we'll be getting from cable companies if Congress votes to ditch net neutrality. Why wouldn't we want our internet priced out and divided up like cable channels, everyone loves how that works, don't they?

LHC Reawakens, Sending Proton Beams Running at the Speed of Light
Finally the scientific community gets off its lazy, goldbricking asses and starts trying to kill God in earnest again. They've fixed the helium leak, stopped the problem they've had with magnets overheating, scrapped plans to convert the LHC into a pussy magnet, and found that missing pallet of particles that idiot Jenkins misplaced. Hopefully within the next few months God will be dead or the French/Swiss border will find it has a new black hole taking up residence and consuming our solar system. Just get it over with, it's not like any of us have jobs or anything to live for.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.22

Held By The Taliban
If you're interested in reading a great story, the New York Times has a a massive 5 part account of journalist David Rohde's 7 month long imprisonment by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Beyond the simple interest in the personal story of Rohde it also gives great insight into the way Afghans view our war on terror and what fuels the anti-Americanism and extremism.

AT&T hits Internet vote
In case you were wondering where the next frontier of the government's never ending battle to stand with corporations over the interests of the American people, look to the intarwubs. AT&T is engaging a full court press on net neutrality and gaining a lot of support for its attempts to be allowed to place restrictions on access to content an services. On the side of freedom: the President, the Google, Skype, and Facebook. But I can see why they're having trouble opposing AT&T. I mean who isn't for restricting information on the internet?

Rage Against Torture: Top Musicians Demand Records On How Bush Admin Used Their Songs Against Detainees
Trent Reznor, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Rage Against the Machine, Rosanne Cash, Billy Bragg and the Roots have all joined together in a group called Zero db to protest the use of music during torture in the future and the use of music in torture during the Bush Administration. That's all well and good, but I think that Rage and Trent, maybe Pearl Jam, are the only ones who have to worry about their music being used in torture. I doubt Dick Cheney authorized the use of "Running on Empty" and "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before telling them to put on Mermaid Avenue Volumes I and II and "just let it play all the way through."

Pay Czar to Slash Compensation at Seven Firms
Hey, turns out that after months and months and months of doing nothing of pay for firms that got bailed out (read: all of them), it seems that the pay czar, whose only job is doing things related to CEO salaries of bailed out companies, decided that he might as well put in a half day of work and push forward with a proposal that is popular with the American people. Of course the business community is outraged. I guess the people that set fire to the world's money will have to make due with half a million in salary with bonus compensation not to exceed $10 million. I hope they'll still be able to afford food with cuts that drastic.

Google's Android Allows Soldiers to Put Drones on Buddy List
Who here wanted a cell phone that could not only compete with the iPhone in terms of price, innovation, and technology, but could also sync up with a Predator drone on a bombing run in the mountains of Afghanistan and get streaming video of the attack. I know I have and those fuckers in the Apple apps store have not heeded my demands. Thankfully Raytheon is on the case and using Google's Android operating system to do so. So is this going to be in the Droid phone or am I going to have to join the military to get the app?

That Other Branch: Alaska Senate Race

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) consulting with his lawyer

Might as well take a break from all the "Please, Barry, don't fuck this up" chatter and bring you something completely unrelated to the Presidential Election. And what better topic to look to than the Senate? Now that I've got you all wet, allow me to explain. While there are several hotly contested seats up for grabs on the 4th -- we'll be getting into plenty of these over the coming days, mostly in an attempt to keep ourselves from going Arkham over What Could Possibly Go Wrong -- I wanted to make special mention tonight of the Alaska race between incumbent Ted Stevens (R) and his challenger, Mark Begich (D), the mayor of Anchorage.

For a time the notoriously brash and combative Stevens, known to wear an Incredible Hulk tie when he gets down to the serious legislatin', looked to be safe in his seat. But the race has gotten surprisingly interesting since Stevens, a Civil War veteran and the longest serving Republican in the Senate, was indicted in July on seven counts of failing to report gifts and subsequently charged with violating several provisions of the Ethics in Government Act. The issue at hand? About a quarter million dollars in home improvements and expansions for which the Senator did not, apparently, pay.

The trial has been about as amusing as they come. When Stevens took the stand at the speedy trial he demanded, he immediately invoked Marion Barry's famous "Bitch Set Me Up" defense, claiming that his wife was responsible for all things in the home. Further complicating matters was the cooperation of Bill Allen, a former oil company executive who allegedly arranged for the renovations to be completed without cost to Sen. Stevens. At present, the jury is deliberating. Also at present, fivethirtyeight.com has the race (finally) leaning toward Stevens' opponent, Mayor Begich, now that Alaskans have apparently gotten around to reading all those newspapers they have up there.

In summary, we already had an interesting race between a progressive mayor of a city 50 times larger than Wasilla and an abrasive old coot famous for calling the internet a "series of tubes" from the bed he was sharing with the telecommunications industry during the net neutrality debates. Now, we get to see what a conviction or exoneration might do to such a race. Stay tuned.