Author: NewMexiKen

Incompetent and dishonest

To review the essential facts, prior to the war, Iraq’s Al Qa Qaa bunker and weapons complex had roughly 350 tons of high explosives under IAEA seal. After the war, for whatever reason, the complex was either not guarded at all or inadequately guarded. And all those explosives (primarily RDX and HMX) were carted away.

What we’re talking about here isn’t just a bunch of dynamite. This encyclopedia entry says RDX “is considered the most powerful and brisant of the military high explosives.” And not 350 pounds, 350 tons.

It is apparently widely believed within the US government that those looted explosives are what in many, perhaps most, cases is being used in car bombs and suicide attacks against US troops. That is, according to TPM sources and sources quoted in this evening’s Nelson Report, where the story first broke.

One administration official told Nelson, “This is the stuff the bad guys have been using to kill our troops, so you can’t ignore the political implications of this, and you would be correct to suspect that politics, or the fear of politics, played a major role in delaying the release of this information.”

— As reported by Josh Marshall

How could any thinking person vote for these people?

History in peril?

From a review of Peter Charles Hoffer’s Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud — American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin in The Boston Globe:

American history,” he writes, “is two-faced” — split between celebratory popularizers who often value rousing narrative over scholarly rigor and academic specialists whose jargon-riddled, often dour monographs ignore the ordinary reader. Meanwhile, Hoffer accuses the American Historical Association (AHA), where he has served as an adviser on plagiarism and a member of its professional standards division, of abdicating its responsibility to enforce basic scholarly principles in both realms.

Hoffer revisits the now-familiar cases of a quartet of historians brought low by scandal in 2002: former Emory University professor Michael Bellesiles, who was accused of falsifying data in “Arming America,” his controversial 2000 study of 18th- and 19th-century gun culture; Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin, who were both found to have used material from other scholars without full attribution; and Mount Holyoke’s Joseph Ellis, who was rebuked for spinning tales of his nonexistent Vietnam combat record in classes and newspaper articles. According to Hoffer, these were not just isolated incidents but symptoms of a wider problem — one that goes far beyond the headlines to the very way history is written and consumed in America.

It’s an interesting review with comments from several prominent historians.

Good point

It has long been believed that the source of Boston’s sorrows is the legendary Curse of the Bambino, brought on by selling young Babe Ruth to the Yankees. This is untrue. Boston is actually cursed because the Red Sox took an unconscionably long time to get around to hiring any black players.

— Teresa Nielsen Hayden in explaining the context to a newcomer to the U.S.

The Red Sox were the last team to integrate; they did so in 1959.

Maybe she needed some Powdermilk Biscuits

From AP via the Chicago Tribune —

A northeastern Indiana congressional candidate said she abruptly ended a debate because she got stage fright.

Democrat Maria Parra walked off a television stage Thursday, ending what would have been her only debate with incumbent Republican Mark Souder in the 3rd District congressional race.

“I’m not used to being in front of the camera. … I couldn’t get my words out. I was just overwhelmed.”

Electronic voting; scarier than Halloween

From the The Albuquerque Journal:

Kim Griffith voted on Thursday — over and over and over.

She’s among the people in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties who say they have had trouble with early voting equipment. When they have tried to vote for a particular candidate, the touch-screen system has said they voted for somebody else.

It’s a problem that can be fixed by the voters themselves — people can alter the selections on their ballots, up to the point when they indicate they are finished and officially cast the ballot.

For Griffith, it took a lot of altering.

She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. “I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush’s name,” she said.

Griffith erased the vote by touching the check mark at Bush’s name. That’s how a voter can alter a touch-screen ballot.

She again tried to vote for Kerry, but the screen again said she had voted for Bush. The third time, the screen agreed that her vote should go to Kerry.

She faced the same problem repeatedly as she filled out the rest of the ballot. On one item, “I had to vote five or six times,” she said.
…

Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said she doesn’t believe the touch-screen system has been making mistakes. It’s the fault of voters, she said Thursday.

NewMexiKen expects to have trouble voting for County Clerk Herrera next time around.

iTunes shuffle, my favorite deejay

As suggested at Body and Soul (who apparently got the idea from Roxanne), the first 10 songs when I shuffled iTunes:

  1. All Your Love – Norah Jones & The Peter Malick Group (dare I say, Norah’s best album)
  2. (The Best Part Of) Breakin’ Up – The Ronettes
  3. Wabash Cannon Ball – Roy Acuff and His Smoky Mountain Boys
  4. Because They’re Young – Duane Eddy & The Rebels
  5. All of Nothing at All – Dianna Krall
  6. Witchcraft – Frank Sinatra
  7. Lulu’s Back in Town – David Grisman & Martin Taylor
  8. For a Dancer – Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris
  9. Never Can Say Goodbye – The Jackson 5
  10. Midnight Sun – Ella Fitzgerald

Foot in the door

Mark Cuban has an interesting post about how to get his attention and money.

Please, please, please. Do not get the Mavs office address, or the address of any of my companies and send me a package with a shoe or a fake foot so you can get “your foot in the door”.
…

If you are looking for money for any of the millions of wonderful or painful reasons someone might ask for money, DO NOT send it to me in a fed-ex or overnight delivery package. My first thought is always, if they need money so badly, why are the spending so much to send me this package.

It’s the birthday

… of Kevin Kline. The Oscar-winning actor (Best Supporting for A Fish Called Wanda) is 57 today. NewMexiKen thought he made a good president in Dave.

… of F. Murray Abraham. The Oscar-winning actor (Best Actor for Amadeus) is 65 today.

… of Bill Wyman. The Rolling Stones’ bassist is 68.

The Babe

In five of his major league seasons Babe Ruth hit more home runs than any player did this year (48) or last (47) even though the current pitching mound is five inches lower, the bats better and the physical conditioning superior (far, far superior to Ruth’s conditioning).

World Serious (II)

22 franchises have won at least one World Series (which means 8 teams have not won any):

  • Yankees 26 (in 39 appearances)
  • Cardinals 9
  • Athletics 9 (5 in Philadelphia, 4 in Oakland)
  • Dodgers 6 (1 in Brooklyn, 5 in Los Angeles)
  • Giants 5 (all in New York)
  • Pirates 5
  • Reds 5
  • Red Sox 5
  • Tigers 4
  • Braves 3 (one each in Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta)
  • Orioles 3 (none as the St. Louis Browns)
  • Twins 3 (two in Minnesota, one as the Washington Senators)
  • Blue Jays, Cubs, Indians, Marlins, Mets, White Sox 2 each
  • Angels, Diamondbacks, Phillies, Royals 1 each

Appeared in a Series, but haven’t won:

  • Padres (twice)
  • Brewers (once, while in American League)

Never been (and year began play):

  • Astros (1962)
  • Expos (1969)
  • Devil Rays (1998)
  • Mariners (1977)
  • Rangers (1961)
  • Rockies (1993)

World Serious

This is the 100th World Series. It began in 1903, but there was no Series in 1904 or 1994

In 1904 the National League Champion New York Giants refused to play the American League Champion Boston team (they didn’t take the name Red Sox until the 1908 season).

A strike eliminated the Series in 1994.

Players who’ve hit three home runs in one Series game:

  • Babe Ruth 1926
  • Babe Ruth 1928
  • Reggie Jackson 1977

Only walk-off home runs to end Series:

  • Bill Mazeroski Pirates 1960
  • Joe Carter Blue Jays 1993

Pill poppers

Malcolm Gladwell writes about the cost of prescription drugs in The New Yorker.

The perception that the drug industry is profiteering at the expense of the American consumer has given pharmaceutical firms a reputation on a par with that of cigarette manufacturers.

In fact, the complaint is only half true. The “intolerable” prices that Angell writes about are confined to the brand-name sector of the American drug marketplace. As the economists Patricia Danzon and Michael Furukawa recently pointed out in the journal Health Affairs, drugs still under patent protection are anywhere from twenty-five to forty per cent more expensive in the United States than in places like England, France, and Canada. Generic drugs are another story. Because there are so many companies in the United States that step in to make drugs once their patents expire, and because the price competition among those firms is so fierce, generic drugs here are among the cheapest in the world. And, according to Danzon and Furukawa’s analysis, when prescription drugs are converted to over-the-counter status no other country even comes close to having prices as low as the United States.
…

In fact, drug expenditures are rising rapidly in the United States not so much because we’re being charged more for prescription drugs but because more people are taking more medications in more expensive combinations. It’s not price that matters; it’s volume.

An important and informative article.

It’s the birthday

… of Johnny Carson. He’s 79 today.

… of Pele. He’s 64 today.

Two men who were absolutely the best on the planet at what they did. Happy Birthday!

Vote early, vote often

In an unusual series of events, the Navajo Tribal Council endorsed U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi for re-election to Congress on Monday with a unanimous vote, rejected Democratic challenger Paul Babbitt on Tuesday and then changed its position by voting in favor of Babbitt Wednesday.

Which is to say, the council supports both candidates, although Renzi has a unanimous vote and Babbitt’s endorsement passed by a 40-36 vote.

From the Arizona Daily Sun

What would Johnny say?

“In an interview in USA Today, Teresa Heinz Kerry said she didn’t think Laura Bush, who was a public school librarian for nine years, had ever held a ‘real job.’ Let me tell you something, if you’re a librarian married to George W. Bush, there is no harder job on earth.”
—Jay Leno

“But down in Florida in the early voting, there were computer glitches, confusing ballots, long lines and chaos. And when President Bush heard about this, he said, ‘Mission accomplished!'”
—David Letterman

“A man was arrested in Ohio after being paid in crack to register voters. They were paying people in crack to register voters. You know it’s scary enough that the election is going to be decided by the undecided. But to be decided by undecided crack heads. That’s really bad.”
—Jay Leno