Response to Senator Nelson

After reading Bob Herbert’s column in today’s New York Times, I sent this e-mail to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), regarding the Gonzalez nomination, in response to his letter to me justifying his vote.

Senator Nelson: A few weeks ago I wrote urging you to vote against the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States. I received your reply explaining why you voted in favor of his nomination, and I thank you for your response. However, I am deeply disappointed in your vote, as your explanation (in my opinion) is quite insufficient to justify a vote in favor of someone where the evidence of his complicity in illegal US policy is so clear and incontrovertible.

In your e-mail response to me, dated February 14, you say “I supported his nomination because I believe that deference should be given to the President’s selection of executive cabinet members, and that unless there is evidence that one of these nominees isunqualified or unfit to serve, Congress should not oppose these nominees. After several meetings with Judge Gonzales, I felt assured that he is qualified to serve as attorney general and fully understands the role he will play as attorney general in representing the people’s interest as a nation that honors the rule of law.”

It would help me to understand your vote better if I knew just what evidence you require that would convince you that a person is “unfit.” Would evidence of violating US and International law by condoning torture and supporting an illegal policy of extraordinary
rendition make a person unfit?

I refer you to this piece in the New York Times by columnist Bob Herbert http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/25/opinion/25herbert.html?) where he states, “. . In the fall of 2002 Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, suddenly found himself caught up in the cruel mockery of justice that the Bush administration has substituted for the rule of law in the post-Sept. 11 world. While attempting to change planes at Kennedy Airport on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities, interrogated and thrown into jail. He was not charged with anything, and he never would be charged with anything, but his life would be ruined. Mr. Arar was surreptitiously flown out of the United States to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he was kept like a nocturnal animal in an unlit, underground, rat-infested cell that was the size of a grave. From time to time he was tortured. He wept. He begged not to be beaten anymore. He signed whatever confessions he was told to sign. He prayed.”

He goes on further to say, “The Justice Department has alleged, without disclosing any evidence whatsoever, that Mr. Arar is a member of, or somehow linked to, Al Qaeda. If that's so, how can the administration possibly allow him to roam free? The Syrians, who tortured him, have concluded that Mr. Arar is not linked in any way to terrorism.

He concludes, “. . . A lawsuit on Mr. Arar's behalf has been filed against the United States by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer with the center, noted yesterday that the government is arguing that none of Mr. Arar's claims can even be adjudicated because they "would involve the revelation of state secrets." This is a government that feels it is answerable to no one.”

Did this case or any others like it come up in your discussions with Mr. Gonzales? Did you discuss extraordinary rendition? What about the torture memos? If so, what could Mr. Gonzales have possibly said to you to justify his previous actions in regard to these issues that would convince you that this man should be entrusted with the power and responsibility of the nation’s top law enforcement official? I respectfully request that you address this issue with all of your constituents.

Deference to a President’s prerogative does not exclude your right and responsibility to hold him and his cabinet accountable for his administration’s unconstitutional actions. I urge you to reconsider your judgment of Attorney General Gonzales and to use the
powers of your office to undertake efforts to investigate him, the Justice Department and any other federal entities that may be involved in torture practices and extraordinary rendition.

Thank you for your attention.

I’ll post his response when it arrives.

We have lift-off!

From today's LA Times:

Scientists on Tuesday reported that perchlorate, a toxic component of rocket fuel, was contaminating virtually all samples of women's breast milk and its levels were found to be, on average, five times greater than in cow's milk.

I knew there was a reasonable explanation for my many years of chronic, explosive diarrhea.

Also, I am starting to manufacture women’s t-shirts with the words: “Caution: Extremely Flammable!” emblazened across the chest.

Seriously, I wonder if this might be tied to the explosion of autism cases. Or maybe the cause is some other extremely toxic chemical our toddlers are injesting. Who the hell knows anymore?

The Tortoise and the Hippo

Nice piece about a baby hippo and his adoptive parent, a giant turtle.

G-Coefficient - Third Base

Third base turns out to be the second strongest position on the G-Coefficient, behind outfielders. Several outstanding players are entering their prime years, and there has been an influx of talented hitters on the hot corner over the last couple of seasons. The depth of the position is apparent by the fact that last season's home run champion (Beltre) is forecast to have another great year (38 HR, 110 RBI) but is only rated 10th among third baseman.

Given the talent level at this position, it would seem wise to pay the premium for talent here, and look for salary savings elsewhere, like at second base.

RIP, Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter, we rubes will miss you.

Presidents Day

A recent Gallup poll indicates that 20% of the respondents believe Ronald Reagan was the greatest president - the largest share of the vote for any president. Clinton came in second at 15%. Lincoln was third at 14, FDR and JFK were at 12 each. GW Bush and George Washington (father of the country) each came in at 5% each.

The only thing this poll tells me is how generally ignorant of history most Americans are. Now I don't have the entire poll results in front of me, but I do wonder if Gallup tried to screen this poll in any way by asking each respondent what they knew from history of each president. They screen the electoral preference polls by asking about a person's voting habits, so it would make sense to screen a poll like this for a person's knowledge of history. My gut tells me they don't though.

Obviously, the older the president the less likely people generally are to know about him. Still, the true giants like Washington, Jefferson (who's not on the Gallup list!), and Lincoln should be pretty well known given their mythologies. Given that, for them all to come in behind both Reagan and Clinton seems almost absurd to me.

Are we that ignorant of history as a society, or is it that we are generally familiar with our basic history but seem to think that this current era is by far the greatest of times and we the greatest of Americans?

Either way, I think it's really sad.

G-Coefficient: Second Base

Second base turns out to be the weakest position besides catcher under the G-Co. There are no '50-point' players, and only four players are projected to pass the 500-point mark on the CDM scoring system. Soriano, no surprise, is projected as the best value, but in order to place him on the roster a player above 50 on the G-Co at another position would have to be left off the roster. Behind Soriano, though, there are good values with low salaries. This you won't find at the catcher position (catchers will be posted later in the week).

Hippocrat Hypocrisy Award, Ed. 2

This week's hypocrisy was a very difficult choice. Here's a rundown of the week's prominent hypocrisies that made it to the finals of the weekly award judgment:

Major League Baseball denies steroid claim: Former A's slugger Jose Canseco and a former FBI agent claim that MLB owners and the MLB front office knew Canseco and others were using steroids. MLB Executive VP of Baseball Operations Sandy Alderson, who was the A's general manager in the 80s and 90s, claimed on "60 Minutes'" to have not known about Canseco (although he did admit to a suspicion) despite the fact that Canseco had admitted openly to then-A's manager Tony LaRussa and the team that he 'got help' with his physical training.

Senator Bill Nelson defends Gonzales vote: In a constituent e-mail to me, Senator Nelson defended his vote in favor of approving Alberto Gonzales' nomination as US Attorney General, saying "I supported his nomination because I believe that deference should be given to the President's selection of executive cabinet members, and that unless there is evidence that one of these nominees is unqualified or unfit to serve, Congress should not oppose these nominees." Apparently, Senator Nelson believes that ignoring the Geneva Conventions against torture is not sufficient evidence of Gonzales' unfitness.

Right-wing blogs cry foul over Gannon/Guckert affair: Of course, we all know Jeff Gannon as the disgraced GOP hack posing as a journalist who attended daily White House press briefings under the "Talon News" banner. We know that he was outed as a fake and then as a male prostitute by the lefty blogs. Now the wingnut blogs are all pissy about the fact that lefty blogs are attacking Gannon's alleged escort activities as being a big part of the whole story.

Well boo-frickety-hoo!

These chumps love nothing more than to level personal attacks against liberals for what occurs in their private lives whether it's true or not. But when one of their own gets cold-busted for engaging in an illicit activity, oh then it's off limits for anyone to talk about it!

This Week's Winner

Yes, these are three excellent candidates, countryman -- rich in hypocrisy and comic value. The panel of judges for the Hippocrat Hypocrisy Award, however, are not influenced by the hilarity of a given candidate's submission. This award is about pure hypocrisy. And who better represents pure hypocrisy then President Bush's new nominee as National Intelligence Director.

That's right, John Negroponte is this week's winner of the Hippocrat Hypocrisy Award! As may or may not be common knowledge, Mr. Negroponte first came to prominence in the Reagan Administration for lying to Congress about death squads in Honduras.

He resurfaced in Junior's administration as ambassador to the UN, where he proceeded to lie to the world about Iraqi WMD.

Finally, he was named ambassador to Iraq last year at the "handover" of power. He made a point of declaring, "But for these policies [in Iraq] to succeed, we will need to proceed with resolve, constancy and unity of purpose."

Despite his love affair with resolution and constancy, Mr. Negroponte has also been quoted as saying, "I want to get out of Baghdad as soon as possible." Really? I hear the weather there is real nice this time of year.

And like all good liars and incompetents in this administration, he gets rewarded with a promotion to a cabinet level position in the administration. Sweet. Yes, countryman, Negroponte's commitment to democratic processes (Honduras, UN, Iraq) cannot be denied. What is clearly a shame, though, and thus this week's Rankest Hypocrisy, is his unwillingness to take credit for the great successes he's achieved. I find it hypocritical that he would fight so vehemently for what he believes, but not stand up to the critics and the allegations made against him. Clearly a man so right can't possibly be that wrong. Could he?

Why doesn't he go on the record about what happened in Honduras and make the case that, despite the carnage, the world is better off? Why cover it up and make like it never happened?

(Psssst. It might be because he's a hypocrite.)

Why not come clean with the UN and admit that, no, Iraq really didn't have WMD but the results justify the whole exercise and isn't the world better off? Why act like he never made the WMD case?

(Psssst. Um, hypocrite.)

Why not admit that Baghdad has become a hell-hole and he just wants to get the hell out of there?

(Come on, he's so obviously a hypocrite.)

Why not admit he really just wants to go off into the private sector and make some dough, or get a cushy gubmint job and set himself up for a big private contractor payoff in a couple of years? Hey, he served his country, he's entitled! What's so wrong with that?

(In case you haven't realized it yet, it's because he's a hypocrite.)

No, that just won't do. It is much better to publicly cover it all up and pretend it never happened (it's not like the SCLM is going to call him on it) than to admit to being a liar, criminal, hack, coward and hypocrite. So, Mr. Negroponte, enjoy your new job and the fame that comes with being this week's winner of the Hippocrat Hypocrisy Award. You deserve it!

Friday Cat Blogging

Friday Cat Blogging

G-Coefficient: First Baseman

Above is the first set of players rated by the G-Co - first baseman. Despite his high salary, Pujols still produces enough to be worth having on the roster. If Nick Johnson could stay healthy, he'd be a steal at 1350. Bad news for Delgado & Bagwell - not worth the price tag.

Tomorrow, second base.

Baseball

This week pitchers and catchers started reporting for spring training in Arizona and Florida, marking the end of winter and the approach of a new baseball season. In preparation for the 2005 fantasy baseball season, I’ve been working on a new statistical tool to evaluate players. Now that spring training has started, it’s time to unveil the G-Coefficient.

The G-Co is steeped in the grand history of fantasy player evaluation pioneered by the A-Coefficient, and later the M-Coefficient. The G-Co attempts to evaluate a player’s relative value under a salary cap/points earned system of fantasy baseball. Essentially, the amount of salary cap space determines the expected points he must produce in order to be considered a “good value.” A series of calculations involving the players projected points for the season, his salary (based on CDM Budget Baseball values), and how he compares to other players generate a score (the G-Co) to evaluate the player’s value.

The key to this exercise is the accuracy of the projected points a player is expected to earn. For offensive players, I relied on the Bill James’ invented “Brock” projections tool. For pitchers, I made use of the “ZIPS” projections from Baseball Thinkfactory.com. Projections are, of course, fraught with hazard. Injuries, age, and playing time all affect the quality of projections, so the science is certainly inexact.

To test the G-Co’s success, I plan to use the actual player data for the 2005 season to determine if the G-Co would have generated the best fantasy team under the assumption of perfect projections. I will report the results in November.

Some rules of thumb for the G-Co:

• A score of 50 or better indicates excellent value.
• A score of 30 or less indicates poor value.
• A large number of players score in the 30-49 range, suggesting that small changes in the projections could have profound effects on a player’s relative value versus other players.

Slacker Friday Cat Blogging

After a busy Friday, the kitty likes to kick back.

Hippocrat Hypocrisy Award - Debut Edition

I'm starting a new tradition on the Hippocrat blog - a weekly Hippocrat Hypocrisy Award. This award recognizes when a wingnut engages in the rankest hypocrisy possible. Now, I know that it's pretty common for wingnuts to engage in hypocrisy, and so some would say it is no challenge to identify it. I say identifying is the easy part - the hard part is determining whose hypocritical actions set a new standard for the rest of the jerks out there. And trust me, when one of them sets a new standard, the rest literally stampede to emulate it.

This week's winner:

Fox News anchor Brit Hume! Regarding President Bush's plan to dismantle Social Security, Hume claimed that FDR actually wanted private pension plans to replace Social Security, and he produced a nice, fat quote from FDR himself to prove it. Here's what Hume said on the "Political Grapevine" segment of his nightly cable news broadcast, back on February 4, courtesy of FoxNews.com.

Senate Democrats gathered at the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial today to invoke the image of FDR in calling on President Bush to remove private accounts from his Social Security proposal. But it turns out that FDR himself planned to include private investment accounts in the Social Security program when he proposed it.

In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, "Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age," adding that government funding, "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."

Now, Hume's characterization seems OK until you get to that last sentence. But once you do, then yes sir, that sure sounds like FDR saying that we should replace (notice the word SUPPLANT) Social Security with "voluntary contributory annuities." The problem is, that isn't what FDR actually said. Here's what FDR actually said, courtesy of the Social Security Archives:

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans (Emphasis added).

So if you read the FULL quote, like most ethical people would, you'd see that FDR meant that the compulsory annuities mentioned as the second principle would be what SUPPLANTS the non-contributory old-age pensions mentioned under principle one. He was not saying, as Hume states, that the "voluntary annuities" (something very different from "compulsory") should SUPPLANT the government-funded system. It was clear by FDR's FULL statement, and the subsequent congressional testimony by his SS experts, that the voluntary annuities would SUPPLEMENT, not SUPPLANT, the compulsory annuities.

Now did Hume really, purposefully dissemble or is he perhaps to dumb to know the complicated nature of old-age annuities? Well, read his bio and judge for yourself whether this guy could actually be that dumb. No, countrymen, he can't possibly be that dumb. He's been doing this hackery for 35 YEARS, and he knows exactly what he's doing!

And Hume knows that we know it. So when challenged by numerous viewers, as well as Al Franken and Media Matters, Hume doesn't claim ignorance. No, he claims to have been quoted "out-of-context." Such a claim would be hysterical if it weren't so ridiculous (and over-used!). Here's one of his e-mail responses to a viewer posted by that viewer on Eric Alterman's blog:

From: "Hume, Brit" <Brit.Hume@foxnews.com>
To: "Don Collignon"
Subject: RE: The Quote, the whole quote, and nothing like the truth
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 17:16:20 -0500

You are not still not quoting me in full. If you did, you would see that the whole intent of the item was to show that Roosevelt favored the inclusion of personal accounts (voluntary contributor annuities) in his Social Security plan. I never claimed, and do not
think, that he wanted to see the whole thing privatized.

What you are working off (which you label "verbatim") is a partial quote from me -- the very thing you accuse me of doing.

Please apologize.

Ahhh, the sweet stench of hypocrisy! Not only does he deny what he actually said, he also berates the viewer for doing the very thing he, himself did. That probably would have been enough to clinch the HHA for big-boy Brit this week. He really ran away with it, though, when the rest of the wingnut nation fell all overthemselves to repeat his FDR misinformation.

No doubt, this week's Rankest Hypocrisy!

Bill Moyers piece

A great piece by Moyers on how fundamentalists justify destroying the environment in the name of the Rapture.

Drop Your Pants

The Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill yesterday that allows law enforcement to fine an individual "who exposes his below-waist undergarments in a lewd or indecent manner." According to the local news, a lot of young people who wear this style of pants, shorts or skirt, are really offending a group of Virginians so a daft delegate wrote a crappy piece of legislation.

My first question is, what exactly is lewd and/or indecent? Perhaps some legislators who get campaign donations from Comcast Cable can explain it - obviously they would know 'indecent' and 'lewd' from the adult movie offerings available with Comcast On Demand.

My second question is, why are Democrats helping push the radical right-wing agenda? Shockingly enough, the bill's sponsor is a Democrat. Fourteen other Democrats voted for the bill as it passed the House 60-34, with 44 Republicans voting for it.

It's funny how these anti-government Republicans have no problem using the power of the government to police youth fashion but want to cut back the use of that power to alleviate other people's suffering.

And some Democrats seem more than willing to help them.

Nelson Votes For Gonzales

Senator Bill Nelson voted today for the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. It's a real shame. Needless to say, I will be glad to support any progressive candidates who challenge him in the Democratic primary in 2006. We need real Democrats in public office, not sell-outs.

More later.