Finally, a message

I'm happy to see that John Kerry finall seems to have found a message to run with in this campaign. I wouldn't call myself a fan of Kerry, I'm largely in the Anybody But Bush crowd, but the Kerry campaign's performance has been lackluster at best until this point. Andrew Sullivan, someone who was for the war in Iraq, has a great piece up at The New Republic, talking about the situation in Iraq, and the political hay that Kerry can make of it, if the Bush administration doesn't start changing what they're saying/doing soon.

But the reality is unavoidable: Large swathes of Iraq have been ceded to terrorist insurgents; the multinational force is deeply unpopular in all the surveys of the general population you can read; barely a fraction of reconstruction funds has been spent; military and civilian casualties continue to rise; parts of Baghdad are not secure; the chances of national elections in January look iffy in the extreme; the White House's own internal reports are full of gloom. None of this was discussed at the Republican National Convention, and you can understand why. But the extremely rosy picture of Iraq sketched by that convention could well become a liability if the facts on the ground begin to make the commander-in-chief seem culpably out of it at best, and deceptive at worst.

Economic Girlie-Man

From the Motley Fool, in response to what Gov. Arnold said at the RNC last night:

Here's the exact line: "To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: 'Don't be economic girlie-men!"'

But you know what? I'm pessimistic about the economy. I'm afraid that the Federal Reserve has backed itself into a corner. I'm afraid that lending discipline among mortgage companies has completely collapsed. I am concerned that low interest rates have been used to entice the American consumer to clean up a recession borne by an irresponsible corporate spending binge by going on one of his own. I'm afraid that the $200 billion-plus that Americans have cashed out of their houses has been spent, and the next drop in interest rates won't be concomitant with a rise in prices; rather, it will be because of a full-fledged financial emergency.

Mother of all hypocrisies

U.S. Representative Ed Schrock has abrubtly withdrawn from his reelection bid, after allegations that he was gay surfaced on a weblog a few weeks ago. Oh, and there are audio tapes of him trying to arrange trysts for gay sex. Normally, that'd be no big deal, but this guy was one of the most conservative members of Congress and co-sponsored the proposed Anti-Gay Marriage amendment. He's also scored a 92% favorable rating from the Christian Coalition. Think they'll take back their endorsement now?

There's more, including an audio clip, and a transcript of one of the phone sex calls at Raw Story.

The Virginia Pilot reported in October 2000 that Schrock favored ending the Clinton administration's ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy on gays in the military, BlogActive noted.

"He supports asking enlistees whether they have had homosexual experiences in an effort to to try to keep gays from serving. 'You're in the showers with them, you're in the bunk room with them, you're in staterooms with them,' Schrock said."

Indeed, Schrock should know, he was in the Navy for 24 years, rising from Ensign to the rank of Captain.

And, while normally I wouldn't consider being gay a reason to quit, it strikes me as more than a bit of poetic justice that Schrock is now out of a job, considering he voted against protecting homosexuals from discrimination in the workplace.

Russian Dinner

My co-worker Aaron and I had dinner tonight with six Russian guests at the Olde Broom Factory in Cedar Falls. It was a fun night, we took along our Russian grad student/programmer/hacker to act as translator. Driving to the restaurant, I answered many of their questions, some of which I wasn't at all suspecting. You forget how strange your country is until a visitor points it out to you. Here are a few things that I was asked about, and I'm not in any way belittling our guests, as I'm sure I'd have many more questions when in their country:

Seatbelts: My front-seat passenger asked if she had to wear the seatbelt, after she saw me put it on. i explained to her that yes, she did have to, because it was the law in the state of Iowa, and most (all?) other states as well.

Houses: I was asked why so many of our houses were made of wood. That's a good question, and it took me a bit to formulate an answer. I said mostly because wood was cheap and readily abundant when the neighborhoods we were driving through were built. I also pointed out that Cedar Falls had only been settled for around 150 years, so it was a much younger city than Moscow.

Porches: One of my visitors had been to Tennessee 10 years ago, and commented how many of the houses here had the same (the word eluded her) porches on them as the ones in the South. I explained to her that they were commonly used before air conditioning, and that there are some people who believe that the decline in American communities can be linked to air conditioning, as people used to spend a great deal of time on their porches during the summer, conversing with neighbors.

Fish: We had to explain what Orange Roughy was, on the menu, as well as Walleye. One of the visitors tried each. The Walleye was well liked, the Roughy was not.

Pecans: How do you explain what a Pecan is? We said it was a nut, but not like a peanut, and no, not really like a walnut either. Three of our guests tried the Pecan Pie for dessert, which they seemed to like. I realized afterwards that I had ordered Turtle Cheesecake, and they probably thought it had turtle in it, which explained why no one else wanted some.

Tornados: They don't have them in Russia, and we had a mild June thunderstorm roll in during dinner. We had to explain what to do if they heard the sirens go off, and what it meant. They were also a bit bewildered by the strength of the rain. According to our student/translator Artem, in Moscow it rains, but just drizzles. They don't get the force of a June thunderstorm rolling across the prairie like we do.

Politics: I was asked about how Iowans feel about George W. Bush. I explained that Iowa was very evenly divided between parties (Gore won Iowa by about 5,000 votes), but that Cedar Falls was somewhat more liberal, due to the presence of the University. I said that many Iowans, especially those who consider themselves Christians, tend to be more conservative, and support the President more. The woman who'd visited Tennessee remarked that it was similar to what she'd seen there 10 years ago, and I explained a bit about the political history of the South, and how it had been Democratic until the Civil Rights era. Our guests seemed somewhat surprised that you could switch political parties. I explained that it was very simple, you could just check a box on your voter registration card, and you could even change parties monthly, if you wanted to. I also tried to explain that despite what they were seeing on TV, not everyone thought that Ronald Reagan was our greatest President, but that most people aren't inclined to speak ill of the recently dead. The Russians praised him for forging a peace with the Soviet Union, and I pointed out that he had to run up giant deficits in our country during the Cold War, and that we were stilll paying on that debt, which greatly surprised them.

All in all, we had a lot of fun, it was a great learning experience, and we're going to have lunch with this group again next week, in which case I may have to explain the Turtle Cheesecake.

Heritage Foundation

I see the Heritage Foundation is now talking about how privacy advocates have it wrong when it comes to Gmail, this part sounds a lot like what I wrote last week:

Keep in mind that e-mail is notoriously insecure. It is trivial, for example, to send messages that appear as if they came from another address. Messages are generally sent over the Internet as plain text and travel through several mail servers: Anyone determined to do so could intercept an e-mail message. Moreover, while encryption is possible, it is not popular. Those most concerned about privacy should avoid all unencrypted e-mail, including most Web-mail services.

This does not mean I'm giving up my status as a card carrying ACLU member, however. :)