Air America Troubles

So I wasn't hallucinating when I turned on Chicago 950AM yesterday morning to find several people talking in spanish instead of liberal talk radio station Air America. I knew 950AM was a spanish station before Air America bought its airtime, but I didn't think they would be pulled after so little time.

Well, yeah, they did get pulled from the Chicago Market, and the L.A. Market as well. Air America finally got around to releasing a statement blasting the station owners for doing this; the Majority Report blog says that the same people own the Chicago and LA radio stations, and want more for LA, and are using Chicago as leverage. The radio owners said that Air America bounced a check for a million dollars, and aren't paying their bills. It was fun while it lasted. Here's the injunction Air America filed to get back on the air.

To be honest, besides Franken and Garafalo's shows, the rest was mostly filler at best. I think it will be better if they can pool their resources on developing those two shows and have them fight it out on the networks each on their own (like, ya know, every other editorial talk show, including Hannity and Limbaugh) instead of trying to create an entire network out of thin air; if you listen close enough you can hear the money going down the toilet while the godawful Randi rants, or Lizz Winstead and Rachel Maddow sort of make logical arguments while Chuck D sleeps.

A Plan for a Plan?

I was distressed to find out the the typical dose of reality television had been preempted for the third primetime news conference of Bush's "presidency". Although watching Average Joe Hawaii, or whatever the fuck else would have been on clearly would have caused me to regress socially, listening to George Bush Jr. speak did something far far worse.

Source: BBC World News, April 14 2004

* Disclaimer: All quotes were taken from the official Whitehouse transcript. Having watched the speech, I can say with some certainty that George Bush occasionally "elaborated" on some points.

"It's not a civil war; it's not a popular uprising. Most of Iraq is relatively stable. Most Iraqis, by far, reject violence and oppose dictatorship. In forums where Iraqis have met to discuss their political future, and in all the proceedings of the Iraqi Governing Council, Iraqis have expressed clear commitments. They want strong protections for individual rights; they want their independence; and they want their freedom."

It would seem that a lot of them simply want "their freedom" from us. Out of curiosity, how many Iraqis need to pick up a gun and shoot at us before it qualifies as a "popular uprising" or "civil war"?

"In Fallujah, coalition forces have suspended offensive operations, allowing members of the Iraqi Governing Council and local leaders to work on the restoration of central authority in that city."

Source: New York Times, April 14 2004

Apparently no one informed the Bush administration that when you have control of a city and people start attacking you, then they are the ones engaging in offensive operations.....not you. Perhaps Bush was hopeful that the Iraqis would be so overwhelmed by our generosity that they would stop trying to retake the city.

"The people know where I stand. I mean, in terms of Iraq, I was very clear about what I believed. And, of course, I want to know why we haven't found a weapon yet. But I still know Saddam Hussein was a threat, and the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. I don't think anybody can -- maybe people can argue that. I know the Iraqi people don't believe that, that they're better off with Saddam Hussein -- would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power. I also know that there's an historic opportunity here to change the world. And it's very important for the loved ones of our troops to understand that the mission is an important, vital mission for the security of America and for the ability to change the world for the better."

This was in a response to a question asking whether or not it was fair for people to criticize Bush's adimistration for never admitting a mistake. He seems to contradict himself several times; nevermind the fact that he doesn't seem to even slightly address what was asked. Perhaps you can make some sense out of this answer. I can't.

"I don't plan on losing my job. I plan on telling the American people that I've got a plan to win the war on terror. And I believe they'll stay with me. They understand the stakes. Look, nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens -- I don't. .... It is a -- it is -- it's a chance to hug and weep and to console and to remind the loved ones that the sacrifice of their loved one was done in the name of security for America and freedom for the world."

Let me see if I've got this: He has a plan? He plans on telling us his plan? Perhaps he plans on having a plan? This makes me feel very secure. I guess I should just rest assured that a plan for a plan, whose dissemination is planned is going to ensure "security for America and freedom for the world."

Whew.

I am glad I am not a liberal or terrorist, or I might have been a bit distressed by this speech.

For More Information:
Here is the official transcript, I suggest reading it. Reading and quoting this speech made me tired and disheartened, I could not possibly include everything that merited reading.
The official Whitehouse transcript
The BBC does a good job here of summarizing press reaction to the speech.
BBC World News- "Press Unimpressed"

getting old

Well, here's a reason why I can celebrate turning 25 in July - I'm that much closer to being out of the eligible range for a draft. During the weekend, Ralph Nader held a press conference where he told youth that another draft was coming. "The Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members to fill local draft boards" - which I'm trying to find independent confirmation of, but even the hint of it is scary enough.

People hit the trenches on the radio this morning about the possibility of a draft; a major theme for everyone how the youth today "have it so easy" and "are too busy worrying about Christina Aguilera than worrying about issues in the world" (an actual quote). As if all people ages 17-20 in 1966 were sitting around talking about containment theory instead of smoking and debating whether Clapton was a better guitarist than Hendrix; and if young people have it any easier today than 25 years ago I'd really like someone to explain it to me in concrete terms.

Speaking of people who should never see combat, aspiring Navy S.E.A.L., ginandtacos.com founder, and biophysics grad student Erik Martin turns 25 this week! Email him a b-day wish, and see how his competitive mustache growth is going.

I HOPE YOU'RE CHOKING ON YOUR DAMN $300 BONUS TAX REBATE

The Congressional Budget Office just announced that the March budget deficit - once again this is FOR ONE MONTH - was a record-setting $72.7 billion dollars. Let's write that out in long form.

$72,700,000,000.00. In 31 days. That's a bad deficit for A YEAR, let alone a month. Now, let's have some fun with math. During March, the deficit grew:

$2,322,580,645.00 per day
$96,774,193.00 per hour
$1,612,903.00 per minute
$26,881.00 per second

It's clear who is to blame in this situation: Bill Clinton.

And there's clearly only one solution: cutting taxes.

THESE COLORS DON'T RUN. THEY ENGAGE IN WAR PROFITEERING.

This beautiful image represents Halliburton's stock price over the last 18 months. Quick translation into english: if you owned $1,000,000 worth of stock in July of 2002, before the invasion of Iraq became imminent, you now have about $3,000,000.

Dick Cheney's exercisable stock options, which he of course retains even though it's a clear conflict of interest, total about $40 million in the form of 3 separate batches of 433,333 shares of stock.

Well, they DID total $40 million. It's worth closer to $100,000,000 million now. The added value comes mostly from stock price increases related to the company's KBR subsidiary which, through an open-ended contract (both in term and amount) that was not open to competitive bidding, supposedly provides the army with supplies and reconstruction services. I say "supposedly", of course, because KBR is currently under investigation by the Justice Department for billing the government for phantom supplies that were never delivered and grossly overcharging on supplies that were - not that $7 per gallon of gasoline is excessive.

I'm aware that everyone basically already knew (or assumed) Halliburton was on the receiving end of some shady deals involving Cheney, but I thought it would be fun and enlightening to see in concrete terms how much money it's put in his own pocket, notwithstanding all the other leeches outside of public domain. He personally made in excess $30,000,000 off the decision to go to war. But you'd be a foolish liberal, and also a terrorist, to claim that the lure of that much money would color his objectivity.

Have some fun with Cheney and all his friends on ginandtacos.com's neocon bingo - a faith-based bingo initiative intended to promote abstinence in the Third World.

Tarantino's Universe

Dave Kehr's Kill Bill Allusion Chart

Dave Kehr was an excellent movie critic for the Chicago Reader from 1974 to 1985; he helped established the tone of the Reader's reviews as being the beachhead against the Pauline Kael style of movie criticism that would later dominate all of movie-reviewing; he created the mold for Jonathan Rosenbaum to fill at a later date.

Kehr left his Chicago, like everyone does, to arrive already obscelent in New York City. Where the reader gave him pages and pages (and love!), The New York Times gives him 4 paragraphs to review whatever A.O. Scott and Stephen Holden pass over (for instance, he got to review The Rock's latest movie).

Kehr gives as good as a stab at explaining what Tarantino is up to in Kill Bill as anyone I've seen. And he knows more than enough to walk you through some of the more rocky references; things like the difference between the skillful Chinese martial arts movie tradition versus the sloppy and blood-soaked Japanese tradition , and where spaghetti westerns fit into it all. He also catches a lot that I missed (confession: I had no idea that David Carradine was the monk from the TV series Kung-Fu that is brought up in Pulp Fiction). If the second part is actually focused on various forms of westerns it gives me hope that the Vol. split in the movie wasn't just a marketing decision or a last minute hesitation but actually fits into the overall project.

And damn if that Uma Thurman as John Wayne in "Searchers" shot doesn't make me want to simultaneously hug and slap the guy.