Amber is quoted several times in a Wired article about the fallout from the Elliot Spitzer story.
“Lots of people were at South by Southwest [when the Spitzer story broke] and didn’t have time to check e-mail every five minutes,” says Amber Rhea, organizer of the upcoming Sex 2.0 conference in Atlanta. “It didn’t matter. They used Twitter, text messaging — they did interviews with hardly any advance notice.”
Rhea says that for the first time, there’s a critical mass of people putting forth a concerted effort to make sure the media can’t ignore sex workers. Building on a foundation built by former sex workers of the past 30 or so years, many of whom went public with books, articles and speaking engagements after they retired, modern sex workers have the message — and the means to get it out.
Do you know anyone whose name is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? If you’ve never checked before, there’s a web application now that lets you search the names and get information about them. A search for ‘tanton’ came up with one name:
* Title/Collection: Vietnam Veterans Memorial
* Full Name: Tanton, Charlie Thomas
* Country: South Vietnam
* Sheet Number: 1
* Rank: Staff Sergeant
* Grade: E6
* Specialty: General Vehicle Repairman (ARMY)
* Hometown: Phenix City
* Home State: AL
* Race: Caucasian
* Religion: Protestant - No Denominational Preference
* Marital Status: Married
* Gender: Male
* Date Of Birth: 07 Jan 1935
* Tour Start Date: 26 Oct 1970
* Casualty Date: 27 Jun 1971
* Death Date: 27 Jun 1971
* Age: 36
* Casualty Type: Non-Hostile, Died of Other Causes
* Died Of: Accidental Self-Destruction
My dad’s side of the family is from Alabama, so it’s not impossible we’re related, but when I asked my dad he said he didn’t know. My dad was stationed in Germany during Vietnam, fortunately.
There has been much discussion about whether Florida and Michigan’s results in the Dem. primary should be counted or not, and how they should be counted. Whether the rules were applied inconsistently. Whether there should be a revote. How that revote should be conducted.
Here are the facts as I see them:
It is arguable whether or not the rules were applied inconsistently to Florida and Michigan versus other states whose primaries were held earlier
It is also unimportant, because regardless of what happened in the past, the results in Michigan and Florida are not legitimate
The only solution that won’t be disastrous for the Democratic nominee is a full revote. Not some piddly mail-in vote like Florida is discussing.
If you believe that the rules were applied inconsistently to Florida and Michigan, then you may try to argue for inclusion of their results. If you have any interest at all in a Democrat being elected, that would be suicidal to your self interest.
First scenario: Let’s say that under some far out circumstance, the Florida and Michigan results were counted as they are and Hillary Clinton wins the nomination. Her candidacy would not only be viewed as illegitimate by her opposition and the rest of the world, but by a significant constituency in her own party.
Second scenario: Michigan and Florida’s results are discarded entirely, and Obama narrowly wins the delegate count. The political theorists’ wet dream happens: a brokered convention. Regardless of who is appointed the nominee, a significant constituency again will view the candidacy as illegitimate. Perhaps less so than in the first scenario, but significant nonetheless. It will be far worse if the candidate who lost the delegate count or popular vote is the appointee.
Bill Clinton’s presidency was never viewed as legitimate by his opposition because he never won a majority of the vote (remember Ross Perot?).
George W. Bush’s presidency was never viewed as legitimate by his opposition because of the questionable results in Florida and his subsequent appointment to office by the Supreme Court.
Under either scenario outline above, if the Democratic nominee somehow manages to win the election amidst ear-splitting acrimony from within his or her own party, we would have a third president in a row whose election is viewed as illegitimate.
I doubt Howard Dean’s competence at his job at this point, but I also doubt that even he is dumb enough to allow either of those scenarios to happen. Maybe time will prove me wrong, but I view new elections in Florida and Michigan as inevitable. It’s only a question of how, when and who will pay for them.
Mail-in votes like Florida is suggesting would run into the same legitimacy problems that the two scenarios I outlined above would encounter. A pair of full do-overs are the only scenario that can possibly solve this.
The problem is cost. Florida’s would run about $30 $20 million ($10 million in Michigan for a total of $30 million). Who’s going to have to pony up for them?
Or, is Howard Dean really dumb enough to allow this to be settled any other way?
Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan, and neither of the candidates campaigned in Florida. The results from those two states are meaningless. If they were to be used and Hillary Clinton won the primary because of it, her candidacy would be a fraud.
And I think they know that. If Florida and Michigan want their votes to count, they’ll have to pony up for another primary/caucus.
FYI, I don’t even write about national politics all that much. The NYT Blogrunner widget for some reason placed this post (with “bullshit” in the title and all) between the L.A. Times and the Associated Press story:
Update March 7 9:22 a.m. Occasionally if one is going to call bullshit on others, he or she must be willing to call bullshit on himself or herself. This is still a good rule, but my example turned out not to be a good one. See the comments.
You might not have agreed with a word he said, but William F. Buckley was pretty much personally responsible for the golden era of intellectual debate on television. His Firing Line program was just superb, bringing together influential figures from all across the ideological spectrum for rigorous, sincere competitions of ideas.
Check this footage from a debate he had in 1969 with Noam Chomsky (this is part 1, go here for part 2):
He was always gracious and respectful to even his fiercest opposition. The world is a poorer place without his piercing wit and sense of humor.
I‘m voting for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary. I’ll probably do early voting today if I don’t fall asleep at the wheel on the way home.
I did keep an open mind about Hillary Clinton. I don’t begrudge anybody that choice, as a frequent complaint about Democrats is they lack backbone. If backbone is standing up to illegal but popular wars before they have the chance to become unpopular illegal wars, then Hillary Clinton is lacking in that era. If you define it as resilience in the face of brutal personal and professional attacks, then she has it in spades. I don’t doubt her personal toughness, but she seems to be in the LBJ mold of ruthless adherence to short-term political expediency over any coherent ideology.
That said, she still would be an exponentially better president than what we’ve had for the past 7+ years, and I will vote for her in the general if she’s the nominee.
I have more reasons that I decided to go with Obama, but two in particular stand out:
He demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of the issues surrounding technology than any candidate (see Techcrunch’s endorsement). This is both my profession and my passion, and therefore of vital importance to me.
I’m tired of seeing Bushes and Clintons in office. Is it really change to vote for someone who is from one of the same two families that’s been on presidential ballots since two years after I was born? Maybe, maybe not, but I’m not eager to relive the vitriol from the 90s if it can be avoided. At least, that part would be the same.
I would be pleased if we end up with a McCain-Obama race. McCain has done a few dumb things — maybe even a few reprehensible things — but I at least don’t doubt his intelligence or competence. Either of them would restore sanity and honor to an office that deserves it, and hasn’t seen it for a long, long time.
If you want a good example of why I’m skeptical of the “but it’s factually accurate” line of defense for the integrity of a news article, have a look at this Onion parody.
The headline reads “Report: 94% Of South Dakotans Unprepared For Mt. Rushmore Faces Coming Alive And Eating Everyone.” Then there’s a badly-doctored photo of the Mt. Rushmore carvings coming alive. Abe Lincoln grew a nice set of fangs.
If that were a real poll, the headline would be factually accurate. I’m sure 94 percent of South Dakotans are totally unprepared for the prospect of the faces on Mt. Rushmore coming alive and eating everyone. They’re not prepared for that because any sane person understands there is zero chance that would ever happen. But it’s still factually accurate to claim that people are unprepared.
I’m surprised he didn’t just flash alternating frames of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and 9/11 in big white block letters on a black background. Like this:
The Iowa caucuses are today. I’m a little surprised that I haven’t been able to muster up some interest in the process by now. I think there are several reasons for this:
The Republicans screwed things up so, so badly from 2000 to 2006 that it’s almost inevitable that I will vote for the Democrat for president. Even if the candidate was Giuliani or McCain, neither of whom I think are all that bad relative to Romney and Huckabee. Even if the Democrat was caught humping Ayn Rand’s corpse, promising to kill all the welfare babies.
Huckabee would be another George W. Bush, with slightly less imperialism and slightly more money spent on crackpot programs like abstinence-only education.
Romney speaks out three sides of his mouth, and he only has two. Ponder that.
Giuliani at least won’t keep any promises to the theocratic wing of the party.
And I can at least give McCain a little credit for his consistent position condemning torture. What a high watermark for the leader of the free world, huh?
But I still don’t trust either of them not to fuck things up after six years of Republicans running things.
And then there’s Ron Paul, who says things that perk my ears up sometimes. I occasionally fantasize about someone coming in and dismantling the entire federal government and starting from scratch. But if someone tried to do it in four years (and he would only last four years), it wouldn’t go very well. Which is to say that we’d need a new word because clusterfuck wouldn’t be strong enough. And his followers have a cult vibe that scares me.
I think Bill Richardson would make a good president, but I couldn’t help him have a chance even if I wanted to. That’s because Georgia is totally irrelevant at this stage of the process, and seems likely to be totally irrelevant for the general election. Not to mention totally irrelevant to most national politics.
Speaking of irrelevant… Why again did they move the caucuses/primaries so damn early? What’s the point of having a convention in July if the candidates have already been chosen by February or March?
I have no enthusiasm for any of the other Democratic candidates.
Barack Obama is a gifted speaker, but not much else to speak of.
I had a serious case of buyer’s remorse after voting for Edwards in the 2004 primary. He’s an empty suit, and I don’t believe that a mindless application of populism will help things any more than the mindless application of free market dogma has been.
Hillary Clinton? Bush-Clinton-Bush-No thanks.
Joe Biden at least has proposed a substantive plan to try to make Iraq less of an RP (an abbreviation that will have to do until we can agree on a word with more magnitude than ‘clusterfuck’). But see the last point about Richardson.
Kudos to Shelby for doing God’s work trying to help that campaign out. Speaking of Shelby, he’s in Iowa now, occasionally streaming live video.
I don’t know much about Chris Dodd other than he seems to be getting no traction.
Somebody who isn’t an astroturfing Ron Paul supporter tell me why I’m wrong about their candidate. (I have seen the “I’m an undecided voter, and the only candidate who really appealed to me was Ron Paul” comments a dozen times already. Please spare me the fucking shit. Your spam will be deleted.)
SpaceyG is going to tape people watching caucus results for Insider Advantage at Manuel’s at 7 p.m. if you’re interested. I’m undecided. About Manuel’s, but also about the election.
