Am I reading too much into this...?

The Times has an article about Kennedy's endorsement of Obama. This line jumped out at me:

Both the Clintons and their allies had pressed Mr. Kennedy for weeks to remain neutral...

And all I could think of was the passage from The Prince where Machiavelli explains that if two nearby states are in conflict, the one asking for your armed support is your friend, and the one asking for your neutrality is not.

For some reason, watching the Clintons lately has brought Machiavelli to mind quite often the last few weeks.

Tall and Nasty...

No, that's not the title of a bad porn movie... Just one person's summary of a Starbucks, which matches up with my views fairly well.

My drink was disgusting. A bland half-pint of milk with as much coffee flavour as if someone sipping an espresso had sneezed over my cup. A coffee for someone who hates coffee, but uses the bitter adult nectar as a cloak of sophistication for their babyish suckling on warm, creamy sweetness.

I was tricked into drinking one of those vile concoctions once. Never again. And don't call them coffee, please, when they're no more than coffee-flavored glop.

I'm in the wrong line of work

Notwithstanding my last post...

Okay, here's the setup. Suppose I run a company that works with the federal government... say, helping to administer a government program. Further suppose that I overbill shamelessly, to the point that the government's inspector-general finds that I got $34 million more than I should have.

What do you think should happen? Should I have to pay back the $34M?

No, silly, of course not!

I get to decide how much I should pay back. And if I can justify it on paper...

Keith New, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania agency, said it was “very pleased” with the department’s letter, and that it would continue to negotiate with the department over any repayment obligation.

“We could wind up with zero liability,” Mr. New said.

I'm not surprised he was "very pleased." I would be, too, if I could keep $34 million I wasn't supposed to have. Really, the depth of corruption and cronyism in this (mal)Administration continues to boggle.

Why Teach?

There's a meme going around, and though I wasn't specifically tagged, this being the blogosphere, I'll feel free to jump in anyway.

Why do you teach? Why is academic freedom crucial to that effort?

Several reasons why I do this.

1) It's important work. I'm preparing students to take their place not only in their careers, but as citizens. That means it's important to hold them to high standards, and to model the sort of behavior I want them to exhibit in society--reliability, honesty, integrity, etc.

2) Let's face it, it's fun. Yes, sometimes the 'performance' aspect gets a little scary--how do I get their attention? How do I keep it? How do I make this interesting? And the feedback--for better or worse--is pretty immediate.

3) It keeps me on my toes. Every semester there's something new to learn. I get a question no one ever asked before. A student asks something that forces me to go out and learn a little more. I find myself reading farther and farther afield, and saying "I can use that in class..." New technologies, new fads, new controversies. It's all good.

4) Because it's an interesting, exciting subject. Seriously. This stuff is just cool. And I get to explain how it works and help other people learn how to do cool stuff with it. How great is that?

And as for academic freedom.... One of the courses I teach is on the societal and ethical impact of computing. We discuss how tech is used and misused, and why it matters. Along the way I usually manage to get at least a few students, on both sides of the aisle, seriously offended. I try to point out inconvenient truths that annoy both sides, and make students who happen to agree with me defend their positions just as rigorously as those who don't. This means I sometimes say some politically extremely-incorrect things at the front of the classroom. Part of education is having one's preconceptions challenged. If I have to start watching what I say and not saying something that someone somewhere might find offensive, I have a much more difficult time being effective. [Do I go out of my way to be offensive for its own sake? No. Do I let it stop me from doing my job? Also no.]

Calling out the quackery

Background: The full story is over here, but suffice to say a quack by the name of Joseph Chickelue Obi got called out on his quackery on a blog... So he did what any called-out quack does. He demanded the ISP pull down the offending blog posts. Under UK law (much more plaintiff-friendly in libel suits), the ISP had little choice.

Because I happen to believe in the importance of calling out the quacks on their quackery, and discouraging the use of lawsuits to silence legitimate criticism, I'm reposting the offending articles in their entirety. And a fine job of calling out the quackery it is!

Articles from Le Canard Noir follow:

Right Royal College of Pompous Quackery - Dublin, Thursday, September 28, 2006

I had to share this with you. Following on from my recent Quack Word 'Doctor' blog, I came across the Royal College of Alternative Medicine (RCAM) , a Dublin based - well, I'm not sure quite what it is...

What caught my eye was just the shameless aggrandisement of the site. It is quite hilarious, if not a little repetitive at times. Calling yourself 'Doctor' is somewhat pompous when all you have done is paid for some international postage. However, the man behind RCAM has absolutely no shame and titles himself as the:

Distinguished Provost of RCAM (Royal College of Alternative Medicine) Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK)

Wow! Probably, just Joe to his mates. Naturally, when you Google the qualification FRCAM(Dublin), there is only person who appears to revel in this achievement. I'll leave the rest as an excercise for the reader.

The distinguished provost looks like he is just another pseudoscientific nutritionist, his spin being "Nutritional Immunomodulation". This is obviously a lot more clever than Patrick Holfords mere 'Optimum Nutrition', but having only one 'omnipill' is probably a poorer commercial decision that Patrick's vast range of supplements.

Obviously, Professor Obi has had a few problems with what probably amount to bewildering comments about his site as the legal threats and press releases concerning his 'ethical' responses to criticisms cover more space than anything else. 'Ethical' is a favourite word on the site.

The most recent press release states,

7th September 2006 : The Distinguished RCAM Provost, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK) has formally accepted appointment as Chief Professorial Examiner for the Doctor of Science (DSc) programme in Evidence Based, Alternative Medicine (EBAM) of a highly respected International University in one of the British Commonwealth Protectorates.

This new qualification is primarily aimed at Medical Graduates, Physicians, Surgeons, Pharmacists, Dentists, Osteopaths, Chiropractors, Opticians, Wellness Consultants, Herbalists, Acupuncturists, Naturopaths , Healers, Podiatrists , Chiropodists , Scientists , Healers ,Therapists, Homeopaths, Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Nurses wishing to ethically upgrade their current Qualifications in Alternative Medicine over an exceedingly intensive 12 - 36 month period of study.

British Commonwealth Protectorates? Could that be Dublin?

I really have no idea what this organisation is all about. But it looks like it could be getting quite big soon...

RCAM currently has International Vacancies for One Million (1,000,000) 'Foundation Fellows' ('Movers and Shakers') ; who will independently play a highly pivotal role in diligently mentoring (and regulating) it's future Global Membership.

So if you really think that you seriously have what it takes to become a 'Leader' in Alternative Medicine , then (perhaps) RCAM may definitely be exactly what the Doctor ordered for you.

One million. That's a lot of quacks! And they are just to mentor (and regulate) the wider quack membership! This man has ambition.

The Big J really hates real doctors. This is his most recent press release...

RCAM would like to warmly commend the various Chieftans of the National Health Service of the United Kingdom for ethically and appropriately ignoring utterly misguided calls (from a rather amusing Group of thirteen Clinical Yestermen) to compel Hard-Working (and Tax-Paying) British Citizens to additionally pay for Life Enhancing Alternative Medicine Interventions out of their very own pockets - rather than get such treatments free via the NHS. RCAM would like to also categorically state that such exceedingly flawed 'G-13′ demands that the National Health Service of the United Kingdom expediently abandon Alternative Medicine altogether (in total favour of Conventional Medicine) be diplomatically treated with the very utmost contempt which such unguarded verbal flippance duly deserves ; as none of these 13 'Eminent UK Scientists' behind such calls has professionally attained Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications in Alternative Medicine and as such cannot be deemed competent enough to make such sweeping 'Shilly-Shally' statements about the noble independent specialty of Alternative Medicine.

RCAM therefore publicly advises the General Public to lawfully go about their normal Wellness-Seeking Behaviour as usual - without any unwarranted prejudice or fear resulting from such highly self-serving, morally unethical , abjectly crude , totally unprofessional, utterly unstatesmanly, morbidly barbaric, wantonly uncivilized, profanely undemocratic and unspeakably sacrilegious perpetual affronts on the therapeutically formidable institution of Alternative Medicine.

Now, I do not have 'Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications' in Santa Clause Studies to know he does not exist. But hey. I must be a morbidly barbaric and profanely undemocratic, unethical duck.

So, struggling around the acres of pomposity I find one place where Prof Joe might be making some money. You can call him to seek his wisdom, after pre-booking an hour's slot (and handing over your credit card) for a mere 300 Euros. Alternatively, you can pay by the minute on the contact line for a trifling $10 per minute.

Its going to cost you $20 just for Joe to say Hello and to read out his numerous titles, qualifications and names. Not bad 'ethical' work.

Ethical Quackery, the Monarchy and Kate Moss - Thursday, October 12, 2006

No, this is not about our Defender of Quackery, our Quack-in-Chief His Royal Quackiness, Prince Charles, but about the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi. And yes, it is just a rather lame story written solely to get a picture of Kate on my blog.

I've written a rather lazy blog on the distinguished professor before that was just a bit of a gawp at his quacktastic website and what looks like a health phone-line scam.

Well, I've done a little more digging with Google and it has revealed a few quack gems. It has been pretty hard work, since Google returns some 6,000 pages, the vast majority just appears to be Prof Obi's self-promotion. However, if you persist in digging a few interesting facts turn up.

So, what has the little black duck found out about the "most Controversial Retired Physician and 'A-List' Medical Celebrity, Dr Joseph Chikelue Obi"?

Here we go...

1. The Irish Independent reports that his college does not exist at the Dublin address given on the web site. There's a surprise! It's just a front.

2. The Independent goes on. "In January 2003, he was suspended by for serious professional misconduct at South Tyneside District Hospital. Among the allegations made were that he failed to attend to patients, wrote strange notes about colleagues and at one point gave a dating agency phone number to a psychiatric patient."

3. He was being investigated by the police for taking thousands of pounds of a 58 year old woman to in order to cure a long standing illness.

4. The GMC strike Dr Obi off their register for "serious professional misconduct". So much for him being retired.

5. On another tack, Dr Obi has been involved in a little cyber-squatting. This looks as if it took place while he was a doctor - always after a few quid!

6. Since then, now self-titled Prof Obi, a few new avenues have been opened, including trying to entice Kate Moss away to one of his 'safe-houses' in Ireland. Hat's off!

He is quoted as saying:

Under the European Convention on Human Rights, Miss Moss still has fundamental rights, just like anyone else out there, and as far as I am concerned, she is not guilty of anything until an Ethical Jury says so.

(I mentioned before that 'ethical' was one of his favourite words.)

7. Prof Obi has been developing a Penis Enlarger (watch out Kate) that his own Royal College has now endorsed.

8. At least one person (out of the targeted million) has paid Prof Obi the fees for his college to accredit them. Dr Michael Keet (8 Canards) of the Central London College of Reflexology handed over 'hundreds'. Do we feel sorry for out-quacked quacks? I guess we ought to.

9. For those of you wanting to see behind the grand titles and see the real human being, Joseph lists his interests as Comedy in London, Whole Food Nutrition and Christian Music. On this 'Meetup' site, he describes himself as "Just a very ordinary guy . . .". That's nice.

10. His name appears very often on the blog Abolish The General Medical Council (GMC), often reporting something he has got up to. The blog describes itself as:

An ethical blog for those who publicly feel that the General Medical Council (GMC) should be Statutorily Abolished in favour of a Medical Licensing Commission (MLC) to solely register and revalidate Doctors who practise Conventional Medicine in the UK. The Blog also recommends that the GMC/MLC hands all disciplinary functions over to an Independent Clinical Tribunal (ICT) in keeping with the EU Convention on Human Rights ; to avoid (both) Institutional Bias and Multiple Jeopardy.

Oooh. There is that word 'ethical' again. And 'European Human Rights'. No name is given for the blog author but the avatar is a portrait of the queen. Another apparent obsession of Prof Obi - royalty. Could the author be none other than the Professor himself, a little agrieved for his ticking off? I hope you all click through to the blog. Maybe we will show up in his stats and whoever the writer is can get in contact and confirm one way or another.

I rather hope it is, as the final thing I turned up would just be fantastic...

11. Is the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Obi now selling ethical ring-tones? I do hope so.

Watch out Crazy Frog! Here comes the Crazy Provost...

Ouch!

Gotta watch that oversight, there...

PARIS (AP) -- French bank Societe Generale said Thursday it has uncovered a $7.14 billion fraud - one of history's biggest - by a single futures trader who fooled investors and overstepped his authority.

As usual with this sort of thing, it was done (as it only could have been) by someone on the inside.

It said a trader at the futures desk had misled investors in 2007 and 2008 through a "scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions."

The trader, who was not named, used his knowledge of the group's security systems to conceal his fraudulent positions, a statement from the bank said.

Any system can be subverted. And subversion usually does not happen because of weak algorithms (although that's only because most professional systems use peer-reviewed algorithms and protocols).

The problem, of course, and it's not a trivial problem at all, is making a set of procedures and checks that can't be gamed or subverted, but are still usable. (Who watches the watchers, etc.)

Wrong Action, Wrong Time

So the government is ready to step in, after already cutting interest rates in the biggest drop in 20 years.

Because, you see, the problem was caused by too much easy credit and free spending, so we're going to fix it by easing credit and giving people money to spend. We'll borrow the money from foreign governments--it's okay, they've got lots.

We can go through a relatively mild recession now, or a much worse one later. The housing bubble cushioned us from the effects of the dotcom crash. Now they're looking for something to cushion us from the housing crash.

I'd rather get it over with, take our medicine now, and get back on track. Trying to put it off only makes it worse.

More liars for Jesus

Autumn Sandeen has a story up at Pam's about the latest stunt from the Anything-For-Jeeezus brigade.

The problem with cheap publicity stunts is that it's too easy to reveal them as cheap publicity stunts. Not that the TV station that got duped will admit it, of course.

Buried in cables

I currently have yet another workstation set up, this one putting together the disk image for the programming contest in April. My office is beginning to resemble an electronics workshop. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, I guess, if I'd had (or taken) the time to get the end-of-semester piles cleared out from last time.

I can still find my chair, and have a clear space big enough to write on. I guess that's something.

What a week.

We've seen the Clinton slime machine kick into full gear.

Huckabee has come right out and said we should bring the Constitution into line with his view of the Bible.

Wall Street continues to implode. The CEO's who brought it about are enjoying their $100M bonuses. Republicans think the solution is to cut corporate taxes.

So not much new happening in politics.

Here at Chez Geek, we've had some network emergencies and a new router. We also had a brain-cramp moment and deleted some data that we really shouldn't have. We recovered most of it and had backups of some of the rest. We also started referring to ourself in the plural, and we think we like it.

More Shenanigans at Bank of America

Just when you thought the lies couldn't get any more brazen....

Bank of America is buying out Countrywide Financial at a hefty discount, as Countrywide is reeling from all the bad loans it made. So get this:

"I think it's positive for the borrowers," Bruce Marks, chief executive of Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America said. "There are millions of home owners with unaffordable mortgages. The deal will allow Bank of America to restructure loans to what homeowners can afford."

Marks suggested that Bank of America will be able to help current Countrywide customers where Countrywide can't, because it doesn't give risky subprime mortgages, so it plans to convert them into prime loans.

News flash... whether or not it's subprime is NOT a question of whether it's fixed-rate or adjustable-rate. It's a function of the borrower's prospective ability to repay. So apparently BoA is going to have its High Priests of Accountancy wave their magic fingers over the balance sheet, and >poof!<>Either this is incredibly sloppy reporting, even by CNN's standards, or someone's blowing a particularly cheap grade of smoke. Fortunately, they did talk to someone who injected a note of reality:

"[This deal] doesn't make any difference to the home owner," said Hanzimanolis. "The only difference will be where you pay your bill to. Just because Bank of America is buying your Countrywide subprime loan, it doesn't change [into a prime loan] when they buy it."

But the story then goes back to cheerleading for good ol' BoA, friend of the working family & all that.

Taylor noted that restructuring loans also makes financial sense for the bank. "Bank of America may very well intend on having loans restructured to ones that are closer to prime loans and performing assets, because they would rather have the homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages than face the alternatives."

In doing so, Bank of America may be able to recoup some of the losses it incurred from purchase of Countrywide, said Marks. Since the bank has already written off the value of many of those loans, it plans on getting strong returns by restructuring customers' loans.

Okay, let's take this one at a time. They've written off the loans... so they're not going to foreclose, but instead if they can get anything, even below market, they can get strong returns, stronger than expected at least. Ah, the joys of tax law. Speaking of which, how about having the taxpayers subsidize the entire deal? Which they're going to do... But that's another story.

"restructuring to avoid foreclosure," short version: Rewarding someone who took out more mortgage than they could afford, in order to avoid the painful consequences of dealing with a loan that should never have been written in the first place. Thus avoiding market discipline for irresponsible lender and irresponsible borrower.

Meanwhile, if you've been struggling to keep up on your payments? Sucker.... see how many current mortgages (versus, say, those delinquent 3+ months) get restructured. Holding off until you had a down payment saved up? Stooopid. Enjoy the higher rates and tighter credit check. Meanwhile, the guy next door, with the lower credit rating, no down payment, and more house than he can afford? He's going to get below-market interest for years, possibly the rest of his mortgage, so he doesn't get foreclosed. You, on the other hand, by showing some responsibility, demonstrated you're more than capable of making higher payments.

Responsibility is punished, and recklessness is rewarded.

Feh.

Fanboys and their obsessions

From xkcd, the coolest & geekiest webcomic out there:




That's what strikes me about the Paul crowd...there's an obsessive element to it. I understand enthusiasm for a candidate, but there's such a strong element of with-us-or-against-us and hero-worship to so much of it. Yes, I have a favorite candidate, who I'm enthusiastic about... But I don't maintain that candidate is without weakness or will be the single-handed savior of American democracy. And whatever is driving his fanbase, it's not well-reasoned agreement with his positions, which are an incoherent mess. (Get the government out of almost everything except national defense and regulating orgasms; economic ideas regarded by most economists as crackpot--and yes, they're based on ideas from a Nobel-winning economist, but it was Nobel-winning economists who brought us the LTCM debacle--a Nobel is no sign of infallibility; and why can't Paul quite bring himself to distance himself from the white-separatist fringe?)

Oh, well. Every election has its sideshow.

Clinton Desperation Syndrome

Andrew Sullivan has a quick post quoting a Clinton campaign email. He notes the subtext, but I think he misses the deeper irony.

From a Clinton campaign email list:

The Iowa caucus process is a broken and flawed process. It was designed to allow for the active party Dems generally known to one another to assign delegates and was not designed to handle a flood of students and independents. It was a system designed to give more power to Dem party loyalists. In the tension over whether the candidates should be chosen by the party or by the general public, the Iowa caucus was designed to give the party the advantage. For this reason, the Iowa system failed on Thursday.

Translation: we couldn't control it. So it sucks.

The irony is that Her Inevitableness ran on a not-so-subtle argument that she had the ground organization (i.e. control of the party activists) to lock up the nomination.

Obama won in spite of the control of the machinery, not because of it.

Obama as Rorschach

So pundits on the right see Obama as being, underneath the airy rhetoric, actually deeply progressive.

Meanwhile, some on the left are concerned that underneath it all, he's actually deeply conservative.

Meanwhile, others recognize his liberalism but compare him to Regan all the same.


I don't know whether it's seeing different subsets of the facts; seeing the same things but valuing them differently; or some sort of political Rorschach. But it certainly is interesting.

Well, crud.

Just got word back that a conference paper I'd submitted was turned down. The reviews were generally positive, but one reviewer essentially ripped me a new orifice, rating the paper very low, which brought the average rating down beneath the acceptance threshold.

Now that experience--several generally positive reviews and one blistering denunciation--is not in itself all that unusual. It's not universal, but it happens. And reading the blistering reviews, while not always pleasant, is often educational. I've read through blistering reviews that did in fact home in on design flaws, overstated claims, or places where I had, in fact, overlooked something. Not pleasant, but useful. And someone clearly went to some trouble to review the paper, to read it closely. I haven't always agreed with the criticisms, but they are, for the most part, at least mostly fair.

In this case, I can't help wondering. The comments included that I should have included some examples of X (there were 3 in the paper already, wasn't that enough?), should have included some examples of Y (Y being something completely irrelevant to the point I was making), it should have been presented as a case study (I thought it was, though the words "case study" didn't appear in the title, so maybe that point wasn't clear), and that I didn't address any of several other questions (which admittedly were interesting, but were not what the paper was about).

The rest of the blistering criticism seem to boil down to "this wasn't the paper I wanted to read; you should have written a different paper."

And the icing on the cake: My paper was the only one reviewed for this conference by this particular reviewer.

Oh well. The system is what it is, and I knew what it was like when I chose this career. Most of the time it works fairly well, but it's not perfect, and sometimes the imperfections spatter. And if I'd submitted something I thought was marginal and it got accepted because a review got sloppy the other direction, I wouldn't be complaining.

A good question

J. Zasloff asks a very good question:

Now that Edwards seems fatally wounded, I'm still wondering whom I should vote for. So I'll ask it again: what is at the center of the Obama Administration's first 100 days?

He draws a contrast with Edwards, who has made poverty the centerpiece of his campaign. I'm not sure I could answer that question about Hillary. But he makes a valid point, that "change we can believe in" is perhaps inspiring, but also pretty vague. (I'm not sure I'd agree that Edwards is "fatally wounded," at least not yet. Wounded, yes. Fatally? Perhaps not. Too early to tell. But that's another question.)

If Obama's presidency were a mixed bag at best...what would he point to at the end of the year with pride and say "at least we got that done, and if that was done, the other things aren't as important?"

Who needs parody?

You know, it's really hard to write a good, spot-on parody of the classic whiny liberal NuYawker looking down her nose at the silly rubes in the Midwest, giving a dozen totally bogus made-up reasons why it's so unfair that people outside NuYawk City and California have to be considered at all.

On the other hand, why bother writing a parody when the Times has Gail Collins?

Now it gets interesting

The GOP's Wall Street wing and East Coast Establishment (to whatever degree either bloc is non-mythical) both loathe Huckabee. Winning in Iowa will definitely help his fundraising, but he's still short of cash coming into Super Tuesday. If he can keep riding the evangelical vote, the difference in fundraising may not be as decisive as it would be for some other candidates. Still, it looks as if a GOP bloodbath is in the works. The knives will be out, and as I said a bit ago, paraphrasing someone else I can't remember, no one does a political knife fight better than Republicans.

Of course, a lot can happen between now and the time the primaries are over. The only Republican to win Iowa and go on to win the election was Bush 2000. Still plenty of time to coalesce around another candidate, and try to put down the upstart preacher who doesn't understand the role of the evangelical vote in Rove's GOP--to reliably turn up at elections, then go back to church and wait another 4 years, until they're needed to vote Republican again. No, the evangelicals are refusing to go to the back of the bus, and the rest of the party is looking on in horror. They embraced the fusion of politics and religion; they are now reaping the whirlwind. Whether they can get past this point without going through a complete purge and meltdown is very much up in the air; having perfected the politics of division and destruction, they appear ready to be consumed by it.

Which makes the Ron Paul situation all the more interesting. Ten percent of the vote, fifth place finish, behind Fred "Campaigning is such a bother" Thompson and McCain. But it seems high enough that Fox News' decision not to include him in the Republican debates is even more transparent than it was before. After all, it's still very very early in the process; too early, it seems, to be able to say with justification that it's only about including 'viable' candidates. Paul has a number of ideas that are distinctly crackpottish, but he's the only republican candidate talking seriously about limits on executive power, which is the defining issue of the next administration. As for his crackpottish ideas, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let him explain himself; that'll do the job of sinking his candidacy.

On the Dem side, well, this makes thing interesting indeed. Hillary is trying to sell herself as the agent of change, while also running on nostalgia for Bill. Um, hel-lo.... The 'inevitability' narrative just took a hit close to the waterline. She came in third. Not far behind Edwards, but third all the same. This raises the pressure for New Hampshire; she has to win there, convincingly, or the 'inevitability' meme is dead and the campaign is over. (If she loses Iowa and New Hampshire, then her last chance is South Carolina; but if she loses the first two, what are the chances of taking the third? It seems the more the voters get to know Hillary, the more they prefer someone else...)

Edwards has got to be sweating it. His campaign is still viable, but no more than that. He was hoping for a win, he came in a rather distant 2nd. He's got to do well in NH and in the south. Whether his trial-lawyer skills will be enough.... we'll see.

For Obama, he's celebrating, and rightfully so. His speech hit all the right notes, he won by a respectable margin with a large turnout...he can legitimately claim a very real victory. Yes, if he takes the nomination, the choice of a running mate becomes very important; it has to be someone with serious foreign-policy chops. But that's a very good problem to have. Yes, the slime machine (both the Clintons' and the Republicans') will kick into high gear. But the campaign has a way of testing a candidate; so far he's risen to the challenge every time.

Also, John Aravosis has a hilarious statistic.

Hey, that'll boost traffic...

Documentation of the Ron Paul Effect...

[but is the humiliation worth it?]

[this post & the previous: h/t Andrew Sullivan]

Even a conservative evangelical sees through it

There's an interesting post discussing one's experience on the campaign trail for the Huckabee campaign, and the many interesting things learned....

The Mainstream Media Ain't So Bad -- Many bloggers (including me) have a knee-jerk reaction to the mainstream media. We "just know" they have a liberal bias and that they can't be trusted to report accurately on Republicans and conservatives. If my experience is any indication, then most of what we know is "just wrong."

[...]I expected that I'd have the toughest time with the professional journalists but most of the reporters that I dealt with (especially Michael Luo of the New York Times and Jonathan Martin of Politico) were quite fair and always professional. Even when their coverage was cringe-inducing I rarely could fault them for being inaccurate or putting their own biases ahead of the facts.

Unfortunately, the same can not be said of the conservative media.

[...] Almost always the mainstream media from the "liberal" outlets were more fair and balanced than were the ones from the "conservative" side of the media.

Some conservative outlets, of course, were notably fair and accurate. [...]

But while there were a few other exceptions that I could praise ... far too many of the conservative outlets refused to present any evidence that conflicted with their typical anti-Huckabee narrative.

[...]

As a campaign staffer, I found such behavior frustrating. But as a consumer of conservative media I found it infuriating. There are a number of pundits, bloggers, reporters, and radio hosts that I will never trust again to be "fair and balanced."

Sometimes learning the truth can be painful, can't it? Sadder but wiser now, and all that....

Mitt Romney will never be President -- I won't be surprised if Mitt Romney wins the Iowa Caucus. I will be surprised, however, if he's still in the race when the South Carolina primary comes around. Even if the impending scandal that has been rumored for weeks doesn’t derail his campaign (I can't say what it is but you should hear about it before Jan. 8), his inherent dishonesty will eventually do him in.

It's not just his flip-flops on the issues, though that should be enough....No, what will destroy Romney's chances is that he will lie about an issue, know that he is lying, know that you know he is lying, and say it anyway. It's not just that he's dishonest. It's that he thinks we're stupid.

Now it's true that in the short term, we do tend to be stupid.... [M]ost people have yet to realize--as have the other campaigns and the mainstream media--he is a liar. But eventually the public catches on.

[...] Because most of it is done behind the scenes (i.e., scurrilous emails sent to reporters and influential bloggers) it is difficult to point out the most egregious examples. Don't take my word on it, though. Ask around to the other campaigns and media outlets.

[...] His "lie and buy" strategy may get him a narrow victory in Iowa but he'll flame out soon enough.

Tell it, brother.

There's nothing here that we didn't already know. But it's nice to see it admitted.

The "fair and balanced" thing, I think, goes back to a point Garry Trudeau made (and yikes, I'm actually quoting him, what's wrong with me?) The so-called "liberal" takes it as a given that the other person's viewpoint may be valid, that listening to "the other" is inherently worthwhile. (What's done after that, and how it's often misused, is another story. And I should note that "listen to" and "agree with" are not synonyms.) The conservative, on the other hand, knows he's right... Why should he listen to someone who's wrong? If he knows what the story is, why should he listen to some staffer try to convince him otherwise?

The whole sorry spectacle is, to a degree, the legacy of Karl Rove, the politics of personal destruction writ large.

On the other hand, maybe it's simpler than that. Nobody does a political knife-fight better than Republicans. The money elite of the GOP is terrified of Huckabee, and want him stopped, almost as much as they want Ron Paul to shut up.

Oh well. Nice to see someone start to gather just a bit more awareness than they had before...