Rachel Maddow: Inside-out

I'm a big, big fan of Rachel Maddow. Lesley Stahl recently interviewed her for WowOwow, Women on the Web. It is an entertaining read.

27 January 2009

Obama's Inauguraton: Amazing View!

A friend sent me a link to an amazing site with a panoramic view of the inauguration. Part of what is different is that you can control your point of view. Move it around. Zoom in and out. Have fun. It is really cool.

26 January 2009

Global Warming: Obama's 1st Move

Even as Congressional Republicans continue to stall efforts against global warming, President Obama is moving forward. Making good on a campaign pledge, he is allowing states to write tailpipe emissions laws that are more strict than those of the federal government. This move was long opposed by the second Bush Administration. From the New York Times:

President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and marks a sharp reversal from Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is one of the most dramatic actions Mr. Obama can take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

26 January 2009

The Fourth Estate

Here is an interesting article on the sorry state of the Fourth Estate.

23 January 2009

Bush Daughters to Obama Daughters

The Bush twins wrote the Obama daughters a letter, delivered as the latter pair entered their lives at the White House. NBC later asked the writers to read the letter, sharing it with the public. It demonstrates wisdom, humor, and class. Nicely done.

23 January 2008

Air Force One

This Sunday, January 25th, the National Geographic Channel will be presenting a program on Air Force One. It includes information on the current plane, on Obama's first trip as the President-elect, and on its history. Check local listings.

Let's hope things go better for Obama than they did for Harrison Ford!

22 January 2009

I'm a Weeper

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm a crier. In the words of Jude Law in The Holiday, "I'm a weeper." I cry at movies, The Holiday certainly among them. I cry at news stories. I cry reading books. Looks toward my wife often bring tears. Hell, I cry at commercials. Before today, I've never cried at the inauguration of a president. Today, I did. I also tend to tear up every time I see the Obama daughters, not because they are sad little girls -- of course! -- but because it makes me so very filled with happiness and hope to see these faces reflecting now from the White House. And for the first time, I cried when I heard Hail to the Chief played for Obama for the first time at the Congressional luncheon. I like it.

20 January 2009

Obama Inauguration

Here is the link to the official site for the inauguration. The text for Obama's speech can be found here.

The Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery, who gave the benediction at the inauguration, rocks. He simply rocks.

20 January 2009

21 January 2009 Addition: Video for Obama's speech can be found here.

Whitehouse.gov

At the moment that President Obama concluded the oath of office, with a single refresh click of a key, the new White House site was up and running.

20 January 2009

President Obama

First thought: Oh.... thank, God!

Second thought: May our hopes be met by this man. We can't afford them not to be.

20 January 2009

Bush to Get to Obama

TPM reader "AR" had this to say on President Bush and his key role in the election of Obama.

So this is why Al Gore had to lose. Had he won, we might have been witnessing the inaugural of President Joe Lieberman. Or, worse still, President Jeb Bush. True, we may have avoided 9/11 because a President Gore would have read and acted upon the Presidential Daily Brief that warned of an impending attack by Osama bin Laden, and because he would have heeded Richard Clarke's dire, "hair on fire" warnings about Al Qaeda. True, we would not have gone to war against Iraq had 9/11 occurred, a conflict that has benefited Iran (and thus Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood) more than any other nation. Instead, we would have gone into Afghanistan with Pakistan's help - notice Pakistan's new found lament that it is a "victim of terrorism" - and rounded up Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, ending the scourge that is Al Qaeda. True, Hurricane Katrina would have been handled with competence, the capital markets would not have collapsed as a consequence of deregulation run amok, and global warming would have been arrested if not reversed. But, we would not be inaugurating President Barack Hussein Obama's first term.

And this is why John Kerry had to lose. Had he won, we might have been witnessing the second inaugural of a Kerry administration, or perhaps the first inaugural of a McCain/Lieberman administration. True, the Iraq war would likely be over and a few thousand American soldiers and private security contractors would consequently be alive and in good health. And, the markets and health care and roads and bridges and our other national ailments would be just that - ailments, rather than the debilitating trauma that they are today. But, we would not have had eight years of experimenting with the extreme ideology that the Bush administration has inflicted on the United States of America. And, it is this experiment that has provided cold hard empirical evidence that the blind obeisance to free unregulated markets that is the hallmark of contemporary conservatism, coupled with the unilateral, muscular, "shoot first and ask questions afterwards" foreign policy that is at the core of neoconservatism, is as bankrupt a governing paradigm as the centrally planned economy of socialism. Had it not been for the second Bush term, we would not be inaugurating President Barack Hussein Obama's first term.

From the depths of our despair that can be graphed as a downward sloping straight line starting with the Florida electoral recount, and running through 9/11, Enron, the anthrax case of domestic terrorism, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, the politically motivated firings of U. S. attorneys, the creation of "free speech zones", Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of Wall Street, and the replacement of the Clinton budget surplus with record deficits, all occurrences on George W. Bush's watch, there now emerges an historically singular opportunity. A brown man whose middle name is Hussein is taking an oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution, something that would have been inconceivable had George W. Bush not been the 43rd President and something that takes on more than symbolic significance in light of the defilement the Constitution has suffered under the administration of the 43rd President.

In India, the country of my birth, we would call this sequence of events "Karma". In the United States of America, the country of my adoption, we should call this sequence of events "opportunity". An opportunity to restore America's brand abroad, by serving as a beacon of hope rather than as an object of fear. An opportunity to remind the world that American exceptionalism is derived from our charter documents -- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - not from our ability to instill fear. An opportunity to restore the rule of law at home, by eschewing torture as state policy, and restoring order to markets run amok. An opportunity to credibly put to rest a legitimately paranoid world's fear about America's imperialistic ambitions. An opportunity to again be the greatest nation the earth has ever seen. In Riyadh and in Rawalpindi, in Kabul and in Kyoto, in Madrid and in Mumbai, in the slums of Dharawi and in the streets of Dacca, the world will watch the improbable inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama and know that, once again in America, anything is possible.

19 January 2009

George Bush's Clock

A joke that was forwarded to me...

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him.

He asked, 'What are all those clocks?'

St. Peter answered, 'Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock.

Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move.'

'Oh,' said the man, 'whose clock is that?'

'That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.'

'Incredible,' said the man. 'And whose clock is that one?'

St. Peter responded, 'That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life.'

'Where's President Bush's clock?' asked the man.

'Bush's clock is in Jesus' office.

He's using it as a ceiling fan.

17 January 2009

National Day of Service

The President-elect has called for this coming Monday, January 19th, to be a national day of service. A huge number of organizations have stepped forward to facilitate this call. My wife and I will be spending the day working at a local soup kitchen. To find participating organizations in your area, follow this link. Other service opportunities can be found here.

17 January 2009

Hudson River Airplane Crash

Amazing new video of the crash and the first moments thereafter was released today. It shows just how quickly passengers were moved outside the plane and just how little time elapsed before the first rescue boat arrived. In about four minutes, a river ferry arrived and did an amazing job of matching the drift of the plane to help remove passengers. Had that not happened, the ferry could have made the situation much more dire in the opening minutes.

The more I read about this, the more it looks like the plane's pilot, Captain , is -- to quote "Apollo 13" -- a steely-eyed missile man. Bravo!

17 January 2008

18 January 2008 Addition: More on the pilot.

"Forgive and Forget"

Paul Krugman writes today that Bush and members of his administration must be held accountable for their violations of the law. It's up to Obama, most likely, to push Congress to set up an independent investigator to look into these matters. Well, actually, it is up to us as citizens to actually care.

16 January 2009

The George Bush Years

I'd been contemplating writing a recap of the Bush presidency. The last eight years have seen a marked decline in the status, influence, and strength of the nation, quite probably the greatest in our history. Bush is easily the greatest failure as a leader in the modern era if not in our history as a whole. However, I'm worn out on the guy. Or maybe I've been worn out by him. Watching his farewell address last night, I could not even muster rage at his words, although pity was far from my mind. It is simply that he has done a great deal to dig America into a very, very deep hole and now the next guy must attempt to dig us out... if he can.

Arianna Huffington wrote a short piece today at her site. It is worth a look at the whole thing, but the tease for it is as follows:

Arianna Huffington: Bush's Farewell Address: Still Delusional After All These Years

Thursday night's valedictory speech was quintessential Bush: delusional from beginning to end. He made Afghanistan sound like a swell place to vacation when, in truth, only those with a death wish venture out these days without an armed convoy. He lauded Iraq as "a friend of the United States" -- without ever mentioning the fact that if Iraq has a BFF it is Iran, not America. He claimed that America's "air, water, and lands are measurably cleaner." Who is doing the measuring, the same eco-unfriendly companies to which he handed his environmental policies? It's dangerous spin. It's easy to feel a pang of pity for a guy heading out the door. But the more sympathy he evokes, the more susceptible we are to the lies he is telling. Before we know it, his revisionism becomes accepted as the truth.

I'm sure there will be more recaps of Bush in the week to come. When I see a good one, I'll let you know.

16 January 2009

Edit: 17 January 2009: Video with Huffington here.

Our New Leaders

Here are our new leaders. Wish them success. We can't afford anything less.

15 January 2009

Breath of Fresh Air

I may have a few policy issues with the President Elect right now, but damn is he a breath of fresh air.

14 January 2008

Bingo!

Great new post on TPM by Josh Marshall, quoted here in full:

If Not Now, When?

Real change almost always comes in the face of crisis. So if you believe that Global Warming is real and that sometime soon will have to be confronted in a big way ... and if you believe that our reliance on oil is not only an environmental threat but a threat to our economic security and national security as well ... and if you believe that we need to start manufacturing things that people in other countries want to buy, when else do you expect real change to come on these issues -- a real start on the big changes -- if not now?

It's a lot to expect early in an administration. But look through a couple centuries of our history and you'll see that there are just no examples of administrations that started small and did big things in year 2 or 4 or 6. That doesn't happen. Look at Roosevelt, Johnson, Reagan, presidents pack their biggest punch on day one. And even though many big things can happen in subsequent years, the presidencies are almost always defined at the beginning. Later triumphs and reforms grow from the changed political terrain created at the outset.

A lot I've written over the last few weeks that's been critical of what seems to me like a too little ambitious approach from Obama. But I base that on a belief that the current economic crisis is just the immediate hole we find ourselves in, perhaps the immediate manifestation of these other deep and critical challenges I noted above -- all tied to unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels, financialization of the US economy and decline of US manufacturing. I don't think we have much time to spare.

13 January 2009

My Spidey Sense...

Yet another reason to like Obama.

With great power comes great responsibility!

9 January 2009

Not a New Deal?

Does Obama get it on the economy? This article in The New Republic by John Judis is a good read on the subject.

Happy New Year!

9 January 2009