Congratulations to the 250,000th visitor to my site. You found me via a google search for "sex poems." i'd call you a perv, except that my site comes up as the number two link for "sex poems," so what does that say about me?

Posted by: annika at 02:20 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Sex poems? Where?

Posted by: Casca at June 25, 2005 03:56 PM (qBTBH)

2 funny!! oooh i failed miserably at the 4 question QUIZ!! 1.How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator? cut it up... 2.How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator? get a bigger fridge! 3.The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend... except one. Which animal does not attend? the human. 4.There is a river you must cross but it is inhabited by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it? ...still thinking on that one! i had to like scratch my head for like 45 min... heee... but being sick it kept the thoughts of pain away... thanks...

Posted by: maizzy at June 25, 2005 05:32 PM (FbHOJ)

3 feel better sweetie

Posted by: annika at June 25, 2005 09:41 PM (95PTW)

4 250, 000? My Blogger blog got over 15,000. I can't even get Sitemeter to work on my new site. *sigh*

Posted by: Mark at June 26, 2005 02:00 AM (gsO4u)

5 Barbara Boxer is naked? WHERE?

Posted by: mark at June 26, 2005 05:10 PM (Vg0tt)

6 Congratulations...doesn't matter to any of us how you arrived at 250K...just that Crystal Clear you have arrived time and time and time again...Here is hoping the next 250k are even sweeter than the last!

Posted by: Crystal Clear at June 26, 2005 09:23 PM (CQDk7)

7 Congrats, for making it hapen, anyway.

Posted by: Shirazi at June 27, 2005 05:56 AM (G8Pvj)

8 Gotta be the poetry, man. CongRATulations!

Posted by: Victor at June 27, 2005 06:02 AM (L3qPK)

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Over at The Sheila Variations, there's a very interesting excerpt from the book Dot.Con: How America Lost Its Mind and Money in the Internet Era, by John Cassidy. Here's an excerpt from the excerpt:

On the morning of March 30, 10 million shares of Priceline.com opened on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol PCLN. They were issued at $16 each, but the price immediately jumped to $85. At the close of trading, the stock stood at $68; it had risen 425 percent on the day. Priceline.com was valued at almost $10 billion -- more than United Airlines, Continental Airlines, and Northwest Airlines combined.

. . .

Priceline.com started operating on April 5, 1998. By the end of the year it had sold slightly more than $35 million worth of airline tickets, which cost it $36.5 million. That sentence bears rereading. Here was a firm looking for investors that was selling goods for less than it had paid for them -- and as a result had made a trading loss of more than a million dollars. This loss did not include any of the money Priceline.com had spent developing its Web site and marketing itself to consumers. When these expenditures were accounted for, it had lost more than $54 million. Even that figure wasn't what accountaints consider the bottom line. In order to persuade the airlines to supply it with tickets., Priceline.com had given them stock options worth almost $60 million. Putting all these costs together, the company had lost more than $114 million in 1998.

How could a start-up retailer that was losing three dollars for every dollar it earned come to be valued, on its first day as a public company, at more than United Airlines, Continental Airlines, and Northwest Airlines put together?

Posted by: annika at 11:11 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 I remember those days well. Seemed like everyone threw caution (and their money) to the wind.

Posted by: Mark at June 06, 2005 11:26 AM (Hk4wN)

2 It ranks up their with the Tulip bubble 1593 as one on the great follies of mankind. At one point, a single tulip bulb was selling for more than the cost of a mansion. The end of the dot.com bubble started when an analyst in the Fall of 2000 stated that 200 dot.coms would run out of cash within a year and fail. He was somewhat wrong as 206 companies failed in 2001.

Posted by: Jake at June 06, 2005 11:58 AM (r/5D/)

3 Thanks for the link, Annika!

Posted by: red at June 06, 2005 12:00 PM (qxKkx)

4 Annika - Why do unproven (in professional competition) draft picks in major team sports get paid big bucks? Same reason - potential. Actually, the IPO seemed fairly well priced at $16 in hindsight - the stock now makes accounting profits and I don't think that 114M loss was accurate (given the way the author notes the 60M option as a direct 60M loss). Of course, the business model didn't pan out to support the post-IPO market price..but then again, I bought Microsoft in summer 1987 after an already large price gain and saw its net income fall for two consecutive qtrs (but the stock price did okay - fell 25% on that Oct 1987 day) because "the model" made long-term sense even given the price. The difference, a decade plus later, is more people and more money chasing promising results drives the price up faster, ahead of the company delivering, or showing greater promise to deliver. Remember, in the same draft, both Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf got a 11M + signing bonuses!

Posted by: Col Steve at June 06, 2005 01:59 PM (DmFF+)

5 This sounds like piling on, but the airline business is not exactly a money maker either. There are plenty of 3rd world countries that can't even feed their people that run national airlines at a loss. In this country, until one major carrier goes bust, don't look for a lot of profit from the others either.

Posted by: Mark at June 06, 2005 03:34 PM (nQAo8)

6 The Fed mucked with the economy by lowering interest rates back in the 90's to help create an expansion of credit in order to fuel an economic boom. What this did was to create an environment of easy money where business which didn't look profitable before now became attractive (at the marginal level) and drew resources away from firms that were very likely better suited to have them. One may say "well if the market worked like it was supposed to that money would've gone to the right people" and you would be right, but with the aforementioned expansion of credit provided by the Fed, lenders have easier terms so to speak (witness the boom of Venture Capitalists, the number of failed startups -- hmm, where did this extra money come from to invest in BuildYourOwnCar.com and advertise on the Superbowl for it?) Credit expansion does not create real wealth so the boom that resulted in the 90's lacked a solid base. Again witness stock prices as an indicator, as the anectdote with Priceline shows. There was too much cash on the market. Eventually interest rates will rise to reflect the scarcity of real resources. What we have been seeing lately is deflation marked with contrasting incredibly low interest rates, but this is still failing (somewhat) to stimulate the economy. What the gov't needs to do is let the bad capital wash away, figuratively speaking, so that a solid base can re-establish itself. Also regulate in an intelligent manner (i.e. do more like Sen. McCain's words and less like Eliot Spitzer's actions).

Posted by: Scof at June 06, 2005 04:40 PM (7z8ua)

7 Pretty good Scof.

Posted by: Casca at June 06, 2005 07:22 PM (qBTBH)

8 good comments, all. And glad to see you back Col. Steve.

Posted by: annika at June 06, 2005 07:28 PM (wSNSb)

9 The credit boom really did not come from lowering interest rates. Whether a bank borrows at 2.00% or 2.01%, it still loans the money out at interest rates which today routinely exceed 30%. (And it makes fully 25% of its money from fees and penalties.) The dot-con days were a bubble, just like the tulips, and they created the same problem: a massive amount of "cash" in people's hands which really has no basis in fact. A massive amount of lending which will produce loans that can never be repaid. And today, a massive effort on the part of banks to cover-up the true extent of those loans. Loans that should never have been made. Loans that were made using Federally insured money.

Posted by: Mike at August 02, 2005 04:20 PM (K2Nfr)

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Big time Munuvian Rusty has an excellent post that examines three questions:

What exactly is a gulag and how widespread was the gulag system? What were the Soviet gulags like? And how do the worst and yet unproven allegations of abuse at Guantanomo Bay compare to what happened in Soviet gulags?

Posted by: annika at 11:05 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Mark Nicodemo writes in the comments section to the preceding post, "She must be a law student with that arrogance." i figured Mark was talking about me, since Shelly is actually short for Sheldon, and also since i have been attracting well-meaning criticism like flies lately. Turns out he was probably referring to Shelly, but still, the attribution of "arrogance" to moi is not undeserved. Especially in regards to my writing style.

But, to be more accurate, it's not arrogance that you find in my writing, it's what i call a certain casual pedantry, or even more accurately, as the master E.B. White called it, "a breezy manner."

Truly, in this blog i continually, unjudiciously, perhaps annoyingly, although unconsciously violate Mr. White's rule number 12 from chapter five of the classic rulebook The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

Does this ring any bells?

Do not affect a breezy manner.

The volume of writing is enormous, these days, and much of it has a sort of windiness about it, almost as though the author were in a state of euphoria. "Spontaneous me," sang Whitman, and, in his innocence, let loose the hordes of uninspired scribblers who would one day confuse spontaneity with genius.

The breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that comes to mind is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day. Open any alumni magazine, turn to the class notes, and you are quite likely to encounter old Spontaneous Me at work--an aging collegian who writes something like this:

Well, chums, here I am again with my bagful of dirt about your disorderly classmates, after spending a helluva weekend ing N'Yawk trying to view the Columbia game from behind two bumbershoots and a glazed cornea. And speaking of news, howzabout tossing a few chirce nuggets my way?

This is an extreme example, but the same wind blows, at lesser velocities, across vast expanses of journalistic prose. The author in this case has managed in two sentences to commit most of the unpardonable sins: he obviously has nothing to say, he is showing off and directing the attention of the reader to himself, he is using slang with neither provocation nor ingenuity, he adopts a patronizing air by throwing in the word chirce, he is humorless (though full of fun), dull, and empty. He has not done his work.

Oh hell, never mind. Tomorrow is poetry day and you can read someone else's writing then.

Posted by: annika at 11:56 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Right Wing News has a new poll of bloggers' favorite columnists. i participated, and my list included:

Ann Coulter
Charles Krauthammer
Dick Morris
John Podhoretz
Victor Davis Hanson
Jonah Goldberg
Peggy Noonan
Rich Lowry

The winner was Mark Steyn, deservedly, even though i forgot to put him on my list.

Posted by: annika at 11:05 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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From the trustworthy old BBC.

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Doug TenNapel analogizes a recent VDH column about the War on Terror with the current Senate filibuster fight.

Check it out. i think it's pretty brilliant.

And was that Doug's voice i heard on Friday's Hugh Hewitt show? If so, Doug, why didn't you use that opportunity to plug my blog? i thought we were friends.

Note to anyone calling any talk radio show in the future: plug my blog!

More: Re: the filibuster fight, i think the best pithy argument i've heard to date came from Zell Miller last night on Hannity and Colmes. i can't remember his exact words, so i'll re-state the argument in my own.

Question: How many votes does it take to confirm a judicial nominee in the Senate? Answer fifty-one.

Question: How many votes does it take to defeat a judicial nominee in the Senate? Answer forty-one.

Does that make any sense at all?

If you ask me, the filibuster rule is stupid and should be done away with in toto.

Posted by: annika at 12:00 PM | Comments (28) | Add Comment
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1 Be careful of what you wish for- I think it's fair to say that the filibuster has historically more frequently been a tool of conservatives than of liberals.

Posted by: Preston at April 23, 2005 01:09 PM (pm/Ll)

2 ??? When? The R's don't have the stones to pull the trigger when they HAVE the votes. The last major use I can remember is Dixiecrat Senators, dat be u Head Kleagal Bird, blocking equal rights legislation in the 1960's. Before that, let's see, keeping the world safe for slave holders?

Posted by: Casca at April 23, 2005 05:07 PM (cdv3B)

3 Uh yeah, the Civil Rights bills and the nomination of Abe Fortas appointment to Supreme Court , opposition to Wilson' s war preparations and the ban on semi-automatic weapons at gun shows come to mind. You'd think if it were a matter of principle the two parties could agree to an end of the filibuster in say 2008 or later- when the beneficiaries of such a change would be unknown. But the everchanging 'blue slip' rules and the disintegrating ethics process in the House suggests that just maybe this isn't a matter of principle but simply a naked power grab.

Posted by: Preston at April 23, 2005 08:07 PM (pm/Ll)

4 I'm hoping that they haven't waited too long. This is about the Supreme Court, you know. Delay works in the favor of the Dem's. The longer they can put these CA votes off, the better it is for them.

Posted by: shelly at April 23, 2005 09:29 PM (pO1tP)

5 Shelly: What do you mean? Annika: What did Zell Miller say about the process of never allowing the nominees to leave the committee? Is it fair for 10 Senators to be able to vote down a nominee? Should we dismantle the Judiciary Committee?

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 05:47 AM (pm/Ll)

6 Get a grip Preston. It is all about power, and fair is where you buy cotton candy. Principle? Grow up. BTW, you make the argument that the F-bomb has disproportionately helped R's, then cling to examples that illustrate the opposite, or are you confused about who is a liberal/conservative?

Posted by: Casca at April 24, 2005 07:22 AM (cdv3B)

7 My, my- calm, reasoned argument! Can we put that quote on the door of the RNC headquarters: "Principle? Grow up." It certainly makes the hypocrisies of the Republican Party make sense. Actually, I made the case that the filibuster has been used to support _conservative_ causes. You know as well as I that conservativism was well entrenched within the Democratic party before the ideological polarization after Nixon's 'Southern Strategy'. It is irrelevant to the current filibuster debate that Byrd was a segregationist- he has repeatedly renounced his earlier position as a mistake and now chooses to caucus with the party that 90% of African Americans vote for. To pretend that Strom Thurmond- by joining the 'Party of Lincoln' somehow was absolved of the same stain is to have an interesting view of the history of American political parties.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 07:44 AM (pm/Ll)

8 I have to return to this... If you think it is simply about power not principle- why on earth are you interested in politics? Unless you are writing from your K Street office that power is pretty unlikely to headed your way. In reality the power is used by Tom DeLay to help Jack Abramoff and then for Abramoff to help DeLay. This is satisfactory to you? If so, I have to assume you were not one of those so-called 'morals' voters. I also have to assume that you believe that the whole 'Contract with America' focus on Congressional ethics was just something concocted for the sheeple. You might also be comfortable with the notion that the Whitewater investigation was simply a pretext to engage in a permanent taxpayer funded campaign against the President. It's all about the power after all... Now, if we could just get Stalin to run for President in 2008... He know how to keep 'em in line.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 08:55 AM (pm/Ll)

9 the only time i ever saw anyone on capitol hill who was motivated by principle, i was watching a frank capra movie. Anyways, no. Zell Miller didn't mention the use of committee votes to block a nominee. That could be abused too. But there's no filibuster in the committee rules, and they use a simple majority vote. Sounds fair to me. If a nominee makes it through committee, the Senate should be given a chance to debate and vote. The filibuster rule as it's currently written, doesn't allow either.

Posted by: annie at April 24, 2005 09:15 AM (dRptT)

10 "Ma, ma, some Republican stole half my hog! How do you know it was a Republican? If it was a Democrat the whole thing'd be gone." Actually, the power quote is on Howard Dean's door. Have you ever seen anyone dance so hard for the booboisie? The roots of the Republican party are in abolition, and the roots of the Democrats in tyranny. That is why it took a bloody war, the greatest in our history, and a hundred years to pry the fingers of slavery from the throat of the South. Those fingers belonged to Democrats. The entire philosophy of the D's today is one of power and hanging on to it. It is the unholy alliance of union thugs, liberal theocrats, and government tit-suckers that keeps them alive. It is a flawed strategy. Decentralization of information creates a more powerful citizenry, and that is why the Republicans are ascendant. You sir are fucked. I recommend reconsidering your shiboleths should you desire any happiness and peace in life.

Posted by: Casca at April 24, 2005 10:59 AM (cdv3B)

11 Wow, you really presume to know what makes me happy? Maybe it's just listening to your potty mouth... Yeah, the Democrats are the party of tyranny- that was exactly what Jefferson was all about, if you squint your eyes really hard. There's no question that you can lay the blame of Jim Crow at the feet of the Democratic Party. However, it's obscenely intellectually dishonest to ignore that the _people_ responsible for Jim Crow eventually found their ways to the Republican Party. I don't know what booboisie means. I'm not one of the kool kids but I'm willing to listen if you're patient. In my understanding, the philosophy of the Democratic Party is to provide for the shared sacrifice and security of every member of society understanding that the market is the most efficient generator of wealth yet government is often required to fill in gaps. I guess we've got a lot to learn from Tom DeLay and his cronies about how the world really is.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 11:58 AM (pm/Ll)

12 Annie: The filibuster debate seems to ignore the blue slip rules which suddenly grew expansively when the Republicans took the Senate in 1994 and then suddenly grew less permissive when George Bush won in 2000. To pretend that the Democrats are pioneering legislative tactics to thwart extreme judicial nominees is hogwash. I suppose anyone is free to have an ultimately cynical view of politics- but what is the motivation of individuals to be involved if they understand that the 'party of fiscal responsibility' is liable to run up 2 trillion dollars in debt if it is suddenly politically advantageous? That's not a rhetorical question.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 12:05 PM (pm/Ll)

13 Well that's a little off the subject, but i'm not happy about the spending spree either.

Posted by: annie at April 24, 2005 12:13 PM (dRptT)

14 Ok- then how about the 'party of judicial restraint' and the 'party of state's rights' crafting late-night legislation in order to supercede the rulings of the Florida State Courts. Come to think of it... I guess you're right: it is about power, not principle.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 12:23 PM (pm/Ll)

15 Preston, your understanding of reality is perverted. It takes a certain lack of logic to reach a conclusion that is 180 out from reality. "it's obscenely intellectually dishonest to ignore that the _people_ responsible for Jim Crow eventually found their ways to the Republican Party." If so, perhaps after recanting. 100 years of institutionalized Southern racism supported by the foundation of the D's, and now they're all Replublicans eh? To the extent this is true, and I don't think it is, I'd say that the social order has acheived balance in the past fifty years, since that racist Eisenhower sent the 101st to Little Rock. Segregation was made illegal in the last half of the 20th century, so taken away from the D's as a populist issue in the South. Once that happened, they had to use other issues popular in the South like national defense, where they couldn't win. The further we move from institutionalized racism, the more diminished the role of Democrats in the South. Coinkydink? I don't think so.

Posted by: Casca at April 24, 2005 12:45 PM (cdv3B)

16 Do you really believe what you're saying? Of course Eisenhower wasn't a racist. Strom Thurmond leaving the Democratic Party in 1948 in protest of its pro-civil rights platform marked the first break of the segregationists and the Democratic Party. Lyndon Johnson's shepherding of the 1957 and 1964 Civil Rights act as well as the 1965 Voting Rights Act marked the final straw for this relationship. Richard Nixon in 1968 capitalized on this with his 'Southern Strategy' that winked to the South and assured them he did not intend to push additional Civil Rights legislation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy If you're honestly claiming that the Democratic Party is the party of institutionalized racism then you're also saying that 90% of black voters and every single African American Congressman is a dupe unable to tell which party holds their best interests at heart. Who's to say if those Republicans 'recanted' their racist beliefs? I'm more inclined to think the 20 or so Southern Democratic Congressmen who switched since the 1960's found a home more suitable to their ideology than experiencing a mass conversion to the gospel of racial equality. But who knows- maybe it was the flouride in the water or something... Segregation was made illegal but appeals to race are clearly still possible. The party more lenient to this type of politics will have a greater appeal to the racists holdouts. I'm not saying that everyone in the South is racist or this is the only reason for Republican dominance in the South but it is foolish to discount the role of racial politics in the dismantling of the 'Solid South'.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 01:15 PM (pm/Ll)

17 Though, I don't really think you actually believe what you're proposing I'll leave with a final circumstantial evidence regarding the roots of the political shift of the South: a de-racialized Democratic Party or a de-racialized electorate. Voters began voting for alternatives to the Democratic Party at the national level far before they began at the local level. This was because the national Democratic Party was ending its collusion with segregationists while local Democrats were largely free to continue these appeals. By the 40's Truman allowed Civil Rights on his platform (and integrated the army: the result was the Dixiecrat rebellion in the 1948 Presidential election. However, Southern legislatures remained Democratic. In the 60's Democrats led the passage of more Civil Rights acts. In 1968 the South retailiated by voting for Nixon and Wallace. But Southern legislatures remained Democratic. In the 1980's Reagan made appeals to the South by beginning his campaign in Philadelphia Mississppi and pepper speeches with references to 'welfare queens'. He wins the South. But Southern legislatures remained Democratic. This was able to happen because local Democrats were able to continue with racist appeals while their national counterparts were not. Even so, Republican Governors and Senators and Congressmen began having more success because of their ideological affinity on these issues. I think it's clear that racial politics were important well into the latter half of the 20th century but national Democrats no longer won elections there.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 01:50 PM (pm/Ll)

18 Eh, I've lost interest in your long-winded self-delusion. Blacks vote with the D's for several reasons, one being that like you they're prisoners of leftist groupthink to the extent those who vote with the D's think at all. For the most part, they live in rotten buroughs where votes are routinely stolen. Computerized voter registration will be the end of a lot of this, and is the federal law that is going to take another chunk out of the D vote stealing machine in the next cycle. Hahahaha, you're in for a looooong painful stretch.

Posted by: Casca at April 24, 2005 02:51 PM (cdv3B)

19 My recollection of '68 was that Wallace picked up the red neck racist vote, and Nixon got the fuck-the-peacenik-liberal vote in the South. From reconstruction until '68 the racists were with the Democrats. In '72 they voted for Nixon because they weren't unpatriotic enough to vote for McGovern, few were. '76 they got to vote for a fellow cracker, and by '80 the entire nation was sick of limp wristed incompetence, ergo Reagan. From that point on, it's pretty clear that an anti-black racist vote pretty much evaporated in America.

Posted by: Casca at April 24, 2005 05:32 PM (cdv3B)

20 Wow- you must love the anonymity of the internet- though I'd love to be at a party where you attempted to talk to a liberal or an African American face to face with your rhetoric. Unless you're a trust fund baby and no longer at a draftable age I don't see any stretch of Republican rule being any easier for you than for me. -oh, I remember it's about power not principle. I'll see you at the Wal-Mart when we 'retire'...

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 08:06 PM (pm/Ll)

21 "From that point on, it's pretty clear that an anti-black racist vote pretty much evaporated in America." Someone forgot to tell Lee Atwater and Pere Bush.

Posted by: Preston at April 24, 2005 08:08 PM (pm/Ll)

22 Connect the dots dickhead... if you can.

Posted by: Casca at April 24, 2005 09:57 PM (cdv3B)

23 Congratulations on your luck. Don't forget to pull up the ladder after you.

Posted by: Preston at April 25, 2005 04:04 AM (pm/Ll)

24 from killrighty maybe they should do away with the congressional record. or grow up. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA): “It is not the role of the Senate to obstruct the process and prevent numbers of highly qualified nominees from even being given the opportunity for a vote on the Senate floor.” (Sen. Barbara Boxer, Congressional Record, 5/14/97) Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA): “I urge the Republican leadership to take the steps necessary to allow the full Senate to vote up or down on these important nominations.” (Sen. Tom Harkin, Congressional Record, 9/11/00) Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA): “We owe it to Americans across the country to give these nominees a vote. If our Republican colleagues don’t like them, vote against them. But give them a vote.” (Sen. Ted Kennedy, Congressional Record, 2/3/9 Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA): “It is true that some Senators have voiced concerns about these nominations. But that should not prevent a roll call vote which gives every Senator the opportunity to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ … Parties with cases, waiting to be heard by the federal courts deserve a decision by the Senate.” (Sen. Ted Kennedy, Congressional Record, 9/21/99) Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): “[W]e should have up-or-down votes in the committee and on the floor.” (CNN’s “Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields,” 6/9/01) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): “It is our job to confirm these judges. If we don’t like them, we can vote against them.” (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Congressional Record, 9/16/99) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): “Our institutional integrity requires an up-or-down vote.” (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Congressional Record, 10/4/99) Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA): “[The filibuster process] is used … as blackmail for one Senator to get his or her way on something that they could not rightfully win through the normal processes.” (Sen. Tom Harkin, Congressional Record, 1/4/95)

Posted by: louielouie at April 25, 2005 03:09 PM (i7mWl)

25 And the Republicans have quotes saying the opposite from when they were using the filibuster. Like I mentioned earlier they need to agree to a policy and have it kick in several years so neither party can know for sure who it will benefit.

Posted by: Preston at April 25, 2005 03:19 PM (wkfsI)

26 The Democrats are conveniently forgetting the effort by 19 Democrats in 1995 to kill the filibuster. The resolution was introduced by Joe Lieberman and Tom Harkin. “…the filibuster rules are unconstitutional.” “…the filibuster is nothing short of legislative piracy.” “We cannot allow the filibuster to bring Congress to a grinding halt.” ” …So today I start a drive to do away with a dinosaur — the filibuster rule.” It was defeated 76-19 in 1995. All 19 that supported it were Democrats, some with very familiar names. Like these: Jeff Bingaman, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Frank Lautenberg, Joe Lieberman, and Paul Sarbanes.

Posted by: louielouie at April 25, 2005 03:22 PM (i7mWl)

27 ...meaning that Republicans voted in _favor_ of the filibuster. Personally, I could imaging getting rid of it or maybe dropping the number for cloture down to, say, 55- but only at a specified time in the future. Isn't everybody a little of the shifting procedural rules engineered to favor the party in power?

Posted by: Preston at April 25, 2005 03:32 PM (wkfsI)

28 ...(though I understand that 'principle' is not a popular concept around here.)

Posted by: Preston at April 25, 2005 03:32 PM (wkfsI)

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Dawn thinks Oprah should invite a blogger on her show.

i think Oprah should invite Dawn.

Posted by: annika at 01:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 I think so tooooooooooo!

Posted by: Dawn Summers at March 24, 2005 02:13 PM (HLOeu)

2 Oprah knows better than to invite some Crazy Ol Fool on her show.

Posted by: ken at March 25, 2005 11:50 AM (xD5ND)

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It almost seems as though Ken Wheaton has gazed into my own soul (a la Bush & Putin) with his latest column on The Non-Dating Life. i know he was describing someone else, but this quote could just as eerily apply to yours truly:

She claims to despise 'suits' but is destined to mate with one and produced baby suits. Still, she hangs out in Lower East Side and Williamsburg bars, trolling for too-skinny, geeky musicians who never fail to disappoint because, well, they're musicians, hipster-wannabes and she, deep down inside, is only now realizing she's not exactly compatible with those people. That's not to say she has to end up with a frat boy. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. She needs someone sort of in the middle. But, for now, like a lot of us out there, she's frustrated by running into the same type of guy over and over and over again.

Posted by: annika at 12:09 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 aw, not you too, annika? not you too!?

Posted by: ken at March 18, 2005 12:39 PM (xD5ND)

2 It's a terrific observation he's got... Annie, you and my kid sisters have something in common...

Posted by: Hugo at March 18, 2005 12:50 PM (ANywC)

3 hmm. sounds like the typical misinformation propogated by men who never talked to women who've actually had a relationship with a real musician. hipster wannabe indeed!

Posted by: Publicola at March 18, 2005 03:35 PM (DQj8i)

4 actually, all of my information about women in relationships with musicians comes directly from women in relationships with musicians. from new york to nashville to new orleans, it's the same damn story over and over. and, as a "writer" i can say i'm not a hell of a lot better than musicians on the whole mental health/need for constant attention thing. i just don't have the temptation/curse of groupies to deal with. of course, i'm not talking about "serious" (ahem) musicians.

Posted by: ken at March 18, 2005 03:46 PM (xD5ND)

5 Ok Poem Gyrl. It is time to throw in the lyrics from one of my favorite songs "Love is a Battlefield" We are young, heartache to heartache we stand No promises, no demands Love is a battlefield We are strong, no one can tell us weÂ’re wrong SearchinÂ’ our hearts for so long, both of us knowing Love is a battlefield YouÂ’re begginÂ’ me to go, youÂ’re makinÂ’ me stay Why do you hurt me so bad? It would help me to know Do I stand in your way, or am I the best thing youÂ’ve had? Believe me, believe me, I canÂ’t tell you why But IÂ’m trapped by your love, and IÂ’m chained to your side We are young, heartache to heartache we stand No promises, no demands Love is a battlefield We are strong, no one can tell us weÂ’re wrong SearchinÂ’ our hearts for so long, both of us knowing Love is a battlefield WeÂ’re losing control Will you turn me away or touch me deep inside? And before this gets old, will it still feel the same? ThereÂ’s no way this will die But if we get much closer, I could lose control And if your heart surrenders, youÂ’ll need me to hold We are young, heartache to heartache we stand No promises, no demands Love is a battlefield We are strong, no one can tell us weÂ’re wrong SearchinÂ’ our hearts for so long, both of us knowing Love is a battlefield We are young, heartache to heartache we stand No promises, no demands Love is a battlefield We are strong, no one can tell us weÂ’re wrong SearchinÂ’ our hearts for so long, both of us knowing Love is a battlefield Written by: mike chapman & holly knight

Posted by: Jake at March 18, 2005 06:48 PM (r/5D/)

6 Ah, its so rewarding to see another one realize life with us "suits" is so much more fun and rewarding. Ya, it was bizarre in college watching otherwise intelligent women date hipster dufusses, but hearing the cries of "what went wrong" from these same women now who never really figured it out provides some comfort. Even more so when I come home to my beautiful wife and family

Posted by: Pursuit at March 19, 2005 06:45 AM (VqIuy)

7 Pursuit, I could write thousands of words on the whole hipster/suit/fratboy/whatever subject. I wouldn't consider myself a suit ... mostly because I can't afford good ones, but isn't it amusing how the same sort of people (hipsters) who run around saying "The clothes don't matter, it's what's inside" turn right around and judge others on... their clothes. What's especially funny is that at least the hipsters have a choice in wardrobe. Not many people are running around in a suit because they woke up and said, "Man, I feel like wearing a starched shirt, wool pants and a noose around my neck. That's hot!" I like ratty jeans and old t-shirts. Don't get me wrong. And if I were 19 today, I'd probably have an entire trucker hat collection (and for some reason, it's the trucker hat more than anything that drives me absolutely batshit). After all, when I was in college, my hair was long and curly, I wore flannel and thought I was Eddie Vedder. At the end of the day, though, I hang out with people who dress LIKE hipsters and who dress IN suits. But they all have the same qualities. As we say in Louisiana: They like to get drunk and pass a good time.

Posted by: ken at March 19, 2005 07:28 AM (9WeJO)

8 i'm trying to imagine how the Paris-ism "that's hott" would sound with a cajun accent. but i'm not having much luck. ; )

Posted by: annika at March 19, 2005 10:01 AM (LrQx6)

9 Ken, Agree on a lot of points, except one. Increasingly even us suits have a choice in what to wear. Unfortunately for mosts "suits" they choose chinos and a golf shirt, instead of anything that actually looks nice, but at least it is their choice. Further, I think the traders and technologists that I work with would be amused to hear your thoughts on what people are forced to wear. We've hired them for their brain, not their dress. That said, we do ask that they dress for clients from time to time. Here is the weird part: I miss wearing a suit and will put one on from time to time, because it looks great and is comfortable.

Posted by: Pursuit at March 19, 2005 12:15 PM (VqIuy)

10 Thanks for speaking up for the grownups Pursuit.

Posted by: Casca at March 19, 2005 10:02 PM (cdv3B)

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i urge all bloggers and those who care about the new media to read this post by Kevin at Wizbang, regarding our right to Freedom of Speech as bloggers, and to sign the Online Coalition letter to Federal Election Commission chairman Scott E. Thomas.

Mine is the 1,531st signature.

More: Here's the Democracy Project's comprehensive summary of the threat facing us.

And liberal blogger Markos, of Daily Kos, notes that a number of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have also added their welcome voice to the cause of internet freedom. Where are the Republicans on this?

Posted by: annika at 08:51 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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How'd you like to start a blog, write two paragraphs, and get a hundred and one comments in your first forty-eight hours on the blogosphere. And not spam comments either, i'm talking very nice comments of encouragement from all over the world.

Well, go say hi to Waheed, Afghanistan's first blogger.

Hat tip to Bruce at AWH, via Chrenkoff.

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Bloggers as spies now?

Could the American spy community improve its intelligence activities through blogging? A captain in the U.S. Army Reserve thinks so and says as much in the March issue of Wired magazine.

Capt. Kris Alexander, a millitary intelligence officer, argues in an essay that blogs should be incorporated into the intelligence community's classified computer network , Intelink, and that the community should cultivate bloggers outside itself to gain additional insights and analysis.

. . .

'Why not tap the brainpower of the blogosphere as well?' he asks. 'The intelligence community does a terrible job of looking outside itself for information. From journalists to academics and even educated amateurs -- there are thousands of people who would be interested and willing to help.'

'It seems to me,' he said, 'that the government is faced with some stark choices. They can 'get with the program' -- realize they have lost control and try to capitalize on that -- or they can pretend they still control the flow of information and enact all sorts of Draconian regulations that aren't going to work anyway.'

Stephenson admitted that working with bloggers can be challenging. 'It's a headache,' he confessed.

'You get a lot of these obsteperous guys who don't defer to hierarchy, but smart executives all over the place now are trying to figure out ways to capitalize on people like me and others,' he continued. 'It's just dumb to filter out that potential information just because the people who are offering it are not like you.'

[cross posted at A Western Heart]

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Come and check out annika's Blogversary Poker Party on Yahoo! Poker. Everyone is invited. Sit down and play a few hands, or just stop by to say hi. No money is involved, just bragging rights.

You have to have a Yahoo! id first. Then log on to Yahoo!, go to the Games page and click on Hold 'Em Poker in the Card Games menu. Then look for me in the room called "Angel." Sorry, i fucked up. i'll be in the room called "Social Lounge 2," at table 26, and i'll be using the Yahoo! id annikagyrl.

Hope to see you there!

Update: It's pretty busy in there. Social Lounge 2 is full. We're going to Beginner Lounge 2 now.

Update 2: Okay, it's full now too. Use this backdoor site, if you haven't given up yet. Click on Beginner Lounge 2.

Update 3: Well, that was pretty much a bust. Only Casca and Lawguy were able to get into the room before it closed. i got booted a few times, and even the backdoor was screwy. i never seen Yahoo! Games be so difficult. Oh well, sorry to everyone who tried but were unable to log on. Maybe next year.

Oh, i broke even, too.

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1 So far, this sucks... which lounge?

Posted by: Casca at March 09, 2005 07:05 PM (cdv3B)

2 Happy Blogversary.

Posted by: Wayne at March 09, 2005 07:20 PM (DXzYo)

3 Where are you at?

Posted by: BD at March 09, 2005 07:35 PM (q88ZG)

4 I'm gettingdrunktryin to logon to the severer. Anyway, Happy blogversary!

Posted by: d-rod at March 09, 2005 08:53 PM (MpV/L)

5 Dammit, and I wore my white silk jammies with the blue piping for this? sheesh!

Posted by: Casca at March 09, 2005 10:58 PM (cdv3B)

6 I could not get in! You should come some real poker with me online. Let me know and I will give you all the 411.

Posted by: Frisbeedude at March 10, 2005 07:43 AM (KRtuM)

7 "No, u should cum, i got a real poker." Would be the correct approach.

Posted by: Casca at March 10, 2005 04:21 PM (cdv3B)

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Our peach tree is in bloom. It's beautiful. i thought it was dead. Shows how much i know about trees.

Today is the two year blogversary of annika's journal. A Yahoo! Poker party celebration will be held tonight at 7:00 p.m. California time. Stop by if you can. Just say hi, or sit down and play a few hands. i will post the name of the room just before it starts. BYOB.

Today is also poetry day. Who's your favorite poet? i haven't picked a poem yet, so why not suggest someone?

Have you pushed Elton John for UN Sec Gen to your friends and co-workers yet? People are talking.

And there are still two more spots open in MLBloggers, my fantasy baseball league. Email me if you're interested.

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i'm a big milblog fan. i have my favorites: Blackfive of course, and fellow Munuvians Trying to Grok (Go share Sarah's joy at her husband's safe return. i'm so happy for them.) and SlagleRock. Also some newer faves like Armor Geddon (who's an amazing diarist) and Risawn.

Now check out a new milblogger, Danjel, who's in Iraq right now. The site is appropriately named 365 and a Wakeup, which is a phrase that i believe dates back to the Vietnam War. (But you already knew that.)

i thought this bit from a February post called "The Ride North" was interesting:

Southern Iraq completely surprised me if for no other reason then the people. All along our route of march children would come running up to the vehicles waving and laughing. They were poorly dressed, and several of them alternated between waving and pointing to their mouth to ask for food. As heartwrenching as it was to ignore their request we were under strict orders not to throw food out so we responded with smiles and waves of our own. I questioned the order later and found that several children had been run over because they would run in front of a vehicle to get food. It was a far cry from what we had been briefed we would see and I resolved to do my level best to not break the trust our nation had made with the people of Iraq. I wish I could have taken a film crew with me on that leg of the trip, it would go a long way towards dispelling the skewed viewpoints that America sees on the news.

There are mornings where the steady throb of traffic pulses through the streets like a metal river and others where the hum of people and commerce is torn apart by the earsplitting roar of a VBIED. These wheeled bombs exist for the sole purpose of rending equipment and shredding flesh with impunity. In their wake they leave physical scars on the survivors and mental scars on the community.

Rather then let the insurgents continue to inflict casualties whenever and wherever they want there are checkpoints scattered across BaghdadÂ’s highways to intercept VBIEDs. In most cases these checkpoints are actually two distinct checkpoints, the first manned by the Iraqi Army and the second manned by US soldiers. The Iraqis have shown their mettle in the last few weeks and they have absorbed the bulk of the casualties when VBIEDs attempt to hit a checkpoint. But they arenÂ’t perfect, and so the US troops manning the second checkpoint are always at the ready.

The most important thing to understand about US checkpoints is that soldiers manning them have specific ramp up procedures when they feel threatened. Soldiers donÂ’t just blithely take aim at traffic and fill the air with lead. The procedure drilled into every soldierÂ’s head is to meet the threat with an increasingly forceful response. As the threat escalates so too does the response.

Which brings us back to the threat of VBIEDs. The only warning of a VBIED is a vehicle attempting to rapidly close with the checkpoint – which is exactly what Giuliana Sgrena’s vehicle did. Put yourself in the boots of the soldier manning that checkpoint. You see a vehicle approaching that seems to be gaining speed as it nears. You signal the driver to stop but the car plummets on. You fire a warning shot, and then another into the engine block but the car doesn’t slow. What would you do? Don’t just give a cursory response – think about it for a moment. If you are at work imagine having your life, and the fate of all your coworkers tied to your decision. Would you gamble all those lives by giving the vehicle the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you would, but I’d be willing to bet after seeing the bloody wake of a VBIED you would have pulled the trigger too.

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Here are some thoughts that occurred to me while watching last night's Nighline special on bloggers, which was very well done, in my opinion.

One might get the impression that bloggers are all frustrated journalists. In fact, many bloggers probably think of themselves that way. Speaking only for myself however, i am most definitely not a frustrated journalist.* To me, the very word "journalist" would be an insult if i ever heard it applied to me.

Don't get me started on journalists. A journalism degree is nothing more than a four year general education degree plus a couple of courses on how to meet a deadline. The vast majority of journalists are complete idiots. Trouble is, they don't realize it.

Bloggers are modern pamphleteers. One of the bloggers in the Nightline report expressed a hope that the blogosphere might mature as time goes on. Nonsense. That's not only an impossibility, it's antithetical to the nature of the medium.

We're supposed to rant. We're supposed to shoot from the hip. The blogosphere is the essence of free speech. That Virginia politician who got upset because some liberal blogger didn't follow journalistic standards by contacting him before publication needs to get his head out of his ass. The politician wrote a stupid bill, and that particular blogger called him on it. Good for her. The politician didn't like the strong language in the emails he got, but guess what? He pulled the bill, didn't he? Welcome to Dan Rather's world.

No we're not journalists, we are activists. Unpredictable, uncontrollable anarchists. May we always be.
_______________

* Frustrated comedienne, maybe.

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Yesterday they mentioned my idea on MSNBC, and now today they're talking about me on Fox News! Click on the picture to see the clip.

Fame! i wanna live forever!

Remember the annika's Blogversary Poker Party is Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. California time.

remember... remember... remember...

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This is big.

i thought he was joking when James Ozark, who runs A Western Heart, alerted me to the fact that Jeff Jarvis had mentioned my Elton John for U.N. Secretary General idea on MSNBC today.

But it's true! Here's the Quicktime video to prove it.

i'm so jazzed, i'm gonna have that .mpg file bronzed and hang it on the fucking wall!

i told you my idea would catch on like wildfire. Dinitellyou? i sure did! And you know why? Because it's a great idea, that's why. Singers and international politics go together like liver and onions.

Check it out. Now they want Bono for president of the World Bank, and Bush just named Michael Bolton as Ambassador to the U.N.

Ha ha, and i started the whole ball rolling! Me, me, me, me, me!

Tip of the hat to Jackson's Junction.

Posted by: annika at 08:40 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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i've started a fantasy baseball league for bloggers on Yahoo! The League is called MLBloggers (Major League Bloggers, get it?).

It's a rotisserie league with a non-live draft. Rotisserie is cool because it's less time consuming than head-to-head leagues. You can tinker with your line-up as much or as little as you want.

So far ten bloggers have signed up:

Dawn Summers' of Clareified has the East Coco Beach Metropolitans;

Victor the Rat-Boy of Publius and Company has the Rats of Chaos;

Ted of Rocket Jones has the Rockets;

Paul of Sanity's Edge has the Sanity's Edge... ers;

Matt of Irreverent Probity has the Biloxi Turds (eeew);

Greg of The End Zone has Hank's Homey's, and explains the name thusly;

Zombyboy of Resurrection Song has the Zombyesque Zombies;

The Maximum Leader of Nakedvillainy has the Bashers;

Physics Geek of Physics Geek has the Physics Geeks;

And then there's my own annika's A's.

There's room for two more bloggers in the league. If you wanna join Major League Bloggers just shoot me an email and i'll send you the password. You have to have a Yahoo! id to sign up.

Fantasy baseball is a grat way to follow the season, and it's fun to get interested in different players that you wouldn't normally care about if they're not on your hometown team.

Oh, and as an added inducement, i'll award a championship stein from cafepress to the winner at the end of the season. As if bragging rights weren't enough!

On a related note, don't forget this Wednesday is the annie's journal blogversary poker party. Details will be posted later on.

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