Craigorian Chant's march to total media domination with a prominate place in the SLO New Time"s (Best. Paper. Ever.) story about bloggers.
I would like to thank eveyone who sent in word about the story. Thanks for caring.
I have also gotten some e-mails along the lines of "That blogging sure looks like fun, how do I get started?"
First of all blogging is fun. It has given me fame, fortune, and don't even get me started about the women. So the thing to do is just jump in and get started. Get yourself to Blogger or one of the other services and sign up. Then start writing. The rest will follow, but getting started is the important part. Anyone claiming to have started blogging because of Craigorian Chant will recieve massive support from this site, so literally docens of hits will be coming your way.
Just remember is the words of one e-mail "You are the future of the new media world"
July 31, 2005
So I just finish a weeklong bing of the complete season of Firefly, thanks to my good friends at Netflix Now that was a damn good show. The wit, the action, the coolness of it all. Too bad only half a season got made. Somewhere there is a Fox TV executive who will burn in pop culture hell for that particular choice. But have no fear for a movie, based on the series is coming September 30. The tagline was just too good so I have given over the top banner of the site to the promotion of Serenity. The space has become available after a misunderstanding with Google Adsense. So follow the link and earn me points. Do it enough and I get a free movie poster or something. I earn the most points and I get a date with the cast member of my choice. So join up today.
July 30, 2005
Weekend Talk
This weekend's discussion:
Bernard Goldberg, conservative twerp has wrote a book called 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. I did not make the list, which means I'm just not trying hard enough. And I'm not. You can read the complete list here. Odd stuff. Phil Donahue is 71. Courtney Love is 95.
The question is who make your list?
Bernard Goldberg, conservative twerp has wrote a book called 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. I did not make the list, which means I'm just not trying hard enough. And I'm not. You can read the complete list here. Odd stuff. Phil Donahue is 71. Courtney Love is 95.
The question is who make your list?
July 29, 2005
Yesterdays Terrorists Today
I know this is getting lost in all the action of the London terrorist arrests and all, but it appears that the IRA is giving up armed struggle. Nobody seems that worked up over this. The truth is that North Ireland has been pretty peaceful as of late, with some very messy, non-violent politics and the IRA doing nothing but very non-political crime, like bank robberies. I think the reason no one is making a big deal of this is that it doesn't fit our current all or nothing, struggle to the death with the forces of terror storyline. Terror in Northern Ireland has pretty much come to an end. A messy, ambiguous end with no big event or great victory. Anybody who wants a big parade should look at some other kind of war. A war on terror will never have one.
July 28, 2005
Balls in the Air
Craigorian Chant has been tossing around a lot of different subjects in recent days. Just to keep these going.:
Pakistan: Still not helping:
So when sophisticated bombs detonated by long-range cordless phones began blowing up under U.S. and Afghan military vehicles on mountain tracks, investigators knew they had to search elsewhere for the masterminds.
Afghan officials immediately focused on nearby Pakistan and its military, whose Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped create the Taliban in the early 1990s and provided training and equipment to help the Muslim extremists win control over most of the country.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf joined the Bush administration's war on terrorism and publicly turned against the Taliban immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. But Afghan officials allege that Taliban and allied fighters who fled to Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 are learning new, more lethal tactics from the Pakistani military at numerous training bases.
"Pakistan is lying," said Lt. Sayed Anwar, acting head of Afghanistan's counter-terrorism department. "We have very correct reports from their areas. We have our intelligence agents inside Pakistan's border as well.
Over There is damn good television. Its all the stories you read in the paper brought to graphic, compelling, life. Is there something about graphic language and violence that makes TV good these days. First Sopranos, now Over There and other really good FX shows like Rescue Me and The Shield. Is there something about not being censored that just lends itself to being good? Its not that it good because these show are violent, but they do seem linked somehow.
Read a great post from Juan Cole:
The Bush administration is giving up the phrase "global war on terror."
I take it this is because they have finally realized that if they are fighting a war on terror, the enemy is four guys in a gymn in Leeds. It isn't going to take very long for people to realize that a) you don't actually need to pay the Pentagon $400 billion a year if that is the problem and b) whoever is in charge of such a war isn't actually doing a very good job at stopping the bombs from going off.
Pakistan: Still not helping:
So when sophisticated bombs detonated by long-range cordless phones began blowing up under U.S. and Afghan military vehicles on mountain tracks, investigators knew they had to search elsewhere for the masterminds.
Afghan officials immediately focused on nearby Pakistan and its military, whose Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped create the Taliban in the early 1990s and provided training and equipment to help the Muslim extremists win control over most of the country.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf joined the Bush administration's war on terrorism and publicly turned against the Taliban immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. But Afghan officials allege that Taliban and allied fighters who fled to Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 are learning new, more lethal tactics from the Pakistani military at numerous training bases.
"Pakistan is lying," said Lt. Sayed Anwar, acting head of Afghanistan's counter-terrorism department. "We have very correct reports from their areas. We have our intelligence agents inside Pakistan's border as well.
Over There is damn good television. Its all the stories you read in the paper brought to graphic, compelling, life. Is there something about graphic language and violence that makes TV good these days. First Sopranos, now Over There and other really good FX shows like Rescue Me and The Shield. Is there something about not being censored that just lends itself to being good? Its not that it good because these show are violent, but they do seem linked somehow.
Read a great post from Juan Cole:
The Bush administration is giving up the phrase "global war on terror."
I take it this is because they have finally realized that if they are fighting a war on terror, the enemy is four guys in a gymn in Leeds. It isn't going to take very long for people to realize that a) you don't actually need to pay the Pentagon $400 billion a year if that is the problem and b) whoever is in charge of such a war isn't actually doing a very good job at stopping the bombs from going off.
July 27, 2005
41% and ...
Bush approval rating now at 41%. I think that without a doubt the Iraq war is behind this number. Why even poor JESSICA SIMPSON is upset. Right wing bigot and all around ass Michael Savage is attacking Bush on the war. Is it any wonder that there is now talk of troop withdrawal? Of course as Ameriblog points out there will be no Iraqi troops to replace them. Bit of a bind eh? So is it 41% and falling or a steady 41%. Time will tell.
What to Watch
Ah summer. Time to watch TV but nothings on. But wait, a new show. It’s called Over There and it’s about the Iraq War. Nobody has every tried to do a TV show on a war while it happens. The show is earning some serious buzz. The Bee's great TV critic writes:
The writing is simple and clear, almost hard-boiled, and it lets us slowly and completely engage these people. As the show and the episodes move on, we'll learn more about them, about their unit and their lives back home. It's done slowly and completely, too, and that is maybe the strongest element to this series.
It is clearly a ground-level view of the war, a soldier's view, as removed from the politics of the Iraq conflict as any soldier's life would be.
What it is not, despite some grumbling in the usual political quarters, is a comment on the Iraq war, except to the point out that any story of people at war, if it's honest, carries the anti-war message that battle is always horrific and inhuman.
I know I'll be watching.
The writing is simple and clear, almost hard-boiled, and it lets us slowly and completely engage these people. As the show and the episodes move on, we'll learn more about them, about their unit and their lives back home. It's done slowly and completely, too, and that is maybe the strongest element to this series.
It is clearly a ground-level view of the war, a soldier's view, as removed from the politics of the Iraq conflict as any soldier's life would be.
What it is not, despite some grumbling in the usual political quarters, is a comment on the Iraq war, except to the point out that any story of people at war, if it's honest, carries the anti-war message that battle is always horrific and inhuman.
I know I'll be watching.
July 26, 2005
Lucky and Good
The shuttle got up fine today, mainly because I watched with fingers crossed on both hands. I'm thinking of getting a rabbit foot to watch the reentry.
Election Day in San Diego today. Go, Donna Fry! Surf Chicks Rule.
Governator screws things up:
Last fall, Schwarzenegger rightly cited California's gerrymandered districts as a major cause for the dysfunctional Legislature. He set his legal and political team to drafting a ballot measure to reform how we draw legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization districts. Since then these Keystone Kops have managed to do everything wrong.
The irony is that redistricting is the one part of the Governator's "reform" agenda that might be worth doing. And he gets the paperwork wrong. Maybe having a bad actor as a political leader turns out to not result in smart government, Go figure.
Election Day in San Diego today. Go, Donna Fry! Surf Chicks Rule.
Governator screws things up:
Last fall, Schwarzenegger rightly cited California's gerrymandered districts as a major cause for the dysfunctional Legislature. He set his legal and political team to drafting a ballot measure to reform how we draw legislative, congressional and Board of Equalization districts. Since then these Keystone Kops have managed to do everything wrong.
The irony is that redistricting is the one part of the Governator's "reform" agenda that might be worth doing. And he gets the paperwork wrong. Maybe having a bad actor as a political leader turns out to not result in smart government, Go figure.
July 25, 2005
Pakistan Trouble
It does seem like when people talk about a terror problem, we really seem to be talking about a Pakistan problem:
Al Qaeda's possible role in the July 7 bombings and the latest attacks remains murky, but one thing is clear to South Asia analysts and Western intelligence officials: Pakistan continues to be a principal recruiting ground and logistical center for global terrorists. This is despite three years of military operations by the U.S. and Pakistan to root out al Qaeda and Taliban members in the remote tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
This is why Bush and conservatives simple revenge model breaks down. The situation on the ground in Pakistan is very complicated with pro- and anti- terror forces within the Pakistan government. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is in a real tricky spot, an unelected leader allied with the United States, who can't help the US too much or he might lose the country. The whole situation is very difficult, but how it turns out will be the factor in how many bombings happen.
Al Qaeda's possible role in the July 7 bombings and the latest attacks remains murky, but one thing is clear to South Asia analysts and Western intelligence officials: Pakistan continues to be a principal recruiting ground and logistical center for global terrorists. This is despite three years of military operations by the U.S. and Pakistan to root out al Qaeda and Taliban members in the remote tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
This is why Bush and conservatives simple revenge model breaks down. The situation on the ground in Pakistan is very complicated with pro- and anti- terror forces within the Pakistan government. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is in a real tricky spot, an unelected leader allied with the United States, who can't help the US too much or he might lose the country. The whole situation is very difficult, but how it turns out will be the factor in how many bombings happen.
July 24, 2005
Labor Trouble
Looks like the ALF-CIO is cracking up. The service workers and the teamsters are leaving the organization. Not at all certain what this means for organized labor and workers rights, but my first thought would be: nothing good.
July 22, 2005
Weekend Open Thread
Going out into the mountains this weekend, so you folks are going to have to make the best of it in the comments section. Here, I'll give you some subjects to talk about.
London: City of the Future?
Will Craig ever get a real job?
Who is more corrupt, Randy "Duke" Cunningham or Tom Delay?
Just what is the matter with Craig, anyway.
Discuss.
London: City of the Future?
Will Craig ever get a real job?
Who is more corrupt, Randy "Duke" Cunningham or Tom Delay?
Just what is the matter with Craig, anyway.
Discuss.
July 21, 2005
Catch a Break
So much of life is just dumb luck. Timing, who meets who when, answering the right phone call, being at the right place. London caught a real break today. Four more bombs go off but they look to be duds. Only one person hurt and that was one of the bombers, who is now in custody. This means a lot of evidence, a subject to question and a whole lot more info. I would rather be lucky than good.
July 20, 2005
Boring
So Bush has his nominee for SCOTUS and its...rather dull. Fifty year old white guy from upstate New York. He has a great (and boring) legal background. He served in a variety of rather dull sounding jobs with GOP administrations. The cases he has ruled on as a judge are boring:
Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion that suggested Congress might lack the power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to regulate the treatment of a certain species of wildlife.
That's the best that they can come up with as far as his past rulings go. Even his name John Roberts, is boring. I think the whole idea is to lull everyone into a stupor in order to get a very conservative guy on the Court. Of course he is a conservative. His appointment means lost ground on privacy, choice, civil rights, the enviroments and so on. That's what we get when we lose elections. I think the state of politic can be summed up by this FoxNews exchange:
Brit Hume of FOX News captured the moment well last night when, turning from congressional correspondent Brian Wilson to White House reporter Carl Cameron, he chuckled with surprise at Bush's decision to name a white male -- "just like all of us." They all got a nice laugh out of that.
Roberts wrote a dissenting opinion that suggested Congress might lack the power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to regulate the treatment of a certain species of wildlife.
That's the best that they can come up with as far as his past rulings go. Even his name John Roberts, is boring. I think the whole idea is to lull everyone into a stupor in order to get a very conservative guy on the Court. Of course he is a conservative. His appointment means lost ground on privacy, choice, civil rights, the enviroments and so on. That's what we get when we lose elections. I think the state of politic can be summed up by this FoxNews exchange:
Brit Hume of FOX News captured the moment well last night when, turning from congressional correspondent Brian Wilson to White House reporter Carl Cameron, he chuckled with surprise at Bush's decision to name a white male -- "just like all of us." They all got a nice laugh out of that.
July 19, 2005
Bad Ideas
The housing market is seriously screwed up. Housing is just too expensive particularly here in California and other hot spots. Now the classic economic supply/demand solution is that if housing becomes too expensive, people will not be able to afford to buy, demand goes down and so do prices. There seems to be a small problem: Banks are now offering "exotic" mortgages so people can buy homes that they can't afford:
Welcome to the high-stakes world of the negative-amortization loan. With skyrocketing home prices in America’s hottest markets, lenders have become increasingly creative in their efforts to stretch consumers into pricier homes.
Interest-only loans, nearly unheard of three years ago, have jumped in popularity. “IO” mortgages, which come in many shapes and sizes, can shave 20 to 30 percent off monthly payments because they temporarily relieve borrowers of the need to pay any principal. But after that temporary reprieve, mortgage payments jump sharply. Fully one-third of mortgages opened last year were interest-only loans, causing a stir of concern among economists including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
But interest-only loans seem conservative compared to the latest lending rage, the negative-amortization loan. Consumers who sign up don’t even have to pay the full interest owed the bank each month. Instead, they borrow more money as time goes by, making minimum payments in a way that echoes the world of revolving credit card debt. In a housing market that goes suddenly flat, such a loan guarantees the buyer will be “upside down” after a few years — meaning their home will be worth less than the mortgage on it.
If the market changes, and it always changes, a whole lot of people are going to be screwed with these loans.
Welcome to the high-stakes world of the negative-amortization loan. With skyrocketing home prices in America’s hottest markets, lenders have become increasingly creative in their efforts to stretch consumers into pricier homes.
Interest-only loans, nearly unheard of three years ago, have jumped in popularity. “IO” mortgages, which come in many shapes and sizes, can shave 20 to 30 percent off monthly payments because they temporarily relieve borrowers of the need to pay any principal. But after that temporary reprieve, mortgage payments jump sharply. Fully one-third of mortgages opened last year were interest-only loans, causing a stir of concern among economists including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
But interest-only loans seem conservative compared to the latest lending rage, the negative-amortization loan. Consumers who sign up don’t even have to pay the full interest owed the bank each month. Instead, they borrow more money as time goes by, making minimum payments in a way that echoes the world of revolving credit card debt. In a housing market that goes suddenly flat, such a loan guarantees the buyer will be “upside down” after a few years — meaning their home will be worth less than the mortgage on it.
If the market changes, and it always changes, a whole lot of people are going to be screwed with these loans.
Brace Yourself
Bush to announce his SCOTUS nominee tonight. He is asking to do it in a prime time news broadcast. I think he's trying to get a certain other story off the front page. I'm lisening to Lawrence O'Donald on the Al Franken show even as I write this. Interesting tidbit: A judge in the case refers to a "plot against Joe Wilson." Interesting stuff.
July 18, 2005
Churning
Maybe its the fact that its 104 in the shade but I'm just not feeling it today. The Rove story continues to churn. Joe Biden has the $ quote of the day:
"Anybody who's ever made a mistake in this administration has never paid at all. Everyone who has been right in this administration has been fired."
"Anybody who's ever made a mistake in this administration has never paid at all. Everyone who has been right in this administration has been fired."
July 17, 2005
Movie Day
First I recommend this quick list in Salon on how not to make sure your Superhero movie doesn't suck:
Don't believe the director makes that much difference? Wait until next year, when Brett Ratner ("Rush Hour") gets his hands on the "X-Men" franchise.
Now on to a more heavy subject. I found a great group of posts talking about "War of the Worlds." Slacktivist makes the case that WOTW is a anti-Colonial work:
The book is an exercise in empathy -- what would it feel like to be on the receiving end of such imperial force.
The alien invaders arrive. We cannot understand them. Our best technology cannot harm them. They are inscrutable and unstoppable. There is nothing we can do.
That's what makes the book so enduringly creepy. Spielberg often captures this sense of inevitable doom, and the scenes in which he does are as unsettling as Orson Welles' infamous radio broadcast of this same story in 1938. Right-wing critics of the film complain that Spielberg's hero, played by Tom Cruise, spends most of the movie running away and hiding. But that's the point -- there's nothing else he can do.
Empathy with the victim -- with the Tasmanians, or with the Mahdi at Omdurman, or the Wampanoag -- is not a favorite sentiment of the right wing. But there are other reasons they wouldn't like Wells' book.
These conservative film critic wannabes want a story to follow the moral outline of the old comics code or of Job's foolish friend Bildad. They want the good guys to be rewarded for their virtue and the bad guys to be punished for their vice. But Wells' story isn't about morality, it's about power. His Martian invaders have bigger, better weapons so they win and we lose. Period.
This, I think, is what the rightwing critics find most threatening in Wells' story and Spielberg's film. It vividly illustrates that might and right are not the same thing, that military superiority is not evidence of superior virtue. If the illustration of such a basic truth can now be interpreted as an "anti-American" political statement, that is neither Wells' nor Spielberg's fault.
I actually have a different take on the whole thing. In both the book and the movie the aliens lose in the end, killed off by Earth's deases. Its pretty clear that the aliens, confident in their overwhelming tech superiority, just didn't do their homework about conditions on Earth. Surely if you can cross the stars and ride the lightning you can deal with germs. Likewise the US comes crashing into Iraq with no idea how hard it will turn out to be, despite our overwhelming tech superiority. The Iraq war is not like the colonialism that Orsen Well was reacting to. The neo-conservative mistake is not believing that might makes right. Its that right makes might. That because our intentions are good and our enemies evil, we are sure to win regardless of strategy. In fact, we can screw up badly and have. We are raised by our pop culture to think that the good guys always win, regardless of odds. The truth is that if the good guys are stupid, the bad guys can win. That's the mistake of the Iraq war.
More on WOTW on Pandagon and Digby
Don't believe the director makes that much difference? Wait until next year, when Brett Ratner ("Rush Hour") gets his hands on the "X-Men" franchise.
Now on to a more heavy subject. I found a great group of posts talking about "War of the Worlds." Slacktivist makes the case that WOTW is a anti-Colonial work:
The book is an exercise in empathy -- what would it feel like to be on the receiving end of such imperial force.
The alien invaders arrive. We cannot understand them. Our best technology cannot harm them. They are inscrutable and unstoppable. There is nothing we can do.
That's what makes the book so enduringly creepy. Spielberg often captures this sense of inevitable doom, and the scenes in which he does are as unsettling as Orson Welles' infamous radio broadcast of this same story in 1938. Right-wing critics of the film complain that Spielberg's hero, played by Tom Cruise, spends most of the movie running away and hiding. But that's the point -- there's nothing else he can do.
Empathy with the victim -- with the Tasmanians, or with the Mahdi at Omdurman, or the Wampanoag -- is not a favorite sentiment of the right wing. But there are other reasons they wouldn't like Wells' book.
These conservative film critic wannabes want a story to follow the moral outline of the old comics code or of Job's foolish friend Bildad. They want the good guys to be rewarded for their virtue and the bad guys to be punished for their vice. But Wells' story isn't about morality, it's about power. His Martian invaders have bigger, better weapons so they win and we lose. Period.
This, I think, is what the rightwing critics find most threatening in Wells' story and Spielberg's film. It vividly illustrates that might and right are not the same thing, that military superiority is not evidence of superior virtue. If the illustration of such a basic truth can now be interpreted as an "anti-American" political statement, that is neither Wells' nor Spielberg's fault.
I actually have a different take on the whole thing. In both the book and the movie the aliens lose in the end, killed off by Earth's deases. Its pretty clear that the aliens, confident in their overwhelming tech superiority, just didn't do their homework about conditions on Earth. Surely if you can cross the stars and ride the lightning you can deal with germs. Likewise the US comes crashing into Iraq with no idea how hard it will turn out to be, despite our overwhelming tech superiority. The Iraq war is not like the colonialism that Orsen Well was reacting to. The neo-conservative mistake is not believing that might makes right. Its that right makes might. That because our intentions are good and our enemies evil, we are sure to win regardless of strategy. In fact, we can screw up badly and have. We are raised by our pop culture to think that the good guys always win, regardless of odds. The truth is that if the good guys are stupid, the bad guys can win. That's the mistake of the Iraq war.
More on WOTW on Pandagon and Digby
July 16, 2005
Iraq and London
London gets bombed and its a front page news story for weeks. Iraq has a London sized deathtoll every day and nobody seems to pay any attention. Why?
July 15, 2005
Take Me Out to the Ball Game...
... or, “Craig tries to be a sports writer”
Took in a Sacramento River Cats game last night. The Cats lost 12-8. The whole thing has a really interesting vibe. The Rivercats play AAA minor league ball, the level of baseball just under the major leagues, which means that every player on the field is just a pulled hamstring away from going to the big show. This feeling of almost greatness hangs over the whole place. Pictures of River Cats players who’ve made the Bigs hang on the walls of the stadium. A player goes for a bunt and pops it up and the guy in front of me intones, “Scouts don’t like a guy who can’ bunt.” It’s like there’s this big dream of money and fame so close to this game that every diving catch in the outfield and two-run homer brings that dream closer and every bobbled grounder and wild pitch moves that dream farther away.
Took in a Sacramento River Cats game last night. The Cats lost 12-8. The whole thing has a really interesting vibe. The Rivercats play AAA minor league ball, the level of baseball just under the major leagues, which means that every player on the field is just a pulled hamstring away from going to the big show. This feeling of almost greatness hangs over the whole place. Pictures of River Cats players who’ve made the Bigs hang on the walls of the stadium. A player goes for a bunt and pops it up and the guy in front of me intones, “Scouts don’t like a guy who can’ bunt.” It’s like there’s this big dream of money and fame so close to this game that every diving catch in the outfield and two-run homer brings that dream closer and every bobbled grounder and wild pitch moves that dream farther away.
Week in Review
Who is this Karl Rove and why is everyone talking about him?
Real estate grandmaster Duke Cunningham not running for reelection.
Baseball fun. Camping fun. Rove going down. Priceless.
SLO New Times = A great paper.
Today's discussion point: Every Rivercat player get their own theme song, a music clip that plays when they get up to bat. Question: what would you pick for a theme song? It would play for 30 seconds every time you walked into a room. What song would you use?
Real estate grandmaster Duke Cunningham not running for reelection.
Baseball fun. Camping fun. Rove going down. Priceless.
SLO New Times = A great paper.
Today's discussion point: Every Rivercat player get their own theme song, a music clip that plays when they get up to bat. Question: what would you pick for a theme song? It would play for 30 seconds every time you walked into a room. What song would you use?
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