tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62929852011-11-11T08:52:15.981ZDeep Underground with Raul GroomThe humor columnist from Democratic Underground blogs away.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.comBlogger1891100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1123277075989479872005-08-05T21:11:00.000Z2005-08-05T21:24:35.996ZSunday QualifyingThe way ESPN has the WPT promotion set up is this - you play in tournaments throughout the week to amass tournament points. If you manage to grab at least 60 tournament points in a given week, you can register and play in the Sunday Qualifier tournament. Each SQ has about 1200 people in it, starting at tables of 10, so 120 tables to begin. The last 50 remaining folks in the tournament qualify RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1123171785498166142005-08-04T15:58:00.000Z2005-08-04T16:09:45.503ZI am the GreatestWon my second multi-table tournament today, besting 89 other competitors to qualify for my second "Sunday Qualifier" in the ESPN WPT promotion. Normally you don't learn much from winning, because winning happens when you stay within yourself and do what you already know works. Losing is what teaches you.This tournament was a little different because I was experimenting with a new style, a more RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1123020804754622252005-08-02T21:50:00.000Z2005-08-02T22:13:24.763ZReturn of the GroomDue to overwhelming popular demand, I have unretired. The political stuff is being ably handled by my IRL avatar, freeing me up to talk about what really makes Raul Groom tick - gambling. Or, in this case, fake gambling.For the last few weeks I have been cultivating a mild poker addiction on the ESPN website, where they will allow you to play for free. There you have a good shot at winning a RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1111594413276907532005-03-23T16:10:00.000Z2005-03-23T16:13:33.276ZSayonara, Suckers!After much deliberation I have decided to discontinue use of the Raul Groom moniker. It was fun while it lasted, but it has begun to feel like a straitjacket. The character was fun to play, but he isn't me, really, and that gets old. For any and all who would like to continue to read my ramblings in blog form, please email me at raulgroom@yahoo.com and I will send you a link to the new site. RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1111165148558723622005-03-18T16:57:00.000Z2005-03-18T16:59:08.560ZBad DecisionsThere is an adage that bad decisions are usually based on bad information. I made the decision not to pick UAB to repeat as cinderella because of an injury to Ronnell Taylor, UAB's dynamic sixth man. Yesterday Ronnell played 18 minutes and scored 9 points. So he must be feeling better.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1111161148599569172005-03-18T15:45:00.000Z2005-03-18T15:52:28.600ZAll Picks Wrong or Your Money BackOK, so pretty much everything I told you yesterday turned out to be false. Kentucky looked awful in winning over Eastern Kentucky - they apparently have no half-court offense at all. Someone should have mentioned this to me. UAB did upset LSU after all, a pick I should have made just because UAB is one of my favorite teams. Arizona looked shaky early but cruised - they look as strong as RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1111081876358311842005-03-17T17:17:00.000Z2005-03-17T17:51:16.370ZBasketball TimeSo the time has come to turn our attention once again to college basketball. I understand that many of the people who read this blog do not care about the NCAA tournament, for reasons which are incomprehensible to me. The NCAA tournament is the single greatest sporting event in the world. If everything on television were immediately removed in favor of constant airing of every NCAA basketball RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1110264231786835382005-03-08T05:20:00.001Z2005-03-08T06:43:51.786ZSocial SecurityThis was a comment from Heathkernel that I missed when it was posted - it's so good I decided to move it to the front page. You go heathkernel. I especially like "middlingly competent." Quote (from WashPost):While he [Alan Greenspan] previously has suggested various ways of trying to restrain the growth of future benefits to bolster Social Security's future solvency, Wednesday he appeared to RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1110263786583891852005-03-08T05:20:00.000Z2005-03-08T06:36:26.593ZFoundation of MoralityUncle Carlos made an interesting attempt to define morality in a previous comment. Folks can judge for themselves how successful it was - I was underwhelmed. However, rather than simply call out the big UC, I thought I would make it clear what I mean when I use words like "ethics," "morals," etc.Whenever we want to decide whether we are going to take some action, we have to ask ourselves three RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1110206427488893272005-03-07T14:23:00.000Z2005-03-07T14:40:27.493ZMorality and AuthorityWe finally got a little discussion of my last post, and i was delighted that one of the comments was not only very atriculate and well thought out but that it is a wondeerful example of one of the great successes of the American propaganda machine over the course of the last 50 years or so. The poster slightly misinterprets what I am trying to say about the logical consqequences of the official RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1109617079637577892005-02-28T17:53:00.000Z2005-02-28T19:00:01.130ZPicking a FightDuring the first couple weeks after my daughter was born there was of course this big furor over Ward Churchill’s September 11th essay, but for obvious reasons I didn’t hear about it until sometime later. In fact, I was told about it by some liberal friends who came over to see the baby. Their attitude toward the subject was the typical liberal reaction – that is, they condemned the comments inRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1109188558968881302005-02-23T19:45:00.000Z2005-02-23T19:55:58.970ZThe Death of the DoctorAs you probably already know, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson died this weekend of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Hopefully I will have more to say about this in the near future, but these days, who knows? For now I will direct you to the sort of Thompson obituary there should be more of. Nothing would disgust the Doctor more than the legions of swine who are now clamoring to praise RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1107645655460488002005-02-05T23:16:00.000Z2005-02-05T23:20:55.460ZA New Groom Sleeps CleanWell, the newest addition to the Allende-Groom clan has arrived and she is disturbingly beautiful. Hopefully I'll have more to say about the whole experience and how weird it was to be involved in such a spectacular display of the power of human beings to experience the fundamental reality of their oneness with a universal whole while our public policy was even at that moment degenerating RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106925292057584652005-01-28T15:13:00.000Z2005-01-28T15:14:52.056ZSocial AbsurdityI haven't gotten into the Social Security thing much, because the whole thing is just absurd. It's a fake crisis, very dishonest, but among things Bush is trying to do it ranks pretty low. It doesn't really matter.
That said, it's obviously a big deal in the public debate right now, so I am linking to this Krugman interview that basically tells you what you need to know. RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106847493432910732005-01-27T17:36:00.000Z2005-01-27T17:38:13.433ZSy Hersh is ScaryA chilling vision of our common peril. Not for the faint of heart. RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106594596635751182005-01-24T19:18:00.000Z2005-01-24T19:23:16.636ZGeorge W. Bush is a Pompous AssWell, I got a few things done - dumped the backups, both regular and weird, and upgraded our last domain controller to Windows 2003. Now it's time for the real meat of the operation - cleaning my office. Always a major pain, it's worse than ever this time because I recently got a new desk, and the contents of the old desk are strewn about the place as bleached bones of purest lye (that one's RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106571851845487902005-01-24T13:59:00.000Z2005-01-24T13:04:11.846ZGeorge W. Bush is an Ignorant SociopathThis is pretty corny, so I apologize in advance, but there are a couple last things at work that I've been putting off that I absolutely must get done. As a way to motivate myself and track my progress, I will be posting my exploits on the blog in lieu of political commentary. To tide you over I will be titling all the posts with vague, unsubstantiated opinions and linking the posts to articlesRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106345969887621632005-01-21T22:17:00.000Z2005-01-21T22:19:29.886ZTop 10 Signs of a Free and Fair ElectionLongtime readers know I'm no fan of Ahmed Chalabi, but I think someone should have a talk with the Iraqi government about how it looks when you arrest a candidate nine days before an election. It's just not done.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106321438205468872005-01-21T14:55:00.000Z2005-01-21T15:30:38.206ZBlog of the Week #2 - Whackademia!This week's Blog of the Week is Whackademia, a group blog organized by the Albino Bloodsucking Striped Elf. The purpose of the site is still rather vague, since we have not yet ponied up a mission statement, but it would seem from popular usage that the point is mostly to post about weird science shit and then argue with each other about it.
The guidelines for the site include a soft ban on "RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106178388009651812005-01-19T23:45:00.000Z2005-01-19T23:46:28.010ZTruth is Funnier than FictionEvery blog in the universe is linking to this, but there's a reason for that - it's hilarious.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1106148728072431402005-01-19T14:48:00.000Z2005-01-19T15:32:08.073ZThe Bloodbath StrategyOver halfway through the month of January, it's become pretty clear that the U.S. is adhering to the strategy I predicted in this space a few weeks ago. Resistance bombings are way up, but American casualties are down - this is shaping up to be the lowest month for U.S. casualties since last summer.
What this suggests is that U.S. troops are planning a very low profile for the elections in RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105724133122164822005-01-14T17:20:00.000Z2005-01-14T17:35:33.123ZBlog of the Week #1 - The Poor ManThis week I bring you The Poor Man, a blog that will always be near and dear to my heart because it is butt-ugly, the guy obviously knows little or nothing about HTML, and yet the blog is widely read, somewhat respected, and often sidesplittingly funny. In other words, it's what I dream this blog could one day become.
The Poor Man, then, is a little like my virtual Brian Brennan. For those RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105637066443034682005-01-13T17:20:00.000Z2005-01-13T17:24:26.443ZFirst you get the money...Great article in the NYT today by the sometimes-good Frank Rich, who comes through with one of the most caustic (and on-target) mainstream criticisms of the modern media that I've seen in a while.
The money quote is here:
"[T]he press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective."
- Dick Cheney, 2003, appearing as a guest on ArmstrongRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105465612325800732005-01-11T17:39:00.000Z2005-01-11T17:49:24.053ZBad Blog of the Day - Deep Underground with Raul GroomAfter giving the matter much thought, I have decided to discontinue the Bad Blog of the Day feature. I got some negative feedback from readers and no positive feedback, and as Dan pointed out, I can't afford to antagonize my readers as there are only a handful of you.
So it's out. The final Bad Blog of the Day is Deep Underground with Raul Groom. On this blog, some crazed libertarian RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105389825487357432005-01-10T20:41:00.000Z2005-01-10T20:43:45.486ZCorrectionVampire Elf pointed out to me that, had I looked a little closer at CAO's blog, I would have noticed that the "he" pronoun is probably not appropriate; CAO seems to be a woman. The Underground regrets the error. RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105382942500291292005-01-10T18:07:00.000Z2005-01-10T18:49:02.500ZBad Blog of the Day - CAO's BlogThe Bad Blog of the Day comes to us in a nomination from alert reader CAO, who nominated his own blog Friday in a fit of sudden cognitive clarity. At least, I think he was nominating his own blog. It was not particularly clear exactly what he was trying to say in his comment. However, the charitable interpretation is that he was nominating CAO's blog for today's Bad Blog of the Day.
CAO's RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105366042532825702005-01-10T13:10:00.000Z2005-01-10T14:07:22.533ZThe Doctrinal SystemBring up Noam Chomsky with an educated person and you will soon have a freak-out on your hands. If the person with whom you are trying to discuss Noam's work is to the right of center, the freak-out will begin when you utter the words "Noam Chomsky" and will include much screeching and rending of garments. This can be enjoyable to witness, but it's not a good starting point for an interesting RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105127191142994542005-01-07T19:27:00.000Z2005-01-07T19:48:07.103ZInaugural Bad Blog of the DayOver Sophia's strenuous objection, I am instituting a new feature on Deep Underground - the Bad Blog of the Day. As we all know, I am prone to going several days without posting, so it will probably be more of a Bad Blog of the Several Days to Perhaps a Week or More, but the point is, it will be a Bad Blog.
The criteria for a Bad Blog of the Day are simple - the blog must be unoriginal, RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105122780306542602005-01-07T18:29:00.000Z2005-01-07T18:33:00.306ZAttempt IIOK, apparently the Tequila Puke color was part of the background and couldn't be suppressed, at least by someone with an HTML background as impoverished as mine. So I have switched to this deeply boring template for now. I trust no one comes here for the layout anyway, given the state of the old blog.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105121003957861872005-01-07T17:58:00.000Z2005-01-07T18:03:23.956ZPapa's Got a Brand New Bag of Tequila PukeYeah, I know, it's pretty different. But after experimenting endlessly with trying to create my own sidebar in the template I had, I finally decided to punt and switch to a friendlier template. This one should allow me to add a few features I've been wanting for a long time, such as a weekly poll and a Bad Blog of the Day (Sophia objects to this rather mean-spirited idea, but I'm adamant.)
RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1105117215528468822005-01-07T16:28:00.000Z2005-01-07T17:00:15.526ZThe New York Times Goes LargeYesterday, after listening to Alberto Gonzales' frankly sickening testimony on the subject of whether the president can violate the law if he doesn't think the law is constitutional (he can, but only after thinking about it for a while), whether the president can allow torture (maybe, but George W. never would, so don't worry), and what effect Gonzales' opining on behalf of the White House that RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1104876002102578802005-01-04T20:44:00.000Z2005-01-04T22:06:39.136ZDepartment of Unintentional IronyWorldNetDaily brings us a nice fawning article about a guy who charges $8.98 a month for his awesome insights into world affairs. Apaprently WorldNetDaily gets some of this money, though they find nothing wrong with running a news article about how great the guy and his service are. Nice.
Anyway, the funny part is right in the lead paragraph:
Dr. Jack Wheeler, creator of an acclaimed RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1104868268316094042005-01-04T19:50:00.000Z2005-01-04T19:51:08.316ZSomething odd - I don't seem to show up in the "recently updated" listings on Blogspot. Conspiracy!!! Conspiracy!!!RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1104863428107870482005-01-04T17:47:00.000Z2005-01-04T19:47:56.320ZI have removed my most recent post because it was too damn depressing. I've got to get my sense of humor back. Maybe I should hit the Renew America site a la the Poor Man and the Apostropher. They seem to have found quite a wellspring of humor there. Hmmmmm...RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1104783967504774162005-01-03T17:34:00.000Z2005-01-03T20:26:07.503ZWatched Lyons and Conason's The Hunting of the President this weekend - it's recently come out on DVD. It was OK, but it really gave me a good reminder of how hard it is to make a really good documentary. Stylistically, Hunting wasn't bad, but there were a lot of problems. They used a LOT of stock footage that had nothing to do with the subject matter, except for symbolism - when they'd be RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1104428771744391822004-12-30T17:37:00.000Z2004-12-30T17:46:11.746ZOne last sign of the times before the year is out - this comes from Atrios, but I felt like linking it myself. The last right-wing comment is scary until the end, when it gets funny all of a sudden. It actually reminds me of when Poppy was talking about getting shot down in World War Two, and thinking of God, and then suddenly he got frightened that maybe he was being a little too religious so RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1104256715157479062004-12-28T17:57:00.000Z2004-12-28T17:58:35.156ZBob Herbert does it again.
I wonder if Safire even reads Herbert, and if he does, what exactly he thinks of it. It must seem like it's just from outer space somewhere.
Powerful.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1103828898825443472004-12-23T18:28:00.000Z2004-12-23T19:08:18.826ZThis Reuters story is pretty unequivocal.
Sometimes it can be a bit weird to see these sorts of headlines, since most readers of this blog have known for a long time (on their own, not because of me) that the Iraq war is an awful mess. But the impact of a group like CSIS putting out a report like this can hardly be overstated.
One of my pet peeves about news articles on think tank reports RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1103750201573854512004-12-22T21:53:00.000Z2004-12-22T21:16:41.573ZAnother thing - long ago I read a post on Vampie Elf's website about Fascism and at the time I sort of wanted to respond to it, but then decided it was a little much to get into. However, since Safire has now brought the parallels between 1930's fascism and the current U.S. government back into play, I suppose we should discuss it.
The thrust of Vampire Elf's post was that it's silly to referRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1103748487717875782004-12-22T21:24:00.000Z2004-12-22T20:49:55.213ZA while back, Jon Last wrote a piece in the Weekly Standard online defending the Galactic Empire from the Star Wars movies. A lot of people found it funny and emailed it to me. I did not find it particularly funny, except in a very bitter sort of way, since Jon Last actually makes his living defending the Galactic Empire in real life. In the defense of the people who emailed me the link, most RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1103669145911251632004-12-21T22:18:00.000Z2004-12-21T22:46:37.473ZAs everyone knows by now, today there was a significant attack against a military base in Mosul that killed a couple dozen U.S. troops and a few civilians, in addition to wounding an unknown number of people.
First I must remark that the difference between the reaction to 60 Iraqis being killed last week (a shrug) and the reaction 24 Americans being killed today (mounting horror) fills my RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1103310683800420712004-12-17T19:09:00.000Z2004-12-17T19:11:23.800ZStarting Monday, the mourning period for Gery Webb will be over and I'll go back to blogging about other stuff. But I must point out one last thing - Cockburn and St. Clair have put up an excerpt from their awesome WhiteOut on http://www.counterpunch.org that explains the basic story of the destruction of Webb by the newspaper business.
It's a little breathless, but I've never seen even a RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1103120262915264362004-12-15T14:03:00.000Z2004-12-15T14:17:42.916ZHere's another Gary Webb article, this one from Counterpunch. It's somewhat uplifting and also somewhat sad to see the depth of feeling that existed out there for this man. I know I never wrote him and told him what a giant he was to me. It makes you wonder, what if he had known what we all felt about him? Probably wouldn't have mattered. But we'll never know.
RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1103119177727833122004-12-15T13:49:00.000Z2004-12-15T13:59:37.726ZMike Ruppert has a nice short writeup on Gary Webb's death that reflects very closely my feelings on the matter, except that I wasn't actually suicidal in 1996. But I did see Webb as a sort of guiding spirit - I was forming a lot of very unpopular opinions at that time and receiving a lot of negative feedback from friends and family about them, and to see someone like Webb standing up to all RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1102954526300799692004-12-13T15:58:00.000Z2004-12-13T16:15:26.300ZGary Webb is dead today, in an apparent suicide. I am sure I cannot describe my feelings, but I will say it is probably much like Kurt Cobain's biggest fan's felt when they learned of his suicide 10 years ago. I am crushed. The man was beyond a hero and an inspiration; he was a god to me. He proved a lot of things about this world, some of them not so lovely, and he had grit and passion and RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1102518194791232192004-12-08T14:37:00.000Z2004-12-08T15:03:14.790ZOne thing I'm having trouble getting my mind around is the near-absence of right-wing braying about the Ohio recount, which appears ready to proceed and could definitely expose some extremely unsavory facts about the Ohio vote, even if the new results aren't nearly enough to erase Bush's large 113,000-vote margin there.
For example, google news searches on "Ohio recount" still don't turn up RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1102355797606878162004-12-06T15:58:00.000Z2004-12-06T17:56:37.606ZA few words about the BCS.
First, I would like to please retire the phrase "It's all about money" from the discussion. This point is, I believe, self-evident. In any controversy having to do with televised sports, the key factor in the end will always be vast, vast gobs of sponsorship money. The national championship game is played every four years, after all, at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1101996291545225742004-12-02T12:51:00.000Z2004-12-02T14:04:51.546ZCheesy thought of the day:
Every day is a new chance. I woke up this morning and I wanted to go back to bed, feeling very put-upon that I had to get up, shower, eat breakfast and go to work, where I have to try to deal with a weird and quite serious technical problem affecting our entire division's network, whose proper operation is in many respects primarily my responsibility, in addition to RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1101833048932295952004-11-30T16:23:00.000Z2004-11-30T16:44:08.933ZThanksgiving is over, and while I was cooking for the Allende-Groom clan I missed a couple of key developments in Iraq. We passed a very significant number in the Iraq War, and I cannot say whether it was remarked upon in the press because I wasn't paying close attention due to my culinary pursuits. But here it is:
The first year of the Iraq War, March 21, 2003 to March 20, 2004, saw 582 RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100715938367725942004-11-17T18:15:00.000Z2004-11-17T18:25:38.366ZOne thing I'm seeing in the articles about these appointments that's quite revealing of the press' new "balance problem," wherein reporters use moderated language that actually renders the statements they are making false.
Check out this article from Maura Reynolds about the Rice appointment.
Reynolds uses a word reporters have been falling in love with for describing Bush's record - "mixed."RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100715001023684932004-11-17T18:08:00.000Z2004-11-17T18:10:01.023ZAllow me to exonerate the media WRT Hadley's nomination. Yesterday, when it had just been announced, I didn't see anyone making reference to Hadley accepting blame for the State of the Union. Today, a ton of reporters brought it up in dozens of publications. My bad.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100709932548988402004-11-17T16:43:00.000Z2004-11-17T16:45:32.550ZI feel a little strange describing the Iraq situation only in terms of the American losses, but of the course the cost to Iraqis is much higher. Numbers can never capture the effects of war, but reporting from people who are there can give you some idea.
Here is one such report.
RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100708346474381702004-11-17T15:48:00.000Z2004-11-17T16:19:06.473ZAnother Iraq tidbit from Iraq Coalition Casualties - the three bloodiest weeks of the Iraq War are as follows:
#3 - 56 U.S. soldiers were killed the week of 3/23/03 to 3/29/03.
#2 - 65 U.S. soldiers were killed the week of 4/4/04 to 4/10/04.
#1 - 65+ U.S. soldiers were killed the week of 11/7/04 to 11/13/04 (the number is likely to be increased by a few in the next few days as information is RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100702586835513292004-11-17T13:54:00.000Z2004-11-17T14:46:34.200ZLots to talk about, very little time. I'll be brief.
Ashcroft/Gonzales
This is actually a pretty frightening development. Many people seem understandably relieved that Ashcroft is gone. But Ashcroft was his own man, and had a certain crazy right-wing vampire logic to his approach to law enforcement. Gonzales' strength is that he's a Bush loyalist; thus his appointment suggests that his mainRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100536418448804992004-11-15T16:10:00.000Z2004-11-15T16:33:38.446ZComing Full Circle
Cheery thought of the day - as many U.S. soldiers died in the ten days between November 4th and November 14th, 2004 as died in the ten days between March 21st and March 31st, 2003, the period of the initial assault on Baghdad.
Despite the assurances of Bush administration spokespeople, the trend since the fall of Baghdad has been a steady increase in casualties from a RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100529565965081042004-11-15T14:14:00.000Z2004-11-15T14:39:25.966ZLittle A16 story in the Post caught my eye today, dealing with alleged "anti-narcotics" efforts in Afghanistan. Not a blockbuster story, but there are some strange things in the article that don't quite add up.
Some of the inconsistencies are simply humorous. For example, the report tells us that proceeds from opium poppy cultivation amount to about 50% of legal GDP in Afghanistan, dwarfing RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100214322455056242004-11-11T22:47:00.000Z2004-11-11T23:05:22.456ZLittle break from politics here - I was thinking today about why boxing purists hate the heavyweight division. It's not because of the corruption or the granstanding or the fact that there is this vast sea of nobodies and maybe one or two legitimate fighters who never fight each other. That's all of boxing, it's just the higher up you go in weight, the more pronounced it is.
Being a boxing RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100042409036869422004-11-09T23:13:00.000Z2004-11-09T23:20:36.336ZOK, I'm rejoining the fringe. No matter how many times I crunch the exits, I get results that can't be correct (it would help if the raw exit data were available). Meanwhile, I'm unable to reconcile the official turnout figures with the total number of votes cast, and spoilage is not a reasonable explanation as the difference is somewhere between 20 million and 35 million votes.
I still RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1100017221747257332004-11-09T16:16:00.000Z2004-11-09T16:20:21.746ZFrom Wally: if you're not familiar with the name Wendell Berry, please check yourself by reading this essay.
What does that have to do with politics, and how the Democrats can regain a foothold without capitulating to the New Asses? Well, if you don't get that, then read Thomas Frank's latest.
And if you still don't know, you better ask somebody.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099926520288962192004-11-08T14:43:00.000Z2004-11-08T15:08:40.286ZWell, I did spend quite a bit of time the last few days looking at the exits. Here's what I found - the exits as currently weighted are useless. Someone needs to get in there and figure out the problem and reweight them.
The big red flag is the 2000 Voter numbers; that is, the people who voted in 2000 who also voted in 2004. Working from the CNN numbers the percentage of 2000 Gore voters RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099673675059194272004-11-05T16:37:00.000Z2004-11-05T16:54:35.060ZUnderstandably, a lot of Dems are in denial about the voting results. I'm seeing a lot of fringe efforts around the web to look into the exit poll data and identify some sort of evidence of voter fraud. Now, I won't prejudge those efforts, and I certainly understand why these people are upset and in utter disbelief, but I'm not really that interested in that line of questioning. If the RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099628884978290522004-11-05T04:07:00.000Z2004-11-05T04:28:04.976ZHere's the real problem in my case, I think. My dad always tells me that you shouldn't think about how to spend money until you've won it. It's bad luck, he says. Bad luck or no, I know I had big plans for how I was going to spend the energy I was going to draw from a Kerry win. A NaNoWriMo novel. Taking control of the direction of my condo association. Rededicating myself at work. GettingRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099519172836778952004-11-03T21:56:00.000Z2004-11-03T21:59:32.836ZOne of the (very few) nice things about today is that everywhere you go, people are talking politics with their hearts on their sleeves. And that's fun for people like me who wish that every conversation could be about either politics or sports.
Just overheard one of my favorite colleague's tell a friend over the phone "well, my liberal views balance out me centrist views, so I guess in that RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099506749813138462004-11-03T18:12:00.000Z2004-11-03T18:32:29.813ZDur-bin! Dur-bin! Dur-bin! Dick Durbin for Senate Minority Leader! Yeah!
Seriously, I love Dick Durbin. If he becomes Minority Leader, this will all be worth it. OK, not really, but it would be a step in the right direction.
OK, my period of mourning if officially over at 1:14 EST on Wednesday, November 3rd. Bush was the president yesterday. He's the president today. Bush was a RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099489548146166862004-11-03T13:31:00.000Z2004-11-03T13:45:48.146ZSo what happened? Well, in terms of what actually caused the election to go the way it did, of course it's too early to say. We'll have to analyze the voting patterns over the course of the next few months to figure that out.
In terms of me personally, I think to anybody who reads this space it's obvious what happened - I saw what I wanted to see. My mood this morning makes it clear to me RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099436123569919422004-11-02T22:52:00.000Z2004-11-02T22:55:23.570ZObviously the numbers from before are no longer operative, though you can still bet Bush at +3 if you're a glutton for punishment. He COULD pull 48%, really. Go ahead and bet it, please.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099326229517230292004-11-01T16:22:00.000Z2004-11-01T16:23:49.516ZI have a ton of work to do today, AND I have to start on my NaNoWriMo novel, but I'm completely unable to think about anything but the election, even though I'm not really even nervous about the result at this point. I'm taking bets on Bush getting three points if anybody's interested. And if you want to bet Kerry laying five, I'll take that too, or you can bet either guy at KERRY 4 Bush with aRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1099066306353697192004-10-29T15:58:00.000Z2004-10-29T16:12:06.193ZWell, to the credit of the mainstream media, they really didn't pick up the story about Bush's stupid doctored ad. There were some stories about it, but nobody turned it into a big deal. So even though it helps Bush, bravo to the MSM for avoiding this story, because it's really pretty trivial.
On the other hand, I was a little disheartened that the Washington Post decided that 100,000 RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1098995173950115882004-10-28T20:23:00.000Z2004-10-28T20:26:13.950ZRemember that shit I said about soccer? No? Shame on you. Well, then, remember the Hopkins/Trinidad fight? No? Shame on you. Well, remember the time we had a really inept, stupid president who lost really, really bad in his reelection bid because he was such a dishonest idiot, and surrounded himself with other dishonest idiots? No? Well, just wait a minute:
Ding Dong.
Stick a fork in 'RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1098986099729262272004-10-28T17:05:00.000Z2004-10-28T17:59:05.240ZObviously, not much forthcoming from Groomville these days. It's mostly the fact that I am extremely wary of premature celebration, and I'm feeling very, cautiously optimistic (as opposed to very cautiously optimistic) about John Kerry's prospects in Tuesday's election.
I was planning to remain in hiding until tomorrow, when I will submit my final pre-2004-election article to Democratic RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1098453721412060872004-10-22T13:53:00.000Z2004-10-22T14:02:01.413ZUhh, WHAT?!?!
You would think it would be impossible for Pat Robertson to go off the deep end. But I give you this (thanks to Daily Howler; I don't read the Zahn transcripts):
"I just think God's blessing is on him. And you remember, I think the Chinese used to say, you know, it's the blessing of heaven on the emperor. And I think the blessing of heaven is on Bush. It's just the way it is."
RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1098452123242612652004-10-22T13:32:00.000Z2004-10-22T13:35:23.243ZThis is nice. This is probably Democrats doing this, right? And the thing with the secretary of state tring to disqualify provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct, that's just a coincidence. Seriously, how do these people sleep at night?RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1098189784909543742004-10-19T12:31:00.000Z2004-10-19T12:43:04.910ZInteresting news from Florida the past couple of days... Virtually every poll, regardless of the absolute percentages, has Florida trending very slightly Kerry in the last few weeks. This is crucial because, as I and others have noted, there is no realistic scenario in which Bush loses Florida and wins the presidency. If Kerry wins Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida, it's over, and Michigan RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1098119703408639482004-10-18T17:12:00.000Z2004-10-18T17:17:02.800ZI have a bazillion things to do today, but I wanted to point out this article from Working For Change via Common Dreams. This reflects, more or less, my thinking on the election. I would lay up to 4 1/2 points on Kerry at this point. Bush needs something very good to happen very soon. If not, he's headed for an extremely embarrassing loss. RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097864859557773242004-10-15T18:11:00.000Z2004-10-15T18:27:39.556ZAlso, I was intrigued when Tim Russert said after the debate that he had been running electoral college scenarios and once had it come out 269-269. This was plausible a couple of months ago, when there were as many as 20 states you could have said were in play. But is it really true now? I was skeptical. But actually, having done the numbers myself, it's really not far-fetched at all.
In RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097863743992212552004-10-15T18:00:00.000Z2004-10-15T18:09:03.993ZIs Bush Wired? has it just about right today. The most overwhelming evidence - not proof, mind you, but evidence - that Bush Is Wired is not the bulge in his back but the fact that people do not look like that when they are trying to think of what to say next.
It actually reminds me of a spy novel I read where there was a guy who was being watched, and the way he knew he was being watched wasRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097761121228840482004-10-14T13:12:00.000Z2004-10-14T13:38:41.226ZOver a long season, they say the bad calls even out. After the first debate I thought Kerry won a clear but competitive decision. In the days following, the media turned it into something resembling a rout.
Last night, Kerry absolutely punished Bush and basically mopped the floor with him. It was close for maybe 15 minutes and then Bush fell off the map entirely and essentially just died upRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097685661265797822004-10-13T16:17:00.000Z2004-10-13T16:41:01.266ZRight about now is when the entire nation becomes obsessed with polling. The way most people look at polling is that they have a certain fascination with it and use it as a general scorecard for a campaign, but they will tell you they basically think polls are "BS."
In fact, neither of these ideas has much merit. Polling is, when conducted properly (as almost all widely publicized polls are)RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097676690589329902004-10-13T14:10:00.000Z2004-10-13T14:11:30.590ZIf you've been following this space, you knew this already (unless, ye gods, you don't just believe everything I say uncritically), but here it again, from an actual news source.
For the last time, Pennsylvania is not in play.
RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097674563647426382004-10-13T13:29:00.000Z2004-10-13T13:36:03.646ZFrom Talking Points Memo, a little peek at the kinds of Get Out the Vote activities the Grand Old Party is up to these days.
This is the Republican Party, folks. These are the people who are overseas killing people because of their commitment to freedom and democracy. Well, they themselves are not overseas killing people, of course; they're paying other people to do it. Well, they RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097599355748337442004-10-12T16:26:00.000Z2004-10-12T16:42:35.750ZFrom Sophia: an article about Bush's code-speak for the religious right.
I haven't spent enough time talking about the basic balancing act of presidential politics - you speak to the middle and wink at the base. In Bush's case, he seems to be speaking to the base and winking at the lunatic fringe, but that may just be a result of the right wing starting to believe its own press.
Actually, RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097238540177992552004-10-08T12:16:00.000Z2004-10-08T12:30:38.363ZOne of the reasons I love sports is that each sport, by its character, demonstrates certain basic truths about human existence and amplifies them so that they are easy to see. One of my favorite things about the sport of soccer is that, particularly at the highest levels, it is so low-scoring that one team can dominate the entire match with superior play, but the match will be decided by what isRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1097066746539876022004-10-06T12:36:00.000Z2004-10-06T12:45:46.540ZThough I have a pretty good feel for the TV culture, some things are still tough for me to put my finger on. Last night, as the topic of the debate shifted from war issues to domestic concerns, Cheney started to drift significantly in his concentration. There was a real possibility at that moment that the debate was about to get away from him.
In attacking Edwards on many essentially RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096976764629643802004-10-05T11:37:00.000Z2004-10-05T11:46:04.630ZA letter-writer to the New York Times triggered an interesting thought in my skull this morning. It's now somewhat understood, at least among reasonable people, that the people of Iraq are not right now better off than they were under Saddam Hussein. However, there is still a hard core of war supporters who still believe that Iraq under no real domestic leadership, with an active resistance RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096896345907075632004-10-04T13:14:00.000Z2004-10-04T13:25:45.906ZWell, in an attempt to create a sidebar and such on the blog, I screwed things up royally and made it impossible to blog the debate, which turned out to be OK because I got embroiled in a huge, boring controversy at home and had to work that out, so during the debate I was busy writing notes of apology and consolidating coalitions and other such political nonsense.
In any case, I enjoyed the RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096578019331917562004-09-30T20:34:00.000Z2004-10-01T14:44:46.576ZThe excellent Juan Cole has a post up today about the Plame investigation, which is notable for two reasons. One is timing; as I noted previously, Bill Safire and Bob Novak both penned articles recently excoriating the two main administration antagonists vis-a-vis the Plame affair - Safire went after the investigators themselves shortly after Novak blasted the complaining party, i.e. the CentralRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096553177695076102004-09-30T13:28:00.000Z2004-09-30T14:06:17.696ZThis debate primer in the Washington Post is the perfect example of what one of Kissinger's "Revolutionary Powers" can do to an independent(-ish) press corps.
The gold standard for "mainstream" journalism is not accuracy but balance. So clearly, if you're a revolutionary power, the best strategy for paralyzing a press operating under these rules is to become so unglued from any kind of RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096484234178661112004-09-29T18:55:00.000Z2004-09-29T18:57:14.176ZSafire has a piece today about the horrors of the Plame investigation. The heat must be getting close. More soon.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096391075265477922004-09-28T16:43:00.000Z2004-09-28T17:04:35.266ZDavid Brooks is funny. Deep Underground took note of a Brooks column not too long ago where Brooks told a pleasing tale about the "settlement" of the U.S., and drew a parallel with the U.S. attempt to reorganize Iraq after invading and destroying it.
Now, the new parallel is between El Salvador in 1982 and Iraq in 2005. Brooks tells us that El Salvador in 1982 was a place of terrible strife RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096299747214128192004-09-27T15:31:00.000Z2004-09-27T15:49:29.653ZOK, so after this morning's gun-jumping, let's move along to a story that is really quite funny, as long as, as usual, you ignore the depressing fact that due to this gross incompetence and obvious bald-faced lying, thousands of people have been killed with no end to the carnage in sight.
Here's an overly kind Reuters story called "Key Bush Assertions About Iraq in Dispute." Actually, if you RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1096296750038501022004-09-27T14:07:00.000Z2004-09-27T15:18:34.776ZComeuppance for the Knave of Darkness?
Funny thing happened to me on the way to the blogspot this morning. I was sitting on the Metro, reading the WaPo, and I came across this hilarious column by Bob Novak titled "The CIA vs. Bush." Regular readers of this space and of the Raul Groom DU column will remember that Novak actually fired the first shot in the war he purports to describe; this pieceRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1095968064755240522004-09-23T20:31:00.000Z2004-09-23T19:34:24.756ZOh, and my favorite blog of the day is Josh Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo. Josh is, like pretty much everyone worth listening to, way to my right on foreign policy, but the kind of analysis he does is really tough to find anywhere else. Excellent political mind, great knowledge of history, and a good writer. If the Raul Groom Stamp of Approval has a litmus test, that's it.
A stamp of RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1095967715679789482004-09-23T20:00:00.000Z2004-09-23T19:29:14.740ZBush is having a rough day in the Washington Post. They gave him some inches to tell his side of the story, which he did as good a job of as he ever does. Bush and Allawi's main talking point these days seems to be that "at every turn, the Iraqi people have proved the doubters wrong." Which is a good sount bite, I guess, except for the rather sticky fact that at every turn, the Bush RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1095867725413604402004-09-22T15:41:00.000Z2004-09-22T15:42:05.483ZOK, I figured it out. With my move order, black has Kxd8, saving the queen. So only the text works. I lose.RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1095863777718904482004-09-22T14:34:00.000Z2004-09-22T14:36:17.716ZAlso, I'm trying to figure out how to do that cool frames thing where you have constant links in your left-hand column. There I'll put links to all the blogs I read regularly. Unlike a lot of bloggers (many of whom are pro writers) I don't read a ton of blogs, but the ones I do read, I read every day.
Until then, every day I'll try to post a link to a blog I like. Today's featured blog is RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1095861805597604362004-09-22T13:10:00.000Z2004-09-22T14:08:28.980ZI'm not dead. Really. Though it would be a pretty good excuse, no? Tough to blog from beyond the grave, or so one would assume. Anyway, I finally ponied up an article for DU, which I promised myself I would do before I put in the next installment of the minimum wage debate. I also got some complaints from regular readers that the MW debate was pretty boring. But that's my fault. My next RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1093889801780556342004-08-30T17:01:00.000Z2004-08-30T18:16:41.780ZThis complaint is directed at a number of commentators that I really like (one in particular), which gives me the right, I believe, to be unusually vitriolic in my condemnation. It is my first draft of a letter I will be sending to Eric Alterman today via email, and also putting in the mail. So here goes:
Every "liberal" commentator who has drawn this idiotic parallel between the huge protestsRaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1093553441143268922004-08-26T20:25:00.000Z2004-08-26T20:50:41.143ZA while back, I wrote a little blog entry about Iraq, pointing out (back when it was considered crazy to say this) that Iraq really wasn't any better off under American occupation than it was under Saddam Hussein. Now, of course, this is pretty much undisputed, although if there is a such thing as "grudgingly undisputed," then this idea is that.
But the second part of that blog entry was my RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1093462133905651562004-08-25T19:27:00.000Z2004-08-25T19:28:53.906ZThere. See how easy that was? Now we're cooking. I'm not going to set a deadline for my next installment, but I'll get to it at some point. In the meantime, I'm off to finish installing the new print server. Whee!RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292985.post-1093432845200426332004-08-25T11:03:00.000Z2004-08-25T11:20:45.200ZA little advice for on-again, off-again Dead fans like myself - the end of August is a perfect time to turn on again. In fact, even those of you who think you hate the Dead should take a listen at the end of August. Forget Truckin' or Friend of the Devil or any of the ones you've heard a hundred times - ask a Dead fan to let you listen to some Dire Wolf, or St. Stephen. Maybe it won't mean a RaulGroomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05976045660955820588noreply@blogger.com0