Weird.

OK, just to set the record straight: hockey is one of my lowest priorities. Right below picking lint out of my belly button. My interest does spike during the Olympics, surely a spillover from 1980's "Miracle on Ice." But so far as it goes, I don't care about hockey. Last year's NHL strike left me feeling as though there were simply less clutter in my life. Now things feel more cluttered. So that's how I feel about hockey.

But this story is just weird. Do these people look like they really need the money? The "thrills?" What's up with Janet Jones?

Bizarre convergence

The San Luis Obispo New Times published a piece last week thats caused a bit of a hubbub. The first I heard of it was on a local newscast on Thursday night last.

Apparently many local folks had much to say about it, including ex-addicts who felt the piece's open discussion of "how to" was a bit over the top. They also didn't seem to care for the 'recipe' that was published alongside the story.

So, what does this have to do with me?

I'm sitting at work this afternoon and get a call from the Account Supervisor on one of my largest client accounts. This story has been brought to his attention--all the way in New York--through feedback from a local store. He's curious to know exactly what the piece was and who originally published it.

He wondered as well whether we had or were planning to discuss the story in our pages. Branding issues, no doubt.

I was able to address his questions and when I got off the phone I wondered exactly why I had bothered. Seeing as how he explained we've been dropped from the corporate buy for '06.

Been a bad week on that front.

The Fear Societies of Saudi Arabia and Egypt

I'm still in the middle of The Case for Democracy. Sharansky's point about fear societies and the means they use to stay in power is being made these days right in front of us it seems.

Reality Check Central

Trade Liberalization Update

One of my real hot-button issues is global trade liberalization. I'm a big believer in free trade and won't allow the myopians' heartbreaking anecdotes about shuttered factories to undermine my utilitarian belief in the power of markets, economic rationlization, global wage equilibration, or nearly 70 years of rising global standards of living.

The Bush Administration has had some missteps on trade policy (the farm bill and the European steel imbroglio come to mind), but when it comes to negotiating bilateral trade liberalization and multilateral leadership in the Doha Round I would give them high marks.

Daniel Drezner addresses the latest coup which might have slipped beneath your radar:

Last week, however, the U.S. and South Korea announced that they intended to negotiate an FTA over the course of this year. USTR representative Rob Portman said, "This is the most commercially significant free trade negotiation we have embarked on in 15 years," and he's not lying -- you'd have to go back to the start of NAFTA for an FTA that would have as big an economic impact.

It's a big deal. Not only is South Korea the tenth largest economy in the world and one of our largest export markets, it is also one of our strongest partners in Asia and a sucessfully concluded agreement would more firmly entrench American business in the heart of the Pacific Rim. Economically, this has tremendous potential to open markets for US goods and to reduce economic burdens on American consumers. Politically, this represents another major milestone in terms of the Bush Administration reshuffling the alliance deck. While we are not moving away from Europe, we are certainly more active and attentive in places like Asia, the Middle East and Africa. At least in this regard, I think it is safe to say that this Administration is more visionary than laggard. The same cannot be said in other areas of its foreign policy. But give credit where credit is due.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

The Fascinating Blogosphere

Andrew Sullivan provides some interesting observations about the evolution of the blogosphere and the mainstream media during the Age of Terror.

It's fascinating, isn't it, how this war has so often come down to what we are and are not allowed to see. We were not allowed to see (for long) the video deaths of those who jumped out of the World Trade Center. We were not allowed to see the coffins of soldiers arriving back in the U.S. We are still not allowed to see the most revealing photographs of what really happened at Abu Ghraib (the case is still tied up in appeals). We were not allowed to see the beheading of Nick Berg. And now we are not allowed to see the cartoons that are being used by Islamists for another round of violent intimidation of free societies. And then, of course, there is what makes this war different. The web has made it possible to see almost all of this, if you look hard enough.

Beneficent leader of all

I love to game. Hours and hours of fun. If my wife finds out about this though, I'm a dead man. I could lose days to something like this...

The Wellstone Memorial, Part Deux

Decorum is dead.

They turned the memorial of a well-loved Senator, loved by his peers on both side of the aisle, into a political rally (or circus, take your pick).

They could hardly wait for a former President to even get in the ground before dumping on him.

Today, while ostensibly honoring Coretta Scott King and the memory of her hard work with her husband to bring equality to minorities across the country, the left once again showed that it is immature, irresponsible and incapable of controlling itself:

“Rev” Joseph Lowery preached some anti-Bush, anti-War rhetoric today:

LOWERY: We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we knew that there were weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance, poverty abound, for war billions more, but no more for the poor.

Former President Jimm Carter [sic]made the crowd roar after he compared King’s wiretapping to Bush’s terrorist surveillance program:

CARTER: It was difficult for them [the King family] then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps.

Kate O' Bierne appeared on Hardball afterwards and offers the money quote in an exchange with host Chris Matthews:

CM: Was there something inaccurate in what they said, either he or Dr. Lowery?

KoB: It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter if they were reading factual material to make a cheap, political point. It is totally contrary to the spirit, and we're not talking about Coretta Scott King and the incredible legacy of the Kings, and her incredibly dignified life--which this runs counter to I might add-, we're talking about these two political characters.

It was a funeral for cryin' out loud.

They can't compose themselves for two hours to sit in the room with President Bush to honor the memory of a wonderful woman. It's disgusting.

And as for former President Carter...what is there to say? The man was the worst president of my life time far as I'm concerned and every time I think he can't get any worse as an ex-president, he surprises me.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin and Expose the Left for all the video and pointers.

Could San Diego have won Super Bowl XL?

Without a doubt.

The San Diego Union-Tribune's Nick Canepa echoes thoughts eerily similar to those running through my head during this year's Super Bowl.

Is there any reason, if quarterback Drew Brees recovers from shoulder surgery, that he can't quarterback a team to a Super Bowl? Is Brees not capable of performing better than Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger did Sunday night? The Brees critics – and they are numerous – should study that. They also should be keenly aware Brees hardly was the reason the Chargers lost that playoff game to the Jets last season. Do the Steelers have a running back close to LaDainian Tomlinson? No. Do they have a tight end like Antonio Gates? No. They have a very good front seven, but so do the Chargers, and San Diego has better pass-rushers. Pittsburgh's big advantage is on the offensive line, where the Chargers must improve. San Diego's cornerback situation may not be the best, but the Steelers don't have Hall of Famers there, either. Holmgren had quarterback Matt Hasselbeck go after them early. Pittsburgh's cornerback situation is no better than San Diego's. The difference in the secondary is safety Troy Polamalu, who is a playmaker, and there's no question the Chargers need one back there. Teams must be aware of Polamalu. Quarterbacks look at safeties. And the good safeties create turnovers, which the Chargers' guys have not been able to do. You look at the personnel of the two Super Bowl finalists and then study the Chargers and there is not much gap.

With a couple of breaks during the regular season, it could have been San Diego hoisting a trophy in Detroit. I thought that at about the midpoint of the season and I continue to believe it. The combination of brutal schedule, youth and inexperience, poor coaching, and sub-par offensive line play and pass defense conspired to prevent this year's model from even making the playoffs, in spite of the fact that you would be hard-pressed to find a more impressive showing than San Diego's butt-kicking of then-undefeated Indianapolis. On the flip side, I witnessed the season finale debacle in Kansas City, too. With $20M to spend this offseason, more experience and a bitterness about this season under their belts, look for the Bolts to go places in 2006.

In Search of the Beef

Without naming names, certain posters on this blog have a fairly negative view of Arizona Senator John McCain. Others, like myself, have more mixed emotions bordering on positive. But that's one of the great things about MyDogs. Yeah, you've got a couple of conservatives but we each have our own viewpoints and there are clear areas of disagreement. You've also got a couple of National League West baseball fans. It just so happens that one of us roots for the reigning National League West champions and the other roots for those scum-sucking Trolley Dodgers. So it's anything but an echo chamber here.

That said, I think even Paul will have to tip his hat to Senator McCain's actions in his recent spat with Democratic golden-boy Barack Obama. It seems that Obama disingenuously implied that McCain was attempting to slow-down the generation of new lobbying reform legislation through the creation of a bipartisan working group, rather than simply going ahead and drafting the legislation. Of course, I come from the school that thinks it would probably be prudent to take some time to study a rather complex issue (especially with almost daily revelations emerging in the Abramoff scandal) as opposed to simply drafting a quick-fix that will make the daily newscycle. Moreover, if Obama were open to a reality check, he'd probably learn that McCain has been beating the drum on ethics-, lobbying- and campaign reform for years, so the notion that he would try to de-rail it is beyond ludicrous. In fact, it's so ludicrous one might even interpret Obama's statements as grandstanding.

Apparently, that's how McCain interpreted them. Look how he responded!

"I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. . . . "I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss . . . "I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness."

Beautiful. And completely on-point. McCain has now become the first Republican to openly attack Obama. Republicans historically have a tough time going on the political offensive against minority and female opponents due to sensitivity to age-old monolithic shibboleths about conservative anti-minority / anti-women orientations. But kudos to McCain for being the first out of the box to take on Obama. Because ever since Product Obama (TM) was launched to the fawning crowds at the Democratic Convention and the almost-universal, mesmerized sighs of network anchors, I've been asking a basic question: Where's the Beef? Yes, Obama is an intelligent and attractive man with an impressive personal history. Yes, he comes-across as even-tempered, moderate and even conciliatory at times. I can see why the Democrats are so excited about him, even if their rationale ("He's African American. And he's so well-spoken.") borders on hypocrisy given their past attacks on Republican minority candidates like Alan Keyes, Colin Powell and JC Watts. That's all fine and good. But what does Obama stand for? What does he believe in? What's his program? For what cause will he go to the mats, even if he risks being unpopular? In other words, it's clear that Obama is packaged and primed for prime-time but is he a true leader? And does he have any solutions?

Attacking Obama's grandstanding is a prudent move by McCain, because to this point no one has challenged the freshman Senator from Illinois. No one has so much as raised the point as to whether the King is actually wearing any clothes. Obama potentially presents a formidable opponent for Republicans in 2008 and / or 2012. Now is a good time to see what he's made of. It will be interesting in the days ahead to see how Obama responds and what, if any substantive progress he generates in the Senate.

And in other news...

The sun came up this morning. While yesterday, the President submitted a budget that emphasizes defense spending and the war on terror and at the same time trims domestic spending:

Bush gives a generous 6.9 percent budget increase to the Pentagon - which would receive a record $439 billion before accounting for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - and wants Congress to pass a $3 billion or 14 percent increase in foreign aid.

His proposal projects $70 billion in new funds to execute the war in Iraq through the end of September, which will come in a detailed request later this month and bring total war funding for 2006 to $120 billion. Another $50 billion is allocated for next year.

"My administration has focused the nation's resources on our highest priority _ protecting our citizens and our homeland," Bush said in his budget message.

The White House also said that it will request another $18 billion or so in hurricane relief in the next few days.

At the same time, Bush proposes to kill or dramatically slash 141 programs for savings of almost $15 billion.

And people will be upset. Meanwhile, it's in keeping with all the priorities he set on 9/12/01. What a surprise...

The End of Originality

That's the title of this piece in Slate taking on Hollywood and it's lack of 'new'. Ostensibly Edward Jay Epstein is explaining why The Island, produced by Michael Bay didn't produce big numbers last year:

In Hollywood, originality is anything but a virtue. Paramount rejected a recent project that had attached stars, an approved script, and a bankable director by telling the producer, "It's a terrific idea; too bad it has not been made into a movie already or we could have done the remake."

What really failed here was not the directing, acting, or story (which were all acceptable for a summer movie) but the marketing campaign. Whatever other factors might have worked against audience creation—the midsummer release date, the clutter of competitive action films, the misleading title, etc.—The Island had to overcome the competitive disadvantage of not having the built-in awareness that comes from being a sequel, a remake, a video game, a TV series spinoff, or a comic-book adaptation.

Which leads me to ask the following question: Was there no one at the studio with any sense of movie history to know that in fact they were producing a remake of sorts? Surely the clerk at Blockbuster who tipped us off to it when we rented it last week isn't the only one aware of the similarities to this 70's cult classic!

Brush With C^3 Greatness

Even though Paul is too modest to toot his horn, I am not. It seems that one of our "three devoted readers" includes Michael Weiss at Slate.com because one of Paul's posts was recently referenced over there. While this may not portend blogging superstardom for MyDogs...or Paul's dogs, it is nice to see that our audience includes people who are writing for some of the larger publications and sites. If people want to read the Washington Post, I presume they read the Post as opposed to a wannabe Post-aggregator. If they want to read differing viewpoints they visit blogs like this one.

But kudos to Paul. I just hope he'll continue to let me ride his coat-tails ;-)

Even more uneasy

I watched Majority Leader Boehner on Fox News yesterday morning to get a sense of where the man thinks Congressional Republicans need to go and how he thinks they can get there.

I'm even more uneasy now than I was before. It's not even so much what he said, but how he said it. I look at the words, and I don't have a reason to be uneasy. Yet I sat there feeling like I needed a shower when he was done.

He didn't convince me at all.

A note on Congressman Shadegg: I wish I'd remembered this while the race was on. Goes to his bonafide's as a fiscal conservative. Roughly a year ago Shadegg took a lot of heat for refusing to earmark funds in the Highway Bill for improvements at I-17 & Happy Valley Rd:

Shadegg and fellow Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake, refused to earmark Federal funds for this because they felt it was a typical pork project:He and Flake argue that this money is too often allocated for questionable projects based on political influence rather than the needs of the country as a whole. Shadegg has called the bill a "pork-stuffed budget-buster that shortchanges Arizona.

"Meanwhile, city officials were under the impression that Shadegg had agreed to fight for money and funnel any he 'won' to this project. The result is a couple of angry City Council members and some aggravated area-residents who want to see the project completed sooner and not later.

Some in Congress talk the talk and others walk the walk. I think we blew it.

What's in a Name?

The game was odd. It'll be quickly forgotten and fall into the abyss of unremarkable Super Bowls, of which there have been plenty.

Except for one thing. Mike. The play calling and clock management at the end of each half were atrocious.

Mike looked a lot like Mike.

Show me the Money!

The second panel says it all. Three hour lunches, expense accounts, industry parties. Most importantly, the huge pay-day!

This cartoon captures the stereotype near-perfectly. Now that I'm doing the job, and I'm the not-so-smart guy selling the product, I can say flatly that it is not true!.

What's worse, are the Friday emails telling you that your market is no longer on the 2006 buy.

Livin' the Life

What We're dealing with

This is normally Sim's deal, and I apologize in advance for the schtick-stealing and even more importantly for any damage done to the brand, but I can't not post about this. It would be absurd were it not so disturbing and scary.

First there was this: Muslim leaders are still having a major snit fit over the so-called Muhammad cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten earlier this month.

Then there was this: A leading Islamic cleric called for an "international day of anger" today over publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, and a Danish activist predicted that deadly violence could break out in Europe "at any minute".

As more European newspapers reprinted the cartoons, what started off as a row between Denmark's press and its Muslim population grew into a full-blown "clash of civilisations".

And then there was this. The pictures speak for themselves.

Finally, yesterday there was this: Thousands of Muslims rampaged Sunday in Beirut, setting fire to the Danish Embassy, burning Danish flags and lobbing stones at a Maronite Catholic church as violent protests over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad spread from neighboring Syria.

Protesters also took to the streets by the thousands elsewhere in the Muslim world, a day after demonstrators in Syria charged security barriers outside the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and sent the buildings up in flames.

Those attacks earned widespread condemnation from European nations and the U.S., which accused the Syrian government of backing the protests.

The Danish foreign minister said: "enough is enough."

"Now it has become more than a case about the drawings: Now there are forces that wants a confrontation between our cultures," Moeller said. "It is in no one's interest, neither them or us."

Where and when does it stop? How does it stop?

As a Christian I am often angered and offended by comments and images that are demeaning of Christ, of other Christians and of faith. But who in their right mind advocates burning buildings in response?

Why this state is in the mess it's in

California's Senate leader announced on Friday that state Democrats would not support a proposal to limit the percentage of the state's budget devoted to debt payments:

Senate leader Don Perata said Friday that Democrats would not accept a constitutional amendment on borrowing limits, a provision that was a key part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $222 billion infrastructure proposal.

The governor said in his State of the State address in January that he wanted no more than 6 percent of the state's general fund revenue to be used to repay debt.

Perata, D-Oakland, said Friday that provision is "unworkable and unnecessary."

After all...it's only money, right?!

Oddity of the Week

I wish to extend to James Joyner my sympathies (or is it empathy; in this case probably both), as I suffer from the same affliction:

I am cursed with the worst possible combination of beard growth: Fairly sensitive skin, a very tough beard in places, and yet enough bare spots that I really can't grow a decent beard.

How this is possible when my own father grew enough of a beard to be mistaken for a rabbi at times still escapes me 25 years later.