Not a Big Truck

This is the type of thing that put him near the top of my VP hopefuls list.  Taking on the fight to reform the criminal justice system probably won’t win Jim Webb many friends and likely won’t play well in Virginia. Running on the “I was smart and compassionate to criminals” position doesn’t always play well politically.

Political realities aside, this is an important issue that requires a serious reevaluation of our national priorities and a politician defiant enough to take on the fight. Webb, for all his faults, does seem to have a pragmatic view of what it takes to make real improvements in the country and the willingness to accept the consequences of pursuing such changes. I hope he succeeds.

That is what Andrew Sullivan thinks.

Bush was a failure as president. That is for sure. To say that he is the worst ever is saying something.

Trying to rank presidents is like trying to compare baseball players from different eras. Babe Ruth was the best hitter of his time–more home runs than other teams–but could he have hit today’s pitching? Similarly, Andrew Jackson was widely popular in his time, brought wider suffrage to America, and generally advanced democratic ideals. At the same time, he ethnically cleansed and massacred Native Americans, advanced disastrous economic policies, and did nothing to oppose the institution of slavery. Certainly Jackson’s crimes were far more egregious than any committed by Bush.

The obvious defense is to argue that these past presidents, those who helped maintain slavery, oppressed Native Americans, entered a war that led to the burning of D.C., or created internment camps for Japanese Americans, were all products of their times. This is probably fair, but it seems to suggest that presidents can’t be rated on an absolute scale, at least not one based on the “good” and “evil” of their actions/inactions.

Does this mean a president can only be rated based on more contextual criteria? By this I mean, does a president’s greatness directly relate to the extent that he was ahead of the rest of his contemporaries in pursuing a policy, approach, or vision that we today deem to be correct? And on the other side, do we forgive presidents for their active advancement of morally problematic policies as long as those policies were in step with a majority of the nation at that time?

It isn’t an easy question for me and I honestly do not know the answer. I agree that Bush, in terms of advancing the country (whatever that means), probably is near the bottom of presidents, but if one wishes to consider the evils perpetrated or ignored by an administration, I suspect Bush would be a better than average president.

Why can’t Chris Matthews pronounce Keith Olbermann’s name correctly?  He leaves out the “L” every time.  “Countdown with Keith OBERMANN starts right now.”  It’s not that hard…

It’s about time.  He was 57-55 in his entire tenure there, 22-26 in the last three years, and only won the Super Bowl during his first season there thanks to (1) Monte Kiffin coaching the defense and (2) the core of great players assembled by Tony Dungy during his years there.

I think he’s an overrated coach, but he’ll probably have a chance to coach in the NFL again someday.

So far…I am a bit surprised. I was expecting a different attitude. This Bush seems different than the one that showed up recently at a press conference. Thus far, at least, this Bush is defiant. He is fully standing behind his decisions.

He mentioned “setbacks,” but always introduces those mistakes in this context: “you may disagree with the decision, but…” No direct admission of guilt.

I also can’t help but wonder what could have been. Certain (perhaps, most) elements of neoconservatism and big government conservatism have been considerably damaged by this president.  This is undeniable and it is likely that much of that ideology is misguided. What I wonder, though, is how many of the failures of the last 8 years were on account of ideology and how many were because of this president’s lack of intellectual curiousity and unwillingness to let competence trump loyalty.

I suppose we will have more opportunities/chances/misfortune to find out in the future.

Take five and a half minutes right now, and watch this video clip.

It is the opening of the first episode of the PBS documentary “Carrier” that aired in April and May 2008.  The series follows the crew of the USS Nimitz, one of America’s ten nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, on its six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf in 2005.  “Carrier” is unlike any other program of its kind for the depth of its access (the filmmakers were virtually granted free rein aboard ship and shot 1600 hours over the course of the deployment, and eventually whittled that down to 10 one-hour episodes), and for its focus, rather than on the technological marvel of the carrier itself, on the crew and their remarkable stories in all their diversity.  Their honesty is refreshing — this isn’t propaganda, one way or the other.  There’s no voice-over narration; instead, all of the speaking comes from the crewmembers themselves.

The documentary won multiple Emmys, and deservedly so.  I got hooked and watched all ten episodes of it via Netflix’s internet streaming service last weekend and at the beginning of this week.  You can also watch it online from the PBS website.

Seriously, check it out.  I have already recommended “Carrier” to another friend, who is in the process of watching and loves it.

Few people know that Harry Reid had an acting career. In fact, he’s in the following video.

Can you spot him?

Apple is removing DRM protections from all songs sold through iTunes.

For almost a month now, the college bowl season has been taking up tv time that could be being used for Family Guy reruns.  The much-discussed problem with the current bowl system is that the BCS rankings are too arbitrary to determine a legitimate champion. 

This is only half the problem, the larger problem is that the football postseason is full of second-tier teams who should’ve hung up their cleats before Thanksgiving. Clearly, the powers that be care more about squeezing out the last bits of revenue from second tier teams, then providing a legitimate, un-disputable champion to the fans.

Thus, I would propose a postseason system where the eight conference champions of eight major conferences (Pac 10, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, SEC, ACC, plus 2 other conference champions such as the WAC or Mountain West) randomly seeded, play a single elimination tournament.  Other than potential disputes over which 2 “other”  conference champions should be included this system would produce a legitimate national champion.

This system would eliminate all other disputes over who is the true number one by minimizing the impact of conference strength and the impact of conference championship games on rankings because any team that has a legitimate claim to number 1 should be able to win their conference (and, on the flip side, if you don’t win your conference, how could you rightfully claim to be number 1 nationally?)

Thus, all of the conference champions, would have a playoff to find who the best team in the nation is, and all the losers (regardless of how good teams like Texas or Alabama may think they are) will have nothing to complain about.