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December 30, 2005

Friday Numbers

From CNN:

I would like to see numbers on the approval ratings of other presidents' spouses. I'm guessing Hillary's weren't near that high when Clinton was in office. And Nancy Reagan was unpopular in the early years of her husband's administration. I have a hypothesis: The popularity of the First Lady is inversely proportional to the popularity of her husband.

If someone can show me some numbers to prove me right or, you'll get a prize.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 7:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 27, 2005

Doesn't anyone read Orwell anymore?

It seems like digital tracking is inevitable as technology improves and virtually all important information becomes digital. But you would think there would be a little more resistance to it.

From the Boston Globe: "Over the coming year, the T will install automated fare collection equipment at every subway station and on every bus, allowing riders to pay easily with taps of special smart cards in their names. But each transaction with the plastic CharlieCards will be recorded electronically, creating a record of where users were at a particular time on a particular day. Those records could be subpoenaed by cops, courts or even lawyers in civil cases."

Really, it is almost impossible to avoid at this point. The technology used to track and store information has become virtually essential to everyday life. A little government oversight may slow (but not stop) corporations from tracking and selling personal information. But where's the oversight on the government itself (see: NSA wiretapping)?

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 10:35 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Tsunami, remembered

I don't have time to blog about the tsunami anniversary myself, but TMV has a good roundup:

It was December 25, 2004 when a 9.15 magnitude earthquake lasting 8 minutes unleashed waves up to 33 feet high — South Asia's Killer Tsunami, a tragedy that would have been even mentally incomprehensible except for the horrific live and video images seen around the world.

As devastating and unexpected as Katrina was, it pales in comparison to the 200,000 people swallowed up by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 8:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 23, 2005

George Bush is coming to town

"You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not doubt
His little white lies"

George Bush is coming to town

"Oh, he's making a list
of all his enemies
From the liberals in Congress
to the entire Middle East"

George Bush is coming to town

"He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're alone
He knows if you've been bad or good
Cause he's got a wiretap on your phone"

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 19, 2005

Opening the borders of Ablogistan

The posts are becoming sporadic and the sitemeter stats are dwindling. I don't have time to post to Ablogistan regularly, so I'm thinking of taking on a guest blogger or two. I would like to get away from partisan politics and focus the site on policy issues and international relations commentary. If you're interested, shoot me an e-mail. You don't have to have blogging experience, but it helps. It wouldn't be that time consuming... just one or two posts a day.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 15, 2005

Now, it's a war

I told myself I would just ignore this whole "War on Christmas" thing. It seemed like just another fabricated cultural war dreamt up in Punditville by Bill O'Reilly to boost ratings and sell O'Reilly Christmas ornaments. But now the stupidity has crossed over from Pundtiville to the U.S. House of Representatives. Claiming Christmas is under attack in America, Virginia Rep. Jo Ann Davis has submitted a resolution in the House "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected. " More:

Davis, an outspoken Christian conservative from Gloucester, said she was spurred to act after seeing news reports of retailers telling their employees to wish customers a "happy holiday," instead of "Merry Christmas," and schools forbidding everything from Christmas plays to Santa Claus.

"Christmas has been declared politically incorrect," Davis told colleagues on the House floor. "Any sign or even mention of Christmas in public can lead to complaints, litigation, protests and threats. America's favorite holiday is being twisted beyond recognition."

Her resolution, if adopted, would put the House on record as supporting the use of Christmas symbols and traditions, while opposing "attempts to ban references to Christmas."

The bill has 26 co-sponsors, which are conveniently listed below in case they represent your district and you feel like calling them up and calling them an idiot:


Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6] - 12/6/2005
Rep Boozman, John [AR-3] - 12/7/2005
Rep Brown, Henry E., Jr. [SC-1] - 12/12/2005
Rep Brown-Waite, Ginny [FL-5] - 12/14/2005
Rep Burton, Dan [IN-5] - 12/7/2005
Rep Carter, John R. [TX-31] - 12/13/2005
Rep Cole, Tom [OK-4] - 12/13/2005
Rep Doolittle, John T. [CA-4] - 12/13/2005
Rep Emerson, Jo Ann [MO-8] - 12/13/2005
Rep Forbes, J. Randy [VA-4] - 12/13/2005
Rep Goode, Virgil H., Jr. [VA-5] - 12/6/2005
Rep Goodlatte, Bob [VA-6] - 12/13/2005
Rep Hostettler, John N. [IN-8] - 12/7/2005
Rep Istook, Ernest J., Jr. [OK-5] - 12/13/2005
Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr. [NC-3] - 12/6/2005
Rep Lewis, Ron [KY-2] - 12/14/2005
Rep McCotter, Thaddeus G. [MI-11] - 12/13/2005
Rep Miller, Jeff [FL-1] - 12/13/2005
Rep Murphy, Tim [PA-18] - 12/14/2005
Rep Myrick, Sue [NC-9] - 12/12/2005
Rep Norwood, Charlie [GA-9] - 12/7/2005
Rep Pitts, Joseph R. [PA-16] - 12/13/2005
Rep Ryun, Jim [KS-2] - 12/13/2005
Rep Smith, Christopher H. [NJ-4] - 12/14/2005
Rep Souder, Mark E. [IN-3] - 12/14/2005
Rep Wilson, Joe [SC-2] - 12/7/2005

And finally, to better gauge what kind of public servant Jo Ann Davis is, let's take a look at some other recent bills she's sponsored. It's amazing how much time the House wastes "expressing support":

- H.CON.RES.4 : Expressing the sense of the Congress that the United States Postal Service should issue commemorative postage stamps honoring Americans who distinguished themselves by their service in the armed forces.
- H.CON.RES.302 : Supporting the national motto of the United States.
- H.RES.486 : Commending the Coast Guard for its extraordinary efforts in response to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.
- H.R.71 : To support the Boy Scouts of America and the Girl Scouts of the United States of America.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 7:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Thursday Numbers

Check out the World Values Survey website. It has a list of publications based on the data, and, although I haven't had time to test it out, I hear you can analyse the data online yourself.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 7:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 10, 2005

No, seriously. What's the matter with Kansas?

As if being the center of a century-old debate about creationism in the classroom wasn't enough, Kansas is once again giving Florida a run for its money in the competition for the "Craziest State in the Union" title, thanks to its public schools. From MSNBC:

Most of the time, 16-year-old Zach Rubio converses in clear, unaccented American teen-speak, a form of English in which the three most common words are "like," "whatever" and "totally." But Zach is also fluent in his dad's native language, Spanish -- and that's what got him suspended from school.

"It was, like, totally not in the classroom," the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. "We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he's like, 'Me prestas un dolar?' ['Will you lend me a dollar?'] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I'm like, 'No problema.' "

But that conversation turned out to be a big problem for the staff at the Endeavor Alternative School, a small public high school in an ethnically mixed blue-collar neighborhood. A teacher who overheard the two boys sent Zach to the office, where Principal Jennifer Watts ordered him to call his father and leave the school.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 11:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 8, 2005

The War on Christmas and Revisionist History

From here:

Religious conservatives have a cause this holiday season: the commercialization of Christmas. They're for it.

The American Family Association is leading a boycott of the chain store Target for not using the words "Merry Christmas" in its advertising. (Target denies it has an anti-Merry-Christmas policy.) The Catholic League boycotted Wal-Mart in part over the way its Web site treated searches for "Christmas." Bill O'Reilly, the Fox network anchor who last year started a "Christmas Under Siege" campaign, has a chart on his Web site of stores that use the phrase "Happy Holidays," along with a poll that asks, "Will you shop at stores that do not say 'Merry Christmas'?"

This campaign - which is being hyped on Fox and conservative talk radio - is an odd one. Christmas remains ubiquitous, and with its celebrators in control of most branches of government, it hardly lacks for powerful supporters. There is also something perverse, when Christians are being jailed for discussing the Bible in Saudi Arabia and slaughtered in Sudan, about spending so much energy on stores that sell "holiday trees."

What is less obvious, though, is that Christmas's self-proclaimed defenders are rewriting history. They claim that the "traditional" American Christmas is under attack. But America has a complicated history with Christmas, going back to the Puritans, who despised it. What the boycotters are doing is not defending America's Christmas traditions, but creating a new version of the holiday that fits a political agenda.

The Puritans considered Christmas un-Christian, and hoped to keep it out of America. They could not find Dec. 25 in the Bible and insisted that the date derived from Saturnalia, the Roman heathens' wintertime celebration.

The concern that Christmas distracted from religious piety continued even after Puritanism waned. Throughout the 1800s, many religious leaders were still trying to hold the line. On the eve of the Civil War, Christmas was recognized in just 18 states.

Christmas gained popularity when it was transformed into a domestic celebration, after the publication of Clement Clarke Moore's "Visit from St. Nicholas" and Thomas Nast's Harper's Weekly drawings, which created the image of a white-bearded Santa who gave gifts to children. The new emphasis lessened religious leaders' worries that the holiday would be given over to drinking and swearing, but it introduced another concern: commercialism. By the 1920's, the retail industry had adopted Christmas as its own, sponsoring annual ceremonies to kick off the "Christmas shopping season."

Religious leaders objected strongly. The Christmas that emerged had an inherent tension: merchants tried to make it about buying, while clergymen tried to keep commerce out. A 1953 Methodist sermon broadcast on NBC - typical of countless such sermons - lamented that Christmas had become a "profit-seeking period."' This ethic found popular expression in "A Charlie Brown Christmas." In the 1965 TV special, Charlie Brown ignores Lucy's advice to "get the biggest aluminum tree you can find" and finds a more spiritual way to observe the day.

This year's Christmas "defenders" are also rewriting Christmas history on another key point: non-Christians' objection to having the holiday forced on them. The campaign's leaders insist this is a new phenomenon. But as early as 1906, the Committee on Elementary Schools in New York City urged that Christmas hymns be banned from the classroom after a boycott by more than 20,000 Jewish students. In 1946, the Rabbinical Assembly of America declared that calling on Jewish children to sing Christmas was "an infringement on their rights as Americans."

Read the rest here.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 8:29 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 5, 2005

Monday numbers

An early peek of the latest Time poll:

It's hard to believe that Kerry still would only beat Bush by one point (or perhaps not at all) given the President's sinking approval rating. This is further evidence of what a horrible candidate Kerry was. It was as if the Democrats wanted to lose in 2004. But I think Kerry's numbers would be higher if he were actually campaigning and back in the national spotlight. Many voters, Democrats in particular, are upset with Kerry for handing Bush another four years. At the time of the election, after hearing the debates and speeches, I was convinced that Kerry would actually make a decent president. But after the agony of election night Kerry became tainted, a symbol of another Democratic defeat and another four years of Bush.

From The Moderate Voice.

Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 8:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack