Volume 2 Issue 41
March 31, 2003
Play Ball!
Relations among Bush Advisors goes cold, Howard Dean gets hot, and baseball comes again
Well, this weekend the DC Cherry Blossom was in full gear, as the Japanese Lantern was lit, signifying the start of Spring in the nation's capitol. Um...except it was done indoors. In a hotel bar. Because it was snowing outside. Man, I'd hate to be one of those tourists who came to town this weekend! 2 1/2 final inches (though it didn't stick around too long) of winter's final blast did make for an interesting weekend, especially after a 76 degree Saturday!
You may have noticed that on CNN and FOX and such, you don't see too many ads anymore. Similarly, you'll notice that many newspapers, including the New York Times and Washington Post have put all of their war coverage in a separate "A+" section behind the main A section...that doesn't have any ads in it. Why? Well, the thought goes that most advertisers don't want to be associated with the war, so the separate sections allow papers to put ads in the front section, but to have no war news near them. Even the networks have scaled back ads during their broadcasts, and most of the ads you do see are of the patriotic such..."Dinty Moore supports our troops", etc. But one place that war news seems to have not stopped the advertisers is online. In preparing the Swamp today, I took notice of the ads that were displayed on many of the war articles, even on sites of papers that have the separate sections! I'm not sure if the war is being brought to me by Match.com and Vioxx or not, but it's an interesting question. Is Match.com theorizing that people will feel lonely because of the bad news and want to do their service? Does Vioxx think...what the hell does Vioxx do anyway? Well, whatever it does, sleep well knowing that Vioxx and Match.com continue to bring you great war coverage, and the Internet sites at least admit it!
And a final note...from Howard Kurtz this morning, lest anyone think that Fox News really is impartial -
When antiwar demonstrators gathered outside the Fox News building in Manhattan, the network's outdoor news zipper replaced its headlines with taunts:
"War protester auditions here today. . . . Thanks for coming!" And: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them." And: "Attention protesters: The Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street."
Unfair and unbalanced? "I thought I'd have some fun with it," says Fox zipper-writer Marvin Himelfarb, a former Hollywood screenwriter. "I couldn't resist."
A former screenwriter? And we thought that the folks who said the war was scripted were just crazies! Onto the news...
WAR NEWS
Trouble in the White House? The Moderate/Conservative Split in the GOP has come up again, and now it's raging through the White House, as the war boggs down -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55177-2003Mar30.html
Moderates are asserting control in Congress too, especially in the Senate, where they have real control over the chamber -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/31/politics/31MODE.html
The War Plan: Don Rumsfeld is under attack from some military critics, who say he micromanaged the war plan too much, resulting in too few troops being on the field -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49010-2003Mar29.html
And as American commanders say they weren't prepared for Iraqi tactics, remember a war game in which the Iraq-like nation repeatedly won, until the US changed the rules of the game, so much so that the general running the enemy team quit -
http://slate.msn.com/id/2080814/
Supply Lines? I bet this wasn't what we meant when we said that we would be nice to the civilians...some Marine units are so cut off from their supplies, they're depending on handouts from the local population to feed themselves. Um...wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030 329/ts_afp/iraq_war_civilians_030329211652
Weapons of Mass Destruction: We haven't found any yet -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49385-2003Mar29.html
Casualties: The dreaded knock on the door -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/31/international/worldspecial /31CASU.html
Law and Order: Allied troops are also not patrolling the towns they have captured or bypassed, and the "allied controlled" portion of Iraq is quickly turning into a land of anarchy. Hmm...ring a bell anyone, like Afghanistan?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44665-2003Mar28.html
The Admiration of the Iraqi People: Tell that to the British troops being spat on and having rocks thrown at them...by Saddam opponents, none the less!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-629672,00.html
The Stupid Americans: So now, having braved the fries in the House Cafeteria and renamed them "freedom", the wacko contingent on Congress wants to go after Sodexho, who apparently have some government meal contracts, since their parent company is French. Ok, a few things here idiots...first, you'll be putting Americans out of jobs, since all the people who work there are American. Secondly, do you realize how many other parent companies are French? I mean, if we stopped using everything Vivendi put out...but what the hell, Congress doesn't seem to be interested in the economy very much anyway -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44625-2003Mar28.html
Reporters Being Bad: Peter Arnett, the former CNN corespondent from Gulf War I that was working for NBC during Gulf War II, was fired today, after he gave an interview yesterday for Iraqi state TV that said we were losing the war -
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/5524523.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/31/sprj.irq.arnett/in dex.html
And Geraldo Rivera of FOX news was supposedly kicked out of Iraq for revealing too much tactical information -
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/200303 31/people_nm/iraq_usa_geraldo_dc_1
Or maybe not -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60058-2003Mar31.html
Getting out: A US reporter expelled from Baghdad by Iraqi authorities gives an account of his trip out -
http://slate.msn.com/id/2080432/entry/0/
Some Logistical Problems: Um...slightly. Just ask the two American Army mechanics who were stranded in the desert for 7 days after their division forgot about them -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/international/worldspecial /30CND-RESC.html
Teaching Peace? A fascinating article in the Washington Post today discuss whether or not the emphasis on conflict resolution in schools today has lead to the large number of students protesting the war -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55507-2003Mar30.html
And now for some un-war related news:
The Outbreak: The Italian scientist who first realized that the Hong Kong virus was a new illness has died from it -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48905-2003Mar29.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2898933.stm
Hong Kong has isolated an apartment complex -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2901607.stm
Can we send the corporate titans to the battlefield? In the latest blow to the beleaguered company, and the beleaguered American economy, AOL now is being investigated by the SEC for Enron-like cooking of the books -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/technology/29AOL.html
Look Who's Running for President: Gary Hart was in New Hampshire over the weekend -
http://www.politicsnh.com/archives/pindell/2003/march/3_28.s html
Look Who's Running for President 2: Howard Dean has become the center of a new nasty exchange among the Dem Candidates, striking back at John Kerry over the war. He's also gotten really hot, there were like hoards of stories about him today...here's a few. -
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/28/sprj.irq.democrats .ap/index.html
The New York Times has a good piece on how Dean's anti-war stance has helped him surge in Iowa. In fact, it notes that he's the only mainstream candidate who is campaigning there currently, because all of the others get booed off the stage -
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/international/worldspecial /29DEAN.html
Dean will also meet his fundraising goals, making him a real threat in New Hampshire -
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82490,00.html
The Boston Globe compares him to Jimmy Carter -
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/089/region/Dean_claims_momen tum_for_the_m:.shtml
Look Who's Running for President 3: These Al Gore people will just not give up!
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1865~1284794 ,00.html
Look Who's Running for President 4: Dennis Kucinich is still running! And of course he got great support at rallies in the San Francisco area -
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/31/MN176142.DTL
Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Was laid to rest today at Arlington -
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Moynihan.html
The Unfriendly Skies: American Airlines may go bankrupt this week -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2900059.stm
Or maybe not -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59781-2003Mar31.html
It's showtime! Baseball's Opening Day is today...and not a minute too soon -
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/5522080.htm
Highway to Hell? With apologies to AC/DC, state officials in New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado are trying to get US 666's name changed. The highway has one of the highest accident rates in the US system, something some are attributing to the name -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49331-2003Mar29.html
Sweeting the pot? A new study shows that servers who give customers a mint or chocolate when presenting the bill get a higher tip than those who don't. This is actually a real University study! Some other things that help get bigger tips are apparently touching customers, squatting when taking the order or making contact, and smiling. Restaurant people, take note... -
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/wml3/pdf/Candy_Manuscript.pd f
