Mackensen's Journal

So, if take tonight's episode at face value (a decidedly risky proposition), Taub has quit and Foreman fired Thirteen. Combine this with the previews next week showing only Cameron and Chase, and the prospect is that we're back to late Season 3 territory except with Foreman in charge instead of House.

I wonder. You can't be in Princeton-Plainsboro's diagnostics department without getting fired/leaving at least once. Cameron quit at the of Season 3 (and came back as attending in ER). House fired Chase at the end of Season 3 but Chase returned as a member of the surgical staff. Foreman quit as well, and stayed away for a few episodes until Cuddy needed a House-minder in the middle of Season 4. Taub was almost fired in Season 4, and quit (briefly) in Season 5. House fired Thirteen in Season 5 but rehired her. House fired Kutner twice, once in the second episode of Season 4 and again a couple episodes later, etc.

On the other hand, scuttlebutt says the producers are writing out Cameron--for good. This may be a somewhat clever bit of misdirection. It gets everyone talking about the show, and drums up support for Cameron and Chase, who were somewhat neglected last season. Assuming that's the case, then the show's producers are admitting that the best thing to come out of Season 4 was Amber, but you can't keep that plotline going without compromising the show.

Or, they really are writing out Cameron (boo!), and Taub and Thirteen roll back in within the next few episodes. I hope not. The Foreman/Thirteen drama just isn't all that interesting, and we're running out of things to say about Taub's middle-aged neuroses. The series needs more Wilson and Cuddy. The best episodes revolved around them.

So, right now the weather is punching Kalamazoo in the face. Two tornadoes, by my count, plus torrential rains and hail. Our power is out, but thanks to the battery backup for the modem (who's a good battery backup) we've got a modicum of access to the outside world. Which is great, because all the radio stations are carrying normal programming. Fuckers.

I'm giving for-real blogging a shot. Whether this amounts to anything or not is another question (probably not).

http://michiganrails.blogspot.com/

There are no Michigan railroad blogs that I know of (hello niche market), nor is there possibly any demand (which explains the absence of supply). We'll see how this turns out.

There's a good deal of hand-wringing in the media today (this is representative) about seemingly inexplicable poll outcomes in Michigan: John McCain drew strong support from those voters in Michigan dissatisfied with the Iraq War. Commentators are smugly chalking this one up to idiot Midwesterners who aren't playing with a full deck.

I think there's a better explanation that gives more credit to the average Michigander's instincts. First of all, the war is an accomplished fact. We can argue until we're blue in the face that it was illegitimate, that we went for the wrong reasons, that Bush snookered us, etc. None of this is germane. This isn't some game, where you throw the outcomes out for breaching the rules. We're stuck there and we have to face the consequences of our actions. Running like hell isn't much of an option; logistics alone leave us in Iraq for at least another eighteen months from the day we start withdrawing. During that time, of course, those troops who remain will face an escalating level of danger, as will anyone unlucky enough to throw their lot in with us Yanks. It's helicopters-on-the-Saigon-rooftop Round II. Politicians know this, which is why anyone pledging immediate withdrawal is really just currying favor with the anti-war crowd. Immediate means well into the middle of their next term, and it'll be really, really violent, with possible spillover to neighboring territories (which, in turn, might require additional deployments).

McCain has not promised withdrawal. If anything, he's far more hawkish than Bush, and always has been. He obviously believes the war is necessary, and has refused to trim sail and adopt more popular positions. On the other hand, there's credibility to McCain's hawkishness that's lacking with most decision-makers these days. McCain's father and grandfather were both admirals; McCain himself served in Vietnam, spent several years as POW, and endured torture at the hands of his captors. At least one of McCain's sons is, I believe, on active duty in the Middle East. McCain knows what it means to send our young men and women to die in a foreign country; in the eyes of many voters this gives him credibility. I've talked to numerous anti-war Democrats in this state who agree with this analysis and trust McCain more than any other Republican to prosecute the war in a responsible manner (though they would still prefer a Democrat in office). There's also, of course, the contingent who believes the prosecution of the war has been lamentable, and for the same reasons above think McCain would do a better job.

There are two complicating factors specific to Michigan's primary; the absence of Obama and Edwards from the ballot, and the fact that Michigan liberals really loathe Romney. This isn't just normal loathing, this is you're-not-from-here-regardless-of-what-you-claim and your-father-would-be-ashamed-of-you loathing. George Romney, and his equally well-liked successor Bill Milliken were moderate Republicans. Taken together, many voters who might otherwise vote for a Democrat voted for McCain because they see him as honest, at least for a politician, and because he had the best chance of beating Romney. I don't think this is particularly hard to grasp, but the Internet politicos are in a tizzy.

There comes a point when you have to call off an affair and go back to your spouse. I suppose that’s where I am this morning. Ron Paul’s complicity in this newsletter business is troubling, but not all that surprising. If we removed every candidate who’d been involved in something like this (associations, accidental or otherwise, with extremist propaganda) we’d have hardly anyone left. His statement of disavowal left much to be desired, and his failure to come higher than fifth in New Hampshire sealed it. It was fun, I had a good time, but I’m going home.

Home might well mean John McCain at this stage. I don’t agree with him on the war, but I’ve always admired his honesty and his refusal to adopt popular positions for the sake of votes. Of all the candidates remaining in the Republican field, McCain is the only one I could support. I find Romney’s transparent flip-flopping loathsome, and his attempts to curry favor with Michigan disgusting. Mittens, your father was a hell of a governor, but he’s dead and we haven’t seen much of you in the last few decades. I also remember the negative campaign your sister-in-law ran against Carl Levin in the late ’90s. Get out and don’t come back. Huckabee seems a nice enough fellow, but we’re coming off eight years of a nice Christian fellow who believes in big government, and I haven’t enjoyed it much. Rudy’s out there banging the terrordrum for all its worth; this might resonate with the East Coast but out here in the provinces the primary threat to our home is a bank. Thompson’s campaign remains a confused trainwreck; it’s still unclear what he stands for or why he’s running.

The Democrat outcome is disappointing. I don’t like Hillary. I don’t like what she stands for, nor what she represents. All politicians are opportunistic but there’s a fine line between opportunism and snatching for office. This is the latter. Edwards remains cheerfully inoffensive VP material, but there’s apparently some adultery scandal rumbling away in the background. If Romney picks up steam he’ll probably try to smear Edwards over the latter’s career as a tort lawyer.

Obama.

Obama is something else. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don’t agree with his prescriptions, but I’m compelled by his honesty and forthrightness. I read a write-up somewhere about his work in the Illinois state legislature, where he worked with both parties to pass needed legislation. That’s something I could get behind. The Democratic Party still scares me a little. Their conduct the last six years is a tad short of morally treasonable–bending over backward to support the President, when they knew better; selling out to the media conglomerates. Despite my leanings I never voted Republican until 2004, when I voted against Debbie Stabenow, who cravenly supported the attempt to intervene in the Schiavo case. I couldn’t forgive that, especially after voting for her in 2000, when she narrowly beat “Big” Spence Abraham. I expect moral hypocrisy from the religious right. It’s their stock in trade. It’s disconcerting when the left panders like that.

Funny. Back in the 90s I rolled my eyes whenever the right railed against Clinton and pontificated about “character.” I was very interested in “issues” back then. Something I’ve come to realize is that a candidate’s stance on a given issue is not especially important. The president’s ability to direct legislation is limited; events often intervene which make previous issues irrelevant; the presence of a hostile Congress forces compromise. At some point the character and ability of a candidate matters more than the packaged sound-bite. This is perhaps a different definition of character–not so much morality and religiosity as competency, fidelity, and integrity.

63% Bill Richardson
62% Chris Dodd
58% Barack Obama
57% Ron Paul
56% Hillary Clinton
55% Mike Gravel
55% John Edwards
53% Joe Biden
52% John McCain
52% Dennis Kucinich
46% Rudy Giuliani
43% Mitt Romney
42% Tom Tancredo
40% Mike Huckabee
37% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Hmph. That quiz is written from a statist perspective; I did what I could to minimize that by taking the social issues and marking them ultra-low priority. Other questions are worded badly, or make false assumptions. None of the questions had an option such as "devolve to individual states, remove the federal government from the process." Oh well...

I'm off to a conference today, so for regular watchers of this feature, all three of you, there will probably be a brief resurgence in posting ;)

Take note of the last item in IMDb's daily news round-up: http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-12-13/

Every person in that article is referred to by the proper title and style. Diana was always Diana, Princess of Wales, and never "Princess Diana," a style reserved for royal princesses. The styles "Prince William" and "Prince Harry" are acceptable shorthand (Prince William of Wales being the formal version), and "Sir Elton John" is quite correct, although the article could have referred to him later as "Sir Elton," had it wished to.

It'll never happen again...

From a Slashdot discussion of geek music choices:

If I'm coding, writing, even reading, I absolutely cannot cope with words in my music. I end up integrating some lyrics into my code, or essay. If you executed an app I built listening to country music, you rPC would lose its good woman and fall down a well.

Mild Anglophile that I am, I've spent my lunch listening to the debate in the House of Commons over whether to hold an inquiry into the war. The Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, gave a fairly good speech for the government against holding an inquiry. Rising to respond for the Tories, William Hague again reminds me (and, no doubt, others) why everybody was so dazzled by him when he led the party after Major...

Behold, anonymous linux users flaming each other on a board discussing the latest release of ATI display drivers.

http://www.happypenguin.org/show?ATI%20Radeon%20Linux%20Display%20Drivers

Typical sequence:

Anon1: The new 8.25.18 drivers are teh r0x0r. Check out the review on Phoronix.
Anon2: those benchmarks are actually pretty lame

Note also the insinuations that anyone who can't make the drivers work isn't a real man (or, at least, not a real linux user). Amazing how quickly remarks like "dipshit" and "smugass" started flying--while discussing X11 configuration and all that.

I always had a devil of a time with them myself, but they worked in the end...

Peter Jackson is in talks to remake "Dam Busters."

The original film was one of the better postwar British war films ever made, based on an equally good book by Paul Brickhill. The story writes itself, all they need to do is get the effects right (which better not be a problem for a Peter Jackson movie).

This would be the second remake, although the first remake played with the story a whole bunch (but was entertaining in its own right).

Nemesis

33% Extroversion, 80% Intuition, 72% Emotiveness, 47% Perceptiveness

You are a normally quiet person with very strong convictions and a marked activist streak. You have a clearly defined sense of right and wrong, and you like seeing people punished for their transgressions. You are Nemesis, goddess of punishment. You are a champion for the defenseless, you love poetic justice and, if karmic retribution doesn't have its say, then you'll have yours. You are astute, rarely fooled, and idealistic.

Famous People like you: Goethe, Voltaire, Susan B. Anthony, Robert Burns

Link: The Greek Mythology Personality Test written by Aleph_Nine on OkCupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Got at b3co.com!

Now, my total ought to be higher, because the following are missing: the Bonn/Cologne Stadtbahn (which might count twice), Bonn's local streetcar system, the Zeebrugge coastal streetcar, the Potsdam streetcar, the Graz Strasse/Stadtbahn, and possibly the London Docklands Light Railway (which, I would argue, should be treated as a separate entity).

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