The Problem of Pork

During the leadup to the Nov. 4 election last year, both candidates promised to take a strong stand against earmarks and pork in Congress. Now that Obama's stimulus plan has made its way through the House, it's clear to see that pork isn't going to be swept out of the U.S. government quite as easily as the electorate might have hoped.

The stimulus bill, which in its House of Representatives form constitutes $825 billion in spending, apparently is a mish-mash of some legitimate projects and a hell of a lot of pork for congress members to take home to their respective districts and purchase votes with. It's been resoundingly decried as a purely partisan piece of legislation that lacks any clear cohesive unifying philosophy, as Peggy Noonan writes for the Wall Street Journal.

To paraphrase King William "Longshanks" from Braveheart, the trouble with congress is that it's full of congressmen.

The economic crisis is a fact for the entire United States -- it's a national problem, and it has to be solved with a national perspective in mind. It's a fact of the system, however, that legislators have no motivation to look at things with the "national good" in mind -- instead, what's important to them is doing whatever it takes to impress the voters in their districts. Which, of course, means standing on some urban renewal project somewhere in BFE Kentucky and making pronouncements about how they're going to squeeze those Washington-types for more local money and drawing roars of support from their constituencies. This makes legislating in Congress look more like a game of "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" than legal craftsmanship.

Add to this the fact that the stimulus bill was already going to be gigantic, and that it was meant to be targeted at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, and... voila, you've managed to turn the Capitol into a big Chuck-E-Cheese at happy hour.

It's futile to hope that Congress will change, and for a lot of good reasons, it ought to be set up the way it is. But when it comes to a national emergency like the economic crisis, how do you solve the Prisoners' Dilemma created when hundreds of self-interested people get into a room to decide how to divvy up a very big pie?

I suppose if I had a feasible solution, I would probably have a very nice job right now. As it is, I don't... but I will say that the unfortunate product that this stimulus bill has become shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

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Lies and Bullshit: On the Campaign Trail, '08

WHO WILL EMERGE VICTORIOUS!?

Will it be Sen. Barack "Hussein" Obama, the shadowy character who has emerged out of nowhere, whose birth certificate no one can find? The Marxist, Muslim terrorist sympathizer with ties to political dissidents in Kenya and whose father might even be Malcolm X?

Or will it be Sen. John "Maverick" McCain, the cranky old Navy pilot who calls his wife the "C-word," abuses vacationers in Fiji with William Faulkner performances and whose hobbies have included crashing fighter jets?

Well, you read it here first, folks: the answer is neither, because neither of the two men described above exist.

Phony stories about presidential candidates are nothing new. Rumors circulated about the Clinton family in the lead up to the 1992 election, and George W. Bush was the subject of much fantastical speculation in 2000.

But in a world of news driven by sites like Digg.com and the Drudge Report, these idiotic fictions are getting harder and harder to keep out of the mainstream discussion. It's end users who determine what the news cycle is -- they click on stories, moving them up in the CNN.com "most viewed" list, or they forward vicious emails around the country. Phony news makes it from coast to coast before the first pot of breakroom coffee has percolated.

For anyone interested, it's usually easy enough to demonstrate these "email forward" stories as blatant falsehoods -- you've just got to wander over to Snopes.com or FactCheck.org, both non-partisan sites devoted to identifying blogospheric baloney. But as easy as it is, and as much time as I've spent trying to convince people that Obama probably isn't the antichrist, these stories persist.

First and foremost, I think a large part of it has to do with wish-thinking. We are, by nature, not particularly scientific when it comes to things we want to believe. If I were a McCain supporter (I'm not), my initial reaction to a story that painted Obama in a negative light would be to believe it, and the same would go vice-versa. We seem tuned to filter out information that doesn't fit nicely with the worldview we already have, and anything we find that supports what we already think is automatically attractive.

So I do understand that element, but only to an extent. Some of these phony campaign stories are getting ridiculous -- beyond the point where it's easy to explain them away as simply fitting into existing worldviews. Questions about Obama's citizenship are still circulating -- even though there's plenty of evidence to show he was born in the United States, and none that he wasn't (for a great run-down of a few of these "unreported" stories, check out this item on Politico. My buddy Brad sent it to me). Attacks on McCain's military record are similarly out of order -- you can disagree with the guy, but there is simply no call whatsoever to question the integrity of his service in the Navy.

And I don't think it's the candidates themselves who are responsible for these slurs against each other -- in some cases, it's the people working on their campaigns, such as the McCain campaigner who scratched a backwards "B" in her face in Western Pennsylvania and claimed she'd been assaulted by a black man "enraged" by her McCain/Palin sticker.

But in most cases, it's just the "Joe Six-Packs" around the country, trying to weigh in on the election, thinking he or she has just found the next big story. We've arrived at the world Andy Warhol promised us, where everyone gets to be famous for 15 minutes. Normally, we seem content with viral YouTube videos, but during an election year, the contest seems to be finding out who can create the biggest, baddest meme about the election. And if it takes off, you're guaranteed press coverage... once something gets emailed enough, apparently there's no way for the networks to ignore it.

Maybe, though, it isn't about fame -- maybe it's because political campaigns are, considering the amount of hype and attention they get, perhaps some of the most boring things that go on in the world. Sure, there are the buses, the conventions, the whistle-stops and the stump speeches (and let's not forget the nail-biting debates). But to really get down to the nitty-gritty, what you're looking at is hundreds of pages of proposed tax plans and budgets. And who wants to read those? What these lies and exaggerations people are sending each other might be is a way they've found to superimpose a dramatic narrative onto something that actually bores them to tears. It's not as if everyone is making up their own stories -- but a lot of us are emailing them to all our friends. And maybe that just goes to show that we do want to participate in the election -- but that we've found the actual meat of it about as exciting as eating a bottle of Ritalin and then watching The English Patient.

Personally, I'm burnt out on it. I can't wait for Nov. 5. And I decided to STUDY this shit!

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Cherry picking

It's impossible to tell what's actually going on anymore.

Fox is hammering on Obama's connection to Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers, while (most) other news outlets seem concerned with the report of Palin's "abuse of power" in the "Troopergate" firing in Alaska (by the way, and I'm sure Bill Maher's already hit on this in his "New Rules" segments, but can we quit naming scandals with this "-gate" scheme? Watergate was actually the NAME OF THE HOTEL!). Meanwhile, Obama's supporters have dismissed the allegations of the candidate's connection with Ayers, just as Fox and the GOPers have already begun minimizing the significance of the Palin fiasco.

Examples of the different responses:

On the Huffington Post this morning, a headshot of Palin is accompanied by huge, red "Drudge Report" style headlines screeching the news that the probe has found her "guilty of abuse of power."

On National Review Online's The Corner, editor Kathryn Jean Lopez posted under "Confused" that she's puzzled by the furor over the report, since Palin apparently didn't do anything illegal.

Townhall.com's Hugh Hewitt ignored the Palin debacle and drew more attention to the Obama-Ayers connection, which is what some of the Corner posters are talking about this morning.

And that's just three major blogs. There are plenty more.

So if the media were bad before, they're worse now -- blogs, of course, have always led the charge, and now there are so many of them on either side that people can read enough of one angle to feel like they've actually got a clear picture of what's going on. Well, if all you read is Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, and National Review, you haven't gotten a well-rounded picture. The same goes if you spend all day on the Huffington Post and DailyKos.

Me, I have some reading to get done for my world politics seminar Monday (although not much, since we didn't get to much of what I'd read already last week), but in the meantime, I'm going to put together another cheesy horror movie live-blog. That'll probably be forthcoming later today.

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Bad news for Palin

Looks like the panel looking into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's alleged abuse of power haven't come down on her side:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) -- Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska's governor by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator's report concluded Friday.

"Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda," the report states.

This is not good news for the McCain campaign, particularly since we're so close to V-day. McCain's already trailing Barack Obama in the national polls, which stand tonight around 51.9-46.6 percent. His attacks on Obama's past association with William Ayers seem to have backfired, and according to this CNN.com story, his hard-core followers are none too pleased... campaign journalists have reported having racial slurs yelled at them, and during a Palin stump speech earlier this week, a member of the audience screamed "Kill him!" loud enough for the microphones to pick up when the governor mentioned Obama and Ayers. "Rage" seems to be growing in the GOP base.

Eight years ago, Bill Clinton's eight-year presidency came to an end, but the protracted legal battle over the Gore/Bush vote lasted into December -- when the Supreme Court determined that Bush had won in Florida. There wasn't any kind of immediate shock or catharsis on November 5, 2000 -- nobody really would know what was going to happen for another month or so. I'm hoping we avoid a repeat of that fiasco this time around, but the tenor of the campaign has turned even more vicious this time around, it seems.

Today was the deadline for voter registration in New York, and a friend and I went to make sure we'd gotten registered. 2000 was the last time I voted -- I was in Ohio and in school, and I'd registered so I could vote for George W. Bush. That was a long time ago, and since then I finished college, did five years in the Army, worked as a reporter briefly, and have started on a new degree -- and my personal politics in the meantime have done a 180-degree turn from the conservatism I left undergrad with.

In all honesty, I agree with the late George Carlin as far as voting goes, more than anyone else. He made the point that the only time you have no reason to complain is when you DO vote... he, on the other hand, stayed home on election day, and therefore can't be held responsible for any of the incompetent idiots voted into office; whereas the chumps who go out and pulled the levers are the ones who have no right to complain about what they'd done.

I don't have much of a point here, and if I did, it was to go out and vote this November -- but I managed to shoot that point squarely in the foot with that last paragraph, huh? That notwithstanding, I do think it's important to cast votes in elections -- plus, you won't just be voting for the president, but for the state representatives, district attorneys, judges, coroners, mayors, and whoever else is looking for a job running your government. At least don't give the bad ones a free pass.

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Sarah Palin's RNC speech

Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin delivered her speech in St. Paul tonight at the Republican National Convention, and I have to say I was impressed, with perhaps a couple reservations.

Her family, including the overly-scrutinized 17-year-old daughter Bristol, joined her on the space-age stage as she discussed bringing what she called "real change" to Washington. In a comment leaked to the press pool ahead of time, she dismissed charges of inexperience, saying that being the mayor of a small town was "sort of like being a community organizer... but with actual responsibilities," an obvious barb directed at Sen. Barack Obama's own relatively recent beginnings in politics.

Speaking about her own experience as Alaska's chief executive, she said she had used her veto power to save state taxpayers about a half billion dollars in costly legislation proposed by the state legislature -- but she didn't mention any of the bills specifically, which means now I have to go look them up.

She criticized Obama (and really, the Democratic Party) for allegedly planning on adding billions of dollars in tax burden to the American economy, and talked about Obama's intention of raising the "death tax" (formerly known as the "Estate Tax") and further burdening American taxpayers.

It's worth noting here that Obama's stated position on taxes is to protect tax cuts to the low and middle classes, and reverse only the tax cuts Pres. George Bush instituted for the extremely wealthy -- a rather important distinction. But when have campaign speeches ever stuck entirely to the facts?

Palin made some hay with the notion that a Democratic administration would be for "bigger government" and "irresponsible spending." Again, these are bad things, but Obama's (who she never named) stated position is to eliminate these things, too. And it's also worth noting that it's been under a Republican president and administration that the federal deficit ceiling was increased to $9 trillon (which Obama as an Illionois state senator voted against), the apparently worthless Department of Homeland Security was established, and countless billions in federal dollars were awarded in no-bid contracts (here's looking at you, Kellogg, Brown & Root and Blackwater).

This is not to say her speech was anything less than impressive. Palin spoke with confidence and poise, and I can't not like her. She has a commanding presence and voice, and, unlike Sen. Hillary Clinton, doesn't sound like an alien from Mars Attacks!. It's clear that Palin is a leader and is comfortable in that role. 

On the subject of her running-mate, Arizona Sen. John McCain, Palin praised his record of service in the U.S. Navy and his steadfastness during his years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. She spoke of him, not surprisingly, as a change-oriented reformer with a maverick streak. It makes me wonder what happened to the bill he authored a few years ago that would have made the Army's Field Manual on the interrogation (read: torture) of war prisoners standard for all U.S. agencies (including the CIA, which proved to be too restrictive for Vice President Dick Cheney's tastes). McCain seems to have backed off on that position in the two years since it fizzled.

Some of Palin's material seemed designed to distance her campaign from the sitting president -- certainly a good move, given Bush's past 20 months of 33 percent or worse job approval rating. But she also made a few pandering moves, such as bringing up the stock-standard Republican paper tiger of the shadowy al Qaeda operatives lurking just beyond our borders and plotting our destruction. She derided Obama for being worried about them "not being read their rights," which drew jeers and applause from the crowd. Call me crazy, but I am and remain a big fan of due process. Oh, and the Constitution.

There's plenty more to say about the speech, but it's late and I have statistics homework to attend to. Sarah Palin is a remarkable candidate and, by all appearances, clearly cut out for an executive role. That her speech departed from or ignored certain truths is to be expected -- since, after all, this is all really just theater.

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Getting the inside track

I am Important. I know this because I've been getting text messages from Barack Obama. Joe Biden and Michelle Obama wrote me emails. They were addressed to me, personally, starting off with "Dear Ian."

Actually, the Obama campaign has become more like the annoying co-worker who won't stop sending email forwards. I've gotten ones presumably from all the top players in the campaign, and they're normally breathless reviews of the last night's speeches (and always accompanied with links to YouTube videos of the same), or indignant "taking the high road" rejoinders to the McCain camp's latest juvenile TV spot ("He's the most popular person in America... but he also might be the antichrist").

What they all are is marketing. Image creation and manipulation is the name of the game today -- and that extends to both sides' purported "plans" for this great nation of ours.

After eight years of George Bush and Republican boondoggles, I was only too happy to jump on board the Obamawagon. But the infatuation is now over, and I'm getting that September sinking feeling, knowing all too well that campaign promises -- whether it's Winning the War or Bringing About Change -- are all just so much hot air, delivered, often eloquently, by individuals whose sole goal is to get into office.

I'm not alone in that theory. In fact, according to a textbook I bought just last week and read the first few pages of, getting into and staying in office are the first and foremost priorities of any polticial leader. Every decision made by a politician, the authors of this overpriced book say, is designed to hold on to or gain more power.

So, posed with the ethics question, "Is it better to lie or to tell the truth," our hypothetical politician would most likely say, "Well, which one would get me elected?"

Which brings us to Sen. McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee. A startling choice (if one is to believe the AP headlines), particularly since Palin is a rank rookie in American politics, whose resume still includes her service on her small-town PTA.

But she does bring a seemingly important trait to the table: she is, indeed, a woman, which apparently is all a certain bloc of Hillary Clinton supporters need to jump ship and turn Republican.

I don't have any particular problems with Palin at the moment, but it's worth pointing out that her selection to the GOP ticket shoots holes in McCain's favorite criticism of Obama -- "He's popular, but is he ready to lead?" Sure, the vice president doesn't necessarily need the leadership skills that the president does, but isn't the whole point of having a vice president so that you have a qualified person ready to take over should the president become unable to lead? I mean, if not, why not have Rebecca Romjin as your vice president?

But, as I've been pointing out at every opportunity possible, experience either matters, or it doesn't. When you're talking about potential presidents and vice presidents, the same requirements should be expected out of all of them. And to me, "experience" is a bit of an ephemeral idea, anyway. I heard someone make the claim that Palin actually has more "executive" experience than anyone else in the race -- all the rest of the candidates only have legislative political experience.

Well, okay, but I think it's fair to draw a distinction between running a po-dunk town of 5,000 and governing the "Great" state of Alaska, and governing the entire United States of America. In fact, my own feeling is that serving on the U.S. Senate would probably be a better set of "experience" for executive office than being governor of the only state where your building codes have to make allowances for igloos.

Anyway, all that aside, the point I was setting out to make here was that Palin is a marketing choice on McCain's part. She's easy on the eyes, has a kid headed to Iraq, and is by all accounts a social conservative. These aren't really indicators of the influence she'll have on policy (should she and McCain make it into the White House), but they're tags that make her marketable to a certain demographic of voters.

I feel pretty much the same way about Joseph Biden, who clearly was picked to counteract the "inexperience" Obama has been constantly criticized for. Of course, Biden is now considered a "Washington Insider" and a "good old boy," so I'm not sure where one is supposed to draw the line.

Or if you're supposed to draw one at all. At this point, I'm pretty convinced that the whole lot of them are cynical scumbags out to advance their own careers at whatever cost. I'd love to see some change -- some REAL change -- but I'm afraid that the way we have things set up, change is about the last thing we're ever going to get... at least on our own.

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Impasse

Two ACLU lawyers have written a book called Administration of Torture, which purportedly draws on more than 100,000 pages of recently-released government documents (obtained by the authors after several years' worth of Freedom of Information Act requests) to paint a rather damning picture of the Bush Administration's attitude toward the use of "torture" techniques in the so-called War on Terror.

Meanwhile, American law enforcement and espionage agencies have been exercising their USA PATRIOT ACT-expanded powers to conduct what would have been anathema in ages past: spying on U.S. citizens through warrantless wiretapping and Internet monitoring -- all in the name of preventing terrorism.

These are two examples of ongoing arguments that no one will ever win.

Here's the problem: both sides on both arguments are utterly convinced of the validity of their own understanding of the issue. And neither side in either argument understands either issue in the same terms as their opponents.

I'll try to explain that a little better by using the first example. I haven't read Administration of Torture yet, but Americans have been discussing the issue of our use of "high-stress interrogation techniques" since the first photos from Abu Ghraib hit the press. Officially, the U.S. has repeatedly stated that it does not engage in torture -- but was very careful later when actually defining what constituted as torture.

Those who wish to take "a hard line" on terrorism usually are perfectly happy to allow the government to use whatever means necessary to extract information from a prisoner in the interest of preventing a terrorist attack. Few will admit to endorsing "torture," per se, but will dismiss specific techniques (such as "waterboarding" and "stress positions") as not amounting to actual torture. Furthermore, if we need to torture a few Afghans or Iraqis in order to save thousands of American lives, well, isn't that worth it?

But then there are those who (like me) believe that any kind of torture violates the very principle that supposedly gives the United States the moral high ground (or what's left of it) in fighting terrorism -- that America, as a nation, should act in a way that demonstrates a respect for human rights (that's human rights, not American citizens' rights, by the way). Torturing prisoners for any reason is morally abhorrent -- the ends do not justify the means.

On the second issue, I had an argument with my dad this evening over PATRIOT ACT wiretapping, and I discovered that we will never find a common ground on the issue, because we understand the rights of the individual versus the authority of government in fundamentally different ways. Dad thinks that citizens who live law-abiding lives have nothing to worry about, and that the trouble of securing warrants for domestic wiretapping allows critical communications between potential terrorists to go unheard.

On the other hand, I believe that it's more important for our Fourth Amendment rights (which guarantees freedom from unwarranted search and seizure) to be protected than to unleash our law enforcement agencies on the general public in order to chase down leads on terrorism unimpeded by silly "checks" and "balances." I think this is particularly important in a country that bills itself as "Home of the Free" while "exporting democracy" to other nations.

In other words, Dad is more comfortable trusting the government than I am (except, notably, in the case of health care), and I am more attached to my Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms than he is to his.

These concepts are absolute data for every argument that anyone's ever had regarding the war in Iraq and terrorism -- and you will never reach any kind of resolution to any discussion you have with someone who doesn't already agree with you on absolute data.

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Republican Marketing Tactics

Since General David Petraeus returned from Iraq with his report on the progress made there by President George Bush's troop "surge," it's been remarkable to watch the language of Republican campaigns change to reflect the president's new goals -- which include a somewhat vague notion of reducing U.S. troop numbers in Iraq to pre-surge levels.

What's remarkable is that the G.O.P. has stolidly denounced any Democrat-led notion of reducing troop levels there as being tantamount to "admitting defeat," and that bringing the troops home "precipitously" would be conceding to "the enemy" we're supposedly fighting in Iraq. More polemical members of the legislature, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have either implied or stated explicitly that this would lead to us having to fight this ghostly enemy (one can safely assume he means al Qaeda) here at home. Vice President Dick Cheney referred to al Qaeda as "the enemy we may face" in a speech Friday in Grand Rapids, Mich.

I heard McConnell speak to a host on NPR's All Things Considered. He said that he doesn't think it's a coincidence that we haven't witnessed another terrorist attack in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001.

Gen. Petraeus, has been a combatant commander in Iraq more than once, including a tour (as a major general) as the commander of the 101st Airborne Division. In testimony, he warned against the kind of rapid pull-out favored by vocal Democrats, but he in turn has been accused of "cooking the books" on Iraq progress in order to support the delayed timetable that the White House seems to have begrudgingly accepted as policy.

By the White House's own report card, the Iraq government is making what would be considered a failing grade at any educational institution. Out of 18 benchmarks set by the administration in July, satisfactory progress is being made in eight of them. In eight others, progress is "unsatisfactory," and the remaining two can't be evaluated yet.

While this evaluation is still less than 90 days old, it's in keeping with the Iraq government's history thus far of being incapable of governing anything. Even with the increased troop levels (now up to around 160,000 U.S. soldiers), violence remains a definitive part of life in sectarian Iraq.

It's been accepted as read that total U.S. withdrawl from the country would result in catastrophe, but now that Republicans have decided that withdrawl is indeed necessary, we're going to be treated to some amazing lingual gymnastics from the party -- the G.O.P.'s strategy for troop pull-out will be a "carefully-considered plan for reduction in troop levels, in keeping with Gen. Petraeus' recommendations, where we still support the troops and their mission," while the Democrats' desire to pull troops back will be painted as a spineless call for unconditional surrender.

Never mind that both strategies amount to the same thing -- bringing troops back from the front lines of a "war" that the American public has lost any interest or faith in.

It's clear that the Iraq government is willing to take advantage of every dollar and uniformed body the U.S. is willing to send its way -- and demonstrating independence from that aid is a good way to have it removed. It's like in any business or bureaucracy: you have to use your entire annual budget each year (or overspend), or your budget will get cut. And no one wants their budget cut, least of all a fledgling government surrounded by bloodthirsty sectarians.

But the U.S. can't afford to continue funneling money into the country without some demonstration that the treasure and lives we're spending there is actually accomplishing something. It's time to wean Iraq from the American tit.

Nothing gets a creature moving on its own like the threat of starvation. Baby tigers figure out quickly how to catch their own dinner once their mother's milk has been taken away.

Of course, there are American companies who have it in their best interest to see hostilities continue in Iraq and Afghanistan. These include former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), which has demonstrated a level of greed and disregard for ethics I wouldn't have believed possible.

We'll see what happens, won't we?

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UPDATE: I meant to mention, in regards to Gen. Petraeus, that the top of his chain of command is the president -- the Defense Department falls under the Executive Branch, and therefore Petraeus, regardless of his long and admirable record of service, is hardly an unbiased source of information. This should be considered when weighing the content of his report against accusations of pandering to the White House's goals and objectives.

Holidays and grim reading

This morning, I finally finished reading Bob Woodward's "State of Denial." I had read it in spurts, basically absorbing large chunks of it whenever I had some real time off, and then ignoring it for several weeks.

If you haven't read it, go ahead and pick it up. It's a revealing look at a dysfunctional administration and a disastrous war, as described by the very people who are involved at the top levels. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are interviewed, as are Condoleeza Rice, former Coalition Provisional Authority Director Paul Bremer. Donald Rumsfled speaks on the record, and Woodward includes an interview he conducted with the president in 2003 (as the war waged on and his approval ratings plummeted, Bush refused further interview requests from Woodward).

It's aptly-titled. Throughout the book, which is "Part III" of Woodward's "Bush at War" series, there is a systematic denial of the facts on the ground in Iraq. The White House's very atmosphere prevented the kinds of factual reports in many cases from even reaching the president, and when they did, they were glossed over and reworked in order to fit into the kinds of rosy platitudes Bush felt the nation needed to hear.

Bush's former chief of staff, Andrew Card, is quoted as saying he felt that the presidency and administration had come to be recognized by two key distinguising characteristics: arrogance and ignorance.

And the mess goes on today.

Or at least, it did last time I checked. For the past week, I've been home in upstate New York on leave. Christmas has been a wonderful break, even though I took the Graduate Records Examination Wednesday. Despite how much I procrastinated in studying for the test, I think I did pretty well. No word yet on the analytical writing portion of the exam, but I got a 690 on the verbal section, just 10 points shy of the 700 I was hoping for, for insurance purposes.

Other than that, it's been reading and spending time with the family. For Christmas, my parents gave me an XM radio, so I've been stealing away to listen to Opie & Anthony and the Fungus channel (it plays punk, exclusively, and good punk: Ramones, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc.) when I can.

So that's it from me at the moment. What's left to do is visit Syracuse University and find out about how to best apply for their graduate program in political science. Wish me luck...

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