5/9- I dealt with the Sudanese government some years ago. The UN should put a gun to the Myanmar government's head and tell it to get out of the way.

5/6- Had an interview with the Greenville News today, and Channel 4 called for me to come in and give them some footage. Russell set up the facebook page yesterday, and I met with Jonathan the media planner.

It's all definitely not rocket science. But it's hopefully close enough.

4/29- Went to the debate last night between Inglis and Jeter, put on by the Young Republicans. The format seemed to work fairly well, with impromptu rebuttal and reasonable restraint instead of a formal structure and time limits. Inglis displayed all of the footwork that has him running for a sixth term, and Jeter did well, particularly for a first effort. He may not have Inglis's experience, but at least he's not running on his record.

In other news Monday, 4 US Soldiers, 43 Iraqis Killed; 112 Iraqis Wounded.

4/21- Went to the Republican 4th district convention this evening, and I had thought to just loiter around the fringe but it turns out that's hard to do when you can't find the center. All the nonparticipants were initially supposed to sit on the stage. Not making that up.

4/20- Had breakfast this morning with Griff at Stax, and who else would happen along but one of the two other candidates, Bryan McCanless, who I hadn't met. Griff had to rush off to church, Bryan ended up missing it. He's an interesting guy.

4/17- Say what you want about Jimmy Carter, and a lot of people do, but he was certainly the most decent President this country has had in my lifetime. If he wants to talk to Hamas or Fatah or the devil himself I have no doubt he's doing it out of sincere conviction, and it's a testament to the stranglehold the Israeli lobby has on the levers in this country that he can be so thoroughly shunned for it not just by the Republicans and the media, but by his own alleged party as well.

In other news, 250 yard signs were ordered today and should be ready Tuesday. A campaign event is being planned, in part to distribute them.

4/15- Yesterday evening's Democratic party meeting took an unexpected turn, when a gentleman took such offense at the words on this very website that he rose and read them aloud before the people assembled.

And the words went from being on the internet to being spoken openly at a public meeting. And you couldn't help but notice that the world went right on spinning. And not only that, but there seemed a general consensus that the truth was something we might discuss more.

4/9- Griff, the previous nominee, has been working on setting up a debate, but word now is Paul doesn't want to participate. Maybe send him some encouragement. Because if he can't handle it here, he won't be able to handle it in Washington.

4/5- The details of the Bear Stearns deal are of course too complicated and arcane and otherwise shrouded to more than casually contemplate, per which the general impression is one of people in suits making money, in this instance with the active intervention of the US government, but the one detail that sticks in my mind is the buyout going from 2 to 10 dollars over a weekend, a 500% increase. And I've been in a few buyouts, from both shareholder ends. And that just doesn't happen.

4/1- Out on the campaign trail today, and on the way home I stopped at Snapshot Cafe and managed to arrive shortly before a debate being held by Furman students on the question "Do Democrats Have All the Answers". I can't say for sure which way my input swung it, but if this level of blind luck holds, the campaign should go well.

3/31- Just back from the kickoff press conference.

It didn't go badly.

addendum
So my headline in the Greenville News is 4th District race gets third Democrat, or at least I think that's my headline. It's above an article about me. I actually filed first, the day before Corden and two weeks before McCanless.

The money quote comes from county GOP chairman Samuel Harms, in response to my observation about US military expenditures exceeding that of every other nation on earth combined. "I hope he keeps it up," he said. "That’s not a winning theme in this district."

Because see, kids, it's not about hard numbers and objective reality, national debt and legitimate defensive need, flag draped coffins and missing limbs. It's about "winning themes". It is plainly a marketing game for them. And make no mistake that no one else's sacrifice is too great to win it.

addendum to the addendum
So now my headline is Christian kicks off 4th District campaign.

Which is correct.

3/26- The Greenville News clearly considers Paul the lesser of two Democratic evils.

Why settle for the lesser of two evils?

3/25- Paul Corden, the only other candidate so far registered for the primary, put up his website today. I'll be posting a review within the next few days, but as I've been saying in conversation, my impression is that Inglis isn't beatable from inside the mainstream. Inglis has been a professional politician a fair bit of his life. He knows the business, he has the money. He's a Republican incumbent in a solidly Republican district. He isn't going to be beaten with a running game. If Democrats want to win, they have to go to the air. I think Paul could get solidly in the 30s, maybe up into the 40s. I think I would be somewhere between 20 up into the 50s. That's it in a nutshell.

3/21- Bush declared Wednesday in a propaganda speech beamed into Iran that the Iranian government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people, some in the Middle East", which I think raises the question of whether its OK for our President to use government money to broadcast wild, eye-bulging lies.

3/17- Just back from Bob's Ham House talk on the economy, and it turns out what's needed is "confidence". Maybe we can get some at WalMart.

And Bob's for telecom immunity because the phone companies "cooperated", or as the mafia says, "cooperated".

And when it comes to earmarks stay a pig, don't be a hog, or very nearly those actual words to whatever effect.

3/12/08 (AFP)-"I want to assure you -- just like I assure military families and the troops -- the politics of 2008 is not going to enter into my calculation, it is the peace of years to come that will enter into my calculation," he pledged to a Christian broadcasters association.

"They're not coming home based upon defeat, or based upon opinion polls, or based upon focus groups, or based upon politics, they're coming home because we're successful," he said, to thunderous applause.

Here's a news flash, Mr. President- it looks like Obama will probably win, and when he does he's going to promptly close the books on your six year blood shower. But until then you just keep right on grinding, spunky.

3/11/08- Went to the party convention yesterday evening, and let's talk about what wasn't talked about- the objectively grotesque military budget, the semi official demise of the bill of rights, the nation's steady decent into abject usury, the fairly third world decline of the dollar, the codification of torture, and that our President is a bloodsoaked nitwit. None of those things were mentioned. We said the pledge, sang the national anthem, prayed twice, and debated the colors on the party logo.

3/6/08- Had coffee this afternoon with Paul Corden, a fellow potential 4th congressional district democratic nominee candidate. We got together with Griff to talk politics and maybe do some ad hoc power brokering, whatever that would look like. Paul looks the part, and with a law degree, ground combat experience, and a background in marketing, central casting could have sent over a lot worse. My impression is we don't have differences in ideology so much as a distinction in how far down the sleeve to wear it. Paul and Griff trend toward pragmatic, I trend toward ... well, I guess I'd have to characterize it as less pragmatic, though I'm not sure our positions aren't in fact functionally reversed. I think under the circumstances the most pragmatic approach may be to throw pragmatism to the winds. I have no hard numerical data on this.

It will be interesting to see what Paul puts on his website.

And re: the killings in the previous entry, it turns out they apparently murdered the wrong uncharged people, three women and three children. The intended victim was one Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, wanted by the FBI for questioning. No one seems to have pointed this out so I'll do it here, but a cruise missile is rather an awkward instrument of interrogation.

The bombing targeted a "facility where there were known terrorists", a government term for "huts full of people".

The White House stressed its intention to "go after" anyone and anyone affiliated with anyone "plotting and planning ... to inflict terror". The villagers for their part "fled in fear of another attack".

The Bush administration is out of control.

3/3/08- The Israelis keep some number of big plays mapped out, and the time to act on one would be while Bush is still in office, depending on how much they think remains to get out of him and whether they think Obama is going to win. The big play might involve some sort of attempted final solution to the Palestinian problem and/or an attack on Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons, which the Israelis may decide need to be actively introduced.

Yes, the big play would be a bad idea. That may stop them. It may not.

And Ahmadinejad just finished the first state visit ever made to Iraq by an Iranian leader. Bush really is the great uniter.

And the latest terminally guided killing warrants a comment on the American government's shift away from the rule of law. Our government now routinely kills people suspected of connections to groups tied to or believed to be engaged in activities in support of terrorist related etc. etc. etc.. No one is charged, no one is convicted, no one is sentenced. A decision is simply made somewhere, a missile is simply launched, and people in this or that faraway country are simply murdered. That the murdering entity doesn't bother with its own elaborate and expensively maintained court system doesn't seem to matter to anyone of any significance, and that the murdering entity in fact gets the guilt of entire nations wrong doesn't seem to matter either. And morality aside, make no mistake that one dark facet of this dark gem is that the high tech murder anywhere at anytime for any reason paradigm will not remain a one way street.

2/29/08- Telecom immunity is bad, but can Congress actually pass a law retroactively immunizing a private entity from civil liability in an ongoing action? What's a judge supposed to do with that?

It's called the rule of law, and like them or not it seems the Bush administration has pretty well dispensed with it.

2/27/08- Anybody else notice al-Sadr just extended his cease fire until two months before the election? What's up with that? Doesn't he know we're going to be busy with political stuff then?

But never mind that. Friends, Romans, coconspirators, settle no longer for getting your news from an ivory tower, because Beth at the Greenville News is now literally relaying it from Babel.

Maybe we really are on some preordained apocalypse gig.

2/26/08- I notice Paul Harvel's cartoon about Bob's new video is a reproduction.

2/23/08- Anybody besides me notice Turkey has invaded Iraq and our embassy in Serbia was looted yesterday?

2/22/08- Got an email from Bob this morning about his new video/campaign theme Get Down with Bob, and I'm actually at kind of a loss to parody it. And to be honest, I kind of feel like making fun of Bob is my turf and I don't need the competition. To be even more honest, his email arrived at the same time as an email with the news that Shriners has decided to accept Rusul for treatment. Rusul is an Iraqi girl who was injured in the war. She and her uncle will hopefully be here soon, and it looks like the decision is going to be to cut her foot off. And it's just not funny.

2/18/08- Back from Bob's Ham House talk, and let's just say it- the Republicans have screwed up so bad that like as not a black man with a Moslem name is going to be the next President. This awful reality hung palpably in the air, unspoken if not unmuttered, and no passing slogan nor wanly whistled tune could dispel its terrible onrush.

Turns out their big problem is a charisma deficit, so that they must now by way of remedy attempt to sell their war "winsomely", and I'm not making that up. I don't recall how they plan to sell everything else, but the prospect of selling a war winsomely sticks in my mind as perhaps the most novel marketing scheme in the long and colorful history of the discipline.

But for the cost, it would be a hoot.

2/6/08- Watched the clip of Bob on Colbert, and it was an appropriate venue to discuss his idea about a 35 foot high concrete wall along the Mexican border. As I put it in an email, it's probably more brainless than fascist. But I don't suppose practicality is much of a consideration.

Marketing, baby.

Marketing.

1/31/08- It looks like health care is going to be the big framing effort for Bob, which makes sense. It wasn't going to be the economy or immigration, and certainly not the war. Yes, health care is a mess, and no you couldn't realistically expect the Republicans to correct it, seeing as how they've overseen the descent, but at least it isn't a catastrophic failure, and who's to confidently say the Democrats wouldn't have done worse.

We aren't going to have socialized medicine in this country, there's too much money involved. We'll probably continue to slide that general direction, but we won't go so far as to materially impact the corporate bottom line, at least not anytime soon. Both parties are going to continue to pursue business as usual, and what's left of the free market will continue to try and cope. Get used to it.

1/18/08- Today's political phrase that pays is "economic stimulus", which coming from politicians means some variation on one or the other of the government's two basic tricks of taking or spending money, the conventional wisdom being that less of the first and more of the second is good for the economy. Of course anybody with a credit card can tell you where this will eventually lead, except that since the government can't exactly go "bankrupt" it instead sinks into "massive crippling debt", which leads to "runaway inflation". Which I suppose would call for the opposite of "economic stimulus", whatever the phrase for that is.

1/15/08- Had lunch with Griff today, and I think his idea about a federal community service program has merit, only I wouldn’t make it compulsory. It occurred to me talking about it that it could maybe get two or three birds with one stone if it was structured right. Such a program would be Constitutional if it was voluntary and if it employed people in pursuit of legitimate Constitutional ends, though let’s be clear that those legitimate ends don’t include giving the nation’s unfocused youth something to do, though I think that’s a fine side benefit. But perhaps the larger benefit of a correctly structured program might be to help revitalize the federal government with a steady infusion of youthful energy and ideas in place of the current ossification. Young people might come away from the program with an increased sense of maturity and purpose, and who’s to say the government might not do the same.

We also talked about the economy, and I’m supposed to come up with something to do about it. It’s the burger and fries of politics to make sweeping campaign promises about the economy, when in fact politicians actually have very little if any direct control over it. The truth is that the economy is basically just people doing things for each other, generally for money. The process requires a common transportation infrastructure, a regulatory playing field, and a medium of exchange, and the government helps the economy in such measure as it effectively and predictably provides these things. Beyond that, the government is in fact a demonstrable drain on the economy. Take as a particularly bad example the trillion dollars spent so far in Iraq. What do we have to show for it? Do we have a trillion dollars worth of roads or bridges? Do we have a trillion dollars worth of factories, homes, or food? No, we have a trillion dollars worth of corpses and a trillion dollars worth of ill will dragging down our exports to the rest of the world, along with the added drain of the usual wartime inflation. So be wary when these same architects tell you what they’re going to do for the economy.