As a progressive libertarian, one of the more amusing aspects of living in the USA is how I constantly get labelled as a "liberal" by people who have only just met me and (in most cases) have no real understanding of my worldview.
The real underlying factor, though, is that "liberal" has become a slogan that is used perjoratively in modern America, without any real thought. An example: a few months ago my (ex-)wife and I were holding a discussion with my mother-in-law about one of her relatives. The relative had moved to Boulder, CO. "Oooh, Boulder - that's a very liberal town" she exclaimed. Unfortunately I was not there for that conversation, otherwise I might have been obliged to respond "and what point are you trying to make, exactly?".
The conversion of the word "liberal" into something approaching a swear-word is only one example of the dumbing-down of political discourse in the modern USA. One of the best comments about the debasement of the word popped up today on DailyKos:

The concept of "liberal" has gotten so badly defined, that basically, for the dumbest conservatives at least, the thinking is "If I'm against it, then liberals must be for it." The only liberal they know is the strawman-liberal who exists nowhere but in their imaginations, and these nonexistant "liberals" believe in nonexistant policies, and speak words which no real world liberal has ever said. "Liberal" isn't just a dirty word anymore, it's a whole myth.
I wish that there was a concerted effort to push people into facing their concept of "liberal", and force people to realize that they don't know squat about liberals except what conservatives have told them.

I always adopt that recommended policy, usually with interesting results. One of my work colleagues (who is a lovely guy, but who would probably vote for a tree-stump if it had GOP stencilled on it), described me as "a liberal" over lunch just after we met. When I asked him if he had any understanding of my political worldview, he promptly shut up. These days he avoids the "L" word in my presence. Just the other day another person I had just met announced "I don't have much time for liberals" and wondered out loud how "liberal" I was. I intend to hold an interesting conversation with that person, who will be invited to define "liberal" for me. Most of my attempts to ask that question meet with the sounds of floundering, resulting in either the creation of a caricature strawman of progressive worldviews, or a response that essentially translates to "a liberal is anybody who I disagree with".
In my youth in England, in my primary school playground in the UK, I once heard a fellow pupil using a four-letter word beginning with "c" and ending in "t". When I asked him (quite innocently) what the word meant, he started hemming and hawing, and it soon became clear that he had no understanding of the meaning of the word - he had simply picked it up and started repeating it because it sounded good. That, in a nutshell, sums up the way a lot of people in this country use words like "liberal" - as empty slogans, devoid of understanding, insight or content. To this you can add other equally debased words and phrases such as "conservative", "stay the course" (which is a slogan not a strategy), and "family values", although the last phrase more accurately falls into a separate category that might be termed "coded language" (of which more at some later date).
Next time you suspect words or phrases are being used as slogans, it would be interesting to ask the person using them to define their meaning. At the very least they might be forced to think before speaking....

Link: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55077

...with a summary of the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld that is somewhat indistinguishable from reality...one of the most surreal aspects of living in the USA in the last 4 years has been to watch the satirical presentation of the news become almost identical to my view of the news. I hope that this tendency can be reversed, although I am not holding my breath...

With the Democratic Party now holding a majority in the House of Representatives, and the Senate still tied (but very likely to swing to the Democratic Party, unless a recount in VA ends up favoring the Republican candidate), it is time to wonder what the next 2 years of President Bush's term will contain.
First off: the election results render Bush the lamest of lame ducks. Not only can he not run again; at best he will control the Senate.
Secondly: I agree with Gleen Greenwald when he states that the biggest priority is to refuse to accede to any further attempts by Bush to extend the power of the Executive branch. I am also looking for the Democratic Party to start the process of rolling back powers that have been arrogated by the Executive branch. Personally, I want to see the repeal of the latest raft of legislation that erodes Constitutional protections.
Thirdly: Do not be distracted by the departure of Donald Rumsfeld. Throwing people off the bow of the ship should not be allowed to distract everybody from looking much more closely at Executive branch behaviours and actions, both past and present. Malfeasance does not disappear just because the people engaging in the malfeasance have resigned or been fired. Remember Harry S. Truman's desk plaque.."the buck stops here". If Bush claims to have extended the power of the Executive branch, then by logical extension he also extended the accountability.
Fourthly: The definition of "bi-partisanship" is written by the party holding a majority. While the GOP held the majority, the definition appeared to exclude any significant Democratic party influence on any of the branches of government. I hope that the Democratic party remembers the level of charity and respect extended to them by the GOP until last night as they decide what "bi-partisanship" means for the next 2 years.
Fifth: The election proved once again how irrelevant the mainstream media are when it comes to providing any insightful commentary on the political process. I did not miss the networks one bit, except possibly to watch as the usual collection of talking heads twisted themselves into verbal knots trying to rationalize the GOP defeat.
Sixth: This election cycle changes nothing in the long term. The current President has asserted a significant collection of actions to increase Executive power, and those actions need to be challenged as appropriate in order to preserve the checks and balances of the republican system of government. There is still an astonishing level of intolerance in the country as a whole, as evidenced by the significant number of votes against same-sex marriage (although it was good to see that the abortion ban measure in South Dakota was struck down). The election process and associated hardware is close to broken, and urgent legislation is required in order to restore the credibility of the voting process.
From my personal perspective, the electoral results are a good start, but much remains to be done to evolve America back into a country that can plausibly and credibly claim world leadership.

Link: http://www.judgejokes.com/

This website documents the difficulties of suing people who swamp you with unsolicited mail or phone calls. It seems that many judges who preside over Small Claims hearings either do not know the law or choose to interpret it inconsistently and capriciously.

Link: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/elections/2006/stories/110606dnTSWperry.351c57c.html

..courtesy of Texas governor Rick Perry. Not content with operating as a the resident doofus in Austin since 2000, Mr. Perry seems to think that people need to be reminded of his own personal religious worldview in order that they (presumably) can determine what a fine fellow he is.
When I read this sort of twaddle, I am instead reminded of why, if I had a vote in tomorrow's election, I would be casting it for anybody but Rick Perry. His job is to manage the governance of Texas, not inform us of his religious views.
YOU go to Hell, Governor Perry.

Link: http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/10/31/harper_basen.html

This article provides an interesting insight into the tactics adopted by the new Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, when dealing with the media in Canada.
What the article makes clear is that Harper is engaging in a series of actions designed to roll back the influence of the media, particularly the Ottowa-based press and journalists. Like the Bush administration, he sees the press mostly as an obstacle to communicating his message, so, instead of expending effort on trying to work with them, he has been going around them and relying on selected interviews with media outlets perceived as more friendly (including bloggers and podcasters) and on direct communication to the public via websites and personal podcasts.
What we are witnessing here (albeit in a more subtle way than the brusquely dismissive and high-handed approach adopted by the Bush administration) is the dis-intermediation of information communication. Remember how many businesses flocked to the Web in the 1997-99 timeframe because they determined that they could cut out intermediaries such as agents and keep all of the value of their sold goods instead of paying those intermediaries commissions? Well, now politicians are engaged in dis-intermediation.
This is one of the biggest challenges for the media. Instead of relying on interviews with politicians, and repeating press releases verbatim (which adds no value whatsoever), the national media need to start adding value. The value proposition of the media in future is not going to be provided by the transmission of raw data (news and information). It will be provided by what value (in terms of explanation, insight, commentary and debate) they can add to the basic information.
However, when I look around me, I see very limited progress being made by large media outlets in these areas. They continue to operate with the same tired formula of highly-paid "talking heads" providing superficial, trivialising commentary wrapped around visual and audio soundbites from a mixture of politicians and in-the-field reporters, coupled with a quota of "personalities" ranging from the comedic to the bigotted and malevolent.
The almost complete absence of added value and genuine debate in the televised media is the main reason that I do not watch the major networks except for the occasional sports event. There is no value there for me, since the Web-based informal news and information dissemination community is already doing a better job (via blogs, podcasts and other interactive mechanisms) of communicating information, concepts and discussions.
Memo to large media: Wake Up! Structural changes are taking away your lunch, and you haven't worked out how to replace it yet, even though the solution is right under your nose on the Web.

Lamont is engaged in a contest (as the Democratic candidate) to attempt to replace Sen. Joseph Lieberman in CT. Lieberman is running as an Independent, but is running a duplicitous. mendacious campaign long on obfuscation, arrogance and condescension and short on humility and responsiveness. CT residents deserve better from a Senator who touts his many years of service, but appears to consider himself to be exempt from the normal rules of electoral politics (the main ones being that he works for his constituents, and that his constituents can therefore un-elect him). He seems to me to embody all of the faults of the Washington "insider"; condescending, full of a sense of his own importance, suffused with entitlement ("how dare they vote against me"), and funded almost exclusively by business special interest groups in return for small amounts of pork and legislative favours.
To date, the Democratic Senate leadership has been reluctant to penalize Lieberman for his decision to run as an Independent, for reasons that make little sense to me. I consider it unlikely that Lieberman will caucus with the Democrats if we does win, more so since his campaign is now being assisted by Michael Bloomberg, who, the last time I looked, was a Republican. That being the case, it baffles me why the Senate Democratic leadership refuses to address the issue of Lieberman's committee seniority, and why only a limited number of Democratic leaders have been seen publicly helping Ned Lamont. It is almost as if they are daring Lamont to win before they feel able to support him.
Ned Lamont needs to win, if only to send a broader message to politicians that they operate at the grace and favour of their electors, and they need to be a good deal more humble and responsive.

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/26/23514/100

...then read Michael Schiavo's account of his experiences at a public meeting.
Contrary to what the GOP would have you believe, the Democratic Party are not the leaders in the execution of "cut and run".
UPDATE - A video is now available on YouTube that shows Musgrave and her campaign workers (also aided by an unidentified person) not only declining to answer a question posed by a member of the public, but also attempting to intimidate and physically suppress filming. Whatever your opinions of the merits of this kind of "doorstepping" (personally I am not in favour of it), it is clear that (a) Marilyn Musgrave has no politeness or class, and (b) some of her campaign workers do not understand basic concepts such as freedom of speech and assault. Shame on her. I will be donating some money to her opponent immediately. Anybody exhibiting this level of ingrained arrogance and bad taste in associates needs to be introduced to the concept of removal from elected office sooner rather than later.

I have not been posting to any of my blogs for a while. This is because, sadly, I have been in the process of getting divorced. This has been a matter of personal distress for me, and I have been undergoing a lot of changes in my life as a result, some of which I am proactively taking to make myself a better person.
I hope to write more extensively about the whole story in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I hope to resume posting, although I intend to write longer postings containing more thoughtful ideas, instead of merely commenting on current events.

Link: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060901facomment85501/john-mueller/is-there-still-a-terrorist-threat.html

...I occasionally feel this deep need to bother people with facts, instead of the noxious soup of flim-flam, assertions, propaganda and falsehoods that pass for news today in the USA.
John Mueller provides a cogent reality-check about the likely nature and extent of terrorism in the USA in Foreign Affairs this month. This is likely an excerpt from his upcoming book.