Find Out Your Ultimate President

Miguelito led me to this website that matches you to your ultimate 2008 presidential candidate. Kucinich was my #1, but this candidate I've never heard of, Gravel, was a close #2. Wife had Gravel and Kucinich in a tie.

Anyone out there ever heard of this guy? Also, am curious who other people will get.

Overthrow #10: Chile

The Chile ( I like to chee-lay) overthrow is what you get when a country has lots of experience w/ overthrows. But why did we even care about Chile? Well, Chile does have lots of copper, and the 2 biggest copper companies were American companies. Additionally, Chile's phone company, ITT, was also an American firm. So when Chile's new President began talking about nationalizing their resources, some US business men were not happy. Nationalizing is sort of a double whammy for developing countries (See Iran). It both greatly upsets our businesses and sound a little bit Commie.

The US had first gotten involved in Chile in 1961. Kennedy was looking for a country he could positively reinforce for not being communist, and Chile, w/ its already long democratic tradition (since 1833), was picked. Their reward was US money. At first this was a good thing, but by 1964 the CIA began to get involved (never a good sign) and they began to move the money towards the Center-Left candidate and purposely in the other direction of Leftist Allende. This was enough at first, but eventually, in 1970, Allende received the most votes.

The US responded with every covert and uncovert trick they could muster from up its overbearing sleeve. Congress still needed to approve his presidency (Allende had a plurality not a majority), and the CIA paid to fill the Chilean press w/ anti-Allende propaganda. This failed and Allende was approved to be president. Next, the US focused on convincing the military to coup his ass. General Schneider, a supporter of democracy, refused and found himself dead less than 2 months later. Still, the Chilean military would not move on Allende.

Then the CIA upped it to the next level. Economically, American foreign aid banks stopped assistance, the World Bank suspended its $21 million loan, and Chile's credit rating was reduced from B class to a D. Additionally, US companies in Chile began a slow-down campaign that included delayed payments, slow deliveries, and credit denials. Politically, the CIA sent $3.5 million to opposition parties, $2 million to a propaganda campaign, and $1.5 million to groups to help them organize demonstrations.

By 1973 Chile was falling apart. The economy was in shambles and people were striking across the country. At this point the US finally found a general interested finishing the job, Augosto Pinochet. Once Allende had heard of the impending coup, he fled to La Moneda, the presidential palace, for the final showdown. The military showed up and ordered him to step down, Allende replied, "I will not resign. I will not do it. I am ready to resist by all means, even at the cost of my own life... Long live Chile! Long live the people! These are my last words. I am sure that my sacrifice will not be in vain. I am sure it will be at least a moral lesson and a rebuke to crime, cowardice and treason." The Chilean military responded w/ artillery fire, a British plane bombing the palace, and a charge inside. Allende was found inside, dead.

The aftermath in Chile was not pretty. General Pinochet became president and began a general beat down of all opposition. Leftist leaders were executed, officials from Allende's government were sent to a desolate island, and tens of thousands of people were arrested. Eventually (1990), Chile would get rid of him and Pinochet would be arrested for kidnapping, torture, and murder charges. A government-appointed commission estimated that 27,255 people were tortured under his rule

Ranking (Worst to Least Worst)
1. Guatemala

2. Nicaragua

3. Chile

4. Iran

5. Honduras

6. The Philippines

7. Cuba

8. Vietnam

9. Hawaii

10. Puerto Rico

This one is bad bad bad. I put it over Iran b/c it seems like Pinochet was worse than the Shah. You could argue it's worse than Guatemala and Nicaragua, but Chile at least avoided Civil Wars and is in much better shape today than both. Not sure this is b/c of the US takeover, but still...

I guess I also see it as a little less bad then Guatemala and Nicaragua since Allende was a bit more of a troublemaker. He did nationalize the copper companies and the phone companies, and gave them nothing. Now, I understand his thinking. But what makes Arbenz and Zelaya's fall even worse for me was they were actually trying to work w/ the US and its business interests. Both agreed to pay off the foreign companies and Arbenz was only taking land that was not being used. I'm not saying Allende asked for it, I'm just saying...

An Unreasonable Man???

I watched a documentary on Ralph Nader this weekend, Unreasonable Man, and thought it was good. The first half is fairly fawning, seemingly for good reason. Besides seat belts and air bags, we can thank Nader for countless pro-consumer anti-corporation organizations, bills, and followers, who followed in Nader's path (Nader's Raiders). He actually got General Motors so mad that they had him followed and tried to ensnare him in controversy multiple ways, including sending women to hit on him in grocery stores (good luck there, Nader's never been married and none of his biographers have ever even unearthed a single girlfriend). He eventually won $425,000 from GM. Things got harder for him after Carter. In the name of shrinking government, Reagan got rid of many of Nader's programs and when the Democrats took back the White House, they had become too pro-business to listen to Nader much. He tried some other ways to make a difference, but the next major stop in his career would be his attempts at becoming president.

I've always been critical of Nader running for office in 2000, and even though the movie become balance at this point, it still helped me put his election runs more in perspective. They had a part where a guy studied whether Nader had been focusing on Florida and other spoiler states and found no pattern other than an attempt to maximize votes by spending a lot of time in sure winners like Cali and NY. Additionally, it is almost a statistical anomaly that he did have such an effect. He's not the first third candidate, and he really didn't get many votes (2.74%). Is it his fault he happened to be running in one of our closest elections with the closest state vote ever? Why aren't Republicans complaining more about Perot, who got 19% in 1992?

But the question still has remains, why did he run at all? What was he hoping to accomplish? And as the movie continued, I started to think he had no idea. I was astonished by this smart man's naivety. At one point he claims that if only Kerry had focused on corporate welfare, he would have for sure won. Does he seriously believe this? And how could he not be more aware that our terrible electoral system sentenced him to being meaningless. In a parliamentary system he could have accomplished something. But the best a third party candidate can hope for is here is to be a spoiler. It can be argued that in three consecutive elections the (1992, 1996, and 2000) the wrong party won.

No, in this country the way to accomplish agendas is through creating organizations, by staying in the media's eyes, and through relentlessly pushing your agenda. And Nader had been doing this. It's as if he grew more clueless as he aged. Maybe losing voice in the Reagan era did something to him. Or maybe he needed to get laid and stop working so much.

Overall, I felt like he really has had a great career and did feel intense admiration for him. And of course, I wish our election system could become more democratic and that 3% of the vote meant 3% of the influence. But I do wish he hadn't run in 2000. Besides the 8 years of Bush we've had to endure, I feel our country could have used his energy in other places where he could have made more changes. For instance, what if instead of running a fruitless election, he had tried to change our electoral system? Now that could've actually resulted in some lasting change.

World Trivia

Just got the Economist's World in Figures 2007, which ranks every country on just about everything (curious which country has the highest cereal production? It's in there!). But there's some interesting info in there. Below, is a quiz of sorts. See if you can figure out who the top country is (no cheating Miguelito). I'll post the answers early next week.

1. Highest Obesity Rate For Men

a. United States (5th)

b. Lebanon (1st)

c. Panama (4th)
d. Wisconsin

2. Biggest Smokers
a. United States (not in top 20)

b. South Korea (20th)

c. Greece (1st)

d. Japan (4th)

3. Biggest Beer Drinkers
a. United States (8th)

b. Germany (2nd)

c. Ireland (Not in top 23)

d. Czech Republic (1st)

4. Spends highest % of GDP on Defence
a. United States (23rd)
b. North Korea (1st)

c. Switzerland (Not in top 23)

d. Myanmar (4th)

5. Spends highest % of GDP on health care
a. United States (1st)
b. Switzerland (2nd)
c. Congo (lowest)
d. Cuba (Don't know)

6. Highest Divorce Rate
a. United States (2nd)

b. Aruba (1st)

c. Belize (tied for lowest)

d. Columbia (tied for lowest)

7. Cleanest Air
a. United States (not in top or bottom 25)

b. New Zealand (9th)

c. Uganda (1st)

d. Gary

8. Highest Quality of Life

a. United States (10th)

b. Niger (worst)

c. Sierra Leone (second worst)

d. Norway (1st)

Totally Gay Snickers Ad

If anyone remembers that really stupid Snicker Superbowl ad (the one where the 2 guys are working on a car and accidentally kiss going after a Snickers), the only controversy most probably felt possible was on a scale of 1-10, how unfunny was it.

But controversial it is. I guess if you go to the web site (what total losers go out of there way to watch Snickers' ads?) there are other more violent ads (with their reaction being to beat the shit out of each other) and a whole segment with Colts and Bears players responding extremely negatively to guys kissing. Well, after complaints from GLAAD, Snickers has decided to pull the commercials.

Now, I personally don't really have an opinion either way. When I first saw it I was actually confused on who it was intended to offend. Part of me thought it was pretty post-Brokeback to show guys kissing and thought the religious right was going to be up in arms. The next day at school though, when my middle school students (probably the target audience) talked about the ad it was clear to me the intention was to gross out.

Anyway, I read about this on a sportsblog. And I found the comments more interesting than the debate. They're all over the place. But you have these weird combinations where someone regales the gay community for being oversensitive and then proceeds to full-on insult them. But there's some very random ones as well. I particularly liked the comment by the guy who goes into the fact that the commercial was too ridiculous to even be considered and recommends them accidentally holding hands as a funnier option. I totally agreed with him, but he seemed to be missing the point.

Here's a clip of it (btw, how do the cool kids get the picture of the video on their blog?)

Random Current Events

1. An election to replace the eccentric Turkmenistan dictator happened on Sunday. "The Father of The Turkmenis" as he liked to call himself ,was known for changing the days of the week to the names of himself and relatives, forcing school children to study the book that he wrote, having a gold statue of himself rotate with the sun, and illegalizing ballet because, "I do not understand ballet". The new guy (Gurnabguli Berdymukhamedov) will probably be just as corrupt, but not nearly as funny.

2. Coup alert in Bangladesh! The army didn't trust the two women who've been ruling Bangladesh for the past 16 years to have a fair and peaceful election. Although the army was probably right, the army taking over still bodes badly for Bangladesh's democratic future.

3. The Chinese have designed a 25-mile 8.2 billion dollar atom smasher. Fuck yeah!!!

Presidential Myers Briggs Types

Well, Barack Obama seems to be the Democrat du jour currently, and I'm starting to come around as well. Granted, I'm not really sure what he stands for, but he does seem to be a charismatic young fellow and the JFK connections are mounting: both likable, about the same age, only served 1 Senate term, and although half of me thinks America still isn't ready for a Black president, the other half of me is starting to think that maybe Black is the new Irish.

Now of course he still has to get past Hillary and Edwards (who we shouldn't count out). And even then, he'd have to overcome the uber-experienced middle-man McCain. But he definitely has a chance.

Anyway, all this way-too-early 2008 election talk got me thinking about whether Myers Briggs could give us any insight to who might be our next chief executive. Here is my best guess (my opinion + random internet seaches) at the personality types of our modern presidents and the top current candidates.

Kennedy: ESFP - SP
LBJ: ESTJ - SJ
Nixon: ENTJ - NT
Carter: INFJ - NF
Reagan: ESFJ - SJ
Bush I: ISTJ - SJ
Clinton: ENFP - NF
Bush II: ISTJ - SJ

Hillary Clinton - INTJ - NT
Barack Obama - ENFP - NF
Edwards - ESFP - SP
John McCain - ESTJ - SJ
Giuliani - INTJ - NT

Looking it over I notice... very little. We seem to be mildly biased towards J presidents (6 out of 8) and I guess that makes sense. Who wants a president who's always stopping projects in the middle or running late? But all the others are fairly equal.

When I looked at them by temperment though (the 2 letters), some patterns stuck out. First of all, our last 5 presidents have either been SJ or NF: with SJs being known for being responsible and protective whereas NFs feel your pain and are known for inspiring. And these types are completely linked to political party, with the SJ presidents being Republicans and NF's Democrats.

This seems to fit with some common stereotypes of the two parties, with Republicans being more inclined to want a Guardian (another name for SJ) and Democrats wanting an Idealist (another name for NF). But what does it mean for this next election? Well, if this is true, then maybe that is one reason why Democrats seem so attracted to Barack. And it does also shed some light on issues Hillary has been having. People often say she's too cold, a critique NTs get. I always thought this showed people were uncomfortable with a woman being tough. Maybe its more that people are uncomfortable with a Democrat being too cold.

Not sure if this means anything. Feel free to add your own anaylzations (or just to tell me to get a life, it is January of 2007).

Now That's What I'm Talking About

Here are some interesting drinking stats from this month's Atlantic Monthly

1. "American males who drank heavily when they tenth-graders in 1990 earned more money in 2000 , on average, than their peers who were teetotaler as teens." This was not true for women.

2. "Self-described drinkers (male and female) earn 10 percent to 14 percent more than non-drinkers."

3. "Men who frequent bars at least once a month earn a further 7 percent wage boost."

Environmentalism Via Consumerism

The last Economist had an article about eco-food buying, and, specifically, questioned whether buying organics, fair trade, or locally actually helped mother earth.

Organics: The downside to using natural methods and avoiding GMs/pesticides is it takes much more land to grow the same amount. For example, since the "Green Revolution" farmers have tripled their cereal grain production while only using 10% more land. You could make a solid argument that if we push developing countries to grow more organics we would lose more rain forests.

Fair Trade: Fair Trade is when a Western consumer pays more for an item so that people in the developing country will get paid a more livable wage (Free Trade coffee seems to be the most popular one). The Economist's issue here had to do with Supply and Demand (which I didn't quite get), but had something to do with screwing up the market and making prices lower for farmers not lucky enough to be involved in fair trade. Also, I guess most of the mark-up stays with the US store (freakin' capitalist hippies!), with only 10% going to the 3rd world farmers.

Locally Grown: The problem here was 3-fold. (1) It is often farther away to buy locally (a farmer's market versus your local grocery store) and driving is the root of everything environmentally evil. Which might seem counter intuitive, but even if your food was transported from very far away, it was efficiently packed together versus just you going an extra 5 miles to get a red pepper. (2) The energy it takes to grow a food in less suitable environments can be more than the lengthy transport. For instance, a study found it was better to truck in tomatoes from Spain then to grown them in Britain in heated greenhouses. (3) By buying locally you may be decreasing money that could be going to developing countries.

Not sure where I stand on all this. I've always been suspicious of the amount of good "organic" did, but also assumed it must be a little better. And I wonder if a lot of the negatives disappear if it becomes more universal. Like, in Portland you probably live close, if not closer to a healthy grocery store where you can get local and organics. And what about the people who ride their bikes to farmer's markets? What now Economist? And isn't it supposed to taste better? Curious what others, especially the more environmentally informed, think of this whole issue.

Random News Items

1. Although most scientists are predicting temperatures to rise 2 to 3 degrees over the next century, some are fearing it could be as high as 5 degrees- which is the same difference as today to the ice age.

2. Elephants have joined the being able to see yourself in the mirror club (along with humans, dolphins, gorillas, and chimpanzees)!!! You go girl!

3. A Bulgarian soccer team ordered a volatile 19-year-old player to get married, believing that would force him to settle down

Gay Pages

On the cusp of the mid-terms and a hopeful Demotrounce, I was thinking about how my vote for MVP still goes to Mr. Mark Foley (who better still have a bigger impact than Foot-In-The-Mouth Kerry). And it reminded me of an article I read a few weeks ago about how Foley was not the first Congressmen interested in pages. I don't have the specifics, but the general story was that in the 80's two other Congressmen got in trouble for relationships with male pages. The first guy tearfully came out of the closet and begged forgiveness. The second (I believe from Illinois) more or less said it was his private life and since the age of consent in DC was 16 he wasn't breaking any laws. What happened to the second guy you ask? Reelected 4 more terms.

I don't know about you all, but this really surprised me. I think of gay rights as the Civil Rights campaign of our age and I feel like we have come very far since my childhood in the 80's. Does this show that we haven't? Or is it more that it was so in the closet that people were okay with him being gay as long as he continued to not talk about it? Or perhaps it was just that the second guy stuck up for himself. Not sure... But I can't deny that I'm not a little bit thrilled that this is doing so much damage to the party of conservative values. Gay pages rock!!!

The Movie Formula

This week's New Yorker had an interesting article by Malcolm Gladwell called The Formula. In it, he looks at the way data analysis is being used to predict things once thought pretty unpredictable: like movies and music. For instance, Mike McCready has come up with a way of finding music hits. He claims that after analyzing various factors of a song, he can then see it if the song falls into 1 of the 4 hit clusters he has discovered. He claims that hits from Beethoven to Gnarls Barkley will fall into 1 of the 4.

With movies the key seems to be on how much weight you put on the factors. An example of how this can work is illustrated by how some mathematicians outperformed the dog experts at Greyhound Races. It wasn't that the mathematicians discovered a new variable, it was that the dog experts weren't giving all the variables their proper weight. The experts knew about "race grade" (when a dog has been dropped or raised a class), but didn't realize just how important it was. This hinted at how a movie formula would work. It's not that anyone has to recreate the wheel, but perhaps the studios overrate some factors and underrate others.

All very interesting, but here was my only problem with the article. We never find out what the formula is. I guess this makes sense, the data analysis superstars want to make their money, but it was kind of disappointing.

It did make me wonder though. Is there a formula that predicts a total movie bomb? Here's my attempt. (Pauly Shore + Sinbad) * (number of sequels greater than 2) and then you square it all if it's NC-17. Which would be a really strange movie if you think about it.

Are The Oscars Racist?

So often people just accept the above statement as fact. We all know it used to be true, but is it anymore? I thought it might be interesting to test it out by looking at the races of Best Actor/Actress nominations since 1990. Theoretically, if our society and the Academy were truly race-blind, the percentages should be close to those race's percentage in our society. I expected to find most racial groups still underrepresented, but wondered if blacks actually might be overrepresented of late.

In my results I was kind of right and kind of wrong, but was overall surprised at how white the nominees were. Blacks have received 7% of the nominations (while being 12% of the population), Latinos 1% (while at 14%), and Asians 0% (while at 4%). Black males are doing the best, having 11% of the nominations and 12.5% of the awards (although 33% of their nominations and 50% of the awards were for Denzel). They are also doing better lately, with 17% of the nominations and 33% of the awards in the new millenium. Black women are not doing so hot though, having only been nominated 2.5 % of the time. Which means Tom Hanks has as many nominations and one more Oscar than black women.

Hispanics and Asians though are really being left behind. The Hispanic population has been changing recently, so you can't fully expect their number to be equal, but it still surprised me that they've only had 2 nominations and no victories over the last 16 years (and one of the nominations was for a foreign movie, so I'm not even sure if that really counts in what I'm looking at). I also did not expect to see Asians at zero.

I was also curious how racial stereotypes affected acting roles. In particular, if black males were more likely to be cast as criminals. This became more complicated than I expected. I mean, Malcolm X had been in jail, but that's not really why he was famous. And although the Hurricane was incarcerated, the whole movie was about how that was unjust; so it seemed strange to use it as evidence to prove racism. I also didn't want to have to go through all the white roles and decide who was really a "criminal". So I gave up on that venture even though I'm sure there was some truth to what I was looking for. But what I did notice in the beginings of that search, was that almost all of the black nominees were based on famous people. When I counted them up (Malcolm X, Ike, Tina, Hotel Rwanda Guy, Ali, Ray, Hurricane) it came out to 64% of the black nominees. This was compared to 19% of whites. I'm not sure exactly what that meant (lack of interest in regular minorities? Lack of black writers writing real characters), but thought it was notable.

Gay Retards

I have a confession to make. Not only do I think the word "retarded" is funny, but I find it disproportionately funny. Like, if someone uses it in a joke, I will laugh twice as hard b/c of their word choice. Sort of like when you were 12 and someone used "fucking" as an adjective.

I guess it's not that big of a deal, but I do like to think of myself as a non-developmentally disabled dissing guy. Or at least not an utter and total hypocrite (I get on students who use the same word). I guess in the end, I like think that I find it funny not in a let's-laugh-at-disabled people sort of way, but more of an I'm-so-beyond-that-type-of-thinking-that-it's-funny-in-a-weren't-we-lame-as-teenagers sort of way.

I had pretty much grown pretty comfortable with this reasoning, but then it all got thrown off the other day when a friend used "gay" to make fun of something. And I think he was using pretty much the same logic. I mean, I know that he's completely non-homophobic, so it seemed to be more of an I'm-so-beyond tact. Maybe even with an edge of I'm-somehow-making-fun-of-the-type-of-people-who-use-this-word-by-using-it-when-I'm-not-prejudiced sort of way. Either way, the logic seemed to be convuluted, at the least and made me question whether I should continue using "retarded".

Still, I do think it's a little different. "Retarded" really is just a synonym for "dumb" or "idiot", and although that's not nice, it's probably no nicer to make fun of dumb idiots. Also, there seems something kind of evil about using "gay" purely as a perjorative (did I use that right?). I'd actually be more okay w/ it if it had something to do with gay people, but instead it's just a synonym for "lame" or "dumb". Most importantly, I guess I'm just more concerned with the plight of gays than the plight of retards, so it does slightly worry me to here that connotation being brought back, even if it wasn't meant that way.

So where I'm at presently is that I'm okay saying "retarded" but not "gay". And gay retards? Well that's fucking hilarious.

The French Hokey Pokey

I guess the French really aren't so culturally superior to us. Below is a video of the #1 song in France right now. It is about their shamed almost World Cup hero Zidane and the chorus is...

"Watch out, it’s the head-butt dance!
(Head-butt, head-butt)
Head-butt to the right
(Head-butt, head-butt)
Head-butt to the left
(Head-butt, head-butt)"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWAJhUNj8Xg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ethemightymjd%2Ecom%2F

Yahoo For Drugs!!

Read about an experiment in the Economist that justified what we all already knew, drugs are good for you! The study focused on college graduates who has never done hallucinogens and went to church at least once a month. One group was given the drug that's in mushrooms and the other (the control group) got Ritalin. Not only did the mushroom group have a much better time, but they ended up happier as well. 2/3 ranked it as one of the top 5 experiences of their lives (many comparing it favorably to the birth of their child) and 80% still felt happier a month after taking the drug (this mood upswing was corroborated by family and friends).

So fuck Prozac, I think we all just need to take a lot more magic mushrooms. Why save them all for the time or our life we're least likely to be overly anxious and depressed (aka college). Maybe they could be added to work retreats somehow...

Your Politcs

Went to an interesting website, politicalcompass.org

You answer about 5 minutes of questions and it determines where you are politically on their 2-dimenionsal grid. I like their take on it. They've added to the common Left - Right Economic scale, an Authoritarian-Liberterian scale. This was to distinguish between a Leftist Authoritarian like Stalin and a Leftist Liberterian like your mom (someone had to say it).

I came out 3 to the left on the economic scale and 6 on the Liberterian while wife was 7 to the left on the economic scale and 4 on the liberterian (her score may have dropped after strongly agreeing with the "an eye for an eye" statement). The site doesn't have any individual analysis of your score, but I still found it interesting and am curious where others would land.

Another Reason To Hate Bush

Took a very good class this week which focused on the Constitution, and everyone there was just railing about Dubya's use of signing statements. My first thought was, signing what?

I'm not sure why I hadn't heard of these yet, but they are truly shocking. What happens, is after Congress has passed a bill, Bush signs it, but with it files an extra statement saying how he will interpret the bill and how his bureaocracy should follow it. Dubya has done this 750 times, more than all other Presidents combined.

It would be one thing if he was just clearing up his take on it, but he's actually using it to ignore all or parts of the passed bills. Like with the Torture Bill, he added that he didn't have to actually not torture people. There are many other examples, like adding to a bill that said the US could not use military in the Columbia, a statement that said he could.

Wow. What an incredibly ingenious method to get your way. Never veto a single bill, but instead just interpret it however you damn well please? Very very disturbing. If you want to find out more, here's a good article on it.

Haters

Just watched my first episode of The Wire and I thinks me and the wife are hooked (the only thing my wife likes better than a cop drama is someone walking into a wall. One day someone will produce a hybrid of Law and Order and The Three Stooges and she finally have reached her personal nirvana). And, maybe we were just getting too caught up in the action of it all, but we found ourselves both thinking, "Damn, cops have a hard job."

We continued this thought to, "People who criticize cops are really lame." And then this led to in my head, "Do people really still hate cops?" I remember when a PDX officer was shot, his funeral was attended by like half the town. Post-anti-authority-HS, do people still begrduge the man?

I'm leaning towards no. And, I feel like it's a similar debate to people disrespecting teachers. I always heard that people looked down on teachers, but since being one, all I've felt from people is genuine appreciation. I think people really do like cops and teachers, and we just get so mad at the few who don't that we exaggerate their numbers. Perhaps I'm just being naive and when I leave the room people rip on my salary potential and tell dead cop jokes, but I don't think so. What do others think?