giuliani campaign '08: r.i.p.

to all but the very last of his desperate disciples, the ruination of giuliani's ascension to washington was all but foretold in scripture. it is only fitting that the trajectory of his heavenly rise and meteoric fall be properly documented, if only in part, to the best of my mortal powers, in this humble shrine:

(i) the adoration of the magi mayor:

moses ... or rudy, america's mayor, has come down from the mountaintop with "the twelve committments" ...

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(ii) the gospel according to you-know-who:

bryan wiliams: ... these frequent — some would say constant — mentions of 9-11, you've trailed off a little bit lately ... rudy: y'know — y'know, bryan, i don't, i don't think that's correct.

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(iii) the crucifixtion and burial:

tom brokaw: ... that whole conventional wisdom that he made a mistake in not going into iowa and new hampshire — i think he might have been out earlier if he had gone to iowa or new hampshire, or even to south carolina. look, he had a lot of baggage that began to develop ...

bob wright and francis fukuyama:

francis fukuyama: ... and [giuliani] has built his entire candidacy out of a kind of morbid 9-11 nostalgia ... saying [chuckling] if you really liked, uh, if you like 9-11, y'know, and everything that's happened since then, you'll get more of it with me ...

gotta love bob's reaction ...

josh marshall:

... the funny thing about rudy is that while he ran on 'staying on offense' against islamic bad guys, his whole race was defined by running away from fights. we've talked a lot about his alleged 'strategy' of ignoring the early races and focusing all his energy on florida which would launch him to glory on super tuesday. and it's an open secret that this 'strategy' was really more a work-in-progress rationalization for his collapse of support in the early states. rudy, i believe, outspent everyone in new hampshire. and he campaigned there a lot. but it's more than that. if you look closely, every time it didn't look like it was going to be an easy victory in a state, rudy's campaign packed up and left. or not quite packed up, but basically backed out, made an occasional visit, said it'd be nice to win but that it wasn't really necessary. it was somewhat the case in iowa, totally the case in new hampshire and the same in south carolina too. i think it was the same basically in michigan, though i'm not as familiar with the particulars there. ... with rudy, he just finally ran out of places to run.

abc news:

[fellow former new york mayor] ed koch, who has feuded with giuliani for years, was delighted with giuliani's crushing defeat in florida. he crowed, before the final votes were even tallied, that he was certain the verdict by florida's voters "will drive a stake through his heart. the beast is dead."

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(iv) the resurrection:

i don't anticipate one. quite possibly the greatest story never to be told.

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update: from the l.a. times ... (h/t josh marshall)

the failed campaign of rudolph w. giuliani can claim one distinction: the worst bang for the buck 1 of any delegate winner in presidential politics history. the former new york mayor, who dropped his republican bid for the presidency this week, disclosed thursday in a filing with the federal election commission that he raised $58.5 million and spent $48.8 million in 2007. with his donors' money, giuliani captured a single national delegate, in nevada. at that rate, it would have taken close to $60 billion in spending to capture the 1,191 delegates needed to win the nomination.

1 to be fair to "america's mayor", anyone who spent money on the nomination who failed to get any delegates at all would have a worse bang for their buck.

chicks dig the car

robin: i want a car, chicks dig the car. batman: this is why superman works alone. — batman and robin, 1997

i've had my garmin nüvi 350 gps navigator for over a year now and the moment that i learned that i could craft my own custom vehicle icons for it i knew i had to have my very own ...

but which one? even with 60 years of different models to choose from, the choice was actually quite simple:

... if only because i just happen to have a die-cast replica that i bought for $6 on naked impulse at my local rite aid last summer:

the resource file that the nüvi uses for the vehicle icon is a specialized png file (a format popularized for its support of alpha transparency). the png consists of 36 80x80 pixel perspective and 36 70x70 pixel overhead views of the vehicle on a 2880x150 pixel sheet:

detail of smart car png file by mad mike

i cut a turntable from a cardboard box with a compass and marked lightly in pencil 10 degree intervals along its circumference. i then mounted the replica on the turntable with a twist tie around the front axle. the turntable itself was mounted on a box by a flathead nail thru its center:

and from there it was just a process of shoot ...

... turn, shoot ...

... turn, shoot ...

as you can see, the lack of anything other than 60w home lighting put an unappealing dull brown cast on everything, but dealing with icky raw material like this is one of the reasons photoshop was invented.

all the photos were imported as individual layers into a single file and their backgrounds painted out.

the background was widened 3700% (36x), then the layers moved rightward (using a macro to save wear and tear on my arrow keys and my index finger and my brain). the layers were then merged into one. the process was repeated in a second file for the overhead shots. the background of the first file is resized vertically to accomodate the overhead shots, which were pasted in. the two layers were again merged in order to color-correct all the images simultaneously. it would have been nice if all this had taken only as long to do as it does to say ...

time to shrink the combined file to its final size. a white halo was added to increase visibility. (red background added here to highlight halo.) a png copy is saved.

of course no project with this many steps is without its unforseen obstacles. for the present there is only one conversion utility — ezran's web-based png2srf at techmods.net — available for getting the png into the specialized garmin format. unfortunately it has an issue with photoshop-generated pngs, which presents problems with transparency:

at the suggestion of a member of gps enthusiast forum poifactory.com, i downloaded the apparently garmin-friendly ¹ open source image editor paint.net, which unfortunately first required installing tinyxp (a stripped-down version of windows xp pro), using virtual pc (i'm on a mac powerbook), then installing ms .net framework, and after sitting through progress bar after progress bar after progress bar, i finally got to drive around in one of those cars that chicks really dig:

NOTICE: these custom icons that i make freely available are not for resale!

actual size: (click to download)

close-up:

... afterthought:

oh, and did i mention that i also have corgi's 1940s-era batmobile ... ?

NOTICE: these custom icons that i make freely available are not for resale!

actual size: (click to download)

close-up:

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update:

all my custom icons are now available in one convenient download.

1 i've since heard (always after the fact) that the mac-native open source image editor seashore is also supposed to be garmin-friendly. UPDATE: forget about seashore — i've since learned that it's not garmin-friendly.

one year to go

george w. bush, oct. 15 2001:

let me say a few words about important values we must demonstrate while all of us serve in government. first, we must always maintain the highest ethical standards. we must always ask ourself not only what is legal, but what is right. there is no goal of government worth accomplishing if it cannot be accomplished with integrity. second, i want us to set an example of humility. as you work for the federal government there is no excuse for arrogance, and there's never a reason to show disrespect for others. a new tone in washington must begin with decency and fairness. i want everyone who represents our government to be known for these values.

such good times weren't meant to last ...

!!!JUST WATCH!!!

i just had to save this prediction for january 29:

ALL OF THE TALKING HEADS LIKE DICK MORRIS, ARE QUICK TO WRITE RUDY OFF. THEY ARE ALL TRYING TO PUSH JOHN McCAIN NOW BECAUSE HE WON NEW HAMPSHIRE (4 ELECTORAL VOTES) AND HE WILL PROBABLY WIN MICHIGAN (17 ELECTORAL VOTES) AND MAY EVEN WIN SOUTH CAROLINA, OH MY!! WITH (8) ELECTORAL VOTES! AND NOW IT SEEMS TO ME LIKE THEY ARE TRYING TO SQUEW THE POLL TO SAY RUDY IS BEHIND IN FLORIDA! RUDY’S SUPPORT IS WIDE AND IT IS DEEP, NOT SUPERFICIAL LIKE JOHN McCAIN’S! HE WON’T HAVE THE INDEPENDENTS TO HELP HIM IN FLORIDA, AND THERE ARE ENOUGH 911 ERA EX-NEW YORKERS TO PUT IT AWAY FOR RUDY. TO BORROW A LINE FROM A FAMOUS GENERAL: RUDY IS EXACTLY THE RIGHT MAN, IN EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOMENT IN HISTORY, IN EXACTLY THE RIGHT PLACE, AND ALL HE NEEDS IS OUR VOTES! WITH FLORIDA’S (27) ELECTORAL VOTES UNDER HIS BELT, JUST WATCH THE POLLS SHOOT HIM RIGHT BACK UP TO THE TOP! McCAIN, HUCKABEE, ROMNEY, OR ANY OF THE OTHERS CANNOT BEAT HILLARY CLINTON! WHY DO YOU THINK THE PRESS IS PUSHING McCAIN SO HARD! IF HE GETS THE NOMINATION WITH HIS RECORD ON IMMIGRATION, TAXES AND FLIP FLOPPING ALL OVER THE MAP ON IRAQ AND TAXES, HE WILL BE EASY MEAT FOR HILLARY! RUDY IS THE ONLY, I REPEAT, THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO CAN WIN NEW YORK FOR THE REPUBLICANS, AND IF THAT HAPPENS FOLKS, I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU! HILLARY CAN’T WIN! IF SHE LOSES NEW YORK OR CALIFORNIA OR PENNSYLVANIA, MATHIMATICALLY, SHE CAN’T WIN! AND THE TALKING HEADS, WHO ARE LARGELY LIBERAL, KNOW THIS! CAN McCAIN WIN NEW YORK? NOT A CHANCE! CAN HUCKABEE WIN NEW YORK? GET REAL! HECK, THE LAST POLL I SAW STILL HAS JOHN McCAIN 5 POINTS BEHIND RUDY IN HIS HOME SENATE SEAT STATE OF ARIZONA!! THAT SHOULD SPEAK VOLUMES! WE ALL JUST NEED TO “STAY THE COURSE” AS RONALD REGAN USED TO STAY, AND WE WILL WIN IN FLORIDA, AND START “THE DRIVE UP 95″ AND TO THE NOMINATION FOR RUDY! NOW GET OUT THERE AND VOTE, AND FIND 10 MORE PEOPLE TO VOTE TOO! AND ON JANUARY 28TH, WE CAN WATCH THE PUNDITS TRY TO WIPE THE EGG OFF THEIR FACES! YOU CAN VOTE EARLY, TOO!

meanwhile, at this moment in history (in case you hadn't heard already), the "right man in the right place" got a whopping 3% of michiganders to pull for him, just one point above "uncommitted".

for "america's mayor" it's florida or bust ...

giddy-ap

congrats to mike huckabee (and apologies to isaac asimov):

"there is an old fable," said hardin, "as old perhaps as humanity, for the oldest records containing it are merely copies of other records still older, that might interest you. it runs as follows: "a republican horse having a democrat wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of permanent minority status his life. being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek as strong ally. whereupon he approached a christian fundamentalist man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. the man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at his disposal. the horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. the man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him. "the horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: 'now that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.' "whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, 'the hell you say. giddy-ap, dobbin,' and applied the spurs with a will."

iowa

anyone can win today. my preference: edwards ...