Favorite Spam of the Day

From: "Enid Harden" < lhip2qogh@yahoo.com.hk>
Subject: My accountant thinks I'm crazy... hecugeclmcg


Crazy like a fox? Or like someone who spouts gibberish at the end of sentences?

AT&T Wireless Having Major Technical Difficulties.

As I mention on Bob of Montreal, my AT&T screwed up my voicemail. After 2hrs on the phone with technical assistance, they concluded they need 3-5 business days to fix it. I'm without voicemail for 3-5 days.

Is this just me, is it a large fraction of AT&T wireless, or is it their entire system?

Statement -- October 23, 2003

Looks like Bob Graham is pushing for a voting paper trail for eVoting machines. See here.

Pre-announcement

Steve Jobs usually doesn't appreciate people jumping the gun like this.

Ashcroft steps aside, and Sen. Schumer is happy

So Ashcroft stepped aside from the probe into who leaked clandistine CIA operative Valerie Plamme's name to the press
(article here). Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who led the call for a prosecuter, says he's happy with the naming of a US Atorney (in Chicago) to lead the investigation.

Someone leaked this information, and there's no doubt the leak was illegal. All that remains now is to figure out who did it.

Go Pope! It's your birthday!

My favorite part is where he says they are fueled by "a misunderstood sense of rights".

Now, I don't deny that I didn't really pay attention during CCD classes, but I think I really missed some huge section of indoctrination at some point. This must be something they cover in confirmation.

Looks like I have more moral duties to shirk.

Pope, gunning for next year's Nobel Peace Prize, says gay marriage wrong wrong wrong.

In a speech on the feast of the holy family, the Pope took the opportunity to say that people who back gay marrriage misunderstand "rights", and called upon everyone who opposes it to come together to fight it.
See article here.

Then the pope lead the assembled faithful in a game of Smear the Queer.

Re: Action

Bob confirms taking the downside on Sean Penn for Best Actor in MYSTIC RIVER against Robin.

Paris Hilton beat out by LORD OF THE RINGS

After 30 days at the top of the Yahoo! Buzz Index, Paris Hilton has finally dropped to LORD OF THE RINGS.

The Omnipresent David Brooks

Brooks appeared this morning both on panels on FACE THE NATION and CHRIS MATTHEWS.

On FACE THE NATION, Brooks predicted that gay marriage would not be an issue in the Presidential election. Even though it is the most divisive social issue in the country, with well over half favoring a constitutional amendment against it, he thinks the Republicans will not even raise the issue, because he believes that no one wants to talk about it, so who ever brings it up, loses.

Of course, what's the worst it could do?

Bush Still Eating Beef Despite Scare, Aide Says

The $100 Apple mini-Ipod

As rumored on /. Holding 400-800 songs.

If so, that would be my price point.

Are You High?

Due to an elevated volume of threatening communications, the US Department of Homeland Security has raised the terrorism threat level from 'Elevated' to 'High'.

What to do? Be Ready!

Wired News: E-Voting Undermined by Sloppiness

Secretary of State (from California) Kevin Shelly says,
with regards to the fact that Diebold Voting Systems, loaded uncertified software in all 17 of Califonia's counties for the election which placed Schwarzenegger in the governor's office:


"The core of our American democracy is the right to vote," Shelley said. "Implicit in that right is the notion that that vote be private, that vote be secure, and that vote be counted as it was intended when it was cast by the voter. And I think what we're encountering is a pivotal moment in our democracy where all of that is being called into question."

See the Wired article here (Thanks to Steve who saw this first).

Reports of RIAA's demise...

...may be premature. The labels can still sue P2P uploaders (their original tactic) in both the US and Canada; they just have to get a traditional subpoena, from a judge, in order to file the suit. Assuming the ruling of the three-judge panel from the Third Circuit holds.

What the RIAA had been up to involved provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (thank you, Clinton!) that, they claimed, allowed them to demand the identities of "copyright violators" directly from the ISP, without a court order. The panel has ruled that this claim is specious. Back to the judge for your subpoenas, boys.

That said, I'm all in favor of raising a toast to Canada. Just look at that Canadian dollar go!

More P2P stuff

In other P2P news, the Netherlands courts have ruled Kazaa legal.

Canada has also declared P2P downloading legal.

Bob, get yer Mac Kazaa client fired up. I'll send you cheap CD-R media, and you can send back legally downloaded material, cheap prescription drugs, Cuban cigars, and smoked meats.

Let's all take a moment to appreciate our friends to the north in America Jr.

Downloading Music? Your ISP won't tell.

A Federal appeals court ruled that ISPs can't be compelled to disclose who is sharing music, according to this WAPost article.

Wooo hooo!

More on Globes

More on the Golden Globe nominations. Apart from Diane Keaton, Jamie Lee Curtis has garnered a nomination in the Actress/Comedy category, for her role in "Freaky Friday." This presages a prediction of A.O. Scott's that her role in that movie be considered Oscar-worthy. Scarlett Johansson is nominated twice for her roles in "Lost in Translation" (Comedy?) as well as "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (Drama). "21 Grams" is ignored completely.

Jose Padilla Gets a Lawyer

Only eighteen months after being detained as an "enemy combatant" by our ruling proconsuls, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld, Jose Padilla has been delivered (some of) his Constitutional rights as an American citizen on American soil by a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court in New York City (NYT front-page story).

A few comments. First, this was a close one: The ruling was only 2-1, so as a nation we were actually one swing judge away from Absolute Executive Power. If the Executive had indeed been granted "enemy combatant designation" discretion by the judiciary, the last check on its authority would have been removed. Of course, we are not out of the woods yet - a further appeal of this ruling, by Proconsul Ashcroft, seems likely.

Second, the court said nothing about Ashcroft's abuse of the material witness statues - under his interpretation, which has actually been affirmed by a panel of the Third Circuit, any "material witness" (so designated by him) may be held indefinitely without rights of habeas corpus. We will not be free until this perversion, also, is reversed.

Third, the court said nothing about the other enemy combatant-American citizen, Yaser Esam Hamdi. Since he was captured in Afghanistan, apparently, the provisions of the Constitution may not apply. Does this disturb anyone?

Finally, it has taken 557 days for Jose to get his rights. Too long; and let us remember, he has not seen a lawyer - or been released from military to civil detention - as yet.

Robin's Slog to Victory

It's been five years of Oscar Contests and nary a win for Robin.

Lo, but this year, Robin hedges by plunking some change down in a single-shot bet, with Derek and Bob taking the downside, on Diane Keaton for Best Actress, in SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE.

And Ms. Keaton slogs forward, with

a Golden Globe nomination, showing that she's at least in the running.

Could this be Robin's year for victory? Let's watch.

Brooks, honesty

Bob's criticism of Brook's column appears to be a disagreement about the relative merits of honesty, candor, and directness versus diplomacy and cunning. However, this is not the issue. The problem is that Bush and his administration have been neither honest, straightforward, nor candid, especially about the connection between Saddam's regime and terrorism. I don't think I need justify this last point to this group. I would be quite happy to risk whatever daggers the international community might aim at the American kidney if it were only because we were candidly, honestly, directly doing what we had to for our own safety from terrorism.

Be the smart guy, not the one giving the finger to the room.

David Brooks thinks it's just too bad that our former allies can't stand that Bush's administration is so honest.

Brooks repeats the classic hawk intellectual fallacy: "They can't stand the truth: we are a 300 lb man capable of kneeling on their chests and drubbing them into stupidity."

Actually, it's not the truth of that statement which bothers our former allies. It's the actual kneeling on their chests and drubbing we're giving them.

The polite, mature and intelligent country -- that country we had before George W. took office, which Brooks disdains in today's article -- knows how to move quietly about the room, smiling, chatting, and subtly flexing its 300 pounds of muscle to make the crowd open up a way to the buffet table. It's called, Mr. Brooks, "Using your charisma", using your brains much more than your brawn. Even better when doing so reveals an honest consideration of the needs and aspirations of other people in the room.

And between the two choices, using your charisma -- and truly caring about your friends' needs and aspirations -- is far smarter than honestly shoving your friends aside in your storm the buffet table. Because when the daggers we don't know we don't know about come out (apologies, Rumsfeld), your friends are more inclined to collect around you than to say "Let tough guy take it on his own."

Bush's honesty and candor, as Brooks calls them, has made sure we have no more friends in the room. We won't know until we feel the dagger in our kidneys.

For all the money spent on anti-terrorism efforts, pissing our friends off counters those efforts; the best anti-terrorism effort makes the rest of the world friendly and dependent upon us, and us friendly and dependent upon them, so that we protect each other. We should be friendly and pleasant, if muscular, and not kneel on their chests drubbing them.

Blog This!

I just found out that the reason Bob blogs all the time is that he's got a link in his favorites bar which gives a handy blogtool which is described here.

Alternatively, here's the link itself:
Blog This! . Just drag it to your favorite's bar, and use it when you are on a page you want to blog.

Braun Screws Up Her South Park References

In talking to kids about poverty in Concord, NH, Presidential Candidate Carol Moseley Braun said

"Even if your mother is Cartman's mom, you ought to be able to go and get a quality education," demonstrating that she didn't know that it was Kenny's mom who is the poor one.

Better Electronic Voting In The Making.

Slashdot reports: Electronic Voting in the News. Parallel measures in the House and the Senate will require a paper audit trail, ban the use of "undiscolosed" software, and and require mandatory surprise recounts.

This would make electronic voting reliable. Watch Diebold get out of the business now (why be involved if you can't steal elections?).

You Know It's a Bad Day when you Lose Half Your Army

Three hundred (of 700 total) members of the new Iraqi army
up and quit today.

These -- the first joiners after the war -- were those who were most likely to be sympathetic to being with the Coalition Provisional Authority. This is a very bad day in a long hard slog.

Boo Hoo

USC is going to the Rose Bowl instead of the Sugar Bowl because of their weak playing schedule. It couldn't have happened to a better team (I'm not being sarcastic here, USC is #1, there are no better teams). BCS claims that a computer decides what team goes to which bowl, and must have done some tricky math to come up with this solution. I suspect it is the same computer that comes up with your credit score when you're buying a house. In a world where this can happen, it can only mean one thing:

The terrorists have already won.

Another Card Comment

The fact that Andrew Card responded to Wolf Biltzer's request for a reaction to John Kerry's quote regarding Bush's Iraq Policy: "Did I expect George Bush to f..k it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did." with nothing more than a mild request to use cleaner language when berating the President's policies just may reveal that Card is completely irrelevant in the White House.

Card obviously hadn't given any thought to defending the President's policies. How the heck can he be in charge of managing the President's activities and not know that he was supposed to respond to the attack on those policies, not on the use of a vulgarism to attack them?

It's been a long time since there was a Chief of Staff who didn't know how to defend the President's policies. I presume he's just another secretary in the building, and that Rove is directing things from the inside, making Card truly irrelevant.

William Novelli: A Seniors Moment

When asked if, prior to being a registered Independent, if he was ever in any party, the president of the AARP -- which recently endorsed the $400 Billion Medicare bill, precipitating 15,000 AARP membership cancellations due to the fact that the bill is widely regarded as upping drug costs --- William Novelli said:
I don't remember. I honestly don't. I may have been a Republican when I was working on the Nixon campaign." (In 1972, not 1968).

William -- if you were working on the Nixon campaign in 1972, then the question isn't whether you were a Republican then -- you were -- but whether your "Independent" registration functions as anything other than political cover.

Card a Card

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card took exception to John Kerry's use of the word "fuck" in a recent Rolling Stone magazine interview, where Kerry was quoted as saying, in regards to the President's Iraq policy: "Did I expect George Bush to f..k it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did." Card reacted to the quote on CNN's Late Edition:
I've known John Kerry for a long time and I'm very disappointed that he would use that kind of language.

No word on whether Card did, actually, expect George Bush to fuck up his Iraq policy (I saw the show -- Card bizarrely sidestepped the question of the content of Kerry's criticism).

This is FAT

Yesterday Microsoft announced that they are going to begin charging royalties for companies that include the FAT file system on their devices. The fees appear to be set at $250,000 per company for a license, and 25 cents per device. This file system is included on digital cameras that use compact flash, smart media, SD, etc, so naturally SanDisk and Lexar were the first to license the technology.

Digital cameras need to have this filesystem in their embedded OS so that they can reformat these cards. Based on who produces these chips/embedded OSes, you'll see these companies begin to pay up for their licenses. That would be Kodak, Sony, Canon, Nikon, HP, Agfa, Windriver,.... (this list will go on for a while...)..

Preformatted floppies come with this filesystem on them. Maxell, 3M, and other companies who for some reason let part of their company fall off the tech bandwagon somewhere, will have to start charging .25 extra per floppy (of course if you're using a Mac, who cares?)

OS X includes this filesystem (to be able to read floppies/CDs/digital media cards), and it is unclear whether MS will be charging for the ability to read this filesystem, so this may affect Apple. Even so, $250,000 is not a very big sum for licensing. It is not a WELCOME added cost, but a reasonable amount for any of the aforementioned companies to afford.

The article mentions that possibly the reason for this shift in IP licensing is to encourage more companies to upgrade/update their systems to OSes that use NTFS (Windows 2000/XP/Me) which analysts see as a good move. I believe that there are more insidious reasons for this push:

1. NTFS filesystems include DRM capabilities. If/when companies switch from using FAT to NTFS, the reason will be for DRM. This falls in line with their "trusted computing" environment.
2. Linux uses the FAT file system. Red Hat, SUSE, and all the other distributions would be dead in the water because of this. Because:
a) Linux communities historically have been unable to raise money to pay for licensing. (Does anyone remember the effort to raise money for the DVD license?)
b) Even if a company (Red Hat for example) paid the fee, they would only be able to distribute a binary for the filesystem. This would violate the GPL, which the Linux community thrives upon.

The short story here is that most likely, Microsoft is using their IP to finally try and begin to kill their adversaries. Let's face it, MS being an $870B company, doesn't need the paltry $250k, and digital cameras are NOT their competition. Linux operating systems are.

I believe that it can be argued that the FAT filesystem on Linux was reverse engineered (circa 1992) when reverse engineering was legal (pre-DMCA), and if the dozens of coders who have contributed to that portion of the Linux project can prove that they have never seen code for the FAT filesystem, that the Linux community will have a rock-solid defense to keep this technology in their distributions. I'm sure that sometime in the near future, they will be asked to prove this. If they can't, the results will be devastating.

Bob of Montreal

To keep my rantings about Montreal separte from my rantings about film, politics, and society, we now have Bob of Montreal.

You call this cold?

I don't get it, but I remember Boston being cold. I've been running around without a scarf or boots this week, or long johns -- just wearing three layers and my coat, in my skivvies for all practical purposes, almost -- and it doesn't seem that cold at all.

And it's bloody like 24 degrees, tops.

Either something happened to me in California (well, it did, but not that) or cold just ain't what it used to be.

Bob in Montreal.

Primes

I think it was Bob who asked me the other day why no one seems to be looking for prime numbers anymore. Apparently, someone is, and is doing it via a distributed computing effort. This site reports that on November 17th of this year, someone's computer found the 40th Mersenne prime.

Sweet

I'm glad to see that Paul is joining me in declaring "Why isn't this front-page news?". Actually, I had previously asked "Why this isn't bigger news?", as I would have been happy if it made any newspapers at all.

Perhaps the critics of Diebold are having a tough time standing apart from the conspiracy theorists, precisely because this is so insidious.

At Last!

Long a subject of interest on this Blog, Paul Krugman
notes that Diebold is doing a shoddy job of providing reliable, verifiable voting in electronic voting machines.

In addition to being operated by a partisan board.

Why should the reliability of our Democracy take second priorty to Diebold's desire to protect trade secrets, that is, why should we permit them to not show anyone their software? The answer is, we should not. We wouldn't ask people to hand their ballots to a single counter who would then tell us what the answer was, and not permit those ballots to be recounted or verified. And we should not let that happen just because that single counter is a computer.

War On Terror taken to the high seas

CNN has an article which states that the US is willing to seize materials on the high seas. This would appear to be a clear violation of Article 2 from the International Law Commission's Convention on the High Seas.

This appears to be another case where international law is getting in the way of doing the right thing.

The Marriage Amendment

The WaPost gives a piercing article on the political coalition pushing forward the federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage here. The wedge issue is "marriage" vs. "civil unions".

There are 3 drafts circulating: the leading one has already been introduced as a bill in the House and Senate, and is meant to stop gay "marriage" but is silent on civil unions.

Number two looks to ban civil unions, too -- and it is being drafted by a veritable Hall of Doom: James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values, William J. Bennett of Empower America, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Sandy Rios of Concerned Women for America and Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation. These are the conservative base of the Republican party. I can't recall seeing this band of True Believers united behind any previous cause quite like they do here, which means that they see themselves marching into a great battle, for which they need to be shoulder to shoulder.

Number three is a ridiculous piece which has no chance, looking to ban any legal notice on "non-marital sexual relationships", ignoring the legal conflict with the common-law marriage.

So we have number 1 and number 2. Number 1 is already in play, but number 2 is more politically interesting, since that group is not one any Republican can afford to ignore, and because it seeks to ban civil unions. They are lining up to make this the Republican issue of 2004.

Diebold gives up on the memos

The electronic voting machines manufacturer Diebold has given up attempting to press charges for theft of internal memos using the DMCA
according to this slashdot posting (and Diebold's court filing referenced within).

Now, if we can just convince them that using the DMCA to protect their code and operations of voting machines is illicit, that would make me happy. Because our need for transparent voting -- and a stable democracy -- trumps their need for profit from trade secrets.

So far, governments using electronic voting have permitted manufacturers to keep secret the programs which operate them. This is dangerous, because the programs are entirely responsible for tallying the vote, in an unverifiable way. Naturally, that is exactly where elections are stolen.

The only argument for permitting them to keep their programs se cret is the DMCA -- that is, protection of trade secrets. But we're trying to run a free and open democracy here, and our need for reliable, verifiable voting procedures which underpins our free and open democracy takes precedence over their desire to make a buck from clever programming secrets (and there are probably zero programming innovations in that program).

If they want to make money from clever programming secrets, they should do it for consumer products -- like a web browser -- not for voting.

Tyrannical Judiciary Sighting

Holy Matrimony - There's one.

New meme to watch for

"Judicial Tyranny" seems to be the phrase that the far right yells every time a judge hands down a ruling that they don't like. When GW Bush signed the law banning partial birth abortions, and a judge in Nebraska issued a limited temporary injunction, the far right started yelling "judicial tyranny!". When Judge Moore was compelled to move the Ten Commandments monument....judicial tyranny! When the Massachusetts supreme court "undermined traditional marriage"...JUDICIAL TYRANNY! When the phrase "...under god" was removed from the pledge of allegience..well, you get the picture.

When searching google for this term, it is interesting to see the domains associated with this phrase: renewamerica.com, family.org, traditionalvalues.org, reclaimamerica.org, dutyisours.com, christianity.com, heartland.org. If one makes a snap judgement about who owns these domains, it is clear that the far right is frequently using this term to describe what is going on inside the borders of the U.S. I would not hesitate to think that if Hitler were running for office today, and promised these "freedoms" in his campaign, that the right would be falling over themselves to get that guy in office (come to think of it, they never did find Hitler's body...). As a sidenote, presidential tyranny almost never shows up in google, and certainly not in reference to Bush.

Possibly the earliest this phrase was used in American History was when Patrick Henry (1736-1799), a member of the Continental Congress said:

"Power is the great evil with which we are contending. We have divided power between three branches of government and erected checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. However, where is the check on the power of the judiciary? If we fail to check the power of the judiciary, I predict that we will eventually live under judicial tyranny."

In a time where we are living under the rule of the worst president in U.S. history, whose legacy will be the erosion of civil liberties, I would like to advance another common phrase to describe what is occuring within our judicial system: damage control. The American public is staring down possibility of not just four but eight years of presidential ineptitude, and with congress controlled by the Republicans, the only branch which appears out of step (to the right) is the judicial branch. The only thing keeping us from having to wear name badges around our neck all day, and keeping our forces out of Iran and Syria, is not GW's fully developed sense of right and wrong unfortunately; it is (at this point) the judicial system. A few millenia from now, when "The Rise and Fall of the American Empire" (a more complete and well documented version of its Roman cousin) is standard reading, the American judicial system will be credited with stemming the tide of imperialism, and maintaining liberty in the "homeland". Liberals at this point were left standing around chanting a different Patrick Henry quote:

"...give me liberty, or give me death !"

21 Grams: The Title

Without seeing any part of this no-doubt wondrous movie (and as referenced in a previous post), I have already taken offense to one aspect - the title. As explained in the movie's publicity materials:

They say we all lose 21 grams
at the exact moment of our death...
everyone.
The weight of a stack of nickels.
The weight of a chocolate bar.
The weight of a humming bird...

Perhaps even... the weight of a soul. Or so we are supposed to think. But first, I'd like us to consider a few more "21 gram"-equivalents:

21 grams...
The energy of 450 kilotons of TNT.
The energy of 22.5 Hiroshima A-bombs.
517,500 Kilowatt-hours.
451 Billion Calories.
Enough energy to feed a person for 412,000 years...

CA Does Something Right: Paper Audit Trails at the Electronic Ballot Box

Good news for those who have read enough history to know that people steal elections when they can.

Movie of the Year, Quoth Elvis

Okay, read this and then tell me you don't want to race right out and see 21 Grams.

In spite of the unphysical title premise.

Perle admits that Iraq invasion was illegal

According to this, Richard Perle admits that the US invasion of Iraq was illegal. The most contemptuous quote from Perle: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

Sorry about that whole "law" thing getting in the way. I can just picture Martha Stewart's trial right now "I found out that the stock was going to plummet, and the law stood in the way of doing the right thing. Me keeping my money."

The Story is Written, but Continues to Unfold

One day after Javier Solana was quoted by London's The Independent as saying the US is going to place its troops under international control (see Steve's entry below), Colin Powell makes a plea that Germany and France join in on managing the post-war Iraq.

Solana's quote has not been reported in US media. Such a major shift in US policy would be an important story -- so what's the deal? Why are US news services piddling after the crumbs of Powell's seeking help from Europe, when, according to the EU Foreign Minister, the US has already made up it's mind to hand the whole thing off?

My read on this is that the Bush administration has decided that there are no more domestic political points to be scored, so that 'tis time to turn tail and stampede on out of there. If they do so, they will have robbed the Democrats of the issue which has bolstered all their candidates, most notably the front-runner Dean, who would then presumably follow Bush and turn to the economy as an issue.

Then There Were Two

Is David Brooks just another name for Maureen Dowd?

Sen. Barney Frank (D- Ma.) to Wed?

The NYTimes reports that the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has ruled that there is nothing in the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and that the state has identified no compelling interest to bar it.
They have given the Massachusetts Legislature 180 days to come up with a remedy, before they act (for those of you scoring at home, 180 days is May, just as the Presidential campaign is getting into full swing).

This was where the states of Hawaii and Alaska -- who previously had this same situation -- passed constitutional ammendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Massachusetts is less likely to go down that road.

Colinwatch

The issue has been discussed extensively offline between Derek and myself, but so much so that I can't remember if it was Derek or I who came up with the idea (I'm guessing it's Derek).

The KillerApp for the Republicans now would be for Cheney to announce that he is not going to run for VP in 2004. Given the general failure in Iraq (Saddam is not dead or under arrest, and it appears we are about to pull out of there so that Bush doesn't have to stare down an unpopular and futile police action during an election year), Cheney can be hung with it, and, out with the old, in with the new. Cheney will be an increasing liability, as there are no more political points to be scored in Iraq (except for the capture of Saddam Hussein).

The best time to do this? Probably just before the Democratic Convention (July 26-29), thus overshadowing the excitement there, and giving them a month to build up the replacement for the August 30-Sept 2 Republican National Convention.

And who will that replacement be? It's obvious, no? Colin Powell. He wants to be President, has held on these years with great intestinal fortitude, and if he's VP in 2004, he's a shoe-in as VP [ What I meant here was President, NOT VP! -- BobR] in 2008. Imagine the Powell-Hillary matchup! He's practically a Democrat anyway, so the crossover would be huge.

Of course, he will be no conservative's favorite, but those guys can run in the primaries against him. A Bush/Powell ticket might be vulnerable to a Buchanan Progressive Party assault from the right. Even so, they would probably gain more from the left than they'd lose from the right, and it would set up the Republicans with an heir apparent with strong cross-party credentials for 2008.

Let's watch for those "Powell not Cheney" signs in the months to come.

US putting troops under international control in Iraq

The Independent reports that the US is willing to bring its forces under international control to avoid failure.

Crash, Take 2

So about those helicopter crashes - apparently there was some enemy fire in the area at that time.

No worries though. The reason the crashes (as they are still called) happened was that one of the helicopters swerved upwards in an attempt to avoid the enemy fire. And that's why they crashed. Not because any helicopter was actually hit.

Are we all clear on this story now?

Crash

2 More Helicopter "Crashes" in Iraq ( Mosul)


Calling these events "crashes" is ludicrous. The helicopters are in a war zone, they're most likely being shot down, not falling out of the sky. To treat these events with the spin "Now, we don't know what happened exactly, and we don't want to be alarmist, so let us get to the bottom of this before we mislead anyone..." is like calling a corpse in a casket a "man who fell down".

The Good We Do

Kristof reports and comments on the fact that opium production in Afghanistan has soard by a factor of 19, from 185 metric tons in 2001 to 3600 in 2003, the second largest in Afgahn history. The net of the illicit production is twice the budget of Hamid Karzai's government.

He also mentions that the Taliban and conservative mullahs are having a resurgence. It's Columbia, and we haven't done anything about it -- and, yes, it's our responsibility to, since the country is de facto under our control.

I Approved This Message

Apparently, it's now the law that Presidential Candidates, appear in their ads, identify themselves, and declare that they approved the message of their commercials. So far, of the ads I've seen, the candidate has been shown, facing the camera, stating "I approved this message." It's pointed out in the article above that this may well limit negative campaigning ("George Bush is a no-account dirty rotten son-of-a-bitch, and I approved this message" is probably not going to endear one to the electorate).

This is a good trend.

168 to 4

The Great Big Republican Fillibuster, of 30 hours of planned talking regarding Judicial nominees, was called by Senate Republicans to call attention to what Majority Leader Bill Frist calls "Democrat's partisan obstructionism", regarding the Democrat's refusal to let 4 Bush Judicial nominees come to a floor vote.

But the Senate has approved 168 federal judges. So why the whine-fest by Republican's over these four? Is it just another example of brooking no dissent?

Bush as Pedro Martinez

Hear ye, hear ye: Slate conservative Mickey Kaus has some advice for the Democratic contenders for President - and the Party at large - and it's pretty good: Bush is Pedro Martinez.

The Great Divide

Oligatory Kristof link: Hold the Vitriol

And response:

Dear Editor,

Nicholas Kristof warns Democrats to heed the "God Gulf" separating them from the religiously faithful ("Hold the Vitriol" Op-Ed, Nov 12). But how should we react to public figures, like Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, who declare publicly that they do not believe in evolution or the big bang? This is not a point of view that an educated person can respect. The same holds for President Bush's "compromise" decision on Federal funding of fetal stem cell research. A curious compromise that was: While failing to save a single fetus, it has brought a once-promising avenue of medical research to a near standstill.

If this confusion of faith and politics - embodied, as well, in the recent "partial birth" abortion ban - is what Mr. Kristof has in mind, then I think the Democrats are better off keeping their principles, and the God Gulf, intact.

Sincerely,
Derek Fox

Soros Wants Bush Out

Usually, we decry the fact that elections, apparently, can be bought.

But maybe, with George Soros against Bush, we'll start being glad about it.

Hey, Where Did Trotsky Go? Time Magazine is Hiring Stalin's Editors?

Remember learning in grade school how under Stalin -- the murderous Soviet and ruthless pogromist -- those Bolsheviks, when confronted with an inconvenient fact in their history, or a face in a picture of a murdered colleague, would simply change the fact, and airbrush out the picture? "Does their insanity know no bounds?" your 7th grade history teacher might have said. "You cannot simply re-color history to suit the politics of the moment. It is a dishonesty, which does not end at being a lie. It is an attempt to control the population by making it appear that history has always backed the present regime, and so, therefore, should you."

The political linguist Orwell thought enough of the grotesque dangers of re-writing of history that he made his protagonist Winston Smith of 1984 a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Information, where he would excise those nettlesome little double-plus-ungood passages containing that Information which conflicted with the politics of the moment.

Well, step back Stalin and Big Brother, because Time Magazine is on the job.

The Memory Hole writes that an essay which appeared in Time's 2 March 1998 issue by George Bush, Sr. and Brent Scowcroft has disappeared in totality from their website, and has been scrubbed from that issue's on-line table of contents. In this essay, the former President and his National Security Advisor (what's a past tense verb for "to give the reasons which are now politically inconvenient?") delineated their reasons for not removing Saddam from power -- many of which would apply to Bush the Younger's invasion. (Here is another on-line archived copy at a political blog , the Time article is also excerpted in the San Jose Mercury News , and in the Minnesota Daily .)

So what is this? A mistake? Would such a visible national magazine want to re-write its pages to suit the politics of the moment? Even if they wanted to, who in journalism -- even in the McDonald's journalism of Time Magazine -- would think that you can simply unwrite essays? Could it be there's a legal issue, since Bush and Scowcroft's essay excerpted from their Knopf book?

Let's watch.

Why Isn't This Man Running for President?

I mean, after all, he says all the right things.

And before you post, Robin, I know the real answer. But I was watching a bit of John Edwards on "Meet the Press" today (taped from this morning) and he was dissembling on his pro-war and pro-PATRIOT act votes and you know, I just... sigh.

P.S. Here is the full text of his remarks.

Corrections/Comments

*Bluetooth iPod - I believe I wrote "I guarantee that none of these other things will come to pass" in reference to Bluetooth on an iPod. I maintain my position that Apple will never build it in, but that doesn't mean that a 3rd party won't develop it (and have Apple sell it online). The Register reports that a 3rd party is developing exactly this.


*Helicopter "crash" vs. "shot down" - After reading Bob's comments regarding the media's propensity to report Helicopters taken down by hostile fire as "crashes" (mainly in the headlines, the story bodies always suggest that it was "probably shot down" I immediately did a search on news.google, and came up with an interesting statistic. Many of the newspapers that report the helicopter as being "shot down" are mainly small foreign newspapers (UK, New Zealand, Austrailia, Ireland). After reading an article on the most recent "downing", I believe there was _some_ doubt as to how the helicopter was brought down. A heat seeking missile (which would probably be the most successful weapon against a helicopter) would destroy the exhaust ports on the helicopter. In this case, they happened to be intact. Since there are no survivors, it took a little longer for the military to confirm exactly what happened. Meanwhile, small, independent, foreign newspapers are reporting a "downing due to hostile fire", and US media outlets are reporting "Helicopter down, cause unknown" (I'm paraphrasing here). In this particular case, I would actually call this good reporting since the media is supposed to be reporting the "facts" (even if the sources aren't fully trusted).

What I think is notable about the major media outlets in these cases, is that they eventually do report the truth, once it is uncovered, but they seem to bury it. For example here, here , and here. Note, in the first link, I couldn't find a link to this story from their main/international page and only found it through a search at news.google, the second link is reuters.co.uk (which I couldn't find from their main site doing a search for "helicopter shot down", I found it also through news.google which either says that reuters is burying it, or their search engine is poor), the third was from CNN (which I had assumed incorrectly would be the least likely to report what actually happened), and actually had a link from their World/Middle East headlines page, but was buried down at the bottom, and wasn't even a major headline. Also notable is that I can't find an Associated Press article in reference to this event.

The bottom line? Major newspapers do seem to be printing the facts as they become available, but their follow ups are not found on the front page. The feeling we're left with is that they're not reporting "the truth". Whose fault is that? Media consumers. CNN, (MS)NBC, Fox News, are all catering to the media consumer with the most sensational headline they can find (as is evidenced in the media by the recall election's focus on Schwarzenegger). If the majority of consumers actually cared about the follow-up (e.g. WMD claims, our Governor's manhandling of women, helicopter crashes), the headlines wouldn't be filled with the latest bombing news, "Miss Florida is in critical condition!", and Rolling Stone magazine investigative report discovering that Brittany Spears had sex with all the members of Hansen. (I made that last bit up, but wouldn't it be a great rumor to start?).

WMD in North Korea

A CIA assessment delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on August 18 says that North Korea has a working nuclear bomb (see also the original remarks kept by the Federation of American Scientists).

Let's review: The CIA confirms that this country and its megalomaniacal leader possess nuclear weapons ready for use. They have sold such technology in the past to anyone who wanted it, and also use its strategic threat to blackmail neighbors and the United States at the diplomatic bargaining table.

There is no upside to this. The US has failed in its foreign policy to curb North Korea's nuclear ambition, and so North Korea has joined the nuclear club. N. Korea regards ambiguity about their possession of nuclear weapons to be a strategic advantage, so we will not obtain overt confirmation.

By the way, all the hub-bub during the yellowcake scandal was regarding the CIA's not correcting the White House's view that there was no material to possibly make nuclear weapons that might have left Nigeria, bound for Iraq. Here, we have a far worse warning of actual nuclear capability from the CIA -- and strangely, not only the the White House not pick it up, they are not pressing forward with it publicly. What gives? I hope that the answer is that, with Kim, they know they are dealing with a highly irrational character, and that kicking up a lot of dust on it just stengthens his hand. Nonetheless, I also hope they are aggressively pressing on the issue behind the scences and through covert means. Otherwise, it won't be long before N. Korea begins making demands at the diplomatic table that we aren't willing to concede. Or one of their bombs gets sold to someone we like even less.

My Secret Plan to Win the War Against Racism in the Southern United States

Krugman's distillation of the devil's bargain between Southern whites and the Republican party does not pay proper attention to the perception of the economic benefits of racism -- both in Mississippi and New Jersey. This came out, because Krugman wanted to point out that Dean's "I want the votes of guys with Confederate Flags on their trucks" comment (the Reagan democrats) are natural Democrats, but vote Republican against their own economic interesets, because they think Republican's are with them.

In relatively affluent and better educated New Jersey, racism is percieved as diminishing the economic potential of a significant sub-population. In doing so, it creates lower income for the sub-population, lower economic activity, and all boats sink with the tide. Witness the decline in median family incomes over the past 2 years of $400/yr -- a short-term cost which negates the tax benefit of voting Republican (assuming you blame, as I do, this economic downturn on the party in power), making the far-greater and long-term economic costs too great a negative to overcome.

Down home in blue-collar Mississippi, racism is perceived by working-class whites as diminishing the labor pool. The simple math is, drop the labor pool by 10% (the average population fraction of African-Americans), my wages increase by 10%. So, the perception is to working-class people, it's all gravy as long as We Stick Together.

The Democrat's problem in addressing the South's devil's bargain -- which elected Nixon 35 years ago on the Southern Strategy, which has held Republicans in good stead in the South for 3 decades since -- is convincing working-class people, as opposed to white-collar people -- to take the long view in suppressing racism. That is, that it is to the working-class' own long-term economic benefit to let all people maximize their labor potential through education and salaried jobs, and that this outweighs their short-term benefit.

How can the Democrats overcome the Republican's Southern Strategy?

The way you do that is you offer, from the Federal level, the means for the working-class and poor -- whose ranks include the African-Americans whose joblessness benefits the working-class whites in the short-term -- to change their dominating economic interest from the short term (that is, wages for labor) to the long-term (salary, for valuable educated skills). Doctors and Lawyers don't drive trucks with Confederate flags on them, the argument goes, because the value of their labor is not subject to short-term fluctuations, and averages out to be very high over a life-time, if (and here's the anti-racism part) there is sufficient economic activity over the long-term that their services can be paid for. More rich people, the better off they are.

So, for the Democrats to win the South, they should offer huge huge huge Federal government programs to educate working-class people. Call it the National Education Plan. It will remove the unemployed from the rolls by putting them in colleges, where they will graduate to higher-paying (and long-term interested) jobs. It also completely undercuts the working-class' short-term benefit from racism, and moves these voters into the long-term column.

Fly in the ointment? You betcha. What makes me think that you can take working-class people, who are typically working-class due to a lack of education, send 'em to college and presto! Lawyers! Here it is: I'm going to assume that the lack of education is due to a lack of educational opportunity, not a lack of smarts. And, maybe after the non high-school graduate has spent 10 years in the work-force, if they see the opportunity to go to school for 6 more years, paid for by the Federal Government, and come out at age 34 with a much higher paying job, they've had enough hard knocks to know a good deal when they see it.

But, even if that's wrong, just offering the program will divorce the Stars+Bars Chevy-driver from weighing the short-term benefit against the long-term benefit, and letting the short-term benefit win. It will equally benefit the victims of societal racism.

An Awful Lot of Crashes

Reuters is reporting another "crashed" helicopter near Tikrit. Have you noticed that media is reporting these downings as crashes, and not as aircraft being "shot down"? Of course, they are getting their information from military sources, who aren't impartial, and would rather the public hear of them as if they were accidents, and not another example of the resistance on the ground in Iraq. After all, no one pays attention to helicopter crashes, but everyone pays attention to helicopters being shot down. I suggest we all pay attention to both, and consider a "crash" to be the military's short-hand for "shot down".

He's Coming For Them

Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to hire private investigators to go after those who came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct during his campaign.

Statements like he's going to turn over their results to state Attorney-General Bill Lockyer are disingenuous. He seems to be oblivious to the fact that a governor cannot hire his own thugs for investigations into illegalities -- especially his own illegalities. It is a corrupt practice, because PIs do not promise to protect the rights of the victims of the potential crimes, they protect the interests -- regardless of how sordid that interest is -- of the client.

That he could conceive that hiring PIs to investigate his accusers would be a good idea -- and not a corrupt one -- drives home the difference between a public-minded politician and an egotist of an ex-actor, and that voters in California don't seem to care about the difference.

Good News for NPR

Maybe now KPCC can fire Larry Mantle.

Sees, Seeks, but who cares?

Robin forwards the TalkingPointsMemo link, which notes that Bush said in a speech to Austrailian Parliment (being quoted worldwide, and the blogger has the original PDF speech): We see a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people." when clearly there's serious oppression in China.

So, it seems last week the WHouse simply changed the text of the speech which is posted online, to read, "We seek...". Big difference. This version actually makes sense.

But who cares? We already know Bush is a moppet, and none too deep a thinker. He said "sees" because his speechwriters were sloppy that morning. He doesn't actually "see" a China which respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people. Nobody does. You'd have to be delusional. Okay, sure, I'll give you Bush is delusional -- but his speeches don't reflect his thoughts, they reflect those of his administration. His speech-writing staff is not delusional. Clearly, they don't "see" such a China, they "seek" that China.

The bar is low for this whitehouse. The president doesn't know what he's talking about, and by god are we ready to forgive him the completely ridiculous and non-sensical errors, because the real errors in policy you can drive a Mack truck through, with room for the Sweedish Bikini Team to form a kick-line on top of the rig.

And, yes, I would like to see that.

Vietnam

I've recently been reading "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers" by Daniel Ellsberg. I'm maybe a fourth of the way into it but, already, it's chilling. The story is enough on its own: policy decisions made behind closed doors in the pentagon, intelligence spun for political ends, analysis of alternatives to war kept secret, and outright lying to the public. But what's especially chilling is how much it all smells like the situation in Iraq. The characterization of the Viet Cong as "terrorists" is a particularly interesting paralell. Tom Friedman recently dismissed the comparison of those attacking US troops in Iraq to the Viet Cong and compared them instead to the Khmer Rouge. However, that dismissal seems inadequate in light of what I've been reading.

Diebold Exposure Increasing

The Diebold insecure e-voting situation (first addressed in this 13 Dickinson St post, but see also this post) is finally hitting the mainstream media: New York Times; CNN/AP.

Diebold has been taking a page from the Scientology strategy book and suing the students who provide web access to internal company documents (which prove the insecure nature of their machines/procedures, and detail sundry violations of state and Federal elections laws) for - you guessed it - copyright violations.

We really, really, really, really, really need to kill the DMCA. I mean, for the sake of our very democracy (such as it is).

MIT's Music Service Shut Down

The innovative MIT on-campus streaming-music service has been shut down by the RIAA. It appears that the company they purchased their $35,000 of digitized music from has been forced to recant their claim that (for that $35,000) they were providing MIT with a legal license to do what they were doing.

Can we all say, "Record industry strong-arm tactics"? It seems pretty clear that Loudeye thought they had such a license - and perhaps they even did - until the MIT service started making nationwide headlines.

Feds Deaf to CA Pleas

If you recall the (non-)response of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to California's electricity crisis of 2001, this will sound familiar. In April of this year, Gray Davis put in a request with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for financial aid to clear California's fire zones of dead trees felled by the recent bark beetle infestation. This was a serious issue: on Mt. Palomar this summer you could see that about 50% of the big trees were dead or dying, and in consequence the Observatory made sure there were crews out most of the summer clearing the dead wood.

However, after taking six months (all of summer and most of fall) to "consider" the request, FEMA denied it. Last Friday. As the first wildfires were already burning.

Tom who?

The Unbearableness of Being Tom Friedman

Silber Slays Goldin

The legacy of Boston University President and Chancellor John Silber lives on, as does Silber. Former NASA administrator Dan Goldin agreed to be BU's new Persident, if Silber agreed to step down as Chancellor and relinquish his board of trustees position -- which Silber agreed to do.

Now, 2 days before Goldin was to assume his position, Silber decided to hold onto the Trustee position. So, Goldin has backed out.

Smart move. With Silber, he's either in control, or not present.

Windfalls of War

Well, we all knew this was happening (who would you give your billions of dollars of no-bid contracts to - your enemies?), but the Center for Public Integrity has just released a report on the Afghanistan & Iraq post-war bidding contracts that they call Windfalls of War.

Worth noting too is this response from USAID assistant administrator J. Edward Fox (no relation!): "It would ... be incorrect to suggest that there is no overall oversight of this process. The USAID inspector general's review of all Iraq contracts which was requested by USAID Administrator Andrew S. Natsios on April 14th has shown that all Iraq contracts to date have been done in compliance" with federal regulations.

An interesting point, which raises the question: Does the fact of USAID's uniform oversight (if true) really make the whole sordid situation smell better - or worse?

Fires in California

See what we're up against?

The air has been very bad here for more than a week now - you can smell smoke every time you step outdoors. Occasionally (as in the photo) the clouds of smoke drift southwards in front of the sun, and we get a pink orange twilight in the middle of the day.

One of the fires (Paradise/Escondido) threatens Palomar.

I'm sure Bush can gleefully spell "National Guard".

When his draft number 143 was called up for service in 1970, now Presidential candidate Howard Dean showed up, but was rejected after a physical, which confirmed that he had an unfused vertebra (spondylolysis). Oddly, even though he's a doctor and worked as an internist before politics, during a recent interivew
he took three shots at spelling it, and still got it wrong.

MIT Saves the World

Or at least the music industry. A pair of students at the 'Tute have devised a means of sharing a large set of recordings - 3500 CDs at the moment - among all the students without running afoul of copyright law, and while providing the artists and composers with appropriate compensation. The sweetest part of the whole clever scheme: the record labels have been frozen out entirely. (Let them eat legal summonses, I say.) See the NYT story for details.

LA Philharmonic's New Home

Erica and I went to Walt Disney Concert Hall last night as audience members at its first concert recital, pianist Evgeny Kissin. Kissin was fantastic, probably the best pianist in the world. He played five encores. If you get a chance to hear him - take it. If you don't have one of his CDs - get one.

More importantly, the Hall itself is a miracle. You have seen the photos, I'm sure - if not, take a look now - so I will not go into detail on that front. As a performance space, though, know that there is not a bad seat in the place. The audience wraps completely around the stage, and even the nose-bleed seats have distinct advantages - for instance, better views of the performer(s), not to mention the entire audience. Erica and I were about 60 feet above the stage, behind and slightly to the left, and we could see Evgeny's fingers hit every note. The acoustics of the Hall are like something out of Fantastic Voyage - you feel as if space has been shrunk, or your ears ten-times magnified, with the slightest aural details individually perceptible. When any given audience member coughs, you can (if you choose) take a moment to determine exactly who it was. While the music is playing, you feel a very powerful urge to remain frozen in place, lest the creaking of your seat or the cracking of your knuckles disturb the performer's concentration ("You there - three rows from the back! Stop sniffling!").

The LA Phil has taken it up a notch too, in all respects. During one of the NPR broadcasts, they played an excerpt from one of the flutists, who said, "It's a bit scary. I'll be playing the same music, with the same flute, but it's supposed to sound a whole lot better." Well, the very good news is that it does.

P.S. Streaming audio of the three Gala Opening Concerts is available here.

Fucking brilliant

This is fucking brilliant.

You are now allowed to say fuck on TV. I am now waiting for South Park to stop bleeping the fuck out of the dialog.

Glorious days are ahead.

That National Review Editorial

The Editorial which Robin is referring to in the National Review calls for General Boykin's head. They "acccidentally" went to press with it, but regret doing so, and no longer link to the editorial on their website (they can't do anything about the print version). That text read:

During the Korean War, Douglas MacArthur wanted to attack Manchuria, and he let that be known to everyone who would listen. That was not U.S. policy, however, and President Truman promptly sacked the great man. During the Cold War — in fact often pretty hot — NATO general Edwin Walker was instructing his troops in the theorems of the John Birch Society. That the U.S. government was 60 percent under Communist control was not the view of the Kennedy administration, and Walker was gone. Flash forward to today. A three-star general, William "Jerry" Boykin, has been lecturing, in public and in uniform, to the effect that we are in a war with Islam, than whose god his God is bigger, that this is a war against Satan, of whom he has a photograph in the sky above Mogadishu. President Bush has made it national policy that we are not in a war with global Islam. Furthermore, it is hardly good for the morale of troops to understand that their commander is a wacko who goes around photographing Satan zooming overhead. General Boykin is manifestly insubordinate, and should be sacked. Yesterday.

That "Yesterday" is a nice touch. The NR editors claim that they removed the editorial because they decided to withold judgement until they have all the information. But, they pretty much seem to have all the information needed.

Okay, Goddammit

Those Microsoft commercials are infuriating! They depict children in some typically middle-class context, often minority students, and hand-draw a line drawing showing them as astronauts, directors, musicians, artists. The commercial ends with a beaming statement about how pleased they are to help students acheive their dreams.

Please, Microsoft does about as much to help children acheive their dreams as Bic, a manufacturer of pens. All they are doing is hugging children, "We LOVE children." Microsoft is run by a pack of vindictive monopolists. They're exploiting the fuzzy image of children to flower their image (next: puppies?).

Their products provide the worst software experience in the industry. Back in 1985, it was great to know that a document you read was in a format you could send to a friend, and they could read also. But open standards have rendered that concept's only advantage to be maintaining a monopoly -- which gives them the power to manipulate markets. Which they do.

May Lightning Strike Me Dead if I'm Lying

It seems that, on the set of Mel Gibson's "Passion" -- the fabricatedly controversial film, whose marketing by Gibson has included a healthy "We're not anti-semitic" tent-pole, has been handed its divine criticism.

The set was struck, not once, but twice by lightning. One target of holy ire was none other than the actor who plays Jesus Christ for God's sake. However, the second target was an assistant director -- which is about as close to sending a confusingly mixed message as you might expect to get from heavenly providence.

How do you know when your Sec'y of Defense is on his way Out?

Why, that would be when nobody bothers to deliever mail from the Chair and the ranking minority leader of the Senate Arms Committee to him.


Could he just about tattoo "political roadkill" on his forehead?

MD not lying down like GA

Maryland is asking for an audit of those Diebold voting machines which may (or may not) have given the election to a Republican Governor in Georgia.

Why isn't this bigger news? Stories like this which reek of conspiracy (and Americans love their conspiracy theories) sell newspapers like hotcakes.

Another Big First for the U.S.A.

The US posted a record $374.22 Billion budget gap in 2003.

Cut taxes -- sure. That's the President's part. Bug cutting spending -- hey, that's for the congress, says our scissors-handed president. And besides, shouldn't we have defict spending during a recession? Umm, I mean, if there were a recession going on?

Well, perhaps, Mr. President, but the idea is to increase spending into a deficit while holding revenue constsant -- not decreasing revenue while holding spending constant.

The iPod is already a PDA

Just a note here: the iPod is already a PDA. You can store addresses, memos, calendar items with alarms and now voice memos. Apple already did a PDA, it was called Newton, and was a huge money suck. I can say with almost absolute certainty that they will never never ever EVER do a PDA again. Bluetooth? It's useful for PDAs, but to add it on a device which requires Firewire for fast transfers (not to mention charging), and you're just hobbling the device.

Right now, the only similar device on the market with a feature that the iPod hasn't assimilated is the mobile video player. Just add a color screen to the iPod, and you're done.

I guarantee that none of these other things will come to pass (and I don't have any inside information on the roadmap for this device). Care to wager?

Another of Derek's Ideas Hits the Market

When iPods first came out, it was not widely appreciated that the things were just portable disk drives. Storing and listening to music on them was clearly not the most revolutionary of its applications, and Derek pointed out that you could record everything you ever say, several days worth of live recording, or more if you shut it off when silent. Now, Apple's selling it.

What's next? My guess: add a little chip to it and make it a PDA. Oh, and bluetooth. I have a few ideas about what you can do with a little computing power and 20Gb in your pocket.

One omitted detail

One small detail omitted from the Georgia article referenced below is that the Georgia governor's office has been held by democrats for 125 years.

Also throw into the mix that the CEO of Diebold is not shy in his support for George W. Bush, and this all makes an extremely convincing argument to make sure you cast your ballot using the absentee system.

It is criminal that these voting systems are proprietary, yet the irony here is that technically it is criminal to actually examine them.

Computers: The new Electoral Tyrants?

The new electronic voting machines produced by Diebold for last year's Georgia election were re-programmed, secretly, by the company just before the Georgia election in which the governor was elected in defiance of all previous polls. One contractor tells stories of 25% percent of his machines crashing while in use -- losing everything on them. The machines were never re-certified by independent testing authorities. This with a system which produces no means to verify the election afterwards. -- no paper trail, no auditing means at all.

The effect is the same as if a politician stole the election: the count of the ballots does not reflect the ballots cast. The wrong person takes office, against the will of the people.

If we don't trust the computers, we should not trust the results of the election, and we should not hold the declared winner to be the legitimate governor? Having such an fraught election system delegitimizes the governments they elect, and are a real threat to democracy.

For gosh sakes, have the computers print out a paper ballot AFTER the vote is cast, and have the voter take the ballot and put it into a ballot box. At least it can be traced. Isn't the country worth it?

Bush gets a Whak-a-Mole

Just as President Bush convinces France and Russia to back his plan on Iraq in the UN Security council, up pops Senator Edward Kennedy, who says: "Until the administration genuinely changes course, I cannot in good conscience vote to fund a failed policy that that endangers our troops in the field and our strategic objectives in the world," joining a number of Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who will vote against the $87B request to fund US activities there.

Ellsberg Remembers

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the NYTimes back when, likened the present administration's use of outing Plame to intimidate others to his own treatment: "By trying to punish him and his wife, they're trying to intimidate those who might be thinking about coming forward," comparing it to the episode when the White House Plumbers broke into his psychiatrists' office to find something on him.

Which brings me to reason number 4: Journalists aren't coming forward because they all (all? really? every last one?) are intimidated.

Will Plame flame out?

This is what we're looking at :

• There are at least two felons among the Presidents cabinet or senior White House advisors, who took the opportunity --- when it became available -- to trash a security asset.
  
• In doing so, they told at least Robert Novak, and, according to the WaPost, a reporter there;
  
• Mr. Kinsey states that there are many more reporters claiming to have been leaked to prior to July 14, when Mr. Novak revealed the existence of the leak.
  
• Any one of these reporters coming forward to give the full story -- minus the identity of the leaker, assumably -- would have a very big story. Well worth reading.
  
• And yet none of them have. It's been 2 weeks since the story hit peak again, and 3 months since it first came out, and the only indication we have that anyone other than Robert Novak is a tangential mention (ref'd below) that a WaPost reporter was also leaked to.
  

What gives? Have reporters gotten cold feet, lacking the interest to throw out a wham-bang story? They gain nothing by waiting. I can't think of five reasons why any of them would hold back, but I can think of three:

1. The reporters are whispering among themselves, trying to figure out exactly how wide the leak is, and after they figure out who and how many of them know, the winds will carry the guilty parties' names out, and then that will be the story to be pushed -- to take a page from Karl Rove's book;
   
2. The reporters were all of a stripe -- Robert Novak's stripe. Every last one a conservative, and as likely to come forward with damaging information to this administration as Hillary was in the last one;
   
3. The reporters aren't really there.
   

If the real reason is (1), then it is going to be a very interesting winter, and a tough re-election for Bush if two of his Cabinet members (or Veep?) are hounded from office. However, if the reason is 2 or 3, this is a story which will flame out in the Attorney General's office.

When Politics Influences........ Yahoo! ?

Last year the #1 best-selling calendar was Presidential (Mis) Speak 2004 Calendar: The Very Curious Language of George W. Bush .

However, Yahoo is declining to advertise the calendar, saying that the content is not appropriate.

VoIP is Killing Them

University of Arkansas combined Voice over IP (VoIP) phone technology with 802.11 -- the wireless protocol, in single devices. And, they reduced their monthly service fees from $530K to $6K, a cost savings of $6M per year. That ought to cover any hardware overhead issues.

Imagine, you can carry your phone like it's cellular, and it costs less too, by a lot.

You've gotta love those revolutionary technologies.

Ham Blogger and Cheese

Happy to report that the original Kinsley commentary is now on the web (RealAudio link provided; WMA also available). Here is the quote:

Yeah, I feel like maybe I'm the only person who doesn't have a clue. On CNN last week there was Bob Novak, the man who published the original leak, and a bunch of other journalists, discussing how we should proceed to investigate who leaked this story: should there be a special prosecutor, should there be an independent counsel... and Bob was sitting there, and he knows the answer, and he wasn't saying - for reasons that most people think are good, and I guess I do too. At least six journalists received this leak, I think at least six times six are claiming to be one of them; the people in the White House who made the leak (or the CIA, wherever it was) presumably know who it was. It's a very odd thing, everyone is geared up for an investigation of something which it seems like practically everyone knows.

A few points: First, Bob is right, there could in principle be an arbitrarily high number of leaked-to journalists. Second, on the other hand, the more people who do actually know about this, the less likely it seems that the secret could have been kept for this long (one reason to doubt the veracity of those who claim to have been leaked to). Third, my original point (less than obvious, in retrospect): since it has now become a point of pride among the Washington journalistic set to have been leaked-to, there is reason to doubt anyone who comes forward with that claim. Finally, I really just meant this whole thread tongue-in-cheek. Obviously, someone or someones broke the law, and there are people out there who know their names, and I hope the leakers are tracked down and suffer the consequences.

You Call This a Problem?

Derek: Why can't there be 8, 12, 20 leaked-to reporters in the Plame affair? There's nothing magic about the number "six" -- it's the number of leaked-to reporters the senior administration official, who served as the source for the WAPost article, said he/she knew of. It's a lower-limit -- there could very well be more.

I'm inclined to believe that there are more leaked-to journalists than the SAO knew about, since I doubt the SAO has the phone logs and so knows everyone to whom those two SAOs did the leaking.

To suggest, as you do, that we can't believe a one because Michael Kinsley says there are more than the six the SAO knew about is a specious argument. Unless you mean to imply that the SAO and every journalist is a conspiratorial pack of liars, as evidenced by the fact that they can't get their number straight, in cahoots of a big ole lie about leaking Plame's CIA identity in order to bring down the administration.

Plame's identity was leaked. We already know that Novak received the leak, so we know at least one journalist isn't lying. Contrary to your statement, we can believe a one. And if more journalists come forward with credible claims of being leaked to, that would be important. (By the way, if I were using your "all or nothing" calculus, finding one real leaked-to journalist -- Robert Novak -- would imply they are all telling the truth; but that's an equally specious argument).

Before we go about blanket endorsing or condemning members of the press, let's see who these journalists are, and the chronology in which they received the leaks -- rather than a web-link which leads to nothing. We are, after all, talking about a serious federal offense. And a rumor floated by Michael Kinsley on NPR isn't sufficient evidence to believe that those journalists actually exist. It's time those journalists came forward with their stories, so that we may exam them. The have nothing to lose, and would break no ethical rule in doing so, since the only new information they would be giving would be the fact and the date of their receiving the leak.

Army Astroturf

A special Alec Baldwin-edition pair of brass balls to the first journalist on Bush's whirlwind Iraq-boosting tour who asks him about the US Army's astroturf campaign that is mailing out form letters to hometown newspapers, only occasionally after getting the individual soldiers' approvals first, and never with their input as to the letter text. (Original link from Robin, who may blog with commentary later.)

Regarding the White House Plame Affair leakers/felons/traitors, Michael Kinsley was on Slate/NPR Day to Day today (web link not up yet, unfortunately) claiming that many (well, more than six) Washington journalists are now claiming to be among the leaked-to-six. This would be the mirror-image version of Bob's complaint from last week, namely, that six had been leaked to but none had even admitted it. Now, if we take Kinsley at his word, we are in the reverse situation of having so many who have "admitted" it that we cannot believe even one. Unfortunately Kinsley didn't name names...

The Smoking Gun Pointing at Plame Emerges -- A Third Leaker?

The WAPost reported on Sunday Oct 12 that two days before Robert Novak's July 14 column, which revealed Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent, an administration official told the same thing to an un-named Washington Post reporter.

This is the first confirmed report of a journalist having that information revealed to them prior to the appearance of Novak's column. It means that the revelation was deliberate and repeated, as was claimed by a senior administration official in a Sept 27 WaPost article . That same official expanded their comments last week, quoted in the Sunday WAPost piece.

This means that the identity of the official is perhaps widely known -- perhaps as widely known as the six journalists the senior administration official had previously claimed had received the leak. However, there's a difference between "an administration official" (who leaked to the WAPost reporter July 12) and "two senior administration officials" (who the WAPost's source says were doing the leaking).

This means that either the WAPost source doesn't know the difference between a senior and non-senior administration official; or the WAPost reporter received the leak from a third leaker, perhaps in one senior official's office. This would imply a wide effort to throw Valerie Plame's CIA identity out to the winds.

Perhaps the winds will now carry back to us the names of those officials involved.

Sunday with Bob

On Meet the Press, Dick Lugar explained that he did not support Senator Biden's amendment to suspend the Bush tax cut for 1 year on American's who make more than $400,000 a year, which would pay the $87B Iraq bill, because it would single out one particular group of Americans.

Lugar also responded to Tim Russert's question: "Seeing that the principle reason that the administration gave to invade Iraq was the belief that Saddam had WMD that he would use against us, or give to terrorists, what would happen now if the administration came forward to say `We need to invade Iran for WMD,' what do you think the people would say?:

"I don't agree that WMD was the reason or even the most important reason for why we went into Iraq. It was the possibility that Saddam would produce WMD."


Hogwash. Lugar's opinion on the matter doesn't reflect anyone but Dick Lugar, but the war was pushed because we were 10 minutes away from a bio-weapons missle launch.

Go with it.

For those of you sick of your cell phone company, number portability is set to take place beginning November 24.

Number portability is the ability to keep your cell phone number when you switch carriers. The wireless companies fought the new FTC rule in court until this spring, when they saw the writing on the wall, and just gave in.

Now, when your contract's up, you can pick up your number and leave to greener pastures. For me, I've had a few $100 surprises on my bill --- and when those happen, I'm tempted to pay the $150 penalty for breaking the contract early and going elsewhere. I've been stopped by wanting to keep my number the same. No more.

It remains to be seen if the cell phone companies charge an exhorbitant "number portability" fee, too.

New Business Model For Music Industry: Sue People

The long term viability of suing people rather than selling music is being proven out in the case of a Princeton student who divulged the information that BMG's new copy protection can be circumvented using the shift key. SunnComm has said they will probably sue the student for "maligning the company's reputation". This is much better (financially) than putting thought into writing software that works, or publishing interesting music.

Donald Rumsfeld on his way out.

Let's connect the dots:

1. Last week, the Plame affair hits the fan, as Bush is brought to task over the fact that he has two felons in his administration, possibly his cabinet, who destroyed a national security asset and compromised all secret operations conducted by Valerie Plame, by revealing her identity as a CIA agent -- and for no reason better than for spite, and an ominous warning to those who might oppose this administration of how dirty Bush's people will play.

2. This week, in a one-page memo, Rumsfeld is summarily and without prior notice effectively relieved of his prior leadership role in Iraq, as it is passed to Condoleeza Rice.

The dots here point to Bush deciding that Rumsefeld is the leak, and is setting up his departure.

I don't have any proof -- I'm just reading tea leaves.

Not a Very Nice Thing

It's not a very good feeling you get, when you boss reorganizes your organization, without even telling you. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld.

The Good News About the California Recall and Election of Arnold Schwarzenegger

It ends his acting career.

On bets below, I owe a cappa to Derek (Davis was recalled) and a cappa to Erica (Arnold was elected). I could not have been more wrong.

Shift Key is now copy circumvention device

CNET has an article which claims that a Princeton student has managed to circumvent a new CD copy protection scheme which BMG is using. BMG has confirmed that the circumvention works. This means that now both the Sharpie and the shift key can be outlawed using the DMCA.

Bob's Election Bets

Let's review the bets (terms: a luxury caffienated beverage -- a latte -- to the winner) that I have outstanding on today's election.

1. Resolved: That Governor Gray Davis will not be recalled. Pro: Bob, Con: Derek. This bet still open, until 6pm PDT tonight. Any takers? A post here or email to me will serve as notice.
   
2. Resolved: That Richard Riordan will win the replacement election Pro: Bob, Con: Derek. Conceded by Bob
   
3. Resolved: That Arnold Schwarzenegger will win the replacement election Pro: Erica, Con: Bob. Note that Erica voted Bustamante -- so her bet here only signifies a desire to cash in on what seemed a probablistic certainty a mere 2 weeks ago I'm no longer accepting bets on this issue; but maybe you can get down-side action from Erica
   

Clock ticks; soon, we all will be rolling in stimulants.

The Turkish Army Heads into Iraq

The Kurds Are Certainly Not Thrilled. We should not have asked for this. It will freak out the Kurds -- who have been very friendly, helpful, and amazingly civilized recently given how we left them out to dry in 1991.

Bob Re-dickers the Numbers.

The absentee ballots in-hand are 2.1 million in number. At 60% voter turnout of 15M voters, only 23% of the total votes are presently absentee; the 40% of total votes being absentee which I give below is a wayyyyyyyyyyyy optimistic estimate. The absentee ballots may turn out to be no more important than in General Election 2002.


Shucks.

Blogspot Republican?

Why does Blogspot's spell checker include Schwarzenegger, but not Bustamante?

Report from the California Polls -- The Absentee Ballots will Decide.

Turnout is expected to be about 50-60 per cent of qualified voters -- less than the 70 per cent which showed up to vote for Al Gore in 2000, but more than last year's election, which swept Gray Davis into power.

However, the big story here is the
2.1 million absentee ballots which have already been received by the state -- and the estimated 3.5 million they will receive in total. With 15 million registered voters, this is 40 percent of people expected to vote, much more than the 27% due to absentees in the 2002 General election. Most voted before the LATimes article last Thursday which brought to light Schwarzenegger's groping problem; but, that probably doesn't matter.


Who are these people? They are not an organized faction of the Republican party -- the Republicans are not that deeply grassrooted in this state, and even if they were, they were not rallied around a single candidate until last week. That extra 13% of all voters are either a grassroots unorganized group of people disaffected with Gray Davis, or that's the turnout of Unions -- who show up at workplaces, hand out absentee ballots, and mail them off. My money's on the Unions.

If so, then those absentee ballots will be overwhelmingly against recall, and for Bustamante.

California doesn't count absentee ballots until after the ballot box ballots are cast -- and only does so if the absentee ballots can make a difference in the outcome (which, with 3.5 Million absentee ballots, 40% of the total, they will). The absentee ballots take longer to count -- so this election will not be called tonight.

And, if those absentee ballots are indeed union ballots, then even if the ballot-box vote goes for Recall and for Schwarzenegger tonight, sit tight until the absentee vote is counted.

Leak Denials by Rove, VP's office, and NSA's office.

White House Spokesman Scott McClellan asked Karl Rove, vice presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby and National Security Council senior director Elliott Abrams, had each denied being the source of the leak, which identified CIA operative Valerie Plame.

I suppose White House reporters said "Well, did anyone ask them?" And there had been no denial by these three, on whom much suspicion rests. However, someone did leak to Kovak, and whoever did should stand before a judge.

It remains unclear that there were any leaks which pre-dated Kovak -- that claim, made in the WAPost 2 weeks ago which launched the present leak frenzy, has yet to be substantiated by a journalist coming forward as a recipient. The claim may be a chimera, planted by politically battling members of the administration (Bush Senior Administration members eat their own).

And it remains uncertain that any of the "pushing" of the story by Karl Rove's office -- as described by Andrea Mitchell of NBC in NEWSWEEK this week -- was a leak itself, or in any way illegal.

The focus should be on the Kovak leak.

The Kill Bill extraveganza begins

Mim Udovitch of NYTimesgives the short interview with Tarantino.

Novak -- the dupe?

Ambassador Wilson appeared on Meet the Press this past Sunday, where he stated that all the reporters who contacted him, to tell him top administrators were pushing the story that his wife was a CIA operative, had all done so after the Novak article.

However, the Sept 27 WAPost article quoted:

a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.

Mebbe. However, we have yet to hear of a single journalist who would state that they heard the statement prior to July 14 -- the date of Novak's article which revealed that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame is a CIA operative.

Now, Novak's been insisting in public that he is not a dupe. However, there is as yet no verifiable proof that anyone was told before Novak. As public knowledge stands now, it may be that Novak was the first leak; and that Rove took the opportunity of his publication to push the story -- which, by itself (just pushing the story, without materially confirming it) is not against the law.

Novak may be the dupe.

Wesley Clark's Inadvertent Science Advisor

First, some history. Back in November 1995, I was in DC staying with the Lodals for Thanksgiving, part of my usual routine. At the time Jan was serving as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. As part of our weekend's activities, Elizabeth got tickets for the group of us to see the Vermeer exhibit at the National Gallery - a fantastic experience. Afterward we went to dinner with one of Jan's colleagues from the Pentagon, a four-star general, Wesley Clark.

In advance of dinner Jan explained to us that Gen. Clark was currently angling to be named commander of the NATO Bosnia mission. It was clear that Jan thought very highly of him, which as those of you who have met Jan will know, really means something.

Once we met up with Gen. Clark and his driver outside the East Building, it was easy enough to be impressed with him in person. At dinner we talked a lot about the situation in Bosnia, which had been mired in NATO dithering since the Bush (I) administration. I asked him why he wanted the Bosnia command, which seemed at the time a pretty thankless job. He said that it was an easy decision - Bosnia was where the action was.

Then the subject of my work came up and, in particular, the question of the practical applications of astrophysics. This can be a hard one to address, but as it happened, I had recently read a paper in Phys Rev Letters about the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The gist of this article was that the famous speed limit applies only in a local sense (special relativity) and can be exceeded if one warps space-time in an appropriate fashion (general relativity). So, not that it would be easy - it requires moving around solar masses of material and, in particular, use of "negative energy density" matter, whatever that might be (physicists currently have no idea) - but it is not absolutely ruled out. I told Gen. Clark about this and, to my surprise, he was very intrigued. I tried to summarize the caveats but all in all I was happy to have engaged his imagination.

Okay, now read this Wired article, and you'll appreciate the significance of my title.

Top Ten PATRIOT Provisions for White House Leak

For the sake of the crack investigative team the FBI has no doubt assigned to ferret out the nefarious White House staffers who leaked Valerie Plame's covert CIA status to the press, top ten PATRIOT Act provisions to apply to this case:

10. Calling information

The agents can get the phone records of any suspect (Karl Rove) without showing probable cause; they need only "certify" to a judge that the information will be "relevant" to their investigation. This ability applies nationwide.

9. Web Addresses

The agents can similarly get the records of all web sites visited by the suspect.

8. Email headers

The agents can similarly obtain the header information (including destination addresses and subject lines) of all emails sent by the subject.

7. National wiretap

The agents can seek a "blanket wiretap" order that will follow the suspect wherever he goes, and can tap any number that he is judged likely to use. The agents will probably want to consider a blanket wiretap of the whole White House, just to be safe.

6. Library records

Agents can get the suspect's (White House) library check-out records, and the library is prohibited from telling the subject that these records have been provided to the government.

5. Doctor's records

The agents can get the suspect's records from his doctor; again, the doctor's office is prohibited from telling the subject that this has happened.

4. Commercial transactions

Similar provisions apply for almost any commercial transaction that the subject might have engaged in - bookstore or mall purchases, restaurant dinners, cab fares, escort services...

3. CIA Assistance

The agents could request assistance from the CIA, which is no longer prohibited from spying on Americans. This might prove particularly useful in the present case. Maybe the CIA could assign Secret Agent Valerie Plame!

2. Secret searches

Investigators can execute a "secret search" of a household (White House) without informing the owner (Dubyah).

1. Enemy Combatant

This is not strictly a provision of the act, but certainly qualifies as a useful post-9/11 tool of law enforcement. According to Justice, if they declare in a memorandum to a judge that the suspect US citizen (Karl Rove) is an enemy combatant, he may be transported to a military prison (Gitmo) and held for an arbitrary length of time, without recourse to the usual habeas corpus provisions of the US Constitution. I'm sure that would take care of a lot of these pesky White House leaks.