Scalia the Theocrat.

Lest we think that the country is largely run by rationalist, secular humanists Dahlia Lithwick mentions Scalia's comments during yesterday's Supreme Court arguments about the use of Ten Commandments monuments on public lands. Says Scalia: "When someone walks by the commandments, they are not studying the text. They are acknowledging that the government derives its authority from God."

Hmmm. Yes. That would seem to be contrary to the principle that a just government derives its authority from the consent of the governed. You know, like in a democracy. Which is a shame, because I think we're a democracy, and not a theocracy. So, if the presence of the commandments makes people think that our government derives authority from God, that's sort of contrary to the Constitution.

As Lithwick says:

Scalia is the only member of the court who is being truly honest. His position: Sure, the display is religious and not secular. Let's put up some crosses, too, and have a revival meeting.

Assassination or no?

The
New York Times is reporting that two members of Hussein's tribunal were assassinated today.

The
Globe and Mail reports the two members were a judge and his son, who also happened to be a lawyer for the tribunal.

A court official working with the tribunal says it was not an assassination -- that the murder was personal, and unrelated to the work of the court.

At Last: National Electronic Ballot Reform

Daily KOS reports Senators Clinton and Boxer have proposed the Count Every vote Act of 2005, which requires paper ballots, and open source and object code for all electronic voting machines. The paper ballot is the official ballot for recounts.

Iran's Nuclear Program: Smoke and Fire? or Smoke and Mirrors?

Here we go again.

The slow drumbeat of "Invade Iran" has begun, and this is another beat on the tom-tom. "International investigators" say 18 years ago, Pakistan's seller of nuclear weaponry -- which still hasn't resulted in our putting Pakistan on the "against us" list, in Bush's "with us or against us" world -- offered a nuclear weapons program to Iran. Iran said, "No, Thanks."
They wanted nuclear power, not weapons, they say.

And yet, the slant of the article is to paint Iran has having a sustained effort to get nuclear weapons, spanning decades. Why?

"The offer is the strongest indication to date that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, but it doesn't prove it completely," said one Western diplomat who is familiar with the details of the offer and would comment on the investigation only on the condition of anonymity.

Completely? Since when does being offered something you don't want rise to being proof that you wanted it? If someone offers me drugs, and I say, "no thanks", the western diplomat would conclude I'm a drug addict.

We've seen this before. "Iraq. Terrorism. Terrorism. Iraq. Iraq Iraq Terrorism." went Bush's argument, and the American people concluded, "Gosh, Iraq and Terrorism are used in the same sentence frequently. They must be related." We are now hearing the same kind of argument: "Nuclear Weapons, Iran. Iran Nuclear Weapons Iran Iran. Nuclear Weapons."

This is going to be played up into so much smoke that, yet again, Americans will be tricked into thinking, "Where there's smoke, there's fire", instead of it being Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney's smoke and mirrors. Or so does Bush, Condi, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and others of that ilk, hope.

Modern Day NORTH BY NORTHWEST

[Bob Herbert, NYTimes] writes in his OpEd about this Canadian citizen who was also identified -- like me -- as a foreign national by the US. Unlike me, he actually is a Canadian citizen. And, also unlike me, he was put on a plane, flown to Jordon, driven to Syria, and tortured. "He wept. He begged not to be beaten anymore. He signed whatever confessions he was told to sign. He prayed." He's back in Canada now because --- big "Ooops" here --- turns out he's not a secret Al Qaeda agent.

The Dollar Tanks. How Thrilling!

[NYTimes Editorial] Apparently, the South Korean government, which holds 4 percent of US Treasury bills, made the suggestion that they are going to start investing more in other (non-dollar) vehicles.

Apparently, everyone freaked out, thinking "Whoah -- what if China and Japan follow suit?". Since they hold 90% of US T-Bills, if they stop sending George Bush the $2B/day in cash he neeeds to support his deficit spending, that will send interest rates through the roof (are you holding a floating interest rate home loan?) So the dollar fell.

So, what could happen? Everyone would sell their dollars, Bush couldn't get loans for his deficit except at high interest rates, which sends everyone's variable interest rate home mortgages through the roof; so everyone sells their homes, sending home prices down (I'll believe it when I see it, though), and suddenly, the US has a depressed economy.

How do we avoid this? Bush needs to stop borrowing $2B/day -- send the deficit to zero.

Good luck with that.

My Brush with the Syrian Secret Police

In these wicked times, being born in California is not sufficient to earn one American citizen status -- or, rather, it's not suffiicient to protect you from having that status stripped from you, summarily.

On my trip to Goddard Space Flight Center -- a NASA installation at Greenbelt Maryland, where I was scheduled to give a talk -- I was instructed by my hosts to tell the guards at the gate that I was a foreign national. It seems, because I accepted an appointment at a Montreal, Canada university, they can no longer treat me like the born-in-San-Leandro-educated-by-California-public-education guy that I am. Never mind my US Passport and US citizenship, and the fact that I don't have citizenship in any other country. Never mind that my father's father's father was born 50 miles from my childhood home. Never mind that I love hot dogs, apple pie (disclaimer: I own a Subaru -- but it appears that my model was made in the USA).

So, I did what any red-blooded American would do. I refused to state that I was a foreign national. I handed the guards my American Passport as identification. I've seen NORTH BY NORTHWEST. We all know how the story will go after you say you aren't an American: Syrian guards sweep in from stage right and left, toss you onto a Gulfstream, and next thing you know, somebody claiming to be from Egypt is holding a cattle prod above you, muttering angrily about the soles of your shoes being too dense. Try explaining it was a bureaucratic snafu, mistaken identity, and next thing you know, you're hanging from Jefferson's nose, being shot at by a crop duster in an Illinois cornfield.

So, now the guards have a problem: they have me down as a foreign national on their list, I refuse to go along. The resolution as enacted was simple: they hand me an ID badge to get me on-base which says that I'm a foreign national, and that's it. We all know I'm not, but, hey, it's procedure. I bristle. If you are an American living abroad, you are now going to be treated as if you were a foriegn national for security purposes.

Administration's Friends Target AARP

Here are the web ads that Administration buddy USA Next has been running on the American Spectator website - Josh Marshall has the original story and first follow-up over at TPM.

Yesterday's NYT has the skinny on USA Next. By sheer coincidence - Look Ma - no White House coordination! - they have mounted multimillion dollar radio and TV ad campaigns in support of the Administration's 2002 prescription drugs bill, the 2004 reelection of its favorite congresspersons, and now, the Social Security privatization initiative. They've hired some of the Swift Boat Veterans - Good work, fellas! - and hope to maintain a deniable distance for the upcoming Social Security AARP smear. As an anonymous USA Next official says in the NYT piece:

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the White House doesn't want anything to do with a group that is attacking the AARP. We are not going to drag them into this mess.

Whatever you say, buddy. Let's go to the tape:


This is the current ad. It's hard to know exactly what to make of it - I guess the AARP is in favor of abandoning our troops in Iraq for the sake of sponsoring gay marriage receptions here at home. Doesn't sound like my grandmother's agenda - perhaps yours?


Simple, succinct, to the point. I am guessing the common denominator is that all these boogeyfolk have spoken at meetings of the AARP, right?

Monday Starts Bad

I wake up, and even before I can run to the shower Hunter S. Thompson has killed himself with a shotgun.

"The Crackers"

Inevitably, Christo and Jean-Claude's The Gates have inspired the citizens of New York City to feats of daring artistry - for example, The Crackers.

There's an associated CafePress Store, natch. Mainly, though, you'll want to see the complete set of photos to appreciate the full genius of the project.

Link and thumbnail image courtesy BoingBoing.

The New York Times > Travel > Escapes > 36 Hours: In Mont-Tremblant, Quebec

This week's 36 Hours column in the NYTimes is 1 hour from where I live.

And what am I doing this weekend? Going to NYC.

Extraordinary Rendition

Bob Herbert [NyTimes] writes about this US policy today. "Rendition" occurs when someone is esentially abducted in a foreign country and brought to the US to stand trial. US Courts overlook the circumstances of the suspect being "rendered" to the US, but due process kicks in when they fall into US custody.

Extraordinary Rendition is a new US policy, where we kidnap people in the US, and send them to, say, Syria, (yes, the country whose ambassador we just recalled because we think they assassinated a Lebannese politician), where they are tortured. This happened 2 years ago to a Canadian citizen, Mahar Arar. Landing at JFK, the US sent him off to Syria (where he was originally from), where the Syrian government tortured him. But, apparently, he's not a terrorist. Oh. They released him a year later.

So, Exrtraordinary Rendition is Bush's policy of kidnapping people off of US streets, holding them without charge and without rights, shipping them to foreign soil with governments whose torture practices are unconstrained by those principles of liberty and democracy Bush is fond of dressing up in.

Who is Gannon's Patron In the White House? The Plame Affair Leaker

You'd think that having their reporters blocked from the White House press pool (see, for example, Maureen Dowd, who, after covering Presidents since 1986, and having her press pool application ignored for 2 years by Ari Fleischer, was told by Scott McClellan that she had to undergo an FBI security check which could take several months) while a gay hooker operating under an assumed name for a fake news organization was given *daily* passes spanning 2 years (both Fleischer, and McLellan) would be enough to get the news organizations out of phone-it-in mode. (Over at AmericaBlog, they thought for about 12 hours that a pass seen in a video of Gannon asking McLellan a question was a permanent pool pass; turns out, AmericaBlog soon found, it was not).

And why should they care? Not because gay-baiting is a national sport. Not because Gannon repeatedly asked Fleischer, McClellan, and even Bush partisan softballs which mock the fourth estate even more than having Armstrong Williams take $240K in payola to play Bush's tunes.

Gannon was one of ~six reporters (including Judith Miller of the New York Times; Tim Russert; Tim Matthews of Time Magazine; and Bob Novak) to whom the White House leaked the CIA cover of Valerie Plame for revenge on her and Joe Wilson during the Nigerian Yellowcake scandal. In the "one of these things is not like the others" game, Gannon is the odd-man-out in this group.

Whoever leaked to the reputable reporters leaked to Gannon, too, and not because he's a reputable reporter. Clearly, the leaker has a strong bond to Gannon. The leaker was probably responsible for Gannon getting his press access, too. Thus -- figure out who gave Gannon his press credential, and you've probably figured out who the leaker was in the Plame affair.

So, who was it? Nobody knows. On AmericaBlog , Ari Fleischer says he has no idea who approved Gannon's press passes while he was there (McClellan was on staff at the time, but no word from him on who's responsible).

Summers on Women in Science and Engineering

He's posted a full transcript of his remarks at the NBER conference to his website: Link.

Personally, I always find it edifying to hear wealthy balding white men in high-ranking appointed positions discourse on the reasons for the lack of diversity in same.

Slate Pipes In

Slate would like to provide input to some of our ongoing discussions here at 13D:

• Rehnquist isn't Deep Throat, by Timothy Noah aka Chatterbox;
• Why Bob Novak isn't going to prison, by Daniel Engber aka The Explainer.

I find the Rehnquist idea a bit of a stretch, myself (though fun to think about). The various theories put forward by Engber, on the other hand, cover the range of options so completely - Maybe he ratted out his source! Maybe he's the target of a separate criminal investigation! - as to be almost useless.

What we need on Novak is a Bill Safire column/apologia which cites the gossip of informed Washingtonians to whittle down the options to something worth dishing about. Too bad he's out selling stem cells.

Bush Names National Intelligence Director

At 10am today.

Apparently, it's someone named Jeff Gannon ? Bush said: "With a myriad of experience in operating clandestine operations, Jeff --- who Karl's known for years, and tells me he's a really great man -- enjoys outstanding and mutually pleasurable relations with 3 of the 4 military branches, the CIA, the FBI -- seems like everybody in government's had him." Bush pointed out that "the National Intelligence Director's salary of $265,000 just about covered Gannon's usual $1200/night rate." Among Gannon's first duties: give everyone in national intelligence operations "a good, red-cheeked spanking."

Iran: Bang! Oops...

An explosion today in Bushehr province in Iran, where Iran is building a nuclear power plant, could have been caused by a fuel tank falling from a plane.

No word from Iran if any of their planes are missing a fuel tank.

*cough* international incident *cough*

Valerie Plame -- Appeals Court: Testify, or go to prison. Jeff Gannon is Implicated.

[WaPost]

Judith Miller (NYTimes) and Matt Cooper (Time Magazine) may be compelled to testify in the Valerie Plame case, or they will go to prison, in a ruling by a 3 judge panel on a Federal Appeals court. NYTimes will seek a stay while appealing to the full court, and then likely to the Supreme Court.

No word on why Bob Novak isn't on this list. You'd think he would be, since he broke the story, and so clearly knows who the White House leak was. Also, no word why gay hooker and Republican shil Jeff Gannon , who was given a day-to-day press passes for months in the White House while he lobbed partisan softballs at Scott McClellan -- and even George Bush, during his pre-Iraq war press conference -- isn't on the list, now that it is known that he was one of only six reporters who the White House leak talked to. Gannon wasn't found out until some in the press corps started asking, "Who is this Shil?"

Many believe the White House Plame leak was Karl Rove -- a guy not known to hang out indiscriminitely with male prostitutes.

I mean, you've gotta wonder who it was in the White House who gave this shill daily press access -- meaning, every day for months they approved his access, and who the leak in the Plame case was who leaked to Gannon, Novak, Matthews and Miller. They're probably the same person. That means, the interesting question to ask Scott McClellan: "Who approved Jeff Gannon's daily press passes to the White House?" . That's probably the person who leaked the Plame memo to him.

Daily KOS did an extensive timeline analysis of questions and statements by Gannon, and concluded:


Jeff Gannon was planted by the administration to disseminate their talking points unfettered by any journalism ethics or investigation shortly after the Iraq war, when the failure to find WMDs was becoming apparent. He became incredibly useful in L'Affaire Plame to continue to push the dual stories that a) Plame's name was already common knowledge and therefore `outing' her was not a crime and b) to continue to help discredit the CIA and Wilson. Based on the evidence, I believe the 2002 CIA memo was leaked to Gannon when Novak became unusable and when the `mainstream' reporters with CIA contacts were not pushing the WH's preferred story line. They needed cover, and they got it. And as is evidenced by his remarkable access to Scott McClellan and President Bush in the White House press room, to this day, he was rewarded handsomely...

And it continues as business as usual... until today when he became expendable and `resigned' from Talon News.

A Better Than Average David Brooks Column

[NYTimes] David Brooks feigns outrage at being relegated to nowheresville in the Washington Nationals' Season Ticket Lottery --- and, by implication, in the Universe of Washington, DC -- as the owner explains, "Of course, V.I.P.'s were taken care of, as they are in any other circumstance."

A few humorous lines here, including the observation that if the "the characters from Edith Wharton novels could come to earth, they'd be so put off by our social stratifications they'd probably turn into Bolsheviks."

He devolves from a grain of being truly annoyed into bomastic self parody. I suppose that's what you write, when you start to write how you truly feel about a situation, but quickly realize how petty and indefensible the position is. Hey, might as well get a column out of it.

This will get much, much worse

North Korea states publicly that they have nukes, and the sole purpose they have them is to use them against the United States. Condi: "We knew that."

This is the kind of thing that George Tenet might have called "a slam dunk" case -- as contrasted, for example, to Hussein's repeated and insistent denials, saying they had no nukes, and no nuclear weapons program (which was true).

So, if "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud", and Condi is fond of saying, why do we already not have boots on the ground in North Korea? Why has the issue not even been raised on the UN Security Council? Why do we not have George Bush inveighing against the Sodom of Pyongyang?

Because, Bush lied when he said we were attacking Iraq to protect the US against terrorism, to protect us from a madman dictator baring nukes he would use against us, or give to others to use against us. Here we are, faced with a prima facie case of exactly that, and the administration's response: Condi says "Oh, we've always known they've had nukes" -- and yet they do nothing. Clearly, what Bush says he thinks is important is not actually what he thinks is important.

These are lies we are being fed -- and not lies about who blew who in the White House kitchen, but lies which lead to wars, taking over countries, rejecting historical allies; which lead to policies dressed in the bunting of our constitutional values of democracy and freedom, but have no more to do with democracy and freedom than the manipulation of presidential power within that system.

The fact is, the escapade in Iraq has extended our military such that we cannot pose a credible threat to a nuclear armed North Korea. Something you get when you throw both feet into stupid, short-sighted policies.

Gosh, $1.2Trillion? Really? I Guess We'll Have To Cut It...

The White House is owning up to the fact that the prescription drug benefit program will cost, not in the neighborhood of $300B as they put out during its debate; not over $500B, a number they fired an Admin official for putting out after the debate, but

$1.2Trillion dollars.

You can just faintly hear the Starve-The-Beast economists in the West Wing: Gosh, it's THAT expensive? I guess we'll just have to cut the program.

Dig that: get credit for starting a costly benefit program with the voters you need to re-elect you, but still get your ideology for cutting the program after you're re-elected -- not to mention for killing the drug program in medicare that the new program replaced.

Oh, and the elderly lose too.

Deep Throat close to death

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

US's Hot Music Scene

According to the
NYTimes, the US's hottest new music scene is about 3 blocks from where I live.

That ought to get me out of the house.

Why Bush's Social Security Plan Sucks Donkey Balls.

Sure, Krugman today makes another well reasoned, quantitative argument as to why Bush's Social Security plan is a quack idea which won't accomplish what it set out to do. But there's a simpler argument, and it goes like this.

Social Security began as a plan to keep senior citizens from starving in the streets during the Depression, when the market failed. When another Depression hits, all those fancy-schmancy investment accounts Bush wants us to have so that he can dismantle the government social security program will be worth Zippo. Nada. The big Goose-egg. As much as W's oil companies.

Boom, we'll be back to our 80-year-old grandparents sifting through garbage to find tossed out iceberg lettuce taco salad to live on, starving in the streets.

So, folks: don't make Social Security dependent on the success of capitalism. The reason we have Social Security is that sometimes, the market fails, and we don't want our parents coverd in sores and dog feces, sleeping in gutters, in grimy clothes soaked in their own filth.

And that, as the saying goes, is why Bush's Social Security plan sucks donkey balls.

Which is a technical term, I think first due to John Kenneth Galbraith.

State of the Onion Rebuttals

Who bother rebutting the State of the Union address when the President rebutted so many of his arguments in the speech itself?

Excerpts and commentary by William Saletan at Slate.

'Fuzzy Math' and the Iraqi Election = $37,500 per vote

If the numbers are correct, US taxpayers spent $37,500 per vote in the recent Iraqi elections.

Bush says "Suck it up!"

Bad news for privatized retirement account holders

According to an associate editor at the Washington Post, most or all of the earnings from a privatized account will be paid back to the government as a "benefit offset".

Read here.

How can this proposition possibly be any better than what we have now? The President has obviously been smoking crack on Air Force One.

State of the Onion

A few points to remember about Social Security.

1. Just because a system exhausts its trust fund, and has annual liabilities in excess of its funding, doesn't mean it's bankrupt;
2. Projections that this will happen to Social Security in 2042 take a very pessimistic view of likely economic (and population!) growth between now and then;
3. Projections that private accounts will provide a reasonable substitute to Social Security, by contrast, depend on a very rosy view of the economy over that time period (to wit, Krugman);
4. These warring pessimistic and optimistic views of the economy cannot both be correct (the Law of the Excluded Middle strikes again!);
5. Social Security provides a defined-benefit annuity; it is insurance, not a retirement account;
6. As such, it provides an income for whatever remains of your life, once you retire; it is not a fixed pot of money;
7. As such, it is less risky than any retirement account could possibly be, since in spending down your own capital you must somehow contrive not to spend "too slowly" nor live "too long";
8. Part of the President's plan will therefore require people to purchase their own defined-benefit annuity on retirement, to make up for their lost Social Security benefits;
9. No such annuity (insurance) can possibly be as affordable, in an actuarial sense, as that provided by insuring the entire US workforce at once - as the Social Security system does;
10. Hence the problems faced by, for example, the Chileans, who typically make do with 1/2 the pension they used to have under the government plan, in spite of seeing an incredible 10% average return on their private retirement accounts;
11. No matter what you think of Social Security's finances, realize that the President's plan will immediately decrease its annual income by 1/3, greatly accelerating any reckoning unless these losses are made up;
12. All estimates of these losses, aka "transition costs," put out by the Administration to date are lies; the true cost is estimated to be $4.5 trillion over the first 20 years - which only gets us to 2031, not 2042;
13. Any proposal to reduce these costs - for instance, by means-testing benefits, reducing cost-of-living increases or the wage-indexing of benefits, raising the income cap for the payroll tax, or even simply borrowing money - can be more easily applied to the current Social Security system, to increase its solvency; taking away 1/3 of its income can, again, only make things worse;
14. This was precisely the reason Social Security payroll taxes were raised (regressively!) in 1983, for example.

Finally, always remember that the President could save many trillions of dollars if he just gave up on either (1) the Medicare prescription drug benefit ($8.1 trillion over 75 years); or (2) the tax cut he and his party passed in 2001, under the premise of never-ending budget surpluses, with built-in sunset provisions to allow them to expire should the country's budget fall back into the red ($11.6 trillion over 75 years). These numbers compare to a $3.7 trillion shortfall in Social Security over the same time period, under the pessimistic projections mentioned earlier.

The Cost of Free Information: $400K

A public interest group (People for the American Way Foundation) requested the *numbers* of immigrants who were rounded up by the federal government after the 9/11 attacks, under the Freedom of Information act.

The Justice department said, sure, it will cost you $400,000.

The law permits 2 hours of free searching, after which the government may bill the requester. However, the $400K number is entirely a guess, and smacks of obstructing the act by simply presenting an unpayable bill.

New Music 2004

Here's a personal short list of new and interesting music from 2004.

Smile - Brian Wilson
What can you say when one of pop music's boy geniuses takes the 30-year old ruins of his most daring work and, note by note, reconstructs and releases it? Perhaps simply that it was worth the wait.

Life for Rent - Dido
I take a special interest in sophomore albums. They let us see what the artist is capable of producing, under pressure, without recourse to the playlist that got them signed in the first place. In Dido's case, we get a second helping of the tuneful mellowness of her debut, with no noticeable losses in either hummability or lyrical wit.

The College Dropout - Kanye West
It's no surprise to find the most daring, satirical, funny, sincere, original music of the year coming from hip hop (see last year's Outkast double-album). What's surprising is to find it all on this single-disk debut.

Songs About Jane - Maroon 5
Maroon 5 have surely sold their souls for this back-to-back rack of hooks. The album spawned more pop singles than any other last year. Not bad for a start, and if they work a little more on their harmonies they might be worth listening to for many years to come.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb - U2
Just like any child of the Eighties, I find myself tickled that U2 is the hot new band for today's teens. Just check out the iTunes sales of their e-single Vertigo, off the new album; watch their iPod television ad; or ask your local high schooler their opinion about debt forgiveness for African nations (hint: Bono), and you'll see what I mean.

Encore - Eminem
Eminem is one of the singular forces of our pop culture - if you don't already both love him and hate him then you just haven't been paying attention. His new album makes this list mainly for one song, Mosh, which was recorded and rushed to market (with animated video) just before the election. Many of us have wondered where the stirring protest music of this generation would come from. Well, folks - here it is.

Los Lonely Boys
A Latino / Country Western band out of Los Angeles, they earn a spot with their local color, breadth of styles, and fearless mix of genres.

Ray - Ray Charles
The soundtrack of the year is an easy pick. Erica and I saw Ray Charles in concert at the Hollywood Bowl two summers ago, and he seemed absolutely unstoppable. He wasn't though, of course; so goodbye, Ray, and thanks for sharing.

The Elections in Iraq Went Well

From everything I have read, the elections in Iraq went well: high turnout, even respectable turnout in Sunni areas, some violence, a few dozen deaths but nothing like the violence and boycotting we had reason to fear. Peace and prosperity there and the return of our boys are certainly still a ways off but it's nice to have some good news and some hope for more for a change.

The Bush Administration Jumps the Shark (1)

I have never found much in the Bush Administration's policies to admire. And, Bush 43 Redux looks like more and even more of the same. But, in Bush's headlong victory, we can watch as those things he truly represents overcome those things he claims he stands for.

So, I'm watching for Bush's Jump the Shark moment -- the moment when it becomes obvious to everyone watching that Bush is no longer about what even he claimed he was about. ("Jump the shark" refers to the episode of the 70s TV show "Happy Days", when the Fonz -- the ultimate in cool -- took the show in its unprecedented direction by travelling to California and jumping over a great white shark cage on water skiis).

My first nomination for Bush's jump the shark moment: "The Heroes Red, White and Blue Inaugural Ball", attended by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. (described here by Frank Rich) The evening's headliners Nile Rodgers and Chic sang the lyrics 'Clap your hands, hoo!' and 'Dance to the beat' to a group of soldiers missing hands and legs. It's a moment in which even the preternaturally naive can see that the Balls held to "honor" the wounded and dead from Iraq simply used them as ornaments and political props.

Now, sure, that's mere rank symbolism -- the ground-up meat and bones of soldiers home from war, set on display to convince a country that their sacrifices are honored by this Administration, openly if negligently made mockery of by a bread-and-circus-style circus.

In the meantime, the woman who brought us the quotable "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" and the man who made torture, once illegal by the Geneva Conventions, the policy of the United States now turn the machinery of Bush's foreign policy and domestic legal apparatus.

It renders Orwell's "1984" to -- borrowing from one of Gonzales' legal briefs -- the status of "quaint". The woman now responsible for the nation's security through diplomacy was as responsible as anyone in the administration for bringing us to a war which removed not a single nuclear bomb from play, or even delayed a biological terror program. The man now responsible for the nation's justice system believes more strongly in the capability of power-politics, where you can torture people, because you can. Indeed, War is Peace, and Freedom is Slavery. No duh.

But, as Bush said, the "accountability moment" has passed. In his view, he can move forward, unaccountably. I'm sure all those who voted for him find that to be something they can dance and clap about.

Who's that kid in the olive parka?

One of the attendees at yesterday's Auschwitz commemorations stuck out like a sore thumb - and Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan is not being kind about it (the word "snowblower" is mentioned).


You can also see the Yahoo story.

YOU'RE OLD! GET IT?!?

Here is yet another example of GW acting very unpresidential-like. Making a joke at the expense of a reporter, of senior citizens, altzheimer sufferers, etc. Basically, it reads: Bush: "You're acting old, get it? You can't remember anything like an old person, YOU'RE OLD!!, GET IT? OLD PEOPLE CAN'T remember...AHHAHAHAHAHA. Next question."

President Holds Press Conference: "Q I seem to remember a time in Texas on another problem, taxes, where you tried to get out in front and tell people it's not a crisis now, it's going to be a crisis down the line -- you went down in flames on that one. Why --

THE PRESIDENT: Actually, I -- if I might. (Laughter.) I don't think a billion-dollar tax relief that permanently reduced property taxes on senior citizens was 'flames,' but since you weren't a senior citizen, perhaps that's your definition of 'flames.'

Q I never got my billion --

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Because you're not a senior citizen yet. Acting like one, however. Go ahead. (Laughter.)"

Microsoft: no patches for pirates

Microsoft announced that they will be starting a program that will deny security patches to all pirated copies of Windows.

While on the surface this seems like a valid business plan (why provide updates to people who STOLE your product?), this essentially blocks anyone from being able to protect their system from turning into a zombie that serves up email, DDOS attacks, etc. etc. etc. These zombie computers account for terabytes of data being sent over the internet every day, which slows down everyone elses connections, piles the spam into their email box, and if a website that they're trying to get to is experiencing a DDOS attack, they won't be able to access those services.

Microsoft is just washing their collective hands here. "Not our problem. They should have bought their copy." This may have been valid in the past, but in an era where we need this infrastructure to operate at all times, Microsoft is just handing tools over to the destroyer, by thinking about themselves first. Although I don't advocate people stealing their operating system, millions of people on this planet steal it anyway, and their unprotected systems will affect everyone else in profound ways.

Dear Terrorists:

It's the Red states you want.

Stop bombing the blue states.

William Safire's Farewell Column

He retires today from his "right-wing scandalmongering" on the NYTimes OpEd. Why? To try something new -- full-time chairmanship of the Dana Institute for Brain Reasearch ("Fewer lone-wolf assertions; more collegial dealing. I hear that's tough.")

He'll keep the language column. I'll miss him. Through his numerous political contacts -- unmatched among columnists -- he brought factual reporting into his columns, something which David Brooks, for example, never does, preferring to refer to his own books to understand what's going on in the world. I'm sure Brooks' approach can be useful, but getting Israel's policies explained by Sharon has its advantages too.

I was hoping he would announce at last that he was Woodward and Bernstein's Deep Throat. Why him? While the Nixon administration was imploding, Nixon's heavily partisan, long-time speech writer was offered a job at the Washington Post by Katherine Graham. It was after Graham died that Safire revealed in a column she also stepped forward to recommend him highly for the NY Times job, which he took. That he was a frequent guest at her well-attended parties possibly brought them close enough that she would want to scoop up the bright young commentator onto her masthead; but how that translates into getting him a job at her newspaper's major competitor is not so transparent --- unless she had some reason to respect him so greatly, that she saw his having such a position transcended the business concerns of her newspaper. And, it would make sense that, if Safire was a major source pushing Watergate forward, he'd like a little distance from the reporters who took him up on it. Finally, while Safire admires the cause of the right, he's also highly intellectually honest -- meaning, as soon as he would find out members of the administration were using illegal and anti-democratic means to hold onto power, he'd roll over on them.

A War Americans Don't Have To Fight

Friedman thoughtfully suggests that the War on Terror is, actually, not an American war : "Ever since 9/11, I've argued the war on terrorism is really a war of ideas within the Muslim world - a war between those who want to wall Islam off from modernity, and defend it with a suicide cult, and those who want to bring Islam into the 21st century and preserve it as a compassionate faith. This war of ideas is not one that the West can fight, only promote. Muslims have to fight it from within. That is what is at stake in the Iraqi elections. This is the first great battle in the post-9/11 war of ideas."

In this view, Americans are the collateral damage in radical Islam's fight to control their own sphere of influence. Their tactic is to poison relations between the West and Islamic countries, so that those inclined to a modernist, western-oriented and personal religion feel forced to embracing militant fundamentalism.

Bush, too, nostalgic for Clinton Administration

Quoting directly from his second Inaugural Address, delivered January 20, 2005 (paragraph 3):

For half a century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical. And then there came a day of fire.

Almost maudlin enough to bring a tear to one's eye. Those were the days, eh? Ahh Georgie - if only I'd known you cared!

Not so sure about that "shipwreck of communism" image, though. What kind of ship were you thinking of? I seem to be picturing a sleek three-masted clipper, myself. Grounded on a rocky shore under leaden skies, tattered sheets blowing in the gale, and no one aboard (well, no one but Fidel and a few million Cubans).

Bonus observation: Note how our President stealthily includes eight months of his own first Administration among those "years of sabbatical"! Haha! Take that, Michael Moore!

What a Freakin Rip....

When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, the Iran Hostages were released, ending a more than 400 day national nightmare.

Today, Bush was inaugurated, and all the national nightmares just continue on, and on....

By the way: did NOT get an invitation to any Inauguration Balls. You just know it got sent back in the mail, insufficient postage. Again, dinged for living in Canada! I'll probably get it next week, too late.

Bush's Lines get Wider and Wider

Always read between Bush's lines: 'I want you to know how touched I was that the chief justice came to administer the oath,' the president said afterward at the Capitol luncheon. 'That was an incredibly moving part' of the ceremony, he said."

Translation: "Look at 'im! He's practically dead! You think he's fulfilling his duties as Chief Justice of the United States? HELLS NO. He should resign right now. I'm gonna get me a good appointment in by-crackey!"

Great CNN headlines recently

Poll: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider

Bush: Better human intelligence needed

At this point, the jokes tell themselves

File under D for "duhhh"

He's a deep thinker.

When President Bush was asked last week by The Washington Post why Osama bin Laden had eluded capture, he replied, "Because he's hiding."

Frank Rich asks in 2009: American War Crimes, How Did They Happen?

[NYTimes OpEd]. Frank Rich reviews the fact that American TV news is iignoring the obvious stories of torture and murder committeed by American troops and agents -- even ones which are printed in papers. Part is due to TV branding: like Fox News network's rightwing slant. Part, due to the FCC's obscenity crackdown -- which makes TV squeemish to anything which might upset viewers. Part due to the US government's own lack of forthcoming.

The result is that when Specialist Charles Graner is convicted of abuses at Abu Ghraib, it barely breaks on TV, and the fact that the judge supressed discussion of knowledge of the abuses at higher levels doesn't even come up. TV News portrays the US Government of acting against torture, even though the US government's policy permits torture -- a prime example being "waterboarding", where someone held indefinitely without charge in Guantanamo, for example, is tied to a board and submerged, underwater to simulate drowning.

Rich is predicting a news show five years hence: "How Did This Happen?" The answer is, nobody cared.

There's the simple fact: George Bush tortures people. But he sees his "accountability moment" as past, and now he's going to move forward. Without accountability in his future.

John Kerry Calls for Donald Rumsfeld's Resignation

I got an email from John Kerry today, asking me -- and, I'm sure, others -- to join him in calling for Donald Rumfseld's resignation. He says:

I have just come back from Iraq. After several months consumed by the campaign trail, I wanted to make contact with our soldiers on the ground there. The first thing I want you to know is that, in very difficult circumstances, our brave soldiers are serving America with enormous skill and great courage.

In the Senate, we have a duty during times like these to hold our Defense Department accountable for the well-being of our troops. It's one of the ways that our democracy makes our military the strongest in the world. And I can't tell you how comforting it is as a soldier to know even if you don't have a say over your own situation, the folks back home do.

I knew our soldiers were still facing hold ups getting the equipment they need, but I wanted to see it for myself. American troops deserve the best gear and equipment we can provide. But adequate vehicle armor remains in short supply.

A soldier who spoke up about these problems was told by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, "you have to go to war with the army you have, not the army you want."1 Well, it's been over two years since Rumsfeld planned this war. And whether he has the army he wants or not, he should at least have basic armor for army vehicles.

I'll say this in the Senate, but I'm asking you to add your voice to mine:

"President Bush, for the sake of our troops, replace Rumsfeld now."

Here's a petition Kerry's letter asks you to sign.

Just Following Orders

Yesterday, Specialist Charles A. Graner, Jr. was sentenced to 10 years for being the "ringleader" of the Abu Ghraib abuses as the NYTimes and presumably many other sources reported. His defense was that he was following orders. I had hoped that his trial would have been the opportunity to investigate this thing up the chain of command. After all, I think he might have expected a reduced sentence if his defense team could have produced evidence that he acted on orders or was encouraged in any way. It was reported that he said that one of his superiors gave him the "advice" that he should do what "military intelligence" told him to do. However, other than that, the coverage I've heard over the last few days (though I've paid attention only NPR, NYTimes, & LATimes) have not described even any new evidence or allegations that have come about as a result of this trial nor have any of the media sources commented on any failure of the defense to produce such evidence.

18 days

was the amount of time between the tsunami hitting and me receiving my first email from "Fred Newman, attorney at law" telling me about a client who "died in Banda Aceh in Indonesia with all members of his family in the deadly Tsunami" and asking "to assist me in ensuring that the funds lodged by my client with a Financial Institution Abroad...". In retrospect, it's surprising it took that long.

Apple Everywhere

Today, the name of the individual who runs the Think Secret website This individual is being sued by Apple for publishing trade secrets.

Of particular interest in the article: "California is one of approximately 44 or 45 states that have adopted [the] Uniform Trade Secrets Act. That statute makes it wrongful to acquire or publish without authorization information you know or have a reasonable basis to know is a trade secret of another,”

This means that Robert Novak can get away with publishing the name of a CIA agent, but if he publishes a trade secret, he'll be sued.

Oh, and by the way.....

The Washington Post reports today that we stopped looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq last month.

So, the charade is over. I suppose, given the $200B price-tag for the Iraq war and recent budget reshuffling at the Pentagon, it was time for meaningless but oratorically advantageous gestures to get chopped.

The list of discovered weapons will be published between the first and second pages of the New York Times sometime this week. Wet your fingers!

We can now draw a line under the most bogus justification for war given in US History. There never were any such weapons, and the claims for them were based on "intelligence" which reasonable people could see was a crock of santorum. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any such people in the Bush Administration -- at least, none with courage.

Words of the Year

[Slate]. The Linguistic Sociiety of America, mostly for fun, votes on "Word of the Year" in several nebulously defined categories. It bares pointing out that "Word" doesn't describe what they vote on, but "Lexical term" of the year lacked panache. The winners of 2005:

• Most Creative: pajamahadeen , refers to bloggers in their bedclothes who criticize the mainstream media ( ahem );
  
• Most Euphemistic: badly sourced , meaning "false", used by Colin Powell and others this year.
  
• Most Outrageous: santorum , coined by sex columnist Dan Savage, after Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, as "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex". As in, "Have you seen any santorum around the halls of Congress?".
  
• Most Likely to Succeed: red state, blue state, purple state . If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
  
• Overall: Word of the Year: red state, blue state, purple state .
  
  The conferences of the Linguistic Society of America sound like real cliffhangers.

The God As Assumption Meme Continues

Continuing with the God-as-assumption in media meme: an article in Slate, in light of recent events, calls for a boycott of God. Denouncing centuries of uncritical worship which have "clearly produced a monster", Heather MacDonald says the time that we sit passively while human life is wantonly mowed down is gone. "Where is God's incentive to behave?" Credit for the good, no blame for the bad.

The Value of a Dollar (in Thailand)

Lots to think and talk about after Erica's and my trip to Southeast Asia - not the tsunami, which I think inundated you wired ones more back here (and about which enough said, really - thanks Bill!), but other stuff - observations of these alien worlds and interactions with people.

One moment that sticks in my head: Erica and I were on the verge of making our largest single purchase of art and mementos, at a hole-in-the-wall store in Bangkok, and it was going to exhaust my remaining supplies of Thai Bhat. I offered to make up the difference to the store owner with dollars - fresh, crisp bills - and she declined. "My son says, today 38 Baht, tomorrow 37 Baht, next day... no thank you." So instead of completing our transaction (her largest of the night, I would guess) on the spot, cash in-hand, she had us ducking out of her store, past dozens of like establishments, in search of an ATM.

Note: This was not a clever attempt to negotiate the exchange rate (I was willing and tried) - she just didn't want the dollars.

Now granted, we had just come from Cambodia where the dollar is de facto currency, and the local Riel is used almost exclusively to make change (4000 Riel to one USD; no US coins accepted). But to someone who's watched his jokes about the doomed dollar go from mildly wonkish humor to Economist cover story in just one W term - with one full term to go - the experience was a bit of a shock.

Whack-em in the kneecaps and damn them for not being able to run

[NYTimes] This is interesting, because the case would be cut-and-dried as a discrimination case: 4 gay plantifs want to adopt children. It's against FL law to permit gays to adopt children, the only state with such a law on the books.

The appeal to US Court of Appeals (Atlanta) came back that the prime issue is not relief against discrimination, but the welfare of the child. And, to quote: "'Openly homosexual households represent a very recent phenomenon, and sufficient time has not yet passed to permit any scientific study of how children raised in those households fare as adults. Given this state of affairs, it is not irrational for the Florida Legislature to credit one side of the debate over the other. Nor is it irrational for the Legislature to proceed with deliberate caution before placing adoptive children in an alternative, but unproven, family structure that has not yet been conclusively demonstrated to be equivalent to the marital family structure that has established a proven track record spanning centuries.'"

The Supreme Court let that ruling stand, without comment. It's interesting logic, and not fundamentally flawed, however discriminatory. It says that states decide for themselves, with arbitrary considerations which need meet only a minimum standard of rationality, what requirements an adopting household must meet to provide for the best interests of the child.

So, overturning this requires a generation in which openly gay, married households raise children. If, after that generation, it can be shown that such children don't fare any worse than in straight, married households, I presume the applicants will return. Of course, gays can't marry in Florida, nor in any state except Massachusetts.

It's classic legal "whack-em in the kneecaps and damn them for not being able to run." Remember back before African Americans had legal rights to vote? Some states gave "literacy" tests designed to keep them from voting. Of course, education was so bad in part because African Americans had no political representation. And, they couldn't sway politicians to improve their education, because they didn't vote. And, they were kept from voting in large numbers, because education was so bad.

So, here is another example of a right that straight couples have, which will be denied gay couples -- at least in Florida -- until a generation after they are permitted to marry.

The Media Change: God as Fundamental Assumption

This morning, I heard a new voice in US media. Previously, the us media I read and listen to (NYTimes, NPR) has spoken a secular humanist viewpoint. God, when invoked, was described as a phenomenon, distinct from being a causal phenomenon. Why do people worship? What does it say about humanity? What does it say about us as people? That the answers to these questions were invariably that religion reflected positively on people was distinct from the consideration of its validity.

Apparently, no more. Today, within 15 minutes of each other, I came across two pieces in which God was not a phenomenon to be examined, but in which God was an assumption, and the writers sought to answer the earnest question: why would God kill innocents in this huge Tsunami?

Skipping past the point Nicholas Kristof made last week that the Tsunami is a minor disaster (200,000 deaths) compared with the 2 Million killed every year by malaria -- which is within human power to control with DDT, yet we do not):
Bill Safire asks -- why do people deserve such suffering? Safire suggests looking to the Book of Job -- God does not allow tragedy as justice, it is simply something which happens. Perhaps it is just age for Safire -- he is, after all, retiring from his OpEd column at the end of this month -- which brings him to deathbed conversion (death of his OpEd column, not him).

Perhaps more interesting was NPR's piece, which asked the same question: why would God do this to us? The story's conclusion: we cannnot know in this life what God's will is.

So, I'm marking the day: Today is the day (I noticed, at least) that God stopped being a subject of media inquiry, and started being an assumption.
This is a big deal. Religion has never been assumed in American social life -- it has been part of our commitment to diversity that religion is practiced privately, and only discussed publicly in sociological tones. When the media adopts a voice in which a particular religion (Christianity, here) is everyone's assumed background, we move away from this embrace of diversity in our public tone, and toward a shared values -- which may be entirely invalid, and is at least exclusionary of those who do not embrace this religion.

Newt Gingrich Throws his hat in the ring.

[Here]
.

Looks like Newt thinks he could do something for the country, and he's starting his run by putting George W. Bush -- the one man he definitely will not be running against -- in his political sights.

The Gonzales Doctrine in Practice

A Pentagon official says we have 325 foreign fighters capture in Iraq who are not protected
by the Geneva Conventions.

This is the policy that Alberto Gonzales, during his confirmation hearings to become the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, spent the past two days saying had been repudiated. Clearly, it is not.

And, to be sure, one does not come out to say that certain prisoners of war are not protected by the Geneva Conventions, only to treat them as if they were protected. The US is engaged in the internationally recognized forms of torture which are banned by the Geneva conventions, on these fighters.

Why have we gone so far away from respecting international law? And, more immediately, will the US Senate confirm the man responsible for the origins of this policy -- regardless of what he says in a dog-and-pony show interivew meant to give them and him cover -- as the chief law enforcement officer of the land? And what kind of a country do you think we'll have then?

Become.com: Google Launching a Shopping Search Engine?

I came across this website -- Become.com. It appears to be a Google-run shopping search engine, presently in beta test mode. The implied "becoming through shopping" motif aside, I'm interested to see what Google does for shopping online.

File Trading Networks Killing CD Sales? CD Sales are up in 2004

[Slashdot]

Wait for it -- we'll be hearing RIAA say, "Only because we've agressively prosecuted traders."

Way to go Babs!

In another minor victory for Democrats/Liberals the Ohio vote was todaychallenged by Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Sen. Barbara Boxer.

They emphasize that this doesn't put the election in jeopardy, but it does force a spotlight on Ohio, hopefully underscoring the hypocrisy of a nation that goes abroad to verify democratic elections in third world countries when it has serious problems of its own.

Thank You Jon Stewart! CNN dumps Tucker Carlson

[Globe and Mail] Carlson's gone at the end of his contract. In describing his view of Carlson, CNN's CEO Jonathon Klein of the US Network said: “I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp.” Klein also said that it's likely that Crossfire , which has been running since 1982, will also fold up.

United States Throws Out Its Constitution

The Intelligence, Defense and diplomatic (State) officials
quoted in the WaPost say that the US is preparing long range plans to permanently detain "suspected terrorists" without ever charging them, without ever offering them judicial review.

The present plans ask for $25M for a new "Camp 6" at Gitmo, where people who have no more intelligence to give up, and can't be charged with anything in Federal Court from lack of evidence, will be held forever.

These plans violate a Supreme Court ruling this year, which stated that the US must offer access to Federal Courts to military prisoners for a judicial review of their status. They also violate a fundamental right -- that the government cannot permanently detain a person without charge, and without due process review of those charges in front of a jury of peers. The result will be a Federal government empowered to imprison anyone indefinitely permanently.

The Santaland Diaries

On This American Life this week in Real Audio is David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries -- a verbal essay first broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition, which became the most listened-to piece ever from Morning Edition. Sedaris has expanded it, much longer than could have been broadcast in the limited Morning Edition format.

Specter's sceptre

Recall, if you will, the last time Sen. Arlen Specter (R - PA) lost his penis. In the immediate aftermath of the Presidential election, Sen. Specter - who will acceed to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary committee unless something unfortunate happens to his leadership prospects before January - declared that he would not be supporting any anti-abortion nominees put forward by the President. Despite the fact that this position was consistent with the views of those Pennsylvania constituents who voted him into office, and to whom he is chiefly accountable within our "representative" system of government, he was later persuaded to change his mind and now rejects any such "litmus test" for judicial nominees. In other words, he lost his manhood.

Remarkably, comes the NYT today with evidence that the entire episode made very little impression on the Senator. Just two days ago, President Bush announced his intention to re-nominate 12 judges, originally nominated during his first term, who were blocked from confirmation by Senate Democrats. This amounts to a declaration of war, since the only way it is even interesting to re-nominate these candidates is if the President, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist, and the Senate Republicans intend to repeal filibuster on judicial nominees. Just to give you a sense of the bipartisan spirit with which this plan is conceived: In the past, this parliamentary maneuver has been termed "the nuclear option."

And what does Sen. Specter think about this looming battle-to-the-death with the Dems?

It has been my hope that we might be able to approach this whole issue with some cooler perspective. I would have preferred to have some time in the 109th Congress to improve the climate to avoid judicial gridlock and future filibusters.

That's right - he's just put his Wee Willie on the chopping block, again. Stay tuned for what is sure to be a very thrilling conclusion.

Assault on Donald Rumsfeld Continues

After we heard from senators McCain, Chuck Hagel -- among others -- that they no longer have confidence in Donald Rumseld, we had Republican Senate leaders Bill Frist and Mitch McConnell saying all was well. Earlier this week, President Bush took questions and answers at the White House, saying that Rumsfeld is doing a fine job.

All background to today: a coalition of groups had sued the US Government under the Freedom of Information act, regarding detainee deaths, abuses and transfers after Sept 11, 2001.


Frankly, compared with Abu Ghraib, the abuses are not as bad.


However, what they do is undermine Rumsfeld's insistence that Abu Ghraib was due to "a few bad apples". Clearly, the problems were widespread, systemic.

The kind of thing which happens under bad leadership. I don't expect new indictments, but it make Rummy look bad in a week where he needs spit-shining.

Slate sold to WaPost

Just so that we know who owns what, Slate today announced that they're being sold off to the Washington Post.sold off to the Washington Post.

Frist and McConnell leap to Rumsfeld's Defense

Somebody must have got on the phone.


Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist and Republican whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky came out swinging for Rumsefeld, saying they expect him to be leading for some time.

I suppose Frist and McConnel can explain why their constituents in the Tennessee and Kentuck National Guards aren't home for Christmas this year because of Rumsfeld's Stop Loss programs. If so, they were talking about that yesterday, but that he is "fully capabale of leading the Department of Defense and our military forces to victory in Iraq and the war on terror" (Frist) and that he ''is an excellent secretary of defense, and we are fortunate to have a man of his courage and vision serving the president at this critical time." (McConnell).

Afterwards, Frist and McConnell did backflips for biscuits.

And in the distance.... you can faintly hear....

The drums begin to beat.

They go like this:

rums felds head
rums felds head
rums felds head
rums felds head

come, they told me
rums felds head

a new born king to see
rums felds head

MIT: The Missle-Defense Propoganda Arm of the Department of Defense?

A missle defense sensor was tested at MIT Lincoln labs in 1998. The trumpeted result: the sensor works, it can sense incoming missles. Forward with missle-defense.

Later, a contract engineer came forward with documents she said proved the classified data had been tampered with. The sensor doesn't work.

MIT's mission is research of unimpeachable integrity. Faked data don't square with that. MIT launched an investigation in 2002. They put together a committee of outside academics with secret security clearances.

The Defense Department says: clearances or no, you can't look at the data. Full stop. MIT has now given up on investigating.

[Nature Article, subscription required]

Critics could say that, if MIT can't police its own research, then MIT is simply part of the propoganda arm of the United States Department of Defense.

Canada Says: MP3, for free.

Time was, in Canada, you had to pay a fee for every media bought on which you could save an MP3 -- iPods were an extra $25C, CDs had a tax. This was to collect money which -- supposedly -- goes back to the recording industry for losses due to illegal copying.

And they still do this.
But not for iPods anymore. Turns out the legislative act giving the Copyright Board power to levy these fees specifies disks and casettes, but not hard drives or embeddable memory.

So, your Canadian iPods are now $25 cheaper.

Lincoln: The First Log Cabin Republican?

A new book, "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln" -- reviewed today in the NYTimes -- claims Lincoln was gay.

So, my first reaction to claims about homosexuality is a sarcastic "yeah, right." How do you prove something like that?

It appears uncontested between historians that, as a young man, Lincoln slept in the same bed with another man, Joshua Speed, for a period of four years. Carl Sandburg, in his biography, described the two as having "streaks of lavendar, spots soft as May violets." A dissesnting historian, David Donald, says in frontier times, space was tight and men shared beds. Really? For four years? And this wasn't occaisioned with emotional intimacy, and wasn't visited by physical intimacy?

Also, there was wide commentary on the fact that, while Lincoln's wife Mary Todd was not at home, Lincoln regularly slept with the captain of his bodyguards, David V. Derickson. As described by Derickson's commanding officer: "Captain Derickson, in particular, advanced so far in the president's confidence and esteem that, in Mrs. Lincoln's absence, he frequently spent the night at his cottage, sleeping in the same bed with him and - it is said - making use of his Excellency's night-shirts!" Donald doesn't comment if space was a premium in the White-House, too. But, he does say that if Lincoln and Derickson were so intimate, then Derickson would not have separated from Lincoln as he did when he left Washington in 1863 - apparently ignoring the fact that sometimes, relationships end. The article relates other comments which demonstrate that the sleeping arrangements were widely known.

The book, by A. C. Tripp, charts numerous relationships between Lincoln and men, including one Billy Greene, whom Lincoln is supposed to have shared a bed with, and who described to Lincoln's law partner Lincoln's thighs: "as perfect as a human being could be." I'm a bit taken back at what situation could have brought Mr. Greene into close inspection of Lincoln's thighs which did not involve physical intimacy.

I don't really know how you get to the bottom of evidence like this, and conclude that Lincoln couldn't possibly have had sexual relationships with men. A more suitable conclusion is that it seems pretty likely that he did.

The review states that no one ever described Lincoln at the time this way could be due, in part, to the fact that the word "homosexual" didn't enter the English language until 1892.

Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients

President Bush awarded Tommy Franks, George Tenet and Paul Bremer the Presidential Medal of Freedom today for the work they did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's usually handed out in a batch, in the summer (for the past few years). Bush handed out 11 in July this year.

Is Bush politicizing the medals? Maybe, but I can't get too exercised about it, because the award has aleady been given to Rita Moreno. If Anita from West Side Story gets the Medal of Freedom, then, yeah, sure, add Franks, Tenet and Bremer to that list.


Medal of Freedom Website.

Gay Marriage Debate Rages in Canada

You may have heard that gay marriage is a hot button issue in Canada, as it is in the US.
(Here's a recent article).


By "hot button issue", I mean that the Supreme Court has already found that it must be allowed, and Parliment is voting it into national law early next year.

The debate here is huge: the Conservative party is saying that churches cannot be forced to perform gay marriages, while the Liberal party says "no duh". Conservatives also say they want to make sure men and women can still get married -- that allowing gay marriage doesn't exclude the possibility that men and women can still marry each other, if they should want to (Liberals: "no duh"). Finally, the Conservatives demand, explicitly, whatever rights conferred upon marriage between a man and a woman, these *same* rights must be given to gay couples in marriage (Liberals: "Oh, for chrissakes, can we go home now?").

Sometimes these debates come off as Monty Python sketches.

O'Keefe, He Gone

And who can blame him, with the shuttles still grounded, the ISS accumulating garbage and running out of food and water, and those seductive LSU sirens calling. Whither NASA now? Bush will signal his feelings on the matter with the person he nominates in replacement. If rumors that he wants to nominate General Kadish - lately of the anti-ballistic missile initiative, aka "a wing of missiles and a prayer" - are true, then Bush will be showing that he believes military, corporate, and civilian uses of space are all of a piece - similar to the approach he and his Vice President have taken towards, for instance, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge ("Why can't the ABMs, the oil derricks, and the caribou all just share the wilderness?").

If he instead nominates a NASA insider - preferably a lifelong engineer/manager and contrarian thinker - then give him credit for striking out on his own this time... and maybe, just maybe, being serious about doing something interesting with NASA during the next four years.

Circus over big nobody is about to end

I can't tell you how much I didn't care about the Scott Peterson trial. Somehow, a guy from Modesto was making headlines, and basically sucking up a lot of news space on the local news stations. Every single day there was a new twist: "the concrete was used for putting in posts in the back yard", "Here's what Scott wore today:...". I would frequently have to change radio stations because this would come up every 15 minutes or so.

It's a lot like the OJ trial, except that OJ was famous AND he got away with it. I also didn't give a rats ass about OJ.

Scott Peterson is guilty. He's either going to be in jail for a long time or he's going to die. Either way, at 1:30 I won't have to hear about him ever again.

FOX TELEVISION REALITY SHOW LOOKING FOR ASTRONOMERS

It's no joke. On December 9, AAS Electronic Announcement #144 was emailed out. Unfortunately it's not archived on the web though I'm holding onto a copy. The announcement had a table of contents with seven items:

---------------------------------------------------------
1. THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL EDITORIAL OFFICE MOVING TO
MADISON, WISCONSIN
2. AAS SAN DIEGO MEETING
3. 2005 MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
4. IMPRS PH.D. PROGRAM
5. 1.8-METER PERKINS TELESCOPE OBSERVING TIME
6. LARGE OBSERVING PROGRAMS ON THE ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN
TELESCOPE
7. RADIO & SUBMILLIMETER ASTRONOMY REVIEW BY AUI
---------------------------------------------------------

However, the body of the email contained an eighth item:

___________________________________________________________

8. FOX TELEVISION REALITY SHOW LOOKING FOR ASTRONOMERS

Fox Television's hit new reality show "Trading Spouses" is
currently casting for the third season and is looking for
a family of astronomers! There must be two parents and
children over six living at home. If interested, please
contact Kate Currier.

Kate Currier
Assistant Talent Supervisor
Rocket Science Laboratories
8441 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Phone: 323-802-0489
fax: 323-802-0599
email: katec@rocketsciencelabs.com
___________________________________________________________

Sadly, none of us qualify.

How to Sink the Department of Homeland Security

It turns out, politicians have some pride. They don't like being used as body armor for someone else's political purposes. And they don't like coming in second behind someone nobody knows.

The previous Secretary of Homeland security, Tom Ridge, was the former governor of Pennsylvania -- a major state -- and was sometimes mentioned as a possible President or Vice-President. When Bush named him first Secretary of DHS, it was clear some stature was being put into the office. However, not much has come through DHS which is memorable, as all the political capital Bush had handed to him on a silver platter by 9/11 was spent invading Iraq. Ridge is being remembered as the man who played with colors. He leaves the office a weaker politician than when he came.

So it's no surprise that Bush couldn't find a politician bigger than the former NYC Police Commissioner Kerik. Who wants to see their career cratered as Bush's Hillbilly Body Armor?

Ignore these comments that possible replacements for Kerik are former Democratic VP candidate, and current Senator Joseph Liberman, or Assistant Secretary of State Asa Hutchinson. These are serious men, with real, and as yet unrealized, long-term political ambitions.

DHS will be filled by someone of the stature of, say, a former Congressman, now retired or a businessman. Someone who, on command from Cheney-Rummy-Bush, will run out there, take the hits, make the ridiculous statements that Cheney-Rummy-Bush can duck behind.

However, this fact should freak y'all out. Secretary of DHS has real powers, just not the political will behind it. If you put someone with no political maturity into that chair, if something were to occur which put political will behind him, we can look forward to stupid, anti-consitutional mistakes being made.

It's not good for the country to have politically weak cabinet members.

Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator, To Retire

Apparently going to become Chancellor of LSU.

So what will change? The Mars-plan priority? The no Shuttle-to-Hubble decision?

Let's watch.

Nobody Nobody Again, Blames Nannygate

Kerik took a roundtrip back to obscurity by withdrawing his name from consideration for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Why? Seems he never paid social security taxes for a former nanny/housekeeper. Tax evasion is illegal. The identical situation has felled executive appointments in the past -- most famously in 1992 to Zoe Baird, Clinton's first nominee for Attorney General, and then immediately again to Kimba Wood, Clinton's second nominee for Attorney General.

My big question: who can Bush find who won't mind being known as runner-up to this Kerik?

NYTimes Article.

Armored Hummers

When an army soldier asked Rumsfeld why they had to scrounge in scrap heaps for extra vehicle armor Rumsfeld was temporarily knocked out of his onsetting dementia to answer 'Hell, I'm an old man and it's early in the morning. I'm just gathering my thoughts here.'

Rumsfeld paused long enough to answer: "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." Why didn't he just cut to the chase and say "You're about to go to war! Quit your bitching!"?

Probably because he wanted to make another salient point: "If you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up..."

So the entire point was "You're going to war, it doesn't matter how much armor you have, you're gonna die ANYway." Rumsfeld is apparently really candid in the morning.

He could have told them the real reason why they don't have enough armor: They didn't expect to have such a large number of troops in Iraq this late in the game. The fact that they don't have enough of the correct equipment (and that they are only now dealing with that oversight) is further proof that they haven't fully thought through their gameplan.

A Shuttle for Hubble

A National Academy of Sciences panel has recommended that, instead of preparing a costly $2b+ robotic mission to the Hubble Space Telescope that (if it flies at all) may arrive too late to save the facility, NASA should just go ahead with its original plan to dispatch a shuttle mission: NYT Story.

This is but one of the dozens of ways in which open-minded and politically forgiving scientists - including yours truly, natch - find themselves on the wrong side of this Administration. The article mentions in passing some NASA science missions that may be postponed if their budgets are affected: "other projects like the study of black holes and dark energy." What they are referring to here are the LISA, Constellation-X, and JDEM/SNAP missions.

LISA will detect the gravitational-wave signatures of colliding black holes in the distant universe. It represents the only near-term way to test Einstein's General Relativity in its strongest form, near black holes. If we care about learning anything about black holes, this is the way to do it.

Constellation-X will be the successor to Chandra and XMM-Newton; it will allow detailed investigation of accreting black holes in the distant universe, and will also be crucial for learning about the properties of neutron stars in our Galaxy (just ask Bob). If we care about the properties of the black holes that lurk in the centers of nearly every galaxy - and which are our universe's most powerful energy sources - then this is the way to study them.

JDEM/SNAP has been designed to reveal the next level of information about the Dark Energy that pervades our universe and is currently driving an acceleration of the cosmic expansion. There is no more important question for those seeking to understand the origin and destiny of our universe on the largest scales.

The shuttles are currently being prepared for launch next spring, when they will begin their final series of flights to "complete" construction of the International Space Station (ISS). Shuttle flights to Hubble have been judged marginally more risky than flights to the ISS. We're not talking about a dramatic difference, however - chances are, if we lose another shuttle, it will be to a launch failure (which is generically fatal) or to a new failure mode during descent and landing, not to the lost tile(s) problem which doomed Columbia (and which are potentially fixable at the ISS).

If the Administration nonetheless chooses, against the advice of the NAS panel, to forbid shuttle flights to Hubble, restrict shuttle flights to the ISS alone, and push forward with the robotic repair mission at the expense of LISA, Constellation-X, JDEM/SNAP, and like missions, then they will not just be choosing the ISS over Hubble. Rather, they will effectively be admitting that they judge the welfare of NASA's aerospace contractors to be more important than every major question in astrophysics.

Wine America!

The Supreme Court is hearing cases today which can change the restriictions on interstate commerce of wine.


In-state liquor distributers have held in place laws which don't allow direct mailing of wine from out of state. That meant that, if you lived in NY, you couldn't get a nice Rex Hill Pinot Noir from Oregon sent to you by the winery. You had to buy it from an in-state liquor distributor. Bad for vintners, bad for consumers, spectacular for distributers profits.

Let's hope this changes.

The Mexican-American War

I recently read something that sparked my interest in the Mexican-American war so when I was at my local Borders bookstore in Sherman Oaks, California looked for a book about it. Finding none, I asked a salesperson. She looked on the computer and told me no, not a single one. It's gotta be something like a fifth of the land in the 48 contiguous states, including the land that this bookstore occupies, that is part of the United States because of this war and while they have shelves of books on World War II, books on individual battles of the Civil War they haven't a single book on the Mexican-American War! In fairness to Borders, I doubt that this lack is peculiar to this bookstore. I think it's just that this war occupies a miniscule part of our national consciousness. Despite it's clear relevance to the foundation of the American California, the Mexican-American war seems simply not be part of our foundation myth here. Think about it, especially those of you who, like me, went to high school in California. What do you know about the Mexican-American War? I certainly don't know much and especially didn't before some web research an hour ago. Why is this? Is it because we, the Americans, appear to be the bad guys in this one?

New York Times Blows my Cover

I signed up with Jdate --- a jewish dating site -- about a month ago. It's been going pretty well -- a lot of interest, and a lot of interestingness. Sure, I'm not Jewish, but I put this on my profile. It doesn't seem to have detered many from writing me first.

And now, the NYTimes totallly blows it open by writing a style piece on: You Don't Have to Be Jewish to Love JDate.

Fun with Spaces

Over at BoingBoing they've been poking around Microsoft's innovative new blog-hosting service, "MSN Spaces":

• The Scorched-Earth EULA
• Bot-censored (and uncensored) blognames

Fun stuff.

Frist's Re-Election Campaign Speculates in Stock Market, Loses Half a Million Bucks

Associated Press reports that his re-election campaign has lost $524,000 in the stock market since 2000.

Frist might want to look into T-Bills.


AP Article

Those Silly WaPost Photo Editors

This ran tonight at the WaPost website -- Bush at the annual Christmas tree lighting. Is that fair? Is that right? As Steve asked, "Where's the codpiece"?

Bush Taps A Complete Nobody To Replace Former Penn sylvania Governor Tom Ridge as Secretary of Homeland Security

CNN.comis saying: "President Bush to tap former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik as next homeland security chief, administration officials say. Details soon."

No details yet, but who the hell is THIS nobody?

Banning abstinence only programs will be the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century

In The Washington Post today, they talk about some talking points of our federally funded abstinence-only programs that are currently taught in schools. Among these points are:

• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.

First of all, what the heck is a 43 day old fetus thinking? Gee, it's comfy in here. Now, this could be a debateable point and we could go on forever about it, but it is nothing compared to the mis-information in point #2:

AIDS can be spread through sweat and tears. Why is this even MENTIONED in an abstinence program? Are they trying to frighten kids from even touching each other? This is just the first step in declaring HIV positive people as modern day lepors. "Don't touch them son! You could get leoprosy AIDS!" The next step will be putting them all on an island until the scourge is cured. Doesn't anyone remember in the early 80s, the bathhouses being closed in San Francisco because people believed that AIDS was spreading through the hot water. In retrospect it was probably because of a lot of unprotected sex, but the implication was that the baths themselves were unsafe. These "facts" have gone right back to those old uninformed opinions.

Teaching our kids lies should be illegal, and teaching them these lies using federal funds should be a federal crime. I'd be mad, but I expect this under an "ends justify the means" administration.

Banned In Greece! Oh, the days of censorship.

Well, not yet.

But two Greek lawyers are viewing the film ALEXANDER to see if the main character is portrayed as gay.

And if it looks like Alexander is portrayed as having had sex with men -- something which the lawyers say there is no official document saying ever happened, mind you -- they will sue to keep ALEXANDER off of Greece's screens.

All 80 of them.

Really. 80 screens.

And, apparently, the Lawyers have never heard of DVDs or BitTorrent. Proverbial pissing in the wind.

Remember when we used to worry about censorship? Now we just worry about stupidity trying to enforce censorship with draconian and ultimately fruitless laws.

What Is A Dictionary Useful For when the Most Looked-up word isn't in it?

Dictionaries are points of language contention. New inclusion of a word can be seen as conferring legitimacy. Those who advocate a dead language bristle at this -- stick to what we have! they say. Others see dictionaries as reflections of usage --- our langauge as we use it. Oh, and the former are wrong, the latter are right.

But what does it mean when the most looked-up word in the Merriam-Webster's online dictionary this year isn't even in it? Look-up frequency probably follows something like a Laffer-curve for tax policy. A word which is never used is never looked up; increasing usage means an increasing number of look-ups, until the point where the word is so common, everyeone knows it and, again, it is never looked up (does anyone question what the meaning of "is" is?).

But now, thanks to the web, we have a whole new class of words -- ones which reach near universal usage immediately, and when that happens, everyone at once needs to know what the word means.

So, the year's most looked-up word, which wasn't even in Webster's?

Blog.

Making Movies is REALLY Expensive 2: The $200M Movie

Further to Derek's relating of the 3-day set-up for a 20 second-shot in the coming Shaggy Dog picture, I have my own recollection of how big movies get to be really expensive.

In a previous incarnation, I dated an independent producer. "Independent" in Hollywood parlance means she didn't have a 3-picture deal with a studio with a $4B market capitalization. The movie she produced was a huge $120M budget thing, starring one $20M star, directed by an A-list director, and had an ensemble cast of no less than 3 already well known actors, plus 2 new hot-faces of the year, and the up-and coming beauty love interest. The movie was shot largely in Hawaii which ain't cheap, but movie people love to work in because -- hey, it's Hawaii. It's kind of like the Keck Telescopes for us astronomers -- also in Hawaii -- it's where you can do your best work, because the facilities are the best and, hey, beaches on the off-hours.

Anyway, after that was all done, I was going to spoken-word nights round LA (mostly the ones hosted by Rachel Kahn ( website ) and I took the opportunity of an open-mic public confessional to express my regrets for done-done relationship. We all move on, but I still like the rhythms from rattling it off.

Comeback
June 2002

I want to die and come back
as a two hundred million dollar movie
Variety-headlined high-five payday
for the freshman team
three-studio deal sharing radioactive risk

to die and come back as a
two hundred million dollar
Woo/Lucas/Raimi/Spielberg film-by
twelve month pre-production, two hundred-day shoot

to die and come back
as a two hundred million dollar
inspired by true events
history never happened
story never told

my sets
bursting with producers
black as absence
my sets bursting with producers assistant
bursting with producers executive
producers associate
producers co-
four Titan producers vanilla plain
and a lonely line, loved by all

a two hundred million dollar
triple trailer double lear-jet stars
production companies that would bankrupt MGM I say
not far these days you say but wait a minute.

two hundred million dollar movie of
locations, locations and locations
Truola Valley Hawaii
Tunisia
New Zealand
Bali St. Basil’s Boise Burundi Big-Ben Bilbao Burbank Soundstage
locations
and a third team shooting three weeks in Columbian civil conflict
two P.A.’s dead.

two hundred million dollar movie of
kraft services with
four meat lunches
roving ice frappuccino
five AM egg-white omelet
thousand dollar daily budget of
Red Bull and Krispy Crème

Two hundred million dollar movie of
gasoline explosions brighter than a billion suns
phosphorus glinting fountains of
twenty million dollar stars tumbling off the tops of skyscrapers
faces disfigured
bubbling skin ripped like cloth from broken fibrous ribs and
beauty violated, beauty lost, beauty stripped like an ashen tarp
balletic violence, gorgeous violence, ultra-violence, anti-violence
p-PG-13 stripped from the folded arms of
Jack Valenti

Two hundred million dollar movie
ruins the Hollywood marriage ignored
the forty-five hundred crew members
all libidinous sweaty, muddy excitement
every night on days
every day on nights
and twice daily on set.

The pre-release buzz
the NPR history on the history of histories
and E!
Discovery Channel, People and Time
covers on the
history of histories.
She, on Madamoiselle
He, a quarterly for gentlemen
Television final week advertising saturation
Ice-cream cross promotion

release

promoted on the profits of
Your Whitest Teeth Tonight of
neck tendons swaddled in three percent body fat of
the newest star on the walk of fame of
Congressional Medals for wartime valor of
That Hollywood/White House screening of
that Hollywood marriage ignored re-fired like phoenix in victory of
that Hollywood marriage ignored exploded by
your whitest teeth tonight by
three percent body fat by
sweaty, muddy days and nights.

And a line, four months long, of 15-year-old cheerleaders
high pitched screeching in the blackest background
of the ten-o’clock live news broadcast.

Two hundred million dollar movie with
digital projection and fifteen thousand screens distribution domestic and

Oh! A one hundred and fifty million dollar opening
with five percent drop off,
legs stretched luxuriously from April to August,
teenagers sprinting into seats,
and seven months along, blue-hairs waddling into matinees, antiquarian
finding an audience hungry for fiction
all because they want to believe
eyes roiling in breathless titilation
true events.

Microsoft Innovates Again

Microsoft has entered the blog-hosting space.

Their big innovation, by comparison to the original Blogger? They've added the capability to host your pictures and music as well. See - it's like a total web home for the average user. So easy to use it will really "bring blogging to the masses". And it's going to drive tons of traffic and subscriptions for their MSN network of sites.

It's utterly amazing. The largest market cap of any company in world history, and they're pursuing ideas that would have been, like, pretty cool and advanced... for 1999... in late 2004.

Throw Novak in Jail

Eugene Volokh of the Volokh conspiracy agrees with Bob - throw Novak in jail.

Any journalists' privilege must extend to bloggers, but you can't give everyone with broadband access a get-out-of-jail-free card. So instead, condition the privilege on the nature of the leak. If the leak makes the journalist an accessory to a crime, then poof! No privilege.

From his NYT Op-Ed today.