Nobody But Us Chickens

News of the investigation into classified documents and former National Security advisor Sandy Berger became big news in recent weeks when the existence of a seven month inquiry was leaked to the press. It seemed awfully fishy to have this happen on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, but I might be paranoid.

On the flip side, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama has been under investigation by the Jutice Department for two years concerning a confirmed leak of several classified documents directly to the press. The Justice Department finally chose not to pusue the matter, instead turning it over the Senate Ethics Committee. This is akin to charging the fox to investigate missing chickens in the hen house.

The hue and cry over Berger's investigation has been very loud, though the documents in question were never leaked to the press or anyone else for that matter. The usual wingnut howlers have managed to miss the story on Republican Shelby, even in the face of a deliberate leak of classified information.

Washington Post has the most detailed story on Shelby.

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.

Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby's committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Cameron did not air the material. Moments after Shelby spoke with Cameron, he met with CNN reporter Dana Bash, and about half an hour after that, CNN broadcast the material, the sources said. CNN cited "two congressional sources" in its report.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office pursued the case, and a grand jury was empaneled, but nobody has been charged with any crime. Last month it was revealed that the Justice Department had decided to forgo a criminal prosecution, at least for now, and turned the matter over to the Senate Ethics Committee.

The Justice Department declined to comment on why it was no longer pursuing the matter criminally. The Senate ethics panel also declined to comment on its investigation.

Another take on it from The Register.

Where's the cash?

No joke, and no surprise. Remember all of that oil money that was supposed to appear and foot the cost of the Iraqi reconstruction? Remember how the majority of it was to be handed out to Iraqi companies participating in the rebuilding of their own country?

Well well well, turns out $1.9 billion of $2.26 billion went to American firms, with little or no oversight. The CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) administered the money and the awarding of contracts, and broke it's own rules multiple times during the contracting process. Guess who the major recipient was?

Tell me if this refrain sounds all too familiar:

Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., a subsidiary of Halliburton, was paid $1.66 billion from the Iraqi money, primarily to cover the cost of importing fuel from Kuwait. The job was tacked on to a no-bid contract that was the subject of several investigations after allegations surfaced that a subcontractor for Houston-based KBR overcharged by as much as $61 million for the fuel.

The really sad part of this is the flight of cash out of the country. Oil revenues were intended to help build what had been destroyed, including a new economy. Taking huge sums of money generated by the processing and sale of Iraqi oil and moving it out of the country damages its nascent economy.

Full story is here, and though registration is required, it's worth it. The Post has been out in front on a number of these and similar stories.

Oranxiety

Unwittingly, I've fallen into fashion. I'm one for muted colors and comfortable fabrics, jeans and slip on Land's End shoes (only 24 smackeroos), a watch and wedidng ring as jewelry. I am vaguely aware of what is or isn't fashionable at any given time, but would fail even the easiest quiz.

So imagine my utter surprise when the lovely header color I chose for my modest rant page turned out to match the Homefries Security Department's choice of Fear Color for this week! It's a cross between blood red and toxic yellow, and approximates orange, though slightly on the dark side. Unfortunately, I remain only a fashionista wannabe, as the new hue doesn't apply to far off Oklahoma. No great loss; the locals would have been howling for a return to good ole Sooner Red.

Reading the newspapers has further disabused me of the fleeting notion that I matched the seaons' coteur, for it turns out to be over three years old. My disappointment knows no bounds. For a brief, glorious moment, I was on the catwalk, preening in my fonts and logo. Alas!

Reagan Redux, Part 97.

As I have developed some weird obsession with Ron Reagan and his politcal coming out party, I offer this link to an article young Ron has written about the Bush administration.

The Case Against George W. Bush

Bush apologists can smilingly excuse his malopropisms and vagueness as the plainspokenness of a man of action, but watching Bush flounder when attempting to communicate extemporaneously, one is left with the impression that he is ineloquent not because he can't speak but because he doesn't bother to think.

Thanks to my brother in law for the heads up.

A Teresa Heinz Kerry sighting:

From the Washington Post:

A week ago she told a writer from a Pittsburgh newspaper to "shove it," and on Monday night the never-bashful Teresa Heinz Kerry offered up another attention-getting line, saying four more years of the Bush presidency would be "hell" for the country.

Heinz Kerry was introducing her husband, John F. Kerry, at a huge outdoor rally here when a group of Bush supporters, armed with a megaphone, started chanting from a distance, "Four more years! Four more years!" Without hesitating, Heinz Kerry responded, "They want four more years of hell."

The candidate threw back his head with a laugh, and the partisan, pro-Kerry crowd roared its approval, chanting, "Three more months, three more months," with Heinz Kerry joining in. When it was his turn to speak, Kerry said of his wife, "She speaks her mind, and she speaks the truth -- and she's pretty quick on her feet, too."

The Perils Of Deconstruction

Michael Moore is a real pain in the ass. The more I see and hear him in interviews on TV, the more irritated I become. The same things come out of his mouth in that reedy voice and flat Michigan twang, just a step away from a Dakota y'betcha. I find the man himself nearly insufferable.

He is a very good film maker, however, talented and witty. He has a loving eye for the absurdities to be unearthed beneath the most ordinary, everyday events. Things we often take for granted, he turns upside down.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is such a film; sharp, funny, terrifiying, and maddening all at once. It uses facts to draw conclusions, some of them stretched perhaps a little thin, but logically extended from the basis he sets out. I found little confusion apparent between stated facts and his own conclusions or suggestions, but I also encountered very few surprises either. Much of what can be found in the film had already been written about extensively in the more left press, some of it long before Moore thought to make this movie.

I also find amusing the incredible lengths the conservative right will go to attempt to utterly discredit Moore and his film. Before the movie was even released, the two main stories about it were:

1. Disney dropped distribution of the film because they felt it was too political or not a money maker. Take your pick, both appeared in the press.

2. Conservative commentators who had not seen the film began a campaign to discredit the film on the facts...even though they hadn't seen the film. Scott McLellan, White House Press Secretary railed against the film in the White House press room, until one reporter, throwing off his sheepskin, asked McLellan directly if he had seen the movie.

Answer?

"No."

And so on. By the time the film was released into theaters, anti-Moore projects had sprung up all over the Internet, and word was there was a film to be made entitled "Michael Moore Hates America." A stupid idea, but I don't doubt it will come to pass. More infuriating are the "factual detractors" who claim to have completely deconstructed the film and listed out, in neutral observational fashion, factual errors made in the movie.

One such site can be found here.

The author of the site seems to go out of his way to declare his neutrality, claiming only to deal with what he terms "facts." I read through about half the site, then skipped about, finding plenty of editorial comments about both Moore and the film, but little factual deconstruction.

We can divide the film into three major parts. The first part (Bush, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan) is so permeated with lies that most of the scenes amount to lies. The second, shortest part involves domestic issues and the USA PATRIOT Act. So far, I've identified only one clear falsehood in this segment (Rep. Porter Goss's toll-free number). So this part, at least arguably, presents useful information. The third part, on Iraq, has several outright falsehoods--such as the Saddam regime's murder of Americans, and the regime's connection with al Qaeda. Other scenes in the third part--such as Iraqi casualties, interviews with American soldiers, and the material on bereaved mother Lila Lipscomb--are not blatant lies; but the information presented is so extremely one-sided (the only Iraqi casualties are innocents, nobody in Iraq is grateful for liberation, all the American soldiers are disillusioned, except for the sadists) that the overall picture of the Iraq War is false.

Note the editorial content right off the bat. The part of the film dealing with Afghanistan is "so permeated with lies that most of the scenes amount to lies."

Next, we have the most telling of all statements: "The third part, on Iraq, has several outright falsehoods--such as the Saddam regime's murder of Americans, and the regime's connection with al Qaeda."

The author asserts here that Moore is lying about the link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Since Moore has pointed out, correctly, that there is no established l;ink between the two, our intrepid deconstructionist is implying, quite plainly, such a relationship existed. So far, our truth teller is lying through his html teeth.

There is more, much more, including a condemnation of Moore for not supporting the war, and for completely lying about the conduct of the war, casting it in a light not favored by the administration. Further, his sources are to be doubted. Two of the main references are Christopher Hitchens and Michael Isikoff. The former was once a thorn in the side of the right who went along with the Bush lies about Iraq because he hated Saddam Hussein and has been a champiopn of the opressed Kurdish people. A fine motivation for going to war, but listening to him gleefully extoll the virtues of lying to get the job done is nauseating. Note that I was once a great admirer of Hitchens, back when he told devastating truths about politicians and politics, regardless of the party.

Isikoff is a special case. He gained reknown for writing article after article about the Clinton Whitewater affair, wherein it is alleged not only that Bill and Hillary made scads of money but that they may have murdered someone(s) in the process. Isikoff relished centering his reports around Drudgian "facts" and other rumors, long after the Clintons had been exonerated of any wrong doing. He, like Hitchens, is cited over and over. Unlike Hitchens, an editorial writer, Issikoff is supposed to be a reporter. He is anything but.

Next up is the Washington Times, a proudly conservative rag; Media Research Center, Weekly Standard, and the author's own employer, William F. Buckley's prize child, The National Review Online (online version of the print mag). Amazing how a man who writes for a very conservative magazine and cites plenty of sources whose adherence to truth is questionable can declare he has pointed out factual innaccuracies in Moore's film. He further misconstrues other sources, and leaves out important parts to bolster his case.

Now this, under the heading "Deceit 59," the last one on the endless page:

Do the many falsehoods and misrepresentations of Fahrenheit 9/11 suggest a film producer who just makes careless mistakes? Or does a man who calls Americans "possibly the dumbest people on the planet" believe that his audience will be too dumb to tell when he is tricking them? Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether the extremist and extremely deceptive Fahrenheit 9/11 is a conscientious work of patriotic dissent, or the cynical propaganda of a man who gives wartime aid to America?s murderous enemies, and who accepts their aid in return.

This can only be interpreted as an opinion on Moore's patriotism, not as a matter of lying or deceit. And bear in mind that sentence follows several paragrphs of ranting about how Moore gives aid and comfort to terrorists. Ludicrous. This man, Dave Kopel, has set out to disguise his own agenda against Moore and Farenheit 9/11 beneath a thin veneer of so-called "research" into the accuracy of facts presented in the film. I'd almost believe he did it in good faith but for the poor sources he employs, and this Ann Coulterish gem:

His latest book, Dude, Where's My Country, is dedicated to the memory of Rachel Corrie, an American who traveled to Israel, burned an American flag for some Palestinian children, and served as an activist for a terrorist support group called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM which is run by the Palestinian Communist Party and which advocates the extermination of the state of Israel. She died trying to prevent an Israeli bulldozer from removing some shrubbery which was thought to cover tunnels used by terrorist bombers to enter Israel. Thus Moore dedicated his book to someone who deliberately sought to assist the terrorist murder of civilians in Israel.

Anyone who knows anything at all about Rachel Corrie will be horrified by this defamation of the dead. Corrie was a young peace activist who put her beliefs to the test, travelling to the occupied territories to put her body between the Israeli Army and Palestinian homes slated for destruction in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza strip. She was killed by a bulldozer, but not as Kopel alleges, 'preventing the removal of shrubbery, thought to hide tunnels used by terrorist bombers.' Corrie was young and perhaps foolish, but brave enough to put herself on the line, and she paid with her life. The identifiable Israeli soldier reponsible for her death has not been charged. Slandering her to smear Moore is beyond disgusting, especially using a story created by the Israeli Army to defuse the killing of an American citizen.

I've left the links Kopel uses intact, to display his sources; - one his own article; one an article tying the ISM with the communist party that has since been heavily edited and corrected (the sfgate link); and four of them from a rag run by David Horowitz, infamous darling intellectual of the far right. Horowitz is an ardent supporter of Israel and the extreme viewpoint painting all Palestinians as terrorists and collaborators. If Kopel were to check this story out more carefully, instead of relying on the slanderous statements of a right wingnut author, he might discover at least a few truths, sorrowfully lacking in his screed.

Those sorts of wild "facts" make it impossible to tell where, if anywhere, Kopel tells the truth. That is too bad, because it is very possible Moore fudged in some places, though the line between fact and supposition or conclusion can be hard to pin down. Kopel does nothing but further muddy the waters... or is that his very intent?

Ok, so I've figured a way to repost everything from the other site, one post at a time, but at least they will appear in proper order.

They will appear in reverse order, newest to oldest, with the proper day/date headers.

I know little about HTML, and my head hurts. :)

Welcome back, everybody, all four or five of you. :)

I've revived this online journal (yes, I have it parked at a site that has *blog* in its name, but I was sick of the term a long time ago) mainly to gain attention. My old site, maintained irregularly and hosted on my personal space at cox.com is difficult to update, and has limited linking capabilites.

I thought about dragging all of those posts over here, but it would be a mighty mess - no way that I can see to create archives with them, so I'll leave it be.

To read the posts there (mainly between February and the end of July, 2004) click here.

I promise to be diligent in my ranting, lest any of you feel I'm backsliding.

All of my fabulous links will be making the move as well, it'll just take a little longer, 'cause I'm lazy.

Doh!

Notes on the Democratic Convention:

Day Two

Ann Coulter is crazy.

USA Today, in lockstep with most major media today, felt compelled to respond to the never ending drumbeat of right wingnuts to "include" more conservative voices in tv and newspapers by hiring Ann Coulter to write a humorous column from the convention. There are plenty of conservative writers who possess at least a passing relationship to reality, never mind the truth. The dominatrix of wingnut-ism is not one of them. Coulter made some shocking remarks in a column after 9/11 suggesting "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Later, she produced this gem, probably my favorite: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

Her inaugural column was killed when ediitors found it had "basic weaknesses in clarity and readability that we found unacceptable." Coulter ran to Faux News to spin a story about conservative voices being stifled, blah blah blah. Her main complaint is that the editors were incapable of understanding her brand of humor. I've read a number of her columns, and seen her on television enough to tell you she is as funny as a steel bar jammed up the ass.

USA Today ought to be bitch slapped for being stupid enough to think they could hire someone as batshit crazy as Coulter and get something resembling usable journalism in return. This ranks right up there with ESPN hiring Rush Limbaugh expecting sophisticated football analysis.

Notes on theDemocratic Convention:

Day Two

From Barak Obama's exceptional speech on Tuesday night:

Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

Read the entire speech.

Well worth it.

Notes on theDemocratic Convention:

Day one, con't.

What's up with Ron Reagan?

The son of the late president Ronald Reagan, and his namesake, has popped up publicly in a big way over the last few weeks. He gave the eulogy at his father's funeral, then began appearing on the CableSpews channels advocating stem cell research. Careful always to declare himself neither a Republican nor a Democrat, he is nevertheless going to speak at the Convention on the stem cell research issue, one that the Republicans oppose.

Shortly thereafter, Ron was signed up by MSNBC as a political analyst. Smart move, keeping any political affiliation out of the public eye.

Then the convention started, and things have gotten very interesting. Not only is Reagan willing to speak counter to conventional wisdom, he conducted an interview with Michael Moore that was the best I've ever seen with Moore. More on that in a minute. Following the opening night's speeches, Reagan was on one of those goofy panels with the likes of Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, and Howard Fineman, a very sorry excuse for a journalist. (Read: pandering sycophant).

The subject was Al Gore's opening speech, where he made a few joking references to the 2000 campaign, but also sounded the serious theme that would be repeated all night: Every vote counts, and every vote must be counted.

Reagan, asked if the 2000 election was still a big issue with Democrats responded, essentially, "Of course. At the time they felt the election had been stolen, and now they know that Al Gore actually won Florida, " I'm paraphrasing here, but those comments launched a barrage of "how do you know that" and "it is still in dispute, depending on who you talk to" and whatnot. Reagan stuck to his guns, citing a report put together by a consortium of newspapers, who went back and actually counted every last vote. Gore took Florida in the only full recount that has ever been done. Major newspapers like the Washington Post ran the story under nebulous headlines suggesting that the recount proved Bush the winner, though the opposite was to be found if one bothered to read deep into the story, somewhere on page A39.

The Michael Moore interview was conducted very casually, the two standing up in a room or hotel lobby - hard to tell. It was fairly long, and to MSNBC's credit they ran the entire thing in two long segments. Reagan kidded Moore about the success of Fahrenheit 9/11, and laughed at many of Moore's responses. In fact, he laughed with Moore about many of the things both of them were saying about the upcoming election, the film, politics generally. I got the distinct impression Reagan lost the distance an interviewer should have with his subject very early on.

It is true that Ron Reagan has been quoted at least once saying the Republican party today, captured by the neocons and religious fundies, is not the Republican party of his father. I mostly disagree, as much of what they do today was originally implemented under the Reagan administration, and the philosophy isn't that much different today, just more virulent. I'll grant Ron Reagan an out on this, chalking it up to nostalgia, to the fact that no one likes to think ill of their parent, especially one recently deceased.

But somehow it seems Ron Reagan is a free man now, free to speak on any political subject, and so far, he seems to have an affinity for the truth. Let's see how long he can last.

A further word about the former president's son turned advocate.

His speech was well done, explaining in simple terms the underpinnings of embryonic stem cell research, citing examples that made the concept easy to follow. Reagan framed the debate as one between science and progress on the one side, and superstition and fear on the other. There is no doubt whom he believes are on which side:

Now, there are those who would stand in the way of this remarkable future, who would deny the federal funding so crucial to basic research. They argue that interfering with the development of even the earliest stage embryo, even one that will never be implanted in a womb and will never develop into an actual fetus, is tantamount to murder. A few of these folks, needless to say, are just grinding a political axe and they should be ashamed of themselves. But many are well-meaning and sincere. Their belief is just that, an article of faith, and they are entitled to it.

He goes on to say:

But it does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many. And how can we affirm life if we abandon those whose own lives are so desperately at risk?

And finally:

In a few months, we will face a choice. Yes, between two candidates and two parties, but more than that. We have a chance to take a giant stride forward for the good of all humanity. We can choose between the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology. This is our moment, and we must not falter.

Whatever else you do come November 2nd, I urge you, please, cast a vote for embryonic stem cell research. Thank you for your time.

Full funding for embryionic stem cell research is part of the Kerry/Edwards platform. There can be little doubt which way the son of the godfather of modern conservatism is going to vote.

Later, interviewed by Tom Brokaw, he referred to a well known "conservative commentator's" remarks on the subject as "right wing bloviating.."

Notes on the Democratic Convention:

Opening day in Boston for the democrats went exactly as planned.

Al Gore was the first major speaker, reminding the faithful they were robbed of the presidency in 2000, a fact that honest people no longer dispute. The rest do to cover the greatest political theft in American history. He was self-deprecating, humorous, and more restrained then he has been over the past year, during which he gave several incendiary speeches crucifying The Shrub and his criminal cabinet for their behavior over the Iraq war.

He was followed by former president Jimmy Carter, a man known more for his activities since leaving the White House than for his achievements while occupying it. 80 years old and still soft spoken, he squinted into the lights, smiled, and dropped the hammer on the president's foreign policy. Words like "extremism" slipped over his lips with ease in his gentle southern accent as he laid out the point by point indictment against the war in Iraq and its wider implications. He lauded Senator Kerry for his service in Vietnam, going as far as to say that when called, at least Kerry reported for duty.

The audience for Carter was fairly quiet, possibly due to the oddity of the "aw shucks," smiling Carter using such hard language in a speech.

He was later followed by Hillary Clinton, a woman much loved or hated in this country, and there is no in between. Many of the party faithful wish she would run for president and it may be possible that in the future she will. I'd put a hefty wager against it, given the experience she had the first time around. She spoke of 9/11, primarily, then whipped the hall into a frenzy introducing her husband, the former president, Bill Clinton.

Arguably the greatest political speaker of the modern age, Clinton's arrival on stage was greeted with both a standing ovation and a deafening roar. Understanding his role as the one to lay out the sharp policy differences between Kerry and Shrub, he cut the ovation short, and got on with his speech.

Half scripted, half extemporaneous (as most Clinton speeches are), the acknowledged leader of the current Democratic Party spoke easily of the goals of the Republicans and his own party. As always, he managed to make specific points of policy sound like everyday conversation, a skill no other politician possesses, and an eerie one to witness. He divided his speech into several parts, each one coming together around a repeated phrase, in the best tradition of an old time southern minister. He even made reference to his own lack of military service, and that of Shrub's, in order to highlight the extraordinary fact of Kerry's own service, that of a two time volunteer from a privileged background. The contrast could not be sharper.

Clinton closed his speech exhorting the crowd, and those watching on television, to send Kerry to the White House. For a man whose disastrous personal life became a matter of public untruthfulness, he has an awesome facility to speak it in public, in a manner no other politician in the post war era has demonstrated.

I'll be honest: I'm no fan of John Kerry. I will vote for him because the alternative is four more years of deepening American empire, based on fascist premises that sane people should reject. It is a sorry state of affairs when the motivation to vote for someone is actually a vote against another. Kerry was on the wrong side of this war until too late, and it will be the issue that nags him all the way through this campaign, as it should. I can only hope he exhibits more political courage in both the foreign and domestic spheres should he be elected president.

Moment Of Honesty Amidst The Hype:

Following a harrowing address by a Muslim woman who lost two members of her family on 9/11, a 16 year old kid got up with a violin and completely silenced the hall with a nuanced, mournful rendition of Amazing Grace.

President The Donald?

As quoted from Salon:

Donald Trump on how he'd make a much better president than Bush, who he says has made a "mess" in Iraq and elsewhere: "[If I were president, Osama Bin Laden] would have been caught long ago ... Tell me, how is it possible that we can't find a guy who's 6-foot-6 and supposedly needs a dialysis machine? Can you explain that one to me? We have all our energies focused on one place -- where they shouldn't be focused."


Further Down The Rabbit Hole...

It isn't nice to be right all the time...

But my prediction that the Iraq war's weapons of mass destruction's failure to appear would be blamed upon the CIA and other intelligence agencies has come true today. The Senate Intelligence Committee released "phase 1" of an alleged two part report investigating the origin of intelligence used by the Shrubberies to perpetrate an illegal war on wildly false assumptions. The report cites all manner of failures attributable to the CIA, by implication exonerating the White House and most of the cabinet from lying through their teeth about the whole thing.

True to form, wimpy ass Democrats on the committee agreed to delay until after the November election "phase two," an examination of Shrub's role in the use of said intelligence to make patently false claims about the weapons that existed or were likely to exist in Iraq.

"The intelligence community's assessments of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's possession of prohibited weapons not only turned out to be "wrong" in hindsight, but they were "also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence" in the first place, said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the committee chairman, in summarizing the report." - Washington Post

"On one of the signal debates of the 2004 presidential campaign -- whether President Bush hyped intelligence to lead the nation into an unnecessary war against Iraq -- the Republicans may have already won an important battle. On Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee issues its much-anticipated report excoriating the nation's spy agencies for their dire -- and wrong -- conclusions about Iraq's weapons capabilities. The report shifts blame from the White House to beleaguered CIA Director George Tenet, whose resignation takes effect on Sunday." - Salon.com

To anyone who understands how fig-leafing works in Washington, none of this comes as a surprise. It fits right in with another favorite ploy, the "rogue elements" of the CIA whenever a covert operation goes wrong (is discovered to exist). In this case, an overt operation on the part of the administration to fabricate grounds for a war they were determined to engage since their first day in office.

Unfortunately, the disgrace masquerading as a free press has given them a complete pass, and now, so has the Senate.

Goldilocks

Who says John Kerry lacks a sense of humor? Speaking about himself and John Edwards as the Democratic ticket:

"We've got better vision, better ideas, real plans. We've got a better sense of what's happening to America -- and we've got better hair."


Pimping for Shrub

Another Republican surrenders his integrity.

Read this piece by Joe Conason in Salon. Well worth the day pass ad.

One mouth, two lies

Said by Republicans on the same day:

"Credible reporting now indicates that al Qa’ida is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process." - Tom Ridge, Homeland Security

"[T]here’s, obviously, no reason for panic, or paralysis.” - Senate Majority leader Bill Frist.

So take heart fans, nothing to worry about, and make sure you remain terrified and anxious at all times. And for the fashionistas, no worries, you'll remain color coordinated, because even though the terrorists have new plans to destroy us, the threat color palette remains unchanged.

Banana Republic

From Salon.com:

A call for elections observers ... in the U.S.

Still smarting from the 2000 Florida ballot debacle, nine legislators in the House sent a letter to Kofi Annan today asking for U.N. election observers to monitor the November presidential election. You might think that U.N. observers -- usually spotted in countries with questionable democratic credentials -- would be a tad unnecessary in the world's oldest extant representative democracy, but considering the 2,119 voters improperly listed as potential felons, who are ineligible to vote in Florida, maybe it's not such a bad idea. And if you think your name could be wrongly listed on the Florida felon rolls, make sure you check for it here, and call your county elections supervisor or call 1-866-our-vote.

I could write a noisy screed about Independence and the state of our republic, but this serves as a fine illustration of the handbasket we are in.

Tyranny Of Small Minds

Somebody in or around my neighborhood has no life.

This is the notice planted in our front yard last Friday. I admit that we are not of the Genus Suburbus Lawnus Nazius, but we do try and keep it from being our own little African Grassland. Thing is, in Oklahoma, you have to be careful of over cutting your grass, unless you are willing to waste a lot of water to keep it green. Another option for the long stretches without rain is to let it grow a bit so it doesn't simply burn up.

So it got a little ragged after it finally rained, but if you read the text of that notice it sounds as if we presided over a yard choked by giant mutant weeds issuing noxious odors and sheltering post-radioactive rats. This is comical in a perverse sort of way, since our yard is a pathetic mixture of dry dirt, tenacious flowering weeds, and scraggly grass struggling to survive.

I was really fucking pissed off when my wife discovered the notice planted in the yard, for all the neighbors to see. I felt like we were bad people, blighting our entire block with our sorry little lawn. I couldn't help wondering who exactly decided to call the Lawn Police and plotted ways to retaliate. Since the notice allows ten days to remedy the situation, I figured we could erect a sign easily visible from the street, advising the informant how tall the grass was and how many more days we had before we absolutely, positively had to cut it.

Fortunately my wife's cool head prevailed, and I gave up my devious plans to inflict similar humiliation upon the nosy culprit. Instead, we got the damn grass cut.

Today I called the inspector who placed the red badge of nonconformity upon my meager lawn, to ask her to come out and inspect, lest we still be out of compliance. She asked which lawn was ours. It runs out she placed somewhere close to fifteen such signs for various alleged infractions in and around our neighborhood. I asked her if someone simply called in, and she said that was exactly the case.

"I call them the get-a-life people."

I almost fell on the floor laughing. Some time later today she'll be by to reinspect, lest we again give the UberLawnVolk reason to call down the dogs of grass on our heads.

Fold it!

Distributed computing isn't a new concept, but it is becoming more widely known and used as a means to apply massive processing power otherwise unavailable to specific scientific and mathematical problems. One such project, called Folding@Home, uses distributed computing to investigate how complex proteins are folded, or created. A small program is downloaded and installed, running in the background, working on a tiny portion of a project, which in turn is part of the larger endeavor.

While it does ratchet the computer's processor up to 100% usage, it retains such a low priority that it doesn't interfere with normal computing tasks. If you're a rabid gamer, you'll want to pause its work in order to squeeze every last ounce of performance from your machine in order to prevail in the latest death match. Points are assigned to each work unit based on how complicated it is andf how loing it will take to complete.

Folding@Home is also a friendly competition, with multiple users joining teams to combine their processors and Work Units into one score. Keeps it interesting, granting bragging rights to those who can fold the most. I've only managed to rope two people into a team, but I'm working on a few others. :)

Lenin And The Airtight Coffin

Reaganolotry now ended, we can move on to more current matters.

Well, we can, once I have my say about it.

I don't miss him. Nor do I feel an obligation to engage in compulsory "respect" for his passing. Reagan was a bastard, a liar, and a war criminal. The Republican slow motion coup still in progress was begun during his administration, which eviscerated labor unions, worker protections, and kicked the long simmering class war in this country into high gear.

The Republican leadership in Congress and the White House, most of whom served under Reagan, engineered a Soviet-style event of "national mourning" replete with the body lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. It was sickening, just another method to enshrine Reagan as some sort of American saint.

Just ask this simple question: In the current political atmosphere, had Bill Clinton died, would his body lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

Nope. Bet your life on it.

Faux Outrage

Please spare me before I puke on my brand new shoes.

Hands in the air, expressions of surprise - "Who? Us? Couldn't be us, we don't do things like that."

I'm as disgusted as any one could and should be by the nasty pictures of grinning soldiers and tortured prisoners that have flooded television screens and the Internet. I am also not in the least surprised, and neither should you be.

Our military, government, and intelligence services have excelled at the extraction of information from unwilling subjects through the use of intimidation, humiliation, mental and physical abuse, threat of death, and just plain death. We've practiced these arts all over the world over the past 60 years in service of our expanding empire. I could list a bunch of countries where we've employed these tactics, but that is a matter of history - go read a book.

More importantly are the consequences of these acts, and the further consequences of the publicity surrounding these specific cases.

The former is something the rest of the world either knew or suspected, which is why liberating Armies sporting American flag patches are often seen not as liberators but as killers, oppressors. We the citizenry, believing every instinct we have to be a good one, fail to recognize how our military adventures are percieved by others.

In the latter case, our leaders are very disappointed - that those pictures ever came to light. "A few rogue soldiers" we are told. Those old enough to remember will recognize that phrase from the glory days of the CIA, when an operation that went horrifically wrong (as in, became public) would be blamed on "rogue agents."

Watching this play out has been highly educational, and not a little bit entertaining. We have Rush limbaugh equating the entire episode to a fraternity prank. While it is true that fraternity pranks have resulted in severe injury and death, that was not their intention.

Tonight, the Reident-In-Thief will once again appropriate the nation's airwaves to explain his policy in Iraq, as if therre is anything left to explain in the face of indiscriminate torture and murder. Remember that wedding celebration bombed by US warplanes? The one that the head of our armed forces in Iraq said was not a wedding celebration, but a terrorist conclave? That there were only weapons found, but no food or any evidence a wedding had taken place?

Now there is a videotape of the event. A video shot by a man killed in the raid. Scenes in the video, which show the celebration following a wedding ceremony, match those of the location where the bombing took place.

More importantly, faces in the video match those on the bodies in the morgue.

Indictments are in order, all the way to the top.

Repeat after me:

It's abuse, not torture.

This from Donald Rumsfeld, the man who chose to parse language over whether or not the fighting in Iraq could be considered "guerilla warfare" or not. A reporter reading from the Defense Department's own glossary called him out on that one.

Then came the word "insurgency." He denied it was appropriate until the fighting became more fierce, more like actual warfare than mere insurgency. At that moment, "insurgency" became the term of the moment.

Abuse, not torture.

Put Iraqi military uniforms on those doing the humiliating, plant American faces on those naked forms lying in heaps on the concrete floor, and ask me again whether this is mere "abuse." Remind me why the killing of four Americans and the mutilation of their bodies is any worse than the humiliation, berating and physical torutre of Iraqi prisoners, some of whom died, is any different?

From the beginning of this War On Terror and the sideline Pre-emptive War On Iraq the US government, particularly in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, has gone out of its way to repudiate international law and jurisdiction in any matter involving the United States. We could fight wars unprovoked, take prisoners and hold them for years without charge and without representation, and even brand our own citizens as "enemy combatants," and lock them up, incommunicado, indefinitely.

Rumsfeld made light of the Geneva Convention, which protects our own troops in the event of capture, and allows prosecution, for war crimes, by those who fail to follow its strict rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war. The US has established a worldwide network of extra-judicial prisons, beyond the rule of American and international law. The only comparison that comes immeidately to mind is the old Soviet gulag, where people went to disappear or be murdered.

This sums up proper handling of prisoners:

Prisoners of war must be humanely treated at all times. Any unlawful act which causes death or seriously endangers the health of a prisoner of war is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. In particular, prisoners must not be subject to physical mutilation>, biological experiments, violence, intimidation, insults, and public curiosity. (Convention III, Art. 13).

The United States has participated in some of the most egregious tactics of interrogation and terror during our adventures in Guatemala and other places, where US officials, military and civilian not only engaged in such practices, but taught others how to emulate them.

The ugly truth in all of this is thet United States has, and is engaging in unambiguous war crimes. Donald Rumsefeld, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush are all responsible and should be indicted and prosecuted.

Good to be back.

The Seizure Jig has gotten the better of me lately.

So I've been fixing other people's computers and buying computers for other folks. Not sure how I wound up doing so, but it has been both rewarding and immensely frustrating at one and the same time. One I did for a friend of ours was well worth any trouble - they're good folks who run their own business and have two little ones. Buying a new computer was not really high on the spending priority list, so they asked me to look at it, and I told them I could make it run in stable fashion by wiping it clean and installing Win2000pro. Endless pop ups, redirects, and freezes were plaguing this thing, making it unusable.

It worked, at least at my place while undergoing testing - I don't know if they have set it up yet.

A computer at my wife's workplace needed replacing and they had gotten some quotes in the $600-$700 range, high for what they need to do. The box being replaced was an overbuilt monster IBM P-III 400mHz which weighed an even ton. I surfed on over to MWave.com, where computer parts abound, and they'll build and test it the way you like it served. I configured and bought my own machine from them, and they did an excellent job. This was a fun task - assembling a computer on someone else's dime and knowing it would be a solid, reliable box for years to come.

Also at her workplace is an HP Pavilion 6630, an all-in-one discount special, based on an Intel Celeron 500mHz processor, and everything else planted on the motherboard. Unfortunately, that old adage about getting what you paid for applies to this pathetic little wimpy ass computer. Slow, slow, slow, and now it appears the on board graphics are failing. It is alleged that using an old PCI video card will interrupt the on board graphics system, replacing it.

Uh, yeah.

I did pretty much all I could, but the PC card would freeze at the startup screen even though the computer continued to boot normally. Very weird, and likely cannot be fixed without getting down to component level on the motherboard, and paying a tech to do that would buy a nice Athlon - based box.

Guess I'll be buying another computer...