Happy Halloween

Nothing's scarier than Cheney.

Teh Steve

The Independent has an article on our favorite billionaire.

Cancer? Better than encouraging sex!

The Post has picked up the cancer vaccine story. I think this is a good example of Conservative values confusion, and we should talk about it widely to trumpet their evil balancing of moral issues. From the Post:

"I've talked to some who have said, 'This is going to sabotage our abstinence message,' " said Gene Rudd, associate executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

Isn't the point of the abstinence message to keep your children safe from harm? Isn't preventing the vaccination of your child against a disease that is the leading cause of cervical cancer the opposite of protection? I'm so angered by this feeble logic. Yes, abstinence may protect your daughter until she gets married, but that's not going to do a lick of good if her husband picks up HPV somewhere before that. Immunizing all children before any are sexually active is the only way to be sure of preventing HPV.

This should be simple. Instead, the Conservative reaction leads me to believe that they're depending on the threat of disease to enforce their abstinence education initiatives, which seem rooted in ideological and not public health grounds. That, to me, is morally reprehensible.

Scalito it is

Bush has nominated Judge Samuel Alito, Jr. to replace O'Connor. Just what we need to replace the swing vote - a Scalia clone.

...liberals are likely to focus on his opinions and dissents, most notably in the 1991 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

In that case, Alito joined joined a Third Circuit panel in upholding most of a Pennsylvania law imposing numerous restrictions on women seeking abortions. The law, among other things, required physicians to advise women of the potential medical dangers of abortion and tell them of the alternatives available. It also imposed a 24-hour waiting period for abortions and barred minors from obtaining abortions without parental consent.

The panel, in that same ruling, struck down a single provision in the law requiring women to notify their husband's before they obtained an abortion. Alito dissented from that part of the decision.

Oh, good, we've got a nominee who wants women to be required to tell their husbands before getting abortions. That sounds like a guy who's going to be watching out for women's rights.

Consider me opposed to this nomination.

When did we get so stupid?

OK, check this out:

Merck earlier this month announced that its experimental HPV vaccine Gardasil was 100% effective in preventing transmission of HPV strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases.

Hot damn! Great news, right? Let's make sure the thing doesn't have any crazy side effects, and start giving it to everybody!

Only one problem. HPV is present in a huge percentage of the sexually active population, and the vaccine doesn't work, obviously, if you're already carrying the real bug. No big deal, though, at least we can protect our children, who are not yet sexually active. And that's what the drug companies are proposing - giving the vaccine to all 10 or 12 year olds. We'd reduce cervical cancer to 30 percent of its current prevalence. Another win for science.

But no. In walk the usual suspects:

Some parents and health officials object to standardized HPV vaccinations for teenagers and are concerned that children would interpret them as permission to have sex

Gaa! WTF!? Who could be so insane as to risk their own children's health in order to teach them a lesson about sexual morality? Oh. The Family Research Council. From a Knight Ridder story:

Conservative groups including the Family Research Council have already raised concerns that giving a sex-related vaccine to young people might encourage them to have early sex.

Joanne Swift, an ob-gyn doctor for Virtua-Voorhees in New Jersey, said Thursday that she had some qualms about having her own daughters, ages 9 to 13, vaccinated.

"As a mother of children in Catholic school they are very much lectured at home and at school about chastity and the benefits of that," she said.

A doctor and a mother, and she can't see the value in protecting her daughters against cancer? We have gotten dumb.

Forbes attacks blogs

Looks like corporate America is a little scared of the internet. Via Boing Boing and Slashdot, the most frightened, yellow-journalistic story I've ever read about blogs. Lets take a look.

Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo.

Sounds like a scary bunch. Wouldn't want to meet any of them.

OK, some blogs can be pretty heavy on the invective, probably this one included. But the Forbes article mostly attacks blogs as being baseless in their questioning of companies, without regard for what those companies might have done to deserve criticism. Here's a bit I liked:

No wonder companies now live in fear of blogs. "A blogger can go out and make any statement about anybody, and you can't control it. That's a difficult thing,"says Steven Down, general manager of bike lock maker Kryptonite, owned by Ingersoll-Rand and based in Canton,Mass.

Last year bloggers posted videos [here] showing how to break open a Kryptonite lock using a ballpoint pen.That much was true. But they also spread bogus information--that all Kryptonite models could be cracked with a pen; that it is the only brand with this vulnerability; and that Kryptonite knew about the problem and covered it up.None of these claims is true, but a year later Kryptonite still struggles to set the record straight, while spending millions to replace locks.

Lets take this apart a bit.

(1) Bloggers can make statements you can't control, and that's bad. OK, that kind of reasoning concerns me a lot. Good thing no one thinks it would be a good idea for the government to think more like a corporation. Oh, wait...

(2) Kryptonite is a victim of unethical bloggers, even though they produced locks that could be opened with a Bic pen. Personally, while I understand there may be some injustice in any claims that all of the companies locks are so easily opened, I find it incredibly concerning that anyone could think to blame the blogs who exposed this critical (and really funny) security breach, rather than Kryptonite itself, for the millions spent to replace the locks. Customers' property was put at risk by poor design at Kryptonite. They should have to pay for that. Simple for a consumer to see, apparently very difficult to understand by corporations and their media allies like Forbes.

(3) Oh, and Engaget seems to take a pretty specific look at the problem, naming one line of locks rather than using a vauge term like "u-locks" or something. It sure would be annoying, though, if anybody published an attack article about some incredibly varied thing that isn't precise about which of that thing it's talking about and provides no evidence.

The Forbes article goes on to attack Google as well:

Google says ad revenue isn't the point. The real aim is "to let users embrace the Web as a medium of self-expression," a spokesman says. Google lets them run wild. Yet Google edits and censors blog content all the time--to protect its own interests. The company, whose portentous corporate ethos includes the mantra "Don't be evil," snuffs out blogs that engage in "phishing" (tricking people into revealing confidential information) and "spam blogs" that skew Google's search results.

Quick lesson in what's possible, Forbes. It's easy to find and remove spam and phishing blogs, because they're engaging in activity that is mechanically recognizable and perhaps detectable, and there is no question that such blogs are spamming or phishing. Libel, on the other hand, is incredibly difficult to deal with on the scale you're suggesting that Google should, because it isn't so easy to prove whether anyone has actually lied. So please don't ask for Google to let you squelch free speech just cause you've got more lawyers than the average blogger.

But I think what's really got people pissed is the sidebar on fighting back. It's first two suggestions, monitoring the blogosphere and starting your own blog, are good and consistent with the blog community. The third, to buy your way into an army of sympathetic bloggers, seems pretty crooked, and would surely result in ridicule if anyone found out. The fourth suggestion, to smear the blogger, is nasty but within the realm of normal blog behavior. The last two methods are crazy evil, though. Forbes advises its readers to use DMCA to attack ISPs, and to sue bloggers. There's a reason that these are the most likely tactics to get your company to be public enemy number one on slashdot - they're fundamentally unfair, given the vast legal resources of a large company as compared to the indie blogger, and they threaten the structure and existence of the free internet. It is irresponsible for Forbes to suggest these methods of business to its readers. But, nothing about the whole article strikes me as particularly more responsible than the bloggers it vilifies.

Fitz transcript

Here it is. I'll read it in the morning.

Not done yet

Well, the press conference just ended, but Fitzgerald made it clear that he isn't done. He was characteristically unwilling to comment further, but there certainly was nothing in what he said to indicate that he wouldn't be seeking further indictments. No guarantee, of course, but things could get interesting. I'll find a transcript when it becomes available.

Fitzmas!

Time to deck the halls - Libby is indicted. Fa la la la la. ha ha. ha. ha.

Ok, time for jubilant celebration - an indictment for perjury is enough to sate me for now. I'll be fully satisfied when members of this administration are put behind bars for their criminal politics, but this will do for today.

Of course, the best might be yet to come. Rove, it seems, is not out of hot water yet. Do we have another Fitzmas to look forward to?

... yummy full text of indictment.

No Rove?

Well, I hope we at least get Libby.

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has one indictment in hand, according to a source close to the investigation. Officials at the courthouse plan to release that indictment and a press release from Fitzgerald about noon after he has presented it to a federal magistrate. Fitzgerald is expected to hold a press conference at 2 p.m.

Oh, to have a TV at 2... that would be nice.

Worst week yet

From the Times:

The biggest question for Mr. Bush now is what he can make of the 39 months remaining in his presidency. For this horrible week has been months - even years - in the making. The 2,000th American fatality in Iraq was just the latest daunting milestone in a war that will soon be three years old. The C.I.A. leak investigation that threatens to indict a top White House aide or two on Friday grew out of the fierce debates over the flawed intelligence that led to that war.

And Harriet E. Miers's withdrawal of her nomination to the Supreme Court is the bitter fruit of Mr. Bush's own frailty in the wake of all those storms - and Hurricane Katrina - and of his miscalculations about how her appointment would be received.

Lou Dobbs said the same thing on CNN last night - that this is the worst week of the Bush presidency. I guess that's right politically - I mean, being forced to withdraw a supreme court nominee always kinda sucks, but having to do it because people in your own party don't like her has really got to smart. Looks to me like Republicans in congress smell the blood in the water. But I'm not so sure this is a good thing.

I didn't trust Harriet Miers to turn out well. She seemed too inexperienced to be anything near predictable, and the wink and nod thing could have been true. But I really don't trust the people who opposed her nomination so vociferously to make a better choice - they want an anti-choice robot who will have no qualms about drastically changing our law by overturning Roe and Griswold.

For as bad as Bush is, there are people in congress that I prefer him to. Maybe we need to take down delay before we utterly destroy the Bush presidency, lest we loose his (even slightly) moderating effect on our political establishment.

Cats

Seems CNN has caught the Friday catblogging meme.

Oh, the anticipation

I, like many others, am waiting impatiently for Fitzmas. It's too bad Rove and Libby weren't waiting for us under the tree this morning when we woke up, but I guess that just means they get to stew longer.

Two sources said I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was shopping for a white-collar criminal lawyer amid expectations of those close to the case that he might be indicted for providing false statements or other charges.

At the same time, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove began assembling a public relations team in the event that he is indicted.

Somethings gotta happen today, right?

Too many links

Some interesting stuff that I don't have time to talk about:
Samsung phone with a 3GB HDD
NOT a children's toy
Post on the bad TV ads we all used to love
Sen. Frist, Liar
Apple tribute to Rosa Parks

Problems with Bush's base?

The fraction of Americans who believe the Bush administration acted neither unlawfully nor unethically in the CIA leak is a startlingly low 10 percent. I wonder what the numbers whould have looked like during the initial stages of Watergate. All I can say is that Fitzmas better deliver.

2000

RIP

The numbers.

Here's a chart.

Can you smell the sulfur?

The Times has a decent article on an internal Wal*Mart memo that reveals some pretty crazy stuff:

Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

... The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive.

... Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.

... Ms. Chambers proposed that employees pay more for their spouses' health insurance. She called for cutting 401(k) contributions to 3 percent of wages from 4 percent and cutting company-paid life insurance policies to $12,000 from the current level, equal to an employee's annual earnings.

So that's all pretty bad, if you ask me. Doesn't sound like a place watching out for the best interests of its employees. After all, the average, full time Wal*Mart employee only makes $17,500 a year. When you're paid that poorly, you're not about to buy your own health insurance. And that's for full time.

Ascendance of the Miers Sucks meme

Barry Ritholtz, a Wall Street market strategist, to CNN, on Bush's nomination of a new Federal Reserve Chairman:

"This is much more John Roberts than Harriet Miers"

Seems everybody knows Miers was a mistake. It's interesting to watch the Bush administration look foolish again - I almost remember the good old days of early 2001.

Pants on fire

Sen. Frist:

"So as far as I know, I own no HCA stock."

Washington Post today:

Since 2001, the trustees have written to Frist and the Senate 15 times detailing the sale of assets from or the contribution of assets to trusts of Frist and his family. The letters included notice of the addition of HCA shares worth $500,000 to $1 million in 2001 and HCA stock worth $750,000 to $1.5 million in 2002. The trust agreements require the trustees to inform Frist and the Senate whenever assets are added or sold.

Hmm.

GJ has tools

"Global Justice is important on a policy level, and on a putting pressure level, but it’s also incredibly important on a training level. And I’ve been the beneficiary of that."

- Al Franken

Go fund.

Brilliant!

Go watch this.

Google gets it

I've been toying recently with the notion that a fully searchable knowledge base will change the world. It isn't just self-congratulatory blogsterbation, but a real belief that what we're up to here, sharing knowledge both immediately reactive to world events and stored and indexed for others to find, has the potential to make us all more involved in how this world functions, and the way in which it does.

Anyway. Google, no surprise, seems to see this. Their Google Print initiative will catalogue the contents of all books, ever. This will make books useful to me and everyone else who will grow up with the internet (and believe me - mine will be the last generation to know how to use the Dewey decimal system, and maybe even what it is). Without Google Print, the use of books will cease outside academic circles. Suing Google to stop this is stupid unless you don't like books.

I'll quote at length from an excellent argument made by Google's Eric Schmidt:

Imagine the cultural impact of putting tens of millions of previously inaccessible volumes into one vast index, every word of which is searchable by anyone, rich and poor, urban and rural, First World and Third, en toute langue -- and all, of course, entirely for free. How many users will find, and then buy, books they never could have discovered any other way? How many out-of-print and backlist titles will find new and renewed sales life? How many future authors will make a living through their words solely because the Internet has made it so much easier for a scattered audience to find them? This egalitarianism of information dispersal is precisely what the Web is best at; precisely what leads to powerful new business models for the creative community; precisely what copyright law is ultimately intended to support; and, together with our partners, precisely what we hope, and expect, to accomplish with Google Print.

Fitzgerald on the internets

The Post pointed out this new website from the DoJ - a Fitzgerald home page of sorts. Seems skimpy thus far - wonder where he's going with it.

Bomb threat

Fun times today at the Capitol, apparently. Glad it wasn't anything serious.

Apple will take over the world

I can't believe I missed the gravity of what happened last week. People have been asking as long as there have been rumors about a video iPod (which is at least for the last couple years) whether anyone would buy one. It's not the same as music, after all - people can't walk or do work while watching a tiny screen, at least not safely. Plus, very few people have video on their hard drives relative to the huge population of mp3-owners post Napster 1.0. Who would the market for such a device be? Wouldn't Apple be pulling another Newton if they released a video iPod before there was content to fill it with?

No.

Instead of waiting, the Steve has pulled another media coup - by releasing the iPod video as the standard iPod, he's assured Apple a controlling share of the video player market. Everyone getting an iPod this christmas season will basically be getting the video playback functions for free. Yes, free - there was no change in the price, and every other aspect got better, from weight to battery life to thinness. This is the equivalent of Microsoft giving Explorer away with windows, and judging by the traffic on this site, that worked pretty well for them. So by the time anyone else gets to market with another video download service, there will be a million iPod owners out there who won't switch to it.

Jobs, by the way, has said that this is the plan.

“There is no market today for portable video,” he says. “We’re going to sell millions of these to people who want to play their music, and video is going to come along for the ride. Anyone who wants to put out video content will put it out for this. And we’ll find out what happens.”

Genius.

DC in the top 5! Woot!

Oh, wait, that's top 5 most expensive places to live. Maybe that's not so great a distinction.

Not surprisingly, housing costs make up the largest portion of cost of living in all the most expensive cities. There's a reason for that - people are idiots. People are willing to pay far too much to live in these places. How is this possible that so many people are paying so much for housing, probably more than they can really afford? Well, I blame the 30-year mortgage, the rise of credit cards, and the lack of a savings culture. We increasingly live mired in debt, totally unprepared should real economic catastrophe strike. If there were some kind of sudden recession or disaster that caused a significant decline in employment, I'd expect we'd see massive bankruptcy, followed by the collapse of the financial sector. People don't have anything socked away in preparation of such an eventuality, aside from perhaps home equity. And that, as Katrina showed us, might not be so sure a bet after all.

I think that we're looking at a housing market in these expensive cities that does not reflect realistic demand, but in fact a significant number of market-distorting forces tied to the availability of debt. To me, that's not just unfortunate for people living here, but is a sign of instability of our system. I hope I'm not still living here by the time it breaks down.

NCLB doesn't really do anything

There haven't been any real changes in students' performance since No Child Left Behind took effect, the Post says. Well, that's a big surprise. From the article:

Experts and scholars caution against tying the scores directly to the controversial legislation, maintaining that various factors come into play that are beyond the control of the test. "Let's put it this way," said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, "reading scores were flat and math scores on the rise before No Child Left Behind, and reading scores are flat and math scores are still up after No Child Left Behind. It's impossible to know whether NCLB had an impact -- either positively or negatively."

Look, the argument of critics hasn't really been that NCLB would decrease student performance necessarily, just that it wouldn't be incredibly helpful in that respect, and that compared to other reforms that could be made in education, it was a poor choice. Well, that much seems to have been the case - NCLB doesn't actually help kids learn any more or do any better. The question, then, is: what other effects has NCLB had that can no longer be justified by promises of increased performance? I think the damage to already underfunded school systems is now pretty clearly indefensible, and the other, hidden reasons for NCLB - namely an ideological favoritism towards charter and parochial schools, and a distrust of states to educate their children - are now naked to criticism.

Apocalypse, now?

Wilma is now the strongest hurricane on record. And it means this year ties for the most hurricanes in one season. We've even depleted the list of hurricane names. Now is not a good time to live on the coast.

Seems we have a lot more like this to look forward to, according to the Post:

The hurricane season lasts until Nov. 30. Hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart from the hurricane center said the Atlantic Ocean is currently in an active 30-year hurricane period, which started in 1995. He said the recent stepped-up activity is not unusual for an active period, which he predicts could last another 20 years.

Brits going crazy over sex, too

Well, so much for reason. British law may change to deny teenagers confidentiality when talking to health workers about sex. I think that's a pretty obviously terrible idea that will lead to a lot of riskier than necessary activity, but don't take my word for it:

The poll of 729 under-25s found that 64% would be less likely to seek advice on issues such as contraception, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections if they knew professionals could pass on information. The figure rose to 74% for under 16s.

Not treating teens with such respect will inevitably lead to greater harm. It really is that simple.

Not another one

Wilma!

Quick overview of good news

Cheney is being targeted in the CIA leak invesitgation:

One former CIA official told prosecutors early in the probe about efforts by Cheney's office and his allies at the National Security Council to obtain information about Wilson's trip as long as two months before Plame was unmasked in July 2003, according to a person familiar with the account.

... it is increasingly clear that Cheney and his aides have been deeply enmeshed in events surrounding the Plame affair from the outset.

Ohio Republicans continue to look bad (mostly because they've in fact been bad):

As federal officials pursue a wide-ranging investigation into the activities of Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, his arrest on fraud charges in the purchase of a Florida casino boat company has increasingly focused attention on a little-known congressman from rural Ohio.

Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) placed comments in the Congressional Record favorable to Abramoff's 2000 purchase of the casino boat company, SunCruz Casinos. Two years later, Ney sponsored legislation to reopen a casino for a Texas Indian tribe that Abramoff represented.

Ney approved a 2002 license for an Israeli telecommunications company to install antennas for the House. The company later paid Abramoff $280,000 for lobbying. It also donated $50,000 to a charity that Abramoff sometimes used to secretly pay for some of his lobbying activities.

Meanwhile, Ney accepted many favors from Abramoff, among them campaign contributions, dinners at the lobbyist's downtown restaurant, skybox fundraisers, including one at his MCI Center box, and a golfing trip to Scotland in August 2002. If statements made by Abramoff to tribal officials and in an e-mail are to be believed, Ney sought the Scotland trip after he agreed to help Abramoff's Texas Indian clients. Abramoff then arranged for his charity to pay for the trip, according to documents released by a Senate committee investigating the lobbyist.

Crunch, crunch

Anybody know a good data recovery service?

I didn't post this weekend because my powerbook's hard drive, only 16 months old, decided to eat itself friday night. It remains unmountable. No crazy noises, thankfully, just loads of crapfulness.

I'm OK for now, just wishing I'd had time last week to do a good backup. Damn you, midterms!

Bureaucracy is evil

In case you needed more proof:

His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life's possibilities.

The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate -- downgrading it because he was out of the war zone -- or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.

But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing.

Look, I'm not saying the military shouldn't account for things properly. Keeping good books is all that stands in the way of massive corruption, considering how much money we spend on defense. But in instances of combat injuries, the responsibility to get the numbers right should be on the part of the military, not the soldier, and if mistakes are made there should be no effort to collect those losses as debt. I think we owe Mr. Loria a lot more than the $600 the military says he owes us.

This isn't how to support the troops.

Yet another blogging story

Ok, first, orthodox AP stylebook followers, please stop calling the web "the Web." That proper-noun treatment is soo 1997. Call blogs web logs if you must, but "Web logs" just looks ugly and stupid. /rant

This Hatchet article presents a rather informed description of why blogs matter, I must say. Probably helps that a political scientist provided the commentary, rather than a journalist. I think this professor Farrell hits on the most interesting thing about news blogs right now - they can bring an important story from relative obscurity to the forefront of the political agenda, either by incubating ideas from an underreported event, or pooling original research. The first sort of action worked well to keep pressure on Trent Lott and led to his removal from senate leadership. The second and less common activity is what was seen in the Dan Rather episode.

Are these powers such that blogs should be subject to FEC regulation, as the article suggests? I don't think so. As Farrell says, "Individual blogs are not very interesting in themselves. What is important is how they link to each other to create a massive network." He's right - it's tiny things done by thousands of bloggers that make a difference, so each blogger being subject to stiff regulations wouldn't make sense, and would just break a valuable system (sure, Atrios may get 145,000 visitors every day, but how many viewers has Fox or CNN?). I'm getting a little tired of hearing protected journalists who do very little in the interest of the country bitch about bloggers not deserving full first amendment protection. For the most part, I think bloggers, left, right and elsewhere, are genuinely passionate people who write because they care what's going on in the world, and want it to be better. This, I think, is the exact group of people whose expression our framers meant to defend with the first amendment.

GW union stuff

Looks like the GW food service union is gearing up for another fight against Aramark come November, according to the Hatchet. I'm not sure what I think of the specific set of demands that the union has put forth, but I do know from past experience that Aramark are a bunch of jerks, and ought to be providing their workers with more. Also, they'll need significant leaning-on in order for anything to get done. Students should step up to do this, as we are relatively much safer than the employees in doing so.

I have to question the assumption that Aramark are making a profit, though. I haven't shopped at an Aramark vender yet this semester, and I expect I won't for the remainder. I am not alone. This is why the union will have to fight to include workers at the as-yet non-union shops in J Street and elsewhere. Letting Wendy's and the on-campus Starbucks be non-union was not worth any compensation the union received.

Metro Map

DCist does a great service to us all and delivers a google map with the DC Metro superimposed. I wish it showed the exit locations accurately, but this is an excellent start. Now all I need is train and bus routes for every city. I wonder if this is in Google's 300 year plan.

WHIG

Worth linking to. I haven't had time to read much, but it seems we all ought to get more familiar.

Criminalized politics?

More like politicized crime. With so many top beltway folks either indicted ow with their records subpoenaed, one has to wonder if the GOP has any hope of regaining any of what credibility it had by 2006. Frist is officially on the list, now; my bet is that he hasn't long before an indictment. But Frist is kinda vanilla by comparison to some other 2008 hopefuls I've heard mentioned. I mean, c'mon, can't we find something Newt's done?

Geek Break

Apple has a problem with the definition of "one," it seems. Best coverage at Stuff, with other updates as they come in at MacRumors and iLounge.

$1.99 seems close to right for an episode of most TV shows, I guess, as long as the files are HD or DVD quality. Otherwise, you'll be paying a lot for convenience.

Will there be a season discount like the album discount?

... bad news - shows will be a craptacular 320x240, according to macnews.de. Google does a wonderful translating job, though. Check out this poetry:

Since the Mac municipality has a temperature to days against the today's evening, in which Apple with the words "One invited more Thing" journalist into the California Theatre after San Jose. Starting from 19 o'clock report we live on everything that would like to present Steve job scarcely five weeks after its iPod nano-presentation ("Here incoming goods go again").

C'mon, space race

Well, China's on its way again. I'm not sure why they're up to this; is it pride and nationalism, as has been suggested? My experience with Chinese embassy officials leads me to believe this is possible, but it seems an awfully large price tag for just this, as manned space flight is hardly the only thing out there to do. Something else may be afoot.

Press doing its job, slowly

This would be awesome:

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.

Aww, cute, a blogging story

I always like it when the newspaper folks try to write about blogs. It always strikes me that they just don't get it. For instance:

Blogs are different from the personal Web pages that were popular a few years ago because they are more interactive, designed to look like a dialogue between the blogger and the audience.

No, blogs are different in that they often are dialogues between the blogger and the readers (audience strikes me as a poor term to capture most people reading blogs - it implies too much passivity, I think). But I think even this doesn't get at the real differences between blogging and just having your own personal page. The big deal with blogs, in my mind, is that they present both on-the-fly journaling of the writers' impressions, and researched opinions citing evidence (dubious as it may be) of many facts presented. For instance, when I compare the average political blog to the average newspaper article, I see much more sourcing of information in the blog. The Post article I quote above says that there are 15 million blogs, but provides no way to verify that figure. I'd expect a blog to link to a study that provides that number. Blogs are like some kind of weird hybrid between a research paper and a teenager's diary.

The post article goes into a little bit of fear mongering too:

"I certainly don't advise anyone to do it. They're taking a big risk," said Patricia Wallace, a psychologist and researcher at Johns Hopkins University and author of "The Psychology of the Internet." People open themselves up to cruel comments, and worse: identity theft, for instance, or even losing a job for kvetching about a boss.

A bit over the top with the identity theft thing, perhaps, but there are reasons I do this anonymously.

Factesque

Oh, the anticipation. Only one week of waiting left. Colbert Report, here we come.

Why you shouldn't trust the FBA

Because they're greedy hypocrites, of course. I dug this up:

The Columbia Condominiums, to be located on L Street between 24th and 25th streets, is being built on the former site of the Columbia Hospital for Women. The old hospital is being renovated and expanded to make way for a 350,000-square-foot building, said Price, who oversaw the approval of the project.

Members of community groups, who have long accused GW of destroying Foggy Bottom's residential character, said the buildings will be positive for the neighborhood.

"The community has worked very hard to get neighborhood-serving retail and residential property," said Richard Price, a member of the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, which makes zoning recommendations to the city. "We want our neighborhood to look more residential and not like a campus or an office park."

(Foggy Bottom Association President Ronald) Cocome said his organization lobbied heavily with the city for the approval of the Columbia project's rezoning and construction permits.

"It was one of the few developments that we wanted to have happen (in Foggy Bottom) in the last five or six years," he said.

The ANC is essentially an arm of the FBA. Why are they perfectly happy to approve and lobby for this development, while objecting vociferously to a nearly identically-aimed project by GW? Well, that's simple:

In September, the project's developer, the Trammell Crow Company, paid the Foggy Bottom Association $2.4 million for use of the historic land previously zoned for hospital use only.

Hmm.

GW, capitalist amoeba of death?

Well, according to the Hatchet, Mayor Williams is in favor of GW's plans to use Square 54, the now-vacant lot that used to be GW Hospital, for mixed-use but non-university development. They quote him:

"It's easy for me to say this because I'm not running for re-election, but I think the community has been a little hard on the University...

"Certainly you can say that a part of Foggy Bottom has been lost," Williams said. "But sometimes we need to let a good thing be. It would help the city with our taxes and business, and I commend (University) President (Stephen Joel) Trachtenberg."

That's about right. It does take a certain something for a sitting DC politician to go against these folks, a bunch of monied government retirees and homeowners who hold considerable sway in local politics (and I think that something is called "being a lame duck"). I expect to hear the howls of their apoplectic rage when I return to campus. I've had enough experience with members of the Foggy Bottom Association to find that they're a spiteful, unreasoning bunch who hold dearly to a long-departed vision of what the community once was, and seem to blame solely GW for issues caused by much larger trends of district development that have left the neighborhood trapped between highways and downtown. The Foggy Bottom of their memory can never be again, and what lies there now is not so worth saving that they have any special moral high-ground in defending it.

But I've also had my share dealings with GW administration, and while they may not match the caricature pained by the FBA, President Trachtenberg and others cannot be ascribed any particular virtue in regard to caring about the community. If it suited their financial interest to raze the whole place and put in a Wal*Mart, poison factory or puppy-dog deathcamp, they would.

So I don't think the Foggy Bottom residents have any extra right to be critical of the University, but I do think the plans for Square 54 are questionable (and should be examined as closely as any move made by this administration). GW has a responsibility to make good on its investments for all we students' sakes, but I fear that students' academic needs are being given less attention in this development than are the University's financial goals. Perhaps all need will be met by the completion of renovations of Funger and the return of all the classroom and office space it once provided, but for the time being experience tells me that GW is very short on academic space.

It's here!

More on this later.

The right learns a lesson, eventually

More griping about Miers in the Post. It's sad, really. It's taken the right so long to figure out what the rest of us had years ago - this administration are politically opportunistic, not ideological. They know there're lots of you guys out there chomping at the bit to change this country, so they promise you all sorts of goodies, like a court packed with people who believe the constitution is dead and zygotes have souls. But the thing is, they'll never deliver that. It would just cost too much, and they want to keep getting elected. It isn't just that they fear the business funding backlash should they go too far in the cultural conservative way - it's that they know you'll keep working for them as long as there's something to win. Check this out:

If there has been a unifying cause in American conservatism over the past three decades, it has been a passionate desire to change the Supreme Court. When there were arguments over tax cuts and deficits, when libertarians clashed with religious conservatives, when disputes over foreign policy erupted, reshaping the judiciary bound the movement together.

The point is that if they give you the court, you won't have anything to be excited about, and they can't figure out how to build a party around anything else. You saw the complacency among liberals before the last couple years; Karl Rove knows you'd be the same way if you won this.

It's that time again

What, the president's approval ratings have sunk some more? Well, time to trot out the terror warnings! Nothing like some good fear-mongering to rally support.

The Times has the new threat:

Security in and around New York City's subways was sharply increased yesterday after city officials said they were notified by federal authorities in Washington of a terrorist threat that for the first time specifically named the city's transit system.

But they're too desperate to leave it at that - the Post has some about 10 terrorist plots, all surely diabolical, that President Bush personally foiled. Huzzah!

Look, even if they're right about this, we've all heard the one about the boy and the wolves. Misleading us into fear so many times just stops paying off in the long run. Decreasing marginal returns and all that. Hey, I thought these folks were supposed to be Republicans - aren't they the ones who're ostensibly good at economics?

(GW) administration ineptitude

So it turns out that GW fired its sex professor because he was giving out too many As. Seems plausible enough. But why wait to tell the guy that until now? As the Hatchet quotes:

"Had they been truthful with me at the very beginning, this whole thing wouldn't have blown up to be as big as it is," Schaffer said. "They didn't have the common decency to be honest with me."

GW bureaucracy has never been the place to find decency, common or uncommon. I'm reminded of Monday's article on a professor who quit because he hadn't gotten a pay raise in years, and couldn't get an answer from the administration until the semester had started:

When O'Keefe first arrived at GW [in 1999], he was paid a salary of $5,000 per semester, and it was raised to $6,000 the next year. He had also taught a similar course at Johns Hopkins University where he initially received $6,000 per course per semester.

O'Keefe had originally mailed Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Donald Lehman Aug. 15 to inquire about the possibility of a pay increase, as well as a request to change his title from professional lecturer to adjunct associate professor.

Lehman did not respond until Sept. 19 in a letter that corrected his appointment but did not increase his salary, O'Keefe said. At that point, O'Keefe sent another letter to Lehman informing him of his decision to leave GW.

Look, it's not that hard to be good to people. This kind of bureaucratic opaqueness may serve the immediate desires of the GW administration, but it does little to meet the needs of the students. We are loosing good professors to this crap, and I'm certain that GW's reputation among potential professors is faltering due to this as well. Things need to change.

Thoughts on cannibalism

So, it used to be that we were supposed to just trust the judgement of the president. This is what I was told by political science students when I questioned the buildup for war in Iraq. He knows what he's doing, they said. He's more experienced in these matters. I ought not dare to presume I know better.

How delicious this most recent turn of events is for me, then, in this context. Those of similar mind to my critics have begun to question their president with such fervor it's almost hard to hear the irony over the din. Almost.

George doesn't look so happy

More Cannibalism

Via Armando over at Kos, George Will goes ballistic:

Senators beginning what ought to be a protracted and exacting scrutiny of Harriet Miers should be guided by three rules. First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be. Third, the presumption -- perhaps rebuttable but certainly in need of rebutting -- should be that her nomination is not a defensible exercise of presidential discretion to which senatorial deference is due.

. . . [T]he president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. . . . It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president's choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends.

This is kinda fun. She must be either totally unknown to them, or have personally had tons of abortions and gay sex and paid welfare to people, for them to be this scared.

Slow news day?

CNN can't figure out how to talk about anything without a picture, it seems. No idea how much longer it'll be up, but they've got a graphic of the Supreme Court building with a huge rainbow flag flying behind it. It really is pretty funny. Are they trying to make Miers look good, of freak out social conservatives?

Did we really need another reason?

Atrios started a while ago with the whole "Miers had something to do with 9/11 incompetence" meme, and all due to this AP photo:


Harriet Miers, at the time staff secretary, is seen on Aug. 6, 2001, briefing President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

It seems there's more to it than just an unfortunate coincidence of file photo date:

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to today's Los Angeles Times. An article by Richard A. Serrano and Scott Gold observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial 'presidential daily briefing' hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.”

...

The photo that ran in so many papers and their Web sites originally came from the White House but was moved by the Associated Press, clearly marked as an “Aug.6, 2001” file photo. It shows Miers with a document or documents in her right hand, as her left hand points to something in another paper balanced on the president's right leg. Two others in the background are Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Steve Biegun of the national security staff.

I've always wanted to know why more people didn't get fired over September 11. Turns out Bush was just saving them for his Supreme Court appointments.

Holy Crap Holy Crap Holy Crap

Every panel of Calvin and Hobbes in one book.

Every. Panel. Ever.

If you're still looking to get me something for my birthday...

Ohio heating up

Sherrod Brown may run for Senate - interesting. I've been watching his performance in the House for over a year now, and I have to say I'm generally quite impressed. He seems to be of real progressive stock. Which should make for an interesting primary with Paul Hackett, the Iraq war veteran who narrowly lost in southern Ohio just recently, but got closer to victory there than any Democrat has for 30 years- and not by running as a Republican look-alike.

Kos is unhappy, which I understand if he's an ardent Hackett supporter, since it might seem like Brown is a threat. But I think it's important to set aside personal loyalties to the candidates and focus on what is important here - taking back the Senate to mitigate the extremist effects of the Bush administration. Either man, or any other Democrat, would do in that respect. Beyond that, both would add a progressive voice to the Senate, which is currently a bit lacking even with the number of Dems we have. The question, then, as both will help us achieve our goals, is whom will be able to win statewide? I guess Hackett has shown himself to some degree capable of gathering votes in the south, but Brown has the experience that may be necessary to challenge DeWine, who might make the claim that Hackett lacks qualifications. Serving in the Senate, after all, is a pretty important job, and Democrats may by that time have made the case that Bush's nominations to the Supreme Court have lacked experience. It would be difficult, in such a climate, to run as a Democrat with little history working in government.

5766

שנה טובה

Good, clean governance

No longer satisfied being known as the party of stodgy old white guys and trust funds, the Republicans set out in 1994 to move beyond their white-collar-oppressor roots to the more respectable profession of organized crime. With their power over the House of Representatives secure, they began looting and pillaging the Washington bureaucracy as I once thought only vikings could, leaving no money tree untrimmed, no fundraiser unjuiced. Even K Street was plundered, all Democrats taller than a wagon wheel slaughtered (or at least not talked-to). Yea, it was a wondrous age (with perhaps the exception of wayward, geeky little brother Taft, whose stamp collecting antics were just pretty embarrassing).

But, as with all great criminal empires, this too comes to an end. And what a blaze of legal glory! Any chump politician can be wrapped up in an insider trading scandal, or get indicted for conspiracy once. But a second indictment! How rare!

Yes, Tom Delay has done his party proud with this most recent indictment. And for money laundering, a real gangsta crime! I'm sure they're all lining up now to congratulate him.

Cannibals

George Bush sounded pleased as punch to announce that his lawyer would be the next white lady on the Supreme Court. Only it doesn't seem like it's going to go down that way.

There's a rising tide of anger washing across right blogistan, the so-called values bloggers and their more main-streamed media friends agast that Bush would appoint someone so, well, not crazy in the social conservative persuasion. What's this? Not a social conservative? What the heck kind of beast is this Miers, then?

Well, for one interpretation, check out what Kos is saying. Huh, corporate cronyism trumps conservative moral values? Well, if the war in Iraq (a freaking war!) and all the associated no-bid contracts didn't make that obvious by now, well, I can't help you. But then, that's foreign policy. And maybe there are a bunch of end-timesers who needed appeasing, or anyways maybe that's what it looked like to the social conservatives. But now they're realizing what smart friends of mine have been saying all along - the values thing was a facade. It was about votes, not a revolution. This crowd has always recognized the importance of placating the people giving the money (business moguls), not the legions of voters (even the Leviticus freaks). Single-issue bible-skimmers were just an easily exploited demographic.

Atrios has his own reaction to the outrage over Miers. It's perhaps worth quoting:

Wingnuttia is rather angry at the choice. I don't think this is because they're really concerned that she's not conservative enough for their tastes, although that's part of it. They're angry because this was supposed to be their nomination. This is was their moment. They didn't just want a stealth victory, they wanted parades and fireworks. They wanted Bush to find the wingnuttiest wingnut on the planet, fully clothed and accessorized in all the latest wingnut fashions, not just to give them their desired Court rulings, but also to publicly validate their influence and power. They didn't just want substantive results, what they wanted even more were symbolic ones. They wanted Bush to extend a giant middle finger to everyone to the left of John Ashcroft. They wanted to watch Democrats howl and scream and then ultimately lose a nasty confirmation battle. They wanted this to be their "WE RUN THE COUNTRY AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT" moment.

Whatever kind of judge she would be, she doesn't provide them with that.

Either way, the funny is starting to happen, and the party of staunch, unwavering (or unreasoning) righteousness is beginning to fracture:

Just spoke with a staffer for a conservative member of the Judiciary Committee whose boss is extremely unhappy about the nomination of Harriet Miers . . . There is now talk among some conservatives about a filibuster of the Miers nomination . . .

Where to start?

Too much fun news today, from the indictment of Tom Delay - again! - to rumors that some social conservatives are going to whip out the filibuster to defeat Miers. Ha. How quickly the revolution crumbles.

Let the flaying begin

SGAC alumnus Ben Wickler finds some interesting conservative displeasure with Harriet Miers, Bush's most recent appointment. From a National Review blogger:

She rose to her present position by her absolute devotion to George Bush. I mentioned last week that she told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. To flatter on such a scale a person must either be an unscrupulous dissembler, which Miers most certainly is not, or a natural follower. And natural followers do not belong on the Supreme Court of the United States.

That was deleted and replaced with this:

Harriet Miers is a taut, nervous, anxious personality. It is impossible to me to imagine that she can endure the anger and abuse - or resist the blandishments - that transformed, say, Anthony Kennedy into the judge he is today.

Nor is it safe for the president's conservative supporters to defer to the president's judgment and say, "Well, he must know best." The record shows I fear that the president's judgment has always been at its worst on personnel matters.

Conservatives eating their young. Har, har, har.

Bushvilles

The Post has a story detailing the failures of the Katrina recovery effort, which has been slow to provide housing and other supplies to evacuees. From the article:

Policymakers say that warehousing tens of thousands of people in trailer park communities until New Orleans and other cities are rebuilt could lead to the creation of dysfunctional "FEMAvilles," as residents of past encampments have called them. Democrats go further, warning that they may become known as "Bushvilles," just as Depression-era shantytowns were called "Hoovervilles."

This seems like a fitting name, seeing as past and present administrative ineptness and poor leadership in the face of the Gulf hurricanes has left us in this situation. The relief effort, spanning as it does several states, really ought to be a federal project. I think it's fair, then, to place some responsibility for fixing this mess and for whatever problems arise under those efforts squarely where it belongs, with the Bush administration.

AIDS Walk Pictures

AIDS Walk

Off to raise some awareness and money for Whitman-Walker Clinic, the chief provider of AIDS prevention and treatment services in DC. If it suits your fancy, donate here to sponsor a worthy marathon runner (I figure I'm just walking a bit).

What, that was illegal?

The GAO has finally gotten around to ruling on the Bush administration's use of propaganda to try and sell No Child Left Behind. Guess what?

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, "The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education."

The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds."

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. I think the lesson we should bring from the whole fiasco is that our executive branch are willing to do anything for political purposes, up to and including breaking the law. One must wonder what they are up to still.