No pullout until victory

Well, we're screwed. From the President:

"I don't want them to come home without having achieved victory"

And I don't want to pay taxes. But guess what.

I'm waiting for the Clinton-esque "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'victory' is" speech, slated for sometime in the next decade or so.

New Blog

Don't worry, I'm not leaving you. i just don't have time to post as much here as I have been. In response to the time crunch, I'm expanding.

Whaa??

It actually makes sense. Now I've got this cleverly-named blog for posting links, without commentary. It's ADHD-rrific!

The theology of Johnny Cash

Fascinating piece on the Man in Black's ideology as expressed through his songs at Campus Progress. It's an enticing prospect, that Cash wouldn't have approved of country music having become "the de facto soundtrack of the Bush Administration" (mostly because, as a Cash fan, I want to agree with him). Not sure if the analysis is balanced enough to be believed (this is from CAP, mind you), but I think a certain part is right on:

In the true Christian spirit, Cash treated all the people he sung about like the highway patrolman treated his brother. Cash never denied their terrible deeds; Lord knows he’d done his share of bad things, too. Nor did he apologize for them. But he never shook a Bible at them either. They were human, just like him – deeply flawed and prone to sin.

I think the propensity of the so-called christian right to judge people, and to advocate punishment, is perhaps their most troubling aspect to me. You know, the whole casting the first stone thing just doesn't seem to be part of their ideology, but it's always struck me as one of the most important parts of christianity, one of several remarkable philosophies that make the whole thing so valuable. From all I can tell, Cash's songs fall pretty close to that ideal.

World AIDS Day paper chain

SGAC has a fun project in the works:

Beyond using the call scripts, the best way to join in the national action is to be part of making our huge paper chain. Each person who takes part in a WAD activity on your campus can write their name and a promise for what they’ll do to fight AIDS on a strip of red paper. These strips will be made into a chain, which will both represent our unity and the bonds of promises we mean for our leaders to keep. We’ll put the links from all our chapters together into the one chain in DC, which we’ll present at the Capitol to Senator Frist. When we all participate, this huge, visible symbol, coupled with calls and letters, will impress upon Senator Frist our advocacy asks, and help win this campaign.

It looks something like this:

How appropriate

On the eve of the destruction of the Supreme Court by the Bush administration, the building has decided to destroy itself. From CNN:

A basketball-sized piece of marble moulding fell from the facade over the entrance to the Supreme Court, landing on the steps near visitors waiting to enter the building.

Symbolic of our crumbling justice system, perhaps? Har, har. But seriously, I'd commit suicide, too, if that was the only way to avoid having Sam "Fear of Contagion" Alito inside me.

(Thanks to Lisa for the heads-up.)

The death of irony

The cleverness of the Bush administration in deflecting criticism knows no bounds. By now everyone is used to the satire-defying trickery of Karl Rove, by which all jokes are made moot by actually doing or saying the most humorously ridiculous thing possible.

They may have found a way to head off all comparisons of the Iraq war to Vietnam - just use the same damn strategy as was used by Nixon:

...the war is not going to slow down. We're going to increase the pace of air operations. There's going to be more bombing in direct support of Iraqi units now.

The thing is, nobody sounds funny when repeating facts. The Iraq=vietnam jab doesn't work comically if it's actually 100 percent true.

Curveball

I don't know whether it was malicious warmongering or just tragic groupthink, but we need better checks to ensure things like this don't happen again:

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm.

"This was not substantial evidence," said a senior German intelligence official. "We made clear we could not verify the things he said."

The German authorities, speaking about the case for the first time, also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. "He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy," said a BND official who supervised the case. "He is not a completely normal person," agreed a BND analyst.

Curveball was the chief source of inaccurate prewar U.S. accusations that Baghdad had biological weapons, a commission appointed by Bush reported this year.

Why the administration based decisions on whether to go to war on a guy code-named "curveball" is anyone's guess. Given the Germans' insistence that the intelligence was unverifiable, it's no surprise the way they reacted when the US decided to go to war - I don't think I'd join up with someone who'd ignored warnings like that. I'd bet the White House were just too convinced they were right to back down by that point, though.

Blogging and civil society

I've had several discussions in recent months about the prospects of internet communications to change the way people relate to government and each other. This article in the Times hints at the importance of blogs, even in China. The article notes some success in curbing blogs messages:

So far, Chinese authorities have mostly relied on Internet service providers to police the Web logs. Commentary that is too provocative or directly critical of the government is often blocked by the provider. Sometimes the sites are swamped by opposing comment - many believe by official censors - that is more favorable to the government.

While this may be effective in impeding certain sorts of political speech, I wonder if it will be enough to limit the deeper, less obvious effects of blogs. In my mind, the importance of blogging and the internet in general is that individuals can have so much impact, that you don't need to be a huge, monied company or political party to have a voice.

Chinese communist ideology and state control seems somewhat dependent on the subversion of the individual to the will and message of the state. Does it matter then, what an independent voice is saying, or just that the voice exists? It seems to me that by allowing blogs at all, China is setting itself up for change in the long term, as the internalized collectivism of its people dissolves in the blogosphere.

I'm outta here

Off to Cleveburgh for turkey and stuffing. Which might mean I have more time to blog.

Because it has to be women they're not fucking

I just don't get why it matters to Pope Benedict who celibate men secretly lust after. Aren't any such prurient feelings equally wrong for a man of the cloth, whether they're for men or women?

The new doctrine should make it abundantly clear that the Catholic church wants to have no place for gay men, even if they do nothing gay. Very compassionate. I'm sure that's just as Jesus wanted.

Fun international politics

So, Hugo Chavez is a genius. The Bush administration is under a lot of fire right now, and there are major concerns about its ties to the energy industry which will be unable to deliver affordable heating oil or natural gas this winter. Chavez's response? Provide cheap Venezuelan heating oil to poor people - in Massachusetts. Part humanitarian aid, part geopolitical middle finger, it is a brilliant move for Chavez in his rhetorical crusade against US capitalism.

Gaming

Interesting piece from the Times about the proliferation of game design programs in universities. A good start on why this is important study:

"But if you just look at the surface of people playing games, you are missing the point, which is that games are all about managing and manipulating information," Mr. Kerrey said. "A lot of students that come out of this program may not go to work for Electronic Arts. They may go to Wall Street. Because to me, there is no significant difference - except for clothing preference - between people who are making games and people who are manipulating huge database systems to try to figure out where the markets are headed. It's largely the same skill set, the critical thinking. Games are becoming a major part of our lives, and there is actually good news in that."

Games are important to understand, if only because we, as a gaming-imersed culture, probably think more in terms of game situations than any other, previous society. I'm not saying "GTA makes kids shoot things," or any of that hooey, but that the basic philosophy of games, that there are discoverable rules to reality, creeps into our understanding of our world.

Legitimacy

I think the biggest question around the Iraqi government's call for the exit of US and other foreign troops is what this means for the Bush administration's arguments for the legitimacy of that government.

It's a fun paradox, really. The Iraqi government needs to reject the presence of US troops to establish itself as legitimate to some segment of the Iraqi population, but doing so calls into question its standing among its longtime supporters (and creators) in the US. And an Iraqi government that says insurgents have a "legitimate right" of resistance against US forces can hardly be called a puppet by its challengers here within the antiwar movement.

I just don't know what to make of it all, really, aside from a general sense that, after almost 2 years and over 2000 dead soldiers, all we've done is to replace one regime hostile to the US with another. And religious extremists aren't even in power yet.

Crashing, burning

Republican lobbyist Michael Scanlon has plead guilty to bribing members of congress. Significance? Well, it can't be good for Bob Ney (R-OH); from TPM:

In their charge against Scanlon, federal prosecutors assert that Scanlon and Abramoff offered and Ney accepted numerous bribes for various official acts. (He's referenced as 'Legislator #1'; but it's Ney.) By pleading guilty, Scanlon of course agrees that that is true. And he will testify to that effect.

That just can't sit well with constituents.

No, it can't. Yet another reason that I'll be rather disappointed if even a single Republican gets elected in Ohio in 2006 - they're all so clearly cooked.

Crazy cute bags

If there was any doubt that Japan is the kingdom of cute, it should be dispelled by these eater-mobile small electronics cozies:



The Scarabag is my favorite.

What we knew, what we didn't

Kos has an excellent post on the information that was made public about pre-war CIA investigations of Iraq. He starts with quote form former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL):

There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

Note, that classified NIE was not available to every congressperson. Just to members of the Senate and House committees on intelligence.

Graham asked Tenet to produce an unclassified version of the NIE. But what the CIA produced was a propaganda piece absent any of the reservations or caveats presented in the classified edition of the document. The vast majority of senators and congressment, much less the American people, did not see the full classified document.

Hence, Bush's claims that congressional Democrats had access to the same intelligence that the administration had is pure bullshit.

So it seems like Bush is assuming that Graham and others privy to the classified information illegally leaked said intel to the Dems the President now calls hypocrites. This assumption is somewhat understandable, considering this administration's own propensity towards leaking things about the CIA to score political points, but doesn't have any evidence behind it to validate the hypocrisy charge. No, since Bush's administration concealed intelligence that questioned the cause for war, the blame for whatever happens during it, if the fears were unfounded, must lie mostly in his hands.

... more TPM on the whole who-knew-what question

Off

I'll be at a retreat for the remainder of the weekend with very little likelihood of access or time to blog. Have fun, and enjoy the weather.

VP for torture

That should probably be Cheney's official title, according to Jimmy Carter's CIA Chief. He'd be a man of many titles, though - VP for swearing in the Senate, VP for cozy chats with Enron, VP for leaking CIA agents' identities. Hey, isn't that odd? It seems like Cheney isn't being terribly consistent, one day having his staff attack a CIA officers and subsequently ruining her usefulness in whatever terror-fighting the CIA does, and the next day championing a whatever-it-takes license to torture for the CIA? Actually, I think this might be consistent - after all, lots of folks in the CIA have said that torture isn't cool, and that it is likely to damage intelligence. So if Cheney's position is really VP for undercutting CIA effectiveness, he may be onto something.

Support the Global Fund

So, there is lots of confusion about what the House's LHHS appropriation rejection will mean for the Global Fund. One thing that's clear is that to get House support for the $100 million we need, the moderate Republicans who took a stand and defeated the last attempt at appropriation will have to support funding the Fund in whatever comes up next. If one of them is your rep, give them a call:

Republicans voting against HR 3010, Labor-HHS appropriations

(all numbers 202 area code)

Castle, Michael Deleware, 225-4165
Emerson, Jo Ann Missouri, 225-4404
Fitzpatrick, Mike Pennsylvania, 225-4276
Gerlach, Jim Pennsylvania, 225-4315
Gibbons, Jim Nevada, 225-6155
Johnson, Nancy Connecticut, 225-4476
Kirk, Mark Illinois, 225-4835
Leach, Jim Iowa, 225-6576
Moran, Jerry Kansas, 225-2715
Murphy, Tim Pennsylvania, 225-2301
Nunes, Devin California, 225-2523
Otter, Butch Idaho, 225-6611
Paul, Ron Texas, 225-2831
Pickering, Charles Mississippi, 225-5031
Platts, Todd Pennsylvania, 225-5836
Ramstad, Jim Minnesota, 225-2871
Renzi, Rick Arizona, 225-2315
Rogers, Michael Alabama, 225-3261
Simmons, Rob Connecticut, 225-2076
Stearns, Cliff Florida, 225-5744
Thomas, Bill California, 225-2915
Wilson, Heather New Mexico, 225-6316

More thoughts on Crazification

The crazification factor as posited at Kung Fu Monkey is one of the more interesting lenses through which to examine current US politics. However, I think there are some problems.

First, the 27 percent figure given at KFM is a bit inexact, and is only relevant to compare to opinion polls if they use the same formula for likely voters that panned out in Illinois in 2004. What's interesting is considering what the real number is in terms of absolute population - the 1,390,690 Keyes voters represent only 14.8 percent of Illinois' 9,395,376 adults in 2004 (calculated from Census estimates). So that's the percent of America that can be counted on to actually get out and vote for right-wing Republicans no matter what, if we are to believe the basic premises of crazification theory.

But there may be some problems with those assumptions. I know a number of the crazified, for instance, who insist on not voting within their party should it "betray" them (which is easy enough to do, since all this means is doing anything not completely right-wing nuts at any time). Because of this, I imagine that Bush's recent poor performance is not necessarily a precipitous drop towards the crazification factor, but perhaps the result of some percentage of the crazified actually turning on him due to the whole Miers fiasco and his failure as yet to install Phyllis Schlafly or Robert Bork on the Supreme Court. These, after all, are people who killed Miers' nomination, weakening their president and party, just because she wasn't proven to be exactly as crazy as the kind of justice they felt they were promised.

I think crazification is still useful in understanding the appeal and continued above-zero approval of President Bush, but we shouldn't underestimate pure stay-the-course idiotness, either. It's the solid, apathetic middle of the Republican party, not the moderates or extreme, Keyes-loving crazies, who are making up Bush's current base.

I'm dreaming of another Fitzmas

Speculation abounds across the blogosphere, thanks to this Reuters story about Fitzgerald's need for another grand jury. Who will we get to go with the Scooter we got last Fitzmas? Will we complete a matching set of right-hand men, or something better still?

A peek at dissent

This leaked Washington Post internal discussion about Bob Woodward is fascinating. It's more than voyeyristic pleasure I derive from it, though; some of the criticism renews my trust of the Post, as the reporters within it clearly have trepidation similar to my own regarding the latitude afforded superstar reporters. It's ironic, then, that Jonathan Yardley is so taken aback by his comments being publicized:

I hardly see any point in having critiques and comments if they are to be publicized outside the paper. How can we write candidly when candor merely invites violations of confidentiality? Many readers say they distrust us. Well, now I find myself wondering if we can trust each other.

It's the "many readers... distrust us" part that gets me - I think reader distrust comes from seeing the major newspapers as monolithic institutions not capable of proper self-reflection or human consideration. The leaked conversation of Post reporters actually could help dispel these notions of the paper as faceless and untroubled by violations of journalistic ethics. Maybe the leak doesn't help Yardley trust his peers, but what was leaked sure helps me to trust them.

Blogs get FEC exemption

Blogs, like other journalistic publications, are entitled to the press exception to campaign finance laws.

Turning tide?

For anyone who missed it, monumental news earlier - the House defeated the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill. What's the big deal? Glad you asked:

Many members said the bill's defeat, by 224 to 209 votes, was the first rejection of an appropriation measure they could recall since Republicans assumed House control in 1995.

Moderate Republicans have jumped ship en mass for the first time in a very long while. Ideologically-driven cuts by their peers to the right have gone too far, perhaps. This is good news on more than purely partisan grounds, of course; the House version of the bill drastically underfunded the Global Fund, and now the Senate's higher number ($100 million that the AIDS activist community has been counting on) may prevail.

... so actually, the LHHS bill properly funded the Global Fund, but not medicaid. So, it would have been good on one front, but totally screwed a lot of AIDS patients in this country. Lots of confusion in the AIDS advocacy community right now over what to make of this.

SGAC website improvements, Frist media

SGAC has a flashy new website. Check it out if you haven't already.

New to the site today are two media pieces from the Frist wakeup - an edited version of the WBAI radio broadcast, and a short video about the demonstration.

It's not too late to take action to save the Global Fund.

Lobotomy's GW connection

Thanks to BoingBoing, just listened to a fantastic NPR piece, "My Lobotomy." Truly amazing work. What a surprise to learn, part way through, that Gelman Library houses the files of Walter Freeman, the inventor of the ice-pick lobotomy. Crazy.

Whitehurst madness

The Hatchet has another article about the quest of some in the DC government to tear down the Whitehurst Freeway, the artery which connects downtown DC with the Key bridge, and through it Northern Virginia. That's a substantial portion of the commuters, if you're not from around here. The article fails to mention the more salient aspects of the controversy, though; Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans has been trying to tear the freeway down for some time now, largely due to his friends' business interests on the Georgetown waterfront. Recent developers of million-dollar condos there are displeased that their real estate is worth fewer millions than it might be if there were no highway next door. I'll note that the Hatchet makes quite clear that the highway predates the condos by 40 or 50 years.

The Whitehurst saves M street, already a parking lot, from some of the heaviest traffic load in the District. Millions of dollars of construction putting that traffic on K street would solve none of the barrier problems sited by the Whitehurst opponents, as K would have to become an impassible freeway itself.

This is a little odd, I'll admit, but I'm willing to work with the Foggy Bottom Association to get this crazy plan stopped. I think it would behoove any GW student who ever has to get to the MVC or walk to Lowes Cinema to make sure the Whitehurst remains standing.

Frist Wakeup Photos

So apparently there's a shot of us in Roll Call, but they require massive subscription fees to see that. For now, here's what we took:

Erin's set:


Mine:

SGAC in the Blogs

Well, the right-wing blogs. Thanks to Matt, one of our awesome coffee delivery volunteers, tuesday morning's Frist wake-up has made it to Red State. The original at California Yankee is better, because it has pictures. Together, that's worth thousands of hits. Too bad we don't have our website linked to there...

SGAC in the Press

So, SGAC and SCCS chapters are spending this week gathering phone calls to Senator Frist's office, demanding full funding of the $700 million US fair share of the Global Fund (that means $250 million more than what's been committed so far this year). We all use the message that Frist should "wake up" to the funding crisis at the Fund, and the moral imperative to do our part as the world's wealthiest nation.

As part of this week of action, some of us in DC decided to actually visit Frist's office to wake him up. And what better way is there to wake up than with a hot cup of coffee? We brought the senator one cup every 10 minutes from nine to noon; needless to say, this was a bit out of the ordinary for the office staff, and they took notice. More fun stories a bit later, I promise.

So far, we've got stuff up on Indymedia, and an awesome spot in this WBAI broadcast. (It's about 12.5 minutes into the linked mp3.)

Junior politicos

Well, GW never fails to serve as a microcosm of the corruption and buffoonery of the real-world government its students seek to join. Now we've even got an executive sexual harassment scandal. Oh, the Hatchet must be loving this. Break out the pundits!

...egads. There's a whole Hatchet Blog on the SA, and all serious-like. Very longwinded posts. Guess there are Junior Bloggers, too.

Geek Break

Pretty funny page regarding the whole browser war. I'd join the campaign if I were interested in being a complete ass to IE users (which I'm not above). Good site, though. My favorite reason to switch to Firefox? "8. Mozilla has never made a talking paperclip."

Reasoned Debate

It doesn't feel like we're really listening to each other any more. Linse's Law seems to apt:

As a debate between pro-war and anti-war pundits grows longer, the probability of the pro-war side accusing the anti-war side of being unpatriotic becomes 1.

And the rest of the post there is hilarious.

PJs

The Editors have an amusing take on the most recent nemesis of the MSM.

I am an idiot

And Mac OS X is not completely idiot-proof. Turns out that when you move all your user files to an arbitrary location, all your preferences and personal files do disappear. Now you know. Luckily this was easily fixed.

Shifts in civil rights at DoJ

This is pretty alarming:

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and current career employees.

Nearly 20 percent of the division's lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative views on civil rights laws. Longtime litigators complain that political appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in Mississippi and Texas.

At the same time, prosecutions for the kinds of racial and gender discrimination crimes traditionally handled by the division have declined 40 percent over the past five years, according to department statistics.

Memories

A while ago we tried to wake up Senator Frist to the AIDS pandemic. Looks like he's still asleep to the needs of the Global Fund.

Getting back to normal

With my new hard drive installed, my life is slowly returning from the grasps of data claustrophobia. I have to give some shout-outs here to Prosoft's Data Rescue II for recovering the bulk of my files off my crashed drive, and to iPodRip for simplifying the reconstruction of my iTunes library. Also, the wonderful Flickr, for storing jpegs with exif information intact. It feels good to have my stuff where I want it again.

C2IA in the press

Washington Post:

I'm back

Drive seems to work fine. Good to be using Tiger again - I forgot how pretty it is.

Tech support

I'll be down for a while replacing my hard drive. Hope nothing important happens in the interim.

History lesson

In case Bush is confused, some analysis from the Post:

The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

I think it was pretty outrageous for Bush to claim that his opponents are misrepresenting the facts, given how mind-numbingly ironical that statement is coming from him. I'll support any effort to hold him and the rest of his administration accountable for policies or attitudes which privileged information that supported the justifications for war that have turned out to be false.

Congestion pricing

I said a long time ago that we should erect toll booths at the DC border and exact fees from suburbanites who work here, both to recoup the costs of road maintenance and to encourage more use of the public transit system versus the congested roads. New York is another of a handful of cities that could get away with it, as the attractiveness of being located in the city will outweigh any disincentive produced by such fines (whereas a city like Cleveland would be insane to try this move, given the corporate flight problems it already has). Apparently, there are some in New York who are starting to think seriously about this, according to the Times. Good for them.

Tragic speechwriter shortage

The effects of the devastating Hurricane Katrina on the speech refineries of the Gulf Coast are still being felt within the Bush administration, which was reduced to recycling an October speech for today's media bonanza. I'm sure the Veterans appreciate the White House's efforts to conserve on costly words during these trying times.

Internet beats Sony

On Halloween, a rootkit was discovered to be installed as part of DRM software on Sony CDs. Today, Sony announced that they will stop using this software, and reassess their DRM measures.

How'd this happen? Well, the guy who found the rootkit posted this information on his blog. BoingBoing and Slashdot found this, and thousands of nerds, primed by endless discussion of intellectual property law, were made aware of Sony's bad behavior. Many of them blogged it themselves, and this explosion of traffic eventually made it to the major media. Subsequently, hackers were found to be using the rootkit to crack affected computers, and a lawsuit was mulled in California. Under pressure from the Department of Homeland Security, Sony has retreated.

This is a win for decentralized power over big business. I hope we get to keep an internet that makes more of this possible.

Housing bubblicious

The DC housing market is slowing - thank god. Any place where your home can lose $100,000 in "value" and still have the majority of its cost intact is just stupid. It's good for keeping poor people out of your neighborhood, but not much else.

Hatchet Job

The Junior Pundits are at it again - this time in emulation of Fox News, and quoting the National Review Online (ha - there's a reputable source). The distinguished intellect of Tyler Hahn:

Jacques Chirac must be scratching his head. Despite his and the French people's vehement invectives against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (and the United States in general), France is learning the hard way that there is no bargaining with Islamic extremists.

Somebody swarthy-looking doing something you don't like? Must be an "Islamic extremist." It's like "Communist," but updated for the aughts!

On Oct. 28, riots began in cities outside of Paris after two Muslim boys accidentally electrocuted themselves to death while hiding from the police. As of Monday night, the 12th day of violence, the riots had spread to more than 275 cities across France. More than 5,000 vehicles had been torched, one man had been beaten to death, churches, synagogues, hospitals and even daycare centers had been firebombed, and the violence continued to escalate. Police, more than 50 of whom have been injured in the violence, have been shot at, and are now reporting finding automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades among the terrorists roaming the streets.

Hate- and fear-mongering at its finest! I'd like to see the citation on those weapons, by the way...

Just who are these thousands of rioter-terrorists? They are, by all accounts, almost entirely France's disgruntled Muslim youth. France has the largest Muslim population of any Western European nation at an estimated 6 million Muslims - mostly descendents of North African immigrants. Despite France's reputation as a liberal and open nation, it is beyond question that many if not most of these immigrants and their children have failed to assimilate.

Hold on, I have to stop this for a moment - failed to assimilate? Yeah, when you ghettoize millions of immigrants in government housing projects, joining in with the rest of society tends to be difficult. France as "liberal and open" is, to any scholar of to country, clearly not the reality for non-white French. Hahn is either ignorant or cynically opportunistic in this characterization.

Unemployment among Muslim immigrants and their children is the highest in France, consistently holding at around 25-30 percent of the general Muslim-immigrant population, and as high as 60 percent among Muslim-immigrant youths (ages 18-25). The majority of these poor and jaded people live in ghettos of crumbling government housing projects that few police dare to patrol.

Again, it seems that Hahn is playing the standard "poor people are lazy/stupid/bad/uncooperative" conservative. Maybe the huge unemployment isn't a choice, dude. Think of that?

Muslim North African immigrants no longer come to, or live in a France that embraces or wants them.

Yeah, except most aren't immigrants, but are second or third generation. They are French. Hahn saying this is like someone in the 60s saying America doesn't want Black people. It may be accurate of some large number of bigots, but those bigots don't actually have any claim to being "France."

This truth became overwhelmingly clear in 2002 when Jean Marie Le Pen, a neo-fascist war criminal (who tortured Algerian Muslims during the French occupation) was voted into the run off election against Chirac while campaigning on an anti-immigrant platform. Rejected by a French population that repudiates and even illegalizes their culture and values (i.e. the hijab ban), Muslim youths have found an outlet and accepting culture of violence, crime, and - yes - Islamic extremism. The news media has proven to be unwilling to cover the situation in a fair and balanced way, so I pose the simple question: could Islamism play a roll in deadly and violent riots perpetrated almost singularly by Muslims?

Could Christianity have played a role in deadly and violent race riots perpetrated almost singularly by Christians in this country? But Hahn won't ask that question.

Also, I'm assuming "fair and balanced" has just become a code-word for "Fox-Newsy" or "yellow journalistic."

If you answered no to the former question, take the following into consideration: According to the National Review Online, and rioters themselves, any vehicles with Muslim bumper stickers and Muslim-owned businesses have been deliberately spared. Mosques, of course have not been burned, while Christian churches and Jewish synagogues have been firebombed. Le Monde and the Arab News Network have reported that the rioters shout "Allah is Great" as they torch the buildings and vehicles of non-Muslims. On French Muslim blogs, Islamists have begun to mention a militant operation "Midnight Sun," and are strategically organizing the riots. French news sources report that rioters have begun to call the riot-movement the "Ramadan Intifada."

I don't think the corner has ever been viewed as a news source of any repute, but I guess this is the Hatchet quoting here. I really could use a hand finding the specific articles Hahn is reading, though, because google didn't come up with much that wasn't straight from the collective imagination of right blogistan.

France has recently begun to take a hard-line stance against Islamist Imams who have swarmed their country by booting them out of the country.

Ooh, nice writing there. Country is such a good word that it's worth saying twice.

In the weeks leading up to the violence French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy warned of Algerian Islamist groups plotting violence and attacks against non-Muslims. I ask again, is it fair to characterize as an intifada this violent movement perpetrated and militantly organized by Muslims who chant "Allah is Great" while fire-bombing cars, churches and synagogues, and that targets exclusively non-Muslims and their property?

Denotatively? Sure - intefada is just arabic for "shaking off," or uprising, and what's happening in France might qualify. Connotatively, it's a cheap shot by Hahn to portray this in the scarriest way possible to hatchet readers whose only contact with the word is likely in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and who have a pretty one-sided opinion of that to boot.

Make no mistake. What is occurring in France is not a haphazard, disorganized riot by well-intentioned but fed-up poor immigrants - it is an organized, militant, Islamist movement: the Parisian intifada.

Make no mistake. What is occurring in this editorial is not a haphazard, disorganized rant by a well-intentioned but ignorant GW undergrad - it is a disingenuous, militant, bigoted attack: just one part of the Hahn crusade.

Rewriting history

The President claims that his opponents (me, for example) are contorting historical facts in order to accuse him of fixing intelligence leading up to the Iraq war. He said:

"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges."

I think he's exactly right about that part - this is an incredibly high-stakes conflict we've got going on, and it would be terribly irresponsible for anyone to make false or misleading claims about the facts.

Look, the truth clearly is that the information that was provided to Senators, the media, the UN and the American people was wrong. I think that the CIA was probably not involved in any attempt to fix intelligence, but that the mindset of "we should invade Iraq" within this administration probably led to any information regarding Saddam's nefarious behavior being passed to the top, however dubious it might have been. So while no conscious effort may have been made by those in the intelligence community to falsify the cause for war, the irresponsible group-think culture still puts the blame for the war on the White House doorstep. "Rewriting history" would be making efforts to shift this blame to those not responsible for gathering and interpreting intelligence, which is exactly what Bush's speech attempts to do.

C2IA in the press

We made it into the Washington Blade:



... And also on ABC 7.

Alito can't be trusted

Via AmericaBlog the Washington Post:

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. said yesterday that he did nothing improper when he ruled in cases involving two financial firms in which he held accounts, although he had told the Senate 15 years ago that he would step aside in matters involving the companies.

Alito, trying to quell conflict-of-interest issues raised by liberal opponents, said he had been "unduly restrictive" in promising in 1990 to recuse himself in cases involving Vanguard Group Inc. and Smith Barney Inc. After the Senate confirmed him as an appellate judge and when he subsequently ruled on routine cases involving the two companies, he said, he acted properly because his connections to the firms did not constitute a conflict of interest under the applicable rules and laws.

See AmericaBlog for more on that "unduly restrictive" garbage. What seems clear from this is that Alito's testimony last time he was nominated for a judicial position was false, and that Senators should not be comforted by any promises he makes this time around.

Facebook stalkers

They're for real - and they're working for SJS. Am I the only one that finds this creepy? I was discussing this with friends tonight, and they weren't offended that we as GW students are held accountable to the University for things we do in pictures posted on facebook. I find it difficult to imagine that I'm alone on this, though.

Investigating students because of what they appear to be doing in a photo posted online is quite another thing. Legally, students put themselves at risk whenever they post anything online, just as anyone does. But does that low expectation of privacy extend to the University's surveillance as well? SJS is not, after all, a branch of the criminal justice system. There has never been any indication to me in University policies that I've read that I should expect such intrusions, nor has online conduct ever been clearly stated as within the jurisdiction of the University's disciplinary office.

Here's the problem - SJS is actually charged with a shocking degree of responsibility for students' actions, according to the mission statement (cached because their link is broken):

Through its programs, services, and resources, SJS teaches and supports community standards and fosters positive relationships while holding students accountable for behavior detrimental to their academic, personal or social development; their peers; and the larger community.

Detrimental, not illegal; that's a pretty broad conception of what SJS should be about. It would be easy for the overzealous staffer to read this and feel that they have some sort of duty to report every apparent infraction they see in students' facebook profiles. I suppose it may be a philosophical difference, but I don't think such overreaching is positive, as it only serves to increase distrust of SJS and its employees. Also, it seems like it teaches students the wrong lessons about privacy, namely that they should be content that they have none. A responsible policy would be to leave students alone for what may or may not be illegal behavior pictured on non-University web sites.

(Full disclosure: this all may just be selfishness speaking, of course, since my facebook profile depicts me in an illegal act.)

Frist not concerned about torture

He's making this way too easy for us; from CNN:

Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is "not concerned about what goes on" behind the prison walls.

"My concern is with leaks of information that jeopardize your safety and security -- period," Frist said. "That is a legitimate concern."

..."I am not concerned about what goes on [in the prisons] and I'm not going to comment about the nature of that," Frist replied.

Seriously, not concerned? Dude, it's your job to be concerned if someone is doing something illegal in the name of the United States.

Senate Oath ("I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States") plus Eighth Amendment ("nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted") equals Frist has a duty to be concerned about torture.

What, free trade isn't universally good?

I wish I'd had Duncan Black for my econ prof - might have gotten something from the class:

Now we're in this world where people just scream "free trade good!" Well, it isn't good for everyone. There are winners and losers, and all basic trade theory says is that enough extra income is created so that the winners could, in theory, more than compensate the losers for what they lost. But that's "class warfare" and "socialist redistribution" so we don't do that.

It's completely in the self-interest of a nontrivial part of the population to oppose basic free trade legislation. Economists are often loathe to embrace a particular social welfare function, but too many fall prey to embracing GDP as somehow being a metric which is value neutral. In fact all it does is obscure all the things about which we could make a value judgment. A useful measure of something, but certainly not a value-free measure of the nation's economic wellbeing. The income distribution is still there, even if we close our eyes and pretend it isn't.

Finally some sense.

Geek Break

Holy mother of J-dog - RISK on a Google Map.

Perspectives on the French violence

I've kept from commenting this far because I've felt so ignorant about the whole situation. The amount of damage to property in France over the last week seems pretty appalling, but so too does the oppressive segregation that ethnic minorities must endure there; while the physical violence is certainly terrible, I have a hard time finding it worse than the structural violence committed against the "immigrant" population. It is as if one tragedy brings another to light.

Two pieces I've read have been particularly moving. In Tikkun, Doug Ireland goes into some detail of the historical circumstances leading up to the current violence:

To understand the origins of this profound crisis for France, it is important to step back and remember that the ghettos where festering resentment has now burst into flames were created as a matter of industrial policy by the French state.

If France's population of immigrant origin -- mostly Arab, some black -- is today quite large (more than 10% of the total population), it is because there was a government and industrial policy during the post-World War II boom years of reconstruction and economic expansion which the French call "les trentes glorieuses" -- the 30 glorious years -- to recruit from France's foreign colonies laborers and factory and menial workers for jobs which there were no Frenchmen to fill. These immigrant workers were desperately needed to allow the French economy to expand due to the shortage of male manpower caused by two World Wars, which killed many Frenchmen, and slashed the native French birth-rates too. Moreover, these immigrant workers were considered passive and unlikely to strike (unlike the highly political French working class and its Communist-led unions.)

While Ireland's piece is a fairly stinging rebuke of French policy, I found a perhaps more important argument in Historian Juan Cole's excellent rebuttal to all the trash talking points floating out of the nebulous right. Go read the whole thing. Really. You have time for this. In case you won't follow the link, though, I have to share this:

The French youth who are burning automobiles are as French as Jennifer Lopez and Christopher Walken are American...

...A lot of the persons living in the urban outer cities (a better translation of cite than "suburb") are from subsaharan Africa. And there are lots of Eastern European immigrants. The riots were sparked by the deaths of African youths, not Muslims. Singling out the persons of Muslim heritage is just a form of bigotry. Moreover, French youth of European heritage rioted quite extensively in 1968. As they had in 1789. Rioting in the streets is not a foreign custom. It has a French genealogy and context.

...There are no pure "nations" folks. I mean, first of all, what is now France had a lot of different populations in it even in the 18th century-- Bretons (Gaelic speakers), Basques, Alsatians (German speakers), Provencale people in the south, Jews, etc., etc. "Multi-culturalism" is not something new in Europe. What was new was the Romantic nationalist conviction that there are "pure" "nations" based on "blood." It was among the more monstrous mistakes in history. Of course if, according to this essentially racist way of thinking, there are "pure" nations that have Gypsies, Jews and others living among them, then the others might have to be "cleansed" to restore the "purity."

Reading just that won't do the argument justice, though. Go to the site, spend a few minutes.

C2IA in the press

Mimi, the SGAC International Partnerships Coordinator, is pictured getting arrested for this CNN writeup of Monday's demo:



The article itself is a little disappointing - it totally neglects half of the issues we were there to bring up, like needle exchange programs and safer sex education. Also, there were 29 of us arrested, which is a bit more than two dozen. That's just nitpicking, though.

More on intelligence

The GOP misstep in calling for a bicameral investigation of the leak of the existence of gulags secret CIA torture prisons will become wonderfully clear over the next few days and weeks, I suspect. Frist among their problems will be the fact that such investigations are very uncommon, less than a half dozen having been conducted ever, according to the Post. That the GOP are interested in such a serious crackdown for letting out information on something that so clearly shames them and the president signals that they're worried more about image and politics than the ethical behavior of the United States. They've handed the Democrats the moral high ground on a silver platter.

Next on the list of problems this will cause for our ruling party is that investigating this sort of thing will allow Democrats to push for other, more obviously necessary investigations, such as why we even have these secret torture prisons, and even the intelligence flaws that lead to the war in Iraq. Pelosi has jumped already:

"There is plenty to investigate about the Bush administration's use and misuse of intelligence," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "The American people deserve the truth."

To their credit, some Republicans have and will get on the right side of this. Chris Shays is one calling for investigation of the jails themselves as a condition of exploring the leak. Good for him, and Lindsey Graham, too. However, the leadership as a whole has been caught off guard by the whole slip-up, it seems, and we're about to watch them crash and burn.

But then there's the killer sentence of the letter itself which surely can be used to show the Congressional leaders as condemning the Bush Administration:

"The leaking of classified information by employees of the United States government appears to have increased in recent years, establishing a dangerous trend that, if not addressed swiftly and firmly, likely will worsen," the letter states.

And to that we have to add Scott McClellan's Ironotastic comment:

"The leaking of classified information is a serious matter and ought to be taken seriously," he told reporters.

Any Washington spin doctor of competence should be able to handily crucify Rove with those comments.

This, friends, is a party in chaos.

Scoreness

Looks like Kaine has it. Yay, public transit!

Boom!

What sound does a political party make when it implodes, actually? We're about to hear it, whatever it is. The GOP is, after all, falling apart completely.

Case in point: Last week, the Washington Post published an article about the series of secret prisons that the CIA operates around the world for anti-terrorist purposes, some in Eastern Europe. As I said before, definitely not gulags.

Earlier today, in response to the leak of what is probably classified information regarding the existence of these prisons, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist drafted a letter requesting, as far as I can tell, an investigation into the leak. I suspect it was an effort at turnabout, as they may have supposed that the leaker was a Democrat. I know, too ironic.

What's great is that the whole thing backfired, and big - Trent Lott has stepped up to throw a rench in the operation, as tgnyc relates:

Lott just said, Tuesday afternoon, that he thinks it was a GOP Senator who leaked the info to the Washington Post last week. He says the details had been discussed at a GOP Senators-only meeting last week, and that many of those details made it into the WaPo story.

Money quote from Lott; "We can not remain silent. We have met the enemy, and it is us."

Atrios quotes Ed Henry on CNN:

Trent Lott stunned reporters by declaring that this subject was actualy discussed at a Senate Republican luncheon, Republican senators only, last tuesday the day before the story ran in the Washington Post. Lott noted that Vice President Cheney was also in the room for that discussion and Lott said point blank "a lot of it came out of that room last tuesday, pointing to the room where the lunch was held in the capitol." He added of senators "we can't keep our mouths shut." He added about the vice president, "He was up here last wek and talked up here in that room right there in a roomful of nothing but senators and every word that was said in there went right to the newspaper." He said he believes when all is said and done it may wind up as an ethics investigation of a Republican senator, maybe a Republican staffer as well. Senator Frist's office not commenting on this development. The Washington Post not commenting either.

OK, so Frist and Hastert vow to get to the bottom of the leak, then it turns out it's either a GOP Senator or Cheney (unlikely) who was the source. Oops. Massive failure of political maneuver. What are they to do?

Well, if you're Frist, damage control is easy - just claim you didn't actually ask for an investigation! Again, Atrios watches CNN so we don't have to:

Senate Majority Leader Frist telling reporters he has not officially signed the letter that he and Hastert drafted earlier today...

Ha! Technicalities! This is almost too fun.

Election Day

Virginia's gubernatorial race is the biggest thing going here - at risk is the last couple years' progress, which is jeopardized by the backwards Jerry Kilgore, the Republican candidate. I've heard his cronies described as troglodytes when it comes to their development politics; one of his ads basically promised to solve Northern Virginia's crushing traffic crisis with more, wider highways. Anyone who would attack Tim Kaine for supporting alternate modes of transportation in NoVa is just a moron - advocating for wider roads is a good way to pander to some irresponsible folks who insist that they have to be able to drive their hummers everywhere, but a very bad way to actually fix anything.

What's interesting about the race is that Kilgore's campaign distanced itself from President Bush until yesterday. In a big-budget, high stakes race, this strikes me as a sign that Bush is in serious trouble, if a Republican running in a reliably red state is worried about associating himself with the sitting, Republican president. But who knows.

This, from the Post, is funny:

The president "is very popular in Virginia. And he's coming off a successful South American trip," Kilgore said of Bush's overseas visit, which drew violent protests.

C2IA pictures

This is from outside Concerned Women for America's K-street office - which wasn't populated by many women, according to the member of our group that delivered their award. Odd, don't you think? I'm sure it freaked them out to have 300 chanting protesters about 10 feet from the doorway.



Yeah, this is the money shot really, aside from the arrests. White house? Check. Speakers? Check. Sign with detailed explanation of what's going on? Double check.

C2EA folks get arrested

It was a great protest - as part of the week of action here in DC, C2EA caravaners participated in the satirical Campaign to Increase AIDS, giving "Golden Funeral Urn Awards" to the biggest inhibiters of effective HIV prevention. The Family Research Council got the biggest hit of the right-wing groups affecting government policy, with something like a dozen protesters getting arrested there. Groups whose work directly increases others' risk of contracting HIV also include the Family Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America, and others.

The grand finale was the fist prize funeral urn, which of course went to President Bush. A grave yard was set up in honor of his efforts to appease the right wing extremists within his support base, whose ideologically-driven policies, like abstinence-only education, an unhealthy skepticism towards condoms, and an unreasoning opposition to needle exchange programs, have contributed to millions of AIDS deaths.

The grave yard was populated by over 30 protesters holding tombstone-shaped signs. Twenty-nine were arrested for refusing to leave. I was able to get, um, pretty close to the action.

Hoya Battalion FTX pictures

Way too tired yesterday to post about it, and too busy tonight, but the pictures are up at least:



It was really, really intense.

In the Army now

Well, not really. But I will be an embedded reporter during the Hoya Battalion Field Training Exercise (FTX) this weekend. Wish me luck. I promise to share when I get back.

No more bridge to nowhere?

Some sense, finally. According to the Post, some in congress are reconsidering the crazed spending on pork in the highway bill. The saddest part of it all? The $233 million allocated just to the Alaskan bridge to nowhere would be nearly enough to fill the funding gap facing the Global Fund. I guess it's just too bad people with AIDS don't have a representative to lavish pork on them.

Forbes redeems itself a bit

Well, their blog article may have been a solid piece of crap, but this article on Google Print is golden. I especially liked this explanation of the snippet, one of the more contentious issues in the copyfight:

Pat Schroeder, the former Congresswoman from Colorado is now the president of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and a vigorous opponent of Google’s plan. She is also an author. I went to Amazon and searched in her book 24 Years of House Work and Still a Mess for the word “property,” and Amazon’s technology found for me on page 286 the following snippet:

"Protecting intellectual property is my main focus at AAP. Technology has made it so easy to copy anything you create ..."

She’s right about technology. However, my finding that snippet and using it for this article is not a copyright violation. I didn’t ask Schroeder or her publisher for permission to use the quote in her book. Indeed, there’s an entire industry, book reviewing, predicated on the ability of people to do something similar to what I’ve just done.

Questions

This White House Briefing column by Dan Froomkin is a pretty good roundup of the last week. Great stuff, really.

One of my favorite bits:

Washington Post White House correspondent Peter Baker was Live Online yesterday, not just answering question, but posing some himself.

"I can think of lots of questions to ask the president when he deems to take them again," Baker wrote.

...

"3) You promised in your first campaign to clean up Washington. 'In my administration,' you told voters in Pittsburgh in October 2000, 'we will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves.' Do you think your White House has lived up to that standard in this episode?"

Ouch

60 percent disapproval rating for the Bush presidency. That can't feel good.

Getting really close to that crazification factor.

Luddites attack!

I suppose I shouldn't expect any more from the Washington Times. But still - there is just so much wrong with what Pat Schroeder and Bob Barr - two opponents of Google Print - are saying. Lets take a look:

 Internet behemoth Google, [ <--needless comma] plans to launch their Library project in November. It plans to scan the entire contents of the Stanford, Harvard and University of Michigan libraries and make what it calls "snippets" of the works available online, for free.

The creators and owners of these copyrighted works will not be compensated, nor has Google defined what a "snippet" is: a paragraph? A page? A chapter? A whole book? Meanwhile Google will gain a huge new revenue stream by selling ad space on library search results.

OK, that's clearly not a serious argument. "Snippets" may not have a legal definition, but it certainly is known among speakers of English to not mean anything as large as a chapter or book. The authors are trying to hard to scare the reader.

Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt has argued the "fair use" provision in copyright law allows Google to scan copyrighted books and put them on their Web site without seeking permission. He compares this to someone at home taping a television show and watching it later. Taped TV show are watched in millions of households every night and is quite legal; rebroadcasting that show to make a buck is not.

Next time Dr. Schmidt watches television, he should keep his ears open for the common disclaimer "rebroadcast of this program without the express written consent of" the broadcaster is "prohibited." Google's plans are tantamount to the same thing, profiting from someone else's work without permission. It isn't up to the broadcaster to track down someone profiting from their work, why should it be up to publishers and authors to do so?

Um, where to begin. First, such a disclaimer isn't actually voiced before any program aside from some sports events, so why Schmidt should keep his ears open is anyone's guess. Second, this is pretty obvious sidestep of the fair use issue. An honest argument would be to question fair use or whether this is similar to Betamax, not attack some straw man for not watching television.

The company contends it will allow authors of copyrighted works to "opt-out" of the free online library by notifying Google they don't want their works online. Most authors and publishers do not know who bought their books. And have you ever tried to get a live person on the phone at an Internet company?

Yes, actually, and I've found many "Internet companies" to be far better at providing human service than, say, Verizon, or many other (maybe they'd say "real") companies I've had to do business with. Also, what does knowing who bought your book have to do with this? I'm confused.

Anyway, the errors and oddness aren't really the problem here - what's terrible is that Schroeder and Barr would doubtless sell more copies of their books if they were to allow google users to find things within their contents, as some of these users would, I'm positive, buy the books through some online retailer. I shouldn't even have to explain this. Unfortunately, they're far too backwards and willfully ignorant to see this.

Geek Break

Sony is evil. CD installing a rootkit without user knowledge? Yeah, that alone is evil. The fact that it's apparently so sloppy as to allow anybody with access to an affected windows computer to hide any sort of file they want - that's probably criminal negligence if nothing else.

Random real life stuff

NIN is great in concert - and lots of fun politically.

Fav pic of the day

Atrios seems to like this, too.



Reid looks like he's got Durban's head in his left hand.

CIA Secret Prison Archipelago

For the record, I'm not calling them gulags.

Quick question

I've abandoned my Google Maps experiment - does this solve the error issues everyone was having on loading this site?

For your viewing pleasure

Crooks and Liars have some great video available from the CNN coverage of Reid closing the Senate. It really is amazing how whiny Frist is, given that his party hasn't exactly been playing fair (a point which CNN correspondent Ed Henry makes by referencing Frist's unprecedented campaigning against Tom Daschle). Here's Quicktime and Bittorrent links.

But the best part of the video might be Jack Cafferty's rant at the end - it's all good and too much to quote, so just make sure you watch the whole way through.

Weird

By the way, I don't care if it was my best Halloween costume ever, having two friends tell me today that I look like Scooter Libby was really odd.

Holy Crap

Well, Reid's got guts. Dems called a closed session of the Senate today in order to push for investigation into the intelligence that led to the Iraq war.

Republicans condemned the Democrats' maneuver, which marked the first time in more than 25 years that one party had insisted on a closed session without consulting the other party. But within two hours, Republicans appointed a bipartisan panel to report on the progress of a Senate intelligence committee report on prewar intelligence, which Democrats say has been delayed for nearly a year.

Guess what - we won this round.

C2EA in the press

The Post is covering C2EA, and we haven't even started in DC yet.

Microbicides

Hot - the Post says things are happening. But the best news isn't on the science front, but on the intellectual property side:

The International Partnership for Microbicides, a Silver Spring group working to bring a preventive gel to women at risk of AIDS in poor countries, said Monday it had struck deals with Merck & Co. and with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. The contracts give the group, funded by foundations, the right to create a combination gel using drugs from a promising new category known as HIV entry inhibitors. They block the entry of the virus into human cells, and such compounds are already under development as pills for infected people.

Licensing is the critical failing point of most AIDS drugs, in that huge costs keep needed drugs from the poor populations most affected by AIDS. Having this deal worked out before the products hit the market is huge.

Maybe we should have gone with Miers

Alito is the devil. The Devil. Seriously, where do they dig up all their heinous Reaganauts? It's like they're intentionally bringing in all the people who were responsible for the conservative policies I hate most. For instance:

And, according to the Washington Post, on September 24, 1986, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sam "Motherfucker-in-training" Alito helped author a Justice Department policy that "said that discrimination based on insufficient medical knowledge was not prohibited by federal laws protecting the handicapped. Employers, it said, may legally fire AIDS victims because of a 'fear of contagion whether reasonable or not.'" The Justice Department's position was rejected by many states, including some that reacted by barring discrimination against people with AIDS. Alito, whose work helped foster some of the hysteria about AIDS during the Reagan era, said, "We certainly did not want to encourage irrational discrimination," but the reaction to it "hasn't shaken our belief in the rightness of our opinion."

This guy needs to go down.