Totally unrelated

There's a million things going on right now, but all I can think right now is that I love Mozart Kugeln. Sweet, sweet Mozart Kugeln.

In Memorium

2465

I made the rounds in DC today, catching all the memorials on the Mall, and avoiding Bush and Rumsfeld's visit to Arlington. This piece over at Editor and Publisher seems particularly appropriate.

Double standard

Angry about the recent coverage of the Clintons' marriage, the portrayal of Al Gore as a liar, or any other strange personal attacks on progressives by our news media? Go take a long saturday afternoon read of Jamison Foser's piece over at Media Matters.

So torn

On one hand, I'm a big fan of accountability for criminals in the House and Senate, which seems to require some executive branch intervention at this point. On the other, I'd really have liked to see Alberto "renders quaint" Gonzales resign.

The torture question

With Hayden confirmed as CIA director, I have to wonder whether and how he answered Senator Feinstein's question on waterboarding, if he feels its use is acceptable in interrogation. Not that I'm obsessed with that tactic in particular, mind you, but because it gets at the important constitutional question of the validity of Presidential signing statements.

The Senate has abdicated its responsibility to maintain a balance of power if it did not get a straight answer on the question, as it ought to at every opportunity remind the administration that our system is one ruled by laws, not fiat.

Moving

It's an odd thing, switching metro stations. I don't feel at home at Shaw-Howard yet, but Foggy Bottom strikes me as not my own anymore. I think I'm hopelessly metro addicted, though, since I can't manage to live more than a block away. Ah, well, tis an acceptable vice, and not too hard on the environment.

More exciting is having my own space, though for now it's full of crap from the move. I realize it's not a terribly sustainable situation land-use wise, but hey, at least it's a row house.

Blog? What blog?

Oh, right. Internet.

Doubleplusungood

Let's take stock of where we are, shall we?

CIA has secret torture prisons, which ABC reporters reveal

New York Times reports that NSA taps phones of thousands of "terrorists" inside the US, but doesn't go to secret court to get permission because means of determining terrorist status not even kosher for secret court

USA Today breaks story of NSA program to aggregate records of every call made in the US, parsing the data for connections that might yield clues to terrorists; the paper instantly becomes about 1000 times more respected

Hmm. Scary-ass overreaching of executive authority, aimed ostensibly at terrorists. What could be next?

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

Oh.

Crap.

Fun with php

New calendar up at SGAC - let me know what you think.

DC vote finally looking good?

Seems there's some possibility of movement in the house to give the District a real congressperson, according to the Post. I'm a little worried over giving Utah another representative in exchange, but I suppose they're due for one anyway. Not sure what it'll mean to elect someone statewide; will everyone in Utah then have two representatives?

Hidden in the story is one detail about which I'm pretty much required to make a snarky comment:

The White House declined to comment, but Davis said the bill "is not something the president would veto."

Of course it isn't - it is a bill, after all. I think that's pretty much all that's required to make something veto-proof for this president.

My wireless is union

If you haven't, check out the Cingular Switch campaign - a website aimed at convincing customers to switch to Cingular Wireless because it's pro-union. Smart tactic by the union, I suspect - help Cingular because it's cool, and bash Verizon for union-busting. All labor organizations should be so savvy.

Brown

Almost half of children in the US are minorities, according to the Census. I'm looking forward very much to the day when that 50-percent mark is passed in the overall population, and we can put to rest the notion that this is a country that somehow ought to be owned by white people or culture. That's going to be far from automatic, though, since even in today's multi-ethnic child population, segregation keeps most people ignorant. What's it going to be like 10 years from now, with white children only the plurality, but isolated almost completely in suburban school systems in which they are members of an apparent super-majority? What kinds of lessons about diversity, inclusiveness and humility will they be able to learn there?

Sometimes I think we don't get it when we blame Brown v. Board of Education for our suburbanized segregation. The problem with Brown was not that it lead to forced integration and busing that drove scared white folks out of the cities; it was that it all didn't didn't happen regionally, that enforcement fell too short to make a real change.

What theocracy?

No, it certainly isn't a bad sign when a scientific panel on the deficiencies of abstinance-only education is hijacked by a congressman and loaded up with non-vetted, not-peer-reviewed abstinence proponents. No way.

Nor is it worrying at all that the theocrats Republicans have taken to communicating exclusively in a sort of proto-Newspeak, rending words of their meaning (and with gusto):

"What was basically a propaganda panel has had its politicized nature removed and appears now to be a more accurate reflection of the scientific opinion," Green said.

Yes, because what was basically a scientific panel has had politicized propaganda inserted, and thus becomes an accurate reflection of antiscientific, ideological opinion. Sure that sounds like the opposite of what Green said, but you have to understand: he's the spokesman of a Republican congressman. Yes, I knew that would help you make sense of it.

Digital wet noodling

Richard Cohen is all panty-knotted over some mean, nasty emails he received over his hacktacular pontification on Stephen Colbert's "so not funny" appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. I have to wonder at his conclusions, though. Does he really think he's the only person getting hate mail? Can he really think such trolls are a problem isolated to the left?

Then there's the whole issue of "lynch mob." Okay, 3,000 or so people send some nastyness to Cohen, out of a total daily readership of what? About 700,000 for the Post? Thousands more on teh internets? Hardly what I'd call a tide of left-wing anger (unless Cohen thinks there's only 3000 of us, I guess). And of what meaning is an email? I could send the sort of incoherent babble he received in maybe 30 seconds; that's not much commitment required, and so the receipt of such can't really be conflated into any kind of real energy to take down a presidential campaign. Ask anyone who works in a congressional office, by the way - emails are the least regarded form of constituent communication because they take so little effort, and represent little in the way of dedication.

The biggest joke of it all is his effort to portray himself as unbiased, of course. "I liked Al Gore's movie" isn't exactly what I'd call stinging criticism of the administration. And anyway, the real target of Colbert's speech, by the way, wasn't Bush. It was complacent crap journalists like Richard Cohen.

For a funny guy, he doesn't seem to get it.

I want one

With all those hospitals and whatnot that we're building in Iraq, there's been a serious unmet need out there for appropriate camoflage. Well, no more - say hello to the Maternity Ward Gilly Suit:



(Via Boing Boing.)

Things I've learned about the CIA

1. It's just another bureaucracy. And Porter Goss was like every other Bush appointee, an ideologue incompatible with professional staff, driving them to quit in droves. The next number two, Stephen R. Kappes, is one such former spook.

2. It's just another cesspool of filth. Like everything touched by the GOP in recent years, the CIA is full of corruption and unseemly activities:

Other Goss lieutenants at the agency also appear to be on the way out, following Goss, who resigned Friday. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, brought in by Goss as the CIA's executive director -- its No. 3 official -- announced to agency staff in an e-mail yesterday that he plans to resign as well. The FBI said it is investigating whether Foggo steered contracts to a friend, Brent R. Wilkes. The CIA confirmed last week that Foggo attended private poker games with Wilkes at a Washington hotel.

3. I don't know much about the military. What's this about the next CIA director being a vice admiral of the Air Force? Isn't that kind of a different agency? I don't get it, it just seems odd to have your chief officer have two jobs.

Geek break

Otakus rejoice! Soon you'll be spending half as much to maintain your hentai collection, as your robot porn and tentacle porn sections can be merged. Say hello to DARPA-funded octarms, to be featured in crude japanese graphic novels everywhere.

Out of it

You know that feeling, when you haven't been checking the blogs for days, and you feel completely lost? Yeah, that's me right now.