So Bush has decided that he can open mail without a warrant. Not email. You probably already know that. We're talking about first class, postal, physical mail.
Here's my favorite part, emphasis mine:
Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations. He then issued a 'signing statement' that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.
Why the hell do we even MAKE laws when the President can just issue a "signing statement" that basically says he's not going to obey them? Check the record; Bush has issued more of these signing statements than, well, anybody.
Here's an interesting little example of how interconnected the world is. Today I read that OPEC appears ready to defend $60 floor on oil prices. Now, as somebody who has a 12 mile drive to the nearest grocery story -- each way -- this really bothers me, because I don't like paying $2.40 a gallon or more, but it's obvious things have been ratcheting up for a while. Prices spike until they're ridiculously high, people complain, and then they come down to where they started -- and gradually work their way up to where they were at the height of the spike, but nobody complains. (Unless you count general grumbling.)
But what I find interesting is this. High oil prices hurt the US economy, which weakens the dollar against other currencies. OK, fine. But most of that oil money OPEC is bringing in comes in as dollars, so as the dollar weakens, OPEC nations have LESS PURCHASING POWER with those dollars.
A bright spot in the discussion, I guess. :)
I do a lot of joking about Bushisms, because the mangling of the English language is one of my pet peeves. (For heaven's sake, you're the President of the most powerful nation in the free world. LEARN TO SAY NU-CLE-AR!!!!!) But maybe it's not that funny; I wondered how somebody who was so ... well ... stupid had gotten as far as he had. Maybe he's not as stupid as he looks. Maybe there's something entirely different going on.
Check out this video:
On Thursday, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration cannot try Guantánamo Bay detainees via military tribunals, in which as few as three military officers make the decisions, and the accused cannot face their accusers. Instead, the court suggested that military courts-martial, with protections similar to civil trials, would be appropriate.
in a dissenting opinion, Justice (and I use the term loosely) Antonin Scalia wrote, "'It is not clear where the court derives the authority — or the audacity — to contradict' Congress and the executive branch".
EXCUSE ME???
Reviewing, and on occasion, contradicting, Congress and the executive branch is the FUNCTION of the Supreme Court. Or at least it was when I was learning about the Constitution.
Of course, that was before September 11.
According to the article, "For now, there are about 450 detainees at Guantanamo, and 115 of them have been deemed eligible for release or transfer to their home countries. Ten, including Hamdan, [on whose behalf the current case was brought,] have been charged with crimes. The chief Guantanamo prosecutor had said about 65 more detainees were likely to be charged if the court ruled differently."
OK, let's look at this for a minute. 115 inmates have been deemed eligible for release. Why the hell are they still there? They love the food? 260 more have not been charged with a crime, and according to this are not likely to be charged with a crime. Again, why are they still there?
The answer is unfortunate, but simple. After torturing these men for four years, the Bush administration simply cannot afford to release them.
okay, maybe that'll will strong, but check out this report that the U.S. Customs and Border Protectionis under orders to notify the Mexican government of Minutemen positions. the Minutemen, as you may or may not know, our civilians who have taken it upon themselves to patrol the border and keep out illegal immigrants:
According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants -- and if and when violence is used against border crossers.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants' rights are being observed.
I should point out that the border patrol agents are just as upset about this as you probably are.
When I first read Dictatorship is the danger in The Guardian, the British newspaper, my first reaction was to check to make sure that it was a real article, rather than a hoax. Very little searching read me to the original broadcast of NPR's Nina Totenberg, who was there when Sandra Day O'Connor told a small group that the assaults on the independant judiciary are indicative of the type of interference and retaliation that can, in the long run, lead to dictatorship. Are we in danger of having jackboots in the streets next week? Probably not. But she points out "We must be ever vigilant against those who would strong arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."
[Additional note: Without net neutrality, it would be easy for a conservative ISP to block postings like this one, if they don't like it. China has (no joke) 30,000 "cyber-cops" that block access to sites with information the government doesn't like. Right now that can't happen here. The death of net neutrality would be a first step in that direction.]
AT&T was broken up for good reason. Now, with the pending merger with Bellsouth, they're just about back where they were, with one big difference. Now we have the internet. Good, right? Wrong. AT&T is one of the largest supporters of the end of "net neutrality", which means that all data traffic is treated equally. If these opponents have their way, they will be able to blackmail content providers into paying an extra fee so they don't get degraded service. In other words, if Yahoo! pays a fee to Verizon, and Verizon is your ISP, you may see perfectly good speed out of Yahoo!, but, say, slow response from Google. Or worse, no response at all. Don't Be Neutral on Net Neutrality explains this a bit better, and includes this quote:
"AT&T CEO and chairman Ed Whitacre told 'Business Week,' 'Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!'"
Excuse me, but if it weren't for Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or any of the other content and service providers, why would you have those pipes in the first place? You DO get paid for those pipes. Your CUSTOMERS pay for those pipes every month.
ARG.
[Additional note: Without net neutrality, it would be easy for a conservative ISP to block postings like this one, if they don't like it. China has (no joke) 30,000 "cyber-cops" that block access to sites with information the government doesn't like. Right now that can't happen here. The death of net neutrality would be a first step in that direction.]
I hate to sound cynical, but isn't it a sweet deal for Senators that they blocked the unreformed Patriot Act last year, thereby seeming to be on the side of civil liberties, but are now set to pass it almost unchanged, thereby staying on the Administration's good side? The bill still lacks basic protections for our freedom and civil liberties. Please write your Senator about it.
Never discuss religion and politics. Yeah, right. Rogers Cadenhead points out that Wikipedia is now embroiled in the mess over the Mohammed cartoons. I undestand that Muslims don't want people to make images. I understand that they don't want to see images. But when I read a comment like "Every time I enter the page I click as fastly as I can to the 'discussion' to don't see the cartoon," I have to wonder: who's holding a gun to your head and making you come to this page?
I mean, really, it's not like it's on the main page of the site, after all.
This is beautiful. From Boing Boing: Senators figure out the Broadcast Flag, curse it as an abomination!:
First MIT grad John Sununu of New Hampshire said that government mandates "always restrict innovation" and then 82-year-old Ted Stevens of Alaska talked about the iPod he'd gotten for Christmas and put the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol on the spot about whether his proposal would break Stevens' ability to move digital radio programs to his iPod and listen to them in the most convenient way (it would).
[Sununu] pointed out that "we have a whole history of similar technological innovation that has shown us that the market can respond with its own protection to the needs of the artists." And he concluded with one of the most damning depictions of the ahistorical nature of the flag (clip from Congressional RealVideo) you'll hear on the Hill:"The suggestion is that if we don't do this, it will stifle creativity. Well...we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development...new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation...why would we think that this one special time, we're going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?"
iAbolish is collecting signatures for a petition to as the US Government to Create a Task Force to Eradicate Slavery in Sudan. Some disturbing statistics from Christian Solidarity International:
Based on interviews with 1,306 freed male and female slaves over the age of eleven:
Forced labor 95.5%
Frequent beatings 95.7%
Racial insults 95.8%
Forced conversion to Islam 59.6%
Based on interviews with 1,025 female slaves over the age of eleven:
Rape 69.7%
Gang rape 59.4%
Genital mutilation 33.5%
Based on interviews with 281 boy slaves over the age of eleven:
Rape 6.0%
Please sign the petition.
Here's an intersting little mystery. (Or non-mystery, really.) It seems that ABC cancelled a reality show in which a gay couple convinces white, conservative, Christian neighbors they should win a house. The question that remains: was the company worried that early gay-bashing comments would turn people off, or did parent company Disney do it to prevent Christian groups from returning to their boycotts just before they released The Chronicles of Narnia?
I understand that you need to save some data in order to make sure your business functions. For example, I can understand why Google needs to log what searches are performed and so on. But it makes me nervous that Google (and Yahoo, and probably many of the other search engines) associate that data with a particular person. Kudos to Google for fighting an attempt by the Feds to get their logs. But if they hadn't collected the information in the first place, there wouldn't be a problem. Yahoo and AOL say they complied iwth the subpoena, but didn't provide personally identifiable information. MSN just talked about what law abiding citizens they were in abiding by lawful requests. I guess we know what that means.
The Senate has passed an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that removes the ability of the courts to rule on whether or not an individual is being held illegally at Guantánamo Bay.
The relevant text:
(d) Judicial review of detention of enemy combatants --I can't even begin to tell you how bad I think this is. And before you think "I don't have to worry about that, I'm an American citizen," I direct you to the fact that the administration tried to pass legislation allowing the Justice Department to strip citizenship from ANYONE thought to be a member of a group the Attorney General deemed as a terrorist organization. Let me further remind you that that could apply to groups as diverse as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the National Rifle Association (NRA).(1) in general -- section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
" (e) No court, Justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for writ of habeas corpus call by or on behalf of an alien outside of the United States (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(38) of The Immigration and Naturalization Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(38)) who was detained by the Department of Defense at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba."
Technorati tags: freedom | habeas corpus | justice | politics | Senate | Guantánamo | Guantanamo | Guantánamo Bay | Guantánamo Bay
First, sorry for the incendiary headline. Just seemed appropriate.
Someone very close to me insists that the 9/11 attacks were planned and supported, if not actually executed, by the Bush administration. I keep telling that person they're going a bit too far. But now I'm wondering.
I'm not going to analyze this ABC News report because I want you to make up your own mind. But here's the lead:
"In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba."
Note the date. This report was published on May 1, 2001. So it's not a response to the 9/11 attacks.
I often listen to so-called "liberal" radio -- sort of the anti-Rush-Limbaugh kind of thing -- where they usually describe the people setting off bombs in Iraq as "insurgents", rather than "terrorists". Whenever I hear it, I do think about labels and how we apply them. Here's an interesting 80/20Rule: definition of the difference between "rebels" and "terrorists". Not sure I'd agree with his specific examples, but he does, nevertheless, have an excellent point.
Make a difference.
Thanks to Troy Worman for the link. (And he's also got other great stuff there. Check it out. You won't be sorry.)
Check out Human Rights Watch: Campaigns for links to things you can do to make a difference in this crazy world.
Here's an interesting notion. The pervasiveness of cameras and recording devices that will steal our privacy can also work to protect us from abuse. Check out WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon.
Here's an interesting fact, culled from How the Mafia Works:
In the early 1900s, organized crime had so thoroughly infiltrated Sicilian life that it was virtually impossible to avoid contact with the Mafia. Dictator Benito Mussolini cracked down on the Mafia using harsh, often brutal methods. But when U.S. troops occupied Sicily during World War II, they mistook the many jailed criminals for political prisoners and not only set them free, but also appointed many of them as mayors and police chiefs. Before long, the Mafia had a firm grasp on Italy's Christian Democrat party.
I'm glad to see that the issue of modern-day slavery is beginning to get addressed. Tomorrow survivor Beatrice Fernando testifies at a hearing on "Combating
Human Trafficking", being held by the House International
Relations Committee at 11 a.m.
Technorati tag: slavery
Let's see, you live in America, and you're an American citizen, so you think that things are ultimately fair. Oh, you're not naive, you know that there are people who are not entirely fair, or maybe some that are corrupt, or maybe some that don't have the public's best interest at heart. Maybe there are even some that will ignore your fundamental rights as an American. You might find yourself wronfully imprisoned. But it's OK, because ultimately, someone, somewhere, will set it right, even if your case has to go to the Supreme Court.
Guess what. Your mother was right.
Sometimes life just isn't fair.
Take Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty bomber". (Please.) He's been sitting in solitary confinement for more than two years. Now, I'm not saying he's innocent. He might be guilty as hell. But he's been sitting in prison for all this time WITHOUT BEING CHARGED WITH ANYTHING.
Twice now, courts have ruled that he should either be charged or released. Reasonable, no? But he's still sitting in jail with no charges. And now the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case (via Building a Pyramid).
Scary, scary stuff.
I've been thinking for a while -- especially after being reminded by a post of Bruce Sterling's -- that soon, if it hasn't happened already, there will be more Chinese speakers online than English speakers. (Which might explain all the Chinese-language spam I keep getting.) Scott Nance brings up the point again in a commentary on the rising Chinese juggernaught. He also reminds us of all the Chinese slang in Firefly, which as you know I loved. Interesting, I was just re-watching it this weekend, so I wish that I'd had Scott's pointer to the Firefly Chinese Pinyinary beforehand. It translates all of the Chinese in the series, which is pretty cool.
But seriously, I need to find me a good Chinese audio course for the car. I took German in high school and Russian in college, but I don't remember much of either. I've done the audio-tape route for Spanish more recently, and if I go to Mexico I'm probably at the level that I won't think everyone around me is plotting against me, but that's about it.
But if I'm going to stay competitive in this market, I suspect Chinese is the way to go...
Looks like Bill Clinton has finally discovered the environment. As quoted in Grist Magazine, he told an audience "'[T]he decisions we make or fail to make in this area may have a bigger impact on America and the world than virtually all the things that were debated' in the recent presidential campaign, Clinton told a crowd of 900 students and business execs gathered at New York University last week at an energy and global-warming conference." What's more, "The event was convened by the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, an organization established by the former president to help people worldwide deal with the challenges of global interdependence."
Environmental concern wasn't exactly a hallmark of his Presidency, so why the change? "'It basically took him until his second term to get serious about these issues,' a former Clinton staffer told Muckraker. 'I think it was a combination of four years of lunches with Al Gore, who schooled him hard, and pressure from the international community to make some moves on climate change that brought him around.'"
AJ Kim points out this musings of a social architect: Timely Quote. Oh, if only there was a way to beam it into people's brains.
Sigh.
Finally, a mainstream journalist, Keith Olbermann, picks up the voting irregularities story. Too many to mention, and too depressing to list.
Here's an interesting little map of election results. And as we begin to have enough numbers to analyze, the inevitable musing about whether the election was hacked begins.
I have strong opinions, but fortunately, none of them involve violence. But I'm always careful about what I say when it comes to politics, even though I'm not some wacko who's going to take a gun over to the White House.
See, now there I was tempted to add "no matter how tempting it may be," but even though it's not tempting and it's just a joke, I worry about saying it, because we've learned from years of email misunderstandings that when people can't see your facial expressions, they tend to misinterpret what you're saying. And I don't want anyone to think I would take a gun over to the White House. I wouldn't. (See, now there I was going to make another smart-ass remark, but I won't.)
Why bring it up? 'Cause apparently a joke on LiveJournal has brought the Secret Service to the author's house. No need to panic, she said they were very nice, and realized right away she wasn't a threat, and they even laughed along with her.
But she pointed out that now she has an FBI file. That means, in today's climate, that she could, conceivably, be put on the "no fly" list. Because of a joke.
And that's scary.
For those who just can't live with the results, check out Electing to Leave, a (somewhat humorous) guide to renouncing (or rather, replacing) your American citizenship. One hint: just burning your passport won't do it.
My wife is still mumbling about how she doesn't understand why results don't match the exit polls. (She also says "Nobody I know says they voted for Bush. How could he have won?" I won't touch that one.)
Anyway, Mystery Pollster has a terrific explanation of how exit polls work. It's brutally honest about what's good about them and why they're pretty well useless in a state like Florida or Ohio.
Oh, if only everyone were this honest. Jon Stewart was on Crossfire and told it like it was. That shows like Crossfire are not really about debate.
And he called Tucker Carlson a dick.
A long time ago, life got me really, really down, to the point where I asked my doctor for antidepressants. Within months, my wife was complaining that I just wasn't myself. "Sure," I thought, "myself is depressed, angry and miserable." But I got off the meds anyway. A couple of months later, I went to get a haircut and the guy who cuts my hair, who is normally quite friendly, told me he was on Prozac. By the time he started cutting my hair, I understood what my wife meant; he just wasn't himself. It was as though he was just a shell of his former self. Sure, he wasn't being compulsive-obsessive anymore, but was the alternative really that much better?
So what does that have to do with George W. Bush? According to Capital Hill Blue -- the accuracy and/or veracity of which I cannot verify, by the way -- he was prescribed powerful anti-depressants after a July 8 incident in which he stormed offstage after refusing to answer questions about his relationship with Enron CEO Ken Lay:
"Keep those m*therf*ckers away from me," he screamed at an aide backstage. "If you can't, I'll find someone who can."
So are things better now that he's on the drugs? Well, apparently he's, well, just not himself.
"[T]here are concerns," a top Republican political advisor admitted privately Wednesday. "The George W. Bush we see today is not the same, gregarious, back-slapping President of old. He’s moody, distrustful and withdrawn."
Unfortunately, there's a big difference here. When my hairdresser isn't himself, I don't enjoy my haircut. When the President isn't himself, it's a whole other story.
White House aides say Bush has retreated into a tightly-controlled environment where only top political advisors like Karl Rove and Karen Hughes are allowed. Even White House chief of staff Andrew Card complains he has less and less access to the President.
(In an interesting side-note, the same article claims that Donald Rumsfeld has fallen out of favor, and that the "real political power" in Washington is not Dick Cheney, but still-in-good-with-Dubya John Ashcroft, who, along with Bush, is referred to as the "Blues Brothers" because they both think they're on a mission from G-d.)
This kind of thing has the ability to make me strangely sympathetic; I know what it's like to get to the point where you just can't take it anymore -- but you have to. On the other hand, one of the most common observations about Saddam Hussein was that he was insulated from everyone and that's how he developed the way he did. And Washingtonians are starting to refer to Ashcroft as "Bush's Himmler". (If you don't understand that reference, you desperately need to look it up.)
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I can't even comment on this analysis of the legal twisting and turning of reality with regard to the torture of Iraqi (and Afgani) prisoners. Consider the notion that:
In order to prove 'severe mental pain or suffering,' the statute requires proof of 'prolonged mental harm' that was caused by or resulted from one of four enumerated acts... [T]he development of a mental disorder such as posttraumatic stress disorder, which can last months or even years, or even chronic depression... might satisfy the prolonged harm requirement... [I]f a defendant [interrogator] has a good faith belief that his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture. A defendant could show that he acted in good faith by taking such steps as surveying professional literature, consulting with experts, or reviewing evidence gained from past experience... Because the presence of good faith would negate the specific intent element of torture, good faith may be a complete defense to such a charge.
It makes me physically ill.
I've been listening to the supposedly liberal press falling all over themselves to appear conservative for a whole week now, I have to ask: we are talking about Ronald Reagan, right? President of the United States between 1980 and 1988, right? That Reagan? 'Cause you'd be hard pressed to know it watching the obsequeous coverage on all the networks this week. Maybe the media is the one suffering from Alzheimers. I mean, we keep hearing about "the Great Communicator" and how he was so "idealistic" and stuck to his principles and all that. I've heard him described as "the Republican party's JFK." So tell me, why aren't we being reminded of:
What else did I miss?
With all of this talk about Iraq, it's interesting to go back and listen to the real radio broadcasts of World War II. And I'm not just talking about broadcasts you've heard a gazillion times in retrospectives. I'm talking about weekly "world news updates" -- sponsored by Admiral radios, which regrets that because of defense orders, they can't make consumer radios until the war is won, but see your Admiral dealer to keep your radio in tip-top shape for the duration, no matter what brand it is -- in addition to British news, and perhaps the most interesting, English-language German propoganda broadcasts.
But what's really interesting to me is the scale of things. We have, what 125,000 troops in Iraq? The D-Day invasion involved 4 and a half MILLION allied troops. The war touched every part of American life, right on down to (unless I didn't hear it correctly) the edict that all able-bodied men between 20 and 45 were to receive military training. And factories taken over by the defense department because they weren't producing material fast enough.
The complete broadcast is 60 hours, and covers the whole war chronologically. I recommend trying to catch the early war, when the Axis was winning. It's quite a perspective changer. Especially the Germans saying that the fact that they were so technologically advanced that they conquered France in 6 weeks should tell the British they couldn't possibly stand up to Germany. And we all know how that ended.
Interesting lessons history teaches, if we pay attention.
This is cool. Michael Moore Hates America is not meant as a hatchet job of the "documentary" filmmaker, but almost as a rebuttal of his "America is awful" philosophy. In a bizarre-ly Roger and Me-like way, Michael Wilson tries to get an interview with Moore, and also looks at how the little guy can still make it in this country. But along the way, he looks at the documentary process, and from the trailer, that looks fascinating. But then, I've always been a documentary junkie.
This is kind of a difficult one for me to take sides on. I don't like Michael Moore, because I feel like he's an opportunist who'll stir up trouble wherever he can.
On the other hand, I hate Bush more.
Moore's new film, Fahrenheit 9/11, about the censorship that took place after the terrorist attacks, is clearly not going to be a pro-Bush piece. It's also the winner of the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Apparently that's not enough to avoid Disney from prohibiting Miramax from distributing the film.
Disney says it would violate campaign finance laws. Moore says it would anger Florida Governor Jeb Bush and endanger Disney's tax breaks.
We'll see how it plays out.
I guess that being in your 80s gives you the perspective to see what the rest of us would see if we ever slowed down enough to pay attention. And being a famous author gives you some license to say it out loud. Kurt Vonnegut is both, and proves it with Cold Turkey, a piece about peace, kindness, power, addiction, and fossil fuels. Interesting.
I'm not a Democrat.
Oh, it's not that I don't agree with a lot of the things the Democrats stand for, it's just that I see them as (mostly) just as corrupt as the Republicans, when you come right down to it.
Trouble is, I don't quite know WHAT I am. For a couple of years, I was a member of the Reformed Silly Party of Florida, but they seem to have disappeared, so I don't know what the story is there. (I'm told they're still out there.) My wife thought I was carrying nonconformity a little far there, but I explained that it was my way of protesting the domination of the two-party system.
But it's an election year, so I'm thinking about it more than I used to. What, really, DO I believe?
This past weekend Eric and I set up a table at a local gun show -- selling dog tags, not guns -- and not surprisingly, I suppose, there was a table for the Libertarian Party. Now, if all you know about the Libertarians is the whole "abolish drug laws" thing, you're probably as surprised as I am to find out that there's much, much more to this party.
The basic philosophy is that government should protect us "from force and from fraud" both at home and abroad, and that other than that, they should basically stay out of people's lives.
Now, that's a position I can respect, I suppose, but the more I thought about it, the more troubled I became. I mean, OK, I understand the idea -- note I said "understand," and not necessarily "agree with" -- that people should be able to medicate themselves as they like, own guns, do what they want, and generally be responsible for themselves. OK, this last part I do agree with.
But as I talked to the rep, we got into other areas of discussion, such as the Department of Education. Apparently the thinking here is that it's not in the US Constitution, and the Federal Government should stay out of education. Why do we need national educational standards? Why should my tax money be used for programs across the country?
The rep pointed out that he'd home-schooled his kids, and that he and his wife had had to make the decision for one of them to stay home to do that. Funny thing, though, when I asked what a single parent should do about it, he changed the subject.
He changed the subject a lot in that conversation, actually, and finally invited me to continue it via email, since we were apparently disturbing the surrounding vendors. (I can respect that.)
But here's the notion that I'm left with. It seems to me that the Libertarian Party is either a wimpy version of anarchy -- no government, except to keep the bad people from hurting us -- or the most selfish philosophy I've ever seen. The community should decide what it's going to support, but there's no notion, as far as I can see, that taking care of other people is in any way required, or even desirable.
I should note here that in the "political spectrum quiz" they were handing out, I was the one and only "liberal" at the show, but I'd like to make it clear that I think there's a line between helping people and crippling them. If you're capable of working, then you need to get up and work. Period.
But if you can't -- and I mean really can't -- then I think the rest of us who are fortunate enough to be able to earn a living have an obligation to help out. We're all in this together, and that seems to be missing from the Libertarian philosophy.
Or have I missed something here?
It's interesting what you can find when you pay attention. I don't know how much of Bush Family Skeletons is accurate, but a lot of the later items I remember. What's interesting is that the page doesn't mention the alleged fact that George H. W. Bush is part owner of the Carlyle Group -- along with members of the Bin Laden family.
I'm tremendously heartened by the fact that people finally seem to be noticing -- and more importantly, pointing out -- unethical, or downright illegal actions by the Bush administration. Just received in tonight's update from ABC News and World News Tonight:
Federal officials are investigating television segments produced by the Bush administration in which people posing as journalists tout the benefits of the new Medicare law. Officials at the General Accounting Office say the Department of Health and Human Services may have violated a law that prohibits the use of federal money for "publicity purposes" without Congress' permission. Lisa Stark has more tonight on the investigation and the GAO's concern that the spots may mislead viewers.
Can't wait to see that one...
Does your company have a life insurance policy on you? No, I'm not talking about that $10,000 "benefit" in your compensation package. I'm talking about a much larger policy that provides a tax break to the company while you're alive -- and tax free benefits for the company when you die. Even if you die years after you leave the company.
Kind of makes me wonder what kind of policy my last employer had on me...
I knew that Jerry Springer had once been mayor of Cincinatti. What I didn't know is that he's ... well ... really, really good. I'd vote for him in a heartbeat, for anything he was running for. Maybe I'm just crazy, but listen to this episode of This American Life. They have a 31 minute piece on Springer, with about 2 minutes about the show. Turns out the Springer was not just a successful politician in Cincinatti. He was good. He was, and still is, progressive, but not in a Dennis Kucinuch way. He's a gifted attorney, and a heck of a speaker.
And he wants to get back into politics.
I'll be keeping an eye on http://runJerryRun.com, even though I'm not in Ohio anymore.
So apparently Comcast wants to buy Disney. It just boggles my mind so much that I don't even have anything to say at this point.
The accusation is that George W. Bush never completed his National Guard service in the early seventies, and that he was only in the Guard in the first place because his family pulled strings to get him there. He says that he got in because the other people ahead of him on the waiting list didn't want to commit to 2 years of pilot training. Considering that there were more than SEVEN HUNDRED people ahead of him and all of them were trying to avoid going to Vietnam, I personally find that a little unlikely, but OK. Thing is, nobody can prove that he actually finished serving his time, especially after he transferred from the Texas Air National Guard to the Alabama Guard. The White House has released his pay records from that time, but that doesn't prove he actually served, just that he got paid. Even those who were supposed to be providing evaluations of him during that time -- including a friend of his -- wrote that they couldn't evaluate him because they hadn't actually seen him. (Both of them are now dead, unfortunately.)
I doubt this will cost him the election, but it does give one more reason for the Pants On Fire Tour.
Wizbang! has an interesting piece explaining how one of Senator Kerry's constituents got contrasting letters, one explaining how Kerry opposed the war, the other how he supported it. It also explains why I wrote to my Senator about the Patriot Act and got a response thanking me for my support for letting drug felons get Student Aid funding. (Truthfully, I hadn't considered that particular issue.) And here I thought there was a conspiracy afoot.
No conspiracy, just a typo.
I don't think I'd agree with the assertion that "bloggers rely almost exclusively on well established, credible sources for their information," judging from all of the things I found about the Federal Reserve Bank, but The Blogosphere: Progressive Echo Chamber? makes some good points that I've been musing about for some time.
Basically, with conservatives in control of mainstream media, it's no wonder that they can pretty much put out whatever they want, and it gets repeated to much that eventually people think it's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. When the corrections come out, they're only seen and heard by a small portion of those who heard the lie. And the liars win.
But with the blogosphere -- can't we find a different name?!? -- people can get the word out and pass it around.
The FBI has issued a warning for police to watch for people carrying almanacs.
The FBI noted that use of almanacs or maps may be innocent, "the product of legitimate recreational or commercial activities." But it warned that when combined with suspicious behavior -- such as apparent surveillance -- a person with an almanac "may point to possible terrorist planning." ... The FBI said information typically found in almanacs that could be useful for terrorists includes profiles of cities and states and information about waterways, bridges, dams, reservoirs, tunnels, buildings and landmarks. It said this information is often accompanied by photographs and maps.
In the meantime, an Air Force pilot asked a clerk at Staples (where she's a regular customer) for information on buying Flight Simulator for her 10-year-old, and got nighttime visit from police.
Tell me something: isn't there a point at which it becomes easier to just stop trying to rule the world?
(For list watchers: these links aren't on the list, but were eventually followed from number 138.)
Well, as a regular listener to Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio News and the like on WMNF, I already knew that an official within the French government has initiated an investigation of "allegations that Halliburton, subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, and a French company together paid $180 million in illegal commissions to government officials during the construction of a natural gas complex in Nigeria" during the time in which it was headed by Dick Cheney. I didn't expect to hear about it in the mainstream press, but apparently only 11 of Top 12 US Papers are Ignoring Cheney's Pending Bribery Investigation.
The odd paper out? The Dallas Morning News. Who'da thunk it. A Texas paper breaks the silence. Hm.
(Keeping track? This was number 181 on the list.)
Apparently Keiko, the star of Free Willy, died of pneumonia December 12, 2003 and was buried on a beach in Norway, and now "Keiko the killer whale, a symbol for the environmental movement in life, has now become one in death."
What's the problem? Apparently Keiko's carcass is loaded with PCBs, and now they have the opportunity to leech into the environment.
"The amount of PCBs in Keiko's six-ton carcass, estimated by the Norwegian environmental group at a pound, would not cause a serious pollution problem, but the group said it wanted to use Keiko's fame to draw the public's attention to the threat of sea pollution by toxic products and its repercussions for the whole food chain.'"
OK, so here's the thing about electronic voting machines. The manufacturer says that it would be impossible to make one with a paper receipt because you'd worry about jamming and so on. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, the company in question is Diebold. Sound familiar? Chances are you see it on just about every ATM machine you go to, since they're, like, the leading manufacturer of
ATMs.
Fortunately, Congress seems to be catching on. Maybe it's appropriate that it's Senator Graham (of Florida) who just rolled out an electronic voting bill.
The Massachusetts State Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny gay and lesbian couples the obligations and legal protections of marriage just because the person they'd be marrying is of the same gender. They did NOT say that Massachusetts has to issue marriage licenses. A "civil union" type of thing works too.
But some members of congress feel threatened by this, and want to create an amendment to the US Constitution defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Can you imagine if fifty years ago they had created an amendment banning marriage between blacks and whites?
Oppose Writing Intolerance into the U.S. Constitution by sending a fax, letter or email through the ACLU. The Constitution should be used to PROTECT freedom, not restrict it.
Apparently one of my most popular posts is Why DO we pay taxes, anyway? I still haven't been able to answer that question, but in my quest to find out, I found a link to the entirety of the United States Code. If you find it, let me know.
So Jessica Lynch says that her rescue wasn't as dramatic as the military says it was. She also says that Iraqis treated her well, though military doctors claim to have found signs of sexual assault.
So why do we feel a little bit of suspicion that four of her rescuers are already dead?
A couple of months ago, I was reading an article in either Time or Newsweek that talked about the "Dean phenomenon" and pointed out that every time there's an outsider phenom like Dean, he eventually makes a rookie mistake and everybody jumps on him. Well, he finally did it. Apparently he made a remark, in response to a reporter's question about his courting of gun-rights activists in the 1990's, that he'd "like to be the candidate of the guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
Um, yeah. Probably not the best move he could have made. What disturbs me is that while the remark wasn't racially motivated, he reportedly claimed that he did it to start a dialogue about race, but he'd done it "clumsily." Bad move, IMO. Kind of reminds me of my teenage son, who will keep changing tactics in an argument until he finds one that sticks.
He should have simply apologized to begin with and pointed out the context of the remark. It would have been over and done with. Now it's going to haunt him for months.
On another note, Dean is considering refusing Federal matching funds so that he doesn't have to adhere to the $45 million spending limit for the primaries. Why? Because Bush is planning to raise $170 million -- and has already said he won't take the matching funds.
Gee, I wonder why The House Nixed Anti-Profiteering Penalties in the Iraq Spending Bill.
Andy Rooney has written a great speech for President Bush.
I meantioned in a previous post that I was going to look into the issue of the Federal Reserve, and whether the entire US economic system is in place to benefit eight banking families to the extent that the "national debt" is owed to this private corporation, which could foreclose if it wanted to, essentially owning all government assets.
Well, apparently this is a pretty popular conspiracy theory, 'cause there are lots and lots of pages talking about it. Of course, most of them repeat the same under-researched "facts" verbatim. And that, gentle reader, is why I hesitate to believe these things until I check them out myself.
What I've found is that the conspiracy theorists are right. And they're wrong.
The Federal Reserve Bank was established in 1914 by the Federal Reserve Act. It's owned by member banks, which is basically defined as any nationally chartered bank -- the ones with "National" or "n.a." in their names -- and any state chartered bank that wants to buy in. There are 12 main Federal Reserve Banks, each owned by the banks in their legislatively defined regions.
Now let's get to the issue of "ownership." Yes, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the largest and most powerful, but no, it's not owned by "foreigners" either directly or indirectly. According to Edward Flaherty's Who Owns the Federal Reserve, the owners of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are American-owned banks. (Citicorp, one of the eight largest owners, reportedly is 8.9% owned by a Saudi prince, but supposedly none of the other banks have significant foreign ownership.)
The Federal Reserve does control monetary policy, through setting interest rates and determining how much money a bank must hold in reserve. In other words, a bank that has, say, $7 billion in accounts on paper only has to have $1 billion on hand at any given time. The rest can be lent out at interest. The control of these two policies -- interest rates and reserves -- seems to be a particularly grevious crime to the conspiracy theorists, but actually, it's the reason the Fed was created in the first place.
I found a fascinating history of US banking, Banking and the Federal Reserve System, which explained that prior to the creation of the Fed, state banks were routinely issuing more money than they could actually back with their gold reserves, leading to an unstable and in some cases, worthless currency. (For much of US history, there was no single US currency; banks issued thier own notes of various financial quality.)
Which leads me to the issue of the national debt, and why we even need one. After all, if the government needs money, why not just print some? It sounds good in principle, but one needs only to look at countries that have tried it to see that it leads to unimaginable inflation due to worthless currency. (Remember those stories about WWII-era Germans and wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread?) In the worst cases, a national government can actually default on its debt.
In short, paper money only means something if it's backed by something tangible, even if it's several layers removed. US currency used to be backed by gold; $1 in currency could, in principle, be exchanged for $1 in gold from the US Treasury. That's no longer the case, but US currency is backed by "The full faith and credit of the US Government." In other words, the ability of the government to collect taxes. (No, I haven't looked into that one yet.)
So where does that leave us? Well, the Fed can buy a paper bill of any denomination for a few cents. I've seen 2 cents, I've seen 4 cents, the actual amount isn't important; the important thing is that the Fed can buy a $100 bill for virtually nothing. It then uses that $100 to buy a Treasury Bill, on which it earns interest. So let's say, for the sake of argument, that $100 Treasury Bill earns $10 in interest. I haven't studied T-Bills and have no idea what the actual numbers are, but again, it's not crucial to the discussion.
So the Fed spent 2 cents and came out with $110. That's some profit. I'd love a piece of that action! So what happens to all that profit?
According to the Federal Reserve Act of 1914, the Fed first deducts operating expenses (which is reasonable), then pays a 6% dividend to the member banks, (which is also almost reasonable). According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, expenses were 5.3% ($1.59 billion out of $29.9 billion revenue), or in our example, $5.84. That leaves $107.16, less $6.43 in dividends, for $100.73 in profit.
But where does that go? Now it depends on what source you're citing, I'm afraid. According to the version of the Federal Reserve Act on the Federal Reserve web site, that profit all goes into the "surplus fund" of the Federal Reserve Bank, from which banks borrow (at interest) when they don't have enough to cover their deposits. This document also says that the amount transfered to the US Treasury in 2000 was $3.752 billion. Why would the Fed give the money to the Treasury?
Again, it depends who you ask. I have one version of the Federal Reserve Act that says that the profit, after dividends, is to be split, with one half going into the surplus fund and the other going to the Treasury. The version on the Fed's web site doesn't say anything about it, and just mentions the $3.752 billion.
Interesting, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco shows the 2000 amount transferred to the treasury as $25 billion. Something's not right here.
What I think I need to do is call the Federal Reserve Bank and ask a few pointed questions. (Scroll down to the actual questions.) Allegedly, someone already did in 1992, but as already demonstrated, I like to find these things out for myself.
Once again, I'll let you know what I come up with.
In the meantime, Flaherty also notes that only 7.5% (or thereabouts) of the National Debt is owed to the Federal Reserve, which is more on a par with what I expected. So that shoots a hole in the theory that the Fed was just waiting to foreclose on the US Government.
But there is one disturbing fact that can't be escaped. There is simply not enough currency in existance to pay off the National Debt. Period. This is because of the whole "reserve" system. I take $20 and put it in the bank, and the bank lends out $120. The borrowers deposit that $120 and the bank lends out $720. From my $20, the economy suddenly has $860 -- on paper. Similarly, we have a $4 trillion national debt (in 1992 -- I have no idea what it is now) and only $263 billion in actual paper currency.
Not good. Something will have to be done. But I don't know what.
And I don't think anybody else does, either.
I spent the weekend at powwow, which was absolutely fantastic, but I'm a little bit freaked out by some things I heard regarding the government. I mean, if you read this journal you know that I'm not a big fan of Team Bush, but this was much more scary.
I was "treated" to a disertation on the financial structure of the US by a government employee getting ready to retire. The gist of it was that the Federal Reserve is not a part of the federal government but rather an independant corporation, which I knew, and that essentially, the "national debt" was a debt to the Federal Reserve, and that if the US were to default on that debt, that corporation would own all of the buildings, parks, and other properties that are currently under Federal control. Gotta check that one out.
He also provided me a little more information on this idea that there is no law actually authorizing income taxes. I knew that income taxes first arose in the early 1900's, but the claim from this guy was that they were supposedly to pay for WWI, and that they were supposed to "sunset" after 6 months. (You know, the same way that key provisions of the Patriot Act are supposed to expire in a year or two.) Allegedly, Congress never removed the sunset provision, but the IRS continues to collect taxes. He pointed out that when people are charged with tax fraud, they're actually charged with perjury, and not with violating any particular tax law, since there isn't one. Gotta check that one out too, 'cause it sounds pretty fishy to me.
I'll let you know what I find out, when I look into it.
It's scary how people listen to the rhetoric but never find out the facts behind it. Can't blame them, though, because the media doesn't make the connection. Check out Caught on Film: The Bush Credibility Gap. Believe it or not, it's at least hosted on the official web server of the House of Representatives. An official committee publication? I don't know, but it's good ammunition for those conservatives in your life who think Bush can do no wrong.
It happened in Australia. "On the night of Wednesday, August 27, two men dressed as computer technicians and carrying tool bags entered the cargo processing and intelligence centre at Sydney International Airport. ... After supplying false names and signatures, they were given access to the top-security mainframe room. They knew the room's location and no directions were needed. Inside, they spent two hours disconnecting two computers, which they put on trolleys and wheeled out of the room, past the security desk, into the lift and out of the building."
No word on whether it was really terrorists, and whether any sensistive data was lost.
I've heard for a long time the argument that because Ohio was the deciding vote in the law that authorized income taxes, the fact that at the time it wasn't actually a state -- something about it not being ratified, or signed off by a judge, or something -- that income taxes aren't really legal.
I've never really bought off on that, but apparently there's a bigger, more direct question. According to WORLD on the Web one Vernice B. Kuglin has been acquited on charges of tax evasion after sending multiple letters to the IRS demanding that it explain to here exactly what Federal statute requires her to pay taxes.
Interesting.
Daniel Drezner's posting got me really thinking about what it is that bothers me about this whole overseas outsourcing thing.
Let me make something clear.
I'm not opposed to spreading the wealth, so-to-speak, by providing jobs overseas, necessarily. What bothers me is the dishonesty about it. OK, you're doing it to boost the bottom line. Fine. Just don't try and tell us that it's to boost sales (ie, Boeing) or that we're going to like it, really.
Jon, who has "worked in and through the waves of global outsourcing first in the Engineering and Construction industry and most recently in the IT industry" probably put it best in his comment on Drezner's original post: "I do agree that the gains from this trend will benefit American corporations. However the benefit will not extend to the consumer and most certainly not to those displaced US employees suddenly finding a barren market for their career skills and expertise within the US.
Corporations will get the profit of the less costly operating and production costs found off-shore, which wealth will be re-distributed in executive incentive and bonus packages, certainly in no way returned to those US employees no longer employed. And the Administration’s support for reduced corporate taxation further lessen the degree to which the fruits of this labor will be reintegrated in a manner beneficial to the populace at large. The fantasy that US corporations will adopt as SOP and offer released workers “ex-employment” insurance is exactly that – a fantasy."
Daniel Drezner suggests that I don't understand that in some cases one person can be made better off without someone else being made worse off. Of course I understand that. I just don't think that moving high-paying tech jobs overseas is one of those situations. And looking at the first few comments on his posting, it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the likelihood of companies buying "targeted insurance products" to cushion the effects to workers displaced is, to say the least, unlikely.
Drezner quotes the report's suggestion that "at least theoretically, displaced U.S. workers will find new jobs in more dynamic industries." Why do I suspect that's double-speak for "lower paying jobs somewhere else"? Sure, a coder can get a job flipping burgers, but is that really an improvement for anybody but corporate shareholders?
So no, I don't understand how this is good for American workers. I'll tell you what else I don't understand. I don't understand how you can tell me that effectively eliminating overtime will create more jobs, when it's now cheaper to have fewer workers and make them work longer hours. I don't understand how a member of Congress can say that poor working families don't deserve a tax credit because they pay no taxes, when a much larger portion of their income goes to gasoline taxes, sales taxes, and other taxes that don't scale based on economic class.
I don't understand why we as Americans, we have allowed ourselves to become so complacent to what is clearly unfair.
Maybe it's just that John Dickinson was right, as quoted in 1776: "A poor man will fight to the death to protect the possibility of becoming rich, rather than face the reality of being poor."
I hope not.
(Additional note: Daniel Drezner actually has an impressive CV. I'll definitely be checking out some of his other writing.)
The RIAA is preparing for an even more massive onslaught of lawsuits against individual file sharers. One so-called "pirate" is challenging the subpoena of her records, but probably won't get far. The Electronic Frontier Foundation will let you search to see if you're being subpoenaed. The database has 1145 subpoenas at the time of this writing. The effect? According to this SFGate article, "an independent digital media industry analyst, said the 'fear factor' caused usage of file-sharing programs to drop about 22 percent in the seven weeks after the RIAA announced its plans to sue individuals." So that's a victory for the RIAA, right?
Well, not exactly. "Yet Leigh noted industry sales reports show the drop in CD sales accelerated during the same period." In other words, they've pissed off their customers. Basically, people are saying, "I'm not going to buy your product anyway."
It's sad, really. I used to think file sharing was great, because I'm one of those people who would actually listen to the music and then buy it. But I've seen my son's generation adopt an "everything's free" mind-set, which is wrong too.
Years ago, I was part of Mojo Nation, a network that provided a decentralized system of file storage. The idea was interesting, with users getting "tokens" for providing either bandwidth or storage, or whatever. The interesting part was that there was no way to tell what information was being stored on your system. Each document was broken up into pieces, and multiple copies of each piece were distributed over multiple machines. Kind of like an anti-censorship version of the internet, where any one node could be taken down and not effect the integrity of the available data. Overall, I liked the concept, though I was uncomfortable with the idea that I might be inadvertantly providing access to child pornography. Eventually the network collapsed -- or at least I think it did -- and I stopped thinking about it.
But freedom's on my mind a lot lately. I'd never looked into it, but apparently FreeNet is a lot like it, as a distributed system that stymies censorship. But now its founder, Ian Clarke is leaving the USA. Why?
Several reasons really. Firstly, because the work I am doing now doesn't really require me to be in any particular location, I could probably work from the North Pole if I had a fast Internet connection. Secondly, because I don't like living in a country where, as a non-citizen, I am considered less deserving of justice than American citizens. Thirdly, because I feel that the direction intellectual property is being taken in this country, such as with the DMCA and software patents, make innovation much more difficult and risky here, particularly in the P2P space. There are many things I like about the US, but it just doesn't make sense to be here any more.
Thing is, freedom is an elusive thing. Let's go back to my original problem with Mojo Nation for a moment. What about the idea that criminal activities can take place on such a system, or even child pornography? Clarke:
Free speech doesn't exist if people are only free to say what you consider to be decent or true. Few would tolerate the mandatory installation of police cameras in private homes, even though it could prevent all forms of child abuse, and domestic violence. Are those that might oppose such a scheme to be considered advocates of child abuse? The rationale behind Freenet is discussed in more detail on our philosophy page.
You know, I really don't have anything against Indian programmers or call centers, or anything like that, but I've got to take issue with a report that calls the sending of 3.3 million high-paying technical jobs overseas a "win-win" situation. A McKinsey Global Institute report, Offshoring: Is it a Win-Win Game? makes just that claim, on the theory that the US companies that pay $6/hour to an Indian programmer instead of $60/hour to a US programmer will have all of this extra money to pour back into the economy. Oh, and those 3.3 million workers? (Or non-workers, as the case may be...) "Targeted insurance products managed by businesses could be one way to lessen the pain to workers. This approach could help provide wages for those who lose jobs because of offshoring for an acceptable period of time. Given the large surpluses generated from offshoring, programs to address the impact on workers are feasible." Um ... excuse me, but if companies were interested in lessening pain to their workers, they wouldn't lay them off in the first place. This isn't about stimulating the economy, it's about the impossible cycle of growth a corporation has to maintain to keep it's stock price up.
Sorry, it's not 57,000 voters, it's 89,300 voters who were illegally removed from the Florida rolls. And there's no evidence that they've been added back on. I don't know if I'd (yet) compare Bush to Hitler, but I heartily agree that We Must Stop Bush From Stealing the 2004 Election.
When Bush the First was in office with Quayle the buffoon as Vice President, the scariest words in Washington were "Barbara, I don't feel well." This time around, it seemed more efficient to have the buffoon take the top spot, with the mastermind behind him. The Smirking Chimp apparently agrees. Note Cheney's title.
The idea that we are going to move to computerized voting scares the crap out of me, specifically because I work on computers. Now, after less than one election cycle since Bush's "Help American vote" initiative mandated electronic voting, we see that not only doesn't it work, it blatantly doesn't work. Add to this the requirement that all states "clean up" their voting rolls using the same methods that disenfranchised 57,000 innocent peope in Florida during the 2000 election and you've got Lynching by Laptop.
(NOTE: This article gives a different number of voters than another that shows 89,300 innocent voters disenfranchised.)
Welcome to Bush's logic: By removing the requirement to pay overtime, employers will hire more people. Excuse me?!? The only way employers are going to hire more people is if it's cheaper than making the people you already have do everything by working longer and longer hours. If you have five people and one of them leaves (or better, is fired) why replace him or her when you can just give the other 4 another 10 hours of work to do? Well, Bush has done it anyway. Millions of workers have now been labeled "managers" or "skilled advsiors", labeling them as "exempt" from overtime rules. Oh, and a "skilled advisor" is anybody who learned their trade in the military. Hi, veterans! Welcome to the 80 hour work week!
Some new info from the ACLU today.
First, an opportunity to thank (or spank) your representative for the overwhelming victory of the Otter Amendment, which, should the spending bill that it's attached to pass, "would effectively prohibit implementation of one of the most controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act, which permitted federal agents to obtain sneak and peek warrants in any criminal case, whether or not related to terrorism. Sneak and peek or 'black bag' warrants, as they are also called, allow agents to search homes, confiscate certain types of property and essentially bug computers without notifying the subject of the search that it is happening." The ACLU's system will tell you whether or not your representative voted for the amendment. (Thank you, Mike Bilirakis, R-FL!)
Next, the US Treasury is seeking comments on a proposal to end the ability for immigrants to open a bank account using foreign identification. How is this supposed to make us safer, exactly? It's not, that's how. All it's going to do is force immigrants to find other ways of banking that, because they are out of the traditional banking system, will now be completely untraceable. But this isn't about safer banking, anyway. It's about justification for a National ID card for non-citizens. Citizens will be next.
Finally, "ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson will conduct a live online chat Thursday [July 31, 2003] from 1-2 p.m. (ET) about the FBI's broad new surveillance powers under the USA PATRIOT Act. "
It's easy to think that "government" is the enemy of freedom, but here in the US, government isn't just a nameless, faceless entity. It's hard to remember it sometimes, but it's made up of real live people who do, on occasion, listen to the people they are supposed to represent. Especially when enough of us talk loudly enough. Witness today's news that the House of Representatives has voted to stop the FCC from raising the cap on the number of television and radio stations a single company can own. The provision still has to get through the Senate, but the President's going to have a tough time making this one go away.
(It's worth noting, however, that the House did not succeed in reversing the FCC's plans to allow a single company to own a newspaper, television station, and radio station in the same market, nor their plans to allow a single company to own two television stations in some markets.)
Still, it's good news, and reminds me that it's worth speaking up. Which brings me to three very important matters. The ACLU has forms that enable you to send a free fax to support bills that will provide oversight for the secret FISA court, defund (yes, deFUND) TIA, and protect people's right to read what they want.
The "Freedom to Read Protection Act"(H.R. 1157) by exempting libraries and bookstores from laws that allow the FBI to conduct searches of personal records without warrants. (These laws, part of the USA PATRIOT Act, also make it a criminal act for a librarian to tell you that your records have been searched.)
TIA is a data mining system that was originally called Total Information Awareness. It specified that the goverment would collect all sorts of records on every single person in the US, including not just your public records and your credit report, but also the type of information places like Wal*Mart collect: what you buy and when you buy it. These records would be searched for "patterns" that suggested you are a terrorist. In a brilliant piece of political marketing, the program has now been renamed "Terrorism Information Awareness." This program is so reviled by the technical community that would have to implement it that engineers have started to publish articles explaining how to keep your data useful to you while making it useless to TIA.
Finally, the FISA Court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to basically wiretap anybody without any public record of it, as long as the court approves. In the decades the court's been in existance, its only turned down ONE request, and in the wake of September 11, it's use has soared. According to the ACLU, "A bipartisan group of Senators, including Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), have introduced legislation called the FISA Oversight Bill (S. 436) that would ensure our elected officials are able to provide appropriate oversight over the secret FISA court. This bill would not hinder law enforcement but instead would simply require the public accounting of basic information such as the number of Americans subjected to surveillance under FISA and the number of times that FISA information has been used for law enforcement purposes."
I know that the web in general has been influencing the way that people find information, a fact that was driven home to me when my son's report assignment specified that no more than two of his three sources could be web sites. I also knew that people were turning more to the web than to books -- my own financial statements can attest to that! But there's one thing I didn't figure on: Google indexes PDFs, but few books are online as PDFs, just articles. As this article on MSN points out, "Assuming this practice continues, and assuming that Google continues to grow in influence, we may find ourselves in a world where, if you want to get an idea into circulation, you're better off publishing a PDF file on the Web than landing a book deal."
Read the article with a grain of salt, though. MSN, the publisher, is planning to compete with Google in the near future. Is this the first salvo in the PR war?
Now here's a potential happy ending. Apparently three quarters of a million people got off their behinds and submitted comments to the FCC regarding the proposed loosening of Big Media ownership rules, and 99% of them were opposed to it. So where the media companies thought they were a shoo-in to be able to expand their reach beyond the illegal levels they already occupy, they now find themselves and their backers in a difficult position. Last week the House of Representatives added a rider to Commerce, Justice and State Department's spending bill that prohibits a single corporation from owning stations that cover more than 35% of the country, and the Senate is expected to do the same. Thing is, President Bush has already threatened to veto it.
Of course, to do that, he'll have to veto the entire bill, which also pays for everything else the Justice Department does, such as anti-terrorism activities. As Brooks Boliek points out, "The Democrats have to be salivating, as a veto would make it easier to paint Bush as being a tool of big business."
If, that is, anybody finds out about it on the handful of stations that aren't owned by Big Media.
And in another case of hype outstripping reality, surfers everywhere rushed to see the new White House email system after reading an article about how bad it was. The article claimed that you have to navigate as many as nine pages to send an email to the President, and that you have to start off by announcing whether or not you support his policies.
Well, that's not quite true.
First of all, you can still write to president@whitehouse.gov. (Though to be fair to the article's author, I understand the address was temporarily removed from this page.) Second of all, the pages in question are a new automated system that asks not whether you agree with the President and his policies, but whether the comment you're sending in at this moment is in support of the policy or offering a differing opinion. It then asks you what policy you're writing about. The system is automated and you get (I assume) an automated response, but at least they're honest about it. They state right there on the page that "due to the large volume of e-mail submissions, we cannot assure that each message will be personally reviewed. If you are interested in commenting on other topics, or if your message is sensitive or requires personal attention, please do not use this system. Please write President Bush at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20502 or fax to 202-456-2461."
It was inevitable that somebody would start writing scholarly works about Harry Potter. And why not? You can write a scholarly work on anything. In college, I wrote a semester-long term paper on the circle motif in the Star Wars trilogy. It's all based on psychology in one way or another, you might as well enjoy what you're writing about.
I know he's got problems back in England, but I have to say that I like Tony Blair. I missed his speech to Congress but was fortunate enough to find the transcript. I also caught the subsequent press conference with him and President Bush, and the contrast is amazing. He's incredibly well spoken -- and knows how to pronounce "nuclear," which is always a plus -- and I particularly enjoyed the required humor at the beginning of his speech.
In his speech, Blair challenges us to tell people why we're proud of America. Now, I do a fair bit of Bush-bashing here -- or will, if I haven't already -- so I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you that I love America. With all of our faults, with all of the terrible things we've done, and are doing, and likely will do in the future, I still think this is the greatest country in the world. Why? Because this is a country where at least the groundwork for universal freedom is in place. Where -- at least in theory -- any person can be anything they aspire to be, whether it's a hermit in the mountains or the President.
Are we perfect? Of course not. We're human, and that's one of the things I like best about America. Our entire governmental structure is based on the idea that somebody, somewhere, is going to make a mistake. If you don't like a king, you don't really have too much alternative other than to wait him out and hope for better luck with his heir. Don't like your Senator, or even the President? Vote him out. Or if he's just too egregiously bad, impeach him. It's a self-correcting system, even if it can take a long, long time to get to equilibrium on any particular issue. (Take civil rights. We're still working on it, but we're a heck of a lot closer than we were 50 years ago.)
Some say that I'm an idealist, that it's not really free. I've heard people say that the entire election system is bogus, and after the last one, that's a tough, tough argument to fight. But that's partly because of our own apathy. I'll be interested to see how many people who've never voted before come to the polls in 2004 based on the idea that 564 (or so) votes essentially decided the 2000 election. (Some would say that it was 9 votes -- those of the Supreme Court -- that decided the election. I'm inclined to agree.)
But even with media consolidation, even with government crackdowns and laws that scare the heck out of me, we still live in a society where a person with a strong enough will can make a difference. Now that person doesn't always have the common good at heart, and that's why we sometimes get leaders -- both political and social -- that we really don't want. But as a whole, there are more good people here in America than there are those with less noble motives. We saw that in the aftermath of September 11, when everyone was falling over themselves to help each other. We are a good people, a strong people, and if enough of us stand up for what is right, we can make a difference.
And that's why I'm proud of America.
For the last couple of years I've been noticing that while people become increasingly isolated from the real world because they're spending so much time online, they are paradoxically reaching out for community online, with things like blogs and instant messaging. Now things seem to be swinging in the other direction, with people using online contacts to meet people they can spend time with offline. And I'm not just talking about online dating, either, but rather sites like Meetup.com, which lets you find people with a common interest and arrange a group get-together. Meetup is gaining a lot of publicity right now because they have been instrumental in helping Howard Dean supporters get together. Well, that and the fact that Dean mentions the site on just about every stump stop. I haven't checked it out yet. I don't have time for a real life at the moment.
If you grew up in the US, you probably have heard of the fourth amendment to the Constitution, which puts strict limits on unreasonable searches by the government. That has always (well, usually) translated to law enforcement needing to get a warrant to eavesdrop on a specific person, with requirements to minimize its interception of non-relevant communications. So it might surprise you to know that the FBI has for some time been running a system called Carnivore. Carnivore is a system that they force an ISP to attach to their network that monitors each and every email that comes through the system, whether it belongs to a suspected terrorist, or to you. Now, this is certainly a time when we need to be careful, and I'm just as much for stopping terrorism as anyone, but as citizens we must keep an eye on what our government is doing. It's not just our right, it's our responsibility.
Now, you may say, "Hey, it's not a big deal. If you aren't doing anything illegal, what are you worried about?" Just for the record, I don't do anything illegal. What I worry about is our government thinking it can do things like ... oh ... putting American citizens in a concentration camp, like we did with Japanese Americans in World War II.
"Wait a minute," you may say, "that was 60 years ago. We wouldn't do that now." Wouldn't we? The Attorney General is trying to push through a new domestic security act that is widely becoming known as PATRIOT II. What does it do? Remember when the PATRIOT Act came through Congress and Congress insisted that it's most eggregious portions be limited to non-US Citizens? Well, PATRIOT II would allow the Attorney General to strip American citizenship from any person found to be a member of a "terrorist group".
OK, that sounds reasonable in this time of terrorism, right? I mean, if someone came over here from ... well, I won't single out any country in particular and got citizenship but were actually a member of Al-Qaeda, you'd want law enforcement to be able to do whatever was necessary. But that's not nearly the extent of it.
A "terrorist organization" is any organization the Attorney General says it is. Supposedly it's supposed to be decided to violent action or somesuch, but essentially John Ashcroft has the last word. (For example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or in a more liberal administration, the National Rifle Association.) That means that any American citizen, natural born or naturalized, can be stripped of his or her citizenship. And once they're stripped of their citizenship, they can be deported. But of course, since they didn't come from somewhere else, there's nowhere to deport them to. Which means that INS can hold them in jail indefinitely.
So that means that if this act passes, the government can legally imprison just about anyone it wants to silence.
What can you do? For starters, check out the ACLU to talk to Congress about Carnivore and PATRIOT II and other related issues. Other than that, I'm really not sure. But at the very least, spread the word.
When I hear "United States Chamber of Commerce," I think "branch of the US government," but apparently that's not so. Or at least, I hope so. Because apparently the US Chamber of Commerce is working hard to oust pro-consumer (read: anti-business) judges and Attorneys General. (Or here's the short version.)
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