Not What You Think

Guess the identity of the person who's being discussed:

“capable” of the intellectual rigor needed to win the presidency but instead relies too heavily on his easy charm.

“It's sort of like, 'that's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a condescending attitude towards the voters,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And a laziness, an intellectual laziness.”

No, it's not President Doofus. It's a "senior White House official" describing Barack Obama. Who graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, and was editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Hello, kettle? This is the pot calling. Do you know what color you are? No? Well, I'll tell you....

"Well, DUH!" Headline Of The Day

I really can't think of anything else to say.

It's not important what I believe, as long as I believe in something.

McCain continues to pander:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday that questions over whether he identifies himself as a Baptist or an Episcopalian are not as important as his overarching faith. "The most important thing is that I am a Christian," the Arizona senator told reporters following two campaign stops in this early voting state.

No, John. The most important thing is whether there's any resemblance of principle left in you, or whether you will, in fact, say or do whatever you think is necessary to get elected. You haven't been as blatant about it as Romney....but you're catching up.

The GOP race heats up...

We need candidates like Keyes... So we know what the people who aren't thinking, are thinking.

"They told me I had no rights"

The slightly bizarre case of a musicologist whose residency visa was suddenly revoked without explanation caught my eye.

Ms. Ghuman’s descent into the bureaucratic netherworld began on Aug. 8, 2006, when she and Mr. Flight returned to San Francisco from a research trip to Britain. Armed immigration officers met them at the airplane door and escorted Ms. Ghuman away.

In a written account of the next eight hours that she prepared for her lawyer, Ms. Ghuman said that officers tore up her H-1B visa, which was valid through May 2008, defaced her British passport, and seemed suspicious of everything from her music cassettes to the fact that she had listed Welsh as a language she speaks. A redacted government report about the episode obtained by her lawyer under the Freedom of Information Act erroneously described her as “Hispanic.”

[snip]

And Ms. Ghuman said her demands to speak to the British consul were rebuffed. “They told me I was nobody, I was nowhere and I had no rights,” she said.

This is a British citizen, resident in the US for years, no particular political activism, no public positions of any controversy.

Hopefully just a bureaucratic snafu, one that's taken longer than usual to get cleared up. Unfortunately, this kind of treatment is becoming all too common. Meanwhile, Germany manages to bust a terror plot by using a technique rapidly falling into disfavor here: the rule of law.

And so it goes.

"People Should Not Vote For Any Republican"

There's an excerpt from John Dean at Salon that deserves reading. His new book is called "Broken Government," and it details how the GOP has changed beyond anything he recognizes.

As I was writing this closing section an old friend from the Nixon White House called. Now retired, he is a lifelong Republican who told me that he voted for Bush and Cheney twice, because he knows them both personally. He asked how my new book was coming, and when I told him the title, he remarked, "I'll say the government's broken." After we discussed it, he asked how I planned to end the book, since the election was still a good distance away. I told him I was contemplating ending midsentence and immediately fading to black -- the way HBO did in the final episode of the Sopranos, but that I would settle for a nice quote from him, on the record. He explained that he constantly has to bite his tongue, and the reason he does not speak out more is because one of his sons is in an important (nonpolitical) government post, and we both know that Republicans will seek revenge wherever they can find it. How about an off-the-record comment? I asked. That he agreed to.

"Just tell your readers that you have a source who knows a lot about the Republican party from long experience, that he knows all the key movers and shakers, and he has a bit of advice: People should not vote for any Republican, because they're dangerous, dishonest and self-serving. While I once believed that Governor George Wallace had it right, that there was not a dime's worth of difference in the parties; that is not longer true. I have come to realize the Democrats really do care about people who most need help from government; Republicans care most about those who will only get richer because of government help. The government is truly broken, particularly in dealing with national security, and another four years, and heaven forbid not eight years, under the Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable."

Go read the article. Then go read Altemeyer.

Greenwald on the endless war

Greenwald once again calls it like it is:

As much as our political class disgraced itself with its obsequious support for the invasion itself, and further disgraced itself with its complicity in the endless claims (including from the General Whose Credibility Must Not Be Questioned) that things were going well when the opposite was true, their behavior over the last twelve months -- when even they admit that the war is a failure and keep promising to support withdrawal only never to do so -- is the undeniable evidence of how corrupt and worthless they really are.

Endless war....

I haven't had much to say about the Petraeus report because others are saying quite a bit about it, about its mind-numbing bogosity, and about how the only plan the regime has is endless war, drawing troops down to where they were before the so-called 'surge' and calling it a reduction instead of more of the same. Sullivan can feel pity for Bush; I don't. It's been a disaster, it's hurt our position in the world, and the only way out involves the Democrats suddenly finding a spine, which, alas, doesn't seem likely. And speculation that it's all a setup for going after Iran is just more sickening.

This has to end. I actually agree with Camille Paglia:

Words and more words -- what's new? Just get our troops the hell out of there -- now! A phased withdrawal, requiring the removal of massive amounts of supplies and equipment, will take months. But there isn't the sketchiest plan because Bush is dug in to the bitter end and will toss this hot potato to the incoming president -- who (no matter which party wins) won't dare to act. And of course Iraq needs to remain neutralized when American or Israeli bombs start dropping on Iran, which I have little doubt they will do by next year. Bush-Cheney, lacking a clear record of achievement, want to go out with a bang.

Identity politics. Literally.

Interesting post over at Daily Kos arguing that the right's obsession with abortion, homosexuality, and creationism isn't so much because of deeply-held values or religious consistency, as much as it is a way of marking one's identity, of defining one's tribe. Much the same is true of any litmus-test issue, of course... If you're going to be one of us, then you MUST believe X, Y, and Z.

Tribalism in the modern era still depends on its sense of persecution and isolation. Because Christians are the majority, Dominionists must create an enemy to unite them. And so they take an approach opposite to Christ's inclusiveness, peeking through windows and looking for minorities to persecute. The Anti Abortion/Evolution/Homosexuality tribe goes to absurd lengths to prove that it is a persecuted and isolated group that must struggle to protect the safety of its members in a hostile world.

In the absence of real enemies, a tribe will readily create imaginary enemies to unite them, and without concrete evidence of persecution, the tribe must often create an enemy with supernatural powers.

Part of why this resonated so much is that I just recently finished Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, which laid out the degree of tribalism inherent in the authoritarian mind-set, and the way in which identification with the group becomes the most important thing.

Oh yes it IS hypocrisy.

John Cloud at Time has an essay suggesting that Larry Craig isn't guilty of hypocrisy, just weakness.

Assume for a moment that Craig and Haggard actually believed what they said--that homosexuality is sin. They spent most of their lives fighting for the conservative cause. But in Craig's case, the Idaho Statesman has published allegations that there were at least three other slipups involving men, beginning in 1967. What if, like the radio host who gets fat but commits to losing weight, the moralizers were trying through their "pro-family" endeavors to expiate their lustful sins? You may think they are wrong about homosexuality (I do), but that doesn't make them hypocrites.

But this is an explanation, not an excuse. And it doesn't excuse the right-wing anti-gay positions Craig has made such a proud part of his record.

Yes, Craig deserves pity. Watching the self-destruction of a career is never pretty, and the pain is only increased when it happens in public. And despite the bravado of Craig's press releases about getting the verdict reversed, his public career is almost certainly over.

And if he had simply been living a quietly closeted life and got outed, that would be one thing. But these incidents have apparently been going on for years. Cloud makes something of a big deal about how important sequencing is--that if you claim you're going to lose weight, then eat pizza every day for a week and gain 5 pounds, you're a hypocrite. But if you eat pizza and gain weight, then announce you're going on a fitness plan, you're virtuous. Fine. By that criterion, Craig's a hypocrite.

Craig deserves pity. But he also deserves a measure of contempt. Not only for the lie he lived, but for the effect his rhetoric and his policies and his votes on the Senate floor had on people who were living with far more integrity than he. He got far too much mileage out of the "family values" (i.e. anti-gay) meme to deserve sympathy for being exposed.

How much pity, how much contempt? Hard to say. There is a certain amount of self-deception in the closet, and Craig appears to have had more of than most. Cloud describes a series of psychology experiments in which people adjusted their beliefs to match their behavior, no matter what the cost:

They had crossed over from hypocrisy to something more pathetic: self-deception. In this light, getting married, having kids and advancing conservatism looks more like a heartfelt, doomed effort to change sexuality than a hypocritical ploy.

Well, I suppose. Though Craig didn't have kids, he acquired the entire family ready-made when he married. (The kids are his wife's, from her previous marriage.) (Hmmm, 'previous marriage,' how did that come to be acceptable for the 'family values' crowd?) And his votes weren't just on tax cuts. Craig never missed a chance to posture himself as the guardian of society from the Homosexual Menace. Yes, the self-loathing driving that behavior must have been awful. But the fact that he bore it, rather than standing up and admitting what he was doing--or bringing his behavior under control--shows a remarkable lack of integrity.

Cloud gets one thing right, though:

Because their decision making is usually more diffuse, institutions aren't as susceptible to cognitive dissonance. Corporations and political parties routinely say one thing (the GOP is the party of strict values) and do another (the party let Louisiana Senator David Vitter, who unlike Craig holds a swing-state seat, get off with a simple apology after he was linked to a female prostitution ring). The GOP's moralizers deserve some pity. The party itself, not so much.

Craig deserves some pity. The GOP leaders helping run him out of town, none at all. Particularly if the rumors swirling about some of them turn out to be true.

It just keeps getting stranger.

I know I should let this case go, as others are covering it in more detail etc. But just when I think it can't get more bizarre....

Craig was arrested, IIRC, in June. He entered a guilty plea in August. Call it six weeks or so. Now he's saying he didn't really understand what he was doing because he was in a panic about being hounded by the media:

Persuading a judge to withdraw a guilty plea is difficult but Craig will argue that he was under too much stress to knowingly plead guilty, Martin said.

"He was under tremendous pressure," Martin said in a telephone interview.

In particular, Martin cited pressure from Craig's hometown newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, which spent months investigating whether Craig engaged in homosexual encounters.

Craig, who has denied such suggestions and accused the newspaper of conducting a "witch hunt," was so concerned about that investigation, he quickly pleaded guilty when arrested in the bathroom sex sting, Martin said. Craig did not consult with a lawyer or appear in court.

So.... given a month with a court date hanging over him, he didn't consult a lawyer? Even knowing that discussions with a lawyer are privileged? Amazingly enough, I find myself agreeing with Arlen Specter:

Minnesota law is that a guilty plea may be withdrawn if it was not intelligently made "and what Sen. Craig did was by no means intelligent," said Specter.

I'm not sure "intelligently made" has the same meaning Specter's applying here... Yes, entering a guilty plea without consulting with an attorney is certainly foolish. But I wonder if that's grounds for overturning a plea. I somehow doubt it.

Did I Miss This?

President Doofus is in Australia, for a high-powered economic summit. Naturally, with so many world leaders in the city, security is tight. So tight, in fact, that a TV show was able to drive a limo with someone dressed as Osama Bin Laden to within a few feet of the hotel where the President is staying.

There's a video report at Crooks & Liars. The harrumphing commentator at the end gets my vote for the "unintentionally funny clip of the day" award... Apparently the problem isn't the lax security, the problem is how much they crossed the line in even trying something like this because, well, we're never really told why. Because maybe this makes the president's security detail look foolish? Because it raises questions about the millions that's being spent on security? Because it reveals our government as fallible? Those are all reasons to applaud this stunt, not condemn it. Security that can be breached that easily deserves to be lampooned... Or, in the words of the Australian talking head, "bums will be kicked all up and down the line." Apparently the police really didn't twig that something was out of the ordinary until the actor dressed as Osama got out and asked to see his 'old friend,' and explain what a misunderstanding all of this was...

Funny, though. I can't seem to find any U.S. news outlet that's picked up this story. I could be missing something, I suppose... After all, they'd never suppress a story to help out the Commander Guy or his minions, would they?

Nice to get confirmation

A new study shows that certain food additives can increase hyperactivity in ADHD children. This was old news to me.

My younger brother was ADHD. And until he was at least in junior high, we could tell if there'd been a party at school that day and he'd had anything purple to drink. He was a wildman for the rest of the day. We didn't keep most kids' drinks in the house, because he got very hyper after even a little bit.

Still, it's nice to see it's not just an urban legend or one anecdotal case. The study looks like it was well-designed, so the conclusions are probably reliable.

And life goes on.

Protecting Our Contributors

The regime Administration has come out opposing network neutrality. Remarkably enough, the position of the Justice Dept bears an amazing resemblance to the standard line of the telcos:

The Justice Department said imposing net neutrality regulations could hinder development of the internet and prevent ISPs from upgrading networks.

The agency said it could also shift the "entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers".

And of course, once they've rolled out the new networks, the ones that don't carry any data from the competition, they'll be prevented from raising rates....how, exactly?

A lot of companies have made a lot of money off the Internet. It's the open, flat, neutral architecture that made it successful in the first place. Strange how many companies in Japan are offering all sorts of whiz-bang services that are way ahead of anything available here, and they didn't need their own walled garden to do it.

The one bright spot is that by this point, the Justice Dept is so thoroughly and so obviously politicized that fewer and fewer people take it seriously. Unfortunately, they do still have plenty of raw power, which shouldn't be underestimated.

Life's little ironies

It's been a busy week, haven't had time to check in, but I did have something happen today that's worth wondering about. The question came to mind while walking through the halls on my way to class, passing a group of undergrads, and hearing rather more of their conversation than I cared to. But I wondered...

Why is it that the most metrosexual frat boys, the ones with the hairstyles and bead choker-necklaces that wouldn't look at all out of place in most gay bars, are the most likely to give each other crudely homophobic nicknames?

OK, I guess I don't have to think about it all that much...

Al-Jazeera Reports Peace Breakthrough

Wow. This is potentially very good news:

Iraqi Sunni and Shia representatives have agreed on a peace plan during secret talks in Finland.

"Participants committed themselves to work towards a robust framework for a lasting settlement," said a statement issued on Monday by the Crisis Management Initiative, a conflict-prevention group that organised the meeting.

In an agreement released by CMI, the participants "agreed to consult further" on a list of recommendations to begin reconciliation talks, including resolving political disputes through non-violence and democracy.

The recommendations also included the disarming of factions and forming an independent commission to supervise the disarming "in a verifiable manner."

The four-day meeting which ended on Monday brought together 16 delegates from the feuding groups to study lessons learnt from successful peacemaking efforts in South Africa and Northern Ireland.

It's very early, of course. But if this holds, it's very good news indeed.

Of course, we'll be hearing from President Doofus that it's all because of the surge...

[h/t: Paddy over at Cliff Schecter's blog.]

"Wave of the future"--not.

Misty Irons runs a blog I check occasionally. I don't always agree with her, but her opinions seem well thought-out, are respectfully stated, and are usually worth taking seriously. However, her latest entry makes me wonder. Referring to the press release by the Log Cabin Republicans about the Larry Craig matter (she's got the entire text on her site, you can read it there), she comments:

Principled, patriotic, and taking the moral high-ground. These gay Republicans know how to speak a language that most straight Americans can relate to and understand--which is why I think the Log Cabin Republicans are the wave of the future.

Well.

If by "principled" you mean "decrying the closet while actively working for a party that wants to keep them there," I suppose so. I couldn't help noticing they didn't come out with this statement until after the senior Republican leadership started saying the same thing...this is essentially the Republican talking-points list, worked over. Maybe it just took a while to get the press release edited...The story had been going on for days by that time, and their silence was obvious. A cynic would think they were waiting for instructions.

Patriotic? I suppose so. They hardly have a monopoly on it. And "flag-waving" is not a synonym. [I'm not attributing such beliefs to Ms Irons...merely commenting that I see nothing here any more 'patriotic' than any other political press release.]

Moral high ground? I'm not convinced. From where I sit, they appear to be willing to accept second-class status and work for a party that wants to lock in such status, in exchange for tax cuts. (Some of their press releases about the wave of anti-marriage amendments getting passed were truly hilarious.)

If this is the future, we're in serious trouble. Yes, we have to move beyond Planet Hillary, and the sooner the better. But being a Log Cabin Republican requires the kind of doublethink and willful acceptance of a second-class status that no self-respecting citizen, gay or straight, should have to accept, let alone find desirable.

They just don't learn

Sony is in trouble, once again, for putting virus-like "security" software on its products and not letting anyone know it's there.

What's interesting is that this "vulnerability" is being compared to the XCD fiasco. That "vulnerability" was a botched implementation that weakened security, was impossible to remove, and--coincidence of coincidences--even though it used many of the same techniques as viruses, leading antivirus software ignored it. The AV companies just said they worked with "industry partners." Uh huh....

At one time, Sony defined cool in consumer electronics. Today, they're not only user-hostile, they're incompetent.

Read Schneier's book. Or Schneier's other book. Security by obscurity is inherently insecure. And in this case, once again, using products that relied upon it put users at risk.

Yes, security is hard to get right. But you'd think after getting burned on a fundamentally flawed approach that outraged users, outraged regulators, and cost the company millions, they'd have learned their lesson.

Apparently not.

Cart Here, Horse There

A NYT article on the evils of AdBlock manages to be insulting while completely missing the point. The problem, you see, is that this evil program actually gives the user some control.

What happens when the advertisements are wiped clean from a Web site? There is a contented feeling similar to what happens when you watch a recorded half-hour network TV show on DVD in 22 minutes, or when a blizzard hits Times Square and for a few hours, the streets are quiet and unhurried, until the plows come to clear away all that white space.

But when a blizzard hits Times Square, the news reports will focus on the millions of dollars of business lost, not the cross-country skiing opportunities gained.

Likewise, in the larger scheme of things, Adblock Plus — while still a niche product for a niche browser — is potentially a huge development in the online world, and not because it simplifies Web sites cluttered with advertisements.

[snip]

[T]he program is an unwelcome arrival after years of worry that there might never be an online advertising business model to support the expense of creating entertainment programming or journalism, or sophisticated search engines, for that matter.

First of all, the purpose of the web, and the internet in general, is not to make money. No matter how many latecomers want it to be.

Second, most online advertisers should be grateful I'm blocking their ads. If I don't see their ads, I don't know anything about them. But seeing their ads gives me an impression of the company, and most of those impressions are overwhelmingly negative. Dancing aliens, jarring flashing colors, suddenly getting a sales pitch blaring over my speakers and having to hunt for the ad that's causing it, then the purposely-obscured mute button on the ad, popovers, scroll-bys...

Look, it's really quite simple. If you go out of your way to annoy me, and I have to go out of my way to shut you up, you're not making me want to buy your product or service. Your crackhead tech-school-dropout web designer may be proud of himself for coming up with code that keeps your ad on top no matter what, but all you're really doing is driving people to seek out ad blocking software and to avoid you entirely.

And as for the websites that block FireFox entirely...well, again, I think we should thank them for self-identifying about their priorities, so a boycott is simplified. FireFox offers a valuable, almost uniquely valuable, service. Very few websites do, and even fewer online merchants do. So if I need to choose between FireFox and yet another widget-seller, it's an easy choice. Almost a no-brainer. Just as easy as the decision was in the first place to install AdBlock Plus.

Liars for Jesus

It's always worth checking up on the more outlandish claims.

So what are we left to conclude? PFOX claims to have been attacked verbally and physically on public fairgrounds by one or more unnamed attackers, yet no one we can find who is in a position to know about such an attack has any idea what PFOX is talking about. And though we tried to contact them, PFOX representatives have offered no evidence at all to support their own claims.

Of course, the entire incident is already being treated as unassailable fact among the right-wing set, and will no doubt form the basis of many, many fundraising letters...

Disappointment in Washington

Some people must be terribly disappointed about North Korea.... Diplomacy worked.

The foreign ministry statement, carried by the state news agency, follows a meeting in Geneva this weekend between nuclear envoys from both nations.

Washington said the talks resulted in a pledge by the North to disable its nuclear facilities.

But...but... how will we keep up threats of endless war?

Oh well... we'll always have Iran.

Bad ideas, probably ready for import

From the BBC we learn about a plan in Germany to plant spyware onto suspect's computers via spam email.

The e-mails would contain Trojans - software that secretly installs itself on suspects' computers, allowing agents to search the hard drives.

There would only be "a few" of these (no specification of how many) and for a limited time (no hint of how long).

I don't know what the situation is with German law, though news reports are cited that privacy laws may be violated by this. In the US, of course, there would (in theory) need to be court approval, but as we've seen lately, that's not really required; it's more of a suggestion, just being in the constitution and all.

I give it 6 months before it's done here, and 6 months after that before the story breaks and we find out how many cases it's been used on. And it'll be a much higher number than anyone expects.

And of course, this raises some questions. Will antivirus software be "updated" to ignore "official" spyware? If I find it and delete it anyway, is that taken as proof of malicious or criminal intent? Is it interfering with an investigation?

Feh.

Such blissful ignorance

A guest editorial at NYT on the Craig follies makes a couple of astounding conclusions:

Clearly, whatever Mr. Craig’s intentions, the police entrapped him. If the police officer hadn’t met his stare, answered that tap or done something overt, there would be no news story.

Um, no. Entrapment involves enticing someone to commit a crime they wouldn't have been predisposed to commit. How, exactly, was Craig "entrapped," encouraged to do something he wouldn't have done ordinarily? As the article itself states, a straight man would have been left alone after the first unanswered cough, gesture, whatever. Craig participated willingly. He was many things, but not entrapped. The question of why Minneapolis is spending public resources sending cops out to deal with these kinds of things is a legitimate question...but a charge of entrapment is risible.

Quoting the first study looking at these questions, "The Tea-Room Trade," she goes on:

“The only harmful effects of these encounters, either direct or indirect, result from police activity,” Mr. Humphreys wrote. “Blackmail, payoffs, the destruction of reputations and families, all result from police intervention in the tearoom scene.” What community can afford to lose good citizens?

Except the only harmful effects don't result from police activity. Unsuspecting spouses are exposed to STD's. Adultery is not victimless. The men themselves are trapped in a cycle of shame and self-loathing. Men who are able to be out don't spend much time cruising the parks and men's rooms. (Some do, of course; but most don't. They have other options.)

She does get one thing right, though:

[L]et’s stop being so surprised when we discover that our public figures have their own complex sex lives, and start being more suspicious when they self-righteously denounce the sex lives of others.

Thrown Under The Bus

A good summary of how quickly the GOP moved to get Larry Craig out of the Senate after his little, um, incident. The difference with the Vitter case, of course, is nothing short of astounding. And while I've argued that it's more due to political consideration than anti-gay animus, well, let's not be completely naive here.

"It's because Craig was charged & convicted." While Vitter avoided being charged due to the statute of limitations, but publicly admitted he'd done the deed. Solicitation is a crime, and according to the "moral values" people, adultery is a serious sin. (Except in the case of presidential candidates, of course.)

The part that pegs the irony meter is that Mitch McConnell delivered the bad news to Craig. There have been rumors about McConnell for years.... poor Mitch has got to be wondering if there's some hustler out there just waiting until the election gets a little closer.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the hypocrisy reeks to heaven.

Bush's so-called legacy

I've been busy with things for school the last couple of days and haven't had time to write much about this. But President Doofus is thinking about what life is going to be like after he leaves the White House:

First, Mr. Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Yes, that's true, Clinton is. Of course, people like Clinton. And without Rove, he doesn't even remember to put in terms of "speaking out about the issues" or "working on things he considers important" or something like that... It's about the money. Because 20 million just doesn't go as far as it used to, you know. But wait, there's more:

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

I can see him getting bored, too. After all, boredom is usually a symptom of a lack of engagement. You get bored when there's nothing interesting going on. And this is not a man who engages deeply with the world. Indeed, the last seven years have been short-attention-span theater.

For now, though, Mr. Bush told the author, Robert Draper, in a later session, “I’m playing for October-November.” That is when he hopes the Iraq troop increase will finally show enough results to help him achieve the central goal of his remaining time in office: “To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence,” and, he said later, “stay longer.”

That's the important thing, you see. Keeping troops in Iraq as long as possible. And it's not about the Iraqis. It's about the politics. It's all about the politics. Always has been.

But fully aware of his standing in opinion polls, Mr. Bush said his top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, would perhaps do a better job selling progress to the American people than he could.

That's right. It's not about the people dying, the chaos, the complete ineffectiveness of the government. It's about how the war's been packaged and sold to the domestic audience.

Aides said Mr. Bush agreed to speak so freely with Mr. Draper only after years of lobbying, in which Mr. Draper said he finally convinced Mr. Bush and his aides that he was writing about him as “a consequential president” for history, not for the latest news cycle. And aides said they saw the book as the first effort to write about Mr. Bush in the context of nearly his entire presidency.

By that measure, he's been a success. They'll be writing about him for years. And I suppose he can't be blamed for finding a suitably sycophantic hack to fire the first volley in the book wars. After all, there are those speaking fees to consider!

Mr. Draper, a Texan like Mr. Bush and a former writer for Texas Monthly, spent hours interviewing Mr. Bush and his close circle of aides in 1998, when he wrote an early, defining article on Mr. Bush’s budding presidential candidacy for GQ magazine.

Mr. Draper’s family also has a history with Mr. Bush’s. Mr. Bush’s father in 1982 was an honorary pallbearer at the funeral of Mr. Draper’s grandfather, Leon Jaworski, a special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal.

Find a loyal family retainer to do your sales job. Classic.

Telling Mr. Draper he likes to keep things “relatively light-hearted” around the White House, he added in May, “I can’t let my own worries — I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve; I don’t want to burden them with that.”

Psssst.... some of us would appreciate some indication that you are worried, just a teensy. We certainly are. In fact, some of us are downright unnerved. And your blithe confidence that everything will be all right if we just let you keep doing what's worked so terribly so far...well, you're not helping. A few signs of worry would be encouraging. As it is, it looks like you're unaware of what's going on.

Oh, and by the way... He's in charge:

And in apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq, he continued, “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ — there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.”

Except when he isn't:

Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.

Yep, there was a policy. It didn't happen. He apparently shrugged and said "oh well."

And ultimately, the Iraq situation boils down to a problem of politics and PR:

He otherwise addressed his unpopularity as a tactical issue. For instance, in May he said that this fall it would be up to General Petraeus to convince the public that the Iraq strategy is working.

“I’ve been here too long,” Mr. Bush said, according to Mr. Draper. “Every time I start painting a rosy picture, it gets criticized and then it doesn’t make it on the news.”

That's right. Because, of course, the awful biased media only reports the bad things like people dying and troops without body armor and civilian casualties and death squads and ethnic cleansing, but they don't report all the good things that are happening, like, um....well....

“One interesting question historians are going to have to answer is: Would Saddam have behaved differently if he hadn’t gotten mixed signals between the first resolution and the failure of the second resolution?” Mr. Bush said. “I can’t answer that question. I was hopeful that diplomacy would work.”

Given his continual push for war on any old justification at all, this rings pretty hollow.

Absolutely incredible. Completely untroubled by the awful burden of self-awareness. And we put him there.

Twice.

Link fixed

I think the link for the RSS feed is now fixed.

If anyone cares.

"Moral Values" hypocrisy

Glenn Greenwald shows once again that when he's on point, he nails it.

The issue is not that these Traditional Marriage proponents sometimes stray from their own standards. People are imperfect and will inevitably do so. The point is that they apply these supposed "principles" only when it is expedient to do so, only in ways that are politically comfortable, thus revealing the complete inauthenticity of their alleged convictions.

It is hard to remember an incident that more powerfully reveals the true, deeply unprincipled face of the "Traditional Marriage" movement than the completely disparate treatment from the GOP leadership for David Vitter and Larry Craig. As the likes of Mitch McConnell and (the divorced and adulterous) John McCain oh-so-nobly demand Craig's resignation while continuing to embrace David Vitter, the last thing we ought to be hearing is how this demonstrates newfound moral rectitude from the Republican Party. Whatever is driving the party leaders as they keep David Vitter and push out Larry Craig -- and similarly condemn same-sex marriages while saying nothing about (and often engaging in) divorces and multiple marriages -- devotion to "traditional moral values" is not it.

Tell me another one.

So the US military can't guarantee operational security on a mission to get some civilian (U.S.) lawmakers out of Baghdad without their plane being fired on.

Tell me again how well the surge is working. I keep forgetting.

Will no one rid me of this meddlesome inspector?

Once again, the U.N. team fails to stick to the script, and reports that Iran is taking some steps to cut back on the nuclear program, and at any rate aren't close to coming up with weapons. Naturally, the "we should nuke Iran before they nuke us" crowd is up in arms, because this doesn't fit the narrative.

Given the accuracy of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, compared to the accuracy of the claims that led us into the war, I know who I'm likely to give the benefit of the doubt to.

Because if we're caught breaking the law, the terrorists win.

And the damage to the presidency continues... This time the minions of President Doofus are arguing that they shouldn't have to reveal details of how a Belgian bank provided the US info on various banking transactions, possibly (probably) in violation of the law. Why shouldn't they release information on whether or not they broke the law? Because...wait for it... it's a state secret.

The problem, of course, is that this looks awfully convenient, that the motivation is more of the regime's Administration's desire for secrecy for its own sake. So it's going to be that much harder for the next President to make any such argument. For that matter, it's going to be harder for the regime Administration to keep making that point if they keep overusing the "it's secret because we say it is, and you don't need to know why" defense:

Historically, courts have been reluctant to challenge the secrecy privilege. But the administration has suffered setbacks in seeking to use the secrecy claim in the eavesdropping case and several other recent cases.

“We’ve seen a real erosion of the ‘state secrets’ privilege in the last year,” said Mr. Schwarz, the lawyer suing Swift. “I think it is from overuse. We’ve seen it used in record numbers, in situations where it was inappropriate, and the courts are starting to recognize that.”

So it's not just us

Great Britain's wind-power scheme seems to be turning into a bit of a boondoggle. Plants built where the wind isn't, where development pressure is high (but winds aren't), and with a power system that isn't prepared to deal with the variability of the electricity generated.

Of course, it's not a simple problem. The power grid wasn't designed for generators that go on and off all day long. There isn't a convenient way to store the electricity generated, and adding a system (some sort of flywheel comes to mind) adds to the cost and complexity, and therefore makes it less viable.

But at least they're doing something. Unlike the US, where the generally accepted solution seems to be more subsidies for oil companies that are already making record profits.

Hilzoy to Democrats: Grow A Spine!

Tell it, sister:

[T]his is not about "distaste". Our objections to allowing the administration to listen in on us without warrants is not aesthetic. It concerns some of the most fundamental principles in our Constitution, and the freedoms we take for granted as Americans. Distaste has nothing to do with it.

The full post really is worth reading. I'm continually baffled why the Democrats act as if it's still 1996 and they've just been repudiated at the polls. These are fundamental principles, and no one seems to care that they're being shredded. The Democrats seem terrified that if they don't give the regime Administration everything it wants, they'll be called names or something. Not realizing, apparently, that the people who voted them into office in large numbers in 2006 want them to do something, and want them to stand up for principle.

It shouldn't need to be said, but apparently it does: Hey, people...we've got your back. Now go do what we sent you there to do. The sooner the better.

Different treatment?

Pam Spaulding has a post up on the continuing implosion of Sen. Craig, and multiple calls from Republicans for him to resign. She notes:

You have to wonder what Craig is thinking right now as all these fundies and Republicans turn on him. He certainly has to notice that Diaper David Vitter didn't experience calls from folks on the Hill to vacate. Could it be about that whole GAY thing, Larry?

As I note in a comment on that thread, I don't think it's "the gay thing." At least, not entirely. It's mostly about the power thing. There's a reason Mitt Romney can call "I am not gay" Craig 'disgusting' while expressing sympathy and support for "Diapers" Vitter, and it's not just because of the gay thing.

The governor of Idaho is a Republican. So if Craig steps down, a Republican will be appointed to replace him. So there's going to be a Republican in that seat until the next election, whether or not it's Craig.

But the governor of Louisiana is a Democrat. So if Vitter steps down, it means the GOP will almost certainly lose a seat in the Senate.

Therefore, Craig is expendable in a way Vitter is not.

Yes, they're piling on, making every cheap point they can, and are obviously playing to the homophobe wing of the party. But if Craig's seat [no pun intended] weren't securely Republican, we'd undoubtedly be hearing plenty about compassion, avoiding a rush to judgement, and so on.

Also, there's a good post over at Sullivan's that's worth reading. And there was another post, somewhere else, that I've just spent 20 minutes trying to find again so I can give credit where it's due. And I can't. Point being:

There are many pressures putting someone into the closet, and many keeping someone there. There are many privileges that go with it, privileges that are foregone when one comes out; indeed, one can lose one's support system, seemingly one's entire life.

But that does not make it necessary to build a career on trying to turn gays into second-class citizens, as Craig seems to have done.

But ultimately, it's a question of maturity. Of facing facts, about oneself and about the world. And facing facts with integrity is sometimes difficult, sometimes scary, and sometimes carries a price. But it has to be done. Someone who isn't willing to face basic facts, but is willing to tell the thousand lies a day a closeted life demands, at some point calls their own integrity into question. And is not fit to lead.

Update: Found the link. Scroll down a bit, it's in one of the quote boxes. The original blogger is Glenden Brown.

"Disconnected from the overall strategy"

Hundreds of Iraqis who have put their lives on the line working for America are unable to get visas to leave... In part because they can't apply in Iraq, but have to go to Syria or Lebanon first, then wait several months for processing.

But some American officers have made a point of trying to help Iraqis who worked for them. Lt. Col. Steven Miska, an infantry officer in Western Baghdad with the Dagger Brigade Combat Team, knows exactly how many interpreters his unit employs, and offers housing on his base to every Iraqi who works there. On Memorial Day, he paid tribute to two Iraqis — an interpreter and a shop owner on the base — along with fallen Americans.

“Right now, the immigration policy is disconnected from the overall strategy to win,” said Colonel Miska, adding, “It’s not just U.S. soldiers who are sacrificing.”

Policy disconnects... lack of planning... is anyone surprised? Hilzoy has a good essay up on why these sorts of mistakes are the sort made by people who fundamentally just don't care.

Larry Craig

Once again, Mark Kleiman misses the point, mostly, while Hilzoy nails it.

The issue isn't just that a "family values" politician is cruising for sex in airport restrooms. It's that he's built a career on limiting rights for gays and lesbians, making sure they had no opportunity to enjoy the privileges he enjoys as a (supposedly) straight man, while also hiding the inconvenient little fact of his own behavior.

And as Hilzoy points out, the self-loathing behind that kind of behavior has got to be unpleasant. But that's an explanation, not an excuse. That is, it explains how it happens; it doesn't condone it or make the hypocrisy any less rank.

Kleiman's right to call out the press on their lack of interest in the abuse of power, though. I'm not sure it's grounds for expulsion, but some kind of sanction definitely seems to be in order. But Kleiman's distinction between this case and the Vitter case, because "policy toward prostitution is still a live issue" (and apparently gay equality isn't), is galling, and borders on mind-bogglingly oblivious.

Missing the point, again

A discussion of digital restrictions management (DRM) on the BBC website quotes the usual sources, and gets the usual party line. That music was released on CD's, without DRM, so people expect it to be available. Video, on the other hand, hasn't been released in a non-crippled protected form and so it's perfectly okay to keep doing that, or so says the industry spokesdrone:

"There isn't a contradiction of approach between the physical and digital products... Video content and DVD has always been very protected - people do not expect to copy DVDs easily."

[sigh] No. Let's take this from the top. Again.

Users have certain rights. They're a matter of law. The fact that the MPAA threatened and bribed hardware manufacturers into selling crippled players that don't protect those rights, does not mean those rights don't apply. Just because the MPAA could do it, and dare anyone to stop them, doesn't mean they were right to do so, or that there's any presumption that they should continue to do so.

But as long as no one complains, they can go right on ignoring the law.

Update from inside the bubble

Bush is angry that his good friend Gonzo was forced to step down:

After months of standing by his top prosecutor and "close friend," Bush spoke briefly in Texas to praise Gonzales, saying the attorney general endured "unfair treatment that has created harmful distraction at the Justice Department."

Bush said it's "sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person" is impeded "from doing important work."

Unless the important work he's referring to is shielding Rove and Bush from the law, lying to Congress, and politicizing prosecutions, none of this has anything to do with reality. But inside the bubble, the problem isn't the rampant lawbreaking, it's the news coverage of that rampant lawbreaking; that's causing the "distraction" that's so harmful to our country.

Blech. The sooner the whole crop is out, the better.

Now on to the important things....

And of course, within an hour, the resignation of the AG in disgrace is pushed off the front of CNN's site, to make room for a far more important story.... Convicted Dogfighter Says He 'Needs To Grow Up.'

Let's keep our priorities straight.

Gonzo's out, Chertoff's in.

So Gonzales has finally faced reality, that his position is no longer tenable. And Chertoff is being floated as his replacement.

That ought to please everybody. He's got more legal experience at the federal level than Gonzo had, and appears to be one of the few executive branch officials who wasn't involved with firing federal prosecutors. That'll please the Democrats. And, as we saw in the Katrina response, he's got the right combination of ideology-and-politics-before-all-else and raw incompetence that this Administration demands.

So everyone wins.

The Times Finally Catches Up... and doesn't screw up too bad

The "paper of record" finally noticed the tempest-in-a-teapot that blew over last week about a quarter-degree change in the climate records, a correction of a book-keeping error.

Before the change, 1934 and 1998 were statistically tied for warmest year on record, the difference between them well within the range of measurement error.

After the change....1934 and 1998 are statistically tied for warmest year on record, the difference between them well within the range of measurement error.

Not that the various Well-Paid Professional Liars were deterred from bloviating, of course.

I don't know which is more depressing, that it turned into the mini-brouhaha that it did, or that the Times took as long as did to notice anything was going on.

But he'll be OUR sonofabitch...

Allawi is pushing hard to get himself installed as American puppet. I suppose he sees it as a reasonable career move--after all, he's running out of options that don't involve getting honest work--and the "install a compliant strongman" model will no doubt be tempting as the hollowness of the "surge" becomes inescapable. And the "Yes he's a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch" model worked oh so well during the cold war...

See? Random Internet Quizzes ARE valid!!!

94% Geek

On the other hand....

1,617,840How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

Useless-trivia dept: This is supposedly approximately the same as 324 toilet seats.

Obviously, I'm not trying hard enough.

According to the Mingle blog-rating service,



Obviously, I'm going to have to work at spicing things up a bit.

More harm than good

The surge is continuing. And is driving the partition of Iraq:

Despite some evidence that the troop buildup has improved security in certain areas, sectarian violence continues and American-led operations have brought new fighting, driving fearful Iraqis from their homes at much higher rates than before the tens of thousands of additional troops arrived...

But the problems are being caused by people who oppose the war. Just like in Vietnam.

Yeesh.

What a week. Last-minute room changes. Dying laptops. Recalcitrant network connections. Misconfigured servers. Uncooperative thermostats. Nonexistent projectors. Filled-to-capacity rooms.

Just another semester underway.

T-Minus and holding

Still a few preparations for the start of classes. Unfortunately, they demand the use of the new podcasting software we're getting on campus. It was supposed to go live Friday. No sign of it yet.

And so it goes.

Played for fools

As it turns out, when Democrats caved last month because the regime Administration demanded an extension of wiretapping powers, there was some extra language slipped in. Language that dramatically expanded those powers.

But remember, the Democrats had no choice. If they didn't pass the legislation the regime Administration wanted, the Republicans would call them names.

And so the 22%-approval administration continues to act like royalty, and the people elected to stop it show their cowardice.

Again.

Ingsoc prevents thoughtcrime.

It's getting pretty much official, as demonstrated in the Padilla case. You don't have to actually have done anything. Just expressed a desire or an interest.

Padilla's no choirboy. But the original charge--planning a dirty bomb--you remember, the one that justified holding him in solitary confinement for three years? Never actually filed. And he expressed a desire to maim and kill on American soil. For that, he's serving a life sentence. Longer than he'd serve for actually killing someone, in some jurisdictions.

The process has turned the phrase "American justice," once a beacon to the world, into a joke.

Finally, it all makes sense.

God is an atheist.

Bailing Out The Rich

The Federal Reserve is cutting the discount rate to make things easier for the credit markets. Exactly the wrong move.

Yes, the markets have had a rough week. Yes, they're dragging everything down. Yes, including stuff I own.

However.

The problem is that there has been absolutely insane risk-taking in the mortgage and credit markets, mostly with borrowed money. Bad practices that a first-year business student would know were ridiculous. As long as markets keep going up, everyone makes money. But if the markets dip, margin calls get made, and all of that leveraging has to be dealt with in a hurry.

The only way the situation will get cleaned up is by market discipline. The only way people learn is by dealing with the pain of mistakes. Yes, some hedge-fund millionaires are hurting. The entire point of hedge funds (much less regulated than mutual funds) is that 'high-net-worth' individuals are able to make riskier investments in search of higher rewards; that if you're investing a few mil, you presumably can do (or hire) the kind of due diligence not feasible for Joe Retail Investor.

Note the key word there--riskier.

By trying to prevent the inevitable, all Ben's doing is dragging it out, postponing the day of reckoning. Yes, the losses are real. They knew the risks when they bought. If I invest in something and it goes up, I get the profit. If it doesn't, I eat the loss. I don't ask for (or expect) a bailout.

But again, the hedgies play by different rules. And the rest of us deal with the messy aftereffects.

A more thorough discussion is here.

Update: Allan Sloan calls it correctly here.

Moyers On Rove

"It’s so easy, as Karl knew, to scapegoat people you outnumber, and if God is love, as rumor has it, Rove knew that, in politics, you better bet on fear and loathing. Never mind that in stroking the basest bigotry of true believers you coarsen both politics and religion."

Full article here. Moyers and I don't quite agree on a lot of things, but this time I think he's called it about right: Greed and God became the formula for winning elections. And a few election cycles later, he leaves behind a shambles.

Ready to go. I think.

After living at my desk the last few days, I think I'm ready to go for the semester.

I'm forgetting something, of course. And I'll remember it late Sunday, for Monday's class.

But I'm certainly enjoying the illusion of being prepared.

Coffee prevents the plague!

It's true; I drink coffee regularly, and have never once had the plague. Nor have any of my coffee-drinking co-workers.

Fascinating what used to be seen as medicinal. Coffee, of course, was originally seen as medicinal, then as a bad habit... Not as condemnation-worthy as opium, but bad enough.

For sheer oddness, though, my personal favorite is probably powdered mummy, taken to thicken the blood. (And darn it, ever since the FDA crackdown on fake mummy, my blood's felt thinner.)

Quote of the day

It now remains for us to complete the task that the immortal Turd Blossom has thus far so nobly advanced: to make the entire country think "crook" when they hear the word "Republican" and "bigoted boob" when they hear the word "conservative."

--Mark Kleiman

Sims R Us

An interesting update on the idea familiar to every reasonably bright 11-year-old: What if our world and everything in it, including me, is just part of someone's dream? How would we know? Would we know? Would it make a difference?

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. Bostrom’s argument whether it takes 50 years or 5 million years. If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors.

There would be no way for any of these ancestors to know for sure whether they were virtual or real, because the sights and feelings they’d experience would be indistinguishable. But since there would be so many more virtual ancestors, any individual could figure that the odds made it nearly certain that he or she was living in a virtual world.

We couldn't tell we were part of a simulation, unless very subtle errors were introduced and clues left to point us toward them. But what sort of inconsistency/error in our observed world leads to the inescapable conclusion "The universe is actually a simulation"? Some oddness in the binary expansion of pi, as hypothesized in Contact? No, not really... the law of large numbers demands that if you follow pi out far enough, and its digits are essentially random (as they appear to be, though there are some interesting properties that no one's quite explained, such as why the digit 5 doesn't appear quite as often as it should)....sooner or later, you're going to get some whopping big coincidences, that not having whopping big coincidences would itself be extremely unlikely. Including something that could be interpreted as ASCII if you looked at it right.

And that's the issue. Strictly speaking, it's not a scientific hypothesis, since there's no way to disprove it. It's an interesting bit of logic, but ultimately one possibility among many:

But there are a couple of alternative hypotheses.... One is that civilization never attains the technology to run simulations (perhaps because it self-destructs before reaching that stage). The other hypothesis is that posthumans decide not to run the simulations.

To draw a comparison: Suppose I spend the evening playing Sims. To whatever extent they're "real," would knowing they're in a simulation make their immediate wants any less "real" to them? If they knew they were just data files and onscreen renderings, would they have a crisis of faith? Suicidal despair? Not likely.

If I turn out to be a sim in someone else's game...what difference does it make when I get up in the morning? What do I do differently, knowing I'm a sim? It may only be a simulated job and a simulated apartment, but it beats sleeping on the simulated streets.

Update: Someone's already been giving some thought to how to live as a simulation.

Photo of the day

"Darn it, Karl, I keep tellin' ya, I'm the President, that means I get to lead...."

From the front page of today's Times.

From the "yeah but..." dept...

Andrew Sullivan gets excited thinking about Huckabee as the vice-presidential candidate:

All of them - Giuliani, Romney, McCain, FThompson - will have problems with the Christianist core of the GOP. Hillary will only bring out so many base Republicans. Putting Huckabee on their ticket would go a long way to encouraging more to emerge from their nooks. He's also a press fave, which can only help a GOP in a popular mire. And he has a sense of humor and genial demeanor, which are key for any candidate running on morality.

Well, yeah. If you overlook the fact the he's a total loon. Of course, this is the GOP we're talking about, where being a loon not only isn't a handicap, it can be a positive asset. So maybe he's on to something after all.

SCO Update

Friday's stock close: $1.56.
Trading as of 8:43 CDT Monday: $0.45.
Net change: -71%.

The market has rendered an opinion, regardless of what SCO put into their press release.

Meanwhile they've got about $6 mil in cash left and they're still losing money every quarter. And they've just lost (most of) their one hope of getting any significant income in the future.

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Do I hear a fat lady singing?

I suppose he'll call this progress

A new study guide in Russia presents a...well... a "fair and balanced" view of Stalin. Yes, a lot of people died, but there have been a long line of autocrats, and sometimes a strong leader is needed to bring about change. Besides,

Political and historical studies show that when they come under similarly serious threats, even “soft” and “flexible” political systems, as a rule, turn more rigid and limit individual rights, as happened in the United States after September 11, 2001.

This regime Administration is being compared to Stalin. And unfortunately, the comparison is not without merit. When he gets back from vacation, someone please explain to President Doofus that comparisons to some well-known world leaders aren't particularly flattering.

And They Will Know We Are Christians, Part Deux

What do you do at "Love Demonstrated Ministries" with a teenage camper who can't run as fast as the rest of the campers?

Tier her to the back of the van and drag her, of course.

Tough love? Or just abuse with a religious patina to legitimize it?

I know which one I think it is....

SCO and Unix

The news is all over the place by now, of course, that Novell actually holds the copyrights to UNIX, which means that SCO's demands for licensing revenue, per-seat fees, and whatever else they can get away with... well, it just took a hit below the waterline.

It's not over yet, not completely. But SCO's theory of the case (which has shifted several times) is currently that it's all about copyrights. Well, they don't own the copyrights.

And Novell has the right to tell SCO not to try to enforce Novell's copyrights for them.

Oh, and SCO owes Novell a bunch of license fees for past UNIX installations they sold.

It's going to be fun watching SCO's stock sink the rest of the way to zero.

Update: Once again, Illiad nails it.

2008 Preview

Straw Poll Results Delayed Due To Voting Machine Malfunction

Look who's involved:

The state party rented optical scan machines from Diebold, a company at the center of several recent voting controversies. Recently, the state of California decertified Diebold machines for the 2008 election.

Is anyone surprised?

The enduring appeal of arcade games

Fun article over at the Times about the continuing appeal of classic video games. The writer doesn't quite seem to get it, but isn't taking the usual condescending look-at-the-geeks tone that happens all too often. And actually, the answer is laid out right there:

“I was looking for something that I could be in control of,” Mr. Wiebe, now a schoolteacher, said recently in his kitchen while he heated a bowl of clam chowder for his 10-year-old daughter. “I felt like everything in my life was being decided by others. Donkey Kong was something I could do, and if I failed, I would have no one to blame but myself.”

Cf: The Hacker Manifesto.

And yes, that is often exactly what makes programming so appealing. The challenge of getting the machine to do something, something fun, something cool, something amazing. And if it doesn't work, it's because I made a mistake, no other reason. A way of taking control of at least one small corner of the world.

"A Terrible Mistake"

Followup to this post: Jim Burroway has an email claiming to be from the partner of the vet who was denied a funeral service because he was gay.

It hasn't been authenticated, but if true, it paints a damning picture. Apparently the pictures presented for the memorial didn't even include 2 men hugging. The night before the service, the family was contacted and simply told a mistake had been made and they couldn't use the church. There were multiple excuses, shifting stories, and it was impossible to get a straight answer from the church leadership.

The email states:

To me personally, I have no problem with the church turning us away. My problem is with the method in which they did it. I happen to know several other members of that church who are also gay, and they had no idea that their church held that opinion on this topic either. If they had told us right away, or even on Tuesday that they were not comfortable with the service, we would have been more than willing to try and come to some sort of compromise, or we could have changed venues. We were never given that option. Someone in a position of power made the decision to cut us off, and didn’t even have the moral courage to tell us the truth to our faces.

Hopefully your reading this helps to make sense of what occurred. I fully understand the church’s right to deny us the use of their facilities. I also served in the military, (US Army, 1987-2002), and I have fought to defend their freedom of religion and freedom of choice.

If just one couple or family can be saved from having to suffer the same as we did, I would consider all this to have been worthwhile. I truly believe all congregations need to have more open communication between all their members, so that the person who had initially welcomed us into their church would have known that is was not acceptable in the eyes of their leaders, and the entire issue would have been avoided. If we had known from the beginning we were not welcome, or the offer had never been made, we would have just continued making the same arrangements we finally had in the end. Nothing we did for Cecil’s remembrance ceremony was changed, other than the location.

Read the entire article. It's worth it. If the email is legitimate.... it hardly paints the picture of Christian fellowship the church would no doubt like to project.

Evolution leading to the Industrial Revolution?

I've been meaning to post something about this article from Sunday's Times about a new study suggesting that the rise of the industrial revolution was mostly because of the spread of a certain set of attitudes and behaviors--longer work hours, lower violence, more willingness to save and postpone gratification. No controversy so far.

However, the argument is made that this change was driven by evolution; that European cities were so disease-filled that a large proportion of the population died off annually, to be replaced by new migrants from the countryside. Children of the rich were more likely to survive than children of the poor; thus the surviving population is increasingly represented by the offspring of the rich, perhaps bringing with them behaviors that lead to wealth.

But of course, there are questions he doesn't address. Why were people flocking to the cities, when your chances of foraging outside the cities, admittedly not great, were at least better than in the middle of the disease-infested hell-hole a medieval city was? He notes this didn't happen in Asia because the ruling classes of China and Japan were "surprisingly infertile." Why? And could biological selection account for that large an effect in only a few hundred to few thousand years? He's an economic historian, not a geneticist.

Yes, there have been some intriguing studies suggesting genetic selection over historic time periods (mentioned in the article, which is really worth reading). But all too often I've seen academics read one or two papers from another discipline, misunderstand a key point, and apply that misunderstanding incorrectly in what they fancy is an 'interdisciplinary' paper. As a friend of mine at UNC-Chapel Hill puts it, "Just because you co-authored a paper with a historian, that doesn't make you a historian." And reading a few genetics papers doesn't make you geneticist. My academic specialty is bioinformatics, and I have no pretense at all of being a biologist, or geneticist, or biochemist, though my work (such as it is; I'm primarily an instructor, not a researcher) has touched on all three areas.

An intriguing hypothesis. The book is called "A Farewell to Alms," and comes out next month. I may have to order a copy.

Another small bit of progress

As it turns out, high school students in New Jersey can present (and see) The Laramie Project, a play about the Matthew Shepard case. It sounds like the right decision, even though it took some effort to bring it about.

Yes, it may be uncomfortable in places. Lots of plays do. At least they're trying to tackle real issues. At my own high school, we made a bold decision to present The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. And a real powerhouse of a performance it was, too. [set sarcasm=OFF]

Nice to see there's progress being made.

So long, and thanks. Too bad about the death squads.

Nine thousand Iraqis have put their lives, and their families' lives, on the line by working with the US military as interpreters. Now, of course, most of them are marked for death.

Our government's response. A thousand visas. Enough for about a tenth of them, but not their families. This is how we repay those who risk their lives for us.

Shameful.

"And they will know we are Christians by our loooooove....."

A church in Dallas is refusing to hold a memorial service for a gay man, a Navy vet. Because, you see, the planned memorial included photos from the life of the deceased, including some showing that he was, in fact, gay. The pastor explained that while the church would hold a memorial service for a thief or murderer,

"But I don't think the mother would submit photos of her son murdering someone," he said. "That's a red light going off."

Yep. Two men hugging is equivalent to someone being killed.

Who would Jesus hate?

(Hat tip: John Aravosis.)

Still not getting it

Gay marriage isn't *that* big a deal with me, but when I see otherwise apparently intelligent people coming out with stupidity like this:

Note that I did not have a religious marriage, thus making my marriage more civil union-like-- and maybe making me less convinced that what (depending on the route a state takes) may amount really to a linguistic difference, as opposed to an inherent one impacting on rights-- particularly where the separation of church and state is preserved-- results in "unequal" treatment (and maybe making me less wistful, for lack of a better word, about "marriage," generally).

Look, it's really quite simple: The law, as written, uses the term "marriage." Not civil unions. And we're seeing abundant examples that as long as it's separate, as long as it's marriage-lite, something kind-of-but-not-really, it has a very real impact on rights and equal treatment.

If the state solely defined marriage, and the churches did whatever they wanted in a separate ceremony, that'd be different. If everyone did civil unions, and the laws were written about that, with "marriage" being a religious ceremony conducted by churches but having no legal effect, that might be okay too. But neither of those are the world we live in.

No one, as far as I know, is demanding that the government require churches to perform gay marriages. (There'd be huge constitutional barriers to even trying.) And I agree with Liz that churches, as private organizations, are free to restrict marriages they perform to heterosexual couples, or members of that faith, or whatever other limits they see fit. But those marriages also carry the (civil, secular) legal benefits of marriage with them. And for those who don't want a religious service, there's civil marriage, performed by an officer of the court. If the church won't marry you, you can always go to the justice of the peace. Your church may or may not consider that marriage valid; their decision.

But the "let's just call it something else and not use the m-word" misses the point. As long as the m-word is the magic ticket to full citizenship, that's going to be the goal.

Has incredible progress already been made? By all means. Twenty years ago only the most radical of the radical fringe were discussing gay marriage.

But we're not there yet. And saying "something else really ought to be good enough" is obtuse.

It takes more than just elections

The mainstream media finally notices what's been obvious for years: American support is the kiss of death to any political party or movement in the middle east.

We push for elections, elections, elections at any cost, in the naive hope that elections will turn societies overnight into peaceful, pro-American liberal democracies, willing to sell us oil at low prices. But without a stable society, the rule of law, an educated polity, and a commitment from that polity to the system itself, which requires a certain tradition of self-government--it's just a different way of grabbing and keeping power, the extension of civil war by other means.

It's not that Arab societies "can't handle democracy," a rather racist thesis; it's that their societies don't have the pre-requisites. The existence of a computer implies a certain level of technology; stable elections and orderly transitions of power imply certain levels of societal development. And societies don't go from tribal strongmen to liberal democracies overnight. Not even if Karl Rove says they have to.

Psychology of subprime mortgages?

There's an intriguing article at The Frontal Cortex describing a study looking at what parts of the brain were involved when people were offered a choice between a small payoff now and a larger payoff later. Basically, the longer payoff activated the reasoning parts of the brain, the immediate payoff activated emotional parts.

He's arguing this may explain some people's willingness to take on subrime mortgages with unrealistically low "teaser" rates, with a higher rate (and much higher payments) after, say, 2 years. After all, you can get a house! A nice house! Move in next week! While the rational part of the brain is saying, "Um, but in 2 years it's going to get expensive..."

And of course, in the middle of a boom market, people convinced themselves that "of course" they could refinance or sell at a profit in 2 years. Except, of course, when you can't.

The article makes sense, though. Hmmm, I could save money and work on losing some weight by fixing a light lunch at home (future payoff); or I could go to the all-you-can-eat pizza bar (immediate payoff). And yes, sometimes irrational decisions get made.

Orientation et al...

This seems to be "gay day," or maybe I'm just getting caught up after a couple of busy days... Anyway, PZ over at Pharyngula has a link to an article on the basis of orientation. I'm working my way through the article he links to, and so far it's pretty good.

But the comments on the Pharyngula thread are a hoot. A Christianist apologist wanders in, quotes the thoroughly discredited Paul Cameron, and then whines that he's being persecuted when his numerous factual and logical errors are pointed out.

Shut up and get to the back of the bus

The guest bloggers over at Sullivan's are arguing that gay marriage isn't attainable, and pushing it for it is unwise. What's important is equal legal treatment, not the word.

I agree that the reality is more important than the word. BUT: The word (or its absence) is being used to deny civil-unioned and domestic-partnered couples visitation rights, insurance coverage, Social Security survivor benefits, and other privileges the heterosexual majority takes for granted. Employees in New Jersey are being told the insurance and pension plans are covered by federal regulations, and the federal regulations say "married," not "civil-unioned" or "domestic-partnered."

During the 1960s, many whites argued that blacks were pushing too hard, were chasing goals that weren't attainable, that they should focus on more limited goals first. The eternal argument: "Yes, you should have equal rights, but it's hard, and people don't like change, so wait a little longer and be grateful for the minuscule progress you've made. In the fullness of time, someday, you'll have equal rights, just not today."

Feh.

We'll get right on that

The Catholic Church is now demanding that students at its schools, and their parents, be more devout:

Church leaders headed by Cardinal George Pell yesterday issued an edict to all Catholic schools, demanding that students and their parents be more devout and outlining a plan to lure back thousands of poorer families who have left the system.

Some of the other components of the plan, such as giving preference to Catholic students, seem fairly reasonable, given the institution. The schools are run by the church, and part of their mission is to promote Catholic values; if they want to give preference to practicing Catholics, that's their concern and their right.

But "demanding" people be more devout isn't likely to get far; after all, they've been "demanding" such things for years. As Yogi Berra is reputed to have said, "If people want to stay away, you can't stop them."

Of course, there's a more fundamental problem for the church here... enrollments have been dropping because they're being seen as less relevant, and less credible, with less moral right to make patronizing statements of morality. (The whole thing about preaching divine love while molesting children really has hurt their PR.)

So if they downsize to, oh, zero or thereabouts... well, so what.

About time

If the right is serious about doing something about illegal immigration, then why aren't they howling to demand employer-side enforcement?

Basic economics: If jobs here are plentiful enough and comparatively well-paying enough relative to opportunities elsewhere, people will find a way here to fill those jobs. If there is a demand, a market will arise to meet that demand. Any attempt to block that market will be circumvented by the formation of black markets or other mechanisms.

The only viable long-term solution is to remove the demand. If employers are penalized, badly, they'll straighten up because it costs them too much not to. Of course, that won't happen, because businesses want a ready supply of low-cost easily-exploitable labor, to keep their costs down and profits high. And they contribute heavily to political parties (mostly the GOP) that support them.

The current effort is welcome, and overdue. But it's mostly, I think, for appearances. Six months from now it'll have blown over and be forgotten.

Better Living Through Chemistry

And another record falls.

Getting Shot With Our Own Weapons

This is ridiculous.

And conveniently enough, look what was left out of domestic news reports but included by the BBC:

The GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005.

During this period, security training was led by Gen David Petraeus, who now commands all US forces in Iraq.

Funny how no one thought that was worth mentioning.

Worse By The Day

Several analysts, including Gen. Petraeus, have already made the point that Iraq isn't going to stabilize without a political solution. There is no purely military solution, because it's not a military problem.

The political situation is falling apart.

While our soldiers are still patrolling in the 130-degree heat, the politicians are failing to use their 'vacation' to get things done; indeed, it looks as if the coalition government is falling apart.

This is only going to get worse.