Up is down

(via Balkinization)

A RAND corporation report released on Tuesday argues that "Current U.S. strategy against the terrorist group al Qaida has not been successful in significantly undermining the group's capabilities" and that military force is rarely effective at stopping terrorist groups.

 Quoting the RAND corporation's report now (emphasis mine):

A more effective U.S. approach would involve a two-front strategy:

• Make policing and intelligence the backbone of U.S. efforts. Al Qa'ida consists of a network of individuals who need to be tracked and arrested. This requires careful involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as their cooperation with foreign police and intelligence agencies.
  
• Minimize the use of U.S. military force. In most operations against al Qa'ida, local military forces frequently have more legitimacy to operate and a better understanding of the operating environment than U.S. forces have. This means a light U.S. military footprint or none at all.

You have to wonder how the brain trust that got us into this mess is going to respond. Law enforcement? Twaddle. Surely the RAND corporation is just soft on terror.

Oooh, Snap!

(Via TPM)

Court Rules on Miers/Bolten Subpoenas!

Late edit:
Double snap! (via Balkinization):

In a 93-page opinion in the Miers/Bolton contempt case, Judge Bates not only rejects all of the various Administration arguments against justiciability, but goes so far as to reach the merits and hold that there is no basis for the DOJ argument that close presidential advisers are absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony.

A landmark decision, I think.

I would think so.

Ted's money is radioactive...

...but the GOP is finding it hard to give it back.

(via Firedoglake)

...there's a new challenge facing [GOP Senators]: massive donations of VECO bribes that [Sen. Ted] Stevens spread around the Republican caucus. So far none only a few of the GOP senators who took the tainted money have agreed to give it back.

Prime attack ad material, that. You know they've got to fork it over - it's just a question of how long it will take.

Playing us like a fiddle

Well, we're paying a billion dollars a year to Pakistan, which is orchestrating the Taliban insurgency. So, it's actually US-taxpayer money that is paying for the insurgents, who are then killing, at the moment, Canadian troops. Now if I were the government of Germany or France, I'd have a hard time putting my troops in that kind of equation. I would demand from Washington, that Washington require a lot different behavior from Pakistan.
[snip[

Has anybody done very strict accounting on where [aid to Pakistan] is going? I suspect that if you start looking at some of the receipts, you'll find that there's money missing. I mean, I find it really amazing that, for example, recently, there was a cross border raid, that killed an Al Qaeda commander named Al-Libi in Beluchistan province of Pakistan. Now, the entire Taliban top command, or at least the top command of the part that's operating in the south, is based on Beluchistan province. People know exactly where they are. Why has we never required those guys heads from Islamabad? Or why have we not considered taking them out ourselves? It's been very clear to me, watching since 2002, that Pakistan has been buying us off, by a well-timed delivery of an Al Qaeda operative, which has then caused us to look the other way about the Taliban.
Sarah Chayes on Bill Moyers Journal, Feb. 22, 2008

 Ms. Chayes is isolating the problem with having Pakistan as our so-called ally. We give them billions of dollars without accountability.

We ask them for help in the tribal areas. They say its too hard. The militants do something that demands a response. We demand action. Pakistan goes through the motions - things go wrong.Then some Al Qaeda guy we've never heard of is killed - and then Pakistan goes back to what they were doing: Nothing.


The NYT has a story that suggests this is more than just Ms. Chayes' opinion:

C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants

A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

So, are we finally getting serious with Pakistan? What's it going to take to get the ISI to follow orders?

The future of search engines

What if you crossed Google and iPod's coverflow?

You'd get Searchme.com

Pretty slick - preview your retrieved pages before you click through.

Maybe not this implementation, but "See it before you click it" is going to be a killer app for search engines.

There's also cuil.com - which is a less flashy search results page - but still superior to lines of text.

If pages can be coded to feature relevant images (as opposed to marketing noise) you can have the makings of one hell of a search tool.

Gooogle.... Time to buy another company  (or two).

We have the best health care in the world - unless you compare the numbers

CJR again, with the goods on an informative article on health care. US vs. Canada.

Guess who comes out the winner?

Aw, c'mon... guess....

TiVo? You can bite me

I get an email from TiVo telling me for the billionth time that I really should upgrade to an HDDVR.

For the billionth time, I'm clicking "Delete" when I notice that the monthly plan is $9.95.

It's HD, and a teaser rate at that, but the regular rate is shown as $12.95.

Okay - I pay $16.95.

I call them.

The TiVo rep's like: Oh, the rates came down for everyone in May.

I laugh at her: "Obviously not everyone..."

She says she'd be happy to switch me over to the new rate, but I can't get credit back to May.

Of course, I press her on this. Why not? I mean - I've been a loyal customer. I pay my bills. If you drop your rates, my rates should just go down, right? Why do I have to call in and ask for permission to pay less?

Yes, I'll need to up my contract, but that could have been part of some broadcast message - this should not have been a case where I'm penalized for not responding to information they kept to themselves.

TiVo Rep: We can't do that. But I can lower what you pay from now on.
I lodge my complaint and take the lower rate.

So - If you're running a series 2 TiVo DVR your rate should be $12.95 or lower as of May.

Just FYI.

If you call, gripe at them for me.

Ted Stevens (R-AK) Indicted

Per the NYT

Poor, Ted - up to his neck it seems....

Late edit: TPM points out how society can benefit from the now-radioactive Sen. Stevens.

RIP Scrabulous?

(Via CJR)

Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice. 

Man. Some people I know are gonna be p!ssed....

Fire sale on triple-A

Wow.
CJR's Dean Starkman summarizes a great piece in the WSJ.

Merril Lynch is selling off $30 Billion worth of CDOs to a private equity firm - and taking a 78% loss.

Of around 30 CDOs totaling $32 billion that Merrill underwrote in 2007, 27 have seen their top triple-A ratings downgraded to “junk,” according to data compiled by Janet Tavakoli, a structured-finance consultant in Chicago.

What a difference a year makes.

"What has become increasingly clear over the past year is the longer you wait, the less the soured assets are worth," [Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney] said. "[Merrill CEO] John Thain is cutting his losses." 

Amputate or bleed to death. Easy choice, I guess.

Late edit:
The deal is even worse than it appears. Merril loaned the private equity firm 75% of the needed funds to buy the CDOs. NYT has the details. (H/t AUL)

Corpworld, in a nutshell

So real, it's terrifying:



(H/t Neatorama)

What kind of mileage are you getting?

Again, something that is not news - but something I'd meant to look into.

The new fuel economy tests went into effect for 2008 - so if you are wondering what kind of mileage your car is supposed to get - you can try the government's handy calculator.

This will get you closer to what your car should do - if you really want to know what you're getting  - you'll need to log your odometer and fuel consumption.

I've been using Mymilemarker and twitter - so I can do this via text SMS. Yes, pen and paper would not incur wireless charges, but you wouldn't get nifty graphs and stuff:

Anyway - it's nice to know that my car is getting what it should - as opposed to the rubbish estimates on the manufacturer's label.

Sell your soul

I cry no tears for Monica Goodling - I sincerely hope she is prosecuted for everything the law allows.

(via the NYT)

According to [DoJ's IG] report, officials at the White House first developed a method of searching the Internet to glean the political leanings of a candidate and introduced it at a White House seminar called The Thorough Process of Investigation. Justice Department officials then began using the technique to search for key phrases or words in an applicant’s background, like “abortion,” “homosexual,” “Florida recount,” or “guns.”

Because it isn't about Monica:

The problem appears to have predated Ms. Goodling’s rise at the Justice Department. In one episode cited in 2004, when John Ashcroft was attorney general, Ms. Goodling’s predecessor as White House liaison, Susan Richmond, blocked the deputy attorney general’s office from extending the stint of one lawyer because she felt that the job should be filled by a political appointee loyal to Mr. Bush, the report said.

The problem is that the political class has learned that if you need to do something questionable, staff it out to some rising star.

People like Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, John Yoo - people who want to be somebody. People who want to be rewarded.

You will notice the IG report does not recommend any action against Gonzalez and Ashcroft. After all, they did nothing. They knew nothing.

I'm sure some prosecutorial snob will want to sidestep Goodling and go after the big fish. Get both if you can - but bury the ones you have for sure, even if the big one gets away.

Maybe if you make an example out of these toadies, the next crop might tell the boss to do their own dirty work.

Too idealistic for you?

Well, Cox, Richardson and Ruckelshaus set the bar that high - I'm just saying Justice should remind the next crop of wanna-be's where it is.

At least they didn't call it 'Breaking News'

At the very end of The Verdict with Dan Abrams one of those banners appeared across the bottom of the screen. Red borders, white text - one of those MSNBC alerts or something.

I'm about to hit the TiVo skip to get to Countdown, but I pause thinking that there might be some new and urgent bit of news.

-and what the banner say? In all caps, no less?

REPORT: KIERA KNIGHTLY REFUSES DIGITAL BREAST ENHANCEMENT

Are you fricking kidding me? This is what you put splash on the screen? and...there's a Report?


(Oh and memo to the 'Alert' interns over at MSNBC - it's spelled "Keira," you breathless tools)


---

This is not a sign of the apocalypse, but it is intended for the four horsemen:

Nothin' to do here, guys. This one's a self-starter.

Hammer and tongs

(h/t Russ)

Michael Savage loses Home Depot, Sears over autism flap

Six more major companies have yanked ads from Michael Savage's talk-radio show after he branded autistic children "brats."

Home Depot and Sears withdrew their support from the fiery hatemonger's program, along with Direct Buy, Cisco and Radio Shack, according to Autism United.

Insurance giant Aflac was the first company to pull its commercials off the nationally syndicated show, which has more than 8 million listeners.

"We are going after each and every advertiser that hasn't dropped him yet," said Evelyn Ain, president of Autism United, who joined angry parents in a protest on Wall Street Friday.

"We are doing this in all states and really hoping that more people will immediately drop out supporting him. We are going after every angle."

Stein on McCain campaign: Pathetic

Mark Preston has cranked out another pig of an interview. True to form, he's added a silk hat headline to make it seem like he's doing more than interviewing a celebrity:

    Bueller? Bueller? -- McCain needs Rove

While Stein is no lightweight - and he does say that Rove could improve the McCain campaign, it's clear that he's recommending Rove to McCain in the same way he'd recommend something buoyant to a drowning man:

"Mr. McCain is running the absolute most pathetic campaign I have ever seen in my whole life," Stein said in his unmistakable monotone delivery. "His campaign is just heartbreakingly pathetic. He is a very impressive guy. He is a brave guy, but he is running the most lackluster campaign I have ever seen in my entire life. I would have thought Bob Dole's campaign would have set a record for poor campaigns, but this one is even worse. I mean it is shocking."

Stein's recommendation of Rove is two compliments of Rove's ability and one where Stein won't "discount the possibility" that someone in the McCain campaign will ask Rove to take over.

To some addled person at CNN, this justifies the article's headline. If the article stopped after the Rove quotes and obligatory why-you-should-care-what-Stein-thinks copy, it might.

Instead, Preston goes on to recount Stein's sentiments for Al Franken, his reasons for avoiding cocktail parties and whether or not he'd like to reprise his role in Ferris Bueler's day off.

This was about Rove? No, this was about Preston.

What's wrong with this picture?

...I mean, besides everything?

No it's not a study. It's an ad for "amazingchinesediet."

Sorry, I have to go yuke.

Nurture, not nature

...yet we still have to keep proving this point.

(via Sivacracy)

Nearly 20 years ago, a large-scale study led by psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found a "trivial" gap in math test scores between boys and girls in elementary and middle school. But it did suggest that boys were better at solving more complex problems by the time they got to high school.

Now, even that small gap has disappeared, Hyde reports in tomorrow's issue of Science. Her team sifted through scores from standardized tests taken in 2005, 2006, and 2007 by nearly 7 million students in 10 states. Overall, the researchers found "no gender difference" in scores among children in grades two through 11. 

Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed. Hyde says that suggests that cultural and social factors, not gender alone, influence how well students perform on tests.

Hey, you! Smug little white boy?

My little girl's gonna beat your ass when she grows up...

Joie de vivre

Randy Pausch - of the inspiring Last Lecture has passed away.

• Watch it on YouTube 
• Read a transcript [PDF]

The threat of death can give anyone perspective, but I doubt anyone has ever shared theirs quite so eloquently.

Brother, can you spare $100,000,000?

As bad as things might be - we are nowhere close to the financial ruin of Zimbabwe.

 

Yes, that's a bank note. Yes, it's for 100 billion dollars. 

Incredibly, as Neatorama points out - 100 billion doesn't get you very far:

So, what would a Z$100 billion note buy you? About two loaves of bread (it won’t even get you lunch - you’d need at least Z$250 billion for lunch).

True believer

(via Firedoglake)

Florida has spawned a congressional candidate that is aiming at the hammer-and-tongs wing of the Democratic base.

He's Alan Grayson, and here's his audition (via Open Left) [he's referring to war profiteers and those responsible for the Iraq war]:

Matt Stoller:  So, people are going to say, let bygones be bygones, or let's have some sort of truth and reconciliation commission, what do you think needs to happen?

Alan Grayson:  We don't need truth and reconciliation, we need punishment...

Matt Stoller:  But be specific, what do you mean by punishment?

Alan Grayson:  We'll put people in prison.  We'll take away the thing that they care about the most, their money.

Of course, he's posturing because he's running for office. A congressional freshman has exactly zero chance of bringing the pain - but it's nice to see a candidate who is running on kicking some ass.

The pendulum needs to be pushed the other way for awhile. We can't just leave it where it is and let bygones be bygones. That's not reconciliation - that's abdication.

Class warfare

Let's pretend you're an upper-level staffer in an IT company.

Over the course of a year, you take some risks that look promising. If things go well, your employer will benefit immensely. There might even be some good PR in it. There are some initial costs - but you and your colleagues are convinced it is the right course.

At first, things do not go well.

The initial expenditure is gone - and people start asking about the eventual payoff. Where is it?

They aren't interested in waiting - they don't get it. It's going to take awhile. Be patient, you say. Your colleagues back you up.

Similar opportunities open up - you take those as well. The owners aren't consulted - it would just cause problems. When you show them the payoff is bigger than you promised - they won't care.

They do notice the new outlays of cash though, and it's the same handwringing all over again. You explain until your blue in the face - it doesn't help. The PR has been bad, and its getting worse. The owners are wondering what kind of decisions you are making.

Then, the payoff gets delayed.

You meet with your colleagues and decide on a blanket statement. Things are fine. Do not panic. This will all work out.

This would work, normally. But the bad PR has really gotten out there. Lots of other companies are hurting - there's this gloom and doom mentality - and you can't get people to trust anything you say.

Then things go wrong. The payoff isn't delayed - it's not happening. You'll be lucky to break even.

The owners freak, and start saving themselves. Now it looks like your employer could go under. If the owners would just be calm this would...

Your employer needed that money to do well - and it hasn't. The owners are pulling the rug out from under you and you and your colleagues are going to be left holding the bag.

The Feds are stepping in to see what you've done. Because they want to help. You and your colleagues have been running the show - now the show is under new management- and new management has police powers.

They have some questions for you. What decisions did you make? Why did you make them?

[Pause]

So, what happens next?

[Resume]

• First, a bunch of guys show up and grab all your paperwork - take your hard drive, and begin chatting with you.  Your job is at stake. You might want an attorney. No bonus this year.
• Next, you're fired. What? You're surprised? You ran this ship aground - took big risks and didn't tell people. Nice knowing you.
• No paycheck and lots of spare time. Good thing, because your new hobby is testifying in court.

The owners and your employer are fighting over who gets to sue you first.

You remember how this all got started and think: Ain't that a bitch?

[Pause]

Let's change gears a bit.

[Rewind]

Now lets re-do that scenario and pretend you are a chief executive at Freddie Mac. What's the endgame look like now?

As before, the Fed shows up - and agrees to shore up your employer's finances....

[Resume]

• The Fed has questions about your decisions - you don't answer.
• They want to see your books? You say no.
• You keep your papers, keep managing your books the same way you've always done.
• Hell, you keep your job.
• Your salary is unaffected - you get all your bonuses, keep your golden parachute.

No litigation as far as the eye can see. The Fed's got your back.

You look back on the past year and think: Ain't that something?

The guy in the NOC

(via Beegobug)

A grand send up of a web server tech support session:

Tech is killing us all (or not)

Lifehacker's Gina Trapani goes all op-ed on us:

Over the few years this site's been in existence, studies have shown that email kills concentration more than smoking pot does, that you've got 11 minutes before the next interruption, that dual monitors increase productivity, that no one understands the intended tone of your email, that email overload costs the American economy more than $700 billion a year, and that multitasking kills your ability to focus and get things done.

Ok, fine. Most of these findings seem to be sensible (except for the pot versus email one, which got way too sensationalized).

[snip]

...the constant reappearance of these studies in mainstream media over the last few years do make one question what's going on. It's the information and email overload studies that trip my BS detector the most. While I agree that an overstuffed inbox and constant email monitoring can kill your day, this $700 billion a year cost to the American economy makes me raise one eyebrow high in doubt.

Me, too. It's fair to say that people have lots of opportunities to slag off or get distracted - but  I do work for people via email that would take exponentially more time if I had to call or visit.

Text and visuals - instantly. Yeah, you can get overloaded. But you can also get sh!t done.

Oh, and your cell phone? - totally killing you

(via Crave)

A prominent cancer researcher's warning to limit cell phone use has rekindled anew the longstanding question over mobile-phone health risks.

The media is abuzz with news of the memo from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. He sent it to faculty and staff Wednesday, saying, among other things, that children should use cell phones only for emergencies, since their developing organs are the most likely to be sensitive to possible effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields. 

 Just FYI.

Gotta die of something, right? Might as well be from updating twitter.

Move along.

What do you know about things?

Digby posts a Could you be president? quiz.

Yet another humbling foray into relevant information.

It ain't who you know...

...it's who knows you.
(Via CJR' Ryan Chittum)

The Friends of Angelo scandal just keeps getting more interesting. Chittum's delving into a piece from Portfolio and just his summary is pretty riveting.

Beyond providing evidence of favor-peddling at all levels of government, the emails also helpfully reveal how top Countrywide officials, including Mozilo, describe the various loan-origination and other fees they charged millions of customers: “junk” and “garbage.” 

This would be the “junk” and “garbage”—Countrywide’s terms—piled up on account balances across the country, including the ones burdening non-V.I.P.s now in foreclosure. Gretchen Morgenson reported in The New York Times this weekend that the average mortgage loan has $700 of this “junk,” up half in the last few years. In December she reported those totaled $17 billion a year. What a waste. 

For the elite, however, life is good. A California appeals judge, for instance, asks country-club buddy Mozilo for $1.9 million in loans. Mozilo personally approves it, telling Robert Feinberg—the loan officer for the VIP program and Portfolio’s key source here— that it’s “golden” and the judge gets thousands of dollars in loan discounts from Countrywide. The judge just happened to have a class-action lawsuit against Countrywide before him at the time, and he and his two fellow judges ruled in favor of the lender.

  And that's just the intro. Read on, but don your hip waders. It's gettin' pretty deep.

After that, dive into the Portfolio piece.

Moonstruck

(via BadAstronomy)

Footage of the moon passing in front of the earth.

Yes, you've seen it in movies - but this would be actual footage taken from a spacecraft.

Since no human being in all of our history has ever been past the moon - to say this is a rare visual is a bit of an understatement.

BadAstronomy's Phil Plait gushes out some perspective:

I think their real impact is the visceral one from simply seeing them. As Carl Sagan once said: everyone you have ever met, every human who has lived and died, lived out their lives on that blue ball. And yet here we are, in the 21st century, plains apes allowed to evolve and satiate their curiosity, now with the ability to lob metal proxies into deep space, look back, and see ourselves.


Science. I love this stuff.

Yeah. Me, too.

Are you up on current events?

Nukes and Spooks has posted 20 questions that are embarrassingly difficult.

Give it your best shot.

Late edit:
The slackers over at Nukes and Spooks have at last posted their answers.

History shall judge him

...and it shall wonder why his name is on a sewage plant.

San Franciscans lobby to name their waste water treatment plant after the President.

(H/t to Neatorama)

The best designs are simple

(via Neatorama)

It's amazing how the effects of a good design can ripple out into a culture.

Imagine having this problem:

You have a steady supply of produce, but no refrigeration. You have clay pots, dirt and no electricity.

Your mission: Keep your fresh produce cool so it lasts longer.

I'm betting I'd wimp out and try drying the produce to preserve it.

Enter Mohammed Bah Abba. He opted to make a refrigerator:

You take a smaller pot and put it inside a larger pot. Fill the space in between them with wet sand, and cover the top with a wet cloth. When the water evaporates, it pulls the heat out with it, making the inside cold.

Check it out.

It gets better. People wanting the pots will boost the pottery business. People who can chill their foods have more time to do things like go to school.

How cool clever is that?

AP: Radovan Karadzic arrested

(via CNN)

Wow, and only fifteen years late.

Michael Savage thinks autistic kids are faking it

(H/t to Russ)

Seriously.

This is America, he's free to say it- but listeners should be free to vent their righteous fury at his employers until they fire his dumb ass.

Of course, if things follow recent history, Savage will offer some kind of "expression of regret" - something intended to placate the news cycle until America moves on to the next unbelievably ignorant and offensive thing he says.

Here's hoping his employers are human - and show Savage the door.

Late edit: When called out. Mr. Savage admits to using hyperbole, but insists "My main point remains true".

Nice.

Later edit: Incredibly, its even worse than that: WCBS TV quotes Savage defending his remarks with this winner (emphasis mine):

What if people who wore glasses were put on the blindness spectrum, or people with moles on their face were put on the cancer spectrum? The problem here is that there is no definitive diagnosis for autism and that is why so many children are being thrown into this category, and they're being falsely diagnosed and stigmatized

Oh.

I see.

Sure Michael, the same person who said:

I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.

-is trying to protect children from being stigmatized.

How could people fail to understand that?

You can take our show, but you'll never take - our thumbs!

(Via Reuters)

Here's proof that intellectual property rights in this country are seriously whacked:

Film critics Ebert, Roeper leaving their TV show

Influential film critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper are departing the movie-review show that bears their names, the two announced separately, leaving the program's future unclear.

...

Ebert said he and Siskel's widow, Marlene Iglitzen, will retain the show's trademarked catch-phrase "two thumbs up" for some future use.

Had a dream today

Ordinarily, this would rank slightly above I woke up or I got take out. Since I have sleep apnea – having a dream enjoys a special significance.

It means I slept. For real, with R.E.M. and everything.

No R.E.M.? No dream.

After dad died, I didn't dream for about a year. Didn't think much of it, other than Christ, I'm tired.

I get the diagnosis, get the treatment – and I'm dreaming again. Hooray for modern medicine.

It's just that with sleep disorders, the feedback is subtle. If things start to go wrong, it might be weeks or months before you realize all is not well.

Months ago, I asked for an airflow monitoring machine so I could find out whether I was tired from apnea – or just tired. It took weeks and weeks, but the verdict finally came back. My dosage got upped from 10 to 11.

Airflow wise, I'm not entirely certain this isn't a "pat him on the head" dosage (i.e. nothing has changed you silly man, but we're making an insignificant change so you'll feel better. Honestly, the machine looks and acts the same. I doubt I could tell either way).

Saturday, I was pretty much useless. Laid around the house like a zombie, wondering if I'd had any R.E.M. sleep lately. Outside of a dream – how would I know the difference?

So I had a dream. R.E.M. Proof positive.

And now I'm going to bitch about that.

I read somewhere that dreams are short term memories shifting into long term memories.

Some minimal state of consciousness allows you to experience the images as they reorganize themselves. The stuff you don't need fades away, the stuff you need is stored for the long haul.

For only the second time since he died, I had a dream about dad. And I’m wondering what kind of short term memory just went down in ink.

In the dream, dad actually spoke. We interacted (although I couldn’t really say about what), which was new. Last time, he was in the room, never said a thing.

This time he died.

Following an all too familiar theme of my dreams - I was shown a dangerous cliff. It was far off and it had safety netting along the edge. Despite this, I knew (in a manner peculiar to dreams) that the cliff was an unavoidable, mortal threat.

Dad and I needed to get past this cliff. I wanted to give it a wide berth, dad wanted to save time and pass right next to it.

The part of my brain that controls dreams is very good at dialing up the misery to just under the level where I begin to disbelieve.

Dad goes first, gets caught in the netting. He's pissed off. I'm unable to do anything but watch him struggle closer and closer to the edge. And then he falls.

In slow-motion Technicolor.

And then it's morning.

So, by way of the ether - I ask whoever came up with that theory of dreams:

What short term thought was saved from oblivion so that I could watch dad die in my head?

If it were possible to know - I would have forgotten it deliberately. Then I wouldn’t thinking about this crap on a workday.

America has no truer friend than Great Britain

...and friends are honest with each other on the big stuff:

The Human Rights Annual Report 2007 released Sunday by the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee states that "the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future."

An end in sight?

(via TPM and Spiegel online )

Wow.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Barack Obama's 16 timeframe for a withdrawal from Iraq is the right one.

Just take a knee McCain - you look like a total fool now.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who read it that way

So, I'm on the Google - annnnnnd one of the Reuters headlines is this:

McCain says Obama trip to Iraq may be soon

Wondering why this might be news, I click and read this:

DETROIT (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain commented on Friday on the unannounced timing of a high-security trip by Barack Obama to Iraq, saying he believed his Democratic rival was going this weekend.

First reaction: No.

McCain did not just tell Iraq and Afghanistan to expect Barack this weekend, right? No one would do that.

Iraq: where the President of the most powerful nation of the world needs to sneak in.

McCain's throwing a best guess to the world. Gun up, bad guys - you might get a shot at Barack!

But then, I'm crazy right - just reading in my own little--

What? What's that you say Josh Marshall?

The Reuters piece hints at it. But if Obama is going to be in Iraq this weekend, this is a major breach on McCain's part. As a knowledgeable insider notes ...

If it is true that Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, it is a very serious mistake for McCain to have disclosed it publicly. Even for run-of-the-mill CODELs the military gives guidance like, "Please strongly discourage Congressional offices from issuing press releases prior to their trips which mention their intent to travel to the AOR and/or the dates of that travel or their scheduled meetings. Such releases are a serious compromise to OPSEC." If Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, I can not begin to imagine how much this is complicating the security planning for the trip.

McCain - he's got all the discretion of somebody's drunk grandfather.

Oh, he's the experienced candidate? I think experience would teach you to keep you yap shut about such things - but hey that's just me.

Questions of basic competence

Nieman Watchdog's, Pete Davis on the mess the next president is going to inherit:

You don't have to be a Washington policy wonk to notice that our government has ceased to function on many levels. Ronald Reagan ran against the government, but it still worked under him, even after firing the air traffic controllers. Newt Gingrich led the radical conservative charge that literally shut the government down in the fall of 1996. That's when the real damage started. Worse was to come.


President George W. Bush and his appointees have attacked the heart and soul of agency after agency and have soured relations with both parties in Congress, almost like Lou Gehrig’s disease, an autoimmune response gone awry.

He's got a list of questions for the next president. Some are snark - but others are pretty good questions for any candidate. Not all of their answers can be laid at the feet of the current administration, either.

I'd argue they should all be laid at the feet of whoever is taking over next year - because it's for damn sure the current occupant of the White House will continue to sidestep these issues.

Best quote I've heard about Confederate Civil War re-enactors

From Mom:


How many times do you guys need to lose?

Ha!

I wish I have the magical stick.

Inside Iraq is a blog where Iraqi journalists can post their observations to an English speaking audience.

They frequently post in fractured English, but its hard to fault them for their observations. Like today:

Today, we received an e-mail (press release) inviting us to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of A FIVE STAR HOTEL INSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL ZONE KNOWN AS THE GREEN ZONE 

Instead of building power plants, our government approves building a five star hotel. 

Instead of building water plants, our government approves building a five star hotel. 

Instead of building new hospitals for the poor Iraqis who fill the old, dirty stink hospitals, our government approves building a five star hotel.

I'm sure this Iraqi isn't the only person scratching their head over this one.

Give me your honest opinion

(via Balkinization)

WaPo is reporting that the White House had a streamlined vetting procedure for Justice's Office of Legal Counsel.

Namely, "will this candidate do exactly as they are told?"

Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft offered the White House a list of five candidates to lead the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel in early 2003, but top administration officials summarily rejected them in favor of installing a loyalist who would provide the legal footing needed to continue coercive interrogation techniques and broadly interpret executive power, according to two former administration officials.

WaPo goes on to say:

But two sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Card called to reject the names shortly after the list arrived at the White House.

"The message was that there was only one candidate they wanted, and that was John Yoo," one source said.

[snip]

Card and Gonzales "were absolutely determined to have a guy who was going to tell them what they wanted to hear," said the other source.

Balkinization's analysis is a good supplement to the WaPo piece.

Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins...

...for they are subtle, quick to anger, and can crush your digital nads on a whim.

Filed under certainly not news, but news to me:

(via IHT)

Liechtenstein bank says records passed to Germany have 1,400 client names

LGT Group, the Liechtenstein bank owned by the principality's ruling family, said Monday that records stolen and passed to German tax authorities contained data from 1,400 clients.


The documents, including bank information from 600 Germans, were stolen in 2002 and no later data were given to authorities, the bank said in a statement. The foundations listed in the stolen records had 4,527 beneficiaries, the bank said.

Apparently a disgruntled sysadmin nabbed the records on the way out the door and then shopped them to the Germans.

The kicker is that the Germans paid this guy 4.2 million Euros for his data - and now the Germans are shopping the data to all interested parties. Apparently, the Germans are using it to:

...spearhead a campaign against tax havens across Europe. Next in line is Prince Albert of Monaco, who is due in Berlin this week. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is set to read him the riot act. Soon, German officials say, the Chancellor will be on her way to Switzerland to make her case there.
(via timesonline)

and it just gets better from there.

On the one hand - huzzah! patrons of tax havens are getting the shaft!

On the other- a government paid a thief for stolen data, and let him go. He's apparently in a witness protection program now and is going to give videotaped testimony before the US Senate.

And there's this gem (via the NYT) :

In the videotape, Mr. Kieber is disguised and his voice is altered. The royal family of Liechtenstein has hired private detectives to track him down.

 Bizzarro land!

Who writes this stuff?

VISA and "See ID"

Back when we were moving, I bought some boxes from vendor and charged it. The guy looked at my credit card and scoffed at the "See ID" I'd written there.

"That violates the agreement. You're not supposed to do that."

He still took my money - but I'd believed him. Having repeated that story to a number of people, it occurred to me that I'd never bothered to look this up.

Well, according to VISA, we're not supposed to do that.

From their instructions to merchants:

If the card has a “See ID” in place of a signature…

   1. Request a signature. Ask the cardholder to sign the card and provide current government identification, such as a driver's license or passport (if local law permits).
   2. Check the signature. Be sure that the signature on the card matches the one on the transaction receipt and the additional identification.

If the signatures appear reasonably the same and the authorization request is approved, go ahead and complete the transaction.

 If a merchant followed these guidelines for a "See ID" card, your card would actually be less secure - since they would ask whoever has the card to sign it right there.

There's still a case for a person to sign their card AND put "See ID," but not signing it isn't doesn't seem to be an option.

Thank heavens FARC doesn't know what a whois search is

(H/t DangerRoom)

On July 2nd, the Colombian military staged a stunning dupe, convincing FARC to hand over 15 hostages, including three Americans and Ingrid Betancourt, to a helicopter belonging to a fake humanitarian NGO.

[snip]

It appears the Colombian military even went so far as to setup a website for the fictional NGO just in case FARC leaders googled it. However, luckily the FARC did not have even basic knowledge of domain names.

[snip]

If FARC did a whois search, something your son or daughter probably already knows how to do, the cover story of the NGO and perhaps the entire operation could have been blown.

Dude, if you're going to fake a website for a Spanish NGO, don't host it on local servers.

Full story on War and Health.

Single sourced social networking

(via lifehacker)

More connections = more work.

I don't facebook, or flickr - but if I did I would have the problem of having to manage multiple channels of content.

Someone's come up with a way to syndicate your networking content so that a single input can post to many outputs.

It's called switchAbit - and it's in beta. Until there is an "all-my-stuff fugue" app - this looks to be a good step up.

A run on IndyMac

(Via CJR's Ryan Chittum)

When IndyMac imploded, depositors did what anyone would do: they went to take their money out.

FDIC will save you below $100,000, but some had their life savings there - and they got bit.

70-year-old Charles Tengeri, a retired teacher from Pasadena, who arrived at IndyMac’s headquarters at 4 a.m. and grabbed one of the first spots in line.
Tengeri had more than $200,000 in five certificate of deposit accounts— his life savings, he said. After waiting five hours, he left with a check for $171,000.

This man is atypical - but it's jarring to think that we now live in an age where a bank will just go belly up and take part of your CDs with it. The image of a mob surging into a bank to demand their savings is something that's hard to juxtapose with the happy talk coming out of the likes of Dana Perino.

The NYT quote Ryan pulls at the end is the best. The FDIC had a list of 90 banks that were looking shaky in the first quarter of this year.

IndyMac wasn't on that list.

As in, they got more than 90 to worry about.

Fighting the right fight

(via TPM)
Obama on Iraq:

So let's be clear. Senator McCain would have our troops continue to fight tour after tour of duty, and our taxpayers keep spending $10 billion a month indefinitely; I want Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future, and to reach the political accommodation necessary for long-term stability. That's victory. That's success. That's what's best for Iraq, that's what's best for America, and that's why I will end this war as President.

[snip]

Senator McCain said - just months ago - that "Afghanistan is not in trouble because of our diversion to Iraq." I could not disagree more. Our troops and our NATO allies are performing heroically in Afghanistan, but I have argued for years that we lack the resources to finish the job because of our commitment to Iraq. That's what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier this month. And that's why, as President, I will make the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win.

Even read off a computer screen - that's some pretty good stuff. Take your position and box in your opponent.

McCain wishes he had a winning position like this one.

Read the whole speech.

Nothing is written

(H/t to CJR)

The New Yorker adds some context for the meteoric rise of Sen. Obama in their mammoth article Making It. It goes to show that this man was not anointed by anyone. He fought his way up - because that's what you do.

Ryan Lizza interviews former political allies (some bitter, some not) who are not shy about telling tales. He also reveals a rather key role played by [former Weathermen] Alan Dobry & Lois Friedberg-Dobry.

When Obama was running for a state senate seat vacated by his mentor, Alice Palmer - who had left to run for Congress. Palmer had gotten thumped, and was returning to run for her old seat. She expected Obama to back out of the race. He did not, and Palmer entered the primary to oppose Obama.

The Dobrys were surprised that Palmer had so quickly gathered the signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot. They went to the Chicago board of elections and reviewed her petitions; as they suspected, they were filled with irregularities. One skill that the Independents had mastered in the years of fighting the first Mayor Daley was the machine’s tactic of challenging ballot petitions, and the Dobrys were experts at this Chicago ritual. Publicly, Obama was conciliatory about the awkward political situation, telling the Hyde Park Herald that he understood that some people were upset about the “conflict between old loyalties and new enthusiasms.” Privately, however, he unleashed his operators. With the help of the Dobrys, he was able to remove not just Palmer’s name from the ballot but the name of every other opponent as well. “He ran unopposed, which is a good way to win,” Mikva said, laughing at the recollection.

 Partisans have attacked Sen. Obama for his association with the Dobrys - but I have to say - I'm not seeing much more than the usual story of politics making strange bedfellows. The article makes clear the Dobrys are part of the established political landscape in Chicago, and have been for years. It's enlightening to see what a dramatic part they played in him winning the state senate primary, but I'm not sure there's a lot of hay there.

Something that will surely get talked up is the account of then state senator Obama squabbling with another senator named Hendon.

Lizza quotes an exchange where Hendon is hazing the new arrival about his bill that would make a directory of graduates available to local employers:

HENDON: Senator, could you correctly pronounce your name for me? I’m having a little trouble with it.
OBAMA: Obama.
HENDON: Is that Irish?
OBAMA: It will be when I run countywide.
HENDON: That was a good joke, but this bill’s still going to die. This directory, would that have those 1-800 sex line numbers in this directory?
OBAMA: I apologize. I wasn’t paying Senator Hendon any attention.
HENDON: Well, clearly, as poorly as this legislation is drafted, you didn’t pay it much attention either. My question was: Are the 1-800 sex line numbers going to be in this directory?
OBAMA: Not—not—basically this idea comes out of the South Side community colleges. I don’t know what you’re doing on the West Side community colleges. But we probably won’t be including that in our directory for the students.
HENDON: . . . Let me just say this, and to the bill: I seem to remember a very lovely Senator by the name of Palmer—much easier to pronounce than Obama—and she always had cookies and nice things to say, and you don’t have anything to give us around your desk. How do you expect to get votes? And—and you don’t even wear nice perfume like Senator Palmer did. . . . I’m missing Senator Palmer because of these weak replacements with these tired bills that makes absolutely no sense. I . . . I definitely urge a No vote. Whatever your name is.

 The article goes on to say that Obama and Hendon got into a screaming match on another occasion. By Hendon's account, Obama threatened to kick his ass. Whether he did or didn't say that - it seems to me that Hendon would have deserved it.

CJR's Katia Bachko seems to think there are damming implications to this story, she cites criticism in the blogosphere that focuses on the Hendon dustup, and Obama's reaction to 9/11.

Obviously, I have my own bias - but Hendon story is rather endearing. It's nice to hear that Obama can get pissed off, just like the rest of us. Anyone who is surprised by this fact is naive or trying hard to be surprised.

Criticism of Obama's 9/11 column in the blog Bachko links to (to my mind) rings hollow. Lizzo is writing to show that on September 12 the bulk of Illinois legislators were ignoring the national tragedy in favor of their own redistricting scrum. Barack Obama did something else. He wrote a lengthy column about 9/11 and about an angry nation's duty to be responsible when it exacted retribution. That's hardly a moral failure in my book - although I am certain that any position that deviates from the hawkish "kill 'em all" mentality will look weak to some. The idea that we should be terrible in war, but should not kill innocents should is a scandal only to people who willfully avoid common sense.

It's a good article - read the whole thing.

Fundraising myths

Politico's Ken Vogel has an article attacking some of the enduring talking points on the presidential campaign fundraising.

On his chopping block are:

1. 527s are a major factor 
2. McCain is running a publicly financed general election campaign 
3. McCain broke campaign finance law in the primary
4. Lobbyists and PACs are big players in presidential politics
5. Hillary Clinton’s debt is a pressing concern
   

I don't know enough of the FEC rules to call this an authoritative debunking - but it certainly adds to the discussion.

Who moved my milk jug?

WalMart is changing the ubiquitous milk jug.

What could possibly go wrong?

Down goes Steve & Barry

(via CJR's Ryan Chittum)

Retailer's Collapse Hits Mall Owners 

By Jeffrey McCracken, Peter Lattman and Kris Hudson

Steve & Barry's, the discount-clothing chain that collapsed last week, depended heavily on bargain-hunting shoppers and attention-getting celebrity endorsers. But its biggest boosters were the nation's struggling mall owners.

Desperate to fill empty department-store spaces, mall owners courted the retailer with fat payments to outfit its cavernous stores. Those checks, not clothing profits, fueled the company's runaway growth, according to people familiar with the company's finances. When the payments slowed, Steve & Barry's collapsed.

The 276-store chain, regarded just weeks ago as one of America's fastest-growing retailers, now qualifies as one of the industry's most unusual blowups. Its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on Wednesday is likely to lead to its liquidation, people involved in the case say.

Two observations:

1) Time to go to the store and feast on the carcass.

2) Malls pay anchor stores to move in. This is probably news only to me - and makes sense to a certain degree - but here's the fun bit: this was the business model that kept Steve & Barry afloat.

Mall owners have always viewed anchor stores as loss leaders -- owners offer favorable deals to big stores in exchange for bringing traffic to the malls. Financial inducements often come in the form of tenant-improvement allowances, which are upfront payments that retailers use to outfit the interiors of their stores. Landlords seldom monitor how the money is spent.

The mall owners welcomed Steve & Barry's with open wallets. One former Steve & Barry's executive recalls company co-founder Barry Prevor jumping up on his credenza with joy at company headquarters after negotiating the first multimillion-dollar payment in 2003.

[snip]

Because Steve & Barry's was often the only retailer willing to occupy large, vacant stores, it didn't often budge on its demands. "They go into a market and say, 'This is what we're going to pay,' " says Mr. Natanek. "There's not a lot of negotiation."

One mall owner says he talked to Steve & Barry's about leasing space, but the terms they demanded were absurd. "Leasing to them would have been like bringing prostitutes to a party to look popular," he says. "They might look good, but you're paying for it."

So - they're gambling that the mall payments and celeb deals will keep them in the chips until they turn a profit.

Plenty of business take awhile to establish profitiability (e.g. US airlines have lost a collective 13 billion dollars since deregulation) but you have to wonder about a business climate where corporations are free to gamble so big.

Not only that, but they used creative accounting to hide their losses as long as possible - something they are going to have to explain in bankruptcy court.

Huge risks, creditors kept in the dark until the music stops.

Now, where have I heard this story before? Oh yeah, on Wall Street.

Fed's plan for Freddie Mac: Rogers Holdings not lovin it

Bloomberg quoting Jim Rogers on the Fed plan to shore up the mortgage market:

"They're ruining what has been one of the greatest economies in the world," Rogers said. [Fed. Chairman] Bernanke and [US Treasury Sec.] Paulson "are bailing out their friends on Wall Street but there are 300 million Americans that are going to have to pay for this."

South American paranoia...

...apparently just can't keep pace with current events.

DangerRoom has a story that would get laughed out of any publisher's office.

Megalomaniac dictators ordering their pet evil scientist to come up with untraceable poisons: It's the stuff of bad movies.

And, apparently Chilean history as well.

A dead president. Poison perfume and a mad scientist who may or may not have faked his own death.

Freaky. For starters.

Best summation of American political coverage I've heard yet

....comes from Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson:

In a campaign consumed by tactics, it doesn’t matter where you stand on any issue so much as whether you’ve stood there all along.

(H/t CJR)

IndyMac = toast

(Via TPM and the NYT)

Regulators Seize Mortgage Lender

Federal regulators seized IndyMac Bancorp on Friday evening, marking one of the largest bank failures in American history.

[snip]

For all the write-downs and bad news on Wall Street over the last year, only five local and regional banks have shut their doors. The handful that have failed have been a fraction of the size of IndyMac. IndyMac held $32 billion in assets as of late March, according to the government release.

“It’s the biggest failure in 24 years,” said Chip MacDonald, a banking lawyer at Jones Day in Atlanta. “You haven’t had a lot of failures of that size, yet.”

It has been 15 years since any bank larger than $10 billion in assets collapsed. 

Wonder if Lehman is next.

Thou shalt not covet thy son's toy…

Since college, I have felt secure in the adult-ness of my chosen hobbies. I read, I cook, I game, and I document stupefyingly complicated plotlines for stories that will never get turned into novels.

And I blog. Perfectly grown-up pursuits.

My son's recent birthday has put a real dent in this worldview.

Put another way: He got some seriously righteous bling – and it's all I can do to not monopolize it.

The chief offender is his new spaceship.

Specifically, it's the Eta-2 Actis-class light interceptor – sometimes called the Jedi Starfighter (although that label can also apply to the earlier, Delta-7 Aethersprite).

---
Okay stop right there. I am NOT a Star Wars geek.

Just want to get that out there. I had to look those names up on Wookiepedia.

Yes, I actually did look them up, but that was for this post – alright?
---

Where was I?

Okay – the idea of having a few plane models in the house has always been something that appealed to me. I was a military brat, and have always been hooked on military hardware. (I have back issues of Soviet Military Power and World Air Power Journal to prove it.)

Two problems with this:

First – I am not a pilot and have no connection to one. Were I to realize the dream of having a fully articulated F-14 model sitting on a shelf in my study – it would only provoke the question "were you a pilot?" – and I'd have to say no, I just like toy planes.

Second – all the toy planes out there just plain suck.

Admittedly, my standards are pretty high. Any plane I'd deem worthy would meet the following criteria:

• It should accurately represent the real thing. The intakes and engines should be deep, the markings should appear genuine. Working running lights and dashboard would be a nice plus
• It should have working bits. Gear should deploy, swing wings should swing, canopies should open. If nothing moves, it's just a statue. Statues aren't fun.
• It should be durable. I don't mean just plastic or metal. I mean plastic and metal that take into account that some might pick this up and zoom around the house with it (strictly for educational purposes – some visitor might say "how does the pilot get in?" and I'd show them. You know.)

What?

• It should have heft. This is one that disqualifies all models and virtually every toy plane on the market.

What do I mean by this? Allow me to illustrate:

Here's a toy whale:

If you dropped it on your foot – you'd break the whale. No heft.

Here's a toy whale from Schleich:

This whale weighs almost a full pound. Drop this on your foot – you'll hurt your foot. (Schleich understands heft).

A good toy plane should feel like its carrying a belt of 30mm and a full tank of gas.

More toy manufacturers need to understand heft as a buying motivation.

*steps off soapbox*

So there we are: Can't justify having a model plane in the house; wouldn't buy most of what's out there anyway.

But then there's the boy's new toy – the aforementioned Eta-2:

Let's review:

Accurately represents the real thing?
There is no real thing, so it pretty much gets a pass. If you compare it to the visuals in the movie:

– I think you'd say it's holding up its end:

It even has stickers for the dashboard, wing insignias and smoke stains trailing from the cannons. Rock. On.

Working bits?
Hell yeah – the cockpit opens, the gear folds down, the wings pop open with a satisfying clatter. It even has missiles.

Durable?
Squat body, not a lot of pointy bits – and the nose is made out of rubberized plastic in case it hits the ground nose-first. Nice.

Heft? 
Yes! Feels like it's carrying a to-scale load of whatever they use in Star Wars for gas.

Home run.

I had to go out and buy a pilot for it (for the boy, I mean. He did ask for one). Soon as I find a good R2 figure, I might replace the replica that the ship came with…

What?!

Oh, don't you judge me.

Down goes Freddie

Via the NYT:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares plummeted again on Friday morning — and the broader stock market followed suit — as concern mounted that the government will be forced to take over the beleaguered mortgage finance companies, which some investors fear are at risk of default. 

[snip] 

Freddie Mac stock has lost nearly 70 of its value in the last week alone. Fannie Mae shares have fallen 55 percent during that period.

Hold onto your seats, folks. This one could hurt.

FISA: By way of counterpoint

Marty Lederman has an interesting post, riffing off some FISA analysis over at the Volokoh Conspiracy:

I'm no legal scholar, so I can't vouch for Orin's analysis - but if his assertions are true, there are some good things happening in title I of the new FISA bill:

• For the first time ever, surveillance of Americans abroad will require a court finding of probable cause to believe that the person is an agent of a foreign power
• There is to be more congressional oversight. 
• And, the new law requires the executive to adopt "minimization" procedures that comply with the traditional FISA minimization rules.
• The law clarifies that "targeting" of foreign persons cannot be a pretext for obtaining information about U.S. persons. 
• The FISA court can only approve the NSA's surveillance plan if it finds that the plan is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. 
• it appears the FISA Court is suppose to conduct a de novo, rather than deferential, review of whether the NSA is complying with the statutory standards.

I'd take issue with the minimization measures, unless there there is verification of these procedures by someone outside of the executive, and some kind of enforcement clause.

If the FISA Court is truly going to adopt a new standard of review when it reviews warrant requests (something I am inferring from the last item) that would be encouraging - but something that I'll believe when I see the number of rejections spike.

Title II is still a total loss, as far as I'm concerned. I don't see any reason why Congress should rush to immunize conduct that has not been disclosed.


They've abandoned the (hopelessly dated) geographical requirement of FISA - and I don't think anyone would have a problem with this. The example of a foreign-to-foreign phone call that gets routed through a phone switch in NYC is something that doesn't need to fall under FISA. Under the old FISA, it would - and that was a big mistake. They've now fixed that, but  the other areas now under FISA are more troubling:


Like email.


Change that foreign-to-foreign communication to email and things get ugly in a hurry.

A phone call exists in real time - you hang up, it's gone. When the NSA eavesdrops on it, there are three locations: Person A, Person B, and the location of the wiretap.

Under old FISA, you need a warrant if the target, or the wiretap is in the US. If there is no target (or all the targets are outside the US) and the intercept takes place outside of the US - you don't need a FISA warrant.

Lots of flaws there - but they are all related to tracking both ends of a conversation, and the intercept.

Email makes the geographical requirement of FISA much worse.

Email persists, and is stored on many different computers. In other words, the conversation has its own geography.

Now you're tracking Person A, Person B, the intercept, and the physical location of the message.

So, two guys are in Pakistan emailing each other - the email gets routed and stored on a server in Oregon. Old FISA requires that they get a warrant for a targeted intercept, since the intercept is happening in the US.

During a phone call, the goverment can have a reasonable idea of where the parties are when they make the call. Email frees the participants from having a stable "end" of the conversation. They could access their email from a café, from their buddy's computer, while they're on a trip to Japan - whatever. At the point when you are reading their email on that server in Oregon, there's no way to know where the author or recipient are located.

It's a mess - and the single best reason for FISA getting an overhaul.

The beef I have is how this will apply to drift net intelligence. For thirty years, the NSA has been able to monitor all domestic-to-foreign communications in aggregate. Their computers scan for hot button words like "I'm going to hijack a plane" and flag conversations that the NSA finds interesting.

Again, this has its own problems - but email makes it worse. If the NSA wants to run drift net monitoring of foreign-to-foreign email on our hypothetical server in Oregon - they have virtually no way to distinguish between what's foreign, and what's not.

Under new FISA (as near as I can tell) they can drift net everything on the server, without a warrant. They cannot target a US citizen without a FISA warrant - but they can listen to everything in aggregate and retain copies. Assuming there is no outside body holding their feet to the fire on minimization, what's to say that some of those keywords can't be things like "Feingold" "Kennedy" and "Dodd"?

Not a hell of a lot.

Back to pre-surge levels

This, from Nukes and Spooks (emphasis mine):

...the last of the five surge brigades has left, the U.S. military announced today. Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, left their base just southeast of Baghdad. They are scheduled to land back to Fort Stewart, Ga., later this month. So that means roughly 140,000 troops are left in Iraq, or 8,000 more than when the surge plan began in February 2007.

Surge, drawdown, pause - rotate out, redeploy and here we are - more heavily committed than last year.

I wish someone could explain this crap to me.

Has anyone seen the fourth amendment...?

I seem to have lost it somewhere....

U.S. defends laptop searches at the border

By Alexandra Marks | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor  \ 

For the past 18 months, immigration officials at border entries have been searching and seizing some citizens’ laptops, cellphones, and BlackBerry devices when they return from international trips.

In some cases, the officers go through the files while the traveler is standing there. In others, they take the device for several hours and download the hard drive’s content. After that, it’s unclear what happens to the data.

[snip]

In recent court challenges, lower courts have ruled that laptop searches at the border are reasonable, just like searches of a person’s baggage or other physical property.

[snip]

Advocates of the current practice say that the contents of a laptop are like the contents of a suitcase, and as such, customs officials have every right to go through them. They also argue that requiring probable cause for laptop searches would create huge delays at the border and give criminals and terrorists an easy way to bring dangerous things into the country.

[snip]

In an e-mail, DHS says its officers “have the responsibility to check items such as laptops and other personal electronic devices to ensure that any item brought into the country complies with applicable law and is not a threat to the American public.”

(H/t E)

Phill Gramm: a glass half-full kinda guy

(H/t to Sadly, No!)

Mortgage crisis got you down? Feeling blue about your 401k taking it in the chops? Phill Gramm's got some words for you:

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. “We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet.”

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,”

You heard him.

Here's Bloomberg talking about some other factors besides 1% growth:

One in every 501 U.S. households either lost the home to foreclosure, received a default notice or was warned of a pending auction, RealtyTrac, an Irvine, California-based seller of default data, said today in a statement. Bank seizures rose 171 percent.

``The foreclosure problem is getting worse and will stay with us well into the next decade,'' Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said in an interview. ``The job market is eroding and homeowners have less equity. Lenders are much less willing to work with you if you've got negative equity, and you're more likely to give up your house if you're deeply underwater.''

In Nevada, one out of every 122 households is "in some stage of foreclosure, more than four times the national average."

It's probably all in their heads, though.

You'd hate to think what kind of scenario makes Gramm notice the empty half of the glass.

Ashamed of the cost of war

(via E&P)

I imagine most people have heard about government regulations barring coverage of American war dead. This is not new, and something that was done even in the Clinton administration.

Restricting media access sounds pretty bad - but I can see the protection of an individual right under that policy. If I had a family member returning on one of those planes - I might not want them to be greeted by journalists snapping pictures and writing stories using their name.

Yes, the government has its own agenda in squelching this kind of coverage - but at least while the bodies are in their care, I think they can be permitted to deny public access. The information does get out, just without visuals.

What genuinely bothers me is that the government apparently assumes that they can muzzle the press even when the dead are in the custody of their families - during the funeral

Citing WaPo's Dana Milbank, E&P explains:

The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial -- a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones' sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine's burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.

If you think that's unreasonable, you're not alone. The public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery took issue with this approach:

When Gina Gray took over as the public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery about three months ago, she discovered that cemetery officials were attempting to impose new limits on media coverage of funerals of the Iraq war dead -- even after the fallen warriors' families granted permission for the coverage. She said that the new restrictions were wrong and that Army regulations didn't call for such limitations.

Six weeks after The Washington Post reported her efforts to restore media coverage of funerals, Gray was demoted. Twelve days ago, the Army fired her.

Read the full story on WaPo