iPhone mania

Okay, I'll admit it. I want an iPhone. I don't believe I will actually get one - but it's sure fun to think about it.

The hype is definitely pushing all the right "gimme buttons."

If you've seen the keynote address, you know what I'm talking about.

Oh, sure the pushback has started in earnest now - people claiming that the battery life for high use could be as low as 45 minutes. Mutterings about the screen being hard to use, the glass just got replaced because it scratched easily.

My personal favorite is that people are planning to camp out to buy this thing and AT&T hasn't even told people what the service plans will cost.

I'll freely admit I'm an impulse buyer - but you wouldn't catch me lining up to buy something if I didn't know what it cost.

USA today has an article about the hype (that is yet more hype) that contains a great quote from an iPhone enthusiast's girlfriend:

"For the past four weeks, I've heard nothing but iPhone talk from David, his friends, my brother and, basically, any male between the ages of 13 and 40 within earshot. It's insane. I'd pay 500 bucks and sleep outside in line to just shut these guys up."

Ha!

American hero

In the national disgrace of Abu Ghraib, you’d be hard pressed to name a list of good guys.

The best I can do is two. Although there is a third who needs to be mentioned.

Sgt. Joseph Darby – the MP who first reported the abuses to his superiors. Without him, there would have been no investigation.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba – The investigating general who compiled a scathing and irrefutable report detailing the extent of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A less aggressive investigator would have swept this under the rug. Taguba’s fearless assessment spoke truth to power.

Of course, as Seymour Hersh’s recent article details – power did not want to hear the truth.

In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib. “Could you tell us what happened?” Wolfowitz asked. Someone else asked, “Is it abuse or torture?” At that point, Taguba recalled, “I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, ‘That’s not abuse. That’s torture.’ There was quiet.”

Read the full story
 
Gen. Taguba was denied the free rein that could have turned speculation about the scandal’s scope into certainty. Still, his report is an example of what an honest man should do when confronted with barbarism. Hersh’s article gives us the full picture of what happened to Gen. Taguba after he did the right thing.

In January of 2006, Taguba received a telephone call from General Richard Cody, the Army’s Vice-Chief of Staff. “This is your Vice,” he told Taguba. “I need you to retire by January of 2007.” No pleasantries were exchanged, although the two generals had known each other for years, and, Taguba said, “He offered no reason.”

No good deed goes unpunished.
---
The last hero of this mess I cannot name, because they are unknown. Whoever leaked the Taguba report to the press.

No leak means you and I never hear about Sgt. Darby or Gen. Taguba. These men are brave men, and their careers suffered because they did the right thing.

But their injuries are professional, and they are still free men.

Whoever leaked that report did something illegal. They did the right thing, but if they are discovered - they will go to jail.

That takes some guts. It's not quite the same as going into your C.O.'s office and blowing the whistle, or telling a truth that will end your career, but it's worth noting.

“What I meant to say was…” Vol. I

So, yesterday, I'm at the tail end of one of those days. Kids in the car, we're downtown to pick up E. In the normal run of things, this is no big deal. Pull up to an empty slot, call her cell. Done.

Lately, there is construction, so the street is now twice as congested, and slots are not easy to get. I drive past full slots until the end of the block, where there is an opening. The open slot is technically a bus stop, so no luck there. I stay just off the curb, stop, and wait for the light.

Green, and I go, except I stop short. The rightmost lane of this street is so wide, there are cars on my left that are even with me. They’ve assumed that I’m a parked car (behind me is a parking lane) and they turn right across the front of me.

I’m miffed, but this part of downtown has four of these corners, and this happens all the time. I let the first car go without a honk, and muscle in front of the second one to assert my rights.

No harm, no foul. This kind of crap used to get me all riled, but these days I chalk it up to it just being a crappy intersection. Given the layout, and human tendencies, this is going to happen over and over because (and I say this over and over again) there’s a never ending supply of people who haven’t learned about this intersection yet)

‘course, now I need to go around the block again to get E.

I do the lap and this time there’s a spot to pull over early in the block. She’s in and I drive down towards the same corner. There’s a bus at the bus stop, so I’m in the left side of the right line, waiting for the light.

It goes green, and I go, and immediately I see the bus to my right (exactly where I was stopped on my last lap) starts moving. I’m of the belief that stopping in front of a moving bus makes things worse, so I press on and get an earful of the bus’s horn.

I’ve just done what those two cars did to me a few minutes ago. Again, It’s a stupid intersection. I’ve just had this happen to me, and normal driving tendencies still steer me into doing the same thing less than five minutes later.

I’ll spell it out again: Having gone past a line of parked cars, I came even with a bus stopped in front of a bus stop. I’m thinking they are stopped, so I go past them on their left and stop about a car length ahead of them. We’re in the same lane, but it’s really two lanes wide, and each of us can claim to be positioned for a right turn. Easy mistake of fact, but again – this happens all the time and given the cramped quarters, this will never happen at speeds that will cause accidents.

Only the bus driver doesn’t see it this way – when I stop for the light at the end of the new block, she pulls her bus up next to us and motions to E to roll down her window.

She wants to tell us off.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“Yes”

“Can you read signs?”

“Yes”

And so on. It has always been my experience that in these moments, the impulse to speak occurs LONG before any meaningful words arrive in the brain.

I start an apology, but she’s off to the races “What you just did was illegal… blah, blah, blah…”

She in mid-screed when my light turns green and I cut it short and take my left. I’m sure most people have had the experience of a situation that ends before you get to say your peace. There is no winning the situation, I was in the wrong, after all. But bus driver has unloaded a verbal barrage aimed at the person she assumes I am, and all I get to do is take it and then drive off.

So, given the impossible scenario of me getting to respond in kind to this person, I would say the following:

Yes. I admit it. I cut you off.

I was going to say that seeing your bus stopped in front of a bus stop without a signal led me to believe you weren’t turning right. That might be one possible explanation, or I could point that our shared lane is wide enough for three cars to sit side by side, making it easy for two vehicles to think they can turn right – Indeed, this very thing happened to me in this very spot not five minutes ago – But, let’s cut the crap, shall we? No, this was a deliberate attempt to put my van and my family in front of a moving bus. That’s what I was after. And not just any bus – your bus. I’ve been trying to cut you off for years and what just happened is the culmination of my life’s ambitions.

There is, of course, another possibility. That I screwed up and knew I screwed up. That despite whatever situational factors played into all this – I honestly feel bad about what happened. Perhaps, given the opportunity to speak to you rationally, I would honestly say “sorry about that,” and we would carry on with our days as better people.

But I don’t get to do that, do I? Instead, all I get is an earful of your pent-up bullshit.

What are you looking to happen here? We’re gonna talk this out while you and I block both lanes of this road? I mean - what the hell, lady?

Rrrgh!

I think I'm in love...

So, the clutter level in the house has reached insane-newspaper-collector level. We've been importing E's folks things for some time now and we now have exactly one roomful of crap more than we have rooms.

We need to clean out the crap so we can do work on the house, so we can sell the house, so we can start looking for a house.

And, lo! A light in the heavens, cherubim and seraphim descending!

Salvation is nigh!

They'll show up, pick up, and haul off, and all I have to do is write them a check!

Pinch me, pinch me!!

Plain sight exception

Am I the only one who isn't creeped out by Google Street level view?

I probably don't have enough imagination - but the idea that Google now has street-level stills for select metropolitan areas doesn't really bother me all that much. There's the guy who's worried that the photo and timestamp will be definitive proof that he ditched work one afternoon, or dumber things - but I'm just not getting this.

The stills were taken in public places, they weren't peeking into windows, and anyone who is cutting work is taking the risk that they will be spotted when they are out in plain sight. Sure, Google's making it easier, but it's not like they are listing your name next to the photo and are making the results searchable. I suppose if the photos were updated regularly, it would make remote surveillance easier - but I don't think that's in the cards.

So a guy's on a street corner and is (let's say) photographed taking a whiz on a building. Somebody who knows him sees the photo on Google. Does this man have a gripe? He could have been spotted by anyone when he did it, so the fact that he happened to be photographed by somebody who posted it on an immensely popular website doesn't really change things.

Am I off my tree?

Required listening

Becoming an iPod person has turned me into a podcast junkie. (I'm so with you, Ms. No-H!)

My main addiction has been This American Life which has perhaps the best story hooks in the world.

Like this one:

"I've got involved with this very canny group of investors, and it seems that they have located this snowman that can bench press four hundred pounds."
-The Super 1/8/2007

or this-

"My compactor room, a woman could give birth - no infection would set in. Come, I will show you..."
-The Super 1/8/2007

or this-

"I told you guys we shouldn't try to make this into a story and now look, I'm a lesbian in Japan"
-My Reputation 4/16/2007

All of these are marvelous episodes, but the one I keep going back to is more than a bit of a downer- but a totally worthwhile experience.

Habeus Schmabeus - it's about Gitmo and what it really is, as opposed to what we've been told.

It was originally done in last year, but was updated in April. I've been listening to it over and over again and I still can't stop listening to it.

There's also a transcript and a free MP3.

Here's the hook:
(Hitt is the interviewer, Jack Hitt; Amzy is Baher Amzy, a lawyer representing a detainee named Murat Kurnaz)

HITT: And as for confronting the evidence, consider the case of Azmy’s client, Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen raised in Germany. The Pentagon accidentally declassified the file with all the secret evidence against him. And here’s what’s in it: nothing.

AZMY: The classified file contains – the Washington Post wrote about it – six statements from military intelligence. That’s really what the classified file is. Memos saying “this person was here” or “so-and-so witnessed him…” In Kurnaz’s case, there are five or six statements saying, “There’s no evidence of any connection to Al Qaeda, the Taliban or a threat to the United States. The Germans have concluded he has got no connection to Al Qaeda. There’s no evidence linking him to the Taliban.” Over and over and over again.

HITT: But here’s the thing: At the hearing, nobody talks about any of that. His personal representative doesn’t bring it up. The tribunal doesn’t consider it. And Kurnaz himself doesn’t even know about it. He’s declared an enemy combatant; he’s still at Guantanamo today.

But wait. There’s more. The reason they give for holding him? A friend of his named Selcuk Bilgin blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Turkey in 2003. That’s 2 years after Kurnaz got picked up.

AZMY: So, setting aside the sort of remarkable legal proposition that one could be detained indefinitely for what one’s friend does, it’s actually preposterous in that a simple Google search or a call to the Germans would have revealed that his friend is alive and well, and under no suspicion of any such thing.

HITT: You heard that right. Kurnaz is in Guantanamo because two year after he got picked up, a guy he knows became a suicide bomber. Except that he didn’t become a suicide bomber and is currently living in Germany.

AZMY: Yeah, he’s walking around in Germany; I’ve met him.

Mind blowing. Simply mind blowing.

Xanadu

What can you get for $592 million US?

Why, you can get a diplomatic compound in an up and coming neighborhood in Baghdad. Witness the splendor of the new US embassy:

Take a look, for instance, at the embassy's "pool house", as imagined by [the design/build firm]. You will see palm trees dotted around it, the expansive lawns, and those tennis courts discreetly in the background. For an American official not likely to leave the constricted, heavily fortified, 6.4-kilometer-square Green Zone during a year's tour of duty, practicing his or her serve (on the taxpayer's dollar) is undoubtedly no small thing.

Admittedly, it may be hard to take that refreshing dip or catch a few sets of tennis in Baghdad's heat if the present order for all US personnel in the Green Zone to wear flak jackets and helmets at all times remains in effect - or if, as in the present palace/embassy, the pool (as well as ping-pong tables) is declared, thanks to increasing mortar and missile attacks, temporarily "off limits". In that case, more time will probably be spent in the massive, largely windowless-looking recreation center, one of more than 20 blast-resistant buildings [the design/build firm] has planned.

You would actually be able to view this palace, if the website hadn't been taken down. The Washington Post is reporting that:

"virtually every bite and sip consumed [in the embassy] is imported from the United States, entering Iraq via Kuwait in huge truck convoys that bring fresh and processed food, including a full range of Baskin-Robbins ice-cream flavors, every seven to 10 days".

Annual operating expenses are expected to run in the range of $1.2 billion. The State department, according to the Asia Times, is lobbying Congress to fund $50 million worth of additional "blast-resistant" housing.

And they say progress isn't being made....

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

File this under one of the strangest things I've read in awhile:

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

Now, to be fair, I'm sure the government gets all kind of crazy proposals - so it should be pointed out that they rejected this proposal. But still, this idea came out of an Air Force lab in Ohio, so it's not like some mad scientist sent them his idea from crazyland - this was an internal suggestion.

Right up there with that ESP project. Gives you real faith in the guys steering the ship.

No confidence

It's hard to figure out who to be more irritated at in the latest Senatorial showdown: the Dems for going to the mat on a no-confidence vote that does not (and cannot) have any teeth, or the Republicans for circling the wagons to prevent a vote even though many have admitted that they, in fact, do not have confidence in the Attorney General.

I've been disappointed with Sen. Specter over the past six years - for all his posturing, he always managed to vote the presidential line - so I'll give him props for voting for the resolution and spelling it out in honest terms. He doesn't have confidence in the A.G., so he's saying so.

Fair enough. Although, I'm suspicious enough to think that Sen. Specter may have counted the votes ahead of time and felt liberated enough to pose as his own man again.

In any event, it's pretty damn unimpressive all around. Once again we have all this puffing from the Dems about what a big deal this would be - and they had to know that without nine Republicans crossing the aisle, this was going nowhere. You'd figure they'd have learned already that there's no point in raising expectations if you're just going to lower them again.

Too late to blink

The Bush administration's disastrous policy towards persons it refers to as detainees appears to be (at long last) coming home to roost.

I'd thought this would have happened earlier with the Padilla case. Padilla, you'll remember was the U.S. citizen imprisoned without having been convicted, tried, or even charged. The Padilla case was a perfect vehicle to deliver a final rebuke of the detainee policy, but (right before a filing deadline) the government blinked and gave Padilla a trial.

Well, as it happens, there was another detainee whose appeal has been winding its way up the ladder - a legal alien seized on U.S. soil and held for four years. His name is Ali al-Marri, and while his case isn't quite the same as Padilla's, his case came to the 4th U.S. Circuit and he won.

al-Marri's ultimate guilt or innocence I'd leave up to whatever judical body will get to make that ruling, but the principle the court stuck to (and one I heartily applaud) is that of Habeus Corpus. The Executive can lock you up, but there will be a day of reckoning for their decision - and they will have to prove that what they have done is justfied.

The Bush administration has been saying otherwise - that the Authorization for the Use of Force gave them sweeping new powers to detain people without trial.

Bupkis, says the court. He gets a trial.

This does not mean that al-Marri must be set free. Like others accused of terrorist activity in this country, from the Oklahoma City bombers to the surviving conspirator of the September 11th attacks, al-Marri can be returned to civilian prosecutors, tried on criminal charges, and, if convicted, punished severely. But the Government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military detention. For in the United States, the military cannot seize and imprison civilians -- let alone imprison them indefinitely.

There's also a nice bit of judical snark (emphasis added):

Furthermore, the Government’s treatment of al-Marri suggests that, despite its litigation posture, it does not actually believe that the [Combatant Status Review Tribunal] process in the [Detainee Treatment Act] and [Military Commissions Act] applies to al-Marri. In the four years since the President ordered al-Marri detained as an enemy combatant, the Government has completed CSRTs for each of the more than five hundred detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Yet it was not until November 13, 2006, the very day the Government filed its motion to dismiss the case at hand, that the Government even suggested that al-Marri might be given a CSRT. At that time the Government proffered a memorandum from Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England directing that al-Marri be provided a CSRT "upon dismissal" of this case. This memorandum is too little too late.

Ooo-rah. Now here's hoping the Supremes back this ruling up with some gusto.

Bunnies are vermin

I come from a family of belligerents - at least where animals are concerned. If you are a member of the animal kingdom and you make a pest of yourself, you'd be well advised to leave most of my relatives alone. PETA be damned, you're going down.

I can recall my great uncle (back when E and I were still dating) relating his cat killing sprees with pride. Mind you, this was the first time he met E, and it occurred in the first few minutes of the conversation.

As in Hi, this is E, we just got here, we -
"Great! How do you do? Did I ever tell you how many cats I shot in my youth?"

I've been at holiday dinners where my uncles gleefully relating their best "and-I-had-to-shoot-it-five-times-in-the-head-before-it-stopped-squirming" stories to their brother's new vegetarian/animal rights girlfriend.

My own father used my air rifle to shoot dogs who crapped in his yard.

Not the squeamish types, I guess is what I'm driving at.

-but then there's me. I have gone deer hunting a total of two times. I have no qualms with the killing of animals, or those who choose to do so - my chief objection with hunting is why does it have to occur when it is so F-ing cold outside? I mean, there aren't dear in June? What the hell, people?

That, and one other reason. The reason I stopped going. NG, The guy who invited us up to hunt was a great guy - he and his brother owned the land and the shack we hunted out of. They cooked the food and basically went out of their way to make sure the guys were having a good time. They went all out. First time I ever ate surf n' turf? Deer camp.

Second time out, I'm walking around a bend and hear a shot (okay, I don't remember the shot, but there must have been a shot). I trot down the trail a bit and here's NG, our fearless leader, getting out his kit standing over a dead deer.

NG is plunging his knife into the deer's neck and beginning the process of gutting it. It was nasty, I don't mind saying - but I had decided to take the attitude that this is just something you deal with for the hunt. Y'know, suck it up - that kind of stuff. I certainly don't want to look like a wuss in front of the veterans. I'm not sure I pulled it off, but forget about the deer - that's not why I stopped hunting.

I stopped because of NG. What he looked like at that moment. This is a man who has hunted for years, owns land for the express purpose of hunting. Spends weeks preparing for the hunt and (as I said) goes to great lengths to ensure that his hunting party has a good time.

-He looked completely disgusted. I can't speak for his actual state of mind, but his expression was one of complete revulsion for what he was doing. He was gutting a deer and he hated it. Downing a deer was the whole reason we were out here. This guy had more than a few deers in his history, and yet here he was, deer in hand and he looked like he wished to be anywhere else in the world.

That was it for me - the hunts were a good time, but I figured working my way up to the point where I could gut a deer while discussing the weather was going to take at least as long as it had taken NG to get this far. That much investment didn't appeal to me, and besides it was too F-ing cold.

Where was I? Oh, so my house has an infestation of rabbits, and I hate them. It's not like I have a garden to protect, but they are always scampering about, just on the edge of my sight lines. I just want to drop kick one of them so they'll move on.

Bunnies? How could you?

Yeah, bunnies - bunnies are vermin. So are squirrels. Damn things.

On more than a few occasions I have thought about asking mom for my air rifle back so I can nail a few of the damn things, but mom likes having the air rifle - and I'm not making an issue of it.

So, yesterday I'm mowing the lawn after about a month-long hiatus. The grass is easily a foot high in the backyard and while my Honda mower is a beast, even it has problems with that much grass. Periodically, it kills and I have to start it all over again (first pull! Go, Honda!).

About a fourth of the way through the back, the Honda chokes out on a big clump and I roll it back to a clear spot and start to pull cord.

-and I hear a ring tone go off. At least that's what I think it is - a high pitched chirping from my left. Only I don't have my phone and there's no way there's a cell phone in my lawn. I roll the mower back further and there's some small, furry thing writhing on the ground. It opens its mouth and chirps again.

It's about the size of a mouse, but it's clearly a rabbit. A very young rabbit. It's rolling back and forth on its back, and there's a hole in the ground next to it that also appears to be moving.

I'm more than a bit surprised. A closer look reveals that, yes - it is a rabbit, and yes - it's just been hit by my lawnmower. Not in some ghastly, TV show way - no blood, just mortal injury. I watch it flail around, remembering the time I ran over a cat with my car (or last week, when I killed a squirrel who really shouldn't have doubled back). In both of those situations, the event was there and gone in less time than it takes to say it.

This time, I get to watch the animal die. Or finish it off.

If dad were here, he'd step on the animal's head and go get a garbage bag - actually, he'd have done that long ago. It wouldn't have taken more than a second.

Vermin.

Me, I sit there wondering what the right move should be, while this rabbit twitches and flops around. I look to see if there are any other casualties. The movement in the hole turns out to be five more little rabbits - all incredibly asleep and apparently uninjured. They squeal as I move them around with my foot.

Okay, now what? No mom rabbit around, and one of these guys is about to die.

I move them all out of the way, and finish mowing the lawn. My rationale is: there's no saving the one I hit, and the live ones have already been freaked out. I'll finish the lawn and mom will come back tonight.

Lame.

Yeah, it was pretty lame. Either way, that's pretty much a failure. Either you wipe them out right then, or you're on the phone with the animal shelter. I have to say that the idea that the animal shelter would have anything to do with rabbits (wild rabbits, at that) seems remote, but then - I have a long way to go to understand the lengths to which some animal lovers will go.

So it's the next day and I go out there. The one has died, three are dying and two I can't find. No mom in sight, but maybe mom came back and took the two she felt could make it. I'm not having the boy come out here and start playing with the fuzzy animals - so this is it for them.

They're vermin, right? I get a trash bag and a bucket. They go into my garbage. I still don't feel like killing them outright, and anyway - outside of violence - I don't have any easy way to do it.

So later in the day, I come home to see mom rabbit outside my garbage can. Her kids are long dead by now, but she's here to inform me that I have made a very poor decision. She runs off.

We grill out for dinner, and I find the two missing rabbits, still alive and huddled in the grass. Mom hasn't saved them, they haven't saved themselves - and this time tomorrow, they'll be two more dead rabbits in my backyard.

They're vermin, and they're doomed - and I still don't feel like killing them just to be done with it.

Wuss.

Judicial snark: a rare and exquisite vintage

We are used to seeing judges maintain an civility and professionalism, even when they are faced with people most of us would just smack up side the head.

Every once in awhile, they are provoked beyond their ability to restrain themselves. They dish out the snark, in their highbrow way. Its a beautiful thing.

My favorite has got to be Padilla v. Hanft, where Judge Floyd responds to the government's position in words that practically singe the paper. He spells out the government's assertion (namely, that Padilla being arrested in Chicago is equivalent to Mr Hamdan's being captured on the battlefield - and therefore the government can detain him as an enemy combatant) and then deliveres this beauty:

The cogency of this argument eludes the Court.

A recent addition to my top five would have to be the recent response of Judge Walton to the amicus brief filed by Robert Bork and Alan "I love torture" Dershowitz. Bork and Torture-boy (as well as a phalanx of high priced legal talent) are advising the court that they think that the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald might not be constitutional, and perhaps the judge might throw the whole case out.

It would be very unusual for Judge Walton to refuse the amicus, so he graciously accepts it - in writing.

With a footnote that has so much sarcasm packed into it, it is positively radioactive (emphasis added):

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant.

The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse.

The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.

Translation: "Thank you for playing. Don't let my foot hit you in the ass on the way out of my courtroom."

Drama Queens

Yesterday, the storm was topic number one in CorpWorld. People were worried about their houses, their cars, their commutes back home. The storm was supposed to hit around 5pm and a coworker of mine planned to put their car in the corporate ramp and wait until things blew over before going home.

Other people went home early. I was one of them, so was E - she dashed home and began clearing out our garage so we could put at least one of our cars in shelter. I picked up the kids at warp speed, expecting the worst to arrive at any moment. I'm telling the boy what hail is and explaining that there might be something called a tornado that would make us have to go into the basement.

We get home and hit the garage. Baby E goes in a chair and the Boy joins us in moving the boxes and soon we have one car in the garage and the minivan snug up against the house. Then I go out and check the window wells and downspouts, E's got the weather channel on and we're looking at tornado watches for the half the state.

I notice that there are spatter marks on the side of the house above the window wells. Not good. So up the ladder I go to check the rain gutters -

Memo to homeowners out there - gutter guards delay, but do not prevent your gutters from clogging up. If your house is half under a tree, you will have problems.

So, I get the guards off and start flinging out gobs of soggy plant matter. The flooded gutter empties itself out, and I move on to the next gutter. Same story. Mud, rotten plant bits, and water. I do the third side of the house by standing, both feet, on the top of the ladder and reaching up to the gutter.

Wind's picking up, but still no rain.

I get onto the roof for the last, unreachable stretch of gutter, and discover wasp nests, lots of them. Having sunk up to my elbows in muck, I at first dive in - but common sense reasserts itself and I just take off the guards and take out targets of opportunity. There's some grist still in there, but I'm over it.

Inside, wash up - still no rain.

Local weather is telling us to prepare for the end. National weather is ignoring us in favor of talking about what this weather will do to the east coast AFTER it finishes with our irrelevant butts.

Tuck the kids in and wait.

-and nothing.
No high winds, a scant sprinkle of raid and no hail of any kind.

Oh, some areas across the state got hit, but our neck of the woods was zilched. I'm not sure the weather coverage hyped this too much, but it was definitely a case of group anxiety feeding off itself. "X is going home early, I will, too!" that kind of crap.

We have a car in the garage and the gutters are clean, so I guess it was good motivation to get off my butt - but, rgh! I hate doing the headless chicken thing...

Perfect storm

There's a big storm a coming
Of this I've no doubt
That storm's gonna blow
your little world inside out
When the wild winds let up
When the violence wanes
You'll think of me then,
when you're watching it rain
It ain't the wind, it's the rain
-Mary Gauthier

This afternoon I got to have lunch with LB, a friend from my previous life in the nonprofit sector. They're just about to make the leap into CorpWorld, into what looks to be a superb opportunity, and this was a congratulatory/catch up kind of thing.

The weather is going to turn Biblically bad this afternoon, so it's good to get out and about before things go bad.

Lunch with LB is always a good time, they have a wicked sense of humor and a great sense of fun. We chat about things that drive us nuts, and grouse about work- it's therapeutic without being a pep talk.

The conversation tuned to a friend of theirs who'd lost their mother - and quite unexpectedly, I started talking about dad. This is not something I do often, and it would appear that it is not something I do often enough. Outside of this blog - and a wonderfully cathartic discussion with my wife a week ago - I doubt I've said more than a few sentences out loud on this topic for quite some time.

Well, the words just kept coming out, and soon I'm pretty well screwed up. It manages to be embarrassing and enormously comforting at the same time. LB mentions asking their friend how they were doing and they had been so grateful to be asked.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I don't want to talk about it, but paradoxically it is is so nice to be given the opportunity to do so.

I'm back in the office now, and the weather sites are predicting two-inch hail and tornadoes. The tree outside the window is whipping around like a palm in a typhoon. It's going to be a bad night for a lot of people. We're not used to this around here, weather that's a big deal is for other places. Just a confluence of events turned our usual weather into something called a Derecho.

Nature's getting something out of its system.

Lot of that goin' around, I guess.

Comey, round two

Talking Points Memo has posted additional testimony from former US Deputy Attorney General (and Acting US Attorney General on the now infamous hospital visit), James Comey.

Mr. Comey is responding to written questions from Rep. Linda Sanchez.

There certainly aren't any more bombshells in this testimony although there is grist for those who hope to go after the AG for discussing classified material inappropriately.

2. Was classified information discussed in the hospital
room that night?

I did not discuss classified information. I do not recall whether Mr. Gonzales mentioned any aspects of the matter that would be considered classified, including the name of the program - which was itself classified, as I recall - when addressing Mr. Ashcroft.

...

Did all individuals present in the hospital room or with access to the hospital room have appropriate security clearance to learn of the matter discussed in the room?

I do not know, but assume Mrs. Ashcroft did not have
appropriate clearances.

Comey is very curt and precise in his wordings, so it would appear that trail goes cold fairly rapidly. Frankly, it would seem like an even longer shot than getting someone for outing Valerie Plame. There's not enough testimony, not likely to be enough testimony - and it would be terribly difficult to prove unless Mrs. Ashcroft comes forward with details she couldn't have gotten any other way and points the finger at Gonzales and Card.

Not gonna happen. It would appear that this was the main thrust of Rep. Sanchez's questioning and while they are useful questions to ask - I'm relieved they can let this wild goose chase drop and focus on bigger issues.

Like, how is it that this supersecret, program was allowed to continue even after the White House had been advised that the US Department of Justice would not attest that the program (as of March 10, 2004) was legal?

Ugh.

---Edited

While I was looking at Comey's responses to Rep. Sanchez's questions - the rest of the world was looking at Comey's response to Sen. Leahy's - and those do contain potentially explosive content.

Throw away the key

Watching the coverage of the Libby trail last night, I had worked myself all up - completely unable to decide which reason for clemency offered by the Libby defense was more galling:

• "but I have kids" Oh, please. We have two million people behind bars in this country - you think we don't send moms and dads to prison? We send single moms to jail, pal and unlike you, most of them can't afford to have nannies.
  
  
• "listen to all of these testimonials about my good character" Yes, listen to them. Kissinger, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld. A veritable who's-who of disgraced public servants. Everybody gets to have their friends speak for them at this stage, and frankly your friends’ opinion of you should factor in about as often as it would for other defendants: practically never.
  
  
• "but I have already been punished..." This one really scales the heights of unmitigated gall. Libby's arguing that being a convicted felon, suffering the public embarrassment that goes with it and paying for his legal defense has been such a burden that additional punishment is unnecessary or unwarranted. It would be one thing if Libby had been sitting in jail during his trial, because he couldn't make bail - but last I checked, he's been a free man - pending his conviction and sentencing.
  
  The loss of his reputation? That's kind of a self inflicted wound, wouldn't you agree?

and then there's the capstone:

• "but I have a reputation of great public service" Yes. Yes you do. And it's over now - thanks to your own actions Mr. Libby. This reputation actually makes this offense worse. You've done all these great things and worked so hard. But when you were put before a Grand Jury, you chose to lie. You know the rules, you're a lawyer fer crissake, so you can't say you blundered into a misstatement or some contrived "perjury trap."

All of this leads into the most infuriating aspect of a person who seeks to trivialize their having been charged or convicted of perjury: There is no such thing as a "perjury trap." There are so many ways out of a perjury conviction. You can amend your testimony, you can clarify your testimony. Sure, saying "Hey, you know what? I just remembered that what I said before was wrong... Here's the deal..." will make you look like an idiot, but that's a helluva lot better than a felony conviction.

No, this turkey lies to the F.B.I., lies to a federal prosecutor, and then lies to the grand jury on multiple occasions. This was not a slip of the tongue, this was not a momentary lapse in recollection, this was a deliberate pattern of deception.

Why does he do this?

Likely a mixture of

1. He does not want to reveal facts that will prolong the Valerie Plame investigation; and
2. He does not believe he will be caught.

Well, he turns out to be right on 1 and wrong on 2.

Having agreed to take the bullet for his bosses, he is now whining about getting shot.
----

With the sentencing over, the talking heads now mull over the possibility of a presidential pardon. This has been advocated to an appalling degree by the GOP partisans, since it became clear that Mr. Libby was going to go down. It is clear that the Libby defense team has been positioning themselves for a pardon since the very beginning. Playing on the family suffering angle, how poor Mr. Libby is just a fall guy, etc.

Setting their otherworldly perspective aside; there are countless reasons why Mr. Libby should not be pardoned by this president. First on the list is that the President would be pardoning a subordinate for conduct that was performed in his service. Absent pardoning himself for his own misdeeds, there is no greater conflict of interest for the use of this power.

Normally, I would think that any president would see this easily and steer way the hell away from the issue.
But there are three unavoidable truths:

1. There are no limits on the use of presidential pardons - there are traditions, there are protocols, there are controversies - but nothing can prevent or undo a pardon;
2. This President has shown little restraint when faced with choices that went against established conventions, but advanced his personal agenda; and
3. The President is not up for re-election, and is in the process of being thrown under the bus by his fellow conservatives.

And so, I'm afraid that some time before January 20, 2009, Mr. Libby's name will appear on a document that will make this sorry episode that much worse.

I don't know how else it can be said: the guy doesn't deserve it. But these days, deserves got nothing to do with it.

Tag, I'm it.

Miss No-H threw down the gauntlet, and said I wouldn't respond. Like the dutiful belligerent she knows me to be, I'll fall for the reverse psychology.

With a catch - My circle of blogs is pretty small, and I think she's tagged most of the ones I know. So I'll do a tag for each reason, but no way I'll have five.

I'll tag the Oracle before someone else does. That's one.

And Cracked. That's two.

Two's all I got - and all I need - I guess.

Top two reasons why I blog:

1) The obvious reason. Dad.

In the weeks after his death, I was short on clarity and the time to say much of anything. Oh, I'd thought about saying something on many occasions. I just never did. Given my history - I'd plotted out a story arc of me retreating further and further into my own head until one day I'd blow up at somebody for not passing the goddamn salt.

In the years prior to 2005, I had written a few essays for nobody in particular and this blog began as just another collection of words sitting on my hard drive.

It was a few weeks after the accident, and I was a mess. Some time after the boy was asleep, I went downstairs, fired up MS word and started typing. The first word that came out of my head was 'Autopilot.' I was going to type a eulogy, at least that's what I think I was going to do. A few hours later, I realized that I was never going to finish. So I made it into a blog.

I still work on the eulogy some days - most times when I'm in the car on the way home - listening to music I should avoid. I envision myself at the service all over again, only this time I'd step up to the podium and say all the things I should have. I write and rewrite paragraphs in my head until they are hopelessly overwrought or until some traffic mishap jolts me back to the present.

I have a few paragraphs I've burnished almost to the point of posting - a virulent defense of my associating dad's death with Katrina, rather than the freak accident that it could easily be classified as. I say them to myself at least once a week - imagining some hapless critic withering under my words as I drive them home with a pile driver.

-and then I think, "never gonna happen." and then I post something about the government.

2) My only other reason is the same as most, I expect. I like to say what's on my mind, and I'm not sure most people enjoy hearing it. Here, I can scream into the void and people can take or leave it. Given the potential audience of a blog like this, and my infrequent update schedule, I have no illusions about what kind of exposure my thoughts will get - but every once in awhile you get a comment or a tag - and that's pretty cool.

Cheers.

Finally, a candidate you can believe in...

It's a pity this candidate isn't running in any of my local elections... I'd give them a shot.

How do you pick a vampire out of a crowd?

Easy...shine sunlight on the crowd. The one who runs into the shadows is your bloodsucker.

The past few years have spawned a number of political organizations that are overdue for some sunlight therapy.

These are groups that purport to advocate for a popular cause, but their causes are curiously in line with powerful partisan interests.

This by itself isn't such a bad thing - there's certainly no law against being partisan. Any group can organize and freely praise their own or damn the opposition in any forum they can reach.

But isn't it interesting the number of groups who are formed by political operatives who take great pains to hide their affiliations? I am sure this occurs on both sides of the political aisle - but it has been raised to a high art by the current conservative crowd. Remember the Swift Boat Vets? a group of "concerned vets" who just happened to be bankrolled by partisan heavies like Bob J. Perry, the largest single donor to the Texas GOP.

Slate's Richard L. Hasen does a really nice job of shining the light on another bogus group, the American Center for Voting Rights - a group that loudly asserted that voter fraud was a growing national problem. They of course had a solution - rigorous ID and registration hurdles that (oh, by the way) might depress turnout among poor and minority voters - but they assured us they were not trying to depress traditionally democratic voter turnout.

Of course, since the group has tried hard to disappear right after the election was over, its kind of hard to believe they are (or ever were) anything other than just another partisan hit squad.

Read the whole sorry story here.

If they were really doing the work of the angels, why are they so afraid of the light?

This?! This is our government?

This is making the rounds, so this will hardly be news to anyone - but just because it un-fricking believable.

Read the testimony of Frm. Deputy Attorney General James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

This bit should whet the appetite:

COMEY: In the early part of 2004, the Department of Justice was engaged -- the Office of Legal Counsel, under my supervision -- in a reevaluation both factually and legally of a particular classified program [NSA Wiretapping]. And it was a program that was renewed on a regular basis, and required signature by the attorney general certifying to its legality.
And the -- and I remember the precise date. The program had to be renewed by March the 11th, which was a Thursday, of 2004. And we were engaged in a very intensive reevaluation of the matter.
And a week before that March 11th deadline, I had a private meeting with the attorney general for an hour, just the two of us, and I laid out for him what we had learned and what our analysis was in this particular matter.
And at the end of that hour-long private session, he and I agreed on a course of action. And within hours he was stricken and taken very, very ill...
SCHUMER: (inaudible) You thought something was wrong with how it was being operated or administered or overseen.
COMEY: We had -- yes. We had concerns as to our ability to certify its legality, which was our obligation for the program to be renewed.
The attorney general was taken that very afternoon to George Washington Hospital, where he went into intensive care and remained there for over a week. And I became the acting attorney general.
And over the next week -- particularly the following week, on Tuesday -- we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality and explained our reasoning in detail, which I will not go into here. Nor am I confirming it's any particular program. That was Tuesday that we communicated that.
The next day was Wednesday, March the 10th, the night of the hospital incident. And I was headed home at about 8 o'clock that evening, my security detail was driving me. And I remember exactly where I was -- on Constitution Avenue -- and got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call...
SCHUMER: What's his name?
COMEY: David Ayers. That he had gotten a call from Mrs. Ashcroft from the hospital. She had banned all visitors and all phone calls. So I hadn't seen him or talked to him because he was very ill. And Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.
SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?
COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital.
So I hung up the phone, immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called Director Mueller and -- with whom I'd been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week -- and told him what was happening. He said, "I'll meet you at the hospital right now."
Told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.
SCHUMER: What was your concern? You were in obviously a huge hurry.
COMEY: I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that.

So, this kind of crap goes down in CorpWorld - person A doesn't like like person B's answer - goes to person C. Happens at home, too. "Mom, can I have X?" "No." "Dad...?"

Except, this is the White House Counsel and the White House Chief of Staff not getting the answer they want from the Acting Attorney General of the United States, so they go to the man who would be Attorney General, were he not incapacitated.

What I especially like is the fact that Ashcroft's wife has attempted to cut off all communication to her husband while he recuperates. The President of the United States calls and informs her that the White House Counsel and Chief of Staff are coming over anyway.

The bonus round is, (and, I know I'm not alone in being surprised by this) Ashcroft does the right thing. He spells out his objections to Gonzales and Card and then tells them what he thinks is irrelevant, since Comey is Acting Attorney General, they should really be talking to Comey.

Gonzales and Card leave without talking to Comey.

Then (and I love this part)

SCHUMER: Right. OK. Let's continue. What happened after Mr. Gonzales and Card left? Did you have any contact with them in the next little while?
COMEY: While I was talking to Director Mueller, an agent came up to us and said that I had an urgent call in the command center, which was right next door. They had Attorney General Ashcroft in a hallway by himself and there was an empty room next door that was the command center. And he said it was Mr. Card wanting to speak to me.
I took the call. And Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately. I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present.
He replied, "What conduct? We were just there to wish him well."
And I said again, "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness. And I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States."

Yes. Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales want their wiretapping declared "legal" by the AG, who refer them to the Acting AG. Instead of talking to him when he's in the same room, late at night on the day before their approval deadline, they leave. And then summon the Acting AG to the White House.

What a bunch of pussies.

The windout of this sad affair is that mass resignations are threatened by Ashcroft, Comey, possibly Meuller and others at DoJ, so the President relents and asks the Comey to come up with a list of changes to the program so it will be legal. We are to assume this happened, although with this sorry lot, who knows what happened the second Comey was out of the room?

It's just a disgrace. Add to that, Gonzales tried hard to stop this testimony from seeing the light of day - having prohibited Ashcroft's and Comey's from testifying for over a year.

Kinda puts a whole new spin on John Ashcroft, don't it?

---

Now we have Gonzales stabbing his current deputy in the back the day after he resigns.

"I wasn't involved in firing US Attorneys."

"Oh, you have proof I was in those meetings? Oh, then I was in the meetings, but I don't remember doing anything in them."

"Yes, I was the Attorney General - but it's not like I remember every little thing that goes on here..."

"Even though I remember nothing, I'm confident that everything was done properly."

"Now that you mention it, I'm certain that McNulty did all of the decision making there. I just follow his recommendations. That's McNulty, M-C. Got that?"

He even smirked while he did it. What a first-class jerk.

Broken record

It's getting to the point where pretty much anything I read from Glenn Greenwald generates a 400-decibel, from-the-gut "Damn right!"

-so forgive me for quoting and linking to the man yet again, but he's just so freaking spot on:

The Politico: Exhibit A for our broken political press

This week, the Bush administration sought vastly increased powers to spy on the telephone conversations of Americans, and then threatened to begin spying again illegally and without warrants...

Yesterday, it was disclosed that Iraq's government is actually purging itself of anyone who seeks to impede lawless Shiite militias...

...And one of the right-wing's most influential academicians published an article on The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page explicitly advocating "one-man rule" in America whereby the President can ignore the "rule of law" in order to fight The Terrorists.

None of that -- or virtually anything else of even marginal significance -- was reported by The Politico, an online political magazine founded by some of the nation's most prestigious and admired (in Beltway terms) political journalists. But yesterday, The Politico's so-called "chief political columnist," Roger Simon, published a 674-word article -- prominently touted on The Politico's front page -- exclusively about John Edwards' haircuts, cleverly headlined "Hair today, gone tomorrow."

...The sprawling, glaring, and ever-widening discrepancy between (a) how journalists like [the Politico's] Harris preeningly describe what they do and (b) the empty-headed trash they churn out on a regular basis, is the actual crux of most media criticism.

Required viewing

I know this link is making the rounds again, but if you haven't seen Stephen Colbert beating the crap out of everything Washington - you really should.

Stephen Colbert rips Washington a new one.

(It's the full C-SPAN footage) You'll need to jump ahead to 51 minutes into the program.

Righteous.

Hijacking the Superbowl

This story is pretty damn funny...

MIAMI, FL (PRWeb) -- Just days after the Boston bomb scare, another team of Boston-based pranksters smuggled and distributed 2,350 suspicious light-up devices into the Super Bowl. Due to its attractiveness as a terrorist target, Dolphin Stadium was on a Level One security alert, a level usually reserved for Presidential inaugurations. By posing as media reporters, the pranksters were able to navigate 95 boxes through federal marshals, Homeland Security agents, bomb squads, police dogs, and a five-ton X-ray crane.

During the second quarter of the Super Bowl, the team of pranksters -- who call themselves the "Super Six" -- quietly distributed thousands of "Prince Party Packs" to an entire section of Dolphin Stadium. Each packet contained a light-up necklace with official-looking instructions. By turning on the necklace lights during the halftime show, Super Bowl fans believed they would be spelling out the word "PRINCE."

But they didn't. They spelled a secret message that was broadcast to 93.1 million people.

Yeah, they're shamless self promoters, but they're still pretty damn funny.

Ahh nature....

Umm....

Mr. duck....?




...mind getting the hell outta my back yard?

(just a visual from the other day's excitement...)

Number to beat

I'm a news junkie, always have been.

I want to be plugged in. It's never been enough to know the latest news, but to find multiple accounts of the same event - then look for the different granules of information they are based on. This pastime has become less enjoyable in recent years - as the news has (at least in my opinion) turned considerably darker. I'm finding myself so put off by traditional mass media that I find myself tuning out more and more.

This is where I'm at with Virginia Tech. Not that this story is unworthy of attention - it's just that I am sick to death of the kind of attention it is receiving.

We've seen this movie before.

---

Start with a place at random: Littleton... Springfield... Blacksburg.

At first, the media just does its job.

Tell us what happened/is happening.

Not long after this phase, things start to go wrong.

Video is obtained. Solemn newscasters caution it may be disturbing, and then play it on an endless loop next to talking head interviews.

Eyewitnesses are found and interviewed live. Newscasters inch their questions towards painful subjects: "Did you see the shooter?" "Did you know the victims?" and finally "Did you personally see anyone shot"

Tell us about the blood.

Frequently, the eyewitness will become upset. The interviewer will visibly show their concern, "How are you holding up?" "Tell us how you are feeling," "How are you dealing with this?"

Are you scared? Are you in pain?

Early reports will have come in - they will be wrong.

The shooter is dead. The shooter is at large.
Ten are dead. Twenty. Less than twenty. More.

Possibilities abound, and are trotted out one after another by speculative journalists who aim to point out that the event may be even worse than first thought.

The carnage is tallied. The networks wring their hands and dispatch live crews, because modern media has conditioned us to expect that the person reading copy off a teleprompter must have a backdrop that is both live and relevant.

The police hold a press conference. It serves to dispel the more sensational possibilities we have been offered by the news. The shooter is dead. We learn the identity of the shooter, the true number of victims.

We learn, to our horror - the 'What' and the 'How.'

The facts established. The chorus of 'whys' can now begin:
"Why here?" "Why did they do this?"

We delve into the recent history of the shooter. "Where did they live?" "What did people think of them?" "What was behind their rage?"

There is a why. Tell us what it is.

These questions only serve as filler while bios of the known victims can be assembled and edited. We are shown grieving family members, survivors in tears.

Experts in grief counseling arrive in the form of talking heads. "What is this community going through?" "Tell us what you've heard from the families."

Pain. Show us the pain.

Recriminations, previously thought unseemly, become acceptable. The police were too slow. This should have been prevented. Lessened. It didn't have to be this bad.

Someone is to blame.

In a natural segue, the news shifts to "How do we stop the next shooter?" Criminologists, law-enforcement officials, and politicians spend ever-increasing amounts of time telling us the same thing:

Disturbed people who have easy access to firearms can hurt lots of people before we can stop them.

We cannot stop this.

---
All of this - all of the horror - is recorded and broadcast into living rooms, dorm rooms, workstations, bus stations, cars, bars, coffee shops, restaurants, every-frickingwhere -

-even some dimly lit basement where some man (and it is always a man) stops to watch. They see suffering on a national scale. The “worst ever,” they hear, over and over. Powerless, angry, they reflect on their wounds and those they hold responsible.

Then they think:

32. Yeah. I can beat that.

Rock on!

C (of A&C) had a baby on April 11. All are doing well.

Best news I've heard all month.

You gotta be freaking kidding me...

Watching the current administration read from the same scandal script can get tiresome.

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out the pattern has been:

1. Questions about administration conduct are raised.
2. Administration denies wrongdoing.
3. Administration officials selectively and voluntarily disclose exculpatory documents, appear before Congress, assure everyone that safeguards are in place, deny wrongdoing, and claim the conduct in question is used only for proper purposes (e.g., protecting country again terrorism).
4. Administration followers -- led by those controlling Congress -- insist that no investigation is needed because Official X made clear that there are safeguards in place protecting us and everything is being done for proper purposes.
5. Congressional Republicans block Congressional investigations, compel no disclosure of evidence, do nothing to investigate administration claims.
6.Scandal ends, unresolved.

So, now that the White House is facing a hostile Congress. The game plan doesn't work so well.

In the recent Gonzalez brew up - we've learned that White House staffers have been using email accounts sponsored by the Republican National Committee. Why would they do that? Because RNC communications aren't subject to open records requests, as they aren't government documents.

Unfortunately for the White House, this tactic will protect them from the curious citizen or watchdog group, but not a Congressional investigation. The White House can't claim executive privilege, since these are political communications.

At this point, those in the administration realize they are off the script - so they improvise-
(From the AP via TalkingPointsMemo)

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Congressional investigators looking into the administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys' ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.

Okay, so they're not being tiresome anymore - but just how freaking stupid do these people expect us be anyway?

I'm hoping a group of forensic computer specialists tear these idiots a new one.

The other shoe falls

JR was canned today.

Which turned today into a mad scramble to figure out:

1) What should have already been done
2) What has actually been done; and
3) What is on the near horizon

I was ramping up the person who will take up JR's slack when they stopped me up short.

"Before we get started, um... what happened?"

I'd completely forgotten about this aspect. Believing for so long that JR was on the way out for so long, I'd assumed that this was common knowledge to everyone. Given that most of us operate in relative isolation - people were understandably a bit mystified.

---

JR was likable - casual conversation, they'd be pretty entertaining up to a point. From the outside, people would see a person who is rushing on this or that project and think, "JR's got it together."

Except they didn't. At least, not in any way that was measurable.

They'd be able to talk around an issue, but any time you wanted hard answers - they just weren't there. JR was good at maintaining the facade. I don't know if they were intentionally deceptive - or if they really believed that they were busy and getting things done.

We all have moments when we're coasting at work: after you finish a big chunk of work, you're too sick/tired/inebriated to function at full throttle - it happens.

JR was like that every day. "I'm busy, I'm busy," but when you'd look over at them, they're shopping online, or on their cell, or surfing through a catalog - wasting time.

Worse, they just did the bare minimum on any project - then would puff it up like "wow, that was hard." With my boss out of town for over a week, I made it my business to make sure JR wasn't shipping the clients crap.

The more I looked, the worse it got. I tried to handle it internally - meet with JR - tell them the score - all I got was smiles and assurances, and the most polite form of pushback. They liked my "suggestions," but first they wanted to "get the boss's input as well."

i.e. Soon as you're not available, I'm going to feed the boss a line of crap. Then it'll be "I'd like to do what you say, but the boss said..."

Screw that.

---

Where was I? Anyway, CorpWorld can make you nervous and any time someone's plug gets pulled - everyone starts to wonder if they're on the bubble. JR's successor was expressing the very real fear that something they'd do in future would get them in trouble as well.

So I spill my guts on the subject. This seems to make them feel better - but it has the opposite effect for me.

This would be three times I've been in this boat, and each time the pattern repeats: people sidle up to me and ask (on the down-low, you understand) 'what the hell happened?'

It underscores the paranoia of CorpWorld, since these are people who, I would have thought, are completely secure in their professional life. Some of them have Masters degrees, some have Doctorates - these are people who should not worry. I'm some guy off the street with some working experience and a big mouth - I get to tell them not to worry?

Messed up.

"...we've traced the call, they're inside the building! Run!"

Working in a business as large as my current employer, I suppose I should not be surprised when I run into people I used to know. I live in the area, they (likely) live in the area - the odds aren't that long.

Previously, I'd run into a former co-worker from my past life (who I did not get on terribly well with) and managed to deal. They've moved on, I'd moved on - actually, there really wasn't anything to move on from. Start from zero.

For the past few weeks, I've been seeing (or swore I was seeing) somebody I used to know. Walking down the stairs, crossing the hall - Hey! was that...?

This was a person I'd always regarded as odd - they hung out in our group, mainly in the company of another associate who I've since lost track of.

This person was always.... odd. They'd eat food off of someone else's plate without asking - they'd make dark observations about topics of light conversation-

They were the sort of person you'd envision hearing someone describing in a newscast as "Quiet, always kept to themselves. Never would have suspected that they had a severed head in the fridge..."

That kind of person.

This person was known as potatohead, and now I see them everywhere.

Question is, now what do I do? I don't even remember their real name. One of these days, we'll end up in the elevator together and they'll say "hi," and I won't have the foggiest idea of what to say.

"Hey, how's the... uh? Remember when you creeped us all out that one time? Wow, that was... uh..."

Too freakin' weird.

2008!? You gotta be sh!tting me!

If you don't watch the show - you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. But for those who do, and just did-

I feel the same way...!

ARRRRGH!

Single point of failure

A chopper pilot once told me that Hueys in Vietnam had a part that was euphemistically called the “Jesus bolt.” Its function was to hold the rotors onto the main mast, which led to its nickname. If that bolt failed, only Jesus could save you.

My backyard has a Jesus bolt. I used to think it was a 1/3 horsepower submersible sump pump. Today, I found out otherwise.

I’ll explain.

My backyard is the low spot in the neighborhood – which means that, sooner or later, I get everyone’s rainwater.

The previous owner of my house installed the aforementioned sump in the yard’s low spot.

Let me back up – ‘installed’ is a pretty strong word. What they actually did is dig a pit for the pump, run five feet of PVC below ground until they reached their neighbor’s yard.

So far, so good.

Next, they ran twenty feet of PVC above ground, on their neighbor’s side of the fence.

With me?

Then, they attached flex hose and buried it along the back of their neighbor’s property until it came out at the corner of four lots that didn’t belong to them.

It gets better.

They then plugged said pump into a 100’ industrial strength extension cord, and buried it in the backyard.

How did it get power?

You’d think given their earlier decisions, they’d just plug it into an outside receptacle, but no, they ran it through a basement window (which could no longer be sealed against the weather) and plugged it into a wall outlet.

Nice.

All this I know now. Learning all this happened in stages – the last stage happening yesterday.

In the beginning – I knew only that there was a buried extension cord, and that the water went…somewhere.

Like most people not looking for trouble, we let this sleeping beast lie until it bit us. One particularly rainy day I noticed that not only was my backyard underwater, but there was a patch of water churning violently in the back corner of my yard.

Being me, I slogged over to the spot and found the aforementioned above-ground-on-the-neighbor’s property PVC pipe. It had split down the side and the sump was dutifully pumping water out of the middle of my backyard lake, only to deposit it into said lake about fifteen feet away.

This, I did not like.

So I bought some PVC, tore out all the splintered junk (that presumably had been shattered by repeated encounters with my neighbor’s lawnmower) and put a fresh batch of PVC on my side of the fence and tied it into the flex hose. Still didn’t know where that hose went to, but I didn’t want to mess with success. I found that the hose went deep into the ground, but once the water was going away – my curiosity followed.

Enter dad.

Dad was not the type to leave such a half-assed monstrosity in place. First chance he got, he dragged me out in the back yard to mount an electrical outlet right next to the pump. We buried conduit and gave the outlet some protection from the elements.

Then we dug a trench and buried the PVC and tied it into the flex hose. In the process, we discovered that it let out on the other side of my neighbor’s yard.
Early discussions with my neighbors indicated that this was not an issue.

Problem solved, right? Wrong.

Why? Because my backyard has a Jesus bolt.

A few days ago, my backyard turned into a lake again and I slogged through the water to trip a stuck float arm. Hours later, the water was gone.

Yesterday, the yard is a lake again. Waiting the usual span of hours, I see no movement. I slog through the marsh and pull up the pump, expecting to free a stuck float arm.

Only this time, the pump is well and truly broken. Apparently, the float fail last time occurred when the float was pressed up against the side of the pump. The pump got so hot that it melted a hole in the float. The hole let in water to the point where the float couldn’t live up to its name.

Last time, hauling up the pump probably cleared out the water and allowed trapped air to float the arm and trigger the pump.

This time, however the pump had kept running so long that it apparently cooked itself – leaving me with something about as useful as a soggy, twelve pound paperweight.

Off to the hardware store – and I buy the same make and model. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Hook it up, plug it in. Presto! Water level falling.

Later that night – I’m on the back porch watching my neighbors dig out their sump and 50’ flex hose. They’re headed for my yard.

That’s odd. So I chat them up and they’re intending to drain my backyard lake. This is nice, I tell them, but my pump is working now and this should all go away soon.

And then they kill off any hope of an easy solution to this mess.

See, the back of their yard is flooding, too. Not where it’s adjacent to my yard, but on the other side – where my sump’s flex hose ends. I turn off the breaker to the sump and, yep, the water in their backyard starts to recede.

My sump is flooding their yard. This has never happened before – but it’s for damn sure I can’t ask them to endure flooding on account of my lack of follow through.

They’re nice about it, even offer to let me use their flex hose, but I’m pissed. Here I fix the faulty pump, and it turns out I've spent all this time patching a system that is totally doomed. I’m stuck with either running PVC out to the street, or shelling out the three grand it would take to re-grade the backyard.

Right now, I’m praying for a dry spring.

"...or else the terrorists win"

If you haven't read the anonymous article in the Washington Post regarding National Security Letters and what their effect is on law abiding citizens is, you really should.

from My National Security Letter Gag Order (login required):

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information.

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie.

To paraphrase Hans Gruber, "[the liberty and freedom the terrorists cannot destroy] is [destroyed] automatically in response to a terrorist incident. You ask for miracles, Theo? I give you the F. B. I."

Basketball diary

Blogging is a curious animal. Readers who don’t know you will miss context and subtext. Readers who do know you can make you self-conscious.

I’ve been trying the anonymous route to protect the narrative – but even so, there are things you just don’t bring up.

I’d been debating in my mind if the Basketball Weekend is one of them. For over a decade now, my friend G has been inviting people over to his place to watch the opening rounds of March Madness. On the surface, this is boilerplate enthusiasm for a chosen sport. We like basketball; ergo we watch basketball in a group. Saves electricity, we can pool resources for beer and chips.

It might have been that, early on, - but the reality of any situation changes over time. What began as an excuse to drink and swear and carry on about this team or that team, is pretty much evolved into the best opportunity I have to see my old friends and step out of parenthood for awhile.

As I’m only starting to appreciate - those are two huge things in life. These are guys who I’ve known since – hell, since Bush the Elder was president. Given my background - outside of family, these are the people I’ve known the longest. We don’t chat regularly, so this is pretty much the only opportunity to catch up with them.

I remember C (of A&C) telling me once that she’d interviewed a co-worker for a project and one of the questions she’d asked was pretty typical: what do you know now that you wished you’d learned earlier? That sort of thing. Her co-worker had given a response that was pretty memorable: “I wish I’d realized how important people were a lot sooner in life.”

That’s always resonated with me. Growing up, my social life got erased every couple of years when we’d move – and I think I got more than I little used to writing people off when they were out of sight. I believe that this led to an alarming amount of selfish behavior on my part. I still do things that are (in retrospect) amazingly self-centered for a father of two. Of course, you appreciate the people around you – but investing in them is something I’ve been very bad at.

The Basketball Weekend has been G’s investment in his friends (I’m sure he doesn’t look at it this way) but boiled down – he makes his house available to everyone and we all benefit from hanging out together. March Madness is the excuse – but it’s just great to hang around with people who “knew you when.”

Reverting to selfish for a moment, it is worth pointing out that seeing your friends with their families is one thing – seeing them sans family is quite another. Stereotypically, this would mean the guys sit around acting lewd and chauvinistic because their wives aren’t around to carp on them – but this isn’t really what I’m talking about.

With my son and daughter around – I’m plugged into parenthood. Conversation steers away from subjects that aren’t fit for children and congeals around topics that address the current behavior of same. This is fine and good, but sitting in a roomful of adults, getting to talk like adults is one of the reasons there are bowling leagues and book clubs.

It is therapy. We can grouse about the things that cannot be fixed, discuss the world’s problems, or just forget everything and rally around the fact that Duke can’t seem to drain a basket whenever CBS coverage switches to Hi-Def (So long, Dukies – we won’t miss you).

It is not mere nostalgia, or escape – it’s an awful lot of things that I wasn’t sure I could (or should) spell out.

In the interests of splitting the difference, I’ll leave some things out.

I will not, for example – discuss drinking cocktails at ten in the morning.

I won’t go into details about when four of us watched two men wrestle in the nude.

-or how C made a waitress dance for him before kissing her (and him, a married man!) or any of that stuff.

Some things are just sacred.

Incommunicado

Mom's been the vector of family news for some time now - I hear about it because everybody calls her. Nobody call me because - quite frankly - I never call them.

This past week, mom was traveling in the Grand Canyon. No cell, no internet. So mom's off taking nature photos and somewhere, her phone was ringing off the hook.

Two long-delayed items finally happened, and neither of them were good.

First up - My uncle K had to put his dog Scooby to sleep. Scooby was the smartest, mildest, most user-friendly dog I ever knew. He was like my uncle - very low key, did his own thing - just a great hound dog all round. No great mystery or surprise, Scoob was getting old - and nature took its course. Just a shame.

The closer was also no surprise, just a sad end to a sadder story.

DB, Dad's cousin, lost his wife, JB last week. She had been suffering for years with that particularly cruel form of alzheimers that allows you to be fully functional, yet forget even basic things like speaking. I'd last spoken to DB at dad's funeral, and he was there alone. I knew it was bad, and we avoided the subject. I last saw her at the local festival and she'd smiled a lot and said nothing. After we'd said our goodbyes, Dad had pointed out that she wasn't shy - she just forgot how to talk somedays. She would have been about my dad's age - way too young for a disease like that. DB was like my grandfather, taking care of a person who didn't even know who he was. I can't even imagine.

So there's an end to their suffering, but it is such a dreadful thing. Alzheimers is called the "Long Goodbye," but it’s so much worse than that. By the time it finally consents to let you go, your loved ones are usually too spent to grieve in any normal way. DB's family has not had an easy go of it for lots of reasons - they just never get a break.

Dad would have been there - I would have gladly stood in for him.

I just wish I'd heard about it in time to do something.

Wisdom of the day

Saw this on Google:

People often write me and ask how I keep my wood floors so clean when I live with a child and a dog, and my answer is that I use a technique called Suffering From a Mental Illness. - Heather Armstrong

The writing on the wall

CorpWorld is an odd place. Most times - people are unfailingly polite. I believe that CorpWorld culture mandates this, a sort of enforced cheeriness I've taken to calling "North Korea Nice."

Your tech contact will politely smile and nod while you say your peace - then tell their manager that you are causing problems on the project. This will become obvious to you when your manager shows up out of the blue to discuss topics that could only have been suggested by the aforementioned tech contact.

In theory at least, conflicts are resolved by proxy - and no one loses face. Of course, the reality is that plenty of face is lost, and any lag in the system means that people will keep doing whatever got them in trouble until they eventually find out. This fact is compounded when those making the complaint know you're in trouble before you do.

This can make for some interesting meetings, as you sit with a roomful of people all wearing smug expressions on their faces.

Which brings us to a person called JR. JR is going to be fired.

This is fact in the same sense that a person who steps in front of a Mack truck is dead. A miracle could happen, Superman could do the fly-round-the-world thing he does, but odds are - they're pretty much toast.

So it is with JR, but they don't know it yet.

JR's been slacking and it's starting to show. I've seen their face time in front of clients get pruned back again and again, and they are being asked to do more grunt-tasks and less brain-tasks. Rather than seeing this for what it is, they have chosen to feel persecuted.

Worse, they are committing the one truly unpardonable sin in CorpWorld - they are making their department look unprofessional. Our department’s higher ups will tolerate an awful lot. However, if they have to choose between an employee and their own credibility, they'll pause a moment - if they like you - and then fire your ass.

Being in meetings with JR has become a little surreal. Ostensibly, nothing has changed and they are still responsible for running some internal meetings. But it's obvious to all that JR is in trouble. I may be the only one who thinks that JR's condition is terminal - but I've seen this same pattern twice now, and all the signs are there.

Having drunk the Kool-Aid, nobody tells JR a thing - we just smile and carry on. The moral paragons of the world would offer a warning - surely a warning isn't out of line - but I'm not stepping up any time soon. I'm right, but I can't prove it - and anything I'll say won't change a damn thing.

I can't say I have much sympathy for JR - management has been (from what I can tell) fair. But the fact that this situation has carried on so long essentially makes co-conspirators out of everyone who works with JR. We discuss the issue when they aren't around, and hush up when they show up. Nobody has hard info from a reliable source, but we're not stupid.

JR's going to "see their account rep" sometime in the next month or so - and we'll all just keep smiling until it happens.

Just another day in corporate land.