The question behind Gonzo

I'm as curious as anyone as to what level of political purging took place at the Justice Department, but Dan Froomkin's recent column highlights what I consider the biggest question of the Bush presidency:

Soon after 9/11, the administration started eavesdropping on Americans. By March 2004, Bush's own Justice Department had decided that the program was clearly illegal, and top department officials couldn't find a way to rationalize it. After a rebellion led by Comey -- and backed by a hospitalized John Ashcroft -- the White House agreed to make some changes. The revised program, still controversial, was described in the New York Times in December 2005. The White House christened it the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." And in January 2007, Bush agreed to put the revised program under court jurisdiction -- although it's not clear exactly what that means.

...

One of the chief unanswered questions, as I wrote in my May 17 column: What was the program like when it was illegal even in the opinion of Bush's own Justice Department? What was the government doing to its citizens for two and a half years -- starting soon after 9/11 through the spring of 2004?

That's really the question, isn't it? No real answers in the press, no driving line of inquiry in Congress - but honestly:

What the hell was our government up before Comey and the DOJ finally stood up to the White House? I'd like to resist projecting my suspicions on an administration that I view as dangerously irresponsible, but their track record is pretty abysmal.

They've ordered torture, secret prisons, indefinite detention without trial, and pre-emptive war.

Why would warrantless surveillance in defiance of Constitutional protections slow them down in the slightest?

Self Defense

No spoilers.

Finished book 7 last night. Not so much out of a fanaticism for the material - but only because of the perfect storm of being six books into an enjoyable series that is omnipresent in the current media.
Odds were good that some TV/Internet wag will "push the envelope" and reveal the plot.

My track record in avoiding spoilers has been abysmal. I have a good memory and I cross-index well. With movies, I'm the guy that replays the trailer while I'm watching the movie - to check to see if all the scenes have happened yet.
"Hey, [actor X's] character can't be gone - they haven't said that line from the trailer yet!"

Roger Ebert famously revealed the secret of the Crying Game on TV, and he was a total jerkwad for doing so, but frankly it was only one more step worse that what the rest of the media were doing.
How many times did we hear about the "big shocker" of that movie? A person like me hears that and ends up spending the entire moving looking for the surprise, instead of just watching the damn movie.

It's a distraction. The best stories I've ever experience were total surprises, ones I happened onto.

With Harry Potter - there was no chance you could just happen onto it, and there is no possibility of avoiding all the coverage.

So I went flat out and read it. Because I can't stand a spoiled story.

Big media? Do your worst, you're too late.

Je suis l'etat

If there was any doubt that the White House feels it is above the law, this should pretty much take care of it:

Broader Privilege Claimed In Firings
White House Says Hill Can't Pursue Contempt Cases

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

You will recall Sen. Leahy's comments on Meet the Press at the beginning of July, when Tim Russert asked if Leahy personally would be willing to go as far as holding members of the administration in contempt, Leahy responded, "Yes, I would go that far..."

Leahy went on to say, "You have to go to the next step to see if they have a legitimate claim of executive privilege...then you invoke the contempt citation."

And then the kicker:

Russert: "Are you sure the US Attorney would prosecute?"

Leahy: "It would be very difficult for them not to"

Well, apparently the President has made that little dilemma a whole lot simpler for the DC US Attorney.

What an absolute disgrace.

Death to the clamshell

There's ill-conceived user interface, there's bad user interface, and then there is that rarified category of UI so bad that third party vendors can make money selling ways to deal with it.

Most software falls under this category (witness the missing manual series).

That software documentation sucks is news to no one. However it's funny to see how acclimatized I've become to incredibly sucky UI in everyday objects. It takes a jolt from the outside to remind me that things weren't always this sucky.

The latest jolt came from my stumbling across the Consumer Reports Oyster awards - the worst product packaging designs of the year.

Top of their list are those plastic clamshell packages they use in electronics, packaging so lousy that two companies sell specialized tools to cut them open.

I dunno about you, but if I designed something that was so hard to open people had to invent tools just to get in - I'd go back to the drawing board.

Hey! We killed a bad guy! Oh wait...

Here's an encouraging headline:

Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says
-International Herald Tribune

What? No pardon?

Reuters: Ex-Cheney aide gets 10 years in prison in spy case

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A former White House official who took top secret documents from U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's office and gave them to opposition figures in the Philippines was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison.

...

Prosecutors told the court Aragoncillo used a fax machine in Cheney's office to send documents to the Philippines. They said up to 800 classified documents had been compromised by Aragoncillo, as well as the name of a U.S. government source.

Aside from how kind it is of Reuters to identify this man as an ex-aid, even though he was breaking the law when he was an aide (using a fax machine in the VP's office, no less), let's review this.

Aid to the VP? Check.
Leaking classified information? Check.
Outing a US intelligence resource? Check.

Oh, wait... He didn't commit perjury to cover it up first... Silly me. This one does really does have to go to prison.

Yo, Pete? Put up or shut up, buddy...

So the GOP has filibustered the Iraq troop withdrawal vote.

And, as expected the GOP senators who have grabbed headlines by making nice with popular opinion (They can "no longer support" the president's Iraq policy of staying there), have shown their stripes when they were asked to do more than pose for the cameras.

52 Senators voted to give troop withdrawal an up or down vote (where it would likely pass, though not by a veto-proof margin)

Among the 47 Senators who thought we shouldn't bother voting on this issue were

• Pete Domenici of New Mexico
• Norm Coleman of Minnesota
• Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina
• Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
• Dick Luger of Indiana
• John Sununu of New Hampshire
• John Warner of Virginia

Thank you senators, for being all we expect of the modern GOP Senator.

Hats off to Sen. Susan Collins for being the only new GOP critic of current Iraq policy to back up her words with action.

Next time Pete (or any of these other turkeys) tries to grab some air time by bashing Iraq policy, I hope someone in the crowd has the stones to bring up this vote.

Late Edit:
I'm just a pretender, but Digby does this topic for real:
The ongoing adventures of the Eunuch Caucus

What she said.

Now there's a damn good question...

"How come the money that can’t be found to insure all children this year can be found every 2 months for the Iraq war?"

-From Susie for President

First they get better health care than us, now this

The World’s Best Candy Bars? English, of Course

Makes a body want to emigrate...

Party Girl and Usability guy

The NYT just happened to publish articles about the work/work culture of E's job and my job.

On the same day, no less. It must be a sign.

Anyway

Here's E's:

A Hipper Crowd of Shushers
By KARA JESELLA
Published: July 8, 2007
A new type of librarian is emerging: think Dewey Decimal meets Generation X.

And here's mine:

Technology’s Untanglers
By BARBARA WHITAKER
Published: July 8, 2007
The work of usability professionals, who bridge the gap between the makers and users of a product, has recently developed into a solid career track.

Playing chicken

Now that the Dems are cueing up their Iraq policy maneuvers, it would be interesting to see how the GOP senators up for re-election in 2008 react.

Congressional quarterly's risk rankings give us a barometer of how safe these senators should feel.

Let's see how well CQ's polls predict their positions in the next few months, shall we?

Safe (expect no waffling):

• Michael Enzi of Wyoming
• Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
• Pat Roberts of Kansas
• Ted Stevens of Alaska (unless his latest scandal goes nova, that is)
  

Fairly safe (calm, but hearing the footsteps):

• Lamar Alexander of Tennessee
• Saxby Chambliss of Georgia
• John Cornyn of Texas
• Pete Domenici of New Mexico
• Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
• Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma
• Jeff Sessions of Alabama
• Gordon Smith of Oregon
• John Warner of Virginia
  

Not-so safe (nervous twitches):

• Norm Coleman of Minnesota
• Susan Collins of Maine
• Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina
• John Sununu of New Hampshire
  

Watch this space - Coleman and Sununu are plenty ripe for blinking.

Edit:
Sen. Collins is making noises already:

I'm finding that my constituents' patience is pretty much exhausted," said Collins. "They're very disturbed by the high casualty rates."

Today, Collins said she has lost confidence in the president's leadership. "If the president isn't willing to adopt a new strategy, then perhaps we, in Congress, have to impose it on him," she said.

I'm no scholar of Sen. Collin's historical position on Iraq, so this may be old news. But there's one GOP senator in the hot seat making the right noises. Let's see if she actually votes that way.

Just talking the talk

Once again, we are shown another GOP senator who publicly breaks with the president.

This time, it's Sen. Domenici. From the Washington Post:

"We cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress," Domenici said. "I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."

Honestly? Who gives a crap? This was a press conference, for crying out loud. Pete's grabbing some TV time on the cheap.

How 'bout this for a headline?

Sen. Domenici votes with Dems for troop withdrawal.

Now that would be something worth reporting. That would actually be news - tangible and with meaning. Not this "I'd like some air time, please" BS that the newsies keep falling for.

I'd love to have one of the reporters in this things say, "But, Senator... haven't you sided with the administration on all of it's major initiatives? Does this statement mean that you will be voting against the president's positions in the future?"

Fnyeah.

Cornered Rat

What if you had to sell the unsellable? Take a gander at White House press secretary Tony Snow, the day after the Libby commutation.

Snow starts off with an "I don't see the elephant in the middle of the room" intro and talks about other subjects for as long as he can. Then he says (with an almost audible smirk) "And With that, I'll take questions."

And lo, the floodgates opened:

Q So you're not closing the door, then, on a pardon.

MR. SNOW: Look, I think -- the President has done what he thinks is appropriate. The reason I will say I'm not going to close a door on a pardon is simply this, that Scooter Libby may petition for one. But the President has done what he thinks is appropriate to resolve this case.

Q You're saying that he thinks he's done what is enough?

MR. SNOW: He thinks he's done what's appropriate.

Q And that would be it, that he wouldn't do any more?

MR. SNOW: I don't want to read the President's mind, but on the other hand, I do not want to create expectations that somehow there will be more.

Q Tony, does the President think that Scooter Libby did, in fact, lie; that a member of the White House staff was, in fact, guilty of these crimes?

MR. SNOW: What he believes is that he was convicted of a jury of his peers. The President was not sitting in as a fact witness on a very long case, and he does think that it's important to respect what the jury concluded, because the jury really is the group that counts here.

Q Why not respect what the judge said, then?

MR. SNOW: Well, keep in mind that there is still -- he does respect what the judge said, but he also respects what -- I think if you took a look at the trial record, at what the parole commission recommended, that what the parole commission recommended was highly consistent with what the President thought was an appropriate punishment here.

Q Well, no, they talked about 16-plus months.

MR. SNOW: No, that is -- there's a range of -- what you're taking a look -- this gets very complicated.

...

Q And also, let me ask you this. The President and other White House press secretaries would not touch this question of Joe Wilson during the height of the investigation. I'm going to ask you now, since the President is now basically saying this is over and he's done what he's done -- Joe Wilson asked for an apology for the American people because of the situation. Is the White House now willing to give the American people --

MR. SNOW: I'm not going to get into --

QWhy not?

MR. SNOW: Because --

QWhy not? It's over now. You didn't want to talk about it then. Let's talk about it now. Do you think the American people are owed something because of the breach?

MR. SNOW: Number one, there is still considerable controversy about the facts of the case, including Joe Wilson's veracity. Number two, there is also --

Q What's in question about his veracity? Detail that, please.

MR. SNOW: There is also -- just, very quickly, you take a look at the Senate reports, his characterization of who sent him over and what he told people when he was in Niger is at direct odds with what he attempted to tell the American public.

Q That has nothing to do with leaking the name of --

MR. SNOW: I'm just --

Q She's making a good point.

MR. SNOW: I'm answering her question, which she raised --

Q But she's making a good point.

Q You're arguing a different case.

MR. SNOW: No, I'm arguing --

Q The apology that the American people may want -- some may want --

MR. SNOW: I understand.

Q -- has to do with the fact that the White House allowed for a breach. And doesn't Libby owe the President an apology?

MR. SNOW: Again, I'm not -- this is -- number one, I believe the investigation found that the White House was not the source of the breach. Number two, the President has said that it is --

Q But it's part of the Bush administration.

MR. SNOW: -- the President has said it is inappropriate to have such breaches, and has apologized for them. So beyond that --

Q When did he apologize?

MR. SNOW: I think he said to the American people -- gave an apology, but --

Q Tony, one point that is not in dispute is that Karl Rove was involved in the leak, in some way he was involved. He talked to at least two reporters who ended up publishing this information. In 2004, the President said -- he didn't talk about convictions or anything -- he said he would fire anyone in this White House who was involved in the leak. We now know Karl Rove was involved; he did not fire him.

MR. SNOW: There are two things to note. We have also said that we do not -- we are not going to make comments in detail until the legal process is over. And it is not; there is still an appeal through --

Q You just put out a two-page statement. He commented --

Q Wait a minute, he just put out this statement, and it's it's over.

Q He commented -- how could you not --

Q Yes, he's commented now, so that's a big -- we can shoot holes in that statement.

MR. SNOW: No, on follow-on issues like this that still may have bearing and an issue that may return to trial, I'm not going to comment on it.
...

MR. SNOW: I understand that -- the President has the power to commute, and he used it, and he used it in a manner that he saw fit. That's not trying to have it both ways. What the President said is that he is not going to go in and overturn what the jury did. On the other hand, again, he thought that the penalty was excessive. He is certainly permitted to do that. You'll concede that the President does have that power, constitutionally, and furthermore, that this President has done it very carefully.

If he had decided that he wanted to commute the sentence and get rid of all punishment, but still keep intact the felony, he could have done that. But instead what he did was he said that he believes that when somebody is convicted of this punishment, it is worth having -- I mean, of this crime -- it is certainly worth respecting the jury's decision and having significant and severe punishment. And I guarantee you, a quick show of hands how many people in this room think that $250,000 is a wrist slap, or that two years of probation, or, in fact, the loss of your career is somehow a trivial punishment. This is serious punishment.

Q But doesn't he already have a legal defense fund -- that is going to cover --

Q -- $5 million that he's already got --

MR. SNOW: Well, we'll have to see.

Q So it's not really excessive for him, then. Most average Americans couldn't afford $250,000, but most average Americans don't have Fred Thompson raising millions of --

MR. SNOW: Well, on the other hand, he also has legal fees.

Q So the $250,000, though, is really not that much money for him.

MR. SNOW: I don't know, you'll have to find out. Do you think $250,000 --

Q But that's not the case -- you said that it was a lot of money.

MR. SNOW: It is a lot of money.

Q But he has more than $250,000 --

MR. SNOW: You don't know that.

Q Well, in what he's raised.

Q -- there's no shortage of people who would gladly raise -- and have already been doing so.

MR. SNOW: Well, good. Americans are a generous people.

Q How does the President justify this commutation when there are thousands of others in jail with a similar request?

MR. SNOW: I'm not sure that -- thousands in jail with similar requests?

Q Three thousand.

MR. SNOW: Three thousand in jail with similar -- I'm not sure that you can take anybody who has a perjury count and say that they're all the same. Every count has to be considered differently. The President, as you know, looks very carefully at these things. And furthermore, not every one of these cases comes before a President, as you're well aware. Attorneys quite often petition for these and that is one of the procedures by which they do it.

Q Can I follow on that? There are more than 3,000 current petitions for commutation -- not pardons, but commutation -- in the federal system under President Bush. Will all 3,000 of those be held to the same standard that the President applied to Scooter Libby?

MR. SNOW: I don't know.

Q Tony, I'm trying to get a handle on it -- are you saying this White House handled this case in an extraordinary manner, or in a routine manner?

MR. SNOW: I think it handled it in a routine manner in the sense that the President took a careful look. But it is an extraordinary case by virtue of the fact that not only do you have the extreme level of publicity, but also that in many ways, the hand was called by a court decision to go ahead and send Scooter Libby to jail while he was still in the middle of his appeals process.

Q But how could it not be extraordinary to grant something to someone who didn't even ask for it?

MR. SNOW: I just think that's the President, again, using his commutation power to do what he thought was necessary to address what he thought was an excessive punishment.

QBut absent a request, he wouldn't even have known about this case if it didn't involve his former aide.

MR. SNOW: Well, no, I think you probably would have reminded him of it. The fact -- you talk about, if it had not involved a former aide -- this is a thing that has been in the headlines for quite a while.

Q Won't this encourage other members of his administration to obstruct justice?

MR. SNOW: No.

It's like a schoolyard argument.

"Uh uh."

"yeah, huh!"

"uh uh!"

What a tool.

Update:

He's also a jerk, too:

Q Tony, I want to go back to the issue of an apology, and I want to stay issue-focused and not blaming. Are there -- is the American people owed some kind of apology from someone in this administration for the leaking of a CIA person's name, personnel's name?

MR. SNOW: Yes, it's improper to be leaking those names

Q You say it's improper, so you're saying someone in this administration owes the American public an apology?

MR. SNOW: I'll apologize. All done.

Q No, it's not. That's flippant, that's a very flippant way of doing something very serious -- it was a very serious matter. That was very flippant.

Loyalty over principles

Commuted.

The President commuting Scooter Libby's prison sentence is the exclamation point after the phrase-

I am a lousy President!

I can't even express the full amount of disgust I have for this President. The only time this President commutes a sentence that hasn't already been served, that hasn't even begun- he does it for his crony.

"I respect the jury's verdict," what a load of crap.

I can't wait - CAN NOT WAIT for the GOP loyalists to spout off in defense of this shameless and unprincipled act.

Way to set a damning and injurious precedent, there, Mr. President. And what might you do for an encore?

Headless chickens

I'd spend entirely too much time writing up a post about the recent events in the U.K. - about how the US media is going into cardiac arrest just because some idiots managed to set their own car on fire.

I ended up tossing it because I was sure someone would do a better job then I could.

And someone did.

Former Scotland Yard Detective John O'Connor (Via Political Animal ) sums the entire affair up nicely:

"I think that rather than using the all-embracing term of 'al Qaeda,' I think that you should be using the term 'jihadists,' which I think makes more sense. Because, though they may share common purposes with al Qaeda, I don't think that al Qaeda has the control to operate something like this. They could operate a major terrorist outrage, but I think it would be more professionally run. I mean this was a hopeless, incompetent terrorist attack."When you see the ludicrous situation where none of the bombs were able to be detonated and these guys are trying to set fire to petrol, when all they did, they didn't get a detonation at the doors of the airport lounge; all they got was a bomb fire.

"They set fire to fuel. Well, that in its own way, is not going to detonate the gas cylinders and it's not going to cause an explosion. It was just a fire. I mean, that is so incompetent as to be almost laughable."

No question the events are newsworthy, but to run to the masses with "The sky is falling!" when its pretty clear that what has actually happened was this:

A small group of homicidal amateurs has followed up their having not blown up two London cars with a failed attack that seriously injured one of their own. Both events failed to inflict serious injuries on any of their supposed targets.

This is - well, just what we've come to expect from our media establishment. All flash, no thought

You'd think the time they devote to coming up with snappy graphics would be better spent analyzing the event so that commentary won't be as inane as NBC's Sunday commentary that "the passengers of the [completely undamaged planes] were glad to be alive."

Disgraceful.

Athens

In my past life, I used to hit a certain gyro shop at least once a week. Sometimes twice. Sometimes twice in two days. This place had zero ambiance, (what we used to call a “sobriety floor”) and big gyros.

Me like gyro, me like gyro a lot.

Many a booze-fueled crawl ended with me staring up at the gyro guy and blurting out the only word I could manage:

GyroFriesDew!

Which is to say “I would like a gyro sandwich, French fries, and a medium Mountain Dew.”

Mountain Dew was required – initially to wake up, but later it was pretty much tradition.

I went to this place so often that (like a lot of places I go, even now) the guy behind the counter would order for me. I’d always get the same number of napkins (five), the same number of ketchup containers (three) before sitting down to soak up the Tzatziky-goodness that is Gyro.

I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Then – calamity! – the place got a makeover, the gyros got smaller, and (worse) college ended. I’ve been back, a few times, but the place isn’t what it once was. Plus, they changed the ketchup, dammit. Sweet ketchup? Who the hell wants that on their fries?

I’ve filled the gap by trying out the gyro places in other cities. My friend, G is blessed to live in a city with two (count them, two!) world class gyros establishments within striking distance. Last March Madness – I think I went for Gyros on two of the three days I was in town.

My town isn’t quite like that – on my regular commute, I drive past perhaps the worst gyro place on the planet (when I don’t go back, it has to suck. The gyros at our corporate cafeteria contain what would charitably call “lamb nuggets,” and I’ve eaten them at least a half dozen times).

On the normal homeward leg of our many out of town trips this year, we’ve been driving past a sign for a gyro shop. Our usual arrival time of Sunday evening, the fact that the kids are with, plus the fact that E pretty much hates gyros – meant that all the attention I could give this shop was a hearty, “Hey look! A gyro shop!”
It’s on the way north side of town and (in the way that I do) I’d noticed the sign, but never really figured out where the shop actually was. So, last week I finally figure out that this place is within lunch hour striking distance and – dammit – I want a gyro.

Turns out, the place is in a gas station. You walk into a convenience mark and the back counter is serving gyros.

Zero ambiance.

I try not to get too excited. Walking up, I see the guy behind the counter – it’s the guy from my old gyro place! He’s here! He’s here!

Ok, ok, calm down.

I take a risk. Without even looking at the menu I carefully say, “Gyro. Fries. Dew?”
Guy doesn’t blink. Hits a button on the register, holds out his hand for cash and barks over one shoulder:

GyroFriesDew!

Huzzah! Huzzah! Angels and ministers of grace-

Wait, wait, wait. Gotta eat the thing first, right? All this could be window dressing for yet another disappointment, right?

They give me the gyro. No drink. Here, they make you get your own beverage.
I get my ketchup, my napkins and then grab a seat between the cough medicine and the restrooms.

Man, if any of these customers were drunk, this would be perfect.

I start with the fries. They’re splattered all over the sandwich (as they should be) and I grab a few and make with the ketchup.

It’s the right stuff. Not sweetened ketchup, but ketchup. Moment of truth… the Gyro rocks. Tzatziki aplenty and lamb in those bizarre shavings just like I remember, only messier (I’m out of practice, so sue me). I resist the urge to have a second one and vow to return next week.

-and perhaps the week after that as well.

Ahhh, nostalgia.

I run screaming

Okay, so the iPhone rate plans are out:


That's a family plan for two lines.

Um, well - the hard drive is still small.

And that touch thing might not work.

So there.

Maestro

Not long before he died, Kurt Vonnegut appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and rattled off a list of helpful advice to new democracies like Iraq, gleaned from American history:

After the first 100 years, you have to let your slaves free.
After the first 130 years, you have to let your women vote.
In the beginning, if there is a whole lot of unrest and killing, well, that's pretty much okay.

To which, the never-at-a-loss Steward replied, "It's sad to see how you've lost your edge."

Which got even Vonnegut to laugh. Even in his eighties, Vonnegut could still bring it.
---

Well, I've always been a fan of Tom Lehrer - partly for his clever wordplay ("then the guy who's got religion'll/ tell you if your sin's original"), but mainly for his go-for-the-throat social commentary ("Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.").

Lehrer released few songs, and stopped performing and recording before I was born, so I'd pretty much written him out of the modern world. I still listen to him and get a laugh now and then, but I was pretty sure he was gone.

But, of course - the internet exists to satisfy the curiosity of people like me, so when I think "I wonder if..."
-I find out that Mr. Lehrer performed in England as recently as 1998, and he's even kept his edge, as evidenced by this modern gem:

'I'm not tempted to write a song about George W.Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them."

Ah, Maestro. How I've missed you.

Scary good UI

I'm susceptible to good marketing - and Apple has clearly spared no expense in the "make it look cool" department, but damn. The iPhone sure has all the appearances of having some insanely good UI.

It remains to be seen if a touch screen can be made to function like a manual keypad, but the rest of the touch screen features look pretty impressive.

I know, it's just a demo.

But watch the latest demo, and then hold onto your wallet.
Small res Medium res High res

I'm supposedly trying to make user interface better where I work - but the complexity of making a machine behave in ways that seem natural to people is an uphill undertaking. Machines are logical, and people aren't. Or rather, machines demand precision and people often change their perspective of a task mid-stream. Machines are pretty lousy at this, and making software respond to our naturally fluid tendencies is an exercises in torturing your development team.

I am confident that the iPhone will disappoint many - it's flaws will be exposed over the next year and criticisms will go viral in the next month. I'm still mystified how they can be a week out from selling the product in stores (along with a two year contract) and the terms of that contract are still unknown. But even if half of what you see in the demo works as advertised - Cell phones as you know them are going away.

UI 2.0 folks. Drink it in.

Podcast vs. reality

I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore. I probably could count on one hand the occasions when I heard a full song off the radio in the last year. Outside of NPR in the morning, the radio has pretty much become an iPod accessory. Road trip audio is Pod audio. If we were invaded by Visigoths during a road trip, I wouldn't find about it until the trip was over.

I've found that the Pod is kind of like cruise control. You get a good podcast going and you don't want to stop. I've driven to lunch hour errands without ever taking out the ear buds.

The iPod also provides immunity to worldly delays. There's a five minute delay for a table? K. More time to listen to Bill Moyers or Wait, Wait…

When I need realworld sound, it's just easier to tap off the audio and leave the ear buds in.

This is a bit strange, because people will assume you can't hear them when the iPod is off. Or they'll talk to you when you're way into something on the Pod.

This can annoy both parties to the conversation rapidly.

This local sandwich shop I go to pretty much maximizes this phenomenon.

It's usually busy, and even if it isn't - their sandwiches usually take awhile to make.

Knowing the drill, I'll be well into my podcast by the time I get to place my order. Today, I'm listing to D-Day veterans recount stories of wartime terror and loss.

It's pretty gripping stuff. This one veteran's family is relating the story of how they found out their dad was a Medal of Honor winner - thirty years after he won it. The man's daughter was clearly deeply affected as she said how her dad "never talked about it. It just wasn't important to him. His family was what mattered to him."

Deep stuff.

How you doin' today?

I look up, and teen-behind-the-counter is asking me how I'm doing. Not because they are interested, but because this chain's marketing types have decided that the best way to deal with the delay in preparing my food is mindless banter.

Got big plans for the weekend?

Back in the Pod, another vet is describing the horror of a mortar fragment slicing into his foot and how the injury kept him from learning that his best friend had been killed.

I stop the pod, and say, "Fine, no big plans." Basically do my best to vibe this guy that - I'm just here for the sandwich, we don't need to be friends. Pod back on.

This does not take, and next he is describing an "outfit" he's considering wearing, and he would like my opinion.

The vet is describing arguing with the medics about how they shouldn't cut his foot off.

It's a black tuxedo jacket, with a black shirt and a bright yellow tie, and…

Back in the pod, sutures rupture repeatedly, and the medic is angrily telling the vet that he will have a massive scar.

I say something offhand and mentally command this person to Go. The Hell. Away.

How you doin’ today?

Teen-boy is on to the next person in line, who is about as happy with the banter as I am.

The shop also has some earnest youngster performing live music at an intrusive volume.

I dial up the volume and sit somewhere far enough away to lose realworld audio.

I watch the youngster, head bowed, climbing their way up their guitar, eyes closed. The summit reached, their head snaps up, mouth to the mike and-

- Somewhere in the Pod, the vet gets to keep their foot.

So, which model of development do you follow?

Speaking as a member of an RUP-shop, it's nice to see there are some real-world alternatives waiting in the wings:

New Systems of Management

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?