Shut. Up.

Blogs don't have segues, so here goes:

(H/T to Val, via Fortune)

AT&T to cut the price of Apple’s new iPhone

When the 3G iPhone is introduced this summer, AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone sales partner with Apple, will cut the price by as much as $200, according to a person familiar with the strategy.

This has tongues wagging over at the NYT:

The $199 iPhone? Something’s Missing From the Picture

...But as reported, there are some bits of the story that don’t make sense. Fortune wrote that AT&T will offer the subsidy to people who buy the phones in its stores, but not to those who buy in Apple stores. I can’t imagine that Apple would want to sell iPhones for even a dime more in its stores than in another store. (Apple keeps exceedingly tight control over its pricing.)

And there is no underlying economic reason for AT&T to offer anyone an incentive to buy the iPhone in its stores. No matter where you buy your iPhone, the only way to use it legitimately is on the AT&T network, which requires a two-year contract. What’s more, Apple has a much greater incentive to get people into its stores — where it can try to sell them Macs — than does AT&T — which has little more to offer than the odd headset and case.

Strange, but then - unless the plan becomes cheaper and the contract term becomes shorter - I'm pretty sure this item will be moot for me.

But they're so sleek, so shiny... No!

I'll Fly Away

Mom's going to Scotland. Today.

She's been fretting about it - I've been cheering for her. Gramma had a bad fall recently and Mom's been grappling with guilt over leaving vs. bailing out of a trip she's been planning for ages.

She'd finally gotten through to Dad's sister and brother - gotten some good discussion of the situation and felt good enough to get on her plane.

Scotland. I'm green with envy. Got the boy all pumped up saying SCOOT-lund! in the best brogue the boy can manage. I'd planned on taking the boy through her itinerary on a map.

Jen's keeping me in the loop on Gramma, Mom's texting her status to me:

Apr 29, 05:24 pm
Headed 4 london. Mom

London. I'm tempted to ask her to buy me an Arsenal scarf. She's told us she can get text messages - but then she was told this by AT&T - so there's almost no chance that she can.

One unsettling aspect of her departure: In the event the worst happens and Gramma passes - Mom had asked me to book her a flight up from Atlanta on the same day she comes back to the US. I've booked flights for mom exactly twice before - both times because she was in the storm zone and had no way to do it herself.

Surfing possible flights plays on my imagination to the point that, having established that there are ample opportunities out of Atlanta - I quit and go for a walk around the office to shake it off.

It doesn't work.

Post storm, the airports were insane. On top of everything mom had been through - the airlines had decided to be - well, airlines. She was told her carry-on weighed too much, or was the wrong size, or needed inspection or something - so would she mind opening it and re-distributing her items among her other bags?

Mom has a pretty good look that says My manners are the only thing keeping you alive right now. I imagine she gave the guy this look and opened her bags.

On top of the clothes in her carry-on was Dad's folded flag.

Airline guy sees it and stops. He closes her bag and says "That's okay, m'am we'll take care of you. Don't worry about it." And he gets her through the line and never says another word.

Even now, all this time later - I'm still a mess just from writing that.

But I had help this time.

Jen called at 11:27 pm - and my family doesn't call, much less call in the wee hours.

Unless it's bad.

Gramma passed away at 11:00 pm. She'd been having trouble breathing. Too much fluid in her system, lots of things. Age.

I'm like I was with Grampa - I'm just hollow thinking about it. There's no there.

But Mom. Right now, she's on a plane, asleep headed for her big adventure - and she doesn't know. This I can picture, and its just too awful.

Mom's flown up for Gramma's episodes over and over. Talked with her all the time.

After this latest fall, Mom couldn't get through to her - nurses or Dad's siblings kept interposing themselves.

Mom's big adventure in Scotland - and on day one she'll learn that Gramma died five hours after she boarded her plane.

I miss Gramma - but I'm grieving for Mom.

Top 10 List

(Via CJR)

In an unsigned editorial, the [Los Angeles Times] today urges the three presidential candidates to “challenge reporters who dwell on gossipy or tangential subjects to ask instead about issues voters care about it.” Ten such questions follow.

Read the ten questions. Ask yourself how different the ABC debate (or any debate in this campaign) would have been with questions like that.

CJR spells it out in their windout:

...the fact that ABC News didn’t ask those kinds of questions wasn’t because it’s not possible to do so. It’s because the network chose not to.

Exactly.

Unforgivable...unfixable...unbelievable

Although I know this world will eventually top this, it's hard to imagine how:

This is quite possibly the most appalling crime I can imagine:

A 73-year-old Austrian man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, police have said.

[snip]

A reinforced concrete door was built into the wall that separated the "dungeon" from the house and electronically locked - the code known only to the suspect, who provided his captives with food and necessities, police said.

Three of the children were kept in the cellar with their mother and had never seen daylight, police told a news conference.

Wha..? What-?

....

Gen. Odom on the Surge

We keep hearing over and over again about how the surge is working, how violence is down and how life in Iraq is getting better.

After all, the Sunnis are now on our side - that's has to be good, right?

(Frm Director of the NSA under President Regan) Gen. William Odom begs to differ:

(via Nieman Watchdog)

Their break with al Qaeda should give us little comfort. The Sunnis welcomed anyone who would help them kill Americans, including al Qaeda. The concern we hear the president and his aides express about a residual base left for al Qaeda if we withdraw is utter nonsense. The Sunnis will soon destroy al Qaeda if we leave Iraq.

[snip]
Let me emphasize that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased. You might want to find out the total costs for these deals forecasted for the next several years, because they are not small and they do not promise to end. Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time, this deal protects them to some degree from the government’s troops and police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.

Now let us consider the implications of the proliferating deals with the Sunni strongmen. They are far from unified among themselves. Some remain with al Qaeda. Many who break and join our forces are beholden to no one. Thus the decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves. Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.
This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation...

When it comes to Iraq, this same administration that blocks medical coverage for underinsured children has always had one fall back solution: throw money at it.

• Iraq economy needs a boost? Carpet bomb them with cash. We'll worry about receipts later.
• Political cost of large troop deployments too high? Send in the high priced mercenaries. Never mind we pay them ten times what we'd pay our soldiers. Politically, it's free!

And now: Sunni extremists got you down? Write them a check! We can re-brand them as the Sons of Iraq - the shinier, happier gunman for a new Iraq!

If you pay them enough, and give them enough weapons, you can get them to bump their other enemies ahead of yours in their sh!tlist. Sooner or later, they'll get back to killing Americans, but by then it'll be some other administration's problem.

This is hardly news, but can we finally have an intelligent discussion of what is and isn't happening as a result of the surge?:

Rev. Hagee: Opportunist, Coward

I've tried to resist the urge to think about Rev. Hagee's comments on Hurricane Katrina.

After all, there's an endless supply of nut jobs who retroactively claim recent events validate their world view. This guy's just the flavor of the month.

But here's the recap:

(via Media Matters)

September 18, 2006 (twenty days after Katrina)

All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that.

The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing.

I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.

At this point - Hagee's pulling a Falwell: he sees a massive human tragedy, brandishes it like a bat, and swings at people no one will stand up for: homosexuals.

As these remarks have no visible cost to him - he does not equivocate: He believes that [Hurricane Katrina] was, in fact, the judgement of God against the city of New Orleans.

Fast forward to this year. Hagee now has a powerful political friend in John McCain, and Sen. McCain is starting to get questions about Hagee's big mouth.

The cost of his 'judgment of God' remark has gone up. He apparently doesn't want to reverse himself totally - but he wants to soften things a bit:

(via The Dennis Prager Show)

April 22, 2008

Hagee: What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God. In time, if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become, it may be in time be called a blessing. But at this time it is called a curse

Prager: Right but, wh- what you are saying, and, and I want to just make it clear – that there is a divine hand in, in these natural acts and you see the divine hand in the hurricane that hit, that hit New Orleans

Hagee: If God is almighty and God is all-powerful, God controls everything. If God does not control everything, he is not God. So the answer to that is, yes.

Prager: Right. The, the, ah, the only question - and this is not a challenge as much as my own theological question to that, if - this is really Dennis speaking, not, not, you know, not wh- some official… questioner – but if that’s the case, so that would hold true for the earthquake in ah– and the tsunami - the earthquake in southern California, the tsunami that hit the, that hit Indonesia…Is that - so, is there any natural disaster that is not the result of sin?

Hagee: Well, I’m not saying that it’s the result of sin. I’m saying it’s the result of God’s permissible will. Ah, you, you cannot say that everything on the earth that happens is sin. Ah, it was carried in a newspaper that there was going to be a massive homosexual rally there the following Monday, ah, but – and, and I believe that, uh, homosexual marriage is sin and I believe it’s an abomination because Moses said it was. But it is, it is wrong to say that every natural disaster is the result of sin. It is a result of God’s permissive will, but who – no man on earth knows the mind of God-

Prager: Right, but in the case, alright, but– Did NPR get – is this quote correct, though that in the case of New Orleans, you do feel it was sin?

Hagee: In the case of New Orleans, their plan to have that, uh homosexual rally was sin. But it never happened. The, the rally never happened.

Prager: No, no, I understand. Alright. Alright. Ah, no, I’m only trying to understand that in the case of New Orleans, you do feel that, that God’s hand was in it because of the sinful city.

Hagee: That it was a city that was planning a sinful conduct, yes.

Prager: Okay. So, that, that one is the only one, I think, frankly, it’s the only one they can get you on, because people don’t like to, to, ah, hear that sort of thing…

A less than artful delivery of his talking points: "no man knows the mind of God," gay marriage is an abomination, and the permissive will of God allowed Katrina to hit New Orleans. The city "was planning a sinful conduct," you see.

I'm sure that's a great comfort to the grandmothers who drowned in their attics.

Of course, this is not enough to silence the media hounds. Nor will it put a smile on Sen. McCain's campaign staff (after the week they've had).

'God Smote America' is right up there with 'God Damn America.'

The price of that sentiment just keeps getting higher.

And so - just today - Rev. Hagee is said to recant (via a statement issued through his public relations firm, no less) what he was so certain of, back when New Orleans was still underwater:

April 25, 2008

...ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise. No matter what the cause of the storm, my heart goes out to all who suffered in this terrible tragedy. There but for the grace of God go any one of us.

Gone are the thundering pronouncements of Hagee's moral compass. Hell, even Hagee didn't show up - he folded by proxy.

Forget his small mindedness, forget even his homophobia - Hagee deserves scorn for the same reason as Falwell: He showed his stripes when he thought he could get away with it - now he's slinking away and hoping we won't notice his footwork.

No matter what the cause of the storm...

...

Oh, I see you all right-

Dirtbag.

Where Am I?

(H/t to E, and to Zack Patton over on the 13th Floor)

Kudos to the keepers of the Atlas of Strange Maps, for bringing us cartographical oddities like:

the [map] that plots different regions of South Carolina based on the main condiment used in BBQ sauce -- tomatoes, ketchup, mustard or vinegar and pepper.
There are two fantastic maps based on music -- one showing each state in proportional size based on how often it gets mentioned in country music songs, and another mapping out the area codes mentioned in the rap song "Area Codes," by Ludacris.

And they even have my favorite map of all - the Minard Map. A map that is only strange by virtue of it being so brilliant.


I remember finding that map in a graphic design brochure and I cut it out and have saved it ever since. Way cool!

Homebody

Here's an idea whose time has come: Subscribing to home delivery of household products.

Amazon's Subscribe & Save service allows you to set up standing re-orders of items you buy on a regular basis (trash bags, detergent etc.)

I'm scoping out the price break to see if this is economical to boot, but if the price is close - there's a big opportunity to save time.

...And the Front Ranks Died

In the movie Sword of Gideon, there's a moment when the young Israeli spy tells his father that he is going to become an assassin for his country. The Munich Massacre has just happened, and this would-be killer is clearly hoping his dad will be proud of him.

Instead, his dad cuts him off at the knees, saying telling him his country may need him now - but that won't always be the case. "They ruined my life," he tells his son, "and as God is my witness they'll screw you, too."

Reading the sad tale of CIA operative Bob Lady - you almost wish his dad had tried to dissuade him as well (H/t digby):

Lady...was the CIA’s base chief in Milan, Italy, and nominally in charge of a February 2003 agency operation to snatch an al Qaeda suspect off the city’s streets.

[snip]

But the snatch turned into a public relations nightmare two years later when Italian authorities announced they had eyewitnesses and indisputable evidence tying the CIA to the crime.

So last week 26 Americans, most of them CIA employees, went on trial in Milan for kidnapping, albeit in absentia and to little notice here. They are fugitives from justice, with international warrants issued for their arrests.

[snip]

[Mr. Lady] and his wife loved Italy so much they bought a house in the foothills of the Alps and retired there in 2004.

Months later an urgent call came, warning Lady to get out of Dodge — don’t even pack.

The cops were on their way.

Tipped off, the Ladys successfully fled the country. But they left behind a bonanza of evidence in their dream home...

[snip]

...it’s hard to be too sympathetic for his plight.

Except for this: He was abandoned on the field.

The CIA has disowned him. It hasn’t provided him a lawyer, or helped him pay for one. Lady is on his own.

Answer the F-ing question!

(Via Emptywheel and Elsinora of the DailyKos)

Fmr. US Attorney General John Ashcroft gave a speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois yesterday - and established exactly why current government officials do not stand for public questioning.

Elsinora: ...This other document is a section from the judgment of the Tokyo War Tribunal. After WWII, the Tokyo Tribunal was basically the Nuremberg Trials for Japan. Many Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. And among the tortures listed was the "water treatment," which we nowadays call waterboarding...

John Ashcroft: (interrupting) This is a speech, not a question. I don't mind, but it's not a question.

Elsinora: It will be, sir, just give me a moment. The judgment describes this water treatment, and I quote, "the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach." One man, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding American troops to obtain information. Since Yukio Asano was trying to get information to help defend his country--exactly what you, Mr. Ashcroft, say is acceptible for Americans to do--do you believe that his sentence was unjust?

John Ashcroft: (angrily) Now, listen here. You're comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. We don't do anything like what you described.

It gets worse - read the whole thing, or just Emptywheel's tidy excerpt.

Parallax View

There's a face on Mars!

Wow, this face must have been built by intelligent life, so there must be aliens on Mars! I mean, I know this one photo isn't proof, but wouldn't it be cool if there were aliens on Mars? Lots of people think there are aliens on Mars!

Oh wait:


I guess there isn't a face on Mars...

...


Wow, Obama flipped off Sen. Clinton!


Wow! Does this mean that Obama is losing his temper? Some people say he's too hotheaded to be the President. Maybe the campaign is getting to him, maybe he can't take the pressure!

Oh wait:
I guess he didn't flip off Sen. Clinton.

...

Look! A box that used to contain the body of Christ...!

(H/t to CJR)

Lock Them Up

CJR finds another NYT article that grabs your attention:

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’

The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but almost a quarter of its prisoners.

Now, the fact that we lock up lots of people isn't any big news - I can recall when our prison population surpassed that of China and Jon Stewart sarcastically exclaimed, "We're number 1!"

It's the first part of that sentence that kind of jumps out at you: We're 5% of the world, but we still have more prisoners than anyone else. Not only are we locking up more people than China (a country with four times our population) but we are locking up a lot more. Around 700,000 more than they do.

Why the hell is that?

Read on and find out.

Pirates!

Okay - here's a forced update to my world view: Piracy is alive and well.

(H/t to DangerRoom)

Pirates captured a luxury yacht last week off the Horn of Africa. They took 30 hostages and demanded a ransom.

The French government obliged with two million dollars, and the ship and crew were released.

Then, the French took their money back.

An hour after the pirates had accepted a $2m (£1m) ransom and released the yacht and its 30-strong crew, they were attacked on shore by French military helicopters.


[...]

Naval captain Christophe Prazuck, the spokesman for the French military chiefs of staff, said: "There were four helicopters involved. A sniper [in a Puma helicopter] shot out the motor of the pirates' four-wheel drive vehicle. A second helicoper [a Gazelle] then landed nearby, allowing the six pirates to be arrested under covering fire from two other [Gazelle] helicopters. We are absolutely sure that there were no collateral victims."

[...]

France intends to put the six men on trial for piracy in a French court. At least eight other pirates are believed to have escaped.

Yeah! Take that, you pirate-guys!

But wait! There's more! (Via DR and the Daily Dispatch)

SPAIN worked yesterday to try to win the release of a fishing boat hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia with 26 crew members aboard.

[...]

Spanish media reports said the pirates were demanding money and had fired a grenade launcher at the fishing boat before boarding it, but the Foreign Ministry would not confirm either detail.

Spain has sent one of its frigates after the pirates, and is spooling up diplomatic efforts to release the hostages.

And yesterday, a UAE vessel was seized by pirates before the Somali security forces stormed the vessel and took it back.

Weird.

I'm curious how piracy even works in an age with Satellite imagery and telecommunications. It's not like you've got anywhere to run to.

Separated at Birth

(by way of G-Spot)

Two photos, separated by decades - and little else.

Dukakis - 1988:

Bush - 2003:


'shame we couldn't have gotten this photo before the 2000 election - then these photographs might have one more thing in common...

What Cease Fire?

The Long War answers:

The Mahdi Army cease-fire is all but dead, as the Mahdi Army has openly resisted the Iraqi government's attempts to assert control in Sadrist strongholds in Baghdad, Basrah, and the South. Sadr admitted his political movement issued orders to attack both US and Iraqi troops and has called for Iraqi soldiers and police to desert their units.

It's hard to know where to be on this issue. On the one hand - US and Iraq have needed to take this guy out for a very long time. Earlier restraint has come back to haunt them as Sadr has spun his earlier confrontations with the army as victories.

In that mindset. They should flatten him. The idea that another armed power will hold territory within a country's border is just an anathema to a modern state. The state controls the administration of violence within its borders, period.

On the other hand, I don't know that another Fallujah (which is what it would take) is something that will help things at this point. You surround these urban centers and pummel the Mahdi army into dust - you are going to kill a lot of Iraqis.

Sadr is believed to be in Iran, so no matter how well the battle goes there's no chance you take him out. You can reduce his militia's fighting strength - but it's not clear that these losses would be hard to replace. If his self styled army was composes of highly trained fighters, it would take time to find replacements - but it sure appears that the bulk of these forces are just men with guns. Easy to lose, easy to replace.

To me, that's Iraq in a nutshell. Two bad choices. Which to take?

Gutshot

In usability, you are not supposed to have pride of ownership. You make something, you show it to the user and the user shows you what you really should have built.

In forward thinking companies, you are allowed to build what the user asks for – or at least a reasonable accommodation between the needs of the business and what the user asks for.

The overall principle is that usability will prevent the company from building the wrong thing.

For the past two years, I have been working to design something that is now out in the hands of end users. It has undergone limited, formative tests which identified a number of issues, but the actual build was never tested in any real environment.

Pity.

When rolled out to the user base, the hue and cry was loud enough to bring the deploy to a screeching halt. Improvements were shoved in and a number of enhancements were added – but there was an overall issue with screen design that will not be solved with out a complete unmaking of the current design.

Understandably, the clients are unhappy.

In the ideal word, the build would be tested in a full environment to diagnose user issues with the current design. In full blown usability, time would be taken to determine what is going wrong and where.

There is no time.

The determination was to be made by an email survey, and the early returns are in. The users have spoken: make it like the old system.

This is, of course impossible, for a number of technical and business reasons – but people want what they want.

The net result of all of this is that the existing design will be chucked in favor of a cobbled together replica of the current system's interface.

Being in usability, I should be happy that the users are getting what they've asked for. But it's hard to be happy when essentially, we've failed at our primary function:

We have built the wrong thing.

No Free Lunch

(H/T to TPM)

Okay - George Will spells out the Fed bailout spree in terms I wish more progressives would adopt:

The Fed has no mandate to be the dealmaker for Wall Street socialism.

And this gem:

If Congress cannot suppress its itch to "do something" while markets are correcting the prices of housing and money, Congress could pass a law saying: No company benefiting from a substantial federal subvention (which would now include Morgan) may pay any executive more than the highest pay of a federal civil servant ($124,010). That would dampen Wall Street's enthusiasm for measures that socialize losses while keeping profits private.

Hell, yeah. If the Fed has to save the economy, they should do it, but whatever entity gets saved should pay its pound of flesh. Heads should roll, investors should take a hit and then maybe lessons would be learned.

Maybe if Wall Street knows they can't run crying to the Fed so easy, they might rein in their riskier ventures and start being responsible.

Yes men

Shocked - and yet somehow, unsurprised:

Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
By DAVID BARSTOW

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

We've seen government agencies paying for faux news content pushing pending legislation, and were long past expecting honest statements from cabinet members on any controversial policy - but somehow I'd have expected better from the DoD.

I mean, it's bad enough for the government to scour the earth for like-minded, independent partisans and ask them to defend government policies. It's quite another to round up a group of partisans, tell them what to say, and pretend their commentary is objective.

In political campaigns, they call this astroturfing (the creation of the appearance of grassroots support) - and while we've seen the DoD stoop that low before, this new revelation goes to show this isn't the result of over-eager underlings in the Pentagon - this is high level policy.

The goal was - as the NYT so aptly put it - was to create "a kind of media Trojan horse" which could deliver tainted goods without revealing their origin.

When you can't debate honestly in the public forum - it's the sure sign that your cause is a loser.

Late edit: there's also this bit, which nicely illustrates why the DoD's strategy worked so well for so long - the media is happy to be spoon fed:

...almost weekly the Pentagon continues to conduct briefings with selected military analysts. Many analysts said network officials were only dimly aware of these interactions. The networks, they said, have little grasp of how often they meet with senior officials, or what is discussed.
“I don’t think NBC was even aware we were participating,” said Rick Francona, a longtime military analyst for the network.
Some networks publish biographies on their Web sites that describe their analysts’ military backgrounds and, in some cases, give at least limited information about their business ties. But many analysts also said the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of interest. “None of that ever happened,” said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst until 2006.
“The worst conflict of interest was no interest.”

When the networks cannot be bothered to even ask their analysts "gosh, you keep getting this inside information - wherever does it come from?" then they just pave the way for anyone who tries to manipulate them.

Yet another failure for the fourth estate.

Later edit: The reaction of the networks was also telling:

CBS News declined to comment...
NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures...
ABC, said ... military consultants were not held to the same ethical rules as its full-time journalists...
A spokeswoman for Fox News said executives “refused to participate” in [the NYT] article.
CNN, [while requiring analysts to disclose outside income sources, does not provide] written, specific ethical guidelines...for avoiding real or apparent conflicts of interest.

Holy freaking crap...

Did you see BSG this week??

Aaaaaaaaaaagh!

Late Edit: Spoilers in the comments. You were warned.

The ever shifting measure of inflation

(H/T to CJR)

Here's an interesting little visual aid from the San Diego Union-Tribune:



So, don't like the rate of inflation? If you're in the executive branch, you just change how it's measured.

As Emptywheel would say, *Pixie dust!*