February 2005 Archives

Per Slashdot, here's an article on Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore's effort to challenge secret federal laws requiring travelers to present identification papers at airports.

The case raises an interesting question: Does a system allowing the government to track our whereabouts really make us safer? You can read more about it here.

It's healthy for our society that people like Mr. Gilmore are willing to fight rules which most people simply don't bother to question. Since 9/11, the government has been doing a lot of things that have not been subject to adequate public scrutiny. We need people to force the issue of why.

Timothy Noah points out what most people interested in the issue probably already know--that Wal-Mart doesn't pay its employees very well.

Meanwhile, Frank Rich notes that if the public doesn't approve of Wal-Mart's labor practices, one couldn't tell. For we continue to reward bad behavior by demanding the lowest prices on everything.

Yes, I'm guilty as charged. Not only is there that price factor, but Wal-Mart is also the closest store to the house. So I can be spotted there on occasion. Makes it harder to complain about the corporate practices, doesn't it?

Heh

and

heh.

Not to be confused with the efforts here.

It's touching when corporations say they want to prevent underage addiction to their addictive products.

American Library Association president Michael Gorman confronts the "blog people" who challenged his criticism of Googlized research.

Sounds like an upcoming movie: "Revenge of the Blog People."

I was away from the computer/news most of the day, and upon returning I see that news TV is hot and heavy on the Pope's throat surgery. From what I've seen, this story has two elements thus far:

(1) The Pope had a tracheotomy, and

(2) The powers that be have deemed it successful.

It takes less than a minute to adequately cover these points. The remainder of the continuous coverage is being consumed by general Pope talk and surgery fillers. Which, in my view, aren't too interesting.

There's only some much interest you can milk out of someone's post-operative status. The newsies either need to elevate this story to a death watch or move to another story.

I don't have an iPod. But it's interesting to read (via Len) that you're only supposed to download the music Apple has approved for you to hear.

Lame.

I've fallen prey to the buying bug. After a couple summers of renewed interest in bicycling, I've determined that I need a newer bike. Well, I guess that depends on how one defines "need." My 21-year-old Raleigh rides about as well as it did a year or two ago. But it's not as fast or sexy as the new ones. And who doesn't like fast or sexy? Besides, the old faithful has a weight issue, and extra pounds aren't your friend when you're headed up any of East Tennessee's finer hills.

I haven't decided what to buy yet; I'm leaning toward a carbon fiber frame with an ultegra-level components. Thus far I've looked at some Treks, Bianchis, Felts, and Giants. Hope to check out Specialized, Litespeed, and a couple other brands soon. My hunch is that within a given price range, the quality of a majority bikes is comparable. So test rides are primarily focused on fit and feel.

If it's been a while since you priced road bikes. Or if, like me, you're cheap, you might be surprised at the cost of these machines. So in addition to finding a bike I like, I've also been going through some rationalization exercises to justify a purchase. Here's a few of the things I've come up with:

(1) Haven't bought a bike in 20 years.

(2) The cost isn't so bad if you amortize it over a number of years.

(3) I don't spend a lot on entertainment/recreation.

(4) Cost isn't so bad when you compare it to recreations such as golf and travel.

(5) An investment in health.

(6) You're only "young" once.

(7) It's fun.

I hope to complete this process soon. Warm weather is fast approaching.

I received a mailing from the health insurance company touting how losing weight "can improve your health and lower your health care costs."

So if I'm not overweight, shouldn't I be entitled to a lower premium? Oh, that's right, they're talking about their lowered costs.

No one could have ever imagined this was going on at DHS:

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met privately with Republican pollsters twice in a 10-day span last spring as he embarked on more than a dozen trips to presidential battleground states.

Ridge's get-togethers with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff during a period the secretary was saying his agency was playing no role in Bush's re-election campaign were revealed in daily appointment calendars obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," Ridge told reporters during the election season.

His aides resisted releasing the calendars for over a year, finally providing them to the AP three days after Ridge left office this month.

Shocking, eh?

. . . at newsrack blog. Thomas also has some bests of 2004.

As Congress deliberates the upcoming budget, they were treated with a string of administration officials yesterday warning of the terror threat [while offering no specifics or new information].

It's kind of funny--we really hadn't heard much about al Qaeda since . . . right before the presidential election. Did the terrorists go on vacation during November, December, and January? It's interesting how the tide of their "chatter" apparently rises and falls in synch with the Washington political calendar.

A poll finds that Republicans would choose George W. Bush over George Washington by a two to one margin. A scary indication of the sheep-like mindset of the majority party.

It also indicates that most Americans are pretty clueless about Washington's era.

No wonder rightist often try to frame arguments around what they claim the founding fathers intended--most Americans don't have a clue whether whether the pundits are telling the truth or not. So they can say whatever they want and most people won't know the difference.

Click here to see if the following description matches the work product of your favorite Fox News Channel anchor: "premeditated, historical fraud."

The Tulsa World attempts to get a blogger to remove newspaper content and unauthorized links from his website.

I'm not sure if this move is politically-motivated or simply News Media, Inc. trying to maintain its monopoly. At any rate it's lame.

Back on Inauguration Day, the Washington Post ran a Bush administration-spun piece on how a reflective President Bush was looking to change the tone of Washington based on some of the lessons he had learned during his first term:

President Bush is a politician with large ambitions and few doubts, someone not easily given to mea culpas. But in the run-up to today's inauguration, he has at least hinted at some of the lessons learned in office. From his relations with Democrats in Congress to his approach to the rest of the world, Bush has suggested he will try to strike a different tone -- without abandoning principles or policies.

So, how's that transformation been going so far? It's been a very subtle one, if Representative Charles Rangle (D-NY) is correct concerning the president's lobbying efforts for Social Security "reform":

But there is no Democrat in the House of Representatives, or on my committee, that this president has reached out for. I'm telling you now, Social Security reform by the president is dead, and he killed it.

Huh? This is supposed to be one of Bush's top priorities, right? Even under the best of circumstances, it would be very hard for a president to change Social Security. Are you telling me this president is trying to do this without making a serious effort to reach out to any Democrats? Yet another example of incompetence in action.

But there's more. Less than a month into his second term, Bush has applied his "lessons learned" by resubmitting a list of 12 judicial appointments which the Democrats blocked the first term. Apparently the lesson learned was to not waste any time in sticking something back in your opponents' faces when you have the votes.

A month ago, we heard an awful lot of hot air from the chattering classes about the "changed" Mr. Bush. It was just that--hot air. Nothing has changed; it's the same old "W."

I only flipped channels a few minutes on TV last night and saw two segments on how "bloggers" are taking on big media and turning the world upside down.

From what I've seen, it's generally not individual "bloggers" who are making ripples. After all, most of them are not full-time investigative journalists. Instead, it's the community of web log readers working in a collaborative, open-source manner who are unearthing stories. That distinction often doesn't come across in the TV discussions.

. . . to those of you celebrating that kind of thing.

UPDATE: Nothing like a heartwarming story to add to the day. Who says romance is dead? I might . . . but I'd be wrong. Because at long last Mary Kay LeTourneau and her student will be married. Chalk one up for prison rehabilitation.

If find their romance as moving as . . . well, someone might, you can send a wedding gift. Looks like they need cookware and linens.

UPDATE: Wow, some florist was busy delivering to Senator Boxer's office.

Thanks to a growing right-wing audience, Fox News Channel is seeking to expand its news operations to include facts! Help wanted:

Fact Writer

New York

Responsibilities include writing on-air facts and press conference quotes for daytime programming. Individuals must have strong writing skills, be able to handle multiple assignments and deadlines, and work well in a team atmosphere. Excellent communication and writing skills are also required.

A successful candidate will:
- Possess a strong interest in news and be well-informed about current events
- Be detail-oriented and pay close attention to spelling, grammar, syntax
- Have ability to write in a concise, conversational and colorful style at an extremely fast pace

Must be willing to work on a flexible schedule including weekend shifts. This is a high-pressure position where your work product gets national exposure on a daily basis. A bachelor's degree is required.

Experience at Talon News helpful, but not required.

[If I'm ever married] my wife having a sexual affair with a 13-year-old boy.

Seems like it's been going around lately.

Coming soon to a school near you:

SUTTER, Calif. - The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will rob their children of privacy.

The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.

The way things are heading, it won't be long before Big Brother will track anybody anytime anywhere.

I was channel surfing the newsies last night, and without looking for it, I noted that at least three shows (two on CNN) headlined with the Professer Ward Churchill controversy. This might have been a pretty newsworthy story . . . three years ago when he wrote the essay.

So why was it dominating the air waves last night? Because the right wing noise factory has pushed it to the forefront of the media, with the so-called "liberal" media dutifully marching in step.

Just another example of how conservatives, not liberals, establish the media's agenda.

UPDATE: By the way, while other program hosts were ranting about whether or not a Colorado professor committed treason three years ago, Keith Olbermann had a pretty good piece on the infestation of the White House press corps by a bogus journalist.

If you aren't watching The Keith, you should be.

North Korea has nukes:

North Korea said on Thursday that it had manufactured nuclear weapons for its self-defense and was suspending participation in six-way talks on its atomic arms program for an "indefinite period."
. . .
In North Korea's clearest statement yet that it already possesses nuclear arms, the official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying:

"We had already taken the resolute action of pulling out of the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and have manufactured nukes to cope with the Bush administration's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK (North Korea).

"Its nuclear weapons will remain nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the statement added.
. . .
"We have wanted the six-party talks but we are compelled to suspend our participation in the talks for an indefinite period till we have recognized that there is justification for us to attend the talks and there are ample conditions and atmosphere to expect positive results from the talks," the spokesman was quoted as saying.

"The Bush administration termed the DPRK, its dialogue partner, an outpost of tyranny, putting into the shade its hostile policy, and totally rejected it," the spokesman said.

"This deprived the DPRK of any justification to participate in the six-party talks," the spokesman added.

Bush diplomacy is working spendedly, isn't it?

Should we be surprised?

In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.

But aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission report concluded.

The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."
. . .
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

Accountability recap--number of high ranking government officials who were fired for negligence and incompetence contributing to the deaths of 2,700+ Americans: O.

Mind boggling.

. . . into Red State America:

One Alabama lawmaker has proposed a bill that may yank "The Color Purple," and many other classic works, from public bookshelves.

District 62 Representative, Gerald Allen, says he wants to ban books that, "...sanction, recognize, foster, or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of the state." Allen says it falls right in line with the proposed ban on gay marriage. "A society cannot sustain itself through activities such as this," says Allen, "and for us to promote it with public dollars just doesn't make sense." For many, the proposed law itself doesn't make sense.

Perhaps we could make a big bonfire in the public square to rid ourselves of illegal literature.

Via Crooks and Liars.

Via The General is a web site which will come in handy if you are a parent looking for an affordable rod to swat your child. Because "a single swat has more influence than a thousand threats."

"Joey" and his crew of volunteer craftsmen offer free, handcrafted paddles ($5.75 for shipping to those outside New Kensington, PA--offer good only in USA) to needy parents. Who says you can't get anything for free anymore?

These aren't your run-of-the-mill paddles, either. Craftsman Joey puts "a lot of myself into each thing I create including sweat and sometimes tears." Hard to find that these days.

But wait--there's more! In addition to the paddles, Joey offers online resources for better parenting. There's the downloadable appointment cards, so you can give your child a reminder of his or her upcoming spanking. And a suggested punishment matrix, to establish the correct number of swats for frequent offenses (e.g., two swats for cursing, five swats for drinking). But remember, for best results allow one minute of meditation between each swat, so your child will understand why they are being punished. And only use force sufficient to "get the child's attention" [calibrate your paddle by swatting yourself on the rump and adjusting your swing].

People say it's tough being a parent these days . . . I don't know about that. With resources like this available, how can you go wrong?

Ha ha.

In a related story, I once threw for 400 yards and 4 touchdowns in a game . . . in grade school.

South Knox Bubba examines Knoxville Convention Center bookings and finds less than 40 days for 2005.

Please tell me that the powers behind that mammoth were not this far off in their projections/economic assumptions. This ranks up there with the Titantic's design engineers with respect to margin of error.

http://jeffgannon.com/:

Jeff Gannon

A Voice of the New Media

The voice goes silent.

Because of the attention being paid to me I find it is no longer possible to effectively be a reporter for Talon News. In consideration of the welfare of me and my family I have decided to return to private life.

Thank you to all those who supported me.

No! Not the voice of the new media! What does it take to be an effective "reporter" for Talon News, anyway?

This is a weird story. I suspect we'll be hearing more about "Jeff Gannon" and how he got a White House media credential.

UPDATE: Imagine if it was 1998?

Literally:

The Virginia House of Delegates has tentatively approved a bill to crack down on people who wear low-riding pants.

Freshman Norfolk Delegate Algie Howell Jr. introduced the bill at the urging of constituents who are offended by the exposed underwear.
. . .
Delegates approved a measure that would allow police to assess a $50 fine on anyone who exposes their below-waist underpants in a "lewd or indecent manner."

What if I'm offended by lawmakers who waste legislative time and government resources passing silly bills? Can we ban them from entering the state capitol?

The White House streamlines:

President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, will take on a wider role in developing and coordinating policy in the president's second term, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Rove, who was Bush's top political strategist during his 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, will become a deputy White House chief of staff in charge of coordinating policy between the White House Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, National Security Council and Homeland Security Council.

We have a political consultant shaping national security policy. Probably makes sense, since homeland security has largely been a political operation for the past three years anyway.

An Ohio State Supreme Court justice gets stopped after having too much to drink:

In a video shot by a dashboard camera in the patrol car, Resnick told Patrol Sgt. W. H. Stidham that her husband was on dialysis and that her 97-year-old mother-in-law was in the hospital.

Resnick also admitted to Stidham that she "did have something to drink."

But she insisted she could drive safely and repeatedly asked Stidham to let her go.

"My God, you know I decide all these cases in your favor," she said. "And my golly, look what you're doing to me."

You gotta love it when a "very important" person tries to use this excuse to get out of trouble. No, you can't do this to me--these DUI laws are for the common masses.

NBC News ran a story on a hospital emergency room will see you in 33 minutes or your exam is free:

NBC's "Today" show focused on Green Bay and Madison on Monday in a segment on medical emergency rooms offering speedy service guarantees. "Today" said "perhaps the most generous offer" came from the Aurora Bay Care Medical Center in Green Bay, where a patient's care is started in 33 minutes or less - or the exam is free, up to $400.

Aurora physician Dr. Steve Stroman was quoted: "I love it when patients say to me, 'I came in and no one was here' because the waiting room was empty." Since Aurora Bay ER started the 33-minute guarantee last summer, business has increased about 10 percent. And out of 8,000 cases, the center has missed the 33-minute guarantee only twice.

I think quick medical care is a good idea, especially when it is on all those waiting in line in front of you.

I wish some local places would guarantee quick service. I remember a time not long ago when a post office sign said customers waiting more than five minutes would receive a free stamp. Too bad that offer disappeared, for these days I'd be getting a free stamp every time I went there.

Just saw 41 at the Super Bowl:

Bob Woodward, a reporter on the team that covered the Watergate story, has advised his executive editor at the Washington Post that Throat is ill. And Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Post and one of the few people to whom Woodward confided his source's identity, has publicly acknowledged that he has written Throat's obituary.

The list of Deep Throat suspects currently in bad health can't be that long. This should stir up speculation.

Actions speaking louder than words:

President Bush is proposing to reduce spending on public health and social welfare in the US to help pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq, according to early reports of today's White House budget.

In an attempt to keep government spending under control at a time of record deficits, Mr Bush's proposals to Congress will include cuts in public housing subsidies, in health projects aimed at diseases related to poverty, and in food stamps, which help America's poorest buy groceries.

Mr Bush inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton but is now running deficits of over $400bn (�215bn) a year, partly as a result of an economic slump and the September 11 attacks. But the turnaround is also due to huge tax cuts which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest 1% of Americans, and the war in Iraq, for which the administration has asked for another $80bn this year.

And don't forget our veterans:

President Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said Sunday.

Support our troops!

None of this is much of a surprise. Bush Government, Inc. is designed to offer high returns to the investors (i.e., contributors) who brought it to power. None of the above fit in that select group. So their interests take a back seat to the preferred stockholders.

Eight plus hours of Super Bowl pre-game. Sheesh.

As far as the game goes, I'll pull for Philadelphia, even though they're division rivals. I think we've seen enough of New England for a while.

Using your cell phone may lead to your capture. Fortunately, this couple hadn't figured that out.

UPDATE: I didn't catch this before, but Bubba points out that this couple once operated a "Christian" school in Knox County. Mind boggling.

Catching up on some earlier news. As a Redskins fan, I note that this attempted policy was lame:

The Washington Redskins said yesterday they would no longer require season ticket holders who buy their seats with a credit card to use a Redskins Extra Points MasterCard, dropping a policy the team had announced only a week ago.
. . .
The requirement that fans use a Redskins credit card, which would have affected those buying tickets to FedEx Field's 66,500 regular admission seats, was announced last week in a letter to season ticket holders. Since 2000, Redskins fans have been able to use any credit card to buy their seats, and have always been able to pay by cash or personal check. The team will continue to accept cash or checks, as well as any type of MasterCard, for seats next season.

Why this credit card?

The effect of the Extra Points card on the team's profitability would be minimal, according to the Redskins. The Extra Points cards, issued by league sponsor MBNA Bank, help market the club's brand and allow the team to track its customers' spending habits, allowing more targeted advertising.

More consumer monitoring. Just another sad effort to make consumers wholly-owned subsidiaries of corporate America. Alas.

George W. Bush: privatize Social Security or it will go bankrupt by 1988 . . . err 2018 . . . err 2042 . . . err . . . sometime.

For voting to confirm a torture enableras Attorney General:

Senator Mary Landrieu (La.)

Senator Joseph Lieberman (Conn.)

Senator Ben Nelson (Neb.)

Senator Bill Nelson (Fla.)

Senator Pryor (Ark)

Senator Ken Salazar (Colorado)

And let's not forget Tennessee's finest.

Note to Ann Coulter: Next time you feel the need to argue with a foreign journalist about his nation's history, you might want to get your facts straight.

The ACLU previews corporate/government data collection in action. You might want to think twice before ordering that pizza.

Via TalkLeft.

Heh.

The parallel between Bush's Social Security campaign and the Iraq War public relations campaign is striking: (1) Trumpet up a bogus crisis, then, when that starts to fall through, (2) shift rationales.

Now, we just need to find a way to work "freedom" into the "personal accounts" idea. . . .

. . . at Half-Bakered.

Compare and contrast President Bush's use of the word freedom in State of the Union Addresses (immediately before we invaded Iraq versus last night):

2003: 4 times (not counting "USA Freedom Corps")

2005: 21 times

Interesting. The cynically-minded might call that a post-war rationale shift.

Some fine print from Bush's Social Security piratization privatization plan:

The plan is more complicated. Under the proposal, workers could invest as much as 4 percent of their wages subject to Social Security taxation in a limited assortment of stock, bond and mixed-investment funds. But the government would keep and administer that money. Upon retirement, workers would then be given any money that exceeded inflation-adjusted gains over 3 percent.
. . .
In effect, the accounts would work more like a loan from the government, to be paid back upon retirement at an inflation-adjusted 3 percent interest rate -- the interest the money would have earned if it had been invested in Treasury bonds, said Peter R. Orszag, a Social Security analyst at the Brookings Institution and a former Clinton White House economist.
. . .
Critics of the Bush plan said the proposed "claw back" renders the whole idea of "personal retirement accounts" virtually meaningless. Indeed, the system would ultimately look something like a proposal made by President Bill Clinton, in which the government would have invested Social Security taxes in the stock market.

That idea was criticized by conservatives because the federal government could end up choosing winners and losers in the financial markets. But under the Bush system, the government is still choosing the stocks and bonds to be bought with Social Security money, said Jason Furman, a former Clinton administration economist. Individuals would get a limited choice, and the government would still keep most of the returns.

Conventional wisdom is that the president's plan is already dead on arrival with 90% of the Democrats and a few Republicans. I doubt this is will go over well with a number of the remaining Republicans. If I understand this correctly, it means that in exchange for assuming market risk, individuals can realistically expect only a 0-3% return from these private accounts--the rest will go back to the government.

So our retirement insurance program gets dismantled and seniors get only a minimal return in exchange for assuming market risk. Hmm, who's the big winner here? Those earning commissions from managing all the accounts?

Which candidate was it that Wall Street contributed heavily to last year?

More tax dollars at work:

A Florida State University center has used more than a half-million in education tax dollars to put a positive spin on President Bush's key school policies, including hiring a public relations firm to teach charter schools to be more media-savvy.

Despite conflicting studies on the success of charter schools and other alternative education programs, the School Choice Center at FSU touts them as ways to "increase student achievement, increase parental involvement, promote school improvement through constructive competition, and accomplish racial and ethnic diversity."
. . .
Since 2003, taxpayers have given the center $627,567 as part of a 5-year, $1.2 million federal grant made available through the No Child Left Behind Act, which promotes school choice as a fix for failing public schools.

The center's mission is to make parents aware of all choice programs, including traditional magnet schools, expand the number of choice schools in the state, and help them "work the media" � as was written in one of the PR firm's pamphlets.

But links on the center's Web site are almost entirely to studies and articles from conservative groups and strong school-choice proponents such as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Education Reform and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

These days I think that's called "fair and balanced" reporting.

"McCreary fire department loses building, 4 trucks in blaze."

Who does the fire department call for help when its building is ablaze?

Hey, can I obtain White House media credentials? Because I, too, have virtually no journalistic background, but have launched a website "committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage" to readers.

Where do I apply?

Incidentally, Mr. "Gannon" can already stake claim to one of the most ironic moments of 2005, for asking President Bush about Senate Democrats who are "divorced from reality."

Looking good on paper.

Of course we won't know how good it really is for a couple years.

From Meet the Press:

Specifically, Senator, do you still agree with yourself? Should we raise the retirement age or consider it? Should we raise the cap on income level that people pay payroll tax?

SEN. KERRY: Precisely what I said in 1996 is "We should consider" a number of these things. We did consider them. I considered them. Others did. I rejected them. And I have said again and again throughout the campaign this last year, I do not believe we have to raise the retirement age. I'm not in favor of it. I am absolutely opposed to cutting benefits, and I believe we can save Social Security in any number of ways, Tim, other than what President Bush wants to do.

Senator Kerry graduated from Yale. Senator Kerry graduated from Boston College Law School. Senator Kerry has had plenty of access to communication consultants over the years. You'd think that somewhere along the way someone would have taught Mr. Kerry how to answer questions with simple declarative sentences.

"No, I don't favor raising the retirement age because . . . ."

Yet for whatever reason he talks in a fragmented, passive style which often leaves listeners wondering what he just said. Couple that with the "I voted for it before I voted against it" episodes, and you see one reason why Kerry had a hard time getting a coherent message out.

CJ thinks it's pretty bad that the Iraqi insurgents have been reduced to "capturing" toys for publicity.

That is pretty pathetic--almost as much so as the news media outlets that gave them that publicity by airing an obviously bogus story because it was posted on the Internet.

According to experts, a video by the Iraqi insurgent group 1920 Revolutionary Brigade, which purports to show a British military airplane being shot down, is 'bogus'. Which means the credibility of the 1920 Revolutionary Brigade is pretty well shot. But you've got to hand it to their video production unit for (1) getting footage of the plane's wreckage within one hour of the crash, and (2) having the aforementioned bogus video aired on Al-Jazeera the next day. That's a pretty quick turn around time.

So if this insurgent group thing doesn't work out, you've got to think a few of these people might have a future in the American news media, getting the video footage out immediately as celebrity defendants walk in and out of the courthouse.

Per Josh Marshall, a new government report warns: "our nation's [] policy is on an unsustainable course."

A government policy that is unsustainable? That would be Social Security, right?

Oh my:

Simply put, our nation�s fiscal policy is on an unsustainable course. As long-term budget simulations by GAO, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and others show, over the long term we face a large and growing structural deficit due primarily to known demographic trends and rising health care costs. Continuing on this unsustainable fiscal path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our national security. Our current path also will increasingly constrain our ability to address emerging and unexpected budgetary needs.

Regardless of the assumptions used, all simulations indicate that the problem is too big to be solved by economic growth alone or by making modest changes to existing spending and tax policies. Nothing less than a fundamental reexamination of all major existing spending and tax policies and of priorities is needed

I expect President George W. "I don't believe in passing problems onto future leaders" Bush to conduct an immediate reexamination of his taxing and spending policies in light of this report.

What ever happened to President Bush's bold Moon station/Mars exploration plan? Think we'll be hearing about it in the State of the Union? Interesting.

Anyway whenever we have a serious--rather than poll-driven--proposal to head to Mars this technology might be handy:

Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine, and his brother James, who runs aerospace research firm Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California, envisage beaming microwave energy up from Earth to boil off volatile molecules from a specially formulated paint applied to the sail. The recoil of the molecules as they streamed off the sail would give it a significant kick that would help the craft on its way. "It's a different way of thinking about propulsion," Gregory Benford says. "We leave the engine on the ground."
. . .
In a forthcoming issue of the journal Acta Astronautica, the Benfords explain how a sail covered with a paint designed to emit gas when it is heated might propel a spacecraft to Mars in just a month. A rocket would take the craft to low-Earth orbit, 300 kilometres up. After the craft unfurls a solar sail 100 metres across, a transmitter on Earth would fire microwaves at it to heat it up. The Benfords calculate a one-hour burst of microwaves could accelerate the craft to 60 kilometres per second, faster than any interplanetary spacecraft to date.

I don't know enough about this to comment on its feasibility. But if we're ever going to venture to Mars, we clearly need a faster method of travel. Perhaps this concept will be it.

Josh Marshall on the Social Security "crisis":

The program is in such a dire state of crisis, it would seem, that every time the bean counters run the numbers, its solvency seems assured even further into the future.

As in Iraq, you start to understand that there is a Social Security crisis. The longer President Bush waits, the more likely it is that even rosier numbers will come out on Social Security's long-term financing.

There really isn't a moment to lose.

Indeed. Generally, a president wants to push a major bill through quickly because the longer it takes to pass, the stronger and more organized its opponents become. In this case, Bush is confronting not only an opposition, but also reality. Better act quickly before the two join forces.

Commission a sculptor:

The man replacing the mayor of Baghdad -- who was assassinated for his pro-American loyalties -- says he is not worried about his ties to Washington.

In fact, he'd like to erect a monument to honor President Bush in the middle of the city.

"We will build a statue for Bush," said Ali Fadel, the former provincial council chairman. "He is the symbol of freedom."

I wonder what the over/under odds would be on number of days that would stand intact.

Sickening:

In a calculated campaign of domestic violence, a Knoxville man broke the neck of his stepdaughter's puppy, suffocated it and then laughed as he presented the dead animal to the girl and her mother, a warrant alleges.

One wonders if prison is sufficient punishment for such a creep.