10/31/2003 (LINK) Halloween Blogdogging and NewsHounding -- I suppose it would have been scarier if I had used pics of Bush and Cheney, or Rove and Rummy, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that.

Before I begin, here's a shout out to Ted, a sax player in a local community jazz band. I heard the band tonight; a lifelong friend of mine plays in it. A couple of months ago, Ted was in a local hospital, dying of cancer, given only a few days to live. At some point, Ted, defying expectations, started to regain strength. Not only did he get out of that hospital bed and go home... he resumed his longstanding position in the band. And he played a soulful solo tonight which, in its intensity, went straight through my ears and directly to my heart. Ted doesn't read this blog, but maybe he will get the message that all of us who know him, even if only as his audience, are grateful for the miracle he experienced. I'm not much on attempting to explain or justify miracles, and I don't attribute them to supernatural causes. If pressed, I'd say God has no need of mere magic; the rich complexity of the underlying mechanism of our physical universe is sufficient for all kinds of phenomena, including what many call miracles. But I can find no other proper word for what happened to Ted. Through some combination of faith, inner strength, determination, luck and medical care that didn't get too much in the way, Ted decided there was more music in him... and did what he had to do to make that music. I'm not saying Ted is cured; it was obvious that performing took all the strength he had. But his reappearance in the band and his performance tonight were the most inspiring things I've seen and heard in a long time.

On with the blogdogging and newshounding...

• Ernest Partridge writes a letter to an hypothetical unnamed Republican friend. It's not exactly the letter I would write, but it contains many things I've felt and wished to express. I have one lifelong friend who is a Republican. Sometimes we can talk politics; sometimes not. There's so much I wish I could say. Partridge may have found a way to say those things without risking a longtime friendship.
  
  
• The news about black box voting is finally reaching the mainstream press. This Washington Post article follows a similar Newsweek column by only a few days. I find both columns rather sparse on specifics, compared to what's out there on the sites of record (yes, I know, I'm omitting several). But the very fact that this is surfacing as an issue... just barely in time to accomplish something by the 2004 election, if all goes well... is a good sign.
  
  
• Do you think our press is the freest in the world? Reporters Without Borders certainly doesn't... they rank us 31^st (but see below). The top ranking? A tie among Finland, Iceland, Netherlands and Norway. This report goes beyond mere ranking, exploring causes and circumstances. Among other things, one learns that the U.S. is 135^th in the freedom of its press outside its own borders. Can you spell "embedded," children? Oh... and which countries were ranked lowest? Cuba, at 165^th, and North Korea, at 166^th.
  
  
• Avedon points us to some excellent words by The Last Indisputably Elected President in an interview by Michael Tomasky in The American Prospect.
  
  
• Defense Tech has a disturbing post on the "sons of TIA"... that's Total Information Awareness, later Terrorist Information Awareness, later theoretically de-funded by Congress, but it keeps rearing its ugly head:

  Congress has yanked the funding for Terrorism Information Awareness, the Pentagon's notorious überdatabase effort. But research into TIA-like projects continues, essentially unrestricted. Tomes of regulations tell spooks and cops and g-men how they can amass intelligence and gather evidence. But much of the data mined by these children of TIA -- like itineraries, school transcripts and credit card receipts -- might not fall under those traditional definitions. There's only a vague sense that these database-combing programs can't be allowed to grow out of control.

  Spy on everyone in America, all the time, all their daily activities... what a grand idea. If only stopping it were as simple as removing Poindexter. Maybe they should have called it Hydra.
  
  
• Victoria's Secret reveals too much -- in particular, it had no protections on its web site to prevent one customer from viewing another's order information. This is just plain stupid. Everyone who develops commercial web sites professionally knows how to prevent this. Well, maybe every web developer but one... probably male, straight, and too distracted looking at the pictures.
  
  
• Bob Herbert tells us about the ongoing jobless "recovery." How any ordinary nonwealthy working American can call it a recovery when employment, despite recent claims, remains at best level, and that level is about 3 million down from the level when Bush took office, is a mystery to me. Jobless America, land that I love... Herbert puts it this way:

  It's a reality in which:
  
  

  • The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by three million in the past two years.
  • The median household income has fallen for the past two years.
  • The number of dual-income families, particularly those with children under 18, has declined sharply.

  
  The administration can spin its "recovery" any way it wants. But working families can't pay their bills with data about the gross domestic product.

  
  
  
• From TomPaine.com, we have this distressingly accurate assessment of Bush's plans for the environment:

  When it comes to sheer nerve, you’ve got to hand it to George W. Bush. Air pollution is called "clear skies." Wilderness logging is "healthy forests."
  
  The newest Bush attack on the environment doesn’t have an Orwellian name yet, but it could be the most insidious of all—a dismembering of the regulatory process itself.

  Bush, of course, plans to effectively undo, by regulation, all the environmental law since Nixon... Nixon, mind you... rolling back three decades of interpretation of environmental law. Don't forget that the Bush White House's own Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently determined that environmental protection is cost-effective, contrary to conventional (i.e., industry-fed) wisdom. So this is not only mindlessly destructive of our forests, our air, our water, etc., but also just plain bad business:

  Using the most conservative assumptions, OMB found that, on average, each dollar spent on environmental regulation over the past decade returned more than six dollars in health care savings and improved worker productivity.

  Bad for business, I tell you... except, perhaps, for a few of Bush's cronies and big contributors. How can anyone, whatever their partisan leanings, whatever their location on the liberal/conservative, libertarian/authoritarian grid, support this kind of garbage?
  
  
• Reading your mail -- Teresa of Making Light points to a new proposed offense against one's sense of privacy:

  The latest development in the administration’s program to crack down on the basic freedoms of ordinary law-abiding citizens, while doing nothing to make us more secure, is this plan to require ID on outgoing mail.

  From that CNN article:

  WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Postal Service is taking a first step toward requiring all senders of mail to identify themselves, a move prompted by the anthrax scare two years ago this month.
  
  Five people died of anthrax infection and 13 others became sick when an unknown person or persons sent several U.S. senators and media organizations envelopes containing the deadly toxin.
  
  As a first step, the Postal Service has proposed a regulation that would require sender identification of discount-rate mail.

  This is absurd on so many levels: have they caught the original anthrax mailer yet? Wouldn't that be an important step in protecting us against such things? Back then, everyone wrote that it was difficult to weaponize anthrax, and that few people had both the knowledge and equipment necessary, and that acquiring such equipment would raise an alarm flag for anyone in, say, DHS who was really interested in protecting the population from anthrax. So... what is this proposed reg really for? Now, don't strain your brain figuring it out.
  
  
• dsb3, who blogs along with Amy on blogAmy.com (no permalinks, scroll down), asks, "What the hell is a Neocon? Or should it be Leocon?" Good question, and dsb3 explores much more than the definition... history, philosophy of Leo Strauss, patterns of self-justified lying by present-day neocon's, etc. Read the comment thread on whether there really is a vast neocon/Leocon conspiracy. (Hint: dsb3, initially inclined to no conspiracy, compromised with me and agreed to my suggestion that there is a half-vast conspiracy.
  
  
• Jeanne is on a roll these days. I can't begin to list every bit of her recent opus, but it's all essential reading. Try her posts here about an effective Democratic frame, here about how Iraq really does resemble Vietnam for those of us old enough to remember the latter, here about the admirable (in my opinion and Jeanne's) Robert Fisk, and here for one of the best posts questioning why "security by obscurity" is a bad idea in voting systems, specifically, why it is better to have open source code rather than keeping it a trade secret. Be sure to read the comment thread on that last one.
  
  
• The rabidly nonpartisan, possibly charismatic NTodd did a lot of thinking on his way home from a volleyball game, about the Atrios/Luskin war and about how, and to what degree, the Green Party is or is not responsible for the mess in 2000. Always read NTodd's comment threads for a goodly dose of well-turned snark, some entries dropped there by the YDD, others by intelligent commenters.
  
  
• No blogdogging effort would be complete without a poem by Mad Kane, in this case, "Ode to the Barbed Bushes," Mad's, umm, "tribute" to perhaps my least favorite first lady in my lifetime. Mad fries Barb and Poppy as crisp as proper Texas hash-browns. Grin!

10/29/2003 (LINK) FBI visits software engineer re voting systems opinions -- We all knew this would happen eventually. According to Mark Crispin Miller (see his site for more specific source information), the FBI has visited the home of at least one software engineer who dared to voice the opinion that the current voting system in Maryland is more secure than the DRE systems it is about to be replaced with. From an email attributed to that software engineer:

Also, two FBI agents came by my house last week asking for names of radicals and organizations. My email is being monitored. Anyone on this board should assume the same.

10/28/2003 (LINK) Jeanne on voting security -- In her post, Geek Love, Jeanne asks an obvious question with an answer apparently not as obvious to nongeeks as to geeks. Fortunately, there are a lot of really knowledgeable and articulate people to help her... and the rest of us... with the answers. The obvious question:

Other than a company's interest in protecting its trade secrets, is there any reason to keep the computer code used to count votes from the public? My first non-geek thought is that it should be secret, since you don't want to make how to hack the system public information. But the one thing my slightly geeky son keeps telling me is that there's nothing that's really a secret. So wouldn't it make sense to open the whole thing up, invite everybody in, to make the flaws visible?

10/28/2003 (LINK) For Sylvester Turner (with a nod of respect to Bill White) -- I voted yesterday for Sylvester Turner for Mayor of Houston. I urge others to do likewise.

Understand clearly: my vote is for Sylvester Turner, not against Bill White. (Forgive me if I ignore the third major candidate... if you're unclear why, please go read the name of this blog.) Notwithstanding Turner's recent problems from a partisan viewpoint, his environmental record in the Legislature makes him the clear choice for someone like me whose primary local issue is the environment. It also doesn't hurt that I find Turner an energetic and enthusiastic speaker: frankly, our mayor needs to be a cheerleader for our city as well as a master of the political craft, and Turner brings to the job his oratorical skills as well as the necessary political and managerial skills.

Someone I know who is a leader in the local environmentalist community (I'm trying to reach him to get his permission to attribute) sent a broadcast email among his friends and colleagues describing the process by which he decided to vote for Turner. Here are some excerpts:

Between Bill White and Sylvester Turner, it comes down to managerial skill vs. someone who will open to input, but a staunch advocate for his policies. One of Bill White's major campaign themes is competence and experience. He certainly seems to have that, although I'm a little unclear about what his businesses have actually done or what he did when working for the federal government. He also has values that I generally agree with, including an interest in working to solve problems and value for the environment. He seems to be a person who genuinely can get along with anyone.

Sylvester Turner brings years of experience understanding state government budgets and policy issues. He will not need to be trained to understand what a city government can and can't do, and he knows people he can call on for input and advice. He is a dynamic communicator, someone who as mayor will help Houston move forward and grow as a community.

... I think air quality makes an interesting case study contrasting these two candidates. During the key years when Houston's clean air plan was formulated, Bill White was Environmental Chair for the Greater Houston Partnership, Houston's leading business/industry voice. Bill White has expressed his desire for clean air in very personal terms, but the Greater Houston Partnership has been a focus for efforts to stall or otherwise limit the effectiveness of regulations we need to get the air cleaned up. During his time as chair, others in the GHP moved the focus of resistance into subsidiary groups with pleasant-sounding names. These are very powerful people. If Bill White actively opposed them, neither I nor others with whom I've checked have heard of his opposition. Rather, it seems that he found some small "win-win" things to work on. While this was a step forward for the GHP, it was a pretty small step.

Sylvester Turner played a key role in the electric utility restructuring bill, and his major contribution was to insist that utilities install strong pollution controls on an early timetable, ahead of industry. With all the delays that industry is currently securing from the state, it is nice to have some level of pollution reduction "in the bag" and required by a state law. Today we are breathing cleaner air in Houston because of Turner's work on this bill.

• Nader in 2000 was a spoiler, an intentional spoiler and only a spoiler: he never had any chance of winning, and ended up with a tiny percentage of the vote. (To avoid fistfights with friends: yes, I know; the election should never have been that close, and the Gore team bears considerable responsibility.) Turner, on the other hand, has not only mounted a serious campaign, but has, at times in the course of that campaign, shown a strong possibility of winning. No one who has had a legitimate chance to win can be considered merely a spoiler.
• The latest poll numbers I've seen (I have only published numbers available; no inside-politics here) are White 38 percent; Sanchez 32 percent (down 6) and Turner 26 percent (up 3). White's apparent commanding lead makes it unlikely in my opinion that Sanchez can miraculously win the regular election, so there will likely be a runoff, whether or not I and a few other diehards vote for Turner.

10/27/2003 (LINK) PlameGate leakers: DOMESTIC TERRORISTS? -- Sam Dash thinks that, under the PATRIOT Act, they may be classified as such. The short version: the PATRIOT Act has a section that defines "domestic terrorism" as "acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any state" that "appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population." Dash goes on to show how the act of outing Plame meets each of those criteria. He argues, and I agree, that it would be crazy to charge the leakers under the PATRIOT Act... there are other statutes more obviously applicable... but their vulnerability under the PATRIOT Act puts the lie to Ashcroft's assertion of the supposedly benign nature of that terrible law.

(Link via TalkLeft.)

10/27/2003 (LINK) This whole business regarding Terri Schiavo offends me... and scares me.

Before I start into this, please be aware that I had to make the decision to let my father go when he was briefly on life support in his last day on this earth. So this is no idle speculation on my part: I have seen this problem face to face. Fortunately, Dad had talked about the matter not once but several times; better still, he had a living will. Informed by several doctors that Dad was brain-dead past all recovery, I explained his expressed wishes to the doctors, who fortunately... for Dad and for me... agreed to remove the "life" support.

Dad was on support for a little over a day after congestive heart failure in the final stages of lung cancer took him down, and it was horrible. I cannot imagine the frame of mind of the family members that want to prolong this awful state, for their dying loved one and for themselves. I am especially puzzled that self-professed Christians, who presumably believe in an eternal reward, would be so reluctant to let their otherwise effectively dead child or parent or sibling go to that reward naturally. Pardon me if I see a certain selfishness in their behavior, a selfishness that I find impossible to identify with, and more than a little hard to take.

Do I miss my Dad? I miss him terribly, every single day, eight years after his death. But the Dad I miss has nothing to do with what his body became in that last day. Preserving breath in that body would have been a violation of who he was and what he believed. And so I express for myself, as Dad did for himself, an unwavering declaration: no extreme means; no persistent vegetative state; no coma. When it's my time, let me go.

10/27/2003 (LINK) BlackBoxVoting.org and Chapter 11 BlackBoxVoting.org is up, and Chapter 11 of the book (still without footnotes) is available here (as a .PDF file). At the moment, BlackBoxVoting.com is still showing only a domain registration notice; I suppose the transition to a new host is still underway there. That would also probably explain why the footnotes haven't been completed. A couple of people working 24 hours a day can still do only so much. Democracy and technology are never easy matters, are they?

10/26/2003 (LINK) Sunday evening secular sermon -- Well, maybe that's a contradiction in terms; I don't know. Call this post PATRIOT Shames if you wish. But I'm inspired by the day's events to do a bit of "preaching," not on a religious subject, but in part on our very religious freedom itself. The so-called PATRIOT Act is two years old today, and I need to rant a bit. Here's the seed of my screed:

In 1920, when the ACLU was founded by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Albert DeSilver and others, civil liberties were in a sorry state. Activists were languishing in jail for distributing anti-war literature. Foreign-born people suspected of political radicalism were subject to summary deportation. Racial segregation was the law of the land and state sanctioned violence against African Americans was routine. Constitutional rights for lesbians and gay men, the poor and many other groups were virtually unthinkable. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court had yet to uphold a single free speech claim under the First Amendment.

10/24/2003 (LINK) Wednesday morning, 3 A.M. -- S&G aside, that's when this thing apparently was born. Of course I blame the Bush administration for it! No, not really; just kidding. They may have a flare (sic) for disruption, but fortunately there are still a few things in the solar system that are not under their control! At least your cell phone will probably work. But those of you with pagers, satellite-based internet connections etc. may want to stock up on books to read. And I, for one, might be somewhat reluctant to fly: "Planes are operating up in the atmosphere, and they are experiencing radio blackouts, especially at the high latitudes," said one expert.

A good friend gave me a nice little little Grundig multiband receiver for my birthday a few months ago. It's really, really cute; the form factor alone would make it appealing, and it works pretty well, too. I haven't had much chance to try it, though the few times I have, it has made me nostalgic for my ham radio days forty years ago. But I guess now might not be the ideal time to crank it up!

10/24/2003 (LINK) "Like lambs to the slaughter, we're drinking the water -- and breathing (cough...) the air." (If no one else catches that reference, at least vaara will.)

Yesterday was a purple air quality alert in Houston. That's the second highest level: right below "Hazardous", the purple category is labeled "Very Unhealthy." No kidding. This time, the culprit was ozone. I stayed indoors until required to go out for a meeting in the evening. One of the attendees was the executive director of GHASP (Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention); he said they were still trying to determine the source, possibly an upset emission, but they just don't know yet. Meanwhile, the air is "Moderate" this morning, not that that means much... most ozone incidents happen in the afternoon.

Bear with me while I tell you some things you probably already know, at least if you live in a large industrial city. According to the American Lung Association,

Ozone acts as a powerful respiratory irritant at the levels frequently found in most of the nation's urban areas during summer months. Ozone exposure may lead to:

• shortness of breath
• chest pain when inhaling deeply
• wheezing and coughing

Long-term, repeated exposure to high levels of ozone may lead to large reductions in lung function, inflammation of the lung lining and increased respiratory discomfort. The EPA estimates that 5 to 20 percent of the total U.S. population is especially susceptible to the harmful effects of ozone air pollution.

Every woman and kid and man 'll
Choke near Houston's old Ship Channel;
The ozone each Houstonian breathes
Is sure to make us cough and wheeze.
Pollution, pollution,
Particulates, sulfur, NOx;
Air we don't clean
Is what's cleaning our clocks.

- SB the YDD

10/23/2003 (LINK) Chapter 11 - UPDATED -- No, I'm not bankrupt... yet. This is a story about someone who was morally bankrupt in November 2000. And about Chapter 11 of Bev Harris's serialized book, Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century.

The book has been released in installments over a period of several weeks. Today, Chapter 11 emerged, and it's a blockbuster. The blackboxvoting.com site will be down from tonight until sometime this weekend, while they port the site to a host where, one hopes, they will be less vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks, fake spam accusations, etc. I am sure Diebold, or someone friendly to Diebold, will try everything to bring them down again; let's hope for the best. Meanwhile, I am taking the liberty of posting Chapter 11 (without footnotes; those are promised this weekend) on my own site:

BBV Chapter 11 (Note: it's a .PDF file.) This document is temporary; when the full version is available and when blackboxvoting.com reappears on the web sometime this weekend, I'll replace the link above with a link to the original chapter. (UPDATE: the chapter is now on the BlackBoxVoting.org site here. As I write this, BlackBoxVoting.org is up; BlackBoxVoting.com is not.)

So: what's the blockbuster? Basically this:

CBS and other networks called the 2000 election for Bush... and Gore prepared to make a concession speech... BASED IN PART ON CORRUPTED DATA FROM A DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINE IN VOLUSIA COUNTY, FLORIDA... DATA THAT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED DELIBERATELY, using an extra memory card that has since disappeared.

10/22/2003 (LINK) Miscellany -- I have work to do for two clients today... the first time that has happened in years... so I probably won't be blogging much. Here's a list of what caught my attention yesterday and today:

• If you read one serious column today, read Seymour Hersh's detailed chronology of Yellowcakegate in his article, The Stovepipe. It is clear that the Bush administration has stood the entire intelligence process on its end, in an attempt to force it to provide high administration officials with raw, unevaluated intelligence, which they in turn use for their own purposes.
• Byrd's "Emperor" speech. Read, and be grateful he's in the Senate.
• Sexual identity genetically determined. Chew on that, Rick Santorum... if you can take your chops off your poor, abused dog for a few minutes.
• This is unconscionable, though nothing new. Considering sElection 2000, Jeb Bush seems to have a history of forcing life on the brain-dead for political reasons, but who knew he would ever be permitted to make the decision for someone else's family member. (Yes, I'm being flippant. But you're wrong if you think I have never had to face this decision myself. Fortunately, Dad had a living will. Fortunately, the doctor was not one to go against Dad's wishes. And fortunately, Jeb Bush was thousands of miles away.)
• Democrats who voted for this Have a lot to answer for. Republicans, too. Is this what it means to keep the government out of people's private lives? I know that a few members of Congress are physicians, but what are the rest of them doing practicing medicine?
• This is a classic. Uh, no, it is about the classics, and how they apply to today's leaders. It is also rather silly. Read the first few grafs; the rest is much the same.
• And this is really silly! (Hmm... can this law clerk be persuaded to make a similar sushi bar survey for Houston?)
• Ashcroft makes sure he is briefed on Plamegate, despite his clear conflict of interest. I wonder who else he may be briefing in turn.
• Tuition. Isn't that a song from Fiddler on the Roof? Let's just say that if I were growing up in these times, as a child of a family in the same economic circumstances as mine in my childhood, I would not have the opportunity to get a college education.

10/21/2003 (LINK) Slip-sliding away -- That old Paul Simon song was my earworm as I awoke this morning. So far, it is proving prophetic.

From the Houston Chronicle, we have an article titled

City's open spaces filled with questions -- Limited land forces choice between recreation or natural beauty

Until the early 1970s, parks and recreation were generally viewed as separate public services, said John Crompton, a distinguished professor of recreation, park and tourism sciences at Texas A&M University.

"Parks historically were places of landscaped beauty," Crompton said. "Recreation was a separate department, usually dealing with young people and the active side of things. Its main purpose was to alleviate delinquency among young males."

Councilwoman Annise Parker, who chairs the committee, said the best way to resolve green-space-versus-recreation disputes is for the city to acquire more land for both purposes. A study this year by the Trust for Public Land showed that Houston has 10.9 acres of parks for every 1,000 residents, ranking 16th on a list of 20 cities with similar population density.

"I don't know that we'd be in this fight if we had adequate park space in this city," Parker said.

10/20/2003 (LINK) More blogdogging; more newshounding (sorry, no shark-jumping or pooch-screwing today; maybe some cat-blogging in a week or two) --

• Avedon Carol of Sideshow, in her own web wrap-up, and elsewhere on her excellent site, leads us to several matters of considerable significance:
  • One is Sen. Robert Byrd's excellent "The Emperor has no clothes" speech, which he delivers hot on the heels of his recent "Fie!" speech. Yes, happily, one may still shout "Fie!" in a crowded Senate. ("Fie" link via NTodd).
  • Avedon also points us to a column by Georgie Anne Geyer examining the apparently widening rift between Bush 41 and Bush (allegedly) 43, and how Poppy is conveying his displeasure to Junior. I admit I'm not usually a fan of Geyer, but this time it appears she nails it. Avedon has the link, and more. So we have a Bush too extreme for the Bush family, in charge of everything... are we doomed?
  • Finally, Avedon provides lingerie links, with images of same, depicted in situ, together with links to instructions for men on how to unhook a bra. (Note to Mr. Sideshow... pay more attention!) Full disclosure, so to speak: October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the online lingerie store Avedon links to is donating part of its profits to breast cancer research. Seriously... no joke... I spent a couple of years of my life writing risk assessment software for M.D. Anderson Cancer Center as part of a research program to help women evaluate their status regarding the various cancers specific to women. This is a challenging and ongoing effort, and deserves everyone's support. If you don't contribute directly to the cause, at least buy your lingerie from that place.
• Jim Capozzola, whose Rittenhouse Review has always provided for the rest of us, through his superb writing and well-conceived commentary, an example of what a blog can be, is finding it challenging to maintain and continue his blog, not for lack of inspiration or dedication, but because he is out of a job. Most of us have been there, and believe me, we understand.
  
  I've often said in jest that work is the curse of the blogging classes, but lack of work can be a much greater curse. My own contract work comes and goes, and as it does so, my blogging comes and goes. Curiously enough, when I'm working, I manage to blog more than when I'm looking for work... so it is no surprise to me that James is experiencing the same thing.
  
  Rittenhouse Review has a tip jar and a reading wish list. I've never had such things here, but I take no position on whether one should or shouldn't... the web (indeed, the blogosphere alone) is big enough to encompass a wide range of approaches, from "pure" sites like Common Dreams to sites offering premiums like BuzzFlash to blogs with varying degrees of commercial content. In a just world, Capozzola and a couple of dozen other well-respected bloggers would have grants from some sort of liberal foundation, to allow them to blog full-time. If you are in charge of such a foundation, I urge you to make that possible. If not, drop what you can in the Rittenhouse bowl, or help James find suitable work.
• This post will be continued later this evening. At the moment, I do have a bit of contract work, and I have to attend to it. Thanks as always for your patience.

10/19/2003 (LINK) Blimp! -- A small blimp is flying lazy spirals over my part of Houston at the moment. I borrowed Linda's binoculars (much better than mine) and read the sign on the side of the blimp: "1-800-MEDICARE". So... is this Bush's new, improved, privatized Medicare, proving that it really does fly? Or perhaps everything is still up in the air? Most likely this is just a trial balloon...

10/17/2003 (LINK) Newshounding --

• Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry's fame, has created a whimsical statue of Bush called Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. According to reports, the statue's pants really do shoot flames. I can't wait for the pictures! Oh, wait, they're here! Not great pics, though.
• English only, at dad's home -- A judge ordered an Hispanic father to speak primarily English to his 5-year-old daughter as a condition of his visitation rights. What do you expect from a judge named Ronald Reagan. I've since read on TalkLeft that the judge has taken himself off the case, in response to many complaints that his ruling was discriminatory. (Well, yes, and it was also contrary to the First Amendment.)
• Environmental racism? Certainly environmental negligence, and maybe worse. The situation in Acres Homes, an older, primarily African American community in Houston, is much worse than anyone thought. Considering what was already known, these new revelations of old landfills just 2-1/2 feet below people's lawns, and high concentrations of toxic metals, have finally triggered a serious investigation. These old dumps were run from the 1950s to the late 1980s, were largely unregulated, were used indiscriminately both with and without authorization, and may (or may not) be the trigger for elevated cancer rates in some parts of Acres Homes. For what it's worth, State Rep. Sylvester Turner, candidate for mayor of Houston, grew up in Acres Homes; not surprisingly, Turner has been one of the most active legislators in pursuit of environmental justice. (I'll be announcing my formal endorsement of Turner in a separate post later this week. I know, I know; that and $3.50 will get Rep. Turner a Starbucks latte.)
• Molly Ivins tells us why we should be worried about our life savings, even if they're invested in plain old mutual funds. Among many other items, Molly quotes Robert C. North, chief actuary for New York City’s five pension funds: "On a risk-adjusted basis, the only people who can make money on this are the investment bankers." Scary stuff.
• Lt. Gen. "Jerry" Boykin seems to have forgotten that he is in the U.S. Army, not the Salvation Army. (Apologies to any who are offended; I have nothing against the Salvation Army. Please read the article to see what I mean.) Some samples of Boykin's statements:

  Yet the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."
  
  Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
  
  "We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin said last year.
  
  On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there."

  No. Bush is in the White House because the Felonious Five on the Supreme Court put him there. But that is hardly the issue here. The issue is that Boykin has been appointed deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. It shouldn't take much, um, intelligence to see how putting a religious zealot... one might say bigot... in a sub-Cabinet-level position is a bad idea.
• Safe? -- Anything in a bottle in your bathroom cabinet must be safe, right? Likewise, anything routinely added to the food you eat is surely benign? scientifically tested and all that, right? In a word, NO. And the U.S. chemical industry wants to keep it that way... not only here, but also in Europe.
• Safe and Free? -- You'll probably never see these people's signatures all on the same letter, ever again, so look quickly at the list of organizations and leaders who signed a letter in support of S. 1709, the Security and Freedom Enhanced (SAFE) Act of 2003. This act rolls back some of the most egregious and invasive provisions of the PATRIOT Act, providing more judicial oversight, limitation of the duration of some surveillance even once it is authorized by a court, and a sunsetting of some of the more draconian provisions of the PATRIOT Act. It is heartening to me to see the ACLU, the American Conservative Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Gun Owners of America and the American Library Association all on the same page for once... all aware of the damage the PATRIOT Act does to our civil liberties. And just look at that bipartisan list of sponsors in the Senate. There is hope for us yet!