... I'll have them tonight if I stay in this paint-fume-filled apartment.
Want a political nightmare instead? Read
this,
about Florida's wonderful voting machines. Don't expect my usual rant on the subject, though.
After today's trip to a different library with a different
WiFi system, I spent a couple of hours trying to connect, succeeding in obtaining a wireless connection but
failing ever to get DNS. So I came back home and breathed some more poison, and by now I have about the
intelligence of a flower in a box...
... though actually I believe some of those flowers are brighter... and I'm about ready to give up my quest for
representative democracy and substitute rule by horses (aside: this picture is dedicated to our most frequent
anonymous commenter)...
... hoping that someday, some rainbow...
... will eventually lead our nation to something golden...
... say, would you hold this shovel for a moment, please?
That sounds like something Severus Snape should do, doesn't it? (Don't answer that! I haven't started HP&DH
yet!)
I'm finally back home, having spent much of the day in the public library, absorbing their relatively nontoxic
air and using their exasperating WiFi. There are a few things that didn't go wrong today, but I'd have to work
hard to enumerate them, so I won't.
I'm drinking a beer and breathing the air in my apartment, which is full of exceptionally strong paint fumes
from a neighboring apartment. If the mixture doesn't kill me, I'll try to blog tomorrow. I understand now
why painters become alcoholics, and why the combination fries their neurons.
If the mixture does kill me, I expect all of you to carry on until every photo of Bush, Cheney, Gonzales
etc. shows vertical stripes or "bobwar" in front of them and fashionably orange jumpsuits clothing them. But I
plan to be back tomorrow. I'm off to Stella's place to breathe some slightly less toxic air... "slightly"
because last week the same thing happened at her place. And the tap water has tasted "earthy" for a week. Do I
really want to sign a new lease on this place tomorrow? (Yes, I'm afraid I do, damn it all.)
Stella's presentation, "Walking in the Spirit of Thoreau" ... her "sermon" if you insist; that's the place it
occupied in the service... went wonderfully well and was enthusiastically received. Her joy at having that
behind her occasionally reached giddiness today; believe me when I say that's not a usual condition for her. I
remember that feeling from my musical performance days. One can be well-trained in public speaking (or musical
performance) and thoroughly prepared for a speech (or concert), and nonetheless be very glad it's over...
especially when that training and preparation pays off in good results.
We celebrated at an Indian restaurant we visit when we can,
Pavani,
just down the highway a few miles from the UU congregation. The food is satisfying, spicy but somewhat heavy;
as usual after a meal there, I slept the afternoon away once we got home. But before we went home, we stopped
at a used book store...
Score! Right there in front of us as we walked in was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Yes,
I flipped through looking at page numbers; this copy appears complete. No, the price wasn't that much lower than
you could get online, but the book was right there, no waiting. Yes, as it turns out, Stella had already bought
a copy for me for my upcoming birthday. No, there shouldn't be any problem returning that copy for credit. And I
am very glad to be able to begin reading more or less right away... just as soon as I finish another book I've
almost completed. A promise: you'll get no spoilers from me. And I am not a person to turn to the last
page, so I appreciate the same consideration from y'all.
All in all, this was a good day.
LATE UPDATE: I just received word that famed Houston TV reporter Marvin Zindler, a
genuine activist on behalf of the public in more ways than I can count,
died
at age 85, of the cancer he had suffered for a while now. Zindler's virtue was that he never, ever, quit:
The irrasible, flamboyant 85-year-old television personality had been diagnosed in July with inoperable
pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver.
Even in his last days, Zindler continued to work, filing reports from his hospital bed. In his last report,
broadcast Saturday, in which he helped a 45-year-old U.S. citizen secure a social security card necessary for
employment, Zindler appeared thin and his voice was weak.
Still, he signed off with a hearty "MAARVIN ZINDLER, EYEWITNESS NEWS" — his trademark for 34 years with KTRK
Channel 13.
What a life. What a way to go, reporting on behalf of actual people facing real problems, almost to his last
breath. We'll miss you, Marvin...
And if eating establishments in the next world ever have "SLIIIIME IN THE ICE MACHINE," we know you'll
report it.
Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over Spying
By SCOTT SHANE and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: July 29, 2007
WASHINGTON, July 28 — A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led
top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic
databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.
It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But
such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their
examination by the government would raise privacy issues.
The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the
March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators
who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.
The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where
Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff,
tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.
...
The article goes on to suggest an argument under which Gonzales's testimony, though carefully parsed, was not
actually technically perjury. With due respect and some gratitude to NYT reporters who break actual news
stories, I'd prefer to leave that investigation to a special counsel myself. So, apparently, would Sen.
Feingold:
...
“I’ve had the opportunity to review the classified matters at issue here, and I believe that his testimony was
misleading at best,” said Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, joining three other Democrats in calling
Thursday for a perjury investigation of Mr. Gonzales.
“This has gone on long enough,” Mr. Feingold said. “It is time for a special counsel to investigate whether
criminal charges should be brought.”
...
Exactly. Personally, I wouldn't buy a used tricycle from AG AG. But let the legal process sort it out...
just as AG and his boss seem very much unwilling to encourage.
Data mining can be innocent or it can be nasty stuff. I did some things that could arguably be called data
mining on behalf of a local Democratic club: I imported several publicly available sources into a single, local
database, joined them up in interesting (though hardly novel) ways, and produced some phone lists and block
lists arguably considerably more effective than what we had before for our seven-precinct area. (The president
of the club wasn't sufficiently appreciative in my opinion; I soon found other uses for my time.) The point is
that there is a lot of legitimately publicly available data out there, and it is not intrinsically sinful to
combine some of it...
... unless the intent is to violate the privacy rights of U.S. citizens in the process. That seems awfully
likely in this case: the combination of very possibly illegally acquired NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens
and other U.S. residents with other sources of data available to the NSA could very well result in breathtaking
violations of privacy, not subject to any oversight whatsoever. Data mining can be nasty stuff in the wrong
hands.
Did General Gonzales perjure himself? That's a question for the legal system to decide, and it most certainly
should be given free rein to decide that question without interference by anyone arguably compromised by a
conflict of interest, i.e., the White House or high-level Justice Department officials directly influenced by
AG AG.
Were still greater illegal or unconstitutional acts committed? That's actually a larger and more serious
question. While the recently expired and universally unlamented independent counsel law produced an out-of-
control fourth branch of government, the basic process of appointing special counsels to study matters not
readily fairly investigated by one or both of the political branches of government has a history of actually
working... see Richard Nixon, for example.
Let Congress insist on such an investigation by the special counsel. Let the Bushists defy that
counsel if they wish. A time-tested constitutionally rooted process is bound to be better than the Bushists'
proclamations of dictatorial powers that we're hearing now... not to mention better than being the subject of
continuous surveillance every time we pick up a phone or send an email.
In short... bring it on.
Correction after posting: DoJ has its own Office of Special Counsel already; its current occupant is Patrick
Fitzgerald. I've corrected one sentence above to reflect the fact that Congress doesn't have to appoint a
special counsel. Apologies for the error.
PBS NOW
investigates
evidence for voter caging by the GOP, in 2004 and possibly upcoming in 2008.
There's no need for me to provide background to regular readers; just watch
the video.
A few links to posts on the Big Blogs that caught my attention this morning:
The young Josh Marshall contemplates impeachment.
He's not there yet, but at least he sees the danger to our institutions of government. C'mon, Josh,
contemplate a little faster; some of us old folks would like to live through this nightmare. Besides, I do
believe you would be of draft age if it came to that...
Scarecrow of Firedoglake says
We're Going to Need Another Wall.
At this rate, we are indeed. I've visited the one we already have, sought and found names of people I knew,
and the notion that such overwhelming tragedy could be repeated is almost more than I can bear.
Via Crooks and Liars,
Keith Olbermann takes up Cenk Uygur's suggestion that Fox reporters at Democratic events (Yearly Kos, the
various campaigns' events, etc.) be required to carry "Opinion Media" badges instead of conventional press
passes. "Brilliant!" says Olbermann, punctuating his statement in an entertaining way.
HaloScan is this close || to not working at all. Often enough, it times out, both the individual comment popups
and the management tools. HaloScan is also the cause of the massive delay in loading the YDD main page.
This is as true for premium users (paid subscribers... I am one) as for users of the free service. And tonight,
it's true even well beyond the usual peak hours.
The forum... the last time I was able to get to it, in mid-afternoon... is filled with unanswered complaints,
and neither Jeevan nor any of the HS regulars who sometimes help out has posted in a long time.
Either they're rebuilding their world into something wonderful that we'll all appreciate, or... and I fear this
is more likely the case... HS is on its way down for the metaphorical third time.
If it still isn't working well in a day or two, I may contrive to use Blogger comments on my annex site, linked
directly from this site, probably one comment per YDD page rather than one per post. I don't want to do that,
but I really miss unfettered interaction with my readers. Stay tuned... and for the moment, please continue to
try to use HaloScan comments as usual. Thanks for your patience.
Read this
at ThinkProgress and tell me I'm wrong: GOP legislators are reversing themselves and supporting Bush's veto of
SCHIP. I know a manifestly, uncompromisingly Republan working-class family who will, without a doubt, be worse
off because of this change of "heart" by Republan legislators. But it will not change their vote, and apparently
Republans know that.
Hey, GOPers: are you heartless bastards even toward the children of your own supporters, or craven cowards in
the face of Mr. Bush's threats? There aren't any other explanations, are there?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
Jane Hamsher
in I'm Proud to Be a Partisan. I cannot say it better than Jane, so I won't try. Prepare to be moved by
her anecdotes, her exploration of the virtues of partisanship, and of course her own courage as she faces her
personal battle for survival, all the while never retreating one inch from doing what must be done in the public
arena. Prepare, in other words, to be inspired.
The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included "wires, switches, pipes or
tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances," including block cheese, the bulletin said. "The
unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern."
...
(Emphasis editorial, of course.)
Astonishing. Just imagine the terrorist threat against which TSA is protecting us...
What a Threat We Have in Cheeses
Approving lighters; banning cheese?
What kind of safety measures, these?
I guess if you had both, then you
Could... shades of terror... make fondue!
Steve Bates
(Thanks to Stella for speaking the word "fondue" at just the right moment.)
Via
TPM,
Alberto Gonzales all but raises his middle finger at Sen. Charles Schumer in response to the simple question of
who sent Gonzales and Card to Ashcroft's hospital bed:
As Marshall notes, Gonzales is testifying before a congressional committee. As with testimony before a court,
you don't get to pick and choose the questions you will or won't answer. Gonzales not only does that, but also
refuses to say why he won't answer. He doesn't assert executive privilege, or the Fifth Amendment, or anything
else; he just refuses to answer.
The House Judiciary committee has prepared
contempt citations
for White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, to be voted on by the
committee and, if it passes the committee, by the full House, on simple majority votes. Now Attorney General
Gonzales seems to be almost literally asking for the same, from the corresponding Senate committee.
Is there any question in your mind that Bush is now finding things
"a heck of a lot easier"?
Oh, good grief.
Can't Gonzo at least choose lies that can't be handily debunked, not by just one but by several members
and former members of Congress?
...
In explaining why he and then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made a dramatic visit to the hospital
bedside of a seriously ill Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gonzales points to a key meeting earlier that
same day, March 10, 2004.
At that meeting, according to Gonzales, the bipartisan group of congressional leaders known as the Gang of
Eight, which oversees the most sensitive aspects of the intelligence community, demanded that a top secret
surveillance program (widely believed to be the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program) be continued
despite the refusal of the Department of Justice to sign off on the legality of the program.
It was upon that basis, Gonzales says, that he and Card went to Ashcroft to present him with this
important new information.
But tonight Democratic leaders who were at that meeting dispute Gonzales' version of events. Spencer
Ackerman is reporting that Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi, at the time the Democratic minority leaders in
the Senate and House respectively, dispute Gonzales' account. The Washington Post is likewise reporting
that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time,
strongly takes issue with Gonzales' version of events.
...
Oh, what a tangled web he weaves, when Gonzo practices his sleaze...
I suspect this is actionable for perjury. What do you think?
What are we to make of
this,
if not the real possibility of conspiracy? From The Oregonian:
WASHINGTON -- Oregonians called Peter DeFazio's office, worried there was a conspiracy buried in the classified
portion of a White House plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.
As a member of the U.S. House on the Homeland Security Committee, DeFazio, D-Ore., is permitted to enter a
secure "bubbleroom" in the Capitol and examine classified material. So he asked the White House to see the
secret documents.
On Wednesday, DeFazio got his answer: DENIED.
...
Homeland Security Committee staffers told his office that the White House initially approved his request, but it
was later quashed. DeFazio doesn't know who did it or why.
"We're talking about the continuity of the government of the United States of America," DeFazio says. "I would
think that would be relevant to any member of Congress, let alone a member of the Homeland Security Committee."
Bush administration spokesman Trey Bohn declined to say why DeFazio was denied access: "We do not comment
through the press on the process that this access entails. It is important to keep in mind that much of the
information related to the continuity of government is highly sensitive."
...
"Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right," DeFazio said.
Maybe we are.
(Mom, when do we get to Impeachment City? Are we there yet?)
... The push to enlist U.S. embassies into the service of Rove's dream of a
permanent Republican majority, according to today's
Washington Post,
has been a feature of the last six years. They involved the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, and the Peace Corps. Needless to say, all are expected to be non-political agencies.
The Peace Corps... believe me, the irony is not lost on Karl Rove, and probably not on Dick Cheney, though it
may be on George W. Bush. The
Peace Corps... think about that for a
moment. From the wiki:
The program officially has three goals:
To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers;
To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served;
To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
The Peace Corps works by first announcing its availability to foreign governments. These governments then
determine areas in which the organization can be involved. The organization then matches the requested
assignments to its pool of applicants and sends those volunteers with the appropriate skills to the countries
that first made the requests.
It is, in other words, the antithesis of everything Rovean. No wonder Karl wants to corrupt it. For him, it is
not only worth doing to the Peace Corps for its own sake; it is also a symbolic stab in the back of every
nonpolitical government agency, every bit of government dedicated to good governance rather than raw GOP power.
Regular reader Frederick of
Mccs1977
said in
comments
this morning, "There needs to be some kind of direct confrontation, I'm losing faith fast." I agree, both
with the need to confront and the decline of my faith in the continued efficacy of the processes by which we can
confront. Congress is our only real representative (pun intended) in this matter, as we've lost the executive
and to a large degree the courts to de facto authoritarian rule. Hence Congress must act as
quickly as possible to establish that they... we... can subpoena, investigate, indict or impeach, and jail or
toss out the bastards who increasingly clearly intend to subvert the Constitution and the rule of law and remake
America into something it was never meant to be. I don't think we have a year and a half to accomplish this; if
we wait for elections, we may find that "elections" are merely a ritual, an observance of forms. Ours wouldn't
be the first democracy to decay in that way.
Congress, hear us well: now is the time. Not next year. Not next election. Now!
House Judiciary Considers Contempt Charges - UPDATED
UPDATE: now
Paul Kiel
writes that it is criminal contempt, not inherent contempt, and that a Judiciary staffer (the same one?)
says they are aware of the problems of Bush's order as explained in the WaPo article linked below. Things are
changing fast at the moment; please forgive the error.
The House Judiciary Committee is
considering contempt citations...
apparently inherent contempt... against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten, the former for obvious reasons, the
latter because he is the White House chief of staff and thus responsible for delivering subpoenaed documents.
According to what I've read (on
Wikipedia
and elsewhere), an "inherent contempt" citation is enforced by the House Sergeant-at-Arms, who brings the
individual(s) directly to the House chamber, so that the U.S. Attorney for D.C. is bypassed. This is significant
because
Bush has ordered DoJ not to pursue contempt charges
once he has invoked executive privilege. (Henry Waxman's remark was my own reaction to that order: "I suppose
the next step would be just disbanding the Justice Department." I wouldn't bet against it.)
Let the wing-nuts howl all they want: if Congress fails to take this step, its ability to fulfill its
constitutional oversight duties will be irreparably impaired. The notion that the Executive branch can, on its
own authority, withhold information required of it by Congress is a notion better suited to a dictatorship than
to a representative democracy. That said... is anyone really surprised at Bush's action?
At a town hall in Iowa yesterday, Mitt Romney was faced with a question about the photos of him holding up a
sign likening Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to Osama bin Laden. "I get a lot of pictures taken with you
[waving to indicate the crowd as a whole], and I don't really spend a lot of time looking at the signs, and the
T-shirts and the buttons," Romney said. When the questioner continued to yell out his moral outrage, Romney
answered back sharply: "You know what? Lighten up slightly."
Right. So if someone were to hold up a sign comparing Mitt to, say, Stalin (a comparison probably more
appropriate for Bush, but who knows, considering what we already know and what we don't yet know about Mitt),
and Barack Obama were to pose for a photo-op with the person holding that sign, that would be just peachy-keen
with Mitt? Oh, sure it would. Actually, you'd need an extra clean-up crew afterward just to mop away the mess
due to right-wingers' heads exploding.
Hey, dog-abuser: you know what? Fuck off slightly.
watertiger on Firedoglake
has a list of other things doctors may have found while they were, um, up there. I'm a bit surprised they
didn't find the noses of numerous mainstream pundits and columnists.
I admit it... I opened Daisy. How long Daisy will remain fresh is now an open question. But I did not freeze
Daisy; heaven forfend I should do anything to adversely affect Daisy's texture... Daisy is already a bit sour,
even when fresh.
(Today is Stella's birthday; she is... older than she looks. We are headed north for a trip to a music store
followed by a family gathering at an Indian restaurant, in turn followed, weather permitting, by a bookstore run
and a trip to a state park. Whew! I don't think I'll be doing much blogging until very late!)
Tabitha demonstrates for the younger kits in our readership just how the tail should be employed in obstructing
those annoying flashes occasionally inflicted by one's human housemates...
Tabitha: "Note that there is no need to obstruct one's view completely. The object is not to black out the
light of the flash altogether, but rather to mitigate its nap-interrupting effects."
You can medicate for weight loss or depression,
but not both:
Weight loss pill warning issued A weight-loss drug used by thousands is unsafe for those also taking antidepressants, health watchdogs warn.
The European Medicines Agency advises patients with ongoing major depression or those on antidepressants against
taking rimonabant.
About 41,000 UK patients have been treated with rimonabant since it was launched in the UK in June 2006.
Last month US safety officials voted to ban the pill amid concerns about increased suicide risk.
Rimonabant, brand name Acomplia, is currently recommended for obese patients with a risk of developing diabetes
or cardiovascular disease.
...
Having been overweight in my life, and having been seriously depressed in my life, I can say that's a hell of
a choice to have to make. I am fortunate at the moment that neither condition, weight or depression, requires
medication. But for many people, dealing with both of those problems is literally a matter of life or death.
I'm not talking about Americans' obsession with their weight; that's really a different problem. Nor am I
talking about the blues, which some of us "enjoy" pretty much all the time. I'm talking about life-threatening
degrees of both conditions. If you experience either or both, my heart goes out to you... been there, felt that.
To me, this study tends to reinforce the notion that the human body and mind are what programmers refer to as a
"tightly coupled" system: in the interest of efficiency (in a piece of software), or because there was no
evolutionary influence against it (in a human being), things unrelated in functionality, things that would
ideally be designed in a tidily compartmented fashion, are instead interwoven to a degree that pulling one
thread inevitably unravels others. Why are we even a little bit surprised when this repeatedly happens with
today's specialized, aggressive pharmaceuticals? No, I don't have any easy answers; indeed, I'm pretty well
convinced there aren't any.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to eat 10 ounce cans of Castleberry’s Hot
Dog Chili Sauce (UPC 3030000101), Austex Hot Dog Chili Sauce (UPC 3030099533), and Kroger Hot Dog Chili Sauce
(UPC 1111083942) with “best by” dates from April 30, 2009 through May 22, 2009 due to possible botulism
contamination. Botulism can be fatal. The “best by dates” can be found on the can lids.
Consumers who have any of these products or any foods made with these products should throw them away
immediately. If the “best by” date is missing or unreadable consumers should throw the product out.
Two children in Texas and an Indiana couple who ate these products became seriously ill and have been
hospitalized.
Symptoms of botulism poisoning can begin from 6 hours to 2 weeks after eating food that contains the toxin.
Symptoms may include double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry
mouth, and muscle weakness that moves progressively down the body, affecting the shoulders first then descending
to the upper arms, lower arms, thighs, calves, etc. Botulism poisoning can also cause paralysis of the breathing
muscles which can result in death unless assistance with breathing (mechanical ventilation) is provided.
...
In March, on a trip to Galveston, Stella and I found a little Mexican restaurant on Broadway, not spectacular
but nonetheless cozy. The best thing about that visit for me was discovering Valentina's hot sauce. It was
available in my local grocery store, about a third the cost of Cholula (my benchmark brand for that kind of
thin red sauce) and tasted nearly as good as Cholula. Valentina's was removed from the shelves in a recall a
couple of months later: the store noted that the FDA had ordered it off the market. A search of fda.gov reveals
that the reason is pesticide content. Maybe that's what gave it that certain special flavor.
It's always something. This time, it's the hot-dog chili. It's time to search your pantries again, folks. But
there is only one approach that will keep you perfectly safe:
... of
passing secrets
from the veep's office to a foreign nation, in this case, to opposition politicians in the Philippines.
Leandro Aragoncillo, a former U.S. Marine, has been sentenced to 10 years.
You know, I have an old sieve that I'm not using for anything these days, if Veep Cheney would like to reduce
taxpayers' costs by using it as an office. I'm convinced it doesn't leak any more than his current office.
(H/T David Kurtz of
Talking Points Memo, whose remark sums it up pretty well: "No word yet on a commutation.")
(Afterthought: maybe Cheney should store his secrets on HaloScan. That way, we could be confident that no one
could get to them.)
You read that right. Updating Firefox doesn't really fix the
alleged IE bug;
it just prevents it from being invoked through Firefox. Microsoft denies there's a problem. Some security
experts think otherwise. If you have Firefox installed, but have IE as your default browser, better safe than
sorry... upgrade to Firefox 2.0.0.5 right away, though the servers were a little busy when I did so.
(NOTE: supposedly, Mozilla Thunderbird, the companion email application to Firefox, is also affected, but the
update hasn't shown up yet as I write this.)
UPDATE: As I read the linked article, I can see how Microsoft would disclaim
responsibility, because from their perspective, all they are doing is handing off a URL specifically marked to
be handled by Firefox, so it's none of their affair whether that link contains malicious code. I can also see
Mozilla's point, that Firefox is not the only application that registers a special URL handler to which a URL
marked, in this case, "FirefoxURL://{something-goes-here)" is passed directly, and hence a whole range of
attacks could be possible through any application... including, say, an MS Office app... that registers such a
URL handler. Details of the exploit can be found in
this blog post by Thor Larholm,
which is rather tech-y but clearly written. Another
post by Larholm
outlines the fix provided by Mozilla, notes that the patch also contains other Firefox security updates you
really ought to have, and points out that a system with IE is still vulnerable to this exploit through
applications other than Firefox as described above.
I know there are practical reasons for allowing applications to register such special handlers, and both
Microsoft and Mozilla have made use of the capability. But I wish they wouldn't. All security issues aside,
such special forms of URLs encourage a balkanization of web content, rather than standards compliance that
allows a resource (e.g., a web page) to be accessed by any browser. The YDD is regrettably not
standards-compliant, because large portions of it were authored back in the Bad Old Days, and I don't have time
and energy to recode from scratch. But at least it works in the most popular browsers. I'd like to hope that
I've coded my last browser-specific page (though sometimes clients demand exactly that), and I'd like to
encourage others to avoid creating such pages as well.
Via TPMCafe Election Central,
Harry Reid has announced that he is laying aside the Defense Authorization bill, and will not allow it to come
to the floor for a vote until GOPers cease filibustering and allow an up-down vote on the Iraq withdrawal
amendment. Here is Sen. Reid's statement, taken (with thanks) from TPMCafe:
I have temporarily laid aside the Defense Authorization bill and have entered a motion to reconsider.
But let me be clear to my Republican colleagues – I emphasize the word "temporarily". We will do everything in
our power to change course in Iraq. We will do everything in our power to complete consideration of a Defense
Authorization bill. We must do both.
And just to remind my Republican colleagues – even if this bill had passed yesterday, its provisions would not
take effect until October.
So we will come back to this bill as soon as it is clear we can make real progress. To that end, I have asked
the Democratic Whip and Democratic Manager of the bill to sit down with their counterparts to work on a process
to address all outstanding issues related to this bill so the Senate can return to it as soon as possible.
In other words, nothing happens in the Senate regarding Iraq... no Republican amendments, nothing... until Reid
is reassured that the Iraq withdrawal amendment will receive an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. And
he is calling on Democratic leadership to sit down face-to-face with Republican leadership to make sure that
will happen.
(Hey, Harry... that's not my heart in my hand; that's my DSCC renewal. Yes, it was still sitting on my desk,
since the last time y'all slunk away with your tails between your legs. This looks like crunch time to me.
Please make it possible for me to re-up.)
There, I said it, right out in front of God 'n' everybody. How hard was that?
Apparently, if you're the AP, or ABC News, or just about anybody but McClatchy, it's very nearly impossible to
say "Republican filibuster." They use "procedural roadblock" ... that one's from Reuters. Or they get it
backward, as when Diane Sawyer
said on GMA
that Harry Reid "vows to filibuster, talking all night to close out all topics besides a vote on Iraqi troop
withdrawals." What the fuck? (I presume that F-word is now more acceptable than "filibuster.")
As one of Josh Marshall's readers
pointed out,
the media had no problems calling a filibuster a filibuster when Democrats did it four years ago.
Then there's Fred Barnes of Fox News. As quoted in the linked Media Matters article, Fred tells us of Harry
Reid, "All he's doing is filibustering his own bill."
No. He's not. I had wondered how the R's would spin this, and I have to give them a C for creativity... they
are pretending, as they so often do, that up is down, green is brown, whatever. It is all they have left.
Rather than admit the truth... that they are filibustering against the will of the American people and the
interests of American troops... they do violence to the language instead. Humpty-Dumpty had nothing on these
people: words mean whatever they say they mean, and words vanish when they are inconvenient.
This is really simple. Republicans, and only Republicans, are engaging in a FILIBUSTER at the moment,
a tactic that is legitimate in the Senate but is undeniably against majority rule. Anyone who tells you
otherwise, however famous they may be, is... lemme see if I can find the right word; I wouldn't want to get it
backwards... a LIAR.
The question occurred to me as well: would Republican senators simply break quorum tonight, as for example the
Democrats in the Texas Legislature (the "Killer D's") did during the great re-re-redistricting fracas?
Apparently, a lot of right-wing-nut bloggers and commenters were riffing on exactly that possibility today.
But...
As Greg Sargent discovered when he consulted experts (what a concept: a reporter actually doing research!),
under Senate rules...
the GOP cannot do that.
Here's the short version, from Sargent's post:
Here's why: Senate rules have a provision for dealing with things like this. As Joan notes, even if the
Republicans were not to show up, Dems would be able to perhaps force them to, Binder notes. Under Senate rules,
Reid would be able to ask the Sergeant-at-arms to go get the missing GOP Senators and bring them back to the
Senate. She points to this particular Senate reg:
Whenever upon such roll call it shall be ascertained that a quorum is not present, a majority of the Senators
present may direct the Sergeant at Arms to request, and, when necessary, to compel the attendance of the absent
Senators...
And yes, this has apparently happened before, in 1988, when Majority Leader Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., ordered round-
the-clock Senate sessions that were boycotted by Republicans. Charlie Cook recounts that Byrd ordered the
Senate's sergeant-at-arms to arrest absent senators and bring them to the floor. Capitol cops arrested Sen.
Robert Packwood, R-Ore., and even removed him from a locked Senate office and carried him onto the Senate floor,
Cook writes.
I have left out the links; you can get 'em from Sargent's post.
I can't say I hope for this outcome, but if it were to happen, I have to think the political theater would
heavily favor the Democrats in the eyes of the public.
Via
ellroon,
we have an article on Findlaw by
John Dean
(whom I trust needs no introduction to anyone reading this blog) about Harriet Miers's no-show in response to a
House Judiciary Committee subpoena last week. I'm repeating below (more or less) my own comment on the
subject...
Rather than my quoting larges excerpts, please read Dean's article; it may be one of the most important things
you read today. Here's the short version: Dean thinks Bush is completely confident of winning in court if the
House indeed votes to hold Miers in contempt. Indeed, Dean believes Bush is making this challenge
premeditatedly. If that is so, Bush may be right: our bought-and-paid-for judiciary, so many of them appointed
by one Bush or the other, may well rule that Bush can legally order his staff to ignore congressional subpoenas.
Think about the implications of that for a moment.
If things come to that... if in fact there is no one and no branch of government that can check Bush's power...
then all of us have some serious thinking to do.
UPDATE: The always essential
Crooks and Liars
supplies video of Keith Olbermann's interview with constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who sees
matters quite differently: reminding us that Congress has the power to try individuals for contempt directly,
bringing them before Congress rather than the courts, Turley sees the Bush administration's approach as
extremely foolish. Maybe no one told Gonzo or John Yoo or even Dick Cheney about that congressional power?
As I write this, the YDD site is not visible on the web. This is NOT due to my web host's negligence;
their upstream network provider apparently failed to notify my host of a "planned" outage (planned, but
apparently not very well planned), possibly to replace a failed breaker... it's a little hard to tell the
sequence of events from the series of logged messages, but those messages are dripping with frustration.
Apologies to my readers... both of you... for the inconvenience.
Bill Moyers
discusses impeachment,
in very specific terms, with conservative constitutional scholar Bruce Fein and liberal journalist and author
John Nichols... both of whom concur that the House Judiciary Committee should be preparing the path to
impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. Follow links at the Bill Moyers' Journal site (see above link) to the video
and the transcript. Even for those of you who understand the history, law and context of impeachment, this
discussion will focus the matter as few recent public airings have done.
See
here
for TPM's sampler video about reaction to the Iraqi parliament's August vacation.
The post title uses the latest GOP catch phrase, spoken most often by Stephen Hadley. OK... who wants to
create the graphic for "Bottom Up Reconciliation"?
"Authorities" were
dead certain
they had discovered an explosive device in a package checked through Miami International Airport. They ordered
one terminal evacuated, delaying six flights and affecting 2000 passengers. But while the contents of the
package may have been a holy terror when alive, and perhaps may even have had an explosive temperament, the
package contained "cremated human remains."
I feel so much safer, knowing TSA workers are on top of this grave matter. They clearly urn their pay. With a
corpse of such alert workers, there's not a ghost of a chance the package could have gotten onto a plane. As for
the deceased, I'm sure his ash is in jail by now. Security workers lived up to their motto: "I see dead people!"
Calm down, everyone. Is a major terrorist act coming this summer? If Mr. Bush needs one for political reasons,
I'm sure it is coming. I understand that in other threatened countries, people continue to live their lives as
usual. This kind of twitchy overresponse is just not necessary. And with all the technology available to assist
them, what kind of security worker doesn't recognize human remains?
Meanwhile, could somebody please send Mr. Chertoff a prescription-strength antacid, so we can stop listening to
his gut?
Strictly speaking, I suppose this is a sculpture, not a sign. But if it isn't a sign that the end of days is
approaching, I don't know what would be...
Yes, that's Willie in the car behind Bar. I couldn't see who occupies the seat next to Bar. The whole
contraption emerges from the wall in Freebird's, on Greenbriar between Richmond and US 59, where the burrito
wraps are really rather good, and seats can be found that do not face this... piece of work.
Still more warning signs for the Dem-controlled Congress: A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds that while
Bush's approval rating remains mired at 33%, Congress' has dropped well below that, to 24%. That's less than one
out of four people, students.
...
Hello, Congress? (Get us out of Iraq.) You remember that last election? (Get us out of Iraq.) Why do you think
we sent Democrats to Congress? (Get us out of Iraq.) Don't make us stop this car! (Get us out of Iraq.) Surely
you know what you have to do. (Get us out of Iraq.) And you are the only entity with the power... and possibly
the will... to do it. (Get us out of Iraq.)
So... all together, congresscritters: what is your first priority if you wish to regain the respect of the
American people? (Spoken in every congresscritter's best Alberto Gonzales voice: "I can't
recall.")
As that almost-one person Sargent describes who actually would be inclined to think well of Congress if they,
you know, actually did something about getting us out of Iraq, I can only say, damn it, galz 'n' guyz, get off the dime.
We didn't send you there to kiss Bush's... (Nah. I don't need that image in my mind, dear reader, and neither do
you.) Congress: Stop splitting hairs. Stop Bermuda-triangulating.* Just do it. Get us out of Iraq!
Oh... and while you're at it... Stop holding stupid Senate votes that promote a
rush to war against Iran!
* Hey, if the Brownback campaign gets to coin neologisms, so do I. I define "Bermuda-triangulating" as
"triangulating political advantage while the nation is in danger of disappearing forever into the void."
Via the incomparable
hipparchia,
we have the most lucid explanation of how single-payer healthcare could work in America, in the form of a
FAQ
from Physicians for a National Health Program. If you read one healthcare-related document this week, this is the
one most deserving of your attention.
Click any permalink below to go to the original article on a previous page.
Click a comment link below to add a comment to the original article.
Your comment will be noticed, by the YDD at least:
HaloScan has a page allowing me to view recent comments, no matter which post they refer to.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives
in a spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a
government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
- FDR
I belong to the Democratic Party wing of the Democratic Party.
- Paul Wellstone
I am a Democrat without prefix, without suffix, and without apology.
- Sam Rayburn
