Bush Library Joke

I don't post a lot of jokes, but this one, by way of commenter Brian on Mustang Bobby's Bark Bark Woof Woof, is just too well-done to pass up:

The George W Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages. The Library will include:

• The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.
• The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.
• The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.
• The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.
• The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.
• The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.
• The National Debt room which is huge and has no ceiling.
• The 'Tax Cut' Room with entry only to the wealthy.
• The 'Economy Room' which is in the toilet.
• The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.
• The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.
• The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.
• The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.
• The 'Decider Room' complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

The museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate the President's accomplishments.

Admission: Republicans free; Democrats - $1000 or three Euros.

Steve
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One Million Names - UPDATED

... are now on the terrorist watch list. The last was added sometime today. No, you did not misread that... one million names, representing a lot more than a million people who suffer the monumental inconvenience of proving they do not hate America, every single time they travel. The ACLU tells you a bit about who those poor souls are:

     ...

Highly suspicious characters such as Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) are on the watch list. So are the notorious Gary Smith and Robert Johnson. What? You’ve never heard of Gary Smith or Robert Johnson? They’re so dangerous that countless of iterations of them are stopped at airports all the time, all because they’ve got really common names.

     ...

This must end. This must end. Our Founders were willing to suffer more than an occasional "terrorist" act in the interest of defending their freedoms. By contrast, the lot who contrived this list, to all appearances mainly to protect their own positions of power, are the basest of cowards. Lest they continue to operate without a hint of what America means, here's a clue for them: cowardice is un-American. Those who trade in cowardice in pursuit of political power are despicable.

UPDATE: Bryan points to an indication on CNN that the 1,000,000 figure may be an estimate based on government figures from last September and increases projected by the DoJ. This of course changes absolutely nothing about the insanity of the list: it does not much matter whether the list contains 400,000 as claimed by an FBI spokesman, or 1,000,000 as projected by the ACLU estimate. Either way, it's full-blown bat-shit insane to waste scarce time, money and effort calling aside all the John Smiths and Jane Joneses who travel by air.

Steve
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The Vision Thing - UPDATED

In using that phrase, I am most certainly not referring to Poppy Bush, of whom it may be said, almost as surely as of his idiot son, that all his taste is in his mouth and all his vision is in his eyes. No, I'm talking about myself... again... and specifically about my eyes. Saturday evening I noticed a persistent flaw in the vision in my right eye that may be (or may not be) another misfortunate instance of a family trait that eventually left my maternal grandmother legally blind. I just don't know.

The conventional wisdom is that one should address such a problem immediately, with no delay, and tomorrow (Monday) I intend to try to do just that. The obstacle is that I have never had even the most minimal problem with my eyes, nothing that required more than over-the-counter reading glasses available at any pharmacy, so I have no regular ophthalmologist. My hope is to persuade Stella's doc to work me in.

Meanwhile, at the moment, I can read just fine, but I don't know what to expect next. Blogging may be (or, again, may not be) sparse for a short while. Thanks for your patience. I'll keep you informed.

UPDATE Monday about 5:20pm CT: this will be brief, because my eyes are still sensitive to light. After almost three hours of being tested and waiting for test results, I learned that I need... more tests of a different sort. Also, Stella's cats can take comfort in the knowledge that any karma I may have incurred over the past couple of years flashing the silver box in their faces, I have repaid a hundred times over in the course of these tests today. The short version of the result, as far as I know it at this point: yes, the origin of the damage is probably the same as it was for my grandmother, but no, I don't necessarily have to lose most of my vision as she lost hers. That's about as good as I hoped for, and better than I expected.

Steve
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Saturday Signs

What's in a name? One suspects there's some truth in this one...

I have two questions: is the pigeon a student? and does Pebbles get to play, too?

Steve
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Rove Roves

BBC:

Rove skips congressional inquiry
Karl Rove, President Bush's ex-aide, has refused to attend a congressional hearing on allegations that he helped politicise the US Justice Department.

Mr Rove has been accused of attempting to influence the prosecution of a former Democratic governor of Alabama.

He is also said to have been involved in the firing of several US attorneys, allegedly for political reasons.

Lawmakers subpoenaed Mr Rove to attend the hearing, but he has refused, citing executive privilege.

     ...

Rove is the third major Bush administration official I know of who simply didn't show, claiming executive privilege. The other two, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, have been cited for contempt, but as far as I know they have not been apprehended or prosecuted: in March, AG Mukasey refused even to refer the contempt citations to a grand jury.

Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee rejected Rove's claims of executive privilege. Rove is essentially claiming privilege to refuse to testify about matters (the US Attorney scandal and the Siegelman prosecution) in which he may be directly criminally involved.

If Mr. Rove wants to claim his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, let him show up and do so explicitly. If not... well, enough is enough. Karl Rove needs to be shown that he is not above the law, and the administration of which he was a part (remember, Mr. Rove is only a private citizen now) must be reminded that executive privilege does not enable dictatorial powers. Congress has the authority and the means to arrest and jail Mr. Rove: it should do so promptly, holding him until he testifies under oath.

The issue here is simple: Do we have multiple branches of government, or has Mr. Bush finally gotten his wish to be a dictator?

Steve
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Friday Mitchell-Mischief-Music Blogging

All the exotic international musical instruments are well and good, but Catherine's cat Mitchell is certain he has better playthings: the blind cords and the birds outside the second-story window...

Meanwhile, Stella's cat Tabitha (not in this picture) sends her sympathies to Catherine, who had major eye surgery this week.

(Posted early.)

Steve
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McCain's Nation Of Whiners - UPDATED

Oh, goody... Phil Gramm is taking it upon himself to speak for McCain, and for Obama, that's almost as good as Christmas morning. Here's Gramm (via TPM, in turn via WashTimes):

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

Ooooh, yeah. Keep calling the voters insulting names, Phil; that's the way to win them over to your candidate's campaign.

I suppose this proves Aldous Huxley's saying in Brave New World: "A [Gramm] is better than a damn..."

UPDATE: Obama goes right to the point. (Watch the video.) Notwithstanding my reservations about Obama on policy issues, the man knows how to campaign.

Steve
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Tabitha's Vision

Today's good news is personal and local, but very good indeed: Tabitha does indeed have some sight in one eye, as determined by some sort of computer-driven test done by the vet. (Sorry; I wasn't there to ask technical questions.) We suspected this based on Tabitha's behavior in response to our hand motions; this is the first actual confirmation. Stella is beside herself with joy. I'm mighty happy about it myself.

Steve
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FISA Votes Look Bad - UPDATED

Christy is tracking the three amendments and the bill. It looks as if the Senate, including many Democrats, is voting approximately two-to-one in favor of telecom immunity. I cannot even begin to comment on this at the moment.

UPDATE: all three amendments failed. Senate in recess; vote on bill to take place at 2:15pm ET. But you all know how it will go.

UPDATE: the final vote is almost complete, but we don't have an official count yet. Pretty clearly it's overwhelmingly Aye on the new FISA. For what it's worth, Obama voted Aye; Clinton voted No.

I have to leave now; life goes on...

Steve
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Cheney's Office Alters Official's Sworn Testimony

The NYT reports it as well, but let's look at the LA Times, for a change:

Cheney's office tried to alter greenhouse gas testimony, former official says
The new charges of political interference could boost efforts by California and other states to implement their own vehicle emission standards over White House opposition.
By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 9, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney's office worked to alter sworn congressional testimony provided by a federal official in order to play down the threat of global warming and head off regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, a former government official said in a new accusation Tuesday.

Jason K. Burnett, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, cited the behind-the-scenes efforts by unnamed officials in Cheney's office in a letter to congressional investigators regarding testimony in January by his former boss, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.

Burnett appeared at a news conference Tuesday with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who said his statements could boost efforts by California and other states to implement their own vehicle emission standards over White House opposition. Boxer plans to call Burnett to testify later this month before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which she chairs.

His charges are likely to give Bush administration critics new ammunition in their efforts to portray executive-branch actions on the environment as driven by politics, rather than science.

     ...

Gee, ya think? But it's not just the EPA's testimony the administration is tampering with:

     ...

Administration pressure also was cited in changes to testimony by the head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in October and in an attempt to prevent the EPA from taking a step toward regulating greenhouse gas emissions in December.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that the EPA was required to evaluate whether greenhouse gas emissions posed a risk and, if so, implement regulations on polluters. President Bush has opposed mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, oil refineries and other polluters, contending such steps would drive up energy costs and hurt the economy.

But White House efforts to edit testimony were "clearly misconduct, in terms of interfering with scientific information," said Bettina Poirier, staff director for the environment committee. However, she said, she was still examining whether those actions violated the law.

     ...

These people do not give a good damn about science. They do not give a good damn about your family's health. In fact, they do not give a good damn about anything except Halliburton's profits... and keeping themselves out of jail once they leave office. That last goal is liable to be difficult to accomplish if they keep tampering with sworn testimony.

Steve
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New War Powers Act? Why Bother?

Basing their proposal on the results of a commission they led, James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher are proposing a new War Powers Act, replacing the one from 1973, intended to establish a procedure by which America decides to go to war, re-establishing a balance between the president's powers and those of Congress:

Op-Ed Contributor
Put War Powers Back Where They Belong

By JAMES A. BAKER III and WARREN CHRISTOPHER
Published: July 8, 2008

THE most agonizing decision we make as a nation is whether to go to war. Our Constitution ambiguously divides war powers between the president (who is the commander in chief) and Congress (which has the power of the purse and the power to declare war). The founders hoped that the executive and legislative branches would work together, but in practice the two branches don’t always consult. And even when they do, they often dispute their respective powers.

A bipartisan group that we led, the National War Powers Commission, has unanimously concluded after a year of study that the law purporting to govern the decision to engage in war — the 1973 War Powers Resolution — should be replaced by a new law that would, except for emergencies, require the president and Congressional leaders to discuss the matter before going to war. Seventy years of polls show that most Americans expect Congress and the president to talk before making that decision, and in most cases, they have done so.

Congress passed the 1973 resolution in response to the Vietnam War. But it is ineffective at best and unconstitutional at worst. No president has recognized its constitutionality, and Congress has never pressed the issue. Nor has the Supreme Court ever ruled on its constitutionality. In fact, courts have largely shied away from refereeing war-powers disputes between the two political branches.

     ...

And so on. Read the details, if you think they matter.

Here's the problem: what is the penalty if the president decides to disobey such a law? Right: none. And we have evidence in office right now of a president who routinely disobeys laws when he feels like it, seemingly a couple of times a day... and suffers no consequences. A law like this would be worse than useless: it would convey the sense that something was being done about a very real problem, when in fact the reality is a continuing drift... no, a continuing rush... toward a presidential dictatorship.

Nixon was very nearly impeached for his exercise of powers that did not constitutionally belong to any president. If Congress does not credibly threaten to impeach a president who abuses his war powers, we may reasonably expect that presidents after Bush will follow his lead in advancing their political and personal power agendas by involving America in an endless succession of discretionary wars. That way lies chaos... and ultimately the end of America.

An aside: I have a problem with the two men proposing the law. Accurately or not, the movie Recount depicts Warren Christopher as an idealist who is also a doddering old fool... and James A. Baker III as a partisan shark who will do literally anything to maintain one-party rule. I don't know about Christopher, but I can't imagine that depiction of Baker is far from reality.

Steve
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Is Obama Pro-Choice?

DBK of Blanton's and Ashton's points us to an article by Jim Kuhnhenn, Obama: Mental distress can't justify late abortion, that suggests a serious problem in Obama's presumed pro-choice credentials:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says "mental distress" should not qualify as a justification for late-term abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.

In an interview this week with "Relevant," a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain "a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother."

Obama then added: "Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term."

So where was Obama on the issue of a woman's right to choose, before this interview?

Last year, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on late-term abortions, Obama said he "strongly disagreed" with the ruling because it "dramatically departs form previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women."

And yet, as Kuhnhenn points out...

The health care exception is crucial to abortion rights advocates and is considered a legal loophole by abortion opponents. By limiting the health exception to a "serious physical issue," Obama set himself apart from other abortion rights proponents.

     ...

About 20 years ago, when I started my one-man IT contracting business, my first job was a political database for the local Planned Parenthood. It was a paid gig but also a labor of love; no other contract in those 20 years... and I've been fortunate to have some socially worthwhile work at times... has meant more to me than that one. What am I supposed to do with a Democratic candidate who is less than rock-solid in his pro-choice credentials?

Steve
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He Got What He Deserved

NYT:

Offer of a Vote for Sale Draws Unwanted Attention
By CHRISTINA CAPECCHI
Published: July 5, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota college student looking to profit off his political indifference has been charged with a felony for trying to sell his vote on the auction Web site eBay.

The student, Max P. Sanders, 19, of Edina, was charged Thursday with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting, a felony under an 1893 Minnesota law that criminalizes the sale and purchase of votes.

     ...

“We’re not humorless in the county attorney’s office and we’re not in the horse-and-buggy age,” Mr. Freeman said, “but we decided it’s something we just couldn’t blow off. Sometimes in this business we need to make statements.”

Attending a Fourth of July parade, where he observed a veteran limping along the streets, reinforced his decision, said Mr. Freeman, who is a Vietnam veteran. “A lot of us served in the military trying to protect the right to vote,” he said. “This is serious stuff.”

The charge carries up to five years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Mr. Freeman said an “appropriate” penalty was more likely to entail community service, not jail time.

     ...

The kid probably thought he was being cute. Here's my recommendation: first, reduce the charge to a misdemeanor, so he won't lose his right to vote. Then, as part of his sentence, assign him a bit of research on what it took for various segments of our American population to obtain the right to vote, and how many died defending that right, in wartime and in so-called peacetime, over our nation's 232+ years. Sentence him to sign up as a deputy volunteer voter registrar, if Minnesota has such a thing. It will surely do him good to encounter a few people who actually want to vote, want it badly enough to register. If none of that helps... if he still does not comprehend what he has done... then, and only then, throw him in the slammer for a while. I'm hoping and assuming that won't be necessary.

Look: I'm pretty cynical about my own vote these days. Sometimes it seems as if it doesn't make a damned bit of difference how I vote. But today I watched the movie "Recount", * about the 2000 presidential selection, a selection in which, to all appearances, tens or even hundreds of thousands of individuals' votes were effectively discarded in pursuit of Mr. Bush's baldfaced theft of the presidency. And I understand what happens to nations whose people cultivate a cynical indifference to democracy. And I look around me at the consequences of that indifference. And I find I have no problem with a very old law that just happens to teach this deeply foolish young man an important lesson. If that makes me a cranky old curmudgeon, so be it.

* I find it amusing that the link to the IMDB plot synopsis contains the warning, "may contain spoilers." No kidding! There are spoilers, if you paid no attention whatsoever to the events of 2000...

Steve
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Saturday Signs - The Old Days

Again, I have no new Saturday Sign; here's an old one. This sign faced the outdoor street-side tables of a hamburger joint which is now out of business, replaced by a high-end Mexican restaurant that I haven't tried because it is too expensive, on a street that is now blocked off for construction. The whole thing reminds me of the state of our nation at the moment.

Steve
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After The Fourth, Do You Need A Fifth?

A good, stiff drink might numb the sensation, but it probably won't help Obama's obsession with projecting his patriotism:

     ...

He seldom goes out in public now without a flag pin stuck in his lapel. He devoted an entire speech to patriotism this week in Independence, Mo. Visually reinforcing the message, he stood in front of a quartet of large American flags.

None of this is an accident. Polling shows that on the threshold test any serious presidential candidate must pass, Obama has ground to cover.

A CNN poll released one day after the Illinois senator gave his patriotism speech showed that a quarter of registered voters surveyed questioned Obama's love of country. Nearly 30% of the respondents who described themselves as independents -- a coveted slice of the electorate -- believed he lacks patriotism, according to the survey.

     ...

I suppose the Fourth was Independents' Day. Do independents measure patriotism by the wearing of flag pins and the waving of flags? Great. In these days of corporate campaign financing, they might as well wave this one.

Then there's Sen. Obama's position on the Iraq War. Either he isn't as passionate about getting us out as we initially thought, or (as I think) he is being blatantly misrepresented by GOPers. It's one more thing I'd rather not have to worry about. Some Democrats are not helping him:

     ...

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, said in an interview on Friday that voters had a different view of the war than they might have had during the last presidential campaign. Mr. Baucus said he was not concerned that Democrats, particularly Mr. Obama, would be branded as weak on national security.

“We need to find a responsible way out, but the key word is ‘responsible,’ ” Mr. Baucus said. “We can’t just cut and run.”

     ...

(No, Senator Baucus, the key sentence is, "Do not buy into our opponents' framing of an issue in which our position is already overwhelmingly the public's position." These days, that is the most common way in which Democrats "cut and run.")

And how 'bout them faith-based initiatives? Barack likes those, too, with a lot of constraints Bush and the fundies would never tolerate, but still, Obama wants government assistance to faith-based programs. Yikes. Please hand me another shot of that, um, sacramental wine.*

Make no mistake: if I live that long, I shall cast my vote for Barack Obama for president. Nothing... nothing... is more important than stopping John McCain, and strategically, voting for Obama is my best option in pursuit of that goal.

But I cannot help feeling as if the days of a shared vision of America as a nation of many faiths, many ways of expressing love of country, and a preference for diplomacy over invasive war as a way of solving international problems, are over. All the fireworks, flags and speeches in the world will not compensate for the loss of that vision.

* Afterthought: as best I recall from decades ago, there was (is?) a ceremony in UU churches for the introduction of a baby or young child into the church, a ceremony that involves the presentation of a rose in association with each of four recited texts. One minister later quipped that UU's were the only denomination that baptized [sic] their kids with Four Roses.

Steve
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Friday Red-Eye Blogging

Since her eyes are now almost a color from our nation's glorious flag, Tabitha decides to come out with her new look on the Fourth of July:

We have begun to suspect that Tabitha is not totally blind, though it may be that she is compensating well with her other senses. In any case, she is doing amazingly well considering her limitations, and is as affectionate as ever... and as fond of her food!

(Posted early.)

Steve
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Judge: Bush Must Wiretap Only Using FISA

NYT:

Judge Rejects Bush’s View on Wiretaps
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: July 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.

     ...

The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a “state secret” and citing the president’s constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency’s program.

But Judge Walker, who was appointed to the bench by former President George Bush, rejected those central claims in his 56-page ruling. He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court.

“Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence activities to be conducted,” the judge wrote. “Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.”

     ...

The ruling has consequences that are not uniformly positive; please read the article. Still, if it establishes the principle that the president is bound by the FISA law, that alone is worth a great deal.

Steve
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COINTELPRO Begins Again - UPDATED

TPM:

Civil liberties group criticizes new FBI authority
Critics say plan for FBI terror screening is an echo of Civil Rights era monitoring program
LARA JAKES JORDAN
AP News
Jul 02, 2008 12:54 EST

Nearly 40 years ago, the FBI was roundly criticized for investigating Americans without evidence they had broken any laws. Now, critics fear the FBI may be gearing up to do it again.

Tentative Justice Department guidelines, to be released later this summer, would let agents investigate people whose backgrounds — and potentially their race or ethnicity — match the traits of terrorists.

Such profiling faintly echoes the FBI's now-defunct COINTELPRO, an operation under Director J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s and 1960s to monitor and disrupt groups with communist and socialist ties.

Before it was shut down in 1971, the domestic spying operation — formally known as Counterintelligence Programs — had expanded to include civil rights groups, anti-war activists, the Ku Klux Klan, state legislators and journalists.

Among the FBI's targets were Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and John Lennon, along with members of black extremist groups, Fidel Castro sympathizers and student protesters.

"These programs resulted in the bureau, at times, effectively stepping out of its proper role as a law enforcement agency," the FBI acknowledges on its Web site.

The new proposal to allow investigations of Americans with no evidence of wrongdoing is "COINTELPRO for the 21st century," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union. "But this is much more insidious because it could involve more people. In the days of COINTELPRO, they were watching only a few people. Now they could be watching everyone."

     ...

Somewhere, in some particularly dark corner of Hell, the shades of Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover are smiling at each other...

(TPM apparently has an additional major article on the subject, but the link is broken at this time.)

UPDATE: the additional article, complete with its front-page link, has vanished from the TPM site. What gives? I don't know.

UPDATE: Here is another source of a different AP article. So far, I cannot locate any non-AP sources, and a lot of refs to AP articles have either been pulled or have scrolled off various tickers. I still don't know what to make of this.

UPDATE: the hed is back on the TPM news front, down-page a bit, but it still is a broken link.

UPDATE: Finally it's up.

Steve
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McCain Wages War On Workers

McCain makes it clear what he thinks of workers in America:

McCain Sticks It To Organized Labor: Visits Company That
Refused To Pay Minimum Wage

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) visited Worth & Co., a contracting company in Bucks County, PA, where he held a town hall. The visit is a slap in the face to the state’s unions, since Worth & Co. has been investigated by the state Department of Labor and Industry for “intentionally failing to pay the predetermined minimum wage” to its employees. The Intelligencer reports:

McCain, who has already drawn the ire of union leaders throughout this country, will be visiting a company that earlier this year was under investigation by the state’s Labor and Industry Department over employee wages. At the time of the investigation, company founder Stephen Worth said he was being targeted by union interests who were going after his non-union shop. Union members plan to protest McCain’s visit.

Part of the state’s investigation focused on a subcontractor Worth had hired, that ultimately admitted to having underpaid its employees by nearly $26,000. The state has accused the company of cheating employees out of $142,000 in wages for government projects.

     ...

See the linked Think Progress article for a list of anti-labor votes McCain has cast in the Senate. The AFL-CIO is right in saying "there is nothing moderate about McCain."

(H/T echidne.)

Steve
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Terrorism Liaison Officers

That's what they're called... Terrorism Liaison Officers:

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers" in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for "suspicious activity" — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.

It's a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs' mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

"Suspicious activity" is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.

     ...

"[E]spousing extremist beliefs..." you mean, say, the beliefs of the old Democratic Party, before it was, um, transformed?

"[T]aking photos of no apparent aesthetic value..." jeebus; I guess that's the end of my Saturday Signs project.

Look: I fully expect to be arrested someday by hostile fascist bastards for pursuing some activity once thought to be typical of good American citizenship. But I'll be damned if I'll tolerate those motherfuckers' rendering esthetic judgment on me. "Taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value..." Them's fightin' words.

(H/T Avedon.)

Steve
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Firefox Says HaloScan Forum Malicious - UPDATED

UPDATE (5 min. later): maybe it's just my computer. Read the following original post with a grain of salt. Added note: Firefox apparently uses a Google service to list suspicious sites.

UPDATE 2 (10 min. later): I cannot reproduce the behavior. More info as I have it.

UPDATE 3 (40 min. later): ESET NOD32, latest version, fully updated, finds 0 threats to my computer. Whatever this is, it isn't on my end.

UPDATE 4 (about 3:35PM CT): I can't find anything wrong with HaloScan itself, so I'm turning the comment facility on again. Only the HaloScan forum ever showed a Google warning anyway, so I assume now it is safe to use the comment box. Sorry for the trouble.

Original post follows...

It looks as if the HaloScan forum has been hacked, and possibly other parts of HaloScan. I don't know if it has or hasn't, but I'm taking down all my HaloScan links on this page until it's resolved. Here is part of the Google advisory:

Safe Browsing
Diagnostic page for www.haloscan.com/forum/

What is the current listing status for www.haloscan.com/forum/?

Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 2 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 2 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 07/01/2008, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 07/01/2008.

Malicious software includes 4 trojan(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 8 new processes on the target machine.

Malicious software is hosted on 3 domain(s), including sum4count.net, fayhvkfnvu.com, yeehaa.ru.

1 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including yeehaa.ru.

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, www.haloscan.com/forum/ did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

Next steps:

* Return to the previous page.
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Steve
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Toke 'Em If You Got 'Em?

Just in case you missed the obvious facts in front of your face, CBS News sets you straight about our mighty War on Some Drugs:

U.S. Leads The World In Illegal Drug Use
Survey Says People With Higher Incomes More Likely To Use Legal And Illegal Drugs, Marijuana Use Widely Reported In U.S.

(WebMD) Despite tough anti-drug laws, a new survey shows the U.S. has the highest level of illegal drug use in the world.

The World Health Organization's survey of legal and illegal drug use in 17 countries, including the Netherlands and other countries with less stringent drug laws, shows Americans report the highest level of cocaine and marijuana use.

For example, Americans were four times more likely to report using cocaine in their lifetime than the next closest country, New Zealand (16% vs. 4%),

Marijuana use was more widely reported worldwide, and the U.S. also had the highest rate of use at 42.4% compared with 41.9% of New Zealanders.

In contrast, in the Netherlands, which has more liberal drug policies than the U.S., only 1.9% of people reported cocaine use and 19.8% reported marijuana use.

     ...

Billions of dollars spent, literally tens of millions of people arrested, jobs lost, relatives' property seized, students denied funding, and what have we accomplished for all that? Right. Nothing.

(Ritual disclaimer: I do not use, nor have I ever used, illegal drugs.)

Steve
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Obama Takes In-Your-Faith Approach - UPDATED

Oh, good grief. Here we go. Digby points us to a Mail.com article (I like this Reuters article better) describing Obama's announcement of his own version of Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. From my perspective, more that of a Constitution admirer than a religious person (though I am both), Obama's version is no better than Bush's in the most significant aspect: Obama proposes to spend large amounts of public money on social programs established and run by religious organizations.

Do I even need to say it? I suppose I must, though I don't believe it will do any good: spending taxpayers' money on programs that (however worthy) are rooted in specific religions is unconstitutional. It's unconstitutional when the Bush administration does it, and it would be unconstitutional if an hypothetical Obama administration were to do it. What part of the language and/or tradition of the First Amendment do these politicians not understand?

I have said that while I will vote for Senator Obama out of my long-established pledge to vote for the Democratic nominee, I cannot formally endorse him because of his willingness to sacrifice the Fourth Amendment by supporting the Bushists' version of FISA, allowing warrantless surveillance performed on presidential orders alone. To that, Obama has now added a First Amendment offense. These are not "liberal" values he's tossing away; they are principles as old as our nation itself. Does Obama really think he will draw enough fundamentalist evangelical Christians away from their typical Republican voting patterns to make up for the portion of his base that he is busy alienating?

All this postpartisanship sets my teeth on edge. Oh, wait... at least one tooth is no longer available to ache. I can say from actual experience today that for me, supporting Obama is like pulling teeth.

UPDATE: for a contrary view, see dday on Hullabaloo. The difference of opinion is mostly over whether there are such things as harmless church/government partnerships. On the whole, I doubt it.

UPDATE: reader BAJ (see comment thread) emphatically says AP got it wrong about what, exactly, Obama is advocating. Maybe so. If so, then what about the NY Times, the Washington Post and the LA Times? Here's how the NY Times (not sourced to AP) quoted Obama:

“If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion,” Mr. Obama said. “Federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.”

Mr. Obama’s position that religious organizations would not be able to consider religion in their hiring for such programs would constitute a deal-breaker for many evangelicals, said several evangelical leaders, who represent a political constituency Mr. Obama has been trying to court.

For once, I agree with the evangelicals, though not their motivations: the government should not be in the business of telling church-sponsored programs who they can hire. For those which hire based on religious affiliation, this in turn means they cannot constitutionally take government money.

There's also the matter of substitution by churches of government money taken for nonreligious purposes for internal money used for religious purposes. Again, we should not be splitting hairs here: this will happen, with certainty; the only question is whether it is constitutionally legitimate. I say it's not.

Steve
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Belated Holiday Picture

Here it is, almost the Fourth of July, and I am just now getting around to posting a picture I took in the patio of Spanish Flower Mexican Restaurant, colorfully decorated shortly before Cinco de Mayo:

(Actually, I just didn't want to leave that thankless tooth at the top of the blog for too long.)

Steve
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A Bridge In The 21st Century

Actually, the bridge, or rather, splint, is fine, but there's a molar that has to come out. (How sharper than a serpent's child it is to have a thankless tooth.) I feel as if I spend half my life these days in the doctor's office or the dentist's chair. Today, Tuesday, it's the latter. I'll be back when I'm able. Read the post below.

(Updated to include a picture of the thankless tooth.)

Steve
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Selected Links To Recent Posts

 
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. Some very recent posts may be included in their entirety.

Citing Doggerel, Court Rejects Bush Case

Really. Quoting Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark," a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled against the government's claim that a detainee was an "enemy combatant." The government's case was based on the appearance of a "fact" that was repeated in three government documents. Judge Merrick Garland ruled as follows:

We are not persuaded. Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has 'said it thrice' does not make the allegation true. In fact we have no basis for concluding that there are independent sources for the documents' thrice-made assertions.

Judge Garland referred, of course, to this passage from Carroll's famous poem:

     ...

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."

     ...

Regrettably, this is the nature of much of the "evidence" offered by the Bush administration for literally anything in pursuit of their "war on terror": if they say it enough times, we are expected to believe it.

So... how do I know about this ruling? I read about it here, here and here. What I tell you three times...

Steve
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Faith-Based Campaigning

Steve
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Another Day, Another Toxin

Steve
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The McCain/Bush Supreme Court

Steve
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McCain's Personal Finances - UPDATED

Steve
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Notice Of Intent To Steal

Steve
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Saturday Signs

Steve
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You Are Naked Under Your Clothes

Steve
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King In His Own Domain?

Steve
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Friday Cat Photo - Happier Days

Steve
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The Kiss: Not By Klimt

Steve
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Got Business Secrets? Leave 'Em Home! - UPDATED

Steve
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McCain On World War III

Steve
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Truth In Naming Public Works

Steve
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In Justice

Steve
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McCain Does Not Use Computers

Steve
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Kristol, Bolton: Bomb Iran If Obama Wins?

Steve
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Life Is Worth Losing

Steve
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Read My Words: No New Saturday Signs

Steve
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Democrats Cave, Give Bush Everything - UPDATED

Steve
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Foot Note

Steve
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Friday Roll Blogging

Steve
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The Democratic Party Is Betraying Us - UPDATED

Steve
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McCain Roundup

Steve
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The Web's Oldest Direct Ancestor?

Steve
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Simplify Your Hed

Steve
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Tabitha's Status

Steve
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At The Texas GOP Convention

Steve
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"I'm Voting Republican"

Steve
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AP Sues Bloggers - UPDATED

Steve
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