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Idaho
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unraveling
31.May.06
Cooking up a new recipe
Online recordkeeping, easy credit and methamphetamines combine to make
identity theft today's special.
In Phoenix, the county recorder's office posts 8,000 to 10,000 documents
a day. Most are innocuous, but some, including divorce decrees and tax
lien records, have sensitive information. "I'm not insensitive to
people's fear," said Helen Purcell, the county recorder. "I have the
same fear. My information is out there, too." But it is far too late to
start editing Social Security numbers or other data from the county Web
site, she said. "We have 100 million documents out there now."
How nice for you and all the meth users with web access. I suspect
it isn't "far too late" if the people on the short end of the
highest identity theft rate in the country start talking to the
legislators about the problem. It's very easy to take a website
offline. 100 million documents can disappear in the blink of a power
switch.
One in six Arizona adults had their identities stolen in the last
five years according to a survey reported by the story. One in 30
Americans nationwide had theirs stolen in 2002 alone. 10 million.
27.May.06
Sounds like a good deal to me
The attorney general and the F.B.I. director were prepared
to quit if asked to relinquish evidence from a House
member's office, officials said.
(NYT
story)
26.May.06
The Microsoft Case
Margaret is on yesterday's incident, case #SRZ060524002152. She
understands "that a problem was encountered when trying to install
Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool (KB892130) through Express or
Custom option," and further understands "the inconvenience [I] have
experienced." Graciously (and usefully, since the case log or her
reading of it did not make my concern understood), she adds "if I
have misunderstood your concern, please feel free to let me know."
She "also" noticed that I "have a concern on Windows Genuine Advantage
Validation Tool." Do not be afraid. "Once we install this update and
pass the validation, we can use Windows Update normally."
And here I thought this was My Computer. (It still says so under
Desktop in Windows Explorer: right under My Documents.) The good folks
at Microsoft have a little different perspective on things. It's
their operating system after all, for which I have a conditional
License to Use. And they want to make sure I have a Genuine Validated
copy before going any further. Hence, the "more powerful function for
system validation," deriving a considerable measure of its power
from forcing itself on Windows Update users.
One tax past its time
The 108-year-old federal excise tax on long distance phone calls
is being
laid to rest. Not that the nickel and dime attack on your phone
bill(s) is going away completely: the "array of state and local
taxes as well as fees that pay for emergency response groups and public
services provided by the Universal Service Fund and others" will still
be there.
But here's something I didn't know about that 3% ding:
it was enacted to help pay for the Spanish-American War.
24.May.06
Microsoft's Genuine Advantage over you
Their Monopoly. I went to check Windows Update today, and found that
either the "Express" or "Custom" choice requires me to update Update.
Ok fine. They list all sorts of wonderful things this Update update
will bring me: "Express and custom installation, Smarter downloads,
Smaller downloads, One version, Less clutter, Update news."
And there's a "Details" link. Clicking that exposes the REAL purpose of
this communications. If I'm ever going to use Windows Update again, I
need to download the
"Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool" which "enables you [sic] to
verify that your copy of Microsoft Windows is genuine. The tool validates your
Windows installation by checking Windows Product Identification and Product
Activation status."
It apparently wasn't enough to have done that when I bought their
product and initially setup the computer. They want me to check in
regularly.
Talk about integrity: HIDING the information about what they're
going to install... unless you look a little further. Not as if it
really matters. You will be assimilated.
I'm betting your tax dollars will come to their aid
26.5 million veterans who had their social security numbers and
birthdates burgled out of a VA data analyst's homework are getting
big time lip service from the people supposedly in charge.
The outrage and promised shakeup aren't worth much for those at risk,
however. What will be worth something is making the VA
provide free credit monitoring and reports to the affected veterans.
It'll be worth a lot to one of Experian, Trans-Union or Equifax,
the credit reporting agencies who will no doubt be called on to provide
those "free" services. It didn't take legislation for Fidelity to do
that for its customers after
one of its laptops was stolen. The almost 200,000 customers put at
risk seemed like a big number at the time. The VA's 100-times bigger
foul-up must've been a relief to Fidelity, who were quickly pushed off the
pile of current events.
Another Yayhoo from Idyho
In this state's hoary tradition of "sending a message to Washington,"
the Republicans have designated Bill Sali as their candidate for
Congress from our 1st Congressional District, running up the west side
of our long state. (We're in the 2nd C.D., gerrymandered to within
spittin' distance of
the boundary.)
Maybe the 5 losing competitors in the overcrowded primary will try to
get run-off voting in place for next time. There were two candidates
(Keith Johnson, Sheila Sorenson) who would arguably make much better
Representatives for the state than Sali, and another (Robert Vasquez)
who rode the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment in SW Idaho to split 55%
of the vote more or less equally between them. With barely more than
a quarter of the people voting on the Republican side—18,000 or
so—our own Kuna Caveman may get a ticket to the Big House,
helped along by more than $150,000 from the
Club for Growth.
But hold on—there will be a race for this seat, and we're
going to test the voters of the state to see whether having an "R" on
your ballot entry is more important than being a
a quality candidate for the
job.
Climb on
Alan Arnette is getting ready to head for the top of the world again.
This time it's
Broad Peak and K2, and improved technology will likely enhance the
experience for those of us watching through heavy lenses. He expects to
be able to "post text, pictures, audio and video immediately and
directly from the mountain." If the sat phone works, anyway. We'll
see!
23.May.06
Schools v. Idaho
In Charles Dickens' Bleak House (which I know from
the Beeb's fine
series), a central element of the plot is an endless and seemingly
hopeless irresolution of an estate, a legal case known as
Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.
Idaho is now vying for
its own
version of that, with its failure to provide for equitable and
adequate funding for all the school districts in our economically
diverse state. The case has gone on for years, and last solstice, our
Supreme Court finally ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, now known as the
Idaho Schools for Equal Educational Opportunity, et al..
Just in time for the 2006 Legislative session to do something about
it.
They didn't though, and the Plaintiffs are asking the Court to take
action to make the State comply with its ruling. Not only did the
Legislature fail to provide remedial measures, its actions "have
actually diminished the ability of Idaho Schools to provide a 'thorough'
education and 'safe environment conducive to learning' due to further
degredation of the tax base available to school districts," according to
a new complaint.
Said "degredation of the tax base" is the increase of the Homeowner's
Property Tax Exemption from $50,000 to $75,000, without actually
shifting any tax burden back to the non-homeowner tax base that has been
enjoying an increasingly free ride off the homeowners from a non-indexed
exemption and rapidly inflating real estate prices. Had the Legislature
not acted for property tax relief, they would have had a serious
unemployment problem to face: their own.
If there's a simple and obvious solution to the state's problems in
funding its schools, no one has slipped that to me in the mail,
but I'm ready to enterain suggestions.
22.May.06
A bit overzealous with that spam protection
Got a note from someone I don't know, asking me about some particular
directions to a
local sailing spot. I replied out of courtesy, and got an automatic
reply for my trouble. "I apologize for this automatic reply to your
email," it begins.
It might have continued, "I am rather clueless about this and will be
wondering why you didn't extend the courtesy of a reply to my inquiry,"
but didn't. It gave me a link I could follow to get special permission
to send him an email.
You know what? I don't think I'm going to do that, William.
It seemed like a big storm...
but by comparison to the real deal, a Gulf Coast hurricane, I guess it
wasn't that much. The end of a wave of unseasonably hot weather came
with a crash bang last Friday night, a little while after I'd strolled
around the yard for a scent tour, appreciated a gentle evening with the
neighbor's cat rolling on its back in the middle of the street, and
looked at the big, dark cloud to the SW and wondered who was going to
get the theunderstorm that evening.
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls.
I was typing away when the power went out, then flashed back on, then
went out for a two count, then back ON! then out. And a flicker.
We'd been cycled at least three times before I could dive for switches
and get the power strips turned off.
Some ugly transients in that one, and not just a neighborhood
transformer. A whole substation? One of our neighbors got it worse
than us, and fried a number of consumer appliances. We lit candles,
put on shoes, watched trees bending farther than we'd seen them do
before, wondered if they'd break.
None of ours did, fortunately, as I was contemplating whether or when it
was time to head for the basement. There was a whole lot of pruning
done, though, especially on the Tamarack. It sprayed small to medium
branches along with mature and immature cones all around the yard, front
and back, with some impressive distance.
We went to bed before the power came back on; which it did, once, then
went off again. But on steady not long after that. So, just a reminder
to get those emergency kits updated before the next crisis hits. The
winds got as high as 60-some mph, I hear. Can't imagine what 100mph
would be like. Duck and cover, for sure.
It's gone back to seasonable, which for late May is pleasant but not
hot, breezy but not windy, rain showers. Things are green! And
roses and Russian olive scents are in the air. And the tree trimming
business are getting a little extra work, still cleaning up.
19.May.06
Dang it, missed my blogiversary
I was thinking it was today or tomorrow, but I see it was in fact
6 years ago last
Sunday that I started this blog. It was iris time then, same as
now, as the seasons they go 'round and 'round.
Ersatz Idaho Rafting
Brianna Randall
learns the
language of the Lochsa, the wet way. The title caught my eye
because it was 30 years ago this month that I learned the
language of the Lochsa the drier (but sweatier) way, by bicycling up US
12 and over Lolo Pass.
If you've rafted our very wild and very scenic Idaho rivers, you'll
enjoy the fresh flavor of a newbie's experience. If you have yet to
make the journey, you'll get a nice taste of what it's like. With
this winter's big snowpack, this spring has been especially chundering
and thumpy.
(And just so you know: the N. Idaho river that joins the Selway to form
the Clearwater is pronounced "LOCK saw" by the locals.)
In horsey terms we understand
New West's Boise editor Jill Kuraitis recaps
last
night's verbal rodeo in entertaining detail.
Sali... snorted like a headhunting bull while he looked for every
possible way to say, "smaller government and lower taxes."
Which, as I noted in the heat of last night's typefest, we've been
trying, so far with disastrous results. Well, we've been
half trying it, just the lower taxes part. That's Sali's
campaign theme though—me and my one hundred and five pals will bring
fiscal discipline back to government.
How many times have we heard that before?
What we need is a candidate who advocates competent government.
Sorenson's promoting herself as the "effective" candidate, which may be
as close as we can get. Sali has presence, and knows how to make
trouble, but competence? Effectiveness? We think not.
18.May.06
A Six-pack, to go
Red State Rebels opened up a thread for
running commentary of the
6-way debate between the Republican candidates for the 1st District
race for Congress. Julie thought we were all going to watch quietly and
then post commentary, but it didn't turn out quite that way.
After the pros and cons, give and take, here's the summary I got from
their closing statements:
Brandt: Put America First. And the 1st CD 1st.
Johnson: I'm a great controller, and live my conservative Republican
values. Values, values, values. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Sali: Well... the pundits are unanimous. Simple, it's Liberal vs.
Conservative, me against Sorenson. Rally around Sali. (He's motivated ME
to vote Republican.) And may God Bless you.
Sorenson: I'm the un-Republican Republican, who can't quite
remember her script.
(Unfortunately, the state that elected Steve Symms could quite
conceivably elect Bill Sali.)
Semanko: I am irrelevant. But I have some nice stock phrases. And I'm
targeting you rural people (because I can't count so well).
Vasquez: I was twice-wounded.
We'll be set until the Super-Duper Bugs come
The headline in Scientific American is
New Antibiotic Eliminates Superbugs; it goes by the rather hum-drum
name of "platensimycin," since it was isolated from a strain of
Streptomyces platensis. With "Vancomycin," you could really feel
like you were dominating the field of microbial battle, but with
this new one, you can't even figure out which syllable to accent.
That's OK: if you catch a dose of methicillin-resistant staph or
vancomycin-resistant enterococci, you won't care what they call it,
other than "approved for use in humans" (which it isn't, yet).
The
bacteria won't be sitting still during the approval process, of
course....
17.May.06
Guarded surrealism
Tonight's Newshour had
a segment on the proposed? imminent? deployment of the National
Guard to the Mexican border. The setup mentioned that there's no
National Guard General on the Chiefs of Staff, which is interesting.
Then Retired Brigadier General David McGinnis slipped this in, right
after his answer in the affirmative that the Guard was ready for this
new mission: "The Guard has a lot of capability left now that Iraq is
over."
That's my emphasis, because he gave it none, and neither Judy
Woodruff, Lawrence Kolb nor Stephen Biddle saw fit to respond to his
surreal assumption.
I tuned in a bit late so maybe this was the lead story, the war in Iraq
has ended? Wow.
As to the capability for the mission, no one really knows what that
mission is yet, but Korb figured 6,000 Guardsman were about one tenth
the force to "do it right."
It's easy to see how McGinnis made his way up the chain of command in
the National Guard with this can-do rebuttal: "Anything you ask the Guard
to do, I'm sure they're capable of doing."
Spring to summer
Popped into the 90s this week, just like that. 9:40 and I can smell
morning wind on the breeze coming in the
window. We were wondering if there would be another frost within the
last two weeks, running the furnace a little, and now it's time to
reject heat already.
Blue Maps Galore
was the subject over the pointer I was just sent to
Chris Bowers'
Blue Nation graphics. State-by-state, it puts fortboise on the
western fringe of the ebbing Red Sea. County-by-county, it tells us
that low population density leads to support for Bush. (Low rainfall
may be a factor, too.)
It makes interesting pictures, but
there are some questions about Bowers' data... such as "where did this
supposed county-by-county data come from?" and "If all but a few
counties in the SE corner of Idaho are blue, how is the state red?"
Cartograms allow us to modify geography to human purposes, as
shown by
Gastner, Shalizi, and Newman of the University of Michigan.
You wouldn't think rectangles would be as satisfying, but I thought
the maps the NYT ran last election (hey,
still available!) were quite effective. ("States by electoral
votes" are easy enough to do that with, but it won't help us for
county data, if we had it.)
16.May.06
Moscow High ain't what it used to be
At least not the old building. Something sad and funny about the
mis-stenciled "N" in "KEEP OUT UNSAFE," but you have to zoom in on the
little red sign at the bottom of the stairs for the better joke.
I suspect the button may be broken too.
Such a kidder
One of few remaining allies was in town, and GWB tried his best
schoolboy humor on him. You just never can tell how things are
going to sound in print. To one (sub)headline writer, it sounded like
Howard mocked by Bush, which doesn't have any jolly connotations to
me.
"Somebody said, 'You and John Howard appear to be so close, don't you
have any differences?'" Bush said. "I said, 'Yeah he doesn't have any
hair.'" While Howard chuckled, Bush kept teasing. "He may not be the
prettiest person on the block, but when he tells you something you can
take it to the bank," Bush said.
My word's pretty important to me, and I like to think people trust me
and have faith in my promises. But for someone to "take it to the
bank"? Is it my imagination, or is W's value system showing in this
choice of words?
IDAHO is...
the
International Day Against Homophobia, May 17th.
Wag the Blog
Monday's come and gone and Karl Rove hasn't been indicted, so it's
starting to look like
Jason Leopold
and truthout got played (even though Rove might yet be
indicted, of course).
I was going to stay quiet about this, but I sent an email to a friend,
so the NSA already has the idea. I might as well share it with the rest
of the world. Plus, I just thought of that great headline, so I have to
put something under it.
This looks like one of Bush's Brain's brilliant dirty tricks to me:
he started the hoax about his own indictment, as a means to
ferret out whose lips are loose. If he's as smart as everyone says,
he arranged 5 or 6 distinguishable components to the irresistable
"Rove indicted" story and then disseminated them such that 32 or 64
different people could be tested with one good bait, flavored with
different seasonings.
Factorial
design of experiments applied to political hackery.
15.May.06
Otter's drinking with the good old boys
You can just hear the warm chatter of the "business casual" crowd and the
clink of the cocktail glasses as they spear their hors d'oeuvres,
can't you? Butch Otter is just warming up to the event that was so much
more important than the chance to debate his primary opponent on Idaho
Public TV: a lovely
soirée at the Top of the Hoff.
"For this event, contributions of $1,000 or greater are appreciated -
$5,000 is the maximum contribution allowed by state law."
Otter's yellow-bellied web site lists those business interests and
"plain folks" who are most interested in sucking up to the Republican
front-runner:
- Amalgamated Sugar
- American Ecology
- Agri Beef Co.
- Simplot
- Idaho Power Company
- Idaho Truck PAC
- Charles and Susan Carlise
- LaMont and Vicki Keen
- Idaho Credit Union League
- Sempra Energy
- Roy and Miren Eiguren
- Micron Technology
- Idaho Medical Association
- Idaho Association of Realtors
- Tamarack Resort
- Idaho Business PAC, Inc.
- Avista
- Boise Cascade
- Gary and Mert Michael
- Blue Cross of Idaho
- Redpoint Consulting Group
14.May.06
Alternative media
The Dixie Chicks' hot new single is getting the cold shoulder from
country music radio, but it's #1 for downloads. Is the narrow-mindedness
in "country" just a product of corporate management? There have to be
some millions of good ol' boys in the 70+% of the country that's no
longer pleased with the good ol' boy in the White House's performance.
Some millions are starting to feel like they got took.
The
60 Minutes feature on the Chicks was a breath of fresh
air.
Return Mail
Tom Porteus: "The White House has spent millions of dollars on
public diplomacy and is forever wringing its hands over its poor
performance in the battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East. Here
is a golden opportunity to put that right without spending a dime. It
should answer the Iranian letter seriously, point by point."
So far, no hint of the courtesy of a reply.
Is that because the "exhausting" of diplomatic efforts is an act
designed to provide the excuse for another war?
If so, there is little reason to expect something better than any of
the previous disasters.
In slightly more than a century, the United States has overthrown the
governments of at least 14 countries, beginning with the Hawaiian
monarchy in 1893, and forcibly intervened in dozens more. Long before
Afghanistan and Iraq, there were the Philippines, Panama, South Vietnam
and Chile, among others. Most of these interventions not only have
brought great pain to the target countries but also, in the long run,
weakened American security.
Strategist, save thyself
Has Karl
Rove been indicted, or are those just rumors we're hearing? Imminent?
Imaginative? Wait a couple days and we'll all know for sure.
Privacy? Get Over It.
Greg
Palast says it's not the NSA data mining we need to worry about, but
the commercial undertaking spearheaded by ChoicePoint, Inc., "which has
sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts."
Outsourcing strikes again. It's not just who all you're calling, but
the "linking [of] this info to your medical records, your bill purchases
and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your
voting registration" that's at issue.
I first ran across these guys in 2000 in Florida when our Guardian/BBC
team discovered the list of 94,000 "felons" that Katherine Harris had
ordered removed from Florida's voter rolls before the election.
Virtually every voter purged was innocent of any crime except, in most
cases, Voting While Black. Who came up with this electoral hit list that
gave Bush the White House? ChoicePoint, Inc.
And worse, they KNEW the racially-tainted list of felons was bogus. And
when we caught them, they lied about it. While they've since apologized
to the NAACP, ChoicePoint's ethnic cleansing of voter rolls has been
amply rewarded by the man the company elected.
13.May.06
Deadline pressure worked
Jeanette got into Part D via the
Medicare Advantage route, just two days ahead of the dreaded "we'll
start raising the price for a service you don't need now but someday
probably will" deadline. Here in SW Idaho, we had two Fee-for-service
(i.e. not PPO) plans to choose from if we didn't want to pay a premium
in addition to the $88.50 for Part B. Medicare (and paying for a
separate Part D plan), United Healthcare, or Humana... which gigantic
and unfeeling bureaucracies do you prefer?
The comparison
information available is better organized and presented than what
you can find from private companies, for private plans (more evidence
that Medicare is a government program that really works), but it's still
ridiculously complicated. Signing up, by comparison, is simple. Name,
address, "Medicare claim number" and a few "I agree" buttons and you're
into the paperwork queue. Expect some weeks' delay before delivery.
One question she had was whether she could get out of an M-A plan
and go back to "regular" Medicare. Yes, you can, "next" month.
That's not true for Part D plans however, which constrain you to
annual enrollment/change windows. Further evidence that the Medicare
drug benefit program has deeper flaws than the original Medicare.
Hooray for Qwest?
All of a sudden, the stature of our local, everybody-loves-to-hate-em
telco—and its former CEO—has
jumped up a notch. Responding to the federal spooks who
showed "a disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal
process," Qwest showed a disinclination to participate in the NSA's
undertaking to create a vast database of calling records.
It also puts a new light on 42 federal charges of insider trading against
former Joseph Nacchio, the man at the top who refused to go along with the
extra-legal fishing expedition. (The Association of US West Retirees
is a long way from convinced: "Our retirees won't be happy until he goes
to jail. We can't wait until he's cooked." Perhaps they'll settle for
medium rare instead of well-done now?)
11.May.06
What's the 4-1-1 on that?
The latest bill from Qwest had the usual bits and, what's this?
Two calls to Directory Assistance? We don't use that, certainly not for
$1.25 a pop. Calling customer service didn't bring satisfaction, as
the agent in the unpleasant position simply insisted that we must have
used it, otherwise it wouldn't be on our bill. Could she tell me what
day and time the calls were made, so we could try to figure out who
might have been here and using the phone without our permission?
"No, we don't give that information out, to protect our customers'
privacy."
Interesting theory: they can't tell me when my phone was used, to
protect my privacy.
Well, what about my long distance calls, those all have time and day on
them? "Is the time and day for the information calls on your bill?"
No. "Well then we don't have that information."
Perhaps we could just ask
the NSA about those calls? I imagine they have the records
of who called whom and when, eh? I didn't see the NSA customer service
number in the newspaper story though.
10.May.06
US Dept of Aggie-Prop?
We're after a consistent message here people, so work those transistions
however you need to, but
bring the presentation around to our progress in Iraq.
These are desperate times, calling for the undersecretaries, assistant
secretaries and other political appointees at the Department of
Agriculture to sell the good news on the GWOT, and to send in their
reports:
Please use these message points as often as possible and send Harry
Phillips , USDA's director of speechwriting, a weekly email summarizing
the event, date and location of each speech incorporating the attached
language.
In case you're stumped for how to bring the farmers around to the topic,
helpful transition examples are provided: "Several topics I'd like to
talk about today—Farm Bill, trade with Japan, WTO, avian flu,
animal ID—but before I do, let me touch on a subject people always
ask about... progress in Iraq."
Here's why phishing works
My work has brought me to the first forays with using Paypal to obtain
payment (for legitimate stuff, honest), and yesterday I got a call from
a customer who needed help: Paypal wouldn't accept her credit card.
From the web design point of view, we "hired" Paypal to deal with all
that, and what could we do? I did my best to make sure she wasn't
making an obvious mistake on their form, and looked around until I found
a support phone number she could try. She didn't bother, and figured
she'd just pay by check.
This morning, a new call from her: she got an email from Paypal, she
told me, saying that her account had been violated! Could she get that
phone number from me again?!
I walked her through the message, and got her to see that the hyperlink
it wanted her to follow was not Paypal's. But the—absolutely
coincidental—timing was perfect, leading her to assume that a
legitimate-looking message was legitimate.
It wasn't that hard to get past the gross blunder and grammatical error
stage, and now they can reap the rewards of these 1 in 1,000
coincidences as Paypal handles more and more transactions.
Health insurance
After 2½ years of flying without a net, I rejoin the select group
of Americans who have health insurance today. The path is amazingly
convoluted, and the "negotiation" and information flow one-sided.
Several of us talked with an agent, and she did most of the paperwork,
duplicating the tedious application data to (try to) obtain more than
one quote. As it turns out, one company came in with a deadline before
the other was heard from, and today's the last day for me to sign up for
their offer.
Not that June 1st wouldn't be just as good, but they warned that I'd
have to start over if I didn't accept by their deadline. (The agent was
keenest to meet the deadline, since she'd be doing the "start over"
paperwork, for the most part.) Coverage is retroactive to May 1st, a
mild absurdity that mostly means I'm paying their premium as of that
date.
The other absurdity is that we're closing this deal with them telling me
little more than the premium and a table or two of general information
about what they cover, with what deductibles, coinsurance, limits. The
real policy is doubtless a thin-sheeted book full of fine print
that will serve to insure more money coming into them than going out to
me and any health providers who provide me some health.
Should catastrophe come along, the deal will be modified to their favor,
I'm sure. But I get some prophylaxis and at least one crisis at the
current rate (as adjusted for inflation &tc. from time to time).
Why was it we put them in charge again?
The only thing lower than
the public's opinion of the way President Bush is handling his job
is its opinion of the way Congress is handling its job.
The Republicans are in the driver's seat, and we're racing down the
wrong road. As we run out of gas. The metaphor's as fractured as our
prospects.
The summary numbers for "which party do you think is more likely to...?"
show the Rs leading in just two categories: providing for a strong
military defense, and make the right decisions to deal with terrorism.
Is that the trump card to keep them in power? If it is, we're willing
to forgo some pretty important issues:
- 50% to 37% think the Democrats come closer to sharing their moral
values!
- 48 to 30 to make the right decisions about Iraq;
- 45 to 29 to make the right decisions about immigration;
- More than 2 to 1 for a fair tax system,
- to improve education,
- to have more new ideas (and good ones?);
- Almost 3 to 1 to protect our civil liberties;
- And more than 3 to 1 to improve the health care system.
9.May.06
Merci!
for Le Monde publishing
La lettre de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad à George W. Bush, in
English. It runs on a bit, and no doubt loses something in the
translation, but it goes something like this:
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ and have countries attacked,
villages and cities destroyed, thousands of people killed?
Divine Strake put off
DOD/DOE still has plans to light up the 1.4 million pounds of
conventional explosives, but
now for June 23rd
instead of the 2nd. Probably not to get it closer to the Solstice,
news is the extra time is to get the legal papers in order.
The little cluckers are taking over
The first version of
the
press release said that the two candidates for Idaho Governor met in
front of a chicken coup, which is perhaps even more apt than the
coop they chose for a backdrop. Their point was that C.L.
"Butch" Otter was chicken to show up for a debate with his primary
opponent Dan Adamson, and so Democrat Jerry Brady would be glad to stand
in for Butch.
Given Otter's certain primary victory (and likely victory in November),
we understand he can't be bothered to debate publicly; the chicken coup
may be on, with good ol' boy Idaho voters prepared to vote themselves
another good ol' boy gov.
8.May.06
Something doesn't add up
We'd been having Goldilocks spring weather to start the month, not too hot,
and not too cold, bringing the estimated 1.44 million acre-feet of snowpack
we have left down at a more or less comfortable rate. (Always more
comfortable up on the west bench than down in the flood plain, of course,
where 25 thousand people are anxiously waiting to see how high the river
will get.) The Boise River is running fast and high, 7,000 cfs. That was
just below what would flood my
greenbelt route down to the BSU campus on Friday and Saturday. I rode
down and back in the evenings to watch the tennis tournament I got an early
exit pass from, and reveled in the rich scents of the season. The
cottonwood is about enough to knock you over, and then layer in lilacs,
plums, apples and it's a delight at every turn.
Sunday, it cooled down and rained a bit, and it's struggling to get back
above 60°F today. More good news for controlling flooding. I visited
the BuRec's teacup
diagram for the Boise and Payette river systems, and found this
interesting tidbit way down at the bottom of the
Boise project
description:
A formal flood control operating agreement for the Boise River system has
been signed by the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.
Sufficient space is maintained in Anderson Ranch, Arrowrock, and Lucky Peak
Reservoirs to regulate the forecast riverflow through Boise to no more
6,500 cubic feet per second.
My emphasis; there must be allowance for amendment on the fly, as the
system has been running at 7,000 cfs for a couple weeks, and
they say they'll turn it up to 7,500 by Wednesday.
That's high enough to bring out the
newspaper features, at least.
Fünf de Mai
The script may be funnier than the performance was
That's the Colbert Report from the Correspondent's Dinner, the
transcript
served by Daily Kos, I found it on commondreams.org.
Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty,
because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that
glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually
backwash.
On Winning Hearts and Minds
In the red, white and blue "Battle Against Terror," public diplomacy
is
said to be key. Even if that's being said by the person whose job it
is to promote public diplomacy, we accept the assertion. "Public
diplomacy" and "terror" pin down ends of the spectrum that might also
include "rule of law," "rendition," "preventative war," "torture," and
so on. The argument in favor of the "right" end of that spectrum is
that we have to use all tools at our disposal in this-is-war.
"This is war" biases us to that end of the spectrum however, and public
diplomacy devolves to its caricature, propaganda. That's the problem
with Karen Hughes' position: it feels more like Minister of Propaganda
than the means to actually offer a positive, hopeful vision "rooted in
America's belief in freedom, justice, opportunity, and respect for
all."
We are not offering a positive, hopeful vision to Iran, for example, but
rather
threatening to bomb the hell out of them if they don't repudiate any
claim to nuclear weapons. Catch-22: nuclear deterrence is working (so
far!) for us, for Israel, for Iran's Pakistani and Indian neighbors, for
China, for North Korea. The object lesson of Iraq is that a
bluff that you have WMDs does not provide a functional deterrent.
Teddy Roosevelt comes to mind, as he apparently did to the Israelis:
"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
(Our Usonian sense of fractured geography fails to inform us at how
close, and how strong this lesson is for Iran. Imagine you're in
southern California and China has started a war in Mexico, or you're in
Seattle and the Russians (or North Korea!) invaded B.C.)
The face we have lately presented to the rest of the world is not
Rooseveltian, however, but Biblical, in the Old Testament flavor. "Might
Makes Right," and our God is mightiest of all. Yes, exchange programs
tend to be wonderful things for those involved, and "people who come
here see America, make up their own minds about us and almost always go
home with a different and much more positive view of our country," as
Hughes says. (We discount those who are here "on exchange" only to
conspire in terrorist plots against us.) But most of the world can't
come here and see for themselves, they have to judge us by our public
face, and our actions.
Those actions are speaking much more loudly than our
under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs.
A less-vetted audience
Ray McGovern took his criticism to a level beyond
his opinion pieces on tompaine.com to
direct confrontation of the SecDef. "Why did you lie?" was met with
a simple denial—what else would he say?—but "why don't you
resign?" might have led to a more interesting exchange.
Check out
the video footage, and think about Rumsfeld's spin of the "lie"
question off to Colin Powell. He didn't lie. "He spent weeks
and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people, and prepared a
presentation that I know he believed was accurate."
That's his emphasis: "I know." We can not know for certain what mental
processes others experience. We can infer them, sometimes with
great accuracy. But the skill of such inference is balanced by the
skill we humans have to deceive others, to conceal what we think,
know, believe.
Tain't what a man don't know that hurts him; it's what
he knows that just ain't so!
–Frank McKinney Hubbard
(and Will Rogers)
"He believed." But we now know he believed in error, whether it was
through honest errors of estimation, deliberate deception, or cognitive
dissonance enforced by repeated actions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and
Tenet. Rumsfeld says he's "not in the intelligence business,"
conveniently glossing the Defense Intelligence Agency into
non-existence.
"You said you knew where they were," McGovern responded.
"I did not. I said I knew where 'suspect sites' were."
Mr. Rumsfeld didn't recall what it was he said way back when,
understandable for an extemporaneous Q&A session, but
the transcript from March 30, 2003 is readily available. That was
when the war was new, more than a month before George Bush so memorably
declared the Mission Accomplished. The question of "where are the
WMDs?" was still an open one. We didn't yet control the whole country
(but imagined that we soon would). Here's what Rumsfeld said to
George Stephanopoulos on ABC:
"...the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition
forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where
weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they
are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west,
south and north somewhat."
That's my emphasis this time.
6-5-4
Deus ex Machina
Bruce Schneier:
Everyone
Wants to 'Own' Your PC. Between automagic updates and protections
of many stripes, you don't really know what's going on inside this box,
do you? He suggests you fight the power without really acknowledging
how hard that will be to do. "Use open-source software," he says, but I
don't imagine all those copies of generations of Win O/S are going
anywhere anytime soon.
Nor does he mention that while you may have paid good money for your
software, the license that came with it made it clear you do NOT
own it; just a license to use it, which can be easily yanked.
"Just because computers were a liberating force in the past doesn't mean
they will be in the future. There is enormous political and economic
power behind the idea that you shouldn't truly own your computer or your
software, despite having paid for it."
3.May.06
Shall we follow the Constitution this time?
Since I don't read much of the right-wing press, the drumbeats for war
in Iran are just distant echoes, but none the less disturbing for that.
Patrick J. Buchanan spells what should happen next, in his op-ed
piece, Of Imperial
Presidents and Congressional Cowards:
It is time for Congress to tell President Bush directly that he has no
authority to go to war on Iran and to launch such a war would be an
impeachable offense. Or, if they so conclude, Congress should share full
responsibility by granting him that authority after it has held hearings
and told the people why we have no other choice than another Mideast
war, with a nation three times as large as Iraq.
The rules are one thing, ordnance is another. As
James Moore
points out, we—Israel—have the ordnance to rule.
Over the beginning of WWIII, anyway. What do you say, Congress? Are you
going to let our Supreme Leader light that off?
2.May.06
Speaking Truthiness to Power
Not enough give'n'take in
the Colbert Report at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner,
to amuse the butt of the jabs. George and Laura left in a snit, sounds
like.
Authenticity
Wired
News (which they want you to know is a "distinct business entity
with an independent editorial team"... how could you be so confused)
says don't blame them for Gore losing the election and all that's
happened since. They were just playing the same stupid game as the rest
of the MSM, eh?
If you're going to include Wired News in a list of scapegoats, it would
have to come well behind Ralph Nader, Florida election officials, the
U.S. Supreme Court, democratic strategists and, yes, the performance of
the candidate himself.
Bold stand, Evan.
Beacon of Torture
It appears we have not just a Vice President, but also a President of
Torture. Senator John McCain's attempt to legislate some measure of
morality—which his fellow Senators endorsed with a 10-to-1
majority—has instead been manipulated into the means to do away
with habeus corpus.
Alfred McCoy describes how "CIA torture techniques" "have
metastasized like an undetected cancer inside the U.S. intelligence
community over the past half-century."
And no, it wasn't just a few bad apples, it was orders right down the
chain of command. Bush, Rumsfeld, and on down to
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, taking it to "the outer limits."
Oh for the good old days, when that was just scary fiction on our black
and white TV.
May Day Boxing
(What do you call the day after May Day, after all? Groundhog May?)
Seems a shame to have missed saying something on the first of May, 26
years after I stuck a flower behind my ear and danced around the Maypole
in Friendship Square.
And three years after the publicity stunt under the "Mission
Accomplished" banner. The times they are a-changin'.
raveling
Tom von Alten
tva_∂t_fortboise_⋅_org
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Tuesday, 06-Jun-2006 23:29:14 MDT
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