First Looks category archive

Last week, several cables connecting the Middle East and the Inidan subcontinent to the Internet were cut, prompting speculation among some that there was some kind of conspiracy.

The Network Security podcast took a sane look at this. I commend it to your attention. From the show notes:

Tonight’s special guest is Mike Murray the author of Epistime.ca. We headed into the land of paranoia and conspiracy theories given recent goings on under the sea in the Middle East. We all agree that these events probably are random, but it still leaves us with raised eyebrows.

The show also took a look at the implications of the Protect America (Yeah! Right!) Act’s and the Patriot Act’s on the civil liberties of American citizens as they relate to computer network security, also in a rational way.

“Rational,” natch, means not wingnut.

You can follow the link or listen here.

Steve over at ASZ has the scoop on them.

He’s at it again.

John Cole on “Conservatives”:

I am now completely convinced that there is no such thing as “conservative” principles. It is a joke, an empty suit- it means whatever you want it to mean, and right now it means double Gitmo, permanent war, hating on liberals, and tax cuts forever. I guess, in that light, Mitt is the true “conservative,” as he has shown himself willing to do whatever and pay whatever it takes to win the nomination. I simply can not believe that the folks who cheerleaded the Bush administration and who are not even flinching about the new 700 billion dollar military budget have the balls to pretend to be conservative, but, hey, it is their party. I hope they keep wrecking it.

But when folks say “conservative,” and they will say it seriously as if it means something, no doubt also invoking the “mantle of Reagan,” just laugh at them. They might as well be talking about phlogiston. Whatever conservative used to mean, if anything, it no longer does.

NFC rules, AFC drools.

Brendan makes another phone call.

This one is a hoot.

Tommywonk looks at then and now.

Cold economy:

Dover officials are seeing an increase in the number of Dover utility customers who are failing to pay their bills.

The city collected more than $250,000 last year in bounced check fees and fees charged to reconnect customers who have had their electricity turned off. That’s nearly $50,000 more than the amount collected in 2006, which was nearly $50,000 more than collected in 2005.

Kathy Divver, customer service manager at the city’s utility office, thinks people are having a harder time making ends meet.

Upyernoz.

Delaware Liberal has the skinney.

Because it’s a really messed up state commonwealth:

Mary Jo Pletz was really, really good at eBay. But now the former stay-at-home mom and gonzo Internet retailer fears a maximum $10 million fine for selling 10,000 toys, antiques, videos, sports memorabilia, books, tools and infant clothes on eBay without an auctioneer’s license.

An official from the Department of State knocked on Pletz’s white-brick ranch here north of Allentown in late December 2006 and said her Internet business, D&J Virtual Consignment, was being investigated for violating state laws.

“I was dumbfounded,” said Pletz, who led the dark-suited investigator to a side patio area where he grilled her. “I told him I would just shut down,” she said.

The Pletz case has unleashed a political storm in Harrisburg over what – if anything – should be done about regulating Internet auctions in Pennsylvania.

Words fail me.

Ebay is certainly not an auction house as contemplated by the law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Of course, it’s the same state commonwealth where the lawmakers are quite happy voting themselves a huge raise in the dead of night.

Brendan suggests going there to drown your sorrows tomorrow after watching the Straightjacket of the Union screech tonight.

I don’t plan to watch the screech.

I’m tired of the lies and really don’t see any point to subjecting myself voluntarily to them.

If you plant to watch it, drink and play bingo.

But I’m still going to try to be at Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, 6 p. m. to 9 p.m., tomorrow evening.

I’d say the odds are about 60-40 that I’ll make it.

So be there in case I can’t.

Bingo card via Susie.

Let us welcome Ray and his first post on From Pine View Farm.

I look forward to many more.

Susie lays it out.

The following is an excerpt from a New York Times article dated 10/7/1931 during the last days of the Hoover administration:

Census authorities are moving apple sellers from their list of jobless to the category of “employed” because they say many people selling “unemployed apple” are earning a good living.

“It’s a great life.”

I earlier shared my views on “legacy.”

I pointed out that a legacy is not something that can be created, but rather is the accumulation of a career of behavior.

Take a look at the results of a career:

How did it happen? Find out here.

Via Digby.

George W. Bush is famous for his attachment to a painting which he acquired after becoming a “born again Christian.” It’s by W.H.D. Koerner and is entitled “A Charge to Keep.” Bush was so taken by it, that he took the painting’s name for his own official autobiography. And here’s what he says about it:

I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves.

So in Bush’s view (or perhaps I should say, faith) the key figure, with whom he personally identifies, is a missionary spreading the word of the Methodist Christianity in the American West in the late nineteenth century.

(snip)

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled “The Slipper Tongue,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”

So Bush’s inspiring, prosyletizing Methodist is in fact a silver-tongued horse thief fleeing from a lynch mob. It seems a fitting marker for the Bush presidency. Bush has consistently exhibited what psychologists call the “Tolstoy syndrome.” That is, he is completely convinced he knows what things are, so he shuts down all avenues of inquiry about them and disregards the information that is offered to him. This is the hallmark of a tragically bad executive. But in this case, it couldn’t be more precious. The president of the United States has identified closely with a man he sees as a mythic, heroic figure. But in fact he’s a wily criminal one step out in front of justice. It perfectly reflects Bush the man. . . and Bush the president.

Like everything else about the Current Federal Administration, the explanation is an illusion founded in a delusion.

For a definition of the Tolstoy Syndrone, go here.

Via Dan Froomkin.

Turn off the switch:

Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn’t result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region’s utilities could be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.

Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.

“Water is the nuclear industry’s Achilles’ heel,” said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. “You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants.” He added: “This is becoming a crisis.”

“I have no recollection of that at this point in time.” (Familiar phrasing to those of us of a Certain Age.)

(“Because, well, there’s no evidence to belie my statement, however much I be lying.”)

18 1/2 missing minutes of tape reprise.

Only this time, it’s not measured in minutes.

It’s measured in years.

Years of lies and perfidy.

President Bush’s White House early on scrapped a custom archiving system that the Clinton administration had adopted under a federal court order. From 2001 to 2003, the Bush White House also recorded over computer backup tapes that provided a last line of defense for preserving e-mails, even though a similar practice landed the Clinton administration in legal trouble.

As a result, several years’ worth of electronic communication may have been lost, potentially including e-mails documenting administration actions in the run-up to the Iraq war.

They can’t live up to their lawful obligation to preserve public records.

But these, natch, are the same folks who think they should know our every communication.

They call it the “Protect America Act.”

Yeah.

Right.

It is the “Destroy American Liberties Act.”

The so-called “Protect America Act of 2007,” which we are calling the “Police America Act,” allows for massive, untargeted collection of international communications without court order or meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts. It contains virtually no protections for the U.S. end of the phone call or email, leaving decisions about the collection, mining and use of Americans’ private communications up to this administration.

Oh, yeah, and corporations that broke the law should be excused from that, I guess, because, well, King George the Wurst is the law.

Just ask him.

And wingnut fellow traveler Harry Reid is right there behind it:

Harry Reid — who has (a) done more than any other individual to ensure that Bush’s demands for telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping powers will be met in full and (b) allowed the Republicans all year to block virtually every bill without having to bother to actually filibuster — went to the Senate floor yesterday and, with the scripted assistance of Mitch McConnell and Pat Leahy, warned Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold and others that they would be selfishly wreaking havoc on the schedules of their fellow Senators (making them work over the weekend, ruining their planned “retreat,” and even preventing them from going to Davos!) if they bothered everyone with their annoying, pointless little filibuster.

To do so, Reid announced that, unlike for the multiple filibusters from Republican colleagues, he would actually force Dodd and company to engage in a real filibuster. This is what Reid said:

[I]f people think they are going to talk this to death, we are going to be in here all night. This is not something we are going to have a silent filibuster on. If someone wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in the openness of the Senate.

That is what Democrats have been urging Reid to do to the filibustering Republicans all year — in order to dramatize their obstructionism — but he has refused to make them actually filibuster anything, generously agreeing instead that every bill requires 60 votes. Instead, he reserves such punishment only for the members of his own caucus trying to take a stand for the rule of law and the Constitution, those who are trying finally to bring some accountability to this administration.

It is time to restore the rule of law.

Honestly, folks, those who willingly give up their liberties are those who are not worthy of them.

Call, write, email, or fax your Senator or Representative incongrously assembled and remind him or her that this is used to be should be was conceived as a nation ruled by law, not by despotism.

Portions via Atrios.

This is what my son is fighting for.

Of course, this is old news:

US President George W. Bush and his top officials ran roughshod over the truth in the run-up to the Iraq war lying a total of 935 times, a study released Wednesday found.

Bush and his then secretary of state Colin Powell made the most false statements as they sought to drum up support for the March 2003 invasion to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the study alleged.

In a damning report, the Center for Public Integrity found “935 false statements by eight top administration officials that mentioned Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, or links to Al-Qaeda, on at least 532 separate occasions.”

Happy now?

H/T to Linda.