March, 2007 archive

It is no surprise, of course, that the Current Federal Administration does not want to allow its minions to testify under oath and on the record.

But I note this quotation (emphasis added):

Bush, in a late-afternoon statement at the White House, decried any attempts by Democrats to engage in “a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants.”

In what way does this quotation relate to any members of the Current Federal Administration whose testimony is desired?

Addendum, 3/22/2007:

Jon Stewart weighs in:

. . . or cop top?

Passed the Senate, 92 to two, with four not voting.

For the last half hour doing routine database maintenance.

./myisamchk -r is your friend.

As I drove home from the jobsite yesterday, I listened to Fresh Air on the radio.

Scary:

Blackwater USA is a secret army based in North Carolina with a sole owner: Erik Prince, a radical right-wing Christian multimillionaire. Jeremy Scahill talks about his book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Give it a listen, then wonder about WHAT THE HELL THE NEOCONS ARE DOING TO OUR COUNTRY!

Chertoff as the next Attorney-General:

Many names have been floated as possible replacements for Abu. But two names probably have the inside track. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is a likely candidate because of the extraordinary incompetence he showed after Katrina destroyed most of New Orleans. The Bush administration knows well that incompetence leaves a political appointee with slavish loyalty as his only redeeming qualification.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee has also been mentioned because of his previous experience as an Attorney General on the hit television series “Law & Order.” But he might decline because he might seek a starring role as the next president.

The reasoning is difficult to argue with.

But not by Henry Gibson.

All seriousness aside, this is really good.

We chose to attend an anniversary celebration observance.

As with a birthday cake, there is one candle for each year.

Found here.

I have a new domain name. The old one will still work, but please update your links to

http://www.pineviewfarm.net/weblog

NOT to be confused with Pine View Farm dot Com

Addendum, 3/22/2007:

I’m going to have to dig into the MySql tables to replace the reference to http://frankwbell.no-ip.info with http://www.pineviewfarm.com. That project must wait for another day.

And why weren’t they fired? Because they were “loyal Bushies“?

On the Media this week explored that question today with guest John Cragan. I’ll link to the transcript when it becomes available. In the meantime, you can lister here.

Some of Professor Cragan’s findings, compiled from publically available information, are available on the web:

Data* indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials,

(snip)

The current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling. Our paper calls for new federal laws that would create a national registry of federal investigations of elected officials by party affiliation. This new, political profiling registry could well be a hybrid of the current requirement for state and local reports of racial profiling in traffic stops and the Commerce Department’s Office of Labor Management Standards’ annual report on Union corruption.

I never thought I’d agree with Donald Trump on anything.

Addendum, 3/22/2007:

Read the transcript here.

Kyrie O’Connor, on Wait, Wait yesterday suggested a new tense to embrace constructions such as

“Mistakes were made.”

The passive exonerative.

Of course, the mistake, in the view of the Current Federal Administration, was most likely in not destroying the evidence.

Addendum, 3/18/2007:

I note that Ms. O’Connor did not claim authorship of the phrase. On the Media today attributed it to a CNN commentor, but I missed his name.

You can listen here (Real Player).

Addendum, 3/22/2007:

Read the On the Media transcript here.

Doug Thompson.

Follow the link to read the whole essay:

The Bush administration, trying to extricate itself from yet another scandal, tries to dismiss the firing of eight U.S. attorneys who failed the White House loyalty test as a legal move because the attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the President.”

OK. Fair enough. But let’s remember that under our system of government, George W. Bush serves as President at the pleasure of the American people.

And we’ve got a newsflash for you Mr. Bush. We, the American people no longer believe you should be serving at our pleasure.

So, if it’s OK for you to sack eight U.S. attorneys because they are no longer serving at your pleasure, then heed the call of the American people who think it is high time you packed your bags and vacated your temporary residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

You’re overstayed your welcome, Mr. Bush. American voters delivered a strong message last November. We’re sick and tired of your lies, your corruption and your illegal and immoral war that has sent to many Americans to their death.

SpinDentist has an example.

Get your score card here! You can’t tell the players without a scorecard!

When Secure Image went west during a power failure, I installed Spam Karma 2.

It’s done a great job gobbling up comment spam–it hasn’t made a mistake yet.

Unfortunately, the spam does go into the database (though only I see it). Each comment entry awakens a new thread in Apache and MySQL. My poor little webserver has been drowning under all the threads. It’s only a Pentium 300, for Pete’s sake! If you’ve tried to hit the blog and gotten an error saying that “WordPress cannot connect to MySQL,” that’s why.

So I’ve installed a new question and answer spam filter which unregistered users–or users who choose not to register before posting a comment–will have to complete before posting a comment.

People can answer questions. Spambots can’t.

And suggesting for fun questions with answers obvious to any literate person will be happily considered.

One of these days, I’ll find the time to fix the corrupt Secure Image table in my database, but, in the meantime, it’s the mean time.

Anyone who wants to register to post comments is welcome to request a password by clicking the “Email” link above the picture of Pine View Farm.

What’s the saying for a March that has the lion in the middle?

Four inches so far. Four inches of pure slush–sleet on top of rain.

I left the job site early. The normal 1 hour 15 minute drive home took 2 hours and 30 minutes.

I was half-way home when I started to see the ice and about 20 minutes behind schedule, because I took the old road, not the new road (glad I did–the new road had two lanes closed from a crash somewhere around Odessa). From that point on, I saw eight accidents, including one car on its roof and two so deep in the ditch I don’t think they’ll ever come out again.

Oh, yeah, there was a 10-minute stop in Dover to get some new catridges.

And the usual crop of SUV’s who want to go 60 just to prove they can . . . .

In my new gig, I’m going through print cartridges like certain Congresspersons go through bribes. (Alternative link here, with apologies to the Schlafly family).

Every rewrite of a procedure needs to be printed out and taken to the operators who perform the task so they can correct it and approve it. The Boss doesn’t want to see anything until it has received “operator approval.”

So, tonight, I was printing out three procedures.

They just weren’t printing. They were all torn and jammed, with great hunks missing out of paper. Heart attacks were impending.

I think I discovered the culprit.

Someone was playing with those tantalizing bits of paper jerkily moving forward on the printer tray.

Once I locked her in the pantry, the print jobs completed smoothly.

Oh, yeah. When they were done, I did release her. But it’s her Favorite Place. She likes to sleep on the water heater.

I have neither the time nor the inclination nor the ability to improve upon Phillybit’s deconstruction of that farce.

. . . let us keep our eyes on the bouncing ball. Dan Froomkin (emphasis added):

Whether by accident or by design, his public statements are distracting journalists from elements of the prosecutor-purge scandal that lead directly to the heart of the White House.

Gonzales’s inattentive management of the Justice Department and the repeated deception of Congress by senior Justice officials are certainly important issues.

But the central question before us is whether the unprecedented mid-term purge of eight U.S. attorneys was the result of their having failed to use their offices to pillory Democrats as much as the White House wanted them to.

Negligence and deceit are one thing; a policy of requiring law-enforcement officials to abuse the justice system for partisan ends is quite another.

It’s sounding awfully like “high crimes and misdemeanors” to me.

But why should this time be any different from all the other times?

Footnote:

This has nothing to do with “Conservative” or “Liberal.” This has to do with “truth” or “falsehood.”