Thursday - April 19, 2007
This site has moved
This site has moved. You can reach my new site at www.ctblueblog.com. Iblog has taken vengeance on me for the move by refusing to let me embed a link to the new site. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I tried to do it twice, and it kept adding a prefix to the embedded link that make it return a non-existent address.
If you've been reading my recent posts, you understand why I am doing this. Please bookmark the new site and thank you for your patience now and in the future as I learn how to use Wordpress. This site will remain on line for anyone interested in browsing the archives. Please update your RSS feed if you have one.
Thanks again.
Wednesday - April 18, 2007
No blogging today
Not because of software glitches this time. I spent the better part of the afternoon/evening dealing with our health care system. It always amazes me how nice the people who work in hospitals and nursing homes are, but it is still an exhausting experience, so I'm bagging it for today.
Tuesday - April 17, 2007
Unmitigated gall
The White House is claiming that it has the right to screen the emails on RNC computers before they are handed to Congress:
[T]oday, in a letter to the RNC, the White House made their position clear: you have to give them to us first. There "exists a clear and indisputable Executive Branch interest" in the emails on the RNC-issued accounts, wrote Emmet Flood, Special Counsel to the President.
There is an one obvious and one not so obvious flaw in the "reasoning" behind this claim of executive privilege.
The obvious flaw is that, by definition, email on an RNC server is not properly Executive Branch business. Any executive branch business on those emails is not just evidence of a crime, it is a crime, since it violates the Hatch Act.
Less obvious is the incredible extent to which the White House is trying to stretch the concept of executive privilege. Nixon tried to use it to shield the plotting that took place in the Oval Office, but to the best of my knowledge and recollection, he never tried to stretch it to include all communications between executive branch employees. How far down, one must wonder, does this go? Can he claim executive privilege for emails between any two federal employees?
It is an unfortunate fact that both Congress and the courts are slow moving institutions. The executive is light on its feet, by design. Almost any lawyer can tell you that it's ever so easy for an unprincipled litigant to gum up the court system for years. The courts simply don't know how to deal with people who don't have a fundamental respect for playing by the rules. Still, sooner or later (unless our courts have truly been totally corrupted, in which case all is lost) the mills of the courts, like those of the gods, grind exceeding small. Congress has only two tools at its disposal: public opinion and the courts. It should get in to a court with this issue right now.
Tuesday - April 17, 2007
Just another day in Baghdad
Without in any way diminishing the horror of the events at Virginia Tech, it is worth bearing in mind that something similar happens in Baghdad almost every single day. Yet for the most part we ignore the profound impact this is having on regular Iraqis, who, like us, just want to go about their lives. I wonder if ever country is as self centered as ours. I don't think so. We appear to have succeeded to the 19th century notion that the British had of their own exceptionalism.
Tuesday - April 17, 2007
Continuing battle with Iblog
I am hopeful that my software woes will soon be behind me. I just downloaded a new build of by blogging software, which allegedly addresses the many bugs in the previous release, including the fact that RSS feeds were not working. All kind of things keep popping up, such as the fact that the last post I put up lacked carriage returns and proper fonts. The original looked fine but when posted it looked like one big run on sentence. The biggest problem was the fact that each time I hit the publish button the program proceeded to republish the entire blog, including all archives, which is a multi-hour process. Supposedly that's been fixed, and if you're reading this it probably has. I'm writing this as I wait for it to completely republish one more time, which the developer says you must now do once, after which only new items will be posted. I hope and pray it works out that way.
If this keeps up I am thinking of creating a new blog using different software. I'll keep this old site up just in case anyone wants to look at it, with a top entry linking to the new blog. By the way, in order to speed the interminable re-posting process I deleted the old videos. I doubt anyone ever looks at them, and it makes a big difference in the time required to try to rectify this problem.
While I have succeeded in posting this, it has been at great price. I am pretty well convinced I will have to ditch this software. If you look below you will see that the run on sentence is now properly formatted, but the software decided to delete the words "New York Times" and move a link to the words "I am among". One thing I definitely am is unhappy.
Tuesday - April 17, 2007
Polls
According to the I am among the most informed people in the country. Why? Because I watch fake news and I know the identity of the man who usurped the office of vice president of the United States:
Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don’t know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
But here’s one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what’s going on — who were able to identify major public figures, for example — were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news.
Only 69 percent of people in the latest survey could come up with Dick Cheney when asked to name the vice president; in 1989, 74 percent could name Dan Quayle. Fewer could name the governor of their state (66 percent now compared with 74 percent in 1989) and fewer could name the president of Russia (36 percent now compared with 47 percent before).
It may come as no surprise that even by these rather lax standards, people who are least informed watch Fox News.
But before my left leaning readers let their heads swell too much, look at whose breathing down our necks:
The six news sources cited most often by people who knew the most about current events were: “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” (counted as one), tied with Web sites of major newspapers; next came “News Hour With Jim Lehrer”; then “The O’Reilly Factor,” which was tied with National Public Radio; and Rush Limbaugh’s radio program.
So, while we're number one, two and three, (Gold, Silver and Bronze) they're tied for fourth (Tin, I guess). Of course, if you listen to Rush Limbaugh it stands to reason that you would know the vice president's name, since it's one of the few shows he appears on. Anyway, I'm at sea hear, since I always thought that the people who listen to Rush are the same people who watch Fox. Are there really enough people with dead brains to keep both of those propaganda mills in business?
Speaking of polls, Bush has hit a new low in this LA Times Poll (pdf) , from which we learn that the number of people who strongly disapprove of Bush's performance (46%), as opposed to only disapproving somewhat (16%) exceeds the total number of people who approve somewhat or strongly (36%). While this is surely good news for the Democrats, in terms of the next election, it is very bad or the country as a whole, when one considers the monumental stupidity necessary to produce a 36% per cent approval rating for the worst president in history.
The same poll gives Congress a 34% approval rating. That might sound bad, given that it's lower than Bush's, but in fact it's rather meaningless. It's an American tradition to scorn Congress as an institution. You might be able to get meaningful data by asking people if they approve of the job their own Congressperson is doing, and then do some comparisons Democrat vs. Republican.
Monday - April 16, 2007
Back from the shadows yet again
Now it can be told. Saturday afternoon my newsreader informed me that Version 2 of Iblog, my blogging software was ready for download (Developer's website: it is recommended that all users of version 1 download this software). I dutifully downloaded, as I was particularly hopeful that I would be able to post Youtubes with the upgrade. Not to get ahead of myself this was actually Iblog RC2. The "RC" stands for "release candidate". Well, it turns out that this candidate has a lot of similarities to your average Republican Candidate, promising much but delivering very little at terrific cost. Definitely, not ready for prime time. Yes, I can now do Youtubes, but it took approximately 16 hours of work to get even that. Documentation? nil. Nonetheless, intrepid as always , I converted my old data, tried to add some, and found that the new posts did not get on the web. At least that's what I thought, until after hours of work I found that they were indeed out in cyberspace, only not at the correct address. In other words, the entire site was out there, twice, with the new version at an address that no one had. I had no ability to post to the old site, to direct people to the new one.
I have solved the problem, as you can see, no thanks to the software, or the developer. In a former phase of my life I was an amateur computer programmer, so I learned a bit about computers, and I was able to analyze the problem and take corrective action.
The irony of this is that I have been thinking seriously of bagging this whole thing, inasmuch as I am aware that recently much of the writing on this blog has been, to put it bluntly, crap. It didn't seem right, somehow, to simply stop without explanation, which is what would have happened had the problem been insoluble. Anyway, given this new lease on life, I have decided to inflict myself on a defenseless world for a little while longer at least.
By the way, in response to a comment, the duck video is definitely not of my pond (as the commenter well knew). It was chosen for experimental purposes only, it being the last funny youtube video I had seen prior to the date I posted it.
Sunday - April 15, 2007
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
If you are reading this, I may be at the end of two days of frustration trying to get this allegedly improvesd software to work.
Saturday - April 14, 2007
Updated software
This is a test to see if my updated blogging software works with youtube. If so, you should be able to view a video of a duck feeding fish.
Friday - April 13, 2007
Amateur liars and war czars
Even hapless Scott McClellan was better than Dana.
In case you missed the story on the War Czar, the Daily Show covered it well:
Colbert makes another point:
Friday - April 13, 2007
U.S. Attorney saves job by putting innocent woman in jail?
A U.S. attorney in Wisconsin who prosecuted a state Democratic official on corruption charges during last year's heated governor's race was once targeted for firing by the Department of Justice, but given a reprieve for reasons that remain unclear. A federal appeals court last week threw out the conviction of Wisconsin state worker Georgia Thompson, saying the evidence was "beyond thin."
Congressional investigators looking into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys saw Wisconsin prosecutor Steven M. Biskupic's name on a list of lawyers targeted for removal when they were inspecting a Justice Department document not yet made public, according to an attorney for a lawmaker involved in the investigation. The attorney asked for anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the investigation.
It wasn't clear when Biskupic was added to a Justice Department hit list of prosecutors, or when he was taken off, or whether those developments were connected to the just-overturned corruption case.
By the way, this story is from the McClachey News Service, which is doing superior work on this story.
Thursday - April 12, 2007
Documenting deception
Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq war to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. I've watched an advance copy and read a transcript, and the most important thing I can say about it is: Watch PBS from 9:00 to 10:30 PM on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes will actually save you time because you'll never watch television news again - not even on PBS, which comes in for its own share of criticism.
While a great many pundits, not to mention presidents, look remarkably stupid or dishonest in the four-year-old clips included in "Buying the War," it's hard to take any spiteful pleasure in holding them to account, and not just because the killing and dying they facilitated is ongoing, but also because of what this video reveals about the mindset of members of the DC media. Moyers interviews media personalities, including Dan Rather, who clearly both understand what the media did wrong and are unable to really see it as having been wrong or avoidable.
It's hard to see how he could document all the lies in a mere 90 minutes, especially because he spends some time recognizing the people who got it right. Still, it sounds like a must watch show.
Wednesday - April 11, 2007
Proof
The escalating uproar over President Bush's ouster of eight U.S. attorneys has handed Democrats a weapon they have long sought, evidence that his administration improperly allowed politics to trump the law.
There are a couple of problems: The evidence is largely circumstantial, and the proof is missing. (Emphasis added)
This sent me to my copy of Black's Law Dictionary.
Circumstantial evidence: all evidence of indirect nature; direct evidence as to the facts deposed, but indirect as to the fact probandum
Proof:The effect of evidence; the establishment of a fact by evidence.
In other words, circumstantial evidence is any evidence that allows one to infer that a given fact is true, or a given event happened. I have, for instance, never actually seen the back of my head, but I have good reason to conclude it exists.
If you have enough evidence, of any nature, you have proof.
Perhaps I can provide an illustration:
Attorney: Can you tell the jury what you observed?
Witness: I saw a wooden box with a duck in it.
Attorney: Isn't it true that you never saw a duck?
Witness: But I heard a quacking noise from inside the box.
Attorney: So, you don't know that there actually was a duck in that box, do you?
Witness: Well, while I was there, a whole bunch of other ducks congregated around the box, and they seemed to be drawn by the quacking noise.
Attorney: So you are simply asking the jury to speculate that there was a duck in the box, arent' you?
Witness: Well, the box was raised up and it had a screened bottom. There was duck shit underneath, which was confirmed on scientific analysis.
Attorney: Would you please answer the question: You never saw a duck, did you?
Witness: No I didn't.
To be explicit: Circumstantial evidence is evidence, and enough of it is proof, because proof is just a pile of evidence sufficient to convince a trier of fact to a given level of certainty. People have been hung based solely on circumstantial evidence, and a criminal conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It follows, as the night the day, that proof is not missing just because the only evidence is curcumstantial. The reporter fails to understand this, something that should be obvious to anyone who performs a little cogitation about the matter.
Now, what level of proof do we need to conclude that the Justice Department had been totally politicized? We are talking about citizens making a political judgment, not about jurors. There is no reason that we should withhold judgment until we have seen proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The civil standard is preponderance of the evidence, but I would submit that when the system of justice is at stake, action is necessary when you find probable cause. That standard is easily met here, but I'd say that even the civil standard is met when you combine the facts recited in the story itself:
The case of San Diego's former federal prosecutor Carol Lam has attracted particular attention because of the uncanny timing of discussions about her ouster.
Lam, who oversaw a bribery case against now-imprisoned Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., had just alerted the Justice Department to new search warrants in that case last May when Gonzales' then top aide contacted the White House about replacing her.
The same day, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles had opened an investigation of GOP Rep. Jerry Lewis that was connected to the Cunningham case.
Justice Department documents released last month show Lam landed on a target list long before because of what administration officials have described as her office's lax record on immigration enforcement. They've said they were pleased with Lam's work on the Cunningham case.
Arizona's Paul Charlton was ousted amid reports that he was investigating Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe's contacts with underage congressional pages and a land deal by another Republican, Rep. Rick Renzi.
New Mexico's former U.S. attorney, David Iglesias, surfaced on the list before the Nov. 7 election, after he was contacted by two Republican members of Congress asking if he would bring indictments in a suspected Democratic kickback scheme before Election Day.
The New Mexico lawmakers, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, have acknowledged making the calls but denied trying to pressure Iglesias. Gonzales' former top aide, D. Kyle Sampson, told Congress after he resigned over the ousters that the lawmakers' concerns may have played a role in Iglesias' ouster.
Justice officials said Iglesias was a poor manager.
John McKay, the ousted Seattle prosecutor, had declined to investigate charges of voter fraud in the disputed 2004 gubernatorial election that put Democrat Christine Gregoire in the governor's mansion. McKay has said an aide to Republican Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington called to ask about the investigation.
In Nevada, Daniel Bogden was asked to leave as he was reportedly looking into whether Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons had received gifts and money in return for using his influence on congressional intelligence and national security panels when he was in the House.
There have been no allegations that political corruption cases were a factor in the ousters of three other prosecutors.
..with the fact that the Justice Department is withholding evidence, giving rise to what we in the law biz call an adverse inference. The foregoing evidence constitutes sufficient proof to compel a conclusion to a reasonable degree of certainty that the Bushies were engaged in improper activities. Add all the other evidence that's come out, and you could easily get an indictment if you happened to run the Justice Department. Just a little thought, by the way, would lead almost anyone to conclude that in a case like this, most of the evidence will be circumstantial. Some elements of a crime must almost always be proven by circumstantial evidence. The element of intent, for instance, can rarely be proved by direct evidence.
One more thing: The last statement in the article is true, but misleading. One of the remaining three U.S. Attorneys was the Arkansas U.S. Attorney, who was pushed out to make way for Karl Rove's puppet. Remember, the overriding charge is not that the Justice Department was trying to suppress investigations of Republicans. That's a mere subset of the overall crime. The charge is that the Justice Department was being politicized, converted into an arm of the Republican Party. The charge is proven, to a reasonable degree of certainty. After all, if it quacks like a duck...
Tuesday - April 10, 2007
Retributive justice in Killingsworth
MADISON — Police arrested a Killingworth woman Monday who they say inadvertently poisoned a baby less than a month old at a family gathering in Madison last summer after the woman got pesticides on her shirt while working in her garden.
Nicole Burger, 40, of 13 Buell Hill Road, turned herself in to police on charges of risk of injury to a child, a class C felony that carries the possibility of 10 years in prison, and misdemeanor reckless endangerment.
Burger was holding her infant nephew at a home in Madison Sept. 10 and at some point the baby began to have trouble breathing, said Lt. Robert Stimpson. The baby apparently had been sucking on Burger’s shirt, he added.
I am truly at a loss to understand this, and I wonder if this poor lady will get half the sympathetic press that Julie Amero did.
This woman faces 10 years in jail for, at most, negligence.
I seem to recall that there are three rationales for putting people in prison: retribution and/or rehabilitation and/or deterrence. It is rather difficult to see how either of the last two rationales will be advanced by punishing this lady, who no doubt already has suffered enough (a phrase commonly applied only to Republican crooks, but in this case probably apt). That leaves retribution, which has slowly but surely become the overriding principle in our criminal law (again, Republican crooks excepted). But even in our increasingly warped and paranoid society, are there really people who would want to punish this lady for this? Why would a prosecutor make the decision to bring charges?
Hmmm, sounds like the kind of thing that could end up being argued in a moot court competition.
The baby is fine, by the way.
Tuesday - April 10, 2007
Fun listening
The case was described by one of the judges on the panel as "beyond thin". Somehow (apparently with the help of a partisan judge-remember they're stocking the courts as well as the Justice Department) they managed to get a conviction against a civil servant for doing her job and trying to please her bosses. The facts are set forth well in the course of the argument, so give it a listen. The judge's bias seems evident from the fact that he was willing to jail the woman pending appeal when anyone in their right mind could have seen the substantial probability that the conviction would be overturned.
Pity the poor Assistant U.S. Attorney who was given the task of arguing this turkey. Just another indication that the U.S. Attorney involved (Steven Biskupic), besides being in Rove's pocket, must be a total [insert word for male appendage here]. It takes a special kind of coward to make a lower level guy take a pounding in a turkey case like this to spare yourself the trouble of facing the music in a situation you created yourself.
Book Report-the view so far
The Enemy Within-Justice Department Division
That's not so hard, is it
Swimming the Amazon
Same as it ever was
McCain-the maverick that never was
The Power behind the throne
Hey Vermont, take us with you!
Pelosi trip
I'm sticking to my guns on this one
The Day gives Joe a D, we want it back
Supreme Court: Still slightly rational
Surging into chaos
Media busy telling the Dems to keep their hands off the Republicans