...and the Yankees have now lost Game 1 of their best-of-5 division series to the Twins, 3-1 in Yankee Stadium. Sweeeeet.
Julian Borger Names Karl Rove. "Several of the journalists are saying privately 'yes it was Karl Rove who I talked to.'"
Guardian audio report here.
(thanks to the tip from sl) [Eschaton]
This is, of course, just the beginning. Until someone goes on the record saying that Rove called them and told them that Plame was CIA, it's not a sure thing...but that's got to be coming soon now.
EDIT: The Poor Man gets in on the meme. And Brad DeLong points out that the actual leakers are just the tip of the iceberg.
More Plame Reaction. MORE PLAME REACTION....Allen Brill rounds up the . He's not too impressed. The general reaction seems to be to ignore it, to sit on the fence, or to try and distract everyone's attention by... [CalPundit]
Brill notices a meme that I've seen a lot of on message boards - attacking Wilson's credibility, as if Wilson's history as a Clinton appointee either makes it alright that the Administration illegally burned his wife's cover, or that it's somehow Wilson's fault anyway. Yeeterday, Drudge posted a bit from FEC records showing a May donation to Kerry by Wilson, which I guess was supposed to show that he's some crazed partisan nutcase...but then someone found a $1,000 donation to Bush that Wilson made in '99. Whoops. Drudge pulled the Kerry report lickety-split.
They're just flailing, basically. Makes sense - how can you defend this when it's fairly obvious that it happened, and blatantly obvious that it was reprehensible?
By the way, you should be reading Allen Brill's The Right Christians. Their motto comes from an Al Sharpton quote: "It is time for the Christian Right to meet the right Christians." Kickass.
Settle Down, Children. David Brooks wants us all to be nice. How nice.... [Matthew Yglesias]
One of Brooks' more goofy statements, and a great response from the comments at Matthew's post:
The warriors have one other feature: ignorance. They have as much firsthand knowledge of their enemies as members of the K.K.K. had of the N.A.A.C.P.
And in fact, the KKK knew the local NAACP pretty well. They weren't lynching strangers.posted by Zizka
I'm absolutely loving the Super Furry Animals right now. They rock my world...continuing proof of the inherent superiority of Welshness.
White House: No Independent Counsel For CIA Leak. The White House today rejected calls for an Independent Counsel to investigate leaks in the Plame affair. Both Wesley Clark... [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]
Of COURSE they're not going to appoint an independent counsel - they're terrified of a Democrat Ken Starr. Or they're guilty as all hell and running scared.
Clark Campaigns at Light Speed. On the election trail in New Hampshire, Wesley Clark thanks Internet activists and discusses his views on technology, which include his desire to research time travel. By Brian McWilliams. [Wired News]
"I still believe in e=mc², but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it." "I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering.
Ok, we already knew that he wanted to be an astronaut when he was a kid...now he's dreaming of time travel. Lost in all the hubbub over Clark's military history, his political affiliations in the past, etc... is that General Wesley Clark, the next President of the United States of America, is a big ol' geek. This is a Good Thing - why can't we dream of making the world a better place, and advancing technology to get us there?
God, the whole Plame affair pisses me off. Let's see, two assholes in the White House violated a number of laws, burned an undercover CIA agent, putting any contacts of hers overseas at terrible risk, and, in the process, weakened our fight against WMD proliferation. Oh, and they did it to try to cover up their earlier lies, lies which led to us invading Iraq. Jesus. Does it get much worse than that?
Ok, it does. The defense by the right is pretty freakin' horrible, too. They're throwing any garbage they can out there - at one message board, I saw a doofus who actually said that it was ok that Plame was burned...since Wilson was a Clinton administration official. What the FUCK?!? How does THAT work? But the more common refrain is that this is just another made-up attempt by Democrats at creating a scandal in the Bush White House. I don't know about you, but I doubt that George f'n Tenet and the CIA investigators who referred this to DoJ vote Democrat. If they're part of the DNC's covert operations arm, well, they haven't been doing near enough for us over the years, now, have they? THIS IS REAL, YOU BASTARDS. DEAL WITH IT. At least a couple people will most likely see jail time out of this, and if Rove IS one of the loose-lipped slimeballs, then it'll go further still, since Rove doesn't have the clearance to know Plame's CIA job - meaning someone had to tell Rove.
I'm praying that Bush DIDN'T have anything to do with this. As much as I hate the man, I'd hope that the President of the United States of America would be slightly above Nixon on the slime scale. But my hopes are fading - the administration's ass-covering (read Press Sec. Scott McClellan spinning himself all the way around to avoid saying anything meaningful) shows that Bush himself is not going to disown these two criminals in his house until he's forced to...or worse still, he's integrally involved in the plot. (Though I've got a feeling it's out of Cheney's office - Matthew Ygelsias hits on one of the reasons.) Anyway. Gah. So very, very pissed. If Bush had dumped the fuckers out on the White House lawn today, I'd've gained a lot of respect for him. But no, that'd be asking too much.
As to that bit I mentioned earlier today, there should (hopefully) be some news on that within a couple days. I've registered the domain name already, my friend in DC is making the needed contacts, and I've contacted a couple people myself. Should be interesting, and another good cause in the fight against Bush and his cronies...
Gonna be light on the blogging for the next few days, maybe longer. I've got something potentially very, very big in the works that many of you will find very, very interesting. Once things get confirmed, you'll all be the first to know... =)
Schumer's FBI Request for Investigation of Plame Leak. Back in July, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) called upon FBI Director Mueller to investigate the source of the leak of... [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]
"This is one of the most reckless and nasty things I’ve seen in all my years of government," Schumer said. "Leaking the name of a CIA agent is tantamount to putting a gun to that agent’s head. It compromises her safety and the safety of her loved ones, not to mention those in her network and other operatives she may have dealt with. On top of that, the officials who have done it may have also seriously jeopardized the national security of this nation."(full text here.)
Everything's beginning to hit the fan - Clark all but called for an independent counsel, Dean got pretty firey as well...
Betrayed. BETRAYED....Dan Drezner says well something that I haven't quite found the exact words to express. Exposing Valerie Plame was dumb, he says, a serious crime for what seems like a trivial benefit. But:If it is nevertheless true, however -- an... [CalPundit]
Drezner (a Republican and supporter of the Bush/Cheney campaign in '00, btw) makes this point: if the Administration is willing to break the law for something as pointless as outing Valerie Plame, what would (have?) they been willing to do for things that might actually matter? I hadn't thought about it from that perspective - we have to look at this White House not just as a pack of lying dogs but as a pack of lying cheating Nixonian dogs. Dirty tricks, we know they've used those. But this could be their Watergate - in the sense that it reveals how damned illegal the Bush White House's default behavior is.
This whole Plame thing...I've got nothing to say that someone else hasn't already said more eloquently, but I'm angry. Really, really angry. To be honest, what's pissing me off the most is that Bush hasn't turned on the bastards that burned Valerie Plame already. I mean, why the hell is he letting these obvious felons continue to advise him? Even if you assume the worst, that he ordered or suggested the leak, you'd think he'd send someone off the plank by now. Why the hell is he protecting them? One of them, at least, has got to be really, really close to Bush - someone Bush feels he must protect. That means Rove, Cheney, or Card - I don't see anyone else in the administration who Bush would cover for this long. As Marshall and others have pointed out, the DC media already knows who the leak came from - the "senior administration official" who dished to the Post wouldn't say who the officials were ON THE RECORD. Which means he/she DID say who they were. Toss in the fact that these criminals approached 6 different DC journalists with the story...their identities are out in the DC media world. It's only a matter of time before they leak out to us. If it IS Cheney or Rove...damn. Things fall apart.
I finished Quicksilver last night - it came together pretty nicely. We still don't know if Stephenson hsa learned how to end a story - since Quicksilver is only the end of the first third of the Baroque Cycle story. It's a history lesson, an adventure story, and all kinds of random other things. If you have any interest, I'd strongly suggest you get your hands on it ASAP and get ready for some serious reading.
One More Thing. ONE MORE THING....I just have to add something to the post below. Now that this story has been confirmed, it really makes you face up to the true contemptibility of the whole affair. Think about it: two top White House... [CalPundit]
CalPundit nails how incredibly offensive this whole thing is, and there's some great talk in the comments thread.
Okay, no question:... (September 27th, 2003 -- 10:43 PM EDT). Okay, no question: the Washington Post has the story about the Wilson/Plame scandal. This story, frankly, blows the whole thing wide open. The Post got... [Talking Points Memo]
If you hadn't already followed this story, I'd suggest jumping in now. This isn't about Niger any more. This isn't about Iraq any more. This isn't about Wilson any more. This isn't even about Bush any more. This is about two people in the Bush administration calling journalists and disclosing the classified identity of an undercover CIA agent. That's blatantly illegal. Whoever did this needs to be found out, arrested, and jailed.
Just got back from seeing American Splendor for a second time - saw a preview screening a month and a half ago. Great movie - if you still haven't seen it, you really should.
Lieberman takes on Clark. Can you smell the desperation at Lieberman HQ? Igniting a spate of post-debate recrimination, Joe Lieberman accused new presidential rival... [Daily Kos]
Lieberman's going after Clark on the now-infamous Little Rock Republican speech from May '01, where Clark said nice things about Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al... Now, it's nice to see Joe flailing around looking for something to prop up his collapsing campaign. And to be honest, I'm not that worried about this. Clark addressed his political loyalties pretty well last night - yeah, he only recently chose to be identified as a Democrat. Big deal. He's pro-choice, he's pro-affirmative action, he's anti-tax cuts, he's anti-Patriot Act, he's anti-unilateralism...and none of those are new positions for him. So he praised the Bush administration's defense/security people pre-9/11. At that point, they still looked pretty good. Rumsfeld was working at restructuring the military, which is something I can see Clark supporting, for example. So Clark said nice things about Bush at the same time that Bush was going tax cut crazy - he seems pretty strongly opposed to those tax cuts now, doesn't he?
It's ironic, of course, that it's Joe going after Gen. Clark. After all, Sharpton's quip last night that a new Democrat like Clark is better than an old Democrat who acts more like a Republican - very obviously implying Leiberman. Joe, you're a Republican who sometimes pretends to be a Democrat. Do you really think *you* of all people can get mileage out of questioning Clark's party loyalties?
Description of the last session on Day 2. Remember, Day 2 is free. Spread the word. [Scripting News]
Sounds like I'm probably going to miss most of Day 2 after all - if the Red Sox don't sweep the Oakland As out of the playoffs in three games (no, it couldn't go the other way - this is the YEAR! WOO!) then game 4 of their AL Division Series will be at Fenway, probably 1 o'clock, on Sunday, Oct. 5. And I've got tickets. No offense, Dave, but I'd have to go with the Sox there. =)
Just heard Stirling Newberry of The Clark Sphere and draftclark.com on NPR's The Connection on my (late) way into work this morning. He called in to talk about the role of the Internet in the Democratic primary - pointed out that it's just one of the "micromedias" - along with things like NPR, cable news appearances, etc...he came across well. Earlier in the program, I heard the commentators the host had on (including pollster Frank Luntz) laugh at the idea that people in this country are turning against the war, turning against Bush's tax cuts, turning against Bush, etc...they said "Maybe if things get worse, they will..." Uh, guys, when's the last time you saw a Bush approval rating that was more than the margin of error over 50%? He's going down. Deal with it.
Clark just delivered a great answer to the "Well, are you a Democrat or not?" question in the debate - without saying anything about Reagan, he said that he, and the country, have changed since early '01, and that Bush was reckless in his tax cut and reckless in going to war in Iraq. And Dean, given the opportunity to rebut, gave a solid non-confrontational response, that he turned into an attack on the whacko right who try to deny us the right to patriotism. Nice stuff.
BTW, I'll be writing more on the debate later - I'm home, but cleaning, so I'm TiVoing the debate for watching tomorrow...
Edward Said Dies; U.S. Scholar Was Leading Voice for Palestinians. My longtime friend Edward Said has died, one of our great public intellectuals and activists; I saw him for the last time earlier this year where he made a stirring talk for Palestinian rights one night and presented a brilliant seminar the next day on li [Blog Left: Critical Interventions]
I've got a copy of Said's Orientalism sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read. Whether you agree or disagree with his politics, it's clear that Said has been one of the more important and influential intellectuals of recent years, and the world is a poorer place without him.
Marist Polls NH. Marist College has new numbers out of NH (link is a PDF). Note that their previous poll was in December... [Daily Kos]
Basically, Clark's polling a strong 11%, well behind Kerry and Dean, but, well, he's not an elected official from a state next door to New Hampshire. It's been pretty obvious for a while that NH is going to come down to one of Kerry or Dean. So for Clark, the significance is that he's running well ahead of everyone else - Leiberman's at 6%, Edwards at 4%, etc...if he can get third at NH and then win SC a week later, he's in very, very good shape.
About halfway through Quicksilver, there's a line that nails exactly what Stephenson is doing with the book. His version of Gottfried Leibniz, mathematician, proto-engineer, and all-around uber-savant, says this:
"I love reading novels," the Doctor [Leibniz] exclaimed. "You can understand them without thinking too much."
What Quicksilver feels like is Stephenson taking that assumption and using it as a trojan horse into our minds. By cleverly disguising his massive lessons on history, science, and - most especially - the history OF science in the form of a quite entertaining novel, he's able to enlighten more people more effectively than any other way. As a result of this book, more people will have a sense of the religious conflicts in England in the mid 17th century than ever before, for example. This is so brilliant. I love it.
Clark's Economic Plan. Clark's economic plan strikes me as both completely reasonable and extremely sellable. He's using the frames Gary Hart started and Kerry continued by phrasing everything in terms of security. With Clark, though, a theme of security makes sense and plays... [Not Geniuses]
I meant to mention something about Clark's economic plan yesterday - I'm liking it a lot. First of all, it does something I think is good for the economy on its face - it revokes $100 billion in tax cuts on the rich. Then, there's $40 billion for homeland security - training, hiring first responders, etc...in other words, fighting terror effectively. $20 billion will go to tax incentives to encourage job creation. But most important is $40 billion in relief for the beleagured states. I've been in support of doing exactly that for a long time now - it seems to me to be the best way to encourage job growth and protect essential services. I'd rather that Clark went as far as Dean and Gephardt - calling for revoking ALL of Bush's absurdist tax cuts, but I can accept that it's a better political move for Clark to go part way. All told, this looks good to me.
Presidents can do... (September 24th, 2003 -- 10:29 PM EDT). Presidents can do a lot worse than 49% approval a year before they face reelection -- as NBC is reporting for President Bush tonight. ... [Talking Points Memo]
As always, Josh Marshall gives us some quality analysis. Here, he looks at Bush's poll numbers, and the specific causes for their collapse.
So I'm watching the beginning of the West Wing series premiere - when I realize I recognize a face in a crowd of advisors around John Goodman, the temporary Republican president. Or something. Anyway - it's your man and mine Zeljko Ivanek, the most conniving-looking man alive. Nothing more interesting than that, just wanted to point it out. =)
Massachusetts gets a little Texas, a little Utah. Massachusetts governor has new plan to get death penalty re-introduced. Romney claims that his science is so tight that guilt will be irrefutable. It's an interesting angle to take to change legislation. I do, however, wonder how science can irrefutably detect crooked cops. [MetaFilter]
First of all - if Romney gets his way and the death penalty is reinstated in Massachusetts, I'll very, very seriously consider moving to at least Vermont, if not just out of the country altogether. I have enough problems with knowing that my tax money is used to execute people on the federal level - I couldn't accept it at all on the state level.
Now why is it that the only argument the wanna-be revenge killers even kind of accept for opposing the death penalty is killing innocents? Putting aside the question of whether it's cruel and unusual punishment to KILL someone (uh...sounds pretty freakin' cruel to ME!) there are plenty of other questions...
The death penalty is just an excuse for revenge killing and I find it beyond abhorrent. The idea of it coming back in MA is sickening. If you live in the state, write letters to your reps and state senators. I've already got mine in the mail.
Well, that was fun - we were off the Internet for something like 3 hours. The first hour or two we were totally hosed - couldn't even get at a system the next cubicle over. For the last part, we were just unable to get at anything outside our campus...but we're back up now. Some problem with Verizon, it sounds like.
New Face Brings Yankees a Familiar Title. New York celebrated its sixth straight American League East title after first-year starter José Contreras allowed four hits and struck out nine Chicago batters. By Tyler Kepner. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
More interestingly - it isn't just the Yankees who are in the same position in the AL East for the sixth straight year. It's EVERYONE in the AL East. As long as Tampa Bay has been in the league, the division has gone Yankees, Red Sox, Toronto, Baltimore, Tampa Bay...that's just amazing.
Shit. Cubs up a game. I'm not trying to jinx them, but what the hell are the Cubs doing in first in September? Jesus. How... [Daily Kos]
They're getting ready to make it the World Series, where they'll lose to the Red Sox. Duh. =)
Neal Stephenson launches a Wiki to explain his new novel [bOing bOing]
The Wiki itself is here. Wikis are publicly edittable pages - basically, a community-build-and-maintained information source. Neal Stephenson has contributed the first couple entries, but anyone can add more. This should be very, very helpful - if there ever was a book in need of annotations, it's Quicksilver.
From a Salon column ridiculing Safire's conspiracy theory ravings about Clark and Hillary:
This is such a doozy that the next time I pass by the corner of West 43rd Street in Times Square, I fully expect to see that Safire has staked out a piece of pavement down the block from the Black Israelites to alert passersby to the Clintons' evil scheme. (The LaRouche people have already claimed Union Square.)
By the way, I'm over a third of the way through Quicksilver - it seems that it just wound up one storyline and jumped to a new one. I decided that'd be a good stopping point for the night. Great, great stuff so far - I'm not entirely sure where the plot's going, but the characters are engaging and the information...I think Stephenson's greatest gift may be as the master of the information dump - I learned more about Sumerian mythology from Snow Crash, number theory from Cryptonomicon, etc...he's still very much a teacher.
Oh, and an interesting article about Quicksilver and what it means that Stephenson's not writing about the Internet is over at Slate.
One last thing - remember how I ran across a Winston Churchill in the book? Turns out he was real, too - info about his son, John, here.
Take a look at a Google search for Howard Dean - and look at the fourth ad down on the right.
I ask this because The West Wing made me wonder - there was a bit on a rerun that was on Bravo today that got my attention. It made reference to a guest character having been in an all-white fraternity - but the problem is, they'd also said that the character had gone to Oberlin College and Duke Law School. Do Duke Law School students join frats? 'cos otherwise, I've got to be nit-picky and point out that Oberlin doesn't actually HAVE frats. =)
I'm 175 pages in (I'm finding 65 pages to be a good range to break on - there's just about exactly 14 chunks of 65 pages in the full 916 pages of the book) and now there's a Winston Churchill. In 1670 or so. Time to see if that's real or made up...
...I could be wrong, but I think that Stephenson has inserted Captain Hook into Quicksilver somehow...
...got distracted from the book for a while there - I'm only up to page 130 now. I'm deeply embarassed. =) That said - still quite good. Nothing really spoiler-ific at this point, except that I feel a consistent need to Google the names of characters in here - Robert Hooke, for example...damn. I'm learning way too much for this to be fiction... =)
UN Security Council.. Does India belong on the UN security council? A fascinating analysis of UN politics from a developing country's perspective. [MetaFilter]
Good read. I've long felt that India, Germany, and Japan should be permanent members of the Security Council - maybe add Brazil to get back to an odd number, or toss France out...they're nowhere near the importance of the other four current permanent members, or India/Germany/Japan. But I think I like the idea of Brazil - it gives every continent but Africa at least one representative. And given a decade or so, I think South Africa should be in line for a permanent seat as well...
Hack Tracks Back. by RonK, Seattle Present company will recognize lavishly decorated combat verteran Col. David Hackworth's 1999 "perfumed prince" critique of Gen.... [Daily Kos]
The right has been using that phrase as much as they can, in an attempt to take away Clark's legitimacy as a military leader. Now their means of attack are taken away. Nice.
Just a note that might be interesting to a couple of you -- I am writing this (And the rest of the Quicksilver blog review) using Microsoft Office 2003's voice recognition system... It's pretty nice. Not perfect, but good enough for note taking... Which is all I'm really going for right now anyway...
Well, the Quicksilver review blogging has been thrown a little off course. When I got back from the bookstore, I found the power was out. So I got in a good hour or so reading, but was unable to blog along with it...but here I am now, an hour of reading in. I've gotten through only about 65 pages - this is, unsurprisingly, dense reading. But I'm also so blown away so far that I don't feel comfortable with reading it through at high-speed, missing too many details...so I probably won't finish today. But I will get at least half-way through.
Anyway - here's my initial thoughts. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this...let me know if this is a good enough spoiler shield - select the table below with your mouse to see what I'm saying...
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So far, it's been both fanciful and extremely grounded in history. Knowledge of the English Civil War, the Restoration, and (probably, though I haven't gotten that far yet) the Glorious Revolution would be handy, though I don't think it's strictly needed. Historical characters are showing up like you wouldn't even believe - Ben Franklin and Mother Goose hav cameos in the future Cambridge, MA (site of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts), Issac Newton is a major, major character, and the entire plot seems to somehow revolve around Newton's conflict with Leibnitz, though I'm not 100% yet - like I said, I'm only 65 pages in. As it happens, I've been reading Norman Davies' kickass History of the Isles while waiting for Quicksilver. While I've been familiar with the history of this time period previously, it's definitely handy that last night, I just got to the beginning of the Hanoverian dynasty - which plays a role in the story somehow, as well. |
Anyway - more to come as I get further. Definitely digging it so far.
Ok, can everyone start taking Clark seriously now? He's got a strong lead with 22% in the latest CNN poll. That's got to count for something, right?
And did I mention that he leads Bush 49 to 46 in this poll, too?
For comment on this, see Kos, and I'm sure more to come...
Cut Away. Steve Verdon wants to know why I support rolling back tax cuts in order to pay for a bigger military instead of saying: " "Okay we need to rearrange our priorities and cut some spending here, here and here" pointing... [Matthew Yglesias]
Yglesias nails it here:
The primary problem facing America today is: A: The schools are bad. B: Rich people don't have enough money My answer is "A" and I'd be very interested to here Steve justify "B."
Justice Breyer Raps Mandatory Minimums. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer denounced mandatory minimum sentences yesterday during a talk in Boston. Mandatory minimum sentences passed... [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]
In the same speech, he also regretted the Supreme Court's role in the '00 election...not that we couldn't have guessed that already, but it's still nice to see.
Continuing proof of why the Red Sox rule - their primary owner, John Henry, has given gobs of money to the Democratic Party and its candidates. Not only is he a truly fantastic owner, he's got good politics! I'm in heaven! =)
I keep seeing more and more loony flailing about Clark by the right - the latest is Robert Novak freaking out about the Clark-Mladic picture. Oh no! Clark, a man whose job was to negotiate between all the sides, even the monsters, being friendly with a monster whose trust he must gain! How HORRIBLE!
Um, what was that I was saying again?
Bruce on my plans to read Quicksilver in one day...
You're mad, man! I cannot begin to imagine doing that with Cryptonomicon -- well, I can a little. It's kind of a nice thought, now that I'm at it. This book is like half again as long, though. But sounds like you'll be done with it before I lay hands on my copy. Don't give unmarked SPOILERS, okay? [A blog doesn't need a clever name]
Yup, I am insane. I don't expect this to be the most thorough reading ever...and yeah, it's going to be hard to get through 900+ pages in one day. I think I can pull off 80-100 pages an hour of fast reading - picking up the majority of the contents. So we're looking at 9 to 12 hours...that's doable. And I promise, no unmarked spoilers - I AM planning to live-blog a review as I go, but I'll spoiler-block everything I say.
The really amazing thing about Quicksilver is that the next book in the cycle comes out in six months - and the final part of the cycle six months later. Wow. No wonder it's been 4 years since Crypto...Stephenson's written something like 3,000 pages in the meantime.
Great piece on Clark and his Republican connections - and why they're not a bad thing - by a fellow Salon blogger, Cat M. Check it out.
So, like I was saying earlier, vouchers piss me off.
Not just because they don't work that well, if I remember the Cleveland situation correctly. Not just because there's something not quite right with tax money going to religious schools. No - because it defeats the whole idea of public education as a public institution.
Let's say you have a contract with a private security force. You never need the police, so why should you bother paying for them? No way - you're not paying your taxes for the services you get from the police. You're paying for the institution that is the police, regardless of what services you get from them. Same with the fire department, the highway department, etc...just because you either opt not to use their services or pay to get your own alternative does not mean you should be able to opt out of PAYING for them. That's 'cos taxes are required, not optional, right? So how is it that people seem to think they should get back their tax money to spend on an alternative education? They're not paying their taxes for their children's education - they're paying their taxes for an instutition, that of public education, which provides, among other things, education for their kids.
I get even more annoyed when someone with three or four kids complains about not being able to spend their tax money on the education THEY choose...correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't they get back far more in vouchers than they spent in taxes? After all, I don't have any kids but I contribute towards paying for the schools - not that I in any way begrudge this. But that ends up meaning that the voucher recepients are taking MY tax money to spend it on their crazy religious home-schooling, teaching their kids that everyone else is going to hell. I know, that's a particularly nasty example, but vouchers make it very, very possible.
Overall, it's just an ugly idea. How can anyone think this through and still support it?
Faux Windows patch
There's a grotesque new virus out there masquerading as a Microsoft Windows software patch. When I received it in my own email it took one look at it and laughed. But it's easy to see where less careful (or jaded) eyes might be fooled. Here's a screenshot. Here are the gory details. Be warned: Microsoft isn't sending out operating system patches as attachments in email! Just as Ebay isn't really asking you to update your account info. Caveat e-mail-ptor. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]
I got this too - thought it was some pretty funny stuff. Got another mail later that looked like a bounced mail that originated from the same IP as the faux virus. Funny, funny stuff.
Pursuing the 17th-Century Origins of the Hacker's Grail. Neal Stephenson's gargantuan 927-page historical novel, "Quicksilver," imagines a project to organize all of human knowledge. By Edward Rothstein. [New York Times: Technology] Quicksilver (Baroque Cycle, V. 1.) will be officially published Tuesday. I've ordered mine, and eagerly anticipate its arrival. [A blog doesn't need a clever name]
I opted not to order it - I'm taking off Tuesday, driving up to Borders, buying myself a copy, and reading the whole damned thing in one sitting. I did that with Cryptonomicon when that came out a few years back, and I'd like to keep the tradition going. =)
Clark leads latest Newsweek national poll. Clark is off to a good start: (July results in parenthesis)Clark 14 (*) Dean 12 (12) Lieberman 12 (13) Kerry... [Daily Kos]
One of a bunch of links on the Newsweek poll that has Clark coming out of nowhere to take the lead - in the first week he was included. There's also the Wesley Clark Weblog, The Clark Sphere, CalPundit, and the original Newsweek article. Clark's also on the cover of Newsweek this week, beating out Isabel. In head-to-heads between Bush and Clark/Kerry/Dean, Clark did best, 47 to 43, Kerry was at 48 to 43, and Dean was at 52 to 38. Ooooh. That's bad news for Dean right there.
Is simplism the... (September 19th, 2003 -- 9:12 PM EDT). Is simplism the new integrity? I guess it is. According to the prevailing chatter, Wes Clark has been waffling on his position on... [Talking Points Memo]
Josh Marshall brings the clear thinking, as always.
Wesley Clark on Crime. In doing some research on Wesley Clark's position on criminal justice issues, we came across this heartening quote: I'm concerned... [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]
Here's the rest of the quote:
I'm concerned about the lock-up policy, the 3-strikes policy, putting people in jails and the way we've treated people in prison. We've got to look seriously at the American penal system and what it does when it returns people.to the streets." Source: WBUR Public Radio interview Jun 19, 2003
This guy just sounds better and better every day...
Rhodes Bashing. Andrew Sullivan goes quite a bit overboard in criticizing Wesley Clark: To my mind, the most important thing about Clark is that he was a Rhodes Scholar. Almost to a man and woman, they are mega-losers, curriculum-vitae fetishists, with huge... [Matthew Yglesias]
Oh wow. Andrew Sullivan is completely insane. Then again, all the Clark bashing running around these days seems completely insane - they latch onto some small potentially damaging bit in his past (He was near Waco! Some asshole British general kinda accused him of wanting to start WWIII! He, like most Americans, had a hard time expressing exactly how he felt about Iraq! What a HORRIBLE MAN!) and run with it, trying to start the equivalent of Clinton's woman problems or Gore's supposed lying. This time, however, it feels like the mainstream media isn't buying what the Scaife-heads are selling. Good. It's about time they realized that the rightist media is NOT, shall we say, fair and balanced...
Sorry 'bout the lack of posting yesterday - I was out for most of the day, and then fell asleep at something like 8pm. I had some stuff I wanted to write about vouchers, which I'll try to get to later today...
Late-Arriving Candidate Got Push From Clintons. Behind Gen. Wesley K. Clark's candidacy for the White House is a former president fanning the flames. By Katharine Q. Seelye. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
Good article on the relationship between Clark and Clinton...
