I wonder if there's some sort of theory that underlies the whole field of marketing. If there were, I guess it would be "there is a direct correlation between a consumer seeing the image of a product and a consumer going out and purchasing that product." There can be no other theory. Why else are commercials targeted to specific groups? Why else do we have spam email and spyware that sends us advertisements? The idea is that if a consumer sees an ad for those penis enhancement pills, he'll go out and buy them.

And that works on TV. We have been watching TV for years, and we've become used to commercials. More than anything else, they suggest alternatives for demands we already have. I had quite a conversation with a friend of mine about this. He claimed that commercials creat new demand; I said that commercials suggest alternatives for pre-existing demand. Consider this: does watching a commercial about beer make you thirsty? If you say "yes," then consider this: what about if you've just consumed a gallon of water, or five cans of beer? Still thirsty? A beer commercial's effect on your thirst only works if you're already thirsty. The commercial doesn't say, "You're thirsty now, and you want a beer"; rather, it says, "Might I suggest beer as a method of quenching your thirst?" The same goes for food: if you've consumed a ten-course dinner, the last thing you want is to see a commercial with food. But the target audience for that commercial is for people who are already hungry: "Perhaps you would like to eat our food," is what that commercial says. When I see a car commercial, I don't think, "Holy crap! I need to buy a car!" The car commercial suggests alternatives to my pre-existing demand for a car. This is not to say that some commercials don't try to create demand. Some of them use clever marketing ploys to make you feel thirsty, or hungry, or like you need a new car. But by and large, commercials try to get at the money I was already going to spend on a particular product. Take laundry detergent. If I have a washing machine, I need laundry detergent, anyway. Seeing that Tide commercial isn't going to create demand for laundry detergent. But it is going to make me think about Tide when I go to buy that laundry detergent. And advertising can certainly create a culture where demand for a product is perpetual: for example, how Americans feel the need to eat all the time. Advertising has created that situation and is now exploiting it, telling us, "If you're not eating something right now, there's something wrong with you. Eat our product and be acceptable again."

But this theory of advertising does not hold for the Internet. Ad banners are the primary way that Internet sites make money. Based on the amount of traffic they receive, they are able to charge more money. The company purchasing the ad thinks, "If more people see my advertisement, more people will buy my product." It's the same marketing theory that justifies $1 million for a thirty-second Super Bowl ad. But there's a problem, here: I can scroll right past the ad without ever seeing it. I can install software that eliminates banner ads from the page (and I have installed such software). Now, I'm essentially viewing the page without paying the price for it, that price being the viewing of the ad. The marketing theory has failed one time. What's going on, here?

Another example. Advertisers decided that banner ads weren't invasive enough. Like I said, you can scroll right past them without ever seeing them. So, they invented the ever-popular "pop-up" window. The pop-up ad is very invasive and usually unwanted. Spyware programs like Kazaa specialize in pop-up ads; the theory is that if you see the ad, you'll buy the product. There's an even better chance that you'll buy the product in this case because the ad-producing software tracks the websites you visit and tailors the ads to suit those habits (if you visit websites about mountain climbing, you'll get pop-ups about climbing equipment or places to go mountain climbing). But I bet no one ever clicks on these ads. The person viewing the ad doesn't say, "Oh! Yes! What a great solution to my demand for climbing equipment!" but rather, "Get this damn pop-up off my screen!" The invasiveness of the advertising method overrides any utility that ad may have. And besides, we're not conditioned to be accustomed to commercials on the Internet like we are with TV. On TV, commercials are the "fee" we pay to watch a program; the Internet, however, is free.

But apparently it's not. "Free" programs come bundled with "spyware" or "adware"; that is, software that displays advertisements or sends information about you to marketing companies. A few years ago, spyware was just a nuisance, but now it's gotten worse. You are being forced to watch advertisements. You are tricked into downloading spyware. The spyware runs all the time. (Case-in-point: Blubster's ad support runs even when Blubster is turned off; the same goes for Kazaa's ad support.) If spyware is legitimate software, then why try to hide it? Spyware masquerades as legitimate Windows processes and puts itself into the registry with names like "RunWindowsUpdate" and "Support Center." If spyware is legitimate, then why does it have to be disguised? Because if it weren't disguised, people would be able to remove it easily, and the very last thing that companies like New.net or Cydoor want is for you to be able to easily remove their spyware. Now, if you want to uninstall this crap, the spyware makes you connect to the Internet and download an uninstaller rather than run an uninstaller off the hard drive. Why? Because it takes more time and is more complicated. The novice user might get lazy, or might be worried that it's too complicated ("I migt mess something up!"). Spyware goes to great lengths to ensure that it's not uninstalled, sometimes requiring you to enter the text of an image it generates to make sure that you're a human and not a spyware removal program that uninstalling it.

The advertisers are fighting back: why? Their theory of marketing has failed on the Internet. People who use the Internet have found ways to bypass the advertising. And then there's spam email. I'll bet that no one reads spam email. Companies have been founded whose sole purpose is providing ways of removing spam email. The theory of marketing has failed for spam email, as well. Spam email is as invasive as ad pop-ups, and the invasiveness of the method overrides whatever offer the email may have (the same goes for telemarketing -- great idea, huh? Look how it backfired). Spam email also tries to disguise itself as legitimate email, hoping you'll become confused and click on that link. The advertisers have resorted to underhanded means to get you to even look at what they have to offer, much less buy it. But no one buys this stuff. More money is spent on producing the advertising than is gained from the sale of the products. One day soon, advertisers will have to realize that their bombadier method wastes money and doesn't work. They're only advertising advertising, not any real products. This is not a good business plan.

Either Internet advertising will become more invasive and will be structured such that it cannot be disabled, or Internet companies will need to find a new method of revenue. The theory of marketing breaks down on the Internet and advertisers are desperately trying to make it work. It doesn't. If the marketers don't think of something else soon, they will be, as I said before, advertising advertising. I envision a future where there is only marketing but no actual products, a grim and somehow appropriate postmodern dystopia.

Posted by Mark at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There are some important Supreme Court cases coming up this week. Audio of the oral arguments for the case should be available a few days after the arguments at Oyez, and written transcripts should be available 10-15 days after the arguments at the Supreme Court's Argument Transcripts page.

On Tuesday, April 27, the Court will hear Cheney v. U.S. D.C. District of Columbia (03-475). This is the case that was brought against Dick Cheney after his refusal to turn over the names of the people involved in the creation of the president's 2001 energy plan, which some people felt was heavily slanted in favor of continued reliance on petroleum. This led these people to believe that the vice-president loaded the committee with people from the oil industry, and these people wanted to know who was on the committee. Cheney refused to give the names out, citing executive privilege. The Supreme Court will decide "whether the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. 1, et seq., can be construed, consistent with the Constitution, principles of separation of powers, and this Court’s decisions governing judicial review of Executive Branch actions, to authorize broad discovery of the process by which the Vice President and other senior advisors gathered information to advise the President on important national policy matters, based solely on an unsupported allegation in a complaint that the advisory group was not constituted as the President expressly directed and the advisory group itself reported." Bush says that it impedes the executive's ability to privately consult with people if he has to divulge the names of those people and what they said to him.

Links: Cheney's brief; Judicial Watch Inc.'s (respondent's) brief; Sierra Club's (respondent's) brief

The second case is more topical and probably more important. It's Rumsfeld v. Padilla (03-1027) and, like Rasul v. Bush, it deals with habeas corpus rights. Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was implicated in a plot to construct a "dirty bomb" (a regular bomb filled with radioactive waste). The administration used some questionable intelligence to tie Padilla to al-Qaeda and has held him incommunicado for two years in a Navy brig, where he is not allowed to see anyone, including his lawyer. At issue is "whether the President has authority as Commander in Chief and in light of Congress’s Authorization for Use of Military Force, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, to seize and detain a United States citizen in the United States based on a determination by the President that he is an enemy combatant who is closely associated with al Qaeda and has engaged in hostile and war-like acts, or whether 18 U.S.C. 4001(a) precludes that exercise of Presidential authority." Padilla's lawyer claims that, since he can't even see Padilla, there's no way to get a writ of habeas corpus for Padilla to question the legitimacy of his incarceration. A District Court ruled that the president had the authority to detain Padilla, but also said that Padilla could contest his status as an "enemy combatant" and that he was entitled to meet with his lawyer to do this. A Court of Appeals ruled that the president had no authority to authorize domestic detentions, and since Congress did not authorize the detention, "Padilla either must be charged with a crime, held as a material witness, or released."

Links: The government's brief; Padilla's brief

Posted by Mark at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At long last, the Supreme Court will decide the fate of the six hundred not-so-POWs in Guantanamo Bay. On Tuesday, the Court heard oral arguments in Rasul v. Bush (03-334). Oyez presents the facts of the case:

Four British and Australian citizens were captured by the American military in Pakistan or Afghanistan during the United States' War on Terror. The four men were transported to the American military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When their families learned of the arrests, they filed suit in federal district court seeking a writ of habeas corpus that would declare the detention unconstitutional. They claimed that the government's decision to deny the men access to attorneys and to hold them indefinitely without access to a court violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process clause. The government countered that the federal courts had no jurisdiction to hear the case because the prisoners were not American citizens and were being held in territory over which the United States did not have sovereignty (the Guantanamo Bay base was leased from Cuba indefinitely in 1903, and Cuba retains "ultimate sovereignty").

The district court agreed with the government, dismissing the case because it found that it did not have jurisdiction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the district court's decision.

Few people agree with the assertion that the Guantanamo Bay facility is not under ultimate U.S. control. "Cuban law has never had any application inside that base. A stamp with Fidel Castro's picture on it wouldn't get a letter off the base," said John Gibbons, the attorney for the detainees.

At issue is not only the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, but also the powers of the executive. President Bush has issued dozens of executive orders -- which have the same effect as law passed by Congress and signed by the president -- that would not have been issued in peacetime. He and the rest of his administration maintain that, during wartime, the executive is granted some kind of special powers to protect the country. One of these is the denial of the writ of habeas corpus to the Guantanamo detainees. Habeas corpus is granted to determine whether or not a person has been lawfully jailed. Its purpose is to prevent people from being jailed indefinitely without ever being charged, which is theoretically what could happen to prisoners at Camp X-Ray. Since they are not U.S. citizens, the administration maintains that they have no right to a writ of habeas corpus.

President Bush has pressed for a lot of powers that are not constitutionally mandated. Talk about activism? The doctrine that the executive somehow has more powers during war than during peace appears nowhere in the Constitution: it was created by the Bush Administration to justify its gross abuse of its powers. Justice Steven Breyer reminded us that if there were no way to check the administration's actions, "the executive would be free to do whatever they [sic] want."

Crucial to the outcome of this case is the federal habeas corpus law. The wording of the law does not make a distinction between citizens or non-citizens; it only mentions any person under U.S. authority. "If this had been a [U.S.] citizen held in Guantanamo, that habeas would be available. But the statute doesn't talk about citizens. It says prisoners held under the authority of the United States. Now, if the citizen can say that he is a prisoner held under the authority of the U.S. in Guantanamo, why couldn't a non-citizen under the statute say the same thing?" said Justice Anthony Kennedy.

U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson attempted to cite the 1950 case Johnson v. Eisentrager as precedent. The case involved captured German spies who requested habeas corpus but were denied it. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was unreceptive to this argument, noting that the men in the Eisentrager case had already been tried and convicted by military tribunals. The prisoners at Guantanamo Bay haven't even been charged, let alone tried.

If the executive is given special powers during war, then what is the source of these laws? And can the executive make up laws out of thin air in the name of "national security"? We have already seen him take rights away from two actual American citizens -- most notably, Juan Padilla -- and the Supreme Court has already ruled that he cannot do that. Hopefully they will realize that the reasons for the six hundred detainees' detention is something that should be reviewed, not in the name of national security, but in the name of preventing any more tyranny from coming from the White House.

Fore more information, see Joan Biskupic, "Justices Question Wartime Powers," USA Today 21 Apr. 2004: 1A; Joan Biskupic and Toni Locy, "Screening of Detainees a Key Issue," USA Today 21 Apr. 2004: 3A; Linda Greenhouse, "Supreme Court Hears the Case of Guantanamo," The New York Times 21 Apr. 2004: 1A. (No links are provided because NYT requires a free sign-up and links would be useless to those without an account; also, if you want articles older than a week, you typically have to pay a small fee.)

Posted by Mark at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've remained pretty mum on the "was Bush responsible for 9/11" issue. Richard Clarke seems to suggest that there was a good deal that the Bush Administration could have done to stop nineteen Arabs (mostly from Saudi Arabia, a country that is technically our buddy) from hijacking planes on September 11 -- if only he and his people would have:

1) Implemented Richard Clarke's counterterrorism proposals instead of shelving them for nine months (Clarke maintains that the Bush Administration -- which considered Clinton a novice in the ways of foreign policy (how's that for a joke?) -- insisted on reviewing all the foreign policy proposals from the previous administration, and that meant that Clarke's report would not see the top level of the executive branch for nine months.

2) Listened to the FBI and CIA. George Tenet maintains that there was a lot of intelligence traffic leading up to September 11, causing the CIA to believe that there was something major in the weeks ahead.

Okay, okay. Condoleeza Rice is obviously covering her own butt when she says that she never sat down to meet with Clarke about al-Qaeda. She seems to be the only one that doesn't remember that meeting.

The problem is that no one within the Bush administration is willing to say "we made big mistakes." The attitude of the Administration is reminiscent of Stalin: say anything critical, and you're off to the Gulag, or in this case, you're branded un-American, or a traitor, or you're slapped with a gag order, as in the case an FBI whistleblower who would like to testify in front of the 9/11 commission, but cannot, thanks to Attorney General John Ashcroft. No one has been fired over this. There is zero accountability in the Bush Administration; everyone blames everyone else or nebulous "intelligence failures."

But this doesn't answer the question "Was Bush responsible?" Should he have known? Our problem is that we're looking back at the obvious intelligence failures, which are perfectly obvious now but not so obvious then. Bush himself isn't entirely to blame. The bureaucracy which squelched Richard Clarke's proposal for nine months is to blame; the attitude of suppressing intelligence problems instead of fixing them is to blame; a lack of communication (and the encouragement of a lack of communication) between the FBI, CIA, and NSA is to blame.

Actually, September 11 may not have been preventable at all. Those hijackers may still have found a way through our defenses. Remember that the CIA knew something was going to happen, but we didn't know when, or where, and we only had an inkling of how. I agree with Rice (never thought that would happen) that "actionable intelligence" is necessary. The United States can't act on every possible threat it receives; it would be chasing ghosts most of the time. Our resources are finite, and as such, we have to gauge whether or not the threat we've received is credible. In this case, the Bush administration didn't see the threats as credible, and it's the fault of a lot of intelligence officials for not making the threat clearer, and it's the fault of a lot more intelligence officials for creating an atmosphere where speaking up is verboten. In reality, the president himself has very little control over the government. Perhaps it's his cronies who are to blame; Bush has enough problems. He's got to worry about what he'll do after the American people toss his sorry butt out of office in November.

Posted by Mark at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So ESPN has released its Misery Index, a ranking of how miserable fans of each of the 30 major-league baseball teams ought to be.

The surprise second-place team (to me, anyway) is none other than your Tribe and mine, the Cleveland Indians. I'm not sure I agree with this.

First of all, let me say right now that Jim Caple, of whose work I've been a fan for many years, nailed the #1 team right on the head -- les Expos de Montreal, who seem to have led a truly cursed existence since, oh, 1994. Say what you will about some other teams with longer records of futility, but at least in 29 other baseball markets, there is the chance that someday the team could rise again. Further proof that Bud "Lite" Selig has no business being commissioner, but let's not get into that.

The "bottom 4" (i.e. least miserable) teams also seemed perfectly chosen, to me: No. 30, the Yankees, whose die-hard fans should have nothing at all to complain about; No. 29, the Diamondbacks, who may or may not actually have "die-hard fans," but when such fans come along, they'll at least have a World Series to look back on; the Braves, who absolutely dominated the NL East with the best pitching staff anywhere for 10 years; and the Marlins, who did not deserve 2003 and certainly didn't deserve 1997. Not even Wayne Huizenga's fire sale can overshadow their lack of misery.

What concerns me is the 2-3-4-5-6 slots, however. Caple ranks the misery runners-up as Cleveland, Chicago (N.L.), Chicago (A.L.), Milwaukee and Boston. I'm having a hard time believing that the Indians should rank that high; and a hard time believing that the White Sox should rank that low.

Full disclosure: I grew up in Chicago, a Cubs fan, although for my 10th birthday my friends and I took a trip to Comiskey Park. I have remained a Cubs fan despite transplantations to Cleveland, where I resisted Tribe-ification in the aftermath of the 1997 World Series debacle, and to New England, where I have embraced the Red Sox as a worthy "second favorite team," mostly because Red Sox fans hate the Yankees so much.

Nonetheless, and though it pains me to do so, I must champion the White Sox in this case.

Let's first dispense of the notion that Boston should have ranked any higher than sixth. Sure, there's that Curse of the Bambino thing, and Buckner and Bucky F. Dent and Aaron Boone and the whole rest of the laundry list. But on the other side of the coin, Boston fans are very loud about how crappy has been their lot in life, and tend to exaggerate. Furthermore, our nation's mythmakers work, mostly, in New York (or Bristol, Conn.), where the home team has a long history of beating up on the Olde Towne Team. So I think the Red Sox' misery is greatly overestimated. After all, this is a team that has been to the playoffs more than a few times in recent memory; and one that always competes. Yes, they've pulled a short straw in being assigned to the Yankees' division, but then so have the Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Devil Rays. To be honest, which is worse -- being a fan of the team that tries, and often comes close, to upset the Yankees? Or being a fan of the teams that still share a division, but have no hope at all?

Similarly, I don't think the case for the Cubs is as watertight as it could be. Cub fans are, by and large, a mellow bunch who seem to have the right outlook on life -- winning isn't everything. Cub fans have the most beautiful baseball park ever built. Cub fans have a team owner with deep pockets and a farm system that has finally begun to produce. Cub fans have the satisfaction of knowing that there are no dominant teams in their division.

Now, Cub fans also own the fourth-worst winning percentage since 1979. They've been shut out of a pennant since 1945. They haven't had consecutive winning seasons since I forget when. I'd rank them higher than the Red Sox, at least.

As for the Brewers, I'm not sure at all where they should rank. I think my judgment here is clouded by the fact that Bud "Lite" Selig owns the team (although he has his daughter run it, to avoid conflict of interest ... right). Personally, I don't pity them, but I suppose Wisconsin fans can't be held accountable for the Brew Crew's ownership. And the Brewers have been pretty hopeless since at least the 1980s.

This leaves the A.L. Central rivals, the White Sox and Indians. I think a case can be made for switching them in the standings.

I'm a young guy, and when I think about team dominance, I'm less likely to remember the Go-Go White Sox of the 1950s than I am to remember the Jacobs Field Era Indians of the 1990s.

Like I said earlier, the Red Sox -- and the Cubs too -- get all kinds of press for being the notorious losers of baseball. In the Red Sox' case, it's the "underdogs fighting against the curse" angle; in the Cubs' case, it's the "lovable losers, ain't they cute" angle. In a way, I think this validates the fans of these teams. Sox fans -- admit it! -- rest securely at night knowing that although they may not win their division, they're morally superior because they're struggling against all odds. Cubs fans, and I know this firsthand, would love to win but will just as soon accept sunshine, green grass and cold beer as a substitute.

White Sox fans, on the other hand, have suffered in silence. Perennially overshadowed by their better-marketed neighbor to the north, and lacking an overarching narrative prism through which to view their losses, they are made truly miserable by the fact that the ChiSox haven't won a world series since 1917 -- you read right, 1917 -- nor appeared in one since, if memory serves, 1954 (not recently, at any rate; not even as recently as 1986 or 1997).

On the other hand, Cleveland dominated its division (albeit a weak division) throughout the late 1990s. Having come to know Indians fans only after they began their Jacobs Field sellout run, I've never known them to carry a chip on their shoulder like Expos or White Sox fans. Rather, the denizens of the North Coast rallied in a very positive fashion around the Indians, especially after the Browns left town.

Indians fans are not, in my experience, miserable. Nor, given their history, should they be -- not any more so than Cubs or White Sox fans, at least. And the White Sox have the edge in recent history: no dynasties in their division, no respect from their hometown, a crappy ballpark -- it truly is crappy, possibly the worst ballpark among the 28 U.S. teams; the infamous "White Flag" trade; and a World Series history that hit its last high point prior to the Black Sox scandal.

If there's a team, other than the Expos, whose fans have more to be miserable about than White Sox fans, I don't know who it is.

Posted by MB at 1:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, the free-market economy extols the values of individualism? It refuses to lock people into groups. Dr. Jean-Louis Caccomo, writing for The Yorktown Patriot, talks about the failures of so-called social justice, which seeks to equalize injustices by favoring one group of people over another. "In fact, those who reason in terms of class, caste, and ethnicity are those who incite class, gender, and race warfare. They do not admit and can not even conceive of the autonomy of the individual and turn the State into the instrument of the power of some so­cial groups. To borrow from Marxist logic, the State becomes an instrument for the dic­tatorship of the proletariat." When decrying "social injustice" and placing individualism on a pedestal, it is very important that we use the M-word, which is, of course, very charged with meaning (Marxist?! That means Communist!).

This author is very good at employing extreme examples and making them sound as though they are the norm. Railing against unions, he says:

One other outcome is a kind of "social terrorism" that consists of the extension of "union rights" in such a manner that they conflict with the respect of fundamental individual rights: freedom of movement, freedom of thought, private property. French citizens are frequently held hostage in such situations as the Bov é case, when truck drivers blockade roads or when workers threaten to pollute the environment with dangerous chemical substances so as to influence negotiations in their firms.

Let's be reasonable. The French are further to the left than the United States. They have enacted laws there that would never be enacted in the United States. (Currently, French law limits working hours for everyone to thirty per week. The U.S. has already dealt with this; in the early part of the 20th century, the Supreme Court struck down a law limiting working hours for bakers, emphasizing that the state has no business limiting how much a laborer can sell his labor.)

It would be nice to think that, in this example, workers and owners have an equal amount of power, but that's not the case. Owners have the power of the purse. When faced with doing what an owner says and keeping his job, or not doing that and leaving his job, a worker will most often do the former. Unions are vital in protecting the interests of workers, giving them some leverage against owners. Remember when unions used to be illegal? Or strikes were broken by hired goons? If you don't, read The Disinherited by Jack Conroy or The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck for more details. (Dr. Caccomo would no doubt dismiss both of these people as "socialists," which they were; nevertheless, they were there, on the farms and in the factories, watching as owners abused their power over workers to make some extra bucks.)

Certainly individualism is a great ideal. It would be wonderful if we could look at anyone solely on the basis of that person's merit as an individual person. But we can't. There ten million negative stereotypes floating through the minds of every person in this country that no one is regarded as "an individual." Dr. Caccomo would do well to not merely look at how the state views the individual, but how other people view individuals. Invariably, if the individual can be classified as the member of some stigmatized group, that person is not seen on his own with individual merit, but as another member of a particular group (e.g. "those blacks are all the same, those women are all the same").

Posted by Mark at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Whenever President Bush has a press conference, members of the media sitting in the little audience ask him questions, and he replies. If this were Reality, he would reply to the questions they ask. Instead, he gives responses that have nothing to do with the questions! Here's an example from Bush's April 13 press conference (transcript from Federal News Service):

QUESTION: Mr. President, thank you. You mentioned that 17 of the 26 NATO members providing some help on the ground in Iraq. But if you look at the numbers -- 135,000 U.S. troops, 10,000 or 12,000 British troops. Then the next largest, perhaps even the second-largest contingent of guns on the ground are private contractors, literally hired guns. Your critics, including your Democratic opponents, say that's proof to them your coalition is window dressing. How would you answer those critics? And can you assure the American people that, post-sovereignty, when the handover takes place, that there will be more burden-sharing by allies in terms of security forces?

BUSH: Yes, John, my response is I don't think people ought to demean the contributions of our friends into Iraq. People are sacrificing their lives in Iraq from different countries. We ought to honor that, and we ought to welcome that.

I'm proud of the coalition that is there. These are people that have got leaders that have made the decision to put people in harm's way for the good of the world. And we appreciate that sacrifice in America, and we appreciate that commitment.

I think that one of the things you're seeing is more involvement by the United Nations, in terms of the political process. That's helpful. I'd like to get another U.N. Security Council resolution out that will help other nations to decide to participate.

One of the things I've found, John, is that, in calling around, particularly during this week -- I spoke to Prime Minister Berlusconi and President Kwasniewski -- there is a resolve by these leaders that is a heartening resolve. Tony Blair is the same way.

He understands, like I understand, that we cannot yield at this point in time, that we must remain steadfast and strong, that it's the intentions of the enemy to shake our will. That's what they want to do. They want us to leave. And we're not going to leave. We're going to do the job.

And a free Iraq is going to be a major blow for terrorism. It'll change the world. A free Iraq in the midst of the Middle East is vital to future peace and security.

Maybe I can best put it this way, why I feel so strongly about this historic moment. I was having dinner with Prime Minister Koizumi, and we were talking about North Korea, about how we can work together to deal with the threat. The North Korea leader is a threat.

And here are two friends, now, discussing what strategy to employ to prevent him from further developing and deploying a nuclear weapon.

And it dawned on me that, had we blown the peace in World War II, that perhaps this conversation would not have been taking place.

It also dawned on me then that when we get it right in Iraq, at some point in time an American president will be sitting down with a duly-elected Iraqi leader, talking about how to bring security to what has been a troubled part of the world.

The legacy that our troops are going to leave behind is a legacy of lasting importance, as far as I'm concerned. It's a legacy that really is based upon our deep belief that people want to be free and that free societies are peaceful societies.

Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don't believe Iraq can be free; that if you're Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can't be self-governing or free. I'd strongly disagree with that.

I reject that. Because I believe that freedom is the deepest need of every human soul, and if given a chance, the Iraqi people will be not only self-governing, but a stable and free society.

Notice how he talked about a coalition and the Iraqi people, and how great the new Iraq is, but he never answered the question about window-dressing! Here's another doozy:

QUESTION: Mr. President, why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission? And, Mr. President, who will we be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30th?

BUSH: We'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He's figuring out the nature of the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over.

And, secondly, because the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions, that's why we're meeting. And I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) I was asking why you're appearing together, rather than separately, which was their request.

BUSH: Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is looking forward to asking us. And I'm looking forward to answering them.

Whoa! That's a very important question that that man just asked him, and unlike other reporters, he interrupted the president and asked him to answer the question that was asked. What does Bush do? He answers a different question, anyway! The question was not "Why are you going in front of the 9/11 commission?" The question was, "Why are you and the vice president appearing together even though the comission asked you to appear separately?" Of course Bush won't answer this question; he can't get up in front of a panel of people without Dick Cheney, his mouthpiece! Look at the trouble he's having answering questions from reporters; I can't imagine how badly he would fare under oath in front of a congressional commitee!

Posted by Mark at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Posted by Mark at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In a new pamphlet about why logging is good for the Sierra Nevada region, the U.S. Forest Service has grossly misrepresented forests before and after logging. (Link goes to a Sacramento Bee article on the pamphlet; an online version of the pamphlet is located here.) Why on Earth could this be? It is well known that the George W. Bush placed cabinet secretaries in an ironic way. Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior, is in charge of the nation's lands. Before she had the job of administrating America's wilderness, she was the national chairwoman for Republican Environmental Advocates, a group funded in part by Ford and BP Amoco (opensecrets.org). The Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment, the man in charge of the Forest Service, is Mark Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist. Environmental Media Services offers an interesting piece of news on an ongoing problem with the Bush Administration: openness:

A federal court yesterday criticized the US Department of Agriculture and the US Forest Service for their response to efforts by Defenders of Wildlife and the Endangered Species Coalition to find out how and why comprehensive nationwide forest rules, drafted by an independent Committee of Scientists, were junked soon after President Bush took office. The groups had filed a FOIA request for documents pertaining to the decision to scrap the regulations amid concerns that they were tossed out so that more industry-friendly regulations could be crafted by former timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey, appointed by President Bush to oversee the Forest Service as Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment. Rey maintained there was not a single document in the Office of the Undersecretary pertaining to this major federal rulemaking process, a response the court deemed "inadequate" and which Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen called "laughable." The Forest Service was also reprimanded for being so vague in its reasons for withholding nearly three quarters of the documents requested that neither plaintiffs nor the court could assess whether the withholdings were proper.

In the tradition of Orwellian titles for his programs, Bush's forestry program was entitled the "Healthy Forests Initiative" (like PATRIOT Act and No Child Left Behind Act; who wants to leave children behind? Obviously anyone opposed to that bill). The Olympian reported on the controversy surrounding the Healthy Forests initiative: "The final rules would leave intact some of the most controversial proposals from an earlier version released in November. Like that version, the final plan would give regional managers of the Forest Service more discretion to approve logging, drilling and mining operations without having to conduct environmental impact statements."

Posted by Mark at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In an attempt to counteract the negative criticism of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Justice has produced a web page decrying the "myths" of the PATRIOT Act perpetuated by the evil-doers down at the ACLU.

Most of the explanations for the PATRIOT Act center around the fact that the federal government already had tools like wiretaps and warrants to fight crime; but it didn't have these tools to fight terrorism! This begs the question, "Why not?" The answer (not given on this web page) is that the PATRIOT Act lowers the evidence requirement on the part of the state from "probable cause" (defined as "sufficient reason based upon known facts to believe a crime has been committed or that certain property is connected with a crime") to showing that evidence is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." What does this mean? It means that the police or the FBI no longer have to demonstrate that they believe you are committing a crime; it's enough to suggest that you're committing a crime or might commit a crime. It also allows the government to conduct so-called sneak-and-peek searches, in which police or federal officials search a person's home without his knowledge or consent and then leave, having never notified him that such a search had been conducted.

It would be great if the PATRIOT Act were used just for terrorism. But it isn't. The PATRIOT Act extends the government's surveillance powers for all crimes and it redefines other crimes so that those crimes can also be considered "terrorism." The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports, "Government spying on suspected computer trespassers (not just terrorist suspects) requires no court order. Wiretaps are now allowed for any suspected violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, offering possibilities for Government spying on any computer user."

The Domestic Security Enhancement Act, often called "PATRIOT 2," increases the government's surveillance capabilities. DOJ has kept the bill under wraps, giving the American people all the more reason to question its content. "The drafting process was kept secret and rumors about the bill’s existence were denied," says People for the American Way; "equally alarming is the draft bill’s impact on First Amendment rights of association and expression by expanding an already-overbroad definition of terrorism to potentially include disfavored political groups engaging in civil disobedience."

Though DOJ's website claims that the PATRIOT Act was passed "by overwhelming bipartisan margins," many congressmen say that the bill was rammed through both houses of Congress so fast that some of them didn't even get a chance to read it. The ACLU reports:

The Senate version of the Patriot Act, which closely resembled the legislation requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was sent straight to the floor with no discussion, debate, or hearings. Many Senators complained that they had little chance to read it, much less analyze it, before having to vote. In the House, hearings were held, and a carefully constructed compromise bill emerged from the Judiciary Committee. But then, with no debate or consultation with rank-and-file members, the House leadership threw out the compromise bill and replaced it with legislation that mirrored the Senate version. Neither discussion nor amendments were permitted, and once again members barely had time to read the thick bill before they were forced to cast an up-or-down vote on it. The Bush Administration implied that members who voted against it would be blamed for any further attacks -- a powerful threat at a time when the nation was expecting a second attack to come any moment and when reports of new anthrax letters were appearing daily.

The bill that would become the PATRIOT Act, H.R. 3162, was introduced in the House on October 23. It was a combination of two previous bills, H.R. 2975 (introduced on Oct. 2) and S. 1510 (introduced in the Senate on Oct. 4). It was signed by the President on October 26. The legislation was proposed and signed in three weeks -- extremely quickly in Congressional time.

The provisions of the PATRIOT Act could be used against those whose opinions are unpopular (opinions of anti-war groups could be regarded as "aiding terrorism"). Given that the Bush Administration is not above calling people's private lives into question in the midst of a debate about public policy, it is certainly not above using the mechanisms of the law to silence those who criticize it.

Posted by Mark at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let's not mince words: I think Howard Stern is very crude (not that Opie and Anthony are any less crude, but they're funnier at the same time). Nevertheless, there are folks out there who like to listen to his radio show. What's the problem with that?

Plenty, says the FCC. On Thursday, the FCC proposed an unprecedented $495,000 fine for Clear Channel for "indecent comments" made by Stern on six of its radio stations. Rather than pay the fine, Clear Channel dropped Stern from those six radio stations. Stern remains on the air, since his contract is with the other humongously big radio behemoth, Infinity Broadcasting (a subsidiary of Viacom). Want to hear the most outrageous statement of this story? It was made by Clear Channel CEO John Hogan: "The Congress and [regulators] are even beginning to look at revoking station licenses. That's a risk we're just not willing to take."

At exactly what point did we stray into the Massachusetts Bay Colony? The FCC is not a regulatory board. Ever since they were formed, they have never regulated content. Thanks to the Bush Administration and the FCC's uppity and Puritanical commissioners (do they think they're on some religious crusade to rid the world of "indecent" content?), the radio waves are now being regulated at an unprecedented rate.

And guess why. If you said "the Janet Jackson controversy," you are correct. Who knew that a breast could cause so much outrage? Was there outrage when Britney Spears had a major case of THO on the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards? (Put a shirt on, for God's sake!) But when Janet Jackson's obscured breast appears for a split-second -- the cameras did cut away -- John Ashcroft, George Bush, and the other folks down at the Star Chamber got their dander up. Since America's moral values are going down the toilet, it is obviously evangelical Christian values that must be instilled by . . . nope, not the parents, anymore. That's right: it's the state's job to instill morals!

If you don't believe me, then believe John Ashcroft. In the midst of a War on Terror, a War in Iraq, and a Failing Economy at Home, the White House spin doctors dreamed up a brand new divisive issue to obfuscate our foreign policy. Gay marriage proved to be too controversial; what about pornography? Everyone loves pornography, but no one will admit to it. That would be deviant and evil.

As such, the Bush Administration is gearing up for the first major pornography operation in ten years, once again proving my point that Bush is really Ronald Reagan, but more confused. Let's see, here: budget deficit + war on terror = obvious need to preserve state-sponsored evangelical Christian morals. Yup, that equation balances out. There's stupid on both sides.

Ashcroft and his buddies at the Inquisition decided that government resources weren't being used to look for terrorists, anyway, so they should be put to good use finding the most evil people of all -- pornographers! Ashcroft doesn't smoke, drink, or dance, or have fun, and I expect that, in his mind, he is saving the world from evil. I hope he doesn't put himself on par with Jesus in his own mind. Too bad there are privacy laws preventing the government from telling consenting adults what they can do in their own homes. I bet that gets Ashcroft's goat; if it were up to him, he'd be on the Morality Watch twenty-four hours a day, spying on people, making sure they don't do anything he considers naughty.

Again, I maintain that if you don't want Bush to go, you have to want Ashcroft to go. He is imposing his crazy-Christian values (not that Christians are crazy, but that his sect is pretty crazy) on the United States. Remember when he had the statue of "Justice" covered up? Remember Oregon? This man is insane and will not stop until everyone in the country is just as smoke-less, drink-less, dance-less, and fun-less as he is.

Posted by Mark at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle released a statement on "the abuse of government power."

He makes note of President Bush's low-down, dirty spin control in the Richard Clarke matter:

The retaliation from those around the President has been fierce. Mr. Clarke's personal motives have been questioned and his honesty challenged. He has even been accused, right here on the Senate floor, of perjury. Not one shred of proof was given, but that wasn't the point. The point was to have the perjury accusation on television and in the newspapers. The point was to damage Mr. Clarke in any way possible.

But, if you'll recall, that wasn't as low as the Bush Administration went. Remember this?

When Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about the Administration's misleading claims about Iraq, Niger, and uranium, the people around the President didn't respond with facts. Instead, they publicly disclosed that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a deep-cover CIA agent. In doing so, they undermined America's national security and put politics first. They also may well have put the lives of Ambassador Wilson's wife, and her sources, in danger.

Anyone who criticizes the Bush Administration gets the kind of personal attacking that reminds me of Nixon. The people that work for Bush, especially Karl Rove, are colossal slimeballs that resort to childish name-calling tactics. When that doesn't work, they resort to more sophisticated attempts to destroy credibility. It's nice to know that CREEP is still alive and well, albeit in another incarnation.

Once again, I reiterate that the Bush Administration has to go. Many thanks to Scott for providing this link.

Posted by Mark at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)