Microsoft has finally come out with a name for its sort-of-next-generation operating system, which has been code-named "Longhorn." The new version of Microsoft Windows will be called "Windows Vista."

Okay, so it sounds stupid. Actually, "Windows Longhorn" would probably have been a better name, anyway. But what has Windows Vista done for me lately?

Longhorn has been delayed, delayed, and then delayed again. One of the new release's most hyped features, the next-generation file system WinFS, was scrapped last year. Vista will continue to use NTFS, like Windows 2000 and Windows XP before it.

But one of the whiz-bang features that will remain is Avalon, Longhorn's ultra-cool graphics engine, which allows for translucent windows and will allow each window to be rendered individually. This means, though, that the computer that you're running Windows XP on right now probably won't be able to use Avalon, especially if it's using an integrated video card.

With the acquisition a year ago of Giant Software, which resulted in the creation of Microsoft Antispyware, and its purchase of anti-virus maker Sybari Software, we may expect to see antivirus and antispyware protection built into the operating system, which is good, since Windows attracts a lot of spyware and viruses.

Posted by Mark at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Bush Administration really doesn't like investigations. It wants to make everyone else accountable to it, but it refers to be accountable to everyone else, including the people who elected it into office.

For example, right after the September 11 attacks, Congress wanted to form a committee to investigate the attacks. Bush stonewalled the creation of an investigatory committee until two years later. Then they wanted the president to meet with them -- alone and under oath -- as well as then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, also alone and under oath. Bush said, "No dice" in both circumstances. He agreed to allow Condie to speak to them, not under oath, and he deigned to speak to them, also -- not under oath and with VP Cheney. The September 11 commission concluded that the attacks were the result of multiple intelligence and communications failures, and also concluded that Iraq and al-Qaeda had no significant operating relationship, even if an Iraqi official met once with an al-Qaeda official in Czechoslovakia.

After Bob Novak published his column in The Chicago Sun-Times, the Justice Department opened an investigation. They seemed to think this was serious business. The Bush Administration told the public that they would look into it, but they haven't done their own investigation. Finally, now that a federal grand jury is looking into the matter, the Bush Administration has said that they will begin their own investigation.

Man, they really don't like it when people investigate them!

And yet the Republicans spent several years and a lot of taxpayer dollars trying to get Clinton on anything they could, even if they had to make up a crazy conspiracy theory like "Clinton killed Vince Foster." In the end, they tried to get him on charges of perjury, which he was found not guilty of, thank you very much.

And yes, I do think that endangering national security to "get back" at someone is a teensy bit worse than committing perjury. Clinton lied to a jury. Two folks in the Bush Administration jeoparadized national security. Which sounds worse to you?

If you'd like to look at the columns that started it all, I have reproduced the Wilson column, the Novak column that outs Valerie Plame, and the Novak column that outs her front company. If Bob Novak got flak to outing Valerie Plame, why did he go to the trouble of publishing the name of her front company three months later? CIA operatives tell everyone else they work for some other company; in the case of Valerie Plame, it was a fictional company called Brewster-Jennings. Not only did Novak destroy Plame's cover, but he destroyed the cover of any other CIA operative that claimed to work for "Brewster-Jennings," as well as anyone who had previously worked for "Brewster-Jennings" or anyone who had ever done business with someone from a company called Brewster-Jennings.

It's not just Valerie Plame whose cover was blown; Brewster-Jennings' cover was blown, and so was anyone who dealt with either the company or her. It has also hurt our ability to recruit informants from overseas since the potential informants know that our government is more than willing to rat out our agents for political gain.

The world is a safer place.

Posted by Mark at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in the Middle Ages, there was a pseudo-science called physiognomy which maintained that you could tell what a person's morality was like based on his outward physical appearance. This is taken to extremes in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, where the pilgrims' character flaws are revealed through their physical descriptions (leading some experts to conclude, for example, that the Pardoner is gay).

A post at Boing Boing discusses how Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, among dozens of novels and short stories for both children and adults, makes use of physiognomy:

In many children's books--contrary to what parents tell their children about the meaning of appearances--physical ugliness signifies its moral equivalent. Dahl takes this to an extreme, describing his villains' repulsive attributes with brio: Mr. Hazell's "great, glistening, beery face . . . as pink as a ham," in "Danny, the Champion of the World" (1975); Aunt Sponge's resemblance to "a great white soggy overboiled cabbage"; the "grizzly old grunion of a grandma" in "George's Marvelous Medicine" (1981)--the one Dahl book I find irredeemably sour--who has "a small puckered-up mouth, like a dog's bottom." Dahl shared with George Orwell an acute sense of why small children often see adults as unsightly or intimidating. "Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child's eyes, is that the child is usually looking upward, and few faces are at their best when seen from below," Orwell wrote. Dahl once said that adults should get down on their knees for a week, in order to remember what it's like to live in a world in which the people with all the power literally loom over you.

But this may be a British thing.

I will now reveal that, for the last week, I have been reading Harry Potter. Last Saturday, when children all over the English-speaking world were starting Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I was just beginning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. As of now, I am halfway through the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And let me tell you, J.K. Rowling makes just as much use of physiognomy as Dahl or Chaucer ever did.

Take Harry Potter's loathsome adopted parents, the Dursleys. Mr. Dursley, Harry's uncle, is a very fat man, described as having small, squinty eyes and no neck. Their son, Dudley, Harry's cousin, is equally fat. Harry's aunt, Mrs. Dursley, is actually quite skinny. What does this all mean? In the world of Harry Potter, a physical description or a name goes a long way in saying how J.K. Rowling feels about you. Uncle Vernon Dursley and Dudley Dursley are both very fat and Uncle Vernon is morbidly concerned with normality. He hates anything to do with magic and lives in constant, horrible fear that someone will find out that his nephew is . . . not normal! As such, the Dursleys go to great lengths to be hyper-normal, so much so that they ignore anything interesting in the world. Take a look at the name "Dudley Dursley." There's a reason why it sounds a lot like the word "dud": Dudley is a dud in the sense that he is "unsatisfactory or worthless." This is manifested in his name as well as his physical characteristics. Torpidity in body means torpidity of the mind; that is, Dudley is lazy physically as well as mentally. He does not exercise his mind or his body, and he fills both with crap: sweets and cakes for his body, and television, computer games, and Playstation for his mind. He has no interest in learning anything new or interesting or bettering himself as a person.

Dahl did the same thing in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, using physical descriptions to indicate inner vices. He also masterfully used onamotapoetic names for his characters. Does the name "Augustus Gloop" sound appealing? What does "gloop" sound like? Whatever it is, it can't be good. Rowling does the same thing. What does "Slytherin" sound like? Obviously, it sounds like a snake, which in fact is the symbol of the clearly evil Slytherin house. How about "Griffyndor"? Sounds like a griffyn (gryphon or griffen), an animal that is half lion and half eagle. That's one freaking noble animal! Rowling wants us to like Griffyndor and despise Slytherin, and gives them names appropriate to those tones. The characters have names like that, as well. "Draco Malfoy"? Draco comes from the Latin draconis, which means "dragon" (and the word draco still means "dragon" in Spanish), and "malfoy" has the root "mal-," which refers to anything that is evil or bad (malevolus, for example, means "ill-disposed, spiteful, malicious"; see also the Disney villain Malificent from Sleeping Beauty). The Headmaster at Hogwart's is named Dumbledore, and the word "dumb" is in there deliberately. Dumbledore isn't stupid, but like his archetype, he is at once powerful and wise, but also doddering and absent-minded (Disney comes back again; cf. Merlin from The Sword in the Stone, and for something different, cf. Buddhist sannyasi [pl. of sannyasin], old men who have acheived Nirvana but live as hermits and are kind of eccentric). Severus Snape? Again, Snape is clearly not to be trusted; his onamotapoetic name indicates that he is related somehow to a snake, which is true: he is the head of evil Slytherin house and a very nasty man in general.

Again, I say this may be a British thing because I've seen it out of Dahl and Rowling as well as Orwell, who worked physiognomy into Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. How many American authors utilize this technique? It does in a few short words something that paragraphs of description couldn't do nearly as well. We're meant to like "Griffyndor" because of the heroic associations it conjures up (especially for the British, who would find a certain patriotic element in the image of the lion, one of the two animals on its seal), and we are meant to loathe "Slyetherin" because of its associations with snakes and serpents, animals which we perceive as ignoble, sneaky, treacherous, and possibly evil.

Posted by Mark at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Unbelievable. Horrible. James Doohan, who played Capt. Montgomery Scott on Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, and again in seven Star Trek films and the Next Generation episode "Relics," died this morning at age 85. Doohan disappeared from public life last August, when he revealed that he had Alzheimer's Disease.

His character, Montgomery Scott -- affectionately called "Scotty" by his crewmates, was the archetype of Starfleet engineers. In every episode, he managed to keep the ship together despite seemingly insurmountable difficulties. He later confided in Enterprise-D chief engineer Geordi la Forge that the secret of his success was to tell the captain it would take double the time it would actually take to perform repairs. That way, when repairs were complete in half the time Scott said they would be done, the captain was impressed.

Doohan was Canadian, even though his character was Scottish. Like Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov with a Russian accent, Doohan played Scotty with a Scottish accent.

Doohan is survived by the rest of the Star Trek cast, except for DeForest Kelly, who played Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy. He died in 1999.

Posted by Mark at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, George W. Bush selected his Supreme Court nominee: D.C. Circuit Court Judge John Roberts. Thus far, he doesn't sound like a winner.

Roberts spent most of his career as a private-practice lawyer, working for the firm Hogan & Hartson from 1986 to 1989 and again from 1993 to 2003, when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Prior to working for Hogan & Hartson, he clerked for Second Circuit Court Judge Henry Friendly and then-Supreme Court (Associate) Justice William Rehnquist. In 1981, he joined the Justice Department, but left in 1986 to work for Hogan & Hartson. He returned to the Justice Department in 1987, then left again in 1993. His only experience as a judge has been the two years he has served on the D.C. Circuit Court. And he's only 50!

50?! Is that young for a Supreme Court Justice? They're all old fogies now! Here's how old the current Justices (plus O'Connor) were when they were appointed:

• Rehnquist: 48 (appt. 1972)
• Stevens: 55 (appt. 1975)
• O'Connor: 51 (appt. 1981)
• Scalia: 50 (appt. 1986)
• Kennedy: 52 (appt. 1988)
• Souter: 51 (appt. 1990)
• Thomas: 43 (appt. 1991)
• Ginsburg: 60 (appt. 1993)
• Breyer: 56 (appt. 1994)

The mean (average) age for the current justices is 51.8 years, and the median age is 51. This means that, statistically, the mean for their ages is skewed to being a year older than they should be (in a perfect world, the mean and the median would match, and when they don't -- as in the case of income in the United States -- it tells us interesting things), but 51-52 is the average age, so 50 is nothing special. He wouldn't come close to Clarence Thomas' 43 or Ginsburg's 60. He's nicely in between. The reason we think of Supreme Court justices as old fogeys is because now, twenty and thirty years after most of them were appointed, they are. But back when they were appointed, they were spry, middle-aged men and women.

So how about this Roberts guy? Well, he doesn't like Roe v. Wade, for one thing. This is what he said in a government brief in the case Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991), which dealt with prohibiting federally-funded family planning clinics from discussing abortion as an option:

We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled . . . [T]he Court’s conclusion[] in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion . . . find[s] no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.

He also has no problem with a little bit of prayer in schools. In Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), Roberts co-authored an amicus brief saying that a prayer at a public school graduation was constitutionally permissible. The Court disagreed. Interestingly, the government wasn't even involved in the case, but decided to file an amicus brief, anyway.

In 1990, he co-authored the government's brief in United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), in which the constitutionality of the Flag Protection Act of 1989 -- which prohibited flag burning -- was challenged. The Court struck down the law. Even Justice Scalia wrote, "Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.”

You can read more in People for the American Way's report on Roberts. His sketchy record on First Amendment issues, as well as his inexperience as a judge, all conspire to make him a not-so-good choice to be a Supreme Court justice. Gonzales would probably have been better.

Posted by Mark at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Via Metafilter comes a really cool website called Morgan Spurlock Watch which, in the vein of books like Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, attempts to correct errors in Morgan Spurlock's books, blog, TV show, and film Super Size Me.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when a person deliberately manipulates information in order to forward an agenda of his own. Whatever happened to the truth? The author of Morgan Spurlock Watch seems to be a libertarian, no doubt one of the reasons he dislikes Spurlock, who sees capitalism as evil and the government as trustworthy. Nevertheless, this writer does give Spurlock credit when he gets his facts right.

Part of the problem with people who have an agenda is that once they've found information -- any information -- that agrees with their opinions, they use that information as fact, even though there may be other, more credible information that contradicts those facts. Take, for example, Spurlock's repeated citing of the Physicans Committee for Responsible Medicine as a credible source. And it certainly sounds credible. But the author of Morgan Spurlock Watch is more skepticaler:

So what exactly is the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine? They aren't physicans. Less than 5% of the group's membership are actual physicians.

In fact, PCRM is a rather militant animal rights group. Its aim? To end medical research on animals, and to foster public fear of eating cheese and meat with scare campaigns. Through lawsuits, intimidation, and stealth media placement, they're trying to push the vegan lifestyle.

Ouch. We know that Spurlock, as well as his fiancee, Alex, is a vegan. Either he didn't know that PCRM isn't a credible source (probably not true, given that he's a smart guy) or he used information that he knew to be false just because it supported his opinion, not because it was true in the philosophical sense or even in the factually correct one.

Where have we seen that before?

I like libertarians. I often disagree with their politics, but they're estranged enough from "mainstream" politics that they put their own beliefs before trying to institute some kind of social or political change. If libertarians make a mistake, they admit it. And they do their research. They work until they find hard facts, not just people who make themselves up to be experts. This is to be contrasted with social activists like Spurlock, who would like to dump American capitalism altogether, probably along with eating meat. This is his agenda. Neo-cons also have an agenda: they would like to institute an Evangelical Protestant United States empire. Libertarians like things the way they are. All they want is for the government and other private citizens to keep their noses out of peoples' lives. It's hard to pigeonhole libertarians by saying that they're all conservative. Frequently, they're economic conservatives, simply because they don't want a lot of government interference in how they spend their money. But they're social liberals in the sense that they don't want Christian morality-based restrictions on how they live their private lives. They would believe in Roe v. Wade because of a right to privacy, that the government shouldn't be able to meddle in the affairs of private citizens. They would agree with the gay rights movement not because they're especially in favor of specifically rights for homosexuals, but because they don't want the government to tell citizens how they can and cannot live their private lives.

Sometimes libertarians can be crazy, but that's true of anyone, I guess. On average, they're less crazy than neo-cons and communists.

Posted by Mark at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We learned some new things today in the NovakRoveCooperMillerPlameWilsonGate affair. And why has it become fashionable to add "-gate" to the name of every scandal?

In this week's issue of Time magazine, Cooper says that Rove was the first person to tell him that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Rove did not mention Valerie Plame by name, but said that Wilson's wife worked for "the agency," which, of course, means only one thing in Washington, D.C. Rove testified that Cooper called him regarding a story he was writing about Ambassador Wilson, and Rove was merely trying to set Cooper's facts straight. "Rove went on to say that Wilson had not been sent to Niger by the director of the CIA and, I believe from my subsequent e-mails -- although it's not in my notes -- that Rove added that Dick Cheney didn't send him either. Indeed, the next day the Vice President's chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, told me Cheney had not been responsible for Wilson's mission," said Cooper this week in Time. Apparently, Cooper was ready to write that Wilson had been sent on his mission to Africa by the Vice President's office, something that Rove said wasn't true. Rove told Cooper that Wilson's wife -- who worked for "the agency" -- was responsible for getting him that job. This was akin to naming Plame outright, for everyone knew who Wilson's wife was, just not that she worked for the CIA.

Cooper concludes:

So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the "agency" on "WMD"? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me.

Rove himself has testified in front of the grand jury, saying that he actually learned of Plame's identity from Bob Novak. Now the question is: if Rove didn't tell Novak about Plame, then who did? Judith Miller remains mum on the subject.

Also, this weekend, George W. Bush changed his tune about the leaker. In September of 2003, Bush said that whoever was involved with the leak would "be taken care of." Now, he has changed his standard of firing to say, "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." We have gone from the standard of merely being involved to the standard of committing a crime. This, of course, because now we know that if Rove didn't commit a crime, at the very least he was involved in the leak.

Posted by Mark at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this evening, ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist issued a statement saying he was staying on the court:

"I'm not about to announce my retirement," he said.

"I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement," Rehnquist, 80, said in a statement first disclosed by The Associated Press and later confirmed by the court. "I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits."

Rehnquist issued the statement hours after being released from an Arlington, Va., hospital after being treated for two days with a fever.

Ever since his announcement last year that he had thyroid cancer, we've been waiting for Rehnquist to retire. Last Friday, Supreme Court insiders claimed that Rehnquist would retire by the end of the day, but no dice. I guess he's tired of people asking him when he's going to announce his retirement.

Posted by Mark at 1:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're in the market for cheap DSL service, you might consider Qwest by MSN. And if you do consider that service, Qwest will offer you a free DSL modem, the Arescom NetDSL 800. And you might accept it.

If you're a chump.

Because unbeknownst to you, you would be buying a DSL modem with an unconfigurable internal firewall. That's right, kids. You won't find it in the documentation, and you'll have to pry the information out of a Qwest customer service representative, but sooner or later you'll discover the unconfigurable firewall.

Here's Arescom's official answer for a problem with the Arescom NetDSL 800 firewall (which you were never told existed, by the way):

The MSN NetDSL units are are pre-configured per stringent specifications from MSN. Because the units are pre-configured for MSN, we do not offer a software manager to the open public.

Why would MSN preconfigure these units to not work? Users trying to download files via BitTorrent (which has "substantial non-infringing uses") or play games over the Internet will find that they have either no connection or a connection at a greatly reduced speed. Is this some sort of punishment for taking a "free" modem? It's not like it's defective; MSN went the extra step to order defective modems! It's as though you went to a car dealer and had to choose between two cars which were exactly the same, except one was free but didn't go over 45 mph, and it was designed that way. But they didn't tell you about it.

And why wouldn't MSN tell you about an unconfigurable internal firewall? Obviously to hide it from you. Openness comes from openness. Someone keeps something secret if he wants to hide it.

There is a way to "fix" the modem, but it requires some electronics knowledge and some command-line voodoo to hack your way into the modem's firmware and alter the firewall. And it probably voids the warranty. So in the future, just pay the fifty bucks for a decent, non-busted modem.

Posted by Mark at 2:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the reasons the Republicans are winning so much these days is because they're more organized. The Republican Spin Machine, spearheaded by Karl Rove, is a powerful force that encompasses not only the White House, but all the conservative pundits out there. I'm convinced that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Scarborough all get their marching orders every day from Rove's office. Whenever the administration comes under attack, all of these conservative commentators are there to sling mud at the attacker, decrying him or her as a liar, a shameless self-promoter, and probably a hater of America, as well.

Once it looked like Karl Rove might possibly be the leaky faucet in the White House plumbing, the Republican spin machine went into overdrive, lambasting both Valerie Plame and her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Plame, alleged Sean Hannity a few weeks ago on his radio show, wasn't really a "covert" agent, since everyone knew that she worked for the CIA. And besides that, she wasn't a very good agent, anyway. Her husband got his job investigating allegations of uranium sales in Niger only because of his connections to Plame, not because he was any good at his job. And by the way, he was a liar, since Niger tried a little bit to get some nuclear material from Niger. Sort of. In 1988, Iraq tried to establish commercial contacts with Niger for purchasing uranium, but Wilson regarded such a purchase as "highly unlikely."

In his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." As it turns out, this information was based on forged documents, and what's more, both the British and American governments knew the documents were forged. The CIA advised Bush to remove this sentence from his speech, but he kept it in, anyway. This prompted Wilson to write his op-ed in The Washington Post in July of that year.

G. Gordon Liddy -- who is of course the authority on ethics (for the uninitiated, Liddy was one of the people in charge of Nixon's "dirty tricks" campaign and went to jail for his part in the Watergate break-in) -- had this to say about Plame on the July 12 Hannity & Colmes:

But I want to point out that people keep referring to Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. That is a term of art. It is by no means established that she's an operative. An operative is someone who works for the director of operations.

My understanding is that she was in the agency at headquarters having to do with research and what have you on weapons of mass destruction. She was not an undercover operative operating out in the field, the kind of person that the statute seeks to protect.

Never mind, of course, the twenty years Plame had spent building up a network of informants. How many of them have been put in jeopardy because people know that she is a covert agent?

Back that train up!

Are we to believe that character assassinations and personal smears are to atone for what Karl Rove may have done? That being a liar or not a very good agent is on par with committing a federal crime?! I believe right now is the point at which conservative commentators have lost all connection to reality.

In deference to the law, of course, there is still a question as to whether or not any laws were broken. Was Plame really a "covert" agent? There is some question as to whether or not she was. The Intelligence Identity Protection Act of 1982, known to the ages as 50 U.S.C. 421, says the following:

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Bob Novak was definitely "not authorized to receive classified information." Did Rove know that the information he disseminated "identifies such covert agent"? Most definitely. Was the United States "taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States"? That seems to be the question.

But Karl Rove (or someone within the administration) took it upon himself to endanger national security all in the name of "punishing" Joseph Wilson for writing an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, in which he said, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." On July 14, Novak wrote an editorial in The Chicago Sun-Times identifying Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," information that was given him by "two senior administration officials."

The Republican machine is circling the wagons around Rove, trying to insulate him from attack and attempting to vilify the attackers. But the severity of Rove's crime, as compared with Plame and Wilson's poor character, makes the Republican attacks all the more trite. As Ed Schultz observed on his radio show a few days ago, Bush was quick to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when conservatives attacked him for being too moderate a choice for the Supreme Court. Where is Bush now, when his mentor, Karl Rove, is in need? Rove is in big trouble, here, and the administration's official position is to keep quiet until something can be done. Back when there was no evidence linking Rove to this situation, Scott McClellan was more than happy to exonerate him; now that it looks like he might be involved, the administration has clammed up. Because it knows that Rove is guilty? Because they have gone on record as saying they would fire whoever leaked the information? Rove is the heart and soul of the new conservative revolution in America; if the administration were to fire him, it would suffer. If it didn't stand by its pledge to fire the leaker, it would take a hit in the accountability and credibility department.

Checkmate!

UPDATE: I found a great treatment of the whole affair at QandO, which advertises itself as a libertarian blog. It's a great treatment because it's actually objective. It notes that Joseph Wilson did exaggerate some of his assertions, but at the same time, it concludes that Joe Wilson lying or exaggerating is not nearly the same as Karl Rove exposing an undercover agent:

Well, there's wrong and there's wrong isn't there? I mean, granted Joe Wilson seems to have the same relationship with the truth that I have with the CHP officer that lives next door to me. I wave when I see him in the yard.

But, really, why bring Valerie Plame into it? All Mr. Rove had to say was that the Vice President had nothing to do with Joe Wilson's Dark Journey, and the whole idea for Mr. Wilson to take a jaunt to Malaria Central came at the behest of the CIA. If Ms. Plame was a covert agent, there was no reason to mention her name.

You can call Joseph Wilson a liar all you want, but any lies he may have perpetrated aren't even in the universe of what Karl Rove may have done, and it's disingenuous at best to try and compare them.

Posted by Mark at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was watching Hannity and Colmes -- in fact, I'm watching it right now -- and one of their guests is Rep. Gary Miller (R-CA), one of the authors of the Citizenship Reform Act of 2005. Gary Miller and some other congressmen are very concerned that current U.S. citizenship laws allow children of illegal immigrants to become citizens. Title 8 of the United States Code governs who can and cannot become a citizen of the United States. Currently, any child born on United States soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen. Miller and his friends, Hannity being one of them, is incensed about this. As such, Miller wants to amend Title 8 to read thus:

(d) For purposes of section 301(a), a person born in the United States shall be considered as 'subject to the jurisdiction of the United States' if--

(1) the child was born in wedlock in the United States to a parent either of whom is (A) a citizen or national of the United States, or (B) an alien who is lawfully admitted for permanent residence and maintains his or her residence (as defined in subsection (a)(33)) in the United States; or

(2) the child was born out of wedlock in the United States to a mother who is (A) a citizen or national of the United States, or (B) an alien who is lawfully admitted for permanent residence and maintains her residence in the United States.

For purposes of this subsection, a child is considered to be 'born in wedlock' only if both parents are married to each other and parents are not considered to be married if such marriage is only a common law marriage.'.

Apparently, there are children of immigrants out there who are sponsoring their parents for citizenship! This cannot stand.

Interestingly, Miller noted that 120 other countries around the world have laws prohibiting people born on their soil from automatically becoming citizens. As quick as lightning, Colmes was on him for being a hypocrite. You see, conservatives don't like it when other countries' laws are used as support for our own laws (cf. Lawrence v. Texas), but apparently, as long as conservatives agree with the law in the first place, it's okay to use other countries' laws as support for our own! Hypocrite.

Gary Miller is, somehow, the U.S. Representative of the 42nd district, which includes Los Angeles county, Orange county, and and San Bernadino county. How did this guy get elected, again?

The bill, H.R. 698, is currently in the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims. Don't expect it to fly too well, since Bush has shown that he is fervently pro-immigration, and such a bill would alienate his Hispanic constituents.

Footnotes

* = title of this entry if written by Gary Miller and Sean Hannity

Posted by Mark at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan had his ass handed to him by the White House Press Corps. It seems that they're finally realizing that they've been doing a terrible job of second-guessing the administration, and decided to take out three years of frustration yesterday at a White House press briefing.

There, they lambasted McClellan about reports that White House Deputy Press Secretary (and all-around sleazeball) Karl Rove may have been the person -- or one of the persons -- who told Bob Novak that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent.

Here are some things that Scott McClellan told the Press Corps over the years. This statement is from an Oct. 10, 2003 press briefing:

Q Yes, Scott. Earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliott Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak.

I wonder if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

MR. MCCLELLAN: Those individuals -- I talked -- I spoke with those individuals, as I've pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

Q And none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

MR. MCCLELLAN: They assured me that they were not involved in this.

Q Scott, to follow up?

MR. MCCLELLAN: Yeah, go ahead, Ed.

Q Not involved in what?

MR. MCCLELLAN: The leaking of classified information.

Q Did you undertake that on your own volition, or were you instructed to go to these --

MR. MCCLELLAN: I spoke to those individuals myself.

On Oct. 10, 2003, McClellan, after having spoken to those individuals himself, determined that none of those people leaked classified information.

Yesterday, he had some very different words for reporters:

Q Does the President stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak of a name of a CIA operative?

MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked relating to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point. And as I've previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it. The President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren't going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

Q Excuse me, but I wasn't actually talking about any investigation. But in June of 2004, the President said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak, to press of information. And I just want to know, is that still his position?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, but this question is coming up in the context of this ongoing investigation, and that's why I said that our policy continues to be that we're not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation from this podium. The prosecutors overseeing the investigation had expressed a preference to us that one way to help the investigation is not to be commenting on it from this podium. And so that's why we are not going to get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation, or questions related to it.

Q Scott, if I could -- if I could point out, contradictory to that statement, on September 29th, 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one who said, if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation is when the President made his comment that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved. So why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you've suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, "We're not going to comment on an ongoing investigation"?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, John, I appreciate the question. I know you want to get to the bottom of this. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. And I think the way to be most helpful is to not get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation. That's something that the people overseeing the investigation have expressed a preference that we follow. And that's why we're continuing to follow that approach and that policy.

Now, I remember very well what was previously said. And at some point, I will be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete.

Q So could I just ask, when did you change your mind to say that it was okay to comment during the course of an investigation before, but now it's not?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think maybe you missed what I was saying in reference to Terry's question at the beginning. There came a point when the investigation got underway when those overseeing the investigation asked that it would be their -- or said that it would be their preference that we not get into discussing it while it is ongoing. I think that's the way to be most helpful to help them advance the investigation and get to the bottom of it.

Q Scott, can I ask you this; did Karl Rove commit a crime?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation. And I don't think you should read anything into it other than we're going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing.

Q Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003 when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliott Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this" -- do you stand by that statement?

MR. McCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time, as well.

Q Scott, I mean, just -- I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: And again, David, I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said, and I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation --

Q Why are you choosing when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MR. McCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish --

Q No, you're not finishing -- you're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke out about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation? Was he involved, or was he not? Because, contrary to what you told the American people, he did, indeed, talk about his wife, didn't he?

MR. McCLELLAN: David, there will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Q Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

Go ahead, Terry.

Q Well, you're in a bad spot here, Scott, because after the investigation began, after the criminal investigation was underway, you said -- October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby, as I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this." From that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began. Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization Terry, and I think you are well aware of that. We know each other very well, and it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation. And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this, because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point, I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.

Q Do you recall when you were asked --

Q Wait, wait -- so you're now saying that after you cleared Rove and the others from that podium, then the prosecutors asked you not to speak anymore, and since then, you haven't?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you're continuing to ask questions relating to an ongoing criminal investigation, and I'm just not going to respond any further.

Q When did they ask you to stop commenting on it, Scott? Can you peg down a date?

MR. McCLELLAN: Back at that time period.

Q Well, then the President commented on it nine months later. So was he not following the White House plan?

MR. McCLELLAN: John, I appreciate your questions. You can keep asking them, but you have my response.

Go ahead, Dave.

Q We are going to keep asking them. When did the President learn that Karl Rove had had a conversation with the President -- with a news reporter about the involvement of Joseph Wilson's wife and the decision to send --

MR. McCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions.

Q When did the President learn that Karl Rove had --

MR. McCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions, Dick.

Go ahead.

Q After the investigation is completed, will you then be consistent with your word and the President's word that anybody who was involved would be let go?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, after the investigation is complete, I will be glad to talk about it at that point.

Q And a follow-up. Can you walk us through why, given the fact that Rove's lawyer has spoken publicly about this, it is inconsistent with the investigation, that it compromises the investigation to talk about the involvement of Karl Rove, the Deputy Chief of Staff?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, those overseeing the investigation expressed a preference to us that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it's ongoing. And that was what they requested of the White House. And so I think in order to be helpful to that investigation, we are following their direction.

Q Scott, there's a difference between commenting on an investigation and taking an action --

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Goyal.

Q Can I finish, please?

MR. McCLELLAN: You can come -- I'll come back to you in a minute. Go ahead, Goyal.

McClellan was actually flustered! The Press Corps actually kept pushing him until he finally stopped taking questions from people who wanted to talk about Karl Rove. Go, Press Corps!

Posted by Mark at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In his 1945 essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell talks about how words can be used and misused to the point where they no longer have any meaning:

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.

Republicans have attempted to used the word "activist" to describe federal judges who do not rule in the ways they would like them to rule. Of course, Democrats have thrown the word right back, taking it and making it their own in describing some of Bush's controversial federal court nominees. Like "fascist" before it, the word "activist" has grown to have no meaning beyond "doesn't rule they way I want him to." One of the surest ways to discredit a political opponent is to call him or her an "activist," suggesting that perhaps he or she has an ideological agenda beyond merely enforcing, interpreting, or writing the law which is not in the best interests of the nation as a whole, but rather in the interests of a minority faction.

But is it really that subjective?

An op-ed in The New York Times suggests that "activism" is quantifiable. Operating under the assumption that "striking down Congressional legislation as an act 'of great delicacy, and only to be performed where the repugnancy is clear,'" the authors Paul Gerwitz and Chad Golder set about examining how many times the nine current Supreme Court justices engaged in that most activist of tasks, striking down Congressional legislation as unconstitutional.

The results are quite surprising. Based on their data, Clarence Thomas -- one of the court's most conservative justices -- was the most "activist," as he voted to overturn federal legislation in 65.63% of the cases where the constitutionality of federal legislation was in question. Breyer, one of the most liberal justices, was the least "activist," voting to overturn federal legislation in only 28.13% of cases where he could have done so.

The word "activist" has many definitions, and if used quantitatively, it has more meaning than if used qualitatively, where it can be slung pejoratively at any justice that a critic doesn't like.

Posted by Mark at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In the wake of its many no-bid contracts in Iraq, as well as poor service and overcharging for meals by its subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), you'd think Halliburton wouldn't be getting any more contracts.

Of course, you'd be wrong. On June 18, almost no major papers reported that KBR won a contract to build a $30 million prison facility in Guantanamo Bay. This was reported by only five major papers and magazines, according to LexisNexis.

Here's a list of the other successful projects undertaken by KBR, as revealed in hearings held on June 27:

Pentagon auditors have questioned more than $1 billion in costs by contracting giant Halliburton Co. for its work in Iraq, a number several times higher than previously disclosed, according to a report by congressional Democrats.

The report, based on Defense Contract Audit Agency documents and a briefing by DCAA officials, details $813 million in questioned costs on a Halliburton contract to provide logistical support to U.S. troops and $219 million on a no-bid contract to restore Iraqi's oil network.

The Defense Contract Audit Agency found an additional $442 million in Halliburton charges that were "unsupported," meaning the company had not provided enough documentation to justify the cost, the report said.

Among the costs that Pentagon auditors questioned were $152,000 in "movie library costs," a $1.5 million tailoring bill that auditors deemed higher than reasonable, more than $560,000 worth of heavy equipment that was considered unnecessary, and two multimillion-dollar transportation bills that appeared to overlap. [The Washington Post.]

Oh, and then there's this:

Speaking by video, Rory Mayberry, a former food production manager at Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., told Democratic lawmakers how Halliburton charged the government for as many as 10,000 meals a day it never served. He also said the company paid unusually high prices for its food, fed food as much as a year beyond its expiration date to the troops and ordered employees not to talk to U.S. government auditors.

"For trucks that were hit by convoy fire and bombings, we were told to go into the trucks and remove the food items and use them after removing the bullets and any shrapnel," he said. [The Washington Post; hyperlink not in original.]

What happened when government auditors came calling, to see how KBR was doing?

The managers themselves would leave the base or hide from the auditors when they were on the base and not answer the radios when we called for them. We were told to follow instructions or get off the base. The threat of being sent to a camp under fire was their way of keeping us quiet. The employees that talked to the auditors were moved to the other bases that were under more fire then Anaconda. If they refused to move, they were fired and sent home.

Frequently, there wasn't enough fresh food to go around, since KBR managers were using fresh food to have barbecues for themselves, which they had about three times a week.

KBR also received information on safe food-handling guidelines from the military. KBR managers told their employees explicitly to ignore these guidelines.

Thank you, KBR, for supporting our troops.

Posted by Mark at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember Robert Novak? Two years ago, he did a little thing called "publish the name of an undercover CIA agent." Yes, Bob Novak is the Republican sleazeball who "leaked" Valerie Plame's name -- though he maintains that he didn't know that was he was doing was wrong at the time. Novak is a neo-con lapdog on the order of Sean Hannity, pushing the administration's agenda every day of the week.

Writing in his home newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times, Novak insists that the biggest obstacle to a conservative Supreme Court ... is George Bush! Novak writes:

Conservatives who have spent more than a decade planning for this moment to change the balance of power on the Supreme Court are reeling from blows delivered by two dissimilar political leaders: Edward M. Kennedy and George W. Bush. Sen. Kennedy has succeeded with the news media in establishing a new standard of ''mainstream conservatism'' for a justice. President Bush has put forth ''friendship'' as a qualification for being named to the high court.

Bush is by far the bigger obstacle in the way of a conservative court. While Kennedy's ploy presents a temporary problem, Bush's stance could be fatal. The right's morale was devastated by the president's comments in a USA Today telephone interview published on the newspaper's front page Tuesday: ''Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine. When a friend gets attacked, I don't like it.''

Why does the Supreme Court have to be "conservative" or "liberal"? Isn't it enough that they come in at 8 in the morning, interpret the law, and go home? Why must they adhere to a particular political ideology when interpreting the law? Novak and others like him use the term "conservative" contemptuously when talking about Sandra Day O'Connor since, unlike Scalia or Thomas, O'Connor was a conservative who did not put conservatism ahead of interpreting the law! Where Novak would like a new Supreme Court justice to advance conservative political and moral ideals, any Supreme Court justice worth his or her salt would not come to the court ready to interpret the law through the lens of a particular political ideology, but rather, through the law itself.

Talk about activist judges! Neo-cons want Supreme Court justices who will take an activist approach in the conservative direction. They would like to use the court to re-write laws in ways that are favorable to neo-cons!

For leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent in an attempt to punish a critic of the Bush administration, for suggesting that the Supreme Court should have an overt political bent, and for being a general sleazeball, Bob Novak is a SEDHE Villain of the Forever.

Posted by Mark at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Security expert Bruce Schneier must be screaming from wherever he is at the U.S. reaction to this morning's bombings in London. The immediate reaction was a tightening down of mass transit in the United States and an increase in the terror alert level. The New York Times reports:

Thousands of police officers in New York were dispatched to guard bridges, rail and bus stations - many of them staying on for hours after their shifts - where they were patrolling on foot and monitoring tunnels with video surveillance equipment.

Governor Pataki has signed an executive order authorizing state police officers from New Jersey and Connecticut to provide security on trains coming into New York. The increased police presence will remain in the city through the Friday rush, Commissioner Kelly said.

Counterterrorism officers are inspecting subway trains and "suspicious" luggage with bomb-sniffing dogs, Mayor Bloomberg said. Police helicopters are monitoring harbors, sea marshal patrols have been stepped up, and more officers are being posted aboard ferries and at the St. George and Whitehall Ferry terminals, he said.

Is this really the correct reaction? Bruce Schneier says no. In an interview with IT Conversations last year, Schneier talked about how the United States is really good at preventing against what terrorists have already done:

One of the things I'm always struck with is how good we are at defending against what the terrorists did last year. We're spending a lot of money shoring up our airlines and now we're talking about shoring up our trains, and money that we spend that simply causes the bad guys to change their tactics is money wasted. You have a red and a blue door, and the terrorists go through the red door, and you say, "We must secure the red door," so they go through the blue door next time. So what did you actually buy? And one of my fears is that you spend a lot of money securing the airlines and the terrorists move on to shopping malls or movie theaters or crowded restaurants. There are just so many targets that taking the target that terrorists happened to pick last year and securing it just sort of ignores the real problem.

This is exactly what we're doing in the United States: trying to protect against what the terrorists have already done. If they're smart, they will change their tactics for their next attack. Like the Borg, they constantly adapt. The only way they'll use the same method multiple times is if they are attacking several places simultaneously, as they did today.

Of course, in the same interview, Schneier says that we should do whatever makes people feel safe even if it won't actually make them safer. Sometimes, though, this is not feasible. A host on MSNBC asked former NYPD chief Bernard Kerrick if it would be feasible to institute airline-style security on the New York City subway system. Kerrick replied that it wouldn't be feasible, since there are 100,000 people in Grand Central Station during the morning rush hour, and attempting to institute metal detectors and wanding would create more than a bottleneck and defeat the purpose of having a subway system at all.

What is the answer then? As Schneier says, attempting to secure the targets is like treating a disease's symptoms and not its cause. It's a long-term fix, but ultimately, to reduce terrorism and make the populace safer, we must institute policies that address the reasons why people commit terrorist acts in the first place. There are far too many places where people congregate in large groups for us to be able to secure all of them.

Posted by Mark at 9:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Driving through the country is terribly lonely, which is why I have my good friend talk radio to listen to! Unfortunately, at any given time, Rush Limbaugh is on at least two stations in the same place, and there might be -- maybe -- one Air America station. Sometimes I just get fed up with listening to Rush and I want to listen to people who agree with me for a change. I couldn't find that today, so I put up with conservative talk radio.

Now that Sandra Day O'Connor has stepped down, there's a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. So who will fill it? Conventional wisdom suggests that George W. Bush will nominate Alberto Gonzales, currently U.S. Attorney General, for the position. Gonzales is well qualified, having served on the Texas Supreme Court before. But he is disliked by both liberals and conservatives.

Conservatives -- especially neo-cons -- don't like him because he's too moderate. Gonzales is pro-choice and in favor of affirmative action, two positions that conservatives can't possibly agree on. Conservatives would rather have another Antonin Scalia on the court rather than an Alberto Gonzales. And who could blame them? Why put in a guy who actually objectively interprets the law when you could have a guy who lambasts his colleagues for bringing in extra-legal justifications for opinions while he does exactly the same thing that he berates his colleagues for? I'm speaking, of course, how Scalia despises using contemporary international values and other countries' court cases as support for U.S. Supreme Court opinions, while at the same time, the United States' Judeo-Christian (and Protestant Christian, at that) history and values are perfectly admissible as support for a court opinion. Conservatives want a conservatively activist justice, and if they tell you they don't, then they're lying. Conservatives can be just as activist as liberals, as witnessed by the Terri Schiavo incident, when all sorts of conservatives at every level of government tried to invent law that wasn't there, all for the sake of a glorified photo opportunity.

Liberals don't like Gonzales because he was one of the White House counsels who suggested that the U.S. didn't necessarily have to obey Geneva Convention guidelines about torture, since those who were captured were "enemy combatants" and not real soldiers. He actually referred to Geneva Convention prohibitions against torture as "quaint." Gonzales is a Bush yes-person. That's why he's in such a high office: Bush surrounded himself this second term with people who are loyal to him, people who will nod at whatever he says. Gonzales plays the Bush party-line, and that's somewhat frightening to liberals.

Is Gonzales a good choice? Of course! Gonzales will be a balancing force just as O'Connor was a balancing force. O'Connor was conservative, yes, but she was a moderate conservative. Packing another Scalia or Thomas on the court would be a terrible mistake, as it would skew the court's ideology to the right.

Bush appears to be leaning toward Gonzales, as he has suggested that people running ads denigrating Gonzales tone down their rhetoric. Bush likes Gonzales, and he doesn't want others to criticize him. My money's on Gonzales, and I think it will be money well-placed.

Posted by Mark at 12:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A year ago, Apple phased out the 40 GB iPod ($399), leaving consumers with only a 20 GB iPod ($249), 20 GB iPod U2 Edition ($299), 30 GB iPod Photo ($399), and 60 GB iPod Photo ($499).

Now, Apple has phased out the black-and-white regular iPod altogether (well, short of the iPod Mini and iPod Shuffle models). The cheapest iPod you can buy is a 20 GB iPod ($299) with a 65,536-color screen. The next-best iPod (I guess) is a new iPod U2 Edition -- new because it, too, has a color screen. It sells for $329, $30 more than the black-and-white iPod U2 Edition. The top-level iPod is still the 60 GB iPod, which has come down in price to $399. The cool thing about these color iPods is that they will display cover art, if you have it, along with the album being played.

The great thing about the old Generation IV 40 GB iPod was that it came with a dock. With the phase-out of that iPod, consumers had to purchase a dock separately. The dock is great because you can plug the dock into your computer and just set the iPod inside the dock, where it syncs and charges without having to plug things in and out (especially for people with desktops with no USB ports on the front). Purchasing a dock adds $39 to the price of your order, but these new color iPod docks come with an S-video connector, meaning you can play photo slideshows on your TV (and can accompany them with music if you have an S-video connector that does audio as well as video).

I was really upset when I discovered that Apple no longer sold the 40 GB iPod, since it was essentially like getting an iPod for $360, plus the $39 dock. I guess Apple decided that they wanted people to pay extra for the dock. It's still a better than value than paying $299 for a Generation II 10 GB iPod, which I got for Christmas in 2002 and still use to this day.

Posted by Mark at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Court finished up its 2004 term on Monday with a motherload of important cases. But the real drama was yet to come! Just now -- as in, hours earlier -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, appointed by Ronald Reagan, and the first lady Supreme Court justice -- announced her retirement:

O'Connor, 75, said she will leave before the start of the court's next term in October, or when the Senate confirms her successor. There was no immediate word from the White House on who might be nominated to replace O'Connor.

Yes, who will be the next Supreme Court justice? Will it be current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales? Will it be one of the crazies that got confirmed to the various Circuit Court appointments? The next Supreme Court justice will indeed be a crazy conservative, ensuring that the Bush legacy lives on for at least thirty years after he's out of office.

Posted by Mark at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)