September 2003 Archives
Howard Dean's Blog for America is keeping score on the donations. I didn't think it was really reachable, but they just might make it.
My buddy Kevin at EFF snagged a ticket for the Giants game today at PacBell Park. What a bastard.
The CIA story is about to really bust wide open. Hopefully. We, and by we I mean all the people who get read a hell of a lot more than I do, have to keep it out there.
"It strikes me that the blogospherians are going to have to make a HUGE amount of noise about this story -- more than about Lott (Trent and John), more than Rick Santorum, more than about tangled WMD webs, more more more."
I'll help out all I can Bill. It's not much, but it's all I got.
Film at 11.
It's coming...
Here is an Alexa graph comparing EFF and RIAA websites for the last six months:
The "Top 100,000" ranking on the Y-axis, lower numbers are better.
Note: If you have JavaScript disabled in your browser this entry will appear blank. This is not due to my use of JavaScript, but rather the Alexa service. The JavaScript provides them with an easy way to provide a dynamically generated graph on every page load. If you have a problem with Alexa's use of JavaScript you might want to contact them. In the meantime here is a snapshot taken at Sun Sep 28 08:28:22 PDT 2003.
A lot of people have been following the story of the White House outing a CIA operative as payback over the Nigerian uranium farce. The CIA has turned over it's findings to the DoJ. Of course, it's all over the "Liberal Net," but Josh Marshall put it best:
The decision on whether to task the FBI with investigating the White House is now in hands of John Ashcroft. Once that happens -- if that happens -- it's not a matter of blogs and chat shows, but subpoenas and depositions.
Emphasis added by me. Looking back on the wise word served up at the Whiskey Bar:
Someday these bozos are going to figure out that it doesn't pay to try to set the CIA up as the fall guys.
Of course this was in response to the blundered pre-war intelligence shenanigans. But the CIA doesn't take too kindly to people outing their under-cover agents. Kos has the scoop that most of the legal backing for this was introduced by President Bush I. Heh. Cool.
Update Sat Sep 27 20:47:46 PDT 2003 Whiskey Bar has a great note:
Still, the Paper of Record is on the record, which means the story is fair game for the Sunday talkers. If the corporate talking heads don't chicken out, this could be fun.
Also, read all about it in WaPo.
Howard Dean thinks Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should resign. So do I. Here are the notes I put in my signed petition:
Mr President, you say that you depend on the people around you to provide you with the most objective views. These two have failed you Mr President. They have failed you and worst of all they have failed the American people.
Their lack of planning for post-war Iraq and their insatiable drive to wage war on Iraq have done a great disservice to this country, it's citizens, and it's soldiers.
You expect the best from your people and the best they can do for you now is to resign Mr President. We need a new direction. Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Wolfowitz cannot take us in that direction. They must go Mr President. Ask them to resign for America.
Flawed E-Voting Standard Sent Back to Drawing Board
"Defeat of the initial flawed IEEE electronic voting standard is a victory for IEEE's democratic process," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.
Score one for the good guys!
Windows XP.
It hates me. A lot.
Why?
The New Yorker's latest cover.
From Carol via Kat. Too good to be true? Most likely. That being said, it is a photo of a real storm.
Tasty info about the SCO case against IBM and Linux in general.
I need a big I (heart) Dahlia sign.
Yay! Karsten finally made another post over at Go Back To Sleep America.
Japan's New Cabinet Points to More Reforms
This reminds me of my time on the high school news paper, speding the wee hours of the morning trying to come up with headlines for stories.
Why did I pick a name that starts with V?
"EFF is urging IEEE members and others to write to IEEE to express concern about their draft electronic voting machine standard."
quaid: You can take the girl out of the woo!school, but you can't take the woo! out of the girl.
KatD: Truer words were never spoken.
This Doonesbury strikes way too close to home.
The DNC is going to need your help to win the White House in 2004 -- and other races up and down the ballot -- and this fight is starting earlier than you think.
The DNC is facing a crucial September 30 deadline. So we're asking you to join the DNC in an unprecedented effort to raise $500,000 online in the next 15 days. This would break their fundraising records. You can be a part of history.
Bush is going to crush every fund-raising record in the book. "We" might want to have something to give our primary-battered candidate to fight Bush in 2004. Just sayin'...
How many game winning PATs or field goals will the Bucs let Martin Gramatica miss before they cut his ass?
Okay, after I watched the breakdown of the game on Sports Center, the last one wasn't his fault. Nor were two of the three blocked field goals. But one was. My question still stands.
There is a nice discussion going on over at Plastic about Alabama rejecting the new tax increases to avoid amazing budget cuts, which I talked about in Republicans for Taxes and again in Sweet Home Alabama.
One of the good points is why were people outside of Alabama, like myself, so interested in what Alabamians have to pay for taxes. I thought it was interesting and worth commenting on for the same reasons that people all over the country like to talk about the "recall circus" that we Californians are going through. They are both interesting social/political situations which show a lot about a region.
Check out some of the pros and cons of rejecting higher taxes and cutting the budget:
- Laying off 4,600 teachers
- Offering early parole to 5,000 to 6,000 inmates
- Taking away Medicaid support from some nursing home residents
- Cutting state troopers' work to four days per week, and restricting their driving to 150 miles per day
- A program offering health insurance to low-income children has already been frozen.
- Budgets for health inspectors and textbooks may also be reduced.
- Services for those with AIDS, battered women, and sexually abused children are on the chopping block.
Again I want to emphasize that the tax hike was not just to save what little they had, but to make things they had better. Tax opponents told them to cut the budget. We'll see how they like it when they go to get health-care, education, police protection, or any one of the many social services that benefit every person in the state either directly or indirectly.
The ever eloquent MAYORBOB puts it perspective:
And, rightly or wrongly, they have decided not to change their tax code. Therefore, it's time for the rest of the nation to move on to something else they can point at that state and find to disparage. If the citizens of another state or municipality wish to act in such a way that social services are no longer offered in that state or municipality, so be it, and they become other points on the map that I am glad I do not live at.
Indeed. Now back to my own state circus...
Sam Seaborn in "The Fall's Gonna Kill You"
Henry, last fall, every time your boss got on the stump and said, "It's time for the rich to pay their fair share," I hid under a couch and changed my name. I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year. Which means I paid twenty-seven times the national average in income tax. I paid my fair share. And the fair share of twenty-six other people. And I'm happy to 'cause that's the only way it's gonna work. And it's in my best interest that everybody be able to go to schools and drive on roads. But I don't get twenty-seven votes on Election Day. The fire department doesn't come to my house twenty-seven times faster, and the water doesn't come out of my faucet twenty-seven times hotter. The top one percent of wage earners in this country pay for twenty-two percent of this country. Let's not call them names while they're doing it is all I'm saying.
Copyright law shouldn't make criminals out of 60 million Americans, and it's time for a change. Congress is going to hold hearings; we need your help to make sure that the public's voice is heard. Tell Congress that it's time to stop the madness!
Update: EFF has hit their goal of 10,000. Currently (9:15pm 9/12/2003) they are at 12,533. Yay!.
Update Part Duex: On the cusp of hitting 30,000 signatures.
Opus the Penguin Back In the Funny Business
After eight years away from newspapers, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is creating a new comic strip called "Opus," starring his beloved penguin of the same name.
EFF senior staff attorney Fred "Edge Case" von Lohmann lays some serious smack down on the RIAA in his LA Times op-ed 'Amnesty' for Music File Sharing Is a Sham (mega-evil reg required)
No one can hold a candle to the music industry when it comes to squandering an opportunity. Having gotten everyone's attention by threatening to sue 60 million American file-sharers, flooding Internet service providers with more than 1,500 subpoenas and on Monday suing hundreds of individual file-sharers (or their parents) in federal court, the Recording Industry Assn. of America has blown it again.
This reminds me of the time he called them dinosaurs.
What are is the RIAA thinking? Don't like the Post?
- The RIAA sees the face of evil, and it's a 12-year-old girl -- The Register
- 12-Year-Old Sued for Music Downloading -- FOX News
- Schoolgirl named as defendant in music-swapping lawsuit -- Newsday
...and the list goes on.
My former co-worked Cory Doctorow has a new book. It's now in the ad sidebar on the right. BUY IT NOW!
So let me get this straight...
Ten Commandments: good. Tax increases to help pull Alabama out of last place: bad.
Yes, I know that is misleading and over-simplified. Fiscal conservatives will argue that tax cuts are never to blame for, well, anything and can only a positive thing. The deficit? Spending wasn't cut enough! I'm curious to see where Alabama can cut spending. But also keep in mind that Riley isn't just going for a balanced budget, he is trying to make Alabama suck less. He's sure to loose.
Sweet home Alabama
Oh sweet home baby
Where the skies are so blue
And the governor's true
Sweet Home Alabama
Lordy Lord, I'm coming home to you
Yea, yea Montgomery's got the answer
Lynyrd Skynyrd
A Tax Increase? $1.2 Billion? Alabamians, It Seems, Say No
I feel for Bob Riley, the Alabama governor, I really do. Here is the reality he faces: Alabama is "last in all the things that are good, first in all the things that are bad." I don't think anyone in the state can dispute that. He has been against taxes during his entire congressional career. He sees that the only way to pay for things to make his state better is to raise taxes. There is no place to cut spending. He is getting eaten alive by the right.
"I want the whole Republican Party to watch this guy fall on his face," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform in Washington. "He lied to his voters. He's been a disaster. He'll never be elected to anything again in his life."
The Times story puts it even clearer:
Indeed, national conservative groups are crossing their fingers that the Alabama measure goes down in flames to teach a lesson: Jettison a core element of Republican orthodoxy -- tax cuts -- and you are history.
Core elements of Republican orthodoxy? You mean like fiscal responsibility, smaller government, and keeping the law out of people's personal lives? President Bush jettisoned those before he was even elected placed in power.
Riley has even tried appealing to people's sense of faith. It is the "Bible Belt" after all. Where's all the love?
"According to our Christian ethics, we're supposed to love God, love each other and help take care of the poor," said Mr. Riley, a born-again Baptist. "It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax."
He's also getting his ass handed to him in the polls. The ads have been telling people that the sky is falling and they're buying. I give Riley credit. He tried to make things better and the people who would benefit most, the majority of Alabama citizens, told him to go get bent. Good luck with your next governor.
So that leaves us with tax cuts for the wealthy, errr, I mean just tax cuts. In republican talking points you never favor "the rich" you only favor tax cuts. As a republican you only favor the rich in practice. That way you can always sell people on you platform, which seems to almost never be followed. If the republicans actually did what they always say they want to do, I would switch from D to R in a heartbeat. The problem is follow-through. Republicans just don't have it.
I can't wait to see how "they" explain the blame away from G.W. Bush and his $500 BILLION deficit. Wait...weren't we talking about Alabama?
I'm just finishing up the first week of my new job.
But Pat...you work at EFF. Only a fool or a coward would leave EFF!
Yes, I was working at EFF as the webmaster and now I'm not. Now I work at CSU, Chico as a "Web Services Coordinator."
But...but...
No buts. It became clear that I needed a job where my wife and home were, in Chico. EFF is in San Francisco. I miss EFF already, but I don't miss the drive, the fecal matter on the sidewalks, the drive, the fog, the urine smell, or the drive.
A job opened, and I jumped at it. There's nothing more to it than that. And yes, I did make sure my EFF membership dues were paid up before I left. Are you a member?
"You know, this reminds me of the time you tried to run your own custom rsync over ssh."
"That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me."
