CNN.com - Laura Bush: Rice in '08? - Jan 13, 2006

Impeach Condi before she has a chance to run!!! Laura Bush: Rice in '08? First lady would 'love to see' secretary of state run for president -- They're getting ready to travel to Africa to attend the inauguration ceremony for the first female leader of an African government. In an interview Laura Bush said that while Condoleeza Rice has denied she is running for President, that Laura Bush is in support of her candidacy.

So I suppose Laura Bush doesn't have enough wisdom to recognize a liar when she sees one?

But, well, look who she's married to.

Bush Crimes Commission

The President of the U.S. has broken the law, as has member of the Cabinet etc. I wonder why the people aren't rising up in protest against this? Well some are, but the infractions by the Bush Administration are so completely obvious the people of the United States have to be fools to not see it.

The Bush Crimes Commission is working to illustrate the crimes of the Bush Administration. They have been holding public "hearings", and recently delivered a set of indictments to the White House.

In the indictments they cover Wars of Aggression, Torture and Indefinite Detention, Destruction of the Global Environment, Attacks on Global Public Health and Hurricane Katrina.

In March 2004 I called for the Impeachment of GW Bush. In my case I focussed on the lies told to "justify" the war in Iraq, the fact that the UN Secretary General has called that war "illegal", the damage the conduct and justification of that war has done to U.S. credibility, etc.

Re: Do Internet companies need to be regulated to ensure they respect free expression ?

Reporters sans Frontiers has made a call for action/change about Internet companies that do business with repressive countries. Do Internet companies need to be regulated to ensure they respect free expression ? They cite several cases of Internet and Technology companies cooperating with repressive countries, for example Google and Yahoo filter search results based on blacklists provided by the countries in question.

In case you don't grasp the significance of this ... In the 1930's and 1940's IBM gave a lot of help to Hitlers government in Nazi Germany. They used the just-developed punched card machines (not quite computers, but close) to record and track information about Jews, so that they could more efficiently perform the Holocaust.

Todays computer equipment and technology are far more efficient and capable than the crude toys IBM used to help Nazi Germany commit the Holocaust. And, of course, that means any country that deploys their technology for repressive purposes, will be able to do so much more effectively than did Nazi Germany.

In a sense this is very simple. If these companies want to do business in those countries -- e.g. China is among these repressive countries, and China is a huge and burgeoning market which any technology company would be foolish to ignore -- then they have to do so within the laws of the country in question. In particular, under what justification would some company have the right to ignore the laws of some country in which they do business? None. Countries are supposed to trump companies.

But RSF makes a very interesting point. They cite several instances where technology companies cooperated with repressive countries, and claim those are violations of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was proclaimed by the United Nations when it was founded and which is supposed to apply to everyone, including business corporations.

They offer several proposals that would limit "U.S. Companies" in what they can do inside a repressive country. For example

No US company would be allowed to host e-mail servers within a repressive country*. So, if the authorities of a repressive country want personal information about the user of a US company’s e-mail service, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by US.

The activities seem geared to keeping equipment and services outside the repressive countries, so that repressive countries have to abide by U.S. law in order to take certain repressive actions. And, they say the list of repressive countries will be defined by the U.S. State Department.

I think they're pissing into the wind, but you have to admire the integrity with which they are approaching this.

However, as a practical matter, how can we trust the U.S. State Department to be a fair arbiter of repressive governments? We, the U.S., are actively engaged with China as a business partner, for example. And there is the matter of Indonesia where the U.S. actively helped them in repressing the East Timor peoples.

Also discussed by:

Dan Gillmor: A Dangerous Question and Smart Mobs: Regulate internet companies to make them respect freedom of speech: Reporters Without Borders

Salon.com | Let us prey

Joe Conason, Salon.COM, is providing us this think-piece about the role of Religion in the Halls of Power. Let us prey Jack Abramoff and his deeply religious right-wing cronies express their "biblical worldview" by swindling Indian tribes and bribing legislators. Verily, mysterious are the ways of the Lord.. There is an array of scandals hitting Washington circling around illegal bribery, and other schemes to defraud and lie. The people doing these illegal acts also claim to be led by the Voice of God, and to be leading the fight to reintroduce Morality into American life.

An example cited is the era of the Clinton Impeachment. Tom DeLay claimed his justification for seeking impeachment was Clinton held the "wrong worldview". In another context he explained the worldview thusly:

Several years ago, at one of many fundamentalist meetings he has addressed, DeLay explained: "He [God] has been walking me through an incredible journey, and it all comes down to worldview. He is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for biblical worldview in everything that I do and everywhere I am. He is training me, He is working with me."

So one wonders how bribery, cheating, etc is something God is leading DeLay to do?

G.O.P. Lobbyist (Abramoff) Pleads Guilty in Deal With Prosecutors - New York Times

I haven't been following this story, but it's been developing for awhile. Jack Abramoff is a high-stakes high-flying lobbyist who has specialized in working with the Republican Party, Conservative causes, and most especially with Indian tribes. He's apparently crooked as they come, and has apparently bought off a huge portion of Congress. He has pleaded guilty to a bunch of charges, and will turn states evidence in further trials against others. Presumably a large portion of Congress will be resigning over this, and some Congresspersons will be going to jail.

This is a big deal.

G.O.P. Lobbyist Pleads Guilty in Deal With Prosecutors (NYTimes, By ANNE E. KORNBLUT, Published: January 3, 2006)

Mr. Abramoff, 46, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion, setting the stage for prosecutors to begin using him as a cooperating witness against his former business and political colleagues. In exchange, Mr. Abramoff faces a maximum of about 10 years in prison in the Washington case.

... At a news briefing this afternoon, Alice Fisher, an assistant attorney general, said Mr. Abramoff offered up gifts to government officials that included an all-expense paid trip to Scotland "to play golf on a world-famous course, tickets and travel to the Super Bowl in Florida, tickets for concerts and other events in Washington, repeated and regular meals at his upscale restaurant, and campaign contributions."

Lobbyist admits to kickbacks, fraud Abramoff agrees to cooperate in Washington corruption probe (CNN.COM, Tuesday, January 3, 2006)

Poll: Half believe Congress is dirty (CNN.COM, Tuesday, January 3, 2006)

Abramoff won't go down alone After a career of stealing from his clients and corrupting lawmakers, the one-time Republican golden boy is set to destroy the political machine he helped create. (Salon.COM, By Michael Scherer)

The investigation, which spans at least four law enforcement agencies and 12 FBI field offices, is now clearly targeted on members of Congress and their staffs. Already prosecutors have won pledges of cooperation from two of Abramoff's former partners, Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Adam Kidan. "The corruption scheme with Mr. Abramoff is very extensive and we will continue to follow it," said Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher at a Justice Department press conference hours after the plea. "We are going to follow this wherever it goes."

In his plea, Abramoff appeared to tighten the prosecutorial noose around Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, a one-time friend of Abramoff who has long since disavowed the relationship. Abramoff detailed the perks he provided Ney and his staff in exchange for political favors -- the golf trip to Scotland, the Super Bowl bash in Tampa, the free meals at Abramoff's Washington restaurant and the sports stadium box seats. In a statement released after the plea, Ney's spokesperson, Brian Walsh, said the lobbyist exerted no "improper influence" on Ney. "Congressman Ney has never done anything illegal or improper and the allegations in this plea agreement do not change that fact."

The plea also claims that Abramoff corruptly influenced another unnamed congressional staffer by paying his wife's nonprofit company $50,000. The allegation matches press reports of a relationship Abramoff had with Tony Rudy, another aide to former majority leader DeLay, and Rudy's wife, Lisa. A person who matches the description of Neil Volz, a former chief of staff to Ney, is also mentioned in the plea agreement for corrupt dealings with Abramoff. Rudy and Volz, who both work as lobbyists, did not return calls for comment. But the specific targets in the plea account for just a fraction of the investigation, which continues at full speed, said Fisher. Of Abramoff's testimony, she said, "We have not attempted to list each and every statement" in the plea.

The man who bought off Washington Lobbyist's guilty plea set to expose bribery scandal at the heart of US political system (The Independant (London), By Rupert Cornwell in Washington, 04 January 2006)

Abramoff pleads guilty in casino case Admits using fake wire transfer to secure $60 million loan (CNN.COM, Wednesday, January 4, 2006)

How far will Abramoff scandal reach? A number of lawmakers are under investigation for their connections with Jack Abramoff. (By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor)

It's not a crime to accept contributions from lobbyists. It's a bribe only if there's evidence of an agreement to perform an official act in exchange. But the political damage can go further.

"Careers usually end when the indictment is brought, whether [the accused] are cleared or not. Very few survive an election, once an indictment has been brought," says Stanley Brand, a Washington defense attorney who advised House Speaker Tip O'Neill during the 1978 ABSCAM bribery case, an FBI sting operation that convicted five House members and a senator.

Blogging may be hazardous to your job - The Clarion-Ledger

If blogging can be hazardous to your job (as this article says: Blogging may be hazardous to your job By Amy Rosewater, The Baltimore Sun) just how is that so? And, don't we have freedom of speech engraved in the U.S. Constitution?

What the article talks about is bitching about co-workers etc on the blog. That people get fired over that.

Well... okay...

A lot of people feel irritated etc over their job. No doubt bitching about your boss or coworkers has happened throughout history. Maybe that's why Judas turned Jesus in to the authorities?

Seriously, what's important is to consider how you handle the inevitable irritation you have over co-workers and your boss. For example, therapy? There's a zillion ways of working through emotional duress that don't involve bitching in public.

When you're writing a blog it may seem you're in private. Maybe you've locked the door to the room, it's late at night, etc and nobody is around and you can pour out your deepest thoughts. But, really, who is your audience? Once that blog posting hits the web, it's public.

If you want to use writing as therapy, get one of those blank journaling books.

Do you really want to post your therapeutic writing for the whole world to see?

Hyped up panic on Jeremy Hermanns dot org about Alaska Flight #536 - Rapid De-Pressurization and Panic at 30K Feet

Boy what a mountain formed out of this mole-hill. Jeremy Hermans was on an Alaska Airlines flight that experienced sudden cabin depressurization shortly after takeoff and made an emergency landing safely without anybody being hurt. But what made this emergency different is that Jeremy took a few pictures and wrote about it on his blog. His blog posting is full of emotion we who weren't there can only guess at. If we haven't been through something similar, how can we gauge the validity of his emotions? In any case a stir of controversy is swirling around this blog posting, and a couple professional advisors of business blogging have weighed in.

From Dave Taylor we have: Alaska Airlines and the death of truth and from Teresa Valdez Klein we have: Alaska Airlines Attacked by Blog Mob with Pitchforks and Torches ... the two of them seem to be their own mini-echo-chamber.

What I see in the responses by Dave Taylor and Teresa Klein is a nutty attempt to corral bloggers into a journalistic mold. Say what? Blogging is an individual thing and is practiced by each blogger in their own way. Blogging does not have to be a journalistic endeavor, but someone can certainly approach blogging in that way.

For example they talk about fact checking. You expect professional journalists to do fact checking, but that's too much to expect of bloggers. If there's any commonality to the practice of blogging, it's that a blog posting is very much about what's known in the present moment. One of the commenters to Dave Taylors posting said it very well:

Debbie seems to be suggesting that bloggers have some sort of obligation to contact companies to get their side of the story, but I don't think that flys very far in the blogosphere. For most of us, Blogging is 110% about expressing our *own* opinions. If we *happen* to mention a few odd facts interspersed in our opinions, then of course we should do a diligent job of verifying facts, to the extent that it is easily within our means. But if time or other constraints preclude a thorough vetting on facts vs. suspicions, we do the best we can. That's a key difference between blogging and journalism, regardless of whether you consider either to be a professional or amaeur activity.

Another meme being tossed around is about "the credibility of the blogosphere is lowered a couple of notches". That's treating the "blogosphere" as one whole, and expecting all bloggers to be tarnished or polished the same way. But blogging is practiced (generally) by individuals acting on their own. Each individual blogger has their own reputation and approach to truth. How can there be a "credibility of the blogosphere" when it's a mass of individuals?

An example rumbling in my head is one which Dave is going to be very aware of. I know of Dave from his Usenet background (especially on soc.singles) and have met him once many years ago at a soc.singles event in the Bay Area. The point is I know that Dave is very intimately familiar with Usenet history, if only because he had a big role in making part of that history.

Jeremy's blog posting just reminds me of the same kind of rambling threads of discussion. One persons posting might somehow incite a long thread of followups, debating fine points of the truth of the original posting, devolving into name calling, or nitpicking over spelling, or accusing each other of being a shill, etc. It was typical of Usenet, and it is very interesting seeing it all distilled into one page like this. In a way Blogs are to this Internet era what Usenet was to the 80's version of the Internet.

Having lived through the 80's and some of the 90's on Usenet (I used to be in the Usenet backbone committee), I'm sure there's something about human psychological processes that make this kind of discussion thread. To wish that the public would act in a more truth-centered fact-checking mode is like pissing into the wind, or like that apocryphal story of the old King of Norway (Canute?) yelling at the ocean waves to be quiet.

Dave Taylor, with your Usenet history, you should know better. But maybe you were one of those who always took the fact-checking-demander-of-citations side of the argument?

One of the frequent debate techniques on Usenet was for someone to demand "what is the citation that justifies the assertion you made"? Usenet, like blogging, is more akin to people chatting in the hallway. Since when do people chatting in the hallway give citations?

On the other hand some bloggers clearly try to be journalists. Again, we all approach our blogging in different ways.