Vote on May 2

Don't forget — Tuesday, May 2nd is primary day in North Carolina, so if you're registered, get out and vote. If you're not registered, get off your butt so you can vote in the next election.

Judicial elections in North Carolina are officially non-partisan, but the Democratic Party has posted a voter guide here.

Theocrat vs. Theocrat

David Ignatius talking about Iran today:

For a theocratic regime that claims a mandate from God, the very idea of compromise is anathema. Great issues of war and peace will be resolved by God's will, not by human negotiators. Better to lose than to bargain with the devil. Better to suffer physical hardship than humiliation.

George Bush talking about himself three years ago:

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."

We have met the theocrats, and they are us. And unfortunately, Ignatius's description of theocratic rule pretty much sums up Bush's approach — hardship and loss, indeed.

XM in Trouble

Damn. Somehow, they managed to report higher losses while doubling their revenue. That and two federal investigations don't bode well, I'm afraid.

After having commercial-free satellite radio in the house for the past year and a half, though, I just can't go back to traditional radio. Just the other day, Mary and I were talking about putting XM in the car. Maybe we should be thinking about switching to Sirius instead. Anybody have any Sirius stories?

Killing FEMA

A new Senate report on FEMA concludes that, in the words of Senator Susan Collins, the agency "is in shambles and beyond repair, and that it should be abolished."

Over at the Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum reminds us of something worth keeping in mind:

FEMA was a fine organization for eight years under Bill Clinton, widely recognized as one of the best run agencies in the federal government. But after a mere five years of George Bush's stewardship there's now a bipartisan consensus that it's so rundown that the only choice is to get rid of it and build a completely new agency in its place.

In other words, this administration inherited a very good and well-respected disaster management agency and then proceeded to drive it into the ground. Maybe all that's left to do is abolish it, but then what? It might be possible to avoid some of the structural and funding problems that hobbled FEMA during the Bush years, and these are things that Congress might be able to fix if it suddenly decides to do an about-face and start passing sound legislation. But given this administration's record of placing bad people in vital roles, and just not giving a damn about problems that can't be spun as part of the "war on terror," I don't really see how starting over will do much good.

Changing Passwords

Dr. Eugene Spafford has some harsh words for the practice of requiring monthly password changes. After looking at all the ways in which a password might be compromised — disclosure, inference, exposure, loss, guessing, cracking, and snooping — he concludes convincingly that there is no solid case to be made for mandating that users change passwords periodically.

Defintely interesting stuff. But more interesting was Spafford's story about how changing passwords became a "best practice".

Back in the days when people were using mainframes without networking, the biggest uncontrolled authentication concern was cracking. Resources, however, were limited. As best as I can find, some DoD contractors did some back-of-the-envelope calculation about how long it would take to run through all the possible passwords using their mainframe, and the result was several months. So, they (somewhat reasonably) set a password change period of 1 month as a means to defeat systematic cracking attempts. This was then enshrined in policy, which got published, and largely accepted by others over the years. As time went on, auditors began to look for this and ended up building it into their “best practice” that they expected.

So there you go. Take this to your sysadmin the next time your office computer tells you your password is about to expire.

"1, 2, 3, 4, I Declare a Turf War"

After Scott McClellan resigned, word was that Fox News' Tony Snow was ready to step up to the podium. Hotline clues us in on why that hasn't happened yet:

In the meantime, Fox Newser Tony Snow is said by Republicans familiar with the negotiations to have asked for guaranteed access to the president's ear and to an unusually large degree of latitude to reconfigure the WH press operation. That pleases the new chief of staff, who wants to relegitimize the press podium in the Brady briefing room.

But Snow, not content to be a herald, also wants near-complete control over what he says from the podium, be it bromides, platitudes or substance. That would encroach on the broad portfolio of responsibilities that Dan Bartlett claims for himself.

I'm not sure how all this will shake out. Bolton's clearly got the momentum. But Bartlett is an old hand, and while every other West Wing insider has taken a full dose of criticism recently, he seems to have been the exception.

Echoing PZ Myers, I have to admit, though, that I'm pulling for Tony Snow. His arrogance alone guarantees that he will continue to bully the truth at the White House just as he does at Fox News. Of course, lying by a Bush press secretary is nothing new, but Snow's record shows he is a fan of personal attacks as well. All he needs to do is call someone an idiot, and the resulting firestorm will make McClellan's last few gaggles look like a tea party. If he gets the blank check he's asking for from Bolton, I give him 6 months max.

Update: According to the WaPo, it's Snow.

Market Economy

It looks like some Afghani merchants are learning all about supply and demand:

Traders at the bazaar near Bagram's main gate were openly displaying pilfered U.S. military memory drives in their shops Monday, two weeks after the Los Angeles Times reported on the black market in computer equipment, some of which contained American military documents marked "Secret."

U.S. soldiers spent thousands of dollars later that week buying scores of flash memory drives from the bazaar. The soldiers walked through the black market with a box of money, purchasing all the computer equipment they could find.

For several days afterward, no more memory drives were available.

But an 18-year-old Afghan man who works on the base said that by Friday, memory drives were being smuggled off the base again. The devices are smaller than disposable lighters.

Several shopkeepers have said in recent days that they are eager for the military to return to the market so they can sell their new stock for premium prices.

It's easy to joke about freedom to trade in stolen merchandise being on the march, but seriously, you really have to wonder what the hell is going on here. Is the computer infrastructure at Bagram so primitive that staff has to rely on old-school sneaker-net to move documents around? Or is this a case where convenience continues — inexplicably — to trump security, even after the security hole has been widely publicized? And why did it take the military so long to respond to a problem — even in a completely half-assed way — that was, literally, right on their doorstep?

One shopkeeper said he had been selling pilfered American military flash drives for four years, mostly to young Afghan computer users looking for cheap equipment, but also to some foreigners.

"I may have sold thousands of these flashes since I have come and opened this shop," the shopkeeper said. He asked not to be named because he feared retribution.

So let me get this straight: The President tells me that everything changed on 9/11, and that means the government gets to tap my phone, read my email, and review my library records. But when it comes to security at a front-line military installation, well, who can really be bothered with that? Unbelievable.

Friday Cat Blogging

There's nothing better than a mid-afternoon nap on the sofa.

More Bamboozling from Pittenger on Global Warming

I first wrote about Republican State Senator Robert Pittenger back in February, in response to his claim that human activity wasn't a significant cause global warming. Well, he's back, and as intellectually dishonest as ever.

This time around, Pittenger tries to argue that North Carolina shouldn't mandate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Such reductions wouldn't affect global carbon dioxide levels significantly and would be very expensive to implement, he says. But as before, the "evidence" that he puts forward in support of these claims show him to be a grade-A science abuser.

To dispute the scientific consensus that human activity causes global warming, Pittenger relies on a few right-wing, industry-funded contrarian cranks like Robert Balling and Pat Michaels. To calculate the costs of reducing emissions, he throws together some numbers from New Jersey and an 8-year-old report from WEFA, a consulting company that brings "together leaders from the utilities, automotive, metals, and other key industries" to produce its climate briefings. And the punchline, that any regulations would be "all cost and no benefit", comes from Dr. Ed Erickson, an ally of Pittenger's and an anti-environmentalist who has also cast his lot with the cranks.

If Pittenger wants to side with big business and oppose new regulations… well, he's a Republican, of course he will do that. But he still has an obligation to make his case on the merits, and his preference for bamboozlement over science means he is just not to be trusted. Perhaps the editors at the Observer should take that into account before giving his distortions any more space in their paper. And perhaps the fact that Pittenger can't come up with any good arguments in favor of his position means there aren't any good arguments to come up with here.

The Joke's on Them

I guess it's OK to make fun of evolution with some ridiculous curriculum requirement, but not so OK to make fun of anti-evolution with some airborne pasta. At least, not when the boss is looking. (Via Aravosis)

Fetishizing the Generals

Today Max Boot writes about the dust-up between Rumsfeld and the generals. In a nutshell, Boot argues that we can't put all the blame on Rumsfeld for the mess in Iraq, since the generals made their share of mistakes, too. Fair enough — it certainly would be wrong to think that the military has all the wisdom in this case. But then Boot feels obligated to up the ante: "I am nevertheless troubled by the Revolt of the Generals, which calls into question civilian control of the armed forces." And thus we discover that the Republic is threatened.

But while the generals certainly are relying on their military street cred to bolster their arguments, it wasn't the generals who first made the claim that decisionmaking should be ceded to the military — it was Bush. Since the war began, the President has stated over and over again how beholden he is to military opinion. When asked questions about troop deployment, for example, Bush replies: "As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders."

So, by all means, let's continue to argue about who was wrong and who was wronger. I'm sure that there is plenty of blame to go around. But two things are now clear: First, Bush wasn't telling the truth when he said he was basing his decisions on the views of his military commanders. And second, Bush wasn't terribly concerned with the implications for civilian control of the military when he claimed that he gave his generals an essentially blank check.

Now, we all knew at the time that Bush would pass the buck to his generals when it was politically convenient to do so. And we also knew that neither Bush nor Rumsfeld ever put much stock in the opinions of their military men. Bush tried to have it both ways, and now that's been exposed for all to see. It's a political embarrassment, not a Constitutional crisis — and that's something we can stop arguing about.

McClellan's Out

Whether White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was a Kool-Aid-drinking true believer, or just a guy whose dream job turned to shit, I don't know. But he announced his resignation today, and I imagine he is quite relieved to see the light at the end of the gaggle tunnel. And he's got to be a little worried about the President's plans for him down the road:

"It's going to be hard to replace Scott, but nevertheless he made the decision and I accepted it. One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."

Yeah, all those days that McClellan got beaten up by an angry press corps, lying his ass off to save the President's… good times, good times. I bet he can't wait to relive all those fond memories.

…Then the Terrorists Have Won

If doing anything differently now is the equivalent of giving in to Osama, then we're in deep trouble:

It's sad the state we've gotten to where, apparently, even firing incompetent executive branch appointees amounts to a win for the terrorists. Back in '04 we were still enough of a superpower that only turning out a president amounted to a win for the terrorists. That suggests that the terrorists truly have us over a barrel. We are so intimidated by them that we have to hold on to a failed defense secretary presumably forever. Or until there are no more Muslims with a beef with us. Whichever comes first. It's cool that we're standing so tall.

Lest you imagine that it hasn't gotten this stupid yet, let me point you over here.

Open Letter to the Times

I sent the following note to the New York Times today:

I am a New York Times subscriber, and I want to register a complaint with your new video page.

Using my OS/browser combination of choice (Linux/Firefox), I'm unable to access this page. Instead, I'm redirected to a page that tells me I don't have a "supported Browser/Operating System/Media Player configuration." However, I am able to access the video page — which appears to be fully functional — if I change my browser's user-agent string to make it appear that I'm using the Windows version. Thus, the statement on your error page is incorrect: I don't need a "supported" operating system, I just need to lie about what OS I do have.

Which is something I shouldn't have to do. If you don't want to officially support my platform, that's fine with me, and feel free to tell me that. By all means, put whatever qualifiers on the help page you want. Put a disclaimer right on the video landing page, even. But please don't preclude me by default from accessing content that I'm technically capable of accessing.

Trending Blue

Richard Morrin runs the numbers and confirms that Bush isn't just losing approval points in the blue states — he's losing them in the red states too, which now might be better described as pink.

Heh

The headline says it all: NASCAR's Kyle Busch pulled over for reckless driving.

Bonus irony:

Tuesday, Busch again appeared at the Richmond raceway for the Virginia kickoff of "Focus on Driving," Sprint Nextel's attentive driving education program.

Star Trek Technology

Where was this when I was in college?

Synthehol is a science-fictional substitute for alcohol that appears on the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. It allows drinkers to experience all of the enjoyable, intoxicating effects of alcohol without unpleasant side-effects like hangovers.

Professor David Nutt, a psychopharmacologist at the University of Bristol in the UK, believes that there is no scientific reason why it cannot be created now.

Now, if they can only get that transporter stuff working, we'll be all set.

Against the Wall

Should we build a fence/wall along the Mexican border to prevent people from crossing into the United States without the proper papers? A lot of people say "yes". Unsurprisingly, Charles Krauthammer is one of them, and he puts an interesting twist on the notion: immigrant rights groups need to support a wall in order to show they are serious about creating a national consensus on immigration policy.

It has become a new mantra of the right that you need to support the most extreme conservative ideas in order to be taken "seriously". We saw that attitude regarding the war in Iraq, and guess what — the "serious" people were dead wrong. I suspect that their "serious" approach to immigration policy will be discredited as well, hopefully without it actually being implemented.

But let's take the idea "seriously" for a moment. The first question that needs to be asked is, will a fence work? Probably not:

"People will seek other ways to come into the country," said Maria Echaveste, an immigration expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank in Washington, D.C. "I suspect more use of water, more use of fraudulent documents, more use of criminal smuggling.

"So long as there are jobs and there is a demand for labor and we are not serious about cracking down on employers who hire undocumented workers, people will seek to come in," Echaveste said.

But perhaps we need to ask a better question: would a fence at least be cost-beneficial? Again, probably not. According to Jason Ackelson of the American Immigration Law Foundation:

Short of constructing a wall along the country’s entire southern and northern frontiers, it is unlikely these measures will do anything to substantially reduce the flows of undocumented immigrants into the United States. Even if such a wall were built — which would itself be a counterproductive development — it would do nothing to deal with the fact that up to half of the undocumented immigrants in the United States came legally and simply have overstayed the conditions of their admittance. Furthermore, the cost of such a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, if based roughly on the cost of the California fence ($4.64 million/mile), would be outrageous — about $9 billion, which is approximately $2.5 billion more than CBP’s total budget in FY 2005. Building a comparable fence along the northern border with Canada would add about $14.5 billion to the tab, for a total of $23.5 billion, or roughly 60 percent of the FY 2005 budget for the entire Department of Homeland Security, of which CBP is one division. Ironically, another obvious shortcoming of the border fence was illustrated just as the debate on this issue made the national press: Mexican authorities located an incomplete tunnel underneath the fence.

Even if a good argument could be made that building a fence would reduce unauthorized border crossings, it seems clear that it ignores the reality of the current US-Mexico relationship. A fence presupposes that you can cleanly separate the two countries, but that's no longer the case. Many families already live on both sides of the border, and economic ties will only grow stronger. Any policy that doesn't recognize this integration is doomed to failure. So if we're going to get "serious", let's make sure we're talking about ideas that are feasible and effective. Building a wall is neither.

Local School Board Caves In to Homophobes

Last night, the Rowan-Salisbury school board decided unanimously to kick the Gay-Straight Alliance out of South Rowan High School. This is just stupid.

The effort to ban the GSA was organized by "Operation Save America", a group of witless homophobes affiliated with the noxious anti-choice group "Operation Rescue". In their view:

Here is the problem. Homosexuality is not only out of the closet and parading its sin publicly in the hallways of South Rowan, it demands all bow down and be subject to it, or be sued. Friends, if we do not fight this battle now when we have a good chance of winning in Jesus' name, we may find ourselves having to fight when there is little or no hope of victory, realizing that it is better to die free than live under the bondage of homosexual slavery.

Some of the folks who came out to the board meeting to support the ban expressed similarly hateful sentiments:

Carl Ford, who has been an active supporter of the high school, said sodomy was illegal in North Carolina, so a Gay/Straight Alliance shouldn't exist.

He also wondered why South was forced to drop its old mascot, the Rebels, when this club — which offends more community members — was being allowed to meet.

But as asinine as Operation Save America and its supporters are, the school board here deserves the lion's share of the moral blame, if only because they are supposed to be the adults in the room. But not so much. Here's how it went down:

The law says that if any non-curricular club is allowed to meet, all must be, as long as they meet voluntarily, are student-initiated, not school-sponsored, and are not materially or substantially disruptive of school activities.

When board members asked South's principal, Dr. Ron Turbyfill, whether the club was disruptive, he said he did not consider it to be.

"If your measure of disruptiveness is whether or not we are able to conduct classes, it is not," he said, adding that classes have gone on every day as usual.

Kay Wright Norman said the board should define "disruptive" before adding the clause about it to their ban, but Shuping said it was up to the board to interpret that.

Other board members looked for ways around the issue that would not require them to ban all student clubs.

Dr. Jim Emerson asked Sayers if schools could have service clubs, like the Civitans, and academic clubs without allowing other non-curricular clubs, but Sayers said that would be against the law.

Kyle Huffman warned board and audience members that banning the Gay/Straight Alliance might force the board to ban other clubs.

"We will have other ramifications," he said. "We may lose some very good organizations because of this equal access law."

No matter that school principle said the club isn't disruptive (and indeed, how could it be?), the board decided that disruption was in the eye of the intolerant and that by saying it was so, made it so. Positively inspired bamboozling.

But worst of all is Board Chairman Bryce Beard, who seemed to want to do the right thing, but just couldn't summon up the guts to actually do it.

Board Chairman Bryce Beard said the board had a difficult decision: While it hoped to reflect the community's wishes, it also had to promote students' rights.

"We have to be for the children, and that's whoever we have that shows up at our door to receive an education," he said.

Allowing the Gay/Straight Alliance wouldn't be popular, but "at the same time, we don't want to stigmatize children," he said. "…In reality in our community, (homosexuals) are pretty good citizens."

Nice words, comparatively speaking, and yet the vote to ban the GSA was unanimous. Thanks for the profile in courage, Bryce.

Oh, and the fact that the school board chose to ban all "sexually-oriented clubs" as their way of killing the Gay-Straight Alliance just goes to show the board members didn't even bother to find out exactly what the GSA actually is, or just didn't care.

The courts will overturn this blatantly illegal decision when the school district is inevitably sued, and the school board undoubtedly knows this. But as this case winds its way through the judicial system, time, money, and credibility will all be wasted, and in the end the district will face the choice of either allowing the GSA back on campus, or eliminating all other student groups. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

And all this because a few kids decided to form a club dedicated to friendship and tolerance. It wouldn't be crazy to think that they won't make that mistake again, but I hope they do. And I hope that a lot of other students in schools everywhere do too.

Two Must-Reads

I saw these two articles over the weekend, but never got around to writing about them. That's my bad, because both of these pieces need to be read by as many people as possible. Here's my belated and abridged take:

• The Iran Plan, by Seymour Hersh. How scary is it to learn that President Bush is drawing up plans to nuke Iran? A little, perhaps, but the military draws up all sorts of contingency plans, so their mere existence isn't a big deal. How scary is it to learn that Bush is driven by his "messianic vision" to nuke Iran, and believes that doing so will save that country and his legacy? Pretty fucking scary.
• Pro-Life Nation, by Jack Hitt. In El Salvador, all forms of abortion are criminalized, no exceptions. Women who get abortions and the doctors who provide them can be jailed for years. Doctors are forced to be agents of the police, informing on their patients. Life-threatening ectopic pregnancies cannot be treated in a safe and timely manner when doing so would kill the already-doomed fetus. You might hope such things can't happen here, but for the anti-choice movement, "El Salvador is an inspiration."

Read them both all the way through.

Friday Cat Blogging

Sometimes I like to surf on the internets.

Worst President Ever

At least that's what some of my fellow Charlotteans said about Bush when he came to town today. He was here to repeat his tiresome defense of the decision to blow up Iraq, but things apparently got more interesting during the Q&A period:

The audience included critics as well as admirers, and Bush continued a recent pattern of answering questions even from skeptics. One questioner even suggested the president should have "the honesty and grace to be ashamed" of himself.

…

Harry Taylor, a commercial real estate broker, stood to criticize Bush over everything from government eavesdropping to holding detainees to opposing abortion rights.

"I have never felt more embarrassed or frightened by your leadership," Taylor said.

Amen, Mr. Taylor.

And while I think it's a good thing that Bush isn't keeping his audiences critic-free, and is willing to at least listen to some aggressive questions, I'm not under any illusion that he's doing this because he really gives a damn what people think. It's just the latest PR strategy, one that probably won't improve his dismal approval ratings, and then his handlers will have him try something else, perhaps something involving a pony.

"It's Not Bad When We Do It"

That, in effect, is what the Bush Administration really thinks about leaking classified information. According to a story today by Murray Waas:

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said.

But wait, there's more!

Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know whether it's legal for the President or Vice President to authorize such leaks, or whether it was even reasonable at the time for Libby to believe that he himself had "broad authority" to divulge classified information. But here's something I find very curious: six days after Libby leaked the NIE to the press, the President had selective parts of the document "formally declassified." I'm not sure why there would be a need to do this if authorizing the leak declassified the document to begin with. Score 10 points for Libby for at least asking whether this kind of leak was legal, but lose double that for asking David Addington, the guy who thinks the White House is above the law.

But apart from the legalities involved, it's pretty clear that the administration's practice of leaking this kind of information was purely self-serving:

One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons.

The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified.

In other words, these leaks weren't an effort to tell the American people the truth, but just another attempt to lie with bad evidence. The whole point was to refute criticism that we now know to be right, and based on what was declassified and what wasn't, it doesn't appear that national security concerns had much to do with the declassification calculus. For Bush & Co., it's all about covering their collective butts. Nothing else matters now, not even the flag they wrap around themselves so ostentatiously.

Class Act

Unless Tom DeLay is setting new records in the self-deception department, he had to know well before yesterday that he wasn't going to win re-election in November. So why did wait so long before giving up his seat? The Washington Post fills us in:

DeLay was determined to hang on to his seat at least through the primary, said Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. That was because he considered his three Republican challengers gadflies and traitors and he was determined to try to block them from succeeding him.…

An additional impetus for putting off the resignation until now was suggested by John Feehery, a former aide to DeLay and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). "He needed to raise money for the defense fund. That was the bottom line," Feehery said. "He wanted to make sure he could take care of himself in the court of law." Under federal campaign rules, any reelection money a lawmaker raises can be used to pay legal fees stemming from official duties.

So Tom wanted revenge and a slush fund — I guess we are past the point where anyone would think there might be nobler motives at work. (Well, except for those nimrods at the National Review.)

Interestingly, DeLay's decision has managed to disenfranchise the Republicans in his own district. By withdrawing after the primary election, party officials now get to choose whose name goes on the ballot this November, not the voters. Nice.

Buh-Bye

Man, have I been waiting a long time to see this headline: DeLay to Resign From Congress.

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), a primary architect of the Republican majority who became one of the most powerful and feared leaders in Washington, told House allies last night that he will give up his seat rather than face a reelection fight that appears increasingly unwinnable.

The downside here — there's always a downside — is that this district is now more likely to stay Republican. Still, Nick Lampson is running a good race, so if you have a few dollars burning a hole in your pocket, drop them in his cookie jar. DeLay is a liar and a crook and I'm glad he's gone, but turning his district blue would be a great way to say good-bye.