Public Nuisance |
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Random commentary and senseless acts of blogging.
The first Republican president once said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can seriously injure the government in the short space of four years." If Mr. Lincoln could see what's happened in these last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement. Blog critics Gryffindor House Slytherin House Ravenclaw House House Elves Beth Jacob Prisoners of Azkaban Muggles
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Monday, February 27, 2006
By any reasonable standard, this is a major story. It's already been picked up by Josh Marshall, Kos, and other bloggers. And yet, a Google news search shows the story has, so far, been almost completely ignored. One paper in Texas picked it up, and UPI put out an abbreviated version - note how the lede of the UPI version makes the key point simply an unsopported allegation from Texans for Public Justice. No mention of the story in today's White House briefing. The media has regained at least some nerve to challenge Bush, as shown by the whole Cheney quail hunting episode. But they still seem to prefer that the challenges be over fluff, instead of serious issues. Update: At this point, a number of Texas papers have picked up the item for one story, but none have done any follow-up stories. The NY Times has ignored it completely, as have other non-Texas national media. Wednesday, February 22, 2006
A little reminder, from the 9/11 report: At the beginning of February, Bin Ladin was reportedly located in the vicinity of the Sheikh Ali camp, a desert hunting camp being used by visitors from a Gulf state. Public sources have stated that these visitors were from the United Arab Emirates.... The next day, national technical intelligence confirmed the location and description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates. But the location of Bin Ladin's quarters could not be pinned down so precisely. The CIA did its best to answer a host of questions about the larger camp and its residents and about Bin Ladin's daily schedule and routines to support military contingency planning. According to reporting from the tribals, Bin Ladin regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited the Emiratis; the tribals expected him to be at the hunting camp for such a visit at least until midmorning on February 11.... Even after Bin Ladin's departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was still set up. The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity. On March 7, 1999, Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and Bin Ladin.... Imagery confirmed that less than a week after Clarke's phone call the camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site was deserted.... The United Arab Emirates was becoming both a valued counterterrorism ally of the United States and a persistent counterterrorism problem. From 1999 through early 2001, the United States, and President Clinton personally, pressed the UAE, one of the Taliban's only travel and financial outlets to the outside world, to break off its ties and enforce sanctions, especially those relating to flights to and from Afghanistan. These efforts achieved little before 9/11. Kevin Drum thinks that criticism of the deal has become a "mindless feeding frenzy", even though the company that would be operating a number of our ports isn't merely an Arab-owned company (nothing wrong with that) but directly controlled by a govenment that has a history of ties to Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban. Call me xenophobic, but I don't think that handing over part of our port security to people who keep thier old pal Osama on speed dial is a bright idea. Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Kevin Drum apparently believes that Heather Wilson's recent statements distancing herself from illegal wiretaps is evidence that the taps are "becoming a serious wedge issue in the Republican Party". I suspect it has a lot more to do with this. Monday, February 06, 2006
Two recent stories detail apparent attempts by House staff members to polish their bosses' profiles in Wikipedia. Particular attention was paid to the entry on local zero Richard Pombo. Staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives have repeatedly spent work hours tampering with the biographies of Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and dozens of other lawmakers in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, according to Wikipedia's founder. On at least seven occasions between Oct. 5 and Jan. 26, someone using a Capitol Hill computer anonymously logged on to the popular reader-driven Web site and sanitized Pombo's biography. Attributed references that connected Pombo to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff or to fund-raising controversies disappeared from the Web site, which describes itself as the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Other information was added or deleted to present the congressman in a more favorable light, according to a survey of the changes. All of the comments examined by The Daily Review can be traced to office computers belonging to the internal computer network of the U.S. Congress.... Someone else using a congressional computer made changes to the entry on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi that described the San Francisco Democrat unfavorably. A sentence describing Pelosi as representing her party's liberal wing was altered to say she is part of its "extreme" wing. Another edit stated that she "villifies" the same companies she raises money from. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said his widely read Internet resource relies on everybody who uses it to write, edit and monitor the accuracy of its articles. And so it is not surprising, he said, that politicians or their staffers or interns make so many contributions. But he said some congressional workers "vandalized" the encyclopedia by adding libelous statements about their political opponents or anonymously removing unfavorable but verifiable information about the politicians they support.... Wales said he hopes the knowledge that they are being watched by Wikipedia's many readers keeps legislative staffers in check in the future. "It can be perfectly appropriate for people to enter the public dialogue," Wales said. "The real question is, you know, are people behaving in a mature, thoughtful manner?" Aside from the interesting political angles, this seems another indicator that wikis simply can't succeed without using some form of trusted user structure. It's a substantial accomplishment for wikipedia that it has become important enough to be worth freeping, but the ease of doing it shows the weakness of the system. Few quotes you read this year will be as naive as Mr Wales's wishful thinking that "the knowledge that they are being watched by Wikipedia's many readers [will keep] legislative staffers in check in the future". Rather obviously, the lesson taken away from this by the guilty parties will be not, "respect the integrity of Wikipedia", but "next time, use less tracable accounts". Friday, February 03, 2006
We now have an early leader in the Republican race for 2008. William Polley is one of several bloggers to have picked up this recent tidbit from an interview of George Allen: But in Washington, Bernanke] is barely on some people's radar screens. Indeed, here is what Senator George Allen of Virginia, who is considering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, said when asked his opinion of the Bernanke nomination. "For what?" Told that Mr. Bernanke was up for the Fed chairman's job, Mr. Allen hedged a little, said he had not been focused on it, and wondered aloud when the hearings would be. Told that the Senate Banking Committee hearings had concluded in November, the senator responded: "You mean I missed them all? I paid no attention to them." This puts Senator Allen in at least a two touchdown lead in the "acting Presidential (Republican standards)" category. Even this early in the game, the lead may be unsurmountable. Senator Allen's VP pick is clear. Since McCain doesn't want the job, he'll undoubtedly go with Lynn Swann. This is in keeping with the standard GOP practice of practicing affirmative action to demonstrate that their opposition to affirmative action isn't racist, Swann comes from a swing state with plenty of electoral votes, and he's one of the few Republicans whose accomplishments Allen is familiar with. |
