NSA WIRETAPPING
Unwarranted intrusion

From the Houston Chronicle editorial board:

Equally troubling is USA Today's reporting that telecommunications giants Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth willingly turned over data on billions of private calls within the United States in exchange for contracts with NSA. These providers trampled on their customers' rights in a rush to the government trough. Federal intelligence agencies apparently have continuously updated compilations of the calling patterns and personal contacts of millions of citizens who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. While the companies did not include names and addresses in the data provided, such information can be easily obtained by cross-referencing phone numbers with other data bases.

A former NSA chief and nominee to be CIA director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, justifies the surveillance as a legal measure to combat terrorism. But the information will also be available to federal agencies with no oversight from the courts. If White House officials were willing to leak the name of a covert CIA operative in order to discredit her husband, how secure will such data be in the hands of a host of bureaucrats and private contractors? Imagine the temptation for politicians to access a complete roadmap of opponents' business and personal contacts.

Click here for the rest.

Quite right, this is the major reason such laws exist: politicians, always trying to maintain and expand their power, cannot be trusted to have access to such personal information; the incentive to abuse it is built into the system, which is why it is illegal to get it without a damned good reason. And speaking of illegal, the government isn't the only entity in trouble here. The telecom companies who cooperated were very likely violating the law themselves.

From Think Progress courtesy of This is not a compliment:

Telcos Could Be Liable For Tens of Billions of
Dollars For Illegally Turning Over Phone Records

The penalty for violating the Stored Communications Act is $1000 per individual violation. Section 2707 of the Stored Communications Act gives a private right of action to any telephone customer “aggrieved by any violation.” If the phone company acted with a “knowing or intentional state of mind,” then the customer wins actual harm, attorney’s fees, and “in no case shall a person entitled to recover receive less than the sum of $1,000.”

And

In other words, for every 1 million Americans whose records were turned over to NSA, the telcos could be liable for $1 billion in penalties, plus attorneys fees. You do the math.

Click here for the rest.

There's already a class action suit against Verizon, and I expect more to follow. It is interesting to note that the law says a person whose records have been violated in such a way shall not "receive less than the sum of $1,000." That is, it could be way more. On the other hand, if any of these suits should win, they stand to bankrupt each of these companies, so it's not likely that the penalty is actually going to exceed that single grand. But, hey, a thousand bucks is a thousand bucks. BellSouth is my phone company. How can I get in on some of this action?

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CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR GRADUATION
Now what are you going to do for the rest of your life?

I posted what follows last year at around this time. But I'm still impressed with myself for my masterwork of plagiarism, and it is graduation season, after all. Maybe I'll make this an annual thing. Until prospects for American life improve greatly, that is.

Here's a little graduation music to set a mood (start it when you begin the speech).

SMITH'S COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

In my movement class this past semester we've been working on a process of character creation through the use of various physicalization exercises while wearing a mask. The work is taken from Libby Appel's book Mask Characterization. The final exercise, which we're doing Wednesday, is called "Finding the Right Words;" the idea is to take the actor-created character from the world of improvisation into the world of text--that is, it's about finding ways to make the character useable in an actual play. From Appel's book:

From published material in any form other than dramatic literature (poetry, essays, biography, letters, fiction, nonfiction, ect.), put together a monologue which your character will speak in a five-to-seven-minute situation that has a beginning, a middle, and end. The monologue must seem as if it is the character's own words and thoughts.

My character, Smith, is something of an embodiment of existentialism: he's absurd, bored, sad, and desperately wanting amusement because he feels that's all that's left for him. In collecting material for his monologue, I wanted to somehow reflect the absurdist but morbidly depressed sense of bipolarity inherent within him. When putting it all together, it seemed like a graduation speech--probably because it's that time of year and I'm once again in college. I was so pleased with what I came up with, I thought I'd post it here. I mean, my blog is called "Real Art," after all.

I'm not going to tell you exactly what bits come from where (because that'd be a big hassle), but I will tell you that the speech rips off John F. Kennedy, Oscar Wilde, John Lennon, Andy Warhol, Dr. Seuss, the Bible, Noam Chomsky, Bertrand Russell, T. S. Elliot, Nietzsche, and Jim Morrison.

So here it is. Smith's Commencement Address:

President Griswold, members of the faculty, graduates and their families, ladies and gentlemen:

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation for the very deep honor which you have conferred upon me. As General de Gaulle occasionally acknowledges America to be the daughter of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds, a Harvard education and a Yale degree.

To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done. Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy. There's nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time. It's easy. There's nothing you can know that isn't known. Nothing you can see that isn't shown. Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Congratulations! Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the ones who'll decide where to go. Life is too important to be taken seriously.

All you need is love.

From the book of Matthew:

"Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

But question authority. Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. Take, say, the core of the established religions today: the Bible. It is basically polytheistic, with the warrior God demanding of his chosen people that they not worship the other Gods and destroy those who do -- in an extremely brutal way, in fact. It would be hard to find a more genocidal text in the literary canon, or a more violent and destructive character than the God who was to be worshipped.

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. And so I am a deeply superficial person.

From the book of Ecclesiastes:

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit."

I have known them all already, known them all, have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons; I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid. I have dared disturb the universe. I have prayed to God, but God is dead. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

This is the end. My only friend, the end, of our elaborate plans, the end, of everything that stands, the end, no safety or surprise, the end. I'll never look into your eyes...again. The end of laughter and soft lies. The end of nights we tried to die.

This is the end.

I hope I get a good grade when I perform this.

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Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted

From truthout via ZNet:

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high- profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

Click here for the rest.

Oh my. Whatever will the President do without his brain?

This is really fantastic, of course, and long awaited. Of course, Rove lied to the grand jury and obstructed justice. What else was he supposed to do? Admit that he shamelessly divulged the name of an undercover CIA operative who was investigating Iran's nuclear weapons program all for a petty political vendetta? No. He just couldn't do that, so he lied instead. This will further cripple the already massively gimpy White House.

I'm starting to believe that there may be, after all, some kind of justice in the universe.

And stepping away from the trees for a moment to look at the forest, this is yet another loud signal that today's GOP is, perhaps, the most politically corrupt group in American history. Tom DeLay's "K Street Project," an elaborate operation aimed at formalizing lobbyist bribes for favorable legislation, the Abramoff lobby/bribe scandal which still stands to implicate a yet unknown number of GOP lawmakers, former GOP Congressman Duke Cunningham's hookers and bribes scandal which has already brought down CIA director Porter Goss, all this, and whatever I'm forgetting, show the Republican Party to be no more than a criminal enterprise which makes the Corleone family look like a t-ball team.

I've been saying for some months that it's not about ideology anymore; it's about incompetence and crime. At this point, I think I'd be happy, relatively speaking of course, to be ruled by some real conservatives. Real conservatives, at least, believe in the rule of law.

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MENTALLY ILL TROOPS ARE A REALLY BAD IDEA

Tara posted yesterday about how the Pentagon apparently has no problems with sending obviously mentally disturbed soldiers back into battle--in many cases they just hand them some anti-depressants and point them toward the danger zones. Obviously, this is a result of the US overextending its military commitments throughout the world. We just don't have enough men to expand the American empire the way the neo-cons want, so we're making do with what we have--this is the same problem that resulted in the recent recruiting of a teenager with autism.

Needless to say this is no good at all. Tara observed that it's downright inhumane to treat our fighting men and women this way, and a really stupid way to try to win a war. But that's not all that's wrong with forcing mentally ill troops into fighting, as Seattle journalist David Neiwert over at Orcinus shows:

One thing the story only briefly addresses is that veterans damaged psychologically like this also bring their scars home. And when the violence that results is not inwardly directed, it can also be directed outward.

Paul deArmond pointed this out three years ago, as we began this invasion:

Here's an unsettling thought. The last go-round in the Gulf produced at least three spectacular domestic terrorists: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (Oklahoma City) and John Mohammed (DC sniper killings). Both McVeigh and Mohammed were reported to be unbalanced by their experience during the Gulf War.

...The levels of stress on our troops is quite high and several sources report that the training and conditioning of troops for agressive behavior is more severe than in the past. Combine this with the continuing spread of anti-government ideologies through terrorism-related conspiracy theories and the encouraging (or at least failure to suppress) of activities like vigilante border partrols which combine racism with xenophobia.

Click here for the rest.

This doesn't even begin to address other kinds of war-spawned violence here in the US, such as domestic abuse: there have already been several murders of spouses by soldiers home from Iraq--my bet is that there are going to be more. And as VA budgets continue to be slashed by our troop-supporting GOP dominated Congress, I'm also betting that we're going to see a big rise in the numbers of obviously crazy homeless street people.

I already know we're going to be in Iraq for years to come. We're going to be feeling the pain from that for a much longer time.

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A REALLY BRILLIANT GUY ENTERS THE BLOGOSPHERE

And it's about time. My old pal Matt, who has been reading and commenting at Real Art for pretty much it's entire existence has finally decided to start a blog. I've known Matt since like sixth grade, and he's always been the most thoughtful and intelligent person in whatever room he happens to be. He's definitely not as far to the left as I am; indeed, he's a self-described moderate, which, by the old rules, makes him somewhat conservative, but so what? Well considered rational discourse is always a breath of fresh air these days, and I, for one, need some good brainiacs to keep me honest.

He's also, I might add, quite a good actor, wasting his god-given talent slaving away in a stimulating and lucrative business career, but, hey, who am I to deny a man a chance to live a normal life?

Here's a sample from his first post over at Caffeinated:

The thing that pushed me over the edge into blogginess was the birth of my child. Having a child has provided a great focusing in my life. The lesser things melt away but the more important things become MUCH more important. Very little is theoretical anymore; it all matters to the world he will live in.

So, that will drive the content. Issues like commercialism and media influence on kids; private versus public schools; noble causes and how much one person can do; war and peace; god and religion. Small stuff.

I'll also share some of my enthusiasms: coffee, steak, football, running, cycling, games, history, books, gadgets. And my professional interests: marketing, technology, security.

Click here for the rest.

Cool, very cool.

I should also observe that Matt's relationship with his older brother Dave, a "well-informed blogger, with...a rightward slant and shades of libertarianism" puts me and my older brother's relationship to shame. The last political discussion I had with my brother was in 1998, about the impeachment; it ended in a shout fest--we don't discuss politics anymore. Matt and Dave, however, appear to have an extraordinary dialogue with each other. At least that's how it looks online from the nature of their bloggy discussion, a veritable model for how political discourse should be handled by the entire nation, respectful and intelligent, with real potential for actual persuasion and change of position. I get the feeling that Dave's going to be a regular commenter over at Caffeinated, which should make the discussion way more engaging than my typically one-sided rants over here.

Anyway, Matt's blog will now be part of my daily surfing list, and it should be part of yours, too. Go check him out.


Matt now sports
a devil beard.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie



Sammy



Paz



Phil



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BUSH APPROVAL RATING NOW AT 29%

From Washington Wire, a Wall Street Journal blog, courtesy of the Daily Kos:

President Bush’s job-approval rating has fallen to its lowest mark of his presidency, according to a new Harris Interactive poll. Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, down from 35% in April and significantly lower than 43% in January.

Click here for the rest.

And this poll was taken before today's news about the wide-ranging NSA scandal broke. This is extraordinarily good news. Once you get below 30% or so, it means Bush is losing his base--indeed, I read a couple of days ago that another poll found that 1 in 4 Republicans want Congress to go to the Dems this fall. Amazing: a quarter of the GOP want their guys out. Maybe Bush will never get the chance to declare martial law, as I bet in the post below. Maybe we'll get that impeachment I've been craving for four years now. Maybe. It's looking pretty good.

Okay, I'm now taking bets that Bush will be impeached before he finishes his term. Any takers?

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NSA DOMESTIC SPYING: MUCH
WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Phone call monitoring sparks outrage

Lawmakers demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a spy agency secretly collecting records of millions of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of all calls within the country.

Facing mounting congressional criticism, President Bush sought to assure Americans that their civil liberties were "fiercely protected."

And

AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the NSA program shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.

And

One big telecommunications company, Qwest Communications International Inc., has refused to turn over records to the program, USA Today said, because of privacy and legal concerns.

Click here for the rest.

I think it's safe to say that the White House is not making sure that our civil liberties are "fiercely protected." Indeed, as the article observes, Congress, in reaction to a 1979 Supreme Court case, passed a law that specifically requires a warrant in order for the government to seize records of this sort. That is, Bush is making sure that our civil liberties are being fiercely attacked.

You may wonder what the big deal on this is, given that the illegal NSA wiretapping program was revealed some weeks ago: back then, it was alleged that only calls to foreign locations were being monitored; this is about calls inside the US. And, I might add, I'm a customer of BellSouth. That means my calls have been monitored, too. Fuckers. Beyond the very serious civil liberties concerns here, the corporate willingness to cooperate with the White House on this is truly frightening. If you rip away all the nationalism and militarism from European fascism in the 30s and 40s, what remains is the unique cooperative relationship between government and business that comprised the power-nucleus of fascism. That is, fascism, at its heart, is about corporate-government alliance. And that's what this wiretapping program is apparently.

Each day brings us closer to the unthinkable. I am now taking bets that martial law will be declared before 2009. Any takers?

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OUTRAGEOUS STONEWALLING
Security issue kills domestic spying inquiry

From the AP via MSNBC courtesy of the Daily Kos:

The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

The inquiry headed by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers’ role in the program.

Click here for the rest.

Just in case it's not obvious, and it should be, I'll spell out exactly why this is outrageous. What we have here is one White House agency, the NSA, refusing to allow another White House agency, the Department of Justice, to investigate the former because the latter lacks security clearance: this could be cleared up in like five seconds by, surprise surprise, the White House. In other words, this is some major fucking bullshit. Bush could very easily give these investigators the security clearance needed to do the job--I mean, it's not like DOJ employees who already have had major background checks are going to divulge NSA secrets to Al-Qaeda. This is a big joke. He really does think he's above the law.

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President's Itinerary Ends Up In Trash
Worker Finds Details Of Bush's Fla. Trip Hours Before His Arrival

From CBS News courtesy of the Daily Kos:

A public sanitation worker in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday found a thick stack of papers with nearly every detail of President Bush's trip to Florida on the floor next to a big trash truck.

The documents offer the exact arrival and departure time for Air Force One, Marine One and the back up choppers, Nighthawk 2 and 3, as Washington CBS affiliate WUSA-TV first reported.

The documents also list every passenger on board each aircraft, from President Bush to the military attaché with the nuclear football. CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports it was a copy of the president's exact schedule for the day, which the public never sees for security reasons.

Click here for the rest.

Okay, this makes it official: I no longer suspect that Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, allowing them to happen for his own political gain. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 happened because Bush is an incompetent idiot. I'm not sure if I should be more or less afraid, though. You know, the real question now is why Bush hasn't yet qualified for a Darwin Award. He really does seem to be that stupid. Maybe we won't have to wait for an impeachment. Maybe nature will remove him from office for us. Go Darwin!

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KRUGMAN: Who's Crazy Now?

From the New York Times via the Progressive American:

The truth is that many of the people who throw around terms like "loopy conspiracy theories" are lazy bullies who, as Zachary Roth put it on CJR Daily, The Columbia Journalism Review's Web site, want to "confer instant illegitimacy on any argument with which they disagree." Instead of facing up to hard questions, they try to suggest that anyone who asks those questions is crazy.

Indeed, right-wing pundits have consistently questioned the sanity of Bush critics; "It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again," said Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist, after Mr. Gore gave a perfectly sensible if hard-hitting speech. Even moderates have tended to dismiss the administration's harsh critics as victims of irrational Bush hatred.

But now those harsh critics have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can't handle the truth. They won't admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors for warning that invading Iraq was a mistake, have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.

Click here for the rest.

There are people who, to this day, still believe that Nixon was railroaded. I think it's fair to say that a certain percentage of the US population will never come around to the point of view that Bush is either evil or incompetent or both, same as with Nixon. What's different today is that so many of the deluded are in positions of power, in both government and the media. Nixon-lovers pretty quickly ended up as a sort of lunatic fringe back in the 70s, and that's what they've been ever since. Today's lunatic fringe is mainstream, and apparently willing to fight until the bitter end.

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FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICIT MADNESS

From the Houston Chronicle editorial board:

History shows that while tax hikes in the 1990s were followed by spending restraints, tax cuts over the last two decades led to spending sprees. At no time in the modern era has the convergence of spending hikes and revenue cuts been so pronounced. The tragedy is that for every dollar borrowed, the imposition of fiscal responsibility becomes more difficult for future presidents and Congresses.

Click here for the rest.

And it's not just a problem for the future. It's doubly maddening that most public criticism of our ever increasing deficit spending is in terms of future harm: the deficit threatens to eat our lunch right now. It's simple, so I don't understand why this isn't part of the conversation. Generally, deficit spending is only a future problem when it remains below a certain percentage of the GDP. Once spending passes that percentage mark, however, all hell breaks loose. Under such conditions, the borrowing is on such a massive scale that it affects the overall dollar supply. That is, there are less dollars for businesses to borrow for use in upgrading equipment, expanding, general maintenance, etc. Or look at it this way. What happens is that in order to avoid inflation that would come from usual business borrowing added to what the government borrows, the Federal Reserve Board must raise interest rates. High interest rates drag the economy to a standstill. I don't think we've crossed that GDP percentage line yet, but if the GOP dominated Congress continues to spend like drunken sailors, it will definitely happen. And that's when another recession begins.

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Howard Zinn: America’s Blinders

From the Progressive:

It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.

One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.

And

It becomes necessary then, if we are going to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens against policies that will be disastrous not only for other people but for Americans too, that we face some facts that disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous nation.

These facts are embarrassing, but must be faced if we are to be honest. We must face our long history of ethnic cleansing, in which millions of Indians were driven off their land by means of massacres and forced evacuations. And our long history, still not behind us, of slavery, segregation, and racism. We must face our record of imperial conquest, in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, our shameful wars against small countries a tenth our size: Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq. And the lingering memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is not a history of which we can be proud.

Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted that belief in the minds of many people, that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world.

Click here for the rest.

I love this country. For starters, it is the land of my culture and my version of the English language; it is my home. There is no other place like it, and there are countless marvelous aspects of my country that don't exist anywhere else, our near-absolute freedom of speech, just to name one. I also love the American people in all their diversity. I'm a white American, yes, but I also claim national kinship with African-Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and more: they are all my people. We are all Americans.

But I'd be a fool, indeed, if I swept the countless injustices for which my country is responsible under the rug. This nation's past, and its present, too, are not pretty. Indeed, much of America's history is about how it doesn't live up to its own stated values and principles. But you know what? I believe in those principles; they're a big part of what makes us Americans. I, for one, insist that we become the people we think we are. No jingoistic, bullying, piece-of-shit, warmongering Nazi-Americans are going to stop me from doing that. Really, calling our government to task for defying our deeply held morals is the responsibility of all Americans. But, seeing as how so many of us clearly don't understand what we're supposed to be, the task is obviously on the shoulders of Americans who do understand.

Everyone who sees how fucked up things are has a patriotic obligation to rant and rave in people's faces until, well, forever. That's what being an American is all about.

God, I love Howard Zinn.

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The Tragedy Of False Confessions

A new Ralph Nader essay from Common Dreams:

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects a person from being a "witness against himself." All too often that is what happens - not on the witness stand but in the police station, and even after a person has been read his rights. The spirit and sometimes letter of the Fifth Amendment are violated routinely as such police cajole and bully innocent people to confess. Prosecutors, judges, and juries usually ratify the error because they can't believe the confessor innocent - only adding to the suspect's Kafkaesque nightmare.

Why would the police engage in outrageous tactics that implicate the innocent? For the same reason that prosecutors, judges, and juries play their roles in this tragedy - they are convinced that no one would actually confess if he were innocent. Since we now know that this intuition is false, we need to take measures that guard against false confessions. Hirsch's website proposes a range of reforms, including mandatory taping of interrogations. But, he suggests, the most important reform is education.

Everyone must recognize that false confessions can and do occur.

Click here for the rest.

This is what comes from having an enforcement system that is institutionally geared toward getting convictions instead of finding the truth. Invariably, the conviction mandate affects the way both cops and prosecutors think--they're looking to make cases, rather than for what actually happened. It's further compounded by the fact that many DA's are elected officials: there is a very tangible pressure to show voters that "justice" is being done, which ultimately translates into waving around high numbers of convictions to show that a given head prosecutor is "tough on crime." Supposedly, this is all supposed to be balanced by impartial judges and zealous defense lawyers. Unfortunately, for most people who are accused, it just doesn't work out that way. Judges traditionally give much more deference to prosecutors and cops, who have vast resources upon which they can draw, and public defenders are often the least experienced lawyers out there, being paid very little, with only a fraction of the resources that their competition has. Our entire criminal judicial system has serious shortcomings. It's a damned shame that so many Americans simply don't give a shit.

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THE VIDEO THAT TURNED ME ON TO MILES DAVIS

Crooks and Liars managed to find the ultra-rare classic live performance of Miles Davis' song "So What" that I first saw in my jazz appreciation class at the University of Texas back in 1987. It's funny, C&L actually titled it's post that links to the video "John Coltrane" because, it seems, they like Trane better than Miles. And that's just fine because, of course, Trane is great too. It's also fairly appropriate because Miles' solo on the video isn't as good as his solo on the album version, but Trane's is, maybe, a bit better than what he does on the record. But really that doesn't matter. It's a damned cool video. Cool jazz, cool mid 50s clothes, legendary musicians doing their thing. It's no wonder at all that seeing this when I was all of nineteen years made me a Miles Davis fan in like five seconds. It also served to solidify the late 50s/early 60s visual aesthetic that has dominated my personal tastes since then. Screw postmodernism: I'm a shameless modernist at heart, so modern, in fact, that I don't even think there is such a thing as postmodernism--what we are currently living in is simply a late part of the modern era. Anyway, putting all that aside, go check out the video. It's fantastic.

Click here for "So What" live, via YouTube.



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THIS MONTH'S STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE IS...



Dr. McCoy!

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WHY COLBERT WAS REALLY FUNNY AND WHY
THE DC PRESS CORPS JUST DOESN'T GET IT

The man who bravely took my position as theater arts teacher at Sterling High School in Baytown recently referred me in Real Art comments to an interesting discussion about Colbert's blistering speech at the White House Press Correspondents' dinner over at his blog, Great Blogs of Fire. It is, indeed, an interesting bunch of comments, which inspired me to try to figure out why, exactly, Colbert's routine was so funny.

Here's the comment I dropped over there:

I don't think either Stewart or Colbert would be really funny if it weren't for the politics. That is, I think Kyle's right, that you have to be on their side to find their jokes to be amusing. They make me laugh for the same reason that I think booger and dooky jokes are funny. They violate taboos, and I think indignant, arrogant, offended elitists are really funny. But take away the political angle and these guys are just another couple of comedians.

Fortunately for me, I'm pretty much on their side, so I think that within the narrow confines of their style of faux-news as political humor they're pretty brilliant--they're really good at making me imagine the responses of indignant, arrogant, offended elitists, who, as I said, make me laugh. Colbert's performance last Saturday went miles further than I've ever seen him go: he actually managed to employ real indignant, arrogant, offended elitists as part of the show. His jokes were only okay. The rip-roaring humor came from the situation he created, a nervous and indignant mass of self-important blowhards, whose collective actions have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens and thousands of American soldiers, forced to sit and listen to a nerdy guy in glasses make fun of them while simultaneously calling them out for their horrific sins. That's FUNNY!!! It's even funnier that these guys still don't seem to realize what hit them. Fools are funny.

In other words, Colbert wasn't at all trying to make that audience laugh. Indeed, while there was certainly an audience there, they weren't his audience; they were his victims. We were his audience. It was postmodern humor at its absolute finest. So, of course, the politicians and DC journalists in attendance didn't think it was funny. They weren't supposed to. Instead, they were made laughingstocks all for our benefit. And they're just too fucking stupid to understand that they were actually part of the performance. Meanwhile, Colbert's brilliant stunt continues without him: numerous outraged journalists, in a clueless haze of idiocy, continue to criticize him as being unfunny. God, I love it. Really, the whole thing ended up being a piece of performance art on the scale of environmental artist Christo. Bravo.

But don't just take my word for it. Here's some more analysis from Consortiumnews courtesy of Hullabaloo:

Colbert & the Courtier Press

“Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude,” Cohen wrote. “Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person’s sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.”

According to Cohen, Colbert was so boorish that he not only criticized Bush’s policies to the President’s face, but the comedian mocked the assembled Washington journalists decked out in their tuxedos and evening gowns.

“Colbert took a swipe at Bush’s Iraq policy, at domestic eavesdropping, and he took a shot at the news corps for purportedly being nothing more than stenographers recording what the Bush White House said,” Cohen wrote. “Colbert was more than rude. He was a bully.” [Washington Post, May 4, 2006]

Yet, while Cohen may see himself defending decorum and civility, his column is another sign of what's terribly wrong with the U.S. news media: With few exceptions, the Washington press corps has failed to hold Bush and his top advisers accountable for their long record of deception and for actions that have violated U.S. constitutional principles and American moral standards.

Click here for the rest.

This is so damned funny! I love it! These morons go on and on about "decorum" not realizing that the whole point was to utterly destroy their "decorum." This is the gag of all gags; the joke that keeps on giving. Everytime one of these blowhards blasts Colbert, they just keep the funny alive. This is the funniest thing I've ever encountered.

Ultimately, I think the best explanation of the humor here was given by Krusty the Clown during the Simpsons episode relating why Bob got the Sideshow job instead of his brother, who is a highly trained clown. Bob, a smug elitist, was extraordinarily funny attempting to maintain his dignity while he had pie all over his face. His brother never stood a chance: deflating the self-important is always funny, and much of the reason why is due to the fact that the victim isn't in on the joke; we're laughing at the victim, instead of with him.

Ha! We live in wonderful times.



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E-mails show DeLay office knew
Abramoff arranged golf trip financing

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Prosecutors have e-mails showing Rep. Tom DeLay's office knew lobbyist Jack Abramoff had arranged the financing for the GOP leader's controversial European golfing trip in 2000 and was concerned "if someone starts asking questions."

House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting free trips from lobbyists. DeLay, R-Texas, reported to Congress that a Republican advocacy group had paid for the spring 2000 trip that DeLay, his wife and top aides took to Scotland and England.

The e-mails obtained by The Associated Press show DeLay's staff asked Abramoff — not the advocacy group — to account for the costs that had to be legally disclosed on congressional travel forms. DeLay's office was worried the group being cited as paying the costs might not even know about them, the e-mails state.

Click here for the rest.

Well, I'm not sure if violating House ethics rules means that DeLay broke the law per se, but, if not a smoking gun, it's definitely evidence that DeLay is a corrupt, lying scumbag and that the entire country is better off with him out of public service. Of course, as I'm sure you already know, I'm quite certain myself that DeLay goes beyond being simply a bad man straight into criminality. That is, he's certainly a criminal, and, if there's any justice, he'll be behind bars in the next few years. I mean, the guy was essentially extorting bribes from lobbyists for legislation: he didn't simply accept bribes; he actively sought them out, demanding them even, as a condition for allowing lobbyists to simply communicate with Republican lawmakers. If there's not a law against that, there ought to be. Tom DeLay's tenure in Congress went a long way toward destroying our one-time democracy.

If I believed in Hell, I just know there would be a special place there for him.

UPDATE: Duh. If DeLay had to "legally disclose" who paid for the trip, but lied about it, then he certainly broke the law. Book 'em Danno.

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WHY DID THE CIA CHIEF UNEXPECTEDLY
RESIGN WITHOUT WARNING OR EXPLANATION?

Okay, this is weird, and, because this was so out of the blue, and because Goss appears to be hightailing it before a successor is named, it appears to not have much to do with Bush rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg, despite how they're spinning it.

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

CIA chief steps down

Goss offered little explanation for his resignation in a brief appearance with President Bush, a televised address to agency personnel and a written statement.

"CIA remains the gold standard," he said. "When I came to CIA in September of 2004, I wanted to accomplish some very specific things, and we have made great strides on all fronts."

But the agency, as well as the Bush administration, has been far from peaceful. Goss' departure was the White House's third major personnel move in just over a month, aimed at reinvigorating Bush's second term.

And

Agency officials dismissed suggestions that the resignation was tied to controversy surrounding the CIA's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. The FBI is investigating whether Foggo's longtime friend, defense contractor Brent Wilkes, provided prostitutes, limousines and hotel suites to a California congressman who pleaded guilty to taking bribes from Wilkes and others in exchange for government contracts.

Click here for the rest.

Wait a minute. Bribes and hookers? Well, of course, "agency officials" are going to dismiss that, but then, you know, Tom DeLay kept calling his indictment "highly partisan" right up until he announced his resignation. Okay, actually, DeLay is still calling the indictment "highly partisan," but it's still a good point: it is now clear that the GOP is extraordinarily corrupt, and every single one of those mothers under the cloud of scandal denies any wrongdoing at all, even as they're being booked and fingerprinted.

Let's hear a little more about the bribes and hookers.

From AlterNet:

Hookers involved in Goss resignation?

Last week the Wall St. Journal reported the explosive story that lobbyists had been procuring "hospitality suites" (where prostitutes happened to be waiting) for lawmakers like discredited California Republican Duke Cunningham (who, Matthew notes, has already been connected to Goss...).

But, from Old 33 we learn that Harpers' Ken Silverstein did a little digging of his own on the 27th of April: "I've learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees -- including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post."

And now, a little over a week later the person who holds the most powerful intelligence post resigns? Hmm. Could be nothing.

Click here for the rest.

Yeah, it could be nothing. Or not. Like I said above, it is now pretty clear that the GOP is now mired in a veritable culture of corruption, where, even if a given Republican isn't breaking the law himself, he's doing all he can to help out those who have. That is to say, bribes and hookers aren't immediately dismissable as simply impossible. Or even improbable. It remains to be seen what's really happening here, but I suppose you can imagine what I think it is: Goss quit because he's about to be up to his neck in corruption charges.

I hope they nail him to the wall.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING (SPECIAL EDITION)

For today's Friday Cat Blogging, I present for your perusal my buddy Reuben's cat Mo. Check her out:







Reuben wanted me to point out that it took Mo two jumps to make it to the top of the wall in the middle picture, which is no surprise. Still, that second leap looks pretty impressive, I must say myself.

Back to our usual feline scoundrels next week.

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