Equal Opportunity Bigot

Berkeley Appoints Official Art Censor

2008-11-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

Ms. Mary Ann Merker, Berkeley Civic Arts Coordinator today announced the appointment of Ms. Carol Brighton to the newly created position of City Art Censor. Speaking at a news conference with Mayor Tom Bates and almost all members of the City Council standing behind her, Ms. Merker spoke passionately about the need for censorship in these trying times.

The "Art of Democracy" exhibit recently banned from the city-run Addison Street Windows Gallery "crystallized ... the need for an official censor", Ms. Merker said. In that instance Ms. Brighton, the curator of the gallery, refused to include posters containing images of guns. Ms. Merker continued that "On sober reflection and prayer, we realized that swords, knives, rope, baseball bats, even fists and civilian aircraft can and have been used for violence" and therefore images of these would not be allowed in any work to be shown at city-run galleries. Ms. Brighton's office is to compile an exhaustive Index of Proscribed Iconography, it was revealed.

As to the "artists manque" such as Berkeley residents Doug Minkler and Jos Sances, whose posters were among those that caused the Art of Democracy to be banned, and who have raised a hue and cry about having their "un-American posters banned", Ms. Merker said "We have forwarded their names to the Department of Homeland Security for a thorough investigation" and that she had been personally assured by Vice President Dick Cheney that "Guantanamo is still open for business".

Censor Brighton took the opportunity to announce her first official act, the Pure Pablum Proposition, explaining that this measure "will ensure that all art displayed in city galleries is pure pablum". She took umbrage at a skeptical reporter who wondered if there would be enough pablum available, responding angrily that "Anyone who has seen my work knows my absolute commitment to pablum. While I am certain that enough pablum exists in the great city of Berkeley for all our galleries needs, I commit myself to personally eliminate any pablum gap that may arise. I have a lifetime's worth of pure pablum in my garage and studio already, so I do not anticipate any difficulty."

Ask AT&T About Warrantless Wiretapping

2008-10-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

I urge every AT&T customer who is also a US citizen to contact AT&T about their participation in the illegal, warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens. Congress recently awarded AT&T retroactive immunity for its illegal activities. AT&T is now has an obligato to our very own Senior Quisling Feinstein for that; though perhaps Quisling Feinstein is simply repaying AT&T for their generous contributions to her campaigns.

As an AT&T customer and US citizen you might simply state your belief that AT&T will henceforth act in conformance to the US Constitution, the Fourth Amendment, and the laws, and not allow your phone to be tapped willy-nilly on the say-so of the Imperial Executive.

It boggles the mind that the EFF, ACLU, and other so called left-liberal organizations didn't/can't/won't organize something along these lines. Unimaginative doesn't even begin to cut it.

AT&T Engages in Consumer Deception/Fraud in iPhone Contracts

2008-10-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

The iPhone is a smartphone manufactured by Apple and sold through AT&T and Apple. In the US the iPhone works only on the AT&T network. AT&T is deceiving and defrauding iPhone buyers via the following practices.

Lock-in past contract termination/expiration
 iPhone buyers sign a 2-year contract for voice and data services from AT&T. The contract may be terminated by the customer at any time before the 2-years are up, on payment of a $175 penalty. AT&T will not provide the code(s) to allow a consumer to use an alternate provider even after the contract ends or is terminated. AT&T says, in a email response to me on this: “Unfortunately, the iPhone cannot be unlocked, even if you are out of contract. If an iPhone owner cannot get the unlock code(s) then they are prevented from replacing the AT&T SIM card with a SIM card from an alternate GSM provider of their choice. Therefore, AT&T is attempting to illegally extend the contract past its legal termination/expiration.

Lock-in to AT&T service when traveling outside the United States 
AT&T refuses to provide the GSM unlock code(s) for international travelers and forces iPhone users to connect to voice and data services solely via AT&T and its affiliates abroad. For example, if I travel to India I can use my iPhone to make calls within India, but only via AT&T. The rates for both voice and data services that AT&T charges are exorbitant compared to the rates from local GSM providers. The contract that iPhone buyers sign with AT&T has to do only with voice and data services within the US. iPhone buyers should be free to use a provider of their choice when traveling abroad. In fact, AT&T provides the unlock code(s) to international travelers for a wide variety of other GSM phones it sells. Just not for the iPhone.

AT&T’s refusal to provide the unlock codes once the contract has ended and to allow use of the iPhone on other carrier networks abroad is also in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which explicitly states the right of consumers to connect their phones to a different wireless carrier.

Apple as Censor: The iPhone AppStore

2008-09-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

To load an application into your iPhone requires you to obtain the software from the Apple iPhone AppStore. There is only one AppStore: Apple's.

Should Apple be allowed to decide on arbitrary grounds which applications will be available and which will not, given that there is one and only one AppStore? I think not.

Developers can create applications for the iPhone using an SDK (Software Development Kit) supplied by Apple. To distribute an application, the developer pays Apple $100 to have the application made available on the AppStore. If the developer is selling their application, as opposed to giving it away for free, then Apple gets a cut of the price. The SDK of course comes with lots of legalese attached on how a developer may or may not use it. Apple further appears to believe, and has acted on the belief, that they can refuse to allow an application into the AppStore for arbitrary reasons, even if the developer has not violated any conditions attached to the use of the SDK. There are two recent examples of Apple refusing to allow an application to be distributed via the AppStore that show this.

First is the case of Podcaster, developed by Alex Sokirynsky. One can listen to podcasts on the iPhone. The only way, thus far, has been to set up your podcast subscription(s) in iTunes, have iTunes download the podcasts, and then synchronize your iPhone with iTunes at which point iTunes copies the downloaded podcasts to the iPhone. Sokirynsky's application Podcaster bypasses the need for connecting your iPhone to a PC/Mac and synchronizing with iTunes. It lets you directly stream or download podcasts to your iPhone. When Sokirynsky submitted Podcaster to Apple for inclusion in the iPhone AppStore Apple refused, stating as their justification that "Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes." First, the claim is completely false: Podcaster does not "duplicate" the functionality of iTunes with respect to podcasts, it brings the significant and useful functionality of being able to access podcasts directly over-the-air (OTA) without any interaction between the iPhone and a computer or iTunes. Second, even if the claim had any merit to it, that would still not constitute a reason for Apple to refuse to allow iPhone users to buy and use Podcaster rather than iTunes.

The Podcaster saga has been on many blogs. You can read about it on the developer's blog. It was also covered in the New York Times under Saul Hansell's BITS blog on Sep. 16, 2008 under the title Apple’s Capricious Rules for iPhone Apps.

The second case has to do with an application called Pull My Finger. The application makes farting noises. The developer has a video showing the application in action. Apple refused to allow the application in the AppStore stating that the application had "limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community". One might be tempted to dismiss this instance out of hand because the application is in poor taste, juvenile, etc. etc. It may even be, as Apple claims, of "limited utility". The AppStore carries an application that can turn your iPhone into a flashlight: surely of "limited utility" as well I would argue. Nor can Apple know a priori whether a particular application is of "limited utility": they wish to substitute their judgment unbacked by facts for the wisdom of the marketplace. Apple is taking on the role of censor.

Apple could have chosen to make the iPhone a closed platform. If they had said that the only applications you can get for the iPhone are those authored and made available by Apple, no developer or consumer could force them to open up the platform. Or they could have made the platform very selectively open with enormous barriers to entry as the video-game console makers do; one can't get an SDK for Nintendo consoles or Sony PSPs just by providing one's email, name, and address.

Alternately, Apple could have chosen to make the iPhone an 'open' platform in the same sense that Mac OS X or Windows are open. SDKs are available for these platforms and anyone may acquire/buy these from Microsoft or Apple respectively. Applications developed using these SDKs can be distributed in any way that the developer chooses and consumers have the right to buy any application for these platforms from any developer they choose. Neither Microsoft nor Apple get to say to any developer that you can't distribute this application because it duplicates some functionality of our own included programs, or that your program is of limited utility to the users of our platform. Imagine that Apple said "You can't load Microsoft Office on your PowerBook because it duplicates functionality provided by iWork"! Or Microsoft said "You can't install iTunes on Windows because it duplicates functionality provided by Windows Media Player".

By making the SDK available to all comers while attempting to control the distribution of applications built using the SDK within the legal constraints of the SDK, Apple has put itself into an untenable position. A developer who acquires the iPhone SDK has the eminently reasonable expectation that if they and their application abide by the conditions imposed by Apple on the use of the SDK then the application will be carried in the one and only iPhone AppStore which is the sole mechanism for distributing iPhone applications.

I think Apple is comparable to a "common carrier" in regards of the AppStore. Apple ought not to be able to discriminate on arbitrary grounds on the content that can be carried in the AppStore. Furthermore, Apple does indeed have a monopoly on AppStore-s: there is only the one, Apple's. If Apple thinks certain applications are not AppStore worthy, they can simply allow (license) other AppStores. In the U.S., AT&T is the sole carrier for iPhones. And AT&T is a common carrier, regulated by the federal government as well as state regulators such the as California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). One could argue that it is AT&T that is forcing all its iPhone customers to buy iPhone applications from a single source with capricious rules, preventing me from using Podcaster and Pull My Finger.

Exterminate the Anonymice!

2008-09-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

The anonymice are everywhere and its time to exterminate them. Where are the Daleks when you need them? Or maybe what we need is a Pied Piper who can lead the anonymice to a well-deserved watery grave.

First we have the anonymice all over our so-called newspapers-of-record such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Articles are peppered with quotes and information from "unnamed government officials", "unnamed official sources", people who speak only on condition of anonymity, people who request and get anonymity since they are not "authorized to speak to the media", and other such fearless truth-tellers. This is the kind of "journalism" by which the Bush-Vader administration sold the Iraq war via Judith (Judas) Miller and the NYT. Now that the NYT, WSJ, and others have the ability to have color in their pages, maybe they can color portions of articles that are solely dependent on anonymice in yellow as a visual yellow-jouranalism-alert.

Then we have the legions of anonymice who post blog comments. The sub-species that really gets me are those anoymice willing to give away my freedoms for their illusory safety. Their anonymous comments are along the lines of "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear from the government violating your rights" and "If the government tells me that violating your rights and shredding the Constitution will make me feel safer, then you should be happy to give up your rights". See for instance Photographer Takes Pictures at the Port of Los Angeles and Has Two FBI Agents Show Up at His House Asking Questions. The irony of posting anonymously while implying they have nothing to hide apparently escapes these anonymice. It simply will not do to make any assumptions about the intelligence of these anonymice.

The Bankruptcy of Hope: Labor for Obama

2008-09-14T16:39:00.002-07:00

Less than 15% of the US workforce is unionized. Such "labor" unions as are around tend to timidity and institutional support for the Democratic Party. This despite a history of betrayal of every true labor ideal by the Democrats. The most recent and egregious example of such betrayal is of course NAFTA. In this the best of all possible worlds for our glorious unions and the glorious union movement, many states continue to have so-called "right-to-work" laws, including Arizona, home to THE Patriot. How about a Labor Party instead?

The Audacity of Hopelessness

2008-09-14T16:39:00.001-07:00

Got an unsolicited call from an Obambi the other evening asking me to pony up some more money. Despite the fact that after The One's vote on FISA I wrote in asking for my previous contributions back. Guess there's no "truth-in-politics" statute that would force The One to give me my money back. Anyways, the Obambi was apparently reading from a script and thought I should throw more good money after bad because the other guy is so much worse. Doesn't even start to cut it. I've decided that things need to get much, much worse before they can even start to get better. The Republic needs Pailin-Whatshisname, as the NYT of this Sunday Sep. 14, 2008 has it, to make the case in some future Presidential election for a religion-, war-, and fear-free election.

Stop Thrusting Your Imaginary Friends on Me!

2008-07-30T10:14:00.001-07:00

In the infancy of our species, the store of recorded empirical data being small to non-existent, superstition and obscurantism were inevitable. In the absence of facts, faith reigned supreme. At this late date there is absolutely no excuse for the species to continue to believe in, and worse, act on belief in, the many counter-factual obscurantisms commonly known as religions.

From Catholicism to Mormonism to Cargo Cults, all religions are characterized by a profound antipathy to observed data. From magical relics to magic underwear to magic flotsam/jetsam. Faith always trumps facts.

I will defend to the bitter end your right to your own neuroses and psychoses and your choice of your own imaginary friends, divine and otherwise. My tolerance and defense ends where you want secular taxpayer dollars to proselytize on behalf of your own particular imaginary friend(s).

Dubya's faith-based initiatives were a bad, and even possibly unconstitutional, idea. The One's call for similar faith-based initiatives is just as rotten.

How about science- and fact-based initiatives instead?

Civil Liberties and The One: Personal Action on Personal Principles

2008-07-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

It is bootless to depend on Senator Obama or the Democratic Party to protect our civil liberties as embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. His Hopiness's recent vote and that of the majority of Democratic Senators in favor of the FISA amendment shows that clearly. The Senior Quisling from California, Dianne Feinstein, one of my Senators, also voted for the misguided law. The telecoms companies, including AT&T, are major contributors to her campaign coffers. Of course, there was no quid pro quo; Quisling Feinstein is an equal-opportunity-quisling and has betrayed the Constitution on any number of other occasions to favor any number of other contributors.

Much has been made of the retroactive grant of immunity to telecoms companies such as AT&T in the FISA amendment. That is the least of it. The FISA secret courts were already suspect as protectors of our civil liberties even before Dubya & Darth Cheney got to Washington. Of many thousands of surveillance authorization requests presented to it, the FISA courts have rejected a vanishingly small number. Anyone who thinks our government apparatus is that good ought to tell us what they are smoking.

The Fourth Amendment contemplates individualized and specific warrants based on probable cause. The FISA amendment purports to allow the government the right to seek approval for a surveillance program. No individual warrants anymore! And The One supposedly taught Constitutional Law. His Hopiness assures us that should he become President he would work to ensure that our rights were not violated. I heard the same from Dubya and he brought us warrant-less, illegal wiretapping of American citizens. Why couldn't His Hopiness wait till he was President to get a less egregious law passed?

What is to be done? There is no reason at all for us unwashed to wring our hands in despair! On the contrary. The technology exists today and in usable form for us to resist an overweening executive, a supine Congress, and an accommodating judiciary to protect our freedoms. Strong encryption is available to all who wish to avail themselves of it. Use VoIP (Voice Over IP) for your telephone calls together with encryption software such as Zfone (http://zfoneproject.com/) from Phil Zimmerman (of PGP fame). Disclaimer: I have no involvement with Zimmermann or Zfone etc. Use secure email so only your intended recipients can read your messages. Encrypt your computer's hard-drive (use open-source software rather than commercial software that may have back-doors for government agencies!). I don't suggest that we do this because we have something to hide, but as a matter of principle.

Israel Uber Alles

2008-07-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

On June 2, 2008 Sen. John McCain gave the keynote address at the opening of the annual AIPAC Conference. On June 4, 2008 Sens. Clinton and Obama followed Sen. McCain at the AIPAC Conference. All pledged blind and ever lasting loyalty to the Zionist cause. All agreed that the Palestinians are untermeschen best confined to the ghettoes of the West Bank & Gaza. Discussions on the use of Zyklon B were deferred because the technicians from Germany were not on hand. All agreed that they'd rather "kill them [the Palestinians] off by peaceful means" (as Tom Lehrer suggested in a different context) such as running them off their own land through continuing the naked land-grab of "settlements".

Nothing quite says United States of Israel as having all of the candidates for the office of President of the United States crawl on bended knee and kow-tow to an organization that is essentially an agent of a foreign power. AIPAC isn't a lobby or special interest devoted to the welfare of any segment of US citizenry. On the contrary it is a lobby that insists on the welfare of a foreign state ahead of the interests of the United States of America and its citizens.

The junior Senator from Illionis, St. Hopey (St Hope-y? St. Hopi?) was intent on proving himself more Jewish than the Jews, more intransigently Zionist than any past or present POTUS or candidate for POTUS. St. Hopey took pains to claim that his given name "Barack" was a corrupution of the Jewish "Baruch". Stepping off the cliff altogether, St. Hopey promised his support as POTUS for an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of the apartheid state of Israel, a position at odds with 50+years of publicly stated US foreign policy.

Obama Channels Dubya

2008-07-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

There are those who think that only the dead or even that only the ancient dead can be channelled. St. Obama shows us that it ain't so. Recently he's been channelling Dubya, and maybe even Darth Cheney.

Obama voted for the misguided FISA amendment, but assures us that as President he would ensure that it wasn't abused. Deja vu! Didn't we hear similar promises from Dubya? Dubya then went on to "authorize" (how exactly does one authorize an illegal act?) the illegal, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

Obama's call for government funding of religious organizations is just more of Dubya's faith-based initiatives. Obama even had David Kuo (a now disgruntled participant of Dubya's efforts in this regard) on hand to endorse his efforts. The Republic has gotten along perfectly well without any faith-based initiatives for some 200+ years (although some might argue that tax breaks for churches is really a faith-based initiative).

Then there is Obama's strange support for the recent Supreme Court decision striking down a Washington, D.C. gun law. The majority opinion in that decision pretends that the statement of the Second Amendment is "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.". The preceding phrases of the actual amendement, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,", is blithely ignored or dismissed by the majority opinion and now by Obama. Dubya is surely proud of his brother in arms (puns intended) on this issue.

Just as odd and illiberal was the Senator's support for Louisiana's overly liberal use of the death penalty. The Supreme Court rightly struck that down. But the Senator is all for it, citing state's rights arguments, yet!

The Senator says he's "asking us to believe". The misguided have thought he was asking for faith in the rule-of-law, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the separation of church and state, and other such liberal shibboleths. He has now set them straight. In case you were in favor of the minor surgery on the Senator suggested by Jesse Jackson, the Senator has already had it done.

The Audacity of Humbug

2008-07-16T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Economist of July 26, 2008 ran an article titled "Humbug all round" (see http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11636526) accurately taking issue with Sen. Obama's rejection of public financing and referring to his stance as "the audacity of humbug". Sen. Obama confirms The Economist's diagnosis with his decision to vote for the recent FISA legislation, which as others have pointed out is a vote against the Fourth Amendment, the Constitution, and the rule of law. As also his equivocating stance on the Supreme Court decision on the Washington, D.C. gun law. Now we hear of his changing his stance or at least hedging his bets on withdrawing from Iraq. Despite the hagiography of his wife and supporters and his stirring oratory, there is really not much "there" there to the junior Senator from Illinois. I voted for Sen. Obama in the CA primaries: for me the deciding cause was his stance against the war on Iraq. Had Sen. Clinton voted against the war or even done the Edwards-like mea culpas for that misguided vote, I might have voted for her instead. I've given money to Sen. Obama's campaign. I will vote for the Democratic candidate for President in the general elections: at this point the Democrats could run a weasel or even some roadkill and get my vote. But lets not be naive about Sen. Obama: he is just as much an Establishment candidate as Sen. Clinton.

The Audacity of the Democratic National Security Whore

2008-03-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Clinton shows us yet again that facts aren't even a minor inconvenience, let alone a serious handicap, in Democratic party politics.

Mrs. Clinton voted for the war of choice against Iraq and that without even bothering to read the National Intelligence Estimate. Mrs. Clinton voted recently to declare the Iranian Republican Guard which is a part of the Iranian armed forces a terrorist organization thereby increasing the probability that the Decider will take us into yet another misguided war of choice in the Middle East.

Now we have the latest from the Clinton septic tank. The Monster's 3AM ad. What's with this "kitchen sink" bullshit from the punditocracy and even the Obambi's camp? How about the "shit house" or "toilet trench" if you don't like septic tank?

So whence this audacity of faith in the power of falsehood?

Getting Republicans to Vote for Amnesty

2008-02-26T14:52:00.001-08:00

The Republican argument against any path to citizenship for residents without papers is "They broke the law. Any path to citizenship is amnesty. This rewards illegal behavior".

These same Republicans are all for granting retroactive immunity to AT&T et al. who illegally allowed the Federal government to wiretap American citizens. There's no contradiction here. Its really very simple and has an important lesson for those working towards a path to citizenship for residents without papers. Republicans are only against rewarding illegal actions by individuals, not corporations.

All illegal immigrants need to do get Republican support is to get together and form the Amnesty Co., Inc and all join its Board of Directors. Then Republicans could get behind granting immunity to the Amnesty Co. and its Directors for illegal actions past and present.

See, no amnesty for people. Only immunity for corporations. No contradictions!

Hillary (Action, Not Words) Clinton

2008-02-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

This is not an argument Mrs. Clinton ought to make. Her actions in the Senate and earlier don't lend themselves to this line of reasoning proving her superiority to Mr. Obama. Quite the opposite.

Some of Mrs. Clinton's actions that argue against Democrats and independents voting for her.

The AUMF allowing the war against Iraq
Many Democrats who voted for the AUMF have at least acknowledged that they made a mistake. Not hardly enough, given the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died for this mistake. A few thousand American military have also died for their mistake. Of course, the Iraqi dead hardly matter at all: we all know and accept that even a few million Iraqi lives don't equal even one American one.
I'd rather see all these Democrats commit seppuku on the steps of the Capitol. Or be impeached, convicted, and sentenced to lobotomies. Mrs. Clinton to be most definitely included.
The Bankruptcy "Reform" Bill
A naked betrayal of the small folk for the benefit of the credit card companies and corporate shylocks.
Drivers Licenses for Residents
Maybe Mrs. Clinton is just trying to do her bit for the planet and wants to make sure that so-called illegal immigrants use public transport rather than driving. As Mr. Obama has pointed out, most immigrants are here to work, not for the joys of driving on our increasingly decrepit and overcrowded roads and freeways.
NAFTA
You'd think Ohio Democrats would be aware that NAFTA was passed with Bill Clinton's vigorous support. Since Mrs. Clinton wants us to credit her for her 8 years as First Lady, its only fair that she own up to the crimes against the public that were committed then as well. Now Mrs. Clinton is all for re-examining (what does that mean?) NAFTA and claims that her husband was helpless on this since NAFTA had been negotiated by the previous George H. W. Bush administration.

The Senior Quisling from California Responds re. FISA

2008-02-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

I wrote both my U.S. Senators, Ms. Barbara Boxer and Ms. Dianne Feinstein, urging them to work and vote against any FISA amendments that would offer retroactive immunity to telecoms companies such as AT&T that willingly participated in the illegal warrant-less and wholesale wiretapping of American citizens.

The Senior Quisling from California, Ms. Feinstein, voted in the Senate Intelligence Committee for a FISA amendment that would grant retroactive immunity to AT&T et al. for their illegal activities. The Democratic leadership (an oxymoron!) chose to introduce the Intelligence Committee version on the Senate floor, rather than a similar one from the Judiciary Committee that was distinguished from the other by its lack of retroactive immunity for the telecoms companies. The Senior Quisling voted for cloture but against the final bill on the floor. The Senior Quisling sent me a snail-mail form response attempting to justify her position. Herewith are excerpts from my response to her anemic defense of her indefensible position.

The telecoms companies are not mom-and-pop operations without adequate legal counsel.
All of the telecoms companies who blithely complied with the government and allowed warrant-less wiretapping have large legal departments and high-powered, knowledgeable counsel. It was their duty to the law and their obligation to their American citizen customers (at least) to ensure that they were acting within the law.
At least one telecoms company, Qwest, refused to allow the warrant-less wiretapping.
Presumably this decision was based on the advice of counsel and the lack of court-issued warrants.
There are some 40 lawsuits pending against the telecoms companies for their illegal cooperation with the government and allowing the en masse warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens.
Retroactive grants of immunity to those telecoms companies that went along with the warrant-less wiretapping would render these suits moot, prevent the populace from knowing the full details of the telecoms companies actions in this matter, preclude the courts from ruling on the legality or lack thereof, of the actions of the administration and the telecoms companies.
Let the regular courts, not secret ones such as FISA courts, decide whether the cooperating telecoms companies acted in good faith, even if outside the law, in complying with the administration's blandishments.
Your Senate colleagues on the Judiciary Committee proposed an alternate bill that did not include retroactive immunity for the telecoms companies. The Democratic leadership of the Senate chose to introduce the flawed alternative from the Senate Intelligence Committee instead.
Your Senate colleague Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) publicly vowed to filibuster any FISA amendment that included retroactive immunity to the telecoms companies.
By voting for cloture, you not only chose to end debate on the bill, but you also chose to preclude this.

Now to the arguments you make in favor of your actions.

“The legislation to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) ... was written by the Senate Intelligence Committee and approved by a vote of 13-2, would provide immunity for such companies ...”.
Alternate legislation that did not include immunity was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Strangely enough you are a member of that Committee as well.
“.. the Executive branch provided letters ... directed or requested assistance and noted that the assistance was ... legal.”
As I have noted, the telecoms companies have large legal departments and can and do avail themselves of the best legal advice. Since when have “Executive branch” “assurances” served as an adequate substitute for judicial warrants? Obviously Qwest for one did not believe that the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment, or the rule of law had been suspended.
“I offered an amendment on the Senate floor that would limit this grant of immunity .. [by secret FISA courts to] assistance [that] met legal requirements, or that a company had a good faith, reasonable belief that the assistance was legal.”
The regular, non-secret courts can already take such considerations into account. Why not let these courts decide whether the telecoms companies acted reasonably and in good faith in acting on the basis of “Executive branch .. assurance[s]” rather than court-issued warrants?

Lies, Damned Lies, and Clinton-Speak

2008-02-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Clinton assures us that when she voted for the "Authorization to Use Military Force" (AUMF) against Iraq, she didn't think Dubya would use it to actually go to war! The double-speak must be family trait: this is cut from the same whole cloth as the "I didn't inhale" line from Mr. Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton and the other Democrats who voted for the AUMF did so for reasons of personal political gain. They didn't want to be on the losing side of what they anticipated would be a triumphant exercise of American military firepower.

So now that the execution of the unjustified and indefensible war in Iraq has been botched completely, Mrs. Clinton would have us believe that she was against the war from the git go. And only voted for the AUMF as a threat against Saddam Hussein. This might ring true, were it not that there was at least a minority in Congress in both the Senate and the House who expressed grave doubts on the administration's bogus arguments and shoddy intelligence from the very beginning. I am extremely proud of my own U.S. Representative, Ms. Barbara Lee for voting against the war on Iraq. Perhaps even more telling, a good 20% of the unwashed citizenry didn't buy the Bush administration's sales pitch in the lead up to the Iraq war.

Senator Dianne Feinstein: The Senior Quisling from California

2008-02-15T13:23:00.001-08:00

California's Senior Quisling in the Senate continues to attempt to hoodwink her constituents.

On February 12, 2008 there were 2 votes in the Senate regarding FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). The first was to cut off debate regarding amendments to FISA, the most contentious provision being the granting of retroactive immunity to telecoms companies such as AT&T that participated in the warrant-less, illegal wiretapping of American citizens. The second vote was on the passage of the amending bill itself.

Quisling Feinstein voted to close debate on the amendment (see ) and then proceeded to vote against the amendment itself (see http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00020).

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) had vowed to filibuster the amendment. Quisling Feinstein's vote along with that of 9 others eliminated the possibility of Sen. Dodd (D-CT) or any other principled Democrats in the Senate such as Sen. Feingold (D-WI) from filibustering the bill.

Quisling Feinstein is now trumpeting and will no doubt continue to trumpet her Nay vote against the bill itself, which nevertheless passed 68 to 23 while hiding her traitorous vote to close the debate on the bill and preclude principled opponents who are serious about the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment from filibustering this bad bill.

The Great White Hope and Other Metaphors

2008-01-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama offers many white Democratic primary voters a chance to feel good. First off, here they are, voting for a Black! What better proof that they harbor no racist feelings? It helps that Mr. Obama is a tabula rasa onto which they can inscribe any of their other prejudices. Mr. Obama is for "change", whatever that might be! Nothing very different from the status quo if one is to go by Mr.Obama's short record in the Senate. And if one is to go by Mr. Obama's words on the campaign trail, he is the Rodney King of politics with a plaintive cry of "Why can't we all just get along?" Mr. Obama's solution to the perceived political gridlock in Washington is to sit down with the other side and reach a compromise. There isn't enough gridlock on important issues such as the Patriot Act, confirming reactionary Supreme Court Justices, poor Attorney Generals who won't take a public stance on torture, and the list goes on. Compromise is the only solution? Mr. Obama's kind of compromise is collaboration by a different name. Whatever happened to the other obvious solutions to Congressional gridlock? Such as electing a Democrat majority?

Presidential Candidates and Israel: All Bought and Paid For

2008-01-14T19:04:00.000-08:00

In case you are hoping to hear a rational voice on U.S. policy toward Israel from the next U.S. administration, abandon all hope now. The candidates who stand any realistic chance of being the nominee of their party have been bought already by the Israel-Zionist lobby. Most disappointing, personally, was John Edwards' kow-tow-ing on a visit to Israel.

Why Dianne Feinstein Must Go

2007-12-14T12:10:00.001-08:00

California's senior Senator, Quisling Dianne Feinstein continues to commit crimes against the Republic and reason.

Voted for the war on Iraq
Voted in committee for FISA amendment to grant retroactive immunity to telecoms companies
Voted for this in the Senate Intelligence (!) Committee and then voted to end debate on the amendment foreclosing promised filibusters by more principled Democrats.
Voted to confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General
Mr. Mukasey wouldn't provide a straight answer on water-boarding then (or even now)! Quisling Feinstein justified her vote for Mr. Mukasey on the grounds that any other nominee might be even worse.
Voted to confirm Condoleeza Rice as Sec. of State
This despite Ms. Rice's dismal performance as Director of the NSA in the previous 4-years. Ms. Feinstein justified her vote for the incompetent Ms. Rice on the grounds of personal acquaintance with Ms. Rice.
Voted to confirm Michael Hayden as Director of the CIA
This despite Mr. Hayden having previously architected, implemented, and run the program for NSA's illegal wire-tapping of American citizens.

These are only a few of the many reasons Quisling Feinstein must go.

Color Me Israeli? Boycott the University I Run?

2007-12-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

Recently the UK Union of Universities and Colleges (UCU) undertook to discuss the introduction of a motion to boycott Israeli universities.

If you are among the select few Americans who have even heard of the UCU or about its discussing a potential boycott motion, you might have shrugged and immediately forgotten about it. After all, the UCU is a UK union. The UCU is only discussing possibly introducing such a motion. No such motion has been tabled, voted on, or passed by the UCU. No university or academic has been boycotted or even threatened with boycott on the basis of the UCU's actions thus far. No US university or academic union is considering even discussion of a boycott in solidarity with the UCU's discussion.

Nonetheless some US university administrators are apparently much exercised about the UCU even discussing a proposed boycott. Scholars for Peace in the Middle-East (SPME) organized a petition against the UCU's actions, signed by a number of Nobel laureates and university presidents. The American Jewish Committee (AJC) organized around a statement by President Lee Bollinger of Columbia and took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times (Aug. 08, 2007, pp. A13). The AJC advertisement was endorsed by, in its own words, “college and university presidents and chancellors, and applied to their own campuses" (emphasis mine). Bollinger's statement calls for a boycott of Columbia University by those who disagreed with him.

Bollinger and administrators of other private universities may have the freedom to engage in prior restraint of free speech on their campuses, to misuse the imprimatur of their university, to pass off as university policy their personal opinions, to neglect their fiduciary responsibility to their university by calling for it to be boycotted. Public university administrators do not enjoy such expansive freedoms. In the case of the University of California (UC), Chancellors who endorsed the AJC advertisement are in violation of CA state law as well as UC regulations. For example, under CA Education Code Section 92000(a)(3), UC administrators are explicitly prohibited by law from using the UC name to act for or against any boycott, without prior permission of the UC Regents. No such permission appears to have been sought by any of the endorsing UC Chancellors, and I can state this definitively in respect of the Chancellors of UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego, on the basis of the official response of their campuses to a CA Public Records Act (CPRA) request).

Bollinger's febrile imagination produces such purple and overwrought prose as “Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours Too!” Bollinger is “profoundly disturbed” by the UCU acting to “advance” (in reality the UCU is only discussing the possible introduction of such a motion!) “a boycott against Israeli academic institutions”. And stepping off the edge altogether, Bollinger calls for a boycott of Columbia University, writing: “if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish.” So we don't lose sight of reality, as Bollinger appears to have, it is worth reiterating that the “misguided [UCU] policy” Bollinger rails against is a move by the UCU to discuss whether or not to introduce a motion to boycott Israeli universities. For reasons unclear from his arguments, Bollinger rants on about the UCU's actions being “intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.” The irony of muzzling the free speech rights of those who disagree with him on the basis of “the central mission of higher education” escapes Bollinger. One believes that questioning received wisdom, including Bollinger's, is central to the mission of all education. And surely discussing whether Israeli universities ought to be boycotted is well within the mission of higher education.

University of California at Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau not only signed on to Bollinger's statement, he went on to “organize an initiative” to round up other university presidents and chancellors to endorse Bollinger's statements via the AJC advertisement.
The AJC advertisement states that “This statement has been endorsed by the following college and university presidents and chancellors, and applied to their own campuses". Is there to be a loyalty oath for all students, faculty, and staff at the listed universities affirming this piece of righthink? Are those who disagree and insist on thinking otherwise to be prosecuted on charges of thoughtcrime?

The following University of California Chancellors took it on themselves to endorse he AJC ad, without seeking the permission of the UC Regents or the guidance of the UC Office of General Counsel:

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau
UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake
UC Los Angeles Chancellor Norman Abrams
UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox

Given that the UCU is only discussing the introduction of a motion to boycott Israeli universities, Bollinger's cries and that of his endorsers that “The end is nigh, but we have a plan! Boycott the universities we run.” is at the least extremely premature. And what do Mr. Bollinger and his endorsers make of Ilan Pappe, respected Israeli academic and historian who has publicly stated his support of a boycott of Israeli universities? Or of Haaretz commentator Benny Tziper who suggests that as a result of a boycott “finally some of our arrogant professors will start to feel a tiny drop of the feelings of Palestinian professors whose academic freedom is routinely crushed under the force of Israeli occupation”?

Stamps that Might Have Been

2006-04-22T09:36:00.000-07:00

The USPS now lets you make custom stamps.

The idea seems to have been that you'd immortalize yourself or your own ugly baby (a face that only a mother could love!) or your dog. Of course, things turned out differently.

During a trial run by Stamps.com last year, The Smoking Gun managed to order stamps with the likenesses of Ted Kaczynski, the Rosenbergs, Slobodan Milosevic, Jimmy Hoffa, and others from the Book of Infamy. You can find these here. The Smoking Gun's point was that "Nobody's dog deserves to be on a stamp."

After the trial, the USPS authorized three private companies to print "custom stamps":

To prevent any more Kaczynski/Milosevic/Hoffa fiascos, these companies have adopted policies on the images and words that may appear on your custom stamp. Zazzle, for example, disallows the likeness or even the name of any world leader, past or present. After you create and order your stamps, each company's Censorship Police steps in to vet them and your order will be cancelled if they disagree with the content. The "Terms & Conditions" of these companies are vague: they forbid "vulgar"-ity, whatever that is!Vanity or free-speech via custom postage doesn't come cheap: a 39cent stamp ends up costing almost $1, after including taxes and shipping & handling (and, no doubt, goes to pay for the Censorship Police as well).
I was very attracted by the idea of getting postage with subversive messages made and decided to give Zazzle a try. Herewith are some my custom stamps that were rejected. The images are also available here. All of the images are from art by Doug Minkler. You can find an extensive collection of digital images of his art on his website.

Un-Holy Trinity

Cut and Run

Caught Red-handed: MoveOn.org's TV spot

2006-04-06T03:59:00.000-07:00

MoveOn.org's recently ran a set of TV spots titled "Caught Red Handed". The spots are basically the same except for substituting one or the other Republican as the target. The selected Republican is stated to have accepted specific, large contributions from oil companies and then to have "voted against bills that would have penalized those companies for price-gouging". It goes on to say "Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff. And now [insert Republican target here]. Another Republican caught red-handed."

I have no affection for Tom DeLay. I greeted his indictment and now his departure from Congress with as much glee as the most partisan Democrat. DeLay has been indicted for shenanagins regarding laundering campaign contributions, but he's not gotten to trial or been found guilty. Yet.

Dick Cheney: I'd celebrate were he to be indicted for any crime, or (one can hope!) were he to be impeached. MoveOn.org's inclusion of Cheney appears to be based on the secretive Energy Task Force he chaired and his continued ties to Halliburton in that he is alleged to still have stock options and deferred salary with them.

Abramoff was indicted, has pleaded guilty, will be sentenced soon, and presumbaly shipped off to some Federal penitentiary for white-collar criminals soon.

MoveOn.org's putting these guys together somehow doesn't seem right. An attempt at "guilt by juxtaposition" that seems entirely reprehensible.

If the point is that politicians have been corrupted by lobbyists, who declared the Democrats innocent? Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is also reported to be one of the benificiaries of Mr. Abramoff's largesse. As is Sen. Byran Dorgan (D-ND). And how about all the Democrats in Congress who have accepted money from oil companies and voted pretty much the same way as the Republican's MoveOn.org has selected?

I'd respect MoveOn.org and support it financially if it went after political corruption on a non-partisan basis. I understand that MoveOn.org is a partisan pro-Democratic organization. But why does that bar them from trying to clean up the Democrats Augean stables?

Republican Fifth Column

2006-04-06T01:21:00.001-07:00

On Mar. 12, 2006 Senator Russel Feingold (D-WI) announced that he planned to introduce a motion to censure the President for the illegal, warantless wiretapping of American citizens. Feingold's press release and fact sheet on the motion is available here; the full text of the motion is here. On Mar. 31, 2006 the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the motion. The only Democrats to show up for the hearing were Feingold and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-V T). The courageous Democrats who absented themselves:
Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): Our own Spineless One
Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Joseph Biden (D-DE)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)

Other members of the Fifth Column include:
Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN): quoted in Bloomberg as saying "premature, and over- reaching, which often involves losing more than gaining", and in an AP story "It's an overreaching step by someone who is grandstanding and running for president at the expense of his own party and his own country".

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT): (also quoted in Bloomberg) said "I'd prefer to spend our time figuring out ways to bring this very important program of surveillance of potential terrorists here in the United States under the law", which would seem to concede Feingold's point that the program is illegal.

Those Republicans working to usher in the Imperial Presidency are no doubt heartened to know that, as the Republic is gutted, the above mentioned at least will not be standing in their way with arcane objections involving the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, or the limits of executive power.

There are probably quite a few other Democratic quislings who deserve to be on the list above.