Friday, February 28, 2003
February 25th, Ari Fleischer was laughed out of the press room when he earnestly asserted that the U.S. could not buy votes from foreign powers on the Iraq. “You saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable! That’s not an acceptable proposition.” The press corps erupts with laughter, Ari makes a hasty exit, and C-SPAN just can’t believe its good fortune.
Friday, February 28, 2003
The start up of the Homeland Security department is threatening to become one of those stories that just seems to never really happen, but keeps appearing in the news over and over and over again.
Today there are wire stories about the department’s first day. Didn’t we already have that? I’m so disinterested in this department I’m too lazy to go check what all that fuss was about a week or so ago.
This is like the story “Human Genome Mapped” that kept infecting newspapers. When it really happens, lemme know.
For Homeland Security it’s even worse becuase the whole department seems to be an intellectual abstraction anyway.
Homeland Security Dept. Marks First Day
By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON – President Bush (news – web sites) promised a “united defense of our homeland” Friday in marking the launch of the department created to answer the danger of terrorism.
The Homeland Security Department combines the forces of 22 agencies and 170,000 workers who patrol America’s borders, secure computer networks, check for contamination of crops and otherwise help guard against terrorism. Saturday is its first full day of work.
Friday, February 28, 2003
This is equal parts alarmist speculation and anonymous sources. That said:
When Reagan was considering an invasion of Nicaragua (you remember that, right?) he supposedly signed an executive order providing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) broad powers to control “violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a US military invasion abroad.” That’s chilling enough, but it gets much, much worse.Oliver North was in charge of organizing martial law plans from 1982 to 1984, and his work was revealed during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings. The Miami Herald picked this up on July 5th of that year, saying that the plans were a reworking of previous plans to fight “a national uprising by black militants” by detaining “at least 21 million American Negroes”‘ in “assembly centres or relocation camps”. But that was Reagan, and ancient history? Wait, there’s more.
This reworked draft was the job of then-Deputy Directory of FEMA, John Brinkerhoff. Brinkerhoff is currently busy at the Anser Institute for Homeland Security, questioning the legality and interpretation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. You’ll remember this as the law that forbids deploying the US military against its own citizens.
Continue reading... (360 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)
Thursday, February 27, 2003
HR 534 or Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003 bans all forms of cloning — even creating clusters of cells or an embryo for stem cell research. You don’t even have to be successful — just trying to create a clone would be a felony. What if another country breaks the technology first? Don’t even think about it. The 10 year / $1M fine applies to the import and export of clone material or anything derived from clone material. It passed through the House, 241 to 155. Kudos to the Clerk of the House for being Johnny-on-the-spot with the roll call.
The debate is this: if you leave cloned cells alone, they die. If you put them in a womb, they grow into a baby. Even if they don’t grow into babies, they can be used in stem cell research, which promises to give us an unprecedented ability to mess with the human body — like grow new organs. Interestingly, this isn’t a subphylum of the abortion issue. You’ll find abortion opponents for theraputic cloning, and vice versa.
HR 801, an alternative bill, would prohibit only the baby-making part, but ups the fines to $10 million.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
You have probably never heard of Robert Shrum. He’s the most sought-after Democratic strategist right now, and today we find out that he’s signed on with Kerry. ABC’s The Note refers to this as winning “the Shrummy” or the “Shrum Primary.” Last year, Joel Klein wrote a piece prophesying the importance. Why the excitement?First, there’s a soap opera quality to the choice, since Shrum is friendly with everyone in the field. He’s worked for Gephardt, Edwards and Kerry. “He has close personal relationships with a lot of people involved in this process… And it is very difficult to sort that out, and deal with the very high profile atmospherics of all this. There are friendships and relationships at stake here, and he takes that very seriously,” a close friend of Shrum told The Note.
Second, Shrum has a Kennedy fetish. He’s famous for his “I’m On Your Side” message — but lately he’s veered towards what Joe Klein calls “an aggressive, pessimistic, and unsubtle strain of economic populism.” We can expect him to work hard on Kerry’s charisma deficit, which is seen as the biggest weakness. In so doing, Shrum will change Kerry’s formula, which he’s used successfully thus far. It’s also possible that Kerry can’t be molded in the Shrum image.
Continue reading... (270 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Just so it’s all in one place.
In October 2001, the lab received unauthorized shipments of anthrax.
In August 2002, two Los Alamos employees are put on administrative leave for abusing expense accounts. The lab says they took $2,500. A watchdog group says it’s more like $900,000.
From July 2001 to October 2002, two more employees pilfer TV monitors, CB radios, GPS navigators, picnic table, gas grill, lawn chair and dozens of hunting knives they bought through the lab. That got the attention of the Albequerque DA.
Finally, in January 2003, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham made sure that John Brown, director of Los Alamos, stepped down. He was replaced by Navy Vice Admiral Pete Nanos.
Two weeks later, investigators hired by the University of California (which operates the lab for the government) were fired, probably because they talked with outside investigators about $2.7 million in pilfered items and expense abuses.
LANL promptly lost a laptop containing designs for nuclear weapons.
Joke’s on LANL: the two investigators have since been called back.
Is that everything?
Today, Congress starts hearings on this debacle. Watch it at work!
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
In further proof that statistics don’t mean a thing without context, University of Michigan Health System released a study indicating that the common cold costs the US economy $40 billion a year.
http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=5512
http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2003/cold.htmFirst of all, a philosophical disagreement, then on to the real stuff. What does the cost to the economy matter? The economy is just an indicator of health of industries and employment, not an entity unto itself.
Ok, next. According to the articles, the $40 billion was broken down like this:
$2.9 billion on over-the-counter drugs (a)
$0.4 billion on perscription medication to treat symptoms (b)
$1.1 billion on antibotics (c)
$7.7 billion on doctor’s visits (d)
$20 billion on missed work days (e)
The problems with this breakdown is that the report is adding up all numbers involved, and makes no indication of actual cost to the economy vs. economic gain. For example, a+b+c+d are all injections into the economy and (e) is already built into industry personnel budgets , as well, sick days. This is not an extra cost. Further, a+b+c+d+e = $32.1 billion. And, I guess the other $7.9 billion in a rounding error.
Net cost of colds to the economy: 1 meaningless report.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Los Alamos National Laboratory is in trouble again. The world’s most important nuclear research facility, and birthplace of the atom bomb, was broken into — not by a crack team of commandos, but a Wired reporter with a torn Achille’s tendon. Now, in addition to the camping gear bought on their credit card, the LANL has to explain how this reporter was able to enter the “secure” Technical Area 33. They’ll have to think quickly: Congressional hearings on mismanagement at Los Alamos start tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
John B. Judis has a piece in the otherwise infuriating American Prospect in which he reverse-engineers the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy.
I'm the Chief Technology Strategist for the Red Hat US Public Sector group, an open source and free culture advocate, a picky drinker, an amateur aesthete, and a dog enthusiast.
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