Cobb on Politics

12,000 Reasons Why Church and State Must Stay Separate

2009-05-25T10:41:00.006-05:00

12,000 is the number of Catholic church abuse victims in Ireland to whom the Irish government has already paid compensation, even before the latest damning report of systematic beatings and rape revealed last week.

(This Canadian article and this CSN article are just two from hundreds around the world covering this topic. Google News is packed with over 2,000 results on the subject, some of the most gut-wrenching being Letters to the Editor from victims in both England and Ireland.)

12,000 is number of Catholic church abuse victims in Ireland who had to waive their rights to sue the state or church to get that compensation. Well folks, that's what life is like when your country's constitution begins with these words:

"In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred..."

and continues...

"We, the people of Éire, Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ...Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution."

You cannot expect anything other than systematic sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of the citizenry by the clergy when you require all the people who live within your borders to live "under God," and then compound that error by defining god specifically, as in "our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ."

That is not a democracy, that's a theocracy. As such, Ireland gives Jesus Christ's representatives on earth way too much power and influence. It would truly be a miracle if that much power and influence didn't result in boys and girls being raped and beaten by priests on a massive scale while the police and the Department of Educaton just looked the other way.

BTW, I am not making up that "Jesus is our Lord" constitution stuff. Here's a link to the official version of the Irish constitution. Scroll past the amendments to get to the opening lines, bearing in mind that none of the amendments repeal Jesus--who above all people knew he didn't belong there. (Amazingly, there are some Americans who still don't understand why the people who live in the northern part of the island of Ireland don't want to be governed by the Irish constitution.) Go figure!
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Value of 2008 Bush Bailouts Exceeds Combined Costs of All Major U.S. Wars

2008-12-21T10:43:00.000-05:00

"According to Bloomberg, the federal government has made commitments worth a total of $8.5 trillion in the bailouts of 2008. That includes actual expenditures as well as loan and asset guarantees."

CNSNews.com - Value of 2008 Bailouts Exceeds Combined Costs of All Major U.S. Wars

Beyond the Bailout: Executive pay and corporate welfar

2008-12-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

"Are limits on executive compensation for banks that accept federal funds just the first wave in a future sea of pay measures?"

Beyond the Bailout - CFO Magazine - December 2008 Issue - CFO.com:

Great to see CFO Magazine address exec pay in post-bailout terms. My own "excessive executive pay" theory is that lack of social welfare is a major driver. That's right, corporate executives know just how much money it takes to protect oneself and one's family from all eventualities in the world today. CEOs feel that amassing huge amounts of money is the only way to make sure they and their loved ones don't end up in the gutter.

As our country proceeds to plow billions of corporate welfare dollars into companies whose demise was caused by CEOs and other executives pursuing paycheck maximization at all costs, it behooves us to ponder where all this comes from, what's the driver?

Ironically, the driver is, IMHO, the lack of social welfare in the U.S. For too many Americans their country's social safety net is a nightmare scenario. What awaits the average working American who loses job, house, health, savings? It's a jobless, homeless, life-threatening, shaming and demoralizingly hopeless mess.

How much money do you need to steer clear of this, to rule it out of future? A million dollars? Two million dollars? Noooo. You need way more than that. Tens of millions more. The reality is, and this reality has recently been underlined, you just "need" one real estate market reversal and/or stock market correction and you can kiss your millions goodbye.

And when your net worth drops below seven figures you are one diagnosis, one car crash, away from bankruptcy. With the "right" combination of circumstances your future can quickly shift to one of coupon-clipping, paycheck-to-paycheck, rent's due, viewless living, with zero vacations and a daily grind that extends all the way into old age.

So Looking Forward to 1/20/09!

2008-11-15T09:24:00.003-05:00

You don't have to know me well to know that I am very happy with the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Heck, I've been wearing my support on my head and my Jeep for all to see. Even on my tractor.

So here's how I see things: We have an energetic president elect who is unlikely to match George Bush's record for vacation days, we have a president elect who will inherit America's worst economy in a lifetime, the worst international reputation ever, and will likely face outright rejection by the unrepentant heart of the Republican party, the folks who drove us headlong into this mess. It's going to be an interesting ride.

An Interesting Lesson in Economics and De-regulation

2008-10-07T15:47:00.003-05:00

As a big believer in trying to learn the lessons of the past, I found this short film (less than 15 minutes) to be very instructive, particularly if you are interested in the effects of banking deregulation (about which you will find some straight talk here). You can also watch a trailer for the video right here:

We're Ba-a-a-ack: And we're looking for our bailout

2008-10-05T08:18:00.001-05:00

After spending more than a year on hiatus (which is an entirely legal thing to do despite the slightly pharmaceutical sound of it) this blog may be coming back. Times are tough and we need as many Google Adword click-thrus from blog pages as we can get. Otherwise the bank is gonna own our ass-ets.

But blogging politics is problematic these days. There are so many blogs out there that a lot of them have a readership of 2 or less. So am I willing to wager my time on the possibility that nobody will read what I write? Unlike maverick candidate McCain, I'm not a betting man.

So I will follow the statistics and see if anyone stops by to read this page. If people read, I will write. In the meantime, here are some posts I have placed eslewhere on the Internet.

And finally, here's a link to some light reading (as in "when I read it I feel light-headed") namely the final version of the $700 billion bankers' bail out bill. I was disappointed to find that no funds had been earmarked to pay off my mortgage, but hey, what was I thinking? I don't work for Goldman, Sachs, Pillages, and Burns.

1-20-09 License Plate Says It All

2007-08-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

January 20, 2009 is the last day that President Bush will be in office (barring any sweeping changes to, or suspension of, the Constitution).

I have it on a license plate on the front on my ride. A great parking lot conversation starter.

Q. "What's that mean on your license plate?"
A. "That's Bush's last day in office."

What happens next is interesting. Most often the person says something like "Can't come quick enough." So if you happen to think Bush is one of the worst American presidents ever, you have found a kindred spirit, without having to nail your colors to the mast. After all, if the person says "I'll be so sad to see him go" you can react accordingly.

Ding Dong Gonzales is Gone: But Bush continues to insult his critics

2007-08-27T11:42:00.000-05:00

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned. But President Mr Bush apparently thinks there was no reason for him to do so, saying Gonzales had been subjected to "months of unfair treatment" and that "his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."

So Bush thinks that objecting to an AG who tries to strong-arm people who are in intensive care is unfair and political. Funny, it struck me as all about fairness and thus the opposite of political. I mean, Gonzales made me feel sorry for Ashcroft, a guy for whom I previously had little respect.

As reported by the Washington Post: "On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit...White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. [went] to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal...Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought."

I would say I am delighted that Gonzales is gone, but Bush is still there. He has the power to say who the next AG will be. After Ashcroft, a guy who lost a senate race to a dead man, Bush gave us Gonzales, who was so bad a lawyering I wouldn't have him defend me pro bono on a parking ticket. I dread to think who the next Bush AG will be.
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Islamic Terrorism: The view from Scotland

2007-07-03T14:08:00.000-05:00

The closer you are to acts of terror the more you tend to think about them. That can produce some useful insights. I happened to be in London in October 1992, standing a few hundred yards from where an IRA bomb went off in the Sussex Arms pub, with deadly consequences. That made me think very seriously about terrorism. For example, I like to point out to my fellow Americans that Britain never defeated the IRA, it was forced to craft a political solution.

Fast forward to July, 2007. My wife and I are in Scotland for a few days of rest and relaxation, just as the Scottish parliament opens and a Scot, Gordon Brown, takes over as prime minister of Great Britain from the very English Tony Blair. Then a Muslim man, who is not from England or Scotland, drives a Jeep full of explosive materials into Glasgow airport. Here are some observations:

1. The airport was re-opened less than 24 hours after the attack, a very British response to terrorists: Don't let them change your way of life.

2. Within 2 days of the attack some Scottish Nationalist politicians were publicly speculating as to whether Scotland would be safer if it seceded from the rest of Britain (the SNP has historically opposed the war).

3. In Gordon Brown's first speech to parliament he suggested a change to the British constitution that would shift power to declare war [or not] to parliament. Such a change could have prevented Blair from going to war in Iraq [given that 80% of the British population were opposed to that war].

No wonder Bush looked so sad to see Blair go. It is clear that a lot of people in the UK think the terrorist acts committed by Muslims in the UK are a result of the UK's support of the Iraq war. In other words, they see a connection between acts of terrorism and the acts of other players on the global stage.

Of course, Bush might be consoled by the fact that Tony Blair's wife is no longer "the wife of the Prime Minister." Cherie Blair has frequently been at odds with the official Bush/Blaire doctrine, for example:

The prime minister's wife, Cherie Blair, was last night forced to apologise after she acknowledged that Palestinian suicide bombers may be driven by a lack of hope about their future. On a personal appearance with Queen Rania of Jordon, Mrs Blair told reporters: "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress." Guardian, June 19, 2002

and

Cherie Blair has criticised the policies of the US President George W Bush, attacking his stance on terrorist prisoners and gay rights. Scotsman, October 31, 2004

Army Gets Big Boost in Safer Vehicles: Too much, too late

2007-07-03T06:34:00.000-05:00

The US Army is placing rush orders for up to seven times more specially designed armored vehicles to help protect troops in Iraq in a move that could cost more than $20 billion. The vehicles are MRAPs, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.

The decision to order up to 17,770 MRAPs for the Army comes as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made the vehicle the Pentagon's top priority. "The MRAP's V-shaped hull and raised chassis are up to four times safer against the top threat to U.S. troops in Iraq — improvised explosive devices, or IEDs."

How could any true patriot argue dispute the virtue of the Army getting a big boost in safer vehicles? Well, consider:

1. By the time the vehicles are built and deployed in Iraq, America might not be in Iraq.

2. The MRAPs will only escalate the conflict (they are already vulnerable to newer devices being deployed against them).

3. You cannot defeat terrorists by upping the weaponry.

4. You cannot solve a problem today by spending today. The time to provide these vehicles was 2003 when we sent in the troops. Or 2005 when they were urgently requested.

Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that our armed forces should get the best possible equipment to do their dangerous jobs as safely as possible. But it is a bit late for that in Iraq. The whole invasion was a blunder and surely the best course of action now is to retreat and conserve resources, physical and fiscal.
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Charge Bush With Contempt? Go Leahy

2007-07-02T15:56:00.000-05:00

Senator Leahy, not exactly a political hot-head, said on Sunday that he may seek a charge of contempt against President Bush. The contempt charge could come into play if the White House continues to withhold documents pertaining to the firing of US attorneys. Read on in the article and you see that contempt could also be in the cards with respect to the domestic eavesdropping program run by the National Security Agency.

Pulling Back the Curtain on Cheney: Not a pretty sight

2007-07-02T13:42:00.000-05:00

Fine Concord Monitor article pulls back the curtain on Cheney. Pulls together a lot of emerging themes, like John Ashcroft actually being a good guy relative to Cheney. Documents what has to be the most "un-open" administration in US history. To follow a thread from my previous post about emails, this administration seems to have flaunted the law like no other:

"Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC email accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved and the large quantity of missing emails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive." -- Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the US Congress

Storm Over Missing White House Email: But will anyone be held accountable

2007-06-23T14:51:00.000-05:00

A White House spokesman had stated that only a handful of people were using Republican Party email accounts to conduct government business, but the number has now risen to 88.

Over 50 [of these 88] have no email records at all and there are only 130 emails from Karl Rove during President Bush's first term and none before November 2003 [even though] the Presidential Records Act requires the recording of any communication used in governing [but Bush White House] officials bypassed this by using email accounts set up and run by the Republican Party.

So much for an "open society" any time soon.

China Sentences Former Drug Regulator to Death: Accountability indeed

2007-05-29T14:59:00.000-05:00

China’s former top drug regulator has been sentenced to death for taking bribes to approve untested medicines. This was announced as the country’s main quality control agency started its first recall system targeting unsafe food products.

One can't help but wonder if there is something America can learn here about accountability. We see Bush appointees departng office, after making dismal and disastrous decisions, loaded with medals on their chests and cheered by pats on their backs. In contrast, the Chinese are executing a public official for taking bribes. A meaner spirited person than I might be tempted to wonder just how many people would be left alive in the White House if we applied the same rule here.

Pew Survey Finds Most Knowledgeable Americans Watch 'Daily Show' and 'Colbert'

2007-05-24T21:12:00.000-05:00

Yes! I am officially a "most knowledgeable American" according to a Pew Survey. And you know dem Pew guys is smart.

Carter Calls Bush Worst in History: What's wrong with that?

2007-05-21T09:14:00.000-05:00

So, former President Carter was quoted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as saying the Bush administration "has been the worst in history." Fair enough. It is an opinion that I happen to share. But the Bush White House, still determined to undermine the cornerstone of the open society, namely criticism, expressed outrage and called Carter "increasingly irrelevant." Yeah right. The opinion of a former President and Nobel Prize winner is irrelevant. Sadly, Carter felt he had to back-pedal as reported in this story.

Personally, I don't hold with this whole "past presidents don't criticize sitting presidents" thing. After all, Reagan saw fit to criticize Clinton and took several "cheap" shots (remember "I may not be a Rhodes scholar but..."). Consider this:

Eisenhower was critical of John F. Kennedy's domestic policies, the first President Bush pounded on Bill Clinton, now his pal, for his Haiti policy, and Nixon chided the first President Bush (for comparing himself to Harry Truman in his 1992 re-election campaign). Theodore Roosevelt was brutal in his assaults on Taft and Woodrow Wilson. Media Matters

Media Matters - ABC, CBS still have not reported on Comey's revelation of wiretapping "hospital drama"

2007-05-20T18:39:00.000-05:00

An interesting media watch-dog site reports that ABC and CBS still have not reported on Comey's revelation of wiretapping "hospital drama. This is the bizarre-but-true story of how, in 2004, White House counsel [now Attorney General] Alberto R. Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card

attempted to pressure then-Attorney General John Ashcroft "at his [hospital] bedside" to approve an extension of the secret NSA warrant-less eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department objections.

I would never have thought I could feel sympathy for John Ashcroft, but it just shows how a really bad job performance [Gonzales as AG] can make a mediocre job performance [Ashcroft as AG] look positively stellar by comparison.

The Comey referred to above is James Comey, who was then the number-two man at the Justice Department but temporarily in charge because his boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, was seriously ill, hospitalized with pancreas trouble. According to Brian Williams reporting for NBC, Comey was on the way home from work when he got an urgent call and sped to the hospital...

"...he ran up the stairs hoping to get there before Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel, and Andy Card, White House chief of staff. He [Comey] says when they arrived, they tried to get Ashcroft's approval for an extension of the eavesdroping program despite strong Justice Department objections. He [Comey] says Ashcroft lifted his head off the pillow and adamantly refused to sign. "

I would love to know with what exact words Ashcroft "adamantly refused." I'm hoping it was something like "Heck no!" or "Over my dead body!"

Was it Gonzales' willingness to sink this low that got him Ashcroft's job?

Mitt Romney Wants To Re-Tool Washington

2007-05-16T14:28:00.000-05:00

Apparently Mitt Romney Wants To Re-Tool Washington, according to a Mike Wallace interview with the contender for the GOP presidential nomination. (That page also has links to several video interviews with Romney).

Now, a lot of people would agree that DC needs a good re-tooling. But I don't think Romney is the person to do it. It's not just that I rarely vote Republican and has nothing to do with the fact that he is a Mormon (dare I say "some of my best friends are Mormons"?). And I don't have a problem with politicians changing their stand on issues. How else are we going to get change? If we insist that every politician who changes his or her mind be discarded because of it, we are not going to have a democracy for very long. A free and open society must leave room for criticism and change. I just happen to disagree with him. Consider:

"Among the things he wants to do as president is increase U.S. troop strength overall by at least 100,000 and modernize military equipment."

We need less military, not more. We have more better equipment than any other standing army of comparable size. We just use the stuff wrong. No equipment overhaul or troop increase is going to put a stop to terrorism. You defeat terrorism with humint and diplomacy. Not laser guided bullets.

"He wants to secure the Mexican border and decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil."

Well actually you can't secure the Mexican border (or the Canadian). Immigration is a problem best solved with economic policy not unworkable gestures like fences. But besides that, no politician is actually against securing the border, so you are hardly standing out by saying that. And most people on the planet want America to decrease its dependence on foreign oil. It is a position so obvious that it wins Romney no points with me.

"He’s against gay marriage and civil unions..."

Sorry, a politician holding that view has to be very special in every other department before they get my vote.

"...and says that he'll hold the line on taxes."

That strikes me as code for leaving in place the tax breaks for big business and the super-rich. Not something I agree with. Some of those businesses are oil companies--whose interests are not the same as those of the American people. It is we the people who will win the energy war, not politicians or oil companies.

Religious Groups Granted Millions for Pet Projects

2007-05-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

An interesting story about how churches are employing lobbyists in DC to obtain "ear-marked" appropriations appeared in the New York Times but alas won't be freely readable for long due to the new archive policy.

Blair to Leave in June: Too late for some

2007-05-11T14:26:00.000-05:00

According to the BBC Blair will stand down on 27 June. Here's what Socialism's greatest traitor had to say:

"I came into office with high hopes for Britain's future, and, you know, I leave it with even higher hopes for Britain's future."

Yeah, right. Off to a cushy overpaid consulting job, no doubt. Leaving Gordon Brown to deal with the aftermath of the worst foreign policy blunder in modern British history: Defying the will of the British people and dragging the country into Iraq, thereby pissing off a. 80 percent of the country, b. a large and growing Muslim population.

Coverage of the Virginia Tech Coverage

2007-05-01T09:15:00.000-05:00

The best political journalism on TV today? The Daily Show. No doubt about it. Doubt it? See Jon Stewart's handling of the coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. I have discussed this elsewhere and I tip my hat to Mr. Stewart for saying what needed to be said.

John Stewart and the 24x7 Multi-channel Mediasphere

2007-04-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

Complain all you like about the shortcomings of today's 24x7 multi-channel mediasphere, nobody can deny there are times when it provides political insights that might have been missed in a less media-centric world.

A good example of this are the Jon Stewart [Daily Show] montages of news clips. He has several standard play books for these. One is the "spin detector" which shows a group of allied politicians and administration officials all using the same word or phrase to affirm or deny something, in other words, reading the party line from a spin doctor's script.

Another effective Stewart tactic is "compile and contrast." Here is a brilliant skewering of a politician with his own words.

You'd have to do some heavy dial spinning of your own to catch all of these clips, but the 24x7 multi-channel mediasphere makes it possible (BTW, it would be interesting to know how many people who watch TV today actually used a dial to change channels on a TV).

When Law and Politics Don't Mix: Weasel words from Gonzales

2007-03-14T10:10:00.000-05:00

Did anyone else see Attorney General Gonzales saying to CNN, in an attempt to brush aside questions about abuse of FBI security letters, that the letters had been around "long before I became AG" ? Then shortly thereafter I see in the Denver Post that use of national security letters has grown exponentially since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "In 2005 alone, the audit found, the FBI issued more than 19,000 such letters, amounting to 47,000 separate requests for information." Here's more about what these letters are:

The letters enable an FBI field office to compel the release of private information without the authority of a grand jury or judge.

The USA Patriot Act, enacted after the 2001 attacks, eliminated the requirement that the FBI show "specific and articulable" reasons to believe that the records it demands belong to a foreign intelligence agent or terrorist.

That law, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed national security letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.

Now the bureau needs only to certify that the records are "sought for" or "relevant to" an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."

Amid some pretty credible claims that these letters are being abused under Gonzales he has the nerve to say they were around long before his watch. A classic case of weasel words.

Oh So Wrong: Palettes of money shipped to Iraq

2007-02-10T17:49:00.001-05:00

Yes folks, those are bricks of US cash stacked on palettes headed to Iraq.

How did Paul Bremer manage to lose $12 billion in cash in Iraq? Well it is doubtful anyone could keep track of cargo planes full of cash. Can you say checkbook, wire transfer, paper trail? No sane or honest government goes to the Federal Reserve Bank and requests 281 million individual bills, mainly $100 bills, packed into bricks worth $400,000 each.

Most Americans make sure they have no more than $50 on cash on their person when they are headed to a rough part of town. There can't be a citizen alive who thinks it makes sense to take 363 tons of cash into a war zone (yes, 792,000 pounds in weight).

And this didn't happen yesterday, this happened years ago. Somehow the Republican congress of 2005-2006 managed to let this slip by without so much as raising an eyebrow. I dread to think what else we will learn in trhe coming months. We already know that hundreds of computers were torched by US contractors because they were "the wrong kind." That practically new semi-trucks were destroyed by contractors just because they lacked oil filters or spare tires. That scores of SUVs were leased at $7,000 per month for contractors, many of whom never drove them. That, that...aaargh! Enough! Why is there not an uprising of fiscal conservatives barricading the Fed and calling for heads to roll!

On National Health Insurance: Political history has much to teach

2007-01-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

As we recover from the shock of President Bush actually finding something worth talking about in his 2007 State of the Union address--health insurance--we would do well to keep some historical perspective. There is a long but very worthwhile article in the New Yorker that I found very helpful. For example, consider this:

In 1945, when President Truman first proposed national health insurance, they [union leaders] cheered. In 1947, when Ford offered its workers a pension, the union voted it down. The labor movement believed that the safest and most efficient way to provide insurance against ill health or old age was to spread the costs and risks of benefits over the biggest and most diverse group possible. Walter Reuther [the national president of the U.A.W at the time]...believed that risk ought to be broadly collectivized. Charlie Wilson [president of G.M.], on the other hand, felt the way the business leaders of Toledo did: that collectivization was a threat to the free market and to the autonomy of business owners. In his view, companies themselves ought to assume the risks of providing insurance.

In a nutshell, that is why America does not have universal health insurance today. And as today's G.M. crumbles under the crushing weight of the burden Wilson took on, losing ground every year to car companies based in countries whose governments provide universal health care, it is instructive to ponder how--albeit with the benefit of hindsight--how wrong Wilson's call was.

Image from coloribus.com.

The Nerve: Bush/Cheney challenge Iraq plan critics

2007-01-14T12:30:00.000-05:00

So Bush challenges Iraq plan critics to come up with a better idea than theirs. Cheney tells Fox News "I have yet to hear a coherent policy out of the Democratic side, with respect to an alternative to what the president's proposed in terms of going forward."

Well, excuse me for asking, but who got us into this mess in the first place? A Republican White House and Congress. Am I the only one who thinks there's a limit to how much help the president should now expect, given that he made Iraq the debacle that it is by ignoring a lot of advice that would, if heeded, have avoided the situation we currently face? Besides, didn't a bipartisan group of experts just offer Bush a seriously considered alternative, which he flatly rejected?

Some Days Daze Me: Bush/Gonzales want my mail/life

2007-01-04T13:35:00.000-05:00

Some days I pick up the newspaper and get dazed by the headlines before I even have a chance to get caffeinated [note to self--drink coffee before looking at newspaper]. The front page of today's Florida Times Union had the following headlines: "Feds want to know where you go online" and "Mail snooping." I am not kidding when I say that I checked the date to see if it had suddenly become April 1. But no, this was either an out-of-season hoax or reality. Yet what sick kind of reality is this? These headlines were not in big print. The big print was reserved for a football game, which is apparently more important to some people than civil liberties. Here's most of the top half of the front page:

So, Attorney General Gonzales "wants your Internet provider to keep track of every web site you visit." And we are told this right after "the most digital holiday season ever." In other words, as the major corporations of our planet urge us to live more and more of our life online, the government wants to know more and more about our lives.

I'm trying not to blow a gasket over Gonzales' position. If you read the article you can tell there is not really a fixed position at which to target one's arguments, which is either tactical brilliance or administrational incompetence. Let me just state what is obvious to most people who have spent more than a few days studying this whole Internet thing, including the ways in which it can be abused: Serious paedophiles are not going to get caught by the Internet strategies Gonzales is proposing. The most serious bad guys have been online since before the Internet. They are adept at anonymizing their online activities.

What is predictable with some certainty--should Gonzales get his way--is a whole heap of misdirected misery for innocent schmucks who happen to check the spelling of paedophilia in Google [as I just did] or take a wrong turn when trying to find toys for boys.

In other words, innocent citizens will have to curb their use of the Internet quite drastically for fear of the SWAT team at the front door scenario. As for First Amendment protected Internet erotica, just stop thinking about it! That will become way too risky. Best just abstain. And don't even think about sublimating those naughty thoughts into steamy letters to your [legal age consenting adult] loved one.

Why? Because, as the tiny sidebar above reeals, our president reserves the right to read our mail in "exigent" circumstances. And of course, we all know what those are, right? No? Well surely that's the point.

They had a phrase for this in the old country (that English-speaking country with a system of government on which upstart America was going to improve). They call it "Defence of the realm." Civil liberties suspended until further notice to serve the interests of the Crown. Meetings banned. Letters intercepted. Property seized. Thumbscrews and hot irons firmly on the table. And the date today is? January 4, 2006. Aaaaargh! It's getting so bad I'm starting to have some sympathy with those who would rather go to the game than bang their heads against this stuff. Go Gators!

Edwards Enters: An electable choice for struggling families?

2006-12-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

John Edwards has entered the race for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. According to the candidate, the top priorities of his presidency would be "guaranteeing health care for every single American" and "ending the shame of poverty." I have to say, those are priorities that appeal to me.

The lack of universal health care is the leading cause of bankruptcies, homelessness, and lawsuits. And poverty, quite frankly--and I don't mean to be glib--is a downer for those of us who are blessed with both a comfortable lifestyle and a conscience. More importantly, poverty is demeaning and disheartening to those who are poor, not to mention an enormous drag on our economy. America's most valuable resource is Americans, and many Americans who live in poverty are denied the opportunity to contribute to society. By our failure to insist that the constantly rising tide of our national prosperity lift all boats, we squander lives that could be a blessing to us all.

So, I am "on message" with the Edwards message. But can he win? I'm not sure he can win the Democratic nomination. But if he does, then I think he can win the presidency. In other words, Edwards is what Hilary and Barack are not: electable. Now it pains me deeply to say this, particularly in the case of Barack Obama because I would happily campaign and vote "Obama for President." He is so much more qualified to be president than, for example, someone like George W. Bush, it is just not funny. But apart from being a liberal, I am also a realist, and realistically America is not ready for a black president. Don't get me wrong, I AM READY for a black president. But there is a whole chunk of America that is not. If you don't believe me then all I can say is that have you not spent enough time in The South.

It's not just that The South would fail to vote for Barack, The South would vote against Barack, vehemently, two or three times in some counties. You'd see good ole boys at the polls who've never even seen a touchscreen before. And there is a parallel with Hilary. I'd be happy to see her in the White House again, but there are enough people vehemently opposed to that happening, it just ain't going to happen.

The problem for the Democrats, and the reason that Edwards might not be their candidate in 2008, is that they tend to run candidates who should be elected, not candidates who can be elected. I can sympathize with this. After all, it should not matter that a candidate is black, but are you going to give Republicans the White House just to prove that point?

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to Barack's campaign, and Hilary's too. But of the three, Edwards is the most electable. And he sure seems to have his heart in the right place.
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War Averted? If only Ford had broken rank

2006-12-28T18:43:00.000-05:00

Oh great. now we find out what Gerald Ford thought about Dubya's neocon foreign policy and going to war in Iraq:

“I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.”

Maybe if he had said that publicly back in early 2003 we wouldn't have gone to war in Iraq. Ford oversaw the end of the last failed US foreign war, he could have prevented the next. There is an interesting perspective on this from a Ford biographer, but I have yet to see a good reason cited for former presidents not criticizing current presidents. As I recall, Reagan criticized Clinton's policies, in speeches and editorials, while Clinton was in office, lobbying against some of them, like cutting funding for star wars.

Government Messing With Science: A to Z Guide to Political Interference

2006-12-27T17:42:00.001-05:00

And I quote:

In recent years, scientists who work for and advise the federal government have seen their work manipulated, suppressed, distorted, while agencies have systematically limited public and policy maker access to critical scientific information. To document this abuse, the Union of Concerned Scientists has created the A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science.

As a taxpayer and a father whose daughter's biology teacher intentionally skipped the chapters on evolution in her high school science textbook, I urge you to check out this illuminating guide.

Technology and Security, Crime and Punishment

2006-12-24T11:16:00.002-05:00

I blogged this over on my computer security blog but it is worth a mention here also. The 25 year-old-kid who breached USC's online student application system in June 2005 and compromised 275,000 records, causing the university to shut down the site for 10 days, got sentenced to 6 months home detention.

Suppose he was a black kid who got pulled over by police who then found one twentieth of an ounce of crack is his pockets. What would the sentence be then? Home detention? Six months in jail? Try 5 years in jail. Mandatory. No discussion. That's the law in this country. It helps explain why 25% of all the world's prisoners are in America's jails.

Was the hacker let off lightly? I think so. What do you think? And do you think it is just to impose 5 years for less than .20 of an ounce of crack? If you're tempted to answer in the affirmative, I suggest you first spend some time with families whose loved ones are serving mandatory sentences for non-violent drug crimes. See the devastation first-hand. Look into the eyes of the kids who have lost their parents and their childhoods to the war on drugs. I think there's a good chance that you'll agree with me that there has to be a better way.

Is the War on Drugs About to End? Respected voices speak out

2006-12-24T11:16:00.001-05:00

Harry E. Klide is a retired Stark County Common Pleas Court judge in Ohio. Not exactly the sort of person or place that comes to mind when you think about legalizing drugs. But check out this column he just wrote for the Canton Repository (hardly the place you would expect to see sentiments of this sort) under the headline "We have lost the drug war."

I don't know whether America is going to win the war in Iraq, but I do know that we have lost the war against the use of drugs, which we have pursued for the past 30-plus years. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure. It is not truly a war against drugs, but a war against us - our people, our children, ourselves.

I came across this right after reading about another respectable member of society, a former warrior in the war on drugs, who is not just calling for an end to that war, but full legalization of drugs. He is Jerry Cameron, former police chief of Fernandina Beach, Florida. There is an excellent profile of Cameron by Susan Cooper Eastman in the December 19 issue of Folio Weekly, one of the best regional magazines I've come across in a long time (old-fashioned too--they do not post their content online, although they do have a blog).

Cameron is a member of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. This is a great title for an organization dedicated to educating society about the futility of the drug war because "prohibition" is exactly what Nixon's war on drugs has become, and every objective student of American history knows what a disaster the first prohibition was for this country. The LEAP web site is worth a visit. You can't fail to be impressed by the credentials of its endorsers (such as the late Milton Friedman and the thankfully not-late Walter Cronkite). Here is the LEAP mission statement:

Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is made up of current and former members of law enforcement who believe the existing drug policies have failed in their intended goals of addressing the problems of crime, drug abuse, addiction, juvenile drug use, stopping the flow of illegal drugs into this country and the internal sale and use of illegal drugs. By fighting a war on drugs the government has increased the problems of society and made them far worse. A system of regulation rather than prohibition is a less harmful, more ethical and a more effective public policy.

And this organization is a lot more than a web site. Checking the speaking schedule--these folks are speaking to Rotary Clubs and business groups around the country. When a guy like Cameron, who has kicked in his fair share of doors making drug busts, stands up and says this war is not winnable, it is hard to argue he has it all wrong. I predict a lot more politicians will poke their heads above the parapet in 2007 and at least question the war on drugs. That will embolden others and at least allow a serious debate without proponents of drug legalization being dismissed as dope fiends and baby killers.

p.s. I'm not running for office myself, but I just made a donation to LEAP, so you know where I stand on this issue.
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Palestine: Peace or Apartheid? First read the book

2006-12-18T18:08:00.000-05:00

A lot of people were quick to pounce on former president Jimmy Carter recently, with no more provocation than the title of his latest book: Palestine: Peace or Apartheid. Some people assumed Carter was accusing the Israeli government of practicing apartheid. And some of those people seem to think anyone who would say such a thing has to be anti-Semitic, on a par with holocaust deniers. Which is clearly ridiculous. If citizens of the world are not free to criticize the governments of the world then we are in big trouble.

I have read Carter's book and found it to be an even-handed examination of the history of peace efforts in the Middle East, told from the unique perspective of someone intimately involved in some of those efforts and well-acquainted with many of the past and present players, including Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas. I flatly disagree with the Washington Post review that appears on the book's Amazon page. There Jeffrey Goldberg writes "Carter makes it clear in this polemical book that, in excoriating Israel for its sins--and he blames Israel almost entirely for perpetuating the hundred-year war between Arab and Jew--he is on a mission from God."

To me that is a gross over-statement of Carter's position. I'm not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim. I think I have pretty good "pray-dar" when it comes to detecting preachy people on a mission. Carter's perspective does not strike me as religion-based. Indeed, it seems highly pragmatic in many respects, such as the numerous reminders that America has always officially opposed West Bank settlements but failed to prevent them.

And Carter strikes me as highly objective when it comes to conveying the changing realities of daily life for Palestinians. The book is worth reading for that alone. The decline he describes from his first visit in the seventies to the situation today is dramatic and clearly explains a lot of the anger that Arabs feel right now. At the same time, Carter makes it clear that he does not think--and neither do I--that it excuses any of the violence against civilians that Arabs commit.

I read the title as describing the crossroads at which Israel now stands with respect to Palestine. The Israeli government can pursue a path of peace, achieving long-delayed compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 242, which is America's official policy, or it can down a path that will lead to state of apartheid in which Palestinians live under Jewish rule, segregated by their ethnic background, deprived of the rights of full citizenship, of movement, association, ownership, by an array of laws and physical barriers erected to keep Jews separate from Arabs.

Florida Recount Vital: Otherwise voting is a farce

2006-12-18T17:52:00.000-05:00

If the incoming Democrats don't demand a recount in Florida, you might as well kiss democracy in America goodbye. With your help there can be a full-page ad in the New York Times soon, urging action, run by MoveOn.org. You can contribute to help get the word out. For the record, I sent them $35. The meat of the ad is this:

Electronic voting machines have apparently lost 18,000 votes in a House race where one candidate is leading by just 369 votes. Despite warnings about paperless voting machines, Congress failed to require a paper record of every vote. Now, there’s no way to recount the votes short of holding a new election. Congress has the power and the obligation to order a new election—and they have done it before...Only a new election will dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the Sunshine State.

You can view an Acrobat pdf of the ad here. I can honestly say that I would feel the same way if the Republican candidate was on the losing end of the electronic snafu. Take it from someone who has spent more than 25 years in computer fraud and abuse, these machines can be rigged. Want to learn more, check out Black Box Voting.

More on Israel's Nukes: Olmert equates Israel with higher power

2006-12-13T17:18:00.000-05:00

As reported by AP and a lot of other sources: "Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when you are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?" -- Prime Minister Olmert.

And the answer is? Yes! There was this guy Nikita Kruschev beating his shoe against his desk at the United Nations in 1956, remember? He shouted at the US representatives: "We will bury you." Later his country smuggled nukes to within spitting distance of Florida. What level was that Olmert?

Russia and America both acquired nuclear weapons under belligerent circumstances and made threats with them. How is Iran different from them? Suppose the biggest military power in the world, a power that had earlier backed your enemies in a war where 1 million men died, was sitting just outside your borders, with over 100,000 troops and enough ship-borne nukes to blow your world apart 100 times over. Wouldn't you want a nuke too? When they feel threatened, nations tend to arm themselves. Iran has been openly threatened, as has Israel.

But when will Israeli politicians accept that Israel is just one country among all other countries? There is no way the world community can accept one country pleading a holier-than-thou attitude to nukes which ordains it with the right to possess them without the same regimen of oversight and scrutiny that other nuclear nations submit to. Israel sohuld sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as should Iran when it finally gets the bomb, which I predict it will.

The point is, I don't object to either Israel or Iran having nukes. Just have them openly. Have them regularly inspected by the IAEA and the UN. The only country in the world that has used nukes in anger is America. After that demonstration, history tells us that the possession of nukes has tended to bring conflicts to closure.

If India and Pakistan reconcile next year, as it appears they might, I think we will have yet more proof that arming two sworn enemies with weapons that guarantee mutual destruction is a pretty good peace plan.

On the Lighter Side: 01-2-09 is a growing sign

2006-12-12T17:38:00.000-05:00

How do you like my new license plate? I designed it myself--the font and colors--to proclaim January 20, 2009. This is the last day, as many readers will know, of the George Walker Bush presidency, a day to which a number of web sites are counting down, like this one and this one. I thought of going with 1-21-09 to be different, but 1-20-09 is really catching on and I wanted to stay consistent to add to the growing awareness of something which strikes me as unprecedented. I've lived in the U.S. since 1976 and can't remember anyone doing a countdown to the president's last day. Of course, you can take this countdown phenomenon, and the license plate, in two ways:

a. I can't wait for the day when George Walker Bush steps down.
b. I will be so dad on the day that George Walker Bush steps down.

For example, consider what happened when I was at the car wash just before this photo was taken [on my Treo 650]. The attendant asked me "What's one twenty oh nine?" To which I replied "The last day that Bush will be president." Her response was "Can't come soon enough for me." Thus this simple number plate enabled me to ascertain her attitude to our president without revealing mine. After all, suppose she had said "What a sad day that will be." Then I could have chosen to reveal my true feelings [I think he is the worst American president in at least one hundred years] and engage in a debate. Alternatively, if I wasn't feeling like arguing, I could have said something non-committal like "Hmm, and how much is the Power Wash."

Jimmy Carter and Middle East Politics: You cannot equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism

2006-12-10T13:56:00.001-05:00

I have just bought Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. I have not read it yet, but I plan to review it when I have read it (something that some other "reviewers" have failed to do. Some of the criticism that Carter has drawn is extreme, with reviewers on Amazon calling him "wicked" and "a liar."

And ine can hear mutterings of "anti-Semitism in the air. Clearly, anti-Semitism is wrong (there is a good definition and a very long entry on this topic in Wikipedia). But I see no basis for equating criticism of the government of Israel with anti-Semitism. Take one simple example. Israel has atomic bombs. If you believe it is wrong for countryies to possess atomic bombs are you therefore anti-Semitic? I don't think so.

Hoops for Hope: Hope for kids in more ways than one

2006-12-09T12:48:00.001-05:00

Very sorry I didn't blog this in time for their December 2 fund-raising event. Hopes for Hope is an organization raising money for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. In the process the organization is raising awareness of the problem among children and adults in this country. Featured on NBC. And started by a 12-year-old!

This is definitely a hopeful sign that apathy has not completely overtaken our nation's young, something I have talked about before.

Carter Bashing: At least get the facts right

2006-12-08T00:14:00.001-05:00

Former president Jimmy Carter has a new book and the old complaints are being echoed again, along with old errors. Consider "He Failed and He Can't Shut Up, Opinion by Allan Saxe, WBAP Political Analyst."

What is it about former President Jimmy Carter? He continually finds faults with the United States and those countries that uphold western civilization and the rule of law.

Presumably those countries include America and Israel and Mr. Saxe thinks former presidents are not allowed to talk about things like Abu Ghraib and conditions in the Palestinian refugee camps. According to his detractors, Carters' sins are numerous:

He has sanctified the elections on the rise of Hamas to rule the Palestinians. On the other hand, he has said that the elections in the United States do not meet up to his standards.

Or is it that years of neocon intoning that democracy will save the Middle East looks dumb when Middle Easterners elect someone neocons don't like? And gosh, everyone knows touch screen voting in America is jolly well accurate, just ask the undervoters in Sarasota, Florida. What's to criticize?

Fortunately, Mr. Saxe understands "why this former President disdains the democracies and inadvertently legitimizes tyrannical societies. And why he is so critical of his own country." Okay, let's hear it:

It is because he lost the presidential election in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. For an incumbent President to lose an election straight away to a single challenger, with no third party taking votes away and scrambling the election like Ross Perot did to President Bush the Elder in 1992 or Ralph Nader’s candidacy affecting Vice-President Gore’s bid for the Presidency in 2000 is very rare.

Hmm, so what about John Anderson, the moderate 1980 Republican turned independent candidate? Close to 6 million people voted for him over Carter or Reagan. Indeed, Anderson took a not insignificant 6.6% of the popular vote. Sure, Reagan won by a landslide. But to claim Carter is a sore loser, and then rewrite history to make his loss look worse than it was? C'mon folks, let's try to stick to the facts.

Iraq Solution = A Lot More Troops, A Lot More Diplomacy

2006-12-07T11:49:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the long-awaited Baker/Hamilton report is out. Hands up who thinks Bush will listen to their suggestions. And what are those suggestions? Basically, more diplomacy and less troops (via phased withdrawal). Personally, I would back more troops if it meant a LOT more troops, like twice as many as we have there now. Anything less is unlikely to work. Of course, some people say we haven't got that many troops to send (we could get them if we re-instated the draft, but that would take time and man would it get Gen Next off its butt and into the streets).

I'm with Colin Powell and former U.S. army chief of staff Gen Eric Shinseki (and others) in thinking that you would need something like 500,000 boots on the ground to stabilize a country the size of Iraq (I am also mindful that we couldn't stabilize Vietnam with that number). And for Iraq that 500,000 number is probably good for a time before people living in Iraq suffered a couple of years of daily double digit body counts to make them really unhappy about American presence in the region.

And sending any more troops without a serious new diplomatic effort to engage Iran and Syria in meaningful talks, well that would be a complete waste.

Teach for America: There is much work to be done

2006-12-03T10:39:00.001-05:00

I was struck by the truth of this statement by Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America and an evangelist for education reform in low-income areas:

"Six percent of the kids who are growing up in the communities where we were working will graduate from college," says Kopp. "We believe that that issue has to be our generation's civil rights issue."

Based on my work with Dare Not Walk Alone and my experiences in the predominantly black neighborhood of West Augustine, I am inclined to agree. I think there is a whole sector of American society that has been below most folks' radar for the last twenty years or so. These are families, even entire communities, where nobody, not the parents or the kids, has a high school education.

Not that a high school education is, in itself, a great benchmark, but the correlation between graduating high school and "making it" in our society is well established. Yes, you can get by without one, but it is going to take exceptional effort, and the kind of hope that rarely flourishes in this part of our society. And frankly, if it wasn't for hurricane Katrina, I think a lot of Americans would still believe these neglected souls don't exist.

So, I say Wendy Kopp's organization is to be acclaimed for stepping up to this challenge and framing it in these terms. Read the NBC story here.

Thousands of Voters Were Disenfranchised in Florida

2006-11-22T17:50:00.000-05:00

This is where technology meets politics: electronic voting. It is clear to anyone with an open mind that something went wrong in the already infamous Sarasota County this last election when approximately 18,000 ballots cast on the county’s paperless touch screen voting machines registered no vote at all in the congressional race.

And this is where I turned to make a donation to help get to the bottom of things. I have previously made my position on electronic voting clear. Computers cannot be trusted to count votes.

A Blow Against Apathy: High school students raising money for Darfur

2006-11-21T21:23:00.001-05:00

This story caught my eye and gave me hope, high schoolers raising money to help Darfur. There is a web site where schools can sign up. I think this is a very good sign.

Where is the Action on Darfur?

2006-11-17T15:30:00.000-05:00

Why isn't the world doing more to stop the genocide in Darfur? I keep searching for the answer to this question and can't find one. I can find plenty of information, like the Wikipedia page and the BBC News Q&A. But I still can't make sense of the lack of action.

I can find plenty of organizations--like this one--that are trying to raise awareness. But where is the action? How can the trillions of dollars that industrialized nations pour into military spending not contain a few million dollars to kill the Janjaweed. Seriously, what would it take? I think there would be plenty of volunteers ready to go and kill these murdering rapists if there was a way to get them armed and into the country. How about private planes and private arms? Isn't this a fight that good people should fight, like the war against Franco? Isn't it time for another International Brigade? Or has apathy already claimed this century as its own?

Cobb on Politics? Scary possibilities emerge

2006-11-16T23:44:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm going to blog politics. After decades of keeping my political opinions very separate from my entrepreneurial persona, I figure it is time to come out of the closet (or wherever it is that people are said to be when they hide their true feeling about something in order to get by in this world, stay employed, avoid upsetting the neighbors, etc.). If we cannot, as citizens, speak our minds on politics without fear of retribution, we are, as a nation, screwed.

And speaking of citizens, just for the record, I am one. In fact, I have been a citizen of these United States longer than the current governor of California. So, if the constitution is ever changed so Arnold can run for president, that will also make me eligible to run for the White House. Some of my friends consider that to be a good argument for leaving Article Two of the constitution alone.