The Washington, D.C. circuit court struck down a 70-year-old ban on guns in the city in a 2-1 decision that completely ignored long-standing Supreme Court rulings on the Second Amendment.

All three judges were Republican appointees, and the dissenting judge criticized the other two for holding their authority as being greater than that of the Supreme Court’s. Not to mention that in order to justify their biased opinion, they had to dredge up a citation from the Dred Scott decision, which listed the right to keep and bear arms among other individual rights. Never mind that Dred Scott was a horribly wrong decision, never mind that it is superseded by U.S. v. Miller and other decisions. They needed something, however feeble, to back up what was essentially a personal desire to establish a radical interpretation of a long-settled issue, so they found it wherever they could. (Talk about legislating from the bench!)

However, the surprising thing is not that two judges voted for it, but rather that one judge didn’t. Although not all Republican-appointed judges are rabid wingnuts, all too many today are. Look at the Bush administration, sending the same ten or so wacko ultra-rightists to be approved by Congress three times (maybe more, I could have lost count there). The idea that there is any emphasis on legal credibility over ideological loyalty to ultraconservatism is little more than a joke. And in the post-9/11 era, all too many of these judges were allowed through by cowed Democrats.

This is just one of the first signs of what is to be an onslaught of political rulings, which will include key decisions in disassembling the Separation of Church and State, weakening civil liberties, and altogether doing away with a host of other currently-protected rights and legal standings that the right wing feels is “legislated from the bench” (translation: decided according to law instead of right-wing political bias). This has been slow in transition, but will be long-lasting and devastating in effect. Even if a Democrat is elected president and Congress can get most or all of his or her judges installed, expect the Bush Effect to last for at least a generation, if not longer.

Welcome to the age of the Clarence Thomas judiciary. And kiss your rights and privacy goodbye.

This was really a no-brainer from the start, and why Nevada Democrats ever agreed to a Fox News-sponsored debate in the first place is beyond comprehension. After all, can you imagine Republicans agreeing to put McCain, Giuliani and Romney in a debate hosted by Air America and featuring Al Franken, Randy Rhodes, and Jesse Jackson? Even if Ann Coulter were thrown in as a token conservative? Somehow I don’t think so.

Fox attempted to sidetrack the boycott by offering to “co-host” with an Air America affiliate, but it was soon made clear that they would still control the debate, with a panel of Fox personalities joined by a single Air America questioner. The format would be clear: Fox would make their best attempt to focus the “debate” on smears of the candidates, try to pit them against each other with accusations and dirt, and then wind up the farce by having a post-debate show talking about how stupid and lame all the candidates were. Yeah, Democrats should be happy to participate in that, and boycotting it was a real blow to “balanced” reporting, proving that a Democrat should not be elected because they’re all “afraid of journalists,” “only appear on those networks and venues that give them favorable coverage,” as Ailes put it. Which, of course, describes the Bush administration to a tee.

But when Nevada Democrats somehow agreed to such a bargain, they were immediately castigated by the bloggers and others as having made a huge blunder–and because it would look bad if they suddenly retreated under such criticism, they had to wait for some other excuse to back out of the debate. And Fox News being what it is, they didn’t have to wait long before they got their excuse. It came in the form of Roger Ailes, president of Fox News, making jokes which compared Barrack Obama and Osama bin Laden.

Ailes’ remarks are particularly interesting because he had just scolded Democrats for the rumored boycott of the debates, saying among other things, “We’re headed into covering a tough political season, and all of us will be called upon to do our best and be fair.”

And then just hours later, he said, “It is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?'”

Not that this was the first such biased comment by Ailes or the most outrageous. And yet, somehow he sees this as being “fair.”

I’d hate to see what his idea of “biased” is.

Breaking news: Newt Gingrich, apparently setting up his 2008 presidential bid, has finally admitted that he was having an extramarital affair with a congressional aide 20 years younger than he was, and that this was going on in 1998, when he was ramming through impeachment hearings on Bill Clinton.

But he says that he should not be considered a hypocrite. Why not? Because Clinton committed the crime of perjury in his extramarital affair.

Conservatives always bring this up to show how their own extramarital affairs are not as bad as Clinton’s, but they always lack the depth of conviction necessary to give them the moral high ground. First off, the tests are very different: Gingrich, for example, was not sued and put under oath and then asked about his sexual dalliances, which, if answered truthfully, could end his career. Had he been in that situation and then answered truthfully in full public view, then he would have the moral high ground. But to press for a president to be impeached for lying about an affair when he was having an affair and lying about it himself is nothing but hypocritical; that Clinton lied under oath about it is not part of the equation because Gingrich never faced the same situation. Moreover, Gingrich had multiple affairs before that aide, one of whom reported that Gingrich preferred getting blow jobs so he could deny “having sex with that woman.”

The second circumstance that sheds a different light on the matter is the nature of the legal case against Clinton. Put simply, the entire Paula Jones lawsuit was a sham, a major abuse of the legal system which was instigated for a single purpose: to politically assassinate the President’s character, to attack him using the courts as a bludgeon.

The Paula Jones case began under the flimsiest of pretenses: some obscure, little-read right-wing rag published the initials “PJ” in speaking about one of Clinton’s affairs, and Jones claimed that since she was then outed, she had no choice but to sue Clinton for sexual harassment. From the beginning, Jones’ legal team consisted of and was financed by conservatives; one of the members of her team was none other than Ann Coulter. Right-wing fingerprints are all over the case from start to end.

While Democrats agreeably appoint Republicans to prosecute Republicans so as to maintain a sense of objectivity, Republicans gleefully appoint Republican attack dogs to prosecute cases against Democrats. Kenneth Starr was the worst sort, using all manner of illicit ways and means to take on the Clinton case, from using legal blackmail to elicit false accusations against Clinton (for which Susan McDougal went to prison because she refused to lie) to leaking embarrassing details all over the media in clear violation of legal ethics.

In the end, the incident where Clinton lied under oath was the ultimate “Gotcha” moment, the essence of entrapment. When the prosecution found proof that Clinton had an affair with Lewinski, they did not release it–instead, that proof quietly in hand, they set Clinton up for perjury. Seriously–if there is any sitting politician who is having an affair which they can still deny, where the admission would cause them great harm, is there any possibility that the politician will admit to it, even under oath? One can be certain that Gingrich would have lied about it. And in the entire legal proceedings after 9/11, Bush and Cheney adamantly refused to be put under oath because they knew they could get charged with perjury for the lies they planned to tell. Clinton’s was simply forced to make the lie while under oath in a sham trial, a distinction that is entirely technical in nature, having nothing whatsoever to do with morality. Clinton was wrong for lying, but the mitigating circumstances were about as strong as one could possibly imagine, which is why so many people never saw it as a big deal.

So for Gingrich to admit to his affair a decade after the fact, for him never to have been under the pressure of being under oath, never having faced the choice of committing perjury or losing his career, to say he wasn’t hypocritical… well, it’s pretty damn shameless.

And let’s not forget that that affair was not the only sin committed by this “family values” champion. He married his high school Math teacher, whom he would later ask for a divorce as she lay in a hospital bed with cancer. He had many extramarital affairs, and divorced his second wife by telephoning her on Mother’s Day. And now he wants Christians to like him because he’s an evangelical and should be forgiven his (multitudinous) sins.

In a way, I hope that Gingrich becomes the front-runner and wins the Republican nomination. Any candidate in the Democratic field would wipe the floor with him. And it’s not such an impossibility, either–Gingrich is a favorite of the evangelic crowd, the Republican base; look what they did to McCain in 2000 in order to get their boy Bush in the lead.

It is also incredibly hypocritical for three Republican favorites–McCain, Giuliani, and Gingrich–to be vying for the family-values Christian vote when all three had extramarital affairs and divorces. But then, as we saw with all of the sins and crimes that George Bush committed before running for president, you can sin all you want so long as you praise Jesus and ask for forgiveness when you’re finally caught.

And that’s not hypocritical, is it?

A cool Japanese expression that I learned recently is “Shakai no Mado.” Literally, it means “Social Window.” In English: “your fly is open.”

This brings up all kinds of questions, such as what kind of social interaction are we talking about?

This was one of the many fliers unceremoniously crammed into my mailbox. It’s an ad for a new condominium that has become available for purchase.

Apparently, you can take it with you!

You’ve got to just love the stuff NASA comes out with. This is a new image of Io, the wildest of Jupiter’s moons, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft as it passes by Jupiter to get a speed boost as it travels to Pluto. Io can be seen with three volcanic plumes erupting–one of them, as you can see, spectacularly–and mountains bigger than Everest catching the morning sun on their peaks.

Beyond cool.

It looks like all my negative pre-reviews of Vista were pretty accurate; sales of Vista are sluggish, selling only half as much as XP did. Steve “Monkey Boy” Ballmer is actually trying to blame pirates in developing nations for the slow sales. However, most other people have other theories as to why sales are slow.

The biggest reason going around is the “so what?” factor. It’s hard to get excited by the new-features list, which is pretty short. The increased security is no big deal; if you have an anti-virus app on XP, it’s not worse than security on Vista–and might even be better, as Vista security is still untested, still settling in, and besides which it annoys the hell out of you with nagging messages (which many turn off, thus disabling security features that may not be covered otherwise). The faster search is nice, but if you used XP for five years, you probably learned to live without search, a necessary avoidance strategy–and so you probably won’t have the urge to do much searching. The Sidebar can be done in XP using free third-party software. And unless you like shiny new eye candy a hell of a lot, there’s really not that much else to make you want to buy it.

But then there’s the price. Assuming even that you do have a machine that’s Vista-ready and don’t have to buy more RAM, a new graphics card, or a whole new machine… you still have to shell out for Vista. Wait, what’s that? You only have to pay $100 for the upgrade? True, few people need to pay the full price… but $100 gets you the “Home Basic” version, which is essentially a crippled version of the OS. Unlike the Mac OS, which has only one flavor and the price is $130 for the full set of features ($200 for a 5-pack), Vista has a wide array of versions–which really means that to get the full set of features like in Mac OS X, you need to get the $400 package ($260 upgrade).

I discovered this by going to Yodobashi Camera to check out Vista running on one of their machines. I wanted to see the eye candy in action, so I tried to get the 3-D window flip, Vista’s version of the Mac Exposé feature. But try as I might, I couldn’t get it to work. After hunting down a salesperson, I was told that I was working with Windows Vista Home Basic–which didn’t have that much-ballyhooed feature. This truly surprised me–as a Mac user, I’m used to getting everything in the basic package. I mean, I knew that the different versions meant different functionality, but I simply didn’t get what that meant–that lesser versions were essentially partially-crippled versions.

What’s worse, many Windows users buying a machine will not be aware of this–and so will get their nice, cheap new Windows Vista PC… only to find many of the features they anticipated disabled… and the only way to get them is to pay for a whole new upgrade to a system they already own.

And then there’s the Mac side of things. People who want to run Vista using Parallels are in for a shock. Not only will first-timers have to pay the full price (no upgrade from OS X!), but Microsoft is forcing Parallel users to buy the $300 Business or $400 Ultimate editions–neither “Home” version will work in virtualization. While Microsoft cites “security” concerns, it’s pretty obvious that they’re just trying to shake down customers.

I’d like to say that Vista’s aggressive DRM is slowing sales, but I’m sure that’s not true; most people probably don’t use the advanced video features that would get you into DRM territory. But just wait. To be certain, DRM is not a positive feature egging on sales.

And then there’s compatibility–Vista still won’t work with a lot of the old software and hardware out there, and even if it does, it all too often requires quite a bit of effort to get things working. True, this will get ironed out over time, but it’s hurting Vista’s image and not helping with initial sales.

As time goes on, you see more and more stories like this one, where the US Department of Transportation is actually forbidding its people from upgrading to Vista or Office 2007. Why? Because “There appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade.” So no upgrades–that means you, Paul! Meanwhile, Linux and Mac are being looked at.

I have seen this effect first-hand as well. Only a few of my students have upgraded to Vista and Office 2007, and from their reactions, I don’t expect too many more of my students to do so soon. I asked one student who upgraded what she thought–and the poor young woman actually winced. And no, I am not kidding, nor am I exaggerating.

In the end, it looks like the only way Vista will win widespread acceptance is by Hobson’s Choice–you buy a new Windows machine, you get Vista, like it or not. Though I expect that the creative retailer who offers new machines with XP will find a profitable niche market.

Ye Gods. So much, so much. And I’m not even touching on Walter Reed or Scooter Libby. If Bush’s ratings don’t fall in the next week, then it can only mean he’s reached rock bottom. Here’s the rundown of Josh Marshall’s reporting:

David Iglesias testified that Pete Domenici called him at home, and specifically asked if the investigation on corruption of a Democratic candidate in an election would be made public before November, when elections would be held; when Iglesias said “no,” Domenici said that was “disappointing” and hung up. Domenici is now claiming that Iglesias “confirmed” that “my words did not threaten him,” when Iglesias’ testimony in fact said the exact opposite. When your state’s senator (who can get you fired) calls you up at home, asks if damning indictments against a political opponent will be made public before an election, says it is “disappointing” when the answer is negative, and hangs up, you’re damned right it’s threatening. Iglesias himself said that after the call, he felt “sick,” “pressured,” and “leaned on.” I suppose Domenici figures it wasn’t “threatening” because Iglesias did not use that exact word.

Pretty much all of the fired attorneys reported never hearing any criticism of their work involving supporting administration policies, but instead received praise from the Department of Justice on their work. A DoJ official testified that they informed none of the fired attorneys of their displeasure before the firings. Senator Feinstein reported that when she inquired to the DoJ about Carol Lam’s performance on immigration cases, they replied that they were “satisfied” with her performance.

Three of the fired attorneys (Cummins, McKay, and Iglesias) say they would have opened an obstruction investigation against Michael Elston on the Deputy Attorney General’s staff, for calling Bud Cummings and threatening him about testifying. Supposedly, this is what Elston was talking about–the DoJ’s trumped-up list of reasons why the attorneys were fired. One in particular was interesting–the DoJ claimed that Cummins was let go because he said he’d be quitting soon; Cummins denies he ever said such a thing.

Another big bombshell was a report by another fired US Attorney (John McKay of Washington State) of another pressuring phone call. Ed Cassidy, Chief of Staff to Republican Rep. Doc Hastings, called McKay in the weeks following the razor-close 2004 Governor’s election in which the Democrat was certified after a third recount. Cassidy asked questions about investigations into voter fraud in the election, and McKay felt that he was getting into dangerous territory–so, “I stopped him, and I told him that I was sure that he wasn’t asking me on behalf of his boss to reveal information about an ongoing investigation, or to lobby me on one because we both knew that would be improper.” Cassidy then quickly agreed that it would have been improper, and hung up on McKay.

Hastings’ office first denied that the telephone call was ever made, then admitted it was made (darn telephone records again) but said it was not improper.

Meanwhile, fired Arizona US Attorney Paul K. Charlton was supposedly fired for disagreeing with FBI policy of not taping confessions. Charlton had complained that taping confessions was “essential” in child molestation cases. The DoJ agreed to a pilot program to measure whether taped confessions could help get more convictions, but Charlton never heard from them on it again–until he was fired for it.

Daniel Bogden of Utah and Paul Charlton of Arizona also testified that they had been told in one form or another by acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer that the firings were being carried out so that individuals favored by the administration could get choice employment that would look great on their resumes.

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Looking at the list of “reasons” why the attorneys were fired, I am reminded of a personal experience. When working for a language school in my first stint as a manager, I did an excellent job, if I do say so myself. My biggest achievement was a new system of scheduling that allowed three people to manage four schools by working less than twenty hours a week, when the previous system required four managers working more than thirty hours a week. I had received nothing but glowing praise for the entire year of my “probation” as a manager–no negative comments, no suggestions that I was doing anything wrong at all. Just effusive praise. But then, when it came time to review my probation, I was suddenly deemed unfit because the Japanese administrative manager had pointed out a “mistake” that was more likely than not a simple communications error both of us were responsible for. But it was reason enough to deny me a full management position, meaning that the school could keep me at a pay level $15,000 a year lower than the previous managers had been paid.

I outlined the fiasco here, but it is a perfect example of an administration creating completely fake reasons for taking negative action against an employee for reasons other than what were stated–because the real reasons are dishonest and unethical. And the DoJ’s list reeks of that kind of thing.

Damn. There is just so much out there. Just limited to the fired US Attorney scandal, there is pre-hearings and post-hearings. Here is what Marshall reported about the scandal before the hearings started, boiled down; in the next post, what was reported on the hearings themselves.

Here Marshall points out that Domenici’s claim again Iglesias is based upon “public accounts” of Iglesias not moving on cases quickly enough, but Domenici says it’s immigration and drug cases. However, the only public account that spoke of unhappiness about Iglesias was a December 2006 Albuquerque Journal article which noted that Domenici was in trouble for not pushing more public corruption investigations–which were, in Iglesias’ case, exclusively against Democrats. But Iglesias could not move fast enough on those cases because his office was overwhelmed with immigration and narcotics cases.

Furthermore, DOJ statistics show that contrary to Domenici’s claims, Iglesias actually accelerated work on cases–increasing the number of cases his office handled, and shortening the time needed to process each case. When Iglesias took over in his office, cases took 4.6 months to finish; in 2005, Iglesias had cut that down to 3.7. Furthermore, when Iglesias took over, the had been handling 1,548 cases per year; by 2005, Iglesias had that up to 2,915, nearly double what his predecessor had accomplished. So how was Iglesias “not moving fast enough,” or not getting enough work done?

Meanwhile, Heather Wilson, in another in a series of “not my fault” apologies, now says that her “constituents” were complaining to her of the slow pace of corruption cases–but since the cases were only against Democrats, that means that Wilson is referring to partisan Republicans complaining that the US Attorney wasn’t hitting Democrats hard or fast enough for their liking. Not exactly solid grounds for dismissal.

But Iglesias was contacted by Wilson and then Domenici both within ten days, asking about the latest corruption case against a Democrat during an election season, and Iglesias says it will happen when process goes forward naturally, not when Republican politicians want it for campaign dirt. Then five weeks later Iglesias is told he’ll be canned.

Now, just before they have been called to testify in Congress, prosecutors are being threatened by the administration, which claims it will release “previously undisclosed details about the reasons they were fired.” A not-very-veiled threat that if you testify against us, we’ll smear your ass.

Meanwhile, Darryl Issa (of Recall Gray Davis fame) is trying to cover his own ass, trying to lay the groundwork for firing Carol Lam. The reason: she didn’t do enough work on border crime. However, readers of Marshall’s page note that Domenici seems to be claiming that Iglesias was fired for doing too much immigration work, so there’s yet another inconsistency. But what an inconsistency: in New Mexico, where Democrats were being prosecuted, there wasn’t enough corruption work; in California, where Republicans were being prosecuted, there was too much corruption work. Interesting division there.

But the scandal may be widening. A former federal prosecutor from Maryland says that he was forced out of his office in 2005 for investigating associates of the Republican governor’s in corruption cases; Thomas M. DiBiagio says that “There was direct pressure not to pursue these investigations.” He did not mention it earlier because he thought his was an isolated case, but is speaking now in light of new information about widespread abuse.

But there’s more, in the next post.

On Sunday, Sachi and I went to the Ume (Plum Blossom) Festival, which is being celebrated in many places around the Tokyo area. Good thing we did it then–the weather was beautiful on Sunday, warm and sunny–and Monday we got violent winds and rain, which probably have destroyed most of what’s on the tree right now.

We went to Mogusa-en, a park in Hino City, one station down from Seiseki-Sakuragaoka. It’s a really steep climb up San Francisco-grade roads (grade-wise), a half kilometer from the station. But it’s a nice park once you get there. Tons of people were there to enjoy the flowers, food, and music. There were even some interesting birds to be seen. A Black Kite was constantly circling, while in the brush and the trees there were Great and Varied Tits, Nightingales, Japanese White-Eyes, Black-faced Buntings, and Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers, along with the more normal complement of Bulbuls, Starlings, Crows, Turtledoves, and Sparrows. There were some birds we never got to see but heard, and one bird which was scratching in the brush behind a fence which I could only see had green-brown coloring.

Here are some images from the day. The ones with an asterisk on the right side can be blown up to 1200×800 size by clicking on them.

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A view from the heights of the park.

The Black Kite circling.

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A cat with striking black face markings enjoying the weather in the park.

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A tree on the Mogusa-en grounds.

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Various blossoms from around the park.

A neat-looking old guy we saw throughout the day, who Sachi dubbed “the Japanese Santa Claus.”

Trees in bondage…

And then there were the birds in the park:

A Black-Faced Bunting

A Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

One of the Mejiro, quickly glimpsed

And then, a better catch:

A Varied Tit, not commonly seen.

We tried to get a nightingale, as it was popping around in a tree, visible for brief instances–but none of the shots came out.

Later, however, I got the full moon rising–not the eclipse, though; the redness was because it was still low in the sky. The eclipse was not visible from Japan.

Not a bad day at all.

The Simpsons isn’t out of good stuff yet. This week’s was another of their musical episodes, which I usually don’t enjoy–but it had one of the best one-liners I’ve ever heard on a TV show.

For those who don’t like the spoilers, it’s below the fold.
Read more…

For a long time, WKRP in Cincinnati was a notable exception to all the TV shows being put on DVD. You kind of had to wonder why that was, seeing as how so much money could be made off of it. The answer: the RIAA. Original episodes of KRP had popular music in them, often inseparably from the dialog as Johnny or Venus would introduce a song. The problem came when the music labels started asking exorbitant piles of money to approve their rebroadcast–and so they had the owners of WKRP by the cajones. No music, no show. Many of the original episodes were shown in syndication, with non-licensed music dubbed in place of the big hits.

Well, apparently they worked something out, because the first season of WKRP (click-through to Amazon) is finally coming out on DVD on April 24th. It will have 22 episodes, some extra features (commentaries on two episodes with Hugh Wilson, Loni Anderson, Frank Bonner, & Tim Reid, plus three featurettes), and will cost $26. From what’s been reported, the studio wasn’t able to work out everything with the music labels, and so there will be music substitutions that fit the episodes. But no problem there–the little 5-second snippets we heard in the original episodes are not what made the show really good, anyway.

With Congress set to hold hearings with the fired U.S. attorneys in a few days, the likely guilty parties are busy positioning themselves in a frantic game of damage control. As I noted earlier, the White House positioned itself by admitting to firing the attorneys for policy reasons, and not for poor performance as previously claimed.

Now, Pete Domenici is joining the positioning game by putting out a statement that he did indeed call former US Attorney David Iglesias–but he did not try to influence him on the corruption case. He further stated that he had been unhappy with Iglesias for a few years, laying the groundwork for why Iglesias was let go.

It would appear that Domenici realized that telephone records could be subpoenaed, and that denying he had made the call last week (Domenici told reporters regarding the alleged call with Iglesias, “I have no idea what he’s talking about”) might not have been the best move. So he amends in a way that can seem like he was in line with the whole administration story (policy disagreements) and there was no coercion going on.

Of course, this does not explain a few facts that can’t be finessed: if Iglesias was doing such a poor job on policy matters, why was it not indicated in his performance review, which was positive? And is it purely coincidence that Domenici called Iglesias on a corruption case–in itself a violation of congressional ethics rules–just ten days after Representative Heather Wilson called him? Or that Iglesias was fired just a few months later and replaced with someone who would be more pliant?

But Domenici’s telling of the story also has some issues:

My conversations with Mr. Iglesias over the years have been almost exclusively about this resource problem and complaints by constituents. He consistently told me that he needed more help, as have many other New Mexicans within the legal community.

My frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s office mounted as we tried to get more resources for it, but public accounts indicated an inability within the office to move more quickly on cases. Indeed, in 2004 and 2005 my staff and I expressed my frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s office to the Justice Department and asked the Department to see if the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s office needed more help, including perhaps an infusion of professionals from other districts.

This ongoing dialogue and experience led me, several months before my call with Mr. Iglesias, to conclude and recommend to the Department of Justice that New Mexico needed a new United States Attorney.

Essentially, he’s saying that he wanted Iglesias’ office to move more on immigration and drug cases, but Iglesias said he needed more resources to do so. Domenici says he tried to get more resources, but does not report any success–so he concluded that Iglesias should be fired.

Huh?

It seems pretty apparent that Domenici, Wilson, and the White House were up to no good and figured that they would not get caught–and are now scrambling to put up the least-incriminating poses before the whole mess hits the fan on Tuesday when the fired attorneys start to tell all under oath in front of Congress.

To stay up-to-date on all the details, read Josh Marshall’s blog, he’s the go-to guy on this one.

Things are really heating up in the US Attorney firing scandal. While David Iglesias is not saying specifically who pressured him to speed up an indictment of a Democratic candidate so as to give New Mexico Republican Representative Heather Wilson an advantage in a razor-close election, two anonymous sources have come forward to confirm that it was Wilson herself, and Senator Pete Domenici. As we understand it currently, first Wilson called Iglesias and asked him for details of the case and, at least indirectly, pressured him to speed up the indictment. Wilson became “curt:” when Iglesias did not respond to her requests. About a week and a half later, Domenici called Iglesias and was more direct. When Iglesias told him that the indictment would come in December, Domenici hung up on him.

Two months later, Iglesias was fired. Wilson and Domenici are currently taking the Fifth; former state governor Dave Cargo recently stated, “If I was Heather Wilson, I’d be thinking about taking a long trip to Baghdad, where the conditions are a little more subdued. … This has the potential to really cripple the (state) Republican Party,” he said. “And the way Heather and Pete are handling it, by essentially taking the Fifth, isn’t helping them.” What is perhaps most surprising is that Wilson and Domenici both personally contacted Iglesias, instead of having a flunky giving them deniability.

The initial White House excuse for the firings was poor performance reviews, but when those reviews were released, they all turned out to be positive. So yesterday, the White House took the rather unusual move of admitting that they had indeed fired the prosecutors for political reasons–something Alberto Gonzales swore to Congress he would never do. However, the reasons stated were that the prosecutors “were not doing enough to carry out President Bush’s policies on immigration, firearms and other issues.” In essence, an admission to a shady political move, but at least not a legally incriminating political move–copping to a lesser plea. What will be interesting is to review the records: is it true that these seven or eight attorneys did not push administration policies strongly enough? Did the administration ever tell them to directly, or give them prior indication that they were not doing what they were supposed to? And more telling, of all the US Attorneys who were not fired, did any of them do the same or less than the fired attorneys? Although perhaps these questions are moot–as long as the White House can cop to the lesser plea, they can admit to screwing up on any of those counts, and still not be criminally liable (I think). So the announcement may simply be a general stay-out-of-jail thing, and not an iron-cast alibi.

However, that announcement may be too little, too late, and has a ring of desperation to it–last-minute cover-your-ass before Iglesias and the other (former) US Attorneys testify before Congress (where I believe they will be able to speak more freely, being protected from slander or libel charges).

This could get very interesting.

Hm. The Straight Dope can be pretty interesting sometimes. I had no idea that the letter “W” was only 400 years old, or that “I” and “J” as well as “U” and “V” were not distinct letters until only around 300 years ago. I mean, I’ve seen the chiseled word “MVSEVM” (“moov-zeevum,” as Steve Martin pronounced it), but thought that was just stylistic. And I’ve heard a lot about the letter “J” being an “I” in old names, but thought that it went much farther back than just three centuries.

I still love Dan Aykroyd’s “Metric Alphabet,” or “Decabet.” For people who thought “LMNO” was just one letter anyway. (“Please LMNOpen the door!”)

The one day.

The one day when I am able to sleep in. When I have been getting only four or five hours’ sleep for the past week. As if it’s not hard enough to stay asleep when they have construction going on in my building’s parking lot (why always early on a weekend? It’s dead quiet weekday mornings).

But the one day I can sleep all I want… That’s when the Jesus freak comes to my door early in the morning and rings the doorbell. Now with all the construction noise that I could have slept through, I have zero chance of getting back to sleep.

That does it. I’m worshipping Xenu from now on. At least his adherents let you get a good night’s sleep once in a while.

Where’s my cake?

This news sent Apple stock rising:

Sales of Apple Inc.’s Mac line of personal computers saw year-over-year growth accelerate over 100 percent during the month of January, with revenue growth rising even further, according to Pacific Crest Securities.

In a brief research note distributed to clients on Thursday, the firm cited NPD market research data which implies that year-over-year growth in Mac unit sales accelerated in January to 101 percent, up from 55 percent in December.

Meanwhile, a rise in the average selling price (ASPs) of Macs is reported to have driven even greater year-over-year dollar sales growth of 108 percent during the same time period, again, up from 55 percent in December. …

Hargreaves said that sales of Mac notebooks grew 194 percent year-over-year in January with a rising ASP that drove 221 percent revenue growth in the segment.

“January was the third-largest revenue month for Mac notebooks ever,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dell stocks tumbled at this news:

Dell reported a 33 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits, slightly ahead of expectations. But the No. 2 PC maker’s sales figures came in below estimates, and Dell warned that growth and profit margins will remain “under pressure” for the next few quarters.

Shares of Dell … fell 2 percent in after-hours trading on the news. …

“Both desktop and notebook sales looked weak,” said Bill Fearnley Jr., an analyst with FTN Midwest. “The notebook number was especially anemic given the overall strength in the category.”

This does not overly surprise me. Even though this is completely local and anecdotal, my workplace has been undergoing a Mac tidal wave. When I first came here in 1998, I was the only one in the building who owned a Mac. That continued for years, but recently it seems that everyone is getting a Mac. Out of the full-time faculty, 5 of the 7 have Macs (two bought in the past few months), and one more is on the verge of buying. A part-time member just bought a Mac a few days ago, and four or five of my students have also bought Macs.

Like I said, completely local and anecdotal. And yes, I do work in education. And yet, it does represent a significant change from the recent past, and I think it does demonstrate how the Mac has new appeal, especially due to the ability to run Windows.

About nine months ago, I got contacted by a professor at a college in Texas who was putting together an anthology of readings for college writing classes, asking if he could publish one of my blog posts in his book. Duly flattered and all big-headed about it, I agreed, on the condition that I get a desk copy in return for my magnanimity.

The post, by the way, is Arguing on the Internet, from December 2005. You can read it here, for free! How about that!

Well, it seems like half the bargain has played out. Last I heard from the permissions coordinator in August, the book had been sent to the publisher a bit later than expected, and the July publication date had been set back a little. After that, I just forgot about the whole thing until tonight, when a re-sorting of my inbox brought one of the old emails into view. I started to write a letter back to them asking what had become of the whole thing, when I thought of doing a search on the web, and bingo–got an instant hit.

The book, as it turns out, was published last September. Guess they were a bit too busy to remember to send me my desk copy (of course, I have just now sent them a gentle reminder of the agreement).

In one sense, this is kind of cool. When I started this blog, I certainly did not expect anything I wrote here to wind up in a college textbook. And, as the author pointed out when he was asking for my permission to print, I am in the very same chapter (Chapter One!) as George Orwell, George Lakoff, and Deborah Tannen. I am the closing act, in fact! Wow! And I’m sure that I deserve to be in such company, and that the author was not just trying to stroke my ego!

In a slightly more realistic light, I’m still a dweeb with a blog who wrote a post that a community college professor in Houston figured he’d fill out a new anthology with.

But, still, George Orwell!

Buy it via this link (you know you want to!) and I get a cut. (Through my Amazon Associates account, not any deal with the publisher.) But for some strange reason, the US Amazon store does not list the table of contents (and therefore not my own name! Bastards!). The Canadian Amazon store does, however. Yet another way to Google me.

I’m sure the book and movie deals will start pouring through the door after this. Any day now.

Remember how Republicans were furious when the staff of the White House Travel Office was fired, even though they served at the pleasure of the president who had every right to fire them? Remember how the GOP made a huge issue out of it, sicced Kenneth Starr on it, and even tied it in with the whole Vince Foster suicide and claimed that there was a massive conspiracy where Hillary Clinton shot Foster and… well, you remember.

Well, Republicans aren’t so interested in investigating firings now. Especially since the firings were not low-level flunkies in some travel office, but instead were seven highly-regarded U.S. Attorneys. Especially since the firings were not travel office personnel charged with embezzlement, but instead were serious investigators who were looking into political corruption. Especially since those said attorneys were doing things that Republicans didn’t like.

Among the seven fired attorneys were Carol Lam, the California prosecutor who had brought down Duke Cunningham, and who was investigating other corrupt Republican politicians, and David Iglesias, who was investigating a Democrat in New Mexico–but had defied pressure to change his timetable so the investigation could become an election-year scandal.

People were already suspicious about the firings, as they were attributed to “performance-related” issues, even though the attorneys in question had been doing their jobs very well. Adding to the suspicion was the fact that the Bush administration was replacing the fired attorneys with political flunkies, most notably when Arkansas attorney Bud Cummings was fired so that a Karl Rove flunky could take his place. [Update: though suggested in irony, the idea that the Rove flunky got assigned to Arkansas just in time to wield subpoena power in order to dig up dirt on Hillary is not such an outrageous one….]

Making the stench worse was the Bush administration using a terror-related power given them in the “Patriot” Act which allowed them to make indefinite appointments to these offices without review.

Iglesias even goes so far as to say that he was told directly by the Justice Department that the firings were so that Bush appointees could take their places, not because they weren’t doing their jobs well.

Well, of course you can’t expect Republicans to go for an investigation of Republicans, any more than you could expect Democrats to go along with an investigation of Democrats (what the hell are they thinking with appointing Jefferson to a committee, anyway?).

However, the firing of U.S. Attorneys who were investigating Republicans or refusing to politicize the investigation of Democrats is clearly more than just a little political scandal; it is obstruction of justice at the very least.

Last year, nothing would have come of this. Now, the Democrats have the gavel, and they’re going to use it.

About damn time.