You know that scene from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan where Kirk, in outrage at Khan for abandoning him on a lifeless asteroid, looks up into the camera and shouts, “Khaaaaan!!!”? It’s practically become part of the cultural vernacular, with Jon Stewart and others picking up on it. Well, I kind of feel like I have my own Khan, on a much more trivial and whiny scale.

You know how it is when you get a new phone number assigned and the number you get is someone else’s that has been out of service for maybe three months? You’d expect to get a few people calling it now and then, but most should have figured it out in those first three months.

Apparently, the guy who had my number before me–Sugishima, how well I have come to know that name–gave that number to several thousand people, or so it would seem, and notified not one of them that he changed his number. For the first six months I had the number, I was getting more than one call a day on average, and even now I get a call for him once every month or so. And it has been more than five years since I got this number.

Yeah, I know. I should have switched the number early on. But a combination of procrastination and wishful thinking made me never get around to it. So I still find myself occasionally setting aside what I’m doing and answering the phone, each time going to effort that this idiot Sugishima sloughed off on the next unlucky schmoe who got his number. It’s time like this that I have to remind myself that retribution is unhealthy and immoral, because the thought of getting a thousand people to call his new number asking for my name day and night is so appealing. Kind of like the people who run around the neighborhood blasting noise from their loudspeaker trucks–as is happening this very moment outside my window–when you’d love to get your own loudspeaker truck, follow these people to their homes, and then sit outside all day blasting the latest Hip-hop hits into their windows when they’re trying to enjoy a quiet evening at home.

Why is everything fun so wrong?

Well, it certainly seems like someone has been quite the busy beaver recently. Not even a day after the big alarm about the “Oompa” (alternately called “Leap-A”) trojan, and already a second piece of Mac malware has surfaced. This one is apparently a worm designed to use Bluetooth to spread itself, but like Oompa, is harmless, and even has a February self-destruct date. Both Oompa and the new malware, titled Inqtana-A, are “proof of concept” malware, meaning that they are just there to see if they can work, and are not intended to do any real damage.

In fact, the Inqtana worm exploits a vulnerability that was patched by Apple eight months ago, so it will only affect you if you don’t have your Software Update turned on, and are still using OS X v. 10.3. Otherwise, Inqtana can’t touch you even if it were loose “in the wild”–which it is not.

So here’s the question: do these two pieces of malware mean that the Mac is no longer “malware-free”? That’s kind of hard to say. The Mac has had a few “first” malwares, including the rootkit hack called “Opener” about a year ago. So technically, there is malware out there for the Mac. On the other hand, none of it is anything that you are remotely likely to get. Both the Opener and the recent Oompa trojan trigger the administrative password protection, making it unlikely that they would ever get spread; Inqtana also prompts the user for acceptance, making it much less likely to spread. The “Opener” hack was never seen in the wild, and the Oompa trojan probably didn’t get past the first or maybe second generation of iteration, due to Apple’s security measures. The new Inqtana would only affect non-updated Macs, and most Mac users update–and even then, it doesn’t spread very well and will self-destruct soon.

All three of these are proof-of-concept and not intended to actually cause harm. All they do is make clear that malware can infect a Mac–which is something we’ve all known from the start. None will be infecting your computer. So from that perspective, the Mac can still be said to be malware-free (with zero viruses, even in proof-of-concept form).

But the release of Oompa and Inqtana within just a few days of each other does show that something is going on. Possibly it is one hacker churning this out. Or possibly the Inqtana hacker released their malware-in-progress when they saw reports of Oompa. Possibly Inqtana was out there and was only noticed after the Oompa publicity. Or maybe it’s simply a coincidence, with one or perhaps both pieces of malware being out there for some time and just being discovered at about the same time.

Conclusion: you don’t need anti-virus software for your Mac–yet. But you should keep an eye on Mac security news (maybe add “Mac virus” to your configurable Google News page), because eventually there will be Mac malware, it’s just a question of when.

Does this mean that the Mac is no longer more secure than Windows? Well, consider that Windows malware numbers around 60,000, and that the Mac’s security is still intrinsically better than Windows. Even if a hundred actual and harmful Mac viruses were to be released tomorrow, the Mac would still be safer than Windows.

A lot of noise is being generated by web news sites clamoring about the “first virus” discovered that attacks OS X. A closer look at the stories, however, reveals that the alarm is coming from a company that wants to sell Mac-based anti-virus software or services–something we’ve seen before, unreliable because they have a vested interest in scaring people into buying what they are selling.

An even closer look shows that this “virus” or “worm” is nothing but a very ineffective trojan horse. It is not a virus. First of all, it is not self-propagating, despite claims in the media; it requires active, two-step user intervention–no, user authentication–to set it off. Second, the user authentication must be highly ignorant: the file is supposed to be an image, but when you double-click on it, it asks for your administrative password, which any Mac user of more than one week would instantly recognize as system-level event. Such a ruse is immediately obvious–a photo never requires a password, certainly not your password, a password that then opens up access to your operating system. If you’ve used a Mac and installed anything at all, you recognize the password as necessary to install software or gain access to the inner workings of your computer, something a photo should not be doing. The security company ringing the alarms calls “ridiculous” the point that user authentication is required: “Many PC viruses needed user interaction to set off infection, he pointed out, and this was no different.” Baloney. This one requires an administrative password, not just a double-click on a file. Not even close to being the same thing.

So, yes, if a person is stupid enough to then enter their password, then–shock!–their system is compromised. But this is less a case of malware than it is of extreme user gullibility. I mean, I could direct any computer user to delete their system files or initialize their hard disk, and if they’re naive enough, they would do it. Does that constitute a “virus” or any weakness of the OS? Hell no. It means the user is not too bright. And to propagate, it would require a string of dumb users to contribute their security passwords to pass it on each and every time. Not too bloody likely. Such a trojan horse could never propagate very far at all.

Compare this to Windows, where double-clicking on a virus file immediately infects the machine, without asking for verification. That’s one big difference between the two systems; one gives you due warning and requires your willing assistance, whereas the other one allows you to be easily taken in unless you are very careful or knowledgeable. Anyone might try to open an image file, and on Windows, that’d be enough to infect the computer. How many would open an image file and then actively type in a password that allows access to their operating system?

An analogy to better understand might be an intruder at your door. You hear someone at the door, and have no peephole; you simply open the door and the intruder barges in and ransacks your house. That’s Windows. On the Mac, you hear someone at the door, and there is a peephole; you see that it’s someone dressed in a ski mask, poised to break in. If you then decide to open the door, it’s your own damned fault.

Apple could “plug” this “hole” simply by adding text to the password dialog box: “You have opened an application which could access your system resources and cause damage. If you did not double-click an application, or do not fully trust the source of this software, then do not enter your password.” Problem solved.

A final point: I can’t find any story on the issue which even describes any damage done by the file–many even reported that the trojan even failed to execute properly. Meh. Some threat. As I’ve always held, the Mac is not invulnerable–but it does have good security, which, if anything, this whole episode proves.

Check out this “unfair edit” from Letterman on Cheney (Flash video). Hilarious.

The story is coming out in dribbles, but it’s coming out: Cheney had been drinking before he shot Whittington.

The first leak came when ranch owner Katherine Armstrong, who initially claimed there was no alcohol, let slip later that there was beer, but she didn’t know anything about it. The comment appeared on the MSNBC web site, and was soon mysteriously erased from the site, in a move that MSNBC still has not explained (that darned liberal media!). But the damage was done, the beans were spilled.

Then, when Cheney finally made a public statement–cowardly enough, not by a general press conference, but by talking to pal Brit Hume on the “F-word network” (Jack Cafferty’s phrasing), where he was sure to be treated with kid gloves. In that interview, he fessed up to drinking (sort of), but attempted to blunt the sting of the fact by claiming it was hours before the incident, and then he kind of denied that there had been drinking.

However, so far Cheney and the White House have lied about and attempted to play down just about everything about this incident, so there’s little doubt that Cheney is still not giving us the whole truth here. It has also been pointed out that Cheney’s meds may have also played a factor, amplifying the effect of alcohol.

One thing for certain: the reason for Cheney hiding from the police and the press and withholding the story until the next day becomes far less a mystery and far more a certainty.

So the question now is, where will it go from here? If Whittington dies, what will happen? One thing I can say with confidence, Cheney will never spend a day in jail. And the irony of all of this is that this is no doubt one of Cheney’s lesser misdeeds. But hey, whatever rings the bell.

Update: Cheney “accepts blame” and Bush is “satisfied” with it. Well, I’m glad that that’s all settled. Now we can ignore it and let Cheney get off scot free.

I am very much a fan of science, as well as science fiction. I am pretty certain that other life and civilizations exist out there, and am quite keen on the concept of contacting that life.

That said, I don’t think SETI will ever accomplish anything. Here’s why.

Imagine there is a tribe of primitive people on a remote and small archipelago in the south Pacific (where these imaginary tribesmen are usually located), who have never encountered anyone else in the world. They are way off of sea and air traffic lanes, so they have never even seen any evidence of others living on Earth. They do know the Earth is curved (they see boats going to their most distant island disappear over the horizon) and vast, and they wonder: are there any other people, any other tribes out there?

So they send their smartest people off to try to contact others using the most sophisticated communications technology they possess. These big brains climb the tallest mountain in the island chain, start a fire, and begin sending up smoke signals. The communications team figures that if anyone exists out beyond that horizon, surely they will see the signals, and if they do, they will reply in kind. The intrepid team spends weeks up on the mountain, sending signals and keeping a keen and vigilant watch on all horizons for any reply.

Eventually, after receiving no answers to their many signals, they decide to pack it in. Either there is no one else out there, or they aren’t watching for smoke signals, or they aren’t advanced enough to understand or send them, or they just don’t care to reply. Regardless of which is true, they cannot find any evidence of life out there.

And as they walk down the mountain in resignation, they are completely unaware that at that instant, countless radio signals from dozens of highly advanced civilizations on Earth are coursing through the very space they occupy.

In this analogy, we are the tribesmen.

It has always surprised me that this probable truth is never discussed, that I have encountered at least, in public discourse about the search for intelligent life in the universe. No one seems to consider or at least speak aloud the most likely case that alien signals abound around us–but we simply don’t have the technology to pick them up.

Think of the scientific arrogance: we are supposed to assume that the long-range communications technology we possess–electromagnetic radiation signaling–is somehow the ultimate in scientific achievement. Here we are, just beginning our scientific development, still without a unified theory on how the universe works, and yet the technology we developed just a hundred years ago–the blink of an eye by cosmological standards, and just the very beginning of what is likely a long technological evolution–is the end-all-be-all of cosmic telephony. I find the idea highly unlikely. You might say that there is no better conceivable technology than radio to communicate–but I’m sure that what was thought of the last best way to talk before radio technology was developed.

I have little doubt that decades, centuries, or even millennia in the future, we will discover if not one, then many more advanced stages of communications technology, and when that time comes, we’ll discover why things seem so silent in the universe when we listen just with radio telescopes.

As I said from the outset, there’s a lot about this incident that’s suspicious. My initial blog entry title of “CheneyquidDick” may have been quite apt; this may have been a similar incident, in important ways.

First off, at 6:30 pm, the vice president shoots a man in the face, neck and chest in rather blatant violation of hunting safety rules. That’s bad enough right there.

But then everyone who speaks for him covers up: they claim that it was Whittington’s fault; it wasn’t, it was very clearly Cheney’s. Second, they claim that the “peppering” was so light as to be negligible; it was not. Whittington was admitted to intensive care, where he stayed for a day, then had to be readmitted a day after being taken out of ICU because a shotgun pellet migrated to his heart and caused a minor attack. Sorry, but it’s hard to see a light peppering leading to a lead pellet half a centimeter wide being lodged in the man’s heart. Third, they claim he was properly licensed when he was not. Fourth, they claim that the incident was not reported because apparently everyone involved was so busy getting the man medical care that no one could spare five minutes over the course of twenty hours to give a simple accounting of what happened. That’s complete and utter bull, of course. They were within a stone’s throw of a car; why not drive the man to a hospital, especially with such “light” wounds? Instead, it’s almost an hour before an ambulance can take Whittington to the hospital.

Lies all around, covering up for Cheney. Here’s one small rule of thumb: if everyone is covering up, then there is something to cover up.

But the big point that I see here is not just the delay in reporting the incident; the big deal is rather the reason why there was a delay. The fact is, there is no good explanation for a delay–it simply makes no sense. You know that the story is going to come out. There’s no avoiding that. So why delay?

Another piece of the puzzle involves the fact that Cheney avoided talking to the police until the next day. It was 80 minutes before the Secret Service finally called the police; the sheriff asked to speak to Cheney, but an appointment was made for the next morning at 9:00 am. Why? Somehow the sheriff cannot come to the ranch at 8:00 pm? Deputies came to the ranch shortly thereafter, and the Secret Service initially reported that they wanted to interview Cheney. That story was later changed, and they denied that the police came to interview Cheney. And where was Cheney during all this? Having dinner, apparently so engaged in being “focused on Whittington’s well being” that they still were unable to make a phone call to the White House to tell them what had happened. Then they all went to bed, leaving the White House in the dark about the incident until 6 am the following morning when they finally find out that Cheney was the shooter.

Sorry, but that is the biggest sack of bullshit I have ever heard.

There is one explanation that makes sense of all of this: Cheney was drunk. It explains why they refused to speak to law enforcement. It explains why they needed to wait until morning to release the story. It explain why Cheney, an experienced hunter who should know safety rules up and down, made such an amateurish blunder in shooting someone. It explains why the White House is in full lie-about-everything denial mode. Even the chief deputy of the local police was in denial for Cheney: “There was no alcohol or misconduct,” he told the press. But how could he make that claim when his department was denied access to Cheney for 14 hours after the incident took place?

That Cheney was drunk is, in short, the only explanation that makes any sense.

Nevertheless, we will never see proof. That’s the reason for the delay and for putting off talking to the police. Now Cheney can face the police without his drinking being apparent. The only witnesses were his Secret Service detail, which will never tell, and high-powered Republican backers, who will also keep their mouths shut. There was no avoiding looking suspicious as hell, but the result is that there are only suspicions, and no proof.

But the circumstances are in themselves evidence that things did not happen as they are being described, and the lack of any reasonable explanation leaves the rest of us no choice but to believe the only reasonable explanation which fits the facts. And Cheney, with two drunk driving convictions from when he was young and no history of cleaning up, certainly is not above suspicion for such behavior.

Update: DailyKos is now reporting that Katherine Armstrong, owner of the ranch where the incident occurred, did report to MSNBC that people in the shooting party had been drinking, but that comment was scrubbed from the MSNBC web site.

Who knows, maybe that would help explain his other discretions. This is not the first time Cheney has been caught hunting illegally, for example; according to the Times Online, Cheney “had also been caught fishing out of season. ‘The $25 fine was not the worst part,’ he commented later. ‘They took my fucking fish.'”

Yet another nail in the coffin of the long-time myth about the “liberal” media. That term first came into use when a conservative survey showed that about 60% of television journalists voted Democratic, even though it did not do anything to identify those journalists’ reporting as being slanted in any way. It also did not mention that fully two-thirds of all editors and publishers are conservative, and that editors and publishers, not journalists, control the political leaning of news stories and of the news outlet in general. But the myth was established, and was pounded home by the pundits, who as time went on came to have more and more of a voice in the media–and who have always been, by a vast majority, right wing, not to mention far more vitriolic and outspoken in their conservative bias.

A recent study has given more credence to this, identifying the “ideologically identifiable guests on the Sunday shows,” these shows being considered political bellwethers. The study (methodology here) shows that conservatives have outnumbered liberals on the shows since the Clinton years, and now make up nearly 60% of the speakers on the shows. A more detailed look at the data (pdf file) shows that even where left-wing guests were more prominent in the second Clinton term, that ration switched to a much greater prominence of right-wing guests in Bush’s term, often three times as wide a gap in favor of conservatives. And just before the war in Iraq, almost all guests are among those who approved of the war–those who voiced opposition were not asked to be on the show. While the source is biased, the data is right out there and the methodology is sound–and at the very least, this study is no less biased than the study that launched the entire “liberal media” myth in the first place.

It isn’t hard to see the right-wing bias in the media. Whereas the old right-wing claim of liberal bias was always based on an abstract and never on actual observable evidence, the right-wing bias that permeates the media now is clear both statistically and observationally. Quick test: see how many right-wing pundits you can name. Write them down on a piece of paper. Then in a new column, write down all the left-wing pundits you can think of. Unless you consciously avoid watching or thinking about right-wing commentators, the right-wing list will be much longer then the left-wing list.

Turns out Cheney did not, after all, have a proper hunting license, contrary to White House claims. He had a license, but he did not get the necessary certification to hunt “upland game birds” such as quail. He’ll be given a “warning citation” for the infraction.

No word in the press if he had bought the necessary stamp for hunting Republican donors.

Update to the update: Cheney has been cleared of “wrongdoing” by law enforcement. Big surprise. Can you imagine what would have happened if it was some regular Joe Schmoe who went hunting without the correct license and then ignored basic safety rules and shot his buddy in the face? You think he would have been cleared of “wrongdoing” without so much as a small fine? Hell, I bet they won’t even make him pay the $7 upland game bird stamp retroactively. The arrogance of these Bush people is amazing, in how they apparently deeply believe that the rules just don’t apply to them–an arrogance which is only upheld by the fact that they can indeed get away with it.

There’s something strange going on in the story about Vice President Dick Cheney shooting a 78-year-old lawyer in the neck and chest with a shotgun. The strangeness is in the many odd details about the story.

First, there are an awful lot of denials coming out. Although the lawyer, Harry Whittington, is a prominent Republican, an appointee of then-governor Bush, and contributed the maximum amount to Bush and Cheney in 2004, the point was made that Whittington was not Cheney’s guest and it was not known if Cheney had ever met him before.

Next, this kind of accident is being called “frequent, but not often,” as well as “going with the territory,” as if it were a quite normal and expected thing in quail hunting, and yet it was stressed that it was not Cheney’s fault. Whittington, instead, was blamed for coming up behind Cheney without announcing himself. Happens all the time and there’s nothing to it, and it was the other guy’s fault.

Update: after checking with hunters, Josh Marshall confirmed that what happened with Cheney is never the ‘other guy’s’ fault. The shooter must always be aware of where he is shooting, must always be cautious not to shoot in the direction of others. Cheney left a hunting partner behind, and then turned around 180 degrees and shot in that direction. His fault. But his chief advisor, the nutty lady I blogged on the other day, claimed that Cheney “was not careless or incautious or violate any of the [rules]. He didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do.”

Still not sure? How about this from Texas’ own “Shooting Safety Rules“: Know your safe zone-of-fire and stick to it. — Your safe zone-of-fire is that area or direction in which you can safely fire a shot. It is “down range” at a shooting facility. In the field it is that mental image you draw in your mind with every step you take. Be sure you know where your companions are at all times. Never swing your gun or bow out of your safe zone-of-fire. Know the safe carries when there are persons to your sides, in front of, or behind you. If in doubt, never take a shot. When hunting, wear daylight fluorescent orange so you can be seen from a distance or in heavy cover.

Now Paul Begala, who knows quite a bit about hunting, chimes in.

Furthermore, although the wounds were described as being hardly anything worth noting, Whittington remains in the intensive care unit a full day after the shooting took place. This sounds just a little bit like it’s being played down.

Editor & Publisher asks some questions about all that. First, they point out that despite the explanation that such accidents occur “frequently,” only 30 or so shooting accidents happen in Texas each year, a state with one million hunters.

But chief among concerns is the fact that neither Cheney nor the White House reported the incident, nor did it seem like they intended to. Law enforcement was not notified. Almost a day went by before a local reporter with a strong relationship to the owner of the ranch where it happened picked up on the story. He then called Cheney’s office, which confirmed the story. Cheney’s office knew about it, but could not say that they had any plans to release the information on their own.

So how could it be that the vice president shoots a man and there is no intention to report it?

One thing is for certain: the late-night comedians will take this one to the bank. I’ve already heard one quip through family: “I won’t object to Cheney taking Scalia duck hunting anymore.” This mock story appeared already in The Huffington Post.

Update: More lame excuses. Scott McClellan is now handing out some new whoppers about why the White House held back the story. “McClellan insisted that the vice president’s and his staff’s overriding concern after the shooting was getting Whittington proper medical care.” Baloney. That would involve calling an ambulance and making sure the best doctor was called in, which would take no more than an hour, with plenty of time to call the White House. Hell, the secret service could take care of informing the White House while Cheney took care of his friend. In any case, why should such trouble be needed to assign “proper medical care” if the wound was so light as they claimed? Can’t have it both ways.

Another whopper: “The initial report that we received was that there had been a hunting accident. We didn’t know who all was involved, but a member of his party was involved in that hunting accident, and then additional details continued to come in overnight.” As if somehow one phone call of ten minutes from Cheney or one of his agents wouldn’t be enough to explain it all. One hour after the incident, everything should have been known and communicated. One whole day was hardly necessary, and it was clear that the White House had no intention of releasing this on their own.

Also interesting, but more a side point, is the identity of the man who was shot: Whittington was the man Bush appointed to be commissioner of Texas’ Funeral Service Commission in 1999. That was when Bush fired Eliza May for doing her job and going after fraud in the funeral home industry. Before May was in charge of the commission, cronyism and corruption were rampant in the industry. May was different, and had started investigating a firm called SCI, who were big Bush backers. They went to Bush’s chief of staff Joe Allbaugh (a Bush crony whom Bush later appointed to head FEMA before Michael Brown), and before May could finish her investigations, she was fired by Bush, who appointed Whittington, who then backed off the investigation.

Eliza filed a whistleblower lawsuit in which Bush was then subpoenaed; to get out of having to testify and likely perjure himself massively, Bush signed an affidavit under oath which swore that he never spoke with anyone involved in the case. It later surfaced that Bush had had two such conversations. Bush had lied under oath, an offense Republicans felt was impeachable when Clinton did it. But in Bush’s case, no one seemed to notice or care as Bush then ran for president.

As I said, not directly relevant to Cheney shooting the guy. But it is interesting how often one stumbles over connections to lawbreaking and corruption in Bush’s past–stuff people never heard about from the “liberal” media–whenever stuff like this comes up.

I’ve written here before about the Yomiuri Newspaper’s long history of trying to popularize a rewriting of the Japanese Constitution to allow Japan to reclaim war powers. So this news story about the Yomiuri news baron Tsuneo Watanabe caught me a bit off guard:

Mr. Watanabe, now nearly 80 years old, has stepped into the light. He has recently granted long, soul-baring interviews in which he has questioned the rising nationalism he has cultivated so assiduously in the pages of his newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri — the world’s largest, with a circulation of 14 million. Now, he talks about the need to acknowledge Japan’s violent wartime history and reflects on his wife’s illness and his own, as well as the joys of playing with his new hamsters.

Now, the idea that this guy would question Japan’s rising nationalism was quite a shocker. But the revelation about hamsters is… well, stunning, I suppose. Almost jarring in juxtaposition to the serious issues at hand. You’ve got to admit, when you reach that last word, you kind of look at it again in a mental double-take, and wonder if you read it right. Could the turn against nationalism and the hamsters be somehow related? Did the hamsters speak to him and convince him to change his mind? Or is he just becoming kind of soft and fuzzy in his old age?

It’s kind of difficult to reconcile this man’s long effort to revise the Constitution to allow for wartime powers with his present turn to blunt Japanese nationalism. Watanabe is now openly criticizing Prime Minister Koizumi for not understanding the controversy over his official visits to the nationalist Yasukuni Shrine:

“This person Koizumi doesn’t know history or philosophy, doesn’t study, doesn’t have any culture. That’s why he says stupid things, like, ‘What’s wrong about worshiping at Yasukuni?’ Or, ‘China and Korea are the only countries that criticize Yasukuni.’ This stems from his ignorance.”

Watanabe also criticized the romanticization of kamikaze pilots and other young Japanese men sent out to war:

“It’s all a lie that they left filled with braveness and joy, crying, ‘Long live the emperor!’ ” he said, angrily. “They were sheep at a slaughterhouse. Everybody was looking down and tottering. Some were unable to stand up and were carried and pushed into the plane by maintenance soldiers.”

So Mr. Watanabe is going to have his newspaper publish a yearlong series of articles on the events of World War II. Which should be quite something, considering the Yomiuri’s history.

Let’s hope that those hamsters keep on encouraging him in this new direction.

Some former Bushites are turning, or so it seems. First, we’ve got the Michael “Heckuva-job Brownie” Brown, who is testifying that the Bush administration did, in fact, know the levees broke the day Katrina hit, and not the day after, as the Bush administration has been claiming. Of course, we all knew this already–there were more than a few dozen such reports. But in today’s age of Anything-Goes-for-Bush right-wing media, apparently we need a notarized confession from a high-level Bush administration official before the media starts to stir around and get serious.

Brown, in fact, said under oath that administration claims to not being notified are “just baloney” and “a little disingenuous.” And so now the media is gasping, as if we didn’t know this already, and that somehow this is more serious than everything else Bush did during Katrina and its aftermath.

But there’s more, this time from the Scooter Libby case. Apparently unwilling to take the fall alone, he is testifying to a grand jury that he had been “authorized” by Dick Cheney and other White House “superiors” in 2003 to dish out classified information to the media in defense of the Iraq War. It is still not clear whether this is a serious indictment of the Bush administration, or if it’s a defense tactic where he can blame the White House and they can blame him, and so long as they shredded all the documents, reasonable doubt can be introduced. We’ll have to see. This does follow the “notarized confession from a high-level Bush administration official” standard, but apparently the media needs more than just that to get interested in the Plame case any more, as they’re fairly quiet on this story.

Not to mention that prosecutor Fitzgerald has revealed that there was a PDB, or Presidential Daily Briefing, which told Bush that Wilson had debunked the Niger story–this coming well before Bush claimed the story true in his State of the Union address. This after the Bush administration has vehemently and repeatedly denied that anyone in the White House ever heard of the Wilson report–after all, if they had, then the SOTU reference to Nigeria would have been a knowing lie. And that’s what we’re learning was exactly the case, though now it may actually be documented. Which, apparently, will be only one of the dozen or so different iron-clad proofs of the fact necessary to stoke the media’s interest in the story. Unless they can find out that Scooter gave Dick Cheney a blow job, which would be far more important, and they would immediately jump all over it.

I’ll bet you that some conservatives think that black people are not discriminated against, in fact are doing pretty well, but they are enslaved by racist civil rights leaders.

But no right-winger would ever say that. I mean, you’d sound like a real loon if you said something stupid like that.

Man. You know, I could not make stuff like this up.

Oh, please.

First off, Bush uses his tried-and-true lying technique here, alleging, hinting and implying that his illegal surveillance program was responsible for stopping the terrorist “plot” to fly into the U.S. Bank (a.k.a. “Library,” not “Liberty”) Tower–while if you read the fine print, you’ll see that he refused to say it directly. That’s the exact same technique he used to implicate Saddam Hussein in 9/11, not by saying it directly but by making everyone think that’s what he’s saying without actually saying it.

An even closer reading will reveal that there is not even any proof that the “plot” was real–apparently, the suspects are still “in custody,” which is strange because it was four years ago and it seems that no one has been convicted yet.

But the strongest proof is that we are just now hearing about it. If this “plot” were in any way some kind of threat, Bush would have announced it back in 2002 in time for midterm elections, in 2004 for his re-election, or at some other time–if not immediately. Think about it: there is no reason whatsoever to keep it a secret. Al Qaeda certainly would have known the “plot” was foiled. We’ve been told of other apparent plots almost as soon as they happen.

No, the only reading that makes sense here is that the L.A. “plot” was so weak, so thin, and so indistinct that it was not even worth mentioning until Bush needed something to justify his surveillance program–which, from what we can tell, was not even connected this this at all. But Bush needs something that will catch attention, something that will make him and his lawbreaking look effective, so they searched for even the most nebulous possible “plots,” dusted one off, and trumped it up so everyone would get scared all over again and believe that surrendering their civil rights is the only thing keeping them safe from attack.

As if to punctuate the ludicrous nature of these claims in a ham-handed attempt to scare the American people, Fox News cartoonishly replayed the scene from the movie Independence Day where aliens blew up the U.S. Bank Tower. All they needed was to have Bill O’Reilly come on right after that, hands reaching toward the camera, shouting, “Booga Booga Boooooga!!!”

As has always happened when Bush lies like this, the quiet truths get squelched in the loud static of spectacular lies that Bush heaves forward by the truckload.

Okay, I’ve recovered enough from wading through the first part of the speech, enough to come back and stomach what’s left.

Our economy is healthy and vigorous, and growing faster than other major industrialized nations. In the last two-and-a-half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs — more than Japan and the European Union combined.

This statement is misleading in many ways. First of all, it’s selective editing. Bush only mentions job growth since jobs started growing, and ‘forgot’ to mention the first three years when jobs were consistently lost. Over Bush’s whole presidency, job growth was only 2.1 million jobs, or an average 35,000 per month–anemic at best. Also, compared to recovery in jobs after the start of a recession, this is the slowest “recovery” in the past half century, by a very large margin. Bill Clinton added 22 million jobs in eight years–even taking Bush’s claim of 4.6 million new jobs, he’s got just two more years to create 17.4 million more jobs and he’ll be even. Think he’ll do it?

Second, the type of jobs Bush has been creating has been dramatically different. Under Bush, we’ve seen job growth in lower-paying, benefit-poor employment–hardly “vigorous.” Under Clinton, there were a lot more well-paying jobs created; under Bush, most Americans have been sliding down to poorer and poorer levels.

And third, the comparison he made about other countries was bogus, relying on chance and statistics more than actual economic performance. It does not factor in population growth in America versus decline in Europe in Japan; it takes advantage of a temporary slump in Europe, as well as the effects of a long-term recession in Japan. Saying that you’re doing better than two other poor performers at a bad time is not an impressive claim.

In short, Bush is using smoke and mirrors to paint a rosier picture than exists, but you can hardly expect him to admit to failure, can you?

In the last five years, the tax relief you passed has left $880 billion in the hands of American workers, investors, small businesses and families. And they have used it to help produce more than four years of uninterrupted economic growth.

Oh, please. As if the economy has been going strong for four years. And let’s try not to pretend as if none of the tax cuts went to the wealthy. Most of them went to the rich, and what small portion went to the “little guys” Bush is acting like he champions, was taken back in a tax shell game, and in other forms such as slashed services and entitlements. And let’s also not forget that what benefits may have come from the tax cuts has been more than offset by the damage done by the far more massive budget deficits.

If we do nothing, American families will face a massive tax increase they do not expect and will not welcome. Because America needs more than a temporary expansion, we need more than temporary tax relief. I urge the Congress to act responsibly and make the tax cuts permanent.

If Bush is suggesting that only tax relief for the average mom-and-pop Americans he pretends he fights for here, and not for, say, anyone making more than a million dollars a year, then great. But you know that the vast bulk of the tax cuts he wants to make permanent are on the millionaires’ side.

Every year of my presidency, we’ve reduced the growth of nonsecurity discretionary spending. And last year you passed bills that cut this spending.

Boy, you’d think Bush was a real budget-slasher from this statement, wouldn’t you? Except when you look real close, you’ll see that he’s serving up yet another line of misleading BS. First, “nonsecurity discretionary spending” accounts only for 16% of the total budget; and you’ll note that he said that he’s reduced growth, not stopped growth or reduced the total. And by how much? Well, over the past five years, that spending has dropped by a whole one-tenth of one percent! Wow!

But it’s the other 84% that’s killing us, as Bush’s total spending has increased 42% over the past five years. And hey, let’s not forget that the deficit will increase by more than $50 billion this year. What a great job he’s doing!

I am pleased that the members of Congress are working on earmark reform, because the federal budget has too many special interest projects. And we can tackle this problem together, if you pass the line-item veto.

This is one of those moments where you have to wonder if Bush’s speech writers are completely insane. First of all, Bush has never vetoed a single bill. Not one. Hasn’t used the veto stamp at all, while his Republican colleagues have been on an orgy of pork-barrel spending.

Second, there’s the tiny little detail that the Supreme Court ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional in 1998. But then, Bush doesn’t seem to care much about the Constitution, does he?

So tonight I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

This commission should include members of Congress of both parties and offer bipartisan solutions. We need to put aside partisan politics and work together and get this problem solved.

Except that although Bush has talked about bipartisanship from day one, he never practices it. And he proved that just a few days after the State of the Union address, by quietly sneaking in his plan to privatize social security–after Congress decidedly killed it last year due to the diligence of the Democrats.

And of course, after Bush’s consistent and heavily partisan efforts to weaken or outright kill all three of those programs, a call to try to “solve” the problems in a “bipartisan” way rings so hollow that one would have to laugh aloud–until one remembers what pain and suffering Bush’s efforts would lead to if successful.

---

Holy cow. Is there still one third of his speech left? And I’m only going over the highlights. I can’t take any more of this tonight. I’ll have to see if I can finish this off in one more go at a later time. And I haven’t even gotten to Bush’s priceless “Manimal” bit yet!

How dare they, conservatives are ranting. How dare those Democrats, of all things, of all places, of all times, how dare they mention political issues at Coretta Scott King’s funeral! What scum! How irreverent! Whatever happened to civility and good taste? Those Democrats have no class! Rant! Rant! Rant!

This is an interesting phenomenon, one which started at Paul Wellstone’s funeral, and which you can bet the conservatives were just waiting to pounce on here again. Apparently, when a prestigious liberal leader, an important figure in the progressive movement passes away, Democrats are strictly forbidden to mention anything to do with that person’s politics at their memorial, else the conservatives get all condescending and attack them for having no respect for the dead.

Sorry, but what a stupid stance to take. Coretta Scott King made it her life’s work, like her husband, to fight for civil rights. So how dare those nasty Democrats have the gall to go and mention civil rights at her funeral! She spent decades fighting injustices, so how dare those opportunistic Democrats actually talk about those injustices at the memorial service!

The answer is obvious: that’s what her life was about. That’s what she dedicated herself to, right up to the end. It was fully and greatly appropriate to memorialize her death by saying the things that she would want to have said, to celebrate her causes, to point out the lessons she wanted us to learn.

The real snub, the absolute disservice and disrespect, would have been to silence the voice of this great woman just so George W. Bush wouldn’t be embarrassed by how badly he has done by her dedication and her causes.

Not to mention that in taking on this Democrats-have-no-class attitude, conservatives are being royal hypocrites. Let us not forget the fact that when Reagan died, conservatives held a one-week orgy of politicization.

So if you’re a conservative and you’re offended by what Reverend Joseph Lowery said about weapons of misdirection, then chill out. If you respect Mrs. King, then you will respect the messages she stood for. If those messages make you uncomfortable, then maybe you should sit down and think for a minute about why that is. That would be a respectful memorial.

Update: What’s more, the so-called “liberal” media buys into the conservative view full-blast–when the Reagan binge was going on, the media didn’t question it, but with the King funeral, you see stories like this all over the place. Truly a double standard, and often a vicious one at that.

To the Wayback Machine, Sherman!

2004: Bush proposes a $2.3 trillion budget and vows to cut the deficit in half by 2009.

2006: Bush proposes a $2.8 trillion budget and vows to cut the deficit in half by 2009.

Care to predict what Bush will be saying in 2008?

For what must have been the third time this week, I sprang up awake, thinking I had outslept my clock alarms and it was late for me to go to work–and then one minute later, my first alarm of the morning goes off.

So I have an accurate internal clock in my brain, and it’s precise enough to wake me up at an exact time. So why can’t it let me know that it’s waking me up on time instead of making me think I’m late?

Kevin Drum seems think think that AOL and Yahoo’s “Goodmail” system might be a good thing; as reported by the New York Times:

America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely.

The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. They also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.

In essence, this will simply create a new class of approved spam that will appear in your mailbox, creating only a nuisance to you, increased costs to businesses you need to hear from (e.g., receipt confirmations from Amazon.com and such firms you deal with), and profits for your web service providers. I see it as little different from the recent push by telecoms to charge Internet companies for bandwidth–just another profit-taking scheme by those who control the highways of the Internet.

It will also violate the Net Neutrality policy that has so far served as well as could be expected on the net. As for the safeguard of only approving email users have “agreed to receive,” that’s highly dubious at best. How will that be verified? What constitutes “agreement”? With AOL and Yahoo set only to profit from wider use, it is doubtful that spammers will often be blocked for abusing this; it is likely that the inclusion of an “opt-out” clause alone will qualify as “approved” spam.

This is not a solution, it’s a business opportunity for AOL and Yahoo to cash in on the spam business at your expense.

This guy does really good Bush and Clinton impersonations.

A green Bush hack is giving orders to NASA scientists to devalue the Big Bang and give more credence to fundamentalist interpretations of cosmology.

Don’t miss this great MoveOn commercial presented at Crooks & Liars.

Even more proof that Bush lied about when he decided to go to war in Iraq and how he was open to not going to war. Not that anything will come of yet more proof that the president lied, yet again, about a costly, failed war.

The case against Scooter Libby solidifies. When will Rove get his frog march?

No wonder they didn’t want to try to get warrants for the wiretaps–apparently only 1 in 500 were justifiable.

Bush’s new budget: throw money at the military, take it from social programs, make tax cuts for the rich permanent, and slash Medicare. Remember when Bush said he was going to save Medicare? Of course, he only ever said it, he never actually did it. And now he’s going to gut it.