Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:05 AM

A few quick tidbits before I shut everything down for the trip.

• Yay! According to Suburban Guerrilla, both MSNBC and New York Times have written stories about the hackable Diebold voting machines!
• My friend Teddywolf makes an insightful observation on what the GOP has provoked in California.
• I was meaning to post a brief list of links that I recommend to fill those news cravings while I'm away, but I'm just not finding the time to compile them. I suppose Eschaton followed by DailyKos for breaking news. But I really wish I had time to list all of the less-known blogs that I've found so useful recently. Maybe when I get back...
• Now here's a surprising quote from a surprising source. Remember former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey? The one who once called Rep. Frank "Barney Fag"? Get a load of these comments:

  "The theme is 10 years of one-party rule is enough," Armey said. "They (Republicans) have had control for 10 years, they've gotten arrogant, they demean the institution, they demean democracy by virtue of the heavy-handed way they run the House, minority rights are downtrodden, and it's time, Mr. and Mrs. America, to make a change.
  "That isn't a whole lot different from the case we made in '94, after 40 years," Armey said, recalling the stunning GOP takeover engineered by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

• Talk about crafty, canny politicking by the administration. If you know when some unfavorable news is being released, counterprogram:

  All three cable news networks were covering the news conference announcing the results of the congressional 9/11 report, when the Rumsfeld/Bremer news conference began. All three networks immediately cut to the latter, and stayed with it, no cutting back, and at the end, the discussion stayed with Rumsfeld/Bremer, and a crucial issue of whether or not releasing the pictures of the two dead sons of Saddam was a good idea.

I've got to get to bed, since we're leaving early in the morning. 'Night all!

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:15 PM

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been exploring why I blog, how I blog (or what I blog about), and what I'm trying to get out of blogging. I've been writing this on-and-off for the last two days, and it's quite long. My journal doesn't have lj-cut tags, but I'm doing the next best thing by putting the body of my report on a separate, with links here to each section. This is what I've come up with so far. I hope you like it:

• Why I blog
• What I blog
• What I hope to get out of blogging
• Putting it all together

An interesting aside: When I started keeping this journal last year, I referred to it as a journal. Now I generally call it a blog. Partly it's because blog is shorter to speak and write. But I also perceive a stylistic difference between the two. I view journals as akin to diaries -- primarily personal -- whereas blogs are more for external matters such as current events.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:25 AM

I'm going out of town early tomorrow morning and won't be back until late Tuesday night. I probably won't be updating the blog in that time. [This should not be taken as an invitation to thieves -- we live in a multi-family home, and people will be checking our place regularly.]

Don't expect many news updates today as there are several essays I want to write and post (including some alternate links readers might want to check in the interim, since I don't keep a blogroll). I don't have time for them all, but I want to get some out there to keep people thinking while I'm away.

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:35 PM

Apologies for the whiny petulance of the last several days. I know it's not pretty to read. I've just been having a frustrating time of late and was feeling unappreciated. Logically, I know that in any marketplace (one of ideas or commercial ones), having a great product is not a sufficient strategy to gain mindshare. Still, the idealist in me wants to believe that cream will rise to the top, and that's what I've been trying to provide.

I get a large chunk of my readership from LiveJournal (at least, based upon comments I receive; given my RSS feed and the popularity of aggregators, other traffic measures don't seem terribly useful) so when LiveJournal won't accept my feed, most of them won't see my posts (unless they think to check the site or use other aggregators).

It feels like a futile effort to try to post timely information if most of my readers won't see it until it's gone stale. Also, when too much arrives in one big chunk (such as the eight fetched this morning or the eleven in a row on the 18th) I feel that it becomes too much to read, so the important bits get lost in the morass. [I know that may be a general problem with the quantity of my posts, but I do try to space them out over the day so people get them in more manageable amounts.]

I'm working on a longer post based on Dave Pollard's What The Blogosphere Needs More Of, in which I've started exploring why I blog, how I blog (or what I blog about), and what I'm trying to get out of blogging. I'm hoping that by better understanding these areas and by looking for mismatches between my expectations and my actions, I can reduce my discontent.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:25 AM

And so, finally, at about 3am, LiveJournal finally decided to read my RSS feed again. And so it posted the eight entries it's been ignoring over the last two days. Not quite in the proper order, of course, that would be too much to ask. But at least they've finally propogated...

Yawn... So last night we went out to the drive-in for a Disney water double-feature: Finding Nemo followed by Pirates of the Caribbean. [We'd intended to see them Saturday night, but it sold out just before we arrived. Last night, being both a weekday and rainy, crowds were much smaller, so we were able to find a prime location.] Both really fun movies; thunder and lightning really added to the atmosphere of the latter (curiously enough, those only started about an hour into the second film, once they were off to sea). Seeing the latter also finally enabled me to take this silly little quiz that's been making the rounds:

You are... 'Damn, he smells good!!!' I really don't see how an old sweaty pirate COULD smell good, but then again, it IS Captain Jack Sparrow we're talking about. What's not to like? What random made up thought from Pirates of the Caribbean are you? brought to you by Quizilla

Mark Kleiman remains a good one-stop source for news about the Valerie Plame situation. In the department of petulant, whiny gripes, his most recent post on the issue thanks "Tom Maguire for spotting" Scott McClellan's briefing. Of course, Tom posted his link and excerpt at 6:37 pm, whereas I provided the same information two-and-a-half hours earlier. And just for the record, when Mark mentions "One of Kevin Drum's commenters provides the relevant text from the Intelligence Identities Protection Act" -- that's me, too (seventh comment on the page).
<grump> Alas the disrespect for being a lowly amphibian.

But, that's all I have time for right now. Gotta get to work soon. [I've been starting and staying late Wednesday nights because I've found the quiet time in the evening really works well for me.] And then tonight at 9 is the second and final part of The Six Wives of Henry VIII (covering wives 3 - 6)

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:05 PM

Just some of the flotsam and jetsam I've encountered over the course of my day, none of which is quite substantial enough for a post of its own:

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:10 PM

I wanted to check today's White House press briefing to see if any mention was made of the felonious outing of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame. Oh, was there ever!

I believe this question is a thing of beauty:

Q Are you saying Novak was wrong in saying that it was two administration sources who were the source for --
MR. McCLELLAN: I have no idea who "anonymous" is. I often wish --
Q It's not anonymous. He says senior administration officials.
MR. McCLELLAN: That would be anonymous.
Q Well, that would be senior administration --
Q Like the guy who briefed us last week?

Just to clarify, on Friday the White House briefed the press on the WMD story. However, even though "[t]he senior official fielded questions for 75 minutes in the White House briefing room before several hundred reporters were in attendence, the identity of the officials were embargoed.
As Washington Post explained, "The official conducting the briefing rejected reporters' entreaties to allow his name to be used, arguing that it was his standard procedure for such sessions to be conducted anonymously."

So on Friday, the White House insists some officials must be anonymous and on Tuesday says that anonymous is tantamount to imaginary. Hypocrisy, thy name is McClellan.

But, of course, the press conference isn't over yet.

Get a load of this exchange:

Q You're saying, flatly, it did not happen, nobody --
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm telling you, flatly, that that is not the way this White House operates. I've seen no evidence to suggest that there's any truth to that.
Q That's different from saying it didn't happen. Are you saying, absolutely, it did not happen?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm saying no one was certainly given any authority to do anything of that nature. And I've seen no evidence to suggest there's any truth to it. I want to make it very clear, that is simply not the way this White House operates.

Notice what McClellan oh so carefully does not say there?

And, how about this, at the end of the conference:

Q Can you come back to the Ambassador Wilson issue for a second. As Ken suggested, it appears as though a federal crime may have been committed. Would the President support an investigation into the blowing of the cover of an undercover CIA operative?
MR. MCCLELLAN: John, I think that's suggesting that there might be some truth to the matter you're bringing up. I have seen nothing -- I have seen nothing to suggest that there is any truth to it. And certainly I want to make very clear --
Q Somebody told --
MR. MCCLELLAN: -- that no one, no one in this White House would be authorized to take such a step.
Q Right. But somebody blew her cover. And would the White House support an investigation into that?
MR. MCCLELLAN: Well, I'd have to look into the specifics about whether or not that characterization is accurate when you're talking about someone's cover. But let me make it very clear, that's just not the way this White House operates.
Q Could you look into it?
MR. MCCLELLAN: I'm sorry. I'll be available later.

Even if it wasn't the White House, it's clear that somebody broke her cover by leaking it to Novak. [Buzzflash has a full timeline.] And, as I've said earlier, that's a felony.

If the administration were smart, they'd call up an immediate investigation and then subvert it by sending it on wild goose chases. Try to further tarnish George Tenet or something. But put on an appearance of concern and action and the story will vanish.

Stonewalling like this will only make it look like they've got something to hide, which will only increase public distrust in the administration.

Am I wrong?

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:29 PM

As long as I've been looking at the law regarding the protection of covert agents, another story piqued my curiousity:

Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice says:

Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct

According to Stars and Stripes,

Last year, Lt. Col. Steve Butler, a 24-year veteran Air Force officer, was suspended from his senior position at the Defense Language Institute for writing a letter to the Monterey, Calif., newspaper that was critical of President Bush.

Since last week's critical comments by the 3rd Infantry Division, soldiers in Iraq have been warned to watch what they say to reporters, and some may be punished. As one anonymous officer said, "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."

This got me wondering about the Clinton era.
In 1994, Jesse Helms described the military attitude towards the President by saying, "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard." I remember the consternation those remarks evoked, but don't recall any investigations into them or disciplinary actions as a result. [In contrast, the Secret Service is currently investigating an L.A. Times editorial cartoonist for an illustration portraying Bush as a victim of politics. It may be a clumsy image, but come on! More on this from Nathan Newman and Voice Unheard. But I digress.]

So anyway, I went searching through news archives for stories of any Clinton-era cases of military discipline for criticizing the President. The most detailed and thorough resource is this 1999 Army Lawyer article, which has a complete history of the law and its precedents.
A few quotes:

• Historically, approximately 115 prosecutions under Article 88's predecessors have been identified, the majority of which occurred during the Civil War and the two World Wars.
• Since the UCMJ was enacted in 1950 only a single known court-martial has occurred pursuant to Article 88. In United States v. Howe, an Army Lieutenant was convicted for carrying a sign during an antiwar demonstration that read "Let's Have More Than A Choice Between Petty Ignorant Facists In 1968" on one side and "End Johnson's Facist Aggression In Viet Nam" on the other side.
  [This] is the only known prosecution under Article 88
• Early in the Clinton presidency an Air Force General was fined, reprimanded, and forced into early retirement for referring to the President as "'gay-loving,' 'womanizing,' 'draft-dodging,' and 'pot-smoking,'" during an Air Force banquet speech. Three years later, another Air Force general was reprimanded for telling an inappropriate joke about President Clinton during a speech at an Air Force base in Texas. More recently, two Marine Corps officers were administratively punished for published letters to newspapers that were disrespectful to the President, and military officials warned the remainder of the Armed Forces against engaging in similar misconduct.

Based on the above and with a little further digging of my own,
Here's a comparison of the comments made and punishments meted out:

So, there you have it. I'm not entirely sure what this proves, other than in comparison to earlier punishments, the comments of 3ID within the ABC News story don't seem quite up to the level of losing careers over.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 AM

Well, touch screen voting machines have made the Boston Globe, not in terms of how hackable they are (first blogged July 9th) but because some groups want the city of Boston to switch to these machines:

But several groups are mounting a campaign to stop the change. Boston Vote wants the city to consider touch-screen voting, an electronic system that would allow people to vote as if they were using an ATM.

With the touch-screen system, voters would follow instructions on a screen and, in many cases, could get a printout of their votes when finished. The system comes with headphones for blind people.

The touch-screen system, backers say, would ultimately be cheaper because it would save the cost of printing paper ballots.
<snip>
But advocates of touch-screen systems also face a large hurdle: Massachusetts has not yet certified any of the systems for use. Boston cannot adopt a touch-screen voting system unless the state approves it first.

Although Georgia and some counties in California successfully use the touch-screen system, the machines caused trouble in a Florida election last year, when poll workers in two counties sent voters away because they could not figure out how to switch the machines on.

That's all they have to say on the matter. Nothing about how one wouldn't conduct an ATM transaction without a receipt, so why trust voting machines without similar paper trails. Nothing about how easily hackable they are.

I sent an email to the reporter. I had contacted the Globe's technology reporter when the story first broke, and I sent him an update message pointing out the story's new local relevance. I suppose I ought to write a letter to the editor and contact this Boston Vote organization and let them know the flaws of the systems they're pushing.

<Sigh> I'm feeling discouraged though. Partly because my efforts to draw more attention to these stories seem to be for naught.
Even moreso because once again LiveJournal stopped recognizing my RSS feed midday yesterday, so I haven't been getting any feedback on anything I've been posting. And poking around the blogosphere last night makes me wonder why I'm still just a crawly amphibian in the ecosystem and what I can do differently to get more hits.

Is anybody there?

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:00 AM

Last Monday I mentioned two new TV ads denouncing the President's deceptions in the State of the Union address. I didn't expect much to come from these ads, figuring they'd just vanish into the ether through the usual media inattention.

Not necessarily. According DailyKos, the RNC's lawyer has contacted the TV stations, demanding they shouldn't air the ads. Quoting from the complaint letter:

The Democratic National Committee certainly has a legitimate First Amendment right to participate in political debate, but it has no right to willfully spread false information in a deliberate attempt to mislead the American people.

Bouncing off a comment by Mike S, couldn't the same thing be said about Bush's State of the Union?

In fact, if the GOP is going to play this game, trying to smear opposing arguments as lies without providing the facts to counter them then maybe we could use the same arguments on their television and radio appearances.

It won't take much rewriting to apply this to Limbaugh or Coulter or Michael Savage:

[A]s an FCC licensee you have the responsibility to exercise independent editorial judgment to not only oversee and protect the American marketplace of ideas, essential for the health of our democracy, but also to avoid deliberate misrepresentations of the facts. Such obligations must be taken seriously.

This letter puts you on notice that the information contained in the above-cited advertisement is false and misleading; therefore, you are obligated to refrain from airing this advertisement.

[Note: I do not advocate censorship for opposing views. However, I feel it's only fair to show the logical extension of such policies, and how easy it is to take a gander at the sauce for the goose.]

Added slightly later: Oh look! A Republican group is running ads falsely claiming the objections to Pryor's nomination are because he's Catholic! In fact, the objections stem from his record on the bench (see Lisa English and Sam Heldman for more of the ugly truths) and his newly discovered habit of targeting subjects of state actions for donations. Maybe we have our first tit-for-tat counter-case? [Of course, Pryor may not like tits, given his argument that "It is enough for a legislature to reasonably believe that commerce in the pursuit of orgasms by artificial means for their own sake is detrimental to the health and morality of the State." Sounds like a fun guy.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:40 AM

Just found an interesting and subtle tidbit about the economy.

As I mentioned briefly or you may have read elsewhere, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which includes in its responsibilities dating the official start and end of recessions, has declared that the recession officially ended in November 2001. Well, get a load of this letter in today's Washington Post

[NBER] had downgraded its emphasis on employment statistics <snip>
In April the committee wrote: "Economy-wide employment and real personal income are the most important monthly indicators . . . employment is probably the single most reliable indicator."
But in July the statement ranked employment behind income. The committee's membership is the same as it was in April, so it appears that it has experienced a remarkable paradigm shift in its analytical processes.

It's The Economy, Stupid has more information from the original article on other ways NBER has changed their measurements since this recession began. As the original Washington Post article states, "The committee designated March 2001 as the beginning of the recession primarily because that was when the number of payroll jobs began to drop, a decline of 2.6 million so far. If the committee were to rely on the same indicator to date the end of the slump, the recession would already have lasted for two years and three months, making it the longest since the vastly more serious downturn that began in 1929 and became the Great Depression." But, as we all now know, they've since decided the recession ended November 2001.

Wampum has pointed out several times (in March and April) that the Department of Labor has been massaging the unemployment numbers to make the statistics look rosier than our actual situation.

And the administration releases massive budget figures that exclude current spending on Iraq and Afghanistan...

I'm beginning to wonder: Are there any objective measures of the economy left? Were there ever?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 PM

For anybody else writing about Valerie Plame, here is the law on the matter:

Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Just wanted to share that for the record. Follow this link for the full text of the law. Now that her husband has confirmed what [t]wo senior administration officials leaked to Robert Novak, there ought to be a criminal investigation into the matter.

Added later: According to Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter I, Section 1101, this offense is considered an "aggravated felony."

And still later: In the Eschaton comments, someone named Sara provides a history of the law. Interestingly enough, it was a pet project of George H.W. Bush. Fascinating.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:01 PM

Lots of folks are talking about this morning's Greens Want Candidate in 2004 (washingtonpost.com). Maybe I'm overlooking something, but I see one very big open question raised by the article. To quote (emphasis mine):

But participants said the discussions came to at least a symbolic close when they were asked to stand in different parts of the room depending on how they felt about the presidential race.

Those who wanted a presidential candidate who would run the strongest possible campaign were asked to stand in one area. Those who wanted someone who would run only in areas where electoral votes would not be pulled from the Democratic presidential candidate stood in another. Those who wanted to skip the race altogether and, instead, support the Democratic candidate stood in yet another.

The unusual exercise was intended to help participants visualize where the highly decentralized and often fractious party stood, literally and figuratively, on the issue.

The overwhelming majority of those present supported joining the race, according to several participants.

But are they joining the race to "run the strongest possible campaign" or are they limiting themselves to "run only in areas where electoral votes would not be pulled from the Democratic presidential candidate"?

There's an important difference between those two positions, and the article never says which of these options got the majority/plurality of the members' votes or which the Green Party leadership has chosen.

Challenging the Democratic base from the left is still going to hurt the Democrats nationally, but I'll hold off on the wailing and cursing and gnashing of teeth until such time as they say they're going for the win regardless of the cost. [via BT!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:45 PM

Joseph Wilson has confirmed to NBC that his wife is (now was) a covert CIA operative. As you may recall "senior administration officials" from the White House deliberately leaked her identity "damaging her future career and compromising past missions." What's more, "under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent." Here's something else that ought to be investigated. [via BT!]

Added later: Newsday reports "Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak."

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:15 AM

In his comments to my Friday night post on the Rumble in the rotunda, Scott wrote:

Plus, we all know the GOP are lovers, not fighters. How else to explain all the bastards in their party? :)

I was going to respond in the comments, but decided to make this a full post.

You see, the problem with that argument is the Republicans apparently aren't terribly good lovers, either. A few examples:

• Love her or hate her, Mary Matalin is tough as nails. And she couldn't find anyone man enough for her within the party, winding up with Democrat James Carville.
• Arianna Huffington was so dissatisfied with her Republican husband that she first ended up in bed with Barney Frank, and has since become quite the liberal.
• In contrast to those Gore photos I posted, Bush had to pull that macho Top Gun stunt on the aircraft carrier, cinching the belts his flightsuit to emphasize (possibly artificially) his bulge. And then, GOP flacks paid fawning attention to it to make sure everybody noticed.
• Three words: Bob Dole Viagra. And have you noticed how much nicer and more likeable he's been since then?
• And that whole elephant imagery? I mean, come on! How obvious can you get?

Consider how pro-war belligerent the current GOP leadership is and how many of them evaded service when they were of age during Vietnam. King James and the History of Homosexuality points out that the notion of war as a means of proving one's manhood dates back at least 400 years.

Like I said, Friday night, insecure much?

[Another reason I was ticked about LJ; I've been debating all weekend whether to write this and was hoping for feedback on that entry to decide whether this crossed the bounds of good taste.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:15 AM

How do we know that privitization is just an ideological scam to eliminate government services and not a principled effort to save money? When the administration tries to privatize a program that's mostly run by volunteers. Nobody's accused them of incompetence or waste, but they're still being forced by the administration to justify their existence. Can anyone explain how the "private sector" can possibly be cheaper than volunteers? Fortunately, over the weekend, the House voted to save the program. But how much time and money had to be wasted on the "competitive sourcing" exercise in the first place? [Anybody notice that even conservative cheerleader Jeff Jacoby complained yesterday about what big spenders the GOP are, pointing out numerically they're worse than the Democrats.] [via BT!]

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:00 AM

1. I'm really getting annoyed with LiveJournal's syndicated feed. I do try somewhat to pace my entries so that important things don't get lost in the shuffle. That's hard to do when LiveJournal stops recognizing my feed 10:30 am on Thursday and won't read it again until 34 hours later (8:45 pm Friday), posting two days worth of entries (13) in a single rush and then choking again and refusing to read until another 48 hours has passed (10pm Sunday). It's very frustrating, especially when I'm trying to get timely information across, and because I know many people only look at my journal through LJ, I know they're not being seen. I don't like/want to use my LJ account to have to remind/notify people that there's stuff on this account that's not getting across. I shouldn't have to do that. And then, because the messages come across in such a flood (13 on Saturday night) important things get lost in the morass.
   LJ readers, do you have these problems with other syndicated feeds or just mine? Any other suggestions?
2. On Friday afternoon, I tried posting several small single-topic messages (using BlogThis!) in contrast to my other method of making one long entry with lots of links to many topics. LJ's famine then flood approach probably makes hard for readers on LJ to tell the difference, but I'm interested in whether readers (a) noticed the stylistic difference and (b) prefer one style of post to the other.
3. Another one that probably got lost in LJ's flood, but I have three Zone 1 commuter rail rides that expire in mid-August -- anybody want them?