|
 Tuesday, August 06, 2002
|
|
Bush defies judicial order
The Washington Post and AP are reporting that the Bush Department of Justice is refusing to obey a judicial order to hand over documents showing cause as to why they have detained an American citizen and are holding him incommunicado. They haven't filed an appeal, they are just claiming that their interpretation of the law supersedes that of the judge.
You'd think that Bush would have more of a sense of obligation to the judicial branch of government, given that's who put him in the presidency. He is tearing apart the Constitution.
|
|
|
It gets more surreal daily: Operation TIPS to America's Most Wanted
Operation TIPS is getting more surreal all the time. Salon is reporting (in its subscribers only section) that when its reporter who had signed up to be a TIPster called the Department of Justice TIPS line, his phone call was transferred to a receptionist at "America's Most Wanted", who told him "We've been asked to take the FBI's TIPS calls for them."
I am flabbergasted - I can't think of anything to add to this story.
The ACLU put out a press release with more of the details of the story, for those who aren't Salon subscribers. Their commentary:
"This is like retaining Arthur Andersen to do all of the SEC's accounting," said Rachel King, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "It's a completely inappropriate and frightening intermingling of government power and the private sector. What's next - the government hires Candid Camera to do its video surveillance?"
Tip o' the hat to the mighty snoops at Strangelove, where I saw this first. I suspect it will be all over the net by tomorrow.
|
|
|
The people don't need to know how to protect themselves - it would only scare them
The Washington Post, in a brilliant piece of reporting, reveals how the Bush administration has been reluctant to provide concrete advice for what to do in case of a terrorist attack, because "elected officials also calculated that asking the public to make specific preparations at home would undercut the political message that government is doing everything that can be done." In the meantime of course, the adminstration has been preparing themselves and congress."On Capitol Hill, even as the government avoids recommending filtered breathing masks for private citizens, Harman of California said, "Our office was counseled to use them when opening the mail." ...In bags delivered to each office, the sergeant-at-arms provided enough hooded masks to protect every member of the Senate and the House and their staffs. Required Reading.
This is an extreme version of Bush's general attitude that "people don't need to know." The arrogance of it makes me furious. I hope they roast in the press for this.
The Washington Post has prepared their own preparedness guide, which pops up from the article, and Senator Bill Frist has also published a book, Every Moment Counts, which is excerpted online. Apparently there are a few simple things that one can do that would cost less than $10 which might well save your life in the case of a biological or chemical attack
|
|
|
Bay Area: Opportunity to show Cheney what you think on Aug 7
I don't much believe in the efficaciousness of protests, but I thought that I would pass this one on. Global Exchange is calling for a protest of Dick Cheney's visit to SF. Sounds like it might be fun, except for the hour.
PROTEST DICK CHENEY'S VISIT TO SF
When? Wednesday, Aug. 7th, 7:30 A.M. (Yes, that's A.M.)
Where? Fairmont Hotel, California & Mason, San Francisco
Why? Because he's a corporate crook, cooking the books while CEO of
Halliburton. Because he wants to drag us into a war with Iraq. Because
he and his energy buddies bilked California of billions.
The SF Mime Troupe's Dick Cheney II, a.k.a. El Holmes, will be holding
a people's press conference so come with your questions about Cheney's
misdeeds!
If you're into dressing up, come as a journalist, or perhaps a "Friend
of Cheney", i.e. your favorite corporate criminal. Or you can be part
of an angry mob calling for Cheney's arrest with signs like "Wanted:
Dick Cheney - The Corporate Crook".
Let's make our point and have some fun at the same time!
For information or suggestions of other ideas, contact Global Exchange at
peace@globalexchange.org or 415-575-5555.
|
|
|
Radio eating my links again.
Links gone again. Trying double link voodoo. Didn't work. Shut down and restarted Radio. When will I learn - never never edit links outside of Radio.
Well, an hour spent screwing around to no avail. I keep on doing things, editing this post, then reposting. When will I just bite the bullet and make the move to Movable Type. Robert K. Brown has just done so and seems happy with the result.
I can't beleive that I am still screwing with this.
|
|
|
I want to blog the New Yorker: Not
I just read two fascinating articles in the New Yorker. The first, in the August 5, 2002 issues, is by Malcom Gladwell. It is a look at the work of a researcher, Paul Ekman, who studies how people read other people's faces. It is a great old style New Yorker article -- take an obscure subject and research it and write about it in enough detail to show people how fascinating it really is. Gladwell explains how Ekman has come up with a system, The Facial Action Coding System, that can be used to teach people how to read facial expressions. He profiles a couple of policemen who score in the 99th percentile for ability to read people's faces, and tells how that skill has effected their lives. Aside from an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending, a great article (and I can easily see a book coming out of it). However, you can't find the article on the web. If you want to read it, you'll have to go buy the New Yorker or wait until Gladwell puts it up on his personal site, www.gladwell.com For now, the best you can do online is go Paul Ekman's personal site and download one of his academic papers.
The second article was from the July 29, 2002 issue. It was an article by Jerome Groopman on the current medical fad for prescribing testosterone, and it revealed how much of the fad has to do with marketing and subsidized research and promotion by Unimed, a division of Belgian conglomerate Solvay, makers of AndroGel. It also exposed how unreliable current tests for testosterone levels are, and how little research has been done on the effect of testosterone replacement therapy on prostate cancer, and how possible it is that in the long term testosterone replacement therapy will lead to an epidemic of prostate cancer. A very interesting article that should be part of the current debate over hormone replacement therapy. Is it up on the New Yorker's web site? No, nor could I find it anywhere online. Presumably, it will eventually find its way onto Groopman's personal/book site, www.jeromegroopman.com, but right now I couldn't find it online anywhere.
While I understand the New Yorker's reluctance to provide content for free, and it has yet to be shown that there is a viable business model for making profits from putting content online for general readers, I think that the New Yorker and its authors are missing a real chance to start and be part of a conversation. So much of the conversation about ideas today starts online and continues online. If I can't blog it, if I can't link to it, how likely am I to talk about it online? I don't want to read a 10-15 page article online, but if you aren't online, if people can't link to your content, your ideas don't get passed around, discussed and debated, and spread. And that's a shame.
|
|
© Copyright 2002 Tim Bishop aka Geodog.
|
|
|
What will they think of next? 
