Two US bases in Afghanistan hit by rockets. Luckily no one was hurt. Send those American mercenaries home.
24
Nov 02
Rare courage
Robert Byrd of West Virginia on last Tuesday: Byrd, at 85, Fills the Forum With Romans and Wrath:
ASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — As his colleagues hurriedly tried to give the president a domestic security bill, Senator Robert C. Byrd took the floor this morning to tell them of a “truly great” senator from the first century A.D. named Helvidius Priscus. One day this Roman was met outside the senate by the emperor Vespasian, who threatened to execute him if he spoke too freely.
“And so both did their parts,” Mr. Byrd said. “Helvidius Priscus spoke his mind; the emperor Vespasian killed him. In this effeminate age it is instructive to read of courage. There are members of the U.S. Senate and House who are terrified apparently if the president of the United States tells them, urges them, to vote a certain way that may be against their belief.”
Mr. Byrd, of course, is not one of those timid souls, and his recent speeches have been extraordinary even for the maestro of senatorial rhetoric, who turns 85 on Wednesday. While his colleagues have debated the fine points of the domestic security bill, he has been virtually alone in asking the larger question: Why is this new department suddenly so necessary? What will the largest and hastiest reorganization of the federal government in half a century do besides allow politicians to claim instant credit for fighting terrorism?
“This mon-stros-ity,” Mr. Byrd has been calling the bill, repeatedly lifting its 484 pages above his head with trembling hands and flinging them down on his desk with the fury of Moses smashing the tablets. Mr. Byrd used to be known less for his distaste of federal bureaucracy than for his love of federal aid — he once vowed to be West Virginia’s “billion-dollar industry,” while his critics crowned him the “prince of pork.” But now he is riffing against big government.
“Osama bin Laden is still alive and plotting more attacks while we play bureaucratic shuffleboard,” Mr. Byrd told the Senate. “With a battle plan like the Bush administration is proposing, instead of crossing the Delaware River to capture the Hessian soldiers on Christmas Day, George Washington would have stayed on his side of the river and built a bureaucracy.” Mr. Byrd imagined Nathan Hale declaring, “I have but one life to lose for my bureaucracy,” and Commodore Oliver Perry hoisting a flag on his ship with the rallying cry, “Don’t give up the bureaucracy!”
24
Nov 02
Thought for the day
“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.” – Alfred Adler, Psychologist
24
Nov 02
Surveillance tactics used by FBI remain ‘mysterious,’ ‘quiet’
If the FBI ever breaks into my house I hope they’d catch a lungful of whatever it is growing in my sink.
WASHINGTON – They have broken into homes, offices, hotel rooms and automobiles. Copied private computer files. Installed hidden cameras. Listened with microphones in one couple’s bedroom for more than a year. Rummaged through luggage. Eavesdropped on telephone conversations.
It’s the FBI, operating with permission from a secretive U.S. court in a high-stakes effort pitting the nation’s premier law enforcement agency against the world’s spies and terrorists.
Most Americans never see this side of the FBI.
23
Nov 02
US Government to Redesign Internet?
Bastards. Via BoingBoing.net:
Darpa hired a consulting firm, SRI, to investigate the feasibility of re-designing the Internet to eliminate online anonymity to catch terrorists and evil underpants gnomes. The consultants gathered a whack of experts from various disciplines who told them it was stupid all around: bad for privacy, bad for the Constitution, technologically unsound, and unlikely to provide any assistance to the nation’s intelligence agencies whose problem isn’t an absence of information, but rather an absence of analysis — you don’t get faster analysis by throwing more chaff into the radar-field.
Anyway, the snake-oil consultants decided that the group was far too negative and basically made up its own conclusions, submitting them to Darpa as the “consensus” of the august experts they met with — a positive outlook would mean more consulting dollars.
And then someone leaked the whole story to the NYT.
19
Nov 02
Quotations for today
You’re probably tired of hearing Voltaire, but he happens to be one of my favorites so tough luck! Enjoy.
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
We are rarely proud when we are alone.
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
19
Nov 02
Around this time last year
Around this same time last year I lost two very important people. My high-school French teacher Madame Parker who assured me that one day I would be a philosopher king and my grandmother Elizabeth who I obviously owe a great deal to, not least of which is my own existence. I miss them both very much and I am thankful that I knew them.
18
Nov 02
Rumsfeld evasive during call in show with Americans
From DefenseLink:
Caller: Hello to Secretary Rumsfeld, and thank you to Infinity Radio for putting this together. My question, how does our national security have anything to do with Iraq, and has the United States illegally armed Iraq?
Rumsfeld: Has the United States illegally armed Iraq? I don’t know quite what you mean, but no, I don’t know of anything the United States has done that’s illegal at all. If you’re asking, has the United States ever provided arms to Iraqis, as opposed to the Iraqi government, the answer is yes, there are various Iraqis that are in opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime and it is correct that some time, in past years, they have provided some military capabilities to some Iraqi opposition forces. And then there’s the Kurdish forces in the north, and I believe that the United States, again, going back some years, provided some military equipment to the Kurdish forces in the north.
Kroft: I think he may be talking about when the United States was backing Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.
Rumsfeld: Well, I am told that we did not, but I don’t know, I was not in the government during that period. I saw an article in Newsweek that reported on some — I think it was various types of biologicals. And I’m told that they went through a medical relationship that we had with many countries in the world, and they were for medical purposes. But, I don’t know of any weapons that went to Iraq. I do know that the United States government in the 1980s, I’m told, as I said, provided intelligence to Iraq.