Author Archives: Bob

The question that has no answer

Posted on by

From today’s press gaggle, via First Draft, which gaggle-watches better than anybody:

Q The law says he has to seek a court warrant.

MR. McCLELLAN: — it is labeled an international call —

Q Why doesn’t he seek a warrant? What’s the big problem?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, actually, we’ve walked through this repeatedly over the last few days. It’s important for the American people to understand what the facts are. There is a lot of misinformation about —

Q Why can’t you seek a warrant?

MR. McCLELLAN: — this program. And we do use the FISA tool, as well. That’s an important tool, as well. But we have briefed members of Congress more than a dozen times on this. We continue to brief members of Congress in an appropriate manner. This is a highly classified program and it is a vital program to our nation’s security. The 9/11 Commission criticized us for not connecting the dots —

Q Is it vital to go through legal steps?

MR. McCLELLAN: This is helping us to connect the dots in a very targeted and focused way.

Q Why can’t he seek a warrant?

MR. McCLELLAN: It is about detecting and preventing attacks. FISA was created for a different time period. General Hayden walked through that yesterday; the Attorney General talked about it more. This is about moving with speed and agility, not some long-term period of time. It’s about detecting —

Q You can get one retroactively.

MR. McCLELLAN: — it’s about detecting and preventing attacks. And we are a nation at war, and the courts have upheld the President’s authority to engage in surveillance. Surveillance is critical to prevailing in the war on terrorism.

Q He doesn’t have a blank check.

MR. McCLELLAN: And we talked with members of Congress about whether or not there needed to be legislation that reflects what the President’s authority already is, and the congressional leaders felt that by doing so it could compromise this program. This is a vital program and it’s important that we don’t show the enemy our play book. And talking about it —

Q Getting warrants doesn’t show the enemy a play book.

MR. McCLELLAN: Okay. Next question. 

Hand-picked? What makes you think Bush’s audiences are hand-picked?

Posted on by

From today’s LAT, in an article headlined Unscripted Moment Over "Brokeback":

The audience applauded, even though it was not clear what Bush meant.

That’s the sort of thing you do for a baby making its first words, not the President of the United States.

Then again, things are pretty far gone if the Chimpalissimo even having one unscripted public moment is itself a headline.

UPDATE: Ten minutes later, still enjoying it.  Man, what a revealing sentence, about pretty much everything in the last few years.

The audience applauded, even though it was not clear what Bush meant.

If I were a teenager forming a band, that would be my band’s new name.  I think that’ll have to be the site’s new slogan when I get time.  Maybe some T-shirts, too.  Man.

I won’t have time for the next week or so — book frenzy, third draft, has arrived — so things will be a little thin here again for a bit.  But

The audience applauded, even though it was not clear what Bush meant.

is gonna make me smile every time I think about it for a good while.

Election day (for about 8% of you) is here! Get out and vote!

Posted on by

Colin reminds me that our neighbours to the north are holding national elections today.  It says something about how self-obsessed the U.S. media is that any of us needs reminding.

Your major options
include the Liberals, the New Democrats, the Conservatives, the Greens,
et pour ceux de vous qui veulent cesser ce non-sens entier du Canada, le Bloc Quebecois.

Your less-likely options
include the Libertarians, the Western Block party, the Communists, the
Canadian Action Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Marijuana
Party, the Progressive Canadians, the Marxist-Leninists, the First
Peoples National Party, and the Animal Alliance Environment Voters
Party of Canada.

If you’re not quite sure why the Animal
Alliance Environment people might think the Greens don’t quite get the
point, the CBC has prepared a handy Cheat Sheet.  Fun highlights:

  • The Bloc Quebecois wants to field their own sporting teams at international events.
  • The Conservative leader has been making a fresh big announcement every morning.  So much for Rovian staying on message.
  • The Greens have everybody a little confused.  So they’re definitely Greens.
  • The Liberal slogan is "Choose Your Canada."  I’ll take that big one in the middle, please.
  • The
    New Democrats will probably only get about 20 percent of the vote. 
    Which means they’ll actually be the ones holding the balance of power
    in the House of Commons.

If you’re not quite sure how this last bit is possible, check out this cool examination of different voting systems, including the Nobel prize-winning realization that even without Diebold, no voting system can ever actually work completely, which leads to this nifty example
of how equally-valid voting systems might play out the same election
among four candidates with four logical yet different
results.

Fun, watching a relatively healthy democracy, so different and yet familiar.  Me, I’m hoping the Marijuana Party and the Christian Heritage people wind up in 50-50 control, if only for the entertainment value.

Sometimes I think Vancouver wouldn’t be a bad place to wind up…

Fun with Google search records

Posted on by

So, Team Chimpy wants to see everything you and I have been searching for in Google?

Fine.

This is the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I’ve typed that into a Google search box, bookmarked the resulting URL, and made it my browser’s home page.

So now, anytime I open a new window, I leave the government a little
reminder of how someone feels about this whole new era of rigged
elections, warrantless searches, torture, detention without trial, and
smearing of critics as traitors.

All this really does right now is make me feel better.  But if millions of people decide to make this link a constant habit, we’d make our point right in the data itself.

Just a thought.

I just want to know which thing not to believe

Posted on by

So this new Bin Laden tape, of uncertain date, makes explicit threats of an impending attack on the United States.

But the Homeland Security threat meter hasn’t moved a bit.  Still yellow.

Interesting.

So, um…

Either Bin Laden’s tape doesn’t actually mean there’s any new threat, and all the foam on TV about it is (this just in!) propaganda, or the Homeland Security thingy is (this just in!) merely propaganda.

I just want to know which crap is crappiest.

Of course, there’s exactly one other logical possibility: both.