And I say - well done...

It's somewhat passive aggressive, but the results are the same. By allowing the current wiretapping bill to expire, we've effectively guaranteed that court orders will be required going forward according to this rather aggrieved WSJ Op-Ed.

I would have preferred a more active victory for civil liberties, but I'll take anything I can get if it keeps Bush from listening to American citizen phone calls without a warrant.

So, while I'm absolutely no fan of Nancy Pelosi (and the Democratic party in general), at least they've gotten this one right. Funny, but didn't the Republican party used to stand for individual rights? It's a damn shame we've come to having only National Security and fear-mongering to run on...

clipped from online.wsj.com We've long held that a President doesn't need a court order under the Constitution to order such wiretaps. But the reality is that, because of these lawsuits, the telephone companies now won't cooperate without the legal protection of a court order. That's how pernicious these lawsuits are. We asked one phone company executive what he'd do, after Friday's expiration, in response to a government request for cooperation. His answer was blunt: "I'm not doing it. If I don't have compulsion, I can't get out of court [and those lawsuits]. . . . I'm not going to do something voluntarily." Having talked to telecom executives, we can tell you this view is well-nigh universal. Mr. Reyes claims that existing wiretap orders can stay in place for a year. But that doesn't account for new targets, which may require new kinds of telecom cooperation and thus a new court order. Mr. Reyes can make all the assertions he wants about immunity, but they are no defense against a lawsuit.

A Quick Spin with Adapative Blue...

Quickly, an apology to those of you who are expecting a substantive post. Right now, I'm investigating the new Adaptive Blue "Smart Linking" technology. Here's a link to my favorite movie, The Quiet Man. You should see a small icon just to the right of the link. The link itself will take you to Amazon's page for the move, and clicking the little icon will provide you with additional information on the movie from Adaptive Blue.

Now, most of you won't care diddly-squat about this, but for those of you who are routinely referencing books, movies, and even stocks, this represents some pretty cool technology for bloggers. This also allows you to put in your Amazon/EBay affiliate IDs so that you can grab some coin from referrals. So, for the rest of this, I'm gonna put this through it's paces...

Here's a link to EMC's stock quote on Google finance. Hopefully we'll still see the little icon...

Here's a link to one of my favorite actors, Vince Vaughn; I still think Wedding Crashers is one of the funniest movies ever...

So, check out the information at Adaptive Blue; it's really easy to add this capability to your Blog, and it's very helpful to your readers.

War Powers?

Again I find myself at odds with the neocons and foreign policy hawks at the WSJ's editorial staff. I was not aware that we (by that I mean the Congress) had declared war. If so, could someone please tell against what foreign power we're at war? I know we f*cked up big time with the vote to grant Bush considerable powers in the wake of 9/11, but still, the assault on civil liberties this administration is perpetrating is staggering.

Contrary to what the WSJ editors may think, I believe the congress occupies the political high ground here, and I further believe their skepticism is fully warranted. I doubt that they'll be able to organize enough support to override a probably veto, but the Journal is right about one thing; let's make it a front and center argument of the '08 presidential campaigns!

clipped from online.wsj.com Mr. Bush would do better by future Presidents if he opposed the Wyden amendment, and any further concessions would amount to an abdication as Commander in Chief. He has the political high ground on this issue. If Congress does more harm, he should declare that to protect the country he'll use his Constitutional war powers to wiretap al Qaeda anyway and toss the issue squarely in the middle of the Presidential campaign. Congress's overriding goal here is to further hamstring our intelligence war-fighters with legal rigidity and complexity, but to do so in a way that dodges its own oversight duties by passing the buck to FISA judges. White House lawyers know this is unconstitutional, but intelligence officials say it's more important to have Congress's blessing for these wiretaps. And because the telecom companies won't cooperate without immunity, Mr. Bush is being bullied into trading away some of his own power to get that immunity.

It has to stop...

Generally speaking, I'm in agreement with most positions of the Wall Street Journal - fiscal/economic policy, immigration reform, and others. But on matters of national security, I have to wonder where the usual common sense and well thought-out policy voices have gone. They appear to have been evicted by a (hopefully) minority of neo-conservative hawks who feel that keeping America safe is worth any price. I respectfully disagree, and this is probably the chief reason I'm supporting John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

We are at war. With religious extremists who hate our way of life, possibly due to ignorance, possibly to a deep-seated cultural bias that has sapped any ability to harken back to the message of peaceful tolerance that is Islam. It doesn't really matter why, but we need to accept that fact that there are Muslim terrorists who wish to do us harm.

The culture of fear that was spawned by 9/11 allowed a few neocons to seize control of foreign policy, start 2 wars (one popular and righteous, the other a cluster-fu*k of the highest order), and began an assault on individual rights that continues to this day, witness:

• The snippet attached from the WSJ justifying torture (yes, waterboarding is torture) because we only used it on 3 terrorists - as if there's some magic number below which this atrocity is accepted
• Other WSJ articles that demand that a) we renew the wiretapping/surveillance powers which allow eavesdropping on our own citizens, and b) hold those companies who complied with earlier domestic surveillance requests blameless with respect to their participation

Because we are at war, we need to understand that we will suffer casualties. Some of those will occur abroad, and some will occur at home on native U.S. soil. We need to focus on protecting ports and facilities (nuclear power plants, etc.) that will cause massive deaths and economic destruction if attacked. We need to understand that there is no perfect protection against skilled adversaries who are willing to die to advance their cause. We need to adopt a mindset of sacrifice that is similar to that of our parents' generation during WWII. What we do not need to do is to allow our government to continue the assault on our civil liberties in the name of keeping us safer. We do not need to abandon a half-century of conventional wartime ethics guided by the Geneva convention by condoning the torture of our enemies, however loathsome those enemies may be.

I might be wrong, but you'll have damned difficult time convincing me otherwise. I always that that the saying "I love my country, but I fear my government" was a crackpot slogan of survivalists and white supremacists, sadly, they may be right.

clipped from online.wsj.com Tall Torture Tales February 6, 2008; Page A18 Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri planned the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Abu Zubaydah was the mastermind of the foiled millennium terrorist attacks, which had Los Angeles airport as one of its targets. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed directed the September 11 attacks, and has claimed to have personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl. All three men were captured by the CIA in 2002 and waterboarded in the course of their interrogations. They are also the only U.S. detainees to have been waterboarded. That fact, publicly confirmed yesterday by CIA Director Michael Hayden, shreds whatever is left to the so-called torture narrative, according to which the Bush Administration has engaged in widespread, needless and systematic torture of detainees. Instead, we have sworn public testimony that the waterboarding was conducted against the three individuals best positioned to know about impending terrorist atrocities.

Tonight, I dine in hell...

The reason I say this (actually misquote it from the movie 300), is that for the past 2 weeks I've repeatedly said that I'd sell my soul to see the Patriots lose the Super Bowl. Guess someone took me up on my offer. And, if hell is all the evangelicals would have you believe, I'll be surrounded by Patriot fans led by Bill Bellichick when I get there! In any case, whatever the cost, it was definitely worth it!

I have listened quietly for 2 weeks as everyone (my health club locker room, local news outlets, national news outlets, the Sports Guy) wrote/bragged about the inevitability of a Patriots 19-0 season. To them it was a fait-'accompli. I never said a word, I just seethed inside knowing that they were probably right and fighting the urge to take out a Nancy Kerrigan contract on Brady as he smugly laughed about the Burress 17-point "guarantee". I've also learned that it's somewhat foolish to argue with a Patriots fan; they tend to rationalize wins and losses equally well. I'm sure we'll see some of that in the local media as well:

1. The no-call against Amani Toomer for offensive pass interference against Gay (hand in the face-mask) - no big deal as the giants immediately turned it over inside the red-zone
2. Not calling Eli Manning as "In the Grasp" during his 4th-quarter Houdini-like escape and throw downfield to Tyree - I say hats off to the zebras for letting 'em play.

I'm sure the New England conspiracy machine will be out in full force. Here's the bottom line: the Patriots got their asses whipped physically last night, and Tom Brady looked decidedly average under constant pressure from an inspired Giants defense. New York outplayed 'em, and anyone who thinks otherwise is dreaming. Similarly, those who really know football will be forced to agree that the Patriots defense was exposed - really starting to show its age.

I'm gonna keep this post short, and I'm not gloating (much), but God this is gratifying. Let's also give a shout-out to my man Eli Manning for showing grace and grit on the biggest stage in sports. I think it's great that he received the super-bowl MVP award, but anyone who watched the game knows that it should be shared collectively by the Giants defensive line and coordinator.

So, here I sit on Monday morning after the Super Bowl, soulless, but happier for it nonetheless - Dad, save me a seat by the fire. Before I sign off, I'll leave the Patriots fans with two great ESPN links that have nothing to do with the game, but that I found fascinating this weekend:

• A great article by Gregg Easterbrook about lingering and continuing questions on spygate; really great insights.
• Really thought-provoking article (for men) from Jemele Hill about how Tom Brady gets away with behavior that other men would be vilified for

Go Giants! Well done!

Update: here's a link to the Sports Guy's article, and surprisingly, it's not entirely graceless (which is a surprise), but rather poignant (which is why he's the best sportswriter in the game)...

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

Since I'm sort of exhausted from the whole political scene as we approach super Tuesday, I thought I'd take a break and have some fun. So, with many apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein - these are a few of my favorite things...

1. Facebook - I've spoken about this before, but it bears repeating here. For my money, pretty much epitomizes Web 2.0 applications. The decision to open it up to developers to extend in the form of quirky/fun/functional applications has been an amazing one. This is spawning an entire ecosystem of startup organizations that build Facebook apps supported by advertising. The applications are viral, in that they encourage your friends to get you add the applications as well, which sort of leads to a geometric propagation. I will have to say, however, that lately the quality/silliness of the applications seems to be a bit annoying. For every iLike, there's a Hug Me application that's pure fluff, and your Facebook inbox can get cluttered pretty quickly with invitations from your friends to join/install the apps as well. Things start to get cluttered/messy quickly, but I haven't yet figured out the etiquette with respect to declining to install some of these. This is a minor criticism; it's still the best social network site for my money.
2. Netvibes - It's kinda hard to describe netvibes. I guess I think of it as a portal, but it's really more than that. Think of it like Google's personal home page. You create different "tabs", each of which can host widgets that perform various functions. What I use it for mostly, is to collect and organize my favorite RSS feeds. As an example, I have a Sports tab that hosts Bill Simmons' Sports Guy feed from ESPN, a Cleveland Browns newsfeed, and other ESPN feeds. You can make Netvibes your default location for adding newsfeeds. But there are other types of widgets as well (weather, bookmarks, tons of others). I like it so much that I've made it my homepage. Check it out - but be prepared to invest some time in it to make it truly useful.
3. ESPN Page 2 - Where the Sports Guy (Bill Simmons) publishes his blog and other stuff (like his articles for ESPN the magazine). He's probably my favorite sports writer, although he's unabashedly pro-Boston. I hate the Patriots, so this can be frustrating, and the guy has forgotten more than I'll ever know about sports, so some of the salary-cap/trade columns are over my head, but his pop-culture references are amazingly funny. He's a really great writer, and, if you like sports, he's an absolute must-read every week. Page 2 has other columnists as well, and they're all pretty great - highly recommended.
4. My Volkswagen GTI - I think this is the most fun (and most car) you can get for $27K. It's the latest incarnation of the venerable 2.0 turbo-charged 4-cylinder engine. Tons of standard features, great handling, acceleration that rivals a bimmer. Just a great little car. Downsides are the annoying little rattles that seem to pop up after about 12K miles, and the way it handles in the snow, but other than that, it's just great.
5. Swaptree - This is a site with a great idea - basically, it's a giant online swap-meet for books, DVDs, video games and othter things. You register the item you're willing to trade and a bunch of things you'd like to have (you can import your Amazon wish-list to make it easy). Swaptree will then show you items that are available for the items you have, or it will arrange trades on your behalf, which can be 2 or 3-way trades. You can use Swaptree to print shipping labels for the items you're trading. It's a pretty great idea, but two downsides. Swaptree rarely seems to hit on items I want, but does so with enough frequency to keep me happy. Also, it doesn't seem to preserve your preference for hardback books over paperback - it seems to treat the two types the same. So, if you registered a hardback as an "I want" item, and someone else offers the paperback version in trade, Swaptree will sometimes treat the two the same and arrange a trade. You need to be careful if you really want/favor hardbacks.
6. Audible audiobooks - The best site I know of for audiobooks. It works on a subscription model (sorta like Netflix), but with audiobooks. For a given level of subscription, you're allowed to purchase x number of books per month for free (you can always buy others at a membership discount). Now, I love this idea, and they have quite a selection, plus, if you've ever priced an audiobook on CD at your friendly neighborhood Barnes and Noble, the prices are really reasonable. You download the books to your computer (PC or Mac), and then you can load them onto your iPod, Smart-phone, or other MP3 player. You can register up to (I believe) 5 devices (including the PCs to which you download), and you can burn the books to CD as well. All-in-all, it's a great way to get at audiobook content. Now, here are the downsides. First, it's a massive DRM play; you can't just play these puppies anywhere - only on the devices you've registered. This is OK, except for the fact that not every car has an interface for your MP3 player or iPod, so to listen to books in the car (which is where I do 80% of my listening), you need to burn the books to CD. This is OK, but for a long fantasy novel, you could be talking about 40+ CDs. If you've got a slow burner, life gets bad pretty quickly. This could be ameliorated somewhat if they would allow you to burn MP3 CDs, but of course you can't. Last bitch (I really do like the site remember), the site itself isn't that great - in fact it hasn't changed much in the last 5 years. Contrast it with something like Netflix, which has one of the top use-experiences going, and it gets tiring pretty quickly. I have accumulated 100+ books in my library, but I can't see them all at once - same with my 300+ book wish-list. Broadband is pretty universal; give me the option of seeing everything in one screen - it's a simple database query - make it happen. Allow me the Netflix-like ability to drill down to a book's details by hovering over it - get your Ajax on!
7. Apple computers - I've been using an Apple PowerBook at home for the past 3 years. My lovely wife uses an iBook that I bought her 5 years ago. The bundled software, the OSX operating system, combined with the new Intel platform's ability to co-host Windows, makes the Mac computing series the best machines out there. And, if you really look at the whole package, you'll see that they're competing quite nicely on price with the commodity Windows boxes you see out there. I think you're probably still paying a small premium, but it's not as bad as it used to be, and it really is a phenomenal user experience. iLife alone is worth $200-300, and you get it for free! Give one a spin and stick with it for a couple of weeks, I'm betting you won't go back.
8. LibraryThing - Really great idea - catalog all of your books online. I think I've registered 700+ so far, with a bunch that I still haven't gotten to. You pay for the privilege, but it's nominal, and it supports a fantastic bibliophile community. By the way, the link takes you to my public library, check it out.
9. Amazon - my favorite e-commerce site. It's grown a ton over the last decade, and now you can find just about anything there that you want, if not from Amazon itself, from one of its numerous 3rd-party vendors. Amazon is my first stop if I need something, and I rarely go anywhere else. The used-goods dealers alone are worth joining the site, especially if you're looking for technical books, which can be notoriously expensive. You can find them here at discounts up to 75%, even though they're only slightly used. The Amazon Prime membership is amazingly cool if you're a frequent purchaser; for about $80, you get free 2-day shipping on every Amazon purchase. Sadly it does not extend to 3rd-party vendors.
10. Petfinder - I have three incredibly silly adopted dogs - I love them all like they're my kids. The last two I found through canine rescue organizations that are hosted on Petfinder. Nothing cheers you up (and breaks your heart) like going up and browsing through the list of puppies available for adoption in your area. I implore you to please, please look at adoption should you be in the market for a new pet (dog or cat). These dogs are amazing, and while not pedigreed, certainly have all of the smarts, intelligence (not borne out by mine of course), and affection that any ponce of a purebred might offer. The adoption fees are generally $250-300, and, when compared to the $1500-2000 that you're gonna pay to a reputable dealer, it's a bargain. If you must have a purebred dog, please, for God's sake, go to a local breeder - don't patronize the chain pet-stores at the mall. These are horrible places - stay away.

I think this is enough for now. Obviously, I have more than 10 favorite things. I'm gonna come back from time-to-time and update/add new items. Please check in and add your own favorites so I can check 'em out! Thanks for indulging me in this somewhat whimsical exercise. Go Giants!!!!