I had my fingers crossed....

Ken Lay has resorted to blaming the automatic signature machine in his defense against bank fraud and making false statements. He didn't know he was violating the terms of the loan documents because he didn't actually sign them, the automatic signature machine did.

In other words, it didn't count because he had his fingers crossed. So there.

Are they serious?

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, an oil company friendly "environmental" think tank, has produced a couple of ads. The theme is CO2: We Call It Life. While they may look like a parody, evidently they're real....

One summer when I was in high school, the school district decided that all the high schools in the district needed to have fences around them. They installed an ugly chain link fence around my high school. It was never completely clear to me or my classmates whether the intent of the fence was to keep us in, or keep others out. If I recall correctly, the stated purpose was to "keep drug dealers out," but they didn't seem compelled to protect junior high schools students similarly.

Whatever it's real purpose, the fence was totally ineffective in stopping students from leaving campus to eat lunch, and it didn't keep drugs out, either. I suspect the proposed wall on the US-Mexican border will be about as effective at stopping illegal immigration, or preventing terrorists from entering the US. Perhaps those proposing the wall never saw this news story about tunnels under the border. (Or this one, about a tunnel under our northern border, for that matter.)

I also can't hear about the wall without thinking of Reagan's famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" line, and noting the irony of the party of Reagan now wanting to build walls, not tear them down.

What's wrong with this picture?

In the Washington Post, former deputy assistant to the President Richard Falkenrath writes the following sentence (emphasis mine):

The large-scale analysis of anonymized data can pinpoint individuals -- at home or abroad -- who warrant more intrusive investigative or intelligence techniques, subject to all safeguards normally associated with those techniques.

How can "anonymized data" possibly "pinpoint individuals?"

If you think they're protecting you, you're a fool

The only thing this Administration is interested in protecting is their own power. They avoid any oversight of any actions; only they get to decide what powers the President has. Any time anyone comes close to exercising oversight, whether it's the Supreme Court or even their own Department of Justice, they scurry and hide.

Take Jose Padilla. He's the US citizen detained for several years as an "enemy combatant". When his lawsuit finally worked it's way up to the Supreme Court, who might rule whether or not the President could just declare a US citizen an enemy combatant and lock them away for years without actually charging them with anything or producing any evidence, suddenly the Administration decided Padilla wasn't an enemy combatant, just a criminal who should be charged in federal court. That manuever was the final straw of disillusionment for Judge Michael Luttig, once on the short list for the Supreme Court and holder of a lifetime appointment to the Fourth Circuit. He resigned yesterday to become general counsel for Boeing.

Then there's the NSA and whatever it is they're doing. The Justice Department was going to look into that, but oops, their lawyers couldn't get security clearances, so no investigation. Oh, and by the way, we find out today that the big telco's (with the notable exception of Qwest) rolled over and handed over records of all our calls to the NSA.

Oh, and remember Iraq? The Special Inspector General, Stuart Bowen, was evidently doing his job a little too well. It's his job to oversee the money spent in Iraq, and uncover the fraud and corruption going on. Couldn't have that, now, could we? So, to get around that inconvience, future monies are going to be routed through the "foreign operations" part of the State Department budget, rather than the "relief and reconstruction." The Special Inspector General doesn't oversee those funds; rather, the State Department's inspector general office does, which has already said it doesn't have the staff to do it.

They're in it for the power, and nothing else. National security is just a convenient excuse.

Not So Lame Ducks

When I was in high school, I turned on the evening news one evening to hear that the new governor was going to be sworn in that evening, weeks ahead of the scheduled inauguration. Word had leaked out that the outgoing governor was about to pardon a bunch of convicts, and to prevent that, the legislature (controlled by Democrats at that point) had acted to install the new (Republican) governor early. Ray Blanton, the outgoing Democratic governor, later was convicted and served time for selling pardons.

The current Congress isn't quite a lame duck yet, because the elections haven't been held, but it's not looking good for the Republicans right now, and there seems to be a good chance that they will lose control of one or both houses of Congress. So watch out for what they try to ram through between now and next January.

One of the first things out of the gate is to extend President Bush's tax cuts. Yes, we're in the middle of a war, of sorts. And it's true, that even with keeping the war expenses off-budget, we're running deficits, and the surplus of the Clinton years is long gone. So, of course, the most important thing to do is to extend tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. President Bush and Congressional Republicans have reached agreement on extending those tax cuts until Jan 1, 2011. I suppose it's better than making them permanent, which is what they really want to do, but it's still incredibly fiscally reckless. Do Republicans really believe, all evidence to the contrary, that tax cuts actually increase tax revenues, and that government spending can be cut enough to offset tax cuts?

The last time we tried this, under Reagan, we amassed huge deficits, and government spending grew faster. We're seeing the same scenario again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice....