meta-roj

sometimes, it’s best to recognize that someone else has said something that needed to be said, and to simply acknowledge and appreciate it, even with its flaws.

[via metafilter]

U.S. conducting secret missions inside Iran – report [reuters, january 16, 2005]

Of The New Yorker report, he [Dan Bartlett, a top aide to President George W. Bush] said: “I think it’s riddled with inaccuracies, and I don’t believe that some of the conclusions he’s drawing are based on fact.”

it’s a slam dunk. no, really.

somehow, i’m more forgiving of “investigative journalism” than “the united states government” if only because the new yorker isn’t spending my money to come to these conclusions, and i know they aren’t sending my fellow citizens to war.

i expected to see more about this, but i haven’t – and that’s probably because i haven’t been seeing much of anything lately, but… i want to raise the question with the changing of the guard over at the department of justice with this thought:

ashcroft’s resignation letter was handwritten “so its confidentiality can be maintained.” [text of the letter from cnn]

does this mean that ashcroft can’t even trust his own staff? how can we have any faith in a federal department that is populated by untrustworthy staff? how many people does it take to type a resignation letter? one? three? and in the whole department, ashcroft couldn’t find them?

or is it just paranoia?

and then how do you feel about living under the ‘protective custody” of the paranoia of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer for four years?

in a curiously-timed follow-up to the guilty plea for jamming phones with robotic dialers in an attempt to influence the outcome of an election, james tobin, northeast political director for the republican senatorial committee has been indicted for conspiracy to commit telephone harassment.

Ex-Bush chairman indicted on charges related to jamming [union leader, december 2, 2004]

The 2002 phone jamming consisted of computer-generated calls to get-out-the-vote phones run by state Democrats and the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters’ union. More than 800 hang-up calls tied up phones for about 90 minutes.

a step in the right direction? well, we do have some source material…

Alberto Gonzales, January 25, 2002 [pdf, ~600k]

[originally covered here.]

senator lamar alexander (r – tn), september 15, 2004, fox news interview

no one likes to be occupied. no one likes to be blown up

for some reason, i feel compelled to pat myself on the back a little this morning, so, via barry we get a link to an editorial by paul krugman about the dishonesty thing.

i just want to point backwards for a moment – here – which was a brief (and admittedly obscure) comment on the “terrorist impact” of the madrid bombings and several other things going on in the world. it’s a general observation, and i honestly [heh] do hope politicians buy this clue sometime. so far, they’re banking on stupid. i was watching for a while, and i had hoped that a glimmer of political honesty would catch fire, but it fizzled.

ok, that’s enough self-referential links for now. back to work.

taking a cue from disney which decided not to distribute farenheit 9/11, it seems warner brothers wants to avoid political blowback as well.

Citing Politics, Studio Cancels Documentary [ny times, september 2, 2004]

Warner Brothers has decided not to distribute the director David O. Russell’s new antiwar documentary when it re-releases his 1999 Gulf War movie, “Three Kings,” this fall, judging it “totally inappropriate” to do so in a political season, a studio spokeswoman said.

major media companies can’t afford to take political stands – or even be associated with people that take political stands. they depend entirely on the good graces of politicians to extend and defend their copyrights and all the other things that guarantee their livelihoods. the pattern is clear – you can’t get controversial material from a giant media conglomerate.

is it a brave new world? or a cowardly one?

social software, gaming technology and the power of groups for political comment…

Video games find their political voice [bbc news, august 30, 2004]

Many of them are media professionals for whom the net has become an essential tool for political organisation.

“It’s because it’s a many-to-many medium, whereas traditional politics is done one-to-many – from Gates to many, from Murdoch to many, from Berlusconi to many and so on,” said Alex Foti, from political activist group ChainWorkers.

“It is a way of harnessing the wisdom and vitality of the crowds,” he explained to BBC’s Click Online programme.

chainworkers and molleindustria.

newsgaming‘s september 12th and madrid.

i’ve been waiting for a hook to hang this on, and it had to come from ebay… of course. what else could it possibly be?

it all depends on how far up the food chain your vote is – selling votes at the bottom of the pyramid is illegal. selling votes at the top is just business as usual.

Authorities: Don’t Sell Your Vote On eBay [ap, august 27, 2004]

“Simply tell me who to vote for, after paying the auction, and it will be so,” his listing said. “If you care, buy my vote and you will have twice the power in the upcoming election!!!!”

Pengov said he didn’t know that selling a vote was illegal.

The fraud unit of the California secretary of state’s office, which has been alerted to votes for sale on eBay in previous elections, came across the posting and notified Ohio authorities.

offer a presidential vote for $50 and the authorities come knocking. how much do senate votes go for these days? i don’t understand. if it’s good enough for politicians, then why isn’t it for the rest of us?

i need to quit blogging and do some real writing about saving democracy from ourselves.