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Sunday, December 28, 2003
Excuse Me? "Losing your job in the United States today isn't a catastrophe." --George Will, This Week Monday, December 15, 2003
Memecheese Free advice for Howard Dean and/or Wesley Clark: Everything Bush does should be called "simple." The approach to Iraq? "On any given issue, you're with us, or you're against us. Every deviation from the will of the commander will be treated as if it were a failure to follow orders on the battlefield." Simplistic. The economy? "[see Reaganomics]" Simplistic. The environment? "It'll take care of itself or corporations will." Simplistic. There isn't a lot of sophistication in Bush's public statements. He talks in front of curtains(?) emblazoned with repeating two- or three-word slogans that are merely cosmetic, and which claim results yet to be achieved. Simplistic. He doesn't avoid details and working knowledge of the world for political reasons; he avoids them because he doesn't understand them. The strategy of pawning off heavy-thinkin' stuff to brainy subordinates, as recent administration infighting and disarray have shown, won't run an airline. We don't want to call him "stupid," but questions about his mental acuity and attention span are widespread, buried in the back of everyone's mind. If they can be linked to specific statements, policies, and results, the bubble of his credibility could be reduced to nothing in short order. Watching the first debate, I thought Gephardt's "miserable failure" was kind of pathetic (if true) and, well, simple. But it caught on. If "simple" doesn't strike the right note, there are plenty of synonyms that would do in its place. Twenty-Eight Dollars?!? KBR charges the Pentagon $28 per day to feed each US soldier in Iraq. On the off-chance that's not disgusting enough, "the Pentagon reported finding 'blood all over the floor,' 'dirty pans,' 'dirty grills,' 'dirty salad bars' and 'rotting meats ... and vegetables' in four of the military messes the company operates in Iraq. Is this what's meant by "supporting our troops?" Is gouging taxpayers for all manner of goods and services, thereby reducing the resources available to protect the country and our troops patriotic? Does it help us win against the terrorists? Nailing Halliburton to the wall over these abuses is the most patriotic act I've seen since this bloody farce began. God bless you, Henry Waxman. I wonder... ...whether the "man on the property, apparently realizing the game was up, pointed out a bricked-in wall inside the basement of a small house" is going to get the $25 million reward for his information leading to the capture of Saddam. Thursday, December 11, 2003
Definition of Terms In general, I could probably save a lot of time just by agreeing about everything in advance with Atrios. I would have saved the time it took to agree with his characterization of the miserable failure, as wholly, thoroughly, and unremittingly, unelectable. (Is Natalie Cole one of ours? Maybe we could get Mad Kane to whip up a little something for her to sing.) Sunday, December 07, 2003
Flawed By Design The always-insightful Robert Cringely strikes again, this time on the subject of electronic voting: Now here's the really interesting part. Forgetting for a moment Diebold's voting machines, let's look at the other equipment they make. Diebold makes a lot of ATM machines. They make machines that sell tickets for trains and subways. They make store checkout scanners, including self-service scanners. They make machines that allow access to buildings for people with magnetic cards. They make machines that use magnetic cards for payment in closed systems like university dining rooms. All of these are machines that involve data input that results in a transaction, just like a voting machine. But unlike a voting machine, every one of these other kinds of Diebold machines -- EVERY ONE -- creates a paper trail and can be audited. Would Citibank have it any other way? Would Home Depot? Would the CIA? Of course not. These machines affect the livelihood of their owners. If they can't be audited they can't be trusted. If they can't be trusted they won't be used. Cringely promises to answer this question in his next column. While he's at it, I'd also like to know why Diebold and the other electronic voting machine manufacturers so stubbornly refuse to admit that auditability is a desirable attribute of electronic voting systems. If they were concerned with the bottom line, like, say, businesses, they could turn this controversy into whole new contracts to retrofit their machines to generate paper. If, as Cringely posits, the companies adapted voting machines from existing systems, every one of which already leaves a trail, it should be a very lucrative piece of cake. Why aren't they chasing this easy money? via /. Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Memo to those who think killing or capturing Saddam will stop Ba'athists from attacking occupation forces: It won't. These guys aren't fanatical dead-enders; they want to survive and prosper. As the main obstacle to getting American troops out of Iraq before the 2004 elections, they have enormous leverage over the postwar planning process. Besides, they're the only organization that can take the reins of the Sunni Triangle and prevent a catastrophe after we're gone. The one absolute non-starter would be a re-emergence of Saddam, because it would destroy Bush politically. If we don't take him out, they will. Monday, December 01, 2003
Humpty Dumpty Redux I can't pinpoint exactly where it came from, but I've developed a strong suspicion that the Bush administration plans to let Afghanistan's government fail. We let Al Qaeda escape the country ages ago. So long as we've got bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, Caspian petroleum will be safe. We're not willing to pay the price of turning the country into an actual democracy anway; we're just wasting our time and money there. Once Karzai is ousted, the arguments will run something like this: 1) See? The "terrorists" are still at it. Given that the Taliban and the Ba'athists are the exactly the same, it's a wonder things haven't been worse for us in Iraq. Therefore, our record there should be upgraded to "successful." 2) The Afghanis did this to themselves; they allowed it to happen. Even though we invaded, set up a government and put (some) money towards rebuilding the country, they didn't want democracy bad enough to fight for it. It's not our failure, it's theirs. 3) Every (certain to be highly publicized) death during the ensuing civil war is a reminder of how much better things are for those who toe the U.S. line. 4a) We need to commit even more troops and resources to Iraq because setting up democracies is hard. (But don't see #2, and ignore everything we told you before the war.) >or< 4b) We need to cut our losses and get out of Iraq. They're just not civilized enough for democracy. It's stupid to have our troops' lives on the line trying to do the impossible. Rumsfeld's putting the onus on NATO for keeping a lid on things in Afghanistan, but I don't see it getting very far without active U.S. involvement. Implosion is looking a lot less like an if than a when. |