Why is Bush demanding retro-active telecoms surveillance cover?

Some folks may not realise this but the Administration is currently demanding that Congress pass an unconstitutional law to try to get retroactive legal cover Telecoms violations under FISA law both after

and before 9/11.

According to Barbara Honnegger,

It is primarily President Bush Bush, not the IT companies, who is pushing for retroactive immunity.

The carriers have told Congressional Democrats that they believe they're already protected under existing law. Their attorneys have read the Constitution and are fully aware that any such law would be overturned by the strict constructionist Supreme Court.

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Remember what happened to the Stalinists when Kruschev came to power (mock trials over Siberian gulags etc). Way I see it either Bush is literally protecting his own ass or he's demanding unconstitutional laws get passed just for the fun of it. Trying to set a precedent for future action maybe?

On the subject of Nuking versus Getting Nuked

I know there are hundreds, if not, literally, hundreds of millions of folks in the States and worldwide that are literally terrified as what might happen if our/their mad dictator finally does go off the deep end and actually 'use nuclear weapons' in the Iran/Middle East 'arena' if you will.

But how do you suppose the actual everyday Iranians feel about it? How the hell would you feel?

Oh, yeah, we might all die together in a sudden and virtually instant conflagration.

Could be tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

And how about late at night, when you can't sleep?

All Set To Get Nuked

UPDATE: Still here. Thank the all.

So, appparently.. the story goes like this.

1. August 30 the USAF 'lost' 5 nuculear weapons whilst being transported from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB.
   
2. The story from the Barksdale end was that 5 weapons were 'found' but it was later reported from the Minot AFB end that 6 weapons were lost.
3. Apprently in 1991, by Presidential order (under Bush Sr.), nuclear weapons were removed from all aircraft. Bomber nuclear ground alerts, during which nuclear weapons are loaded onto bombers during test and training exercises, were also halted. So it does seem unusual that this should happen by accident or otherwise.
   
4. Furthermore the procedures around handling nuclear weapons are incredibly stringent and it was most unlikely that the weapons would've left their secure facility at Minot AFB without some fairly high level of authorization, even if it was somewhat 'irregular'.
   
5. The weapons were actually loaded into a combat ready position on the B-52's in question meaning that, for the first time since 1968, nuclear warheads in combat position were carried by an American bomber and numerous international treaty provisions were violated in the process.
6. On September 14 the "air combat command" will be having a 'stand down' over this. According to the Pentagon liason this is all a fairly standard response and NORAD etc will still be in place.
7. Some folks suggest that the whole thing is really a deliberate leak designed to scare Iran into realizing that the US is getting nukes ready for them and is serious about it threats to go to war.
   
8. Others suggest that no really serious punishments have been meted out to the people responsible, and that it was whistleblowers not deliberate leakers that were responsble for this story getting out. They also point out that on September 7, CIA Director and General Michael Hayden told assembled members of the Council of Foreign Relations:
   
   "Our analysts assess with high confidence that al-Qaida's central leadership is planning high-impact plots against the U. S. homeland."
   

Putting two and three together (to get nine) the obvious conclusion is that we're all due to get nuked September 13. Joy.

Actually I should say "you're" all due to get nuked. I'm in New Zealand and, right now, glad enough of it. Even if I don't believe these predictions - when it comes to nuclear weapons I do prefer to err on the side of caution.

the "democratic" peoples republic of Pakistan

Catching up with last weekends Meet The Press just now. Director of National Intelligence (whatever that is) Admiral McConnell was actually strangely convincing up to this point. Then he said the following, in response to Tim Russert's question about Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and I just about choked on my biscuit..

MR. RUSSERT: If his [Musharraf's] government fell, how detrimental would it be to the U.S.?

Admiral McCONNELL: It would have a severe impact. It would depend—if it fell, it depends on who would replace him. It’s a democratic nation, if they continue down this current path. So, if the process of turnover happens in a democratic way, it, it may not have severe impact.

Oh! Maybe I missed the relevant daily brief. Unfortunately I have to rely on wikipedia which says things like...

Musharraf became ... Chief Executive ... of Pakistan following a bloodless coup d'état on 12 October 1999. That day, the constitutional Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attempted to dismiss Musharraf and install Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director Khwaja Ziauddin in his place. Musharraf, who was out of the country, boarded a commercial airliner to return to Pakistan. ... In the coup, the Generals ousted Sharif's administration and took over the airport. The plane landed with allegedly only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf assumed control of the government. ...

The existing President of Pakistan, Rafiq Tarar, remained in office until June 2001. Musharraf formally appointed himself President on June 20, 2001, just days before his scheduled visit to Agra for talks with India.

..

Shortly after Musharraf's takeover, several people filed court petitions challenging his assumption of power. However ... the Supreme Court of Pakistan now filled which judges of the General's pleasing and who had now taken oath not to take any decisions against the Military Junta.. In an attempt to legitimize his presidency and assure its continuance after the approaching restoration of democracy, he held a referendum on April 30, 2002 to extend his presidential term to five years after the October elections. .. the referendum was boycotted by the majority of Pakistani political groupings, which later complained that the elections were heavily rigged, and voter turnout was 30% or below by most estimates. A few weeks later, Musharraf went on TV and apologized to the nation for "irregularities" in the referendum.

General elections were held in October 2002 and a plurality of the seats in the Parliament was won by the PML-Q, a pro-Musharraf party. However, parties opposed to Musharraf effectively paralysed the National Assembly for over a year.

The deadlock ended in December 2003, when Musharraf made a deal with the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal party, a six-member coalition of Islamic parties, agreeing to leave the army by December 31, 2004. He subsequently refused to keep his promise.

.. etc etc.. in other words the usual dictator refuses to give up power story. Its outrageous that the director of the NIE could make such outrageous statements and not be challenged!

Whitehouse emails, Netiquette, and Oliver North

Extract from..

"THE CORE RULES OF NETIQUETTE"

Rule 1:
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule1.html

..

Never forget the story of famous email user Oliver North. Ollie, you'll remember, was a great devotee of the White House email system, PROFS. He diligently deleted all incriminating notes he sent or received. What he didn't realize was that, somewhere else in the White House, computer room staff were equally diligently backing up the mainframe where his messages were stored. When he went on trial, all those handy backup tapes were readily available as evidence against him.

--

Ah Pook

Also cool. The first time I thought it was just some surreal William S Burroughs candy then the second time I watched it, I realised, oh wow, its completely, deafeningly awfully lucid

Quantum Computing Demo Announcement

OK so just sent out a mass email. People may actually - oh no - visit this page. I better put something cool on it. Except all I have is incoherent scree.

Quick, link to something that really is cool. Check this out:
http://dwave.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/quantum-computing-demo-announcement

Also there's a video too - "a quantum computer is to a light bulb what a laser is to light" - sounds cool. I want one
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=3816&fID=784

the medellin strategy

OK so here’s a theory – actually on further consideration its basically bunk but I'll lave it for you to consider… I'm still working on a new 'not crap' version...

So let’s start off with the fact that this recent ‘surge’ thing makes absolutely no sense. It stares you straight in the face that an extra 20,000 troops… not even returning force levels to where they were 2 years ago, is not really gonna make a big difference. So the next question. Why – from Bush’s perspective is this worth doing? Is it something really worth pushing things to the brink of constitutional crisis with the Dem’s over.
To my way of thinking, you have to work hard to keep imagining how evil the Bush team really is. So let’s dispense with some of the less imaginative theories first. According to one, Bush wants to leave a ‘legacy’ and not be the one that ‘lost the war’ in Iraq. If ‘he’ can just hold on till 2008 then his name may not be complete mud when he leaves office. OK, so this makes even less sense than the escalation strategy. First off, it assumes some actual input by George Bush himself into the Iraq strategy. Secondly, if it somehow part of some strategy to retain Republican control of the presidency, it ignores the strategic fact that even 150,000 troops just cannot hope to control Iraq by 2008 and surely even the Republicans know that.
Another theory holds that the Saudi’s are in some way insisting that the US stay in Iraq and effectively fight the proxy war on their and Shia behalf (or else they’ll triple the price of oil or something). And hey it’s a lot more believable than the last one. Problem is, if the Saudi’s love the US GI’s so much why did they kick them out of Saudi Arabia.
There is of course the mad delusion, can’t face up to the horrible reality of the situation he/they find themselves in, and that they are striking around for just anything. That to withdraw and give the war to others to fight would lead to major regional chaos so they have to do something. I guess that certainly has an appeal. It also has echos of Vietnam when – according to the standard narrative, the US administration simply failed to deal with defeat and kept hoping that somehow more troops would turn the tide. But the problem with that is that in many ways America actually achieved its strategic objectives in Vietnam – namely to turn the place into a hell hole and thereby very effectively dissuade any of the other non-aligned countries, or heaven forbid some of the aligned ones from truly contemplating the fun of having their own communist revolutions, aka Cuba or Nicaragua.
So, a bunch of good reasons, but how about this one for a lark. Maybe he cooked up as Jon Stewart says this “giant pot of ***” – namely the media circus of “double or nothing” and “putting it all on the line” (or should I say, “following the line”) at exactly the right time to hit us with some ‘budgetary end runs’ massive escalations in ‘halliburton expense reports’ that might manage to pump up that *other* 100,000 troops and ordinance, namely the contractors.
Lets’ not forget the Pentagon has completely failed to meet an audit for going on 5 years now. Keith Olbermann recently interviewed John Dean (of Watergate fame).
Keith Olbermann: If the troops are there, congress can’t very well call them back. And if the safe is locked the President can’t very well pay for [the troops] out of his own pocket.
John Dean: We don’t know about that. We know that that did happen during the Reagan administration where the was a tin cup handed around [during the Iran Contra scandal] …
Oh that’s right, the ‘tin cup’, namely ‘the cause’ as it was referred to by (our hero) Oliver North and that whole uber-corruption scandal involving Jeb Bush and (probably) Bush senior (in his roles as CIA director), and of course lets not forget the huge amounts of cocaine flowing into the country and being peddled by the CIA for black funds and ultimately benefitting people like the Harvard endowment whilst it further impoverished the urban poor.
Even the worst Junta’s know that when it comes to cooking the books to pay for arms, someone still has to pay the piper at the end of the day. And with by far the biggest heroin producing country in the world now nicely under the thumb of the CIA (or, I guess I should say ‘not quite’, and maybe ‘not quite them’) it may just be that looks like the US military machine is may be about to adopt the same funding strategy as the Medellín narco-terrorists.
Jefferson apparently talked about using the purse to ‘control the dogs of war’. But it may be that we can just about forget the battles over line item vetoes, the president (or should I say ‘not quite’) may be about to build his own personal army.
Like Jon Stewart says – in this excellent clip - you know what this needs? A pinch of salt.