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If you see a tanker on fire, Run!

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Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he had not seen the classified National Intelligence Estimate that reportedly alleges that the Iraq war has worsened the problem of terrorism throughout the world, but suggested terrorism is a problem that transcends the Iraq war.

“It’s a classified report and I haven’t read it,” Frist told ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” in an exclusive appearance, quickly adding, “This war on terror is more than just Iraq, is more than just Afghanistan.”

It’s a little odd that Frirst would say something like that, since he’s a member of the Gang of Eight.

(translation of the billboard text for the non-Dutch: “ah, nice surprise!”)

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“We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda,”

– Condoleezza Rice, to a reporter for the New York Post on Monday, in response to the Clinton interview

If you want to read parts of the actual comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda that the Clinton Administration did indeed leave, click here.

Some more fact-checking here

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Tireless consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky recently launched a new Web site named Mouseprint.org, where he’s taking on the ever-more-absurd claims and disclaimers in the world of advertising.

If it weren’t so sad, Mouseprint.org would be a laugh-riot.

Here’s a taste: New England-area car dealers have taken to advertising new car prices so low you’d think Detroit was in the middle of some kind of financial crisis. A brand-new $21,000 car, for example, was recently listed in an ad for $9,500. How can they do that? Is it aggressive employee pricing? Some fabulous new rebate program?

Nope. The price assumes a $7,500 down payment on the car. Consider it a rebate, only you have to pay it.

This one’s a bit tricky, so let me explain by example. Let’s say you go to the store to buy a gallon of milk. You expect it to cost $3, but the sign on the shelf says $2. This, you figure, is your lucky day. But when you get to the checkout counter, the cashier asks you for a dollar before ringing up your purchase.

“You have to pay $1 to get the $2 price,” she explains.

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During an election debate at the weekend in the outskirts of Chicago, Peter Roskam, the Republican candidate for Illinois’s sixth district, trotted out the familiar line that his Democratic opponent wanted America to “cut and run” from Iraq.

His opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a former National Guard pilot who lost both her legs in Iraq last year when her helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade, was visibly angry at the exchange. “I just could not believe he would say that to me,” said Ms Duckworth, who now walks on artificial legs with the help of a cane.

[p.237-238]

Begin in Genesis with the well-loved story of Noah, derived from the Babylonian myth of Uta-Napisthim and known from the older mythologies of several cultures. The legend of the animals going into the ark two by two is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is applaing. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure the rest of the (presumably blameless) animals as well.

Of course, irritated theologians will protest that we don’t take the book of Genesis literally anymore. But that is my whole point. We pick and choose which bits of scripture to believe, which bits to write off as symbols or allegories. Such picking and choosing is a decision, just as much, or as little, as the atheists decision to follow this moral precept or that was a personal decision, without an absolute foundation. If one of these is ‘morality flying by the seat of its pants’ so is the other.

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The proposition Electoral College vs. the Popular Vote. Win the debate lose the girl.

Quicktime Video .9MB 1’02

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US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has strongly disputed a claim by former president Bill Clinton that he left a comprehensive plan to fight Al Qaida when his term ended.

In a heated interview on Sunday, the former president accused the Bush administration of doing far less that he did to stop Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

Rice however, said: “The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn’t do that is just flatly false — and I think the 9/11 commission understood that.”

Gee, he must have hit a sore spot..

Asked whether she thought Clinton was a liar, Rice replied: “No, I’m just saying that, look; there was a lot of passion in that interview.”

Yeah, let’s focus on the emotion. As usual, the Daily show has the best summary of the whole thing:

(via onegoodmove)

Quicktime Video 3.3 MB 3’55

And after the break, let’s see what the 9/11 commission really said about this, and wether Rice is blowing smoke again…

Read the rest of this entry »

This undated photo provided by the U.S. Army shows Emily Perez, the highest ranking black and Hispanic woman cadet in corps history. Perez, 23, was buried at West Point military academy Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, two weeks after she was killed by a bomb in Iraq. She was a platoon leader at the head of a convoy when a roadside bomb exploded south of Baghdad on Sept. 12 and killed her. (AP Photo/US Army)

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Apple Computer has slapped Podcast Ready with a “cease and desist” letter, claiming that the terms “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” infringe Apple’s trademarks, and that they cause confusion among consumers. The company has been cracking down on use of the word “pod” by all sorts of parties, even though its trademark is for the word “iPod.”

I suggest replacing the word “Podcast” with “Portapoddy”, based on this. It has the added benefit of more accurately decsribing the content.

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that. Steve Jobs won’t let me.”

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European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has revealed that the US Embassy pressured her over the Microsoft antitrust case

The US government sought to influence the European Commission over Microsoft’s antitrust case, according to competition commissioner Neelie Kroes.

Kroes said the US embassy in Brussels had asked her to be “nicer” to Microsoft ahead of her decision to fine the software giant €280m in July.

The commissioner criticised the approach. “This is of course an intervention which is not possible,” Kroes told Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad this week.

When asked if she was annoyed by the Embassy’s approach, she said “In my work, I cannot have a preference. I have, however, a personal opinion, but that is for Saturday night.”

Kroes’ spokesperson added in an email to ZDNet UK on Tuesday: “We can confirm that she was lobbied and that she did not appreciate it.”

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President Bush said Tuesday that Americans will now be able to “Google their tax dollars,” as he signed a law to create an online database for tracking about $1 trillion in government spending on grants and contracts.

The law is aimed preventing wasteful spending by opening the federal budget to greater scrutiny. The information is already available, but the Web site would make it easier for those who aren’t experts on the process to see how taxpayer dollars are being spent.

“Information on earmarks will no longer be hidden deep in the pages of a federal budget bill, but just a few clicks away,” Bush said in a signing ceremony. “This legislation will give the American people a new tool to hold their government accountable for spending decisions. When those decisions are made in broad daylight, they will be wiser and they will be more restrained.”

That $1 trillion is only part of the budget. Wanna bet it’s only the part where the programs listed are those they would like to see eliminated? And everything else will be labelled “National Security”? Until the government files their Sox compliance statement I’m not going to bother with this database…

select VendorName
from Government.Vendors v
inner join Government.Products p on v.VendorID=p.VendorID
inner join Government.CampainContributions c on v.VendorID=c.VendorID
where p.HammerPrice > 15 and c.AnnualContributions < 1000000;
NO RESULTS FOUND

.

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Will file-sharing be the savior or the slayer of the music industry? The industry is quite sure that it knows the answer, and it has been attempting to sue the file-sharing genie back into its bottle, with limited success. Defenders of sharing argue that it actually benefits the music industry by exposing people to more artists. But for a topic this controversial, file-sharing has received limited academic scrutiny. The entire debate is in need of some good empirical evidence, which is why Norbert Michel’s recent paper in Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy is so intriguing.

Though the methodology is complex, the results are straightforward: some US music consumers “could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.”

[..]

According to Michel’s methodology, those who owned a computer bought almost 13 percent fewer CDs from 1999 to 2003, with those who bought the most music showing the largest decrease. His conclusion is that file-sharing does have an effect on music sales, a conclusion shared by Zentner (2005), Hong (2004), Liebowitz (2004), and Rob and Waldfogel (2004).

Hidden conclusion: if you own a computer, you’re a thief. Shit, didn’t it occur to anybody that buying a computer opens up other forms of entertainment, like games, and gee, that might mean spending shifts from one form of entertainment to another?

Newsflash for the music industry: I own a computer, and my music sales dropped to zero. Not because I’m downloading it, but because I’m fucking sick and tired of being treated like a thief instead of like a customer. DRM, rootkits, massive lawsuits… Right now I wouldn’t even accept your product as a gift. You can shove it.