[Quote:]

Last year the Dutch tried to tax all MP3 players, but that proposal didn’t make it into law. But not to worry, they have other brilliant ideas. Earlier this week, Dutch politicians suggested that it might be a good idea to tax Internet traffic, and use this money to compensate the music industry. This, under the condition that DRM is abandoned, and people can’t be charged for downloads. Say what?

Recently Dutch Record Companies decided to no longer use copy protection on CDs because the costs didn’t outweigh the benefits. Politicians are now looking for alternative ways to compensate the Music Industry.

Martijn van Dam, a member of one of the bigger political parties in The Netherlands said, “Taxing Internet traffic is great way to compensate the Music Industry for the loss in sales by illegal filesharing�?. He added that a prerequisite would be that DRM and copy protection should be abandoned. The battle against piracy is lost according to Van Dam, he says that the Music Industry has to accept that their products will be traded over the internet.

Surprisingly, Van Dam is not alone in this. Nicolien van Vroonhoven, a politician from the leading party (CDA) in the Netherlands, also thinks that this pirate tax would be a good idea. She adds that this could only work if people can’t be charged for downloading music anymore.

The statements (Dutch source) from these leading politicians basically say that piracy should be condoned, as long as Internet traffic is taxed.

Trust politicians to find a new way to tax. I have no interest at all in downloading any music, but they’re going to tax me anyway.

[Quote:]

U.S. regulators said Tuesday Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to reimburse consumers up to $150 for damage to their computers for selling CDs with hidden anti-piracy software.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, which announced the settlement with the big media company, its anti-piracy software limited the devices on which music could be played to those made by Sony Corp. or Microsoft Corp. It also restricted the number of copies that could be made and monitored consumers’ listening habits to send them marketing messages.

The FTC said the software also “exposed consumers to significant security risks and was unreasonably difficult to uninstall.”

The settlement requires the company to allow consumers to exchange through the end of June the affected CDs purchased before Dec. 31, 2006, and reimburse them up to $150 to repair damage done when they tried to remove the software. It also requires Sony BMG to clearly disclose limitations on consumers’ use of music CDs, bars it from using collected information for marketing and prohibits it from installing software without consumer consent.

Malware penalty, per computer: $150
Copyright penalty, per song: $2000
Calling it “the justice system”: priceless

[Transcript:]

REP. JIM COOPER (D-TN): Second, let me mention a dinner party I attended about two months ago here in Washington. The honoree was John Negroponte. He was then the director of national intelligence. He was there to receive an environmental award.

It was very interesting because in anticipation of his remarks, word slipped through the crowd he was not allowed to utter the words “global warming,�? at least not in the same sentence. Apparently, he was allowed to say the word “global�? in a separate sentence, and “warming�? in a separate sentence, but not together. So it became a little parlor game during his remarks, to see how closely he would fit the words “global�? and “warming�? and not incur the wrath of the White House.

I thought this was a sad statement of the current condition of our scientific community when a very eminent statesman like John Negroponte would be so hamstrung by the administration that he would not be allowed to utter the two words in conjunction. I thought that was an indignity to Mr. Negroponte and a sad comment on the level of the Bush administration to so hamstring its talented and capable appointees.

[Quote:]

A woman who told police she had been raped was jailed for two days after officers found an old warrant accusing her of failing to pay restitution for a 2003 theft arrest.

While she was behind bars, according to the college student’s attorney, a jail worker refused to give her a second dose of the morning-after contraceptive pill because of the worker’s religious convictions.

The 21-year-old woman was released Monday only after attorney Vic Moore reported her plight to the local media.

“Shocked. Stunned. Outraged. I don’t have words to describe it,” Moore said. “She is not a victim of any one person. She is a victim of the system. There’s just got to be some humanity involved when it’s a victim of rape.”

Moore said the woman was not allowed to take the second emergency contraceptive pill until Monday afternoon, a day late, after reporters called police and jail officials.

More photo’s here.

[Quote:]

The Mac News Network is reporting that Apple has declined to to appeal its loss in last year’s Apple v. Does decision. MacNN, which is affiliated with Apple Insider, one of the sites targeted by Apple, says that Apple has paid nearly $700,000 to cover the sites’ legal fees.

As previously reported here at Ars, last summer’s decision by a California appeals court was a major victory for free speech online. Apple had asked the courts to compel two Mac rumor sites, Apple Insider and O’Grady’s PowerPage, to disclose the names of their sources for a series of stories on an an unreleased Apple audio device. In its lawsuit, Apple argued that amateur websites are not eligible for the legal protections afforded to professional journalists under the First Amendment and California’s shield law. But the court rejected this argument, ruling that “We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish ‘legitimate’ from ‘illegitimate’ news,” and that the the rumor sites appear “conceptually indistinguishable from publishing a newspaper, and we see no theoretical basis for treating it differently.”

In an email interview with MacNN, EFF staff attorney Kurt Opsahl wrote that like their print counterparts, online journalists “must be able to promise confidentiality in order to maintain the free flow of information. Without legal protection, informants will refuse to talk to reporters, diminishing the power of the open press that is the cornerstone of a free society.”

The court awarded the two sites more than twice their actual legal expenses in order to deter companies like Apple from harrassing journalists with lawsuits. Not only does the decision set an important precedent regarding freedom of the press online, but the financial award will also enhance EFF’s ability to defend free speech online.

[Quote:]

Canada set an important example of decency when it offered a formal apology and compensation worth millions of dollars to a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was a victim of President Bush’s use of open-ended detention, summary deportation and even torture in the name of fighting terrorism.

Last week’s announcement by Prime Minister Stephen Harper came more than four years after the nightmare began for the Canadian, Maher Arar, a 36-year-old software engineer. On his way back from a family vacation, he was detained by U.S. officials at Kennedy Airport on the basis of unsubstantiated information from the Canadian police. After being held in solitary confinement in a Brooklyn detention center and interrogated without proper access to legal counsel, he was sent to Syria, where he was imprisoned for nearly a year and tortured.

It was all part of a legally and morally unsupportable practice known as extraordinary rendition, the deportation of terrorism suspects to countries where the regimes are known to use torture and to disdain basic human rights protections.

Four months ago, a Canadian government panel concluded that Mr. Arar had never had a terrorism connection, and that Americans had misled Canada about their plans for him. The Bush administration stonewalled the inquiry. It has responded to a new Canadian request to remove Mr. Arar from a United States security watch list by rudely telling Canada, its democratic northern neighbor and strategic ally, to mind its own business.

[Quote:]

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

It’s all about giving business a free hand:

Business groups welcomed the executive order, saying it had the potential to reduce what they saw as the burden of federal regulations. This burden is of great concern to many groups, including small businesses, that have given strong political and financial backing to Mr. Bush.

And ignoring experts in the field:

Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said: “The executive order allows the political staff at the White House to dictate decisions on health and safety issues, even if the government’s own impartial experts disagree. This is a terrible way to govern, but great news for special interests.�?

Test the strength of your password here.

“Password1″

Nice, strong, easy to remember.

Just trying to help…

[Quote:]

The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, put himself at odds with the home secretary and Downing Street last night by denying that Britain is caught up in a “war on terror” and calling for a “culture of legislative restraint” in passing laws to deal with terrorism.

Sir Ken warned of the pernicious risk that a “fear-driven and inappropriate” response to the threat could lead Britain to abandon respect for fair trials and the due process of law.

[..]

He said: “London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, ‘soldiers’. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a ‘war on terror’, just as there can be no such thing as a ‘war on drugs’.

“The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.”

Sir Ken, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, told members of the Criminal Bar Association it should be an article of faith that crimes of terrorism are dealt with by criminal justice and that a “culture of legislative restraint in the area of terrorist crime is central to the existence of an efficient and human rights compatible process”.

He said: “We wouldn’t get far in promoting a civilising culture of respect for rights amongst and between citizens if we set about undermining fair trials in the simple pursuit of greater numbers of inevitably less safe convictions. On the contrary, it is obvious that the process of winning convictions ought to be in keeping with a consensual rule of law and not detached from it. Otherwise we sacrifice fundamental values critical to the maintenance of the rule of law – upon which everything else depends.”

[Quote:]

Microsoft will take a new approach toward mid-size companies it suspects of using unlicensed software, sending a series of letters culminating in a threat of legal action from the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a company official said today.

By involving the BSA, which is an advocate for copyright and intellectual property issues, Microsoft is hoping to “spark off the engagement” with its customers, said Ram Dhaliwal, Microsoft’s licensing programs manager in the UK.

“If they are using our software, we are simply going to ask them to pay for it,” said Dhaliwal, whose group runs the company’s Software Asset Management (SAM) programme.

In the past, Microsoft contacted companies by phone or email and asked to come in and audit their software. Microsoft contends companies have an incentive to have legally licensed software, and its audit and asset management teams also can look for ways the company can save money, he said.

It all sounds very reasonable until you read this story and see what the BSA considers “proof”:

[Quote:]

Many clients are dismayed to discover what does and does not constitute valid proof of purchase according to the BSA.

Not Considered Valid Proof

1. Copies of Checks to Software Vendors
2. Dated Purchase Orders
3. Undated Software Licenses
4. Credit Card Statements Evidencing Software Purchases
5. Certificates of Authenticity
6. Media, Manuals, or Key-Codes
7. Invoices Bearing and Entity Name Other than the Entity Named in the BSA’s Initial Letter

Valid Proof of Purchase

1. Dated Invoices in the Name of the Audited Entity
2. Soft Records (online account statements) from Recognized Resellers
3. Signed and Dated License Agreements
4. Soft Records from BSA Member’s such as Microsoft Licensing Statements
5. Cash Register Receipts for Retail Sales where Product, Version, Quantity and Price Paid are Included.

Most people don’t add the costs of maintaining these records to the costs of using Windows, and companies in the “up to 250 seats” category are a notoriously easy target for these audits, even if they’ve bought every single piece of software they use. It’s much better to go with Open Source if you can, and tell the BSA to go stuff itself. It would be impossible to run a business if every industry sector behaved in the same way as the BSA.

*knock knock*
“Hello?”
“We’re from the Business Furniture Alliance, representing Office World, Staples, and several other major furniture retailers. According to our clients’ records, you haven’t purchased enough office desks to run a business of this size. We suspect you’ve been stealing your office furniture from one of our clients.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but we got a local carpenter to run up some desks for us…”
“A likely tale. We’re going to have to audit your furniture. I hope you have a few days free.”
“Kindly bugger off and d– hang on, who’s that?”
“Good morning sir or madam, I’m from the Business Carpeting Alliance. Our records show that…”

[Quote:]

Priceline, Travelocity, and Cingular, three high-profile companies that advertised through nuisance adware programs have agreed to pay fines and reform their practices, according to the New York Attorney General.

“Advertisers will now be held responsible when their ads end up on consumers’ computers without full notice and consent,�? Andrew Cuomo said. “Advertisers can no longer insulate themselves from liability by turning a blind eye to how their advertisements are delivered, or by placing ads through intermediaries, such as media buyers. New Yorkers have suffered enough with unwanted adware programs and this agreement goes a long way toward clamping down on this odious practice.�?

In a lawsuit filed in April 2006, the Attorney General alleged that Direct Revenue installed adware programs onto millions of computers worldwide that delivered a steady stream of advertisements, monitored web sites visited by users, and collected data typed into web forms — without adequate notice or the consent of consumers.

[Quote:]

Scientists from around the world gathered in Paris on Monday to finalise an authoritative report on climate change, expected to be a grim warning of rising temperatures and sea levels worldwide.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to unveil its latest assessment of the environmental threat posed by global warming on Friday.

As the panel meets, the planet is the warmest it has been in thousands of years – if not more – and international concern over what to do about it has grown.

Early drafts of the document look rosier than the last report, in 2001, foreseeing smaller sea level rises than previously predicted.

But many top scientists reject the new figures, saying they are not new enough, as they do not include the recent melt-off of big ice sheets in two crucial locations – Greenland and Antarctica.

[Quote:]

Previously it was Allchin lamenting his experience with a Creative Zen digital music player and his WMP software, saying that the iPod and iTunes blew it away. Before that it was Allchin saying he would buy a Mac if he didn’t work at Microsoft, which, despite being taken a bit out of context, was still quite damning.

Now it’s an email from Lenn Pryor, the former Director of Platform Evangelism:

Tonight I got on corpnet, hooked up Mail.app to my Exchange server and then downloaded all of my mail into the local file store. I did system wide queries against docs, contacts, apps, photos, music, and … my Microsoft email on a Mac. It was fucking amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.

Wow. The email, which can be found in its entirely here as an eminently-readable PDF, goes on to suggest that Pryor didn’t want to give his Tiger installation DVD up and that high-level Microsoft employees were openly sharing OSX Tiger DVDs, which, if I’m not mistaken, is not what Apple and its licensing agreement condones.

Oops.

[Quote:]

The federal investigation into Congressional corruption is approaching a crucial deadline and potential dead end. Feb. 15 is the last day on the job for United States Attorney Carol Lam of San Diego, the inquiry’s dedicated prosecutor, who is being purged by the Bush administration.

Her investigation led to the imprisonment of former Representative Randy Cunningham, the California Republican who took millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for delivering lucrative government contracts. But just as Ms. Lam was digging into other possible wrongdoing, the White House decided to force her from office without explanation.

Ms. Lam has been investigating the dealings of Brent Wilkes, a private contractor and deep-pocketed political contributor who was designated co-conspirator No. 1 in the Cunningham case. Mr. Wilkes developed other cozy relationships. Among other avenues, the inquiry has been looking into rich government contracts secured by corporations and lobbyists with ties to Representative Jerry Lewis — the former appropriations chairman — and his staff. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Mr. Wilkes could be indicted before Ms. Lam leaves office. The question now is whether her successor, as yet unnamed, will pursue the inquiry with the same dedication or will quietly smother it.

[Quote:]

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. I’ll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.�? Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.

[Quote:]

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The Non-Binding Declaration of the Thirteen Colonies of King George III

When in the Course of Political Necessity it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the respect they once had for themselves, and to assume among the powerless of the earth, the separate and equal powerlessness to which the Supremacy of Kings consigns them, a feigned respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to bleat like sheep.

We hold these truths to be impractical, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments cannot actually be instituted among Men, and cannot derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, because there isn’t enough time and we don’t have the votes.

BUT, whenever any Form of Government enslaves the people, it is the Right of the People to complain about it to each other, and to argue amongst themselves while their Government institutes further slavery, invoking even greater powers to enslave and organizing its powers in such form, as to that Government shall seem most likely to extend forever its own Safety and Happiness.

Moral Cowardice, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be held accountable; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are always disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. Consequently, we have resolved that even though this long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism, it would be too difficult to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for our future security.

Such is the inevitable fate of these Colonies; and such is now the political necessity which constrains us from doing anything other than offering this Non-Binding Declaration. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. But we may have a different King in 1778. We may even have a Queen, and she might even listen to us if we behave ourselves.

To prove that we are serious defenders of the Rights of the People, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

The King has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good, but this has not stopped us, even once, from passing more laws.

The King has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. We’ve written letters to him about this, and expect to hear back from him any day now.

The King has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. We’ve already received a letter back from the King about this, and he has assured us that he is not a Tyrant.

The King has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. If we weren’t so tired, we’d lodge a formal complaint with the Registrar of Public Records.

The King has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly and womanly and at times, even childish firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. Our friend and colleague, Josiah Lieberman, is looking into this for us.

The King has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. We would like to take action on this, but it might embolden the merciless Indian savages and demoralize our militiamen.

The King has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. Some of us don’t like Immigrants either, they are taking away too many tavern cleaning jobs from our constituents.

The King has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. Our friend and colleague Jeremiah Scalia told us to get over this, and we are striving to do so.

The King has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. We tried to stop this, and until we do, we strongly advise our constituents to refrain from getting arrested.

The King has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. We are currently investigating this, and will issue a full report as soon as we finish our Phase I report about the witch burnings in Salem.

The King has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. As long he doesn’t draft any of our constituents, we don’t have a problem with that.

The King has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. Lord Rumsfeld has been replaced by Lord Gates, let’s give him a chance before we make any hasty judgments about military issues.

We have been told that the King has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

We have been told that in order to prevail in his War on Fright, he has quartered large bodies of armed troops among us:

We have been told that he has protected them, by mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on Mohammedans or anyone else he doesn’t like:

We have been told that he has opened the first Wal-Mart and told us to go shopping:

We have been told that he has cut Taxes on his cronies with their enthusiastic Consent:

We have been told that he has deprived us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

We have been told that he has transported some of us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

We have been told that he has abolished the free System of Elections in the neighboring colony of Connecticut, establishing therein a monumentally stupid sycophant, and praises him as an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into other Colonies:

We have been told that he has taken away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

We have been told that he has suspended our own Legislatures, and declared himself invested with unitary power to decide for us in all cases whatsoever.

We have been told that he has undermined Government here, by declaring us unpatriotic and waging ideological War against us.

We have been told that he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

We have been told that he is at this time hiring large Armies of Mercenaries to compleat his works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

We have been told that he has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

We have been told that he has unleashed Lord Rove to excite domestic disputes amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions because they hate us for our freedoms.

Some of us have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. Some of us believe that this King, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. But most of us are concerned that actually declaring our Independence would be seen as an act of vengeance, would take too long, wouldn’t have enough votes in the House of Lords, would divert our attention from important legislation like passing a minimum wage for candle makers, and that we should just wait and hope we get a Queen in 1778.

So . . . based upon this wise advice and counsel, we, therefore, the Representatives of the Thirteen Colonies of King George, in General Congress, Assembled, ignoring the Supreme Judge of the world, do, in the Name, and by Authority of Ourselves, cravenly publish and non-bindingly declare, That these Colonies would like to become Free and Independent States at some point, would like to be Absolved someday from Allegiance to the British Crown, and would like that all political connection between us and the State of Great Britain be dissolved, as soon as King George III or one of his distant descendents deems it to be fit and proper.

For the sake of this non-binding Declaration, with a shaky reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually request that everyone be responsible enough to keep quiet until 1778 and give this plan a chance.

A frilled shark, rarely seen alive because its natural habitat is 600 metres or more under the sea, is seen in this photo released by the Awashima Marine Park in Numazu, south of Tokyo January 24, 2007. (Awashima Marine Park/Handout/Reuters)

[Quote:]

Yesterday was a very exciting day for Swift City. We heard on Tuesday that Google were going to be flying over Sydney on Australia Day (Friday) to take high resolution images for Google Earth/Maps. We thought, wow, given Google Maps is such an integral part of our site, what a great opportunity to get in the photo!

I’m pretty certain that the drivers of domestic Hummers fantasize driving like this all the time. If they could get the roof-mounted .50-Caliber option, you’d see a lot of this at home.

Undaunted and undeterred by its failure to stem sectarian stupidity in the Bush Administration, the Iraq Study Group has decided to take another stab at victory, with a SURGE of its own.

Speaking on behalf of the ISG, Co-Chairman James Baker explained that their last effort did not utilize enough diplomats to quell Bush’s Shit-ite policies, or unduly Sunny scenarios.

“This time,�? Baker promised, “we intend to expand the membership of the ISG by at least 20,000, which will require a draft of all retired Cabinet members, Congressmen, and foreign service officers going back to the Kennedy Administration.�?

Co-Chairman Lee Hamilton added that new strategies would also be employed. “Instead of just lobbying the Administration during the day, and then going home to sleep in our own beds at night, this time we’re going to camp out in the White House 24/7.�?

However, many remained skeptical that 20,000 ISG personnel, even equipped with body armor, would be sufficient to suppress the random insanity of the Bush policies. As Senator Chuck Hagel put it, “putting these old folks in the meat grinder of this Administration is a fool’s errand, and may well be the biggest humanitarian disaster since Darfur.�?

Senator Joe Biden pointed out that “according to the Pentagon’s own counter-insurgency manual, it takes 50,000 troops alone just to dislodge Vice President Cheney from his underground bunker.�?