Category Archives: Politics

I remember…

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… when CNN used to actually investigate and report real news. Nowadays they just seem to parrot whatever the Republicans say is this weeks talking point. Case in point: the CNN.com headline right at the moment is Iran role suspected in brazen Iraq attack.

The Pentagon is investigating whether an attack on a military compound in Karbala, Iraq, was carried out by Iranians or Iranian-trained operatives, two officials from U.S. government agencies said. Five U.S. soldiers died in the sophisticated attack by men wearing U.S.-style uniforms, according to military reports. One official told CNN: “This was beyond what we have seen militias or foreign fighters do.”

Well, forgive me here, you nameless CNN reporter, but this is a little too convenient for the Republican agenda. Perhaps you’d care to identify those two “officials” (maybe Rove and Gates?) And it must be the Iranians, because no Iraqi could possible learn new and better tactics or steal uniforms during our four year occupation of their country. No, it must be Iranians; they’re tricky enough to sneak into Iraq, infiltrate Karbala, and attack a military compound, just to kill five more American soldiers. Yeah, that’s an effective use of resources.

New CDs

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I got a couple of new CDs this week.

Dixie Chicks – Taking the Long Way

I’m a Dixie Chicks fan from way back. I mean WAY back; back to their first incarnation as a festival band in Dallas, circa 1990 or so. This is the fourth studio CD from the current incarnation of the Chicks, and it expands on their complex pop-country style. Probably anyone who cares has heard the “Not Ready to Make Nice” track, which refers to the ongoing political controversy. (Which wouldn’t be a controversy anywhere but in the country music world…. somewhere along the way, the country music business in general and a few artists in particular– yes, Toady, err, Toby, I mean you– have lost track of what “free speech” means.) But I digress. Along the more interesting songwriting credits are pop rocker Sheryl Crow on “Favorite Year” and blues artist Keb’Mo’ on “I Hope.” Of particular note is “Lubbock or Leave It” a complex country-rock track that deserves to be a hit in its own right. For somebody who can see (that wouldn’t be me) this is a pretty nice sing-along album. All in all, I’d give it three and a half out of four stars. No DRM.

Bruce Springsteen – The Seeger Sessions

Oh, Bruce, Bruce, what have you done?!?

After nearly forty years in the music business, Springsteen has explored pretty much every musical genre. Most of it has been well done; much of it spectacular. The Seeger Sessions are no exception. It’s basically a selection of traditional American folk songs (despite the title, not all Pete Seeger songs) arranged by Springsteen & Co. Fair warning: fans of Springsteen’s rock style will hate it; much like “Tom Joad,” this sure ain’t that.

I originally heard this on one of the full-album Sirius stations, and knew I had to have a copy. Off to Amazon, and two days later I have it in my hand. But what showed up is a miserable piece of DRM-ridden crap that won’t play on my stereo. It isn’t recognized by my computer, either Windows or Linux. It won’t let me make a backup copy or rip it to MP3, as is my legal right. This is a deal-breaker. I listen to music mostly in my car, but as a matter of policy, I don’t keep my original CDs in my car. Not even for Bruce Springsteen.

This is in something called “Dualdisc” technology, which has a “DVD” on one side and an “audio CD” on the other side. (I put “CD” in quotes, because it isn’t a CD. There’s a lovely note inside the packaging that says “The audio side of this disc does not conform to CD specifications and therefore will not play on some CD and DVD players.” The Amazon web site mentions the Dualdisc technology, but not a word about the crippled DRM. The disc packaging itself only says it in four point type in yellow text on a brown background. I literally had to find a magnifying glass and a bright light to read it.)

So anyway, I gave it a listen on my DVD player (for some reason, the audio plays on my DVD player but the DVD side doesn’t. More DRM? Who cares?) Even with the crappy audio on my DVD player, I can tell this would be an impressive album if I could listen to it better.

Just for my own amusment, I set up my old $20 Walkman-CD with a cable to the line input on my computer’s sound card and recorded the whole thing into Audacity. A little cut ‘n’ paste, and guess what? It worked fine. So much for stupid anti-piracy schemes.

Alas, much as I might like the music, this one is going back to Amazon because of the DRM. (And yes, I deleted the analog copy.)

I’ll give this one star out of four possible. And that one is only for the pure irony of locking up the music of that old socialist Pete Seeger, behind stupid and useless restrictions that prevent music fans from listening to it, while doing nothing that actually prevents someone who really wants to steal this from doing so.

Bruce, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Quagmire Accomplished

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I really wonder what the average Iraqi thinks of this: (also from today’s Reuters feed)

The paperwork is in order for Hussein’s execution, and the judge echoed a widespread belief that the hanging could be imminent.

At the same time, attorneys in the United States were taking court action to block the execution.

Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld the former dictator’s death sentence, and an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki each confirmed the paperwork preparation late Friday.

“All the procedures have been completed,” Haddad said.

Attorney Nicholas Gilman says in an application for a restraining order, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, that a stay would allow Hussein “to be informed of his rights and take whatever action he can and may wish to pursue.”

Why yes, as a matter of fact this is the kind of democratic process we want you to embrace.

Praise the Lord…

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… that I don’t live in Kentucky.

I happened across this lovely screed on another site I frequent. It looks like Ms. Mcbrearty is stuck in 1978:

They still want utopia, and it wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that their naiveté has aged into a persistent denial of reality that may have devastating consequences.

For example, consider their continued belief that America’s armed forces are neo-Nazi stormtroopers who delight in burning babies to further the aims of imperialistic corporations.

Such nonsense, now treated as legitimate by the left-leaning media, denigrates the patriotic values and sincerity of half the nation. It undermines the war effort, insults the dead and the survivors of battle and their families, and supports the aims of the enemy. Translated into immigration or national defense policy, it is an invitation to the world to destroy our country.

Or maybe she’s just off her meds.

Rabid Cory

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The new TiVo Series 3 is outPretty much ho-hum; it’s not selling all that well, and there are some significant bugs in it. Widely reported, widely ignored. But Cory Doctorow, boingboing‘s resident anti-DRM pit bull, ramps up the anti-DRM rhetoric to a new level:

The Macrovision DRM in the new TiVo Series3 recorders is so broken that just having the wrong piece of equipment attached to your TV can cause it to register some shows as un-savable to your VCR, DVD recorder, etc. TiVo characterizes this as a glitch, but that’s not the whole story.

It is a glitch, and they’re working to fix it. But wait, he foams some more:

It’s like those movies where an accident or a bad guy triggers the “self-destruct button” on a spaceship. Often the self-destruct button is locked away behind plexiglas and padlocks for safety, but wouldn’t it be safer not to include a single command that blows up the whole space-ship? […] Wouldn’t it be better if TiVo didn’t build in any technology that attacks its customers?

Well, yuh, it would be good. We get it…. “DRM is Evil.” But you want TiVo to ignore it? They’d be sued out of existence in about two minutes. Remember ReplayTV? The people who own the content want DRM. Blaming TiVo for that– and all the other faults of the MPAA and other industry groups– is just silly. Vote with your wallet– if you think the DRM outweighs the usefulness of TiVo, don’t buy it.

Cory, you write great fiction. Maybe you should stick to what you’re good at.

The fox guards the hen house

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It’s a mixed-up world we live in. From UPI:

“If we could conserve even 5 percent of gasoline we would see in a period of six to eight weeks a significant difference in the price of gas,” [Shell Oil president] Hofmeister told the Infragard National Conference, a critical infrastructure protection convention in Washington. “The political leadership has chosen not to actively promote conservation. So we continue to produce to demand and that’s what keeps prices up,” Hofmeister said.
[…]
Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed conservation as a viable government strategy to the nation’s energy problems in a speech in 2001, when gas was reaching about $2 a gallon.

“Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy,” Cheney said.

Cheney said the issue had to be addressed by increasing the supply of energy.

Coup at the CIA?

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I was surprised when George Tenet, director of the CIA, bailed out after he’d skated through his recent 9/11 Commission grilling. And the surprise “retirement” of his DDO Pavitt a day later had interesting timing, to say the least. (For those keeping score, that leaves John McLaughlin as Tenet’s likely replacement. He’s a career CIA bureaucrat, who’s never been in the field, and is not exactly regarded as the reincarnation of Allan Dulles.)

The folks at From The Wilderness make an interesting argument that this is a slow-speed, bloodless attempt at a coup d’etat by the CIA, possibly as revenge for the current administration blowing Valerie Plame’s cover and/or the failed attempt to make the CIA look bad by blaming the yellowcake fiasco on bad intelligence. They further argue that Colin Powell is also in on the coup, and will resign before the November elections.

There’s a pretty good argument that this belongs to the tinfoil hat brigade, but I wonder.