Pentagon Cancels Internet Voting Plan

Wired News has a story on the steps the OMB is taking to eliminate top scientists from its pseudo-peer-review process in favor of those hand-picked to support the administration’s position, and science be damned.

Marvel and DC are asserting that they and they alone have the right to use the term superhero; they’ve already bullied a small publisher into changing the title of one of their books.

I said basically the same thing yesterday, but Whiskey Bar has a great rant on the bizarre reactions to the boob flashed ’round the world.

Slacktivist once again nails it, this time on the bizarre claims the administration is now making about how it was mislead on the Iraqi WMD issue by the CIA and the intelligence community. It’s been amply documented that in the rush to war, the White House disregarded any intelligence that suggested their cassus belli of choice was inaccurate; they cannot not credibly claim that the CIA is to blame for their own cherrypicking of only the most damning (and unverifiable) data.

Agent Mohney points us to the libertarian publication Reason for this discussion of the efficacy and competency of the Transportation Safety Administration. Hint: it’s a sick joke, and we’re no safer for our loss of privacy and liberty when flying.

Okay, when I made a snarky remark about how some people seemed up in arms about Janet’s bare breast, but were utterly untroubled by the other crass exploitation of sexuality surrounding the Super Bowl, I was making a joke.

From where I sit, this bit of exposure is only different in degree, not substance, from the countless scantily-clad dancers surrounding P. Diddy and Nelly, for example, not to mention the cheerleaders for teams themselves. It didn’t occur to me that anyone would actually think of this as materially different than these other exploitations of sexuality, or to even think that something like this (deliberate or not) wasn’t inevitable. Sex and titilation sell. The networks and the NFL trade on this very fact, and to pretend otherwise is simple mendacity.

I say all this now because the FCC is looking into whether or not there should be some sort of sanctions for this “classless, crass, and deplorable stunt” (as FCC chairman Michael Powell described it). He goes on to suggest that we as a nation “deserve better.” (Frankly, I thought the breast in question was perfectly nice, but maybe Whatever, Michael. Were you similarly scandalized by Nelly grabbing his crotch, or by the skimpy costumes the cheerleaders wore? I doubt it. Show a nipple, though, and these boobs freak right the hell out.

Apparently, that really was Janet Jackson’s boob (or, at least, her nipple jewelry) that Justin Timberlake exposed last night at the finale of their “flirtatious” duet. Timberlake, for his part, has apologized for the “wardrobe malfunction,” which is a phrase I hope makes it into the popular lexicon. The grouches at the NFL were not amused, though, and have stated that MTV will no longer be doing the halftime show, which strikes me as hilarious given the sexual aspects of virtually every beer ad shown during the broadcast. Bikini-clad girls selling beer with little left to the imagination: OK. Janet Jackson’s (pierced! (NSFW)) nipple: Horrors!

Salon discusses the widespread nightmare that zero tolerance policies in schools create. Like mandatory sentencing minimums, zero tolerance policies ignore any extenuating circumstances, and remove all possibility of flexibility in response to infractions.

California voters are already having trouble with their $12 million Diebold voting system. It seems some votes go to the wrong candidates sometimes. Diebold, of course, insists they’ll fix the problem, but won’t show anyone the code since it’s a trade secret.

Surely the conflicts involved here are obvious, right?

This, of course, surprises no one

The 9/11 panel finds that existing security measures should have caught at least some of the hijackers, something that’s been widely asserted in the 2 years since the attacks. Of course, this won’t stop the Feds from continuing their police-power-grab.

At least all those new security measures make airports safer, right?

A woman at LaGuardia got past security with a stun gun and a knife last week. Ooops.

In the 2000 elections, one of the most amazing things to me was that the Democrats made NOTHING of Bush’s Vietnam reserve record, and that the press — whom you’d think would have been all over it — let the whole issue slide.

Now, with two solid records running for the Democratic nomination, the issue may get legs after all, especially since Clark has thus far refused to repudiate supporter Michael Moore’s claim that Bush was and is a deserter. Is he? Well, here’s a discussion and examination of precisely that claim and the coverage surrounding Moore’s statement.

Two facts, though, aren’t even in dispute:

1. In the spring of 1972, Bush failed to get a flight physical in direct violation of orders.
2. Bush performed no duties or drills of any kind between early May and late November of 1972.

Now, that’s not really desertion (technically), but it’s damn sure being AWOL, and it seems pretty clear that somebody without a super-connected family would have probably been discliplined. Since the “liberal media” had such a field day with Clinton being “draft dodger” back in ’92, I eagerly await their tenacious coverage of these charges.

High school students in Florida were disqualified from a theater competition because their anti-totalitarian play (James Clavell’s 1963 one-act “The Children’s Story”) includes a scene wherein students are encouraged to cut up a flag following the US’ defeat at the hands of some powerful enemy. The episode is designed to illustrate the dangers of mindless obedience, a fact apparently lost on the competition’s administrators, who appear to have missed the last 14 years of Constitutional law. Co-chair and theater teacher Melody Wicht disqualified the team based on Florida Statute 876.52, which bars flag desecration. “My problem was that they took an American flag off the flagpole and cut it into pieces. They were disqualified based on Florida law,” she said.

Of course, just such a statute was struck down in 1990 by the Supremes; writing for the majority, Scalia (!) noted that flag desecration was clearly an expression of disagreement, and was therefore protected speech. This means the Florida statute is no good, either.

Perhaps the theater teachers in Florida need a refresher from the government and history departments. What they taught here was that (1) they don’t actually understand the First Amendment; and (2) they’re incapable of experiencing a work in any but the most literal senses. And people wonder why smart kids hate high school.

Part of the PATRIOT Act has been found unconstitutional. Now, for the rest of that damn creeping totalitarian law. Just to remind you: it got passed in a panic after 9/11, and our elected representatives by and large DID NOT READ IT before passing it. If that’s not dereliction of duty, I don’t know what is.

Scarier, of course, is the fact that it almost certainly had to exist on 9/10/2001, waiting for the right moment to be introduced to Congress.

Israeli cops abandon their station — because of marijunana fumes from the storage locker, where a few tons of pot languished.

Those poor, poor cops.

Last week, he insisted in some interviews that we knew Saddam had WMD, and that we knew Saddam was in bed with Al Queda.

Trouble is, both of those claims have been repudiated by the CIA, the Pentagon, and his own administration. Ooops.

For months — well, years — the Bush administration has been stonewalling the group empaneled to investigate the events around the 9/11 attacks. Specifically, they’ve been trying to figure out how Atta, et. al., managed to get their elaborate plan to fruition without anybody noticing, or least without anybody noticing and DOING something about it.

Perhaps because of the uncooperative nature of Bush’s White House, they want more time. Predictably, the administration opposes this, and perhaps consequently the chairs are reluctant to force the issue. The families are, of course, livid. The media is, of course, giving the White House a pass on the issue; Salon’s coverage is the only I’ve seen.

Time reports that a Grand Jury has been convened to review the leak affair. We’ll see what happens now.

In a separate but related event, a group of decorated former CIA officers sent a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert this week calling for a formal Congressional inquiry into the affair as well.

I suppose there’s some hope that justice might actually happen. I wish I were more optimistic.

Yesterday, I got Jon Krakauer’s new book about Mormons — or, more specifically, about a disturbing and bloody murder committed by members of a fundamentalist offshoot of that sect.

Today, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden highlights a story about a similar batch of Mormons, this time concerned with forced marriages and escapse therefrom. Take a look.

Elizabeth Mitchell has pointed me toward a strange little story thatÕs developing in Colorado City (formerly Short Creek) Arizona: The townÕs children are fleeing. It started less than a week and a half ago, when two girls named Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm ran away for fear of being forced into polygamous “marriages”. It wasnÕt the first time children have tried to run away from Short Creek. The difference was that this time, the authorities didnÕt return the Fawns to their families. They escaped and stayed escaped. That story went round the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saint) community at lightning speed, and in the week that followed, eight more children ran. All it took was the hope of real escape, and some indication that help was available in the outside world.

The Department of Defense is planning to use an Internet-based system called SERVE to streamline voting for overseas citizens during the 2004 primary and general elections. In brief, the system would theoretically allow these citizens (primarily military personnel and spouses) to vote from any Internet connection.

A review by outside experts — available at ServeSecurityReport.org — makes the argument that the SERVE system is so insecure that it should be shut down immediately. Frankly, it’s hard to read their conclusions without realizing they’re exactly right if you know anything at all about the Internet.

Ed Felton has more at Freedom To Tinker.