China Finds Bugs on Jet Equipped in U.S. (washingtonpost.com)

Yeah, sure we're trying to spy on the Chinese. But then we'll find that the NSA and CIA don't have anyone on staff who speaks Chinese. But I kid the American Intelligence establishment.

Chairman Told Workers Stock Was 'Bargain' (washingtonpost.com)

If this is not fraud, there's something wrong with the fraud laws. Lay told his company's employees that the company's financial record was "looking great" -- when he knew it wasn't -- and that their accounting practices were legal and proper -- a month after he got the memo telling him they weren't.

Lay should go to jail. Period. But even if he does, I'm sure he'll get the country club treatment, and I'm sure he'll leave a wealthy man. Meanwhile, a bunch of employees saw their savings wiped out. The wingers and libertarians will tell you the answer is more deregulation, which makes about as much sense as prescribing blows to the head to cure headaches. I'm all for the free market, but the market only works properly when information is freely available. Enron intentionally misled the market and its employees.

Wife reports hostage freed
Harvest woman says Clark Bowers called her from Afghanistan

Well, that's good news... Odd background this guy has, and he appears to be a pathological liar, or at minimum a chronic exaggerator. The story in fact says that Bowers was "reportedly" kidnapped, so they have their doubts. (More on his biography in the Birmingham News.)

Report Calls on Congress to Ban Human Cloning (washingtonpost.com)

OK, I find the whole idea of cloning kind of creepy. I'm sure it would be abused. But I also find that the reason people come out against it is largely because they too find it creepy or because they're trying to placate people who find it creepy. That it poses a risk of death or injury to the clone is certain, but I doubt they really care about that. I can't imagine it would pose any greater risk to the woman carrying the fetus than many current forms of artificial insemination.

Terror Concerns of U.S. Extend to Asia (washingtonpost.com)

Uh... Afghanistan is in Asia. So are Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, most of Russia...

This is just sloppy writing, combined with particularly stupid identity politics. I know that the authors of the story didn't write the headline, but the copy editor was following their usage. I quote: "Recent arrests of terrorism suspects in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as Muslim guerrilla activity in the Philippines, have helped shift some of the government's attention toward Asia in its attempts to thwart future terrorist attacks..." The government officials quoted in the story didn't apparently use this vague language, referring to Southeast Asians or to specific nationalities.

"Asian" to these guys means a particular ethnic group (or rather, collection of only distantly related ethnic groups) and doesn't include half the population of the continent. Viewed literally, Osama bin Laden is Asian -- he was born in Asia. But he's not Asian, because he's Caucasian, more or less.

Yet another example of why this sort of simplistic grouping of people is stupid.

Your Search For an Engine Stops With Google (washingtonpost.com)

I guess that they're right about the print media lagging behind. I think we all figured this one out awhile back. Can't get Google to list this site, though.

Saudis May Seek U.S. Exit (washingtonpost.com)

Well, screw them.

The US has actually been in Saudi Arabia for a long time. It's only since 1990 that troops have been there in massive numbers. They're asking for a total withdrawal; I say do it. And then, the when Saddam invades, we say "sorry".

The Defense Department line is that we can't project force in the region without troops in Saudi Arabia, and that we can't transfer aircraft and troops into the territories of our firmer allies because those countries are "saturated". I doubt that. I think it's just the usual line about how anything that can be seen as a step back is bad, and how the military is always at the minimum level; any cuts of any type, and they can't do their job. At best, that's usually an exaggeration, and that's probably true here as well. Refusal to allow use of Saudi airspace might be a problem, but it's not like they could stop us from using it anyway.

NBC orders at least six drama pilots
``Kingpin,'' a sweeping epic about the drug trade from scribe David Mills (``Homicide: Life on the Street''), features a drug lord as its heart and soul.

Because, you know, there's nothing like a really sympathetic character.

ESPN.com: NFL - Kelly, Parcells, Modell among Hall of Fame finalists

Art Modell? Art Modell?

S.E.C. Chairman Proposes New Accounting Oversight Body

I don't know a lot about this SEC. ('Round these parts, SEC means football.) But I wonder if Chairman Pitt got the memo that the Republicans control the White House. (Actually, he's a GW Bush appointee.) I can't imagine them willingly supporting a whole new regulatory agency, and that sure looks like what he's proposing. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

It sounds like a good idea to me, but then I'm a Democrat. The accounting firms have to be sacrosanct. If they can't be trusted on their own to do their jobs, then someone has to make them. And I don't see how that could be anyone but the Federal Government.

Five Killed in Wedding Hall Attack in N. Israel (washingtonpost.com)

Terrorists? No terrorists here! These are Freedom Fighters!

I can't stand the people who don't see that this sort of thing is not only wrong, but completely unjustifiable. I can't understand them, either. As if blowing up civilians (at a wedding, no less) is just a legitimate act of political protest.

I can't see how anybody who's really thinking about the situation can think that the Israelis are the villains and the Palestinians victims. The Palestinian movement no longer has any legitimacy. It's become more and more clear that their only goal is the destruction of Israel. No "peace process" can exist under those circumstances. The only peace is going to happen now when one side or the other is completely broken.

Wok the Dog - What's wrong with eating man's best friend? By William Saletan

What's wrong with William Saletan? That's the real question. Most of his recent "Frame Game" columns have been weirdly off topic -- notably all the cloning stuff a couple weeks ago. I mean, don't be a slave to the news cycle, but ignoring Enron to come out with a stirring defense of the Korean right to eat dogs?

Charges Against Egyptian Student Over Hotel Radio Are Dropped

It appears this was just a screwup. (The charges were dropped without prejudice, so they could re-file if new information surfaces.) It's just one of those things. Apparently, it wasn't even his radio.

Coroner: "Eight Is Enough" Star OD'd

Dick Van Patten's TV brood isn't quite at the level of Conrad Bain's yet, but they're getting there.

For India, Deterrence May Not Prevent War (washingtonpost.com)

India's leaders appear undaunted. They say a conventional conflict between the two nations would not necessarily spiral into a nuclear exchange, suggesting that the Cold War deterrence theory applies differently to South Asia in the 21st century than it did to the superpowers of the 20th century.

Now, let's just get one part of this out of the way. It's not that the people of the Indian subcontinent aren't "like us". People are people, and the people of India have a very large share in the "Western tradition". Every situation is different. In particular, Mutally Assured Destruction probably doesn't apply here. Neither side has the volume of nuclear weapons or the delivery capability to destroy the other. Pakistan probably couldn't come close to destroying India. That leads to the other reason why deterrance is questionable here; India is far larger and more powerful than Pakistan. The US and USSR were pretty close to equal.

Now, the Indians are saying that they don't think a war will necessarily go nuclear. As far as I can tell, they're probably right. This war would be over a relatively small piece of territory and wouldn't endanger the existance of either side. However, it's a possibility. The US and USSR did their best to stay away from situations where nukes became a temptation. India and Pakistan aren't doing that.

This looks like it would be a limited war, not a broad attack. As long as it stays that way, I think nukes stay off the table. But if the war escalates, it's possible that either side -- most likely Pakistan, outnumbered and with an weak Air Force -- could use nukes in the field against the opposing army. That's never been done before, of course, but it would be effective. Then what happens? India will retaliate, that's what. And it could very easily escalate into attacks against civilian targets.

U.S. to prosecute power plants that violate Clean Air Act

Imagine. They're going to prosecuted for breaking the law! Where's the justice in that?

I am surprised. I'm no fan of John Ashcroft, but he's taking his duties seriously. And -- at least in this instance -- he's obeying his promise to enforce laws that he doesn't agree with. That's all we can ask.

Groundhog Day II: The Quickening

"Because of the September 11 terrorist attacks, security will be stepped up at Phil's home, Gobbler's Knob."

... Because the locals have no sense of proportion or propriety. It's a damn rodent!

One thing we haven't seen as much of the last month or so is the fun wacko paranoia of the first weeks after 9-11. But it lives yet, even if it's not as prominent as it was. Every so often, some local official thinks that the local carnival is an obvious target of radical Islam. Hey, we all need comic relief.

Next Friday on First Monday - A teleplay, on spec. By Dahlia Lithwick

Actually, this would be a better show.

Garry Sheffield a Brave

If I've been giddy the last couple of days, here's why.

Darwin Day Homepage

Wow, this is a great idea. It has roughly the same chance of being recognized in the US as Geraldo Rivera does of winning the Pulitzer Prize, or Pat Buchanan the Democratic nomination for President... but it's still a great idea.

Larry Ka-ching: CNN Talker's New Deal (washingtonpost.com)

Sorry, I can't resist.

"Stripping naked and rolling around in piles of dough is one of life's great pleasures... My ex-wives aren't seeing a penny of this... Bill O'Reilly can kiss my ass... I can buy and sell any of you reading this, just with pocket change... The flat tax is a very underrated idea... Mark my words: CNN will win the ratings race with Fox News... I'm going to use the AOL plane to buzz Rush Limbaugh's house... How close would I need to be for him to hear it?...

Alabama Governor's plans for Constitutional Convention
Gov. Don Siegelman has outlined his plans for a citizens constitutional convention in which current legislators and lobbyists would have little or no say in the process.

GASP! The lobbyists and legislators were predictably upset.

The current Alabama state constitution is a nightmare. It has to be amended to allow routine changes in the law, for one thing. It's a Jim Crow-era document, and large portions of it have been declared unconstitutional. The whole thing needs badly to be scrapped.

I'd love to see this happen. I'm sure anything too awful (ARTICLE XLII: The Earth is flat) will get struck down federally anyway.

Special Forces Join Effort in Philippines (washingtonpost.com)

Hmmm... We don't have all that many Special Forces members. With some still working in Afghanistan, and now this group in the Philippines, I wonder if we'd have enough to spearhead a major assault somewhere else.

The focus right now does seem to be on supporting friendly countries -- not only the Philippines, but Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, and maybe even Pakistan -- in anti-terrorist efforts. Eventually, there will be another major offensive. Somalia seems the best bet right now, but it could be Yemen, Iraq, or somewhere that hasn't even been mentioned yet.

Deadly 'First Monday' / Lame dialogue, ludicrous plot sink new CBS drama

Tim Goodman hates First Monday even more than Dahlia Lithwick. This show might be so bad I'll have to watch it.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS

I'd just like to thank Matthew for his help with the HTML for this page. It's a big improvement -- in my opinion, anyway. If it's not, it's entirely my fault.

Law & Disorder - First Monday's Justices "Get Out There and Make Historyyyyyyyyyy!" By Dahlia Lithwick

The show apparently sucks. I'm not particularly surprised. I like West Wing a lot, but it's a difficult formula to pull off.

Justice Department to Charge American Taliban (washingtonpost.com)

As previously indicated, the Rat won't get a military tribunal but a civilian trial.

I've stated before that no jury is going to release terror suspects. Walker is a possible exception; the right lawyer with the right jury could probably get him off. I'm sure he'll play the "I Accuse My Parents" card.

Andersen Fires Lead Enron Auditor (washingtonpost.com)

Too late. You're going down, AA.

Attack on America:U.S. orders libraries to destroy key CD-ROM

As a librarian, I hate to destroy anything. I get trembly just discarding out-of-date reference materials. But here, the CD-ROM in question contained details on the nation's water supply. I think that the government was right to ask that this be destroyed. (And the University of Arizona did just that.)

Las Vegas SUN: American Taliban Made Mideast Faux Pas

Basically, the Yemenis thought Walker was a big joke. He was the equivalent of... Let's see. Somebody who goes to Atlanta, say, dressed up in bib overalls, effecting a thick southern accent, then gets offended when the locals don't act the way he expects. So he tries to go off into the deep backwoods to find someone more "authentic".

"This is an individual whose idealism led to ideology and he lost all ability for pragmatic thought," Hyland said by telephone from Texas.

Sounds like a lot of American extremists -- from both ends of the spectrum! -- I know.

(Via Ye Olde Blogge.)

MTV sets Powell for global meeting

OK, the US is at war, and the Secretary of State is going on MTV? The odd thing is that it seems like a pretty good idea.

Bush Seeking to Expand Free Trade

"I'm worried about jobs and I believe if you trade more, there are more jobs available for hard-working Americans," Bush said at the Port of New Orleans, the final stop for many export-bound U.S. goods.

If President Bush can convince the American public that free trade is good for jobs... Well, I won't take back everything bad I said about him. But I'll take back a lot. I'm not betting that he can.

Yes, some people will lose their jobs as a result, but more people will gain jobs, and the American public as a whole will be better off. And yes, the people who benefit most will be those who are already wealthy, but that happens.

Enron's Chairman Received Warning About Accounting

He, of course, didn't do anything about it. Well, he asked the company law firm to investigate whether anything in the letter constituted new information. The evidence strongly suggests -- to me, anyway -- that the executives of Enron, as well as their accountants and lawyers, perpetrated a massive fraud on the entire United States. The words "pyramid scheme" come to mind.

As Matthew Yglesias indicates, while this isn't a political scandal yet, the political scandal would be if the bastards don't go to jail. If I put together a con game and bilked a few local people out of a few thousand dollars, I'd go to jail. But sometimes there's a double standard at play where the guy who bilks a hundred thousand people out of a few billion dollars gets a really stiff fine instead.

There's a saying, I understand, among the criminal element that an honest cop is one who stays bought. Let's hope that the politicians (on both sides of the aisle) who got contributions are -- in this case, at least -- dishonest cops.

Maharajah of mutton gets the big chop - The Economic Times

You know, for an instrument of the Great American Cultural Hegemony, McDonald's is sure easy to give in to local belief. India is probably the last place on Earth where you'd expect McDonald's to take root. The majority of Indians are Hindus, and of course the cow is sacred to them. And the largest minority is Muslim, and they don't eat pork.

The answer was to try mutton. But nobody really likes mutton, and it never caught on. Mickey Dee's is going to stick to chicken and veggie burgers from now on.

"Based on consumer feedback and in line with customer preferences, we are re-engineering our meat products.”

Oh, God, don't get into that. If you start messing around with genetic engineering, you'll never hear the end of it.

Kabul Takes Steps Toward Disarming Afghan Population

My God! Does the NRA know about this?

A lot of people on the Web seem to think that having everybody armed is a goal to work towards. Well, everybody's armed in Afghanistan. Look what happened.

Bush Recovers After Fainting at White House

1989 flashback!

"My God, I hope nothing happens to President Bush, because then _______ will be President!" Once it was Dan Quayle, now... I have this image of Dick Cheney finding out he's now the President and immediately keeling over. Does anyone actually know anything about Dennis Hastert?

GOP leaders back Riordan's liberal ways / Pro-choice, anti-gun candidate may be best bet against Davis

"As long as you're willing to call yourself a Republican, you can have any policies you want, Dick."

"Well, I was thinking of calling for the seizure of the assets of anyone making more than $200,000 a year and their redistribution to illegal aliens."

"Sure. Whatever you want."

"And I want to have Bill Clinton's face carved into Mt. Shasta."

"Fine, fine."

"I'm thinking of throwing a ticker-tape parade for Johnny Walker, too."

"Sounds great, Dick."

"And I'm going to hold a public burning of Ronald Reagan's portrait in the state house."

BBC News | BUSINESS | Andersen attacked for Enron role

I'm going to make a prediction: Andersen is going down. The best the company can hope for is a merge with one of the other major accounting firms, but Andersen's time as an indepent entity is almost over. There's just too much. Enron, Waste Management (mentioned here), Sunbeam... Andersen keeps being implicated in scandals. An important part of what these companies are hired for is PR, and the PR value of Andersen is at an all-time low.

Seeking Edge on Bush, Democrats May Advance Dates of Primaries

Not to mention that if you're, say, a US Congressman from Missouri, and you want to run for President, you'll have a better chance of running for re-election if you wipe out of the primaries early. I wonder, though... In 1991, when everyone was deciding whether or not to run, Bush the Elder looked invincible and all the heavyweights backed off. I still think that everything worked out well there, but is making the primaries earlier going to do anything but make it less likely a prominent Democrat will run against Bush the Younger?

I'm a little bitter about the primaries personally. Alabama holds a very late primary, and in 1992 and 1996 even held it the same day as California. So we don't get a lot of attention. I voted for Tsongas in 1992 and he'd already dropped out.

'Them': Beyond the Fringe

A review (by Ron Rosenbaum) of a book exploring the world of the conspiracy theorists. (First chapter available here.) The author met with the Bedsheet Boys here in the US, and with al-Qaeda sympathisers in London. And apparently, they all are pretty sorry when you meet them in person, though that's hardly a surprise.

These groups come from all over the political and economic maps, and they're all convinced that the world is not what it appears. Of course, the world is what it appears, for the most part anyway. While the conspiracyists all think that some secret cabal (the UN, the CIA, the Elders of Zion, aliens, the IMF, etc.) is controlling the world, the reality is that nobody is in charge. I don't know why it's so hard for people to believe that.

Before Debacle, Enron Insiders Cashed in $1.1 Billion in Shares

Now these guys, they should go to jail. I'm afraid that the attempt to turn Enron into a political scandal -- which it really isn't -- will make the financial scandal secondary. This is a massive fraud perpetrated on the entire United States, and the perpetrators can't be allowed to get away with it.

Of course, Michael Milken is still fabulously wealthy, isn't he? These guys never get really punished.