Another political post.

I'm conflicted about the upcoming election. The last time I got mad at Hastert, I ran into a letter-writing problem. My Congressman, Brad Miller is a Democrat, which means he really doesn't have much input on who is the Speaker of the House unless the Democrats are in the majority. OTOH, because I'm mad at Hastert, I really don't want to give him another Republican seat.

Miller's opponent in the upcoming election, Vernon Robinson has been a little over the top on his ads. For instance, he's accused Miller of supporting the idea of "letting homosexuals bring in their foreign gay lovers on a marriage visa." When I first heard this, I really had a hard time figuring out where Miller was coming from. It took a while for me to recognize that no politician would actually vote for a bill titled "An Act of Congress to allow homosexual Americans to bring in foreign gay lovers on a marriage visa"; not even a politician with his own foreign gay lover. Instead, I'm pretty sure this line is just a creative way of saying "Brad Miller is opposed to a same-sex Constitutional Amendment." Just like the line "Brad Miller voted to allow illegal aliens to burn the American flag while waving the Mexican flag." As if the bill were titled something along those lines. Or as if Miller gave advice to the various Marching Mexicans groups that they ought to do that.

Yesterday, a local radio station interviewed the two (separately). At the end of Miller’s interview (right when the hosts asked about the "gay marriage visa thing"), Miller asked "when are we going to talk about jobs, predatory lending, ...?"

Which got me thinking. No politician is going to oppose more jobs. No politician is going to support crappier schools. Of course, politicians have their own opinions on how to get more jobs (say, lower taxes vs. more government involvement) and better schools (say, vouchers vs. more government involvement), etc. And, to be completely honest, most voters don’t really know which path is more likely to work. So instead, they fall back to "you support letting homosexual Americans bring in their foreign gay lovers on a marriage visa?!"

Strangely, I watch politics, but I wouldn't want to get involved in politics. It's simply too dirty. My fascination is similar to the morbid fascination people have when they see a train wreck. Anyhow, this general issue is important to Democratic politicians.

I'm troubled by the allegations about what happened in Haditha last November. Because the military is still investigating and has not started a court case, I don't have access to enough information to say what I believe happened, although the military has released some information ("Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the marines' story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest").

However, we do have enough information regarding the death of a Palestinian in 2000 (in Gaza, no this is not related to Iraq in any way).

A French television network (France-2) broke the story and ran the footage. It shows a man and a boy in Gaza, taking shelter behind a "concrete barrel or culvert." ...

The father shields the boy; ... and when the dust clears, the boy is stretched out at his father's feet. ...

That was the initial narration. Later, ... [w]e learn that, under oath, the cameraman ... "alleged that Israeli soldiers had intentionally, in cold blood, murdered the boy and wounded the father." ...

Yet there were problems with the story from the start. [I]nvestigators went to the fort, checked out where the film showed that Jamal and Muhammad were when the boy was killed, and concluded that the shots that killed him could not have come from the Israelis, because there was no direct line of sight -- or bullets -- from the Israeli position that could have reached them. ...

Five years later, the hidden details did come out in America. ... Because, you see, there is other footage taken that day by other camera crews -- including France-2 itself. ... Footage that reveals that the entire event was faked from beginning to end. There was a real demonstration that day, near the Israeli position. But back around the corner, where the Israelis could not see -- or shoot -- there was a staging area for fakery. The cameras could pan from the faked scene to the real Israeli outpost, but what the viewer could not see was that the Israelis could not have seen what was going on. ...

The footage of the real events indicates that Palestinians threw rocks and Molotov cocktails and even dropped burning tires down on the Israeli position (to no effect, because the position was well protected). And through all of this provocation, the Israelis did not react militarily at all. They did not fire. They did not use tear gas. They just watched.

But around the corner, behind an abandoned factory, Palestinians who worked for major networks as their stringers and cameramen were filming fake battle scenes. It was like a Hollywood set. UN and Red Crescent ambulances load up fake casualties and take them away. ...

Not only that, but [the] satellite feed [transmitted to France] includes a shot of the "dead" boy "shifting position, propping himself up on his elbow, shading his eyes with his hand, rolling over on his stomach, covering his eyes."

I'm not suggesting that the Iraqis staged Haditha. I am suggesting that I won't call them guilty until I have more information to go on.

I'm not a lawyer, and this subject is too big for a blog post, but here goes.

Making a non-profit "Constitutional Rights" organization is apparently too easy today. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one such group. The EFF won its first lawsuit on the grounds that a search warrant included the words "including but not limited to" when the Constitution clearly says "no Warrants shall issue without probable cause, supported by affidavit particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized." However, their track record has been pretty bad ever since.

It's so bad that the Register recently wrote an opinion piece titled "EFF volunteers to lose important suit over Sony 'rootkit'", with the statement "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is renowned for its ... uncanny ability to stuff every case up in ways that lead to permanent injury for everyone except the entities they oppose."

I can't tell if the EFF's lawyers are simply in over their heads, or if their legal strategy is to abuse the court system until the judge finally shuts them down. But their current lawsuit againt AT&T is in terrible shape. So, for some armchair quarterbacking from a non-lawyer:

The lawsuit is over AT&T's cooperation with the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." The main thrust of the case was originally telecommunications laws that specifically prohibit phone companies from wiretapping on behalf of police without first seeing a warrant. That's it. Open and shut. However, EFF's attorneys apparently wanted to be involved in something bigger, and they made sure every brief they filed has several general references to the First and Fourth Amendments. Additionally, while they filed the lawsuit against AT&T, EFF's attorneys spend most of their briefs talking about the NSA. By doing that, they lost control of the case, and they are currently headed for a legal train wreck.

AT&T filed a motion to dismiss (PDF). While the motion to dismiss argues several technical issues involving EFF's ability to sue, the two big points are (1) a federal law immunizes AT&T if it believed the government program was legal (and any lawsuit over the wiretapping should be filed against the government), and (2) AT&T's "wiretapping activities" weren't for AT&T's own ends, but for the government's ends (so any lawsuit over those activities should at least name the government).

Squint really closely. The court can order AT&T to stop helping the NSA. The immunity only means that AT&T can't get punished for what it's already done. If EFF cared about making a difference, that should be enough. If EFF wants to do something else, they ought to join the ACLU's suit against the government.

Additionally, EFF's constant insistence on trying the government, even though the government was not named in the suit has led John Negroponte (PDF) and Keith Alexander (PDF) to invoke NSA's ability to shut down any lawsuit. From Keith Alexander's statement: "NSA is not required to demonstrate specific harm when invoking this statutory privelege, but only to show that the information relates to its activities." Well, the EFF already showed that the information relates to the NSA's activities!

The EFF should have known that making a circus out of its own lawsuit was going to lead to these crippling developments. If the attorneys had narrowed their focus, and only argued about AT&T's activities, and only asked for an injunction, I believe they'd get their day in court. As it is, reading AT&T's responses to EFF's briefs is almost entertaining.

There's an old saying that a shyster is an attorney that "when the facts are against him, pounds on the law, when the law is against him, pounds on the facts, and when both are against him, pounds on the table." EFF's motions spend a lot of time pounding on the table.

Maybe I could try this.

Summary for people too lazy to click the link (or, perhaps, the target market of the invention):

If you think keeping fit is merely mind over matter, Lester Clancy has an invention for you - a cordless jump-rope. That's right, a jump-rope minus the rope. All that's left is two handles, so you jump over the pretend rope. ... What makes this invention work is the moving weights inside the handles. They simulate the feel of a rope moving, Clancy said. Well, it's only one handle so far because Clancy is waiting for financial backers before building its partner.

Important details:

• This has actually been patented by the inventor.


• The inventor is a clever salesman: "It is also good for mental institutions and prisons where rope is a suicide risk, said Clancy, who works as a laundry coordinator in a state prison. And low ceiling fans aren't a hazard any more, he said."


• He only made half of the invention, and we're talking about a jump rope that doesn't have the rope in it!

Best quote from the article: "the more he thought about it, the more Ernst said he could see the benefit, adding that the act of jumping, not the rope itself, is what provides exercise. ... 'But I wouldn't buy the product, I can tell you that. I'm not an idiot.'" (yes, emphasis added).

Too bad I'm not really good at either

Chess boxing

Chess boxing is a hybrid sport which combines the sports of chess and boxing ...

A match between two opponents consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess sessions ...

Competitors may win by knockout [or] checkmate ...