Every so often somebody out in the great wide world of discussion comments comes up with a phrase that neatly encapsulates some profound truths. This is one courtesy of Onedelette on Salon, in a discussion concerning the proposed legislation (mostly unnecessary) to permit covert surveillance of personal communications in the USA without showing any cause:

The White House needs your emails, 'cause they lost theirs.

Reading this makes me laugh, and cry, and fume all at the same time...

A few days ago, John King of CNN interviewed John McCain and did not exactly fall over himself to press McCain in any significant way on any of the main issues of the day.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon not only printed the interview transcript, but also pointed out that this seemed to be part of a broader media phenomenon of extreme deference to McCain.
Now John King himself has responded to Greenwald. Unfortunately, as this article shows, his response merely demonstrates that he is both pompous and thin-skinned, with a towering sense of his own importance.
Sometimes it is all too easy to reach the conclusion that the mainstream media in the USA is suffering from some form of collective narcolepsy. Responses like the juvenile email written by King to Greenwald re-inforce the sense that not only does the media have no ability to offer insight into current events; it is actively and childishly hostile to people who try to offer insight and who have the temerity (gasp!) to point out their lack of capability at providing insight.
Memo to John King: knock off the pompous, injured whining and start doing what you are presumably paid handsomely to do. Until then, emails like the one you sent to Glenn Greenwald will merely reinforce the notion that you are not entitled to call yourself either an adult or a journalist.

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/16/12853/8132/556/437789

As this diary on DailyKos explains, Sen. Christopher Dodd is coming under increasing pressure to abandon his position that any form of retrospective Telco immunity for malfeasance at the behest of the current Administration should not be included in any pending legislation. It is clear that for a number of reasons (some of which I can guess at, and some of which I cannot fathom, but which probably involve large sums of money), there is some sort of consensus that the Telcos should be granted retrospective immunity.
I sent the following letter of support to Sen. Dodd this morning:

Dear Senator Dodd,
I am writing to pledge my support (monetary if necessary) for your current policy of opposition to retrospective immunity for telecommunications corporations that agreed to Administration requests to collect information in violation of FISA and other legislation. Such retrospective immunity is at variance with every sound principle of legal jurisprudence, and is an insult to the principles enunciated in the U.S. Constitution. There is also an underlying issue of accountability; if private individuals break the law, they do not get to claim retrospective immunity simply because their actions looked like a good idea at the time. The same principle should also apply to corporations.
I will be continuing to support your efforts to prevent the granting of any form of retrospective immunity, and I will also decline to support any Democratic elected representative or candidate for elective office who does support the granting of retrospective immunity. This is the level of importance that I attach to the issue.

Regards,

Graham Shevlin
http://grahamshevlin.com

I also contributed money to Sen. Dodd's fund to retire his campaign debt. This is money that I would not dream of contributing to any national Democratic Party activities. I will continue to target my support to Democrats who uphold and support adherence to sound constitutional, governnance and legal principles. Until the Democratic Party at a national level discovers a spine and starts rigorously opposing bad and dangerous ideas and policies, they will not get a cent from me. Elected representatives work for electors, not corporate donors. I know this may come as a shock to some of them, but until corporations are granted votes, that is the way the process works as far as I am concerned.
UPDATE - Greenwald has another article which explains how the Senate leadership plans to pass the legislative renewal with some form of telco immunity included. The interesting part of the article is the link to a Wired article which explains how many of the Administration's claims about the impact of not renewing the legislation are, bluntly, a pil e of nonsense. The current Administration policy of pulling nonsense out and passing it off as fact is eerily reminiscent of the tactics of Sen. Joe McCarthy and his "hundreds of communists" claims, which, like many of the current claims from Adminstration officials, were accepted as fact, because they emanated from a person with a resonant well-modulated voice.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act

Today, in the process of researching something, I landed on Wikipedia to find this fascinating story highlighted about the Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act.
The controversy over this legislation is notable for the various groups that made common cause to oppose it, and the tactics that they used in the process.
Also notable was how the intent of the act was subverted after its passing, as susccessive Alaska administrations attempted (successfully) to starve the program of resources, until they were forced to wind back the cut-backs by the Alaska Supreme Court. An example of a higher judicial body actually intervening correctly to turn back political subversion.
The most fascinating part of the story is the involvement of the Church of Scientology. As the article makes clear, they were initially nowhere to be found, even though they now pretend that they were opposed to the legislation all along. It seems that a major plank of their anti-psychology worldview is based on what happened in the Alaska situation.
Reading this story today, I am struck by the parallels between the tactics of the opponents, and some of the tactics being used today by religious groups and even the current Administration, where they quite cheerfully deploy all types of fallacious reasoning to justify nonsensical ideas and policies.
More on this later when I have the time.

Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=19845

This hair-raising account of life inside NBC is worth reading, because it provides a compelling example of why so many people are ignoring the major news media.

Link: http://www.oliverpostgate.co.uk/

..neatly reviewed by a local satirist...

Link: http://grahamshevlin.com/gallery/

At this URL...this will be integrated into the blogs and built up over time.

...at my parents' house in Margate, Kent. Margate is part of the Isle of Thanet, which was a true island until the Middle Ages. This overview explains some of the history.
I have been on a campaign since Boxing Day to walk around the entire coastline of the Isle of Thanet. I have also been driving around the island. The depressing reality is that this is an economic black-spot. Until the 1970's Thanet made a lot of money off of summer tourism. However, the foreign package holiday boom blew the bottom out of that economy, and the towns in Thanet spent a long time in denial about the change ("they's ll be back!") instead of adapting. As a result, the landscape on the sea-front areas of the major towns (Margate and Ramsgate) is dominated by old, run-down hotels and guest houses, with evidence of lack of money everywhere.
There never was much in the way of industry (except for the nearby Kent coal field, which closed in the 1980's), so unemployment has always been high here, and periodic attempts at introducing new industries always seem to end in failure. Currently, Ramsgate harbour has a fully-equipped ferry terminal sitting idle; the ferry companies all quit the harbour nearly 10 years ago and moved to Dover. There is also an airport with a 10,000 foot runway (the former RAF Manston) that has been renamed Kent International Airport, but apart from some freight operations taking place using old Boeing 747s, attempts to operate passenger services from there have all failed. The area badly needs some visionary re-generation based on bringing craft industries and creative people here, but given the prevailing attitudes, that is a long shot. Returning here reminded me of most of the reasons why I left in the first place...
I have a Photo Album here containing a number of pictures taken on this trip.

Link: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/071218

...in which he dissects the myth of the Super-Coach in football. As he points out, the myth is pervasive for a number of reasons, not the least that if you can personalize the biggest factor in group performance down to one person, it is easier to hire and fire one person than a whole group.
I have seen that at work in corporations for decades. CEOs get paid way too much money and have a lot less impact than many people think they do. I would actually venture to say that senior leaders in all contexts have a good deal less positive impact than they think they do, but can have a bigger negative impact. My employer fired its CEO in 2003 after he helped the stock price off a cliff, but employee morale was drastically weakened during his tenure due to his tendency to treat employees as disposable commodities. That sort of approach is more damaging than any amount of positive behaviour.

Link: http://unamericanrevolution.com/policy/betrayal-of-the-american-conscience/

...is well-illustrated by the quote from Senator Jeff Sessions in the FISA debate:

“The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the constitution than protect our nation’s security.”

There are a number of comments here that explain rather well why the statement betrays either total ignorance or violation of Sen. Sessions' Oath of Office, which requires hims to defend the US Constitution, not treat it as a pesky piece of paper.
However, the mystery deepens...as this comment over at Firedoglake shows, Sen. Sessions had the official record of his speech modified to exclude the sentence quoted above. (It is a matter of total amazement to me, coming from a country where Hansard is the definitive record of parliamentary proceedings, and is un=modifiable except where it can be shown to deviate from what was actually said, that in the USA one can engage in post-facto alteration to transcripts of one's statements in the Senate or the House Of Representatives).
So...having made an egregiously ridiculous statement in the Senate, Sen. Sessions now has fixed up the Congressional Record to remove all reference of it? Sheesh. This is way beyond ethically challenged. It is behaviour that in many business or life situations would result in unemployment or court appearances. If Sen. Sessions did utter that sentence and then had it expunged from the record, then he is an unethical bottom-feeder, not worthy of respect or serious consideration.