I am a geek.

I read science fiction and I watch anime. While I’m not remotely fluent, I can speak a few words of Klingon and Elvish, and I think it’s totally cool that some people take the time to make their own chain mail. I read Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, a number of Xanth novels, and both the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit.

I play Dungeons & Dragons and am a Dungeon Master. I’ve designed my own role-playing game using a ShadowRun-based system and have been role-playing since spring 1992. I would have played in junior high and high school, but everyone else was too cool for role-playing games. Full Story »

I’ve been hammering pretty hard on the imperial presidency of Bush II recently, given his use of signing statements to ignore federal law and his attempt to slip around the Senate’s Constitutional authority to approve or reject treaties by negotiating a “status of forces agreement” with the Iraqi government. Add into the mix his rejection of any classified information procedural oversight by a semi-independent auditor doesn’t exactly help his case. But Bush II is a product of his upbringing and the United States’ political climate. And these days, that climate is dominated greatly by political dynasties like those of the Bushes, the Clintons, the Udalls, the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, and many, many more.

Today, Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times (The Dynastic Question) asks whether the prevalence of political dynasties in the U.S. actually detracts from democracy. Full Story »

The results of the latest S&R poll are in. Readers were asked “Which major press entity do you regard as the most credible source of news?”

1. Other/None of the above (70)
2. BBC (64)
3. PBS (39)
4. CNN (15)
5. New York Times (11)
6. Washington Post (6)
NBC/MSNBC (6)
Wall Street Journal (6)
9. FOX News (4)
10. ABC (2)
USA Today/Gannett (2)
12. CBS (1)

Our new poll, which asks you about important issues that have not been adequately addressed, is now posted in the column to the right.

Every generation of secrecy-minded bureaucrats needs a breeding ground, a dark, dank place where they can perfect the ability to hide their machinations behind closed doors and retaliate against those who believe sunlight should trump darkness.

One such place, it seems, is the student government association at Montclair State University. Last week, it froze the funding it provides to The Montclarion because the student newspaper had the temerity to hire a lawyer to help it force the association to stop regularly holding closed meetings, a possible violation of New Jersey’s open-meetings law.

Karl de Vries, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper, said that the student government association also demanded that, according to the Associated Press, the paper “turn over correspondence between the newspaper and a lawyer The Montclarion had previously retained to challenge the student government’s practice of closing meetings to the public.”

Wednesday, amid a furor of criticism including statements from the nation’s principal professional associations of journalists, the student government association relented and temporarily restored the paper’s funding for 30 days.

The association should never have denied the paper its funding in the first place.
Full Story »

Martin Bosworth wrote in his piece on John Edwards’ withdrawal from the Democratic Presidential race: “Edwards did not fit the assumed narrative the media wanted to run with in this campaign–he was the outsider, the guy who wasn’t campaigning on experience or the audacity of hope. Moreover, he was speaking painful truths about class, corporatism, and how our lives are dictated and controlled by the power elite. So the media machine cranked up the distortion and tried to smear him into oblivion with stupid trivialities. Yet, through all that, his message persevered.” (italics mine)

If this is true, why is JE out of the race?

Full Story »

Shaun over at Kiko’s House (one of the best blogs you might not have heard of, by the way) has an interesting one up. What do you make of this Obama poster? Full Story »

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, first published in 1513, 176 pages, ISBN 978-0553212785

The worst that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by them; but from hostile nobles he has not only to fear abandonment, but also that they will rise against him;

In 1513, early into the Great Wars of Italy, an Italian politician, ambassador, soldier, and political philosopher was on the losing end of one of the many internal conflicts that followed the Reniassance. After being tortured and eventually released, he moved to his beloved Florence and settled down on a farm to write what is probably one of the most important treatises on politics written - Il Principe, The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli. Full Story »

Last week I posted about President Bush considering doing an end-run around the Senate regarding a treaty status of forces agreement between the U.S. and the Iraqi government (specifically the Iraqi President and Cabinet) that might put the U.S. on notice that it’s our job to protect the government even in the event of an Iraqi civil war. And I pointed out that Bush had used signing statements to claim that he wasn’t subject to the very federal laws he was signing because they restricted his ability to build permanent military bases in Iraq.

Well, Bush II (the dynastic designation seems somehow appropriate) done it yet again. In signing the Defense Authorization bill, Bush II took specific exception to “sections 841, 846, 1079, and 1222″ in yet another signing statement. Full Story »

On the left at about the 8-second mark, figure in black spits in the face of Shirley Phelps-Roper.

Gratuitous, yes. But don’t tell me you haven’t dreamed of doing it yourself…

Thanks to Steven Campbell for the tip.

“The Universe hates me you know. I don’t know why; I’ve never done anything to the Universe to… Well, alright. A few things, but after a while you’d think it would be enough. ‘Yes, we’ve had our fun with Londo Mollari for now. Perhaps it is time to move on and find someone else to play with.’” — Londo Mollari, Babylon 5

Hey, wasn’t someone else dropping out of the 2008 campaign again? Who was it? Fred Thompson?

Oh, yeah, right–this guy:

Giuliani’s unconventional strategy of largely bypassing the early voting states and focusing on more populous, delegate-rich states produced just one delegate, a bunch of sixth-place finishes and made him the odd man out. His best showing was Florida, where he had staked his candidacy. He finished a distant third. It was a remarkable defeat for the ex-mayor who entered the race more than a year ago with an aura of invincibility, leading national polls and earning a reputation for toughness after his stewardship of New York as terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001. Full Story »

I wanted to add some more thoughts to Sam’s excellent estimation of the end of John Edwards’ campaign. I’ve pretty much been deep in the tank for Edwards since his awe-inspiring “Two Americas” speech in 2004, so to see and hear him bow out today was a grand disappointment. But even as he did so, I looked back and considered what brought him–and those of us who stood with him–to this point. Full Story »

Generating electricity from ocean currents, waves, and the tides have the opportunity to provide significant amounts of electricity. As I reported several weeks ago, the first significant wave power installation has been given the green light by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for installation off the Olympic Peninsula. Another type of water-based energy is the tidal barrage. The basic idea is that you find an area where there are very wide swings between high and low tides, put up a dam across a bay or lagoon, and then use the water flow from the tide to fill and empty the bay and use turbines to generate electricity. One scheme uses both the rising and falling tides, driving the turbines both direction while another scheme uses just the falling tide. Last week, the BBC had an update on the Severn tidal barrage. The Severn tidal barrage would be a huge barrage (and likely a road) across the Severn River Estuary and the Bristol Channel, an area that, given its large tides and the support of the Severn River emptying into the Channel, should be able to provide approximately 5% of the United Kingdom’s electricity. The problem is that the estuary is also a huge bird sanctuary, so the environmental impacts are potentially huge. This is one of the reasons that U.K. Business secretary John Hutton announced that there would be a 2-year long study period of the energy vs. environmental and economic tradeoffs culminating in a period of public comment in 2010. The Severn barrage study is an unfortunately excellent example of the hard choices between environmental protection, economics, and energy that every nation will have to make in the process of decarbonizing the carbon economy. Full Story »

It was only a matter of time.

John Edwards Drops Out of Presidential Race
– Former Senator’s Campaign Adviser: ‘It Just Became Clear It Wasn’t Going to Happen’

Former Senator John Edwards, D-N.C., will drop out of the Democratic presidential race on Wednesday.

“It just became clear it wasn’t going to happen,” a senior Edwards adviser tells ABC News’ Rick Klein.

Edwards, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 2004 before joining Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., as his vice presidential candidate, had placed poorly in several early contests, lagging behind rivals Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Full Story »

I earn between $50,000 and $75,000 a year. I have three degrees. I teach at a small Catholic liberal arts university. I own several cameras. I have two vehicles, one four-wheel-drive, the other high-mileage. I belong to two environmental organizations. I commute more than 10 miles to work. I contribute to three non-profit organizations. I am single. I buy clothes from Lands’ End and L.L. Bean. I collect Rotring pens and pencils. I play guitar and piano. I read science and detective fiction, purchased mostly from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. I have two iPods, one computer and two TVs. I have several credit cards. I drink beer. I once owned a handgun. I have a mortgage. I have voted since 1964 as an Independent or Democrat.

To our presidential candidates, I am not Denny Wilkins, an individual human being: I am a set of data points, one of about 168 million sets of data points collected by both the Democratic and Republican national committees. They are interested in me only because I am an eligible voter. Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will base their direct-mail, push-poll, robo-call and volunteers-knocking-on-my-door messages on computerized analyses of me as data. I will be micro-targeted by candidates’ campaign organizations for the sole purpose of producing a vote for a candidate.
Full Story »

Following up on my post from a little while back discussing Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell’s desire to police the Internet, the Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima confirmed last weekend that the Decider had signed a classified directive authorizing the NSA to more expansively monitor intrusions on federal networks for signs of cyberattacks:

Until now, the government’s efforts to protect itself from cyber-attacks — which run the gamut from hackers to organized crime to foreign governments trying to steal sensitive data — have been piecemeal. Under the new initiative, a task force headed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will coordinate efforts to identify the source of cyber-attacks against government computer systems. As part of that effort, the Department of Homeland Security will work to protect the systems and the Pentagon will devise strategies for counterattacks against the intruders. Full Story »

China is rapidly becoming Africa's largest investor. They require little in the way of good governance and are aggressively creating new infrastructure in their drive to secure resources for their own industrial expansion. This offers both risks and opportunities for Africa. Once China becomes the most visible investor in Africa it also implies that their assets will be targeted by activists and opportunists.

Download the podcast: China in Africa.

A quick ‘n’ dirty NB of links new & old across the ’sphere for your reading (dis)pleasure… ∞ If you can stomach it—and I’m not talking about the sight of our grievously wounded Iraq war veterans—here’s our oily President scoring photo opps with some of the hurt kids he done send off to that war with them raghead terrists over yonder … Damned Negroes, always gotta ruin a good thing. Here they go putting our wondrous economic times (cough, cough) in a bad light with that “reality” thingie … NPR senior correspondent Juan Williams says of bloggers, “All you’ve got to do is shout, say something on the blog that offends and attacks the other side, and suddenly, you have the credentials, and you’re said to be a journalist. I think it’s a great lie.” All fine and dandy, a reasonable critique—except that he was saying it to goddamned Sean Hannity on Fox News … The UK Independent’s Robert Fisk walks into controversial territory yet again, writing of “the first modern genocide“—the slaughter of over a million Armenians. In another piece, Fisk writes of “the death of history” … This frank admission—Alan Greenspan saying the Iraq war was really about oil—is right up there with the late Henry Hyde’s startling remark about Bill’s Clinton impeachment … Children accused of witchcraft are being murdered in Nigeria … A mysterious lost photo archive of ancient Qur’an manuscripts has been revealed after 60 years, and may have serious implications for Islam … And finally, recent Radiohead concert clips, enjoy ∞

In a rare and welcome example of showing steel in the collective spine, Senate Democrats have voted down an attempt to shut off debate and block amendments on the FISA reauthorization bill. By refusing cloture, the bill will continue to be debated, with the next step being discussion of a 30-day authorization of the odious “Protect America Act.” If that vote fails, the Act will expire on Friday (February 1st), and (despite what you may have heard), the current FISA law will revert to being the de facto standard for surveillance guidance. Full Story »

Why is this man smiling?

Angelo Mozilo, the well-tanned and always smiling soon-to-be-ex-CEO of failed mortgage lender Countrywide, announced today that he would magnanimously give up his massive severance package for running his company into the ground and being bought out by Bank of America:

“My primary focus today — as it has been for the past 40 years — is to do what is in the best interests of Countrywide’s employees, customers and shareholders,” Mr. Mozilo said. “I believe this decision is the right thing to do as Countrywide works toward the successful completion of the merger with Bank of America”…Mr. Mozilo would be entitled to $36.4 million in cash severance pay and $400,000 per year in consulting fees, as well as private airplane use and other perquisites. These are the amounts and benefits he will be forfeiting. Full Story »

Welcome back to part two of our annual music wrap-up. Today we award the Platinum LPs, given for superior achievement. (If you missed part one, click here to review the Gold LP winners, updated to include three inadvertent omissions.) These appear in no particular order.

Platinum LP

The Birthday Massacre: Walking with Strangers
Toronto’s The Birthday Massacre is a study in contradictions. Full Story »