And Zimmerman's lawyers caught him.

This guy had this story hours ago, and I had this in draft this whole time, waiting for some kind of confirmation of the identity of the juror. He had a great guess; I was 90% sure he was right; but I couldn't post it.

Anyway, now has confirmation.

Posted by: Ace at 05:23 PM | Comments (316)
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Before I get into all of this, let me explain why I feel we're being snookered on this, and why it bothers me.

The media and the Institutional Class generally have dismissed every scandal allegation as akin to Birtherism. The Benghazi cover-up was dismissed by the media, and the Institutional Class, as some ginned-up fake conspiracy theory spread by crazy people. Just like the Birth Certificate thing.

This was a hard stance to maintain, given that the Talking Points were clearly a fiction from the get-go and that there was an avalanche of evidence that the attack was known to be a coordinated, planned attack from the start, and no evidence whatsoever that it was a "spontaneous demonstration" at all, but yet the Institutional Class advanced its own political interests anyway in suggesting the whole kerfuffle was a fever-swamp fantasia cooked up by the extreme rightwing.

Fast & Furious, too, of course. To this day no one in the media can tell you how a government gun-tracking program could track guns without actually tracking guns, and yet they continue to even trouble themselves to ask the government how tracking can be had without tracking, but, you know, Birtherism.

The government must have a good reason for all of this. We don't know what that reason is, but you'd have to be some kind of wild-eyed Birther type to think that a cover story that makes no sense at all is worth asking a few questions about.

So what I'm worried about here is that this Snowden doesn't know what he's talking about and has overhyped his disclosures, and that, in the coming days, we'll find out that PRISM is less and less than he originally claimed it was. And then, the Institutional Class, having rubbished NSA-gate as also "akin to Birtherism," will then take the IRS scandal to also be akin to Birtherism, and the EPA's shellacking conservative groups with hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs for FOIA requests while freely providing them to liberal groups will be taken as akin to Birtherism, and suspicions about the James Rosen matter will be akin to Birtherism, and so on.

I am always fearful about seizing upon weak evidence especially when we have so much strong evidence -- because mark my words, if the NSA scandal peters out, this will be the only scandal the Institutional Class will deign to discuss, and will categorize all other scandals as "like the so-called overblown NSA scandal."

I don't know what the NSA is doing, and as the days pass, I'm less sure that I even know what I thought I knew five days ago. it's now being claimed that PRISM isn't even the intelligence gathering program at all, but rather the data management tool -- i.e., the user interface -- used for looking into suspect data.

The administration is pushing back on the definition of what Prism actually is – that it’s not a snooping programme but a data management tool. The call logging accusations are pretty much beyond doubt (and reason enough to scream Big Brother) but the Prism angle is a little less clear. Extremetech points out that it is a programme that has hidden in public sight, that Prism is in fact, “the name of a web data management tool that is so boring that no one had ever bothered to report on its existence before now. It appears that the public Prism tool is simply a way to view and manage collected data, as well as correlate it with the source.” This is not to say that there isn’t a scandal to investigate here: “What is much more important is to pay attention to what data is being collected, and how.” But Prism might not be the smoking gun.

None of this debunks outright Snowden’s claims that the NSA is gathering data, that it has extraordinary power or that it has lied to Congress about it. But it does smack of a lack of fact checking on the part of The Guardian and it risks giving credibility to those who think this is a lot of fuss about nothing (and I'm not one of them). As Joshua Foust of Medium.com suggests, the problem probably rests with Snowden. He first approached the Washington Post via a freelancer and demanded that they publish everything without time for fact checking or government comment. The Post hesitated – so Snowden went to The Guardian instead. This forced the Post to speed up publication of its own story. Frost: “Both papers, in their rush, wound up printing misleading stories.” If so, they're in trouble.

Now, of course, a data-management tool implies there is data to manage, so Snowden's story is not completely debunked. The NSA is obviously gathering lots of data. But I'm not sure we know much more about this from Snowden's disclosures than we did before.

We have his say-so on some of this, but lacking actual proof, we have to rely on his word, and that is becoming a perilous proposition:

Snowden’s backstory is not entirely accurate. Booz Allen says that his salary was 40 per cent lower than thought and a real estate agent says that his house in Hawaii was empty for weeks before he vamoosed. Does the fact that he only worked for three months with Booz Allen and the NSA suggest he was planning a hit and run all along – that he took the job with the NSA with the intention of stealing the documents?

And more so by the moment.

NSA leaker Ed Snowden claimed to have broken both of his legs while training for Special Forces.

...

That is simply not true as the statement from the Special Warfare Center & School below clearly points out.

Much, much more troubling than some resume-fabulations is this: Snowden is now not only blabbing about programs which may be objectionable and legitimate topics of national debate, but about programs which aren't objectionable and are not legitimate topics of national debate.

It's one thing to inform the American people what the the American government is doing.

It's another thing entirely to inform the Chinese people what the American government is doing.

n a new interview with Hong Kong newspaper The South China Morning Post, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden says the U.S. has been hacking Chinese and Hong Kong computers since 2009. The paper said it viewed documents supporting Snowden's claim, but was unable to verify them.

The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald - the journalist who first broke the story of the NSA's vast surveillance system - told CNN "The Lead's" Jake Tapper Monday that there are more stories to come.

Wednesday's revelation demonstrates that Snowden will continue to share information.

Of course the US hacks Chinese systems, and of course we spy on China. But such espionage is clearly proper-- especially because the Chinese penetration of American secrets is so much more advanced and extensive than our own.

While disclosing a debatable, controversial surveillance program into the private files of American citizens may be a useful and permissible leak, disclosing the basic and proper functions of the American intelligence community is simply not. This is what we pay these agents to do.

This is purely gratuitous, vindictive attack on the American intelligence community-- and America itself-- for no better reason than petty spite, or some kind of misguided Hero Complex, or perhaps an intense belief in the mid-seventies-based leftist paranoia of Ron Paul, in which all countries are highly ethical actors, except the US, which is an egregious privacy-violating secretive hegemon which occasionally forces freedom-loving, peacefully-intended countries like the Soviet Union and Iran to take action in retaliation to our own imperialistic maneuverings.

The only difference between Noam Chomsky and Ron Paul on this point is that Noam Chomsky is better and more widely read and doesn't obsess as much about dimes.

Don't believe me? Here's Edward Snowden, Hater of the American Security/Surveillance State, speaking kindly about.... Russia.

“All I can do is rely on my training and hope that world governments will refuse to be bullied by the United States into persecuting people seeking political refuge,” he said.

He also hinted, though did not claim explicitly that other governments may ultimately welcome him.

“Asked if he had been offered asylum by the Russian government, he said: ‘My only comment is that I am glad there are governments that refuse to be intimidated by great power,’” the Morning Post reported.

He so hated the secrecy and control of the American Surveillance State he fled to... China, and may soon seek greener pastures in... Russia.

Like Julian Assange, or Ron Paul for that matter, the hatred here is not for totalitarian systems of control generally, but for the American one specifically, and that is worrisome.

And it's worrisome because most of what we think we know about this scandal comes not from documents and verified proofs but from Snowden himself.

Earlier today I read this Ron Fournier piece, "Why I Don't Care About Edward Snowden," and was strongly inclined to agree, believing that the whole "Is Snowden a hero or a villain?" subplot was a bit of baby-talk to interest the low thinkers who cannot think in anything but those terms, in terms of people and personalities rather than ideas and principles, and who prefer such personality-based thinking to occur in the most baby-talk-ish of all possible manners of debate: Is this person completely Good and completely a Hero or is he completely Evil and completely a Villain?

And thus the political debate becomes MySpace: ROXXOR or SUXXOR? Upding or Downding? Let's get #HeroSnowden #trending over #VillainSnowden.

And I agreed, I thought, with his conclusion that such talk was a complete misdirection away from the actual questions at hand: Do we support this program? Do we even know enough about it to make that determination? Isn't the government now hiding from us not only the details of secret projects, but even the most elementary and basic information about the broad parameters of goals of such programs, such that we are denied the ability to actually make any sort of sensible judgment at all?

Is the government not essentially telling us to simply Trust Our Betters, and denying the most important of all principles underlying what was once called America-- the idea that common citizens shall make informed decisions about how their country shall operate?

And while I still mostly agree with that, I have to dispute that a bit, because much of what is claimed about this program is claimed by Edward Snowden, and I am not taking his word for it anymore than I'm taking the perjurious word of James Clapper for it. And, as Clapper's dishonesty and agenda weighs in the balance when we consider his claims, so too should such things weigh in the balance when we consider Snowden's.

The Timeline: Neo-Neocon does some thinking and realizes that Snowden seems to be have been "working with" Glenn Greenwald since just about the day he took the job.

So that would mean he probably took the posting to get the documents, and was not, in case you thought this, subject to a crisis of conscience due to what he saw there. He had the crisis of conscience before the job interview.

But there is a more important implication: This means that Snowden probably did not learn what he found objectionable about US intelligence by his three months of work for it, but rather that he already knew what he found objectionable about US Intelligence and spent his three months of work for it finding evidence to support his already-believed conclusions.

Having an agenda does not make someone a Bad Man or a Villain or SUXXOR.

It does, however, mean one should be careful in sifting through his claims for the truth. Most likely, most of the information he's giving you is stained, splattered, and soaked-through with his pre-existing agenda.

I Hereby Promise to Administer the Most Transparent Blog in American History: And with that, let me put some cards on the table.

I am jealously guarding the primacy of my favorite scandals, the IRS, James Rosen, and Benghazi, plus the perjury. I do not like other scandals sharing the limelight. I do not think they add to my favorite scandals. I think they steal spotlight. I think they crowd the stage.

And I want my Stars front and center.

Here's the thing: The IRS scandal is plainly a partisan illegal political scandal done for corrupt motives.

Unconstitutional ones, too. This gets to the very heart of the American experiment.

The NSA scandal, if it pans out, is an illegal scandal, yes, but unlikely done for partisan or corrupt motives. It would be a case of overreach and constitutional violation, yes, but probably not with partisan or corrupt motives.

And it's the latter that hang someone. Mistakes or differences of opinion do not. If the NSA turns out to be an overreach, but one done without partisan or corrupt motives... well, no one's getting impeached for going too far to protect the American people from a terrorist attack.

George Bush got reelected on that platform, for crying out loud. He practically announced, "I intend to go too far."

That doesn't mean that this isn't worrisome or unconstitutional. It means, at the end of the day, the IRS and Benghazi scandals are threats to this corrupt administration in a way the NSA scandal never will be (or is extremely unlikely to be).

And so yeah, I'm kind of like: "Let's stick on the one where we have them, and not this other one where Obama will say 'gee I'm sorry if I'm more concerned about American lives than conservatives are, but I guess we'll just have to disagree."

You can disagree with the principle behind that line, but you can't argue it's a good defense, politically, and that the LIVs of the American Idiocracy won't think it sounds pretty good to them, now let's get back to watching The Bachelorette.

Posted by: Ace at 01:50 PM | Comments (545)
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But I imagine he'll be good at not answering Congress' questions.

The deputy director of the CIA is leaving the agency and being replaced by a White House lawyer who has never worked at the agency.

“As much as I would selfishly like to keep Michael right where he is for as long as possible, he has decided to retire to spend more time with his family and to pursue other professional opportunities,” CIA Director John Brennan said in a statement announcing Michael Morell’s departure. “In many respects, Michael has come to personify the strengths and qualities of this great organization, and it is difficult for me to imagine CIA without Michael’s exceptionally sharp mind, tremendous energy, and absolute dedication to mission. But I am comforted by the fact that Michael will be able to spend more time with his wonderful family.”

...

The switch seems sudden because Obama just nominated Haines to another post in mid-April, when he named her to be the next legal adviser to the State Department. Before her White House job, Haines was the State DepartmentÂ’s assistant legal adviser for treaty affairs.

1. He's spending more time with his family. Hopefully we'll know the real reason on Friday at 5:45 pm ET.

2. God bless State Department lawyers. Such wonderful jobs they do of enforcing loyalty and messaging.

Posted by: Ace at 12:57 PM | Comments (254)
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It has so many applications I can't even name any!

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:43 PM | Comments (105)
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Ah well. He was a Republican in Spirit, Chris. That's how you made that error, and didn't even bother to check something so easily checked, and something so central to your point. Whatever it was.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (160)
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Very astute, very intellectual, very low-rated MSNBC host Chris Hayes attempts to identify the political party of racist governor George Wallace, fails.

But did he? It's the narrative his audience wants. A narrative with no troublesome parts or Proud Nails. Something simple and smooth that goes down the throat easily, like baby food or the pablum they make to feed people who can't chew their food.

One of the most inspirational, wonderful stories you'll read this week: Government austerity measures, compelled by creditors demanding cuts be made to the budget, force Greece to shut down its state-run TV and radio ventures, calling them "a haven of waste."

I had a chuckle that the story noting that riot police had been summoned to quell any violence and disorder occasioned by the shut-down. But there was none to quell.

Former sports anchor and current conservative Ron Futrell heckles Bill Maher at one of his stupid Clapping Therapy concerts.

Futrell, an outspoken conservative known for his Twitter rants, told the Review-Journal he was offended that Maher mocked special- needs individuals by using the “r word” against Sarah Palin’s special-needs son.

“I’ve got a son with special needs,” Futrell said. “It didn’t surprise me that Maher said it. It surprised me that a lot of people laughed at that joke.”

...

Futrell, a former sports anchor and daytime anchor at ABC affiliate KTNV-TV, Channel 13, before he was fired in 2008, chided Maher for a joke about Halliburton, the oil field services giant.

“Halliburton? It’s 2013,” Futrell said several times, until he got Maher’s attention.

...

When Futrell continued to react out loud, the audience member went to get security as Futrell started shouting, “Who’s the president? Who’s the president?”

Futrell said he agreed to leave.

He didnÂ’t consider it as heckling, he said.

“I saw it as commentary. I went on an LDS mission to Ireland. I know heckling.”

Well I actually do think it's heckling but in the words of every judge on Law & Order, "I'll allow it."

Below: A kitten with two heads was born. Actually it's more like "two faces," but I'll allow it. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:45 AM | Comments (189)
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What?

I do not know the reason for the Secret Service interrogation. I know the Twitterer himself, Tom Francois, says this of it:

On April 11, 2013, he heard relentless pounding on his door shouts of "Police!" The officers introduced themselves as members of The Secret Service and asked if they could "take a look around."

Since Tom had nothing to hide (and he didn't want any return visits) - he complied fully with their request. He even signed a consent to search his premises AND an "Authorization To Review Medical and Mental Health Records!"

They asked Tom if he ever left his state or traveled to Washington, D.C.

One Agent asked Tom if he has any intentions of "whacking" the President." To which Tom replied- "Of course not. I wish him no harm. I disagree with his policies and actions and I make no bones about it. It's my First Amendment Right and I intend to exercise it."

....

The Secret Service had a thick FBI file- filled with screenshots of hundreds of posts. Said Tom, "I flat out told them 'I have NEVER threatened Obama's life! Yes, I despise him as you can plainly see, but I have that right!' They actually ADMITTED and agreed with me that I hadn't threatened Obama."

They had run a background check and discovered that Tom legally owned two guns- and they asked to see them. Tom showed them his firearms. They asked, "Are they loaded?" Tom replied in the affirmative. "What good are guns if they aren't loaded?"

So why harass Tom? "The Secret Service officers claimed that "they were concerned that since I have a large Twitter following, and the things I said could be acted upon by some nut case out there! What the hell? They turned my life upside down for THAT?"

I would suggest a strong dose of the 24 hour rule. This is such an enormous and frightening allegation it's especially critical to know the truth of it -- whether there is some understandable, permissible reason for the Secret Service interest, or whether there was not.

I'm attempting to get someone in a position of authority to take a look at this, and report to us whether we should be very worried right now, or whether this is something less.

I'm tempted to think "There is no way the Secret Service would do this" but until recently I thought there was no way the IRS would target the Tea Party, either.

Again, 24 hour rule.

A Couple of Cognitive Biases... One reason I've been a little skeptical of this NSA disclosure is the Summer of Sharks phenomenon -- that when a certain type of story is in the news (like the shark attacks in the summer before the 9/11 disaster), each new incidence of that type of story gets seized upon with greater interest and greater alarm that would otherwise attach to it.

That doesn't mean the NSA story is nothing. It means I'm just aware that this happens, and I'm on patrol against it. Maybe too much. I don't know. I still don't understand precisely what the NSA is doing (or even what the NSA claims it's doing, which is likely entirely different from what it's actually doing).

This new story is a Major Shark Attack but we don't really know the circumstances of the attack. We don't know much at all, really. We have one side of a story only.

Another cognitive bias, leaning the opposite way, is this: I sure hope this story is not true. Because if it is true, we have well and truly entered a truly dark and dangerous period of post-American history.

So as for now, I'm hoping. I'm hoping very strongly that this story is not true, and that the Secret Service is not raiding people on the theory that pungent political commentary may encourage a lunatic to do something violent, and thus pungent political commentary is now effectively a crime against the state.

I sure hope that's not the case.

Incidentally... The "Examiner.com" here is not the Washington Examiner. The latter is a real online newspaper. The former, the "Examiner.com," is... I'm not sure what it is, really. I have seen some egregiously dumb leftwing stories on there, and some dumb rightwing ones too.

I get the feeling it's a halfway thing between a "forum" (anyone can post) and a "newspaper" (genuine editorial oversight). I don't think anyone can post Whatever, but I don't think there's the sort of background checking that you'd generally expect in a "published story," either.

Honestly I don't know either way, but I wouldn't assume that it has a newspaper's editorial screening going on behind a story.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Comments (373)
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Got scandal fatigue? Maybe this will brighten your day some...

Because emerging A/C markets are going to suck up almost ALL of the electric power generated by "renewables".

"The main significance of this study is that the estimated future electricity footprint of air conditioners is on par with or surpasses the electricity to be generated from renewable sources such as wind and solar," said Berkeley Lab scientist Nihar Shah, the lead author of the report. "This implies that policies to promote more efficient air conditioning equipment should be pursued with a similar seriousness and concern."

Usually, when there some "policy" changes in the works like this, it means your "new" A/C unit is only gonna blow slightly less warm air, or you need to flush 3 times, or you need to wash dishes before putting them in your water saver dishwasher with no-phosphate soaps.

Maybe not this time though. It looks like the A/C industry is trying to get ahead of the global warming curve looking for R-410a "drop in" replacements that don't upset the AGW crowd and work better than R-410a.

The vast majority of new residential A/C install for the past few years have been R-410a units, so this is good news for anyone in the market for a new A/C at some point in the future.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:44 PM | Comments (303)
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A simple observation by Jonah Goldberg.

The contradictions at the heart of the Obama presidency are finally out in the open. As a result, a man who came into office hell-bent on restoring faith in government is on the verge of inspiring a libertarian revival.There have always been (at least) two Barack Obamas. There is the man who claims to be a nonideological problem-solver, keen on working with anybody to fix things. And there is “The One”: the partisan, left-leaning progressive redeemer.

As E. J. Dionne, a columnist who can usually be counted on to make the case for Obama better than Obama can, recently wrote, the president “has been a master, as good politicians are, at presenting different sides of himself to different constituencies. In 2008, he was the man who would bring us together by overcoming the deep mistrust between red and blue America and the champion of progressive change, the liberal answer to Ronald Reagan.”

Doc Zero discusses it further.

Obama critics have long marveled at his ability to flip from the bitterly divisive hyper-partisan who tosses chunks of bloody meat to the left-wing faithful, casually demonizing his opponents as subversives (or, on issues like gun control, outright monsters)... into the bridge building reach-across-the-aisle seeker of good ideas that the media loves to swoon over. Naturally, every politician would love to be able to do this, but only Democrats are allowed to. Bill Clinton still gets all sorts of undeserved praise for his alleged "centrism" - he's the father of welfare reform, don't you know! - but he was also a pioneer in modern dark art of personal destruction.

...

Some of the dichotomy between Obama's two faces can be resolved by remembering that to the President and his personality cult, expunging those evil conservative insurgents from policy discussions is "non-ideological." There is no ideology but theirs, and it takes whatever shape the Great Leader assigns at the current moment.

Actually, of course, that's inaptly phrased; he means there's no "ideology" but that of "extremists" who "seek to impose their agenda-fueled ideology on the ideology-free Rationalists and Problem-Solvers.

Obama can only do this, as Zero says, thanks to the media. That's how Barack Obama could be, in 2008, both a peacenik who wanted to end wars and a Dogged Terrorist-Fighter who wanted to bring the war to terrorists like it had never been brought before; that's how he could be a man who both wanted to raise taxes and raise spending but could also challenge McCain from the right on deficit reduction.

None of this made any sense at the time. It still doesn't.

But the media knows it's hard to beat someone who is on all sides of an issue. It may be difficult to beat someone who promises to give out free government goodies; it's impossible to beat someone who promises to give out free government goodies and also cut government spending, too.

Posted by: Ace at 10:17 AM | Comments (200)
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Pew came out with some counterintuitive numbers on Americans' beliefs about security and civil liberties-- to wit, the love the former and care not a whit about the latter.

* 62% say the government should investigate terrorist threats regardless of privacy intrusion (the other option is no privacy intrusion no matter what)

* 56% say that tracking millions of call records is acceptable in the effort to investigate terrorism (the other option is that tracking millions of call records no matter what is unacceptable)

* 45% say the government should be able to monitor email and online activities to prevent future terror attacks (the other option is that it is unacceptable)

These questions are a little misleading, the respondent is being forced to choose between a false dichotomy in each one. The situation we have on our hands isn't simply the choice between MONITOR EVERYBODY and MONITOR NOBODY. We can certainly monitor people who are suspicious. Why force people to choose between pure safety and pure privacy?

By offering more granular (and realistic) options, respondents aren't force to choose one at the exclusion of the other.

Have Pew and the WaPo learned nothing from their Magic Boyfriend, the one given to saying things like this:

"Some say that we should have full 24/7 video surveillance of every citizen at all times, including in the bathroom and the bedroom. Others say we should gladly kneel before terrorists so that they can cut our throats without having to strain themselves reaching. I reject this false choice."

Well, CBS has done a poll with more realistic, granular answer choices, and finds that Americans reject this false choice as well, and also, aren't quite as cool with perpetual surveillance as Obama's Teenage FanClub would have you think. Compare the questions asked by the WaPo and CBS, respectively, and the answers each received.

WaPo/Pew: "As you may know, it has been reported that the National Security Agency has been getting secret court orders to track telephone call records of MILLIONS of Americans in an effort to investigate terrorism. Would you consider this access to telephone call records an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?"

CBS: "In order to reduce the threat of terrorism, do you approve or disapprove of federal government agencies collecting phone records of ordinary Americans?"

In the first instance, the question does not allow a distinction between those under suspicion of terrorism and "ordinary" Americans, forcing the respondent to choose between fighting terrorism with surveillance on everyone or doing nothing at all-- presumably allowing the slaughter of innocent people as terrorists run rampant in the American streets. In the second (CBS) there is that difference and the result is more heartening about attitudes toward privacy rights. (It's still too low in my opinion, but that is a post for another day.)

The result of this semantic trickery is that WaPo/Pew can say more than half (56%) approve of the government obtaining their call records, whereas according to CBS,we find that 58% disapprove of the government snooping on their call records. Those findings are diametrically opposed!

Indeed. A magician that forces you to draw the Seven of Diamonds isn't really all that surprised when -- Abracadabra! -- your card turns out to be the Seven of Diamonds.

Note: I'm working on a Great Big Essay. Content will be a bit thin and light while I work on this in background.

Posted by: Ace at 08:43 AM | Comments (292)
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