As some of you have noticed, I’ve locked down the posting again. I got hit with a bunch of comment-spam which made it hard to moderate the forum, so I turned the register-before-posting requirement (as well as the first-comment-moderated) requirement back on.

I’ve also changed the look of the site, not for particularly any good reason, but because I thought the new theme was nifty. If you don’t like it, start reading through an RSS aggregator. :D

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Senator John S. McCain to Receive 2005 Eisenhower Leadership Prize

Senator John S. McCain’s Remarks at the 2005 Eisenhower Leadership Prize Banquet

Don’t know why I feel compelled to mention this, but I do.

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Libby Says Leaks Authorized, Papers Show - Yahoo! News

Papers coming out of Scooter Libby’s desk, as well as Scooter Libby himself, show that he was authorized to leak classified information to reporters to help justify the war in Iraq.

Which means that we’re heading up the chain. Guess how much further up the chain you can go from the top aid to the Vice President?

I bet 2008 can’t get here fast enough for Cheney.

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EFF: DeepLinks — Senators Should Subpeona Ma Bell

Senators Kennedy and Feingold wrote the CEOs of AT&T, Sprint-Nextel, and Verizon asking about the domestic wiretapping program. Sounds like they’re following a few steps behind the EFF, but they’re making it up in momentum.

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Cato Institute: Dubious Assumptions about Iran

Specifically, the following issues are addressed:

1. A nuclear Iran would attack Israel.
2. Iran would pass along nuclear weapons to terrorist groups.
3. It would be easy to overthrow the mullahs. (Whoever is saying this should be immediately relegated to the Dunce Corner.)
4. A democratic Iran would renounce all nuclear ambitions.

Not sure I agree with all the arguments, but it’s worth a read to at least open discussion on this issue.

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Here are parts 1 and 2 of my series on “The Holy Saint John”, written for the newsletter of my Masonic Lodge.

Part 1
Part 2

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The Blog | Arianna Huffington: You Want to Discuss Impeachment? Give Me a Call on Nov. 8th | The Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington made an excellent point, which (as is normative for her points) I strongly agree with: Democrats shouldn’t be pushing for impeachment. Yet.

If the Democrats manage to suppress their natural drive to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory for the Congressional elections coming up later this year, then we can start talking censure and impeachment for Bush. I’d actually be more inclined to see censure instead of impeachment, because President Cheney is a Bad Plan.

Even better than censure/impeachment, which is really a personal attack, I would like to see the various committees of Congress go to town on the executive branch. Basically, I’d like Congress to say, “Hey, look, we’re going to zero-fund any program that isn’t transparent to the Congress. And if we find you sneaking money from one pot to another, we’ll zero-fund both pots. Now open up.”

But I’m a bit of a hardass when it comes to these things.

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As reported by BHT here, that ever-popular source of wisdom, the case has been thrown out.

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I thought this link: http://tinyurl.com/c52qq deserved it’s own story.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin and Sen. Chris Dodd, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, said yesterday that they will push for public financing of federal elections.

…

McCain dismissed the proposal yesterday with a flat “no.”

In other words, while he may be in favor of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, he’s opposed to any real, radical, reform. Worse, what sort of “reform” does McCain really want?

McCain told members of the Rules Committee yesterday that 527-group activity has rent a “gaping loophole” in campaign-finance law.

…

McCain said he did not understand the new fervor among Democrats for taxpayer-financed campaigns but did understand why they oppose stricter regulation of 527s.

“It’s to their advantage to have 527s,” he said.

In other words, he’s all for reforms that take money away from Democrats, but flatly opposed to reforms that take money away from Republicans (even if they also take money away from Democrats). Worse yet, the major reason that 527’s are more advantageous to Democrats than Republicans is that the netroots have latched onto 527’s as an organizing device for donations and involvement. Moveon.org is one of the best known, and largest, 527’s. McCain’s “reform” is specifically targetting citizen involvement organizations. Keep Washington safe for the corporate lobbyist! Don’t let citizens in!

This proposal has no prayer any time in the near future- the K Street lobbyist organizations will not relinquish their power voluntarily. Nor will the corrupt Republican leadership ever allow a bill at all like this ever get to a vote, let alone pass. However, I think it shows in a harsh, bright light McCain’s “independence”, even on pet issues like campaign finance reform.

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LewRockwell.com Blog: Football and Anarchy

If we’d like a better way to use our skills and technology perhaps we should look to the success of the NFL and the magic of the market.

Ironic, because I consider the NFL to be one of the great failure modes of the free market.

Consider it this way: the median salary for my own Minnesota Vikings in the 2004 season year was over $640k (cite). Now, are you telling me that you could not field a team of quality players for, say, $500k/person? If you advertised that you were having tryouts to play in the NFL, and that the salary was going to be $500k/person, you would get a lot of people, many of them very, very talented. But, why stop there? Imagine if you advertised $250k/person or $100k/person. You would still pull a lot of very impressive talent — at that point, the only thing you’re competing against is other professional sports.

But, for some strange reason, players are able to demand $640k. Owners make even more. All of this is because the NFL already has muscled its way into the states/cities they reside in and onto the television sets. Because of the benefit of first-entry and their effective monopoly, the NFL is in a unique position, as are the owners, coaches, and players. Any attempts, even the pathetic corporate whore of a league that was the XFL couldn’t get a foothold against them.

The only real competition is collegiate ball, but they aren’t really in competition at all — there’s enough fans to support both the NFL and collegiate ball and the players come from distinct pools, so there’s no market force encouraging competition.

In an ideal capitalistic system, the NFL wouldn’t exist because there are people able to do better job for cheaper. In a pratical capitalistic system, the NFL is effectively a monopoly, with violent business practices that suppress all competition.

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