Zapster?

Frank Zappa may have come up with the original idea for file sharing...

We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to F-1 (SONY consumer level digital tape encoder), Beta Hi-Fi, or ordinary analog cassette (requiring the installation of a rentable D-A converter in the phone itself . . . the main chip is about $12).

All accounting for royalty payments, billing to the customer, etc. would be automatic, built into the initial software for the system.

Talk about ahead of his time...

We Cannot Simply Turn the Page

A cogent, thoughtful piece from Frank Rich today in the New York Times. As much as President Obama wants to move the country forward and deal with our common, pressing problems, the specter of the Bush Administration's misdeeds will prevent him from doing so:

TO paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions.

Rich details several scandals that have only recently come to light, including Donald Rumsfeld's bible-laced daily briefings to Bush on the Iraq war, framing it as a modern day crusade. Rich makes it clear that the Bush Administration broke the law, and that they must be held accountable for this country to move forward.

I've been saying this all along...we can't just let bygones be bygones. When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, his apologists claimed that his motivation was to keep the nation from tearing itself apart over Watergate. But the net effect of his pardon was to let abuse of power go unchecked, emboldening future administrations to flout the law. Think of it this way: if the American people had held Nixon accountable and sent him to jail for ordering a third-rate burglary, would George W. Bush have brazenly violated domestic and international law to torture and spy on people? I think not.

The Shine is Starting to Come Off

This has been one of the more Clintonesque weeks in the nascent Obama administration. On Wednesday, Obama announced that he will oppose a court order to release photos of prisoner abuse at the hands of US military and intelligence personnel. And the Administration announced today that it will be keeping the Bush system of military tribunals in place with only slight modifications.

Whether these moves stem from the sort of crass political triangulation our phillandering former President made famous or not is unclear. What is clear is the fact that both decisions were wrong. Candidate Obama campaigned in part on the justifiable horror that many Americans felt upon finding out about the prior Administration's torture of detainees and its extra-constitutional system of kangaroo courts. We placed our faith in a man who said he would end the abuse and try people in US courts...according to the law of the land.

I can't help but feel betrayed. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised...the Democratic Party's mission in recent years is to impement Republican policies when Republicans can't get elected. But perhaps I expected more from a man who's been labelled a transformation figure in American history.

Pelosi Knew...She Should Resign

Speaker Nancy Pelosi admits knowing of CIA torture of detainees by early 2003. That's complicity in torture, plain and simple. She should go.

Did Pelosi Know About Torture?

A public fight has erupted between Nancy Pelosi and the CIA. The spy agency claims it briefed Pelosi that it briefed the Speaker on its use of torture during interrogations as far back as 2002. Pelosi claims only that she was made aware of legal memos clearing the Bush Administration to use torture, but was told that the tactics hadn't been employed.

The spy agency had issued a chart saying Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and Porter Goss, the committee chairman at the time, were given "a description of the particular EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques) that had been employed."

I have to wonder...does this nuance really matter? Pelosi saw evidence in 2002 that the Bush Administration was starting to cover its ass in order to torture prisoners and she did nothing. She didn't try to stop it, she didn't go public. In fact, Pelosi then took impeachment off the table. That's despicable. And it's wrong.

The sad part is that this fiasco probably won't do any lasting damage to Pelosi's career. She'll still be Speaker of the House, she'll still get re-elected, she'll still raise loads of corporate cash for Democrats in the House, and she'll continue her long and undistinguished record of failing to represent her constituents' views in Washington. From voting for the Iraq war to blocking the impeachment of the most criminal and corrupt President in a generation, she always turns her back on real San Francisco values.

Slap of the Invisible Hand

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
- Adam Smith

Prophetic...That's When the Deal Closes

Your goal will be met in two months.