“The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T [Science & Technology] is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security. [It is a] rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course.”

- A bi-partisan congressional report slams yet another part of our Department of Homeland Security. Lawmakers, and even recently retired Homeland Security officials, say they are concerned the department’s research and development effort is bogged down by “bureaucratic games”, lack of strategic planning and failure to use money wisely.

Why does this matter to you? Because S&T is the group responsible for developing detection technology for explosives like the ones that were to be used in the recent plot that was foiled by the British. So while the British are alert, what are we doing? The Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing explosives detection technology and use it to cover a budget shortfall. The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060811/D8JEG1O01.html

“The lesson for many Americans is that today’s Republicans cannot be trusted with the keys to both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. During President Bush’s first five years in office, the federal government increased by $616 billion. That’s a mammoth 33 percent jump in the size of the federal government in just his first five years! To put this in perspective, this increase of $616 billion is more than the entire federal budget in Jimmy Carter’s last years in office. And conservatives were complaining about Big Government back then! How can Bush, [Dennis] Hastert, [Bill] Frist and company look us in the eye and tell us they are fiscal conservatives when in five short years they increased the already-bloated government by more than the budget for the entire federal government when Ronald Reagan was assuming office?”

- Richard Viguerie, one of the architects of the Reagan Revolution, is calling on fellow conservatives to withhold support of the Republican Party establishment and no longer even call themselves Republicans.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51421

“I have officially invited Matthew, who in the meantime has left to continue his travels, to return to Naples soon to eat a pizza together.”

- The head of the city council in Naples (Italy) tries to make nice with Matthew Godfrey, a tourist from Utah. Two men stole Matthew’s camera and fled on a scooter with Matthew in hot pursuit, until a group of bystanders intervened. Instead of helping him, they punched and kicked him, allowing the muggers to escape. Upon release from the hospital, Mr. Godfrey understandably decided to leave Naples.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4777263.stm

“We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security.”

- The amazing story of how a couple of programmers learned to break in to Apple and code for them without permission.

http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

“going to WWDC without a laptop is like going to war with a banana”

-Ted Lee had to send his 4 month old Apple MacBook Pro in for service a week before he was due to attend the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (which starts this coming Monday). The tech on the phone said it would not be a problem getting it back in time, but Wednesday he found out that it was waiting on a part. In a “fit of desperation” he fired off an email to Apple’s executive team, and the next day he gets a phone call from someone who identifies himself as “Steve Job’s personal assistant”. Jobs had read the email and instructed his assistant to fix the situation. Apparently, Jobs found the line about the banana funny.

http://www.tedlee.net/2006/08/03/when-bad-customer-service-turns-good/

“Seems like someone has gone overboard. Their time could be spent better doing other things, like providing security for the country.”

- Larry Buss, who helps organize the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton, Ill.

“I don’t know where they get their information. We are talking about a flea market here.”

- Angela McNabb, manager of the Sweetwater Flea Market, 50 miles from Knoxville, Tenn.

“I am out in the middle of nowhere. We are nothing but a bunch of Amish buggies and tractors out here. No one would care.”

- Brian Lehman, owner of Amish Country Popcorn in Berne, Ind., who speculates that his business might be on the list “Maybe because popcorn explodes?”

The Clinton Apple and Pork Festival, the Sweetwater Flea Market, and Amish Country Popcorn are listed on the Department of Homeland Security’s list of critical potential terrorist targets. Other items on the list include Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo in Woodville, Ala., the Mule Day Parade in Columbia, Tenn., Nix’s Check Cashing, and the vaguely unspecified “Mall at Sears,” “Ice Cream Parlor,” “Tackle Shop,” “Donut Shop,” “Anti-Cruelty Society,” “Bean Fest” and the popular “Beach at End of a Street.” The list is so flawed that it lists only 2 percent of the nation’s banking and finance sector assets, which ranks it between North Dakota and Missouri.

Jarrod Agen, the Department of Homeland Security’s deputy press secretary, responds “We don’t find it embarrassing. The list is a valuable tool.” Indeed, the list is used to divvy up hundreds of millions of dollars in antiterrorism grants each year, which may explain why in May, money to protect New York City and Washington DC was cut by 40%, while money was significantly increased for other cities including Louisville, KY, and Omaha, NE.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/washington/12assets.html?
hp&ex=1152676800&en=6b0502da91a3d945&ei=5094&partner=homepage

My question is whether the list, and the resulting money, favors “red states”?

“It was difficult to turn off that lifestyle like a spigot.”

- Ken Lay, who died today, defending his purchase of a $200,000 yacht for his wife’s birthday despite being convicted of business fraud, bank fraud, and lying, and being over $100 million in debt. Lay died before he could be sentenced for his crimes, and indeed, was vacationing in Colorado when he died.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13715925/

“We don’t see this as anything new. Our goal was to make the policy easier to read and easier for customers to understand.”

- AT&T spokesman John Britton’s explanation of their new “privacy policy”, which now says that AT&T — not customers — owns customers’ confidential info and can use it “to protect its legitimate business interests”. The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service — something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited by law from doing. Moreover, AT&T now requires customers to agree to the updated privacy policy as a condition of service. Ray Everett-Church, a Silicon Valley privacy consultant, said it seems clear that AT&T has substantially modified its privacy policy in light of revelations about the government’s domestic spying program. “It’s obvious that they are trying to stretch their blanket pretty tightly to cover as many exposed bits as possible.”

So if you have phone service or TV service from AT&T (including the former SBC) they own the records of who you call, what videos you watch, and who knows what else, and can use them however they want.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/21/BUG9VJHB9C1.DTL&hw=at&sn=002&sc=870

“They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

- The US Military double-speaks that the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, were actually acts of war. Detainees at “Gitmo” are being held indefinitely without formal charges, without legal representation, and without judicial review. Some have been held for more than three years. The UK constitutional affairs minister says the camp should be moved to the US or shut down. “If it’s perfectly legal and there’s nothing going wrong there - well, why don’t they have it in America and then the American court system can supervise it?”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5068606.stm

“If the president of the U.S. started talking about how Saturn was coming into the wrong quadrant and is therefore not a good time to launch a war, one would hope that the whole White House press corps would descend on him with a straitjacket. This would be terrifying — to hear somebody with so much power basing any part of his decision-making process on something as disreputable as astrology. Yet we don’t have the same response when he’s clearly basing some part of his deliberation on faith.”

- Sam Harris, discussing how when it comes to faith-based violence, religious moderates are part of the problem, not the solution.

http://www.alternet.org/story/36195

“As a former NSA analyst, I’m dismayed by the continuing revelations of the National Security Agency’s warrantless — and therefore illegal — spying. The case involves fundamental issues related to NSA’s missions and long-standing rules of engagement. What’s even more dismaying is the lack of public reaction to this.”

- Ira Winkler explains how NSA spying on Americans actually puts the US in more danger, in an excellent article.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9000515

“Mr. Chairman, I am here to confess my reading incomprehension. I have listened to many of my conservative friends talk about the wonders of the free market, of the importance of letting the consumers make their best choices, of keeping government out of economic activity, of the virtues of free trade, but then I look at various agricultural programs like this one. Now, it violates every principle of free market economics known to man and two or three not yet discovered.

So I have been forced to conclude that in all of those great free market texts by Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and all the others that there is a footnote that says, by the way, none of this applies to agriculture. Now, it may be written in high German, and that may be why I have not been able to discern it, but there is no greater contrast in America today than between the free enterprise rhetoric of so many conservatives and the statist, subsidized, inflationary, protectionist, anti-consumer agricultural policies, and this is one of them.

… Here is a chance for some of my free-enterprise-professing friends to get honest with themselves, and now maybe we will see some born-again free enterprisers in the agricultural field.”

- Liberal Congressman Barney Frank on Tuesday comments on all the amendments to the Agriculture Appropriations bill offered by Republicans to subsidize and protect various industries.

http://www.clubforgrowth.org/blog/archives/039110.php

“We count on Presidents to refrain from exploiting moments of national crisis for personal and political benefit — Bush let us down.”

- Jack Exley explains how only cowards think we’re at war.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/message-for-08-dems-onl_b_21425.html

“I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.”

- Conservative Doug McIntyre, in his column “An Apology from a Bush Voter”. If more conservatives started talking like this, I might have to become a conservative.

http://www.kabc.com/mcintyre/listingsEntry.asp?ID=432586&PT=McIntyre+in+the+Morning