Category: Uncategorized

Schneier on Iranian Cryptography

When Bruce Schneier speaks, everybody listens. In his latest Cryptogram he effectively describes just how complicated the Chalabi betrayal has become. We might have know, they might have known, they might have known that we knew, and we might have known that they knew... and so on. Most interesting is that the world's secrets are being kept by private companies, like Crypto AG, and we're relying on market forces to ensure that they produce an effective, secure product. If they're considered suspect or compromised, they're out of business. For all but the most powerful countries (the U.S.), this is what you rely on to ensure that your communications are secure.

Nunn: too pleased

I spent last night on a downtown DC roof deck with a group of people who can only be described as inside. Their clear consensus is that John Kerry's running mate has all but been chosen and it will be former GA Senator Sam Nunn. This squares with what I heard Kerry tell a small group of big donors not long ago that he does not believe he can win without the South and his Veep choice will reflect this. And all this time I thought he was talking about Mary Landrieu...

You think you have a bad job?

Scott McClellan has to go into a room the size of a mop closet twice a day with 30 of the world's sharpest journalists and answer for his boss. From today's lashing: Q Why do you say you've made it clear on Geneva Conventions when it's -- obviously, they've been violated ever since we went into Iraq? MR. McCLELLAN: Are you talking about the abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib? Q And Guantanamo and everywhere else. MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know what specifically you're referring to, everywhere else...

Nightmare on K Street

twin towers What's the only thing worse than a DC lobbyist? How about a DC lobbyist who has learned how to clone himself.... Tommy and Timmy Keating--you can't make this stuff up--specialize in asbestos liability reform.

White House: Abuse Memos for al-Qaida

I really like the fact that Taliban and Al Qaeda are no longer synonymous with Iraqi insurgents. Remember when they were the same thing?

AP - The confidential Justice Department memos criticized by Democrats as laying the legal foundation for Iraqi prisoner abuses were aimed mainly at showing that international treaties banning torture do not apply to al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners, Bush administration officials say.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20040610/ap_on_go_pr_wh/prisoner_abuse

The Black Jesse Helms

Vernon Robinson hates:

  • the pro-abortion fanatics and the radical feminists
  • the atheists who file lawsuits attacking the Pledge of Allegiance & the Ten Commandments
  • the gun grabbers, the illegal immigrants, and the trial lawyers
  • the environmentalist, tree-huggin' granolas and the animal rights extremists
  • the "one world" globalists who worship at the altar of the United Nations
  • the militant homosexuals and the burned-out, hippie peaceniks
  • the race-hustling poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
  • the union bosses and the socialists posing as journalists & college professors
  • the government bureaucrats & the tax-and-spend junkies who create their jobs, and
  • the Hollywood elitists - air-headed actors and singers who think we care what they think.
...but loves him some unreconstructed racists.

Look Out! The Draft is Back!

In January 2003, Congressman Rangel and Senator Hollings introduced legislation reinstating a military draft. Congressman Rangel argues that if the Bush Administration is so keen on overextending the military, which is disproportionately poor and disenfranchised, then it seems fair to draft women and the rich. Some people have taken the bills at face value, and some understand it as a political move -- something that makes the Administration look very, very bad. The DOD has stated many times that it doesn't even want a draft -- they learned from Vietnam that a fully professional force is better than conscripts in every way. Significantly, the bill offers non-military service as an alternative to the traditional draft. A good piece on the subject: http://www.free-times.com/archive/coverstorarch/iraq_032603/cover_draft.html The text of the bills are here: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN00089: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR00163: Other background: http://www.senate.gov/~hollings/press/2003127851.html http://www.hillnews.com/news/100703/draft.aspx