When the Patriot Act and the other new government powers that the Bush administration pressed for in the wake of 9/11 were granted, civil libertarians worried about those powers being used outside the context of fighting terrorism. Why? Because it goes without saying that people in government, like people anywhere else, will take full advantage of privileges given to them regardless of how they were intended to be used. Sure enough, government prosecutors are using their powers in all sorts of clever ways, like charging someone who runs a meth lab with manufacturing chemical weapons. I think we can all agree that we don’t want people to run meth labs, but we already have laws that cover that. If the judge in that case has a spine, he’ll toss that charge out immediately. I’m hesitant to even call these abuses, because there is no doubt in my mind that the Justice Department intended to use these new powers in every way possible when they asked for them. In fact, most of the new powers had been on the law enforcement wish list long before 9/11. I hope nobody is surprised.

This message to the Interesting People list describes a spam problem that started for me over the weekend — tons of bounces from AOL after a spammer started sending spam that appeared to come from my domain.

Dave Johnson has an item on a couple of new Java books that look like worthwhile additions to my library. I already use most of the stuff covered in the books pretty well, but they look like they’d enable me to consolidate my knowledge a little bit and probably pick up a number of tips that would make me a more effective developer. Of course, that would entail not only buying them but also reading them …

Looks like the mainstream IT press is discovering the other side of offshoring. (The one where in the real world it doesn’t really save you that much money.) I’ve been learning some things about offshoring lately and for me it has been a huge pain. One huge problem is the lack of interpersonal context between the players, combined with time zone differences, and cultural and language barriers. They all conspire to make it a lot harder to get things done. Any little ego and pecking order issues that are parts of every project can also become magnified by the distance as well.

Jim Henley did a great job of dismissing the so-called “flypaper” theory this weekend. For what it’s worth, the morality aspect is the one that’s offended me:

Finally, there’s a minor matter of morality. Remember all that stuff about how we weren’t at war with the Iraqi people but with Saddam Hussein, or the Ba’ath Party apparatus? Flypaper theory exists to posit and justify a messy war between the US military and non-Iraqi enemies of America and Israel – those infiltrators, remember? Let’s state it again, clearly: the presence of American troops in Iraq draws anti-American and anti-Israeli terrorists to Iraq, where we wipe them out. That is, Flypaper supposedly represents a decision by the US to turn Iraq, a place full of the Iraqi People With Whom We Have No Quarrel, into a theater of war between non-Iraqi forces. The dead, wounded, frightened and humiliated will not, of course, be restricted to non-Iraqis. The stuff that gets broke will not just be non-Iraqi stuff. And we wonder why some Iraqis are so sullen.

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that Microsoft has worked hard over the years to destroy everything Ray Ozzie has tried to build. In spite of that, Ozzie has done the homework needed to demonstrate how Notes R3 might save Microsoft from the stupid Eolas lawsuit.

Here’s Meet the Press transcript for September 14 (Dick Cheney goes on TV to lie). Here’s the Washington Post review of the claims Cheney made.

This weekend I watched Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. (I actually watch it every weekend.) Maher is always pretty good, but the overall entertainment value of the show depends heavily on the guests on the panel. This week featured Jesse Ventura, Paul Krugman, and some Republican android whose name I forget. One thing I learned from the show is that I’m completely justified in my total distaste for Ventura. Ventura constantly promotes himself as someone who says what he thinks, but it doesn’t take more than a minute or two of watching him speak to realize that there’s not much evidence that he thinks at all. Judging from the expressions on Maher’s face when Ventura spoke, I doubt we’ll be seeing him on Real Time again anytime soon. Paul Krugman acquitted himself very well, but the classic moment occurred during an exchange that began with Bill Maher griping about farm subsidies. Ventura responded with a defense of farm subsidies by saying that farmers were subject to price controls and that if they could charge a competitive price, they wouldn’t need subsidies (he also mentioned that milk would cost $20 a gallon or something along those lines). Maher’s jaw dropped and he gestured to Krugman, basically pleading to be rescued with facts. Krugman immediately said that the price controls on agricultural goods are price floors — the government sets a minimum price that farmers can get for their goods, not a maximum. At this point, rather than admitting that he was completely wrong and shutting up, Ventura started talking over Krugman and pressing his point further. Krugman immediately started rubbing his face in exasperation and becoming more animated, and of course the issue was never resolved (in Ventura’s mind anyway). Ventura also had a classic moment where he said that we knew that the war in Iraq wasn’t justified because the Bush twins weren’t over there fighting in it. It’s really a shame to think that this blockhead is going to get his own show doing political commentary on a “news” channel. That really tells us something about the level of political discourse in this country — being informed (for any definition of the word informed that you prefer) is not a requirement for becoming a big name political commentator.

I also watched K Street, and I have to say that it completely blew my mind. It is probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen on television, because it’s a mix of fact and fiction, and there’s really no way to what separates fact from fiction. The show features Mary Matalin and James Carville (real political consultants) working for a fictional lobbying firm along with some fictional characters. The main plotline in the initial episode involves James Carville being roped into doing debate prep for Howard Dean by one of the fictional characters on the show. The rest of the firm (they want to do work for Republicans and Democrats) is opposed, and they spend a lot of the episode meeting with real political figures to convince them that Carville has gone off and done this on his own due to his addiction to campaigning. In the meantime, the fictional character “calls” Paul Begala and asks him to help with debate prep as well. Then we have a scene where Begala, Carville, and the fictional guy meet with Howard Dean (yes, Dean is in the episode) for debate prep and give him some advice and a line to use in the debate if he’s asked about Vermont’s small minority population. Later in the episode we see footage from the debate where Dean actually uses that line. So did Dean really ask Carville and Begala to help with debate prep and did the show just come up with a fictional reason why that took place? Did the line Dean used really come from James Carville? This show is weird.

I’m linking to this Josh Marshall post to establish a record in my own archives of things that we’ve been told along the way by the current denizens of the White House. Dick Cheney went on TV today with Tim Russert and said some things that just weren’t true in order to pretend like the American people are justified in believing that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. As I’ve said from day one, there are some real arguments to make about why it made sense to invade Iraq, but the President and his friends have eschewed those in favor of a load of crap that they thought sounded better. (The post that follows also has some information about the report on Iraq’s weapons capabilities that may now never be released publicly.)

After reading this, I’m no longer going to make fun of my wife for her obsessive use of a paper shredder and insistence on dropping off all our outgoing mail but greeting cards at the post office.