Dirty Politician: Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)

Long-time drug warrior politician Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) turns out to be a dirty politician. As Radley Balko of The Agitator puts it:

...the chair of the House Committee that writes our tax laws didn’t know that he’d been given an interest-free loan for a luxury Caribbean Villa, didn’t know that he was getting taxable income off of rentals from said villa, and didn’t know that he had a duty to report and disclose and report the $75,000 in income from said rentals that apparently slipped his notice?

Riiii-iiiight. This would be the same guy who didn’t know how he somehow was able to accumulate four rent-controlled apartments in New York City, and didn’t know about laws against using rent-controlled apartments for purposes other than a primary residence.

Rangel’s either a corrupt liar, or he’s shockingly ignorant of laws a man with his position and responsibilities ought to know about. Either way, he should be stripped of his chairmanship.

I'd go farther than that--any corrupt politician should be removed from office and tossed into prison. It rarely happens, because nearly all of them, along with the leaders in the executive branch, are similarly corrupt.

Ian McShane narrates McCain: Reformed Maverick

The Daily Show has outdone itself with this one.



UPDATE (September 8, 2008): The part about McCain crashing five planes isn't true.

FFRF billboards are up

A group of us from the Phoenix Atheists Meetup had lunch today near one of the billboards and used the occasion for a photo op. This is one of the five billboards, which, contrary to my earlier descriptions, are all of the "Imagine No Religion" design. Too bad, I would have liked to have seen the "Beware of Dogma" design up, as well as the "Keep Religion Out of Politics" slogan. (If I obtain permission, I'll update this photo with one of the group shots, which can be seen at the Phoenix Atheists Meetup site.)

There's some additional coverage in Ed Montini's column at the Arizona Republic.

Cocaine plane was used by CIA

The Gulfstream II jet that crashed in Mexico last year with 3.7 tons of cocaine on board was frequently used by the CIA to fly terror suspects to Guantanamo Bay, and may have also been used for "extraordinary rendition" flights to CIA prisons overseas, as well as for Bush fundraisers. Donna Blue Aircraft, the company the plane was registered to, took down its website yesterday.

(Via The Agitator.)

Bobcats taking over foreclosed homes

See the story at BLDGBLOG. (Thanks for the link, Reed!)

Pundits are more honest when they think they're off the air

Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy say what they really think about Sarah Palin. Why couldn't they be honest about it on the air?

CNN finally does its job

Campbell Brown at CNN shows what a reporter is supposed to do when questioning the representative of a political candidate--insist that they actually answer the questions asked in a meaningful way. After this interview with McCain representative Tucker Bounds, McCain cancelled an interview with CNN in response to what he viewed as unreasonable behavior.



(Via Juan Cole.)

Sarah Palin, promoter of pork barrel spending

Before Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the town received no federal funds. As mayor, she hired the Anchorage law firm of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, to help the town obtain federal funds. The Wasilla account was handled by Steven W. Silver, a partner in the firm and former chief of staff to indicted-for-corruption Sen. Ted Stevens, who helped secure $67 million in federal earmarks for the town of 6,700 residents--$4,000 per person.

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

Palin has stood up to corruption, blowing the whistle on unethical behavior by the chairman of the Alaska Republican Party despite taking a lot of heat for it. But she's also gotten into some trouble of her own, and it almost seems that she fell into her anti-corruption role by accident.

A description of Palin from her fellow Wasilla, Alaska resident Anne Kilkenny is well worth reading. (Kilkenny is also quoted regarding Palin in this New York Times story.) For further perspective, here's another close-up view of Palin as she's seen in Alaska.

UPDATE (September 4, 2008): As governor of Alaska, Palin asked for $550 million in earmarks in her first year in office, and for 31 federal earmarks totaling $198 million so far this year. Oink!

John McCain has long been a critic of earmarks. Turns out he has specifically been critical of earmarks requested by Sarah Palin.

Misinformation about Google's Chrome EULA

Adam Frucci at Gizmodo writes:

So, are you enjoying the snappy, clean performance of Google Chrome since downloading yesterday? If so, you might want to take a closer peek at the end user license agreement you didn't pay any attention to when downloading and installing it. Because according to what you agreed to, Google owns everything you publish and create while using Chrome. Ah-whaaa?

This is false. The EULA doesn't transfer ownership of anything. The provision that has everyone upset is the rather broadly worded provision 11.1:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

Note that the very first sentence says that you retain all intellectual property rights. This gives Google the rights to do the things it already does--let other people play YouTube videos you upload, syndicate your Blogger content, store cached versions of your web pages, allow people to see versions of your web pages translated into other languages, display thumbnails of images on your web pages in Google Images search, and so forth. The last sentence appears to limit it solely for the purpose "to display, distribute and promote the Services" and not allow them to, say, use your content in order to compete with you, undermine your intellectual property rights, etc.

An earlier provision in the EULA also makes this explicit:

9.4 Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has no obligation to do so on your behalf.

So even if 11.1 is a bit too broad, there's this provision to fall back on if you feel your intellectual property rights are being infringed.

Some commenters at Gizmodo said that they didn't agree with this provision and therefore have uninstalled the software, but that's not sufficient to terminate this agreement. Terminating the agreement requires you to give notice to Google in writing and close all of your accounts with them:

13.2 If you want to terminate your legal agreement with Google, you may do so by (a) notifying Google at any time and (b) closing your accounts for all of the Services which you use, where Google has made this option available to you. Your notice should be sent, in writing, to Google’s address which is set out at the beginning of these Terms.

One thing that is clear from these terms is that Google definitely wants to interpose itself between user and content in a manner similar to what Microsoft has done for years with Windows, and in a much stickier way than telecom providers are between user and content. If you have network neutrality concerns about telecom providers or had antitrust concerns about Microsoft's bundling of the Internet Explorer web browser with Windows, you should probably have similar concerns about Google, given the way use of its browser is bundled with an EULA covering all of its services. Shouldn't I be able to discontinue this EULA by getting rid of the browser, and not by terminating all of my accounts with Google? Will there be a lawsuit about unbundling the Google Chrome browser from the rest of its services?

UPDATE: Ars Technica reports that Google says this was an error and they will be correcting the license, which was borrowed from other Google services, apparently without careful review. It also notes that since Chrome is distributed under an open license, users can download the source code and compile it themselves without being bound by the agreement.

The major flaw in the 11.1 language is that it gives Google the right to publish content you merely "display" in the browser, even if it's private content on a local server or restricted content from a secured website. That clearly wasn't their intent, but that's an implication of how it was written.

Palin Christian heritage declaration misquotes, misrepresents

Last year, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declared "Christian Heritage Week" in Alaska from October 21-27, 2007, with a proclamation that misquoted and misrepresented various Founding Fathers, at least two of whom would have opposed just such a proclamation (Jefferson and Madison).

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars steps through her proclamation and corrects the misinformation.