Contemplate The Complement

It's hard to make something a secret without pointing to the secret.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska recently placed a hold on a bill that would have forced the government to list publicly all of its contracts and contractors. This was a secret hold, or was supposed to be secret. No one would know who had put the hold on the bill.

However, there are a limited number of United States Senators. A game started on the internet to see who could first identify which senator this was who didn't want the world to know about government handouts. By checking with the other senators and identifying those who denied blocking the bill, the list got short and gamers quickly found the placer of the block. The set of senators who denied blocking was the complement of the lone senator who placed the block.

It turns out that this is the same senator who is attempting to build a 200 million dollar bridge to a very small island. Senator Stevens explained that he put a hold on the bill because it looked like it would cost 15 million dollars to implement over four years, and he wanted to be sure it was worth the money.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, its complement. One result of Senator Stevens' secretive placement of the block in this glass house of an information world is that few senators will dare ever again to block a bill secretly. They know they can be outed.

A second result of Senator Stevens' attempt at prior restraint is that for all the other senators this is now a high-profile bill. They know their constituents are interested, they know the world is watching. Under such scrutiny, they may be more inclined to vote it into law.

The opposite of what he had hoped.


Worse, in the same link above, Senator Stevens' own spokesman Aaron Saunders effectively called him a liar by lying in his name:

"Despite the fact that Stevens' office has refused until today to admit that he placed the hold, Saunders said, "This senator does not place secret holds.”"

Perhaps Mr. Saunders is describing the future?


Senator Stevens could better serve the world by showcasing the wonderful yearly dividend, $5000 or more each, that each citizen of his state receives from oil industry usage fees.

Something like that could make a difference in Iraq.


Addendum: and now that Stevens has admitted to placing the hold, another hold has appeared. The guilty senator on the second hold appears to be a Democrat, Robert Byrd of Virginia, and he isn't talking.

98 Senators have denied placing a hold. The 99th has admitted it. The one remaining senator is keeping it a secret.

(3 hours later) ... and now he's released it.

Farewell, oh land of secret blocks. We've made one more step toward transparency in government.

The Cleverness Of The Enemy

In a question and answer session with 200 Navy personnel on Monday, Defense Secretary Rumsfield identified a cleverness deficit in the American military:

"What bothers me the most is how clever the enemy is," he said at one point.

It's all relative. Mr. Rumsfeld.

Truth Is Quicker Than The Sword

What goes around, comes around faster and faster these days.

At a campaign speech last Friday, August 11th, in Breaks, Virginia, where he is running for re-election, Senator George Allen called the one person of color in the audience a "makaka". This curious word demanded immediate investigation.

"Makaka" is demeaning. It is used among American white racists as a pejorative. It is a code word. Was Allen trying to re-assure his white audience that he was still a good ole' boy?

Mr. Sidarth, the person of color and a native of Virginia, who had introduced himself to Mr. Allen the week before, had been filming Allen's every public moment for Allen's opponent.

To compound his error, Allen then said "Welcome to America". Allen should have known Sidarth was born in Virginia, and probably did. He said it right into the camera as Sidarth was videotaping him. Oops.

The stumble exploded into a kerfluffle and by the end of the week, pundits had concluded that Allen had tossed into the gutter his chances at a bid for the Presidency. Welcome to America, Senator Allen.

Swift and sure.

Can We Sow The Seeds Of Creation?

We are sowing the seeds of destruction.

"And the world wonders how ‘terrorists’ are created! A 15-year-old Lebanese girl lost five of her siblings and her parents and home in the Qana bombing… Ehud Olmert might as well kill her now because if he thinks she’s going to grow up with anything but hate in her heart towards him and everything he represents, then he’s delusional."

This comes from Baghdad Burning, a blog written by a young Baghdad resident.

For whose destruction do we sow these seeds?

Visualize a fleet of bombers in the sky, determinedly carrying school buses through the air, big yellow school buses, while in the distance yellow buses descend on parachutes. How does this make you feel?

Isn't this how you'd rather feel?

Bullies For Lieberman - Did They Destroy Him?

From Connecticut come reports of bullies with Lieberman t-shirts disrupting the campaign visits of his opponent, Ned Lamont.

Ned has already survived an interview on the Colbert Report. An empty chair sits on the stage, awaiting Joe Lieberman's visit. Perhaps he can stop by and clear all this up.

Here are pictures of the bullies from the Ned Lamont site.

Mr. Lieberman, far behind in the polls, of course disavows the assistance of his would-be-friends. One wonders.

The opportunities for ordinary citizens to capture saleable video at a Ned Lamont event have increased tenfold. Photos and video which identify the bullies will be of special interest, as will rooting them out for mainstream media interviews. They made a decision to go public with their vitriol. They may have thrown away their privacy.

Can bullies survive as public citizens in the information age?

The blogger, Kos, observes,

"Rather than bully Ned and 90-year-old vets, the LieberKidz might want to help organize GOTV for their guy. He needs it desperately. Or maybe they can attend their guy's thinly attended campaign events, something else Lieberman needs desperately."

Which is to say, dollars and hours spent on information age connectivity will garner a far better return than resorting to visually interesting strong-arm tactics from the age of repression.