Good Question

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I watched Meet The Press this morning, and about choked on my orange juice at this exchange:

MR. RUSSERT: June 30: You're going to turn the keys over to the Iraqis. Who do you turn them over to?

AMB. BREMER: Well, that's a good question, and it's an important part of the ongoing crisis we have here now. We've always said that there are two dimensions to dealing with the problems of Iraq. One, of course, is the military dimension, which we're working on right now, but the other is to give a political perspective for the Iraqis to have more and more responsibility. We've been working on that for months. We are now working with the secretary-general of the U.N.'s special representative here, Mr. Brahimi, to figure out the best way to get a representative government in place before the end of June so it has a little practice and then turn over sovereignty to it on June 30. And I'm confident that working with him and with the Iraqi people, we, in fact, will get that. We'll get a representative government in place before June 30.

"Well, that's a good question"?!?!?! What the hell kind of answer is that? I think post-June 30 Iraq is going to make the current situation look mild. I think it's time for Bush & Powell to go to the UN, hat-in-hand, and ask for some help.

Market forces

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Ahh, you have to love the hypocrisy of the right wing. They say they're all for letting market forces regulate industries, that government shouldn't be doing it, unless it's someone having the audacity to talk about sex, then they should be regulated. If the speech was really that offensive, wouldn't Stern's ratings force him off the air? Wouldn't a boycott of his advertisers be the mature thing to do, rather than infringe upon his right to free speech? If Stern has a large audience, wouldn't it stand to reason that the "public sense of decency" has changed? I wonder if there are any universities in Canada that need a Sysadmin, I'm starting to see it as the Land of the Free, and the U.S. as the Land of the Right-Wing Religious Zealots, who simultaneously have a strange fear of, and fascination with sex and nudity of the human body, but no problem with graphic violence. I, for the record, enjoy both.

Gmail and e-mail privacy

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Wired, as well as many other outlets, is running a story about the privacy concerns with Gmail, Google's proposed service. To me, if you're not using PGP or GPG, you have lost all credibility when talking about e-mail privacy, as you're not even taking any steps to secure yourself. Sending e-mail without GPG or PGP encryption is like writing your message on a post card. Any relay your e-mail passes through can read and store a copy of your e-mail, and any shared wire that your e-mail passes over can be sniffed, and your e-mail read. You can use PGP/GPG on every platform, and there are plugins for a great many e-mail programs as well. I currently use it with Thunderbird, and here's my public key: -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (MingW32)

mQGiBDhNmFURBADnmXXG1ZLdf2lyRzos6/V9it+ALk3r37wA/HCeRvMkaj3AUo3M 7cacL+BLxw7YJC2TN7AIn7qfTyua2OwBvfbwxEKR9MNTVcZokhtpZ/UY/PX8Nz85 AInCBZGqyjftH0fX56nZM6gUpbP4XDWihcK8NFSEFixJxc6fciStpY5uOQCg/43d 0lLuTQ5PZ14Oh0vbA5Byq+sD/1oTxOY8SCXQ/0EqnG0dphzb6hU2x806G/hM55w0 L0ugG9b3NB76P7DvPlAF7tK+XFDXuQ4xGWItJuFZtgMuV4G/0NhBcK3grUhWasaB y8reptaJxxzY3FuYy3fAe2YvM6msLUJHEwvOzxQfauQCZcqVhhMbs8DwxuEeHo/O ErjwBACMrdW1nAoAFmY82ELl7q97naQqOIE0SSGcHH0iJG00A6nrxRIgaA24oGdM gb87HPv9tgdq4mb8riTAEat529S2wAGQy0V2GZoAvfX9zGIcGBG5YSJDisoW1H4A VPUX7jRLd1pzmzEKDpEFzNymoN6cGEYiIlKfnJwn3Ihlu4+jbLQoU2V0aCBILiBC b2tlbG1hbiA8c2V0aC5ib2tlbG1hbkB1bmkuZWR1PohOBBARAgAOBQI4TZhVBAsD AgECGQEACgkQOiUz+Af5BIIaswCg1yM+cubJ5aHh0T0YUfbx4SHbzWYAn0rUAWnI uT07diSTuKICYYQ9fZwVuQINBDhNmFUQCAD2Qle3CH8IF3KiutapQvMF6PlTETlP tvFuuUs4INoBp1ajFOmPQFXz0AfGy0OplK33TGSGSfgMg71l6RfUodNQ+PVZX9x2 Uk89PY3bzpnhV5JZzf24rnRPxfx2vIPFRzBhznzJZv8V+bv9kV7HAarTW56NoKVy OtQa8L9GAFgr5fSI/VhOSdvNILSd5JEHNmszbDgNRR0PfIizHHxbLY7288kjwEPw pVsYjY67VYy4XTjTNP18F1dDox0YbN4zISy1Kv884bEpQBgRjXyEpwpy1obEAxnI Byl6ypUM2Zafq9AKUJsCRtMIPWakXUGfnHy9iUsiGSa6q6Jew1XpMgs7AAICCADQ hxDoHS5ojatSJ6sYBhplfRUbgpGpH23vqVdg6g1uXrSgJZMpe5aCm3wMchfBV1LT SDMrOOcy5rzRsacZhgZCVqgt5jm0V72HDD2737/Fjw17wJVfeD/MIn3bUvT4XPxK Ru98dzPmCMp4yG4bImKgpbwN9GCCslT2eO5po1fVF7Z6BhGSOaGTsZkGEILHwitf co9lcQXqnGa1f++nNvNTnP0ril0O5ugKdjXEmW8HpGhG3wXHUG+CopjGTcPvnLfZ A6fVoQjlGxyMgJZeUsSE8nXlOve9NnAtLUhE3sCJFe7RZsRXd4Y2m2R5QOeRvWpM +YkQvbGcPFEq1CGX8P6AiEYEGBECAAYFAjhNmFUACgkQOiUz+Af5BIJHnwCg5buK Y7yMZmKh+Dk6frxK0BiCnWcAnjVXQIssq4rAxhfnbds89pWmM0v8 =NV8M -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Kerry-McCain?

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The Boston Globe is running an article talking about the possibility of a Kerry-McCain ticket. To John Kerry, I say this. Just do it. I'm a Democrat, but if McCain was running against Kerry, I'd vote for McCain. Adding McCain to the ticket isn't going to dillute your base, it can only bring more voters to your side, and it'd make me a lot more enthusiastic about supporting Kerry this fall. Talking amongst my co-workers, I have this question. Who are all these people who voted for Kerry? I don't know any of them. I'm serious, I know people who were for Edwards, people for Dean, people who were for Gephardt, and even people for Kucinich, but I don't know a single Kerry supporter, and I never really understood why they thought he was the best choice for our party.

Choosing McCain would bring a lot of the Deaniacs more on-board with the Kerry campaign, for, as the article mentions, many of us are McCain fans as well. We like straight-talkers, and don't give a damn if they're "too angry" in the opinion of some pundit.