bustardblog

No More Excuses.

Bush lovers are really desperate people. For proof of this, please look at David Brooks' op-ed in today's NY Times, entitled "No More Excuses". He's so  proud of the newest accomplishments of this administration, you'd think that his son, W., had just been bar mitzvahed.
Having called Iran called Iran a part of the axis of evil, and having watched them pursue the possession of a nuclear bomb for five years, our government has announced that we will talk to Iran. Iran has wanted to talk to us for years, but Bush has always refused.
Brooks would have you believe that this is a brilliant strategic move, or a "gutsy maneuver" as he put it. As Iran was continuing to develop a bomb, the Bush/Rice team "quickly" "agreed upon a course of action that was neither passivity, nor bombing."
They decided to use diplomacy.
That's right: Brooks is impressed that the President and the Secretary of State decided to use diplomacy. (Under other Presidents diplomacy was actually a part of the Secretary of State's job description.) Working with our allies, an agreement was reached on possible sanctions: "Reaching [it] was no easy task"  according to Brooks. Normally getting allies to agree is not something to rave about; that's why they're called allies.
He writes that "the accomplishments over the past few weeks have been impressive. Bush and Rice have created a coherent policy." (Yep, - a coherent policy is an impressive achievement - for this administration.)
He concludes by writing that "this display of competence" causes him to remember other things that the administration has recently done "well;"  the appointments of Hayden and Paulson. Actually promoting the head of the NSA to the be head of the CIA was never considered the equivalent of brain surgery, and hiring a Wall Street Big Shot to head up the Treasury Dep't wasn't viewed as a successful heart transplant. But we are talking about this administration. 
BoBo's next piece is entitled "No More Mishaps" and will note the triumph of Bush's failing to fall of his bike for ten days straight!
I'd hate to have to call BoBo unfair because of "the soft bigotry" of his "low expectations."

A Cruddy Debacle

The impenetrabilty of Bush's Bubble will once again be demonstrated tonight when Bush speaks on immigration.  Underscoring their "see nothing, know nothing" mentality, Karl Rove  said that the only polls worth paying attention to are ones done by the Republican National Committee - you know, the ones that show how much we really do like Bush and want to have a beer with him, if only Iraq wasn't bumming us out a tad right now. Laura doesn't need to look at polls; she knows the nation reveres her man.
So it's really no wonder that Bush is implementing his plan to alienate the entire country within ten days. And he going to use aliens to do it. Last week he got the left and what's left of the old right leaping on the grave of his administration; hopping mad because of the illegal surveillance programs at the NSA. His only defenders were the rabid ones - the National Review/Michelle Malkin core of the Republican Party.  Tonight he will offend them. There is nothing he can do to please this group, short of announcing that he has the power to beam up 12,000,000 illegal immigrants and transport them to Mexico like a Scotty on Star Trek.(without the concern about their arriving in one piece) Plus he has to mention that the Star Wars program is ready to work - in a slightly altered form - one in which its missiles incinerate any foreigner within 3 miles of a U.S. border. (No, Congress never authorized this, but remember he added a note saying "or whatever" in his signing note on the budget.)
Mark Levin of The National Review made it clear that  if the National Guard is not authorized to shoot on sight, supposition, or just a whim, Bush's administration is doomed. Just patrolling the border is not enough for Mr. Levin.
In case you thought that there was a group out there not angry at the President, please read Paul Krugman's "D is for Debacle," where he describes the debacle of Medicare part D. If the horrible features of the program listed in Krugman's article aren't enough to infuriate you, there is another aspect of the plan that  I only learned about today. After you reach "dough-nut hole" status, when  you have to pay full price for every medication you take since you have already consumed $2,250.00 worth of medicine, you also must continue to pay insurance premiums. You must pay premiums while getting absolutely no benefit. When Krugman concludes that everything that this administration touches turns to crud, he is not overstating the case.

Tonight Bush will make sure that that assessment is unanimous - thus becoming the uniter, not divider, that we knew he could be.

Scary Stuff

A few days ago I posted on why Michael Hayden should not be confirmed as the new CIA director. (5/9/06)
One  reader commented, indicating  just how much bigger this was than the failure of the NSA to get FISA approval on surveillance of international communications. He wrote:

Narus Ltd.==
Under Gen. Michael V. Hayden the NSA has forced tecom companies to implement massive domestic spying hardware. Even though Gen. Hayden has said at the National Press Club that "As the director, I was the one responsible to ensure that this program was limited in its scope and disciplined in its application." The NarusInsight is one type of domestic spying hardware. Capable of monitoring 10 billion bits of data per second in real-time. This means the NarusInsight can monitor an OC-192 in realtime. For reference 10 billion bits is 10 million Kbts, divide that by the average DSL user witch is 256 Kbts (10000000/256) you get monitoring of 39062.5 DSL lines in realtime for every piece of hardware. After data capture Narus softeware can replay data. What does this mean well acrodding too Narus website "Capabilities include playback of streaming media (for example, VoIP), rendering of Web pages, examination of e-mails and the ability to analyze the payload/attachments of e-mail or file transfer protocols." Think of it as Tivo for the internet able to replay 39000 US DSL users activity in realtime for every piece of hardware.They talk about limits but this hardware is anything but [limited]
References:
Narus Ltd http://narus.com

Wired News published an article on April 7, 2006 about a whistle-blower, a retired AT&T employee, who had observed an NSA agent specially interviewing and hiring someone who would work in a secret room at AT&T in San Francisco. "The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400," which was frequently used by government spy agencies. He was able to confirm that cables from the secret room were tapping into AT&T's Internet service.'

AT&T is a large customer of Narus, and the company even lists AT&T as a 'partner.'

William P. Crowell, a director on the Board of Narus, held "a series of senior positions at the National Security Agency, including Deputy Director of Operations and Deputy Director of the Agency." He currently serves on the Defense Advanced Research Agency Task Force on Terrorism and Deterrence.

The San Jose Mercury News wrote that the CEO of Narus, Greg Olshan, "said the company's software is designed to allow carriers to monitor all Internet traffic, including Web searches, e-mail content and attachments, and Internet phone calls.
(emphasis added)

Scary Stuff.