Vast archive yields new view of 9/11: “Faced with a court order and unyielding demands from the families of victims, the city of New York yesterday opened part of its archive of records from Sept. 11, releasing a digital avalanche of oral histories, dispatchers' tapes and phone logs so vast that they took up 23 compact discs.”

Yeeeaaaahhhh! - Howard Dean will be on "Face the Nation" this Sunday, which also happens to be the 70th birthday of Social Security.

Here are my two predictions: 1.) Dean will not propose any potential solutions to Social Security's solvency problem but will insist that Democrats are willing to "come to the table" if only the President abandons personal accounts. 2.) Dean will use the poll-tested phrase "abuse of power" no fewer than five times (e.g. John Bolton to the U.N.)

Down at Camp Casey - Varifrank has a personal take on the Cindy Sheehan situation (hat tip to Betsy) Rick Moran has some thoughts also. All I’m going to say is that Sheehan’s characterization of her son as a reluctant warrior who was duped into service flies against the evidence that he enlisted of his own free will, re-enlisted at 24, then volunteered for the rescue mission where he was killed. That’s all.

France – A country so wonderful, with such a great economy, that people can’t wait to leave

Smashing the spammers

From the Economist here’s “Opening Pandora’s inbox”

For overweight lovers of pornography in need of a cheap loan or a “boost”, the offers of slimming pills, Viagra, smut and the like that flood into e-mail inboxes around the world are a positive boon. For most consumers and businesses, however, “spam” has grown over the past few years from a mere nuisance into a costly and time-consuming threat. On Tuesday August 9th, business fought back. Microsoft’s case against Scott Richter ended in victory for the software giant after the “spam king” agreed to pay $7m to settle charges relating to a lawsuit filed in 2003 against his internet firm, OptInRealBig.

One study estimated that spam costs American businesses $17 billion a year in lost productivity and anti-spam defenses. Richter makes Dennis Kozlowski look like a piker.

Baseball is “a game in a crisis of faith”

So says the Baltimore Sun in this article stating “players, fans at all levels question the integrity of baseball amid scandals.” Some disenchanted fans greeted Rafael Palmeiro on his return after a 10-game suspension:

Plenty of Orioles fans, though, weren't ready to turn the other cheek just yet. Scott Anderson, a police officer from Harrisonburg, Va., showed up at the game with three friends, all wearing orange-and-black T-shirts with Palmeiro's No. 25 on the back and "Hall of Shame" and a syringe on the front.

All four men sat in box seats just behind the Orioles dugout and cheered for their team. They said they'd be back tonight, with their custom-made shirts that cost $52 total.

"I was Raffy's biggest fan because he was the exception to all these other cases," Anderson said. "When I heard the news, I said to myself, 'Who do I believe anymore?'

Somebody owes Jose Canseco an apology.

Peanut farmer putdown – I’m a firm believer in the notion that ex-presidents should make their political thoughts known to their caddy, and that’s it. Deference should be paid to the executive office and this should be understood by former commanders-in-chief. But then again if you’re Jimmy (“history’s greatest monster”) Carter and you’re trying to live down a disastrous presidency then I guess you have to do all you can to reform your image. Unfortunately, sometimes you step over the line and invite a smackdown from George Will.

Tax them kids some more, we love free money – Today I was listening to C-Span on my satellite radio and they were broadcasting an AARP rally in celebration of Social Security’s 70th birthday. I was hoping to find some commentary at Social Security Choice, but here’s the summary. Everybody loves Social Security, at least everybody at the AARP rally. And every speaker recognized that the program faces a long-term solvency problem. Yet not a single person proposed a single action to address the problem. Oh there was much suggestion that a “bipartisan solution” should be drafted, but the AARP wasn’t prepared to do much beyond criticizing personal accounts. It was depressing, to say the least.

Your #1 is my #1! – Kris at Dummocrats picks her greatest TV shows of all time. I don’t have a list prepared, but I would agree on the top spot.

High self-esteem but low votes

Kevin Drum compiled a list of “10 reasons why Democrats aren’t getting votes” for the Washington Monthly blog. As Ex-Donkey notes, the funniest part are the comments to Drum’s list which roughly equilibrate to: “We’re too wonderful for ordinary Americans to understand.”

Equal time – John Hawkins has "11 reasons why people don’t vote for Republicans"

Baseball’s shame

Let’s face it: baseball was just asking for a slap-down. The sport is perpetually wrapped in a grainy Ken Burns mythos of America and apple pie, somehow elevated above other pursuits. Now that the baseball union has grudgingly agreed to steroid testing, it looks like every record book will be thick with asterisks. Except this time it won’t be for Roger Maris’ extended season but for the particular steroid a player has ingested to achieve a tainted benchmark. Here’s Harvey Araton in the NY Times with “Baseball swings and misses on accountability in drug testing”:

Believe me, Palmeiro pleaded, after a decade or more of the entire baseball industry lying to the public and even more to itself. When no one from the commissioner's office disputed the anonymous report identifying stanozolol as the steroid for which Palmeiro tested positive, suddenly the diversionary crime was the betrayal of confidentiality, the grounds for a potential grievance on Palmeiro's behalf - still being explored, according to a spokesman yesterday for the players union.

"One high-profile player tests positive, and look at the chaos," Dr. Gary Wadler, a professor of medicine at New York University and an expert on performance-enhancing drugs, said in a telephone interview. "The problem, once again, is in the system."

Baseball will soldier on, however, because the money is flowing in. Bud Selig will turn a blind eye as the syringes are unsheathed. But already the older players are wondering what’s become of the game:

And yet it remains to be seen what the eventual - and long-term - impact of the Palmeiro affair, and any future steroid revelations, will have on the business of baseball and the game itself. Now, Hall of Famers and other former stars seem to be taking more of a hard-line stance, boldly questioning records and statistics perhaps achieved under the influence.

These voices have impact.

Guys like Hall of Famer and ESPN analyst Joe Morgan, who told the Philadelphia Inquirer's Claire Smith: "The game doesn't belong to these players today. It belongs to all the players who have ever played - Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson - the guys who helped build the game, not guys who have hurt the game. Now these great players' numbers are being pushed back."

Baseball will still pull in viewers but let’s not shrink from the result of the steroid scandal: America’s pastime is dead.

The big tip off

When the Tennessee fugitives were making their getaway, they told the taxi driver taking them to Columbus that they were going to an Amway convention. The cabbie became suspicious because they weren’t nearly obnoxious enough:

"They didn't strike me as the Amway type because to be honest they weren't very pushy about their product and I've dealt with them before so -- that was my only real suspicion," Wagers said.

Get’s ‘em every time.

Two quick notes from Germantown, New York

I was visiting my moms the past couple days in Columbus County, New York and two stories jumped out at me. One was that there was an event at FDR's home in nearby Hyde Park to commemorate the 70th annivesary of Social Security. On hand to debate Social Security this coming Saturday are Michael Tanner of the CATO Institute and Paul Krugman of Loonyville. As Matthew Hoy reminds us, it's been over 200 days since the erstwhile columnist of the New York Times promised to reveal his plan to reform Social Security.

Second, all of rural New York was abuzz with the candidacy of Jeanine Pirro to challenge Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. Pirro may be way behind in the polls (this is New York, after all) but the challenge could put Hillary on the defensive, especially is Pirro makes an issue of pledging to serve out a full Senate term.

Breaking news - "Swat team nabs fugitive couple" in Columbus, Ohio.

Back in the saddle again

Finally and with con$iderable expen$e, I got my computer back from the Geek Squad at Best Buy. Long story short, my hard drive was dying and they installed a new one. However, this meant that they re-installed Windows XP and all else was lost, except for the data in the "My Documents" files. I need to re-install everything.

The only programs they installed were PC-cillin AntiVirus and SpySweeper; so far these programs have been the watchdogs of the system. I re-installed Office XP and I'll get to the other stuff tomorrow. Ciao.

Like a salmon swimming upstream...

Well, I tried to post from my sister's ancient computer with dial-up, but never in the three years since she got the Emachine has she checked her system for spyware/adware. Trying to get through her Internet connection was like slogging through mud as I desperately tried to close pop-ups as fast as they appeared. Eventually I figured out that her Netscape browser only had a fraction of pop-ups and I managed to download Ad-Aware. On it's first run, it found over 1100 bad files; after the definition update it found 200 more.

Still, I couldn't get onto Blogger and even now I'm editing a current post (the space shuttle got down) rather than make a new one. I'm not even sure if this will publish after I'm done. I'm on my wife's Apple Powerbook running an old version of AOL.

My computer is still at Best Buy, but the Geek Squad guy said they managed to clean the disk of all viruses but that they're having trouble moving all the data to the new hard drive and it will be a couple more days. (Sigh). Still, I was happy they took care of that virus/spyware attack and installed new security software. While I was away, I also downloaded SpyWall, Registry Mechanic, and Mozilla Firefox; I'll install all these after I get my computer back over the next couple days. The Best Buy guy said it'll definitely be done by Friday because they need to clear out for the big sale this weekend. Here in Massachusetts there's going to be a "sales tax free" weekend so everybody's holding off on major purchases until the weekend. It's funny but some people don't like to pay taxes.

Your favorite blogger will be back up to speed soon. [crossing fingers] As always, thanks for your E-mails and comments with comptuer advice. I think I'm almost out of the woods.

Breaking news - Peter Jennings dies at 67 - details at ABC News

Not that there’s anything wrong with that - From Fox News “Former Oil-for-Food chief quits U.N.”: “The former chief of the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program, Benon Sevan, resigned from the United Nations Sunday — just hours before the results of a probe are expected to accuse him of getting kickbacks from the $67 billion operation.” Of course, Sevan is admitting nothing and instead is blaming Kofi Annan for using the investigation for “political gain.” Who says the United Nations isn’t a mature and purposeful organization?

Speaking of the Sunday talk shows - There was a panelist on "The Chris Matthews Show" (somebody from "Vogue"?) who said there was a stealth campaign going on, especially among Southern Democrats, to "stop Hillary." She went on to say that the belief is growing that Hillary Clinton would do worse than Gore or Kerry in a general election because she could never swing some of the more moderate/conservative districts in Ohio and Pennsylvania, for example, over to the Democrats' side.

I only fear Hillary in the sense that she will spend the next year running to the middle, knowing that the nostalgia-driven liberal base will fall in behind a Clinton candidacy during the general election. Then again, the Senate has been a dead-end for Presidential asperations, so Hillary, noted recluse Joe Biden, and Evan Byah will have a tough time. I'm more worried about Democratic governors below the Mason-Dixon line such as Mark Warner of Virginia or Bill Richardson in New Mexico.

And Thomas Pynchon was on "Face the Nation"

Do you know who appeared on one of the Sunday morning talk shows this morning? Joe Biden! Wow. He was deeply concerned about something, yet not enough to offer any opinion on how to address the issue. Repeatedly, an eyebrow was furrowed.