(_________) leaving the Bush Administration is like Jeffery Skilling leaving Enron.

A) Scott McClellan
B) Karl Rove
C) Andy Card
D) The Easter Bunny

Your answer: ___

In our ever-more-polarized political debate, it appears that it is now wrong to ever change your mind, even if empirical evidence from the real world suggests you ought to.

I find this a strange and disturbing conclusion.

This kind of polarization affects a range of other complex issues as well: You can't be a good Republican if you think there may be something to global warming, or a good Democrat if you support school choice or private Social Security accounts. Political debate has become a spectator sport in which people root for their team and cheer when it scores points, without asking whether they chose the right side. Instead of trying to defend sharply polarized positions taken more than three years ago, it would be far better if people could actually take aboard new information and think about how their earlier commitments, honestly undertaken, actually jibe with reality — even if this does on occasion require changing your mind.

Why shouldn't I change my mind?

Newly retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor took on conservative Republican critics of the courts in a speech Thursday. She told an audience at Georgetown University that Republican proposals, and their sometimes uncivil tone, pose a danger to the independence of the judiciary, and the freedoms of all Americans.

I've said several times that I felt that O'Connor's legal career wasn't over just because she retired from the Supreme Court. I have a feeling that this great woman will continue to make public speaking engagements where she calls it like it is. At least, I hope she does.

NPR : O'Connor Decries Republican Attacks on Courts

Serving on the highest court in the land is apparently a tiring affair for at least one Supreme Court justice who caught 40 winks on the bench, literally.

According to the Associated Press, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg snoozed during testimony today over political redistricting in Texas.

"Justices David Souter and Samuel Alito, who flank the 72-year-old, looked at her but did not give her a nudge," writes Holland.

"At first, she appeared to be reading something in her lap. But after a while, it became clear: Ginsburg was napping on the bench. By Bloomberg News's reckoning -- not denied by a court spokeswoman -- Ginsburg's snooze lasted a quarter of an hour.

sigh...

WorldNetDaily: Snorer in the court? Ruth Bader Ginsburg snoozes

George Friedman has written a "geopolitical intelligence brief" entitled "The United States and the 'Problem' of Venezuela." In that analysis, published under Friedman's byline, but more likely written by one of his editorial assistants, concludes that the confrontation between President Hugo Chavez and the US government is irrelevant because Venezuelan oil exports continue flowing to the US, and these oil exports won't be suspended because Chavez needs the US more than the US needs Venezuela. "Sometimes," Friedman concludes, "there really isn't a problem."

I read the dispatch referred to from Stratfor. If anyone here is interested in reading it, let me know and I'll post it to the thread. Stratfor allows that to a limited degree as long as there is attribution.

In the linked article, John Sweeney disagrees heavily with their analysis. Given the tone it's clear that Sweeney does not like Friedman much. The end of this article alleges that Venezuela is directly linking itself with nation-states firmly on our 'unhappy' list, particularly in the area of attaining nuclear weapons. Given the vast difference in opinions and the presence of questionable facts, this is becoming an item of curiosity.

In fact, the Chavez and Castro governments have jointly developed international networks to move billions of dollars of Venezuelan oil revenues into offshore bank accounts. Chavez and Castro are also aligned closely with Iran, Syria, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and, most recently, Hamas in the Palestinian territories. The Chavez government not only has purchased weapons from Russia, but has also been in secret talks with Pyongyang to buy conventional infantry weapons.

Last year Caracas and Tehran signed bilateral agreements worth about $8 billion of investment. They also signed a secret bilateral protocol to support each other in developing nuclear weapons capability. Iranian and Cuban geologists are already prospecting in Bolivar state's jungles for uranium deposits.

There are now over 40,000 Cuban nationals in Venezuela on official missions. However, our sources in the Chavez government and FAN report that DPRK has deployed between 100 and 200 elite Special Operations Forces troops to Venezuela to train elite FAN troops in asymmetrical insurgent warfare tactics and strategies that now form the core of Venezuela's new Bolivarian National Security Doctrine. Also, Iran and Syria have deployed more personnel into Venezuela, many allegedly as immigrants. Arab immigration to Venezuela from the Palestinian territories and southern Lebanon is also growing rapidly. Radical Islamic influence in Venezuela's Foreign Ministry is so pronounced that the two most radical Imams in Venezuela are routinely asked by the Foreign Ministry to review and approve all Venezuelan diplomats posted to embassies in the Middle East.

Friedman writes that the only thing about Venezuela that matters to the U.S. is oil. However, Venezuela's oil exports to the U.S. dropped by 300,000 b/d last year, the first year after Chavez announced he will break Venezuela's oil supply dependency on the U.S. Anyway, it's no longer just about oil. Our sources in Caracas confirmed recently that Chavez is quietly seeking through his Iranian and DPRK contacts to acquire one or two nuclear warheads and the systems to deliver those warheads to the U.S. mainland. With an estimated $30 billion deposited in secret offshore bank accounts, Chavez has enough cash to buy such weapons secretly. His loud support for the Iranian and DPRK nuclear programs seeks to hasten the day when Chavez (and Castro) may secure the one or two WMD they need to have a credible nuclear deterrent against the U.S. They may never succeed in acquiring such weapons, but the likelihood they may fail won't deter them from seeking them.

Hugo Chavez, George Friedman and Stratfor

In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.

Among the 50 withdrawn documents that Mr. Aid found in his own files is a 1948 memorandum on a C.I.A. scheme to float balloons over countries behind the Iron Curtain and drop propaganda leaflets. It was reclassified in 2001 even though it had been published by the State Department in 1996.

Another historian, William Burr, found a dozen documents he had copied years ago whose reclassification he considers "silly," including a 1962 telegram from George F. Kennan, then ambassador to Yugoslavia, containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program.

The program's critics do not question the notion that wrongly declassified material should be withdrawn. Mr. Aid said he had been dismayed to see "scary" documents in open files at the National Archives, including detailed instructions on the use of high explosives.

But the historians say the program is removing material that can do no conceivable harm to national security. They say it is part of a marked trend toward greater secrecy under the Bush administration, which has increased the pace of classifying documents, slowed declassification and discouraged the release of some material under the Freedom of Information Act.

According to this article, sometime today, researchers will be posting some of the discovered re-classified documents on GWU's National Archive page.

U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review - New York Times

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his resume on file at the agency asserted.

Yesterday, Dr. Hansen said that the questions about Mr. Deutsch's credentials were important, but were a distraction from the broader issue of political control of scientific information.

"He's only a bit player," Dr. Hansen said of Mr. Deutsch. " The problem is much broader and much deeper and it goes across agencies. That's what I'm really concerned about."

"On climate, the public has been misinformed and not informed," he said. "The foundation of a democracy is an informed public, which obviously means an honestly informed public. That's the big issue here."

A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA - New York Times

The Senate confirmed Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court on Tuesday by a vote of 58-42, a day after an attempt by some Democratic senators to block his nomination fizzled.

And thus was the beginning of Roberts Court lineup . . . likely to be Bush's most lasting achievement.

CNN.com - Senate confirms Alito to the Supreme Court - Jan 31, 2006

This is an update to an earlier story about Locatecell

In response to disclosures about phone records being sold on the Internet, politicians want federal regulators to verify that the biggest service providers are adequately protecting their customers' information.

Locatecell.com was offline Thursday, its site replaced with a message from GoDaddy.com asking the site's owner to call the domain registrar. Meanwhile, Celltolls.com had a note on its site saying that it was not currently accepting queries regarding Cingular Wireless phone numbers.

Occasionally, Congress works?

Politicians call for better phone record privacy | CNET News.com

Decius and I where lucky enough to be able to attend the last day of witness testimony for the Samuel Alito Confirmation Hearing. Thanks to Tim Ball and John Flym, we were able to acquire a pass to witness part of an important historic event.

As the story goes, Professor Flym was having a problem with his laptop causing him to be unable to file his statement in time to give testimony. Tim's boss told him to do anything necessary to solve his problem. In the process, due mostly to chance and good timing, "anything necessary" wound up involving Tom and I. We were not able to completely fix John's problem the first night, but we were able to get him in a position where he could get his work done. The next day we returned to completely fix the problem, and John gave us a witness pass he had.

Having watched what must amount to several solid months of C-SPAN, being on the other side of the cameras was interesting. The hearing room in the Hart building is like being in a pressure chamber, more so than any court I've been in. I can only imagine the stress felt by those testifying. Tim was busy the entire day, so Tom and I took shifts attending the hearings. I was present during Flym's testimony, as well as that of Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Amanda Frost, Reginald M. Turner, Jr., Theodore M. Shaw, among others, and the closing of the hearings. Tom will probably chime in with his take on the hearings, but I remember him being very happy about being there for the testimony of Fred Grey, who defended Rosa Parks.

Later at Shmoocon, there was some humorous discussion about if the badge qualified as a ticket to the "Nerd SuperBowl" or the "Nerd World Series". At the time, I was strongly on the side of "Nerd SuperBowl", but lacking a well worded concise argument for why. Given some time to think about it, its clear that "Nerd SuperBowl" does fit best. The "Nerd World Series" would better fit a string of WTO and G8 summits, while the Security Council would be the "Nerd World Cup". Its good to be a nerd.

Anyway, joking aside, this was a really cool experience. Both Tom and I spend much time thinking about legal problems. It was a honor to be present in person for even the small portion of proceedings we were. On the linked page, I included a few pictures and screen captures from C-SPAN where I can be spotted. I was unable to find any screen shots where Tom was present. Since he knows where he was sitting and at what time, maybe he will have better luck.

Rattle and Decius at Alito Confirmation Hearing