We show that network theory, combined with the analysis of roll-call votes using singular value decomposition, successfully uncovers political and organizational correlations between committees in the House.

A network analysis of committees in the US House of Representatives [PDF]

] The Washington Post today confirmed that W. Mark Felt, a
] former number-two official at the FBI, was "Deep Throat,"
] the secretive source who provided information that helped
] unravel the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s and
] contributed to the resignation of president Richard M.
] Nixon.

] The confirmation came from Bob Woodward and Carl
] Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who broke
] the Watergate story, and their former top editor,
] Benjamin C. Bradlee. The three spoke after Felt's family
] and Vanity Fair magazine identified the 91-year-old Felt,
] now a retiree in California, as the long-anonymous source
] who provided crucial guidance for some of the newspaper's
] groundbreaking Watergate stories.

Washington Post Confirms Felt Is 'Deep Throat'

This is a good roundup of links and information on the Tennessee Legislature FBI sting via Bill Hobbs.

BillHobbs.com - Operation Tennessee Waltz

] The FBI ran a sting where they posed as a electronic
] recycling company eager to get state law changed to
] funnel business their way.

A similar sting was under consideration in New Jersey, until the FBI realized there would be no state government left afterward.

Tennessee Senators arrested by the FBI!

] William McCardle was arrested by federal authorities in
] 1867 for writing and publishing a series of editorials in
] his Mississippi newspaper. The editorials were sharply
] critical of Reconstruction. McCardle sought a writ of
] habeas corpus on the ground that the Reconstruction Acts
] under which he was arrested were unconstitutional.
] McCardle appealed to the Supreme Court under an 1867
] congressional statute that conferred jurisdiction on
] appeal to the High Court. After hearing arguments in the
] case, but prior to announcing a decision, the Congress
] withdrew its 1867 act conferring jurisdiction.

Ex parte McCardle (1869) []

] "We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon
] international law, not the Constitution of the United
] States. That's just outrageous, and not only that, he
] said in session that he does his own research on the
] Internet. That is just incredibly outrageous," DeLay said
] in the interview.

Tom Delay death spiral watch. This is Fox news. Fox news closed with a quote from a Democrat saying that they need to get Delay out of the public sphere for a little while and let him cool off. Fox news.

How dare judges attempt to research questions that are presented to them! Delay's position is that judges shouldn't be interested in the truth, per say. They shouldn't seek out objective perspectives on matters they need to consider. Rather they should be beholden to the power and money that drives the "democratic" government.

Delay wants to use the "good behavior" text in Article III Section I to bring all federal judges under fine grained political control.

He seems to be operating under the perception that the American people don't realize that the legislature is corrupt, or that politicians are bought and sold, or that people think that judges ought to live in a bubble. He is wrong on all counts, and he is starting to sound like a fool.

FOXNews.com - Politics - DeLay Calls Justice Kennedy 'Outrageous'

] Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line"
] for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph
] Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for
] him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no
] problem,' " Vieira said.

Unbelievable! In very unmistakable terms, this guy advocated the assassination of federal judges. There is a certain disconnection from ethics and reality here that is truly terrifying.

Now, let me go out on a limb here.. After reading this, I feel pretty damn safe saying a radical thing or two. Hell, I feel driven to balance it out. Madness does beget madness.. You'd think that in comparison, it would be pretty hard to breech some line missed by Edwin Vieira. Google this guy and scan over a few items. In short, he is very unhappy with "the Establishment", and thinks that the dollar and the federal reserve system is a bad idea.

So, In a world where someone making purchases with two-dollar bills can be arrested on terrorism suspicions, are fools invoking Stalin and talking about "fixing" the judiciary the answer? I don't think so, and I'm pretty sure Jefferson would agree with me. Would it be acceptable for me to say that people like this should be rounded up and send to "education camps"? Shit, maybe that is the plan. After all this guy does have several college degrees, including a doctorate and a law degree, from Harvard no less.

On one page it said he argued the "last" case involving money the Supreme Court heard, quite awhile ago. I didn't look that hard for any information involving his cases before the court, but I get this image in my head of this guy arguing before the justices and thinking about how he wants to kill them..

This guy needs to get hip to the Conspiracy. Its much more fun than the Establishment. You can't prove it exists, but you can take part! If you build your delusions on something solid, like the Conspiracy, it offers much more personal freedom. Rather then fight the Establishment, join the Conspiracy! Start conspiring! That's how we made the dollar! ho ho ho..

We are all about the principles of the founding fathers in the Conspiracy. Edwin would like that. However, we are not about whacking judges or using Stalin as a role model. Edwin's world view is broken.

One man, one problem.

] Many provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act will expire at the
] end of 2005. This forum is devoted to civil and informed
] debate about these provisions and whether they should be
] renewed, as well as a few other issues that are likely to
] be part of the renewal debate in 2005. We have an
] all-star cast of contributors, each of whom has agreed to
] an exchange of at least four comments on each provision.
] To see the full debate on any provision, just click on
] the link listed below.

Dialog about the Patriot Act's renewal is going to start heating up in the next few weeks.

Patriot Act - The Debates

] How will future historians explain it? How will they
] possibly explain why President George W. Bush decided to
] ignore the energy crisis staring us in the face and chose
] instead to spend all his electoral capital on a futile
] effort to undo the New Deal, by partially privatizing
] Social Security? We are, quite simply, witnessing one of
] the greatest examples of misplaced priorities in the
] history of the U.S. presidency.

NYT | Friedman: Geo-Greening by Example

The FCC under Martin is likely to be more active on indecency than under Powell.

Coming soon: More bullshit enforcement of a specific set of cultural values on what should be a free environment for all culture.

American puritan values, new and improved. Next time a culture decides to escape westward to a new land, to practice their own values, it will require building an artificial continent in the Pacific. No fear, there is still space.

Washington needs to concern itself with managing the allocation and usage of the spectrum, not the content passed therein. The engineer should be limited to approved application of craft within the spectrum, but the purveyors of art and culture should not be limited in their ability to use the spectrum to share the products of their craft.

A grey line was already passed in regard to the broadcast flag. Now we are approaching the fine black lines. There is no level of momentum that can pierce the brick wall on the other side of those lines.

FCC's New Standards-Bearer