Kyle

A little background first... I subscribe to CRISIS Magazine's e-newsletter. It's a hyper-conservative Catholic magazine, and every so often (once a week or so) they send out a newsletter with the latest bits of news in conservative Catholic circles. I subscribed because I saw an ad advertising "10 Things Every Catholic MUST Know", and was curious. I've kept it... well, because it's as informative as it is infuriating. Anyway... So I got an email from them today, giving kudos to the Senate for voting (unanimously) to award the Pope a Congressional Medal of Freedom, and noting that Archbishop O'Malley of Boston said something that could be construed as giving the Voice of the Faithful organization approval, and finally discussing the recent goings-on in Massachusetts. First, the Voice of the Faithful... it's a group of Catholics who would like a little bit more democracy and flock-based influence in the decisions of the Catholic hierarchy. This is a simplistic way of looking at them, but check their website and make your own decision on that score. I find it interesting that hardline conservative Catholics are against this... but on the other hand, it's nontraditional, non-authoritarian, and in all other ways a new idea. Obviously, conservatives will reject it. I just hadn't thought it would be objectionable. Ah, well... Now, the goings on in Massachusetts... If you haven't been paying attention, the Massachusetts Supreme Court recently decided that denying gay people the right to marry each other was contrary to the state's constitution, and therefore laws that did that must be changed---they gave the legislature 180 days to fix it (it being the existing laws that prevent gay marriage). CRISIS is, predictably, not happy with this situation, for a myriad of reasons mostly stemming from their belief in the moral authority of Leviticus, which has a passage that is frequently construed as banning homosexual activity. The basis of the belief is, as I said, passages in Leviticus, a chapter of the Old Testament. The Old Testament, and particularly Leviticus, is a listing of ancient Jewish civil laws, including among other things a prohibition from touching the skin of a pig (outlawing football) and allowing you to sell your children into slavery and mandating that you kill people who work on Saturday. So, obviously, it's a strict authority (nevermind that Jesus essentially said "look, these laws are getting out of hand, that's not how you get into heaven, listen to me, I'll tell you how things are."). Additionally, the passages in question (and the ones surrounding them) are specifically talking about pagan temple prostitutes, not the general populace. (There are much more thorough explanations out there... here and here for example) So, big whoop, they're misinterpreted and misapplied. The interesting part of the argument that CRISIS makes is that marriage confers certain benefits in our society, from health insurance to the right to see and/or make decisions about your partner when they are having severe medical difficulties. These benefits are mandated by law, and if gay marriage becomes legal, could be forced upon conservative churches and charities that find such things to be contrary to their beliefs. To be honest, I hadn't thought about it like that before. On the other hand, when we decided to integrate schools and to make it illegal to force black people to use different drinking fountains, we had to deal with lots of people who didn't like it (some people even believed (religiously) that black people were not human). That's what happens when society decides you're WRONG. The argument, however, is that this is censorship. HOW??? People disturb me.

I found this cartoon, and thought it was hilarious: http://images.ucomics.com/comics/nq/2003/nq031122.gif It makes a point, similar to the one Al Franken makes in his book Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them. Back in the day, a technique in politics that was looked down upon was something called "mudslinging", or saying nasty and possibly untrue things about your opponent. Political discussion in this country these days is dominated by exactly that, except the people throwing mud around have lots more mud to throw than they used to, and are much more sophisticated about throwing it (and particularly, since conservatives are in power and are taking over the media (yes, I'm talking about YOU, Fox News, Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, et al.), the conservative side of the political spectrum). Loaded polls ("how would your opinion change if you found out candidate X had done Y?"), blatantly untrue books ("Treason!"), etc. etc. etc. make for some really slick mudthrowing that it can hardly be considered mudthrowing, because the term sounds so messy. If you're gonna throw mud, at least be funny about it (thank you, Al Franken). But the cartoon really speaks to something we all must have noticed by now. Our conservative champions and voiceboxes keep turning out to have nasty little secrets. Limbaugh is/was addicted to drugs, the staunchest supporters of the sanctity of marriage have had who knows how many, even Jessie Jackson was unfaithful to his wife. It's just... depressing. But, when talking about the religious right, and how unexempt the (ultra?)-conservative and/or religious right leaders seem to be from the same thing makes for some pretty spiffy cognitive dissonance. Ah, so I've gone and explained the comic's humor away... ah, well—it strikes a nerve for me.

I found an interesting article about security at AskTog.com. Here's an exerpt:

Fifteen years ago, the approved method for gaining possession of a vehicle other than your own was to wait for the owner to wander off, then jimmy the door and hammer a screwdriver into the ignition. Bowing to auto-insurance industry pressure, auto makers have removed that option in many high-end cars, which are no longer practical to steal.

This has made the insurance companies very happy, but, unfortunately, it is getting a lot of their clients killed, since high-end cars are no longer being taken when the owners are away, but when the owners are there, car keys in hand.

Interesting, no? Read the full article here.

Iraq on the Record, a searchable database.

Due to a conversation I had with a friend recently, I did a little research into presidential vacationing. I found this link which enumerates the amount of vacation taken by the last four presidents. Let’s pretend an average person gets 2 weeks of vacation per year (probably more like 1 week, but let’s be generous). So, pre-supposing weekends are off, and that there are 56 weeks in a year, that’s 280 work days in a year. Two weeks off is 10 of those days, for a total of about 3.5% of the year that a person gets as a vacation. Update (9/14/04): As Jeff points out, I had a brain-fart on the number of weeks in a year. There are 52 weeks in a year, which makes it 260 work days in a year. Two weeks off, or 10 days, is approximately 3.85% of the year. Alternatively, if you view weekends as vacation time, that’s two times a week, or 104 days, plus 10 extra days of vacation, that’s 114 days of vacation, or about 31.2% of the year. Now, to compare with the presidents…

Let’s start with Jimmy Carter. Carter was President for a single 4-year term. Over those 4 years, he took 79 days of vacation. Assuming he didn’t get any weekends off, that’s 5.4% of the time that he was on vacation. Not too bad, all things considered. He was the most powerful man in the world, but he basically took about 20 days off per year—about 3 weeks.

Next up: Ronald Reagan. Reagan was President for 8 years, and took 335 days of vacation during that time. Doing quick math, that’s almost 365 days, which means it’s almost a YEAR of vacation, which means he was on vacation almost 1/8th of the time. Doing more math, to be more precise, that’s 11.4% of the time that he was on vacation—twice as much as Carter.

Next up: George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush Sr.). Bush Sr. was President for 4 years, and took 543 days of vacation time. 543. Five hundred fourty three days of vacation. That’s a year and a half! Out of FOUR! That’s 37% of the time! He was on vacation more than one out of every three days. He got paid for four years of work, but only worked two and a half of them. Put another way, every year, he took more than four months of vacation. Yowza.

Next up: William Clinton. Clinton was President for 8 years, and during that time took 152 days of vacation. As a percentage, that’s approximately 5.2% of the time—even less than Carter.

Next up: George Walker Bush Jr. Bush Jr. has been president for less than 4 years so far. As of August 2003 (with a year and a half remaining in his (first) term), he had been on vacation 250 days, or approximately 27% of the time. That means every year he’s only taken three months of vacation, on average. Compared to his father, he’s a workaholic!

Not so fast, says Fred Kaplan, staff writer for Slate Magazine. Prior to September 11, 2001, George W. Bush was on vacation for 96 days. Given that he’d taken office on January 20th of 2001, that means that as of September 11th, he’d been “on the job” for 234 days. If 96 of those were vacation days, he was on vacation 41% of the time. Apparently he got guff for that, and has since been taking less vacation, bringing his average down to a measly 27% almost two years later by taking a mere 154 more days of vacation, which, giving him the benefit of the doubt, means he averaged only to be on vacation 21% of the time after September 11th (as of August 2003).

But let’s not depend on a single source… It seems The Washington Post has been doing some counting too, and they disagree with Doug Griffin of Counterbias. As of April 2004, Bush spent 233 days at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Add to that his 78 visits to Camp David and 5 visits to Kennebunkport, Maine gives you a grand total of more than 500 days on vacation at one of Bush’s usual retreats. That’s a lot! That’s more than 40% of his time STILL on vacation!

Conveniently, Yahoo has an Ask Yahoo feature that has answered the following question: How many vacation days has George W. Bush taken to date as President? How does that compare with Clinton? They come up with similar figures (and they cite the Washington Post).

Back in 2001, the San Jose Mercury News newspaper commented on it as well, with an article titled Bush Break Longest in a Generation commenting that Bush’s 30+ days of vacation during August 2001 was the longest vacation since Nixon in 1969.

But this sounds like a bunch of liberal whining, doesn’t it? I mean, don’t presidents get weekends off? 42% has gotta be misleading, doesn’t it? And in fact a couple people attempt to “debunk” this number. The way to debunk these numbers is to point out that these numbers include weekends and federal holidays, and that these so-called “vacations” were working vacations, where Bush met with foreign leaders and went out to “listen to the people”.

Unfortunately for such debunkers, as it turns out, United States Presidents do not get weekends off. Presidents are at work more than United States Postal Service workers (some of them at least get Sunday off). Or at least, they’re supposed to be. And “listening to the people” turns out to be little more than in-office campaigning with taxpayer money—Bush gave a bunch of speeches to various Republican rallies during his “vacations” … which may not qualify as vacation exactly, but certainly can’t be construed as doing his job as president or working “for the people.” And in any case, when compared to the vacation days of the recent Democratic presidents (which might include weekends and “working” vacations as well) it still is not a very complimentary picture.

(Note: I am not addressing the accusations of some that this vacationing that Bush undertook affected his performance, particularly with regards to information about terrorist activity with an eye towards preventing what happened on September 11th. Bush was briefed, a little bit, while he was on vacation (note: this is not working, this is equivalent to watching the nightly news, where the nightly news happens to be classified), so it seems to have been a bigger, more systematic problem than strictly “Bush’s fault”. That said… by the time September 11th rolled around HE WAS ON VACATION NEARLY HALF OF THE TIME. Get over your damn selves.)

Originally authored on: 2004-08-23 01:52:12 I really find this whole thing rather irritating. I honestly don’t care what Bush was doing during Vietnam. If he was in Vietnam, that would be great. If he was in Arkansas, that would be great. If he was in Texas, that would be great.

The big issue is that we don’t know where Bush was. We’re pretty certain it wasn’t Vietnam, which is why he shouldn’t really say much about the war record of someone who was. I don’t think Kerry should say anything about Bush’s record in the Texas National Guard.

What I find distasteful is people who claim that there is proof that Bush was fulfilling his duties. The fact is, there isn’t. He may have been, and if he was, like I said, great. But there isn’t any documentation. Some would assert that because he got an honorable discharge, he must have fulfilled his duty. This is not necessarily true, as you can see.

Anyway, since it has come up multiple times, and it seems that no further evidence is forthcoming, I figure I ought to document the dumb thing. At the very least, so I can point to it when it comes up again, I’m going to document what I can.

A decent summary of the questions raised is posted here although as it’s from Salon, a known hotbed of liberalism, so some might doubt it’s veracity.

A website I haven’t seen before, but has a very complete record is one called “Calpundit” which has not only a record of the relevant issue, but also has scanned-in copies of many of the relevant documents. here here and here

The summary seems to be: there is no sufficient record or proof that Bush fulfilled his required duty in the Texas National Guard. This does not mean that he didn’t do it. This means that there is no proof that he did. Some have said if he released his pay stubs from that time period (assuming he kept them), then that would resolve the issue. To my knowledge, he has not done so.

If that isn’t sufficient documentation, and if I find or am directed to more info, I’ll add more. Help cataloging this crap is welcome and requested.

Update (8/24/2004): USA Today has a good summary of things thus far.

Update (9/7/2004): The Miami Herald has a report summarizing what is missing, and documenting the Allied Press (AP) lawsuit against the government to obtain the missing documents. According to the AP, there are five categories of missing documentation, as follows (this is quoted from the article):

1. A report from the Texas Air National Guard to Bush’s local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good standing. The government has released copies of those DD Form 44 documents for Bush for 1971 and earlier years but not for 1972 or 1973. Records from Bush’s draft board in Houston do not show his draft status changed after he joined the guard in 1968. The AP obtained the draft board records Aug. 27 under the Freedom of Information Act.
2. Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status. When Bush skipped his 1972 physical, regulations required his Texas commanders to “direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination,” according to the Air Force manual at the time. An investigative report was supposed to be forwarded “with the command recommendation” to Air Force officials “for final determination.”
   Bush’s spokesmen have said he skipped the exam because he knew he would be doing desk duty in Alabama. But Bush was required to take the physical by the end of July 1972, more than a month before he won final approval to train in Alabama.
3. A written acknowledgment from Bush that he had received the orders grounding him. His Texas commanders were ordered to have Bush sign such a document; but none has been released.
4. Reports of formal counseling sessions Bush was required to have after missing more than three training sessions. Bush missed at least five months’ worth of National Guard training in 1972. No documents have surfaced indicating Bush was counseled or had written authorization to skip that training or make it up later. Commanders did have broad discretion to allow guardsmen to make up for missed training sessions, said Weaver and Lawrence Korb, Pentagon personnel chief during the Reagan administration from 1981 to 1985.
   “If you missed it, you could make it up,” said Korb, who now works for the Center for American Progress, which supports Kerry.
5. A signed statement from Bush acknowledging he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to another guard unit after leaving Texas. The statement was required as part of a Vietnam-era crackdown on no-show guardsmen. Bush was approved in September 1972 to train with the Alabama unit, more than four months after he left Texas.

Update (9/9/04): According to a new FactCheck document Three new things have come to light (much of this text (the text in italics) is directly lifted from the FactCheck document, though FactCheck has more references, more details, is better documented, and doesn’t have my editorializing):

1. A Boston Globe report Sept. 8/ concluded that Bush “fell well short of meeting his military obligation” because of irregular attendance at Guard drills. The Globe said Bush’s superiors “could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973 or 1974. But they did neither.” The Whitehouse, understandably, contests this conclusion.
2. The Associated Press reported Sept. 8 that newly obtained records show Bush’s Texas unit continued operating the type of airplane that Bush was trained to fly until 1974, long after Bush’s last flight in April 1972. Bush aides once suggested that a reason he stopped flying and later skipped a flight physical, leading to his official grounding, was that his services weren’t needed because the F-102 Delta Dagger planes were being phased out.
3. The CBS program 60 Minutes planned to air an interview Sept. 8 with former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, who says he used his political influence to get Bush into the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, when the Vietnam war was raging. Barnes says he did the same for a “lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names,” and is now “very ashamed.” This, I feel, is neither here nor there. Bush got into the National Guard because his dad was a big-shot politician. All those who are surprised, please identify yourselves for further ridicule. Turns out, very few people like the draft, and most folks were doing their best to avoid it. Bush had the influence to avoid the Draft in a way that was very non-dangerous and completely legal (as far as I know, legal, anyway). Who wouldn’t take that opportunity? And it quite possibly could have been done without Bush Jr’s knowledge. What father wouldn’t try to keep his kids safe if he could? But, it does nobody any good to pretend that Bush getting into the National Guard (a very popular alternative to the draft, for obvious reasons) was just “the luck of the draw.” I mention it here only because FactCheck does, and because I’ve heard this kind of crap argument before.

This complements the previous, and more complete article at FactCheck. It essentially points out that while documents are fairly suggestive that Bush was where he said he was, but are not conclusive.

Update (9/13/04): More discussion of how much you can get away with and still be honorably discharged here.

Update (9/21/04): It appears that Bush’s records were tampered with.

Update (9/28/04): Another summary, this time by the LA Times. Summarized here: One key point of the article is that Bush did not meet one set of obligations as a Guardsman: the training minimum for members of the Ready Reserve. (Guard members are also in the Ready Reserve, which has a different set of attendance standards than the Guard.) And addressing the issue of Bush’s failure to take a flight medical exam, the article notes that an “array of Guard officials…said they could not recall another pilot who skipped his mandatory medical exam.” Ret. flight surgeon Jerry Marcontell, who was the flight surgeon for Bush’s air wing, said, “There were cases where they’d be a few weeks late because their regular jobs might get them in a bind. But I don’t remember anyone missing a physical for months at a time. Certainly not a year.” Bush’s aides have provided varying and contradictory explanations why he did not take that exam and was subsequently grounded. Still, the Mystery of the Missing Exam remains, well, a mystery. Now why can’t Bush clear that up?

Things that worry me.

Remember Diebold? They were the company that supplied California with a whole bunch of electronic voting machines, and then were caught doing all sorts of unethical things like install illegal software on the voting machines (illegal because that software is legally required to be inspected and approved by the state). They were prosecuted for that illegal activity (that prosecution is still pending). Now a high-ranking Diebold executive quit his job at Diebold to go to work for the state of California, as the man in charge of voting machines.

Can you say “conflict of interest”?

Crossfire invited Jon Stewart on to talk about his new book, and he took them to task for being, in his words, “partisan hacks”.

My god, I have an unbelievable amount of respect for this man.

http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/nobush/iMovieTheater231.html

( local, high-res copy is here (84MB) - you may need to download the 3ivx and DIVX video codecs to view it. )

TheStar.com has a decent followup to Jon’s appearance on Crossfire. Here too is Stewart’s own followup on the Daily Show.

(the following is mostly from an email that I sent)

Crossfire is an interesting show to start a crusade on (if that’s indeed what he’s doing) because it’s probably more like what Jon would like to see than not. I mean, if you’re out to call someone a political hack on a debate show, you’d be far closer to the mark if you did so on something like Fox’s Hannity & Colmes (Hannity’s a douchebag and Colmes is a wuss). But on the other hand, if you’re going to go somewhere to call the media on it’s rather blatant mis-handling of important political news, you need to do it somewhere where people will not simply quickly go to commercials and escort you off stage as soon as they realize what you’re up to.

I don’t know much about Tucker Carlson—when I watched Crossfire, it was Novak that was the regular contributor, and he really is a douche-bag (hey, he published the whereabouts and identity of an undercover CIA operative: major doucheitude). But in terms larger than just Crossfire, I think he’s got a perfectly valid point about where media is going these days. I mean, when, for example, fact-checking the political debates, the media figures will research and find 3 problems with Kerry and 3 problems with Bush and call it “balanced”—when in fact, the three problems with Kerry are not knowing Pell grants, not knowing that Bush did meet with the Congressional Black Caucus once, and having left the word “projected” out of one of his sentences about the surplus in the budget in 2000, and the problems Bush had were lying about the recipients of his tax cuts, lying about his position on the man who attacked the United States (Osama), and taking credit for protecting Americans from contaminated vaccine when it was in fact the British who protected Americans. They’re NOT equal gaffes! And more than that, the media doesn’t even have reasoned discussions about the pros and cons of the actual policy suggestions. Instead they prefer to focus on the facial expressions (Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004) and similar ancillary crap (Mary Cheney, for example).

I think Jon’s point is that, regardless of how “balanced” Crossfire may seem to be, they aren’t actually providing much of a service to their viewers, they’re just providing entertainment. One side goes “rah! rah! you suck!” and the other side echoes it back—nobody’s mind is actually convinced or changed. At best, you’re simply aware of a headline you weren’t before—and if that’s all you want, you can watch Jon’s show to get the same thing. Jon gets away with simply listing headlines and making fun of them, because his show is on Comedy Central, whereas more mainstream news outlets, like CNN, have more of a responsibility to be actually useful. (It may be a fair argument to say that CNN’s responsibilities are to it’s investors, and it should show whatever to maximize their income, but let’s be honest: the porn industry pays better, and really maximising their income would result in something like Naked News. If they refuse to stoop that low, then they must have some other agenda than pure money.)

Politicians go on shows based on reputation, and what it will do for them. I think (and this is just my, very obviously whacked out, opinion) that if a show developed a reputation for scrupulous attention to detail, absolute honesty, and religious devotion to manners and aversion to personal attacks or other debate fallacies, then a politician’s willingness to go on such a show would be a benchmark of honesty and openness, and they’d do very well. And when they don’t have guests, they can reasonably discuss the issues amongst the regular contributors. This Week with David Brinkley, back in the early nineties was just that kind of show, I think (the show has since gone downhill)—but maybe I was just young and impressionable. Crossfire is an interesting case, because it was designed specifically for little more than one- or two-line zingers, shouting over each other, with no real mandatory fact-checking except what the hosts decide to do to call the other on it (so, only fact check it it’s really important to your argument that the other guy was fibbing). I really doubt that they could really change much, which is why I think (and hope) that Jon was simply using it as a platform to launch a more fundamental crusade for quality journalism.

It disturbs me that people no longer (can?) trust the media to actually do factual reporting. Everyone has a spin, a slant, whether they admit it or not and these days one has to either admit that you only want to hear one side, or you have to go out and seek a dozen or more sources in order to get anything even approximating a balanced view. That’s crap! I don’t want to have to do the research—that’s what the news agencies are for. Why on earth should I have to go to several different news agencies and read several different stories about the same event just to be sure that I know all of the major facets of that event? I mean, there ought to be some bigger distinction between Al Jazeera and Fox News or CNN than simply political leanings and budget size! And we’re sliding in that direction, sadly. And I can understand why we might be sliding in that particular sad direction—in my email conversations with people I disagree with, the conversation starts out reasoned, but by not carefully monitoring the contents of the conversation, over time it degenerates into name-calling and “well, you’re guy sucks even more” arguments instead of real substantive discussion. Quality political discussion is really hard, and factual reporting is even harder. Its success is largely based on reputation, which takes a long time to build (particularly in this day and age of widespread suspicion of talking heads).

While I don’t know what Crossfire can do about it—probably nothing in the short term—I think it’s a valid criticism of the media that many people are recognizing, and it should be addressed (we’ll need some real strong editors with thick skin, spine, balls of iron, and a herculean sense of journalistic ethics). I dearly hope that Jon is actually going to work for that goal, and that it wasn’t a one-off to get some laughs while being rude to another show.

My observation was that while I watched him say that I was thinking “oh my god, he’s saying what I’m sure everyone is thinking”. I mean, the audience was laughing their asses off, and they were there because they LIKE the show! Perhaps they recognized that they were attending more for the theatre of it than to actually hear something that might convince them to change their minds on some topic?

One of the more typical accusations that Kerry supporters will make against Bush supporters in moments of pique is that Bush supporters simply do not live in a world of reality. Of course, this is part of a series of name-calling and nasty personal attacks in both directions, and nobody wins.

Interestingly, a new study has come out that lends some weight to this particular personal attack. Now, I’d like to state right up front that I don’t generally subscribe to this position, and at worst I blame the leadership for misleading (lying) to the rank and file… but it certainly is an interesting result. Remember, this speaks to the statistical average, and not any particular Republicans by name.

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Why do you suppose this is? Why do such large segments of the population believe factually incorrect things?

… how would the race for president look if everyone actually understood what the true facts of the matter were?

heh, it’s too true to be funny.

I don’t feel this way right now, but somehow it speaks to me.

Ever see those “punch the monkey” banner ads? Ever thought “man, this would be a lot easier if the monkey was strapped to a table”? Ever follow through with that thought in real life? Well, these losers have.

To quote:

PETA has sent the 253-page complaint and a videotape to the Department of Agriculture, requesting the lab be shut down until an investigation can be conducted.

“The tape shows experimenters using their power over the monkeys to torture and torment them, while lab supervisors stand by or even join in,” said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk.

To wit, they would strap monkeys to tables, and punch them repeatedly - rumor has it, they did it to create bruises so they could test concealer cream.

A report out from Philadelphia details the gross abuse of power and true mental sickness of the priests in power in that area. This is reported in an article in the National Catholic Reporter and an editorial in the same.

The report from Philadelphia explains how the two archbishops involved buried reports of sexual abuse specifically with an eye towards escaping the statute of limitations. Towards that goal, they were brilliantly successful: as a result of their efforts, the grand jury found that they could not indict any of the priests involved because the statute of limitations had expired.

And because of the way the archdiocese is set up legally, as an unincorporated association rather than a corporation, its officials also could not be prosecuted for crimes such as endangering the welfare of children, intimidation of victims and witnesses, and obstruction of justice.

“As a result, these priests and officials will necessarily escape criminal prosecution,” the report said. “We surely would have charged them if we could have done so.”

Despite most of the grand jury members, prosecutors, and detectives investigating the archdiocese being Catholics themselves, the Church decried an “anti-Catholic bias” and said the grand jury had tried to “bully and intimidate” the Cardinals. This same Church, which required a three year investigation and innumerable supoenas to get the information into the public, also decried the grand jury process as secretive and criticized the “tremendous power” of the district attorney.

One priest, Fr. Gerald Chambers, was transferred so many times—17 different assignments in 21 years—that according to the archdiocese’s records, church officials were running out of places to send him where his reputation for molesting children was not already known.

…

[Cardinal] Bevilacqua agreed to harbor a known abuser from another diocese, Fr. John P. Connor, “giving him a cover story and a neighborhood parish here because the priest’s arrest for child abuse has aroused too much controversy” in Camden, N.J.

Priests were even excused from being dismissed by virtue of committing
other crimes. For example:

[Fr. Stanley Gana] not only had sex with boys, he also had sex with women, abused alcohol and stole money from parish churches, the report said. So that is why Gana “remained, with Cardinal Bevilacqua’s blessing, a priest in active ministry,” the report said. “You see,” explained Lynn to one of Gana’s victims, “he’s not a pure pedophile.”

In another case, an abuser priest—Fr. John Gillespie—who wanted to apologize to his victims for his crimes—was transferred to another parish, not because he might molest his victims again, but because he might apologize to them, the report said. “If he [Gillespie] pursues making amends with others,” therapists at an archdiocese treatment facility warned, “he could bring forth … legal jeopardy.”

Some more interesting excerpts:

Another archdiocesan priest, Fr. Raymond Leneweaver, had T-shirts made for a group of altar boys that he abused, a group he named the “Philadelphia Rovers.” The priest repeatedly pulled one boy out of class in the parish grade school, took him to the school auditorium, forced the boy to bend over a table, and rubbed against him until the priest ejaculated, the report said.

…

While the cardinal knew of the priest’s proclivities, the parents of his unsuspecting victims did not. One father of an abuse victim, the grand jury report said, beat the victim and his brother, one to the point of unconsciousness, when they tried to tell their father of the abuse. “Priests don’t do that,” the devout father replied, according to the report.

…

One 14-year-old boy came to the priest for counseling after a family friend had abused him. “Fr. Gana used his position as a counselor and the ruse of therapy” to escalate the abuse.

…

“Notes in archdiocese files prove that the church leaders not only saw, but understood, that sexually offending priests typically have multiple victims, and are unlikely to stop abusing children unless the opportunity is removed,” the report said.

“In the face of crimes they knew were being committed by their priests, church leaders could have reported them to police,” the report said. “They could have removed the child molesters from ministry, and stopped the sexual abuse of minors by archdiocesan clerics. Instead, they consistently chose to conceal the abuse rather than to end it. They chose to protect themselves from scandal and liability, rather than protect children from the priests’ crimes.”

…

“The grand jurors find that, in his handling of priests’ sex abuse, Cardinal Bevilacqua was motivated by an intent to keep the record clear of evidence that would implicate him or the archdiocese,” the report said. “To this end, he continued many of the policies of his predecessor, Cardinal Krol, aimed at avoiding scandal, while also introducing policies that reflected a growing awareness that dioceses and bishops might be held legally responsible for their negligent and knowing actions that abetted known abusers,” the report said.

…

When the priest pedophilia scandal broke in Boston, Bevilacqua tried “to hide all he knew about sex abuse committed by his priests,” the report said. He had his spokesperson tell the media in February 2002 that there had been only 35 priests in the archdiocese credibly accused of abuse over the last 50 years, even though the archdiocese “knew there were many more,” the report said. The grand jury put the number of abusive priests at 63.

The cardinal also announced to the public in April 2002 that no priest with accusations against him was still active in ministry, even though several still were. “He certainly was not credible when he claimed before this grand jury that protecting children was his highest priority—when in fact his only priority was to cover up sexual abuse against children,” the report said.

From the editorial:

Next month the U.S. bishops gather for their annual meeting… . The bishops in that meeting room in Washington will know that the truth finally came out in Philadelphia not because the diocese decided the community deserved to know it, but because prosecutors relentlessly pursued it.

…

Of what use are we as a believing community if we can’t get this right? Who cares what our chalices are made of or what gender pronouns we use in our prayers or what we say about the unborn or the poor or anything else in our moralizing agenda if we can’t tell the truth about what happened to our children?

This is a rather absurd column, from Cary Tennis, but the first bit of it is so thoroughly true and amusing at the same time that I not only added a piece of it to my quotes collection, but felt the need to include it here:

How can you expect to enjoy life without heartily disliking a good many people? Do not be afraid to dislike the people you dislike. Disliking people is an oft-neglected pleasure. People have so many dislikable traits, it is a terrible waste to miss out on disliking them.

Just so that this is here for posterity… (yay bitterness!)

I had received a letter from the ND Graduate School way back on September 30th stating:

It is a policy of the Graduate School that students who have not yet passed their oral candidacy exam and had their dissertation proposal approved by the end of their 8th semester of enrollment are ineligible for further funding from the Graduate School. Our records show that you have not yet accomplished these goals. If you have not done so by May ‘06, your financial aid will be terminated. Please make every effort to meet these objectives.

Which I think is safe to describe to as a nastygram. It’s been hanging prominently on my desk ever since.

Now, one of the members of my proposal committee is Dr. Kogge, who is (as all who know him already know) eternally very busy. As such, and pursuant to the deadline indicated in the letter from the Graduate School, I scheduled my proposal for May 5th. This is the last day in May (more or less) that Dr. Kogge would be in town, so it seemed a natural day to give me the most time. After discussion with my advisor (I admit, though, that I cannot remember exact details of this conversation), this seemed reasonable.

When I say that “I scheduled my proposal for May 5th” what I mean is that I talked with all of my committee members, told them that May 5th was the day, got scheduling information from them, reserved the departmental conference room, and sent them all an email verifying the schedule. In every case, the committee member I talked to added me to their schedule (Palm Pilot, MeetingMaker, etc.) in my presence.

I talked to the department secretary, Jane, who said that there were basically two deadlines with regards to my proposal that I needed to keep track of. As part of my proposal committee, the Graduate School requires what’s called an “outside chair” (someone from another department whose sole purpose is to symbolically keep each department honest), and the first deadline I was to keep track of, according to Jane, is that they need at least 10 days (10 BUSINESS days, so two weeks, in other words) to arrange an outside chair. The second deadline was described as more of a good-will deadline: give my committee members at least two weeks to read the proposal. That being the case, the “big day” for my proposal was set at: April 21st.

Getting ready for this big day, I was working VERY hard the two weeks leading up to the 21st; staying up until all hours of the night, getting up early, putting everything I had into the “big push”. Finally, I finished the proposal on Wednesday, April 19th, around 5 in the afternoon.

Wednesday, April 19th

10:39 am

I received an email from Jane wondering when I was supposed to be defending, as Kogge had apparently asked her. I hadn’t updated her on the time for the outside chair because, well, it had simply slipped my mind—and I hadn’t missed the deadline for doing so yet.

I updated Jane on the schedule, and she informed me that Kogge was looking for something to read, and stressed that I had better be getting my document to my committee. I told her I was on-track (as far as I knew) to get it to them on Friday.

11:30

I received an email from Dr. Kogge that read:

Strangely, the subject of that email (a detail I did not notice until it was pointed out to me later) was MS defense.

I responded that I was unaware that the customary deadline was so early, and explained that I had thought that only 2 weeks lead time was necessary for a proposal, and that I had been planning to give it to everyone on Friday, but that I was sorry if I had misunderstood the deadlines. I asked if getting it to him by Friday would be minimally acceptable. Dr. Kogge responded only to say that I needed to sync with Jane so that everything went smoothly—something which, by that time, I had already done.

3:45pm

I received an email from Jane that read:

In response, I immediately did as she instructed me, and included with it a copy of her email instructing me to do so, to ensure that Dr. Kogge didn’t think it was the final draft.

4:23pm

Dr. Kogge responded, and CC’d the email to Jane:

This was a rather frightening email, as I appear to have made Dr. Kogge mad. I also appear to, essentially, have completely and utterly failed to appropriately schedule my proposal. At this point I didn’t know what would happen, or what the consequences were for such failure (I knew financial aid would be cut, but I didn’t know if that also meant I was out of the college, or if I needed to take out large loans, or quite what the result would be). I was hyperventilating.

Jane sent me an email apologizing for telling me to send him a copy of my incomplete work, finishing:

5:14pm

Finally, I sent the complete version to my advisor, Dr. Thain, with the remarkably calm-sounding note:

He responded:

Which is precisely what I did, the next day, bright and early.

Analysis

Notre Dame’s Website

The Notre Dame Graduate School’s website contains a purportedly handy checklist of deadlines to be aware of for graduate students who are looking to make sure they are on-track. As of right now (April 23rd, 2006), this checklist titled Graduation Checklist and Deadlines for August 2005 Graduation. Did you catch that? 2005. If you look more closely, the deadlines listed in the smaller bullet-points appear to be for 2006, but with the big headline saying 2005, I wouldn’t trust them.

The 2005/2006 calendar on the ND Graduate School website does not explain what date the proposal must be completed by. Nor does it illuminate when the end of the semester is.

If you read the Notre Dame Graduate School’s website, you will see the part that explains what the official requirements are, under the heading “Candidacy Examination” :

The candidacy examination should be passed, and the dissertation proposal approved (if the approval process is not part of the candidacy exam), by the end of the student’s eighth semester of enrollment. The examination consists of two parts: a written component and an oral component. The written part of the examination normally precedes the oral part. It is designed, scheduled, and administered by the department. The oral part of the examination is normally taken after the completion of the course work requirement. The oral part, among other things, tests the student’s readiness for advanced research in the more specialized area(s) of his or her field. In total, the examination should be comprehensive. Successful passage indicates that, in the judgment of the faculty, the student has an adequate knowledge of the basic literature, problems, and methods of his or her field. If the proposal defense is part of the oral, it should be a defense of a proposal and not of a completed dissertation.

A board of at least four voting members nominated by the department and appointed by the Graduate School administers the oral part of the examination. Normally, this board has the same membership as the student’s dissertation committee. Board members are chosen from the teaching and research faculty of the student’s department. The Graduate School should be consulted before the department or the student invites a faculty member outside the student’s department to be a board member.

A faculty member appointed by the Graduate School from a department other than the student’s department chairs the examination board. This chair represents the Graduate School and does not vote. After completion of the examination, the chair calls for a discussion followed by a vote of the examiners. On a board of four, three votes are required to pass. If a department chooses to have five members, four votes are required to pass. The chair should, before the examination begins, ask the student’s adviser to confirm departmental regulations for conduct of the examination and voting procedures. The chair sends a written report of the overall quality of the oral examination and the results of the voting immediately to the Graduate School.

In case of failure in either or both parts of the doctoral candidacy examination, the department chair, on the recommendation of a majority of the examiners, may authorize a retake of the examination if this is permitted by departmental regulations. An authorization for retake must be approved by the Graduate School. A second failure results in forfeiture of degree eligibility and is recorded on the student’s permanent record.

Note that no discussion of the timing of things (like needing to have them sign off on the paper 5-6 days before the presentation) is discussed. Also note that the next section discussed on that webpage is “Admission to Candidacy” which apparently means something very different from the “Candidacy Exam”, and only needs to be done much much later in the process.

Office-mates

I discussed my situation with some of my office-mates, and when I relayed my experience to Tim Dysart he became somewhat distressed. He was scheduled to defend his proposal on May 4th (the day before I had been), and had not yet distributed his paper to his committee members. His advisor is Dr. Kogge, but he had apparently not been informed of or held to the same requirements that I had been. This is when Tim pointed out to me that the subject of Dr. Kogge’s first email had been “MS defense”, even though the language within the email was somewhat ambiguous. He suggested that Dr. Kogge was merely confused. I find this possible, but I point out that when I scheduled my proposal with Dr. Kogge (about a week or two earlier), he had immediately said “ah, you must be in the same boat as Tim is, up against that May deadline”, so I would have thought that if he was keeping Tim’s situation straight, that I would be associated as similar.

Because I needed to reschedule my proposal defense, and because Dr. Kogge was going to be unavailable before May 28th or so (and in any case, were I to get things done before the end of the semester under the new deadlines that had been explained to me, I was virtually out of time anyway), I was forced to examine the question: what really happens if you can’t make the May deadline? And when exactly is that May deadline anyway?

Visit to the Graduate School

At Emily’s suggestion, I went to the Graduate School (on the top floor of the Main Building) to find out. When I asked the receptionist when the end of the semester was, she looked smiled and said, “well, it depends…” I explained that the Graduate School had sent me a letter threatening me with the removal of my paycheck if I didn’t get my proposal done before the end of my 8th semester and wanted to know what the very last day for that was. She looked uncomfortable and said she didn’t know, and disappeared into the back offices to find out. She came back explaining that they were pretty flexible, but that Graduation (May 15th) was really the very last day they’d consider it. When I asked what exactly the penalties were, the receptionist again disappeared into the back offices and brought forth a woman named April who could answer my questions. April explained that the penalty merely meant that my Graduate School funding would be cut off. To be more precise, since I do not receive any financial aid directly from the Graduate School itself, the penalties, and thus the deadline, do not affect me or any other student who is financed similar to me (for example, virtually no graduate students in the Engineering department are affected).

Unanswered Questions

• Why does the Graduate School send ambiguously worded, threatening letters to students who are technically unaffected by the threat?
• Why is the hard deadline of Graduation (May 15th, this year) unpublished?
• Why is the end of the semester so hard to pin down?
• Why is the checklist on the Graduate School website still listing August 2005?
• Do readers of a proposal require the document three weeks ahead of the proposal date, or only two?

End Result

In the end, I think what needed to happen happened, and things are reasonably good going forward. Just a lot more stressful than it needed to be.

There was a discussion on the DJBDNS mailing list recently (very short, because of the characters involved) about email and DNS-based blacklists. The discussion is here.

The basics of it go like this: DNS-based blocklists (DNSBL’s or DNS-RBLs) are publicly available lists of “known-bad” IP addresses. How this generally works is somebody (SpamCop or MAPS, for example) will use some method (frequently known only to them) to determine whether or not a given IP address is a spammer or not, and will then publish that information. Other people (for example, Notre Dame) use that information to make decisions about whether or not to accept or reject mail from those IP addresses. There are a zillion of these lists, and many people use them as a short-cut (looking up the IP address in one of these lists is much easier than doing fancy content-analysis like we do on memoryhole.net), particularly when they’ve got a high volume of email.

The claim, that I don’t believe, is that these things are essentially illegal. The reason people say these black lists are illegal is because they do not discriminate between non-spam and spam, but merely everything from a given host. The justification is usually Exactis v. MAPS, where a spammer (Exactis) sued the MAPS blacklist for listing them, claiming that, among other things, MAPS was abusing monopoly power and violating America’s anti-monopoly laws. What happened was that Exactis got a preliminary injunction (i.e. MAPS had to take them out of the blacklist), and then MAPS settled out of court.

To get more information, I asked my brother, who is a lawyer (passed the bar exam, currently gets paid for his legal services, etc.) to take a look and tell me what he thought.

The first thing he points out is how to think about this preliminary injunction business. He says:

Just FYI, a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction are essentially the same, but with important differences. A TRO is completely ex parte, and the other side gets no say in the matter, and is only granted when the harm is so immediate that the time it takes to get the other side to appear in court will damage the person requesting the TRO, and you also have to list and certify the efforts you’ve taken to inform the other side and to try to secure their appearance in court. A TRO expires in ten days, if not sooner. A preliminary injunction lasts through the final decision of the court as to the merits of the case.

So why was the preliminary injunction granted in this case? Well, the standard that the Tenth Circuit Court uses to decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction is defined as follows:

In the Tenth Circuit, preliminary relief is warranted upon a showing (i) that Plaintiff faces irreparable harm, (ii) that the prospective harm to Plaintiff outweighs any damage Defendants might sustain without an injunction, (iii) that injunctive relief is not adverse to the public interest, and (iv) that the case presents serious, substantial, and difficult questions as to the merits, as to make the issues ripe for litigation and deserving of more deliberate investigation. Walmer v. U.S. Dept. of Defense, 52 F.3d 851, 854 (10th Cir. 1995).

In other words, a preliminary injunction:

is not a decision on the merits or even that the merits are to be considered. Rather, the standard is a balancing of the risks. In this case, the balancing was easy, given the low individual harm cause by spam, and the high alleged damage to Exactis. Thus, comparing negligible (if any) harm to MAPS (since their business is built more on reputation than individual screenings) and high potential harm to Exactis, the granting of the preliminary injunction was fairly routine.

Indeed, for an example of a nearly identical situation where the preliminary injuction was DENIED, look no further than Media3 v. MAPS.

That doesn’t mean that the denial (Media3) or the imposition (Exactis) is in any way a judgment on the merits of the case. You don’t even have to show that you have a “valid legal argument”, as Dean Anderson claims. Instead, you have to have a “non-frivolous” legal argument. However, according to my brother:

The standard for frivolity is so low that only a limited group of arguments qualify (the only one I know of being an argument against paying the income tax). Attorneys are supposed to advance any claim where they can make “a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law”. (That comes from the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 3.1)

More importantly, for that very reason, the very idea of citing a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction in other legal action is ludicrous. In most jurisdictions, the only things you can cite are “published” final decisions—that is, in the Exactis case, since it was settled out of court, there was no final decision (also, municipal court decisions are not citable, because they tend to be extremely specific to the facts of the case), thus it cannot be cited. You can cite an injunction later on in the same court proceeding, but not in a different court proceeding. So, not only can you NOT cite the Exactis injunction, but it’s, quite specifically, not even a judgment on the merits of the case.

My brother puts it slightly better:

There are two different things involved in a case: facts and law. An injunction is based on the ALLEGED facts (so they may not even be the “real” facts), and a weighing of the alleged harms. The injunction reserves the decision as to the LAW in the case for later, and is intended to preserve the status quo through trial until the law can be decided. So it’s pretty pointless to say to a court that a fact-based injunction issued in a different case has any bearing on the issues of law in a different case. There’s just no relevance there.

But, well, that’s a very thorough explanation of why the Exactis v. MAPS case is, essentially, irrelevant, we’re still left with the question of whether the MAPS-style blacklists are legal or not. Well, there’s still the question of why MAPS settled the case, but that’s kinda beside the point. It could be that they knew it wouldn’t be worth the lawyer fees, or just didn’t want to fight it out. It could be that they flipped a coin. Who knows? Only MAPS, and maybe their lawyer.

Indeed, antitrust cases are almost never decided against the company in question.

So what about the legality of spam blacklists? Well… there’s not a whole lot of definitive law on the matter. But, for example, check out MAPS v. BlackIce. Now, note that this decision is totally un-cite-able. It’s unpublished, and it’s the California court interpreting a Federal statute (considered a “non-controlling” decision), BUT, unlike the Exactis case, it is actually a decision. And what does it say? From page 6, section B:

Mail Abuse argues the Communications Decency Act provides a complete defense to this action… . Mail Abuse is asserting §230( c )(2) as a defense. Under §230( c ):

“(1) No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. (2) No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of: (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or (B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

Sounds pretty good for MAPS, eh? Next:

The next inquiry, then, is whether spam is “harassing” or “otherwise objectionable” material under §230( c )(2)(A). This is an undecided question of law. One federal court, in dicta, noted blockage of unsolicited bulk e-mail was “encouraged” by §230( c )(2). (America Online v. Greatdeals.net (S.D.W.Va 1999) 49 F.Supp.2d 851, 855, 864 (dismissing tortious interference with contractual relations and prospective economic advantage claims) (implying unsolicited bulk e-mail is “harassing” or “otherwise objectionable”).)

…

Whether spam is “harassing” or “otherwise objectionable” is likely an issue that will be resolved in the federal courts. But given the state of law before the court, the Greatdeals.net court’s conclusion that §230 encourages the blocking of unsolicited bulk e-mail seems correct.

Okay, but that’s been established already, right? I mean, we pretty much accept that blocking spam is legal; what about the collateral damage?

Black Ice contends its e-mails were solicited, and therefore not spam. It argues this factual dispute (i.e., whether its e-mails were solicited or unsolicited) cannot be resolved at the demurrer stage. Black Ice fails to read the entire section. Section 230( c )(2)(A) provides immunity for any good faith effort to block content. Any good faith but unintentional blockage of non-spam is therefore also afforded immunity.

(emphasis mine) Aha! This, I think, is a pretty convincing argument that DNS-RBLs are legal. They are (or can be) part of a good faith effort to block spam. The case goes on to go into the details of this particular block, and eventually rules that MAPS was not acting in good faith because of some details of what went on, but the general idea is still valid, and paves the way for black lists (provided that they act in “good faith”).

This past weekend I went home to my parent’s house in Ironwood, Michigan, to celebrate Thanksgiving. By all accounts, it was a lovely weekend. I had a great time, lots of fantastic food, and got to spend time with almost all of the most important people in my life that I rarely get to see.

The return trip, however, was very irritating. My original return-trip itinerary was that I would fly from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Phoenix, and catch an express flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque. Seems simple, right?

The plane to Albuquerque was late.

And by late, I mean irritatingly late. Frustratingly late. Thankfully late. Thankfully? Yes, because my flight from Minneapolis got into the terminal at 9:25 (early!), at some gate in the low A’s (A5?), and boarding of my next flight was due to begin at 9:31. Not, of course, that I had any delusions of getting to eat dinner, but sometimes stray wishes enter the brain just to make things more exciting. After hustling down from one gate to the next, the plane was not there. Not there not because it had left, but because it had never arrived; it was expected to arrive in time to start boarding by 11:45, but the lady behind the desk seemed optimistic we might get on board as early as 11:30 (note, a full two hours late). What luck, right? Dinner! Of course, this dream was short-lived. The nearest restaurants to the gate were already closed, and the next-nearest was only serving booze until 10 (the kitchen had long-since closed). I sat down and ordered a Sam Adams just in time for last call. They kicked everyone out before 10:15.

This was, on the whole, fully unsatisfying. In part because I was really getting rather hungry, and in part because I just wanted a nap (I got up at around 5:30 that morning, after all), or at least to be able to sit down, savor a beer, and stare into the distance for a while. Such was not to be. But, now that I had almost a full hour and a half in front of me, I set about investigating the possibility that somewhere in that God-forsaken airport, some bright young entrepreneur realized that the airlines sometimes bring in new customers even at odd hours of the night. After discussing this with the airport security personnel, who are all-knowing in the ways of airport comestibles, I exited security and arrived at the Paradise Bakery & Grill. This was an oasis in a sea of closed shops and metal grating. They had but one employee and limited cold-cuts-only sandwiches (because it was after hours), and a line about a half-hour deep. I stood, patiently, to get what may have been the most unexpectedly tasty roast beef sandwich of my life. I sat, enjoyed, sipped my cup of ice-water, and nibbled on the slightly under-cooked chocolate chip cookie that came with the sandwich.

By the time I finished, and this is due in part to the fact that I chit-chatted with some of the other unfortunate souls who had also discovered the Paradise Bakery from the security folks, it was past 11:00. This is an important thing to note because, of course, all but one of the security checkpoints close down at that point. One security crew, in the C terminal, are still at their posts. As best I can tell, their job is to frisk Paradise Bakery customers who, because of the late hour, don’t care anymore. I made it back through security and made the long trek back to the far end of the A terminal in good time, and arrived at gate A25 to discover that the plane was there, and that boarding (or, more specifically, pre-boarding) had just begun. After waiting for the various frequent-flier clubs and zones 1 and 2 to board, I entered the airplane, took my seat, and got settled.

This is when things began to get a little more unusual.

Everyone slowly stowed their baggage and took their seats as directed. The people in the emergency exit rows consented to sitting and not doing anything for the extra legroom, and the stewardesses counted the number of passengers, twice. Then, at the point where everyone fully expected the airplane to push back from the gate and get underway, there was an uncomfortable pause. It wasn’t very long, just long enough to be uncomfortable. That was when someone up front informed us all that there was a test that needed to be run on the plane, but that the test needed to be run without passengers. Never fear, of course, we were encouraged to leave our belongings in the plane because we’d be back shortly, but we had to leave. Some of us, myself included, believed the nice man, and so left things. I left my jacket, others left everything. Some were smart, or merely had no luggage, and took everything they had off the plane.

Once off the plane, with a few stragglers still exiting, we were informed by the gate staff that, in fact, we were changing planes. Not only would we need to go back and get our belongings, but we would need to go to gate B6. Note that this is a different terminal. So, back on the plane we went, pushing past other passengers exiting the plane, to fetch our things. On the way down, we ran into the pilot, who demanded to know why we were getting back on the plane. When we told him that we had to because we were changing planes, he got a pained and worried look on his face, and jogged up the jetway to do what can only be guessed would be “knocking some heads.” Belongings gathered, everyone exited the plane and started the long walk to gate B6. Some, who didn’t have luggage or who had wisely chosen not to trust the airline, had already made the trek. By the time I’d gotten down to around the closed Starbucks just past gate A15, they announced over the speakers that, in fact, we were not changing planes, and to come back to gate A25. Back we went.

The fellow manning the gate announced the obvious, that there was apparently some confusion, and that we should all sit tight at gate A25 while the bigwigs figured out what was going on. Those who had made it all the way to gate B6 took several minutes to return, and so only heard the explanation from sarcastic co- would-be passengers. The plane departed for testing, and everyone made themselves comfortable. After a half-hour, the gate staff broke out the normally-$5 “snack packs” and small bottles of water to help with passenger morale. These were greedily devoured by the crowd, no doubt due to some combination of wishing to recoup their losses, thinking they were taking vengeance, boredom, and actual hunger, given that stores had been closed for almost three hours now.

Finally, they announced that the plane had, in fact, failed the test, which as it turns out was less routine and more because the guy who was supposed to hook up his tractor to push the plane away from the gate had noticed some problem with the landing gear. We would indeed be changing planes, and they needed us all to vacate the premises and go to gate B6 now.

No one walked quickly, and everyone appeared to be rather tired. One man near me made several comments revealing that his brother lived in town, and had he gone straight home when the plane was originally delayed, he’d have had dinner and been in bed already. One group commented that once in Albuquerque they were looking forward to a 3-hour drive to their real destination. When I got to gate B6, I could see out the window that there was a plane sitting there, but several key features were missing. First, the people to let us on the plane, and second, the pilots, who one assumes were busy disposing of the previous plane to wherever they dispose of planes. At this new gate, we waited, for somewhere around another half an hour. CNN switched from a long expose on autistic children to a repeat of some live interview show that I forget the name of that promised an in-depth look at Michael Richard’s comments at the comedy club. Finally, the gate workers arrived and let us onto the new plane.

We entered, got stowed luggage, and got settled once more. The stewardesses—one looking just as tired as the rest of us, the other so perky she must have been taking amphetamines of some sort—handed out pillows and blankets. Again, at about the time that we should have pushed away from the gate, there was an awkward pause. No one spoke, hoping against hope.

It really is an unusual thing, to be amongst so many people, in perfect silence.

The silence was broken by the pilot, who explained, with a detectable amount of irritation mixed with some sort of “please forgive us” overtones that apparently someone had forgotten to put fuel in the plane, and if we would all be patient, the fuel truck would soon arrive and disgorge 8,300 pounds of fuel into the belly of the beast. We sat, and waited. It was at this point that I broke out my free “snack pack”. I had no more illusions that this would be quick. The crinkling of my wrappers sounded strange in the surreal-ly quiet cabin. I quickly consumed the cream crackers with processed cheese, a disturbingly yellow Quaker apple-cinnamon breakfast bar, a small chocolate-chip biscotti, and best of all, some shortbread cookies. The dried fruit pack went into my laptop bag for later (if ever). Finally, the captain announced that the fuel had been delivered, and a few moments later, the plane pushed back from the gate. The passengers, myself included, were too tired to cheer, but they began to have quiet conversations once again. I leaned into the pillow they had brought, and fell asleep before takeoff.

The plane finally landed at about 3am, Albuquerque time. I made it to my car, and back home, without incident, finally getting to sleep around 3:30 in the morning.

Some half-crazed moron at Microsoft, in an attempt to be helpful, made an idiotic decision.

Of what do I speak? Microsoft Entourage (11.3.6.070618) attempts to be both convenient and pretty by replacing apostrophes (') with curly quotes (’). Ordinarily, I wouldn’t complain. I like curly-quotes as much as the next guy, and I regularly use a vim plugin called UniCycle to achieve the same effect. HOWEVER, Entourage knows that it only wants to send text email in the ISO-8859-1 (aka “Latin1”) character set, which does not contain a curly-quote. This presents the age-old conundrum: “wanna curly quote, can’t have a curly quote”. So Entourage must choose a different character from the ISO-8859-1 character set to use instead of the curly quote. The obvious choice would be the apostrophe ('); people are used to it, and after all it is a quote! But what does Entourage choose? A superscript 1, like this: ¹

What goon came up with this? A superscript 1, in most fonts (except at very small sizes) looks nothing like a quotation mark. It looks like the number one! Which is exactly what it is! And, let’s be honest here, how many fonts do you suppose have a superscript one character but NOT a curly quote or an apostrophe?