A Suit Too Far

This is ridiculous:

[I]n an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

Bullshit.

Bhutto's Estate Should Sue The Manufacturer Of Her Car

This is a pretty hilarious aspect of an otherwise terrible situation:

The latest explanation Friday by Pakistan's Interior Ministry said Bhutto, 54, died from a fractured skull after hitting her head on a piece of the vehicle.

Sounds like a great products liability case to me. There clearly should have been a warning on the car that the vehicle might not be suitable for use during campaigns in batshit-crazy places where they like to blow up politicians.

Seriously though, I love how the Pakistani government is trying to play down the circumstances of Bhutto's death. This is from the above-linked article:

CNN national security analyst Ken Robinson, who worked in U.S. intelligence in Pakistan during the Clinton administration, said he suspects Bhutto's enemies are attempting to control her legacy by minimizing the attack's role in her demise.

"They're trying to deny her a martyr's death, and in Islam, that's pretty important," Robinson said.

Another Cool Astro Photo

Silhouettes of the International Space Station crossing in front of the moon (from NASA):

What Arianna Said

From the Huffington Post:

With Mike Huckabee's continuing surge, the Republican Party now has an Iowa front-runner whose religious beliefs are virtually identical to those of George Bush. He's anti-choice, born-again, against gay-marriage, and gets political advice directly from God.

So why is the Republican establishment suddenly in a state of near-apoplexy about Mike Huckabee? Shouldn't they be happy? They've been cultivating evangelicals and fundamentalists for 30 years. Now they finally have a candidate who's truly part of the movement. So what's the problem?

Actually, that is the problem. The evangelical crowd was fine when it was just a resource to be cynically exploited every few years in demagogic anti-gay get-out-the-vote campaigns. But now the holy-rolling monster the GOP's Dr. Frankensteins have created has thrown off the shackles, fled the lab, and is currently leading in Iowa. And the party doesn't know what to do. * * *

Huckabee Addresses The Matter Of The 600-Pound Gorilla

From the AP:

Mitt Romney accused Republican presidential rival Mike Huckabee of "running from the wrong party" for criticizing President Bush's foreign policy as an "arrogant bunker mentality."

Romney defended Bush against Huckabee's charge, which the former Arkansas governor leveled in the January-February issue of the respected journal Foreign Affairs.

"I can't believe he'd say that. I'm afraid he's running from the wrong party," Romney said to a gathering of about 100 supporters in a restaurant here. "I had to look again — did this come from Barack Obama or from Hillary Clinton? Did it come from John Edwards? No, it was Governor Huckabee."

In Littleton, N.H., on Saturday, Huckabee responded: "Of all the people who have called me ... a Democrat, that really doesn't bug me a whole bunch because I know my record. I know how consistent I've been as a Republican, as a conservative."

Huckabee said people are misinterpreting his foreign policy comments.

"It was not intended, as some have characterized it, as a slam," he said. "It was an evaluation of how we can improve I think everybody believes that every president should improve on the administration that's before it, regardless of party."

What a great move by Huckabee. As JB stated in a comment to a recent post, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that "current GOP candidates for president might be asked to comment on the most recent two-term president and his performance (or lack thereof)." As Froomkin recently noted, however, GOP presidential candidates have pretty much gotten a pass on the issue of Bush's performance as president.

Huckabee, however, has raised the stakes a bit in the GOP presidential race by directly addressing the issue of Bush's incompetence, and I think it was a great move, because there are a lot of Republicans out there who simply don't like what Bush has been doing during his presidency. And Romney took the bait by coming to the defense of our Idiot President and attacking Huckabee for merely stating the obvious with regard to the failure of BushCo's foreign policy, which is kind of funny because even Romney has at times been critical of Bush on that score.

It'll be interesting to see how all this shakes out. Romney obviously thinks that he's playing to the GOP base by coming to the defense of Bush, but I'm just not sure that the GOP base really has all that much love for our current president.

UPDATE: John Aravosis isn't so sure it's a good strategy on Huckabee's part to go after Bush:

Huckabee has clearly calculated that dissing Bush is a winning strategy. And in the general election, that's likely true. In the primary, it's harder to tell. Self-described Republicans, a shrinking breed, still like Bush. And it's likely that many of them are primary voters, as people who have left the party for independent-land may not be as interested in voting in a partisan primary. But Huckabee knows that, yet he's still going after Bush. Very interesting. And fun too.

Is Bill Really Helping Hillary?

This is interesting, particularly the part about Clinton's staff trying to get Rose to end the interview:

In a hard-changing interview with Charlie Rose tonight, Bill Clinton said Americans who are prepared to choose someone with less experience, are prepared to "roll the dice" about the future of America. "It's less predictable, isn't it? When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service before he's running?"

"What do you want to do -- whether you think it matters that, I mean, in theory, no experience matters," Clinton said. "In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentators and let them run. They'd have only one year less experience in national politics..."

And Clinton said the notion that experience led the politicians to sanction the Iraq War is "absurd."

"That's like saying that because 100% of the malpractice cases are committed by doctors, the next time I need surgery, I'll get a chef or a plumber to do it."

Towards the end of the interview, Rose indicated that Clinton's staff was asking producers in his show's control room to get them to have Rose end the interview.

And Clinton said: "Somebody will parse this interview..." to take his quotes out of context. "It is stupid... I think we are fortunate in having people..I think the relevant question from me is, who will be the best president who has a proven record of making change in the lives of other people."

They may parse his body language. Toward the end of the interview, his hands began to shake and his face reddened as he discussed the political thicket his wife finds herself in. * * *

I'm sorry, Bill, but I love the fact that your wife's vote to authorize the Iraq War is coming back to haunt her. She was a political coward in voting for that War, and there should be a price to pay for such cowardice.

The bottom line in all this, of course, is that Hillary doesn't have all that much experience either. And if experience is all that mattered, Dick Cheney should have been the greatest vice-president in history.

Questions The Press Should Be Asking Republican Presidential Candidates

This is a great post from Froomkin. Here are a few of the questions that he suggests should be asked:

Q. Do you approve of disapprove of the job President Bush is doing?

Q. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Bush as president?

Q. What would you consider some of Bush’s greatest successes?

Q. What would you consider some of Bush’s greatest failures?

Q. Had you been president, would you have invaded Iraq?

Q. If you had to give President Bush a grade for how he managed the war in Iraq, would it be an A, B, C, D or F?

Q. What decisions if any would you have made differently if you had been in charge these past seven years?

Q. How would you assess President Bush’s credibility? High? Low?

Q. Do you approve of the job Vice President Cheney is doing?

GOP Wants To Investigate Whether Intelligence Has Been Manipulated? Really? (With Update)

I haven't blogged all that much about the fallout from the Iran NIE. What would be the point? So Bush lied again with regard to the threat another country poses to the world. Is anybody really surprised by that?

But this is pretty funny:

Senate Republicans are planning to call for a congressional commission to investigate the conclusions of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran as well as the specific intelligence that went into it, according to congressional sources.

The move is the first official challenge, but it comes amid growing backlash from conservatives and neoconservatives unhappy about the assessment that Iran halted a clandestine nuclear weapons program four years ago. It reflects how quickly the NIE has become politicized, with critics even going after the analysts who wrote it, and shows a split among Republicans.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) said he plans to introduce legislation next week to establish a commission modeled on a congressionally mandated group that probed a disputed 1995 intelligence estimate on the emerging missile threat to the United States over the next 15 years.

"Iran is one of the greatest threats in the world today. Getting the intelligence right is absolutely critical, not only on Iran's capability but its intent. So now there is a huge question raised, and instead of politicizing that report, let's have a fresh set of eyes -- objective, yes -- look at it," he said in an interview.

A fresh set of eyes? Is that PNAC-speak for "let's get some Neocon guy to look into this"? I hear Paul Wolfowitz is looking for work (or maybe not).

UPDATE: By the way, this is what being a patriotic American is all about:

The "jungle telegraph" in Washington is booming with news of the Iran NIE. I am told that the reason the conclusions of the NIE were released is that it was communicated to the White House that "intelligence career seniors were lined up to go to jail if necessary" if the document's gist were not given to the public. Translation? Someone in that group would have gone to the media "on the record" to disclose its contents.

I Felt Sorry For Dana Perino Today

She was clearly struggling in her attempt to explain that President Bush really wasn't lying to the country about Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon. You can watch the video of Perino's press conference here (be warned, though -- it is a bit tough to watch).

Thing are so bad for Bush right now that even Fox News had a headline on its website today which read "Bush Administration Credibility Suffers After Iran NIE Report."

And check this out:

The latest National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program four years ago has claimed one casualty: CNN has postponed speculative documentary "We Were Warned -- Iran Goes Nuclear."

The two-hour spec, which was slated for Dec. 12 under the "CNN Presents" banner, was "set partially in the future," featuring a what-if scenario as former government officials -- playing fictional cabinet members -- debate how to deal with the Iranian threat.

That special was "based on a different set of rules and a different set of conditions," said CNN veep-senior exec producer Mark Nelson, noting that the surprising NIE report "changed everything."

What was Mussolini's definition of fascism again?

Welcome To Front-Runner Status, Gov. Huckabee

From the Huffington Post:

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman. * * *

Huckabee is also getting nailed on not knowing anything about yesterday's biggest story -- the Iran NIE. Of course, the real problem for Huck is going to be the fact that he thinks the Earth is only 6000 years old. After eight years of Bush, do we really need another president who dismisses scientific fact merely because his extremist religion tells him to?

Merry Christmas From Senator Larry Craig

I guess this was inevitable:

David Phillips. Mike Jones. Greg Ruth. Tom Russell.

Four gay men, willing to put their names in print and whose allegations can't be disproved, have come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's guilty plea. They say they had sex with Craig or that he made a sexual advance or that he paid them unusual attention.

They are telling their stories now because they are offended by Craig's denials, including his famous statement, "I am not gay, I never have been gay." Those words, spoken on live national TV on Aug. 28, are now memorialized on a just-released-for-Christmas Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure.

David Phillips is a 42-year-old information technology consultant in Washington, D.C., who says Craig picked him up at a gay club in 1986 and that they subsequently had sex.

Mike Jones is a former prostitute who told the world he had sex with the Rev. Ted Haggard last year. The former Colorado Springs evangelist at first denied it but eventually confessed. Jones says Craig paid him for sex in late 2004 or early 2005.

Greg Ruth was a 24-year-old college Republican in 1981 when he says he was hit on by Craig at a Republican meeting in Coeur d'Alene.

Tom Russell, now 48, is a former Nampa resident who lives in Utah. Russell said his encounter with Craig occurred at Bogus Basin in the early 1980s.

A fifth gay man, who is from Boise but who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, offered a recent and telling account: He was in a men's restroom at Denver International Airport in September 2006 when the man in the next stall moved his hand slowly, palm up, under the divider. Alarmed, the man said he waited outside the restroom and then identified the man in the adjoining stall as Craig, whom he had met in Idaho. * * *

Thanks for the link, Todd.

And speaking of Republicans, check this out:

Mike Huckabee has leaped ahead of Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney in Iowa, seizing first place in a new Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican caucus participants.

Huckabee wins the support of 29 percent of Iowans who say they definitely or probably will attend the Republican Party's caucuses on Jan. 3. That's a gain of 17 percentage points since the last Iowa Poll was taken in early October, when Huckabee trailed both Romney and Fred Thompson.

Wow.

UPDATE: Kos has this to add to the "Rise of Huckabee" story:

All of this, keep in mind, by a guy that has been utterly incompetent in raising money -- spending a grand total of $1.7 million as of the end of Q3 -- the least amount of any candidate in the race except for Alan Keyes and Mike Gravel. Talk about an object lesson about money in politics. His $2.35 million raised thus far is less than everyone except the two fringe candidates listed above, as well as Dennis Kucinich and Duncan Hunter. In other words, Huckabee has contender numbers (if not "frontrunner" ones) while his fundraising numbers hover in "fringe" territory. That's pretty amazing.

Et Tu, Condi?

We've gotten all this talk over the last few years from various members of the Bush Regime about how the decision to invade and occupy Iraq was the correct one and that anyone who says otherwise is a traitor. And that's one of the reasons why I found Karl Rove's recent attempt to blame Congress for the Iraq Catastrophe so interesting. I mean, if it was such a great decision to begin with, Karl, then why are you so lamely trying to distance yourself and your former boss from it?

Condi Rice has also engaged in a bit of history re-writing herself. As anyone who occasionally reads this blog knows, I don't have much respect for our current Secretary of State, and this lack of respect on my part pretty much started when Rice uttered her now-infamous statement: "I don't think anybody could have predicted ... that [terrorists] would try to use an airplane as a missile." Of course, there were plenty of pre-911 predictions along these lines. Let's face it, Condi -- you blew it.

It turns out, however, that this wasn't Rice's only attempt to distance herself from her own incompetence. Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, author of The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy, recently revealed on C-Span that after Bush promoted Rice to Secretary of State, she continued her attempts to distract the public from her own miserable performance as National Security Adviser (from Think Progress):

She had a very deliberative public relations strategy when she became Secretary of State to help erase the images of how ineffective she had been as National Security Adviser. And I describe how one of her aides even planted a question with a friendly journalist to ask whether she would be interested in running for president — to give her the aura of someone who might have presidential aspirations, make her seem more powerful than she was.

And that all helped negate American memories over her very direct role in the invasion of Iraq.

I've long thought that all the talk about Rice becoming president was silly in the extreme, so it makes me feel a little better to learn that such talk was all bullshit anyway.