Presented without comment:

Good news, America. Thanks to the bill passed by the House yesterday (and sure to be passed by the Senate and soon to be signed by the President), we now live in a police state. The administration now has the Congressional seal of approval to detain and torture "enemy combatants" (which means anyone the administration says is an "enemy combatant," a classification that includes those giving money to charities deemed to be supporting terrorism), even American citizens, pretty much at will.

In other words, all it took was a single terrorist attack to undo our entire system of due process. Congress meekly lined up and gave Bush total power to shuffle whoever he pleases off to secret torture prisons.

I never thought America was so fearful, so spineless, so completely lacking in confidence in its own ideals, history and purpose as to abandon all pretense to justice so quickly and completely, without significant opposition. I thought enough people -- at all points on the political spectrum -- thought "freedom" was more than a meaningless mantra that they wouldn't throw it away so easily. I thought we were, you know, better than the tinpot Third World juntas and Stalinist megastates.

I thought wrong.

Enjoy your dictatorship, America. You asked for it. Here is how you were sold tyranny:

"The Global War on Terror is different from any war we have ever known. As a country we must understand that adaptation to these new situations is critical in order to achieve victory over those who seek to hurt us as a nation." -- Dennis Hastert

"Let's bring justice before the eyes of the children and widows of Sept. 11." -- James Sensenbrenner, Jr.

"It is outrageous that House Democrats, at the urging of their leaders, continue to oppose giving President Bush the tools he needs to protect our country." -- John A. Boehner

I'll let Glenn Greenwald explain why anyone telling you the torture "compromise" is a good thing is a fan of torture.

I'll also echo Glenn's frustration that "Democrats" are so eager to lavish praise on the nominally "independent" Republicans that rolled over on this issue. It's bad enough that the Democrats defer to Republicans to provide meaningful opposition to the White House -- the fact that they don't even notice when the Republican opposition caves is completely pathetic.

From here on out, I think we can refer to the Democrats as the "Democratic wing of the Republican Party."

With great fanfare, Microsoft has introduced its "iPod killer" Zune media player. This is an interesting evolution for Microsoft, since to date it has focused on a comprehensive software solution for media content delivery and copy protection rather than hardware. They spearheaded the "PlaysForSure" program as a common umbrella for Windows-based hardware and content vendors to work with, and nearly every media player that isn't an iPod and online content provider that isn't iTunes now use this technology. Now Microsoft leaps into the hardware arena with the Zune player and announces a new software solution to go with it...

...that isn't compatible with PlaysForSure.

Oops.

Such is the way DRM works -- you pay money for something that's only a software change away from not playing anymore. Microsoft is furiously spinning this, telling people, "So they're two complementary solutions -- not everyones gonna want Zune and not everyone's gonna want PlaysForSure. They're different paths there, and we're okay with both of them."

Great. So now you're selling two incompatible playback solutions. So, what, if I buy a Sandisk player and my wife gets a Zune, we've got buy everything twice? Of course not. We'll get a CD and not have to worry about it, like every sane consumer. (Assuming we haven't been driven into the embrace of Bittorrent.) Any odds on when "different path" #3 appears?

Meanwhile, in the same interview, Microsoft VP J Allard (is his first name really just "J"?) has a great suggestion on how to get video content into your shiny new Zune player:



That's a fantastic idea. Too bad ripping DVDs violates the DMCA.

But there's a silver lining. If Microsoft is saying that it's OK to rip a DVD and strip out its copy protection to load it on your Zune, then it must also be OK to strip the DRM out of PlaysForSure media to load that onto your Zune.

I don't think it would be a good idea to hold your breath waiting for Microsoft to endorse that solution, though.

One of the primary architect's of the Bush administration's hatred of the Constitution, John Yoo, published an op-ed in the New York Times explaining to us all why we need to redefine the powers of th executive branch in order to protect us from the Islamofascinazicommuextremoevilist hordes. Here's a list of things he finds to praise about the Bush regime:



Once again -- this is Yoo lauding the administration. He thinks this behavior is good and proper and ideal. Bush breaking laws ("sidestep" sounds so dainty) is just a valid exercise of executive power.

But even more breathtaking than that (and I've got to give Yoo credit for that feat) is this:



Wow. Just... wow. Now, I'm not trying to minimize the general nefariousness of the Islamofascinazicommuextremoevilist threat, but I think I'm on pretty safe ground when I say that the absolute worst that al Qaeda could do to "United States soil" would hardly be a mosquito bite compared to the capabilities of the Soviet Union. Yoo is seriously suggesting that the national security situation during the Cold War was casual and carefree, and that's why we picked on poor Richard Nixon. Because we had nothing better to do.

And the result?



That's right -- FISA caused 9/11! (Bad FISA!) If only we'd just let Nixon spy on whoever he wanted for political purposes, the World Trade Center would still be standing.

The subtext here is crystal clear. Either we allow Bush to operate independently of the law (since in Yoo's fomulation the correct person to decide what laws the President should follow is the President), or we all die at the hands of the evildoers.

Any similarity of that message to the fundamental tenets of fascism are, I'm sure, purely coincidental.

Glenn Greenwald has a much more thorough examination of Yoo's completely wrongheaded op-ed available here.

As noted on NPR this morning, but conspicuously absent from mainstream media (a Google News search turned up only press releases from various interest groups), the full House will soon vote on the "Public Expression of Religion Act." Here's the summary of the bill, from the bill itself:



And here's the important part:



English translation: the theocrats know that they can't win Establishment Clause cases on legal merit, as their track record in court is abysmal. So, they seek to stop lawsuits before they begin by not allowing legal fees to be paid by the defense in the event the plaintiff wins. Which means that you can only bring suit against First Amendment violations if you are able to pay for legal representation out of your own pocket, or if the lawyer is willing to work for free. This leaves aspiring theocrats at all levels of government free to use government money to promote the religion of their choice without the "chilling effect" of being held accountable for their violations of the Constitution.

At this point, it would be easier to discuss what parts of the Consitution *haven't* been subjected to shredding by the current party in power. If they didn't get so much money from the NRA, that list would be even smaller.

I don't make it to the theater much, and am far too disorganized to watch movies as they are released on DVD. So, by the time I see things, no one wants to talk about them any more. Well, too bad. Today, Nero's Fiddle reviews the movies of several months ago.

Crash -- This looks great and boasts some fine performances by the likes of Matt Dillon and the always-impressive Don Cheadle. Unfortunately, all that is in service of a script that reads like a tenth-generation Xerox of Magnolia (which itself was second-hand Robert Altman). Featuring an ensemble cast "connected" in the most hackneyed and belief-beggaring ways imaginable, we are asked to constantly be surprised by the "unexpected" ways these characters behave. After the opening, in which Ludacris complains about being treated as a criminal by whites and then commits a carjacking, we are pummeled senseless by more of the same. Racist people aren't totally evil! Good people can do bad things! Stereotypes are sometimes right! And sometimes wrong! Wow! Crash is a film that shallow people think is deep, which might explain its Best Picture win.

Good Night And Good Luck -- I have to give George Clooney credit for pursuing an artistic vision at the expense of commercial appeal. This black-and-white movie consists almost entirely of pasty white guys smoking and talking. And it's riveting. David Strathairn spookily channels Ed Murrow, while Joseph McCarthy plays himself and ridiculously overacts the part. The filmmakers are guilty of some oversimplification here, making the Murrow/McCarthy feud appear to exist in something of a vacuum, which is perhaps inevitable in reducing such tales to 90 minutes. But the importance of the events depicted can hardly be overstated, which makes the impact of this understated film all the greater.

V For Vendetta -- I have not read Alan Moore's graphic novel, so I cannot accurately judge Moore's complaints about the movie. Moore's beef, in a nutshell, is that his work was specifcally about England, fascism, and anarchy -- and if the Wachowski brothers wanted to make an allegory about America, neo-conservatism and liberalism, they should have made up their own characters and situations with which to tell it. Moore accuses the filmmakers of cowardice in using his work as cover to attack the US government. While he may have a point, the movie is still a hugely entertaining and gripping one on its own merits. Hugo Weaving gives a memorable performance from behind a Guy Fawkes mask, which ought to be an awardable achievement.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy -- This adaptation gets some things right -- the deisgn (and emphasis on practical vs. CGI effects) is excellent, particularly the inspired Marvin costume, and Bill Nighy is a delight as Slartibartfast. Sadly, it gets more things wrong. Sam Rockwell seems to be under the impression that he was hired to do a half-assed Bush impersonation, portraying Zaphod as a drawling semi-coherent dimwit instead of a jerk whose narcissism overwhelms his brilliance. Its worst offense, though, is treating Douglas Adams' words as secondary. Lines are mumbled and rushed through instead of delivered. Memorable monologues are edited into pale shadows. Gags are started and then abandoned. In all its previous and varied incarnations, Hitchhiker's great strength was Adams' inspired wordplay. For some reason, the makers of this great-looking film decided to go in a different direction, and made a curiously pointless movie.

Stay tuned! I'll soon be analyzing the 2004 elections.

The Washington Post has a thought-provoking article up on the difficulties of getting a handle on the "religiosity" of America:



Which could in fact be a classic case of asking one question and getting an answer to a different question. While the poll-takers assumed an answer of "none"/"no religion" meant "agnostic/atheist", a sizable number of those polled chose "none" were in fact spiritual/theists who didn't claim any of the 40 religions on offer. If "other" was an option, then people weren't completing the survey correctly. If "other" was omitted, then it was a poorly constructed survey. Either way, it seems that pigeon-holing faith is becoming increasingly difficult.

I was more struck, however, by this section later on:



Sounds like the 31 percent who believe in the "pissed-off hands-on" God prefer to leave the questions of justice to the angry guy in the sky.

Finally, we have this:



If I'm interpreting all this correctly, we could be looking at a situation in the foreseeable future where a quarter of the country will identify as non-Judeo-Christian. How Bill O'Reilly will deal with this remains to be seen.

Five years ago today, the United States was given an exceedingly rare opportunity. Almost a gift. It seems almost blasphemous to say that, given the monstrous evil carried out that morning. But the hindsight of five years tells us that behind the cliche of a "world-changing" event is the reality that the world will change, and though Osama bin Laden was responsible for the event, the course of the resulting change was up to us.

When al Qaeda slaughtered nearly 3,000 people, a world that had been sensitized to violence and cynical about fighting "evil" was, for a moment, galvanized and shocked. Innocent civilians of all nationalities were burned alive and ground into dust in the name of a wild-eyed interpretation of a volatile religion. Chaos reigned. Stories floated through the news stations and the crippled internet of the State Department in flames, car bombs going off in front of the Capitol. The President of the United States scurried off to a secret location to wait out the crisis, and the rest of us were left to see what would remain intact when the sun set.

(As part of my job, I was surrounded by very rich men that day. They screamed into cell phones and demanded the ability to control the situation. They could not. They were utterly adrift.)

No one knew what would happen next, because, truly, anything could happen next. The reason such moments are important and memorable and marked with an annual orgy of pseudo-reverent news coverage is the inherent split of "before" and "after." We all knew the "after" would be somehow different, everyone had an opinion, but it was unknowable.

Very few could argue against the proposition that the Taliban had to go, and very few did. It was a nearly universally despised regime, and as comedian David Cross memorably observed, even Ralph Nader would have invaded Afghanistan. That move was a given.

After that, the world was ready to stand with us to clean house and reject violent extremism. Those regimes still benefiting from terror were palpably intimidated by the righteous unity and clarity of purpose exhibited by everyone else. For a brief instant, it seemed possible the world could wipe the slate clean, set aside old greivances, use the horrific example Osama bin Laden had given us as a signpost of what to move away from, and find something better to move toward.

And, as 9/11 gave the world the opportunity to move forward, 9/11 gave the Bush administration the opportunity, and the responsibility, to lead that movement. The chance to recognize that our power flowed not from our military but from our ideals. The chance to acknowledge that our attempts to mold the world through force are not without unforeseen consequence, as our backing of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s gave rise to al Qaeda, and our establishment of long term bases in Saudi Arabia during and after the Gulf War gave the fanatics an excuse to project their rage onto us.

Instead, Bush invaded Iraq.

The administration is fond of accusing those who disagree with its policies of having a "pre-9/11 mindset." Yet it's difficult to conceive of an action more representative of a pre-9/11 mindset than the invasion of Iraq. Iraq was the old enemy. Saddam was a secular despot, a Sunni ruling a country of Shiites, a military dictator with a crumbling army that had never recovered from the long war against Iran in which we supported him. Iraq was contained. Iraq was not the problem. But Iraq was an old grudge. Iraq was unfinished business. In the end, Iraq was the free shot we squandered.

America and the world required no intense sales pitch to fight al Qaeda. Their threat could not be questioned. Their intent was unmistakable. The case for action was compelling. The decmiation of al Qaeda would have sent a clear message to Hamas, Hezbollah and their sponsors that terror was no longer tolerated.

Instead, Bush had to invent reasons to attack Iraq. He had to hype already dubious intelligence about weapons of mass destruction into a "grave and gathering threat" that turned out not to exist at all. He had to grasp at tiny straws of unclear evidence to weave a tattered narrative of a collaboration between Iraq and al Qaeda that turned out not to exist, either. He had to pump up minor players like Zarqawi into supervillians with ties to Saddam that... turned out not to exist.

Most of the world didn't buy the initial sales pitch. Of those that joined us in the invasion, most would not stay long, after the justifications for the war fell apart and the rosy predictions of a trouble-free transition to a secular West-friendly democracy proved wrong.

Instead, it seems clear that what we have instead accomplished is presenting Iran with a new ally and al Qaeda with a new base of operations. Instead of making terrorism unacceptable, we have given it new life and vitality. Just as 9/11 was a moment of "before" and "after," so was the invasion of Iraq. What March 20, 2003 turned out to signify was the end of the truly global war on terror and the beginning of the increasing isolation of the United States.

The World Trade Center has been burdened by more symbolism in the last five years than even its 13 million square feet could hold. But I'll still add a little more -- the Twin Towers represent twin tragedies. The horrible, barbaric loss of life that happened five years ago from the from very minutes I type this. And, perhaps equally tragic, the loss of a moment of opportunity that we may never have again.

Inspired by the federal executive branch, Ohio is now deciding that things like trials and due process shouldn't hinder their ability to punish people:



I hear this sort of thing is popular in countries that don't believe the Almighty has given them the gift of freedom.

From Cheney today (when he wasn't calling those who don't think the Iraq war was a great idea terrorist sympathizers or continuing to flatly contradict the CIA on the nature of the relationship between Saddam and Zarqawi):



I don't want to sound like a spoilsport, but I don't understand the national amnesia that leads to the statements of "five years of no attacks."

Someone launched a very well-publicized terror attack shortly after September 11, 2001. The attacker used a substance that President Bush would later classify (while selling the Iraq war) as a biological weapon -- a weapon of mass destruction. This attack killed five people and injured seventeen others. It caused a national panic. Many buildings and facilities were closed for years, and the FBI estimates the total dollar cost of the attacks at $1 billion. Members of Congress were direct targets of this attack, which may have had an effect on the subsequent passage of the Patriot Act.





Yet, this is never mentioned. There are no "five years after" stories. We hear again and again from the administration and its apologists that America has been untroubled by terror since 9/11, as though these attacks never happened. Even worse, the case remains unsolved and no one seems to be much interested in solving it.

Why is this? Did the government not find a connection to Islamic terrorism and so disregard this terrorism (using WMDs!) as not relevant to their "war on terror"? Is five not a large enough body count to get attention? Is it only terrorism if airplanes are involved? Do attacks on Democrats and the media not worry right-wingers? (After all, people like Ann Coulter often publicly fantasize about violent attacks on Democrats and the media.) Do the American people simply not want to remember? Does it simply just not fit into the media's preferred "9/11 happened, then we fought back" narrative?

I don't know. But it's mighty strange.

Via Tom Tomorrow's blog, we learn Rummy wasn't particularly interested in the boring stuff that came after "shock and awe":

While we are being subjected to the mass media orgy of Five Years Of Terra, it's worth noting that the government is finally starting to admit that we spent three and a half of those five years fighting the wrong war:

Let's listen to the sophisticated foreign policy analysis of the President. First, he talks about the Bad Guys:



Gee whiz. "They think the opposite of the way we think." That is a FACT, according to our elected leader. Among their Bizarro-world beliefs -- "The enemy we face doesn't believe in dissent." As opposed to Americans, who label dissent as treason and threaten to lock up reporters for reporting facts they don't like. "They have a narrow view of freedom... they're willing to use whatever tactic is necessary to achieve their objective." As opposed to Bush, who, as noted in the post below, spoke passionately about the value of secret prisons, torture, and absence of due process as dandy ways to achieve his objectives.

But enough of that. What did Bush have to say about the Good Guys?



So, the man we have entrusted with our freedoms has decided that we, his lowly subjects, "must understand" that "there is an Almighty." So all that talk only three paragraphs ago about the "freedom to worship" means exactly that -- you are free to worship. Not worshipping is apparently forbidden in the land of the free, the country founded by people fleeing religious persecution and, allegedly, currently threatened by those who, according to Bush a few scant paragraphs later, "want to spread their view, their vision." It is the most common of hypocrisies: insisting people believe like you is Spreading the Truth -- someone else insisting you believe like them is a Threat to Civilization.

You have to be simple-minded to so completely contradict yourself while explaining something that should be self-evident: that wacko Islamic terror groups need to be put out of business. (Leaving aside how to do such a thing, which Bush also has a shaky grasp of.) No one with a shred of rhetorical ability or cognitive deftness could possibly mess up making the argument that they're Bad Guys who do Bad Things. But Bush somehow manages to look bad arguing the obvious. And gets applause.

The President of the United States is acting like a three-year-old the day after his birthday party, suddenly confronted with a day without presents and constant reinforcement that he's the most important person on earth:



Translation: "Yes, I have secret CIA torture prisons on foreign soil. Yes, I hold anyone I want captive indefinitely without charges or hearings. Yes, I tap phones and intercept e-mail without a warrant. Yes, I want to have my own kangaroo court where I make the rules. Yes, I want to torture anyone I want. Yes, I consider myself immune from prosecution. Yes, I consider myself a despot. I dare you to do something about it."

Memo to Congressional Democrats and non-insane Republicans: anyone care to step up to the plate?

Many years ago, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun named David Simon spent a year with the Baltimore homicide squad, doing what today would be called "embedded" reporting. The result of that work was a book called Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets. Even after it was filed away with the lurid exploitation material in the "True Crime" section, the excellent journalism in the book shone through. Homicide stripped out the cop show cliches and exposed real, grinding, everyday police work in exacting and fascinating detail.

In one of the bigger pop culture ironies in recent history, the book that demolished cop show stereotypes was made into a cop show on NBC, Homicide: Life On The Streets. The surprising aspect of the show was that, especially in its early seasons, it stayed true to the source material and delivered drama that was only heightened by its believability. Plots weren't tidily wrapped up, there were no car chases, and detectives were often not emotionally bound to their cases in predictable ways. (One memorable episode featured a guest-starring Robin Williams as the husband of a murder victim who is shocked to stumble upon the detectives joking about the case.) Add to that a cast of top-shelf talent including Yaphet Kotto, Ned Beatty and the mind-bogglingly good Andre Braugher (indeed, even guest stars like Steve Buscemi and the aforementioned Robin Williams never stole the show), and you have what many (including your humble blogger) believe is the best "cop show" ever made, and a strong contender for the best show on network TV, period.

David Simon was involved to a certain extent with Homicide the TV show, penning a couple of episodes. After the show ended in 2000, Simon went on to work with former detective Ed Burns on a book called The Corner: A Year In The Life Of An Inner-City Neighborhood. Using the same journalistic toolbox that he brought to Homicide, Simon, along with Burns, produced a look at the crumbling neighborhoods of Baltimore and drug trade that dominates them. (The Corner was later made into a miniseries for HBO by Simon and Burns.)

After these two projects, Simon and Burns realized that the cops and drug dealers had more in common than not -- both were part of entrenched bureaucracies that ground down the foot soldiers while pushing the most Machiavellian among them up the chain of command. And they came to an even greater epiphany -- the dysfunction of police departments and drug gangs mirrored the dysfunction in most areas of American urban life, where broken and corrupt institutions of industry, politics and education try to cope with events and circumstances they can barely acknowledge, let alone address.

Clearly, this was a story that needed to be told. The result was the HBO series The Wire. On its surface, it resembles a cop show, but in truth it's perhaps the most amibitous drama ever attempted on US television. In it's first season, it examined a group of Baltimore police and a group of Baltimore drug dealers, and their attempts to outsmart each other while simultaneously struggling with the limitations and frustrations of their own roles. In the second season, the story expanded to include the story of an embattled labor leader on Baltimore's docks and his family as they tried to cope with the slow but steady erosion of the urban working class. The third season looked at the issue of reform within the police department, the government and the drug gangs -- the best intentions of reformers and the way the status quo passively wears them down.

On Sunday, the fourth (and potentially final -- the renewal for season four was a close call) season begins on HBO, with the theme of education and the introduction of new young actors in the roles of inner-city middle school students getting pulled into the various compromises of adulthood.

Education is an apt theme for this show, as for the viewer it's a tough learning curve. At this point, there are enough speaking roles to fill six or seven shows (and the amazing part is that they'd all be shows worth watching). It's not a comforting show, either -- there's not a whole lot in the way of uplifting messages about hope for the future and the dignity of man. The Wire isn't interested in politics (except as a symptom) -- it's instead the best sort of journalism. It does not preach to you, it challenges you to justify to yourself the conditions it shows you. Watching the show can be work. But if you're at all interested in why America looks the way it does and behaves the way it does and treats its citizens the way it does, it is work worth doing. Check it out this weekend, or get your hands on the DVD sets of the first three seasons. (The HBO site I linked above has a good primer to get you up to speed on the cast of thousands.)

At the very least, it's a better way to spend time with your television than ABC's outrageous right-wing propaganda disguised as a documentary.