Motley Moose – Archive

Hackgate: A Pattern of Criminal  Behaviour

Yes, the Murdoch story may be flying under the mainstream media radar, but with three British police investigations ongoing, two Parliamentary committees, a televised public enquiry with full powers of subpoena starting tomorrow, a DOJ enquiry stateside, and other investigations and legal cases in the US, Australia and Italy into Newscorp anti-competitive and/or criminal behaviour, this is not about to go away any time soon.

As an early indication of this, it has just been announced that over sixty separate claims (some filed in multiple names) have been filed in the UK civil claims court against News International: these include dozens of celebrities and prominent politicians, but also the families or partners of murder victims, or casualties of other high profile incidents such as the 7/7 London bombings.

These weren’t people who thrust themselves into the limelight – but people who had already been violated by some awful event, only to have their own privacy violated by illegal means by a company whose only interest was profit and using press exposure to exert political power.

When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008, it opened up a new dialogue on race in this country. Suddenly, something had happened  that many thought was impossible. An African-American had been elected to the highest office in the country. Many Americans felt a sense of pride in their country on the day Obama took the oath of office. There was even talk of a new post-racial America. Now, only two and a half years later, those feelings seem foolish and utopian. Americans are now wondering if, instead of a step forward, the election was actually a step backwards.

There is no doubt that President Obama has faced a racial backlash. He has even had to deal with that backlash from within his own party, as clearly shown during the DNC Rules Committee meeting in May, 2008. That backlash did not come as a surprise for those who had paid attention to racial tensions in this country, although the ferocity of that backlash has shocked just about everyone.

The 2008 Democratic Party campaign was historic in that the two front-runners were a woman and an African-American male. Both candidacies inspired passionate supporters. A rift developed between the two camps. That rift was never fully healed and has led to strident opposition to the winner that is rarely seen within a victorious party. That opposition continues to play out in the online world of political blogging. Subtle and not so subtle racism and sexism finds its way into online discussions. When added to the overt racism from the right, this in-party opposition creates a toxic environment for any discussion about race in America.

I hope you didn’t have plans, because you do now!  At least if you live in D.C.

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

Atrium Hall

1300 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, District of Columbia 20004

10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE!

I was just checking the stats on my little blog spot and noticed the most viewed entry is coming up on its’ one year anniversary.  This entry has fascinated me because of its’ popularity.  It has had months where it has had 100’s of hits from Iran.  It has had months where there were the same number of hits from Russia, and it’s strange how country specific it is.  This month the people of Denmark are interested.  I get the impression the blog is rolling around intelligence agencies.

Anyhow I wanted a bit of an open thread too so I could show this.

That’s a previously unknown comet smacking the sun on October 3rd.

So let’s get on with the story eh?

The power to destroy humanity on this planet carries a great deal of responsibility.  One of the bedrock trusts the rest of us have to have in order to sleep well at night is that the security and reliability of our nuclear forces has to be 100%.

So when I got wind of this story I almost couldn’t believe it.

WASHINGTON – An equipment failure disrupted communication between 50 nuclear missiles and the launch control center at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming over the weekend, an Air Force spokesman said Tuesday.

Lt. Col. Todd Vician said the break occurred early Saturday and lasted less than one hour. The White House was briefed about the failure Tuesday morning

Huffington Post link

Some of you may have seen this post over at that other place, with a different introduction, but it was pretty well received so I thought it might be worth sharing with the Mighty Moose.

Don’t let yourself be put off by the apparent subject matter, it is a transparent meta-phore with, I hope, value to activists and others who work with groups with sometimes uneven participation.

The Washington Post has a story relating to a hunting camp in West Texas that Rick Perry and his father have rented for 30-plus years.

“I thought, ‘This is going to embarrass Rick some day,’ ” said this person, who did not want to be named, fearing negative consequences from speaking on the subject.

California constitutes one of the most diverse states in the United States. Here is how the Census estimates its population composition:

(Note that the numbers do not add up to 100, due to the way the Census tracks ethnicity.)

The people who actually vote in California, however, do not reflect this composition.

More below.

There have been a number of public legal arguments regarding recent current events; the Troy Davis execution, the alleged extra-judicial assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki and the Murdoch investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.

There seems much well-informed, well-reasoned and well-intended opinion on the moral and ethical implications of these cases, and others, which is of the calibre of the the dialogues preserved of Greek and Roman legal arguments.  There is considerable merit in these public discussions on justice and propriety under the law.  But most of them seem to overlook a basic point that the ancients didn’t miss, and it is summed up best by the guy who would know:

There is no such thing as justice, in or out of court.

Clarence Darrow

This runs counter to progressive wisdom, and rightly so, but it remains true.  And it is not just because the law is imperfect and inconsistently applied, though that is certainly a fault we must constantly seek to remedy.  Fundamentally the occasional and significant absence of justice, in specific individual cases, is a feature not a bug.

Roman Law is founded on a refreshingly brief corpus of twelve tablets from 450BC which were concluded with the following phrase Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex:

Latin: the welfare of an individual yields to that of the community.

Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex Lloyd Duhaime

There seems to be a fundamental tenet in our tradition of law which suspends justice for the individual in the public interest; a moral and ethical question probably worthy of our consideration.

This is the first time this has ever happened to me, and I thought it was humorous enough to diary.

Throughout my career, I’ve had to tone down personal style and opinions in order to not scare off the bosses and the clients.  (I’m sure you are familiar with this situation.)