we just lost one of the most important figures in progressive politics: senator wellstone. the loss is staggering. words fail me. more later...

bob, in one of his better columns, lays to waste the press corps and captain sully in a few insightful graphs. you really have to read the whole piece to understand the true nature of the beast bob's up against.

along with corporate accounting shenanigans, we can't forget our own government, who managed to turn a record surplus into a record deficit in record time. remember when the surplus was going to pay down the national debt in order to free up money for other priorities? remember when alan greenspan said that if paid off the entire national debt we would be in trouble so a moderate tax cut wasn't bad? well, i don't think the entire national debt needs to be repaid. certainly, as long as gdp increases we can handle an increasing debt load, as long as we're growing faster than we're spending. but for god's sake, we spent $14 Billion on interest payments in September alone! (Check out the source here.) The sum of the current deficit, second largest since 1995, merely adds to the woes. Remember that originally, some were projecting a 5-7 trillion dollar surplus over ten years. That sum would have paid off the debt entirely, and allowed a whole bunch more spending room for priorities. Now, though, that dream has vanished.

one day i'll run a company. and when i do, i'm going to attempt to offer complete transparency from top to bottom. perhaps using gnu enterprise financials to do so. it has always bugged me that real, enterprise level software wasn't available on the free-software side, mainly because free software seems oriented around a single individual user model, much like gnu/linux. i'm sure that when i do, people will be angry that others can discover how much they are making, or that the new fridge down in marketing cost twice what it should have. yet it is only through complete transparency that graft and waste can be eliminated. if that means that josie's friends in HR don't get to hire her at an exorbitant salary, so be it. the good of the company comes first.

that's partly why this decision is so important. the sec, already the tool of industry thanks to head honcho harvey pitt, is now trying to gut the power of the enforcement mechanism designed to stop phony audits. this is a national issue, from denver, where the denver post uncovered this nuggest about sen. allard taking money from the industry before fighting reform, to nyc, where the wall street journal came out against pitt, to washington, where the post also editorialized against this political sleight of hand. it's not a newspaper editorial board issue only, though. this has real repurcussions, especially as the economy continues it's downward funkified slide. as much as i'd love to see the dems pick up tons of seats due to the failing economy, i don't want to be as poor as i was a year ago, or worse. we need good audits, and for that to happen, the sec needs teeth. you pull the teeth, you get more phony audits, you get more greed and corruption, you get a lousy economy. simple, isn't it? come on harv!

cleary, it's the only explanation for this amazing piece where john ashcroft tells dick sheldby to stuff his notions of felony leak laws in the trash. where they belong. it just goes to show that even people you think are crazy occasionally do the right thing. now if only big business would stop going political and get back to making money for investors. without cheating, of course.

being a logical person, i figured the sniper wasn't much of a threat versus car accidents, etc. but i'm still relieved to see the case is finally coming together and that individuals are being connected. the guessing game that's gone on for weeks here in the district hopefully can stop. everyone had a theory, and everyone was probably way off-base in the end, if it does turn out to be the suspects in custody.

i've been without caffeine for over 36 hours now. i'm about to pass out i'm so sleepy. just keeping my eyes open is a difficult battle.

i've been caffeine-free for over 24 hours now. not through any conscious decision, of course, just random chance. however, it is certainly affecting my ability to stay awake. and it's giving me odd blogging ideas. principly, i'd like to tackle some similarities between globalization and the growth of the internet, with respect to economics. originally, most people thought that both globalization and the internet would enable ordinary people to gain vast sums of money. the theory, as it went, was that by connecting millions of people together, opportunities would be created which didn't exist before. the reality, however, was slightly different. both globalization and the rise of the internet enabled companies to save money, not make money. middlemen were cut out, transactions were streamlined, users (and their errors) were displaced by cold-calculating machinery. a computer doesn't understand graft.

one might contend that every penny saved is a penny freed up to create welath elsewhere. yet a system that helps save money rewards only those players that are spending great sums of capital. consequently, the huge transnational candy-bar corporation that spends millions each year might be able to save tons of money thanks to globalization, if they're able to knock a mere penny off of each candy-bar. consumers, however, would hardly notice if a candy-bar was 1¢ cheaper, so the company has no reason to pass the savings onto the consumer. end result? the company gains much from globalization, the consumer quite little. likewise, the internet benefits companies that already were spending money, like booksellers, who can now sell more cheaply. unlike candy-bars, though, consumer do notice if a book is cheaper, and will therefore demand price cuts. so in the end, the internet as a social concept ends up looking much better than globalization, through no fault of its own. the investors who allow CEOs to take profit margins and boost stock prices all the while stealing cash hand over fist need to be the ones who demand that the benefits of globalization be realized. If candy bars were cheaper, then other items might have to be cheaper, and competition would take care of the rest. there is a solution: fire gordon gecko and replace him with someone competent.

so they didn't catch the sniper yet. otherwise, things continue to look up, from an enjoyable evening last night to a hard-hitting article this morning by dana milbank. an excerpt:

President Bush, speaking to the nation this month about the need to challenge Saddam Hussein, warned that Iraq has a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that could be used "for missions targeting the United States."

Last month, asked if there were new and conclusive evidence of Hussein's nuclear weapons capabilities, Bush cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency saying the Iraqis were "six months away from developing a weapon." And last week, the president said objections by a labor union to having customs officials wear radiation detectors has the potential to delay the policy "for a long period of time."

All three assertions were powerful arguments for the actions Bush sought. And all three statements were dubious, if not wrong. Further information revealed that the aircraft lack the range to reach the United States; there was no such report by the IAEA; and the customs dispute over the detectors was resolved long ago.

fairly blunt, eh? bush is patently obvious: he simply tells people what he thinks they want to hear, not the truth. this isn't a man accused of infidelity, this is a man who's trying to gin up support to send thousands to war in iraq. you'd think he'd have some desire for honesty. the only real problem is that milbank, in the name of journalistic "objectivity" (an idiotic concept if there ever was one) cannot come out and say that bush is lying, instead dropping awkward clauses like "dubious, if not wrong", "flights of fancy", "distortions and exaggerations" and best, that his assertions "simply outpace the facts". Dana, he's lying. You and I both know it. Now get those editors over at the post to let you write the story you want to. like this one for instance. you don't pull any punches there when describing the errant offensive e-mail incident:

Sources said a relatively senior Bush aide liked the memo and directed a young aide to forward it to Hispanic Republican activists; the memo was accidentally sent instead, without explanation, to a mostly Hispanic Democratic group. Still, that does not explain why the White House would distribute such an e-mail, even to its allies.

go dana!

word on the street is that the sniper may have just been captured. combined with a bang-up blow-out birthday bash weekend, this could be a great start to a new year at the great age of twenty-four. first i score a bunch of goals playing broomball, next i manage to snag a veritable menagerie of presents, then we have a huge party with tons of people in attendance. and yesterday was great just to unwind and enjoy some football, some gifts and some food. how can i get better? well, if they catch the sniper it'd be difficult to top, but we'll see...i'm always grateful, never content.