Digital Brainwaves

Biggest news of the day, hell of the year so far, was– no, not the iPod shuffle price drop. Fidel Castro announced his intention not to seek reelection by Cuba’s parliament this weekend. His younger (albiet only by five years) brother Raul will likely take over, though who knows how much longer he’ll be around either?

Raul says he wants to implement reforms, but I’m skeptical until I see it, or until someone who isn’t a Castro or any other member of his party takes control through democratic election. Scott Ott, though, thinks he has the perfect successors:

Rumors in Cuba carry the currency of mainstream media coverage in the U.S., and many Castro-supporters are eager to find new leadership that combines Castro-like charisma with iron-fisted leadership tactics and revolutionary support for government-run health care, education and industry.

“A Clinton-Obama ticket,” said one unnamed Cuba scholar, “combines the power and the glory that was Fidel Castro, with the unshakable commitment to collectivism, controlled economies, and virulent resistance to the United States as a superpower.”

I don’t know all the details on this story, so I’m opening up to commentary on the issue.

Yesterday the US Senate rejected an amendment to S.2248 (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2007) that would have removed language from the bill granting immunity to the telecommunications industry regarding wiretapping of terrorist communications, thus, essentially, granting such immunity. The bill was passed shortly thereafter. This language did not appear in the House version of the bill, so this will be hashed out in conference committee soon.

The measure will, if I’m reading this right, close up any ambiguity as to the legality of the NSA warrantless wiretapping program that President Bush enacted shortly after September 11, 2001. The imminity language, again, if I’m following this correctly, would protect the telecommunications industry from prosecution if any laws were broken before this legislation comes into effect.

I’m not sure where to come down on this issue. Maybe my understanding of criminal law is flawed, but if this bill makes the program legal, doesn’t it no longer matter if their activities were against the law before? The Bush Administration and the industry both keep saying it was legal before anyway, so if that were the case, wouldn’t the courts find in their favor anyway?

I open the topic up to your discussion, as it’s confusing the hell out of me. Keep your comments civil, or I reserve the right to edit or delete them, and I will be the sole arbiter of such.

I’m a space shuttle junkie, and will be eagerly watching for a possible launch this afternoon of Atlantis into orbit to work on completion of the International Space Station. Follow along at Spaceflight Now’s STS-122 Mission Status Center, or watch NASA TV online.

Surprisingly, a news publication has recognized the work General David Petraeus has done in Iraq to help improve conditions and make it a better place for Iraqis to live, naming him Person of the Year.

Unsurprisingly, it was not a U.S.-based publication.

Michael Yon reprints the following from December 31st’s issue of the U.K.’s The Sunday Telegraph:

…the reason for picking Petraeus is simple. Iraq, whatever the current crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan, remains the West’s biggest foreign policy challenge of this decade, and if he can halt its slide into all-out anarchy, Gen Petraeus may save more than Iraqi lives.

A failed Iraq would not just be a second Vietnam, nor would it just be America’s problem.

Click through to read further.

For the fourth time in as many years, a NASCAR national racing series is changing its name.

Following the Winston Cup’s changeover to the NEXTEL Cup in 2004, and then to the Sprint Cup next year, along with the Busch Series transforming to the Nationwide Series next year as well, comes word from SceneDaily that the Craftsman Truck Series will have a new name in 2009.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the U.S.-brokered Mideast peace conference was a “failure” and that Israel is doomed to “collapse,” lashing out at the Annapolis gathering that many saw as aimed at isolating Iran.

“…even if I have to whip out my A-bomb and do it myself!!!1!one!”

Warren Buffett thinks your money should belong to the government when you die.

He’s been telling the Senate Finance Committee that, rather than continue a gradual repeal, the estate tax should be reimposed:

“I think we need to … take a little more out of the hides of guys like me,” Buffett told the panel.

One of the world’s richest men and biggest philanthropists, Buffett has been outspoken against efforts, mostly by Republicans, to repeal or reduce the federal tax on inheritances. Democrats argue that a repeal would amount to a huge windfall for the nation’s wealthiest families.

The idea that the government can take any of your money and assets away just because you’ve died is, to me, ludicrous. I earned the money, and presumably paid income taxes on it when I got it… why would you tax me again? It’s tantamount to being penalized for having made too much money. Isn’t individual prosperity the goal of our economic system?

Hell, if you’re going to do that, why stop with just a percentage? Take the whole damned thing! Effective immediately, all personal assets become property of the government when you die. You can will your heirs nothing.

I earn my paycheck fair and square — let me decide what gets done with it, and the government can keep their grubby mitts off of it.

Howard Moscoe is out of his mind.

Having solved all of the other problems Toronto is facing, this City Councilman thinks American change should be banned from the city transit system.

For a great many years, the United States Dollar has been valued higher than the Canadian Dollar. I can’t speak for many other areas in the U.S., but in western New York, here near the border, very often Canadian change has been accepted at par with U.S. change. It hasn’t been worth the effort to try to sort it out, even at nearly 2-to-1 exchanges, so it’s just been accepted.

In the last few months, with a weakening U.S. Dollar and a strengthened Canadian Dollar, the exchanged has tilted in Canada’s favor, with $1 CAD buying you $1.04 USD at the time of this writing, and as much as $1.07 in recent weeks. So now that the Loonie has edged just ever so slightly ahead of the American buck, what’s Moscoe’s bright idea?

Unilaterally reject U.S. coins on buses, streetcars, and in parking meters.

When, from what I’ve read, the City of Toronto is already scraping the barrel for cash to keep public transit running at at least the same levels as now, the millions of dollars it would cost to implement such a filtering system is somehow worth getting back the penny you’re losing off the occasional American quarter?

Fortunately, the rest of the city council didn’t think so, shooting down this silly proposal. Methinks the councilman may want to reexamine his priorities.

Editor’s note: Whoops! Missed my entry yesterday. I could go several ways with this (break down, panic, and quit; “steal” posts from the day before; illegally post date a new entry), but I’m going to take the highest road I can find on it, and owe you all two posts today.

A couple months ago, OJ Simpson got arrested for allegedly holding up an antiques dealer at gunpoint. The sentiment I heard at that point (I wish I had a link for it; alas you have only my hearsay to go on) was, here we go, it’s twelve years ago again, OJ Simpson in court will be all over the news again….

Interestingly, though, that doesn’t seem to have happened.

The world did not have the same access to the Internet and other information sources that aren’t broadcast and cable news that we do now, and there’s enough other stuff going on in the news and online that we’re not all glued to our TVs anymore.

I’m sure the TV media would love for us to be paying attention to their constant reporting of such things as OJ, but (in my opinion) to society’s benefit, we’ve got other sources of news and entertainment now and mainstream media just doesn’t matter as much these days.

I don’t believe it.

Seriously, I can’t believe I’m doing this.

I have to commend Chuck Schumer, because he did the right thing.

The confirmation of Judge Michael Mukasey to the post of Attorney General of the United States shouldn’t have anything to do with whether he thinks waterboarding is torture or not. It has everything to do with whether he upholds the law.

Sen. Schumer may not like that Mukasey won’t explicitly define waterboarding as torture, but frankly, it’s not Mukasey’s decision to make, it’s that of Congress, which Schumer noted in his statement endorsing the nominee’s confirmation:

In his statement Friday pledging continued support for Mukasey’s nomination, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., offered this significant (and significantly under-reported) nugget. Mukasey, Schumer wrote, “made clear to me [in private] that, were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the President would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.”

Mukasey’s viewpoint on it, then, boils down to this: “My job would be a legal one, not a moral one. I may or may not have a problem with waterboarding, but it’s not illegal as the law is written, and can’t recommend against it on those grounds. If you want me to tell the President not to do it, you make it illegal.”

It’s exactly the right viewpoint for an Attorney General to have. Sen. Schumer is doing the right thing by supporting the confirmation on the grounds that, while they may not agree on issues, the nominee would perform his job to the letter of the law.