Wide Awake and Ready To Go

Balance is a good thing. After 5 weeks of workaholism, I'm done with my mini-marathon and it's time to resume life.

In preparation for our camping trip to Ledges State Park next weekend, I purchased the big tent and then this past week, 5 air mattresses from campmor.com. I couldn't be more satisfied with their prices, their selection, and their service. If you camp and need gear, go there. You won't be disappointed.

So last night, Austin and Jacob spent the night, sleeping on their new air mattresses and having a ball with them. They crashed in the living room while watching a Spongebob video, and me, I conked out on the couch above them. I woke up at 11:30 to find the DVD finished and now stuck at the menu selection screen and music blaring - or at least it seemed so in the nighttime quiet of the apartment.

Bari and Nick were not home yet. No, Bari had driven herself and Nick and his girlfriend, Ali, to the local Barnes & Noble to pick up the latest Harry Potter tome. I smiled and went to bed and woke up around 4:30 - habit, I guess, from having been going to work by 5:30 each day. So I went out to the living room to check on the boys and was greeted by a wafer of light from beneath Bari's bedroom door. She was well into J.K. Rowling's story (somewhere past 250 pages) and no sign of stopping. Good for her :)

Friday was also interesting because it was the day that I learned that my credit card number had been hijacked by some bloke (or blokette) trying to buy airline tickets through London's lastminute.com. They tried to purchase around $1,200 in tickets. Unfortunately for them, I caught it and I learned in the afternoon that my bank had caught this as well. No biggie. The transaction hadn't yet cleared, nor will it, and the new card is on the way. I do quite a bit of online banking/purchasing. I pay most of my bills this way and buy everything from music at musicmatch.com to books at Amazon to art supplies from pochade.com and misterart.com to domain re-registrations at godaddy.com. So where did this thievery happen? No clue, but I've been shopping at most of these places for a while and I don't think that they're to blame. I don't expect this to curb my desire for online finance. In fact, if anything, the fact that the bank and I caught this less than 24 hours after it occurred says that the system works. Terrific, and no harm done.

Tomorrow, I plan to catch up on blogger friends listed at left and see what I've missed for the last month. I did visit instapundit and buzzmachine in the past couple of days and even left a comment on Jeff's site. Chris Muir of Day by Day caught my comment and came here to give a thumbs up. Kind of cool how the blogosphere connects people.

I have caught up a bit on the news, and here are a few thoughts:

• Grand Theft Auto's hidden sex scenes should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the game. Why any parent would let their kids have the game in the first place is beyond me, but the involvement of those in Congress is overreaching and nanny-ish.
• Saw that Bernie Ebbers got 25 years. That rocks. Rot in hell, asshole. And pack a cork.
• Lots of breathless "ooh goody" going on about Rove and Plame and the media. I'll probably watch NBC tomorrow morning and catch the Cooper interview, but to address the facts - Valerie Plame worked at a desk in Langley and her neighbors knew that she worked at the CIA. It was she who suggested the her hubby, Joe Wilson, go to Niger and debunk the yellowcake claim. Now to read the media accounts of this, you would think that she was a covert spy deeply undercover somewhere sinister and that her husband, asked by the White House, brought back an unflattering report and so Rove outed Ms. Plame as vengeance. Why do I not take the media very seriously? Really? You have to ask? Good gravy. If Rove is guilty of outing a covert agent, then by all means toss his butt in jail. Along with anyone else who reveals covert operatives and covert operations (journalists, be careful what you wish for). But if Rove didn't do that, then whoop-tee-doo. Next...
• Go Lance - I hope he wins.
• And speaking of France, Jacques Chirac lives up to his nickname of "Le Worm" by insulting the British over and over again redundantly non-stop. Britain gives him the finger; the French like him all the more. Although, since his popularity only rose to 32 percent, I'm not sure that's exactly a cheer for the smarm king. (The other 68% are probably unemployed due to France's high taxes... except for Johnny Depp.)
• I saw that the UN is still shredding documents to cover itself in the Oil-For-Food fiasco. Anyone who wants these guys to lead the world is, unfortunately, blissfully ignorant. In fact, in 2008, what's shaping up to be my biggest issue to determine my vote is the one who seeks to protect our national sovereignty in the face of international pressure. Absolutely nothing should be ceded to the UN, or anyone else.

I was getting bummed out about the lack of good news in the media. But as Seven Habits taught me, there are things in my control, and things not in my control. My mouth is in my control; the myopia of the press is not in my control.

So, I've decided that I'll use my roost here at beatcanvas.com to occasionally poke my finger in the eye of socialists, terrorist-appeasers, and anti-US'ers. Oh, and people who still think that John McCain should be taken seriously. Anyone who authors legislation that curbs free speech deserves ridicule. And Bush deserves just as much jeer for signing the awful law. Bastards.

It's good to be back.

ETC: Caught the Cooper interview - it was nothing but marketing.

"TIME has good reporters who won't give up a source. Really. I only did so because I had a waiver from my source."

Tags: my life | free speech
by Brett Rogers, 7/16/2005 8:20:32 PM
Permalink

Ditto about McCain, and shame on GWB. That's bad law, no two ways around it. Well, bad law for the US. Good law for, maybe, Cuba... except they don't have any free speech to curb. Oh well.

Glad you're back, friend. : )

Posted by Anonymous, 7/17/2005 6:49:58 AM

Explain to me how that quote is marketing. Out of context as it is, it seems more CYA.

Actually, I'd be interested to know how any of it, from both sides, ISN'T marketing and CYA. :-)

Posted by Bella, 7/18/2005 12:03:05 PM

Thanks Kris... and I'm hoping to make it to one of your shows soon :)

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 7/18/2005 12:19:05 PM

Marketing: "Really, all you sources of information, fear not! It's okay to do business with us." I wouldn't regard it as CYA because Mr. Cooper has no legal problems pending - no ass to be covered.

The remarkable thing to me is how the whole story is not given by so many in the media. Rheka Basu's recent column on it is a great example. She's leaves out much of the detail to paint very anti-Rove.

"Wilson, a former diplomat in Iraq, was hired by the CIA to go to Africa to investigate claims that Iraq was trying to buy enriched uranium from Niger to promote a banned weapons program. He found the transaction never happened, and said so in the New York Times . Eight days later, his wife's covert identity was made public in a column by Robert Novak."

Cute, but there are more facts conveniently left out (or ignorantly).

The source of the yellowcake intelligence was British. It wasn't conjured up by Bush.

Hired by the CIA? True, but at the suggestion of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife.

Wilson has since been discredited by his own lies in his NYT op-ed after his trip.

It was then that reporters went to Rove and asked about Wilson's trip. Rove said that it was Wilson's wife that suggested the trip, not the administration.

That she worked at the CIA was no secret - her neighbors knew.

Does that sound like a scandal by the administration? Hardly. But Basu leaves all of that information out of her piece. Good journalism... you betcha.

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 7/18/2005 12:52:54 PM

Screw Rehka...well, not literally. I've met her. Nice lady. But, frankly, if you don't expect that side of the arguement from her, then you haven't been paying attention. That's why she's on the OP Ed page.

With a reporter in jail, I'm guessing CYA is a factor in just about everything,whether the legal threat is valid or not.

So is the CIA full of liberals because they sent the exposure to the justice department?

Posted by Bella, 7/18/2005 2:13:53 PM

Maybe my expectations are too high, but I actually expected Ms. Basu to center her written opinions in the esteemed Des Moines Register on complete facts. My bad. I'll lower my expectations...

Judith Miller didn't have a waiver... but then, maybe Rove wasn't her source. And her jail... have you seen it? Gosh - it's nicer than my apartment.

And I never said that the CIA was full of liberals. Nothing of the sort. If someone there thought it was an offense, then they should have reported it. That deserves investigation. And then, you know, innocent until proven guilty. That kind of thing.

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 7/18/2005 2:39:05 PM

Your facts come from a source, so do hers. The perspective is different, that's all. By your own admission, she leaves stuff out, she's not making stuff up, and she's entitled to her opinion. Especially on an editorial page. Her "facts" and your "facts"....well, they probably aren't. They are the truth viewed through the lens of perspective.

So...who do we believe, Wonkette or CBS News, who reported that Judith Miller was sleeping on the floor of a cell? My guess is that the truth lies somewhere in between....regardless of what her cell looks like, it's ridiculous that she's in one.

And I'm not sure the point is really who knew what when. In my humble opinion, the White House Chief of Staff shouldn't really be naming names of anybody in the CIA to the press unless they are getting a medal or something. By his own admission, Karl Rove "said too much". Was it a crime or just unprofessional? Probably both. Either way, Bush said the person who leaked would go, so he should go.

Posted by Bella, 7/18/2005 3:50:09 PM

I think it's ridiculous if she's in jail over the "outing" of a non-covert CIA desk jockey.

On the other hand, if she's in jail for protecting a source over the legitimate demands of leak-proofing national security, then she's exactly where she belongs. The press is not a protected class, constitutionally, but a mechanism of publishing speech. She has no more rights to protect anyone than you or I do.

More later...

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 7/18/2005 4:13:55 PM

LOL! But what if she's protecting a source that outed a "covert" desk jockey who was no threat to national security? :-)

Technically, legally, yes, she is where she belongs. I'm not going to argue with you there. But it's still kind of ridiculous. Seems to me there should be some other punishment for contempt of court. I mean, the jail time makes her a martyr for free speech and, if we are to believe Wonkette, isn't much punishment. It's almost as empty as Martha Stewart's time.

Posted by Bella, 7/18/2005 4:32:37 PM

Hey, I think it's ridiculous that drug abusers go to prison. Not really the place for them. Kind of silly to imprison perpetrators of victimless "crimes."

And I agree - making her sit in time out isn't much of a deterrent, if that's what prison is to be.

Posted by Brett Rogers (http://www.beatcanvas.com), 7/18/2005 4:46:42 PM