Eliot Spitzer at the Personal Democracy Forum New York State Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer was the keynote speaker at last Monday’s Personal Democracy Forum in New York City. His subject: the digital divide. Introduction: Forum founder Andrew Rasiej. This is the first of a series of exclusive Pajamas Media podcasts from the PDF.

%%AUDIO=shows/personaldemocracyforum/20060515-PJM-PDF-EliotSpitzerKeynoteAddress.mp3|Pajamas Media at the Personal Democracy Forum - Podcast #1 - Pajamas Media … Stop by throughout the day for the best in blogging and opinion%%

Hugo Chavez's Greatest Hits Marc Cooper balances his critical view of Hugo Chavez by quoting “lefty Brit journo Johann Hari , “It is a minor gesture on my part as Hari also his own concerns about El Presidente. … Anyway, if you’re ticked off by this posting … I could have chosen instead to blog about Chomsky Hugging Hezbollah.”

Media Symbiosis Who says Iraqis aren’t learning democracy? Iraqpundit relates how an Iraqi politician uses the Washington Post to pin his shortcomings on people he knows the Post would like to blame. “This is an almost perfect confluence of interests.”

Howell Raines at the Gray Lady Jack Shafer @ Slate reviews Howell Raines’ memoir, The One That Got Away. Shafer says that Raines, who coined the phrase “defining moment”, regretted that “we had a chance to stabilize and expand the literate, affluent minority that makes up the quality-information marketplace.” But it got away.

The Rise of the Machines The good news is that fewer will die: the bad news is that India is planning a robotic military. Futurismic says “hence the Indian Prime Minister’s announcement that his country is starting a program to develop ‘cutting edge technology weapons in sensors, robotics, propulsion systems, stealth and fighting wars through use of remote technology’.”

Is It Civil War Yet? Not in Iraq but Gaza. Clarity and Resolve comments on the gunfights between a new Hamas security force and rival Fatah forces in Gaza City. Clarity and Resolve predicts it will blamed squarely on the Mossad/CIA. Well, maybe not the CIA. Little Green Footballs tries to make sense of the phrase, “we are the executive force”.

Hand Over the Keys “Businesses and individuals may soon have to release their encryption keys to the police or face imprisonment,” according to ZDNet. More attempted overreaching by the NSA? No. The powers are being sought by the British Home Office. Back in February Neowin noted that “according to the BBC, UK officials are in talks with Microsoft about creating back doors into Windows Vista.”

Murtha and the Haditha "Massacre" Charges The Martini Republic looks at an investigation into whether US Marines executed 15 civilians in Haditha in November, 2005 and John Murtha’s role in the inquiry. The Confederate Yankee comments.

"Framing" Explained Amanda Marcotte @ Pandagon explores the politics of language. “I’ve started a book by Steven Poole called Unspeak and … he equates the terms ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ as not only examples of framing but also of doublespeak/propaganda … he bought into the idea … that lulls people into thinking that in order to be fair you must pretend there are two sides to any debate and they are morally equivalent.”

Conyers Unsure About Impeachment Gateway Pundit notices that Representative John Conyers (D-MI)—who, last year, presided over a televised mock-impeachment proceeding for President Bush and introduced a House bill calling for a real one—seems coy about trying anew, should the Democrats regain both houses of Congress this November.

Codswallop Codswallop is the term Ian McKellen applies to the plot of the film he stars in, the Da Vinci Code. For an explanation of this extraordinary term see Roger Simon, who adds: “But the question is - is it good ‘codswallop’?”

Ensign Immigration Amendment Defeated Power Line comments on the 50-49 defeat of the Ensign amendment in the US Senate, “that would have barred illegals from getting Social Security credit for the time when they were working illegally”.

Your Cellphone Wears a Wire Techdirt asks if you know that “when you use your mobile phone, you are revealing data to your mobile operator about where you are, and who you’re calling or being called by”? Did you know that a judge says it’s OK for your operator to give law enforcement this data without a warrant based on probable cause?

Hayden: The First Day Atlas Shrugs live-blogged the Hayden hearings and has its highlights, along with this quote from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts regarding the NSA’s Terror Surveillance Program: “I am a strong supporter of civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead.”

London Mayor Brands Blogger a Terrorist Ken Livingstone calls Venezuelan blogger Aleksander Boyd a terrorist in banning him from a site which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was due to visit. Also accused in minutes 16 to 19 of a City of a London webcast via Publius Pundit are unnamed “leading members of the Bush of administration” who Livingstone says have called for Chavez’s assasination.

Reality in Small Doses “While the idea of a TV program videotaping a family might bring memories of the horrid Louds to those of us old enough to remember, no family can be more different from the Louds.” Fausta finds heart in the Roloffs of Little People Big World.

Whither Surplus?

Kash Mansori

Kash@AngryBear takes a graphical look at where responsibility lies for the growing budget deficit.

Tony Snow in the Pit

La Brea tar pits (animals not real)

Using the phrase ‘Tar Baby’—which can be interpreted derogatorily—might be a tar baby that sticks to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, at least according to Think Progress.

Jeff Goldstein, however, asserts that interpreting the phrase as a racial slur serves—conveniently—to tar Snow.

Is It Something They Said? Regarding the jihad between titans Robert Spencer @ Jihad Watch, Dean Esmay @ Dean’s World and Charles Johnson @ Little Green Footballs, the best bet for observers is to just stay off to the side and then go in and strip the dead of anything useful. The bone of contention? Islam, of course.

Midday Line, May 18 If you’re reading this at work, the answer is: “Research. Why do you ask?”

• La Shawn Barber has some compassion for Lionel Tate, who may spend the next thirty years in prison for violating parole. His original crime was the murder of a six-year old when he was but twelve.
  
• With Paul McCartney and Heather Mills splitting up a month before McCartney’s sixty-fourth birthday, Neo-neocon recalls the lyrics of the old Beatles classic.
  
• Teen Sex Survey at High School creeps Ace out. With reason.
  
• Limbo Lower Now: “Bush at 36%, his lowest robo-rating ever.” — Kaus
  
• AskMom on G.O.P Foodfights: “Just. Stop. Now. Or Mom will bash your little pointed heads together and send you to your rooms until you are all so lonely and bored you’ll be happy to come out and play nice. “
  
• Janke up in The Great White North sees conservatives gaining momentum and the upper hand in…. Canada?
  
• Why our Doctors go insane before they quit. Anybody who thinks national health insurance is a good idea needs to read this series by “Dr. Bob.”
  
• iPod on one side, ol’ vinyl on the other; where’s the CD?, asks Orrin Judd.
  
• Wall of silence pierced by the blogs: Michael Totten has the proof.
  
• Peggy Noonan @ The Wall Street Journal: “I continue to believe the administration’s problem is not that the base lately doesn’t like it, but that the White House has decided it actually doesn’t like the base.”
  
• Confederate Yankee dubs Congressman Murtha, “Dishonorable John,” with reasons.
  
• Ayaan Frank? Laurence Simon notes a connection.
  
• Poretto @ Eternity Road eviscerates Atrios’ Democratic Party “Platform”, concluding “If your Curmudgeon were a Republican strategist, he’d be on his knees praying that the Democrats would adopt Black’s suggestions as their explicit party platform for 2006 and all the years beyond.”
  
• You were expecting John Wayne? Sean Penn to play Richard Clarke in “Against All Enemies” film. I guess Whoopi Goldberg passed.
  
• The Manolo says, “Even during the practice sessions, this disaster known as the Eurovision lays waste to the very essence of European culture….”
  
• Belgium falls flat … again. LVB notes “Nothing wrong with tire terror, says Belgian justice minister”
  

Hayden on the Hot Seat Senate hearings to confirm General Michael Hayden as the Director of the CIA began this morning. Hayden’s prior position as the director of the NSA during the beginning of the organization’s Terrorist Surveillance Program stands on center stage.

• Noting that Senator John D. Rockefeller is absent, Tom Maguire finds it puzzling “that folks briefed on the program don’t seem to object to it with any real enthusiasm.”
  
• A Los Angeles Times editorial writer also seems mystified that “Bush cares more about confirming Hayden than about coming clean on the NSA.”
  
• Michael Tanji marvels at the fact that “80-90 people” were involved in the implementation of the Terrorist Surveillance Program and did not complain about the program to Congress.
  
• Overheard via an open mike from Senator Dianne Feinstein after her questioning of Hayden: “he didn’t answer any of them.” Hayden promised the senator that he would answer many of her questions in closed session.
  
• Spotlighting Senator Carl Levin’s opening comments, David Corn asserts that the Bush Administration is engaged in ‘selective leaking.’

Singalong “People might disagree on whether direct bilaterals are better, or the U.S. tacking onto the Euro-3 multilaterals, or some combination thereto, but more and more seasoned foreign policy experts are calling for some form of direct dialogue between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States”: Greg Djerejian @ Belgravia Dispatch reviews the bidding.

Syria democracy crackdown Syrian authorities are rounding up several political activists and intellectuals; Norman Geras has the reports.

Here’s Looking at You, Kidney Virginia Postrel explains the true story of her kidney donation in the Texas Monthly.

Christian Conservatives and Liberal Blogs Unite Who knew? MyDD reports on a new coalition for web rights between the Christian Coalition and the Liberal Blog Network.

Tax Of The Day, Episode 327 “If anything shows signs of success, EUtopians try to tax it - and they export the same failed concept to make it seem universal and thus reasonable even when it isn’t,” No Pasarán! writes: now it’s email and cellphone text messaging’s turn.

China Syndrome

Yangshou farmers	Photo: Sean-Paul Kelly

Lots of pictures from The Agonist’s Sean-Paul Kelly, currently in China.

MSM Scrapings vs. Real Reporting Gates of Vienna compares how the story of Venezuela threatening to sell its F-16s to Iran was treated by the Chicago Tribune and by blogger In From The Cold. You already know who she’s declaring the winner, right?

Scheer: Bush More Right Than Wrong Liberal columnist Bob Scheer says George Bush is more right than wrong on immigration policy. But too bad the Prez has little credibility.

A Call For Apology, Silence From Scott Burgess @ The Daily Ablution: “Today’s Guardian comment piece by French-Algerian activist Naima Bouteldja and Stuart Hodkinson, editor of the hard-left Red Pepper, reminds us that the next few months will see something of a festival of guilt and recrimination, as the [UK] government prepares to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.” On his turn, Scott reminds them that history is a bit more complex than that.

Brother, Can You Spare 18 Grand? Vik Rubenfeld @ The Big Picture comments on a TV ad for California gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides claiming that education is underfunded. He picks a calculator and finds California spends over $18,000 per student per year.

NSA: Can You Hear Me Now? Eric Umansky has got a good theory as to why some phone companies say they’ve turned records over to the NSA — and why some claim they haven’t.

Late Night Line, May 17 - 18 Is this thing on?

• “Why Should I Have to Wait to Borrow a Koran” @ The Belmont Club.
  
• MUST SEE TV: “The Death of the Internet.” Watch it. Wake up to the issue. Email the link to three people you know who need to see it. Please.
  
• Buckell @ Crystal Rain reports the winners of the Carl Brandon Society’s Parallax and Kindred awards.
  
• Something to See: 10 apartments. “All photographed as if the ceilings were taken off.” Technique? “The overall picture of a room is an aggregate of dozens fragmentary photographs taken from above, and then merged using a computer.” Seamless.
  
• Brain Terminal: “Only white people can be racist, at least according to the Seattle public school system.”
  
• In the Hotel Krasnapolsky in central Amsterdam Paul Graham, author of “Hackers and Painters,” asks -How American are Startups?. “NYC could not be a start-up hub because there are lots of rich people but no nerds. Result: no start-ups. Pittsburgh has the opposite problem - lots of nerds, no rich people.”
  
• Pejman Yousefzadeh approves Josh Trevino and the Online Integrity movement. He’s not shy about saying why.
  
• Alan Bellows @ Damn Interesting “casts a cold eye” at the future realities of radioactive waste in This Place is Not a Place of Honor. “Each of these locations was selected due to its relative geologic stability, theoretically allowing facilities there to contain the waste for the required 10,000 years…. Ten thousand years ago, early humans were still painting images on the walls of caves.”
  
• Tammy Bruce reminds all that as Iran spews, so we plan.
  
• Longest Blog Headline of the week (so far): “University of Colorado Ethnic Studies professor and anti-American firebrand Ward Churchill and 70s Kung-fu expert and counterculture icon Billy Jack discuss the vicissitudes of identity politics and the latest attempt by Whitey to stick it to the (faux) Native American truth teller”

America by Ray Bradbury America: An ode to immigrants.

We are the dream that other people dream.
The land where other people land
When late at night
They think on flight
And, flying, here arrive
Where we fools dumbly thrive ourselves.

Continues Here