Tony Hirst has a really interesting graphical comparison of Google and twitter traffic during Obama’s Inauguration.
Coming soon: Obama’s first mistake?
The most satisfactory sight yesterday was that of Dick Cheney, looking for all the world like Dr Strangelove, being wheeled off the scene in a wheelchair. The only problem is that he was then helped into a limousine rather than a police van. Much as I enjoyed Obama’s stern denunciation of the Cheney/Rove/Bush perversion of the presidency and their abuse of the Constitution, I had the sinking feeling that he is going to grant the bastards the kind of unconditional pardon that Gerald Ford gave to Richard Nixon. And that would be his first big mistake.
The omens are not promising. Last Sunday he was asked whether he would seek an investigation of possible crimes by the Bush administration. “I don’t believe that anybody is above the law,” he responded, but “we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”
Oh yeah? As Paul Krugman put it in the New York Times:
I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.
Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation’s security. The fact is that the Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies.
Yesterday, Obama swore on Lincoln’s bible to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” And, says Krugman, that’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.
“To protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.”
Mark Anderson is even more incensed.
Who cares what Obama decides to do about Bush? Excuse me, but I just could not care less. When criminals break the law, we don’t ask candidates-to-be if we should prosecute. I would suggest that ANY comments by the Obama team indicating a lack of will to prosecute would, of itself, be worth examining as being in some way accessory.
In other words, Obama: on this subject, please shut up. We are not interested in your first big mistake: not prosecuting the most evil and dangerous villains ever to misuse power in the U.S. government.
Therefore, regardless of the Obama political calculations, we should be resolved, as we have in past similar situations (Iran Contra, Watergate) to put these crimininals to trial.
There are so many crimes, it seems almost impossible to list them; I certainly won’t try to here, but will leave it to experts in each department and field to do so. Krugman says he has counted six different departments wherein crimes were committed; that seems too small a number, but it does not matter.
Here is a simple question: who is responsible for nearly a million civilian deaths in a faked war? There was never, ever a need for an Iraq war; and that statement will stand the test of history. Given its truth, we should not be talking about the few thousand GI deaths as the cost of the war, but should recognize that the United States, without cause or any particular aggression on Iraq’s part, and without any proven concern for its own safety, did cause the deaths of between 600,000 and 1,000,000 civilians in that country.
Let’s see now, is Dick Cheney ready to stand up and pay for this? Exactly how, Mr. Cheney, are you planning on doing that?
As Cheney was wheeled away I’m afraid my composure slipped and I uttered a phrase much beloved of my mother (a fanatical catholic): “May he rot in hell”. I take that back. I merely want him to rot in gaol.
On this day…
… in 1924, Lenin died at the age of 54. Just thought you’d like to know. My favourite saying of his is “those who make revolutions by halves are digging their own graves”.
On this day…
… in 1981, Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. In effect, by humiliating Carter, the Iranians ensured Reagan’s election, and with it ensured the dominance of neocon ideology for the next three decades.
The weather in DC
Official forecast:
“Bone-Chilling Inauguration Weather”
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Washington in January/February is the coldest place I’ve ever been. When I first went Sue bought me what she called an “arctic coat” and I cursed it because it made me so hot and sweaty in airports and planes. But then I found myself walking across Du Pont Circle in minus 20 degrees one night and never complained again. I still have it.
Wonder how the VIPs at the ceremony keep warm. A case of politically incorrect patio heaters perhaps?
NYT borrows $250 million
Well, at least they were able to get it.
Obamaday!
Just think: no matter how fed up you are with the prospect of recession etc. this morning, imagine how you’d be feeling if McCain/Palin were being inaugurated today.
Modern Liberty: the convention
From Henry Porter in yesterday’s Observer.
Look no further than the news of recent days to know why the Convention on Modern Liberty, launched last week in London by Baroness Kennedy, is so critical and is inspiring such support. As co-director, I would naturally talk it up, but many have been struck by the contrast – actually, I would say lunatic hypocrisy – in a government where you have a foreign secretary who, swooning for Obama, called for Britain to champion the rule of law and “uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home” and a justice secretary who a few hours before had announced measures in the Coroners and Justice Bill (a tricksy little portmanteau if ever there was one) that will bring in secret inquests and legalise a vast exchange of personal data between government departments.
Convention is on February 28, at venues around the country. See the web site for details. You can also follow it on Twitter.
The downside of Web 2.0
Hmmm… It’s really tough. On the one hand, one cannot run a business nowadays without taking Google into account. On the other hand, one can’t build a business that depends on Google.
A number of Google services just announced that they are about to shut down. The Google Video team announced that it will shut down uploads in a few months, while the Google Notebook team announced that it is stopping development the service will continue to function, however. According to Danny Sullivan, Google is also closing Jaiku, a Twitter-like micro-blogging service that was bought by Google before it even launched, but which has lingered in invite-only mode ever since. Google Catalog search, which made shopping catalogs searchable, will also be closed soon.
Update: Google will release the Jaiku code under the open source Apache license, so that other organizations can pick up where the Google team left off. It is not clear if current users will be able to transfer their accounts.
Health Isn’t a Private Issue When You’re a Legend
Joe Nocera (whom Steve Jobs rang some months ago to berate him) returns to the question of when a CEO’s health is his own business, and when it’s of public interest.
It is really hard to write about Steve Jobs and his health problems. What you really want to do is root for him, not criticize him. Everybody — myself very much included — hopes that he will get well and come back to work. I can even understand why he doesn’t want to disclose details about his medical problems — it’s distasteful, and Mr. Jobs also believes strongly that it’s nobody’s business except his and his family’s.
But he’s wrong. There are certain people who simply don’t have the same privacy rights as others, whether they like it or not. Presidents. Celebrities. Sports figures. And, at least in terms of his health, Steve Jobs. Once again, his health is a material fact for Apple’s shareholders, and more disclosure is required. His vagueness about his health, his dissembling, his constantly changing story line — it is simply not an appropriate way to act when you are the most important person at one of the most prominent companies in the country. On the contrary: it is infuriating.
Enough is enough. If Mr. Jobs wants privacy, he should resign from Apple. If he did, of course, his health would no longer be anybody’s business but his own. Barring that radical move, Mr. Job’s medical problems will continue to be a “distraction,” as he himself put it in that recent e-mail message — and a big one. The time has come for Apple’s board to wrest control of this subject from Mr. Jobs, and do the right thing by the company’s shareholders. Say, once and for all, what is going on with Mr. Jobs’s health. Put the subject to rest. End the constant rumormongering. And then get back to the business of making the coolest products on earth.