Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Paranoia Will Make Us Free
Here's another security improvement from the Transportation Security Administration (motto: "Making Air Travel More Tedious Since 2002")--henceforth, airplane passengers on U.S. domestic flights will be discouraged from congregating outside aircraft lavatories. The directive doesn't appear to be a rule--in other words, the undercover air marshal assigned to your flight may not be able to shoot you--but how precisely such lines are to be avoided is not clear. Maybe we'll have to start taking a number. "Number 27, you are clear to do a number two."
Recommended reading: Salon is out today with a series of articles on the evolving "master narrative" in the media regarding Howard Dean. In 2000, remember, the master narrative was that Al Gore was an insufferable bore prone to exaggeration, and that perspective warped the coverage of many reporters. Eric Boehlert suggests that Dean is already seen by many media outlets as angry, gaffe-prone, and unelectable, even though the perception of Dean by the voters doesn't reflect the media's bias--yet. Also at Salon, Aaron Kinney analyzes an astounding series of questions put to Dean by Newsweek's Howard Fineman on points of religious doctrine, which were ultimately little more than an attempt to sandbag Dean to the Republicans' benefit.
Quotes of the day (courtesy of the Progress Report): Florida Republican congressman Tom Feeney on the Bush push to return to space: "Somebody is going to dominate space. When they do, just like when the British dominated the naval part of our globe, established their empire, just like the United States has dominated the air superiority, ultimately, whoever is able to dominate space will be able to control the destiny of the entire Earth. And I think America is the only country with the moral capability and authority to establish what I consider a Monroe Doctrine in space, guarantee all free nations can use space, but no hostile nation will use it to take us over." And blogger Josh Marshall on the Paul O'Neill/classified documents flap: "Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days. Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day. Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons . . . priceless."
Here's another security improvement from the Transportation Security Administration (motto: "Making Air Travel More Tedious Since 2002")--henceforth, airplane passengers on U.S. domestic flights will be discouraged from congregating outside aircraft lavatories. The directive doesn't appear to be a rule--in other words, the undercover air marshal assigned to your flight may not be able to shoot you--but how precisely such lines are to be avoided is not clear. Maybe we'll have to start taking a number. "Number 27, you are clear to do a number two."
Recommended reading: Salon is out today with a series of articles on the evolving "master narrative" in the media regarding Howard Dean. In 2000, remember, the master narrative was that Al Gore was an insufferable bore prone to exaggeration, and that perspective warped the coverage of many reporters. Eric Boehlert suggests that Dean is already seen by many media outlets as angry, gaffe-prone, and unelectable, even though the perception of Dean by the voters doesn't reflect the media's bias--yet. Also at Salon, Aaron Kinney analyzes an astounding series of questions put to Dean by Newsweek's Howard Fineman on points of religious doctrine, which were ultimately little more than an attempt to sandbag Dean to the Republicans' benefit.
Quotes of the day (courtesy of the Progress Report): Florida Republican congressman Tom Feeney on the Bush push to return to space: "Somebody is going to dominate space. When they do, just like when the British dominated the naval part of our globe, established their empire, just like the United States has dominated the air superiority, ultimately, whoever is able to dominate space will be able to control the destiny of the entire Earth. And I think America is the only country with the moral capability and authority to establish what I consider a Monroe Doctrine in space, guarantee all free nations can use space, but no hostile nation will use it to take us over." And blogger Josh Marshall on the Paul O'Neill/classified documents flap: "Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days. Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day. Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons . . . priceless."
