Letters to the Editor
thelastnamechosen
Published Letters: 163
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Somebody is in big trouble
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From the email headers it appears that both emails originate from the same server and IP address.
This is very interesting.
My theory based based upon the evidence we have so far, listed in the most likely order.
1) The email was sent by an underling of Boylan without his permission. A court-martial awaits for computer crime with national security implications.
2) Boylan wrote the email and is completely off his rocker.
3) A third party did some heavy duty hacking and or forgery and if caught will spend a long time in a federal jail. This is serious business with large national security implications.
No matter how this resolves there is a story here.
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Glenn
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Definitely get Salon IT and management involved and preserve the server logs for these email transactions. Depending on how ugly this gets, one defense may be to accuse you of concocting this email yourself.
Salon's email server(s) logs will also most likely have more information than what is available from the email headers. Saving this information will also be useful if there is a criminal investigation.
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Boylan==Petraeus
[Read the article: Col. Boylan's denial]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you don't have the time or expertise to do your taxes, you hire an accountant.
If you don't have the time or expertise to talk to the media, you hire a press flack.
If your tax return under reports your income, you get in trouble.
If your press flack lies then you have lied.
I know in modern politics the media has somehow swallowed the idea that a press flack doesn't really speak for their boss. Oh sure, the flacks are given a microphone only because they speak for their boss, but the bosses are never held accountable for their flack's actions.
Tony Snow said so and so. NO!! George Bush said so and so.
Press flacks are now just considered freelance opinion writers by the media. It is the worst of both worlds. The media gives away the microphone, but won't do any follow up because "Petraeus didn't say it, Boylan did."
BULLSHIT!!
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First Post
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Great article and great conversation. Glenn has a wonderful knack of serving enough booze to get people talking, and also enough snacks that the lamp shades and projectile vomiting are kept to a minimum. The role of host is seriously underrated.
William Timberman @6:56
I am curious if you apply the same concern of differing laws and morality among separate jurisdictions to countries and not just states. In other words, do your same concerns apply to the varying laws and morality of different countries and if so what are some possible solutions?
Should we move towards one global set of laws and morality? If so, should we apply a western version of morality upon the world by force or should we look toward democracy and let the votes fall where they may? I have a feeling if today we held a worldwide one person one vote referendum on what should be moral and legal, we would soon long for the freedom of the Bush administration.
The United States has built into the system a way to express national morality. A constitutional amendment could address every concern you raised in your post. Do you think that constitutional amendments are insufficient to address the need for national norms and morality? Do you think that a national morality is better addressed by federal law? If we are not going to have state sovereignty, shouldn't we just eliminate state government all together?
The only purpose state government seems to have left is to provide more tax revenue to the federal government, to get around double jeopardy and allow the large political parties to rig national elections.
I love democracy but I think it doesn't scale into large systems very well. The larger a democracy grows the less it represents the will and morality of the people. One of the biggest advantages of separate small democracies over one large democracy is that you can move. People of like minds can congregate together and try to prove to the world that their experimentation in valuation has something to offer.
It seems to me that those arguing that federal government should be neutered and those arguing that state governments should be neutered are really only arguing about what is the most efficient size of a democracy.
I like many small democracies because I place a high value on diversity of culture and values. More ways to cook, more ways to dance, more visions of beauty, more philosophers, more evil geniuses and more heroes.
Sorry for the barrage of questions and randomness but I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter.
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The Last Value
[Read the article: What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Power has become the last value--the highest value. It is accumulated not to implement a morality or philosophy, but for its own sake. We have become baseball card collectors, but we hate baseball. We don't even remember the rules of the game.
We fill shoe-boxes that fill rooms that fill houses. We chew slate rock and smile as if it were bubble gum. We wrap them in plastic to protect them from the sun and fingerprints, the sworn enemies of the collector.
The only thing we leave to our children is obsession for obsession's sake, or a few grand off ebay if they are lucky.
Cardboard, plastic and strained poses-- The Last Value.