Flickr Of The Day

Mont St. Michel - Reflecting Tides
Originally uploaded by alterednate.

Probably one of the most awe-inspiring sights I've seen - this massive rock with a small village and church on it, rising up from the flat sands.

Flickr Of The Day

Into the Light
Originally uploaded by TRiP67.

Taken at Letchworth State Park in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

Leicester City 1 Norwich City 2

It's difficult to get too excited about these end of season games but they are still important as they set a tone for next season's preparations.

There were several important pointers there for next year.

1. They still have the ability to come from behind to win games. I remember an extended period in Norwich's past, it may have gone on for a season or two, when we never won after going behind in a game. We've now achieved wins like this several times recently.
2. Robert Earnshaw is back. I was surprised to see that not only did he make the bench, but he came on and played.
3. The youth policy at the club is looking as strong as it has for many years - Jason Shackell, Chris Martin, Michael Spillane, Robert Eagle and now Kris Renton, aged 16 who came on at the end to become the youngest player ever to represent Norwich City. In addition, we also have youth products Ian Henderson, Ryan and Rossi Jarvis and Joe Lewis out gaining experience at other clubs.
   
4. We're winning away games - at last!

It makes you think, as most other clubs must be doing, of what might have been. Another four wins, and it's easy to think of at least twelve points thrown away, and we'd still have been right in the thick of play-off contention.

Good luck to Nigel Worthington and Doug Livermore at Leicester. It mustn't be forgotten that he rescued Norwich from a terrible fate at the hands of double-agent Hamilton a few years back. It was a bit ironic though that he threw on a 16-year old for his debut for Leicester given his reluctance to play the youngsters at Norwich. That would probably have been my biggest criticism of his time at Norwich.

Post match interviews with Leicester City's caretaker manager Nigel Worthington, Norwich manager, Peter Grant and goalscorer Robert Earnshaw (Realplayer required)

Voter Fraud? What Voter Fraud?

Now Karl Rove's plan for the next election has been exposed to the daylight, how effective will it be?

Last week, we learned that the administration edited a government-ordered report on voter fraud to support its fantasy. The original version concluded that among experts “there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud.” But the publicly released version said, “There is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud.” It’s hard to see that as anything but a deliberate effort to mislead the public.

Sound familiar? In President Bush’s first term, a White House official, who had been the oil industry’s front man in trying to discredit the science of global warming, repeatedly edited government reports to play down links between climate change and greenhouse gases. And then there was the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which turned reports on old, dubious and false tales about weapons of mass destruction into warnings of clear, present and supposedly mortal dangers.

As the NYT editorial says, it's fully time for Rove to answer some questions about his role in this affair.

Alberto Gonzales' Defence?

Alberto Gonzales has written a column for the Washington Post entitled 'Nothing Improper' in which he argues that he has done nothing wrong.

There are a couple of statements that stand out:

"I know that I did not -- and would not -- ask for the resignation of any U.S. attorney for an improper reason. Furthermore, I have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. attorney for an improper reason."

I think that depends on his interpretation of an improper reason. Presumably, not prosecuting Democrats when asked is not improper.

"Additionally, I have instructed all Justice Department officials to make themselves available for on-the-record interviews with lawmakers and hearings before Congress, and I have ordered the release of thousands of pages of internal documents."

All Justice Department officials - except those who have resigned, perhaps? The release of thousands of pages of internal documents - except those that cause us a problem, perhaps? Those have been 'mislaid'.

"I have nevertheless asked the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to further investigate this matter. Working with the department's Office of Inspector General, these nonpartisan professionals will complete their own independent investigation so that Congress and the American people can be 100 percent assured of what I believe and what the investigation thus far has shown: that nothing improper occurred."

How many of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility staff attended conservative law colleges?

"During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign."

Until proved otherwise, then I might have misstated.

"I am also telling our 93 U.S. attorneys that I look forward to working with them to pursue the great goals of our department in the weeks and months to come. During the past two years, we have made great strides in securing our country from terrorism, protecting our neighborhoods from gangs and drugs, shielding our children from predators and pedophiles, and protecting the public trust by prosecuting public corruption."

No mention of voter fraud?

"In part because of my own experience, I know the real strength of America. It lies in our Constitution, our people and our collective unyielding commitment to equal opportunity, equal justice, common decency and fairness."

Is that the same Constitution that whilst it says Habeus Corpus cannot be removed, it doesn't say that it applies to everyone?

I hope his two week preparation for his questioning by Congress is a bit better than this.

Flickr Of The Day

Bribie Island Sunset
Originally uploaded by Smørrebrød røm pøm.

I love the Sunshine Coast to the North of Brisbane. It's much less commercial than its brasher cousin to the South of Brisbane, the Gold Coast.

However, the rate of development is massive and is putting pressure on the local environment.

Reasons for the Surge

Joseph L Galloway, of McClatchy's Washington Bureau explains the reason for the surge:

It will be costly and painful to prolong the war in Iraq for another 21 months so that those who started it can hand off the harder decision of how to end it to the next occupant of the White House.

President Bush isn't extending and expanding the war in a search for victory. His dream of victory in Iraq cannot be achieved. Not by sending 30,000 more American troops. Not by making parts of Baghdad temporarily safer by billeting American troops in violent neighborhoods and pushing the slaughter into the northern and southern suburbs - or into the Green Zone where U.S. and Iraqi officials live and work.

Not by letting American soldiers bear the brunt of combat, targeted not only by our enemies, the Sunni Muslim insurgents but also by our supposed allies, the Shiite majority and the murderous militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In March, more American troops died in Iraq than Iraqi soldiers.

H/T Dan Froomkin's White House Watch.

Don't forget, they have also got to get those oil laws passed by the Iraqi government so that the contracts can be handed over to the big oil companies too. They haven't been passed yet.

Flickr Of The Day

drifting into a dream..
Originally uploaded by areyarey.

A beautiful, serene image

The Missing Emails

Dan Froomkin leads with the story of the extremely 'careless' White House losing emails.

Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

The leading culprit appears to be President Bush's enormously influential political adviser Karl Rove, who reportedly used his Republican National Committee-provided Blackberry and e-mail accounts for most of his electronic communication.

My question is this. If the RNC IT department has been doing its job properly, then the majority of these missing emails should have been archived to tape and still available.

In all organisations that I have worked in, the mail server, along with all the other file servers, is backed up (usually to tape) on a daily basis. A 'grandfather' system of tape rotation is used so that once a week the server is backed up to a weekly tape (there will be a number of tapes that are cycled so a weekly tape is used, say, every four weeks). Then, once per month, a monthly tape is inserted into the rotation, and this tape is kept as part of a rotation, or in some instances, forever.

Therefore, my question would be, how often is the RNC mail server backed up (they must do this or they would lose all email records in a system crash), what tape rotation policy is followed and how far back do the tapes go.

If the IT department at the RNC is doing its job properly, tape backups should have records going back months and years. Whilst it may not be a 100% complete record (an email could be received after one monthly backup and deleted before the next one is taken) I would suspect that a significant proportion of emails would be archived.

John Pilger's View

I hope this isn't right:

We are being led towards perhaps the most serious crisis in modern history as the Bush/Cheney/Blair "long war" edges closer to Iran for no reason other than that nation's independence from rapacious America. The safe delivery of the 15 British sailors into the hands of Rupert Murdoch and his rivals (until their masters got the wind up) is both farce and distraction. The Bush administration, in secret connivance with Blair, has spent four years preparing for "Operation Iranian Freedom". Forty-five cruise missiles are primed to strike. According to General Leonid Ivashov, Russia's leading strategic thinker: "Nuclear facilities will be secondary targets, and there are 20 such facilities. Combat nuclear weapons may be used, and this will result in the radioactive contamination of all the Iranian territory, and beyond."