TPM’s simple summation of yesterday’s good news:

House Majority Leader Indicted for Criminal Conspiracy.

Senate Majority Leader the target of an increasingly serious probe of potential insider trading.

Rumors of October Rove indictment in the Plame case.

Is this a problem yet?

Not sure why he forgot to include Larry Franklin in that list. Gotta keep it short. No time to list all the dirt.

My favorite Baghdad blogger weighs in with part 2 of her analysis of the draft constitution Her two main points concern the lack of protections for women, and the nature of federalism found it defines:

I’m wondering- where is the outrage of pro-occupation, pro-war women’s rights advocates? Why the deafening silence, ladies?

I guess she didn’t get the memo. Championing women’s rights is just a talking point, and not some core belief.

Federalism is ok when a country is stable. It’s fantastic when countries or troubled regions are attempting to unite. In present-day Iraq it promises to be catastrophic. It will literally divide the country and increase instability. This is especially true with the kind of federalism they want to practice in Iraq.

Federalism based on geography is acceptable, but federalism based on ethnicity and sect? Why not simply declare civil war and get it over with?

It sure looks like the civil war is on, declaration or none.

WorldChanging points out an interesting anniversary: Thank You, Stanislav:

Tonight, drink a toast to Stanislav Petrov. Twenty two years ago today, on a cold Siberian night, he chose not to follow orders, and chose not to end the world.

Go read the story. And raise a glass to our unsung hero!

Ars Technica brings us the ugly truth: China cracks down on news sites:

The rulers of China are faced with a difficult conundrum as the transition from communism to fascism winds down. …

In recent months the government has asserted control over physical Internet access, closing cybercafes by the thousands, and online by going after bloggers, chat rooms, and forums. Now, the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Truth Information Industry for news services, which include web sites, forums, and even messaging to cell phones, further expands control.

File this under “Ignorance is Strength”, China style.

Defence Tech keeps up with the maga-billion dollar boodogle, the Slow, Fat “Future” for Army:

It’s official: After $450 billion, the Army’s quick-moving force of the future will be just about as slow as the one that’s around right now.

We expect all weapon systems to be expensive white elephants. But what kills me is they can’t even figure out how to procure a decent radio, something they really need, and should be really easy to pull off.

…even the more basic changes have seemed near-impossible to pull off. The effort to get all soldiers on a common radio, for example, is facing massive restructuring, after the project’s main contractor, Boeing, seems to have flushed $5 billion and three years worth of work down the toilet.

“The government has not seen sufficient evidence of the contractor teams’ understanding of the scale of integration required… to ultimately achieve the program requirements,” the Army told Boeing …

In other words, the radio project has become slow and bloated. Just like the rest of FCS.

If the Army can’t get itself a decent radio, then you just know the obsolete crap they fob off on the National Guard ain’t gonna cut it during an emergency. It didn’t in Katrina and it won’t when the San Andreas cracks.

Engadget? Not their typical story: Robot uncovers $10 billion treasure:

Chilean robot “Arturito,” … was unleashed on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe island where he stumbled across about 600 barrels of buried gold coins and jewels, presumably looted from the Incans during the Spanish occupation. The hunters’ lawyer estimates the treasure to be valued at around $10 billion, and promises that it will be donated to non-profit organizations (although the Chilean government says you can’t donate what you don’t own; way to flex that eminent domain muscle, guys).

I guess I’m a sucker for pirate stories…

Preliminary word via New Scientist: Flood walls in New Orleans were ’structurally flawed’:

Concrete flood walls that were supposed to protect New Orleans were not overwhelmed by high waters during Hurricane Katrina as federal officials have claimed, but ruptured because they were structurally flawed, according to Louisiana scientists.

The Bushies are running around trying to prove that environmentalists were to blame for the failure to develop robust levees. R’s blame corrupt locals. D’s blame R’s for slashing budgets. Now it looks like the levees were poorly designed, poorly built, and not maintained well. Not only that, but there is a report (that I can no longer find) that the land beneath New Orleans was subsiding much faster than anyone knew — meaning they didn’t even have as much protection as they thought.

What a mess.

So some investigator, Fred Black, in Guam of all places, opens an investigation of the now familiar Jack Abramoff. Two days later he is demoted, and the investigation squelched. Coincidence? Or maybe, “Ignorance is Strength”?
Talk Left has more, as does TPM

Since I recently had a knee operation, I’ve had some time to lounge around the house—which is sort of like torture for me. Can’t stand to be doing nothing. I mean, there is only so much Rita tracking one man can stomach.

So I spent some time updating my google map application, the San Francisco Schools Information Map. Lots of fun.:

• I completely overhauled the HTML to integrate it with the sfschools blog.
• Used color coded, small icons (borrowed from google labs)
• Added lots more linkage in each school’s info bubble
• Figured out how to support new map modes, like hybrid — and made hybrid the default

But I am still left with the impression that the google map API is a defensive move on google’s part. It’s just good enough to blow peoples’ minds. But it’s not good enough for real, robust map apps.

Unless I’m missing something, the inability to iterate over map objects, or the lack of any map DOM documentation, limits what I can do too much. Maybe there is some way for me to remove markers from a map without having to delete the map and regenerate it with only the desired markers—but I don’t see it.

Still, it is amazing that google has made it so easy to put together an app like this. I may gripe, but I’m loving it.

ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, lost their headquarter offices in New Orleans to Katrina. Now they are busy organizing NOLA evacuees to help them retain their rights to remain in New Orleans. A big part of that struggle is bound to be guarding against those who will attempt to grab land from poor property owners.

In this new release, Katrina Mortgage Relief Unfairly Denied to Many Homeowners they take up that struggle:

tens of thousands of homeowners who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina are not being offered the mortgage relief that has been highly publicized in recent weeks, and as a result could face foreclosure by the end of the year.[…]

‘The communities that suffered the most from Katrina and the ineffective government response are now receiving inferior and disparate treatment from our nation’s financial system,’ said ACORN President Maude Hurd. ‘Equal treatment and a chance to get back on their feet is not too much to ask for the homeowners in our communities. Those that have more expensive loans to start with should certainly get the same consideration as other borrowers.”

Keep your eye on this one. This issue will not be a sexy, media-genic one with attention grabbing headlines and heart rending photos. This will be a quiet battle for ownership of the new New Orleans.

Radio Free Europe opines in The Message Of Lower Voter Turnout that turnout was low due to disaffection with the ballot:

With the burden of Afghanistan’s march to democracy placed squarely on the shoulders of the Afghan people, roughly half of them exercised their democratic right by saying that they are not content with many of the people campaigning to represent them in parliament or, perhaps, with the speed at which their country is progressing.

If Afghanistan’s democracy is to move forward in deeds and not just in words, this message by many Afghans must be heeded and steps taken to regain their confidence.

I don’t buy it. I think it is perfectly natural that local legislative elections would not generate the same turnout. As I said before, it was a much tougher ballot to navigate. Many of the illiterate and semi-literate voters would be shut out from the vote. The notion that the presence of war criminals would lessen the turnout is strange. I would think that would increase the turnout as voters make sure that the candidates with dirty hands are turned out—there were plenty of candidates. Yet it is strange that the turnout was lower in Kabul than elsewhere.

One positive note comes from Reuters, Vote count continues, partial results emerging:

voter turnout in the historic polls was well over 50 percent; with 43 percent of all votes cast belonging to women and 57 percent belonging to men.

The results are expected in early October. I think analysts would do well to wait to see what comes out of this. Could be very interesting.