Time for some time off

Going to take a few days off from blogging. Heading to Disneyworld with the family tomorrow and also wrapping up my semester.

And, yes, I plan on dusting off the boat project as soon the semester ends. Oh, the progress I’ll make!

Private jets vs. $25 billion

Those automakers sure do know how to persuade:

The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation’s capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.

The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.

All three CEOs – Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler – exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM’s $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.

Odd that none of them thought that would look bad. Probably speaks to the culture inside those organizations. Certainly not good PR.

But, they did spend a lot of money to buy ads in local newspapers explaining why the American taxpayer needs to bail them out. Not sure how effective that strategy will turn out.

Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

Obama’s advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton’s foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.

Clinton would be well placed to become the country’s dominant voice in foreign affairs, replacing Condoleezza Rice. Since being elected senator for New York, she has specialised in foreign affairs and defence. Although she supported the war in Iraq, she and Obama basically agree on a withdrawal of American troops.

This appointment coupled with Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff shows a consistent move toward the center. (Some view Emmanuel as a partisan, but he was a leading force behind Clinton’s centrist policies including welfare reform.) These are all welcome moves.

Also, Clinton as the next Secretary of State will mean women have been the top diplomat for three of the last four appointments. No glass ceiling at the State Department.

Good for the ACLU:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio recently called on Gov. Ted Strickland and other officials to enact regulations protecting private information kept in state databases.

The ACLU first pressed for reform after it was revealed officials at Ohio’s Department of Job & Family Services conducted a search of private information on Joseph Wurzelbacher, also known as “Joe the Plumber,” and that such searches of those in news headlines were common protocol for the office.

News reports indicate nearly half a dozen other state agencies conducted searches on Wurzelbacher’s information without due cause.

Rather’s Lawsuit Shows Role of G.O.P. in Inquiry at CBS

The headline from the New York Times sounds damning: “Rather’s Lawsuit Shows Role of G.O.P. in Inquiry.” The subhead to the article explains that Dan Rather’s lawsuit over his dismissal from CBS News “seems to have unearthed evidence of political influence in an internal CBS investigation.”

Wow. Pretty shocking. Here’s the nut graph that explains the wrongdoing:

Among the materials that money has shaken free for Mr. Rather are internal CBS memorandums turned over to his lawyers, showing that network executives used Republican operatives to vet the names of potential members of a panel that had been billed as independent and charged with investigating the “60 Minutes” segment.

Through the process of discovery, Rather obtained a memo written after the network pledged to investigate his erroneous reporting on President Bush’s National Guard service. Rather based his story, of course, on a clearly fraudulent memo that he obtained from a known partisan.

After Rather retracted the story and offered his apology, the network created an independent panel to investigate what went wrong. The smoking gun is a memo that indicated Dick Thornburgh, a former Republican Attorney General, would garner approval from G.O.P. critics as an acceptable member of the panel. Thornburgh was eventually chosen for the two-person panel along with Louis Boccardi, a former chief executive of The Associated Press.

Now, the process of vetting Thornburgh does clearly show the role of the GOP in the inquiry and does provide evidence of “political influence.” But, I see no alternative to this type of vetting. When selecting members for any independent panel, ideology must be taken into account. For instance, the 9/11 Commission featured five Republicans and five Democrats. Had one party outweighed the other, its results would not have been as trusted. Independent panels, by their very nature, must weigh the ideological baggage of its members. Otherwise, they aren’t independent.

Andrew Haywood says as much toward the end of this New York Times report:

Asked about the assembly of the panel in a sworn deposition, Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News, acknowledged that he had wanted at least one member to sit well with conservatives: “CBS News, fairly or unfairly, had a reputation for liberal bias,” and “the harshest scrutiny was obviously going to come from the right.”

Well, that seems reasonable … to everyone except Dan Rather and the editors of the New York Times.

Progress in Iraq

Rather stunning evidence of the success of the troop surge in Iraq.

(Hattip: Instapundit.)

Obama on College Football

Good summation of Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview. According to Tigerhawk (a conservative blogger), Obama is staying close to the center. That’s great — just what the country needs.

Plus, there’s this:

Obama throws his ‘weight around a little bit,’ calls for an eight team playoff to resolve the national championship in college football. That is going to irritate a few thousand professors and college presidents, one of his key constituencies, but it is going to help him with 100 million college football fans, so it is a good trade.

A college football playoff system. Now, that’s one thing we can all agree on.

Slumdog Millionaire

Here’s the trailer for “Slumdog Millionaire” from directory Danny Boyle. He’s the guy who did “Trainspotting” and “28 Days Later,” both quite different but engaging films. Looks like he’s gone in a totally different direction again. Should be good.

Oh, yeah, he also did “Sunshine” a creepy science fiction movie.

Tracking campaign donations

Interesting point about the unintended consequences of tracking campaign donations. How might that information be used and — in light of the Internet — is that an invasion of my privacy?