Dick Cheney is having problems with his left foot. He’s walking with a cane, and is showing up for work wearing a comfie moccasin on it.

According to Reuters:

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride would not give specifics of the vice president’s ailing left foot but said it was a recurrence of a condition that was being treated with rest and anti-inflammatory medicine.

Is secrecy such a reflex that even this information is being withheld from us? It is a little thing, but that’s exactly the point.

Of course I wish his left foot a speedy recovery. Without DeLay.

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Pat Robertson is God’s retribution for our poor judgment about who to pay attention to.

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A scenario:

In August of 2006, an enterprising journalist (lord bless her!) unearths the fact that the Bush administration has continued to torture people after Bush signed the anti-torture bill. Remember that when Bush reluctantly signed it into law, he signalled that a president can waive it when he deems necessary.

The evidence of continuing torture so outrages enough Republicans that an investigation begins. More cases emerge, some particularly reckless. It becomes clear that Bush didn’t change his policy one iota. Furious at Bush’s contempt for the Legislature’s authority, the House draws up the Articles of Impeachment. Also, doing so helps deflect attention from the never-ending Abramoff corruption (and murder?) scandal.

In the Senate, McCain leads the posse. VP Cheney resigns before he is made president. The McCain-Biden ticket easily wins the ’08 presidential election.

Ok, so maybe I should postpone all this by a year so I can make it more plausible by including major gains by the Dems in the House. But my daydream can’t wait that long. [Tags: impeachment georgeBush politics]

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I just watched this week’s Arrested Development. It was an hilarious plea to be kept on the air.

The episode plugged www.SaveOurBluths.com, a fan site dedicated to keeping the show on the air.

And remember, when you’re done writing to Fox executives, pop one off to your Congressperson asking her or him to begin the impeachment proceedings already.

[Tags: arrestedDevelopment tv comedy impeachment]

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Conferenza has been a subscription-based newsletter that tells you what you missed at the conferences you wanted to go to but couldn’t. It’s been well-written and fiercely frank.

Now it’s become a free blog, supporting itself by ads. For readers, this is good news because now everyone can read it. And I hope it works out wonderfully for Conferenza. [Tags: conferenza blogs]

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My article on Wikipedia and L’Affaire Seigenthaler got Slashdotted last night. (Ironically, it’s part of a miscellaneous round up.) As usual, there are some great insights posted there, some in support, some not so much. [Tags: wikipedia slashdot]

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It helps a little to know that on Tuesday Brookline closed its public schools in anticipation of a snow storm that turned out to be a light rain. [Tags: photos]

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Steve
Garfield has a fascinating 3 minute report at Rocketboom about "PulsePoints,"
a free fast wifi network, very local, that is separate from the Internet but
provides access to a bunch of content cached from the Internet. Oh, listen to
it and then you’ll see what I’m trying to say. [Tags: pulsePoints wifi boston SteveGarfield rocketboom]

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As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself — not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch.” — After visiting with wounded veterans from the Amputee Care Center of Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, Jan. 1, 2006

Yes, Bush was just making a little joke and trying to connect with wounded veterans, but it reveals a casual blindness to the lived experience of others that is the opposite of compassion.

Video here; Bush’s cedar comments come 47 seconds in. (From Slate’s Bushism of the Day, by Jacob Weisberg. ) [Tags: GeorgeBush slate]

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Here’s an excellent inter-blog thread on whether hyperlinks do in fact subvert hierarchy: Doc made that part of his new year wishes. Dave Rogers objected. Doc replied. Mark Bernstein calmly sorted through the claims.

I agree with Mark’s sorting-out. Nicely done.

When I wrote that “hyperlinks subvert hierarchies” phrase, I must have used the word “subvert” for a reason. I believe that I used it to hint at the effect of hyperlinks on power relationships. So, it seems the truth of the statement depends on whether existing hierarchies are in fact being subverted by the Web. And that’s hard to evaluate because it’s such a broad statement and because it’s still early days. In support of the claim I’d point to changes in how businesses behave and the role of the mainstream media. But you could counter that politics hasn’t changed much, and I would counter that that’s going to be one of the last hierarchies to change, and you could reply…etc. And you could point to the emergence of new hierarchies in various Web domains, and I’d point to ways in which they’re substantially different sorts of hierarchies, and I’d point to Web domains where non-hierarchical social forms dominate, and you could counter-claim…etc. And these are interesting conversations to have. But not to settle. Not yet.

I’d also add that I agree with Dave that humans compete. But – to state the obvious, with which Dave agrees – that’s not all we do. We also collaborate, sympathize, coordinate, love, give way, support, woo, encourage, cooperate, share, and surprise one another with “Hang in there, Baby!” cat posters. The fact that we compete does not necessarily mean that power hierarchies are inevitable or that they have to be the dominant institutional/social form.

PS: There’s a sense in which the book I’m working on is in fact an elaboration of the notion that hyperlinks subvert hierarchies, where the hierarchies are taxonomic but the effects are on institutions. [Tags: hyperlinks web docSearls daveRogers markBernstein EverythingIsMiscellaneous]

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