My view of the world

Here we have the most honorable representative from Louisiana, who has been indicted on bribery, racketeering and money-laundering charges.

This picture is of Rep. Jefferson and his attorney, from the AP

His absolutely brilliant defense is based on how smart he and his family are.
This from the Washington Post:
Outside the courthouse, Jefferson, wearing a dark suit, blue dress shirt and red tie, spoke to reporters in a low but urgent voice about his wife, five daughters and three grandchildren, emphasizing their Ivy League degrees, their patriotism and their commitment to both church and public service.
He contrasted the family’s accomplishments with allegations in the indictment that Jefferson advanced his schemes by placing relatives on boards of companies to solicit bribes and kickbacks.
“Incredibly this is the same family that the U.S. attorney and the FBI and I guess some in Justice want you to believe is a family of bribers, racketeers and conspirators,” said Jefferson, who like three of his daughters is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

“A family of bribers, racketeers and conspirators,” No, Mr. Jefferson, I could be mistaken, but, I don’t think the indictment mentioned anyone but you,

Jefferson is alleged to have offered and accepted numerous bribes to support business ventures in the United States and West Africa. He had been under investigation since March 2005. The probe made headlines across the country when authorities searching his home on Aug. 3, 2005, found $90,000 in cash stuffed in his freezer.
Authorities alleged that Jefferson had solicited the cash from Lori Mody, a wealthy Northern Virginia business associate, to bribe the Nigerian vice president. Mody was working as an FBI informant and wore a recording device when she passed on the cash that was actually from the FBI.
“Suffice it to say that the alleged facts in the indictment were contrived merely as part of a sting and all of the allegations are misleading and all the allegations are untrue. . . . This case involves purely private business activities and not official acts by me,” Jefferson said. “Did I bribe a foreign official? Absolutely not. The $90,000 was the FBI’s money. The FBI gave it to me as part of their plan that I would give it to the Nigerian vice president. But I did not do that.”

It would appear that Rep. Jefferson thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to steal, as long as the money was intended for some other illegal activity.
It also looks as though, in Mr. Jefferson’s world, you are only guilty if you are not well enough educated, too poor, or not connected enough, to get into Harvard Law School.

He’s been removed from Ways and Means, and he gave up his seat on the House Small Business Committee.
On the other hand, in spite of the investigation, he was re-elected by a large margin.

According to the NYT:
Coconut Road, is a stretch of pavement near Fort Myers, Fla., that touches five golf clubs on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, is the target of a $10 million earmark that appeared mysteriously in a 2006 transportation bill written by Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska.
The Republican congressman whose district does include Coconut Road says he did not seek the money. County authorities have twice voted not to use it, until Mr. Young and the district congressman wrote letters warning that a refusal could jeopardize future federal money for the county.

You might recall that Rep. Don Young is the largest provider of pork in the US Gov. He was responsible for Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere.”
When the Democrats won he gave up his committee chair to Daniel Inoye of Hawaii, who is the second largest provider of pork. These two are best friends and call each other brother, so any change in the process would probably send me into shock.

The center of this whole mess seems to be the Aronoff family, who have sponsored fund raisers and are major Republican donors, and who gave more than $200,000 to Republican candidates and political committees in the 2006 election. Their business, the Landon Companies, is best known for building mobile-home parks. But it also operates a real estate development business in Florida.

From A Cracker Boy Looks at Florida:
“The Coconut Road money is a boon, however, to Daniel J. Aronoff, a real estate developer who helped raise $40,000 for Mr. Young at the nearby Hyatt Coconut Point hotel days before he introduced the measure.

Mr. Aronoff owns as much as 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The $10 million in federal money would pay for the first steps to connect the road to Interstate 75, multiplying the value of Mr. Aronoff’s land.”

Daniel Aronoff has taken over active management of the company from his father, Arnold Y. Aronoff, who had a checkered career in Florida real estate. In 1979, Arnold Aronoff was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to mail fraud in a scheme to sell Florida swampland at an inflated price.

The press tried to get a statement from Mr. Young, but, when he was approached near the House floor by a reporter, Mr. Young responded with an obscene gesture.

This is why the Democrats won’t keep their promises, and force the changes that would really matter, they would have to give up too much power, and Democrat or Republican, it’s all about the Benjamins.

Crooked politician —redundant

A security researcher has warned iTunes customers that Apple encodes the buyer’s account name and e-mail address in the new DRM-free tracks that debuted Wednesday.
It also turns out that Apple has been putting this information in DRM files as well.
Apple did not returns calls asking why iTunes tracks, whether protected by DRM or not, contain buyer data.

eMusic also encodes buyers data in their files.

This process is called watermarking by the industry.
I call it a gross violation of privacy.
Yes they have some reasonable right to protect intellectual property, but this has the smell of marketing and not security.
It would be reasonable to assume that every time an Apple device contacted the internet, this data would be relayed.
After all, the guid M$ uses, is recorded every time you go to one of their affiliates, and of course it contains “no personally identifiable information”, until you register something and it’s added to their database and cross referenced.

It’s not paranoia, they are spying on all of us, our habits and the possibility of using them to sell us something are, as they say, “priceless.”