Al Gore’s speech is worth watching just to prove that the guy can give a stemwinder. Also because it’s not every day when you hear anyone calling for the resignation of half an administration. But it does leave me wondering: Al, where the hell were you?

If you need any more evidence why it’s dangerous to criminalize communication, read this. Maybe Jack is lying. Maybe he’s not.

Fifty-seven percent of those polled “believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda,” and 45 percent “believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found.” Moreover, 65 percent believe that “experts” have confirmed that Iraq had WMD. “Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had WMD, 72% said they would vote for Bush and 23% said they would vote for Kerry….

Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had supported al Qaeda, 62% said they would vote for Bush and 36% said they would vote for Kerry.” The reason given by respondents for their views was that they had heard these claims from the Bush administration.

From a report issued by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, quoted in Salon.

From the Center for American Progress, 100 Bush mistakes for the next time he’s asked.

“All it takes is the signature of a low ranking NCO to send someone right around the world and have them locked up indefinitely but it takes the signature of the Secretary of Defense to let them go.” Torin Nelson, military interrogator, quoted in The Guardian

Seymour Hirsch at the New Yorker clocks in with the best story I’ve seen about Abu Ghraib—as opposed to the increasingly common story about the story about Abu Ghraib, where everyone gazes at his navel and says it’s the other guy’s fault.

Meanwhile, in story about the story news, the gray lady NYT tells us that the story hit 60 Minutes only after getting ignored by seventeen members of Congress, and of course the members of the Pentagon brass who didn’t bother to read any reports.

Positions currently open at CACI for interrogators. Job perk: no one looking over your shoulder.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden reports rumors, confirmed only in the blogosphere so far, that military personnel in Iraq are losing Internet access to prevent more leaks like those at Abu Ghraib.

David Feige makes the case in Slate that recent enforcement of obstruction of justice charges is a major shift in government power to the authoritarian end of the scale. “[W]hen the criminal law holds ordinary people to superhuman standards, we all become vulnerable to this picking and choosing. And when the government falls in love with a crime for which it can pretty much arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate anyone at any time, we are none of us safer for it.”

Jacob Weisberg thoroughly and savagely deconstructs the thought process of George W. Bush in Slate.

DHS has started issuing fines to people caught with “dangerous objects” at security checkpoints.

“The TSA guildelines call for going easy on passengers who inadvertantly bring something like a pair of cuticle scissors or a cigarette lighter through security. The goal is to stop someone from committing a criminal act.” (Spelling and typos in the original… only the finest in reporting.)

I got stopped earlier this year for a corkscrew that had fallen into the lining of my travel bag on a trip in 2002 — and which notably had passed through security numerous times since. We had to cut open the bag to get it out. What’s that going to cost me? Am I dangerous?

Speaking of Machiavellian genius… Microsoft is selling spammers the right to not be spamblocked.

Prediction: this is so shocking-yet-obvious, by late 2005 I expect every ISP will be doing this, or actively marketing that they don’t do this.

If you think about this, the Machiavellian genius on display here is astounding. Jenny McKeel reports on Wired News: “[D]eceptive doughnut entrepreneurs are serving jail time for misleading the pastry-loving public with their “low-fat” advertising claims…. Another doughnut duper, Vernon Patterson, is in jail for misbranding day-old baked goods as low-fat, low-calorie Danishes.”

It tastes bad, so it must be healthy!

On its 40th birthday, an interview with the inventor of BASIC, who’s pictured with a computer that never came with it preinstalled.

What’s odd is that this guy definitely changed my life; no BASIC, I don’t know that I’d be in the same career.

The Patriot Act outlaws talking about lawsuits against the Patriot Act. Because if you question the Bush Administration, the terrorists have already won. Or because stifling dissent is crucial to living in a free society. Or something like that.

The small print of iTunes says, “is not intended for use in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control systems, [or] life support machines.”