New job possibility?

Well, found this amongst internal postings:

Want to work on the best project at Microsoft? In one of the coolest jobs? Yes? Then become an Xbox Functional Test Lead - Online. You will be a key member of a team that ensures Xbox has great games! You will lead a game testing process that ensures games are bug free and ready for gamers to enjoy! You will also help define the testing plans for all games and genres used for forecasting future work.

Does this sound like something I can do? I think so. Leading testing for online games. Hmmm. Seems as if I already have that on my resume, having spent what? a year or so doing just that at Cavedog. After the past few flameouts, I don't dare get my hopes up too much, but all the same, I'm somewhat hopeful.

Dubya's War

On the interminable drive in to work this morning (it only took three bloody hours and for no apparent reason, either), i got to do something that doesn't happen often- i got to listen to Dave Ross' show on KIRO-AM here in Seattle. His topic wasn't something i'd have chosen, but it is six months after the 11 September terrorist attacks, so it was a sensible and timely topic.

He had a guest on this morning, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who had delivered a speech at the Americans for Democratic Action event in Los Angeles on 17 February about the administration overstepping the Congressional mandate for its "War on Terrorism." The speech is cited in its entirety here for anyone who wishes to read the entire piece, but I'm going to excerpt a chunk of it here:

Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act. We must ask why should America put aside guarantees of constitutional justice?

How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the right of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Fifth Amendment, nullifying due process, and allowing for indefinite incarceration without a trial?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Sixth Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial?
How can we justify in effect canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and unusual punishment?

Continuing, leading up to his call for the formation of a Department of Peace, Rep. Kucinich continued:

Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To promote the common defense" is one of the formational principles of America. Our Congress gave the President the ability to respond to the tragedy of September the Eleventh. We licensed a response to those who helped bring the terror of September the Eleventh. But we the people and our elected representatives must reserve the right to measure the response, to proportion the response, to challenge the response, and to correct the response.

Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.
We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.
We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.
We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.
We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.
We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and habeas corpus.
We did not authorize assassination squads.
We did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO.
We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights.
We did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution.
We did not authorize national identity cards.
We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras throughout our cities.
We did not authorize an eye for an eye.
Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.
We did not authorize the administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases.
We did not authorize war without end.
We did not authorize a permanent war economy.

Pretty impressive, especially coming from a politician. I almost think i'd trust this guy.

US Stalinist Authoritarianism?

With the various discussions today, the six month anniversary of the 11 September terrorist attacks, i've been doing some thinking and analysis of the governmental reaction to the event. Foremost amongst this has been the Chief Executive's war and the so called USA Patriot Act.

I'm coming to some terrifying parallels, primarily with the Stalinist-era Soviet Union. Although the U.S. hasn't annexed Afghanistan, it has acted to remove a legitimate (albeit inhumane) government from power in the area, and now seems to be making threatening moves toward Iraq, Iran and North Korea. These actions aren't so dissimilar to the annexation of the Baltic states.

Then there's the USA Patriot Act. Take a close look at this act as enrolledhere (this is a U.S. Government site containing the text of this Act). If you've ever read any of Aleksandr Isay'evitch Solzhenitsyn's classic treatise on the Stalinist GULAG (Russian acronym for Glavnoy'ie Upravlenyie LAGerey'i- Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps) system The Gulag Archipelago, you'll recognize a few things eerily similar to what Solzhenitsyn describes of the Stalinist laws under which many may now be charged and imprisoned in contemporary American policy.

This even starts with the "involuntary detention without charge" of various suspected members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Scores of Soviet citizens were imprisoned under the Stalin regime during the Great Patriotic War (that's World War II to those of you educated in the West) for no offense greater than having been unfortunate to live on territory overrun by the Nazi Panzergruppen or infantry later retaken by Red Army elements.

The suspension of habeas corpus- in simplified form the legal ruling which requires evidence before being constitutionally entitled to charge an individual with a crime, guaranteed by Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution- as detailed in the USA Patriot Act represents an action untaken since the U.S. Civil War. Look at the suspensions entailed in this act, and the rights the government has appropriated to itself (set to expire 31 December, 2005, unless the government sees fit to extend them [Sec. 224]) and ask yourself if this doesn't read uncannily like some of the OSO charges of Anti-Soviet Agitation described by Solzhenitsyn in Book One of The Gulag Archipelago.

The Executive Branch of the U.S. Government has been allowed by imperial fiat to essentially allow itself to waive the Bill of Rights. Terrifying, isn't it? Where do the people take a stand to defend the rights allocated to them by the framers of the Constitution?