Well It Ain't No Secret

In the news today -

President George W. Bush authorized Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003 to permit Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., to leak to a reporter key portions of a classified prewar intelligence estimate on Iraq, according to Libby's grand jury testimony disclosed in court papers.

The court filing late Wednesday provided the first indication that Bush, who has long assailed leaks of classified information as a national security threat, played a direct role in the disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq and also was involved in the swirl of events leading to the disclosure of the identity of an undercover CIA officer.

This calls for a variation of my favorite movie line -
"I'm shocked, shocked to find that leaking is going on in here!"

It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City

Okay, we're back (I think). I could not let the day end without posting a wish for a Happy Saint Isidore's Day to you and yours.

But, Cautious Man, what the blog are you talking about?

Glad you asked. Whilst reading from The Contrarian this evening (who I've finally added to my reading list on the right), I learned that this is the feast of St. Isidore, Patron of the Internet -

An amazingly learned man, he was sometimes called "The Schoolmaster of the Middle Ages" because the encyclopedia he wrote was used as a textbook for nine centuries. He required seminaries to be built in every diocese, wrote a Rule for religious orders and founded schools that taught every branch of learning. Isidore wrote numerous books, including a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a history of Goths and a history of the world—beginning with creation! He completed the Mozarabic liturgy, which is still in use in Toledo, Spain. For all these reasons Isidore (as well as several other saints) has been suggested as patron of the Internet.

Some more "traditional" information on St. Isidore can be found at this link.

A more light-hearted view of St. Isidore (with more links about him and the other "finalists") can be found at this link.

And, an off-the-wall view can be found at this link, which provides the following invocation -

When programs crash and cursors freeze,
with warnings: "fatal error",
our systems drive us to our knees—
can this be cyber-terror,
or mere demoniac possession?
We need some saintly intercession!
Ah, what comfort to implore,
"Pray for us, St. Isidore!"

When files we’ve saved cannot be found
(not even by Outlook),
when viruses and worms abound,
and eat the address book,
when through the Windows data’s flying,
the desperate cyber-slaves are crying,
prostrate on the office floor,
"Pray for us, St. Isidore!"

When "You’ve got mail!" but it’s all spam
(or files that won’t unzip),
when all at once there’s no more RAM,
we start to lose our grip,
and filling with the foulest hates,
we would defenestrate Bill Gates!
"Our charitable hearts restore—
pray for us, St. Isidore!"

When downloads fail, when disks erase,
when life-work’s lost in cyberspace,
remind us in our dire frustration:
The goal here is communication.
"Oh, heed our pleas (but don’t keep score)—
pray for us, St. Isidore!"