don't just take my word for it, here's one of the wisest men around, physicist Robert L. Park, on the topic, from his weekly newsletter, What's New
1. AMBIGUITY?: "..DEAD WRONG ON ALMOST ALL PRE-WAR JUDGEMENTS.."
The President's Commission on Intelligence Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction released its report yesterday. The media have described it as "scathing." It wasn't. The cover letter explained that intelligence professionals didn't fudge the data, they really believed what they said. "They were simply wrong." Like that's OK? The President, appearing with the co-chairs at a press conference, seemed pleased, even though in principle he's responsible for anything that went on during his watch. Whether someone at the White House should have asked a few hard questions wasn't in the Commission's charge. Besides, the President fired CIA Director George Tenet, who said the question of WMDs was a "slam-dunk." That was before Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn121704.html)
as good ol' ronnie said back in '82:
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award that is given in the United States. What the Olympic Gold Medal is to athletes, what the Congressional Medal of Honor is to the military, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is to the private United States Citizen.
by the way, along with tenet, receiving the highest civilian honor the U.S. has to bestow late last year, were:
only one caveat about the report --
From: oedipus@hicom.net, unagi69@concentric.net
To: comments@wmd.gov
CC: unagi69@concentric.net
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:19 +0000
Subj: PDF version of 31 March 05 report inaccessible - violates Section 508
to whom it may concern:
i am writing to express my dismay, disappointment, and frustration at the
inaccessibility of the PDF version of the March 31 report on WMD located at:
http://www.wmd.gov/report/wmd_report.pdf
this file was converted as a strict image, making it impossible for those,
such as myself who are blind, to read the document in its entirety (and to
quote the "authoritative" version of the document), WITHOUT using the
capturing mechanisms inherent in adobe software that provides readability
for those who have no option but to read the document with something other
than their eyes...
this is an express and inexcusable violation of Section 508 (consult
http://www.section508.gov),
which mandates that government distributed
information MUST be disseminated in an accessible format when such exists
-- such an accessible format for PDF does exist and it is inexcusable that
the commission on WMD failed to comply with this inclusive federal
mandate...
please rectify this violation of federal rules AND my individual right to
access government documents when they are released to the public -- yes,
you provide HTML versions, but they are worthless for anyone attempting
to use the report as a source, as they distort the nature, cohesion, and
pagination of the original report...
please attend to this matter with the seriousness and urgency it requires
-- sincerely, gregory j. rosmaita
-- end complaint; resume rant
to those of you who are legally inclined, Section 508 directly address web accessibility, and thus is a stronger basis on which to base an equal access argument than the ADA (which the 11th circuit has held does not extend to the internet anyway, and yes, those are the same federal judges who let terri (or is it terry) die, the strongest argument, in my not-so-humble opinion, remains the bill of rights, not to mention the rest of the constitution... at least the 11th circuit uses the accessible version of PDF...
[postscript: this rant began life as a mass emailing which i intended to send to send friends and colleagues, last friday, until i realized the date: april 1. contrasting the tenor of that day with the contents of the report which i'm urging you to read was a bit too absurdist -- even for me -- so i postponed emailing it... a fatal mistake, i know, now that my laptop has finally died -- put out of it's (not to mention my) misery, when one of my felines dragged it across a room and lodged it underneath a bureau 2 or 3 weeks ago, and since i just came across this mass emailing, i thought i'd send it out -- as they say, bad news is never old news...]
This document was created April 2, 2005