progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital
To answer your question in advance, yes, I saw the article in the Post-It-Note that said folks, by a considerable margin (63-35), had no problem with NSA having access to their phone records.
My first reaction to this is really? You mean that less than 24 hours after the story breaks, the average American understands the nature of this program? And that same 24 hours has been enough to not only grasp the technical implications, but also to digest the ethical ramifications? And, to conclude in the balance, that the current administration has their best interests at heart, and can without political jaundice competently execute such a program?
If the answer to all this is yes, then surely Bush, in the person of one of his lackies, can get approval under FISA. Because, surely, if the American people believe that this program wouldn’t be used for, say, spying on political enemies, then it should be legal.
Right?
I’ll add that I looked through some of the Who’s Blogging links on the article, and was shocked to see what some of my fellow Americans were writing:
The culture of death.”
What could possibly cause someone to think someone like that, much less openly publish it on the internet? Is this the right’s version of Bush Derangement Syndrome?
Hopefully, the Post-It-Note will follow up by writing a piece on the paranoid delusions of the rightie blogosphere. (I’ll sit by the computer, waiting for it to come out)
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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.
95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
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On a muggy Florida evening in 2008, I meet Iraq War veteran Forrest Fogarty in the Winghouse, a little bar-restaurant on the outskirts of Tampa, his favorite hangout. [Link]
The Labor Department announced this morning that new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 last week. It also revised the figure from the previous week down to 515,000. [Link]
A team from IBM has spent the past several years constructing a virtual-world version of China's Forbidden City. [Link]
Following confirmation that Google intends to open its virtual world Lively to games developers, creative director Kevin Hanna has revealed the long-term goal is for the service to become an online games platform. [Link]
CHIBA, Japan (AP) -- Video game rivals Sony and Microsoft are going head-to-head in virtual worlds for their home consoles later this year. [Link]
a) He was paid by Dick Cheney's henchwoman Mary Matalin to write a book on Obama [Link]
One bunch of guys is getting up and saying, "we hafta." Another bunch of guys is getting up and saying, "nuh-uh." [Link]
To be able to say to folks, "You can keep what you have" is a big political selling point. [Link]
Here, based on 16 years experience watching Bill Clinton campaign — and interviews with a half-dozen veterans of his political teams — is a reasonably safe bet about his campaign advice to Barack Obama: [Link]
WASHINGTON — Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties improperly engaged in sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday. [Link]
We are going to have a new administration. Do we want these policies continued or not? [Link]
You can try Counter Culture coffees at: - Baked and Wired, 1052 Thomas Jefferson St. NW, 202-333-2500; www.bakedandwired.com [Link]
In sum, we concluded that the evidence showed that Goodling violated both federal law and Department policy, and therefore committed misconduct... [Link]
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May 12th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
The only solution is to elect a Democrat president in 2008 and continue the sying program and thus allow the Rush Limbaugh wing of the Republican Party and Faux News to condemn it as an invasion of privacy, a hideous example of Democratic big gubmit, and a threat to peace loving Americans everywhere.
May 12th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
It’s true they’d condemn it, but they wouldn’t see any contradiction between their position then and their position now (any more than Republican senators see any contradiction between their blocking of Clinton’s appointees and their frothing outrage about “unconstitutional” attempts to block Bush’s), and they’d turn on a dime when a Republican president was elected again. The underlying philosophy is IOKIYAR.