December 07, 2010
Or at least the liars: 3.32pm: "This case is not about WikiLeaks," district judge Howard Riddle told the court, according to my colleague Sam Jones, who was there. No. Of course not. Sexual assault in Sweden is of the utmost...
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November 14, 2010
So, the 'Coup has been quiet for some time now. Armand held down the fort and exhausted himself. Baltar's epic reviews are, well, epic and infrequent. And my situation... I can't speak for the others, but for me, the last...
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February 15, 2010
What the Helen Lovejoys have done to the Bill of Rights is a disgrace. Ugh....
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January 24, 2010
Following up on armand... ...if the Supreme Court just said, essentially, that corporations/unions have as much free speech as individuals (and thus they can spend money to buy political adds) then either: 1. Like individuals, they are limited to spending...
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August 19, 2009
Barney Franks isn't everyone's cup of tea, but he does have a good command of the english language: That....was awesome....
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May 14, 2009
There have been two recent torture related debates floating around that I have wanted to add my two-cents to. 1. Obama's U-turn on the photos of detainees. Look; I understand the "don't release" side of this argument. I see that...
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April 15, 2009
There was a teabag protest in town today. I needed to walk by, both because I had to get home and let the dogs out, and because, well, I needed to see this. There were about 250 or so gathered...
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April 06, 2009
Nicked and posted without comment from Petulant: "Do you need Jesus in your life??" No. "Do you want to burn in hell?" If there are cocktails....
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September 30, 2008
It's here. Go. Read....
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September 02, 2008
There are several stories within the general view of the ineptitude of the coordinated "security" forces outside the RNC. One is about the harassment and abuse of the press. Another the apparent inability of the authorities to discern the difference...
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August 30, 2008
Cheeky of people, thinking they have rights....
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February 08, 2008
This will be somewhat obscure, 'cause I don't want this to be public (this will make sense; just read on).I've been invited to have dinner with a gentleman being inducted to this august University's Alumni Hall of Fame (or whatever...
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February 05, 2008
In more West Virginia news, the closed Republican Caucus (down in Charleston, 200 miles from here in Morgantown) decided to support Huckabee. The first round of voting gave Romney 41%, but convention rules say you have to win with 50%,...
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November 21, 2007
Queerty asks: Who can say "gay"?...
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August 13, 2007
There has been quite a bit of attention paid to the recent censoring of Pearl Jam's performance. ATT claims that it was an error related to their policy of editing out profanity, but Pearl Jam and advocates of net neutrality...
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August 07, 2007
Re: FISA etc, Atrios wants someone who can to ask: Have the phone and email conversations of any American journalists, US federal officeholders, or federal campaign workers ever been intercepted without a warrant?...
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May 17, 2007
One of the prime problems with US policy in the Mid East (if not the world) is that everyone believes that the US hates all of them, wants to bomb everybody, and generally couldn't give a dead rat what happens...
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April 08, 2007
And he's a retired Marine too: "On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published...
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April 04, 2007
...they really are out to get you (emphasis mine): A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political...
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March 23, 2007
Reasons to love lawyers: Remember my previous post about an editorial in a student newspaper in Indiana that talked about how people should accept their gay friends when they came out of the closet? Believe it or not, the teacher...
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February 10, 2007
The Union of Concerned Scientists has made an A to Z Guide of Political Interference in Science. In the form of a Periodic Table, natch. Via....
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February 08, 2007
Fuck. No, really, fuck. Actually, fucking fuck fuckity fuck fuck. Fuck!...
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January 31, 2007
She's gone. Far, far too soon: Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as "Shrub," has died after a long battle with breast cancer, the managing editor of...
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January 04, 2007
Found via Atrios, this from the NYDN: President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned. The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform...
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December 01, 2006
Via Iraq Updates, a Reuters story: Iraq's parliament will bar the media from future sessions and began yesterday by refusing access to reporters and then cutting off television coverage as a debate on mounting sectarian violence became heated. Spokesmen for...
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November 18, 2006
He was speaking at the Air Force Academy about the August ruling against domestic spying: Gonzales, in remarks prepared for delivery at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, said that some see the program as on the...
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October 29, 2006
Just for amusement value, play this in the background while you are surfing the web (yes, it's a video; no, that's not important - the audio track is the important part). Remember, this was 1986. While this is "Crossfire" (CNN's...
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September 28, 2006
No? So then why is the left fringe, but not right, mentioned specifically in the NIE? The recently declassified NIE report on terrorism contains an interesting paragraph:"Anti-U.S. and anti-globalization sentiment is on the rise and fueling other radical ideologies. This...
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July 20, 2006
First it was Quakers, now, college students: A federal Department of Homeland Security agent passed along information about student protests against military recruiters at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, landing the demonstrations on a database tracking foreign terrorism, according...
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July 18, 2006
CNN (emphasis mine): President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation of the anti-terror eavesdropping program that intercepts Americans' international calls and e-mails, administration officials said Tuesday. Bush refused to grant security clearances for department investigators who were looking into...
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July 10, 2006
Our knickers would be even more twisty if we had half a clue what was going on over there. Including blacklisting reporters who don't toe the government's line on what's happening in Iraq: But the military has started censoring many...
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July 04, 2006
Ready and waiting for any excuse?. Emphasis mine. The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court...
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June 27, 2006
I wake this morning to discover, via the New York Times that the august US Senate (the deliberative, thoughtful half of our legislative branch) is within a single vote of amending the US constitution to ban the burning of the...
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May 11, 2006
Via Echidne, we find a link to an AP wire blurb indicating that the Justice Deparment has given up investigating the legality of the NSA wiretapping program. Why did Justice give up? "We have been unable to make any meaningful...
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April 17, 2006
While googling some of our recent visitors, up popped a website called Concealed Position. One thing I have found while keeping track of "interesting" visits is that other people do too. Anyway, from this find, more finds. Guess what? Corporate...
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April 15, 2006
...Majikthise reminds us that there is still skulking going on: If you thought CIFA was scary, wait until you here what's up next. MSNBC reports that the Pentagon is trying to merge merge CIFA and the DSS to create a...
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April 01, 2006
I didn't title this post "More Republican Insanity" mostly out of respect for the few (very few) moderate Republicans who continue to believe in the Constitution, checks and balances, and responsible government. I figure there have to be a few...
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March 24, 2006
This blog is coming up on it's second anniversary. I can't speak for binky or armand, but I got into blogging as a way of expanding the circle of people to argue and debate with. I had read blogs for...
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March 20, 2006
Hey Kids! In case you were wondering what to wear to the F*%d P&%$#s protest coming up during Pride week, well, you're in luck! I made some special t-shirts just for you! How about a nice Brokeback Mountaineer t-shirt in...
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March 19, 2006
It's a few days old, but the first page of this New York Times story on anti-globalization protests in New York City in 2002 is worth reading. Long story short, the police arrested a number of people (the article says...
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March 09, 2006
I realize I've had my head down recently (dissertation), but I surfaced just long enough to see this NYT story. Last I checked, the Administration was spying on Americans without even a FISA warrant. This violates both FISA and some...
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March 03, 2006
At least, that's what I expect next given the outcome of this case. A federal jury using an anti-terrorism law for the first time convicted six animal rights activists on Thursday for a campaign to drive a company out of...
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February 21, 2006
NYT (emphasis mine): In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied...
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February 20, 2006
From Jesus' General a hair-raiser of DHS harassment (long, but worth it): "Bottom line: My rights are very dear to me. I served my country to defend them," he says. "And one of the things I was defending was free...
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January 26, 2006
And we're not talking Faberge eggs. The administration does not need Congress to extend the USA Patriot Act in order to keep using the law's investigative powers against terror suspects. That's from a Boston Globe story about domestic spying, and...
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January 19, 2006
The government detained nearly 80 activists and cut off mobile phone services Thursday to foil organizers of an anti-government rally....
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