March 2008 archive

Do your job or resign

Did anyone NOT see this coming after another Democratic Congressional Leadership very special “sternly worded letter” to Mukasey (a man that would never have been Attorney General if Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein had any sense of dignity) about subpoenas being ignored by Miers and Rove?

Did anyone NOT think that the House Democrats would ultimately waver for a possible cave on telecom immunity after Reid let Rockefeller’s telecom immunity bill pass the Senate, despite the fact that nearly 60% of people are against telecom immunity?

Did anyone NOT think that the RNC would decide to just stop looking for the emails that were erased on purpose, despite the fact that they were ORDERED to be turned over to Congress?

Judge dissolves Wikileaks shutdown order (updated 2x)

Judge White has had a serious Emily Latella moment.

From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:

The whistleblower site Wikileaks.org may resume its U.S. operation following a hearing in California federal court today, where Judge Jeffrey S. White dissolved a previous order that required the site to be taken offline and indicated he would not approve a second order prohibiting the site’s publication.

The Feb. 15 orders had required domain name service provider Dynadot to cut off access to the Wikileaks site, disabling the Web address. A Swiss bank had asked the court to require the site to be taken down, arguing it disclosed private banking records.

Acting as a friend of the court, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and several other media organizations asked the judge earlier this week to take notice of the prior restraint that occurred as a result of those orders. Wikileaks had not appeared in court to defend against charges by the bank that it had improperly posted private information and no First Amendment concerns were raised before the Court.

White’s order of today dissolved the injunction that had prohibited Dynadot from allowing Wikileaks.org to be accessible. It also “tentatively” denied the bank’s request for an order that would keep Wikileaks from independently publishing itself online.

“It’s not very often a federal judge does a 180 degree turn in a case and dissolves an order,” said Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish. “But we’re very pleased the judge recognized the constitutional implications in this prior restraint.”

White is expected to issue a full opinion on the matter in the near future. The media coalition’s brief in the case can be found at: www.rcfp.org/news/documents/20080229-amicusbrie.pdf

Shorter Judge White:

“Never mind!”

Funkalicious Leap Day! Why Just Leap?

bound, caper, frisk, hop, rise, skip, spring, surge, upsurge, upswing, vault, pounce, fly!!! It’s Leap Day ….and being a male, I shall not further expound on the traditional activities of the day, so on to the Funkaliciousness…

Starting with – Funkmeister Frank!

Friday Night at 8: Wielding the Sword

In From Strom to Barack buhdydharma asks the question:

As we prepare to take this next step (hopefully) what do you think the ramifications will be on our society in general….and on the attitudes of the remaining, dwindling, but still large….population of both the casual and the more vehement racists in our nation as….

“The world is about to roll over them?”

In response, I’d like to link to two different diaries posted over at Daily Kos today, one on immigration by Duke1676 and one on the further shenanigans of the Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans by mcbrid35.  I consider both these bloggers top notch in quality and credibility, excellent examples of true citizen journalists when it comes to analyzing facts, law and the ethical and moral consequences that we all will experience.

Bush: Buy Our Weapons or Iran will hit Paris with Nukes

Think the Bush Administration is done trying open new fronts in using scare tactics in the service of war profiteering?  Think again.

In yet another display of mindboggling display of fearmongering coupled with greed, the Bush Administration is now now telling Europe that it needs to buy American missile defense systems–or else.  From the Los Angeles Times:

With American officials working to close a deal on a missile defense system in Europe, the head of the U.S. program warned Thursday that Iran was within two or three years of producing a missile that could reach most European capitals.

“They’re already flying missiles that exceed what they would need in a fight with Israel. Why? Why do they continue this progression in terms of range of missiles? It’s something we need to think about,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, told a conference here on missile defense… [snip]

“Our short-range defenses could protect Rome and Athens,” Obering said, but he warned that London, Paris and Brussels would remain vulnerable “against an Iranian [intermediate-range missile] threat.”

That’s right, mes amis, meine Damen und Herren.  Unless you buy our preposterously expensive and utterly ineffectual Star Wars “defense” technology, dangerous terrorist Ahmadinejad and his merry band of clerics will unilaterally start a war with Israel, create a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, and use the expanded conflict to send your beloved Arc de Triomphe and Reichstag into the stratosphere.

DN EXCLUSIVE – The Three Trillion Dollar War:

This should be heard/watched by Many!

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitzand Harvard Economist Linda Bilmes on the True Cost of the US Invasion andOccupation of Iraq

read/watch/listen to more | digg story

Friday Philosophy: Perspective

On Monday I read Learning to Count Past Two…with a few updates as asides…to a Women’s Studies class called Changing Women’s Lives.  My partner Debbie is coordinator of the Women’s Studies Resource and Empowerment Center (WSREC)  and teaches that class.  It would be great if it were a faculty line, and hence a full time position, but that is not the case.  She’s rather considered more of a hybrid staff/adjunct faculty person (i.e. she gets no benefits, except as my spouse).

Let’s not even talk about adjunct compensation.  It’s one of the things our society should be ashamed of.

I’ve presented that piece live a time or two before.  It was, in fact, written to be presented to a Psychology of Women class at the University of Central Arkansas.  The professor who invited me to lecture her classes several times didn’t get tenure.  That’s an observation, not a conclusion.

But it is true that many, many people think that teaching about people like me to college or high school students is beyond the pale.  And I leave open the definition of “people like me.”

Pony Party: Moving… and Looking for Home…

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

Henry David Thoreau

I’m reading lots of stories about journeys. nlob on his new farm; victory coffee looking for home, Edger filling a friend’s SUV with his belongings to set out on yet another adventure. buhdy left San Francisco months ago, i’m moving to the Netherlands. RiaD just returned to her beloved farm, and H2D is making Portland home. We’ve all lost loved ones to the great field trip that is death. And, it seems, all of us are on some one or another philosophical/metaphysical/existential Lewis and Clark-like expedition.

Here’s to our journeys then… those inward and those outward. Mostly, to finding home::: how we imagine it, remember it, and dream of it.

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