RTFA: http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/chi-obama_code_n…

President-elect Barack Obama: Renegade

Michelle Obama: Renaissance

Malia Obama: Radiance

Sasha Obama: Rosebud

Vice President-elect Joe Biden: Celtic

Jill Biden: Capri

President George W. Bush: Tumbler

First Lady Laura Bush: Tempo

Hmmm… I don’t know… I mean, sure: name W after: a form of falling/a cup to drink from. The thing that’s a little off is the Secret Service issuing a press release. Or is the Sun just bluffing?

Well, the Baltimore Sun has names going all the way back past Reagan - it’s pretty cool. Check it!

RTFA: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1198652/o…

The armed forces of the United States are regularly honored all the time. They even have two holidays recognized for their service to the country. The first holiday is Memorial Day, which takes place in the beginning of the summer. The second holiday is today, Veterans Day, in the beginning of the fall. Memorial Day is a generic celebration of those who died in service. But as for Veterans Day, it was originally created to honor a specific day in U.S. and world history.

Veterans Day was officially created in 1926, but the seeds for Veterans Day began in 1919. November 11, 1919 is forever known as the day World War I ended. Famously, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice was signed between the fighting nations.

The next year, President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed November 11 a national holiday, exactly 90 years ago. Back then it was known as Armistice Day instead. It also ignored that although November 11 was the day the US and Germany stopped fighting, the Treaty of Versailles that officially concluded the war didn’t get signed until June 1919.

Good summary of Veteran’s Day, and how it came to be.

RTFA: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/2…

I’ve gotten used to living in a moonbat state, I’m just not sure how well I’m going to adjust to living in a moonbat nation.

Here’s how bad this election was. The night before every election, in the final hour of my radio show, I always give any candidate who calls in one minute to make a final pitch to the voters.

Monday night, I had 29 candidates call in, from two states, from U.S. Senate to county commissioner. Yesterday at least 27 of them lost, maybe more, and I’m only sure about one guy who won - Sen. Scott Brown.

…continuing…

For once I agree with the moonbats who will shortly run the nation: It’s all Bush’s fault. Maybe it would have been better if Kerry had knocked him off in - no, I won’t go that far, not even now.

Not to sound too much like a 12-step program, but sometimes in life you do have to hit bottom. The Republicans reached their nadir last night.

But let’s look on the bright side. Question 2 passed. Marijuana possession has been decriminalized, officially, as opposed to unofficially, which happened here around 1970.

Everybody must get stoned.

Listen, this is the first serious election this country has seen since 1996. We’re finally to a point where there is no question who our democracy has chosen. There is no state - no Florida, no Ohio - where the last few electoral votes come down to several hundred “misplaced ballots”. This is the real deal, just like in the US Constitution.

So in that context, it’s the comments that really bother me. I follow a bunch of conservative blogs, and let me cherry-pick some of the most extreme comments that were posted in reply to Howie Carr’s post:

bosher39
Let the second civil war begin.

Doomed
Interesting that there was as record turn out in African American voters. I\’m sure race wasn\’t a factor. I\’m sure it was because of various pieces of legislation Obama drafted..wait, he didn\’t draft anything…OR his \”plan,\” wait, he doesn\’t have a clear one. What could it be? Why would record number of African Americans vote? Couldn\’t be just based on skin color…that would be racist, which is a word used for white people only, who happened to be the majority who funded Obama\’s campaign…so what was it?

pats125
It only proves what I thought all along. The majority of Americans are morons and suckers. The youth of our country have sold away their future. We’ll now be punished for success and rewarded for failure. We had a government that needed to be reformed. Instead you’ve decided to feed the broken monster and make it bigger and more controlling. You’ve just created a bigger monster. The ones that will have to really pay the price are our soldiers, our elderly and our small business owners. For the first time in my life I’m embarassed to be an American. God Damn America!

To be completely honest, these comments are in the minority: I’d say under 5% of the total. However, I’m pulling from the Boston Herald, which is smack in the center of Massachusetts, one of the most Democratic states around.

Still, it is interesting to take a moment: these are the “patriots” who demanded blind obedience to the W, because after two hotly contested elections, he came out on top. Now that the landslide majority has spoken, these same “patriots” turn on the electorate, they turn to racial hatred, and they turn to civil war.

…and make no mistake: this is exactly in line with the sentiment that was cultivated over the past 8 years; it was this curious brand of cultural programming that maintained W’s approval ratings at 22%, when it seemed clear that the United States was sowing ill will around the world and at home.

Next up, some choice comments from Hot Air. The thread started off by saying:

One of the last things Dean Barnett said to me was that, as best he could tell, Barack Obama is “a good guy and a decent man.” I don’t think he’d mind me telling you that, especially under the circumstances. It’s a testament to his generosity of spirit that even in the heat of a campaign, with every reason to think the worst of his opponent, Dean couldn’t help but give him the benefit of the doubt. That’s Barnett all over, and that’s what made him an indispensable man whom we’ve been forced, horrendously, to dispense with.

I offer that as comfort to those of you who have no faith in The One but who do have faith in, and abiding affection for, DB. My guess is he’d have handled the news tonight with the same magnanimity that distinguished all of his writing. So in that spirit, congratulations to Barry O on a race superbly run and to our country for not having let the wrong reasons deter it from making the wrong choice. I’ll never be a fan, but I swear I’ll never take a nutroots posture either in relishing his failures because it helps my party. Like it or not, he’s my president. As a great man once said, country first.

Classy - seriously. What’s disappointing is how it was received by the readership. Once again, I’ve cherry-picked some of the worst. I’d say this represents about 20% of the posters:

Obama is not my president.

He’s the media’s president. The media picked him, picked his candidate, ignored calls to vet him, manipulated polls, and destroyed anyone who got in their way.

We get to blame the media for what happens to America next.

Barack Hussein Obama is NOT my president and I don’t have to accept him. I just have to put up with him for the next 4 years or till he gets impeached for election fraud or something worse.

TexBob on November 5, 2008 at 12:17 PM

Since I did not vote for Obama and since I think that the elections were rigged, I do not recognize Obama as my president and therefore will consider myself living in a country without a president since I dont consider Obama fit for the job and regardeless of what the cowards, idiots, criminals, atheists, drug users, black racists, ilegal aliens, prostitutes, homosexuals, ignorants, abortionists did

tocoloro on November 5, 2008 at 12:34 PM

We need a conservative force, an underground. Now. We need it for the fight to come.

Darksean on November 5, 2008 at 12:53 PM

Let me finish getting my CCW. I will come.

*eats*

Grue in the Attic on November 5, 2008 at 12:58 PM

Use the Tor network and a SSL proxy (or some method similarly secure) if you intend to do anything truly underground. Otherwise your efforts will end in a very ignoble fashion.

Dark-Star on November 5, 2008 at 1:15 PM

I am really happy a black man is finally POTUS.
I am so extremely sad it is THIS black man.

Elizabetty on November 5, 2008 at 10:11 AM

Except he’s not black.

Darksean on November 5, 2008 at 10:12 AM

It’s a beautiful day, I woke up, drove to work and closed down my business. Why work harder to give a larger percentage away. I’ll sit back and collect the goodies like everyone else.

Atlas has shrugged, there are now more people riding in the cart than are pulling the cart.

Alden Pyle on November 5, 2008 at 10:15 AM

Please dear God, let Obama-snot take a ride through Dallas, in a convertible, with the top down, past the book depository……..

FiveWays on November 5, 2008 at 12:20 AM

Note on this last comment: the poster was banned by AllahPundit for it. …but the point is, this election is going to be hard for some people to deal with. I’m really glad for the cooler heads among the conservative crowd.

Calm down people. Have a little faith in your country. Stop the hating, and start talking. Screw “preconditions” - we’re all Americans, so we’ve satisfied a certain requirement. We can all talk about this one. Don’t climb into a bunker, don’t lock and load, don’t run around like the sky is falling. Be cool.

RTFA: http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Introducing President Barack Obama

Chicago

New York City

New York City, Harlem

…flag in Chicago

Jesse Jackson

McCain’s concession speech

The white house

RTFA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q9NSVUu8nk

Video the Vote went to Jackson County, WV, in response to numerous reports of machine vote flipping. The local county clerk showed us the machines in question, but the demonstration left us with questions, as the machine appeared to malfunction even after it was calibrated.

SCANDALOUS

Turn the volume up. This is simply unacceptable!

The HAVA, or Help Americans Vote Act, has outsourced this problem to a handful of companies that were able to create flawless Automatic Teller cash machines. When was the last time you used an ATM that malfunctioned?

As of 2005, Billions of dollars have been spent on these machines:

While the disputed 2000 presidential election produced calls for reforms, Congress did not pass its election law until 2002. Bush then took months to appoint members to a critical oversight commission that disburses money to the states. States have now received $2.2 billion.

As of 2004, there were approximately 200 million registered voters, meaning we’ve each been taxed at least $10 for the privilege of using these faulty machines one time - possibly twice. In spite of the corporate welfare that wrested this “voting fee” from taxpayers, we are left with machines that are criminally inaccurate.

If you have refused to accept that voter machine fraud exists, then you must confront this reality now! It doesn’t matter who you plan on voting for. You must at least ask the question: “will my vote be counted?”

RTFA: http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/areyoulivingina…

Using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders.

The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This ” Constitution-Free Zone” includes most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.

We urge you to call on Congress to hold hearings on and pass legislation to end these egregious violations of Americans’ civil rights.

Thanks to John Taplin for the pointer. From WIRED:

Government agents should not have the right to stop and question Americans anywhere without suspicion within 100 miles of the border, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday, pointing attention to the little known power of the federal government to set up immigration checkpoints far from the nation’s border lines.

The government has long been able to search people entering and exiting the country without need to say why, which is known as the border search exception of the Fourth Amendment.

After 9/11, Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security the right to use some of its powers deeper within the country, and now DHS has set up at least 33 internal checkpoints where they stop people, question them and ask them to prove citizenship, according to the ACLU.

I can vouch for the existence of these checkpoints: I was stopped (along with every other driver on the highway) while driving in Vermont, while driving from Nevada to California, and while driving from New Mexico to Texas. If it sounds a little strange that these checkpoints weren’t along the border with Canada or Mexico, that’s because it is strange that these checkpoints were completely within the borders of the United States. In the Vermont case, I seem to recall that this was identified as “border patrol” whereas the other two may have been state initiatives - I’m not certain. I’ve been stopped at DUI checkpoints as well.

The point is, folks, that you can’t fly or drive in this country without carrying your identifying papers at all times. You can’t opt out, and you never opted in. I’m a proud US citizen by birth, so I’m ashamed to have allowed our liberties to deteriorate to the point that checkpoints are a common, unquestioned, and sometimes unrecognized fact of traveling inside our country, within our own borders.

This isn’t an argument about protecting our borders - I’ll easily concede that it’s appropriate to have customs checks at international airport terminals. To be clear, this entirely concerns the right of US Citizens to be secure in their papers and persons from unreasonable search.

Here’s the wording:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I’m certain we can find someone who will argue that it is reasonable to search everyone who chooses to engage in domestic travel (and whether that travel be by car or by plane is irrelevant). However, that person cannot make the argument while faithfully adhering to the principles and language of the US Constitution.

We’ve all heard the argument that if you’re not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear. That argument has also been readily debunked, and here’s a reality check for people who “have done nothing wrong.”

The fact of the matter is that in February of 2008, over 900,000 names have been added to the FBI Terrorist Screening Database, and the list is growing at a rate of 20,000 names per month. A representative from the FBI Terrorist Screening Center revealed that 15,000 of these names are actual US Citizens.

From the FBI Terrorist Screening Center FAQ, a common question is whether or not you can find out if you are on the list. The short answer is, “no.” The long answer is:

The TSC cannot reveal whether a particular person is in the TSDB. The TSDB remains an effective tool in the government’s counterterrorism efforts because its contents are not disclosed. If TSC revealed who was in the TSDB, terrorist organizations would be able to circumvent the purpose of the terrorist watchlist by determining in advance which of their members are likely to be questioned or detained.

The US Supreme Court recently heard several fourth amendment cases:

…one involving the application of the exclusionary rule to cases in which an arrest and search are based on police error, and the other concerning justification for the exception to the warrant requirement in the case of a vehicular search incident to arrest.

In Herring v. United States, Bennie Dean Herring challenged a search incident to an arrest that was made based on the erroneous information that he had a warrant on file. At issue was whether the evidence found during that search should be excluded because the warrantless arrest violated the petitioner’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Watch out for the decision in Herring v. United States, which should happen some time this Fall.

So we’re clear, these are examples of erroneous data leading to the suspicion of otherwise innocent people. Are you certain you have nothing to fear? No, because you cannot be certain that you are considered to have done nothing wrong, irrespective of whether or not you have actually done nothing wrong. Herring v. United States wouldn’t have percolated up to the Supreme Court level if there weren’t some juicy facet, and here it is that the unreasonable search found illegal material in the car. Do you still have nothing to fear? Perhaps the newly instituted Copyright Czar has some questions about those burned CDs you’ve been listening to while driving?

If only for this reason alone, the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is a critical rule for creating a free society that is able to be law abiding. It is currently irrelevant if you follow the law or not. Simply by traveling, you are a suspect. Simply due to error, you may be suspected of specific crimes. On this basis alone, you may be unreasonably deprived of your liberties. If this were merely “paranoia,” there would not be numerous, conspicuous instances of the problem.

When it becomes unreasonable to defend the constitution, or to argue about the constitutionality of obviously questionable practices, this is evidence of a serious deterioration of the the liberties that US Citizens are entitled to. Such a condition is ultimately an insult to every citizen - the diminishment and tarnishing of the title of US Citizen - and is tantamount to the actual assault, abduction, and detention of justly free citizens, resulting in and deriving from the deprivation of such fundamental liberties as initially justified the creation of the United States of America! People, be citizens again!

RTFA: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/0…

President and emperor, America and Rome: the matchup is by now so familiar, so natural, that you just can’t help yourself-it comes to mind unbidden, in the reflexive way that the behavior of chimps reminds you of the behavior of people. Everyone gets it whenever a comparison of Rome and America is drawn-for instance, the offhand allusion to welfare and televised sports as “bread and circuses,” or to illegal immigrants as “barbarian hordes.” If reference is made to an “imperial presidency,” or to the deployment abroad of “American legions,” no one raises an eyebrow and wonders what you could possibly be talking about. Invoke the phrase “decline and fall” and thoughts turn simultaneously to the Roman past and the American present.

To be sure, a lot of Rome-and-America comparisons are glib, and if you’re looking for reasons to brush parallels aside, it’s easy enough to find them. The two entities, Rome and America, are dissimilar in countless ways. But some parallels really do hold up, though maybe not the ones that have been most in the public eye. Think less about decadence, less about military might-and think more about the parochial way these two societies view the outside world, and more about the slow decay of homegrown institutions. Think less about threats from unwelcome barbarians, and more about the powerful dynamics of a multi-ethnic society. Think less about the ability of a superpower to influence everything on earth, and more about how everything on earth affects a superpower.

“The Sack of Washington” is a stimulating meditation on the balance between public and private interests, and the resulting public outcomes. Other words used to describe the same forces are “privatization” and “deregulation” - which are both hot topics at the moment. The argument generally runs that private companies, due to competitive forces, will perform any public job more efficiently than a public office ever could, as measured in terms of cost and the quality of product. It is implied that public desires will be proxied as demand, and that companies will remain accountable through their dependence on the public as “customers.”

Of course, private companies can evade accountability from time to time, such as with Telecom Immunity, passed as part of FISA legislation, that had the effect of dismissing dozens of lawsuits concerning widespread domestic wiretapping. Private companies can also deliver an inferior product, such as with Halliburton/KBR’s mismanagement of US Military laundry and food services, or Enron’s manipulation of the California energy market. Market forces cannot always hold private companies accountable, such as the current situation involving over-valued home mortgages, which will be purchased by the Treasury with public funds for more than their market value.

All of the previously mentioned forces can interact, such as with the privatization of electronic voting machines through Diebold and Sequoia, which results in the short-circuiting of a critical feedback mechanism: democracy. Is there a free market solution to this problem? Is Diebold truly incapable of delivering a product that satisfies the requirement of creating a paper receipt?

Clearly, there is no such rule that privatization always increases the public good. On the same coin, there are countless examples of public waste and excess. Consider any instance of public servants using public resources for private purposes: public airplanes for personal business, public time for personal vacations, or public office for personal enrichment.

Although it’s frequently argued in the United States that we cannot possibly make everything public, it’s less frequently argued that we cannot make everything private. In fact, the reverse is frequently argued: we actually CAN make everything private. Arguing from such extreme poles makes for a great discussion, but it’s clear that in practice, a more moderate balance is required for society to perform efficiently.

By framing “efficiency” in different terms, it is possible to make the public or the private alternative appear to be superior. A publicly managed resource that is slower and more expensive than the private alternative can still be more efficient if it maintains accountability to the public, and is faster to respond to public criticism. The publicly managed resource might “last” longer, thereby reducing costs at the scale of years or decades.

In a managed economy such as in the United States, numerous extra-market forces manipulate the ultimate cost of goods. Although cost is a useful proxy for efficiency, cost is not equivalent to efficiency. Especially in a time defined by accounting scandals, where the root motivation is to misrepresent cost, “cost” cannot be used as the sole argument for privatization.

“The Sack of Washington” is an excerpt from Cullen Murphy’s book, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.

RTFA: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN007…

America COMPETES Act or America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act - Division A: Commerce and Science - American Innovation and Competitiveness Act - Title I: Office of Science and Technology Policy; Government-Wide Science - (Sec. 1101) Directs the President to: (1) convene a National Science and Technology Summit to examine the health and direction of the United States’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics enterprises; and (2) issue a report on Summit results. Requires the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to report annually to Congress on recommendations for areas of investment for federal research and technology programs.

This is a really strange bill. It appears to increase funding for science education and research, which would otherwise be pretty great. The overt war against science, waged through trusted channels of mass communication, has been wildly successful, much to the disappointment of the US military industrial complex.

The fundamental problem with “defeating scientific materialism” is that the United States has always relied on science for industry and military superiority. I assure you the multi-billion dollar US bioengineering industry doesn’t squabble over the existence of evolution. I can assure you that, in the aftermath of Sputnik, the US military permanently answered the flat Earth/round Earth problem… by looking at our planet from satellites. Scientific Materialism, in other words, answered evolution and flat-earth.

The proof of the success of Scientific Materialism is that it’s profitable. I’m not aware of a “young-Earth bioengineering” company; the suggestion is pretty oxymoronic. I don’t think they could be competitive against a bioengineering company that used the science of evolution. As a result, evolutionary bioengineering gets all of the money, and young-Earth bioengeering gets none.

This might be fine if the US bioengineering industry existed in a national vacuum, but it exists within a greater global context. Competing countries (e.g. France, South Korea) have made it attractive to conduct bioengineering research within their borders, thereby conferring an advantage to any company that conducts business in those countries. The national policy of a country can make its businesses more competitive, which “trickles up” to make the nation more competitive, completely turning Reaganomics on its head.

The war against scientific materialism has been much too effective, and by passing the America Competes Act, Congress expresses the sense that fundamentalist dogma isn’t very profitable.

The only hesitation I have regarding the America Competes Act relates to the way in which this money confers greater power to Congress to direct the course of science in the United States. In the future, Congress will be able to exert influence over the scientific institutions that depend on the funding provided by the America Competes Act. This will enable unscrupulous politicians to juggle research funds during election seasons to appeal to various rhetorically-influenced local populations.

In the short term, I think the America Competes Act makes obvious sense to the business-oriented people in the United States. “Business-oriented” used to refer to the Republicans, but their party has been co-opted by strange interests and subverted towards less profitable ends. Therefore, it’s not clear which party, exactly, this bill appeals to, because it was solidly bi-partisan in the composition of its congressional sponsorship.

I think everyone needs to proceed with caution.

RTFA: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/62937,us-faces-us100…

A Brussels think-tank has accused the US government of reneging on commitments made to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over internet gaming.

Panellists at a trade forum levelled harsh criticism at the US, focusing on a burgeoning trade clash between the US and Europe over internet gaming.The forum believes that the US could be liable for up to US$100 billion in trade concessions to European industries after placing illegal discriminatory trade restrictions on European gaming operators.The disputed concessions arise from Antigua’s victory earlier this year when the WTO ruled that the US violated its treaty obligations by excluding online Antiguan gaming operators, while allowing domestic operators to offer various forms of online gaming.Instead of complying with the ruling, the Bush administration withdrew the sizeable gambling industry from its free trade commitments.

Up is down.

RTFA: http://lessig.org/blog/2007/10/corruption_lecture_…

As promised, here’s the first lecture on corruption. It is an alpha version. I’m eager for comments and feedback. My first written feedback came from Aaron Swartz, with whom I had conspired last winter about making this move. I’ll post his comments and some replies later today. I’ve also set up a page on the wiki where I will collect significant versions of the argument. Summary and criticism there would be helpful.

Hmm.. I haven’t watched this in its entirety, since it’s 65 minutes on Google Video. However, it’s on the list - perhaps for tonight?

RTFA: http://www.slate.com/id/2175730/entry/2175733/

Sometimes a law was passed by another generation with different ideas of right and wrong, but the political will necessary to repeal the law does not exist. Sometimes, as we’ll see with polygamy or obscenity, the issue is too sensitive to discuss in rational terms. And sometimes the law as written is a symbol of some behavior to which we may aspire, which nevertheless remains wholly out of touch with reality. Whatever the reason, when politics fails, institutional tolerance of lawbreaking takes over.

There will, of course, always be some lawbreaking that goes unpunished simply because law enforcement is expensive—not every shoplifter is caught, and it’s not worth expending the resources to catch every kleptomaniac. But the areas we will look at here are different: What’s going on here is that the parties all know the law is being broken, accept it, and—while almost never overtly saying so—both the “criminals” and law enforcement concede that everyone likes it better that way. The law in question thus continues to have a formal existence, and, as we shall see, it may become a kind of zoning ordinance, enforced only against very public or flagrant behavior. But few, except sometimes a vocal minority, actually think we’d be better off if the law were fully enforced.

The importance of understanding why and when we will tolerate lawbreaking cannot be overstated. Lawyers and journalists spend most of their time watching the president, Congress, and the courts as they make law. But tolerance of lawbreaking constitutes one of the nation’s other major—yet most poorly understood—ways of creating social and legal policy. Almost as much as the laws that we enact, the lawbreaking to which we shut our eyes reflects how tolerant U.S. society really is to individual or group difference. It forms a major part of our understanding of how the nation deals with what was once called “vice.” While messy, strange, hypocritical, and in a sense dishonest, widespread tolerance of lawbreaking forms a critical part of the U.S. legal system as it functions.

Interesting meditation on laws and law breaking in the US.

RTFA: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3172

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, 37 million Americans�one in eight�lived below the federal poverty line in 2005, defined as an annual income of $19,971 for a family of four. Yet poverty touches a far greater share of the population over the course of their lives: A 1997 study by University of Michigan economist Rebecca Blank found that one-third of all U.S. residents will experience government-defined poverty within a 13-year period. The poorest age group is children, with more than one in six living in official poverty at any given time.

Moreover, the poverty line itself, which hasn’t been changed in almost four decades except to account for inflation, has been widely criticized as an antiquated measure of actual levels of need. Mark Greenberg, director of the Task Force on Poverty at the Center for American Progress, wrote in the American Prospect in April 2007:

Studies of a minimally decent standard of living routinely find that the typical cost is twice as high as the poverty line or higher. Ninety million Americans�nearly one-third of the nation�have household incomes below twice the poverty line, a figure far larger than the official number of 37 million in poverty.

Wage slavery. The working poor. The wealthiest nation on the planet.

RTFA: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/1…

Leading House Democrats introduced the so-called RESTORE Act (.pdf) Tuesday that allows the nation’s spies to maintain permanent eavesdropping stations inside United States switching centers. Telecom and internet experts interviewed by Wired News say the bill will give the NSA legal access to a torrent of foreign phone calls and internet traffic that travels through American soil on its way someplace else.

Hmmm…

RTFA: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/p…

National Drug Control Strategy

February 2007

Appendix B: National Drug Control Funding

Agency Summary, FY 2006-FY 2008

Following up on the use of national forests to grow marijuana, here are the details of the US federal response to drug use in the United States. This contains some interesting details, but I think this generally represents federal priorities for drugs.

RTFA: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&si…

Canada’s dollar traded equal to the
U.S. currency for the first time in three decades, capping a
five-year run on the back of booming demand for the nation’s
commodities.
The Canadian dollar rose as high as $1.0008, before
retreating to 99.87 U.S. cents at 4:16 p.m. in New York. It has
soared 62 percent from a record low of 61.76 U.S. cents in 2002.
The U.S. dollar fell as low as 99.93 Canadian cents today. The
Canadian currency last closed above $1 on Nov. 25, 1976, when
Pierre Trudeau was Canada’s prime minister.
The move to parity marks a milestone for a currency dubbed
the loonie for the bird that adorns the nation’s one-dollar coin.
Parity also symbolizes Canada’s emerging clout in a world economy
increasingly short of the energy, grains and metals the country
produces.

Things are going GREAT.