Addictive game

I apologize in advance for this incredibly addictive java toy. I spent an hour setting things on fire, making candle fuses, torturing the slug with salt... I hope you enjoy.

http://chir.ag/stuff/sand/

Lying Media Bastards: Chomsky’d

Lying Media Bastards: Chomsky’d:
Chomsky claims that America has a long history of being far too afraid of things than they have any justification to be. For example, Saddam Hussein. “He’s hated around the world, but no one’s afraid of him. Not even Kuwait. But thanks to the propaganda campaign in the media, Americans were literally afraid that Saddam Hussein was going to come kill them”

Fight harder

I forgot how wonderful the New York Observer is.

New York Observer - Wise Guys:
The pressure for fascism comes not just from the top. Without the people’s support, the Weimar government would not have been overthrown.

The change here is incremental and harder to see.

How we conduct the “war on terror” tells the American people who we are and what this country stands for. America has the oldest and most dynamic democracy in the world. It can right itself if the people want it bad enough to fight harder.

The direction we are headed

Hullabaloo:
There can be no doubt about where this is going. This administration has asserted a doctrine of unfettered executive power in 'wartime' that will not confine itself to 'suspected terrorists' as we understand them. Everything we know about human nature --- and particularly about the nature of this modern Republican party --- says that these powers will be used for domestic political purposes. That they felt they had to do this (even though they can monitor anyone they choose immediately as long as they make an application for a FISA review within 72 hours) can only raise suspicions that this is what they were doing. Coming on the heels of the pentagon spying story, you have to have overdosed on kool-aid not to wonder why they refuse to show the secret FISA court who they are monitoring. (Somebody needs to shake loose that list of NSA intercepts of American citizens John Bolton requested.)

Hullabaloo

New York Times:
Several senior government officials say that when the special operation first began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official said. Before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A. personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president"


Hullabaloo:
I would further guess that these large batches of numbers include a whole shitload of Americans who have nothing to do with al Qaeda. And since they had to suspend some areas of the program in 2004, I would suspect that those numbers include some people who are of interest to the administration for reasons other than terrorism.

If I were one of those "shift supervisors" (especially if I was one who had worried about John Kerry becoming president) I'd get myself a lawyer.

Betraying a U.S. agent, Torture, and Mass Eavesdropping

Why do I feel as if all the conspiracy theories are being played out publicly right now?

--The President/VP fed a CIA agent's name to a reporter so it would be revealed in an attempt to punish an official in the administration who publicly disagreed with policy.
--The President is trying to redefine torture so that they can commit atrocities on secretly nabbed prisoners of a war that might never end
--The spy agencies under direct leadership of the President are listening in on everything I might say to someone who lives outside the homeland

These are things that are usually splashed across Weekly World News or written about in Action Thrillers at the movies. How can we tolerate a President who allows these things to take place on his watch. How can we not seriously question a system which allowed these kind of moral atrocities to take place for so long without coming to light?
Complete transparency. Showing all of our cards. Taking a hit now and then, and maybe responding out of passion or anger or even a mistake, but owning up to our responsibilities and admitting that we need to fix them. When people say that Bush doesn't admit to a mistake, that only addresses half of the problem. The other part is what happens after a mistake. You make up for it, you apologize, and you try to fix whatever you screwed up--without losing your humility. Even if we can't be a humble nation because of our sheer unbalanced richness compared to other nations around the globe, why can't we act like a humble nation? Is it really that hard to put a caring human being in office as the President instead of this? I would vote for Oprah for President in a second if she ever ran.

Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls - New York Times:
But in at least one instance, someone using an international cellphone was thought to be outside the United States when in fact both people in the conversation were in the country. Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified, would not discuss the number of accidental intercepts, but the total is thought to represent a very small fraction of the total number of wiretaps that Mr. Bush has authorized without getting warrants. In all, officials say the program has been used to eavesdrop on as many as 500 people at any one time, with the total number of people reaching perhaps into the thousands in the last three years.

I've now called all my representatives

In addition to emailing, call and talk directly to a person and present your outrage to them, demanding a full, independent investigation. I stammered through my outrage to each person's staff, not reading from a script, just expressing that no one will ever get my vote who bows out of supporting a full investigation.

Senator Carl Levin (D- MI) 202-224-6221
Senator Debbie A. Stabenow (D- MI) 202-224-4822
Representative John D. Dingell (D - 15) 202-225-4071

I wrote my representatives

This is a copy of what I wrote to Senator Carl Levin, Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Representative John Dingell (the links take you to their email contact pages):

I am outraged at the disregard for the law and for the privacy of myself and my fellow Americans that President George W. Bush has exhibited by warrantlessly eavesdropping on overseas conversations.

I wholeheartedly support Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office when she says:

"Eavesdropping on conversations of U.S citizens and others in the United States without a court order and without complying with the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is both illegal and unconstitutional. The administration is claiming extraordinary presidential powers at the expense of civil liberties and is putting the president above the law. Congress must investigate this report thoroughly. We also call upon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor to independently investigate whether crimes have been committed.

"The Patriot Act already provides law enforcement a wide array of surveillance powers and it vastly expands the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These disclosures show that the kinds of safeguards many members of Congress are trying to build into the Patriot Act are urgently needed."

I demand that a full, open-ended investigation of the actions of this President and the NSA take place immediately. Congress needs to provide a check against this President because he can not keep himself from abusing his power. Even the President of the United States can not commit a felony and get away with it. He must obey the law.

Contacting the Congress

Contacting the Congress website has address form which will tell you exactly who your Representative and Senators are.

A Small Editorial About Recent Events

A Small Editorial About Recent Events
Our President has chosen to declare himself above the law, a dangerous precedent that could do great harm to our country. However, without substantial effort on the part of you, and I mean you, every person reading this, nothing much is going to happen. The rule of law will continue to decay in our country. Future Presidents will claim even greater extralegal authority, and our nation will fall into despotism. I mean that sincerely. For the sake of yourself, your children and your children's children, you cannot allow this to stand.

Call your Senators and your Congressman. Demand a full investigation, both by Congress and by a special prosecutor, of the actions of the Administration and the NSA. Say that the rule of law is all that stands between us and barbarism. Say that we live in a democracy, not a kingdom, and that our elected officials are not above the law. The President is not a King. Even the President cannot participate in a felony and get away with it. Demand that even the President must obey the law.

Tell your friends to do the same. Tell them to tell their friends to do the same. Then, call back next week and the week after and the week after that until something happens. Mark it in your calendar so you don't forget about it. Politicians have short memories, and Congress is about to recess for Christmas, so you must not allow this to be forgotten. Keep at them until something happens.

Change this!

The L.A. Times --

America kidnapped me

By Khaled El-Masri

THE U.S. POLICY of "extraordinary rendition" has a human face, and it is mine.

I am still recovering from an experience that was completely beyond the pale, outside the bounds of any legal framework and unacceptable in any civilized society. Because I believe in the American system of justice, I sued George Tenet, the former CIA director, last week. What happened to me should never be allowed to happen again.

I was born in Kuwait and raised in Lebanon. In 1985, when Lebanon was being torn apart by civil war, I fled to Germany in search of a better life. There I became a citizen and started my own family. I have five children.

On Dec. 31, 2003, I took a bus from Germany to Macedonia. When we arrived, my nightmare began. Macedonian agents confiscated my passport and detained me for 23 days. I was not allowed to contact anyone, including my wife.

At the end of that time, I was forced to record a video saying I had been treated well. Then I was handcuffed, blindfolded and taken to a building where I was severely beaten. My clothes were sliced from my body with a knife or scissors, and my underwear was forcibly removed. I was thrown to the floor, my hands pulled behind me, a boot placed on my back. I was humiliated.
...
My captors would not bring me to court, so last week I brought them to court. Helped by the American Civil Liberties Union, I sued the U.S. government because I believe what happened to me was illegal and should not be done to others. And I believe the American people, when they hear my story, will agree.