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from the link I posted

At least 24 states have laws outlawing certain uses of hidden cameras in private places, although many of the laws are specifically limited to attempts to record nudity. Also, many of the statutes concern unattended hidden cameras, not cameras hidden on a person engaged in a conversation. Journalists should be aware, however, that the audio portion of a videotape will be treated under the regular wiretapping laws in any state. And regardless of whether a state has a criminal law regarding cameras, undercover recording in a private place can prompt civil lawsuits for invasion of privacy.

Bold added for emphasis.

So in some states this device could be a problem, especially if talking to an officer of the law, as there was a case brought against a person for recording the officer that showed up to his front door.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/man_charged_after_videotaping_police_on_his_own_property/

How many people compliment a black guy on speaking English?

How about the gentleman who's now the vice president, way way back in '07:

Joe Biden is set to launch his second run for the presidency today but it will likely be overshadowed by some candid comments made in an interview with Jason Horowitz of the New York Observer.

Most noteworthy is what he says about Barack Obama: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," he said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

News is available to everybody, but you can't share it.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/ap_to_sue_google_news_blogs_someone/

There is no US politician yet who can publicly state he is an atheist, or he can forget his further career.

I read about this some time ago. Here's a link to at least one poll. linky

Will our freedoms and rights be next in line? Will the United States be forced to adopt European restrictions on free speech? Will Europe be forced to adopt Islamic restrictions on free speech? Will the United States, Finland, Switzerland and Norway be forced to adopt stricter gun control laws?

You can allow free movement for people and still keep your rights and laws. Allowing free pass at borders for anyone doesn't take any freedom from you.

You say "destroy national sovereignty" (and all of the restrictions therein) like it's a bad thing.

You see restrictions where I see freedoms. Globalization has already created a race to the bottom for labor and environmental standards. Will our freedoms and rights be next in line? Will the United States be forced to adopt European restrictions on free speech? Will Europe be forced to adopt Islamic restrictions on free speech? Will the United States, Finland, Switzerland and Norway be forced to adopt stricter gun control laws?

What really bothers me about governments and large organizations in general is that they fail to understand the saying, "no matter how far down the wrong path you have travelled, turn back." Governments almost never say "this sounded like a good idea at the time but it's just not working, things are getting worse, time to abandon this idea and try something else." If they do say that, it's over the course of decades or sometimes centuries even though the knowledge of better solutions (or at least that this solution isn't working) has been around for a long time.

I wish there were some type of initiative/referendum that citizens could use to challenge laws, not because they are unconstitutional or otherwise legally invalid, but because they have failed to deliver the results that were promised. If there were a way to get rid of otherwise legally valid laws that can be objectively proven to be counterproductive, not because enough voters put enough pressure on the legislators to repeal the law, but because at least one citizen can rigorously prove that it has failed, this would represent real progress.

You say "destroy national sovereignty" (and all of the restrictions therein) like it's a bad thing.

You see restrictions where I see freedoms. Globalization has already created a race to the bottom for labor and environmental standards. Will our freedoms and rights be next in line? Will the United States be forced to adopt European restrictions on free speech? Will Europe be forced to adopt Islamic restrictions on free speech? Will the United States, Finland, Switzerland and Norway be forced to adopt stricter gun control laws?

state of the art 3D rendering? my oh my, we do have a short memory: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/american_beheaded_in_islamic_online_video/

The 'Rule of Thumb' definition aside, the NBER decides for itself when a recession occurs or not. James Joyner at OTB has a pretty good post on it. At best the GDP increase provides mixed signals, as the economy isn't doing great. I do agree that all the gloom and doom may be premature. (and could become self fulfilling.)

Which actually did happen in the "Hold your wee of Wii" contest.

The parent said nothing about "all", jackass. And certainly a significant number of Americans are anti-abortion. A few news clips showing groups of people protesting abortion say nothing about real numbers. Luckily we have the Internet for that.

But you're right, clearly the Iraqis want the US military in their country.

Not if they're not allowed to fly they don't.

To the TSA's credit, this is actually closer to a success then a failure, since they're at least stopping guns from getting on to planes. Normally the TSA doesn't worry about guns getting through security too much.

Well, then we have a left-wing president who thinks he's king Obama instead of King Bush, gun laws are stricter and nobody can defend themselves, terrorists win because they already have their guns, we try to reason with North Korea and Iran and they laugh all the way to the 'Launch Nuke @ Israel+US' buttons - and we're basically F'ed.

It seems kind of foolish to criticize Obama (or McCain) for wanting to reason with North Korea when this is exactly what GWB is doing. Unless you are going to criticize him too -- but your post seemed wholly directed at the 'left-wing' president.

And do you really believe that they would push the 'Launch Nuke @ Israel+US' button? Have you ever heard of this?

While I feel obscenity laws have a place in our society

Really? Where? I've looked all through the First Amendment, and I don't see any exceptions for obscenity, indecency, profanity, pornography, or "protecting the children."

Any laws passed which regulate obscenity in publicly-funded media are explicitly unconstitutional. And no, I don't really care what the Supreme Court says; I was capable of reading plain English in the first grade.

I promote the idea that those laws should be enforced by a jury of AVERAGE citizens -- not some kind of religious ideologists that only rule (ie. judge/jury/executioner) from their perspective.

Average citizens are religious ideologues. I have the right to be tried by a jury of my peers. Such people are not my peers.

For example, when psychologist Angela Neal-Barnett in 1999 asked some focus-group students to identify acting-white behavior, they listed actions that ranged from speaking standard English and enrolling in an Advanced Placement or honors class to wearing clothes from the Gap or Abercrombie & Fitch (instead of Tommy Hilfiger or FUBU) and wearing shorts in winter!

No-one who gets interviewed on the Colbert Report "actually thinks they're doing an interview".

You can see this clearly the recent interview with DC congresswoman Holmes Norton. I found that link by googling for "DC congresswoman"; it was the first match of many. It's pretty obvious that she understood Colbert's act, and did a pretty good job of playing along, giving as well as she got. Her supporters probably really enjoyed it, and she got some good publicity from it.

She's probably not the only politician who sees Colbert and Stewart interviews as good opportunities for public exposure, in a way that might look less like the PR job that most TV interviews turn into. A few are probably dumb enough to not understand that it's satire, but I'd bet that most do understand this. And sometimes, it turns out that they're not prepared to handle it well, which is even more fun.

I liked the interview recently where Colbert asked the guy to list the Ten Commandments. Who was that guy? He was definitely pro-Ten-Commandments, even if he couldn't say what they are.

Religious fundamentalists complaining that we do not need to spend billions of dollars figuring out what happened at the so-called “Big Bang” (God created the universe, afterall) and that those funds would be better spent on more ambitious projects that would help save America from immorality and godlessness.

Heck, I'd get the surgery if it meant someone would let me fly an F-14.

Sorry, the Navy won't Let you fly an F-14 anymore. (Unless they are now used as some kind of trainer aircraft. In which case, nevermind.)

This is the company that has made a name for itself by removing right-wing blogs for "hate speech" from its index. Seems to me that it's precisely the darling of the net neutrality side that is guilty of making the ugly side of the argument, making it harder in some way to access content, a reality. It's not censorship, but it is a censor's mentality. Google has done the same with Google News like when they barred professional journalist and blogger Michelle Malkin (don't like her, but she is a published mainstream media journalist) from Google News for "not meeting editorial standards," but saw fit to allow StormFront to get indexed for a while.

Where is Google's pledge to make their fibre networks open to the public on a neutral basis? They bought up a lot of dark fibre a while ago. Where is their pledge to let people use it at fair, non-discriminatory rates for whatever protocols they want?

...and now a word from the sponsors who made this all possible,.... and necessary. Personal service and group plans are available. Coming soon to your neighborhood?

I don't think you'll be arrested for not having it, at least I've never heard of that happening after WW2.

Well then, allow me to enlighten you: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2005/11/ rocky_mountain_news_local/

Blogazine is being used to infer the rights/protections of journalism. There have been recent court cases discussing whether a 'blogger' and a 'blog' are equivelent to journalism and other traditional print media (newspapers for instance).

No, I didnt read the article (by the comments here, i would guess it is complete marketroid bs) but I can guess the new word "blogazine" is for...

Blogs should be held to traditional standards

I think any estimation of their demise is a little unrealistic, at least as far as serious news and policital blogs are concerned. I run a caption contest, on a voluntary basis, on OTB. Even though my role is more frill than substance, the blog itself contains a lot of serious news and commentary. A couple of others that seem to address a serious role in politics, news, and sometimes entertainment are: Wizbang Poliblog and there are a number of others more popular than these that seem to address politics and news in a more or less serious manner. (Just check some of the links from the ones above for
Instapundit
Michelle Malkin
and others

A number of troops in the Iraq AOR have taken distinct advantage of the very phenomenon you describe.

Some troops figured out that the terrorists were using circuit boards taken out of locally sold radio-controlled cars to detonate their IEDs. The troops began equiping the lead vehicles in their convoys with transmitters that continually broadcast on these frequencies.

There's a link here with some details.

The terrorists are also using cell-phones, FRS radios, and HAM gear to set these things off... those pictures were taken in Fallujah from the terrorists' IED workshops.

Sometimes broadcasting on the bomb-detonating frequencies isn't a bad thing, particularly if you've already found a suspect device, or are already at a safe distance. Pity the unfortunate souls who radio for help when the suspect device is right at their feet...

Texas? WTF? In 2000, Gore won in only one county there. Brazos county, home of Texas A&M University, and a damn disproportionate conglomeration of college students.

Not true. Gore won several TX counties near the Mexican border.

Also, a better site than Tanenbaum's for predicting the winner is here. Sam Wang of Princeton University uses a statistical method for averaging all recent polls rather than rely on just the latest for his predictions.

Personally I'm predicting a blowout for Kerry. This is based for starters on Wang's data. 2nd, last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews said that the exit polls from early voting in Iowa had Kerry 11 points up. 30% of Iowa has already voted. There has also been a huge early turnout in Democratic areas in FL, NV, GA, and NC. 3rd, a recent Zogby poll of 18-29 year-olds with cell phones gave Kerry 55%, Bush 40%. Every other poll I've seen is based exclusively on land lines, so if the 18-29 year-olds vote this year (and granted, they usually do not), the polls could be way off. Finally, Karl Rove's strategy is based on getting some 4 million more Evangelical Christians to the polls than went in 2000. Problem is that the size of this group may be a myth. A devout Christian friend of mine invited me to a party Friday night with some of his church buddies. Not a group I normally hang out with, but I like being exposed to new ideas. Turns out this small sample favored Kerry over Bush by 50-40. A few were still very undecided (yes, even today there are still undecided voters in Ohio!). All of this leads me to believe that Kerry will clobber Bush.

In Milwaukee, Kerry supporters forcibly occupied a GOP campaign HQ and disrupted all operations using a bullhorn.

In Cleveland the NAACP's National Voter Fund and "ACT Ohio" are under investigation for voter registration fraud prompting the local prosecutor to state "We've seen voter fraud before, but never on this level. I grew up in Chicago and this looks like the politics of Mayor Daley in the '50s and '60s."

Pro-democrat voter registration fraud in Racine, WI

Michigan

Florida

Denver and Minnesota are also locations of suspected fraud.

Want more?

Red meat eating, gun toting Americans like myself read stuff like Allah, IMAO, ASV, Wizbang, the Commissar, and OTB. They've gone a little overboard lately focusing on the Rathergate thing, but overall, they're a good mix of conservative blogs.

I hate to be a cynic, but I think the whole point of news reporting is to attract your attention to those crucial 8 minutes every half hour... the commerical sponsors.

What happens inbetween commercials only exists to get you to turn to their channel... after all thats why (1) products like TIVO scare the crap out of them for its ability to hide commercials, and (2) product placement in the shows themselves allows commercial time to blend with content time. Hell, CBS was running programs about books that the parent company published, and calling it news... And after all, why are the news readers so pretty... so you'll tune in.

This is also why I believe news reporters tend to become politically biased over time towards their local markets... it is their job to retain viewers/customers, and so you preach to your local markets. The political landscape is strongly correllated with urban concentrations, as are the "big" markets. The "old" big 3 broadcast media meets the needs of the cities, with its liberal leanings. Those living away from urban areas have to rely on cable and satelite, which "new" big media promptly cornered the market, and tilted their content towards their libertarian/conservative consumers. The people like like Jennings's leanings will tend to flip on ABC, and ABC gets viewers to watch its commercials, and those of the other leanings will flip on Fox, and Fox gets viewers for its commercials. Companies win, educating citizens loses.

The study's methodology is severely flawed. Be suspicious of anything that puts Drudge at the "center" of the political spectrum.

Which would mean something if even the blue areas on the map weren't almost all red when you zoom in.

Even more to the point, here's the same map indexed by population. :-)