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And as for bands who pump out multi-platinum albums who don't make a dime? I'd really like to see the books in that case. If it's true than there is so swamp land I want to offer these people. If you really have a serious fan base and you're not smart enough to go in and say "I sell records, I want a cut or you won't get any more recordings out of me" than you deserve whatever you get.

Here is an 8 year old article by Courtney Love, that explains how this works. It seems to come down to the fact that most of the money that gets spent on the band is considered 'recoupable' after it all they come out in debt or even, without even owning the copyright for their work.

http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html

I am happy when even television shows get it right (Law and Order occasionally)

Feel good propaganda.
Add some bread, and you've got a population Caesar himself would be proud of.

Remember, subliminal means "below a threshold", and the limit here is coming right out and actually saying "see, the system works!", they just repeatedly show you examples of the system working. That falls below the textual threshold.

I think you should do a little more looking at the evidence before calling everyone who thinks the government had a significant hand in 9/11 to be pathological.

Things like this:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html

Combined with all the interviews with firefighters and people who were at Ground Zero, as well as the engineering analyses of the building collapses, etc., etc, etc., leads to a preponderance of evidence that the government was deeply involved.

Add to that things like The Project for the New American Century, and the papers written around that by people who are now in the Bush administration regarding the need for a "Pearl Harbor-like" event, and you start to get REAL suspicious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

I'm a materials engineer with a lot of experience in materials failures. I even took a course on the effects of explosives on materials.

The way the WTC buildings failed did not progress in a way that makes much if any sense from a materials engineering perspective unless they were demo'd.

However, continue to believe that no government could ever subject you to the Big Lie. Isn't that the point of the Big Lie?

The rest of us realize that 9/11 was a False Flag op.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag

Heck, you probably believe Flight 800 actually DID fail from a centerline fuel tank explosion due to faulty wiring. Something no aerospace engineer I've ever spoken to whose looked at the data has EVER agreed with.

Accept the fact that the US Government is NOT benevolent. Accept the fact that the US Government HAS DONE FALSE FLAG OPS before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax

Accept the fact that the US Government lies... A LOT. All of these are facts proven over and over and OVER again by the US Government's ACTIONS, not their words.

It will make your ability to look at data and make rational decisions a lot easier.

Its starting to come together a bit now. Quick, go skim this:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html

But why use this guy?

What if, and I'm only putting it out there, he was about to come forward about something as-yet undisclosed?

Especially in light of his colleague winning his case and being exonerated, it seems plausible.

He was under pressure from somewhere to do/not do something. What's the most likely thing that could have been?

just a repost of the link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/

What's really interesting is the link between Ivins and his strong christian / anti-islamic beliefs that they outline via the letters to the editor he sent in to the Fredrick News Post. http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=78274

Some of these Questions are kind of answered in this article: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html It's the same as with Saddam Husseins WMDs or his link Al Quaida. Your Government and your Media lied to you.

This doesn't directly address your question, but there's a great deal more to this story: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html

Salon has a updated story today http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/
relating to false information provided to ABC news early on about the investigation. Really makes you wonder what was going on here.

I think it's a bit of column A and a bit of column B. Plus an incredibly poor appreciation for their duties as citizens, which, in my view, come before duty to party or employer.

Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer himself, recently caught something very interesting. Gonzales actually referred to Bush as "my client". That's totally warped; the AG's client is the people of the United States, not the president.

This to me is symptomatic; a lot of the Bush appointees seem to value personal and party loyalty above all else, and lack any regard for the government as a public service. Which in effect turns us from a collection of self-governing citizens into an elected tyranny.

Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but I think the America we had for a couple hundred years was a pretty good one, and I wouldn't mind going back to things like rule of law, separation of powers, and checks and balances.

Sorry, that argument doesn't fly. Yes, the House and Senate are somewhat complicit, and everyone loves a good 'Republocrat' joke, but there is a HUGE difference between the two parties. Don't forget, the Democrats do not have an overwhelming majority in either house, and Republicans can win if they just filibuster.

The Republicans' ability to filibuster and the Presidential Veto are fine excuses when you want to talk about why the Democratic Congress has failed to pass many important bills. But the least that we could hope for is that a Democratic Congress would stop bad legislation in its tracks. How can you possibly deny the Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin when they work together to undermine the rights of Americans?

there is no case where the world's best female athlete can beat the world's best male athlete at any physical sport. Bullshit. Women do better at Ultramarathons. "In 2002 Pam Reed, a 42-year-old mother of five, became the first woman to win the prestigious Badwater 135-mile ultra ... by a margin of nearly five hours." Sweeping generalizations like yours are usually wrong...

People talk about "inhumane" prison systems such as those in Iran (they cut your hands off!) or Saudi Arabia (they have public hangings and beheadings!) but we have gang-rape that is basically sanctioned by the state.

These aren't state-sanctioned. At all. The ass-holes (pun intended), who "sanction" it are the prison guards — represented and defended by very powerful trade-union, whom even the toughest politicians are wary of.

Now cue-in the union-apologists, who go as far as claim credit for weekends for the unions (which existed, apparently, when Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays became holy days for different religions), and you have a complete picture.

Compared to what these pigs do to civilian fellow Americans, the much-derided Guantanamo, where Military is holding enemy combatants, is, indeed, more like a piece of Caribbean paradise...

citation needed

teledildonics

The Miss Kanna case mod

The Katsuya Matsumura Anime girl computer case mod

Just like a woman

Real Doll

Boy Toy Dolls

Programmed for love

Therapeutic 'doll therapy' for dementia seems the most accepted by the medical community and is still controversial, there are other therapeutic studies going on, but I only a spent minute or two googling.

See David Brin's article "Why Johnny Can't Code" at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/09/14/basic/index.html Then see BASIC-256, nee KidBasic. Available from http://thedance.net/kidbasic. I taught 8 9-year-old-boys elementary programming in 3 one-hour sessions, and they ate it up.

Well he's wrong. These laws were, and are specifically targeted at a specific group of people. And the victims are political prisoners, just like those in Cuba and China, and all those other places we like to complain about. And many of them are completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever. See my other reply to you for reference. And this, in case you didn't catch it from one my other replies in this thread. It is sad however that their anger and violence is misdirected at each other, instead of the cause of their suffering. The Watts and Rodney King riots being a case in point. But to support these these laws in any way, shape, or form, and the system that imposes them is indeed racist.

If you actually believe what you're saying to be true, then you're expressing racism. If you don't, then you're just trolling. See my other post, and tell me the system isn't rigged.

I had always given Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. That they weren't really all that bad, just unusually incompetent and maybe a bit greedy with a touch of power-hungry. Now I'm fully convinced that there is some kind of rotten fucking evil permeating that organization.

I went through this transition, now comes the powerlessness associated with knowing there is little you can do stop them, none of your friends will even understand this - of course, where you can you try to fight the man, the man will eventually bludgeon you into submission.

The sad reality is that the market will slowly be corralled into accepting Vista and all the requisite DRM baggage that it carries. The key here is that the frog is heated very slowly in the pot and the market will accept, like sheep, what is fed to them. Of course the ardent Microsoft supporters will say Vista ain't so bad, and sure their products are nice to work with, but they are also a nightmare of interoperability when you try and work with anything else.

I don't want to encourage purchase of their products because when you dig deeper into the behavior of Microsoft the 'evil' conclusion is consistently reinforced. A corporation has the same legal rights as an individual in society it begs the question "What sort of individual is Microsoft", I found this and made the comparison.

HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH - 5 WAYS TO AVOID HIRING PSYCHOPATHS COPYRIGHT 2008 MICHAEL MERCER, PH.D.

1. Pre-Employment Tests - especially certain test scores

From my research on pre-employment tests, there are specific test scores that may indicate a job applicant is a psychopath. Specifically, psychopaths may get low or high scores on certain measures/scales in pre-employment tests:

* low scores on two measures - (a) Truthfulness and (b) Following Rules

Check , Check

* high scores on two measures - (a) Aggressiveness and (b) Power Motivation

Check, Check

Lesson: Be cautious with job applicants who get such scores on pre-employment tests.

2. Job Interviews

If you suspect a job applicant may be a psychopath, then you can ask questions to elicit answers revealing if the applicant threatens or intimidates people. Reason: Psychopaths get a huge thrill from intimidating through (a) real or implied threats, (b) verbal hostility, and (c) manipulation.

threats, hostility, manipulation, manipulation, manipulation.

3. Reference Checks

Call the job applicant's ex-bosses at home, and ask for a "personal reference." Obtain specific examples of how the applicant "handled difficulties and friction with other employees." Listen for warning signs of threats, intimidation, anger, or ridicule.

intimidation, anger,

Okay Muscians actually do get paid and this isn't about record companies. This is the poor sap playing his ass off.

Read this and this. Thank you.

Right, FISA as a whole...he considered it absolutely vital to grant Bush...expanded wiretapping powers...at the cost of a chance to discover the extent of his lawbreaking through civil discovery. Claiming that the FISA amendments are necessary to clarify the scope of the law is bullshit. Check out Al-Haramain v. Bush: the lawsuit with clear standing. If they manage to get around the stifling state secrets privilege, it seems likely that they will have Bush's actions declared illegal under pre-amended FISA. So basically, you're left with Obama buying Bush's argument that 72 hours is just way too burdensome a time limit to apply for a warrant in the FISA court, which does nothing but grant these warrants; he needs an easier process drawn out over weeks including appeals, with looser burdens for application. Obama thinks that giving Bush more of what he wants is so absolutely vital that we might as well de-facto pardon him while they're at it, for what should have been the biggest scandal since COINTELPRO.

Even without the immunity, I would have been troubled (read: appalled and outraged) by his vote. What kind of message does it send to make FISA even easier to comply with after Bush blatantly ignores it? You do know this this bill...actually legalizes warrantless wiretapping, I'm sure. As long as "the target" is an overseas foreigner (excuse me, as long as they reasonably believe this to be the case), they can listen to the overseas calls of American citizens without a warrant...using a broad and automated system. Take a gander at the pertinent section of the bill. You still need a FISA warrant to wiretap a U.S. citizen as the target for evidentiary purposes...well, you need one in a week anyway.

So, can you still sit there are justify this vote? Exactly what part of this bill is strengthening the rule of law and executive accountability? You know the lawsuit I linked earlier in the post...the plaintiff can still be wiretapped warrantlessly, only with the full protection of law this time! Not for evidentiary purposes, but if I recall a certain executive order correctly, all it takes to freeze someone's assets for supporting terrorism is for the AG to say "he's a bad bad man." A great day for Obama and America, to be sure.

# Prohibits the government from invoking war powers or other authorities to supersede surveillance rules in the future.

The real problem is as the ACLU http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/35636leg20080612.html has said. We need more checks and balances on this issue. Anything that FISA does no one can question. But at least now NO ONE but FISA can do these kinds of wiretaps. This was the problem with the laws passed in 2006 and 2007 on this issue. They let the president authorize hidden widespread wiretaps. Now such laws are clearly forbidden.

he had little faith that our judicial system would properly address the issue

That's because they did not when working on the bill. This bill was voted on a LOT. To get things in and out of it.

The Dodd-Feingold amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill just failed by a vote of 32-66. I was mistaken about Obama's not showing up to vote (that was the case, as I understood it, when the vote was scheduled for yesterday). He is in the Senate and, as he said he would, just voted (along with Hillary Clinton) in favor of the amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill.

From here http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/#postid-updateE2 That is a MASSIVE number and that vote was ONLY for immunity. The GOP was 100% in favor of no immunity. The GOP has been united since the get go on this issue and were not backing down. This is why I think Obama knew this bill was as good as it was gonna get. It is more productive for him to move on and fix things latter as the President.

Compromise is obviously important, although in this case it's rather one sided.

However, what Obama has done is to harness the power of a progressive base in order to get the nomination and then within 6 weeks of securing that nomination, take a number of positions that would have enraged that base support during the race.

If this kind of "bipartisanship" was so important to him, why didn't we see it while he was being holier than thou about "change" and calling Hilary Clinton a corrupt pawn of the establishment?

I happen to believe that companies acting in good faith to help after 9/11, and who were given assurances that they would be immune from legal sanction, should in fact be immune from legal sanction.

Under the preexisting law, "A good faith reliance on [the fact that the surveillance is legal] is a complete defense against any civil or criminal action brought under this chapter or any other law." Lawyer turned blogger Glenn Greenwald put it this way:

Telecoms already have immunity under existing FISA law where they acted pursuant to written government certification or where they prove they acted in good faith (see 18 USC 2520 (d)). There is no reason that the federal courts presiding over these cases can't simply make that determiniation, as they do in countless other cases involving classified information.

I think that only the reason they were potentially in trouble is that they were not acting on the good faith belief that what they were doing was legal.

I feel reasonable minds can disagree on matters of public policy. But to you I am a traitor?

I agree with the first part. But I think the point is that many of us feel this is an issue of fundamental liberty, the rule of law, and the basic structure of our government (the ability of congress to act as a check against the executive), so that this transcends an ordinary policy debate.

Greenwald makes the point that this bill couldn't get passed when Republicans held the House and Senate.

Apparently Bush needed a Democrat-controlled Congress to get his get-out-of-jail free card.

The law has always stated that the telecoms and their agents had a complete defense in any civil or criminal actions resulting from any law if the government or a law enforcement agency/officer presented the telecoms with documentation claiming their acts were legal. ...the current claim is that they would be but Bush classified the documents they need to prove the effect of the law which means they would be committing a felony if they defended their actions with the defenses provided by law.

Glenn Greenwald already wrote about this issue over at Salon.com. He writes, "Rockefeller's claim that telecoms can't submit exculpatory evidence to the court is flat-out false, an absolute lie. There is no other accurate way to describe his statement. Under FISA (50 USC 1806(f)), telecoms are explicitly permitted to present any evidence in support of their defenses in secret (in camera, ex parte) to the judge and let the judge decide the case based on it." So it sound like this is not much of an issues.

But, of course, even if it were an issue the proper approach would be to provide a mechanism for them to present this evidence (as Sen. Feinstein's amendment, offered to an earlier version of the bill this year, to put the issue of legality before the FISA court might have done) or at the most extreme do as Sen. Specter's amendment (again offered earlier this year) suggested and make the government the defendant on the suits. Just granting a blanket immunity is clearly an unnecessary solution to this supposed technical problem. And, as I said, Greenwald (a former lawyer) suggests this problem is already solved by current law.

This has never really been about making the telecoms pay either. It has always been about gathering evidence on the administration which sort of seems like picking on the retarded neighbor kid in order to force his parents out of the house so someone else can rob them.

First of all, it's clearly ridiculous to paint the wealthy and quite politically powerful telecom corporations as "the retarded neighbor kid". Secondly, if they knowingly participated in illegal activity violating the privacy of thousands or millions of their customers I think it is about holding them accountable. And, as you said, that's the only scenario under which the liable under the law. This is also about using this as a tool to unearth evidence to hold government officials who engaged in criminal activity responsible. Sadly, this is necessary because the Department of Justice that would usually investigate a crime is controlled by the same people who ordered the illegal activity.

Any person who thinks someone should be held accountable for this illegal activity can't rationally support full immunity. One can argue for some compromise to deal with the technical issues that might exist, but just sweeping it under the rug is not acceptable. This is a matter of protecting civil liberties. This is a matter of maintaining the rule of law, demonstrating that we do not accept Nixon's premise that when the president authorizes it it's not illegal. Finally, it is about maintaining the balance of powers between the separate branches of our government. FISA was set down by the legislative branch to counter the excesses of the executive; if the legislature now allows the executive and those who aided it to brazenly violate those laws then it undermines the balance between the two branches.

I think it's more likely that casinos have 0% slots.

Casino machines are heavily regulated. Instead, the gambling industry is searching for other ways to screw their clients: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/16/gambling_science/

If you don't like Bill that is fine, but the Gates Foundation is doing significant good work in many areas of poverty, disease and global development.

And Intelligent Design education. Don't forget that. $50,000/year to the president of the Discovery Institute for his work on, um, "transportation issues." Would the question of whether Jesus rode dinosaurs be a "transportation issue," I wonder?

Keith Olbermann put up a post on this last night on Daily Kos explaining that John Dean calmed his fears about Obama's stance. Dean observes that the bill would "only" pre-empt civil suits and that Obama's ammunition is that his AG (if Obama is elected) would prosecute. I don't find Keith's rationale for supporting John Dean convincing, basically because it boils down to "John Dean is brilliant and I'll trust his expertise." Besides, it's a big risk to take. And no mention is made of the fact that Obama had earlier said 1) he would vote against retroactive immunity, and 2) would support a filibuster. Guess not so much. Glenn Greenwald differs with Obama's position and with Olbermann's giving Obama a pass, and has explained why.

This bill is not a compromise. In the words of Senator Feingold, it is a "complete capitulation". see e.g. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

Simply put, it's an election year and none of the Democrats want to appear "soft on terrorism/defense/insert-the-buzzword-of-the-day-here", out of fear of losing their jobs.

A fear which is sadly confused; how do you appear "strong" by doing exactly what your opponent wants but less enthusiastically? The Democrats are never going to be perceived as more zealously hard-on-terrorism than the Republicans, so their only hope is to try to motivate people who want them to be zealously strong-on-liberty instead. Weakling decisions like "I voted against the Fourth Amendment, but I felt really bad about it" aren't going to win them any voters from any part of the political spectrum.

Simply put, it's an election year and none of the Democrats want to appear "soft on terrorism/defense/insert-the-buzzword-of-the-day-here", out of fear of losing their jobs.

A fear which is sadly confused; how do you appear "strong" by doing exactly what your opponent wants but less enthusiastically? The Democrats are never going to be perceived as more zealously hard-on-terrorism than the Republicans, so their only hope is to try to motivate people who want them to be zealously strong-on-liberty instead. Weakling decisions like "I voted against the Fourth Amendment, but I felt really bad about it" aren't going to win them any voters from any part of the political spectrum.

Obama will vote for FISA. "Change" my shiny metal ass.

You think that the a Democratic president would have invaded Iraq?

Something like that is conceivable.

Imprisoned and tortured innocent people?

It's happened before.

Pushed for telecom immunity in the first place?

Who do you think is pushing for it now?

Undermined the military?

There's a reason why even Bush used to be against nation-building before he was for it.

Don't get me wrong, it's obvious that on average the Democrats are doing a lot better than the Republicans lately. But you can't just say "a [party I like] President" wouldn't have done such bad things; that kind of tribalism valuing affiliation over actions is at the root of how the Republican Party self-destructed, and the Democrats aren't immune from the same human impulses.

To get down to specific examples, I think it's pretty clear by now that Gore wouldn't have made most of the mistakes Bush did, but I don't think it's clear that the privacy issues we're discussing right now aren't an exception.

"Fox news isn't doing anything different from NBC, CBS and ABC."

Exploding trucks and Rather's "fake documents" just somehow don't match up against 8 years of continuoys Fox propaganda leading the way in suckering the U.S. in to Iraq, and doing everything in their power to elect one of the worst Presidents in our history...twice. If you want I'll make a list of all the bone headed things Bush and Cheney have done, with the help of Fox and Rupert Murdoch, which have nearly destroyed the U.S. and may well succeed in actually destroying it.

For example Bush started the drive in 2001 to put everyone in their own home, even people who simply couldn't afford them, which lead directly to the mortgage crisis which is on the verge of destroying the U.S. economy if the not the global economy.

I'm willing to give Rather a pass on the "fake documents" thing. All indications are the documents were accurate fakes. George Bush did in fact massively cheat on his National Guard service. He and his stooges just managed to destroy all the incriminating documents. As Texas governor he was in charge of the Texas National Guard so it was easy for him to erase his checkered National Guard history. It created extreme frustration in some people that George Bush got a free pass for his dereliction of his Guard duty while Kerry was barbecued for his service and he actually served in combat in Vietnam. People were furious because George's checkered paper trail had been erased so some people used forgery in an attempt to restore it based on the facts as nearly as they have been pieced together. As I recall a particular issue was Bush was probably using cocaine during his Guard years when random drug testing was introduced by the Guard and Bush just went AWOL apparently to make sure he didn't get tested. He apparently didn't show up during all of his last year in the Guard in 1972-1973 and got an honorable discharge in 1973 in spite of failing to show up.

I think it would be cool if all the right wing nut jobs who watch Fox did join MySpace to help Rupert out. It would probably make MySpace nearly toxic as a social networking site since the people who watch Fox are anti-cool.

Comix:
Ctrl-Alt-Del http://www.cad-comic.com/
Diesel Sweeties http://dieselsweeties.com/
Questionable Content http://www.questionablecontent.net/
Penny Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/
xkcd http://xkcd.com/

Blogs:
Warren Ellis http://www.warrenellis.com/
Thighs Wide Shut http://thighswideshut.org/
Kids with Guns http://patrickben.livejournal.com/

Geeky Blogs/Mags:
Boing Boing http://www.boingboing.net/
Cool Hunting
365 Tomorrows
Grinding.be http://grinding.be/
io9 http://io9.com/
Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/
Slashdot
Wired http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
AppleInsider http://www.appleinsider.com/
Macenstein http://macenstein.com/default
The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/
Macworld http://www.macworld.com/

Dirty Stuff:
Fleshbot http://fleshbot.com/tag/straight
FlickrBabes http://flickrbabes.com/
UseMyComputer http://usemycomputer.com/
Homocidal Insomniac http://homicidalinsomniac.blogspot.com/

News:
Salon http://www.salon.com/

I know martinw89 linked a page containing all of the links, but in case that was too confusing, I better link them again:

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4
Article 5
Article 6
Article 7
Article 8
Article 9

Hope that helps

Although your post is obviously a joke, Windows did a fantastic job of getting the PC into the lives of average people.

No, that was the Internet.

The spreadsheet was the "killer ap" that got PCs on to the desktops of accountants and managers. The Internet was the "killer ap" that finally got the PC in to the homes of people like our parents. Email, the web and now digital photos of grandchildren on Facebook and Flickr have pretty much made even a dial-up account a necessity for pretty much everyone. Homeless people use the Internet.

And Bill Gates famously missed the potential of a free & open Internet until quite late in the game (I don't think Windows shipped with built-in support for TCP/IP until Windows 98, but correct me if I'm wrong).

Obama did say, after the vote, that he would TRY to get the retroactive immunity struck from it, but the rest of the bill is so Orwellian, it doesn't much matter. He supports the "compromise" that gives the neocons every damn thing they want. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/19/obama/index.html Y'all might have an interest in what's being done about this via the ACLU, Libertarians, Progressive NetRoots, Ron Paul Supporters and other Strange Bedfellows. http://bloggasm.com/strange-bedfellows-bloggers-from-the-left-and-right-team-up-with-the-aclu-to-fight-telecom-immunity

It's about campaign airtime now, too.

It's possible to receive enough money from individual contributors to make up for lost donations from criminal corporations, but how much good does grassroots fundraising do you when you're not even allowed to buy a political ad with it?

Contrary to the commonly espoused reasons, nuclear is not "the best" option. Not because of environmental concerns, although they are important. Not fuel disposal, although they present a sticky NIMBY-driven and real problem. Not because anyone is afraid of nuclear power. Or because anyone is short-sighted.

The plain truth is that in this country, private industry builds nuclear power plants, and nuclear power plants cost far more to construct per kW than yet vastly unexploited sources such as wind power. Regardless of what kind, breeder reactor or not, before one kilowatt comes out a nuke plant, it is already far behind in cost effectiveness. See http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/02/nuclear_power_price/.

What worries me about this ruling is if all the bill of rights apply to non citizens when does that begin. Will our soldiers be forced to mirandize prisoners of war? Will they have to start following rules of evidence in the middle of battle, bagging and tagging evidence?

I have to kind of agree with the dissenting opinion in that the court should have outlined what rights they felt applied and at what point do they come in effect otherwise they are seriously tying the hands of our military.

Yoo, for instance, claims that the Supreme Court in Boumediene allows "an alien who was captured fighting against the U.S. to use our courts to challenge his detention." But huge numbers of detainees in U.S. custody weren't "captured fighting against the U.S." at all. Many were taken from their homes. Others were just snatched off the street while engaged in the most mundane activities. Still others were abducted while in airports or at work.

Sami al-Haj, the Al Jazeera camerman who was encaged at Guantanamo for years until being recently released, was simply traveling with an Al Jazeera reporter from Pakistan into Afghanistan to cover the U.S. invasion for his news network when he was stopped by a Pakistani immigration officer, turned over to the U.S., kept in an underground Afghan prison for six months, and then basically disappeared off to Guantanamo, where he remained for years, interrogated not about Al Qaeda, but largely about the operations of Al Jazeera...

The other deeply misleading claim in Yoo's Op-Ed is even more transparent. He characterizes the Court's decision as "grant[ing] captured al Qaeda terrorists the exact same rights as American citizens to a day in civilian court." What minimally self-respecting law professor would be willing to make this claim with a straight face?

The whole point of the habeas corpus right is that without a meaningful hearing, we don't know if the individuals our Government is imprisoning are really "al Qaeda terrorists" or something else. That ought to be too basic even to require pointing out. As this recent superb McClatchy article documents, scores of individuals detained at Guantanamo for years weren't "Al Qaeda terrorists" -- or any other kind of terrorists -- at all.

There is no such thing as a bad conservative. "Conservative" is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals. Get used to the hearing about how the Republicans failed because they weren't true conservatives. Conservatism can never fail. It can only be failed by weak-minded souls who refuse to properly follow its tenets. It's a lot like communism that way.

Courtney Love gives a much more accurate account for how the racket works. All these "BIG" record deals aren't that "BIG" at all because typically the advance given the band is not just payment to the members, but also supposed to cover production expenses. In other words record company gives you 1.3 million and you go to the recording studio, art studio, and post possessing guys and give 1 million back to the record studio and you're left with 300,000 with which you pay the manager and the artist, making it a 5 or 6 way split. That's 50 grand a piece. And then you never see a penny from your album because that 1.3 million was an advance. Thats why going gold, silver and platinum are such big deals, because they're when the artist starts actually seeing 1.3 cents per song.

The four major record corporations fund the RIAA. These companies are rich and obviously well-represented. Recording artists and musicians don't really have the money to compete. The 273,000 working musicians in America make about $30,000 a year. Only 15 percent of American Federation of Musicians members work steadily in music. But the music industry is a $40 billion-a-year business. One-third of that revenue comes from the United States. The annual sales of cassettes, CDs and video are larger than the gross national product of 80 countries. Americans have more CD players, radios and VCRs than we have bathtubs. Story after story gets told about artists -- some of them in their 60s and 70s, some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all enjoy, use and sing -- living in total poverty, never having been paid anything. Not even having access to a union or to basic health care. Artists who have generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke and un-cared for. And they're not actors or participators. They're the rightful owners, originators and performers of original compositions. This is piracy." - Courtney Love

Ok, now that the "24-hour-can't-say-anything-critical-about-a-dead-man" period is over, can I just ask - huh? Are you sure you're talking about the right Tim Russert?

I remember a Tim Russert who insisted in open court that his personal journalistic philosophy was that, when talking to a public official, anything that was said was implicitly off the record unless that public official said that it could go on the record, explicitly.

I remember a Tim Russert who adamantly refused to testify during the Libby trial, who refused to testify against a source who had committed treason against the United States (according to George HW Bush), a Russert who privileged his own journalistic access to the nation's elites over the interests of the people his journalism was meant to serve.

I remember a Russert who, in 2004, basically rolled over for the President. I don't remember any "hardballs"; I remember a craven submission to the bamboozlement of an administration he, along with the rest of his Beltway buddies, allowed to lie to us for years.

I remember a Tim Russert who the Bush administration knew was a sympathetic media outlet to their talking points, a Tim Russert whose "Meet the Press" was a preferred venue because, in the words of a top Cheney aide, they could "control the message."

I can't for the life if me imagine how you remember Russert as some kind of dogged truth-seeker who stuck politicians to the sticking place. Those of us who were paying attention to his show know that Russert was at the head of the destruction of American journalism; the leader of an abdication of their responsibilities as the Fifth Estate.

Who the fuck are you talking about? Because it wasn't, in any way, Tim Russert, official stenographer for the Bush Administration.

P.S. Maybe he was a great dad, and a great guy, I don't know. I feel bad for his father, I really do. But this Tim Russert you keep talking about, the one who was so brave and asked such probing questions... well, I sure as hell wished that Tim Russert had actually existed, instead of the craven, obsequious Tim Russert we actually had on Meet the Press, because maybe with a media that actually did it's job we wouldn't be in so many of the messes we're in.

Ok, now that the "24-hour-can't-say-anything-critical-about-a-dead-man" period is over, can I just ask - huh? Are you sure you're talking about the right Tim Russert?

I remember a Tim Russert who insisted in open court that his personal journalistic philosophy was that, when talking to a public official, anything that was said was implicitly off the record unless that public official said that it could go on the record, explicitly.

I remember a Tim Russert who adamantly refused to testify during the Libby trial, who refused to testify against a source who had committed treason against the United States (according to George HW Bush), a Russert who privileged his own journalistic access to the nation's elites over the interests of the people his journalism was meant to serve.

I remember a Russert who, in 2004, basically rolled over for the President. I don't remember any "hardballs"; I remember a craven submission to the bamboozlement of an administration he, along with the rest of his Beltway buddies, allowed to lie to us for years.

I remember a Tim Russert who the Bush administration knew was a sympathetic media outlet to their talking points, a Tim Russert whose "Meet the Press" was a preferred venue because, in the words of a top Cheney aide, they could "control the message."

I can't for the life if me imagine how you remember Russert as some kind of dogged truth-seeker who stuck politicians to the sticking place. Those of us who were paying attention to his show know that Russert was at the head of the destruction of American journalism; the leader of an abdication of their responsibilities as the Fifth Estate.

Who the fuck are you talking about? Because it wasn't, in any way, Tim Russert, official stenographer for the Bush Administration.

P.S. Maybe he was a great dad, and a great guy, I don't know. I feel bad for his father, I really do. But this Tim Russert you keep talking about, the one who was so brave and asked such probing questions... well, I sure as hell wished that Tim Russert had actually existed, instead of the craven, obsequious Tim Russert we actually had on Meet the Press, because maybe with a media that actually did it's job we wouldn't be in so many of the messes we're in.

It's happened already. (I don't know if this is the specific case I'm thinking of, but this article is related.)

Recommended reading that didn't make it into this story's writeup:

Glenn Greenwald, Supreme Court restores habeas corpus:

In a major rebuke to the Bush administration's theories of presidential power -- and in an equally stinging rebuke to the bipartisan political class which has supported the Bush detention policies -- the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision (.pdf), declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional. The Court struck down that section of the MCA because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas corpus...

Glenn Greenwald, Conservative vs. authoritarianism:

To our country's pseudo-tough-guy "conservatives," the very idea of merely requiring the Government to prove the guilt of the people it wants to imprison for life or execute is so intolerable, so offensive, that they want instead to release them all -- including detainees who are indisputably innocent -- onto a battlefield so that they can be slaughtered by our planes with no trial at all. [...]

The question I put to him again and again was one that he simply couldn't answer: how and why would any American object to the mere requirement that our Government prove that someone is guilty before we imprison them indefinitely or execute them?

The decision itself, with my favorite passage being:

Yet the Government's view is that the Constitution had no effect there [at Guantanamo], at least as to noncitizens, because the United States disclaimed sovereignty in the formal sense of the term. The necessary implication of the argument is that by surrendering formal sovereignty over any unincorporated territory to a third party, while at the same time entering into a lease that grants total control over the territory back to the United States, it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint.

Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not "absolute and unlimited" but are subject "to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution." Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44 (1885). Abstaining from questions involving formal sovereignty and territorial governance is one thing. To hold the political branches have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will is quite another. The former position reflects this Court's recognition that certain matters requiring political judgments are best left to the political branches. The latter would permit a striking anomaly in our tripartite system of government, leading to a regime in which Congress and the President, not this Court, say "what the law is." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803).

In that passage, the Court upbraids the Bush administration, which sought this unconstitutional law and argued to uphold it, for claiming that the President has the right to "switch the Constitution on or off at will." The Court is absolutely correct about this, there is no doubt that this is what our current President has attempted. And the Court is correct that this is an attempt to circumvent the system of separation of powers that is at the heart of the "basic charter" on which the United States was founded.

The fact that this decision was a slim 5-4 majority, with this President's two appointees making up half the dissenting view, is a frightening thought.

Recommended reading that didn't make it into this story's writeup:

Glenn Greenwald, Supreme Court restores habeas corpus:

In a major rebuke to the Bush administration's theories of presidential power -- and in an equally stinging rebuke to the bipartisan political class which has supported the Bush detention policies -- the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision (.pdf), declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional. The Court struck down that section of the MCA because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas corpus...

Glenn Greenwald, Conservative vs. authoritarianism:

To our country's pseudo-tough-guy "conservatives," the very idea of merely requiring the Government to prove the guilt of the people it wants to imprison for life or execute is so intolerable, so offensive, that they want instead to release them all -- including detainees who are indisputably innocent -- onto a battlefield so that they can be slaughtered by our planes with no trial at all. [...]

The question I put to him again and again was one that he simply couldn't answer: how and why would any American object to the mere requirement that our Government prove that someone is guilty before we imprison them indefinitely or execute them?

The decision itself, with my favorite passage being:

Yet the Government's view is that the Constitution had no effect there [at Guantanamo], at least as to noncitizens, because the United States disclaimed sovereignty in the formal sense of the term. The necessary implication of the argument is that by surrendering formal sovereignty over any unincorporated territory to a third party, while at the same time entering into a lease that grants total control over the territory back to the United States, it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint.

Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not "absolute and unlimited" but are subject "to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution." Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44 (1885). Abstaining from questions involving formal sovereignty and territorial governance is one thing. To hold the political branches have the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will is quite another. The former position reflects this Court's recognition that certain matters requiring political judgments are best left to the political branches. The latter would permit a striking anomaly in our tripartite system of government, leading to a regime in which Congress and the President, not this Court, say "what the law is." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803).

In that passage, the Court upbraids the Bush administration, which sought this unconstitutional law and argued to uphold it, for claiming that the President has the right to "switch the Constitution on or off at will." The Court is absolutely correct about this, there is no doubt that this is what our current President has attempted. And the Court is correct that this is an attempt to circumvent the system of separation of powers that is at the heart of the "basic charter" on which the United States was founded.

The fact that this decision was a slim 5-4 majority, with this President's two appointees making up half the dissenting view, is a frightening thought.

Have you listened to Obama rant about "Bush's third term"? That alone puts Obama in the "fucking dishonest scumbag" camp, because anyone who has a clue will see that it's untrue.

John McCain, June 15, 2005, Meet the Press (h/t Blue Texan):

MR. RUSSERT: And what people point to -- and this is an article in your hometown paper, the Arizona Republic, "At Odds With Bush. John McCain repeatedly has taken maverick positions that have put him at odds with President Bush's administration" . . . . The fact is you are different than George Bush.

SEN. McCAIN: No. No. I -- the fact is that I'm different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush . So have we had some disagreements on some issues, the bulk -- particularly domestic issues? Yes. But I will argue my conservative record voting with anyone's, and I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people.

(Tip of the hat to Glenn Greenwald )