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First, to be "outed", Valerie Plame would have had to be a covert operative. She wasn't at that time.

Sorry, I was barely paying attention to this thread, but couldn't help noticing this bit of misinformation.

Plame was covert agent at time of name leak --MSNBC

Yes, Valerie Plame Was Covert --CBSNews

Leak Prosecutor says Plame was Covert --NYTimes

Video: Valerie Plame confirms her covert status --thinkprogress.org

etc.

You may be confused because of the following misinformation campaign:

Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert --Salon

>> REALLY!!??! You're joking, right? How many millions of people have died due to the banning of DDT?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/29/rachel_carson/

>> Where are the food shortages and mass starvation I read about so long ago?

Safely contained in the third world, where folks like yourself don't need to worry about them.

>> Why are we all not dying from skin cancer due to the depleted Ozone layer?

Mostly because the world got together and greatly reduced the amount of CFCs getting into the atmosphere. The ozone layer has been slowly recovering since.

>> Aren't we supposed to be in an ice age now?

Simple answer: no. Climate scientists predicted no such thing.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

Methinks you need to find better examples.

The texts are too static and do not accommodate teacher needs; allowing the computer to become the active text is incredibly important.

No, it's not important at all. Until AI advances enormously to the point that software is as smart as human teachers, "active text" is a bunch of silicon snake oil, just a higher tech incarnation of programmed text. Haven't heard of programmed text? Think the non-fiction equivalent of a "choose your own adventure" book; after each little lesson you'd answer a question, the correct answer would take you to the next lesson, the wrong answer would take you to a review of the material. Was a fad in the late 1960s. Mostly useless.

The potential usefulness of OLPC is that it can cheaply put a bunch of books (e-copies of textbooks and works of literature) into the hands of many, and that it enables many-to-many communication on a global scale.

We all have ADD

(Rant mode on.) No, we don't. Many of us still retain the ability to actually sit the fsck down and focus our brains for more than five minutes.

Many - quite likely most - kids labeled as ADD also have this ability, but are not socialized to use it. I teach karate, and since "everybody knows" that martial arts training is good for kids with ADD, I've worked with a lot of them over the years. It's amazing how often simply setting boundaries, enforcing consequences, and getting children to get some gorram exercise "cures" "ADD".

Getting them the hell outside is another useful "treatment". The number of kids with an actual neurological problem is dwarfed by those who just need to run around outside and to be taught some behavioral boundaries.

The problem is that kids glued to game consoles or the intarweb are being trained that fast-shiny-jumpy is good, and slow, complex, and still is bad. (Yes, there are exceptions, games and sites and applications that encourage deeper thought. But they are the rare ones.)

I used to sit in a tree and read books. Maybe that's possible with an XO - I just bought one on eBay, I'll have to try that out when it arrives.

(Rant mode off.)

> That's an absurd argument -- "McCain says he'll follow the Constitution." "You mean, the same Constitution that President Bush says gives him the right to abuse small farm animals? Why McCain must want to abuse small farm animals too!"

The argument that Article II gives a president unlimited powers during wartime is absurd. I wouldn't call that "following the Constitution" any more than torture was.

> There isn't much question that tapping *international* calls is within the government's power. (At least I haven't heard any major Democrats argue with this). There just isn't enough information in this post to know if this is what McCain is talking about, or if it's domestic surveillance.

It's clear that they're using it for domestic surveillance. So you're left saying either that McCain doesn't know what the telecoms are doing (but voted for immunity for them anyhow) or that he knowingly supports it. Do you really think that EITHER of those is a good thing?

> You should leave the political hack jobs to the professionals.

I linked to several accounts. I don't think it's just me noticing this, it's pretty much all of the tech press. But you can call that a 'hack job' if you want. If I wanted it to be more of a 'hack job', I'd have mentioned that Obama is against telecom immunity and the rest of this crap (and has voted that way).

If you want more sources, try this. It's not just me thinking this.

Go back to the linked Slashdot story on the original bill; even back to then, he supported it (read the comments: McCain for immunity, Hillary abstained, Obama against). McCain has even sent out advisers who said things that made him sound like he was backing away from that (e.g. the linked story on Wired's Threat Level), then retracted those. If that's not flip-flopping, what the hell is it?

It's not like it's just that he learned from old mistakes or something (that'd be _GOOD_, IMHO, and I wouldn't call him out on that). It's this schizophrenic nonsense coming from his campaign where he can't decide if he's a real Republican or a "maverick" and he wants to be different things to different people. It's phony and I don't like it.

I mean, first he was against torture, then he was for it (but in limited circumstances) because he didn't want to look "weak on terror" or something. He supports lawful limits, but he'd ignore them if it protected us from terrorists. He doesn't seem to think that Bush did anything wrong, unless you count criticizing Katrina several YEARS after the fact... it took THAT long to realize things went wrong!?!

I once thought McCain was a decent man. I voted for McCain in the past. But I don't know who the hell he is any more. But go ahead. Call this a 'hack job'. It's not like anybody could wonder what happened to the more decent McCain of 2000, right?

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

For those of you too gullible to fact check what you read, the GAO reported that no such vandalism occurred, and "the condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy."

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/23/vandals/print.html

But it is a very catchy story. One that people have swallowed even years later.

1. Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?

The Supreme Court has never held that the president has such powers. As president, I will follow existing law, and when it comes to U.S. citizens and residents, I will only authorize surveillance for national security purposes consistent with FISA and other federal statutes.

McCain, spying and executive power: A complete reversal in 6 months

Try here.

Even funnier, after they created a "children's bestseller" list (so they could continue to use the adult's bestseller list as a marketing tool), the publishers of kid's books got ticked that the Potter books dominated that list, and shortly thereafter the NYT created another list, this time for "children's bestselling serials." That way, they could put Harry Potter in its own little corner, where it wouldn't embarrass the rest of the publishing world with its success.

Yeah, and the bananas become flesh eating bananas? Oh, wait

and baby photos won't be banned by this law

There have been a number of malicious and frivolous prosecutions in the US that have given the police to arbitrarily arrest people for kiddie porn based on "baby photos".
Granted, most of the charges were eventually thrown out, but only after costly legal battles and long term separation from their children because of CPS.

The problem is that if the law can be abused, inevitably, it will be. Police and prosecutors cannot be trusted to use discretion or even common sense. The police are often ignorant of the law or incompetent, and too many prosecutors are sociopaths who want another notch on their belt in their pursuit of higher office.

http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/01/31/kincaid/index.html has some examples, there are many others.

What people don't seem to understand is that they are granting the state the ability to use potentially deadly force to break up families and imprison people for extended periods of time. The burden of proof has to be higher.

And then you get guys like me. I could personally care LESS about Barack Obama's skin color. Really. His ancestry is of no interest to me.

While skin color is not anywhere near the top of my list for qualifiers, the fact that Obama is black is a non-negligible factor in my voting for him. No, it's not morally equivalent to the opposite situation, of voting against him because of his skin color.
Gary Kamiya wrote an interesting essay on the issue.

I haven't looked down this end of my user page for a while. Are you still there?

Why not? Most of the music I actually listen to is from "part-time" bands.

That's you.

Of course. You told me to trust you, and that we didn't want music to be made by people who don't do it for the money, and I disagreed.

Interestingly, the way it is now, very few artists actually make money from selling records. It turns out that even today, releasing a record costs most artists money. Bands see records as a publicity instrument. They make money using other means.

Music tastes aren't some homogeneous collective concept that can be moulded to fit the music scene. The most efficient solution is to allow tastes to mould the music scene to fit. I don't want to be told that I should be liking the same music as you. Perhaps as a libertarian, you can appreciate that.

Well, I'm certainly not a libertarian (I'm quite glad to live in a country with public health care, for example), but even ignoring that part, I must admit that I'm a bit confused. This seems like a straw man; I don't think I even implied that you should have to like the same music I like. I merely pointed out that good music is made by people who don't do it for a living. This applies to pretty much all genres of music; you don't have to like the particular bands I like. Furthermore, since even most professional bands don't make their money selling actual music, I doubt the discussion is relevant. I suspect that people could copy 100% of all music and never actually pay for a single song, and we would still have as many professional bands as we have now.

The money we pay for music does not go to the bands. It goes to the record companies, which use it to finance production and distribution of CDs (as well as drugs and prostitutes for their CEOs, presumably).

Yeah, I've bought their CDs, but you know what? They would continue making music even if nobody bought their CDs, as long as somebody came to their concerts because they make absolutely no money on CDs. I don't think they make any money from their music at all, actually. And perhaps that is better, because it allows them to make the music they want to, instead of the music which makes the most money.

No, money is and always has been an option. You don't have to take it. It's completely up to the artist whether or not they want money for their efforts. What you're doing is telling them what their choice is.

I'm telling you that there is a choice :-)

Some may be fine under servitude under their fans (Who am I kidding? Servants get more money than donations! Optional slavery would be better fitting) but many others will justifiably want out. If artists are making no money of recordings (which is the natural consequence of piracy)

No, actually, this is the current state already.

then they will stop producing them.

This is obviously not true, since we seem to have records right now, even though they don't make their bands any money. Records are publicity. You don't get people to come to your concerts if radios aren't playing your songs, and radios aren't playing your songs if you don't produce and record and release them.

I don't believe that there is some innate desire in human beings to distribute recordings

I disagree. Humans have an innate need for notoriety. We want to see our names on books, we want to be mentioned in papers, we want people to know and recognize us and leave some legacy for future generations.

You are rewarding performance and performance only.

I am not rewarding anything. I'm not even claiming that performing is the only way for artists to m

Read about the psychiatric diagnoses of John "I Was A Prisoner-Of-War" McCain.

Cordially,
Filipino Monkey

The Moody memos offer daily direction to the news staff about how they're to report stories. An example is a memo telling them, in reference to the President, "His political courage and tactical cunning ar[e] [wo]rth noting in our reporting through the day". Collection of Fox News memos. A classic Moody memo.

The author of the Willie Horton ad is now the president of Fox News.

Salon.com – favorable, mostly on Robert Downey Jr.'s performance

I'm a huge fan of Mr. Card's fiction, but I find his taking the moral high road on the issue of Dumbledore being gay rather disengenuous. He implies that he would have written his sexuality into the story when, in fact he's never had a gay character in *any* of his novels (at least, not the ones I've read). And, given his public stance on gay rights ("Gay rights is a collective delusion that's being attempted" - http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card/index2.html ), there's little doubt in my mind that what he's really criticizing is the fact that Rowling admitted Dumbledore was gay at all, regardless of whether or not that fact is printed anywhere.

The silence is deafening.

He published some kick-ass sci-fi stories. Read 0wnz0red, it will move you and your pants deeply.

> So please PLEASE at least read the stats and do a quick comparison before you speak.

Done. I followed your links and got a $300-$400 price difference, not $700 or $900 as you suggest.

Both your and my comparisons ignore three significant points:

1) Mac OS X is better than Vista. Much better. Go read the reviews. Compare the features. Be sure to consider stability and security in your analysis.

2) Macs bundle some very nice software which would cost extra on the PC.

3) RESALE VALUE. This alone compensates for whatever monetary difference may exist initially, and then some. http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2007/11/07/mac_price/

So, I guess you'd be wrong then. I kinda wish there WAS a -1 Disagree. Would've been faster than doing all this typing.

Thanks for that. I feel the same way about being referred to as a "consumer."

By the way, here is the link to Courtney's rant on the music biz. I don't agree with everything she says, either, but I appreciate the effort she put in to imagining a system that would be fair to artists and patrons alike.

Increasing our supply of oil will only extend the problems of climate due to excessive CO2 in the atmosphere.

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.

For an exercise in application, try to write a pro-war piece. Most people would have an awful time trying.

Not in the mass market media you wouldn't. The people the media invites on their shows are entirely made up of one of two groups of people: unapologetic warmongers like Bill Kristol and John McCain, or people who completely supported the war and the surge but are now having some "buyers remorse" now that it's turned into a giant clusterfuck. The only complaints either of these groups have is that "mistakes were made."

But those who were right from the beginning in opposing the war are as excluded from the discussion now as they were in 2002. Remember last year when the media made a big deal of these "Iraq war critics" who were "no friends of the Administration" and were from "the liberal Brookings Institution" who loved the Surge? Well, uh, actually they were total hawks who supported the invasion every step of the way.

Contrast that to this ad put in the NY Times signed by 33 scholars against the invasion. Why aren't these people on talk shows now instead of Bill Krisol, who's only topped by Fred Kagen in being consistently wrong *everything*?

For an exercise in application, try to write a pro-war piece. Most people would have an awful time trying.

Not in the mass market media you wouldn't. The people the media invites on their shows are entirely made up of one of two groups of people: unapologetic warmongers like Bill Kristol and John McCain, or people who completely supported the war and the surge but are now having some "buyers remorse" now that it's turned into a giant clusterfuck. The only complaints either of these groups have is that "mistakes were made."

But those who were right from the beginning in opposing the war are as excluded from the discussion now as they were in 2002. Remember last year when the media made a big deal of these "Iraq war critics" who were "no friends of the Administration" and were from "the liberal Brookings Institution" who loved the Surge? Well, uh, actually they were total hawks who supported the invasion every step of the way.

Contrast that to this ad put in the NY Times signed by 33 scholars against the invasion. Why aren't these people on talk shows now instead of Bill Krisol, who's only topped by Fred Kagen in being consistently wrong *everything*?

The New York Times, LA Times, and many other newspapers were "Foxitized" well before Fox. Most of Fox News's popularity comes from people who were sick of the rest of media being so ridiculously biased in one direction.

Damn straight. People hate it when the media is so biased in the direction of accuracy. Fox was a breath of fresh air since they weren't tied down by minor annoyances like reality.

Seriously, while the NYT, LAT, etc. may have some bias, they have long been balanced out by their counterparts on the other side. NYP, WSJ, Washington Times, Pittsburgh News Tribune, USA Today (the most read newspaper in the US)... The irony of the grandparent is that he complains about Murdoch "foxetizing" the Wall Street Journal-- a paper with such a strong right-wing bias that they literally drove a top White House adviser to suicide due to their repeated slanders (Vince Foster, though I know all the right-wingnuts are convinced that Hillary had him murdered). The WSJ was a FAR right-wing newspaper-- particularly its editorial page-- long before Fox acquired it.

Hillary Clinton is complaining about the media's bias against her because it works in her favor to do so. She not only wins sympathy votes from her supporters, but she has managed to deflect ALL criticism of her as mere "media bias". This is exactly what Bush did with the 60 minutes report on his draft dodging. He turned one poorly vetted story into a condemnation of any criticisms of his failure to complete his contracted military service.

The myth of the "Liberal Media" is so absurdly false that it's hard to believe that anyone buys into it anymore, but it is still constantly thrown out. It can be discredited with just a little critical thought, yet apparently most Americans are incapable of critical thinking. Let's go back to the 90's. Nearly every day, allegations of crimes or misdeeds by the Clinton Administration were printed on the cover of virtually every major newspaper in America. After Eight years and tens of millions of dollars of investigations-- probably even hundreds of millions if you count the private investigations done by the media and right-wingers with a cause-- almost every story was completely discredited, often by the most cursory examination, but that didn't stop new allegations from appearing the next day.

Now jump forward to the present administration. There is absolutely no reasonable doubt that this administration has committed TRULY impeachable crimes. Illegally outing a covert intelligence agent for political purposes, knowingly misrepresenting Iraq's possession of WMD's, lying about Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda, violating the 4th amendment on an almost unbelievable scale (and lying about it), illegally firing US Attorneys for political reasons, destroying emails and other documents in clear violation of the presidential records act, illegal electioneering, advisers just plain ignoring subpoenas to appear before congress, the complete disregard and later destruction of habeas corpus... There are literally hundreds of scandals that this administration has been involved with, and they have all been largely ignored by the mainstream media. Sure the stories are mentioned, but they are rarely covered by more than a story or two and then it's off to the latest Britney story. They are almost never really dug into. If even one in ten of the scandals are true (and the real number is probably far higher than that) than this is almost certainly the most corrupt administration in US history.

If the media is so biased to the left, how can you explain such an apparent bias towards the right? Hell, even the evil NYT was one of the biggest champions of the Iraq War, and without its support we possibly never would hav

That's the broken window falsehood in a nutshell, with a false dichotomy thrown in on the side.

Money and staff spent, in this case, re-inventing the wheel, is money and staff not spent on the core business activities. So,even if it's learning from others mistakes, going FOSS saves effort and that in turn boosts your core business activities (assuming reinvestment and not skimming by the execs). Software is only a tool, an enabler, for those core activities. In case you missed the last 25 years of computing, it's not an XOR choice between using the open source development model and making a profit. In fact, it's been show again and again that it's not only profitable, but makes your company more recession-proof. We've been through a few now and have seen the benefits.

Walmart is the hero in this story because they are trying to drive down prices. Now, when they used the same strong-arm tactics on the Rubbermaid corporation, it resulted in American jobs going to China. That makes them not the hero in that one, to me. The US economy was made weaker by the job loss, and the increase in the already staggering national trade deficit.

The music industry is different. Our pop music is not going to be made more cheaply in China any time soon (I hope). And while market forces would normally drive the price of a good down, with music, all CDs are not interchangeable. If someone makes a cheaper light bulb that's just as good as other bulbs, I switch to the cheaper ones. CDs don't work that way, mostly due to the amazing triumph of propaganda.

Because of this tremendous brand loyalty (people get tattoos of their favorite rockbands... anyone ever get a tattoo of their favorite soap?), the price is pretty high. Competitive market forces have not driven the price down, despite the fact that the cost to produce the product has gone down. Milton Freidman is spinning in his grave!

Further, I just don't agree with your statement that it's impossible to force record companies to take a smaller chunk of the pie without also shafting artists. The artists have been getting shafted all along, unless they're at the very top. The price breakdown in TFA shows the artist getting $1.60 in royalties (80 cents more if they wrote the song too). That's misleading. All artists do not get the same share of the royalties. Plus, the money that artists do get, they often have to give right back to pay for the cost of recording the album. Here's an article from 2000 where Courtney Love talks about how artists get shafted by record companies. In know, she's a train wreck, but she does have experience dealing with record companies.

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html

And besides, TFA says that the record company gets $1.70 Label profit, and $2.91 Label overhead - over and above the cost of marketing, producing and distributing. What is label overhead? And why is it way more than the artist gets, even in a best case scenario?

So what happens if a probe is launched?

Judging by what has happened with past Congressional investigations, the subpoenas will be ignored and nothing will be done about it. It's a pattern that works for Bush again and again.
Sorry but the Rule of Law doesn't seem to apply when "National Security" is on the line.

So what happens if a probe is launched?

Judging by what has happened with past Congressional investigations, the subpoenas will be ignored and nothing will be done about it. It's a pattern that works for Bush again and again.
Sorry but the Rule of Law doesn't seem to apply when "National Security" is on the line.

His article "praising" the iPhone was actually entitled Why I returned my iPhone...

He mentions that "several" (weasel word alert!) readers flamed him as an Apple hater, but neglected to mention all the other responses making comments such as "Mac products are pure shit..."; "Yep, paying $US600 for a pretty interface and bugger all extra functionality sounds like a poor bargain indeed." or "If the iPhone changed your life... then you must be a loser" and others making more reasoned criticism of the muddled messages given by his article. He does cite an example of previous article drawing one rabid response from a PC zealot, but seems to be spinning that as evidence that he is unbiassed, rather than explaining why it doesn't affect his thesis that Apple fans are uniquely zealous.

Sadly, the full postbag for the Mossberg article he mentions isn't available, so it seems reasonable to question how representative the "several" (again) frothy-mouthed epistles from the church of Jobs really were. Actually, some of Mossberg's criticisms were questionable - he went on to refute his own complaint about memory size (even with the overpriced Apple upgrade the price was still less than the competition) and his request for a memory card slot was a typical, ill-considered "I want a pony!" comment (PC makers throw these in to fill up the floppy bay - at the time Apple would have needed to find space for 4-5 fugly slots to cover all the common formats).

What TFA represents is one common form of "bias" - cherry-picking the rantings of a small lunatic fringe as "evidence" (as in the plural of "anecdote") and presenting them as representing a larger group.

That reminds me of this Carol Lay comic strip: http://www.salon.com/comics/lay/2008/01/11/lay/

That's sorta the point. Nobody of any measurable clout will. You'll get a handful of dippy games and shareware some developer could write in an afternoon. You won't see professional packages like Office or Photoshop. It's sad to see Apple crippling their phones like this. I was interested in developing apps for it, but not after hearing their unreasonable demands.

Yeah, 90% market share must be awful.

Uhh... iPhones crash. Your defense is extremely weak, yet I honestly think you actually believe it. That is so sad.

oh my god people. i know this is from microsoft, but it actually sounds like interesting research that could help us better understand and potentially deal with the whole polarization / daily me problem. (see cass sunstein for the background)... i mean it's an interesting ongoing research problem. this isn't intended to be a magical solution.

If anything is substantially responsible for increasing the earth's temperature, it's that nuclear-reactor-in-the-sky.

"The view that the sun is the source of observed global warming seems credible mainly to people who are open to believing that the entire scientific community has somehow, over a period of several decades, failed to adequately study, analyze and understand the most visible influence on the Earth's temperature."
...
"And that brings us to a recent study by the Proceedings of the Royal Society, which examined "all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth's climate," such as sunlight intensity and cosmic rays. The study found that in the past 20 years, all of those trends "have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures."
...
"Those trying to prove the sun is the sole cause of warming have a double challenge. First they would have to show us a mechanism that demonstrates how the sun explains recent warming, even though the data shows solar activity has been declining recently. (In the past, increased warming was associated with an increase in solar activity). They would also have to find an additional mechanism that is counteracting the well-understood warming caused by rising emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The doubters have done neither."

source: Salon.com: The cold truth about climate change (yes, in the USA, Salon is considered liberal media, but please read & judge the source material yourself.)

Sounds like they "accidently" chose to burn the leaf of the plant instead of the flowering top. Oops, their bad. But they can still claim it is marijuana that has these chemicals that should cause more cancer in people who consume it but magically does not. That is right -- I am calling your government-funded study bullshit (much like this one). No, it does not cause short-term memory loss (thought it is fun to claim otherwise and an easy out for those who would not pay attention in a given situation). No, it is not linked to psychosis unless a person is already diagnosed as schizophrenic . So, yes, in almost all instances it is propaganda. Watch those ads on TV about marijuana. Noticed they will not talk about medical/scientific effects. That is because they still are required to be nominally truthful (otherwise they can be attacked and stopped). Therefore, they always give non-medical/non-scientific consequences (and thus non-disprovable). They are the very definition of propaganda. And your and my tax dollars pay for the bullshit.

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday that Democratic leaders in the House are blocking key intelligence legislation so trial lawyers can sue phone companies that helped the government eavesdrop on suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Saturday that Democratic leaders in the House are blocking key intelligence legislation so trial lawyers can sue phone companies that helped the government eavesdrop on suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Terrorists are plotting new attacks against America "at this very moment," Bush said in renewing his call for the House to pass legislation needed to renew the intelligence law that expired last weekend.

The Bush administration said yesterday that the government "lost intelligence information" because House Democrats allowed a surveillance law to expire last week, causing some telecommunications companies to refuse to cooperate with terrorism-related wiretapping orders.

But hours later, administration officials told lawmakers that the final holdout among the companies had relented and agreed to fully participate in the surveillance program, according to an official familiar with the issue.

But even if telecoms were refusing to cooperate, the reason for their refusal was not because they don't have retroactive immunity, but rather, it's because there is alleged uncertainty over the legality of current surveillance requests, and uncertainty over the ongoing validity of the prospective immunity provided by the PAA, because the PAA expired. If the PAA had been extended, they would be completely protected with prospective immunity for future surveillance cooperation. And, of course, the PAA would not have expired had Congressional Democrats had their way -- they wanted to extend it until they could agree to a new bill. Thus, any alleged refusal on the part of telecoms to cooperate is exclusively the fault of Bush and House Republicans for forcing expiration of the PAA. That's just true as a matter of basic logic.

But leave all of that aside for a moment. Since Mike Mukasey himself just said in this letter that spying outside of FISA is "illegal," and since it's indisputable that the Bush administration did just that for years, doesn't that compel him as Attorney General to commence a criminal investigation into this "illegal" conduct?

We don't need an FCC because the entire spectrum should be liberated. Doing so would undo sixty years of damage done to world culture by government interference. The last mile problem would go away. The RIAA, MPAA MAFIAA companies and most of what people think of as "major" publishers would be forced to adapt or die. News and entertainment would live and die based on merit instead of payolla. Brainwashing through Faux News would be impossible. Companies that survive of billions of dollars in ad spending each month would collapse and markets for lemons would be much smaller. The US would once again have a free and competitive press and telco. Every other segment of the economy would benefit from having this kind of basic infrastructure function and the value is orders of magnitude greater than $200 billion. Only tyrants would oppose the move to open spectrum and it will take terrible tyranny to keep it from happening.

The "War on Terror" is looking more and more like a fight to impose the kind of laws required to preserve broadcasters, wiretappers and those who manufacture public opinion. The terrorist have not only won, they were in control all along. It is time to bring real democracy and freedom to the US.

This is definitely a fishing expedition. After all, our government would never break the law or torture innocent people and then try to avoid any accountability.

If you want to learn more about this issue, Glen Greenwald has been covering it well for a long time.

Today he posted an item called FISA 101 which is a good place to start.