Congress last week reversed its March decision to not allow immunity to telecomunications providers who have allowed phone wiretapping without court orders and voted to approve S2248, the FISA Amendment Act 2008. The senate vote is expected as soon as today. Yesterday a test vote showed strong support in the senate to approve the FISA bill with the amendment granting immunity to telecom providers for 6 years of wiretapping without the knowledge or approval of a secret court which was set up expressly for the purpose of reviewing and approving applications for surveillance.
“Enron loophole” driving gas prices up
It isn’t terrorists or peak oil driving up gas prices. According to this news report it’s trading speculation which was made legal at the same time the price of gas began to skyrocket a few years ago. And experts testifying to Congress say the hikes can stop right away if the legal loophole that allows profiteers to milk the public for billions of dollars of speculation profit on oil futures, is closed up. In fact, the price of gas could be cut 25% or more immediately if the “Enron loophole” is closed.
Unlawful restraint still outlawed in America
In the majority ruling on the right of Guantamo prisoners to have their day in court to challenge the legality of their arrest, Kennedy writes:
The Framers viewed freedom from unlawful restraint as a fundamental precept of liberty, and they understood the writ of habeas corpus as a vital instrument to secure that freedom.
I love that statement. To be free, a person cannot be subject to unrightful restraint.
Glen Greenwald expands on the supreme court decision at Salon.
I keep telling people, Aspartame is death
I came across this informed article on the dangers of aspartame. Stop imbibing this poison!
BRAIN CELL DAMAGE FROM
AMINO ACID ISOLATES:
A PRIMARY CONCERN FROM ASPARTAME-BASED
PRODUCTS AND ARTIFICIAL SWEETENING AGENTS
NutraSweet ~ Equal ~ “Sugar Free” ~ Neotame
By James Bowen, M.D.
And
Arthur M. Evangelista, former FDA Investigator
(c) 06 May 2002
FORWARD
This article is an accumulation of long-standing intensive research into the brain chemistry-altering effects of a toxic, artificial sweetener consumed daily by hundreds of millions of unsuspecting individuals.
Hillary, not the assassination card! That’s low, even for you.
Dave Winer writes
Her political career is over”
Strike 4. Suggesting she should stay in the race because Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in 1968.Too much benefit of the doubt. Bringing assassination into political discourse as an “issue” is too much . . . Screwing around with life and death is over the top.
So true, Dave. I found a video clip of Hillary’s comment here. I think she realized as soon as she said it, that she’d gone where no candidate ought to go, but it was done.
The world is singing to us [a real song]
. . . scientists now say the planet itself is generating a constant, deep thrum of noise. No mere cacophony, but actually a kind of music, huge, swirling loops of sound, a song so strange you can’t really fathom it, so low it can’t be heard by human ears, chthonic roars churning from the very water and wind and rock themselves, countless notes of varying vibration creating all sorts of curious tonal phrases that bounce around the mountains and spin over the oceans and penetrate the tectonic plates and gurgle in the magma and careen off the clouds and smack into trees and bounce off your ribcage and spin over the surface of the planet in strange circular loops, “like dozens of lazy hurricanes,” as one writer put it.
The Wall Tweet Journal and other Twitter phenomena
Twitter enhancers . . .
Tiago Doria tipped me off about The Wall Tweet Journal, giving up to the minute news about the microblogging portal. Tiago also likes to play with TweetLater. Lets him archive his tweets for delivery later. Is that fun, or what?
So, which are the Twitteratii that you follow who also follow you? Just as importantly, who isn’t following? My friend Dossy Shiobara created an app calledTwitter Karma just to give a simple answer this question. Give it a whack.
Want to see photographs turned into mosaics using fotos representing Twitter users? Sure you do. Twittermosaic.com.
eBay Overwhelm! Coming next to your home?
The link Raymmmondo posted this morning on a local give-away list [like freecycle, but not] brings me to his websitepackratmom.com where he starts off telling his mother’s eBay saga with the phrase, “My mother is insane.” Raymmmondo proves that statement with pictures showing every room in the house where he lives with his mom overflowing – just filled to bursting point – with boxes, paperweights, dead plants, empty bird cages and a few years of saved junk mail. Everything, bought from eBay.
“Don’t stop telling the truth”
Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s spiritual mentor, spoke about truth in his eulogy to judge R. Eugene Pincham this past Saturday. Beautiful words.
talking about Pincham’s integrity and honesty, Wright said, “You don’t change who you are because of where you are. You don’t stop telling the truth because it is not politically correct or it makes a racist uncomfortable . . .â€
Jump to full Sun Times article here.
Famous guy leaves Twitter
While I was looking around on Dave Winer’s site I found out that he didn’t leave Twitter because he wants to take part in this social media experiment, and that Hugh MacLeod is making internet headlines because he resigned from Twitter. Me, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. I enjoy what I learn through Twitter plus it ranks high on my Fun Factor scale by keeping me in touch with friends.
Read Dave’s post Why I didn’t delete my Twitter account
Obama told the truth. Thanks, Hillary, for pointing that out to us.
On Twitter Dave Winer mentioned that Obama was calling Pennsylvanians’ – and the nation’s – attention to the fact that it’s true that rural American people are angry and bitter as a result of patiently waiting 25 years for politicians they elect to stop selling them out and help them get their lives and their jobs back. I guess Obama became one of my heroes twice this weekend, because he told a really uncomfortable truth about American politics and refused to back off it. Then he admitted he was wrong for having made a poor choice of words when he originally made the statement.
Hillary lashes out and covers up, way too often.
Carl Bernstein wrote a book about Hillary Clinton, and this week he published an article about her presidential campaign. Below are a couple of paragraphs from the article. It’s well worth reading.
It happens that Mark Penn, the campaign manager Hillary recently fired, is the brother of a guy who was my physician for a long time. Deane Penn retired from practice maybe two years ago, but for many years I knew him as a thoroughly decent person, a committed activist in the Jewish community and an excellent doctor. Dr. Penn always referred to his brother’s work as one of the nation’s major pollsters, with great pride.
Send email/sms or make to-do list by calling Jott
How’s this for cool?
Send an email or sms with a phone call:
First, register as a user on the Jott website. Make a phone call to (866) JOTT-123 [(866) 568-8123].
Select a recipient. If you want to send a message to yourself, say, “Me.” Speak words, wait for next prompt, hang up.
To send a message to someone else, enter that person’s email address in your Jott contacts area. You can also upload your entire contact database. If your recipient has an email address on file in your contact list she’ll get an email. If you entered a phone number instead she’ll get an sms message.
You too can have a Gravatar
A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?
Get your Gravatar here.
Seton Hall Law files immigrant abuse suit against Feds
Seton Hall Law School’s Center for Social Justice and Lowenstein Sandler, PC, filed suit today in federal court, alleging that federal law enforcement officials violated the ten victims’ constitutional privacy and due process rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by entering their homes without consent or a judicial warrant during pre-dawn “raids”.
. . . immigration agents forced their way into each plaintiff’s home in the early hours of the morning without a judicial warrant or the occupants’ consent. Most of the plaintiffs were awakened by loud pounding on their doors and answered the door, fearing an emergency. ICE agents subsequently either lied about their identity or purpose to gain entry, or simply shoved their way into the home. During each raid the agents swept through the house and, displaying guns, rounded up all the residents for questioning. In some cases they ordered children out of their beds, shouted obscenities, shoved guns into residents’ chests, and forbade detained individuals from calling their lawyers. In at least half the raids, the officers purported to be searching for a person who did not even live at the address raided.