State of the Union

First, my impressions as the speech went on:

1> Wow...

Didn't take Bush long to lie again, tying the 9/11 terrorists to Iraq.

Tigers really can't change their stripes, can they?

2> For more fun,

Substitutute radical fundamental Islam Christianity.

And actually, the Russians were the first to liberate the death camps....


3>"hindsight is not wisdom"????

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.


4>Ummmm, re: Hamas- don't people elect governments who they feel will best reflect their views??

Hmmmm, and now we have Bush threatening Iran much the same way he threatened Iraq. Can we roll the tape from the State of the Union 3 years ago?? Harboring and encouraging terrorists, nuclear ambitions......

5> re: wiretapping. Hillary's smirk and headshake said it all.

6> and how big would the deficit be if he didn't lie us into a war in Iraq? $250+ billion down the toilet there...

7> I bet Bush really sucks at playing poker.

He's probably more of a "go fish" guy/

8> DIS!!!!! The Dems stand and applaud when Bush said Congress didn't approve his social security reform.

9> Ok, Mr President, let's try this again: "Rubber baby buggy bumpers". Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

10> Ok, our children need love, but what about gays??

Or, wait, 2nd class citizens. Carry on....



And once I listened to the whole thing, here are my thoughts:

I watched the State of the Union and only partially listened to the Democratic response- dinner to cook and all that.

Here's my impressions.

First off, I give him props for noting the passing of Coretta Scott King. In the space of a few months two of the vanguard of the modern civil rights movement have passed.

It was then with absolutely no idea of the irony of the fucking hypocrisy of it all that the president slammed "activist judges who legislate from the bench."

Yeah, goddamn those activist judges like, oh...say...those who decided Brown v Board of Education and let all those uppity niggers have a shot at the full American dream and not a "separate but equal" American dream. They should have been happy with their own damn waterfountains while they waited for Congress.

And as he spoke of an America of liberty, opportunity and equality for all, those who are gay must have been truly mystified since Bush and the GOP have relegated them to the metaphorical plantation. Again, gosh darn those activist judges and their uppity notions of equality and protection of the law for all and not just those who, to cop an elegant phrase from the late Dr Hunter S Thompson, have sex in the missionary position for the purpose of procreation only.

Which makes his whole compassion approach on those afflicted with AIDS a bit confusing.... No, I don't for a moment think the President wants those with AIDS- gays included- to die. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed but I don't think he's a beady-eyed psychopath.

Then there was Iraq. Goddamn if he didn't AGAIN try to link the 9/11 terrorists to Hussein and Iraq. Oh he didn't mention them by name but he certainly got his point across. Oh my head, would somebody please- maybe one of those teachers he talks of hiring- make that poor silly delusional fool stay after school and write 1000 times "Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11".

And was I the only one twitching when he started describing Iran in very much the same terms he used to describe Iraq? We had WMDs, we had them supporting terrorists, and we had them painted as wild-eyed fundamentalists.

However, I will say this- today the UN announced that the documentation shows the Iran's nuclear program is geared toward nuclear weapons.

Now will the President smarten the fuck up and learn his lesson- go through the UN and do not play cowboy? Or will he fuck up the same way and we'll have even more US bodies shipped home under the cover of darkness as a result of another ill-considered war?

Next, national security and the NSA wiretapping and the Patriot Act. As they are saying on CNN, Bush mentioned Osama by name twice, which he hasn't done before. He has tried to paint his actions as necessary for our national security but did not address civil liberties. He has again painted the wiretapping as restricted to those chatting up Al Qaeda, which we know is not true. The program is far more sweeping than he publically acknowledges. And he pushed hard for a renewal of the Patriot Act, ignoring the bipartisan sentiment that the Patriot Act is in need of serious revision.

He also strongly made the point that the Constitution authorizes him to order the wiretaps without congressional oversite or permission. Which is curious since he constantly rails against "activist judges" yet this stance that he's authorized to do this by the Constitution sounds a lot more Extra Crispy rather than Originalist.

His whole "America is addicted to oil" thing was also peculiar given his stance as a former oilman, waterboy for Halliburton, and his general obstructism in conducting hearings about pricegouging by Big Oil and refusing to revisit the CAFE standards that govern the fuel efficiency of vehicles.

But just to show the Flat-Worlders in his own party he hasn't gone all tree-hugger baby killer on them, he renewed his call to restrict human genome research to existing stem cell lines. And oh yeah, he said that abstinance programs are a wonderful thing. Anyone who either has a teenager or, as in my case, still thinks like a teenager knows that the surest way to get a teen to do something is to tell them they can't do it.

Oh yeah, and then there was the whole thing about the welfare rolls being whittled down. It's not because more people are working- it's because the government has been steadily kicking people off welfare. And yes, I full well know this was a Clinton initiative, a fact that Dems don't want to admit out of embarrassment and Reps don't want to give credit where credit is due.

Then we have social security. We saw some serious anger from Bush when he said that Congress voted down his social security reform and the Democrats stood and cheered. Bush tried to bite back saying the program is doomed unless it's reformed- implied that it's reformed as he proposes, privatizing social security. Never mind that a plan was put together years ago by a bipartisan panel that included then- Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey. Instead, he wants us to put our trust in the same system that resulted in the savings and loan debacle of the 80s when people lost tens of billions of their hard-earned dollars or in companies like Enron who supposedly were acting in the public's interest.

Now, a few other things happened today. Today Judge Alito was confirmed and sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court. This is going to have a huge impact but for reasons generally not mentioned.

Right now the Far Right is giving Dubya the old stink-eye. Roberts seemed too damn... reasonable for their liking, yet another centrist willing to be fair-minded. They gave old George a bit of a pass on Roberts, knowing another vacancy would be coming up.

2nd time around, he first nominated Harriet Miers but withdrew her name when the Far Right flipped out. Apparently she wasn't ummmmm 'religious' enough for them. So then he nominated Alito.

This is where it gets interesting. Now there is at least nominally a conservative majority on the Court. It is reasonable to expect that sometime before the 2008 primaries the Supreme Court will decide a case involving abortion.

If Alito goes as expected, I think there will be a backlash from the squishy middle in this country appalled that the Court revoked a right it had previously affirmed. Which isn't unprecedented- Brown is case (ha ha) in point.

But if Alito turns out to be a centrist like Souter and follows the principle of stare decisis (sp??) and votes to uphold abortion rights, all hell will break lose in the GOP, with John McCain being the big loser. The Far Right, which hated Bush Sr and has become noticeably disenchanted with Bush Jr, will pull out all the stops in making sure that the next nominee of the party is someone so Far Right that it'll make the Bush Administration seem like a tea dance on Provincetown during gay pride weekend. McCain, who has some genuinely decent humanitarian instincts and a rather personal interest in human rights issues, will be cast aside by a party feeling betrayed.


So all in all, the State of the Union didn't hold many surprises outside of the "oil addiction". I now order you all to join Oil Anonymous and with the help of God and Toyota, we can kick this shameful addiction.

Good night.

Tags: Bush State of the Union Iraq national security social security oil addiction speech impediment Alito Supreme Court 2008 conservatives Originalist Extra Crispy

And now the news...

Quick hits from the news...

In Palestine, the radical group Hamas, which has a long history of commiting acts of terrorism against Israel and their stated position is Israel's destruction, is now the ruling party after a democratic election. We now have an interesting situation where the US government's in a bit of a bind. It's been the stated goal to bring democracy to the Middle East- especially the Arab nations. Well, see what happened? The Arab people have spoken and they want the Jews driven into the Mediterranean.

Doh!!!

The other day on page 2 of the Boston Globe there was a story about a high school athlete committing suicide. Tragic story. But on the same page there was also a story about a pod of dolphins beaching themselves and dying. Hmmmm....

The White House and GOP has been putting out stories about the President's new style of speaking and that (gasp!!) no longer is he only appearing before handpicked audiences. They say this like it's a good thing but I dunno- slumped over the podium giggling like a schoolgirl doesn't exactly inspire confidence... And we saw that same 'deer in the headlights' look he got on 9/11 the other day when he was asked about Brokeback Mountain.

And finally, while so many of us have been scraping to get by with the high cost of gas and heating oil, isn't it great to know that Exxon/Mobile, the world's largest oil company, just reported a record quarterly profit of $10.7 billion. That's just for the quarter, folks. For the year their profit is $36.13 billion on revenues of almost $100 billion.

Tags: Hamas elections democracy Israel dolphins suicide Bush slumped Exxon profits gouge

"How Do I Work This?"

With all apologies to David Byrne and the Talking Heads....

I've gotten a few questions about how this blog works in terms of the ads and my getting paid for this. Here are some quick answers:

For the ads at the top of the page underneath "Now settle in and enjoy the ride", if you click on one of them, I receive the princely sum of ~$0.14, thanks to Google's AdSense program. It's a so-called 'smart' program and there's a search filter that goes through my post and keys in on certain words and attempts to target the ads according to my content. Just for shits and giggles, I'm tempted to post up one of my Hunter Thompson-esque outbursts just to fuck with the system and see what ads pop up next. Probably something concerning mental health or lack thereof...

Now some of you might think "hmmm, what's to stop someone from writing a script that clicks on the ad multiple times and raking in scads 'o cash?" This has been addressed lately and suffice to say, it's a no-no. I believe there's something that registers IP addresses and if too many clicks come from it, they investigate the account for fraud.

Also, there are a series of ads on the right-hand side of the page. There's one to sign up for this Google AdSense. If you click on that and set up AdSense for your blog, I get a referral fee. When you make your first $100 on your blog, I get $100 as well.

Ok, moving along, there are those items on the right under my recommended books and music. This is a separate program via Amazon.com. If you click on those links and buy any of those items, I get a small sellers commission. So if you've lent out your copy of Fear & Loathing and it's been 3 years and hasn't been returned, click on through and you get your book and I get cash. I will be adding/updating those ads over the next few weeks.

So that is all ye need to know. Any questions, ask away.

NSA, ECHELON, FISA, and You

Sorry for my silence these past few days. Real life intervened.

One of the issues with which I have been grappling is the difference between what is happening with the NSA during the Bush Administration as opposed to what happened under previous administrations- Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan.

At the heart of this question is a global communications interception and surveillance system called ECHELON.

{This section is ganked from this article I strongly suggest reading this article, as it is chock full of interesting information. In the meantime, a few salient points:

ECHELON was first established in 1971, although it has its roots back in the post-WWII period. It is a multi-nation effort that is not unique- other countries run their own versions of the program.

Because it is impossible to monitor all communications, it samples communications and flags any that tickle a database and raise a flag.

Now, being the sad and sick individual I am, I am flashing back to the old Groucho Marx show "You Bet Your Life" where if you said the magic word, a duck would drop down into the camera shot and you would win $50.

Only here, instead of winning money, the transmission gets further scrutiny.

Now there's a lot of evolving technology here. Obviously it's changed from the 1940s when the program originally started, but the basic premise is the same.

The legal basis of the program evolved as well. Thanks to the 4th Amendment, citizens of this country are safe from "unreasonable search and seizures" and that the government must obtain a warrant to show probable cause to investigate a citizen.

Back in the 1970s, a number of events took place that defined the course and scope of ECHELON. The legal/political history can be found here. Again, to sum up:

A 1972 Supreme Court case established the principle that there is a difference between surveillance for criminal matters and national security issues and that the matter of privacy and free speech and how these actions impact them were very grave issues.

Another key point is that shortly thereafter, details of the Watergate break-in started to come out and included in the scandal was how the Nixon Administration used various government agencies to spy on individuals in the USA they deemed enemies- people/groups opposed to the Vietnam War, political opponents, and the like.

In response, in 1978 Congress passed the FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance Act. Note the word "foreign". There was now a split between domestic and foreign standards and with it the roles of the intelligence agencies, with the FBI handling domestic and the CIA handling foreign.

Rather than paraphrase, I'm going to cut & paste the section outlining the procedures involved in FISA:

1- FISA regulates the government's collection of "foreign intelligence" information in furtherance of U.S. counterintelligence.

2- FISA was initially limited to electronic eavesdropping and wiretapping. In 1994 it was amended to permit covert physical entries in connection with "security" investigations, and in 1998, it was amended to permit pen/trap orders. FISA can also be used to obtain some business records. . (A pen register collects the outgoing phone numbers placed from a specific telephone line, a trap and trace device captures the incoming numbers placed to a specific phone line. For example, a caller-id box is a trap and trace device.)

3- Under the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant must be based on probable cause to believe that a crime has been or is being committed.

4- This is not the general rule under FISA: surveillance under FISA is permitted based on a finding of probable cause that the surveillance target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, irrespective of whether the target is suspected of engaging in criminal activity.

5- However, if the target is a "U.S. person," there must be probable cause to believe that the U.S. person's activities may involve espionage or other similar conduct in violation of the criminal statutes of the United States.

6- Nor may a U.S. person be determined to be an agent of a foreign power "solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States."

There were standards established for investigating individual which the government needed to follow and they had to petition a special cour- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)- for a warrant.

Again, I am going to gank directly from the website:

Under FISA, the Justice Department reviews applications for counterintelligence warrants by agencies before submitting them to the FISC. The Attorney General must personally approve each final FISA application.

The application must contain, among other things:

1- a statement of reasons to believe that the target of the surveillance is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power;

2- a certification from a high-ranking executive branch official stating that the information sought is deemed to be foreign intelligence information, and that the information sought cannot reasonably be obtained by normal investigative techniques;

3- statements regarding all previous applications involving the target;

4- detailed description of the nature of the information sought and of the type of communication or activities to be subject to the surveillance;

a- the length of time surveillance is required;

b- whether physical entry into a premises is necessary; and

c- proposed procedures to minimize the acquisition, use, and retention of information concerning nonconsenting U.S. persons.

For U.S. persons, the FISC judge must find probable cause that one of four conditions has been met:

(1) the target knowingly engages in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of a foreign power which "may involve" a criminal law violation;

(2) the target knowingly engages in other secret intelligence activities on behalf of a foreign power under the direction of an intelligence network and his activities involve or are about to involve criminal violations;

(3) the target knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism or is preparing for such activities; or

(4) the target knowingly aids or abets another who acts in one of the above ways.

9/11 brought about huge changes. In the subsequent investigations, we saw how there was a breakdown in the intelligence network and that because of the laws and policies involved in the separation between the CIA and FBI, the 9/11 terrorists were able to slip through the cracks.

Now some people want to blame the Bush Administration for this, but it wasn't their fault. This is how the system was set up and it didn't work.

In an effort to prevent this from happening again, the Patriot Act was passed. One of the goals was to dissolve the barriers between foreign and domestic intelligence and law enforcement agencies, allowing for the sharing of information.

The Patriot Act significantly altered FISA. I strongly suggest reading this article. Right now I have to do other things but will take up the impact of the Patriot Act at a later time.

Tags: Bush Nixon Clinton CIA NSA FISA ECHELON 4th Amendment Unreasonable search Probable Cause Patriot Act 9/11