South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" after Obama had talked about illegal immigrants.Well, Barry did lie, he said that illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered under his health care bill. Which ain't true. They will be.
But there is more fun!Another conference call has materialized, revealing a concerted effort by government to use the arts to address political issues.
Lee Rosenbaum, a blogger for Artsjournal.com, posted her experience with a meeting that occurred on August 27th and confessed that she also felt “uneasy” about the government’s arts effort. The meeting invitation (viewable here) went out to all “member local, state, and regional arts agencies, community-based arts organizations, and national partners of Americans for Arts.” Americans for Arts is a non-profit arts organization that has received substantial grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Even more disturbing than learning that the White House and NEA are using the arts to address specific issues, is to learn what was discussed on this new conference call. Rosenbaum mentions that there was much talk of “leveraging federal dollars” to get artists and cultural organizations involved in social-service projects.Yes friends, you can use your National Endowment for the Arts grant to make propaganda for The One. Which will no doubt ensure that you get another, bigger grant for your next crucifix-in-pee display.
"If I put a Hope and Change sticker in a glass of urine - will they pay me?"
So friends, if you are crossing the border, EVEN IF YOU ARE AN AMERICAN CITIZEN, may I suggest you make bloody good and sure you do it with a blank hard drive in your computer, blank SD chips in your phone and a blank pen drive. I mean, can you absolutely prove every single song and ring-tone on your phone/ipod/whatever was legally purchased? How about that copy of Windows XP, is it bootleg?On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced new guidelines for searching and seizing electronic devices at the border. In a press release, DHS said the guidelines will "enhance and clarify oversight for searches of computers and other electronic media at U.S. ports of entry."
Rhetoric aside, in reality, not much has changed. Laptops and electronic gear can still be seized and held indefinitely; there's no requirement that they be returned to their owners after even six months or a year has passed, though supervisory approval is required if they're held for more than 15 days. The complete contents of a hard drive or memory card can be perused at length for evidence of lawbreaking of any kind, even if it's underpaying your taxes or not paying parking tickets.
This kind of open-ended scanning should worry anyone who travels internationally, not just privacy advocates. When we have laws like the No Electronic Theft Act, which makes sharing a sufficient number of MP3 files a federal crime, how many college students are unindicted felons? File this under the show-me-the-man-and-I'll-show-you-the-crime department.
This is a bill that grants the President of the USA control over non-government networks in the USA, guys. Meaning your PC and your internet connection, got it?Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)
"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There's no provision for any administrative process or review. That's where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it."
Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.
Every day I wonder if I'm paranoid enough about this guy, and every day the answer comes back: nope.Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama's call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were "health care" and "energy and environment." The service was to be attached to the President's United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.
It sounded, how should I phrase it…unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me.
Though some may be uncomfortable with government oversight of any aspect of journalism, the F.T.C. seems to be "attempting to play a facilitating and public educational role in gathering together various disciplines and perspectives to talk about the crisis in mainstream journalism," said Neil Henry, a professor and dean at the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. "The government's willingness to raise the profile of this issue, and to help explain why it is important for a national conversation, I think in general is welcome."
They're planning on leaving Grandma to the flood, is what they're doing. In the parlance of the true socialist, they are planning on saving the productive members of society and leaving the useless eaters behind.Four years after Hurricane Katrina exposed major deficiencies in the capacity of governments to evacuate and care for the disabled during a natural disaster, America's most vulnerable citizens are barely considered in most emergency plans, according to a report being issued Wednesday by the National Council on Disability.
The report says huge gaps exist in those emergency plans despite an executive order issued by President Bush in 2004 urging federal and local governments, as well as private organizations, to consider the unique needs of the disabled when planning rescues and preparing to provide emergency shelter.
President Barack Obama's push for wind and solar energy to wean the U.S. from foreign oil carries a hidden cost: overburdening the nation's electrical grid and increasing the threat of blackouts.Well, duh. You stick a 4 megawatt windmill out at the end of a rural power line rated for maybe half of that, every time a stiff breeze comes up the line is going to melt.The funding Obama devoted to get high-voltage lines ready for handling the additional load of alternative supplies is less than 5 percent of the $130 billion that power users, producers and the U.S. Energy Department say is needed.
Without more investment, cities can't tap much of the renewable energy from remote areas, said Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He serves as the administration's top official on grid issues and recognizes the dilemma it faces.
"As we add more and more wind power, the grid will get more stressed, and there's going to be a point where the grid can't handle any more," Wellinghoff said at an energy conference in Chicago. "The first thing we need is to build out transmission."
We programmed bacteria with a genetic circuit that enables them to evaluate all possible paths in a directed graph in order to find a Hamiltonian path. We encoded a three node directed graph as DNA segments that were autonomously shuffled randomly inside bacteria by a Hin/hixC recombination system we previously adapted from Salmonella typhimurium for use in Escherichia coli.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Cool weather has broken a previous low temperature for July 21 in Nashville that was set when Rutherford B. Hayes was president.
When the temperature at the National Weather Service station dipped to 58 degrees at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, it wiped out the previous record low for the date of 60 degrees, which was set in 1877.
NWS forecaster Bobby Boyd noted it was the third consecutive morning when Nashville either tied or broke a daily low temperature record.
My question is, at what point does a judge have the lawyers taken out to the parking lot and flogged?Still trying to comprehend this legal lunacy, I called the Florida Bar, which put me in touch with Florida mortgage foreclosure lawyers. One of them, Tampa attorney Kristofer Fernandez, said he's seen several cases where a large bank has sued itself for foreclosure as the holder of both first and second mortgages.
"Four or five years ago, you would have never seen this," Fernandez said. "Now, it's very common."
Ok so far? 10 cops detailed off to remove an illegal smoke shack parked illegally on a guy's front lawn got confronted by 20 pukes looking for a fight, and they wussed out, or more likely were ordered to wuss out. Said pukes just happened to be Indians. Just for comparison, any time that Gary McHale guy so much as breaks wind 200 cops show up in riot gear. On we go.About 10 officers attended the Pine Ridge Tobacco smoke shack on the east side of Highway 6, south of Caledonia. Owner Steve "Boots" Powless issued a text alert upon their arrival. Within 15 minutes, the officers were surrounded by nearly 20 of Powless's supporters.
"They decided it was not in the public interest to pursue the matter at this time," Const. Paula Wright of the Haldimand OPP said yesterday. "Anyone found to have been acting unlawfully will be held accountable."
Yeah, about a month ago Bootsy Powless dropped this half-assed trailer thing at the end of ol' Ernie's driveway. Like, on the front lawn ok?Pine Ridge Tobacco is unique because it is the first to arise on private property on the east side of Highway 6 without the consent of the landowner, retired farmer Ernie Palmer.
About a month ago, Powless told Palmer he was setting up shop.
On Friday [July 3rd], Haldimand County's bylaw department served Palmer with a summons to appear in provincial offences court July 31. He has been charged with allowing an illegal commercial business in an agricultural zone.
What once was science fiction is being field-tested by the University of Iowa to iron out the wrinkles should a by-the-mile road tax ever be enacted.
Besides the technological advances making such a tax possible, the idea is getting a hard push from a growing number of transportation experts and officials. That is because the traditional by-the-gallon fuel tax, struggling to keep up with road building and maintenance demands, could fall even farther behind as vehicles' gas mileage rises and more alternative-fuel vehicles come on line. [ed. Can you say unintended greenie consequence? Sure you can! ]
The idea of shifting to a by-the-mile tax has been discussed for years, but it now appears to be getting more serious attention. A federal commission, after a two-year study, concluded earlier this year that the road tax was the "best path forward" to keep revenues flowing to highway and transportation projects, and could be an important new tool to help manage traffic and relieve congestion.
A 26-year-old convenience store clerk was shot and killed in broad daylight in Gary, Ind., and police say witnesses stood by and did nothing.
Police say there were several customers walking around the store after the crime. But only one called 911 for help.
When asked what he finds most disturbing about the surveillance footage, Titus [the police spokesman dude] said, "The fact that people went in and out of the store and didn't call police. There is a man laying there. Nobody thinks to dial 911 or check to see if he's OK or anything."
At a news conference on Wednesday, community organizers demanded Gary police offer a reward for information about the case. They said the people of Gary needed financial incentive to come forward.
You can't blame powerful people for wanting to play the press to peddle self-perpetuating mythology. But you can blame the press, already suffocating under a massive pile of blame, guilt, heavy debt and sinking fortunes, for being played. Some of the time, it seems we're even enthusiastically jumping into the pond without even being pushed. Is there an actual limit to the number of instances you can be the cover of Newsweek?
I thought that the Maxfield Parrish, heroic days of the Kennedy Administration PR, where the press and the president were pretty much all in on the same screenplay and the same jokes, couldn't happen in our modern era, what with paparazzi and tabloids and talk shows, citizen sound-bite scavengers and voracious 24/7 news cycles. But now that the stumbling Bushes and smirking Clintons are out of the White House, time has compressed back on itself like the machine in the Denzel Washington movie, "Deja Vu." It's the early 1960s and Camelot all over again.
