Spying..On Us…Again.
So the NSA listens to our phone calls, checks our emails, and lots of other nasty type stuff. All without a warrant mind you. Now it seems they are collecting vast amounts of data just to “create patterns” or some such bull shit. Check out the full story here. It also looks like large ISP and phone companies are helping the government “big brother” all of us. I wonder when we can get a list of people who are helping to eaves drop on us, so we can stop using them as service providers. Personally I think a massive uprise of angry customers may do more to help stop this than anything else.
The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.
As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.
Holy Crap!
This is simply amazing. This has got to be one of the most flexible people in the world. This woman can literally bend herself in thirds. You have to see this video.
How Bad Do We Want Oil
How badly do we need oil, so bad in fact that we are willing to bulldoze ANWR to get that sweet black crude. This is simply foolish, putting a crazy amendment onto a must pass spending bill for military spending…if only we would spend all this money and effort on putting up wind turbines and solar panels. Listen people we can squeeze every drop of oil out of the ground, its still not going to last forever. Why should we go through all that trouble if we could just start putting up renewable energy production centers on every wallmart and sears in the land and live like kings off the sun.
Judge Resigns
So it seems some people still have morals in our government, a judge has resigned from the FISA court in protests of Shrubs illegal use of spying on American citizens.
US federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest at President George Bush’s secret authorisation of a domestic spying program.
US District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday notifying him of his resignation, without explanation.
Two associates said that Mr Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrant-less surveillance program authorised by the President in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the surveillance court’s work.
Dover Monkey Trials
Below you will find the original script of the Dover school board’s Intelligent Design statement read in schools, and below that the judges ruling on the matter.
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.
With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.
my favorite part is when it comes out that the On Pandas and People, the supposed ID text book turnes out to have been creationist text book that they just global search and replaced the word creationist with ID. Ha ha.
As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas
went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after
the Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids
teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of
Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in
early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation
(creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were
deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes
occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and
cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word
substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words
was effected without any corresponding change in content, which directly refutes
FTE’s argument that by merely disregarding the words “creation” and
“creationism,” FTE expressly rejected creationism in Pandas.
read the whole 139 page report here
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