Steve’s Weblog

All the flap over the past few days about how the NY Times supposedly releasing terrorist surveillance methods is really just so much old news.

Terrorist funds-tracking no secret, some say
Cite White House boasts of tighter monitoring system

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | June 28, 2006

WASHINGTON — News reports disclosing the Bush administration’s use of a special bank surveillance program to track terrorist financing spurred outrage in the White House and on Capitol Hill, but some specialists pointed out yesterday that the government itself has publicly discussed its stepped-up efforts to monitor terrorist finances since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

more at the Boston Globe.

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON – A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a cliffhanger vote in the Senate Tuesday, one week before Independence Day, one vote short of the support needed to send it to the states for ratification.

Yahoo News

Another defeat for the Bush Administration and their fascist agenda.

I’m embarrassed… stunned – even outraged, that John Carter, the Congressman representing my district, is fighting to bring back literacy tests as a requisite for voting.

A literacy test? The Austin-American Statesman declared that “is a curious statement from a member of Congress and former judge, because citizenship is the requisite for voting, not literacy…

Carter is 64, surely he remembers how literacy tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses were used to strip non-whites of their voting rights in Texas. That’s why LBJ championed the Voting Rights Act.

For more than 40 years, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) has protected the right of every American citizen to cast a vote. Equality in voting is fundamental to the American democratic system.

Stop the stalling and pass the Voting Rights Act now!

Oh, and check out http://carter.house.gov/blog/ where comments and trackbacks are moderated to silence folks who disagree.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer 8 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Breathing any amount of someone else’s tobacco smoke harms nonsmokers, the surgeon general declared Tuesday — a strong condemnation of secondhand smoke that is sure to fuel nationwide efforts to ban smoking in public.

“The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard,” said U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.

More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to smokers’ fumes — what Carmona termed “involuntary smoking” — and tens of thousands die each year as a result, concludes the 670-page study. It cites “overwhelming scientific evidence” that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.

Yahoo News

yay.

Prenatal effect hinted for some gay men

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Mon Jun 26, 6:27 PM ET

WASHINGTON – Men who have several older brothers have an increased chance of being gay — whether they were raised together or not — a finding researchers say adds weight to the idea that sexual orientation is based in biology.

The increase was seen in men with older brothers from the same mother, but not those who had stepbrothers or adopted brothers who were older.

Yahoo News

Schadenfreude: is a German term meaning “pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune”. It is sometimes used as a loanword in English and other languages.

With that in mind…

Limbaugh Detained At Airport
Joy Purdy
Reporting

(CBS4 News) WEST PALM BEACH Sources have confirmed to CBS4 News that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been detained at Palm Beach International Airport for the possible possession of illegal prescription drugs Monday evening.

Limbaugh was returning on a flight from the Dominican Republic when officials found the drugs, among them Viagra.

More at cbs4.com

All signs point to YES.

Bigotry Beneath the Fog

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, June 23, 2006; Page A25

Once in a while the fog machine that’s kept on “high” around here to obscure everyone’s real intentions breaks down. There’s always a mad rush to crank it up again, but for the briefest moment we can see our elected representatives for what they really are, not what they pretend to be. Wednesday we had one of those rare high-definition moments, when the House Republican caucus defied its leaders and refused to back renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

That tells you about all you need to know, doesn’t it?

Washington Post

I see that AT&T is offering reduced prices on DSL Internet Service. In fact, the price of the service we currently have at home just dropped by $20/month! So, I called to get the lower price, and the rep says it’s an online offer for new customers only…

After threatening to become an ex-customer, she did reduce the monthly price.

We were in San Jose the end of last week, and took a weekend trip to Yosemite with the Extreme Blue crew from Almaden.

Pics here.

Top court upholds no-knock police search

By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 16, 1:21 AM ET

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for police to barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting, a sign of the court’s new conservatism with Samuel Alito on board.

The court’s five-member conservative majority, anchored by new Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito, said that police blunders should not result in “a get-out-of-jail-free card” for defendants.

Dissenting justices predicted that police will now feel free to ignore previous court rulings requiring officers with search warrants to knock and announce themselves to avoid running afoul of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

“The knock-and-announce rule is dead in the United States,” said David Moran, a Wayne State University professor who represented Hudson. “There are going to be a lot more doors knocked down. There are going to be a lot more people terrified and humiliated.”

Students find ring tone adults can’t hear

NEW YORK – Students are using a new ring tone to receive messages in class — and many teachers can’t even hear the ring.

Yahoo News

Listen to the tone here.

So true…..

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930s 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored Lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took Hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because…

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

Yahoo News

No kidding.

WASHINGTON – Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has informed Karl Rove’s lawyer that he will not be prosecuted in the CIA leak case, NBC News reports.

NBC

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc., the world’s largest provider of e-mail services, said on Monday that a software virus aimed at Yahoo Mail users had infected “a very small fraction” of its base of more than 200 million accounts.

The e-mail virus, or worm, has been dubbed Yamanner and landed in Yahoo mailboxes bearing the headline “New Graphic Site.” Once opened, the message infects the computer and spreads to other users listed in Yahoo users’ e-mail address books, security experts said.

The e-mail containing the virus need only be opened — in contrast to most worms that are hidden in attachments and require users to take an additional step — to release the virus, according to computer security site Symantec Corp.

Yahoo News

Just what I need.

From the Austin Business Journal:

IKEA Round Rock store to open months ahead of schedule

Swedish home furnishings retailer IKEA is moving up the opening of its Round Rock store’s opening to this fall.

The store’s opening was originally set for spring 2007. Significant construction progress at the site has speeded up the opening at the southeast corner of I-35 and University Boulevard.

And a whole bunch of outlet stores too:

Just last month, Round Rock Premium Outlets announced they would be opening sooner than originally projected as well.

Austin Business Journal

I got a new toy on Friday afternoon, still learning how to use a tablet PC.

But get the hell out nonetheless.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Rep. Tom DeLay took his final bow on the House floor Thursday, offering a robust defense of two things for which he became well known during more than two decades in Congress — unyielding conservatism and unapologetic partisanship.

CNN

I took a ride over to the local Volvo dealer today at lunch, and took the new C70 for a ride.

(I’ll take three, please.)

h/t to Ann on finding this article at Slate.com, worth a read…

Why pressing it won’t work this time.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Wednesday, June 7, 2006, at 3:31 PM ET

Any political party counts on having a few hot buttons it can push at those moments when it is a few points behind in the polls with not much time left till Election Day. These issues have certain characteristics—a whiff of pandering, the flavor of insincerity, an aura of desperation. They aim to stir passion but have little, if any, effect on most people’s lives. They are touchstones for the party’s base but run a risk of alienating the center. They are often symbolic or culture-war issues relating to God, country, or values—though they sometimes involve race, class, or economics as well. Flag-burning has long been such an issue for Republicans (who have indeed brought it up again this year). Raising the minimum wage sometimes serves the same purpose for Democrats.

This week, George W. Bush smashed his party’s biggest “Break glass in case of fire” box, when he called on the Senate to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. That Bush did this, with signs pointing to a possible Democratic recapture of Congress in the fall election, comes as no great surprise. The issue bailed him out in 2004, when ballot initiatives on gay marriage helped draw evangelical voters to the polls and may have provided Bush with his margin of victory in the decisive state of Ohio. But the gay marriage issue is much less likely to work for Republicans this time around, for three reasons.

Read on…