blog archives

War & current event blogs
getdonkey
cursor
thismodernworld
very very happy
calpundit
xoverboard
Oliver Willis
cyrenity
tom paine
Raed
Dailykos
ibidem

free speech blogs
Garoos

blogs to stare at
heroes and donkeys
Idleworm

favorite links
FCC
Ski & Skinner WLS Sundays 12-3
Center for Democracy & Technology
Internet legislation
Internet Free Expression Alliance

What is Clear Channel?
ACLU VS Patriot
What is the Patriot Act?
Patriot I has already passed, but here comes Patriot II

NEWS
Washington Post
Christian Science Monitor
Reuters
New York Times
News is Free
See the front pages for today... Newseum BuzzFlash
Kurdistan Observer
Yellow Times

contact...

Add your comment Read comments Free counters provided by Andale.

"War continues in Iraq. They're calling it Operation Iraqi Freedom. They were going to call it Operation Iraqi Liberation until they realized that spells 'OIL.'" -- Jay Leno
posted 8:32 PM

"President Bush has said that he does not need approval from the UN to wage war, and I'm thinking, well, hell, he didn't need the approval of the American voters to become president, either." -- David Letterman
posted 8:31 PM

US: Tests show white powder is an explosive
Initial testing, on white powder found at airport in Bagdad, showedthe powder to be explosives rather than weapons of mass destruction, according to one senior US official, although

posted 8:22 PM

Freedom of speeches importance for democracy
One way to guarantee the continued existence of a representative democracy is to hold free, competitive elections. Thus, the minority always has the opportunity to be represented. For such elections to always remain open & competitive, freedom of speech and freedom of the press must be preserved so that oppositions candidates have the opportunity to present their criticisms of the government.
posted 8:08 PM

Kerry Talks Back
"The Republicans have tried to make a practice of attacking anybody who speaks out strongly by questioning their patriotism," the Massachusetts senator said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I refuse to have my patriotism or right to speak out questioned. I fought for and earned the right to express my views in this country."
Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, backed a congressional resolution last fall giving President Bush the authority to use force to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but he repeatedly has criticized the president for failing to give diplomacy more time
"If they want to pick a fight, they've picked a fight with the wrong guy," Kerry said in a telephone interview.
Following a speech to the New York State United Teachers convention in Washington, Kerry said, "I'm not going to let the likes of Tom DeLay question my patriotism, which I fought for and bled for in order to have the right to speak out."
Neither Hastert, Frist nor DeLay served in the military.

posted 7:59 PM

''I shed a tear for Rachel'' as well....

This idealistic young American's senseless death has largely gone unnoticed.

Welcome back Yellow Times...
posted 9:46 AM

UAW endorses national Election Day Holiday legislation
The UAW announced today its enthusiastic support for a national Election Day holiday bill introduced by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI.), Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD.), Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX), and Rep. David Wu (D-OR).

“Our experience in the 2000 and 2002 elections shows that a day off from work can boost voter participation and involvement in the electoral process,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. The UAW negotiated national Election Day as a holiday during 1999 contract negotiations with DaimlerChrysler, Delphi, Ford, General Motors, and Visteon.

The legislation introduced today would give all Federal workers a holiday on national election days, and calls on private employers to follow suit. The bill’s sponsors include the chairs of the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, and Asian American Caucus.

“No matter what cause, candidate or party you support, this legislation makes it easier to vote, easier to volunteer, and easier for you to raise your voice on issues you care about,” said Gettelfinger. “We can’t afford to sit still as voter participation in the United States continues to decline.”

posted 7:19 AM

C-SPAN, Cable, & FCC Must Carry requirements
A STATUS REPORT: January, 2002
FCC is Still Re-Thinking Its Dual Must Carry Ruling
C-SPAN Networks Are Not Out of the Woods Yet

In January of 2001 the Federal Communications Commission announced that it "tentatively concludes that a [dual must carry] requirement appears to burden cable operators' First Amendment" rights. At the time, C-SPAN regarded the FCC's decision as a step in the right direction because it at least acknowledged our view that a dual must carry rule would violate not only our free speech rights, but also the rights of the cable operators who distribute C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3.

However, the FCC did not lay the issue to rest. It has continued to ask for the public to comment on its 'tentative' conclusion. There is no clear timetable as to when the FCC will make a final decision. C-SPAN will challenge any decision that imposes any form of a dual must carry rule that hurts our ability to be carried on cable systems.


A Note on Terminology: When this issue first arose it was referred to as DIGITAL Must Carry. More recently it has been given the more accurate term DUAL must carry because the core of the issue is about the carriage of two versions of a broadcast system rather than the carriage of digital signals generally.

Citizens for C-SPAN

Bringing democracy to television
Few individuals have done more to promote the reading of history and biography than Brian Lamb. C-SPAN has created a unique way for people in this country--and ninety other nations worldwide--to witness history in the making. Millions have watched its coverage of the political processes in Washington; Senate coverage of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 reached 32.3 million subscribers alone. Lamb has also interviewed hundreds of historians and biographers--among them many OAH members--on his Booknotes program and since last year on his weekend Book TV program on C-SPAN 2.

C-SPAN Mission

C-SPAN is a public service created by the American cable television industry:

To provide C-SPAN's audience access to the live gavel-to-gavel proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and to other forums where public policy is discussed, debated and decided--all without editing, commentary or analysis and with a balanced presentation of points of view;

To provide elected and appointed officials and others who would influence public policy a direct conduit to the audience without filtering or otherwise distorting their points of view;

To provide the audience, through the call-in program, direct access to elected officials, other decision makers and journalists on a frequent and open basis;

To employ production values that accurately convey the business of government rather than distract from it; and to conduct all other aspects of its operations consistent with these principles.


posted 6:00 AM

Paid Time Off May Be Replacing Overtime
The nation's overtime pay law took another hit Thursday as a House panel approved legislation that would let employers offer paid time off instead.

A House Workforce subcommittee voted 8-6 along party lines to approve the bill, which the full committee will take up next week. House leaders want a floor vote by early May.

Business groups, emboldened by complete Republican control of Congressa and federal executive branch, are pressing the Bush administration to rewrite the labor law requiring employers to pay an hourly rate of time-and-a-half to some workers logging more than 40 hours a week

Democrats and labor unions opposing the bill say it will mean that workers will lose money and work longer hours. They say companies will use the law to coerce employees to work beyond their shifts without pay by promising eventual time off. They say employers will start assigning overtime to workers who agree to choose comp time. The bill would allow employers to decide when the time off could be taken.

Opponents say the current overtime law acts as a protection to the 40-hour work week because companies wanting more work from their employees now have to pay premium pay — and often think twice about it.

It's wrong, and it's an assault on working families," said Rep. Donald Payne (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J. "It's not right. We're going to have a two-tiered society — those who have and those who have not."

posted 10:12 AM

Also in OREGON...

Honking against war cited to keep peace
War or no war, there's free speech. But honking for peace? Well, that can cost you $77 in downtown Portland.

On Monday, police wrote tickets for at least that amount to four motorists who hit their horns as they passed antiwar demonstrators camped out near City Hall.

Police haven't ticketed motorists honking at "support the troops" and pro-war rallies, but that doesn't mean officers are taking sides, Garvey said.



posted 9:59 AM

Oregon Law Would Jail War Protesters as Terrorists
An Oregon anti-terrorism bill would jail street-blocking protesters for at least 25 years. Lawmakers expect a debate on the definition of terrorism and the value of free speech before a vote by the state senate judiciary committee whose Chairman, Republican Senator John Minnis, wrote the proposed legislation.
Dubbed Senate Bill 742, it identifies a terrorist as a person who "plans or participates in an act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt" business, transportation, schools, government, or free assembly.
"We need some additional tools to control protests that shut down the city," said Lars Larson, a conservative radio talk show host who has aggressively stumped for the bill.

The bill contains automatic sentences of 25 years to life for the crime of terrorism.

Critics of the bill say its language is so vague it erodes basic freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism under an extremely broad definition.

How the hell do you disprove that ONE participant wished to disrupt business?
posted 9:27 AM

Al-Jazeera top search term last week, with three times more searches than "sex."
I hate to say I told you so to the administration but their criticism of Al-Jazeera rather than turning Americans away from it with disinterest has actually back fired and increased interest.
In spite of being mostly knocked offline, the Web site of Arab satellite news network Al-Jazeera was among the most sought-after on the Internet last week. It's the teenager syndrome...tell me I can't do something and I'm going to want to do it even more.
The administration strongly criticized Al-Jazeera for showing footage of our dead and captive soldiers in Iraq, and in support of the administration, Al-Jazeera was even kicked out of the New York Stock Exchange.
Al-Jazeera later honored a U.S. request to stop until families could be notified, a statement from the network said.
Hackers also homed in on Al-Jazeera, bringing down its Web site early last week in what the Web host called an attack characterized by a flood of bogus traffic.
Al-Jazeera is based in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. It is funded by Qatar's government but is an unusually independent voice in the Arab world. Its English Web site launched last week with the aim of giving Western audiences an Arab perspective.



posted 10:21 AM

A "Patriotic" Witch-Hunt
Earlier this week, we reported that eBay's (Nasdaq: EBAY) recently acquired PayPal subsidiary was under investigation by Missouri's attorney general under the USA Patriot Act for its role as a processor of micro-payments for online gambling sites.

Now, before you get Godfather-esque images in your head of PayPal toiling away as a covert launderer of funds, understand that it's nearly impossible for PayPal to know the intentions of its 20 million registered users and 3 million established business accounts.

eBay will fight this -- and rightfully so -- but will it really end here? The Patriot Act may have been crafted with the best of intentions, but if we go by the letter of the law in its pursuit to end the criminal transmission of funds, this won't end with eBay.

How many pop-up ads have you seen for online casinos? Are the sites that pump them out and profit from them liable? True, they don't actually handle gaming money, but they clearly facilitate and profit from the exchange between cyberbookies and prospective gamblers.

How long will it take before states go after ISPs such as EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK) and AOL Time Warner (NYSE: AOL) because they couldn't filter out spam from illegal online casinos?

Don't underestimate where this dot-com witch-hunt could lead. The chips may be few and the stakes little, but it's only a matter of time before states raise the ante.


posted 9:42 AM

http://www.thismodernworld.com/
http://www.xoverboard.com/
http://www.veryveryhappy.blogspot.com/
http://www.cursor.org/
http://www.getdonkey.com/
http://oliverwillis.com/
posted 4:22 PM

eBay's PayPal Accused of Violating Patriot Act
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A federal prosecutor has alleged eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY - news) unit PayPal violated a 2001 anti-terror law aimed at fighting money laundering when it provided payment services to online gambling companies, the Web auctioneer said in its annual report filed on Monday.
Silicon Valley-based eBay said it received a letter on Friday in which the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri accused PayPal of violating a provision of the USA Patriot Act.
The provision prohibits the transmission of funds that are known to have been derived from a criminal offense, or are intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity.
The prosecutor also said the company could be forced to forfeit the money it received in connection with the alleged illegal activity and that it could also be criminally liable.
eBay said in its annual report that PayPal acted in the good faith belief that its conduct was not in violation of the anti-terror law.
Kevin Pursglove, eBay's spokesman, told Reuters the company's lawyers were reviewing the letter.
Congress passed the Patriot Act one month after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon (news - web sites). The legislation broadened law enforcement powers, especially to combat money laundering that is believed to help finance terror attacks.
PayPal, an online cash transfer service provider, agreed in August to restrict online gambling merchants from using its transaction system and paid a $200,000 penalty to New York state.
EBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in October. In November, PayPal stopped processing payments for online gambling companies, an activity that accounted for about 6 percent of PayPal's 2002 revenues, eBay said.
The prosecutor's letter offered a plan that would enable the company to settle all charges and claims, if PayPal turned over earnings, plus interest, from online gambling companies for the nine-month period ended July 31, 2002, eBay said.
eBay said earnings associated with the activities were smaller than the amount stated in the prosecutor's letter. It also said the related amount was not expected to have a material impact on its financial position, results of operations, or cash flow.
posted 4:07 PM

Corporate Ownership
Almost all media that reach a large audience in the United States are owned by for-profit corporations--institutions that by law are obligated to put the profits of their investors ahead of all other considerations. The goal of maximizing profits is often in conflict with the practice of responsible journalism.

Not only are most major media owned by corporations, these companies are becoming larger and fewer in number as the biggest ones absorb their rivals. This concentration of ownership tends to reduce the diversity of media voices and puts great power in the hands of a few companies. As news outlets fall into the hands of large conglomerates with holdings in many industries, conflicts of interest inevitably interfere with newsgathering.

FAIR believes that independent media are essential to a democratic society, and that aggressive antitrust action must be taken to break up monopolistic media conglomerates. At the same time, non-corporate, alternative media outlets need to be promoted by both the government and the non-profit sector.


posted 7:30 PM

In 1987 the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to cover controversial issues in their community and to do so by offering balancing views. With that obligation gone, Morris said, "radio can behave more like newspapers, with opinion pages and editorials."
posted 7:26 PM

National Debt Clock
U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 01 Feb 2003 at 06:17:01 PM GMT is:



The estimated population of the United States is 289,047,543
so each citizen's share of this debt is $22,170.78.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.45 billion per day since September 30, 2002!
Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!


posted 7:20 PM

Lawmakers Say 'No' to Internet Access Taxes
Several lawmakers said Monday they would seek to make permanent a ban on Internet access taxes, hoping to sidestep the more controversial question of whether Internet sales should be taxed.

posted 7:06 PM

Clear Channel is using its considerable market power to drum up support for the war in Iraq, while muzzling musicians who oppose it.
The company's executives insist they have no political agenda, but the criticism has grown sufficiently loud that Clear Channel hired a financial communications and crisis-management firm, Brainerd Communicators last week to help it handle the uproar.
"We're in the business of having the largest possible audience," Mr. Hogan said, not "the most politically unified audience."
And yet, even if Clear Channel's political effect is nothing more than a cultural homogenization that leaves little room for boat-rocking and that gives little airplay to antiwar songs like current ones by Lenny Kravitz and Michael Stipe of R.E.M, Ms. Toomey is not ready to concede that all is well in radioland.

More unified were the actions of Cumulus Media, which owns 262 stations, and has at least temporarily stopped all 42 of its country stations from playing the Dixie Chicks. The company's chief executive, Lewis W. Dickey Jr., denied the move was part of a political agenda. "We pulled the plug out of deference to our listeners," he said.

More difficult is explaining away the 18 "Rally for America!" events that had been held through last Friday at the urging of Mr. Beck and co-sponsored by one of his advertisers, Bills Khakis. Thirteen of those rallies were co-sponsored and promoted by local Clear Channel stations, including one held March 15 in Atlanta that was sponsored by Clear Channel's WGST and attended by an estimated 25,000 people. Further plans for rallies include events in Tampa; Lubbock, Tex.; and Dothan, Ala.

Such rallies are highly unusual, said a longtime radio executive at another company, who, citing Clear Channel's power, spoke on condition of anonymity. "It flies right in the face of the fact that the government has always said that radio stations should have a balanced view of what is going on, serve the public interest and not take sides," the executive said.
Clear Channel was a small collection of stations until 1996, when Congress largely deregulated the industry and lifted many of the longstanding restrictions on how many stations a single company could own. A review of those rules is now pending at the Federal Communications Commission.

With the help of the investment bankerThomas O. Hicks(who now owns the Houston Oilers Bush's former team) , who sits on the Clear Channel board and has close ties to President Bush, Mr. Mays went on a buying spree.
The basic pattern was to buy stations and cut costs by sharing programming and other resources with other Clear Channel stations whenever possible
posted 6:30 PM

Otpor
Just a few short weeks ago, Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assasinated. This man took over for a terribly repressive dictator, Slobodan Milosevic who is currently on trial for war crimes. What is not widely known in America is how a group of students organized a group called Otpor who brought down a dictator through non violence.
Otpor: the youths who booted Milosevic

It took a generation of 20 year-olds without a manifesto or leader to shake Serbia out of its lethargy. Armed only with slogans and spray paint, they dealt a fatal blow to the dictatorship
“Resistance until Victory.” In December 1999, Otpor wished everybody a “happy new year of resistance.” A few months before the events of October 5, “The year 2000 will be the one” could be read on walls everywhere. They were right. They also invented a new resistance measurement unit called the “otpormeter.” After the September 24 elections, the famous “Gotov je” (“He’s cooked”) became the slogan spray-painted most on walls, staircases and in bar restrooms. On October 5, when a bulldozer broke down the door of the state radio and television headquarters, the government’s main propaganda mouthpiece, Otpor printed posters and calendars with the slogan, “A bulldozer-operator is asleep in all of us.” Leery of all politicians, even if they belong to the opposition, Otpor’s new slogan is, “We’re keeping an eye on you.”
posted 7:26 PM

National Day of Prayer Passes House
House oks day of fasting and prayer. By a vote of 346-49 the house called for a National Day of Prayer. Illinois Rep Don Manzullo voted "yes".
posted 4:25 PM

Illinois Politics... Michael Madigan says What Recession? What deficit?
House speaker Mike Madigan D-Chicago has given double digit raises, as high as 15%, to senior staff members. "Its not like we're looking for funds that have not already been budgeted" a spokesman for Madigan said.

At the same time Governor Blagovich has told unversities to hold an 8% reserve so they will be prepared for upcoming budget cuts.
posted 4:16 PM

corp watch

Again more sites I want to review for later....
posted 3:03 PM

Only the educated are free.
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD), Discourses
posted 2:59 PM

The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
Justice Anthony Kennedy (1936 - )
posted 2:58 PM

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), 'Out of My Later Years,' 1950
posted 2:57 PM