It’s Not About Free Speech

On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down several key restrictions on corporate campaign contributions. While many lament the expected influx of yet more corporate cash into an already compliant political system, does anybody really think McCain-Feingold had accomplished much of an improvement? These regulations only affect those who cannot afford the lawyers, accountants, and other professionals who spend their careers finding ways to circumvent the spirit of the laws.

The court simply let stand the fantastic notion that an abstraction composed of contracts and assets, a figment that can do or say nothing without human beings doing for it, can engage in anything qua a corporation. As such, an opportunity to overturn a century of erroneous precedent was squandered. Once again, in spite of an improvement in the consistency of its approach to the narrow free speech issue, the court preserved a much more fundamental complexity. The ruling and dissent reflect a labored reasoning stemming from unquestioned premises.

A horrible ruling, concreting an even worse concept.

Polls suggest Americans rethinking world policy

Is it the economy? The blood spilled in Afghanistan and Iraq? A fear of China, or imported diseases?

To one poll question, roughly half of Americans agreed that the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally” and let others get along on their own. To another question, 44 percent said “we should go our own way” and not worry whether other nations disagree.

Not that the government is going to care what we think, but this is a positive step in the right direction. It ain’t our world to run, people.

SEC mulled national security status for AIG details

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve’s bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security, according to emails obtained by Reuters.

The emails from early last year reveal that officials at the New York Fed were only comfortable with AIG submitting a critical bailout-related document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after getting assurances from the regulatory agency that “special security procedures” would be used to handle the document.

Gee, wonder what they were hiding? We shouldn’t be concerned, its only our money.

TSA worker plants white powder baggie on traveler as a joke

These days, joking about anything illegal while in an airport security line will likely land you in a holding cell, and might even result in criminal charges. But this column from the Philadelphia Inquirer has some wondering whether that rule applies to TSA employees themselves.

The Inquirer’s Linda Loyd reported later Thursday that the TSA says the employee in question in the incident is “no longer employed by the agency.”

Sad thing is, if the traveler had objected or replied in any way that the TSA found to be improper, she’d go to jail.

Ha ha. Hope she kicked the asshole in the nuts.

Clapton To Push New Android Phone

T-Mobile USA, Inc. announced that it is teaming up with musician Eric Clapton to help market its new T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender phone.

The Android-based device puts a new spin on the original T-Mobile myTouch 3G. It will be equipped with some preloaded songs including Mr. Clapton classics such “Layla,” “My Father’s Eyes,” “Rock ‘N’ Roll Heart,” and “Wonderful Tonight,”

I get off on 57 Chevys;
I get off on screaming guitar.
Like the way it hits me every time it hits me.
I’ve got a rock and roll, I’ve got a rock and roll heart.

That rock and roll heart looks a lot like a fucking ATM, Eric.

So it’s not just un-Americans we need to fear but the Polluter-Americans, Pharma-mericans, Bank-Americans and Hedge-Americans that could manipulate campaigns while hidden behind corporate veils. And if so, our future elections, while nominally a contest between Republicans and Democrats, may in fact come down to a three-way battle between China, Saudi Arabia and Goldman Sachs.

Analysis of 32 million breached passwords

Imperva released a study analyzing 32 million passwords exposed in the Rockyou.com breach. The data provides a unique glimpse into the way that users select passwords and an opportunity to evaluate the true strength of these as a security mechanism.

1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123

Is yours on the list?

CBS Approves Focus On The Family’s Super Bowl Ad, Despite Its Policy Against Advocacy Spots

Last week, conservative organization Focus on the Family announced that it planned to air a 30-second “life- and family-affirming” television ad during the Super Bowl on Feb. 7. The ad will feature 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, who will “share one of their many positive personal stories.” Specific details about the ad haven’t been released, but the AP notes that it is “likely to be an anti-abortion message chronicling Pam Tebow’s 1987 pregnancy.

The networks and the NFL have repeatedly rejected advocacy ads — including by progressive organizations. In 2004, CBS rejected MoveOn.org’s 30-second ad about President Bush, which Salon called “a low-key attack on Bush’s fiscal irresponsibility that’s unlikely to make anyone very angry.” The network has said that it doesn’t accept spots where “substantial elements of the community (are) in opposition to one another.” Last year, NBC rejected a 30-second public service announcement about marriage equality. Anti-consumerist activist Kalle Lasn and PETA have also had their ads turned down under the “no advocacy” policy.

Again, theocracy trumps all. CBS is free to run or not run anything they choose, but if you’re going to state a policy, follow it. Or, restate the policy as such:

“CBS does not run advocacy ads- except ones about you dirty sluts who got pregnant“

Ron Paul: After ‘CIA coup,’ agency ‘runs military’

US House Rep. Ron Paul says the CIA has has in effect carried out a “coup” against the US government, and the intelligence agency needs to be “taken out.”

There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. … And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. … And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators … We need to take out the CIA.

Strong words. I seem to remember someone else saying something similar:

“to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

What happened to that guy?

Oh yeah. The CIA killed him.

How Palin Responds To Factual Criticism

I fear her.

She is a symptom of a broken political and journalistic system. She is not a tabloid story. She is a threat.

I’m with Andrew on this one. Installed by Murdoch on Fox, her book (also owned by Murdoch’s News Corp) of fantasy published and discussed as if by a serious person, all of this leads to Palin in the White House. Sure, we all know she’s an idiot- but the idiots don’t. Or they do, and they just hate Obama so intensely that they are willing to install a chattering imbecile in the highest office to show darkie his place. And we’re all going to sit around scoffing at her, at her legions of followers, until the day she announces a run at the top spot, and who’ll be laughing then?

Sarah Palin is the poster child for what Sullivan calls the “indifference to reality” that this nation has suffered from since Bush was installed by a corrupt Supreme Court in 2000. We broke from reality at that point, everyone knows it, and many of us are frankly terrified at the prospect that Palin, who proves that there are things worse than Bush, will smirk and wink her unqualified ass into a position of power. And at that point we’ll have a trash-talking idiot who I wouldn’t trust to run an Arbys attempting to represent her mythical America to the world? Frankly, I’d pray for a Chinese invasion at that point.

Laugh all you want, but Sarah Palin is being taken seriously by serious people. Now, I’m sure they know she’s a moron, but Bush was a moron too, and look at what they propped him up to do.