Yeah, and it always helps when you've got a commission to protect privacy, too:

The Bush administration has failed to nominate any candidates to a newly empowered privacy and civil-liberties commission. This leaves the board without any members, even as Congress prepares to give the Bush administration extraordinary powers to wiretap without warrants inside the United States. [...]

In a 2007 measure implementing 9/11 Commission recommendations, Congress reconfigured the oversight committee, known as the Privacy and Civil Liberty Oversight Board. The intent was to make the board more independent of the White House, require it to be bipartisan and make it more accountable to the public. [...]

Civil-liberties advocates like Lisa Graves, deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies, considered the board to be apologists for the government's anti-terrorism policies, rather than independent civil-liberties watchdogs.

"This board failed miserably in its mission of helping to protect Americans' privacy and instead acted mainly to help the White House whitewash programs like warrantless NSA wiretapping that violate Americans' civil liberties," Graves said. "Now that Congress has changed the board's rules to make it a little more independent, the White House appears to have no interest in appointing anyone to it." [...]
___

As far as getting Dems in and the repugs out, there's a scene with a couple great lines in "Paint Your Wagon" (one of my fav movies) that go:

"But ... you don't know what you'll get."

"I know what I've had."

One afternoon years ago, back when I annoyed myself by spending time with somewhat avant-guard people, I was having coffee with several ladies when one of them asked the other quite bluntly how her new boyfriend was in bed. Without batting an eye, the other one replied, "I've had better."

Some time later, I asked her boyfriend how she was in bed. Although rather taken aback by my question, he answered, "I've had worse."

To this day, I'm pretty sure neither of them could recall when, though.

How do I know this? They got married, and last I heard, they're still together.

The Dark Wraith finds that cautionary tale worth heeding.

"I threw caution to the wind. The wind threw it back."

Sounds like they worked it out. (*snicker*)

Quoth the Dark Wraith:

Microsoft has just made a bid of $44.6 billion for Yahoo, Inc.

It makes sense. Bill Gates, arguably the very epitome of a genuine, pure-bred, unmitigated yahoo, finally becomes one with a corporation of that very name.

The headline is obvious (if redundant): Yahoo Buys Yahoo!

And nowhere in here is the slightest hint that any such deal is so contrary to public antitrust policy that it is DOA.

Not even a hint that it's a non-starter regardless of whether it's Google or Microsoft that gets into bed with Yahoo.

Just "hearings" and "reviews" and other such worthless nonsense.

All that is at issue is which giant near-monopoly, Microsoft or Google, will become even nearer to a pure monopoly.

The Dark Wraith hopes to God it isn't Google that wins this race for the gold.

Biometric Data now collected at London's Heathrow Airport

I'd like to rant a bit, if I may?

I've received 4 Obamagrams from family and friends, asking if the letter they are forwarding to me is true. It's the usual claptrap; Obama is a RADICAL Muslim; He swore on the Korum, Korahn, kookookachooran, all different spellings, etc. All of it easily debunked. The kicker is, the letter provides a link to the SNOPES.COM site, and states, "check it out for yourself!"

1). The link takes you to the main page of SNOPES; If your not that computer savvy, (the people these letters are obviously aimed at.) You probably won't bother trying to find the info.

2). The balls of these guys, to place that link there, knowing most of their readers will take their word for it, rather than actually spend the time to go to the site, " 'cause they heard the same thing at Earl's Garage the other day", is how this insidious shit gets spread out.

Hey, didja guys hear...Hillary has male genitalia!

By the way, SNOPES DOES have an Obamagram page...the verdict is FALSE!

Hillary has male genitalia?!

Trog69, I got the some of the same types of email from some of the stupid white men and the women that love them. That kind of stuff sickens me. Like there isn't enough fear and hate in the world without adding to it with this kind of crap.

Somebody like Carl Rove, who's responsible for the murder of thousands of Americans and hundred of thousand of innocent Iraqis, loves this kind of propaganda.

Apparently many people still choose to believe the myth about Muslims in general. Obama is no more a radical Muslin than the thousands of Japanese "citizen" enemies of America that our country kept in concentration camps during World War Two. Aren't we all just so proud of that now?

You'd hope that the people sending this crap in email would stop and THINK before sending it. It's nothing more than an attempt to destroy a person's life, career or reputation.
Grrrrr

Good afternoon, Missouri Mule.

I, too, have been getting inundated by folks passing this stuff around. It has the same character and "epidemiological path" as so many other Internet myths pumped out over the years. The problem is that many of those urban myths of the Information Age have become so embedded in the collective psyche that they are utterly unassailable, now. Some have even become the basis of laws.

I should note that not all of them are given life and e-mail legs by Right-wing dolts: several are the products of fevered gullibility on the Left; however, many of the worst of them are most decidedly started, or at least kept alive and viral, by Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers who's mental defect compels them to promolgate information without a shred of critical thought before opening their yaps or pushing the "Send" button.

What really troubles me the most about this Obama lie flying around the Internet is that I have a quite reliable source who told me that at least one well-spring of the e-mail wasn't a traditional "Right-wing conservative," at all. If that is, indeed, the case, Sen. Obama has a problem somewhat more significant than a bunch of redneck hicks who managed to figure out how to use e-mail.

The Dark Wraith hopes Mr. Obama knows how to watch his back... and his enemies.

DW, I suggest that you concentrate on her attire's frontispiece, rather than listen to her talk, during her speeches. Kinda like the bulge on Dubya's back during the debate in '04.

Just as you say here, I informed the latest questioner that indeed, misinformation like that would benefit both sides of the aisle.

Hey, any democrat is better than the unmitigated disaster the Republicans have delivered to the world. Yeah, electing a Dem sounds like being roasted in the oven, but a Dem. chef will set the temperature down to 395 from 450. Ahhh...so much better!

No, trog, neither of those two Democrats will take us to anything other than the same authoritarian state the Republican candidates will.

The difference is whether a voter wants that authoritarian state with or without a side salad of compulsory healthcare insurance.

The Dark Wraith would prefer a cheeseburger.

Onion rings and a chocolate malted with that, please.

Hey, what happened to 'floor-humper' guy, the one in all those ads on right-wing sites?

I am most fortunate, as my B-day was the 5th, and the grandkids provided enough entertainment so that I didn't have to read about a single caucus, or delegates, or any of that shit! Yay, me!

Who's running, again?

Wrote Dark Wraith:

Hillary has male genitalia?!

Sure....it originally belonged to Bill.

And you were wondering why he was so grumpy on the campaign trail recently :)

Ok, take break everybody for just a minute and be reminded there are still a few good things in this world:
http://www.linein.org/media/screen_clean.swf


And Moody, from "Paint Your Wagon", my favorite was where Lee Marvin sings,

"And they civilize left and they civilize right,
Until nothing is left and nothing is right!"

That about sums it up.

Hahaha! Yuch!

Our dog will lick a hand for as long as you hold it out there. Blechh.

Grace Community Church gave her a donated car.

~from a Tempe, Az. story about an abused wife who was homeless with 4 children, helped out by the community. The fact that the church helped out a mexican woman reminds atheists like me that I'm only battling a minority who would push their agenda on this country and the globe; Most religious people are like my Mother-in-law...help people out first...we'll talk about Jesus later.

Reuters via Canada.com:
Dozens of U.S. banks will fail by 2010: analyst
"Between 50 and 150 U.S. banks -- as many as one in 57 -- could fail by early 2010, mostly those with no more than a couple of billion dollars of assets, Cassidy said. That rate of failure would be the highest in at least 15 years, or since the winding down of the savings-and-loan debacle."

Zipperhead & Trog...

I read Trog's comment about his dog so went back and checked the link...I am now ROTFL since I fairly recently got a pug dog (named Wednesday, since she's a girl, and that was Pugsly's sister, right?) and she is of the opinion that Mommy tastes better than anything, and insists on bathing all exposed skin on my bod at bedtime. Or any other time she can reach any. I'm saving that link to show the boys-they both adore having a licking dog (she licks them lots too, but I must taste best). I just hope to find a substitute before summer for her to lick. (She's standing on her hind legs as I type so as to reach my elbow to lick). Sigh.

Well good luck with that, WC. My look of disgust as I continue scratching behind her ears has not hindered her pastime very much for some darned reason. She's my big baby, and I just wuuv her to def, but I've seen where that tongue has been...no thanks!

Weird. She was a fugly pup, I thought, but she's a cutie now.

I've just finished reading something that makes me wonder if we'll see an election in '08. This article is about an FBI/Private business owners/top executives cooperative program titled INFRAGARD.