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solarbirdI should probably cut a few of these out and rant about them in the COMPLETELY INSANE?! category, but there's honestly just too much going on for me to focus on one particular bit of complete insanity. These are in order of discovery just from today. And it's not like I spent the day online, even. I spent all afternoon outside gardening. And then I took a little nap since i didn't get enough sleep last night. It was nice. I'll probably post about it in a minute.
Domestic Spying Madness, Part 1: Paying off your credit card too much triggers a Homeland Security investigation - automatically;
Domestic Spying Madness, Part 2: Bill Frist pulling out all the stops to prevent an Intelligence Committee investigation into NSA hearings (seen in Andrew Sullivan's blog);
What Is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 1: Congressman introduces bill to ban additional development in radio at behest of RIAA;
What Is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 2: Department of Homeland Security arrests man handing out anti-Bush, anti-FEMA-management T-shirts in the New Orleans area;
What is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 3: After having been slapped down already a couple of times, the feds are again trying to block sales of whole suites of chemicals to anyone without an ATF explosions-manufacturing license (courtesy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rmd);
What is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 4: Yet another videotaped "party" gang-rape defendant acquitted: prosecution strategy of "the slut was asking for it" works again; what the hell is wrong with this goddamn jury?!;
What is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 5: South Dakota state senator Bill Napoli describes the kind of person who is "deserving" of the right to have an abortion; must be an unmarried religious virgin rape victim - presumably, all other women are sluts and deserve it.
----- 1 -----
Pay too much and you could raise the alarm
By BOB KERR
The Providence Journal
28-FEB-06
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.
So the Soehnges live in Scituate now and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent that is definitely not local.
And it was there, at his usual table last week, that he told me that he was "madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail."
He says things like that. Texas does leave its mark on a man.
[...]
He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.
They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.
And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.
[...]
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.
Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.
"The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Bill Frist threatens to re-structure the Intelligence Committee in order to block NSA hearings
(updated below)
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/03/bill-frist-threatens-to-re-structure.html
The Senate Intelligence Committee was created in 1976 and, from the beginning, it has been unique in its structure and operation. Due to the urgency of ensuring that our country has nonpartisan and non-politicized oversight over the Government’s intelligence activities, the Intelligence Committee is structured so that -- unlike every other Senate Committee -- the majority is unable to dominate the Committee’s operation and agenda, and the minority has much greater powers than it does on any other Senate Committee.
With the March 7 vote looming on Sen. Rockefeller’s motion for the Committee to finally hold hearings to investigate the scope and nature of the Administration’s NSA warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens -- and with several Committee Republicans indicating their intent to vote for hearings -- Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened the Committee yesterday and warned it not to hold any hearings.
Frist specifically threatened that if the Committee holds NSA hearings, he will fundamentally change the 30-year-old structure and operation of the Senate Intelligence Committee so as to make it like every other Committee, i.e., controlled and dominated by Republicans to advance and rubber-stamp the White House’s agenda rather than exercise meaningful and nonpartisan oversight.
Yet again, Republicans are threatening to radically change long-standing rules for how our government operates all because they cannot manipulate the result they want. From redistricting games to changing the filibuster rules, when Republicans are incapable (even with their majorities) of manipulating the political result they want, they use their majority status to change how our government works in order to ensure the desired political outcome.
While Frist’s threat here is, in one sense, of a piece with those tactics, it is actually quite extraordinary and motivated by a particularly corrupt objective. The whole purpose of the Senate Intelligence Committee – the only reason why it exists – is to exercise oversight over controversial intelligence activities. Whatever else one might want to say about the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program, it is controversial on every front. There is no conceivable rationale for the Intelligence Committee not to hold hearings.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
House introduces mandatory radio-crippling law
Thursday, March 2, 2006
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/02/house_introduces_man.html
Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.) has introduced a bill to cripple all digital radios. The Audio Broadcast Flag Licensing Act of 2006 (H.R. 4861) requires all digital radio makers to build their devices so that they only permit "customary uses" of broadcasts. That means that no one ever gets to invent any new radio tech ever again unless the RIAA approves of it. Finally, it requires radio device makers to cripple their products to prohibit "unauthorized copying" -- which is a lot more broad than "illegal copying." As we've heard, the RIAA's position is that no copying is implicitly authorized -- they don't even think you should be allowed to rip your CDs.
Fergusun is committing political suicide. No constituent of Fergusun's woke up this morning wishing for a way to do less with her radio. There's no manufacturer who can sell more radios by advertising "Now! With fewer features!" This is a bill to steal from tomorrow's entrepreneurs, who'll never get to invent the next generation of awesome music tech, in order to line the pockets of yesterday's recording industry fatcats.
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
FEMA critic's shirt gets him tangled up in ticket
By Laura Parker, USA TODAY Fri Mar 3, 7:57 AM ET
Ridiculing the Federal Emergency Management Agency is high art in the Gulf Coast areas where Hurricane Katrina hit last year.
ADVERTISEMENT
Many parade floats in New Orleans' Mardi Gras were decorated in themes that skewered the relief agency.
George Barisich, president of the United Commercial Fisherman's Association, has been selling anti-FEMA T-shirts since last fall, a reflection of his frustration with the federal government's response to the storm that left him homeless and unemployed.
But on Feb. 1, when he handed a shirt to a fellow Katrina victim as he was picking up canned goods at a charity's relief tent, Barisich found himself in trouble with the government.
He was cited by a group of Homeland Security officials for selling a T-shirt on federal property - in this case, near a FEMA center in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Chalmette, La.
Barisich, 49, says he didn't sell the shirt, which said: "Flooded by Katrina! Forgotten by FEMA! What's Next, Mr. Bush?" He says he gave it away.
[...]
Word of Barisich's plight is circulating around battered St. Bernard Parish, where 22,000 of the 26,000 homes were destroyed by flooding. Larry Ingargiola, the local emergency operations chief, calls it "totally ridiculous."
"I've tried to work with them," he says of the federal government. "But some of the rules they've got down here are unbelievable. For God's sake, everybody knows George. They're pushing the buttons a little bit too far."
Barisich says he was ticketed after six DHS officers gathered at his truck. Boyd says he can't confirm the number. Barisich says he was told he would be arrested if he did not take the ticket. "I said, 'Do you really want to arrest me? Am I the only one here who thinks this is asinine? You're harassing a person who just lost everything.' "
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
United Nuclear
Scientific Equipment and Supplies
Supplying the science hobbyist, industry, government, schools & universities since 1998.
"We specialize in small orders"
http://www.unitednuclear.com/legalaction.htm
The United States CPSC has initiated criminal legal action against us and other chemical suppliers.
In short, the CPSC would like to ban the public from all access to chemicals. This would mean an end to hobbies such as model rocketry, pyrotechnics and of course chemistry. One by one, our freedoms are slowly being taken away from us - this action must be stopped now.
Specifically, the CPSC is focusing on certain chemicals and metals at this time. The current CPSC injunction would require:
"Not sell, give away or otherwise distribute any of the following Metals for which the particle size is finer than 100 mesh (or particles less than 150 microns in size) to any recipient who does not possess a valid
manufacturing license for explosives issued by the ATF:"
Aluminum and Aluminum alloys
Magnalium metal
Magnesium metal
Magnesium/Aluminum alloys
Titanium and Titanium alloys
Zinc metal
Zirconium metal
"Not sell, give away or otherwise distribute any of the following chemicals to any recipient who does not possess a valid manufacturing license for explosives issued by the ATF:"
Antimony and antimony compounds
Benzoate compounds
Nitrate compounds
Permanganate compounds
Chlorate compounds
Perchlorate compounds
Salicylate compounds
Sulfur
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
At what point does the charade that a woman’s consent matters actually end?
Published by Amanda Marcotte March 4th, 2006 in Crime
Long URL elided
All the depressing rape news I can manage to squeeze out today. First off, the trial where the judge actually considered forcing the rape victim to watch the trophy videotape of her rape ended in acquittal. It appears the defense was the standard issue defense that sluts deserve it. Or any woman who drinks alcohol. Or possibly, from the news reports, anyone who blinks incorrectly while getting raped.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
SOUTH DAKOTA BANS ABORTION
Newshour with Jim Lehrer
March 3, 2006
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june06/abortion_3-03.html
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls "convenience." He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
Domestic Spying Madness, Part 1: Paying off your credit card too much triggers a Homeland Security investigation - automatically;
Domestic Spying Madness, Part 2: Bill Frist pulling out all the stops to prevent an Intelligence Committee investigation into NSA hearings (seen in Andrew Sullivan's blog);
What Is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 1: Congressman introduces bill to ban additional development in radio at behest of RIAA;
What Is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 2: Department of Homeland Security arrests man handing out anti-Bush, anti-FEMA-management T-shirts in the New Orleans area;
What is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 3: After having been slapped down already a couple of times, the feds are again trying to block sales of whole suites of chemicals to anyone without an ATF explosions-manufacturing license (courtesy
rmd);What is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 4: Yet another videotaped "party" gang-rape defendant acquitted: prosecution strategy of "the slut was asking for it" works again; what the hell is wrong with this goddamn jury?!;
What is Wrong With You Bastards, Part 5: South Dakota state senator Bill Napoli describes the kind of person who is "deserving" of the right to have an abortion; must be an unmarried religious virgin rape victim - presumably, all other women are sluts and deserve it.
----- 1 -----
Pay too much and you could raise the alarm
By BOB KERR
The Providence Journal
28-FEB-06
http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.
So the Soehnges live in Scituate now and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent that is definitely not local.
And it was there, at his usual table last week, that he told me that he was "madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail."
He says things like that. Texas does leave its mark on a man.
[...]
He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.
They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.
And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.
[...]
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.
Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.
"The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."
[More at URL]
----- 2 -----
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Bill Frist threatens to re-structure the Intelligence Committee in order to block NSA hearings
(updated below)
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/03/bill-frist-threatens-to-re-structure.html
The Senate Intelligence Committee was created in 1976 and, from the beginning, it has been unique in its structure and operation. Due to the urgency of ensuring that our country has nonpartisan and non-politicized oversight over the Government’s intelligence activities, the Intelligence Committee is structured so that -- unlike every other Senate Committee -- the majority is unable to dominate the Committee’s operation and agenda, and the minority has much greater powers than it does on any other Senate Committee.
With the March 7 vote looming on Sen. Rockefeller’s motion for the Committee to finally hold hearings to investigate the scope and nature of the Administration’s NSA warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens -- and with several Committee Republicans indicating their intent to vote for hearings -- Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened the Committee yesterday and warned it not to hold any hearings.
Frist specifically threatened that if the Committee holds NSA hearings, he will fundamentally change the 30-year-old structure and operation of the Senate Intelligence Committee so as to make it like every other Committee, i.e., controlled and dominated by Republicans to advance and rubber-stamp the White House’s agenda rather than exercise meaningful and nonpartisan oversight.
Yet again, Republicans are threatening to radically change long-standing rules for how our government operates all because they cannot manipulate the result they want. From redistricting games to changing the filibuster rules, when Republicans are incapable (even with their majorities) of manipulating the political result they want, they use their majority status to change how our government works in order to ensure the desired political outcome.
While Frist’s threat here is, in one sense, of a piece with those tactics, it is actually quite extraordinary and motivated by a particularly corrupt objective. The whole purpose of the Senate Intelligence Committee – the only reason why it exists – is to exercise oversight over controversial intelligence activities. Whatever else one might want to say about the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program, it is controversial on every front. There is no conceivable rationale for the Intelligence Committee not to hold hearings.
[More at URL]
----- 3 -----
House introduces mandatory radio-crippling law
Thursday, March 2, 2006
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/02/house_introduces_man.html
Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.) has introduced a bill to cripple all digital radios. The Audio Broadcast Flag Licensing Act of 2006 (H.R. 4861) requires all digital radio makers to build their devices so that they only permit "customary uses" of broadcasts. That means that no one ever gets to invent any new radio tech ever again unless the RIAA approves of it. Finally, it requires radio device makers to cripple their products to prohibit "unauthorized copying" -- which is a lot more broad than "illegal copying." As we've heard, the RIAA's position is that no copying is implicitly authorized -- they don't even think you should be allowed to rip your CDs.
Fergusun is committing political suicide. No constituent of Fergusun's woke up this morning wishing for a way to do less with her radio. There's no manufacturer who can sell more radios by advertising "Now! With fewer features!" This is a bill to steal from tomorrow's entrepreneurs, who'll never get to invent the next generation of awesome music tech, in order to line the pockets of yesterday's recording industry fatcats.
[More at URL]
----- 4 -----
FEMA critic's shirt gets him tangled up in ticket
By Laura Parker, USA TODAY Fri Mar 3, 7:57 AM ET
Ridiculing the Federal Emergency Management Agency is high art in the Gulf Coast areas where Hurricane Katrina hit last year.
ADVERTISEMENT
Many parade floats in New Orleans' Mardi Gras were decorated in themes that skewered the relief agency.
George Barisich, president of the United Commercial Fisherman's Association, has been selling anti-FEMA T-shirts since last fall, a reflection of his frustration with the federal government's response to the storm that left him homeless and unemployed.
But on Feb. 1, when he handed a shirt to a fellow Katrina victim as he was picking up canned goods at a charity's relief tent, Barisich found himself in trouble with the government.
He was cited by a group of Homeland Security officials for selling a T-shirt on federal property - in this case, near a FEMA center in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Chalmette, La.
Barisich, 49, says he didn't sell the shirt, which said: "Flooded by Katrina! Forgotten by FEMA! What's Next, Mr. Bush?" He says he gave it away.
[...]
Word of Barisich's plight is circulating around battered St. Bernard Parish, where 22,000 of the 26,000 homes were destroyed by flooding. Larry Ingargiola, the local emergency operations chief, calls it "totally ridiculous."
"I've tried to work with them," he says of the federal government. "But some of the rules they've got down here are unbelievable. For God's sake, everybody knows George. They're pushing the buttons a little bit too far."
Barisich says he was ticketed after six DHS officers gathered at his truck. Boyd says he can't confirm the number. Barisich says he was told he would be arrested if he did not take the ticket. "I said, 'Do you really want to arrest me? Am I the only one here who thinks this is asinine? You're harassing a person who just lost everything.' "
[More at URL]
----- 5 -----
United Nuclear
Scientific Equipment and Supplies
Supplying the science hobbyist, industry, government, schools & universities since 1998.
"We specialize in small orders"
http://www.unitednuclear.com/legalaction.htm
The United States CPSC has initiated criminal legal action against us and other chemical suppliers.
In short, the CPSC would like to ban the public from all access to chemicals. This would mean an end to hobbies such as model rocketry, pyrotechnics and of course chemistry. One by one, our freedoms are slowly being taken away from us - this action must be stopped now.
Specifically, the CPSC is focusing on certain chemicals and metals at this time. The current CPSC injunction would require:
"Not sell, give away or otherwise distribute any of the following Metals for which the particle size is finer than 100 mesh (or particles less than 150 microns in size) to any recipient who does not possess a valid
manufacturing license for explosives issued by the ATF:"
Aluminum and Aluminum alloys
Magnalium metal
Magnesium metal
Magnesium/Aluminum alloys
Titanium and Titanium alloys
Zinc metal
Zirconium metal
"Not sell, give away or otherwise distribute any of the following chemicals to any recipient who does not possess a valid manufacturing license for explosives issued by the ATF:"
Antimony and antimony compounds
Benzoate compounds
Nitrate compounds
Permanganate compounds
Chlorate compounds
Perchlorate compounds
Salicylate compounds
Sulfur
[More at URL]
----- 6 -----
At what point does the charade that a woman’s consent matters actually end?
Published by Amanda Marcotte March 4th, 2006 in Crime
Long URL elided
All the depressing rape news I can manage to squeeze out today. First off, the trial where the judge actually considered forcing the rape victim to watch the trophy videotape of her rape ended in acquittal. It appears the defense was the standard issue defense that sluts deserve it. Or any woman who drinks alcohol. Or possibly, from the news reports, anyone who blinks incorrectly while getting raped.
[More at URL]
----- 7 -----
SOUTH DAKOTA BANS ABORTION
Newshour with Jim Lehrer
March 3, 2006
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june06/abortion_3-03.html
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls "convenience." He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 03:57 pm (UTC)Uh-oh. I've been paying off my debts - including credit cards - using the money from my Dad's estate...
no subject
Date: 2006-03-05 04:14 pm (UTC)Among the metals, they forgot iron. Iron is a major ingredient of thermite. Or you can hit someone over the head with a lump of it.
Idiots...
no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-06 12:25 am (UTC)[...]
Chlorate compounds
[...]
Salicylate compounds
[...]
Goodie. Table salt and aspirin. And I think one of the others forbids baking powder too.