The Daily Background

Apparently, illegally wiretapping U.S. citizens without court approval is not enough for the NSA. AP reports now that the NSA has been ‘inadvertantly’ using banned cookies installed from their website. Choice quotes:

The National Security Agency’s Internet site has been placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules […]

Filed under: NSA Wiretaps, Z-TDB Blog
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After several days of being cut off from net access, I’m back to blogging. It’s time for some spygate myth debunkery- and a few more media reactions!
First the debunkery:
The Sentry News Digest debunks a DoJ memo released to defend the President’s warrantless spying program.
Coleen Rowley debunks the 9/11 would have been stopped argument which defends […]

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I’ve obtained limited net access sooner than I expected. I’ll be updating more regularly fairly soon.

Filed under: Site, Z-TDB Blog
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Bit of an update now. Posting schedule will be rather erratic until January 3rd or so- the first full day I’ll be back home. I don’t have an internet connection here persay, but there is a library that I may be able to post from. In the meantime, there might be a couple of posts […]

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Remember that nasty propaganda business a while back? In case you don’t, you could either click on the previous link- or read th next sentence. Good choice; the story was that the Pentagon was using our tax money (tens of millions of dollars, or more) to pay private right wing groups to pay off the […]

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Turns out there’s a few scraps left over from the NYC transit strike last week. At the time, I also blogged about Mayor Bloomberg, and called him a son of a bitch, for not supporting workers rights. A rich white man ruling over the most ethnically diverse city in the entire world. Today:

Four days after […]

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NYT is running a feature by James Bamford titled “The Agency That Could Be Big Brother”- reffering of course to the now household name- the NSA. A few choice quotes:

Originally created to spy on foreign adversaries, the N.S.A. was never supposed to be turned inward. Thirty years ago, Senator Frank Church, the Idaho Democrat who […]

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I mentioned the issue of minimum wage a few days ago, and apparently Dem leadership agrees that it’s an important issue:

New Year’s Day will bring the ninth straight year in which the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $5.15 an hour, marking the second-longest period that the nation has had a stagnant minimum wage […]

Filed under: oh six midterm Elections, Z-TDB Blog
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Boy, they sure do know how to run an interesting gubernatorial race down in Alabama.

A Republican incumbent who alienated his base with a proposal to raise taxes. A chief justice who lost his job over his Ten Commandments stand. A former governor under indictment. A lieutenant governor who helped her ex-husband run for governor.
AP has […]

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi court has ruled that some of the most prominent Sunni Muslims who were elected to parliament last week won’t be allowed to serve because officials suspect that they were high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
The ruling is likely to dampen Bush administration hopes that the election would bring more […]

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Recently (along with many other bloggers), I mused about the recent revelations that the President had met in person with NYT’s top editor and publisher in an effort to dissuade them from running the original NSA Wiretaps story. It turns out, this isn’t the only story- or the only paper that the President has asked […]

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I don’t personally celebrate Christmas myself, but for those of you that do, I thought I’d spread a little holiday cheer. Here’s a brief Christmas roundup.
Stephen Colbert tells you what you did wrong this Christmas (Quicktime Video)
Ed Kilgore has A True Christmas Wish
Sheldon Drobny brings us the Origins of Christmas
firedoglake has many thanks, this Chrismahkwanzakah
And […]

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As a consumer advocate, I know a Scrooge when I see a Scrooge. And MCI’s attitude towards its customers and shareholders is succinctly encapsulated by the oft-quoted words of Ebenezer Scrooge: “Bah, Humbug.”
You may think I am tendering the award retroactively for MCI’s role in perpetrating an $11 billion accounting fraud: the largest financial fraud […]

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AP has a story “Analysis: Rice Sees Political Star on Rise,” choice quotes:

Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice has become the most popular member of the Bush administration and a potential candidate to succeed her boss in the White House, even as Americans lose confidence in the president she serves and patience with the
Iraq war she […]

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Talked with an Iranian friend today. He was apparently interviewed by the ultra right-wing American Enterprise Institute think-tank, because of his past activities struggling against the Iranian government.
Although he certainly dislikes the people in charge over in Iran, he thinks the AEI guys are crazy. When he tried to explain to his AEI interviewer […]

Filed under: Iran Related, Z-TDB Blog
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