Especially telling about Greenwald's post is how his last paragraph makes the bizarre claim that the telcos would cooperate where necessary because they are legally required "to cooperate with legal surveillance."

The "legal requests" that Glenn is referring to need to be submitted to the FISA court. This is spelled out clearly in the FISA law (and updated by the Protect America Act). As long as the conditions, defined by law, are followed, the telcos are required to cooperate.

So what's so "bizarre" about Glenn's claim?

That you would write this indicates that you aren't too familiar with the specifics of the warrantless wiretapping issue.

I suspect the reason you think I'm a troll is because you think I'm having fun with the assembled haters here.

Yeah, that's trolling. It's annoying.

... it doesn't take too long to read them if you just skip over those from our resident trolls (who are so bad that I almost -- almost -- miss Bart) and their responses.

Since the usual admonition of "just ignore them" obviously doesn't work, here's my new suggestion:

Just let Arne handle the trolls!

His responses are the only ones worth reading, IMHO. He simultaneously reveals the stupidity of their arguments while ridiculing entertainingly. He obviously has a lot of practice at this ;)

A distorted reality
Is now a necessity
To be free.

It's so disappointing.
At first I put it all down to luck.
God knows why
My country don't give a fuck.

Fuck.

While I'm handing out links, check out the "Habeas Schmabeas" episode of NPR's This American Life. This one has been mentioned before (by others), but it's worth repeating. The first-hand accounts of experiences in Guantanamo Bay are so horrific and gut-wrenching that I was filled with a deep feeling of shame and sadness.

http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/special/310_bonus.mp3

Note: There's a more recent "updated" version that isn't freely downloadable: http://thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=331

Judy last night I watched The Cats of Mirikitani a moving documentary on PBS's Independent Lens. It's about Jimmy Mirikitani, a Japanese-American artist (born in Sacramento and raised in Japan) whose life was torn asunder when his family was interned during World War II. In 2001 he is homeless and bitter, living on the streets of New York City doing nothing but creating art -- much of it "internment art" about his three-and-half years in the wretched internment camps. After the 9/11 attacks, a stranger takes him into his home and a new journey begins ...

Highly recommended! Besides being a wonderful personal tale, it shows how the mentality behind the MCA has destroyed people, families, and lives.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/catsofmirikitani/

jojo++:

The difference that started in the 20th century was the recognition (nay, proof) that no logical systems are complete.

L.W.M.:

Jojo should be invoking Kurt Gödel about now...

jojo++:

I have resisted today. Thank you for doing it for me.

Umm, I'm not so sure you resisted ...

What's so frustratingly ironic is how tenaciously the Administration clings to its claims of privacy for the Executive Branch. Of course they frequently make "national security" arguments -- some bogus, some less so. But they also do this out of "principle" -- separation of powers and Executive Privilege.

Once again the Bush Administration and their enablers have it backwards. Citizens' private lives should remain private, and the machinations driving public policy should be public.

*sigh* Shooter is a common troll, whose primary purpose (like all trolls) is to disrupt the normal flow of conversation. I could understand, perhaps, why a newcomer who doesn't typically read the comments section would address him.

But I don't get why the regulars do that. You're just giving him exactly what he wants.

mjfgates wrote:

I was just trolling on Redstate.com... the stupid, it burns!... anyway, in the midst of a thread on how awful it is that people are demanding the e-mails of White House staffers!, a commenter links back to this blog post, and is immediately called to task for linking to a "hate site."

Somebody more verbally agile than I am, please make whatever joke is appropriate here. I can't manage anything better than Fishie Mouth.

I admit I don't "get" the impulse to troll any site, be it Glenn's fine blog or the garbage-spewing Redstate.com. (I see trolling as the online equivalent of vandalism.) But I think the fact that they would label Glenn's as a "hate site" demonstrates that they are the authoritarian double-highs -- dead-enders in the 25% who will support Bush regardless.

They think they are "normal," and thus attribute their own motivations to others. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with them (regardless of the merits of any given argument) must be driven by "hate," just as they are.

Arne wrote:

echo "<CTL-V>" | wc -w

Sorry to pick nits, but this will almost certainly fail due to quotation marks (and other "special" characters that musts be "escaped") contained in the article. Might I suggest an alternative:

wc -w<ENTER><CTRL-V><CTRL-D>

(Note: This is for Unix/Linux systems, or Windows/Mac systems with a Unix compatibility layer such as Cygwin.)

No worries, escaping bugs are one of the most common errors out there. For example, both Salon.com and Blogger.com have a bug which will screw up your comment, by unescaping HTML entitities such as &amp; when you preview your post! (The solution is to copy, preview, paste, and then post.)

And they are the underlying source of the so-called "Cross-Site Scripting" security holes. Even languages like C and C++ are vulnerable (through the printf family of routines).