LIBERTY: Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/06/librarians-desc.html

Librarians Describe Life Under An FBI Gag Order
By Luke O’Brien EmailJune 24, 2007 | 2:22:57 PM

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Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun. Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order. It sounded like a spy movie or, gulp, something that happens under a repressive foreign government. Peter Chase and Barbara Bailey, librarians in Plainville, Connecticut, received an NSL to turn over computer records in their library on July 13, 2005. Unlike a suspected thousands of other people around the country, Chase, Bailey and two of their colleagues stood up to the Man and refused to comply, convinced that the feds had no right to intrude on anyone’s privacy without a court order (NSLs don’t require a judge’s approval). That’s when things turned ugly.

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America is supposed to be a free speech zone!

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TEST: jobster

Saturday, July 7, 2007

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INTERESTING: with the last war’s tactics

Saturday, July 7, 2007

http://www.sandersresearch.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=1274

http://tinyurl.com/35zneb

An Insurgency is Not a War
By Carlton Meyer
Jul/05/2007

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The U.S. Army failed in Vietnam, but didn’t learn much as an institution as blame was shifted to the media and protesters for ending the war too soon. This tactic of blaming the messenger continues today. Millions of Americans have embraced the mindless pursuit of winning in Iraq at any cost, with no clear idea of what they want to win. If U.S. troops in Iraq were offered the chance to fly home tomorrow, over 90% would go home. They have no desire to leave their children fatherless for “democracy in Iraq ” or whatever the current justification for their unwanted presence. Therefore, Americans who truly “support the troops,” want to bring them home now.

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This is an interesting critique. The Dead Old White Guys didn’t want a standing army. Maybe they were on to something. We see that the “generals” always fight the next war with the last war’s tactics. In this case, they haven’t learned about Fourth and Fifth Generation Warfare. (Fourth Generation is a war with insurgents. Fifth is a war with your own people; that is civil insurrection.) An awful lot of people are getting killed in this blunder.

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INTERESTING: A peek behind the “entertainment” curtain

Saturday, July 7, 2007

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/
news/e3icec89c18d5ef8ec58165dfae65c9791c

http://tinyurl.com/2bse7c

ESPN shut out of All-Star Game
By Paul J. Gough
July 7, 2007

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NEW YORK — Major League Baseball has limited ESPN’s access to Tuesday night’s All-Star Game after the network broke an embargo and broadcast news of the players’ selections a few minutes after an exclusive, rain-delayed telecast on TBS.

Baseball executives told ESPN that it must pare its broadcast efforts from AT&T Park in San Francisco, where the All-Star Game is being held. So, most coverage will be done out of ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., rather than having “Baseball Tonight” and a portion of “SportsCenter” originate from California as planned.

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This brings up some interesting questions about what we are being spoon fed on the “telly” as “news”.

* Information emargos present an interesting concept. If it is “news”, then does any one every have a right to preclude it being published?

* If it’s “entertainment”, then who cares? But, I’m sure these organizations would like to pretend it’s “news”. “News” people will care about; “entertainment” gets filed behind “Paris Hilton”.

* Orchestration of content into discrete “packages”, like the “home run hitting derby”, are manufactured. That doesn’t make them bad. Just “entertainment”, as opposed to something meaningful.

Since ESPN was acquired by Disney, they have been trying to boost their ratings (I assume) by putting more “soap operas” on. I again assume to attract the fairer sex. But they are missing the essential point. Why is an athletic struggle interesting? We like to see “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”. It takes us out of every day struggle, distills it to simple terms, and allows us to to be motivated by it. Why are quiz shows fun? Same reason.

The essence of hairless smell apes is that alone we are weak; in concert, we can accomplish wondrous things. Contests are how we test our limits with a minimum of muss ‘n’ fuss. Some Brit said that the “The victory at Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eaton.” Sports relates to life. It’s a shame that MLB, ESPN, FOX, and all these others have forgotten why sports are appealing. If they’d remember the original reason, they would have to make up “events”, manage the “news”, and get peevish when they are exposed as frauds.

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