Quantum Spin

Well, due to some spammer having found this obscure blog, I have been forced to refuse Anonymous posts. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause for legitimate posters, but since I am unable to send feedback to the offending servers causing them to explode and burst into flames - well, I do what I can. Thank you to all my sincere commentators and may the spammers rot in digital agony.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The System Works

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2 Patriot Act Provisions Ruled Unlawful

Sep 26 07:17 PM US/Eastern

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."
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Of course, sometimes, the system fails, as in Kelo v. New London - or, Dred Scott. But, that doesn't make notice of successes any less important.

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Flippity-Floppity

Past - We can do it!

Present - No, we can't!

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Hillary flip-flops, contradicts Bill - & herself - in N.H. debate

BY IAN BISHOP and MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, September 27th 2007, 1:58 AM

HANOVER, N.H. - Sen. Hillary Clinton scored with a Democratic audience last night by contradicting her husband's belief that a terrorist could be tortured to foil an imminent plot - but what observers didn't know is she was contradicting herself, too.

"It cannot be American policy, period," Clinton (D-N.Y.) told debate moderator Tim Russert, who asked if there should be a presidential exemption to allow the torture of a terror chieftain if authorities knew a bomb was about to go off, but didn't know where it was.

When Russert revealed ex-President Bill Clinton advocated such a policy on a recent NBC "Meet the Press" appearance, Hillary Clinton won huge applause from the Dartmouth College audience with a deadpan comeback:

"Well, I'll talk to him later."

She may have to give herself that talk, too.

Last October, Clinton told the Daily News: "If we're going to be preparing for the kind of improbable but possible eventuality, then it has to be done within the rule of law."

She said then the "ticking time bomb" scenario represents a narrow exception to her opposition to torture as morally wrong, ineffective and dangerous to American soldiers.

"In the event we were ever confronted with having to interrogate a detainee with knowledge of an imminent threat to millions of Americans, then the decision to depart from standard international practices must be made by the President, and the President must be held accountable," she said.
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So, Hill, which is it? Torture, Yea or Nay?

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How To Lose A Majority

In one easy step...

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Plan Uses Taxes to Fight Climate Change

By H. JOSEF HEBERT
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 26, 2007; 7:34 PM

WASHINGTON -- Dealing with global warming will be painful, says one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. To back up his claim he is proposing a recipe many people won't like -- a 50-cent gasoline tax, a carbon tax and scaling back tax breaks for some home owners.

"I'm trying to have everybody understand that this is going to cost and that it's going to have a measure of pain that you're not going to like," Rep. John Dingell, who is marking his 52nd year in Congress, said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.
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Voters don't tend to vote for those who do what they don't like. Republicans found that out in 2006 and the dems don't seem to have been paying attention.

Not Dingell, anyway.

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The Backpedaling Begins

Looks like Bush won't be the only president - actual or potential - keeping the troops in Iraq;

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Dems Can't Make Guarantee on Iraq Troops

Sep 27, 6:26 AM (ET)
By BETH FOUHY

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) - The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
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I wonder how MoveOn will bastardize their names?

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