Monthly Archives: September 2010
Don’t Let the Back Door Hit You
The FBI wants a “backdoor” to the web.
Since 9/11 the government has relied on phone wiretaps for national national security purposes. That practice, under the Bush administration, created an uproar (here’s a 2007 James Risen NYT story). With more sensitive information being encrypted on the web, the current administration wants to require that all internet communication be wire-tap friendly.
Apparently this would be a step backward, requiring an internet retrofit. Here’s Jack X. Dempsey, V.P. of an outfit called the Center for Democracy and Technology, in Monday’s New York Times:
“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”
Valerie Caproni of the FBI claims the government is just trying to preserve authority it already has.
“We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”
Wouldn’t be the first enterprise seeking special favors to avoid being bypassed by technology.
Winning Issue
Bill Clinton “admitted he made the wrong prediction about the popularity of the health care bill”. Maybe he’s wrong again. According to Monday’s Rasmussen Poll 57% of likely voters favor its repeal. Last week that number was 61%.
Update 9/30: Rove column in today’s WSJ has Obama healthcare quote from March, “I am actually confident … that it will end up being the right thing do do politically…” Not surprisingly, Rove disagrees, predicting the “defeat of his party over his signature domestic achievement”.
Down in Pagan Polls
Who among us, in our carefree youth, has not had a date on a satanic alter? Here’s Bill Maher apologizing to Christine O’Donnell for making her life a “living hell”. This has not played well in the Witch community. They are offended that Americans think all Wiccans are Satanists. Click here for the “Witch’s Voice” in the Huffington Post.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for the neopagan network “The Witches’ Voice” who goes by the name “Diotima Mantineia” reached out to the Huffington Post to offer further condemnation of O’Donnell’s initial witchcraft remarks. Making the point that there is a “very large pagan community in Delaware,” Mantineia called the Delaware Republican’s conflation of witchcraft and Satanism “disappointing.”
I really have to question what she is talking about because witchcraft and Satanism are two different things… witches or Wiccans do not believe in Satan. We don’t even believe that Satan exists. Satan is a Christian deity of some kind. He is part of the Christian religion not ours. We worship nature; we work very closely with nature. We do not have blood on our altar and we have little to do with Satan. So I don’t know what Ms. O’Donnell is talking about. I wonder if she knows what she was talking about.
Nicholas Kristof apology to follow.
Watch What You Say
Health insurers are raising their prices in part due to new demands of ObamaCare. Kathleen Sebelius has threatened them by saying the administration will have zero tolerance for insurance companies that blame rate hikes on the new health order. She hinted that she would put them out of business. Previously the administration has asked citizens to report to a government web site when they hear something “fishy” on the internet. Michael Barone calls this Gangster Governmemt.
Has Tea Party Gone Overboard?
Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell upset Republican establishment fave Mike Castle in the Delaware U.S. Senate primary. The Tea Party says it’s about more than winning elections. Establishment GOP bigwig, Karl Rove, says that’s a good thing because they just blew their chance of taking the Senate in November. Here’s Karen Tumulty’s story in the Washington Post.
Here’s Rich Lowry calling the Tea Party as much a revolt against the GOP establishment, that blew it last time they had power, as it is against Dem policy.
And here’s Krauthammer channeling William F. Buckley on behalf of the establishment.
