The GOP’s Hypocrisy On Obama’s Bin Laden ‘Victory’

Because, you know, Bush never would have done something similar….

FBI: We Need Wiretapping And We Need It Now

The Article: FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites – now by Declan McCullagh in CNET.

The Text: The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance.
In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.

The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

“If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,” an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI’s draft legislation told CNET. The requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users is exceeded, according to a second industry representative briefed on it.

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The Difference Between Cults And Religions

Are you sipping the Christian kool aid?

The Entrance Of Hollande In The Euro Crisis

The Article: Austerity and the euro crisis: Add Hollandaise sauce in the Economist.

The Text: TEN YEARS ago Romano Prodi, the-then president of the European Commission, created a stink when he declared that the euro zone’s budget rules were “stupid” because they were too rigid. But with the onset of the euro zone’s debt crisis in 2010 the response has been to try to make them even stiffer.

At Germany’s insistence, the euro zone first gave the commission more powers to monitor and enforce deficit limits, including the threat of “semi-automatic” sanctions for rule-breakers. And second, almost all members of the European Union were dragooned into signing up to the fiscal compact, a new treaty requiring then to adopt binding balanced-budget rules, preferably in their constitutions.

The election of a Socialist, François Hollande, as France’s new president, is causing a rethink in Brussels. There is certainly a change of rhetoric about a “growth compact”. But in substance, the change may be rather modest.

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Chris Rock On Beliefs

Who knew that the producer of Pootie Tang could be so…insightful?