Remember the sign?
Been reading any of the military bloggers from Iraq?
The way things are going over there, we just might need that sign again pretty soon.
And if the loyal opposition keeps up the pressure, it might even happen on Bush’s watch.
Anybody know where that sign is now?
Senate Dem leaders float plan for forced filibuster
Senate Democrats might force Republicans to wage a filibuster if the GOP wants to block the latest Iraq withdrawal bill, aides and senators said Tuesday.
That could set the stage for a dramatic end-of-the-year partisan showdown, which Democrats hope will help them turn voter frustration with Congress and the stalemate over Iraq into anger with the Republican Party.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), the number two Democrat in the chamber, said a forced filibuster is “possible” and would “generate attention.”
“We want to go to the bill, and [Republicans] have to decide initially whether they want us to go to the bill,” Durbin said. “I wouldn’t call it theatrics.”
More like Rube Goldberg, perhaps?
Read the rest -> here.
We’ve Won – Let’s Abandon Iraq according to Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette.
In sorting out the nuggets from the noise, it is often useful to seek out “first hand” observers, those who are not merely listening to the accounts of others.
Greyhawk is there.
Walk in his shoes for a bit.
Official: People should change their definition of privacy
If you grew up in a small town, you may be wondering what all the fuss over privacy is really about.
If you’re old enough to remember party line telephones, you might even wonder what the word means.
In those days, the term often referred to the privileged class, and others who were financially equipped to appear to be privileged.
Since then, the idea of privacy has blossomed into a full blown “God given” right. Some attribute that growth to the baby boomers, and some others to the anti-war fever of the 70′s.
And now, some years after 9/11, we’re still redefining it.
That’s the most important idea here: the definition of “Privacy” is changing, even as we talk about it.
And if the definition of “privacy” is indeed a work in progress, then we have to accept the notion that it may continue to change, especially as our enemies change.
As someone once put it, it is important not to blow a hole in the dike while arguing over whose finger should plug the leak.
Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, recently weighed in on this subject.
WASHINGTON (AP) – As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer could mean anonymity, said Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s information.
Kerr’s comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation reasonably was believed to be outside the U.S.
Read the rest -> here.
U.S. veterans point out a familiar name at the Vietnam War memorial following a Veterans Day ceremony, Nov. 11, 2006.
State Department faces Iraq call-up rebellion
The US State Department is facing an unprecedented rebellion by foreign service officers over a threat to force diplomats to accept postings in Iraq, the first large-scale “directed assignments” since the Vietnam War.
Tempers boiled over at an hour-long “town hall meeting” at the department last night, where several hundred diplomats vented their anger at the decision to approve the call-up and one veteran diplomat criticised it as a “potential death sentence”.
The United States is building its largest embassy anywhere on the banks of the Tigris but is still around 50 short of a target to fill 250 diplomatic posts in Iraq by next summer. It announced last Friday that it will require some diplomats – under threat of dismissal – to serve at the embassy in Baghdad or in reconstruction teams in outlying provinces.
Many at the meeting expressed serious misgivings about the ethics of sending diplomats against their will to work in a war zone, where the embassy staff is largely confined to the protected Green Zone – especially since the department is reviewing the use of private security guards.
Read more.
Three State Department employees have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003.
There’s a rumor around town that Congressman Henry Waxman, who has been investigating security arrangements in Iraq, might decide to lead the next group of replacements going out to Baghdad, as a show of congressional support for those who serve the nation at the front.
However, there’s no confirmation or formal announcement.
Most observers rate this one doubtful, at best.
This election campaign sometimes seems as if it has been going on for years.
That’s because it has. It started the day after the last one.
It isn’t clear whose idea it was to do that. Nobody around these parts remembers being asked.
So, why should the next campaign open up the day after this one ends?
We used to watch the polling results, and we still do. But now we also watch the money raising numbers, too.
There’s a whole industry out there, devoted to raising election money. It lives off the election process.
Poll takers find other things to do between elections. Maybe money raisers can too.
And meanwhile, maybe the Congress can take a short history course in how bipartisan legislation actually comes into being. Somebody around here must remember how to do it.
Maybe it works better when we are not in an “Election Season.”
Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday.
You pick up an extra hour of sleep as time falls back one hour.
It was Benjamin Franklin, while U.S. minister to France, who first suggested the idea in an essay titled “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.” The essay was first published in the Journal de Paris in April 1784. But the idea first got serious consideration when Englishman, William Willett, suggested it again in 1907.
Congress approved the change in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. It added a week onto daylight-saving time in the fall and three weeks in the spring. The intention was to save energy. Some reports estimated a savings of up to 100,000 barrels of oil each day.
Read more here.
On Saturday evening, check your clocks and timers.
On Sunday morning, be careful. Your body clock is still in a different time zone.
