BartBlog

A Chafed Texan in the Naked City

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts

Monday, June 16, 2008; Page C03

Washington is a town filled with boobs.

They’re everywhere, from the bare-breasted ladies who decorate the fountain at Dupont Circle to the peekaboo statue in the Justice Department‘s Great Hall to the countless nudes in our museums. But while those of us who live here hardly blink at the public nudity, it can shock some of our visitors. Such was the case for Robert Hurt, who last week tried to add the issue of artistic indecency in the nation’s capital to the platform of the Texas GOP.

“You don’t have nude art on your front porch,” the Dallas Morning News quoted the delegate as telling the platform committee at the state party convention. “So why is it important to have that in the common places of Washington, D.C.?”

Hurt, 54, a Kerrville, Tex., rancher and father of 14,

  (more…)

As you all know, I’ve been saying that the hybrid auto and the plug-in hybrid auto are the way to achieve energy independence.
Now, finally, eight years later and $4.50 per gallon for gas, people are waking up to this exciting answer. Please take the time and explore the website:

Rechargeit.org.

Grimmy

IT’S 3 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING JULY 5TH

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR PRETZELDENT IS?

Judge Rejects Bush’s View on Wiretaps

Thursday 03 July 2008

by: Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times

Washington – A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law. The judge, Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge for the Northern District of California, made his findings in a ruling on a lawsuit brought by an Oregon charity. The group says it has evidence of an illegal wiretap used against it by the National Security Agency under the secret surveillance program established by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

    The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a “state secret” and citing the president’s constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency’s program.

    But Judge Walker, who was appointed to the bench by former President George Bush, rejected those central claims in his 56-page ruling. He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court.

http://www.truthout.org/article/judge-rejects-bushs-view-wiretaps

Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Records
http://www.truthout.org/article/judge-orders-google-turn-over-youtube-records
Miguel Helft, of The New York Times: “A federal judge in New York has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom a database linking users of YouTube, the Web’s largest video site by far, with every clip they have watched there. The order raised concerns among users and privacy advocates that the online video viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. But Google and Viacom said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of YouTube viewers.”