This FISA issue is something that I've been following for a year now closely and for the most part its been my highest concern.  Its been the issue I've been advocating personally for with my friends and family and people who I work with.  Whenever the house was cooking up another bill with retroactive immunity and reverse targeting, there I was, sending out emails; calling my congress-critters and donating money to the ACLU.

Why?

In my view, its the most important issue of this political cycle.  Whoever gains the ability that this president wants in wiretapping would certainly gain power that is quite new to government because of the state of technology today.

We often think of pain as something that is only a negative experience.  However, generally speaking, pain is a message sent that often has a useful purpose and that often gets attention because it speaks loudly to those who feel it.

Personally, I like this part in the wikipedia definition:

As a part of the body's defense system, pain triggers mental and physical behavior that seek to end the painful experience. It is also a feedback system that promotes learning, making repetition of the painful situation less likely.

I don't think Congress feels any pain right now.  In other words, our voices don't trigger the message to our governmental nervous system.

Since Congress seems to be numb to American's voices, as myself and all of you have undoubtedly called and complained until your voices went hoarse and written countless letters...I think we should try an avenue that might still be connected to a few raw nerve endings: Money.

I was visiting the yahoo news pages which I generally like and yahoo users seem to rate the articles well.  However, it seems like the photos of the disingenious Iraq PR campaign have been rated up.  I've rated them down.  Help a brother out by logging in and rating them down to 1 star!  Click through the slide show...there's a few to do!

Here is another set There are some other places to visit after the jump!

This country's government has demanded no less than civil liberty squelching procedures and laws like the patriot act; ignoring existing laws like FISA in order to implement spying on Americans; and ignoring Congress when they protest and ask for an inquiry (well...not so much).

Now that they have this full-spectrum dominance on the home front with their wanton no-holds-barred domestic spying and data mining, are we safer?  

Nope.

Excerpt after the jump.

You might feel frustrated out there since you are probably jaded because you attend protests and vote; generally doing your civic duty.  We all know that one person chaining themselves to an office desk downtown won't do anything in the grand scheme of things.  Its really the additive force of the people that gets things done.  I've always said: "If everybody stands up now, this all goes away".  

The link is here.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Election Commission decided Monday to exempt virtually all political activity on the Internet from the nation's new campaign finance law.

In a 6-0 vote, the commission decided to regulate only paid political ads placed on another person's Web site.

The decision means that bloggers and online publications will not be covered by provisions of the new election law. Internet bloggers and individuals will therefore be able to use the Internet to attack or support federal candidates without running afoul of campaign spending limits.

Link to photo warning disturbing.

If there's any doubt in your mind that this isn't the party of death.  Love the fetus but hate the child.

The U.S. military acknowledged the raid and said it caught one insurgent. It took place near Balad, about 50 miles north of the capital. But the military said only four people were killed -- a man, two women and a child.

(CBS/AP) Guards at a juvenile-detention boot camp kneed and struck a teenager who had apparently gone limp while being restrained the day before he died, a videotape released Friday showed.

The scenes from the tape outraged the parents of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson. His mother said it proved the guards killed her son, despite a medical examiner's ruling that Anderson died from internal bleeding unrelated to the confrontation.

Its this kind of consequence that inevitably happens when a society drops its ability to empathize.  

I was rummaging through some clips I had from around 2003 and found some goodies off CNN.  
I case anybody is not clear on why this war happened, then think of the vice-grip the Democrats were in only after the population was scared.

This time on Google.  
The MSNBC article that is being currently framed in a way as to make Google 'evil' is here

Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

This kinda forces them to go on the defensive.  Nevermind that China holds the note on our debt for the war which is an unforgivable sin in my book.

The badly frame poll is here as well.

We've been dealing with language for some time on this site.
However, I thought it would be helpful to put it in a different view so we could all look at it from above.  We need to think about what happens to us when we get into a debate with others.  We also need to recognize when there is a verbal attack or the debate has been derailed by the other participant.

On the flipside I will go through a few that I have noticed in the past few years...