The Evening Blues - 10-10-24
Submitted by joe shikspack on Thu, 10/10/2024 - 3:12pm
Open Thread - Thurs 10 Oct 2024 - Frank Church
Submitted by Sima on Thu, 10/10/2024 - 5:00am
Frank Church
A book I'm reading (Battlefield America: The War on the American People, by John W. Whitehead, 2015 - here's a copy one can borrow on the internet archive library) has a short section with some alarming quotes by Senator Frank Church, which led me down a rabbit hole to discover who Frank Church was. I'm a bit too young (just barely) to know.
From the book:
Senator Frank Church (D-Ida.), who served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence that investigated the National Security Agency in the 1970s, understood only too well the dangers inherent in allowing the government to overstep its authority in the name of national security. Church recognized that such surveillance powers "at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left."
Noting that the NSA could enable a dictator "to impose total tyranny" upon an utterly defenseless American public, Church declared that he did not "want to see this country ever go across the bridge" of constitutional protection, congressional oversight and the necessity for privacy". He avowed that "we", implicating both Congress and its constituency in this duty, "must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Unfortunately, we have long since crossed over into that abyss, first under George W. Bush... and then under President Obama...
President Jimmy Carter and Senator Frank Church from the Encyclopedia Britannica
The Evening Blues - 10-9-24
Submitted by joe shikspack on Wed, 10/09/2024 - 3:44pm
Wednesday Mind Bender 10/9/24
Submitted by QMS on Wed, 10/09/2024 - 5:00am~
As above, so below; as below, so above.
~
The Evening Blues - 10-8-24
Submitted by joe shikspack on Tue, 10/08/2024 - 3:30pm
Double whammy
Submitted by earthling1 on Tue, 10/08/2024 - 10:04am
Six days and still no Tat for the Iranian Tit
Submitted by fire with fire on Mon, 10/07/2024 - 4:03pmOf course there could be a mushroom cloud over Tehran at any moment, but for right now it looks like my skepticism was justified:
It is 10:15am on the west coast and NBC and ABC are covering the escalation of violence between Israel and its enemies. In a titanic wave of irony, both networks are referring to Iran's "retaliatory" missile attack, even as they cheerlead for Israel and the Pentagon's defense against it.
The Evening Blues - 10-7-24
Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 10/07/2024 - 3:21pm
10/07 Open Thread - National Inner Beauty Day
Submitted by enhydra lutris on Mon, 10/07/2024 - 5:00am
~~ Huichol Reptile
The Weekly Watch
Submitted by Lookout on Sun, 10/06/2024 - 6:28am
On the Beach
For the last week we've been on the gulf coast to enjoy the beautiful beaches and to do a bit of birding. Last week was a bird banding to inventory the migration, and this weekend is a birding festival. I hope I'll return home with some great photos which I will share. In the meantime, I've reposted a visit to the to the Gulf from a few years ago in March.
We are attracted to the shore. Some say it hearkens back to the womb...our mother's heartbeat and sounds of amniotic fluid. One thing is for sure. We are loving our beaches to death...at least here on the Gulf Coast. Last week we made it to the river delta. Join me as we continue our journey along Alabama's small strip of beaches and into the wilds of the Mississippi coast.
