Tuesday's Quickie or "How the world changed in 5 days"

Well, didn't blog for a full 5 days, wow, i'm suprised even for me. Much of the reason is that i have been on my desktop getting it up to snuff and also playing a bunch of games. No, thats not fair, mostly its been pretty much guild wars. Anyway, looks like a bunch of stuff happened so here is what we got going on:

Lets start with the big one: The cartoons! I mean really...WTF! This whole issue drives me up a freaking wall. If you don't know what the deal on this is yet, some cartoonist in Denmark made, you guessed it - cartoons, and they depicted the prophet Mohammod in, shall we say, a less than favorable light. Yep, thats it. They are pictures of the prophet with a turbine that is made to look like a bomb etc. Seems perfectly reasonable for rioting and attacking embassies of Denmark right? What a fucking joke. Only Arab Islam. I was offended by having paintings of the Virgin Mary covered in shit, and that was even subsidized art in an art gallery, but no one rioted over that. You had a few crazies i am sure that did retarded shit, but i am pretty sure (no make that definite) that there wasn't any condemnation from, well, any government or mass organization. No one called for booycotts of goods, or attacked people, riots, embassy attack etc. This is fucking ridiculous in my mind. Freedom of speech is one of the paramount issues in this country. That works both ways. You can say what you want, and i can call you a fucking moron for saying it. I can be highly offended by what you say, but you should still be able to say what you like. Now that doesn't apply to having you say whatever you want enabled by me, but if you use your resources, you can use them to put forth whatever point you want. Kent, wrong as he often is in my mind, should be able to say whatever he wants, and if i don't want to put it on my site, he can post his own blog. Its freaking ridiculous that I, or anyone else, should have to respect the laws of Islam regarding showing pictures of the prophet.

The next major issue, Congress is still talking about the NSA 'wiretaps'. OOOOOOOOO fun. Newest development is the questioning of Sen Durbin by Paul Meringoff. Don't know if you know, but he is one of the primaries for Powerline. But forget about who asked the question, the important thing is what he asked. As everyone who understands the FISA court and the laws behind it knows, FISA contains an exception that says if Congress authorizes it by another means, you can bypass the FISA court. No one argues this, on either side of the issue because its black and white. The question asked to Sen Durbin was

"Why, if the Democrats disagree with the administration's understanding of what AUMF authorizes, they don't present clarifying legislation telling the administration that its interpretation is incorrect. This would enable the Senate to vote on whether it thinks listening to calls from al Qaeda to the U.S. is a necessary and proper measure to prevent another attack."

Durbin didn't answer the question, at all and said that is just now how things work as well as asked who Paul was working for. The AP noted him as being clearly flustered. Its just funny to me that this option would clearly get to the heart of the problem instead of just being an issue to bitch at.

From his own website, this is text of a letter from Sen McCain

Dear Senator Obama:

I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership’s preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions.

Thats gotta leave a mark.