"If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend - all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database." "

I haven't bothered posting about this over the last few days, since I figured this is what the American people want.  After all, one of the major reasons for getting all those republicans in place was to get this bill passed.  Who cares if we lose our essential freedoms and liberties, as long as the bad men don't hurt us anymore.  Who cares that the agency behind these actions has a creepy Illuminati-style logo.  The only people really complaining anyhow are a bunch of America-hating lefties, right? 

But, now that the right, in the personage of William Safire, is writing about it, I figure maybe some folks might not be interested in giving up all their privacy in the name of safety after all. 

It'll still pass.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

[via DrudgeReport]

"Today's protests followed similar demonstrations on Monday at Modaress Training University in the central part of the city. More than a thousand students carried a portrait of Mr. Aghajari as they marched and chanted demands for the resignation of Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the hard-liner chief of the Iranian judiciary. The students also called for the resignation of President Mohammad Khatami, the leader of Iran's reform movement, in a sign of frustration with the continuous setbacks for reform.

Mr. Aghajari was sentenced to death last week in a closed-door trial in Hamedan on charges that he had insulted the Prophet Muhammad. The charges stemmed from a speech he made in August in which he called on people to not follow religious leaders blindly."

Things are getting tense in Iran.  Even elements of the government are speaking out against the decision by the hardline forces behind the scenes, who have their own thoughts on the dissent.  What effect would a US attack on Iraq have on possible movement towards real democracy?

[via DrudgeReport]

"The words sounded like those of some environmentalist promising a pie-in-the-sky solution to pollution. But the pitch to auto executives — to imagine a world running on hydrogen and fuel cells — was made by none other than Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham as he presented the Bush administration’s “roadmap” to an energy revolution."

The roadmap is available here.  Is this a real effort, an attempt to push back the inevitable, or just to buy time for the energy industry to seize solid control over the hydrogen market ;)

Which Founding Father Are You?

I'm not sure I agree with this assessment, but I took the quiz twice and it gave me the same answer.

[via The One True B!x]

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