Fifty years ago there would have been an eager market for the music of Courtney Marie Andrews. I hope there is still a market for a song like "Not The End"
Sunday, February 15, 2015
This country has plenty of money. We are just not willing to use it for the proper things a civilized society needs. With a Congress that refuses to make corporations and the wealthy among us pay their fair share, we still seem to have plenty of money for unnecessary shit like this.
he Pentagon is poised to spend billions to build a new stealth bomber, a top secret project that could bring hundreds of jobs to the wind-swept desert communities in Los Angeles County's northern reaches.The $550M number is a pure joke. By the time the Air Farce & Congress get through with it, it will do a thousand things very poorly and cost at least the $2B suggested by Thomas Christie. Smart money says he one will require another $1B just to get off the ground. But there will never be a lack of money to pay for a plane that will serve no need in the current world. Just slash some more social safety net ot better yet, loot the Social Security Funds. Can't let little things like people get in the way of massive M-I-C profits.
Two teams of defense contractors are now battling to win what would be one of the most expensive contracts in Pentagon history. As the lobbying intensifies, the coming decision to pick a winner as soon as this spring has set off a debate over whether the new warplane is crucial to national security or a colossal budget-busting waste.
"You're talking about a $2-billion airplane by the time they build it," said Thomas Christie, who worked as a top analyst inside the Pentagon for more than three decades before retiring. "It's a disaster waiting to happen."
But Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last month, "I think the Long-Range Strike Bomber is absolutely essential to keep our deterrent edge."...
The decision is in the hands of the Air Force, which says it needs a heavy-payload-carrying bomber that is so stealthy it can evade the most sophisticated enemy radar.
Air Force officials have said the warplane would eventually be outfitted to carry nuclear weapons. They also want it to one day be capable of flying as a drone.
Other details are a closely guarded secret.
To stem criticism of the program's cost, military officials have vowed to limit the bomber's price to $550 million each. The Pentagon included $1.2 billion for the bomber in the public portion of this year's budget. The Air Force plans to award the contract for as many as 100 of the new planes as soon as late spring.
An Air Force spokesman and executives from the companies said they could say little because the bomber is part of the Pentagon's classified "black budget."
According to current law, any e-mails still hanging around after 180 days can be considered as "abandoned property" and may be taken and read by your friendly government without warrant. And just in case you do clean up after your self, this applies to any copy that may remain on another server o cloud that you don't control.
If you’ve been remiss in cleaning out your email in-box, here’s some incentive: The federal government can read any emails that are more than six months old without a warrant.Nice to see that the remedy has bi-partisan support, but it remains to be seen if it can get past the lawnorder caucus that sees no value in your rights when Uncle Fed is concerned.
Little known to most Americans, ambiguous language in a communications law passed in 1986 extends Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure only to electronic communications sent or received fewer than 180 days ago.
The language, known as the “180-day rule,” allows government officials to treat any emails, text messages or documents stored on remote servers – popularly known as the cloud – as “abandoned” and therefore accessible using administrative subpoena power, a tactic that critics say circumvents due process.
As you rush to purge your Gmail and Dropbox accounts, however, be forewarned that even deleted files still could be fair game as long as copies exist on a third-party server somewhere.
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 was written at a time when most people did not have email accounts, said Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder of Kansas, who is leading efforts in the House of Representatives to update the law.
“The government is essentially using an arcane loophole to breach the privacy rights of Americans,” Yoder said. “They couldn’t kick down your door and seize the documents on your desk, but they could send a request to Google and ask for all the documents that are in your Gmail account. And I don’t think Americans believe that the Constitution ends with the invention of the Internet.”
Bipartisan legislation introduced earlier this month by Yoder and Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, would require government agencies and law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause.
Agencies also would have to notify users within three business days of accessing their email or other digital communications, though law enforcement would have 10 days to provide notice. Courts could grant delays on the notification requirement to prevent the destruction of evidence or intimidation of witnesses, or in cases in which people’s safety was deemed to be at risk.
A similar bill was filed last week in the Senate by Republican Mike Lee of Utah and co-sponsored by Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
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