“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they’ve tried everything else.”

-Winston Churchill

Now we hear that we are in big trouble on the news. I have not heard any good reasons for a loan that is almost a Trillion dollars. This is so big it could literally bankrupt our government. If you think ’social’ programs have seen a bum rap under a Republican government, just wait til we are carrying that kind of debt.

It gives me pause that so many are rushing to support something that George Bush thinks needs to happen so quickly. We have seen examples of this and they have done nothing but bring us to disaster and strife. I have no confidence in him or the people he has chosen to actually identify a real crisis from a natural correction. The stock market it still over 10,000. I remember when it reached 10, 000. It was in the dotboom years. It hasn’t been that high for that long. Sure it fell today. It fell hard. But isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?

And this business about banks not loaning money. Isn’t that what banks do? Should we really let this threat be held over our head at the expense of so many other very important things? Is this really our biggest threat? And does it really need to take all of our resources?

I’m just asking people to think a little bit critically about this. Ask a question or two. I bet there are other options. I’m glad it didn’t pass today. I don’t think it should. The consequences of us taking it on scare me much more than what they say is going to happen. They don’t know what is going to happen. But we do know what will happen if they do it. We will not have money for anything else. Are we really willing to go all in for this?

I think this is a well formed work of journalism for the new century. It informs the public, it tells an amazing story and the part that really makes it a 21st century approach is providing a mechanism for survivors to add detail to the story. Everyone in MN and probably the country felt this tragedy in a visceral way. To provide an extension of the information and present it to the public as a work in progress is brave and valuable. This is a nice example of evolveing journalism for today — thanks Star Tribune.

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At a packed San Francisco hearing today, the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) defended your Fourth Amendment rights and
urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to let our class-action
lawsuit against AT&T go forward. The case demands that AT&T
stop illegally assisting the National Security Agency to snoop on
its customers’ telephone and Internet communications.

There’s much more at stake here than stopping the Bush
Administration’s illegal spying and holding the telco giant
accountable, though. The President is arguing that thin claims of
“state secrets” can trump the courts’ constitutional duty to
uphold the rule of law.

Without judicial review, there’s no way to protect ordinary citizens
against government abuses of power. No president, now or in the
future, should be allowed unfettered authority to evade the courts
and trample on your freedom. As Judge Vaughn Walker wrote in
rejecting the government’s claims at the lower court, “The compromise
between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing
this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent
enhancement of security.”

For the past 17 years, EFF has been proud to take on the hard cases to
ensure that your liberty is not sacrificed unnecessarily. Please support
us in this critical case by donating to EFF at http://secure.eff.org/att .
And please spread the word to your friends and family.

Join EFF today! http://secure.eff.org/att

For a News.com story from the hearing:
http://news.com.com/Appeals+court+may+let+NSA+lawsuits+proceed/2100-1028_3-6202865.html

For more about the case: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att

Tell Congress to stop the illegal spying: http://action.eff.org/fisa

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hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.