Messenger Puppet

(Half full.  Duh!)

AT&T whistleblower: I was forced to connect ‘big brother machine’

David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Wednesday November 7, 2007

A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom forwards virtually all of its Internet traffic into a “secret room” to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell’s 1984.

Appearing on MSNBC’s Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that a copy of all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company’s San Francisco office — to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access — via a cable splitting device.

“My job was to connect circuits into the splitter device which was hard-wired to the secret room,” said Klein. “And effectively, the splitter copied the entire data stream of those internet cables into the secret room — and we’re talking about phone conversations, email web browsing, everything that goes across the internet.”

I am so fucked.  Help me First Amendment, you’re my only hope.

Senate overrides Bush’s water bill veto

What does this mean? It means some aid actually comes to Katrina victims, 2 years later, DESPITE the administration. It means the senate learned that they don’t have to take it in the butt from this president when he stomps his feet whines like a little bitch about “war president” and “9/11.”

Funniest parts of the story:

• Bush spiked the measure Friday despite its overwhelming bipartisan support, calling it too costly…

Cost of the War in Iraq

$466,894,022,605

To see more details, click here.

• … and complaining that the 900 projects it authorized would overtax the Army Corps of Engineers

Gates: Army tours extended by three months
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Tours of duty for members of the U.S. Army will be extended from 12 months to 15 months effective immediately, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Wednesday.

Too bad the Senate’s stones do not extend to upholding the Constitution or sanity based foreign policy.

I want my Caddy back! Stupid little bitches

Where I saw one: 5 and Diner, down the street from Walnuts McCain’s HQ of political irrelevance.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Bloated plastic shitpiles are often quasi-magnetically drawn to one another.

Nostalgia factor: -3/10

Gold chains are in the glove box

Baseline: 0, since I never personally owned one. -1 for Monte Carlo-like front fenders, +1 for two, yes two, rubstrips on the bumpers, +1 for model year ‘78, since they had better taillights, -1 because the ones on the 77 sucked ass so bad they had to change. -1 because some dude named Arnie or something who lived on Winchell owned one.

Arnie was a megalomaniacal dick. I mowed his lawn. Once. It took three hours for a measly $5. Why did it take 3 hours? Trimming every shrubbery by hand, plus sweeping up the blades that fell out of the bag.

Then he fired me.

Dick.

I rode by on my bike with 8 a summer or two later, and yelled at his house, as the temple of unfair labor practices. Oops, he was GM middle management. Apparently there was some sensitivity. He chased me down in that POS in order to threaten to break my arm if I ever did that again. 8 still owes him an asskicking for that. Evidently, his GM career hit a ceiling, because he kept that car for 10 years.

-1 because Arnie thought owning a Cadillac de Ville made him cool, even though it had no options – not even a vinyl roof. -1 because in the 70s, a decent vinyl roof and some wire wheel covers and chrome were all that separated Lincolns and Cadillacs from LTDs and Caprices.