ubernoir wrote:
I don't support him but he has once again proved himself an American hero. Late in the day and imperfect but he took a stand.

Lets just be clear here. He did not do this just to be honorable. There have been a number of concerns raised in numerous quarters over the past few days that the attempts to link Obama with Ayers, and therefore domestic terrorism, might increase the chance that some crazy right winger might try to kill him. Given the breadth of the calls for McCain to tone it down it is almost certain that this was a capitulation to concerns that their campaign has gone too far.

Consider this:

These men didn't kill Martin Luther King, but they contributed to an atmosphere of nationalism, white supremacy and cheap unreflective patriotism that ultimately got a lot of people killed.

Let me be clear--This is the ghost that McCain Campaign is summoning. This is the Ring Of Power that they want to wield. The Muslim charge, the "Hussein" thing is nothing more than today's red-baiting, and it is what it was then--a cover for racists. You may say I'm overreacting, and I really hope you're right. 999,000 out 1 million times we'll go on like normal and proceed to Election Day. But if some shit pops off, the thug and thug-mongers will not be able to throw up their hands and say "How could I have known?" Ignorance will not save them. Their stupidity is a scourge on us all.

RE: BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US Elections 2008 | McCain defends rival Obama

More than five years ago, in April 2003, the attorneys general of two small states traveled to Washington with a stern warning for the nation's top bank regulator. Sitting in the spacious Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with its panoramic view of the capital, the AGs from North Carolina and Iowa said lenders were pushing increasingly risky mortgages. Their host, John D. Hawke Jr., expressed skepticism.

Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Tom Miller of Iowa headed a committee of state officials concerned about new forms of "predatory" lending. They urged Hawke to give states more latitude to limit exorbitant interest rates and fine-print fees. "People out there are struggling with oppressive loans," Cooper recalls saying.

They Warned Us About the Mortgage Crisis - BusinessWeek

I get a lot of political mailings from my Georgia House representative, Jill Chambers. Thus far, they have painted a pretty decent picture of her. She is a fiscal conservative. She genuinely seems to want to keep my taxes low. Some of the mailings are fairly technically detailed in terms of budget and policy issues. She doesn't insult my intelligence.

At least, not until today.

Today, I received a mailing from her with a supposedly drunken picture from her opponent's MySpace page, some off color sarcastic quote from him about drinking, and a mention of his blog (chrisishardcore) with the implication that it is some sort of porn site or place he picks up women online.

Look, Jill, I HAVE A MYSPACE PAGE. When you drag your opponent's personal Internet presence into the campaign in an obviously dishonest manner, you're not just attacking your opponent. You're attacking every voter in your district who uses the Internet for fun, labeling us all as unelectable because we might have said something somewhere online that wasn't polished or intended for a campaign.

That is insulting, and its wrong. Jill, before I received this mailing I had no idea who your opponent was and I had a least a decent impression of you. Now, there is no way I'd vote for you. Not a chance.

In the age of blogs and social networking sites there is a need for campaigns to draw a line between people's personal and professional internet presence, and focus on the issues, unless there is a real, substantive question of character.

These mailings crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed.

Jill Chambers, my Republican opponent in my current campaign for state House, decided to send a mail piece clearly intending to make this blog appear somehow sinister or otherwise inappropriate. I’m now bringing it back so the voters of the 81st District can judge it for themselves. Take a look around. Although many of the entries are a bit out-of-date, I hope you find at least some of them informative and/or entertaining.

As for the picture of me on Ms. Chambers’s mail piece, that was taken and posted by my younger brother when I was around 20 years old. Despite her allegation that I was “drunk,” I can assure you that is not the case. I personally believe the fact that Ms. Chambers would use a picture posted on the Internet several years ago as proof that I “post pictures of myself drunk” says a lot about her character, or lack thereof.

chrisishardcore.com: An Important Message from Chris Huttman

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.

Holy fuck! This will have huge repercussions. Unfortunately, the people who blew the whistle on this are going to be hit the hardest, but it wasn't just people acting on their own accord. They were ordered to spy on people who posed no threat.

"They were identified in our systems as 'belongs to the International Red Cross' and all these other organizations. And yet, instead of blocking these phone numbers we continued to collect on them," she told ABC News.

AFAIK, this isn't illegal, or at least it wasn't until the passage of the PAA, but it certainly puts to rest a number of questions. Americans who have nothing to do with terrorism or international espionage are targeted by the NSA for surveillance!

Why?!

ABC News: Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans

:)

YouTube - Your investment goals

VeriSign, often criticized for trying to exercise too much control over the net, counter-proposes that its role be enlarged. Under its proposal (.pdf), the root zone file will be signed using keys it distributes to the root server operators and if enough of them sign the file, then it is considered official.

For some reason Verisign thinks they should be able to sign the root keys instead of ICANN. I can see absolutely no reason why that would be a good idea.

Verisign and DNS Sec

bucy wrote:

Decius wrote:
When is Google Finance going to flip their favico?

Would the new icon be:
a. A graph trending down
b. A stock broker jumping through a 50th story window
c. A mob of congressional committee members lynching Richard Fuld
??

That would be door number C.

RE: Question of the Day

Best slip ever!

Talking Points Memo | Losing It?

We conducted a soft survey at last week's Atlanta Angel Lounge meeting. As you review the results, you should keep in mind that this crisis is new and unsettled. In fact, since our last meeting the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped over 1,400 points. So this data, although only a week old, may be outdated.

Here is what we learned from a gathering of 25 Atlanta angel investors:

* The professional angels with a sizable wealth base said, 'it will be business as usual.'
* There was agreement that with AAA rated companies like GE paying 10% with warrants for long-term money, valuations for early stage companies will be lower. The risk/return ratio is shifting with the market.
* Many angels are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what their liquidity will be when the markets get back to some rhythm, good or bad.
* Deals will be more closely scrutinized and therefore more time will be needed to raise money.

I've been worried about this. It appears the crisis will impact startups negatively, but it doesn't sound like the market has been wiped out... yet...

Charlie Paparelli - Angel Investments in the Downturn

Fukuyama does an excellent job of looking past the present crisis and into next era of American history.

The unedifying response to the Wall Street crisis shows that the biggest change we need to make is in our politics. The Reagan revolution broke the 50-year dominance of liberals and Democrats in American politics and opened up room for different approaches to the problems of the time. But as the years have passed, what were once fresh ideas have hardened into hoary dogmas. The quality of political debate has been coarsened by partisans who question not just the ideas but the motives of their opponents. All this makes it harder to adjust to the new and difficult reality we face. So the ultimate test for the American model will be its capacity to reinvent itself once again.

I think we're good at that.

The Fall of America, Inc.