Support the troops with censorship: military brass unplugs MySpace and YouTube

The military has taken another brilliant move in Iraq. From Wired:

"Fresh from its battle against blogs, the U.S. military now appears to be going after video and social networking sites (at least those it doesn't control). Effective Monday, U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be allowed access to websites like MySpace and YouTube using military networks, Stars and Stripes reports."

Wally Shirra, astronaut, dies at 84

From an article in the Guardian

``Mostly it's lousy out there,'' Schirra said in 1981 on the occasion of the first space shuttle flight. ``It's a hostile environment, and it's trying to kill you. The outside temperature goes from a minus 450 degrees to a plus 300 degrees. You sit in a flying Thermos bottle.'' . . . .

In one of his last interviews, last month with The Associated Press, Schirra said he was struck by the fragility of Earth and the absence of borders.

``I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth,'' he said.

Bush spying on the citizenry continues (without warrant)


From the New York Times story:

"Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants."

* * * * *
I suppose this is a policy that "conservatives" in the Republican party would endorse. But what in the world are they "conserving"? Certainly it can't be rights and liberties specified in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

America's Reichstag fire continues.