The man who exposed illegal wiretapping

He lost his job and is threatened with jail for exposing the government's illegal action, while those who worked with the government (phone companies) were given immunity.

A Whistleblowing Patriot | shadoweyes:

"Thomas Tamm is a similar patriot who deserves to be honored - and treated with as much respect as any other person who puts the welfare of the many above himself at great risk to himself. Newsweek ran 'The Whistleblower Who Exposed Warrantless Wiretaps.'

In the spring of 2004, Tamm had just finished a yearlong stint at a Justice Department unit handling wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies—a unit so sensitive that employees are required to put their hands through a biometric scanner to check their fingerprints upon entering. While there, Tamm stumbled upon the existence of a highly classified National Security Agency program that seemed to be eavesdropping on U.S. citizens. The unit had special rules that appeared to be hiding the NSA activities from a panel of federal judges who are required to approve such surveillance."

Palin, patriotism, and (payroll) taxes

Gov. Palin made a big stink in the VP debate about taxes and patriotism:

You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America...that’s not patriotic. 

I couldn't disagree more, and Thomas Friedman has a great column today explaining why paying taxes is in fact far more patriotic than anything else Gov. Palin has suggested we do:

Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan...

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first. (emphasis mine)

A lot of Republicans consider it a given that taxes must go down, and then spending.  But we've tried that for every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan, and each time it's simply led to deficits and massive increases in the national debt. 

This is the issue: we currently spend what Americans expect from their government, but we don't ask them to pay for it.  Cutting spending means cutting programs Americans want, from defense to health care. 

It's time to do like the American family does in a pinch - try to make more money - and raise taxes.  Because it is patriotic to earn your living.

A game simulation is lame, unless...

News folks have become obsessed with filling the news hole in the week prior to a major sporting event. In the digital age, this has led to the predictable simulation of the forthcoming match in the related EA sports program. For the Superbowl, Madden 2007 provides the reporter with too little real news to report a chance to create some.

The Chicago Tribune was the guilty party this time, sharing the results of their one simulation (which would never show up as statistically significant in any mathematician's book). However, while alienating most intelligent readers with this inane exercise, the reporter did have a nice tagline on how the Bears could "overcome" the video game's result:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A

Nice.