TampaYankee

I'm with you on this. Voter ID is proper as long as it does nothing to impede the voting of those entitled by citizenship to vote. That is the reason for voter registration. You prove citizenship and register to vote. One size of proof does not fit all. It depends on individual circumstances. In similar circumstances my grandparents needed proof of birth for collection of social security benefits. Neither had birth certificates being born before those records were required by law. Neither was born in a hospital, rather at home. They were born and died in the same county. The SS Admin determined that sworn affidavits by neighbors as well as ancillary documentation like a marriage license established a historical record. THe SS worked to find a way to help them establish a legitimate claim rather than erecting rigid procedures that were actually obstacles making a legitimate claim. Few of these present day voter ID procedures seem to lean towards facilitation of legitimate voter participation, and look more like procedures to erect obstacles to legitimate voter participation. Anyone who sincerely favors the broadest possible legitimate voter participation would see that. The same holds for early voting, Sunday voting, voting by mail, etc.

I'm with you on this. I believe that electronic voting devices ought to be limited to scanning machine-readable hand-marked ballots. You know, color in the oval. This provides a hard copy record of the hand marked ballot. Also, the ballots should be scnanned in 'lots' of a size practical to count manually, say 5000 ballot lots. Each lot recorded and bound separately. As part of the count process a handful of these lots should be selected at random and hand counted for comparison with the machine totals. That would guarantee the accuracy and validity of the process and reduce the temptation to influence the results.

Didn't you mean Lastly, head to NYC and take your groom on top of the Empire State Building!

That is one booty I certainly can get behind.

In loin cloth. (Use your imagination a bit.)

David Cameron, UK Government Under Fire For Aggressive Intervention In The Guardian's Reporting The Huffington Post | By Jack Mirkinson The political row over the British government's aggressive intervention into the Guardian's national security reporting continued on Wednesday, as it was revealed that Prime Minister David Cameron dispatched his top civil servant to demand that the paper hand over the sensitive files it had acquired from NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Moreover, one of the people responsible for the anti-terrorism law used to detain Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner said the government had abused the statute. Multiple outlets reported that Sir Jeremy Heywood had been tasked with pressuring the Guardian to either hand over the documents or destroy them if it did not want to face legal action. "The prime minister asked [Heywood] to deal with this matter, that's true," a sourcetold Reuters. The Guardian wound up destroying several hard drives in the presence of several members of Britain's security services, even though, as the paper's editor Alan Rusbridger pointed out, copies of the same files still exist elsewhere. The Committee to Protect Journalists waded into the controversy in a statement, calling the destruction of the hard drives, and the detention of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda, part of a "disturbing record of official harassment of the Guardian over its coverage of the Snowden leaks." The government also came under increased pressure over Miranda's detention, which took place under the auspices of the Terrorism Act. Miranda is set to take legal actionagainst the government over the detention, which his lawyers have called "unlawful." Miranda got a boost on Wednesday when Lord Falconer, who served as a top legal official during Tony Blair's government and helped bring the act into law, told the BBC that it had been wrongfully used in his case. "The powers...can only be used where the purpose of using them is to determine whether somebody is a terrorist," he said. "If you know they're not a terrorist, then you can't use these powers." See the original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/david-cameron-guardian-jeremy-heywood_n_3789682.html?ref=topbar

The longer this episode goes on the more Snowden is looking like a sorely needed whistleblower in the right place at the right time. When one considers the revelations of the sweeping multiple programs that capture data on virtually all Americans email and internet activity, the lies, the half-truths, and the omissions about the existence and content of these programs that have been made (some under oath), and the heavy handed actions of the US and UK governments and some Western Europe allies acquiescing to pressure, with regard to forcing the plane of sovereign head-of-state to land by denial of airspace overflight and the illegal detention of the partner of a journalist working on the Snowden story. I don't know about anyone else, but this is not the America I was taught in school that we are, or were, that the founding fathers founded, that we fought several wars over two hundred years to preserve. Where is the Constitution? Where are civil liberties of individuals? We have a Constitution to guarantee a balance between the individual and the state. That balance is being, has been, eroded. It seems the government has become a bully in its pursuit of what should be due process dictated by law ... and the Constitution. Sure, we knew some things were going on to help anti-terrorist detection. Some were uneasy with some or all of the Patriot Act, others saw it as a trade necessary for security. However, what we were told is not what it turned out to be, or certainly it turned out to be a lot more than what we were told. It is unclear if any of these apparent government excesses would have seen the light of day without Snowden. What I do know is that they had not been exposed before him.

It is clear to me that no one in power learned anything from the embarrassment of the Evo Morales airplane fiasco. One would think we are back in WWII with the international intrigue and heavy-handedness. It is very informative learning that the UK is as heavy-handed as the US, whether by their own initiative or by request; and the laws detailing UK seizure of electronic devices at international transportation terminals.

Secret organizations and practices cannot be 'oversighted' in secret because whoever controls the secrecy controls the oversight.

I tried watching this show when it started its run. All I got out of it was one hard working guy was making his dysfunctional family of ne'er-do-wells a million dollars a year while these misfits acted like ten year olds in their typical day, shirking their obligations to him, the company and their wives. A display of egregious irresponsibility. Nothing to spend my time on. Since then it seems to have caught fire but I cannot fathom why. I have not bothered to check back and will not. As for reality shows, I confess to watching some: The Gator Boys, History Channel Swamp People, some shows about living in Alaska etc, some logging shows etc. Basically Man v Nature. However, the vast majority have no attraction to me, especially those based on personality cults (Kahrdasians), damaged individuals (interventions) or assholes preening their wings for the camera, (some of the real estate flip wars storage locker auction stuff).

Sean Hannity Reportedly Set To Be Dropped From Cumulus NetworkRead all about it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/sean-hannity-cumulus-dropped_n_3766767.html

There is an exercise called the 'duck waddle' which is an excruciating workout of the glutes and thighs. Basically it is just 'walking' in a squatting position. Daily bouts of this for five minutes would do wonders for him. BTW, it is a great stamina builder for bottoms who prefer the 'top' position over their partner. Just stands to follow.

Have all levels of government taken leave of their senses and sense of proportion? To the Feds & FISA, the legislatures on voting rights and abortion rights, the FBI killing an unarmed man in custody and the left to investigate themselves, to local police killing a citizen in a hail of gunfire with no apparent provocation, to raiding an okra garden with a massive SWAT team. What the fuck is going on in this country ? http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fbi-shoots-florida-man-linked-boston-marathon-bombing/story?id=19231642 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/us/2-years-after-116-police-bullets-flew-few-answers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid Posted: 08/15/2013 10:42 pm EDT | Updated: 08/16/2013 8:23 am EDT A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search. Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said. Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified.According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations. The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were "concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged. The raid on the Garden of Eden farm appears to be the latest example of police departments using SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics to enforce less serious crimes. A Fox television affiliate reported this week, for example, that police in St. Louis County, Mo., brought out the SWAT team to serve an administrative warrant. The report went on to explain that all felony warrants are served with a SWAT team, regardless whether the crime being alleged involves violence. In recent years, SWAT teams have been called out to perform regulatory alcohol inspections at a bar in Manassas Park, Va.; to raid bars for suspected underage drinking in New Haven, Conn.; to raid a gay bar in Atlanta where police suspected customers and employees were having public sex; and to perform license inspections at barbershops in Orlando, Fla. Other raids have been conducted on food co-ops and Amish farms suspected of selling unpasteurized milk products. The federal government has for years been conducting raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized them, even though the businesses operate openly and are unlikely to pose any threat to the safety of federal enforcers. See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/texas-swat-team-conducts-_n_3764951.html

NSA Surveillance Broke Privacy Rules Thousands Of Times Per Year: Report WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, The Washington Post reported Thursday. Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. emails and telephone calls, the Post said, citing an internal audit and other top-secret documents provided it earlier this summer from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, a former systems analyst with the agency. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Post cited a 2008 example of the interception of a "large number" of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a "quality assurance" review that was not distributed to the NSA's oversight staff. In another case, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has authority over some NSA operations, did not learn about a new collection method until it had been in operation for many months. The court ruled it unconstitutional. The NSA audit obtained by the Post dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders. In an emailed statement to The Associated Press late Thursday, John DeLong, NSA's director of compliance, said, "We want people to report if they have made a mistake or even if they believe that an NSA activity is not consistent with the rules. NSA, like other regulated organizations, also has a `hotline' for people to report – and no adverse action or reprisal can be taken for the simple act of reporting. We take each report seriously, investigate the matter, address the issue, constantly look for trends and address them as well – all as a part of NSA's internal oversight and compliance efforts. What's more, we keep our overseers informed through both immediate reporting and periodic reporting." See original article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/nsa-surveillance-privacy-rules_n_3765063.html

Without the watermarks.

No news here, move on.

Thanks for the follow up and link.

Great story, great ad for the beach!

One half of THE SHOWBIZ POWER COUPLE of the sixties. Many great performances, many great memories.

It is amazing what sells in this country.

Never miss it. One of the unsung gems on cable. Good writing, good cast. The lead sort of reminds me of a cross between Gary Cooper and Harrison Ford. My one knock against the show is that Longmire sort of overdoes the brooding martyr thing with the murdered wife, the independent daughter and the weight of the world on his shoulders -- only he can right the world. It is suppose to be part of his character but for me a little less would be better.

The whole point of her character is that she is so badly, fundamentally damaged, yet faced with a horrendous job, protected by her angel-boss, in a world she is so ill-suited to navigate. Creepy. I can't say I like the character. Not sure I like the show but I have kept watching so far. Cable is obsessed with damaged women: Saving Grace/Holly Hunter, The Closer/Kyra Sedgwick, Homeland/Clare Danes to name a few. It seems damaged women in the new normal on Cable.

A stirring call to arms. Unfortunately, money and politics will prevail. However, this will raise the volume level on the Russian travesty. Unhappily, this attitude of persecution infects many in our own country, if not so pointedly. I would like to see the US, UK and Canada withdraw even though I am loath to mix politics with Olympics. However, Frye was spot on with Hitler and his Olympics. It is disappointing to see 'good men do nothing' once again.

Not sure who she is petitioning but I hope they shit-can it on arrival.