WASHINGTON – Today, the effort to repeal the discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law received a monumental boost of support from General Colin Powell.  The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1990’s, who supported the laws passage back in 1993, changed his position in a statement sent out today saying, “attitudes and circumstances have changed”.  In voicing his support for the law’s repeal, Gen. Powell threw his full support behind “the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen.”

Read the full HRC story here.

As evidenced by this rather frightening article, yet once again, the cops want easier and quicker access to your private Internet communications.

Now mind you, I'm all for adequate and effective surveillance of individuals firmly suspected of criminal activity.  But IMO, wholesale "oh by the way" Internet fishing expeditions which include innocent individuals are always a really really bad idea which should be strictly off limits.  The supposed "inconvenience" of requiring the good guys to secure a legal warrant before intruding into a bad guy's e-mail is a privacy padlock we all need to remain firmly secure.

What do you think?

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~ Thomas Jefferson

Bored?

Nothing on TV?

Even disinterested in further interactive time on-line (incredible as that may be)?

Then click on this link to watch Frontline's "Digital Nation" ... an extremely well-produced look at how our world is becoming increasingly wired - the good, the bad, and the ugly of our digital world.

Learn how the wonders of digital technology let us find more facts faster and that not only is grandma getting connected to her family once again (now that they don't write letters anymore), but that she's adding years to her life.

But also learn how leading researchers decry multi-tasking, proving that not only do we not actually do two (or more) things well at the same time, but  that our brains only give each task 50% of its available attention.  How kids who've grown up with digital media live 50% of their lives in virtual reality.  How those immersed in that virtual world increasingly confuse it with their real world.  How our military is technically disconnecting physically killing people from those who actually do it, and how they're using gaming centers to recruit future warriors.
 
I found it a fascinating 90 minutes.

See it here.