Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor predicted Thursday that a case involving WikiLeaks would likely come before the court.

She said that the WikiLeaks “incident,” in which the group posted thousands of classified Afghanistan war documents online, “and others are going to provoke legislation that’s already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before [the Supreme Court.]“

When I read this, I recalled WikiLeaks’ claim that the New York Times was involved:

(Click images for full size.)

The New York Times has claimed involvement in the processing of these memos:

Again, here is the statement from Justice Sotomayor:

She said that the WikiLeaks “incident,” in which the group posted thousands of classified Afghanistan war documents online, “and others are going to provoke legislation that’s already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before [the Supreme Court.]“

Given that the New York Times has a strong left-wing bias, could this also be a pre-engineered vehicle by the Democratic Party to support a massive regulatory change in the Internet?

Keep in mind recent lobbying efforts for a “Drudge tax” on blogs to subsidize the newspaper industry, as well as changes in “fair use” laws so as to require a “copyright license” to quote news material, and proposed propaganda efforts claiming the mainstream media is a “reputable” “public service”.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy” -McCullock v. Maryland, 1819

Blogthings: What Flavor Pudding Are You?

Your Brain is Conceptual

You can’t help but look at the big picture. You’re good at putting things together. You think long term. You always have a vision for the future and an idea of how you want things to be. You are a very intuitive person. Even though you are constantly thinking, it feels like answers just appear for you. You enjoy a challenge, especially an intellectual one. You are constantly taking the initiative and pushing yourself.

Blogthings: What’s Your Brain Like?

You Are a Cat

You are agile and mysterious. You have you own way of navigating the world. You enjoy exploring new ideas and places, but you also like to be able to retreat quickly. You are a bit standoffish and aloof, but you aren’t shy. In fact, you are brave and courageous. Always resourceful and fearless, you can handle any situation. You are a survivor.

Blogthings: What Origami Animal Are You?

You Have a Hippie Soul

You are free as the wind, and you don’t like following rules. You’re open minded and nonjudgemental. You just enjoy the journey of life. You’re neither a leader nor a follower. You’re own your own blissful path. You believe that people should love more and hate less. It’s really that simple.

Blogthings: Is Your Soul Hippie, Punk, or Goth?

You Should Be Elected US Senator

You have a strong interest in political issues – both on a state and local level. You love to debate for debating’s sake. You could argue for hours. You are dignified and well spoken. People naturally want to give you authority. You are a wheeler and dealer. You are willing to compromise a little to get what you want.

Blogthings: What Office Should You Be Elected To?

Now it appears the same thing is occurring with STP. This band has existed since 1992 (1991 if you count the non-grunge Mighty Joe Young demo material)

Their first album in 1992, the grungy Core, has lots of hits played on classic rock stations, including “Sex Type Thing”, “Plush”, and “Wicked Garden”.

1994′s Purple (incorrectly considered self-titled as the word “purple” is written in Chinese) is very 70s rock sounding, Led Zeppelin-like. Two hits from Purple are frequently played by classic rock stations, “Big Empty” (also used in The Crow) and “Interstate Love Song”. (A heavier hit, “Unglued”, is no longer heard on the radio)

I was a fan of this band since I was in 6th grade. This was 1996, after Tiny Music was released. This had a more messy sound, wasn’t always heavy, and sounded similar to the Beatles at times.

In 1999, after a brief break-up (including terrible solo work by singer Scott Weiland), No. 4 was released. It was very heavy, kind of like Core, and there were a few softer Tiny Music-like songs, but also very messy, as there were psychological issues at the time, including Scott Weiland’s drug addiction.

Shangri-La Dee Da, released in 2001, was mostly acoustic. I didn’t like it and found it boring, but others disagreed with me. There were frequent obvious references to Courtney Love (Hole like most others had “sold out” at the time), including the hit “Hollywood Bitch” and the conspiratorial “Too Cool Queenie”

(note I can only find a session recording, if you are interested in the conspiracy theory click here for the lyrics)

A greatest hits album, 2003′s Thank You (from which the above video came from, as I am told, I do not have this album). The buy-this-anyway-hit was “All In The Suit That You Wear” (sounds kinda like a cross between No. 4 and Shangri-La Dee Da):

After another break-up, Scott joined members of Guns & Roses to found Velvet Revolver, which I didn’t like (nor do I like Guns & Roses). The rest of STP joined Filter’s singer Ray Luzier to form Army of Anyone, or, “The Rest of Shangri-La Dee Da”.

A few months ago, they came back with their self titled album, Stone Temple Pilots. This album was just plain excellent. IMO Shangri-La Dee Da is no way to end a career unless you’ve given up on music. The radio hit “Between the Lines”, which will probably be locked away in the ClearChannel vault, is heavy yet polished, with the bridge lifted from Nirvana’s song “Stay Away” Hopefully they will continue to release records and not break up with another Shangri-La Dee Da Here are some songs from the new album, and the Nirvana song for comparison:

Having heard all these songs, go check out the reviews on Amazon for Stone Temple Pilots’ new 2010 self-titled release. All of the negative reviews say “This isn’t Core or Purple“, as if this was STP’s third album released 10 years after being a one-hit wonder.

To put it another way: as classic rock and modern rock radio have become merged over the past 5 or so years, too many songs were lost, reducing great careers into one-hit wonders. Pearl Jam for instance had dozens of releases on old modern/alternative rock stations. Less than 5-8 of them are played now.

(warning, loud and distorted audio)

Paleolibertarian anarcho-capitalist blogger Lew Rockwell supports the mosque on private property rights grounds, and Catholic blogger Mark Shea compares the phenomenon to restrictions on protests against Planned Parenthood.

Islam is a highly dangerous threat to the world right now. Material is being censored and people are dying simply by pointing out the negative portions of the religion. Past Christian violence was due to poor decision making by corrupt officials, and the spread of religion through force is not commanded anywhere in the Bible. God-sanctioned violence from the Jewish people in the Old Testament is often quoted in opposition to this – these are specific battles and are not a command for all Jews or Christians to spread the religion through force. Christian leaders frequently apologize for their past acts of violence, yet Islam refuses to apologize and continues their violence, following the Quran’s command to spread theocracy. These verses still exist and regardless of whether the Muslim is peaceful or a terrorist, Allah in the Quran commands the spread of theocracy through violence.

I love my enemies, Muslim or not. I’ve known Muslims in college, had been friends with some, and they weren’t my enemies at all. But I don’t have to agree with them or support what they do.

More people need to reject the political correctness and theft of culture the Left-wing Establishment forces on people and pay attention to what is going on.

UPDATE: Here is a statement from Catholic New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, arguing for peaceful compromise, such as moving the mosque somewhere else. He cites an effort by JPII to move a convent which was near Auschwitz.

Greek Orthodox leaders trying to rebuild the only church destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks expressed shock this week after learning, via Fox News, that government officials had killed a deal to relocate the church.

The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, once a tiny, four-story building in the shadows of lower Manhattan, was destroyed in 2001 by one of the falling World Trade Center towers. Nobody from the church was hurt in the attack, but the congregation has, for the past eight years, been trying to rebuild its house of worship.

Though talks between the church and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey stalled last year, church leaders say they’ve been trying to kick-start discussions ever since. But amid debate over whether a proposed Islamic community center should go forward near Ground Zero, government officials threw cold water on the prospect of any deal with the church — telling Fox News the deal is off the table.

The archdiocese and Port Authority now offer sharply conflicting accounts of where things went wrong. The Port Authority has claimed the church was making additional demands — like wanting the $20 million up front and wanting to review plans for the surrounding area. They say the church can still proceed on its own if it wishes.

“This little church deserves to be rebuilt. It’s symbolic, not just for Orthodox Christians, not just for Christians, but for all Americans,” Arey said, calling the mosque debate “helpful” to the church’s cause. “I believe that people around the country are asking themselves the question — why all this talk about a mosque being built near Ground Zero? What about a little church that was destroyed on 9/11? … This is basically a bureaucratic impasse. This will dissolve in the face of the American public consciousness.”

Mr. President, please stand up and defend our Judeo-Christian values, express your public and unwavering support for St. Nicholas Church, and ensure that it is rebuilt.”

See also: Act! for America’s Stop the Mosque petition to Michael Bloomberg and New York officials. 99,622 have signed so far.

I’ll try not to whine as much as I did years ago on other blogs.

1. Started going to Bingo at my local church two weeks ago. Last week I won 3 games.

2. Went to a Tea Party march yesterday. I was surprised how many people honked and cheered for us on the street – it was in Monroe County, PA, traditionally Democratic. We had a cab driver stop by to disagree with us, maybe 1 other person, but everyone else in this Democratic county was on our side! Weird (in a good way)…

3. Been having a lot of problems sleeping lately. I found out what was causing it – I had started playing some games on Yahoo, and you can be up all night with those. So I cut back wasting my time, and hopefully tonight will start sleeping right again.

4. Also started using BOINC again. Now the software not only lets me limit CPU use, but suspend when something else uses the CPU. Currently running Enigma@home and OGR. I will no longer use SETI as it strangely and quickly dismissed a potential alien communication.

Damn there are like 3 gnats that hang out right around my computer right now. They’re not going anywhere but flying in my eyes. Late at night, when the lights are off and I might log on to the computer, the three gnats fly right on the monitor

Believe it or not the phrase “X-Cop Fly” has a similar origin. When I was in 2nd grade, there would be these brown gnats (much more than 3) that would fly around the family computer. The name probably derives from “XCOPY”, as it was a 286 MS-DOS machine, or perhaps an incident in school regarding one of those “kids club” things 2nd graders do. In this case, my friend had a club called CPC (“Central Police Club” I think), and after loser kids like me weren’t invited, I started my own NPC (“New Personal Club”). Didn’t work of course, but it might have inspired the name of the gnats, and almost 20 years later, a booming dot com

Well now (actually in March) Wikileaks has revealed another reason – to enable abuse of power in government. Here are excerpts from a CIA document on propaganda operations to increase support for war in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough

Public Apathy Enables Leaders To Ignore Voters

French Focused On Civilians and Refugees. Focusing on a message that ISAF benefits Afghan civilians and citing examples of concrete gains could limit and perhaps even reverse opposition to the mission. Such tailored messages could tap into acute French concern for civilians and refugees.

Conversely, messaging that dramatizes the potential adverse consequences of an ISAF defeat for Afghan civilians could leverage French (and other European) guilt for abandoning them. The prospect of the Taliban rolling back hard-won progress on girls’ education could provoke French indignation, become a rallying point for France’s largely secular public, and give voters a reason to support a good and necessary cause despite casualties.”

The French government has already made combating Afghan human trafficking networks a priority and would probably support an information campaign that a NATO defeat in Afghanistan could precipitate a refugee crisis.

For example, messages that illustrate how a defeat in Afghanistan could heighten Germany’s exposure to terrorism, opium, and refugees might help to make the war more salient to skeptics.

The same poll also found that, when respondents were reminded that President Obama himself had asked for increased deployments to Afghanistan, their support for granting this request increased dramatically

Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female audiences.

Here is the Wikileaks page, though the PDF file download seems to be down. You can read and download the PDF on Doxtop.com.

(via Catholic & Enjoying It)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won three critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions today, carving out new legal protections for consumers who modify their cell phones and artists who remix videos — people who, until now, could have been sued for their non-infringing or fair use activities.

The first of EFF’s three successful requests clarifies the legality of cell phone “jailbreaking” — software modifications that liberate iPhones and other handsets to run applications from sources other than those approved by the phone maker. More than a million iPhone owners are said to have “jailbroken” their handsets in order to change wireless providers or use applications obtained from sources other than Apple’s own iTunes “App Store,” and many more have expressed a desire to do so. But the threat of DMCA liability had previously endangered these customers and alternate applications stores.

On EFF’s request, the Librarian of Congress renewed a 2006 rule exempting cell phone unlocking so handsets can be used with other telecommunications carriers. Cell phone unlockers have been successfully sued under the DMCA, even though there is no copyright infringement involved in the unlocking.

EFF also won a groundbreaking new protection for video remix artists currently thriving on Internet sites like YouTube. The new rule holds that amateur creators do not violate the DMCA when they use short excerpts from DVDs in order to create new, noncommercial works for purposes of criticism or comment if they believe that circumvention is necessary to fulfill that purpose. Hollywood has historically taken the view that “ripping” DVDs is always a violation of the DMCA, no matter the purpose.

(note: this still does not give us back our VHS-era right to back up movies)
More information from Crooks & Liars

Three additional rights were also restored: the right to break copy protection when needed to test videogames for security flaws, old or obsolete “software dongles”, and (if no commercial solution exists) to make e-book readers more accessible to the disabled.

There is more to Irion’s case than just Obamacare – he is challenging several FDR-era Supreme Court rulings which have since given near unlimited powers to the federal government. For example, one of Obamacare’s notable features is the requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance or pay a fine when the law takes effect.

The lawsuit has received mainstream media coverage, including Fox News’ Judge Napolitano and Greta Van Susteren.

As of the date and time of this blog post listed above, 31,839 plaintiffs (this number includes both individuals and businesses) have joined the class. I joined many months ago, but now for verification purposes a donation of any amount is now needed ($10 is suggested, but lower is acceptable).

Visit ObamacareClassAction.com to join the lawsuit

A show I used to watch when I was little:

Pointing out the emperor has given a lap dance to special interests has resulted in things ranging from angry personal attacks to invented hacking reports to my ISP! But now, from talking to the same people, I think more and more people are starting to accept this as truth. It still doesn’t have mainstream acceptance, but I have a feeling it will be. I believe that Slackware Linux and the similar operating system OpenBSD are currently the least tainted with espionage and corporate interests. But Slackware Linux is still Linux, and OpenBSD isn’t very supported, though I don’t condone any corporate or government funding of any kind to OpenBSD, to maintain its purity and reputation.

I’m hoping that more people finally wake up and realize they have been ripped off and sold out by nonprofits which are no different than the corporate counterparts they supposedly oppose.

In a world without air conditioning, a warmer, more flexible, more relaxed workplace helps make summer a time to slow down again. Three-digit temperatures prompt siestas. Code-orange days mean offices are closed. Shorter summer business hours and month-long closings — common in pre-air-conditioned America — return.

Post-A.C., Congress again adjourns for the summer, giving “tea partiers” the smaller government they seek. During unseasonably warm spring and fall days, hearings are held under canopies on the Capitol lawn. What better way to foster open government and prompt politicians to focus on climate change?

Children — and others — take to bikes and scooters, because of the cooling effect of air movement. Calls for more summer school and even year-round school cease. Our kids don’t need more time inside, everyone agrees; they need the shady playgrounds and water sprinklers that spring up in every neighborhood.

“Green roofs” of grass, ivy and even food crops sprout on the flat tops of government and commercial buildings around the city, including the White House. These layers of soil and vegetation (on top of a crucially leak-proof surface) insulate interiors from the pounding sun, while water from the plants’ leaves provides evaporative cooling. More trees than ever appear in both private and public spaces.

And this is considered news.