Interesting stuff

Ok, it's Saturday morning and it's raining in paradise, a summer rain here meaning clouds, showers and cool temperatures. Did I mention clouds. Not even The Mountain (Mount Rainier to everyone else) is out (visible) and locked in clouds, which is just that, inside clouds. The clouds actually encase the mountain from about 4,000 feet upward and over the peak.

Ok, enough bemoaning the lack of summer this year. The news or the news I thought interesting.

The war in Georgia. Not the state but Russia attacking the Georgian province of South Ossetia. It's a breakaway province that is predominately Russian (70% and 30% Georgian), but still in the territory of Georgia, so Russia has attacked and is occupying the land under the Georgian government. I doubt Russia will retreat since they're saying it's to protect "their" people and land stolen by Georgia.

So, how many of you know about this country and the events? The Web is full of news, stories and information, so what's keeping you from learning and expanding your world and mind?

And I listened to a story about Paraguay. The US Ambassador has a CD there of traditional song sung in the the native language. You can listen to the NPR story. So you learn a few songs and check out the atlas of the country too. And you never left home too.

Spies. Yup, the story of Mary Lou McFate/Sapone who infiltated numerous gun control groups as a spy for the NRA. For 15 years too. Read the story in Mother Jones. Scary what some folks will do. We knew the government has done it for decades but the NRA?

Seems logical, and maybe totally legal. All the while the people and groups she spied on never paid attention to the clues about her to see she was a spy. Did she and the NRA actually gain anything? Well, sorta' but getting the advance information what the groups were planning to prempt the strategy and tactics.

How about the FBI? They apologized for investigating reporters for the Washington Post and New York Times, getting phone records, without a warrant. In 2004 too. Apologizing now.

So how many more of the 60,000 of the information requests have warrants behind them? They suspect many if not most because the agents forgot to followup with the paperwork to the court or didn't actually have enough information to support a warrant. They simply had ideas or suggestions but nothing specific to justify a warrant. So they lie.

And of course they said they've destroyed the original material they got with the warrantless search. Yeah, right, and I have a bridge you can buy too.

This one I love. What doesn't NBC understand about tape delaying show doesn't work? Yes, you can rerun them but why not air the Olympics live too? NBC has exclusive right to broadcast the Olympics in the US but people are finding ways around the news and video. And now NBC is threatening Websites who have operations in the US (many of the videos are from outside the US) with lawsuits if they don't remove the videos, like Google and YouTube.

But the news is done and out there, so what's their bitch? Oh, yes, money from ads. Dear NBC, stop acting like jerks and show the events live and then rerun if you want. Tape delay doesn't work, and leads to bitter tastes in viewers' mouth. Get real. Everything isn't just TV. It's called the Internet.

Anyway, that's the news I saw which was interesting, and there's more but it's Saturday and too much to do. Parting jesture? This house.