LEAVWORLD: GRAFFITI POLITTI

Let me suggest a novel way to protest the NY Times; something I've been doing for years. Every so often, I come across one of their subscription ads, with the little postage-paid envelopes. I take the form, and write in big, fat marker: "I WOULDN'T WIPE MY ASS WITH THIS RAG!" Then, I put it in the envelope, and mail it off to them. I'm sure that no-one of consequence reads these, of course, but I bet it gives their mail room, or subscription department workers a big laugh!

Crossposted from STOP THE ACLU. If it is a tool we use in the fight against terror one can bet that the ACLU will be against it. When the NY Times revealed classified information that we are trying to track international phone calls of suspected terrorists, the ACLU took that ball and are still running with it. When the NY Times leaked classified information that we are trying to track international bank transactions in order to catch terrorists the ACLU jumped on board with that too. If the NY Times doesn't leak it to everyone, the ACLU will do its best by filing freedom of Information Act requests. In the face of suspicions that the government is using cutting-edge brain-scanning technologies on suspected terrorists being held overseas or at home, the American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with all the primary American security agencies. "There are certain things that have such powerful implications fo...

A couple of items from the Saturday NY POST's Page Six caught my eye. First, the idiocy: June 24, 2006 -- ROGER Waters doesn't like walls. After spray-painting "Tear down the wall" and "No thought control" on the concrete barrier that separates Palestinians from Jews in Bethlehem, the Pink Floyd rocker told 50,000 cheering fans on Thursday night, "We need this generation of Israelis to tear down the walls and make peace with their neighbors." Earlier, he told a reporter, "It's a horrific edifice, this thing . . . how extraordinarily oppressive . . . how sad it is to see these people coming through these little holes. It's craziness." Waters, who performed in 1990 at the Berlin Wall, will probably come to Arizona next to sing at the wall on the Mexican border. Let's get this straight: First, he milks his 1980 "The Wall" recording after the fall of the Berlin wall. Now, he's milking it again, while imploring Isra...

Crossposted from Stop The ACLU Hat tip: Danegerus The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to stop the Miami-Dade County school district from removing a series of children's books from its libraries, including a volume about Cuba which depicts smiling kids in communist uniforms. The ACLU and the Miami-Dade County Student Government Association argued in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Miami on Wednesday that the school board should add materials with alternate viewpoints rather than remove books that could be offensive. Last week, the board voted 6-3 to remove "Vamos a Cuba" and its English-language version, "A Visit to Cuba" from 33 schools, stating the books were inappropriate for young readers because of inaccuracies and omissions about life in the communist nation. The book, by Alta Schreier, targets students ages 5 to 7 and contains images of smiling children wearing uniforms of Cuba's communist youth group and a carnival celeb...

What I am writing about is serious, and from the heart. In NYC, the threat of terrorism is VERY REAL. We are under direct threat here, repeatedly. While I live a few miles east of the NYC border on Long Island, my fiance, Anna, lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. She works in Queens, and has to use the subway through Manhattan every day, often stopping to shop while switching trains. This is how she came to tell me about the strange, sweet smell permeating Manhattan one day. It wasn't widely reported until the second or third time it happened, some weeks later. When it finally got reported, I had to take it as more serious than it sounded, especially with the sparse reporting. The origin of this "smell" has not been determined. There is also the matter of the Iranian embassy personnel expulsions, for doing things like filming the No. 7 line, in Queens. This is an excerpt from Sen. Chuck Schumer's press release about this: Schumer warns Iranian Ambassador that if his mi...

This week's STOP THE ACLU blogburst is from BOB G, author of SWEET SPIRITS OF AMMONIA , a man with some smelling salts for this nation to inhale! Crossposted from Via Miami Herald The recently passed Florida law that essentially bans state academic travel to Cuba promised to escalate into a constitutional battle when Gov. Jeb Bush signed it into law last month. .......snip... The American Civil Liberties Union, representing several professors from state universities, filed a lawsuit against Florida officials in federal court, claiming the travel ban is unconstitutional. The group also demands a temporary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect while the case is in court. ''This act is terribly misdirected,'' Randall Marshall, legal director of the ACLU of Florida, said of the new law. "This is unconstitutional, and we hope to have this law struck down very shortly.'' The Florida Masochist has the right question: Tell me Mr. Marshall where it s...

Crossposted from NEXTLEAV , and linked at ASSORTED BABBLE BY SUZIE . The latest of my TALES FROM THE VENDOME . I don't know exactly what posessed us, but I suppose it was all of the domestic terrorism in the '60's that we grew up watching on TV, if I was to blame it on something other than ourselves. We had a copy of "Steal This Book," by Abbie Hoffman, when I was in my pre-teen formative years. This book is another convenient scapegoat for my young, impressionable mind. Our parents didn't know half of our subversive tendencies. CASE IN POINT: One day, we decided to see what would happen if we called a bomb threat to the bank on the corner of 72nd & Columbus Ave. We looked up their number, and called them, disguising our voices with some cloth over the phone. Sure enough, within 20 minutes or so, there were police in the street outside our window, which faced the bank. If you've read some of my other Tales , you can guess what we did next: We egged the...