WASHINGTON (AP) - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said.

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. (AP) Affirmative action foe Ward Connerly on Thursday brought his long-running campaign to Truman State University, where an overflow crowd alternately mocked and cheered his efforts in support of a November ballot initiative that would ban consideration of race in public hiring and college admissions.

...

Connerly drew his biggest applause of the night after briefly losing his composure responding to an audience member's interruption.

''Lady, would you please just shut up?'' he said.

The notoriously parental and ever so couture 20th Ward Alderman Craig Schmid is known for a dislike of loud music, beer drinkin', and apparently now he doesn't want neighborhood activists to have access to Citizen Service Bureau Reports from Geo St. Louis. According to Board Bill 168, citizens are no longer able to access CSB reports unless one contacts the "custodian" of their records. Per the Sunshine Law, one must then pay for copies.

Somebody goofed. When Fed chairman Ben Bernanke cut interest rates to 3% on Thursday, the price of a new mortgage went up. How does that help the flagging housing industry?

About an hour after Bernanke made the announcement that the Fed Funds rate would be cut by 50 basis points the yield on the 30-year Treasury nudged up a tenth of a percent to 4.42%. The same thing happened to the 10-year Treasury which surged from a low of 3.28% to 3.73% in less than a week. That means that mortgages — which are priced off long-term government bonds — will be going up, too.

Animal rights activists are thought to be the first Britons to be asked to hand over to the police keys to data encrypted on their computers.

The request for the keys is being made under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).

Police analysing machines seized during raids on activists' homes carried out in May have asked for the keys.

Also: Indymedia UK Post from Activist

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

Many progressives have become involved in the Obama campaign, because they make him out to be a charismatic leader with the potential to unite the nation and restore the American dream after what they perceive as years of disenfranchisement. Because his speeches reach beyond class, race, religion, or other factors that usually foster divisiveness, these progressives feel connected once again –as a people and as participants in the political game. As it sweeps through, this wave of energy could transform the nation, but only if sustainable in the long run.

Don’t you just love it when some quippy Business Section jackass at the WaPo decides to tackle gentrification on a small business-level, assumes a positive urban-renewal tone but ultimately just says “IT’S A LOT BETTER IN THIS AREA SINCE THE BLACK PEOPLE LEFT”? Well, we had one of those today, about a liquor store. The subhead: “As Rough-Hewn Area Goes Upscale, Merchant Shifts From Beer to Champagne.” What a merrily racist Christmas Eve ‘tis!

While Dick Cheney has been talking tough over the years about Iran's alleged nuclear activities, the vice president has been quietly pursuing nuclear ambitions of his own.

Are we beginning to think that, maybe, housing and feeding nonviolent lawbreakers — white-collar criminals, drug users and the like — over long periods of time lacks utility? Good sense? Fiscal prudence?

Last week, when a federal court in Chicago sent international publishing tycoon Conrad Black up the river for six years on an array of financial charges, a University of Toronto professor commented, "When more taxpayer money goes into shutting a white-collar offender up than is spent on a hospital patient or a university student, isn't it time to rethink our assumptions?"

Our students' spectacular hunger for life makes them radically vulnerable.

At the beginning of school last fall, I ran into a student on the University of Virginia Lawn, not far from the famous statue of Homer instructing an admiring pupil. Homer's student is in a toga. Mine was wearing wraparound sunglasses like Bono's, black jeans, and a red T-shirt emblazoned with Chinese characters in white. Over his shoulder he carried his laptop.

n the 1980s, as developing countries across the world struggled with crushing debt burdens and slow-growing economies, they were pushed—by the United States and international financial institutions—to embrace a set of policies that promised to rescue them. These policies, which are often grouped under the label neoliberalism, proceeded from the assumption that developing countries interfered too much with the workings of their markets.

Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel don't need warrants to access hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, putting them in a position to spot behavior that could indicate terrorist activity or planning.

[...]

Eight Americans of south Asian and Middle Eastern descent who were repeatedly detained at the border for questioning will be able to learn if they are actually on the government's terrorist watch list, a federal court in Illinois ruled last week, marking the first time that citizens have been able to learn whether they have been added to a sprawling and error-prone list used for screening at borders and traffic stops.

Chances are that as you read this article, it is passing over part of AT&T's network. That matters, because last week AT&T announced that it is seriously considering plans to examine all the traffic it carries for potential violations of U.S. intellectual property laws. The prospect of AT&T, already accused of spying on our telephone calls, now scanning every e-mail and download for outlawed content is way too totalitarian for my tastes. But the bizarre twist is that the proposal is such a bad idea that it would be not just a disservice to the public but probably a disaster for AT&T itself.

I've written about the "War on the Unexpected," and how normal people can't figure out what's an actual threat and what isn't:

All they know is that something makes them uneasy, usually based on fear, media hype, or just something being different.

[...]

If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security.

Yesterday The New York Times wrote about New York City's campaign:

October 12, 2007

From Thelma Gutierrez
CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Former detainees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement accuse the agency in a lawsuit of forcibly injecting them with psychotropic drugs while trying to shuttle them out of the country during their deportation.

It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless. In theory, fuels made from plants can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by cars and trucks. Plants absorb carbon as they grow - it is released again when the fuel is burned. By encouraging oil companies to switch from fossil plants to living ones, governments on both sides of the Atlantic claim to be "decarbonising" our transport networks.

How broadcast journalism is flawed in such a fundamental way that its utility as a tool for informing viewers is almost nil.

An anonymous Internet techie reveals the censors' hand in China, and how those transgressing sites are punished.

Independent-minded Internet users are trying to foil China's censors, who themselves seem to be increasing in sophistication.

Worried about melting ice caps and encroaching oceans? Take a nod from Noah and ride out the deluge in a floating home.