Huge earthquake. No other reports I've seen.

| USGS Earthquake Hazards Program | Earthquake Center | Latest Earthquakes - World | Magnitude 7.5 - MOZAMBIQUE |

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

Let the fireworks begin.

Bush wants Google search data

Tropical Storm Zeta... Quite a year for tropical storms.

Wunder Blog : Weather Underground

Richard Pryor, the caustic yet perceptive actor-comedian who lived dangerously close to the edge both on stage and off, died Saturday. He was 65.

Pryor died shortly before 8 a.m. of a heart attack after being taken to a hospital from his home in the San Fernando Valley, said his business manager, Karen Finch. He had been ill for years with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.

I will miss him.

Comedian Richard Pryor Dies At 65

The ones in the know read The Note. It's ready weekdays by 11am.

Even though it's in plaintext it's more cryptic than anything thing out there.

--timball

The Note

On a July evening in the Capitol, Vice President Dick Cheney summoned three Republican senators to his ornate office just off the Senate chamber. The Republicans - John W. Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - were making trouble for the Bush administration, and Mr. Cheney let them know it.

The three were pushing for regulations on the treatment of American military prisoners, including a contentious ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The vice president wanted the provision pulled from a huge military spending bill. The senators would not budge.

"We agreed to disagree," Mr. Graham said in an interview last week.

That private session was an early hint of a Republican feud that spilled into the open last week, as Senate Republicans openly challenged President Bush on American military policy in Iraq and the war on terrorism. In the center of the fray, pushing Congress to reassert itself, were those same three Republicans.

In the Senate, a Chorus of Three Defies the Line

Its worse than we could have ever imagined.

Legal experts consider the 55-year-old Alito so ideologically similar to Justice Antonin Scalia that he has earned the nickname "Scalito."

In 1991, in one of his more well-known decisions, he was the only dissenting voice in a 3rd Circuit ruling striking down a Pennsylvania law that required women to notify their husbands if they planned to get an abortion.

He also wrote the opinion in 1999 in a case that said a Christmas display on city property did not violate separation of church and state doctrines because it included a large plastic Santa Claus as well as religious symbols.

Oh, wait, no...that's about what I imagined.

Regrettably, I was not able to meme the original version of this story in which poll results about American's desires for the next justice were included. 46% said that overturning Roe V Wade was a bad idea. Here's a guy that thinks Mormons are living the good life, and he can't possibly represent the 46% of people who don't want to chuck Roe V Wade.

Hey...isn't that figure 5 percentage points higher than Bush's approval rating?

-janelane, heading for the hills

CNN.com - Bush nominates Alito to Supreme Court - Oct 31, 2005

This is the actual 22pg indictment.

--timball

libby_indictment_28102005.pdf (application/pdf Object)

This is the press release from the Office of Special Counsel.

--timball

libby_pr_28102005.pdf (application/pdf Object)

5 counts... 2 perjury, 1 obstruction of justice and 2 of making "false statements"

--timball

Cheney Adviser Indicted in CIA Leak Probe