Marc Perkel Rantz

Church of Reality on Death and Dying

The Church of Reality has today posted it's official position on Death and Dying. This is in response to statements buy other religions that want to impose their religious views beyond the limits of their own membership. The entire position can be read on this web page.

http://www.churchofreality.org/death.htm

As to Teri Schaivo specifically, we in the Church of Reality believe that the courts did the right thing. They determined that Teri would not have chosen to live that way and that her husband has the right to make that choice and speak in behalf of his wife. We strongly support individual choices and the choices of the individual's guardian without the interference of the government or other religions. We therefore thanks the courts for upholding the law that protects these rights that we hold sacred. We honor Michial Shiavo, her husband, for making a great personal sacrifice to defend his wife's wishes when he could have walked away leaving her to exist in a living death.

Teri Shaivo died on February 25th 1990. May the living now have peace.

Feel free to contact me. I give a hell of an interview. I want to refute the position of the Vatican!

The Church of Reality is a religion based on believing in everything that's real.
http://www.churchofreality.org

What is in the Bush's Living Will?

Letter to the Editor

First Lady Laura Bush stated that she and the President as well as their parents all have living wills in case they become incapacitated live Teri Schiavo. So - what are in their living wills? Do they want to be kept alive in a permanent vegetative state or do they want to be allowed to die? It seems to me that in preparing a living will that the Bush's don't want the government, congress, Terry Randal, and Jesse Jackson to make the decision for them. They want the family to make that choice.

Christians Confuse Me

Letter to the Editor

I don't understand why the Christian community is so committed to keeping a brain dead woman alive. After all - if she dies - according to their belief - she will be with Jesus. So - if they really believe that then why are they trying to keep her away from God? It makes me think that the "faithful" don't have any faith. I don't think they actually believe what they preach.

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Interestingly - after I sent this letter off I saw some preacher being interviewed who made the same point. He said that letting a person go can be a strong act of faith. So - it's good to see that some Christians actually get it.

My Reality Mirrors the News

A letter I sent to my hosting customers:

An interesting software event in one of three of our email servers reflected events in the news. Last night one of the spam filter servers has a kernel crash that shut down the system. The two backup server automatically handled the load and processed all the email without interruption. But - in some cases it delayed the email by 12 minutes because the downed server wasn't totally dead.

The server's kernel shut down but the system drivers and network stack was still functional. The server would still ping and accept connections on all the ports that were normally active. So any server monitoring programs would see the server as alive - but once you connected to the ports - there was nothing behind it to process the connection.

In other words - the server was in a persistent vegetative state - the peripherals were still alive - but the system was brain dead. The kernel had crashed and was not responding.

Eventually we had to make the tough call - and we decided to "pull the plug".

Anyhow - I thought it was somewhat of an amazing coincidence that this computer failed in a way to mirror a current news story. And for those of us who grasp both issues - it was an amazing parallel.

Wendy's gives customer "The Finger"

A customer in a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose was eating chili when she chomped down on a human finger in her food. At this time they don't know where the finger came from.

Jeb Bush's Doctor - William P. Cheshire - Who is he?

The Diva sent me this:

Regarding William P. Cheshire, Governor Jeb Bush's appointee to review Theresa Schiavo's medical condition:

CNN has failed to mention Cheshire's religious conflict of interest, or to give any information regarding his past activism in the area of medical ethics vs. religious dogma.

Cheshire is a Christian first, a physician second, and stated so explicitly in Volume 17:2 of "Ethics & Medicine":

Excerpted from "Exit Ramp"

"The cross of Christ marks the true vertical, and his outstretched arms the true horizontal. Christ's life, death and resurrection are the guideposts that orient us along the slopes of life as we journey toward eternity."

URL: http://www.ethicsandmedicine.com/17/2/17-2-exitramp.htm

Disregarding established ethical policies and positions of the AMA and similar groups, deferring instead to scripture and religious tradition, Cheshire's actions and statements in this case must be considered in context, if CNN is to act in a responsible journalistic fashion.

Congress and the Brain Dead

Letter to the Editor

There are those who question if Congress and President Bush inserted themselves into the death of Terri Schiavo as a mere political stunt. This case, however, hits pretty close to home with a lot of members' personal lives when it comes to withholding food from the brain dead. That's an issue they relate to personally and something they worry about. If a judge can withhold food and water for Terri Schiavo because she's brain dead - a judge could close the cafeterias in the Congress and the Whitehouse as well for the same reason. Something to think about!

Terri Schiavo - Form vs. Substance

Letter to the Editor

The Terri Schiavo controversy is an example of form vs. substance when it comes to politics and religion. The battle creates the illusion that it is about saving the life of someone who is actually already dead. It gives religious people the illusion that they are in a battle for some great cause, and the illusion is the cornerstone of faith based thinking.

In reality this is about letting a dead woman die and respecting her choice to not endure a living death. It's about whether an individual gets to choose their own fate or have to endure politicians using the law for personal political opportunity. If people of faith and politicians wanted to pass "pro life" legislation they wouldn't be meeting at midnight to interfere with the death of a single individual. Instead they would be increasing Medicare and Medicaid so that the lives of thousands poor people and old people can be saved. The difference between form and substance is - do you want to really do something to better humanity or do you want to just pretend you're doing something to better humanity?

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I'm surprized they didn't attach another tax cut for the rich to this legislation. They might have - but we'd never hear about it for the parrot press.

A Celebration of Failure

Letter to the Editor

It's been two years since the Iraq occupation began and the Bush administration is celebrating the anniversary of failure. It is not surprise to us who have opposed the war from the beginning that no weapons of mass destruction were found. The war is a fraud. America is in decline. We are living a lie. America has turned it's back on reality.

Bush tries to steal from poor - again!

Letter to the Editor

I want to thank the Republicans in the Senate who crossed party lines and voted with the Democrats to stop Bush from cutting medical services for the poor so that the super rich can keep their tax cuts. Poor people who are sick need medical services to stay alive and get well. I would hope that America remains a country who still shows compassion for poor sick people.

Avoiding World War 3

Letter to the Editor

I've always wondered about how Adolf Hitler could have been stopped in the 1930s during his rise to power. And I've blamed the German people for not having stopped it from the beginning. But at the time nothing like that had ever happened before and our world barely escaped a one world evil empire.

Suppose the same thing were happening today and we can all see it coming - what are we to do? Are we going to sit back and let it happen again - or are we going to nip it in the bud? We know better now and with today's technology we no longer have the excuse that we didn't know. We can say that we don't see the same thing coming because it is so obvious.

When telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act there can be no denying that we have a responsibility to act and to prevail. So I ask the people of the world one simple question, "Are we going to sit back and allow it to happen again - or are we going to rise up and stop it?" We simply can not sit back and allow this to happen.

Who is a real journalist?

This is a real reporter - a Republican gay make hooker- who was part of the official white house press corps.

CNN was running a story today about bloggers like myself should be regulated. That if I link to a politicians web site that it would be a political contribution. Of course - "real journalists" would not be subject to the same rules because real journalists have freedom of the press.

So - what makes someone a real journalist? Is the guy in this picture a real journalist? He sure is. He's part of the washington press corps and he's president Bush's favorite guy to call on for the "really tough" questions.

You see - blogglers are not only journalists - but they are the only journalists. We still have our freedom as opposed to the networks who are just whitehouse puppets.

For example - today Dan Rather leaves CBS after getting fired by the Bush administration. Presidents get to fire reporters these days. Back in the 1970s Dan Rather was one of the key reporters that led to President Nixon getting fired. Back when the press was free they asserted the freedom of the people to bring down the corrupt government. Now the corrupt government brings dow the media.

To me a real journalist is someone who brings you the real news. When the so called real journalists are really Republican gay male hookers who are hired to parrot the whitehouse line - that's not real journalism. And all the other real journalists know about this and knew about it for the last two years and continue to cover it up.

I find it ammusing that after the CNN report they had a segment reporting on what the bloggers are saying. While the report appears to be about bloggers - it's clear that the mainstream press is now looking at bloggers as a source of news.

Mama Leslie's Cereal Jar

Many of you have been wondering, "Perkel - what makes you so damn smart?" Well - I start the day off with a bowl of cereal from mama Leslie's cereal jar.

This is a trick I picked up from a sturdy wench friend of mine. It's more than just a big glass jar of cereal. It's a way to make cereal any way you want. So many brands of cereal out there and which one to eat? Do I want wheat, or corn, or oats, or rice, or flax seed? Is it too sweet - or not sweet enough? Does it have fiber? And they never put enough fruit or nuts in. So - what do you do?

You buy them all - and combine them any way you want. And that's exactly what I do.

I have about 10 different kinds of cereal and I mix them all together in a big glass jar. I then add lots of raisins - often several kinds of raisins. And the nuts. I have a separate container where I mix the nuts and then add handfulls to the cereal jar. In the container on the side I mix sunflower seeds, walnuts, pecans, almonds, and any other kinds of unsalted ground nuts I can come up with. This makes it easy to add everything at once without having to get out a bunch of little bags of everything.

So - you throw it all together and you mix it all up turning the jar upside down and side to side and it's ready to eat. Never fill the jar more that 80% because it needs room to mix. When the jar gets down to 30% full - you throw in some more cereal and fill it up.

Then when you get up in the morning you just grab a bowl - fill it up - and gobble down the most important meal of the day. It's quick - simple - and probably good for you. So - if you all go out and get you a mama Leslie's cereal jar - maybe someday you can be a dangerous mind like me.

Walmart wants truckers to work 16 hours a day

The law restricts truckers to 14 hour work days for traffic safety. Walmart wants to get it up to 16 hours a day. As if 14 hours behind the wheel isn't enough.

I remember back in the early 1980s I used to fix CB radios. I worked at the local truck stop in Strafford Missouri that was located next to the state truck scales. I worked the loot looking for CB radios to fix, or hop up, or add channels to. I had a bag of tools I carried and worked the lot to make a living.

Business was especially good when the "chicken coops were open. Many of these truckers were running overloaded and had to wait till the scales closed so they wouldn't get caught running too heavy.

You see - truckers are pressured into cheating. They are barely making it and are squeezed by high taxes, price of fuel, repairs, regulations, and hungry jurisdictions trying to increase the tax base by robbing the truckers coming through their area. In otder to survive and get home to see their families they will try to get away with driving more than they are allowed to. And if they can work 16 hours a day - the system will force them to do just that.

I remember being out there with the hitchhikers, whores, and drug dealers who would sell truckers "white cross" and methamphedimines so that they can stay awake. I remember one guy who was barely able to stay awake long enough to actually buy the drugs. And he was going to drive non-stop all the way to California. How dangerous is that to the public?

Walmart doesn't give a shit about anyone and they are part of the fascist takove of America. They contributed big time to the Republicans so they will get their way and force truckers to work two more hours a day than they are now. We are all slaves to the man. But we must resist them and stop the deterioriation of honesty.

Syria Speaks!

Letter to the Editor

It's interesting that even though Syria executed the president of Lebanon that the size of the protests against the United States today was far larger than the protests against Syria. I think it speaks to the fact that the rest of the world doesn't trust Bush. Nor should they. We have become the world's biggest threat. In spite of the fact that there are a lot of bad guys out there in the Arab world -the direction we are headed in is far scarier in the long run.

How to beat the high price of gas

Rising gas prices cutting into your lifestyle? I have a way to beat the system. Here are my "secrets to success" that you will find only on Marc Perkel's blog. Here's how it works.

What you do is go out and borrow all the money you can and buy oil company stock. The oil company prices go up because they raise the price of gas and the profits go up and you can buy your gas with what you make in the stock market.

But - you might ask - what if prices go up faster than the stock profits? No problem - borrow more money and buy even more stock. The more people who follow this plan - the faster the stock price goes up. So tell all your friends and neighbors to follow this plan.

Some people might put down this idea and call it wreckless and risky. But this idea has the backing of some of the greatest economic minds in America. Because this is the same plan that Bush and the Republican Party have to "save" Social Security.

Teresa Heinz Kerry speaks out about the Stolen Election

At least someone is finally speaking out. Here's part of an article from the Seattle Post Intelligencer

COUNTING THE VOTES: Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes.

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

"We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry. She argued that Democrats should insist on "accountability and transparency" in how votes are tabulated.

"I fear for '06," she said. "I don't trust it the way it is right now."

It's all bad news under Bush

Letter to the Editor

The bad news is coming so fast that I can't write about it all. Do I write about the Italian Journalist being shot? Or the CIA shipping people overseas to be tortured? Or the price of gas going up to record highs? Or the programmer you admitted writing the software to fix the election for Bush? Or that Bush appointed John Bolton, a man who hates the United Nations to the United Nations? Or the destruction of Social Security? Or the ongoing problems like the federal deficit, going deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. The tax cuts for the rich, the war in Iraq, the coming war in Iran - there's just no end to the bad news. If Bush was actually elected - which I don't believe he was - America made a really bad choice.

Jury Duty

I'm supposed to show up for jury duty today. I checked in on the Internet about is and I was supposed to go to http://www.sanmateocourt.org but typed http://www.sanmateocourt.com instead. That web site had a link to another site about juror's rights.

It's an interesting article and the point of it is that as a juror you have the right and duty to override the law if you feel it is unjust -- and -- the government is doing everything they can to keep you from knowing about that. It's called jury nullification which is a term I didn't really like until I found out that it meant jurry nullification of law.

What this means is if you are on a jury and you are told you have to convict someone of a crime that is a bullshit offense - you don't hav to do it. You can find him "not guilty" even if you know for sure that he committed the crime.

The founding fathers gave juries that power so that they can put a human element into the decision making process. The wanted real people to make the final decision and to use their own values to determine if it was "right" to convict someone of a crime. They understood that sometimes the law is imprecise and that someone might have technically committed a crime but the law was being applied in a way that it was never meant to be used. Or - that if a law is just plain unjust then real people can decide to nullify it. It is part of the checks and balances written into the constitution that give 12 people the final decision. A judge has to rule according to the law. A jury does not.

The Article goes into some of the history of why this is so important and how these kinds of decisions have lead to some of our most important freedoms that we enjoy today.

"Jury nullification of law", as it is sometimes called, is a traditional American right defended by the Founding Fathers. Those patriots intended that the jury serve as one of the tests a law must pass through before it assumes enough popular authority to be enforced. Our constitutional designers saw to it that each enactment of law must pass the scrutiny of these tribunals before it gains the authority to punish those who choose to violate any written law. Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

Four decades before Jefferson spoke these words, a jury had established freedom of the press in the colonies by finding John Peter Zenger not guilty of seditious libel. He had been arrested and charged for printing critical but true news stories about the Governor of New York Colony. "Truth is no defense", the court told the jury! But the jury decided to reject bad law, and acquitted.

Why? Because defense attorney Andrew Hamilton informed the jury of its rights: he related the story of William Penn's trial of the courageous London jury which refused to find him guilty of preaching Quaker religious doctrine (at that time an illegal religion). His jurors stood by their verdict even though held without food, water, or toilet facilities for four days. The jurors were fined and imprisoned for refusing to convict William Penn until England's highest court acknowledged their right to reject both law and fact and to find a verdict according to conscience. It was exercise of that right in Penn's trial which eventually led to recognition of free speech, freedom of religion, and of peaceable assembly as individual rights.

American colonial juries regularly thwarted bad law sent over from mother England. Britain then retaliated by restricting both trial by jury and other rights which juries had won or protected. Result? The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution!

It is your duty to think for yourselves. The judge will not instruct you to do this. In fact may judges are hostile to your rights and duties as jurors.

About 18 months ago, armed with a number of pamphlets explaining the importance to each of us in having the courts fully inform juries of their rights, I stood in the Mendocino County Courthouse. I had been talking about this issue, with courthouse visitors when I was "invited" into Judge James Luther's courtroom by two of his bailiffs. Judge Luther, showed me how in general our courts have eroded. I was told to stop talking to my fellow citizens about their constitutional rights. Their right to understand a jury's role in the court procedure. I was told to stop or be arrested for jury tampering.

Saving Social Security

Letter to the Editor

President Bush and I have different views on how to save Social Security. His plan is to destroy Social Security and give the money to his rich friends. My plan to save Social Security is for the people to rise up against the Republicans and take back America before they destroy everything. That is the only way we are going to save Social Security and everything else America stands for.

Programmer comes forward revealing he wrote the code to steal the election

If Clinton were stealing elections - do you think the news media would cover it?

In December 2004, computer programmer Clint Curtis swore in an affidavit that he was asked in 2000 by (now) US Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) to design a software prototype that could "flip" the vote in South Florida voting machines.

That affidavit was first published by blogger Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com. Shortly thereafter, Curtis, in sworn public testimony, shared the details of this story with Democratic members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee who were investigating election fraud charges in Ohio. [video]

In 2000, Curtis was working for a Florida software company called Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI). Feeney, who was then the incoming Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, was, at the same time, general counsel for YEI and its registered lobbyist. He had previously been Jeb Bush's 1994 running mate for Florida Governor and continues to be a close ally of the Bush family.

Feeney has refused public comment on the matter, while YEI and their attorney (Feeney's former law partner) have denied such an event took place. But the alibis of both Feeney and YEI have been repeatedly discredited and debunked by the reporting of Brad Friedman since December.

Clint Curtis, on the other hand, has a solid record as a whistleblower. He told Florida officials that another YEI employee, an illegal Chinese alien named Hai Lin "Henry" Nee, was engaged in high-tech espionage for China. Nee was subsequently indicted by the feds on related charged and pled guilty last year. YEI's CEO, Mrs. Li-Woan Yang, still denies that Nee worked for them, despite federal reports and weekly time records published on The BRAD BLOG which prove otherwise.

The Florida Inspector General who originally investigated Curtis' claims was found dead in a Georgia motel room two weeks after he told Curtis that "this goes all the way to the top." Police called it a "suicide," but Friedman has discovered a number of troubling new facts and inconsistencies about the police "investigation" (which was re-opened after Friedman's reporting emerged on the Internet) including photographs of the crime scene which the police had previously said in their report did not exist.

Clint Curtis' story has quietly rocked top Republicans from Tallahassee to Capitol Hill. Newspaper accounts of Curtis' affidavit and testimony have been published in various local papers (Feeney's hometown letter received a legal threat from both Feeney and YEI when they ran their story), yet the national media has largely been silent on this story despite the reams of public records, court documents and other hard evidence which confirm Curtis' story while continually debunking both Feeney's and YEI's explanations.

Waiting for the Apple Decision

There are a lot of stories in the news that the discovery judge in the Apple vs. PowerPage case was denied. That was a preliminary order and it was before the judge heard any arguments.

The issue before the court was a discovery issue in the case of Apple v. Does. Apple seeks to be able to serve discovery on journalist Jason O'Grady of PowerPage and his ISP who processes his email. Jason is not a defendent in this case and EFF was there representing the interests of the nonparites to ask for a protective order preventing Apple from serving discovery on journalists and the ISPs who process their email.

I was at the hearing today and EFF did a good jub and moved the judge significantly in their direction. The winning issue for EFF is that Apple was lazy and didn't investigate hard enough before trying to compel a nonparty journalist to give up their sources. Case law requires that the journalist is a last resort.

The process was very interesting. There were 5 lawyers at the table for the hearing. The judge did something unusual. He recognized that there were a lot of important questions on the table. So he started out asking a lot of questions and then he said that the lawyers should leave the room and confer about these issues for 15 minutes and come back for the arguments.

One of the questions was if there was a real issue to be suing over. Basically addressing the merits of the underlying case. Apple asserted that the information that PowerPage revealed was in fact a real product that is currently under development and that the "trade secret" that was revealed was a technical blueprint that would only be of interest to engineers and not the general public.

I personally believe Apple was lying to the judge here and it wasn't just the law firm that represented Apple but also Apple's in house legal counsel was there.

There was a question as to whether or not Jason O'Grady of PowerPage was a real journalist or not. EFF made a strong argument that the number of visitors to PowerPage is greater than the number of visitors to Macworld. That his publication had better circulation than many newspapers.

At issue was that stealing trade secrets was a criminal offense and the judge asked if and journalist who published information they know is a trade secret if they aren't really actibg as a "fence" and using free speech immunity to become a conspirator in a crime.

The judge pressed Apple's lawyers on what else they had done to discver the identity of the source of the leak. It turns out that Apple had not done a single deposition of any of it's employees. The lawyer said the Apple's investigator questioned 60 of it's employees "under threat of losing their job".

The reason this is important is because one of the key issues of immunity of journalists in discovery is if they are going to the journalist as a last resort. Apple has a real problem on this issue and their efforts to make this a last resort argument clearly fail.

Another issue of interest to me is that Apple is trying to do an end run around journalistic immunity by going after the ISPs who host the journalist's email. That means that email providers like myself can be compelled to act as Apple's corporate spies. The issue wasn't addressed to the depth that I would have liked to hear and I'm hoping that was because it was obvious that if they can't get discovery against the journalist that they can do an end run around the law and go after people who might have access to the journalist's stuff.

The judge was very sharp in my opinion. Not at all like the brain dead Missouri judges I'm used to. Buy the time the judge was done EFF had clearly moved him for his preliminary decision against the protective order to having to take the weekend to think about it.

I am optimistic about this - but I may be wrong. The way I see it EFF clearly won on the issue that Apples failed the "exhaust all other remedies" test that would give journalists immunity. So I think the issue that the judge is struggling with is if Jason O'Grady is a journalist. I think that if the judge decides that Jason is a journalist - EFF wins.

Apple puts Free Speech at Risk

So - Apple - in order to protect it's trade secets is putting everyone's free speech rights on the line. I believe it is time to punish Apple for their sins against the first amendment. I'm looking for ideas on how to do this. Perhaps the open source community should delay Mac versions of it's software in protest of Apple's threatening freedom on the internet for it's own selfish causes. This worked very well three years ago against Adobe who jailed a Russian programmer who wrote a program to decode Adobe eBooks. Adobe paid a political price for that they they won't soon forget and I think Apple is ripe for the same kind of punishment.

Apple - Good Guys or Bad Guys?

Everyone hates Microsoft because among other things - we all know Bill Gates is the anti-christ, and we know about Microsoft's monopolistic tactics and the companies they drove out of business like Netscape. So if Microsoft is the bad guy - does that make Apple the good guy? Not hardly.

Apple is every bit as evil as Microsoft - but they just aren't as nig. I like to compare Microsoft to a lion and Apple to a cat. There really is no difference between a lion and a house cat except for size. The only reason your pet cat doesn't say you is that you are bigger than it is. But if you were a mouse your pet cat would be seen entirely differently.

Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation is going to court to defend a mouse named PowerPage. PowerPage is a blog about Apple products and they are being sued because Apple wants to know who leaked information about upcoming products and Apple wanted to be able to tap the email of this reporter. Apple's lawyers intimidated their hosting company into giving up the information.

So PowerPage moved their hosting to a different service who is not intimidated by lawyers and judges. PowerPage is now hosted by your's truly. Yes - me. Someone who understands the law and laughs at threats from lawyers. I actually enjoy telling lawyers to go fuck thmselves. So Apple's lawyers will not be getting any confidential information about PowerPage out of me.

At issue today is the question of who is a reporter and what constitutional protections do reporters have? Is a blogger really a reporter? Yes, absolutely they are. In fact the only real news source in the United States right now is from bloggers - especially in the area of politics. When it comes to getting the real news the traditional media is perhaps better at predicting the weather than bloggers are. But if you want to find the facts about how a Republican gay male prostitute became a member of the washingtom press corpse and made daily visits to the Whitehouse for two years - you aren't going to see the other media whores talking about it. You have to go to the blogs.

Also at issue is if Apple can compel me as the host of PowerPage's email to give it up to Apple. And it's something I'm not willing to do, even if they get a court order.

Here's what Apple thinks of your right to free speech as bloggers:
EFF's Motion to Protect Blogger's rights and ISP's rights who hold blogger's email
Apple's Opposition to EFF protective order to protect blogger's rights
EFF's reply to Apple's assult on blogger's free speech rights.

And - like any other reporters you have to protect confidential sources. For example, I know that when the hotel workers in San Francisco go on strike that San Francisco prostitutes honor the hotel workers' picket lines and refuse to fuck anyone in the hotels that are being picketed. That's a story that you won't see on the local television stations. Yet if I were asked how it is that I know that - I wouldn't reveal my sources. (Hint - It's not because I was staying in a hotel and a hooker wouldn't cross a picket line to see me).

Blog reporters often are given news tips for sources who do not want to be revealed the same way that traditional media reporters get tips from inside sources who wish to remain annonymous. Often the reason a news source goes to a blogger is because the blogger often has a targeted audience and will be more interested in the story than the general public would be. In this case the news source probably chose PowerPage because they are a blog dedicated to Apple products and have an audience of Apple users and people who are specifically interested in Apple. Where the local TV stations might not cover it because they are dedicating all their time to Iraq and Social Security.

Just like any other reporters, you have to keep these sources confidential because if you don't then word will get around that you squeal and no one is going to talk to you again.

At issue today is if the government is going to decide who is and who is not a reporter. If bloggers aren't reporters then is Matt Drudge a reporter? After all - Drudge isn't any different than any other online media. If CNN runs a blog then do the reporters for CNN blogs have different rights that the CNN reporters who do television?

If bloggers lose their rights then where does it end? When a private company like Apple can use the power of the law to oppress the free speech of bloggers then what protections will CNN reporters who write blogs have to protect their confidential sources? Once you cross that line then no reporter is safe. And when reporters arten't safe then you end up in a situation that works like the Whitehouse press corpse where the GOP hires a gay mae hooker to pretend to be a reporter so that the president can call on him and pretend to be taking questions from the media - and the rest of the media just keep their mouths shut and let it happen.

So - we all want to support our good friends at EFF for going down there and fighting the good fight. If not for them then a lot of the online rights and freedoms that we take for granted wouldn't be there. And the work they are doing literally today will ensure that when Apple comes for you that you will be able to tell them it ain't gonna happen. And - if you are an Apple insider and you want to leak information about Apple to the media, I recommend PowerPage as the place to go, because I will not give your email to Apple's lawyers.

Newsweek caught in a cover story lie

The cover says, "Martha's Last Laugh - After Prision, She's Thinner, Wealthier & Ready for Prime Time". Newsweek is a magazine that we trust because they are after all - the mainstream legitimate news. So - one would be surprized to find out that Newsweek grafted Martha Stewart's face on a model's body. But that's what happened.

Newsweek explains - accourding to CBS - their fraud as follows:

The familiar Stewart face was placed upon somebody else's body for the cover story "Martha's Last Laugh," making the 63-year-old domestic diva look terrific despite her five months in prison.

Editors at the weekly magazine said there was nothing wrong with the "photo illustration," given that it was well known that Stewart isn't doing any fashion spreads from her West Virginia prison cell.

"Anybody who knows the story and is familiar with Martha's current situation would know this particular picture" was an illustration and not a photograph, assistant managing editor Lynn Staley said.

Newsweek said it did not intend to fool readers in any way and regretted if the photo illustration left any misimpression. "

They say we can look at it and see it's an illustration - not a photograph? It sure fooled me. But I guess I'm just not very smart when it come to this sort of stuff. I'm not sharp enough to even tell that the guy in this photo is Bush's favorite member of the Whitehouse press corps.

By the way - if anyone has the original pic without his cock edited out - I suse would want to get a copy of it and post it here. After all - I don't want to be like Newsweek and use doctored photos. So if you have it - please post a link to it here.