(afterwards, go to http://3trillion.org to see what YOU would buy for 3 trillion!)

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Yes. Of course. “Drafting errors” that benefit Blackwater and Halliburton subsidiaries work their way into policy regulations all the time. How embarrassing.

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“When people look at me, I don’t want them just to see perhaps the next First Lady of the United States; I want them to see what an investment in public education can look like,” she said.

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“Any time that we can hear directly from the American people and not paid lobbyists, it is a good thing,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has sponsored several open-government initiatives.

The idea of letting the public shape legislation levels the playing field between affluent groups that can afford lobbyists and the public, Cornyn said.

The idea was not as well received by Paul Miller, past president of the American League of Lobbyists. Miller says lobbyists are unfairly portrayed as backroom-deal makers.

There is more transparency in legislation than ever before, Miller said. But he disagrees with putting bills up for all to rewrite.

“I don’t think the way you advocate is to put everything online and say, ‘All right American people, weigh in on that,’ because then what’s next?” Miller asked. “Are we going to let the American people decide our defense policy, our trade policy, our immigration policy?”

Uhm… yes?

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de·moc·ra·cy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/

1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

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A man tries to break a cockpit door with a rock to gain access after the plane crashed in Goma, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on April 15, 2008. The plane had about 100 people on board of which “there were six survivors, including the pilot and co-pilot,” said an official in the control tower in Kinshasa. But several airport sources in Goma, on the DRC’s eastern border with Rwanda, and in Kinshasa, told AFP the accident left dozens of dead, since many people were trapped in the plane when it crashed at the end of the runway and burst into flames.

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In five years, I’ve received more than a boot camp education regarding the astonishing lack of awareness of our American citizenry. This lack of awareness encompasses every region of the country, economic status, ethnic background, and level of education. My battles have included everything from a man not knowing how to spell the name of the town he was from, to another not recognizing the name as “Iowa” as being a state, to another who thought he had to apply for a foreign passport to fly to West Virginia. They are the enemy and they are everywhere.

In the history of the world there has never been as much communication and new things to learn as today. Yet, after I asked a woman from New York what city she wanted to go to in Arizona, she asked, “Oh… is it a big place?”

I talked to a woman in Denver who had never heard of Cincinnati, a man in Minneapolis who didn’t know there was more than one city in the South (“wherever the South is”), a woman in Nashville who asked, “Instead of paying for your ticket, can I just donate the money to the National Cancer Society?”, and a man in Dallas who tried to pay for his ticket by sticking quarters in the pay phone he was calling from.

[..]

It wasn’t long before I suffered a direct hit from a woman who wanted to fly to Hippopotamus, NY. After I assured her that there was no such city, she became irate and said it was a big city with a big airport. I asked if Hippopotamus was near Albany or Syracuse. It wasn’t. Then I asked if it was near Buffalo. “Buffalo!” she said. “I knew it was a big animal!”

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Here’s what Hillary says on her campaign Web site:

Today, Hillary Clinton received the endorsement of another prominent Montana leader, Yellowstone County Commissioner Bill Kennedy…. Kennedy said Sen. Obama’s remarks last week at a San Francisco fundraiser solidified his support for Sen. Clinton.

Here’s the truth from Kennedy today, April 15:

“I had been leaning toward Hillary for months,” Kennedy said. “I actually decided to endorse her two weeks ago.”

In other words, he decided on April 1. Obama made the bitter comments on April 6. So, she lied.

It’s not just the lies, but how bad Hillary sucks at lying. The lies are amateurish. She was caught in sniper fire when she knows there were a bazillion reporters, including film crews, with her at the time? The White House sent her and her 15 year old daughter on trips that were too dangerous for the president? She only mentioned the Bosnia gaffe once, late at night? Everyone at all of their stops has been wearing “I’m not bitter” stickers (when they weren’t, and the media has been with them the entire time)? She’s always been opposed to NAFTA? She brought peace to Northern Ireland? She once tried to join the Marines? She’s a duck hunter and a big fan of the culture of guns?

Speaking of ducks, if it quacks like a duck…

seen on reddit

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Attytood’s Will Bunch asks Senator Obama the question that’s on everyone’s mind:

Tonight I had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question that is on the minds of many Americans, yet rarely rises to the surface in the great ruckus of the 2008 presidential race — and that is whether an Obama administration would seek to prosecute officials of a former Bush administration on the revelations that they greenlighted torture, or for other potential crimes that took place in the White House.

Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to “immediately review the information that’s already there” and determine if an inquiry is warranted — but he also tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun as “a partisan witch hunt.” However, he said that equation changes if there was willful criminality, because “nobody is above the law.”

Back in October, shortly after he endorsed Hillary Clinton, General Wesley Clark told Matt Stoller that Senator Clinton would pursue investigations as well:

Matt Stoller: So you think Senator Clinton as President will do those investigations?

Wes Clark: Yes.

Matt Stoller: And you think Congress should continue those investigations once Bush is out of office?

Wes Clark: Absolutely.

Words are nice, but I want some firm commitments. Who’s with me?

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One nation under God. The “bold conservative” GOP Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia is intent upon removing a vexing comma from that phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, which was amended in 1954 when President Eisenhower was moved by a sermon by one Reverend George M. Docherty on the need to defend America from the “militantly atheistic communism that has already enslaved 800 million of the peoples of the earth, and now menaces the rest of the free world.”

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Atheistic Overlord: Minion! Begin the invasion of the American Heartland! We will, once and for all, bring an end to their wholesome, democratic ways and make the world safe for atheists! Ready the death ray!

Atheistic Minion: My lord! We are unable to bring the lasers to bear on their targets! Something is interfering!

Atheistic Overlord: What is the cause of this? What could possibly thwart my plans?

Atheistic Minion: It’s the Americans, sire. They seam to be… pledging allegiance! To one nation! UNDER GOD!

Atheistic Overlord: Curses! Foiled again!

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The introduction of the Dutch public RFID transit pass will be delayed because it can be easily hacked.

The final blow was given by researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, who confirmed earlier findings by Dutch Institute TNO that the card isn’t properly secured.

The Dutch Green Party and the Social Party have called for a complete halt to the card’s development. They say introduction of the card would be totally irresponsible.

The smart card, known as the OV-chipkaart, is to replace paper tickets on all trams, buses, and trains and is already undergoing trials in Rotterdam. The development of the card, at a cost of $2bn, has been beset with problems.

In January, two students at the University of Amsterdam showed how a used single-use card could be given eternal life by resetting it to its original unused state.

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Half a century after the last earth-shattering atomic blast shook the Pacific atoll of Bikini, the corals are flourishing again. Some coral species, however, appear to be locally extinct.

These are the findings of a remarkable investigation by an international team of scientists from Australia, Germany, Italy, Hawaii and the Marshall Islands. The expedition examined the diversity and abundance of marine life in the atoll.

One of the most interesting aspects is that the team dived into the vast Bravo Crater left in 1954 by the most powerful American atom bomb ever exploded (15 megatonnes – a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb). The Bravo bomb vapourised three islands, raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees, shook islands 200 kilometers away and left a crater 2km wide and 73m deep.

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Not long ago we reported that Monster Cable had issued a cease and desist letter to Blue Jeans Cable about their Tartan cables. Little did the lawyer drones over at Monster know that Kurt Denke, the president of Blue Jeans was, in a former life, a lawyer by trade. Oops! Someone pushed around the wrong “small” company! While we are no legal experts, we recognize humor when we see it. And this is funny. With Blue Jeans Cable’s permission, we’ve included their full response to Monster’s letter below.

Click through for the entire letter… somebody should compose a similar response for the letters RIAA sends out..