evilmousse's blog

freedom died a little more bit this week

2008-02-12T19:12:00.000-06:00

Senate Caves into Pressure - Won't Block Immunity for Illegal Spying

I just can't believe it. I'm literally stupified. I have no words, but I wish you all would know and care. I watched cspan2 for the first time in just about ever at any length, and senators specter and dodd spoke passionately against telecom immunity. Dodd and Feingold co-proposed a brilliant amendment to substitute the government as the defendant on behalf of the companies, rather than squelch the court system before justice is done, removing bush's reprehensible insistence on vetoing any version that doesn't include immunity for telecoms. Please tell your friends and write your representatives. There is one last chance to stop this in the reconciliation process between the house version, which did not include immunity.

(for whatever reason, this transcript isn't precise...)

December 17, 2007

Mr. President:

I rise to urge my colleagues to vote against cloture on S. 2248, the FISA Amendments Act of 2007.

Opposing cloture is essential, because there is no unanimous consent agreement in place providing for the immediate adoption of the Judiciary Committee substitute amendment.

As you know, Mr. President, the Judiciary substitute amendment, among other things, strikes Title II of the Intelligence Committee bill—the title which seeks to provide retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies who are alleged to have violated their customers’ privacy rights by turning over information to the government without warrants.

I am fully aware that the Majority Leader has various parliamentary options at his disposal to move this legislation forward. It is his right to attempt to invoke cloture.

But I regret that decision, and I hope that my colleagues will join me in stopping this legislation.

Mr. President, why do I feel so strongly about this matter?

For the last six years, our largest telecommunications companies have been spying on their own American customers.

Secretly and without a warrant, they delivered to the federal government the private, domestic communications records of millions of Americans—records this administration has compiled into a database of enormous scale and scope.

That decision betrayed millions of customers’ trust. It was unwarranted—literally.

But was it illegal?

That, Mr. President, I don’t know. And if this bill passes in its current form, we will never know. The president’s favored corporations will be immune.

Their arguments will never be heard in a court of law. The details of their actions will stay hidden. The truth behind this unprecedented domestic spying will never see light. And the book on our government’s actions will be closed, and sealed, and locked, and handed over to the safe-keeping of those few whom George Bush trusts to keep a secret.

The bill that the Majority Leaders will seek to make the pending business of the Senate later today—the FISA Amendments Act of 2007—has a long and twisted history behind it. Its origins lie in President Bush’s years of warrantless spying on Americans.

That abuse of power was exposed by the press in late 2005. The New York Times revealed that under a presidential order signed in 2002, the [National Security Agency] has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years.

In fact, we later learned that the president’s warrantless spying was authorized as early as 2001.

Disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in a 2006 white paper, attempted to justify that spying; his argument rested on the specious claim that, in authorizing the president to go to war in Afghanistan, Congress had also somehow authorized him to listen in on phone calls in America.

But many of those who voted on the original authorization of force found this claim to new executive powers to be a laughable invention. Here’s what former Majority Leader Tom Daschle wrote:

As Senate majority leader…I helped negotiate that law with the White House counsel’s office over two harried days. I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up….I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance.

Such claims to expanded executive power based on the authorization for military force have since been struck down by the courts.

In recent months, the administration has changed its argument, now grounding its warrantless surveillance power in the extremely nebulous “authority of the president to defend the country” that they find in the Constitution.

Of course, that begs the question: Exactly what doesn’t fit under “defending the country”? If we take the president at his word, we would concede to him nearly unlimited power, as long as he finds a lawyer willing to stuff his actions into that boundless category.

Rather than concede such power, Congress has worked to bring the president’s surveillance program back where it belongs—under the rule of law.

At the same time, we’ve worked to modernize FISA and ease restrictions on terrorist surveillance. The Protect America Act, a bill attempting to respond to that two-pronged challenged, passed in August; but it is set to expire in February.

The bill now before us would create a legal regime for surveillance under reworked and more reasonable rules. But crucially, President Bush has demanded that this bill include full retroactive immunity for corporations complicit in domestic spying. In a speech on September 19, he stated that “it’s particularly important for Congress to provide meaningful liability protection to those companies.”

In October, he stiffened his demand, vowing to veto any bill that did not shield the telecom corporations. And last week, he resorted to shameful, misleading scare tactics, accusing Congress of failing “to keep the American people safe.”

That month, the FISA Amendments Act came before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Per the president’s demand, it included full retroactive immunity for the telecom corporations. Senator Nelson introduced an amendment to strip that immunity, and instead allow the matter to be settled in the courts. It failed by a vote of 3 to 12.

But as it passed out of the Intelligence Committee, by a vote of 13 to 2, the bill still put corporations literally above the law and ensured that the extent of the president’s invasions of privacy would remain a secret. I found retroactive immunity far beyond the pale, and I made my objections strongly and publicly.

But the bill also had to pass through the Judiciary Committee. There, Chairman Pat Leahy succeeded in reporting out a bill without the egregious immunity provision. Over the years, Pat Leahy has cemented his reputation as a champion of the rule of law; and I believe the stand he took last month will be honored for a long time to come.

However, I’m still concerned that when Senator Feingold proposed an amendment to strip immunity for good, it failed by a vote of 7 to 12.

So here we are—facing a final decision on whether the telecommunications companies will get off the hook for good. The president’s allies are as intent as they ever were on making that happen. They want immunity back in this bill at all costs.

But what they’re truly offering is secrecy in place of openness. Fiat in place of law.

And in place of the forthright argument and judicial deliberation that ought to be this country’s pride, two simple words from our president’s mouth: “Trust me.”

I cannot speak for my colleagues—but I would never take that offer, not even in the best of times, not even from a perfect president. I would never take that offer because our Constitution tells us that the president’s word is subject to the oversight of the Congress and the deliberation of the courts; and because I took an oath to defend the Constitution; and because I stand by my oath.

“Trust me.” It is the offer to hide ourselves in the waiting arms of the rule of men. And in these threatened times, that offer has never seemed more seductive. The rule of law has rarely been so fragile.

“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger…from abroad.” James Madison, the father of our Constitution, made that prediction more than two centuries ago. With the passage of this bill, his words would be one step closer to coming true. So it has never been more essential that we lend our voices to the law, and speak on its behalf.

On its behalf, we say to President Bush that a nation of truly free men and women would never take “trust me” for an answer, not even from a perfect president—and certainly not from him.

In these times—under a president who seems every more day intent on acting as if he is the law, who grants himself the right to ignore legislation, who claims the power to spy without a warrant, to imprison without a hearing, to torture without a scruple—in these times, I would be a fool to take his offer.

But “trust me,” says President Bush. He means it literally. When he first asked Congress to make the telecoms’ actions legally disappear, Congress had a reasonable question for him: Can we at least know exactly what we’d be immunizing? Can you at least tell us what we’d be cleaning up?

And the president refused to answer. Only he, his close advisors, and a handful of telecom executives know all of the facts. Congress is only asked to give token oversight.

But if we are to do our Constitutionally-mandated job, we need more than token oversight; we need full hearings on the terrorist surveillance program before the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.

Without that, we remain in the dark—and in the dark we’re expected to grant the president’s wish, because he knows best.

Does that sound familiar to any of my colleagues?

In 2002, we took the president’s word and voted to go to war on faulty intelligence. What if we took his word again—and found, next year or the year after, that we had blindly legalized grave crimes?

If this disastrous war has taught us anything, it is that the Senate must never again stack such a momentous decision on such a weak foundation of fact. The decision we’re asked to make today is not, of course, as immense. But between fact and decision, the disproportion is just as huge.

So I rise in determined opposition to this unprecedented immunity and all that it represents. I have served in this body for more than a quarter-century. I have spoken from this desk hundreds and hundreds of times. I have rarely come to the floor with such anger.

But since I came to Washington, I have seen six presidents sit in the White House—and I have never seen a contempt for the rule of law equal to this. Today I have reached a breaking point. Today my disgust has found its limit.

I don’t expect every one of my colleagues to share that disgust, or that limit. I wish they did—but had that been the case, we would never have come to this point.

I only ask them to believe me when I say if I did not speak today, my conscience would not let me rest.

The right to conscience is one of the Senate’s most treasured allowances. It is perhaps this body’s defining feature. The president has his dominating bully pulpit. Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote that “in drama, magnitude and finality [the president’s] decisions so far overshadow any others that almost alone he fills the public eye and ear. No other personality in public life can begin to compete with him in access to the public mind.”

But here in this chamber, a minority—even an impassioned minority of one—has the right to stand against all the combined weight and machinery of government and plead: “Stop!”

Or at least: “Wait.” A minority can’t stand forever, as surely as I can’t speak forever. Ultimately, a minority has only one recourse—to make itself a majority. And I have faith that when the American people understand the full extent of this president’s contempt for the law, they will share my outrage. This is a trusting and patient nation—and with more than two centuries of democratic tradition, rightly so.

But that trust is not infinite; that patience is not endless; and after seven years of this president, they are worn down to the nub.

If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be standing here today. If the rule of law weren’t my ruling passion, I wouldn’t be standing here today. But I do, and it is.

“Law” is a word we barely hear from the president and his allies. They offer neither a deliberation about America’s difficult choices in the age of terrorism, nor a shared attempt to set for our times the excruciating balance between security and liberty.

They merely promise a false debate on a false choice: security or liberty, but never, ever both.

It speaks volumes about the president’s estimation of the American people that he expects them to accept that choice. I think differently. I think that America’s founding truth is unambiguous: security and liberty, one and inseparable, and never one without the other.

Secure in that truth, I offer a challenge to the president’s allies: You want to put the president’s favored corporations above the law. Could you please explain how your immunity makes any one of us any safer by an iota?

If security were truly the issue, this debate wouldn’t be happening. An excellent balance between security and liberty has already been struck by FISA, a balance that has stood for three decades. In fact, FISA was written just to prevent a situation like ours from occurring: to protect Americans without countenancing executive lawbreaking

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, the United States Senate convened the Church Committee, a panel of distinguished senators determined to shine light on executive abuses of power. The facts it uncovered were shocking:

Army spying on the civilian population; federal dossiers on citizens’ political activities; a CIA and FBI program that had opened hundreds of thousands of Americans’ letters without warning or warrant.

The collective force of these revelations was undeniable: In their oversight duties, Congress and the courts had failed; they had unquestioningly accepted the executive’s “trust me”; and as a result, Americans had sustained a severe blow to their Fourth Amendment rights “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The Senate could have panicked; it could have ended or drastically curtailed those searches altogether. But in its wisdom, the Senate understood that protecting the American people was not the problem; the problem was simply the Nixonian attitude that “if the president does it, it’s not illegal.”

The solution was to bring the executive’s efforts to protect America under the watchful eye of Congress and the courts—to restore checks and balances to surveillance, and to give it the legitimacy it demands and deserves. America would not be America if such power remained concentrated in the hands of one man, or one branch of government.

The Church Committee’s final report, “Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans,” put the case eloquently:

The critical question before the Committee was to determine how the fundamental liberties of the people can be maintained in the course of the Government’s effort to protect their security. The delicate balance between these basic goals of our system of government is often difficult to strike, but it can, and must, be achieved.

We reject the view that the traditional American principles of justice and fair play have no place in our struggle against the enemies of freedom. Moreover, our investigation has established that the targets of intelligence activity have ranged far beyond persons who could properly be characterized as enemies of freedom….

We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of the tactics of totalitarian regimes.

We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as “vacuum cleaners,” sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens.

The senators concluded: “Unless new and tighter controls are established by legislation, domestic intelligence activities threaten to undermine our democratic society and fundamentally alter its nature.”

What a strange echo we hear in those words! They could have been written yesterday. Three decades ago, our predecessors in this chamber understood that when domestic spying goes too far, it threatens to kill just what it promises to protect—an America secure in its liberty. That lesson was crystal-clear 30 years ago. Why is it so clouded now?

And before we entertain the argument that “everything has changed” since those words were written, remember: The men who wrote them had witnessed world war and Cold War, had seen Nazi and Soviet spying, and were living every day under the cloud of nuclear holocaust. How short some memories are!

The threats have multiplied and grown in complexity, but the lesson has been immutable: Warrantless spying threatens to undermine our democratic society, unless legislation brings it under control. In other words, the power to invade privacy must be used sparingly, guarded jealously, and shared equally between the branches of government.

Or the case can be made pragmatically. As my friend Harold Koh, the Dean of Yale Law School, recently argued, “The engagement of all three branches tends to yield not just more thoughtful law, but a more broadly supported public policy.”

Three decades ago, that broadly supported public policy—a prime outcome of the Church Committee—was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA confirmed the president’s power to conduct surveillance of international conversations involving anyone in the United States, provided that the federal FISA court issued a warrant—ensuring that wiretapping was aimed at safeguarding our security, and nothing else. To further protect intelligence gathering, that court was to work in secret.

Ironically, none other than the president’s own Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, explained the rationale in an interview this summer:

The United States “did not want to allow [the intelligence community] to conduct…electronic surveillance of Americans for foreign intelligence unless you had a warrant, so that was required.”

As originally written in 1978, and as amended nine times since, FISA has accomplished its mission; it has been a valuable tool for conducting surveillance of terrorists and those who would harm America. And every time presidents have come to Congress openly to ask for more leeway under FISA, Congress has worked with them; Congress has compromised; and together, Congress and the president have struck a balance that safeguards America while doing its utmost to protect privacy.

This summer, Congress made a technical correction to FISA, enabling the president to wiretap, without a warrant, conversations between two foreign targets, even if those conversations are routed through American computers. Personally, I felt that this summer’s legislation went too far, and I opposed it. But the point is that Congress once again proved its willingness to work with the president on FISA.

Isn’t that enough?

Just this October and November, as we’ve seen, the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees worked with the president to further refine FISA and ensure that, in a true emergency, the FISA court would do nothing to slow down intelligence gathering.

Isn’t that enough?

And as for the FISA court, it has approved the president’s wiretapping requests with impeccable consistency.

Between 1978 and 2004, according to the Washington Post, the FISA court approved 18,748 warrants—and rejected five. The FISA court has sided with the executive ninety nine point nine percent of the time.

Isn’t that enough?

Is anything lacking? Isn’t the framework already in place? Isn’t all of this enough to keep us safe?

We all know the president’s answer. Given this complex, fine-tuned machinery, crafted over three decades by all three branches—he ignored it.

Given a system primed to bless nearly any eavesdropping he could conceive—he conducted his own, illegally.

If the shock of that decision has yet to sink in, think of it this way: President Bush ignored not just a federal court, but a secret federal court; not just a secret federal court, but a secret federal court prepared to sign off on his actions ninety nine point nine percent of the time. A more compliant court has never been conceived.

And still that wasn’t good enough for our president.

So I will ask the Senate candidly, and candidly it already knows the answer: Is this about our security—or is it about his power?

I ask that question not to change the subject, but because it is the key to understanding why this administration is pushing so hard for telecom immunity—that is, for secrecy. Richard Nixon, the same man who declared that “if the president does it, it’s not illegal,” raised secrecy to an art form—because he understood that the surest way to amass power is to conceal its true extent.

Secrecy can spring from the best motives; but as it grows it begins to exist only for itself, only for its own sake, only to cover its own abuses.

The senators of the Church Committee expressed succinctly the deep flaw in that form of government: “Abuse thrives on secrecy.”

Today, we have seen the executive branch pass to a new master of secrecy. Vice President Cheney practices a secrecy so baroque that it could, in a less threatened time, be an object for laughter, instead of fear.

His unclassified papers? Stamped “treat as TSSCI,” one of the highest levels of state secret.

The list of papers he has declassified? Classified.

The members of his energy task force? None of your business.

His location? Undisclosed.

The names of his staff? Confidential.

The visitor log for his office? Shredded by the Secret Service.

When secrecy becomes this divorced from practicality, we are left with only one conclusion: For this executive branch, secrecy is power.

Of course, I don’t mean any offense against our Vice President—as he reminds us, he’s not part of the executive branch.

Mr. President, we see a pattern of secrecy stretching back to the first months of this administration. Its push for immunity is no different—secrecy is at its center.

And tellingly, the administration’s original immunity proposal protected not just the telecoms, but everyone involved in the wiretapping program. In their original proposal, that is, they wanted to immunize themselves.

Think about that. It speaks to their fear and, perhaps, their guilt: their guilt that they had broken the law, and their fear that in the years to come, they would be found liable or convicted. They knew better than anyone else what they had done—they must have had good reason to be afraid!

Thankfully, executive immunity is not part of the bill before us.

But the origin of immunity tells us a great deal about what’s at stake here: This is, and always has been, a self-preservation bill.

Otherwise, why not have the trial and get it over with? If the president’s allies believe what they say, the corporations would win in a walk.

After all, look at things from their perspective: In their telling, when our biggest telecom corporations helped the president spy without a warrant, they were doing their patriotic duty. When they listened to the executive branch and turned over private information, they were doing their patriotic duty.

When one company gave the NSA a secret eavesdropping room at its own corporate headquarters—it was simply doing its patriotic duty. The president asked, the telecoms answered.

Well! Shouldn’t that be an easy case to prove, Mr. President? The corporations only need to show a judge the authority and the assurances they were given, and they’ll be in and out of court in five minutes. If the telecoms are as defensible as the president says, why doesn’t the president let them defend themselves? If the case is so easy to make, why doesn’t he let them make it? Why is he standing in the way?

Our federal court system has dealt for decades with the most delicate national security matters, building up expertise in protecting classified information behind closed doors—ex parte, in camera. We can expect no less in these cases. If we’re worried about national security being threatened as a result, we can simply get the principals a security clearance.

No intelligence sources need be compromised. No state secrets need be exposed. And we can say so with increasing confidence, because after the extensive the litigation that has already taken place at both the district court and circuit court level, no sensitive information has leaked out.

In fact, Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, a Republican appointee, has already ruled that the issue can go to trial without putting state secrets in jeopardy. He reasonably pointed out that the existence of the president’s surveillance program is a hardly secret at all: “The government has [already] disclosed the general contours of the ‘terrorist surveillance program,’ which requires the assistance of a telecommunications provider.”

George Bush wouldn’t be the first president to hide righteously behind the state secrets privilege. In fact, the privilege was tainted at its birth by a president of my own party, Harry Truman.

In 1952, he successfully invoked the new privilege to prevent public exposure of a report on a plane crash that killed three Air Force contractors.

When the report was finally declassified—some fifty years later, decades after anyone in the Truman administration was within its reach—it contained no state secrets at all. Only facts about repeated maintenance failures that would have seriously embarrassed some important people. And so the state secrets privilege began its career not to protect our nation—but to protect the powerful.

In his opinion, Judge Walker argued that, even when it is reasonably grounded,

the state secrets privilege [still] has its limits. While the court recognizes and respects the executive’s constitutional duty to protect the nation from threats, the court also takes seriously its constitutional duty to adjudicate the disputes that come before it. To defer to a blanket assertion of secrecy here would be to abdicate that duty, particularly because the very subject matter of this litigation has been so publicly aired.

The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.

And that ought to be the epitaph for this presidency: “sacrificing liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.” Worse than selling our soul—giving it away for free!

The president is equally wrong to claim that failing to grant this retroactive immunity will make the telecoms less likely to cooperate with surveillance in the future.

The truth is that, since the 1970s, FISA has compelled telecommunications companies to cooperate with surveillance, when it’s warranted—and what’s more, it immunizes them. It’s done that for more than 25 years.

So cooperation in warranted wiretapping is not at stake today. Collusion in warrantless wiretapping is—and the warrant makes all the difference, because it is precisely the court’s blessing that brings presidential power under the rule of law.

In sum, we know that giving the telecoms their day in court—giving the American people their day in court—would not jeopardize an ounce of our security.

And it could only expose one secret: the extent of our president’s lawbreaking, and the extent of his corporations’ complicity. That, our president will go to the mat to defend. That, he will keep from the light of a courtroom at all costs. That, his supporters would amend the law to protect.

And that is the choice at stake today: Will George Bush’s secrets die with this presidency? Or will they be open to the generations to come, to our successors in this chamber, so that they can prepare themselves to defend against future outrages of power and usurpations of law from future presidents, of either party?

I am here because I will not see those secrets go quietly into the good night with Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney and George Bush. I am here because the truth is not their private property—it belongs to every one of us, and it demands to be heard.

“State secrets,” “patriotic duty”—those, as weak as they are, are the arguments the president’s allies use when they’re feeling high-minded! When their thoughts turn baser, they make their arguments in dollar signs.

Here’s how Mike McConnell put it:

“If you play out the suits at the value they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So…we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities.”

Mike McConnell is quickly becoming an accidental truth-teller! Notice how the president’s own Director of National Intelligence concedes that if the cases went to trial, the telecoms would lose. I don’t know if that’s true, Mr. President—but we can thank Adm. McConnell for telling us how he really feels.

Of course, it’s an exaggeration to claim that that these companies would surely go bankrupt, even if they did lose.

We are talking about some of the wealthiest, most successful companies in America. Let me quote an article from Dow Jones MarketWatch. The date is October 23, 2007. The headline reads: “AT&T’s third-quarter profit rises 41.5%.”

Quote: “AT&T Inc. on Tuesday said third-quarter earnings rose 41.5%, boosted by the acquisition of BellSouth and the addition of 2 million net wireless customers….Net income totaled $3.06 billion…compared with $2.17 billion…a year ago.” Note that AT&T has posted these record profits at a time of very public litigation.

A company with more than $3 billion in profits one quarter—only the most exorbitant and unlikely judgment could completely wipe it out. To assume that the telecoms would lose, and that their judges would then hand down such backbreaking penalties, is already to take several leaps.

The point, after all, has never been to financially cripple our telecommunications industry. The point is to bring checks and balances back to domestic spying. Setting that precedent would hardly require a crippling judgment.

It’s much more troubling, though, that the Director of National Intelligence even feels the need to pronounce on “liability protection for private sector entities.” Since when were our spies in the business of economics? Since when did they put protecting AT&T or Verizon ahead of protecting the American people? Since when did the amount a defendant stands to lose have any bearing on whether a suit should go forward? I learned in law school that guilty was guilty—no matter how rich or how poor.

Lean on this logic, and you’ll sink to its venal core: Certain corporations are too rich to be sued. Forget what they owe; forget what’s just; forget judges setting the penalty.

If there’s even a chance of the judgment being high, throw the suit out—it endangers the Republic!

This administration has equated corporations’ bottom lines with our nation’s security. Follow that reasoning honestly to its end, and you come to the conclusion: The larger the corporation, the more lawless it can be. If we accept Mr. McConnell’s premises, we could conceive of a corporation so wealthy, so integral to our economy, that its riches place it outside the law altogether. And if the administration’s thinking even admits that possibility, we know instinctively how flawed it is.

The truth is exactly the opposite: The larger the corporation, the greater the potential for abuse, and the more carefully it must be watched. Not that success should make a company suspect; companies grow large, and essential to our economy, because they are excellent at what they do. I simply mean that size and wealth open the realm of possibilities for abuse far beyond the scope of the individual.

Consider this. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation,

Clear, first-hand whistleblower documentary evidence [states]…that for year on end every e-mail, every text message, and every phone call carried over the massive fiber-optic links of sixteen separate companies routed through AT&T’s Internet hub in San Francisco—hundreds of millions of private, domestic communications—have been…copied in their entirety by AT&T and knowingly diverted wholesale by means of multiple “splitters” into a secret room controlled exclusively by the NSA.

If true, that constitutes one of the most massive violations of privacy in American history.

And it would be inconceivable without the size and resources of an AT&T behind it—the same size that makes Mike McConnell fear the corporations’ day in court.

If reasonable search and seizure means opening a drug dealer’s apartment, the telecoms’ alleged actions would be the equivalent of strip-searching everyone in the building, ransacking their bedrooms, and prying up all the floorboards. That’s the massive scale we’re talking about—and that massive scale is precisely why no corporation must be above the law.

On that scale, it is impossible to plead ignorance.

As Judge Walker ruled, “AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.”

But the arguments of the president’s allies sink even lower. Listen to the words a House Republican leader spoke on Fox News. They are shameful: “I believe that they deserve immunity from lawsuits out there from typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of American companies.”

Cindy Cohn is one of those “trial lawyers.” She is lead counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a small public-interest law firm bringing suit against the telecom corporations.

And when she heard that Fox News claim about typical greedy trial lawyers, she laughed.

If he still thinks that we’re rich plaintiffs’ attorneys after he’s visited our little tiny Mission Street offices, [she said,] then I have a bridge to sell him. Most of the EFF lawyers worked in those big fancy firms for big fancy salaries, and took big pay cuts to join us….

Young lawyers come to me and say, “I really want to work for EFF—you have such great lawyers.”

I say: “Take your current paycheck, rip it in three pieces, take any third, and that’s about what you’ll get working for EFF.” The lawyers who work for EFF…are making far less than they could on the open market in exchange for being able to work in things they believe in every day.

Consider the hundreds of lawyers retained by the corporations in question, and their multimillion-dollar legal budgets, and the attempt to portray them as pitiable Davids is ludicrous. Sprint’s lawyers recently settled an unrelated class-action lawsuit for $30 million. Three years ago, AT&T handled a settlement with shareholders for $100 million.

With those resources, I think they can give EFF’s nine non-profit lawyers in their little office on Mission Street a fair fight.

Mr. President, I don’t presume to know how that fight will end. I don’t presume to hand out innocence and guilt—that’s not my job. Judges and juries do that. And in their search for the truth, the only job of this body is to get out of the way.

I’m not invested in one verdict or another—only that a verdict is reached. I don’t care who the truth favors—only that it comes out at all.

State secrets; future cooperation; economic harms; reputational damage; legal burdens—as we’ve seen, not a single one of the president’s arguments for this immunity stands. Nothing tells us to halt the legal process, to bar the courthouse door. Everything tells us to open it.

Mr. President, perhaps when I leave this floor today, someone will ask me, “Why are you so agitated about some telephone records? There’s so much else to be worked up about!”

And I’ll only be able to respond: “Exactly.”

We have seen this administration chip away at the rule of law at a dozen points. Its relentlessness may be its greatest strength—the assault becomes numbing, and our healthy outrage grows dull. It was an outrage when this president set up secret courts outside the law. It was an outrage when he ignored the courts and tapped our phones. It was an outrage when he sanctioned torture. But outrage upon outrage upon outrage—and we wind up in a stupor. We’ve allowed each abuse with nothing more than a promise to resist the next one—and the next one, and the next one.

I am here, in the end, because the line has to be drawn somewhere. Why not here? Why not today?

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

I’ve sworn that oath eight times, Mr. President—three times in the House, and five times in the Senate. I’m here today to honor those words, as I understand them.

Every one of my colleagues has spoken those words, as well; and we all have one vital thing in common:

We are all trying, every day, to live up to them.

If they speak differently to some of my colleagues, I understand. I understand if we don’t see eye to eye.

I only ask this in return: Understand why I’m compelled to be here today—to carry on the fight for the rule of law, as I know it, and to honor my oath, as it speaks to me.

I yield the floor.

i saw stephen colbert at church in sc this sunday

2008-01-01T14:58:00.000-06:00

and other than giving him a wink as i walked by, i otherwise let him be ^_^

flickr photos mashed into google maps disc golf courses

2007-12-16T18:35:00.000-06:00

the snow's been too deep to disc golf, so i've had the time to do some huge programming for my disc golf site. i'm really happy at getting it all to work right, because i've been meaning to do it forever.

now with the ordered slideshow of course pictures a click away from a course's info and still in-map, it finally gives all the photos i've been taking a purpose other than just sitting there. i tagged up about a thousand from my last set already, and i'll be working to get the rest of the photos in there hopefully soon.

the airlines can screw you any way they want to

2007-12-09T14:27:00.000-06:00

[an approximate log of a phone call a minute ago with airtran airlines complaint line, i had been told to call by a prior representative who thought maybe the complaint department would do something for me]

[*snip* introductions and exchanging private info to establish myself as a customer]

i'm calling to complain because you canceled my departing flight at 5:30pm and rescheduled me at 10:30am. i'm supposed to work that day so this is more than a small inconvenience.

"do you want to reschedule your flight?"

no, that's not my complaint, i've already talked with a representative for that, and flying a day prior doesn't solve my problem of needing to work that day; you've put me on the sole flight you have that day and that's all that can be done. but getting to my complaint, before speaking to her, i was forced to listen to a several-minutes long recording detailing the 75$ change fee i would be expected to pay were i to make a change in my flight. i can't help but notice a huge inequity there: 75$ is no slap on the wrists, yet you can cancel my flight without even telling me why, owing me nothing?

"airtran reserves the right, sir, to.."

i know it does and that's my complaint. you _also_ reserve the right to charge me 75$ when i do what airtran is currently doing to me. my whole prior week is now complicated from having to get in another 8 hours of work in an already busy time. i can't help but notice the inequity of the situation; that you can change the terms of our contract freely without explanation, and i'd get charged severely for doing the same thing. [now that i've written this much, i can't remember just how the last sentence i said went, but somehow it involved the word 'thanks']

"you're welcome." *click*

the kicker is of course all the airlines are like this, so what does airtran care. i abhor industries that can get such a one-sided upper-hand on their customers. buying an airline ticket's one step better than buying a scratch-off lotto ticket; you're LUCKY to end up with what you intended to purchase. i don't think i'm alone when i say i avoid flying whenever possible, and it's because of how i'm treated rather than any fear.

2007 disc golf photo mega catch-up

2007-11-26T02:12:00.000-06:00

i finally caught up and organized over a thousand and a half pictures from 40 courses in 6 states over the last 6 months. i got really behind and haven't blogged any, so since this is going to be one huge mega-post, i'll keep generally terse. i hope not to kill too many browsers or po flickr.

here's a link to all the photos in order in one huge set, and here's the list and links to an (unordered) search to each.

a couple shots of village park in sussex wi
lake eureka in eureka il
lincoln park in springfield il
douglas park in springfield il
old and new courses at justin trails in sparta wi
north park of wood county in marshfield wi
braem in marshfield wi
winnebago county park in oshkosh wi
red arrow in oshkosh wi
sinnissippi in sterling il
nims in rock falls il
richmond hill in geneseo il
camden park in milan il
longview in rock island il
prospect park in moline il
devils glen in bettendorf ia
middle park in bettendorf ia
eastern avenue in davenport ia
kilbourne in charlotte nc
reedy creek in charlotte nc
sugaw creek in charlotte nc
hornets nest in charlotte nc
renaissance in charlotte nc
beauty in county park in ludington mi
goliath in county park in ludington mi
flip city in shelby mi
mcgraft in muskegon mi
big eau pleine in mosinee
a couple shots from the burr oak groves inv. in green lake wi
a temp course for the willoway open near saukville wi
rogers lakewood in valparaiso in
wales community park in wales wi
UW whitewater in whitewater wi
brown deer in milwaukee wi
dretzka in milwaukee wi
tendick in saukville wi
abendschein in oak creek wi
milwaukee county sports complex in milwaukee wi
valley view in new berlin wi
west lake park in davenport ia

first off, a couple shots of the pond of snow melt-off that's only present in spring and early fall on village park's hole 1 at sussex wi.

lake eureka makes for the 5th sweet-ass 18 hole course in the peoria area. it's tons of fun through the trees and elevation, with lots of great shots. peoria is on the very-short list for greatest places to make a disc golf weekend.

lincoln park is the longer course in springfield il and has a couple great holes. moderate elevation and good use of water on a couple holes. trees, but not too many.

douglas park, also in springfield il, is med/short with lots of great elevation; very fun to play.

i also stopped by lincoln's grave

i already thought justin trails in sparta wi was possibly the prettiest course i'd seen, and they went and added a new 18 that is possibly one of the most vicious i've ever played! just as long as anything you'll find at highbridge.

old course

new course

north park of wood county in marshfield wi, west of steven's point and in the boonies, is a tournament-worthy course, with a good variety of shots over generally flat land.

braem, also in marshfield wi, is heavy on the trees

winnebago county park is a new course in oshkosh wi. fairly flat and open. they happened to be having an RC speedboat outing on the little lake the day i was there.

red arrow, also in oshkosh wi, starts out with some short holes near a marsh, then opens up into a field with one giant hill in the middle. a skatepark and waterpark are next door.

sinnissippi in sterling il is a great course with tons of fun shots.

just across the river is nims in rock falls il, which is entirely a putter course. given all day, even a beginner should come away with an ace.

the following 7 courses are all in the quad cities area, and i hit them all in one day. i missed out on the best, west lake, which had just been put in. i got back to it much later, at the bottom of this post.

richmond hill in geneseo il is a good course, generally open over rolling elevation.

camden park in milan il is lots of fun with tons of variety and requires just about every kind of shot

longview in rock island il, other than sorely needing tee pads, is another fun elevation-filled course

prospect park in moline il is a pretty difficult course with decently heavy trees very erratic elevation on the front that often puts baskets above tilted surfaces

devils glen in bettendorf ia is a very good 12 holer with trees and elevation like the others in the area, plus some very threatening water on a couple holes.

middle park, also in bettendorf ia, is long and well-groomed.

eastern avenue in davenport ia is flat and very long. a wide creek poses an occasional threat.

the very next weekend i went to charlotte nc, and hit the following courses 5 in one day.

kilbourne in charlotte nc is a good course through the woods. it can get long or take steep turns, and has just a little elevation.

reedy creek in charlotte is great, great use of elevation with some memorable holes. pretty tree-heavy

sugaw creek, also in charlotte, is flatter and mid-length, and has several raised holes.

hornets nest, also in charlotte, is a great one. supposedly two courses, but it's largely 1 course with multiple pins and only deviates in a couple places. well groomed and in a huge well-used park with a dirt-bike track and a lot else.

renaissance, also in charlotte, is world-class. definitely one of my favorites. i got there when it was getting too dark to get in all the pix i wanted.

i learned a hard lesson when i played two full weekends in a row of over a hundred holes in a day, in the quad cities and then charlotte. on these beautiful huge vistas, i just had to bomb them all with my power flick. i pitched out my arm and it hasn't been the same since. it's been months and it's still too painful to flick anymore and i'm playing strictly backhand, which is really frustrating. i'm not sure that nonsurgical therapy will be sufficient, but i won't second guess it until i finally get in to the doctor. i can't lift two 6packs out of my passenger seat with that arm and get out of the car anymore either =S

i hopped over to michigan to see my buddy pat and hit some fun courses one weekend.

mason county park's beauty, in ludington mi, is the shorter of several courses there. good hills and interesting shots.

goliath, also in county park in ludington mi, is one of the longer, and is basically the third, not pictured course, beast, in reverse.

flip city in shelby mi is a private disc golf paradise that reminded me of bud hill. awesome land, great hole design, and interesting piles of stacked rocks everywhere from generations of doing so on their farm. again, i ran out of light for pix on a beautiful course. definitely returning.

mcgraft in muskegon mi is a nice mid-length neighborhood course

big eau pleine is a new course in mosinee wi, north of stevens point. it's a little rough still, but it's a good 9.

a buddy of mine invited me up to a tournament on a private course in green lake wi, and regrettably i was feeling off that weekend. i didn't get to party much being too tired after, and on the first round i shot a whole 1 stroke per hole worse than the lead!

and a short video of a shot from out of the barn

the willoway open was a tournament organized by alternatour on private land near saukville. 12 temp holes on rolling farmland. the event was a camp-over with lots of beer and a band playing at night. sounds fun? beware: ties are oft determined via karaoke sing-offs!

and a short video clip of one shot

rogers lakewood in valparaiso in is a good course with fun holes. it's well balanced, with long, short, open and tight holes.

i'm intending to get my course photos mashed into my disc golf mapping site, so i decided to finally do my local courses, in fall when they'd look nice.

wales community park in wales wi, near delafield, is a fairly open, boring course. the front is very short, but the back lengthens and has some water shots.

UW whitewater has a course on campus in whitewater wi, and it's a fun 12 holes on a huge natural mound.

UW Whitewater 12

brown deer in milwaukee changed its layout somewhat since i last photo'd it. stil milwaukee's best course.

dretzka, also in milwaukee, is the most popular among regular players, and was recently expanded.

tendick in saukville wi is a course i often hit, with some good wood holes and some good open length.

abendschein in oak creek near milwaukee, is a fairly boring short course to me, but it gets lots of local beginner play, which i'm glad to see.

the milwaukee county sports complex is 9 holes on some rolling hills which can have some disc-eating rough

valley view in new berlin wi near milwaukee, is the area's most popular beginner course. it's changed layouts several times, most radically recently when it lost several of its signature holes due to neighbors not enjoying the company of rowdy teens. i still have fun here, as both the layout and the beginner-popularity remind me of the course i started. site of many of my first aces.

i went back to the quad ciies for thanksgiving and got to the area's newest course, west lake park in davenport ia, and wow, world-class. some amazing holes over scenic and challenging terrain, with lots of tough-but-fair water shots. an awesome course design on awesome land.

and lastly here's a couple unrelated pix:

the old water tower on north ave in milwaukee

some of the beers i've enjoyed or thought had cool labels

07 standing rocks open, north indiana, & misc disc golf pix

2007-05-07T21:02:00.000-05:00

i took a bunch more pictures recently, starting off with tournament play during the 07 standing rocks pro weekend. i got another hole in one, too, bringing the total up to 10.

Then, full course-guides to all the following courses in WI, IL, IA, and northern IN:

yulga, also in steven's point WI is one of the best courses with no elevation whatsoever.

veteran's park in dubuque IA is one of my favorites with lots of elevation and trees.

UW plateville's one of the best campus courses in the state.

even when it's being interrupted by some landscaping...

summit, the closest 18er to downtown chicago--short but frustrating impossible holes. i got to play central park too, and it's a good 9er nearby and next to mcdonald's headquarters, but it was too dark to photo.

lemon lake in IN has two good courses southeast of chicago

and then several courses near south bend / elkhart IN:

ox bow is a fun wooded course with some rolling hills

ferrettie baugo is a decent wooded course. i got my 10th ace 4/19/7 with the 167 inferno DT i got down in st louis, hole 2, pictured here about halfway, where the fairway starts to turn left:

george wilson is a fun ski-hill sort of course

rum village is another great course on a giant hillside with gradual sloping elevation and decent tree coverage

then back near milwaukee:

heritage trails is a very long and nearly completely open (this is the most obstructed shot there) course reachably northwest of milwaukee. i lost the damn disc i aced with at ferrettie baugo the day before: the first ace disc i've lost, because i usually take them out of my bag... but i had no replacement for it at the time. =(

erin go bragh is a little 9er near heritage trails, unnoteworthy except for the great food at the bar across the street a friend's memorable guerrilla hole in one through front and back of an open gazebo and blind downhill 200 feet in high winds.

lime kiln's the milwaukee area's best 9er; i've mentioned it before as a stone's throw from the old paramount records studio.

the more usual longer pin positions on 9 next to the lime kilns went unused that day

silver creek in manitowoc's probably one of the best in an all-around category

and lastly oschwald, a 9er near manitowoc in st nazianz

full album at flickr

The common clay--you know... morons

2007-04-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

so i was eating bbq at the bar with a friend. there was an older blue-collar white dude two seats down, and we were watching poker, with idle chitchat. i had just finished up an exchange with my friend when i tuned into the last two words that the older dude had said to the bartender:

"frau blucher".

so of course i said "nnneiiiighhhh!!!"

and the dude laughed a lot over the young frankenstein reference ad we got to BSing about mel brooks and somehow onto his racing trucks, computers, oil companies, war and such (as these things tend to go). the dude was totally racist. he wasn't towards the black buddy i was eating with--getting along well actually--but besides mentioning he categorically distrusts all towel-heads, for whatever reason, he distrusts the japanese as well, as if they intend to take over. ^_^ (how 80s..) while talking of computers and all he made clear that he's a man who works with his hands.. this was the minority of the conversation though, i handpicked items he mentioned in passing while enjoying discussing broader things. all things put together, i have to laugh my ass off, because i KNOW he has to know a joke in another mel brooks movie, blazing saddles:

Jim: You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.

I can only wonder his opinion of that one... and further, isn't it supposed to be the jews (mel!) and not the japanese that have the cabal organized to intercede in the us? that was a new one on me anyway, but he was afraid of all the asians he saw filling the high stakes tables at vegas...

some of my more liberal friends who know my positions wonder at my ability to get on with those of more conservative mentalities (not to pigeonhole them as having a monopoly on poorly-founded opinionatedness, either..) but i just don't have it in me to wholly condemn them. i think many of them know better, but are deeply attached and proud of what they often see as a dying lifestyle, inclusive of its faults. and the political sins they enable are a secondary guilt, akin to all us meat-eaters, as opposed to as direct a consequential action as many would like to blame them for.

disc golf roadtrip thru the south - spring break 07

2007-03-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

so! i ended up taking a week and a half long roadtrip hitting 28 courses in 8 states, and i took courseguide pictures to a lot of them. an absolute ton of pix, over 900. organizing, naming, editing, mapping, etcetc took me like two days!

on the way down i hit several courses in bloomington IL, which was largely not worth it. PJ Irving was a fun little one, but that's about it. Maxwell was flat and open, the wind being almost always strong. Miller Park was a pretty area, but the baskets were pulled for a while, and State Farm was a POS (and it's hard to get me to say that about a course). then, just as it got dark i got to play Douglas park in springfield IL, and THAT is a fun and scenic course. i wish i'd gotten to play the other one in town, Lincoln park. while perusing the town, i was able to see lincoln's grave from a great distance, as the cemetery was closed.

i got west of st louis for next morning and started working my way back east into town. i played Quail Ridge, which was fun and balanced, Creve Coeur, a LONG flat course next to a big lake, and White Birch, which was missouri's first disc golf course, shorter fun woodsy elevation. then Sioux Passage, on the north side, had some great down and uphill shots over pretty land.

i stopped for dinner and drinks at a great blues club in downtown st louis, just south of the arch, called bb's jazz blues and soups. there was another blue club right across the street i wish i'da had time to check out too. then i got back east into illinois for the next morning, meeting up the 4 vans full of guys from steven's point to play Foundation in centralia, which has a couple great holes, and is overall a very tough course.

on the way back to st louis i hit a course just east in illinois, Woodland, which had a lot of scenic, fun but challenging holes. though there are easier courses in the area, i'd bring a beginner here just because it's cool.

the next day we got to tour gateway disc's home base just off of the Jefferson Barracks course, which is probably st. louis's best. great buncha guys at their leagues.

some of the guys from Jefferson Barracks took us down south a while to play a new course, West City in festus, MO, which is a great course with a lot of vicious pin positions.

i got travelling ahead of the group that night to get to northern mississippi and meet up my friend matt, where we played Spring Creek and Turkey Hollow, two great wooded courses at Wall Doxey State Park in holly springs, MS.

then we got back up into TN near memphis near where we were meeting the other guys to camp and played two GREAT woodsy elevation courses at Meeman-Shelby State Park. Then we camped at a private disc golf paradise just south of there, called Bud Hill. Totally sweet course, and the friendliest people around. The kind of place that makes you quit your job and stay.

matt and i went downtown and i fell in love with memphis. we found the rum boogie cafe, and the best gumbo ever made. i didn't even like gumbo before i found this place! great music, great food, guitars from everyone hanging around, (cute bartender), this place has it all. we even came back the next day before traveling on and beale street has got kickass musicians just out sitting on the street playing on a nothing-going-on tuesday afternoon!

matt and i got ahead and down to west-northern mississippi to play two of the best courses i played the whole trip: Chickasaw Trail and it's meaner younger brother, Warrior Ridge, both at Tishomingo State Park. Killer rock formations and some evil-genius pin-positions at Warrior Ridge made for a hugely fun time.

back near nashville, the guys had rented sweet cabins at Cedars of Lebanon, which has a decent wooded but flat course. we played two scenic nashville-area courses, both of which i had hit during last year's spring break roadtrip: Seven Oaks

and Cedar Hill

then i separated and started my own way home, skipping bowling green n favor of louisville. there's a string of about 5 courses within a short stretch just south of louisville near west point and fort knox. i hit Otter Creek, which was a decent little woodsy course, and Muldraugh, which was not very well taken care of, but i immediately fell in love with it's crazy angles and weird terrain that came into play almost as much as the trees.

Meade Olin was a great championship-caliber course

and i swung by Iroquois park closer to louisville proper on my way out. it's a good and obviously popular course. I checked out an old civil war battlement, fort Duffield, near west point, and I swung by lincoln's birthplace too. I had hit this place once before in the middle of the night years ago on a roadtrip home from college, looking for a quiet place to sleep in my car. imagine my surprise finding this in the dark, in the middle of booneyville kentucky!

reaching indianapolis just before dark, (and indianapolis appears pretty crappy if you ask me, lots of abandoned houses nearby the courses..) i got to take a peek at Brookside

..before deciding i only had enough time to hit a shorter course nearby, George Washington park, which was decent.

i got home and slept for about a day! crazy like i am, i actually ran out to baraboo, WI and photo'd the course out there playing with some buddies on the advice that the course may be removed due to construction soon. now i'm going through a million things left undone now that i have free time, and am about to begin my jobsearch and decide where i might want to live~

as for the photos, there's so many that there's a couple different ways you might want to go at them:
there's just the meat and potatoes in pages from my best of album
there's the roadtrip album with all 900+ pix
and there's my pix on a map, which is buggy and you have to zoom around to get it to load different stuff.

going to st. louis

2007-03-14T20:57:00.000-05:00

so a half a month ago i was planning with my friend to go somewhere south on a weekend to discgolf in better weather. several options were on the table, most realistically st. louis. then 2 weeks ago i hear from another buddy who works at UW steven's point, that he and 19 students are taking a week long roadie to the south for discgolf, and were gonna be in st. louis this upcoming weekend. i couldn't get off work, but was planning to trip down fri eve and back sun eve.

but i got laid off; my last day was today. ^_^ not unexpectedly, my industry's in a downturn, and when i heard last week they were turning a branch into a shell office, i figured i'd be a worthwhile cut, since they really mean it. it's smart for the company to survive till the market improves. i'll still be in and out for minor work on a contract basis, and i hope they do well. they've been gracious and kind in letting me go, too. (and you wouldn'ta believed how rocky it was when i got hired from being a contractor) so now i need to figure out what's next, and hope maybe i can even be picky about where and get somewhere new. i'd like to score an interview in st. lou if i can, but i'm also gonna look at austin, raliegh, philly, ny, boston, and maybe ca. but i'm not concerned until monday. in the meantime, i get to enjoy a long st. patty weekend in st. lou with a truckload of other discgolfers. not too shabby.

st. louis blues, by w.c. handy, as sung by jimmy witherspoon

i hate to see the evening sun go down
well i hate to see the evening sun go down
that woman of mine, she's done left this town

i'm feeling tomarrow like i feel today
i'm feeling tomarrow like i feel today
gonna pack my bags, make my getaway

st. louis woman, she got a diamond ring
lead that man around by her apron string
if it wasn't for power and a store-bought ham
that woman of mine, she wouldn'tve gone nowhere, nowhere

got the st. louis blues, blue as i can be
that woman of mine, got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
if she hadn'ta been alright, she wouldn'ta gone so far from me

st. louis woman, what are you doing to me
st. louis woman, what are you doing to me
i beleive to my soul, you're trying to hoodoo me

well, st. louis woman, i'd better let you be
well, st. louis woman, i'd better let you be
i better leave you woman, before you make a zombie out of me

the original version has a great line, "Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint'n rye"

Did everything just taste purple for a second?

2007-03-08T15:34:00.001-06:00

Synesthesia

i bet there's a lot left to learn about/from this

phoenix AZ area disc golf courses

2007-03-01T01:59:00.000-06:00

I tore through all the phoenix area courses on vacation. i messed up getting all the photos i wanted, but i still have enough to show the gist of each of the courses there. here's a link to the pix

Fountain Hills is pro-difficulty and very easy to lose discs on.

Buffalo Ridge is more what i expected, rocky dry terrain and thorny bush. played on a big hillside.

Thunderbird-Paseo is a nice course in a big drainage canal, fun for longer arms.

Mesquite Grove, while far south and supposedly to be pulled, is a really fun use of a bunch of tall thorny bushes. holes play backwards from alt tees for 18.

one of the dudes i played with got his second hole-in-one here on a hammer toss, the very last hole i played this vacation

Vista Del Camino is another championship course with multiple pins on just about every hole. fairly flat and grassy with a river in the middle. A good disc golf store is in a shopping center nearby.

Moeur is a great 9er near ASU, rocky and thorny terrain in a small area with decent elevation change make for some very tech holes.

Emerald is a decent beginner's course with good holes playing around a lake non-threateningly.

Conocido is a fairly open and nearly flat neighborhood course with multiple tees to make 18 on 9 baskets.

I also had fun doing family stuff

an HDR pic of the superstition mountains (made by combining several exposures)

and lastly, a video of a couple angles of the new two finger distance flick i'm trying to tame. unlike most flickers, i don't make any effort to keep my arm low or elbow in; i chuck it like a sidearm pitch

then the flight back sucked ASS. first northwest airlines cancels my flight from AZ to MN is canceled and i get rescheduled separate from my 8yearold niece. deal with that with a ticket agent that can't do a single thing without having to grab the lady next to for an explanation of how to do the job. i later learn NWA doesn't have employees there or something and someone else takes care of it. i also later learn she only checks my bags as far as MN and not all the way to WI. once in MN it's a blizzard and again, flight canceled, rescheduled overnight for 7am sun. i asked people about my bags, and without looking at my claim, they told me they'd be held and probably get to WI ahead of me. i had a place to stay, but when i wake at 5 to call and affirm my suspicions the 7am was canceled (it was), i spent an hour and a half waiting on hold to try to reschedule before giving up and going to the airport. (i HOPE airlines have the foresight to call in more operators in such scenarios..) thankfully there was a line at the airport just for cancellations, and i got to talk fairly fast. after learning i was rebooked for yet another overnight NEXT 7am, i was able to get onto a 3pm flight without having to do standby. after wasting all day on that, i learn my bags never left MN. the lady at the WI bag-check was the only one all day who obviously knew her stuff. i'm told i'll get it in a day, but it takes until wednesday for me to get it; not even getting a call about it until tue. thpppt. 2nd worst flight experience after sleeping on an airport floor on xmas eve.

paramount records

2007-02-13T20:57:00.000-06:00

so i've been just reading a ton about the old furniture manufacturing plant up in grafton that was coaxed by brown graduate jay mayo williams to form paramount records, and try to find a market selling to chicago's ample blacks migrating up from the delta at the time. the man pretty much ran the project but wasn't allowed to be an employee regardless.

there's all kinds of great photos i'd love to share, but they're very mindful of copyright at paramountshome.org, which has all kinds of other great information too.

the furniture plant used to sit next to the milwaukee river in grafton, right down the street from lime kiln park, a challenging 9 hole discgolf course. little did i know, there were times i was searching for my disc and already had laid eyes upriver at the site (where a private house has been built over the foundation, but the old water powerwheel is still visible). how kickass would it be to have a discgolf tourney at that park where the free disc given away has a stamp on it to look like an old paramount record? i'll have to make that happen.

further north upriver from that spot is downtown grafton, where one of the oldest buildings in town has been converted to a resteraunt themed after the record company. on my way home from discing outdoors more north midsunday, i stopped by tho i suspected the place too classy for my being outdoors. turns out, tho they look classy, they don't stop you (nice), and to my COMPLETE surprise, i accidentally ran into a new favorite meal in milwaukee. i have never had chocolate chip pancakes so fluffy! mmmmmmm~~ so good~

i suspect not everyone's interested enough to go reading long pdfs about this stuff, but i'll share the most vicariously interesting link, an hour long documentary on delta blues by famed blues musicologist alan lomax: >The Land Where the Blues Began. and if you don't have the attention span for THAT, here's my favorite snippet from the above:

napoleon strickland demonstrates a diddley-bow. i'd heard a bunch of blues heroes mention how they'd started by nailing a string between to a post on their porch (which is shown at the end of another clip of the documentary here) but i'd never heard of sliding it with a cup. i can totally hear the origins of a lot of allman brothers riffs in this video.

You seen them helicopters an airplanes? Well, they got somebody's picture an they huntin im

2007-02-08T15:00:00.000-06:00

while i was sick the other day, i was websurfing around for information on the famous old paramount recording studio in grafton wisconsin that produced some of the oldest recordings of the blues greats. i happened to run into a story from someone interested enough in charley patton to track down his grave and abouts; definetly the kind of thing i do given enough free time. i had to laugh especially about part of his story meeting up two nearly-anachronistic workmen at a juke joint down the road because i have a lot in common with BOTH sides of the conversation; the person asking to photograph and the person refusing. i'm not going to elaborate, but as far as my personal information on the net goes, i'm a 21st-century equivalent of the dude who doesn't let his picture taken for (likely entirely unneccessary) asscovering reasons.

quoted from here
(buncha other interesting stuff there too)

"Ah, come on, Slim," George pleaded. "Let the white man take yore picture. You pho toe genic!" George was now slapping both knees and stomping both feet on the floor.

Slim, grim faced, could obviously see nothing funny, much less hilarious. "My damn name ain't Slim. An' that white man ain't takin' my picture."

Normally I would have accepted Slim's first "No" and left it at that. But George was having such fun, and Slim looked more embarrassed than angry. . . . Besides, there was that huge gold and red medallion and all that dust. . . . So I said, "Why?"

And Slim said, solemnly: "Because I'm a wanted man."

George said, "Huh?"

I said, "By who?"

"Tha po-lice."

George said, "What? Ain't no po-lice wantin' you."

I said, "What po-lice?"

And Slim said, solemnly: "All of ‘em."

George said, "Shiiiiiiiit."

I said, "All of ‘em? The FBI? The CIA? NBC?"

"All of ‘em."

"Shiiiiiiiit. Ain't no po-lice after you. An' if they are, what's that got to do with this white man takin' yore picture?"

"A white man takes yore picture an' you a wanted man, the po-lice'll find you no matter where you hide. You seen them helicopters an' airplanes flyin' over? Well, they got somebody's picture an' they huntin' ‘im. Ain't no place you can hide if the po-lice's got your picture."

If I had been watching George's face instead of Slim's, I'll bet that George's mouth was open in shock, just like mine. He said, "Slim, you don't know shit. Ain't no way the po-lice in an airplane can find you with just yore picture."

"Can, too! An' my name ain't Slim!"

George stood. "You ‘member that guy in Indianola that almost got caught by the po-lice? He put on a dress an' women's shoes and walked right by them po-lice." George suddenly strutted across the floor and turned and strutted by Slim. The effect was like watching Mike Tyson as a blue-cotton- and tan-dust-decorated drag queen strutting across the floor. I choked and spit out strawberry soda and almost peed on myself. "You see?" George told Slim. "Them po-lice had his picture and he got slap away."

"I see," Slim said, "that you better not ever put on a dress an' try to get away from the po-lice!"

ain't no american insurance in china muthafucka

2007-02-07T21:45:00.000-06:00

i forgot to share these before, check out the crazy route you gotta take to visit this mountain temple in china.

crazy pix

hell yeah

LTC Cleveland and Quarry courseguides

2007-01-13T21:06:00.000-06:00

LTC Cleveland is a new course in Cleveland WI in between Shebogygan and Manitowoc. Mostly shorter holes, though there are a few longer ones. Rolling elevation and strategic trees.

quarry is sheboygan's all-year-round corurse. the front 6 are wide open, then the rest becomes woods and angles. i like this course a lot. 2 extra holes make 20.

LTC Cleveland and Quarry courseguides at my flickr

fall and winter 06 discgolf waynorth wisconsin, appleton, and peoria

2007-01-10T00:51:00.000-06:00

so i've finally gotten around to all the editing, organizing, and mapping of my photos from the past couple of months. here's the photos.

one's from the 06 wisconsin tour finale in north park

another few from sugar camp, a decent course northeast of steven's point

camp luther pines is an object course (read: posts) not far from sugar camp. looks like a fun camp for kids.

florence elementary is a FUN course on the very northeast border of wisconsin to michigan

the course makes repeated use of the fences around the school to make some very unique holes!

clintonville, northwest of appleton, has three small courses. the middle school is open and winds around the school; olen park is an old course with spray-painted trees as targets; and rexford elementary is surprisingly the best of the bunch with only 6 holes!

plamann's one of the main appleton courses--very well groomed

there's a couple from the roundhouse classic south of watertown

illinois central college in peoria is a very fun wooded course with very demanding angles and even some elevation change thrown in.

mcnaughton is up there with my favorites; great challenging holes that are fun to throw. i'm proud to say i par'd 17 (430ft uphill) the first two times i played it, and broke my long drive record on 18, throwing basically as far as hole 17 in reverse ^_^;; hole 8's one of the most fun around to drive:

and finally, northwoods park is definetly a contender for best course in IL. holes 18, 16, and 5 in particlar are one-of-a-kind and among my all time favorites. 8's a hyzer through tight trees down and up a gulch, after that another 100 feet to a safe layup...

...before throwing back down into the gulch through no holes to speak of, down onto an outcropping mid-creek

looking back, you approach from the upper left, from over the bend in the creek in front of the basket. water wraps around right and behind here.

and finally a couple videos, both from north park of wood county during the 06 wisconsin tour finale:

a long flick

a drive out over the water hole

the west has a rich cultural history of psychotic hate/love w/ womenkind

2006-12-22T11:50:00.000-06:00

boy did i end up on a long weird webtrail a few days ago

i started out looking for info on this picture (because i didn't recognize it, but it looks like some things i've enjoyed before)

turns out it's from Janguru wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu. Checked it out and it was alright. not good enough that i feel like explaining it.

the link "liminal being" on that page lead me to seemingly unrelated interesting shit:

i liked the painting i saw on the lamia article

so i searched the artist, Herbert James Draper, and found more like it:

(info and possible interpretations here)

a different branch of my wikitrail lead me to lilith, apparantly a mesopotamian diety possibly predating a lot of jewish history, in some interpretations said to be a part of adam, split off before the creation of eve, and in fact the serpent that gave the apple (she's often depicted as half-serpent) lillith through the years has a lot of associations with the same succubus themes that the above artist seems to focus on throughout his works.

which also brings me to lilli, the creation of a german cartoonist to fill space, turned dressable doll geared towards adults.. which got brought back to the US as the prototype for the first barbi. here's some of the original german cartoons. a lilli-lillith connection isn't explicit, but certainly ponderable~

this page, while one long unorganized rambling page, has all kinds of interesting stuff relating to the above. plus i like this image:

and finally, to comment on this western succubus psychosis, here's classic stretch animation sickNtwisted films, purdie the dirty birdie and..
(goddamit, i can't link directly to) the mousochist (you have to click 'works' on the bottom left first)

9th ace

2006-12-17T23:57:00.000-06:00

got my 9th hole in one, no. 15 at brown deer ^_^

videos of the great blues musicians

2006-12-10T20:45:00.000-06:00

i don't know why it never occurred to me to search youtube for such before, but WOW have they got some great stuff. i've googled these often enough, but even though google owns youtube now, it took me this long to find them. youtube is definetly the new napster in terms of unifying all possible user-clouds so that you can find even the most esoteric stuff. here's a few of the best stuff i found. it'd be easy for me to list 50 videos here, but i'll keep it brief; just search the artist's name for more.

i'll start out with the king of the blues, muddy waters:

muddy waters "you can't lose what you never had"

muddy waters and junior wells "got my mojo workin"

muddy was neck and neck with howlin' wolf for king of chicago at the height of chicago's scene. it's still hard to say who's best:

howlin' wolf "may i have a talk with you"

howlin' wolf "howlin' for my darling"

john lee hooker should be familiar to even you non-bluesfans.

john lee hooker "tupelo blues", about the 1929 mississippi flood i've mentioned before.

john lee hooker "i'm leaving"

bukka white was one of the original bluesmen along with charlie patton. according to this link, he even gave 9 year old bb king his first guitar. the link also tells of a bus driver who all but exploded when he learned he driving for bukka, after hearing this song:

bukka white "aberdeen blues"

a second-generation blues musicologist, Alan Lomax, was one with foresight enough to film some of the original bluesmen as they would play back in mississipppi, such as this:

bukka white plays "Alcohol Dance" while son house dances

and lastly, completely out of context with the others, i was also stunned to find fela kuti videos. it's tough to summarize fela, but here's a video, part music part not, that should get you interested.

fela kuti "music is the weapon"

if you ever had doubt the similarities between african and modern jazz/funk/blues based music's syncopation, call n response, polyrhythms, and the dancing's booty-shaking; fela doesn't show many lines between them here at all, likely the most african thing you'll see all year:

fela kuti "teachers don't teach me nonsense"

i made myself crack up in the shower this morning doin the coz

2006-12-08T19:16:00.000-06:00

as long as i can remember, i've had a particular routine getting into the shower. i've never really thought about it before, but i'll bet i'm not close to alone in it. you know how in the morning, the air is cold, the water adjusted to what you know is nicely warm, but feels of course momentarily too hot for the first few seconds it hits you. well of course we wriggle around to eventually let the water get you everywhere and warm you up. well, this morning, for whatever reason, i subconsciously started humming the cosby theme song. when i realized what i was doing, and connected it to his goofy dance in the opening, i about laughed my ass off.

here's some dumbass whiteboys doin the coz, best i could find.

dixieland droopy

2006-12-06T17:57:00.000-06:00

dixieland droopy (video link) is possibly one of the best examples for what makes a great cartoon. I could dissect it all for you and talk about the coordination of sound and sight (the tar scene), the sight gags (the monkey scene), or the silly, changing forms throughout.

its' song, the tiger rag (aka no. 2 blues) has been around for about a hundred years, and its' narrator's name (pee wee runt) is a play on the name of famous jazz/dixieland trombonist and band-leader Pee Wee Hunt.

photo to be published

2006-11-30T22:36:00.000-06:00

disc golf world magazine had a photo submission contest a few issues back, and i had forgotten that i emailed a couple in back in april. they contacted me recently about running this one:

neat~ no idea when i'll see it in print; sometime soon i imagine.

best hole in one yet, great thanksgiving

2006-11-26T22:29:00.000-06:00

had a great thanksgiving down in janesville with my buddy matt, and threw by far the greatest shot i've ever thrown in discgolf. i've been working on a new drive, so much as to be a detriment to the rest of my game, and the shot'd not been coming along fast at all, i was starting to doubt it. but then hole 15 at lustig park (slightly downhill, lots of sporatic trees) i threw this impossibly tough low, long, and way wide right anhyzer flick that never gave out and tailed back, smack into the chains from what must have been about 350 feet or so with my new 07 worlds 175g cfr wraith. that's about 50 feet longer than i usually drive PERIOD before i'd been trying this new unreliable drive, and to ACE, holysheez it was freakin awesome. great incentive to keep practicing it even tho it don't work most the time ^_^

here's a pic of the shot:

still don't know exactly how long it was tho.

took great advantage of the weather and was outside every day this extended weekend. got so exhausted thanksgiving that i napped a little before dinner and then after too. went out to madison to meet a buddy from steven's point and give him a xbox i souped up. his friends eat real well: grilled crab legs and filets. i can't wait till my friends aren't poor ^_^;; then played more disc sunday with matt, he liked brown deer so much he didn't bother seeing the other new course dineen, and he's coming back monday for more.

i made up a coursemap and photoguide for brown deer.

photos of dineen

2006-11-07T01:00:00.000-06:00

dineen photoguide, with map.

unless you're a wisconsin discgolfer interested in milwaukee's new course, you probably don't care~

summerfest, seaplanes, and nuclear missiles

2006-10-18T14:25:00.000-05:00

i happened by this info today by accident, and thought it neat enough to share:

there was once a small airport on the summerfest grounds between downtown and the lake, by several names: Maitland Airport, milwaukee seadrome, and the Municipal Air-Marine Terminal. it had a small runway on the main summerfest grounds, and the breakwater bordering it was for seaplanes to land.

in-between the end of the airport and the beginning of the summerfest grounds, it served as army missile launch site M-20 as a part of anti-aircraft defense for the milwaukee/chicago area as a part of the Nike Hercules system and one of eight in the area, basically tasked to shoot down long range airplanes carrying nuclear bombs in the grips of cold war fears.

i'm dissappointed i wasn't able to find any pictures of missiles on the lakefront.