AddieStan

"This Train" lyrics If you've lost track lately of the antics of the religious right, your blogstress recommends bringing yourself up to date via the blogs of Max Blumenthal and Josh Marshall. Blumenthal has been cranking out pieces on the relationship of Jack Abramoff and his evil schemes to the " target=resource window>purportedly anti-gambling leadership of the Christian right . Most delicious in this tale is the apparent manipulation of the self-important James Dobson, king of the Focus on the Family media empire, by the oily Ralph Reed, former director of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, and currently a candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia. (Your cybertrix has difficulty envisioning the Chuckyesque Mr. Reed seeing this candidacy through, given the road to indictment on which he may well find himself. If only he were in Texas...where the indicted Mr. DeLay appears to be on his way to winning the primary for his House seat.) Blumenthal rem...

Think it can't happen to you, ma cherie ? I mean, who would want to examine the phone records of little old you -- you're just a regular Jane who graces the occassional Web site with the occasional rant, right? Welcome to the 21st Century, where the U.S. Constitution appears to be breathing its last. Remember all that scary talk about how, under the Patriot Act, the FBI could demand that libraries and publishers turn over files on the reading and writing habits of selected targets? Now comes word that bloggers -- well, at least one blogger -- are the targets. Doug Thompson, founder of Capitol Hill Blue, which claims to be the oldest news site on the internet, says that, in his capacity as the proprietor of his own Web-hosting company, he received a National Security Letter from the FBI, demanding that he turn over records concerning traffic on his blog. This means that they're not just looking at Thompson himself; they're looking to track who's reading him. Whi...