AddieStan

Your blogstress has been struggling mightily all day with the Blogger.com program via which she builds the breakaway republic, so she asks the forbearance of her devotees.

What the corporate consolidation of media has failed to do in killing free speech, the government has taken up the charge of finishing up. Over the course of the last five years, the numbers of reporters brought before courts under the demand of revealing their sources has surged. It could be argued -- an argument your blogstress rejects --that in matters in national security, such demands are justified, as was the rationale for dragging reporters before the grand jury in the CIA leak case (for which, if there is a God, Karl Rove will be indicted this week). However, this week, reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle have been subpoenaed to reveal the sources in their reporting on the Barry Bonds baseball steroids case, in which they revealed the actions of a federal grand jury. While grand jury deliberations are secret-secret, it is not illegal for a juror to speak with reporters after the jury's work has been concluded. And that is what appears to have taken place with th