Your hits probably take in account that there are probably a lot of 1 or 2 minute hits especially for the people at work, me, who hit and miss and have to keep coming back. At home I have time to read all the comments and diaries.

Congrats.You have a fair and balanced site. Thank you.

I looked last night for a more mischievous, well-timed copy of the photo and found one that was scanned on February 23 and posted February 24 to a proudly right-wing and very heavily-attended forum of activists, who are prone to mischief with online polls and other PR means. This was posted there and commented on a day before Drudge reported receiving an email about it.

  For details, see http://andrys1.blogspot.com
     or if it scrolls off after I put newer items on,

Interestingly, this decision did not lead their 5 PM news but came third, after a couple economic issues.  

Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung has an article which I will be translating.  They're headlining and calling it a milestone in the protection of privacy and civil rights.

In the meantime, the Government, and particularly their Interior Minister, are deeply "disappointed" and are looking to have the judgment rapidly overturned, saying they may introduce a measure to do so as soon as tomorrow.

A couple more things, following up:
a) the FAZ article is in really poetical/high-end German and I'm probably going to have to take a day or so at the earliest.  And I have work which needs to get done, so don't be looking for a translation soon.  There are English language articles, like here.  Frankly, AP gets the whole tone of Schaeuble's statement wrong - he's major p*ssed and wants to "rasch umsetzen" this decision (rapidly overturn).  But, given the current campaign, we've gotten used to AP being full of sh*t.
(b) it looks like the Court has taken a fundamental step towards walling off the computer as part of the private space of individual life.  That's awkward, but they seem to have recognized the integration of the computer into the everyday life of everyone and the need for privacy protections against the government.  In other words, they found a new fundamental right, Roe-like.
(c) the FAZ comments that the Court has shown a real ability to understand the scope of computer technology, discussing things like keyloggers and capturing what the computer is doing from "listening" to the electronic leakage from the display and keyboard.  They may, repeat, may, have outlawed keyloggers and capturing that electronic leakage, comparing it to bugging someone's living room.  If you've seen "The Lives of Others", currently in rotation (though at 3 AM) on one of the cable movie nets, you'll get some understanding of E. German listening in. (If you haven't seen it, you should.)  And how brutal a comparison to wiretapping the computers such a statement should be considered.
(d) The judgment requires an online search be done only pursuant to a judicial warrant, after application showing ample probable cause and imposes severe minimization requirements.
(e) Said a constitutional/human rights lawyer commenting on MDR:  "We can be thankful for this constitutional court.  Since its founding in 1949, it has had the world's greatest competence in these areas (human rights).  It has functioned as it is supposed to."

Ms. Schlussel writes, "But it's not just that he employed these individuals in positions of power in his office. It's that when the former associate raised objections, he says Mr. Obama's position was that he saw nothing wrong with the Nation of Islam and didn't think it was a problem. If true - and the fact that Ms. Mason [another of the above-described Nation of Islam employees] still holds her prominent position bears that out - Obama's condemnation of Farrakhan, this month, is phony."

OK -- here's the deal as I see it:

1.  It seems that McCain, by offering his public financing as collateral (and other stuff -- including bypassing some states signature requirements to get on the ballot), has technically "benefited" from the public financing, and once that happens he is locked in.  

2.  The above is the argument that FEC Chairman David Mason made in a letter to McCain's campaign (Mason is GOP, btw).  (McCain's defense is that the real benefit is the money, and he didn't actually take any money).

3.  FEC Chairman Mason told the McCain campaign that McCain needs to formally request to withdraw from the system, and such request can not be granted until the FEC gets a quorum (right now there are three vacancies for the five spots).

4.  My understanding is that if the above is true, McCain is now maxed out for primary money, and really can't spend any more money until Sept.  (Kind of ironic that McCain may be breaking the law here -- the McCain-Feingold law).

5.  The DNC (and perhaps others) have filed a complaint with the FEC about all the above.

Why can't McCain act with impunity here?  The same "lack of quorum" that allegedly prevents him from withdrawing from the system, is the same "lack of quorum" that could get him in trouble, right?  (And the same "lack of quorum" that will ignore the DNC complaint).

From McCain's point of view, he can simply ignore the law, and the worst that will happen is that after the election (which I'm sure he thinks will win), he'll have to pay a fine.  But if he wins, what does he care?  He's already president.  (According to his calculations).

Big (Doofus) Brother
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
-- by Dave

Jonah Goldberg: It's time to admit that "diversity" is code for racism.

Sure, we can do that.

And while we're at it, we can go with some corrolaries:

• "War" is code for peace.
  
• "Ignorance" is code for strength.
  
• "Fascism" is code for liberalism.

'Cuz we're just doing a Newspeak exercise here, aren't we?

Warning! Embedded links in quoted portion not included here; formatting in quoted portion may differ from original. JG may stink worst here as having degraded somewhat in transit.

Jennifer Palmieri as the Democratic representative said Hillary seemed edgy and nervous last night, showed her desperation at losing, that she shouldn't have gone after the MCM the way she did (mentioning the SNL skit and how the moderators were acting), and several other things culminating in her saying it's about time for her to leave the race, that she isn't going to get the percentages she needs out of Southern states with high percentages of black voters. (I was going in and out of the computer room, since I can't get the AM station which carries this program, so may not have heard every point.)

Now some guy is on who is pointing out how free trade Obama is.  Earlier Obama had sung the praises of Rubin and said it's just too bad those Maytag workers lost their jobs, but there's nothing that can be done. Says neither candidate is addressing these problems. Please, Warren, repeat the name: Aha, Rick MacArthur.

Gotta run now.

We will not soon see the likes of him again.  He will be missed.

It should be noted that, for all the millions of Terrible Towels sold, he took nothing - the money went to charity.  

Why the Obama "Brand" Is Working
To start, he has this way of writing Obama in upper and lowercase in a serif font and juxtaposing it with that "O" symbol he has--the blue ring with red and white stripes disappearing into it, making the white form inside the blue look like what I suppose is meant to be a rising sun.

Article talks about how Sen Obama is marketing his image. I was facinated about how particular they are about campaign signs.

The article even praises Sen Obama for being able to achive this.  

Link

The thing that sort of flabbergasts me as a professional graphic designer is that, somewhere along the way, they decided that all their graphics would basically be done in the same typeface, which is this typeface called Gotham. [See "Change We Can Believe In" sign, above] If you look at one of his rallies, every single non-handmade sign is in that font. Every single one of them. And they're all perfectly spaced and perfectly arranged. Trust me. I've done graphics for events --and I know what it takes to have rally after rally without someone saying, "Oh, we ran out of signs, let's do a batch in Arial." It just doesn't seem to happen. There's an absolute level of control that I have trouble achieving with my corporate clients.

I have a different perspective of course, I find this to be one of the most despicable pieces of vicious slander and dishonest rewrites of history that it has ever been my misfortune to read, coming from a man who still does not reveal in these publications that he is a longtime friend of the Clinton family and an open endorser of the Clinton campaign. This "article" is by far the worst, in what has become a series of openly biased anti-Obama rants to be found anywhere on the net.

I condemn Wilentz, and I condemn Marty Peretz the senior editor at TNR for allowing this trash to be published.  I post it here because I know that many of you will be eating it up with a spoon.

 Bon appétit.