Clapper Claps (Another) Cop-Out

Ground fog and damp this way-too-early Saturday on California’s north coast — seemingly the most-dead time zone of all, that period of deep quiet and isolation marking a weekend’s pre-dawn hours. Everybody else most-likely asleep, like normal folks. In the wake of a federal appeals court ruling last week the NSA’s mass collection of phone…

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Terror-Failure in ‘Bulk’

Terror toss to the good today — maybe/maybe not have a positive effect in this era of multi-media surveillance, especially through phones, and fright. Via The Hill: ‘A federal court has decided that the National Security Agency’s bulk, warrantless collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is illegal.’ And, ‘“exceeds the scope of what Congress…

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Three Ticks to Midnight

Bright and still this afternoon on California’s north coast, but there’s still a chill in the air. This morning, a symbolic-metaphoric event based on figured-reality — the fabled, iconic Doomsday Clock, created and maintained by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists since 1947 was moved two minutes closer to the also-iconic-but-frightful…

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Pellucid and Peculiar

Clear, clean sunshine this Friday morning on California’s north coast — not a cloud in sight, and frost on nearby rooftops, first time this year, I recollect. Thirty-three degrees reportedly within the hour right now, and there’s appearance of some wispy ground in nearby trees — of what can spied from a small back patio…

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‘Wartime’ Paradox

Ground fog this way-early Tuesday here on California’s north coast — flashback yesterday afternoon and right now with the appearance of the thick mist low-to-the-road. Usually a summer, spring thing. The NWS is calling it ‘patchy fog’ this morning, a seeming truism, on smoke breaks on the back patio, a star or two can be…

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Two Years Later: Shootings ‘Remain Common’

Bright, sunny again this Sunday morning — two days in a row with full-tilt shine, but much-colder, though. Chilling in the sun. Today also, second anniversary of the ‘shooting‘ at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. —  chilling there tragically eternal Yet, since then ‘school shootings remain common across the United States‘ — 95…

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Vex to the Third-Degree

Thickly-overcast and gloomy this Tuesday evening here on this little stretch of California’s north coast — rain a-coming big-time. Today is also torture-awareness day (via The Daily Beast): ‘Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold,…

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Eddie and the Orwellians

Last paragraph yesterday from a story by Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian about how NSA people do as they please with government technology: Compounding the potential financial conflicts at the NSA, Buzzfeed News reported that the home of chief of its Signals Intelligence Directorate, Teresa Shea, has a signals-intelligence consulting firm operating out of it.…

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