Tony Yarusso's Blog

Today more than ever before the people of the United States agree that national security is of great concern, and with the prospect and opportunity of electing a new president looming, many are looking very closely at how the candidates compare on that particular issue. With that in mind, here are five key reasons why Barack Obama is the strongest candidate in the race when it comes to protecting our national security.

So I attended my party's local caucus for the first time tonight, and in addition to concluding that our process is highly wacky and inefficient (and not making nearly enough use of electronic resources). However, in addition to that made use of the form provided on the back of our agendas for the purpose of submitting resolutions. I drafted one supporting the mandation of open standards for the file formats of government documents, such as is already law in Massachussetts, which was passed by my precinct (Minnesota's SD54P3).

I was dismayed to see on Digg today an article entitled US Transportation Secretary Doesn't Consider Bikes a Form of Transportation. Surely this isn't quite true, I thought. Well, upon further investigation, it seems I was almost hopefully right. Turns out she merely doesn't think the surfaces used by bikes are remotely related to transportation...somehow I'm not feeling much better. In the context of the article, and for anyone who's been living in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) area recently, with portions of highways 36, 694, 35E, 94, and 35W out of commission this year, you'd think that the government would be doing everything they can to recognize and encourage the use of bicycles as an alternative to cars. It would seem that at least Mary Peters has yet to figure this out - sad for any official, a truly mind-boggling incompetency for a Secretary of Transportation. I guess all that can be said here is, "that explains a lot".

The guilty interview (PBS)

The Digg article again

My comment on such

• Bush Abolishes Fifth Amendment
• New Bush Executive Order Kills Right to Property
• Congressman Denied Access to Post-Attack Continuity Plans
• Careful: The FB-eye may be watching; Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble
• Secret Buildings You May Not Photograph (see also Photographer's Right pamphlet by Attorney Bert Krages [PDF])
• Man Arrested for Expressing Opinion of Dick Cheney; told his son would be taken by Child Services
• Schumer Rips Gonzales Over Contradictory Responses On Spying Program: Another impeachment likely?
• Pentagon Monitoring Peace Activists' E-Mails

While in an earlier post I discussed misconceptions about things that aren't actually covered under First Amendment protections, that's not to say there aren't things that are actually covered. Imagine that. That said, while IANAL, I'm pretty sure this is the sort of thing that's not supposed to happen still.

More info from Google, and Google News.