Patriot Act Spy Provisions....He like them.

The Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States. In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties. “The administration is willing to consider such ideas, provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,” Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general, wrote to Leahy, whose committee is expected to consider renewing the three expiring Patriot Act provisions next week. The government disclosed the letter Tuesday. It should come as no surprise that President Barack Obama supports renewing the provisions, which were part of the Patriot Act approved six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks...Link

Good Billions After Bad...............

As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system—without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. The authors reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed...Link

12 Jobs You’ll Do Better While Stoned....

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Turn the Sahara Green......................

A team of researchers has come up with a simple plan to halt global warming: All we need to do is turn both the Sahara and the Australian outback into vast, shady forests. While that might sound so ambitious as to be absurd, the climate scientists say the project would be no more expensive or technologically challenging than some of the other geoengineering schemes that are currently under discussion. And researcher Leonard Ornstein says it would certainly get results. Ornstein says that if most of the Sahara and Australian outback were planted with fast-growing trees like eucalyptus, the forests could draw down about 8 billion tons of carbon a year–nearly as much as people emit from burning fossil fuels and forests today. As the forests matured, they could continue taking up this much carbon for decades [ScienceNOW Daily News]...Link

Philadelphia To Close All Public Libraries.

What frugal person doesn't like libraries? They're like a video store, only better. Which is why we're horrified to learn that thanks to the economic meltdown and the state of Pennsylvania's inability to pass its budget, the Philadelphia Free Library is closing on October 2nd. They'll be ending all services and programs, and closing all of the buildings. They want all of the books back, too...Link

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Marijuana Arrests Drop..................

Marijuana arrests in the United States declined in 2008 -- the first such drop since 2002 -- according to figures released by the FBI today. According to the just-released Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. law enforcement made 847,863 arrests on marijuana charges, 89 percent of which were for simple possession, not sale or manufacture. More Americans were arrested for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined. During 2008, one American was arrested for marijuana every 37 seconds...Link

Colbert Blasts Kanye with Autotune..........

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Obama says Afghanistan is no Vietnam..........

US President Barack Obama rejected comparisons between the deepening US involvement in Afghanistan and the Vietnam war in an interview with the New York Times published Tuesday. Some commentators have suggested that Obama could suffer the same fate as 1960s Democratic president Lyndon Johnson who saw his reformist administration eventually consumed by an entanglement in a war half a world away. But Obama, who is aiming to enact a hugely ambitious domestic agenda while dealing with multiple crises abroad, rejected the comparison. "You have to learn lessons from history. On the other hand, each historical moment is different," Obama said in a joint interview with the New York Times and CNBC...Link

Federal government ‘one giant toxic asset’.

The US economy has not really recovered from last year’s financial crisis, and the policies of the Federal Reserve, the US’s central bank, are ensuring that the suffering will continue much longer than necessary, US House Rep. Ron Paul told CNN on Monday. “They claim there’s a recovery but the recovery ought to be measured by the people working. True unemployment is now 16 percent, and the people who lost money have not regained the money. The people who lost houses have not gotten their houses back. There is no recovery,” said Paul...Link