It is so frustrating that 4 out of 7 Democrats voted to confirm Michael Hayden, an Air Force General, to run the CIA. It was sadly typical of a party sadly lacking in integrity and backbone.

There were serious concerns about putting a general in charge of the CIA, a civilian intelligence agency. However, far more important was that fact that Hayden has been in charge of the NSA while it has illegally spied on Americans, illegal spying that Hayden has not only defended, but bragged about.

All of the Republicans on the committee voted to confirm Hayden. They should be ashamed of themselves. But, four Democrats, Levin (MI), Feinstein (CA), Mikulski (MD), and Rockefeller (WV), joined in betraying our nation's freedoms and the rule of law.

The three Democrats on the panel who voted against the nomination were Evan Bayh (IN), Russell Feingold (WI) and Ron Wyden (OR). They certainly deserve credit for doing so, but why only three? Democrats should be leading a fillibuster against Hayden, not sucking up to him.

Some people say we really need a second political party. At times like these, it isn't difficult to identify with that point of view.

The following advertisers placed half-page or larger ads in Saturday's (5/20/06) New York Post, Rupert Murdoch's fascist propaganda rag.

p.14: Sprint (full page)
p.29: Warner Brothers Pictures (half page)
p.45: Star Toyota (half page)
p.47: Used Car Mega Center (half page)
p.49: Able Ford (half page)
p.49: Victory Toyota (half page)
p.51: Hempstead Mitsubishi (full page)

My original intent of posting this was to shame advertisers, which still is perfectly valid. However, I cannot help but notice how few large ads were sold. This lends credibility to claims by the New York Daily News that the Post loses a lot of money.

OK, "Net Neutrality" has to be the most boring catch phrase since the dawn of political slogans. The geeks who invented this term think in terms of Network Administration.

Until now, the Internet has worked so that you get to go to any web site, and your ISP will accept the data you download the same way, regardless of who the data comes from. This is called "Net Neutrality," meaning that your ISP is neutral in terms of where on the Internet the data comes from.

Unfortunately, the phone and cable companies have been doing a good job lobbying Congress and the FCC to get rid of this, while pro-Internet lobbyists are trying to get it put back into effect. The broadband providers have two goals with this.

1) They want to charge premium prices to data providers, even though all the costs already are covered in your monthly service charge.

2) Some cable providers are owned by Time Warner, a leading media conglomerate. Other broadband providers would like to make deals with other media conglomerates. In both cases, the idea is to push people away from content that they don't control.

If you want to go to WBAI's web site, you eventually will get slower access or none at all. (Substitute your favorite non-profit web site for WBAI.) Listener funded radio can't afford to pay for faster access, even if the cable and phone companies would be willing to allow access to a media outlet that often criticizes them and other corporate interests.

In this faux Internet world, most broadband customers would have access to a limited number of viewpoints in a manner similar to that of cable TV. That mean, it would be harder to keep up with news and views from:

- Queers
- Atheists and Humanists
- Liberals

Some of the activists trying to defend the Internet experience for Americans are referring to it as "Save the Internet." In a sense, this slogan is not overblown. Also, it's a lot more interesting than "Net Neutrality."