NOW says take action and Mike, C.I. & me say do it now before the vote

Swiping from Mike & C.I. and urged on by mom, here's "Oppose Reauthorization: USA PATRIOT Act Violates Our Civil Liberties:"

Vote set for this Friday! Act NOW.
Action Needed:
Please send a message to your Senators urging them to oppose reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Improvement and Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 (H.R. 3199), which fails to include important reforms and poses a serious threat to individual privacy and to our precious civil liberties. The reauthorization of this controversial law would enact scores of new surveillance powers for the government, establish a number of new crimes, including new death penalties, and still permit secret eavesdropping and secret search orders. Safeguards that were adopted by the Senate earlier this year have been deleted and, alarmingly, most provisions in this final version would be made permanent, bypassing the critically important periodic Congressional reviews.Senate Democrats are united in opposing this draconian re-write of the PATRIOT Act, and so are a number of Republicans, which makes victory possible. Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.) and a number of both Democratic and Republican members are threatening a filibuster. The Senate is set to vote Friday (Dec.16). The more conservative House voted today 251 to 174 to adopt the reauthorization measure. So this makes it all the more critical to contact your Senators immediately. Please use our formatted message or write one of your own and urge your Senators to oppose this dangerous bill.
Take action NOW.

Do something about this now.

Do it today. Use the link.

Check out Kat

The only thing I want to note today is to check out Kat. She's got something up, it's funny and true. You'll nod, you'll laugh. Check out Kat! It'll start your day off right.

Community Jot

Mike talks to new community member "Kansas" (identified as Ryan but it's not the community's Ryan to be clear) here and Rebecca speaks with community members Martha and Maria here.

I'm still working on the correction to my first jot and appreciate the e-mails with suggestions on that. I'll try to have it posted later today.

Kat offers her take here (her take so far).

Elaine tells me on the phone that she's just so disappointed by the whole thing she was too disappointed to write yesterday. She says she'll have something up today.

Betty's working it into a new chapter and says to put in, "These things take days for me to finish. I'm thinking Friday is the soonest I'll be done with it and it can go up."

Cedric says he's writing right after church tonight and had practice last night so wasn't able to get in to pull the link last night. He says it will be pulled tonight.

Ty says he, Jim, Jess and Dona wrote a "mammoth" note to the readers. Dona says it needs to be cut in half and have more focus. Jim wants the points made more clear. Ty advises that it will be up but probably at two or three Thursday morning.

Seth says he never linked to the site because he didn't see any value in their work. He's wiped out from school and work and says the fact that he never endorsed the site to begin with means he's not rushing to note it now.

Jess says to post his e-mail he sent yesterday:

"The problem," _____, is that Ava didn't attack you.
She's been professional in both e-mails she sent you and taken input from her aunt on what to leave in and what to take out before sending.
Ava's aunt told her no personal contact with you, professional only.
That's what Ava did.
Jim phoned & asked, "Did Eddie mail C.I.?"
He did. Same message he mailed us at Third that Jim was looking at.
You've delinked from C.I. in the midst of your olive branch offer?
We will be delinking from your site. Community wide.
You had no problem writing repeatedly but somehow you forgot to mention that detail.
While supposedly offering a "sincere request for peace" you delink C.I.?
You've called your desire for peace into question.
We won't be left holding an olive branch with thorns.
J

"The problem" is using the phrase from ___'s snippy reply where she gripes at Ava.

I'll have my corrected post up sometime this evening or tonight.

I've already delinked but since the first post deals with that site it does need a correction.

"Stop the Jot!" hollers Jim

"Stop The Jot!" Jim screams.

Actually, I'm bringing in stuff from the trunk of the car because I took my grandfather Christmas shopping and Mom's yelling that I've got a phone call.

Grandpa went to town and then some. It's like he bought a town. I'm trying to grab as much as I can carry and make as few trips as I can.

I holler, "Mom, who ever it is, tell them I call them back."

"No, Wally," my mom yells back, "you need to take this call!"

I hurry up the drive, drop the sacks on the porch and take the phone from Mom.

"Hello?"

"Stop The Jot!"

It's Jim.

Mike's got some stuff for tonight. They're going with Mike because it's more his style and also because C.I. won't get mad at him. Everybody likes Mike!

See, everyone closed ranks and was willing to try a peace deal even though it put us all out big time. That's because C.I. thought the woman was being genuine.

In the last two days of this supposed peace deal, she's dogged on Kat while supposedly wanting peace, gotten snippy with Ava, and . . . Well, just wait for Mike tonight.

And you know, as Mom said - you kkkkkknnnnnnnnoooooooowwwwww, Rebecca will be a must read tonight. So be sure and check in with her.

Me? I gotta figure out how to do a correction to my first post ever.

But Mom says she'll help out.

I told Jim to tell Mike to break me off a piece of that and I'll post some of it here because us newbies are like C.I.'s kids and C.I. won't get mad at me. The most C.I. will probably say is, "That's between you and her."

But this sort of nonsense is the reason Mike started blogging in the first place. I remember that because I was one of the people e-mailing him and going, "Mike, it's not a big deal." He'll tell you I was one of the ones saying, "Start your own site and you'll see it doesn't matter."

But that was one thing. There was no offer of peace in the conflict that had Mike pissed off.

This time, there was an offer of peace but somehow peace still included snapping at Ava who did not get personal with this woman because her aunt told her not to. Her aunt goes, "That woman will burn you." Sunday night, we were all on the phone with Ava's aunt who told C.I., "I love you, you're the sweetest, most trusting yadda yadda yadda, but this woman does not want peace."

C.I. is sweet and trusting. I think all of us respond to that.

But there's peace and there's pretend peace and if you tell us you want peace and then don't, the rest of us aren't as nice as C.I.

So Ava's aunt gave some advice and we all followed it.

I'm glad we did. If we didn't, we couldn't say we tried. Well, we tried.

Jim'll have a note up tonight but let me tell you to look forward to the next edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. Pieces that didn't get posted online? They may get up there. Or we may just make an effort to write even more strong.

And check out Kat because Jim hadn't talked to her but I bet Kat will have something to say on all of this.

Quick Jot!

A Jot delayed is not a jot in vain!

I'm taking my grandfather Christmas shopping so the Jot will be delayed this morning. Check this afternoon or this evening.

Happy Holidays.

Quick jot

Quick jot this morning. Be sure to check out "Editorial: What Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma tells us." We're all really pleased with that and it's the favorite of my grandfather.

That edition was a pain to put out and Jim's probably going to put up a note addressing the why of that so look for that.

And check out C.I. this morning about Plamegate.

Hope we all get this week off to a great start.