Tapping of international calls

As has been widely reported, the Democratic Congress basically rolled over and played dead on the wire tapping issue. For specific legal analysis, here's Marty Lederman on the new FISA bill.

The bad news: In addition to some more defensible changes, the US government now has legal authority to eavesdrop on international calls with American participants, so long as the eavesdropping is directed at the foreigner. No warrant required.
The good news: The authority expires in six months.

Disappointing. Of note, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) voted for the bill. She's normally better on these things. Marylanders may wish to express their disappointment so that she doesn't support it when this version expires.

What dreams may come

[Entry from last week I never completed] Having pulled a most-nighter last night, my 8 pm nap lasted to around 5:30 this morning (albeit waking up a few times near the end).

I was playing a RPG as my Arcana character. I don't think I actually was her in this one, as it often seemed to be a 'True Dungeon' setup. Admittedly a highly elaborate setup.

The party was a fairly eclectic mix and included a friend's girlfriend from DU and the cohort of one of the ERP crew. There was a fight coming and the girlfriend had a baby she needed to protect so she went to hide him in the forest. I went with her to see if I should run off to protect the kid under any particular circumstance (the character I was playing can turn into water and thus easily escape most anything). By the time we were back the initial fight was over and there was a group of Salem style witch hunters walking around. Since my character was a shrine maiden I mocked them by making helpful suggests from Shinto about how to perform their rites.

Then somehow the group got separated again. I went after them on a mountain path and ran into a nemesis of one of my players (oddly enough, he was Larped by an old scouting compatriot). We wrestled and totally unrealistically I was able to throw him off to the side of the path. He managed to leap into a cave entrance on the other side and then transformed into something. Maybe a dragon (the character is named Drake, but he doesn't have any shifting powers).

So I make way down the path which before to long goes around a bend. In my mind it's still pseudo true dungeon and really just doubled back in a big room with a fancy divider down the middle. The path was higher now and covered in snow. That impressed me, I wondered if they had a snow machine. I actually had trouble proceeding and had to crawl to get to the end. The path ended overlooking a pool of lava (not hot enough too melt the snow apparently) and I knew I had to proceed through there. I somehow knew that I had to throw down some snow and an item to the dragons that lived below to make the lava safe. I did so using snow and bits of jewelry conveniently left by the rest of my party. That turned the lava to water, although I remembered that the ritual may also involve dragon's breath. I wasn't sure how to fake that, so I just jumped in and swam. I made a note to tell the GM I'd switched to Haruko's water-form to up my stealth in case the dragon decided I didn't do my part of the deal.

After swimming on to the next room I climbed up onto the shore of a generic sci-fi/fantasy clay city. The rest of the party was gathered around a table discussion a Star Wars story in which Han Solo is darting back and forth across the entire galaxy far too quickly thanks to the author not paying attention at all. That conversation was actually based off one with Nic about Starburst Crystal where Krackel pulled something like that. Then I woke up. All and all, pretty fun. Makes me kinda want to do a True Dungeon delve again.