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You case you’ve heard the name, but don’t know who Alger Hiss is the link to the Wikipedia entry. Hiss has turned out to be more then a controversial figure that was accused of spying for the Soviet Union back in the 1930s. Much like many conservatives today point to any incident involving a Muslim such as the Fort Dix plot as a way to inflame paranoia, many conservatives back in the forties ( conservatives is a better description then Democrats or Republicans since those were the days of oddly divided political parties - there were liberal Republicans and then there were right leaning Dixiecrats) used Hiss to whip up an unhealthy amount of hysteria over Soviet communism. It wasn’t that communism wasn’t a real menace as much as the domestic paranoia about it did more to hurt innocent people then it did to hurt communism. This hysteria eventually lead to the McCarthy Era and helped make Richard Nixon a raising star of the movement that would eventually evolve into today’s extreme Right. This new look - The Mystery of Ales - at the Hiss case doesn’t conclude that Hiss was definitely innocent only that there were holes big enough to fit an elephant through in the case against him. It might help to finally clear way the doubts one way or the other if Russian intelligence would open up its achieve. It is not just important as a matter of interesting historical detection, but as part of the trail of near mythic proportion that has helped make paranoia and hyperbole such a large part of and effective tool of the modern Right in America.

OK my jaw dropped when I read about this: AT&T are helping those poor penniless orphans known as the MPAA and the RIAA to spy on their customers. If while spying on your internet/personal computing use they see what they consider illegal activity AT&T will help find an empty bed for you at the local jail house. I don’t believe in the death penalty… for people

What a lack of awareness of their relationship with customers. They should do things to reward customers for being smart enough to have chosen AT&T as their Internet service provider. Instead, they would make their customers the stupidest people on the planet, choosing the only ISP that will send you to jail to create a new business model for them. Instead of competing to provide great service at the lowest possible price, they want to drive their customers to financial ruin, for having made the mistake of choosing AT&T