Landscape Day 13

Jul 26, 2006 – 8 Photos

Day 13: About half of the front courtyard tile is done. Some reinforcement is added to the cap tiles on the back wall.

Landscape Day 12

Jul 25, 2006 – 6 Photos

Day 12: The back yard tile is done, including capping the retaining wall. The wall will be revisited a few times in the next few days as we see that laying a 12″ tile across a 6″ cinder block, leaving 3″ of overhang on each side, is not quite workable…

Landscape Day 11

Jul 22, 2006 – 22 Photos

Day 11: Lots of tile! After the crew left (and the mortar was dry), we let the cats outside to check out the new back yard.

Landscape Day 10

Jul 21, 2006 – 9 Photos

Day 10: Tile! Also, another crew came in to sort the contents of the debris box; it was only supposed to hold “construction” debris (concrete, dirt, bricks, etc) but anything and everything had been thrown in there and Allied Waste was making a big stink about picking it up. Even after the debris had been sorted, it took AW another week to actually collect their box.

Judge orders stop to warrantless phone wiretapping:

A federal judge ordered a halt today to the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping of calls between Americans and alleged foreign terrorists, saying the program violates the Constitution as well as a law requiring judicial approval for all electronic surveillance.

‘There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” said U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in rejecting President Bush’s claim that he had the inherent power to authorize the program.

The suspension of the program, implementing Judge Taylor’s order, is stayed pending appeal. Expect the full range of neocon dirty tricks to be deployed against this judge (the “activist judge” charge will be the least of the pejoratives leveled at her).