Politics

Way back when, I voted for John McCain as a write-in in a state that didn’t support write-in votes for President (as near as I could tell), largely as a protest as to the Republican selection and primary political campaign. That was then. Now I’m just wondering when the McCain campaign is going to be closing up and heading home. It’s actually kind of sad, like when Bob Dole ran in 1996. No matter what my disagreements with their platforms, both men deserved better than being thrown under the bus by their party. (Of course, with McCain, that was in the 2000 primaries. Now he’s just doing it to himself.) ...

Hey, remember that time Jesus started yelling at a Roman praying to Jupiter? You remember, He was all “My Father is Number One!” and “You better show some respect!” Wait, you don’t? You mean you think Jesus Christ primarily relied on the truth of His own message, rather than shouting down the people who disagreed with Him? And that living a Christ-like life requires showing the same respect to others and having the same faith in your message? ...

One of the things I’ve come to dislike about the blogosphere – not that we don’t do this outside of blogs all the time as well – is that there’s an assumption that any content that sounds like it might go against one’s political opinions isn’t just wrong in and of itself, the act of saying it at all is wrong. In one of the latest examples, a writer for Google’s Health Advertising Blog wrote that the healthcare industry could counter Michael Moore’s Sicko, an indictment of healthcare practices in the U.S., by buying search-related ads to get their side of the argument out. ...

Yeah, it’s great how the free market and competition has a good chance of sorting out any problems we have with net neutrality and Internet access. Or, at least, that’s what the Federal Trade Commission says. This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more – not less – competition. In the absence of significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm, policy makers should be particularly hesitant to enact new regulation in this area. ...

U.S. to fingerprint E.U. visitors: Visitors from European nations traveling with visas or visa-free to the United States will soon have to give 10 digital fingerprints when entering the country, a senior U.S. Homeland Security official said Monday. Let’s see, the last time I had my fingerprints taken by a digital scanner owned by the U.S. government, it took 30 minutes and continual rewetting of my fingertips because the system was having trouble matching the individual prints to a ten-print scan. Since that was in April, and the machine was fairly new and expensive, I doubt the technology used in the various points of entry has any reason to work much more consistently. I wonder how they plan on handling the extra delays? ...

A man in Pennsylvania has been charged with a felony for wiretapping, after using a video camera to record a police officer during a traffic stop. As it turns out, state law “bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone’s oral conversation without their consent.” What I find interesting about the article is that everyone seems to agree charging him with a felony isn’t the proper response in this case, but no one mentioned the fact the law itself seems fundamentally flawed. Not being able to record public officials in their duties is a problem, not to mention the number of violations that could be happening every day from tourists. (“Hey, look, Amish! Let me get the camera!”) How do they define intention? A recording of a party is intentional, as is the recording of guests’ voices, but it sounds almost like you would need to get permission from each person if it’s possible to construe that as eavesdropping. ...

A federal report on the Virginia Tech shootings asserts that confusing privacy laws played a hand. While I don’t doubt the privacy laws might be confusing, one of the problems with extensive bureaucracies is that it is really hard to tell afterwards whether the procedures and possibilities were confusing, or whether they just weren’t followed. It doesn’t take much to break the system, and it sounds like in this case broken links made a lot of difference. ...

Congressman David Wu (D-Oregon) warns: “Don’t let faux Klingons send real Americans to war!” Sage words, indeed. [youtube &w=425&h=350] Link courtesy of TV Squad Update: Yes, by including the video in the page, the XHTML 1.1 validation is completely screwed up.

This image is what RedState.com decided to use to commemorate the first day of a (barely) Democratic Congress. Wonkette covers it better, but just to get everything straight: Retreat from Saigon Communist Red Star Communist Hammer and Sickle Rays from Japanese military flag Democrat-Socialists, perhaps referring to Bernie Sanders? Isn’t that overkill? And who is retreating from Saigon? Republicans? Is Congress the helicopter, and all the people Democrat-Socialists? I don’t understand. ;) ...

The first issue of Studies in Language and Capitalism is online. Looks interesting. The editorial advisory board includes the inimitable Jeremy Hunsinger.