Here Comes the Knife [updated]

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Monday February 25, 2008 · 12:40 AM PST

2008/02/25 · 00:40

Jay Rockefeller, Patrick Leahy, Silvestre Reyes and John Conyers in WaPo:

We are motivated to pass legislation governing surveillance because we believe this activity must be carefully regulated to protect Americans' constitutional rights. Companies that provide lawful assistance to the government in surveillance activities should be legally protected for doing so.

I find these two sentences next to one another disturbing. The proposition that "Companies that provide lawful assistance to the government in surveillance activities should be legally protected for doing so" is not a matter of dispute.

FISA law, as we know, already protects lawful assistance. And so this statement has no bearing on the question of protecting Americans' Constitutional rights.

With a capital "C", gentleman.

spotDawa

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Thursday February 21, 2008 · 4:00 AM PST

2008/02/21 · 04:00

Among the reactions to my earlier diary "Beware the coming of the Green Bubble" was the feeling that "surely that's not all alternative energy is." Of course, alternative energy is a great, great idea. But the fact remains, the global economy, and our part of it in particular, runs on bubbles. Hm, sounds like some kind of hydrogen application.

But this article in Harper's fleshes out the idea in an excellent way, and explains the bubble phenomenon with an analysis of the two most recent: dot bomb and finance/real estate. But like me, the author sees alternative energy as the most likely next bubble in the froth. So I'd like to take it a bit further, and see how it might play out.

spotDawa

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Tuesday February 19, 2008 · 8:27 PM PST

2008/02/19 · 20:27

It is both a hope and enquiry. What is a statesman, anyway?

Plato gives us the answer. But Plato being very difficult to read, requiring the reader as he does to think long and carefully about the line of reasoning in every discussion -- well I thought I'd go ahead and jump past the tedious dialectical groundwork of Plato's dialog on the Statesman, right to the salient point of my diary, and of his dialog: the definition of a statesman, in which we learn to distinguish different forms of government, and the separate question of good versus bad government as it applies to each organizational form.

In the dialog, Plato compares the State to a fabric woven by a weaver. He compares all the necessary supports that go into allowing a weaver to weave to those that go into allowing the Statesman to govern well.

spotDawa

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Wednesday February 13, 2008 · 4:37 AM PST

2008/02/13 · 04:37

It is hard to fathom what they are thinking in the Senate. I mean, I've heard of the dangers of the slippery slope. And we've certainly experienced it the past many years.

We've gone from "We Do Not Torture" to "We Torture A Bit" without the requisite uproar. We should be in the streets burning things, should we not?

Because it is clear, absolutely clear, that our Government has sold our rights down the river. This is not the America I grew up in: these days, I no longer know what exactly my rights are or what the government can do to me without anyone knowing or having the right to find out. Wherever we turned the corner, the corner is turned. Maybe it was yesterday when they cast the vote to immunize our telecom providers from illegally spying on us, and now to continue to do so. It might as well be today that we mark as the day that our leaders failed, finally, ultimately, to lead. They betray us, and they betray their common solemn oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.

spotDawa

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Tuesday January 22, 2008 · 9:33 PM PST

2008/01/22 · 21:33

All of the bickering has had an effect. I'm reminded of my much more passionate younger days, when I pursued philosophy to the utter neglect of everything else. When I knew better than to believe in politics.

I had hope in this election cycle, for a while. But my cynicism has returned, and with it, a quiet resignation. The opposition "research" against all of the candidates, and the cumulative effect of small doubts and small-minded attacks reminded me of this favorite passage from Plato's Republic:

spotDawa

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Sunday January 20, 2008 · 2:53 PM PST

2008/01/20 · 14:53

It’s been truly sickening to watch, in one decade, the implosion of the Dot Bomb and the housing/credit bubble. Like so many others, these implosions stop my personal economy dead in its tracks. I never invested anything in either pipe dream. I worked hard, saved, and kept my head. And I have nothing to show for it, since the work I do dries up as soon as I get ahead, and I have to weather the next storm of fiscal idiocy from our great business and political leaders. (Same thing for the most part.)

spotDawa

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Wednesday August 22, 2007 · 5:31 PM PDT

2007/08/22 · 17:31

Dictator.

The worm has certainly turned on the United States in terms of the appearance of a police state led by an all-powerful-, not-accountable-to-rule-of-law-, acting-in-the-interest-of-the-security-of-the-homeland-style dictator.

But actually that's the only style of dictator that exists. And so we find ourselves faced with the worm this time. That being, how the argument can be spun, facts manipulated, lies told outright to a cowed populace as fearful of their government as they are of any terrorists that lurk in their midst. How that cowed population can be distracted from their unease about giving away their liberty and their ability to defend themselves from tyranny. How it is that they can not only be distracted from it, the people can even be manipulated into cheering for it, as easily as the facts are manipulated: by appealing to nationalism and nativism, fear, and lies.

spotDawa

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Saturday May 05, 2007 · 7:58 PM PDT

2007/05/05 · 19:58

The Bush Administration causes national AIDS. Specifically, a national form of HIV -- I guess you could call it a national immunodeficiency virus or NIV.

I know, I can hear you saying WTF? Let me just preempt concern trolling by saying that I am not trying to use fear of AIDS as a twisted weapon for political argument's sake. I think the analogy is a good one, and suggests at the very least that we should NOT be following the Commander Guy in the military approach to fighting terrorism.

Stay with me...

spotDawa

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Saturday March 31, 2007 · 6:19 PM PDT

2007/03/31 · 18:19

Cuban President Fidel Castro condemned Thursday the US food for fuel strategy....

In Peru, La Republica daily echoed the Cuban leader’s statements, pointing out the ethanol tragedy lies in the idea of turning food into fuel.

Ecuador’s Universo highlighted Fidel Castro accusation that US President George W. Bush will doom over 3 billion people to "premature death."

Is this right?

Poll

50 votes Show Results

Is Castro right?

50 votes Vote Now!

Is Castro right?

Yes: Ideas from all quarters should be considered on their merits, not their source.

28 votes

Yes: But in spite of it coming from Castro.

6 votes

No: The poor we always have with us, and we need to get on with our lives.

2 votes

No: He's Castro, fer cryin' out loud.

5 votes

Pie

7 votes

Cake

2 votes

The Cure for healthcare ails

spotDawa

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Saturday February 24, 2007 · 11:51 AM PST

2007/02/24 · 11:51

My understanding of economics is rudimentary, but in my studies the basic law of supply and demand in determining the price of a good struck me as both cruel and ironic in the case of health care.

What is reasonable demand in the economic sense of the word for long healthy life? How much is that worth to you in a "free market"? One possible answer is "How much have you got?" Another approach is "How much can you beg, borrow, or steal?"

My diagnosis of the problem goes to the psychological aspects related to the operative assumption that everyone is entitled to optimum health and longevity. There is a measure of political correctness in this premise; to examine it raises immediate questions of the care of the invalid (not my word, mind you, but telling isn't it?) We must not be accused of discarding the "challenged" of our society, and that includes ourselves as we age and our health, in every case, declines.

spotDawa

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Monday February 13, 2006 · 7:47 PM PST

2006/02/13 · 19:47

There's an old saying in <insert name of your home town, state, or country here> that there are two subjects which ought not to be discussed in a polite conversation: religion, and politics.

I've made my first two diary entries on my religious background, as an 'escaped' fundamentist. Of course given the nature of this forum as a place for the exchange of political information, I don't want to take it for granted that my intentions are clear about mixing religion and politics.

Of course they're mixed already, given the scale and intensity of the fundamentalist minority who have sadly conflated their religious faith with a political destiny. Manifestly so, unfortunately. Read More

How I Walked Away from Christian Fundamentalism

spotDawa

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Saturday February 11, 2006 · 11:25 PM PST

2006/02/11 · 23:25

My first diary, on The Litany Against Fear, made reference to a principle of embracing the things that trouble us the most. This entry is more of a personal story about the principle I had in mind; how it allowed me to question my fundamentalist assumptions and overcome them.

I can only speak of my own experience, but for me fundamentalism was a response to fear. Or perhaps, a fearful response. As I grew up, my impressionable young self was most impacted by a strong spiritual bent, and by my gayness, if that is a word.

Convinced by my culture that being gay was "wrong" and already accepting of the Bible as the literal "Word of God," I had an internal battle on (and in) my hands. Read More

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Here Comes the Knife [updated]

Predicting the Green Bubble

May Obama be a Statesman

Treason in the Senate

The Philosophical Sentiment of GBCW

Beware the Coming of the Green Bubble

The Other Word for "Unitary Executive"

The Bush Administration causes national AIDS

Is Castro Right?

The Cure for healthcare ails

Impolite Conversation

How I Walked Away from Christian Fundamentalism