Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

9-11 tributes

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Yahoo! on 9/11 2002Several sites across the ‘net are altering their front pages as a tribute to the 9-11 attacks. Some aren’t bad, some seem to be pretty ridiculous (to me, at least).

Of the ones I’ve seen so far, Yahoo‘s seems the silliest. Essentially the same old Yahoo! as ever — just all in greyscale. I kind of prefer the approach that other sites have taken (such as Excite, who set their main page to a simple black background, a rememberance message, and links to enter the content area). This just gives me the feeling that while Yahoo figured they had to do something, they sure as heck weren’t going to hide their content — why, some poor soul might actually get distracted by thinking about actual issues and miss out on some ads!

Then again, maybe I’m just too cynical.

(via MeFi)

What kind of God…?

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Thinking about the upcoming one year anniversary of Sept. 11th, Dave had this to say:

A common theme — what kind of God lets this happen. I answer that with another question. What kind of a country is so selfish that it doesn’t see that 9-11 was [the] tiniest big tragedy viewed from a global perspective. What about famine in Africa? What about AIDS? They wonder at the spiritual vision of a person who jumps from the World Trade Center to certain death, but don’t wonder about the millions of people who do the same thing with tobacco? It’s out of balance. We’re out of balance. 9-11 was, IMHO, a small upheaval in getting to some kind of equilibrium in how the U.S. participates in the world, both from the U.S. perspective, and the world’s perspective. That we got so much sympathy says how big the human heart is. That there wasn’t more celebrating in the streets of world capitals says that they forgive us for our selfish attitude, which is back in force as if 9-11 never happened.

So what was the lesson of 9-11 that the U.S. has failed to learn? I think it’s that God doesn’t think we’re as important as we do. The concept of national security is obsolete. We can’t close our borders. We live on this planet with everyone else. Global warming, AIDS, terrorism, all penetrate all borders. New York is a world city. The last gasps of isolationism will be snuffed out by more humiliation, until we get the truth, we aren’t above the rest of the world, but we are part of it.

Amen.

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Yahoo! editorializing

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Yahoo! editorializingHere’s an interesting little piece of editorializing on Yahoo! — a picture of Ground Zero in New York captioned “Recovery and debris removal work continues at the site of the World Trade Center known as ‘ground zero’ in New York, March 25, 2002. Human rights around the world have been a casualty of the U.S. ‘war on terror’ since September 11.”

I went ahead and grabbed a screen capure of the page, since I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it gets re-edited sometime soon. It may have been just an editorial mistake, as pointed out in the MeFi thread…even so, it’s certainly an interesting editorial gaffe.

Rights we used to have

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Overview of Changes to Legal Rights

By The Associated Press | September 5, 2002, 11:44 AM EDT

Some of the fundamental changes to Americans’ legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:

  • FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.
  • FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.
  • FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
  • RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
  • FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.
  • RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
  • RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

— Newsday, via Wil

Strait or Gay?

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This is an e-mail that Karl just sent me…

For me, voting in the Republican primary election for my district (Turnagin District 26 in Anchorage), l have to choose between Strait and Gay.

This is ABSOLUTELY TRUE…no kidding!

This is from the State of Alaska, Division of Elections candidate page.

Look at the bottom two entries of the candidate listing where it says:

STATE REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT 26

GORDON W. HARTLIEB (Libertarian)
3419 Grissom Circle
Anchorage, AK 99517
Phone: (907) 243-8198
e-mail: gordon@systems33.com
Candidate’s web site: http://www.ak.lp.org/hartlieb

ETHAN A. BERKOWITZ (Democrat – Incumbent)
1219 Inlet Place
Anchorage, AK 99501
Phone: (907) 279-5659
e-mail: ethanb@alaska.net
Candidate’s web site: http://www.ethanberkowitz.com

STEVE STRAIT (Republican)
2500 Douglas Drive
Anchorage, AK 99517
Phone: (907) 248-1028
e-mail: steve@stevestrait.com
Candidate’s web site: http://www.stevestrait.com

BECKY GAY (Republican)
PO Box 190428
Anchorage, AK 99519
Phone: (907) 248-5909
e-mail: beckygay@alaska.com
Candidate’s web site: http://www.beckygay.com

These Republicans are running against each other in the primary!

I’m switching to Libertarian GODDAMNIT!

Sounds like a good idea to me…

Church vs. State

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Y’know, sometimes — in my more cynical moments — I wonder if this whole argument over seperation of Church and State isn’t a waste of time…flawed in some deeply fundamental way.

I mean, come on — is the belief in politicians who actually work and act to do their best for the people they represent and the country they live in really that much different from the belief in an all-knowing, all-seeing entity who created us and oversees our lives?

Personally, I find it easier to believe in God than to believe that George W. Bush has the best interests of anyone other than himself in mind.

Anyway. Just a random thought.

More scary gov’t agencies

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Information Awareness Office logoHere’s a good one — let’s make the logo of the Information Awareness Office the beloved all-seeing eye of the Illuminati overseeing the entire globe.

Then, just to make things creepier, we’ll toss out two pieces of information. First off, the IAO Mission Statement:

The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) will imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption; national security warning; and national security decision making.

Secondly, information about John Poindexter, the man in charge of the IAO:

A retired Navy Admiral, John Poindexter lost his job as National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal.

Eeek.

(via Boing Boing)

(On a random side note, why does IOCOM come up first on a Google search for ‘illuminati’? I’m guessing they got Googlebombed.)

Even more on TIPS

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A good article from the Washington Post asking questions about TIPS:

Public vigilance is a good thing, and so is encouraging citizens to alert authorities to terrorist activity. It makes sense to educate people who work at potential targets or at places where lethal cargo may be smuggled. But having the government recruit informants among letter carriers and utility workers — people who enter the homes of Americans for reasons unrelated to law enforcement — is an entirely different matter. Americans should not be subjecting themselves to law enforcement scrutiny merely by having cable lines installed, mail delivered or meters read. Police cannot routinely enter people’s houses without either permission or a warrant. They should not be using utility workers to conduct surveillance they could not lawfully conduct themselves.

(via MeFi)

This doesn’t inspire confidence

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Is it just me, or does the fact that this image comes directly from a US government website looking at patents and trademarks related to ‘Homeland Security’ not make me feel comfortable?

The more I read about this, the more paranoid I get — and now we’ve got a gov’t webpage coming up with logos featuring eyes peeking through keyholes against a Stars-and-Stripes background?!? Eeeek.

(via Boing Boing)