Category Archives: Rants, Raves, Reflections
Healthcare Reform Opponents Stoop to Another Ethics Lowpoint
I got a mailer this past weekend that really pissed me off. The outside was marked “2010 Medicare Update” and indicated that enclosed was a “Non-Governmental Document.” On the inside, the mailer tells me that the president has announced new medicare reform guidelines that I need to understand in order to know how they will …
@MobWorld SPAMs Twitter at Expense of Unwitting Players
I am writing to strongly object to abusive SPAM schemes perpetrated by Twitter users like @MobWorld. If you look at @MobWorld’s website http://www.playmobsterworld.com/ you will see that in very small, light colored text underneath a VERY LARGE RED PLAY NOW BUTTON they write: By clicking the Click to Play Now button, you are confirming you …
Batgirl vs. U.S. Chamber of Commerce
In…. Out of the Way of Fair Pay Take action now at OutOfTheWayOfFairPay.org
Moving v. Courting the Median Voter
Anthony Downs taught us that the candidate closest to the median voter, with respect to their positions, always wins (An Economic Theory of Democracy, 1957). But contrary to popular belief, the median voter model doesn’t require candidates to move to the center. Candidates can also move the median voter towards themselves.
Iraq the Casbah: US Military to Clampdown on Journalists and Bloggers in Iraq
In celebration of World Press Freedom Day yesterday, the Bush Administration has made two policy decisions regarding media coverage of the Iraq war that fly squarely in the face of a free press. First, new military rules require soldiers to clear all content with superiors before posting them to their blogs and this rule may be applied to email, as well. Second, the Army’s 1st Information Operations Command new handbook lists journalists alongside al Qaeda as a threat. Add to these the fact that the US continues to hold two photojournalists prisoner without charge and we begin to see a picture of an Administration that is aggressively assaulting our rights to a free press.
Case for Email Archiving
We were very excited to provide more insight into Karl Rove’s role in the firings of the eight federal prosecutors, but we have apparently lost the emails containing those insights. They were last seen being carried off from the RNC mail server by an AI named Wintermute. Rumor has it that Wintermute has been working with the Bush Administration to ensure that official communications exchanged via unofficial email addresses were not available for investigators to review as they try to detail the extent to which Mr. Rove is politicizing every aspect of the Executive Branch in order to shore up a perpetual Republican majority. It seems Rove might no longer be confident that the Iraq War will serve this role in securing the President and his Party’s legacy. The Democrats would be well-served to call in their own cowboy to dig to the bottom of this technical and legal faux pas.
Senator Tubes, Luddite of the Year
Senator Tubes is at it again. The man who doesn’t get his internets fast enough because his tubes are clogged wants to strip the heart of the internet out of our libraries and schools. No more social networking sites. No more MySpace. No more Facebook. No more any site with profiles and networking tools. Can …
Citizen Journalist Rule: Care2 Member Scoops Mainstream Media
A member of Care2.com scooped the mainstream media when he discovered in a White House press release that President Bush is asserting the power to search through private mail of US citizens without a warrant. As far as I know, it is a federal offense to read someone else mail without authorization, so the President’s …
