“Don’t be evil.”
These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially Read more…
“Mr. Smith Rewrites the Constitution”
For the record, nothing like Senate Rule 22 appears in the Constitution, nor was there unlimited debate until Vice President Aaron Burr presided over the Senate in the early 180os. In 1917, after a century of chaos, the Senate put in the old Rule 22 to stop unlimited filibusters. Because it was about stopping real, often distressing, floor debate, one might have been able to defend that rule under Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says, “Each house may determine the rule of its proceedings.” As revised in 1975, Senate Rule 22 seemed to be an improvement: it Read more…
“The signs they carried” in the Volcano
“At that point, I told him he needed to move away from my daughter and give her space (especially since she was on the curb at one of the busiest intersections in Tacoma). He began to argue, and I cut him off saying, ‘Move away from my daughter.’ He did.” One car passenger threw a beverage, hitting an approve-71 volunteer. Other passers-by shouted “Death to all you faggots!” and “We should get the KKK here!” This wasn’t Birmingham in ’63 or Selma in ’65. This was Tacoma in 2009, over by the Red Robin. via weeklyvolcano.com An interesting article about Read more…
Michael Medved last night at City Club
Michael Medved had an interesting presentation last night at Theatre on the Square. He recently wrote about "The 10 Big Lies About America" and during the presentation he covered three of the lies he covered in his book. One–that America is in an irreversible state of moral decline I've long believed to be false, and I'm glad Medved argued against it as passionately as he did. The second–that America is "uniquely" responsible for slavery and that slavery in the US was worse than anywhere else in the world … I found to be a bit of a strawman's argument. I Read more…
More on the Prize
I posted my thoughts this morning without looking at any other reaction, except for a few very funny twitters. The most interesting I've read so far is James Fallows. He refers to a post he made about Al Gore's nomination two years ago which, I agree, is more relevant now. He also dissects Obama's speech this morning. I'll quote at length, because I think it's an interesting point and it gets past the actual winning of the award: Obama: "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative Read more…
The Nobel
I think I would be remiss in not posting about the oddest piece of news I’ve heard in a long time. My first reaction was that the Peace Prize was given to Obama for simply not being George W. Bush. Despite my criticism below that Obama hasn’t accomplished much in office, he has made foreign policy and diplomacy a focus and I think he’s done it well. This is one area where a President’s “tone” and speeches are actually meaningful, and I think Obama’s performance has been great. But even so–has he accomplished enough to win a Nobel Peace Prize? Read more…
If we had a “strong mayor” form of City government, would the Luzon have fallen?
So while the Luzon discussion was happening this past week, I happened to be reading City Club's 2003 Community Study that evaluates the council-manager government system, and I have to say … it got me thinking. And it got me to my question: if we had a strong mayor form of City government, would the Luzon have fallen? In a mayoral form of government, where the Mayor is truly running the city, the mayor has to think about the politics of his/her decisions. I know politics gets thrown around as a dirty word, but think back to this last week. Read more…
Two topics, one video.
The first half of this is a discussion about Obama’s school speech, which is why I watched it. The second half caught my eye because there’s some good stuff there about online identity, which is the topic of my presentation Wednesday night at Pecha Kucha. Thomas Friedman is scared: MR. FRIEDMAN: Tell your kids, OK, tell your kids, OK, be careful. Every move they make is now a digital footprint. You are on “Candid Camera.” And unfortunately, the real message to young people, from all of these incidents, OK, and I’m not here defending anything anyone said, but from all Read more…
The Constitution as a comic book …
via feedproxy.google.com This actually seems like a good way to learn something.
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