There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.
Legislating Violations of the Constitution
Topic: Politics and Law
10:50 am EDT, Oct 7, 2006
I can't help but notice this can now be referred to as the "PERP Act".
Veterans' Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2006 -- H.R. 2679 -- provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees.
With regard to the Boy Scouts angle, see BSA Legal:
Boy Scouts of America appreciates Congress’ interest in the litigation facing Boy Scouts and the solution Congress is pursuing in the “Veterans’ Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2006.” For the past decade, Boy Scouts as well as federal, state, and local governments that support Boy Scouts, have been the targets of ACLU lawsuits challenging Boy Scouts’ relationships with government entities. Those lawsuits seek to use the Establishment Clause to sever government relationships with Scouting merely because Boy Scouts pledge a nonsectarian promise to do their “duty to God.” Boy Scouts of America hopes that the Veterans’ Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act of 2006 will help eliminate this frivolous litigation against Scouting and government entities.
From the record:
The ACLU received $950,000 in a settlement with the City of San Diego in a case involving the San Diego Boy Scouts.
Also:
In Redlands, California, the city council reluctantly capitulated to ACLU's demands and agreed to change their official seal. But Redlands didn't have the municipal funds to revise police and firefighter badges that contained the old seal so, as reported by the Sacramento Bee, `rather than face the likelihood of costly litigation,' Redlands residents now `see blue tape covering the cross on city trucks, while some firefighters have taken drills to `obliterate it' from their badges.'
Further:
The official name of the City of Los Angeles (known as `The City of Angels') is `The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion,' which refers to Mary, Mother of Jesus. Many other California cities contain religious references, including San Clemente, Santa Monica, Sacramento (named for the `Holy Sacrament'), San Francisco and San Luis Obispo (named for Saint Louis the Bishop). Under precedents groups like the ACLU are setting under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, the very names of these cities are in legal jeopardy.
To the section which begins "including, but not limited to, a violation resulting from--", they might as well have added "(5) a government employee's particularly pious demeanor." How can you disagree with that? Shouldn't government employees have the same rights as everyone else, wi... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]
"It has become clear that Internet access in itself is a vulnerability that we cannot mitigate. We have tried incremental steps and they have proven insufficient." -- Undersecretary of Commerce Mark Foulon
Stratfor: Al'Q wins in London even though the attack was foiled.
Topic: War on Terrorism
10:13 am EDT, Aug 30, 2006
Follow through for the full text. Selected excerpts are provivded below for those too hurried or too afraid to click through.
Terrorism, at a deeper level, is about psychology and the "propaganda of the deed." And as far as al Qaeda is concerned, it is also about economic warfare: Osama bin Laden personally has stated that one of the group's strategic objectives is to "bleed America to the point of bankruptcy."
There is a similar economic angle to attempts at protection against cheap missiles.
Officials naturally want to be perceived as doing everything possible to prevent future acts of violence; therefore, every threat -- no matter how seemingly ridiculous -- is treated seriously. Overreaction becomes mandatory. Politicians and executives cannot afford to be perceived as doing nothing.
This powerful mandate on the defensive side is met, asymmetrically, on the offensive side by a force whose only requirements are to survive, issue threats and, occasionally, strike -- chiefly as a means of perpetuating its credibility.
Terrorist acts do not have to be tremendously successful (in terms of physical casualties or damage) in order to be terribly effective.
One wonders why they even bother with all of the conspiracy, training, and preparation.
Al Qaeda measures its progress in the war of attrition not only by the number of American servicemen killed, but in terms of American treasure expended in furtherance of the war. In essence, bin Laden and his planners adopted a concept that is familiar to Americans: "It's the economy, stupid!"
Al Qaeda long ago took the risk-aversion factor into account, as it embarked on its war of attrition against the West. In such a war, what matters most is not how many times a fighter is bloodied and knocked down, but how many times he picks himself up and returns to the fight. It is dogged determination not to lose that can lead to victory. This is, in essence, how the Mujahideen won against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and how al Qaeda views its contest against the United States today.
Stratfor seems to left out the part about how much the Mujahideen relied on us for financing and supplies. Today, Hezbollah is similarly reliant on its sponsors.
Conspiracy may be cheap, but waging a persistent, violent insurgency is generally not.
When we recognize the futility of a force-on-force battle against a certain class of threat, we will walk back the cat toward the state sponsors, because we think we know how to confront them (and have the tools to do so). Is this a successful strategy?
"We want to be a dangerous band, like Fugazi or The Clash or Bob Dylan. Woody Guthrie's folk music influenced me a lot," Yang said. "But because the government doesn't care about us, we are not forbidden from playing. Maybe we are not dangerous. It's sad."
I'm sorry, but anyone whose music appears on "Friends" is not dangerous. Furthermore:
It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll. In 1998 Q magazine readers voted London Calling the 32nd greatest album of all time; Rolling Stone named it the best album of the 1980s (although it was released in 1979 in the UK, its U.S. release was in 1980) in 2000, and in 2003 named it number 8 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"; also in 2003, the TV network VH1 placed it at number 25. Pitchfork Media ranked it number two on their Top 100 Albums of the 1970s. In 2004, Entertainment Weekly named it the Greatest rock album of all-time.
They go on:
"We are trying to change the image of punk rockers. We just want to tell the audience that the music is pure and that we are nice and not violent."
Many punk rockers in China are long on style and short on substance, critics say. Few of them can articulate what they stand for or explain what their songs mean.
So which way do they want it? The scene seems split on the most basic issues.
This is a very interesting window into imperfect human lives.
This is sure to be some fascinating data.
I revised Decius's title because I thought it might be deceptive to people who haven't been following this story. (Google has not released this kind of data and is not involved in this latest data leak.)
