Government and Politics

Fafblog, the best political satire blog around is back in operation after a couple month hiatus. Their most recent entry is pure genius:

6/10 Changed Everything

It's about the vicious attack that was perpetrated by the three Guantanamo Bay imates. You know, the attack where they commited suicide?

This fiendish attempt to slander the great American institution of the gulag is nothing less than an act of asymmetrical warfare against the United States - a noose is just a suicide bomb with a very small blast radius, people!

[...]

And that's just the tip of the iceberg! Even as we speak the forces of Islamanazism are infiltrating our network of classified CIA prison camps, rendering themselves to third world dictatorships, and launching unprovoked assaults on innocent American bullets!

It's good to have Fafblog back; "a noose is just a suicide bomb with a very small blast radius" is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.

I've got a few pages/articles open right now mostly relating to privacy and the politics thereof. They each really deserve their own post, but I'm pretty sure I'll never get around to it. So, I'm just presenting them here.

The Value of Privacy by Bruce Schneier

In this article, Bruce Schneier explains why privacy advocates usually make the wrong arguments when discussing government attacks on our right to privacy.

Some clever answers [given by privacy rights advocates]: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Message for '08 Dems: Only cowards think we're at war

This article is quite provocative in that it attacks the very idea that the country is at war.

But America is not under attack by an enemy force of any significance. We got sucker punched by 19 maniacs with box cutters. Republicans want us to run scared because of that for the rest of our lives. But the thing about a sucker punch is that you can't protect yourself against it. Any idiot can take the breath out of you, no matter how tough you are. But only cowards -- actually I think "scaredy cat" is more appropriate here -- live their lives worrying about such things. Of course you've got to do your best to stay alert -- in this context that means port, air and many other types of security. But freaking out and becoming paranoid leaves you more vulnerable, not more protected.

My last tidbit is not really an article, but a subversive ringtone that Gary played for me and that is too good to not post about. It's written and performed by They Might Be Giants and is pure genious. Here are the lyrics:

Call connected through the NSA/Complete transmission through the NSA/Suspending your rights through the duration of the permanent war

Buy the ringtone or download mp3 (via)

I usually don't pay too much attention to individual congress members from states other than my own. There are a few exceptions, of course, among them is Orrin Hatch, a republican senator from Utah. I pay attention to him because he's one of the most visible Mormon politicians (as am I; well the Mormon bit, not the visible politician bit). For a long time, I'd hear reports about him and I'd either agree with his position, or, at worst, I'd find it wrong, but innocuous. Basically, I saw him as a sort of centrist Republican.

Then, a few years ago, in what seemed like a blink of an eye, he went stark raving mad. And I don't mean a little mentally divergent; I mean frothing-at-the-mouth, rocking-back-and-forth-on-the-floor-muttering insane.

I seem to remember the first thing he said that made me go 'wha, what, WHAT?!?!' was something gun-related, but I'm not entirely sure (note that while I'm not a huge pro-gun guy, I'm also not a huge anti-gun guy; I'm gun-undecided). Whatever it was, it began a short descent to the depths of insanity. One of the things that really made me question his sanity, or at least his loyalty to his constituency (but not his loyalty to the MPAA and the RIAA), was his statement that the entertainment industry should be allowed to remotely destroy the computers of those who they suspect are downloading music/movies/etc. illegally. No trial, no due process, just let 'em loose to be net vigilantes.

Anyway, I bring this all up because I stumbled across this Wired interview with Pete Ashdown, who seems to be a little more in touch with the realities of our tech-centric lifestyle.

Here are a few parts that discuss topics that are near and dear to me:

On transparency in politics:

Well I feel transparency is a big part of my campaign. That is needed in Washington. And what I see in Washington is certainly we have a lot of scandal (in which) the Democrats try and blame on the Republicans, but I view it as a larger scandal of money and politics. And what I see in Washington is the Democrats stomping around, and they stand up and sign these ethics declarations for the television cameras, and then they say, "We need more restrictions on lobbyists," but they really don't lead by example. And it's a really simple thing to make your office transparent. And when somebody takes on the mantle of public service, they lose the privacy that is in regards to that job.

On music downloading:

Well it's interesting you say individual and corporation, because there's a third party here, it's the artist. And I think the artist's rights should be held over the corporation rights. I believe that the internet presents a great opportunity for artists to make more on their work than what they were formerly doing with the corporate distribution system. And I think the writing is on the wall for that corporate distribution system, and that's the kind of backlash we're seeing from them in regards to lawsuits and restrictive legislation. So I absolutely believe the artists need to be rewarded for their work, should be rewarded for their work, and that the internet presents them an opportunity to do that in a more direct fashion.

So I support their rights, but I also support the rights of the consumer. I support the rights of the consumer when it's in regards to fair use. If I buy some media I should be able to do whatever I wish with that media inside the domain of my own home, outside of sharing it with somebody else commercially. That is, if I play it in the car for somebody else should I have to charge them a use fee? I don't think so. But if I'm out selling their music and the artist is getting no benefit from that, then that's an obvious violation.

I liked this one because it shows an understanding of the reasons for, and the problems with our current copyright system.

And, of course this is the clincher:

Well, on my desktop I'm a big fan of Ubuntu, not only in my campaign office -- I use Ubuntu exclusively, Ubuntu/Linux. I use Ubuntu throughout my office at X Mission. We do have a need for a few Windows desktops for running some of the accounting software we need, but that's for the secretary. We try and put Ubuntu/Linux on everything, and of course our servers (run Linux).

As it turns out, I've got several readers from Utah these days. So, what do you think? Have you heard of Pete Ashdown? What do you think of him? What do you think of Orrin Hatch? Am I completely wrong on him? What do you non-Utah readers think?

My son Jake is currently learning about Egypt in school. He asked me if he could take in our copy of the movie Prince of Egypt, which is a cartoon about Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. Since this is a biblical story, I told him that it probably wouldn't be cool to take it to school. He replied that his teacher had said it was ok, and that they were going to watch it as a class. I was a little doubtful of this, so I asked him to get his teacher to send home a note saying that; I assumed that was the end of it.

It wasn't. Yesterday, he brought home a note from the teacher requesting that he bring in the movie to be shown in class. So, today, he took it in, and presumably they'll be watching it.

I'm a little weirded out by the whole thing. The movie isn't too heavy on the religion; it more focuses on telling a good story than preaching, but it's still a religious story. But, how do I explain to a 7-year-old the separation of church and state? And, why should I have to; shouldn't the teacher know better? I don't think it's really a big deal, or cause any problems; it's more of a principle thing. What do you, my readers, think? I'd love to get your take in the comments.

Side note: Despite not necessarily agreeing with it being shown in school, I actually really like Prince of Egypt. I think it does an incredible job at telling the story and making it real. In particular, I like how the movie shows the relationship of Rameses and Moses, who were raised as brothers. There's one scene in particular--Moses has just discovered he's a Hebrew, kills a guard, and is fleeing Egypt, leaving Rameses calling desperately after him--that is devestatingly powerful. Overall, it does a good job at showing the humanity of Rameses, presenting possible reasons for his actions, instead of making him out to be simply a villian. So, it's a great movie, just maybe not right for school.

Maybe Bush should've read Afghanistan's constitution a little closer when he said this:

We're making good progress, we really are, in parts of the world. Afghanistan has now got a constitution which talks about freedom of religion and talks about women's rights. GWB 1/23/04

"Talks about" is a little vague. Apparently, the actual text is something along the lines of "You can be of any religion you want, as long as it's Islam" (apologies to Henry Ford).

This (bad) joke was inspired by this article.