I love when the AP uses the past tense to write about things that haven’t happened yet. At this point, the President has given so many of these “important” addresses that the stories really write themselves. Then again, the article was written by infamous conservative shill, Nedra Pickler. Maybe she got a private performance of the speech before Scotty coached her on the talking points.
In an effort to clean up the homepage a little bit, I’m going to get rid of the “A History Lesson” link under the Ukulele Ike photo. For future reference, this post should permanently address the question “Why do you have a snake in your logo?”
Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die”, which depicts a snake whose severed parts represent the Colonies, is acknowledged as the first political cartoon in America. The image had an explicitly political purpose from the start, as Franklin used it in support of his plan for an intercolonial association to deal with the Iroquois at the Albany Congress of 1754. It came to be published in “virtually every newspaper on the continent”; reasons for its widespread currency include its demagogic reference to an Indian threat as well as its basis in the popular superstition that a dead snake would come back to life if the pieces were placed next to each other. Franklin’s snake is significant in the development of cartooning because it became an icon that could be displayed in differing variations throughout the existing visual media of the day– like the “Don’t Tread on Me” battle flag– but would always be associated with the singular causes of colonial unity and the Revolutionary spirit. In the same way that Biblical stories are an element of shared culture, “Join or Die” became a symbol to which all Americans could respond. Even though the Albany Congress was a failure, Franklin’s snake had established a connection between a drawing and a specific political idea in the American imagination.
Wow. This is a nice poster. Hopefully they can pull this one off :
Yeah, I think it’s bullshit that Nike is trying to co-opt the album cover art of Minor Threat, but…
Okay, I totally agree with the statement that “The protection of sources is critical to the free flow of information in a democracy.” and I support the passage of a federal shield law for journalists, but can we try to narrow down what constitutes a “source”? It was my understanding that Matt Cooper and Judith Miller were among the reporters tipped off about Plame by the White House traitor, but didn’t write about it (apparently Bob Novak was the only person in Washington sleazy enough to take the bait). If the illegal leak of a White House traitor wasn’t the basis of an article by Miller or Cooper, what makes this person a “source” that requires protecting? By this definition, can anyone who talks to a reporter be considered a “source”? Or perhaps the person in question leaked information earlier for an unrelated story. Even then, shouldn’t a reporter’s loyalty be based on the specific stories rather than a blanket protection for any criminal wrongdoing that may occur? It’s incredible to me that these two reporters would go to such extremes to protect their relationship with a leaker when the anonymous “source” in question was trying to exploit his/her relationship with the press in order to seek revenge against a political foe. These two are covering up for a criminal on the basis of shielding a source to stories that were never written. Yeah, todays SCOTUS ruling may be a bad precedent, but I can’t help but agree with it in terms of this specific case.
UPDATE : Atrios chimes in with a similar opinion :
The ability to maintain source confidentiality should not hinge on what one’s job description is. A journalist should not and cannot have blanket immunity from ever testifying in court about what they know. That’s an abuse of a privilege, and the kind of abuse which tends to lead to the limitation of the scope of that privilege.Reasonable people can disagree about whether the Plame case situation crosses the line between maintaining source anonymity and covering up a crime. Certainly I sympathize with those who believe that any erosion of press freedom should be of concern. But the self-righteous claims of absolute privilege ring rather hollow in this case.
I also liked this comment from a reader over at TPM Cafe :
Of course, Miller & Cooper believe that they should not have to comply with a lawful subpoena because they have an absolute, unfettered privilege to never reveal a source to whom they have promised confidentiality, no matter what the source’s crime or what the source’s motivation, and no matter whether that information is available from any other source and no matter how critical it is to a prosecutor’s case. In short, they ask for an absolute privilege that would be pretty rare in the law. I’m a lawyer, for example, and my clients’ communications to me don’t get that sort of absolute treatment.
Cooper and Miller seem to have plenty of defenders out there, but I have yet to see anything to convince me that their covering up for an anonymous source is defensible in this particular case.
The “copyleft” community is having a field day with the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision, but it’s not that big a deal. This is the very first paragraph of the decision :
The question is under what circumstances the distributor of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties using the product. We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.
In other words, since Grokster was marketed as software to break the law, they should be held liable for…well..breaking the law. I wouldn’t have a problem with that standard being applied to a product that was designed to bypass car alarms, so I don’t really have a problem with it here either. Besides, the real decision was to knock this back down to the lower courts anyways. I just hope that when it lands there that they don’t put too much emphasis on this portion of the decision :
Finally, there is no evidence that either company made an effort to filter copyrighted material from usersÂ’ downloads or otherwise impede the sharing of copyrighted files. Although Grokster appears to have sent e-mails warning users about infringing content when it received threatening notice from the copyright holders, it never blocked anyone from continuing to use its software to share copyrighted files.
If that becomes the standard by which software’s legality is judged (which I doubt, but you never know…), then I’m sure we can look forward to lawsuits against the people who wrote Sendmail, Apache, and the TCP/IP protocol next.
Not only is freedom on the march, it appears to be massing its forces for a final, all out assault on GiJoe headquarters.
Students in the Shi’ite Muslim religious Iraqi city of Najaf said that police recently arrested and beat several of them for wearing jeans and having long hair.
Why does this remind me of news from the 60s?
“They arrested us because of our hair and because we were wearing jeans,” said student Mohammed Jasim, adding that the arrests took place two weeks ago in the city, the spiritual heart of Iraq’s newly dominant Shi’ite majority.
“They beat us in front of the people. Then they took us to their headquarters, beat us again, shaved our heads and tore our clothes.
“When we asked what we had done, they said that we had no honor,” he told Reuters this week.
This is the sort of biased, unbalanced news one would expect from the Liberal Agitators in the Associated press, so that’s why it’s important to find out what the Po-Pos had to say…
“We didn’t oppress any freedoms. We detained them for a while and after we knew that they were students, we released them after they pledged they wouldn’t do it again,” Colonel Najah Yasir told Reuters.
Yasir commands the Tho Alfakar Brigade, a unit whose name refers to Imam Ali, son-in-law of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, whose shrine is the centerpiece of Najaf.
Yasir said the brigade had received complaints from locals in the old part of Najaf that young men were gathering in the streets and acting “improperly.”
He declined to elaborate on their “improper acts.”
Freedom isn’t free you know. Sometimes you have to oppress people and lie about it in order to instill liberty. It’s strateregy.
…But it is not only in Shi’ite areas that religion plays an increasingly influential role in society.
In Falluja, a Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad that was until recently a stronghold of insurgents, there were efforts last year to instill a strict religious code similar to that enforced by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Wow, Tom Delay was right - Iraq really is like Texas after all.
Found Via Americablog. (NOTE - Americablog reports that this was an attack specfic to young women - I don’t see that reported in the story, but if anyone reads anything…)
Since Ross really hit upon something with his inaugural post, “I Am Not My Cock”, lemme play devil’s advocate here and see if I can steer this discussion in a different direction. Since I didn’t follow the comment threads that preceded his post, I’m not trying to refute or support anyone here. One thing that kept popping into my mind while reading the two “cock” posts and their comments was the conservative outrage that erupts whenever someone tries to criticize King George’s war on terra[1]Please don’t overanalyze this statement. I’m talking about the broad arguments here, not criticizing Ross, comparing rape to terrorism, or anything else like that.. Granted, the circumstances and motivations are completely different[2]And I do mean completely different. Conservatives who make this argument are trying to deflect criticism from their dear leader while Ross et. al. are trying to push home the point that the personal lives of crime victims are irrelevant to the crime itself and arguments along those lines only serve to justify rape and murder. Then again, I could be wrong, so check the comments to see if anyone complains…, but both arguments have a similar “Have you forgotten who the real villains are here?” thread at its core.
So here’s my question : When it comes to horrible crimes, what are the rules for taking the discussion to tangential issues? Were the arguments about Steve Gilliard’s original post about simply his lack of tact or is there no place to make the point that the women should be extra vigilant these days[3]Or are points like this something that us guys should just shut the hell up about? I’d imagine most women are painfully aware of how dangerous things are by now and these reminders just make guys seem more patronizing than they mean to.? With both rape and terrorism, are there enough apologists out there that we can no longer assume that someone stands against these obvious evils before moving on to side topics? If we can discuss the motivations of terrorists without losing sight of the fact that terrorism is an evil that needs to be confronted and destroyed, can’t we also remind each other to avoid risky behavior without taking the immoral position that victims were “asking for it”.
Like I said previously, I haven’t followed the threads at Pandagon or Steve Gilliard’s, so please don’t assume I’m trying to defend anyone’s particular posts or comments.
2 : And I do mean completely different. Conservatives who make this argument are trying to deflect criticism from their dear leader while Ross et. al. are trying to push home the point that the personal lives of crime victims are irrelevant to the crime itself and arguments along those lines only serve to justify rape and murder. Then again, I could be wrong, so check the comments to see if anyone complains…
3 : Or are points like this something that us guys should just shut the hell up about? I’d imagine most women are painfully aware of how dangerous things are by now and these reminders just make guys seem more patronizing than they mean to.
Hi gang, Ross here with some fantastic news for those of you who love beating the shit out of your spouse! Congratulations, it’s now essentially legal to intimidate, harass and assault one’s relations with impunity. ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLLLLEEE!!!!!!!
In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that local governments have no constitutional duty to protect from private violence an individual who is shielded by a court’s restraining order. Such individuals do not gain an enforceable interest in that protection, the Court declared in an opinion by Justice Scalia. The case was Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (04-278).
In a day of monumental Supreme Court Cases, this one is recieving barely any coverage, but it might just be the most important one of the whole horrible lot, and it certainly has the widest application to our lives. I’m currently trying to track down a summary that’s actually readable by the average human being, but in the meantime, here’s the full decision. It’s 49 fucking pages long, so enter at your own risk.
Until I’m able to find a good summary, here’s the gist - The Colorado woman in this case had a restraining order against her husband, who just happened to be an abuser (and an incredible dickhead.) When one day her kids turned up missing, she called the cops repeatedly, absolutely sure that the husband had violated the order. Johnny Law failed to act on her fairly reasonable concerns with anything even remotely resembling proper attention, and by the time they finally got around to actually fucking believing her, the husband had murdered all of her children.
Well today, the Supreme Court just told her “Tough Titty”. They have effectively rendered the entire concept of a restraining order moot. There is now no legal recourse for people without the financial means to hire a bodyguard, in order to protect themselves from crazy-ass freaks who can’t handle marital problems like a man. Then again, as we all know, living in magical fairy land means people will just naturally obey a law that has no real threat of enforcement. Hooray!
Except that the majority of us don’t live in magical fairy land. IN the USA, if there’s no real obligation to enforce a legal order, then there’s no real reason to obey one. From now on, A Restraining order will be to violent men what a parking ticket is to rich assholes in Santa Monica. The rest of us ought to start boning up on our shotgun skills. It’s going to be a long summer.
Anyway, sorry gals, you never should’a promised it to him.
Since Billy Graham’s final crusade over the weekend has generated quite a few headlines, here’s a little bit of trivia that shines a light on the origins of Graham’s ministry :
In 1949 Graham got his big break during a Los Angeles crusade. Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, hearing that the evangelist was preaching against communism, ordered his editors: “Puff Graham.” They did, and other journalists and publishing executives joined in. Over the next decade, Life, Time, Look, and Newsweek magazines put Graham on their covers a dozen times. Advertising experts gave Graham awards two years in a row for being the most publicized person in America.
It looks like the grassroots movement that Graham started had a little help from the man who infamously said “You provide the pictures, I’ll provide the war.” Not that I’m trying to knock Graham or anything. These days, I’ll take a sincere proselytizer like Graham over a self-righteous politician like Pat Robertson any day. At least Graham never fell for the temptation of setting up one of those religious television networks as an international panhandling corporation.
