This made me laugh.
Politics: May 2006 Archives
Try not to cry. When should we start worrying?
In yet another crackdown on MySpace some school district near Chicago is going to "monitor" student blogs. This is fricken stupid. We don't have schools so they can monitor our students 24/7. The purpose of schools is to teach, so teach already.
Lame.
Good Article by Ronald Bailey debunking the Peak Oil Panic.
This post was in response to this article on slashdot.
Quoted in full:
Look, who gives a flying fuck if the government knows? I certainly don't. In fact, I'd rather they didn't.
This government is getting way to nosy, IMHO. I don't care what the reason is, I'm sick and fucking tired of being saved from myself. Let me smoke my cigarette in my bar, and masturbate the Islamic terrorist porno, leave me ALONE.
Hey old white bastards, how about a law that requires me to be informed when my companies data has been hacked? Or better yet, why don't you worry about things like maintaining roads. Why is it that the NSA knows what sort of hemorrhoid creme I prefer, and when my girlfriend's periods are, but I can't drive down I-20 for more than 3 hours without needing a new wheel alignment for my car?
How about a fucking law that says I get to be informed every single time my personal information is accessed by the government? Every time I turn on the news I seem to be reading about how the Department of Homeland Security is making sure I'm following the latest terror alerts and that I'm not cooperating with al-Qaida via Xbox Live. I mean, Jesus, what the hell.
Even better, the slashdot summary makes it sound like they can circumvent state legislation. Um, my constitutional skills may be a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure that's what the 10th Amendment was all about.
While we're on the subject, what about the 9th Amendment? I'm pretty sure that that one said that we have rights that may not be explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, and thus, we reserve those rights. It seems like America is serving up it's rights like a Shoney's smorgasbord. It's like 8.99 all-you-can-give-away at the Patriot Act Red Lobster. Jesus.
Douglas Adams once said (forgive my horrible paraphrasing, as I don't have my copy of Salmon of Doubt with me) that Australians often say "We're the last place left mate," and it made him nervous because of the confidence with which he said it. Makes me wanna see if they're right, cuz quite frankly I'm sick of this place. It's not just the politicians, it's the people. How can my vote count if I realize for every vote I cast with some knowledge of the issues, there's fifty people are are being exploited by like-minded zealots whose sole purpose is to acquire power, and seek to retain that power.
Madison, in Federalist 9 & 10, argued that mutual self-intrest will keep the 'factions' in line, draw them towards a central, middle ground, and thus make decisions that are best for everyone. The problem seems to be that no all 'factions' are allowed into the game. At this point, I've got to request that I be allowed to collect my chips and move to another table, cuz I think I'm getting screwed, and all I see is more Dick coming. ~a
A new NYTimes/CBS Poll.
What surprised me is how well the Democrats do on the "share my values" question. Hopefully these numbers will hold up into November.
So, for people outside California, we've implemented a graduation requirement for high school students here. They started testing kids several years ago. California is one of several (24 I think?) states to require passing an exit exam to get a diploma.
This is the first year where passing the exit exam is mandatory. Turns out about 10% of high school seniors can't pass the exam. This seems like a good rate to me. If the exam is going to be worth anything then there should be a portion of students that can't pass it. Actually, it only tests students at a 9th grade level, so, it's probably too weak. There's lots of debate, I think it's stupid. If you can't pass the exam you can't graduate. You can stay in school longer and try again. You can get remedial education. If the exam was easy enough for everyone to be able to pass it then it would be useless.
An interesting, if long article on contraception in the NYTimes.
Important post on ArsTechnica (of all places) regarding the new UN Broadcasting Treaty. This is a major issue and I think sneaking it through the UN instead of through normal legislative channels is downright unseemly.
...to talk about.
According to Marketplace (the radio show) when Bush and Merkel meet this week one of the things on their agenda is the increase in the number of prostitutes working in Germany because of the World Cup.
Seriously, that is like Merkel wanting to talk to Bush about the price of parking tickets in Miami. You'd think they'd talk about meaningful things that might affect our lives, ya know, Oil, Iran, Russia, Iraq...
Then again this is obviously just one of those things that a lobbying group got Bush to put on the agenda. They might not even talk about it. Some people (the lobbyists here) have way too much time on their hands.
I've got a lot of politics rambling around in my head, and I haven't gotten around to posting them so here goes:
1 - Gas Prices
Get over it. We still pay less than 1/2 what they pay in most of Europe for gas. Oh and don't believe anything coming out of Washington. There isn't anything whatsoever that they can do about the high prices. It's simple market forces. Supply and demand, anyone out there take Econ 101?
2 - Immigrants
We're a nation of immigrants. Immigrants don't come here so they can burden our social state. They come here for jobs. If there weren't any jobs they would go home. They might be depressing the bottom 10% of the labor market by as much as 5%. Boo hoo. They want to work and we should let them. Personally I look forward to the day when anyone can go anywhere to work, kind like one giant EU. It's probably a few hundred years off though.
3 - Feinstien
We seriously need to get rid of this woman. Anyone want to run against her? At this point I'm voting for anyone but. She is so clearly on the payroll of the big movie and music companies. So much so that she should be donating her salary as a senator back to the people because she obviously doesn't represent us.
Argh! That's it for now. Bedtime for me.
Speaking with a representative from Ohio:
"22 Astronauts were born in Ohio, what is it about your state that makes people want to flee the planet?"
Hm... someone should look into that.
An intersting SFGate.com articlediscussing the topic. Of course the author surprisingly (or maybe not) completly ignores the most probable source of hydrogen, Nuclear Power, but it's still worth a read.
Link from SFGate.com Article which has the full video.
