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    • Stimulus Is for Suckers (Galbraith, Mother Jones, Dec. 2008)
      Via Robin Stelly, who calls it 'painfully optimistic': "The historical role of a stimulus is to kick things off, to grease the wheels of credit, to get things "moving again." But the effect ends when the stimulus does, when the sugar shock wears off. Compulsive budget balancers who prescribe a "targeted and temporary" policy followed by long-term cuts to entitlements don't understand the patient. This is a chronic illness. Swift action is definitely needed. But we also need recovery policies that will continue for years."
    • Can the Humanities Survive the 21st Century? (Donoghue, The Chronicle of Higher Education)
      An English professor writes: "What has happened is that the center of gravity at almost all universities has shifted so far away from the humanities that the most pertinent answer to the question "Will the humanities survive in the 21st century?" is not "yes" or "no," but "Who cares?""
    • The GOP's new fake racial history (Kornacki, Salon.com)
      "...Barbour has invented his own sanitized, suburb-friendly version of history -- an account that paints the South's shift to the GOP as the product of young, racially inclusive conservatives who had reasons completely separate and apart from racial politics for abandoning their forebears' partisan allegiances. "
    • More taunts to the Democratic base (Walsh, Salon.com)
      "...three of the groups with whom the president's ratings have dropped most precipitously are Latinos, young(18-t0-29) voters and white union members. Those groups gave Obama two-thirds of their votes in 2008, and they’ve all registered sizeable dips in their approval of Obama since then, as well as in their stated intention to vote. I hadn't realized this: In 2008, 57 percent of white men favored McCain, but 57 percent of white male union members favored Obama. Even after all that talk about "racist" white working class voters only going for Hillary Clinton, the union vote came through for Obama, but its support is waning as the president appears paralyzed on a plan to attack unemployment."
    • Are Muslim immigrants making Europe "poorer and stupider"? (Alan Nothnagle, Open Salon)
      On Thilo Sarrazin: "Back in the restless 1990s, when the German far right was undergoing yet another short-lived rebirth into the political mainstream, the racist Republican Party under the leadership of ex-Nazi and SS man Franz Schönhuber used to put up what I still regard as the most remarkable political poster ever. Printed in the nationalist colors black, white, and red, it simply displayed the words: “We say what you think.” Today, another German politician has been making headlines in recent weeks for also saying aloud what millions of Europeans fervently believe but rarely dare to put into words. His explosive new book Germany is Abolishing Itself appeared on store shelves this morning, and the future of European politics may depend on what happens next."
    • Historians rethink key Soviet role in Japan defeat (Lekic, AP)
      "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation," said Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published "Racing the Enemy" examines the conclusion of the Pacific war and is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as U.S. and Japanese documents.."
    • Fretting, asking, and begging isn’t a plan: a response to TechCrunch on women in technology (Pincus, "Liminal States")
      Interesting example of social network gadflying going on here. "The lastest firestorm about women and entrepeneurship got kicked off by Shira Ovide’s excellent Wall Street Journal article Addressing the Lack of Women Running Tech Startups. With some fine quotes from Rachel Sklar, Dina Kaplan, Yuli Ziv, and Fred Wilson, as well as solid discussion in the comments, I thought it was a great read. But not everybody agreed."
    • Berghuis v. Thompkins (Seilie, ScotusWiki, July '10i)
      "By a 5-4 vote, the Court for the first time made two things clear about Miranda rights: first, if a suspect does not want to talk to police — that is, to invoke a right to silence — he must say so, with a clear statement because it is not enough to sit silently or to remain uncooperative, even through a long session; and, second, if the suspect finally answers a suggestive question with a one-word response that amounts to a confession, that, by itself, will be understood as a waiver of the right to silence and the statement can be used as evidence. Police need not obtain an explicit waiver of that right. The net practical effect is likely to be that police, in the face of a suspect’s continued silence after being given Miranda warnings, can continue to question him, even for a couple of hours, in hopes eventually of getting him to confess. " Good on Sotomayor for a strong dissent.
    • Straight Talk; Videotaping Police (Balko, FOXNews.com, June '07)
      This goes back further than I thought; Balko cites "rash" of arrests for videotaping police back in 2007. "It's critical that we retain the right to record, videotape or photograph the police while they're on duty. Not only for symbolic reasons (when agents of the state can confiscate evidence of their own wrongdoing, you're treading on seriously perilous ground), but as an important check on police excesses. In the age of YouTube, video of police misconduct captured by private citizens can have an enormous impact.."
    • I Think I See What Glenn Beck is Doing (Lexington Green, "ChicagoBoyz")
      Notable mainly for an "you got it" from Beck, and for the 'military' etc shared assumptions. "Beck is building solidarity and cultural confidence in America, its Constitution, its military heritage, its freedom. This is a vision that is despised by the people who have long held the commanding heights of the culture. But is obviously alive and kicking. Beck is creating positive themes of unity and patriotism and freedom and independence which are above mere political or policy choices, but not irrelevant to them. Political and policy choices rest on a foundation of philosophy, culture, self-image, ideals, religion. Change the foundation, and the rest will flow from that. Defeat the enemy on that plane, and any merely tactical defeat will always be reversible."
    • The Ultimate Escape: The Bizarre Libertarian Plan of Uploading Brains into Robots to Escape Society (Reed, AlterNet)
      "No one wants to die, but the thought of living forever among narcissistic libertarian cyborgs makes death’s cold embrace seem more like a squishy hug from the Easter Bunny."
    • A Transpartisan Uprising Against the Individual Insurance Mandate (Sirota, OpenLeft)
      "Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), is accelerating the process of exempting his state from some of the national reforms passed under President Barack Obama. The Oregon Democrat is seeking to take advantage of a provision he helped write into the legislation that allows states to set up their own health care systems as long as they meet minimal requirements established by the Department of Health and Human Services."
    • Does Your Language Shape How You Think? (Deutscher, NYTimes)
      "When your language routinely obliges you to specify certain types of information, it forces you to be attentive to certain details in the world and to certain aspects of experience that speakers of other languages may not be required to think about all the time. And since such habits of speech are cultivated from the earliest age, it is only natural that they can settle into habits of mind that go beyond language itself, affecting your experiences, perceptions, associations, feelings, memories and orientation in the world. "
    • The Tragic Death of Practically Everything (McCracken, "Technologizer")
      "After the jump, a moving recap of some of the stuff that predeceased the Web–you may want to bring a handkerchief."
    • Bush Campaign Chief and Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman: I'm Gay (Ambinder, Atlantic)
      "Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush's chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans."

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Video

A forum about the civil liberties implications of a proposed license plate scanner system (announced here, on community listservs, and on fliers) was held in Takoma Park on Wednesday, February 25, 2009.  A video of that forum was recorded and uploaded by my friend Michelle Bailey (”Takoma Videotaping“).

Forum participants included:

I’ve compiled a draft transcript of the forum.  The times there (and above) indicate the beginning of the speaker’s comments. A Q&A session began at around 42:23.

Takoma Park City Council member Terry Seamens, Public Safety Committee chair Chuck Thomas, and Takoma/Silver Spring Voice publisher/editor Eric Bond were in the audience, as were Takoma Park Police Department’s Chief Ronald Ricucci and Captain Edward Coursey.

Other resources for this forum:

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One Response to “Video”

  1. Thomas Nephew Says:
    March 3rd, 2009 at 12:36 am

    Welcome! Discussion — pro and con — is most welcome.

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