] The United States of America is on the verge of losing
] its competitive advantage, economist Richard
] Florida wrote last fall in a Harvard Business Review
] article based on his new book, The Flight of the
] Creative Class: The New Global Competition for
] Talent. It is facing perhaps its greatest
] economic challenge since the dawn of the industrial
] revolution. Even more provocatively, he later
] declared that Terrorism is less a threat to the
] U.S. than the possibility that creative and talented
] people will stop wanting to live within its
] borders.

This is an interesting take on recent red-blue strife.

Salon.com Books | The gay/hipster index

] The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a
] conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their
] financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of
] strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady
] stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and
] conservative groups.

Ahhh, America!

The New York Times - List of Schiavo Donors Will Be Sold by Direct-Marketing Firm

Slides of Virgil's Datamining Talk... I enjoyed this. One of the more interesting talks at Interz0ne.

Virgil's Datamining Talk @ IV4/OZ1/EZ1

] "My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a
] second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's
] a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of
] my short stories, (and) the short story they found was
] about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was
] about a high school over ran by zombies."
]
] Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a
] felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter
] involving a school or function it's a felony in the state
] of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven
] Caudill.

There is an obvious comment to make about this jackass but I've been advised not to taunt happy fun ball.

Student Arrested For Writing Zombie Story

peekay wrote:
] International opinion? Umm. Since when was international
] opinion a ~formal~ basis for the U.S. Supreme Court? I might
] just have to search LexisNexis for any prior rulings with that
] wording. Hrmm. Cheers, -Pk

Its not entirely new. In recent years Supreme Courts have referenced each other more often. On the other hand, I think your comment is a bit out of context. The court isn't imposing international law here. You can't sum up the reasoning behind a Supreme Court decision in a soundbyte.

1. In recent years technology has made international law and international court opinions more accessible then before.

2. Is the court a political organization, or are they grasping at basic, fundamental truths? Sometimes they are the latter. It seems unreasonable to forbid them from considering ideas that came from outside the U.S. in this role.

3. It is obviously similarly unreasonable for the court to prefer international opinion to domestic opinion in the political realm.

4. I agree with the outcome here. (I haven't read the decision, and probably won't.) I think the fact that we were literally the last country to figure this out reflects poorly on our culture.

RE: US court closes world’s last juvenile death row

Can you know you are in the middle of a tipping point, or is it only something you can see in retrospect?

The Tipping Points

July 18, 1939 -- February 20, 2005.

MemeStreams is the kind of place where I expect to read things like this first, and I did, so I'm memeing it, even though by the time you see this you'll already know. I pulled his last ESPN column (from just last week), but its a typical joke about mixing skeet shooting and golf. I won't even being to speculate about this. Its just a shame.

Hunter Thompson commits suicide

] The Reader recounts the experience of photojournalist
] Warren Wimmer's attempts to photograph Anish Kapoor's
] sculpture, Cloud Gate (more commonly known as "the
] Bean"). When Wimmer set up his tripod and camera to shoot
] the sculpture, security guards stopped him, demanding
] that they show him a permit. Wimmer protested, replying
] that it's absurd that one needs to pay for a permit to
] photograph public art in a city-owned park.

WTF? I found this linked on BoingBoing this morning and still can't quite understand how something like this ever happened. Public funds paid for a sculpture to go in a public park that the public can't take photographs of. The procurement officer definitely needs to have his or her pink slip on the way.

Dolemite

New (sub)Urbanism: The Copyrighting of Public Space

bmitchell wrote:
] I'm not sure we should project western ideals and morals upon
] other groups of people. It seems to me that little of this was
] a surprise;

Certainly Bush blessed this outcome before the November election, but I don't think the American people are actually prepared for it despite the paper trail they have laid out.

] certainly there's never been any chance whatsoever
] of a real seperation between religion and the state a la the
] west.

I don't agree. Iraq was a secular state before we showed up.

] The real question is: do we think a nation should have the
] right to elect a government which may have ideals in terms of
] equality (particularly gender equality) that are vastly
] different than ours? If the answer is no, then how can we
] truly say we believe in democracy?

The answer is yes, otherwise we'd be invading South Korea, but we don't respect it, regardless of the cultural explanation that is raised for it. "My culture is different" is no excuse for crime.

Having said that, the matter of an islamist Iraq is far more complex then this. Its not just that women will be worse off then they were before we started, is that Iraq will pose a greater threat to the region then it did when we started. Maybe not now, but fundamentalist states are violent states. It is inevitable.

Freedom is not about Democracy. Freedom is about limits to the power of government. Democracy does not create those limits. Democracies have been know to do terrible things. It could be argued that Iraq was always a democracy. In theory the people could vote against Saddam. It might be argued that Singapore is a Democracy. What is the difference in the U.S.? That we have two parties instead of one? Do we really have an "open" election HERE? Why weren't the Green and Libertarian parties welcome to participate in the presidential debates? What is the real difference between what we do and what they do?

The difference is limits, not voting. Limits are created constitutionally. Things like Freedom of Speech and of Religion. The fact that you really have the right to dissent, and not the power apparatus through which you do so. The later is meaningless without the former. A Religious State can have no constitutional limits, because to limit a religious state is to limit God. A Religious State can have no real right to dissent, as to dissent in a Religious State is to admire the devil.

So yes, I think, if you produce a fundamentalist state in Iraq the result you'll get will be worse then what you had when you started. We don't think fundamentalist "democracies" are the kind of freedom we're looking for.

Of course, freedom and democracy have one thing in common with WMD in that they have very little to do with our reason for invading Iraq. The real question is whether or not Bush can spin this one. I'll bet he figures he can. He went to war with a bullshit explanation, ended up having it thrown in his face, and still managed to get re-election by a population that eats his party's propaganda up like its the new religion. I'll bet he figures he can pull it off a second time, or he figures he'll be out of office before most people in the country figure out what Iraq has really become. I wouldn't bet against him. But 100 years from now people will be spitting his name.

RE: Leading Shiite Clerics Pushing Islamic Constitution in Iraq

Hrm. This article puts quite a spin on the data. This conclusion is not entirely supported even by the information they cut out and presented in the sidebar. The real title ought to be "Students only concerned with their 1st amendment rights, and not of others." This is typical of any group in society. Students are far more likely then teachers to support the independence of their school newspaper and far more likely then teachers to support "offensive" rock music. They care about their personal freedoms and not freedoms in general. Its hard to fault them when their teachers, parents, etc aren't any better.

What's up with that? Well follow the link at the end of the article and you'll see that the study is sponsored by a group that seeks to promote journalism classes in high schools. Its obviously to their benefit to create a "crisis" in student's knowledge of the first amendment which they are ready and willing to address. Plus, no one knows more about using the media to promote an agenda then journalists themselves.

Students say First Amendment Rights NO BIG DEAL