"I don't think the report is true, but these crises work for those who want to make fights between people." Kulam Dastagir, 28, a bird seller in Afghanistan
True or False: We Are Losing The War Against Radical Islam
Topic: War on Terrorism
11:43 pm EDT, Jun 28, 2007
Amid the clamor, it is difficult to figure out what is actually going on.
Fareed Zakaria's weekly column.
People in the Muslim world travel to see the glitz in Dubai, not the madrassas in Tehran.
By and large, radical Islam is not winning the argument, which is why it is trying to win by force.
...
How to open up and modernize the Muslim world is a long, hard and complex challenge. But surely one key is to be seen by these societies and peoples as partners and friends, not as bullies and enemies. That is one battle we are not yet winning.
Is That Legal?: In Seattle, Diversity Isn't A Black-And-White Issue
Topic: Politics and Law
11:36 pm EDT, Jun 28, 2007
There is a lot of noise out there about the Seattle case. There is a rather personal left right split on the court, but none of it matters because Kennedy's opinion is the weakest link in the majority, and his conclusions are rather narrow.
In today's school-assignment cases, Justice Kennedy's opinion controls, as he was the 5th vote to overturn the Seattle and Louisville school assignment plans, and the reasoning in his concurrence is narrower than that of the Chief's plurality opinion.
As to the Seattle plan, the key paragraph in Kennedy's concurrence, it seems to me, is this one:
"In the Seattle case, the school district has gone further in describing the methods and criteria used to determine assignment decisions based on individual racial classifications, but it has nevertheless failed to explain why, in a district composed of a diversity of races, with only a minority of the students classified as “white,” it has employed the crude racial categories of “white” and “non-white” as the basis for its assignment decisions. Far from being narrowly tailored, this system threatens to defeat its own ends, has provided no convincing explanation for its design."
NPR : At Camp, Teens Blow Stuff Up, As They're Told
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:24 pm EDT, Jun 28, 2007
"Some people like baseball, others like math – I just like to set off bombs," he said. "I figure here, learning how to do it properly is better than messing around with it at home, right?"
Meadows is one of 20 teenage campers enrolled in a weeklong explosion camp in the Missouri Ozarks.
The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). Webcasters across the country participated in a national Day of Silence this week to increase awareness about this looming threat and gather support for the SaveNetRadio collation and our campaign to preserve music diversity on-line. The Internet Radio Equality Act is currently being considered by both the House and the Senate. This bill will set royalty rates for Internet radio equal to the royalty rate paid by satellite radio, and has gained over 120 cosponsors in the House.
Internet radio needs your help to survive. We need you to pressure your representatives in Congress to take action. Please take a moment to call your Congressional representatives in the House and Senate to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act. Making your voice heard will go a long way to helping preserve the Internet radio industry. Time is running short, so please call your representatives today.
The Robotarium X at Jardim Central, Alverca (Vila Franca de Xira), Portugal, is the first of its kind in the world.
Conceived for a public garden it is constituted by a large glass structure containing 45 robots, most powered by photovoltaic energy and a few plugged to the ceiling or to the ground.
The robots are all original, created specifically for the project, representing 14 species classified by distinct behavior strategies and body morphologies. Obstacle avoidance, movement or sunlight detection and interaction with the public are some of the robots skills.
Robotarium X, the first zoo for artificial life, approaches robots very much in the way as we are used to look at natural life. We, humans, enjoy watching and studying other life forms behavior and, sadly, also to capture them. However, in this case, although the robots are confined to a cage it can be said that, not like animals, they enjoy it. In fact the Robotarium is their ideal environment with plenty of sun, smoothness, tranquility and attention. There are no fights or aggression and the only competition is to assure a place under the sunlight.
Robotarium X is also an art work of a new kind of art that realizes a critical questioning of knowledge and culture. Notions like nature, life, the artificial, machine, art, culture and science, are challenged by this display.
Jill and I are starting to shop for a house. Having lived in a house with a scary basement including a room we affectionately deemed "the murdered children room"* this comic presents a very real and legitimate fear.
* - 6x5 room, covered with falling down acoustic tiles, drain in the floor, no windows, and it locked from the outside... Seriously, that basement was freaky. Ask anybody.
A former high school student has lost his case in what is the US Supreme Court's first major ruling on students' free speech rights in almost 20 years.
This is a terrible decision.
1) The student was not on school property at the time. 2) The banner "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" is obviously humor. 3) The students property was destroyed with no compensation. 4) The decision is based on the fact that illegal drug use is illegal by definition, and therefore promotion of such is not protected speech.
So, what if the banner had read "I support Medical Marijuana" instead? What if it said "I support late term abortions" and was displayed off-campus at a planned parenthood rally - would that also be speech the school can legally suppress?
According to the Supreme Court, in a word, yes.
These are your right folks, slipping away...
I'm not terribly troubled by the basic conclusions in this decision. There are two primary facets to this. The first is the question of whether or not this is protected speech at school, and the second is whether or not this occurred at school.
As for the first question, students at school do not have first amendment rights that are as broad as they are in other situations. Their first amendment rights are balanced against other government interests (in this case the ability to run an orderly educational environment). So, while on the one hand student expression which is critical of administration policy is likely to be protected, a tshirt with a picture of the principal with horns drawn on his head, merely intended to be funny, might not be protected. The court concluded that "bong hits for jesus" was merely intended to be funny, and was, further, intended to be disruptive, and decided that it falls in the later category and not the former. This seems reasonable to me and its not a watershed event in terms of student first amendment rights.
A banner reading "I support medicinal marijuana" could not be supressed by the school under this ruling.
The second question about whether or not this occured "at school" is a bit more difficult. The student skipped school but showed up at the exact same location as a school field trip, knowing the other students would be there and intending them to see his sign. Its a fine line. If the student had set up the banner far away from the other school students it might have tilted the other way.
I haven't really looked at the legal issues regarding the destruction of the banner. Most of the legal discussion about this case does not seem to hinge around that question.
I am, however, troubled by Thomas's concurrence, which speaks favorably of a 1915 decision which upheld the punishment of students for speaking out about their school's lack of fire safety. Thomas's originalism is often a helpful lens for understanding a Constitutional question, but this is a perfect example of how it can lead to radical conclusions that are totally out of touch with our society.
That explosive H-1B YouTube video offering advice on how to hire foreign workers instead of Americans has gotten the attention of U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, (R-Iowa), and Rep. Lamar Smith, (R-Texas), who called it evidence of abuse of the visa program. Both men want a federal investigation and are seeking answers from the law firm that posted the original video on YouTube.
What I don't understand is why this video has changed anyone's understanding of what goes on. If this incident is an "eye opener" you are deeply naive.
Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.
The earth is, in fact, way overdue for an ice age... So perhaps we should actually increase greenhouse gas emmisions, killing the ozone layer, and thus trapping heat during the long, long solar winter that approaches.
