Even beyond these affiliations, Justice Scalia’s flamethrowing rhetoric and his hostility to whole chapters of 20th-century jurisprudence have made him a conservative icon and a favorite face on liberal dart boards.

Thats because partisanship is stupid. Scalia's position, generally speaking, is that the Constitution means what it says. When it says freedom of speech it means it. When it doesn't say anything at all about abortion, it doesn't say anything at all about abortion. His position is that if you want to protect something like abortion, you ought to amend the Constitution. As the Constitutional jurisprudence pendellum has swung quite far to the left, in general his perspective ends up meaning that the Constitution protects less rights than we think it does. The result is that authoritarians are happy and liberals are unhappy. But this isn't actually Scalia's goal. Scalia imagines a world in which loose interpretation of the Constitution is employed by authoritarians in the way that it is employed today by liberals. Take the arguements that are made by the left about the second amendment and apply them to the first... "Back in those days you didn't have the Internet (nuclear weapons), you just had pamphlets (muskets)... Allowing people to freely run websites (own nuclear weapons) is crazy, so the Constitution must mean something else... its a vestige of a different time..." This is the future he is trying to fight. He doesn't per say argue that homosexuality ought to be illegal. He argues that if you want to protect it as a constitutional right, you ought to do so with an amendment, which has teeth, rather than a judicial interpretation, which doesn't.

The problem is that the only reason he is allowed to make these arguments in that place is that the authoritarians find him useful. They're not interested in philosophy, and law is not merely a technical pursuit. It is inherently political, and frankly the politics this country most needs is a return to a healthy distrust of authority. I'd trust not the soccer mom Democrats nor the moralizing Republicans nor even the "me first" Libertarians with the task of properly unfucking the Constitution so that the values we actually have are really represented in the text.

Scalia the Civil Libertarian? - New York Times

The short version of things, is that they've stopped the investigation, due to a lack of evidence of criminal intent on my part. They've given me back my passports, my computers, and I'll be getting the rest of my stuff back shortly. Essentially, I'm a free man - with no charges filed.

Cheers!

Christopher Soghoian is no longer under investigation

Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

Well, thats rather inceditary. What was his exact quote? Unfortunately, the press won't tell us. Another outlet has him using the words "different set of rules" in a totally different context:

Noting the thwarted London terrorist attacks this summer, Gingrich said there should be a Geneva Convention for such actions that makes those people subject to "a totally different set of rules."

So, what DID he say. Did he say both things? I happen to agree with the later. A Geneva Convention for dealing with enemy combatents is preferable to our present "do what the administration wilt shall be the whole of the law" policy. I don't, however, like this peculiar comment:

"We are the only society to say power comes from God to you personally and you loan part to the state," Gingrich said. "It doesn't begin with the lawyers, with the bureaucrats... If there is no creator, where do your rights comes from?"

Um, yes it does come from lawyers and bureaucrats. Its called a social contract. The Declaration of Independence is not the Constitution.

Union Leader - Gingrich raises alarm at event honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech - Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006

An interactive map of botched SWAT and paramilitary police raids, released in conjunction with the Cato policy paper "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids," by Radley Balko.

And I was concerned about tasers.

Botched Paramilitary Police Raids

We have begun pushing out a series of upgrades to MemeStreams. Some new features will be working their way into the site over the next few days.

We are pleased to announce that user profiles have gotten a much needed makeover. Among the changes, is the ability to post pictures.

Currently pictures are only displayed in user profiles and on user blogs. As we start rolling out more features, pictures will appear in more places.

Enjoy!

MemeStreams Update - New Profiles & Pictures

The following is a draft of the new MemeStreams Privacy Policy.

We will leave this up for public review until Tuesday. We would very much like to hear your feedback before making it official. If you don't have any objections, we would still like to hear a "looks good to me comment".. We want to make sure that we have full community involvement in crafting any site policy.

There is little change in substance and spirit between this version and the current privacy policy. This rewrite is mostly to clarify things, be easier to read, and have the necessary statements in place to satisfy requirements for working with advertising partners.

MemeStreams is designed to enable you to share information with other Internet users about web sites you find interesting. All of the information collected by the system is intended to be published, except where specifically noted.

If you are concerned about the information you publish, we recommend that you publish your weblog under a pseudonym, and do not recommend web sites you do not want other people to know you are reading. Any information that you publish on your weblog or in your profile is available to others.

The people who run this site are concerned about privacy rights, and will make every endeavor to protect information that ought to be private. We will attempt to protect you, and inform you about how you can better protect yourself.

Your email address is private: MemeStreams makes you verify your email address when you create an account in order to be able to post. We must verify your email address because MemeStreams can be used to generate outbound emails. We will never sell your email address to spammers or share it with third parties. However, if you choose to publish your email address in your profile or in posts, others can obtain it.

Your click-through data is private: MemeStreams collects information about the websites you've visited from other user's weblogs. This information is used by our reputation system and search engine to improve results. We will not intentionally provide this information to any third party.

This website uses cookies: All users of this website are issued cookies. These cookies are used to associate transactions with user's accounts, as well as to gather statistical data on our visitors. This statistical data is used to gauge the size and nature of our readership, as well as target advertisements on the website. Third parties, such as our advertising partners, may also set cookies.

This website uses Javascript: MemeStreams uses Javascript to provide a more powerful end user experience, as well as to deliver advertisements and collect statistics. This website will not work properly unless Javascript is enabled in your web browser.

Disclosure of statistics... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

MemeStreams Privacy Policy Changes (Draft for public review)

If you're feeling charitable over the holidays you could do worse than to donate to one of these.

dc0de wrote:

Please, take a moment to thank your nearest sailor, airman, soldier, marine, and coast guard. If you don't know any, here are a few links to find a way to say "Thanks".

http://www.uso.org/whatwedo/specialprograms/

http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=support_troops

http://www.usocares.org/src/uso_home.htm

Thats my 2¢, YMMV.

dc0de.

RE: Top Democrat: Bring back the draft - CNN.com

The case of 20-year-old Dontae Marks, a bystander who protested when police tried to arrest a friend for being drunk outside a night-club. Police reportedly pointed a taser at Marks’ chest when he refused an order to leave, then tasered him in the back as he walked away shouting an obscenity. Six officers then reportedly grappled with him in a struggle in which Marks was pepper-sprayed and touch-stunned at least ten times while lying face-down on the ground. He was reported to have sustained 13 taser burn marks across his back, neck, buttocks and the rear of his legs. He was later acquitted on charges of affray and has filed a lawsuit. According to the WW report, an internal police review found the taser use to be justified.

The taser is now being used by American police forces where no violence would have used in the past. For many police departments, it has become the defacto way of dealing with people who don't do exactly what they are told. This is far from the most disturbing case cited in the report.

USA: Excessive and lethal force? Amnesty International's concerns about deaths and ill-treatment involving police use of tasers - Amnesty International

More home built nuclear reactors.

He built a WHAT?!?! His parents are mad!

Stratfor provides an observation on the draft which they think no one will ever accept, but from a sociological standpoint I would not be the least bit suprised to see an active draft of adult GenXers 10 years from now. But unless the circumstances were dire I would oppose it.

To me, I think the deal with the draft is that if you can't get people to volunteer to sign up for the fight, you're fighting the wrong war. Its not about social equity. Its about the right of people to make their own choices about their lives. In WWII everyone was ready to serve. They had a draft for technical reasons but no one was bitching about non-volunteer soldiers having poor morale. Vietnam, on the other hand, was the wrong war.

Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - November 21, 2006

A Fresh Look at the Draft

By George Friedman

New York Democrat Charles Rangel, the new chairman of the House
Armed Services Committee, has called for the reinstatement of the
draft. This is not new for him; he has argued for it for several
years. Nor does Rangel -- or anyone else -- expect a proposal for
conscription to pass. However, whether this is political posturing
or a sincere attempt to start a conversation about America's
military, Rangel is making an important point that should be
considered. This is doubly true at a time when future strategies
are being considered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the available
force is being strained to its limits.

The United States has practiced conscription in all major wars
since the Civil War. During the Cold War, the United States
practiced conscription continually, using it to fight both the
Korean and Vietnam wars, but also to maintain the peacetime army.
Conscription ended in 1973 as the U.S. role in Vietnam declined and
as political opposition to the draft surged. From that point on,
the United States shifted to a volunteer force.

Rangel's core criticism of the volunteer force is social. He argues
that the burden of manning the military and fighting the war has
fallen, both during Vietnam War conscription and in the volunteer
army, for different reasons, on the lower and middle-lower classes.
Apart from other arguments -- such as the view that if the rich
were being drafted, the Vietnam and Iraq wars would have ended
sooner -- Rangel's essential point is that the way the United
States has manned the military since World War II is inherently
unjust. It puts the lower classes at risk in fighting wars, leaving
the upper classes free to pursue their lives and careers.

The problem with this argument is not the moral point, which is
that the burden of national defense should be borne by all classes,
but rather the argument that a draft would be more equitable.
Rangel's view of the military and the draft was shaped by Vietnam
-- and during Vietnam, t... [ Read More (1.8k in body) ]