brainwagon

My iPad blinked a CNN headline this weekend that Wikileaks had published a vast number of previously secret reports on the ongoing war in Afghanistan. While the furor over this doesn’t seem to have reached the level of, say, Lindsay Lohan in prison might, it does nevertheless seem to have generated some significant chatter in […]

I don’t speak about politics on this blog very often. Frankly, I don’t find politics itself to be very interesing: it is a sphere of human discourse that I find all too obsessed with appearance over substance, and expediency over justice. While this might form the basis of a faintly amusing reality TV show, it’s […]

I suspect that David Letterman was channeling Jon Stewart.

The Free Information Society has links to a bunch of WWII era propaganda posters, including this rather amusing one linking promiscuity with dating Hitler. Holy crap. You can’t make stuff like this up.

I’ve been tracking Wil Wheaton’s amusing anecdotes about competing in the 2005 WSOP, but today the poker muse must have temporarily vacated him only to be replaced by the political muse. Today he’s writing a brief letter to Senator Hillary Clinton, indicating that her valuable time might be better spent chasing after Karl Rove rather […]

Well, it is O’Connor who is going to be the first to vacate a position on the Supreme Court, not Chief Justice Rehnquist. O’Connor to Retire From Supreme Court If you thought that the nominations for other judges were ugly, stay tuned for this wild ride.

The House of Representatives has (again) passed a proposed amendment to the Constitution banning desecration of the flag, It reads (in full): The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States. It’s a piece of cloth. Like most symbols, it has no intrinsic value to itself. If […]

For those of you with a sense of humor, try reading this account of a young man who was suspended for reciting his own pledge of allegiance to the Federation of Planets. On a more serious note, I wonder why exactly schools choose to force participation in these silly patriotic enterprises. It’s like when you […]

If you can as well, try checking out this Open Letter to the Kansas school board who is struggling with the idea of teaching so-called “Intelligent Design Theory” in their science classes. I am writing you with much concern after I read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design to […]

Some things just make you blink. A Day in the Life is reporting that MSN is only blocking the words democracy and freedom in the name of a blog, the post title, and the URL, but NOT in the body copy. Hmmm. So much for the censorship charge if this is true. Robert, did you […]

Dan Gilmor had a short .mp3 response to the news that Microsoft was cooperating with the Chinese government to censor weblogs on MSN. I ranted about this a couple of days ago, it seems that Dan is of like mind. A Minute with Dan: Don’t Mention Democracy | Bayosphere “It’s easy enough to understand why […]

Oh good gravy. Senate panel votes to expand Patriot Act. The revised act would grant the FBI the power to write its own secret subpeonas, not subject to judicial review, whose very existance would be a secret punishable by jail time if revealed. My favorite quote: In testimony in April, FBI director Robert Mueller said: […]

With only brief commentary on my part, I submit Human Events, The National Conservative Weekly’s list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. The Kinsey Report? Number Four? Dewey’s Democracy and Education? Admittedly, two topics not generally favored by conservatives… I also liked their synopsys of Keynes’ General Theory of […]

Governor digs fixing potholes / San Jose crews destroy part of road for staged event Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger traveled to a quiet San Jose neighborhood Thursday, and — dogged by protesters — filled a pothole dug by city crews just a few hours before, as part of an attempt to dramatize his efforts to increase […]

Cowardice. It saddens Scoble. Is it really surprising that a company as large, predatory, and self-centered as Microsoft might not be a good guardian of individual rights? Let’s face it: companies aren’t good guardians of individual rights. The best you can hope is that they just stay out of the way. But it’s hopelessly naive […]