Category: Politics

Ignorant Luddities Strike Again

Or at least they’re trying to. Senator Orrin Hatch has introduced a bill to the Senate which is worded in such a way that it would not only make Kazaa illegal, but also TiVo, the CD burner in your computer, and even VCRs and cassette recorders illegal.

News.com reports that:

The proposal, called the Induce Act, says “whoever intentionally induces any violation” of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations, a prohibition that would effectively ban file-swapping networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. In the draft bill seen by CNET News.com, inducement is defined as “aids, abets, induces, counsels, or procures” and can be punished with civil fines and, in some circumstances, lengthy prison terms.

“Induce” stands for “Inducement Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation,” making this yet another example of cloaking wildly restrictive legislation in the mantle of “save the children!”. Because of course, it’s all about keeping kids away from porn. Never mind that adults would have to throw away every recording device in their homes to make it work.

The good news? Even if this lame excuse for a bill were to actually pass both houses and be signed into law, I doubt it would stand, because the Supreme Court said in 1984 that VCRs are legal devices. But still, it’s annoying to have to fight the same battles over and over again.

Tinfoil Hat Time?

Generally speaking I am highly skeptical of conspiracy theories unless there’s some serious paper trail to back them up. But the one thing that the latest Al Qaeda beheading shows is that there may in fact be some truth to the rumors that the Nick Berg beheading is a little … well … suspicious.

Now, I must admit I did not actually watch the Berg video, but I did see some of the still photos. I wasn’t planning on viewing the Paul Johnson photos but Drudge put them directly on his site instead of linking to them. And it struck me right off … that is a lot of blood. Blood that is definitely missing from the Berg footage.

Something’s not right here. It could be as simple as Berg’s captors didn’t have the nerve to behead a living man and killed him first. Or it could be much more complex. I don’t know and I doubt the truth will come out any time in the near future.

This site has a pretty comprehensive list of the issues related to Nick Berg’s death.

Are all Republicans Teflon?

Sometimes it feels like the Teflon coating so famously ascribed to Ronald Reagan sticks itself to every Republican administration. Per Atrios today:

I’m starting to wonder when the Bush administration will start receiving the label, “scandal plagued,” as the Clinton administration does and did, even though most of those scandals were just made up scandals and not real ones.

How many CIA agents have to have their covers blown?

Maybe it’s just that the Congress is also Republican led, hence no pesky panels of inquiry, special prosecutors, or impeachment articles.

A Long Strange Trip

What does it say about America that Newt Gingrich is now considered a wingnut that we can live with? Or so Ezra at Pandagon thinks:

So what do you do when you take on the throne and lose? Well some, like Lucifer, found a realm of eternal damnation and torture others for eternity. Others read a lot of spy novels and review so obsessively they crack Amazon’s Top 500. Newt Gingrich is the latter.

As an addendum on Gingrich, he’s an interesting case in the discussion Matt Stolelr and I have been having. As radical and poisonous as anyone our polity has ever been, he also presided over a GOP obsessed with policy. While the current group (DeLay, et al) have his bile they possess none of his wonkishness nor relative honesty about their agenda. To say this shows how far we’ve fallen, but Newt was the sort of wingnut I could live with. At least he stood for something beyond partisan politics and attempted to engage legislation in a meaningful way.

I checked Newt’s review list on Amazon – the man has pretty lousy taste in spy novels.

Religion and Politics Don’t Mix

I let slide the recent report that the GOP is trying to get churches in PA more actively involved in politics, but taken together with this report about Bush’s trip to the Vatican it’s a disturbing trend.

It’s no secret that regular church-goers are significantly more likely to vote Republican. And as the Times pointed out, African-American churches are frequently strongly involved in ‘get out the vote’ efforts for the Democrats. So in that sense, why should this matter?

It matters because this administration has tried in numerous ways to blur the line between religion and politics. And as a member of a minority religion I find that profoundly threatening. The more talk I hear about Jesus in the public sphere and from elected officials, the less I feel like this is my America too.