“We’ve got two recent examples from the “Copyright Alliance,” a DC-based lobbying shop put together by copyright maximalists (with the help of super right wing interests who normally don’t link up with Hollywood on much), who are seeking to spin the debate in their favor with a lot of bluster and propaganda, often trying to demonize and/or marginalize the public’s role in this debate. First up is an op-ed piece, in which the Copyright Alliance argues first that any new copyright reform must focus on maximalist principles, whether or not they make any sense. And then it digs in against the public, arguing that their voice shouldn’t count for much because, apparently, they’re so easily manipulated.”
Copyright Lobby: The Public Has ‘No Place In Policy Discussions’ | Techdirt
Read on to discover just why some in the copyright industries strongly desire for the public to be excluded when it comes time to discuss reforms or changes to copyright law.
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“Such subjects “may be interesting questions to ponder or explore” but aren’t necessarily the best use of taxpayer money, Mr. Coburn told Mr. Suresh. “Studies of presidential executive power and Americans’ attitudes toward the Senate filibuster hold little promise to save an American’s life from a threatening condition or to advance America’s competitiveness in the world,” he wrote.”
Senate Moves to Limit NSF Spending on Political Science - Government - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via infoneer-pulse)
This is ridiculous. If we can’t study our current system, we can’t improve it. If we don’t improve it, we won’t, “advance America’s competitiveness in the world”.
Opinion: Privacy was good while it lasted - CNN.com
A worrisome take on how the entire notion and conception of privacy is dead. Taking the stance that privacy was an urban invention (it makes sense) the author asks if the whole privacy thing was transitory and we are now being returned to our village roots in the new “global village”.
He claims that,
Granted, most of us are protected somewhat by others’ lack of interest in our secrets. But the algorithmic web spiders care not at all about “interest”, only data. Thus making us of interest to anyone.
I don’t think this has to happen, but we’d need to move fast to keep what we have. And while this may not matter to most yet (as they don’t know just how much is being recorded) it should.
U.S. plans to let spy agencies scour Americans' finances
The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.
The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates.
» via Reuters
The fact that this is permissible speaks the loudest.
“There is more, and recent, antiscience fare from far-left progressives, documented in the 2012 book Science Left Behind (PublicAffairs) by science journalists Alex B. Berezow and Hank Campbell, who note that “if it is true that conservatives have declared a war on science, then progressives have declared Armageddon.” On energy issues, for example, the authors contend that progressive liberals tend to be antinuclear because of the waste-disposal problem, anti–fossil fuels because of global warming, antihydroelectric because dams disrupt river ecosystems, and anti–wind power because of avian fatalities. The underlying current is “everything natural is good” and “everything unnatural is bad.”
Different people want to suppress different things. That’s not enough to legitimize any attempts though.
Haiti on brink of becoming latest member of African Union | PRI.ORG
This is actually pretty neat. Haiti in the African Union makes sense on a non-geographic level.
This was amusing. Via Kill Screen Patriot Game - OpDocs (Obama vs Romney) (by TheNewYorkTimes)
“Americans no longer expect or care about candidates making honest assertions in the public sphere. They no longer expect consistency and honesty from politicians, and the savvy political campaigner recognizes that there is no cost to making statements that contradict even their most well-known beliefs…
…Claims in the public domain are now routinely treated as intentional distortions of facts to promote ideologies; distortions or misrepresentations justified by the need to “counterbalance” false claims from the other side.”
Just wonderful.
Jason Stanley, New York Times. Speech, Lies and Apathy
Put another way, and as part of a Times news analysis/convention factcheck effort:
The growing number of misrepresentations appear to reflect a calculation in both parties that shame is overrated, and that no independent arbiters command the stature or the platform to hold the campaigns to account in the increasingly polarized and balkanized media firmament. Any unmasking of the lies or distortions, the thinking goes, rarely seeps into the public consciousness.
Good times.
(via futurejournalismproject)
Secret Renaissance Letter Reveals Plan to Save England
Political philosophy always begs to be implemented. So those “old” philosophers, Hobbes in this case, were hip deep in actual conspiracies and plots. Not so abstract now, huh?
A newly discovered document, written by one of Europe’s most famous philosophers, Thomas Hobbes, reveals a plan that, if successful, could have turned the tide of one of England’s bloodiest wars.
In the words of Hobbes, the plan would prevent the “ruine of the English nation.” The document was written during the height of the English civil war, a series of conflicts between 1642 and 1651 that saw King Charles I (and later his son Charles II), pitted against his country’s parliament.
Hobbes, whose work encompassed politics, history, law, physics and mathematics, was a strong supporter of the king. And in the newfound document, discovered among papers of English writer John Evelyn in the British Library, Hobbes proposes a plan to win the war by getting the head of the parliamentary navy, Earl of Warwick Robert Rich, to defect.
» via Live Science
