SIVACRACY.NET

A reader named Brett wrote in the comments section to one of my posts:

Thank you for at least leaving an opportunity to respond to your thoughts regarding your latest post. Something your mentor, maybe not mentor, but somone I'm sure you look to guidance for, Prof. Miller. I travelled to his site and after all the ridiculous comments i've witnessed, he seems to not have a reply option. I could have perhaps passed by it, but if not, I find it rather unprofessional for someone who thinks and claims to know as much as he does about what it's like to the president of the United States of America to not have at least an opportunity for someone to challenge them on any of his ideas. He must be an EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT INDIVIDUAL. He is a Phd you know. I happened to be channel surfing when I stumbled upon some sort of press conference by him, on wouldn't you've guessed it, C-SPAN. While he's on C-SPAN, he claims the media has to be re-vamped or something. Not really sure what newpapers/news-casts he's been reading/watching, but honestly, where in the world could he be possibly going with this??????? What does he want? What MORE does he need? He doesn't beleive there's enough anti-Bush stuff goin on already!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's try to look at this like those humans that = down-to-earth. At first I thought he was obscure Hollywood actor, but then I saw the abbreviation, P.H.D., in front of his name!!!!! I then laughed. I laughed I lot. Your side often talks about how ignorant conservatives are but after hearing him speak on why he thought President Bush was originally elecected and on why he thought Bush was still even in the race according to the polls, I thought to myself, "How in the world does this man have a Phd in anything?!?!?!?!?!" Your side has never, EVER, acknowledged the middle class/ mid-western type family/indivdual. I caught his smutty, snobby inference about all those who didn't see it his way. You people just don't understand and you never will. And as for YOUR four points at the beginging of your site.......... what in your wildest dreams, I mean honestly, try to be honest here................why in the world do you think Osama would ever cease to live under J.F.K????? How could you have actually hypothesized that scenerio???? That's absolutley delusional. What has J.F.K. ever done to prove he has a clue on how we should deal with any aspect of foreign policy other than on worrying what the hell Paris thinks of us. I hope that was the sarcastic side of you but after reading and hearing what "Prof" Miller had to say, i'm sure not. Does Paris give a blankety-blank about us?!?!?!?!?! Have they ever????? Except when our boys were pushing back the Nazis in '44. I'm sure this seems like foreign language to your folk, especially from a 23-year-old. Yet again, you just don't get it. I beleive there's just an absolute disconnect from your type of philosophy and the common man's. If you could forward this to "Prof" Miller it would be much appreciated. I find it bizarre, to say the least, that he wouldn't have any way for someone to respond to some of the things as he's said. Also, I would LOVE to get a response, because usually I can never get one from your type. I've emailed numerous hippies/libs/elitists who've often looked the other way and I'm dying to hear your from your camp. You always seem to claim that ALL people should be heard and respected no matter what belief or idea they hold. I'd love to actually witness your camp come through with that so-called belief. I thank my lucky stars that I attended a university that didn't participate in such mind-reforming practices. I truly feel for those that that you CAN influence. It's an absolute, pathetic, shame that professors decide to utilize their own education and opportunity to try to influence students with their own political agenda. That goes for both sides. I can only hope that those types are those who would've agreed with you anyways

He asked for a response. Click below to for it.

A reader named Brett wrote in the comments section to one of my posts:

Thank you for at least leaving an opportunity to respond to your thoughts regarding your latest post. Something your mentor, maybe not mentor, but somone I'm sure you look to guidance for, Prof. Miller. I travelled to his site and after all the ridiculous comments i've witnessed, he seems to not have a reply option. I could have perhaps passed by it, but if not, I find it rather unprofessional for someone who thinks and claims to know as much as he does about what it's like to the president of the United States of America to not have at least an opportunity for someone to challenge them on any of his ideas. He must be an EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT INDIVIDUAL. He is a Phd you know. I happened to be channel surfing when I stumbled upon some sort of press conference by him, on wouldn't you've guessed it, C-SPAN. While he's on C-SPAN, he claims the media has to be re-vamped or something. Not really sure what newpapers/news-casts he's been reading/watching, but honestly, where in the world could he be possibly going with this??????? What does he want? What MORE does he need? He doesn't beleive there's enough anti-Bush stuff goin on already!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's try to look at this like those humans that = down-to-earth. At first I thought he was obscure Hollywood actor, but then I saw the abbreviation, P.H.D., in front of his name!!!!! I then laughed. I laughed I lot. Your side often talks about how ignorant conservatives are but after hearing him speak on why he thought President Bush was originally elecected and on why he thought Bush was still even in the race according to the polls, I thought to myself, "How in the world does this man have a Phd in anything?!?!?!?!?!" Your side has never, EVER, acknowledged the middle class/ mid-western type family/indivdual. I caught his smutty, snobby inference about all those who didn't see it his way. You people just don't understand and you never will. And as for YOUR four points at the beginging of your site.......... what in your wildest dreams, I mean honestly, try to be honest here................why in the world do you think Osama would ever cease to live under J.F.K????? How could you have actually hypothesized that scenerio???? That's absolutley delusional. What has J.F.K. ever done to prove he has a clue on how we should deal with any aspect of foreign policy other than on worrying what the hell Paris thinks of us. I hope that was the sarcastic side of you but after reading and hearing what "Prof" Miller had to say, i'm sure not. Does Paris give a blankety-blank about us?!?!?!?!?! Have they ever????? Except when our boys were pushing back the Nazis in '44. I'm sure this seems like foreign language to your folk, especially from a 23-year-old. Yet again, you just don't get it. I beleive there's just an absolute disconnect from your type of philosophy and the common man's. If you could forward this to "Prof" Miller it would be much appreciated. I find it bizarre, to say the least, that he wouldn't have any way for someone to respond to some of the things as he's said. Also, I would LOVE to get a response, because usually I can never get one from your type. I've emailed numerous hippies/libs/elitists who've often looked the other way and I'm dying to hear your from your camp. You always seem to claim that ALL people should be heard and respected no matter what belief or idea they hold. I'd love to actually witness your camp come through with that so-called belief. I thank my lucky stars that I attended a university that didn't participate in such mind-reforming practices. I truly feel for those that that you CAN influence. It's an absolute, pathetic, shame that professors decide to utilize their own education and opportunity to try to influence students with their own political agenda. That goes for both sides. I can only hope that those types are those who would've agreed with you anyways

He asked for a response. Click below to for it.

Brett seems to raise many points in this post. He accuses me of saying things I never said. Still, there is much I can respond to.

• Let me begin by first saying the Mark Crispin Miller is a friend and colleague, not a mentor. I should not be held responsible for his statements any more than he should be for mine. We work together in the same department at NYU. But we are hardly of the same "type." Both of us educate students about how media and communication work. Neither of us indoctrinates anyone. Our students are too smart to be indoctrinated. Sit in my class and see how independent they are. See how bold they are. I don't worry about them in the least, especially when they disagree with me.

• Brett writes, "Your side has never, EVER, acknowledged the middle class/ mid-western type family/indivdual." Well, it happens that Mark Crispin Miller is from a middle class/mid-western type family. He grew up near Chicago. I grew up in a middle-class family in Buffalo, which is more mid-western than anything. Then I moved to Texas, where I lived for 14 years. We happen to live in NYC now. But our sense of the world was formed in other places.

• Brett asks "why in the world do you think Osama would ever cease to live under J.F.K?" It think this because John Kerry is a man of his word, unlike Bush ("dead or alive?"). Kerry has actually served this country in uniform and with distinction. He has killed for this country and saved its soldiers with his bare hands. Unlike that coward Bush, he paid his dues and then some. In addition, Kerry cares about justice for the 3000 of my neighbors who died three years ago. Bush has shown time and again that he does not care about Bin Laden or Al Queda. It's all on the record. Check it out. Bush has done little to crush Al Queda. That's why people keep dying at its hands. That's on the record as well. Check it out.

• Has "Paris" ever given a damn about us? Well, there was that revolution we had in 1776. Perhaps you heard about General Lafayette?

• Brett writes: "I beleive there's just an absolute disconnect from your type of philosophy and the common man's." The common man, as I understand him, keeps his word, does his duty, goes to work every day, takes responsibilities for his actions. I doubt Brett knows the extent to which I fall short on this list. I doubt he has ever met me. I can safely say I am no "hippie/lib/elitist." I am liberal. But that's because I am a populist, hardly an elitist. If Brett would read my books, he would see what I value and celebrate.

Posted by Siva at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's NYT reported on 10/28/04 (here) that:

In a decision that could reduce the availability of replicas of classic modern furniture, the United States Patent and Trademark Office last week granted trademark protection to the furniture company Knoll for four famous designs in Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona collection — the chair and a stool, couch and table — as well as his flat-bar Brno chair.
....

Knoll, which makes 18 Mies reproductions, has held a trademark on the Barcelona name since 1968. (Knoll reproductions have Mies's signature stamped into the frame.) The new registration extends trademark protection to the actual design of the five products. Mr. Bright said the company filed for protection to stem inexpensive knockoffs. Trademark protection, Mr. Bright added, will help maintain the authenticity of the original 1929 design. He declined to provide sales figures for the Barcelona series but said it is a "perennial favorite." The decision could curb sales of copycat versions by retailers like Design Within Reach, whose customers appreciate the period's design masters but do not want to pay for authentic reproductions.
....

To win a judgment, Knoll's lawyers would have to convince a jury that there is a "likelihood of confusion" in the mind of the consumer, Mr. Walsh said. And to the undiscerning eye, often the cheap reproductions are quite similar to the originals, varying only in small changes of width or height, or the thickness of the frame. (For its Barcelona chair Knoll uses hand-welted leather panels, while C.I.T.E.'s replicas are machine-stitched.)
....

Copyrights last a long time, but trademarks potentially last forever. Both forms of "protection" are limited by (and do not extend to) the functional attributes of furniture. It will be interesting to see how courts handle cases alleging infringement of both copyright and trademark protections in furniture design.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the 10/30/04 New York Times, available here:

With little notice or discussion, Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri allowed a provision into a Senate appropriations bill that could ban even nonpartisan voter registration efforts in public housing developments all over the country. This is an example of the unfortunate impulse now afflicting some parts of the Republican Party: a desire to suppress voting in poor and minority neighborhoods. Mr. Bond's proposal runs contrary to both the spirit of democracy and federal law, which in recent years has moved increasingly toward broadening ballot access. The National Voter Registration Act - commonly known as the Motor Voter Act - actually requires state agencies, including those that issue welfare benefits and drivers' licenses, to offer voter registration materials to the people they serve.

Mr. Bond's argument - that housing built with public money should be used only for housing, not voter registration - makes no sense on its face. It is even more ridiculous given the universal support for voter registration on military bases around the world. Military voters tend to favor Republicans, and public housing residents tend to favor Democrats. It would be nice if everyone could agree that both groups should be encouraged to vote.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mel and I spent another Saturday in Pa. getting out the Dem vote there. It was a great experience once again. We will spend much of the next three days at GOTV phone banks here in NYC, calling Dem voters in swing states.

Damn it feels good.

Ok. Here are my predictions for Tuesday:

• Kerry wins Pa. by five points.

• Kerry wins the Nationwide popular vote by four percentage points.

• Kerry serves two distinguished terms in office.

• Osama Bin Laden dies a horrible, painful death under Commander-in-Chief John Kerry.

• Sanity, wisdom, tact, judgement, and courage return to America.

Posted by Siva at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Access the latest here:

"Wouldn't it be ironic if the Iraqi war somehow INCREASED terrorism? Who could have foreseen such irony? Maybe ninety percent of the world or something?"

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Transcript of Jack Hitt's report on election fraud for This American Life.
(Real Audio available here)

There are already hundreds of alarming stories this election year, and as a public service, I've immersed myself in this hideous sump of pond scum. It's deep here. So deep, that to give you even a bare sense of the sheer profundity of this abyss, I'm going to have to resort to one of the oldest gimmicks in radio broadcasting. That's right, speeded up music.

[begin music]

Nevada: Dan Burdish, former director of the state's Republican Party, filed a complaint to remove 17,000 voters from the rolls because they had failed to file a change of address card. State law doesn't require it and, in fact, allows you to vote after moving. When asked why he did it Burdish told the press, "I am looking to take Democrats off the voter rolls."

Florida: Senior citizens in Democratic precincts are calling their election boards by the hundreds reporting that strangers claiming to be from the elections office are offering to "hand deliver" their absentee ballots for them, even though there is no such program.

Wyoming: Secretary of State Joseph Meyer interpreted the statutes there to outlaw voter registration drives, like the kind where a group sets up a card table at a mall or library. One of Meyer's oldest friends, a classmate in both high school and college, is Dick Cheney.

Philadelphia: Three weeks before the election, a white Republican alderman named Matt Robb requested that 63 polling stations in African American neighborhoods be relocated, thereby making it more confusing for 37,000 Democrat leaning voters.

Florida: Once again, as in the 2000 election, the state compiled a list of felons to be barred from voting. Throughout this election year, Governor Jeb Bush's administration struggled to keep this list secret. After a lawsuit forced it into the open, people quickly saw that, while some 23,000 Democrat leaning black felons were barred from voting, almost the same number of hispanic felons in Florida, who tend to vote Republican, were somehow not on the list.

Ohio: Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has ruled that anyone showing up in the wrong precinct will not be able to vote there, even by provisional ballot. Immediately afterward, people begain to report odd phone calls telling voters that their voting place had changed, sending them to the wrong precinct.

Arizona: Students at Arizona State University were told by a reporter at Fox News and the Republican county vote registrar that registering students was a federal crime unless students planned to stay in Arizona "indefinitely" after graduation. The Supreme Court of the United States long ago ruled otherwise.

Posted by Siva at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a difficult dispute for me, because it pits my belief in broad copyright fair use against my utter contempt for Bush:

Bush asked to stop using "Still the One"

By Devlin Barrett

Posted here at Salon.com

Oct. 29, 2004 | Washington -- The songwriter who helped pen the 1970s hit, "Still the One," is demanding that President Bush stop using the tune at campaign events, arguing that he's no fan of the Republican incumbent and the campaign never got permission to use the song.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In most places, voting twice would require a fair amount planning. Unless registering in two separate states, a person would have to successfully register twice under different names, and then produce identification for both of these identities to actually vote (other than "provisionally"). This is a fairly inefficient way to influence an election. Attempting to vote more than two times would increase your risk of getting caught (and charged with a felony), and also require additional registrations and fake identification. Encouraging other people to vote twice (and teaching them how) would greatly increase the risk of getting caught, and a lot of people would have to vote twice before there was much impact on vote totals.

Most voter fraud happens in other ways: machine totals (and the machines themselves) get manipulated, ballots multiply or disappear etc. Poll watchers are unlikely to observe or detect it. I'm frankly confused about what the partisan poll watchers are going to do other than slow down the physical process of voting (which in my view is the point). I have voted for over 20 years, in five different states, and am always asked for identification by the poll *workers.* Are the poll watchers going to challenge the forms of identification presented? I actually got challenged once, years ago in Philadelphia, when there was some issue about Penn students voting locally. I was taken to a nearby courtroom, sworn in, and required to explain to the judge that I was a qualified voter (he asked me when I had moved to Philadelphia, when I had registered to vote, whether I planned to vote anywhere else, where my permanent residence was, where my car was registered, whether I had a utility bill or envelope with cancelled stamp reflecting my residence on me, etc.), and about half an hour later I was allowed to cast my ballot. If I had not been a feisty first year law student at the time I might have given up; other people getting challenged just walked away.

Here in South Carolina registered voters who do not vote in two consecutive elections get "purged" - unregistered. I find it fascinating that my SC Drivers License is good for five years whether I drive or not, but my voter registration gets purged if I sit out two elections. There is a lot of "gaming" of elections, but I don't see what positive steps a poll watcher can really take, other than making sure poll workers are doing an honest job of monitoring registration lists and checking identifications.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jardinero asks in the comments "what's keeping me from voting twice?"

That's easy. The threat of federal criminal prosecution. Because you have to sign in when you vote, people who vote twice are easy to convict.

Dead people and fictional people won't be voting anyway. They are dead and/or fictional. Republican poll watchers would (and should) catch them in the act.

Posted by Siva at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UPDATE: NOW WITH SOURCES VIA LINKS!!!! -- Siva

• Jeb Bush appointed one of his cronies to run the election in heavily Democratic Broward County, Florida. That's the same county that "misplaced" all those absentee ballots.

• Men with cameras and sunglasses are parked in black cars outside black polling places in Jacksonville, Florida.

• The Republicans are illegally targeting thousands of black voters in Florida for registration challenges. Many of these people are serving in the military in Iraq right now. It's illegal to target voters by race.

Posted by Siva at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fukuyama’s moment: a neocon schism opens
Danny Postel
28 - 10 - 2004

The Iraq war opened a fratricidal split among United States neo–conservatives. Danny Postel examines the bitter dispute between two leading neocons, Francis Fukuyama and Charles Krauthammer, and suggests that Fukuyama’s critique of the Iraq war and decision not to vote for George W Bush is a significant political as well as intellectual moment.

Posted by Siva at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Industrious clock here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I heard one Ohio Republican complain on NPR this morning that "Dick Tracey, Mary Poppins, George Foreman, and other fictional characters are registered to vote in Ohio. There are hundreds of dead people registered to vote." Wait. Isn't George Foreman a real guy? Doesn't he have something like nine children names George Foreman? Isn't the combination of "George" and "Foreman" rather common? Pity the poor person named Richard Tracey or Mary G. Poppins. Not only were they teased as children. Now they will be disenfranchised!

I have been struck by the Republican vote-challenging language. They are saying that there are dead people on the rolls all over the country. And it seems that some counties have more registered voters than eligible voters. Both of these phenomena are common because with the exception of Florida Republicans striking eligible African-American voters from the rolls, counties do not purge their lists very often. So when people die or move they remain on the list. If you moved from one county to another in the past five years, there is a good chance that you are listed as registered in two places. Their audacity and duplicity in the cause of eroding democracy is stunning.

Posted by Siva at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!!!!!!! PASS THIS ON!!!!!!!

Is this what the Department of Homeland Security should be doing? The port I can see out my window remains insecure!!!!!!!

Feds create puzzle not found on toy shelf

The owner of Pufferbelly Toys in St. Helens worries when Homeland Security agents show up on official business

Thursday, October 28, 2004
ASHBEL S. GREEN

Nothing about running a small store called Pufferbelly Toys prepared Stephanie Cox for a cryptic phone call from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"It's all very surreal, quite honestly," Cox said Wednesday. "I thought it was a prank when I first heard. I couldn't understand why Homeland Security would be investigating a tiny toy store in St. Helens."

The call came in late July or early August. A man identifying himself as a federal Homeland Security agent said he needed to talk to Cox at her store.

Cox asked what it was all about.

"He said he was not at liberty to discuss that," she said.

They agreed to meet in early August, but the agent later canceled. Cox thought the matter had blown over when the agent called back Sept. 9 to say he was coming out there.
"I was shaking in my shoes," said Cox, who has owned Pufferbelly Toys for more than four years. "My first thought was the government can shut your business down on a whim, in my opinion. If I'm closed even for a day that would cause undue stress."

The next day, two men arrived at the store and showed Cox their badges. The lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube. She said yes. The Magic Cube, he said, was an illegal copy of the Rubik's Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time. He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.

The whole thing took about 10 minutes.

After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that the Homeland Security agents had it wrong. The Rubik's Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on rival toy's trademark.

John Ryan, corporate counsel for the Toysmith Group, said Homeland Security, which includes Customs, routinely blocks shipments of products from overseas that violate intellectual property rights, such as patents, copyrights and trademarks.

"That's fine. That's not an outrageous federal act by any means," Ryan said. "But we certainly were surprised that a federal agent approached a toy store owner and frightened them."

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in Washington, D.C.

Kice also said Homeland Security officials routinely investigate such complaints and follow up if they determine they are valid.

"One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications," she said.

After gaining assurances from Toysmith officials, Cox put the Magic Cube back on the shelf soon after the agents left.

Six weeks after her brush with Homeland Security, Cox is still scratching her head.

"Aren't there any terrorists out there?" she said.

Posted by Siva at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Watch Bruce Springsteen intoduce John Kerry here. No retreat, baby, no surrender.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is an alert from Simply Appalling:

Missing absentee ballots in Broward Co. could be a catastrophe
Broward County, Florida, has just announced that it is resending some 76,000 absentee ballots. Some 56,000 ballots, asserted by the Elections Office to have been mailed on October 7-8, have not been received.
What happened to 56,000 ballots demands a thorough investigation. It's difficult to imagine such a large mailing "lost" without some criminal activity. But the investigation will have to wait until after the election.

If you are a Florida resident and have requested a ballot that you haven't received, I would urge you to vote before November 2.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over on Altercation today, I ran this:

Some never thought the Berlin Wall would fall. Others saw no way that Apartheid could wane in South Africa. Others still doubted that we could design a brightly colored water gun that could spray a cat at 20 yards. I never thought I would see this. The Boston Red Sox won a World Series Championship AND Brian Wilson finished Smile Our foundations tremble. Our belief system is rocked. Babe Ruth matters less. David Hume matters more. Never underestimate the power of human beings to rise up from humiliation.

Melissa cried last night. She burst into tears of joy and relief as the Cardinals ground into their last out. She looked so happy I could not resist a few tears myself. She told me it was the second happiest day of her life, just after the day she married me (and daring to bring a Texan Hindu Yankee fan into her Boston Catholic Red Sox clan). But I am not so sure. I think it's close to a tie. It's not exactly true to say that she has been waiting her whole life for this. More accurately, she never allowed herself to fantasize about it. Yesterday morning she was tense and jumpy. I asked her what was she was all nervous about. "Everything," she said. "The Red Sox, John Kerry, everything." I told her, "what are you talking about? Your football team has not lost in 21 games. The Sox are up 3-0. And Kerry is winning. What are you worried about?"

"Buckner!" was her terse reply. So this Red Sox victory is more than a dream come true for her. It's a new world entirely.

To every Red Sox fan who looked down at her ticket and read "obstructed view" yet sat through the game behind one of those green posts at Fenway anyway, congratulations for your devotion.

To every Red Sox fan who stood with dignity as drunk Fordham students chanted "1918" in their ears, congratulations for your stoic courage.

To every Red Sox fan who excused letting Fred Lynn, Rick Burleson, Cecil Cooper, Carlton Fisk, Jeff Bagwell, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Mo Vaughn, and Nomar go, figuring it was "best for the team" in the long run, congratulations for your faith.

To my amazing and brilliant wife, who never let herself dream about this day, but got to live it anyway, that you for having such an amazing spirit and infinite patience.

Somewhere, Bart Giamatti is smiling.

Y'all deserve this moment. I know. I am not just a Yankee fan. I am also a Buffalo Bills fan.

Posted by Siva at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Purportedly for real, back when he was Texas Guv, see video here; it came from here; I learned about it here. Can't say I've never done it, I grew up in New York for cripes' sake, but I've never mistaken myself for God.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My pre-election column from openDemocracy.net:

Bring democracy back to America
Siva Vaidhyanathan
26 - 10 - 2004

The United States experienced real democracy only from 1965-2000, from the civil rights era to the post-Florida judicial coup, says Siva Vaidhyanathan. Whatever the result on 2 November, American citizens need to seize the responsibility of remaking it.

I shook with anticipation as I took my seat in the main hall of the ornate Prague Municipal Building last week at the annual Forum 2000 conference, where world-renowned politicians, scholars, and decision-makers spoke of how to strengthen global civil society.

I had never come close to a real hero for truth and justice, a Mahatma Gandhi or a Nelson Mandela. This would be my chance. I wondered what sort of wisdom I would imbibe this morning as I struggled to allay my fears of living in a world and nation run by a profoundly ill-equipped and ill-tempered president, George W Bush.

But as former president of the Czech Republic and human rights champion Vaclav Havel took the microphone for the opening speech, I could not help thinking he was missing an opportunity.

Havel decried the election fraud in Belarus on 17 October that had propelled “Europe’s last dictator” into a potential lifetime role as president of that country.

Was Lukashenko’s corruption of Belarus’s political system, I reflected, really the most perverse threat to global democracy and civil society in recent months? Wasn’t President Vladimir Putin’s recent bold move to centralise power in Russia much more alarming? And isn’t the constant decree by the unelected president of the United States that criticism of his policies is tantamount to “comforting the enemy” an even more alarming sign that all is not right in civil society?

The elephant in the room

A conference devoted to building global civil society is a noble effort. And overall, this was a good one. But as an American observer just two weeks away from the most important election of my lifetime, I could not help but think that what the world needs now – urgently – is American civil society. Some of the speakers at the conference recognised this and asserted that efforts to build global civil society have been severely hampered by what one activist called “the elephant in the room”, American belligerence.

The ugliness of current American political discourse was particularly clear when former CIA director and public cheerleader for the war in Iraq James Woolsey took his turn to address the crowd of veteran activists and scholars. Woolsey declared that “civil society was crushed in Europe in the Nazi years and in eastern Europe in the communist years”, and went on to affirm that we (the United States) “serve the cause of civil society by dealing with totalitarian societies and totalitarian states.” Without waiting for a response or reaction, Woolsey left the room.

Woolsey flattened what had been a rather nuanced and optimistic effort to harness the power of global protest movements and the established reputations of more stable non-governmental organisations (NGOs). He evaded this conversation altogether, effectively declaring the concerns of the disenfranchised billions irrelevant to global governance, and dismissing their criticisms of American imperialism as hypocritical because Saddam would not have tolerated their speeches as well as he himself had.

My country is trapped in such a confined rhetorical space: if you are not with the president, you are against him. If you dare raise concerns or counterarguments, you are disloyal, possibly treacherous. Our style is clear: turn a taut phrase and storm out, indignant and immune.

This cannot continue. We need a democratic revival to temper the current religious revival. A sound defeat of George W Bush at the polls (barring a judicial coup d’etat) is not enough. We need a reinvigoration of passion, honesty, and élan into our public sphere. We need openness, confidence, and patience. We need deliberation and dissent from all sides, not nefarious skulking and ad hominem attacks on anyone who dares put themselves in the public service.
...

In 2000, we saw the dawn of a counter-revolution. A band of five judges abandoned their conservative principles of jurisprudence to appoint a political ally to the presidency over the will of the voters. Countless moves by the Republican party within American electoral politics since then have been aimed at intimidating voters, instilling doubt about the validity of votes, and bluntly disenfranchising millions. Every rhetorical move that George W Bush’s campaign and administration have made have pushed American voters to doubt evidence all around them, to mistrust reasonable authorities, to forget that we actually chose the other guy to lead us.

Almost immediately after Bush assumed office, a hush came over the nation. We were no longer allowed to discuss the illegitimacy of his rule. It was off-limits, impolite, a sign of derangement. Even people who knew better used the word “re-election” to describe Bush’s 2004 campaign goal. It was as if we were so familiar with the rituals of elections that we assumed that the very practice of the ritual granted legitimacy on the person who happened to assume power, even if the message the people sent had no connection to the final result.

If my country chooses George W Bush to lead it – really chooses him this time – then we have only come halfway back from the counter-revolution. We must fight subsequent efforts to disenfranchise large segments of the electorate. We must struggle twice as hard to demonstrate that democracy is more than marking a box on a computer screen and assuming that someone will care about that choice. It is about opening channels of communication to a broad array of voices and concerns. It is about bluntly interrogating the claims our leaders make for the actions they take. It is about returning sovereignty to the people and fostering a rich culture of deliberation and debate. It is about acting and living democratically. Voting is just an empty ritual if the nation does not allow itself to think and speak boldly.

Posted by Siva at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sixth Circuit just issued a very well-reasoned copyright and DMCA opinion in Lexmark Int'l v. Static Control Components that can be read here. Lexmark was using copyright and "paracopyright" laws to attempt to monopolize the printer toner cartridge market.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Or visualize Kerry winning, here!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go to the web now to watch this video.
Thanks to Siva for putting me on the Sivacracy team. I'm Joel Dinerstein, author of an award-winning cultural history of jazz and industrialization, Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African-American Culture Between the World Wars. An ex-rock critic and journalist, I'm currently an assistant professor of English and American Studies at Tulane, and I will be writing about music, popular culture, and issues of race. Now to Eminem:

This is the most courageous, successful artistic political statement by a musician since, I don't know, maybe "What's Going On" or "Blowin' in the Wind." I'm not kidding and I'm not prone to such exaggeration. I was incredibly moved by its power and vision, and it even ends by being socially responsible while avoiding corny, shallow cries for peace. It's the best use of digital video I've seen as well. Towards the end, as the inter-racial masses march to a slow, trudging beat -- resonating not only with the soldiers in Iraq, but Hiphop Nation and the undead -- their collective head-down death-march transmutes Malcolm X's famous speech, "The Ballot or The Bullet" for a new generation: we either vote Bush out now -- "this coward, this monster" -- or he gets us all killed. I never would have predicted Eminem had this in him. Eminem's team (including Dr. Dre, director Ian Inaba, and animator Anson Vogt) here produce a virtual short-story with few precedents: it organically integrates the visual, the musical, the lyrical, the political, the power of the powerless and the pop-cultural ephemeral (see, he's got me doing it already) into a well-paced narrative in which his leadership role is modest. "Come along / as I provide / just enough spark / that we need/ to proceed," he raps, to ignite individual action into collective struggle.

You go on with your good self, Marshall.

Posted by Joel at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Smithsonian Forum on Material Culture Invites all staff and members to attend its 67th Quarterly Meeting on Thursday, October 28, 2004, at the National Museum of American History, Behring Center (NMAH), 14th Street & Constitution Avenue, NW

The topic for the meeting will be: "Election Collections"

SCHEDULE:
3:00-3:45 pm: GALLERY TOUR “Vote: The Machinery of Democracy”
Larry Bird will conduct a tour of this new exhibition. (http://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/ ) Harry Rubenstein will continue our tour with a visit to “Separate Is Not Equal.” (http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/ Both are on the ground floor of American History. Tour departs from behind the Visitors’ Desk at the Constitution Entrance to NMAH.
Open and free to all

4:00-5:30 pm: PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSION
Information Age Auditorium, NMAH - Open and free to all
Introduced by: John Franklin, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Presentations will include:
Larry Bird, Historian of Political History, NMAH
“Mud and Thunder: Campaign Collecting at the National Museum, 1984-2004.”

Fath Ruffins, Curator of African American History and Culture, NMAH
“Collecting Civil Rights History: Perspectives on the Selma to Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act.”

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication, New York University
“The Ballot: A Technocultural History.”

Moderated by:
Brent Glass, Director, National Museum of American History, Behring Center.

5:30-6:00: WINE RECEPTION & INFORMAL DISCUSSION - Open and free to all. Presidential Reception Suite, NMAH

Posted by Siva at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday will be a busy day for me. I will be at the Smithsonian on Thursday afternoon giving a talk on ballot technology and design. But before I get on the train to DC I will send in the Thursday edition of Altercation. Eric is letting me pinch-hit once more before the election.

Posted by Siva at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Judge Richard Posner idealizes the peer-review process of other scholarly fields. But he is right about what is wrong with law journals.

Posted by Siva at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out today's "K Chronicles" by Keith Knight, at Salon.com!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check it out:

For us, the choice for Kerry involves simple things. Justice, liberty, privacy, transparency. Freedom of speech, thought, and technological expression. A woman's right to choose. Equal access to health care, education, and economic opportunity for all. The rule of law, at home and abroad. Peace. The enduring value of the American Constitution.

These are wonderful things. The Bush administration has proven both inability and unwillingness to protect them. In 2004, Kerry is the one.

Oh. Uh. Sivacracy endorses Kerry, too.

Posted by Siva at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, yes, I have a weird sense of humor and too much free time...
Click here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Right before the U.S. started bombing Iraq, when I stupidly thought there was at least a possibility that Bush might be dissuaded, I read an article by a group of journalists who were getting ready to leave Baghdad, describing the hopes and fears of the Iraqis they had interviewed. They reported that a group of children had said: "Take our pictures! Maybe if the Americans can see our photographs, they won't want to kill us anymore!" For some reason that affected me a lot, and stays with me every day. Today I read something I find similarly powerful, here:

[Excerpt]
Hundreds of people took to the streets in Baghdad yesterday to show their support for kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan - the first time there has been such a public protest against an abduction since the wave of hostage-taking began.

Nasrat al-Asdi, who had brought the children from the deaf school, said: "She has been invaluable for them. Not only did she give us money for hearing aids but she reconstructed the institute. We could not believe they would do this to someone like her."

As Anne Frank said, "It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eminem makes a powerful political statement here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another unauthorized derivative work, this one with storyboards!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The fabulous gadget site, Engadget.com is run by a cool writer named Peter Rojas. Today he offers an interview with EFF lawyer Wendy Seltzer.

Posted by Siva at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Brad Blog documents the way the Bush adminstration maintains its official website here, and it's an interesting read.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This game, Bash the Haggis, would be annoying even without the bagpipe. But, it's free!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another rendition at the Democratic Underground. Here is the text of Number Six, entitled "Vote Fraudsters" (links to supporting documents at site):

The GOP is clearly worried that they can't beat Kerry at the polls, so they've decided to simply try and stop Kerry voters from getting to the polls in the first place; the proof is found in various stories this week reporting vote suppression by Republican operatives. We made brief note last week of a scam in Nevada where a GOP-funded firm allegedly tore up Democratic voter registrations - turns out that firm has also been operating in Oregon.

So what does this tell us about the Republican party? Simply, if they fear one thing above all others, it's the will of the people.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read "When is a Cut Not a Cut? When It's a Con!" by Fred Kaplan at Slate.com; below is an excerpt:

Have you seen George W. Bush's latest campaign ad—the one with the wolves? A shaky hand-held camera moves through a forest at twilight. Suddenly a wolf darts across the screen, then another, until finally we see a whole pack of wolves, rising from their slumber to come get us. Over a soundtrack of rustling leaves and spooky music, the narrator—a breathy woman—says:

In an increasingly dangerous world, even after the first terrorist attack on America, John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America's intelligence operations. By $6 billion. Cuts so deep, they would have weakened America's defenses. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.

The key phrase here is "after the first terrorist attack on America." At first viewing, I took this as a reference to the aftermath of 9/11. (Millions of other viewers probably did, too; no doubt the scriptwriters meant us to make the connection.) This puzzled me, because nobody proposed cutting intelligence after 9/11. On second viewing, though, I realized that the phrase was a veiled reference to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Once this is clarified, the rest becomes plain. The Bush campaign appears to be repeating a falsehood that the Republican National Committee first propagated last March. We've been through this before, but now, with the "Wolves" ad, it's worth reciting again.

Another distortion in the "Wolves" ad: It wasn't just "the liberals in Congress" who voted for this refund. The sponsor of the Senate amendment that passed—and it passed without controversy—was Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania.

.....

The article goes on to note that about the same time Porter Goss, yes that Porter Goss, the new Bush-appointed head of the CIA, co-sponsored a bill that would have resulted in far deeper "intelligence cuts."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is bad. CNN is reporting that Chief Justice William Rehnquist has been hospitalized for treatment for thyroid cancer.

It does not look good.

Posted by Siva at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Analog Tetris, silly but funny.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ann Bartow is rolling along, providing Sivacracy readers with great stuff. Keep going, Ann!

I am immersed in a couple of short writing projects (deadlines) and have a bunch of grading to do this week (day job). I am still recovering from taking a week away from the office while in Europe last week.

Melissa and I went to Reading, PA on Saturday to motivate Latino voters. It was a great day. Wonderful response. We accompanied about 200 New Yorkers there Saturday. We left 100 on the street because there were more volunteers than buses.

We feel like we have adopted Pennsylvania as our own swing state.

We will be hitting Pennsylvania again this weekend. Wherever you are, find a swing-state close by and get there to knock on doors and make phone calls. Call your local KE'04 campaign headquarters to see if they are running buses.

Months ago I predicted a big win for Kerry/Edwards. It looks like my prediction is coming true. As of today, Pa, Oh, and FL are all going to KE'04. And big turnout could push NM, IA, Wi, and Mn into the blue. Now we see that Arkansas is on the bubble.

Mel is locked to the television, cheering on her beloved Red Sox. I am ignoring sports the best that I can. All my teams are letting me down. Sigh.

Look for my pre-election column on openDemocracy.net on Thursday.

Posted by Siva at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is an excerpt from Baghdad Burning, a blog written by a woman in Iraq:

Will asked if valium had become addictive after the war. Of course it has. Valium is a staple during wars. I remember when we were preparing for the war, we would make list after list of 'necessities'. One list was for pharmaceutical necessities. It included such basics as cotton, band-aids, alcohol, gauze and an ordinary painkiller. It also included medicines such as ampicloxine, codeine and valium. No one in the family takes valium, but it was one of those 'just in case' medications- the kind you buy and hope you never have to use.

I guess it's happening a lot now after the war too. When the load gets too heavy, people turn to something to comfort them. Abroad, under normal circumstances, if you have a burden- you don't have to bear it alone. You can talk to a friend or relative or psychiatrist or SOMEONE. Here, everyone has their own set of problems- a death in the family, a detainee, a robbery, a kidnapping, an explosion, etc. So you have two choices- take a valium, or start a blog.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Song by Ian Rhett. Listen here (click Launch Movie button).

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Bush campaign runs a commercial called "Wolves."

The wolves respond!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's NYT reports that Republicans will strategically challenge voter registrations in Democratic areas of Ohio such as Cleveland. Even if they are unable to successfully prevent a single individual from voting, just by slowing down the process they will supress votes, which is what they are likely counting on. If they can intimidate people from coming to the polls in the first place they will no doubt consider this gravy. See article here. What does one conclude about a political party that believes its best chance of winning the election is by undermining and interfering with the democratic process?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ENJOY THE DRAFT.com

Posted by Ann Bartow at 05:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The right wing of the Republican Party is so opposed to sex it will probably go exinct soon, and I'm guessing this is satirical!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting new conversation posted here. Check it out.

Between Anarchy and Oligarchy: Siva Vaidhyanathan In Conversation With R.U. Sirius

“Middle of the road” is generally used as an expression of contempt in our culture. Most of us probably agree, for instance, that MOR pop music really sucks and that the best stuff happens at the edges — at the extremes.

In some ways, this site is dedicated to that proposition; scientifically, technologically, and culturally. The attitude also turns up frequently in the political comments of our interview subjects.

But should the discourse and activity that surrounds our social, political, and economic life be extreme and polarized, or should we seek to preserve civility, compromise, and fine ethical distinctions within our well-established, if imperfect, system of democracy and law? In The Anarchist in the Library, Siva Vaidhyanathan speaks eloquently for this point of view, applying it to contemporary internet culture.

The major conflict point in contemporary net culture is probably best signified by the battle between the entertainment industry and file sharers. I tend to look at this as a fight between ownership and spontaneity. But in reading Vaidhyanathan’s finely thought-out book, in tandem with Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture, I’m ready to concede that the issues are more nuanced. More particularly, these books have educated me to the threat posed to free speech and cultural openness raised by the extreme legal actions of the entertainment industry’s copyright advocates. Here again, Vaidyanathan (and Lessig) suggests solutions that include reasonable copyright protections for artists and companies.

oddly, since reading these books, the “free music” debate has been rendered at least partly moot for one individual: me. It may sound terribly unhip, but I’m getting more satisfaction from a certain subscription music site than I have ever received while navigating the vagaries of the chaotic file-sharing universe. This is, of course, the point that file sharers have been making forever — that if the music industry would just get its shit together and offer better services at a reasonable price, they wouldn’t need to go stomping all over the p2p (peer-to-peer) crowd. That is starting to happen. Meanwhile though, the damage being done by excesses in copyright protection will continue to echo across our civic lives for years to come. (Read Vaidhyanathan’s and Lessig’s books to see how!)

Siva Vaidhyanathan, a cultural historian and media scholar, is the author of Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity (New York University Press, 2001) and The Anarchist in the Library (Basic Books, 2004). Vaidhyanathan has written for many periodicals, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Magazine, MSNBC.COM, Salon.com, openDemocracy.net, and The Nation. After five years as a professional journalist, Vaidhyanathan earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He has taught at Wesleyan University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison and is currently an assistant prfessor of Culture and Communication at New York University. He lives in Greenwich Village, USA.

NEOFILES: Your position is that the digital world is a battle between oligarchy and anarchy and you seek a middle ground. Could you explain this view briefly and tell us if you think we are finding our way towards a middle ground, and if so, how?

SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN: Well, as I survey all the big battles in information and technology policy, I see arms races everywhere. I see rabid rhetoric. I see extreme moves. The battle over music downloading is typical and instructive. To both the big music companies and my students, we are talking about fundamental values: commerce vs. freedom. Neither side concedes the slightest point to the other. One side is trying to lock up everything and control every step of the distribution process. The other is trying to pry loose everything and render it uncontrollable.

It’s basically impossible to conjure a middle ground of regulation in the digital world. Digital stuff is boolean: it is all ones and zeros. It is, by nature, subject to extremes. So we can only control ourselves, our behaviors, our expectations.

In other words, we must start checking ourselves and considering the consequences of our actions every time we participate in the information world. Are our actions causing harm? Limiting speech? Limiting commerce? Is that OK? We have only just begun asking these questions.

NF: What’s different here is that these broadly social actions are taking place within what used to be relatively private spaces; people’s homes (or desktops at least). It’s hard to accept that actions I take in my home — indeed by myself — like sharing music with my virtual neighbors can even be subject to debate. And there’s always the question: When is self-policing a sign of maturity and when is it a sign of excessive docility? Any thoughts?

SV: While self-censorship of otherwise minimally harmful activities is potentially harmful, I think our libertarian attitudes exaggerate that. We learn two lessons from being in cyberspace. One, the most obvious, is that cyberspace affords a certain confidence in freedom. It’s not actual freedom. But it’s an assumption of freedom.

The second lesson, the one we are just starting to realize, is connectivity. While pretty free, our actions, even online, affect others. Some actions affect others trivially. Others affect them profoundly. We must recognize the difference. And we must recognize that private real spaces like bedrooms and basements are no longer private when there is a DSL line or WiFi intruding on it. Connections matter just as much as liberties. And with connections come responsibility. I am pretty confident we are not going to grow docile on line. If we do, we have a long way to go.

So is sharing music subject to debate? Well, it really has been the subject of attack and response. We have had very little real debate yet. It’s just started.

NF: To what extend do your metaphors extend to political reality in general? Is the middle ground between anarchy and oligarchy disappearing? And if so, with the same intensity that it is in cyberspace?

SV: Our behaviors and expectations in one area of life necessarily alter them in other areas of life. I am not ready to make a crude association between the extremes of information policy and the perceived extremes of our domestic political scene in the United States. After all, we have been much more polarized that we are now. The Civil War comes to mind. But we have altered our technological imaginations. We consider communities and alliances of different sizes and shapes than we ever have before. Being mediated matters. I am better friends with the characters on “Friends” than I am with my neighbors down the street. And I have a stronger connection with a lawyer in Sweden whom I have only met over e-mail than I do with many of the people in my office. I think this is increasingly true for many people around the world. So where do our loyalties lie? For some, they lie with the cybercommunities of Islamic fundamentalists, or Hindu fundamentalists, or libertarian fundamentalists. For others, they lie with the greater species of homo sapiens. Again, we have not worked through how these powerful new communicative habits will affect our loyalties, expectations, and aspirations. Having such important things in flux and on the defensive affects our political imagination as well. I think it’s safe to say that the violent cybercommunity of Islamic fundamentalists has already reacted quite defensively to the notion of universal human dignity and has affected the real world quite profoundly. There is a big hole in my neighborhood to prove it.

NF: So are we losing our consensus reality? And instead of replacing it with something more expansive and pluralistic, are we “ghettoizing” ourselves into well-defended subcultures?

SV: Wow. That’s the big, heavy question of our times. Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago certainly thinks that ideological fragmentation is a necessary effect of the customization of our mediascapes. But I disagree. Our “ghettos” intersect and interact. If you read right-wing blogs, they are always commenting of left-wing blogs, and vice-versa. And blogs of all persuasions comment on mainstream media outlets. But we are not lurching toward consensus in any way. We are bubbling and boiling along, connected yet unaffiliated, united by division. This is Georg Hegel’s America now, caught in the vortex of the dialectic imagination. And it ain’t pretty. The ideal of the democratic ecosystem is John Dewey’s: We argue and argue and argue and agree on the little points just enough to progress toward some elusive consensus. We need to do much work to move from Hegel to Dewey.

So to answer your question without gettin’ all philosophical on it: We are fracturing the potential for consensus. But we are not hiding within well-defined subcultures. Our subcultures are contingent and in flux. They are constantly breaking down and building themselves anew. And they intersect. An anarchist can work with a liberal political organizer for a weekend. And they can share rare live recordings of Rage Against the Machine over Wi-Fi. But they can move away pretty quickly, bickering over the designated hitter or the Second Amendment.

Of course, my answer is way too grounded in the currents of America in 2004. The situation is different (but not that different) in Egypt, India, Russia, and Brazil. In each of these places, and everywhere else that is changing rapidly, we are seeing that the changing expectations that are the clearest yield of globalization are generating social tension and ruptures. Fundamentalisms of all type are rising, but only in response to the potential of global human connections.

NF: Lawrence Lessig clearly believes that copyright law is the greatest threat to free speech and discourse in America. You seem to agree with that view to some extent. How would you differentiate your views on this from his?

SV: Copyright is the most pervasive threat to free speech in America. By that, I mean that it’s the instrument of censorship most likely to stifle the most Americans. Other instruments of censorship — USA PATRIOT Act, secret detentions of immigrants and uncharged terrorism suspects, restrictions on public demonstrations, the thugs who arrest mothers of soldiers at Laura Bush campaign stops — are more acute and more deeply troublesome than copyright. But they are rather narrowly targeted and thus less influential within this big, teeming democratic culture as a whole. Which is the greatest threat? It depends on whether you are a man with a foreign name and olive skin or a kid trying to break through as an artist. I think we should be concerned with all these threats yet keep them in perspective. They are connected by the sense of moral panic that has infected our information worlds.

The only important difference between Lawrence Lessig and me involve our attitudes toward the civil courts. My basic complaint about the current copyright system is that Congress and the copyright industries have driven copyright regulation out of the domain of human interactions like courts and into machines themselves. They have tried to make copyright enforcement cost-free and risk-free. Taking someone to court costs money. I think this is a dangerous, technocratic trend. And Lessig agrees with me so far. But he thinks music companies suing potential infringers over peer-to-peer usage is a bad idea. I see the lawsuits as the proper way to deal with accusations of infringement. The fact that the lawsuits cost something — legal fees, public face, etc. — show that the music industry secretly considers the Digital Millennium Copyright Act a complete failure. And the widespread horror stories of college kids, grandmothers, and 12-year-olds having to fork over $3,000 to billion-dollar corporations have only helped reveal the absurdities of the copyright moral panic. So I am glad the music companies have chosen the responsible tactic, the lawsuit. They will pay a heavy price for being bullies, and so will those unfortunate enough to get sued. But both peer-to-peer users and music companies must assess the risks of their behaviors. That sounds harsh. I don’t like the idea of my students losing $3,000 for doing something relatively harmless. But over time, the industry will see that the public cost of the lawsuits outweigh the imagined deterrent effect of them.

My differences with Lessig are slight and almost trivial. I applaud everything he has done in this area, especially Creative Commons,

Can there be a middle ground between oligarchy and anarchy?
which is brilliant and important. Unlike me and just about every other scholar, Lessig has actually built something. We should all thank him.

One thing that Lessig and I are both interested in doing is connecting these copyright issues to the more familiar (and easier to understand) battles over media ownership and political power of media companies. In public discourse, copyright issues have been expressed as “theft vs. justice.” We have done a great job of complicating this false dichotomy and sparking a discussion of users’ rights. Now we have to broaden the movement and the discussion. The concentration question is being directly addressed by organizations like FreePress.net. A D.C.-based group is linking the copyright issues to these issues that both Lessig and I are involved with: Publicknowledge.org. I think both these efforts are about to crest. People are finally starting to pay attention and we have finally achieved the proper vocabulary and strategies. I am confident that in the next five years the public will take back its copyright system in this country.

Posted by Siva at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy ending for Garcia Marquez

A last-minute change to Gabriel Garcia Marquez' new novel has dealt a blow to pirates who flooded his native Colombia with bootleg versions.

Posted by Siva at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Prague was great. I heard Vaclav Havel speak twice. Heard James Woosley speak once (ugh). Drank great beer. Ate far too many potatoes and potato bye-products.

Ann did an amazing job while I was away. She is far better at this blogging thing than I am. I hope she continues to contribute. As you may have noticed, there are now several other folks who will start contributing posts to this blog. I think we will have some fun over the next few months.

Anyway, Melissa and I are heading to Pennsylvania again tomorrow to get out the vote for John Kerry.

We are going to win this one. Big. Promise.

Posted by Siva at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Entitled "Karl Rove in a Corner," by Joshua Green, it can be read online here.

Here is an excerpt:

Newspaper coverage on November 9, the morning after the election, focused on the Republican Fob James's upset of the Democratic Governor Jim Folsom. But another drama was rapidly unfolding. In the race for chief justice, which had been neck and neck the evening before, Hooper awoke to discover himself trailing by 698 votes. Throughout the day ballots trickled in from remote corners of the state, until at last an unofficial tally showed that Rove's client had lost—by 304 votes. Hornsby's campaign declared victory.

When I went to visit Hooper, not long ago, we sat in the parlor of his Montgomery home as he described the denouement of Karl Rove's closest race. "On the afternoon of October the nineteenth," Hooper recalled, "I was in the back yard planting five hundred pink sweet Williams in my wife's garden, and she hollered out the back door, 'Your secretary just called—the Supreme Court just made a ruling that you're the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court!'" In the final tally he had prevailed by just 262 votes. Hooper smiled broadly and handed me a large photo of his swearing-in ceremony the next day. "That Karl Rove was a very impressive fellow," he said.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Guest blogging here was great fun! I'll continue to post on occcasion until Siva serves me with the restraining order, but the Blog is officially back under his control, so the weirdness factor will likely subside somewhat. Thanks Siva!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By "Charles Pugsley Fincher." Can that possibly be the author's real name?
Here and uncensored.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From today's NYT:

"The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military's medical corps.

On the other hand, it said, such contacts must be limited, low key and discreet because "overtures from Selective Service to the medical community will be seen as precursors to a draft," and that could alarm the public."

....

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Excerpt from Salon.com article here:

The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.

Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yikes, some of these are really creepy...and wickedly creative. So are these. Here are a few choice words from the website's author:

"This website has been unbelievably popular since October 1st. It was a USA Today hotsite and Yahoo's Pick of the Day. By the way you bastards used our photo and didn't give us a credit. I doubt I can expect a check in future huh?"

Oh, and don't miss the "Rotting Presidential Race."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See Pet of the Week (#31) here. Many weird, and wonderful, and did I mention weird, video clips at this site.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to Dog Owners Are Sadists, dogs don't like costumes much at all.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spirited pro-choice, pro-Oprah column by Michael Moore here, which concludes with these words:

"Here's the bottom line: 50 million eligible women didn't vote in 2000, and 22 million of them were single and nearly every one of them probably thought their vote doesn't matter and it isn't really worth it and who cares anyway because no matter who wins, everything's still pretty much run by rich powerful men anyway. Which is, you know, sort of true. But not quite.

"Hey, it's your choice. But not for long."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Absentee ballots are arriving with two contradictory sets of instructions about how to mark a vote, see story here and excerpt below:

Kelley Moore opened up his absentee ballot Friday and began reading the instructions. When it came to marking the ballot, the more he read the more confusing it became.

"But then I thought, what if I use a pen and I don't follow the instructions on the ballot - will they throw it out?"

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Smokey the Log, brought to you by Yes Bush Can '04.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From a San Diego Union-Tribune article entited "Familes of the Fallen and Thier Views on the War" available here. Located via TBogg.

I understand that this man is grieving the loss of his son but...

[Cpl. Dustin Sides'] father has watched the news with a growing sense of frustration, especially in the months since his son was killed May 31 near Fallujah.

But he's fed up with talk of a "sensitive war" and thinks the only way to fight in Iraq is to "crush these people and bring them to their knees." He said he will vote for Bush.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"A Bush rally volunteer reacts to three women's attire and tosses them out"

See story from The Oregonian here:

Janet Voorhies said she was curious to see how Republicans would react when she and two other women showed up at President Bush's Central Point rally wearing T-shirts stating "Protect Our Civil Liberties."

She said this volunteer pointed to her shirt and said it was "obscene." .....

Posted by Ann Bartow at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Florida's Bradenton Herald:

"When the Herald recommended the election of George W. Bush as president of the United States four years ago, we lauded his record in Texas as a consensus builder and expressed confidence in his ability to unite the country after four years of bitter partisanship. We liked his slogan, "A uniter, not a divider," and criticized opponent Al Gore's role as point man for Democrats' mean-spiritedness.

As for Bush being a uniter, sadly, the nation is more polarized than it has been since the 1960s. Bush's administration is notable for its lack of transparency, its intolerance of dissent, its refusal to admit mistakes. Under Bush's leadership and Republican control, Congress has become a mean-spirited, partisan body where the vice president is praised for cursing an opposition senator on the Senate floor. The "compassionate conservative" president has people at outdoor rallies arrested for hoisting an opposition sign."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted here, by the Democratic Underground.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An article in today's NYT discusses the suit Rosa Park's "representatives" filed with respect to the OutKast song entitled "Rosa Parks." And now of course I've titled this entry "Rosa Parks." Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks, rosaparksrosaparksrosaparks, ROSA PARKS, an ordinary woman with extraordinary courage. Better invoke her name as much as possible before doing so is enjoined...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Free time? Check out Kozo v. Vending Machine, or the Snowman.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You'll probably want to watch this twice...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yet another tissue of lies by the Bush Adminstration, this time about the flu vaccine shortage? The Washington Post reports:

British health officials said Friday that their American counterparts were informed in mid-September that problems at a drug manufacturing plant in northwest England could disrupt influenza vaccine supplies to the United States.

Unlike the United States, health officials in Britain responded to the warning by making "plans by contacting other manufacturers," Langley said....

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Silt:

Tajik Air, the flag carrier of Tajikistan, has added a new item to the usual seat-back clutter of barf bags, over-water evacuation instructions, and duty-free catalogues: a passenger safety information card explaining what to do in the event of a hijacking .... Some excerpts from the rather inadequate English translation:

Don’t lose hope for the bast exit of the situation.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is basically a commercial for "Team America" but it's sort of funny...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I came of age during the Carter Administration and I always felt a little sorry for Amy Carter, because she had to endure so much media scrutiny as she grew up. I felt the same way about Chelsea Clinton. The adult children of U.S. Presidents seem to be able to stay somewhat out of limelight if they want to (assuming they stay out of trouble), but the kids living in the Whitehouse are relentlessly observed and reported about, even (to a somewhat lesser extent) after their dads leave office and they become adults. There doesn't seem to be any effective way to shelter them.

My sympathies extended to Jenna and Barbara Bush up until they took the stage at the Republican National Convention. Since they are obviously and unambiguously looking for attention, they are going to have accept unfavorable as well as positive reactions. And if you want to read a hilarious negative critique of their campaign blog, see the "Twin Blogging" entry at World O'Crap.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pundit Mickey Kaus on John Kerry's daughter:

Do Americans want a first daughter who parades around in a dress Paris Hilton would be embarrassed to wear ? And shouldn't she have, you know, thought of that? Even if she looks good in it. ... P.S.: Could she be what these pictures suggest--a bit vain, selfish and opportunistic? John Kerry's daughter, of all people!

Pundit Mickey Kaus on John Kerry's mention of Dick Cheney's daughter's sexual orientation:

Kerry was puncturing the "hypocrisy" of Bush's position, as some Kerry defenders claim, only if the sole reason to oppose gay marriage is homophobia. I support the idea of experimenting with gay marriage, but surely it's possible to be a non-bigot and be reluctant to immediately tinker with such a venerable social institution (even if modern monogamous marriage is itself a tinkering with the much longer-standing human tradition of polygyny). Once you admit this possibility of non-bigoted reluctance, then Kerry's move looks less like hypocrisy-puncturing and more like a straight appeal to homophobia. As such, it does no credit to Kerry. ... Perilous race analogy: What if Kerry were debating a conservative on affirmative action, and that conservative had a black wife, and Kerry gratuitously brought that up in an attempt to cost his opponent the racist vote? Would Andrew Sullivan approve? I don't think so. ...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was always a little cynical about Rock the Vote. Not anymore!

Mr. Ed Gillespie, Chairman
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

Jehmu S. Greene
President

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Much as I like to see female U.S. Senators elected, I'm hoping very much to see Lisa Murkowski lose. Here is an excerpt from a story about her at Salon, by Joe Conason called "The Boss's Daughter":

In any other election year, Alaska's conservative electorate could be expected to chill Democratic hopes of taking over a United States Senate seat held by a Republican incumbent. Republicans hold every statewide elected office, enjoying a powerful base of support from the dominant energy, fishery and development industries, as well as an ideological advantage among the state's many gun-toting libertarians and fundamentalist Christians.

The pattern appears plain enough. While the Murkowskis pretend not to know each other, the special interests that know them both have invested heavily in her campaign while awaiting his nod.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A "must read" from today's NYT here (you'll have to register or be registered, or buy a copy from a newsstand!), "Without A Doubt" by Ron Suskind.

I'm tempted to excerpt the part where Bush confuses Sweden and Switzerland, but instead will go with this:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community? Many of the other elected officials in Washington, it would seem. A group of Democratic and Republican members of Congress were called in to discuss Iraq sometime before the October 2002 vote authorizing Bush to move forward. A Republican senator recently told Time Magazine that the president walked in and said: ''Look, I want your vote. I'm not going to debate it with you.'' When one of the senators began to ask a question, Bush snapped, ''Look, I'm not going to debate it with you.''

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This women is an amazing writer. Her latest Democratic Underground column, entitled "The Immoderator," is here. Here is an excerpt:

PLAIDDER: Mr. President, you have repeatedly said that you would have gone to war against Saddam Hussein even if you had known then that he did not have stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, that his nuclear capability had actually been declining since the onset of the U.N. inspections, and that he was not an imminent threat to the United States - despite the fact that you and even Vice President Cheney are now admitting that there is no connection between Iraq and September 11. Are there any circumstances under which you wouldn't have gone to war against Saddam Hussein following September 11?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Watch the hip hop effing video; link found at the Leiter Blog.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Play it here. Doesn't the vocalist sound like the woman from Grammar Rock back in the day?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 06:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An actual product? Watch Conference Bike in action here. More social than a Segway, in any event.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mostly from France, watch them here. My favorite is "Renault Modus."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Enjoy! Sing along!
Download file
By Jesse Boggs.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Published in the 10/15 LA Times and discovered by me via Pandagon, I give you the closing statement of Crispin Sartwell, Nihilist candidate for President, at a debate on domestic policy:

"My fellow Americans. As president, I will have only one commitment, one concern, indeed only one thought, if that: to keep America safe.

But we must do so carefully."

If it wasn't for the underwear inspections, I might be tempted to vote for him...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Public Citizen:

"American businesses file four times as many lawsuits as do individuals represented by trial attorneys, and they are penalized by judges much more often for pursuing frivolous litigation, according to a report issued today by Public Citizen."

"The survey of case filings in two states (Arkansas and Mississippi) and two local jurisdictions (Cook County, Ill., and Philadelphia, Pa.) in 2001 found that businesses were 3.3 to 5.8 times more likely to file lawsuits than were individuals. This comes as businesses and politicians are campaigning to limit citizens’ rights to sue over everything from malpractice damages to defective products. By way of comparison, the number of American consumers (281 million) outnumbers the number of businesses in America (7 million) 40 times."

Read the report here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jim Tobin, director of the 2004 New England regional Bush-Cheney campaign, has been implicated in 2002 activities in New Hampshire, while the Ashcroft Justice Department is accused of trying to delay an investigation until after the election, see story here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seeing Red in Florida, by Farhad Manjoo
Available at Salon.com, here's an excerpt:

"It wasn't supposed to happen again. This is the refrain you hear up and down the state this year, from elections officials, voting-rights advocates, civil rights experts and ordinary voters fed up with the reputation for electoral clumsiness that Florida has held since 2000. Or, more precisely, the chant goes, It wasn't supposed to happen again -- but it is. Like meteorologists nervously surveying the Gulf Coast during hurricane season, elections experts who've studied procedures in Florida now see a slow-motion disaster approaching the state. The weather here isn't pleasant: You've got partisan and/or incompetent officials, new and controversial voting technology, extremely litigious candidates, a flood of new voters, and an unbearably close race, with 27 electoral votes -- and the presidency -- hanging in the balance."

"Bobbie Brinegar, president of the Miami-Dade chapter of the League of Women Voters and a fiercely nonpartisan advocate for election reform, is even more blunt. "There's very little chance we'll have a fair election in Florida," she says. "Very little chance.""

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New pix here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I predict there will be allegations and evidence of vote tampering attributable to both parties. If one is a conspiracy theorist, one could imagine operatives from one party actually doing some tampering on behalf of the other party (with puppets with the "correct" party registration set up to take the blame), so that they can plausibly make the claim that there was cheating on both sides and "it all evens out." This assertion cannot be given any weight, or vote tampering becomes even more highly incentivized.

Where I am hearing this "it all evens out" argument at present is by Republicans, in response to some pretty powerful evidence that large numbers of Democratic voter registration forms have been systematically destroyed in many important states. Republicans point to surges in voter registration in these same states and allege that the Democrats are manipulating the process as well and "it all evens out." The most powerful illustrative evidence of alleged Democratic misbehavior they offer are districts in which registration is preternaturally high with respect to the adult population. Yet Atrios reminds us:

"Every election year Republicans start pointing to counties where there are more registered voters than eligible ones. Okay, very slowly people. This happens. People die, and rarely call their local election board to inform them of that fact. People move, without bothering to tell their local election board. Often when they move they fail to re-register, or if they do re-register their new election board doesn't bother to inform their old one."

"Do inflated voter rolls open up the possibility of voter fraud? Sure. But inflated voter rolls are not evidence of voter registration fraud."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read the very funny Ironic Times! Don't miss pages two and three (the links are small and green...)

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go to Lessig's blog and read her full post! Here is an excerpt:

"Yes, I’m running for US Senate (http://GrannyD.com) at the age of 94 against a Bush Yes Man and debate coach, Sen. Judd Gregg. I will debate Gregg next week and am nervous about it, though I certainly have the facts on my side, while his major accomplishments are the Iraq War, the deficit, the fact that the largest employer in New Hampshire was Digital Equipment when he began his term (it is now Wal-Mart), and the fact that you could eat the fish in our streams when he began his term, and they now have enough mercury to tell their own temperature! I’m coming from behind, to put it mildly, but some last-minute TV, a little advice from Joe Trippi, and I think I we can make it interesting."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the many unsettling things Bush said during the last debate was this:

"Many people are coming to this country for economic reasons. They're coming here to work. If you can make 50 cents in the heart of Mexico, for example, or make $5 here in America, $5.15, you're going to come here if you're worth your salt, if you want to put food on the table for your families. And that's what's happening."

"That has the benefit of making sure our employers aren't breaking the law as they try to fill their workforce needs. It makes sure that the people coming across the border are humanly treated, that they're not kept in the shadows of our society, that they're able to go back and forth to see their families. See, the card will have a period of time attached to it."
....

"Now, it's very important for our citizens to also know that I don't believe we ought to have amnesty. I don't think we ought to reward illegal behavior. There are plenty of people standing in line to become a citizen, and we ought not to crowd these people ahead of them in line. If they want to become a citizen, they can stand in line, too. And here's where my opponent and I differ. In September 2003, he supported amnesty for illegal aliens."

(Copied from transcript here)

The reasons I found this disturbing are long and complicated and many, but here are a few brief observations:

1. Bush seems to assume that illegal immigrants are paid the minimum wage or close to the minimum wage when they work here. A large body of evidence suggests that they are not. Hiring "undocumented" workers carries risks for employers and one of the reasons they are willing to assume these risks is that doing so is very profitable. In addition to avoiding payroll taxes, such employers can demand long hours at low wages.

2. Employers of illegal immigrants reap other "savings" as well. They can subject "undocumented" workers to uncomfortable and unsafe working conditions, and if a worker is injured, they can usually avoid paying any sort of monetary compensation.

3. If Bush is so concerned about "rewarding illegal behavior" he could make more of an effort to identify and *severely* punish the businesses hiring illegal aliens. Increasing the penalties would likely decrease the practice, and create more "legitimate" jobs as well.

4. The idea of "work cards" for foreign workers is complicated and difficult. On the one hand, it is hard not to admire and want to help people in poorer nations with the ambition and courage and strong work ethics to take advantage of such a program. On the other hand, the idea that there are jobs that American workers are unwilling to do is astonishing, and defies credulity. If we helped unemployed people here relocate as necessary within this large nation, and provided some "start-up" daycare and transportation assistance to folks with economic challenges, I doubt that many jobs would go unfilled by American workers.

5. If I'm wrong, and there are a fair number of jobs that American workers simply will not fill, let's face it, these are likely to feature both low wages and truly miserable working conditions. That being so, are we going to ensure that "work card" employees get the same minimum wage, overtime pay, heath and safety and workers compensation considerations as U.S. workers? Because it seems likely that the employers eager to hire "work card" workers will petition Congress for all kinds of special exemptions, which could have myriad negative effects on the labor markets for all workers in this country.

p.s. How long do you think Jim Carrey had to "wait in line" for U.S. citizenship?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ground Control to David Bowie....

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How y'all doing? Wondering if when Siva gets back from Prague he's going to wonder what the heck he was thinking when he invited me to guest blog? Well, before he changes the password without telling me, check this out!

"With the help of the The Saint Ashcroft Votive,
you will impress your friends and imprison
your tormentors. Over 7000 minutes of pure
prayer power for just $7.50 - that's over 9
minutes of prayer for a penny!"

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My local newspaper does not carry Boondocks so I'm glad I can read it online. My local newspaper censors Doonesbury quite a bit as well.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is completely hilarious, though it caused me to back slowly away from my computer...

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Winner of the Spamcademy Award!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well if nothing else, this will take your mind off the debates!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe the police in Tennessee have too much free time on their hands? How else to explain the fact that they threatened to arrest a women who was selling vibrating sponge duck toys at a flea market outside Nashville?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought Kerry did a pretty good job, although that remark about how "allegedly" people from the Middle East were entering the country illegally was kind of jarring. He obviously has a quick mind and good grasp of the issues, and seemed resolute and confident. Bush smiled a lot more, and was reasonably coherent most of the time, but he didn't answer the questions very often. He attacked "his opponent" a lot, but didn't say many positive things about his record, and I don't understand why voters would believe he is going to do a better job in the next four years. And if he is so darn resolute and courageous, why doesn't he make a clear statement about his view on abortion?

Here in South Carolina the public schools need more money, and the roads and physical infrastructure need a lot of repair and upgrading, but the voters simply want tax cuts, or so it would seem from who gets elected, even though we never actually receive any significant tax cuts as far as I can tell. Will the entire country behave like South Carolina, or are we as a nation ready to act like the more prosperous states?

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Plaintiff's Complaint is here. Among other startling claims, she alleges at page 12 that O'Reilly told her Bush and Cheney are going to cause harm to Al Franken. Yikes!

O'Reilly has filed his own suit against his accuser and her attorney, alleging an extortion attempt. A copy of his Complaint is here.

Very funny (though undoubtedly not to Bill O'Reilly) take on this at World O'Crap. Here is an excerpt:

"So, I got the bimbo her job back, and at what they were paying her at CNN. I was awfully good to this babe, and all I asked in return was that she be competent at her job, and share some sexual fantasies with me on the phone. Is that too much to ask?"

"I went out of my way to give her special favors in appreciation of her listening skills. I got her the gig interviewing Hillary Clinton, for gosh sakes, cuz I know how much the broads who think they are smart dig Hillary. Of course, I actually sold more books than Hillary did last year, but some people seem to like her, even though she is hideous to look at, and shrill and evil and stuff."

"But watching Hillary made me think that the bimbo could end up like her if she didn't loosen up a bit, get some juices flowing. So, I suggested that she should purchase a vibrator. She still said that she didn't do that kind of thing. (Yeah, right!) So, to spare her false modestly, I told her that we could do it together. You know, I could coach her through it."

"See, I am known as a being a great teacher. Before I became the most popular cable news host in the world, I was a high school teacher. In fact, I won a Peabody award ... no, two Peabody awards ... for my teaching. Kids, education is important, and that's why you should stay in school, even if your teachers aren't as cool as I am."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New song about staying away from the polls by Billionaires For Bush, who have this mission statement:

"Once again poor people and other losers are conspiring to elect John Kerry, a man who will pander to the special interests of everyday Americans. As guardians of privilege and power, it's our sacred duty to defend the Bush administration from this barbaric electoral challenge. Here you'll find the tools and information you need to help us hold on to America."

Listen here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Calls itself the Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse, check it out here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These are REALLY frightening!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Republican talking points in a very time efficient format here!

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out my posts today on Eric Alterman's Altercation.

Some subjects include:

* The Sinclair scandal
* Dred Scott and John Ashcroft
* The Yankees and Red Sox

And there is a continuation of the discussion of Cass Sunstein's new book.

Posted by Siva at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this.
I could hardly bring myself to read it all the way through, but if it is true, this story needs to be told. Learned about it here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A teacher named Dante Zappala has written a very moving essay about the death of his brother Sherwood in Iraq. It is available here (you need to either be a Salon.com subscriber, or to watch some ads to access it). Zappala is a member of Military Familes Speak Out. Below is an excerpt from his essay.

“Sherwood, without question, had an instinct to be a keeper and a promoter of life. And still, he kept the wisdom that try as we do to prevent bad things from happening, sometimes bad things just happen. His life had taught him this much.”

“When people say, "Sherwood died to avenge 9/11," I have to bow my head and leave. Sherwood was not a vengeful person. For his sake, I have pledged to relinquish anger, which seems to be as equally revered in our culture as fear is.”

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Read more here.
Freeway blogger is great! See pictures here and archives here (click on thumbnails to make them large enough to read).

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is the trouble with David Brooks?

Nascar vs. Lattes; Paragraph vs. Spreadsheet; Country vs. City?!?!?!

Enough already! That paradigm has sailed.

For fun there is this.

Posted by at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

High schools are required - ironically, by Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act - to provide military recruiters with student home phone numbers and addresses. And they use them to recruit! Read more about this here or here or here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello! Melissa Henriksen here. In response to Comments on my post RE: Kerry and Bush on Science, I quote from the editorial by Don Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief of Science.

In mid-June, we sent the questions around to the science policy mavens in each campaign, asking that they respond by mid-August. Senator Kerry met that deadline, barely. President Bush took 3 weeks more, so we let him have an untimed exam and got longer answers.

Posted by at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well this doesn't bode too well: Iraqi women are going to get "trained" by the Independent Women's Forum, an antifeminist organization that is "opposed to government-provided childcare, equal pay for equal work and quotas for women in government service..."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interactive schematic of Bill Gates' house here. So that's where my Windows, Word and Powerpoint licensing fees went! I admit I'm envious of the "trampoline room."

Posted by Ann Bartow at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NYU's e-mail system is down. I hope this has not inconvenienced anyone writing to me. I will respond tomorrow.

Posted by Siva at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you are not familiar with the cartoons of David Rees, you are really missing out. I find "Get Your War On" quite brilliant. Today I introduce you to "Filing..." as well.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Science magazine asked Kerry and Bush to answer several questions about their approaches to science policy. Remarkably, in print, they agree on quite a bit. When they do not is usually the result of one of two things. 1. Bush wraps his answer in an ideology or 2. Bush invokes his truly remarkable ability to ignore reality.

Posted by at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeopardy champion-practically-for-life Ken Jennings was denied $200 when Alex Trebek rejected his response to the clue, "This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker."

Jennings asked, "What is a hoe?" The answer Alex was expecting: "What is a rake?"

I know, I didn't believe it either, but there is an audio clip of this here.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

News.com reports that P2P users are still smarter than the RIAA is.

Kazaa, once the top Net nemesis of record companies and movie studios, appears to have lost its role as the world's most popular file-swapping software, network watchers said Monday.

Posted by Siva at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate here in South Carolina (vying for Fritz Hollings’ seat), Jim DeMint, has publicly declared that gays and unwed pregnant women are unfit to be schoolteachers. This lead my wonderful USC colleague Laura Woliver to ask whether he would ban unwed fathers as well, and she couldn’t resist noting that the late U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond had fathered an out-of-wedlock child in the 1920s and then taught public school for a while. As a high school student I must have been absent or not paying attention when we reached the part of the curriculum where the teachers reveal their marital statuses and sexual orientations to the students, because I sure don’t remember it.

I read this morning that Tom Coburn, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Oklahoma, has announced he’s learned that “lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom.” Audio here.

One could willfully misinterpret this as an argument in favor of coeducational restrooms, but I suspect he has other ideas about how he will address this, none of which I’m going to like much.

For the sakes of gays and lesbians everywhere, plus heterosexuals who for whatever reason are incorrectly assumed to be gay or lesbian, I hope neither guy is elected.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the type of thing that makes me so love the Internet: Mount St. Helens volcanocam!

If you teach or study copyright law, and want some visuals with which to illustrate (or at least contemplate) the functionality doctrine that cabins copyrights in pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, yesterday's NYT Magazine has great photos of design objects. Online (with NYT registration), they are available as "slide shows" here.

From the "just because you are paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you" department, Salon.com reports that the FBI spent years spying on free speech activist Mario Savio, despite no indication he broke laws or posed any particular danger. Short story here (you need to either subscribe to Salon or watch some ads to access it).

Finally, since I opened with a volcano I'll close with the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates (more steam!). If you are interested in a very partisan, very humorous take on them, check out the Democratic Underground's Top Ten Conservative Idiots.

Posted by Ann Bartow at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Siva has invited me to post here a bit, so I thought I'd introduce myself today, and wait until Thursday when Siva is safely in Prague to really let loose, wa-ha-ha-ha-ha (maniacal cackling). My name is Ann Bartow and I am on the faculty of the University of South Carolina School of Law. I primarily teach intellectual property law courses, and a class in Cyberspace Law as well.

In addition to Sivacracy (of course), one of my favorite blogs is World O'Crap which today features a truly frightening photograph of Ann Coulter in honor of her birthday.
Enjoy! http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/

Posted by Ann Bartow at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Associated Press story ran on Forbes.com:

Movement Seeks Copyright Alternatives

10.10.2004, 01:35 PM

Getting rights OK'd can be frustrating for artists, be they authors seeking to quote an essay or documentary filmmakers who've got snippets of pop songs playing in the background of key scenes. Artists and scholars who believe the current copyright system unduly stifles creativity are pushing a less restrictive alternative that they call the Creative Commons.

Driving the movement is the belief that we all benefit when creative minds are free to expand upon others' work - that public discourse is hurt when too much of it is weighed down by the baggage of commerce.

Adherents of Creative Commons are a varied lot. They include MIT, the Beastie Boys, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, newspaper columnist Dan Gillmor and the British Broadcasting Corp.

"The (Creative) Commons encourages sharing and makes explicit that creativity depends on easy access to raw materials," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a New York University professor critical of current copyright laws. "Right now, you have to assume you're going to get in trouble if you quote from somebody extensively or build upon a previous expression."

The Commons is a response to Congress' gradual extension of copyright protection, from the 14 years set in 1790 to today's 70 years beyond an individual's death.

Consider "Class of '83," a low-budget documentary about classmates killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We shot in an auditorium where everybody came together and had the children's choir sing the Bette Midler song `The Rose,'" said Tom Barger, the movie's editor. "We had to cut most of that song out."

That's where the Creative Commons would help.

Think of it as "Copyright Lite," a compromise between the full protections of copyright law and placing a creative work entirely in the public domain.

Under its framework, copyright holders can let others use their works for free while stipulating limits - for instance, requiring attribution while prohibiting sales. They can't veto individual projects - the way copyright holders can now deny rights to filmmakers with whom they disagree.

Under the Creative Commons, a small-town orchestra with limited funding can find pieces to perform for free. An independent filmmaker can search for free footage of the New York skyline. A rap or hip-hop artist can rhyme over snippets of songs without legal worries.

Early backers of this Internet-based clearinghouse include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which contributed materials from selected courses, and O'Reilly Media Inc., which shares electronic versions of Gillmor's "We the Media" and about three dozen other books, many no longer in print.

To make the anti-war documentary "Uncovered," producers spent roughly half of their $200,000 budget - not to mention countless hours - securing the rights to footage of President Bush and other public figures. They even had to remove a few clips when the copyright owners denied permission outright.

Last month, the producers of "Uncovered" contributed the original interviews from that movie and from "Outfoxed," a critique of the Fox News Channel, to the clearinghouse. "Uncovered" associate producer Jim Gilliam said he wants to help future filmmakers avoid having to navigate the legal terrain.

And in the November issue of Wired magazine, Byrne, the Beastie Boys, Brazilian pop star Gilberto Gil and 13 other artists will release songs on a CD meant for sharing.

The BBC, meanwhile, is looking to adapt the Commons' licensing structure for the BBC Creative Archive, which will allow noncommercial projects to freely use clips from well-known BBC television shows.

These high-profile offerings, though, represent just a fraction of the estimated 5 million items in the Commons, whose funding includes $800,000 from the Center for the Public Domain, $1.2 million from the MacArthur Foundation and $1 million from the Hewlett Foundation. The bulk is text such as Web logs (which were already meant for sharing).

Gilliam acknowledges that he's not likely to find what he needs for future documentaries in he Commons; there simply isn't much available from TV networks and larger media outlets.

Thomas Goetz, the articles editor at Wired, said that for every artist who agreed to participate, two more turned down the invitation "for whatever reason. Some didn't get the idea. Some didn't want to take the risk."

Many copyright experts like the premise of the Creative Commons but question its necessity.

It may be useful for smaller publishers without legal counsel, but "I don't think there's any huge pent-up frustration on the part of the copyright owner," said Allan Adler of the Association of American Publishers. "They have the ability to do this through ordinary channels."

Occasionally, someone violates terms of the Commons license but major battles over enforcement have yet to emerge.

The focus for now has been on encouraging artists to contribute material and creating technology to help find it. Later this month, organizers will start promoting reuse of items in the Commons to create new works, said Glenn Otis Brown, its executive director.

Contributors to the Commons are largely driven by the philosophy of open exchange, but they insist it is about much more than charity.

MIT courses have been translated into Spanish, Vietnamese and Mongolian, and publishers have approached professors about book deals after seeing their writings, said Jon Paul Potts, spokesman for MIT's OpenCourseWare.

Cory Doctorow contributed an e-book version of his first novel, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom," and believes print sales improved as more people heard about it over the Internet.

Gilliam welcomes any reuse - even for moneymaking projects that don't pay him a dime.

"Every time someone takes a clip from `Outfoxed,' they have to attribute it," he said. "That serves as a marketing vehicle."

Posted by Siva at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In addition to switching to Movable Type and doing some redesign tweaks, I have asked some people to join me in the Sivacracy project.

Over the next few weeks you will meet them. They are friends and writers from around the country. I am sure you will dig them.

I will be in Prague from Thursday through next Wednesday. Expect few posts from me but a few more from my friends.

Posted by Siva at 03:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eric Alterman and Paul McLeary offer:

... Most alarming, however, are sections 3032 and 3033 of the bill, which call for what amounts to the legalization of the outsourcing of torture to foreign countries. As part of this plan, the bill also throws out the concept of judicial review for the arrest and detention of terror suspects (or any foreign national for that matter); essentially giving the director of Homeland Security carte blanche to expel foreign nationals from the United States while denying them almost any form of due process.

Section 3032 withdraws the United States from a key provision of the U.N. Convention Against Torture (signed and ratified under our last two Republican presidents), which outlaws the deportation of a non-citizen "to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." Under Hastert's bill, immigration officials would be able to deport foreign nationals for whatever reason they see fit (again, devoid of judicial review), shipping them back to the country from which they fled, even if they are under the threat of torture or murder. The provision also turns the rule of law on its head by placing the almost impossible burden of proof on the deportee to provide evidence that he or she would be tortured if returned to his or her point of origin.

Section 3033 goes even further, allowing immigration officials to return the foreign national to "any other country whose government will accept the alien," giving the director of Homeland Security the unassailable right to ship a foreign national anywhere in the world he wishes – including countries not so squeamish about torture as the United States, all absent the watchful eye of the law of civilized nations. Normally, persons subject to such arbitrary arrest and relocation would have recourse to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which outlaws such deportation, but under Hastert's bill, the suspect would be subject only to the discretion of U.S. officials and the authorities of the country to which they were transported. This process, known as "extraordinary rendition," as the American Bar Association says in its public opposition to the bill, "not only violates all basic humanitarian and human rights standards, but violates U.S. treaty obligations which make clear that the U.S. government cannot avoid its obligations under international law by having other nations conduct unlawful interrogations in its stead. This practice not only violates our own cherished principles as a nation but also works to undermine our moral leadership in the eyes of the rest of the world."

Just how did we reach this point? Are Americans really willing to go along with a suspension of all of our beliefs and traditions when a president or a congressman waves a "terrorist" flag in our faces? ...

Posted by Siva at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's what Kerry should have said to Bush when Bush said "You can run, but you can't hide" in the last debate.

Bush has been repeating it every day since. He seems to think it's a powerful statement.

For a guy who ran from service in Vietnam, ran from his duties in the Air National Guard, ran from his drunken past, and is running away from his various debacles as president, he sure has a lot of gumption to say things like this.

It's time for Kerry to state that Bush runs. Kerry stays and fights.

Posted by Siva at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jack Balkin discusses Derrida's influence.

Posted by Siva at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have new guts, too. I have abandoned Blogger.com and moved over to MovableType.

It's much better and posts to my NYU server space better.

I probably lost some comments in the transition. Sorry.

Posted by Siva at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why did Bush skip his physical?

What is that lump in his coat?

Why can't he stand straight?

Melissa says maybe he had a bike accident and wants no one to know.

She is pretty smart.

Posted by Siva at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Tapped: As Roll Call reported yesterday (subscription required), congressional conferees excised a bunch of movie studio tax credits this week from a gigantic, long-in-the-works international tax bill (it’s the same bill the Washington Post is so upset about, incidentally). Why’d they do it? Well, the Motion Picture Association of America really pissed off DeLay and the other administrators of the K Street Project (the long-term effort to shut Democrats out of top lobbying positions, detailed by Nick here) when they hired a Democrat to replace Jack Valenti as MPAA head earlier this summer.

Posted by Siva at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a very interesting article that reflects much of my recent thought on global IP matters.

Posted by Siva at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Donkey Rising:

WSJ/Zogby Poll: Kerry Ahead or Tied in All Battleground States

On the eve of the 2nd presidential debate, Senator John Kerry is ahead or in statistical tie with President Bush in all 16 'battleground states,' according to a new poll by Zogby Interactive, conducted 9/30 to 10/5 for the Wall St. Journal.

According to the analysis of the Zogby Poll published in the Wall St. Journal, 'Mr. Kerry holds leads outside the margin of error in 6 states...None of Mr. Bush's leads are outside the margin.'

Posted by Siva at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I used it on Altercation a few weeks back. Now Molly moves it around: I lean to the 'bubble president' theory of Bush's peevish, petulant performance in debate. They've kept him surrounded by people who keep telling him he's great.

Posted by Siva at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote the lead article:

What happens when we vote?
Siva Vaidhyanathan
5 - 10 - 2004

The impact of new technologies makes a fair voting, recording and counting system even more essential to a healthy democratic process. Recent international experience, says Siva Vaidhyanathan, highlights four guiding principles that should be followed: trust, clarity, accountability, and security. How does the United States measure up?

Posted by Siva at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Atrios.

Posted by Siva at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Daily Kos :: OK-Sen: Coach Switzer endorses Carson; NDN ads:

On the eve of the historic OU/Texas football game, Former University of Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys championship coach Barry Switzer today endorsed Congressman Brad Carson for United States Senate calling Carson, 'the only candidate in this race who we can trust to fight for Oklahoma.'

'Brad Carson is a good Oklahoma conservative who will work with both political parties to make Oklahoma better,' said Coach Barry Switzer. 'I will tell you this, I wouldn't be supporting the Congressman if he was a liberal. However, I am supporting him because he is the only candidate in this race who has put forth a detailed plan to stop the loss of jobs in our state, improve education for our children and fight for our state's fair share of funding. We can trust Brad Carson to fight for Oklahoma and for the values of the people of our state.'

Hook'em Horns! Beat the Hell out of OU!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Siva at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This was my contribution:
Sitting in the second row of a packed 3rd Avenue theatre for the Friday night showing of I Heart Huckabees were (extreme south seat) Mary Kate and (about eight seats north) Mary Kate. Or, maybe, the other way around. Their legs were dangling. They had an entourage of NYU-ish types. After the show, one of their skinny friends picked up the nearest Olsen and swung her around as if she weighed 30 pounds. They put on different caps and walked out separately.

Posted by Siva at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By my Ph.D. student Sam Howard-Spink:

In 2003, a little–known DJ by the name of Danger Mouse created a 'mash–up' album that remixed the music of the Beatles’ White Album and hiphop star Jay–Z’s Black Album to produce a new record called The Grey Album. The swift and draconian legal reaction to the online dissemination of this technically illegal but culturally fascinating artifact gave rise to a 'day of digital civil disobedience,' organized by music activism group Downhill Battle. Grey Tuesday, as the day of action was known, marks a potentially new site for a blend of online political and cultural activism in the highly charged realm of intellectual property expansionism. This paper examines emergent examples of musical and Internet activism including a detailed look at Grey Tuesday itself; considers the cultural significance of the mash–up genre and the value of the musical 'amateur;' and concludes with a brief consideration of 'semiotic democracy' and the new mix — or, if you will, mash–up — of culture and politics that has emerged as a consequence of the rise of digital networks.

Posted by Siva at 07:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Dan Gillmor's eJournal.

Posted by Siva at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out Eric Alterman's blog today.

I discuss both the prez and veep debates, problems at NPR, and the recent triumphs of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

I also go back-and-forth with Eric Rauchway about Cass Sunstein's new book, The Second Bill of Rights.

This site continues to have problems. I apologize. I will fix them ASAP.

Posted by Siva at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the most important new blog around.

Posted by Siva at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

... even if the media won't tell you that.

Posted by Siva at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is this how electronic ballots are going to work?

Posted by Siva at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is cool.

Posted by Siva at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Hit and Run:

Bush (approximately): 'He says we didn't have allies? What does he say to Tony Blair? What does he say to Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland?'

President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland: 'They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride.'

Posted by Siva at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why aren't those useless "truth squads" all over TV and NPR exposing the big lie that Pakistani nuclear materials smuggler A.Q. Kahn has been "brought to justice?" In fact, Kahn was pardoned. No one from the United States or UN has been allowed to interrogate him to find out where he sold nuclear materials, and we are all in danger of being blown up thanks to him. And Bush stood aside and let it all happen.

If you need one reason to kick Bush out of office, this should be it. He lets nuclear criminals get away with anything. He attacks only those who don't have nuclear weapons.

Amazing.

Posted by Siva at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Biggest public-interest copyright victory in years!:

In a victory for free speech and transparency in electronic voting debates, Judge Jeremy Fogel has ruled that Diebold should pay damages and attorneys' fees for its knowing misuse of the DMCA's takedown provisions. Decision here.

Along with opening up the e-voting archives, I hope this decision will give new strength and new weapons to other online speakers and ISPs against the chill of aggressive, improper copyright claims.

Posted by Siva at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)