Politics

At the Financial Times (with more detail for each item): 1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. 2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. 3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. 4. Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. 5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. 6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning . 7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”. 8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. 9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement. 10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. (Via Will Wilkinson.) ...

Cambridge University physicist David MacKay’s book, Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air, is available for free download or perusal in a variety of forms including HTML, PDF and PostScript, at the website www.withouthotair.com.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of hearing writer Jeff Benedict speak about his book, Little Pink House, which is the story behind the Kelo v. New London case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. That case, which ruled that New London did have the right to use eminent domain to seize private property and turn it over to another private entity–effectively retranslating the Fifth Amendment’s use of the words “public use” into the meaning “public benefit”–was a case I thought I was familiar with. But Benedict’s talk revealed that while I was aware of some of the facts relevant to the legal case, I really had no idea about the whole story. In his short talk, he conveyed some of the events and details that did not make it to the national press, but which make the story all the more interesting. The political battles between state and city government, the plan to get Pfizer to stay in Connecticut when it was looking elsewhere, and the personalities involved made for a genuinely moving talk even when we already know how the story ends. I look forward to reading his book. ...

There’s FUD spreading about Sec. 14 of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, maintaining that it amounts to an effective repeal of the 4th Amendment for the Internet. That’s not so–the scope is restricted to “threat and vulnerability information” regarding the Internet, which I interpret to mean network service provider knowledge about compromised systems, botnets, etc., much of which is no doubt already being voluntarily shared with the government as is permissible under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, when, in the course of a provider’s normal service monitoring, it becomes aware of possible criminal activity. I expect I’ll have more to say after I have a chance to read through the whole bill (PDF).

Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2001, and Glenn Greenwald discusses the evidence that he says shows it has been “an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offense.” Historical Comments Ktisophilos (2009-03-17): The Drug War Body Count by Debra J. Saunders supports your case, and cites some former Central and South Americans as well as The Economist ...

Remember how the press was all over the story of the 29-year-old millionaire white supremacist and fan of Adolf Hitler in Maine who was building a dirty bomb that he planned to set off at Obama’s inauguration, but it didn’t happen because his wife shot and killed him? Me neither, but James G. Cummings of Belfast, Maine, had (quoting Wikileaks) “four lots of one gallon containers of bomb-grade hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium (also radioactive), lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium (radiation booster), boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon” which he somehow planned to set off at the inauguration. Personally, I don’t think that volume of material could have been easily smuggled in anywhere near the inauguration activities without raising suspicion. Why no press coverage of this story, apart from the Bangor Daily News? Wikileaks has a summary; Wonkette has summarized that; the Washington D.C. Regional Threat and Analysis Center report (PDF) is here. ...

So much for change. ABC News: The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. The case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition — including current Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, another plaintiff in jail in Egypt, one in jail in Morocco, and two now free. They sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured. ...

Russ Baker’s new book, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces that Put it in Power, and What Their Influence Means for America, states that George W. Bush’s conversion to evangelical Christianity was staged as a way to wipe the slate clean of his past record of misbehavior. It further makes the case that his story of a conversion after a visit from Billy Graham was his second conversion, the first coming a year earlier after a meeting with evangelist Arthur Blessit, who was determined to be too controversial for the story Bush wanted to convey: … what was a starchy, Episcopalian heir to a blue-blooded Yankee political pedigree to do? And what of his reckless, apparently non-religious, playboy son? These were the intertwined questions faced by Vice President Bush and George W. in the 1980s as they planned Poppy Bush’s run for president in 1988–and W.’s political future. Baker’s chapter titled “The Conversion” features startling revelations that challenge the well-known narratives of the Bush family’s religious history– including the way they crafted a strategy for winning over the religious right, and the creation of a conversion legend for George W. Bush. The purpose of the latter was not only to position him as a religious and political man of his time, but to neutralize the many issues from his past that threatened to undermine his future in politics (and possibly that of his father as well). The plan probably worked far better than anyone could have hoped. “I’m still amazed,” Doug Wead, a key architect of the Bush family’s evangelical outreach strategy told Baker, “how naïve so many journalists are who have covered politics all of their life." ...

At The Agitator blog, Radley Balko writes what Michael Phelps should have said when a photograph of him taking a bong hit was published in a tabloid: Dear America, I take it back. I don’t apologize. Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture. ...

June 4 will be the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. March 10 is the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising that led to the Dalai Lama’s exile. July 22 is the 10th anniversary of the banning of the Falun Gong cult in China. And October 1 is the celebration of 60 years of Communist rule in China. Chinese leaders worry that the first three anniversaries may cause issues for the last, and they are right to worry. This looks like it will be a year for dissidents in China to come forward, and it has already begun with an online petition issued in December called Charter 08 at the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Charter 08 (in English here) was named after Charter 77, a human rights manifesto issued by Czechoslovakian dissidents in 1977. Charter 08, which has been signed by more than two thousand Chinese citizens, calls for recognition of “basic universal values”: ...