Politics

Looks like more arrests in the 7/7 case: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4720027.stm Just as a brief aside, it's fascinating to me how fast the British authorities have been able to move on this case. The number of people arrested and the way information has been coming out is really impressive. It suggests to me a number of things: 1) British intelligence is pretty darn good. These people know what's going on within their borders. (Quite unlike my country.) 2) Right or wrong, the London public surveillance system certainly seems to be paying massive dividends at the moment. 3) Britain seems to be reconsidering its policy of tolerating pro-viol…

What's in a name? The BBC has allegedly ordered its reporters not to use the word "terrorist" when referring to the London bombers. Here in the States, the New York Times does the same with Iraq, calling it an "insurgency" and calling the Al Qaida people there "fighters". The Wikipedia defines terrorism as this: "Terrorism refers to the use of violence for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological goal." The poll question is simply this: Do you feel that the London bombers were "terrorists"?

Minutes ago, I came across some of the most vile, hateful things I'd ever seen in my life - people absolutely cheering for the torture and murder of Matthew Sheppard, and saying they would feel no remorse if even more gays were tortured and murdered. I hear this all the time from the conservative people I know. These people enthusiastically defend their hatefulness in the name of God, where they claim that homosexuality is unnatural and evil because its condemned in Leviticus and Romans. However, divorce is condemned just as harshly, but almost no one claims that divorce is unnatural and evil - these kinds of contradictions makes it obvious that anti-gay movement is m…

Why should we not use cruel and unusual punishment? surely all punishment is, by its very definition, cruel; locking someone up or putting them to death is hardly a nice thing to do. Why the big no-no on having unusual punishment? I can see the point of not, for example, not cutting theives hands off, but a total ban on imaginative punishments... The reason that i started thinking about this, is that i saw a program on the telly the other day about the illigal trade in unfit meat. In ye olde days, if a food-vender was suspected of selling rotten meat, he would be forsed to eat the meat that he was selling -- a quite fitting punishment, with 0% chance for…

Here's a link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/13/news/newsmakers/ebbers_sentence/index.htm?cnn=yes Yet another victory for the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department, IMO, closing the last chapter on the largest case of accounting fraud in US history.

Interesting column by Thomas Friedman in the Wednesday New York Times. He's mainly talking about how moderate Israelis have come to recognize that the settlers are not their friends. But he draws a fascinating parallel with the Arab-Muslim world that I have not read before -- he suggests that the path that Sharon and moderate Israelis are taking, in terms of trying to reign-in the settlers (and the radical right of Israeli politics) is exactly the approach that the Arab-Muslim world needs to take with regard to Islamic terrorism. What an excellent suggestion. Of course, the Palestinian Authority has been trying to do this for some time now, but an important …

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/23/scotus.property.ap/index.html Someone please tell me there's a GOOD reason for this decision! The repercussions could be disatrous!

I realize this poll is overly restricted, but what I'm looking for here is a sense of which option you would choose if these were your only available options. Because of the restriction, nobody should hold any respondant responsible for claiming to advocate the position of their response in this poll. Thanks. The question here is, which of these choices would you most favor?

In countries like Australia, voting is compulsory, while in countries like the USA, voting is voluntary. I hypothesize that, if voting is voluntary, then there will be a bias by politicians to supply more extreme policies in an attempt to get people to vote. Would you agree with this? Have there been any studies on the topic? http://www.answers.com/topic/public-choice-theory

I got an interesting civics lesson today from an unlikely source -- a circuit court judge in a criminal proceeding. No, thankfully, I was not sitting at the defenant's table. I was sitting in the jury box. One of the more interesting statements from the judge was (and I'm paraphrasing here, because I didn't want to be "the wierdo in the back row who's taking notes") that there are only five countries in the world in which citizens have the right to a trial by jury. The Wikipedia article on jury trials seems to support this assertion, if not the judge's specific statistic. I didn't realize there were so many differences in other legal systems. Some of th…

Yeah I know, here goes ol' Pangloss looking for bias in the media again. Believe me, I'll understand if you think that about me -- I wonder it about myself sometimes. (Hopefully it's at least a good sign that I recognize that predispotion in my thinking.) Here's the story, and the quote I'm curious about: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4673421.stm Ok.... um.... am I the only one who sees a problem here? Are they saying that a referendum to hold a referendum on abortion laws was defeatred, are they saying that a referendum to overturn abortion laws was defeated, or are they saying that a referendum to maintain abortion laws was defeated? Mayb…

So what do you folks think of this case? It went a bit further today, with the New York Times' Judith Miller (who refused to reveal the names of people she spoke to on the phone) went to jail. Matthew Cooper, as it turns out, got a last-minute reprieve when his source let him off the hook. That's interesting, and it suggests to me that (a) we'll learn very shortly who that source is, and (b) it won't be Karl Rove (since he'd have no reason to let Cooper off the hook). The Wikipedia has a very good, objective, extremely in-depth article on the subject here. I actually recommend reading this article even to those who are familiar with the case (something I'm …

Fascinating PBS Frontline running this week about the use of private contractors in Iraq. Hallibutron's subsidiary alone supplies a whopping THIRTY BATTALIONS worth of support, at a cost of $12 billion so far. In total we have something like 150,000 contractors in country. Some of the more interesting problems explored include poor communications between the private contractors and the Army, and resentment amongst soldiers. The full (60-minute) episode can be viewed online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/view/ One thing about this that struck me is that we may be looking at the future of warfare, in a sense. Nobody wants to join…

This story just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Today the White House said that it would look into allegations that Iran's new president was one of the people who took Americans hostage when they took over the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Here's a story about it from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4636955.stm A couple of interesting quotes: (Emphasis mine. That's really interesting.) Fascinating. Both sides seem to have some validity to their claims, and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=10308 Time to break out the tin foil hats.

A Jury just returned a verdict of NOT guilty in the Michael Jackson affair. Do we think that justice was served? If not, why not?

From the Washington Post: PASADENA, Calif. -- A space probe hit its comet target late Sunday in a NASA-directed, Hollywood-style mission that scientists hope will reveal clues to how the solar system formed. It marked the first time a spacecraft touched the surface of a comet, igniting a dazzling Independence Day weekend fireworks display in space. The successful strike 83 million miles away from Earth occurred just before 11 p.m. PDT, according to mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which is managing the $333 million mission. Scientists at mission control erupted in applause and gave each other hugs as news of the impact s…

ABC News's David Kerley reported tonight that electricity production in Iraq exceeds that of before the war! The reason for current blackouts is the vast purchasing of home electronics, like Internet-capable computers and satellite television receivers, items BANNED under Saddam's rule. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everything's great in Iraq. But SURELY this is an *overwhelming* indication that naysayers on the far left are spinning things out of proportion when they talk about underdeveloped and unrecovered infrastructure. A print version of the story may be found here: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=890243&page=1

More here.

Explain. Here's the text of HJ Res 10 if you need it.

Simple question: Should the testimony of convicted criminals who have been offered a plea bargain in exchange for their testimony be sufficient on its own for the prosecution of a third party, given the absence of any other evidence? 60 Minutes did a piece last night about Richard M. Scrushy, the CEO of HealthSouth who is currently on trial for fraud after his company apparently cooked the books. The jury is deliberating today. The evidence against Scrushy consisted entirely of the testimony of five HealthSouth CFOs, all of whom plead guilty in plea bargain arrangements to testify against Scrushy, who claims ignorance of their deception. This of course follo…

A recent poll released by National Geographic indicates that 60% of Americans believe that life exists on other planets. Some other interesting results: More men believe that life exists on other planets than women (69% men / 51% women) Women are more likely to feel 'nervous and afraid' if we learn that life exists elsewhere (27% women /13% men) Regular church goers are less likely to believe that life exists elsewhere (46% church / 70% nonchurch) Republicans and Democrats are just as likely to believe in life on other planets 70% of Americans believe that these life forms would be similar to humans, and 80% believe they would be more technologically advanc…

ABC News' John Yang on Saturday's nightly broadcast, talking about Friday's casualties in Iraq: I don't know what's more infuriating about this -- the statement that families of dead marines take their deaths "in stride", the implied connection between a death in the family and needing to take a political stand, or the underlying premise that opposing the occupation of Iraq equates to forward progress!

A new Rasmussen Reports survey shows a 70% approval for the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Clearly the left wing of American politics has failed to make its case. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Gitmo.htm

Take a look at this section of a wikipedia article on the political spectrum. I suppose as politics is so complex the Friesian political spectrum is the closest thing to acurate although far from it. Do you think that it's possible to create a model of various political posisitions? If so what would it look like?