I love those blog entries that list little teasers connected to links. It’s a sort of internet buffet, a little of this and a little of that. This one has some fun teasers and interesting ideas.
James Pilant
via A Thinking Reed
Tag: politics
Hidden Agenda to derail Anti-Corruption Drive? (via Deshpandevm’s Blog)
I found this an interesting commentary on the anti-corruption movement in India.
I find the level of suspicion to be right about the same level as mine. Which maybe healthy or not. Nevertheless, any successful movement must take account of its enemies and I like the article’s predictions as the moves likely to be made. I would have suggested many of the same ones. The one that I focused on immediately was putting loopholes in the legislation to make enforcement impossible. In America, the use of loopholes (known as jokers in American law) is endemic. I strongly agree they are a major danger.
Anyway, read the article. This movement may change the world. It deserves attention.
James Pilant
Recalls – How about applying this concept to the electoral process? (via shsmani)
Excellent idea. Recall is fairly common in the Western states of the United States. However, there are problems. Not only can the public recall an unpopular politician but corporate interests and the wealthy are often more able to manipulate the process for their own ends.
I suspect that India may very well have more controls on who can contribute to a political campaign than we do here. (If I am incorrect, please let me know.)
Good luck with the idea.
James Pilant
via shsmani
A Quarter of a Century Since Chernobyl (via The Truth Journal)
Twenty-five years. Twenty five years to absorb the lessons of the last nuclear disaster and it just didn’t work out. The ad nauseum repeating of the mantra, “It’s different here.” Whether they meant more modern equipment, better management, more incentives, better regulation, it turned out to be nonsense.
Going back to Chernobyl after all these years is not a comforting journey. It is a trip into a ghostly irradiated land measuring 10,800 square miles, a facet of the aftermath of a nuclear disaster carefully unmentioned by the proponents of nuclear power. That’s about a third the size of Panama or five times the size of Rhode Island. Does that make you comfortable?
How much agricultural land can we afford to lose permanently? We need a thorough intelligent discussion of nuclear power in the United States, not back rooms and lobbyists, a public discussion.
This is a good article and has an attached video.
James Pilant
The Malcontent (via A Lonely Philosopher)
This is angry. This is a non-conformist, a deviant, doesn’t play well with others, etc. etc.
Fantastic, I loved every syllable. In a world where the obscenity of “emotional intelligence” is taken seriously, it’s wonderful to hear some intelligent resistance!
To the gallant author, “Write your book. I’ll buy a copy, maybe three or four and you are a philosopher in my book, any day.”
Keep up the struggle, You are not alone.
James Pilant
Terry Jones Needs to be Committed (via Off the Top o’ My Head)
I don’t know if Terry Jones is insane or not. I don’t know if he should be committed for a long period of time. However, I do know that his conduct merits temporary custody and a mental exam by a professional. There certainly seems to me enough evidence of deviate behavior to merit such custody.
Even if he were found sane, the fact that he was examined would convey to the Muslim world how strange we find his behavior.
People in other nations find our willingness to allow virtually anyone to have their own church to be bizarre and a good number believe Christianity is a top-down organization with some kind of control. Churches in the United States cover the spectrum from the sublime to the bizarre. People in nations with more unified religions do not get this.
I’ve never been anywhere but the United States and sometimes, I find it bizarre. “That’s a church!,” I’ll think to myself while watching people handle snakes or preach that the bible is a self help handbook on how to get rich. How much more do the adherents of Islam find behavior here odd?
Let’s do something about Terry Jones.
James Pilant
Please read the post from Off the Top o’ My Head. He is more eloquent than I.
Should Photographing Chickens Be a Felony? (via A Philosopher’s Blog)
You have got to read this!
Apparently chicken farming will soon cease to exist if people photograph the conditions on the farms. That sound more to me like a reason to think something must be very, very wrong. If the big guns are out to stop the photographic truth of chicken farming, what are we not seeing that they are afraid of?
I don’t like this.
I want to express great appreciation to “A Philosopher’s Blog” for calling my attention to this!
James Pilant
A Threat To Religious Liberty for Some is a Threat To All (via Confessions of a Small Church Pastor)
I have said on this blog a number of times that I consider those Americans who practice the religion of Islam to be as much patriots as any other religious group in American.
Thus, it is not surprising that I like this article.
James Pilant
How The Mubarak Family Made Its Billions ~ Marcus Baram (via PLANETIZEN POST)
Frankly, I was curious about this myself. Amassing 5 to 10 billion dollars or more (there are estimates of up to 70 billion) while working on a government salary, be it in the United States or Egypt, requires considerable energy.
How did they do it? My figured it was the usual means such as corruption in state-owned enterprises and government-run banks giving out loans without the expectation of being paid back. However, they did it more slowly with the appearance of legality.
This scheme appears to be based on the 51% rule. That rule says that no foreign business can be set up in Egypt without a majority stake being owned by an Egyptian. Obviously, the Mubarak family is more “Egyptian” than anyone else.
There is a warning in this. Nations requiring such partnerships may not in reality be all that friendly to business, not in the long-term. Certainly foreign interests are going to take a hit when they are in such an incestuous relationship with a corrupt government, first by shakedown and then by the inevitable revolution.
Such economic rules exist in many parts of the globe. The most prominent being China. For those businesses investing overseas I would recommend caution in these kinds of partnerships. Such an investment may pay off for the next quarter or the next year. But in theory, corporations are eternal. Having your immortal organization seized by an enraged population is an ignominious end. The situation in Egypt is a textbook example of how such investment can go wrong.
Whether the investment is shared with a corrupt Middle Eastern nation run by a single family or by a single political party (Chinese Communist), the future is hardly serene.
James Pilant
via PLANETIZEN POST
Response to Rep. Marsha Blackburn: A True Conservative Tech Policy (via The Prelator)
This article is concerned with net neutrality. A good part of the article focuses on this issue. But the article takes on some other critical issues. One is Congress’ bizarre lengthening of the copyright privilege to seventy years plus the life of the author. It’s tragic in literature but in the tech world it ties up technology is a disastrous fashion. He also discusses new laws under consideration that would make suppliers of net access vulnerable to legal action over the content of their various customers. This would provoke massive censorship of the web not because there is illegality but to avoid the slightest possibility of illegality.
It’s a good article and his conclusions are very close to my own. I wish the author well.
James Pilant
via The Prelator
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