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The Bush Administration seems to be having public relations trouble. Besides the creation of LifeAndLiberty.Gov, the administration has also created Freedom.Gov, a site dedicated to glorifying Operation Iraqi Freedom.

I believe that the creation of these sites indicates that the Bush Administration is taking a new approach to their critics. Instead of answering their critics directly, the administration is using websites to bypass them and sell their propaganda to the American Public. By wrapping their issues in pseudo patriotism, they believe that the average American will overlook the opposition and support the administration because it is the "American thing to do".

I also believe that the administration is starting to see opposition in Congress. On the LifeAndLiberty.Gov site, there are two sections dedicated to Congressional Opposition. I believe this indicates that the PATRIOT Act is starting to see more criticism from Congress.

One of the hazards of being a pedestrian around here is bicyclists who just ignore crosswalks, stop signs, and traffic signals.

One last irony: SF actually has more fatal pedestrian accidents per capita than any place in the U.S. The main culprit is that strange group of people who don't understand that a red light means "stop right now" not "stop, unless you think you can make it accross the intersection before the cross traffic appears." The obvious cure is red-light cameras (intersections that have them in SF have drastically fewer accidents) but such cameras are widely considered to be tools of an evil fascist conspiracy.

No, you should be stopped, questioned as to why you are going so fast, and possibly arrested.

What if I'm doing 120 because I am not cognitively aware that I am going 120? Say, I'm drunk?

So, in my drunken stupor, I get photographed, and get a speeding ticket mailed to me three to six weeks later. But that night, after the picture was taken, I also mowed down 4 pedestrians and fled the scene. Now, is it possible that someone down at traffic control will realize it's the same car? Sure, possibly.

Nice consolation for the families of the 4 dead.

Traffic cameras are a bad idea. They don't stop someone from breaking the law, they just collect fees for the government. It also seems to shift the burden of proof: the fact that your car was photographed means it was you, and now you have to take the time to prove it wasn't, rather than the other way around.

Scenario: bad mailing address attached to the license on the car. If this supposed driver had a hope of never being pulled over by a person, he could just keep on driving, no insurance, no worries about a revoked license. With cameras "making the bust," all he has to do is be hard for the cameras to locate for prosecution. Just think of the number of violations he'd have to accumulate before it became serious enough to warrant a concerted search.

Scenario: your white minivan's license plate is swapped with another white minivan's plate. Someone else does the speeding, you get the ticket, and the hassle of proving it's not your car. Think those cameras can resolve VIN numbers?

Anyway, nevermind the arguments against cameras. As long as they are keeping our streets safer, right?

Or the Carnivore and Eschelon satellites went down.....

A public safety issue? I think you're being too naive. It's a profit issue. Red light cameras provide a disincentive to fixing the problem because the existence of the problem generates revenue.

You might want to check out The Truth About Red Light Cameras for a little more information on this.

Here

Anyone who studies the Founding Fathers, even casually, notices something paradoxical about them: The men and women who created our country were, in many ways -- or so it seems, from the vantage point of 1999 - simultaneously radical libertarians and the staunchest kind of traditionalists. Consider:

- The same society that based its entire case for Independence on individual liberty placed the severest penalties on what today goes under the banner of sexual freedom and choice.

- The same government that gave us the First Amendment felt no compunction about censoring lascivious and libelous speech.

- The same leaders who fought to separate church and state went out of their way to lead public prayers, provide for permanent chaplains out of the treasury, and subsidize religious missions to the Indian tribes. Indeed, a recent Library of Congress exhibit on faith in the Capitol building showed that the House and Senate chambers have, from the earliest days, been places of prayer as well as of lawmaking.

I'll admit, George Bush might not want to censor the Internet (it's tough to tell what his real positions and what his "look I'm a good Christian censorship fanatic" positions are), but you conservatives shouldn't keep lying about your positions. You don't believe in Liberty in general or the First Amendment in particular.

A George Bush presidency, provided the congress doesn't change, means Dick Armey, House majority leader, will be free to enact legislation. What is Armey's position on this issue?

Armey's Reflection on Values in Our Society

Henry Hyde actually tried to pass legislation on this issue right after the Columbine.

Basically, the only reason Republicans claim to be for freedom, is so they can continue to fool small 'l' libertarians into voting for them. But the only real Libertarian position they are solid on is the Second Amendment, they'd like to see an end to the rest of the Constitution.

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll be "wasting my vote" and voting against the Two Party Tyranny system.

My parents will be heartbroken, they're Republicans and have been active in politics. Don't you remember Orrin Hatch on TV banging a copy of Quake and saying how eeevil it was, right after Columbine? All they do is try to scare me, "you don't want Lieberman to get in, do you? That would be even worse" because they know they can't defend the Republican party on this issue. What's the difference between the two parties on this issue?

At least be honest about the tyranny the Republican party wants to inflict on the American people. You'll still get fascists, people living in fantasy land, and idiots to vote for your candidate. They seem to make up a significant portion of the electorate. Leave people who legitimately believe in freedom alone.

But if you click through, you'll see a nice letter to Janet Reno complaining about Carnivore. Even if the domain name is suspect (and I think it is), at least Armey is on the right side of this issue, from the YRO point of view.

sulli

"The Administration is full of double-talk on Internet Privacy," said Armey. "While the president lectures the IT industry about the importance of privacy to consumers, his Administration wants to let Big Brother track our every move on the web."

Read the full statement: Armey's Statement

Look, a lot of my beliefs about politics, my belief that the majority of politicians were decent people were killed off when Henry Hyde tried to pass an unconstitutional pro-censorship law. These were the same group that got into power by promising to "get government off of people's backs", but then started proposing big government solutions to problems when they didn't care about the people they were effecting.

You seem to think that saying "Politicians blow with the polls/Politicians stand up for what they care about" is a paradox. No, politicians blow with the polls on issues they don't care about, and stand up against them on issues they do. For examply, I believe Bill Clinton position on abortion and the Republican parties poition on gun control are sincere. This is why they'll allow no compromise on these issues unless they are dragged kicking and screaming. I think that the majority of people in congress don't really care about free speech in electronic media, and that they go with the polls on it.

Oh! One last thing, it is true that I seem to be painting all politicians with a broad brush. Someone once said, "Your local politician is a good guy, but all the rest are bums." Politicians are just people though, and I think that when people are forced to take positions on things they don't care deeply about, they take the easiest position. It's not cynicism, it's just life. It's like the difference between a logger's view of the Spotted Owl and an animal rights activists view. The logger might think the owl is cute, but if the owl means uneployment, he might decide he hates them. In the long run, what he cares about is how the owl is going to affect his life.

Sometimes I go to the horse's mouth for information:

Indeed, parents aren't even aware of how vicious some of these video games are. As Scott McInnis pointed out on the House floor recently, there is a game called "You're Gonna Die." The more people you kill, the higher your score. It even entices you with the pitch "Target specific body parts and actually see the damage done, including exit wounds."-- Dick Armey's Memo on values

So, yes, I am a little cynical. Armey is solidly against gun control which I suppose is admirable, but his views on video games sicken me. The view on guns was taken because I believe he believes in it, the view on games, since he hasn't bothered to research it at all, to appeal to his constituents who don't like video games.

Look, a lot of my beliefs about politics, my belief that the majority of politicians were decent people were killed off when Henry Hyde tried to pass an unconstitutional pro-censorship law. These were the same group that got into power by promising to "get government off of people's backs", but then started proposing big government solutions to problems when they didn't care about the people they were effecting.

You seem to think that saying "Politicians blow with the polls/Politicians stand up for what they care about" is a paradox. No, politicians blow with the polls on issues they don't care about, and stand up against them on issues they do. For examply, I believe Bill Clinton position on abortion and the Republican parties poition on gun control are sincere. This is why they'll allow no compromise on these issues unless they are dragged kicking and screaming. I think that the majority of people in congress don't really care about free speech in electronic media, and that they go with the polls on it.

Oh! One last thing, it is true that I seem to be painting all politicians with a broad brush. Someone once said, "Your local politician is a good guy, but all the rest are bums." Politicians are just people though, and I think that when people are forced to take positions on things they don't care deeply about, they take the easiest position. It's not cynicism, it's just life. It's like the difference between a logger's view of the Spotted Owl and an animal rights activists view. The logger might think the owl is cute, but if the owl means uneployment, he might decide he hates them. In the long run, what he cares about is how the owl is going to affect his life.

Sometimes I go to the horse's mouth for information:

Indeed, parents aren't even aware of how vicious some of these video games are. As Scott McInnis pointed out on the House floor recently, there is a game called "You're Gonna Die." The more people you kill, the higher your score. It even entices you with the pitch "Target specific body parts and actually see the damage done, including exit wounds."-- Dick Armey's Memo on values

So, yes, I am a little cynical. Armey is solidly against gun control which I suppose is admirable, but his views on video games sicken me. The view on guns was taken because I believe he believes in it, the view on games, since he hasn't bothered to research it at all, to appeal to his constituents who don't like video games.

The Conference is the official communications arm of the majority party in Congress. Their function is to talk about legislative and policy issues, not political issues (such as fundraising, etc.).

As an official leadership office within the legislative branch of government, the Conference's gop.gov qualifies to reside within the .gov namespace. The name GOP is derivative of the office title, "House Republican Conference."

The second disagreement is a rather interesting one. If all .gov domain names need to be "subsidiary" of the top-level entity, then all cabinet agencies must be of this form: defense.whitehouse.gov, irs.treasury.whitehouse.gov because all executive branch agencies and departments are arms of the White House. Exactly what purpose would that serve, other than to make it incredibly inconvenient to find information you need?

The legislative branch is a co-equal branch of government. If a cabinet-level executive agency can get its own name, then the legislative branch is entitled to the same access. That's why the Speaker of the House has speaker.gov and the Majority Leader has freedom.gov.

The Speaker is mentioned in the Constitution as third in line to the presidency. His office, therefore, is on the same constitutional footing as any cabinet secretary's office.

By the way, other cabinet agencies are using non-derivative domain names, such as "seniors.gov" and "time.gov". Their purpose is to deliver information to the public, not to force people to use the U.S. Government Manual every time they need to find their tax forms.

This is not a contested issue. These domain names are already registered and have been found by the registrar to be in compliance with the RFC.

1. We have a First Amendment but it has limits. Lots of limits. So many limits in fact, that it is really just a nice idea that should only be followed when the Free Speech doesn't offend anyone. See Dick Armey's "Reflection on Values" Notice the way he says, I'm for free speech, but I'm not for free speech, on the same page.(Sorry for picking of the Republicans, but I haven't found anything equally stupid from the Democrats on the Web.)

2. Technology is Scary: Plenty of articles on this, including this one from Wired, The Bus Stops Everywhere. I actually think the reason why so many politicians are out to regulate technology to such an absurd degree is what has been called future shock in which technology has moved ahead way to fast for some people to keep up with it. Suddenly, your in the future, and you don't like it. It is akin to culture shock like when French radio stations are required to program X-amount of French programming because too much American stuff is popular. So they play a lot of Celine Dion songs over and over again...

3. Electronic Speech is just plain evil: You don't have Jack Valenti (or someone like him) rushing down to capitol hill whenever electronic speech is attacked, because technology companies I think (much like me) would like to pretend politics don't exist. It's this dirty, ugly, mind-numbingly stupid world, and besides we've only got X-amount of time to get that code done before M$ beats us to it. Who has time to go vote when you've got a milestone to deliver that week? So you combine the fact that there is no Pro-Tech lobby, politicians resent having to keep up with computers and the current disrepute of the First Amendment, and you've got a recipe for authoritarianism.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics will not take an interest in you -- Pericles (430 BC)