Partisan Free Politics

With all of the Buzz about third party candidates coming in to save the disenfranchised minority from Guiliani or Clinton, I thought that this may be an interesting time to say that I'll be at the Claim Democracy conference this weekend. This blog is being move to a new server, next week as part of a technological overhaul.

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A little something for you open government folks...Josh For Immediate Release September 24, 2007 Contact: Steve Ellis Vice President Taxpayers for Common Sense steve@taxpayer.net 202-546-8500 ext 126 NEW ONLINE TOOL BRINGS TRANSPARENCY TO EARMARKS On EarmarkWatch.org, Citizen Journalists Investigate Pork-barrel Spending WASHINGTON, DC – EarmarkWatch.org, a new project from the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense, lets citizens determine if earmarks – the measures inserted by members of Congress into the various appropriations bills that direct funds to a specific project or recipient – address pressing needs, favor political contributors or are simply pure pork. ...

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Part of my wonky nature, is my interest in the systemic components of democracies (wow, I know that sounds exciting, doesn't it?). There is a battle raging between the local politics and the DNC and RNC. It seems that citizens in states like Florida, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan and South Carolina and others are tired of the primary process (read the NY Times article here). It is unclear what the outcome will be, but the national parties have threatened various sanctions including denying the states ability to seat a delegation at the parties nomination conventions. A DNC spokeswomen has already brought up a 25 year old supreme court case, which allows the parties and not the states to decide their nomination ...

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Since 9/11 the federal government has been doing it's utmost to protect us from ourselves. Thankfully however, the plug has been pulled on two controversial data-mining programs citing massive privacy invasions. The first program was called ADVISE (Analy­sis, Dissemina­tion, Visu­ali­zation, Insight and Semantic Enhance­ment), brought to you by Michael Chertoff (a possible candidate for replacing Alberto Gonzales) and the Department of Homeland Security. The CS Monitor reports that ADVISE was "designed to ingest information from scores of databases, blogs, e-mail traffic, intelligence reports, and other sources". Apparently the DHS missed the memo about the constitution (that it indeed exists). The project was discontinued after a report released by the Office of ...

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At the risk of penning yet another unreadable post, I feel I must share this article in the Guardian, which discusses a recent South African report blaming the UK for Zimbabwe's economic demise. According the South Africans: "The most worrisome thing is that the UK continues to deny its role as the principal protagonist in the Zimbabwean issue and is persisting with its activities to isolate Zimbabwe." This, to borrow an English phrase, is complete bollocks. While I agree with South Africa's claim that "targeted sanctions," which would only impact the Mugabe administration and their families might be preferable, no one but Mugabe himself is to blame for the almost unanimous international scorn the country is now ...

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The New York Times is on a trend-reporting spree again, which means that over the next couple of days you will all read articles in "lesser" magazines and newspapers all echoing the original article. This time, my beloved NYT has decided to talk about obscenely wealthy people, using what is surely the catch phrase of the month, "The New Gilded Age." The first article appeared on July 15 (it might be TimeSelected by now, irony of ironies; google it or email me if you can't read it) and it profiled several billionaires whom the author thought were representatives of this throwback era, particularly because of their disdain for regulation and their philanthropy. According to the article, "Only twice before over the ...

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Well I began kicking this post around a few weeks ago, but was never able to come to terms with myself on what sort of point it was I wanted to make. The world of sports has had some pretty shaking stories bubble up in recent days, but none has quite struck me in the same way as the story of Michael Vick, aka Ookie. Rather than dig into the legal morass of this admittedly disgusting indictment, or bask in the luster of perhaps the best pure athlete in the NFL, I would like to focus this post on the reactions of an uninformed public. If you haven't yet read the preliminary indictment you can access it here: ...

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I know I usually focus my posts on highlighting abuses of power from, and the overreaching nature of the Federal Government, but this time I am going to switch it up a little, and take a pot shot a little closer to home. One of my major summer projects this year has been to landscape my mom's yard, and in the process find places for the fifty or so different trees, shrubs, and perennials that I have accrued over the last seven or eight years.  One of the final touches left in the transformation is the removal of an old, unsightly, gnarled pine tree that my mom has complained about for years.   Now I knew that many cities in Oregon have regulations over such tree ...

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For my next trick I will attempt to combine two discussions into one. For those of you who may not have read, Rudo, Matt and I have been discussing diversity and affirmative action under the guise of my first Supreme Court posting. Mauritania vs. Orange Shirt Guy, Sam's blogging debut, has also led to some very interesting discussion on gender issues, consumerism, and beauty in general, with the author, as well as Rudo, Stacey and myself (after having been drug unwilling into a discussion on gender issues) having weighed in thus far. The thesis of my second PFP post is that there is one obvious treatment that would help alleviate each of these problems: education. ...

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