But the great thing he brought us is the reminder that he doesn’t have to do everything. We the people have reserves of extraordinary that we can and should spend freely. —Sars
Category Archives: Politics
Privacy, etc. II
I got some offline feedback on my last entry, with the effect that I rethought a few things. Here are some of the new thoughts: Anonymity. The way I defined this previously was “being out in public without being notable”. This isn’t a very good definition, because, as Gavin pointed out, anonymity actually has a […]
Privacy, Accessibility, and Notability
As a result of some long-ago and more recent conversations with smart friends of mine, I came up with some interesting thoughts about privacy. I don’t fully understand the legal umbrella of privacy, but it seems to me that there are a few distinct concepts that it would be useful to introduce into quasi-legal/common-sense discussions […]
Does anyone have Staythesame.gov yet?
I haven’t generally been extremely hopeful about Obama as president as far as “Change” goes — my feelings tend more to the “intelligent, self-reflective, moderately liberal guy? okay, that sounds pretty good” sort — but I am fairly disappointed that he’s appointing a Secretary of Energy who thinks the problems are on the supply side […]
Where to comment on Change.gov
Your Vision I had a hard time finding this and ultimately got the link from a friend, so I figured I would share in case anyone else is as lazy as I am but still wants to take the time to tell Obama their thoughts.
Election 2008: two linguistic moments
This is my personal blog, not a topical blog, but I find myself unable to say anything terribly original or interesting about the election per se. Like many Californians, I am thrilled by Obama’s election, and terribly disappointed that it looks like Prop 8 may pass. However! They have not counted my ballot yet (vote-by-mail […]
And: tax cuts? are you kidding?
Say what you like about the original bailout bill, it did not get better with the addition of tax cuts (yes, tax cuts at a time the government is proposing to give away $700B it doesn’t have anyway) and unrelated items. Write or call and urge your rep to vote against it. Strangely, those of […]
Hyperbolicity
It’s sort of unfortunate when people who may have a point undermine themselves with hyperbole, hand-wringing, and inaccuracy. I got pointed via BoingBoing to what should have been an interesting article about the people behind the sources of Facebook’s funding. I’m no particular fan of Facebook, especially because it just seems to get more and […]
Would you rather stupid or arbitrary?
Some time back, I wrote about the TSA’s policies on knitting needles. Not surprisingly, it isn’t just the TSA which seems to have trouble defining what or why the issue is with knitting needles. On my way back from London yesterday, the guy at the Continental counter — not an airport screener — asked me […]
Eliminate.
Useless nominalization — defeated! I have to admit that I’m pleased about this on both pedantic and political grounds (the current phrasing is correct, and the current phrasing is more likely to assist in the measure’s defeat), but mostly what caught my eye is the judge referring to the desired change as “useless nominalization”. Nice […]