Yearly Archives: 2003

ID Cards and Drinking

This entry was posted in Constitution on by

Matthew Yglesias supports a new “smart card” drivers license if drinking age limitations are removed:

In a rational country we would let teenagers drink and then I’d be cracking down on fake IDs in good conscience,…

I agree 100% with this position but I don’t support a tradeoff with new federally mandated drivers licenses.
The text of the 2002 bill, HR 4633, which NDOL says will be reintroduced is here. Its purpose:

… to establish standards for State programs for the issuance of drivers� licenses and identification cards, and for other purposes.

I don’t understand how congress gets to set state standards for this (it’s late, so help me out here) or how the $300 million bribe included in the bill to help the states implement the new smart cards would be near enough to entice the states to give up their authority to the feds.
There are other aspects of the proposed legislation that bother me much more.

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Read Sisyphus Shrugged

This entry was posted in bush on by

This is a good day to go over and read Sisyphus Shrugged. Yea, I know, every day is a good day over there but today is a really good day. I’m only going to link the current most recent post of the day but you’ll want to read them all.
She has been busy discussing plans by the bushies to use a banned substance to fumigate incoming cargo containers, the FBI, the Hornstine faux valedictorian, the dem’s ‘responsibility’ for the recent blackout, and Ashcroft’s victory act.
And why stop at today. If you haven’t been there for a while read some of the back stuff too, for instance yesterday’s post on Mel Gibson’s The Passion.

Foreign Media Reaction Site

This entry was posted in US Foreign Policy on by

The Department of State has an interesting and potentially useful site called Foreiegn Media Reaction:

Each business day, the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Research produces an Issue Focus of foreign media commentary on a major foreign policy issue or related event. These reports provide a global round-up of editorials and op-ed commentary from major newspapers, magazines and broadcast media around the world. Following a one-page analysis of the commentary, readers will find block quotes sorted by geographic region and country.

Each report has 3 sections: Key Findings, Major Themes and Editorial Excerpts and not unexpectedly seems to have an administration bias (sample size is 2).
The most recent report is titled MIDDLE EAST: IRAQ SIGNALS NEED FOR ‘DEMOCRATIC REFORMS and has these key findings:

** Kuwaiti and non-Arab writers assailed the Arab League for rejecting the Iraq Governing Council, a “body that is the most representative Iraq has ever known.”
** Other Arab papers declared they are “eagerly awaiting a legitimate government” in Baghdad.
** The American occupation could result in “possible geopolitical changes” in the Arab world.
** Critics dismissed U.S. attempts at “open infiltration of the Arab media.”

The bad news is that there are no links in the Editorial Excerpts section though I assume that a lot of this material has been translated.
Thanks to Brett Marston for the pointer.

Slave Trade

This entry was posted in Domestic Terrorism on by

Usually I don’t start reading the new National Geographic until it has properly aged. Oh, I quickly skim the pictures, glance at the table of contents and then it gets put on the coffee table to acclimate itself. In a few weeks it has become comfortable and then I gather it in like an old friend and read it over the course of the next couple weeks. But not this time.
It hadn’t even made it to the coffee table before Tegan suggested that we all read the first article in the current issue:

[The} Latest National Geographic (it has Zebras on the cover) has a haunting article that you should read. It’s about slavery. Modern slavery. According to the contents page: “There are more slaves today then were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.” And don’t think that it’s happening only in third-world countries: “According to Kevin Bales, there are between 100,000 and 150,000 slaves in the U.S. today.” Read it, and maybe wonder how people can do this to one another.

You should all get this out and read the article. If dubya wants some terrorism to fight it sounds like there is plenty right here in his backyard.