Government

It Could Be Worse

This entry was posted in Constitution Domestic Terrorism Government Libertarianism on by

I’ve done my share of griping about king george and the erosion of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness driven by the bushies, congress, state legislatures, your nearest city council and, yes, your fellow voters.
It could be worse!
In the US, even though you don’t get to see the caskets coming home, you can still see these images.
As Clara points out: if you live in China you will see these pictures instead of these.

Via Jonathon Wilde.

Update (1/30): Via Brad DeLong is this post which finds that spelling can make a big difference at google.cn. So, anyone care to speculate as to how long it will take the chinese masters to get this fixed?

Policy Soup

This entry was posted in Anarchism Constitution Democracy Government Law Libertarianism on by

Steve at Begging to Differ rolls out a pretty important idea:

He’s right, but then, sometimes regulatory chaos is a good thing. State-level law is a primordial policy soup, subject to the Darwinian pressures of elections and lawsuits. Good ideas adapt and propagate. Bad ones wither and die. It’s messy. It’s chaotic. It’s perplexing and unwieldy, but it’s a glorious disaster. It’s democracy. And it works.

I’m not going to bite on the It’s democracy bit but it can work and is a good reason to subject most, if not all federal law, to some slash and burn activity.

For that matter the largest geopolitical level this chaos should operate at is probably a city or county level.

irs Respectable?

This entry was posted in Government Taxation on by

Just why was the irs tracking taxpayer’s political affiliation:

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.

I’m just a bit puzzled as to why murray thinks that this bunch of goons had any credibility.

…Deputy IRS Commissioner John Dalrymple said the party identification information was automatically collected through a “database platform” supplied by an outside contractor that targeted voter registration rolls among other things as it searched for people who aren’t paying their taxes.

And, why is it that someone outside the irs is being provided information about citizen’s tax payment status? Shouldn’t this information be confidential…at least until the irs initiates collection actions?
Via Talkleft.

Finding Subversives

This entry was posted in Government Privacy on by

If this guy can mine Amazon Wishlists to identify your subversive tendencies just imagine what someone with resources like, say, the nsa or the fbi, might be able to do on behalf of their master. Think about what a mccarthy or a young jackboots for w group would do with this.

That someone can do this is probably an unintended consequence of a pretty cool Amazon feature. It does, though, point out that businesses like Amazon and Google have gathered large amounts of data on individuals and that this data can be misused if it is not well protected.

How much more data do you want to give them?

Via fergie’s tech blog which picked it up from Boing Boing.

Will abramoff rollover?

This entry was posted in Campaign Finance Constitution Democracy Democrats Domestic Terrorism Economics Federal Government Government on by

There appears to be a good chance that abramoff will rollover on his former associates:

Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist under criminal investigation, has been discussing with prosecutors a deal that would grant him a reduced sentence in exchange for testimony against former political and business associates, people with detailed knowledge of the case say.
Mr. Abramoff is believed to have extensive knowledge of what prosecutors suspect is a wider pattern of corruption among lawmakers and Congressional staff members. One participant in the case who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations described him as a “unique resource.”
Other people involved in the case or who have been officially briefed on it said the talks had reached a tense phase, with each side mindful of the date Jan. 9, when Mr. Abramoff is scheduled to stand trial in Miami in a separate prosecution.
What began as a limited inquiry into $82 million of Indian casino lobbying by Mr. Abramoff and his closest partner, Michael Scanlon, has broadened into a far-reaching corruption investigation of mainly Republican lawmakers and aides suspected of accepting favors in exchange for legislative work.

It would be a good thing if this snares some dems as well. Perhaps people will begin understanding the kind of culture that evolves when you create a mob wealth transfer machine the size of the us federal government and that the smaller wealth transfer operations at the city, county and state level are simply breeding grounds for the scumsects at the federal level.
Via Raw Story.