When you consider how much was accomplished by Gandhi and Martin Luther King by wielding the nonviolent power of love, just think what could be done if someone of that mindset was elected President of the United States, with all its resources.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" -- Isaac Asimov, Foundation
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Get Me a Job With Edwards!
I posted this to Amanda Marcotte's blog after reading that she nerrowly kept her job working for the Edwards campaign after some x-treme blogging on her part was discovered. I was just hunting for publicity, if you really want to know, and chose to respond to an entry which used a picture of a guy with a tinfoil hat and black helicopters flying behind him. I really did meet the folks with their stories, mentioned below...
I knew somebody with a black helicopter story once. He didn't have a tinfoil hat, but there was another fellow hanging around the edges of the same group who apparently received messages from outer space through his Walkman (this is pre-Ipod, mind you). Since the former story was fairly plausible, I've never quite understood why black helicopters are supposed to epitomize wingnuts. Of course, maybe this means that I am one, or perhaps it's simply that helicopters have wingnuts holding them together at some point.
Maybe the whole "black helicopter = wingnut" was started as a way to cover up the REAL "black helicopter conspiracy". My acquaintance's experience of following a black helicopter to its landing point where some armed people got out sounded like it probably would have been a drug war kind of thing. I'm not saying it is or it ain't, I'm just saying...
Tinfoil I can understand. Completely.
Hey, have Edwards stop by my page, I'd love a campaign job. I have to admit to a certain fascination with both Obama and Clinton, but if John's gonna dig in and take a serious stand against the war, I could get behind him.
I knew somebody with a black helicopter story once. He didn't have a tinfoil hat, but there was another fellow hanging around the edges of the same group who apparently received messages from outer space through his Walkman (this is pre-Ipod, mind you). Since the former story was fairly plausible, I've never quite understood why black helicopters are supposed to epitomize wingnuts. Of course, maybe this means that I am one, or perhaps it's simply that helicopters have wingnuts holding them together at some point.
Maybe the whole "black helicopter = wingnut" was started as a way to cover up the REAL "black helicopter conspiracy". My acquaintance's experience of following a black helicopter to its landing point where some armed people got out sounded like it probably would have been a drug war kind of thing. I'm not saying it is or it ain't, I'm just saying...
Tinfoil I can understand. Completely.
Hey, have Edwards stop by my page, I'd love a campaign job. I have to admit to a certain fascination with both Obama and Clinton, but if John's gonna dig in and take a serious stand against the war, I could get behind him.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
To Be Honest
The BBC Have Your Say asks "Would you pay more for an environmentally friendly car?" I want to say "of course!" But...
Honestly, the answer is "Yes, as long as I can otherwise afford it." I want to be totally committed to the environment, but in lean times I also weigh my short-term personal costs and benefits, and buy "conventional" rather than organic food. I think producers of goods, from food to cars, need to get past the mentality that being green is a luxury option, and find ways to make all our essential products both green and affordable. Given roughly equal prices, I will definitely go green every time.
That's all the space BBC allows for responses. I hate to admit it. While I am struggling with a bit less than an average income, it isn't easy being green when it comes to buying stuff. Some stuff I can do without, but $2.50 a pound for organic apples translates into "I don't buy a lot of organic apples". Other things that I eat all the time, I buy organic when I can, conventional (i.e. pesticide sprayed) when I can't. I take it this makes me more or less a regular person. Regular people want to be green, but also have to worry about the pennies. We understand there is a cost to saving a couple of bucks not being green, but sometimes, global warming's reality notwithstanding, the threat of bankruptcy seems more imminent. Given the same price at the cash register, though, we'll choose green every time, and that translates into a competitive advantage for the company that can do the greenest product the cheapest. That's hard; we want to factor out sweatshops too! I'd like to hear your ideas about how it's possible to make profits with a conscience. And sure, you can give me a hard time for my compromises, but what I'm trying to point out is that to really make a difference, we have to make green affordable to the masses.
Honestly, the answer is "Yes, as long as I can otherwise afford it." I want to be totally committed to the environment, but in lean times I also weigh my short-term personal costs and benefits, and buy "conventional" rather than organic food. I think producers of goods, from food to cars, need to get past the mentality that being green is a luxury option, and find ways to make all our essential products both green and affordable. Given roughly equal prices, I will definitely go green every time.
That's all the space BBC allows for responses. I hate to admit it. While I am struggling with a bit less than an average income, it isn't easy being green when it comes to buying stuff. Some stuff I can do without, but $2.50 a pound for organic apples translates into "I don't buy a lot of organic apples". Other things that I eat all the time, I buy organic when I can, conventional (i.e. pesticide sprayed) when I can't. I take it this makes me more or less a regular person. Regular people want to be green, but also have to worry about the pennies. We understand there is a cost to saving a couple of bucks not being green, but sometimes, global warming's reality notwithstanding, the threat of bankruptcy seems more imminent. Given the same price at the cash register, though, we'll choose green every time, and that translates into a competitive advantage for the company that can do the greenest product the cheapest. That's hard; we want to factor out sweatshops too! I'd like to hear your ideas about how it's possible to make profits with a conscience. And sure, you can give me a hard time for my compromises, but what I'm trying to point out is that to really make a difference, we have to make green affordable to the masses.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Folks Are Still Denying Global Warming
Look people, we've known about the theory of global warming for decades. I first heard about it in primary school, and I'm 43. What's happening now seems very close to what was already being predicted 30+ years ago, and we have unprecedented numbers of people pumping unprecedented amounts of gunk into the air like it was an unlimited sized trash bin. Sure, we all want to blame it on something else so we can roll over and go back to sleep. Wake up!
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The Law is Not for Sale
"Can Patents Restrict Our Advice To Our Clients?" is the title of an American Bar Association Continuing Legal Education seminar for which I received an ad today in my email. I have to say, the very title floored me; I had never heard of such a thing as patenting the law. I contacted the CLE department of the ABA with this response. I believe I will be saying a lot more in the days to come; I'll have to understand this more, but I believe it to be a genuinely earthshaking development Please read the original ad to get more of a flavor; the headline links to it (right click and select "Open in a New Window" or "New Tab" to keep the Raving Moderate nearby ;).
This is my gut response to the title of this seminar. I will look into participating, but in the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you could forward it to the participants; perhaps it will influence the conversation.
If patents can "restrict our advice to clients", then people of no particular means will lose access to adequate, quality legal counsel, just as many have lost access to quality medical care and drugs. In theory, the law is the law and should apply to all people equally; it will become more like a vise if people have to pay extra in order to learn how to dance around its grip. The ability or inability to pay a lawyer creates enough disparity as it is. Perhaps right now we are just talking about sophisticated business methods, but there is a slippery slope in setting this precedent. The first thing that will happen is that I will not be able to save a client a substantial-to-her, but not huge, sum on her taxes, because it would be wiped out by having to pay the license for somebody's patent. The next thing will be that somebody will have to go to jail because the Public Defender's Office doesn't have patent licensing in its budget.
The ease with which people can patent just about anything these days seems likely to stifle innovation, rather than encourage it, as it gets to the point where you can't turn around without violating someone's patent. Patenting legal maneuvers will just mean that everybody, not just inventors and corporations, will start having to pay even greater tribute just to go through life.
I'm sure there's a First Amendment issue in here somewhere. Can we restrict legal speech in the interests of commerce? Shouldn't legal speech restrictions be subjected to strict scrutiny, since legal speech is at the essence of how the legal system operates?
Since I lack the time and funding to patent my arguments here, I suspect that someone else will do it first, and I will thus be silenced, as licenses on the patent will not be offered.
Sounds like a shocking development. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It has also added a rather sour taste to my plan to go into estate planning. How can we non-patent lawyers practice law from day to day if we have to constantly be doing patent searches? Perhaps I am being naive, presuming too much, or being overly pessimistic, but as I say, this is a gut reaction, and I'd certainly like to know why it is incorrect, if it is. If I may sloganeer just for a moment, The Law is Not For Sale! I hereby claim at least a copyright on connecting this slogan with the issue of patenting the law.
This is my gut response to the title of this seminar. I will look into participating, but in the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you could forward it to the participants; perhaps it will influence the conversation.
If patents can "restrict our advice to clients", then people of no particular means will lose access to adequate, quality legal counsel, just as many have lost access to quality medical care and drugs. In theory, the law is the law and should apply to all people equally; it will become more like a vise if people have to pay extra in order to learn how to dance around its grip. The ability or inability to pay a lawyer creates enough disparity as it is. Perhaps right now we are just talking about sophisticated business methods, but there is a slippery slope in setting this precedent. The first thing that will happen is that I will not be able to save a client a substantial-to-her, but not huge, sum on her taxes, because it would be wiped out by having to pay the license for somebody's patent. The next thing will be that somebody will have to go to jail because the Public Defender's Office doesn't have patent licensing in its budget.
The ease with which people can patent just about anything these days seems likely to stifle innovation, rather than encourage it, as it gets to the point where you can't turn around without violating someone's patent. Patenting legal maneuvers will just mean that everybody, not just inventors and corporations, will start having to pay even greater tribute just to go through life.
I'm sure there's a First Amendment issue in here somewhere. Can we restrict legal speech in the interests of commerce? Shouldn't legal speech restrictions be subjected to strict scrutiny, since legal speech is at the essence of how the legal system operates?
Since I lack the time and funding to patent my arguments here, I suspect that someone else will do it first, and I will thus be silenced, as licenses on the patent will not be offered.
Sounds like a shocking development. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It has also added a rather sour taste to my plan to go into estate planning. How can we non-patent lawyers practice law from day to day if we have to constantly be doing patent searches? Perhaps I am being naive, presuming too much, or being overly pessimistic, but as I say, this is a gut reaction, and I'd certainly like to know why it is incorrect, if it is. If I may sloganeer just for a moment, The Law is Not For Sale! I hereby claim at least a copyright on connecting this slogan with the issue of patenting the law.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)