George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
Still relevant. This link came from a discussion going on in Making Light. Being clear and concise may actually get your points across in an agreeable manner.
Monthly Archives: June 2006
The Crux of the Matter
Internet access providers, like Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, Sprint Nextel, etc. will not block, degrade, alter, modify, or change the data consumers send or receive over the Internet.
If the above statement were true, then we would have net neutrality and it would be a non-issue. I think that, historically, the monopolistic communication companies have a tradition of violating this premise, and now it is time for a new generation to learn a lesson.
The internet backbone is a shared public utility. It may be owned and managed by corporate giants, but it only functions as an internet if it is shared and public.
Immigration
There’s been a fair bit in the news about immigration reform, and its attendant problems. I am the descendent of immigrants, legal as far as I know. My grandparents emigrated in the 1920’s to head for a land of opportunity. (Ireland was no great shakes at the time)
My first thoughts were, why not just open the borders? All someone would need is a passport or official documentation of the country they are coming from and they can enter the US. The US may even have agreements with its free-trade partners that Driver Licenses or national ID cards would be accepted in lieu of passport. Once the immigrant is in the States, they can get jobs and work per US Labor laws, i.e. they get at least minimum wage and they can report improper working conditions without fear of deportation. This may help to get rid of some sweat shops and some black-market employment practices. Additionally, they would have their FICA and income taxes withheld and fed into the governmental maws. They would even be eligible to collect SSA if they ever become citizens.
States could issue Driver licenses to these immigrants, probably with a code that identifies the country of origin, or at least non-US citizenship. The immigrants could get insurance, their families could enjoy public schools and take advantage of most things that citizens can.
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
My main reasons for dismissing the whole ‘stolen election’ conspiracy are:
1) I have a hard time believing that the Republican Party could coordinate a national conspiracy like that and
2) that the Republican Operatives wouldn’t be boasting or bragging about it everywhere they went.
Then I realized:
Any election, of course, will have anomalies. America’s voting system is a messy patchwork of polling rules run mostly by county and city officials. ”We didn’t have one election for president in 2004,” says Robert Pastor, who directs the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University. ”We didn’t have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.”
and that it may not be a coordinated effort on the part of the National Republican Party but the grassroot efforts of a rabid, fanatical county and state officials that were all leaning in the same direction at the same time. (The author of the article goes for the national conspiracy theory)
And the sum of the parts is greater than the whole…
Oh yes, the sources for the article
In the next election, I hope that every polling station that exceeds the margin of error in the exit polling is challenged, rather than restating the exit polls to match the polling results. We have Freedomn of the Press for a reason, and this is one of the primary reasons; to ensure fair elections.