20 Stories for frappyjohn:
Posted 2010-06-05 22:07:52:
The Paul-Maddow interview — A liberal’s second thoughts
By Lanny Davis
From
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/lanny-davis/100113-the-paul-maddow-interview-a-liberals-second-thoughts
Lanny Davis served as Special Counsel to President Bill Clinton in 1996-98. He is the author of Scandal: How ‘Gotcha’ Politics Is Destroying America.
I have to admit, for a while I enjoyed watching MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow humiliate and embarrass Rand Paul when he tried to explain why he did not support the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the seminal legislation that forbade racial and other discrimination in restaurants and other businesses and facilities that were open to the public.
For days afterward, I continued to enjoy the media and political piling-on of Paul. I am sorry to admit I was actually enjoying his discomfort. But then after a while, it was I who started to feel uncomfortable — especially when Maddow’s co-hosts at MSNBC, and Maddow herself, seemed to relish playing and replaying Paul’s humiliation just a little too much.
That’s when I decided to... (read and comment)
Posted 2010-03-29 11:50:32:
Break Up the Banks
by Arnold Kling
It's politics, not economics, that made them behemoths
(From http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11621)
Big banks are bad for free markets. Far from being engines of free enterprise, they are conducive to what might be called "crony capitalism," "corporatism," or, in Jonah Goldberg's provocative phrase, "liberal fascism." There is a free-market case for breaking up large financial institutions: that our big banks are the product, not of economics, but of politics.
..
Notwithstanding the good intentions of policymakers, who no doubt plan to create a stronger regulatory apparatus going forward, large banks will inevitably have too much power for the apparatus to govern them. They will shield themselves from its attentions by making political concessions on lending practices. So long as big banking is conjoined to big government, that is, we risk a return to the regime of private profits and socialized risk.
I would prefer a completely hands-off policy when it comes to financial m... (read and comment)
Posted 2010-03-20 03:08:34:
Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability
A book review from Freakonomics
From http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/green-building-leeding-us-where/?hp:
.. Progressive cities across the U.S. offer tax incentives for builders to incorporate energy-efficient designs into their structures. ...
But ... do such efforts matter all that much? After all, step beyond the privileged confines of our ever-greening abodes, and you’ll discover that most American cities are, by design, ecological train wrecks.
..
But if Owen is right—if our only real hope is to live smaller, live closer, and drive less—future environmentalists will include inner city pioneers who make the urban core a more desirable place to live. Police officers, school teachers, pastry shop owners, landscape architects, urban planners, coffee freaks and policy geeks—these people will be the real heroes of twenty-first century environmentalism.... (read and comment)
Posted 2010-03-20 02:56:47:
Brooks: Time for a return to localism and communitarianism
New York Times columnist David Brooks discusses ideas of Phillip Blond
From http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/opinion/19brooks.html:
.. The two revolutions talked the language of individual freedom, but they perversely ended up creating greater centralization. They created an atomized, segmented society and then the state had to come in and attempt to repair the damage.
..
In a much-discussed essay in Prospect magazine in February 2009, Blond wrote, “Look at the society we have become: We are a bi-polar nation, a bureaucratic, centralised state that presides dysfunctionally over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.” In a separate essay, he added, “The welfare state and the market state are now two defunct and mutually supporting failures.”
..
Economically, Blond lays out three big areas of reform: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor. This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitaliz... (read and comment)
Posted 2010-01-17 04:12:16:
The political significance of slackerdom
Finally a rationale for my life of underachievement
I'm currently reading Doing Nothing: A history of loafers, loungers, slackers, and bums in America, by Tom Lutz. It's actually a very interesting book on the nature of work and its relevance, or irrelevance, to living a good life. A lot about how the industrial revolution changed the nature of work, the resulting alienation, and the many political, literary, and philosophical schools since which have rebelled against our work-oriented culture (not just Mr. Marx!).
... (read and comment)
Posted 2010-01-10 12:16:05:
Brycc House, Inc., Assembly Minutes of 1/3/2010
By Bill Engebretson, Secretary
Meeting Called to Order at the Brick House, 1101 S. 2nd St., at 5:36 pm., Sunday, January 3, 2010.
Directors Present Were:
Christina Baldon, Library & Arts Collective
Bill Engebretson, Secretary & Radio Collective
Kathy Sweeton, Co-Chair & Noize Collective
Kristin Shelor, Arts Collective
Collective Members present
Martin Larsen, Noize Collective;
Mevel., Noize Collective
Andrew Morrow, Computers and Noize Collectives.
Purpose of the Meeting: Such business that would be part of the regular monthly meeting of the Brycc House Collectives Assembly.
Old Business: None.
Discussions:
BRAT-like magazine considered. Christina Baldon suggested she could help sell advertising.
Library: Martin Larsen suggested that we inventory and sell books. Kristin Shelor suggested a special lending database. Christina Baldon and Martin Larsen will meet at 2:30 pm. On Friday for organizing the sale of books.
Fund r... (read and comment)
Posted 2010-01-09 04:20:04:
The Moral and Constitutional Case for a Right to Gay Marriage
by Robert A. Levy.
From http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1111:
Robert A. Levy is chairman of the Cato Institute. This article appeared in the New York Daily News on January 7, 2010.
Following bitter defeats in California, Maine, and New York, the gay and lesbian community has a New Year's victory to celebrate. New Hampshire joins four other states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont — in legalizing gay marriage. And the nation's capital is also onboard. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty put it this way: "Marriage inequality is a civil rights, political, social, moral and religious issue."
He covered all the bases, except one: It's a constitutional issue as well.
Thomas Jefferson set the stage in the Declaration of Independence: "[T]o secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men." The primary purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights and prevent some persons from harming others. Heterosexuals should not be treated preferentially when the state carries out that ... (read and comment)
Posted 2009-12-28 17:19:24:
Archbishop Kurtz's Political Activities
A courier-Journal Op-Ed by Chris Hartmann, Director, Fairness Campaign
From: http://fairness.org/:
Chris Hartmann
Courier-Journal, December 28, 2009 - As a lifelong Catholic and product of 16 years of solid Catholic education (St. Stephen Martyr, St. Xavier, Bellarmine), where I learned invaluable lessons about charity, compassion and justice, I am deeply saddened by Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz's recent political actions, tapping into the Louisville archdiocese's financial resources to help fund a secular political pursuit of inequality — in Maine, no less — while countless families in our own city are in need of food, shelter and health care. Alongside the archbishop's engagement in this anti-gay national lobbying effort, the archdiocese has withheld a crucial $25,000 grant from an organization run by poor people to serve and empower poor people in Louisville, Women In Transition (WIT), for its refusal to write a letter disassociating itself with groups that work on equity for all people. The grant, which WIT h... (
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Posted 2009-11-14 22:29:30:
Time to ditch your cable company?
New internet TV announcements
From IT World:
November 13, 2009, 08:21 AM — Yesterday was a big day for anyone considering canceling their cable service in favor of viewing television and movie content via the web. Several unrelated announcements should help make internet TV a more viable alternative to paying the high cost of cable.
First, let's talk about YouTube. Yesterday they announced that they'll start offering full 1080P HD streams; better than your cable company can offer. This new option will be available within the next few days. YouTube says it stores all content in its native resolution, so any 1080P content that has been uploaded to the service in the past will only need to be re-encoded (by YouTube) in order to be available in its high-def glory. For more details, check out CNET's story.
Next, Boxee, the application that gathers web-based ... (read and comment)
Posted 2009-10-26 22:26:26:
Streaming is the new prime time entertainment
A study of Internet traffic shows streaming has doubled in one year ... to 26.6% of total traffic, 32.8% of traffic during prime time
Another interesting article from TelephonyOnline.
A year-by-year analysis of Internet traffic shows:
- The biggest use of bandwidth is now, not peer-to-peer, but streaming video.
- Streaming media use of the Internet more than doubled during the past year: from 12.6% of total traffic to 26.6% .
- Peak streaming time is during television's traditional prime time, 7 to 10 p.m., indicating people are moving from broadcast to streaming as their medium for prime time entertainment. During this time, streaming occupies 32.8% of total Internet traffic.
- Streaming usage is broadly based and not confined to a few "bandwidth hogs", as peer-to-peer users were usually described.
- Peer-to-peer usage fell from 32% to 20% of total traffic during this same one-year period (although p2p is still growing in absolute terms).
http://telephonyonline.com/home/news/real-time-video-p2p-1026/
Real-time video surpasses P2P, creating new broadband ‘prime-time’
Oct 26, 2009 3:03 PM, By ... (
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Posted 2009-10-15 01:24:58:
Consolidation comes to the Internet
30 companies now control 1/3 of traffic
An interesting story at: http://telephonyonline.com/global/news/arbor-traffic-study-081309/
At first glance it seems like good news: the former big guys in telecom are no longer dominating the Net. Most traffic now flows through "direct peers". This is the way the Internet should operate, one would think.
But read on and see that these direct peers are not the little guys. Thirty compnaies now control 1/3 of Internet traffic. 150 companies control a majority.
Very interesting stuff:
Study: Most Internet traffic bypasses tier-one networks
Oct 13, 2009 2:02 AM, By Ed Gubbins
The majority of Internet traffic now goes through direct peers and does not flow through incumbent tier-one telecom networks, according to a recent report from Arbor Networks, which sells network management and security products.
Tier-one incumbents were once the chief providers of connectivity between content companies like Google and local or regional broadband providers like Comcast. But over time, Google and other... (read and comment)
Posted 2009-10-01 03:08:05:
Stop by the Brick House while you're at St. James
We're having Open House (and conducting street solicitation)
This weekend is the big weekend in Old Louisville: the St. James Art Show. Over a quarter million people descend on our neighborhood. You may be one of them. If so, you're invited to stop by the Brick House on your way to or fro. We'll be holding an Open House and Art Show.
Our first attempt at street solicitation
This weekend we're also trying something for the very first time: We're going to be out in the streets around the Brick House conducting street solicitation. That's right, just like the Shriners and the volunter fire departments, we're going to be out there with our buckets asking for your dollars!
Thanks to some wonderful teamwork among our members, we've obtained our solicitation permit, purchased the necessary insurance, obtained safety vests and traffic cones, and are now psyching ourselves up to get out there and hussle!
Volunteers solicitors welcomed
This effort will be going on from about noon till 7:30 on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. (About 24 hours total.) We can easily ... (read and comment)
Posted 2009-09-24 02:59:50:
Second Street Neighborhood Association Newsletter, Sept. 2009
Volunteers needed for St. James Art Show Clean-Up
The 53rd Annual Saint James Court Art Show is almost here!
Starting Friday, October 2, over a quarter-million visitors and
artists from around the country will descend on the Old
Louisville neighborhood for the Annual Saint James Court Art
Show. This event is a real showcase for Old Louisville because
it provides many people with their first look at our historic
neighborhood.
In preparation for our visitors, the SSNA encourages members
and neighbors to come out this Sunday, September 27, from
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm, for our Annual Fall Blitz. As we do
every year, volunteers should meet at Magnolia Park on
Second St., just south of Magnolia Avenue. From there, we
will organize cleanup crews for the sidewalks, park, alleys, and
tree trimming. Neighbors should bring rakes, shovels, brooms, bow saws, pruners, work gloves,
etc., if you have them. If you don’t have clean-up tools, we always have extra!
If you cannot work full time... (read and comment)
Posted 2009-09-11 23:55:11:
Minutes of July Meeting of Brick House Board of Directors
Submitted by Bill Engebretson, Secretary
The Brycc House
Board of Directors Meeting
Minutes of 7/19/2009
1. Meeting Called to Order: Cherise Williams called the meeting to order at approximately 6:45 p.m. at the Brycc House pursuant to an email invitation sent out in the previous week to all directors. The meeting was a regular meeting of the Brycc House Board meeting. A quorum of directors (5 of 7) were present, and even when Kristin was not there, a majority were present (4 of 7):
- Cherise Williams, chair,
- John R. Hicks,
- Christina Baldon,
- Kristin Shelor, (came late and left early),
- Bill Engebretson, secretary.
2. Guests present were:
- Whit Forrester, nominated to the board;
- Greg King, nominated to the board,
- Ted Sandstra, future architect,
- Kevin Smith, vendor supplier,
3. Purpose of the Meeting: Conduct business of the Brycc House.
4. Old Business: June 14th Board Meeting Minutes as amended approved. Bill Engebretson to distribute.
5. Discussions:
1. Financial Report:
- Kristin Shelor gave a sum
... (read and comment)
