Bill Clinton: Secretary-General?
Not that this is a new idea, but how cool would it be for Bill Clinton to become the Secretary-General of the United Nations after Kofi Annan steps down? Interestingly enough, there has never been a Secretary-General from North America, so in a way he'd even be breaking some ground. I only bring this up because of the recent story (which I heard on The World tonight) where Bill Clinton brokered a deal to lower the cost of the AIDS cocktail of drugs in the developing countries from its current price of about $1.50 a day per patient to less than 40 cents a day. Needless to say, this is a huge improvement and a vital change for aid agencies and poor countries that desperately need affordable drugs for their populations. It also boosts the already quite positive international profile of Clinton only a few years before Kofi is due for retirement in 2006. It should be interesting to see how it all pans out in the next two years.
Friday, October 24, 2003
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Who ever said irony was dead?
Wondering if Kazaa Lite has a new version out? It's going to be somewhat more difficult to find out, especially if you didn't bookmark the page. If you do a quick Google search of Kazaa Lite, you'll see lots of pages that probably were closer to the bottom before. If you scroll down to the bottom though, you'll see the following notice:
In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 7 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.
Kazaa Media Desktop had decided to file a complaint against Google for linking to sites that infringe their copyright, and this would include Kazaa Lite. I could go into epic proportions about how this is an expansion of the DMCA and what the long term ramifications of this action are, but instead I just wanted to point something out that struck me as somewhat odd: Kazaa is claiming copyright infringement on a product that is used almost solely to infringe copyright.
Like I said, you could probably have a long discussion over the legal and social meaning to all of this, and I'd refer you to places where that conversation is taking place if you're interested. As a final note of irony on my part though -- perhaps the icing to the cake: by linking to the DMCA complaint, Google effectively gives everyone a list of all the sites that it removed from its search page, so you can still find the sites you want, albeit in a slightly roundabout way. Thus the whole exercise of filing the complaint is almost pointless given that anyone can still retrieve the information that they were initially looking for.
I wonder how long it will take for Kazaa to file a complaint about the complaint?
Wondering if Kazaa Lite has a new version out? It's going to be somewhat more difficult to find out, especially if you didn't bookmark the page. If you do a quick Google search of Kazaa Lite, you'll see lots of pages that probably were closer to the bottom before. If you scroll down to the bottom though, you'll see the following notice:
In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 7 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.
Kazaa Media Desktop had decided to file a complaint against Google for linking to sites that infringe their copyright, and this would include Kazaa Lite. I could go into epic proportions about how this is an expansion of the DMCA and what the long term ramifications of this action are, but instead I just wanted to point something out that struck me as somewhat odd: Kazaa is claiming copyright infringement on a product that is used almost solely to infringe copyright.
Like I said, you could probably have a long discussion over the legal and social meaning to all of this, and I'd refer you to places where that conversation is taking place if you're interested. As a final note of irony on my part though -- perhaps the icing to the cake: by linking to the DMCA complaint, Google effectively gives everyone a list of all the sites that it removed from its search page, so you can still find the sites you want, albeit in a slightly roundabout way. Thus the whole exercise of filing the complaint is almost pointless given that anyone can still retrieve the information that they were initially looking for.
I wonder how long it will take for Kazaa to file a complaint about the complaint?
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
The Religious Right
I'll admit it. If there's one thing I don't understand about America, it's how the religious right, people whom in Canada would seem next to crazy (and that's being charitable, except perhaps in Alberta where it's conservative enough to make them look mainstream), has as much power and influence as they do. The practicing of religion where I come from is, for the most part, a pretty low-key affair, with people doing their weekly thing on the weekend and, well, that's about it. Here, it's more of a full time institution -- you go to church, go to your prayer group, attend pro-life rallies, listen to Christian music -- you could literally spend all of you time doing churchy stuff, and the thing that blows my mind the most is the number of people whom I’ve met that do.
Now, as a fairly secular and liberal Catholic (seemly one of a minority down here, by the way), I find all of this vaguely creepy. I meet people who apparently 'have the fire burning' within them, and I wonder at what point, if at all, they do the whole St. Thomas thing and periodically have a big retrospective on what's going on with their faith. After all, spirituality is a dynamic thing, and for every crest there has to be a trough. It's the apparent absence of these that makes me wonder to what degree there is self-reflection vs. blind faith.
It's this apparent blind faith in evangelical Christianity that scares the crap out of me. I come from a relativistic view where faith and reason go hand in hand, and thus view with great suspicion those who profess an absolutist doctrine. As I've been down here for a number of years now, I've sort of lumped most evangelical Christians into this category, and credited them with the continuing political success of the GOP, who reflects this type of 'black vs. white' thinking far more than the Democrats.
The problem is though, as evidenced in the recent Slate article "Debunking myths about the religious right," is that you can't really place all evangelical Christians in the 'scary' category, that there needs to be a delineation between them and those and 'fundamentalist' Christians (who are still very scary). I won't go into recreating the article, but you should check it out. It certainly made me pause and consider how I was thinking of the problem of political Christianity in America. I briefly borrowed a book from the library called The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith in an attempt to delve more into the sacredization (I assume if secularization is a word, this is too) of American society. Unfortunately I had to return it before I could get much into it, but it's on the short list of things to read in the next little while.
I'll admit it. If there's one thing I don't understand about America, it's how the religious right, people whom in Canada would seem next to crazy (and that's being charitable, except perhaps in Alberta where it's conservative enough to make them look mainstream), has as much power and influence as they do. The practicing of religion where I come from is, for the most part, a pretty low-key affair, with people doing their weekly thing on the weekend and, well, that's about it. Here, it's more of a full time institution -- you go to church, go to your prayer group, attend pro-life rallies, listen to Christian music -- you could literally spend all of you time doing churchy stuff, and the thing that blows my mind the most is the number of people whom I’ve met that do.
Now, as a fairly secular and liberal Catholic (seemly one of a minority down here, by the way), I find all of this vaguely creepy. I meet people who apparently 'have the fire burning' within them, and I wonder at what point, if at all, they do the whole St. Thomas thing and periodically have a big retrospective on what's going on with their faith. After all, spirituality is a dynamic thing, and for every crest there has to be a trough. It's the apparent absence of these that makes me wonder to what degree there is self-reflection vs. blind faith.
It's this apparent blind faith in evangelical Christianity that scares the crap out of me. I come from a relativistic view where faith and reason go hand in hand, and thus view with great suspicion those who profess an absolutist doctrine. As I've been down here for a number of years now, I've sort of lumped most evangelical Christians into this category, and credited them with the continuing political success of the GOP, who reflects this type of 'black vs. white' thinking far more than the Democrats.
The problem is though, as evidenced in the recent Slate article "Debunking myths about the religious right," is that you can't really place all evangelical Christians in the 'scary' category, that there needs to be a delineation between them and those and 'fundamentalist' Christians (who are still very scary). I won't go into recreating the article, but you should check it out. It certainly made me pause and consider how I was thinking of the problem of political Christianity in America. I briefly borrowed a book from the library called The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith in an attempt to delve more into the sacredization (I assume if secularization is a word, this is too) of American society. Unfortunately I had to return it before I could get much into it, but it's on the short list of things to read in the next little while.
Sunday, October 12, 2003
Linda McQuaig
I was reading an article of hers published in the Toronto Star titled Dumbing down U.S. politics, in which she writes about the whole 'style of substance' revolution going on in American politics. As probably the best left-wing writer in Canada, her greatest strength is to avoid all the usual lefty rhetoric, instead writing in a straightforward method that shows the genuine problems of the situation that (at least I think) crosses political boundries.
As a long time fan of Ms. McQuaig's work, I forgot how great her articles are, so I wanted to share this one, and hope that you decide to check out more every week.
I was reading an article of hers published in the Toronto Star titled Dumbing down U.S. politics, in which she writes about the whole 'style of substance' revolution going on in American politics. As probably the best left-wing writer in Canada, her greatest strength is to avoid all the usual lefty rhetoric, instead writing in a straightforward method that shows the genuine problems of the situation that (at least I think) crosses political boundries.
As a long time fan of Ms. McQuaig's work, I forgot how great her articles are, so I wanted to share this one, and hope that you decide to check out more every week.
Friday, October 10, 2003
Why John Walters needs to get a life.
John Walters, in case you didn't know (and you probably didn't), is America's 'Drug Czar.' I didn't happen to know who he was, which just might say something about the relevance of his position.
He was in the news today rallying against Jean Chrétien’s comment about perhaps trying marijuana after he retires. According to him Canadians are 'ashamed' of the Prime Minister, and that Canada is the 'one place in the hemisphere where things are going the wrong [way] rapidly.'
All I have to say to John Walters is this: Blow Us. Collectively if possible.
If there's one thing that gets under my skin about American 'values' is their holier-than-thou approach to drug policy. I'm unsure how a country where 55% of the federal inmate population is in jail for breaking drug laws, including 37,000 for marijuana alone, can have anything legitimate to say about other country's drug policies. Wrap this up into the general fact that America imprisons a higher percentage of its citizens than any other nation in the world except for Russia, and you have to wonder whether they're really doing things right.
After all, prison is one of the most expensive and least effective parts of the social security net (A great line from Howard Dean, by the way). Throwing drug users in jail is more likely to increase their rate of criminality when they're released instead of rehabilitating them. Where Canada has it right (at least in my opinion) is that punishing soft-drug users with criminal records and/or jail time isn't going to help the situation. Ensure that there is a punishment, in this case a fine, to ensure that demand is reduced from normal levels, but keep jail time and criminal records for those people who are of actual harm to the society.
Unfortunately, this is another case of America trying to throw its weight around on the international scene like a child taking a temper tantrum when things aren't going his way. It wouldn't be so bad if they could come up with studying showing that medicinal use of marijuana is ineffective, than marijuana is a 'gateway' drug that leads to harder drug use, or that it increases the level of other criminal activity. But they can't, so we're only left with the repeating mantra of 'Drugs are bad... drugs are bad...,' which needless to say doesn't hold up well to rigorous debate.
In the end, if the US wants to be respected by other countries, it must learn that we’re not going to just capitulate to their political culture just because they want us to. Bring some real ideas to the table, and we might be able to talk. Otherwise, save it for someone else.
John Walters, in case you didn't know (and you probably didn't), is America's 'Drug Czar.' I didn't happen to know who he was, which just might say something about the relevance of his position.
He was in the news today rallying against Jean Chrétien’s comment about perhaps trying marijuana after he retires. According to him Canadians are 'ashamed' of the Prime Minister, and that Canada is the 'one place in the hemisphere where things are going the wrong [way] rapidly.'
All I have to say to John Walters is this: Blow Us. Collectively if possible.
If there's one thing that gets under my skin about American 'values' is their holier-than-thou approach to drug policy. I'm unsure how a country where 55% of the federal inmate population is in jail for breaking drug laws, including 37,000 for marijuana alone, can have anything legitimate to say about other country's drug policies. Wrap this up into the general fact that America imprisons a higher percentage of its citizens than any other nation in the world except for Russia, and you have to wonder whether they're really doing things right.
After all, prison is one of the most expensive and least effective parts of the social security net (A great line from Howard Dean, by the way). Throwing drug users in jail is more likely to increase their rate of criminality when they're released instead of rehabilitating them. Where Canada has it right (at least in my opinion) is that punishing soft-drug users with criminal records and/or jail time isn't going to help the situation. Ensure that there is a punishment, in this case a fine, to ensure that demand is reduced from normal levels, but keep jail time and criminal records for those people who are of actual harm to the society.
Unfortunately, this is another case of America trying to throw its weight around on the international scene like a child taking a temper tantrum when things aren't going his way. It wouldn't be so bad if they could come up with studying showing that medicinal use of marijuana is ineffective, than marijuana is a 'gateway' drug that leads to harder drug use, or that it increases the level of other criminal activity. But they can't, so we're only left with the repeating mantra of 'Drugs are bad... drugs are bad...,' which needless to say doesn't hold up well to rigorous debate.
In the end, if the US wants to be respected by other countries, it must learn that we’re not going to just capitulate to their political culture just because they want us to. Bring some real ideas to the table, and we might be able to talk. Otherwise, save it for someone else.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
One down...
Amidst the larger stories going on, one being the California recall and the other being the Cubbies, Bob Graham ending his presidential bid seemed to get, well, somewhat lost.
Not that this wasn't typical for his campaign, nor is it very surprising that it happened at all. Although Bob Graham seemed to be a well-intentioned guy, he just didn't say anything that would lead some one not from Florida to vote for him above the other candidates. Everyone seemed to know this, so it was more of a matter of when rather than if. As it mentions in the story though, everyone also thought that he was mostly in it just to get some exposure for the Vice-Presidential nod. However, if Clark doesn't win the nomination, I would say that he is the better bet, even with Florida being the key state that it is.
In the end though, it will make the debates slightly better with fewer people sharing the same time. Unfortunately the marginal benefit is always the smallest with the first person, so it would be better if others make the same decision and let the people with a real chance at winning share more of the spotlight. In case you were wondering, that would be anyone other than Dean, Clark, Kerry and Edwards. Then we would have the time to see each of them perform at a higher level with more questions, all of which will be valuable experience for one of them when they eventually take on Bush.
Unfortunately it's unlikely that we're going to see this happen to a great degree soon, since both Liebermann and Kucinich are going to be around to represent the far left and far right, and one of either Sharpton or Moseley-Braun is likely to stick around. Dick Gephart, if he ever gets the union endorsements, will also be around, but I don't think his support is wide enough to pull through in the end. Hopefully though this will be the beginning of a trend so that the party can get down to the real business of figuring out who is the best candidate for the nomination.
Amidst the larger stories going on, one being the California recall and the other being the Cubbies, Bob Graham ending his presidential bid seemed to get, well, somewhat lost.
Not that this wasn't typical for his campaign, nor is it very surprising that it happened at all. Although Bob Graham seemed to be a well-intentioned guy, he just didn't say anything that would lead some one not from Florida to vote for him above the other candidates. Everyone seemed to know this, so it was more of a matter of when rather than if. As it mentions in the story though, everyone also thought that he was mostly in it just to get some exposure for the Vice-Presidential nod. However, if Clark doesn't win the nomination, I would say that he is the better bet, even with Florida being the key state that it is.
In the end though, it will make the debates slightly better with fewer people sharing the same time. Unfortunately the marginal benefit is always the smallest with the first person, so it would be better if others make the same decision and let the people with a real chance at winning share more of the spotlight. In case you were wondering, that would be anyone other than Dean, Clark, Kerry and Edwards. Then we would have the time to see each of them perform at a higher level with more questions, all of which will be valuable experience for one of them when they eventually take on Bush.
Unfortunately it's unlikely that we're going to see this happen to a great degree soon, since both Liebermann and Kucinich are going to be around to represent the far left and far right, and one of either Sharpton or Moseley-Braun is likely to stick around. Dick Gephart, if he ever gets the union endorsements, will also be around, but I don't think his support is wide enough to pull through in the end. Hopefully though this will be the beginning of a trend so that the party can get down to the real business of figuring out who is the best candidate for the nomination.
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