Issuepedia:Filing Room/to file

This page is for miscellaneous bits of information which might be useful in the future.

To File

See also: news too fast to digest and Rich Veins

2007-08

• 2007-08-03 Losing land to palm oil in Kalimantan: this sort of thing may get spun as a problem caused by increasing demand for biofuels; the real problem is the same one the American Indians had when the Europeans arrived: different rules about how land is managed, and whoever has the guns wins the argument. Biofuels may cause land-allocation issues, but they can be resolved without exploiting anyone; if there isn't enough available land to support the growing demand, then the price should rise to the point where third alternatives become preferable.
• 2007-08-01 Bush Keeps Israel Close, Saudi Arabia Closer: "From the White House comes the news that self-styled anti-terrorism crusader George Bush wants to sell $20 billion in high-tech military equipment to Saudi Arabia, the source of most of the financing, and 15 of the 19 hijackers, for the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks on the United States." Where are all the hardline anti-terror, "you're either with us or you're a traitor" crowd?? Why aren't they screaming about this?

2007-07

• 2007-07-31 In Games, an Insight Into the Rules of Evolution: The prisoner's dilemma game played over generations, as part of a genetic algorithm, shows how "soulless/heartless" Darwinian evolution leads to altruism and honorable behavior – and the importance of community stability and "reputation" (accountability) in aiding these phenomena.
• found 2007-07-31: Federal Debt Relief System: this company has all the earmarks of a scam, but they make a much more thorough case than most such scams. Seems to be related to much of the material in America: Freedom to Fascism. Keep an eye out for further evidence, and check their web site's claims.
• 2007-07-27:
  • Schumer to fight new Bush high court picks: the neocons are spinning this as further continuation of "The Democrats' unconstitutional usurpation of power": Is This A Coup? If Not, What Is It? Perhaps we need an article on the neocon reality inversion, wherein "the democrats" or "liberals" are accused of crimes curiously mirroring those committed by the Bush II administration, playing nicely into the fallacy of moderation (a continuing theme in neocon circles, e.g. Fox News's "fair and balanced" reporting, wherein lies and distortions are "the other side of the story", in much the same way that they want intelligent design to be presented in schools as an "alternative" with equal validity to the theory of evolution).
  • U.S. Abandons Iraqi Translators to Their Fates While Diminutive Denmark Rescues Its Own by Maura Stephens: much has been made of the suggestion that leaving Iraq means abandoning our allies there -- but, as this article indicates, we have already been doing that. For eventual US abandonment of allies page.
    • 2007-07-29 Revealed: MI5's role in torture flight hell: "An Iraqi who was a key source of intelligence for MI5 has given the first ever full insider's account of being seized by the CIA and bundled on to an illegal 'torture flight' under the programme known as extraordinary rendition" -- not only do we abandon our allies, we torture them if the paperwork isn't right.
• found 2007-07-27: There are rational, scientific ways of dealing with uncertainty, including subjective logic and fuzzy logic.
• 2007-07-26: Bogus Media-Generated "Scandal" Undermines Democracy in Ecuador by Mark Weisbrot, The Guardian UK: yes, the media really do distort things, and here's an example from outside the US just to prove that this idea isn't all partisan hype or loony-fringe nuttiness
• found 2007-07-25: A Deserter, Not A "Dissenter" by Michelle Malkin: good example of the harshest "with us or against us", "obey the president or you're a traitor" authoritarian leader kind of thinking
• found 2007-07-24: Rowan Atkinson leads crusade against religious hatred Bill: seems to be related to the events described in While Europe Slept
• 2007-07-21: for eventual page about the US press corps: It's all very de-press-ing
• 2007-07-18: You are Destroying America. Yes, You.: strongly-worded editorial about the "me too"ism of the Bush followers, a form of authoritarian follower personality which perhaps needs a page all to itself.
• 2007-07-17: Companies Claim Right to Interfere with eBay Auctions for Charging Too Little: some of the anti-competitive / pro-monopolistic outcomes of the decision in Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS
• 2007-07-16: MIT Project aims human buffer overflow at Secret Service: project to protest against "yellow dots"
  • also List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots
• found 2007-07-15: wikipedia:Jobbers Canyon Historic District might be a good item to have on an article about the excesses of big business
• 2007-07-13 A matter of national security involving the relationship between local food production and peak oil
  • Woozle notes: reading this sent me on a train of thought which ended with the idea that "restrictively zoned" areas where ability to farm is reduced (either by law or by practical considerations) should maybe pay some kind of food-sustainability tax to support local (i.e. close enough to be transportable by muscle power) farming... or something...

  Though I'm hesitant to propose anything which increases the complexity of the tax system... but just because 99% of something is crap doesn't mean that it has to be crap, I guess. However, the next thought that comes up in my head is that the tax system needs to be hugely cleaned up and simplified before we start trying to use it productively... Which is a much larger problem.

  Actually, what would be better than an ongoing tax (from a fairness POV) would be a local impact fee paid by the developer -- that's when the decision is made... though I suppose millage rates could also be scaled by "desirability of use", which would include farming. (More desirable use = lower millage rate) Here in Durham, there used to be an impact fee -- which had more to do with the extra infrastructure costs of supporting new developments, e.g. fire stations, police, ecological maintenance... (oh, yeah, and schools) ...but the developers are very powerful here, and managed to get that done away with. I need to write an article about that.

• found 2007-07-04:
  • Vox EU: "Research-based policy analysis and commentary from Europe's leading economists"
  • The Soviet Collapse: Grain and Oil by Yegor Gaidar
• 2007-07-03 Liberia's Taylor appears in court: "Liberia's former President Charles Taylor has appeared at his war crimes trial in The Hague for the first time."
• found 2007-07-02:
  • The Digital Display Working Group "are supposed to agree on some logical and simple means of connecting video devices such as your computer monitor, TV or HDTV, DVD player, projector, etc. ... I now have to sort between a veritable CLUSTERFUCK of cable types, and buy costly adapters that may or may not actually work! The list now includes (but is not limited to): HD15, HDMI, DVI-A, DVI-D, DVI-M, DVI-I, DVI-Mini, Optical DVI, S-Video, RCA, Component (Y,Pb,Pr), SVGA, DFP, Hi-Res BNC, SVHS, etc etc etc." I was rather suspicious of USB cable design, as I could never fathom why the device end has to be completely different from the host end. Isn't that what connectors usually use gender for? Perhaps there is actually more to this.
  • Need a page for all the issues surrounding the US income tax:
    • Why an Income Tax is Not Necessary to Fund the U.S. Government
    • America: Freedom to Fascism
    • 2005-03-08 is the domestic income tax a "surveillance" tax? by Kevin Abrams: "The present tax on domestic incomes, enacted in both Canada and the United States as an emergency war time measure, must today be investigated for its overall impact upon the freedom and productivity of the people who find themselves under said tax regimes."
    • Broad Ownership Needs Broad Taxpaying
    • 1995-06-06 'Down, Down to Hell! and Say I Sent Thee!!' by Charles Adams: Testimony on Replacing the Income Tax Before the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington D.C., June 6, 1995. Also refers to a book.
    • The true nature of the withholding tax, and the 1040 Form circa 1942: possibly interesting, or possibly an attempt to make the obvious seem conspiratorial. To be investigated at a better time.
• found 2007-07-01: The Hippies Were Right! and mainstream culture is finally starting to embrace the ideas put forth by hippie culture 40 years ago

2007-06

• found 2007-06-15:
  • 2007-06-15 Copyright coalition: piracy more serious than burglary, fraud, bank robbery
    • Taking Liberties: satire inspired by the above article
  • 2006-05-05 The problem with MPAA's shocking piracy numbers
  • 2003-07-17 Is P2P the next 'drug war'?
• found 2007-06-14:
  • Dishonesty is sanitized in a world of spin: good example of why news should be wikified. Potential material for Issuepedia:Newspaper Challenge.
  • They are their own fixer-uppers by Leonard Pitts, Jr. Advocates for homeless people should seriously look into why this kind of thing (YouthBuild) can't be done more easily, renovating countless quasi-historic houses which otherwise will only cost the community money to demolish. I suspect the problems lie in money-influenced local politics which favor big developers over low-budget renovation. See also housing affordability.
• 2007-06-06
  • The Ballad of Ake Green: "bloggers have been noting the acceleration of a right-wing disinformation campaign that I first noticed on election day in 2004."
  • Cities fight bill to limit broadband in North Carolina: "House Bill 1587, "The Local Government Fair Competition Act," is supported by the telecommunications and cable industries, which say cities have unfair advantages—they don't pay taxes and can subsidize a money-losing Internet business with revenue from the city budget. The bill sets out a long list of strict financial and political requirements should a government get into the broadband business. But the N.C. League of Municipalities and a growing number of cities oppose the measure, saying it would effectively make it impossible for local governments to provide Internet service in rural and low-income areas where private industry has decided not to."
• 2007-06-03 GOP chief: New strategy key: "At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [ 9/11 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” Milligan said.' He probably didn't mean it the way it sounds, but it does rather illustrate the kind of "thinking" at work among Bush supporters: better to have another 9/11 than to have to keep dealing with (much less acknowledge the validity of dissent). The right wing truly does have more in common with the Islamic extremists than with most everyone else.
• An idea, inspired by this entry: people should be able to sue media outlets for reporting false information. The fine should be proportional to the number of viewers or readers, with some kind of scale set for severity of the error. So local newspapers wouldn't be hit very hard, but large "trusted" newspapers would... and TV news would get clobbered. (The conclusions Rove draws, though, are still questionable at best, even if his facts were right.)

2007-05

• found 2007-05-28:
  • [http://www.emord.com/stories/cherish.htm from Emord