In a perfect world, this talk by noted author and electronic liberty activist, Cory Doctorow, would be a viral video that would reach millions of people instead of the just a bit over 110,000 it has so far. Because in it he explains in relatively plain English what is going on in the copyright...
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Taking the pulse of the GOP race this morning we find: Michelle Bachmann is now her party's frontrunner in the race to be the next President of the United States. And while you let that thought marinade in your brain juices for a moment, consider that barring her total implosion, she will remain the...
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One can be forgiven for snorting with a bit of derision at Standard & Poor’s decision to take a notch out of the USA’s credit rating by lowering it from AAA to AA+. These are, after all, the morons who rated the credit default swaps of the 2000′s as investment grade and look where...
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This post was written for the Des Moines Register Political Opinion Page. Yeah, so three months and no posts. I don’t have much to offer in the way of an excuse really. Work has certainly been a factor. But more than anything it has been a combination of a numb depression at the direction...
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So, let’s say we have a business in town; one of the city’s largest employers. In recent years they have spent tens of millions of dollars in improvements to their other facilities in town to make many of them state-of-the-art. But the company headquarters is located in an architectural landmark in the old downtown....
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Originally Posted at The Des Moines Register At least at an intellectual level I understand the GOP fixation with “reducing the regulatory burden on businesses,” and how that leads to wanting to slash environmental regulations. But that doesn’t explain some of what’s going on here. Under the category of actual good policy, Governor Branstad...
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Certainly the first three months of 2011 make it seem like all the subtle changes in our economies and societies that have been slowly happening underfoot have suddenly let go, just like the pressure along a fault line can release decades of pressure in a few minutes. But despite all of this, I'm...
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Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write...
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Americans it seems have a more nuanced concept of how to balance the budget than the GOP. The President tonight has the opportunity to be the adult in the room and propose actual, workable solutions (Yet still painful. It seems if the cuts don't "hurt" then they are not "serious.") to put the...
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President Obama did what president’s are asked to do in these kinds of situations; to transcend politics and speak to the larger spiritual and community issues that while not political per se, inform our politics. He exceeded all expecations tonight. This was a speech on a subject that has been begging to be given...
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