The future is here

I recently read an article on the Internet (can't find the link now) that detailed how our increasing use of the "cloud" to create and store our information renders us more susceptible to commercial and governmental intrusion. I don't (I think I don't, anyway) use the cloud to store much information because I've never trusted that such storage places won't keep my data without being tempted to exploit it.

Now--no surprise--my reluctance to become a Facebook junkie has seen justification. I like the author's reference to the Pied Piper, whose victims not just willingly, but gleefully, followed him to their deserts.

Gotta love Santa Barbara

For several months last year (probably because I'd become addicted to my Netflix rental of BBC's Foyle's War series) I thought I'd like to move to Sussex County, England. It still appeals to me somewhat, actually. But this morning, while I'm grouting my bathroom floor, I've got the British Open golf tournament on television in my bedroom and I just checked out the broadcast from southern England. Result: It's blowing and raining in cold, driven spears there today. In high summer. Meanwhile, today in SB the weather is glorious, too glorious to be indoors grouting, but oh well.

An observation. On mid-day today there's a perfect sport on television to "view" from the other room, namely, football (soccer): the final of the Women's World Cup, to which the US team has (miraculously) qualified. I mean, you can hear the broadcast, but since nothing's happening except upon the occasional score--and each of those gives rise to a huge eruption of noise and are thereupon replayed at least five times--you can effectively see the whole match without having to watch it much, just by checking out the telecast a few times in two hours.

Now don't get me wrong. On occasion, soccer can be interesting, as with the women's amazing last-minute victory last week over Brazil to get them into the semi-finals. But its best function is as white noise in the other room while engaged in an absorbing indoor task.

A voice in the wilderness

Kucinich: A succinct statement of what's going on in America.

Delusional

Panetta is flatly out of his mind.

The next chapter in America's downfall

They already own our indebtedness and our commercial real estate and our jobs. Now they're nibbling away at our houses.

Here we go again

Another outrageous 5-4 Supreme Court decision, this time striking down Arizona's ground-breaking "clean elections" law that sought to "level the playing field" of funding of candidates so that money couldn't as easily buy elections. Under the guise of First Amendment rhetoric, the Court continues to foster finance over speech, money as the ultimate form of expression.

I'm wavering in my desire to sit out the 2012 election, if for no other reason than to keep the right from further polluting the Supreme Court.

If I watched local television newscasts

I'd be strongly opposed to this trend in broadcasting. As it is, local television newscasts come here to Santa Barbara from up north in the Pismo Beach/SLO area, except for one channel (I think there's one) that emanates from SB, and it's so awful I seldom watch it.

Why am I not surprised

at this latest 5-4 Supreme Court decision.

(To be honest, I not only anticipated the result--even the split on the Court--but I felt, as a former class-action lawyer, that the breadth of the class claims, as well as the manageability of the suit were on the outer edge of legal tolerance of the class action device.)

Here's a succinct lay analysis of the legality of Obama's actions in Libya

Its conclusion is that it's unlikely that anything short of impeachment--which is itself unlikely, of course--will be ineffective to stop this, or future, wars by imperial decree. I happen to agree, grudgingly, with that conclusion, which calls for me to consider whether this nation is still one that I revere. (I've been pondering this ever since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution handed LBJ unbridled power to destroy Vietnam, which the executive later used to bomb Cambodia.)

I still admire the process that allows public debate on such issues and that permits lawsuits, however ineffective, to be lodged to test the question. But these don't stop the presidential power to make war from being wielded by a single person. (Imagine Bachmann possessed of such power, or Palin!)

The only effective halt to this exercise of executive arrogance would be for the Supreme Court to declare the war illegal and to enter an order enjoining the president from continuing it. If disobeyed, the Court could send a US Marshal (imagine Tommy Lee Jones in the role) to arrest the president for contempt of court, which would not make even a decent screenplay. However--and this is ironic because of the disrespect I have for the five dwarfs on the Court--the conservatives Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and (somewhat less so) Kennedy are more likely than the other four to make such a ruling and enter such a decree because of their self-proclaimed "strict construction" of the Constitution. By that time, however, enormous devastation would have been wrought, the very devastation the Constitution was written to restrict.

Orwell rules the airwaves

Clear Channel's list of unpreferred songs after 9/11/01. Did you know about this?

You're likely aware of this site

but if not, you're in for a treat. Educational, cute, always entertaining. Enjoy.

Wouldn't it be wonderful

if this MIT discovery were feasible and effective? (If it progresses, however, I wouldn't give a plug nickel for the lives of the scientists who are developing it. Men in Black--the color of crude--will spirit them away, no doubt.)

Some more news about Africa

After that article about diminishing wild animals on the African plain (follow the link in my May 31 post) now this.

I disagree with these curators...

I think the Auschwitz sign should be put back where it can be seen in context and allowed to decay naturally.

Want some really terrible news?

Check out this story.

I may sound like a constitutional technocrat...

but why isn't Obama's failure to abide by the War Powers Act with respect to his ordering of US military strikes in Libya an impeachable offense? And, to be fair, his use of force in Libya in the absence of Congressional approval is even "more unconstitutional" that Bush's action in Iraq, given that Bush at least pretended there was a threat to the US from Iraq.

Both sides--liberals and conservatives--should demand that Obama either seek Congressional approval or immediately cease the use of American force and, if he fails to do either, commence the impeachment process.

Today's news

I rarely watch network television news--occasionally PBS News Hour, but even that only seldom--and have become out of touch with what passes for significant reportage in America. This morning, just now, I happened to click on MSNBC's news hour. The lead story: Oprah's last show.

Wonderful.

As a former Arizonan,

here's yet another reason why I'll not move back, ever.

Hapless, hopeless

This Saturday, today, our weekly peace march along State Street was ugly indeed. We were joined by four women of the Women For Peace group who, rather than engaging in symbolic speech, used the occasion to window shop and chat, while holding their hand-scrawled peace signs at their hips so as not to block their view of the shop displays or hinder their personal conversations. No wonder conservatives are taking over this nation. They have ardor and display it. Not so these "couch liberals," who because of the appearance they gave to the rest of us on the march who were singing "Imagine" all the while, became effectively ruinous agents provocateur.

What did we expect?

The Supreme Court, 5-4 (and you know who's in the majority) rules that class-action status can be defeated by the company's requirement that consumers sign an individual-arbitration clause as part of their purchase agreement. A death-knell to mass-consumer class actions.

And the corporatist beat goes on...