A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Political commentary and awareness
At about 9:55pm I called Tom Brokaw the winner of the Presidential debate in Nashville.
#debate08 #nashdebate i predict tonight’s winner is Tom Brokaw. Mccain, i won’t see a dime of your 5k. Wear my shoes! You won’t like them. about 1 hour ago from txt
Anyone call it sooner?
Update: My other debate Tweets.
I intended to just pick up the highlights of the debates today but I got dragged in. I want to understand the McCain/Palin love. I feel like I’m missing something. One of my neighbors has a McCain/Palin yard sign and I simply do not understand what they see in these two.
I watched the debates on CSPAN with their wonderful split screen and no over talking the candidates with commentators! Did anyone else notice that CSPAN gave Palin 53% of the screen while Biden was squeezed, with his head often bobbing offscreen, in 47%. On my 20 inch tv (that’s the diagonal measurement), Biden had 7.5 inches and Palin had 8.5 inches. Perhaps that was intended to be a metaphor for Biden being more in touch with the average American while Palin supposedly swings a big stick.
(mature language warning)
Leonardo DiCaprio, will i. am, Tobey Maguire, and Forest Whitaker have created public service announcements to encourage American youth to register to vote. The non-partisan PSAs, produced by DiCaprios Appian Way, were created to engage and inspire young people to register and vote and participate in the upcoming election. Celebrities appearing in the PSAs include: Amy Adams, will.i.am, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Bacon, Halle Berry, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Connolly, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Jonah Hill, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Kiedis, Ashton Kutcher, Adam Levine, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Ethan Suplee, Kyra Sedgwick, Michelle Trachtenberg, Usher, and Forest Whitaker.
Have you reached out to an unregistered voter and encouraged them to participate in the election? Time is running out. Find voter registration information at http://maps.google.com/vote
The Knox County School Board voted unanimously to approve random searching of students. The next steps are to have the Law Department issue a legal memorandum then to have a final reading of the policy on November 2nd.
A commenter with good common sense from Volunteer TV’s comments regarding the Knox County School Board wanting to implement random searches in the school (emphasis added):
Posted by: Keri Location: Knoxville on Oct 1, 2008 at 09:46 AM
Are we, as members of a free democracy-protected by a Constitution, going to allow the constitutional rights of our children to be trampled upon? I am as concerned as most citizens about the safety of our children at school, but I am more concerned about the intimidation and conditioning of our children to accept infringements on their rights as American citizens. If we accept policies that not only allow, but encourage the powers that be to randomly search our children, without cause or evidence of wrong doing, how much longer before these policies obscure the rights of every citizen? These children are the future policy makers and leaders of our country and they will lead us based on the manner in which they have been lead. It is time to send a message to our children and the policy makers of our community that we value our Constitutional rights and those who fought and died to secure those rights, far too much to allow anyone, for any reason to strip our children of their liberty. [Source, VolunteerTV.com, Knox Co. School Board considering random search proposal, Keri]
Quit looking for quick fixes and think about the future. Please.
See also: teenagers are not criminals
This is why you should never get your news from FOX! I really like the lady in the back right smacking her husband’s arm as he tries to raise it for McCain.
Note for when Youtube takes the video down. A reporter asks for a show of hands for McCain voters vs Obama voters. Almost every hand is down for McCain and up for Obama but the reporter declares the vote "split."
I felt compelled to email each of our school board members (and the ACLU) since tonight they will vote to approve random searching of students in our schools. This is the email I sent. Will you send one?
Dear School Board,
Please vote NO to random searches in our schools. Our money and time will be better spent developing a rapport with the students.
These websites informed me that Knox County School plans to pass a measure to allow random searching of students in the schools:
http://schoolmatters.knoxnews.com/forum/topic/show?id=879777%3ATopic%3A28290
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/sep/30/random-searches-at-schools-studied/
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/oct/01/Knox-school-superintendent-proposes-random-search/After the Central High School shooting, didn’t security experts advise you that the security cameras were a waste of money and that we’d be better served by having personnel interact more frequently with the students? See this quote from Knox School Matters:
I do not agree, I have a teenage daughter and do not want anyone “doing a pat down” search on her. They had a random metal detector search at Powell the other day and they only ran every 7th kid through it and yelled at the kids to shut up and just go through and dont ask questions. The kids were terrfied not knowing what was going on and being yelled at like criminals. Source, Knoxschoolmatters.com, Cindi
Our students deserve to be treated better than that. The students will not talk to the staff and warn them of impending doom when the student body fears the staff. We gain nothing through fear. In the penitentiary system random searches are to “breakdown” the inmates. Is that our goal? To brainwash and breakdown the children and parents? What legacy will we leave with these children when they graduate and start passing laws for us? For our own safety, will they legalize random searches in our retirement homes? The malls? Our houses?
Random searching is nothing more than theater. It is a waste of staff time, humiliating to the students, and ineffective. Ineffective? The student that wants to bring a gun to school isn’t going to be deterred by the possibility of a random search but I bet that student will be talking and exhibiting behaviors that give warning signs long before the gun comes in. You will pick up on the warning signs by interacting positively with the students. Negativity begets negativity and random searches are very negative.
Random searches at a school are different than random searches at an airport (although equally ineffective and very much theater). At the airport, we have the option to decline being searched and leave. Will our students have the right to decline a search and leave school?
You cannot build trust and safety on a foundation of fear and false suspicion. Please vote no.
Thank you!
Doug McCaughan
phone number
Update: A commenter at Knoxnews has this:
The Supreme Court Case that most directly deals with student searches is New Jersey v. T.L.O (469 U.S. 325). The written opinion states that althought students have not “necessarily waived all rights to privacy in such items by bringing them (legitimate, non-contraband items) onto school grounds,” a search can still be conducted if determined to be “reasonable.” The following describes the factors used to determine reasonableness:
“Determining the reasonableness of any search involves a determination of whether the search was justified at its inception and whether, as conducted, it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the interference in the first place. Under ordinary circumstances, the search of a student by a school official will be justified at its inception where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.”
In other words, officials must have a reason to search (less cause than suspision) a student. Random selection, by definition, is not a specific reason.
No matter how the school board votes, allowing random searches would be in direct violation of a Supreme Court ruling, and state and county law can not supercede federal law.
Update: No response from any board member. The ACLU called almost immediately!
I said martial law was coming October 1st. I was wrong. Apparently the Speaker of the House declared martial law on Saturday night (September 27th) according to Rep Burgess.
Anyone have any clarification on Rep Burgess’ statement? Ah! Apparently Congressional Martial Law is different than Martial Law from the Executive Branch. Explanation:
My apologies for the barrage of Palin videos and political posts. The election nears and I feel this is the most important election of my life. At the time I posted this, the video had 2,593 views and 36 comments.
Newsweek says Palin is not ready.
College Humor delivered an embed that was too large so I couldn’t post it when it first came out. I have no idea how BoingBoing got this smaller one but I hope it works for everyone. If the video doesn’t play, watch it at CollegeHumor.com.
This video was created in response to Matt Damon’s exception commentary. Even though you have already watched it, you really should re-watch Matt Damon speaking after watching the College Humor video.
Dear Gov’ment, Barack, and John,
I think you are all doing a fine job! Please let the $700,000,000,000 bank bailout pass. You have my full support with one small request. Please ear mark a measly $250k, just a drop in the bucket, for me. My own $250k bank bailout will afford me to clear debts and invest in certain assets to be a far more productive citizen with a greater contribution to the GNP.
Thank you! And keep up the great work!
McCain canceled on David Letterman at the last minute to rush to Washington in order to solve our economic crisis but stopped for an interview with Katie Couric first. Dave was less than thrilled and less than complimentary.
Update 25Sept2008 8:20am: Wow! When I posted that video there were 300 views and 125 comments. Now there are 403,936 views and 985 comments! That’s incredible.
First off, isn’t civil unrest and crowd control part of the duty of the National Guard and the local police?
The Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. [0:36-0:41]
Does an active military unit on US soil sound reasonable to you in the name of national security? Has fear and brainwashing led you to not question your leaders? Watch this next video as people sitting in a park are handcuffed, pepper sprayed, beaten, and arrested and ask yourself if we really need the Army doing crowd control on American soil.
Mass Arrest on Labor Day in the Park RNC from GlassBeadCollective on Vimeo.
The story of the park and the buried tape comes from The Minnesota Independent and Twin Cities Indymedia. Watch a really big version at Blip.tv.
The bank bailout is unnecessary is Naked Capitalism’s assessment of Bert Ely’s comments from an interview at Institutional Risk Analytics.
A banking industry expert, Bert Ely, who has a stellar track record in predicting crises and calling false alarms says that the banking industry can handle this mess internally and does not need subsidies. [Source, Naked Capitalism, Banking Expert: Bailout Not Necessary, Industry Can Take Losses]
Update: Bailout has been planned for months and The New York Times says the Issue Is Payback, Not Bailout.
Update 25Sept2008: Billionaire George Soros says Paulson cannot be allowed a blank check.
Update: Ron Paul lectures Bernanke on the flaws of the bailout plan and the hazard of the attempt to fix prices versus letting them correct naturally in the free market.
Update: Newscoma points to another billionaire, Mark Cuban, who is harsh on the bailout. "The bankers that we hope will reflate the economy with loans to the people and companies who need it ARE THE SAME BANKERS THAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS." Watch for comments at No Silence Here.
PBS has a poll asking if you think Sarah Palin is qualified to be the vice president of the United States of America. The answer is no.
