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Category: Policy Page 10 of 35

(A Step Away From) Marijuana Madness

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On February 27, 2009

In Law, Policy, Society

A not insignificant step forward to a more intelligent approach to drugs in the US:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama – who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana – will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.

Asked at a Washington news conference Wednesday about Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California since Obama took office last month, Holder said the administration has changed its policy.

“What the president said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing here in law enforcement,” he said. “What he said during the campaign is now American policy.”

Not a bad path towards budget cuts, either.

The Irony of the GOP

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On February 26, 2009

In Policy, Politics

As noted in many other places this morning, Gail Collins describes things perfectly:

Louisiana has gotten $130 billion in post-Katrina aid. How is it that the stars of the Republican austerity movement come from the states that suck up the most federal money? Taxpayers in New York send way more to Washington than they get back so more can go to places like Alaska and Louisiana. Which is fine, as long as we don’t have to hear their governors bragging about how the folks who elected them want to keep their tax money to themselves. Of course they do! That’s because they’re living off ours.

Think That New Car Is Yours? Not Quite.

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On February 19, 2009

In Policy, Politics, Virginia

I’m coming late to this, but Vivian Paige brings our attention to a bill that I couldn’t quite believe, the first time I read it.  As Vivian describes it:

Very simply, the change [to the law] would make it easier for the seller of the vehicle to take possession of [a vehicle which you have contracted to purchase, made a downpayment/trade-in on, and have taken possession of, but for which the dealer has not yet made an application for title on your behalf]. Where’s the problem? Well, what about returning the trade in and the downpayment of the purchaser? Shouldn’t those things occur at the same time? This bill doesn’t take that into consideration.

Another concern of consumer protection activists is that it will open the door for the filing of criminal charges – as opposed to civil charges – against buyers who don’t, for whatever reason, turn over the vehicles immediately.This is despite the fact that Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code says that these are civil cases.

It’s a ridiculously bad change to the law (something that Del. John Cosgrove, sponsor of the bill, seems to be fond of attempting), and is up for hearing today.  Follow the link from Vivian’s place for information on

Related: Mark Brooks follows the money.

Sen. Feinstein Wants To See Your Packets

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On February 10, 2009

In Distribution, Policy, Politics, Tech

Just got this from Public Knowledge:

Hollywood’s lobbyists are running all over the Hill to sneak in a copyright filtering provision into the stimulus package. The amendment [presented by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) will] allow ISPs to “deter” child pornography and copyright infringement through network management techniques. The amendment is very, very controversial for a couple of reasons:

  1. First, infringement can’t be found through “network management” techniques. There are legal uses for copyrighted works even without permission of the owner.
  2. Second, it would require Internet companies to examine every bit of information everyone puts on the Web in order to find those allegedly infringing works, without a hint of probable cause. That would be a massive invasion of privacy, done at the request of one industry, violating the rights of everyone who is online.

Right now, we need you to contact a few key Senators: Majority Leader Harry Reid, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee Daniel Inouye, and Chairman of the Commerce Committee Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Finance Committee Max Baucus, and senior member of the Appropriations Committee Senator Barbara Mikulski, and tell them to leave out this controversial provision.

Click here for Public Knowledge’s suggested letter/fax.  Also, California, can you please do us a favor and make Feinstein your governor so the rest of us don’t have to suffer her any more?  And don’t give me any noise about what a bad governor she’d be.  We already know you have no standards.

Must See Reality TV

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On February 9, 2009

In Policy, Politics, Society

You have to see this MSNBC clip in the context of this remark from a reader of TPM:

Here’s what JC wrote: “In this clip, Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb are still being treated as a circus sideshow by CNBC… They’re predicting the end of finance, and offering the only clear path out of this mess that I’ve seen offered (with the knowledge to back it up), and CNBC keeps asking them for stock tips. It’s ludicrous. Wall Street media — CNBC at least — doesn’t realize how bad this is yet. They’re stuck in a bubble where they think everything will go back to normal in a few months….”

He hits it spot on. These two guys are talking about a deep structural crisis in the world economy. And these CNBC yahoos can’t stop asking for stock tips. Really surreal.

Yeah, this post was a wholesale ripoff of TPM, but they were too on-point to do it any other way.

House of Lords Looks at Privacy in the UK

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On February 7, 2009

In EU, Policy, UK

The House of Lords released a report on state surveillance in Britain, last week.  Among its findings:

Britain leads the world in the use of CCTV, with an estimated 4m cameras, and in building a national DNA database, with more than 7% of the population already logged compared with 0.5% in the America.

[ . . . ]

“The huge rise in surveillance and data collection by the state and other organisations risks undermining the long-standing traditions of privacy and individual freedom which are vital for democracy,” [Lord Goodlad, the former Tory chief whip and committee chairman] said. “If the public are to trust that information about them is not being improperly used there should be much more openness about what data is collected, by whom and how it is used.”

While many of the findings are themselves troubling (e.g., powers granted in the name of combating terrorism are in fact used to snag people for not cleaning up after their dogs), the existence of the report itself is encouraging.  First, it illustrates that the UK government isn’t marching in lockstep toward more surveillance.  In the past decade, it’s been alarming how easily the government has gained the ability to monitor its citizens’ most mundane activities without reason or permission.  Second, it should give some hope to those who – like me – regard Britain as a leading indicator for state surveillance and privacy policy in Europe and the United States.   If the House of Lords is sounding the alarm before the over-broad practices of the current Labour government have emigrated outward, those practices will be less likely to be met with a presumption of validity in the US and rest of the EU.

Bob Mionske: The State of Cycling and the Law

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On February 6, 2009

In Cycling, Law, Policy

Bob Mionske, lawyer and long time cyclist, uses the occasion of his last Legally Speaking column at Velonews to give us a broad overview of the state of cycling and the law.  I recommend it to both cyclists and drivers.

Friday Notes: This Edition

By

On February 6, 2009

In Cycling, Personal, Policy, Politics, Virginia

One of my favorite pro cyclists – Magnus Backstedt – is retiring.   At 6’4″ and 210lbs, he was proof that you don’t have to be a tiny little stick man to do well in cycling (tho’ it helps).  Good luck, Maggy.  We’ll miss you.

~

End to high times in Dubai?

[F]aced with crippling debts as a result of their high living and Dubai’s fading fortunes, many expatriates are abandoning their cars at the airport and fleeing home rather than risk jail for defaulting on loans.

Police have found more than 3,000 cars outside Dubai’s international airport in recent months. Most of the cars – four-wheel drives, saloons and “a few” Mercedes – had keys left in the ignition.

I’m sure that no one could have imagined it.

~

Did you know that the US is getting new pennies next week?  I did not.

~

Fred Kaplan takes a good look at Federal archiving policy.  That might sound a bit dull, but it’s terribly important if we want to be able to ever assess the gap between what our politicians tell us and what the government actually does.

“Electronic records,” the study found, “are generally not disposed of in accordance” with federal regulations. In particular, many e-mails are “being destroyed prematurely,” for several reasons. [ . . . ]

Finally—and this is simply stunning—the National Archives’ technology branch is so antiquated that it cannot process some of the most common software programs. Specifically, the study states, the archives “is still unable to accept Microsoft Word documents and PowerPoint slides.”

This is a huge lapse. Nearly all internal briefings in the Pentagon these days are presented as PowerPoint slides. Officials told me three years ago that if an officer wanted to make a case for a war plan or a weapons program or just about anything, he or she had better make the case in PowerPoint—or forget about getting it approved.

And now, it turns out, all those presentations may be lost to the ether.

~

Supposedly, Virginia will have smoking ban legislation soon.  I’ll believe it when I see it.

~

Trying to figure out what to do for your kid’s 15th birthday?  Hire the Abstinence Clown!  Can’t be that expensive, since it’s federally subsidized, and truly, the possible entertainment value is almost inconceivable.

~

I’ve been looking for a new motorcycle helmet, and I think I might have found it.

Bipartisanship Is *Not* What’s Important

By

On February 4, 2009

In Policy, Politics

Markos takes an asute observation by Theda Skocpol:

Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as bipartisanship not saving the U.S. economy.

And runs with it:

What have we seen the last few weeks? Democrats caving to GOP demands and inserting useless tax cut provisions to appease them. Then they vote en masse against the stimulus in the House. Meanwhile, Obama hands yet another cabinet post to yet another Republican, this one a right-wing small-government ideologue who voted to eliminate the Commerce Department he will now head just a few short years ago. Then he gives a schizophrenic acceptance speech where he thanks New Hampshire’s governor for caving to his demands for a GOP replacement for his seat, while at the same time arguing that it’s time to get past “partisanship”. Oh, then he punches Obama in the face by denying him a critical cloture vote on the Senate version of the stimulus bill.

[ . . . ]

During the Bush years, the best interests of our country took a back seat to the GOP’s failed ideology. Right now, it looks like the best interests of our country are taking a back seat to the failed ideology of “bipartisanship”.

It would be nice if, for once, people actually looked at what was best for our country.

Quite.   I recommend hitting the first link for the rest of Skocpol’s comments.  The bipartisan schtick that Obama has is one of the reasons I was skeptical of him in the primaries – I worried that he’d let it get in the way of good public policy.  As the election moved on, and right after it, I thought that maybe I was mistaken about that.   I’m not too far away from moving firmly back to my skepticism.

China’s Labor Troubles: Yours, Too?

By

On February 2, 2009

In Policy, Society

The Times Online reports:

Bankruptcies, unemployment and social unrest are spreading more widely in China than officially reported, according to independent research that paints an ominous picture for the world economy.

The research was conducted for The Sunday Times over the last two months in three provinces vital to Chinese trade – Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu. It found that the global economic crisis has scythed through exports and set off dozens of protests that are never mentioned by the state media.

Now, I’m taking that with a grain of salt – not because I particularly doubt the sources in the article, but because I’ve found that it’s so much “news” about China is passed through filters that result in the China that writers and reporters think you should see, instead of the China that is.  That said (and here is where my own filter kicks in), if things really are moving towards massive unrest in China, I think that’ll hit Western consumers just as hard as the financial mess.  All those cheaper places people have started shopping at, lately?  Direct pipeline of goods from China.  And when that pipeline gets interrupted by unrest?  Where are these stores going to turn?  As best I can tell, they don’t have any other meaningful options.

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