Nick Lewis: The Blog

Wow, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann just said EXACTLY what needed to be said right now about Katrina.[requires quickitem] I don't know much about Olbermann, but this was the most refreshing take I have yet heard from TV news on the situation in New Orleans. Here's a preview from the transcript:

...having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled. ...the Court's conclusions in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion and that government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy find no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.

Supreme Court Nominee, John Roberts

Via Frank Paynter:

Berkeley just announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium".

Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy, since it has half as many peons, but twice as many morons.

Here's an article from ZNet that is well worth your read: The new(s) face of Propaganda,

The new propaganda has its power in the freedom (or apparent freedom) of press. It is for this reason it is possible to call it new(s) propaganda. The new(s) propaganda needs freedom of media, needs debate (only a small amount, and under control). Why? Because until someone can say without restraint what one is thinking, it is difficult to see this kind of propaganda which wants to homologate the mind. The intellectuals or writers who work against this system are, regardless, inside the system. Because paradoxically those who think that it is difficult to talk and write liberally are indeed talking or writing about this, and so are free to say everything. It is here a more interesting aspect of this propaganda appears. The reflections of an intellectual or writer are delivered to a small segment of the population, and usually someone who already knows these things beforehand. It rarely arrives to the general public.

Link to Full Article

If you blog, and haven't gotten that J.D. yet, than checkout Nolo's helpful guide on fair use. Any blogger with more than 10 readers needs to know this stuff.  

(Hat tip To Corante)

Sounds like a joke, right? The AP reports:

Smoking rights groups, bar owners and Libertarian political parties are taking aim at some major charities. They say the charities support smoking bans that threaten civil rights and small business.

The groups in nine states complain that charities such as the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Heart Association use their lobbying power to help write state and local smoking bans.

You know, I'm no supporter of cancer. However, I happen to agree with those who are opposing the ACS, ALA, and AHA's recent campaign to get smoking banned in all public places. I have two reasons:

1. Its fine to ban smoking in just about every public place. But why do they have to go after bars? I mean, folks: we're talking BARS here. At the very least, I think they should give us one last place to keep our vices, and a bar seems as good of a place as another.

2. Clearly, this tactic is intended to setup a legal precedent to ban smoking all together. And, if you don't already know why that's a terrible idea, than you're not worth talking to.

Independent Woman's Forum instructs: "It is time for every honest feminist worth her salt to stand up for Priscilla Owen." Gee, I didn't know that those who opposed Owens judicial nomination were being dishonest. Allow me to be the first to thank the Republican hacks running the "Independent Woman's Forum" for alerting me that 40 national groups ranging from planned parenthood, to Friends of the Earth, to the United Autoworkers are being dishonest in their opposition of her. After all, as we can see from Owen's sparking record, ONE court case involving a minor bypassing parental notification for an abortion isn't cause to oppose her.

Let’s begin with Justice Owen’s long history of supporting the rights of Woman. In one case, Read v. Scott Fetzer Co, the vacuum company Kirby did not think that it should require its employees to undergo background checks. Unfortunately, as a result it hired Mickey Carter, who had been fired from numerous jobs for sexual harassment, and had been arrested for indecency in front of a child. On one of his door-to-door vacuum-selling visits, Carter raped a woman named D.K.R. As a result, she and her family sued Kirby for negligence. The Texas Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, ruled that Kirby was negligent, and paid D.K.R’s family $160,000 dollars. Of course, Owen dissented. She did not think that Kirby should be held liable for a rape that resulted from them sending a convicted sex offender to someone’s home. Owens, stands up for woman, after all. I think all honest feminists would agree that the woman in question “was asking for it” when she opened the door for a Kirby salesman.  

Pandagon teaches us all how to speak of Justice Scalia: the distinguished gentleman :

Justice Scalia’s reaction to the NYU law student who asked him if he sodomizes his wife really drove this home for me. Scalia, after all, thinks that the government has every right to come bursting into your house and telling you how to fuck, but he clearly thinks that he does not have to disclose his private information to the citizens he works for. Scalia claims he doesn’t believe you have a right to privacy, but he seems to think he has a right to privacy. From a democratic viewpoint, this is intolerable. From an aristocratic viewpoint, it is the natural order—of course Scalia is not accountable to the peasants.

A Practical Guide to Fair Use*, from Harvard Law School's Signal or Noise 2k5 conference.

*All praises to John Palfrey for sharing this knowledge

"I would now like to start looking at that dimension which I have called by that rather nasty word 'governmentality'. Let us suppose that "governing" is not the same thing as 'reigning', that it is not the same thing as 'commanding' or 'making the law'let us suppose that governing is not the same thing as being a sovereign, a suzerain, being lord, being judge, being a general, owner, master, professor. Let us suppose that there is a specificity to what it is to govern and we must now find out a little what type of power is covered by this notion."

- Michel Foucault, Sécurité, Territorie, Population. Cours au Collège de France. 1977-1978, Paris: Gallimard, 2004. p. 119.