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Top 10 Lessons of the Iraq War

Posted on March 24th, 2012 at 21:17 by John Sinteur in category: News

[Quote]:

Lesson #2: It’s not that hard to hijack the United States into a war.

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God’s Plan for America

Posted on March 24th, 2012 at 15:12 by John Sinteur in category: Indecision 2012, Pastafarian News

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Comments:

Spaceman Spiff on March 24th, 2012 at 18:11:

No matter who is nominated, we need a lot of prayers! None of the candidates (Republican and Obama) are worth electing, IMO! I’ll vote for Obama, solely because the alternatives are just unthinkable! Obama started making me suspicious of his motives when he voted for the 2008 FISA Ammendments Act, after saying that he would vote against it! His actions since, in abrogating our Constitutional rights, have confirmed that he is not the person we thought we were supporting for the 2008 US Presidential election. If there was ANY other reasonable candidate, then I would NOT be voting for Obama. All of the Republican candidates make me want to hurl!
Sue W on March 25th, 2012 at 0:00:

You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!
Mauro on March 25th, 2012 at 7:47:

Gah, there are just so many *logic* errors that…

Oh.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.
Desiato on March 25th, 2012 at 12:57:

Can one donate to have that featured on billboards in swing states?

Incarceration nation

Posted on March 24th, 2012 at 15:01 by Paul Jay in category: News

[Quote]:

“Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today,” writes the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik. “Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America – more than 6 million – than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.”

Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That’s not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and Britain – with a rate among the highest – has 153….

This wide gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world is relatively recent. In 1980 the U.S.’s prison population was about 150 per 100,000 adults. It has more than quadrupled since then. So something has happened in the past 30 years to push millions of Americans into prison.

That something, of course, is the war on drugs.

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Comments:

Mudak on March 24th, 2012 at 17:01:

There’s a related factor: privatization of prisons. This adds a profit motive to find reasons to incarcerate.
Sue W on March 25th, 2012 at 1:24:

It’s good that this story is getting more attention. It doesn’t seem that brutalizing poor or unlucky people is having a good effect.
SjG on March 25th, 2012 at 4:17:

While the situation is awful and needs to be changed, comparing it to the Gulags is basically an invocation of Godwin’s Law.

Yes, the Prison Industrial Complex needs to be dismantled. Yes, the privatized system is corrupt, and leads to ridiculous sentencing. Yes, the so-called war on drugs is really a tool of class/race war.

But the Gulags were where a million and a half people were worked, abused, or frozen to death in horrible conditions.

Spurious comparisons like this just distract from the discussion. Why not say something accurate that has impact, e.g., the per-capita incarceration rate in the US is higher than the per-capita incarceration rates of China, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran combined.
Michael on March 25th, 2012 at 13:18:

The famous “Three strikes” rule has contributed more than 50% of the prison population since 1993. Have a look at the numbers here to get an idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png
Desiato on March 25th, 2012 at 16:26:

@SjG: Gopnik needed that Gulag bit in the sentence to distract the copy-editors at the New Yorker from the fact that he used “example” as a verb. Verbing weirds language, and I’m generally favor, but bah.

That the incarceration rate is not a national crisis is a scandal.

Facebook: Legal action against employers asking for your password

Posted on March 24th, 2012 at 13:24 by Desiato in category: Privacy

In the context of the recent post about employers asking employees or job candidates for Facebook access:

[Quote]:

Facebook points out that sharing or soliciting a Facebook password is a violation of the social network’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.

The social networking giant is considering using the law to protect its 845 million users. There are two routes Menlo Park is looking at: a) getting politicians to pass a law barring employers from this practice and/or b) suing employers who are asking you for your Facebook credentials.

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