Uh… so a bill in the US Senate with bipartisan support would allow the military to lock up citizens indefinitely without trial. That would be unconstitutional, right? Like, the Supreme Court would overturn it, right? Obama will veto it, right? Am I dreaming here? And both parties are in favor of this? Are you kidding? How fucking timid can you be? Any statement even remotely resembling this should be a clear poison pill, with the bill going down in flames, even if it is the Defense Authorization.
Tag: scotus
Links for the week of June 26th, 2010
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Continue reading Links for the week of June 26th, 2010
Links for the week of September 4th, 2009
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Continue reading Links for the week of September 4th, 2009
Shared Links for Jun 25th
- The ones that got away: science through cross-disciplinary eyes – The difference between what we consider "normal", and what was once the norm can be large. In this case, our societal amnesia is revealed in historical (and pre-historical) records of fish: we were already influencing their populations more than 30,000 years ago. (tagged: history sustainability society fish science )
- Supreme Court Says Child’s Rights Violated by Strip Search – OMG, the SCOTUS has ruled that children at school have *rights*. The end of civilization as we know it must be at hand. (tagged: law privacy scotus school authority police )
- Fixing Airport Security – Alas, if only the TSA *had* interviewed Schneier for the top job. On the other hand, maybe the police-state like experience we all have at airports is a great way to de-emphasize flying? Could be good for high speed rail… (tagged: security police transparency law privacy )
- Washington Village Boulder – There are plans to re-develop the Washington Elementary School in (old) N. Boulder (near Cedar and Broadway) as a dense mixed-use co-housing community. It sounds like exactly the kind of place I want to live! Unfortunately, the neighborhood NIMBYs are opposed to almost everything I like about it: the density, the mixed use, the restricted parking supply. They've managed to get the density and mixed use scaled back, and are working on the parking, making all the units more expensive, and precluding any small (less than 1000 sf) market rate (as opposed to artificially "affordable housing") units. Makes me sad. (tagged: urban design cohousing boulder colorado architecture )
- Brooklyn Cohousing – A single-building co-housing development in Brooklyn NY, to be built to the European Passive House standard. Yet another reason to visit NYC. (tagged: green design nyc housing cohousing architecture )
- Passive House USA – Who knew, there's a Passive House institute affiliate in the US. (tagged: sustainability green design efficiency architecture energy solar passivhaus )
Shared Links for May 5th
- How David Beats Goliath – When the rules are stacked against you, the intelligent thing to do is break them. (tagged: strategy law war insurgency guerilla gametheory basketball lawrenceofarabia )
- Continuous bankruptcy – Bankruptcy as it stands now is a discontinuous process. Your legal solvency is binary: either you are bankrupt, or you are not. It doesn't have to be that way, and I think you can make a good argument that it's better if it isn't. Continuous processes work themselves out in small steps, with lots of information flow along the way. Discontinuous ones are like explosions. It's easier to muster resistance to an explosion once you see it coming, and delay it. But how much better to start getting signals early on, and avert it altogether? (tagged: finance policy economics bailout banks bankruptcy discrete continuous )
- Digital Recovery of Moon Images – Ahh, NASA. Your data management has improved over the years, but that's not saying much. 20 tons of magnetic tape in an abandoned McDonalds houses the only extant copy of the pre-Apollo analog imaging of the Moon (still the highest resolution available in most places). It can only be read by one machine on Earth, which was recently rescued from a chicken coop, and refurbished by a man who is about to die. You can't make this stuff up. (tagged: information technology space nasa archive data moon )
- Will the Future Be Geo-Engineered? – The future is already geo-engineered, and has been ever since we started burning coal on a large scale more than 200 years ago. The question now is whether we back off, and try to let the system return to the quasi-equilibrium that allowed our civilization to arise, or introduce new and exciting perturbations, with completely unpredictable non-linear effects. I know which one I'm hoping for. (tagged: geoengineering technology non-linear climate policy environment )
- Hacking Scalia – Law professor gives class an assignment to dig up as much "private" info as possible on Justice Scalia, a notable anti-privacy force on the SCOTUS. This irritates Scalia. Exactly! (tagged: law privacy scalia scotus )
- No new coal: what real direct action looks like – The $10 million spent on violently policing the "climate camp" protest outside Kingsnorth is absurd, given that a single motivated saboteur, capable of advance planning and actually willing to risk arrest and injury, can walk into the power plant and shut down 500MW of coal fired power generation. If governments fail to deal with greenhouse gas emissions effectively, and remain in thrall to the carbon lobbies, it seems likely that soon this kind of action will become more common, and truly disruptive. All it takes is a few thousand people who actually care, and our infrastructure can be brought to its knees. (tagged: energy environment green coal climate protest kingsnorth directaction )