Update 7/20/2010: New reports are emerging, indicating that much of the original information about the shuttering of Blogetary.com (see below) was incorrect. According to these new reports, Blogetary.com was shuttered by its ISP because of terrorism-related material on its blog network.
The Burst.net hosting provider actually made the decision to shutter the blogs, not the federal government, making this an example of corporate overstep rather than federal overstep (though no less inappropriate). Burst.net and/or the FBI should have contacted the operator of Blogetary.com directly so that he could terminate the account(s) in question. Blogetary.com should only have been shut down in its entirety if/when its operators failed to take action.
I have left my original entry regarding this matter available below. Note that while, in this particular instance, the Obama administration bears little or no blame for what happened, there have been other recent examples of federal Internet overstep and the core thesis of my article remains valid despite the incorrect details of this case.
Some More Random Photos
Just a few random photos (including a few you might have already seen on my Facebook stream). We have a few of our cats, including two of Vincent being a freakin’ weirdo, and some strangely labeled food products that seem to be made of puffins, penguins, and silverfish.
Pelosi Has It Backwards
It’s very interesting to see Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 8th), Speaker of the House of Representatives, complaining that President Barack Obama (D) isn’t doing enough to help his party maintain its House majority in November. Given Obama’s dwindling poll numbers and the vehement, widespread opposition to his policies from both the ‘right’ and the ‘left,’ if I were the Speaker of the House I would be begging him to stay away.
After jumping right on-board with Bush’s incredibly unpopular bailout bonanza, failing to fulfill even the simplest of his campaign promises (e.g., holding all health care debates and discussion in public and broadcast on C-SPAN), pushing through a misguided health care reform plan, and other debacles . . . well, Obama is increasingly proving to be political poison. Almost every congressional or gubernatorial candidate Obama has campaigned for during his presidency has lost—Creigh Deeds in Virginia, Jon Corzine in New Jersey, and Martha Coakley in Massachusetts to name the most noteworthy.
Republicans are poised for a surprising comeback only two years after their well-deserved 2008 trouncing; if the Democrats really want to blunt the impact they need to distance themselves from Obama’s broken promises of a transparent, bipartisan, people’s administration. The ground-swell of moderates that put Obama in office are very angry and betrayed by the ‘politics as usual’ that continues in Washington today; I would advise Democratic candidates to try and steer clear of the wreckage.
Arizona, Preemption, and Immigration
Earlier this year, the state legislature in Arizona passed one of the strictest immigration laws in the United States. Faced with the massive monetary and social consequences of illegal immigration, you can’t blame Arizona for taking drastic action. Many states—and even individual localities like Prince William County, VA—have been forced to tighten local enforcement of the previously largely-unenforced federal immigration laws in order to maintain their own financial solvency.
Unsurprisingly, immigrants who choose to flaunt our laws to get into this country too-often continue to flaunt our laws once they’re here. Localities with large illegal immigrant populations invariably have skyrocketing rates of both property and violent crime—and increases in the associated costs of police enforcement, jails and prisons, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, etc. This alone would have been sufficient reason to crack down, but then you add to that the costs associated with educating the children of illegal immigrants, providing public medical care for illegal immigrants, and so on—when illegal immigrants generally aren’t paying taxes on their ‘under the table’ incomes—the argument in favor of Arizona-style laws gets even more clear.
Immigration policy, generally speaking, should really be a federal issue . . . unlike, say, health care, education, medical research, auto manufacturing, banking, or most of the ten-billion others things our government does without any Constitutional authority. Curiously, while our government has no apparent problem dabbling in all these places they have no right to dabble, it has essentially abdicated its role in immigration enforcement. Illegal immigrants go about their activities without consequence; businesses hire illegal immigrants with impunity and without any serious fear of prosecution. The federal government just looks the other way and, meanwhile, the states and the people are forced to absorb the real costs of the invasion.
Rep. Connolly on the Postal Service
Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA 11th) is one of those politicians who really frustrates me because he seems to vacillate between a likable clear-headed pragmatism and an out-of-touch bureaucratic irrelevancy. When I lived in Fairfax County and he was the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, I could never decide whether I loved or hated how he led the county.
His interview with Federal News Radio about the United States Postal Service (USPS) illustrates this nicely. He rightfully points out that USPS has been made to overpay 75 billion dollars in retirement system payments, which needs to be remedied, and further says that cutting service and raising prices will be counterproductive. “By reducing service and raising rates, they put themselves on a death spiral. . . .It is an important niche that the Postal Service actually has, so instead of reducing service from six to five days a week, the Postal Service ought to be looking at a 24-hour model like the competition.”
But Connolly quickly abandons this beautiful, rational, logical train of thought and says that USPS should build on its strength of package delivery. What? Has Representative Connolly ever sent or received a package via the USPS? It costs about the same as UPS or FedEx but you don’t get any guaranteed date of delivery and you don’t get any kind of tracking (despite their claims to the contrary). The ‘tracking’ is a real insult since they say they do package tracking but they just . . . don’t. You’re lucky if they scan it once along its cross-country journey; usually you don’t even get one errant update along the way.
Why is USPS package shipping doing well? Easy. Amazon.com uses USPS exclusively now for their free ‘Super Saver’ shipping. I’ll bet Amazon.com alone accounts for the increase over the last several years and, if USPS prices go up and service somehow gets worse, I wouldn’t expect Amazon.com to stick around. Putting Connolly’s blather about package delivery aside, he’s definitely right about one thing: “I think we have to re-imagine the Postal Service.”
Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.