Author: danps

Left wing politics has often paid lip service to a growing marginalized group, but the failure to engage the formerly incarcerated is not just a political failure – it is a moral one.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

By Mansfield Frazier

“White people got more in common with colored people then they do with rich people”

– Fictional character Sen. Jay Billington Bulworth

During the 50’s, 60’s and much of the 70’s Blacks literally owned the Civil Rights Movement in America. We went from the back of the bus, to a seat on the front of the bus, to, in some cases, even driving the bus. The next logical step was to occupy seats on the boards that ran the bus companies – and that too has haltingly occurred, albeit quite a bit more slowly.

One of the main reasons the movement slowed down (other than the fact the obvious “in-your-face” racism was replaced by a more subtle, more difficult form to combat) was that Black Civil Rights leaders didn’t expand the moral franchise they owned lock, stock and barrel. When the movements for Women, Native Americans, Gays and other disenfranchised peoples came along (all spurred in some part by the success Blacks had experienced), instead of reaching out, embracing, and providing strategies, support and succor, Black leaders – especially after the death of Dr. King – demonstrated a conservative bent that rivaled the reactionaries they had been fighting so hard against.

Based in part on custom, and in part on wacky readings and interpretations of religious tenets found in the Bible, the Black Civil Rights Movement (which was largely lead by clergy) turned its back on a grand opportunity to advance the cause by strengthening its numbers via inclusion.  Indeed, the same racist, right-wing bigots we Blacks were fighting against, these other marginalized Americans were fighting against too. If we had only reached out, together we all truly could have “overcome.”  Our Black leaders seemingly forgot the aphorism “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

History – which has an uncanny (and sometimes nasty) habit of repeating itself – appears as if it’s about to do so again. As the Labor Movement – along with other Progressives – attempts to fend off efforts by conservatives to turn back the clock on workers’ rights in state after state around the nation, they are by and large ignoring a demographic that could aid them in winning their battles at the ballot box: The formerly incarcerated.

It’s not surprising that folks with felony records – especially Black folks with felony records, which, here in Cleveland, OH constitutes half of the adult male population – are often overlooked as foot soldiers when forces are marshaled to protect the working class via the voting booth. Historically, those in charge of mounting such efforts have reached out to minority communities only as an afterthought, quite literally taking them for granted. Why not, what else were they going do to, vote for conservative positions or persons? No, they often just stay at home.

Retail, street-level politics has been operating in the same manner within most ethnic communities for years and years: Money trickles down from national or statewide campaign headquarters to locals who operate get-out-the-vote campaigns…with varying degrees of success. However, White voters (and to some extent Black voters too) today are more geographically dispersed, better educated, and less inclined to be controlled by an old-style ward boss.

Additionally, in the Black community shifting demographics complicate matters even more: The issues that are of most concern to the largest pool of potential Progressive voters yet unregistered – prisoner reentry and social justice – are all but foreign to the usual would-be powerbrokers that pretend they control and deliver the Black vote.

It’s somewhat complicated and goes back a long way. As educated Blacks strove to enter into the middleclass (which often meant to be in the good graces of Whites who controlled the economics) they were convinced to abandon their less educated and so-called “criminogenic” brethren. If they wanted to be accepted as “good Negroes” they had to disassociate themselves from the “bad Negroes”…to leave them behind.  In addition to leading to a significant stratification of Blacks in America, it has caused a degree of distrust on the part of the Blacks who live on the margins of society: under-employed (more often unemployed) and saddled with felony convictions that effectively keep them locked out of the prosperity and progress that is supposed to be America.

This is the population unions and Progressives need to reach, but the folks in the Black community they usually reach out to…the ones they entrust to reach their people, don’t know how to reach this demographic…since these really are not “their” people. They possess no legitimate currency with this underclass population, which is not surprising.

Nonetheless, if this cohort of untapped voting power (which has grown exponentially nationwide in the last three or four decades) can be effectively organized and tapped into it can become a game-changer. Simply look at how Conservatives nationwide use every mean – fair or foul – to limit the franchise among formerly incarcerated persons and their potential strength becomes all too obvious. Those nefarious right-wing efforts have to be effectively countered, but they can only be countered by giving this population a reason to believe their votes can make a difference, and make a real difference in their personal and family circumstance.

In other words, they can’t just be promised – they’ve got to be delivered – a piece of the American prosperity pie if their participation is expected and truly desired. Fair is fair all over the world.

Unions cannot afford to turn their backs on this population – similar to how Blacks turned their backs on others seeking the same justice they were seeking in the 60s – not if they expect to win. Progressives have to embrace and advocate for everyone who would be on their side…and this means the formerly incarcerated also. They no longer can just talk the talk – now they’ve also got to walk the walk.

Mansfield S. Frazier is Executive Director of the community revitalization group Neighborhood Solutions Inc. For more information please see its home page, http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.

A relatively new natural gas drilling technique – hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” – is being rushed into wide scale use with the same heedless abandon as deep water oil drilling.  Activists are trying to put the brakes on it before fracking has the chance to produce its own version of last year’s BP oil spill.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

BACKGROUND

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Marcellus Shale is “a sedimentary rock formation deposited over 350 million years ago in a shallow inland sea located in the eastern United States where the present-day Appalachian Mountains now stand” and it “contains significant quantities of natural gas.”  How significant?  Well, it kind of depends on whom you ask.  University researchers said there was quite a bit, but a key industry player claimed a wildly larger amount (emph. added):

In 2008, two professors at Pennsylvania State University and the State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia estimated that about 50 TCF (trillion cubic feet) of recoverable natural gas could be extracted from the Marcellus Shale (Engelder and Lash, 2008). In November 2008, on the basis of production information from Chesapeake Energy Corporation [remember that name! – ed.], the estimate of recoverable gas from the Marcellus Shale was raised to more than 363 TCF (Esch, 2008).

Asking Chesapeake Energy if it was worthwhile to drill in an area where they had a direct financial interest seems a bit like asking Tobacco Institute scientists if smoking is linked to lung cancer, no?  An increase of over 700% ought to be looked into, not blandly passed along.  But either way, there’s a lot of natural gas under them thar hills and it is, as the USGS helpfully notes in its summary, “an abundant, domestic energy resource that burns cleanly, and emits the lowest amount of carbon dioxide per calorie of any fossil fuel.”

Chesapeake is on the same page, touting natural gas as “clean, affordable, abundant”  and flatly states: “The only scalable, affordable alternative to burning dirty coal is to burn clean natural gas.”  This is an extremely relevant and compelling point if the natural gas packages itself, grows legs and walks to the surface.  Sadly, it remains stubbornly immobile.  So the alternative is to force it out via directional drilling,

which involves steering a downhole drill bit in a direction other than vertical. An initially vertical drillhole is slowly turned 90 degrees to penetrate long horizontal distances, sometimes over a mile, through the Marcellus Shale bedrock. Hydraulic fractures are then created into the rock at intervals from the horizontal section of the borehole, allowing a substantial number of high-permeability pathways to contact a large volume of rock (fig. 5).

This drilling process requires a large quantity of water to hydraulically fracture the rock (hence the nickname “fracking”), and that water turns into a toxic stew:

Along with the introduced chemicals, hydrofrac water is in close contact with the rock during the course of the stimulation treatment, and when recovered may contain a variety of formation materials, including brines, heavy metals, radionuclides, and organics that can make wastewater treatment difficult and expensive. The formation brines often contain relatively high concentrations of sodium, chloride, bromide, and other inorganic constituents, such as arsenic, barium, other heavy metals, and radionuclides that significantly exceed drinking water standards (Harper, 2008).

No matter how clean it is when you actually consume it, the process of getting to it is unbelievably dirty.  Even the USGS acknowledges as much: “While the technology of drilling directional boreholes, and the use of sophisticated hydraulic fracturing processes to extract gas resources from tight rock have improved over the past few decades, the knowledge of how this extraction might affect water resources has not kept pace.”

Drilling technology sprinting past environmental protection – sound familiar?

EARLY RESULTS

That’s all very theoretical and academic, but how are these early adventures into fracking going?  Not so well.  In some cases it is merely disturbing, as in this video of a compressor station emitting lots of noise and…stuff.  Since we still do not have any sensible regulation of this process – hell, since we aren’t even aware what the byproducts and long term consequences are – it’s kind of hard to see footage like that and not be suspicious of what exactly is going on.  Literally no one knows.

The independent, non-profit news organization ProPublica has an entire series devoted to the threat posed by fracking, and has uncovered several examples of the damage done by it.  An award-winning documentary called GasLand has shown in frightening detail just how hazardous it is.  And these problems are just when it all goes according to plan.  When things go wrong, as it did with one of Chesapeake’s operations in Pennsylvania last week, (via) it’s even worse (via).

This is not just happening in America, either.  The industry is trying to get a foothold in Europe, but its reputation has already preceded it.  Hilariously, UK gas company CEO Mark Miller trots out the bad apples argument to try and wave off the poor track record.  (Ever since Abu Ghraib “bad apples” has been the go-to talking point for high ranking officials looking to evade responsibility.  Even putting aside the cheap and obvious scapegoating involved, the phrase itself is a clip from a proverb that, if fully considered, isn’t exactly exonerating.)

While major players are fiercely opposed to even simple disclosure, there is enough concern about the practice for some knowledgeable parties to sound the alarm – and thankfully not every politician is in the thrall of industry lobbyists.  Still, ProPublica considers the industry at a turning point (via): one where we will either start seeing effective regulation or the same “consequences be damned” heedlessness we’ve seen elsewhere.  I happen to be deeply skeptical of regulation, and I’ve gone on and on about it previously.  The short version is that between cognitive regulatory capture and the starving of agencies of proper resources, the whole idea of regulation has not worked well in practice.

CLOSE TO HOME

Opposition to fracking has been growing (via), and Ohio is no exception.  Our idiot governor has decided it’s a swell idea to approach economically desperate people with drilling proposals in exchange for a one-time shot of money.  Chesapeake is aggressively buying up rights and has lined up a willing local front group to, I don’t know, put cartoon buckeye stickers on the equipment.

The state legislature is considering a proposal to open additional state lands to drilling, and in response local activists staged a protest on Tuesday (via ProgressOhio‘s Flickr page):

State Rep. Teresa Fedor spoke at the rally:

And she noted – with commendable understatement – “There’s a lot that we don’t know about this new and unconventional drilling.”  (Read about previous Fedor awesomeness here.)

Her point shouldn’t really be controversial at all.  Considering the problems, and in some cases catastrophes, that we already know about elsewhere it shouldn’t be terribly provocative to cool it for a bit and try to get a better grip on what’s happening.  Unfortunately there are people like Tom Stewart of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association offering rebuttals such as this, which I wish I were making up:

With energy development or with any kind of economic activity, there’s always going to be an environmental footprint. Airplanes do fall out of the sky. … What Ohio citizens need to be concerned about is that the proper regulatory process is in place to regulate the industry, to ensure the public that they can have faith and trust that this is done properly.

The GOP-dominated legislature seems likely to do Chesapeake’s bidding and open up more public land for this private company to profit from.  But the opposition has been getting the word out, and doing so with increasing visibility.  The issue won’t go away until Chesapeake and their ilk go away (and until their sponsors in Columbus do as well), but in this case – as with the phenomenally energetic referendum effort to repeal SB 5 – citizen action might yet veto corporate greed.

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Notes

• There’s a nice Marcellus Shale map for Ohio here.
• From the USGS paper:
  

  The United States uses about 23 TCF of natural gas per year (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2009), so the Marcellus gas resource may be large enough to supply the needs of the entire Nation for roughly 15 years at the current rates of consumption.

  From the Chesapeake site:

  now estimated to contain more than two quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, more than doubling America’s previously estimated natural gas reserves, and giving us close to a 200-year supply of clean, affordable, American natural gas.

  Not sure where the extra 185 years supply comes from.  But then notice this from the Guardian piece:

  Within two years, predicts James Smith, outgoing UK chairman of Shell, the company will go from being an oil business to a gas producer. “Estimates show that we could have enough gas to power the world for 200 years,” he said.

  So maybe 200 years is the Friedman Unit of fracking.

• From the Chesapeake site:
  

  Wind and solar facilities are not economic without taxpayer or ratepayer subsidies.

  From the USGS paper:

  From the mid-1970s to early 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded the Eastern Gas Shales Project (EGSP) to develop new technology in partnership with industry that would advance the commercial development of Devonian shale gas (Schrider and Wise, 1980).

  Why is it that government funding is a partnership when given to fossil fuel companies but a subsidy when given to renewable energy companies?

• Last week I listened to the radio for the first time in a long, long while – probably over a year (see my “Free MP3 sites” blogroll!)  I was tuned to a “morning zoo in the afternoon” type show for less than an hour.  In that tiny, rare sampling of time I heard a Chesapeake commercial.  A cheerful voice explained that no one cares more about the environment than Chesapeake, so if you own mineral rights why not give us a call?  The fracking industry has been incredibly aggressive on this initiative.
• A minor complaint, but I don’t like seeing the word “brine” used to describe any part of the fracking wastewater.  It makes it sound like something you might encounter when tromping around the Scottish highlands instead of the poisonous brew created by blowing a bunch of shit to smithereens deep underground and then hauling it to the surface.

America’s foreign policy has long embraced repressive regimes when it was convenient to do so.  Events in Egypt have demonstrated the price of convenience, and it may already be making a difference.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Almost a year ago – February 21, 2010 – I wrote “Our image in the Muslim world would probably improve if we stopped killing Muslims.”  Almost every week since, something like those words have been part of my Sunday posts.  I either check my daily Citizens For Legitimate Government emails (sign up here) or go to Google News and find the latest drone attacks.  Drones aren’t the only way we are killing Muslims obviously, but it is an easy search term for filtering out unrelated items and is also pretty cut and dried: A conventional bomb could be of disputed origin.  Only the US has drones.

I also occasionally highlight the protests against these campaigns; for obvious reasons they are passionately hated, but the US has generally been indifferent to that fact.  In the last couple weeks two events have changed the calculus, and neither has to do with the unpopularity of raining down remote death.  First is the case of Raymond Davis.

On January 27th he killed two Pakistanis.  Adil Najam has a wonderful overview of the circumstances here.  Far from presuming guilt, Najam looks at the known facts of the incident and writes “serious questions need to be asked about just who the two young men on the motorcycle were, just as they need to be asked about who Raymond Davis is. There just seem to be too many unnecessary weapons in too much proximity in this story. All of the many explanations that are floating around are very disturbing, but also very plausible. Which is exactly why this story is even more dangerous if left unresolved.”

The killings have turned into a flashpoint in the region, even as Western outlets largely ignore it.  Angry protests are being held, and commentators like Ali Ashraf Khan are looking at the Americans’ arguments for quietly disposing of the case in a fairly obvious context:

An almost amusing fact is that Americans are quoting international treaties and conventions which would prevent Pakistan from keeping the murderer of Pakistani citizens in custody. Have Americans at any time headed any international agreement? Guantanamo, Palestine, Iraq war without UN sanction, attack on Afghanistan, Abu Gharaib, torture cells in Bagram, Syria, Poland and other places. What a joke!

Khan concludes: “If the government again succumbs to US pressure it will not only undermine its own existence, it will invite a new wave of terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil and may be another Tunis & Egypt like situation under the changing circumstances.”  This is the second event that has put drone strikes in a new light.  Doctor Cleveland has a phenomenal analysis of America’s cynical bombing logic.  Launch drone strikes against a democracy and you can expect a strongly anti-American government after the next election.

But when you’re dealing with dictatorships, juntas, Communist oligarchies, and so on, you tend to count popular opinion out. After all, public sentiment can’t replace the dictator, junta, or Politburo. Having the folks on the ground love or hate your country more than they did last year doesn’t make any immediately apparent difference. It’s natural to focus on how the people at the top respond to your actions. So, if you’re having static with Muammar Qadhafi and you feel bombing some targets in Libya will get him in line, that seems like the logical course of action. Sure, the average Libyan might hate the US because of those strikes, maybe for a generation or so, but it’s not like that changes anything in the short term. If Qadhafi takes his beating quietly and backs down, it looks like a satisfactory Libya policy. If Saddam Hussein attempts to have a former US President assassinated, you authorize an air strike on his intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. That works like a charm in terms of managing Saddam Hussein and his intelligence apparatus; they learned that specific lesson pretty well. How the rest of the citizens of Baghdad felt about having their city attacked by planes was beside the point as long as Hussein was in power. Their support wasn’t any real help to us, and their resentment didn’t hurt us. It wasn’t like we needed them to vote for some hypothetical pro-American political party, right?

Which is why events in Cairo sent America’s foreign policy conventional wisdom into the ash heap.  One could forgive its diplomatic corps for feeling a bit unmoored at the moment; all the old operating assumptions are out the window.  Appeals to international treaties are scoffed at for the entirely sensible reason that the US does not abide by them.  Our foreign policy has been dismissive of popular opinion when it was easier to cozy up to dictators, but we have just seen how fragile dictatorships can be.  Suddenly governments cannot casually ignore or suppress dissent.  Suddenly it matters.  And the drone attacks?  They’ve stopped.

Politicians love to announce their love of the Constitution, but a vote this week put the happy talk to the test.  Perhaps not surprisingly, there were a lot of failures.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

So a few provisions of the Patriot Act failed to get renewed because some Republicans voted against it.  It looks like just a speed bump on the way to passage; the original vote was done on a fast track “no debate” schedule (wonder why) that required a two thirds majority.  Now it looks like there will be a little debate followed by a simple majority vote.

It looks like a left/right strange bedfellows alliance might be developing on civil liberties issues, and that’s fine as far as it goes.  At the moment the coalition doesn’t look to be able to do much beyond forcing debate on these issues as they arise; while that’s better than nothing – and certainly something to try to build on – it’s not exactly a major breakthrough.

There has been one amusing aspect to the procedural embarrassment: the GOP has become so hostile to governing it can’t even do a simple whip count.  Guess you shouldn’t have tossed out the whole playbook, hey folks?

What’s really important about a vote like this is the way it reveals the hypocrisy of those who love to present themselves as ardent defenders of freedom and liberty.  That’s why I decided to grab the roll call details, exclude all the “no” votes, and put together a table with the names.  Each one contains an embedded link to a simple Google search of the representative’s name followed by the words “freedom” and “liberty.”  The list is at the end of the post.

I decided to cherry pick some of the bigger ones.  Here are some choice bits of rhetoric from those who weren’t among the “nays.”

First, Joe Barton is troubled by private companies collecting data on citizens, but apparently not the government (via):

I wonder if the intentional collection and coordination of all that personal data about us is such a good idea, and I wonder if I’m the only one who is feeling a little uncomfortable about it.

This can be a dangerous path to go down, as former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn showed:

Barton: “If I called you up, Ms. Dunn, and said I’d like your phone records for the last six months, would you give me that?”

Dunn: “If I understood why you wanted it…in your position, I would give you my phone records,” eliciting laughter from the crowd.

Barton: “Well, praise the Lord,” Barton said. “I wouldn’t give you mine.”

Dunn: “I hope that doesn’t mean you have something to hide.”

And he’ll gladly furrow his brow over intrusive government if it gives him the chance to bash a regulatory agency:

increasing the federal government’s role in the composition of the information Americans have at their disposal – in an information marketplace that is bigger and more easily accessible than ever before – is unwise policy and raises serious questions of constitutionality.

Here’s some boilerplate from Michele Bachmann:

Many Pilgrims paid the ultimate price – sickness and death – as they sought freedom. But they found a better future for their children. On Thanksgiving they were able to celebrate family, the company of one another and their Indian neighbors, a bountiful harvest, and most of all the opportunity to serve their God without government hindrance. May we too in 2010, like the Pilgrims, always press forward toward true liberty and freedom

She’ll work up quite a lather over the tyranny of health insurance but can’t be bothered to spare a few words about roving wiretaps.

Ben Quayle, presumably still honing the mad Taekwondo skillz he’ll unleash when he begins knocking the hell out of Washington:

Which Arizona political figure past or present do you most admire and why?
I admire Barry Goldwater because he unabashedly stood up for individual freedom and a limited form of government.

Marsha Blackburn:

She said the thing that our party is built on is the principle that “the government that governs least, governs best.” When conservatism began, she said, it was really a radical idea “…all we knew about governance was…European rulers [were] endowed by divine rights to be the sovereign of that nation.” However, she pointed out that our founders said that every single individual deserves that liberty, that freedom, “It was the radicals that decided every single person deserves the blessings of liberty… and aren’t we glad they did?” Yet, “We’ve got a fight on our hands to conserve and preserve liberty,” she said.

Paul Ryan, new darling of the Village:

The progressive movement and ideology is a repressive, big-brother movement that drains you of your freedom and liberty, and therefore of your prosperity… The government is taking away your discretion, taking away your choices.

But the government being able to seize and records – including library and medical ones – without even having to declare it part of a terrorism investigation (never mind getting a warrant!) is not in any way draining of freedom and liberty.

Can we look forward to the American Conservative Union rescinding Dan Burton’s 2008 Defenders of Liberty Award, or are they OK with his vote?

And finally there’s this from all around goofball Louie Gohmert (via):

Thomas Jefferson captured this unsettling tension in his admonition, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” But as evidenced by your presence here today, you understand that this dangerous power grab is neither the progress nor the change that Americans desire. We note that it was the threats to and thwarting of freedom and innovation that caused Americans over 200 years ago to risk everything to fight a revolution and ultimately become the greatest in the world. Contrast that to the 1917 Revolution that produced Marxist socialism in the Soviet Union that has already disappeared because of its stifling of creativity and liberty. Though my fighting for our principles has kept me in Washington, D.C. today, I stand with you in spirit against the tyranny of this government’s effort to takeover healthcare and subjugate you and your freedom.

Once more, the tyranny of insurance.  Unlimited electronic monitoring though: perfectly safe for freedom.

Here is the full list:

     

Gary Ackerman (D, NY-5)

Sandy Adams (R, FL-24)

Robert Aderholt (R, AL-4)

Todd Akin (R, MO-2)

Rodney Alexander (R, LA-5)

Jason Altmire (D, PA-4)

Steve Austria (R, OH-7)

Joe Baca (D, CA-43)

Michele Bachmann (R, MN-6)

Spencer Bachus (R, AL-6)

Lou Barletta (R, PA-11)

John Barrow (D, GA-12)

Joe Barton (R, TX-6)

Charles Bass (R, NH-2)

Dan Benishek (R, MI-1)

Rick Berg (R, ND-0)

Shelley Berkley (D, NV-1)

Judy Biggert (R, IL-13)

Brian Bilbray (R, CA-50)

Gus Bilirakis (R, FL-9)

Sanford Bishop (D, GA-2)

Timothy Bishop (D, NY-1)

Diane Black (R, TN-6)

Marsha Blackburn (R, TN-7)

Jo Bonner (R, AL-1)

Mary Bono Mack (R, CA-45)

Dan Boren (D, OK-2)

Leonard Boswell (D, IA-3)

Charles Boustany (R, LA-7)

Kevin Brady (R, TX-8)

Mo Brooks (R, AL-5)

Vern Buchanan (R, FL-13)

Larry Bucshon (R, IN-8)

Ann Marie Buerkle (R, NY-25)

Michael Burgess (R, TX-26)

Dan Burton (R, IN-5)

George Butterfield (D, NC-1)

Ken Calvert (R, CA-44)

David Camp (R, MI-4)

Francisco Canseco (R, TX-23)

Eric Cantor (R, VA-7)

Shelley Capito (R, WV-2)

Dennis Cardoza (D, CA-18)

Russ Carnahan (D, MO-3)

John Carney (D, DE-0)

John Carter (R, TX-31)

Bill Cassidy (R, LA-6)

Kathy Castor (D, FL-11)

Steven Chabot (R, OH-1)

Jason Chaffetz (R, UT-3)

Ben Chandler (D, KY-6)

Howard Coble (R, NC-6)

Mike Coffman (R, CO-6)

Tom Cole (R, OK-4)

Michael Conaway (R, TX-11)

Gerald Connolly (D, VA-11)

Jim Cooper (D, TN-5)

Jim Costa (D, CA-20)

Joe Courtney (D, CT-2)

Chip Cravaack (R, MN-8)

Eric Crawford (R, AR-1)

Ander Crenshaw (R, FL-4)

Mark Critz (D, PA-12)

Henry Cuellar (D, TX-28)

John Culberson (R, TX-7)

Susan Davis (D, CA-53)

Geoff Davis (R, KY-4)

Jeff Denham (R, CA-19)

Charles Dent (R, PA-15)

Scott DesJarlais (R, TN-4)

Mario Diaz-Balart (R, FL-21)

Norman Dicks (D, WA-6)

Bob Dold (R, IL-10)

Joe Donnelly (D, IN-2)

David Dreier (R, CA-26)

Sean Duffy (R, WI-7)

Jeff Duncan (R, SC-3)

Renee Ellmers (R, NC-2)

Jo Ann Emerson (R, MO-8)

Blake Farenthold (R, TX-27)

Stephen Fincher (R, TN-8)

Jeff Flake (R, AZ-6)

Chuck Fleischmann (R, TN-3)

John Fleming (R, LA-4)

Bill Flores (R, TX-17)

Randy Forbes (R, VA-4)

Jeffrey Fortenberry (R, NE-1)

Virginia Foxx (R, NC-5)

Trent Franks (R, AZ-2)

Rodney Frelinghuysen (R, NJ-11)

Elton Gallegly (R, CA-24)

Cory Gardner (R, CO-4)

Scott Garrett (R, NJ-5)

Jim Gerlach (R, PA-6)

Bob Gibbs (R, OH-18)

Gabrielle Giffords (D, AZ-8)

John Gingrey (R, GA-11)

Louis Gohmert (R, TX-1)

Robert Goodlatte (R, VA-6)

Paul Gosar (R, AZ-1)

Trey Gowdy (R, SC-4)

Kay Granger (R, TX-12)

Samuel Graves (R, MO-6)

Tim Griffin (R, AR-2)

Morgan Griffith (R, VA-9)

Michael Grimm (R, NY-13)

Frank Guinta (R, NH-1)

Brett Guthrie (R, KY-2)

Luis Gutiérrez (D, IL-4)

Ralph Hall (R, TX-4)

Richard Hanna (R, NY-24)

Jane Harman (D, CA-36)

Gregg Harper (R, MS-3)

Andy Harris (R, MD-1)

Vicky Hartzler (R, MO-4)

Doc Hastings (R, WA-4)

Alcee Hastings (D, FL-23)

Nan Hayworth (R, NY-19)

Joe Heck (R, NV-3)

Martin Heinrich (D, NM-1)

Jeb Hensarling (R, TX-5)

Walter Herger (R, CA-2)

Jaime Herrera Beutler (R, WA-3)

Brian Higgins (D, NY-27)

Rubén Hinojosa (D, TX-15)

Tim Holden (D, PA-17)

Steny Hoyer (D, MD-5)

Tim Huelskamp (R, KS-1)

Bill Huizenga (R, MI-2)

Duncan Hunter (R, CA-52)

Robert Hurt (R, VA-5)

Jay Inslee (D, WA-1)

Steve Israel (D, NY-2)

Darrell Issa (R, CA-49)

Lynn Jenkins (R, KS-2)

Bill Johnson (R, OH-6)

Samuel Johnson (R, TX-3)

Jim Jordan (R, OH-4)

William Keating (D, MA-10)

Mike Kelly (R, PA-3)

Ronald Kind (D, WI-3)

Steve King (R, IA-5)

Peter King (R, NY-3)

Adam Kinzinger (R, IL-11)

Larry Kissell (D, NC-8)

John Kline (R, MN-2)

Doug Lamborn (R, CO-5)

Leonard Lance (R, NJ-7)

Jeff Landry (R, LA-3)

James Langevin (D, RI-2)

James Lankford (R, OK-5)

Rick Larsen (D, WA-2)

Thomas Latham (R, IA-4)

Steven LaTourette (R, OH-14)

Robert Latta (R, OH-5)

Christopher Lee (R, NY-26)

Sander Levin (D, MI-12)

Jerry Lewis (R, CA-41)

Daniel Lipinski (D, IL-3)

Frank LoBiondo (R, NJ-2)

Billy Long (R, MO-7)

Nita Lowey (D, NY-18)

Frank Lucas (R, OK-3)

Blaine Luetkemeyer (R, MO-9)

Cynthia Lummis (R, WY-0)

Daniel Lungren (R, CA-3)

Stephen Lynch (D, MA-9)

Donald Manzullo (R, IL-16)

Thomas Marino (R, PA-10)

Jim Matheson (D, UT-2)

Kevin McCarthy (R, CA-22)

Carolyn McCarthy (D, NY-4)

Michael McCaul (R, TX-10)

Thaddeus McCotter (R, MI-11)

Patrick McHenry (R, NC-10)

Mike McIntyre (D, NC-7)

Howard McKeon (R, CA-25)

David McKinley (R, WV-1)

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R, WA-5)

Jerry McNerney (D, CA-11)

Patrick Meehan (R, PA-7)

John Mica (R, FL-7)

Jeff Miller (R, FL-1)

Bradley Miller (D, NC-13)

Gary Miller (R, CA-42)

Candice Miller (R, MI-10)

Mick Mulvaney (R, SC-5)

Christopher Murphy (D, CT-5)

Tim Murphy (R, PA-18)

Sue Myrick (R, NC-9)

Randy Neugebauer (R, TX-19)

Kristi Noem (R, SD-0)

Richard Nugent (R, FL-5)

Devin Nunes (R, CA-21)

Alan Nunnelee (R, MS-1)

Pete Olson (R, TX-22)

Steven Palazzo (R, MS-4)

William Pascrell (D, NJ-8)

Erik Paulsen (R, MN-3)

Steven Pearce (R, NM-2)

Mike Pence (R, IN-6)

Ed Perlmutter (D, CO-7)

Gary Peters (D, MI-9)

Collin Peterson (D, MN-7)

Thomas Petri (R, WI-6)

Joseph Pitts (R, PA-16)

Todd Platts (R, PA-19)

Ted Poe (R, TX-2)

Mike Pompeo (R, KS-4)

Bill Posey (R, FL-15)

Tom Price (R, GA-6)

Ben Quayle (R, AZ-3)

Mike Quigley (D, IL-5)

Nick Rahall (D, WV-3)

Tom Reed (R, NY-29)

Dave Reichert (R, WA-8)

Jim Renacci (R, OH-16)

Silvestre Reyes (D, TX-16)

Reid Ribble (R, WI-8)

Scott Rigell (R, VA-2)

David Rivera (R, FL-25)

Martha Roby (R, AL-2)

Harold Rogers (R, KY-5)

Michael Rogers (R, AL-3)

Michael Rogers (R, MI-8)

Todd Rokita (R, IN-4)

Thomas Rooney (R, FL-16)

Peter Roskam (R, IL-6)

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R, FL-18)

Dennis Ross (R, FL-12)

Mike Ross (D, AR-4)

Steven Rothman (D, NJ-9)

Edward Royce (R, CA-40)

Jon Runyan (R, NJ-3)

Dutch Ruppersberger (D, MD-2)

Paul Ryan (R, WI-1)

Steve Scalise (R, LA-1)

Adam Schiff (D, CA-29)

Jean Schmidt (R, OH-2)

Aaron Schock (R, IL-18)

Allyson Schwartz (D, PA-13)

David Scott (D, GA-13)

Austin Scott (R, GA-8)

Tim Scott (R, SC-1)

James Sensenbrenner (R, WI-5)

Peter Sessions (R, TX-32)

Terri Sewell (D, AL-7)

John Shimkus (R, IL-19)

Heath Shuler (D, NC-11)

William Shuster (R, PA-9)

Michael Simpson (R, ID-2)

Albio Sires (D, NJ-13)

Adam Smith (D, WA-9)

Adrian Smith (R, NE-3)

Lamar Smith (R, TX-21)

Christopher Smith (R, NJ-4)

Steve Southerland (R, FL-2)

Jackie Speier (D, CA-12)

Clifford Stearns (R, FL-6)

Steve Stivers (R, OH-15)

Marlin Stutzman (R, IN-3)

John Sullivan (R, OK-1)

Lee Terry (R, NE-2)

Glenn Thompson (R, PA-5)

William Thornberry (R, TX-13)

Patrick Tiberi (R, OH-12)

Scott Tipton (R, CO-3)

Niki Tsongas (D, MA-5)

Michael Turner (R, OH-3)

Frederick Upton (R, MI-6)

Christopher Van Hollen (D, MD-8)

Timothy Walberg (R, MI-7)

Greg Walden (R, OR-2)

Joe Walsh (R, IL-8)

Daniel Webster (R, FL-8)

Allen West (R, FL-22)

Lynn Westmoreland (R, GA-3)

Edward Whitfield (R, KY-1)

Addison Wilson (R, SC-2)

Rob Wittman (R, VA-1)

Frank Wolf (R, VA-10)

Steve Womack (R, AR-3)

John Yarmuth (D, KY-3)

Kevin Yoder (R, KS-3)

Bill Young (R, FL-10)

Todd Young (R, IN-9)

Conventional wisdom in Washington seems to have pretty quickly settled on an ideological basis for the unrest in Egypt.  By doing so it has ignored a more compelling – and prosaic – explanation.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

There appears to be a yawning chasm between what is happening in Egypt and elite opinions in DC.  Consider this exchange between Chris Matthews and NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Richard Engel:

ENGEL:  The Muslim Brotherhood is telling the army that it can be a reasonable, rational organization.  I did an interview tonight with one of the senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.  He was telling me to tell the American people that the Muslim Brotherhood can be reasoned with, wants to be a player, isn’t a radical group.  So you’re trying—you are seeing the Muslim Brotherhood legitimize itself, much in the same way you saw Hamas try and legitimize itself during the elections in Gaza.

MATTHEWS:  Does that surprise you, as someone who really grew up over there as a journalist, living among the Muslim Brotherhood?  Does it surprise you that they could be copacetic with the military?

ENGEL:  Not at all.  A lot of them are truly patriotic Egyptians.  They don’t necessarily want to overthrow the military regime.  In the belief structure and the political structure that the Muslim Brotherhood has, which is common in Islamic moments, they believe in a strict hierarchy.  There can be a ruler.  There can be a military ruler.  But as long as that military ruler doesn’t impede on the ability of the Muslim people to worship, then they have no problem with that.  So they could live very copacetically with the military.  It’s not that it is a Taliban kind of movement that wants to take over…

MATTHEWS:  I get you.

ENGEL:  … and tell everyone what to do and how to do it.  They’re very patriotic.  They have lot of supporters.  You mentioned I lived with a lot of them.  They were nice people.  I mean, If you fell down in the street, they would come and help you out.  If you didn’t have enough money for the bus, they would give you money.  There was a community feeling that a lot of people are nostalgic about in this country that is still present in the poorer, more Muslim—more Islamic communities here.

What people are so upset about is prices have gotten so high, there’s become this elite class of Egyptians that…

MATTHEWS:  Right.

ENGEL:  … no longer reflects a lot of the traditional cultural values here.  And the Muslim Brotherhood still does embrace those values very close to its chest.

Matthews comes across as somewhat surprised that the Muslim Brotherhood could play a legitimate role in a new Egyptian government.  The assumption, apparently widespread in the capitol, is that a populist Islamic movement is necessarily violent.  (In fairness, they might just be extrapolating from America’s own experience with religious extremists.)  

In fact, he might even be something of an outlier in his mildness.  Tom Friedman, who usually – but not always! – hides his anti-Islamic fervor well, had this to say: “For the last 20 years, President Mubarak has had all the leverage he could ever want to truly reform Egypt’s economy and build a moderate, legitimate political center to fill the void between his authoritarian state and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

He simply postulates that the Muslim Brotherhood is the opposite pole of an authoritarian state.  He does not appear to have done any analysis to arrive at that conclusion.  He has not spoken with anyone in the organization (my God man, are there no taxis in Cairo?)  (Also see this just because.)  He just assumes that everyone intuitively grasps exactly what he does.

That seems to be roughly the center for conventional wisdom.  To find the far edge of fear and loathing see this from Richard Cohen: “The next Egyptian government – or the one after – might well be composed of Islamists. In that case, the peace with Israel will be abrogated and the mob currently in the streets will roar its approval.”  His entire misanthropic screed throbs with the message: these savages cannot govern themselves.  It isn’t even subtext at this point.  It’s right there on the surface.

There does not appear to be any appreciation that very ordinary concerns might be driving the protesters.  What was touted as an economic miracle was disastrous for those on the lower end of the economic scale; Nomi Prins called this “the appearance of enhancement.”  Robust economic growth was outpaced by inflation, which lead to widespread hunger (I refuse to use the euphemism “food insecurity”).  Food riots have killed people.  The marvels of globalization have been decidedly less wonderful for many.  Do the anti-Islamic commentators in Washington have any sense that such workaday issues might just be front and center in the protester’s minds?  And that any party that begins to address them will thereby enjoy the consent of the governed?

<hr>

As a coda, those of us in the West might want to consider the following thoughts William Gamble shared about Tunisia:

All authoritarian governments everywhere, by definition, are not limited by any legal restraints. This allows elites to become rent seekers often through state-owned companies and monopolies. Without legal limits, the percentage of the GDP that they take for themselves will constantly increase.

[snip]

The main impact of an economy of corruption is on investment, the investments necessary to create jobs. For Tunisia and many other emerging and frontier markets, this is a major if not the issue. The unemployment rate in Tunisia is officially 13%, but it is probably twice this for younger people. Even university graduates face an unemployment rate of over 15%. This is not unusual for these markets where unemployment rates among younger workers can rise as high as 40%. According to the IMF, the Middle East needs to grow 2% faster every year to avoid its present chronic and high unemployment.

Worsening inequality, impunity for those at the top, reduced investment leading to high unemployment: a multiparty democracy in which a governing majority is persistently unresponsive to public opinion is functionally similar to a one party state.  And prone to similar expressions of dissatisfaction.

America’s war on WikiLeaks has some familiar echoes to another recent issue.  Unlike last time, however, this time it might do substantial damage to the companies who cooperate.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Prior to 9/11 the Bush administration had the National Security Agency (NSA) approach telecommunication giants and essentially coerce them into allowing the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance.  The one company – Qwest – that resisted was apparently retaliated against for its troubles.  The rest, though, faced legal exposure – and were desperate to escape it.  Further, it was urgent that the lawsuits be derailed before discovery could begin; if the public got to see the details of the indiscriminate spying its phone companies had engaged in against them it would have been a PR nightmare.  So the president insisted Congress pass a law conferring retroactive immunity on them.

Interestingly, while researching for this post I came across multiple references to a New York Times article titled “Bush Presses Congress on New Eavesdropping Law” by David Stout.  These contemporaneous accounts quote the article as follows:

President Bush prodded Congress on the issue of eavesdropping today, warning that he will not sign a new law unless it confers immunity on the telecommunications utilities that helped the National Security Agency eavesdrop without warrants. The issue of whether the telecommunications companies should have immunity has emerged as the most contentious point between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. President Bush is pushing hard for the companies to be immunized from civil suits for past actions.

The link now points to an article titled “House Panels Reject Appeal on Eavesdropping” by Stephen Labaton, and the text above is nowhere to be found.  Please drop a note in the comments if you can shed some light on this curiosity!  (Incidentally, this also might be an outstanding justification for bloggers generously copying and pasting from big outlets.  If links can apparently get redirected without notice, a site like CovenantNews.com might be our only resource for even fragmentary originally-published material.)

Senator Barack Obama, desperate for some traction against Hillary Clinton in the fight for the Democratic nomination for president announced (via) he would support a filibuster if it contained retroactive immunity, but in the end he supported it.  The phone companies were off the hook (har) and no one had to find out anything.

Why dredge up this ancient history?  Because it sent the message to the business community that if the government comes calling it is best to go along.  There is no downside to cooperating, apart perhaps from some anxiety while the pretty theater in the capitol plays out.  There is a definite downside to pushing back, though.

This scenario appears to be repeating, this time with Internet companies.  Twitter just received a subpoena for user data along with a gag order preventing it from telling the targets.  To its enormous credit, it fought back, challenging and quashing the gag order.  WikiLeaks – the target of the investigation – raised the entirely reasonable question of whether, say, Facebook and Google have received similar orders.  What assurance can anyone have that their data is being protected from US government surveillance?

Other countries are already wary of the widespread collection of data by some American companies, as well as their cavalier treatment of it.  Google in particular is having a devil of a time convincing foreign governments of the purity of its intentions.  Its Street View program is drawing lots of unwanted attention – particularly in societies with unhappy histories of spying – and its nonchalant collecting of unsecured WiFi data is drawing fire too.  Its IP address tracking program, innocuously titled Google Analytics, is also starting to receive scrutiny.

Companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter dominate the relatively new spaces of search, aggregation and social media.  For as much as we like to think of Planet Internet as existing in the ether, everything gets passed along and kept (even if only briefly in cache) on a device.  That device exists in a physical space, and the country where it sits will be uniquely well positioned to get its contents.

Obviously that is true everywhere, but it is not hard to imagine a scenario where the US turns into an IT pariah.  Would you do business with, or even allow into your country, a company that might quietly work with a foreign government to turn over data on your fellow citizens?  Or one that might not even be forthright about whether that was happening?  Or retroactively cleared of lawbreaking?

Given America’s recent past there might be developing a powerful incentive for countries to develop their own alternatives to these companies, with the server farms located on their own soil thank you very much – even if those alternatives are much-diminished versions of the originals.  Twitter might be fighting for more than just the integrity of its data.  It might also be fighting for the long term relevance of its industry.

Some on the right are protesting their innocence and angrily proclaiming it terribly unfair to say their rhetoric in any way contributed to the weekend’s violence.  Here is why they are wrong.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Glenn Reynolds is a dumbass and those who find his arguments persuasive are, if possible, even more stupid.

if you’re using this event to criticize the “rhetoric” of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either: (a) asserting a connection between the “rhetoric” and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

Melissa McEwan gets it:

When, a few months ago, there was a spate of widely-publicized suicides of bullied teens, we had, briefly, a national conversation about the dangers of bullying. But in the wake of an ideologically-motivated assassination attempt of a sitting member of Congress, we aren’t having a national conversation about the dangers of violent rhetoric—because the conversation about bullying children was started by adults, and there are seemingly no responsible grown-ups to be found among conservatives anymore.

The reason the right wing is partially responsible is because it has embraced eliminationism.  It has created a culture of political violence.  This extremist rhetoric is almost exclusively the province of the right.  There are virtually no examples of – please pay attention to the following words – prominent commentators and high ranking elected officials – on the left doing the same.  Both sides don’t do it; only the right validates and exhorts its violent lunatics.  Athenae:

The point that needs to be made clear as possible, loud as possible, often as possible, is that this is about people in POWER calling for violence. There have always been fringe goofballs making noise on everything from fluoride in the water to aliens in the cornfields.

The difference now is that you have members of Congress feeding these freakjobs, and a former vice presidential candidate cheering them on, and a whole news network dedicated to freaking them out and telling them where to aim their weapons.

What Reynolds fails to realize is that human psychology is complex.  So are societies.  As wonderful as it would be to have an unambiguous, direct, 1-to-1, “here is my last diary entry Sarah put her in the crosshairs so off I go on a shooting spree” piece of evidence to tie it all together in a neat package, life is rarely so cooperative.

Thoughtful people tend instead to look at things like patterns and environments.  The law does this, too: Incitement to riot is not a crime because lawmakers thought there was a straight line between violent rhetoric and violent action, but because when you saturate the air with hate you cannot control who breathes it in.  It goes out to the sane and the crazy, and those on the edge as well.  You don’t know how it reaches people, how it bounces around, how it can settle into an unsettled mind and incubate.  All we know is this: The more violent rhetoric you put out there, the more you get back.

The fact that we will never have the kind of smoking gun evidence that unmistakably ties a specific belching of hate with a specific crime does not make suggestions of a connection a vicious lie, nor is the examining of the toxic bile spewed forth by the right an attempt to score an unrelated political point.

Advertisers spend billions of dollars trying to reach consumers, but in the words of retailer John Wanamaker, “I know that 50 percent of my advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which 50 percent.”  It probably never happens that someone sees a Pepsi ad and thinks, I think I’ll grab a cool, refreshing Pepsi right now.  What we do know is, increased spending on Pepsi advertising will lead to increased sales of Pepsi.  The more you get the message out, the more you influence behavior.  It is not controversial with advertising.  Hell, it is not controversial with religion – why bother proselytizing otherwise?  It is not controversial in any area of human endeavor.  Get the message out, influence behavior.  Get the message out, influence behavior.  Only inside of Reynolds’ teeny, tiny little brain does the widespread, top down, continual delivery of a message have no impact whatsoever.

Sorry, I’m calling bullshit.  Elected representatives, right wing patrons and the most famous conservative voices have taken great pains to continually bombard the base with extremism.  They poke and poke with their sharp sticks with full knowledge that they will get a reaction.  Like the unknown 50% of advertising that is wasted, they cannot be sure which messages will catch fire and which will fizzle out.  Neither can they know which ones will inspire a more aggressive response, though I’m willing to generously grant that in their heart of hearts they would prefer to see the mere threat of violence (e.g. packing heat at campaign rallies) than the actual commission of it.

But that does not excuse them, and it certainly does not exempt them from scrutiny when it literally blows up and the blood starts flowing.  I can understand Reynolds’ reluctance to be associated with, or see his allies implicated in, the massacre in Arizona.  But only someone with a truly below average intellect or a deep psychological investment in remaining blind can fail to see it: the right wing is partially responsible for this.  They created the cultural of political violence.  They cannot be denied their portion.

The computer era has largely been marked by a willingness of users to go with the easiest security options available even when those choices weren’t terribly secure.  Recent developments in courts and the industry may give users reason to re-think that approach, however.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

We will probably always have to balance computer security and ease of use.  Ideally security is baked in, and we go on our merry way without having to think about it.  This is the case with viruses.  Users were once expected to download service packs, signature updates, and so on.  Since most people would not, the industry gradually moved to a silent update model.  Now these things generally happen in the background.  Provided you trust the company it is a much easier arrangement.

The IT industry is not always so helpful.  The real money in the consumer market will be made on advertising, the most lucrative form of which will be targeted: using detailed user information to tailor a specific ad.  This in turn can only succeed if, like software updates, the data is quietly collected.  It is why over a decade ago then-CEO of Sun Microsystems Scott McNealy said “You have zero privacy anyway…Get over it.”  It is why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to have no use for it.  For several years now – starting with Beacon – Facebook has tried to sell user data without provoking a revolt.  Many do not seem to be aware of this; they just signed up and started posting status updates.  However, in what seems to be destined to be one of the great pearls of wisdom from this era Andrew Lewis (aka blue_beetle) quipped (via (via – woo!)) “If you aren’t paying for it, you are not the customer; you’re the product being sold.”

Thinking of ourselves as commodities seems terribly depersonalizing, but it could be a good defense mechanism.  It could help raise awareness that we leave digital traces of ourselves whatever we do, even something as innocuous as a local print job.  The point is not to make everyone paranoid, just more knowledgeable about the footprints we leave behind.

Keeping that in mind will only become more important as data collection becomes more sophisticated.  Web sites were once content with writing the odiously-named cookies to local hard drives, but are now turning to more invasive techniques.  This week a class action lawsuit was filed (via) against several companies engaged in what is called “history sniffing.”  Look at the defendants:  CBS News and McDonald’s among them.  Do you think it will played up by CBS or any of McDonald’s major ad outlets?  By its very nature it will not get widespread coverage.

Together with the recent California Supreme Court decision approving warrantless data seizures by police it paints a picture of users’ data being substantially more at risk.  That data is only as secure as the policies protecting it, and they can be surprisingly weak – even with extremely sensitive data.

As the printer hard drive issue illustrates, data can be exposed in ways most folks simply never think of.  It is not an accusation of bad faith to say law enforcement may not be competent to keep or copy seized data.  There are simply too many vectors.  People have jobs, and (someone else’s) data security will naturally gravitate pretty far down the “to do” list.

Protecting against that is a hassle and requires some work.  You can encrypt a laptop hard drive and feel reasonably secure even if it does not make it past customs.  You can look for browsers that offer a private mode, where history and cache get cleaned out.  You can go with “security through obscurity” and pick products with relatively small market share – Opera for your browser, Eudora for email, etc.  Conversely, be wary of the ones getting all the buzz.  For as cool as the new Android phones are, they are also a fat, juicy bulls-eye for hackers.

Consider learning the basics of the GNU Privacy Guard, an email encryption program.  It is not an intuitive program, especially if you have never worked at the command line, but getting conversant in it will give you confidence that you can keep your communication from prying eyes as it wings its way across the Internet.

None of these are perfect, nor are they meant to be.  The point is not to be 100% safe; that will never happen.  The point is to make it difficult to track you.  Not because you are involved in some kind of top secret cloak and dagger skulduggery, but because what you do and what you write should be yours alone – unless you knowingly choose to share it.  (“Knowingly” does not include some line buried in a 20,000 word End User Licence Agreement, either.)  To the extent you do not want to bother, at least make peace with the idea that your data is substantially easier to get at.  And that you are indeed the product being sold.

A CD’s worth of the year’s best songs, generally from off the beaten path.

Introduction

If you dig these songs please consider buying them.  Most can be had for less than a buck.  They will also be hosted at Pruning Shears until Thursday, so you can try before you buy over there.

Here are my favorite songs this year from my RSS feeds. I use Sharp Reader as my aggregator but it requires the .NET framework, which older computers may not have. Feed Reader doesn’t need it and is good too. See the “Free MP3 sites” part of my blogroll for my current feed list.

Most weeks I burn as many new songs as I can fit onto a rewritable CD and give it a thorough listen (usually five times), so in that spirit I keep the list under the same limit. In a way 80 minutes is arbitrary, but it’s also respectful of listeners to show some restraint. If you fall in love with my taste in music drop me a line and I’ll get you the rest of the songs I considered but didn’t have room for.

On the reckoning of time

I age songs by release date, not recording date. Until I get my grubby little hands on it, it doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned. When it first makes it out to the public it is new, no matter how long it may have been gathering dust somewhere.

Recommended albums

In addition to the ones mentioned in the list here are the albums in 2010 I enjoyed front to back:

B.o.B – B.o.B Presents: The Adventures Of Bobby Ray. I know B.o.B has already hit it big, so the backlash may have begun. This is a really good album though. He seems like a musical polymath much like the young Prince. He seems poised to do what Prince did early on, too – release a string of genre-hopping albums that achieve the rare feat of being both high quality and hugely popular.

Fol Chen – The New December. “Cable TV” from their previous album made my 2008 list, so I was looking out for them. I thought they were going to be one hit wonders, so imagine my surprise when “In Ruins” turned out to be good enough to make me buy the album. It’s almost more interesting for what it promises than what it delivers. It’s a very good album but has some phenomenal flashes. Fol Chen has greatness in them. If they can sustain it for an entire album, look out.

Psalm One – Woman At Work Vol. 3. Psalm One tries out lots of different sounds and approaches, and is an intriguing lyricist. Listening to it I kept wondering, what is autobiographical and what is character driven? That kind of ambiguity makes for good listening.

Highlife – Best Bless. “F Kenya RIP” was leaked to music blogs in 2009 and ended up at #5 on my list. I still listen to it a lot, still love it and think it’s a very special song. The rest of the EP is excellent too.

Resignation of the year: Arcade Fire

A few years back all the right people were talking up The Neon Bible, so I snapped it up and was looking forward to being blown away. Nope. The only song that did anything for me was that one that ripped off John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. So when The Suburbs came out I was hoping to hear something I hadn’t on the previous one. Nope. Once again, only a single song stood out – this time “City With No Children,” which really is terrific. But the rest of it passed by unnoticed. So I’ve given up on them. I’m not saying they suck, I’m just saying I won’t be trying to get with that particular program anymore. They are one of those popular groups that I simply can’t get a grip on.

Honorable Mention

I usually reserve an Honorable Mention spot for a longer song. Most years there’s at least one 7+ minute song that I like quite a bit, but since I try to get lots of different artists on the list I don’t want a single tune to crowd out several other candidates. When a longer song really blows me away (like “Bushels” by Frog Eyes in 2007) I’ll make room, but overall I prefer to keep my selections under five minutes or so.

23. “Hunter” – Citay (Buy)
You might hear this and think, “1978 called and asked for its warmed over prog/folk back,” but I don’t care. It sounds great, and that’s all I do care about. Funny enough, after listening to it a few times I decided to see what reviewers were saying. So I looked here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. All seemed like they read the promotional material, noted the Steely Dan reference, listened to it once, gave it three stars and called it a day. Only this one from Samuel Valdes Lopez singled out “Hunter” as the standout. (The album also includes a visit from tUnE-YarDs, currently the best name in music.) Funny enough, right around this time I became aware of San Francisco’s angst over where its Next Big Thing was and its consequent championing of Joanna Newsom. Dear folks: May I humbly suggest that the artist you’re looking for has been under your nose for a while now, and in January released the 2010 Album of the Year?

The List

(And yes as proof of concept I burned them on to a CD using Winamp.)

22. (2010 Best Percussion) “I Was Never Bored at All” – Francis (Buy)
There are lots of different ways to keep the beat, aren’t there?

21. “Marken Lag Stilla” – Dungen (Buy)
So a few years back I heard “C Visar Vägen,” which I liked a lot – but not enough to put on the list. Then a couple years ago I heard “Satt Att Se,” which I liked a lot – but not enough to put on the list. Then last year I heard “Dirt Naps” by 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers, which samples “Satt Att Se” (YESS!!) and which (stop me if you’ve heard this before) I liked a lot – but not enough to put on the list. I was starting to think I’d have to make some kind of Lifetime Achievement award for Dungen because they release a lot of really good music that seemed destined to just miss the cut. Happily that is no longer an issue; they knocked it out of the park with “Marken Lag Stilla.”

20. “Ghost” – Natasha Borzilova (Buy)
In addition to having a beautiful voice, Borzilova sings in a lower register than most women. It gives her vocals a little more gravity and in this song a distinctive tone of melancholy. There’s no mistaking her for anyone else.

19. (2010 Best Handclaps) “Up Up Up” – Givers (Buy)
A very full and complete sounding song, which is particularly surprising considering it’s basically a bunch of teenagers with their first song ever. (That’s not strictly true obviously – see their site!) Released last November, but I give a grace period for relatively unknown artists. They don’t exactly get their stuff released with a blaze of publicity, so it can take some time for it to make its way out.

18. “Two Bedroom Apartment” – Danielle Ate the Sandwich (Buy)
A nearly perfectly captured sense of longing, accompanied – amazingly enough – by a lightly strummed ukulele.

17. “Running Out” – Scissor Sisters (Buy)
Every couple of months it seems like some song is the darling of music blogs, indie hipsters, and all the rest of the people in the know. Everyone posts on it, reviews it, talks about it, and the vast majority of the time it’s mediocre at best. The last song that lived up to the hype was “Paper Planes” by M.I.A. which was, let’s see, three and a half years ago. I basically don’t bother anymore, which is why I gave this one a pass when it started showing up everywhere. But when Said the Gramophone gave it the seal of approval I relented. I’m glad I did. Take this one to the nearest dance floor!

16. “Self Machine” – I Blame Coco (Artist home page)
Speaking of dance floors. There’s usually a delay between when I download a song and start listening to it, which has a really nice benefit: By the time it gets on to my playlist I’ve forgotten about it. This makes it possible to mix in the occasional bit of popular stuff and listen to it on its merits, without any of the attendant hype – good or bad. (By the way, I know Taylor Swift has become inescapable and oppressive, but if “Speak Now” is any indication she’s a perfectly legitimate artist.) It also helps tamp down expectations when there are other circumstances in play. In this case Coco Sumner is Sting’s daughter, and I’m glad I didn’t start listening with that knowledge. I’d have expected a half-assed effort typical for the dilettante offspring of the famous. Instead this is a top notch slice of electro-pop. And incidentally, having a famous parent in the industry doesn’t appear to get you too far these days. She’ll have to hoof it just like everyone else.

15. “Like The Wheel” – The Tallest Man On Earth (Buy)
Another artist I’ve been watching for a while now. First came to my attention for A Field of Birds, which is a very, very good one. But this one: oh my. Another unmistakable voice.

14. “Fidelity” – Isaiah and Hovey (Facebook page)
Since hip hop puts such a premium on lyrics it probably shouldn’t be surprising that it has some of the best. For instance, some get into topical and socially conscious territory that, with the possible exception of folk, is more immediate and topical than in any other genre. (Favorite lyrics of the year: “Don’t think you’re safe though / because you’re not black / greed is color blind / so I’m color blind / they gon’ fuck with yours soon as they done with mine.”) Sometimes it’s just wordplay, though like in this song. Literally playing with words, putting sounds and images together just because it’s fun: “Now back to Studebaker, / Keep it rolling like a wagon / I flow no circuit breaker / Spitting fire like a dragon / So my bars are extra crispy / Got a flow you can’t imagine / And on songs I’m never lagging / Because rapping is my passion, bwoy!” Also, a phenomenal hook.

13. “Do You Swear” – Amanda Palmer (Buy)
For a long time now I’ve liked the idea of Amanda Palmer’s music more than her actual music. I like what she did with the Dresden Dolls and love the idea of a David Bowie for this generation; someone with a superb pop sensibility and just enough of a skewed outlook to be unacceptable for the mainstream. Someone transcendentally cool for today’s losers and misfits to embrace, and who embraces them right back.

This right here is the kind of thing I’ve been waiting for. It’s hardly the hip sound of the moment, and in any event with lines like “we’re all gonna die and a blow job’s fantastic” it was destined to miss your local Top 40 station regardless of its instrumentation. Still, it’s got a phenomenal hook and has the kind of cheerfully semi-antisocial attitude that makes perfect sense if you feel destined to live on the margins. It’s cool, it’s way cool, it’s out there for everyone to hear, but like a dog whistle only gets picked up by its intended audience. It’s a balm for a lot of kids (I know precisely none of them personally, but I know they’re out there) who need to hear exactly this. It’s the soundtrack for a secret society that’s hidden in plain sight.

12. “Big Wave” – Jenny and Johnny (Buy)
Best pop song about macroeconomic collapse ever! From I’m Having Fun Now, which I highly recommend.

11. “Take Me With You” – Evil Ebenezer (Buy)
Genres seem to have particular strengths or weaknesses (or at least consistently draw those with them); for instance, introspection rarely seems to get done well in hip hop. That’s part of what makes this one stand out – it not only paints a compelling picture, but a very different one than usual.

10. (2010 Best Whistle) “The Sound” – Benno Herz (Artist home page)
A great contrast: a cheerful and upbeat melody for an anti-love song. Not a hate song, but an indifferent one, an “I don’t see what the fuss is all about” song.

09. (2010 Best Kazoo) “Colors” – April Smith (Buy)
That’s right – best kazoo. Just listen, OK?

08. “Drunken Poet’s Dream” – Ray Wylie Hubbard (Buy)
Great hook, great vocals, great lyrics.

07. “The Daredevil Way” – Terri Tarantula (Buy)
There’s a certain kind of droning, stinging electric guitar sound that I absolutely love and almost never hear. It sounds even better with a female voice in front of it. A couple years ago I was captivated by All The Shallow Deep by Blank Blue, but at the end of the year I kept it off the list because it didn’t have ZAZZ! I regret it now, because it sounds better than some of what’s on the list. Lesson learned: don’t be afraid to go with a quieter sound. Terri Tarantula is the first beneficiary. (That said, I probably only partially learned it and a couple years from now will regret leaving off Diamondback by J. Tillman. Sigh.)

06. “Sunshine Ft M.I.A” – Rye Rye (Buy)
A few years back I was impressed with Rye Rye but couldn’t tell if she was for real or just drafting behind Blaqstarr. Question answered.

05. “Defiance (for Elise Sunderhuse)” – Emperor X (Buy Double Cassette (limited edition!))
Lyrics reproduced with permission from the artist.

General Doom got another leg caught.
He was arming kids (who were) begging for artillery shells to kick around
and building white crosses to commemorate the martyrs’ brigade
in the Red Crescent-bearing ambulances.
It’s better than working in the mines all day.

 One vehicle’s down.
We were praising the Lord when we heard the report
of the trucks and the cranes and the double-yellow lines
and the fear and the love and the violence dissolved.
We’re told that we’ve learned a great deal,
and we’re told that your loss is collateral cost,
and stochastically inevitable,
and the price that we pay for breathing,
but we defy.

 Punk Haitians kicking under concrete
charge their phones and send another text feed to the flotilla
and it’s out, but time’s not a disease.
It’s an ordered state. It’s a firm substrate.
It’s a shocking priceless wasteland,
and it’s where we’ll raise our kids and get lost and defy.

 Letters, pixels, texts
crystallize and mutate.
Patterns amplifying forever.

04. (2010 Best Backing Vocals) “Wrote A Song For Everyone” – Mavis Staples (Buy)
An unearned visit from someone much wiser than you. Me too.

03. “Thought Of U Featuring Yvette Jarvis and Michael Beals” – Hellafactz (Buy)
So listen. I like Empire State Of Mind as much as the next guy, but there’s a problem with it that was pretty obvious from the start: It’s a big song. It’s a drop-everything-and-throw-your-hands-in-the-air song, which is great at a concert, an awards show or a promotional video but after the first flush of success feels kind of presumptuous. If you aren’t from The City or employed by its Chamber of Commerce this might not be a good choice for your next party mix. You want something that will stay in the background but still get heads nodding, something that will work its way into your guests without seeming intrusive, something like this song right here – a celebration of the much less heralded city of Halifax. Because let’s face it: Five years from now will you be more interested in hearing An Anthem or a little something you can throw on at your barbecue?

02. (2010 Best New Artist) “Heal My Hand” – Falklands (MySpace page)
This year’s proof that rock and roll isn’t dead (yet). Four minutes of smoking hot guitars, kick ass drums and a singer wailing to his love for one more chance. Off of an EP, which was followed up later in the year by Think About It, which – this is still hard to believe – can be downloaded for free as of this writing. (By the way, 2:39 of “It’s Good to See You” is 2010’s Best Second in Music.) It is the most outrageously, extravagantly generous offer in music this year, and even though you can get it at no cost you really should throw a few bucks in the hat when you grab it. Encourage them. Help them tour. These guys deserve to be huge.

01. “Blue Sky On Holiday” – Annemarie (Buy)
Wins by the Ben-Hur Rule. Ben-Hur was, of course, the winner of the 1960 Best Picture Oscar. It is characteristic of Best Picture winners because the Academy seems to go to great lengths to make sure the honoree is always – always – a movie with a message. It has to be something deep that tells us something timeless about the human condition, it must reach for great things, and it most certainly must not be frivolous or silly. You will likely never see, for instance, a screwball comedy even get nominated, because Best Picture has to be Heavy.

That’s true in other are forms as well. You won’t see lighter stuff at the top of the heap. The awards for Best have to be reserved for those things that, in the minds of the voters, best justify the existence of the art form itself. Fluff is by definition excluded.

I think that’s bunk.

In music, don’t you think some allegedly insubstantial stuff has held up pretty well? Doesn’t the golden age of Motown sound pretty good, aren’t the Monkees still a gas, and doesn’t even that era’s ultimate expression of disposable bubblegum pop – “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies – still sound pretty good?

I try to keep that in mind with my Best Song pick. I try not to exclude anything; I try to pick the song that gives me the most listening enjoyment, whatever that nebulous thing is, during the year – even if it seems like nothing more than a confection. Because it might hold up better than most folks expect, and the favored heavyweight might not.

Could a three minute ray of sunshine like this be the best song of the year? Sure – for the same reason Some Like it Hot was the best film of 1959.

Two developments have started to fragment the Internet of late.  One looks quite a bit more benign, but both threaten the openness that has been a hallmark of the connected world.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

The rise of Internet-enabled mobile devices has had some interesting consequences.  On the face of it, smart phones and tablets are a boon.  They allow people to access email and web sites anywhere, not just when tethered to a desktop.  Laptops, with their greater bulk and relatively short battery life, have traditionally been business devices for those who need to work remotely.

Smaller devices changed that.  Now that consumers are used to having the Web in their pockets, or throwing a tablet into a small bag, everyone is trying to deliver a high quality mobile Web experience.  Reduced screen sizes make many pages difficult to view, which leads to mobile applications (apps) designed specifically for the new form factor.  Which then leads to app stores.

App stores have helped turn devices into unique ecosystems.  In the desktop computer world this has not been an issue: most people would choose one operating system and stick with it.  But if you own an iPhone, you’ll have apps designed specifically for it.  You cannot just pick up a Blackberry and immediately start using it the same way.  Sure you can find many of the same apps (and pay for them again), but that is a hassle.  Now that carriers are starting to sign exclusive deals for content, it might become less and less an issue of what software runs on it than what agreements have been inked with whom.

All these new services will be introduced on spiffy new next-generation high speed networks.  Which, incidentally, are being rolled out with absurdly limited usage caps.  Which, incidentally, should not exist at all.  Back in the mid-90’s there was lots of freaking out when AOL unveiled an unlimited dial up access plan for $19.95 per month.  The conventional wisdom was that the infrastructure would not support the increased demand.  Guess what?  ISPs built out their networks, capacity rose to meet the new demand, and all was well.  The same should happen now.  If providers are concerned about where the money will come from, they should start with the $200 billion already lavished upon them by taxpayers for just this purpose.

Speaking of AOL, here is how the folks on CNET’s Buzz Out Loud talked about these new mobile environments (starts around 15:15):

Natali Morris: What they want you to think is that your computer is the Internet, not that your computer does anything else than what Google permits your computer to do, so not only do they own the Internet, they own your entire computing digital life.

Molly Wood: Well, because everyone is trying to own the connected experience, it is no longer the Web experience, it is the connected experience.  And everybody wants to own that, and have your connection happen through their app.

Benito Gonzalez: It’s great – everybody wants to be AOL in the 90’s.

If you were actually on AOL in the 90’s you probably laughed at that last line, because AOL really did bend over backwards to get its customers to never stray from its sites.  When you connected with AOL it launched with an AOL browser and showed you the AOL home page, which contained links to sports, entertainment, gossip, etc. – all on AOL.  Many people thought AOL was the Internet because they never went anywhere else.  That is what is happening again with these increasingly self-contained systems.

Consider this in conjunction with two other items.  First, the increasing push for “cloud computing,” which is just a buzz phrase for remote storage.  Instead of having a local hard drive, a provider like Google or Amazon makes their space available to you.  All your files are on their servers; as long as your mobile device has an app for it, you can get to them.  Tablet, netbook, cell phones – multiple devices all able to see the same stuff.  Sounds much more convenient than having it all on a PC and copying it everywhere right?  And they’ll take care of the backups, upgrades and other administrative chores too.  What could be simpler?

Then think about the FCC’s soon-to-be released standards that will largely exempt wireless carriers from net neutrality rules.  In practice it will socialize users to expect a more restricted experience with these devices (even more so than the reduced processing power and screen size already do).  Companies will be free to throttle or entirely block sites and users accustomed to a more limited Internet will accept it (perhaps without even knowing it is happening).

Now let’s say all your data is on the cloud.  It is very versatile and convenient, provided you remain on good terms with your provider.  But as time goes on and more data gets on the cloud, you become more dependent on it.  You can walk away from a service that has only a handful of files hosted.  What if you put all of your data there?  All your photos, music and so on?  How long would it take to download all that if you had to without much warning?  Would doing so bust your usage cap?  How about private data like electronic tax returns?  Will you keep a smaller, separate local drive for that or trust the provider to safeguard it?  Keep them out of the cloud and you have two drives to keep track of.  What happens if there is a dispute and the provider decides you have violated its terms of service?  Will you be given the chance to retrieve your files?  If so where will you put them?

There are worries beyond customer/business ones.  What if you become troublesome to the powers that be?  We already know the government will lean hard on hosting companies to pull the plug, and companies will comply.  What guarantee is there that your files will not start getting mirrored by, say, the NSA?  Recent developments notwithstanding, there is no reason to expect it couldn’t happen, and quickly.  One of the reasons the FISA Amendments Act was so damaging was because it formalized a procedure by which the Constitution may be completely circumvented.  It goes like this:

Government goes to the companies (and you better fucking play ball, mister) and says it wants absolutely everything, no warrants required.  The companies hand it over.  If it goes to court Congress will pass a law granting retroactive immunity before even discovery can begin.  Case closed, problem solved.  That is exactly how it played out in 2008.  We have seen this play before.  We know how it ends.

That is what is beginning now.  Companies are offering an attractive, convenient and high speed (albeit capped and throttled) experience.  Government sets rules privileging the handful of big providers, and an increasingly docile user base slowly funnels into one of those silos.  Federal officials can then, if need be, work with these partners (Orwellian language intended) to get whatever it thinks it has to have – no legal hassles required.  It is a very efficient way to manage an otherwise unwieldy population.

Many people are already thinking through the implications of all this.  In an email exchange a couple weeks ago with CA Berkeley WV from wvablue.com and CPCEconomy, she wrote from her smart phone (republished with her permission):

I have this gadget here, but we still have copper wires to a rotary dial in the kitchen and the intertoobs in the front room comes from that same copper wire. Not ready to lay it all on the wireless altar.

Similarly, in the wake of the government seizure of dozens of domain names a couple weeks ago, a movement has started for a peer-to-peer Domain Name Service (P2P DNS) system.  Instead of relying on domain services that bow to official pressure, activists are working on distributing their own list of names and addresses so that, for instance, WikiLeaks will resolve to 213.251.145.96 on your computer irrespective of what the US (or by proxy your ISP) might want.  This of course would be vulnerable to sabotage as well as splintering of the “Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea” variety, but it offers a way to be independent of the plutonomy.

We are seeing the development of an increasingly bright line in how users access the Internet.  For most people, who don’t know or can’t be bothered, there will be an array of relatively cheap and fast wireless options that will allow them to stream media, store favorite music or picture files on remote drives, and generally live their digital lives happily in a gilded cage.  (This all assumes no one takes an interest in the DRM status of their MP3 files or becomes concerned that their pictures might show things that touch on national security.)  For those who do not want to live there – permanently, anyway – there will be another one: Wired, slower, locally stored and self-administered – that will provide access to that portion of the network that has not yet been smothered out of existence.