News came Friday that it appears that La Mesa councilmembers will not go forward with their threatened (loser of a) lawsuit against resident Chris Tanner. Score one for free speech. On the other hand, it appears that the politicians in Washington state want to outlaw politics -- seriously. A story from Saturday's Olympian reveals that […]
For those of you following the foolishness that is La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid and his threatened lawsuit against a critical constituent, it appears that at least one city councilmember has his head on straight. Councilman Barry Jantz submitted the following letter in the comments to last weekend's initial post on the subject. Feb. 21, […]
Sunday's Washington Post had a very interesting article on the how the Internet and technology is presenting problems for China's censors and government-controlled media.
Art Madrid is the Mayor of the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, population 50,000+. It's my hometown and Madrid has been mayor since 1981. It appears that 25 years as mayor has honed Madrid's sense of entitlement and the idea that he's better than the rest of you. The public-comment portion of a city […]
It should come as no surprise that when Ann Coulter tries to speak on a college campus that trouble follows. For the record -- I'm no fan of Coulter's. I think she's a bomb-thrower and generally does more harm than good for the conservative cause. But I wanted to highlight to something else in the […]
I've been playing videogames since the venerable Atari 2600 hit the market. In our house, you got to open one present on Christmas Eve -- and my mother suggested that I open the small box and not the larger, more Atari 2600 shaped box. The small box contained a Space Invaders game -- which made […]
It's always nice to know what your elected representatives think of you. Massachusetts Rep. Martin Meehan, one of a substantial group of Democrats who defeated the Online Freedom of Speech Act yesterday, thinks that bloggers who opine on politics are kinda like child pornographers. "We don't allow child pornography on the Internet. We don't exempt […]
Yahoo! admits it provided information to the Chinese government that resulted in the jailing of a journalist. Yahoo Inc. chief Jerry Yang said his company was complying with local laws when information on an Internet user was passed to Chinese police in a move leading to the jailing of a mainland journalist. Yang, speaking at […]
The New York Times has an editorial today complaining about the jailing of their reporter, Judith Miller, for refusing to reveal her source in the nadagate investigation. In the days after Ms. Miller's arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that three countries harassed or jailed journalists while pressuring them to reveal their sources. Which […]
The House today passed a constitutional amendment that would give the Congress the authority to pass a law (or laws) prohibiting the desecration of the American flag. I'm enthusiastically ambivalent about the whole thing. Legal flag-burning has its advantages -- anytime someone does it you know that you can immediately disregard anything they say as […]