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Liberty and Power

  • Jul 11, 2004

    Tyranny of the Twit

    by Liberty and Power

    There's an old Internet theory which posits that any web review sites will be hindered by twits who for reasons either contrarian or ignorant, will inevitably post bad reviews of great works, meaning the ratings of consensus classics will inevitably be eroded down to about the same average as more mediocre works.

    Waxy.org plays on this theme with the Amazon knee-jerk

  • Jul 11, 2004

    Un-Kosher Congress

    by Liberty and Power

    Tennesee Rep. Bill Jenkins chairs the House subcommittee that oversees tobacco farming. He also helped write, push, and pass the $9.6 billion buyout for tobacco farms that was part of the pork-laden corporate tax bill.

    How convenient, then, that Jenkins himself owns a tobacco farm. And that the bill he helped draft and push through the house will land he and his wife a cool $55,000. In a day's work, Jenkins

  • Jul 10, 2004

    Don't Let Go the Song

    by Liberty and Power

    I won't go off on a total Michael Moore tirade, other than to note that those of us who are in opposition to the war to one degree or another are better off relying on the awful truth of the Bush Administration than Moore's paranoid fairy tale, but this item made me think even more of Pete Townshend than I already did.
  • Jul 9, 2004

    Mississippi Democratic Party Chair: For Whites Only

    by Liberty and Power

    Back in the 1950s, the Mississippi Democratic Party openly advertised itself as an enterprise for whites only.

    In a typical statement, Tom J. Tubb, chairman of the party, declared in 1955: “I don't believe that the Negro ought to be allowed to vote in Democratic primaries....The white man founded Mississippi and it ought to remain that way." (Earl M. Lewis, “The Negro Voter in Mississippi,” Journal of Negro Education 26 (Summer, 1957), 342).

    Now, Reid McKee, a former Liberty and P

  • Jul 9, 2004

    Email Surveillance in the Workplace: USM Could Set an Example

    by Liberty and Power

    Since the University of Southern Mississippi's current Computer Use Policy was adopted in the October 2002, the administration of President Shelby Thames has claimed the authority to read any email sent from or received on a university computer, to copy the contents of any hard drive on any university computer, and to seize computers from employees at any time, for any reason.

    Although th

  • Jul 8, 2004

    Bobble-Head Journalism in Alabama

    by Liberty and Power

    Famed bobble-head reporter Gilbert Cruz last week resigned his position as campus beat reporter for The Tuscaloosa News.

    Cruz achieved the epithet"bobble-head" earlier this year when he devoted a front-page article to covering the making and marketing of a bobble-head doll in the shape of long-dead Alabama football coach Bear Bryant.

    Cruz's reporting about campus affairs at the University of Alabama generally followed the same style and form, maintaining a rigorous avoidance of inv

  • Jul 7, 2004

    Not Black Enough?

    by Liberty and Power

    At the core of the recent legal battle over affirmative action in the U.S. has been an implicit question - what are we trying to accomplish through affirmative action? Are we trying to right the wrongs of history for a group of people from a previously discriminated class of citizens or are we trying to create diversity to enhance schools and workplaces for society today?.

    For C

  • Jul 7, 2004

    Antiwar Libertarianism, Cont.

    by Liberty and Power

    Jacob Levy:"Now it's simply untrue that the Iraqi sanctions prompted 9/11. The sanctions were wrong; that doesn't mean that they were a wrong of any great importance to Bin Laden & co."

    From the CFR's terrorism page:

    The United Nations’ economic sanctions on Iraq are one of the grievances most frequently mentioned by Osama bin Laden, the leader of the a

  • Jul 7, 2004

    Feeling a Draft

    by Liberty and Power

    No argument for conscription, no matter how weak, should go unchallenged. Even temporary enslavement is barbaric.

    E.J. Dionne, in Monday's Washington Post, criticizes the Bush administration for extending the enlistment period of U.S. soldiers; Dionne says that this practice is conscription.

    I don't know the details of the contracts between Uncle Sam and his soldiers. If the contracts reasonably are read to allow the Pentagon to extend enlistment periods, then no conscription i

  • Jul 7, 2004

    The Logic of Jihad

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    Jacob Levy has responded to my previous post. Concerning the analogy I there drew between confused criticisms of anti-interventionism in military policy and confused criticisms of anti-interventionism in the economy, Jacob writes that it's"fallacious to treat the