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    Archive of posts on rights and government

 
[Some posts pre-2008 also listed by topic at the end.]

Net neutrality, Google, and Verizon      August 17, 2010

You’ve all heard by now that Google and Verizon will take care of it. They will come to an agreement between them that will ensure [...]

Wikileaks      August 12, 2010

Let me just get this straight. On one side: a few small people who have killed nobody but may have endangered some in the interests [...]

Is it the Y chromosome?      November 14, 2009

Honestly, I know enough biology to know that it can’t be. It just can’t. And yet how else to explain the sudden ignorance of a [...]

What’s wrong with young people everybody now      September 27, 2009

I’ve been thinking about the failures of government recently (1, 2), and it turns out (h/t dakinikat) I’m in good company. Sachs points out that [...]

It’s About Who Decides (One More Time)      August 13, 2009

Being forced to die against my will would be terrifying. And I, personally, wouldn’t care whether the death panels making that decision were staffed by [...]

Medicine and the Unfree Market      June 23, 2009

Medicine and the so-called free market are incompatible in important ways. An outstanding article in the recent New Yorker by Atul Gawande makes that point [...]

It’s about who decides      June 21, 2009

This has been brought on by a comment thread at Reclusive Leftist. The post was about feminism, but the thread kept veering off into abortion. [...]

Single payer vs Public option      June 18, 2009

This is all you need. Shove this in anyone’s face who starts saying, “But, but, but . . . the guvvamint!” From a comment by [...]

A sad anniversary      June 17, 2009

This has been hard for me to write. It’s part of the reason I haven’t wanted to write anything for a while. I didn’t think [...]

Science Education: Who Needs It?      April 8, 2009

The evidence suggests an awful lot of people need it. A recent study by Harris Interactive for the California Academy of Sciences found the following: [...]

Remember Tibet      March 10, 2009

Fifty years of occupation. Colonizing a neighbor instead of another continent doesn’t make it all right. Having an empire now instead of two hundred years [...]

Iceland has a new Prime Minister      January 28, 2009

This is all over the web, but I want to celebrate anyway. As I said elsewhere in blogspace today, ah, the sweet smell of rationality [...]

Another fine mess      September 11, 2008

Yowzer. This one has everything. Freedom of religion, fairness in the workplace, immigration, general free-floating bigotry. (But no sex, drugs or rock-n-roll, so maybe not [...]

Rights, wrongs, and brotherhood      September 8, 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about rights lately, and that took me to Wikipedia’s page on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here’s Article 1 [...]

Toilet Paper: IP Gone Mad      January 27, 2008

I have a boring bathroom with not much in it except towels and soap and that kind of thing. But there are inevitably times when [...]

Death of DRM: You heard it here first      April 28, 2007

Well, not first, exactly, but long before The Economist. Belatedly, music executives have come to realise that DRM simply doesn’t work. It is supposed to [...]

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Collected Links to Acid Test posts on democracy, and related blessays

[Earlier list. Not updated after 2007.]