Fight For Your Right

Perhaps the Democrats should consider a Ukrainian response to the latest filibuster threat...

If nothing else it might get CSPAN some ratings

99 Problems

UPDATE:

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the controversial immigration bill into law on Friday, prompting an outcry from the White House, Democrats and Arizona residents.

Additionally, Politico author Andy Barr echoes my last post in his Friday column "What's the matter with Arizona?"

Born in the USA

Arizona has some issues.

The home state of the once-maverick Republican John McCain has increasingly become a hotbed of conservative fundamentalism. On Tuesday, the Arizona State House of Representatives voted 31-22 to require all presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate in order qualify for the state's presidential ballot. This legislation is an obvious shot at President Obama, who some still believe is not a natural born citizen. While there have been no reports on whether Governor Jan Brewer will sign or veto the bill, the mere fact that this bill passed the House is a birther-fueled abomination in itself.

In other Arizonan news, the State Senate recently passed a bill that would require any immigrant in Arizona to carry proper immigration papers and would require police, if they had a doubt about a person's immigration status, to determine whether they were a legal citizen or immigrant. If an officer has a "reasonable suspicion," they may demand proof that they person is in the country legally. This bill, if signed by Governor Jan Brewer, will result in blatant discrimination and racial profiling for anyone who looks remotely like they could be from another country.

Arizona's stance against illegal immigrants is notorious. Past bills have banned employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and have made human smuggling a state crime.In particular, Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio is one of the most outspoken proponents of legislation which cracks down on illegal immigrants. Arpaio is known for his questionable actions against illegal immigrants, such as conducting widespread sweeps in areas where immigrants are concentrated to round up illegal immigrants.

On the national political level, Arizona Senator and former presidential candidate (born on a US Naval Base in Panama) John McCain is fighting to hold onto his Senate seat. His challenger, former Congressman JD Hayworth, has dubbed himself, "The Consistent Conservative," and has gained the endorsements of Glenn Beck, Sheriff Arpaio, a number of conservative talk-show hosts (for, after all, that is his newest profession) and numerous elements of the Tea Party Movement. Hayworth, who has compared gay marriage to a human marrying a horse and has been the winner of Washingtonian magazine's "Best and Worst of Congress" titles of "Biggest Windbag" and "No Rocket Scientist," is running only 5 percentage points behind McCain as of last Friday.

While McCain has drifted towards the right from his former position of center-right maverickism, Hayworth represents a new level of right wing ideology. If elected, Arizona and the Senate will lose one of the most respected and experienced representatives in the Senate and will face the dangerously radical views of JD Hayworth. Neither the Senate nor Arizona will stand to benefit from this.

Arizona voters need to act in order to prevent isolation by the rest of the country and the risk of being known as the first Tea Party State.

Below is a pro-McCain advertisement which mocks Hayworth's radical views and general absurdity.

My Generation

The internet. That vast cyber space where any and all information is stored and easily accessed at the click of a mouse. Where anyone can publish and share data, links, and ideas freely and equally with anyone else on the planet. Until now.

The decision earlier this month by a Washington D.C. appellate court ruled that Comcast has the right to regulate types of internet traffic that use more bandwidth. By giving internet service providers (ISPs) the ability to limit access to certain types of traffic, the court decision jeopardizes the future of "net-neutrality" and will disproportionately affect the millennial generation, who utilize high-bandwidth services the most.

In 2007, the Associated Press determined through a series of nationwide tests that Comcast had been intentionally slowing the internet service of clients who used file sharing networks, particularly BitTorrent traffic. BitTorrents are used for sharing large data files directly between two internet users, without being stored on a central server. So-called "peer-to-peer" networks use a high volume of bandwidth and while it is associated with illegally sharing music, movies and software, peer-to-peer sharing can and is being used for increasingly legal purposes of data exchange.

However, because peer-to-peer traffic accounts for a majority of internet traffic, Comcast limited the connectivity of subscribers using such services. After the FCC sought to prohibit this practice in the name of net-neutrality, the principle that all internet access should be free and equal, a legal battle ensued. The District of Columbia United States Court of Appeals ruled that such conduct fell outside the jurisdiction of the FCC and that Comcast reserves the right to interfere with any of its clients’ web traffic.

The implications of this ruling are two-fold.

First, it is unclear what doors this decision will open for further discrimination by ISPs. Net-neutrality is a vague concept and the lines and boundaries of the internet are nebulous. If ISPs have the capacity to limit peer-to-peer sharing, what’s to say they can’t limit other types of high-bandwidth traffic like streaming video from YouTube or ESPN, or videochat programs like Skype? Internet subscribers using these types of traffic could be subject to slower service or higher fees in the future.

Second, the decision will have a disproportionate effect on the so-called millennial generation who helped develop and who use the majority of this traffic. While the internet has become universal in its usage, the high-bandwidth functions are used predominantly by high school and college aged consumers. As a result, it is this demographic who will be most adversely affected by slower service or higher fees. Whether it is from music sharing, watching streaming videos or video chatting with friends across the country, high internet traffic use has become the norm of this generation.

And while one teenager streaming video may not affect a typical family’s broadband account, an apartment of four college students sharing one internet account is the most likely to be subjected to ISP discrimination. The immediate effects of such limitations will likely only be felt by users in or just out of college who share accounts with others who are also using large amounts of bandwidth. However, in the long term, what is now considered high-bandwidth usage will eventually become the norm as the millennial generation grows older and knowledge of these relatively new technologies proliferates into older internet users.

So while this decision may seem largely inconsequential to many now, it is likely to have more widespread effects in the future. While it appears that there is little legal basis to date to prohibit the actions that Comcast has employed, it is imperative that Congress take steps to preserve net-neutrality. The internet is a valuable resource and, as the FCC v. Comcast case stated, “is arguably the most important innovation in communications in a generation.” It is also what has defined this generation, and regulations like those allowed by this decision put the full capacity of the internet as a resource in jeopardy, and with a negative burden shouldered by the world’s younger generations. It is critical that the free and full access to the internet and its content be protected and maintained.

Ain't That America

I was talking recently about America and one of our seemingly most simple entities: our currency

It dawned on me a while ago that, as far as my knowledge extends, our coins lack something that no other coin that I have ever seen does: numbers. Most people in the US are oblivious to this and whenever I point it out to anyone, they are often surprised or even disbelieving. But if you reach into your pocket I assure you that none of the American nickels, dimes, quarters or pennies will have a number on them.

This isn't entirely true. Our coins have dates on them. Interesting, perhaps, but useless if you are trying to determine their value. Pennies and nickels offer the most help, stating "one cent" and "five cents" respectively. Quarters offer the cryptic mathematical quotient of "quarter dollar," while the dime offers the most enigmatic, "one dime." Nor are the coin sizes intuitive. The dime is the smallest, yet worth more than the penny and the nickel.

These issues may seem trivial, but as someone who has travelled extensively, struggled with computing exchange rates in my head and fumbled with foreign currency, I can't imagine the dismay of not knowing English and struggling with coins without numbers.

Perhaps I'm making too much of a big deal over a few cents. But the sentiment runs much deeper than our change pockets. The United States has no official language. While English is the de facto national language, none has ever been officially declared. Yet if you deplane at most international terminals in the US, you will rarely find an alternative translation for "Baggage Claim," or "Transportation."

My favorite, and what I can only assume to be an absolute nightmare for any visitor, domestic or international, is my home airport of Boston Logan and the subsequent labyrinth known as the "Big Dig." Assuming you find your rental car and navigate your way out of the airport, you are immediately faced with a toll booth, the price of which continues to rise but what I believe is now $3.50. Assuming you know what a toll booth is, that you have American money, and that you can figure out how much 50 cents is, you are then funneled into a tunnel. Next, assuming you can read the sign that says, "Government Center/Storrow Drive," that it isn't blocked off for construction with no detour provided and on the chance that you follow the correct fork in the road, you will be spit out into a maze of poorly named and one way streets to fend for yourself. Welcome to America.

There is a reason for this American hubris. The US was long-entrenched in a policy of isolationism. It sealed itself from the rest of the world in its developmental years, determined to stay out of other peoples' business and have them stay out of ours. From its early years, Presidents Washington and Adams avoided intervention in the war between Britain and France in an attempt to solidify America's neutrality. Yet since that time we have deviated from that path. America is at the epicenter of world events and, as the only remaining superpower, is the most influential player on the world stage. At the same time, the US has become a destination for immigrants, refugees and visitors alike.

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Just make sure they can speak English.

We Americans are proud of our country, our history and our heritage. But we must be careful of where our patriotism oversteps its bounds into arrogance. And while many will be up in arms at any sign of accommodation (even those who struggle with English as a first language), we must at least consider some small simple changes like multi-lingual signs or numerical values on our coins.

Penny for your thoughts. It's the brownish one that says one cent on it...

START Me Up

The Cold War is over. We won. So why should anyone care about the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty set to be signed this week by the United States and Russia? Why would we jeopardize our abilities to nuke the world into oblivion? Because if the treaty is signed and ratified, it will be a vital step forward for the Obama administration, for Russo-American relations, and for worldwide denuclearization.

The goal of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is to achieve further reductions in nuclear weapons between the two countries after the 1991 START II expired in December. But in addition to the tangible achievement of reducing nuclear arms on both sides, this START would give the Obama administration a victory in foreign affairs, it will reconcile part of the deepening divide between the US and Russia that has occurred in recent years, and it will show the world’s nuclear states that the two nuclear superpowers are still dedicated to a planet free from nuclear weapons. Ratifying the treaty will give a boost to the American reputation worldwide, which it sorely needs.

On the domestic level, the benefits will be twofold for President Obama.

First, if the treaty is ratified by the Senate, which it must be by a two-thirds vote, it will be the President’s first major victory in foreign affairs. Coming off of a controversial and hard-fought domestic victory in health care, the ratification of START would show his ability to manage both international and domestic affairs. It will also serve as justification for his Nobel Peace Prize, giving him credibility both inside and outside the country.

Second, some Republicans must ratify the treaty in order for it to pass. The initiative to ratify the treaty is being spearheaded by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, respectively. Sen. Lugar is well schooled in the arenas of nuclear arms control and reduction and has called for the Senate to “work quickly to achieve ratification” of the treaty. This bipartisan effort could be a step towards reconciliation (no pun intended) between the two increasingly polarized ends of the political spectrum in Washington and pave the way towards more bipartisan effort on future legislation.

On the national level, the treaty would do much to improve relations between the United States and Russia, which faltered during the Bush administration.

What is perhaps the most important aspect of the treaty is not the number of weapons reduced but the transparency that will result from certain provisions intended to bolster trust and communication between the two nations. Under the proposed treaty, the US and Russia will have better knowledge of where each other’s weapons are and the status of each other’s disarmament.

With this improved trust, the United States can expect better cooperation from Russia on difficult international issues like the development of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Russia has long had issues of self-esteem and a need to be acknowledged as a major power by the rest of the world. The START treaty and its predecessors grant Russia the satisfaction of being recognized as the most powerful nuclear adversary to the United States, making them more open and affable to cooperation, while still achieving levels of disarmament.

Lastly, on the international level, the START treaty will show the rest of the world, and especially the nuclear weapons states, that the two greatest nuclear superpowers are still committed to denuclearization.

In his speech last year in Prague, the venue for the symbolic signing with President Medvedev this week, President Obama voiced his desire for a world free from nuclear weapons. While the process, as the President recognized in that speech, will take time, the START treaty is an important mileage mark on the road to nuclear zero.

America can only stand to gain from this treaty. We will still maintain a substantial nuclear arsenal, and thus an effective deterrent. Yet our country has the opportunity to show that it has a leader dedicated to an open and proactive foreign policy, a chance to reconcile partisanship domestically, the ability to reach out to a former adversary in the hopes of promoting peace and cooperation, and the power to inspire denuclearization worldwide.

If this treaty is ratified, it can be nothing but beneficial for citizens of the US and the world alike, and for our posterity, who may someday enjoy a world free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.