Diaries

"Not all leaks are alike"

Submitted by ek hornbeck on Tue, 05/10/2016 - 1:08am

Edward Snowden (yes, that one) has an interesting piece up over at The Intercept on the moral and ethical difference between leaking for personal benefit (yes, that is bad and deserving of punishment) and whistleblowing to expose corruption and abuse (yes, that is good and should not be punished).

I think an important consideration besides qui bono is also the power relationship of the discloser (to use a neutral term) to the establishment status quo and whether the disclosure is perceived as advancing the establishment's objectives or sabotaging them.

Take for example the Greenpeace exposure (also a nice neutral term) of TTIP proposals yesterday. One could argue that Greenpeace is powerful, but not very in relationship to sovereign governments and certainly the individual members are not very powerful at all. Then there is the fact that public knowledge reveals policies that most people would not support. In Germany TTIP polls only 15% favorable and I'd predict that number would fall except that most of that 15% (which is pretty rock bottom but not as bad as United States citizens is about their Congress) have a vested interest (personal benefit) from its passage.

Have no doubts about it, if Germany doesn't approve TTIP it won't happen.

Anyway here are some excerpts to think about.

Just applied for mail-in ballot to vote for bernie !

Submitted by bikingforkarma on Mon, 05/09/2016 - 10:47pm

Today was the first day to mail in your absentee ballots for CA primary.

http://imgur.com/r76G3ny

Just confirmed my registration, and applied for a mail ballot. I would register to vote here in my university town, but marijuana felons can't vote here. So I'll just keep doing absentee votes for CA like I did in 2012.

Faith, part 2.0

Submitted by PastorAgnostic on Mon, 05/09/2016 - 8:29pm

The first problem a rational thinker faces is that lots of people actually believe this stuff. Hard to believe, but true. It is even harder to accept when you consider the incredible gains in all sciences over the last few centuries, despite Christianity’s strong opposition. Even today, their concerted efforts threaten to prevent any science from going forward.

A Republican thing, not a southern thing

Submitted by Robyn on Mon, 05/09/2016 - 2:32pm

It's easy to come to the conclusion that attacking transgender people is a "southern thing," but that's not true. It's a Republican thing...a Daddy Party thing.

In real life situations, transgender kids most often find more support from their mothers than they do from their fathers. Fathers tend to have real problems with gender concepts.

In Warwick Rhode Island, transgender girl at Pilgrim High School who has been attacked on social media by a former Republican candidate for mayor because the school administration is allowing her to use facilities which accord with her gender identity.

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