The RP’s Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Tech

The Politics of Tech

“CEO Says SOPA & CISPA Are Needed Because A Disgruntled Customer Once Set Up A Parody Site To Mock Him.” Okay then. [techdirt]

Three heavyweight committees in the European Parliament gave their voting recommendations on ACTA today. All three gave the same recommendation: reject ACTA. [Falkvinge]

SpaceX Dragon has returned to Earth off the coast of California. [MSNBC]

“I’m going to argue that the futures of Facebook and Google are pretty much totally embedded in these two images” [Robin Sloan]

Hollywood want to make it illegal to skip commercials. [Public Knowledge]

The RP’s Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Pigskin

The Politics of Pigskin

Wide Receivers Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald Travel to Ethiopia to help create farm-able land and also buy cows for the villagers. [ESPN]

HBO has finally found its team to showcase on Hard Knocks: The Miami Dolphins. There will be some nice story lines they will be able to focus on. [Yahoo! Sports]

Seven years after playing his last down in the NFL Kordell Stewart is officially retiring. [Fox Sports]

Worst to First – the most likely teams to go from last in their division in in 2011 to first in the upcoming 2012 season. [SB Nation]

Terrell Owens’ career seems to have come to a fitting end. He has been released from his IFL team. Oh, you didn’t know he was playing in the IFL, don’t feel too bad. [ESPN]

Jeff Smith: Super PAC Timing Raises Questions

Articles like this just warm my heart – and probably John Edwards’ too. “Super PAC Timing Raises Questions” [Politico]

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: St. Francis’ Advice

Thought for the day to change the world.

If everyone followed the section from the prayer of St Francis asking,

“Lord, grant that I may seek rather to understand, than to be understood.”

Thought for the day to change myself (as a back-up plan in case the world doesn’t change).

If I followed the section from the prayer of St Francis asking,

“Lord, grant that I may seek rather to understand, than to be understood.”

Watch the “Fools on the Hill” Trailer

No Labels isn’t alone pressing for immediate congressional reform.

Fools on the Hill” is a new documentary that makes the case  that Congress needs to pass some stringent laws to keep themselves in check. Things like no more adding hundreds of pages to a bill in the middle of the night and passing it the next morning.

The documentarians are organizing a march and rally on Congress July 17, and are asking people to sign a petition and join them as they converge on DC to demand Congressional reform.

Check out their trailer below:

The RP’s Breaking News: The Politics of Pension Reform

This video of Illinois state Representative Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro) more or less speaks for itself. [Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire]

Artur Davis: Romney’s Education Gambit

Mitt Romney’s venture into education policy this week was overdue, but bold in the right places. It was a striking improvement from his previous blend of clichés about local control and hints that the Education Department might be eliminated altogether.

The conventional wisdom is that the Obama Administration has all but swept education reform off the table with its own maneuvering toward the center on the issue. The reality, though, is that the White House has mixed instances of toughness—incentivizing states to embrace charter schools, defending mass firings of teachers in underperforming Rhode Island districts—with a conventional Democratic resistance to merit based pay, vouchers, or any revamping of state tenure laws.  It is a record that has won bipartisan plaudits from reformers, but not one that has made much headway in alleviating the festering mediocrity that marks many of our public schools, and that careens into outright disgrace in most inner city venues.

In fact, success under the Obama model would look remarkably similar to the landscape that prevails in education today: a scattering of high profile innovations in either deep pocketed big cities, or states that already have a strong reform culture, with the prospects of individual children turning largely on the vagaries of location and local leadership. Not surprisingly, the politically influential teachers unions have grumbled about the current agenda, but they have adjusted to it as an incremental set of half measures that they can fend off state by state.

Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: Romney’s Education Gambit

The RP’s Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Laughter

The Politics of Laughter

Suddenly a girlfriend with a sense of humor becomes a bad thing. [picture]

So much respect for mimes [.gif]

The worst part about living on the west side of town. [picture]

When fart jokes go wrong. [picture]

I just love this one so much. [picture]

Umm, Broccoli [album]

 

The Worst Thing Obama Has Ever Said?

Michael Tomasky hits the nail on the head regarding the President scripted mention of Polish death camps yesterday: [Daily Beast]

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Father/Daughter Conversation

Father and teen daughter conversation.

Daughter: Dad, I’m going to visit a friend today I haven’t seen in a year and we are going to lunch and shopping at the mall for the afternoon. Could I please have some money….like….$20?

Father: $20?! For lunch–and some window shopping? Where are you planning on eating? You don’t really need to buy anything at the mall. How about, oh, $5.

Daughter: Dad…

Father: How about this. I’ll make it $10 because I’m an amazing dad. Deal?

Daughter: Make it $20 because I’m an amazing daughter. Deal?

Dad: You got me. Deal.

The Recovering Politician Bookstore

     

The RP on The Daily Show