Anthony de Jasay at Cato Unbound:

This paper is a sequel of an article I wrote twenty years ago that I now think can be put more tightly and clearly. That early paper was born of the irritation I felt, and continue to feel, at much of the classical liberal discourse about limited government. At least since Locke, that discourse sets out a normative ideal of government: the protector of “rights” its citizens are in some fashion endowed with, and the guarantor of liberty that ranks above rival values. Such government uses coercion only to enforce the rules of just conduct. This ideal is attractive enough to the liberal mind. The reason why it nevertheless irritates is that it makes it seem that the writing of a constitution of liberty is a plausible means for transforming the normative ideal into positive reality. The message is that “we” can have limited government in the above sense if only “we” understand why we ought to wish it. The “we” is crucial, for it suppresses the essence of collective choice. Collective choice starts where unanimity ends, and involves some deciding for all, where the “some” control the apparatus of government. It is the potential for some to benefit morally and materially at the expense of others that creates the bone of contention and that limits on government are meant to move out of reach. It is odd that little or no awareness is shown of the “incentive-incompatibility” (if we may use ugly but handy jargon) of limits that would exert real rather than illusory restraint.

Fairly simple and easy to read look at the impossibility of legislatively constraining government, and on the other hand the natural economic limits that do constrain all governments (though in a painfully wide band that they can and do tend to oscillate in).

Via EconLog.

“This campaign is an extraordinary rendition of a public-private partnership,” observed BLF spokesperson Blank DeCoverly. “These two titans of telecom have a long and intimate relationship, dating back to the age of the telegraph. In these dark days of Terrorism, that should be a comfort to every law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide.”

Via 27B Stroke 6.

Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird:

Ever since v-2.org went down for the count, I get a fair number of requests to repost this minifesto on “open-source constitutions for post-national entitites,” from 2003. It’s goofy, it’s naïve, it’s grandiose and pompous…and I present it to you now exactly as I wrote it then. Enjoy!

Posted to bramcohen.

The coverage of the current US primaries is mindbogglingly wrongheaded. Recent coverage has focused on who would ‘win’ New Hampshire among the democrats, and Huckabee’s ‘lead’ among republicans. The actual numbers can be found here. New Hampshire is not a winner-take-all state for democrats, and both Clinton and Obama got exactly nine delegates from there, making the declaration of a ‘winner’ extremely misleading, if not outright revealing of the declarer having dubious mental capacity. Among republicans, Mitt Romney now has the most delegates, with Huckabee in second, and the media is currently speculating that Romney will drop out because he’s so far ‘behind’.

Seriously, what is wrong with journalists? Are they not able to do basic arithmetic? Ideally I’d like to have meta-coverage discussing why some states are winner take all and others aren’t, and what on earth ‘super-delegates’ are, but I’d settle for even an accurate portrayal of what’s happening in the race as it unfolds.

But thank you CNN for putting up a nice site which gives accurate up-to-date information. Please expand it in the future with more explanation of what ‘super delegates’ are, and what happens to a candidate’s delegates if they drop out of the race.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the NYT:

It is often said that Islam has been "hijacked" by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.

But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted - and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents 57 Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from Parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that by Western standards some of the Prophet Muhammad's behavior would be unconscionable. A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted.

But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now. . . .

When a "moderate" Muslim's sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.

Via Jonathan Adler at Volokh.

The BBC is in trouble, political and economic. So what do they do? Make huge cuts in personnel and spending. Problem is that nearly everyone agrees that the reason they are in trouble is the quality of their programs are not where they should be, and of course the cuts are going to doom them. Some are standing up and shouting, is anyone listening?

We have had a series of cuts which will make it impossible to do what we have done up to now if they continue in the way they are continuing... And we are told there is going to be another massive cut over the next five years. The problem is, the BBC is in a whole range of things, it has many television channels, many radio stations, an internet presence and the rest of it. Maybe we are at a time when strategic judgments need to be made. If money has to be spent on the whole digital switchover for example, and building office blocks in Salford and all the rest of it, then maybe instead of cutting everything salami-sliced, then maybe we need to make judgments about the sort of things that we do, and maybe that does involve saying, reluctantly, and I hate to say this because it has been a wonderful institution, maybe we need to say perhaps we should be doing less better.

Via cityofsound.

The publishing outfit that produced LaRouche propaganda finally collapsed, and the whole organization probably will follow. Avi Klein has an interesting look back at the remarkably little impact LaRouche has had on american politics, despite the millions spent.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Ok I hate Ze Frank, but he hits the mood of public perception about this strike about spot on.

Via Gruber at Daring Fireball.

Posted to Economist.com.

If they are sensible, the Kurds will not rush towards independence. To be landlocked and without permanently friendly neighbours is a pretty hopeless recipe for statehood. The outside powers on which the Kurds ultimately depend, especially Turkey and the United States, would not allow them to break away. The Turks could throttle them economically if not bash them militarily; the Americans may well turn their backs, reckoning that it is strategically more important to curry favour with Turks and Arabs.

Schneier on the recent release of the California security review of electronic voting machines, and what CA is doing about the across the board failures:

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has conditionally recertified the machines for use, as long as the makers fix the discovered vulnerabilities and adhere to a lengthy list of security requirements designed to limit future security breaches and failures. [ …] While this is a good effort, it has security completely backward. It begins with a presumption of security. […] Insecurity is the norm. If any system – whether a voting machine, operating system, database, badge-entry system, RFID passport system, etc. – is ever built completely vulnerability-free, it’ll be the first time in the history of mankind. It’s not a good bet.

So, what to do? Assurance:

Several years ago, former National Security Agency technical director Brian Snow began talking about the concept of “assurance” in security. Snow, who spent 35 years at the NSA building systems at security levels far higher than anything the commercial world deals with, told audiences that the agency couldn’t use modern commercial systems with their backward security thinking. Assurance was his antidote.

Posted by Bruce Sterling to Beyond the Beyond.

June 14, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS GO-EXPO Conference organizer fails to have Yes Men arrested.

“We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant,” said “NPC rep” “Shepard Wolff” (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men), before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process brought it to life.

I've been following this NewAssignment.Net thing, but Jay writes too damn much to point to any one piece he does on it for someone else to read (not that I read it all). This interview with /. goes all over the place, its not just about NA.net, and talks about some pretty interesting things in reporting (and is fairly readable because he is talking down to /., not to his academia buddies).

Create more writers and suddenly you may need more editors. “The conversation feeds journalism, journalism feeds the conversation” is a powerful idea, but we are several steps away from knowing how it works to create a live, intelligent filter in the newsroom.

The normal tensions with the press were driven deeper: keep them back, keep them out, tell them nothing, tear them down. If someone does break a story from inside you immediately punish and isolate anyone who spoke to the reporter. You make them disown their words. You make them repent.

This is the story Woodward missed because he got inside it, so to speak. Ron Suskind, one of the few in Washington who did not miss that story, called it "the retreat from empiricism." To me, it's the big narrative yet to come out about the Bush White House. Attack Without a Plan was too crazy to be credible to Woodward. So he wrote Plan of Attack instead.

Read more at PressThink.

I am reading Accelerando by Charles Stross. It is a deeply flawed look at the post singularity world, but I am prepared to forgive it it's flaws due to the fact that to look beyond the beyond is impossible (the definition of singularity strongly relates to the inability to understand). Anyhow one of the most interesting parts of the book is the poking at what a truly efficient economy would be, and what happens when tech makes that posable.

Now the SEC is going to push the first step into giving AI's the data to run the stock market :gonk::

Posted by Tim Bray to ongoing.

I spent a couple of fascinating hours Tuesday at a round table hosted by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The subject was Interactive Data, a term which is hardly self-explanatory but really means "Business Transparency". This in the same week that Jonathan sent a letter on the same subject to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, who was also around the table. Mr. Cox and the SEC are definitely on the right track; I expect bumps in the road, but there's a chance that Accounting As We Know It could be blown up. Which would be a good thing; and not just because Open Source is creeping in.

Read more at ongoing.

(I am kidding about the :gonk: bit, this is pretty cool, and will help us humans "keep the thieves out" as Tim says. Just don't let the computers take over man, man.)

Posted to Wired News.

Congress considers protecting journalists from being forced to reveal their sources, while punishing government workers who leak secrets to reporters. Here's why that schizophrenic approach actually makes sense. Commentary by Jennifer Granick.

Read more at Wired News.

Posted by Jonathan Adler to Volokh.

This Slate article about the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy's new anti-marijuana ad, "Pete's Couch" prompts the following question: If one of the greatest harms of marijuana use is that it makes you lazy -- as one would expect it to be if the federal government is producing ads about it -- why is marijuana use a criminal offense?

Via a post by Jonathan Adler at Volokh. Interesting comments there.