"Eric Fischl ... created this bronze sculpture of a woman plummeting to her death, basing it on the many people who did just that during the 9/11 attacks ... ... Immediately, members of the public began complaining about the upsetting nature of the piece, and administrators at the center quickly covered it in cloth and hid it behind a screen." Right, because we wouldn't want to make mass murder look like something horrible? Watching policy getting made to appease those who don't get the point.

So bad it's worth reading, because you're going to see this argument, again, I'm sure. The author argues that universities are, themselves, victims of censorship if they are not free to fire faculty members for expressing political viewpoints which they don't like, because they are being forced to support views they don't like. This is question begging, because it presupposes that by allowing them to stay on its payrolls, a university has allowed those faculty members to speak for it; that the very act of allowing them to stay signals support for their views. This is nonsense. They are paid to teach. Their political views are their own business. Making the point, quite unintentionally I would guess, that the last thing Libertarianism promotes is individual liberty. If you're not free to speak your views openly without fear of destitution, then just how free is speech, really?

The book is Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". I wonder if they'll burn it?

Criticism of the decision in the Lori Drew case.

About the Bush administration's attack on separation of powers

Paul Krugman says something about Obama's statement that there would be no widespread investigation of Bush administration abuses that should be common sense, but sadly isn't, and so badly needs to be said. Found on Furl.

You've long suspected, and now somebody thinks he knows. If he's right, what does that say about lassez faire?

Another great moment in modern American law enforcement. Man gets bludgeoned and tasered by the police for having an epileptic seizure.

What was becoming of civil liberties during the recently departed Bush administration. Doesn't address the uncomfortable question of whether this is a continuation of trends seen during the Clinton administration.

Commentary on the notion that the Bush Administration and neocons were pro-free enterprise.

More about the young man who was shot and killed while face down on the pavement, "execution style", as the author says, by a transit cop on BART, the San Francisco Bay Area's rapid transit system. Perhaps I'm missing something, but weren't the police supposed to be enforcing the laws, including the one against murder?

Another police officer who didn't know he was being taped.

A best moments video as the ex-president speaks out about ... something.

Illustrating the differences between the various ideologies, while you weigh the merits of becoming a hermit.

Don't necessarily agree with all of this, but one of many kissoffs to a president I won't miss, unless Obama manages to be even worse - and with January 20 being so close at hand when I first submitted this to my now invisible Ma.gnolia account, I felt the need to bookmark at least one. Found on Furl.

David Brooks, in an op / ed piece to the New York times, discovers that participation in the market does not magically transform human beings into the rational beings that one could easily see that they aren't by ... oh, say, talking to them.

Rebuttal to an often repeated and sometimes rationalized piece of folk wisdom that holds that such wars never happen. Found on Furl.

Satire posted during the Obama campaign.

Deliberately bookmarking an article posted over five years ago to help make a point - one keeps hearing people say that the American job market has been bad "lately", as if the severe shortage of entry level opportunity in America were a recent phenomenon, instead of the lingering scandal that it has been.

Now, something from today (2009) as the author talks about sometimes undignified extremes that some applicants go to in the often futile search for work. Submitted to Digg by bamafun.