buckdata – news and views for an unquiet age

Passed over for participation in the Iowa candidates’ debate, a canine contender for President has announced her pick for the Vice Presidential slot. Porschy (not her real first name) is a part Pyrenees, part Golden political novice running as a respresentative of the t-bone wing of the GOP (Grassroots Organization for Pooches). The pooch party’s [...]

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After the Supreme Court’s opinion last year in Citizens United, which effectively declared that corporations can be treated as humans, I urged that votes be given to dogs, as well. Now, having observed the Republican frontrunners, I realize I may have done my dog a disfavor. It shouldn’t just be votes for dogs. Porschy should [...]

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Feb. 17 UPDATE- The Santa Cruz Library Joint Powers Board put off a vote on any of four proposals under consideration for the library system’s future. Two of the proposals called for closing multiple library branches. However, after hearing public testimony at its Feb. 14 meeting, the board instead directed a subcommittee to come up [...]

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Isn’t it time we figured out some alternatives to oil and coal? (For those of you suggesting nuclear plants as a substitute, I suggest you rent “China Syndrome” at the video store and watch it, or acquire some penpals living around Chernobyl and get their opinions. ) We can do better for ourselves and the [...]

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Once again, a scant majority in the country’s highest court has handed down a decision on a subject the justices know too little about. They have decided what a person is. It turns out a legal filing– not a jolt of electricity in some Central Europe lab– can shock a stitched-together bundle of documents, capital, [...]

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There is heated debate in Washington these days over what to do about our country’s recent unsavory dabbling in torture as an information-gathering strategy. As with many other instances during the George W. Bush administration in which legitimate duties of government (such as statesmanship) became conflated with and ultimately displaced by punishment, pure and simple, [...]

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Friends, family, and acquaintances are raising questions about whether President Obama  can accomplish  what we helped elect him to do. Will the wars end in Iraq and Afghanistan? Will clean energy really be funded? Will Bush-era wiretap and other privacy violations be sufficiently curtailed?  Will single payer health care get endorsed or merely sidelined? Will [...]

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The sight of candidate Sarah Palin blinking and winking as she uttered buzzwords and previously-owned soundbites at the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate with Senator Joe Biden was not a reassuring one. It has set off another round of blog commentary, this time discussing what her Oct. 2 performance might foretell about a possible McCain [...]

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I don’t know much about Alaska, but–riot police activities in St. Paul during the GOP convention notwithstanding– I have heard that Minnesota is a progressive, child-friendly state. And the federal government is sort of progressive, too, when it comes to protecting children. For example, it is against the Mann Act to bring a minor across [...]

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