“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
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Mary Robinson: Women’s Leadership Can Transform the Way We Do Business in a Climate-Constrained World
As a global community, we find ourselves at a critical juncture. One path — the “business as usual” route — sees us approach a drastically warmer world, where our continuing reliance on fossil fuels will make this planet a cruelly inhospitable place for our children and grandchildren.
The other path is the route towards opportunity and truly sustainable development. The route that gives future generations the same chances to grow and prosper as so many of us in the developed world have enjoyed. If properly approached, this path should address the core inequalities that have plagued our world to date. But traveling this path requires a transformation in leadership as we move to a new greener, low carbon development model.
The transformative leadership necessary for a fair and climate-just future for all requires bold and brave steps by heads of state and government around the world. To be brave, these leaders must be supported by an engaged and well-informed electorate, business community, local governments and civil society organizations.
Elise Collins Shields: The Pentagon’s shameful culture of sexual assault can still be uprooted
Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s bill failed, but when we start over, let’s start at the very beginning: the military academies
“I could trade in my wife for you.” That’s what one of my husband’s former US Air Force Academy classmates told me at their class reunion.
If you ever get bored…. So went the sexual innuendo from other former classmates, some of whom physically groped me or made outright invitations to meet up.
My husband was as shocked as I – and heartsick that this was his new wife’s introduction to military culture. In addition to being upset, I was disturbed that these men seemingly never faced consequences for this sort of behavior if they felt so comfortable acting out.
And I was upset Thursday afternoon, when the US Senate failed to pass a bill championed by Senator Kristen Gillibrand that would take sexual assault investigation and prosecution away from the chain of command – that would finally bring consequences for longstanding systemic sexual assault across the US military.
A Massachusetts court may not understand the 21st century, but who knows how many photo fetish addicts are out there?
Here’s the thing about picture-collecting voyeurism: desire may be amoral, but the act of taking iPhone photos of non-consenting individuals in order to get your rocks off doesn’t happen without consequences. There are personal repercussions. And there should be more legal punishment, too.
No, “creepshots” aren’t protected by the First Amendment, which “does not protect purely private recreational, non-communicative photography”, according to a 2010 ruling. But they’re still running too rampant.
It all depends on what camera angle the creeps are using, which body part they focus on and, until this week, which state they lived in.
Yes, as of Wednesday, it was found to be perfectly legal to take “upskirt” shots of unsuspecting women on public transportation in the state of Massachusetts. Thank god the state legislature has now rushed through a bill to counter such a ridiculous ruling by the courts. (Update: Gov Deval Patrick has made upskirts illegal – officially.)
Joe Conason: Lying Again? Scholars Detect Deception in Ryan’s Poverty Report
For the sake of America’s poor, a sincere conservative effort to improve the programs that serve them is very desirable-especially so long as Republicans control the House of Representatives, where they habitually yearn to cut or defund those same programs. For months, Washington has eagerly awaited the latest version of “compassionate conservatism,” promised by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and his publicists.
Appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Ryan denounced government programs that serve the poor, including food stamps and free school lunch: “What the left is offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that.”
But what the House budget chair and 2012 vice-presidential candidate delivered a few days earlier showed that he is offering not more, but much less. “The War on Poverty: 50 Years Later,” produced by Ryan’s House Budget Committee staff is merely more of the same old right-wing propaganda against the safety net, and worse.
David Sirota: Do Companies Have a First Amendment Right to Track You?
Do corporations have a legal right to track your car? If you think that is a purely academic question, think again. Working with groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, states are considering laws to prevent private companies from continuing to mass photograph license plates.
This is one of the backlashes to the news about mass surveillance. However, this backlash is now facing legal pushback from the corporations that take the photographs and then sell the data gleaned from the images.
In a lawsuit against the state of Utah, Digital Recognition Network, Inc. and Vigilant Solutions are attempting to appropriate the ACLU’s own pro-free speech arguments for themselves. They argue that a recent Utah law banning them from using automated cameras to collect images, locations and times of license plates is a violation of their own free speech rights. Indeed, in an interview, DRN’s counsel Michael Carvin defends this practice by noting, “Everyone has a First Amendment right to take these photographs and disseminate this information.”
Timothy Karr: Why You Should Fear Big Bad Cable
Comcast’s plan to merge with Time Warner Cable could leave millions of Americans stranded on the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road.
Twenty-five years ago this month, Sir Tim Berners-Lee introduced an open protocol for sharing information that gave everyday Internet users the power over what they created and whom they connected with online.
His concept quickly evolved into the World Wide Web. One British research scientist’s idea for people-to-people communications became a global engine for empowerment, economic growth and free speech.
Berners-Lee’s idea was to create a web of limitless access and choice. And he was largely successful.
We can use YouTube to share and watch videos, or we can switch over to Vimeo, Instagram, or Blip. We can speak directly with friends using Skype, Hangout, FaceTime or other voice and video services. We can connect and communicate anything with anyone at any time.
But all of that could change.
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