After court loss, conservative group again tries to strike down Dane County’s COVID limitsA conservative group revived a challenge to Dane County’s COVID-19 limitations Wednesday, a month after the state Supreme Court declined to quickly take up the issue. ….. Read More.Journal Sentinel – Politics | Politics & GovernmentWed, January 20, 202114 hours ago
The Capitol Rioters Are Giving Insurrection a Bad NameIn 1958 the American National Election Study began asking Americans whether they trusted the federal government to do the right thing all or most of the time. By this measure, American trust in government peaked at 77 percent in 1964, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the election of Lyndon B. Johnson. By the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency in 1980, trust had fallen below 30 percent, and while the exact percentage has fluctuated since then, it has never returned to the lofty heights of the early 1960s. Fewer than 20 percent of Americans now express strong trust in the government to do the right thing all or most of the time—an inversion of 30 years ago, when only a small minority consistently mistrusted the government.Some might blame a decline in trust in the federal government on the uniquely…
Why we must democratize AI to invest in human prosperity, with Frank PasqualeFour years ago, Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, catalyzed a debate over algorithmic and corporate power with the publication of his highly acclaimed and highly critical book, The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money. On the one hand, Pasquale put us on notice by warning of the dire consequences of runaway algorithms. He highlighted their capacity to create havoc everywhere, by doing things like disrupting the stock market and ruining credit scores. On the other hand, because Pasquale is attuned to the dynamics of political economy and corporate maleficence, he also cautioned us against focusing too much on technological constraints and too little on unsavory human tendencies. He found both Wall Street and Silicon Valley guilty of weaponizing opaque algorithmic processes to expand power, conceal hidden agendas, and deflect responsibility. In…
Donald Trump Is Out. Are We Ready to Talk About How He Got In?I’ve been thinking about Barbara Tuchman’s medieval history, A Distant Mirror, over the past couple of weeks. The book is a masterful work of anti-romance, a cold-eyed look at how generations of aristocrats and royalty waged one of the longest wars in recorded history, all while claiming the mantle of a benevolent God. The disabusing begins early. In the introduction, Tuchman examines the ideal of chivalry and finds, beneath the poetry and codes of honor, little more than myth and delusion.Knights “were supposed, in theory, to serve as defenders of the Faith, upholders of justice, champions of the oppressed,” Tuchman writes. “In practice, they were themselves the oppressors, and by the 14th century, the violence and lawlessness of men of the sword had become a major agency of disorder.”The chasm between professed ideal and actual practice is…
How Do You Expect Me to Write My Book With All This Going On?GARYWORDS at GaryTalk.com – Hey, you guys! You House Managers, Trump Attorney’s, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts, and you guys and gals in the United States Senate, I’m trying to write my first novel, here. Stop taking up all my time and sapping away my energy with this Senate Impeachment Trial you’ve been spending hours and […] ….. Read More.GARYTALK – Conversations & Commentary | This, That and The OtherFri, January 31, 202012 months ago
Biden Just Ended Trump’s Muslim BanDonald Trump began his presidency with a Muslim ban, and President Joe Biden has begun his by revoking one. On his first day in office, Biden followed through on a campaign promise by issuing an executive order that revokes the final version of the Muslim ban—which blocked people from seven, mostly Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States—along with another immigration ban that largely impacted people from four African nations. Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s National Security Adviser, told reporters on Tuesday that the order directs the State Department to return to normal processing of applications for people who’ve been impacted by the bans. Sullivan added that Biden is asking the State Department to find ways to help people who’ve been denied entry to the United States as a result of those bans, as well those whose applications have been stuck in administrative limbo. The bans have…