It's Getting Worse -- Farewell Foxwizard

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Friday March 11, 2011 · 6:51 PM PST

2011/03/11 · 18:51

I'm abandoning my alias tonight. Yep, this is the last entry for FoxWizard, and it is bittersweet. That alias has been mine, in one place or another, for about 15 years, and it does actually say something about me, my self image, and my sense of my place in the world.

My reasons below the fold.

Poll

32 votes Show Results

I think changing your name is

32 votes Vote Now!

I think changing your name is

Stupid

1 vote

will fail; you'll be known inside a month

0 votes

An irritating idea, but it's your name

0 votes

Doesn't really matter

9 votes

Cowardly

1 vote

Smart

0 votes

Sad but necessary

14 votes

Quit being paranoid

2 votes

Come throw verbal bombs with me

5 votes

Homeland Security Seizes Internet Domains

Foxwizard

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Saturday November 27, 2010 · 7:07 PM PST

2010/11/27 · 19:07

The New York Times is reporting that the Immigration and Customs Service, a part of Homeland Security, has seized numerous sites accused of facilitating illegal sharing of music and movies through the internet.

This is just a quick diary, and if this has already been reported here, I apologize for the redundancy. I was headed to bed and saw this on the Huffington Post as I was plugging in my Phone to charge overnight.

The significance of this move, including its scale and close working relationship between Homeland Security and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) must be ominous to those denizens of cyber space who value both freedom of speech and the rule of law. More after the jump.

Foxwizard

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Monday May 31, 2010 · 5:52 PM PDT

2010/05/31 · 17:52

Sigh. First, a disclaimer. I am on the down side of fifty, and have lived and seen American civic (and therefore, political) life since John F. Kennedy led us through the Cuban Missile Crisis. I admit to being optimistic about our prospects, if only because the US polity has managed to counter-balance it craziness so many times before. I was raised on stories of the 1929 crash and FDR's leadership that built a better society out of the ashes. My parents were quietly and strongly patriotic, as am I; all of us in the sense that we see great good in our country and experience great pain when it fails to live up to it's, well, it's great potential. My parents were democrats, as I have been. I am concerned about the many of our countrymen that fall off the bottom of the social and income scales.

More over the fold.

Foxwizard

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Friday July 24, 2009 · 8:43 PM PDT

2009/07/24 · 20:43

Numerous diaries and comments are being written to analyse the brouhaha that has developed over the tussle between Harvard Professor Louis Henry Gates and the Cambridge police departmetn, over the professor's arrest for being disorderly in his own living room.

I'm going to explain why I must believe that Gates is right, in light of my experience, and suggest that, while not every may feel that way, it is imperative to approach the officer's story with a good deal of skepticism.

I'll share my experience over the fold. But first, disclaimers are in order. We are a middle class white family, and at the time lived in a new subdivision that was all white. Along the way of this journey, we had the help of a very generous and wise African American community organizer. I say this only to provoke this thought: if what I am about to describe could happen to us, what was happening in the African American neighborhood?

So, let's jump and I'll tell my story.

Poll

109 votes Show Results

Police can be trusted

109 votes Vote Now!

Police can be trusted

Always

11 votes

Sometimes

54 votes

Only when dealing with white people.

1 vote

Except when dealing with African Americans

2 votes

Never

36 votes

Except when it matters

4 votes

Only when it matters

1 vote

Beware The American Taliban

Foxwizard

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Tuesday June 09, 2009 · 4:43 PM PDT

2009/06/09 · 16:43

A diary posted earlier here on DKos, here, has finally moved me to write something I've been thinking about since at least last September.

For lack of a better, more explanatory term, I'm going to call it the American Taliban, and folks aren't going to like it. But that's Ok, because my real purpose here is to trigger some much needed discussion concerning some of the forces tearing at our civil fabric.

So come with me, if you will, to examine some of the tumors on the body politic.

Foxwizard

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Sunday June 07, 2009 · 8:12 PM PDT

2009/06/07 · 20:12

For almost all of my working life, the pursuit of better health insurance, and the penalties for not having it, have dogged my mind and burdened my life. We have been far more fortunate than most, and certainly way better off than many; but the worry has always been there.

Right now, I personally am in a fortunate position: I have a great job, my employer provides really good benefits and my wife and I are healthy. But that's not the whole story, and I've been writing letters and signing petitions to get a single-payer plan even discussed because I know that we, like almost every other American, are one paycheck or accident, or major illness, away from utter poverty and despair.

This week, it hit home big time.

Foxwizard

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Sunday May 03, 2009 · 4:07 PM PDT

2009/05/03 · 16:07

Many explanations for the current economic crisis have been bandied about, some more accurate than others. What cannot be denied is that a cataclysm of this extent cannot be fixed to one 'cause', but must be the coming together of a whole constellation of issues that together had the effect of pulling the floor out from underneath a structure of greed, risk and irresponsibility.

Among the most serious consequences, though, is the evaporation of trust. I say this because, while easily lost, trust is hard won. And the fact that trust has exited state left from our economic house poses some hard challenges ahead for us all.

Follow me as I reflect on the consequences.

Foxwizard

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Tuesday April 21, 2009 · 5:32 PM PDT

2009/04/21 · 17:32

In a story dated today, The Wall Street Journal reported on the battle between Wyoming District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. and the families of three young girls being victimized by this morality policeman who believes the girls need to be "re-educated" on the proper role of girls and women in society.

I haven't seen any other diaries on this, and I apologize in advance if I'm double posting, but this seems to me to speak volumes about where we are as a culture and a (un)civil society.

Follow me over the jump for what this reveals about us.

Foxwizard

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Friday April 17, 2009 · 8:49 PM PDT

2009/04/17 · 20:49

Further proof emerged this month (as if we needed any) that the GOP/Conservative movement has passed a threshold of insanity and destructiveness not witnessed since Bleeding Kansas.

Follow me after the fold.

Foxwizard

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Saturday March 07, 2009 · 6:21 PM PST

2009/03/07 · 18:21

Newsweek is jam packed this week with a delicious series of articles and commentaries by conservatives decrying that fact that Rush Limbaugh now represents their party, the good ol' GOP.

Republican apologist David Frum offers an extensive defense of the party against Limbaugh, with laughable results. More below the fold.

Foxwizard

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Monday January 19, 2009 · 4:46 PM PST

2009/01/19 · 16:46

I'll offer up a really short diary tonight, mainly because I'm fighting the flu and have to return to work tomorrow anyway, but also because this is the last hour before we dance the jig.

I lost $5.00 and I'm glad. What could have happened, what I predicted might really happen, didn't. And I'm as giggly happy about it as a guy with a 11 degree fever can be.

Foxwizard

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Monday April 28, 2008 · 8:29 PM PDT

2008/04/28 · 20:29

This will be a short diary, because I really just want everyone to know that Democratic Representative Howard Berman (CA) has caved to the corporate bosses, and introduced legislation that will legalize corporate appropriation and theft of the creative work of individual artists, writers and musicians.

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It's Getting Worse -- Farewell Foxwizard

Homeland Security Seizes Internet Domains

What's A Liberal To Do?

Of Gates, Crowley and Police Thuggery

Beware The American Taliban

Insurance Blues (Again)

The Evaporation of Trust

Teen Girls Targeted for Re-Education

Secession Fever Spreads

Newsweek: GOP Not Liking Rush Limbaugh in the Mirror

Mea Culpa: It Didn't Happen Here -- This Time

Your Copyright Ownership Rights Under Attack