Archive for the 'Open Records' Category
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner, facing the fastest price increases in Latin America, are employing a new tool to bring down their inflation rates: control the data collectors.
Governments often mislead their citizens as a means to quiet discontent. Citizen discontent is the fuel that changes government behavior. Those […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
Oakland Circuit Judge Wendy Potts sentenced Matthew Grundy and Jared Foote, both 17, to two years probation and ordered them to pay $23,000 in restitution Wednesday for their role in vandalism Dec. 20 that left dozens of schools buses with flat tires, forcing school officials to cancel classes for the day. The incident sparked a […]
Posted in Open Records, Crime | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
A Waterford Township man arrested last month for operating under the influence of liquor and driving on a suspended/revoked license has eight prior suspensions and nine drunken driving convictions.
In any given year, about 300,000 of Michigan’s 7.2 million licensed drivers have their driving privileges suspended. Studies show that about 70 percent continue to drive anyway.
An […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption, Crime, Personal Behavior | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
Europe’s citizens must be on their guard against political correctness and moralising politicians, says the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
The former Portuguese premier and centre-Right politician is concerned that freedom can be the loser in European culture wars over climate change, cheap air travel, Islam and free […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption, Terrorism | No Comments »
Monday, March 19th, 2007
Today a Wall Street Journal editorial describes the personal devastation caused by online postings to a college WEB blog autoadmit.com
The Open Records defense of public posting of information is that blog posting is free speech. The argument becomes a little weak for anonymous postings. An anonymous user can libel another user such that […]
Posted in Open Records, Personal Behavior | No Comments »
Saturday, March 17th, 2007
Brushing aside a veto threat, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep their papers secret indefinitely.
The House bill would give current and former presidents 40 business days to object to requests to view their papers, allow a sitting president to […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption | No Comments »
Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Some argue that individual votes should be public for all to see. Others argue that making the votes public exposes the voters to intimidation or even physical harm.
Related issues are whether legislators’ votes should be public combined with publicizing legislators’ contributors. The thinking is that legislators would not want to appear to be […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption, Business Corruption | No Comments »
Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Two dozen countries block or limit Internet access. Middle East Muslim countries appear to be overrepresented.
The Internet is one of the great productivity enhancers of the last 100 years, on a level with the light bulb and the automobile. Limiting the Internet would not appear to be a step toward positive economic growth.
Full […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
Virginia gun owners are upset that their names have been made public by a newspaper. They argue that publication of the names makes them targets for burglaries.
A possible solution is publish names of those who have passed gun certification classes. Therefore criminals would have no certain knowledge where they might be able to […]
Posted in Open Records, Crime, Personal Behavior | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
The Ohio legislature is close to passing a bill requiring convicted sex offenders to use flourescent green license plates. The Governor has indicated he would sign the bill.
Opponents argue that offenders have paid their debt to society and should be free from further embarrassment or potential vigilante justice. This same argument was made […]
Posted in Open Records, Crime, Sex Offenders | No Comments »