Savetheinternet.com recently release this video to support their 2007 push to defend Net Neutrality. GSPP Alumni Derek Turner works for Free Press, the media reform organization that operates Save the Internet. Take a look:...

The last three years have seen a notable spike in homicide and gun violence in the Bay Area. In 2005, San Francisco’s homicide rate was the highest it had been in more than 10 years, and Oakland’s first-half 2006 murder rates were 78% higher than first-half 2005 (the most recent reliable statistics). The past week has seen 5 different shootings in San Francisco’s highly integrated Western Addition, and several more in the primarily lower-class neighborhoods of Bayview and Hunters Point. While the San Francisco Police Department vociferously defends its arrest rate for violent crimes (one of the worst in the...

On January 24th I had the opportunity to attend the Fred Friendly Seminar series Nano: the Power of Small. This was a panel debate on the what sorts of questions government needs to ask when evaluating the responsibilities a new company working with nanotechnology needs to assume. Each panelist played a role in the political process: Christine Daniel, Deputy City Manager of Fremont, was mayor, with two advisors, Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson Center and Clayton Teague, Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. Richard Denison, of Environmental Defense, was a city council member representing green groups and Kristen...

Not long ago our esteemed classmate Claire Michaels asked a provocative question: is liberal ideology a fairytale? The text of her e-mail follows: I'm reading this book called On Beauty by Zadie Smith, and there's a part where two black characters are talking about affirmative action, and the conservative one says: "Kiki, if there's one thing I understand about you liberals, it's how much you like to be told a fairytale. You complain about creation myths-but you have a dozen of your own. Liberals never believe that conservatives are motivated by moral convictions as profoundly held as those you liberals...

Last Wednesday, Feb 7, Robert Barr, who heads the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology spoke about the current political debate around patent reform, which has mostly stemmed from the differential impacts of the current system on the Biotech/Pharma industries versus the IT industry. Almost none of what is below are my ideas, but rather my regurgitations of Robert’s talk. For the pharmaceutical and biotech companies like Genentech and Merck, patents are lifeblood. These companies spend an estimated $700 million researching, developing and FDA testing to bring a new drug to market. Once all this work has been done, it...

In a recent three part article, Charles Murray defends the idea that university and mandatory schooling are not for everyone, and that a gifted few should be selected on the basis of their IQ to attend school and university (read part 1, part 2, and part 3). Beyond the many caveats with which IQ should be treated -for good responses see here and here- as David Kirp points out in his article, this is as much about quality education as it is about the kind of society we want to live in.