Matt Yglesias makes a good point. The Tea Party activists talk a lot about the government taking away their freedom, whether by taxing them, byforcing them to buy health insurance, or even by implanting microchips in their bodies. But for all their talk about freedom and for all their fear Obama will transform the country into a Soviet-style dictatorship, the Tea Party doesn't seem particularly interested in protecting individual freedom in general. "Freedom" is a buzzword to them, and their freedom-talk just empty rhetoric.

In my favorite blog post of the week, Matt Yglesias asks us to

Consider that the proponents of right-wing "freedom" are not even slightly inclined to back elements of a libertarian agenda that conflict with conservative identity politics. When John Boehner says "most importantly, let's allow freedom to flourish" he's not suggesting we should open our borders to more immigrants or drop the vestigial Selective Service system or allow gay couples to marry or let Latin American countries sell us more sugar or reduce military expenditures. Indeed, the very same critics who castigate Obama for limiting Americans' freedom also accuse him of being insufficiently eager to torture people, unduly hesitant to detain suspects without trial, and too eager to take the side of black professors subject to police harassment for the crime of trying to enter their own home.

Which is just to say that Boehner is a conservative. He sides with the military, with law enforcement, with the business establishment, and with the dominant ethno-cultural group in the country. In the United States of America, people who adhere to these values like to talk about "freedom" but this has nothing in particular to do with any real ideas about human liberty.

Conservatives may feel oppressed, in other words, but it's only certain kinds of freedom—and only for certain kinds of people—that Rep. Boehner (R-OH) cares about. Mostly, it's the freedom of white conservatives to be in charge. Or, as Yglesias puts it, "freedom's just another word for 'I'm an orthodox conservative with orthodox conservative views.'"

Yglesias compares Tea Party rhetoric to William F. Buckley's Young Americans for Freedom stating in 1960 that "foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force," even though the YAF was never particularly interested in civil rights legislation or ending Jim Crow. In the same way, tea party conservatives who rail against the police state generally have no problem with having the police pull over anyone who might look like an illegal immigrant. So when Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) called for a boycott of Arizona over its new—and possibly unconstitutional—law allowing police to demand people show proof of citizenship, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) accused Grijalva of "advocating for Mexico rather than the United States and against the rule of law." As Greg Sargent says, what King—who obviously doesn't even represent Arizona—is essentially saying is that Grijalva is "committing treason by advocating for his brown-skinned constituents in addition to his light-skinned ones."

This is the problem with identity politics. We can—and should—argue about what freedom means. But whatever it means, we all have the same right to be free. If we reduce the freedom to the idea that we personally should be able to do whatever we want, it loses all meaning. What's wrong to do to us, is wrong to do to everyone.

Robert de Neufville quotes a favorite blog post at BigThink and adds some telling commentary of his own.

But much as is the case with Craiglist, it may be the case that, legally, Goldman is operating on the edge of the law.

But on the edge of the law isn't where Goldman started. It isn't how it earned its reputation. And it isn't what the original intent of the company was.

Something has gotten lost.

Some sense of purpose and mission, values and original intent has come unmoored.

It is part of a Great Disconnect that afflicts much of American business.

We have important companies that have lost track of themselves.

We have cool new startups that have veered from their original purpose.

The US Army reports that misuse of Powerpoint (in other words, using Powerpoint the way most people use it, the way it was designed to be used) is a huge issue.

I first wrote a popular short free ebook about this seven years ago and the problem hasn't gone away. So much for the power of the idea.

Here's the problem:

• Bullets appear to be precise
• • They define the scope of the issue, even if they are wrong
  • They are definitive, even if they aren't
• Bullets that are read from the screen go in one ear and out the other
• Bullets are used as a defensive measure
• • see, I told you this in the meeting on 12.3.08
• Bullets are unemotional and sterile
• The lizard brain causes us to make presentations that are too long so that nothing in particular gets commented on or remembered or criticized
• It is harder to interrupt and have a conversation with someone who has a clicker

See what I mean?

If there was any other tool as widely misused in your organization, you'd ban it. The cost is enormous in lost opportunity and lost time. Guns don't kill people, bullets do.

John added "I'm always amazed and overjoyed when people do what they say they'll do. I'm down right tickled when folks accomplish 50-percent of their club DCP goals (that makes them distinguished if there's a net gain of 5 members over the club's base)."

So, I've added a link to Seth's posts in the blogroll here so you can check his blog on your own. But don't be surprised if you see him mentioned here again.

MUMBAI, India — Faced with stricter Internet security measures, some spammers have begun borrowing a page from corporate America’s playbook: they are outsourcing.

Sophisticated spammers are paying people in India, Bangladesh, China and other developing countries to tackle the simple tests known as captchas, which ask Web users to type in a string of semiobscured characters to prove they are human beings and not spam-generating robots.

The going rate for the work ranges from 80 cents to $1.20 for each 1,000 deciphered boxes, according to online exchanges like Freelancer.com, where dozens of such projects are bid on every week.

It figures.