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Here’s the thing-  asking “why democracy?” sounds to me like asking “why sunshine?” or “why puppies?”.  For people like myself, who have never known anything but a pluralistic, Western democracy, the issue is a non-starter.  We’d rather focus on the deficiencies within our democracy than take on the whole concept itself- pro or con.

Either it is constitutional, or it's not - right?

But the good news is:

"Today, Judge Ann Aiken of the Oregon Federal District Court ruled
that two provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA), "50 U.S.C. §§ 1804 and 1823, as amended by the Patriot Act, are
unconstitutional because they violate the Fourth Amendment of the
United States Constitution.""

Source: Kurt Opsahl on EFF - Deep Links

Found via: Xeni Jardin on Boing Boing

See the latest videos and articles about the upcoming elections in Pakistan on the AFP news site.
"Only these people keep saying that there is no democracy just because of my uniform" (quote from the film Dinner With The President)

I should probably begin by outing myself as someone woefully underqualified to mouth off about the state of modern democracy. I’m a public radio host at the moment, which means I get to interview people with interesting things to say about politics- it doesn’t mean that I am one of those people. Some of us in journalism get that distinction mixed up sometimes…

Anyhow, you’re stuck with me today, so let’s see what I can conjure up.

At this exact moment, I am in my bed, nominally conscious and still exhausted from packaging this week’s episode of my show, Search Engine. It’s a news program that looks at politics and culture through the lens of the Internet. Last night my producer Geoff and I were at the office late, mixing our 4th episode, which led with an item about last week’s Jena 6 march in Louisiana.

See BBC video release of situation in Burma.

Salla and I entered in dates and times for these three networks, so the screenings page is now updated. Amazing to see where Al-Arabiya will reach -- Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, among others.

Singabloodypore has a great post linking to several blogs coming out of Burma with first-person accounts of the events there.

Activists and supporters of Burma have for years discouraged people from visiting the country as tourists, although the debate about this has heated up recently. Could photos emerging from the country now be one fortunate - and probably unintended - result of the Burmese junta's decision to open up their isolated country to more tourism?

As news sites detail a deterioration of the situation in Rangoon and elsewhere in Burma, with police now breaking up protests and last night raiding several monasteries, photos taken by tourists and dissidents back up those stories and are proliferating around the Internet.

The photo that accompanies this post was taken by Why Democracy Flickr Pool member Racoles, but there are many more, including here, here, and here.