February 2008

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Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.

-Rene Descartes

October 31, 2005

Plans for Wiping the Map

Iran's President Ahmadinejad made international news at the "World Without Zionism" conference last week, due to his comments about wiping "Israel off the map." The media has made much of the comments, and speculation about what it could mean for Israeli-Iranian relations has been a hot topic. But the hottest topic is the parts of Ahmadinejad's speech that are not being reported... so check out the blog Regime Change Iran for a better view of the conference logo, and a peek at what was said. Highlights:

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved... [Ahmadinejad]

We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization... we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them. [Hassan Abbassi, Agmadinejad's strategy advisor]

If you are looking for agitators who want to see the Bush adminstration move out of Iraq and Afghanistan and into Iran for a head-on war in an attempt to head off terrorist attacks, you will not find that at Atlas Blogged. But if you are looking for a little more attention paid to the attitude and plans of the Iranian theocracy, or if you are looking for a secular democracy to replace the current Iranian regime, well... so are we.

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October 30, 2005

How Bad is that Economy?

I find negative headlines on Google News, regarding the US economy: US durable goods’ orders plunge (Reuters), Greenspan gets high marks, not US economy (Business Times) "Three-quarters of those surveyed rate the current economy as fair or poor,"

Some articles note the 3.8% growth this quarter, but they split over what this means: still on a solid growth track, or slowdown coming?

But my favorite take on the economy is found at BizzyBlog, who asks When is this economy going to get some respect?

So when was the last time the economy expanded faster than 3% for 10 straight quarters?
It didn’t happen during the 1990s (the longest streak was eight).

It last happened during the 13 quarters from 1Q 1983 through 1Q 1986. Not coincidentally, a president who believed in lowering taxes to stimulate economic growth was in charge the last time it happened.

So despite being at war, despite devastating storms, and despite legislative and regulatory drags on the economy like Sarbanes-Oxley, this has been most consistently growing economy in almost 20 years.

Not only that, the US economy has NEVER had a streak of more than 7 quarters of 3.0% or greater annualized growth at any other time in the 58 years that quarterly GDP statistics have been kept!

Why is there any question about whether Supply-side economics works? Probably because the pubic in general is uneducated enough to entertain such questions, and because precious few politicians make any attempt to enact the principle of increased savings in times of prosperity. The whole nation, from top to bottom, runs on the principle that if you have a dollar, you should spend two - which is the basis of most of our current economic fears, from the real estate bubble to the impending inflation of all non-real estate items.

But at the heart, the Laffer Curve is real and Supply-side economics does work. Respect this economy!

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October 27, 2005

Perspective on 2000 soldiers killed

This week, U.S. forces passed 2000 servicemembers killed in Iraq. Is this a big deal? Well, yes, it certainly is. We mourn every one of these deaths, and it is important not to allow our military forces to be used lightly - 2000 of our servicemembers should never die for unjust causes. But aside from the question of whether our forces should have gone into Iraq, or whether they should still be there, 2000 killed is a remarkable figure. It is an amazingly small number of casualties, which is a credit to the advances in weaponry, tactics, communications, and medical care on the battlefield. It is also a testament to the degree to which normal Iraqis have welcomed U.S. forces - what would the death toll be if we were seen as occupiers by the citizens there?

It is important to keep a proper perspective on the number of deaths sustained in this conflict. I thought it would be educational to compare these 2000 deaths with the number of deaths from past conflicts. Kirk H. Sowell beat me to the punch, so check him out at Publius Pundit.

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Job Vacancy

Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination today, in the face of sharp criticism by conservatives and serious questions from Republican senators over her qualifications. Randy Barnett (a Cato Senior Fellow) ran a nice article in the WSJ that invokes Alexander Hamilton in the question of Ms Miers qualifications:

The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other.

Let the SCOTUS speculations begin anew!

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October 25, 2005

To Boo Or Not To Boo

There’s nothing that sickens me more than to hear a crowd booing their team at home. I don’t care how bad they are playing, how many points they are down, or how bad the play calling is.

I was at the Texans game this weekend against the Colts and it was amazing to me how fast the fans turn on David Carr. Here’s a guy that has no offensive line to help him out, he’s running for his life, and the crowd is on him like stink on ….well….you know. What made it worse was that the play just prior to everyone booing him, they cheered like crazy for him because he scrambled for a first down, diving his way across the “yellow line” instead of sliding short.

All booing does is drop the confidence in your team. Not just for the current game but for games in the future as well. If people would always show support, it just may work. We all can get frustrated when we watch our favorite team play bad. But if you make them feel worse with a chorus of boos, how is that going to help?

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October 24, 2005

Greenspan's Successor

President Bush announced today the nomination of Ben Bernanke to replace Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan will retire in January, after 18 years on the job.

Bernanke is the White House's top economic adviser, which would prompt yet more accusations of cronyism in the Bush Administration, except for the fact that Bernanke is a tad more qualified for this job than Harriet Miers appears to be for hers. But let's be honest, this appointment may be as important as any SCOTUS appointment, if not more important.

Bernanke, now chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, received his bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard, his Ph.D. from MIT. He was a professor at Princeton University and chaired its Economics Department. He's published numerous articles and several books. And he served on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors for nearly three years.

Comments by Bush, Bernanke, and talking heads available here.

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October 22, 2005

Troop Morale

I saw the headline, "U.S. Troops Maintain High Morale in Iraq", and I clicked on it to read the story. Yahoo! was carrying a top story that focused on the high morale of U.S. troops? Could the AP be answering recent charges by the Media Research Center that

...network reporters giving the public an inordinately gloomy portrait of the situation [in Iraq]... the positive accomplishments of U.S. soldiers and Iraq’s new democratic leaders [are] being lost in a news agenda dominated by assassinations, car bombings and casualty reports?

Sadly, that was not the case.

The AP story made little to no mention of U.S. accomplishments in Iraq or positive interaction between American troops and the Iraqi people. Instead, according to this story, troop morale is kept artificially high by limiting soldier access to newspapers, and plying them with "a startling range of amenities, ranging from big screen televisions to the latest videogame systems packed into trailers that serve as homes to tens of thousands of soldiers."

In other words, morale is only good because our service members are oblivious to how bad they have it.

The story ends with a pot shot at the Secretary of Defense - a sure-fire way to keep up the morale of those soldiers lucky enough to evade the flashing lights and sneak a look at this particular story on line.

The Media Research Center's complaints can be found in full here, but basically their report accuses the network television news of excessive and increasing pessimism in their coverage of the war in Iraq, focusing only on terror attacks and neglecting the political process, heroism, good will, and economic growth occurring over there.

The MRC report has been met with smug righteousness (no pun intended) from conservatives (ex: here) and smug, sarcastic derision from liberals (ex: here).

MRC might be run out of Dick Cheney's garage for all I know, but they have a point. Sort of. The fact is that the media gives the news that they think will sell, and the people who watch the networks want to see that Bush's policies are causing the world to go to hell in a hand basket. The networks have always focused on the negatives more than the positives - it is an American punchline that there is exactly one "feel good" story per newscast, and it's at the very end. But does it really matter anymore? Fewer and fewer people are getting their news from the television, and fewer of them are trusting it. A Gallup Poll in June found that public confidence in newspapers and television has declined from 54 percent in 1989 to only 28 percent today – an all-time low.

Yes, it does matter. The television networks try to pass themselves off as objective, as do most newspapers and internet news sources, and even a couple of blogs. Any reporter, editor, broadcaster or institution has an inherent bias in their perspective, but people understand integrity. We expect a sincere attempt at objectivity from our news outlets, and we should not have to feel cynical about the bias that exists. But market forces always make themselves felt, which is why newspapers and televised news have been hemorraging viewers for years. (readers are viewers, right?) Just as in any other industry, the consumers will seek out that which they desire, especially in this day and age of the internet.

And that's the "feel good" story today at Atlas Blogged.

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Work Ethic

A picture is worth a thousand words. Captain Capitalism has posted a chart from OECD that really needs no explanation. Check it out.

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G.O.P. fat on pork

Ted Stevens, the senior senator from Alaska, promised that he would resign and "be taken out of here on a stretcher" if the Senate killed funding for two pork-barrel Alaskan bridges.

AtlasBlogged wishes it had been so. Not that we wish Senator Stevens ill will, but we would welcome the resignation of any senator who lacks the guts and/or common sense to stop the federal pork-barrel spending that continues to expand, year after year, despite the fact that voters thought they had filled both houses of our federal legislature with members of a "smaller government" party. The G.O.P. rode into town on promises of fiscal conservatism... so where is it?

Stevens managed to marshal support against a measure introduced by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma that would have eliminated $450 million in federal funds for bridges in the state of Alaska, including the infamous Bridge to Nowhere (see previous). The measure would have shifted $75 million of that money to rebuilding a bridge damaged by Hurricane Katrina... but it failed on an 82-to-15 vote.

Amy Ridenour and BizzyBlog (Remind me again–Which party has control of the White House and Congress?) also blogging this issue, among others. More attention needs to be paid, and not just by bloggers. Voters are getting fleeced, but the Democrats won't draw attention to the Republican broken promises of fiscal responsibility, because they know they aren't up for cuts in spending, either.

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October 20, 2005

A Radical Islam Gene?

Here is a question you're not likely to see asked in the mainstream media.

[Thomas Bouchard, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota,] found that tendencies towards fundamentalism were also rather more likely to be inherited.

Hat tip: Jib Halyard

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October 17, 2005

Inquiry into Hospital Deaths Widens

Atlas Blogged has been getting a lot of visitors lately from people who are doing web searches about Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, where 45 dead bodies were discovered floating in the flooded first floor a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit the area. Shortly after the bodies were found, it was alleged that patients there were euthenised before medical workers evacuated. It has been suggested to me by friends, associates, and fellow bloggers that our previous article on the topic (How Did They Die?) was sensationalist and irresponsible, since the source was the Daily Mail (folks, "tabloid" is only derogatory in the US... the Mail is respectable).
The story was not carried by the MSM, so it couldn't have been true. I have been wondering what ever happened to the story - for a time there was precious little on it - but that may be changing. Curious about the number of people looking into the story (and stumbing across us) lately, I found that MSM outlets are suddenly ablaze with the story (check GoogleNews)

A state probe into reports that critically ill patients were left to die or were euthanized at a New Orleans hospital during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has broadened to include an estimated 215 deaths at nursing homes and hospitals across the area, according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. The Louisiana attorney general's office, which is overseeing the inquiry, has launched a "monumental investigation" that will examine what happened to patients and residents at 19 hospitals and nursing homes, spokeswoman Kris Wartelle said. The expansion of the probe -- which now includes 21 percent of the 1,035 Louisiana deaths linked to the hurricane Aug. 29 -- comes after a doctor at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center alleged that some of the 45 patients who died there might have been euthanized to end their suffering.

(Indianapolis Star)

Dr. Bryant King, who was at Memorial during the period of time in question, told CNN that while he did not witness any acts of euthanasia, "most people know something happened that shouldn't have happened."

CNN disclosed that when Dr. King saw a physician with a handful of syringes approaching patients, he "decided he would have no part of what he believed was about to happen,” and left the hospital.

Another member of the hospital’s medical staff, nurse manager Fran Butler, told CNN: "Did they say to put people out of their misery? Yes.”
(NewsMax)

Will this see the light of day? Will the families of the dead know exactly how their loved ones died? We will be watching the investigation closely...

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October 15, 2005

Spyware Trespass

Spyware: Annoying? Destructive? Illegal?

Trespass?

A federal trial court in Chicago says it is. Personally, I can't understand why this was ever really in doubt. If you make software that has to be snuck onto a client's computer without their knowledge, or even without their full understanding, clearly this is fraudulent. Downloading games or other files does not make one legally willing to accept spyware, any more than filling up one's gas tank would make one legally willing to accept sugar if the local BP had decided to stick it in there without telling the public.

Thanks to Right on the Left Coast, who in turn found this at Instapundit.

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Iraqis Voting

This AP Photo shows a 70 year old Iraqi woman who is quite proud of her ink-covered finger confirming that she voted in the constitutional referendum in Baghdad's Sadr City neighbourhood. The photo links to an news article, but I will primarily be checking the coverage at Publius Pundit, including this article that links to previous discussion of the draft constitution and to several other blogs who are providing good coverage. Check the right column for the "Middle East" section, especially iraq pundit and iraq the model.

JT at Basic Training has recently deployed to Baghdad ("From August 2005 to August 2006") and notes;

the place I work is atop a hill which overlooks most of the city of Baghdad. On a normal day we hear numerous explosions, both large and small, as well as plenty of small arms fire. I think it is a testament to the ability of the new Iraqi forces to report that as of 5:00 pm today, I have heard zero explosions or weapons fire today.

Hopefully the process will remain peaceful, and the voice of the Iraqi people will be heard.

Click below for an UPDATE:

UPDATE: Polling is over and the counting has begun. According to Farid Ayar, one of seven commissioners on the Electoral Commission;

Turnout in Iraq's constitutional referendum may have reached 10 million voters, or nearly two thirds of those registered... "I think it could be more than 10 million, I think, I hope," If 10 million of the eligible 15.5 million voters cast ballots, that would give a turnout of around 65 percent, higher than the 58 percent recorded in January's election, the first held after after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.

Ayar said voting had gone well, despite hiccups in some areas, particularly Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where gunmen exchanged fire with U.S. and Iraqi troops in the city of Ramadi. Anbar is the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency. "In Anbar, we couldn't open all the centres. There were 207 centres that were supposed to open there and I think we opened 144," Ayar said. Later he said around 5,850 of the planned 6,230 polling sites nationwide had opened. "But the problems were not very big and we are very happy that we finished the process without hearing that anybody was killed in the streets."

At a news conference, the Electoral Commission officials said eight of Iraq's 18 provinces saw turnout above 66 percent. In seven provinces, turnout was between 33 and 66 percent.

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October 14, 2005

Condi Rice and Andrea Koppel

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was sharing the podium with President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan on Thursday, when he tried to dodge reporters. Reports are that Rice blocked his escape, and brought him back to the podium to answer some questions. I have heard that she is a no-nonsense, take-charge kind of woman, but this is great.

And the questions he faced from the media? Bravo to CNN Andrea Koppel for this beauty:

I have a question for both of you. Mr. President, one of your daughters controls the media. The other controls the main bank here. The opposition, the political opposition, is routinely harassed, arrested. What evidence is there that you are anything more than a dictator?

More at Gateway Pundit...

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Now Voting on the Iraqi Constitution

Iraqis vote on Saturday for the second time since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Shiites and Kurds are mobilizing in support of the draft constitution, while the Sunnis remain split. Baathists and other groups opposed to the draft constitution have threatened violence against those who would vote, but many Sunni clerics and organizations have come out in support of the draft just this week, after some last-minute amendments were made.

Here is a great quote from a Sunni leader, reported in the LA Times:

Sunni clerics tempered their strident calls for "no" votes with appeals for dialogue and nonviolence.

"Our opinion is to reject the constitution, but in spite of that we must understand the points of view of others," Sheikh Mahmoud Sumaidaii told Friday prayer attendees at the Um Qura mosque, a Sunni place of worship. "But those threatening bloodshed shouldn't do that. We should not consider others infidels just for their opinions and not kill others for their opinions."

If this charter fails, the next election in December will elect another interim assembly, which would have to write another draft, from scratch. The upside to that is the liklihood that the Sunnis would actually participate, which they did not do in the elections this past January.

Keep an eye on the results, as it will spell out the future of American troops in the region.

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The Poker Craze

I know I’m a tad behind the current events of it all, but with all the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event reruns on ESPN lately, I figured it was time to comment on this latest phenomenon.

I have been playing Texas Hold ‘Em poker for a while now. Sad to say, it was probably the movie “Rounders” with Matt Damon and Ed Norton that got me hooked. That was 1998. The latest boom basically started when The Travel Channel started showing the Main Event, and then once ESPN picked it up it has just exploded.

For those of you who do not know, the WSOP Main Event is the granddaddy of them all. It started in 1970 when Benny Binion decided to create it on a hunch the public would come to watch. In 1972, there were seven players. A year later, 13. Binion saw the writing on the wall thinking it was going to grow and grow. I’m not sure he envisioned this kind of growth though.

In 2003 Chris Moneymaker was an unknown player who qualified via an Internet poker site and won the whole thing. There were a little more than 800 entries, and the prize was $2 million. I’m guessing this created a stir amongst “Joe Average” poker players since one of their own was able to pull it off. The very next year there were over 2400 entrants and a prize of $5 million to the winner. This year there were 5,619 entries with first place taking home $7.5 million. Not a bad payoff for a week’s worth of work.

If anyone has a spare ten grand lying around, please send it my way. That’s the entry fee for the Main Event and one day, mark my words, I will be in it.

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October 8, 2005

Philadelphia to Provide WiFi Citywide for Less

Just days after the announcement that Google will blanket San Francisco with "free" wireless, for millions of dollars (see previous), came the announcement that Earthlink had been awarded a similar contract with the city of Philadelphia.

I was first alerted to this last night by a very excited resident of the city (and good friend), who emailed me to state that he would soon cancel his $60 a month cable ISP and start paying the city only $20, with the added bonus that he could leave his apartment and read AtlasBlogged from a park bench, if only the city would also underwrite his effort to purchase a laptop as powerful as his not-very-portable PC. Pleasant reader JH seems awfully happy about this, too. Who wouldn't be?

I am much more supportive of Philadelphia's initiative, because it is more of a business partnership with a company, not a full socialist contracting out of services.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:

[Earthlink] will spend its own money — $10 million to $15 million — to blanket the city with equipment needed to create a wireless fidelity, or wi-fi, network.

The expected payoff, for EarthLink and the city of Philadelphia, is sharing revenue from new Internet users, including many who are expected to upgrade from dial-up connections.

The service, with speeds of 1 megabyte, will be slower than most other high-speed offerings. Typical users will pay $20 per month. Lower-income users will be charged $10. Visitors, meanwhile, will get to use the service as needed — perhaps by paying for as little as an hour.

Donald Berryman, president of EarthLink Municipal Networks, said the company is betting that there will be enough users to justify the company's investment.

"EarthLink sees this as a significant part of its future revenue," Berryman said Tuesday, when Philadelphia's plans were announced. "Success for us, in the next three years, would be to have 15 to 20 markets rolled out."

It seems that the city's major investment in launching the project will be to supply locations for the WiFi routers, and to lay out the infrastructure. EarthLink will have to allow other ISPs to offer service on Philadelphia's network.

While this is still a government interfering in the natural evolution and competition in a market for a hot commodity, basically done so certain politicians can score points with voters, it at least can have an economic upside for the city. If a city wants to treat the internet like a utility, it will probably not be profitable for the city in the end - what utilities are? But at least an effort was made to financially justify the move in Philadelphia, unlike the commune mentality that seems to drive San Francisco's decisions.

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Earthquake Blogging for the BBC

Shaista Aziz, 28, is a UK-based Oxfam aid worker. She is keeping a blog (they are quaintly calling it an "online diary") of the South Asian earthquake disaster for the BBC News website.

After just two hours in the office I got a call asking me to get a visa and get on the next plane to Islamabad. I packed in a rush, forgetting everything I'm sure, and drove to the airport. I made the plane in the nick of time and tomorrow I'll wake up in Islamabad, hoping the scale of the disaster isn't as bad as we fear.

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October 7, 2005

Al Gore: Democracy in Danger, so Democratize TV!

Former Vice President Al Gore recently announced that he is spearheading a new cable channel called "Current TV". It launched on August 1 and is available on Direct TV and some cable providers. If you weren't aware of this, then you soon will be - the station is available in 20 million homes so far, and is expected to grow. It is basically video news blogging, where anybody with a video camera can create a short news entry of 15 minutes or less, and send it in for consideration. Current TV staff then review the programs and choose the best ones to broadcast.

Gore thinks his new venture will supplant traditional televised news in an internet world, for a blogging generation. And it might - the traditional televised media has an outdated format, and is nearly finished. Couldn't this take its place?

On October 5, Gore criticized the media in a speech in New York (transcript here). He opened by saying,

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger.

Grave danger? Is there another kind?

More Gore:

On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

Senator Byrd's question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war and peace?

Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the Senate was silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in fundraisers collecting money from special interests in order to buy 30-second TV commercials for their next re-election campaign.

(emphasis mine)

I admit I am impressed with his effort at avoiding a partisan stance. He is criticizing the entire Senate, possibly minus Byrd. But has he lost it? Do Senators really feel that what they say on the floor doesn't matter? By virtue of his experience, he has me at a disadvantage, but I do personally care what is said on the floor of the Senate. The problem is, most of it is not worthy of note - it is parliamentarian, partisan bickering. We all know that the deals are made in private, and the grandstanding is done on TV, so the floor of the Senate probably isn't very important after all.

Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers. Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country but in most of the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by television. The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't watch television, and I certainly don't use it to get information about the world. Why would you turn on the TV when you have high speed internet available? And soon you will have that available wherever you go, due to the collectivist democracies we call American cities. Don't be surprised if Gore's idea is profitable, but is eventually supplanted by video blogs online.

(Rammage, please look into upgrading AtlasBlogged to video soon.)

Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere" , or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades.

I really, honestly think he makes a great point. It's worth a read. Again, the transcript to his speech is here.

One last highlight (with emphasis added by me) - think about how exciting it is to be alive for all of this:

The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and accessible marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV relies on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals send us what we call viewer-created content... We also rely on the Internet for the two-way conversation that we have every day with our viewers enabling them to participate in the decisions on programming our network...
[but] as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.
It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.

Others talking:
Brendan Nyhan, focusing more on Gore's eventual partisanship and penchant for stretching the truth - good post.

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October 6, 2005

You Can Dafame Your City Council, Anonymously

This week, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the right of The People to anonymous speech and publication, including blogging. Score one for bloggers.

The case centers on an earlier court order requiring an ISP to disclose the identity of an anonymous blogger who targeted a local elected official for some unflattering comments. The blogger appealed;

arguing that the [defamed politician] should have been required to establish a prima facie case of defamation before seeking disclosure of the defendants' identities. The Supreme Court agreed...

After reading parts of the 34-page opinion, I have to say that I love Chief Justice Myron Steele.

Steele described the Internet as a "unique democratizing medium unlike anything that has come before," and said anonymous speech in blogs and chat rooms in some instances can become the modern equivalent of political pamphleteering. Accordingly, a plaintiff claiming defamation should be required to provide sufficient evidence to overcome a defendant's motion for summary judgment before a court orders the disclosure of a blogger's identity. "We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously," Steele wrote. "The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all."
Under the standard adopted by the Supreme Court, a plaintiff must first try to notify the anonymous poster that he is the subject of subpoena or request for a court to disclose his identity, allowing the poster time to oppose the request. The plaintiff would then have to provide prima facie evidence of defamation strong enough to overcome a summary judgment motion.

If you are interested in reading the ruling, I found it InTheAgora. If you are interested in defaming Patrick Cahill and his wife, Julia, feel free. (Mr Cahill is the Smyrna, DE city councilman involved in this case, and he seems like an ass to me). If you are interested in defaming your own elected officials, please share your comments with us here - it's protected.

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October 5, 2005

The Problem With the Democrats

I definitely have some problems with the Republican party, but the Democratic Party really is a piece of work itself. This past weekend on Meet the Press, I had a chance to see into the empty place where the Democrats should have a Good Solid Plan. It was, in a word, sad.
The Q and O blog details Congressman Rahm Emanuel's Five-Point Democrat plan for the coming elections.

Author McQ points out that this is a weak plan; a vague tax-and-spend plan that shouldn't surprise anybody. But it does surprise me. I cannot believe how little the message has changed over the last almost 20 years. One would think that losing control of Congress would have concerned them enough to get some new ideas, but it hasn't. This is really a sad situation - it is no wonder that the Republican politicians are spending with impunity, contrary to the ideals of conservative voters. After all, what are we going to do, vote in Democrats? I really would like to, in order to introduce some gridlock and see some fighting over the budget, instead of having the GOP go hog wild year after year. But how can I be expected to pull the lever for this?

One quick comment that really burns me up (McQ pointed this one out, too, but for a different reason)

when Russert asked who would pay for point one, Emanuel said "the American people ."...

As is so often the case, I hear this plan for government expenditures, and I demand to know why this requires intervention by the government. Get out of my wallet! As one of "the American people", I can assure you we are already paying for college education!

One, we make college education as universal for the 21st century that a high school education was in the 20th. Second, we get a summit on the budget to deal with the $3 trillion of debt that's been added up in five years and structural deficits of $400 billion a year. Third, an energy policy that says in 10 years, we cut our dependence on foreign oil in half and make this a hybrid economy. Four, we create an institute on science and technology that builds for America like, the National Institutes has done for health care, we maintain our edge. And five, we have a universal health-care system over the next 10 years where if you work, you have health care.

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Hockey's Back!

Need I say more.

I can't wait for tonight. I am not one of those fans that is giving up on the game because of the lockout. I am diehard. The only downside tonight is that I'll be watching on TV, instead of being in the arena. Oh well, moving will do that to ya. I hated giving up my season tickets though.

So whomever your favorite team is...good luck this season. And enjoy the game again. We've waited too long not to.

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October 4, 2005

We're Not Worthy

Bobby Martin.jpg

For those of you that haven’t seen the story on this kid, I present it to you now. This young man has more heart and courage in his pinky than the rest of us have in our whole bodies. I was going to write up a whole post on it, but there’s an article from the New York Daily News that did a much better job than the way I could’ve ruined it. Enjoy. Prepare to feel…well….I’ll let you decide.

Read on here.

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October 3, 2005

Undefeated Explained

Before this season started, if I were to tell you that the Redskins, Buccaneers, and Bengals would all be undefeated after week four of the season, you would have laughed in my face and bought me a stiff drink so I would start making sense. Last year it took the Bucs and Redskins ten weeks to match their wins so far this year, and the Bengals took nine weeks. Not a bad turnaround.

This just proves how every year in the NFL is different from the last since the onset of free agency. As much as I dislike them (as a fan) this is why it was not only unlikely, but also phenomenal on how the Patriots have won three out of the last four Super Bowls. Dynasty?? Absolutely. Best run ever? Possibly. Sure you had the Packers of the 60’s, the Steelers of the 70’s, the 49ers of the 80’s, and the Cowboys/Bills (yes, those Bills) of the 90’s. All those great teams/dynasties were mostly prior to free agency, back when players didn’t bounce from team to team. How the Patriots have managed to pull it off is beyond me. They have been able to maintain that level while losing/gaining players every year, changing the face of the team while getting the same results. Makes me almost wish the Jets had Belichick as a coach longer than the 24 hours he was after Parcells left, nothing against Herm Edwards or the things he’s done there.

I’m not saying that free agency is a bad thing. I guess all I’m warning against is to not buy a personalized jersey of your favorite player, because it just may be next year that he is no longer on your team. Well, at least to the midway point of his current contract.

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Harriet Miers, White House Counsel, for SCOTUS?

"Longtime Confidante of Bush Has Never Been a Judge," proclaims the New York Times, missing the point.

Come on. Even NPR's Nina Totenberg was quick to point out on air this morning that it is a fairly modern notion that the Justices of the Supreme Court must come from the lower courts. I believe Bush said it would be the 10th time in the last 35 that the nominee had never previously worn judicial robes.

The point is that this looks like cronyism. Bush's conservative base is saying it already (See Malkin, RedState, RightWingNews, etc), so you can imagine what is being said on the left. If it looks like cronyism, and it sounds like cronyism, well, is that smart for an administration that still looks foolish over Michael Brown's resume?

To be fair to the Times, they didn't mean that Ms Miers' lack of judicial experience would hamper her ability to be a successful Justice. They drew attention to her lack of judicial experience because it makes it difficult to provide evidence on how she would rule on those flashy cases that sell papers.

[She] therefore lacks a long history of judicial rulings that could reveal ideological tendencies. Her positions on such ideologically charged issues as abortion and affirmative action are not clear.

Sentiments echoed elsewhere on the left, er, in the media.

Without a judicial record, it's difficult to know whether Miers would dramatically move the court to the right. The lack of a judicial paper trail may also make it more difficult for Democrats to find ground upon which to fight her nomination.

But the fact is that this nominee, though apparently not a popular choice with anyone, is probably going to prove inoffensive enough to get by. I find myself looking over her bio and saying, sadly, "It could have been worse". Will this become the Bush legacy?

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October 2, 2005

Google to Blanket San Francisco in Wireless Internet Service

On Friday, Google filed an application to blanket the city of San Francisco with "WiFi" service that would enable anyone in San Francisco to connect to the Internet. Isn't that great?

Well, my flags went up when I read why this was done:

...In response to a request from Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is looking for a company to finance a free wireless network to lower the financial barriers to Internet access in his city.

Note that the article talks about how great this is for Google, and of course this is great for people who want to cruise the blogs from the park benches, for free.

But there is no such thing as a free WiFi.

If it were economically viable for Google to provide this service to the city and make up the expense through ads (the source of almost all of Google's profits), they would be doing it everywhere. So far, they have only tested out in a small area of New York City's Bryant Park, to my knowledge.

Russell Shaw points out why Bryant Park makes economic sense. He makes a great point, but when he explains why all of San Fran makes sense, he leaves out the fact that the city will be paying Google (or somebody else) to do this. Smell the money? That's why Google spokesman Nate Tyler said Saturday that the company doesn't have any plans to offer a WiFi service outside the San Francisco Bay area.

"Unwiring San Francisco is a way for Google to support our local Bay Area community," Tyler said. "It is also an opportunity to make San Francisco a test-ground for new location-based applications and services that enable people to find relevant information exactly when and where they need it."

All true, but again, if this were viable without San Francisco's city government funding "free" WiFi for the city, it would be done in your hometown, too.

Is it?

It sure isn't here in Virginia. WiFi stops where San Francisco's municipal funding stops.

For now.

It is already considered the government's responsibility to provide internet access to citizens in schools and libraries. This development will encourage politicians to promise WiFi in other cities, for "free", paid for by those silly taxpayers. I don't really see any way to prevent it - voters will love it, mayors will approve it, you and I will pay for our "free" access and the end result is that I will someday be able to write articles for Atlas Blogged from the park bench downtown, for free, at greater cost to me than my current arrangement. We slide farther down the collectivist slope because most voters don't see a downside. In fact, they are probably more concerned about Google taking over their internet.

Don't think so? Check here. And here.

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October 1, 2005

Soyuz Launches With Civilian Tourist

Today, American Gregory Olsen became the third "space tourist" to visit the International Space Station - a $20 million dollar trip for the 59 year old technology entrepreneur.
The Soyuz TMA-7 crew also includes NASA astronaut William McArthur and cosmonaut Valery Tokarev. They launched from Baikonur Space Centre in Kazakhstan this morning, and are scheduled to return October 11.

Here's to Capitalism! Thank goodness for Dennis Tito and all who follow. Thank goodness for Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan. Space flight is not just for governments any more.

FloridaToday has a Launch Journal, available here.

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