Signal 11 Caucus

Two Great Things - Obama, and White Space

2008-11-05T05:11:53Z

Tonight is a great night. An epic night. A night for history. Obama's line from New Hampshire echoes in my head: In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Barack Hussein Obama, a black man of mixed racial heritage; a Kenyan father, saddled with the baggage of a somewhat racist pastor, a junior Senator without even a full term nationally under his belt, will be the next President of the United States of America.

He mentions Lincoln's speech post-Civil War; appropo, because his home state and his resume are similar to Lincoln's.

To think how far we've come from a nation where water fountains were labeled "colored".

In other news...

The FCC has unanimously approved the use of white space, which could lead to a LOT of awesome commercial applications without the monopolization of spectrum. This could lead to alternatives and better competition with all sorts of things, including domestic broadband.

On Income Inequality

2008-10-16T17:45:07Z

There is a scene in drama The West Wing in which one of the characters, Josh Lyman, says:

Imagine before you are born you don't know anything about who you'll be, your abilities or your position. Now design a tax system.

John Rawls's philosophical original position posited this idea.

I'd like to write a longer piece about how the economics of this are only a smart part of the philosophy, but in summary the important part here is that this is the ultimate justification for unequal taxation. If we had to agree to a social contract before we knew our own mortal capabilities, or our birth parents and their socioeconomic situation, the world would look a great deal different than it does now. It was, more than anything, this argument which swayed me from a purely Libertarian view of economics. We are, in a great part, the sum of our circumstances. There is no doubt that many intangibles, such as determination, perserverence, grit, courage, play roles in success, beyond the strength and wits we are born to. But both nature and nurture are properties of circumstances.

I believe in incentives. The marxist motto of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a complete abrogation of incentives. The problem with marxism in terms of utility is that great strength, intelligence, and determination mean nothing when you have no motivation to use them. When one man has a knife and the other a gun, there is no inequality if neither has the will to wield the weapon.

On the other hand, the laissez-faire capitalism espoused in the Ayn Rand-ian heroic dramas, which has great appeal to me, ignores the veil of ignorance completely. It rightfully celebrates the best of man - and the concept of man as a heroic being. It has appeal as such, especially to those who believe they do or can rise to such heroics. And yet all such emotions are generated from an ex post facto look at circumstances. But one thing rings true: when people believe it is easier to come by what they need via social extortion than work, they will extort rather than work.

It is in the fertile middle ground where we must work. We must balance considerations so the impetus to achieve is still high, but recognize that when we look at the least capable and the least fortunate, we have to realize: there, but for the Grace of God, go I.

There is a philosophical disingenousness on both the left and right, to my perception. The left uses terms like 'economic justice', without quantifying justice; they give rise to the perception that "fair" means all having the same thing, and Americans (rightfully) recoil. The right talks about "redistribution of wealth", as if everyone who was hurting and economically in need was more interested in stealing their money than working.

Some side facts:

In 2006 In 2006, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 39.9 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 22.1 percent of adjusted gross income. I often see half of this statistic quoted - that the top 1% pay 40% of all taxes. To be clear, to be in that 1%, the lower bound of your income must be well over $250,000 per year.

There has been dispute over what this poll means, but Brookings Institute wrote:

An October 2000 Time-CNN news poll showed that 19 percent of Americans thought that they were in the high income group that would benefit from proposed tax cuts - defined as roughly the top 1 percent of the distribution.

Chaos

2008-10-10T05:34:05Z

The world is in financial chaos. The TED spread has hit 4.14%, an all time record. Suck it, Black Monday.

If this weren't so horrific, I'd say it's fun. I've never had so much fun following economics, which is incongruous with the general state of fear that is permeating the country.

The world is full of good news.

From Calculated Risk, note that we're coming back from the brink of madness on a huge number of indicators. Energy prices are plummeting. Heck, the dollar is even stronger.

Note that the government was all set to bail out Wachovia, a bank drunk on the wine of Subprime, by backing their debt in a sale to Citibank. But Wells Fargo stepped in to actually make a competitive bid without the guarantee, and Citibank has acquiesced. So there was real value in Wachoiva.

Will it get worse before it gets better? Maybe. It feels like this is panic time, and this is very much unlike a stock market crash, and unwinding the tech bubble in 2001 wasn't exactly smooth sailing. This is clearly a lot worse.

Election 2008: Frustration and Fantasy

2008-09-04T05:22:35Z

I'm not real fond of Joe Klein, but he hit this nail on the head. The McCain campaign is at war with the media, and they need to be. The level of divergence between McCain-Palin and reality is breathtaking.

McCain is playing his "maverick" card for every ounce it is worth, but McCain voted with Bush 100% of the time in 2008, and 95% in 2007. That's not change we can believe in, it's change you spot on the sidewalk, and don't bother picking up, because yech, it's dirty.
Palin has to attack the media, because they are uncovering a torrent of horrible things McCain failed to. Personally, the deal-breaker for me is Sarah Palin is a book burner
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Palin supports abstinence only sex eduation. I have a daughter, and I understand the desire to keep kids away from sex. But when you run across a livejournal community where 16-yr-old girls are asking if having their arm exposed to semen can make them pregnant, you realize that maybe abstinence-only sex education is sort of like Africans who think you can cure HIV by raping a virgin.

From her questionnaire:
11. Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

So ignorant, it is almost physically painful. Shouldn't people a 72-yr old heartbeat from the Presidency have a bit more historical perspective? The Pledge of Allegience was written in 1892, long after the Founding Fathers were all dead. The words "under God" weren't added until 1954.

Finally, I read her last answer:

12. In relationship to families, what are your top three priorities if elected governor?
1. Creating an atmosphere where parents feel welcome to choose the venues of education for their children.
2. Preserving the definition of "marriage" as defined in our constitution.
3. Cracking down on the things that harm family life: gangs, drug use, and infringement of our liberties including attacks on our 2nd Amendment rights.

I'm all for protecting our 2nd Amendment rights. We can debate the definition of "well regulated militia", but ultimately, Americans have the right to bear arms. But while I think the NRA and Republicans in general actually hit on one of the main reasons we have the right to bear arms - because it's a lot harder to enforce a totalitarian tyranny against an armed populace - I think they are turning a blind eye to a lot of other Amendments. In particular, the Fourth Amendment has been, at best, on life support since the PATRIOT Act. No sooner is it raised, than the specter of terrorism is summoned to justify abuse. This is crystal clear:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It's pretty simple: you have to have probable cause before you go searching, supported by Oath or Affirmation. You can't troll in general - by, say, requisitioning all the records of a library, or all purchases from Amazon. And you need legitimate evidence... that would be probably cause a crime has been committed, and that doesn't include raiding the homes of would-be protestors. "Conspiracy to commit a riot." Yarg. These leads us back to the first Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

People have a lot of grievances, and the RNC convention is a pretty reasonable place to express them. Peaceful protests are protected by the First Amendment.

This isn't to say McCain-Palin is all bad. McCain has taken almost no earmarks. Bravo, Senator McCain. Earmarks are part and parcel of the disgusting "scratch my back" politics that plague Washington and ruin government, making it wasteful. And I admire McCain for not playing the game. Others, like Obama, have played the game but also, tried to change the rules.

I'd have preferred to see Obama avoid earmarks altogether, although this is clearly a systemic problem, as the voters "back home" elect these national politicians, who partially get graded on bringing home the bacon. In other words, earmarks are bad - for all the other states. (So in that sense, I applaud the citizens of Arizona for putting up with McCain's "failure" in that regard.)

There are a lot of myths floating around right now, though. For example, the idea that liberals are the big spenders. But government spending grew under Reagan, fell under Clinton, and rebounded up under George W Bush. I'm in favor of smaller government; but I'm very skeptical of McCain's fiscal conservative bona fides when he is so in tune with GWB.

Ultimately, though, I also feel like the parties have to be held responsible for their performance. McCain on Katrina:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain took stock of still-hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans on Thursday and declared that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have immediately landed at the nearest Air Force base, drawing a sharp contrast to President Bush's handling of the tragedy.
McCain called the response to Hurricane Katrina "a perfect storm" of mismanagement by federal, state and local governments.

Except that McCain was cutting his birthday cake with President Bush while New Orleans sank. The levees breached and New Orleans sank while McCain was enjoying his birthday cake with a President who should have been doing his job. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns... And the Katrina fiasco was part and parcel of the cronyism of the Bush administration. There were far too many people either grossly incompetent or teeming with partisan agendas in the Bush administration. I don't expect White House staff to roll over and play dead for the other party, but going after the jobs of people who oppose you politically even when they're competent is just... gross malfeasance.

Anyhow, all this leads up to what got me thinking tonight, which was this Gallup poll, which I find sort of surprising. Sure it has been reported here and there in the media, but the nonpartisan tax policy analysis is simple: the after tax income of at least the bottom 80% of income earners would be higher under Obama's tax proposal. You're not even in that top quintile unless you make at least $88,000 a year. However, this is averages; a lot of the policy giving larger refunds from McCain's proposal comes from Obama's policy absolutely brutalizing the top 1%, where they would actually see their after-tax income decline.

So, you're worried about higher taxes from Obama? You should be, if you're making over $250,000 a year. Or maybe you shouldn't be. After all, you're making $250,000 a year.

I'm not real fond of even chasing this, because unlike many "liberals", I know that many things have become more of a meritocracy over time. Consequently, I'd expect the rich to get richer, simply because the economy is growing more efficient at allocating wealth for performance. That said, I also think people in general - especially anyone at the median or above - needs to look at their lifestyle and ask why Americans stopped saving money? 7-10% very consistently, until 1992ish, and it has been downhill from there. (And I'm sorry - there's just no way you can blame Clinton for poor savings, when we say the biggest gains in real income in ages; unless the explanation is irrational exuberance over personal finances. Maybe we can ask Tyler Cowen.

Anyhow, how is it so many people think Obama will raise their taxes and McCain won't? It's just backwards. It's marketing. And I'm not fond of marketing. We can debate the merits of policy, and I hold economists like Cowen in great esteem, and it seems like they are rarely in the corner of policy markers like Obama. But let's at least get the policies straight. You have less money under Bush unless you're rich; you saw a tiny tax cut if you were middle class, which was promptly destroyed by his deficit spending putting the value of the dollar through a meat grinder. Because it turns out that oil you thought was so expensive hasn't gone up as much as you thought. It went up, yes, but it's an international commodity, and the dollar has gone down. If your wealth (or paycheck) was in constant ounces of gold, then oil is only up about +100% instead of +400%.

Long post. I hope the next 8 years and more finds us all better off than we are; working hard, and leaving a better world. I'd like to write another post soon about the way energy policy is the pre-eminent issue of our day. Our energy policy is the key issue for us over the next 10 years. It will be the lynchpin for our economy, our foreign policy, and our environment. A good decision on this could lead to a new era of prosperity, or the end of America as we know it and the rise of the Middle East, Russia, and others. (It has already begun, of course; just witness the stuff Dubai is building. With your oil dollars. Patriotism? When I see this, man, I am ready to volunteer to build windmills on the weekend. I am not kidding.)

Free Music, Paid Music, in harmony

2008-07-26T22:19:52Z

Music companies seriously need to send Pandora a gift basket or something. Pandora is a streaming music radio service that "learns" your preferences based on thumbs up/down ratings, and my experience so far is that it is impressively accurate. I created a channel based on Digitalism [Warning: spammy myspace page]. Great band in the electronic/techno vein. I proceeded to thumbs up/thumbs down (mostly up) about 10 songs or so, and now, about the worst Pandora produces is "tolerable", and I've bought several songs of Amazon.

This is what discovering music should be like. You indicate preferences, and something mixes your favorites in with potential new discoveries. Don't like one? It is skipped, on to the next one. Like one? Get a high bitrate copy of your own immediately, DRM free.

I picked up the Digitalism album off iTunes on the strength of the badass song Idealistic and the fact that it was itunes plus, so no DRM. Now I'm following from those songs, via Pandora, into the Chemical Brothers, and songs like Weak in the Knees by Bender (I couldn't even find a site). That latter song was like #eleventymillion in popularity on Amazon, but I *love* it.

The e-book, TV, movie industries have a lot to learn from how to get value from consumers.

This winning combo has me delightedly trying out new music, with a great "hit ratio" (unlike traditional mass-media radio), and makes it easy to buy a song I want. Bravo, Amazon and Pandora.

You can't legislate this sort of success - you can only earn it by serving the needs of consumers better.

Political Ads for the Masses?

2008-07-26T02:42:08Z

Reading the inestimable Five Thirty-Eight today, I saw this Ad.

The ad leads on to a dull warning that Barack Obama plans to "lift the cap on social security" and that this will be the "biggest tax increase in history", and that it isn't necessary because the Social Security "crisis" is fake.

So, of course, it's deceptive.

First, Obama hasn't stated exactly what his plan is, and has repeatedly talked about leaving a "hole" from 97,500 to 200,000, to avoid hitting people who make middle to upper-middle class incomes in high cost of living areas.

Second, while Social Security is not currently in "crisis", there is a problem with it. It will be insolvent eventually, and worse, we currently owe the Social Security Trust Fund on the order of $5 trillion. Yes, that's $5,000,000,000,000. When it comes time - and this won't be very long, as boomer get nice and retired - to pay out that money, where will we get it? We either have to collect it in taxes, cut spending and services, or borrow it from someone. Right now, the Social Security fund has purchased US Treasury notes (bonds) with the trillions of dollars in surplus it has - surplus that will be needed for Social Security to survive the boomers. Yes, SS is solid until something like 2047 or later with all that money - but do we really want to try to sell another $5 trillion in bonds to foreign governments when the dollar is colossally weak? No.

Third, and this is really the point of the post: Who is this ad supposed to sway?

It's basically deception by omission, because it simply fails to mention who will be affected by the mentioned tax increase. The current cap on Social Security is $102,000. The 2006 census indicates that 5.63% of people earned $100,000+ per year. Therefore such an increase will affect less than 5.63%. And many of them probably to a small degree. It may be the "biggest tax increase in [insert time period here, sparing no hyperbole]", but there's still a 94.27%+ chance that it won't affect you.

Now, the real number is probably considerably lower, because some amount of those 5.63% are earning some share of their money through dividends, capital gains, and other things which are not subject to FICA. Putting an ad on a political site to warn the 5.63% of high income earners about Obama is silly, of course. Those who even remotely care, know. No, the problem here is the uninformed among the other 94% who only take away this: "Obama will raise my taxes!", without knowing it is patently false.

This Generation

2008-07-17T20:21:05Z

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet," Mr. Gore said. "Every bit of that's got to change."

Every generation has an epic challenge it must rise to. Whether it is a struggle for a free Europe and a free world, toeing the line against the spread of communism, rising from the ashes of the Great Depression, or going to the moon. There are moments where we have opportunities to leave an imprint of positive change on the world. These moments are not free. They are costly, in blood, treasure, or both. But the cost of ignoring these moments is greater.

The time has come for every American to ask how they can cut back and save, to direct resources toward the building of a mighty green infrastructure, that can power us, and perhaps the world. We need to demand on every level that people work together to support this. Push our science departments to dedicate research resources to green energy. Push politicians to collaborate on green funding. If you can possibly do it, try to be an early adopter of green tech - and I don't mean a Prius, I'm talking about a roof full of Solar Panels. It is time to blend our determination, our hope, our expertise, and our drive to build an infrastructure for the next few centuries.

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right

2008-04-04T02:27:27Z

I just want to pimp this site. Poblano, who I read on dKos, is an electoral genius. Read it.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Irony

2007-09-20T20:58:06Z

One of my google homepage widgets.

Yes, this is just a coincidence, but it's a sad one.

Police at UFL are guilty of assault

2007-09-19T04:19:21Z

As we know, police at UFL tasered a nonviolent student who was trying to walk away.

I give you Florida state law:

776.05 Law enforcement officers; use of force in making an arrest.
--A law enforcement officer, or any person whom the officer has summoned or directed to assist him or her, need not retreat or desist from efforts to make a lawful arrest because of resistance or threatened resistance to the arrest. The officer is justified in the use of any force:

(1) Which he or she reasonably believes to be necessary to defend himself or herself or another from bodily harm while making the arrest;

(2) When necessarily committed in retaking felons who have escaped; or

(3) When necessarily committed in arresting felons fleeing from justice. However, this subsection shall not constitute a defense in any civil action for damages brought for the wrongful use of deadly force unless the use of deadly force was necessary to prevent the arrest from being defeated by such flight and, when feasible, some warning had been given, and:

(a) The officer reasonably believes that the fleeing felon poses a threat of death or serious physical harm to the officer or others; or

(b) The officer reasonably believes that the fleeing felon has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm to another person.

I've bolded the most relevant portion. Here's what we need to know:

(1) Police are only acting legally in the use of force if an exemption is permitted by this statute;
(2) The police had no reason to believe that a handcuffed student, on the ground, with 6 police and 1 student, represented any threat whatsoever to them or anyone.

Consequently, those police are not justified in the use of the taser.

If the police declared they intended to arrest him, then they were justified in physically restraining him to cuff him. Once he was cuffed, and outnumbering him 6:1, there is no possible justification for the use of force. So to my reading, the officer using the taser was committing battery, and each other officer holding him down was an accessory to the crime.

The State attorney should immediately file charges against them. The tape alone is sufficient evidence to merit a trial.

Non-violent student tasered at political event

2007-09-18T15:50:45Z

A student was tasered by police at a Kerry event.

He was given time for a question in Q&A. He began with an introduction talking about how a bunch of reports had said Kerry won the 2004 election, leading to a question as to why Kerry did not contest the 2004 vote. I think that's a fair question. He grew slightly more agitated as people almost immediately tried to push him off the mic.

He finished his (three) questions, as he tacked two more on rapidly at the end, taking up about 90 seconds total.

The police began to escort him out. That's inappropriate, but neverminding that...

His minor attempt to resist police ended with him down on the ground, screaming that he was being arrested for nothing. I largely tend to agree. Is he fringe? Maybe. But I don't want to judge the question. He was passionate, he was polite - he was not vulgar, he did wrap up fairly fast when asked to do so.

In any event, he's on the ground, and clearly a cop had out a taser and he was begging to not be tasered. "Don't tase me, man, I haven't done anything," he pleads. Then you hear the 'tic tic tic' sound of the taser going off, and he screams.

Amnesty International reports there have been 245 taser-related deaths since 2001. The taser is a lethal weapon, and should be used when a danger exists to the police, in lieu of using a firearm.

This leads me to ask - at what point, when the police are being unjustifiably violent, does it become legal and moral to resist them? Because watching this video, my first instinct is to tackle the cop with the taser. What would they have done if that cop had pulled out a gun and shot the kid in the leg? Would it be justifiable to tackle the cop then?

In any event, we clearly need laws against the spurious use of tasers, and we also clearly need to ensure that police are prosecuted themselves under the law when they use excessive force. I am once again inclined to pursue a law degree so I can start suing people. It seems like passing the bar is probably the best way that someone can take action against the advance of a tyrannical state.

No special exceptions for Muslims (or Christians, or...)

2007-07-31T05:20:22Z

I read an interesting article on Slate (warning: popups, have your firefox on).

Why, then, should we be commanded to "respect" those who insist that they alone know something that is both unknowable and unfalsifiable? Something, furthermore, that can turn in an instant into a license for murder and rape?

So true. First, this is a fundamental problem with religion, beyond anything incredibly vague. If we begin with a statement such as, "I believe an intelligent higher power is at large in or one with the universe.", we might get a lot of agreement. By the time we are into specifics of Jesus, Muhammad, Trinities, holy books, carbon dating, and so on, we have opened up a can of worms that simply will not settle. Many religions seem, to me, to be fundamentally incompatible.

The author discusses various activities of book burnings, disrespect, and the undertone of violence, and says:

This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.

Indeed, there can be no concession. Religion and principles it espouses cannot be forced upon people, but Islam is not the only offender. How many public policies are justified with invoking "God" in the United States? There are restrictions on liquor, a fight against abortion, crusades against pornography, statutes against sodomy, and even pickets protesting Harry Potter. But the Christians of the United States are far more numerous than the Shia, so they don't feel the need to resort to violence (with exceptions), but the pursuit of a theocratically-driven secular policy agenda isn't significantly better. Moreover, the social assumption that those not subscribing to a belief set should be ostracized furthers an agenda of homogenization in the country that is dangerous. Homogenization quells discourse and stifles creativity.

So I agree: there can be no concession, but we must all agree to live in a secular world, not just the Muslims. So when you claim a moral authority, be prepared to argue it from a universal principle. That murder is wrong is not contested (quacks aside), despite the Ten Commandments. But that doesn't mean we will or should approve of stoning adulteresses to death. Universal principles.

I've had the pleasure recently, in Utah, of meeting a LOT of very devoted religious people who also seem to have found a balance between living their faith, even promoting their faith (since almost every Mormon goes on a mission for two years, usually at around 19 years of age), and yet accepting a secular world around them. I can respect any belief set that can respect the right of others to believe otherwise. When a Muslim can say that as well, I welcome them into society with open arms. When they cannot - whether they deny that principle a cry for immediate Jihad, or a whisper that a true revolution must wait for the rise of a Caliph to lead them - then I reject that. And we all should.

A fascinating look at risk, and the perception of risk

2006-12-11T21:02:12Z

Time.com has a very interesting article about risk and people's perception of risk. It starts off talking only about car accidents and seatbelts, but eventually discusses the reason why people look on risk differently. For example, why are people afraid of shark bites, when you're dozens or hundreds of times more likely to die to a lightning strike? Meanwhile, we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars prosecuting a War on Terror which has circumscribed our liberties and weakened our nation, when a few billion spent on AIDs awareness, driver safety awareness, or an ad campaign about the dangers of too much sugar could have easily saved far, far more lives than we've lost to terrorist incidents in the past century.

It's definitely something to think about. Ultimately, it seems we fear things we should not, and do not fear things that we should.

The Election, and the Subcommittee on IP and the Internet

2006-11-09T05:11:09Z

The future of technology may lie in the hands of a pair of Democrats, who are as different as can be.

The senior Democrat on the Subcommittee of IP and the Internet is Howard Berman. Berman is a longtime hollywood DRM pimp. He was behind the horrendous idea that we should let studios hack computers to stop P2P file transfers. Techdirt lists his wide array of anti-consumer initiatives:

Among Berman's proposed or supported laws were the ability for copyright holders to take vigilante action on those they believed were sharing their content allowing them to hack into your computer, a bill to strip away many fair use protections, a bill to let the entertainment industry use the FBI's seal when going after copyright infringers, a bill to give jail time to those caught file sharing (rather than just fines), a proposal to put people in jail for registering a domain with fake info and has been a big supporter of adding a broadcast flag requirement to consumer electronics.

In short, he's a shill for the content giants.

]]> On the other hand, we have Rick Boucher. The enlightened Boucher, hailing from Virginia, is something of an IP savant. Not only did he peg the anti-consumer provisions of the DMCA for what they were, but he seems unphased by the barrage of misinformation and misdirection that is showered on Congresscritters by the entertainment lobbies. We're talking about an industry that has been following Jack Valenti's lead since he compared the VCR to the Boston Strangler. Hyperbole is the order of the day; the only question is whether or not it will be followed by a dessert course of out-and-out deception.

But Boucher isn't merely saavy about Copyright issues, he's also aware of the problems that patents pose. He and Berman co-introduced patent reform legislation. (Keep in mind, Berman is only slavishly devoted to content providers; therefore, while he favors absolutely totalitarian copyright infringement laws, he isn't necessarily an IP nazi in other areas, such as patents).

In any event, Boucher has even written a why we should rewrite the DMCA opinion piece. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who knows the difference between a truck, and a series of tubes, even without Senator Ted "Bridge to Nowhere Porkhound" Stevens telling him.

Ironically, I firmly believe that Boucher will actually be good for the content industries, because they don't know what's good for them. Ultimately, DRM fails. Those who want to pirate, will. The industry isn't getting around the analog hole for decades, and even if they did, the digital versions have been cracked even recently. But DRM confuses consumers - if I can't control digital files, what am I buying? Consumers hate DRM. They have tolerated it on things like DVD players because it is completely transparent - and ironically, completely ineffective. But as people start wanting to switch from the iPod to a Zune, or dump Windows for Linux, or who knows what, expect to see growing anger, doubt, and uncertainty (it's almost FUD) over DRM. Non-DRMed products are easier to pirate, yes, but it's like saying that a 1/4lb weight is easier to lift than a 1/2lb weight. They're both trivial. But DRM-laden products discourage honest consumers, not pirates.

But perhaps more importantly than the Copyright regime, Boucher may stem the tide of patent abuse. We are at risk of drowning in patent attorneys and patent litigation, to the detriment of our IT industries. Bill Gates mentions that we're not educating enough IT professionals, but I have to ask: why go into an industry where you're guaranteed to be enslaved to a corporation large enough to employ a bevy of patent attorneys? I've worked as an independant software developer. When you're small, your only hope is to go unnoticed; to be judgement-proof by virtue of being a broke shell company. If someone sues you for infringement, and you don't have hundreds of thousands or more to defend yourself, you lose by default. And since frivolous patents are granted all the time, you either accept whatever terms you are offered, or you go out of business. IT and software deserve better; they're industries where anyone can invent and innovate, but an insane IP policy makes it infeasible. Software patents also drastically slow the pace of development in the industry; they aren't contributions to the useful arts, they are systematic roadblocks thrown up either as defense against patent suits brought by rivals, or as impediments to would-be competitors. Or, for some enterprising firms comprised of nothing but lawyers, just sue people for a living. The problem is, most so-called "inventions" aren't really the creation of something nonobvious and novel, they're just people who patent it first, or with the trickiest new claims. Patents are a quagmire of he-said, she-said for non-technical people, and that includes most judges. Consequently, patent trials can easily devolve into injunctions, expert testimony, and decade-long investigations of a patent's pedigree. Quite simply, an untenable situation.

Boucher has shown he gets it. He's not out to completely overturn the patent regime, but he knows that moving in a direction that makes it harder to file non-innovative patents is good for the economy. If we don't get on board some patent reform, it is quite possible it will help use lose our competitive edge in information sciences to other countries. (Or, will help us fall further behind, depending on your viewpoint)

Here's hoping Berman "finds other interests" and lets Boucher run the show.

We Win

2006-11-08T18:09:52Z

The democrats take control of both houses of Congress. And I breathe a small sigh of relief.

]]> I'm not really ready to call myself a Democrat. I don't think like a lot of them. But the Republicans have pissed on their conservatives for too long. There are a lot of people like myself - fiscally conservative, socially moderate or liberal, for whom Republicans are the worst of all worlds. They shredded the Constitution, they outspent every administration in history, and they have nothing to show for it.

I'm very, very happy that corruption made it into the spotlight. This is the issue I have pushed. You can't abdicate insisting on honest legislators simply because you're afraid of the "other party". People who take lobbyist money and favors for votes, who are dishonest and corrupt, need to go. And when it becomes endemic and systematic to a party, that party needs to go. Good-bye, Republican Congress. Come back when you've learned that it is not enough to cut taxes, you must balance the budget also. Putting your largesse on the nation's credit card is NOT a viable economic policy.