Ernie rebuts Hollywood and the music industry shiller’s Hatch & Leahy’s new “Induce Act“, which criminalizes the act of inducing another to commit a copyright violation.
The EFF posts a fake complaint against Apple Computer, maker of the ipod.
Category: Politics
The Cost of Executive Perks
Perk Hoggs on the cost of executive perks.
The problem is not the cost of the perks themselves; at a ten-billion-dollar corporation, they?re hardly even a rounding error. It?s what they are symptomatic of. Perks and rigid management hierarchies tend to go together; perks are designed in part to reinforce status divisions, and rigid hierarchies do not lend themselves to intelligent decision-making, since they isolate executives from the rest of the company. Also, C.E.O.s who indulge in perks are likely to be profligate in general with shareholder money.
There are problems in both the private and public sector. Our senators have incredible health care AND average much better investment returns than us poor taxpayers. There are plenty of examples of corporate excess. Hoggs makes some useful points. Via John Robb.
Big Telco Stifling True Broadband
Dan Gillmor writes about Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg remarks on broadband consolidation at the current D conference.
But he reverted to form, pretty much insisting that Verizon would reserve the right to discriminate on what gets delivered, and at what speed, on the lines and networks it controls.
Residential internet users should, like those in Japan and Korea have much faster broadband connections at attractive prices. Current US dsl and cable options are quite slow compared to what’s readily available in other countries (speeds to 20mbps and beyond vs dsl at 768kbps).
Here’s an economic development issue, if there ever was one. I mentioned this issue to then candidate Jim Doyle some time ago……
More Patriot Act Abuses
It seems odd to me that the defenders of the PATRIOT act urge us to look at the details of the Act and stop viewing it as Federal law enforcement’s ticket to do essentially whatever law enforcement wants, without procedural safeguards.
When you get into the trenches and watch how they are actually using PATRIOT, however, it becomes pretty clear that law enfocement has interpreted it as their ticket to do whatever they want.
Property Tax Assessments Going Down? – Silicon Valley
Kelly Zito writes that:
The Santa Clara County assessor has slashed the values of about 1, 200 office and industrial buildings by about $8 billion, further underscoring Silicon Valley’s protracted high-tech slump.
County officials boosted assessed values of about 9,500 homes and condos that had been cut last year, but more than 23,000 residential properties continued to receive reductions totaling about $1.7 billion, they said Thursday.
Madison’s property values have risen for years. Someday, there will be an adjustment, which will be painful for its tax base.
Hackworth on Consequence Day
Highly Decorated Army Vet and writer David Hackworth, pens his weekly column on the subject of Consequence Day.
Iowa Electronic Markets are Open
The Iowa Electronic Market began its 2004 Presidential Market yesterday. Right now, Bush is ahead of Kerry.
Leahy Shills for the Copyright Cartel
Dan Gillmor writes about Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy’s shilling for the copyright cartel: Copyright Cartel Buying Another Federal Anti-Infringement Law (“Piracy Act”). Evidently, Democrat Leahy needs more cash from Hollywood. The worse part of this insanity: the law would require us (via the Department of Justice) to pay for tracking file sharers and filing lawsuits….
Government Data Mining
Barry Steinhardt referenced today’s GAO Report on Government Data Mining (full report – PDF) – (Highlights PDF). Steinhardt mentions four programs of special concern:
- Verity K2 Enterprise – Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Mines data “to identify foreign terrorists or U.S. citizens connected to foreign terrorism activities.” (Page 30 of GAO report)
- Analyst Notebook I2 – Department of Homeland Security. “Correlates events and people to specific information.” (p. 44)
- PATHFINDER – DIA. “Can compare and search multiple large databases quickly” and “analyze government and private sector databases.” (p. 30)
- Case Management Data Mart – DHS. “Assists in managing law enforcement cases” Using private-sector data. (p. 44)
Futurist Doug Randall on Abrupt Climate Change
Randall, co-auther (along with Peter Schwartz) of Abrupt Climate Change [PDF] is interviewed by World Changing Blog:
Their scenaric findings — that the gradual global warming we’re experiencing could plausibly trigger an abrupt climate snap, and that its effects would be massive, perhaps catastrophic, and of direct relevance to the national security of the United States — we’re picked up by media around the world, gathering a snowball of controversy and hype along the way. Their scenarios, freely available on the Web, were termed a “secret Pentagon report,” and their descriptions of possible climate catastrophe taken as bald prediction.
But underneath the hype was a reasoned attempt to judge the seriousness of the threat posed by climate instability. That’s something all of us hoping to change the world have to take into account. So we asked Doug about the implications of that report (now that the dust has settled), the movie The Day After Tomorrow, and how to think about the future of climate change.