Richard A. Posner (Federal Judge and blogger):
The charge by mainstream journalists that blogging lacks checks and balances is obtuse. The blogosphere has more checks and balances than the conventional media; only they are different. The model is Friedrich Hayek's classic analysis of how the economic market pools enormous quantities of information efficiently despite its decentralized character, its lack of a master coordinator or regulator, and the very limited knowledge possessed by each of its participants.Great stuff. More on Richard Posner.In effect, the blogosphere is a collective enterprise - not 12 million separate enterprises, but one enterprise with 12 million reporters, feature writers and editorialists, yet with almost no costs. It's as if The Associated Press or Reuters had millions of reporters, many of them experts, all working with no salary for free newspapers that carried no advertising
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 20MB Quicktime Video | SpaceshipOne/White Knight, making it's way east to the Smithsonian, flew during Saturday's EAA Airventure Air Show. I captured a 20MB video clip of several passes along with SpaceshipOne's landing. You'll hear designer Burt Rutan address the crowd during the aircraft's flight, using "Military Power". Enjoy! Rutan also mentioned that the aircraft would make one more stop at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio before reaching it's final destination; the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. the video is a bit jerky at the beginning, but my handheld technique improves after a few seconds :) | |
| Earlier this week, Rutan and Richard Branson announced a joint venture to form a new aerospace production company to build a fleet of commercial sub-orbital spaceships and launch aircraft. I'll post more photos and videos over the next few days. John Robb has been pushing for the government to support, in a big way, competitive private space initiatives ala the X-Prize rather than spending $3.2B annually on 1970's technology - the shuttle. Robb also mentions how "big buck programs are a source of power in the Pentagon". Robb has more ideas on the Government's role in all of this and makes a rather startling but true statement: Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time (short) before the shuttle program is done in due to a failure (hopefully, not on this mission's recovery). After that happens, this is all we have.More Videos: Marine AV8-B Harrier VSTOL | B-17 Takeoff. My father took a number of photos earlier this week. More photos here (click to view larger versions): | ||
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The Economist takes a look at the incumbent telco's ill advised expensive IPTV plans (turning 2 way broadband internet into a one way TV dump) and the possible, subtle methods used to derail competitors:
Stoyan Kenderov, an IPTV expert at Amdocs, a firm that makes back-office software for telecoms companies, says that the telecoms firms are building into their residential gateways new technology that will inspect the packets of zeros and ones passing through. This will let them identify traffic from third-party rivals, which might then end up at the back of the queue and thus be slow and patchy. The only hint that users might have of that going on, says Mr Kenderov, would be some very fine print on their bills explaining, in turgid legalese, that the provider guarantees the quality of its own services only.The telecoms firms counter such suggestions with well-rehearsed indignation. In a hearing before the judiciary committee of America's Senate in March, Edward Whitacre, SBC's chairman, said in emphatic Texan that “SBC would not block any Vonage traffic or anybody else's and has never done that, would not do that. That's not the way we do business, and it's just not going to happen.”
And Madison's Central Park, being developed on former railroad land, would get $3.5 million.Interesting use of new transportation funds. I get the former railroad yard approach, but it does seem, at least to me, sort of strange that we're funding a local park in the new Federal transportation bill.
Jeff Jarvis continues his ongoing "Dell Hell" saga with links to Craig Newmark's customer service philosophy, which is right on:
In Technology Review, Craig Newmark writes about his list and his view of customer service. As I think I’ve said here before, I’ve heard Craig introduce himself at more than one event as the guy who does customer service and that always gets a laugh but it is no joke. Customer service is the highest ethic of his venture. It is the highest ethic of open source. It is the highest ethic of a true community. If newspapers… and Dell… and AOL… and government remembered that customer service is their job, they’d be a lot more successful than they are.I, too, have had problems with a recent Dell purchase. I now have an unusable Dell laser printer, thanks to a failed firmware upgrade. On hold to Dell support in India for 90+ minutes (pleasant person, but what a waste of time), I was advised to try it again, which I knew would not work as the printer is evidently in an infinite loop. After several go rounds, I called Dell and asked them to take it back. Unfortunately, my request was 29 days after the purchase date and Dell evidently only accepts returns 21 days after the purchase date. I've turned it over to my credit card company....
The cast and crew of the latest Robert Altman film wrapped up their work and headed home this week. For the past month they'd taken over the Fitizgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minn., home to the popular public radio show A Prairie Home Companion, which also happens to be the subject of the film.NPR has posted an extended audio interview. Check it out.The show's creator Garrison Keillor wrote the screenplay, a fictional account of life on the show. Keillor plays himself, acting with a host of Hollywood stars including Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline and the young star Lindsay Lohan.
"American people love airplanes," Michimasa Fujino, HondaJet project leader and VP of Honda R&D America Inc., told the crowd at a welcoming ceremony at Aeroshell Square. "Look at Oshkoshthere are so many airplanes and so many people who love airplanes. That’s why I was convinced that Oshkosh AirVenture is the most appropriate place to introduce this Honda jet."Though talk of the HondaJet, based at Piedmont Triad Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, has swirled in aviation circles for several years, it was only in December 2003 that Honda announced the aircraft’s existence. The involvement of a major automobile manufacturer in producing an aircraft—particularly a light jet—has fired the interest of the general aviation community. But Honda has said little about its long-range plans for the program, a position it maintained at AirVenture.
The controversy over the 2o7.net cookies highlights the tension that exists between marketing companies like Omniture and Web users who are increasingly aware of, and adverse to, files that are automatically placed on their computers when they surf the Internet. At a time when PCs are under assault by viruses and other nefarious software like never before, users are employing a range of software tools and tactics to protect themselves. Many users don't distinguish between cookies, which are small bits of text commonly used by Web sites to identify users, and malicious software that can steal personal information or change PC settings. That has put marketers on the defensive, as they try to get users to spare cookies when wiping computers clean of potential threats.
Interesting thread on Edward Tufte's website about the Columbia explosion evidence. Useful timing, given the ongoing space shuttle challenges.
Harley-Davidson Puts An iPod On Your Blog: "
Renowned motorbike manufacturer Harley-Davidson has added an iPod connector as standard to some of its newest models. By Macworld UK
"Two years ago I (and others) wrote about the security dangers of Microsoft's monopoly. In the paper, we wrote:
Security has become a strategic concern at Microsoft but security must not be permitted to become a tool of further monopolization.A year before that, I wrote about Microsoft's trusted computer system (called Palladium -- Pd, for short -- at the time:
Pay attention to the antitrust angle. I guarantee you that Microsoft believes Pd is a way to extend its market share, not to increase competition.Intel and Microsoft are using DRM technology to cut Linux out of the content market.
This whole East Fork scheme is a failure from the start. It brings nothing positive to the table, costs you money, and rights. If you want to use Linux to view your legitimately purchased media, you will be a criminal. In fact, if you want to take your legitimately bought media with you on a road trip and don't feel the need to pay again for it - fair use, remember - you are also a criminal. Wonderful.Intel has handed the keys to the digital media kingdom to several convicted monopolists who have no care at all for their customers. The excuse Intel gives you if you ask is that they are producing tools, and only tools, their use is not up to Intel. The problem here is that Intel has given the said tools to some of the most rapacious people on earth. If you give the record companies a DRM scheme that goes from 1 (open) to 10 (unusably locked down), they will start at 14 and lobby Congress to mandate that it can be turned up higher by default.
After five years of trying, Congress is expected to clear an energy bill this week that provides a range of incentives for consumers to rein in energy use.Here's how the energy bill could affect what we buy:
• Incentives to buy fuel-efficient appliances
• Incentives to buy hybrid vehicles
• The extension of daylight-saving time
• Expanded use of ethanol as a gasoline additive
• Reliability standards for power grid (aimed at preventing blackouts)
• Incentives for installing solar power at home
Frankston has more on Microsoft, Intel and others locking down our computers via DRM:
For those who found my recent DRM post too complicated I'll put it more simply. There are those who believe that I must not zap commercials while watching their content. It's not very different from saying I'm not allowed to go to the bathroom during commercials -- I must use a DRM complaint toilet in order to implement such policies.If they can require that all my wires and devices be DRM complaint why not the other distractions that reduce the value of their content?
Senator Kohl issued a press release Wednesday discussing his Senate Special Committee on Aging's (Kohl chairs this committee) hearing on identity theft and consumer fraud. Senator Kohl:
“Preying on the elderly is certainly nothing new”, said Kohl, “but in a day and age where many seniors are not technologically savvy, con artists have an easier time collecting personal information and using it to swindle a person out of their life savings.”Ironically, Senator Kohl's support of the recent National ID Act will simply make this problem worse, much worse. Contact Senator Kohl here. Senator Feingold also supported the National ID Act.
Imagine that every time you printed a document, it automatically included a secret code that could be used to identify the printer -- and potentially, the person who used it. Sounds like something from an episode of "Alias," right?
Unfortunately, the scenario isn't fictional. In an effort to identify counterfeiters, the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent, an act you assume is private could become public. A communication tool you're using in everyday life could become a tool for government surveillance. And what's worse, there are no laws to prevent abuse.
Richard Branson's ever-expanding Virgin Group is considering a foray into the newspaper business with a free daily publication in New York City, according to an individual familiar with the company's plans.I think we'll see more of this. The daily paper will be free (ad supported), then some will go weekly only.The newspaper, which would focus on show business and entertainment, is still in the preliminary stages of planning at Virgin, the source said. It would be sponsored by the company's entertainment division, which includes the Virgin Megastores.
Free newspapers have flourished, though not always profited, in major metropolitan areas over the past decade. New York is already home to two such papers, am New York and Metro, though both feature general interest news.
A proposal to build a new 115-story building by 2009 could give Chicago claim to having the first and second tallest skyscrapers in the country.(more)The 2,000-foot tower, proposed by Chicago developer Christopher Carley and designed by noted architect Santiago Calatrava, would go up along the city's lakefront near Navy Pier, northeast of the Loop.
The 110-floor Sears Tower is currently the nation's tallest building. Carley's building, minus its spire, would be 1,458 feet high — taller than the Sears Tower by eight feet.
Phil Brinkman summarizes the implications of the recently signed State budget on the City of Madison:
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk said the limit on counties is "very comparable" to one she has insisted Dane County abide by in its budget. She predicted it wouldn't affect county operations.Madison's 5.7% average levy increase over the past 15 years is not sustainable, given the State's generally slow economy. City leaders need to start thinking different, rather than continuing with a "same service" approach.But Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said the budget will force hard choices in Madison, which will be limited to increasing its levy to no more than 4 percent next year, below the 5.7 percent average of the last 15 years (emphasis added).
The city faces $9.5 million in increased costs to continue existing services next year, Cieslewicz said, but will be limited under the cap to collecting about $6 million more in property taxes.
Although the city is growing, police, fire, streets and other agencies would have to cut their budgets 2.1 percent from what it would cost to maintain the same level of services, Cieslewicz spokesman George Twigg said. The city could also raise fees and fines, as it has done before, or dip more deeply than usual into its "rainy day fund" to help cover the gap.
My goal was to reduce the PMBA list to no more than 40 titles. Here are my editing criteria:
- Valuable Content - each book has to contain a lot of useful, practical information on how business works, how you can add value, and must explain why the material in the book is important to know. As a whole, the list must cover as much ground as possible, while providing a mix of both complimentary and conflicting viewpoints.
- Acceptable Time Commitment - no 1,000 page books here, although there are a few (good) textbooks in the mix for the more technical topics (accounting, finance, real estate). You should be able to get the key points of each book in a few hours, or by reading the chapter introductions and summaries of the textbooks.
- Reference Value - is the book going to be one you pick back up when you need information? How does the book re-read? Is this a book that is worth keeping for many years?
A former CIA intelligence analyst and researchers from SAP plan to study how RFID tags might be used to profile and track individuals and consumer goods.What is RFID?"I believe that tags will be readily used for surveillance, given the interests of various parties able to deploy readers," said Ross Stapleton-Gray, former CIA analyst and manager of the study, called the Sorting Door Project.
Wisconsin Public Radio's Joy Cardin and WisPolitics' Jeff Mayers discussed the final state budget this morning audio
"This is not a pretty picture; what we see is that payola is pervasive," Mr. Spitzer said, using a term from the radio scandals of the 1950's in describing e-mail messages and corporate documents that his office obtained during a yearlong investigation. "It is omnipresent. It is driving the industry and it is wrong."An alternative? I think we'll see more of this.
The Attorney General's findings alleges that the illegal payoffs for airplay were designed to manipulate record charts, generate consumer interest in records and increase sales:
"Instead of airing music based on the quality, artistic competition, aesthetic judgments or other judgments, radio stations are airing music because they are paid to do so in a way that hasn't been disclosed to the public," Spitzer said at a press briefing.
The idea behind the legislation, sponsored by GOP Representative John Shadegg of Arizona, is disarmingly simple: Allow Americans to buy health insurance from vendors in any one of the 50 states.
Right now Americans who aren't lucky enough to get insurance from large employers or poor enough to qualify for Medicaid find themselves at the mercy of the legislators and insurance commissioners of the state in which they happen to live. This can be OK in states that exercise this regulatory function judiciously. But in others, the young and working poor find themselves effectively priced out of the market by special-interest regulations dressed up as consumer protections.
Barring a late settlement, talk-radio host Charlie Sykes faces a court date as a defendant in a libel suit this week.The plaintiff, Spanish Journal editor Robert Miranda, sued Sykes in January over a November post on Sykes' Weblog on the WTMJ-AM (620) site that alleged Miranda had helped foment a protest at a 1991 pro-Gulf War event in which several speakers were pelted with small objects. Miranda wasn't in Wisconsin at the time of that protest, which Sykes described in his essay as an "an example of the assaults on free speech on university campuses."
Although Miranda's original requests for a court order mandating Sykes publicly apologize, undergo sensitivity training sessions and make diversity presentations to middle and high school students are no longer in play - a small-claims court doesn't have that authority, it turns out - Miranda said the suit, which now requests the small-claims maximum of $5,000 in damages, will serve as a forum in which Sykes' "journalistic integrity will be questioned," among other matters.
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz:
“Contrary to what some have claimed, this is not a ‘fully-funded freeze’. Such a freeze would have increased shared revenues to reflect the rising costs for providing basic services, and account for inflation in the freeze formula itself. This budget does neither. Adjusting for inflation, this year’s budget effectively cuts our shared revenue payment by 6%, on the heels of a 16% shared revenue cut in the prior budget.“While city government continues to tighten its belt, property taxes rise faster than inflation because more of our budget must be borne by the property tax. Fifteen years ago property taxes made up 54% of Madison’s budget. Today, thanks to continually eroding state aids, property taxes make up almost 70% of our budget. In other words, what is truly driving property taxes is not increased spending, but cuts in state aids.
Dane County residents want to see planned growth within their borders, according to a survey conducted this spring by the Comprehensive Planning Steering Committee.The survey of 500 county residents shows a majority of those surveyed want Dane County government to be involved in planning rather than letting local municipalities have full control or just letting the market decide where growth takes place.
Full survey results: Comprehensive Planning Survey (PDF)
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| Microsoft's Virtual Earth | Google Maps |
Morning Becomes Eclectic is committed to a music experience that celebrates innovation, creativity and diversity by combining progressive pop, world beat, jazz, African, reggae, classical and new music. Recognized nationally as a forum for promoting a wide range of music ahead of the curve, the show has become a very attractive whistle stop for both established and emerging artists from around the world.
KCRW now offers podcasts of some of the live sessions performed by unsigned and independent artists on Morning Becomes Eclectic.
Medicare's handling of Palm Beach Gardens is an extreme example of a pervasive problem that costs the federal insurance program billions of dollars a year while rewarding doctors, hospitals and health plans for bad medicine. In Medicare's upside-down reimbursement system, hospitals and doctors who order unnecessary tests, provide poor care or even injure patients often receive higher payments than those who provide efficient, high-quality medicine.
Two American Airlines mechanics didn't like having to toss out $200 drill bits once they got dull. So they rigged up some old machine parts - a vacuum-cleaner belt and a motor from a science project - and built "Thumping Ralph." It's essentially a drill-bit sharpener that allows them to get more use out of each bit. The savings, according to the company: as much as $300,000 a year.Via John Robb
And it was a group of pilots who realized that they could taxi just as safely with one engine as with two. That was instituted as policy has helped cut American's fuel consumption even as prices have continued to rise to record levels.
From the maintenance floor to the cockpit, American Airlines is daily scouring operations to increase efficiency and find even the smallest cost savings. It's paid off: Last week, the company announced its first profit in almost five years.
The album's first single, "Boom, Like That," is a wry chronicle of the renegade business tactics of McDonald's mogul Ray Kroc. Kroc started out selling milkshake mixers to the McDonald brothers, eventually buying them out and aggressively expanding the franchise. Before composing the song, Knopfler read books about Kroc's life and business philosophy. The singer found inspiration in some quotes that were attributed to Kroc. He says, "I remember coming across a quote in a book. It was something like, 'If the opposition is going to drown, put a hose in their mouth.'"
This is where you come in. As impressive as insurgencies have been, at first glance they don’t seem to involve the 1RP community. Although many of them are nasty, brutish affairs—more than 100,000 people have been killed in Russia’s effort to rein in its breakaway province of Chechnya (1994 – present), for example, and some 3 million in the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (1998-present)—they are all far away, and most of them do not threaten American or European troops or civilians.9 They may be tragic, but as far as the 1RP community is concerned, they can be safely ignored.Lauren Porcaro interviews New York City's William Finnegan regarding their view of the threat and what they've learned from London.
This view, while comforting, is wrong. Being wrong, it is also dangerous. To see why, people who study these conflicts insist that they must be considered not as curious space-fillers on the evening news, but, as Barnett puts it, “within the context of everything else.”10 This means, among other things, that spillover from these wars finds its way to the United States and other developed nations (what Barnett calls the “Functioning Core.”) Participants, for example, may attack each other’s friends and relatives or fund-raising and recruiting operations, or embassies and so on in Core countries. Or they may see us as favoring the other side and decide to send us a message to back off and get out. Or they may cause a problem and blame it on the other side. Or they may cause a problem in our country to raise international consciousness of their struggle. Or they may attack to signal to both their local enemies and potential followers that they are a potent force, as may have been one of the motivations for al-Qa’ida’s attack on September 11, 2001. In any of these cases and so many others, something happens that would involve the first responder community.
Insurgency as a form of war, and a very successful one, is evolving into something else. And it is coming to a neighborhood near you.
Other kids worshipped baseball players. My hero was a fictional Scottish engineer from the 23rd century.
Before the terms geek and nerd entered the vernacular, we were called brains, or, more cruelly, weirdos. We built Heathkits, disassembled televisions and tape recorders, and bribed the librarian to give us first crack at the new issues of Popular Science and Popular Electronics, usually by changing the ribbon or switching the golf balls on her newfangled IBM Selectric.
IF Racine, Wis., is not yet the Hamptons of the Midwest, it's not for lack of effort.Racine Map. Madison based Gorman & Company, developer of the Mitchell Wagon Factory Lofts is mentioned in Sharoff's article.
This formerly gritty industrial city roughly 70 miles north of Chicago and 30 miles south of Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan has been trying for much of the last decade to reinvent itself as an artist's colony and tourist destination.
The efforts have included the opening of the $11 million Racine Art Museum on Main Street in 2003 and the creation of a gallery district centering on nearby Sixth Street, currently home to about a dozen galleries.
The company left in its wake a recall effort against one alderman, a local newspaper smarting from the loss of a major advertising client and hurt feelings from people on both sides of the debate.
David Olsen, the targeted alderman, said the schism has divided the city of about 7,500 more than an 11-month strike at the local Tyson Foods plant in 2003.
Can the small player compete in a world of Citigroups and Bank of Americas? I said it was a lark. And I more or less meant it. That is, among other things, giants— "new tech," CRM, etc notwithstanding— will always be clumsy and impersonal relative to an "intimate local" who is really out to make a dramatic difference.
The consolidation of American media has robbed this country's citizens of the competing journalism, the honest dialogue and the cultural diversity that the founders intended when they wrote a "freedom of the press" protection into the First Amendment to the Constitution.Not a word about the increasing concentration of the daily newspaper business, however. The internet is addressing this question, of course.
American media were never perfect, of course.
But the quality and independence of the media have suffered over the past three decades, as Congress and federal regulators rewrote the rules to make it easier for big media companies to buy up more and more of the country's communication outlets. As recently as 1996, a single company could only own a few dozen radio stations nationally. Now, because of the rule changes contained in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, one company, Clear Channel, owns more than 1,200 stations and dominates many local media markets around the country.
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Joanne Jacobs tells a useful story about trying to get money back from a credit card company - with a classic ending.
Drunkenblog interviews Wil Shipley, one of the creators of the quite successful Delicious Monster: "The greatest media cataloging software in the world". Well worth reading. Via Brent.
Now, however, Medicare, which says the lack of electronic records is one of the biggest impediments to improving health care, has decided to step in. In an unprecedented move, it said it planned to announce that it would give doctors - free of charge - software to computerize their medical practices. An office with five doctors could save more than $100,000 by choosing the Medicare software rather than buying software from a private company, officials say.Verona based Epic Systems creates and supports a medical records product along with many other health care tools. Slashdot discussion. Worldvista site.
Kimberly-Clark Corp., which has plants in Neenah and Marinette, said Friday that it will cut about 6,000 jobs and sell or close up to 20 manufacturing plants as it increases spending on certain core products and emerging markets over the next three years.K-C moved it's headquarters from the Fox Valley to Dallas years ago. They still have a large presence in Wisconsin.
The company, based in Irving, Texas, makes such products as Kleenex tissues and Huggies diapers. Kimberly-Clark disclosed its plans as it reported that its second-quarter earnings fell to $421.8 million, or 88 cents per share, from $454.3 million, or 90 cents per share, in the comparable period last year.
The Commerce Department reports a surprisingly low American savings average of under 2% and for those who are dutifully socking away 10% of their pretax income it may not be enough.
Just when folks ought to be saving more, they are saving less. Trouble ahead? You'd better believe it.Yes, I have heard all the arguments about how the true savings rate is higher than the 1.3% calculated for 2004 by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, or BEA. But don't let that distract you from the bigger issue.
In a world of disappearing company pensions, skimpy bond yields, rich stock valuations and rising life expectancies, anybody interested in a comfortable retirement should be saving a truckload of money every year -- and yet most folks aren't.
Rate debate. Among pundits, belittling the official savings rate has become something of a national pastime. Some of the arguments seem a little suspect, like the suggestion that buying televisions, cars and other consumer durables ought to be considered saving rather than spending.
and stock-market gains don't count:
Other criticisms are more valid. For instance, stock-market gains don't count toward the official savings rate, which strikes me as the right way to do it. Problem is, under the BEA's methodology, if a winning stock is sold and capital-gains taxes are paid, that tax payment reduces the savings rate.Still, the impact isn't huge. Even in a big year for capital-gains taxes, like 2000, removing the tax impact would boost the savings rate by a mere 1.7 percentage points, calculates BEA research economist Marshall Reinsdorf.
The Wall Street Journal's Econoblog provides a useful look at China's decision Thursday to slightly float the Yuan (this will likely drive interest rates here higher, unless we actually start to significantly reduce our deficits):
This would imply an unraveling of the Bretton Woods 2 regime and will force the U.S. to make significant and painful adjustments to its private and public savings droughts, droughts that much more than a global savings glut explain why the U.S. external balance has been worsening over time. Then, U.S. private spending, both consumption and investment, may have to fall sharply -- driven by higher U.S. interest rates and a bursting of the housing bubble -- relative to U.S. output to make room for an improvement of U.S. net exports.Reminds of a tale that goes something like this (paraphrasing): a butterfly flaps its wings and this ends up being a hurricane halfway around the world.And how much U.S. private spending may be squeezed will depend on whether there is a meaningful structural reduction in the U.S. fiscal imbalance. Less foreign financing of the U.S. external deficits would, for unchanged fiscal balance, tend to crowd out private consumption and private investment via higher interest rates. This U.S. adjustment could be painful.
Cisco's sale of networking equipment used to filter Chinese internet traffic has drawn some well justified attention recently (Microsoft's activities with the Chinese government has also drawn attention):
Cisco argues that if they don't do this business, their competitors will. And that will be bad for U.S. jobs. Well, as I've said before, at the end of the day either we believe that the ideals of "freedom" and "democracy" mean something, and are worth sacrificing short-term profit so that more people around the world have a chance of benefiting from them, or we don't. Cisco clearly doesn't. This is an insult to the thousands of Americans - public servants, men and women in uniform, journalists and others - who risk their lives daily in far-flung corners of the globe for the sake of these ideals.
Without question, China's Internet filtering regime is "the most sophisticated effort of its kind in the world," in the words of a recent report by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The system involves the censorship of Web logs, search engines, chat rooms and e-mail by "thousands of public and private personnel." It also involves Microsoft Inc., as Chinese bloggers discovered last month. Since early June, Chinese bloggers who post messages containing a forbidden word -- "Dalai Lama," for example, or "democracy" -- receive a warning: "This message contains a banned expression, please delete." It seems Microsoft has altered the Chinese version of its blog tool, MSN Spaces, at the behest of Chinese government. Bill Gates, so eloquent on the subject of African poverty, is less worried about Chinese free speech.
WASHINGTON--John G. Roberts, President George W. Bush's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, has a history with credit unions: He argued the AT&T Family FCU case before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6, 1997.
At the time, Roberts was a 42-year-old partner in the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. He argued the case for the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, which intervened on behalf of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).
The Supreme Court eventually ruled against credit unions in the case, based on a suit brought by bankers in 1990 against NCUA over the field-of-membership expansion the agency granted AT&T Family FCU, Winston-Salem, N.C. The events culminated into the push for the Credit Union Membership Access Act (H.R. 1151), which President Clinton signed into law in August of 1998.
In 1997, after arguing the case, Roberts told CUNA News Now, "It's always a mistake to try to predict the outcome of a case from the justices' questions."
He explained that there was nothing credit unions and members could do to influence the court's decision. "The court isn't like Congress and third parties we've lobbied. The court is looking at the law," said Roberts.
CUNA General Counsel Eric Richard worked with Roberts during the AT&T case. He said the nominee is "enormously talented with an exceedingly bright legal mind."
"CUNA and the credit union movement were privileged to have been represented by him," said Richard. "We wish Judge Roberts all the best."
"We understand that they're losing money," he said. "We were trying to be good Samaritans, and we got stabbed in the back."Via Dan Gillmor (I agree that it's hard to believe the Chronicle is losing $1m per week).The paper is in a strong position to seek union concessions because it opened its financial records to a union auditor, who confirmed that the Chronicle lost more than $62 million last year. Ms. Hoyt said that in the last two months the paper has been losing money at a faster rate -- about two million dollars a week* -- though the loss was less earlier this year.
Because Hearst is a privately held company, it is under no obligation to explain its finances to the public. While the union has confirmed the multimillion-dollar losses, it doesn't know all the details, such as the salary and benefits of the publisher. The union said the paper is being mismanaged and has too many managers per employee.
Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses. Capacities are said to be up to 5 mega bits and the stored data lasts for 6 months - the length of time it takes a fingernail to be completely replaced.Via Macintouch
As a step to save energy, Congress appears poised to extend U.S. daylight-saving time for two months, starting it earlier, on the first Sunday in March, and ending it later, on the last Sunday of November.The change is not without controversy:
The move was first approved in May as part of the energy bill by the House. The idea has now been agreed upon by House and Senate committee staffs, with the approval of both Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats. That means it is likely to be approved by the full House-Senate conference committee, which begins squaring the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill this week.
The Air Transport Association has asserted that its members, long-distance American airlines, could lose millions of dollars because of schedule disruptions that the proposal would cause by throwing U.S. arrivals at foreign airports out of synchronization with European schedules and Europe's system of awarding "slots," or landing rights at airports.The proposed change is part of the Energy Bill.
Some large church groups also oppose extending daylight-saving time into the early spring and late fall, because it would require children to wait for school buses in the dark. "Without the light of day, they are more susceptible to accidents with school buses, or other motorists, and the darkness also provides cover for individuals who prey on children," said the Rev. William F. Davis, deputy secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a letter written to the House sponsors of the measure
T.X. Hammes:
The heaviest responsibility a commander will know is taking his soldiers to war. How can he arm their minds as well as their bodies? A former U.S. Marine Corps colonel and expert on insurgencies culls the best books from various military reading lists.Thousands of years ago, the Chinese sage Sun Tzu wrote down one of the first known lessons on war, The Art of War. Somewhat more recently, Maj. Gen. James Mattis wrote in the Feb. 2004 Marine Corps Gazette, "We have been fighting on this planet for 5,000 years, and we should take advantage of the experience of those who have gone before us. . . . Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy's will are not allowed the luxury of ignorance of their profession." The study of books is one antidote to that ignorance. What books are military leaders recommending that U.S. soldiers read to gird themselves for today's struggle in Iraq?
To answer that question, I looked at a wide variety of reading lists -- from that of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all the way to online lists compiled by men and women in command. A pattern emerged: the more senior the staff or service school, the less relevant the lists. These institutions continue to focus on conventional war. In contrast, the lists produced by those facing or returning from deployment to Iraq are directly applicable. They recognize that Sun Tzu's ancient caution to "know your enemy and know yourself" is no longer enough. In an insurgency, one must understand the population and culture as a whole. Thus the best lists emphasize three broad areas for preparing to serve in Iraq: insurgency, Iraqi history and culture, and Islam. What follows is a list of the most highly recommended books in these three categories.Clearly, counterinsurgency warfare is an old problem, as reflected by the age of some of the best books here.
Small Wars Manual , U.S. Marine Corps, 1940. A practitioner's guide, this book made almost every list. It highlights lessons identified by Marines in the "Small Wars" of the early 20th century. From the political/strategic level to tactical operations, it provides shrewd guidance for those pitted against insurgents. Despite the section on packing mules, it remains painfully relevant today.
Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice , by David Galula, 1964. Although now 40 years old, this remains one of the most useful books on counterinsurgency ever written. A practitioner rather than an academic -- he observed wars in Greece, China and Algeria -- Galula starts with the understanding that insurgency and counterinsurgency are distinctly different types of wars and then explores how a counterinsurgent can succeed. (See excerpts on page 8.)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph , by T.E. Lawrence, 1926. The Marine Corps's Small Wars Center of Excellence praises this autobiographical account of Lawrence of Arabia's attempts to organize Arab nationalism during World War I. It lauds its "penetrating insights into Arab culture and politics, with implications for future developments in the 'Thrice-Promised Land.' " Although dated, Lawrence of Arabia's elegant masterpiece was the second most recommended book on the "Inside the Pentagon" reading list compiled from a survey of active-duty officers.
Another of Lawrence's works, the bluntly practical Twenty Seven Articles (1917), is also frequently quoted. In particular, practitioners have come to value his caution, earned out of painful experience spurring Arab troops to fight the Ottoman Empire. "Do not try to do too much with your own hands," Lawrence warned. "Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them." Twenty Seven Articles is widely recommended as a kind of Cliff's Notes for conveying some of the insights of Seven Pillars .
Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse , by Bard E. O'Neill, second edition 2005. Col. H.R. McMaster of the 3d Armored Cavalry, currently serving in Iraq, noted that "O'Neill provides a framework for analyzing insurgency operations . . . a good book to read first in insurgency studies."
Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife , by John A. Nagl, 2002. Another recommendation from McMaster, who wants his soldiers to learn as they fight. In so doing, they would be following an old example. "Nagl argues," McMaster told his troops, "that Britain's military had an organization that allowed it to learn from its mistakes and eventually defeat the communist guerrillas in Malaya."
Insurgencies have everything to do with governance, and good governance requires an understanding of local conditions and cultures. Grasping the historical complexities of Iraq is the challenge these books address.
The Modern History of Iraq , by Phebe Marr, revised edition 2004. McMaster notes that this book, by a leading Iraq scholar, "focuses on several important themes: the search for national identity in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state; the struggle to achieve economic development and modernity in a traditional society; and the political dynamics that have led to the current dire situation in Iraq."
The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein , by Sandra Mackey, 2002. The U.S. Army Command and Staff College considers this book an important "account of the forces that produced Saddam's dictatorship." The book addresses the absence of an Iraqi sense of national identity and common purpose, and it considers the Baathist rule of terror and the destruction of the country's middle class.
The Kurds in Iraq: The Past, Present and Future , by Kerim Yildiz, 2004. An up-to-date account that explores what the Kurds want, both inside Iraq and in the context of the broader international community. Recent reports from Kirkuk and Mosul indicate the Kurds are not as compliant as the United States had hoped.
The Arab Mind , by Raphael Patai, 1973. Often derided in academia, this book made several lists but was both praised ("a good introduction to Arab culture and psychology") and pilloried ("the author portrays the Arabs too stereotypically"). The same controversy is present in reviews online.
The Shi'is of Iraq , by Yitzhak Nakash, second edition, 2003. This is a comprehensive history of the country's Shiite majority and its troubled relationship with the Sunni minority, which dominated the country under the Baath and now drives the insurgency. U.S. commanders remain concerned that the Shiites may respond in kind to continuing Sunni violence, tilting the country toward civil war.
Understanding Islam remains one of the key concerns for military leaders.
Islam: A Short History , by Karen Armstrong, 2000. Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who commanded American troops in the Middle East, once argued that "a fundamental rule of counterinsurgency is to make no new enemies." Ignorance of the religious and cultural beliefs of a society makes such mistakes inevitable -- and dangerous. Armstrong's book is a strong antidote to ignorance.
The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror , by Bernard Lewis, 2003. Controversial in its conclusions, Lewis's book explores Middle East history and tensions between Islam and the West. Lewis, an emeritus Princeton historian widely respected in conservative circles, places a particular emphasis on Islamist extremism and its implications for the United States.
Those who compile these lists hope that the books they endorse will give our troops in Iraq the mental strength to defeat an extraordinarily complex urban insurgency. Unfortunately, it is a rare commander who allots training time for reading; soldiers from privates to generals are supposed to do that on their own time. But it may be some of the most valuable training they get. The Pentagon would do well to come up with an expert and germane reading list of its own. ·
T.X. Hammes, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel, served as an infantry officer. He is the author of "The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century," a study of the evolution of modern insurgency.
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Lying to the press—though a serious thing—is what all administrations do. In Washington leaking to damage people’s credibility or wreck their arguments is routine, a bi-partisan game with thousands of knowing participants. I rarely see it mentioned that Joseph Wilson (who is no truthtelling hero) began his crusade by trying to leak his criticisms of the Bush White House. When that didn’t work he went public in an op-ed piece for the New York Times.
But business as usual is not going to explain what happened in the Valerie Plame case, or tell us why its revelations matter. For that we need to enlarge the frame.
My bigger picture starts with George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Andrew Card, Dan Bartlett, John Ashcroft plus a handful of other strategists and team players in the Bush White House, who have set a new course in press relations. (And Scott McClellan knows his job is to stay on that course, no matter what.) The Bush team’s methods are unlike the handling of the news media under prior presidents because their premises are so different.
TDS Metro's Jim Butman and Drew Petersen raise many useful questions regarding the proposed SBC/AT&T merger:
The proposed purchase of AT&T by SBC has the potential to demonstrably alter the way a majority of our state's commercial and residential telecommunications customers conduct their daily affairs. For most urban U.S. consumers today, especially residential and small business patrons, the communications market is rapidly deteriorating into a duopoly dominated by the Bells and cable operators. Wisconsin, however, due to a fledging economy and classic entrepreneurial spirit, is fortunate to have some very credible competitive alternative providers operating in the state's more urban markets like Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Waukesha, Janesville, Kenosha and Racine.Competition in the telecommunications industry has done wonders for consumers and businesses across Wisconsin, resulting in small business savings of roughly 30 percent annually. Competitors have led the way in accelerating the deployment of world-class technology such as high-speed Internet and the provisioning of outstanding services at value-based pricing. Competition benefits anyone that has selected an alternative provider and even those who have not.
A uniquely large and historically significant business merger is beginning to receive important regulatory scrutiny in our nation's capital. This merger will combine SBC Communications, Wisconsin's largest local phone and data provider, with AT&T, the undisputed telecommunications service leader to Fortune 1000 corporations, and the largest long distance and competitive provider challenging the former Bell operating companies for customers nationwide.The proposed purchase of AT&T by SBC has the potential to demonstrably alter the way a majority of our state's commercial and residential telecommunications customers conduct their daily affairs. For most urban U.S. consumers today, especially residential and small business patrons, the communications market is rapidly deteriorating into a duopoly dominated by the Bells and cable operators. Wisconsin, however, due to a fledging economy and classic entrepreneurial spirit, is fortunate to have some very credible competitive alternative providers operating in the state's more urban markets like Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Waukesha, Janesville, Kenosha and Racine.
Competition in the telecommunications industry has done wonders for consumers and businesses across Wisconsin, resulting in small business savings of roughly 30 percent annually. Competitors have led the way in accelerating the deployment of world-class technology such as high-speed Internet and the provisioning of outstanding services at value-based pricing. Competition benefits anyone that has selected an alternative provider and even those who have not.
Since 1996, telecommunications competition has generated more than $150 billion of investment and created 77,000 new jobs nationally - thousands here in Wisconsin. Our company, Madison-based TDS Metrocom, has invested almost $500 million in the state over the past six years and added nearly 1,000 high-paying jobs to the Wisconsin work force and tax base.
If you agree local phone competition from new entrants such as TDS Metrocom has produced lower prices for all consumers by challenging companies such as SBC to lower their own retail prices and improve their sluggish customer service, you would do well to be skeptical of the claims of SBC and AT&T that "bigger is going to be better."
History reminds us in previous merger deals, like SBC's acquisition of Ameritech, the lists of commitments and future benefits were long and attractive to regulators, yet the results were fraught with broken promises and the benefits are yet to come. In fact, SBC paid millions of dollars in fines and penalties rather than change its behavior or meet the conditions to which it previously agreed.
Breathless commentary about new technologies and changing markets cannot change basic economic facts. Companies like SBC and AT&T, with massive market power and control of bottleneck, "last mile" facilities and huge chunks of valuable wireless spectrum, have both the incentive and ability to use their market power to harm consumers, competitors and even product vendors, some of whom operate small entrepreneurial businesses right here in Wisconsin.
SBC and AT&T also offer contrived arguments that there is already plenty of communications competition coming from wireless and cable providers. If you work for or own a business in Wisconsin, have a home or rent an apartment, simply ask yourself if you are ready to forgo the network reliability, the customer care and the historical quality of wireline communications for something that may or may not work in a rainstorm, in certain locations within your office or residential building, or even allow you to call 911 in an emergency situation.
We believe and hope Wisconsin consumers will begin questioning whether or not the public interest is being served by this corporate consolidation.
If you have reservations on the merits of the SBC/AT&T merger and what it means for telecommunications consumers in Wisconsin, get involved. Send a letter to the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, or better yet an e-mail, highlighting your views. The FCC can be reached at www.fcc.gov. Additionally, tell your congressional representative to do what's right for consumers.
Contemplate for a moment how this proposed corporate marriage, literally the rebuilding of the previously fallen telecommunications Humpty Dumpty, will affect you as a business or residential consumer, not to mention your finances. Simply put, the irony of a Baby Bell acquiring Ma Bell should not be disregarded.
Jim Butman is president of competitive telephone operations and Drew Petersen is director of legislative affairs for TDS Telecom, which is the parent company of local competitor TDS Metrocom, headquartered in Madison.
Published: 9:39 AM 7/16/05
Farmers, businesses and state officials are investing millions of dollars in ethanol and biofuel plants as renewable energy sources, but a new study says the alternative fuels burn more energy than they produce.Slashdot discussionSupporters of ethanol and other biofuels contend they burn cleaner than fossil fuels, reduce U.S. dependence on oil and give farmers another market to sell their produce.
But researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley say it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. For switch grass, a warm weather perennial grass found in the Great Plains and eastern North America United States, it takes 45 percent more energy and for wood, 57 percent.
Pilot Steve Fossett and navigator Mark Rebholz took off from St. John's, Newfoundland, on July 2 at about 7 p.m. in fog, heavy cloud cover and strong winds. They had a good tailwind until midway and made most of the trip under cloud cover, not seeing the Sun until about the last 5 hr.More on Fossett
Fossett and Rebholz expected the crossing to be completed by 4-5 p.m. the next day and, in fact, landed at 5:05 p.m. Irish time, setting down safely at the eighth hole of Connemara golf course. That was a slightly better result than the original June 14-15, 1919, crossing by Royal Flying Corps pilot Capt. John Alcock and navigator Lt. Arthur Whitten Brown. They ended up nose-down on soft ground after a 16-hr. crossing that included an ice storm.
I always go straight to the nearest supermarket, to find out what the locals actually eat and drink, rather than what the guidebooks say they do. Essential for making informed restaurant decisions later, and a dependable entertainment in itself: there's always some arresting indigenous twist on a theme, such as lobster-flavoured Walkers crisps, and you can usually count on spotting the likes of Frische Dickmilche or Fockink Anis on the shelves.
Matthew Phan discusses the obvious benefits of a simplified tax system. We waste hours and hours on our current tax morass:
Of the 341 executives interviewed, 48% preferred a flat corporate rate over the current tax system for businesses like their own, compared to 16% who supported the current system. 13% preferred a value-added consumption tax and 23% indicated that they were uncertain which was better.The complexity of the current system could be one reason owners prefer a flat tax, at least from the CEOs that Inc. interviewed separately. "The simpler the tax structure and the more visibility you give it, the better," said David Steinberg, founder and CEO of InPhonix, the No. 1 company on the Inc. 500 list in 2004. "The more complex a system, the more accountants you need to hire."
It has been very hard for Americans -- lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring -- to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society. Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency.I wonder if we will see oil prices crater, like it has after previous spikes?
Most immediately we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era. It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life -- not to mention all of its comforts and luxuries: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense -- you name it.
The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don't have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion.
LaFayette, LA will soon start constructing a municipal fibre network (a citywide referendum passed Saturday). Madison, unfortunately, continues to lage far behind in the broadband game.
Flying around recently, a fellow traveller seated next to me mentioned that he had been in Madison quite often over the past five years and was amazed at the ongoing sprawl. I recalled this conversation while reading Mike Ivey's recent column: "One Sprawl Project Begets Another". I was further reminded of this discussion when I read Spencer Hsu and Dana Hedgpeth's article on the tens of millions of dollars Washington, DC stands to gain from a proposed land transfer from the federal government to the City.
The intersection of an inexorable desire for tax base growth and the implications for our community are rather interesting and could use more attention.
Apprentices leave the program at the end of their six-month term proficient at pest control, propagation, irrigation and maintaining soil fertility with organic matter. They also leave with a network of instructors, farmers and former apprentices to turn to when questions arise, and they often leave with a job offer in hand from a contact made at the apprenticeship. Most importantly, they leave firmly committed to practicing and promoting agricultural systems that work within the limitations imposed by natural resource cycles.
UC Santa Cruz's Apprenticeship in Environmental Horticulture evolved from student interest in the 3-acre garden installed on campus by Alan Chadwick in the late 1960s. Using only hand tools and organic soil amendments, Chadwick molded a steep hillside near what was then the center of campus into a highly productive vegetable, fruit and flower garden.
Radlinger's vision is that business travelers would be able to pull up 15 minutes before departure at a smaller airport such as Timmerman Field, West Bend or Waukesha's Crites Field, hop aboard a plane aRadlinger's vision is that business travelers would be able to pull up 15 minutes before departure at a smaller airport such as Timmerman Field, West Bend or Waukesha's Crites Field, hop aboard a plane and take off, making their total trip not much longer than the actual flying time.Bold Air, with it's non aircraft ownership approach is slightly different than the emerging "microjet" initiatives underway, including Dayjet as well as Pogo, among others."People are tired of the inefficient, cattle-call mentality of commercial and low-cost carriers, the lack of service and the inability to fly direct to a destination," said Radlinger, executive vice president of Bold Air, which has headquarters in downtown Milwaukee. "If they can get where they're going faster and in comfort, at a price competitive with what they're currently paying, that's a no-brainer."
Bold Air would likely charge about the same or slightly more than the commercial fare on a route, Radlinger said. He hopes to begin offering flights by the second quarter of 2006.nd take off, making their total trip not much longer than the actual flying time.
"People are tired of the inefficient, cattle-call mentality of commercial and low-cost carriers, the lack of service and the inability to fly direct to a destination," said Radlinger, executive vice president of Bold Air, which has headquarters in downtown Milwaukee. "If they can get where they're going faster and in comfort, at a price competitive with what they're currently paying, that's a no-brainer."
Bold Air would likely charge about the same or slightly more than the commercial fare on a route, Radlinger said. He hopes to begin offering flights by the second quarter of 2006.
Suppose you bought a TV set that included a component to track what you watched, and then reported that data back to a company that used or sold it for advertising purposes. Only nobody told you the tracking technology was there or asked your permission to use it.You would likely be outraged at this violation of privacy. Yet that kind of Big Brother intrusion goes on every day on the Internet, affecting millions of people. Many Web sites, even from respectable companies, place a secret computer file called a "tracking cookie" on your hard disk. This file records where you go on the Web on behalf of Internet advertising companies that later use the information for their own business purposes. In almost all cases, the user isn't notified of the download of the tracking cookie, let alone asked for permission to install it.
The Renault Logan was designed to sell for 5,000 euros ($6K) in emerging markets like Poland. The car has found a number of buyers in Western Europe who seek a no frills, reliable car. Check it out. Gail Edmondson and Constance Faivre d'Arcier have more.
We are using more media than ever before in history, yet this intensive engagement with media does not translate into more attention paid to the stories told by the two archetypical media professions: journalism and advertising"
But Wall Street's focus remains on Southwest's ability to fight off the crippling effects of high oil prices with financial contracts that have essentially locked in lower fuel prices for the airline while its competitors groan under heavier costs. Though oil prices topped $60 a barrel in the quarter, Southwest has secured financial hedges that limit 85% of its fuel costs during the year to an equivalent average oil price of $26 a barrel.If only they flew to Madison...
The hedging strategy saved Southwest $196 million in fuel costs during the quarter, reducing the increase in Southwest's per-gallon jet fuel expenses to 25%, compared to twice that for its competitors. Through other cost cuts and productivity improvements, Southwest said it was able to drive down its overall unit costs in the quarter by 3.5%, to 7.81 cents per available seat-mile flown from 8.09 cents a year earlier.
"Considering soaring oil prices and the enormous operational challenges our company and industry have faced over the past four years, our operating cost performance was exceptional and better than we expected," said Mr. Kelly. Excluding fuel, expenses per seat-mile flown fell 7.7% to 6.27 cents.
Fortune has an interesting article on the competition between the US and China. This, in particular, caught my attention:
China will produce about 3.3 million college graduates this year, India 3.1 million (all of them English-speaking), the U.S. just 1.3 million.
This seems like a pretty sensible thing that's come out of last week's bombings here in London - simple way to help the emergency services in case of a recurrence, by entering your next of kin under "I C E" in your mobil.
Many Americans are working well past the age of retirement. Dr. Robert Butler, founding director of the National Institute on Aging and CEO of the International Longevity Center, talks about why people choose to keep working. Butler says work gives older people's lives meaning, control and an income.
Moving into his speech, Dean talked about his work trying to build the Democratic Party across the country, noting a stop in Mississippi. He said that the Dems need to fight in all states, particularly in the Mississippis and Kansases, not just in the Wisconsins and Michigans.
An early theme was fiscal responsibility, with Dean stating that the Democratic platform "looks like a 1970s Republican Party platform" with regards to balanced budgets. He emphatically stated one of his regular points – "you can't trust a Republican with your money" – repeating that they "borrow and spend" and "borrow and waste."
On Monday, Accenture lobbyists Richard Grafmeyer and John Talisman met top tax counsels for Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Accenture lobbyists spoke yesterday with Montana Sen. Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the Finance panel. The two have also met with aides to Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, Republican of California.I wonder who, if anyone speaks for the taxpayers in these closed door meetings! Mullins did an excellent job digging up the details on this.
Mr. Grafmeyer, who once worked as a top Republican tax counsel on Capitol Hill, and Mr. Talisman, a former senior Democratic tax advisor at the Treasury, have met success: All but Mr. Rangel have agreed to include new language for Accenture in the technical-corrections bill that could be introduced by week's end. "Clearly, this is not considered fair...in a time of war for people to be looking to avoid taxes," Mr. Rangel said. Mr. Rangel and his staff have refused to participate in discussions on the provision.
Once introduced, the technical-corrections bill is expected to sail through Congress. That would represent a victory for a company that was portrayed as a corporate bad-boy on Capitol Hill as recently as last year.
Managed care, whatever its prospects for running Medicare better, is facing gradual eclipse in the private sector by the new strategy of consumer-directed health care, based on tax-free health savings accounts, enacted in the same 2003 Bush-promoted law that gave us giant subsidies for the managed-care business. In a new report, McKinsey likens the arrival of HSAs to the creation of 401(k)s in the 1980s, an opportunity that largely bypassed traditional banks and pension managers and was captured by mutual fund firms like Fidelity and Vanguard.
Via TaxProf: The Memory Hole; 75 Years of IRS Criminal Investigation History, 1919-1994 (PDF)
Kristian Knutson pens an interesting look at the local newspaper rackspace wars.
In late 1999, the Keeters put $188 million into an account at Deutsche Bank. The money, used in tandem with a $500 million loan from the bank, would be used to trade derivatives and options. The Keeters say they thought that they would make an unspecified return on their investment, pay back the loan, as well as generate $188 million in tax savings that could then be legitimately used to offset other gains. But family members said that they discovered their shelter was not legal only when the I.R.S. began auditing some of their federal tax returns - prepared by KPMG, with the Blips deductions written in - for 2000 and 2001.
From the late 1990s into the next decade, KPMG devoted significant resources to developing and mass marketing hundreds of abusive tax shelters. These products were designed to enable their purchasers - typically high wealth individuals and Fortune 500 companies - to avoid paying taxes on the huge financial gains they enjoyed during the stock market boom. 135K PDF
"The tax court is seen as a place that a taxpayer ought to be able to go and get a fair shake, and the secrecy here, and the outcome in these cases, does raise the question as to whether they're getting a fair shake," said Alan B. Morrison, a senior lecturer at Stanford Law School, who wrote a supporting brief for the three taxpayers in the Supreme Court case.
The court's secrecy, "confirmed now by a major change in a decision, is a big deal, and it's not right," he said.
One of Mr. Kanter's lawyers, Richard H. Pildes, a professor at NYU School of Law, said the case reminded him of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the never-ending lawsuit in Charles Dickens's novel "Bleak House."
But Whole Foods Market Inc. doesn't pay for product placements or mentions on television shows. It has managed to make its brand name synonymous with healthy living, and grow its sales at a double-digit clip, while spending little on traditional advertising and marketing.Consumers don't see Whole Foods ads in their local papers, during daytime television shows or even in magazines.
While other food retailers spend heavily to draw shoppers, Whole Foods counts on its brand, its reputation and targeted community efforts to bring in customers.
Americans pay more for less broadband service than citizens of any other industrial country, and our take-up rate for fast Internet service is approaching Third World levels.David Isenberg has more.The reason? Lack of competition. Phone and cable networks, created under government control, have been made the private monopolies of corporate interests whose lobbyists dominate all capitals against the public interest.
Investors along Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park [CA] are pouring money into solar nanotech startups, hoping that thinking small will translate into big profits.
Both inventors and investors are betting that flexible sheets of tiny solar cells used to harness the sun's strength will ultimately provide a cheaper, more efficient source of energy than the current smorgasbord of alternative and fossil fuels.
Nanosys and Nanosolar in Palo Alto -- along with Konarka in Lowell, Mass. -- say their research will result in thin rolls of highly efficient light-collecting plastics spread across rooftops or built into building materials.
EARLIER THIS YEAR, SIRNA THERAPEUTICS ANNOUNCED it was moving its corporate headquarters from Boulder, Colo., to San Francisco -- one more in the long line of biotechnology firms to put down roots in the region. From a real-estate perspective, homegrown and transplanted companies together have transformed the fabled Bay area into the largest biotech community in the country, occupying 16 million square feet. And demand for laboratory space, from San Francisco to Palo Alto, shows no sign of slowing, as the proximity of Genentech and first-rate universities beckons other research firms.
Venture capitalists, a clique of financiers obsessed with risk and exponential growth, incubated the Internet, seeded the bioengineering boom and propelled the likes of Google, eBay, Microsoft, FedEx and Starbucks out of their infancy. Now, for the first time, they intend to apply the same approach to Milwaukee's inner city.VC in Wisconsin is very much a chicken and egg problem. My view is that Wisconsin lacks a risk taking, entrepreneurial environment, which is ironic because it used to exist here, in the days when manufacturing was the rage. We see evidence of this everywhere, from The Madison School District's annual "same service" approach to budgeting in an era of constant change to our very slow adoption of the critical assets for the next generation of entrepreneurs: broadband (wifi and fiber networks to the home). Wisconsin is not a player politically in these initiatives, unlike other areas.
a nonprofit research organization working to develop new meat substitutes, including cultured meat — meat produced in vitro, in a cell culture, rather than from an animal.Because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions impossible to maintain in traditional animal farms, they can be safer, more nutritious, less polluting, and more humane than conventional meat.
Last month's discovery of the second U.S. case of the brain-wasting disease has renewed calls for the quick implementation of a trace-back system.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association said the database would enable federal and state animal health officials to track down herdmates of an infected animal within 48 hours of an outbreak.
these dolphins btw are very curious about cameras and people and this one made its way slowly along the line of people half rolled on its side looking at everyone ... when it came near to me I put down my camera nearer the water to get a closeup view and it came closer ... and then spouted water thru its blowhole onto my (precious) lens! -- something they quite regularly do to cameras apparently (... but with a bit of cleaning it was ok)
WisPolitics: "Keeping his promise to help build state Democratic parties, Howard Dean, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), will visit the Badger State for a grassroots fundraiser benefiting the Democratic Party of Wisconsin on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 at the Orpheum Theater in Madison. It will be Dean’s first trip to Wisconsin since becoming Chair in February 2005. "
"Alternative Freedom" is their feature-length documentary about the invisible war on culture.Quicktime
It’s mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it. This briefing summarizes key findings from Media, Technology and Society, a multi-disciplinary research project on the media landscape conducted for professionals engaged in strategies, research, thinking, education, policy and philanthropy related to the future of journalism and media.3.8MB PDF
Mr. Girard's experience is apparently much more common than the policy makers in Washington might think. A study commissioned by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., which supports entrepreneurial education, found that almost one in five Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy protection in recent years had operated businesses - small companies, home enterprises or start-ups - within two years of filing for bankruptcy.Wisconsin Senators Kohl & Feingold supported the bankruptcy reform law. The Kauffman report can be downloaded here.Many of them had incorrectly filled out their paperwork, so the government mistakenly counted them as individuals, not businesses. In many more instances, the study showed, they had been classified as individuals by a computer software oversight.
The study's findings raise the possibility that the bankruptcy law President Bush signed in April, and which is to take effect in October, may have damaging ramifications for the nation's entrepreneurial culture.
Instead of cracking down almost entirely on careless consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, the study indicates, the legislation threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs and small-business owners caught in financial setbacks.
Driving north on John Nolen Drive [map] this afternoon, I saw this fine gentleman wearing a black armband and waving the Union Jack. I took this with my cellphone, so it's not a great picture, but it does capture the spirit (btw, there's a photographer just below the flag. I imagine this will appear in one of the local newspapers tomorrow).
UPDATE: John Maniaci took this very nice photo.
(Click the photo for a larger version)
I walked to the bottom of my driveway early this morning to grab the NY Times (I still get the fishwrap version) and saw that another paper was dropped off (the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal periodically drop promotional copies around the neighborhood).
The 2nd paper was rather interesting: the first two pages were advertising "Brought to you by Middleton Ford". Perhaps this advertiser bought x number of copies that were dropped around the area? Most interestingly, the advertiser pages completely covered the Wisconsin State Journal. From the advertiser perspective, it is certainly in your face for those who take the paper out of the bag (why not direct mail?). From the State Journal's perspective, however, it is a big dilution of the brand. Promo copies (try us) are one thing, but a promo copy completely wrapped in an ad is another.
This approach is identical to traditional advertiser only publications. Perhaps that's where the daily papers will end up: free to all readers, but with a much larger and more invasive ad presence.
Meanwhile, Joseph T. Hallinan covers McClatchy's circulation woes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Finally, I took a look at local coverage/links to today's very unfortunate London events around 7:00a.m. at two popular local news sites, Capital Newspapers' madison.com site and Morgan Murphy Media's channel3000.com. At 6:48a.m., channel3000 had a photo of British PM Tony Blair's press conference along with a story and links. madison.com did not mention this breaking story (they later posted a link to an AP story on the London bombing). (click to view a screen shot of the two sites at 6:48a.m. today). The internet's news cycle is clearly different than the traditional paper's 24 hour process.
Having said all that, I think the local sites are much better off 99% focused on local issues. There was and is no shortage of coverage on the London events around the net.
Follow the information from London via these links:
Bob Geldof's Live8 music is now online:
Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens has a lofty goal: exploring each of the 50 states in song. He's already released a critically acclaimed full-length CD simply called Michigan. His latest honors the people, places and history of Illinois.MP3: The Lord God BirdIndependent radio producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister were curious about how Stevens writes his songs, which, much like their own work, are filled with stories of places and people. So, they introduced Stevens to the Arkansas town of Brinkley.
So, lets take a look at the $44 million police department budget. (Hey – I’ve already burned this bridge, I might as well just go with it.) At this point your eyes have probably glazed over, but don’t worry, it’s all of three pages long with lots of white space. Clicking on the link is an illuminating experience. You will find that for 2005 we have two programs in the police department. Field Operations which are $39,373,690 and Support Operations which are $4,718,020. There is a one paragraph description of these services. Additionally, in this case there are 6 “budget highlights” to further inform you about changes from last year’s budget. Then, on page 3 there is the break down into the 9 budget line items. Are you hungry for more information? Permanent Salary Detail will show you each of the positions in the department along with Workers Comp, Premium Pay and Vacation/Comp time accrued. This accounts for $26 million of the budget. You can also look at Minor Objects to find out that purchased services is $1.4 million, supplies are $750,000, there is $2.6 million in inter-departmental charges and $6,000 for debt/other financing. On the bottom you can see that they charge $1.1 million to grants and other departments. Finally, you can see that they are spending $18,000 in Capital Objects. If you were following along only a little, you now realize that the detail doesn’t add up to $44 million. Where’d the rest of the money go? The "details" only add up to about $31 million.The growing tax squeeze facing Madison residents (taxes growing at a faster rate than incomes) makes budget transparency a necessity. The current local spending increases, given sluggish economic growth are simply not sustainable. I applaud the folks at dane101 for getting this rolling.
We seldom legislate new technologies into being. They emerge, and we plunge with them into whatever vortices of change they generate. We legislate after the fact, in a perpetual game of catch-up, as best we can, while our new technologies redefine us - as surely and perhaps as terribly as we've been redefined by broadcast television.
"Who owns the words?" asked a disembodied but very persistent voice throughout much of Burroughs' work. Who does own them now? Who owns the music and the rest of our culture? We do. All of us.
Though not all of us know it - yet.
Interesting story on the market for data in Moscow:The recent passage of the National ID Act, supported by our good Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl means that it won't be long before all of our data is available in this manner.This Gorbushka vendor offers a hard drive with cash transfer records from Russia's central bank for $1,500 (Canadian).
At the Gorbushka kiosk, sales are so brisk that the vendor excuses himself to help other customers while the foreigner considers his options: $43 for a mobile phone company's list of subscribers? Or $100 for a database of vehicles registered in the Moscow region?
The vehicle database proves irresistible. It appears to contain names, birthdays, passport numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, descriptions of vehicles, and vehicle identification (VIN) numbers for every driver in Moscow.
"In the U.S. Congress, both parties are enemies of Internet-based progress. The Republicans support the telcos and cablecos while the Democrats side with the Kontent Krabs.
In Lafayette, Louisiana, though, it is a different story, both parties support Lafayette's Fiber to the Home municipal networking effort!
A joint, bipartisan letter to Lafayette's voters, authored by the city's Republican *and* Democratic leaders, says
If the government's plans stay on track, Britons will, within three years, begin to receive cards containing personal details, together with a digital photograph, fingerprints and an iris scan. A nation that has not possessed identity cards since 1952 will, in a step, acquire the world's most complex system.
The Classic Rockers Pink Floyd can be seen performing "Comfortably Numb" in this Quicktime Video.
Wisconsin's overall job quality ranked 39th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2003, based on the research released Thursday. The study used government data to define job quality by the average wages paid per industry and occupation.Compared with the national mix of industries, Wisconsin had smaller shares of workers in fields such as information; finance and insurance; and professional, scientific and technical services, all of which pay higher-than-average wages nationwide, said Tom Rex, associate director of the research center at Arizona State's W.P. Carey School of Business.
Doc Searls and Dave Winer (mp3) have some useful comments on the evils of DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). Craig Burton calls it EBWU (evil, wrong, bad and ugly).
We are fast approaching a new dark age. That, at least, is the conclusion of Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He says the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who spotted the fateful iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming dead ahead. His study will be published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Joel McNally asks some timely questions about the mainstream media's coverage (or lack thereof) of Senator Kohl (and Feingold, frankly):
It would be remarkable for any local sports owner to be protected by such a shield of invisibility, but it is nothing short of astounding when the owner also happens to be one of the state's top elected officials. It's not as if the press doesn't know where to find the guy. He has a public office in Washington, D.C. And when he's in Milwaukee, he eats breakfast almost every morning at Ma Fischer's restaurant.There are actually a number of important votes that our media should be asking both Senators about.It has to be a conscious decision on the part of reporters not to ask Kohl questions about anything he'd rather not talk about.
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Capt Dan Ward, USAF (pdf) on the pitfalls of overfunding:
Let me get right to it: the Department of Defense acquisition community today has too much money. There, I’ve said it, and it feels good. It may be a career-limiting opinion, but after 10 years in this business, I can confidently (albeit naïvely) conclude we have too much money. More important, I con- tend this overfunding is limiting our ability to innovate, which has negative consequences for America’s warfighting capabilities. Now that I have your attention, let me explain how I reached this conclusion:
The other part of the state where the property tax burden was high was Dane county, according to WISTAX. The city and town of Madison led the area with property taxes at 8.8% and 8.2% of income, respectively. Five suburbs surrounding Madison also made the top-50 list: McFarland and Mt. Horeb (both 7.4%); Sun Prairie (7.3%); and DeForest and Stoughton (both 7.1%)...
In a separate part of the report, WISTAX notes that the property tax-to-income ratio is much like a political "heart monitor." When property taxes relative to income climb above 4%, discontent begins to grow. The study cited several periods in the postwar era when property taxes were unusually high and led to a major change, either in politics or in policy-making. Most recently, this occurred in 1993-94, when property taxes completed a 14-year rise, hitting 4.8% of income. Then, a bipartisan majority in state government imposed school revenue limits and first committed the state to providing two-thirds of local schools’ revenues.
Looking forward to July 4th, I came across this article by James H. Warner, a Marine Corps Officer who spent five years and five months in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp:
the first of June, I was put in a cement box with a steel door, which sat out in the tropical summer sun. There, I was put in leg irons which were then wired to a small stool. In this position I could neither sit nor stand comfortably. Within 10 days, every muscle in my body was in pain (here began a shoulder injury which is now inoperable). The heat was almost beyond bearing. My feet had swollen, literally, to the size of footballs. I cannot describe the pain. When they took the leg irons off, they had to actually dig them out of the swollen flesh. It was five days before I could walk, because the weight of the leg irons on my Achilles tendons had paralyzed them and hamstrung me. I stayed in the box from June 1 until Nov. 10, 1969. While in the box, I lost at least 30 pounds.
Aside from roadside deposits, Western National offers a courier service to pick up deposits from small-business customers and gives out toy safes for the children of the personal account holders.Sort of business 101...
It is touches like those that Mr. Hinz says will snare customers frustrated with the impersonal faces of the giants. Customers, he says, want to be greeted by name and treated as though their $2,000 savings accounts or $50,000 small-business loans really matter to Western National.
"We found that especially with small-business lending and banking, being able to know your customer is critical," he said. "Being part of the community in which they work is critical. The big bank networks aren't really built to take care of smaller loans."
Whitacre may well be honing his schmoozing skills for his newest—and unlikeliest—role: aspiring media mogul. In a few short months, SBC will unveil what it hopes will be the ultimate weapon in the war between cable and the Bells—a high-tech TV service that Whitacre insists will offer viewers as many channels as they currently receive from regular cable and then some. SBC has anted up $4 billion just to get its network ready to offer the service, known as Internet protocol TV, or IPTV, and it will spend additional hundreds of millions to acquire TV content. But much more is at stake: SBC’s future as a major player.Ironically, and with perfect timing, it appears that true high speed fiber networks are starting to appear (The US lags well behind other countries on broadband costs and performance).
