I am declaring June 30 "State wide Talk and Drive Day!" On July 1 California is enacting a hands free while driving cell phone law. This will bring an end to an era to the state that is the home of car phones on the free way.
On the last day, we might as well call'em if you got'em. I am calling on all my California people to use your cell phone and drive on Monday June 30. Lets use this freedom while we have it.
The New York Times had a story about the Unintended Consequences of Laws. These are very important ideas. I learned a long time ago that lawmakers need to pay attention to these. This is not a new idea. I learned about back in college (the 90s). There are lots of laws that encourage people to do things other than what the law is intended to do.
This is why I do not believe in passing symbolic laws. There is no point in passing them. They might come back and do something bad in the end. Why would I want to do something like that. I want my laws to be useful.
This is one of the reasons that I am not a fan of the Initiative Process. Many of these laws are poorly written or poorly thought through. I understand the point is to give regular people the chance to make laws, but most of the time that is not what is happening. Big interests are trying to go around the state house to get a law passed.
People need to think before they act. This is important when their actions have far reaching impacts.
The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.
You got to be kidding me. This is the stupidest thing I have heard the RIAA ever do and they have done some stupid things. This crosses the line. Right now nobody is going to be buying music if they cannot listen to it. If you cut off the iPod you cut off every chance people will buy music at all. People might get away from commercial music all together. You might see the death of the album all together.
Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.
This is over the line. Either the music industry is selling me an individual product which I purchase and can do whatever I want to, like play that product in front of other people without paying a license, or they are selling me an intellectually property and I get to move it from device to device. I can only play one copy at a time, let me do it wherever I am. That is all people are asking for. Until you let people play the content wherever they are, you are not going to see sales improve.
Today I find out that all this might be out of context. The problem is that with everything the RIAA does, no one would put this beyond them.
In the end, the road to justice was filled with injustice
District Attorney Mike Nifong has been disbarred and suspended from his job because of his actions in the Duke lacrosse rape case. His career as a District Attorney and a Lawyer are over. To be honest, I am not sure where he would go now.
Slate has a really good article about what Nifong did and what it means.
As Angela Davis explains in her book Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor, young prosecutors too often see their goal as winning rather than doing justice. The culture of their offices and the adversarial nature of the criminal justice system push them in this direction. Over time, they move further toward, and eventually across, the line separating fair play from systemic manipulation. How often this actually happens is hard to say. Because more than 90 percent of the criminal cases result in pleas, most instances of prosecutorial misconduct never even come to light. Nonetheless, in the rollicking back and forth of a normal state trial, it is a rare case in which problems involving the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence (as Nifong was accused of doing) don't arise. In most of these instances, a judge deals with late disclosure by adjourning the trial to give the defense more time to respond, or by issuing an ineffectual reprimand. This isn't exactly remedying the problem.
And this quote is very telling. It shows the conflict between "Believe the Victim" and "Innocent until Proven Guilty"
Mike Nifong did what prosecutors almost always do when a complainant comes to them alleging a sexual assault: He took his complainant at her word and went full speed ahead with a prosecution. The fact is that few if any prosecutors wait for corroborating evidence or insist on more than one person's say so before initiating a sexual assault prosecution. Indeed, they'd be vilified if they did. The cardinal rule of sexual assault complaints is "believe the victim," and since anyone who complains is deemed a victim, even a semi-credible complainant can generate an arrest and prosecution in the absence of physical evidence, additional witnesses, or even a prompt accusation. This isn't just the case in Durham; it's true almost everywhere. The widespread support for this questionable practice is such that if the Duke case had gone to a jury and the defendants had been convicted, Nifong would not only still have his law license—he'd have been lionized for his dogged pursuit of rich white kids.
Pet Peeve: If I hear one more sports reporter mention that it was the rape charges that got Duke's season canceled, I am going to freak out. It was the e-mail from Ryan McFadyen that got the 2006 Duke lacrosse season canceled. I think Duke made the right call to cancel the season after that e-mail. Even with the complete innocence of the accused, it was was the right call to cancel the season. Let me get back on topic
This whole case is a mess to me. On one hand I think this case worked out to the only place it could work out to. If the DA did not charge the men, people would say that rich white kids got over on the justice system. If they were charged and it was dropped people would still say that the DA was racist.
Right now I can hear people say that this case was not about these men and the events at that party. The case is about the larger issues of race and privilege that surround Duke University and Durham NC. It is about larger themes of justice and race in our culture. It is about much more than these students.
The problem is that cannot be true in our culture. You cannot put three men on trial for rape because of how a University interacts with a community. To have justice in a society you need every court case to be about the facts in that case. When the case is about anything else, there will be a miscarriage of justice.
It is unfortunate that the only way that the only way that these three men could be declared innocent of this crime was for them to be dragged through hell. This was the only way to diminish the cloud of suspicion over their head. It changed their lives forever.
I think there are a lot of lessons here. There are stories about race, gender, politics, wealth, politics, college, media, sports, and law, just to name a few. I am worried that few people will learn these lessons. I do not think Nancy Grace learned any lessons about the way she covered this case. I have not heard on person in the media say they were wrong for the way they covered this case.
In the end, this case was bad for everyone. It only reduced people's faith in our justice system. That will be the legacy of this case.
Note: If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off.
This has caused a big dust up at Flickr. There are lots of users that are upset about this. It seems to be going past the level of people who think "any content filtering on the internet is censorship" crowd. There seems to be a lot of average users who are up in arms about this. Flickr is all about sharing photos. It is easy to see why people are upset.
This is a great story, because there are lots of stories here. The ones that are the most interesting to me is how Flickr SafeSearch works. It is an all or nothing filtering system. You cannot mark why something should be filtered. Content is not marked for sex or violence, you cannot mark things not work safe, you cannot mark things based on appropriate age range. It is only marked for Safety Level.
1. Safety Level
* Safe - Content suitable for a global, public audience * Moderate - If you're not sure whether your content is suitable for a global, public audience but you think that it doesn't need to be restricted per se, this category is for you * Restricted - This is content you probably wouldn't show to your mum, and definitely shouldn't be seen by kids
The second story is how Flickr reacts to these things. With a community bases site things spread like wildfire. This fire has been burning for 18 hours. The users are all over the place why this happening. There seems to be no answer of why this happening. It is true that this has been happening while Flickr is on a world tour rolling out in new countries in new languages. It sounds like a bad way to launch a product. Right now the users are fending for themselves. There is no voice of the company saying why these things are happening.
All of the recent censorship issues at flickr seems this way. The users are on their own to speculate about why things happen. Flickr seems slow to respond of why things have happened. I think they need to show the users more of how the sausage is made. I think it would be better for the users to know how the company is going to react. At last we would not be in the dark.
The last interesting story here is about the future of world wide social networks. I think this story is just the tip of the iceberg. I think we are going to start to see the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 in these kinds of censorship stories. If I just posted all of my photos on my website and those photos broke some German law, it would be very hard for Germany to act against me. They might block my website, but they cannot shut me down or have my message taken off the web. They would have a hard time taking me to court. If I am using a service like flickr, Germany have a much easier time using the force of law against that company. They have a much clearer path to shut them down or sue them to take action.
I am not sure what other web 2.0 companies do. I am not if any of them have a real global reach. I am not sure what would happens to people who break German laws on YouTube.
I think there are more of these stories to come. I think we are going to see more companies have to chose between their users and local laws. It will be interesting to see this play out. What will Flickr do? What will other web 2.0 companies do? What is the right thing to do and what will be done?
I have been hearing a lot about the new immigration bill lately. I am happy to see from a New York Times/CBS News poll that Americans support the Immigration bill. I am happy to see that the middle is getting it right. Often on TV and Radio you only see the extremes of this conversation. You rarely get a commentator that takes the middle argument.
My experence with illegal immigrants is that they are extremely hard working. They are here to better themselves and their families. To me, that is the type of person that we should be attracting to America. Coming to America is often dangerous. They risk life and limb to take low paying jobs.
After a few hours of listening to Lou Dobbs. I am starting to wonder if Immigration is the next War On Drugs. I mean that Lou Dobbs has two main points, 1) we need to stop illegal immigration and 2) we need to secure the boarder. I have an idea, if we really want to make sure that bad guys, like terrorist and criminals are not coming over the boarder, let the people who are coming here for a job come in legally.
I am wondering if we need to radically rethink immigration. Lets make it so anyone without a criminal record can get a work visa. No caps or limits, they do not need a job before coming over. No need for a work permit. Let our job market truly be a free market. Anyone who comes here, you can get a job. We could take all the money we are using worried about people who come here to work and just focus on the people who come here for crime. That way we could really focus on who is crossing the boarder. There would be no reason for regular families to sneak over the boarder.
I know if I said this to Lou Dobbs he would freak out. I would like someone to show me the economics of why this would be a bad idea. Until someone does, I think this will be my current stance.
I read today that the Bush administration would like to make 'Attempted' copyright infringement a crime. Reading this makes me red with anger. This is not the way to treat consumers. This is not the way to treat intellectual properties. This is not the way to treat free speech.
I really hope this law does not pass. I do not want it to pass because I know it will be miss used. I know that these laws will not be used against organized criminals who are running large scale pirating rings. The RIAA has already shown us they are going to abuse these laws. They will use laws will be used against college students and single mothers. They are going to use these laws to make examples of people. It just is not right.
These laws are promoted as protecting American workers and American business. In the end they will hurt American companies. They will limit the kinds of products that can be made. They will limit the ways people can use content. They will limit innovation. They will be a drag on American business as companies have to spend time protecting other companies copyrighted properties. Time to start contacting our congress people.
I will admit that I have some sympathy for the gunman. I was an outsider in college. I knew enough people who did not have it all together. But for the grace of God go I. My brain worked correctly when I had dangerous thoughts. I had the brain chemistry to pull myself back from the edge.
I would never kill anyone. That does not mean that I have never been discussed with American Society. I do not know what that guy in Colorado said but to think no one could understand Cho Seung Hui it just dreaming. To ask no one to say think understand him is just putting on rose colored glasses. Cho Seung Hui was not a monster, he was a human. His darkness is in many of us.
The most compelling reason to ban plastic bags in my mind is litter. In one story I saw that plastic bags cause a big problem in the sewer system. You always see them blowing around the city. If banning plastic bags address this, it will be a good thing. I am not sure what kind of problem we are adding to get rid of the problem we have right now.
It is not clear to me how San Francisco defines a Grocery store. Being a single male, I do a lot of my shopping at convenience stores, are they going to be covered? I also get a lot of plastic bags from other retailers, will those stores be covered in some future bill? Has anyone done a study to see where the plastic bags are coming from?
There was a quote in the NPR story that made me think of my father.
"As far as I'm concerned I don't care what they bag it in, they could easily bag it in paper," Pat Coleman said. "And I'll recycle the paper. As long as it has handles on it."
For years my father would make the grocery stores put a paper bag in a plastic bag. That was the only way he could carry the bag. I have not see the bill say anything about the bags the stores offer having to have handles.
There is an interesting quote in the Mercury News story:
Craig Noble, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would be disappointing if grocers rejected the biodegradable plastic bag option since more trees would have to be cut down if paper bag use increases.
The new breed of bags "offers consumers a way out of a false choice, a way out of the paper or plastic dilemma," Noble said.
The best thing about this quote is that the average person has no idea what Craig Noble is talking about. The average person does not know a biodegradable plastic bag from an old plastic bag. It might be bad PR for a store to use biodegradable plastic bags.
I still have the feeling this will blow up in SF's face.
I know that an airline customer's bill of rights seems like a good thing,problems with but there are often problems with laws like this. After a winter of at least three major blizzards that stranded customers on the tarmac and at airports, there has been a lot of talk about new laws to protect airline customers.
Before a law like this is passed the impact has to be studied. Lawmakers need to make a good faith effort to predict how a law like this will make the market react. Will airlines offer fewer flights? Will the airlines charge more money during the winter to make up for bad weather? Will airlines cancel flights at the threat of bad weather leaving more customers stranded? Any of these things might be worse than the current situation.
There are things that can be done to fix the situation. Right now at most airports, airlines can post any departure time they like. It is not connected to the capacity of the airport. Every flight for ever airline could have 9 AM as a departure time even if only 10% of those flights could take off between 9 AM and 9:10 AM. A better scheduling system between the airports and airlines might help some of these problems.
I prefer airlines come up with their own customer Bill of Rights like Jet Blue. This way the company can make choices that fit there business model. Customers can would be forced to include to look at the company's service, not only price, when making a decision about choosing a flight.
There was a big news story this week about Google refusing a Department of Justice subpoena. I think this is really interesting. I am not sure what the White House is thinking. This is on the heels of the domestic spying coming to light. I think this is a bad time to ask for data like this. They are giving Google a built in defense. I can see Google point to this as why they should not give over such broad data.
I will admit that I do not think Google is picking this fight because they want to protect their customer's privacy. I think they are trying to deep their business practices private. I am happy they are not just handing this data over. I just do not expect Google to always fight for me.
What is more worry some to me is that the government is trying to revive the Internet child protection law that was struck down by the Supreme Court. If the law was struck down, don't they need to go to congress to get a new law written? Can they just try to revive the law on their own? I think that is what everyone should be looking at.
