Politics

Ars Walks The Copyright Walk

Wayne Hartman — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:19:00 GMT

Good to see Ars Technica walking the walk on copyright law. Abuse is rife by both sides of the copyright debate, so it's good to see them take a stand that reflects the true nature of the law:

But of course, you can reproduce and distribute and cache much of this information for a variety of reasons under US copyright law. We told readers that we would look into the issue, and Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher agreed to ask our corporate lawyers about making a small change to the notice.

Atlas Shrugged: 50 Years Ahead Of Its Time

Wayne Hartman — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:14:10 GMT

I'm only four chapters into Atlas Shrugged, but the parallels to modern events are startling. The main industry that this book involves (at least so far) is the railroad business:

Then it was said that large, established railroad systems were essential to the public welfare; and that the collapse of one of them would be a national catastrophe; and that if one such system had happened to sustain a crushing loss in a public-spirited attempt to contribute to international good will, it was entitled to public support to help it survive the blow.

Substitute railroad for bank and we have just read the news for the past year or so. Scary isn't it?

Obama's Peace Prize Wasn't A Good Idea

Wayne Hartman — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:47:30 GMT

I woke up this morning surprised, like every other American, that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I can't say that I'm really happy for him, nor I am I angry that he received it. When I had mentioned this to some coworkers who hadn't heard the news, the first question they asked was, "For what?" Considering that nominations had to be proposed by early February, Obama would have only been in office a few weeks before someone put his name in for consideration. The media were abuzz about this same question and apologists were quick to respond how much better the U.S. is perceived around the world for Obama simply being elected.

Now, I'm not against him receiving this honor just because he's not Bush. I'm not against it because he's black. I'm not against it because his aspirations tend to lean towards peaceful resolve (even though after his acceptance remarks he was whisked off to a war planning meeting for Afghanistan). No, I'm against it because now there is a certain obligation for Obama to behave in a certain manner. In a way, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is exerting a certain influence on U.S. foreign policy. If I were the President and had just received the Nobel Peace Prize barely 9 months into my first term, I would feel a lot of undue pressure to live up to the expectations yoked upon me by this foreign organization. Think about it: if the platform of your presidency rested on restoring faith in your country in the eyes of the world, how much confidence would it instill if you received the Nobel Peace Prize and continued to wage war?

So Obama is now faced with a dilemma: Live up to the Peace Prize's standard of being a 'peace maker' at all costs, or risk violating the spirit of the Prize but continuing the path our nation is currently on. The former has implications for domestic sovereignty and security, whiles the latter risks the nation's perceptions with the rest of the world.

I think the world would have been a better place if they had waited for Obama to deliver on some promises and aspirations and then award it based on performance, instead of meddling with situations that are already quite precarious as they are.

Obama To Students: Be Mindless Zombies, Feed On Republican Brains

Wayne Hartman — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:51:40 GMT

First and foremost, I am not an Obama shill, quite far from it. So on that note, why all the controversy of Obama addressing the students of this nation to encourage them to do better? I think Obama understands, as do I, the complete utter lack of accountability that people my age and younger have about their future. We live in an age where our dreams rest upon the fantasies of getting something for nothing. We care not for hard work and determination, where everything in life is granted by handouts and even our failings are assuaged by purple check marks. So it is with a sense of relief that someone in a position of power is standing up to these false hopes and telling it how it is--even if it is Obama.

My favorite part, which appears early in his prepared remarks, is this:

"...at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed."

What's there to argue with that? I've seen rumor-mongering to the effect that Obama is out to brainwash us all into pro-government Democrat robots, to be dispatched to squash any dissent and feed on the brains of those who do. Get real.

Hyperbole aside, if ever there were a time in the history of our country to be awakened to a sense of our own personal responsibility, it is now. We have sown the seeds of our own undoing, the fruit of which we are beginning to reap, because we have surrendered control and responsibility of our destinies to chance and happenstance. We rely on frivolous lawsuits, social programs, and handouts, hoping that someone will come along and solve all our problems for us. And when the Law of the Harvest reaps us all the things we didn't want, we blame it on others or circumstance, looking further for freebies to save us from our woe. Further, I quote, "I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things." Spot on.

I think it's great that Obama has seized this opportunity to speak on this subject and a shame that those of a different political persuasion are letting politics get in the way of our President delivering a message that we all need to hear--regardless if we are in grade school or not. I would hope that school administrators, teachers, and parents who have decided to withhold this opportunity from their students, would use this time to teach those same principles.

Personal responsibility and accountability, indoctrination indeed. But don't take my word for it, read it yourself and draw your own conclusions.

A New Super Hero Amongst Us

Wayne Hartman — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:42:55 GMT

The Forces Of Evil™ better be quaking in their boots.

#amazonFail: The 21st Century Lynch Mob

Wayne Hartman — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:02:45 GMT

If ever there were a fascinating time for sociologists and modern day communication, this is it. Spreading as quickly as some of the most virulent computer worms, news broke that Amazon.com had apparently deranked any and all books associated with homosexual topics or authors. A lot of disinformation and speculation as to the cause of the incident only fueled the controversy, but the real story here is the wildfire response in the form of tweets.

Digital torches and pitchforks were instantly raised and paraded all over the world in protest of Amazon's obvious anti-gay and lesbian stance. Confusion set in when it was claimed that a hacker was in fact the perp. Some thought it was an elaborate hoax, but in the end it was reported by Amazon to be a simple internal 'glitch'.

It's interesting to see how quickly this righteous indignation flared into a mission of anti-Amazon sentiment, but even more than that it shows how little we have progressed from our nineteenth--or even twentieth--century forebears. The instruments may have changed from nooses to tweets, but the intent hasn't really changed--humanity was out for a 21st century lynching.

eCommerce: Accountability and Transparency

Wayne Hartman — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:53:56 GMT

Today I received notification from my bank that my information had been compromised in a data breach of Heartland Payment Systems in late January. While I am relieved that my own data has not (yet) been compromised, this latest incident further exacerbates the ridiculous manner in which they are handled. Affected parties are not presented with detailed information on how or why the breach occurs, nor are they held accountable for the countless millions that are lost--not with fraud, but with credit card issuers who have to reissue cards, PR to explain customers the situation, and the money lost by consumers to pay for credit watching services.

When these sorts of events occur, payment processors should be required to be transparent in the details of disclosure as far as the methods used (or not) to protect the data, as well as pay for services to prevent deviant activity using a customer's stolen data. Doing so might prove costly to take such measures, but perhaps this is an opportunity to be held accountable. I as a credit card user have no visibility into which payment processors my preferred merchants use, meaning I cannot vote with my dollar as to who I will patronize or not. Maybe this is another insurance opportunity for processors to protect themselves from that exorbitant cost, but also enforce measures to prevent theft as a stipulation for the policy. I may go as far as to say we need legislation for the same.

In the end, it is important for there to be some sort of regulation to keep these sorts of things from happening. We need accountability and transparency now.

Obama To America: OK Not To Pay Taxes

Wayne Hartman — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:08:12 GMT

News came in earlier today of Obama's pick for trade secretary, Ron Kirk. Surprise (or no surprise) that he too owes America nearly $10K in back taxes. He's the latest of Obama's cabinet picks to join the ranks of tax evasionists in the new administration. Tim Giethner, Tom Daschle, and Nancy Killefer all had their tax problems brought to headline news, but it has only been Geithner who has had the audacity to stick through the Senate proceedings to be comfirmed.

What's going on here?! It seems like Obama's surrounding himself with a bunch of crooks. The message he seems to be sending here is that it's OK to not pay your taxes unless you get a cabinet position in the White House. I don't have any plans for such a job, can I stop paying too?

Despite high hopes, I've been disappointed in how Obama has been managing his own house, let alone all of America. I wonder what other dirt his henchmen got on them...

Inauguration

Wayne Hartman — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:56:08 GMT

Watching the inauguration was an interesting experience. It was quite awe inspiring to see the vast ocean of people that had converged on the Capitol to witness the affair. The event itself was not very long and the majority of those who came to witness it ended up watching it on jumbotron screens anyway.

Nothing wholly remarkable happened except Obama's flubbing of the Oath of Office. It seemed that Justice Roberts was giving him a bit more than a mouthful to say, but it seems to me that for such an occasion, you'd have the oath memorized anyway.

It will be very interesting to see what Obama does during the honeymoon. Rumors have been swirling for some time that he'll be closing the prisoner camp at Guantanamo Bay within a short period of time of taking the reigns as Commander in Chief, but we'll see. Some of the things that I'd really like to see revisited are the doctrines of domestic wiretapping and surveillance. I think there needs to be stronger controls in place and more oversight into how that program functions and carries out intelligence findings. Americans deserve a bit more transparency in this regard, and it seems to be contrary to the laws of the land in how they have been previously executed.

That's not to say that Bush didn't do what he thought was right. We live in troubling times, and in the wake of 9/11, it seemed like a good idea. But with changing of the guard, this moment best presents itself to take a step back and ask if these policies are effective and can we exercise them in a way that both safeguards America's sovereignty and respects Americans' rights to privacy.

Then, there's the economy. One of the tenants of economic theory is the idea of the 'self-fulfilling prophecy'. The idea is that if the market predicts bad things will happen, then they invariably do--not because of any substantive force outside the market, but because the market dithers in its own self-doubt. The thin line to skate though, is that if respected sources of strength try to quell the self-doubt and pessimism with over-optimism and the economy does not improve, then the market loses further confidence, the champion loses credibility, and the market spirals anyway. Obama will have a very difficult time pulling the nation out of this slump and I am sure that the outcome of this will define his first term either for good, or ill.

The Republican Party has a bit of time to pull itself together. After a bitter defeat, any self-respecting Republican ought to hope that Sarah Palin never shows her face again. I'm not sure that my laughing gut can take another round of Saturday Night Live parody, with here ill thought out responses to interview questions. Browsing through the list of potential candidates, I'm not really sure there are any rock star caliber contenders (at least not of Obama quality), but as the next four years roll by, who knows what they may come up with next.

Good luck, Obama, you're going to need it--more than we all probably know.

Censorship and the Internet

Wayne Hartman — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:58:59 GMT

Recently, I wrote about the concept of an Internet that knows no boundaries in relation to how content is distributed and consumed, but today I would like to talk about it in the broader sense of free speech and censorship.

I find Internet censorship to be a deplorable concept, not because it prevents me from consuming things that a jurisdictional entity considers inappropriate or immoral, but because it stymies the legitimate aggregation and consumption of ideas.

One of the more interesting side effects of the Information Revolution has been the unification of our people--not in some patriotic or otherwise political sense, but our entire race. We can now explore and understand the world around us in ways that were not previously possible. I can converse with someone that was present in the Mumbai attacks last week, talk to an Islamic jihadist, converse with my parents across the country, and participate in a discussion on the election of a black president. I can read about the newest innovations in the scientific world, find the latest juice on my favorite celebrity, watch a movie produced by some indie director, and play a game that some 12 year old wrote in his mom's basement. The Internet is free (libre) to our imaginations and thoughts to explore.

Therefore, it is not too hard to imagine that there are those that have expressions that differ from our own tastes and acceptances. Does that mean that the we have the right to muzzle them? Remember, the Internet is free (libre) from jurisdictional bounds, so who are we to restrict what is published there? Is child pornography justification enough to silence the innocent voices of those who may become collateral damage in the censorship fight against it? Is copyright so sacrosanct that it should smother legally distributed content as well?

Australians are in the fight of their lives to take back their freedom of speech, revoked by the government, a victim in the so called fight against child porn. It is very easy to say that these new powers won't do very much as far as stopping and preventing child porn, but it isn't too much of a stretch to say the sole purpose of these laws is to grant the government self-anointed power to control the things that its constituents publish and view.

The Internet is still new territory, that is for sure, but we have an opportunity to break down language, cultural, racial, educational, and political barriers with it. Why would we destroy it with crusades against things over which there is little or no control? Are we so myopic that we think the the tragedies of child pornography and human trafficking will be reduced (or even end) with maiming the one medium of humanity's greatest achievement of interpersonal communication?

I trust no man, not even myself, to control such power because even the wisest of the wise are not infallible, incorruptible, or undeceivable. No, let the Internet be what humanity shapes it to be. Through the portals of this great experiment in human discourse, we get to peel back the layers of filters to see what humanity really is. And maybe that is what makes it so uncomfortable to ponder--because we may not like what we see.