Category: Political

Reading some articles by Siva Vaidhyanathan in preparation for an EFF-Austin copyright dinner on Tuesday.
Great quote lifted from a SlashDot interview.
SV: I think the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) is misnamed. I don’t consider it a copyright act. I consider it an anti-copyright act. Copyright is a fluid, open, democratic set of protocols. Conflicts are anticipated by Congress and mediated by courts. The DMCA wipes out the sense of balance, anticipation, and mediation, and installs a technocratic regime. In other words, code tells you whether you can use a piece of material. Under copyright, you could use a piece of material and face the consequences. The DMCA replaces the copyright system with cold, hard technology.
It takes human judgment out of the system and drains the fluidity out of what was a humanely designed and evolved system.

via Dan Gillmor
One 36-year-old U.S. law can be broken, it seems. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who is sworn to enforce all laws, has told federal employees that they can bend — perhaps even break — one law, and he will even defend their actions in court. That law is known as the Freedom of Information Act.

CERES: Company executives could find themselves losing protection against climate change-related liability claims brought by shareholders. SwissRe, the world’s second-largest reinsurer, has announced it will withdraw coverage of such claims for senior executives of companies that fail to adopt adequate climate change policies. In the November issue of Environmental Finance, Roger Wenger of SwissRe said, “As an insurer, we only give coverage to ‘fortuitous events.’ If it is predictable that a liability would arise, we would have to exclude that cover from the policy.”
more seriously, from Gil Friend’s weblog

What’s the difference between Chanukah and an SUV? Chanukah is about a day’s worth of oil lasting 8 days, whereas an SUV is about 8 days worth of oil lasting one day.
via Gil Friend

… in which doc asks for more credit for acknowledging the contributions of feminism.
Requested and granted 🙂
Especially since Doc regularly cites the girls in the gang as a matter of course. That’s why I was surprised and disappointed to see such apparent misreading of history. Halley doesn’t get off so easy because of the historical errors and propaganda-swallowing, as Sheila anwered so well.
… and asks for positive contributions building on Halley’s insight…
There is a point here. I agree thoroughly with Ruth that there’s a continuing need for a political movement to improve the status of women in society.
But for those of us who are lucky enough not have to fight for women to be allowed to go to school, or hold a job; or own property, or vote… those of use who take for granted women’s full participation in society… the rhetoric of the last generations’ battles may be less helpful on a day-to-day basis in building identity and politics.
… back to Doc, then, to clarify what he found insightful about Halley’s comments, what struck a nerve.

Lotta response to Halley’s Girlism blog entries, which bug the heck out of me.
Basically, Halley is in favor of using one’s feminine wiles to get ahead in the workplace. “Women want to be sexy girls and use all the tricks girls use. Crying, flirting, begging, winking, stomping their feet when they don’t get their way, general trotting around showing off their long legs and whatever else they decide to show off thereby distracting and derailing men.” And she has a stereotype of feminism as the exclusive property of butch dykes, right out of Rush Limbaugh.
Doc finds Halley’s flirtatious approach appealing and charming; he and his wife both agree that feminism is boring. I’m glad that Doc and his wife have had so little experience with sexism that they can’t remember why feminism was ever relevant in the first place.
My grandmother wasn’t allowed to finish high school. My aunts had to fight to go to college. Early in my career, I worked in a place that had big gender disparities in pay (and had a male mentor who researched the subject and got me a big raise). I’ve seen women who flirt with the boss, sleep with the boss, and get their cute butt canned when things go sour.
I’m really not persuaded that the best response to injustice is to giggle and flirt.
Via doc, Sheila Lennon responds to Halley with a testament on the last wave of the women’s movement, about equal pay for equal work, being respected as a woman instead of dismissed as a girl, legal birth control, and first-hand reports on the sexual revolution.
Doc finds feminine style attractive in women; and that’s peachy.
But the point isn’t to make all women chop their long flowing tresses and wear blue jeans. The point is that people are different from each other. Some of these differences line up by gender averages, and some of them don’t. I have straight guy friends who wear more nail polish than I do. I have lesbian friends who own more make-up than I do. I have many male friends who love to cook and are dedicated parents. I have short hair, like books, hate shopping, like cooking, and find violent first-person shooter games really boring.
These things don’t line up in neat little rows by gender stereotypes, and that’s part of the lesson of feminism for me.

Washington Post story here.

• A news feature about how China’s economic growth has outstripped India
• A Kristof column talks about the Chinese government’s coverup of an AIDS crisis in rural areas, set of by a government blood-collection program
• Ascience story writes about high rates of suicide in the Chinese countryside

The glowing numbers that support the first story do not include the provincial poverty shown in the other stories. This Economist article from earlier this year talks about Enron-sized flaws in the Chinese economic growth numbers.

Christian Science monitor interview with the journalist who’s been covering the bill. Good mid-level overview of the content and implications of the bill.

“Secrecy is also a chief concern among critics. The Homeland Security Department’s actions will largely be exempt from Freedom of Information Act oversight by ordinary citizens and will be subject to a decreased level of congressional oversight, critics say.”
“Congress has, to a large extent, left it to the Bush administration to take actions it deems necessary. Critics say this is a blank check that could seriously erode civil liberties by opening the door to widespread surveillance, including creation of a centralized databank collecting all available electronic information on individuals. Supporters say tough measures are necessary during tough times. They stress that the administration will not abuse its powers.”

The founding fathers created laws to forbid searches without warrants and secret trials because they knew from experience with European monarchies that these sorts of policies were subject to abuse. The laws and policies should protect citizens in case the government abuses our trust. That is part of what they meant when they talked about forming “a government of laws, not of men.”
Don’t other people remember this from civics class (and I wasn’t paying that close attention, either)? Do the legislators remember?

from Kurt Hanson’s blog, via SlashDot
“In a stunning victory for webcasting, both the Senate and the House of Representatives unanimously passed a revised version of H.R. 5469 late last night that clears the way for copyright owners to offer webcasters a percentage-of-revenues royalty rate, essentially allowing the parties to mutually agree to override the CARP decision of last spring.”
Aggressive lobbying stopped previous versions of the legislation with fixed royalty fees that would have put small webcasters out of business, and helped pass a bill that allows small webcasters to pay fees on a percentage of revenues.
The story isn’t over, according to a Washington Post article; rather than fixing the rates the bill delegates rate-setting to a negotiating process between SoundExchange, a recording industry organization, and the webcasters. But small webcasters support it, according to the coverage I’ve seen.
The Post article doesn’t display correctly in Mozilla, but appears fine in IE.