Regulatory Stupidity (or, "Is it any wonder this country is going bankrupt?")

Unbelievable:

U.S. to Require Rear-View Video on Cars

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration moved Friday to effectively require all passenger cars and buses to be equipped with rear-view video cameras to help prevent fatalities caused when drivers back over a child hidden in the blind spot behind a vehicle.

The technology, already offered in some models in the U.S., involves a small camera attached to the back of a car that sends a live video feed to a display mounted in the dashboard or rear-view mirror. It is designed to give drivers a broader view as they back out of a parking spot or driveway.

[...]

Such technology currently boosts the price of a car by as much as $200. But administration officials said the added cost is justified because the technology could potentially halve the number of deaths and injuries each year attributed to "back over" crashes, currently at about 207 and 15,446, respectively. Such crashes disproportionately affect children and elderly people.

[...]

The rule could cost the auto industry between $1.9 billion and $2.7 billion a year, according to regulators' estimates, unless auto makers can pass along the expense to consumers. But the industry is reluctant to vigorously oppose a proposal to prevent deadly accidents involving children...

I really have to laugh at that last part. First of all, why on earth would automakers not pass the cost along? Secondly, who are they kidding with this bit about the industry being "reluctant" to oppose the proposal? Obviously no one, including the auto industry, is in favor of children dying. But what should also be obvious is that the auto industry has no need to object to this regulation at all, because they know full well it will simply be one more profit-enhancing techie gizmo tacked onto each car.

That, however, is a side issue. The real issue is that nobody involved in this has had the guts to ask if the cost involved is actually worth it. No, I am not kidding.

You have to actually do the math to see what I mean. Let's start with the cost figure quoted above, of $200 per vehicle. Multiply that by 16 million, which is a conservative estimate of how many new cars are sold in America each year. That will give you the total cost of the regulation, for all cars produced in one year. The number of deaths per year was most recently 207, as quoted above. However, the Obama administration also points out that these cameras are only expected to reduce the number of deaths by half. That means to get the cost per person saved, we have to divide by 103.5, not 207. What does all of that come to? Rounding to the nearest million, it comes to $31 million for each person whose life may be saved by this regulation. Thirty-one million dollars per person, and it's not even expected to save them all. Furthermore, looking at the total cost for all lives saved, we see that it's roughly $3.2 billion. Should the nation be expected to pay $3.2 billion to save the lives of 103 people?

Is it any wonder this nation is going bankrupt?

Of course we all want to object that no cost can be assigned to a human life, but allow me to point out that this belief, as much as we need it, is precisely the problem. Just because human life has incalculable value in human terms doesn't change the reality that when something happens in the real world, and we elect to do something about it, it's going to cost real money. That money is not just going to appear magically, out of nowhere. Somebody has to come up with it, which means something else comes up short. And when the cost is mandated by law, as it is here, people are going to be paying for it whether they want to or not, and whether it's of any benefit to them or not.

It is therefore necessary to stop and ask ourselves, how much money are we actually willing to spend to save the life of a person? How much money are we willing to spend to save the lives of 103 people? Another way of looking at it might be to consider what other things might be accomplished with that money, in the absence of this regulation. What productive things can be done with 3.2 billion dollars? Yes, saving 103 lives is a productive use, but the ugly truth is that it's not very productive, is it?

The unwillingness of politicians and the electorate to wrestle with these admittedly painful questions may represent a fundamental weakness of republican government. I don't know. Offhand, I can't envision any realistic scenario whereby politicians would suddenly become willing to confront this sort of issue. But that doesn't mean issues like this are going to go away. They're going to keep coming, and we are going to keep paying for them until when, exactly?

What makes this question particularly difficult in this case is that a majority of those injured or killed in these accidents are children. Anyone who dares to challenge the regulation risks having the opposition stand up and say, "This person is in favor of children dying." That, of course, is bullshit. Nobody is in favor of children dying. However, acknowledging the fact that the death of children is a horrible thing, are we willing to spend $31 million per child to prevent it? That is an awful lot of money--enough to justify asking, for instance, where are the parents of these kids who get run over? Aren't parents supposed to watch out for stuff like that? I understand it's impossible to keep one eyeball on a kid at all times, but Jesus H. Baldheaded Christ, why should the rest of us pony up thirty-one million dollars just to help you out?

Note: I am all in favor of automakers offering these cameras as an option on their vehicles. That way people who are clearly at higher risk of this sort of accident (i.e. parents) can incur the appropriate cost, if they choose, to lessen the chance of it happening. Hell, I'd even be in favor of making the things tax deductible, if they're not already. What I have a problem with, obviously, is requiring them on every single car, which is just plain stupid, is a clear example of legislative overstepping, and is precisely the sort of pathetic, ultimately worse-than-useless political grandstanding that leads most of us to despise politics. (And that, in turn, makes it all the more likely that this sort of crap will never end.)

Note 2: Yes, I know my math ignores the injured people. I thought about this for a while and couldn't figure a reasonable way to allow for it. "Injuries" is extremely vague, and could include anything from a cut requiring stitches to full-on, almost-fatal intensive care treatment. Furthermore, I realized that even if I did figure out the math, it was probably irrelevant anyway. The total cost would still be $3.2 billion per year, forcibly taken out of the pockets of Americans, the vast majority of whom have no need for this feature at all.

------
[1/5/2011] Decided to address the issue described in the second note. Update located here.

Craigslist censorship now effective worldwide

In September, bowing to pressure from multiple state attorneys general, Craigslist.org agreed to remove all advertisements for "adult services" from its United States listings. It was big news at the time.

More recently, to virtually no fanfare whatsoever, and with no explanation, all adult services listings were removed from Craigslist, worldwide:

The ouster of the controversial section was confirmed by Craigslist to the office of Connecticut Attorney General General Richard Blumenthal yesterday, according to the Associated Press. The removal of the section from dozens of countries follows a similar action that saw it taken down in the U.S. four months ago.

Responding to the global takedown, Blumenthal called it "another another important step in the ongoing fight to more effectively screen and stop pernicious prostitution ads," the AP reported.

[emphasis added]

A couple of points need to be made in response to that. If the aim was really to "effectively screen" prostitution ads, banning them from Craigslist was absolutely the wrong move to make. As for stopping them completely...well, that is completely ridiculous. In either case, there are other, less well-known sites where ads for prostitutes can be found, and, short of absolute dictatorial control of the entire internet, there always will be. There are even real-life newspapers where "escort" ads can be found, and hypocritical attorneys general make no effort to quash them in the name of "effective screening," presumably because, unlike Craigslist, print newspapers have some political influence.

It's clear that, if there was any point at all to removing the ads from U.S. listings, it certainly was not to "effectively screen" them, nor was it to reduce them in any meaningful way. More likely, the purpose was twofold: To make the attorneys general look good on election day, especially since most of them will someday be running for more meaningful political offices, and to drive prostitution back underground, where law enforcement prefers it to be. That is, when prostitutes get away with advertising openly, in reputable locations, it becomes harder for law enforcement officials to disguise the fact that their real aim is to accomplish nothing, which in turn creates a risk that people might actually realize that nothing is being accomplished, which would presumably lead to people questioning why so many tax dollars are being spent on vice cops. (Of course, this latter reason doesn't apply in locations where prostitution is legal, which is part of why this new development is so puzzling.)

As for Craigslist reporting its action to Blumenthal's office, that seems somewhat suspicious to me. It suggests that perhaps some pressure was being applied, or at least that there was some sort of involvement on the part of that office. I am only speculating, obviously, but it is rather curious that they would do that.

Getting back to the report:

No date was specified as to when the section was removed globally, but Wired Magazine apparently broke the story this past Saturday, saying that Craigslist "quietly" took down the section from all of its international sites, including those in Canada, Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa.

I have been unable to locate any reason for why they did this on all of their international sites, nor do I have any idea, other than the idle speculation about involvement of the attorney general's office which I mentioned above. While their capitulation on the U.S. listings was fairly easy to comprehend, their action this month is not.

Continuing:

Attorneys general and human rights groups alike complained that the section was a storefront for ads promoting prostitution and the trafficking of human beings.

I would like to see some evidence that these "storefronts for the trafficking of human beings" actually existed on Craigslist. A screenshot would be nice, preferably one which has not been photoshopped. I would also like to see some hard evidence that "human trafficking" actually occurs anywhere to the degree that is often quoted in these sorts of articles (e.g., "40,000 prostitutes were shipped into Berlin this week in preparation for the Venus Faire", etc.). Unsubstantiated and/or vague quotes by concerned sounding officials or representatives of non-profit anti-trafficking organizations aren't going to cut it. I would like to see something specific and real, preferably coming from someone whose livelihood doesn't depend on the issue.

"Human trafficking" is a hot-button issue, one which is designed to get us to reflexively turn our brains off. That almost always means there is some other agenda afoot, one which "they" don't want us to know about. I doubt it's something overtly sinister in this case. More likely, it's just an attention diverter, sympathy grabber and/or budget inflator. (That's the beauty of hot-button issues: They're multi-purpose! If, that is, you are someone who wants to utilize propaganda to achieve a political aim.)

Let's tally up the "victors" in this ridiculous sideshow:

• Political whores (aka attorneys general and various posturing morons).


• Vice cops in jurisdictions where prostitution is illegal (this will improve their job security because it appears that they are actually accomplishing something, even though they are really making no substantive progress at all on the very issue which justifies their existence).


• Interpol agents and other international "cops" (that is, the ones working on the mysterious "human trafficking" problem, now that the mythical human trafficking ads have been removed from such an obvious spot--again, they appear to be making progress on "solving" the problem, while at the same time nothing real is happening).


• Anti-prostitution crusaders, especially in jurisdictions where prostitution is already legal.


• Psychotherapists, pharmacists and drug dealers. Go ahead and laugh, but what happens to lonely, gameless men who can't manage to find a good hooker to spend some time with? They get depressed. This is obviously good for people who sell drugs or who earn their livings listening to people yap about how much their lives suck. It's also good for the guys in white coats, who hold the keys to the padded rooms and straitjackets.


• Self-righteous idiots of all stripes who think this was actually a good idea. There are, quite frankly, too many to list, or to even waste my time thinking about.

And, who are the losers?

• Anyone who might actually be a trafficked human being. Not that I am willing to accept that there is a real problem with this, but if there is, and (even more absurdly) if Craigslist was unwittingly providing a platform for these traffickers, then shutting down these ads is not going to benefit the victims. It's going to make it even harder to deal with the problem, which is clearly bad for the victims.


• Prostitutes, who have to look elsewhere for cheap advertising. This is especially ridiculous in countries where prostitution is legal. Any push to drive it underground causes exactly what benefit, may I ask? Is there any sensible point to this move at all?


• Lonely men. This one is obvious. They'll have to look elsewhere, rather than patronizing a reputable site like Craigslist. It's also worth noting that if, as the attorneys general claim, any of these men are actually deterred, they are going to be losing an extremely valuable emotional coping tool, which could have a significantly negative impact on their lives.


• People who actually give a shit about freedom. This should be everyone, but alas, all too many people just don't seem to care much at all.

In conclusion, this is a large step backwards, an inexplicable and apparently nonsensical act on the part of Craigslist, and one which basically helps all the people other than those who it's ostensibly supposed to.

(Props to the Antifeminist for catching this story. It's getting so little play that I don't know if I would have noticed it if I hadn't seen it covered there.)

Presumption of guilt in rape cases?

Feminist blogger Jessica Valenti, in an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, has broadly hinted that the presumption of innocence for defendants in rape cases should be reversed--to a presumption of guilt:

Swedish rape laws don't ban "sex by surprise"...but they do go much further than U.S. laws do, and we should look to them as a potential model for our own legislation.

In fact, some activists and legal experts in Sweden want to change the law there so that the burden of proof is on the accused; the alleged rapist would have to show that he got consent, instead of the victim having to prove that she didn't give it. [emphasis added]

Got that? She's stopping short of actually saying, "we should do that in America," but it's pretty obvious she's bringing it up is because she thinks it's a good idea.

This is really, really amazing. Presumption of innocence is one of the basic foundations of law in the western world. It's one of the things which makes us civilized. Reversing this presumption would ensure that innocent people are imprisoned.

This is one of the few issues in the world which really is black-and-white: there is no crime whatsoever so serious as to merit a reversal of the presumption of innocence.

This idea is every bit as offensive, if not more so, than the worst shit that Dubya and his cronies ever managed to come up with in their eight years in the White House.

The Gawker case - is the FBI really needed?

More interesting news relating to the Gawker hack:

FBI Investigating Gawker.com Hack

NEW YORK – Investigators from the FBI were expected to meet with Gawker Media CEO Nick Denton Monday following the massive weekend hack by a group called Gnosis that paralyzed the media company’s website and temporarily forced it to stop publishing.

Unfortunately that's kind of vague, and there's no further indication of what the FBI is up to in this case. Maybe they're going to actually try to catch somebody. Or maybe they're just meeting with Denton as part of standard procedure and have little interest in protecting a site which so obviously failed to secure itself properly. Who knows.

What's interesting about this case is that, while I certainly am not going to advocate the sort of hacker break-in that happened here, there is also a definite element of "they had it coming" in this case. In other words, if the FBI decided to not take this case very seriously, it would hardly be a tragedy.

A somewhat flawed password-generation scheme

As suggested by this article, it is possible to dream up a way to have a unique password for every site you use, and not have it be a total nightmare.

How it works is that you come up with a base password, then devise a way to modify it based on which site you're using. So, for instance, if your base password is "34cheese!", and you are logging in to Gawker, you would add a letter "g" to the beginning, giving you "g34cheese!". The article suggests using three different base passwords, and separating them based on what sort of site they pertain to.

There are a couple of problems with the idea, though.

One is that it's going to eliminate quick logins, due to the need to think through the modification each time you log in. However, if you're really concerned about this, most sites have "keep me logged on" or "remember my password" options. In most cases they actually work, too. (Personally, I rarely use "remember my password" because if I do, it's much easier for me to forget it, which leads to a significant headache on the day when I find myself at a strange computer needing to access the site.)

More troublesome is that the idea isn't going to work in cases where your account is spread over a variety of sites. Gravatar accounts (anyone who uses Wordpress.com, for instance), OpenID, and others where you have the same username and login for a bunch of different, unrelated sites (such as Blogger and Google), are going to mess this idea up.

The troublesome implications of the Gawker hack

Some details from the group who pulled it off (article here)--they aren't willing to disclose exactly how they were able to hack the site, only that they have access to lots of passwords. They also commented at length on the poor security of the site. For instance:

We have had access to all of their emails for a long time as well as most of their infrastructure powering the site. Gawkmedia has possibly the worst security I have ever seen. It is scary how poor it is. Their servers run horribly outdated kernel versions, their site is filled with numerous exploitable code and their database is publicly accessible.

We will be releasing the full source code to their site as well as the full database dump later today or tomorrow, when we get enough press to stir up the release. We will also be releasing a text file describing Gawkers numerous security failings.

The reason this is troubling isn't so much that the Gawker commenter database, with passwords, was compromised. The problem is this: Everywhere you go online, you have to create a new account (with some exceptions, like OpenID or Gravatar-enabled sites). There are so many of these that people naturally tend to reuse passwords at multiple sites. The assumption when doing this is that none of these sites will be compromised. But if one of them is, and you have a password in there which you use multiple times, then you're in trouble, aren't you?

Furthermore, there is no way to know in advance whether a site is going to have problems or not. Gawker apparently was very lax in terms of security, but how was anyone supposed to know that? Furthermore, what other sites have similar problems? There is simply no way to know. (I hope, for example, that Blogger is secure. So far, I've had accounts here for six years and have never had a problem, not even when Google took over. But you never know.)

This fundamental insecurity means better password management is needed, and that is fundamentally a pain in the ass. Avoiding password repetition is virtually impossible.

Theoretically, there should be a point where a reasonable level of safety is reached just by using a manageable number of passwords for all purposes. However, there is still the possibility of making mistakes such as using a password for your Gmail account, then using your Gmail address and the same password as username and password for another site. If someone cracks that other site, they're able to immediately break into your Gmail account. You can have the best password in the world and still be vulnerable to this sort of mistake.

What a pain.

In any case, I just decided to change my Blogger password. ;)

Named blizzards? WTF?

Digging out after Aiden

With Blizzard Aiden officially on its way out, it is now clean-up time across Northeast Wisconsin....

One question...SINCE WHEN have blizzards received official names?

Another--wouldn't that massive windstorm that blew across the entire eastern half of North America a couple months ago qualify for a name?

Just wondering.

For myself, this has proved to be a waste of a day. I attempted to go somewhere around 2:00 p.m. this afternoon, but the roads were still in such poor condition (where was the road salt, exactly? WTF?!?) that I realized it was pointless. Even if I had gotten where I was going, the main highway at that location would have been a deathtrap due to blowing/drifting snow.

Why the "Dream Act" needs to fail

From earlier today:

Democrats fight to save DREAM Act immigration bill

Background: The dream act would allow any illegal alien who was brought to the United States while under the age of 16 to obtain legal status (i.e., a legitimate green card, meaning they could later apply for full citizenship) if they have been in the country at least five years, are under age 30, pass a criminal background check, and graduate from high school (or equivalent). They would then have to promise to attend college, or to join the military for two years. They would receive no government assistance. Whether or not that exclusion extends to student loans is unclear, but my guess is that it does.

It sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn't it? For one thing, it isn't a kid's fault if he's brought into the United States illegally. And it's not like a lot of people are going to be able to take advantage of this, given how prohibitively expensive college has become.

Furthermore, I don't really care about Republican concerns that some who have committed misdemeanor offenses would be eligible for legalization under this bill. That's just silly flag-waving. Criminal law is so inflated now that any significant crime is a felony, not a misdemeanor, and no mention is being made of allowing felons to stay.

Nevertheless, I don't feel that passage of this bill would be a good idea. When viewed within the broader context of illegal immigration in the United States, it would be a step in the wrong direction. Illegal immigration should never be incentivized, and that is precisely what this bill would do. In the long run, or even the not-so-long run, people would be more encouraged to go ahead and sneak into the country with their already-born kids, knowing that, even if they themselves are someday deported, at least their kids will have a fighting chance at staying. We already have a significant problem of this sort stemming from newborn children of illegals being entitled to citizenship by Constitutional right if they are born here. This would compound that problem.

What's really happening here is that the Democrats are trying to jigger a way to encourage more people to sneak into the country illegally. They do that a lot. So do Republicans--in fact, it's amusing to see the two parties haggling on these issues when they are actually far more in agreement than dissent. Republican objections in this case appear to be little more than opposition for opposition's sake, while at the same time signaling a willingness to go along with it if 1) they get the credit, and 2) the background check provision of the bill is made a bit more rigorous. The only wildcard are rank-and-file Republicans who have recently been fairly heated up about these issues as a result of the controversy in Arizona. The reality, though, is that both parties are very interested in fostering a continuing stream of incoming illegal immigrants, albeit for differing reasons. Democrats are thinking in terms of long term voter loyalty from the descendants of Hispanic illegals, while Republicans want a continuation of the rights-free exploitation-ready labor underclass which their supporters so dearly love. Obviously there are going to be some exceptions, such as Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who seems to truly care about the individual people that this bill may benefit, but exceptions don't disprove the rule, and the rule is the two parties love illegal immigrants, and have no interest in stopping illegal immigration, now or ever. It's just good politics, nothing more.

The reason I myself am opposed to the "Dream Act" is that, while these illegal children really are being treated unfairly when they are deported, the overall problems with illegal immigration are such that there is no possibility of arriving at a solution that is fair to everyone. I would rather see a greater long-term level of fairness for a larger number of people, even if it means some raised-in-America kids getting deported. Towards that end, I am also opposed to the granting of automatic citizenship for any child born in the United States. That right should contain one sole exception: in cases where a child is born to illegal aliens on American soil, those children should also be considered illegal aliens. I also support recent efforts by the State of Arizona to address their illegal immigrant problems. Nobody's suggesting firing up the ovens. However, the unfortunate reality is that if people want to address the problem adequately, some legal immigrants, as well as some full-blown citizens, are going to be inconvenienced by it. Something substantive needs to be done, and we have reached the point where more reasonable measures aren't going to do the job.

Am I mean spirited? Am I a racist?

Addressing the second question first, I am certainly not suggesting that any changes to the law should specify any particular race or ethnic group. It so happens that the bulk of illegal immigrants are Hispanic, but this is only true because we happen to share a long, difficult-to-guard border with a large Hispanic nation, namely Mexico. If things ever started getting really bad in Canada, you can bet we'd have a similar problem with illegal immigration from the north, and I wouldn't change my opinion on these matters one bit. It's a matter of geography, not race.

For the first question, the reason it seems "mean spirited" is because we are all taught to look at this problem solely from the standpoint of someone trying to get into the country. Other viewpoints are intentionally soft-pedaled, or ignored outright. The fact that illegal immigration is a humiliating slap in the face to people who painstakingly jump through the bureaucratic hoops necessary to immigrate legally, for instance, is almost never mentioned. Another common complaint, that illegal immigration puts American workers in jeopardy, is invariably characterized as an extremist conservative position, one that right-thinking progressives shouldn't even consider, as if there's nothing at all wrong with a "conservative" American losing his job to someone getting paid substantially less than minimum wage. This, of course, brings up the next point, namely the working conditions that illegal immigrants can expect once they get here. They are here to be exploited. The nice, happy sugarcoating we slather all over this issue is pure horseshit. There is no "American Dream" for these people, they are here to work until they die. They possess no legal protections, are paid inadequately, and will typically endure harsh or dangerous working conditions, along with excessive hours of work. You can claim that they would also face these problems in their home countries, but, first of all, do you know for a fact that this is true? Mexico, for instance, isn't as uncivilized a nation as a lot of Americans seem to believe. But even if that claim is true, how is it that we Americans are somehow responsible for providing relief from conditions in other nations? Shouldn't they themselves be doing that? In fact, wouldn't it be better for these nations if their own people took care of solving their problems, rather than fleeing to other countries? And, even if we could justify being the emergency rescue team for oppressed third-world peoples, why do we insist on lying about it? We are not actually helping people, except to the very limited degree provided for by legal immigration and refugee programs. No, it's all crap, it's all about politics and money, there is no higher mission or purpose here. We need to stop kidding ourselves.

I am going to succumb to the temptation to illustrate the problem with an analogy. Would we consider someone "mean spirited" if he threw an intruder out of his home? How about if the intruder is a child brought in by his parents? Sure, we'd feel sorry for the kid, but that's a far cry from allowing him to stay there, isn't it? Why are we expected to only consider the viewpoint of the intruder in illegal immigration debates? More basically, why are we so carefully manipulated into not recognizing them as intruders at all?

It's time for some truth on this issue. The "Dream Act" is not it.

I will probably have more to say on immigration issues because, surprisingly, a total border lockdown is about the exact opposite of what I would ideally prefer. However, explaining how that position is consistent with what I just wrote is going to be challenging.

Attention whoring?

I have to hand it to Zero Hedge, they do have a way with words over there:

Sarah Palin Claims Site Hacked, Credit Card Details Stolen, But Doubts Surface This Is Merely Attempt At Attention Whoring

I am primarily amused by seeing "Sarah Palin" and "whore" in the same headline. Yes, I am a nasty, nasty person. ;)

I suppose I should be nicer to the next President of the United States of America, eh?

The Assange "rape" issue

I had been planning on writing up a quick summary of this issue, providing some links to other pieces which I felt covered it in better detail than I was inclined to, and offer some comment.

I've decided not to do that.

Why?

Because, I realized yesterday, the entire Assange rape hoopla is distracting everyone from the real issues, namely the leaked information itself, and the attempted suppression of the Wikileaks site. The fact that Assange is in trouble in Sweden is irrelevant, it's an obvious case of media misdirection, and we're falling for it. Yesterday, the number of stories covering the suppression of the Wikileaks site was substantially reduced from the previous day, and coverage of the content of the leaks themselves had dropped to nothing. Virtually everything was devoted to Assange's arrest in the UK, and people's response to it.

If you think that's a coincidence, you are kidding yourself. Every minute we spend worrying about the Assange sex charges, we are doing exactly what we are expected to do, namely, pay attention to something other than what embarrasses the United States government.

I, for one, am not interested in playing along.

It is also true, however, that the Assange sex charges would be a worthwhile story in and of themselves, so here are the links I was going to post. I offer them without explanation or comment:

Taki's Magazine: Julian Assange’s Honey Trap: That’s Rape in Sweden

Counterpunch: Making a Mockery of the Real Crime of Rape: Assange Besieged

In Mala Fide: Neocon cowardice, girls who cry rape, and why we must stand behind Julian Assange, Julian Assange was accused of rape by Anna Ardin, a radical feminist who was out for revenge, and UPDATE II – The name of Julian Assange’s other false rape accuser is Sofia Wilén

Stoneleigh on Diet and Nutrition

A really, really, really excellent piece by Stoneleigh of the Automatic Earth, on diet and nutrition:

December 6 2010: Our Daily Bread, or Not, As the Case May Be...

If you value your life, read it.

One person who understands what is at stake with the Wikileaks persecution

CNBC senior editor John Carney:

The War Against WikiLeaks Is Worse Than WikiLeaks

The entire editorial is well worth reading, but I want to draw particular attention to one paragraph:

But it's a mistake to ignore the effect of this. It makes it appear as if the Free World is rapidly becoming a Closed World, in which dissenters are hounded out of public life. It only makes matters worse that it is possible that this is all happening without actual government pressure—that private actors are lining up to do the bidding of the government.

Indeed.

I am tempted to argue that it is the purpose of the corporate world to restrict people, but that would be crossing the line into overt (and silly) paranoia. More realistically, it is simply in the nature of highly regimented organizations (which all corporations are) to attract people who flourish in that environment. These people, in turn, prefer to see that portion of the world within their realm of influence brought into compliance with their preference for order--which to them implies proper submission to legitimate authority. Little or no central control is required in order to induce action on a particular issue. Broad suggestions or hints from some higher authority are often more than adequate. It's in the nature of authoritarians not just to comply with authority, but to further the cause of authoritarianism.

As for the quote, things have long been past the point of simply "appearing" that dissenters are hounded out of public life. What's unusual about the Wikileaks case isn't that the site and its editor Julian Assange are being hounded, it's that so much attention is being paid to it. He managed to capture the public eye before the powers that be had fully decided he was a significant threat (except for the question of him being wanted in Sweden on "sex crimes" charges, a side issue which is turning out to be fairly complex, but it certainly seems possible at this point that some type of behind-the-scenes government pressure is at work--more to come on this later).

More on the attempt to squelch Wikileaks

Just noticed something in the tail end of the article I linked in the previous post:

MasterCard Worldwide is also choking payments to the site.

I had mentioned depeering as an effective method of control, well, here's another method. The fact that there is no practical way to pay cash online is a significant advantage for authoritarians, possibly even more significant than depeering. Not being able to utilize cash online means you can only pay for something with the aid of a third party. There are only a few third parties with enough market presence to actually be useful, and those have proven many times that they are perfectly willing to bend over when the government asks them to.

Years and years ago, I read at least one article (possibly in Wired magazine) pertaining to the possibility of "e-cash", that is, a method of making payments online that could allow the same degree of anonymity as a real-life cash payment. Presumably it would involve a third-party intermediary, but both sides of the transaction would be anonymized, meaning the intermediary wouldn't know who was paying who. I forget how it worked, but I recall that strong encryption was involved somehow in the anonymization process (I really ought to look this up sometime, because it was a very cool idea). The idea never caught on, mainly because nobody cared, but I suppose also because there were vested interests who didn't want it to happen. It didn't occur to anyone that, someday, the de facto cartel that controls credit card payments would also be able to control the online world, simply by virtue of controlling the flow of money.

That, really, is the center of the problem: the flow of money is subject to centralized control. That should not be the case. It should not be possible to financially choke someone just because the government is pissed off.

The article also says,

In all cases, the companies have insisted their decisions are not politically motivated.

That is bullshit. "The companies" would be Amazon.com, Paypal, Mastercard, EveryDNS, and PostFinance. There isn't a single one of them who would have done what they did without government pressure, and we all know it.

There is one exception, so far--one company with enough balls to say "no", and that is Wikileaks' French ISP, OVH:

French internet service provider OVH said it had no plans to end the service it provides to Wikileaks.

"OVH is neither for nor against this site. We neither asked to host this site nor not to host it. Now it's with us, we will fulfil the contract," said OVH managing director Octave Klaba.

"It's neither for the political world nor for OVH to call for or to decide on a site's closure," he added.

This, in spite of pressure from the French government to shut the site down. Bravo to them.

Anon rules.. or do they?

Anon takes up the Wikileaks battle:

Wikileaks defended by Anonymous hacktivists

A group called Anonymous has hit sites that have refused to do business with the controversial whistle-blowing site with a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks.

It mirrors similar attacks aimed at the Wikileaks site.

Targets include the Swiss bank that froze founder Julian Assange's assets and PayPal which has stopped processing donations to Wikileaks.

Yay for anon, but in the long run, I fear the authoritarians will not only win this battle, but will win the war as well. People have been saying shit like "the internet perceives censorship as damage and routes around it" since the early 1990's (that I know of), and you know what? With the possible exception of the chaos of the late 1990's, when you could literally order videos of people having sex with animals on popular auction sites, each year that has gone by has resulted in more and more restrictions on what people can put online.

I am not sure why this is the case. In fact, theoretically, it shouldn't be. Authoritarianism is inherently an organized, orderly thing, which means it requires effort to maintain. Without that effort, entropy will wear it away--or at least, that seems like the way things ought to work. Anon is actually working on the same side as entropy in this battle, so how is it that they can be losing ground each year?

Just some food for thought.

I suppose the ultimate problem is that "the internet" is really just a bunch of computers, and if someone gets too pissed off at the contents of a particular computer, it's not that hard to pull the plug. Especially when you can do it remotely, simply by depeering it. So I suppose the problem isn't the inherent vulnerability of the internet, but the seemingly inherent tendency of people to march in lock-step when the jack-booted thugs come around.

(Also, for the record, I think the term "hacktivist" is really, really stupid. ;)

The end of stupid government ethanol policy?

Found this morning, a ray of hope on the corn-ethanol stupidity:

Ethanol on the Run

It's been well known for a long time that utilizing corn to produce ethanol for usage as an automobile fuel is basically a stupid idea, because it results in a net energy loss. Massive government subsidies aren't even enough to keep it going, the government actually has to mandate a particular level of consumption:

...also last week, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that under the 2007 energy bill Americans must use at least 13.95 billion gallons of ethanol next year, or about 8% of total U.S. fuel consumption.

This is a colossal waste of money, and, while it does tend to reduce harmful emissions where it's used, a better method would be to reduce the amount of gas being burned. No doubt we could use the money saved from eliminating stupid ethanol subsidies towards that end.

In any case, a few Senators are now speaking out about a need for change:

Last week, no fewer than 17 Senators signed a letter calling ethanol "fiscally indefensible" and "environmentally unwise." Led by Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican Jon Kyl, the group said Congress shouldn't extend certain subsidies that expire at the end of the year, including the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for blending ethanol into gasoline and tariffs on cheaper imports. Conservatives like Tom Coburn dislike this costly industrial policy, while liberals like Barbara Boxer and Sheldon Whitehouse are turning against the hefty carbon emissions that come with corn fuels.

The Secretary of Energy is also getting on the bandwagon, which is surprising to me. As far as I can recall, the Obama administration has always been very pro-ethanol, so perhaps this is a switch on their part?

Speaking at the National Press Club last Monday, [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu said that "ethanol is not an ideal transportation fuel" and that the government's focus should be "on ways that we can actually go beyond ethanol." Like most greens, he still supports so-called advanced fuels that aren't made from corn and also aren't commercially viable, but we'll take his partial conversion.

I also consider myself a supporter of "advanced fuels", although on the whole I am extremely pessimistic about how much actual utility we'll ever be able to derive from them. Certainly they will not lead to the sort of free ride that we've been getting from fossil fuels for over a century.

In any case, 17 Senators, while significant, is only a start. There is undoubtedly massive support for maintaining the status quo, as evidenced by the reaction of the ethanol lobby:

The ethanol industry is responding by predicting disaster if it loses its taxpayer feeding tubes, with the Renewable Fuels Association evoking massive job losses and another Dust Bowl. But what kind of business can't survive without subsidies when government also mandates that consumers buy its products? As the Senators dryly noted, "Historically our government has helped a product compete in one of three ways: subsidize it, protect it from competition, or require its use. We understand that ethanol may be the only product receiving all three forms of support from the U.S. government at this time."

Now, I wonder what kind of support for this can be drummed up in the House? The ideal thing, of course, would be to have the President come out against ethanol, but that doesn't seem very likely, unless he feels like throwing away the Iowa caucus and a lot of other rural-state primaries in the 2012 campaign.

"Don't Track Me!" & Concern over new web tracking methods

Some interesting details are coming out on the "Do Not Track" idea:

Q: How would the proposed "Do Not Track" feature work?

A: As envisioned by the FTC, it would be a universal setting. Instead of having to seek out the websites or individual marketing companies to ask them not to track you, you would be able to turn on a setting in your browser that would broadcast that message to any and all marketers you encounter in your Web travels.

[...]

Unlike the Do Not Call Registry, in which the government maintains a list of phone numbers, the "Do Not Track" information would be stored as something akin to a cookie in each individual browser. [emphasis added]

So, a person could essentially flip a switch on their computer that says, "Do not track me!" and, presumably, merchants would be required to comply.

This is vastly preferable, and substantially different to a central database that would identify every surfer as they moved around various websites, which I expressed serious concern about two days ago. In fact, news reports characterizing the idea as a "Do Not Track List" were incorrect, since there would apparently be no list at all.

Of course, even if a browser cookie method would be used, there would still be a risk of non-compliant merchants, as well as foreign sites who would not be subject to the rule. However, this is a much smaller problem than the potential of having someone keep track of people's identities as they surf the web.

I am undecided about whether, given this development, I now support the idea or not, although I admit I am now leaning towards support. A big question that still needs to be answered is whether it is actually necessary for the government to mandate such technology.

It occurs to me, however, that while they are dealing with this question, they should also deal with the question of what methods are used to track people. It is already known, for instance, that Flash cookies can be used to track people, including those who intentionally clear their regular cookies after each browser session. You need a special Firefox plugin to void the Flash cookies. Furthermore, when HTML 5 is finally implemented, one "feature" of it will be the ability to utilize more and "better" ways of collecting information from web surfers. There is also the problem of device fingerprinting, which is already here. Will a "do not track" list put a damper on this sort of horseshit? Because, if it doesn't, then it is obviously useless.

There is also the question of whether the upcoming Republican Congress will even be willing to consider any of this.

Julian Assange interview transcript

The Guardian has been kind enough to post a transcript of Julian Assange's recent chat/interview with Guardian readers:

Julian Assange answers your questions: The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, answers readers' questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables

Definitely worth a look. Of particular interest:

rszopa:
Annoying as it may be, the DDoS seems to be good publicity (if anything, it adds to your credibility). So is getting kicked out of AWS. Do you agree with this statement? Were you planning for it?
Thank you for doing what you are doing.

Julian Assange:
Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit in order to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.

In other words, they picked Amazon.com as a server precisely because they felt it's public position on free speech issues was more posturing and PR than reality. And yesterday, this proved to be correct. Ouch.

Also:

Fwoggie
I'll start the ball rolling with a question. You're an Australian passport holder - would you want return to your own country or is this now out of the question due to potentially being arrested on arrival for releasing cables relating to Australian diplomats and polices?

Julian Assange:
I am an Australian citizen and I miss my country a great deal. However, during the last weeks the Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the attorney general, Robert McClelland, have made it clear that not only is my return is impossible but that they are actively working to assist the United States government in its attacks on myself and our people. This brings into question what does it mean to be an Australian citizen - does that mean anything at all?

On the less sunny side, however, when pressed on the question of whether the recent leak will be responsible for essentially messing up diplomatic relations between nations, Assange responds:

If you trim the vast editorial letter to the singular question actually asked, I would be happy to give it my attention.

Granted, the question was rather lengthy--in fact, I decided not to post it here because of that. However, it would have been quite interesting to read an on-point response from Assange, rather than what amounts to an evasion, as evidenced by the fact that at least one other question was roughly the same length, and he answered that one just fine.

The question of him being wanted in Sweden for "sex crimes" is also neglected, although apparently because no one bothered to ask about it. Overall, though, the transcript is well worth reading.

Stupidity in the Senate

Republicans threaten to shut down Senate until deal reached to extend tax cuts

Renewed partisan fury engulfed the Senate on Wednesday, as Republicans threatened to block all legislation until a deal is reached to extend expiring Bush-era tax cuts, potentially derailing the Democrats' busy, end-of-year agenda.

You know what? Just setting aside for the moment the question of whether these tax cut extensions are a good idea or not, why is it that the Democrats will almost certainly allow the Republicans to get away with walking all over them like this? Not that I ever expect the Democratic party to ever have any balls anymore, but really, what ought to happen in a situation like this is very simple: Republicans threaten to shut down the Senate, Democrats reply with, "Go ahead. Make my day."

Seriously. Especially at a time like this, when, by allowing a Senate shutdown, they will actually win the dispute. How? If no action is taken on this issue by the end of the year, the tax cuts expire, which is exactly the opposite of what the Republicans want. In any other legislative body in the world, delivering an ultimatum like this at a time like this would be sheer stupidity. But when Democrats are your opponents? Nope. Poke 'em in the right spot, and they'll bend over, every time.

So we can expect, in the near future, to read about a compromise deal being reached on the tax cut extensions. It will be almost indistinguishable from what Republicans are asking for, and Democrats will declare it a victory for "bipartisanship."

Netflix, Wikileaks

Netflix is a bandwidth hog. Who will pay? (Hint: You.)

The traffic that Netflix is creating at this point is only the beginning--as a Netflix member myself, I can confidently state that they are doing everything they can to push their membership away from DVD-only usage and towards the "view instantly" option, which means their overall bandwidth usage is likely to continue to increase above and beyond its current astronomical level. That's going to require some infrastructure adjustment going forward, and that is going to cost money.

Who should pay for it? Accepting the truth that any company is going to pass along whatever costs it can to end users (meaning us), there are basically two options. 1) Netflix users themselves, or 2) Internet users in general. Which is more fair? Right now, "watch instantly" carries no limitation at all, so a person can conceivably spend every waking minute downloading movies if they want to...up until their ISP complains to them about the endless gigabytes of downloads and tells them to back off. I'm thinking the best approach here would be to force Netflix to back off on their unlimited usage idea, putting a limit on how much individual subscribers can access. Those who want more could pay for it, and Netflix could pass that money along to other companies. The alternative would be for Netflix to just keep on doing what it's doing, which would force the costs onto other companies, who would pass it along to their customers. The problem with this approach is that they don't know who uses Netflix and who doesn't, so they would probably just increase rates for everyone, or, worse, start implementing metered billing structures. I'd rather avoid any of that crap, myself. So, this whole question puts me in the surprising position of taking the side of Comcast. I guess Hell must be freezing over today, as well. ;)

Did Amazon Just Pull the Plug on the WikiLeaks Website?

Yes they did. Not much to say on this one, other than that they will no doubt find another place to host the site. I suggest Russia. Apparently, some of the leaked material was quite flattering to Vladimir Putin, so the Wikileaks people are not likely to run into any problem finding a new home there, right? Except Russia may not want to annoy the United States government, which is seriously pissed off about recent Wikileaks leaks. :P

In fact, as I typed the last couple of paragraphs, there is already a new development on this: "WikiLeaks moves URL to Swedish hosting firm after Amazon 'ousted' the controversial site." Bravo Sweden. I wonder how long that is going to last?

Of peripheral interest to the Wikileaks story:

WikiLeaks Founder's Mom: 'Don't Hunt My Son'

My general feeling on Julian Assange is that someone should give the guy a medal. Problem is, all the people who would be likely to do that are exactly the people he insists on pissing off. Coming soon, damaging information on a large bank. Which one? Who knows. He's going to end up wishing he was Salman Rushdie, at this rate.

More on "Do not track"

A detail I failed to notice the first time, on the "do not track" list idea covered in the previous post:

The FTC is not yet calling for do-not-track legislation in Congress, but Web browser makers and other Internet companies should act quickly to implement a universal do-not-track list, Leibowitz said. [emphasis added]

So it looks, perhaps, like identification of the person who doesn't want to be tracked would be handled at the browser level, and based on that, there would need to be a way for merchants to identify which browser/user is which. That means some kind of unique identifier. In other words, if you want this to work, you have to set up an online ID system for web users. This, coming from a government whose record with respect to the privacy of its citizens is pretty damn spotty.

Does a "Do Not Track" list make sense?

The FTC is proposing a "do not track" list for web users, which would prohibit ad networks and websites from tracking people's movements as they browse the web:

The do-not-track list, modeled after a national do-not-call list targeting telemarketers, would help consumers better protect their privacy because a uniform mechanism for opting out of online tracking does not yet exist, the FTC said in an online privacy report released Wednesday. The do-not-track list could be implemented by the Internet industry or by the U.S. Congress, the FTC said.

While I applaud a move towards protecting individual privacy online, I question whether this is actually a good idea. How would it work, exactly? Would a person register by name, or by IP address, or what? If I decided I didn't want to be tracked at home, would that also apply to work? Could my employer require me to allow myself to be tracked at work? If it's based on IP address, then what happens when my IP address changes? If registration is by name (or some other non-IP method such as ISP subscription account), how are they going to know it's me that's online at any given moment? That last question is actually the one that bothers me the most. It's entirely possible that this move, in order to work, would require implementation of technology even more fundamentally intrusive than tracking cookies, which, quite frankly, are not all that bad.

It seems like a whole can of worms might be cracked open if this goes forward. Furthermore, there are ways right now that people can guard themselves against this stuff. One step I take myself is to disable third-party cookies in my web browser. That doesn't take care of everything, obviously, but it's a start. Of course, there are always trade-offs. Disabling third-party cookies has the side effect of making both my Blogger and Wordpress logins not "stick" between browser sessions, due to both of these sites utilizing third-party cookies to track logins. This is the exception, not the rule, however. My feeling is, the vast majority of third-party cookie usage is not something that benefits the rank-and-file web user.

A person can also utilize browser plugins like Adblock Plus or NoScript, or even FlashBlock, to help foil online trackers. Those who are really hardcore can set their browsers to delete all cookies on exit. I believe most browsers even have a setting allowing outright refusal of all cookies (although I suspect a lot of sites would "break" if that was activated).

There is also at least one browser plugin available that takes care of Flash cookies, which aren't affected by normal cookie settings. (Offhand I can't recall the name of it, I'll have to look it up and report back later.)

The point is, I am sitting here wondering why in the world this is even needed.

Chunks, Eggs en Phoenix

I've decided I'm going to take a stab at this blog again. Recent events relating to one of my other blogs somehow managed to spur my interest in this. I've been noodling along on Wordpress.com for a couple years now, but in general I find that platform to be rather frustrating, for various reasons, not least of which is that I can't even choose the damn font on the layout that I like. Also, the user interface is just too cluttered, in my opinion.

It's been a while since I've been active here, and a lot has happened in the meantime. I find that many of my political views have evolved, so much so that I may have to go back through old posts to see if what I wrote is even consistent with what I believe anymore. I assume I will find many such posts, and that then raises the question of what to do about them. There are various possibilities. 1) Delete them. I tend to be loathe to do this, however. 2) Add some kind of notation at the beginning, indicating that the post is no longer reflective of my views. A more reasonable approach, to be sure. 3) Same as #2, except also adding a new post indicating my current views on the subject, and crosslinking the two posts. This is an ideal, one which I can easily see myself sliding away from. So I'm not going to do it every time.

I also need to look at some potential layout changes, mostly to sidebar links and such. I had an idea of trying to organize third-party links according to how they fit in with this blog, i.e. science, technology, politics. A lot of the links there may also be defunct or out of date now, too.

Of course, all of this is predicated on whether or not I can manage to find time to actually do all of this stuff. ;)