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Didn’t Get Everyone’s Attention

Although news reports today indicate that many Representatives and Senators who previously supported SOPA and PIPA have withdrawn their support and, in some cases, now actively oppose the bills, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is not among them.  Despite a request by six senators from both sides of the aisle, Reid says he will not postpone taking up PIPA.  Can’t fault Harry for consistency. He helped railroad the PPACA through Congress in the face of massive public opposition.
There is no word at this writing whether SOPA will be considered in the House without delay. 
For more on these ostensibly anti-Internet piracy bills see the Brookings Institution what paper on the subject at this link.
Executive Summary
Cybersecurity has dominated headlines and the attention of American policymakers. The challenge is not in recognizing the problem, but in understanding how to balance cybersecurity efforts with other policy priorities and scarce resources. Two new bills designed to combat foreign websites that infringe on American intellectual property present one of the first such decisions to Congress: how can we balance the defense of cyberspace and defense against online piracy when the two conflict?
The Senate bill S.968, or the PROTECT IP Act, and the House bill H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, have raised a great deal of controversy. This paper does not deal with the questions of economic value, free expression or other issues raised by advocates on both sides. Instead, I highlight the very real threats to cybersecurity in a small section of both bills in their attempts to execute policy through the Internet architecture. While these bills will not “break the Internet,” they further burden cyberspace with three new risks. First, the added complexity makes the goals of stability and security more difficult. Second, the expected reaction of Internet users will lead to demonstrably less secure behavior, exposing many American Internet users, their computers and even their employers to known risks. Finally, and most importantly, these bills will set back other efforts to secure cyberspace, both domestically and internationally. As such, policymakers are encouraged to analyze the net benefits of these bills in light of the increased cybersecurity risks.
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Kodak Joins the Club

http://pix04.revsci.net/G07608/a4/0/0/pcx.js?csid=G07608Regarding my post last Friday, January 13, 2012, Kodak has filed a bankruptcy proceeding.

From todays Wall Street Journal: Eastman Kodak Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York early Thursday morning, after the struggling photography icon ran short on cash needed to fund a long-sputtering turnaround.

See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204555904577169920031456052.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollectionKodak

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Getting our Attention

Sometimes it takes direct action to get our attention. We recently seem to have had more and more with the Tea Party, Occupiers, and others. Which is a good thing.
Even though I consider myself well informed, and use the Internet daily in my work, avocations, and leisure, sometimes events and issue blow by me. Thanks to Jimmy Wales, the Google people, and others, I took the time to look into the proposed legislation further limit freedom in this country.
I ask everyone to write your U. S. Representative and Senators to oppose the passage of H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the related Senate S. 968 – Protect IP Act (PIPA).
The related bills, which are, mercifully, nowhere near as long as the PPACA (“Obamacare”), so our elected representative might actually read them, seek to give the Justice Department the power to shut down Internet sites and service providers. This power is alleged to be required to protect copyright holders. Both bills are typical of the sledgehammer-to-kill-the-fly-on-the-baby’s-head approach to legislation that Congress has taken for the past several decades. There are copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in place right now that can address the individual copyright holders’ concerns.
This nation is drowning in statutory law, most of which has been ill-considered, and is to a large degree incomprehensible to those who must comply with it.
Furthermore, do we really want to give the Justice Department, under any regime, more power, and especially the power to shut down the 21st Century equivalent of a newspaper or magazine?
These bills are being brought forward by lobbyists for the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry for protection against piracy. You would think they can take care of themselves, with those kind of resources. But I recall the late liberal Democrat Hubert Humphrey cautioning that “the more power the government can do for you, the more it can do to you.”
If you have another take on this proposed legislation, please let me know.

For text of bill click SOPA 

　

For your Representative and Senators, click www.house.gov/   or www.senate.gov/

Thank you.

Bob

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Worse than Statistics

Mark Twain observed that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Well, several of Mitt Romney’s opponents, from both major parties, no less, have demonstrated that there is an even lower category.
Romney is quoted as saying “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”
This quote has gone viral, and anyone who pays the least attention to national politics, has heard at least the first seven words. The quote is literally accurate. But it is a classic half-truth; telling it out of context makes it a lie. The entire quote, in context, is
“I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn’t give me a good service that I need, I want to say I’m going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.”
The only thing wrong with what Romney expressed is that he inartfully used “fire”, a word laden with the connotation of Upton Sinclair’s fictional Chicago meat packers or of Scrooge’s threat to relieve the hapless Bob Cratchit of his position and thus condemn his crippled child to starve to death. Upon reading the full quote, it is obvious to anyone with two brain cells that fire in order that Romney was not talking about liking to fire his employees. I refuse to insult the intelligence of anyone who cares to read this by belaboring the point.

Having been an employer of over thirty years, and having observed others similarly situated, I can say with assurance that no businessperson in his right mind likes to fire employees. This by no means indicates altruism (which I do not believe is necessarily a virtue) on her part. For one thing, it is really difficult to find a good employee, and when one is found, you want to keep him or her at nearly any cost. If it is necessary to fire — euphemistically “lay-off” — employees because of lack of work, that means things are not going well – and their job is in jeopardy anyway. If it is necessary to fire an employee because of poor performance or misconduct, it means that time and resources that could be better used accomplishing the business mission must be spent finding a replacement. Then there is the possibility of an unemployment benefit claim that causes the payroll tax rate to increase. So, no employer likes to fire an employee, and many a business owner, including me, has kept a marginal worker much longer than they should have just to avoid the hassle of replacing him or her.
On the other hand, neither does an employer like not being able to fire an employee if it is, in their judgment, necessary for the business. Texas, fortunately, is what is called an employment-at-will state. In the absence of a contract, an employer can fire for any reason or no reason, and, conversely, the employee can similarly quit without penalty. (There are a number of exceptions to the employment-at-will status I will not go into as this writing is not legal advice.)
There is really no such thing as a “job” in the context I speak of here. What we are really talking about are employment opportunities, which come about when, and only when, one possesses skill, knowledge, or merely a willingness to accomplish a task or tasks that someone else is willing to exchange value for.
It is unfortunate that many have come to believe that a “job” is a right bestowed by law. The United Nations, whose General Assembly is dominated by nations who have much to gain but little to lose by promulgating platitudes, came up with The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Most nations have signed on to the Covenant, but few abide by it in practice. This pact arguably makes having a “job” a human right. President Jimmy Carter signed that Covenant on behalf of the United States in 1979, but it has never been submitted to the Senate for ratification (for obvious reasons), and thus has no legal effect here. It is unlikely ever to be ratified. And for good reason. None of the rights recognized by our Constitution bestow any right to largesse, and, while statutory entitlements have increased over the past decades, their folly is becoming all too apparent..
What the Constitution does is restrain the government from doing something unpleasant to a person for engaging in activity deemed to be a fundamental right, and it restrains the government from unnecessarily and unreasonably intruding (yes, my social conservative friends, there is a right to privacy in the Constitution, and you better take comfort that there is). For a government to provide so-called “positive rights” it must have the resources to do so. That means taking those resources from private individuals, and re-allocating or re-distributing them. Our governments, national, state, and local, do that to some degree, which is ever increasing. A tipping point will be reached – some believe it may have been already – and there will be no more wealth to redistribute. A case in point is the late, unlamented Soviet Union, whose constitution mandated all of the largesse in the above mentioned Covenant. The Soviets were never able to provide anywhere near the benefits and entitlements its constitution mandated, and it thus imploded under its own weight and ended up in the landfill of history.
A note about Mitt Romney and his tenure with the Bain Capital. Accusations have been made that under Romney, Bain took over ailing businesses, restructured them, which often involved reducing their workforce – firing employees – and resold those business for a profit. Of course, some employees lost their jobs, but if those businesses had continued on their same paths, they would have gone bankrupt and all the employees would have been out of work. On balance, Bain created many, many more opportunities for employment that it eliminated. Contrast with Solyndra, where the government acting as a venture capitalist, invested in a questionably viable business, paid lavish salaries for executives and an unneeded jim-dandy new plant, and then the company went broke. Everyone lost their jobs, proving that P.T. Barnum was right. A fool is born every minute, and most end up in liberal academia and even the White House.
Regarding the 28 minute film “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” also billed as “King of Bain” several workers featured therein have challenged its accuracy. Three employees of Unimac said, contrary to the film’s assertions that they actually received multiple promotions and raises in pay while Bain ran the company. See Featured Workers Call Bain film Inaccurate
For those interested, Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics (1954) issued as a Norton paperback in 1993 provides useful information about how to avoid being conned by statistics.
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The passing of another buggy-whip manufacturer

The year I graduated from college I became rather seriously interested in photography.  One reason, of course, is that I am a techno-enthusiast, and the intricacies of composing a scene, taking the picture, and developing and printing final photograph intrigued me. Having been born with four left feet, and consequently never adept at drawing, or any other manual art, photography seemed to be a means to artistic expression. Another reason, I suppose, was that it was the year of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up, a psychological cinema drama about a photographer in 1960s swinging London who inadvertently photographs a murder, or so he believes. I confess that the prospect of becoming a chick magnet by means of photography crossed my mind after seeing that movie. As soon as I could afford it, invested in a Canon single-lens reflex camera, which I still have, though its been unused for some time, and began taking photos with abandon. Since I soon went into the military service where nearly all posts had darkroom facilities for photo hobbyists, I didn’t have to invest in developing equipment and supplies for awhile. Most of my work was with monochrome (black and white) film. I did take quite a few color slides, but found that developing and printing color film was tricky, and too expensive. I let commercial labs do the developing for those. Upon returning to civilian life, I attempted to take photographs for pay from time to time, with some, but not much success. I remained a sometimes hobbyist, and occasionally was able to use my photographic skills, such as they were, in my work. One result was the acquisition of a good deal of equipment over the years. All in all, my interest waxed and waned throughout my adult life. Within the past decade and a half, however, film has been pretty much supplanted by electronic digital photography, as well as computer manipulation of photographs, rather than the use of smelly (and for some color processing, poisonous) chemicals in darkrooms. All kinds of interesting effects can now be had by nearly anyone with the patience to learn how.

The development of electronic photography for the masses has had a less desirable effect for some, the most prominent being the Eastman Kodak company. Around a century and a quarter ago, in 1888, George Eastman invented a camera that was simple for anyone to take photographs on a roll of film. That film could then be developed and printed inexpensively at a laboratory. The process made it possible to rank amateurs with no training (like me, 75 years later) to become photographers. More than that, Kodak’s business model was not to make money selling cameras, but by selling film, over and over again. (A similar business model emerged not long afterward, when the Gillette Company began to sell razors at nearly at cost in order to sell disposable blades over and over again.) Kodak was quite successful with its model for over a century. Then electronic technology made photographic film obsolete for most mass market purposes. There are conflicting reports regarding whether Kodak failed to realize the impact on the film market, or whether management was just too hidebound to respond to it. The company did get into the digital camera business, but it seems to have been too little, and too late. Manufacturers of mostly high-end cameras, like Nikon, Canon, and others, entered the digital market with a great deal of enthusiasm. On the strength of their reputation and panache as quality cameras and lenses for the serious photographer, they outsold the more pedestrian Kodak.

Now Eastman Kodak is contemplating filing bankruptcy, and trying to raise cash by selling its numerous patents, which may or may not have significant value. Most who will mourn its passing are the many employees in Rochester, New York, the firm’s home from the beginning. The digital electronic revolution, like political revolution, produces casualties, But it also creates opportunities. Not many farriers ply their trade to the mass market these days; but the tire business is quite healthy. Manufacturers of buggy-whips don’t easily find employment; but high-tech employers cannot find enough engineers. I haven’t seen many typewriters for sale in office equipment stores lately; but a day doesn’t pass without e-mails that advertise computers and printers. On balance, we are all better off for it.
As for Eastman Kodak, it appears to be heading for the same end as its founder. On March 14, 1932, at age 77, Eastman died by suicide with a single gunshot to the heart, leaving a note which read, “To my friends, my work is done. Why wait?”
Je pense; je suis.
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We don’t want this race to go to the bottom

The United States’ 2012 economic freedom score of 76.3 drops it from 9th to 10th place in the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal’s 2012 Index. Its score is 1.5 points lower than last year, reflecting deteriorating scores for government spending, freedom from corruption, and investment freedom.

The Index is based on a composite score on a scale of 1 to 100 of ten criteria: Property Rights, Freedom from Corruption Government Spending. Fiscal Freedom. Business Freedom, Labor Freedom, Monetary Freedom, Trade Freedom, Investment Freedom, and Financial Freedom. The score is divided into five relative categories of Free (100-80), Mostly Free (79.9-70), Moderately Free (69.9-60), Mostly Unfree (59.9-50), and Repressed (<50).

Hong Kong, which is a special economic zone of China rather than a fully sovereign nation, remains steady in the No 1 slot. North Korea is last. No. 179. Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland are Nos. 2 – 5 in that order and make up all of the countries in the Free category. Five nations are not ranked. The U.S. in 2012 ranks No. 10; 2nd behind Canada out of three countries in the North America region. Its overall score remains well above the world and regional averages.

Although the foundations of economic freedom remain strong, in the United States, recent government interventions have eroded limits on government, and public spending by all levels of government now exceeds one-third of total domestic output. The regulatory burden on business continues to increase rapidly, and heightened uncertainty further increases regulations’ negative impact. Fading confidence in the government’s determination to promote or even sustain open markets has discouraged entrepreneurship and dynamic investment within the private sector.

Among other things, restoring the U.S to the status of a Free economy will require policy changes to reduce the size of government,reforming the tax system, and restructure entitlement programs.

For more on this topic, see
http://www.heritage.org/Index/ and WSJ

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More on "Inequality"

Related to yesterday’s post, see:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/287643/income-inequality-myth-michael-tanner

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Why Inequality Doesn’t Matter

Why Inequality Doesn’t Matter: A perspective from 1980 that argues economic inequality has little impact on growth, stability, or happiness.

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New Year Dawn

Scott Adams’ Dilbert cartoon character doesn’t subscribe to the magical thinking that one random point in the space-time continuum is somehow special (See Dilbert 12/31/2011 in numerous newspapers and periodicals). Another character, offering a hug, tells him he’ll enjoy it. Perhaps.
New Years Eve bacchanals have long since had little attraction for me. For the past three or four decades my celebrations have consisted of little more than a home movie, dinner, and early to bed. It is amateur night for those who imbibe alcoholic beverages, and insist on operating two-and-a-half ton machines on the public highways and byways. But enough for curmudgeonly carping.
A new year on the calendar is a useful point for marking the beginning and end of a period. Like Dilbert says, it is random, and arbitrary. Events and eras do not usually fit nicely into defined time spans. While we speak of decades to describe cultural and social, and some times political, trends, there is always overlap of the numerically described periods. Still, we measure time and appoint certain periods and points as significant. For most of us the calendar marks the end of an accounting year for taxes, among other things. Age is significant for an number of things from being eligible to vote to becoming eligible to receive social security payments, and it is marked by birthdays. Legal remedies are foreclosed by statutes of limitations; a claim that could be worth millions of dollars becomes worth nothing at the stroke of midnight on the day limitations runs. So dates are significant. As a history pedagogue, I tell students that I do not usually expect them to memorize a bunch of dates, but they should have vague idea of what happened on 7/4/1776 and 9/11/2001, and that World War I came before World War II. It’s also a good idea to know when they were born. Fortunately, most know that, if for no other reason than they can’t wait to legally buy whiskey or similar liquids.(though those who wish to have no trouble illegally acquiring substances with similar effects.)
The New Year custom or tradition of making resolutions for self-improvement, while probably more honored in breach than in the observance, is useful for those with the self discipline to follow through. In my household, we signed up for a year membership in the Tom Landry Fitness Center (named for the legendary Dallas Cowboys coach of their first three decades) in our ongoing attempts to mitigate the effects of Father Time. Because we are both notoriously thrifty – in my case some would say miserly – we might follow through and take full advantage. This blog was conceived at the New Year in 2007, and lasted about a month. Why? I have no answer other than I just didn’t do it. However, a couple of years ago, I began writing from time to time and sending my observations and comments about current events and other items to a select group of friends and acquaintances in e-mail form. Some I submitted to the Dallas Blog of my long time friend Tom Pauken, which he usually published on line. In June of last year, I began posting my missives to this blog, and notifying my e-mail list, which has grown to over 50, when I post. I hope to continue this practice, and, of course welcome comments, both public and private.
Another tradition is necrology for the year just past. This practice marks the passing of persons who have been noteworthy for accomplishment or celebrity, which are sometimes but certainly not always the same thing. At or about when they occurred, I gave my take on the deaths of Steve Jobs, Christopher Hitchens, and Peggy Railey (there is quite an extensive article in today’s Dallas Morning News for those interested in the Railey imbroglio). There is no necessity to mention the many others in this space, as other publications have done an adequate job.
As far as the traditional prognostications go, here is my take.

International:

While recognizing that anything can happen, there is certain to be conflict of all kinds throughout the globe, mostly in southwest Asia, and sub-Saharan as well as north Africa. I believe the “Arab Spring” has sprung, but we’ll see.
I will not be surprised if the Euro goes away. The British, Scandinavians, Swiss, and Czechs wisely stayed out of the Euro Zone. Germany, France, and the Benelux countries should get tired of propping up their neighbors to the south who cannot manage to manage their economic affairs.
The futile international “war on drugs” will continue with results no different than those of the past 40 years.

National:

Again, anything can happen. But I believe Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee for President and the election will be close. The campaigns will be personal and nasty. The House will barely stay Republican and the Senate will be evenly divided, or closely so.
Unemployment rates will stay pretty much the same. The stock market will fluctuate.

State and Local:

Rick Perry will resume being governor full time. (Actually, it’s a part time job for most purposes, except getting paid.) He has been what I call the Hippocratic Governor, that is, he has done no harm. His foray into Presidential politics seemed to be a Peter Principle exercise, though.
Our drought will continue, those maybe less severe. The terrible drought of the 1950s lasted seven years; less severe ones have come in similar cycles. Hope I’m wrong that it continues at all. I am informed that the seven year cycles predicted around 3000 years ago by Joseph in Genesis, which curried favor with the Pharaoh, occurred in the same latitudes (Cairo and Austin are both close to 30 degrees North). Regardless of what authority one considers the Bible for, it is a historical document and many of the events that occurred have been independently verified, and those dependent on an agrarian economy for survival could observe weather and such.
The Texas Rangers will win the World Series. Out on a limb here, I know, but won’t be Armageddon if they don’t.
A custom or tradition Martha and I have observed for the past 15 or so years is to great the New Year dawn at White Rock Lake here in Dallas. Some have been cloudy and even rainy, but most have been bright and clear. Nearly all have been rather cold. Here is the first sunrise of 2012. May we have one as comely often this year and 366 days (it is a leap year) hence.
Here comes the sun
Cheers!
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A whipping escaped?

The news media today announced the death of Peggy Railey, who succumbed after almost 24 years in a persistent vegetative state. That length of time is easily a generation, so there are many adults today who are completely unaware of who Ms. Railey was, how she was so severely injured, or what the significance is or was. For the last of these, think of the recent acquittal of Casey Anthony, the decade and a half old not guilty verdict of O. J. Simpson, the 30+ year old imbroglo involving Fort Worth’s Cullen Davis, and any number of alleged perpetrators whose guilt seemed to be a forgone conclusion, but were acquitted by a jury.

Shortly after Easter in April 1987, Peggy, the wife of Walker Railey, the then Senior Pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Dallas, was found strangled nearly to death in the couple’s home. She did not die then, so it was not technically a death or legally murder, but her brain damage was so severe that Ms. Railey was left in a coma (technically a persistent vegetative state) from which she never awoke. For all purposes other than biological metabolism, she was dead. Her family was left with nothing but hope, which now is permanently unrequited. What if anything, can we learn from Peggy Railey’s hideous fate?.

Walker Railey was the obvious suspect, as spouses nearly always are in homicides where the perp is not immediately known. An investigation revealed he had the means, motive, and opportunity. But no hard evidence ever linked him to the assault on his wife. He later lost his pulpit, his ministerial credentials, and was found to be civilly liable to the tune of $18 million (which he was unable to pay) in a suit he did not contest. After nearly 5 years, Railey was indicted for attempted murder, tried before a Bexar County jury on a change of venue, and acquitted in 1993. The prosecution could not get beyond a reasonable doubt.

There are those who will say that the Railey affair, and the others mentioned, were miscarriages of justice brought about by the naivety or gullibility of jurors, and the entire system should be re-thought. Those who protest usually have not heard the evidence, or lack thereof, that the jurors heard, but they often do have a point. Jurors are swayed by emotion and prejudice, like other human beings. But so are judges and arbitrators and other decision makers. Nevertheless, most jurors do their jobs, dependent upon other human beings of varying abilities – witnesses, lawyers, judges – to present ambiguous facts to be sorted out. In a criminal trial, though, it is the reasonable doubt standard that creates the hurdle where those who, by logic and common sense most probably did the deed, may escape criminal conviction.

The concept of “reasonable doubt” seems to be self-evident, but some courts and some legislatures have attempted to further define it, although without much success. Beyond re-phrasing it as a doubt beyond reason, it appears incapable of further elucidation. For a century and a half prior to the 1900s, the Texas courts did not give a jury instruction defining “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” considering it to be understood by adults of normal intelligence. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals took a plunge in 1991 and defined it as the “kind of doubt that would make a reasonable person hesitate to act in the most important of his own affairs” and made that definition a mandatory jury instruction. Yet, several years later that court reversed itself, explaining that “reasonable” and “doubt” are commonly understood.  While it appears to exclude the whimsical and fantastic, or “shadow of doubt” hypotheses. It nevertheless remains the highest standard of proof required by the law.

While often criticized, especially by victims and their advocates, this standard of proof is the bulwark of the Anglo-American criminal justice system that holds that it is better that many guilty go free rather than one innocent be wrongfully punished by the power of the state. This makes paramount the interests of individuals over those of the collective, in this case, the state. Recognition of the value of the individual in this manner brought us our of the darkness of feudalism and hierarchical classes that existed in the millennia before the emergence of the modern Western World.

Still, it can be galling when the bad guy escapes the clutches of the law. One of the things I learned as a police officer, as well as a lawyer, is that happens quite a bit. I also observed that, while one might get away with criminal behavior for awhile, it eventually catches up with him. The perp that gets away today will be caught and convicted of something else later on. O.J. Simpson exemplifies the proposition that what goes around, comes around, eventually. Of course, eventually may take awhile. In the meantime must we have justice? If we do, bear in mind that if we were able to achieve it in all cases, in the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who among us would escape a whipping.