isen.blog

Quote of Note: Nouri al-Maliki

2008-07-20T22:57:00.001-04:00

"[US troops should leave Iraq a]s soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in interview with Der Spiegel July 19. [link]

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Iraq, Obama, Occupation, Oil, Press, QuoteOfNote, War

Quote of Note: Phil Gramm

2008-07-20T04:26:00.001-04:00

"In economics, we define labor exploitation as paying people less than their marginal value product. I recently told Ed Whitacre [former CEO of AT&T, who retired with a $158 million pay package] he was probably the most exploited worker in American history because he took Southwestern Bell, which was the smallest of the former Bell companies, and he turned it into the dominant phone company on earth. His severance package should have been billions."

Phil Gramm, John McCain's economics advisor, in June 28 WSJ interview. [link]

[The rest of the interview is just as breath-takingly bloodless. Guess Gramm and company have not gotten the memo yet.]

Technorati Tags: AT&T, Economics, JunkEconomics, QuoteOfNote, Stupidity

Fact-Check Follies

2008-07-15T11:36:00.000-04:00

Dave Farber published a link to factcheck.org on his IP list. Looks like a lot of good stuff there on political lies, etc., but the one fascinating "fact" article that got my attention said that trains can move 438 tons one mile on a gallon of fuel. I dug into it, and it came up short. Factcheck documented the 438 ton-miles per gallon claim nicely. So hey, it's a fact.

But then they try to frame this fact in the context of railroads versus trucks, and they completely fail to answer the question, "How many ton-miles per gallon for a truck?" They quote trucking association executives, "fair and balanced" news-story style, but never address the basic question.

So I did a little Googling and some back-of-the-envelope . . . the max legal gross weight of a truck in the US is 40 tons. The consensus of several sources is that an 18-wheeler gets six miles per gallon on a good day with a following wind (though the average seems to be more like four). So, assuming
1) All of that 40 tons is cargo,
2) trucks are always loaded to the max and never deadhead,
3) trucks get 6 mpg average,
then trucks move 240 tons on a gallon of fuel.

In other words, even when truck efficiency assumptions are absurdly optimistic, trucks only get about half the cargo moving efficiency of rail.

Some more realistic assumptions:
1) 30 tons of cargo to max gross (subtracting empty weight of truck)
2) with light loads, deadheading, et cetera, average load is 75% of max gross
3) 4 MPG
then more realistically, trucks move 90 tons one mile on a gallon of gas diesel.

OK, so the "fact" behind the original factcheck article is that trains are something like five times more efficient than trucks. Factcheck missed this altogether. I wonder how they *really* do on the candidates?

Technorati Tags: DaveFarber, Framing, Press

Obama lead falls to three points

2008-07-13T13:00:00.001-04:00

A recent Newsweek poll shows Obama's lead over McCain is down to 3%, 44-41.

No wonder, considering this LA Times story.

The Constitution Dies Tomorrow

2008-07-08T17:38:00.001-04:00

Link

Obama's run to the center, OK, you gotta do whatcha gotta do. I'm not happy, but OK. I'm votin for ya. I don't understand politix, but hey, I'm votin for ya.

HOWEVER . . . when only 15 (+/-) senators support what's written in black and white in the superseding Law of our Land . . . ?

Perhaps the biggest surprise has been Timothy B. Lee's excellent Ars Technica analysis.

Glenn Greenwald has also done hero's work over at Salon.

I'm hoping against hope that there's another rabbit in that hat . . .

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Constitution, FISA, FourthAmendment, Wiretap

Quote of Note: Chris Dodd on FISA

2008-06-27T00:27:00.001-04:00

"Under the legislation before us, the district court would simply decide whether or not the telecommunication companies received documentation stating that the President authorized the program and that there had been some sort of determination that it was legal.

"But, as the Intelligence Committee has already made clear, we already KNOW that this happened.

"We already KNOW that the companies received some form of documentation, with some sort of legal determination.

"But that’s not the question. The question is not whether these companies received a “document” from the White House. The question is, “were their actions legal?” It’s rather straightforward—surprisingly uncomplicated.

"Either the companies were presented with a warrant, or they weren’t. Either the companies and the President acted outside of the rule of law, or they followed it. Either the underlying program was legal or it wasn’t.

"Because of this legislation, none of the questions will be answered, Mr. President. Because of this so-called “compromise,” the judge’s hands will be tied, and the outcome of these cases will be predetermined. Because of this compromise, retroactive immunity will be granted and that, as they say, will be that. Case closed.

"No court will rule on the legality of the telecommunications companies activities in participating in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program.

"None of our fellow Americans will have their day in court.

"What they will have is a government that has sanctioned lawlessness.

"Well, I refuse to accept that, Mr. President. I refuse to accept the argument that because this situation is just too delicate, too complicated, that this body is simply going to go ahead and sanction lawlessness.

"We are better than that."

Senator Christopher Dodd, D-CT, on the Senate floor, June 24, 2008. [Link to complete text of Dodd speech.]

Technorati Tags: Bushco, ChrisDodd, Constitution, FourthAmendment, QuoteOfNote, Telco, Wiretap

More on "Obama weasels on FISA"

2008-06-26T01:33:00.001-04:00

Many of the comments on the previous post have the flavor of, "Politican bad, whadaya expect."

This attitude is fukct -- witness the last eight years. If we're not political, the crooks and their puppets run the show. We have to be political, even if it means we need to criticize the candidate we disagree with less.

Sure Obama's lukewarm FISA position stinks, but consider the alternative. Our lives hang in the balance. Me, I'm still voting for Obama over Grandpa McSame even if Obama is cynical and "pragmatic" on this FISA bill.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Obama, Rant

Obama weasels on FISA promise

2008-06-24T10:22:00.000-04:00

The House has voted to pardon illegal spying by telephone companies. The Senate is about to vote sometime in the next few days. Senator Barack Obama promised last February on October 24, 2007 to filibuster any bill with retroactive immunity in it, but now he's gone lukewarm, saying he'll try to remove the retroactive immunity, but he supports the current FISA bill.

I am very disappointed. I had hoped Obama would actually do the right thing.

Maybe he still will. If we let him know. I've been contacting Obama's tech advisors, the most important of which is larry.strickling@barackobama.com to tell them what I think of Obama's FISA weaseling on our Bill of Rights.

I've also called Obama's Senate office to express my opinion: (202) 224-2854

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Constitution, FourthAmendment, Freedom, Obama, Telco, Wiretap

George Carlin

2008-06-23T08:55:00.001-04:00

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits. [link]

Thanks, George. We will miss you.

Technorati Tags: Constitution, FCC, FirstAmendment, Press, RIP

Must See TV: Constitutional Expert on FISA "compromise"

2008-06-21T07:14:00.000-04:00

How bloggers held Democratic congress critters' feet to the fire, and why we have to do it again right now!

Technorati Tags: Bushco, FourthAmendment, Telco, Wiretap

Quote of Note: Dan Froomkin

2008-06-21T07:10:00.001-04:00

"What kind of a country is it where, when the head of state asks you to do something that may well be illegal, but assures you that he considers it legal, you can't be held accountable for doing it?

Welcome to the new U.S. of A.

Under the surveillance "compromise" that the House of Representatives approved today, telecommunications companies that participated in the government's warrantless surveillance program would get immunity from civil lawsuits as long as they showed that they were told that the program was authorized by [the President] and was determined by his legal team to be lawful."

Dan Froomkin in his Washington Post blog, White House Watch, Friday, June 20, 2008. [link]

Technorati Tags: Bushco, FourthAmendment, QuoteOfNote, Telco, Wiretap

The fix is in for retroactive telco immunity

2008-06-19T15:43:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: Here's the ACLU's hard-hitting summary.
UPDATE: Here's Glenn Greenwald's critique in Salon.

The FISA Telco Immunity and Hiding Bushco Outrages Bill is back. Congress is about to give away out rights as Americans to the telcos again, in much the same way it almost did in February. [link] [link] [link] In so doing, it will prevent trials that would certainly expose Bush Administration violations of civil rights of American Citizens.

Congress seems to think its job is to defend the telcos and the Administration, not the Constitution.

The house vote is tomorrow. The Senate vote will surely follow soon.

The new bill is framed as a compromise. The "compromise" is that a District Court is the final arbiter, but all a District Court Judge must do is record that the Attorney General certified that previous illegal acts by telephone companies were

". . . designed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack, or activities in preparation for a terrorist attack, against the United States."

My tomato garden is designed to grow gold nuggets. My outhouse is designed to fly. I hereby certify. Let me off the hook judge.

Wash Post article here. Text of so-called compromise here [.pdf], see pp 88-93 for the immunity provisions.

Call your congressperson NOW.

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Constitution, FourthAmendment, Telco, Wiretap

isen.blog word cloud

2008-06-19T08:08:00.004-04:00

The isen.blog word cloud, March 11-June 19, 2008, created with wordle.

Meet the newest Internet Governance Body

2008-06-11T09:24:00.002-04:00

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will now determine what we can and can't access on the Internet, thanks to Verizon, Sprint, Time Warner Cable and New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo. [link to New York Times article]

Of course, if we pay, we can evade the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's filters, the New York Times points out.

Nowhere in the Times' article does the problem of false alarms -- the blocking of Web sites that have nothing to do with Missing and Exploited Children -- come up. Nor does the problem of chilling effects. Nor does the problem of the privatization of governance.

According to the LA Times, France, Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Canada and New Zealand already "have implemented similar measures." And from my travels, I know that Israel and Japan are considering national censorship programs.

This is, in my humble opinion, a populist wedge issue to undermine the Internet's neutrality. I wish the carriers would stay the &^%$ out of content.

Technorati Tags: Censorship, NetworkNeutrality, privatization

Quote of Note: George W. Bush

2008-06-10T07:26:00.001-04:00

"Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?"

George W. Bush, White House Press Conference, January 28, 2008, quoted here.

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Economics, HubbertsPeak, Oil, QuoteOfNote

Bill Moyers v Fox News: You Decide!

2008-06-07T15:43:00.001-04:00

This clip, shot this morning, is must-see TV . . . I was on the edge of my chair!

Technorati Tags: BillMoyers, Press, NMRC08, video, wingnuts

The George Gilder crime community

2008-06-06T04:36:00.000-04:00

So I can't begin this without saying that, notwithstanding the below, I have a warm spot in my heart for George Gilder. I get him, and I really like him. Plus I owe him big time; my first paying gig out of AT&T was writing up The Stupid Network for Gilder's newsletter. He's been a generous soul to me, even after it became obvious that his politics, which came from the wing-nut right in the first place, turned right again after the Stupid Network while mine resumed course towards the left.

The recent dual indictment of Broadcom CEO Henry Nicholas, who I met at Gilder's Telecosm, made me look back and realize that I've never been in such a thick den of thieves as Telecosm. The criminals (and alleged crooks) I met there included not only Nicholas, but also Michael Milken, Charles Keating, Joe Nacchio, and Gary Winnick.

I think George would say they were indicted for "financial creativity," especially Milken (see Gilder's eloquent defense here), except, maybe, for Nicholas' second indictment, which included charges of spiking the drinks of unsuspecting customers and employees with psychedelic drugs. This latter is an offense I equate with rape.

I can't remember which Telecosm I met Nicholas at, but I remember that I violently disagreed with his centralized conception of how networked content creates value. George felt called to intervene in our hallway argument as a large crowd gathered, and did it graciously. But I didn't like Nicholas from the git-go.

After Global Crossing crashed in 2002, Gilder called it Global Double Crossing. A few years before, though, I vividly remember its founder, Gary Winnick, mesmerizing an after-dinner Telecosm crowd with tales of optical pulses flying around the world with nary a legacy telco in sight. Not only did I remember, I bought! I helped finance about $20,000 of Winnick's ill-gotten loot.

Charles Keating was a regular Telecosm attendee, but I don't think he ever spoke there. I never spoke to him either, I just glared at him when he got close to me. He was the chairman of the Lincoln Savings Bank, the corrupt showpiece of the S&L crisis of 1989, which moved savings out of the accounts of widows, orphans and retirees, and into the pockets of corrupt bank officials. Keating is also the namesake of the Keating Five, a group of four Democratic Senators and one maverick Republican (guess who!) who were caught improperly influencing federal bank investigators to go easy.

I served on at least two Telecosm panels with Joe Nacchio. Nacchio was a bad guy when he briefly headed my business unit at AT&T; we actively resisted his imperious top-down edicts. Then he became a good guy when he took over at Qwest. Then he became a bad guy when Qwest bought ailing ILEC US West, but then he became a good guy again because he managed the merged entity well through the Bust. Then he became a bad guy again when he sold his Qwest stock even as he touted it in public. And now he's a good guy again -- in my book, for sure -- because he was the only telco exec with enough balls to tell the NSA domestic spying guys to come back with a warrant. But he's still under indictment, slippery as a banana on appeal.

Of the five -- Nicholas, Milken, Keating, Nacchio and Winnick -- Winnick is the only one I've ever heard George Gilder renounce. Yet he's the only one (as far as I know) to escape indictment. The other four have been found guilty at least once, and Milken and Keating are alumni of this nation's institutions of higher punishment.

None of them were very scary. The four who exposed their thinking to me (all but Keating) were smart, articulate and fascinating. Yet I'm reminded of Woody's verses from Jesse James:

Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won’t never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

Technorati Tags: GeorgeGilder, JoeNacchio

Kangaroo won't jump high enough

2008-06-02T03:31:00.001-04:00

The Miami Herald reports:

The Defense Department was mum Friday on the reasons for the abrupt removal of a Guantánamo war court judge . . . Military prosecutors had been pressing [the judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback III] to set a trial date, but he has repeatedly directed them first to satisfy defense requests for access to potential evidence. At a hearing earlier this month, he threatened to suspend the proceedings altogether unless the detention center provided records of [the prisoner's] confinement.

The English language doesn't have words strong enough to describe the despicable absence of shame, empathy and respect for the rule of law. We are witnessing the institutionalization of sociopathy.

Technorati Tags: Bushco, FifthAmendment, FourthAmendment, Organizational Culture, Torture

Another Reason Not To Teleconference(!)

2008-05-30T16:18:00.002-04:00

Continental Airlines took out a half-page ad in today's Financial Times (page 3) that reads:

"BusinessFirst. Another Reason Not To Teleconference . . . you'll enjoy a comfortable sleeper seat, gourmet food and wine . . . warm cookies, and a made-to-order sundae . . ."

Then there's the the no-humor zone, the war against more than 3 ounces of any one moist substance, the inane announcements, the border-crossing bullsh*t, the takeoff and landing delays, the absence of Internet connectivity, the lost and damaged luggage, and the crying baby two rows back . . . not to mention the escalating prices and the obscene carbon footprint . . .

Teleconferencing must be getting pretty good for the airlines to be advertising against it! In fact, it is.

The host of my recent trip to New Zealand just tried Cisco's high-end telepresence system and he raved, Telepresence is just AMAZING! I tried it too a couple of months ago, and it was superb -- the eye contact was perfect (how'd they do that?), the resolution was great, the delay was imperceptible, and all-in-all it was like being there.

"Gourmet" food notwithstanding, if I had a meeting overseas with people I knew already, and I could telepresence instead of BusinessFirst, I would.

And if I could buy telepresence futures as a hedge against the next pandemic, or even against radical price increases for airplane tix, I'd do that too.

Technorati Tags: Cisco, ClimateChange, HubbertsPeak, Oil, Travel, Telepresence

Computerworld covers my Wellington NZ speech

2008-05-22T18:25:00.000-04:00

Computerworld.co.nz has just posted their story entitled,
"Telcos a threat to online security, claims author;
Network intelligence is the enemy in 'nightmare scenario'"
on my TUANZ talk in Wellington ten days ago. An excerpt:

Then there is the most plausible of nightmares — the one concerning traffic prioritisation. “In my nightmare, once the telephone company has some applications that generate more revenue, because they’re subject to ‘management’, and others that don’t the former get all the newest, fastest, shiniest network upgrades, while the latter languish on what soon becomes yesterday’s network.

“Innovations that don’t yet have a revenue-stream are consigned to second-class service or subjected to other barriers that keep them off the network. In my nightmare, all but the most mundane innovation dies.”

Much of this supposed need for “management” will be based on the myth of bandwidth scarcity, Isenberg says.

Snip . . . whole story here.

Quote of Note: Saudi King Abdullah

2008-05-20T08:37:00.000-04:00

"I keep no secret from you that, when there were some new finds, I told them, 'No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it'."

Abdullah, King of Saudi Arabia, addressing the prospect of Saudi oil production increases, quoted in The Financial Tims, May 20, 2008, page 9, column 3.

Technorati Tags: Economics, HubbertsPeak, QuoteOfNote

Podcasting hits new highs

2008-05-19T19:20:00.000-04:00

So whadaya want for audio entertainment? Captivating music? "Tap your feet and wiggle" funk? "Heckuvajob Brownie" political relevance? Historical awareness? Artistic mastery?

You got it!

If we had a few of these every week, broadcast mainstream media would be way more dead. No wonder they hate the Internet.

Like jazz? Like rock n roll? Like folk? Like MUSIC? Listen here.

Artful. Relevant. Get down and stomp.

[Big tip of the chapeau Francais to Benoit Felten!]

Technorati Tags: MainStreamMedia, Music, Podcast, Politics

Fibre link 'could insure against post-oil isolation'

2008-05-16T07:44:00.000-04:00

Here's the angle on my NZ talk that Stuff.co.nz picked up . . .

Fibre link 'could insure against post-oil isolation'
By JON HOYLE - The Dominion Post | Tuesday, 13 May 2008

A high-speed fibre-optic network connected to the rest of the world would partly insure New Zealand against the isolation it will face after the final oil shock.

Technology analyst, author and former AT&T executive David Isenberg says New Zealand needs to forget about tinkering with Telecom's relatively low-speed copper network and build a high-speed open-access fibre network, one not controlled by telecomms firms.

At the Tuanz Telecommunications Day conference in Wellington last week he had words of warning about telecommunications companies.

Where networks were owned by the companies and not open to all service providers, the common message from companies was that bandwidth was scarce and consumers had to pay high prices.

This message was a myth, he said. Current affordable technology meant capacity was not scarce.

Holding up a length of fibre-optic cable, he said if the world's 6.5 billion people picked up a phone simultaneously, all of the conversations would take up only 88 per cent of the cable's capacity.

[snip]

Whole article here.

Technorati Tags: ClimateChange, DavidIsenberg, fiberoptics, FTTH, GlobalWarming, NetworkNeutrality, OpenAccess, Stupid Network

My NZ interview with Adam Gifford

2008-05-16T07:32:00.001-04:00

Adam Gifford, business reporter for the NZ Herald, did an interview with me when I came to NZ in 2003 to help launch the Auckland fibre network now known as Vector. A visit to kiwidom would not be complete without a chat. He can get me to say stuff that seems smarter than I have a right to seem. Here's a snip of my interview a couple weeks ago:

[Gifford] asked [me] what had changed since he was here two years ago.

"The big thing I didn't predict, and I see as huge danger to the stupid network, is the emergence of deep packet inspection and other forms of traffic classification and the telephone companies' attempts to build consortiums around UMS (unified messaging), IPsphere and basically trying to, if not put the toothpaste back in the tube then build a new tube around the toothpaste," Isenberg says.

"They want to get back into the value chain and now they are pushing the technical and protocol initiatives to do it.

"I see it as a huge danger. It threatens to make barriers in the middle of the network, barriers to innovation. So if a new application comes along without a revenue stream but it [needs] the latest, newest, fastest internet, it does need to make some kind of deal with the telephone companies.

"That threatens the old idea of two guys in a garage trying something out, or three guys in Estonia inventing Skype. It will make it harder for disruptive innovation to occur."

And despite the telephone companies' insistence they know what their customers want and can deliver it better than Google or Yahoo or some other provider on the edge of the stupid network, Isenberg says the customers are saying something different.

"The mobile space is starting to look interesting. There are reports that a third of iphones are unlocked, which is amazing given they are taking them out of the Apple upgrade stream so they don't get bricked, and they forced Apple to release its developer toolkit," he says.

[snip]

"Then there is [open source phone project] Openmoko, which cuts the carrier out of the direct value chain."

His answer on how to achieve internet leadership is fibre - lots of it, especially to the home.

[snip]

Whole article here.

Technorati Tags: DavidIsenberg, NetworkNeutrality, OpenAccess, OpenMoko, Stupid Network

Digistan, the antidote to NGN

2008-05-16T03:21:00.000-04:00

There's a new initiative to counteract NGN, IMS, IPsphere and other industry initiatives that would regularize, complexify and lock down the Internet. It is called Digistan. It is designed to promulgate Free and Open Standards, which are defined by a key property . . . "that a free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time."

Digistan's Web site starts with a critical insight into standards and markets:

Without open standards, we get fragmented markets in which vendors do not truly compete, customers do not have free choice, and large parts of our technology stacks are proprietary and closed. Lock-in, not competition, becomes the main strategy from established vendors. New small vendors with innovative solutions and advanced technology are prevented from competing. This creates niche markets which may be individually large but are overall insignificant compared to the potential market size.

The Digistan Web site is chock full of wisdom about vendor lock-in and the virtues of openness. In places, it sounds like it is taken from the pages of The Cluetrain Manifesto, e.g.,

. . . almost forty years ago, Steve Crocker and his team wrote RFC001 and launched the networks that built the Internet using a different model based on older human values of sharing and cooperation. His vision, and that of other Internet pioneers, was of a digital world built on simple, interoperable standards, accessible at zero cost to even the smallest teams. Largely, their dream is coming true. Today we're used to an Internet of open software, open content, and open development.

While most agree, not everyone likes it . . . many of the old industrial businesses, instead of adapting, are fighting back. The fight is intensifying because the stakes are growing. Free and open source software, open content, and open communities are together worth trillions of dollars. The key to controlling these rich ecosystems is to control the digital standards they depend on. [link to source page]

I'm the 354th person to sign the Digistan declaration, which explicitly links open standards to human rights. You can sign it too . . . there are five days before the declaration's official May 21 launch!

Check it out. If we don't work for the Internet we want, we'll have to live with the broadband lockbox that's designed for our "Customer Experience."

Thanks to Michael Shiloh, the "community interface" of the OpenMoko project for bringing Digistan to my attention. Excellent interview with Michael here.

Technorati Tags: CluetrainManifesto, Digistan, DisruptiveTechnology, Markets, NetworkNeutrality, OpenAccess, OpenMoko, OpenSource, Standards, Stupid Network, Usability, WealthofNetworks